A/N: Thank you all so SO so much for all of the kind, beautiful words and thoughts you've shared for this story and For Darker Days. I know I haven't responded individually in a while but I will, I promise! I get a bit alfksjdgsdg when I read what everyone has to say though. It means a lot.

Here is the next installment. There is some Dig talking/wisdom, some Oliver angst, and some UST that I think everyone could use right now in this bummer of a story. After this will be another foray into Oliver's life in For Darker Days, but don't expect that with every chapter! I have about 25 chapters of this written and only 7 or 8 companion one shots, so it's definitely not equal.

I hope you love this story as much as I do. Thank you!

"He's not coming in today."

John Diggle surprised her yet again the next morning at the lair as she stared hopelessly at Oliver's vacant office. She wasn't surprised that he wasn't coming in, but she had still hoped. She hadn't come up with a great speech yet, or a rousing apology that would win him over completely, but she just wanted to see him. To touch him and to feel him and even if he was going to yell at her some more, she thought she could handle it because it was Oliver and if he was yelling at her that meant that he was there and alive and real and she really needed him to be real right now when everything else in her life felt so fake.

"Oh." She felt awkward now, especially since she still didn't know what to say to Dig. "Did he send you here to babysit me? Because you really don't need to. I don't need a bodyguard or a driver today, I promise."

"No, I'm off today too. And so are you, as his EA." He cleared his throat. "So what are you going to do today?"

She hadn't anticipated being off from work and the prospect, for the first time, wasn't appealing.

"I'm gonna...schedule some stuff, I guess?" It sounded paper thin to her ears as well; she now knew how well John Diggle saw through her bullshit, and she sagged with that knowledge. Might as well stop lying to all of her friends, assuming they still wanted to be her friends. "That's not true. I have Oliver scheduled out to the minute for the next few months. I um…I'm waiting for a phone call, I guess. I thought being here would help keep my mind off of it. Even with CEO of Broody Incorporated here. But I guess since he's off, I'll just...wait."

"You mind if I wait too?"

"I thought you were off today?"

"As a bodyguard and driver, yes. But I don't have the luxury of taking a day off from caring about you, Felicity, so I thought now was a good a time as any for you to tell me what's going on. Everything that's going on."

Okay, so he was clearly not 100% over it, but he was at least willing to talk to her and that was more than Oliver was giving her.

"Come on," he nodded towards the elevators. "Sitting here all day isn't going to help you. Let's go get some coffee or something."

Her body was practically vibrating from all the coffee she had imbibed with Detective Lance that morning, having needed something to do as he recounted Oliver's adventure at the precinct the night before. She had accidentally drank four cups.

"Maybe decaf for me."

He listened patiently as Felicity talked for about forty minutes without stopping. He didn't ask any questions, didn't interrupt her, just sat in front of her, stoically as always, taking in every word she said. Afterwards he had some questions, but she was surprised with how specific they were. Apparently his mom had gone through breast cancer a while back, and while the experiences were bound to be wildly different, it had given him an unique perspective on illness as a whole.

"So, this call will tell you when this surgery is supposed to be?"

She nodded. "And then, probably as soon as I'm better from that, they'll start chemo." She looked as if she had startled herself.

"What is it?"

"That's the first time I've said that word out loud. Like that, I mean. Chemo. It sounds so...tawdry. Like I'm on an episode of Grey's Anatomy or something. Not to mention, did you hear how casually I said it? Like it wasn't a big deal?" She picked apart her muffin some more, having already destroyed it beyond recognition. "Who am I anymore?"

"Still the same Felicity, if that diatribe was any indication." He swirled his stirrer around in his coffee before meeting her eyes again. "You know why I was - am - upset, right, Felicity?"

"I really am sorry I didn't tell you sooner, Dig. I just didn't know how. And then last night really blew up in my face for me." She shook her head, more at herself than anything. "What was I supposed to do? Just casually slip it into conversation? 'Here are those financials and also, hey, by the way, I have cancer.'"

