I cannot thank you guys enough. Really, I can't. The reaction to the last chapter didn't just make my day, but my entire week. Thank you so much to everybody who's now following this story or who added this as a fav. And the biggest thank-you-hug possible for everybody who took the time to leave me a review: gunnerbob76, misspsycho24, PoisonAngelMuse, sakura-blossom62, Vickstik, louvreangel, SammyShu, lovelove94 (times four!), rvg79, Horsebot3000, snr3231, BrightEyesMagic, annependragon and nrdhrd3. You guys are amazing. THANK YOU!

The immense positive reaction really blew me away. It's one part of the reason why I felt like updating so quickly. The other part is that I feel like we'd celebrate the fact that the Arrow-premiere will air in one week. So for all of us who are counting the days; I hope this chapter will shorten the wait a little. My beta Gin2a was kind enough to make it presentable. I thank her immensely for taking the time to do this.

Okay, more than enough said. I hope you like this chapter. Enjoy.

9. Blame (Calvin Harris feat John Goodman)

The sight of her empty desk really drove the point home. She had left him.

The paper coffee cup in his hand proved that he had dared to hope. Now it was just mocking him.

He felt like tightening his hand into a fist to crush the stupid thing. But he didn't. Because the coffee was hot, his dress shirt was white and because he was in control of his emotions when he was CEO. The Arrow may go and randomly put arrows through the legs of teenage-boys that annoyed him, but he wasn't that man right now. This man took a sip of the latte he had originally bought for Felicity and headed into his office, just to seem unaffected to anybody who might be watching.

It was a bad act. Of course all of this affected him. Even worse, her not being at her desk had really unsettled him. And that was RIDICULOUS! It was as ridiculous as being left by a girl who wasn't really with him to begin with. It was a fake break-up to end a fake relationship and it should mean NOTHING!

Sadly, it meant that his days of fooling himself were up. He could no longer fool himself into believing that nothing had changed between them, into believing that he had it under control, into believing that he might get away with letting the woman he cared about a lot believe that he didn't care as much. He wished he could hit somebody, destroy something, let his frustrations out. He wished he could fill that emptiness inside him with anger. But the only one he could be angry at was himself. He had nobody to blame but himself. He had let this whole thing get out of hand, had let other people take control over his life, he had been the one to blur the lines.

Felicity had been right; they had had this unspoken agreement – and he had gone and broken it without one word. He had done this consciously. Because the first time may have been an "accident", but the second kiss on the cheek had been him pushing the limits of what was smart. It was a small thing, but Felicity had been right fucking once again when she had said that between them even this little thing was too much. He had been giving in to a feeling and to doing what felt right for him.

And that had unsettled Felicity more than any near-death-experience had.

Never had he seen her like that, that distressed. Her voice had shaken, vibrating with the tears that had collected in her eyes, her hands had been shaking.

He had seen Felicity in various states of anguish: after her run-in with Helena, after he had pulled her off a landmine, after they had jumped out of a window on the 33rd floor, after the Count had held a potentially deadly syringe to her neck – to name just the ones that came to him off the top of his head. And because of these experiences he knew that Felicity could pull herself together really well, she could keep her nerves in check. Last night she had failed to do that. And that had, in return, shaken Oliver to his core.

How – the hell – had he ended up like this? This weak and confused and distracted! This wasn't him. He wasn't like this. He hated being like this. He hated being the weak one. He hated that it hadn't been HIM who had ended this. Because it was right to end this. Felicity had done what he should have done weeks ago, but had been too weak to do. He had dared to let so many emotions out and it had blinded him.

Of course, he blamed that on John Diggle completely.

Now he had to go and pick up the pieces. He had to find a way to fix this into something that both he and Felicity could work with, he had to draw the line back on the ground and get back to what and where they had been.

He knew she was interested; he was neither stupid nor blind.

He knew he was interested.

He also knew it could never work. He would end up hurting her, pulling her down with him. He was wrong for her. He would do what was right and stop this before he would really go too far.

If he was a bigger man, he would let her go completely, would tell her that it was better, if they went their separate ways. She would keep his secret, he knew, and she could go and find happiness away from the danger. Maybe that was the best he could do. He needed to finally be a bigger man. It would be hard without her, without her expertise, her computer-knowledge, her ability to find a simple answer to even the most difficult questions and her ability to find lightness in the darkest situations. They would never be able to replace her, but he needed to stop being so goddamn selfish and think about her first, for once.

It was better to cut ties than to draw invisible lines that were too easy to overstep.

