(A/N: thanks for all the love! i realized it was probably going to be a while before i could upload the entire chapter, so i decided to split it in half. there's going to be one more after this to wrap it all up. hope you enjoy:)

song is need the sun to break by james bay his entire album is slaying my ass)

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chapter four: i hope i'm not too late

She'd been sitting at her side for what seems like forever—doing what she'd think Thea would like her to do (hold her hand, make her hair look somewhat presentable and kill anyone who tries to create photographic evidence of her wearing the fashion tragedy they call a hospital gown)—but nothing really works.

Doctors say she allegedly won't wake-up until she's physically ready, but the doctor's don't know Thea. She won't miss a single episode of Project Runway if it's up to her, broken body or not.

For at least three hours, Oliver sat on a wooden bench across from Thea, in total silence, looking at nothing but her (which was as awkward as it sounds, but at least he didn't ban her from his sister's side) until Sara forced him to go to the cafeteria with her to get something to eat or 'one of those silly balloon animals you know Thea will love' before 'he turns into the hulk and destroys the entire hospital'. He'd been reluctant, of course, but Sara has her ways—as Roy stands guard outside, having apparently pulled himself together long enough to move his limbs and wipe the look of terror off his face.

Felicity sighs as she takes out half a donut she stuffed in her bag yesterday. It's going to be stale, but she's a stress eater. And your kind-of-sister-in-law almost ODing was pretty stressful. Color her surprised. After taking her second bite, there's a groan—and Felicity disregards it as her body's involuntary response to food—then another louder one—to which she suspiciously checks over her shoulder, just to be sure Sara isn't screwing with her—and then the brunette opens her eyes. It's not so much opening her as it is peeking through them leerily, but since that's pretty much the usual way Thea wakes up every morning it only gives Felicity hope.

"You're awake," she breathes, mouth half full and spilling donut crumbs everywhere (see if she cares), eyes filling with tears as she immediately reaches forward to hug the other girl. To which Other Girl makes more groaning noises, a complaint probably lodged somewhere in there.

She was mad (like, all capitals and gun emojis and three exclamation points MAD), but also incredibly happy right now, which is the weirdest combination of emotions she'd ever endured. "I should get a doctor, or Oliver. Not necessarily in that order because he might get offended if I get a doctor before I get him. You never—"

"Felicity," she croaks out, dismissing her ramble like this is just another morning in their everyday lives and she isn't waking up in a hospital bed after an 16 hour coma, "He'll be, he'll be fine for five more seconds."

"Are you okay?" Felicity asks, despite knowing she isn't. Hospital bed. Duh. When it comes to Thea, she just unfortunately has a habit of turning into her own mother. If you would've told teenage, kind of a rebel (hello, purple streaks, in her hair!) but unfortunately still socially awkward Felicity Smoak she'd ever become even a little like Donna Smoak, she probably would've put you on the no-fly list for the rest of eternity. Okay, maybe she still would now.

"You really, care about, about my brother don't you?" Thea asks, with more pauses than usual, because somehow she always manages to turn everything into a bad telenovela plot and the attention off herself. It's a Queen thing, Felicity tells herself, avoiding the real stuff.

"I asked you a question," she replies warningly, just a little teasingly, because she is serious. One, she wants to know if she's okay and two, it's a perfect attempt at dodging answering that obviously inappropriate question. Let's see, how does she feel about her pretend-but-legal-Russian-mob-husband, the currently-situated-in-a-hospital-bed-teen's brother? Nevermind the entire lying-drugs-Roy's-dating-your-sister-and-I-kinda-love-you situation.

"I just want to go home," she simply states, a weak smile playing on her lips (always trying to keep up appearances that one, even if it kills her) and Felicity cocks an eyebrow in response.

"Me too. I can't wait to yell at you in the privacy of our own home, since I can't do it here because people are dying and died here and are going to die and I have morals, and all."

