A/N: If I had to place this, I would say somewhere in season 2 but sans-Slade's drama. Sara is back and not with Oliver, Roy is on Team Arrow (and he's funny!) and Oliver and Felicity are hovering around each other per usual. The joy in a story like this is how each and every character is affected, so I admit that a lot of this chapter is simply exploring the relationships and dynamics of the team. I hope you enjoy this!

Disclaimer: I, again, do not own Arrow.

10 days prior

Felicity Smoak was not used to feeling inferior. Well, intellectually inferior at least. Since working with Team Arrow, she was acutely aware of just how inferior she was in a variety of other categories, most notably physical fitness. Which was why when she asked Dig if he could help her come up with a training regimen, she was not that surprised to receive a variety of responses from everyone.

Dig had pulled her aside and asked if she felt like she needed to compete with Sara.

Oliver had pulled her aside and asked if she felt like he wasn't protecting her well enough.

Sara had pulled her aside and said that she would help with some self-defense moves if she wanted and then asked if she was trying to impress Oliver. But she had done it with her cute little Sara smirk and a glint in her eyes and Felicity couldn't even find the strength to get riled at her.

She had been training for a little over a month and had felt some noticeable differences. Dig had came up with a pretty solid training program for someone of her skills and stature and had even gotten her a treadmill for the lair, something she was convinced Oliver would veto but it remained after an intense glare-off between the men. Sara was routinely kicking her ass but she felt like she was finally able to dodge at least a few of the punches and kicks, which was really all she needed.

She had just finished an embarrassingly short run on the treadmill - seriously, barely ten minutes and she was convinced her lungs were about to fail on her. She sat at the bottom of the unplugged treadmill (her own personal brand of vengeance on an electrical appliance that had failed her), sweating her ass off and trying to get her breath under control when Oliver found her.

He didn't even try to hide the smile as he saw her sitting there with a towel slung across her shoulders. She narrowed her eyes, daring him to say something. He had definitely saw her start to work out not three iPod songs earlier, and now he was witnessing her having what she could only imagine a panic attack felt like.

"Good workout?"

"We can't all be Greek gods, Oliver."

It probably would've been a lot more biting if she hadn't had to puff out air between each word. His smile spread though and she relished it; he was in a good mood that day, having caught and had SCPD put away a husband and wife villain couple that were running a human trafficking ring at the docks the night before.

He went to the small fridge they kept in the training area and pulled out a bottle of water, nudging her in the head with it before she gathered the strength to grab it from him and guzzle unabashedly. She loved 'Light Oliver,' when he was still riding high on endorphins or whatever kind of rush he got from catching and putting away bad guys. She knew that in a day or so he would be focused on the next big bad to come into town, but for now, they had a win, and they were allowed to celebrate it.

After a few more moments of comfortable silence, she took his proffered hand and pulled herself up off the offending machine.

"Will I see you tonight?" Oliver's words were casual, but she knew he was looking for a lifeline. Thea was throwing him a birthday party upstairs at Verdant that night and while half the city was coming, Oliver was hoping that he could celebrate his birthday with the people he actually cared about, and cared about him in return.

"Wouldn't miss it for the world," she told him happily, walking across the room to her gym bag with her street clothes (there was no way she was going to even attempt to spar with Sara this afternoon). She bent over, rifling through it, trying to find the headband that she knew she kept in the side pocket but never remembered to wear when working out. "In fact, just wait until you see my gift-"

"Felicity!" Oliver sounded downright shocked with her, like she had just insulted her mother. Not that that was out of the realm of possibilities, because she didn't particularly like Moira Queen, and if she remembered clearly, she probably had said some offensive things about her in front of Oliver before she didn't remember his voice sounding remotely like that...

Distracted with thoughts of his mother, she didn't straighten up, just tossed a look over her shoulder. "What?"

