Author's Note: So, some of you might be a little confused, because there was a chapter eight, and then there wasn't. And now there is again. After I posted the original chapter eight, a few of you let me know that it didn't really work for the story. After reading what you said, and then going back to really re-read everything, I decided to scrap the chapter completely and start over. There was a bit of a side story that I was going to introduce, but it wasn't horribly important to Olicity and the story won't suffer without it, so I scrapped that, too. Sorry for any confusion this may have caused. This chapter is completely new, and I hope that it doesn't disappoint (and, if you read the original chapter eight, I hope this one doesn't feel like such a misstep). Let me know what you think?

When she was in college, Felicity had dated a man who swore by Murphy's Law. His name was Ryan, and he'd been a great guy for the most part. They hadn't stayed together long. He was a year older than Felicity, and other than wanting to have a five-year plan for everything, the only other thing Great Guy Ryan believed in completely was Murphy's Law. She had thought then that that was a terrible way to live life, always believing that something was about to go wrong just because it could.

Five years later, Felicity stared at her computer screens and wondered if there wasn't something to Murphy's Law after all.

Her week had started well. Really, it had. The dinner with Digg, Lyla, and Oliver, had put her in a good mood. She'd felt refreshed by the hours spent without worrying about who was going to get hurt. There had also been the decidedly charged moment between her and Oliver at the end of the night; Felicity had been certain at one point that he was about to kiss her. She couldn't decide if she was relieved, or irritated by the fact that the kiss had never come. There was no denying that she wanted to kiss Oliver, but wanting to didn't mean that she should. Not kissing him was probably a better idea because Felicity wasn't sure she'd stop once she started.

Monday and Tuesday had been nice. Her job at Tech Village was nothing special, but the work was easy. Even her night job had been going swimmingly: the guys had taken out a minor league drug lord with barely a scratch. Felicity would always worry about her friends when they were out, but that worry had lessened considerably. Roy was the new man on the team, but he knew what he was doing and hadn't given in to his temper once. Oliver had said once that Roy had been angry at the world before he was injected with Mirakuru, and while Felicity knew that people didn't just let go of their anger over night, Roy appeared to be benefitting from having another way to channel it.

Everything went downhill on Wednesday. The day had started badly when she'd woken to find that the power on her street had been knocked out during the night. Her water heater was electric, so no power meant a very short, very freezing shower. Then, ten minutes after said unpleasant shower, her power had come back on. Felicity had not been amused. When lunch rolled around, her supervisor at Tech Village had called to say that the store had been broken into and would be closed for the rest of the week to deal with insurance claims and inventory. That had actually been good news, until she realized that her paycheck would be almost nonexistent for the current pay period. All of that paled in comparison to Wednesday night, though.

A terrorist announced himself in the early evening by remotely detonating two improvised explosive devices simultaneously, on opposite sides of the city. Three people died.

Oliver freaked. Well, Oliver clenched his jaw and spent too many hours punching the wooden dummy and giving one-word responses to questions. Felicity only recognized it as his brand of freak out because she'd seen it so often over the years. She was better at reading him now, and he'd opened up more in the last year, so Felicity had a good grasp on what he was feeling. Where once everything had looked like anger to her, she could easily see what was underneath now: fear, and worry, and guilt. She also liked to think that Oliver didn't work as hard to hide those things from her anymore.

Which is why a prowling, tense Oliver didn't unnerve her as much as it had in the beginning (even when his prowling brought him over to growl questions at her).

Felicity managed to hold on to her own freak out until Thursday. Detective Lance hadn't asked for the Arrow's help, but they'd all collectively agreed that their help was a foregone conclusion in such a situation. Oliver had wanted to go the night it happened, but Digg had wisely pointed out that the scene would be crawling with police and news reporters. Oliver had begrudgingly agreed to wait until the following night. So, Thursday night, the guys had split up and gone to investigate the locations of the bombings: Digg and Roy went to one location, and Oliver went to the other. They relayed information back to Felicity in the lair in clipped sentences and terse voices.

The first IED had been left outside a public restroom in Starling City Park. Felicity listened to the information her team was exchanging with half of a mind as she hacked into the police department's computer servers. The identity of the victims had not been released on the news, but she found the reports quickly. She read the stats: Harriet Ealy, 49, divorced, owner of an independent coffee shop. Felicity studied Harriet Ealy's picture for a long moment. She committed the other woman's face and information to memory and then quietly vowed that they'd bring her killer to justice.

If the boys heard her, they didn't say anything.

Her throat felt too tight after that. There was a stinging behind her eyes that she fought to ignore, and she was doing a good job right up until the time Roy started speaking.

