**Author's note at the end**

Oliver ran through the dark streets of Starling City. His sneakers pounded the pavement and he focused on the sidewalk ahead of him. He'd set a punishing pace for himself, wanting to replace the pain in his mind with physical exhaustion. He rarely went running on the streets but needed cold air against his face and an open space. Regret and anger threatened to overwhelm him so he ran on. The aching despair in his chest warred with guilt. He'd crossed a line with Felicity and he didn't know how it had happened. He hated himself because his first thoughts were selfish; how could he make it up to her so she'd forgive him? He should have been concerned about her.

The events of the last few weeks played back in Oliver's head. His emotions had been off since he'd returned from the duel. Maseo had told him he'd been brought back from death; he wasn't sure he believed it but his memories felt foreign. The pain and cold after the fall had given way to a drifting darkness. He'd seen and felt nothing, merely existing with a displaced feeling of being nowhere. He likened it only to being on an unfamiliar road between two places he knew. He had felt them, the two places, very different places that both called to him. One was quiet and soft. It wasn't warm there, but he'd felt the absence of cold; the absence of pain. He'd felt for the place, wanting to wrap himself in it, and to chase away the gnawing thoughts of incompletion.

The other place had burned. Oliver had felt whispers of fear, pain and loneliness. It had reached for him and waited for him. All he'd wanted to do was turn his back and rest. Thoughts of a pretty, brown-haired girl had tickled his mind. She needed him. Without him, she'd be alone. Other faces swam in the darkness, and then a pretty blonde had spoken to him. Hers had been the only voice he'd heard. She was the very state of happiness and she was bliss. She was…Felicity. He'd remembered little of his old existence. It had seemed so far in the past, hadn't he floated here for decades? Centuries? A Millenia? He had floated until discomfort had begun to poke at him. He'd turned towards the black, softness, no pain. Her voice. He'd heard her voice.

"I don't want to talk." It was okay, he hadn't wanted to talk either. He wanted to stand with his eyes closed and bask in the warmth that emanated from her golden self. Warm, golden light. She was the light and with the light came pain. Burning, freezing, agony; insides that felt mushy and wrong. But the light had still whispered with her voice and the soft touch of her lips. He had imagined that he could kiss her smile. Kissing a smile would be different and warmer. Perhaps she could warm him. His eyes had opened inside the cabin, and the next week passed with little help from him. He'd mostly slept, or been in a coma, and he remembered little besides the taste of mold.

It had been easier for Oliver to remember the voice and face of the pretty blonde once he'd returned. His timeline was jumbled; when he dozed, the voices of Maseo and Tatsu had made him think he was in Hong Kong and they were separated by only a thin wall. He'd always pretended he hadn't heard their lovemaking. His life on the island, and Shado's gentle touch seemed like an eternity away. Listening to Tatsu's quiet sighs made him envious. He hadn't coveted his friend's wife, but the tenderness that she held only for him. A wall existed between the entire world and Tatsu. Only her husband and child were allowed inside. The purity of their connection had made Oliver's connections to people, Laurel, Sara, and Shado, seem as insubstantial as smoke.

Intelligent but unfocused blue eyes appeared in front of Oliver and he remembered a red pen held in pretty lips. She was thinking of twenty other things when he'd interrupted her. Pulling herself back into his orbit had caused her to babble. He'd understood. Sometimes he had trouble connecting with the minds around him. Other minds didn't know what he knew. They hadn't seen what he had seen and he couldn't always think of the right things to say, in those situations, he usually gave a tight-lipped smile and said as little as possible. She was different. She dressed for an office in boring, business clothes but defiantly kept her bright lipstick and industrial piercing. The piercing had caught his attention after her lips. She could willingly handle pain and, in its own way, it was a form of self mutilation. He had understood that concept all too well. Bringing herself down to earth from the world in which she lived took effort. He guessed most people couldn't keep up with the speed of her thoughts. She spoke as quickly as she thought, and her second thoughts tended to come too late. He'd found himself smiling. She was damaged and no one else knew about it.

Love came softly. It had fallen around Oliver like snow. While he'd loved Laurel, while he'd longed for the pretty lawyer and the life he'd had, love was falling, melting on him as it landed; unnoticed and brushed off as water. While Sara had returned to his bed, and the pain inside of him had an outlet, he'd ignored the buildup on his shoulders. The weight of her love, freely given at every moment. Never hidden from him or Diggle. She'd loved them fiercely, protectively. She'd felt alone until Walter Steele had trusted her. Walter had seen what no one else had bothered to notice. Her brilliant mind analyzed data quickly and with the instinct of a hunter. Oliver had known it would only be a matter of time before she'd figured out his secret. He'd kept her in the dark solely because he knew she would be afraid.

