Thank you so much for your patience. I hope this chapter makes up a little for the long wait.

Albiona, thank you for being such an amazing friend.

Have a good week, people, and: happy reading!


Whatever experiences you had to go through

Oliver was in a room with two women hitting each other with sticks. Voluntarily.

Meaning, he was in that room by his own choice, just like the women hitting each other were choosing to do so.

How was this his life?

It was awesome!

As awesome as putting together a super-computer worth close to $100,000. When handing Felicity the tablet with the cost-estimate, he had told her that this was a "candy-shop list" (that had brought a small smile to her face, a sight he always enjoyed) and that he could tone it down easily. (The second server cabinet for more processing power was dispensable, even if the truth of it hurt his soul a little bit.) But Felicity had simply handed him the tablet back plus her black credit card and had told him to "Go buy the candy shop, Oliver."

The part of Oliver raised by a woman who'd juggle two jobs to make ends meet for her children—a woman who had sold her father's watch to send her son to science camp—was somewhat offended by Felicity's statement. But the other (shamefully bigger) part of Oliver feeling like a kid in a candy store had reasoned that the equipment was part of her mission. Their tech needed to be state of the art and up to the task—and so he had gone and bought the second server cabinet and the 60" 4k-screen to mount on the wall—for purely logical, vigilante-work related reasons. (If he wasn't worried about security risks he'd bring his PS4 one day. Man, the thought alone gave him happy goosebumps.)

His previous five days had been spent in Smoak International's IT department combing through James Cliffort's files with Hunter, and collecting more than enough evidence to prove the accountant had been dirty. Mrs. Smoak-Lance was very pleased. Gerry Conway muttered the word "bonus" under his breath when accompanying Hunter and Oliver to the elevator yesterday.

So, his days had been good. His nights had been even better, spent in the basement underneath an industrial building. The first tech delivery had arrived on Wednesday (ordered with Felicity's card but transferred and redirected through so many channels that the money trail was impossible to follow) and Oliver had started setting it up while Felicity and Sara sparred, while Felicity fabricated her own arrows and Sara went up and down the salmon ladder, while Felicity burst into a Bratva drug deal. She'd returned with information about a new arms dealer calling himself The Mayor.

Oliver worked on setting up the equipment while they listened to the scanner monitoring SCPD, and while Felicity grew more and more impatient, sending him looks that silently asked him what was taking so long. The look he answered with was supposed to convey that he'd be done when he was done, because this wasn't like installing Windows. He wrote his own damn security protocol—one so advanced that he might actually suggest it as a project once he started working at Advanced Computer Sciences on Monday. It would need some tweaking, since the needs of a multi-billion dollar company with 50,000 employees like Smoak International are different from the needs of a vigilante targeting organized crime syndicates, but it could work. It might, if everything worked in the next minutes.

Stepping back from the desk, letting his eyes slide over the three huge retina displays, he nodded. "Done."

The rhythmic clicking coming from behind him stopped. Oliver turned to the two women on the training mats behind him. Wooden sticks in both hands they looked at Oliver; a smile played around Felicity's lips. It was that and the twinkle he saw in her eyes that took the sting out of her next word: "Finally."

Sara kept Oliver from answering. In a sudden and swift movement she raised her stick and swung it at Felicity who brought her arms up instantly, blocking the strike. The women's eyes were glued to each other. "Never let your guard down," Sara said.

"My guard was up," Felicity answered, "as you can see."

Those two are so badass.

Oliver would never, ever let that thought pass his lips, but it was ringing very clearly through his head. And he couldn't help but feel like, if Black Widow ever stormed their super-secret basement, Felicity and Sara could take her. Easily. Comparing the fighting skills of a fictional character to those of two very real women was ridiculous, of course. But Oliver's inner nerd couldn't help it, couldn't help but be amazed by these two women, and the fact that they had accepted him so easily into their group, welcoming him to play his unique part in their badassery.

He snapped back into reality as the two badasses walked toward him. He motioned to the server cabinets positioned outside of the space they… worked in. His eyes were on Felicity. "Care to do the honors?"

She shook her head, the high ponytail she always wore during training swinging behind her. "The honor is yours. You earned it."