Thea sends her one of her skeptical looks, true to herself even from her horizontal position in a hospital bed. Felicity shrugs casually, adding, "Kind of. But it's going to be very good. I practiced in front of the mirror and everything."

"I can't wait," the wavy haired brunette cracks half a smile, but it's sincere.

There's so many questions she wants, needs answers to, but it doesn't seem important right now. Felicity takes a deep breath, swallowing down any more tears, "I am really happy you're awake."

She squeezes the blonde's hand softly, "Well, this might shock you—but I am very happy to not be vegetable. I could probably do without another one of those comas, for probably the rest of my life."

The IT-specialist-turned-mob-wife-although-still-an-extremely-capable-IT-specialist mocks a gasp, pressing her free hand to her chest, "Except food comas. Right? Right?! Nurse, nurse, there's something wrong with my sister-in-law!"

She shakes Thea's arm lightly, and she laughs, and it's small and fragile, but it echoes around the small room and makes Felicity's smile stretch wider across her face. "Except food comas."

.

Sara jumps on top of the counter, stealing a twizzler out of Felicity's hand before doing so, and chewing on it loudly. Then, she takes a large gulp of wine from the bottle, also courtesy of one Felicity Smoak. The other blonde looks up from her magazine, eyebrows raised as she automatically reaches for a new twizzler, using the other hand to reposition her glasses. Candy before wine, seems like she has her priorities straight.

"Are you and Oliver…?" Sara wiggles her eyebrows suggestively, laughing at the panicked look on the other woman's face.

Felicity chokes on the red sugary stick, managing to swallow it before washing it down with half a glass of wine. "If you were going to say 'still not talking and actively ignoring each other's existence', then yes."

"I was going to suggest 'participating in some very hot make-up sex' but—"

"Did you miss the part I said we aren't talking?"

Sara's smirk only widens. "In which universe do you have to be talking to have mind blowi—"

"Don't you dare even finish that sentence," Felicity interjects quickly, pointing a half-eaten twizzler at Sara accusingly, "You're a pervert."

She laughs in response, head thrown back, the sound fading away in the kitchen like it was never even there as she much more seriously implies, "He does have a story you know. We all do."

Those Lances and their 'stories'. Everyone has a sad sob story, some more sadder and sobbier than others, but in reality, they're all adults who make their own choices and sad sob stories are no excuse. Apparently it's his choice to give her the cold shoulder like she's a petulant child. Which is totally okay, it's cool, she's chill. She's just here so no one earns 2 millions dollars of of killing her butt, because her butt is her best asset (pun intended) and she doesn't really want to enter the after-life just yet. Maybe when Scandal ends.

She's not bitter that he's ignoring her, and what happened, but it's been a week since Thea went to rehab and she knows he misses Thea but she misses him and she wishes he would just talk to her, or be angry, or anything. The silence between them is loud and maddening and infuriating. She's not bitter.

"There's a darkness in him, and for a long time it was all that there was too him." There's a long pause, like she's mauling over on how exactly to bring this subject to Felicity's understanding. "You lit a light inside of him, and he can't," she inhales quietly, biting down on the inside of her cheek in thought, "he can't harness it on his own."

"That's just the problem, I don't and I will never be able to understand what he's been through. My hardest experience in life was probably that time Lee's Discount Liquor ran out of my favorite wine or when my mom made me have a very uncomfortable talk with my rabbi about, you know, intimate stuff, or, or maybe that one time my boyfriend in college was arrested for a hacking program I made and I had an extremely awkward pat down by a gender-ambiguous FBI agent with boobs and a mustache and I can't imagine what he…" She pauses, staring into the distance with a frown on her face, teeth gritted together before she looks back up at Sara. "I can't be what his happiness depends on."

"You don't have to go through the same thing to understand someone—he would never, want you to understand him like that—you just… have to be there for him, I guess." I guess. Sara Helpful Lance strikes again. There's a highly uncomfortable look on her face like she's started a conversation she didn't want to finish.

