Author's Note: aloha beautiful ones! Ready for the next chapter? I've had this one for a few days, but I waited to post it because I changed a few things (which in turn changes some things for the next chapter). I hope you guys like it, and as always - thank you so much for your response to this!

Oliver is just about to turn the corner into his room the next evening when the sound of feminine laughter drifts toward him. He pauses mid-stride, recognizing his sister's laugh but confused because it hasn't come from her room.

The sound comes again, and when it does he realizes that the second laugh belongs to Felicity. Sure enough, the door across from his is half open. Intrigued, he changes directions and heads for her room instead of his.

Thea is seated on the edge of the bed, grinning widely at Felicity, who is standing a foot or so in front of her and wearing a white dress; she has on two different colored shoes, and he's guessing that Thea is offering her fashion advice. The different shoes – one white, one red – remind him of the colorful socks she seems to be so fond of.

"Definitely go with the red," Thea tells her. "And slap on some red lipstick."

Neither of them has noticed his approach.

"Hot date?" he queries.

Two sets of eyes turn to where he's standing in the doorway.

"Yes, actually," Felicity answers, but there's something in the way she says it that sounds almost shy.

"The bartender?"

"Steven," she corrects.

"He's gonna have his hands full," Thea pipes up. "Trying to keep everyone else away from you."

Felicity blushes and sets about taking off the unwanted shoe. The deep red of her cheeks seems brighter against the crisp white of her dress, and Oliver has to agree (silently) with his sister: she is stunning. He has no right to be, but he is powerfully jealous of this Steven the bartender, especially when he thinks that Steven will be the one that gets to kiss her.

Oliver is toeing a line that leads into very dangerous territory, because the idea of someone else's lips on hers leaves him feeling as though he's been punched, and he has half a mind to cross the room at that very moment and claim her lips with his own.

Which he absolutely can't do.

"How exactly did this come about?" he questions, glancing from his sister to Felicity.

"Well …" Felicity begins.

Thea cuts her off. "I was kind of a bitch to her." She looks contrite when she glances at Felicity, but the contrition turns to irritation when she looks at him.

"I would've reacted the same, if I'd woken up to find a stranger in my house." Felicity is quick to jump to her defense, and Oliver wants to groan.

Of course, of course Thea and Felicity would get along! Why? Because he'd thought that, of all people, Thea would be the one that she didn't win over; so, naturally, she'd turned around and done exactly that – almost instantly, apparently. He almost thinks that Felicity is proving him wrong out of spite, except that she doesn't know she's doing it.

Awkward or not, Felicity is certainly charming, and even more so because she seems to be completely oblivious to the fact.

"So you just saw her and started yelling at her, Thea?"

"Sort of? But it's your fault for not telling me that she was going to be staying here while her apartment was worked on!"

Oliver shoots a glance at Felicity, who looks as if she's trying very hard not to smile.

Well, she's definitely better with cover stories, because he truly hadn't even thought of one.

"Why is it my fault?" he challenges. "You should know by now not to just start yelling at people for the hell of it."

"You're older, so it's your fault."

He recognizes her reasoning from when they were younger, and shoots a glare at her for it. He'd lost count of how many times he and Thea had gotten into fights, only to be broken up by their mother who would always say the same thing: 'you're older, Oliver, you should know better.' Which had, over the years, developed into Thea's favorite taunt to throw at him: 'you're older, so it's your fault.'

"I managed to introduce myself when she paused for air," Felicity tells him, and she's losing the battle with her smile because one corner of her mouth has turned up.

"And I recognized her name from the news last week, and you mentioned her the night you came home with blood on your shirt."

"And now here you are, giggling over shoes." He skips right over the mention of the day that Felicity was attacked.

"We were not giggling," Felicity says indignantly, stressing the word.

"Sounded like it from out here."

"What were you doing, Ollie, eavesdropping?"

"You weren't exactly being quiet, Thea."

He doesn't mention that although he's heard Thea's laugh often enough, it's been awhile since he's heard her giggle like that.

He also makes no mention of how he feels about realizing that it's Felicity who's made her do it.

"There's a package waiting for you downstairs," he says suddenly, looking at Thea. "It's from Walter."

Thea grins and bounds off the bed. "Awesome!"

She's almost to the door when she stops to glance back at Felicity, who's been mostly quiet. "Don't forget the lipstick."

"I won't."

Thea breezes out of the room like a tornado, and Oliver leans his head back to watch her progress down the hall. His sister is hard to keep up with sometimes, young and hard headed, but she can also be sweet when she wants to be. He hates what the last several years have done to her, and he's more grateful than he lets on that Walter has made the effort to keep in contact with her. He may have divorced Moira – and Oliver doesn't blame him, really – but he continues to make it clear that he hasn't abandoned Thea, and she needs that.

