Sorry I am so late in updating...my muse was not working, and not too sure about this one but here we go. Thanks very much to everyone who has reviewed and continues to read this ~ it means a lot. :) Italics is a flashback, again. Pretty much. Well, you'll see.

Also warning, in the flashback there are some very unhappy things. Though it is mostly told in past-tense, it could still be disturbing for some, so fair warning.

On a side note, for those lovely viewers that bother to read my notes, I have a question:
I've been toying with the idea to rename this story, Heads We Win (Tails We'll Try Again)
But...I'm not sure. Thoughts?

Later on that morning, Oliver and Diggle were called in on an urgent matter. Felicity was a little reluctant to let him go, as she knew it would be a while before she would see him again. Not that she would do anything dramatic - again, she wasn't unintelligent - it would simply be for his safety, and some space would be beneficial for her to sort out these feelings she's having, too. However, Oliver seemed to pick up on her increasing gloominess and was being unbearably sweet.

"I can come by this evening, with ice cream." Oliver mentioned as they stood just inside the door, him perparing to leave. Looking at Felicity now, he had a sinking suspicion that she viewed this as a good-bye. He was trying to show her that this was not so. But she shook her head in the negative at his offer, even with her lamented item (the safe house apparently did not have this nessecary item, and it was not sitting well with the blonde) and her sad smile as she stared up at him made an ache form deep in his chest.

"I'm...planning on lots of sleep, my head...still hurts." She whispered, wincing at the rawness of her throat. Oliver nodded, unhappy, but still placed a hand on her shoulder and leaned forwards slightly.

"You still have my number, right?" He waited for her nod to continue, "You call or text me, anytime, anywhere, anything you need. I've got it, all right?" He waited for another nod, then he brushed her cheek with his thumb, kissed her on the forehead, then turned and walked away. She watched the car drive away from the window, then feigned illness (which wasn't too difficult) and locked herself away in the room in which they had set her up.

She did sleep off and on, but she mostly used her brand new iPhone to hack into CCTV cameras all around the city, trying to find out where Cooper had gone. Where he was now, possibly even what his next move would be, but...after hours and hours at it, she'd found nothing.

Then, when her body let her know it needed sustenance, she went downstairs to find out that Oliver had come by, but left again upon hearing she was still resting. His parting gift had been a tub of Mint Chocolate Chip, her favorite, and she almost broke down then because she couldn't believe he'd actually been listening to her rant this morning.

She hadn't been lying about still having his number, either; how was he to know that she'd put it into her new phone the very evening he'd given it to her. She just...hadn't used it, yet. Not that - not that she was strictly planning to, it was just...in case of emergencies. That made sense, right? Total sense.

However, he was far too tempting to try and contact at the moment. She needed to keep alert, and she knew with him around, she'd focus only on him and that would end them both in trouble. So it was that later on that evening, she ignored the gentle knock on her bedroom door and eventually dozed off, listening serval moments later to the front door clicking shut. She slid off to sleep with a heart full of yearning...

She was avoiding him. He knew the likely reason why, but it still hurt. Oliver himself was by no means one to 'share his feelings,' but in this case he did actually want to discuss this with her, find out what was going on in that pretty little head of hers. If she was doing this simply to keep him safe, he would immediately set her straight on that. He was safe as long as she was there with him - embarrassingly, she had been on his mind so much lately that, well, other people were beginning to notice...and this distancing thing, it was wearing on him.

The last time he'd seen her was when they'd said goodbye two days ago. This evening he had tried again to come around and see how she was, but McKenna had said she was still holed up in that room, messing with her phone. She made sure Felicity ate some every day, but that was about all she could do - and evidently it wasn't only Oliver's visits she was rejecting, but he heard from McKenna that Charla had been by yesterday and had also been turned away.

Well, Oliver was not going to let this continue. If she would not let him in tomorrow, then he was coming in anyway.

Oliver nodded to himself, a small bit of the anxiety swirling in his gut eased with the thought that he now had a plan of action in place. He hated the thought of not knowing what was going on with her, but he would find out soon enough...if he could get her to open up, tomorrow. Now, it was time to head home for the day. Thea would no doubt wonder what was keeping him.

Kicking the door shut behind him, Oliver strode into the modest one-story he and Thea shared, dropping the sedan keys on the table in the hallway, unloading the pizzas he'd brought onto the kitchen table and calling his little sister to dinner. Thea quickly appeared with a grin, paper plates in hand. He had no idea how she did that - the pizza had been a last minute decision. Smiling and shaking his head, he doled out the pizzas as Thea headed into the den and set up a movie.

Hours later, the room was dark and the credits rolled, Thea fast asleep as she curled against the arm of the couch. Oliver sat at the other end of it, watching his sister sleep peacefully for a moment, letting a sense of contentment settle over him.

His sister was safe, and he had a plan in place to get the only other woman who had ever made him feel - well, alive - to communicate with him. He hadn't felt like this, calm and at peace, since...well, since before...

Oliver's eyes slid shut.

