Author's Note: so, this chapter is shorter than the last few. Sorry about that, but I just felt like it should end where it did. Anyway, I included the dream in the beginning because I actually had that dream - complete with all of the characters involved. It was the strangest thing ever, and it totally fit into this chapter, so I couldn't resist adding it. I hope you guys like this installment, and I look forward to hearing what you think!

The snow crunched under Felicity's feet despite how tightly packed it was. Her breath misted in front of her, so she tucked her chin down into her scarf and surveyed the wall of people some hundred feet in front of her.

"I can't believe we're doing this," she said.

"I think it's great," Roy quipped.

"What I mean is, this was never something I saw myself doing."

A shoulder bumped into hers and she glanced up at the man next to her. Oliver was grinning.

"Just think," he teased. "When we finish, we'll all have to start calling you Iron Woman."

"Don't tell her that," Digg groused. "She has plenty of nicknames as it is."

Felicity was going to fire off a retort when laughter and shrill screams drew her attention behind her. She stopped walking to watch the antics of the people behind them. Two modified bikes with skis instead of wheels were racing over the snow. Each one had a rider who was responsible for pedaling, and behind the rider was another person standing tall on pegs that stuck out from the rear wheels. The two people standing were yelling insults at each other and cajoling their riders. There were two rows of brightly painted signs that stretched down the road and out of sight. The riders aimed at their designated row, knocking the signs over as they went. The closer the weird bikes got to Felicity, the clearer she could read the signs: "hope", "responsibility", and "love" were knocked flat as she watched.

"That's new," Felicity said to herself. Then, glancing at her friends, "Since when were bikes allowed in the Ironman competition?"

"Felicity."

"For that matter, why would they have the competition in the middle of winter, with six feet of snow on the ground?"

"Felicity."

Felicity opened her eyes slowly. There was a burning sensation behind them, so she blinked several times and then realized she wasn't wearing her glasses. That wasn't right – she didn't remember taking them off. She didn't even remember going to bed. She was in bed though, right?

Oliver's face came into focus just above hers. He looked tired, but alert. He was smiling at her.

"Oliver? Am I late for work?"

Felicity pushed herself up onto her elbow. The material beneath shifted and gave way slightly. She glanced down at pale sheets that she couldn't immediately place, because her sheets were a deep red.

"You were talking in your sleep," Oliver said gently. "Something about the Ironman competition having bikes?"

"What? I was?"

Felicity's brain refused to work. All she wanted was to go back to sleep; a few more hours would do the trick. Or, well, twenty-four hours, maybe. She tucked her elbow back into her side and flopped down on the pillow, turning her nose into the softness of it and closing her eyes.

"I mean, the bikes were weird, right? Who puts skis on bikes? Or, for that matter, who thought it was a good idea to have an Ironman in the snow?"

She took a deep breath. The smell that came with it was different than she expected: it wasn't the sweet smell of her shampoo, or the clean smell of her laundry detergent. She scrunched up her nose and furrowed her brow. She knew that smell. Why did she know that smell? Sandalwood, and soap, and something … Oliver.

Felicity's eyes shot open and she hurriedly pushed herself up on one arm again. Oliver was standing quietly in front of her, one corner of his mouth turned up in bemusement. She looked down. Sure enough, she was in his bed, the sheets and blanket pooled around her waist from her hasty movement. When she turned her eyes up to Oliver again, she offered him a sheepish grin.

"I fell asleep, didn't I?"

"At about three," Oliver informed her. "Though I don't know how, with two pots of coffee in your system."

Felicity sighed and ran a hand over her hair. She'd fallen asleep with it in a ponytail and could feel the wisps of hair that fallen down around her face, and the loose, crooked mess it had become. She reached up with the hand that wasn't bracing her and tugged the hair band the rest of the way out of her hair.

"You should have left me at the desk," she admonished Oliver. Then, looking at him again, "You haven't slept, have you?"

