Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Thank you to Alisson Becker for being hot and thank you to Bish for sending me his way.

Felicity typed the last words before she paused and let the cursor sit there blinking at her for a few moments before she placed the final full stop and pulled her fingers away from the keyboard.

She looked at the screen once again as her hand crept to the tail of her back, now aching from sitting at a desk too long – that was something she would have to get used to. A moment later, she pushed send.

It was done.

The interview that everyone from sports journalists to gossip columnists wanted and she, a virtually nameless hobby photographer who worked in the IT department at a magazine where people genuinely passed her in the halls and asked her if she was new (she’d been there three years) – she got it.

Not that she minded being somewhat invisible, honestly she’d spent a great deal of her youth wanting to be just that. A child prodigy and a certified genius didn’t exactly mesh well with High School and so Felicity, two years younger than her peers, developed this ability to blend.

She had friends, great ones, and she had ‘liked’ her job in the IT department of Verdant magazine, at least until she squired away enough money to start up her own company and then she’d poach her fellow ‘IT-basement-dweller’ Cisco and they would set about taking the world by storm.

At least that had been the plan up until about six months ago.

Now, Felicity wasn’t entirely sure.

| Eight Months Ago |

It was early July and the afternoon sun was high in the cloudless sky as Felicity sat cross-legged on cherry-wood bench in a bustling park half a block from her concrete 9-5 confinement, just watching the people in suits natter away on their cell phones while Cisco prattled off about his annoyance at a comic he was reading.

She took another bite of her pastrami sandwich and chomped silently as her eyes moved across the road from the park to a bistro playing a World Cup match to a crowd of rowdy sports fans toting mugs of beer.

She decided that someone must have scored a goal because the cheering was almost deafening as it echoed through the crisp, summery day.

“They’re probably all cheering for Starling’s prodigal son, hoping he’ll return,” Cisco muttered as he looked over the edge of his graphic novel, “Honestly, why would he?”
Felicity pushed her glasses slowly back up the bridge of her nose while she looked down at her friend with a quizzical expression on her face, because she really had no idea what he was talking about.

“You have no idea what I’m talking about do you?” he laughed as he sat up and playfully slapped the rolled up comic against her knee.
“He’s talking about Oliver Queen,” Iris interrupted as the curvaceous beauty slid alongside Felicity and plucked an uneaten apple from her lunch cooler – not that Felicity minded, after all the pretty brunette reporter with perfect skin and a million dollar smile was one of the few people she actually counted as a friend.

“Oh the recluse footballer that plays for Brazil?” Felicity flippantly asked, hoping she had heard enough of the talk around the water cooler to be somewhat accurate.

“Did you hear the latest?” Iris jabbered to a crowd of two that really weren't keeping up with the sport of the hour.
Felicity shook her head as she finished her mouthful, "nope," she answered with a pop of her candy pink lips.

“After they won their semi-final, he came out yesterday and said that if they win the Cup he'll grant one reporter an interview.”

Felicity snorted out a laugh both at the seriousness with which Iris espoused that information and the way her chocolate brown eyes grew wide with excitement.

“You don't cover sports,” Felicity quipped before she took a decidedly long drink from her thermos of iced coffee; saving for a business didn't allow splurges like that and she had become rather adept at making her own half decent one.

Iris rolled her eyes before she teasingly tugged on Felicity's sleek ponytail, “I know that but Oliver Queen hasn't given any interviews,” she proclaimed obtusely.
Felicity licked coffee remnants from her lips and asked, somewhat idly, “In how many years?”
“No, ever,” Cisco piped in.
Felicity looked at him with threads of betrayal. Her future business partner knew about sports?

“Even Flash Gordon here knows,” Iris laughed as she nodded to the lightning bolt emblem on Cisco's shirt.
“Actually this is THE Flash, not Flash Gordon that's something entirely different,” he argued before Iris hushed him with a side eye.
“The point is,” she continued, “whoever lands this interview will go down in history.”

“They have to win first,” Felicity remarked nonchalantly.
Iris looked almost insulted at the inference that they might not, “On home soil?” she flicked her silky tresses over her shoulder, “Oh they'll win.”
“Unless you just jinxed them,” Felicity casually quipped as she shook her half eaten sandwich at her pouting friend.
“Felicity I don't think you understand the gravity of what landing this interview would mean for me.”

Felicity sighed with apologetic eyes, even if she couldn’t understand it herself, Iris being excited about it was enough for her to enthuse with her friend.
“You’re right, sorry,” Felicity smiled softly and genuinely, “I hope Damian gives it to you.”

Iris’ lips tightened into a smile-less scowl, “That sexist son of a bitch denied my request to go down there. He said, and I quote,” she started, puffing up her chest and deepening her voice, “‘He sent his best guys because Oliver Queen isn't going to want to talk to a pair of heels’.”

Felicity cringed at their boss’ antiquated ideas. It was like he was a left over from another era before women could even vote and was the epitome of a man seeping in privilege.

“I'm sorry,” Felicity said quietly, one day when she handed in her notice it would come with a middle finger to the dick-in-a-suit.
“Well, fuck him,” Iris gibed.
Cisco raised his soda can and added his own resounding “Fuck him.”
“Fuck him,” Felicity rounded off with her own drink raised.

The trio took a silent moment to appreciate that beneath the joviality of the statement there was a fundamental truth – their boss was an asshole.

“Do you have a passport?” Iris asked of Felicity as she turned towards her friend.
“Ah yeah” Felicity shrugged, “I think it's still valid.”
She probably should have cottoned on to what her tenacious friend was going to ask her next, but she didn’t, rather she kept chomping away on her sandwich and enjoying the warm, but temperate, sun on her face.

At least until Iris spoke again, “Good, I need you to come to Brazil.”
Felicity choked on the mouthful of pastrami before she managed to swallow the delicious lunchmeat down with a splutter, “Wait what? Didn't Damien say no?”

Iris cocked her head to one side and arched her brow towards her hairline, “He did,” she commented, before her shoulders lifted into a shrug, “But I said I was going anyway.”

Felicity’s mouth gaped, but it was Cisco who managed to speak, “Iris, did you…?”
“I quit,” the beauty announced with excited eyes, “I'm freelancing it.”
Finally, Felicity found her voice, “I mean... that's...um...,” but not the ability to string a sentence together.

“I know it’s stupid and foolish and might very well have set my career back a few years,” Iris lamented, after all she had already considered all of that on the walk over, “but I have a really good feeling about this,” and more than that, she had her gut instinct which for a reporter was like a tuning fork, “It’s his first interview, ever, a guy like that doesn't want to bro around with some old commentator about scores and seasons bests. He wants to tell his story and I want to listen.”

Oliver Queen was by all accounts a recluse, albeit a famous one; Iris was almost certain his decision to come out from behind that curtain was because he now finally wanted to. That wasn’t just about sports and she was prepared to risk her career and her savings on that hunch.

“So why does Felicity need a passport?” Cisco inquired, a question that had escaped Felicity’s mind until that moment.
“Because…” Iris drew up her lips into a smile and widened her eyes as beseechingly as she could, “I need a photographer.”
“I work in IT, I'm not a photographer,” Felicity countered.
“I've seen the pictures you take Felicity and they're really good.”

That wasn’t just flattery, Iris genuinely meant it and when Cisco nodded, Felicity felt a wave of embarrassment. She had dabbled in the art form and taken a few night classes to learn the basics, but it was simply a hobby to do something that was tangible, solitary and relaxing. She had never entertained taking it beyond that.

“They’re of flowers and buildings and clouds,” Felicity responded as a warm blush pinked her cheeks, “Things that don't move or if they do then it's really, really slowly.”
Iris blew out a despondent sigh, “I don't have any money to hire someone Felicity, please?”
Her deep mocha eyes searched Felicity’s sapphire blue ones, hoping that ‘friend to friend’ she might just say yet.

Felicity, for her part, knew she really only had one answer to give.
“Okay,” she nodded along with her answer, symbolically convincing herself it was the right one, “I have some holiday leave owing. When do we fly out?”
“Saturday,” Iris quipped.
Three days away.

Felicity rolled her eyes jestingly but she’d find some way to make it work.
There was however a weird sensation of trepidation in Felicity's gut and she wasn't sure what to make of it before she swallowed it down. After all, even if the best scenario happened and Iris did by some million to one odds land this interview, they would only be gone a couple of days, a week a most.

That was the plan.

>>>>|<<<<

As the plane began its decent into Rio de Janeiro, Felicity could almost feel the buzz radiating from the City below. In fact, after Brazil made it into the final, the entire world was watching and waiting, like Charlie trying to find his golden ticket, as to whether or not the reclusive billionaire would talk.

Felicity, on the other hand, had used the 15 hour flight time between the two Cities to give herself a crash course in Portuguese and pour over whatever information she could find on the illusive Oliver Queen.

It read like the opening to a superhero origin’s comic, though Felicity decided that could have been Cisco’s influence rubbing off on her. The firstborn and only son of Robert and Moira Queen, Oliver was born May 1985. By all accounts, despite being born into privilege and wealth, he lived a somewhat normal childhood. In 1995 his parents welcomed a daughter, Thea. Three years later, November 2000, Robert and Moira Queen were killed when their luxury yacht was caught in a storm while on a voyage in the North China Sea. No bodies were recovered but seven years later, after an exhaustive search, they were pronounced dead.

At the tender age of 13, Oliver and his sister became orphans. They were put under the guardianship of the family's housekeeper and nanny. During this time Felicity had discovered a litany of photographs of Oliver, a tall, willowy youth with a mop of blonde hair and a broken smile.

Between the accident in 2000 and 2002, Felicity had encountered more photographs of the family than she’d come across all the years prior and since. The media was transfixed with the tale and it seemed to get more intrusive with each passing month. There were aerial shots of the funeral that showed a blonde boy dressed in black cradling his much younger sister as they stood in front of two, empty, coffins. Photos of him on his way to school, in his yard, there were documentaries and news casts and even a made-for TV movie that, from the synopsis, seemed to suggest foul play and a child delinquent – though that theory was ruled out long ago.

After 2002, Oliver and Thea Queen virtually vanished. The articles dried up and there were no photos that Felicity could find, until almost a decade later, when the world rediscovered Oliver Queen, now sporting a closely cropped hair and beard and bursting into the Football scene an overnight success at the age of 25.

But there was nothing else, no endorsements, no interviews, nothing.

As for the company that still bore his last name, Queen Consolidated, it was run by an acting CFO and a dedicated Board who hadn’t spoken publicly about the headline-making majority shareholder.

“He’s fascinating right?” Iris said while she read Felicity's research over her shoulder as the plane touched down on the tarmac with a rumble.
“What do you suppose he did from the age of 15 to 25?” Felicity wondered as she thumbed the pages of her folder.
She might have only been there to photograph the guy, but if Iris got the chance, there was no way Felicity was going to blow it by putting her foot in her mouth and getting something wrong.
That was Felicity circa-two years ago.

Iris shrugged as she tilted her head of the small porthole window, “Learned how to play soccer I suppose.”
Felicity cast her eye over the latest photos, they were all of him on the field, either during open practices or matches. Beyond the slight, sun-kissed face and piercing blue eyes, Felicity saw a certain kind of sadness in his eyes, and, even though it was over a decade after the photo was taken of him at his parents’ funeral, he still had that same broken smile.

>>>>|<<<<

It was a few exhaustive hours later, which involved clearing customs and navigating the bustling streets to their hotel, before the two friends found themselves in the plush lobby of a fancy hotel staring at a black roped off door and one decidedly angry looking doorman standing in front of a black-box-lettered sign that read “PRESS ONLY”.

“So, where are our passes?” Felicity asked as she watched the doorman carefully study his electronic list against a badge of a reporter before letting him through the heavy door.

Iris stepped to the side to let another news team float passed them, “I don’t have any,” she grimaced.
Felicity replied in a whispered growl, “Then how are we getting in?”
“I have friends.”
Felicity looked around the lobby looking for one of these friends, but she saw nothing.
“Okay where are they? What’s the plan?”

Iris plastered a smile across her lips, “Okay maybe a friend,” she corrected as she pointed at Felicity, “Tada.”
The blonde traveller blinked furiously as words stumbled from her mouth, “Wait, you, want, me...”
“I know you can.”
“What exactly can I do?” Felicity gaped, turning her back towards the doorman in the very rare case he could read her guilty expression from a great distance.
“I know you can hack that guest list and put me on it,” Iris suggested with a broad smile.
“But he still needs to check the passes, and we don’t have them,” Felicity argued.

Iris puffed her hair, wet her lips and shuffled her skirt a little higher up her waist, “Leave that to me.”
“That’s really why I’m here isn’t it?” Felicity surmised when getting her tablet from her messenger bag found her fingers grazing the lens cap of her camera.
“Both,” Iris admitted with an apologetic smile.
“I really hate you.”
But her blue, albeit tempestuous eyes, were still smiling.
“I’ll return the favour.”
Felicity set about her task before she mumbled, “Somehow I doubt that.”

>>>>|<<<<

It hasn’t been that hard at all, quite easy actually, and the hack in conjunction with Iris’ way with words and an old press ID to prove her identity found the two of them filing into the packed banquet room a few minutes into the press conference.

Felicity found a gap in the sea of people between the shoulders of two men in front of her and when she lifted onto her toes she was afforded a view of the expat who spoke with a warm and smoky accent that had been years in the making.

He paused after each question was asked, reflectively considering it before he answered. Every answer was concise but not short. His photos had not done him justice and without the glisten of sweat on his brow or ruddy cheeks from running laps of the field, he was startlingly handsome with a chiselled jaw, full lips that looked like rose-hued pillows and a broad shoulders at the tops of cascading arm muscles burgeoning from behind the tightly woven yellow team shirt.