There's more moody silence, and there's so many questions left unanswered (she knows better than to ask), Felicity pushing the information to the back of her mind, and because it's starting to feel a lot like a nineties romantic thriller in here, she decides to finally break the silence.

"So what's your story?" She teases, not feeling like talking more about Oliver's supposed sobby past, she tries to playfully lighten the mood a little (although sometimes she feels there's a permanent dark cloud hovering above Queen Mansion). "Did you deliberately join because you enjoy cutting off fingers more than a 9-to-5 desk job, or is it more like 'I didn't choose the mob life, the mob life choose me'?" She deepens her voice on the last part, which is supposed to sound tough and mob-ish, but instead comes out like her groggy, grumpy morning voice mixed with an autotuned robot.

"Well, long story short," she hops off the counter, shoving a handful of twizzlers down one of the sidepockets on her legs, mysteriously adding, "I choose the mob life." She smirks deviously before starting for the exit of the kitchen.

"Seriously? That's it? That's all you're going to give me?!" Felicity responds, looking at the other blonde over her shoulder in disbelief and mild curiosity, "I did like, ten push-ups for you two months ago!"

Her laugh echoes in the room, for a long time.

.

That night, when she's tossing and turning and totally not thinking about Oliver sound asleep like three doors over, she realizes Sara was trying to give her love-advice. In her own way, of course, but she thinks it'll be the most of it that she's ever getting. Hence the uncomfortable, almost pained, look on her face during their earlier conversation.

The question that still remains is how you can be there for someone who doesn't want to be around you. The only answer that comes to mind is pretty much 'force them'. Which is slightly creepy and stalker-ish, and is starting to sound a lot like her freshman year in college.

Still, it's, like she stated before, the only answer she has, so she has to take it, which is probably like a cordial rule in someone's life, so it might as well be hers. How better to force someone to talk to you than to sneak into their room in the middle of the night and present yourself in an old, soft Wonder Woman t-shirt and pink polka dot pyjama shorts?

She tiptoes over there pretty successfully, if she does say so herself, because all of these mobsters are light sleepers (probably because they're in the mob) and she manages not to wake any—that she knows of, anyway, but still.

"Oh God," she breathes to herself as soon as she's opened the door and stepped inside. What the hell is she doing?

"Felicity?"

"You're awake?" Okay, to be perfectly honest, in 9/10 hypothetical situations that played out in her head before she came over here, he was either asleep or not talking.

"Nightmares," he just simply explains, sitting up a little as he probably tries to make out her face in the dark, and she wants to scream. How does her heart feel warm at him answering a question she only half-meant, with something surprisingly personal for his doings? Her standards are so frickin' low.

"Look," she states, after noticing how very-much-more-awake-than-expected and very-eerily-calm and very-half-naked Oliver is, or more like rambles, in what she hopes are understandable sentences that make sense outside of her own head, "She trusted me. She trusted me not to tell you, so I didn't, because I promised."

She feels pretty stupid standing there, in his bedroom, by the door, nervously fidgeting with the material of her pyjamas and waiting for him to say anything.

"I'm her brother," he replies, grunting, because, honestly, how else.

"She didn't need a brother—she needed a sister," she swallows tightly, starting to move closer to his bed before her mouth starts moving entirely on it's own, "A pretty crappy one at that, I admit, but I grew up as an only child so you have to give me some credit. My social skills are little underdeveloped compared to others because I mainly talked to computers and of course, I should've known better but if you don't count my extensive and useless knowledge of comic book plotlines, my level of experience is literally zero." Her knees are against the bed by now, hands moving without permission to illustrate her points.

He seems conflicted, even in the dim light coming from the hallway as he looks down at his hands, resting on top of his knees—like they hold all the answers of the world. "She is all I have," he opens his mouth, and closes it, before he adds, "I am all she has." Like that means something else in his book. Maybe it does.