His voice was quiet and horrified. "There's a child's backpack here."

Felicity inhaled sharply. The second bomb had been left under a crosswalk light on a street in the outskirts of the Glades. She pulled up that report.

She tried not to sob. Her breathing was ragged over the line anyway. "David and …" she cleared her throat. "David and Daniel Slatton. Daniel was -. He, uh."

Felicity could not get the words out. She was staring at the pictures of father and son included in the police report and her eyes were swimming. The pressure in her chest left her breathless. A sob climbed its way out of her throat and she tried to swallow it at the last second.

"Felicity." Oliver's voice wobbled once and then smoothed out.

She heaved out a breath. "I'm fine. Just … let's just get this person. Bring me anything that has wires." They all knew that the odds of finding anything were slim. Whatever evidence had once been there had surely been gathered up by the police, but on the off chance that something had been missed, Felicity made sure they knew that she wanted it brought back.

The moment they told her they were headed back, Felicity pulled the ear bud from her ear and let go of the sob that had been trapped in her throat. A father and a son stared at her from motionless pictures on her computer screen and though she tried not to look at them, she didn't close out of the window. She put both elbows on the table, covered her face with her hands, and wept.

Felicity had forgotten to close the communication link. Oliver made the trip back with a muted string of Felicity's sobs in his ear, and if he drove his bike faster and more recklessly than was normal in his rush to get back to the lair, there was none the wiser.

He made it back before Digg and Roy. Felicity was barely visible behind her computer chair. She was hunched over and either hadn't heard him enter, or didn't care that he was there. Oliver put his bow back in the case without stopping, and only slowed when he was behind her. He noted that she wasn't sobbing anymore, but her hands were covering her face.

Oliver reached out tentatively, until his fingers grazed her upper arm and then dragged over her sleeve.

"Felicity."

"I'm sorry." Her voice was muffled behind her hands.

"Hey. Come here." Oliver wrapped his hand around her bicep and tugged gently. She dropped her hands away from red eyes but didn't look at him as she pushed her chair back and stood. She didn't bother to grab her glasses off of the table. "You have nothing to be sorry for."

Oliver pulled her into his chest. Felicity didn't protest, just pushed her nose into the leather and breathed in a mix of night air and him; she turned her head so that her cheek was against him as both of his arms wrapped around her. She closed her eyes and listened to his heartbeat, focusing on the way the cool leather under her arms quickly warmed.

They didn't speak. For a long time there was no sound other than whirring computers and steady heartbeats, and that went a long way in calming her. When she finally heard footsteps moving down the stairs, she surprised herself by squeezing Oliver even tighter. He responded in kind, and she welcomed the pressure.

"I'm sorry, Felicity," Roy said quietly. "I shouldn't have said anything."

Felicity opened her eyes and focused them on Roy without moving. "I can take it."

"We know that," Digg answered quickly.

"I really hate this guy," she muttered lowly.

"We'll get him," Oliver assured her. His hand rubbed a circle against her back. Then, quietly to her, "Are you okay?"

Felicity nodded. When they finally released each other, she took a big breath and wiped her palms over the dry tear tracks on her cheeks.

"Do I look terrible?" She looked between Digg and Roy.

Digg grinned and stepped forward to drop a kiss into her hairline. "You never look terrible, Felicity."

She smiled brightly at him. "Thanks, Digg."

Oliver had turned to look at the computer monitors. The faces of a father and son stared back at him. He studied their pictures, committing them to memory, and wondered if Felicity had done the same thing. The memory of her sobs told him that it was more than likely. He didn't move until Felicity slid into her seat again, her back straight and her head held high.

"So, did you find anything to bring me?"

Roy set down a blackened mass of something in front of her. Whatever had been in the middle had melted and fused together in a way that made it unrecognizable, but that wasn't the part she was interested in: all Felicity cared about were the three pieces of wire that stuck out of the lump. She put her glasses back on in a rush and brought the object up to her face to study.

"Unfortunately," she started, "Anyone can buy wiring kits from anywhere. The wires themselves probably won't tell me much, unless they're a gauge that's too large or too small to be strictly common use, and I have no idea how to even begin to attempt identification of whatever this thing in the middle was, but maybe there's some way I can scrape some of this crap off and analyze the composite material …"

"Take a breath," Oliver interjected.

Felicity did so. She pulled air into her lungs until her chest hurt, counted to three, and then blew it out loudly. Then she nodded.

"Right. You guys go change. I'm gonna make coffee and get started on this."