Occasionally his hand drifted up to his groomed scruff when a question about the sport was asked. And a smile flirted with his lips when someone asked him what Brazil's chances were before he laughed a "very good I hope."

But when the questions soon skewed to what everyone wanted to know, ‘The Interview’, she saw flashes of that boy with the broken smile, wrestling with his emotions.

“What will this interview entail?”
She watched as he took a breath inward through his nose, held it, and breathed it out slowly through his mouth, he never answered on impulse.
He leaned in a little closer to the desk mic and answered with a delightfully husky tone, “I’ll open my home to this person and answer any questions they have.”
A question from the crowd. “How long?”

His pinkish lips rolled under the weight of his tongue before he spoke. “That will be for us to decide I suppose,” he answered, his tone lifting a little to a silvery warmth.
“Do you have any idea who that will be yet?”

She lifted her camera silently up towards her eyes and lined the shot up only briefly before she looked over the top of it, watching with her natural eyes the moment he looked up from his clasped hands and she took the shot, not truly knowing just how stunning it would be.

Oliver studied the way his fingers intertwined with each other as he counted slowly to five in his head. One he took a slow intake of air through his nose to try and still the stampeded beneath his chest. Two he could feel the heat of the lenses on him, each one tracking and capturing his every expression. Three he tried to picture a field of grass swaying and a chilly wind brushing his cheeks as he walked slowly through the tall grass, dancing his fingers over the tips. Four he saw the grass disappear and a haze black and white hurtling towards him, he could feel the stretch of his arm and his feet lift off the ground as he stood in its way; and Five he looked up.

Hers were the eyes he saw, she held a camera against her lips but she was looking at him.

“I don’t,” he breathed, unable and unwilling to blink away from her intrepid blue eyes.
He didn’t hear the next question, enraptured in the way she blinked, until it was asked a second time.
“Why are you doing it this way?”
She looked away, caught by something the woman next to her had said, and Oliver found himself thrown in the midst of flashes and faces starring right through him. He was on display again. He needed to leave.

He leaned over to his manager, Tommy, on his right, “I need out,” he whispered, his voice panicked and thin.
Tommy lay a grounding hand on Oliver’s shoulder and his eyes warmly nodded.
“That’s all the time we have folks, thanks for coming out, Vai Brasil,” he chanted as he flashed a debonair smile and skilfully took everyone’s attention away from Oliver.

Well, almost everyone’s.

Felicity watched as Oliver moved rigidly towards the door, his manager was busy making the excitable crowd even more so, passing out replicas of Oliver’s jersey with his name and number 1 emblazoned on the back while he made quips about the other team in the final, but she saw only him – his palm pressed to his forehead and his lips pursed tightly – and then he was through the door and gone.

>>>>|<<<<

The score was 2-2 and they had already played out the 30 minute extra time. The atmosphere in the bar that Felicity and Iris had secluded themselves in the corner of, was electric and Felicity could only imagine how palpable the tension must have felt in the stadium.

Supporters for both teams crowded every inch of the quaint tavern with mismatched tables and a deep smell of tequila permeating the wood.

“What happens now?” Iris asked directly into Felicity’s ear even though the bar had become eerily still to the point that she could have whispered it and still been heard.
Felicity scrolled through Wikipedia, skimming each line until she found what she was looking for, “A penalty shootout,” Felicity read aloud, “each team will alternate five penalty kicks.”

The large wall-mounted TV flickered as the cameras zoomed in on the first kick from the penalty line for Brazil. The ball bounced off the top crossbar and disappeared into the crowd behind in an eruption of both cheers and boos.

Moments later the German kicker lined up his shot and took it; Oliver caught it dead centre to his chest in a move that winded Felicity just looking at it.

Iris bounded up off her chair and hysterically clapped along with the other Brazilian supporters in the room, startling Felicity so much that she jolted her knees into the underside of the table. Tending to the scuffed grazes on her knees, Felicity missed the next shot taken by the Brazilian kicker, but when Iris screamed loudly beside her, she assumed they had scored a point.

The German kicker missed his second shot, ricocheting it off the top left joint and making it fall to the wrong side of the net. The supporters became restless with their grumbled words, which Felicity just assumed were curse ones.

Oliver looked worn as he breathed with his mouth open and brushed sweat from his brow with the hem of his shirt. She could only imagine the pressure he must have felt, watched by millions of people, a crowd of tens of thousands chanting and stomping their feet, thunderously in sync, and it only got louder as the Brazilian ball was blocked by the German goal keep, and the German ball was blocked by Oliver, keeping the shootout score at 1-0 to Brazil with 2 more balls to play.

The cheering became deafening when Brazil scored their next shot and Felicity put her hands against her ears and focused her eyes onto the TV. She could hear her own heart thumping and she had virtually nothing riding on this, but when the German kicker took his shot she found herself giving a man she didn’t even know every second of her unwavering attention and a mouthed, good luck.

The kick was high and at the opposite side of the goal to where Oliver was but with reflexes like Felicity had never seen, nor imagined were possible, he managed to reach it, it was his and it wasn’t getting past him.

>>>>|<<<<

Oliver felt the moment his glove touched the ball and for a split second there was nothing else on his mind but the black panel brushing his fingers – not the pain echoing down from his hand and not the desperate urge to blink. All he could see was the ball.

It was his.

For a moment everything fell silent and in a haze Oliver momentarily wondered if he had been wrong, had the ball escaped him?

But not more than a second later the stadium crowd erupted. The final score would be 4-2 and with one more shot remaining there was no chance German could claw back the game.

The ball was his.
The Cup was theirs.

The vomit came up unexpectedly and Oliver bent in half as it fell from his mouth. After that, he saw black. Only black.

>>>>|<<<<

“OHMYGODISHEALRIGHT?” Felicity cried out when she watched Oliver collapse onto the field.
The bar was still rampart with cheering and chanting that no one even bothered to look at the TV let alone watch as Oliver was stretchered off the field.

“We have to go,” Iris called as she grabbed Felicity by the hand and sprinted her from the pulsating bar.
Felicity looked back towards the TV as Iris ran her across the road and through a throng of revellers, but it was nothing more than a blur.

“Will he be okay?” Felicity shouted over the noise of the partying crowd, but Iris couldn’t hear her and the two kept running until they reached the same hotel as before, exhausted and breathless, 20 minutes later.

“Do…you….think….the…same…trick…” Felicity puffed out a paraphrased sentence as the two women tried to regain some semblance of normal breathing.
What she was asking is whether Iris could sweet talk them into another press conference and honestly, Iris wasn't so sure, but she wasn’t going to tell Felicity that.

The brunette took a few calming breaths as she smoothed down her tresses and straightened the dark yellow sundress she was wearing before she turned her attention to Felicity and brushed back the blonde’s tendrils of hair that had fallen over her face. Felicity swatted her away and completed the task herself before she straightened her glasses and shifted the shoulders of her fuchsia dress.
“Okay. Let's go get you that interview,” Felicity resolutely nodded.

The two women walked with straight shoulders and raised chins towards the same doorman and Iris immediately launched into her charm offensive.

But unlike last time a second man in a black suit appeared. He wore an unreadable expression on his richly dark face but his eyes seemed kind and despite the fact he towered over Felicity in her sandals, she never felt intimidated.

“Iris West?,” he was reading her name from a pen scribble on his hand and he was definitely American.
She nodded reluctantly, “Who's asking?” A playful response.

“Could you both come with me please?”
Iris raked a hand through her hair, “I'm sorry can this wait until after the press conference?” It wasn’t so much a question as it was a demand, but Iris always had a charming way of phrasing her words that Felicity admired.

The man shook his head, “I’m afraid not.”
He stepped to the side and gestured to another door a few feet away.

“Can I ask why?” Iris tapped her roman sandals on the deep chestnut carpet while she kept her eyes focus on the man.
He blinked away from Iris’ stare and turned his attention to Felicity, “I assure you everything will be explained.”
He looked flustered, and like he was trying his very best to keep matters from garnering attention.
“Are you a cop?” Iris snipped.
He shook his head and Iris turned her attention back to the doorman, “Can you let us in now?”
“I'm sorry you won't be going in there.”

>>>>|<<<<

Felicity paced the length of the only furniture in the small room, a tinted glass table with eight leather chairs around it. An untouched tray of water and four glasses sat in the middle of that table. Iris was on the phone in the corner of the room trying to pull in any favours she could.

The man who had finally introduced himself as John and nothing else had left the room moments after he escorted them inside.

Iris muttered a string of curse words down at her phone as she reached yet another dead end.

“They know what we did, we are going to jail,” Felicity remarked without blinking as she stopped pacing and stared down at the water sitting completely still in the pitcher.
“No we won't,” Iris huffed, though the thought had crossed her mind a few times.
“I don't know enough Portuguese to go to jail,” Felicity lamented with almost no expression or vibrancy in her tone.
Resignation.
Felicity’s mind tore through a rapid succession of sudden issues they might face in prison, do they cut your hair? What colours do the wear in Brazilian prison? Cisco is going to be pissed.

Iris shook off Felicity's concern with a practiced laugh, “We're not going to jail Felicity.”
“Are you sure because from where I'm standing there is a high possibility we could,” Felicity snipped, she adored Iris, but frankly this was entirely her fault.

Iris didn't get a chance to retort when the door opened and John stepped into the room followed by a slightly shorter man but with an equally broad stature hidden beneath a hunter green hooded jersey.
“We are American citizens and I demand a lawyer,” Iris declared without taking a breath much to the amusement of the man behind John.

“What did you say to them?” the man whose face was still shrouded beneath his hood asked as he turned towards John.
The taller man shrugged helplessly, “Nothing, like you asked,” he rebutted.
“You could have told them something.” A laugh. Soft, jovial and instantly calming.

And then he pulled off his hood and Felicity saw his smile first, soft, charming but muted, controlled. It was unmistakable. That smile belonged to Oliver Queen.
“I'm sorry for the clandestine meeting. I'm not one for crowds,” he offered with apologetic eyes.

That seemed like an oxymoron given he had just come from playing in front of a massive one. But there didn't seem to be any sarcasm or irony in his tone.

He was looking at Felicity and noting how she looked even softer from only a few feet away. Her skin looked like fine porcelain dusted with glitter where a touch of perspiration glistened across the planes of it. Her eyes were wide behind her two-tone glasses And her blue irises almost completely swallowed up by her blown pupils. Her lips weren't smiling but he felt a warmth from them all the same.

“I would like to do the interview with you,” he said softly, each word a little hesitant until he got them all out and sighed with relief.
Felicity waited for Iris to holler, cheer...frankly just say anything, but she didn't, because Iris realised what was slowly beginning to dawn on Felicity, he wasn't talking to Iris.

“Oooohh,” she rolled her head slowly from shoulder to shoulder, “I'm not a... She is,” she pointed a wild hand back at Iris who, for the first time in their entire friendship, was speechless.
“I know,” Oliver breathed, “I'm sorry I don't know your name you were logged as Ms West's guest.”
“Felicity, Felicity Smoak,” she mumbled.
He breathed softly. Her name suited her. Happiness.

His exhaustion was beginning to show again and he figured he must have started swaying when John put his hand on his shoulder and spoke into his ear, “You need to rest.”
“Miss Smoak, I hope you consider this. If you leave your details with Thomas Merlyn my manager, I'll make sure a car is sent for you in the morning.”
She expected some sort of playboy smile and an uncomfortable wink that usually came with the territory of Adonis male athletes, but Oliver only offered both her and Iris a reserved but genuine smile as he walked backwards to the door before he paused and added, “Tommy will be in shortly.”

And then he was gone, John with him and Felicity with only four words swarming her head; That wasn’t the plan.

Chapter Text

Felicity felt as though she had been staring at the back of the door and counting her breaths for at least three hours in silence, knowing that Iris stood behind her waiting for someone to say something, but in reality it had only been something like 30 seconds before Iris broke the silence.

“You have to do it,” she said with a voice that was equal parts chipper and restrained, as though she was trying to remain cheery despite feelings that leant towards the opposite emotion.
Felicity turned around slowly, her face lost all colour and her eyes in a wide state of shock, “I can’t,” she managed to say.

Iris shook whatever she was feeling off her shoulders and took a few steps forward with a smile tacked to her lips, “You have to,” she repeated, her tone soft and encouraging, “This could be amazing for you.”
Felicity’s rounded shoulders shrugged absently, “This was your thing, not mine.”
“I don’t need to be reminded of that,” Iris laughed, her soft candour making Felicity’s shoulders instinctively relax.

She was never particularly good with this sort of thing, once in high school when Chris Cutter asked her to the prom instead of her best friend at the time, it had been nothing short of painful, and had served as an avid reminder to Felicity that even friends can turn into cruel and vapid people if given the right motivation.

“I don’t…,” Felicity struggled to form the words that were floating around her head until she took a deep breath and settled her thumping heart, “I won’t take this opportunity away from you, this is your thing, this is what you do.”
Iris stepped closer until her hand could rest on Felicity’s shoulder. “I was here, I saw what happened and I know this wasn’t anything you did, apart from catch his eye for whatever reason.”
“I’m not a journalist,” Felicity added, though it didn’t need to be said given both women were very aware of that fact.

Iris pondered for a moment before something occurred to her that hadn’t before, “Maybe that’s why he chose you,” she wondered aloud.
“What do you mean?” Felicity asked as her brow pinched inwards.
“Maybe it’s not about questions and answers,” Iris surmised as she coiled a section of luxuriant dark hair around her finger while she considered her own words, “maybe it’s about a story.”

