Oliver entered Felicity's apartment and her smell took him by surprise. It was a shock to his senses. He felt the void inside of him, the void that once was taken by Felicity and it was a bigger part of him that he ever imagine. He crossed the living room, where they sat together hundred times, and slowly made his way to her bedroom. The closets were empty, she had left nothing behind except her smell, the only remnant of her. Her absence was, suddenly, physically painful, his body too much for his legs to bare and, with his back against the door frame, he sledded to the floor. He never had felt a pain as deep in to his core as this. He sat there in desperation as the light outside deemed and the night came crawling.

Suddenly he felt someone by his side sitting down, he didn't care who it was, it wasn't Felicity and that was the only person he wanted by his side now.

"Laurel called. You were supposed to be at the reception. Remember?"

It was Tommy. Oliver had felt the phone rigging and vibrating but it was like the phone was too deep in water or he was, he really didn't know nor cared.

"She's not coming back is she?"

Has Tommy heard Oliver's question he felt he was getting dangerously close to losing it. This man, sitting right beside him, his childhood friend, was marrying Laurel. Laurel, the woman he himself Tommy Merlyn, loved, and here he was, sitting in the dark, a man devastated, for a woman, a friend, to whom he never showed any need or especial appreciation for.

Tommy understood Felicity, he understood why she just left, he wish he could do the same, but he was a Merlyn, he couldn't just vanish, if anything the tabloid's would find him. So he had to stay and deal with the situation but it was getting harder and harder as the wedding got nearer and now having Oliver, the man who was going to make the love of his life happy and take her away from him forever, looking a mess on Felicity's bedroom floor was too much for Tommy to deal with.

"What did you thought was going to happen, Oliver? I'm truly curious. How did you saw all this playing out? Felicity here, you hovering over her until Laurel would take due precedence by becoming your wife, and then what? Felicity waiting here for, a maybe, a moment in time you would remember she existed and came here, or, even better, going to her office at Queen Consolidated smile at her and maybe give her a gentle notch? She's not a pet, Oliver, for you to give a treat from time to time when you fell like it."

Even trough his pain Oliver was shocked at the words leaving Tommy's mouth.

"And then when you and Laurel had your first kid he or she would call her aunt-y Felicity like it will Thea? Seriously Oliver what did you expect?"

Tommy was aware he was pouring all he had bottled inside for years but he couldn't help himself and Oliver needed to be remembered that everything in life, every course of action, every decision, had consequences and many times those consequences fell on others.

He waited for an answer while Oliver struggled, trying to process all his friend had said.

"I don't know what I expected Tommy, but I never considered Felicity a pet, she's my friend..."

"Is she? Really? What do you really know about her, Oliver, on a personal level. Do you know what makes her laugh? What makes her get up every morning? Who she loves? Do you know any thing about her deepest wishes, desires or expectations?"

The more Tommy talked the more Oliver was aware his friend was making him look the truth right in the eyes, and it was like drinking acid, it burned.

"Your right I don't know much of..." Oliver stopped himself considering the truthfulness of his answer "...nothing about Felicity true inside self, what I know is I can't bare not having her here with me. I need her, Tommy."

"And she needed you, she loved you, she still loves you. She's going to lose you forever to Laurel that is painful enough, she doesn't need to watch it happen. Going to the wedding and even though totally crushed inside, make a happy face and pretend. Pretend she's fine, pretend that her friendly shoulder will be there for you if you need it, which would be a lie for your comfort Oliver for it can't possibly be it wouldn't be fair to neither Felicity nor Laurel, if it did; pretend she's happy, just pretend she wasn't hurting."

"Felicity is in love with me? Why didn't she tell me?"

Tommy had to laugh, a pity laugh, pity for this man many considered a pillar, a guide, so oblivious to what was going on with the people closest to him.

"What? To feel humiliated? To feel awkward around you from that moment on? She loves you Oliver but, it always has been Oliver and Laurel, Laurel and Oliver ever since she met you. In fact even before that. Remember back when we met Laurel?"