Digg opened his mouth to protest, but Oliver stopped him with a curt shake of his head. He gave the other man a look that said he'd talk to her about the evils of overwork, but that they should give her some space for the time being. Whatever she said, Felicity was still clearly upset.

Felicity waited until her partners had cleared off to stand and move to the coffee pot. She wasn't exactly ashamed of her breakdown, because crying had never been something shameful to her, but she was worried that it seemed to be getting harder to not be emotional. First, there had been her outburst at Oliver over the events with Sara, and then tonight, she'd temporarily lost her ability to compartmentalize. That was not a good thing. She was a world-class compartmentalizer, and that was not an ability that she could afford to lose in their line of work.

Actually, she couldn't lose that ability ever, for any reason, because there was way too much stuff to compartmentalize.

Felicity brought the coffee can up to her nose and took a whiff of the coffee grounds: sharp, and a little bitter. The smell helped to anchor her, and there was a fleeting moment where she felt like she understood why the women of old days had carried smelling salts. Though smelling salts had probably been a lot stronger than coffee grounds.

She dropped the coffee filter into place and filled it on autopilot. The carafe was empty, so she carried it into the bathroom and filled it from the sink. The first time she'd made coffee in the new pot that she'd sent Roy to buy, Felicity hadn't thought to wonder whether the water in the building was potable. She was lucky that she hadn't gotten water poisoning.

Water poisoning probably wasn't even a thing. What happened to someone who drank non-potable water? Was it like having food poisoning, with all of the vomiting and other decidedly un-enjoyable effects? Why hadn't she worried about it before that moment? And, better still, if the water wasn't potable, what did Oliver drink? There was no way he could afford to buy cases of bottled water.

The carafe was overflowing. Felicity sighed and turned off the water. She dumped out the excess and carried it back to the waiting coffee pot. Her thoughts were disordered, and she blamed it on the crying. In some ways, crying was a release; but it was also a huge pain in the rear end, because crying had a way of making a mess inside her head. In the absence of whatever thoughts and emotions that crying cleared out, several hours – generally a whole night's worth – passed in which all of her thoughts cleared out. When Felicity cried, her mind generally took that as an invitation to temporarily vacate the premises. As a little girl, Felicity had tried to describe the phenomenon to her mom, who had simply smiled and called it "fuzzy brain."

Nothing gave Felicity fuzzy brain like crying. Her mind was blank as she finished the coffee and then simply stood in front of the machine, listening to the quiet gurgles of the water as it was heated. Then, because apparently her brain was cruel when it was overworked, she remembered that Harriet Ealy had owned an independent coffee shop. Had she been passionate about coffee, Felicity wondered, or had she chosen to open a coffee shop for another reason? What would happen to that coffee shop now? Was there a family member somewhere that would inherit it?

Just like that, her thoughts blanked out again. Her brain seemed unable to decide whether or not it was overworked enough to go full fuzzy brain on her, and that was frustrating. In a way, Felicity would have welcomed a complete lack of thoughts; in another, she knew that she was not done for the night, and couldn't afford said thoughtlessness.

"Staring at the coffee pot won't make it go any faster." Oliver stepped into the space next to her. His bicep brushed against her shoulder and stayed there.

"I was just telling myself that fuzzy brain will have to wait," Felicity explained. Her voice wasn't as animated as it usually was.

"Fuzzy brain?" Oliver queried, glancing down at her.

Felicity nodded before turning to meet his eyes over her shoulder. He had showered, his green leather ensemble traded in for a long sleeved V-neck shirt in dark blue. She could see a sliver of the white t-shirt he wore underneath at the bottom of this throat.

"Fuzzy brain," she repeated. "It's when you cry, and I mean really cry not just one or two tears that get out before you can stop them, and then your mind just goes blank after. My mom used to say that it was because your brain had been so busy thinking so many things that it just … made everything too fuzzy to focus on for awhile."

"Because it just needs a break." Oliver's voice was almost a whisper.

Felicity nodded absently. The coffee level in the carafe had stopped rising and there was no more gurgling, so she figured it was done. Before she could reach out to grab her cup, though, Oliver turned into the space between her and the coffee pot. His face was drawn and his blue eyes were intense as he looked at her.

"Felicity, if you need a break …"

"What?" she interrupted, fixing her eyes on his face. "No. I don't need a break, Oliver." He raised his eyebrows in response, so she backtracked a little. "Well, I mean, we all need a break, but I don't need one specifically. At least, not right now. Right now, all I need is an IV drip of coffee so I can catch this guy."

