"Oliver?" She tore her eyes away from the cloud that looked like a bridal bouquet and rolled over on her side, her eyes fixing on his profile, and watched the sea breeze gently ruffle his hair.

He grunted in response, half asleep.

"Will you marry me?"

His eyes shot open, finding hers immediately as he turned his head toward her, rising on one elbow. "What?"

She sat up, crossing her bare legs in the warm sand and looked down at him a bit sternly. "You heard me."

"That's just it...I'm not sure I heard you correctly. I was almost asleep."

"Well, what do you think you heard?"

"I think I heard you ask me to marry you."

"Then you heard me correctly."

He sat up, knees touching hers, a cheesy grin slowly blooming on his face as he stared at her like a sap.

She stared back into eyes blue as the sky, the silence stretching interminably. "Um...Oliver?"

"Mmmm?"

"Well?"

He blinked slowly, like an adoring cat. "Well, what?"

She rolled her eyes, smacking him on the thigh. "Will. You. Marry. Me?" she enunciated slowly, as if speaking to an idiot, which he kind of was right at that moment.

Now it was his turn to roll his eyes. "Felicity. What do you think? Of course I'll marry you. I told you I'd marry you the second you asked me, didn't I?"

"You can't marry me the second I asked. First, we're stuck in this cove until the tide goes out again. Second...do you see a priest around here? Anyway, I'm sure there's SOME paperwork involved. We're probably going to need..."

Oliver cut her off mid ramble. "Passports, officially translated and notarized birth certificates, residence permit, and a certificate of no impediment, also translated into Greek and notarized."

Felicity snapped her mouth shut and stared at him for a beat. "Wow, you really looked into this didn't you?"

"I wanted to be ready."

"That's hardly what I would call ready. This is Greece we're talking about. It's going to take some time to collect..." Her voice petered out as she eyed him suspiciously. "You already did it, didn't you? You've got all the paperwork lined up."

He grinned, a combination of sheepish and proud. "Yup. I wanted to be ready as soon as you were. The only thing I couldn't do was the notice in the papers. Those have to be posted eight days before the license is issued, and have to be published in the newspaper where the wedding will be taking place. Since I didn't know where or when that was going to be, I couldn't do it ahead of time."

She frowned. "We have to get married here. Maria would kill us if we did it anywhere else."

"We have to have the religious ceremony here. I'm pretty sure that's all Maria cares about. We can have the civil marriage anywhere, say in Athens in eight or nine days?"

"Athens?" Felicity wrinkled her nose. "Don't get me wrong, Athens is nice, but I was thinking of something a little less big-city."

"Santorini?"

"Yes!" she clapped excitedly. "That's more like it."

Oliver shifted his hip in the sand and dug out his cellphone. He tapped and swiped on the screen a few times until the phone chimed. "Done."

"Done? What's done? What did you just do?"

"I submitted our notices to the town hall legal department. Santorini doesn't have a local paper."

Felicity just stared at him, wondering why she wasn't freaking out more. Yes, she had asked him to marry her, and yes, she meant it, and also yes, she really wanted to marry him, but she had expected to feel some trepidation along the way. Then again, Oliver wasn't exactly giving her much time to build up toward a freakout.

"Um...OK. Now what?"

"Now?" He reached for the front of her t-shirt and grabbed a fistful of material, pulling her on top of him as he lay back in the sand. "Now we make out until it's time to go back," he said against her mouth, his hands roaming over the tiny denim shorts covering her ass and up her back.

"No." She squirmed, trying to get off him. "I meant now what, wedding-wise."

Hands full of struggling Felicity, Oliver rolled them over, trapping her beneath him. He threaded his fingers through her hair to anchor her head, and started kissing her in earnest.

"Mmmff!" she mumbled into his mouth, trying to push him off.

He stopped kissing her and sighed at the distraction. "Now we go back to the taverna and pretend nothing has happened. Then we go home and make plans and pack. Then we go to Santorini for a few weeks, for a brief civil ceremony and a short honeymoon. When we get back, we confess to Maria - there will be some grovelling involved, I'm sure - and let her plan our wedding ceremony."

He stood, dusting sand off the seat of his pants and holding out a hand to her, helping her to her feet.

She let him pull her upright. "We're still trapped here by the tide, you know."

Oliver answer was to sweep her into his arms. "I'll carry you across."

"But what about our stuff?" She indicated the remnants of their picnic with a sweep of her hand.

"I'll come back for it later." He waded thigh deep into the shifting waters, carrying his precious cargo to the other side, setting her down for the short walk up the beach to the taverna.

Felicity found herself enjoying the secrecy and the preparations for their elopement far more than she had expected. She could barely believe she was eloping. With Oliver. The love of her life.

What she enjoyed most about the whole thing, though, was Oliver himself. He was incredibly into the whole idea, and it was adorable. Having already dealt with the legal aspects of getting married in Greece, he was now on his phone, making arrangements for their stay in Santorini in very passable Greek.