Before Felicity could offer the next rebuttal she had stored up in her head about just what a terrible idea this was, Tommy burst through the door, slumping against it to close it as he struggled to breathe.
“I..ran..journos,” he panted as the man in a nicely pressed grey suit bent himself in half in an effort to catch his breath. When he was certain he could make full sentences again, Tommy stood up and unbuttoned his blazer as he rolled his neck.

“I didn’t want them to follow me here, apologies for bursting through the door like that,” he continued, still slightly winded. “Ms Smoak, Ms West,” he smiled, tipping an imaginary hat, “I just need to know where you’re staying and I’ll arrange a car to pick you up tomorrow Ms Smoak, Oliver has also agreed to pay any of your hotel expenses for the duration of the interview.”

Felicity wasn’t really paying much attention to what Tommy was saying as a sudden thought popped into her mind and before he could open his mouth to continue, she interrupted, “Can you call Mr Queen on your phone?” she asked, pointing towards the black phone he was juggling idly from one hand to the other.
Tommy looked down at his phone and nodded slowly.
“Okay, I need you to call him,” Felicity quipped before adding a dulcet, “please.”

Tommy found himself wanting to do what the pretty blonde with the pouted lips and doe-like eyes was telling him despite the fact he didn’t know her at all. But before he could dissect his sudden chivalry, he’d already dialled Oliver’s number and walked towards an empty corner of the room with the phone pressed against his ear.

Felicity watched Tommy’s mouth move as he spoke in a whispered tone with his eyes darting from the floor to Felicity before returning to the floor. He shrugged his shoulders before he walked back towards her holding his phone out.
“He’s on the line,” Tommy remarked, almost a little surprised at his friend’s willingness to talk to the petite woman even though in the years he’d known Oliver, he’d become progressively more introverted. But who was he to argue?

“Hello, Mr Queen?” Felicity said as she pulled back her shoulders and let air fill her diaphragm. She wasn’t going to back down from her next request and she intended to make that very clear in her tone.
“Please, Oliver is fine,” he said, an amused but nearly-breathless chuckle falling down the phone line. He sounded exhausted and she couldn’t very well blame him – she almost felt bad for bothering him.

“I won’t pretend to understand why you’ve asked me to interview you but I do want to thank you for the opportunity,” Felicity started, losing her nerve for a minute as Iris looked at her perplexed.
“But?” Oliver added, reading her mind.
“But I’m not a writer, the most writing I do is binary code and that’s all zeros and ones and doesn’t make for a very interesting read,” Felicity jabbered before she stilled her words with a deep breath, “This is your first and very well could be your only interview Oliver,” his name rolled off her tongue quite fluidly, “betting that with me just isn’t a good idea.”
She listened for an objection but all that came was a soft, “Mmmhmm.”

“In saying that,” she continued, “for some reason you did choose me and, so I think I found a bridge where this can work for both of us. Where you get your interview and neither of us come out looking ridiculous.”
“I’m listening.”
“I will interview you, take notes, recordings, photographs as you allow but Iris will write your story. If you want it to be told right, you’ll trust me that she is a damn fine journalist and the best person to put what you say to writing.”
Felicity’s eyes met with Iris who was on the verge of crying behind her broad smile.
“Deal?” Felicity finished laying out her suggestion and she waited only a few seconds for his response.
“Okay, deal.”
She was actually a little surprised so she asked him a second time if he was sure, which he replied just as he had done the first time. He agreed. Felicity would interview him, Iris would write the article.
“Thank you Oliver,” Felicity smiled against the phone at her cheek.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he spoke softly before they said their goodbyes and hung up.

Oliver sunk back into the leather seat of the car as his eyes squeezed closed amidst the stampede in his skull, to the point where even the dull hum of the road passing under the town car was beginning to bother him.

At least he’d be home soon.

>>>>|<<<<

Once Tommy had left with all the details he needed, Iris walked over to Felicity and slapped the back of her hand against her friend's arm. “What if he had said no?” the pretty brunette snipped with her trademark pouted lips, hued in a daring shade of deep plum.

Felicity shrugged nonchalantly, “Then we would have been no worse off than we were before we came here,” she remarked. A slow breath inward as she met her friend’s eyes with her own, “You’re right, he has a story,” she continued, her weight switching from one foot to the other, “But I’m not the one to write it, you are. So,” her voice chirped as a smile blanched her lips, “I’ll listen, you'll write.”

Iris’ pout moved to a smile. “You’re amazing,” she gushed.
“You were going to be happy for me even if it meant you not getting the story,” Felicity lifted one shoulder as she spoke kindly, “so I say that makes you pretty amazing too.”
The two friends fell into an effortless hug until half a minute passed and Iris pulled back with a giddy smile colouring her expression, “So what do we do to celebrate?”
“First, cocktails,” Felicity beamed before she blew out a spirited sigh, “And then I need you to tell me anything and everything you know about soccer because I’m in way over my head.”

Both women laughed, probably because that statement was incredibly accurate.
She was.
Or at least she would be.

>>>>|<<<<

The next morning had Felicity pushing up tortoiseshell sunglasses and still squinting into the morning sun as she followed John through the hotel lobby doors and out into the bustling street, still coated in the City-wide party from the night before.

She had woken up barely an hour ago with a hazy head and furry teeth, along with absolutely no idea how to dress for whatever the day would bring. In a storm of strewn clothes she had finally landed on a pair of stone wash cut offs and a fawn shoestring blouse. Hardly ‘work’ attire, but Felicity hadn’t made a single packing decision based on this eventuality, so this was as good as it would get.

John had managed to park only a short walk away from the hotel, but with at least three too many cocktails under her belt from the night before – and the now-realised fact that bartenders in Rio de Janeiro weren’t as frugal with alcohol as the ones in Starling were – Felicity may as well have been walking the New York marathon the way she felt at that moment.

She clutched her slouch bag close to her chest as they finally arrived at the black town car with tinted windows and a simple three letter, three number licence plate – she had half expected the plate to be personalised with his name, or even the name he was known as locally, muralha branco which roughly translated into the “white wall”. At least she had learned something last night, she commended herself silently.

She pressed her shoulders flat into the leather seat and sighed restlessly, this car was softer than her bed at home. When her eyes plucked open again, John was handing her a cup of coffee with a broad smile. She was salivating as she took the travel mug from his hands before she smiled graciously, “You are an angel Mr Diggle.”
“John is fine,” he corrected, “and I can’t take all the credit, Oliver thought you might need it.” He finished with a wink before he turned to face the road and started the car.
“Is this normal work for a trainer?” Felicity mused as the car pulled out into the busy traffic, “getting Mr Queen’s girls coffee in the morning.”
She took a sip before she heard the audacity of her words, “Not that I’m his girl. I’m not, clearly,” she huffed out a laugh, “that’s absurd, I only just met him yesterday and even then it was like a minute. I’m sure he has lots of girls of course, I’m just not one of them.” She was filling the air with unnecessary words and she knew it, so she bit the inside of her lip and grunted her annoyance at her slip into old habits.

She hated those moments when she babbled, occasionally people found it odd and some people, she had been told, found it cute. But what they never realised was that Felicity was never trying to do either of those things when words bubbled from her mouth like a shook up soda can, it was something just the opposite – her chest felt tight, her cheeks felt hot, her tongue felt like a foreign object in her mouth, her heart was thumping, her palms were clammy and at times she forgot the most basic of needs – how to breathe. Yet, none of that was the worst part, that came at the end, when she was finally able to take a moment to breathe and settle her heart rate, then she got ‘the look’. It sat somewhere between amusement and pity most of the time. Occasionally there was annoyance, and sometimes bewilderment, but mostly the other person would look at her like she was just the little bit less intelligent because of it.

She had expected the same response from John Diggle but, as he looked at her in the rear view mirror, she didn’t see any of the usual responses.
“No, probably not,” he answered her question, graciously paying no mind to the blabber of words that had followed it, “but Oliver keeps only a small group of people around him so I double as his security and his chauffeur.”
She offered him a thankful smile. “Lucky you.”
“It’s not too bad. In fact,” he said cheerily, “I think this might be the first time it isn't Oliver or his sister in the backseat.”

Felicity found that somewhat hard to believe, but she wasn’t exactly going to argue with the man. The conversation lapsed into a pleasant lull as her eyes wandered out the window. The revelries were continuing, despite the fact it was nearly 10am and Felicity could still feel the electricity in the air, for which she couldn’t blame them.

“I bet he’s worse for wear this morning,” she idly said as she watched two grown men stumble down the road wearing only Brazilian flags like togas, “must have been a wild night.”
She touched her fingertips to her temple as she spoke; she was sure feeling it, she could only imagine the bender Oliver would have gone on.
John simply smiled, a kind of all-knowing smile. Going to bed before the moon was fully hung in the sky certainly wasn’t what anyone would consider a ‘wild night’ but that wasn’t for him to say.

On the surface he understood why Oliver might have sought her out in a crowd, she seemed cheery and docile and sweet, but underneath that soft cascade of blonde hair and those two-toned glasses, which she had plucked from her bag and traded out her sunglasses for, there was something else about her that John was fairly certain Oliver hadn’t counted on and that was going to be worth seeing first hand.

The car pulled off the road and onto something that looked like a path made by the trampling hooves of cattle more than a driveway. It was bumpy and Felicity found herself sliding across the smooth leather seat a little before she gripped onto the door.

He was a literal billionaire and he couldn’t pave his driveway?
It felt like it went on for miles, weaving unnecessarily through lush trees and dense foliage with the occasional camera set on a pole. It seemed almost incredible that the bustling City streets were only a few minutes behind them.

The car rounded onto a paved drive as it pulled alongside a magnificent house that was classically stunning. With a sandstone façade and towering columns it looked like the quintessential mansion – if you were over the age of 50. While the house itself was architecturally beautiful, it was not what Felicity had expected – something like a Beverly Hills glass mansion with manicured lawns and three high end sports cars parked out the front.

She stepped out just as John opened the door and the fragrant smell of jasmine hit her with its enchanting scent as the breeze blew tendrils of hair across her face. She turned on the spot to take the area in, it was like an oasis of tranquillity set only a short jog from Brazil’s most iconic City.

When she looked up she caught a glimpse of ‘Christ the Redeemer’ sitting atop Corcovado Mountain just behind the house. John offered to help her with the small bag she slung over her shoulder but she refused him with a polite smile.

She walked a step or two behind him as they wandered into the house. It was large and oddly quiet, every noise echoed off the tiled floor. It wasn’t at all how she had imagined it. The walls were a warm cream hue and fresh flowers sat on a table near the foot of the curving staircase. Artwork that was truly beautiful was arranged tastefully around the foyer, as though an art curator had carefully set each one in its place. From there, the house went in two opposite directions and following the lavish marbled tiles through to the end of the foyer, she could see the backyard and pool, together with a second, smaller building.

“If you would like to wait in the sitting room, I’ll let Oliver know you’re here,” John remarked, plucking Felicity from her absentminded thoughts as he walked her to the right and into a bright, sunny room that was more modern with its pastel blue and seafoam green accents while the rest of the pallet remained neutral stone and wood tones.

Felicity sat down on an oversized couch that made her feel like a child with her feet barely touching the twill rug beneath them. Light poured in through the floor to ceiling lattice windows, which were trimmed in a beautiful polished oat. The room itself stretched out into what looked like a more formal sitting space through bi-fold doors that were only half open. Felicity craned her neck and saw just the edge of a piano and glimpsed the same view of the backyard she had had in the foyer.

“Ms Smoak,” a smooth voice, like warmed honey, said from behind her.
Startled, her back straightened and her eyes flew towards the voice. It was Oliver, dressed in a simple asphalt-grey Henley that clung to the sloping curves of his broad shoulders and muscular arms, and a pair of belted indigo jeans. He didn’t seem bothered by her precursory look around and while he looked tired, he was smiling.
“It’s nice to see you again, Ms…” he started before Felicity stood up.
“Please, call me Felicity,” she interrupted.

She noticed his eyes looked bloodshot around the edges and the blue looked a little duller than she had remembered them at the first press conference, but neither of those things came as any surprise to her. In fact, she smiled as she imagined him probably barely scraping together an hour’s sleep before he kicked a harem of women out of bed with non-disclosure orders and a couple thousand dollars to ensure their silence.

“Would you like to look around?” He looked more nervous than her.
Felicity pulled in her smile as she looked back towards the foyer, half expecting the harem to be scuttling out the front door any moment. “Do you mind if I ask you a question first?” she enquired.

Oliver ran his clammy hands down the sides of his pants, to say he was nervous was an understatement. The idea of answering a question, any question, made his stomach tighten, but for all she knew that’s what Felicity was here for, so he fought back his instinct to leave the room before he nodded, “that’s fine, please.” He gestured to the seat and she sat back down. Oliver took up a seat on the armchair, with his body turned towards her and his hands on his knees.

“Why me?” She got straight to the point. “You knew I wasn’t a journalist, so why me? Did you think I would go easy on you?”
Oliver chuckled as he watched her eyes narrow suspiciously, “I hope you don’t Ms…Felicity,” he corrected, before he took a breath to take stock of his words. “At the first press conference, you had a camera.”
She nodded, patting her handbag. She had it with her there.
“And you went to take a photo.”
She grimaced, “was that not allowed?”
“No, that was fine,” he allayed her concerns with a pleasant smile, “but I watched you for a moment line up the shot and then, do you know what you did?”
Felicity bit her lip, it seemed like a simple enough answer, “Took the photo?”
“You looked over the top of the camera.”
She absently ran her hand through the lengths of her hair as it swung over her shoulders, “I’m a hobby photographer so I’m sure my technique is flawed,” she laughed softly.
“No,” he blew out a sigh as he gathered his thoughts, “you see, people take a lot of photos of me,” an understatement, “but they only ever see me through the lens of their camera, no one, that I’ve seen ever looks up from there, you did, you saw me with your own eyes.”