Oliver crossed the room in three paces, stopping immediately behind her. His fingers ghosted along her skin right where her shirt had ridden up her back, just above the waistline of her yoga pants. Goosebumps erupted along her skin and she knew that there was no way he hadn't noticed. But instead of him smirking at her knowingly - or even commenting, given his current happy mood - his face remained serious and stoic and his eyes firmly fixed on her back.

She still hadn't straightened up yet, not willing to break the contact between his fingertips and her skin, which was how Dig found them when Oliver called for him suddenly. Felicity bent over at the waist, her rear brushing against the front of Oliver's slacks, with his hands on her waist.

"Did you really call me in to witness this because if so, we need to have a serious talk about boundaries."

Feeling a flush creep all the way up her body, Felicity stood abruptly, whirling around to face Dig.

"No! It's not what it looks like!"

"Oh? Than what was it then?"

"It was -" she stopped, realizing she had no idea what had just happened, and turned to Oliver. "I don't know. What was it then?"

"You said you were being careful with her," Oliver gritted out, looking furiously at Dig.

"The hell are you talking about?"

So quick she wasn't really sure what happened, Oliver had twisted her around, back to facing her gym bag, and lifted up the back of her tank top. She heard Dig let out a low whistle.

"Don't look at me man, I just came up with the schedule. Sara does all the training."

Frustrated with being a topic of conversation rather than a participant, but not willing to sacrifice Oliver's hands on her skin (why did they feel so soft when she knew they were rough and calloused?) she looked over her shoulder, this time staring at Dig.

"The hell are you talking about now?"

No reply was given and Oliver's hands left her back, her tank top falling back down.

"Sara!" He called out, walking purposefully through the lair.

Felicity gave Dig a wild, somewhat accusing look, convinced this was somehow his fault, before she ran after Oliver. He had found Sara sitting at the med bay, taping a gauze pad to her ankle, dried blood on antibacterial towels all around her.

"What happened?!" Felicity forgot all about the drama surrounding herself for a brief minute, more concerned with her friend and all the blood that was no longer in her body.

"Dog nipped me, can you believe it? Not even a cool story."

"Are you okay?" Felicity's eyes trailed along the many towelettes and gauze that littered the med bay area now, most of which were maroon.

"Yeah, it wasn't that deep, just bled a lot and I didn't want to clean it up on the road." Sara rolled down her pant leg and Felicity gave her a side-eye as she saw the holes and tears that had decimated the last eight inches of her pant. "It was a big nip."

Ignoring her blatant down-playing of the situation, Felicity just rolled her eyes and started to collect the used bandages.

"Did you need me, Ollie?"

"I thought we decided that Felicity's training was going to be incremental. That you would gradually work up to intense physical combat?"

"We sure did, and our girl's doing great," Sara grinned, bumping her shoulder against Felicity who still moved around her, gathering trash. She did, however, have time to look up and stick her tongue out at Oliver in a very mature gesture of superiority. "She's a tough cookie, Ollie, don't worry so much."

"I do worry, especially if you're sending her home with stuff like this." Once again, Felicity found herself spun away, and Oliver's hands pulling up her tank top. She briefly made eye contact with Dig before realizing she probably shouldn't be enjoying Oliver manhandling her nearly as much, especially when there were so many witnesses around.

"Stuff like what-" Felicity craned her head as far as she could and finally caught a glimpse of what Oliver had been talking about. A huge bruise, probably the size of her hand spread out, blossomed over her lower back and left side. It was an angry red, with dark purple and black in the center and for the life of her, she couldn't remember what move exactly must have caused it. Before she could spend too much time pondering that, another thought hit her and she let out a frustrated growl.

"What's wrong?" Oliver asked quickly.

"My dress," Felicity whined to Sara. She wanted to stomp her foot and cry but she thought maybe that would be overkill. She was seriously bummed though.

"What dress?" Dig asked, since Oliver looked too stunned at her train of thought to comment.

"My dress for tonight! Sara got me this really cute black dress with a big cut out on the back and doubt I can wear it now. What am I going to wear?"

"Felicity." Oliver dragged her name out, drawing her attention as it always did. "You have a bruise the size of Central City on your back and you're worried about an outfit to a party?"