Oliver had shut half of the overhead lights off, probably in an effort to help her sleep. Even in the half-lighting his eyes looked a shade too dark, and he was standing right up against the edge of his bed. Felicity hadn't noticed how close he was standing before.

"I was not going to let you sleep hunched over a table," he murmured. Even in the open space of the lair, with the hum of her computers like a lullaby in the air, his voice sounded intimate. "Your shoulders have been bothering you enough as it is."

She huffed. "I think I pinched a nerve under my shoulder blade ag … wait. How did you know that?"

Oliver smiled. "I'm observant. Which shoulder blade?" He stepped around the bed.

"Uh, what?"

"Sit up, and tell me which shoulder blade." He placed a hand on her shoulder and gave her a little push to get her to move. She rolled off her hip and onto her butt, tucking her legs around each other and sitting up straight.

"Left."

Oliver's hands were large and warm through the fabric of her shirt. He found the bottom ridge of her shoulder blade easily, and then his thumbs started to dig and slide over the muscles. Felicity's breath left her quickly, even as her brain told her that this was a bad idea. She had always felt something for Oliver – something she was loathe to name, because that would not help the situation in any way – but lately she had noticed that it was getting worse. In fact, something had changed in her that night Oliver had told her he loved her in his abandoned mansion. Felicity had tried to ignore whatever was happening, but it was starting to feel impossible. Oliver hadn't changed, exactly, but she had picked up on a lightness in him that hadn't existed pre-Slade Wilson. He smiled more now. He seemed … more accessible. No, that wasn't right, because he had always been accessible to her. Responsive was what she meant; Oliver was more responsive now, to everyone, but especially to her.

That responsiveness had only increased after their not-double-date-double-date.

Even though her brain was putting up warning flags, Felicity firmly pushed them away. She deserved a nice massage, and that spot in her shoulder was really bothering her.

One of Oliver's thumbs dug into the spot where the pinched nerve was hiding. Felicity exhaled loudly and arched her back a little. The pressure immediately lessened.

"Did I hurt you?"

"No," she answered. "That's the spot that hurts."

Oliver's arm appeared just below her chin and wrapped around until his hand was resting on her other shoulder. He laid it gently across her chest, just below her throat, and pulled her back carefully.

"Lean back," he instructed as he did so. The hand that was working into the sore spot didn't move, so as she did as he said the pressure increased. Felicity's heart did a somersault when she realized his hip was pressed into her back.

The hand that was resting on her shoulder started massaging the muscles there as well. The longer the massage went on, the more Felicity started to droop against his arm. He could feel the rise and fall of her chest slow down and even out, until Oliver was certain that she'd fallen asleep again.

Oliver worked his way up Felicity's back in circles. At one point, the long strands of her hair kept getting caught under his hand, so he brushed it over her shoulder and out of his way. The pads of his fingers brushed over the nape of her neck, and she shivered against him. He had to hold his breath and count to ten before he could continue.

"You never answered me," Felicity whispered at some point. "Did you get any sleep at all?"

"A few hours."

"Where?"

"The training mats."

Felicity tipped her head back. She was too busy glaring at him to pay attention to the fact that her head had come to rest against his chest, or that the elevated bed brought her much closer to him despite not actually being on her feet.

"You carried me to your bed and then slept on the training mats?"

Oliver couldn't concentrate on the way she was scowling at him. He'd seen Felicity irritated with him enough to know her expression by heart, but his eyes kept gravitating to the pale column of her throat. He was acutely aware of every point of contact between their bodies, and no less aware of how much more he craved.

Felicity had barely stirred when he picked her up out of that chair. He'd been halfway to his bed when she turned her head into his chest and breathed out a sigh that coasted over the hollow of his throat. He hadn't put her down immediately. Oliver had told himself that he was trying to decide how best to put her down without waking her, but the little voice in his head called him out on the lie. He'd stood next to his bed and held her longer than necessary because he'd wanted to be close to her. Truthfully, ever since he'd spent endless minutes listening to her crying quietly earlier that night, Oliver had had a hard time not pulling her against him and keeping her there for the rest of the night.