Felicity watched as he seemed to count his breaths with a furrowed brow. Like she had seen him during the press conference; never speaking on a whim.
“People see me as a flat image on a screen,” he blinked up, capturing her eyes with his, “If I was going to do this then I wanted it to be for something more.”
“That was beautiful sentiment,” she spoke softly, unable and unwilling to move her eyes from his.
He wasn’t ready to blink away either, “It’s the truth.”

When the depth of his gaze became too much, afraid she might lose herself in it, Felicity blinked away, severing the connection as she set her bag on the seat beside her. “Maybe you could give me the tour now?” she asked, desperate for something to occupy the quiet.

>>>>|<<<<

Twenty-three minutes later Felicity had learned that the house didn’t look like something that belonged to a bachelor and pro-athlete because it wasn’t Oliver’s house. It had been his parents, and they had spent many vacations there when he was a child. He had left it, for the most part, as his mother had decorated it and while he didn’t have any idea who had painted the masterpieces in the foyer, he had grown accustomed to seeing them.

The house was understated in its extravagance, with beautiful timber floors and carved soffits together with perfectly collected furniture that seemed to effortlessly coexist with each room’s feel, or at least that was what Felicity has scribbled on her notepad as he’d shown her around the day longue, the formal lounge, a snooker room, the foyer and an office that doubled as a small library, before they moved outside into the lush, manicured yard where a beautiful blue pool sat at the centre, surrounded by flagstone pavers. The entire yard was encircled with dense, tropical plants that allowed only a slight ambience of the bustling City to break through.

Felicity followed Oliver, a half a step behind, as she took in the fresh air and let her hair flap freely in the gentle breeze.
“My sister stays here,” Oliver said as he stopped alongside a large outdoor table and nodded just behind it to a casita that; even though it was smaller than the main house, would entirely swallow up Felicity’s Starling apartment. “Forgive me if I bypass this on the tour, she’s probably sleeping.”
She watched him smile fondly before he knocked his large palm against the solid table and continued to amble the path alongside the pool.
“Does she live with you?” Felicity asked casually as she squinted towards the drawn curtains.
What little she knew about Oliver, she might have known even less about his sister.
“She studies at a college in the States,” he remarked, “But she came down to support me.”
He offered no more explanation and Felicity decided not to pry, if there were any questions to be had she would – if offered the opportunity – direct them at the younger Queen directly.

“You’re very secluded out here,” Felicity observed as she watched a White-bearded Manakin dance through the tree tops.
“You might have noticed I’m not one for crowds,” he jested as they strode back up towards the house, walking the edge of the grassy lawn.
“And yet your chosen career puts you in the eyes of millions of people,” Felicity bantered back.
Oliver turned and walked a few steps backwards as he spoke, “Perplexing isn’t it,” he chortled.
“Utterly befuddling,” Felicity added with a wink.

They reached the house at the kitchen and Oliver opened the French doors to usher her inside. The kitchen was decorated in the same manner as the rest of the house but with chalky blue-grey cabinetry and a vibrant black and white splashback running a foot up the far wall. It felt cosy and instantly Felicity decided that this, as opposed to the rest of the rooms she had seen thus far, was definitely the most ‘lived in’ with its rustic table and hung utensils, to its lingered smells of coffee and the large bowl of fruit at the corner of the kitchen island.

“Would you like a drink?” he asked as he made his way towards the large double-doored fridge.
“Mmm, thank you,” Felicity hummed while she soaked in the perfect views of the backyard through the lattice windows.
“Orange juice okay?” he asked, aware at how refreshingly simple this exchange was.
She turned and smiled. “Perfect.”

Oliver poured the two drinks on the granite island and took a sip of his own before a sudden pain shot up through his head and made him hunch over the counter momentarily, although he was able to straighten himself by the time Felicity turned around.

His expression though he was unable to loosen with his brow was tightly pinched and his lips tersely frowned; it was something she noticed right away.
“Oliver, are you okay?” Felicity asked, a genuine tone of worry lacing her words.
“Still a little exhausted I suppose,” he offered with a weak smile, “would you excuse me for a minute?”
He set his glass on the table and with the blinding headache threatening to make him vomit, he walked briskly from the room.

Felicity, suddenly alone, slipped quietly onto a barstool and wrapped her hands around the glass, letting the condensation from the chilled juice wet her palms as she folded her lips over each other in contemplative silence.

At least until the French door swung open and very pretty blonde with heavy eyeshadow and a ruby pout stepped inside. She was dressed for the night in a dazzling bronze shift dress that stopped well above the halfway point of her toned and tanned thighs. Her eyes were a kaleidoscope of blue, framed with lusciously fanned lashes, which together looked like an anime drawing.

She glanced around the kitchen with a hand at the nape of her neck, curtained by an immaculate blonde bob. It was only then that the girl noticed Felicity.

“Who are you and how did you get in here?” the young girl fretted as her eyes bounced between Felicity and the kitchen archway, “please just leave him alone.”
Her voice was panicked and if Felicity wasn’t mistaken, she was practically begging.
“I- I’m Felicity,” she replied as she stood and wiped the condensation from her glass down her jean shorts.
“Please,” the svelte girl pleaded, “I can give you money or a jersey or something, just please don’t let him find you here, please if you’re a fan, you’d just leave.” The young girl’s eyes were turbulent as her brows furrowed above them.

“No, I’m not a fan,” Felicity stammered, before she caught herself with a sharp intake of air, “I mean, I don’t mean that in a bad way.” She corrected herself and straightened her shoulders before she continue, “My name is Felicity and Oliver Queen asked me to come here.”
The girl stepped back, her panic replaced with bewilderment, “Ollie asked you here?”
Felicity tried to explain. “For the interview he’s doing.”

“You’re a journalist?”
She felt the young girl’s eyes move around her, not in a judging manner, though she felt their heat all the same. “Not exactly.”
“I don’t understand.”
“That makes two of us,” Felicity remarked off-handedly just as John sauntered into the room.
“Thea,” John greeted her with a smile, “I see you’ve met Felicity, she’ll be doing the interview with Oliver.”
Thea Queen, Felicity realised; of course she hadn’t recognised the stunning willowy young adult from the picture of her clinging to her brother’s leg all those years ago.
“Have you seen your brother?” John asked.
Thea reached under her blonde hair and fumbled there for a few moments before her hand returned with a palm full of hairpins, “No, I just got home,” she answered as she pulled off the blonde hair; a wig, and slipped the elastic from her natural brunette locks.
“Oh, he had a headache,” Felicity piped up, “he just went to get something for it.”
John nodded appreciatively, “Thanks,” before he ducked out of the kitchen the same way he’d come.

“I’m sorry about thinking you were some obsessed fan breaking into our house and drinking juice at our breakfast table,” Thea spoke, her tone instantly softened and her eyes now warm and friendly, albeit still unrealistically blue.
“Does that happen…ever?” Felicity asked with a slightly bemused chuckle.
Thea returned the laugh with one of her own, “You’d be surprised. Most of the time I can get the girls out before Oliver knows,” she shrugged like it was no sort of strange event, “Even with John on security they find their way in.”
“Your brother must love it,” Felicity remarked, expecting a laugh but instead she got a slightly confused glance.
“You don’t know much about Ollie do you?” Thea said as she leaned over and slipped her platform shoes from her feet, one after the other.
“Uh…,” Felicity considered lying, but she couldn’t. “No. Is that terrible?”
Thea’s smile returned as she sunk to her flat feet and lost a few inches of height, “Actually,” she started warmly, “It’s kind of refreshing.”

“I should go get changed before he finds out I didn’t sleep here tonight,” she laughed sweetly as she reached around Felicity to grab an apple from the fruit bowl, “Can you keep my secret?”
Felicity nodded, “Absolutely and you don’t even need to bribe me with a jersey.”
Thea laughed brightly before she took a bite of the apple. “Nice to meet you Felicity, I’m sure I’ll see you around.”

With that, the young girl, apple in one hand and high heels dangling from the wrist of the other, snuck back out the kitchen door and ran across the backyard to the casita, where he had been sure she was sleeping.

>>>>|<<<<

For the second time that morning, Oliver’s soft-footed entry into a room startled Felicity. “Jesus H Christ,” she gaped when he appeared alongside her, looking out the same window she had been.
She clutched her hand to her chest until she started to breathe normally again. “You’re huge, how the hell are you so stealthy?” she quipped.
“I’m sorry,” Oliver laughed, amused, “I should announce myself before entering the room.”
“Mmm,” she bobbed her head in sync, before a smile eclipsed her startled expression, “That would be great. Or I’ll have to tie bells to your shoes.”
He laughed. Buoyant and happy. “Noted.”

He kicked his grey shoes against the tiled floor as he remembered the reason he’d asked Felicity there and his breath stilled in his throat while his fingers twisted into nervous fists behind his back. He began to count himself down, one… Felicity turned and smiled softly at him as the sun from the window illuminated the side of her face, touching it in just the right places to make it luminescent.

He didn’t need the rest of the count.

“So should we do this?” she asked softly as she pinned her hair against her temple.
He watched her luscious lips, stained a soft rose tint, as they stayed in a smile that gently curled the tips and parted the centre. “Where should we start?” he asked once he’d finally pulled his eyes from the soft slopes of her mouth and sat down at the sun-soaked table by the window.
She took a seat facing him and slung her bag over the back of the chair. “All good stories have a start, why don't you begin there,” she encouraged, before she rummaged through her bag and retrieved a pen, a writing pad and a handheld recorder, “Do you mind?” she enquired as she held the recorder out towards him.
He shook his head and Felicity switched the device on before she gently placed it on the table between them.
“So who is Oliver Queen?” she wrote the words as she spoke them and underlined them twice with the blue ballpoint before she looked up, eyes wide and ethereal and lips poised around a smile, “What’s your first memory?”

Oliver sat a little deeper into the chair and sighed as he gently clasped his hands together in front.
He could do this.
This would be fine.
Start at the beginning.

Chapter Text

“The smell of summer barbeques,” Oliver smiled while his eyes drifted out towards the garden. He took a deep and settling breath before he tugged his eyes back towards Felicity and continued, “My father always insisted on manning the grill. Most of it came out like burnt offerings but my mother would eat it regardless.” He chuckled softly, like it hung on the tip of a feather before his lips softened into a smile. “I was not as courteous as my mother.”
“A picky eater?” Felicity teased as she absently doodled an atom in the corner of the page before her eyes wandered up to Oliver’s, so blue and enchanting, like a pristine lagoon he imagined dipping his toes into.
“Of sorts, Thea would say I’m a perfectionist.”
“Are you?” She looked up from her pad and studied him judiciously.
He laughed as his head swung down towards his chin before bouncing back up. “Probably.”

Inquisitively, his eyes danced across the lines in the corner of her page. “Is that a flower?” he asked.
Felicity’s palm slapped down against the paper and her cheeks became flush with embarrassment. “I’m so sorry, I doodle when I get nervous,” she grimaced as she spoke before she stole a moment to chew on the inside of her bottom lip.
His eyebrow tugged up towards his hairline as he asked quizzically “You’re nervous?”
Felicity skimmed her fingertips across her cheek which was warm to the touch. “I told you that you were getting an amateur. I’m sorry, I am listening,” she put the pen down and folded her hands over each other, flat on the table over the top of the drawing, “I’ll stop.”
“No, please, it actually feels less,” he paused to choose his word, intrusive, he shook his head that wasn’t right, his brain would get there in time, “less nerve wrecking for me.”

She slowly peeled her hands away from the paper. “Well if you’re sure.”
Oliver nodded, simple and definite. “I am.”
Felicity picked up her pen while a smile fluttered at the edge of her slightly upturned lips. “But,” she hummed, “it’s not a flower, it’s an atom.”

She patted her lips softly together as she twisted the pen around her fingers. “Please continue, you were telling me about your father’s penchant for grilling meats.”
“Right,” he chuckled as he recounted the fond memories once more. “That was our summer; my father in his boat shoes by the grill and my mother sitting nearby drinking pink lemonade,” a warm blush coloured his cheeks as his smile puffed them open, both things Felicity jotted down ‘the broken smile is replaced’. “I know what people thought. That we were rich, I had a private school education and house staff and they hosted lavish parties, but that wasn’t who they were, not really. Not at heart.” He touched his hand to his chest absently as his eyes gazed out the window again. “On Sunday afternoons, they were just like anyone else. We were a normal family.”

Felicity had to admit in the brief research she’d done she didn’t imagine using the words ‘just like anyone else’ in describing the billionaires, but then she knew first hand that life wasn’t always what it seemed to be and a painting from afar can look quite different up close.

“I remember running through the backyard in winter,” he continued, his mind, and memories, moving from one season to another. “I would play in the first snow fall until my cheeks were slapped red and my lips were blue, then I'd sit by the fireplace and defrost.”
They had owned a property in Aspen, a quaint little cottage (by Aspen standards) down a long, winding driveway that would often times freeze over and leave them stranded; not that he’d ever minded. The world moved a little slower up there.

He didn’t know if the Trust still owned the property, he had long ago left that in the hands of his parents’ executors and the trustees. The idea of asking about it now seemed to make his chest collapse into itself and his heartrate rise before it slumped. He should know.

He shook the thought from his mind before he continued to recount the simplistic times that were embedded in the fabric of him. “I remember raking leaves in autumn, just to kick a ball into the middle and watch the leaves explode. And I remember the smell of dewy spring mornings and tempered spring showers where I tried to catch raindrops on my tongue.”