"It is your birthday party and some of us can't just wear the same thing every single time we go out or to the board room and still look fantastic so yes I am worried about an outfit for a party!"

"Ooh, I think I have an idea about the dress," Sara piped up.

Oliver pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger, looking sufficiently put out with the lot of them.

"You," he pointed to Sara. "Be more careful with her. You," he turned to Felicity, "Take care of yourself. Put some arnica gel on that before you leave. I am sure you will look good in whatever you wear tonight so please, don't worry about it."

"Sir, yes sir!" For the first time in the last ten minutes, she saw another Light Oliver (LO, as she had dubbed it) smile try to spread across his face.

"And you," he turned to Dig, "come spar with me. I need to hit something."

"Thanks a lot," Dig muttered good-naturedly to Felicity before following Oliver to the training room, both of them ignoring the laughs and whispers of the two girls behind them.

Felicity wasn't sure when her and Sara became such good friends. It was one of those things that she didn't even notice it was happening until she looked around one day and realized that half the bottles of wine in her house were white because it was Sara's preference and there was a legitimate stockpile of Chunky Monkey pints in her freezer next to her mint chocolate chip.

But it was times like these that she genuinely questioned her sanity when it came to her friendship with the wild child.

She stepped out of her bathroom, eyes pleading with Sara. They both spoke at the same time.

"You're insane."

"I'm a genius!"

Sara was clearly pleased with her idea to fix Felicity's dress dilemma, but why, Felicity had no idea. She had picked up the bodycon dress earlier that week and brought it to Felicity with the simple instruction of "you're going to wear this to Ollie's party this weekend and you will look Smoakin'." She was literally the only person who could get away with making that pun to her and not get a smack. Mostly because Sara could block her smack and quite possibly give her another bruise to match her current problematic one.

The dress was one of the tightest she had ever worn, conforming to her body like a second skin. The cut out, which was designed to be a triangle along her lower back, was currently tapering off right underneath Felicity's cleavage.

"I'm wearing a dress backwards."

"First of all, you look fantastic. Besides, you can wear whatever you want."

"You mean whatever you want me to wear."

"Well, that too." Sara grinned happily. "You look so good! And no one is going to know the dress is on backwards. There's no tag and it seriously looks like it was made to be worn like that. Made to be worn by you!"

If Felicity was being honest, she didn't mind the fact that the dress was on backwards. Sara was right, no one would be able to tell the difference, and normally she would be quite pleased if a dress dipped lower in the back than in the front. But normally her front was covered in its entirety.

The expanse of skin somehow seemed much larger when it was being shown on her front instead of her back. It wrapped around her chest, making a bra virtually impossible (but also unnecessary, she supposed) and the bottom of the triangle ended just above her belly button. Coupled with the modest scoop neck and the cap sleeves, it wasn't a bad look. Not to mention, compared to what she had seen other girls wear at Verdant, the dress was downright demure. But still, Felicity felt naked in a way she wasn't used to and she turned pleading eyes on Sara.

"I look like a tramp."

"If you're a tramp, what am I?" Sara spun around, showing off a toned body and her tiny ensemble of a white tube top and matching high-waisted white skirt.

"Perfect," Felicity grumbled, looking at herself in the mirror again. It wasn't that bad, she decided, and her new exercise regimen must have been working more than she noticed, because she looked super skinny, with her hip bones almost jutting out. She didn't take pride in that so much as filed it away for later, justifying her extra double Big Belly order that she knew would come.

She slipped on her bright pink pumps that matched her lipstick, her own little 'middle finger' to the mere concept of a black and white party. She had no doubt that she would hear an earful from Thea later, party planner extraordinaire, but she felt much more like herself with a little pop of color. That, and they weren't in the Hamptons. Black and white parties felt a little too over the top for her, even if it was for something as spectacular as Oliver's birthday.

"You ready?"

"Sure," she said, grabbing her clutch and phone. "Do you think we could stop so I could check on a few of my searches before the party?"

