Author's Note: Well, this update came out a whole lot faster than I thought it would. I'd warn against getting used to it, though - a very rare thing happened today, in which I could actually afford to spend the entire day spitting out a nearly six thousand word chapter. I thought about holding on to this for a few days until I was at least halfway through the next chapter but, alas, I'm a horribly impatient person at heart. I want to share it, and I want to hear what you think of it! What do you say - leave a review?

Oliver was lying on his back, both arms behind his head, and staring at the ceiling. The lair was quiet around him. In a way, he missed the dull thumping beat that used to carry through the floor of Verdant. He had a healthy appreciation for silence, but occasionally he wished for the lull of steady sound. Oliver had never needed sound to sleep when he was younger, but he had grown accustomed to the sounds of nightlife on Lian Yu. Gentle breezes, the muted plop of rainfall against the fuselage of the plane, distant noises of birds and frogs; he didn't know how much he'd liked hearing those things until he'd rejoined civilization. He preferred those sounds to the ones that used to float down from the club, but even those had been soothing in their own way.

In another corner of the room, a soft whirring sound suddenly kicked on. Oliver recognized the sound as coming from the computer servers, which had kicked into a higher gear. He concentrated on the sound for a while. The smoothness of it was comforting. Apparently not comforting enough to help him fall asleep, though.

Oliver turned over onto his stomach and tucked his cheek against the pillow. Of its own volition, his mind supplied the memory of the guest bed in Felicity's townhouse and her surplus of pillows. Even when he was a billionaire he'd never slept with that many, but he couldn't discount how well he'd slept that night. His bed – which had been a gift from Felicity, so in a way it was like he was still sleeping in her bed – was too small for more than two. Not that he owned that many pillows anyway. Oliver suddenly found himself wondering how many pillows Felicity slept with. There would probably be at least two, because everyone had at least two pillows on their bed. Unless, like him, they didn't have room.

Yes, Felicity would have at least two pillows, he decided. Oliver thought about his bed at the mansion, and Thea's, and then changed that number to four: two pairs of two, a set for either side of the bed. For some reason, he imagined that she probably slept with two under her head, or one under her head and one against the headboard; the other two she'd either kick off the bed completely, or tuck around herself. Maybe she slept with one between her knees, like he'd seen Thea do sometimes.

Oliver took a deep breath, held it, and then blew it out quickly. Was he seriously lying in bed and trying to imagine how Felicity slept? That was … new. In his twenty- nine years of life, Oliver had thought about countless women in bed, but never to wonder how they slept with their pillows. He lifted his cheek off his own pillow and buried his nose in it instead, tucking both of his arms beneath it. The curiosity was innocent, he told himself; now that he had seen the majority of the place she called home, it was only natural that he should be curious about the rest of it. In all the times that Oliver had temporarily commandeered her shower, and the night he'd stayed over, he had never seen Felicity's bedroom. He knew where it was – the room at the end of the hall, maybe four feet from the guest bedroom – and he didn't remember the door being closed when he was there. Oliver was a private person, though, and the thought had never occurred to him to peek into the room. In fact, he hadn't thought to be curious about it then, and he had no idea why he was curious about it now.

He inhaled a nose full of pillowcase. Oh right, he thought sardonically. The Great Pillow Shortage. Oliver didn't know whether to laugh or mutter a curse when he realized it had been Felicity's voice in his head saying those words.

Truthfully, something had felt different ever since the whole debacle with Slade. Not outwardly different, although that was true as well, but inwardly. Something in his chest felt like it had shifted. A stone wasn't the right approximation for it, but it was the only thing that came to mind. Oliver felt like a stone had rolled over in his chest. Maybe fell was a more appropriate description: like it had fallen off the edge of a precipice, only to land in a depression that had been made for it. His mom would have called it "falling into place". Oliver had heard her use the words with his sister once. He chose not to ruminate on the fact that he thought he remembered the conversation having to do with Roy.

So something within him had changed, but something outside of him had changed as well. Actually, a few things had changed outside of him. Despite the somewhat messy situation they were in tactically speaking, with the work that went in to building a new lair from the ground up, things seemed to be going rather well for the team. Digg and Lyla were expecting a baby, which was still just … mind boggling for Oliver. Roy had made a lot of progress as well, and their first mission had gone off surprisingly well. The kid seemed to be learning how to move within a team setting, and how to interact with all of them. Oliver was hopeful that he'd continue to improve. He could already see the difference that it made in Roy's attitude to know that he was an accepted member of the team. Or family, as it had apparently been decided.

