"...THAT'S THE MOST BEAUTIFUL THING IN THE WORLD; WHEN TWO PEOPLE BECOME FLUENT IN CHOOSING ONE ANOTHER."
Sara Lance
"Dig, it was a simple, petty theft. They were kids, and ran away in fear when Sara jumped through the window. Stay home with Lyla, and if there is anything big, you'll be the first one to know."
Oliver reassures John through the phone, the latter unable to come to the foundry today because of his sick girlfriend (and if Lyla Michaels is sick, she must be sick because I have never seen the woman in less than a perfect form) and has been calling Ollie for the past hour making sure that his absence hasn't been costing the team.
It hasn't.
The day has been going pretty smoothly for now, and as Oliver said earlier, the only situation we came across today was a kid high on adrenaline, trying to rob a bar, and who practically peed in his pants when he saw the Arrow swing into the room (despite Ollie saying it was me. The Arrow seems pretty popular around town recently).
"You okay?" Ollie's modulated voice asks me, his eyes hinting at a slight concern, but also wariness, indicating that he won't know what to do if I'm not okay.
"Ya. I'm good." I tell him, knowing that both he and I can't do a thing about the darkness that swarms through our hearts, reflecting in our eyes.
He punches the numbers on the keypad in gloved hands (10,24,12 the date Diggle later told me was the first time Ollie met Felicity) and we both make our way down the steps, tensing when the lair is devoid of the normal chatter of Felicity and Roy, or the clacking of keyboards.
I quietly but quickly make my way down the stairs, aware of Oliver following me, his grip tightened on his bow.
It's only when I get down, that I realize the true reason for Roy's amused smile and the silence in the room.
And I feel my shoulders shaking in laughter.
"Oh no, not need to hold it in on my behalf. At least I found something that will make you laugh," Felicity says, hanging down from one of the bars on the ceiling, her pink nails making a striking contrast to the beams (well, everything about Felicity is a striking contrast to this place, her bright pink shirt, beige leggings, nude heels).
"Felicity," Ollie says, from his place beside me, hood pulled back and mask off, "Do I even want to know?"
"Yes, yes you do. Roy dared me to do one pull up on this beam for a month of coffee runs whenever I want. And I'm not naturally one to back down from a challenge, so I said yes. And so he helped me get up, and I did the pull-up. I repeat, I successfully completed the pull-up, but now I'm stuck." I can see her pout from here, it sets me on the edge, and I can't stop the smile from breaking on my face.
"Oliver, some help would be great." She tells him, trying and failing to make eye contact.
I turn to look at Ollie, and I am immediately drawn back to a few moments ago, when I thought that both he and I couldn't do anything about the darkness inside of us.
I was right. He can't do a thing about his darkness.
But Felicity can.
I lost my light when I joined the league. Ollie, despite his many misadventures, was always good and pure at heart. There is still light inside of him. It appears in moments like these, usually when Felicity says something or does something, and Ollie looks at her and smiles, so full of light and warmth and genuineness. Ollie has light; Felicity brings out his light.
"Let go, Felicity," Ollie says, arms stretching wide as he moves directly under her.
"I...I can't" Felicity's legs wiggle restlessly, and I move away from my place to sit beside Roy, who is now avidly watching the events that unfold.
Oliver looks up at her, craning his neck to make eye contact "Felicity, I will catch you. Trust me."
"Oliver, I trust you with everything I have. You can tell me to jump off a cliff and I would do it in a heartbeat. My problem isn't the fact that you won't catch me. It's the fact that if I jump, your family heirloom, which is lodged between my hair and one of the beams, will break, and just by looking at it I know they have diamonds on them, so we need to find another way and quick because my arms are killing me right now."
I notice the shiny blue jewel in Felicity's hair; a Queen family heirloom that has been passed down for centuries, gifted by each Queen to their dearly beloved (if I remember what Thea was saying correctly).
God, these two are so frustratingly stubborn that it makes me want to strangle someone's neck. He gave her an heirloom for goodness sakes! Oliver Queen isn't capable of doing anything more romantic than that! If they don't make out soon, I'm going to hold them at gunpoint and make them do it before they kill us with all their sexual tension.
I focus back to Oliver, who sighs loudly, "Felicity I don't care about the heirloom. Just let go so that you can get down."
"But what about..." Felicity gasps loudly as one of her hands slips off the beam and she struggles to regain her grip onto it.
"Felicity, the only thing I care about is you getting down, okay. So jump." Oliver says, leaving no room for argument.
Still reeling from her earlier scare of almost slipping, Felicity lets go as instructed, and I watch as she lands in the cocoon of Oliver's arms, not once flinching or surprised, and I have to once again marvel at the intense trust these two have developed in the short span of just two years.