Pulling her feet up under her, she got comfortable in the armchair and watched him renting them a clifftop villa, marveling yet again at how much he had changed. Tanned, blond and carefree, smiling more often than not, he was a larger than life, technicolor version of his former tortured vigilante self.

Though he still labored in olive groves, vineyards and on boats when their friends needed help, Oliver had all but taken over as the taverna cook from Maria. Oliver Queen, it turned out, was a natural talent in the kitchen. He had started out assisting her with the grunt work of chopping and peeling, but soon graduated to student of the culinary arts when Maria noticed his abilities and set out to teach him how to make their most popular dishes. Though she still came in most days and often did the shopping for them, she more often than not let him take the lead when it came to cooking, while she sat there supervising, drinking coffee and threatening him with her spoon.

He absolutely loved it, and so did Felicity. She no longer had to lift a finger in the kitchen at home - well, except for making Greek coffee. Oliver had declared hers the best on the island.

"Are you packed yet? The ferry leaves at 8:00 AM tomorrow."

Refocusing her dreamy eyes, she found Oliver ending his call and looking at her expectantly. "Yes. All packed. Ready as I'll ever be."

She meant for more than just the trip, and by the look in his eyes and the gentle smile on his lips, she could tell that Oliver understood.

The deed, when it was finally done, was almost anticlimactic, which actually suited Felicity just fine. They were married in a short, no-fuss civil ceremony, a few days after they arrived on the island. Felicity wore a pretty floral sundress with matching heels, and Oliver a lightweight suit, his shirt un-tucked and open at the collar. They did not exchange rings - those would be kept for the actual wedding ceremony. Until then, they did not want to advertise the fact that they were married, though they would absolutely confess to Maria as soon as they got back.

Now, they stood on the steps of the town hall in the late morning sun, looking at each other with slightly incredulous expressions on their faces.

"So," Felicity said.

"Yes," Oliver replied.

They stared at each other some more, and then burst out laughing at the same time, diffusing some of the tension that had built up since they'd been declared legally wed.

"The serial model-dating, billionaire playboy and the commitment-phobe IT geek with abandonment issues are married," Felicity snorted. "To each other."

"Yes," Oliver repeated, his voice shaky with mirth. "Who'd have thought?"

"It seems a little surreal." Felicity took his hand and started down the steps. "It's like nothing has changed, and yet everything has changed."

"Wait." Oliver pulled her back, his face serious again. "I haven't kissed the bride yet. Not since I married her, anyway."

Drawing her slowly to him, he cupped her face and kissed her, gently at first, then with increasing passion. When he drew back, his eyes were suspiciously shiny. "Thank you," he whispered, closing them and pressing his forehead against hers. "Thank god for you."

Felicity, choked up, said nothing. She understood what he was saying. She echoed his statement with her eyes as he looked at her again, his thumbs gently tracing her cheekbones.

Her stomach rumbled audibly, breaking the delicious tension.

Oliver grinned. "Lunch?"

"Yes, please." She returned his grin with a wider one. "I could eat a horse."

Their days on Santorini weren't much different than their days on their island. They lounged around their rented villa, engrossed in each other, visited the less frequented parts of the island, discovered secret places only the locals new about, ate some meals out, and some meals in. It was business as usual in a way, except it wasn't.

Felicity had not expected to feel so...different. It was just a piece of paper - they had picked up their marriage certificate the next day - yet it seemed to have changed her in some very fundamental ways. She felt safer, more secure, protected. They felt more like a team to her, which was strange, as they had been a team long before they had even gotten together.

Only once was she plagued by fear and doubt. She let her overly active brain imagine losing him, and the terror she felt at the prospect of a life without him was so much worse now that they were married, which was kind of strange. Then she remembered what he had said, how he'd pointed out that marriage didn't protect one from loss any more than being single did, and managed to banish her fears to one of the corners of her brain she could ignore.

All too soon, it was time to head home and face the music. They had been a little nervous about telling Maria, but it turned out it was for no reason.

She was absolutely ecstatic, and incredibly relieved. "As long as you also get married in a church like civilized people, and you let me plan the festivities, I don't care that you are already married in the eyes of the law." She hugged them both fiercely, pinching Oliver's cheek for good measure.

"I need you to pick a date by the end of the week. I need about three months to plan properly, and you'll need to give your friends time to get out here. I should warn you, most of the island will come. Now where is my wedding book?" she continued absently, pulling her glasses down from the top of her head. "We'll have it in the church on the hill...I'll have to talk to Father Antonis..." She muttered away to herself, thumbing through her book until she found a blank page.

Smiling at each other, Felicity and Oliver quietly backed out of the kitchen and left the taverna unnoticed, knowing their wedding preparations were in the best possible hands.