There was minute of silence after Felicity knocked on Oliver's door. Recovering the files had taken less time than she'd thought. She'd scarfed down a quick dinner while Sara and Nyssa watched with raised eyebrows and then she'd bolted back to the dorm and set to work. Now all that was left was to share her victory with Oliver. Felicity rocked back on her heels and glanced down the abandoned hallway. Maybe he wasn't in. He could be at dinner or in the gym or—

The door swung open to reveal a bleary eyed Oliver. His sandy brown hair stuck up in porcupine spikes and he wore a pair of grey sweatpants swung low around his hips.

"Oh!" Felicity startled. "Hello. You're not wearing a shirt. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I mean, you look good. Not good like I'm attracted to you just not bad—"

"Hi, Felicity," Oliver interrupted, rubbing the back of his hand across his eyes. "What's up?"

"The files." Felicity cheeks were burning but she powered through. "I was able to transfer them from your drive-by computer to my nice functioning laptop. I thought you'd want to know."

Oliver yawned as he nodded along to her words.

"I'm sorry," Felicity said. She felt like an idiot. He'd clearly been sleeping and probably didn't feel like listening to her babble. "I didn't mean to wake you up. I can come back later." She turned to go but Oliver grabbed her elbow.

"No, no, come in." He guided her into the room and shut the door behind them. "I was just napping. I haven't been sleeping well at night." Oliver was one of the only, if not the only, student at Pembroke to have a private dorm. Felicity had heard rumors that his mother had paid a handsome sum on top of the already ridiculous cost of tuition to get it for him. Others whispered that Oliver had been kicked out of the regular dorms because he kept waking up screaming in the middle of the night.

Felicity glancing furtively around the room. If she had hoped to glean any insight about Oliver by the state of his room she was sorely disappointed. The room was narrow and dark. The only furnishings were a wooden four poster bed, a chair, and a small desk with a lamp on it, which provided just enough dim yellow light to illuminate the only other decoration in the entire room; a photograph in a silver frame on his desk. It showed Oliver, his parents, and a young girl Felicity assumed was his little sister, Thea. They were the perfect family. If she didn't recognized Oliver, Felicity might have thought it was the stock photo you were supposed to take out before putting your own picture in.

Beside the frame, a stack of newspapers sat on the desk. The headline of the one of top read "Starling Vigilante Strikes Again." Just below it was an artist's rendering of a man in a hood that covered the top part of his face. Felicity hadn't heard of the 'Hood', as people were calling the mysterious archer running amok in Starling City, until she had arrived from Vegas. Here though, he was a hot topic. Which made sense considering Starling was the closest city to Pembroke. A boy in Felicity's Ancient Rome class had claimed to see the 'Hood' jumping from a rooftop while in Starling last weekend. Felicity herself had a feeling the whole thing was a hoax put on by some attention starved PR company.

She nodded towards the newspaper. "You researching the Hood?"

Oliver followed her gaze. "Ah, no. Just trying to keep up to date on the news."

Felicity shook her head. "Beyond the vigilante thing, what gets me the most is the fact that this guy chooses to use a bow and arrow as a weapon in an urban setting. Seems utterly ridiculous to me."

"Mhm," Oliver said. "I completely agree." He clapped his hands. "So— you were able to recover the files?"

"Ah, right. Can I—?" she glanced at the bed. He nodded. The mattress groaned as she sank onto the edge and pulled her computer out of her bag. Oliver leaned against the wall nearby and crossed his arms. Felicity couldn't help noticing the way the taut muscles shifted beneath his skin as he did.

Tearing her eyes away, she turned her attention to her laptop. "The process wasn't too difficult actually. It was just a matter of setting up a transfer system between your computer and mine using a firewire cable. And, lucky for you, I just so happened to receive one for my birthday last year. I know—weird present. It's a long story. Basically I needed it hack my doctor's computer system and change the date of my next appointment. Not that I told my mom that." She glanced up at him, grimacing. "I really hate needles."

The corner of Oliver's mouth twitched.

Felicity turned the computer around so he could see the screen. "There you go." She cocked her head. "Aren't you a bit young to be building your stock portfolio?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Stock portfolio?"

"Oliver, these are blueprints," Felicity said. "Of the Starling Exchange building? I thought you said these were your files."

