Outtake I

Six Months

Oliver knew he was being a bastard. He knew she would hate him. He knew she would probably never want to see his face again. But, nevertheless, he left the bed, their bed, grabbed a pen and paper and wrote two words.

I'm sorry.

She was still sleeping peacefully when he turned around one last time, trying to imprint her mess of a hair, her alabaster skin and her soft smile into his mind. He couldn't be sure if or when he would return. Maybe it would take him more time than she was ready to wait. Maybe when he return she would be walking with her hand inside another's man hand. And that deep cold feeling made him stop and almost turn around. But he couldn't. He couldn't live with the idea that their peace could be short lived. What if someone saw the mirakuru as the only way to bring the Arrow down? Or to seize control of a city? He was one of the people that knew how dangerous that thing could be in the wrong hands. And he was the one that could stop it.

Or thinking about the worse, he might never come back… that was the most probable fate to his mission: a cold death in a foreign country with no one to bury him.

No one knew what he was going to do, except for Lyla. And since she felt she had a debt to pay he knew she wouldn't tell until he was too far away to be stopped. Diggle would say something that would make him feel the lowest and give up, he was sure of it, and probably punch him until he passed out, just for good measure. And so, he made the woman promise to tell him as soon as she had any info about the ones behind the mirakuru research. He wouldn't put that investigation under Felicity's hand with all she had to do, but since he knew Lyla was heading a team to find them, she just had to warn him first and let the things happen.

Oliver grabbed the door knob, feeling the cold of the metal sip into his bones.

"Please, forgive me." he whispered, closing the bedroom door. It was asking too much. She should be free from his shadow, but he couldn't stop that small hope that maybe she would wait for him. Or even the smaller hope that he might survive and come back…

When she woke up, she yawned and stretched slowly, feeling the sleep numbness disappearing from her muscles. She turned around, expecting to see Oliver getting ready to work only to find an empty bed and an empty room. She sat and looked around, noticing the small note over his pillow.

Felicity smiled while stretching her hand to grab the paper. He probably left earlier to train and let her sleep in until it was time to go to work.

However, the words expecting her were not from someone that just left for a little bit. She could feel the deep meaning in those two words that made her heart sank.

Felicity quickly jumped from the bed and searched her phone.

"C'mon, pick up!" she urged while the rings echoed beside her ear.

He didn't pick up.

After trying his house and having the same result, she called Diggle.

"Do you know where Oliver is?" Felicity asked as soon as she heard her friends' deep voice.

"No, shouldn't he be with you? He told me you two would go to work together." Diggle replied, feeling that there was something deeply wrong in that. He could feel through Felicity's tone that something happened.

"I'm going to call Thea." Felicity said and before Diggle could say something else she hanged up on him.

But neither Thea or Sara or Roy or even Moira knew where Oliver was. And it wasn't until Diggle received a message from Lyla that he knew what was happening.

Call him.

And a phone number after the words.

When Oliver's voice answered, Dig felt all the air leave his lungs. He was alive!

And then the rage filled him.

"What the hell are you doing?" Diggle roared and he felt the deep intake of breath from his friend.

"I know where the responsible ones for the mirakuru research are…" Oliver answered simply and Diggle cursed.

"And what? Are you going to take them out all by yourself? What the hell, man? Why couldn't you tell us? Do you know how worried Felicity is?" Diggle asked.

"I know all of that, and I also know that she would want to go with me. And that's why I couldn't tell any of you… Lyla gave me the info just hours before I left… I wouldn't be able to lie to either of you if I knew beforehand… I'm protecting you…" Oliver sighed and Diggle frowned.

"By putting yourself in danger… What do you want me to say to Felicity? That you didn't trust our abilities? That we would be nuisances?" Diggle asked and Oliver felt his gut wrench. This was exactly why he didn't tell Diggle, the man had an uncanny ability to make him feel bad and step back from his less than optimal plans. This time he was just too late for that.

"No, I didn't want you here, because I can't guarantee all of us would be safe…" Oliver replied.

A few heartbeats later, Diggle cursed inwardly. The silence was now too oppressive.

"So, you are sacrificing yourself…" Dig whispered, feeling the oxygen evaporate from the room. Oliver didn't want them there, not because he didn't trust them, but because he was sure it would be a suicide mission.

"What do you want me to tell her?" Dig asked. He wanted to say a lot of things, like Don't do that!, Wait for help!, Think about Thea and Felicity! But he knew Oliver was doing this exactly for the two women, to let them have some kind of a peaceful future. Even if he was not in that future.

"Just…" his voice embargoed in his throat. "Just take care of her… and Thea… I will try my hardest to come back…" Oliver said and before Diggle could say something else the other side of the line went silent.

Diggle found himself faced with one of the hardest choices he had to make. A) He could tell Felicity the man she loved was going to get himself killed, and stop her hopes from growing, or B) tell her he would come back and was just acting like an overprotective boyfriend keeping her away.