He felt the weight of his decision pulling him down. It was hard, but it was the right thing.

"You think you're hot shit, don't you? Well, let me tell you! Scratch the 'hot' and you're pretty close to the truth!"

His head snapped toward the door and his eyes landed on Donna Smoak. Her jeans skirt was too short, her white blouse was opened a button too many, her shoes had ridiculously high platform heels, but her hands were placed on her hips and with the angry scowl on her face she looked like a platinum-blond avenger of the distressed. Her sudden appearance shocked him so much that he could do nothing but stare at her. She marched toward him and the sound of her heels clicking on the floor reminded him too much of her daughter to help him find his equilibrium. She placed both her hands on his desk and glowered at him, "What did you do, dickhead?"

Now THERE was the anger to fill the emptiness. He pushed his chair back forcefully as he got up. "I didn't do anything!" He straightened up to his full height, glaring down at the blond woman in his best intimidating stance.

Like her daughter Donna refused to be intimidated, "Then why did I spent the night consoling my crying daughter? The last time I saw Lizzy like this was when she thought that she wouldn't get into MIT." She raised an accusing index finger at the taller man, "My daughter may not have been raised with golden spoons or wiped her ass with dollar notes, but she is worth more than any one of your lot! She worked hard for everything she has, she has nothing to apologize for. I might only be a stupid high-school drop-out waitressing in Vegas, but even I know that you won't ever find nobody better than my baby!"

"I know that!"

"Oh, you know that! Then why, Mr. Know-it-all, are you acting like an asshole?!"

Reminding himself that he didn't hit women who wouldn't hit back – even though, he wasn't so sure where Donna Smoak was concerned – he forced himself to unclench his fists again. He pressed the next words out, "It was your daughter who broke up with me."

"I didn't see you at her doorstep last night, begging her to take you back!" She crossed her arms over her chest, "Or did I miss you?"

Oliver just glared at her. He was glad that the desk was separating them.

Donna, on the other hand, looked unaffected, like she was just getting started. "My baby doesn't need you and your money and your dinner parties and your judgmental mother. My baby doesn't need a guy who invites his ex-girlfriend to his engagement party to show her what he had before. Is that what you really want? That skinny bitch?"

"I don't want anybody but Felicity."

He had practically spat it at her. It was hardly a romantic declaration of love, but it shut both of them up, because it hit both of them unprepared. Nobody was more surprised than Oliver that those words had actually left his lips. They had left his lips minutes after he had decided to let Felicity go. How – the hell – had he ended up so pitiful that he forgot about his own resolutions practically seconds after making them? Normally, he was a very determined guy. Where had all of that determination gone? How could Smoak women of all ages get past his defenses so easily?

"Is that so?" Donna's voice had lost a little of its edge. "Then why are you here, and not with her?"

"Felicity had good reasons to break up with me. I understand them. And I respect them."

"Bullshit!" Donna made a dismissive gesture that bordered on offensive, "It's like the Beatles said: all you need is love."

"I don't think that's true."

Donna raised her eyebrows at him. "You dare to question John?!"

"It's not that easy." Why was Oliver even trying to reason with this woman? "And it has nothing to do with you. If I recall correctly, it's been three years since you last saw Felicity. So what do you know about what she wants?"

"I know this, rich boy: My baby deserves better than you. And I know that I'm always there for her when she calls. And that's more than you can say for yourself." Her blond hair flew behind her as she turned around and marched back out of his office.

Oliver watched her leave, his lips pressed tightly together, his eyes sparkling with the rage that boiled inside him. Without thinking he reached for the paper coffee cup and threw it against the glass wall ahead. The light brown liquid that had been the latte meant for Felicity splashed against the see-through surface and spread all over the wall, ran down it and dripped onto the floor.

It was official, Oliver had made a big mess.

Never before had Oliver been this happy that his CEO-duties kept him busy at QC. On any normal day he couldn't wait to get out of here and to the Foundry. But today he didn't know if Felicity was waiting for him there – and how he would react, if she was.

Or if she wasn't, for that matter.

For now, he placed all his attention on the distribution in Asia, which was a key market that QC was targeting to expand sales. At the moment he was listening to a report the head of the Japanese subsidiary was giving via video conference. The guy was just drinking his third coffee of the day at eight o'clock in the morning, while it was nine p.m. in Starling City. The meeting had started one hour ago – meaning an early start for the Japanese team and a late night for the Americans. It was all about compromise.

