A/N: Thanks for so patiently waiting for an update on this one. I started it almost immediately after the first chapter (with some prodding) and then edited it over and over again. Also, I should warn you that it's a doozy. My usual chapters are around 1k, this is over 5k.

I don't plan on continuing it after this, but never say never.

Six Months Later

Felicity had spent the better part of the last six months sticking to her guns. She wasn't proud of the way she had shunned Oliver that cold night in front of her apartment. She also wasn't sure she would have put it to him in that way if she hadn't been mostly drunk and angry at the time. Let it be noted that rage, bravado and alcohol do not mix. Although, depending on your end goal, maybe they do. Either way, it was clear to her that what had transpired between them that night had effectively put the kibosh on any semblance of a romantic relationship.

Oliver had continued his work as the Arrow and Digg, Roy, Thea, and Laurel all helped by pulling their weight. Ray even got in on the crime-fighting action and that's when Felicity's life took a different turn.

Ray finally finished the ATOM suit, and Felicity had been an integral part in its completion. (She giggled a bit wickedly to herself thinking about just how she had helped him reach "completion.") Helping Ray finish the suit was something she was proud of, and the resulting closeness she had shared with him because of it was something she had needed during that season of her life.

She didn't regret sleeping with him. It was something that had needed to happen for her to understand how she really felt about him. At the end of the day, he was a wonderful friend and someone she could talk tech with endlessly, but that was all. It took her some time to figure out that the fire and passion she needed in a romantic relationship were missing, but once she did, it made their mutual parting a few months later nearly painless.

She hadn't seen it then for what it was, but now, in hindsight, she could see how every twist and turn in her relationship with Oliver had driven her right into Ray's arms. It disgusted her to think about it now, knowing she had been blind to her own psychological pitfalls. She had simply traded one hero for another. But, if she were being honest with herself, her heart had never been fully on board with the switch in the first place.

When she had accompanied Ray to Central City to introduce him to Barry and his team, she had expected it to be fun. Exposing people to Barry's particular skill set was a favorite pastime of Felicity's, and Ray's reaction had not disappointed. "Are you KIDDING ME?!" he had shouted, eyes huge in amazement. It was the closest she had ever seen a man come to having a fangirl moment. He had been, quite literally, blown away.

But complications had arose during their visit. Namely, Felicity had been caught in the crosshairs of a very nasty metahuman and landed herself in the hospital. To hear Digg tell it, it was nearly his undoing, as he had sat silently by while she coded in the ER. It was serious enough of an affair that her mother had flown in from Vegas to be with her for a time.

Digg hadn't bothered to tell her how Oliver had handled it. He hadn't needed to. Every visit from Digg or any of the other team members, made it clear they were asking after her for him, too. He had never showed up himself, to her knowledge, and for the longest time she had been frustrated by his absence. After all they had been through, despite their recent estrangement, she thought he would come eventually. But to her disappointment, he had stayed away.

Ray had born the brunt of the guilt for what had happened to Felicity. It was as though he had been forced to relive the trauma of Anna dying all over again. When Felicity was finally stable and he could see her, he had tearfully apologized, begged for forgiveness and then told her he was going to stay in Central City. It was what was best for him and for her, he had told her. It was a much bigger city than Starling and the special skills the suit gave him would be an asset to Barry against any rogue metahumans.

For a while, Palmer Industries carried on without him at the helm. Felicity ran the show as best as she could with Ray fighting crime 600 miles away, but eventually it became too much for her, and Ray had to make some tough decisions.

He offered to sell the business back to the Queens, both of them, and without trying to think too much about where the money was coming from, Thea and Oliver bought the company back.

Oliver was back to being in charge of Queen Consolidated and Felicity somewhat reluctantly took up her post next to him again, with a lot of prodding from Diggle, but this time as the VP she had been for Ray. Thea was involved this time around, too, but it still meant that Oliver and Felicity were back to spending an awful lot of time together.

