A/N: I am slacking something FIERCE when it comes to responding to reviews, but I hope you know I appreciate every single word everyone writes. Things have just been crazy on my side. This chapter has been a long time in the making: chemotherapy. Had to happen sometime. Lots of science medical talk in this one, which...I don't know, I'm going to stop apologizing for including it because I think it is necessary for this story and for my own peace of mind and in order to give cancer patients and survivors the respect they deserve. On a lighter note, I kinda just wanna love Oliver, is that weird? Or maybe just hug him?

It was a little past 8, and Felicity was already safely wrapped up in bed and it was just Oliver sitting next to her. He was folded in his usual chair by her bed, pretending to check his emails on his phone, but mostly watching her. He felt a little bad for the reasoning behind his current staring; he felt like maybe this was the last time he would see a completely healthy (at least on the outside) Felicity for some time. He was taking in every inch of her. The smoothness of her skin, the pallor of her cheeks, the way her hair fell gently around her face - all of that was being mentally noted and filed away. He never wanted to forget the way she looked right now. She didn't look perfect, but that just added to her allure. Her hair had air-dried and was flirting with being frizzy, but somehow just looked adorable. She had developed some slight hematomas under her skin where she had lymph nodes removed, so her neck was a bit swollen as well. To Oliver, she had never looked better.

"Stop staring at me," she told him without looking up from her tablet.

"No." Oliver was happy to be called out on it, locking his phone and setting it to the side.

"Please?" She met his eyes and he could see the smile that was lurking there.

"Felicity, I would do absolutely anything for you. You know that." He waited until he saw her eyes start to soften before he continued. "Except that."

She laughed aloud at that, rolling her eyes at his antics. "What am I going to do with you?"

"The question of our lives."

They were interrupted shortly after by Dr. Fox, who bustled into the room with his chart and a small smile on his face.

"Mr. Queen, how nice of you to finally show your face around here," the doctor joked, having never been in the room without him. He turned to Felicity. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm okay. Good. Nervous. A little scared. But still happy we're starting. Mostly good." Dr. Fox cocked his eyebrow at her. "I am all of those things."

"Well, it's completely normal to feel that way before we begin. I know we went over this earlier in the week, but I'm just going to run over it one last time and make sure you don't have any questions. Tomorrow starts day 1 of your chemo, and we will be using the R-CHOP protocol, which is just the initials of the medicine we will be using. It is a three week cycle - 1 week on, 2 weeks off. It may seem like that's us dragging it out, but those two weeks are critical in letting your body recover and get back to the strength it needs to be in order undergo more chemo. During the course of your treatments, you will be extremely susceptible to infections. Even the common cold is the enemy now. Anytime you have a fever that spikes over 101 degrees, you come straight to the hospital. No questions asked. Understood?"

Oliver answered much more emphatically than Felicity, but it was all the same to her. From what she had gathered from everything she had looked at, hospital stays weren't going to be all that uncommon for her.

"Do either of you have any questions regarding the chemotherapy?"

Oliver deferred to Felicity, who had to remind herself to breathe in order to respond.

"So, it's going to make me...sick?"

"Nausea and fatigue are the most common symptoms with chemo, yes. We will give you anti-nausea drugs at the beginning of each treatment, but it will unfortunately be a bit of trial-and-error until we find the best combination that works for you. Other side effects include possible mouth sores or ulcers, since your digestive tract will be damaged from the medicine, and joint and leg soreness or aches are also not uncommon, especially with one of the medicines you will be receiving, vincristine."

"There's no 'V' in R-CHOP," Oliver pointed out worriedly.

"Oncovin is the brand name that is used in that acronym," Dr. Fox told him with a smile. Oliver Queen was certainly doing his research.

He nodded once.

"And my um...my hair?" Felicity barely wanted to know the answer to this question but she knew she had to ask.