Just like that his thoughts circled back to Felicity. The revolution was effortless. One minute he was thinking of his sister's ex-boyfriend, and the next that thought had morphed into one of a certain petite blonde. In his mind's eye, Oliver saw Felicity as she had been in the alley a few nights ago. He recalled her eyes, wide and luminous even in the near darkness, and the press of her slim fingers against his arm. There was sincerity in her that he rarely saw from anyone else; maybe Thea, when she had been younger and less jaded.

The vision of her in the alley bled into another one: Felicity, arms full of computer hardware as she moved past him and through the door. Oliver had flirted with her on impulse. They had flirted before – at least, there had been moments that certainly felt flirtatious to him – but he had to admit that it seemed to be happening on a more regular basis now. Sometimes, he did it on purpose because the set up was too perfect to ignore, or because he enjoyed seeing her reaction; but sometimes, like that moment at the top of the stairs, Oliver caught himself off guard with how naturally he responded to her. Once upon a time he might have argued that flirting was a knee-jerk reaction – and in some instances it still was, because it could come in handy as a diversionary tactic – but that was no longer the case. In fact, much of his skill in that department had died on the island. All he had to do was think of the awkward invitation to dinner he'd given Makenna, or the disastrous result of that invitation. No, Oliver was not the practiced flirt that he had once been; he was too sharp for that now, too stoic and withdrawn to turn on the charm for long. More than that, he found that charm mostly exhausting now. He wasn't that person anymore, and he had neither the drive nor the patience to pretend for any substantial amount of time.

That wasn't the case with Felicity. Aside from their first meeting – or maybe their first few meetings – Oliver had never tried to charm her. When he did flirt with her it wasn't a tactic, or a defense, or a calculation; for the most part it wasn't even planned. Flirting with Felicity just sort of … came naturally to him. Even when he made the decision to do it consciously, he did it because he wanted to. He never really knew what sort of reaction to expect: sometimes she responded by flirting in return; sometimes her eyebrows drew together and she tried to determine if that was really what he was doing; and sometimes, she either ignored or missed it completely. Occasionally, when he succeeded in catching her truly off guard, she gave him that stricken sort of look and blushed. Those reactions were some of his favorite.

Oliver cursed into his pillow. What in the hell was he thinking? He lifted his head to check the little clock nearby. Nearly two o'clock in the morning and he was thinking about flirting with Felicity. Not just flirting with her, but also giving serious thought to how many pillows she used. Who did that? Other than him, apparently.

The computer servers had started to whir again. Oliver distracted himself by trying to meditate to the sound. He had learned to meditate on the island, but he'd never perfected it the way Shado had. She could sit down anywhere and close her eyes and achieve that inner quiet almost instantly. That had never been true for him. His brain was too active for his own good sometimes.

Oliver shoved those thoughts away, and all the other ones as well. He concentrated on the quiet whir of the servers, and the push of his chest against the bed as he inhaled. Then, he let his awareness of those things drop away as well.

The meditation worked; Oliver fell asleep with his head turned toward the computer servers.

On the other side of the world, Sara Lance threw herself behind the tire of a stationary truck. Bullets whistled through the air as she searched wildly for any sign of Nyssa. Where the hell had that woman gone? Sara had told her very clearly to run for the vehicle.

At the first break in the gunfire, Sara popped out from behind the tire and unleashed a volley of throwing knives. More than half connected with their targets, and she ducked behind the truck again as the hail of bullets resumed.

Nyssa coalesced in the space above her. Her bow sang as she fired off a round of arrows, and the gunfire stopped again.

Sara didn't wait. "Run," she hissed, grabbing her lover's hand and sprinting around the corner of the next building. They turned just in time to see the truck they'd crouched behind explode. "Mortar?"

"Rocket," Nyssa corrected. "I do not understand, that door was supposed to be unlocked and ready for us."

"We were betrayed," Sara spat angrily. "Those men were waiting for us."

Nyssa clenched her jaw. "We must enter that building."

"How? That lock has redundancies for its redundancies. Not to mention …" a rocket smashed into the far side of the building, "… we were not prepared for this kind of firepower."

"I can get us close to the building," Nyssa assured her. "But I cannot get us past those locks."