"Yes, Felicity. That's exactly what you do. There's not a good way to tell someone this, which I hope you've learned by now. There's not a right way, or a good way, or a way to lessen the blow. But lying to us...that was a dumb move. We need all the information we can get if we are going to protect you, you understand that?"

"You can't protect me from this, John. You can't try and take the bullet for me this time. Or the chemo for me, or whatever. I don't think they have a really suitable idiom for this kind of situation."

"But we can help. And that's what you're going to need to learn to accept. I can't take your medicine, or have surgery for you, but I can be there. I can pick you up from the hospital. I can make sure you take your Tylenol on schedule, and don't give me that look, I've known you were on it since you started taking it after the first doctor's appointment. Don't get me wrong. I would if I could. If I could have your chemotherapy, I would. If I could have this illness, I would, and don't think for a second that Oliver wouldn't too. We care about you. But you can't shut us out again. Not now."

"Okay," she responded, soft but sure. "Okay," she repeated. "I won't. But you're going to have to work something out with Detective Lance. He has this thing with Tylenol. Really likes to be the one to dole it out."

"I'm sure we can work something out."

"That's what you think. He's wily. And he plays it off like he's just this old guy with a heart condition that carries a gun but seriously, he-"

"He what?" Dig wasn't particularly invested in hearing about the detective, but Felicity's eyes were finally losing some of their shadows, and he wanted to keep her talking about anything that kept them at bay.

Felicity pulled out her phone. It was the hospital calling.

She hadn't bothered to even try and get Dig to not come with her to her appointment. She was already tired and she didn't want to waste her breath on a fight that she could never win. He was being respectful though, not pushing her to talk and not asking any unnecessary questions. He had actually only asked her one as they got into his car.

"Do I need to call Detective Lance?"

"Huh?" She replied, eloquently as ever.

"The detective. Does he need to be here with you for this too?"

"Oh, no. I'll just tell him whenever it's supposed to be." She buckled her seatbelt and took in her surroundings. "I've never sat up here with you. It's nice. Roomy."

"Roomy enough that you're willing to sit up here with me instead of in the back with Oliver?"

"Weeeeeell…"

"That's what I thought. And I'm sure the backseat holds no other benefits, does it?"

She was grateful when he turned on the radio, but she still kind of wanted to punch that smug smile off of his face.

As grateful as she was for Dig's presence, it did highlight the lack of Oliver next to her as well. She hadn't missed him at her other appointments - hadn't allowed herself to. But with Dig in the seat next to her, it was impossible for her to not think about what it would be like with Oliver sitting next to her on the other side, holding her hand and trying not to show any outward signs of her digging her nails into his palm.

The office they were in was much more opulent than Dr. Munroe's had been, and on a much higher floor as well. She didn't catch the name on the plaque outside the door, but she highly doubted that Dr. Fox had this kind of set up. The office was practically the size of the lair.

"Felicity, its nice to see you again. This is Dr. Ling, Head of Oncology here at Starling General." Dr. Fox greeted them as they walked into the room and introduced them to an older Asian woman with kind eyes and a firm mouth. "I'm glad to see you're not alone today. Is this your husband?"

She almost choked on her tongue rushing to correct him. Dig remained silent, his eyes smiling despite his serious face.

"Miss Smoak," Dr. Ling started. "I just want to reassure you that while I will be overseeing your treatment, Dr. Fox will still be your primary oncologist. There will be no changes to your treatment or your primary doctors."

Interestingly enough, Dr. Fox looked more relieved than Felicity.

"I'm sorry, is there something wrong with me? Besides the cancer part? Or is there something wrong with the cancer? Has something changed?"

"Of course not, dear. As far as I know, nothing in your diagnosis has changed in the last week or so." She looked to Dr. Fox for confirmation.

"I just don't understand why you're interested then. Not that I'm not appreciative! I just, everything I read said that my cancer is kind of one of the boring ones."