Suddenly Oliver was forced to take his attention off the pie chart that was part of the presentation he was trying to follow, when he felt his cellphone vibrate in his jacket pocket. He pulled it out and looked at the display where three unmistakable numbers were visible. Diggle had sent him a 911, which meant he had to let the pie charts go and quit hiding. He got up from his seat. Oliver knew there was no good way to do this, which was why he went with his best no-nonsense approach. "Thank you, gentlemen. I am sorry, but I have to leave you here. Please sent me a copy of your report, I will study the rest later." He nodded one last time and headed out of the conference room, already calling Diggle back.

Without any greeting Diggle got down to business as soon as he answered Oliver's call, "We think we know where Crane is." Oliver pressed the button of the elevator. The doors opened immediately and Oliver entered the cabin, while Diggle kept talking, "Felicity found an e-mail on the laptop you got from Elliot's place that mentions a gathering in an abandoned warehouse down by the docks. It's supposed to happen tonight at 9.30."

"Send the address to my phone. I'll head there right away."

"You got your back-up suit with you?"

"I do."

Diggle was quiet for a moment, and Oliver knew what his friend was nice enough not to say. Finally, a deep sigh hit Oliver's ear. "Okay, despite everything; keep a com-link open. I have a bad feeling about this. Felicity said the mail was pretty obvious."

"Okay. I'll contact you, when I'm on site."

This city had too many empty warehouses. That was the only explanation why every shady crew had their own one to meet in. The one he was looking at right now was the classical functional building, an inornate rectangle with a rolling gate big enough for trucks to drive through and tiny windows far above the ground to limit the access points for thieves.

Luckily, Oliver was much more skilled than the ordinary thief. He had made it to the roof of the building without making any sound and had found a broken skylight that gave him the opportunity to glance inside. He saw nothing but a dim light from somewhere on the left. Diggle was right, this was weird. If this really was a gathering, not many people had gotten the memo.

He reached for the tiny button and opened the com-link to the Foundry. There was no need to worry his partners, so he kept his message short. "I'm going in," he whispered.

He got an answer immediately. "Leave the com-link open."

Diggle's voice was all worry. His friend should know that the Arrow could push personal issues away and concentrate on the things at hand, but telling Diggle that would give these issues more room than they could have right now, so he just left the com-link open, climbed through the broken window and landed on a galley. Slowly, he walked over the metal grate with his knees bent and his bow readied. He placed one foot in front of the other carefully, being perfectly quiet, while observing his surroundings. He really didn't like what he saw, because it screamed trap to him. Common sense and survival instincts alike told him to not go down there, where he saw a man standing in the cone of light created by a lone light bulb. But Oliver knew that this was also an opportunity he couldn't pass up, which was why he was jumping down the galley in the next moment.

"Good. You got my message. I have been waiting for you."

Dr. Jonathan Crane had a very thin, slightly high voice. The metal walls threw it back into the huge room, creating an unpleasant echo. Oliver scanned his surroundings. He really saw nobody but this tall, skinny man in the worst suit he had ever seen. It was old and ill-fitting; the legs of the pants were too short while the jacket seemed to be too big. He was a strange sight that turned even stranger by the top hat he wore.

"I dressed up for the occasion," Crane said now and grinned, revealing really bad teeth. He motioned to Oliver, who still moved toward him cautiously with his bow drawn. "But I see you are wearing your best suit, too."

"I'm not here to play your games," Oliver spat at him, his voice technically modified.

"I am not playing, I am studying."

"Studying what?"

"That is the wrong question," Crane corrected, and Oliver instantly believed that this man had been a college professor once. He stood there, unmoving, while the light hitting him from above contorted his features and turned the spots where his eyes lay deep in head into dark holes. "The right question is: studying who? And the answer is: you."

Oliver didn't like this at all.

Crane obviously didn't mind. He just continued his lecture. "See, I gave you quite a few tasks in the last month to study how you operate. To be honest, I was not impressed. It took you quite some time until you caught Mr. Burton." The thin man now started to slowly wander to the left of the light circle. Oliver watched him carefully, thinking that he probably should end him right now – sadly, he had had stopped ending people, and he still needed to figure out what exactly Crane was up to. Crane, who was still talking while walking, "But in the end, I was lucky that you were so slow. It gave me time to perfect my secret weapon."

"Vertigo," Oliver offered.

"That is what you call it, yes. I call it a masterpiece. Of course, I improved it for my purpose."

"Purpose?" Oliver spat. "What could the purpose of all this be?"