Felicity had kept her emotional walls in place for months. To his credit, Oliver hadn't tried to wear them down. After that awful night at her place, he had given her the space she needed. He didn't touch her. He kept his interactions with her strictly professional. At first, it had almost felt unnatural, because as long as Felicity had known him, there had been something personal about their relationship, especially when they had worked together at Queen Consolidated.

She had eventually gotten used to it, though. Ray had been an essential distraction then. Now that he was gone, and her time with Oliver had quadrupled in a matter of days, she was able to see more clearly what the boundaries she had imposed had done to the closeness she used to share with Oliver and she wasn't convinced it was what she wanted for them anymore.

She knew that she wasn't the only one who had needed time to sort things out. Oliver had been on a necessary journey of self-discovery these past months, too. When he had gone to Nanda Parbat to rescue Merlyn, he had convinced everyone that it was only for Thea.

He had looked directly into Felicity's eyes that night. It had been the first time he had done so in weeks and it had surprised her how deeply he could still move her. He had to have seen the pain simmering there just below the surface, ready to break through at the slightest provocation, and he had asked her to help him anyway. She had complied, but she had felt like she was trading away pieces of her soul to do it.

When Oliver had come back, with a tale more wild and frightening than anything she could have imagined, her heart had splintered into a thousand pieces. She wasn't sure if she would have preferred him dead to watching him contemplate the offer Ra's had put before him. She had thought that his decision to work with Malcolm had compromised his integrity, but this was a wholly different ball of wax. She had a front row seat to his painfully slow descent into darkness. She could feel the Oliver she loved slipping away and the pain had only been slightly dulled, at the time, by Ray's effervescent excitement over the ATOM. That, and frequent visits to Central City for Barry pick-me-ups. (That boy could make the Grumpy Cat smile; she was sure of it.)

The relief that had settled over the entire team when the spell Ra's had cast over Oliver was finally broken had been palpable. When he chose to renew his commitment to being a hero, and turned away completely from the darkened Arrow he had turned into as a result of Malcolm's masterful manipulation, everyone happily embraced him. They exuberantly celebrated his return to the Oliver they knew and loved.

Felicity had been truly happy for him, but had kept her old feelings at bay, only allowing herself to feel joy for him as a friend and nothing more.

When he had retaken his rightful place at the head of Queen Consolidated once again, it finally felt as though all was right with the world. Well, as right as the world would ever be, sharing office space with a vigilante.

It was a strange place she found herself in. She had cruelly cut him out of her life, at a time when he probably needed her support the most. She had rationalized it then as self-preservation and told herself that because she wasn't leaving the team in the lurch, she wasn't leaving him in the lurch, either. But now. Now that she could stare through the glass walls in her office at him, could feel his gaze on her from time to time as she pounded away on her keyboard, she was starting to wonder if she had handled it all wrong. Particularly in light of the way she was watching him blossom into Oliver Queen, an Oliver Queen even he could be proud of, right before her eyes.

He had truly assumed control of the company and it was the polar opposite of how things had been when Isabel Rochev had had her hooks in it. With all the extra help in the Foundry, he was able to make it to meetings on time and Felicity, with her new role as VP and Thea at her side to assist her, was able to hold down the fort and make more decisions on her own when Oliver couldn't be present.

But more than that, it was what she saw in him as a man that was softening her heart ever so slowly. He was smiling more. It wasn't uncommon for him to sit around with everyone in the Foundry, after patrol, and share anecdotes from the night and laugh with them all. Conversely, if something had gone wrong, he was less likely to shut down and keep everyone at bay. He would seek out Digg or Roy and they would hash out the unpleasantness before it had a chance to fester. As a whole, he seemed softer and more comfortable in his own skin and Felicity couldn't help but notice.

She was never one to dwell on what might have been. When her father left, it had devastated her, but she and her mom had picked up the pieces and kept moving. When everything with Cooper had happened, she had reinvented herself and, again, moved forward. When Ray had made his decision and moved to Central City, it didn't destroy her. There was no going back. There never would be. That didn't mean she couldn't be sorry about the past and say so, though.