"While I don't believe any cancer is boring - job requirement, unfortunately - I should reassure you that your case hasn't changed at all. My vested interest in your care here is nothing more than a guarantee that you are receiving the best care possible."

It was a diplomatic answer, if not very straightforward. And if she had been anyone else, Felicity probably would have let it go. But she wasn't anyone else, and this wasn't anyone else's cancer, and she knew exactly who had gotten the Head of Oncology involved.

"I'm going to kill him," she muttered darkly.

"I'm sorry?" Dr. Ling's eyes widened in alarm.

"Oliver Queen. He had something to do with your involvement, didn't he?"

"Mr. Queen did contact the hospital and explained the sensitive nature of your case, yes." Sensitive nature? What about her was particularly sensitive? Except for that part on her neck but she really hoped Oliver hadn't shared that tidbit with the hospital. "We are working with him and his security team to guarantee you not only top of the line care here, but privacy and protection as well."

Felicity cast an accusing glare at Dig.

"Hey, I had nothing to do with this. I've been with you all morning."

"A likely story, John Diggle." She turned back to Dr. Ling. "Doctor, those precautions really aren't necessary. In fact, I'd almost prefer it if I were just handling my treatment on a one-on-one basis with Dr. Fox. I would hate to waste your time."

"The Queen family is a very large proponent to this hospital, Miss Smoak. It truly is no trouble. Now Mr. Queen has also been able to secure a world-class surgeon for your procedure this week as well."

"Of course he did."

"The surgeon will be flying in tomorrow afternoon, so you are scheduled to check in to inpatient services at 7am on Friday morning..."

Felicity sincerely hoped that Dig was paying more attention than she was at that point, because all she could think of was how badly she was going to kick Oliver Queen's ass.

She waited until they were maybe five steps outside of the hospital.

"Where is he?"

Dig didn't even try and pretend that he didn't know what she was talking about. "The lair."

"Then that's where we're going."

As they walked across the parking lot to get to the entrance to the lair, Dig actually had to hold back a comment about Felicity being so out of shape. A month ago he wouldn't have hesitated to tease her for her puffing breaths and slow gait, but now all he could do was offer his arm as assistance, which she promptly batted away.

"Oliver Queen, you have a lot of nerve!" He hadn't entered her field of vision yet, but she could hear the distinct sound of taped knuckles hitting a dummy that could only come from the precision force of Oliver. "If you think you can just storm away and then try and control my entire life without ever having to talk to me, you are sorely mistaken!"

She rounded the corner to see the training mats and was momentarily happy when she saw that he had stopped working out, but it was quickly replaced with something else as she took in his appearance. His knuckles, while taped, were dripping a slow, steady stream of blood. His body was covered in sweat that he didn't usually get from just hitting a dummy - and Felicity was somewhat of an expert in all sweaty Oliver activities - so she knew he had to have been there for a long while. Finally, his eyes, staring just below her neck, refusing to meet her's, looked more than a little lost.

She decided to fix the easy stuff first and save the hard stuff for last.

"What are you doing?" She grabbed his hands and while he tried to jerk them away from her at first, she held fast and started to drag him to the med bay. Somehow, Dig had managed to slip away, which she would deal with later.

She was damn frustrated with Oliver. His hands were his tools, his weapons, his life in many situations. He couldn't afford to hurt them just because Felicity gave him some bad news.

"What are you...?" He asked quietly as she unwrapped his hands and sucked in a breath through her teeth, motioning for him to sit on the med bay table. He obliged but was still staring at her with the same curious expression.

"I'm wrapping these up."

"Why? No, you should be the one being taken care of -"

"Yeah, well I can't exactly wrap my bone marrow up so just sit there and shut up while I fix this," she snapped. "What the hell did you do to yourself? This isn't just from the dummy."

"I might've punched a wall."

"You're a real idiot sometimes Oliver, you know that? What would you have done if you had broken your hand? Shot your bow with your teeth?"

"I've done that once, you know," he confided, trying to coax a smile out of her, but she just glared at him.

