**I worked on three different versions of this chapter. I initially posted one in which Oliver is more insensitive but that was the wrong document. **This chapter contains some descriptions of non-consensual sexual activity.

"Hi." Oliver stood in Felicity's doorway. It was late in the evening and he'd taken Diggle's advice and spent some time thinking before approaching her. "Can we talk?"

"Okay." Felicity was wearing pajama pants and a t-shirt. Her hair was damp and loose around her shoulders. She opened the door wider so he could walk inside. He wore just jeans and a long-sleeved jersey. She fidgeted with her hands before gesturing to the couch. "Want to sit?"

"Sure." He walked past her, touching her elbow, gently. She pulled away from him and quickly crossed her arms to cover her reaction. He reminded himself that he'd have to refrain from reaching for her. Physical affection for Felicity had become second nature to him long before they'd become intimate.

"I won't take up too much of your time," he said as he sat down.

"It's okay," she replied. "I was having a drink. Want one?"

"If you were already getting one, sure." The strange formality seemed foreign but Oliver didn't feel like he could talk to her casually. She got them both a glass with ice and brought out a vodka bottle from the freezer.

"Cold River," she said, pouring it over the ice. "Made in Maine."

"Thanks," he said.

"I had wine with dinner but I didn't want to be a lush and finish the bottle." She looked down at her glass. "I switched to vodka, instead." As soon as she said it, Oliver saw her clamp her mouth shut and shake her head, slightly. He wanted to smile then, because she was acting like his Felicity again.

"Do you usually drink it on the rocks?"

"No." She put the bottle back and sat on her magenta settee.

"I think my sister had a couch like that," he said, pointing. She smiled quickly and took a swallow of her drink before setting it down on a small table beside her. She'd always had a tough time hiding her emotions. She was visibly tense now. She sat up straight with her knees and feet together and her hands resting on her thighs. "I watched the recording," he said and watched her close her eyes and turn her face away. He sipped his own drink, it was smooth.

"I wish you hadn't," she said, breathing the words out like a sigh. "No one should see it." She shook her head. "I wanted us to work through this as a team. As partners."

"I can do that, Felicity. I can help you. I want to help you."

"If I had asked you not to watch that video, would you have agreed?" She opened her eyes and looked at him. He looked away.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked.

"Tell you what?"

"You brushed over it like it was nothing." He looked down at his hands and he continued. "It wasn't… nothing, Felicity."

"I told you the truth," she said, looking him in the eye. "I told you the important things: you being unaware of what you were doing, getting excited and then backing of when I was afraid. I know that you deserve to know exactly what went on in that room. I didn't withhold the details from you solely out of a misguided protectiveness." Her voice was trembling but held a defensive edge. "I just don't think I can tell you about it and remain calm." Oliver leaned forward, elbows on knees.

"I was there, I saw what happened, but I still can't remember anything and I feel like I got out of this whole thing like a spectator."

"You were a spectator," she said, quietly. "Malcolm Merlyn planned for me to be violently assaulted. He didn't want you to get a scratch." She pursed her lips thoughtfully. "I resent that."

"Felicity, you did everything you could to protect me when I was out of my mind. I-" He stopped and looked down for a moment, trying to find the right words. "I don't want to bring anything up to hurt you, and I don't have the right words, to make you feel better." Oliver ached for her.

"There are no words," she said. "I keep thinking to myself that I shouldn't be so upset because far worse things happen all over the world, every day." She finished her glass and looked at the ice in her glass. "Laurel brought me vodka when you died." She said, changing the subject. She saw his look of concern. "She's back on the wagon, and I didn't judge." Getting the bottle from the freezer, she poured another helping. "Turns out vodka makes it easier to be honest."

"I usually find the opposite to be true."

"Yeah, but you lie, habitually." She pressed her lips together and raised her glass. "Honest, not kind."

"I can take it." He watched, sadly, as she tried to hold herself together.

"Nothing like that had ever happened to me before," she said. She cleared her throat and put her glasses back on. "Obviously you know that distracting you didn't work. You saw it."

"The doorway to the bathroom blocked part of the room, I couldn't see everything."

"What do you want to know?" she asked after steeling herself for the question.

"As much as I want to ask questions, tonight isn't the night for the third degree." He poured himself another glass. "I am willing to listen, though."