"No, she has me. I'm her family, too, Oliver. You're my family," she admits, surprising herself, since it feels a little heavy to just casually blurt out like that, but it also feels so very good to get out, "Both of you. And I did make a mistake and that mistake was trusting Thea to take care of it herself. Not that I didn't tell you about something private that I promised to keep a secret, and I won't apologize for that."

He sighs deeply, rubbing his free hand over his face before looking back up at her. He looks unsure, as he hesitates, fingers twitching beside him as he studies her. Then, he lifts the covers next to him and she takes in a sharp breath, "Is that like your universal sign that the conversation's over and you want to go to sleep? I'm not very up to date with Russian customs, so…"

He lets out a low chuckle, shaking his head, and she's happy he's making different sounds than the usual groan and grunt for the past two weeks. "It's me, inviting you, to come sleep with me." She missed his smile.

"Oh," her eyes light up—so unaccustomed to any actual married couple things, she's forgotten how to recognize them—and it's not until he raises his eyebrows that she makes a move to actually slip in the bed next to him. Slowly, of course, she doesn't want to seem to eager, or as Thea would call it, thirsty. She has some dignity left.

It's awkward because it's their first time sleeping next to each other and she's forgotten how it works and it's new and he's so him and she's so her and where does she leave her hands and then a little more awkward when she accidentally knees him somewhere in his groin area (to her surprise, he only flinched a little), forcing him to turn onto his back and then it's warm and familiar and really good. She fits perfectly in his arms, she thinks, and she's the kind of person who thinks things like that now—like she isn't just 5'5 and small and he's 6'1 and huge and it's not biology but meant to be—because she's in that deep.

There's a warmth spreading from his fingers on her arm to the tips of her fingers and the roots of her hair, settling low in her stomach and it's nice. Almost, homey. Somehow this kind of sleeping feels much more intimate than actual sex… Oh no.

"Wait," she quips, adjusting her head on his chest, a little so she can look at his face as her chest flushes, "When you invited me to sleep with you, you did mean sleep, right? As in lying in a horizontal position and get unconscious together? Or this has just become one of the weirdest and most uncomfortable situations of my life. And that's saying a lot."

He grins, and he has the decency to hide his amusement somewhat and spare her a little embarrassment, eyes still closed as he talks, "Goodnight, Felicity."

And a good night it was.

.

She knows she shouldn't compare herself to brave fearless strong Sara or badass lifesaving doctor Laurel or anyone else in this house really, because it wasn't fair to her or them. She knows they all grew up differently, had interests and hopes and dreams and goals and priorities in life that probably didn't match up with hers. She knows that's okay, because she's awesome at what she does, computers—or anything with internet—are kind of her thing. IT work is her bitch.

So she knows. She knows she shouldn't, but, she still has nightmares that leave her breathless and she still has days where a slamming door makes her flinch or the rustle of the wind against the window makes the hairs on the back of her neck stand up straight, because right then, in that moment—when those men had her and she almost died—she felt helpless, and—and weak. And if she really knows anything, it's that she never wants to feel that way again.

Diggle agreed to train her after she dumbly tried to do it by herself and strained her wrists. Both of them. Even after some intense internet research. Let's just say, punching bags aren't for amateurs. She learned this the hard way, for example, when it swung back with full force into her face and she has to hide a black eye the size of a newborn baby's head for three days.

There's—not so surprisingly considering her record of number of crunches in a row is four and half—a lot of blood, sweat and tears involved.

Although, it was pretty easy to get John to agree. He likes yelling and he likes to see other people bloody, sweaty and in tears, so it was a win/win really. (Some of the time it was more win/tie—one morning she'd looked over at Sara's rock hard sixpack full of envy and had mistakenly wondered out loud if she was going to have one soon herself, and it's the first time she's heard him laugh. Ever.)

His only condition was she was the one to tell Oliver which she mentally changed to 'you tell him only when absolutely necessary', which had conveniently actually been her plan to begin with. She didn't like keeping secrets, but she figured that it was a touchy subject for him, with his ever-lasting fear of her name and any sort of violence in one sentence and all. Plus, they'd just gotten somewhat back to normal.