Now, looking down into Felicity's upturned face, her blonde hair splashed against his blue shirt, Oliver felt that rock that had dislodged in his chest settle more deeply into the depression that had been created for it. In his mind he heard Felicity asking him if he'd ever been with someone who made him as happy as Lyla made John, and the longer that he studied her sweet face, the more certain Oliver became that the only person who could ever make him that happy was the one currently glaring at him.

"The mats aren't as uncomfortable as you think." Oliver's answer was late, but Felicity didn't mind.

"That's no excuse."

"What was all that stuff about bikes on skis?"

"You're trying to distract me."

"Humor me."

Felicity was distracted from answering by the slide of Oliver's arm across the top of her chest as he pulled his arm away. She didn't have time to protest before his hands settled on the tops of both shoulders and began to knead the muscles there.

"I was dreaming," she explained. "We – that is, you, and me, and Digg, and Roy – were at an Ironman competition. Only there was, like, six feet of snow on the ground, and people on these weird bikes that had skis instead of tires and … it was really weird." She smiled. "Dream you told me that if I finished the race, you'd all have to call me Iron Woman, and Dream Digg got mad because I apparently don't need another nickname."

Oliver's chuckle was a vibration against the back of her head. "Dream Digg was right. You've started a collection."

Felicity smiled. Her stomach chose that moment to grumble loudly, and her smile turned sheepish. "I don't think I've eaten since lunch yesterday. What time is it? And where are my glasses?"

Oliver checked the clock as he leaned over to retrieve her glasses and hand them to her. "Eleven."

"What? Seriously?" Felicity crowed. "Oliver, why didn't you wake me? I have, like, a bazillion searches going so we can find this bomber guy and I have to see if I can find anything out about whatever that thing was that you guys brought back and -."

"Felicity."

She stopped mid-rant and was startled to realize that she was now standing, barefoot on the cement floor, on the other side of the bed from Oliver. He didn't seem at all perturbed, though both of his arms had dropped down to brace him against the edge of the bed that she had so recently occupied. Felicity didn't want to admit that she found the stance remarkably sexy.

Out of bed and standing three inches shorter than usual in front of Oliver made Felicity painfully aware of the fact that she'd just passed the last hour (at least) pressed against his chest while he gave her a massage. She tugged nervously on the fingers of one hand with the other hand and looked away from him. Her hair fell over her shoulder. Felicity made an effort not to think about how terrible she must look in yesterday's rumpled clothes, and with hair disheveled from sleep. Her make up didn't even bear thinking of. She flexed her toes against the cold cement, an old habit, and had the forethought to wonder where her shoes had gone. When she looked, she spied them resting on their sides beneath the computer table.

She had taken her shoes off, right? Waking up in Oliver's bed, surrounded by the smell that Felicity attributed solely to him, and then spending what was definitely way too long pressed against him had been intimate enough as it was. In fact, not only had she been pressed against him, he'd given her a freaking massage. That was totally weird, because she and Oliver had a thing about touching each other: every once in awhile she might squeeze his hand, or he might put a hand on her shoulder, but that was all. Until very recently, apparently, because now that she thought about it they had shared several touches in the recent past. The point was, Felicity wasn't sure how her feeble heart would take the knowledge that Oliver had taken the time to slip off her heels before carrying her to his bed. The damn thing was already in enough trouble where the man in front of her was concerned.

In an attempt to stave off her thoughts, and the (entirely too thrilling) way that Oliver was looking at her, Felicity blurted out, "Thank you. For taking me to bed." She groaned. "Putting me in bed. Whatever. And the massage. My shoulder feels better."

"Good."

Oliver could have been blind and he still would have seen her trepidation clearly. Felicity was broadcasting her uncertainty in the way she kept tugging at her fingers, and he didn't blame her. In some ways, he had surprised himself as much as he had her. He hadn't intended to give her a massage, but she'd made that crack about sleeping at the computers and his mind had cast back to the way she'd kept rolling her shoulders all night. He'd insisted that he handle the chipping away at the husk, but even then Felicity had sat right next to him and punched in search after search.