Sara barked out a laugh. "No, Felicity, you may not work on your night off. We are entering the club through the front entrance like normal people tonight!"

"Normal people who fight crime in their spare time?" Felicity deadpanned.

"Exactly."

Felicity didn't feel particularly normal as her and Sara bypassed the line to Verdant, filled with people clutching party invitations and hopefuls that weren't, just trying desperately to get in to the party of the year. The bouncers simply nodded to both of them, moving the velvet rope (was that really necessary? Felicity wondered) and letting them in to the club.

Bass pounded around them and Sara led her by the hand to the bar, instantly ordering herself a whiskey neat and Felicity a fruity vodka tonic. They were served instantly - again, not normal by Felicity's standards, although her life had certainly taken a turn past normal some time ago - and she turned to survey the party that was already in full swing around them.

Writhing bodies swarmed the dance floor and she briefly wondered if Oliver really knew all of the people in attendance. Maybe in a different life, but now, she doubted it.

She heard Sara greet Thea to her left and turned to thank the girl for throwing such a lavish party for Oliver.

"Why hello sexy ladies!" Thea was beautiful in a black and white geometric patterned shift dress and had a clear drink in her hand that Felicity sincerely doubted was water. She watched as Thea's eyes went to her shoes and back up again, her lips pursed. "You know what, I'm not even going to say anything. Because you're here, and that's all Ollie wanted for his birthday and I'm not even going to be mad that you broke my very strict dress code."

"What is all I wanted, Speedy?"

Oliver appeared behind Felicity, radiating heat into her back. How was one man so hot all the time, she pondered. Not hot hot, not that he wasn't, because he clearly was, and he knew it too, but he wasn't one of those guys that used it to his advantage. Well, only when he had to, for a job or Arrow business or something, but that was for the greater good she figured, and wasn't strictly taking advantage, although he could easily take advantage of her if he wanted to and it wouldn't be taking advantage if she wanted it too, right?

Lost in thought, she almost missed Thea's response.

"Look who came and broke the dress code!"

Felicity turned to look at Oliver, smiling guiltily, and she couldn't help but notice the way his eyes cut directly to the large triangle of bare skin on her front. The skin around his eyes became somewhat pinched, although his expression remained largely unchanged. His eyes drifted to Sara, who smiled benignly.

"This is how you fixed her dress problem?"

"Isn't it perfect?"

"It's horrible." Felicity acknowledged, her wide eyes meeting Oliver's. "Does it look that bad?"

"You look wonderful," he breathed, "even if you are breaking the rules." He nodded to her choice in footwear.

"I'm a rebel."

"She's a badass!" Sara interjected.

"Speaking of," Oliver's hand slid around to the back of her dress, his hand lightly resting atop where she knew her bruise was. "How are you feeling?"

"Perfectly fine. Can't even feel it."

"How many of those have you had?"

"Just the one! Less than Thea," she muttered quietly, keeping him apprised of his little sister.

Oliver glanced at Thea and then found Roy standing behind her. The boy instantly held up a bottle of water, his hands raised in 'what can you do?' gesture. Oliver acknowledged him with a nod, well aware that in a case like this it was much easier just to watch and corral Speedy versus trying to get her to actually not drink. He trusted Roy enough to not drink that night, well aware of his feelings towards Thea, and let himself relax slightly.

Felicity noticed him looking towards the VIP section, a much quieter area that overlooked the dance floor and took pity on him.

"Do you want to get out of here?" Sara coughed into her drink and Thea's mouth dropped open at her audacity. "Wait! No, not out of here. It's your party. We should stay here! And not that I was coming on to you, because I wasn't! But I was just suggesting we go someplace a little more quiet which okay does not sound any better at all and oh my god, why am I still speaking?"

Oliver didn't even try to hide the slow smile that spread across his face at her words. He shook his head slightly at her before taking her elbow and guiding her to the VIP area gently, mindful to protect her back from any stray dance moves. He made a motion that brought bottles of nice - like, really nice - champagne to the table and Felicity delighted in the fact that it looked like LO was there for the night. It was his birthday party, after all. He deserved it.