The memory of the only time Oliver had touched Felicity's lips with his own had made his body tingle and given rise to a reaction for which he hadn't thought he'd had the blood supply. If Maseo or Tatsu had noticed, they hadn't mentioned it. The sharp memory of the tremor running through her and the sorrow in her eyes had thrown him a cruel dream. A dream in which there was no Thea, there had been only Felicity asking him not to go. Her feelings had been plain on her face and they'd kissed. The love that had fallen so softly had drifted around him until he could barely move without feeling it. Now they could be together. He must have twitched in his sleep because he had felt an agonizing pull of his internal tears and holes.

Returning to the city had been both cathartic and devastating. In his absence the city had risen to its feet. When he'd made his entrance and spoken, they'd listened. The look of hope and love on Felicity's face had been worse to behold when it left, crushed by disappointment and betrayal. She had asked him to kill in order to return to her. There was no compromise left in her. She hadn't even asked him to kill to spare her own life. It was love in its purest form and he'd willingly lost it. She had barely thought twice before baring her soul to him about her hopes for their future. A heartbeat later she'd told him why she didn't want his feelings. She was logical, she was smart, and she knew that he would get her killed. As she'd walked away from him he'd been unable to find the words to tell her how he'd felt. He'd been an imposter in Oliver's body. He'd felt like a passenger, a puppet master pulling his own tendons in a macabre theater. How could he tell her that not all of him had returned from death.

The weeks that had followed brought misery in its most aggravating form: helplessness. Oliver had needed Felicity too much to send her away. She tipped the playing field in his favor with as much efficiency as ever but while, at best, tiredly dismissing him, at worst, outwardly resenting him. If life had been more fair, she'd have turned into a raging bitch and made it easier on him to quell the urge to beg for her love again. The moment she'd held him in her arms, the one moment of happiness he'd experienced since dying, he'd felt whole. Fate had cruelly tied her into his resurrection so now she was tied into his life. Wedged like a cork to stem the humanity that leaked out of him and required constant infusions. Her offer to share her bed had come at a time when he'd been most unstable. He felt wholly human when he basked in the warmth her touch gave him. Each encounter made him hungry for the next. He'd started to lose his restraint, the result of which had, very luckily, been accepted by her.

When Oliver had faced Felicity in her apartment, he'd wanted to express his anger and pain. Being in the same room with her, however, had prevented it again. Heat had risen in his face, his breath had come in gasps and he'd felt a tightness in his chest that felt like his lungs being squeezed. The right words wouldn't come out and after only a few minutes around her, the right words didn't even make it into his conscious mind. The only words he could speak, and the only thoughts present were about her and Palmer. Had the man who still had billions touched her? Had he kissed her? Had Felicity been with him while Oliver had been dead? Had she been with him since he'd returned. Nothing else mattered to him besides getting those answers.

Oliver had felt less and less human with every moment he'd stood in her bedroom. Getting closer hadn't helped, kissing her hadn't helped because he imagined tasting another man's scotch on her lips. The jumble of words and demands had made little sense. He'd wanted to get himself back so badly that he hadn't been able to let go. And then, suddenly, there was pain. Blood came from his mouth like it had in his dream. She was crying and he had laid hands on her. Her smell made him dizzy but he stumbled back, unable to see or hear. He'd apologized automatically. wanting to comfort her because she was afraid and upset. His brain wouldn't wrap around the fact that it was he whom she feared. No, Felicity should never fear him. He would protect her at all costs. Surely she knew that. No, she'd begged him to leave. She'd been frightened and crying.

Oliver had to look around to recognize his surroundings. He'd run for several miles and was nearing the Glades. He hoped, with a savage heart, that someone would attack him. He wanted to feel someone's fist against his face. No one came out of the shadows to challenge him. He laughed out loud at the irony. He wanted to punish himself, but he'd already made the streets safer. Being mugged was no longer a sure thing in the Glades. He bent double, hands on knees, and coughed, gagging on his laughter. He couldn't call Diggle. The thought of polluting his closest friend's home with the filth in his memory was unthinkable. Roy had leaned on Oliver after committing murder; he couldn't confess to his associate. Hi mind conjured up another face, someone who might reserve judgment for the sole reason that life just hadn't been that dark for him yet. Oliver called Barry Allen.

**Oliver's experience with death was an important one for me. The separation from his previous life and his inability to connect is what led him to not recognize what is happening. Resolution soon.**