-5-

Felicity walked into her bedroom, kicking off her shoes and slipping on her bunny slippers. She looked through her wardrobe and put on a bright pink cardigan, wincing a little at a small sharp pain in her shoulder. Getting attacked by Oliver hurt. She felt a fleeting sympathy for all the bad guys he beat up. Not that she blamed Oliver for attacking her – she had been on the verge of spraying him in the face with an entire canister of mace. What in the world had gotten into her, thinking that he was someone dangerous? She really had to get a grip if she was going to continue in the crime-fighting business.
At the thought, she remembered the letter that she had received that morning from S.T.A.R Labs. They wanted her in Central City to set up a new IT infrastructure, offering a ridiculous salary and a chance to utilise her skills (a slight dig at her current job as PA to Oliver Queen, no doubt). She suspected that Barry had something to do with the job offer, though there had been no mention of him in the letter.
The letter – oh God, she had left it on the kitchen bench. No doubt Oliver had already read it. She was terrible at hiding things from him, and she knew that he had noticed when she had tried to hide the letter. Great, just what she needed – to get into an argument with Oliver. The last time she had gone to Central City for days at a time, he hadn't taken it very well.
Standing in front of her mirror, she tried to steady her nerves before she went out to the kitchen again. She thought she had long ago gotten over how nervous she got around Oliver – but if she was being fair to herself, this was the first time he had ever been in her house. This was definitely a step over the professional boundary line. Not that things were strictly professional between them; they were more…
Felicity sighed. Complicated. That's what they were. And it wasn't even her fault for once! She knew that what she felt for Oliver was her worst kept secret, and it would have been fine with her if the whole thing was one-sided. She had had crushes before on unattainable guys: Chris from high school with the James Dean air, Lawrence from MIT who sat two rows in front of her in lectures. She had known ever since she met him that Oliver Queen was going to be one of those unattainable guys.
But then he had gone and ruined it, burst her little fantasy bubble and made her feelings real. He had said that he loved her, and although it had all been a ruse to get her close enough to Slade, when she had tried to confront him about it later and get him to take it all back, he had said nothing. Nothing! No "yeah, sorry about lying to you", no "you know I wasn't serious, right?" He had only smiled at her in that enigmatic way that he seemed to reserve only for her – she suspected just to drive her crazy.
She made her way back out to the kitchen, and she immediately saw that she had been right: Oliver had found the letter. He watched her silently as she entered, but she chose to delay the inevitable conversation for a little while, swallowing nervously and making her way over to the kitchen sink to wash out her mug. She took her sweet time rinsing and washing and rinsing again, practically feeling Oliver's eyes boring two tiny holes into the back of her head.
When she finally turned off the tap, he spoke.
"So are you going to move to Central City?"
She pursed her lips and turned around slowly, wondering if she could pretend to be mad at him for snooping through her stuff in an attempt to change the subject. But she knew it wouldn't work, and besides, it wasn't like she was one to preach about snooping. She had done more than her fair share of online trawling through Oliver's past.
"Do you want me to be honest?" she asked him.
His dark expression softened a little. "Of course," he said.
She slowly walked over to stand on the opposite side of the breakfast bar, nervously wringing her hands. "I'm actually thinking about it."
Oliver let out a big sigh and looked down at the letter again. "Is this about what happened with Slade?"
She flinched. "Slade?"
"You're not dealing well with what happened. I…I feel terrible for setting him up to kidnap you."
Felicity looked at him almost disbelievingly. Of course she was still freaked out about the whole being-kidnapped-by-Slade-samurai-sword-to-neck thing – she only had to look back at the earlier mace incident and her recurring nightmares each night to know that she was not dealing with the trauma very well. But it wasn't why she was thinking about moving to Central City.
Did Oliver really have no clue?
"That's not the reason why I'm thinking about it," she said.
"Is it Barry?"
"No."
"Then what's the reason?"
YOU, she wanted to shout, but she kept her mouth firmly shut. Just because Oliver had taken a tiptoe step over the professional boundary line, it didn't mean she could go ahead and take a giant leap over it. What was she going to tell him? The real reason why I'm thinking about moving away is because I spend every day and every night looking at your face and feeling heartbroken? Definitely crossing the professional boundary line. Flying over it. Firing herself from a cannon over it.
She looked around the room, struggling for something to say and her eyes fell on the picture of her with her mother. That had been taken on her last day in Vegas, just before she had headed off to MIT. Another reason why she was thinking about moving away came to her – less dramatic than her feelings for Oliver, but no less real.
"Before you got stranded on the island, did you ever think about how your life was going to turn out?" she asked him.
He stared at her, saying nothing, offering nothing, just studying her with his penetrating blue eyes.