"Many patients do experience some or all hair loss during chemotherapy. The drugs are targeting fast dividing cells, and hair cells are some of the fastest. These medicines don't differentiate, unfortunately. We don't know how your body will react to these drugs though, so I can't tell you exactly what will happen. You could start to see some hair loss between 10 days and 3 weeks, and it might not ever all fall out, it could just thin considerably. Your hair seems to be very thick, Miss Smoak, so the odds are in your favor."

Felicity couldn't help running her fingers through the tips of her blonde hair that rested on her shoulders. "How very Hunger Games," she muttered, trying to not cry at the thought of her hair falling out. Oliver's hand found hers, once again, and she didn't even bother to try not to hold on to it tightly.

"Your morning tomorrow will be filled with some pre-chemo testing. We want to have baselines for all of your major organs as well as your hearing and vision, plus some simple blood labs which we'll get from your port."

"Okay," she whispered.

"I know it may seem overwhelming right now, Miss Smoak, but you'll fall into a routine soon enough. And as futile as these words may be, you should try and get some rest tonight. Tomorrow will be here before you know it, and you'll need all your strength."

He excused himself and Felicity tried not to replay all of his words in her head. She felt like she was on information overload and she needed an external harddrive to put all of this cancer business on. Just a separate part of her that held all this knowledge that she could access when she needed to, but could ignore when she didn't. Unfortunately, she didn't think that was going to be possible. Unless…

"Do human robots exist yet?"

"I'm not turning you into a robot." Of course Oliver knew exactly where her mind was headed. He was Oliver.

"Is it bad that I don't want to know all of this? That I'm not half as interested as you or Detective Lance or Dig? I didn't even know that bit about neutropenia… I mean, even Roy made me watch The Fault in Our Stars with him the other day because he thought it would help put things in perspective."

"Did it?"

"Not for me, but Roy cried for ten minutes after."

Oliver smirked at that and studied her for a few moments.

"Felicity, none of us are mad that you don't read more about it, or want to spend time researching this. We do it because...it's all we can do. It makes me feel good knowing that by reading books or articles that I can... protect you better." It wasn't exactly what he meant, but it was the only sentence that made sense in his head.

"So you're saying it's completely selfish?" She teased. "Oliver Queen: not the philanthropist that Starling City seems to believe."

"I'm saying," he talked over her, "that you live with this every day. You have experiences that we can't get from a book or from a medical journal. If reading about it doesn't help you, then don't read, its as simple as that. I'll read enough for the two of us."

"Things I never thought I'd hear you say."

"Better take note. I'm not gonna say it again."

She woke up with Oliver's hand grasped in hers. Her eyes opened slowly, with her mind seemingly never remembering where she was, and she noticed Oliver across from her. His body was stretched across the gap between the chair and the bed, his head resting on his arms next to hers while he still maintained the semblance of sitting in the chair. She squeezed his hand lightly, not at all surprised when his eyes flew open and he was completely alert. Absolutely nothing like her morning ritual of taking twenty minutes to feel human.

"You can't be comfortable."

"Says the girl with a life-threatening disease."

She opened her mouth to respond but was interrupted by Detective Lance walking through the door.

"Donuts are here and if you make one comment about police stereotypes, Queen, I'll arrest you myself."

"Can I make a comment?" Felicity asked. "I have cancer."

Lance shook his head in mock disgust. "Using the cancer card. Every time."

As excited as she was for real food, she was only able to eat about three quarters of her sprinkled donut. Oliver's eyes silently plead for her to keep eating, to gather her strength, but she just couldn't. When he got up to take a shower, Lance slipped into his chair by her side and popped the rest of her uneaten donut into his mouth.

"He's worried about you."

"He's hovering is what he's doing."

"We're all kind of hovering."

"No kidding. Are you even a cop anymore, or did you take a leave of absence as well?"

"Been pretty quiet lately. Our mutual friend has been trussing up the local gangbangers almost nightly. Makes my job easy. I've got a shift in an hour or so, but thought I'd stop by first."

