Oliver

It was an odd feeling, walking through the place he called home yet feeling a stranger none-the-less. There was an emptiness, even though most recent memories from the Queen mansion were depressing ones.

And to walk beside the charmingly charismatic Kylamanne made him feel more out of place. He was surprised to find out that she chose as her sleeping quarters not his parents' bedroom, but his own. It was at once both pleasantly surprising and creepy. There was not much of a footprint that he had left behind, so sterile had the room been the last few years of his life, but it had been his room.

"I'm sorry," Oliver spoke as he realized that Kylamanne had asked him a question and was waiting for an answer.

She laughed. "Are you always this absentminded? Or are you simply distracted?"

Oliver smiled embarrassingly. "Just reminiscing. You know how sentimental our male gender gets sometimes."

"Now you are just being sarcastic, Mr. Queen. Are you always this charming?" He thought with her tone it could have been a construed as jovial, but he was having a hard time reading her expression.

Oliver was too tired to respond. "What was it that you had asked me earlier?" he changed the subject. He would not mind a drama-free evening.

"I was asking if you would like to go ahead and shower now. Feel free to use your old bathroom, you know, for sentimental reasons." She winked.

"I can use the guestroom," Oliver offered.

"Didn't know you had reservations about anything, Mr. Queen." She looped her arms around his boldly. "But if you did, I wish it wasn't about something so trivial as this. I insist. We are here, just go in and clean up." Her body was warm and inviting, and for once, he gave in. It was, as she had stated, a trivial matter after all.

Felicity

Oliver was not answering his phone. And the texts he sent were vague tonight. There was none of his usual intensity when he was out scouting the city for illicit activity. Instead, they were quite, oh what's the word . . . domestic for him. Or was the word she was looking for 'mundane'.

Cleaning up.

Grabbing a bite.

Checking something out.

Will call soon.

While he had been unusually withdrawn the past week, this was taking it to a whole new level. It was unlike him to give so few details as to his whereabouts. It almost seemed to her that he was distracted.

And Malcolm Merlyn's interjections did not help. "Maybe life took a turn for the better for him and he found it cathartic to converse with people outside of Team Arrow."

Felicity rolled her eyes. It was one of the few nights she had decided to dedicate to Team Arrow instead of Ray, and she was kind of miffed by Oliver's tardiness. She couldn't help herself and turned on the GPS tracker on Oliver's cell phone.

To her surprise, the Queen mansion showed up on the screen.

"What's he doing at his old place?" she wondered out loud.

Diggle let out an amused noise. "Huh, didn't think him to be the sentimental type."

"There's nothing there left for him, is there?" Roy asked, concerned.

"Just wanted to remind you that spying on your boss does not promote team bonding," Merlyn commented.

"He's not our boss," the team voiced all at once.

"He's a partner," Felicity added.

"What kind of a partner?" Merlyn asked, feigning an interested now, to which Felicity ignored him.

"What are you getting at, Merlyn? Because you obviously have things in those black depths of your mind that you want to spill out," Thea looked directly at him.

"I'm just saying that Oliver may feel a little out of the loop lately, seeing as everyone has their own agenda which mostly does not involve him. I would cut him a little slack. You can't complain about him being himself, deprive him of his leadership in this enterprise, which mind you he started, exclude him from the more important aspects of your lives, and then put him on a leash. Just seems wrong."

"Is it just my sensitivity or are we being judged by a world class douche bag," Thea spat angrily.

Merlyn sighed. "Just telling it like I see it."

"You can keep your vile opinions to yourself," Roy closed the subject.

Suddenly, Felicity remembered something Ray had mentioned. Kylamanne had expressed interest in residing in the Queen mansion, had she not? Felicity had seen, well actually searched for, but that was beside the point, photos of Kylamanne earlier. Was it curiosity for an outside woman investing in one of Starling City's most successful enterprises? Regardless, the woman actually reminded her of her more youthful days, when she fashioned her goth look. Except in this case, Kylamanne owned the look.

A jab of unease ran through her.

"What is it, Felicity?" Diggle noticed.

"A new potential business partner of Ray's has just moved into that house," Felicity spoke.

"And?" Diggle urged.

"She just creeps me out," she finished weakly.

"She?" Roy raised an eyebrow, sympathetically.

Merlyn rolled his eyes. "Don't tell me you're jealous. And I mean Oliver, not Ray."

"What? No," Felicity shot back.

"Is being a constant annoyance part of your role here? Because if that is the case, you are welcome to leave," Thea demanded.

Kylamanne

Kylamanne lay the worn male denim jeans down on the bed casually as she attuned her ears to the bathroom adjoining her room. She smiled triumphantly, still reeling from her exceptionally good fortune. She expected, anticipated, much more difficulty in tracking down Oliver Queen once she got to Starling City. Not that he was that reclusive, but he no longer owned Queen enterprises or any of its extensions.

In actuality, it was a feat to generate this façade of a wealthy entrepreneur to infiltrate the previous Queens Consolidated, especially when she had not a single penny in her pocket nearly three years ago . . . when Oliver Queen had miraculously reappeared into civilization.

And what a story it was. She lived nowhere near Starling City. And yet, what should not have been such a sensational story in her town became THE talk of her town, thousands of leagues away. She did not know what it was about the story that seemed to resonate on such a primal level. It could not have been his fascinating personality, almost bipolar in nature, at times reckless like a cornered cat, and yet on other occasions, showing such restraint as to shame the royal family.

Was the fascination with him the fact that even though he never truly professes anything to the public, his personal life is utterly exposed, magnified even, for the public to enjoy? And was his a story of heroic survival or that of a fall from grace?

So, Kylamanne began to delve into this research project that was Oliver Queen. He, after all, was the perfect specimen, the epitome of what she despised most about the opposite gender—disgustingly wealthy, excessively privileged, completely irresponsible, and blessed with an impossibly alluring shell to cover up his rotten core. She would unravel him, like unraveling a sweater with a loose thread.

And once done, she would use him as he was meant to be used: no more than an empty, albeit pretty, shell whose only purpose would be for mere physical satisfaction. But she will not fall for him. She would not give him that satisfaction. Objects this addictive should not have the opportunity to corrupt.

She stole a glance in the direction of the bathroom. It was a stroke of luck, really. She had installed the video camera in there more out of paranoia than anything else, mostly to keep tabs on her pions. But it was turning out to give her much better returns. She would have quite a bit of footage to sift through tonight. She had always been fascinated by his scars, but the few photos she was able to retrieve had not enough details to determine how he got them. No doubt, he commanded a violent past, and she wondered how many died in their attempts to overtake him, only to leave a meager scar as evidence of their futile efforts.

Which made her goal at hand all the more enticing.