Their moment is interrupted by the ringing of Oliver's phone, and Felicity hastily climbs off Oliver to allow him the privacy of his phone call, and by his curt short answers, it's most likely someone from the office.
"Felicity, we have a meeting." Oliver shrugs apologetically, and I have heard complains about business meetings from Felicity so much that I don't even have to look at her to know that her face is probably scrunched up in a silent pain and reluctance.
"Noooo." She whines sadly, despite immediately collecting her things and placing them in her bag.
As they leave, I hear Oliver tell his partner, his hands placed on her back in a gesture so customary, no one blinks an eye when it happens,
"I'll make it up to you with a week of coffee runs whenever you need it."
Whatever Felicity says next is drowned out by distance and the opening of the hard heavy doors but whatever it was made Oliver throw his head back from a genuine laugh, his light glowing brighter and bigger.
Felicity is his light.
"10 dollars!" Roy calls out from where he practices shooting arrows on the other side of the room.
"20 dollars!" I yell back at him, blowing a bubble out of my mouth from the gum I chew.
"Fine. If Oliver and Felicity get their shit together within three months, you owe me 20 bucks." Roy says, putting down his bow and coming up to where I lazily doze off on a chair next to Felicity's blue seat.
We've been talking about the worldwide phenomenon that is Oliver and Felicity for a while now, first complaining about how frustrating they were, then talking about their moments we witnessed and then finally coming up with a betting pool on how long it will take for them to get their shit together.
Unfortunately for Roy (who will be losing 20 bucks), he doesn't know Oliver as well as I do. Oliver is not going to be acting upon his feelings anytime soon. It's not that he doesn't like Felicity enough, but rather that he doesn't like himself enough, and it will take much longer than three months to erase guilt and darkness that has been haunting him for over five years.
I can only hope that Felicity will be patient enough to walk with him every step of the way. Because there is no way he can do this without her.
My inner musings are interrupted by the loud, continuous beeping of Felicity's monitors. Quickly entering the password (Donnajonasgreen) I shift through the various programs and searches that are running on the database, before coming face to face with a page highlighted in red.
"Wait, that's the search Felicity ran on the mini terrorist group. The one that's been traumatizing the glades for the past two months." Roy points out to me, showing me the picture with the men dressed in familiar blue masks.
"Well, she managed to find out the next target through their phones and emails. I just need to try and figure out how to work this thing so that I can figure out what it is." I scan the entire page, looking for any hints of buttons or anything to click, but the screens are programmed in such a different way from your normal regular monitor that I groan in frustration.
"Let me do this." Roy, taking charge, seats himself on Felicity's chair and begins to furiously type up a series of letters, before he is granted access into the findings of Felicity.
I feel my eyes widen as I look at the blueprint I almost know by heart stare back at me through the screen.
"They're going to attack Queen Consolidated."
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...
...
"Try Again!" I instruct Roy, as he tries for the hundredth time to reach Oliver, who decides to ignore our calls at the single most terrible time possible.
Felicity was no success either.
"It doesn't matter. We have the information we need. He'll be attacking Queen Consolidated at six o clock, only minutes from now. If we want to make it in time, we need to move now." Dig, with his ever-present calm composure instructs, as he loads his guns.
"I'll get the van," Roy exclaims, as he runs up the stairs leaving behind an uncomfortable silence that is derived from the underlayer of fear that is buried deep beneath our mask of calmness.
After getting confirmation of the attack on QC, I called Dig immediately, deciding that this was big enough to get him away from Lyla, especially since Oliver can't put on the hood in front of his entire company.
As we speed along, the roads of Starling City, to QC, Roy suddenly curses loudly, looking at through the mirror,
"Guys, it's Sunday, no one is going to be at QC at this time except for the janitors and investors." He points out the obvious that none of us had acknowledged before.
"That's a good thing right? Ollie won't have to worry about anybody else if he decides to defend himself." I say, relaxing slightly.
Roy pulls under a relatively secluded spot near QC, saying, "How is he going to explain how he singlehandedly took out a fully trained terrorist group by himself? He can't risk anyone suspecting."
Diggle's next words have us all rushing out of the van, and into the building, our masks and hoods firmly in place, "Man, Felicity is there with him."
Each and every one of us knows that Oliver doesn't think straight when it involves Felicity. He has a particularly weak spot when it comes to the blonde genius. Chances are that he will panic and immediately try to protect her, blowing his cover without a second thought. He won't even regret it.