An idea sprung to life in Sara's mind, but she hesitated to examine it closely. There was no way she could go through with it. It would be wrong to ask, and she knew that; it would be wrong to drag an innocent into the situation. The mission was personal; not only that, but in her heart of hearts Sara wasn't certain she wanted it to succeed. She knew who was in that building, though Ra's Al Ghul had been careful not to tell her. Nyssa had been the one to share the information, as was so often the case. Sara knew that failing on this front would have dire consequences, but she also understood that sometimes the biggest losses were disguised as victories.

There was no love lost between Nyssa and the woman in that building. Sara knew that. She also understood that there was an undeniable desire in Nyssa to save her, because a secret part of her lover believed that the other woman could be saved. There is a chance, Nyssa had told her; there is a chance for her. Sara had a feeling that Nyssa's reasons for wanting to save that woman had little to do with her as a person, but with Nyssa's need to believe that there was still some hope in the world.

Nyssa Al Ghul needed to believe that there were people in the world who could not be twisted by her father, even if she could not admit it.

Sara knew of just such a person. She didn't know, though, if she had a right to ask that person for help in saving someone who might not deserve such a rescue. No one under Ra's' command was a good person – not really.

"I will not leave her to die," Nyssa vowed fiercely. Her eyes, the only visible part of her face, were hard and sharp beneath her hood. When she looked at Sara, they softened. "Please, my darling."

Sara considered it one of life's great mysteries that the world had not been destroyed for love. Whatever her personal opinion was on the worth of that woman's life, she would do almost anything for the love of the woman in front of her. Right or wrong, she could not deny Nyssa.

Wordlessly, she pulled a small black cell phone out of her cleavage. Nyssa narrowed her eyes when she saw it, glaring first at the nondescript object, and then at Sara.

"Assassins do not carry cell phones," she said in obvious displeasure. "They are dangerous."

"Yeah, well, you're about to thank me for carrying this one."

Sara was punching in a long line of numbers when a line of men appeared around the building. Swiftly, Nyssa pulled back her bowstring and started picking them off.

"Move!" Nyssa yelled back at her.

Sara felt a little ridiculous holding a cell phone to her ear and dodging bullets. With her free hand, she tossed a long dagger at a man who had tried to charge at her.

Sometimes, her life was downright unbelievable.

Felicity had chosen to take the job at Tech Village for one very obvious reason: they were closed on the weekends. An almost unheard of practice in such an impatient and demanding age, but her manager had once mentioned that it had something to do with the owner's religious background. She didn't care about the reasoning: all she cared about was having the weekends off. Especially this weekend, because tonight she was taking Digg, Lyla, and Oliver out for a nice dinner.

Being the planner that she was, Felicity had woken up that morning and immediately started trying to decide what to wear. Lyla had phoned on Wednesday to pass on her choice of restaurant: a nice Italian place named Roma that Felicity was very excited to try. Lyla had also tried to talk her out of paying for them, but Felicity wouldn't hear of it. She had a feeling that Lyla must have known she wouldn't succeed, because she'd stipulated that if Felicity was going to pay for the dinner, then she was going to pay for the wine. When she had called the restaurant to make reservations later that day, Felicity had made polite inquiries about their wine listing; somehow, she had a feeling that the drinks might be more expensive than the food.

In the course of deciding what to wear, Felicity had realized that she needed a few things. She'd showered and made sure to leave her hair down so that she could style it properly later, and then set off to do some shopping. Maybe she'd buy a new perfume while she was out. Her mother had once accused her of having a perfume fetish, and Felicity had never grown out of that particular quirk. She had a thing about smelling good, and there were so many fantastic perfumes and body sprays in the world.

The radio was blasting Lady Gaga when Felicity's phone started to ring. She normally patched it through the car's Bluetooth system, but she had apparently forgotten to do that today. Blindly, she reached over to the passenger seat and fished her phone out of her purse. She didn't bother to glance at the screen.

"Hello?"

Felicity jumped when her greeting was answered by muffled gunfire. Suddenly worried, she checked the caller ID, but the number displayed there was international. Who the hell had called her?

Then, "Felicity?"

Her mouth dropped open. "Sara?" she asked incredulously. "Oh my god, what's going on? Why are you being shot at? Why are you calling me if you're being shot at?"

"I need your help." Distant gunfire punctuated her words, and then someone was yelling unintelligibly. "Nyssa and I need a favor."

"From me?" Felicity squeaked. "I'm halfway around the world, what can I do to help?"

"Are you near a computer?"