He breathed out a nearly silent laugh, “I was just like any other child if you looked beneath the surface.”
“That all sounds so happy,” Felicity said, so enchanted with his words that she hadn’t drawn a single line on her atom since she’d picked up the pen again. There was something believable and warm about the way he recounted it, those were memories he kept safe, memories he probably often remembered so that they would never lose their vividness.
In a quiet lull, Felicity wondered if the tepid water of a shower or the cool blast from opening the freezer ever gave him split seconds of those moments to relive and enjoy even now.

She wrote briefly, words and phrases in handwriting she didn’t try to make neat or readable to lock this moment in her own memory for Iris to use, simply because in her heart Felicity felt this is where his story began. Before the hurt, before the loss, before the broken smile – there was him.

“It was, I was,” Oliver said, his voice soft with a faint tremble, “I was blessed with a very happy childhood.”
He clasped his hands, feeling their sweat drench through the lines with his thumb. Recounting each memory was glorious and happy but there was a dark lining around the clouds of those memories, a sort of quiet understanding that they were memories that would die with him. Thea didn’t share them and he had no one to replicate them with. They were his treasures that would be dust one day.

He slowly sucked in air through his nose and blew it slowly out the same way. “Thea was born when I was 10. I never felt like I lost out on anything because my parents always had so much love to give.”
When he paused she watched his body cave into itself and his hands ball into anxious fists. “Three years later, everything went dark.”

He squinted, fighting to recall memories he'd long ago buried as far down as he could.
She wanted to reach out and touch him and her hand made it half way across the table before she had the state of mind to pull it back. “You were 13 when they died?”
He nodded, “and Thea was three.”
She drew a circle with the tails of an arrow at the bottom before she wrote the initials TQ in the centre. She was his centre.
“One day they were there,” he continued, “I had a full family and a happy life and the next day they weren't.” His fingers twisted harshly around each other, “They were gone. Just gone.”

Felicity bit her lip between her teeth before she soothed her tongue over the edge of it, all while she tried to come up with something to say. Something moving and Hallmark, something that the moment of despair on his face called for, but she could say nothing more than a solemn, “I’m sorry.”

His smile was bleak but he offered it all the same. “After that Raisa looked after us, she was like family,” he fought the urge to stand and to pace as he gritted his teeth behind his wall of lips. “It was what my parents would have wanted.”
“Are you still close?”
He listened to the soothing notes of her voice, it was soft but not so quiet that he had to strain to hear her. It was almost melodic, and if a voice could be a temperature he would place it around a summery evening.

He watched as the corner of her mouth tweaked before Oliver realised he had left her question go unanswered for some time. “Yes, very,” he chatted while his head nodded along, “she doesn’t stay in the house anymore, but she lives nearby.” He strangled one wrist with the fingers of his other hand. “I’m afraid you probably won’t meet her though.”
“Is she away?” she queried as she doubled over one of her electron’s rings without looking.
Oliver shifted in his seat, “No...”
“...she just really hates the media,” Tommy interrupted from the doorway. He kicked his tan leather shoes against the tiled floor as he walked towards them. “Pleasure to see you again Ms Smoak.”
She thrust out her hand and Tommy shook it, somewhat surprised. “Felicity is fine,” she added just before their hands fell apart.
“I wouldn’t say she hates the media,” Oliver interjected.
Tommy laughed, “I would. Detests, abhors, is vehemently opposed to.”
Oliver whacked the back of his hand into Tommy’s chest making his manager and friend splutter out a pained and exaggerated groan. “Pay no attention to Tommy, it’s not quite that bad.”

Felicity shrugged her svelte shoulders as she looked from Tommy to Oliver. “Is that why you chose me? Because I’m not part of the media, am I? I’m just an IT girl with a hobby in photography and a pen.” She tapped the same on her pad of paper and smiled.
“I like this one,” Tommy, laughing spritely, replied.
“To what do we owe the honour of your presence anyway Tommy?” Oliver said with a smirk, as fractions of an accent clung to each syllable.

Tommy dropped his briefcase onto the kitchen island behind them with a thud before he rummaged through it and returned to the table with a stack of postcard sized action shots of Oliver on the field. “I need you to autograph some things.”
Oliver clung to his pen while he looked up at his boyhood friend with an unspoken question.
Tommy raised his hands in surrender as he smiled, “it’s for charity, I swear.” He added a Boy Scout salute for good measure.
Oliver slid the stack of postcards closer and began signing them with the marker Tommy handed him. “Most sports managers are out here making their clients endorsement deals worth millions. Imagine that?” he laughed sarcastically, with Felicity smiling in reply.
Oliver looked up momentarily to glare at Tommy before he turned his attention back to Felicity. “Please continue,” he offered as he continued to scrawl his name across each card. “Tommy has heard it all before.”
“How long have you known each other?” Felicity asked.
Both men took a reflective glance at each other before Oliver answered, “Since we were what, three? We started preschool together.”
“So if I want all your secrets, I should be asking Tommy?” Felicity teased with one brow hooked up.
Tommy winked and Oliver blushed for just a moment before he shook his head. “Not unless he wants his divulged too.”

Tommy’s phone rung before he could quip back and he backed away to the other side of the kitchen to answer it.
“You could always just ask me,” Oliver remarked softly and without looking up from his dwindling pile of unsigned cards.
“Would you tell me all your secrets Oliver?” she hummed coquettishly.
Oliver looked up, his face free from any jest. “I think you would be a very easy person for someone to tell their secrets to.”
Felicity felt a warm wave of air brush against her cheeks as a knot twisted in her cheeks. His eyes were like magnets and no matter how hard she tried to blink away, she couldn’t. Until she saw the slight flash of regret across his face.

It wasn’t regret, but he would have understood if she saw his lament as that. To deny to himself that he was attracted to her was futile, but that didn’t mean he had any right to be. Things were complicated, inciting feelings would only complicate them more and that wasn’t fair.

“Where were we?” he asked before he answered it himself, “After my parents died, the media hounded our family so Raisa thought it best that we leave.” For now he had glossed over the deeper complexities of the move, but the end result was all the same.
“You moved here?” Felicity asked, scribbling herself a small note that read “define hounded?” as something told her there was more to that than Oliver had let on.

He shook his head softly as he finished the last of the postcards. “Russia actually, a quaint little town where she had relatives and where no one could find us,” he patted the signed cards together as he spoke, “I learned to play football, soccer…” he corrected with a smile for her benefit, “…there. There really wasn’t anything else to do. We stayed in that place for about three years before we tried going back to Starling but it didn’t last long and then we came here.”
Felicity bit her lip as she watched him speak, again she noted there was something in the way he spoke of Starling, something that he tried to hide behind a feigned smile as he said the words. Something that didn’t go unnoticed.

“Did you go to school in Russia?” she asked, filling the silence.
“I had tutors.”
“How did you get from that to this?” she looked around the room before she pointed her pen at the card stack between them.
“John,” Oliver simpered, “Football was my escape, I didn’t have any aspirations to take it beyond that, at least not ones I would admit to myself. But when I injured myself, I found John. He worked with me and at 25 he somehow managed to convince me to try out for Roma. Five years later, here I am.”

He spoke it all with a level of humility that Felicity found both endearing and encapsulating. While she would readily admit her view on ‘professional sports people’ was highly skewed by Hollywood movies, she had always simply assumed they walked around with a certain level of pride and arrogance. Oliver had neither.

Tommy ended his phone call and moved back towards them, halting a few feet away when the phone, still in his hand, sparked to life a second time. He flashed an apologetic smile before he turned on his heels back towards the corner of the room. Oliver, inexplicably felt a sudden jolt with the loud ring of Tommy’s phone and before he could recognise what was happening, the anxiety took him. His eyes moved sharply towards the recorder and the camera Felicity had left on the table. The pen fell from his hand as his fingers went limp before they balled up into tight fists.

His throat was tight and his lungs felt strangled behind his ribs. His mouth became dry and his ears rung with noises of havoc.

Felicity started to ask Oliver if he was okay, but before she could Tommy was there, panic colouring his expression. “I’m sorry Ms Smoak, it seems I forgot about a meeting Oliver has, you’ll have to excuse us but we’ll have to cut the day short.” His hand rested on Oliver’s shoulder in much the same way as it had at the press conference.
“No,” Oliver replied, his voice thin but clear and collected, “I think the meeting was for next week.” He relaxed back into steady breathing as he counted himself down, slowly, while keeping his eyes affixed on Felicity’s delicate fingers outstretched towards him.

There was nothing in it, at least not that Oliver could pinpoint, but there was something soothing about tracing the soft lines of her hand. Something sort of monotonous and reassuring, and yet altogether new.
“Will you excuse us a moment Felicity, I just need to go over Oliver’s schedule with him,” Tommy spoke, his voice now more flustered than Oliver’s.
She smiled warmly. “Not a problem.”

The two men walked side by side until Tommy ducked behind the staircase in the foyer, out of earshot from their female guest in the kitchen.
“I was giving you an out, you looked on the edge,” Tommy recounted.
Oliver bobbed his head and smiled thankfully. “I appreciate that but I don’t need it.”
Tommy folded his lean arms across his chest and frowned, “you looked like you were about to pass out in there.”
“I know,” the Footballer breathed as he scratched the edge of his thumbnail across his brow. “But I’m okay, really.”
“Why her? I get that she’s pretty, but there must be more than that.”
His friend wasn’t wrong and Oliver knew it. “There is something about her that makes me feel less, crazy.” It wasn’t much of an answer and frankly he was surprised Tommy accepted it without balking. But he did, and with a smile no less, before he nodded and unravelled his folded arms.
“I have to go take care of a few things, are you sure you’re alright?” Tommy questioned.
“I’ll be fine. She’s like 5-foot-5.”

The friends said goodbye with perfectly time hand slaps and back smacks before Oliver returned alone to the table.
Felicity looked up from her pad. “Where’s Tommy?”
“Taking care of a few things, he loiters a lot so I’m sure you’ll see him again,” Oliver chuckled as he slid back onto his chair. He looked down at a fresh sheet of paper and the black marker laid carefully on his side of the table. “What’s this?” he asked with playfully suspicious arched brow.

Felicity smiled with a cheery and warm proclamation, “I thought maybe to make this a little less weird for the both of us, you can doodle draw too.” She bared her white teeth as her smile grew. “But if that’s too stupid, or you want to call it a day I completely understand.”
He picked up the pen and cracked off the lid, “Actually I like this idea a lot. It will be Diversão.” [Fun]

“How many languages do you speak?” she queried as the pair began casually drawing.
“Four and a half,” he answered without hesitation.
She chuckled. “A half?”
“I once tried to teach myself German. It didn’t go so well.”

He looked down at his paper and grimaced, “I’m a terrible doodler.”
Felicity leaned a little over the table and squinted. “I think that looks like a great tree.”
“It’s supposed to be a sailboat,” Oliver answered, deadpan.
Felicity sunk in her seat, mouthing “Ooooh” before she laughed heartily, “You’re pretty terrible.”

They continued talking about the mundane things, Oliver’s favourite school subjects (none of them, though he did enjoy learning Russian), the frigid Russian winters and how he would beg Raisa to take them someplace warmer but she would tell him it built character. What he missed when he left (Starling, Twinkies and Tommy). And how he still missed the family home in Starling and had returned to it a few times under the radar, but not for some time.

And before they knew it was nearing 3pm and Felicity was yawning.
“Maybe we should call it a day,” Oliver remarked as he cast a critical eye over his now abstract doodle of lines and squiggles that took over the page. “Will I see you tomorrow Felicity?” He looked up at her as he asked the question, hoping for just one answer.
“If you could send John with the same coffee, I’d greatly appreciate it,” she smiled before adding, “Yes.”

>>>>|<<<<

No sooner had Felicity closed the door to the hotel suite her and Iris were sharing, the mocha beauty accosted her with a black coffee and an inquisitive grin.
“How was it?” Iris peeped with an excited clap and a flamboyant skip.
“It was fine,” Felicity laughed as she toed off her shoes and carried them to her side of the room.
“What is fine, define fine,” Iris stammered without breathing as she scurried along behind her. “You need to give me something.”

Felicity slumped down onto the edge of her twin bed and let the day wash over her, ignoring Iris’ eager humming until she was ready to speak. “He's different than I expected,” she answered with a soft breath and a slight sigh.
Iris plopped down onto her own bed a single pace away, her body teetered on the very edge of the quilted blanket. “What do you mean?”
She shrugged, unsure of the answer even herself, “I guess I expected him to be pretentious and suave.”
“He’s not suave?”
Felicity’s teeth tussled with her lower lip. “He was charming, but if I'm being frank, I expected at least a handful of greasy pick up lines, not that I think I’m-” Felicity gritted her teeth closed and swallowed down her babble.
“You are worth a baker’s dozen greasy pick up lines,” Iris teased as she flicked her friend’s knee.
“Anyway,” Felicity quipped, “He’s reserved and humble and considerate and fun...”
“And hot,” Iris interjected.
The pseudo-reporter shrugged as she coiled her blonde locks around her finger in a failed attempt to look apathetic to his smouldering good looks. “I suppose he might be some women's type.”
“Mmm,” Iris hummed as she nodded, “and by some you mean you.”
“I hadn’t really thought about it,” Felicity lied.
“Sure, oookay. I noticed,” she smacked her lips together, “I noticed a whole lot. Noticed all day.”
“You're writing an interview not a dating profile,” Felicity teased before she collected her bag from around her body and dropped it onto Iris' lap.
“Fine, fine,” she laughed, thumbing through the pages of notes, “Let's go over what you got.”
Felicity nipped the corner of her thumbnail. “I don’t know if any of this is good,” she sighed, “I wanted to ask him more about his parents’ death but you should have seen him, the colour drained from his skin and his eyes dulled over.”
Iris laid her hand on Felicity’s knee. “It’s your job to ask questions, that’s what he wants from you.” Felicity nodded slowly. “So let’s call room service and write this bitch.”