After a particularly productive night of taking down drug dealers and armed robbers, the team returned to the Foundry, sans one Arrow. Felicity tried his com, but there was no answer.

"Digg? When'd you last see Oliver?" Felicity asked.

"Hmmm. We took down Marsden," he said, referring to a drug lord they had been tracking for some weeks, "And after that, the last I saw, he was on his bike headed back this way."

Felicity frowned, trying to process this new bit of information as rationally as possible. He would, occasionally, turn off his coms after patrolling and do his own thing, but he usually told her he was signing off. It was a common courtesy that the new and improved Oliver had gotten into the habit of doing. This could just be another one of those nights and he had simply forgotten to give her a head's up. For some reason, though, it didn't feel right to Felicity.

Digg noticed her frown, "I'm sure he's fine, but if you want to be extra sure, why don't you check his locator?"

"Yeah, I guess I could do that." She turned the monitor back on, intent on her task, telling herself she was only doing it so that she wouldn't worry all night. She was surprised to find that she was worried about him at all. It hadn't been her MO for quite some time.

The program finally popped up on the screen and she saw his locator blinking steadily a mere block away from the Foundry, but it wasn't moving.

Digg watched from over her shoulder. "See, he's fine."

Felicity scrunched her eyebrows together and pushed her nose closer to the screen, as though to make what was happening down on the street clearer. She stared at the pulsing red dot for over a minute and nothing happened, there was no movement at all. She turned to look at Digg, who was starting to sing a different tune, if the concerned expression on his face was any indication.

"I'm going to run up there and see what's going on," he told her. She nodded mutely, her lips pressed tightly together in a thin line, and turned in her chair to address the questioning looks of Laurel and Roy. "Oliver's locator has him a block from here and he's not moving. He's not answering his com, either. It's been a while now, so Digg's going to go check it out." She bit her bottom lip as she waited for Digg to report back.

A minute later, Diggle's voice came over the com, full of alarm, "He's here, Felicity, and he's banged up pretty badly! I need you to call an ambulance. It looks like a hit and run."

Felicity choked off a gasp and reached for her phone as she launched herself out of her chair and up the stairs. She urgently gave directions to the operator as she raced out into the street, Laurel and Roy not far behind her, scanning the darkened cityscape for Digg and Oliver. When she found them, her heart dropped into her stomach.

Digg was holding Oliver's masked head in his lap. The bike lay a few feet away, the rear tire mangled.

He hadn't seen it coming.

Felicity hit her knees hard next to Oliver and tried to read Diggle's pained expression. "How is he?" she asked, fear creeping into her voice.

"Honestly, Felicity, I'm not sure. He's unresponsive and as far as I can tell his leg is broken, but there could be more going on inside and I just can't see it."

Roy and Laurel had caught up just in time to hear Diggle's brief rundown of Oliver's injuries.

"I'll call Thea," Roy offered, and Felicity gave him a grateful nod.

The sound of a siren hit her ears as she picked up Oliver's limp hand. "Hang on, Oliver. Please." She bowed her head and looked into his darkened face, pushing aside the hood to see him more clearly. He had a big scrape down one side of his head that was quietly oozing blood into his collar.

"John!" Felicity exclaimed, eyes wide. "What about his mask? The Arrow gear? There's no time!"

The siren was noticeably closer now. Digg made quick work of Oliver's mask, wiping the grease paint from around Oliver's eyes as best he could with the edge of his shirt. Felicity started to grab at the arsenal attached to Oliver, then thought better of it, instead choosing to gently remove Yao Fe's hood, while Laurel and Roy stooped to help and made quick work of pulling off his quiver of arrows, tranquilizers, grappling hooks and anything else that might look like a weapon. He was still in the suit, but maybe the paramedics would think it was just a biker outfit without all the tools of his trade stuck to it. His bow had managed to remain attached to the bike through the collison and Felicity raced to pull it off, then tucked it out of sight behind a dumpster, with his other gear, as the ambulance pulled up.

Diggle gave the paramedics a brief rundown of what he knew of Oliver's condition and then stepped back to let them do their job.