"No." Felicity checked the street sign she'd just passed. Well, she was sort of close to a computer; she had unwittingly chosen to drive a route that took her a few blocks away from the lair. "But I can be. Hold on."

On the other end of the line, someone screamed. Sara's voice sounded both angry and worried as she called out to Nyssa.

Felicity drove faster than was strictly necessary. The traffic wasn't terrible for early Saturday morning, and she knew a back route to the lair. She navigated her Mini Cooper through several side streets and one rather narrow alleyway; she was going so fast she may have even caught an inch or two of air off the ramp into their garage.

She didn't bother to grab her purse. With her phone pressed to her ear and a silent thank you to the cosmos for her choice to wear flats instead of heels, Felicity raced to the door.

"Sara? Are you there?" Felicity asked. She heaved the door open and took the stairs as fast as her legs would go.

"I'm here."

"Just hold on another second, I'm almost there."

Oliver had leapt off of his bed as soon as the door had opened. His eyes widened when he caught sight of Felicity running to the computers, but she barely spared him a glance.

"What's wrong?" he demanded.

Felicity had never been more thankful for the speed of her computers than when they booted up that morning. She pulled her phone away from her ear and hit the speaker button, then set it on the table in front of her.

"Tell me what to do," she commanded.

"Can you ping my location?" Sara replied.

Felicity's fingers moved like lighting strikes over the keyboard. She was vaguely aware of Oliver standing behind her shoulder, and that she had apparently woken him. He'd come from the direction of his bed and had on a pair of sweats.

"Are you in Tajikistan?"

"Yes. There's a building, about six hundred feet from us. We need to bypass the security system. Our man on the inside set us up. We walked straight into a firefight."

A loud crackle, like overpowering static, drowned out everything else for a moment. Felicity's breath caught in her chest.

"Make that a rocket fight," Sara muttered darkly.

"They're firing rockets at you?" Felicity whispered in horror.

Sara ignored the question. "Can you get us in?"

Felicity could feel the panic building in her chest. Sara was thousands of miles away from her and literally in the line of fire and she'd called Felicity, of all people, to help her. She bit her bottom lip and started typing furiously, hacking into satellites and piggybacking her way through their signals to chase down Sara's building. She tried to block out the chaos that was filtering through her phone, but every time she heard Sara curse or call out for Nyssa she flinched. Faster, she told herself, you have to be faster.

The building wasn't hard to ferret out. That many security measures in one place in what looked like the middle of nowhere stood out like a sore thumb. Lines of code sped across her screens as she fed the system shutdown commands, and the first line of defenses began to fall.

Over the speakerphone, someone gasped and groaned deeply. There was a string of shouts, mostly male, and more gunfire, and then the undeniable twang of a bowstring; Felicity thought she might cry.

"Sara?" There was no answer. "Please don't die," Felicity murmured, and a tear slipped down her cheek. "Sara?"

"I'm okay," Sara finally answered.

"Oh, thank god." Then, "I'm in. The security system is disabled."

"Nyssa!" Sara yelled. "Go!"

Felicity had expected the line to go dead, but it didn't. Instead, the sound of labored breathing filled the room. She was biting her lip so hard it would probably bleed. At the least, Sara had been shot, or maybe stabbed, and Felicity was sure that Nyssa had also been hurt somehow. Sara had said they'd been betrayed. As she created a loop in the security system to give continuous shut down and bypass commands, Felicity wondered why they were trying to get into the building in the first place. Sara had gone back to Nyssa, and thus to the League of Assassins; the odds were good that they were on a mission. Felicity hadn't thought to ask what exactly she was helping them to do. Sara was her friend, and she was obviously in danger, and she hadn't given much thought to anything beyond that. Until now; now, a real sense of dread had settled in her stomach.

Had Felicity just helped them kill someone? Her stomach clenched. She didn't know how she would handle that information, if it were true. Logically, she thought that she'd probably helped Oliver kill at least one person in the beginning, although she might not have known that was what she was doing. Felicity had never asked, because she didn't want to know the answer.

Oh, God. What if she'd just signed someone's death certificate? She knew that Sara had killed people, and Nyssa, in service to the League. What if that was what they were doing right now? Chasing down a target, a person that she knew nothing about; what if that person had a family? What if they didn't deserve to die? Granted, Felicity was usually the one who insisted that no one deserved to die, and that killing was not the answer. But what if the person Sara and Nyssa were pursuing truly did not deserve to die?

