CHAPTER TWENTY SIX: ALL I WANT

All I want is nothing more, hear you knocking at my door
'Cause if I could see your face once more, to die a happy woman I'm sure
When you said your last goodbye, I died a little bit inside
I lay in tears in bed all night, alone without you by my side.

If you love me, why'd you leave me?
Take my body, take my body
All I want is and all I need is
To find somebody, I'll find somebody like you.
Like you. Like you. You.

'Cause you brought out the best of me,
A part of me I'd never seen,
You took my soul and wiped it clean,
Our love was made for movie screens.

If you love me, why'd you leave me?
Take my body, take my body
All I want is and all I need is
To find somebody, find somebody.

If you love me, why'd you leave me?
Take my body, take my body
All I want is and all I need is
To find somebody, I'll find somebody like you.

Felicity tried hard to forget about the kiss she'd shared with Oliver almost a week ago. It had been amazing, just as she remembered. Her toes curling in her shoes, a feeling of home had washed over her and she'd almost drowned in it. His skin was a little rougher against hers because of the stubble he was sporting but that only worked to intensify the tingles and fluttering of her heart.

She really did try to forget the soft way his lips had moved over hers, the taste of him on the tip of her tongue. She craved more of it, more of him, but she knew better than to pursue it. She really did try to forget about the way his fingers had tangled in her hair, angling her head towards him, gently massaging her neck.

Felicity did what anyone would do trying to forget about something they wanted so but couldn't have again. She threw herself into work, which only made it easier not to think about him. She let his calls go to voicemail because she was 'busy' or 'in a meeting' and didn't text him to go get lunch together just because she was bored. She knew Oliver knew exactly what she was doing, but she reasoned it was for the best to keep it this way for a little while, maybe until the adrenaline had worn off a little. Felicity feared that was going to take a while because there was something about their kisses, there always had been, that made them unforgettable, forcing their way into being the first thing you'd think of when you woke up and the last thing you'd think of before falling asleep. Some people would say it was because they're meant to be. Soulmates, even. But, as of late, Felicity wasn't so sure anymore.

She made a point of avoiding everything that reminded her of Oliver even in the slightest bit. Yes, she may possibly have been going crazy, but that wasn't new when it came to Oliver. She didn't go to her favorite coffee shop for her morning cup before work anymore because they used to hang out there when they were teenagers. She rerouted her drive to work so she wouldn't pass the Italian restaurant where they'd met for dinner a couple of weeks before, forcing her to leave ten minutes earlier than usual. Thank god she had Walter's off the record assignment to keep her distracted, because she would actually have gone mad without Oliver.

And when she wasn't working on that, she caught herself hacking into the SCPD mainframe on multiple occasions, looking for autopsy reports and witness statements from anything involving 'the vigilante'. That did nothing to calm her mind. And that's exactly what she caught herself doing while waiting for the searches she was running for Walter had been going. She'd watched enough crime shows in her life not to be completely grossed out by the picture of the dead man on her screen. The skin was pale and the chest sewn up. Felicity bit her lip as she read the autopsy report. The wound the arrow had left wasn't supposed to be lethal. The cause of death was blood loss. Felicity took a deep breath, gaze zeroing in on the tiny hole in the man's shoulder when her computer started beeping. She jumped, taken by surprise completely. Her searches had finished, and the results weren't anything she'd expected.

"The company Moira invested in doesn't exist." She said before the door to Walter's executive office even had the chance to fall shut again. Determined and with purpose in her step, Felicity walked right up to his desk. It wasn't that she was aiming to expose the woman she considered a mother, but she had always known there was more to Moira Queen than the loving wife and doting mother she presented herself as. What she had found could possibly be a clue to what it was that she was hiding.

"I don't understand." Walter said, looking up from his paperwork.

Felicity pulled out a piece of paper showing the trail the deposit Moira had made had left behind. It had been hidden well, but not well enough. "There was no investment."

"The money was used to set up an offshore LLC called Tempest." She explained, pulling out another file with everything she had found on the company.

Walter frowned, reaching for his reading glasses. "I don't recall that name being under the Queen Consolidated banner." He said while putting the frames on the bridge of his nose, squinting a little at the words on paper.

Felicity pursed her lips and nodded. "That's cause it's not."

Walter exhaled heavily, glancing at her over the file with concern in his eyes.

"There's nothing registered with the Secretary of State, no federal tax records, no patent applications filed. The company isn't actually in business." She continued, pacing back and forth in front of his desk. She'd combed the internet looking for clues on the supposed company, but there'd been nothing. Not even a sign of what sector Tempest was working in.

"The only thing I could find was that in in 2009, Tempest purchased a warehouse. Right here in Starling City." She said, a proud little smirk on her lips. She was pretty sure not even her hacker friends from MIT would have been able to find that intel.

"You don't happen to have an address for me?" Walter asked, putting down the files she'd handed him.

