-3-

Felicity is with me and Lyla tonight. Don't worry, we'll look after her.
Oliver put his phone down on the table and made his way to the back of the room, pulling off his hood and depositing his quiver along the way. Another quiet night in Starling City. He had sent Diggle and Felicity home early again, and although the silence and emptiness of the Sanctuary usually didn't bother him, tonight it did. He sat down in a chair, looking at Diggle's text again. An unmistakeable feeling of loneliness was settling in his stomach, one he tried to ignore but couldn't. With his mother dead and Thea gone, he was starting to notice that, for all intents and purposes, Diggle and Felicity were his family now. Everything that he had known in his life, everything that had made him Oliver Queen before the island, was gone. He'd lost QC, he'd lost his family, the mansion was an empty shell. Even the friends he had known before – Tommy and Sara, they weren't around anymore. And Laurel? He knew she wanted him to start trusting her, let her in, become the main woman in his life again. But he was hesitating because…
Well, because he already had a woman. Well, a girl. Not a girl girl, because apparently, there was a difference. He had Felicity, and apart from Diggle, she was the person he trusted most in the world. When he had come back from Lian Yu, he had expected to clean up Starling City all by himself. He had been alone for so long that he had thought that he would be alone for the rest of his life.
But then he had met Felicity. From the beginning she had just seemed to see right through him: she saw through his lies, all his excuses, all his fake smiles and winning charm that no one – not his family, not Tommy or even Laurel – had seen through. She hadn't seen the Oliver Queen that his family and past friends were so desperate to get back; she had only seen the Oliver Queen who had returned. And she had decided that he was – not broken, not misguided, not a liar or a cheat or a murderer – but good. Good enough to help, good enough to trust, good enough to take that leap of faith on.
Maybe it had been that difference in the way she looked at him that had made him connect with her. Maybe it had been the open acceptance he saw in her eyes (so different from his mother's poker face, Thea's confusion, Tommy's disapproval and Laurel's hurt) that had crumbled his walls a little. He didn't really know; all he knew was that now he had a person by his side who kept him on the straight and narrow, told him when he was wrong, congratulated him when he was right and risked everything she had to fight alongside him. All of a sudden, he was no longer alone.
And because of that, he was starting to notice those times whenever he was alone – how silent it was without Felicity's babbling, how empty a place could be without Diggle's steadying presence.
He let out a huge sigh and made his way over to his cot, taking off his costume as he went. The sight of Felicity's empty cot next to his one only served to underline the feeling of loneliness deep in the pit of his stomach. He didn't know what he had been thinking when he had brought it in for her – but after a couple of weeks with her sleeping there, he didn't care anymore. There was something so settling about having her there with him. During those moments when Diggle was in the main room working out, and he was sitting on his cot looking through a file or sharpening his arrows, and Felicity was sleeping quietly next to him, he felt something that he imagined was close to peace.
He looked at Felicity's empty cot again, his chest tightening. Having peace was something that he had never thought was going to be possible to have again after what he had gone through. But from the moment when he had met Felicity, something inside him had sparked back to life, so slowly that he hadn't even noticed it was growing until one day it was just there. A light.
Last night, Felicity had been right. It was Laurel who had kept him alive on the island. That photograph of her had been the only thing that had connected him to his old life, the only reminder that somewhere out there, outside of the hell that he was living through, there was a world that he had once belonged to.
But what Felicity didn't know was that what kept him alive now was…her. Felicity was his light, the light he could see when everything else around him was still so dark.
He looked down at his cot, his chest heavy. Then with a weary sigh, he lay himself down on the cot where only last night, Felicity had slept.
He closed his eyes and let her scent on her pillow carry him away into the darkness.

Felicity sipped her coffee as she sat on the park bench, watching people passing by on their morning jogs or walking their dogs. She wondered whether she should get a dog – maybe that would stop her feeling so alone in her apartment. As much as she had loved staying over at Diggle and Lyla's for the night, she didn't know if she could take more than one night of Diggle being so over-protective. She supposed it was his father-to-be instincts working overtime. She knew she couldn't blame him but still, she didn't want to turn into Lyla, who looked ready to kill him whenever he told her off for doing something besides sitting down.
As she took another sip of her coffee, she heard someone calling her name. She turned her head and saw Laurel walking towards her. It was the weekend so she was out of her habitual business suit, instead sporting a pair of jeans and a loose cardigan. She was smiling as she approached.
"Hi Laurel," Felicity said, returning her smile.
"Mind if I join you?" Laurel asked.
"No, of course," Felicity said, shuffling over a little. Laurel sat down next to her and the two of them fell into an awkward silence. Felicity could feel her thoughts scrambling in her head, trying to think of something to say, but she kept her mouth shut tight. She did not want to start rambling on and on – it was way too early in the morning for that sort of embarrassment.
"How are you?" Laurel said, finally breaking the silence.
"I'm ok. How are you?"
"I'm fine," Laurel said, nodding her head slightly. "Ollie told me that you haven't been sleeping well."
"Oh he did?" she said. She didn't know how she felt about Oliver and Laurel talking about her. "Well, I've been having nightmares. About Slade, you know. Actually, you do know, don't you? You should know all about that, you were there too. I mean, Slade kidnapped you too."