Maybe the lack of sleep had taken down one too many of Oliver's carefully constructed barriers. He had slept on the training mats for a few hours, but he'd already been awake when she'd started to talk in her sleep. Seeing her in his bed had tugged at his heartstrings. So maybe the massage had been going a little overboard, but one minute he'd been listening to her say something about weird bikes and watching her bury her nose in his pillow, and the next minute he'd wanted nothing more than to touch her. So he had done just that.

That might not have been his best idea. Well, privately he thought that it was up there on the list of his best ideas, but that didn't mean that Felicity thought so as well. Oliver had just had the thought to apologize when her stomach growled again.

Felicity gave him a smile that was both contrite and adorable.

Oh, he had to be tired, because he never used the word adorable. Not even for Felicity, and not even if it was true.

"You should eat something," Oliver said then.

Felicity's stomach made another noise, and she wrinkled her nose. "And shower," she added. "I probably look terrible."

"You look beautiful."

The words just sort of fell off of his tongue before he could catch them. Oliver meant them, of course, because it was true: everything about Felicity, from the curled toes of one foot to the tumble of golden hair over her shoulders, was beautiful. He meant the words, but he wasn't certain that he should have said them.

Felicity tipped her head to one side. Oliver looked as though he hadn't meant to say that out loud, or maybe like he hadn't realized that he was going to say the words until they were out. Still, his expression was sincere, and his eyes were watching her in a way that sent a shiver up her spine. Whether or not he'd meant what he said in the way she wanted him to, Felicity didn't doubt that he believed the words.

"Thank you," she answered softly. "Though I'm not sure how beautiful anyone really looks after waking up after a night of crying and staying up too late."

Her words had the desired effect: Oliver smiled.

"Go home." His voice was gentle. "Eat. Don't rush back. I'll text you if any of your searches find anything."

Oliver stepped around the bed and watched her slip her shoes back on and gather her stuff. He tried to tamp down on his pride when he noted that her movements didn't seem as stiff as they had been the day before. Whether or not he should have touched her, she had apparently benefited from his ministrations. Then, just like that, Oliver remembered the way she had touched his leg that night they'd gone out to dinner. He thought of the gentle pressure of her hand against him, and his certainty that she had branded him with that touch. Had he had the same effect on her just now, maybe? Would she be able to forget about what his hands felt like against her body?

He shook his head; because that was definitely not something he should be thinking about. Oliver was obviously tired, and touching Felicity had done strange things to him. Like make him want to touch her again.

"I'll be back later." Felicity's voice drew him out of his thoughts. "Tell me the moment those computers make a sound."

Oliver nodded. "I will."

She took a step toward him and looked very much like she wanted to reach out and put a hand on his arm. She changed her mind at the last second. "Get some sleep, okay?"

"Okay."

"Promise?"

"Felicity," he chided, but there was no irritation in his tone. He was amused, in an exasperated sort of way. "How can I tell you if your searches find something if I'm asleep?"

The IT genius barely had to think that one over. "Sleep is more important." Then her stomach growled again.

"Food is important."

Felicity pulled a face at him before grumbling something about grumpy vigilantes and heading for the stairs. Oliver watched her go without moving and tried not to smile at how stubborn she could be. Just last night she'd insisted on drinking two pots of coffee and telling him that she could sleep when she was dead, and then she'd turned right around and chided him for not promising to go to sleep as soon as she left. Granted, Oliver doubted that smiling was the normal response to such stubbornness, but he found that he couldn't help it.

Even more infuriating than her contradictions was the fact that, without her presence, Oliver finally had to admit that he was exhausted. The hum of the computers was more pronounced now that he was alone. The sound was relaxing, and only accentuated the hours of sleep that he had not gotten.

Oliver managed to last for ten minutes after Felicity left. Ten minutes, and then he crossed to the bed Felicity had so recently occupied and practically fell into it face first.

His heart fluttered painfully when he realized that the pillow smelled like both of them.