>>>>|<<<<

The next day John dropped Felicity off outside the door of the hidden gem at the end of the winding drive, apologised profusely that he needed to leave right away and promised that Oliver was expecting her and she should just “walk right on in.”

Felicity took the front stairs slowly, dragging her feet in the hopes that the door would fly open before she made it there, negating any awkward knocking while she contemplated just what John Diggle meant by “walk right in”. Of course the actual words were self-explanatory and really shouldn’t have been something for Felicity to chew nervously on her bottom lip about, but even though they had only spent a few hours together yesterday there was a gnawing feeling in her chest that “walking right in” wouldn’t be appreciated by the recluse.

He had tensed at the brief mention of the media hounding him as a teen and his life as it stood now gave the very obvious appearance that he wasn’t the sort to leave the door open. She had no reason to believe that it being her made any difference.

She reached the door without it opening and as she rocked on the heels of her sandals she contemplated her next move. Her sterling silver bracelet slipped down her arm as she raised it and balled her fist, preparing to knock. But before she made contact with the door, it opened and she was met with an unfamiliar face; that of a woman in her 50s with auburn hair pulled back into a bun and her mauve lips terse but not frowning.

“Hi, I’m…”
“Felicity,” the older woman answered with a nod. It was then Felicity decided this was the infamous Raisa. “Oliver is expecting you, come in.”
She spoke kindly enough, although there was a certain level of frost in her voice. But Felicity had decided yesterday that if they were ever to meet, she wouldn’t hold whatever reception she got from the former housekeeper against her.

Oliver spoke of her fondly and she had taken on the responsibility of raising two children that were not biologically her own. Whatever beliefs she held about the media, and in turn this interview, Felicity didn’t doubt that she had good reasons for them.

Felicity thanked the other woman with a smile as she stepped over the threshold of the door for the second time.

Raisa closed the door behind her and the click of the lock echoed around the hollow foyer as did the sound of kitten heels tapping on the sandstone tiles as the housekeeper walked around Felicity. “He will be down soon,” she said somewhat brusquely as she took two guarded steps towards the day longue. “He’s like a son to me,” she said as she reached the archway and turned back towards Felicity, “he says I should give you a chance.”
Felicity smiled softly, “I can understand why you would be hesitant. The media wasn’t exactly respectful back then.”
“And will you be?”
“I’m here because Oliver invited me, he wants to talk and I’m prepared to listen.”

Raisa walked deeper into the longue, almost disappearing from Felicity’s sight as she perched herself on the edge of the armchair Oliver had the day before. “Okay, you listen then.” She pointed towards an empty seat across from her and Felicity got the hint and filled it.

“When Robert and Moira passed, Oliver tried to be strong. Strong for his sister, strong for his parents’ memory, even me. He took it all on his shoulders and they were such small shoulders.” She spoke with a soft voice, with her hands on her lap and her chin to her chest. The emotions were still fresh, despite the years that had passed.

Felicity didn’t speak, but rather acknowledged the words with a soft nod of her head before Raisa continued, “Then the cameras started. Everywhere.” Her voice mimicked her back as they both stiffened. “They followed him to school, home from school. They invaded every part of his life outside the house, and soon enough he wasn’t even safe inside it. They wanted a story. They paid friends, teachers, workers in the home to give them anything. He was an honour role student with one tardy and they turned that into a problem with authority.”

Felicity’s throat tightened as she imagined that 13 year old boy with the broken smile, hounded by strangers who tore into his life like it was a garage sale.
“That wasn’t even the worst of what those svin'I [*pigs] wrote. It was all lies, but they didn’t care. They took the little boy who was a ray of sunshine and mischief and they made him a husk, took every bit of light.”

Raisa wiped stray tears away from her cheeks as the emotion choked out her words. “When I saw how much of a toll it had taken,” she paused as she looked up, as though haunting memories scarred her thoughts. “I took those babies out of the cesspool and as far away as I could. But the damage was done.” Guilt laced her words, “It took my boy six months to step outside and what you see of him now has taken him a decade of struggle to get there.”
“It must have been hard for you both to see him struggle,” Felicity commented softly.
She nodded, it was. “He was a child and they hunted him like sport.”

“How did you feel when he joined Roma?”
Raisa patted her throat and shook her head, the worry clearly painted in her expression.

“Felicity, I didn’t hear you come in,” Oliver remarked from the door as his eyes bounced between the two women.
“It’s okay, Raisa kept me company.”
He looked worried as the older woman stood, straightened her skirt and patted her fingers across her damp cheeks. “Ne bespokoytes'* [No worry],” she said as she squeezed his shoulder. “It was nice to meet you,” she added as he looked down at Felicity before she left the room.

“She didn’t just curse me out in Russian did she?” Felicity smiled softly, the words the other woman had spoken still tugging at her heart strings as she thought of that little boy, afraid of the world.
“No,” he chuckled, “I told you it wasn’t as bad as Tommy let on.”
“It’s because I’m not a real reporter.”
Oliver took a seat beside her, though not close enough to touch. “You’re doing a pretty good job,” he complimented with a smile.
She rummaged through her bag and returned with two colouring books, “Would a real reporter bring these?”
He started laughing brightly, “Not for any interview I’ve ever been to, oh wait,” he smirked.

“So was there a hot date last night?” she asked absently, before she caught herself and her cheeks peached in embarrassment. “I’m sorry, that is none of my business,” she cringed, “You do not need to answer that.”
Oliver thumbed through the colouring book and shrugged, “I haven’t had one of those in about 5 years, let alone a hot one.” He looked up, a little flushed across the cheek when he realised he’d casually said that out loud, “I don’t know why I answered that and wow that’s embarrassing.”

“I tried dating when I first signed to Roma, I thought that I could,” he expanded. He couldn’t explain the ease with which he spoke to her. The way she could so effortlessly draw him out with little more than a smile. The doors and walls and padlocks he used to keep the world outside away seemed to be as effective as sand to her.
“What happened?” she asked quietly.
“I couldn’t,” he sighed, back then it had been all too much all too soon and the pit he soon found himself had been dark and deep. “I managed for a while but I felt myself sinking. It was then I decided to find a balance.”
“No interviews?”
He nodded. “No interviews.”

“Until now?”
“Until now.”
She looked up at him, “So what changed?”
“We won.”

She didn’t believe him. It wasn’t that simple.

Chapter Text

Felicity returned to the hotel that night a little before 6pm, frustrated at the gnawing feeling in the back of her head that Oliver was holding something back from her, despite her efforts to draw it out. As the car rolled up to the kerb Felicity huffed to herself as she reached for the door handle. She hadn’t meant it to sound quite so loud or come across quite so agitated, but it did both and she cringed a little when John put the car into park and turned in the front seat.
“You sound like me after spending a day with him too,” John laughed.
Felicity curtseyed an apologetic smile as she ruffled her fingers through the ends of her hair. “It’s not that,” she offered quietly, despite that fact it was.
John nodded with a low and audible “Mmmhmm.” He turned back in the seat and sunk his hands into the steering wheel. “I know the best way to get him to think less and talk more is by getting a ball in front of his feet.”

She smiled at his reflection in the rear view mirror before she opened the door and stepped out onto the sidewalk.
“Thanks for the ride,” Felicity said as she leaned down to the driver’s window, “maybe for the other thing too.”
“Same time tomorrow?” John said brightly as Felicity stepped back from the car and gave him a wave.
“Same time.”

She watched as the town car pulled away from the kerb, consciously holding in the next sigh until she saw it merge into traffic and disappear down the road.

Felicity wasn’t sure how much she should push the man or how much of his reason was her business to know. But there was matter of the unnerving feeling that Oliver wanted to tell her, but he didn’t know how.

She rode the elevator up to her floor with those same thoughts bobbing around her head and she carried them on her crinkled nose when she stepped through the hotel room door, but they were soon replaced with a confused expression when she saw a half packed suitcase open on Iris’ bed.

“Felicity?” Iris called from the bathroom.
“Yea, it’s me,” Felicity called back, unable to come up with some witty remark that insinuated Iris might be expecting someone else to let themselves into their locked hotel room.
Iris appeared from the bathroom with toiletries lodged under her arm and a makeup bag clutched in her hand. “Good, I’m glad you’re here.”

Felicity watched, silent, as Iris dumped her belongings into the suitcase and flopped onto the edge of her bed before tapping the empty space next to her with a quiet, “Sit.”

Felicity ambled around the side of the bed and sunk solemnly onto the vacant spot.
“I have to leave,” Iris blurted out, cutting straight to the issue at hand.
Felicity hugged her bag against her chest, “Okay.”
“I was offered this great chance to write an interview piece in Central City and I hope if they like my work they might hire me and I really need a job,” Iris prattled as Felicity silently nodded along, taking it all in.
“Well, I think we have enough to work with,” Felicity said softly as she tapped the edge of her bag; she guessed Oliver’s reasons would remain a mystery. “I’ll just call Oliver and let him know we’re done.”
Felicity stood up before Iris pulled her by the wrist back down. “You should stay,” she quipped.
“But this is your story,” Felicity argued as she watched Iris rise off the bed.
The pretty reporter kicked the balls of her feet into the tightly-woven carpet. “Last night you said there was something he was holding back talking about, something you couldn’t figure out,” she said as she walked a tight circle in front of the bed. “Do you still feel like that?”

Felicity nodded her head, today, despite the colouring books and the time they had spent talking, she didn’t learn much more. He talked about football, about his love of the sport, about how his normal anxieties drifted away when he was there on the field; as though putting on the shirt with the number 1 emblazoned on it made him someone else, someone who didn’t shrink away.

“Yes,” Felicity answered atop a sigh. She didn’t doubt that Iris could make a perfectly acceptable article with what they had, but in her mind Felicity couldn’t help but think he had so much more to give; so much more to say.

“Then you need to stay,” Iris smiled kindly at her friend as she hauled her off the bed where she had only moments ago pulled her down onto.
Felicity’s brows pinched inwards, “I can’t do this without you,” she argued.
Iris plucked at Felicity’s cheek. “You won’t have to. I fly to Central City, do the thing, write the bit and I’ll meet you back in Starling. By then you’ll have those last few missing lines and if you need me before then, I’m a phone call away.”
The petite blonde shrugged as her head lolled backwards and her eyes scoured the ceiling. “Maybe I’m thinking too much about this, but I just can’t think why he’s doing this, why now? But how do I know if he wants to tell me that?” She rattled off all the questions that were looping through her head before she lowered her chin and sighed, how?
Iris fluffed back the tendrils of blonde hair that had spilled down Felicity’s face, “that’s the easiest thing of all, you just ask.” She offered her friend another soothing smile and a resolute shrug, that was all anyone could do; ask. “But if you need me to stay, say the word and I will, after all I might be responsible for getting you into this,” Iris added with a light chuckle that resonated through her deep chocolate eyes.
“Might?” Felicity pouted.
“Okay,” Iris’ hands shit up in a surrender, “I definitely was, but it’s not all bad right?”
“No.” It really wasn’t. “You should go, I’ll be fine for a couple more days,” Felicity remarked as she wrapped an arm over her friend’s shoulder. “My flight leaves in four days so I’ll just bring it forward when I’m done.”
“Are you sure?” A cocked eyebrow and half a raised mouth.
A resolution nod. “Yes, I’m sure.”

The two woman broke apart, Iris to continue packing and Felicity to instinctively delve into the room service menu to look for something to eat; or somewhere to go to achieve the same thing.
“Aren’t you worried about running into your ex in Central City?” Felicity casually asked as her eyes read down the page.
Iris looked up from her suitcase and laughed heartily, “The one who wanted to wear a tail when we had sex and wanted me to call him ‘buster’ instead of Barry?”
Felicity snorted out a laugh she just couldn’t contain as she recounted the first time she was told that story. “Yeah, that guy, the furry.”
Iris dropped another pile of shabbily folded clothes into her suitcase. “I’ll just avoid any dog shows or pet stores and I should be fine,” she snickered.
“When do you leave?” Felicity asked as her finger held the spot on the page.
“Tomorrow morning,” Iris lamented, “Are you sure this is okay?”
“It’s fine,” Felicity brushed off the other’s woman’s concern with a wide smile. “In a few days I’ll be back in my own apartment and you’ll owe me one very nice bottle of red wine. Deal?”
Iris shook the hand Felicity stuck out, “Deal.”

She never imagined being so wrong.

>>>>|<<<<

The next morning, instead of waiting for Oliver inside, Felicity asked John where she might find Thea instead. He had smiled, a kind of knowing smile, and pointed her towards the back garden with a quipped, “Probably by the pool.”

He had been right, something which hadn’t surprised Felicity in the least; in fact she got the distinct impression that John knew a lot about a lot of things, you just had to know the right questions to ask.

Thea had bounded up off the beige, slatted lounger when Felicity approached and had waved her over like an old friend.
“You’re back,” Thea effused as she gingerly pulled up a matching lounger, presumably for Felicity.
“I am, but not for that I’m afraid,” Felicity remarked after she nodded down to the inviting seat.
Thea shrugged one of her slender shoulders and replied, “Maybe later though?”
“Maybe.” Felicity also got the distinct impression that Thea was the kind of girl who could talk anyone into anything; and she had already come to the conclusion she would probably find herself relaxing on a lounger in the not too distant future.

