Uhm. Have I mentioned I stink at naming chapters? Yes, anyway. This is a longer chapter, the next one may be shorter but hopefully not too much. The next one may also not be out for a week or two, but we'll see. Thanks so much to everyone that has kudos & commented! I'm behind in replying I believe, but know every one means a lot~ Thanks again and happy readings!

Oliver calling her name from the front seat finally broke through her panicked haze, and she turned wide-eyed to him. He took one look at her face and then told Digg to,

"Pull over." Diggle glanced at him curiously but, once it was safe, did as instructed. Oliver glanced at him but was too intent of Felicity in the back seat and why her face had just gone so terribly pale and why, exactly, she had been looking at her phone in such horror. And he could tell the beginnings of another panic attack were on the way. Once the car stopped, he then told her to,

"Scoot over." Oliver exited from his door, closed it, then immediately opened hers and crowded her until she did scoot over enough for him to sit. Then he closed the door and reached for her phone. It went easily from her slack fingers as she tried once again to control her stuttered breathing. Because...if he could see them, then he knew who Oliver was, and possibly what he was coming to mean to her, and, he wasn't safe. No one was safe.

"Digg, Seldon found her. Sent her a couple threatening texts." A pause, then he locked eyes with his partner and said, "He can see us. He knows we're here." Diggle stared at him a beat, then nodded and carefully merged back into traffic.

"We'll take the long way, then." Diggle calmly stated, but it did nothing to quell Felicity's nerves. She knew he could hack into any traffic cam and follow them that way, there was little they could do to shake him off now. She really, really regretted having taught him that trick. Oliver touched her hand, reclaiming her attention, and when he gave her the phone back it no longer had those stupid texts on the screen.

"Hey, it's gonna be ok." Oliver tried to reassure her, his arm coming around her shoulders slowly. "If nothing else, then he has shown his hand and we have something we can use against him." his words were doing little to calm her, but his arm was warm and she liked that. After another failed deep breath, her throat was really starting to let her know how not in favor it was of her erratic breathing and really began to hurt. She groaned and, without thinking, buried her head into Oliver's chest.

They both froze a moment at the intimate contact, but as she started to realize what she was doing, blushed, and leaned away, he wrapped his other arm around her and held her tightly to him. She had no choice but to lean into him now, and after a few moments, she relaxed and finally allowed herself to do just that. Suddenly feeling so very tired, and now so nice and warm, she found herself beginning to doze off…

An unknown amount of time later, Felicity came-to enough to realize that she was moving. Or, more accurately, she was being moved. But she still felt that pleasant warmth pressed into her side, so, still mostly asleep and not wanting to lose that, she snuggled further into it. She felt arms that she hadn't actually realized were there tighten around her, and then a fuzzy sense of awareness started to prickle at the back of her mind as she heard the murmur of voices somewhere in the air around her, somewhere close. And, she couldn't help but notice, one of those voices was female and unfamiliar. Sleepy eyes blinked open, and she found an unfamiliar but very attractive woman smiling down at her.

"Good morning, sleeping beauty." the woman teased, and Felicity just blinked at her. She was standing a little too close though so she found herself shrinking once again into the warmth behind her. The warmth that...was now shaking slightly, like someone laughing...wait.

She looked up and sure enough there was Oliver Queen, smiling down at her. She squeaked and flailed as she scrambled to get out of his arms, but he held fast. For whatever reason, he wouldn't let her go. Not even in the face of the unknown but unfairly attractive woman standing around with them.

"Felicity, this is Officer McKenna Hall. She'll be keeping you company here at the safe house." Oliver introduced them, and McKenna looked between the two before saying,

"Nice to meet you, Miss Smoak, though I wish it were under different circumstances." she glanced at Oliver one last time then leaned closer over Felicity and whispered, "You seem to have this one wrapped around your pinky, and I'd very much like to know how that happened. Trade some secrets." McKenna winked and Felicity turned pink. Oliver cleared his throat, having clearly heard their exchange.