A soft humming filled the air after the first push of the button. The second, activating the second server, turned the buzz a little louder. The three monitors came to life, as did the huge screen attached to the wall. The booting sequence displayed everywhere and it looked good, very good… until it didn't. "Son of a bitch!" The curse was past his lips before he could stop it.

"Hey!" Sara pinned him down with a hard glare. "I don't like that word."

Oliver felt a cold tingle rush through him. "Of course," he hurried to say. "I'm sorry."

Felicity's eyes were still on the huge screen. "It's doing something. What's the problem?"

"The two servers aren't communicating correctly and one is the firewall of the other, so that's a problem."

"Can you get them to talk?"

Oliver had to bite back a smile. Felicity sounded so much like her mother in that moment. "Yeah, I can. I'll get on that right away."

Felicity hesitated for a moment. "You've been working non-stop for almost eight hours. It's okay to call it a night." Her eyes met his. "A Saturday night."

"I'm fine spending my Saturday night right here."

A small smile lit up Felicity's face. She nodded.

Sara cleared her throat next to them, drawing Felicity's eyes to her. "Do you still want to check out the address you got out of that thug last night?"

"Yes," Felicity's grip tightened on the wooden stick she held in her right hand. "I need to get to The Mayor before he gets comfortable in my city. I want to send a clear message." She banged the bottom on the stick on the ground once. "I'll suit up."

Sara and Oliver watched her walk toward the backroom. Dimly smirking, Sara glanced up him. "Seems like you'll have to spend a little of your Saturday night with me for now."

Oliver angled his chin down to hold her gaze. "Perfectly fine with me."

And he really was. He liked Sara. Her collected calm had kept him from falling apart when Felicity had been bleeding on the med table. She had made him feel welcome in their team, not with words but by simply accepting him around, including him in their food orders, giving him her cellphone number for emergencies. It was her way of letting him in, he sensed. Sara was less vocal than Felicity, much more guarded and less trusting. Oliver knew there must be reasons for that. He didn't know details, but it didn't take a genius to conclude that her previous five years—just like Felicity's—had been filled with a lot of suck.

It was that thought that made him shift awkwardly. "Sara." He got her attention. "I'm really sorry about using the b-word. Consider it erased from my vocabulary."

Dim amusement shone in Sara's eyes, even if her face stayed even. "It's okay. When it comes to you, I can let it slide." Seeing the questioning frown taking over his face, she asked, "Oliver, what I am wearing?"

That didn't help to ease the frown. "Your workout clothes?"

Sara nodded. "That answer's the reason why I let it slide. The fact that I can keep working out in my sports bra without feeling uncomfortable." She gave him a wink and gestured to the screens. "Get them to talk."

He kept from telling her that the screens had nothing to do with it, that it was the servers that needed to communicate, because smart-assing like that would seriously ruin the moment.


The silence was suspicious. The alley lay abandoned. The small gap between the four story buildings, it was nothing but uneven cement filled with puddles as rain drummed down mercilessly. The torrential downpour might make standing guard unpleasant (Felicity knew, cowering on a rooftop, heavy water drops beating down on her, soaking her hood, wasn't exactly her idea of a good time, either), but that wasn't an excuse not to have anybody on watch.

The door the Arrow stared at from the opposing building was supposed to lead to the hideout of The Mayor and his crew. The man with the codename involving a bad pun about shady politics had taken business from the local Bratvas. He was trying to establish himself as the guy providing weapons to Starling City's gangs and gangsters, getting them serious automatic and semi-automatic firepower, including armor-piercing ammunition. The first drive-by shooting performed with Mayor's weapons had been disastrous. The bullets had cut through the walls of several houses in the Glades, killing a mother making dinner for her children and a little girl doing her homework. Felicity didn't approve of gang members killing each other, but innocents getting caught in the crossfire added a new dimension: Felicity wouldn't stand by while young, unsuspecting lives were taken. Not again.

It was this thought that made it impossible for Felicity to head back to the Factory without checking inside the alleged mayoral headquarters. The lack of guards, the dead silence, the complete lifelessness screamed 'trap' to Felicity. Ignoring the trail of water running down her spine, she let her eyes sweep over the building, trying to decide on the best access point. The thick chipboards nailed in front of the windows made them a bad choice. Anything could wait for her behind the boarded up windows, and crashing through those was best left for truly desperate situations. It might be the Mayor's way of directing her path through the front door and into an ambush, Felicity knew, but decided that she was willing to take that risk.