"Yeah," Laurel said, giving her a wry smile.
"It's an odd thing to have in common, isn't it?"
"Yeah, it is. But come on, we have more things in common, don't we? Like, we both work with a vigilante."
Felicity smiled. "And we're both super smart."
"And great dressers."
"And we both fight crime."
"And we're both friends with Ollie."
Felicity gave her a little smile and nodded her head. "Oliver. We have Oliver in common."
"Oliver," Laurel echoed, looking at Felicity thoughtfully.
Felicity looked back at Laurel, thinking that she really was lovely. If only she and Oliver could get past all their history, start being honest with each other, she really thought they had a chance.
"You know I've been thinking about that time with Slade lately," Laurel said. "And I'm sorry to bring it up."
"No it's ok," Felicity said. "Maybe it would help to talk about it."
"What you did was really brave, you know."
Felicity shrugged. "I guess nothing short of an apocalypse will get me over my fear of needles and psychos."
That made Laurel smile. "I can see why Ollie loves you."
Felicity was taken aback. "What? No, he doesn't…what?"
"Ok," Laurel said with a laugh, nudging her with her shoulder. "Have it your way."
"We're partners," Felicity told her.
Laurel gave her a knowing smile, which made Felicity a little uncomfortable. She hoped Laurel wasn't being serious. Of course she had been there when Oliver had told Slade that he loved her, but surely she would have figured out by now that it was all a ruse? She didn't want Laurel thinking that there was more to it than that – like the situation wasn't mortifying enough!
After a long pause, Laurel spoke again. "Can I tell you something?"
Felicity nodded her head.
"Before he disappeared, Ollie didn't really care about anything or anyone. He was…well, I'm sure you've heard the stories. He only cared about himself, he did things his own way. I don't think that changed when he came back – I suspect that he was even going to do the whole Arrow thing all by himself."
Felicity nodded her head. She remembered Oliver saying exactly that once to her: at the beginning I was just going to do all this all by myself.
"When he came back, I thought he hadn't changed at all," Laurel continued. "He did anything he could to keep his secret of being the Arrow, at the cost of everything that should have been important to him. He fought with Thea, he fought with his mother, he fought with Sara. He fought with me, and Tommy…" her voice trailed away.
"He tried his best," Felicity said quietly.
Laurel shook her head and smiled sadly. "No he didn't. He didn't try his best, not with me or Tommy or with his family. His secret was more important to him. If he had tried his best, he would have told us what he was doing. He would have trusted us, tried his best to get us to believe in what he was trying to do. The only people he tried his best with were John. And you. He did tried his best with you."
"I think…" Felicity swallowed, trying to find the right words to say. She didn't want Laurel to think that Oliver didn't care about her. It was completely the opposite – he cared about her so much that he tried to protect her all the time.
"I think that you and I both know how much Oliver's changed," Felicity said. "It was hard for him to be with you guys because I think for him it was a constant reminder of the guy he used to be – you know, before all the hellfire and death and…scars. I think so much of him wants to hide what he had to endure, especially from the people he loves. He doesn't want to hurt them. He didn't want to hurt you."
"Maybe," Laurel said, looking unconvinced. "Or maybe it wasn't about him hiding. Maybe it was about us not seeing." She turned to look at her. "How did you find out?"
Felicity smiled wryly. "He wanted me to hack into a computer for him. I think I unofficially knew then. Officially though, Moira shot him – the Arrow, I mean – and I found him bleeding in the backseat of my car."
Laurel smiled and nodded her head as if Felicity had confirmed something for her. "Moira got attacked by the vigilante not long after Ollie came back. You found out pretty early on."
"Oh-kay…"
Laurel reached out and touched her on the arm. "No, I'm not competing or comparing, don't get me wrong."
"Good," Felicity said. "Because there isn't really any competition. He loves you, Laurel. That's why he kept his secret from you."
Laurel smiled. "You're sweet," she said, reminding Felicity of Sara. She checked her watch and stood up. "I need to go, but I'm glad I ran into you."
"Me too," Felicity said. "I guess we'll be seeing more of each other, so it's nice to have a chance to talk to you. With Sara gone, I'm looking forward to having another woman around. Maybe I can finally convince Oliver that we should get a couch in the Sanctuary. He laughed when I said it would be nice for guests."
"He laughed?"
"Well, you know. Smirked. Which he'll never do again, considering I sent him an email bomb of couch spam to his email account. Which I'll never do again because all he did was buy a new phone which I had to recalibrate to our computers which is not easy, and then he just smirked at me all week. Which I'm sorry to say I didn't mind that much, cos at least he was smirking and not, you know. Brooding."
Laurel stared thoughtfully at Felicity for a long time before giving her a wide grin. "You know Felicity, when Oliver came back to Starling City, we all wanted him to be something. Thea wanted him to be her brother again, Moira wanted him to be her son. Tommy wanted him to be his best friend and I wanted him to be Ollie again so I could hate him for what he did to me. You know what you want him to be?"
"Someone who'll buy me a couch?"
"Happy."