"He's going to be upset when he wakes up. When he realizes we didn't take him back to the foundry," Felicity pointed out to him.

"We had no choice, Felicity. This is beyond the pale of what I can do. We did the right thing."

"I know," she whispered thickly.

One of the paramedics strapping Oliver to the gurney turned to them, "Is one of you going to ride along?"

"I will!" Felicity spoke up before Digg or the others had a chance to say anything. She was too busy climbing into the ambulance after the stretcher to see the knowing looks that passed between Diggle, Roy and Laurel.

Digg nodded to Felicity, tucked up into the ambulance next to Oliver, "We'll follow and see you there."

The ride to the hospital wasn't a long one, but it might as well have been years to Felicity. The paramedics bustled around Oliver, reciting medical stats to each other, hooking up an IV, and asking her questions she was surprised to know all of the answers to: blood type, had he been drinking, was he taking any drugs, did he have any family that needed to be notified?

They whisked Oliver away from her and into triage as soon as they got to the hospital. A kindly nurse grabbed her by the elbow and steered Felicity toward a depressing looking waiting area. She picked a tired, stained, beige chair in one corner, away from the few other sleepy looking people in the room and wrapped her arms tightly around her middle as she sat.

Her eyes were immediately fixated on the door the nurse had come from and didn't stray from it for an interminable length of time, so she didn't notice when Digg entered into the room from a door to her left and quietly dropped into the chair next to her.

"Any news?" he asked.

She jumped, shaken from her thoughts, and turned to frown slightly at him, "No. They just kicked me out and told me to wait. Pretty standard stuff," she answered glumly.

Roy, Laurel and an emotional Thea arrived next.

Felicity rose to hug her and Thea clung to her tightly, stifling a sob in Felicity's shoulder. "Is he going to be okay?" she asked, her voice quavering.

"We don't know anything yet. I'm so sorry." Felicity answered, dismayed to not have anything better to share. "It looks like it was a hit and run." She felt silly repeating things she was sure Thea already knew, but it was all she had to offer and for some reason, reciting what she knew was comforting.

Thea broke their embrace and gave Felicity a wobbly smile. "I'm just so grateful you guys found him, knew to look for him, ya know?"

"That was all Felicity," Digg interjected somberly, with a hint of pride. "I tried to just brush it off, but she had this feeling something was wrong."

Felicity looked sheepish for a moment, but then a man in scrubs, presumably the doctor working on Oliver, came in and headed straight for her. "The biker that came in earlier, he's yours?" he asked.

Felicity looked startled for a moment, then gathered her wits and said, "I'm his friend, but she," she gestured to Thea, "is his sister."

Thea stood rigidly next to Felicity, bracing for bad news. "His name is Oliver," Thea informed the doctor, "Oliver Queen."

The doctor raised his brows in recognition at the name and cleared his throat, "Well, Ms. Queen, your brother's a lucky man. He has a broken femur, which is no small thing, but it was a clean break and he has no internal bleeding. Aside from that he has a concussion, a few minor scrapes, and a bruised rib or two, I suspect, from the amount of bruising on his side. He-"

"Can we see him?" Felicity interrupted. Clearly, the anxiety she was feeling wouldn't be assuaged until she could see with her own eyes that he was going to be okay.

The doctor managed a half smile, obviously worn down from a long day, but attempting to be gracious, "Yes, BUT," he held up a cautioning hand, "Only one or two of you, please. He's heavily dosed with pain killers and only recently regained consciousness. Keep in mind he's not quite himself. And for God's sake, keep it brief. We're waiting for him to be out of shock before we work on his leg, but we do need to get him in to surgery soon."

They all nodded in understanding as he walked away. Thea started to follow after him and Felicity swallowed the panic rising in her chest. She looked at Diggle, wide-eyed and he nodded, understanding without words what she was asking.

She flew after Thea and said in an urgent flurry, "You can talk to him first. I won't rush you. I just...I really need to see him. To see that he's okay, I mean. But take your moment first, please."