He turns back to see that Felicity is watching him. "She's sweet."

He raises an eyebrow and gives her a quiet chuckle. "She's a terror."

"That too," she agrees, smiling.

They lapse into silence, and he allows himself a long moment to just look at her before speaking again. "Are you sure this is a good idea?"

Is he imagining the way the breath seems to hitch in her throat?

"What?"

There is a multitude of ways that he could answer her. "Going on a date when someone might be targeting you?"

He wants to finish that sentence with 'someone who isn't me'.

"Well, to be fair, I agreed to this before we figured that out. Which I'm still not sure I believe, by the way, but … do you really think they – whoever 'they' are – would come after me in public?"

"I don't know." He doesn't want to be given the opportunity to find out.

"Should I cancel?"

He has to tell himself that he's just imagining the almost hopeful note in her voice, because he's not sure how to take it if it's really there.

She must realize how it's sounded too, because she starts rambling. "It's just that I haven't been on a date in, well … longer than I want to admit, actually, and I'm sort of out of practice, and nervous, and I ramble when I get nervous and what if he asks me about what I do and I start to … well, ramble?"

He says nothing, just watches the progression as she goes from speaking to speaking with her hands, whipping them through the air with a nervous sort of energy. When she finally stops, her shoulders sag ever so slightly and she seems to deflate.

"I don't know how to do this, Oliver." Her voice is softer now, but more earnest, maybe even plaintive. "Relationships are hard enough as it is. Do I really want to start one when I know that there's always going to be a part of my life that I can't share?"

Several things occur to Oliver at once: the first is that, once again, Felicity has a valid point that he can't refute, or even offer an argument for. Relationships are difficult, and nearly impossible when you throw a secret such as theirs into the mix; Oliver knows that better than he'd like to. The second thing that occurs is an acute onset of guilt, because he is the one who brought her into this; he's the reason, however arbitrarily, that she has to hide a part of her life, and he really is sorry for that.

The final thing that occurs to him is simple on the surface, and infinitely more complex underneath: she's just used the word always. A normal word, an unassuming word, and yet …

Does that mean that she plans on helping him until the job is done? Because he had been surprised when she stuck around after they'd found Walter, and has purposely avoided asking her about her plans since.

Felicity steps out of her high heels and perches carefully on the end of the bed, smooth legs crossing over one another.

He thinks it's cute that her feet don't touch the floor.

Oliver knows that he should leave, because prolonged exposure to Felicity is proving to be dangerous, but he doesn't; instead, he heads across the room and takes up a seat next to her, so close that their shoulders are almost touching.

"No great words of wisdom for me?" she teases softly.

"You asked me not to patronize you," he tells her honestly. "So I'm not."

She nods, glancing down at her hands that are clasped in her lap. Her nails are painted green today, a deep emerald that's not far off the color of his disguise as the Hood, and it makes him want to laugh.

"It's funny, really, that I'm the one who said we aren't friends."

"Why is that funny?"

He turns his head toward her just enough to study her profile. He wishes that he knew why he finds it so easy to be around her, why he feels so comfortable just sitting silently beside her.

"Because I seem to have developed the bad habit of telling you more than I should."

She lifts her head, her eyes leaving her hands to collide with his. She's left her hair down and curly, just the way he likes it, and he can smell her shampoo: something citrus.

"I don't know why," she continues. "It just feels like you're the only person I don't have to hide from. Well, you and Digg. Is that crazy?"

She's got to stop looking at him like this, with her big doe eyes and long lashes and openness, because it does strange things to him and makes it hard to concentrate on anything that isn't Felicity.

"No, Felicity, that's not crazy." He doesn't need to say her name, but he likes the way it rolls off his tongue, and he likes the way she reacts to hearing it.

He wants to tell her to cancel her date for reasons that aren't entirely right, and this is what drives him to reach for middle ground.

"Don't cancel your date; just see if you can reschedule."

The mention of her impending night out redraws the line that they are dancing around, and he can feel the way she draws away from him even though she hasn't moved. This is good, the distance is good, but he doesn't like it, and he doesn't like how much he doesn't like it.

Oliver is confused, frustrated even, although he won't let it show, and Felicity is the reason. She makes him want things that he shouldn't, because he finally has Laurel and he wants Laurel, but he also wants Felicity, in every way that he can want someone.

When does want turn into need?

He wants to split himself in half, because he is living two different lives and he wants two different women and everything would be so much easier if he could just be two different people. The constant pull of opposites is wearing on him, and it frightens him because he doesn't know what will happen if he snaps; it frightens him to think that Laurel might not be his be all, end all anymore, and to think that he might be entirely too close to falling in love with Felicity.