The new normal, at least.

The new normal includes her sleeping over in Oliver's bed a lot—which actually has kind of helped with her nightmares—although there's not a feminist bone in her body that really wants to give him any credit for that. The hopeless romantic part of her, however, is a different story.

New normal is also more smiles, definitely more smiles, and God, does he look beautiful when he smiles. It's holding her hand under the dinner table when nobody's looking, which kind of makes her feel like she's back in middle school but hey, baby steps. It's offering her his favorite books instead of letting her decide between the hundreds in his office for minutes (and who is she to say no to some 18 century 800-page Russian crime novel when he apparently now wants to share these things with her). It's telling her about his day—as best as possible in his 'situation'—which usually ends up being just a little, but he reaches out to her. He asks questions about her, sometimes like a curious toddler who won't shut up, sometimes out of nowhere and without any further explanation.

(They're on the coach (one of many), both reading, him a Russian book and she a new article on an IT programme on her tablet, when he asks, "What's your favorite color?"

She doesn't even look up at first as she just starts babbling, "Green, but not the ugly neon kind because there was a kid in middle school who only wore that color shirt and he always called me 'Smelicity', like that was an actual insult. I mean, I smelled fantastic, if I do say so myself. Nothing like scent of pink bubblegum, Barbie's Fun Bath and Shower-gel and a hint of my mom's flirty exotic waitress perfume." Finally meeting his eyes, she settles it on, "So green, like a nice verdant."

"Okay."

He goes back to reading his book, and she curiously looks at him for another moment, awaiting an explanation that never comes. (Something about the expensive backless verdant dress that awaits her in her room before their next benefit that might have something to do with it, but who is she to speculate like that. Especially not when there's pack of pink bubblegum tucked inside of the box, oh no, not she.)

Or that time at the dinner table Roy and Sara are in a heated discussion about if 'Superman needs to be Clark Kent' ("uhm, obviously if he wants to have a normal life" "or maybe he needs to stop trying to delude himself into thinking he could ever have a normal life. he's goddamn alien, he isn't normal.") until Diggle throws some oil in the fire by calling 'Batman overrated', which is priceless just because of the look on Harper's face (he takes his superheroes seriously) and she's laughing along until he suddenly leans in, "Do you believe in aliens?"

She shifts in her seat and stops playing with her potatoes long enough to send him a look. She wasn't sure if he was being serious or just screwing with her in his own, special way.

She finds no sign of humour on his face beside genuine interest so she decides to just answer, pushing her glasses further up her nose, "Did I think the government was hiding alien life in Area 51 before I hacked into their servers and disappointedly found out they were just trying to revitalise project Captain America and failing badly at it? No comment."

His grins every so slightly, squeezing her knee under the table, his gaze unfaltering as she searches his face, and all she can gather from it is that he's storing every piece of information somewhere in his brain and keeping it for later, which is seriously sweet and considerate and totally endearing. He was always one for details. She's has to watch Roy disappear off into the pool house once a day and feel guilty because of it. Because of his cat, not because she like, told him she doesn't want Roy around.)

It's a lot of things, but it's especially spending more time with him, and she's realized she loves that. She doesn't think she's even physically or mentally or spiritually, or anything else besides that, able to go back to the way it was before. She doesn't want to either.

It's like he finally realized that she isn't going anywhere; she doesn't care about his baggage; she knows how to deal with his issues; fill in the blank with any of the endless possibilities. That time she almost died must've helped, too. It's like he's finally trusting her. It's like he's thinking of the long run, seeing the bigger picture.

The new normal is way more awesome than the old normal.

She doesn't really see why she should ruin that by bringing up something as stupid and insignificant as her new workout schedule, so she doesn't.

.