It was past 11 a.m. when the sun crept past her curtains and blinded her into consciousness. She gasped when she saw the clock; she had been trying desperately to catch up on sleep for months now and as much as she knew her body needed it, she was still irrationally angry with herself for sleeping so long. But when she moved to get up, a pounding in her head put her right back down in bed again.

She had set out aspirin and a bottle of water next to her bed before she had even left the previous night and took advantage of it instantly. She winced as she swallowed the pills down. This was probably the fourth time in the past couple of months that she woke up with a sore throat after drinking at Verdant, and she was starting to think that either she was allergic to whatever drinks Sara shoved in her hands or that maybe Thea was skimping on the dishwashing. No one else ever got sick and it passed pretty quickly, so she assumed it was her body's way of telling her to get more sleep and build up her immune system. Despite knowing she needed to get to the lair and run some diagnostics (they had set up some motion sensor cameras around criminal hot spots and last night had been a test to see if the city could actually still remain standing if Team Arrow tried to have fun for a night), she couldn't help but think that maybe she should listen to her body. She set an alarm on her phone for an hour later and let her eyes close. Just a little nap to help her get through this hangover.

It was dark when Felicity woke up later, and she swore loudly to her bedroom. Her alarm had never failed her before; she had wrote an app that made her do a few basic coding exercises in order to get it to shut off. It was enough to wake her brain up and keep from going back to bed most of the time, but as her phone lay silent beside her, she figured she must not have set it right. Dragging herself out of bed, she swayed a little on her feet, holding on to the wall to steady herself.

Remembering she hadn't eaten anything all day, she turned her anger on Past Felicity; she remembered water and aspirin, why couldn't she have left herself a banana?

Forty minutes later and one quick, cold shower to ensure that she would stay up (although after that much sleep, she doubted she would get any shut eye that night) and Felicity was rushing down the stairs in to the basement of Verdant.

"Sorry!" She was apologizing before she even made it down the staircase completely. "I can't believe I slept that long but I woke up and my throat hurt and I think maybe I'm coming down with something and I hope not because I really can't afford to be sick right now and oh my god what if I got you sick, Oliver? Not that we did anything that would cause you to get sick but I think I drank out of your glass last night a few times - I'm not saying that we made out or anything although last night does get a little blurry for me towards the end but I am pretty sure I would have remembered something like that. But you can't get sick, the vigilante cannot get sick because that would not be intimidating at all. You can't have a coughing fit and stick someone with an arrow at the same time!"

She hadn't stopped talking or looked up as she turned on all of her monitors and brought up the tests that she would need to be running.

"Hello, Felicity." Oliver's voice was more than a little amused with her as he sat on top of a nearby desk, on his own laptop doing, well, she hoped it was a Google search because he was kind of hopeless after that. "How are you today?"

A hand went up to her throat, the soreness still lingering. "I've been better," she said slowly, taking stock of the empty lair. "Where is everyone?"

"Night off, which you would know if you had read my text." He sounded bemused with her current flustered state.

"Me and my phone are in a serious fight today," Felicity grumbled, pulling out the offending piece of technology and punching in her password. Sure enough, Oliver's texts were there, including one from Dig, two from Sara, and surprisingly enough, three from Thea, but the first two were pretty incoherent, sent at 3am.

"So how are you feeling?"

The innocuous question surprised her, but she tried to school her expression to not give anything away. Not about to look a gift horse, or in this case, a small-talking Oliver, in the mouth, Felicity flopped down in her chair and spun to look at him.

"Not excellent, as you could have guessed."

"You look tired," he noted.

Felicity's jaw dropped. "Did you just tell me I look like crap, Oliver Queen?"

"No, I said you look tired. Two very different things."

"Not when you're talking to a female, it's not! I swear, how did you ever get as many girls as you did when you don't even know the basics of insulting them?"

