The first hour they spent walking wasn't so bad. The weather cooperated and they hiked along in companionable silence. The subsequent 2 hours became increasingly less pleasant. It was very slow going as Oliver had to break trail as they went. By the end of the third hour, they were both frustrated and had a multitude of cuts and scrapes up their arms from rogue branches.

Oliver eventually stopped to examine their surroundings. They were losing daylight quickly. "We've been at this for about 3 hours now. I don't think we're going to make it out of here before it gets dark. We should probably stop for the night."

Felicity looked less than thrilled at the prospect. She nodded in agreement. "The forest canopy should provide some cover if the weather changes." She glanced up at the sky hoping that the grey clouds didn't look too ominous.

Oliver knelt down and began to arrange small branches into a rough pyramid shape. "I'll make a fire."

Felicity set her backpack down and started collecting branches of varying sizes. A loud cracking noise broke the silence of the forest behind them.

"What was that?" Felicity froze and grabbed the sleeve of Oliver's tee-shirt.

Oliver glanced over his shoulder in the general direction of the sound. "Not sure, probably just a squirrel. Or something."

"It's the 'or something' that I worry about." Felicity shuddered slightly. "I would feel a lot better if you had your bow with you."

"Trust me Felicity, the animals are a lot more scared of us than we are of them."

"I highly doubt that."

Oliver paused in his wood stacking. "I'm guessing you haven't spent much time out in the great outdoors before?"

"I grew up in Las Vegas Oliver. The only wild animals I've seen up close are pink flamingos and white Bengal tigers."

Oliver chuckled. He finished arranging the kindling and lit a small fire using the matches from the emergency kit. "This should help keep the animals away."

Felicity paced a circle around the fire. "Come on, admit it. I'm sure Oliver Queen was not a great outdoors man before the Island."

"No, I most definitely was not a Boy Scout."

Felicity raised her eyebrows at him. "In more ways than one I'm sure," she said gently teasing him.

Oliver held her gaze for a moment. He gave her a half smile and stood up to dust himself off.

"What's our food situation like?"

Felicity rummaged through her pack. "Well, we have 4 energy bars left and a couple of bottles of water. That should hold us until tomorrow."

"We're bound to run into civilization soon. We've probably hiked about 9 or 10 miles by this point."

Felicity moved over to where Oliver was unpacking their supplies. She spoke to him over his shoulder. "We won't have much for warmth but at least we have a tarp for the ground- or if it starts to rain. Plus the first aid kit has those aluminum foil blanket things if all else fails."

She took the tarp and spread it out on a somewhat level spot by the fire. She watched as Oliver climbed halfway up a nearby tree to string the pack containing their food ration. She looked at him questionably as he jumped agilely down from the branches.

"Bears," he said simply.

"I thought you said they would be more scared of us..." Felicity squeaked.

"No need to tempt fate."

Felicity woke up and couldn't figure out why her eyes wouldn't open. It took her a moment to realize that her eyes were open but it was so dark that she couldn't see anything.

"Oliver..." she whispered, sliding closer to the other spot of warmth on the tarp.

"I'm here," he said after a moment. "Sorry, I let the fire burn out. You were sleeping and I didn't want to wake you getting more wood."

"It's so dark," she said with an edge of panic in her voice.

She felt Oliver's arm slide around her body and pull her towards him so that the back of her head was up against his shoulder. His arm rested against her chest and stomach and she relaxed into him. She could feel his breath on the back of her neck.

"Do you want me to light the fire again? Are you cold?"

"No, I'm okay," she said folding her arms underneath his. Felicity concentrated on calming herself by matching her breathing rhythm to Oliver's.

"When I first got back from Lian Yu I couldn't sleep very well. I had gotten so used to the darkness that the lights of the city took some time to adjust to."

"Does this make you think about being on the Island?" Felicity said, her fingers absently tracing patterns on his forearm.

"Not really," he said moving his head closer to her ear. "You're here."

The air between them became noticeably heavier. It was as though they both suddenly realized how intimate it was to lie so close to someone in total darkness.

Notes:

Decided to keep it as a flash fiction. Stopped writing at the 60 minute mark. Thanks for reading as always :)