"I think I was most upset that we had an audience for something I found so awful." She ran her hand through her damp hair. "One of the most embarrassing moments of my life was when I was in high school. I got up to leave my class and this jerk who sat behind me shouted out to everyone that I had my period." She shuddered at the memory. I had to wear my gym clothes for the rest of the day and I felt like everyone was staring at me for the rest of the week."

"That must have been awful."

"The most private, personal detail of my teenage life had just been broadcast to my high school. That's how I felt when I thought about Merlyn watching us. It's how I feel when I think about all of those agents watching me on a screen."

"I don't think Amanda Waller released it to everyone. She didn't even want to let me see it. This afternoon she suddenly changed her mind."

Felicity laughed when she heard that.

"Of course she did," she said, sighing. "That demon bitch," she finished, mildly.

"Am I missing something?"

"Waller came to see me today in order to get my help with information about the Psycho Sex Spray." Oliver sat up straight. "I told her to go to Hell."

"Really?"

"Not in those words, but she got the general idea, even if I didn't specify which hand bag she should take to get there."

"I think it's 'hand basket'."

"With my new salary and the retail therapy I'm going to have during my quarantine, it is all about the hand bags."

"Amateur. It was usually about cars and other big toys for me." They sat in silence after the tension was broken.

"I knew," Felicity began, after contemplating her ice for a moment, "that it wouldn't be like…the other times, between us. I didn't know how long he planned to keep us there. I tried to think about how I would deal with it afterward, and I didn't want to give Merlyn the satisfaction of hearing me scream, or cry, or try to hurt you." She sipped her drink again and cleared her throat. "Nothing like that had ever happened to me before. I had no real idea what to expect when I knew what was going to happen."

"It happened when I was holding you up…at the wall, right?"

"Only for a second, only just barely, only a little bit." Her voice grew softer with each admission. "I don't know why, but I wasn't expecting it to…hurt. That surprised me and broke my resolve to be a martyr."

Oliver sat on one of her chairs and steepled his fingers, resting his chin on them and staring at the wall. He'd been all but certain what had happened but hearing her say it made him ill. He waited. It wasn't the time to interrupt. She stared at the ice and he knew she was seeing the room. "As soon as you started, I panicked. As soon as I panicked and went into hysterics, you stopped and put me down."

"Still, I-"

"Oliver!" she snapped, slapping her hand down on the counter top. "You had been given surgical anesthetic and a medication they use in conscious sedation. It was a miracle." She leaned over the top of the counter. "You heard me when I was afraid, and you stopped. You managed to drag yourself out of a stupor by sheer will-power and go soak your head. You managed higher brain functions and you formed a plan. No one could be expected to do what you did." She drew her hand back and folded her fingers together. "I'm focusing my energy on that. Can you just let me do it?"

"After, on the bed," he began, moving on.

"Your plan," she said, quickly, "although letting me in on it before you dragged me to the floor would've been nice."

"Sorry."

"Don't apologize for that, you don't even know what you were thinking."

"You did more to save us than I did." She seemed to consider this for a moment and eventually nodded. "If I had any idea what Merlyn was going to do I-"

"Bullshit." Felicity didn't raise her voice. She didn't throw anything, she just laid the charges at his feet. "He thought killing innocent people was going to make the world a better place because he'd be killing criminals too. Sara Lance was collateral damage for a plot to make your sister a murderer so you'd fight his battle for him." She raised one eyebrow. "Go ahead. Tell me you had no idea he would do something like this." She held up her glass. "Like I said, honest, not kind."

"You're right," Oliver said, standing up straight. "I keep making the same mistakes over and over again. I played by his rules and lost during the undertaking. I was noble and protected Merlyn from Nyssa and left him alive to murder Sara, possibly destroy Thea's life, and brought you right to him."

"I am not going to disagree with you about your handling of Malcolm Merlyn. I'm not going to hound you about it, either unless you start making the same mistake." She touched the rim of her glass to his. "Here's to recovery."

"Should we go to a counselor?"

"What could we possibly tell them?"

"Good point." He finished his drink and watched while Felicity went to her room and brought out a pillow and blanket.

"Would you mind staying here?"

"Of course I'll stay," he said, taking the bedding from her. "Are you sure you want me around?"

"Yes." She continued to stand close to him. She looked like she wanted to say more but just turned and went to her bedroom. "Goodnight, Oliver."

"Goodnight Felicity."

**Author's note: Cold River vodka is real, and it's magnificent. And Thea does have the same couch as Felicity, it's in her bedroom in season 1**