"Listen, Oliver, I know that you're pissed at me, but this is not the way to handle it, okay? You can't just destroy your hands or...or buy a whole hospital or whatever you did just because you're mad at me."

"They don't really just let you buy hospitals."

"What a fun thing for you to know."

She didn't think any of the bones in his hands were broken, but they were severely swollen so she couldn't be sure. She cleaned the blood off easily enough, wincing for him when she had to use some alcohol pads.

"Sorry, sorry," she muttered, despite how he didn't move an inch.

"What are you apologizing for?"

"The alcohol. Not telling you sooner. Everything." She paused. "Except for yelling at you. I'm not sorry about that, and you really can be an idiot."

"I'm aware." A beat passed. "Why didn't you tell me, Felicity?"

"Would you have told me, Oliver?" She sighed, not looking at him, still diligently working on cleaning out the raw skin on his hands.

"That's not fair and you know it. You would have tracked me down or hacked into my doctor's systems or whatever you do and you would've found out the second I started acting weird. I tried to look you up in the hospital system which you already hacked and I couldn't even find your name in it." Felicity bit her lip. "Which of course you know about because you're the one that hid your records, aren't you?"

"Just be lucky I'm not yelling at you about my monitors right now." Her monitors which had been swept up, courtesy of Roy, and were replaced with a lone 17" monitor that made her heart hurt.

"Why didn't you tell me?" His voice was soft, pleading. She put down the wipe that was in her hands and took a deep breath, but still didn't look up until his hand gently cupped her chin and forced her to meet his eyes.

"If I told you...it made it all so real."

"Real?" He prodded when she didn't immediately continue.

"I spent the last month pretending that I wasn't sick. Going to work, coming here, it was like nothing had changed at all. If I made myself busy enough then I didn't think about giving myself injections every day, or how I can't climb a flight of stairs without getting winded. My whole life is going to change soon, Oliver. I just wanted this...us to stay the same for as long as I could."

"It isn't going to change, Felicity. It has changed. You lying to me is a change. You going to the doctor's all the time is a change. You can't just pretend this isn't happening! I need to know what's going on so that I can protect you, do you understand that?"

"You can't protect me from this, Oliver." The conversation was eerily similar to the one she had with Dig that morning. Men and their complexes, she assumed. At least Roy wanted to protect her from radiation beams. That was something a bit more tangible than whatever Dig and Oliver wanted to do.

His voice was low and strained and she noticed a barely detectable quiver to his jaw. "Watch me."

She fought a smile and focused on the arduous process of wrapping up his mangled hands, careful to mind the antiseptic ointment that she had spread gently over his knuckles.

"Are you afraid?"

She mulled the question over in her head before answering. The truth was that she was afraid of every minute of every day now. Time seemed to be her enemy and her best friend. With every second that ticked by she was getting sicker and sicker, her cells mutating and dividing and conquering who knows what in her body. At the same time, time might have saved her. They said they caught it early, considering how aggressive it was. Time had been kind to her in that regard.

And then time was the only thing separating her and the treatment. The treatments that would change everything in her life: her job was going to be postponed, Team Arrow was going to be down a hacker for a while, her appearance was going to change, and she didn't even want to think about the effect it would inevitably have on her emotional state. As much as she hated time at that moment, she also wanted to savor it. She wanted to hold on to these few hours before everything began. Oliver might have been right that everything already had changed, but there was a difference between knowing it and witnessing first hand. Which was probably why her response to him was so blase.

"Well, I'm certainly not afraid of needles anymore. Well, that's a lie. I am. I just understand that they're a necessary evil at this point. Look at this," she untucked her shirt from her high waisted skirt and lifted it up, unaware of his eyes darkening and his pulse quickening. She showed her belly where you could still see faint marks from the hormone injections of the last two weeks. "My stomach was like a pincushion for a while. And I'm pretty sure it's going to get worse."