Not thinking any further, she drove a grappling hook into the rooftop next to her. Her decent slowed by a rope, her feet touched down on the wet cement soundlessly. The main door had a huge glass window. Darkness lay behind it. Testing the door knob, Felicity found it unlocked. Okay, definitely a trap. Her opponents being members of a weapon-crazy organization gave her a very clear idea of what to expect when she showed her silhouette in the doorframe: a cascade of bullets spitting her way out of multiple weapons.

With a quick flick of her wrist, she pulled the door open. It rattled in its hinges as the Arrow raced to the other side of the building.

The silence continued. Not one bullet sped past Felicity, not the slightest sound could be heard from the inside. Enough, Felicity decided and entered the building, her bow drawn.

She made two steps into the darkness when suddenly there was light. Red laser beams crisscrossed around her, trapping her, rooting her to the spot as she froze into position. The perfectly sharpened arrowhead and a red beam were only separated by a hair's breadth. Felicity slowed her breathing. Out of the corner of her eyes she saw a different kind of red light. A camera had switched on, somebody was watching her.

"Welcome, Arrow. Nice of you to come. After all, we set this up just for you." A very pleased voice sounded from a speaker hanging in the right corner of the otherwise empty, squared room. "This place is rigged with enough C4 to take down the whole block. We have a betting pool on how long you'll make it without moving a muscle." He stopped for cheap effect. "Twenty seconds so far, longer than most of us thought. Most voted for instant death. So, Arrow, thank you for helping us clear the area to make room for our bigger and better city hall. You won't be missed, as you are bad for business and we can't have that."

A clicking sound from the speaker told Felicity that that connection was cut, but the red light of the camera stayed lit.

Felicity was awfully aware of the water dripping from her, creating a puddle of water around her feet. If one drop passed through a laser beam, it'd be the end of her. Slowly, Felicity let her eyes sweep her surroundings, taking a closer, more careful look. In the red glow of the lasers she saw a bare floor, walls covered with moldy wallpaper, some coming off the wall, revealing equally moldy walls and wires installed hazardously. They ran above the wall, and now that Felicity had seen them she could made out the lumps they formed underneath the still attached wallpapers. Following them drew her eyes to one spot right opposite her. All wires seemed to meet there behind the wallpaper.

She had two options. Both held the danger of potentially dying, but one meant involving other people, which was selfish but also probably increased her chances of survival. She chose that one, because she (selfishly) liked better odds in her favor.

Her fingers clamped down on the arrow while she let go of the bowstring. Her eyes fixed on the arrowhead and the red beams around it, forcing the first to stay away from the latter while her right hand fumbled with the zipper of her jacket to get to com-system Oliver had spent Monday night installing. Sara had suggested an emergency channel in case Felicity faced another accountant. Sadly, Felicity didn't really remember Oliver's lengthy explanation about how to switch from voice modulation to calling the Factory. She simply pressed down on the various buttons on the inside of her jacket.

"Felicity?"

Relief filled her as she heard Oliver's voice in her ear. Thank God.

He sounded timid. "Did you push the button by accident? Because you just sent a huge feedback relay through our speaker system."

Felicity drew her bow again, taking the pressure off her aching fingers while keeping the arrow in place. "I'm in a bit of the situation," she whispered, moving her lips as little as possible. The Mayor and his city hall gang were still watching her, she was sure.

"Tell me," Sara demanded.

"The building is rigged with C4."

"Detonator?"

"Movement sensors attached to laser beams."

"So, the Mayor is the cliché and flashy type."

"They're watching me."

Clicking hit Felicity's ears even before Oliver said, "I'll try to access the feed."

Felicity could hear Oliver working while Sara asked, "Do you have a plan?"

"More like a bad idea."

"Stay still," Oliver ordered (there was a certain bossy tone in his voice that was new, Felicity noticed, but she couldn't help but approve of take-charge-Oliver, which should be analyzed at a later time). "Don't talk, don't do anything. I'm recording the feed to send a loop back to the Mayor. Hold up."