“I was wondering if you had any trainers I could borrow,” Felicity asked with a precarious smile dancing over her lips, trying not to get too excited about her little plan. “I really wasn’t planning on doing anything beyond lazing by the hotel pool this trip so my wardrobe is limited to roman sandals and impractical heels.”
Thea looked overly pleased with the request as she grabbed Felicity’s hand and led her towards the open patio doors of her ‘little’ poolside apartment.

It was light and airy, decorated much more modern than what Felicity had seen of the other house. Rich textured fabrics in fawn and taupe covered the soft furnishings, from a slouching and oversized couch to a woven headboard above the large, floating, bed. Accents of sea foam and a vibrant blue made the room come alive with personality.

Felicity followed Thea deeper into the room, the distinct smell of coconut oil wafting through the air as they passed the king size bed and walked into a wardrobe that Felicity instantly knew was larger than the entire living space in her Starling apartment. No contest.

“Oliver gets sent a lot of things,” Thea casually said as she roamed around the wardrobe that resembled a high-end clothing store, “I think they guess on my size, and my style,” she furrowed her brow as she pulled out a stunning pearlescent ivory gown with hand stitched beadwork and a plunging neckline.
“That’s vintage couture,” Felicity gaped quite helplessly, “that’s everyone’s style.”
Thea shrugged as her fingers feathered down the side of the knee-length gown, “You should have it.”
“Oh no, I.. no-oo,” Felicity breathed as her eyes wove across the stunning dress that she would considering selling the naming rights to her firstborn for. “That’s worth at least half of my year’s rent.”
“I’m never going to wear it,” Thea stated with another casual shrug before she slung it over Felicity’s arm. “Someone should.”

“Thea, I really can’t keep this.” The words felt like knives to her dress-loving heart as she spoke them, but she wasn’t there to take from Oliver’s sister’s amazing wardrobe.
“Fine,” Thea pepped as she floated away, “You’ll just borrow it indefinitely.”
“That’s the same—“
“Trainers,” Thea exclaimed as she pulled out a box with a pair of brand new Nikes in them.
“I was expecting something,” Felicity paused as she caught the box Thea gently chucked her way, “…more used.”
“You can borrow those indefinitely too, they’re not my size,” Thea pre-empted Felicity’s next argument.

“As much as I appreciate this Thea, and I’m honestly doing the best not to swoon over your wardrobe, which Iris would also love, but this is too much.”
“Oh, I’d like to meet Iris, you should bring her around sometime,” Thea gingerly spoke as her hand disappeared behind a row of clothes. “She can have her pick,” she added as her hand returned with a bronze evening gown that shimmered in the warm overhead lights. “I suppose if my mom was still around I might wear this sort of thing, but if I can’t dance in it...” her voice trailed off as a sigh leaked from her dusky pink lips.

“Iris had to fly out,” Felicity said as she sat the shoes and dress on the leather pouf in the middle of the room.
“You’re alone?”
Felicity smiled at the soft concern in the younger Queen’s voice. “Just a few more days, my flight was leaving in four days anyway so I should be out of your hair in two.”
The news seemed to deflate the spritely college-student as she draped the stunning floor-spilling gown over her svelte forearm. “Have you seen any of the sights? Brazil is beautiful.”
Felicity shook her head softly, that would be her regret. She hadn’t seen much more of the City, let alone the country, than what she saw from the hotel window or the trip between there and Oliver’s abode. “No, sadly,” she sighed, “this…” she looked down at her knapsack, now housing her laptop, “wasn’t exactly the plan.”
The smile returned to Thea’s face, plumping out her slightly rouged cheeks. “Then it’s settled, I’ll take you.”
“Oh no, you don’t need to.” Felicity wasn’t sure why she bothered to argue, she was already holding a vintage dress worth thousands of dollars and a brand new pair of high-end trainers. Thea Queen didn’t seem to take no for an answer.

Thea draped the bronze dress over the top of the ivory one before she carefully hugged her arms around her waist. “What’s my name?” she asked, somewhat sallow and reserved.
“Thea Queen,” Felicity answered.
“My roommates at college think my name is Thea Merlyn,” she admitted with glazing over eyes.
“As in Tommy?”
A quiet chuckle and a soft nod. “It’s not some weird, he’s my real dad thing, they let me use their name because there are less questions that way. People are full of ideas and conspiracy theories, I’ve heard them all and most of them aren’t kind, my parents were part of a secret organization, my brother wanted to inherit the company, I’ve heard it all.”

Felicity felt a stab of guilt as she recounted reading some of those things and for a split moment – before she knew them like she felt she did now – wondered whether there might be any truth to them.

“People don’t know me Felicity,” Thea continued, her voice mellowed and poignant, “my brother is the shut in and I’m lucky I can hide in plain sight with a wig and a fake name, but I’m still hiding. I thought maybe, it would be nice not to have to hide with you here.”
Felicity instinctively reached out her hand and brushed it down the young girl’s arm, “You don’t and I’d love to be a tourist for a few hours, maybe tomorrow?”
Thea brushed back the single tear that managed to escape before she sniffed the rest back. “Thank you,” she mouthed.

“Thea?” Oliver called from outside.
“In here,” she called back.
“Have you seen…” he walked in and his words stopped when he saw exactly who he was looking for, Felicity. “Oh, Hi. John told me he’d sent you this way.”
“So you came looking?” she teased. He smiled as his chin dropped near his chest. “Your sister was just lending me some sneakers,” Felicity added as she sat down on the white pleather beside them and shucked off her sandals.

“Isn’t this a nice dress Oliver?” Thea wondered aloud while she held the ivory one and walked it closer to Oliver.
He looked down at it and answered somewhat stoically, “It’s lovely.”
“I think it would look even lovelier on Felicity, don’t you think?”
“I’m not…” Felicity started.
“I think it would look stunning on Felicity, she would do that dress justice,” Oliver interrupted, his voice low and slightly rasped as hints of his accent flourished at the end of some words.
Thea smiled, quite pleased with herself, as she lay the dress back down. “That settles it, it’s yours indefinitely,” she declared before she kissed Oliver’s cheek and walked out of both the wardrobe and the pool house.

“I’m not taking your sister’s clothes,” Felicity retorted as she laced the shoes.
Oliver shrugged, as apathetically as he could while his eyes devoured the dress and created dreams of her alabaster skin shimmering beautifully underneath it. “You should,” he managed, swallowing down the lump that had built up in his throat, “she doesn’t wear them because she can’t dance in them when she sneaks out in that blonde wig.”

Felicity looked up shocked, “You know about that?”
“I might be a recluse, but I’m not an idiot,” he laughed.
“Does she know you know?”
He shook his head slowly side to side as he answered, “no, and it’s better she doesn’t, it gives it more excitement I suppose.”
“Do you ever want to go with her?”
He wrung his hands together as he considered the crowds of people swarming, the eyes studying, the pulse of music thrumming in his brain. He bit back the retch that he felt rise up his throat until he saw the intricate lines of the dress sitting slightly skewed beside Felicity and images of her, dressed in it, with their fingers woven together, leading him, quietened his mind. “I don’t know,” he offered quietly. A week ago the answer would have been no.

He shook the images from his head and straightened his back. “Are we colouring today?”
“Actually,” Felicity stood up and looked at the shoes, a perfect fit, “do you have a football lying around? I have another idea.”

>>>>|<<<<

They had kicked ball around with reckless abandonment for hours, although it had been Oliver that had done most of the leg work, running circles around Felicity who was no match, even with his jovial technique. Unfortunately, Felicity had also neglected what had started as the reason for the entire exercise and, unless she was penning notes about how good his was at backyard football, she had not gathered a single scrap of information she could use.

But, John had been right. Oliver was different kicking a ball between his feet. He was weightless. And it showed in everything from his light footwork to the bright smile he wore without shame.

At that moment she might not have been able to see his smile, but something told her as he stood a few inches behind her, that he still wore it. She was right.
“Keep your eyes on the centre of the net,” he whispered near her ear, his warm breath misting her damp skin as they stood a straight line half a field back from a practice net that looked like something a child would own.

Felicity squinted at her mark, a slight fray in the white cord. She could feel the heat radiating from his body and it sent a warm shiver up her spine as each breath he expelled blew the tiny wisps of fine hair at the back of her neck. It seemed almost impossible to be standing this close and yet, not a single part of them touched, even for a fleeting moment.

“Where’s Oliver?” Tommy asked before he took a bite of the sloppy fast-food burger drooping in his hand.

Thea, hiding in one of the curtains by the open kitchen door, kicked her foot out at Tommy who fell against the wall, the other side of the doors.
“What the hell Speedy?” Tommy indignantly spluttered as he brushed non-existent scuff marks from his soft suede pants.
“Those pants look like a grandmother’s couch,” Thea shot back before she shushed him abruptly.
“What are we?” he mumbled as he followed her eyes outside. “Ooh.” The sound popped from his greasy lips before he swallowed his mouthful and watched the two in the distance, standing so close that he couldn’t see even a fraction of space between them

“Aren’t they cute?” Thea grinned as she touched a hand to her heart. “They’ve been out there for hours, they only paused for a quick bite to eat.”
Thea had spent every minute of that time skulking around the kitchen, quietly blending in so they hadn’t even noticed her. Although she had a theory that they wouldn’t notice a marching band traipsing through the house either.

Tommy finished his burger and screwed up the wrapper in one hand before he licked the tips of his fingers. “You're getting ideas,” he warned before he swallowed down the last of his mouthful.
She pinned him to the wall with her sharp eyes, “So?”

Tommy jostled his shoulders back from the wall before he walked to the rubbish bin. “You know,” he said coolly across the kitchen.
She looked longing out towards the couple. “No, I don’t,” she lamented. She might have known in one context, but as it related to understanding what Oliver had told her, she certainly didn’t.
“It’s not going to change his mind.”

Thea charged across the kitchen and pressed her palms into the countertop as Tommy stood stoically on the other side.
“He chose her for a reason whether he’ll admit it or not,” Thea spoke, her voice thin and quivered.
Tommy walked around the bench and placed a caring hand on his pseudo sister’s shoulder. “Thea, we all want...”
She brushed him off with a roll of her shoulder. “No, Tommy,” she said brusquely, the smile she wore for Oliver's benefit finally wearing thin, “You have both of your parents, you have your family, he’s all I have.” She bit the inside of her lip before she shook out an apologetic half-smile, “Tommy, I’m sorry.”
He reached around her and pulled her into an embrace. “I just don’t want you to get your hopes up,” he said softly into her temple.

Thea shifted slightly and let her eyes drift back out to where Oliver and Felicity stood, still unaware they were being watched with glassy eyes. “Its not my hopes I’m trying to raise, it’s his.”

“Why are you doing this?” Felicity asked, the words tumbling from her mouth like an avalanche.
He laughed and she felt it ripple across her skin as she gulped down a moan. “You wanted to learn to kick the ball if I remember correctly.” She could almost feel his lips turning up into a cocked smile and she imagined his blue eyes dancing jubilantly.
She moved her head ever so slightly and her cascading ponytail brushed against his lips. He stapled a soft sigh behind his closed mouth as the scent of her flowery shampoo teased and tickled his nostrils. The instant the fragrant touched his palate Oliver had a desperate desire to coil her golden locks around his fist, bring it to his face and inhale it. Visions of letting it slip through his fingers like silk and tugging it until her lips fell open, plump, aroused and breathless engulfed his mind, but his hands stayed down, weighted and trapped at his sides.

“Not this,” she turned around and he was so much taller that close. She raised her eyes as he lowered his and they met somewhere in the nirvana of space between them. She half expected him to retreat, to put a galaxy of space between them, but he didn’t. Not even a fraction.

His hands flinched at his sides as they ached to touch her; ached to graze the backs of his knuckles against her cheeks, to discover if they were as smooth and soft as he imagined them to be.
“Oliver…” his name from her lips pulled him back from his luxuriant daydream, only to want her to say it again. He wanted to watch her lips form out the letters, for her tongue to touch the bow of her lips as she spoke it. He needed to hear it, so much so that that need was like fire coursing through his veins, seeking out something; seeking out her.

He could hear his heart thumping against his chest and it sounded like a million football fans stomping on the grandstands. Thick shoes beating down against steel. Rumbling like thunder, building and building until you heard only that, long after it stopped. He wanted to kiss her and his tongue and teeth wrestled with his lower lip to try and dull the craving and silence the desire. But it didn’t even have a placebo effect. Nothing could quench that need, well one thing could.

“Why are you doing this interview?” she asked pointedly, her blue eyes never dulling and her mouth never showing more than a fraction of a smile. She wanted an answer.
He opened his mouth to give one, the same one he’d given her the other day, but she already saw the plan brewing in his eyes and she cut him off before he could, “And don’t say because you won, I don’t believe it.”
He watched her take a breath, watched her eyes slowly blink, she’s saddened by him, she knows he’s holding something back.
“Are you retiring?” she continued, the words tumbling out only moments after she formed them in her mind.
“Yes.” He swallowed another lump, only this one felt like hot coals when he pushed it down his throat.
“This interview is your retirement notice?”
He watched her eyes crinkle as she tried to make sense of him. He knew it wouldn’t make sense – at least not with what she knew.
He nodded, slow and soft, almost fragile enough that she might have missed it if it wasn’t for the fact her eyes were trained on his every move.

He was telling the truth, but there still seemed to be something more.
“I should get cleaned up and I should get you home.”
He studied her lips as they softly closed, she too was holding back words.

“I’ll just return Thea’s shoes then,” she whispered as her eyes finally fell away from his, afraid that she would give too much of her own thoughts away by staying near his.

It was Oliver who sunk away first, but if she had seen his face when he did, she would have seen just how miserable he looked. But by the time Felicity looked up from the ground, she saw only his broad shoulders slumped forward and the sweat drenching his back.