"They are," he said calmly. "Right, the stock exchange. Yeah, I've been trying to keep my efforts on down low. Don't want too much competition, you know?" He smiled. It was a smile meant to disarm its audience. Inwardly, Felicity admitted to being charmed. But that didn't mean she bought his bullshit story.

Oliver sank onto the bed beside her and took the computer into his lap. As he scrolled through the documents, a small furrow appeared behind his brows, cementing Felicity's belief that, whatever Oliver claimed, he had never seen these files before. Whoever they belonged to, it wasn't Oliver Queen. Felicity was momentarily distracted from her suspicions as Oliver shifted beside her and his arm brushed against hers. She was suddenly aware of how close they were sitting. He was unnaturally warm. Heat radiated off his bare skin, permeating the thin fabric of her sweater. For some strange reason, that made her shiver.

"Felicity?"

She looked up. Oliver was watching her, a half smile on his face.

"Hm?"

"I said thank you." He paused. "You're remarkable."

Felicity pushed her glasses up her nose. "Thank you for remarking on it."

Oliver reached into his pocket of his sweatpants and pulled out a wadded up $100. "Here. For your time."

The smile faded from Felicity's face. "First of all, you sleep with hundreds of dollars in your sweatpants?"

He looked wounded. "Not hundreds. Just the one."

"Right," she said dryly. "Well that's normal then. And secondly, you don't have to pay me. That's not why I helped you."

Oliver's brow furrowed. "It's not a big deal. You deserve it. Take the money."

Felicity flushed. Maybe hundred dollars wasn't a big deal to Pembroke kids but to her it was a windfall. "It was a favor, Oliver. Sometimes people just do things for others to be nice."

He looked skeptical but he shrugged and slipped the money back into his pocket.

"Is this how you usually make friends," Felicity said. "Shoving money at them?" She knew she was being overly sensitive. But she had heard the whispers circulating about her. Scholarship kid. Lived in a trailer park. The school's charity project. She was raw around the edges from trying to scrape herself clean of rumors.

Oliver's face was blank. "Felicity, I was marooned on an island for three years. Honestly, I'm kind of out of practice on the whole friend-making thing."

Felicity's indignation thawed. Put next to Oliver's trauma, her insecurities seemed small, petty. "I'm sorry— I didn't mean to remind you."

Oliver shook his head. "It's fine." He stared out the window, his body shifted away from her. She tried to imagine what he was thinking, what he had been through. It was impossible.

At some point in the evening it had started to rain and the sound of water plinking against the glass grew louder as they sat in silence. Water droplets flecked the window, shimmering like tiny crystals in the yellow light from the desk lamp.

"Well, I should probably go," Felicity said after a minute. Oliver nodded. Felicity's hand drifted up an inch, reflexively reaching for him. Her mind raced, trying to think of something to say to make him smile again. He stood abruptly and walked towards the window. Immediately a chill settled in where his warmth had been. Felicity's hand fell.

"Thanks again for the computer help," he said without looking at her. Seeing herself dismissed, Felicity stood and moved to leave. She stopped short at the door and looked back.

"Oliver." She hesitated. He glanced over at her. In the darkened room, his eyes were the deepest blue, almost black. As they often did, words started rushing out before Felicity could stop them. "If you need someone to practice your skills on, I'm here. Your friend-making skills, I mean" she added quickly. "Although I'm sure you have lots of other skills. God knows you could be a model or a professional work-out guru or something." She trailed off. "But it was the friend-making skills I was specifically referring too."

Oliver's shoulders relaxed an infinitesimal amount and she might have imagined it but Felicity thought perhaps the shadows had receded somewhat from his eyes. "I might take you up on that offer." He smiled. This time she detected no ulterior motive behind the gesture, just genuine gratitude and more than a little exhaustion. "Goodnight, Felicity."

"Goodnight."

As Felicity pulled the door shut behind her she felt a strange mixture of relief and regret. What was she getting herself into? She had come to Pembroke purely to have a better chance of getting into MIT. Becoming the Oliver Queen's personal IT girl was not part of the plan. Especially since whatever Oliver was up to was unarguably shady and Felicity had her own problems to worry about when it came to law breaking.

"Snap out of it, Felicity," she muttered to herself. "Also stop talking to yourself. It's weird. Anddd, you're still doing it. Great." Shaking her head slightly, she hiked her bag up her shoulder and set off down the hall.