The following silence felt very long, but it were probably only ten seconds, in which Felicity's muscles started to ache more and more. Finally, Sara spoke up again."Okay, done. Tell us about your bad idea."

"The camera and the motion sensors need electricity. And there's a fuse box right opposite me."

"That is a bad idea!" Sara chided. "If I were the Mayor I'd made sure the bomb can't be defused by cutting electricity to its detonators. I'd made sure that that set it off."

"Luckily, you aren't the Mayor." Felicity pressed out. "He thought I'd run into the lasers instantly." It was only a whisper (because around bombs you had to lower your voice—it was an unwritten rule made by instinct without any grounds whatsoever), but it was a very heated whisper. "My arms are getting heavy and if you don't come up with a better idea in the next ten seconds I'll shoot at the fuse box blindly, but I'd hoped you could maybe give me at hint of what to shoot at."

"Hold up," Oliver again. "I'm already looking for schematics."

"Fe," Sara said, "I can be there in… ten minutes on my bike. You know I know bombs."

"I know. But I don't think I have ten more minutes in me." Felicity felt a droplet of sweat trail down her temple, the flexed muscles in her arms were close to shaking, she knew once that happened it wouldn't be long before the beams tightly crisscrossing around her arrow and the body of the bow were triggered.

"I'm in," Oliver announced.

"There's a bigger wire coming up from the floor," Felicity said. "Is that good to shoot?"

"One moment," Oliver mumbled, sounding distracted. Felicity inhaled measuredly, because what followed felt like a very, very long moment. Finally, he said. "Yes, shoot at that one."

Felicity didn't even hesitate. The arrow had been aimed already and hit its destination perfectly. Electric sparks sprayed out as the arrow severed the cable, a bright flicker of light that was followed by darkness and silence. Both felt absolutely perfect.

"Felicity?"

Oliver's worried voice snapped her out of her relieved breathing. "It worked. It's okay. I'm okay." The sighs hitting her ear sounded like tension dissolving. Felicity could very much relate to that. "Thank God the Mayor knows his guns but not his bombs. Every once in a while a girl just has to get lucky." An amused huff hit Felicity's ears. As her last words replayed in her head, she felt herself blush under her hood. Pressing her lips together, forcing the awkward explanation dancing on the tip of her tongue to stay unsaid, she turned around quickly. "Oliver, can you find out where the camera feed's transmitted to?"

"Are you sure you're in the right headspace to confront him?" Sara asked.

"Oh," Felicity huffed, marching out of the building. "I'm in the perfect headspace for that."


The Mayor might not be the best with bombs, but he knew when to retreat. The alley Oliver directed Felicity to had been abandoned. Only a technical device and tire marks left behind told tales of a surveillance team in a van.

This whole Saturday night (aka getting soaked, nearly blown up, and ultimately nowhere!) put the Mayor right on top of Felicity's list.

Metaphorically speaking, of course. She didn't have an actual list. That'd be crazy.

The metallic steps leading to the Factory rattled under her feet. Oliver and Sara stood next to each other by his desk, watching Felicity head toward them. "Is that pizza?" Sara asked in disbelief.

"I thought you deserved a little something for helping me not get blown up." She set the pizza boxes down on the middle table and pulled her soaked hood back, revealing grease-smeared eyes and tightly pulled back hair. "Tony's, best pizza in the Glades."

"Are you telling me the Arrow walked into Tony's and ordered pizzas to go?" Oliver sounded half-amused and half-appalled.

"Of course not. I arranged a drop-off." She opened a box. "Do you want to eat or keep asking questions?"

After sharing a quick look with Sara, Oliver led the way over.

"You will be monitored from now on," Sara stated.

"What?"

"Going out. There'll be an audio connection open to us at all times."

Felicity looked at her friends. "You want to watch me from the Factory?"

"Technically," Oliver cut in, "this is a foundry, not a factory."

Blankly, Felicity stared at him, because, seriously, "That's what you took from my question?"

"I believe in spreading the knowledge."

"And I believe in back-up," Sara brought the conversation back on track, using her no-nonsense voice. "I don't know how you survived without us until now."