"Well, it is late and Felicity's had a long day. I'll see her to her room." he said, and without waiting for anyone's response, turned and carried his girl up the stairs.

Yes. His girl. He was done denying it, what with everything going on and the obvious fact that she was becoming more at ease in his company. He would stay by her side if that is what kept her calm. He couldn't deny the pleasure he felt each time she sought out his warmth, even if it was just snuggling deeper against him, or how she had felt comfortable enough to fall asleep against him. That had meant a lot, someone trusting him that much. Her, trusting him that much.

Diggle had already brought her duffel into the room, so Oliver carefully laid her on the bed then asked if she wanted to change. He'd bring the bag over if she did. She shook her head but held onto his wrist.

"Uh…" Felicity desperately wanted to ask him not to leave, to stay and sit with her at least until she fell asleep again, but found she couldn't voice the words. This time, it had little to do with the pain in her throat, instead it was the pain in her heart because she knew she had very little right to ask him to do such a thing. No doubt he had his sister to return to, so who was she? Family always came first.

Plus, there was the little matter of the possibility of Cooper coming after him if he stuck around...

So, even though she felt terrified at the prospect of staying here, in this so-called safe house with a complete stranger, she loosened her grip and let her hand fall away from his wrist. She would let him go, no matter how much she wanted him to stay.

There must have been some look in her eyes, however, because she really did not expect the next words he spoke.

"Would you like me to stay?" he offered, and it was the best offer she'd heard probably in her entire life. She smiled tentatively, but needed to know something first,

"Thea?" Oliver blinked at her, as if surprised that she remembered his sister's name after only having seen her, what? Once?

"School's out this week so she's over at a friend's house for a couple days." he told her, watching as her whole body seemed to relax and then she was gripping his hand and, though slowly at first, she was soon enthusiastically nodding her head yes, she did want him to stay. To heck with Cooper, she could worry about him tomorrow.

"Ok," he chuckled, feeling a little more at ease himself because, well, honestly he hadn't wanted to leave her here alone either, not after those texts. Not that she would be alone, McKenna would be here to monitor things, and he trusted her with his life, but...still. He wanted to be the one watching over his girl. If that was selfish, then he would gladly be selfish tonight.

"Let me get a chair." he said, reaching back blindly for the wingback he knew was back there somewhere. A large part of her silently sighed in relief that he'd not misunderstood her invitation, her meaning of staying the night with her, because she was not ready for any solid or extensive displays of affection. Even if she had felt so safe and secure when she'd fallen asleep in his arms earlier, sharing a bed (even in a platonic way) was much different. Still. She couldn't help but feel bad at her neediness, because that chair looked awfully uncomfortable.

"'m...sorry," she whispered as he sat, still holding her hand. He looked over at her with confusion clearly written across his facial features, so she explained. "...Clingy." she got out, scrunching her nose up though even she was not sure whether that particular facial expression was from pain or embarrassment, probably a mixture of both.

"Hey, you have nothing to apologize for...honestly, I'm not sure how much sleep I would've gotten tonight anyway." He paused and stared at her for a moment, then smiled softly. "But, it's been a long day. You should get some sleep, if you can."

"Same," Felicity whispered, staring pointedly at him until he nodded, then she curled slightly towards him and the hand he still held, and drifted off to sleep.

Felicity woke early the next morning to an unpleasant tingling coming from her left arm. It was the kind of sensation you got when you'd accidentally slept on your limb, therefore cutting off the circulation and hence the tingly feeling. Only, opening her eyes revealed it wasn't her doing the sleeping on her arm. She blinked a few times to clear her vision, but sure enough, what she saw remained the same.

Oliver Queen had fallen fast asleep, leaning his upper body over her bed and using her arm as a pillow.

She...really did not know what to make lf that. Feeling her face flush as she watched him breathe in and out, his face turned towards her, Felicity took this opportunity to really study his face. She wanted badly to move her arm because it was going numb pretty fast, but she could not bring herself to disturb him. He looked so peaceful and at ease...the hard lines on his face had all softened up; he looked so young. A part of her wanted to reach out with her free hand and trace along his exposed cheekbone, but she wouldn't dare for fear of him waking and catching her at it.