Everyone has a limit, and I think you've just about found yours.

And what happens when he does?

"Ollie!" Thea yells suddenly. "Laurel's here!"

Sometimes Oliver thinks life was easier on the island.

Oliver doesn't know why they're fighting, not really, but they are mid-argument when Thea springs down the stairs with Felicity in tow.

Laurel's voice falls away when she catches sight of them, and Oliver has to try very hard not to let his exasperation-turned-irritation manifest itself outwardly.

"Hey," Thea says brightly, smiling at them. "Felicity and I are gonna watch a movie since her date canceled. We'll be in the living room if you wanna join us."

Oh, sweet Jesus …

Felicity offers Laurel a nervous smile, who is still to surprised to react, and then disappears after his sister.

"Isn't she the girl I met at the club?" Laurel asks, her tone carefully even. "The one who was setting up your router?"

"Yes."

"Why is she here, and in her pajamas?"

Oliver considers his girlfriend to be a fairly rational person – normally – but it's quickly becoming clear that she is not going to make this easy, which is mildly irritating because she's usually so understanding. Not that he can strictly blame her for reacting negatively, considering their history, and that's irritating too, because he's not sure they'll ever really get past that.

"Whatever you're thinking, Laurel, I promise it's not like that."

"Really? Because I'm thinking that it feels like you've been avoiding me for the last week, and then I show up here to find that there's a woman – a beautiful woman, by the way, and don't think I didn't notice – that I've barely met, running around in her pajamas!"

He thinks it's probably a good thing that Felicity isn't still dressed for her date.

"She's a friend, Laurel, the one who had her apartment broken into."

His words seem to get her attention, because she takes a deep breath and he can see the gears starting to turn as she makes the connection. "The one who was attacked?"

"Yes. I offered to let her stay at the mansion for a bit, because she's having a new alarm system installed and she's having a hard time being there alone."

Okay, so Felicity hasn't exactly admitted to the last part, but she doesn't need to for Oliver to know that it's true.

"And frankly, Laurel, I'm trying really hard not to be angry with you for immediately jumping to conclusions."

"Well you don't have the best track record, Ollie."

Her words cut at him, dig at the pieces of his past that he hates and has done his best to make up for, and this is the rock that heralds the tipping of the scale.

She has just done more damage than either of them fully realizes, because now he is as angry as she is.

"That's in the past, Laurel, so why won't you leave it there? I think I've done a pretty good job of showing you that I'm not like that anymore, but you seem determined to believe the worst of me, which is funny because you didn't seem to have the same problem with Tommy, and we were exactly alike!"

Now he has cut her, and he can see it in the tears that rise in her eyes, making them shine in the artificial lighting of the foyer. Her pain brings him down, because he is angry and hurt but he doesn't want to hurt her in return, and because Tommy is still a painful subject for him too.

He wraps a hand around Laurel's and pulls her into his chest; she hesitates for a second and then lets herself relax against him.

Why do they seem to keep coming back to this? In some ways he feels as if this has been the never- ending argument, the one that hides just beneath the surface and waits for moments like this to reappear. Every time he thinks they've moved past it, it comes back to bite him in the ass, and he's getting tired.

"I'm sorry," he tells her quietly, dropping a kiss against her hair.

She smells like flowers.

"So am I. I guess I just didn't expect everything to get so …"

"Complicated?" he offers.

"Yes, and difficult. I just want things to be easy again, ya know?"

"Nothing is ever easy, Laurel."

"Okay, easier, then."

He opens his mouth to reply, but hears Felicity's voice in his head: don't patronize me, Oliver.

"Are you happy, Ollie?"

His heart misses a beat. "Yes."

"And no, I think," she murmurs against his chest. "You seem … sad – even when you're smiling."

Oliver doesn't know what to say, because she is right, and more so than she even realizes. He is sad, and he's not sure it'll ever go away completely because he's seen and done so much that he doesn't see how it could; there's the very real possibility that he will never truly shake the air of melancholy that has taken root in his heart.

"C'mon," he tells her then, stepping back and taking her hand. "Let's go upstairs."

He doesn't want to think about anything – he wants to take her upstairs and forget about everything that has happened, everything that could happen, everything that he does and does not want; he wants one night where he can forget about who and what he is, and the impossible tangle of strings that his life has become.

"Actually," Laurel says, stopping him. "Can we go watch that movie? I could use the distraction, and I was sort of rude earlier."

"Sure."

He's proud of how neutral his tone is, because he now knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that he doesn't want Felicity and Laurel together. He feels like his life is getting remarkably close to spinning wildly out of hand, like he's about to throw a tornado at a volcano just to see what will withstand the destruction. He wants to tell her no, but he can't, so instead he just leads her into the living room.