A/N Same events as the previous chapter, from Felicity's POV.

Felicity felt like someone had doused her with a bucket of ice water at the mention of that woman's name, Oliver's psycho ex-girlfriend. She didn't know what to feel or what to think; she could only stand there in shocked silence. She wasn't even sure she had any right to be upset. They dated. It was a fact. Her father was a mob boss. This was an Italian restaurant. They probably had to pay dues, or something. It only made sense that they would have come here at one point when they had…dated. And Oliver was a terrible liar, so he told the truth when he said he didn't remember coming here, least of all with her. But he knew the owner's name, a part of her that doubted whispered. Yeah, but it was probably an educated guess…the restaurant was called Russo's, and was probably owned by a guy named Russo. Duh.

She realized with a start that Oliver had called her name. She came out of her head just in time to be introduced to the owner.

"Nice to meet you," she said politely.

They were escorted to their table, and she could feel the angst that Oliver was radiating. She needed to figure out how she felt about all this before she laid into him. It wasn't really his fault that she was upset. He couldn't remember being here with her...could he?

"I didn't remember," Oliver stated passionately, as if he could read her thoughts. Unless she said that out loud, which she didn't think was the case. She didn't normally babble in this frame of mind.

She held up her hand, not looking at him quite yet. "I just need a minute." She needed a minute to figure out what was the right way to feel about their first date being in a restaurant where he had brought a former girlfriend.

"Please, Felicity," Oliver begged, interrupting her thoughts. "I'm sorry—"

She glared at him and held up a finger to enforce his silence. The last thing she wanted from him was an apology, since she wasn't convinced one was needed. And she was starting to get somewhere with that last thought…

She realized it would be pretty ridiculous to insist that their first date be somewhere he'd never taken anyone to, ever. They would probably have to go to Gotham to accomplish that. She knew he had quite the dating history when she met him. His legendary playboy status was, well, legendary. She was not naïve about him, but she also knew that he was making strides to be better, different. She decided she could let this go. She could try for humor, but she wasn't sure it would be well received yet. The boy had a massive guilt complex the size of Lian Yu.

Case in point, she thought as she finally looked up at Oliver, who was currently frowning at the table with abject misery. She could guess the direction of his thoughts, and was determined to stop him in his tracks.

"Stop that."

He looked up at her in surprise. His eyes still radiated misery. "What?" he whispered.

"That," she said, pointing at his face. "That I-am-a-terrible-person-that-doesn't-deserve-any-happiness face." He laughed miserably. Only he could pull off laughing miserably, she thought. She went on. "I only asked for a minute to get my thoughts right about this whole situation, and I need you to stop jumping to conclusions before I get there." Like deciding this date was a bad idea and I should stay away from you for my own protection.

She took a breath, held both of his hands and gentled her tone. "The thing is, I should have expected it." She realized she had just stuck her foot in her mouth again at the look of utter devastation on his face, and she realized how that sounded. "I don't mean it like that," she backtracked, mentally slapping herself. As if he needed anyone else beating on him when he was constantly doing it to himself. His head dropped further and her heart broke. She wanted to heal the wound she unintentionally inflicted on his heart.

"Oliver," she pleaded. He didn't look up. "Please look at me," she begged. When he didn't, she reached out and placed her hand under his chin, and coaxed his head to look up. The look on his face broke her heart a little more.

She willed all the love and compassion she had within her to infuse her words and heal his heart. "What I meant is that I know what I'm getting into. I know who you are, Oliver, and I know who you were. And I'm still here." She gave his hands a little squeeze to reinforce her words.

She felt like she was finally getting somewhere when she saw tears falling down his face, and his gaze was riveted on hers, as if her words were reaching somewhere deep inside him. He asked her why; he didn't contradict her decision to be here, he just asked for the reason behind her decision.

"Because I believe that you're a good man." She knew he would disagree, so she continued to reason with him. "I believe that you truly regret your mistakes," and she could tell he did agree with this, "and only a good man does that."

She could see that he was really thinking about it this time, that he could begin to believe that he was good because he felt such regret, and she let out a mental breath.

"I don't deserve you," he whispered, and her heart clenched with sadness. She could try to convince him that he did deserve happiness, but she knew he couldn't hear that right now. Instead she tried to communicate the unconditional nature of her love for him.

"I know," she conceded. "But I'm here anyway."