He was still unsure of what to say when he reached the foundry, after receiving a text from Sara to come over.

When he heard the grunts of rage echoing inside the place, he peaked to see Felicity and Sara training with each other, while Roy trained his aim with a bow.

As soon as the group heard Diggle's footsteps they stopped and looked at him expectantly. He looked only at Felicity. And as soon as he did that, he knew that she knew.

"Lyla talked to me…" she said simply and turned her back on Diggle to keep punching the training dummy.

"Felicity…" the man said, reaching his arm to touch her shoulder.

The woman froze and her movements stopped.

"He thought we would be weak spots…" she whispered and Dig's plan of giving her the second answer crumbled.

"No…" he said. "He didn't tell us, because he thinks it is a suicide mission…" Diggle said and Felicity turned around quicker than he thought possible, her ponytail whipping against her face and neck.

"What?" Felicity replied and Diggle felt like the world fell over his shoulders while he recounted his conversation with Oliver.

Felicity was silent the entire time. However, what scared John the most were her eyes. They looked far away and empty, the brilliance of her blue irises lost.

"Felicity..." Sara whispered, while trying to reach her shoulder. But the other woman was quicker and turning around she left the foundry.

Dig ran behind her. An upset Felicity he knew what to expect from, but she was as far away from upset as Roy was from finishing "War and Peace".

Diggle reached her when she was fumbling with her car keys. He grabbed her hands and made her turn around.

"You can't drive like that." he said and he felt her frame tremble.

"I need to be alone, please." Felicity said in a stable tone. "Just for a few hours." she completed, before letting the keys fall over his outstretched fingers.

Diggle realized she needed to be all by herself. She had to face her new reality and what it meant. A reality where Oliver might not have a part in.

But Diggle couldn't believe it. He knew his friend too well and there was no one fiercer than Oliver Queen, especially if it was an Oliver Queen trying to come back to a younger sister and a babbling girlfriend. He knew his friend would do the impossible to return. He wouldn't leave Felicity and Thea alone. He would come back.

While walking through the busy city, Felicity found herself in front of QC. She stopped and almost reached her hand to push the enormous glass door.

But something stopped her.

She didn't know if it was the perspective of entering the place where she spent so much time with Oliver, or just the oppressive feeling of seeing his empty office.

Their empty office.

A space they shared, where he smiled at her through the glass separating them when he saw her drinking coffee while he was left empty handed.

A space where she liked to wave at him and mimic their hidden messages, while he was at a meeting.

And a place where, when there was no one else around, she liked to sit in his leather couch, with her tablet over her knees preparing some mission or a meeting, while he finished reading an email and then gazed at her, until she looked up and presented him with her shy smile.

Felicity closed her eyes for seconds and then opening them again, she turned around and walked the five miles until she reached her apartment.

Walking gave her time to think… even if the thoughts running around her mind were far away from happy ones.

Even with everything that happened in the past, she never conceived the idea of him dying… hurting yes, but the inevitably of dying, the no-return, the buried part, never…

But he wouldn't die!

He was Oliver Queen, he survived five years in a hellish island, he survived bullet wounds, knife wounds, fire, water, beatings… and he always came back to her…

She couldn't think like that!

He was her Oliver!

And for all those months, she waited.

She waited without knowing if he was alive or dead. She would walk into Queen Consolidated to see Moira behind Oliver's desk and a sense of despair would fill her chest every day. Not that the woman said anything to her to make her feel like that. Actually, it was like their face to face at Queen Mansion, when Felicity tried to make Moira tell the truth about Thea never happened. She would act like a formal CEO, but never hurtful. Felicity couldn't be sure if it was because Moira knew Oliver and she had a relationship or if Walter's constant visits kept the woman from forgetting Felicity was friends with her former husband and still loved one. And she wanted to stay on his good side. Maybe she even thought that Felicity's actions were brave… but for all the good she was at reading Oliver, Moira Queen was a much harder nut to crack.

Thea would pop out from time to time, always waiting for her downstairs and Felicity wondered how the younger woman avoided her mother while living under the same roof. She wondered if she spent more nights at Roy's than her own house.

And Felicity trained.

She trained until she fell over the mats in exhaustion, the beeping of her computers as soundtrack. She would train until her latest research alerted her of new info and then, there she was, their Oracle, their omnipresent voice, guiding them and helping them defy fate.

Sara and Diggle continued the training she started after Felicity left the hospital, helping her built her self-awareness and using her small body and speed to surprise her attacker and win the match. Even Roy trained with her once, but since he was too fearful of attacking her, he wouldn't do more than circle around her and try to grab her. She loved the boy, but he was too worried about her safety to really be a good sparring match. Sara, in that field, was much better. She knew what it meant to be a woman in a men's world, and she knew how to rise from that and show just how badass she could be. And Felicity was ready to take the other woman's advice very seriously. Since Dig could see she was in good hands, he started training with Roy, helping him guide his strength, a work Oliver left half done and that the former soldier was ready to finish.