"Well, I would've shot at the big wire anyway, so…." Seeing Sara's mockingly raised eyebrows, Felicity deflated a little. Sara was right and she knew it. Felicity nodded. "Thank you for your help," she said sincerely. "Having back-up sounds like a good idea."

Obviously satisfied, Sara took two slices out of the opened pizza box. "I'll take these to go and head home." Not giving the others time to react, she added, "Goodnight, guys."

Felicity watched her best friend climb up the stairs. Turning back to Oliver, she was suddenly awfully aware that they were alone—for the first time in a week. She couldn't help but smile at the dirt smeared over his forehead, wondering what he had done for it to end up there. Their eyes met and Felicity said, "I noticed you didn't eat anything today. You must be hungry."

"I have a tendency to get lost in my work."

"I know the feeling." She gestured toward the bathroom. "I'll just quickly change."

He answered with a nod and Felicity rushed into the bathroom, exchanging wet green leather with the outfit she had chosen this morning: a black shirt and a soft yellow skirt. She took the time to clean her face, apply some mascara and lip gloss, and brush her hair. When she headed back to the main room, Oliver set two mugs down onto the table. She felt his eyes sweep over her and saw a small smile show on his face. He motioned to a bottle standing next to the pizza boxes. "We only have soda."

"Perfect," Felicity decided and sat down while Oliver filled the coffee mugs. Reaching for one, she waited for him to sit down in the chair next to her to raise her mug. "To your quick thinking and quick hacking."

The faintest blush reddened Oliver's cheeks. "I think we should toast to my movie knowledge instead." Seeing the frown on Felicity's face, he added in explanation, "Speed. With Keanu Reeves. And Sandra Bullock?" He tilted his head, seemingly amused. "It's a 90s movie, you don't have any excuse for not knowing it."

"Fine," Felicity huffed, playfully. "Then let's toast to your speedy thinking."

"Clever," he complimented, still amused, and clicked his mug to hers.

Her eyes fixed his, needing him to know how serious she was. "Thank you, Oliver."

"Of course," he said, turning serious, too. "I'm your back-up."

"I'm glad you are."

"That was really intense earlier." Oliver said, his voice strained. "Don't ever do that again, okay?"

She saw the worry and sensed that he kept himself from saying more. "I'll give it my all."

"And I'll give it my all to keep you from getting blown up."

"I know you will." They held each other's gazes for a few heartbeats longer before taking a sip of their sodas and finally grabbing slices. They were lukewarm.

"What happened with the com-system, by the way?" Oliver asked between bites. "The feedback wave was huge. Didn't switching channels work?"

"Oh. Um…." Feeling slightly uneasy and caught, Felicity let the hand with her half-eaten slice sink. That action visibly caught Oliver's interest. "I… only had one hand and I had to make sure the arrow stayed in place and I… maybe, kind of, might have not have really remembered what you explained to me…." Felicity's face twisted in the silence that followed.

To her surprise, a chuckle ended it. "You really are your mother's daughter." Oliver's eyes sparkled. The amusement was back.

"I feel like I should protest."

"Don't worry. I'll fool-proof the coms."

"Okay." Felicity stated. Then, "I do protest that!" She straightened up in her chair. "You should know that I managed to override a security system all by myself—and that was in Moscow, meaning Cyrillic letters and everything."

The sentences left Felicity's lips without second thought. In the following dead silence the unspoken information they brought blinked in bright colors, snapping her out of her teasing mood. Oliver stilled, too. He froze in his chair, his body angled toward her, his eyes on her.

Her words hung in the air between them, seemingly gaining form and texture, separating them in the proverbial sense, but Felicity couldn't have any kind of barrier growing between them, not even the metaphorical kind. She turned in her chair, facing him. Her voice was soft, "I wasn't on the island the whole time."

Slowly, Oliver nodded. He put the pizza down, placed it in the box on the table, and turned sideways in his chair toward her, focusing his sole attention, his beautiful blue eyes, on her. "I figured." He sounded calm, interested. "Where were you?"