She smiled at his efforts - and his donuts - but her mind remained focused on his previous words. She wasn't surprised that Oliver, Dig, and Roy had stayed active and busy in their efforts to clean up the street, but she was a little miffed that they never really talked about it with her.

"Speaking of our friend. Any chance he and I will run into each other here? I assume you told him."

"I did. And why? Do you need to get a message to him?"

"Nah, just wanted to make sure he was taking care of you. Haven't seen him here, so…"

"I don't think you're supposed to see the vigilante if he doesn't want to be seen. Or else he'd be a pretty bad vigilante."

"Hey," he pointed at her. "There's no such thing as a good vigilante. Just because he's helping doesn't mean that he's good."

"Trust me, that's not what makes him good." She gave a little snort. "'No such thing as a good vigilante?' How often do you find yourself giving lectures about that?"

"I should get it printed on a damn t-shirt," he muttered. "Half the precinct loves him, the other half hates him, and I have to constantly remind people that taking the law into your own hands isn't a good idea."

"You live a hard life," she told him sagely.

"And don't you forget it. Now, do you want me to come by after work or are you going to be okay?"

"I'm probably going to be throwing up if I'm to believe what the doctors are saying so you should probably skip that."

"Eh, once you're a parent, that stuff doesn't phase you. And then you become a cop and you've got kids like Oliver Queen and Tommy Merlyn who puke on cop cars for fun. But I might try and get dinner with Laurel tonight if it's okay with you."

"You don't need to ask me for permission, Detective."

"Eh, you say that, but the one time I don't, the whole world is gonna go up in the flames," he kidded, standing up and swinging on his jacket.

"You never have to justify spending time with Laurel to me. She's your daughter."

Lance gave her a curious look. "The hell do you think you are?" He was by the door before she could even process his words. "I'll see you tomorrow!"

The pre-chemo testing took up her entire morning and most of her afternoon. She lamented Oliver not being able to go with her as she was carted around the hospital for EKG tests and hearing tests and GFR tests which she wasn't entirely sure what that even was but she thought it might have something to do with her kidney function.

She fell asleep as soon as she got back to her room and when she opened her eyes next, she was happy to see Oliver, Dig, and Roy sitting on the couch, relaxing silently. She had to hold back a snicker, but she wondered what it would take to have the three of them do the poses of 'see, hear, and speak no evil.' She suspected that it wouldn't be all that difficult.

"What time is it?" She wondered aloud. The three men in front of her jumped up at her voice, crowding her in her bed.

"Half past four," Dig told her. Her chemo was supposed to start at 5. She had slept longer than she wanted to.

"You nervous?" It was surprisingly Roy who asked the question that was on everyone's lips.

"Yeah," she answered honestly. "More like scared as hell, but it doesn't really matter. Me being afraid isn't going to change anything. Still gonna have to go through all this."

"Well, I think you're brave." Roy made the comment so casually that Felicity actually laughed.

"I am anything but brave, trust me. I'm a nervous wreck and my emotions are all over the place and I feel bad for me but also you guys because you are all wrapped up in this now and you're going through stuff too and you're always here and that makes me feel like such a burden and-"

"You're not a burden, Felicity," Dig cut off her rant, knowing she was just working herself up to one of her infamous ten minute tangents. "And don't worry about us. We are all dealing with this, yes, but we're doing it together."

"We're Team Arrow." Oliver's eyes went to the ceiling, praying to some unseen deity for the patience to allow Roy to finish his sentence. "Where else would we be?"

"Roy's right," Oliver finally spoke. "We are a team. A nameless team. But a team. And none of us are going anywhere."

"Unless you puke." All eyes turned to Roy, who shrugged self-consciously. "I don't really do well with that kind of stuff."

"I won't make you watch me be sick. Any of you. But thanks for being here."