And then, in that rainy day, when she forgot her umbrella at home and while running towards QC after her lunch, she found him, in front of the big doors made of glass.

Felicity skidded, her heart hammering inside her chest. It was like the rain suddenly stopped and the only sound she could hear was the rush of blood inside her head. She didn't want to believe, because believing meant hope and hope meant disappointment when the man would turn and she saw it was not him. It wouldn't be the first time it happened…

And then he really turned around and faced her and it was like a brand new shot of adrenaline was punched into her chest. She had tunnel vision, she only saw him. His downcast eyes that started at her feet and rose, observing all of her body, the dark shadows under his eyes, almost looking like bruises, showing how haggard he was. His hollow cheeks displaying his cheekbones in a sickening way. She felt her stomach flip and she had to suppress the gasp of anguish. She was ready to run into his arms when the glass door opened and she saw Diggle. He was frozen, eyeing the newcomer like he couldn't believe.

And in a flashback those six months came back to her and she felt rage bubbling inside her.

Felicity stomped towards Oliver and before anyone could do or say anything she swung her arm and her fist connected with his jaw. Oliver and Diggle were left speechless, observing her small frame trembling under the rain.

"YOU JERK!" she yelled, before grabbing his already bruising jaw and kissing him fiercely.

She wanted to be mad at him, she wanted to kick him and punch him again, but she couldn't. His face, the thing she dreamed every night for the last six months, showed all the predicaments he had to go through and she couldn't pile her own frustrations into that, at least not now.

She would talk to him and once and for all make him understand they were a team and he couldn't gallantly go into an unknown place to sacrifice himself.

If one goes, all of them go!

But for now, she melted into his arms, noticing that his muscles seemed feebler than she remembered, if such a word could ever be applied to Oliver Queen, and archived that information for a latter conversation.

"Let's go home." Felicity whispered and Oliver touched her forehead with his own. Unknown to them, Diggle ran toward the garage, ready to take them wherever they wanted. They couldn't feel the rain anymore, the way their warmness sipped into each other.

"Don't you have work to do?" Oliver asked. He wanted nothing more than stay with her, but he was done messing with her life. He pulled her under the small protection in front of QC and looked up to observe the higher floors.

"Your mother will understand when she knows the reason." Felicity says and Oliver sighs.

"I'm sorry I left you with her." he says and Felicity shakes her head.

"She never treated me badly. And besides, we needed to keep a cover." she answers and Oliver looks at her curiously.

But before Felicity could continue a black car stopped in front of them.

Diggle stepped out, the rain running through his black jacket and opened the door for them.

"Mr. Queen." he said with a clipped expression, while the couple ran inside.

And after starting the car once again, he continued.

"At least someone kept the black driver." Dig said with mirth and Oliver rolled his eyes. He could imagine Felicity's reaction to being driven to and from work.

"So what is the cover?" he asked.

"We told your mother you had burnout, with all that happened with Thea and all the responsibilities and Blood's death, you couldn't stay here longer, so you left to be alone."

Moira knew Blood was a friend of Oliver, she knew he died and she had no idea the part he played in Thea's kidnap or who Slade Wilson really was.

"And what was the story she told the investors?"

"That you were working in QC's Asian branch." Felicity said. It wouldn't take a brainer to know Moira wouldn't let the public know Oliver had a psychological break down, it would look bad on her part as Mayor and Queen Consolidated.

Oliver nodded his head. He needed to have a serious conversation with his mother, needed to regain his place as CEO and finally put his life in the right track.

"And Roy and Sara?" he asked and Felicity started telling about her training with Sara and how Roy found a calm mentor in Diggle.

"What should I say? The kid likes me better." Dig said from the front and Felicity smiled at her friend.

She knew Diggle needed and would have a serious conversation with Oliver, just like she needed to do, but for now, they were happy the mission was over and Oliver was back. Both of them saw the toll it took on him, the way his eyes still jumped from place to place and how his body changed in the months apart.

Diggle recognized the way Oliver acted, it was like the time when he came back from the island for the first time. The way his muscles tensed, like a wild animal, ready to pounce or run. And he knew Felicity could feel that too, he noticed the way her fingers stroke his hand when his muscles tensed to a taxi driver's reckless move in front of their car.

Every mission took something from any soldier, Diggle knew it better than anyone. And it gave something back, not always what you would desire or wish, but something that turned part of you, even if you don't notice it.

The protective stance Oliver had on Felicity and the way his eyes softened when she spoke made it clear to Diggle that maybe this last mission was a blessing in disguise. Probably for the first time, Oliver Queen fought, not because he wanted to avenge his father, his friend or his sister, but because he had someone to come back to.

And the first outtake is done. What do you think?