That seemed to unlock something in his soul, and his face crumpled alarmingly and he started shaking. She jumped up without hesitation and wrapped her arms around him, sat on his lap without a second thought and rocked him gently, whispering words of comfort in his ear. He nuzzled his face into her neck and he continued to shake beneath her, gasping a sobbing breath every so often. She felt so honored that she could help him this way, that she could help heal what was broken inside, that he was receptive to her words. As stubborn as he could be sometimes, she knew that he always listened to her, even if he didn't always agree.

She felt him calm down after a while, taking deep, even breaths. He looked up at her with a lighter expression on his face. "How do you do that?"

"Do what?" she asked, distracted by the tears on his face. She gently wiped his face clean.

"Get inside my soul like that," he replied, and she smiled in triumph. She had successfully led him from a dark place in his mind and got him smiling again. She figured he could handle a little teasing now. With a little shrug, she joked, "It's a gift."

Oliver laughed out loud and hugged her tightly. She reveled in the sensation, a warm feeling spreading from her heart. She loved this man, she couldn't deny it in her head anymore.

Oliver pulled back from her suddenly and gazed deeply into her eyes, seemingly coming to a decision about something. He uttered three little words that stopped her heart.

"I wasn't lying."

Her brows furrowed, not really knowing how to react to this. He seemed to interpret this as confusion, as he clarified, "That night in the mansion. I wasn't lying."

Hearing out loud what she had suspected before was disorienting. Sure, she had hoped, but she didn't know. Suddenly she couldn't breathe, as his words penetrated the walls she had carefully built around her heart since that night in the mansion. Her hope had peeked around those walls on the beach of Lian Yu, but not getting any confirmation one way or the other of the truth just caused her to bury any hope behind the walls again. Her friendship and working relationship with Oliver was far more important than her crush on him, so she locked it up and threw away the key.

Until now. Having confirmation of her feelings being returned opened a floodgate of emotion that she couldn't get a handle on. She felt tears gathering in her eyes and the emotions overwhelmed her. She laughed, amazed at how quickly Oliver turned the tables on her.

She leaned her forehead against his, and joked, "I guess that gift goes both ways." She expected him to laugh along. She didn't expect him to kiss her.

She gasped at the sensation of his lips on hers, and her mind thoroughly went blank. Her heart stuttered, and she froze in surprise. Once her mind came back to life and she realized he was kissing her, she melted into the kiss, tightening her arms around Oliver's neck. She boldly breached his lips with the tip of her tongue, which elicited a groan from deep inside his chest. That groan did something to her libido and she felt her arousal explode inside her. Then she felt his tongue against hers and she couldn't stop her own little moan of pleasure. They both kept the kiss on the tame side, knowing instinctively that neither of them wanted to rush anything, and someone cleared their throat beside them.

Felicity jumped out of Oliver's lap, a little too quickly, and with horror she realized she was about to fall on her ass. Except Oliver came to her rescue. He gripped her by the hips to steady her, and her mind instantly imagined another scenario where he would grip her hips and she blushed profusely. Oliver blushed as well, probably imagining the same scenario. His hands dropped from her hips, and Felicity was determined to regain her dignity as she took her seat.

She picked up the menu to give herself a little space from such intensity. She wanted to go back to the easy banter they started the night with, and she had a couple of ideas of how to do just that.

Meal decisions made and ordered, she decided to put one of her ideas into play. "So," she began, and she instantly had Oliver's attention. "I'm sure you've played Twenty Questions before."

Oliver's head tilted in curiosity. "Yes, I have," he replied slowly, clearly unsure of where this was going.

"Well," she began, "I want to play something like that now, with you."

Oliver's eyebrow quirked up in amusement. "Okay," he agreed with a laugh.

"But we have to lay out some ground rules."

Oliver nodded at her to continue.

"One," she said, using her right index finger to count off on the fingers of her left hand, "nothing intense. If you or I ask a question that will lead to an intense moment, then we'll just say so, and move on to the next question."

Oliver nodded with a smile. "Okay, I can get behind that."

"Two," her index finger touched two of her other fingers, "for obvious reasons, family and work are off-limits. Well, I say family because I think neither of our families give us loads of happiness, but they're not off limits if it's a good memory or an easy question. So, families are okay. As long as it's not intense. But work is definitely off-limits. No QC or Arrow talk."

Oliver laughed at her long-winded explanation. "Okay."

"And three," her index finger wrapped around three fingers on her left hand, "we don't have to stop at twenty questions. We ask as many as we want until we get tired of this game."

Oliver shook his head with a smile. "I get the feeling that I'll never get tired of this game."

Felicity ducked her head and smiled. "Okay," she said, recovering. "You first."

Oliver smiled.