A quiet sound in the doorway made her look up, and there stood Oliver's partner, John Diggle. She blushed again as she realized what they must look like, but also for the fact that, after she'd fallen asleep in the car last night, well she had no idea what'd happened to him. Surely he hadn't had to stay because Oliver had? She suddenly felt really bad, because if he hadn't been able to go home last night because of her…

"I haven't seen him that restful since...well, since I met him." Diggle said quietly, raising a brow as he lifted his gaze from Oliver's sleeping form to meet Felicity's blinking eyes. These contacts had been in for several days now, they probably were reaching their limit soon and she needed to see about getting new glasses again because she really missed them, and oh Diggle was talking again.

"You're good for him. I know you don't know either of us very well yet, but I like you and it's not my place to say but he probably won't, so, he cares about you too. And he's been through hell, so he's a good companion to have if you're going through it, too." John paused and looked back to Oliver as he considered his next words. Felicity lay there, staring at him. "He's been lost for a time, and had a crazy son-of-a-gun chasing him down for the kill. He survived, somehow." Another pause. "All I'm saying, is...if someone could understand what you're going through, it's probably this one. And I'm pretty positive, if you ever wanted to talk, he would listen. So would I." Diggle smiled sadly at her and added, clearing his throat, "After your throat gets better, anyway...McKenna wants to know if you'd like a tea."

Felicity smiled and gave a slight nod, still taking in the words he'd said as she watched him go, because wow. Oliver cared about her? He'd been hunted down? They both were willing to listen whenever she was well?

Honestly, there wasn't much more to tell than what they already knew. And seriously, from the visits to the Dentistry, they had to have an incling for how much she could talk. And talk. And talk. And it didn't even have to be on topic! Did they really want to subject themselves to that?

Oliver had been through something awful already, apparently chased by a crazy person, so maybe he knew a little bit about having a stalker like this. But probably not an electronic one. She wasn't sure really how much he could help anyway, and well, she was beginning to care for him too and he had Thea to consider. She really didn't want to be the reason he'd suffer through more awfulness, not for her.

Suddenly, there was a snuffling noise coming from the man half on her bed. He was waking up. She looked down to see him rub the tip of his head against her hip, then saw more than felt his fingers flex around the hand he still held, and oh...there went that blush again, because the little fact that he'd actually held her hand all night had escaped her. Soon enough, bleary blue eyes were blinking up at her, followed by a lazy smile.

"'Mornin'," he greeted, grinning, then froze a moment as he realized his position and there was a sudden color rising to his cheeks and she had to bite the inside of her cheek, because it went all the way up to the tips of his ears. He blinked at her and then leaned slowly back and away from her, stretching the kinks out of his back but somehow still holding her hand. Until all the blood came rushing back to her fingers and she couldn't conceal her hiss of pain.

As she tried to draw her hand back to massage it, she found two hands already there.

"I'm so sorry, I shouldn't… I didn't mean to fall asleep on you, I'm sorry." he whispered, never looking up from his task of returning feeling to her long-numbed arm. Which he was doing beautifully. Before she could stop herself, she found her other hand moving towards his hairline, and when he felt her fingertips meet his scalp, he froze and looked at her. She smiled at him and shook her head that no, she didn't mind. Then she moved her hand as if to tuck hair behind his ear, only his hair was not long enough for that. So she grinned and patted him on the head then pushed against his chest to get him to stand, because she really needed to visit the bathroom before they headed down for breakfast. He grumbled something as he paused to wait for her in the hallway, but she smiled and ignored him, rather enjoying this playful feeling.

It was too bad that she had already decided the best thing for now would be to push him away, at least until things with Coop were settled. Washing her hands and staring at her reflection in the mirror above the sink, Felicity sighed, her insides feeling all twisted up, as she wondered whether or not this would be the right course of action. She really didn't want to lose him, which was why she felt she had to do it.