"Can I just make a long story short?" Roy nods, relief on his face. "Like, shorten up a really looooong story into a much, much shorter one?" He nods again, even more eager than the last time. "Okay, my head feels funny and I'm married to Oliver, but not out of free will, it's kind of like an arranged marriage and it sucks because I'm just Felicity and he's like Oliver, and I love him and I kind of want to marry him for real but I can't even, like I can't even feel my face right now and oh my god, I think I'm going to throw up?"

"Felicity, how much did you have to drink?" Roy's eyes are wide with excitement (she's glad her misery excites him) and glinster with delight as he steadies her by grabbing onto her shoulders.

"Like, I don't, I don't know? Sara made some pink cocktail, Sara made it and it tasted realllllllllllly good, so I like, drank all of it." She tries to fix her glasses, but instead they end up even more askew than before, and she sighs, giving up.

Roy exchanges a look with the other blonde in the room, who's on the couch, feet up and shrugging casually, hands behind her head and not even trying to deny Felicity's accusation.

"Guys, is my face on fire?"

He ignores her, not turning away from Sara, "You won't let me try Nyssa's old weird foreign family's sect's recipe but you let her? That stuff could knock out a horse."

"Maybe you should tell him, Lis," Sara offers with a sneaky smirk, ignoring the only guy in their midst and Felicity gasps, pointing her finger at her in glee, but it ends up a few feet to her left, "You. You. Ssssss… Sa-ra. S-S-Sa-ra. You have a pretty, pretty name." She grins goofily as Roy glares at one of his oldest friends over his shoulder. He seems to know exactly where she wants to take this.

"You're such a conniving bitch sometimes, Sara."

"Your face's a bitch!" Felicity exclaims, before bursting out in a giggle fit none of them has witnessed on anyone, ever, before. Roy can't really hate her for it, since he patented that comeback and she must've learned it from him. Sara just looks like she's enjoying very much how her leisure activity seems to be playing out.

"I'm going to tell Oliver. I am. I am going to tell the frick out of him. Wait, what was I supposed to tell him again? Maybe I shouldn't talk, because I don't know what I'm saying and really, I just want to kiss him. So maybe I should do that."

"Great," he hisses, keeping Felicity in place with one hand on her shoulder, which she just stares at like it's a flying pig, or some new computer server no one's heard of besides supernerd Smoak, "You made her horny for Oliver."

"You're such an uptight little asshole sometimes—"

"How about you stop insulting me and start thinking about who Oliver will lecture and yell at when he finds out you fed Felicity that poison you cry over weekly just because Nyssa—"

She growls, "Don't bring Nyssa into this—"

Felicity is already halfway upstairs by the time they stop arguing long enough to realize she's gone—and it took a while because she had to crawl for a feet due to spinning walls—so they don't bother trying to get her back into (one of) the living room(s) and away from Oliver. Later, she will realize they're bad friends. Both the lazy one, and the one that orchestrated the whole ordeal to begin with.

Later, not when she's knocking on his door, only to find his room empty. Not when she hears a shower running and decides, hey, maybe I should just, like go in there. Not when she actually goes in there and he stares at her, eyes wide with surprise and she wonders out loud, if he ever blinks, because that's what's on her mind. Not the fact he's naked and wet and she's standing in front of him, fully clothed and dry and really drunk. Had she not been completely frick-faced, she'd probably taken a better look at the entire image to get some better memories out of it for later (hey, if she was already embarrassing herself, she might as well have gotten something out of it).

Later, not when she leans forward and presses her lips against his and doesn't stop until he kisses back and her hands are in his hair and she's feeling a little non-alcoholic lightheadedness.

She doesn't know what comes over her, but somehow she still has a few braincells left and manages to stop before doing any more damage. Not before she takes a few steps back (him standing there naked and wet and very naked and dumbfounded) and lets him know that, "You're welcome."

He's about to open his mouth when she puts up a hand, swallowing tightly with a disgusted look on her face, "I think I'm going to throw up."

.