Felicity nodded, placing another file on his desk and pointing a red-painted fingernail to where she had highlighted the warehouse's address and zip code. Walter was very quiet, had been during the whole conversation. While she had energy for ten men high on caffeine, Walter seemed to zone out at the thought of his wife hiding things from him. Which was understandable. When Felicity noticed, she calmed herself down, waiting for him to say something. All he did was thank her for her work and tell her that he would let her know if he needed anything else. They said their goodbyes and in a confused daze, Felicity made her way back down to her office.

Completely lost in thought, she didn't even notice the people waiting for her arrival until someone cleared his throat. Shaking her head, she emerged from her thoughts, clutching the folder with Walter's intel a little closer to her chest. She exhaled heavily and slumped her shoulders when she saw the people who had startled her.

"Oliver. Of course you're here." She groaned, looking between him and Mr. Diggle.

"Felicity." He acknowledged her. "I know you probably don't want to see me right now but I need your help."

She scoffed. "With what? It's not like 'personal Internet researcher for the Starling City Vigilante' is in my job title, Oliver."

He sighed. "I need to find somebody. Somebody who doesn't want to be found." Oliver said, pushing off her desk that he'd been leaning against casually. Like he owned the place. Which, technically he did, but that wasn't the point. By the way his voice had softened, Felicity knew it was serious, that he wasn't just looking for a long lost friend. He was looking for a criminal.

Felicity looked at Diggle again. "So, you're in on his little secret too? I should've guessed it."

She rolled her eyes and pushed past Oliver to get to her desk. Dropping the files into a drawer she sat down in her chair. She knew as soon as he had asked for her help, she was already going to help him in any way she could. Oliver was her weakness, her soft spot. She couldn't say no to him.

"You're lucky I never back away from a challenge," she muttered, powering up her computer and pulling her keyboard closer to her.

"What have you got for me?" Felicity asked, looking at Oliver. She could see the relief in his eyes right before he pulled himself together.

"A group called the Royal Flush gang has been terrorizing banks all over the west coast. One of the members punched a bank manager and his ring left a mark. We managed to get our hands on a picture and a witness's description of the gunman and we're hoping it could lead to finding out who the people behind the masks are." Oliver explained, handing her a flash drive.

"I've been trying to figure that out too." Felicity muttered to herself as she took the drive from him, quickly plugging it into her computer. Seeing the hurt look on his face, she was fairly certain Oliver had heard what she'd said.

Taking a deep breath, she focused back on her screen, pulling up the image, isolating the design the print had left and cross referencing it to school, college and sports team logos in the area. As soon as she had cleared up the image, she'd been pretty sure it was a class ring of some sorts. She'd added in the sports just to be sure. She got a match in under a minute.

"Larchmont High." She said, eyes flitting from one screen to the other as she continued working.

"Of course, a class ring." Diggle said, crossing his enormous arms over his chest.

Felicity typed like her life depended on it, and if she was honest, it felt really good to help find this criminal. It awakened a fierceness deep inside her that she hadn't realized she possessed. Adrenaline rushed through her veins as search after search revealed just a tiny bit more of the puzzle. "I cross-referenced his height and relative age with a list of students and alumni."

From the corner of her eye, she could see Oliver was watching her intently, a crease between his eyebrows. "That's a pretty long list."

She nodded. "It is."

Her fingers stilled as her computer beeped, lifting her hands off the keyboard, hovering over it as she looked at the information she'd found.

"I dug a little deeper and found Kyle Reston."

Oliver and Diggle exchanged a look, clearly impressed by how fast she'd managed to find the guy. Felicity's hand flew to her mouse and closed the irrelevant windows one by one as she pieced together Kyle's story in her head. It wasn't long before she noticed that there was nothing to be found about him after 2008.

"Right before Kyle's senior year, not only did he drop out, he dropped off the grid."

She let the info hang in the air for a moment before she started typing again. "Along with his family- father, mother and a younger brother."

Diggle frowned and nodded. "There were two other guys involved in this particular robbery."

"And a woman." Oliver pitched in.

The two men exchanged a look. Felicity watched them for a moment, biting her bottom lip. An idea popped into her head and she started typing again, looking for the official police report that was issued after the heist. "Aside from the bank manager, there were 22 customers and employees that came out of the bank." She murmured.

"Inside the bank, They put a ringer in." Oliver groaned like he should have thought of it earlier.

"The mom." Diggle finished his thought.

"The dad is Derek Reston." She said, reaching up to push her glasses up her nose before they completely slid off in her concentration.

"There's not much here that's recent. No credit activity. No utility bills. Just like with Kyle."

Oliver sighed, uncrossing his arms from over his chest.

"The police are looking for a crew, but we're looking for a family." He said, leaning against Felicity's desk as her fingers flew across the keyboard. Her heart was beating in her chest and she could hear the blood rushing through her ears. A thrill was running through her that she'd never experienced before. She liked it. Her fingers danced across the keys like they hadn't since college. The thrill of uncovering mysteries was like fuel to a fire burning deep inside of her.

"Hold up. He used to work at the Queen Steel Factory. For fifteen years until it shut down in '07." Felicity said as she uncovered yet another piece of the puzzle.