"Must be my winning smile."

"You should send your orthodontist a gift basket," she tossed back, an unrepentant grin on her face. They sat like that for a beat too long, Felicity's smile bright and sparkling and Oliver looking like he was trying very hard to not smile. The moment was broken as she swallowed and her hand again instinctively went up to her throat.

Oliver got up swiftly, crossing the room to her desk. She clapped her hands over her mouth and nose as she realized he wasn't stopping.

"I can't get you sick!" Her words were muffled under her hands and Oliver just shook his head as he reached around her and turned off her monitors.

"Go home, Felicity. Nothing is happening on a Sunday night, I promise you. Get some rest and I'll see you tomorrow at the office, okay?" He leaned in and gently pried her hands away from her mouth. "Besides, you made me dance with you...what, three times last night? I think if I'm going to get sick from you, it'll happen regardless."

"Oh god, I really did make you do that, didn't I?" She squeezed her eyes shut, remembering vague details of the night before.

"Maybe 'made' isn't the right word for it." One eye opened at that, slowly followed by the other as she realized Oliver was doing what other people would consider flirting. They shared a look, the same look they always shared that spoke of caring and understanding and want before Oliver pulled back, nodding towards the door. "Get outta here."

She hadn't expected to get any sleep that night but when she got home, she fell asleep on the couch, right in the middle of an episode of Orphan Black. That alone was a true testament to how tired she must have been.

She woke up feeling much better; the soreness in her throat was gone, she felt less achy all over, and her head was clear. Which was why she was at a loss when on Thursday, she woke up feeling like she got hit by a mack truck.

"You look...like maybe you didn't get a lot of sleep," Oliver commented carefully when she got to the office that morning.

"Nice try, it's still offensive," she told him grumpily. "But if it helps, I'm aware that I look like crap today, so it doesn't really matter."

She had foregone her normal tight dress in favor of a loose maxi dress that was probably too casual for someone in her position, but she knew that Oliver wouldn't say anything. Her heels were replaced by plain flats and her ponytail was, by Felicity standards, askew.

"If you feel sick, Felicity, maybe you should go home?" Oliver knew better than to command her to do anything, it was much better to simply suggest it and let her come to her own decision.

Diggle, of course, didn't operate by the same set of rules.

"Felicity," he sucked in a low breath as he walked off the elevators towards her desk. "Go home, you look like you're fighting something."

She glared from her seat behind her desk but didn't argue with him, instead whipping towards Oliver.

"Why didn't you get sick?" She asked accusingly. "And if you dare try and tell me that you get more sleep than I do, I will lock you out of every computer you own, Oliver Queen."

He wisely retreated and Dig gave Felicity a wide berth as she proclaimed that she was staying at work because she was not that sick.

She made it to 3 p.m.

"Go home, rest, eat some soup, relax."

"I don't want to," she said stubbornly even as she was gathering up her supplies. She had developed a slight fever around lunch and had finally conceded that her body's pathetic immune system had lost this round.

"You will survive not working a 16 hour work day for once, I think."

"Yeah, but will you survive?" There was an element of truth and heaviness to her question.

Oliver reached out and put his hands on her shoulders and Felicity would swear it was the fever that sent the sudden chill down her spine.

"We have nothing dangerous on the books, I promise you. Just patrolling and training. That's it."

"And you promise that Sara can work the comms? She remembers how?"

"I am sure of it." Oliver sighed. "Would it make you feel better if I said I promise to call you if we need your help with anything?"

"Yes!"

"Too bad. I won't. Now do not return to this office until next Monday, do you hear me? I'll stop by tomorrow after work and check in on you."

"I hate this."

Oliver's mouth twitched. "I hadn't noticed."

"I hate you."

"Goodbye, Felicity." His lips had transformed to a smirk as he watched Dig herd Felicity to the elevator, her protests still carrying down the hallway. That girl, he thought fondly, before resigning himself to finishing the week off with boring board meetings and no one to make him smile.