The feeling of Oliver's fingers curling into the flesh beneath her collarbone was what made Felicity realize that he had put a hand on her shoulder at some point.

"Sara?" She had lost track of what was happening.

Sara's voice was breathless when she answered. "You just saved a life, Felicity. And I don't mean mine."

The air whooshed out of Felicity's lungs. "What? Whose?"

There was a pause. Sara was either debating on what to tell her, or asking Nyssa's permission. "Her name is Talia, and she's …"

Sara's voice was cut off abruptly, and then replaced with another. Felicity didn't immediately recognize it as Nyssa's. "My sister," Nyssa finished. "You have done me a great service. I will not forget it."

"Oh, uh …" Felicity trailed off, embarrassed. The only time she'd met Nyssa, the woman had been leading a small army of assassins. That introduction didn't seem very conducive to a casual sort of friendship. Or friendship in general, really. "I'm glad everyone is okay. I mean, not okay, okay, because I'm pretty sure you got shot or something, but. Well. Alive."

There was a small commotion, and then Sara was back on the line. "Are you in the lair?"

"Yes."

Felicity thought that Sara might be smiling when she spoke next. "Nyssa has asked me to name you. She says she doesn't know you well enough, and wouldn't choose properly."

"Name me?" Felicity queried. "Isn't that what my parents did?"

Sara chuckled. "Even over the phone you're cute. It's sort of a … tradition. Everyone has a name they're born with, and a name they earn. It's an honor thing. Nyssa thinks you've earned yours."

"Why does my life revolve around weird conversations?" Felicity half whispered to herself. "So? What is this new name of mine."

"Nur."

Felicity did her best to repeat it. "What does it mean?"

This time, she was certain that Sara was smiling. "I have to go. Thank you, Felicity. You saved our asses today."

"Wait! What does it mean?"

"It means 'light'. Tell Oliver hello for me."

The line went dead. An ethereal silence stretched through the room as Felicity stared at her computer screens. The adrenaline had started to bleed out of her system, leaving her shaky and breathless in its wake. She could feel the cold spot on her cheek where the tear had fallen when she'd thought Sara was dying.

That thought was the one that stuck. Sara, on the other side of the world where none of them could reach her, probably alone in the field with only Nyssa for back up … how badly had she been hurt? Would they make it back to wherever they were going? Would there be anyone waiting for them, like Felicity waited for her team?

"Felicity." Oliver's voice was calm and quiet above her. His hand was still on her shoulder.

Felicity swept to her feet quickly, her chair rolling several feet away from her. She spun on Oliver. Her heart felt like it was trying to fly away and she was shaking and angry as a hellcat. Felicity pointed a finger at him and then stepped forward, glaring at him all the while.

"You are all going to kill me," she raved. "Every single one of you idiots and your near death experiences shaves at least five years off of my life, do you know that?" She poked him in the chest. "I am not all powerful. Or all knowing, for that matter. One of these days you're going to ask me to do something that I can't, and you're going to get yourself killed. Have I told you how pissed off that will make me?"

"Felicity."

"I thought she was dead! I thought Sara died just a minute ago, on the other side of the planet and totally unreachable. Do you have any idea what that would have done to me?" Felicity was winding down. Her anger was falling away, and had started to look an awful lot like fear. She blew out a shaky breath. "You're all assholes." She finally locked eyes with Oliver, who had not moved away from her and looked as calm as ever. That only irritated her. "Assholes," she repeated firmly.

Oliver reached out and enveloped her in a hug. The movement was unexpected. Felicity found herself suddenly dwarfed by large arms, and then her cheek was against his warm chest. Beneath her ear, his heartbeat was a drum. She wrapped her arms around him reflexively. Her shoulders slumped with her next breath, as if she was deflating, and then she closed her eyes.

They stood that way for a long time. Felicity hadn't meant to freak out, and she was generally pretty good about keeping her cool in stressful situations, but that … that had almost been cruel. She hadn't even been able to see what was happening!

"Are you okay?"

Felicity nodded instead of speaking, and that was when she realized that Oliver was not wearing a shirt. Her eyes flew open. Sure enough, the only sight that greeted her was a length of bare skin. The Bratva star was above her nose. Below that, there was a long scar.

Her stomach flipped over, and this time it had nothing to do with fear. Oliver was warm and his arms pleasantly heavy against her back. He had never hugged her before. They had hugged, but both times she had been the one to reach for him. This time, he had been the one to initiate it, and he was hugging her with both arms instead of just one. Felicity wondered how badly she had frightened him with her whirlwind appearance and mad dash to the computers, and if that was part of the reason he was hugging her now.