Out of all the sights I had prepared myself to be confronted with (Oliver fighting with the terrorist, Oliver and Felicity hiding, a dead terrorist), I definitely did not account for this in my head.
Oliver (somehow) is in full Arrow gear (how the hell did he manage to get his hands on that? Does he bring a spare costume to work?), his bow and arrow on the floor, and his hands on his hood, ignoring the shivering mess of investors behind him, looking at only one thing.
The man in black whose gun rests threateningly on Felicity's head, who is on her knees and screaming at Oliver pleadingly,
"Don't do it. Not for me. Do not do it." she repeats.
It's only then, when Ollie makes a move to pull back his hood that, I understand what had truly gone on, and the price Ollie must pay for Felicity's life.
Without a thought, I scream into the distance, the impact hitting everyone in the room, including Ollie, who dives after Felicity, pulling her into his arms.
The two stay there like that for the entire duration of the fight, even when Roy calls the cops to inform them of the tied up terrorist at QC.
The ride back is silent and slow, due to the massive traffic jam an accident has caused. Felicity has calmed down exceptionally (not really a surprise since she has faced the Count who was much worse) and now looks angry (for good reason) and I can only hope that the two of them start their couples squabble after we get to the foundry.
Roy seems to sense the tension and tries to drive as fast as he can, his eyes panicking, and Diggle just looks fondly exasperated, as if he's seen this too many times for it to be threatening or fun (he probably has).
Felicity is the first one to break the silence as usual.
"You would have done it." Her voice is eerily calm, and I hear Oliver sigh before he turns himself to face her.
"Yes." He wasn't ever a man of many words, but this one word resonates within the already tense atmosphere of the van, and becomes Felicity's breaking point.
"Yes! Yes? Oliver, you didn't even think of the consequences. You can't pull your hood back. The entire board of investors was behind you. You could have lost everything. The mission, the company. You would either have to run or be put in jail."
"He was going to shoot you." Oliver grits out, his voice still oddly calm despite his clenched jaw and fists that state otherwise.
"And you didn't think about yourself? You're supposed to think during these situations Oliver. Contemplate your choices. Not pull the hood down without hesitation. You're supposed to think of the consequences each choice will make." Felicity says as Roy speeds towards the foundry, all in good time, because this time, Oliver is the one that breaks control and screams,
"God Felicity, how many times do I have to tell you? It was you! There was no choice!"
The entire van goes deathly still as Roy pulls out the keys.
Diggle is the first one to make move moments later, and both Roy and I follow him out of the car, leaving a frustrated Oliver and an angry Felicity in the vehicle, where they will sort out their problems in peace before coming down to the lair.
This time, I know that the normal betting pool as to who will win the argument won't be happening.
Because this time, we all know that Oliver is going to win.
I know that no matter how loud Felicity yells, or how upset she seems, it will not faze Ollie.
Because as he said, in his mind, there is no choice to make when Felicity is involved. Oliver has chosen Felicity since day one; to help him find information, to be in on his crusade, to be his EA, to be the one that harnesses his light, to be his friend; his partner.
Oliver has been choosing Felicity so often that it is as easy to him as breathing, he doesn't think twice when he does it. It's a natural response.
Part of it probably has to do with selfish reasons; Oliver can't lose her, it's the one thing I'm sure he won't be able to come back from. Despite the fact that this whole mission would be nothing without her, it's not only the Arrow that needs Felicity Smoak, but also Oliver Queen that needs her. He relies on Felicity to help him run the company, to berate him when he does something stupid, to challenge him, to surprise him with her quirky antics and babbles, to make him smile, to make him feel accepted and loved. Oliver needs Felicity Smoak to chase his demons away, and he's not prepared to lose the one thing that keeps him sane.
The other part that has Oliver choosing Felicity is the one that tells him (and all of us) that she's the least deserving person on this team of death (not including Roy). She has done so much good, and can do so much more, that a mere reveal of his identity is nothing compared to what he will do to keep her safe. Even if it means lying to himself every single day that she means nothing more to him than a very good friend and a partner.
So when the pair enters the liar a couple minutes later, a slight smile on both their faces, an air of acceptance, revelations, and calmness surrounding them, I know that they have sorted out their issues, and Felicity was the one to give in this time.
Because for the first time ever, Oliver Queen has put someone above himself, the mission and the city.
And she is going to stay there.
"I CHOOSE YOU. AND I'LL CHOOSE YOU OVER AND OVER AND OVER. WITHOUT A PAUSE, WITHOUT A DOUBT, IN A HEARTBEAT. I'LL KEEP CHOOSING YOU."
Sara Lance knows that Oliver Queen will always choose Felicity Smoak and he will never stop.