"Derek Reston worked for my father?" Oliver's face contorted into a confused expression. He looked at her questioningly, silently asking for more information.

"It looks like Derek was the factory Foreman until your dad outsourced production to China." She said, meeting his eyes for the first time since she had started digging.

Not looking away, Felicity sighed softly. "About 1,500 employees got laid off."

She could see the pain flash behind Oliver's eyes. He was feeling for what these people had gone through, much more than he would like to admit. Felicity could feel her heart cracking for him as the wall she'd build around it shook on its very foundation. Taking a ragged breath, she tore her gaze from his and turned back to her screen.

"Looks like the finance guys even found a loophole in the union contract, so, they didn't have to pay severance packages and pensions to their employees." She said so softly it was almost a whisper.

Diggle and Oliver looked at each other for a moment, contemplating what their next step was without the need of words.

"They all pretty much lost their homes." Felicity bit her lip. How aware she was of the secrets Moira had been keeping, as oblivious she'd been to the wrongs Robert had done. He had let fifteen hundred former employees go without any money to keep themselves alive. Pushed them out of the airplane without a parachute. Left to fend for themselves after years of loyalty to the company.

"Those factory guys frequently hung out at a bar after work. The Restons just got home after 3 years away. That's my best bet on where to find him." Felicity muttered, pulling her hands from the keyboard and tucking them in her lap. She looked down at her hands as she took a deep breath. The adrenaline came crashing down like a heavy weight on her chest.

She heard Oliver say something to Diggle but she couldn't make out what it was. Her hearing seemed muted to the point where she could only hear the grumble of his voice, feeling the vibrations of the low tones in her bones. She zoned out for a moment until she felt a hand on her knee, gently turning her in her chair. Oliver was kneeling in front of her, hand reaching up to cup her cheek as he whispered to her, trying to get her out of her frozen state.

"Felicity? Are you alright?" She heard him ask as she pulled herself out of her numbness.

She shook her head a little as if to wake up her brain. "Yes, sorry, I just zoned out for a second."

Oliver's eyebrows twitched and his lips tightened. He didn't believe her. "I'm worried about you. I haven't heard from you since…"

Since he'd kissed her. And she'd kissed him back and never wanted it to stop. Since that one moment in time when everything had been perfect until the reality of the situation had come crashing down on her.

"I'm sorry, I just needed some time to think." She mumbled, looking down at her hands fidgeting in her lap.

Oliver sighed and put a hand on her knee. "Felicity. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have kissed you, I—"

Her eyes went wide. "No! Don't you dare blame yourself. I returned the favor, didn't I?"

"Then what is the problem? Talk to me, please." He whispered, thumb stroking the inside of her knee, squeezing gently.

"Oliver…" She sighed, tears burning behind her eyes. She pressed her lips together in a firm line, blinking away tears before she spoke again.

"Ever since I learned you were alive, I dreamt of what it would be like once you came back to me. I had so much hope for us, I still do, but I didn't take into account how much the both of us would have changed over the years."

Her voice broke and she had to take a deep breath to center herself and focus. She never thought she'd be telling him all of this and hadn't, not even a little bit, taking into account how hard it would be to just get the words out of her mouth. She couldn't imagine what Oliver must've been feeling in that moment if she was already having such a hard time.

"I wanted to give you space because of all that you've been through, but it's not just you who went through hell. I lost the man I love and with him all my hopes and dreams for the future. I was so lost without you and didn't realize how much impact that had on me until you kissed me last week." Felicity sniffled, hand reaching out to grab his collar, making a last minute beeline for his cheek, fingers gently running through his hair.

She took a deep breath and shook her head. "I can't be with you if you're out hunting criminals every night, risking your life for others, or whatever reasons you have. I can't lose you again, Oliver. I won't let myself love you if you're just gonna leave me again."

"Felicity…" Oliver whispered, hurt flashing behind his eyes, his hands moving to hold hers.

Shaking her head, Felicity closed her eyes for a moment, wishing all the pain and heartbreak away so she could just be with him. When she opened them again, there was determination in her eyes.

"No…" She said, louder this time as if to not only convince Oliver, but herself too that this was for the best. Exhaling, Felicity leaned forward and put her forehead against his.

"I'm sorry, Oliver." She whispered, putting a hand against his cheek.

"I will find my way back to you. I promise you that." Oliver said, blue eyes boring into her own.

Before she knew it, he had closed the distance between them, their lips locking together like they were made for each other, the only two pieces to complete the puzzle. Felicity whimpered against him, the tears finally escaping down her cheeks as she grabbed his collar. The kiss was hard, almost bruising, filled with passion and emotion neither of them could put into words.

As quickly as it happened, it was over again. Oliver gently untangled her fingers from his shirt, his forehead pressed against hers as he did so before he stood up and walked out of her office without looking back.

Wiping at the tears leaking down her face, Felicity put a hand over her mouth in shock. What had she done? She'd driven away the only man who had always kept his promised. She knew it was for the best, to protect her heart from breaking, but deep down she knew that this goodbye had already broken her.