Oliver sighed. He wanted to get this guy as badly as she did, but he could also see how tired she was. Her dependence on coffee worried him, not because it was unhealthy, but because he wondered how often she used it to keep herself awake until the small hours of the morning. While he made an effort not to overwork his team, there was no way he could change the fact that it was hard to come down here and do this work night after night. The stress of routinely facing down life and death situations was nothing to laugh at.

In the time it had taken him to think those things, Felicity had stepped around him and helped herself to a cup of coffee so full he was certain it would spill as soon as she moved. He followed her back to her chair, and didn't fail to notice that she didn't spill a drop.

Felicity sat down, took a drink of her coffee, and then fought to swallow it instead of spit it out.

"I totally just burnt my tongue," she almost whined. "That's just cruel." She looked forlornly down at her cup. "You're my one true love, coffee, why would you do that? Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal."

Oliver chuckled lowly behind her. When she looked up at him, he was shaking his head and his lips were quirked.

"That was a very interesting sentence."

"I can't take all the credit. That last part was from one of my favorite shows, Firefly."

"I've never heard of that one."

"I'm not surprised. The network cancelled it after one season, which pissed a lot of people off. The fandom for it is still huge, though."

"The … what?" Oliver asked.

Felicity opened her mouth to answer, then shook her head. "I mean, a lot of people still really love it."

She picked up the melted mass of whatever it was that they had brought back. Felicity turned it over in her hands as she studied it. Would it even be worth it to try and scrape some flakes off of the surface? She wasn't sure what it had been in the first place, so would she even be able to identify the particulates? Maybe there was still something recognizable underneath, and the charred husk could be chipped away completely.

Oliver stood behind her until Digg called his name. He turned to find the other man standing at the bottom of the stairs, Roy at his side.

"If you need me to, I'll stay," John started. "But Lyla and I have a baby appointment in the morning that I'd rather not miss if I don't have to."

Oliver clapped a hand on his friend's shoulder. "Go home, Diggle. I'll make sure Felicity is okay. And tell us how the appointment goes."

Diggle nodded and called out a goodbye to Felicity, who answered without looking. The other man gave Oliver a pointed look that clearly conveyed his worry, and then disappeared up the stairs.

"I'm gonna do the same, if it's okay," Roy said.

Oliver nodded. "Get some sleep."

He turned back to Felicity when he heard the door close for the last time. He watched her as he approached, taking in the way her shoulders were hunched and how she kept rolling them every so often, as if they were bothering her. Oliver wasn't surprised; she spent hours staring at those computers day in and day out, and even though Felicity generally had great posture, she was bound to get sore after a while.

Oliver grabbed another chair and rolled it next to hers; when his eyes fell on her coffee cup, he was alarmed to discover that it was already half empty.

He sat down next to her. He couldn't write code or work computers the way she could, but maybe there was something he could do to help ensure that Felicity went to bed at a (semi) decent hour.

"How can I help?" he offered.

"Well, that depends. How good are you with your hands?" She didn't even give him a chance to answer. "That is what I meant to say, but I didn't mean it to sound so … sexual. But, well, whatever. My question stands."

Oliver took a breath and swallowed before answering. As much as he'd like to assure her that his mind hadn't immediately dived into the gutter at her words, he couldn't, because that's exactly what it had done. To his confusion and mild bewilderment, his mind had not only jumped into the gutter, it had also taken Felicity with it. He was usually good at skipping right over her verbal gaffes, but that one had him suddenly imagining what it would be like to show Felicity how good he was with his hands.

Which was not remotely the sort of thing he should be thinking.

"I'm decent," Oliver finally answered, though his voice sounded a little off in his ears. There was also a bit of a pause between his words, because decent was not the first qualifier that had come to mind.

"I probably should have known that," Felicity rambled absently, more to herself than to him. "You're an archer who makes his own arrows and stitches up his own wounds, of course you're good with your hands." Then, looking at him, "I want to see if we can chip away at the outer layers. There might be something helpful underneath. I'm just not sure what we have around here that's sharp enough to be useful, but small enough that it's easy to control."

Oliver stood up without a word and crossed the room to retrieve two arrowheads. They had not been paired with shafts yet, so they were small enough that they'd fit easily in her hand, and still sharp. When he handed one to her, her eyes lit up.

"This will work perfectly. But before we start – more coffee." She grabbed her cup and stepped away.

"Felicity, it's almost one a.m. How will you sleep if you down a pot of coffee?"

"I'll sleep when I'm dead," she called back to him. Then he heard her mutter, "And maybe not even then."

Oliver decided then and there that he wasn't above spiking her drink if it was the only way he could make sure she got some sleep.