"Moscow. For one." Uneasy, unsure how to continue but feeling the strong need to, she rubbed her index and middle finger above her eyebrow. She needed a moment to collect her thoughts, to decide how to tell him, how to give him a glimpse at the person he was willing to back-up. He deserved to know. Actually, she realized, he needed to know. It was the only way they could work; there couldn't be any lies between them.

She let her hand drop, sat up in her chair, and met Oliver's gaze. He waited patiently for her to decide what to say, watching her closely. Her voice was calm and collected when she stated, "I was on the island for two years. Or close to the island for two years." Seeing the question in his eyes, she took a deep breath, knowing she had to give him more details. "It wasn't deserted. There were soldiers trying to shoot down a plane and there was this crazy… I don't want to call him a scientist. He was there to create super-soldiers, which I know sounds insane—but insane pretty much defines those years perfectly. That quote-unquote 'scientist' had a freighter anchored offshore. I was there for a bit…. With Sara. I think she'll be okay with me telling you that. We got separated again when the military grabbed me and took me off the island and to Moscow to get this biological weapon from the Bratva—which piled on the crazy. So much more crazy." She sighed. "I drifted a little after that and ended up in Hong Kong with a woman named Chien Na Wei. I met her on the freighter at the island. She usually goes by the name China White. She's an important member of the Triad."

Felicity let the last word sink in. It did very quickly.

"You worked with the Triad?"

"For the Triad," she corrected, forcing herself to honestly put it out there for his consideration. She presented her right wrist to him. "I have the membership tattoo and everything."

"I don't see anything."

"Invisible ink. I have to be careful with black lights."

"Oh, don't worry, that trend didn't come back in the last five years."

"I guess you have to be thankful for small mercies."

Thoughtfully, he nodded. Once more silence settled around them. Felicity gave him a time to gather his thoughts, preparing herself for whatever reaction he might have. No reaction came. But she could see him thinking. She forced herself not to reach across the small gap separating them. Keeping her hands clasped in her lap, and keeping herself from making a physical connection he might not welcome, her shoulders slumped a little. Evading his eyes, she said, "I've done a lot of things I feel guilty about. I'm ashamed of so much. I made so many wrong decisions in the last five years. The whole time with the Triad was possibly the wrongest, because, back then, it was a conscious one. It felt like the best move at the time. I know that's inexcusable. I know that I can never make up for it. But I'm glad that you know, because you deserve to know what kind of person I am and—"

"Were." Oliver's strong voice cut right into her monologue. It stopped her ramble immediately and snapped her eyes to him. She saw nothing but seriousness in his features as he repeated. "What kind of person you were. You clearly left the Triad."

"I did."

"Why?"

Felicity inhaled soundly, preparing herself to lay more ugly truths at his feet. Her measured exhale took words with it. "It was the usual Triad business, a shipment of drugs coming in from Columbia. The supplier was new and using African channels to get the drugs to Hong Kong, and China decided that we should check out the goods ourselves. Only…." She forced herself to go on. "The goods weren't just drugs. In the container were also people, families, children. Locked in by traffickers. Those people were refugees, looking for a better life. They probably paid a lot of money to get into that container—and China had them all killed. I stood there and people around me were gunning innocent victims down and all I can remember is thinking: what are you doing here? What are you part of? That was the night I swore I'd never stand by watching somebody get hurt. Never again. I decided to use the skills I'd gained for good."

Tilting his head, Oliver studied her intently. Finally, he stated, "That's why you were so dead-set on going after the Mayor. Because of the innocent victims?"

"That's huge part of it, yes."

Another few heartbeats of silence followed. Oliver's serious voice ended it. "Felicity," he said, catching her attention. "Welcome to the light side."

A chuckle that was firmly founded in relief escaped her. "Yes." She huffed. "And I get that reference."

"Thank God," he was mock-serious. "If you didn't, I'd seriously have to consider quitting."

All humor fled from Felicity immediately. She fixed him, willing him to see how much she meant her next words. "You should seriously consider that, Oliver. What I've done…. I was very much on the dark side of things and—"

"Felicity." Again he cut her off. Again Felicity's heart jumped at the way he said her name. "How many times are you going to tell me to stay away from you?"

Hope gathered inside her. "I thought, just this one last time?"

"Okay. Good." He gave a forceful nod. "Then we're done with that."