She expected to wake up in a bathtub downstairs, with a damp shirt, a disgusting taste in her mouth and her glasses hanging in her hair. Instead, she's in Oliver's bed, shirt damp from her husband's shower-water or from panic alcohol sweat—she's not entirely sure—disgusting taste in her mouth and her glasses on the nightstand beside her.

She faintly feels a pounding headache and some crippling nausea, but the unmistakable sensation of shame oozing from every inch of her skin is undeniably worse.

"Oh no," she growls, slowly sitting up to find out she's only wearing one shoe, "Oh God, no." She puts a hand to her forehead and prays for a serious case of amnesia. She can't keep kissing Oliver when she's drunk! Especially not when he's in a shower and she's in love with him and he doesn't know and he's naked and she's not a better person than she is right now.

She wishes she didn't remember, because that would've been super convenient. Apparently, the universe capital h, a, t, e, and let's see, s—HATES—her and she's a bad person and she deserves this.

The aspirin and glass of water on the nightstand are just taunting her.

After an additional twenty minutes to think about 1) how much the universe must hate her 2) how much she hates herself and 3) what Oliver must think of her, she finds the courage and the stomach to get out of bed and preferably into a different life or an alternative timeline of the embarrassing life she already has.

She stocks up on enough bottles of water and protein bars in the basement to last a zombie apocalypse, ready to kill her hangover and possibly, herself. She's managed to successfully tiptoe past a kitchen full of Russians, Oliver's office and two of their living rooms when she hears heavy footsteps emerging from right around the corner. The corner she needs to pass to get to the stairs so she can safely enter her room and lock herself in there for the next 48 painful hours of regret, shame and hungover.

Panicking (looks like she still doesn't have that thing down, how do they call it? calming down), she dives over the nearest couch and presses herself into it so tightly, that by the end of it, her butt might actually be permanently imprinted on the white flowery print that reminds her of nursing homes and those rich people on the titanic.

"Felicity?" She can just hear Oliver's smug, amused smile from somewhere directly behind and above her. She lets out a long sigh as she sits up, casually trying to fix her hair and praying she looks more hot mess than trainwreck, because that's all the hope there is for her at the moment.

"Oliver," she acknowledges him, literally biting down on her tongue to keep from asking him a million questions about last night or stumbling through an apology that won't make any sense because she can't think straight when he's standing there so casual, hands on the backrest as he grins at her while she's nursing the world's biggest hangover since the movie franchise that went on two movies too long.

"Rough night?"

Still, she'd like to try that second option. "Kind of. Look, Oliver," she grimaces, pressing her palms together, internally screaming, "I don't want to lie again and pretend like I don't know what I did last night. Just know that I'm so sorry about what happened, I feel so bad and I genuinely mean that. Like I don't usually make a habit out of sexually harassing men—people—husband! Naked husbands. My naked husband." She pauses, shaking her head quickly (what is wrong with her) as she hopes the hung-over paleness is washing out her blush considerably. "Anyway—I don't know what came over me, Sara thought getting me drunk was funny and then, like you know firsthand, I make some really bad decisions while intoxicated."

Unlike their usual conversations in which he cracks one to two smiles (seriously, it's like he has a limit of smiles per day and will not make any exceptions for anyone)—if she's lucky—he's still grinning the same smug, almost teasing smile, as he sits down next to her, "I get it. You think of me when you're drunk, it's endearing, really."

Her neck flushes as she sinks further back into the couch, pulling her knees closer to her body as she hides her face in a pillow, "Oh my god, please shut up, I want to die." but since it's muffled it sounds more like "ohmwwygawdplweasshwutupashjdksehk" or something.

"Well, if you ever want to try it while you're sober, you know I'm here for you," he counters, putting his hand in between them. She sits up carefully as she looks at him, suspicious. It's not many times she encounters playful, teasing Oliver and never does he suggest a make-out session. She might still be drunk, God knows what was in that cocktail.