Her gratitude multiplied when she felt her heart rate speed up when two nurses entered with a whole cart full of medications. The biohazard sign was used liberally over everything, and two IV bags were labeled with bright purple stickers that said 'CAUTION: CYTOTOXIC.' The nurses moved with a practiced ease as they double check dosages and her vitals, all comparing to her hospital wristband with her information on it. When they were finally ready to begin, Felicity felt more than a little overwhelmed. She kind of thought it was just going to be an IV, but these people had so much going on in their cart that she doubted it was going to be that simple. When they placed a kidney dish on the nightstand next to her, she felt her heart sink. It was all happening so fast.

"You ready to get this show on the road?" One nurse, who Felicity thought was named Eleanor, looked to her with a bright smile. Was Felicity supposed to be excited about this?

"Okay, so!" Eleanor clapped her hands together. "This is your first cycle so we do it a bit slower to introduce the medicine into your body. It'll always be two days of chemo, but it'll just be a bit longer this first time. This first bag will run for about an hour, and the next will run for about three. Tomorrow you'll have another infusion that will be the longest one - about 6 hours. The other medicine we are just going to inject directly into your port, so there aren't any bags associated with that. And finally, the prednisone is given as a pill, but we'll give those after treatments to guarantee that you don't get sick and have it come back up, okay?"

Everyone nodded, and Felicity gave a shaky smile to Roy, who looked as if he was on the verge of crying.

"Now when the chemo starts flowing, you might be able to taste it, or even smell it. That's completely normal, and a lot of patients don't notice it after the first one or two doses. Drink as much water as possible. Seriously. We will also have a line set up with fluids, but you drinking helps to dilute the medicine and that protects your body. If you start to feel sick or dizzy, buzz us immediately. Now, for you three," she turned to the men standing like soldiers at the foot of the bed. "This is important. And be sure to tell this to the detective that spends a lot of time here as well: you have to be very very careful to not get any of Felicity's bodily fluids on you while she's on chemo. Vomit, urine, nothing."

Roy took a carefully measured small step backwards.

"The chemo will be present in all of her fluids, and contact with any of that can be extremely toxic to you guys, so you need to be extra careful. There are some double-strength latex gloves over there if you need them, and always err on the side of caution. I can't stress that enough."

Upon seeing everyone on the same page, Eleanor nodded happily and moved to Felicity's side. She swabbed the small port that was embedded in her skin, looking just like a raised quarter as her doctor had told her it would.

"Alright, that's the vincristine," Eleanor quickly injected a syringe into the port and carefully discarded it in the biohazard bin.

"I never thought I'd see the day where you didn't flinch at a needle, Felicity," Dig said with thinly veiled pride.

"Eh, well, they use a topical numbing solution. I can't even feel it. But you should definitely still be impressed."

"And now..." The nurse finished fiddling with lumens and tubes and IVs and she slid another needle into the port. "Rituximab. This might make you feel a little flushed or overheated, but it'll subside really easily. Since this is your first time, you can expect plenty of check-ins by either me or the other nurses. Not to mention tonight we will be on you about every two hours, making sure you're emptying your bladder consistently. Now drink drink drink and I'll see you in a bit!"

After the nurses left, Felicity had to ask.

"Was she super excited about this or was that just me?"

"Way too excited," Dig confirmed.

"Creeped me out," Roy agreed, bending over to re-position the couch in front of the bed, their typical movie-watching setup. This way, they all saw the television and Felicity didn't feel like she was on display.

Oliver just smiled at her, putting a bottle of water in front of her from the small mini-fridge in the room.

"Yeah, yeah," she grumbled, uncapping it and taking a huge swig. Oliver looked satisfied with that but didn't join Dig and Roy on the couch, instead settling into his normal chair by her bed, ostensibly to keep an eye on her.

She really did have the best friends in the world.

She wasn't sure what she had been expecting - a huge contributing factor of her fear, definitely - but the whole 'getting chemotherapy' thing was a little...anticlimactic. At least, that was how Roy had put it when he left after they finished watching Die Hard.