"Just like that? How?"

Hesitation clouded around him for a second, but dissolved with him reaching out, bridging the small gap between them and putting his hand over her clasped ones. "You said you knew you could trust me after the warehouse. Same goes for me. You've done so much, you've saved so many people's lives—including mine. The person I've met is very much on the light side. And that's all that matters to me: who you are now, the woman I know. And I happen to like her."

"Good," she breathed, closing her hand around his. "'Cause I happen to like you, too."

A smile played around his mouth but vanished with a fierce expression taking over. This time she knew he was absolutely serious about everything he said next, "I know you've been through a lot, Felicity. I wish you didn't have to live through so many horrible things. But… whatever experiences you had to go through, they shaped the person you are today. And I'd like to get to know her even better, but I am already sure that she's a good person. Don't let anybody tell you anything else."

She stared at him in happy awe, her eyes sparkling. Her heart beat heavily, but it was joy speeding up its tact. And it was that joy that brought her to her feet before she really registered what she was doing. A warm sensation flooded her chest, danced up and down her spine and there was only one possible way to express all that positivity filling her.

Her hand let go of his and instead she reached for his cheeks, feeling the barest stubble. Their eyes locked. Standing in front of him, being only slightly taller than sitting Oliver, cupping his face, she gently touched her lips to his. Her eyes fluttered shut instantly, automatically, and her normally heightened senses zoomed in on their connected lips. All she registered was how warm and soft his lips were, how he kissed her back immediately, how his hand came to rest on her hip, tenderly but somewhat shyly. It was a chaste connection, but it tilted Felicity's world for a second as her heartbeat spiked with the perfection of the moment. An overwhelming mix of the emotions roamed through her that could strangely by summed up in one very simple sentence: this felt right.

Slowly their lips parted again. Felicity's eyes opened just in time with his, connecting instantly. The blue in his sparkled in the most amazing way, and she was digging her brain for something to say, but all of this had rendered her strangely speechless. She tried to say it all with a smile.

The smile he answered with told her clearly that he approved and agreed.

"You said you wanted to get to know me better." The sentence passed her lips without being approved by her brain. "Which I know you didn't mean sexually." The realization she had made a not so bad statement really bad made her flinch. Her hands fell from his face. "Not that I'm expecting—"

"Felicity." His hand on her hip tightened, keeping her close to him. "I've spent enough time with you and Sara to not do the whole silence-you-with-a-kiss-thing, but I'd like to kiss you again, if that's okay."

"That's okay. And you have my permission to keep me from putting my foot in my mouth by using yours." She groaned, unhappily, because, really, what was wrong with her? Oliver chuckled. "Why aren't you kissing me yet?"

In the next moment he was and—yup—it was as perfect as the first one. Maybe even better, because now both his hands were her hips, moving to her back, bringing her closer to him. And her arms were around his shoulders, and her fingers combed through his hair and it was less doubtful, more agreeing, the wordless affirmation of everything she hoped for. Her lips parted, as did his, and their tongues tipped against each other playfully. They gave each other a moment of exploring, filled with a slow and seeking dance.

Breathing heavily, they parted. Resting her forehead against his, they gazed in each other's eyes. Felicity found agreement in it, the confirmation that there wasn't any rush and that more kissing would surely follow but that today—after the dangers and revelations—wasn't the day for that. Pecking his lips, she sat back down, finally noticing her surroundings again. She motioned to the table next to them. "Guess the pizza's cold now."

He nodded, but reached for his half-eaten slice anyway. "It is, but since we're getting to know each other, I'll let you in on a secret: I think pizza's better when it's cold."

"Wow," Felicity stated in mock shock. "I can't believe you're sharing such a big thing with me."

"I know," he faked seriousness. "It comes as a shock to most people."

Felicity smirked and reached for her slice again.

"Full disclosure," Oliver said, "I think cold pizza's the perfect breakfast. I usually save some slices as what I call 'breakfast pizza'." He shrugged, playfully. "Getting to know each other—one ugly truth at a time."

Felicity couldn't help but laugh. Her hand fell to Oliver's knee for a gentle squeeze and one thought repeated in her head: this, all of this, just felt right.