"I…" she starts, but doesn't really know how to finish as she looks at him with wide eyes, clutching the pillow to her chest. Her brain is short-circuiting and there's nothing she can do but gape at him like the idiot she is.

He leans in and like a deer caught in the headlights, she scrambles away and onto her feet. Damnit. She balls her fists at her side, squeezing her eyes shut. "Oliver. You honestly do not know how long I've waited for this moment to come."

"Okay?" He looks confused, and it's adorable and it just makes her want to kiss him more and that's very counterproductive.

"So you understand that I can't kiss you with hung-over morning breath, looking like I just lost a triathlon to a bulldozer while being electrocuted."

"I understand. You'd rather kiss me when you're halfway on your way to being hospitalized for alcohol poisoning so you have an excuse on why you're attacking me." He leans back onto the couch, arms crossed and challenging, smug look on his face.

"Attacking you?" She raises her eyebrows, huffing as she crosses her arms. "I might've been the drunk one, twice, but you were the sober one, twice, and you kissed me back, twice. I'm usually pretty great at math but my brain is floating in, what I sincerely hope, was a FDA authorised cocktail so I think you can figure it out by yourself this time."

"Well," he concludes, standing up, and towering over her as always, smirking, "Don't say I didn't offer." She feels like she just lost a game she didn't even know she was playing.

She stands there, gaping to herself (in offence, totally) as he walks away. She feels like she just entered an alternative universe, which was technically what she wished for, so she shouldn't complain, and she isn't, because it's Oliver, offering to kiss her. And she rejected him because she hadn't brushed her teeth and combed her hair yet.

Way to go, Felicity, that makes sense.

.

"So now we're alone," Thea gushes after half an hour of her babbling on about literally nothing ("the walls are so white here, like not even a normal white, it's just so white and boring. boring white walls." "the vending machine only sells organic chocolate which is disgusting. have you ever had organic chocolate? it's organic which means no sugar which means I'd rather swallow my own hair" "I had a dream about elephants yesterday and nurse hippie informed me it means I can deal with any obstacle I'm facing") so Oliver didn't have the chance to lecture her. That, or, Felicity guesses, she's still on drugs.

Which seems unlikely, since they're only here because the doctor finally allowed them two hours after 28 days of rehab. He wants her to stay here even longer, surrounded by the white, boring walls. God, Felicity would lose it here. They don't even have Wi-Fi. But, she agrees with Oliver. The longer she stays here, the better the chance she fully recovers. "What's up?"

"Well, nothing really happened. We had mac and cheese last night, which I had to practically harass Raisa about for three weeks because it went against her 'Russian cooking standards' or whatever. Oh, Roy and I watched 'pretty in pink' because I made him and he cried. It was honestly the best thing ever. Sara—"

"As much as I love to hear about you making people cry," she sits up, pulling her knees to her chest, feet covered in fluffy bright yellow slippers as she smiles excitedly, "I meant with you and Ollie."

"Uhhh…" Her eyes widen as she manages to almost choke on her own tongue, trying to come up with an answer. Any answer that doesn't involve her talking about Oliver with Thea. "Me, me? Me and Ol-Oliver?" She stumbles over the words, trying to give her brain more time to think as she gestures wildly, fixating her gaze on the door as if to send Oliver a telepathic message to get his ass back in the room, fast.

If possible, Thea's eyebrows disappear further into her hairline and Felicity inwardly groans at her own inability to come up with a witty response when she actually needs it.

Really, any answer would be cool. Any answer, instead she comes up with the one answer she didn't want to use. The truth. "I don't know, we're kind of friends? Sometimes we sleep together and we like spoon? And we do this thing where we joke and he treats me like an actual human being and a few days ago he asked me to make-out. I don't know if it was a joke or not, but it happened."

"Dude," Thea slaps down on Felicity's thigh, completely flabbergasted or excited or a weird combination of both. "Dude," she emphasizes, like Felicity is just supposed to know what that means. And she kind of does. Girls.

"I know."

"Dude."

"I know."

.

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