"When I first came to Starling City, I had dreams and plans, you know? I was going to travel, start up my own business, meet the man of my dreams." She gave him a small smile. "That's kind of hard to do with our line of work. And I get it, I get that there are some things that are worth giving up your plans and dreams for, but sometimes I…wonder." She swallowed heavily. "Do you think about it? I mean, do you ever wonder about life without the Arrow?"
Oliver lowered his eyes. His answer surprised her.
"A lot more recently," he said quietly. He looked up at her again and gave her a small smile. "You're wearing pink."
"I…what?"
"You haven't been wearing much colour lately."
"Oh," she said, self-consciously pulling at the pink cardigan she had just put on. "You notice what I'm wearing?" She closed her eyes and scrunched her face – she really needed to work on her brain-to-mouth filter.
"I notice when you're…not yourself," Oliver said.
She blushed but couldn't help smiling. "That's really nice."
Oliver stood up and walked around the breakfast bar to stand in front of her. He put his hand on her shoulder and looked her straight in the eyes. Felicity stared right back at him, pulled in by his magnetic gaze. This was one of the extraordinary things about her relationship with Oliver: the world could be going to pieces all around them, but she could make it all stand still just by looking into his eyes.
"Please don't leave without telling me," he said. He paused, then gave her shoulder a squeeze. "Without telling me the real reason why you're leaving."
"I…I don't think you want to hear my reason," she said quietly.
His expression changed into a look that was both hopeful and sad. "You might be surprised." He let go of her shoulder and looked at his watch. "You should probably get some rest before we head out to the Sanctuary."
She pulled a face. "I am not a big fan of sleeping lately."
"Sleep at the Sanctuary then," he said. "You'll feel safer there, at least until your nightmares fade."
She shook her head. "I can't go back to sleeping there."
He gave her a grim look. "Felicity…" he said warningly.
"We've had this conversation, Oliver," she said. "I'm not going to sleep at the Sanctuary anymore."
"You need your sleep," he said. He let out a sigh of frustration. "Fine, we'll do it your way. Go to bed, get some rest. I'll wake you in an hour and we can head over together to meet up with Diggle later."
"You'll wake me in an hour…wait, you're going to stay here?" Felicity spluttered. Somehow she felt she was losing control of the situation very quickly. Typical! It was just like Oliver to start bossing her around and changing things up – this was her house, dammit! She had to deal with his proximity at the Sanctuary, and now she had to deal with it in her home too?
"Felicity, you attempted to mace me not too long ago. I think it's best if I watch over you for a bit."
"Oliver, I'm ok, really, you don't have to do that for me."
"I'm not doing it for you," he said in a low voice. "I'm doing it for me."

Diggle reached for his phone and dialled Oliver's number. Usually he didn't worry too much when Oliver was late, but the fact that Felicity wasn't at the Sanctuary yet either was worrying him a little.
Oliver picked up on the third ring.
"Diggle," he said, his voice hushed. Diggle frowned. Was Oliver on a stakeout? Why was he talking so quietly?
"Hey man, where are you?" he asked. "We were supposed to meet up half an hour ago."
"I'm…" he heard Oliver clear his throat and Diggle got the distinct feeling that he was uncomfortable with the question. What he said next told him why.
"I'm with Felicity," Oliver said.
Diggle paused for a beat, then asked, "Is she ok?" No good jumping to any conclusions.
"Yeah she is. She's been asleep for over an hour now and I don't really want to wake her up."
"Asleep?"
"It's a long story," Oliver said. "Look, I'll wake her up and we'll be there within an hour, ok?"
Diggle glanced over at Felicity's computers, then at Oliver's suit in its case, and made a quick decision.
"Look Oliver, you know it's been quiet in the city lately," he said. "Don't worry about coming in. I'll hold the fort."
"Dig, I don't think…"
"You take care of Felicity," he said. "The city can take care of itself for one night." He braced himself for an argument, but Oliver surprised him.
"Fine," he said. "But call me if anything comes up."
"Sure boss," he said, a smile on his face. He hung up and leaned back in his chair, wondering what to make of the situation. So Oliver was at Felicity's house, or Felicity was at Oliver's house; either way, this was definitely an interesting step – in the right direction, in his opinion. Though Oliver tried to hide it, Diggle knew that what happened with Slade and Felicity a couple of months ago bothered him a lot more than he let on. He could see it in the way Oliver watched Felicity more closely, as if he was afraid of letting her out of his sight. He smiled wryly to himself. Oliver could try all he could to ignore it, make excuses about it being too dangerous or selfish, but he knew it was only a matter of time. The three of them all walked a fine line between life and death every night – Oliver would soon realise that death was easier to keep at bay with something to fight for, with something to come home to.