When Oliver finally released her, he moved both hands to her shoulders and stared intently into her face. "Mind telling me what that was about?"

Felicity filled him in on the few details he was missing. He listened quietly, nodding a little when she got to the part where she'd blown into the lair like a hurricane. He'd been dozing off and on for about an hour before that. She'd caught him half-asleep, and she'd looked downright terrified when he set eyes on her. The terror appeared to have downgraded itself into general unease now.

Though she'd definitely been angry when she'd taken to yelling at him. Oliver knew that she'd been talking to him, but she'd also been talking to Sara, even if the other woman wasn't here to listen. Felicity never swore, but she'd even called them all assholes more than once. In a different situation, he would have laughed.

The problem was that Oliver did know what it would do to Felicity the day one of them died. There was no "if" about it. They would all die eventually, but the line of work that people like him and Sara went into ended the same way, and sooner rather than later. He knew that, and so did Sara. Felicity seemed to be the only one who didn't, or refused to acknowledge it, and he preferred it that way.

"I'm sorry if I startled you," Felicity apologized quietly. "I was already in my car not far from here when she called." A new thought struck her then, and Oliver watched the color drain from her face. "I was on my way to the store. We got so lucky, Oliver. What if I'd already been downtown when she called? What if I couldn't get here in time? Or if I didn't hear my phone ring, or didn't answer?"

"Hey," Oliver soothed. "None of those things happened."

"But what if they had?"

He sighed and squeezed the tiny shoulders under his hands. "Sara knows the risks, Felicity. We all do."

"Then maybe you should quit."

The words stunned him. Felicity was looking at him earnestly, and he knew she wasn't joking. She reached up to pull one of his hands off her shoulders and hold it between her cooler ones.

"You don't have to do this, Oliver. None of you do. Life doesn't have to be like this. You can quit."

He didn't know what to say. Felicity had never asked him to stop being the vigilante. She believed in the work that they did, and that their city needed saving. She knew what it meant to him to put on that hood every night. She had to know that he couldn't just give up, not now, so why was she asking him to?

"You know I can't do that, Felicity."

She sighed in defeat and dropped his hand. "I do," she agreed. "And I understand. I just … I wish you could."

Felicity wasn't looking at him anymore. She moved away from him to retrieve her phone, and only then did Oliver realize that she didn't have anything else with her. This was not the Felicity he usually saw, dressed smartly for the day and ready to face the world. She looked as she had that morning they'd shared in her townhouse: casual and relaxed. He remembered her telling him that she had only meant to make a trip to the store.

Felicity made to walk past him, but stopped when she pulled even with his arm. He heard her inhale quietly and turned his head to look at her.

"Maybe it's wrong, Oliver, and maybe it makes me a bad person. But if I could, I'd take every one of you somewhere far away and never let you leave. Lian Yu, or Madagascar, or some place with no name at the end of the world. It wouldn't matter, as long as you were safe. Starling City, and the League of Assassins, and everything else be damned."

Felicity sounded so sad that it struck him like lightning. Oliver had always known that she worried about them, because that's just who she was, but he had never considered how deep that worry went. He had spent several minutes last night wondering how many pillows she used, but he'd never wondered about how frightened she must be for them.

Oliver wanted to hug her again. He reached out for her, clasping one of her hands, and then stopped when she turned hers over. Palm to palm, she stared at their hands as she interlaced their fingers. That was new. She tugged gently on his hand and lifted it toward her, and Oliver actually felt breathless at the idea that she might be about to kiss it. At the last minute, she changed her mind, and squeezed it instead.

"Dinner is at seven." Her voice was a whisper. "Should I pick you up?" She finally looked up at him.

He wanted to say something. Something reassuring, something that didn't have anything to do with dinner, but he couldn't think of the words. Felicity had never said anything like that before. They had shared a lot in the last year or so, but something about her confession felt … personal. No, more than personal, it felt private - intimate.

Felicity loved them; truly loved them, so much that if she was given the choice, she would rather save a handful of lost and damaged souls that had more blood on their hands than in their bodies, than a city full of innocent people.

That knowledge was staggering.

"Oliver?"

His throat felt dry. "Sure," he managed to answer.

Felicity's hand slipped out of his and she disappeared behind him. Oliver did not move from his spot as he listened to her footsteps fade. He did not move for a long time.