"Sorry Blondie, I kind of thought it would be more exciting." He leaned over and pressed a kiss to her cheek. "I'll bring the other Die Hards later on this week though. We'll marathon 'em. Maybe Thea will even come too."

She didn't blame him for leaving because it certainly wasn't interesting. She had gotten a little warm during the first bag, but nothing too major. She had actually been startled when the IV pole started beeping, signifying that the first bag was done. The second bag was a little different, in the sense that she did get a funny taste in her mouth, and the oddest sensation that while she couldn't smell anything differently, it was as if the taste had migrated to her nostrils. She tried explaining it to Oliver, but his eyes had only gotten big and he asked if she needed him to get a nurse.

They were a little over halfway through Cast Away - Oliver's idea of a joke, if she had to guess - when a wave of nausea swept over Felicity.

"Oliver…"

He looked over and she was pale as a ghost, eyes closed tight.

"What's wrong? Are you in pain? What do you need?"

She tried to ride it out, to take deep breaths through her nose, to focus on anything but that feeling, but she couldn't. Unable to open her mouth for fear of something besides words coming out, she shook her head and motioned wildly to the nightstand where the kidney bowl rested.

Understanding immediately, Oliver grabbed the dish and held it under her chin, just in time for her to get violently ill in it. She took it from his hands, grasping it tightly as she heaved into it, and used his now-free arms to quickly gather her hair away from her face.

Dig had stood the second Felicity had moaned Oliver's name, and he remained standing at the foot of the bed, taking in the scene before him and feeling utterly helpless.

"In her bag in the bathroom, her toiletry stuff, can you find a hair tie?" Oliver asked as he clumsily got the hair into a half-assed ponytail. Dig was efficient as ever and Oliver struggled to get her hair through the loops of the elastic. When he was confident it would hold, he sat on the edge of the bed, rubbing her back as she continued to get sick.

He felt so completely out of control in that moment, so it was fitting that the sight of her messy ponytail is the one that almost pushed him over the edge. She was throwing up in front of him, sweating with exertion as her body tried to dispel the chemicals that were supposed to be saving her, and her damn ponytail was the thing that Oliver couldn't wrap his head around.

It was messy and imperfect, sitting low on the nape of her neck instead of her typical higher, traditional ponytails, and all Oliver could think about was how she deserved more. She deserved a perfect ponytail. She deserved to not be in the hospital. She deserved everything. And there were so many people out there that did deserve this. People that hurt others for their own sick pleasure, people who delighted in others' pain. They were the ones that should be sitting in a hospital bed, not Felicity. Not her.

Finally, a few minutes later, Felicity relaxed against the head of her bed. She knew that tears were streaming down her face but she wasn't sure if they were from pain, stress, or embarrassment of throwing up in front of her two best friends.

Dig had ran out and gotten Mary, her favorite nurse, when neither him nor Oliver could see the buzzer for the nurse's station on Felicity's bed, figuring she had to have been lying on it. Mary came in and took her temperature and adjusted the anti-nausea meds, quickly rinsing out the kidney dish before returning it to Felicity, who clutched it like a lifeline. The entire time Oliver remained a statue; he sat on the edge of the bed with her and alternated between rubbing her back, his fingers running through her ponytail, and dabbing a cold compress on her forehead.

"I'm sorry," Felicity whispered weakly, too exhausted to open her eyes. "Worst vacation ever."

"I was tortured for weeks on my last vacation. Don't worry. And hey," he waited for Felicity to lock eyes with him, "Do not apologize for this. Ever. You understand me? This is not your fault. And I don't want to hear you talk about it like it is."

Whatever Felicity's response was going to be, it was silenced when her body hunched forward over the bin again, heaving.

Dig and Oliver shared a look across the room that spoke of helplessness and despair at seeing the brightest thing in their lives be in so much pain. And this was only the beginning.