Oliver's thoughts were far from Laurel, they were totally taken by a small blond IT girl he always view as a friend and now, he just didn't know, but he was beginning to grasp she was more, but he did his best to oblige Tommy's request.

"I remember."

Tommy hardly heard Oliver's answer. In his mind he had traveled back in to the past. He was in a room full of people from which he only noticed one.

"She was so beautiful. Smiling. I manage to get to her trough a mutual friend and I loved her right then and there. You arrived with some girl by your side, as always, and we started all four talking. At first I noticed the dazzling smiles she was giving you and then her dreamy eyes all over you and I knew I'd lost her. And I couldn't even blame you because you were being a total ass that night, as per usual back then, feeling the girl that was with you. I remember the girl giggling, trying to pretend it wasn't uncomfortable the way you were touching her. But none of it matter, Laurel had decided she wanted you I had to accept it. And accept I did and I do. I will be at the wedding, I am the best man no less." a vague and deeply sad smile peaked on Tommy's lips just for a moment "Unlike Felicity I can't run from this I have to face it and behave as a Merlyn man should."

Tommy's last few words were a imitation of his father's voice. Malcom Merlyn was a strict man. To avoid problems with his father Tommy had to behave no less then a perfect example of heir to the leader of the Merlyn's family.

"You are in love with Laurel? Tommy, I never knew, I would never..."

"Like I said I accept it, it was Laurel's choice. I was there, remember. She came at you. Since that first night, everywhere you went she was there, and she hovered over you, I saw it and it hurt every time. Then one day you broke, and you fell for her. It was her decision and you would be compelled to accept it sooner or later, just like I did. Which, of course, doesn't mean I am happy with it."

Oliver couldn't even speak, it was all too much. How could he be so obtuse, so blind. Did he even know any of his closest friend's?

"I'm going home, Oliver. I can see you are OK so if Laurel call's me again I will tell her that. I won't tell her where you are." after all Oliver just heard Tommy knew he needed some time alone and he would do his best to give it to him.

"I am and always will be your friend Oliver." with all the "truth serum" delivered and the assurance of friendship given, Tommy got up and left Felicity's apartment while Oliver remain sitting on the floor looking even more broken than before.

It was hard to believe something could hurt more than Felicity's absence but Oliver had just found out he could hurt much worst, like a dagger cutting through his gut slowly and surely while he was right awake. Felicity was gone, a big part of him missed her enough for is heart to stumble and for his lungs to refuse breathing at a normal pace, and he just found out he didn't knew his friends as well as he should and that was entirely his fault.

Tommy, for all it's worth, was there for Oliver and in time Oliver believed he could do right by him, has he could for Laurel.

Laurel...while hearing Tommy it dawn on him he wasn't in love with Laurel, and he doubted he ever was. Tommy was right, she hunted him until he gave up. Did he really wanted a life with her? The no was suddenly so clear in his head. He wanted to be with someone he was in love with and that loved him back. He knew enough about Laurel to know that their relationship wasn't that kind of relationship, they were together, in retrospect, because Oliver was too lazy to follow the harder path that was finding the right woman for himself he had chosen to pick the easier path of just accepting what was offered to him. In that particular he thought Tommy was wrong, the decision to be Oliver and Laurel was taken by both Laurel and Oliver. Oliver knew he wasn't innocent hence the need to do right both by Tommy and by Laurel.

Has for Felicity he never knew caring for someone could be this way, it was more than caring. Oliver searched for the right word to describe what it was, and when he finally found it it was like the hole inside himself got bigger. He was in love with Felicity, he could see it now clear as water, he loved her, and, no matter what, he would find her.

His phone rang yet again, it was Laurel. He had to talk to her but it was going to be hard so a face to face talk was the only way to go. And he couldn't do it now. He was feeling hurt, alone, abandoned, destroyed, a shadow of himself. His all world had fallen apart for it was like a castle of clouds that a breath of wind scatters in the sky, a dream only he thought real.

The bruises Tommy had cause were profound, but Felicity's silent acceptance, the way she just left believing it would be nothing to him, believing she was nothing to him, like she didn't matter, like she wasn't important, and the hole she left in his soul was so much more deep.