Thea paused and took Felicity's hand. She gave it a reassuring squeeze and said, "Felicity, it's okay. I understand. You can come in with me and then I'll leave and give you a moment alone, okay?"

Felicity inhaled deeply through her nose, and closed her eyes briefly in relief, as she exhaled slowly, trying to calm her pounding heart. It was so nice to be understood so well by the people taking up space in her life. First Digg, now Thea.

They held hands as they walked into the bay Oliver was in. His eyes were closed, his hands resting limply at his sides. He was in an open hospital gown, nodes attached to his bare chest, and a light sheet covered him from the waist down. Felicity wondered at the doctor's restraint in not mentioning the scar tissue that was readily apparent on his torso, not to mention the rest of his body.

Thea gently cradled Oliver's right hand in both of hers. "Hey, Ollie," she said just loudly enough to be heard over the beeping monitors in the room.

Oliver's eyes reluctantly fluttered open and he smiled lazily at Thea. "Heeeey, Speedy! What brings you by?"

Hearing him attempt a joke brought broad smiles to both women's faces.

He cocked his head slightly then to see Felicity, hanging back, almost shyly, behind Thea.

"Hey, Felicity." Only it didn't sound much like "Felicity" at that moment and they both knew it. Those drugs were doing a number on his enunciation. Her smile widened, happy to hear his voice, no matter how slurred his speech was.

She walked around the end of the bed to come and stand at his left side. His lips turned up in a half smile when she reached him. He turned his unoccupied hand palm up and uncurled his fingers, in invitation. She hesitated for a second and then slid her palm flush against his.

It had been months since they had touched each other and the shudder of relief that flowed through her at feeling his warm, strong, ALIVE, hand under hers made tears prick at the backs of her eyes. She blinked furiously and he squeezed her hand with the gentlest of pressure. "I'm going to be fine, Felicity. I might need a ton of PT when this is over, but I'll be alright." He took a painful breath, needing a beat to collect himself, "Thank you," he said seriously.

"For what?" Felicity sniffed, dragging the cuff of her coat over her cheeks to wipe away the moisture that had collected there despite her best efforts.

"The doctor told me you were with me when the paramedics brought me in. I assumed you found me. Am I right?"

"More or less. You didn't answer your com and everyone else was already back. It didn't feel right, so Digg went up to check on you and the rest, as they say, is history."

"Thanks for listening to your gut." He smiled at her again and it was all she could do to not lean forward and kiss every square inch of his face right then and there.

Thea must have accurately read the moment because she cleared her throat from the other side of the bed. "Ollie, you gotta stop trying to get yourself killed. I mean it! I NEED you in my life!" she admonished, her voice thick with emotion.

"Hey, this wasn't even at the hands of a criminal. Although, I guess if it's a hit and run like they say, a criminal was involved, just not one I was aware of actively chasing. I'm okay, Thea. Or I'll be okay, eventually."

"Doesn't matter," Thea asserted. "You have to be more careful. Promise me."

He sighed good naturedly, wincing through a tinge of pain that made its way through the buffer of painkillers, as he said, "Anything for you, Speedy."

She leaned down and kissed him on the forehead and whispered, "I'm going to give you guys a moment." She squeezed his hand one last time, said, "I love you," then slipped out of the room.

Oliver shifted his gaze expectantly to Felicity, who was, it was worth noting, still holding his hand. She didn't shy away from his stare, but wondered, absently, if he could tell she was at war with herself. There were so many things she wanted to say to him, so much time lost. She just wasn't sure now was the appropriate time to bring up any of it.

"Felicity," he said, snapping her out of her inner monologue, "What's going on up there?"

His query was one of amusement and her lips turned up gratefully, touched that he still knew her so well. "There's a lot of stuff I want to say to you. I'm just trying to sort through and find the best, briefest, most concise, ONE thing I can say and then I'll go and let you rest."

"That doesn't sound like you. I'm going to need to hear a run on sentence or two and get a healthy dose of babbling in before any real healing is going to begin."

