"When we tackle obstacles, we find hidden reserves of courage and resilience we did not know we had. And it is only when we are faced with failure do we realise that these resources were always there within us. We only need to find them and move on with our lives."
~ A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

"Still nothing?"

"Can we be honest?"

"We haven't been honest?"

"No," Oliver admitted. "I've been taking advantage of you."

"Funny. I don't feel like you've taken advantage of me."

"I'm the Arrow."

Ray just stared at Oliver for a long time. He'd been doing everything he could in order to help find Felicity Smoak. Besides thinking of Felicity as a friend, he'd found that it was next to impossible for him to run the company anywhere near as smoothly as it had when Felicity was working as his VP. There was also the plain and true fact that Felicity was just smarter than he was when it came to a lot of practical tech things. He'd find himself stop and think about how he'd worked for two months on something and Felicity likely would have figured it out in two minutes.

She was irreplaceable.

In so many ways.

"Uh—okay…" Ray blurted out. He wasn't sure what else to say. He'd thought that he knew Oliver Queen, that he'd learned all about the man since Felicity's disappearance. Obviously he was wrong. There were still secrets, big ones, in fact. Ray supposed that it had to be hard to trust people with that kind of secret. Actually, he really didn't know what to think about it. If he hadn't been working with Oliver for so long in order to bring Felicity home, he was fairly sure that he wouldn't be okay with it (he was fairly sure he was okay with it).

"Felicity was working with me, with my team…that's why we—"

"That's how you got close?"

Oliver nodded.

Things suddenly made sense. Ray started to wonder how things would have been if Felicity hadn't been taken. Would she have solved his chip problem for ATOM? Maybe he'd be a member of the Arrow's team. Thoughts raced through his head. Would things really have been different? Ray was fairly sure that no matter what, he'd somehow would have ended up lending Oliver the resources he had.

"Well, I guess that makes a lot more sense," Ray said. "Being the Arrow…is that how you're finding clues about Felicity?"

"It's a long story," Oliver told him. "The Flash…in Central City…he's been helping me…he has a team there… There's a person they have in custody who gets flashes of things…"

"What kinds of things?"

"Nothing that's ever been enough," Oliver admitted. "Just enough to pretty much tell me that Felicity is still out there…alive…"

"You've never really given me much," Ray said, realizing that everything that Oliver had given him that had seemed like nothing, that it came from this. It came from this secret that Oliver had kept from him. "You've had me track rain patterns and look for signs of Felicity online…paint colors that have led us nowhere."

"I was grasping at straws—"

Ray nodded, suddenly understanding. "Because they were all that you had."

There was no way that Ray could fault Oliver, not for this. His motives had been true and all he wanted was to bring Felicity home. That was it. That was what they all wanted, every single person that was pushing to find her. It didn't matter how much time had passed, their objective was still the same.

"Darkness and the sound of breathing. A grey room. Felicity crying in darkness…and then light. Her being cold. Peeling cream colored walls. The rain falling. A computer keyboard," Oliver suddenly rambled. "Beeping and drums. Blankets and rain. Bright lights and screams. A book falling. Those damned cream colored walls again and feeling both cold and warm. A grey room. A white void and laughter." Ray saw that Oliver's face changed suddenly as he paused, swallowing thickly. "Felicity huddled under a table…the sound of yelling…screams…and a triangle logo."

"That's why you're worried."

"What if she isn't okay? What if they've hurt her?"

"The logo—"

"I can't really remember much about it," Oliver admitted. "But sometimes things flush out of my head a few days later… I was going to look at logos using triangles… I already have resources compiling a list."

"So, what can I do? How can I help?"

"I'm not sure," Oliver told him honestly. "I just thought that you deserved the truth."

"I appreciate the honesty."

Even though Oliver wasn't giving him anything really to go on. Every clue that Oliver gave him, it was logged into his brain and there was no way that he was going to sit on the sidelines and do nothing. It had been obvious to Ray that Oliver loved Felicity and though he didn't know if they had a relationship past the feelings, but Ray really didn't know how anyone could know Felicity and not fall in love with her.

He'd fallen in love with her.

TBC…