"Thank you for asking! I am glad you are so attentive, makes this whole thing much easier! The purpose of this is scientific progress, of course. I am a scientist, my forte is the primal instinct that connects every living being, human, canine, feline."

"Fear."

"Very good. I see you did your homework."

"Spare me your lecture." Oliver dared to move closer, still alert and ready to send an arrow through this man he despised with everything he had.

Crane was now slowly walking to the other end of the illuminated spot. He ignored Oliver's words and just kept on talking, obviously pleased to hear the sound of his own voice. "The fears of a person tell us a lot about him... or her. It is even more interesting to study how a person reacts to these fears. There are people who attack everything they see – that was quite an experience I had with Matt and his friends..." He stopped now, once again directly under the light bulb, "You see, I have quite a nice collection of phobias I came across during my scientific research, but I am sure a man like you, a creature of the night, has some very unique fears. And I have a very strong theory to how you will react to them." He smiled that horrible, teeth-baring smile again. "I think it is time we test them."

That was Oliver's cue. He let go of the arrow, but Crane was already moving. In the next moment, Oliver heard his arrow hit a metallic wall, while he saw nothing but orange smoke. The thin man had thrown something at him, something like a gas grenade, and now he was surrounded by thick fog. He saw nothing as he tried to look around, reading himself for an attack, listening closely for footsteps nearing him to know where the attack would come from. But it never came. Instead, Oliver realized that he was still standing in the middle of the gas that Diggle had compared to a chemical weapon, and that thought triggered something in him. He felt his chest tighten. Instinctively, he knew he had to get out of this fog. He blindly aimed his bow upward and sent a rope-arrow toward the ceiling. He heard it click and sped upwards in the next moment, away from the mist and Crane, who was once again standing where he had stood before.

"Oh, Mr. Arrow, you are ruining all the fun. I never took you for a guy to run. You are supposed to stay. That is what lab-rats are good for; letting themselves be observed."

Oliver knew he should feel immense anger at this man and the things he was saying, but he couldn't summon the slightest bit of annoyance. Instead, he felt his heart beat faster, he realized his breathing was getting heavier and sweat was collecting on his forehead. He needed to get out of there completely. He ran over the galley – and the sound his feet made reminded him so much of the Amazo. And suddenly he was back on the damn ship, hearing the banging of heavy footsteps as Slade ran toward him with hate in his eyes to make him pay for Shado's death.

No, he reminded himself, this was the sound of his footsteps. He was in a warehouse; he needed to get out of. The voice he heard was Diggle, talking to him through the com-link to get an update. But talking and walking was too much effort right now. Oliver needed to flee. Get away from danger. He saw the broken window where he had climbed in and took the same way out. His heart was beating even faster, he felt his stomach twist and his mouth turn dry.

His steps were still noisy and left a metallic rattling behind as he ran over the roof of the warehouse. He suddenly felt wet. Rain, a part of him reasoned, but the bigger part of him thought of the way his clothes had clung to his body while he had fought Slade Wilson, a man who he had thought of as his mentor, who he had looked up to and whose blood he had on his hands. And suddenly he saw it, he saw the water filling up this sinking ship, he saw Slade's fathomless hatred and knew that there was no mercy left in this man. He knew that he had to fight or die, take a life, and suddenly pain jerked through his body. The last tiny reasonable part told him that he had just fallen off the roof, but the rest that was driven by the indescribable panic roaming his body told him that he needed to keep going. Away from the memories, which were playing clearly visible in front of his eyes. He saw Slade laying there, staring up at him with an Arrow sticking out of his right eye.

Oliver was staring at the eyes of death. Death he had caused. He had caused so much hurt, he had lost so many friends. His heart constricted. Shado. Her brain had been spilled all over the dirty forest floor, she had died on a hellish island at the hands of a mad-men. She had dropped to the ground, lifeless, motionless with empty eyes, because a guy with a God-complex liked to fuck with people's minds. And because Oliver hadn't been able to stop him. She had spilled her blood just like her father had. And with that thought another body dropped to the ground in front of Oliver's mental eye. Yao Fei had been killed by a bullet aimed perfectly between his eyes. On his forehead it had only been a tiny red dot, but the whole back of his head had been gone.