Oliver couldn't help himself, and he reached out a tentative hand, his thumb brushing against a dark mark as his fingers curled around her rib cage. Suddenly Felicity became very aware of the position she was in with him but couldn't bring herself to move.

"These are from...treatment?"

"Not exactly." Her shirt slipped from her fingers, falling back down, but Oliver's hand remained, burning hot into her ribcage. His eyes were questioning and while she knew she had nothing to be embarrassed about, it was also a bit strange to talk about something so intimate with him. "My treatment...chemotherapy and radiation stuff, there's a chance it could mess some things up. I mean, I don't even know if I want to have kids or if that's a good idea given everything that I do or whatever, but I just wanted the option. And it's not foolproof. I could be perfectly fine after radiation. All my stuff could be in working order. Or I could not. I mean, it might not even work, and I might never go into remission. But if it does, there's always adoption and surrogates too and a lot of other stuff I haven't considered because it seems like stuff like that will be light years away and I don't even have a boyfriend right now, but-"

"Felicity."

"Sorry."

"The treatment is going to work. And no matter what, I think you're going to be a great mom someday. I know how much you hate needles." Again, his thumb did a brief swipe over her stomach and she felt her heart leap in her chest. This could not be good for her health. He seemed content to let her sidestep the original question regarding her fear, but there was no way he was going to let the topic slide forever.

"Needles seem to be a way of life with these people. Speaking of which, are you going to apologize for trying to take over my hospital?"

"No." He slipped his hand out from under her shirt, but the heat remained. Her ribs were tingling.

"What do you mean, no?"

"I'm not sorry for trying to help. I'm sorry if you think I went behind your back, but this is how I help. I get you the best doctors and the best surgeons and a private room. I get you away from the media."

"The media? Have I suddenly become famous or - or Oliver. Oliver. You can't be seen always at the hospital. The shareholders finally have confidence in you! You're doing well and so is QC. Word gets out that you're at the hospital all the time and there will be doubts. Your mother will kill me."

"My mother will have some compassion."

"Have you met your mother?"

"Once or twice," he deadpanned. "Felicity, it's not up for debate if I'll see you at the hospital, you realize that right?"

She pinched the bridge of her nose, a move that Oliver had done so many times before. He had never seen it reflected on her and he was surprised by how just seeing that simple gesture on her made his heart ache. He was the one that was supposed to feel the pressure. He was the one that was supposed to have things weighing on his shoulders so heavily. It was never supposed to be her.

His bandaged hands clumsily tugged her hips to him, sitting on the medbay table. Her forehead fell against his sternum and she concentrated on her breathing in and out and staying calm.

"There's no way for this to work, Oliver," she told his stomach. "You say nothing and they'll think you're going to the hospital for your own reasons. You say you're visiting your EA, which, by the way, I don't really want to be out there, and they will all think you're having some sort of sordid affair with me. You can't have it both ways, being a Fortune 500 CEO and a good friend. And I'm not going to make you choose."

She felt the weight of the words after they left her mouth. She meant what she said; she wasn't going to make him choose between her and his family's name, his family's business. But saying it aloud reinforced the fact that this was something she might not be able to do with Oliver Queen by her side 24/7, and she hated the fact that just that thought affected her so much.

"I'm going to work it all out, Felicity Smoak. Just wait and see."

"Famous last words," Dig joked as he walked back into the lair. "Are you two still yelling at each other or can we go get burgers?"

"I am a little hungry," Felicity confessed.

"That's because you ripped your muffin apart this morning instead of eating it. C'mon, Big Belly. Oliver's treat."

"Told you," Felicity teased as she grabbed her purse. "Always your treat. Let's go see if you can even pick up a burger with your hands right now. And you can tell us who won the fight between you and the dummy."

"Which dummy?" Dig wondered, but Oliver only shared a small, special smile with Felicity. He wanted nothing more than to tell her everything she wanted to know at that moment.

Oh, I know. There are so many more things that need to be said between Oliver and Felicity, but its not like I was going to keep them apart for that long. Trust me when I say there is so much more to come!