She nearly snorted at the possible double meaning behind his words. A dry chuckle escaped before she bit her bottom lip and attempted to fulfill his wish.

"When I checked your locator and saw you were just a block from the Foundry, but you weren't moving, at first, I didn't panic. After a minute, I started to get worried and Digg, too. That's when he ran up to see what was going on and..." her voice wavered and he squeezed her hand reassuringly. "He told me to call for an ambulance and I swear my heart stopped. After all that we've been through this year, I just, I guess I thought I wasn't as invested in you or...anything, as I used to be." She couldn't bring herself to say "us" just yet.

"I felt like Malcolm Merlyn had come to tell me you were dead all over again. And then to see you in the street, lying there- you've scared me more than once, during this crusade of ours, but you were so still and so obviously broken and Digg didn't know how to help you..." her voice trailed off as her emotions caught up with what she was saying.

"Hey," Oliver said in that knowing way of his, as his thumb rubbed over her hand reassuringly. "Shhhhhhhh."

She had closed her eyes again, feeling silly that he was the one comforting her when he was the one in the hospital. When she opened them again all she saw staring back at her was pure love. A love she had thought was long gone and one that she didn't expect to reciprocate ever again. It made her brave.

"Oliver, when I was in the hospital," she swallowed, "You never came to see me. I mean, I wa-"

"I came everyday," was his gentle rebuff, raising his free hand to keep her from interrupting. He smiled kindly as he continued, "But I only came at night when you were sleeping. I had to bribe the nurses, but I was there, Felicity. No one could have kept me away."

Again she was overwhelmed by the emotion she saw laid bare on his face. There were no walls up now, for either of them. "Why didn't you come when I was awake? I was so confused."

"Felicity, you were still with Ray, as far as I knew, and I- you had made it pretty clear that you didn't want me to be a part of your life. I was trying..." he took a beat, searching for the right words, "To be respectful. If I had gone to see you when you were awake, you would have seen all that I was feeling. I would have been helpless against telling you again how I felt and I didn't want to add to your stress."

"Oliver..." she sighed softly as she leaned down to him. Words finally failed her, and she allowed herself to gently rest her forehead against his.

He picked up the hand Thea had given up and brought it to rest on the back of Felicity's neck. He moved her thick ponytail to the side and gave her a light squeeze. She sucked in a quick breath, afraid to let it out for fear of breaking the spell.

"I'm so glad you're not dead, Oliver," she said thickly. "There really-"

She was suddenly cut off by his lips moving over hers.

Her breath caught again and rational thought left, while a myriad of other sensations and emotions bombarded her at once. The hand still holding his tightened its grip and Oliver reciprocated the pressure.

A throat cleared somewhere in the back of the room. Felicity pretended not to hear it.

"Eh, HMMMMM!" This time the interrupter, a person undoubtedly headed for a special level of hell, was more insistant and since Felicity was the only one with room to move, she had to detach her lips reluctantly from Oliver's. She reached back and grabbed the hand he still hand on her neck and settled it with the other in his lap, giving them one last squeeze. Oliver smiled at her saucily as she pulled away. He was so adorable under the influence of morphine, she noted to herself.

The doctor from the waiting room wore a disapproving frown when Felicity turned to face him. "He really shouldn't be getting excited right now. His body needs to rest. Also, they're ready for him in pre-op," he said testily.

Seeing no need to justify herself to Dr. McGrumpypants, she merely raised an eyebrow at him and then turned her attention back to Oliver. "I'll see you as soon as you're out of surgery, okay?"

"Abbbbbbsolutely, 'licity," came his barely lucid reply. He was getting loopier by the minute.

She gave him one last, brief kiss on the lips, as two nurses came in and readied him to be moved to the surgical floor.

"See you later, alligator," he slurred on his way out the door.

She couldn't help but smile at how out of character he was behaving. She was enjoying drugged Oliver, but she would really enjoy having the old, but emotionally liberated, Oliver back. They had so much to catch up on and- she knew that she was maybe being overly optimistic but couldn't stop herself- a future together to plan.