It had all started in the late evening hours, one summer's eve. There was a benefit going on, where both Oliver Queen and his friend Tommy Merlyn had gotten more than a little tipsy and had started making a scene. So the Queen parents had decided to slap them on the wrist and escort them back home. Before they could embarrass themselves or their parents any further, Oliver figured. Thea, of course, was still a little young for these things and had stayed at home with Raisa, their trusted housekeeper.

Oliver could still remember this bit - he could picture Tommy, sitting caddy-corner to Oliver himself and across from his parents, leaving the entire back seat for Oliver to sprawl out across. He remembers humming some stupid song of the time, horribly off-key as he tried to tune out his parents' lecturing.

If only he had not claimed that seat...if only he'd just sat up, and let his friend sit next to him.

If only any one of them had seen the fast-approaching hulk of an SUV.

He'd later learn how the accident report told of the SUV T-boning the limo. How his best friend's life had been snuffed out upon impact. However, in the moment, he'd had no time to process any of this - his reality was waking up to his father screaming at him to move. His left knee had been wrenched pretty badly in the accident, and his left side didn't feel too good, but...he'd never seen his father like this before. He bottled up the pain, pushed it aside, and started walking.

It took him a few minutes to realize that only himself, his mother and his father had made it out - but a glance back revealed their driver and another man in a mask engaged in hand-to-hand combat, and their driver was losing. Oliver felt a sudden stinging guilt that he didn't even know the man's name.

And then it hit him - Tommy wasn't here.

He'd tried to turn back, but his father hadn't let him. He'd said Tommy was already gone and that they needed to get his mother out of here, she wasn't doing so well. At the time, Oliver did not question his father's descion to head deeper into the woods instead of following the road. They hadn't gone much further before Moira collapsed, words of affection and apologies on her dying lips. Robert had closed her eyes, kissed her one last time, then stood up and dragged his son on with him.

Robert explained that the man who had run into them wanted to kill the both of them - and Robert would not let Oliver die. They had to stay low until help could come. The irony was, and it turned out, how Robert had led them around in a circle and unknowingly come face-to-face with their enemy. His father had pushed Oliver away and told him to run.

So Oliver ran.

He didn't look back, not even when he heard a gun shot and the thud of a body hitting the ground. At that sudden noise, however, he had tripped and fallen, letting out a pitiful whine as he scrambled back to his feet.

The next several days were a blur, but he remembers finding a stream and drinking from it, wandering up its banks for a few days at least. He remembers finding some berries and in one case, half a discarded Big Mac. He'd been too hungry to care about the fact that it'd probably been there a while...he was just thankful that it was.

A town park was the first real sign of civilization that he'd come across, and seeing a lone man standing before a table, he ran over to ask for assistance. His hope soared, until the man turned and he recognized the face of the one who had killed his father. (He would later learn, he'd shot his father right in the head.) Oliver froze, his heart plummeting to his feet; what was he to do now? There was no way he could last much longer out there on his own, but...it was a better chance than this guy with guns. As the man noticed and started shooting at him, Oliver turned tail and fled back into the trees.

His side burned with a blazing fire, he was starving and exhausted, but he kept pushing himself. He would not let his parents' death be in vain. Thea - he had to survive for her. If nothing else, he had to see his baby sister again. After a while, maybe the next day he really couldn't be sure, he circled back around towards where he thought the city and civilization would be, only to be met with that man again.

Fear gripped him, because he realized...if he didn't get help very soon, this would be it. He'd tried to fade into the woods again, but this time the man was too fast for him. He couldn't shake him. Thoughts of Thea and the crushing disappointment of letting her down consumed him as he tripped, fell to his knees, and before he could scramble up again, a gun was thrust into his face. His eyes met the browns of a bearded man's, a sickening snear as the man started to squeeze the trigger.

That's when they heard the sirens, and the shouts. Inhaling sharply and feeling the pain of his side once more, he gathered his courage and hit the man's gun hand with all his might. It worked, because the gun fell from his fingers and landed several feet away. That did not, however, stop the man from delivering a vicious blow to Oliver's head. It left him reeling for the precious seconds it took for the man to retrieve his weapon. But those same percious seconds also afforded Starling's finest to get a lock on their location and step in between him and the man.

They'd ended up having to shoot him to disarm him, but he'd lived.

His name was Slade Wilson, and he was now serving a life sentence for his deeds, right alongside Malcom Merlyn, who'd set the whole thing into motion.

Oliver and Thea had been orphaned, "for business reasons." At least they still had each other, but that had not helped with Oliver's nightmares...

Oliver jerked awake to the sound of his cell phone ringing. He rubbed a hand across his face wearily; he'd not had a dream about the accident in some time...he wondered, why now. He glanced over at Thea and saw the ringing sound was on the verge of waking her up, so he quickly stood and pulled out his phone, not even looking at the ID before he answered,

"Hello?"

He waited, stepping towards the window as those troubled feelings the dreams always brought slowly faded away. They started returning with a vengeance, however, as he only heard labored breathing on the other end of the line. He found his hand gripping the phone all the more tighter, because...because it sounded like...

"Felicity?"

And she sounded deeply distressed. There was a gasp, and then,

"...h-he's here."

Though the words were said in a low whisper, to him it had felt like a gunshot.