Just like the head of Oliver's father had exploded. The brain, the blood, the bony splinters, it had spread all across the lifeboat and over the water surface where it had ultimately fed the fish. The suicide of his father, it hadn't been a pretty sight, and Oliver was witnessing it again right now, reliving every second of it. It had happened too fast to act, but it had burned into Oliver's brain how his father had blown his own one out. Oliver had trouble breathing now, he was gasping for air as he was experiencing the first horrible moment that had marked the beginning – no, wait, that wasn't the first one. Before that had been Sara, sucked into the blackness of the sea, lost to impenetrable darkness, swallowed up by water. She may have survived this, but Oliver knew that a part of her had died that night. Like a part of him had been lost at sea forever. And it was his fault that Sara had been on this yacht to begin with.

He had caused so much pain and suffering, he had taken so many people down with him – some of them even quite literally. He had witnessed people he cared about die a senseless death. He had seen others change, twisted into something unrecognizable. He had lost too many people he had loved in too many ways.

He fought to get air into his lunges. He couldn't breathe. This wasn't just fear, this was real panic. And he was alone. There was nobody here to witness it. A small part of him told him that this was a good thing, because Crane was out there somewhere, probably getting off on the state Oliver was in. That guy was dangerous, and Oliver needed everybody to be away from this danger.

But the bigger part of Oliver wished somebody would be there. He was afraid to be alone. He was afraid to face all these demons on his own, there were so many of them, and it scared him that they still held so much power over him after all these years. Fear was adding onto fear, paralyzing him. He had been forcing himself to move forward, as if he could run away from his inner pain, but now his legs gave in. He sank to the cold and wet ground. The rain was pouring down on him, the drops mixing with the tears that ran down his face, while his whole body was shaking. He felt utterly alone and helpless. He hadn't felt like this since he had been alone in the middle of the sea with nothing but water surrounding him.

Or when he had been forced to watch Tommy die. Oh! Tommy! He could see it, how he lay there, his body broken and half-buried, a metal rod stabbed through his chest, his eyes full of life one moment, but empty in the next. Oliver had been forced to watch. He had been unable to do anything. He had tried to safe his city, but he had lost his best friend in the process. He was a failure. He had failed so many people. The people that had died while he just kept on living paraded in front of his inner eye: Tommy and his father, Sara and Shado, Slade and Yao Fei. He had lost them all. They had left him behind. He could see them, standing next to each other. One after the other they dropped to the ground before him, spilling their lives in front of his eyes, dead and gone. Tommy with blood running out of his nose, Sara coughing up water, Slade with the arrow in his eye. Then Shado took a bullet, and Yao Fei, and his father, and Felicity.

He felt like screaming, and he dimly registered that maybe he really did. He didn't want to see this! That had never happened! But it was so vividly real. Felicity lay there, her light extinguished, blood collecting around her, her empty eyes staring up at him. His heart was constricting, beating so heavily that it seemed hurtful. This wasn't real. He was trying to convince himself – but failing. It seemed so real, it looked so real, he saw it with his own eyes. He longed to touch her, to cradle her to him, but he didn't dare to. He felt paralyzed, unable to move, held down by fear that was pure panic. She couldn't be one of the people lying on the dirty ground covered by wet leaves, dead. Not HER! He couldn't lose anybody else, he knew that, but most of all he couldn't lose her. His own death, it held no horror for him, he didn't fear to stop breathing. But there was nothing he feared more than failing another person he loved.

"Oliver!"

Finally, something that had been tugging at the edges of his consciousness sank in. Suddenly, he felt a soft and warm hand on his cheek. The small reasonable part of his brain told him that he knew exactly who this was and that it was a sign that these horrors were just the spawn of his imagination, fueled by the horrible reality he had lived through. The smell of wet forest that had surrounded him, a clear memory from the night and place Shado had died, was suddenly replaced with a breath of spring. It was a flowery smell that reached him in the midst of his worst nightmare. That and the gentle touch on his cheek calmed him a little, pulled him away from the terrors he was reliving and reminded him that there was something good out there, that there was light in all this darkness. "Felicity," he choked.

"Yes-"

She said more, he could hear her voice, and it calmed him, even if he could not make out the words. She was here, she was alive, and he wasn't alone anymore. She had walked away from him, he had thought he had lost her, failed her, but she had come back to him. She had come when he needed her more than ever, more than anything. She was by his side; she was with him and helped him fight the horrible memories of his past. He had lost so many people. But he wouldn't survive losing her; he knew that with unquestionable certainty.

He forced his shaking arms to move and pulled her to him. "You can't leave me," he told her in the faintest whisper, it was all he managed. "I can't lose you. You need to stay with me." The last wasn't a request; it was an order. And then he held on to her for dear life.