Prompt: "I did not know I loved you until I heard myself telling you so - for one instant I thought, 'Good God, what have I said?' and then I knew it was the truth." - Unknown
Post-ep 2x23 - Oliver POV
Written for the Olicity Hiatus Project

There have been a lot of unexpected moments in my life. Nothing has turned out as I'd planned.

When I was young my plan was simply not to have a plan. I didn't think about anything beyond the here and now. Then the Queen's Gambit went down and I ended up on Lian Yu and everything changed. Those years on (and off) the island, I may have lived day to day, never sure how long I would survive, but I started to plan. I thought about my father and his list and how I would make things right if I ever got back to Starling.

Things went according to plan for a while. I became the Hood (lame name not withstanding) and I started to cross names off the list. Then Diggle joined me, and Felicity. Tommy found out, and things started to fall apart. I hadn't wanted my two worlds to collide but they did anyway. I tried to stop the Undertaking, but I failed. I came up with a new plan- get the hell out of Starling. I was tired of destroying everything I touched.

I hadn't planned on Isabel Rochev trying to destroy Queen Consolidated. I should have planned for Dig and Felicity to come after me, but I didn't. Still, I allowed them to drag me home. I couldn't be the Hood anymore, but together we found another way.

Team Arrow (I still hate that name) changed me. They changed my plans. I had planned to do it all alone; I had planned to cross names off the list- nothing more. They made me a hero, they made me the Arrow.

I didn't think I could be a good man after all that I'd done. I'd never thought of myself as a hero. I was a killer, there was blood on my hands. I was trying another way, but I didn't know if I could succeed.

So many unexpected things had happened over the last year. Finding out Slade was alive, discovering Sara was alive, Barry Allen, Laurel and my mother learning my secret, discovering Merlyn was Thea's father, and learning I'd slept with the same woman my father had had an affair with. However, despite all of those things, what caught me off guard the most were my own feelings.

I thought that Slade Wilson would be the end of me, that he would be the end of Starling. I was prepared for it, I was ready to die. He was stronger than I was, and unlike my plans which seemed to fail time and again, his plans always seemed to succeed. He'd killed my mother, he'd taken Queen Consolidated, and he'd driven Thea away. I was ready to give up.

Fortunately I had surrounded myself with people who weren't so ready to give up. Felicity believed in me, she believed that I could find another way, so I came up with one last plan. A plan that finally worked.

I took Felicity to the mansion, and we put on a show for the cameras, saying our lines just as we'd practiced. We had sold the lie, and Slade bought it, and it had been his end.

The only problem was that it hadn't been a lie. In that moment, as the words "I love you" tumbled from my lips, I realized that it was the truth. I loved Felicity.

I had denied my feelings for so long, convinced myself it was nothing more than simple attraction. We were friends and we were partners, but it could never be more than that. I wasn't sure that I was capable of love, not anymore. Not since the island.

Yet, somehow I loved her. I loved her in a way that I had never loved anyone before. She knew me, she knew all of me. She saw the blood on my hands, but she didn't turn away.

Saying those words to her released something inside of me, something that I couldn't deal with in that moment. I still had a job to do, so I left her and I went to fight the good fight.

And when it was all over and we stood on the beach together, I couldn't believe that I hadn't realized my feelings before. I listened to her babble; to her calling us "unthinkable" and I could barely contain the smile on my face, because she was right, it had been unthinkable. I hadn't seen her coming, I hadn't anticipated falling in love with her, and yet I had. But it wasn't the right time, I wasn't ready for her yet, so I said nothing.

Now, though, I have a new plan; become the man that Felicity deserves, and this is one plan that I will make sure goes right.