A few minutes later, Felicity found the energy to propel her own legs forward and she wandered into the kitchen to find Thea sitting at the breakfast bar, sipping down a glass of orange juice.

“I, uh, your shoes,” Felicity spoke in stunted words as the air slowly returned to her lungs, but her mind was still caught up on thoughts of Oliver, the man with the broken smile and the eyes that held a secret.
“Please, keep them,” Thea replied with doe-eyes.
Felicity was in no mood to argue, with barely enough motivation to move. “Thank you,” she breathed, “I’ll just use the bathroom and then maybe John can…home.”
She tried to bring herself back together but he still occupied so much of her thoughts. The way his eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled, the way his mouth opened like he wanted to speak but he didn’t know the words, the way his hands moved at his side like they were desperate to touch – something.
But she must have been imagining it all, and that was the most curious of all, because it really didn’t feel like she was.

“Oh, not the downstairs’ one, it’s blocked up,” Thea chirped as she sprung up from her seat.
Felicity just nodded lazily, “Oh okay, I don’t really know where the others are.”
“Come I’ll show you.”

She followed Thea on feet that felt like they were shackled, up the stairs and down to the left, stopping on the edge of a long corridor.
“Third door on the right, just go on in,” Thea smiled.
Felicity nodded, or at least attempted to, even her nods were lacklustre. “Thanks.”

She counted out the doors and opened the third one without much thought. But when she looked up from the ground she realised she wasn’t in a bathroom at all, rather it was a bedroom. A very nice bedroom.

It was unlike the other rooms in the house and almost at the other end of the spectrum to Thea’s tropical retreat. The furnishings were dark, the box base the mattress sat in was a richly decadent ebony with a soft, almost velvet matt texture that begged for fingers to be brushed across it. The walls were a creamy milk chocolate colour, tastefully decorated with two framed black and white prints of evoking images; the first a shadowed slope of a woman's back and the second, an almost mirrored photograph of a sloping neck with lush lips drawing the eyes of the viewer in. Sleek, mirror-finished, black drawers and a sculptured headboard, set behind a pillowed, plush one, gave the room a modern edge, while a crystal pendant chandelier hung over the foot of the bed and the long, full, embroidered drapes gave the room a vintage opulence. It was inviting but a little intimidating.

Realising she had lingered long enough in a room that wasn’t hers, and into which she hadn’t been invited, Felicity walked the three steps back towards the door. But as she reached her hand out to the door, another door beside her opened, letting out a cloud of warm and scented air; and from the midst of that cloud came Oliver, water beading down the sloping muscles of his chest and a towel secured around his waist.

“Sorry, I was, bathroom,” Felicity stuttered as her eyes devoured the perfectly cut lines of his chest.
He looked shocked to find her there and a sudden nauseating wave of panic washed over Felicity as she realised, albeit a little lagged, that this was Oliver’s room. The guy who had been relentlessly hounded by the media for two years and had spent a great deal of his life from that moment on, trapped behind walls he built to protect himself. It was his room, his space, his sanctuary, and she was standing in it, uninvited and probably very much unwelcome.

The knot in her stomach was almost crippling as she felt utter and total remorse that she had lingered there long enough to know what the photographs on his were and that, had she not, he wouldn’t be wearing such a surprised expression on his face and she wouldn’t be reprimanding her eyes for their insatiable appetite in devouring his physique.

Finally, her feet weren’t foggy and she stumbled out of the room, down the hall to the second door which she proceeded to fling open, gregariously happy to find that it was a bathroom.

Oliver went to follow her out of the room, but before he could reach her the bathroom door slammed in his face. He looked up and found Thea lurking at the end of the hall.

“What are you doing?” he spoke the words through gritted teeth.
Thea shifted from one foot to the other before she answered with a quiet, “Nothing, I'm sorry, I meant second door.”
He saw through her lie immediately, but pulling her up on it would do nothing but further Felicity’s embarrassment if she came out and found him still mostly naked.

“She’s pretty though don’t you think?” Thea tacked on before Oliver could step away.
He answered almost immediately, “She’s gorgeous and funny and kind.”
All true.
“So let her in,” Thea scolded.
“No.” It tasted bitter in his mouth, but it was all he could say.
“At least don’t shut her out,” she reasoned, her tone and words softening until they faded away into silence when she took another intake of air. “You told me you wanted to do this interview to bring some sort of closure to what happened to mom and dad and what happened to you, to us, but that doesn’t mean you can’t find something else here. Something with her.”
He wanted to hold his sister by the arms and beg for her to listen, to try to understand his reasoning, but tonight that would mean convincing himself of it too.
“It’s not that simple,” he answered, the redness of his skin testimony to that as he'd spent much longer in the shower, letting the hot water deluge him as he tried, hopelessly, to make the ends meet in his mind.
Thea shook her head defiantly, “Because you decided it couldn’t be.” She didn’t give him time to answer before she left, leaving him alone with those precious what ifs.

>>>>|<<<<

Felicity hid in the bathroom for as long as she reasonably thought she could, but she would have to face him again soon. At least she could go home and wallow in the embarrassment of it all alone.

Thinking of his body, the way the water drops rode paths down it and the light smattering of hair from his navel down to the nether regions beneath the towel. The smooth contour of his pecs, as though they were made to fit in the shallow palm of her hand as it glistened with fresh ‘shower dew’.

She blinked at her reflection in the mirror and scolded herself with a terse look. But it was already too late, she could feel her sex aching and her insides throbbing as she recounted the tight clinch of his abs, the brawn of his shoulders and the deep trenches of his pelvis. There was nothing left for her to do but run her hands under a strong current of cold water until she had cooled her temperature just enough to dampen down her arousal in the balmy Brazilian heat.

She had hoped to find Oliver alone when she tiptoed into the kitchen, but instead she found everyone but John, who she could see wrestling with a sun umbrella outside; it may have been the early beginnings of evening, but the sun was still warm enough to burn.

Oliver looked up as she entered the room and his face echoed hers.
But it was Thea who spoke first, “I’m sorry,” she remarked, genuinely. While the 19 year old had certainly done it on purpose, in her mind the outcome wouldn’t be the awkward tension you could cut with a knife that currently filled the room, and for that she was sorry.
Felicity offered a feeble shrug and a soft, “That’s fine,” before she swayed on her feet and let her eyes drift outside. “I’ll just wait for John to be ready, or I can catch a cab.”
Oliver tried not to let his disappointment show as he idly shuffled vegetables from one side of the chopping board to the other. “I’m sure John won’t be long, or Tommy could take you if you’re in a hurry to get back.”

Tommy looking up with a bread roll half hanging out of his mouth at the mention of his name before Raisa tapped the back of his head and scolded him with her eyes for eating close to dinner.

“It’s fine,” Felicity smiled as she watched the dynamic of the eclectic family of sorts unfold in front of her, “I can wait.”
“You should stay,” Thea exclaimed as she bounded up to Felicity. “You said Iris had flown back to the States, so instead of going back to the empty hotel you can stay here and eat with us.”
“Oh, I don’t want to impose,” Felicity replied, even though her mouth was watering at the makings of the spread already laid out.
“You won’t be, we always have plenty, and you can add a bit in your article about Oliver’s love of grilling.” He blushed when Thea said his name but he didn’t raise his eyes from the depth of the benchtop and his task until his sister said his name a second time, “right Oliver?”

He looked up and directly at her in a way that made her breath shudder and her spine tingle. “You should stay for dinner.”
There was a lull in any noise throughout the kitchen, or perhaps it simply faded away into nothing as their eyes stayed tangled together, neither willing to blink.
“Thea, set another place outside,” Raisa announced breaking the hush that had fallen, “Thomas, you can help me marinade the meat outside.”
Tommy looked up perturbed at the notion as he started to mumble, “But that’s what…” before Raisa clipped him around the ear again and he moved like a fire had been set under his seat.

In less than half a minute, Oliver and Felicity were alone in the kitchen.
“I can help,” she said softly as she took a few reserved steps forward.
Oliver nodded as he retrieved another chopping board and knife and set them both beside him. “Raisa makes the potato salad with pickles, so you could cut them if you wanted,” he said as he listened to the soft patter of her feet walking around and his nose caught the subtle scent of her aroma on the breeze.

“I'm sorry again,” Felicity said, and despite the softness of her voice, it seemed to echo off every surface in the deserted kitchen.
“It wasn't you,” Oliver assured, speaking just as quietly as he rinsed the potatoes under the miserly stream of water.

The room returned to silence, but for the soft and constant sounds of their overlapping breathing.
“So, Iris left?” Oliver asked, filling the silence with his slightly rasped voice.
“Oh don't worry she's still writing the article,” Felicity offered as she plucked a dill pickle from the jar and placed it in the centre of her wooden board.
“I was thinking about you, alone,” when he looked up their eyes met before he added, “at the hotel.”
“It's probably just for another night,” she responded as she tore her eyes away, the heat of his eyes too much for her frayed sensibilities; after all, how does one have feelings for a man they barely know and an unattainable one at that?
“Oh, we're done?” She caught the soft sigh he tried to disguise behind a weak smile.

The sound of his knife hitting the board made her blink as she realised she hadn't made a single cut in her own task.
“I think this will be a good article,” she said down at the pickle, who funnily enough didn’t answer.
“Stay.” The word surprised even him when it fell from his mouth. She looked up, her eyes wide and startled. “If you wanted to. There is plenty of room and I’m sure Thea would be pleased,” he quickly added.
“Just Thea?” she asked, braving the honesty of the moment to give a little herself.
The hand holding the handle of the blade tremored as his eyes tethered to hers, but before he could answer a sharp pain stole his breath and an eruption of bright red blood stole her eyes.
“Oliver, you’re bleeding!”
She acted without thinking and before either of them realised it, her hands were cupping his under a gentle stream of tap water as pink water swirled down the plughole.

For the first time in 5 years, someone was touching him.
The realisation of that made Oliver suck in a gasp of air and Felicity saw a flicker of what she thought was panic in his eyes.
“Oh god Oliver, I’m sorry, I just...” she backed away, dropping his hands from her own. “I’m so sorry.”

She frantically looked for an exit and decided on the foyer as the garden was filled with people she couldn’t talk to in that moment.

The cut on Oliver’s finger was superficial and nothing more than a nick that he quickly wrapped with a dishcloth. “Felicity, wait,” he called out, stopping her before she reached her escape.
She stood, frozen, as he walked up behind her, his footsteps in time with the beat of her heart. She felt his breath on her neck as he floated around to the front of her. His unbandaged hand reached for hers timidly until the pads of his fingers grazed the tips of hers.

She looked up at him, studying the expression on his face as his fingers discovered hers with gentle caution. She raised her hand, palm flat and fingers towards the ceiling, and Oliver’s lifted along with her. He carefully traced each of her fingers as a smile grew across his mouth and exploded in his eyes. Her skin was soft, luxuriantly so, and the creases on her fingertips were smooth and faint.

“Felicity.” Her name fell like a sigh from his lips or like a gentle breeze brushing through the tops of trees, melodic and soft. “I haven’t,” he whispered the words, stopping to line the edge of her palm with his own.
For five years, he’d missed that sensation of a woman’s touch for reasons he now couldn’t remember and frankly, didn’t want to. His palm lay flat against hers, shadowing it in both length and breadth. His fingers mirrored hers until they delicately curved over the tips.

Holding their hands like that, their eyes met as their breathing became shaky and erratic. Drawn to each other they moved closer until they shared the same warm air and only a single sheet of paper could pass between them. His fingers moved and laced with hers as he squeezed her hand against his, as if to say he never wanted to let it go.

His lips parted but he never spoke. Her chin lifted but all that bled out of her mouth was a soft, breathless sigh. Their hands pulsed together as Oliver stooped, placing his full and wet lips almost against hers.
There was something else he hadn’t done in 5 years.

“Oliver the meat is... oh,” Tommy stopped dead in his tracks and tried to sneak back out the way he’d come, but the damage was already done and the two flew apart. “The meat is ready,” Tommy finished, unsure what else to do, before he retreated back out the patio doors and the room once more fell into silence.
“I should,” Oliver mumbled as he pointed his head towards the door.
Felicity nodded as her arms encased her waist. “Sure, I’ll finish up in here.”
He backed away slowly with regret etched in his face, but not for the reasons she thought.

When he was gone, she finally breathed.

Chapter Text

“You’re staying at his house?” Iris choked out the mouthful of food she’d just inhaled.
Felicity frantically lowered the volume on her phone as she sat alone in the guest room; a room where elegant was clearly the brief the decorator was working towards and had achieved that in warm wood tones and carefully picked plush soft furnishings – from the opulent draping curtains in a rich burgundy to the fresh pops of white on a reading chair and the blanket box at the end of the bed, and of course the luxurious brocade blanket she currently had tucked up around her shoulders as she held the phone a short distance away from her face.

She twisted her hair anxiously while her teeth nibbled the edge of her bottom lip. “Thea asked, and…” she paused as she blinked away from the video call, “…he asked,” she mumbled, but not quietly enough for Iris to miss and her friend’s smile radiated off the dimly-lit phone screen. “Don’t look at me like that,” Felicity retorted before her lips folded into a frown and her shoulders dropped just enough that the edge of the blanket fell, revealing something underneath.

Something she’d carefully tried to hide. Something her reporter friend wasn’t going to miss.
“What are you wearing?” Iris quizzed as she leaned a little closer to the phone.
Felicity glanced down at where the blanket had slipped off and quickly replaced it as she tried too play off Iris’ question with a shrug and a bemused expression. “Nothing special, just clothes,” she answered as nonchalantly as she could muster.

Iris craned her neck, as if that would help. “Felicity what are you wearing?” she asked a second time, a little louder than the first.
Felicity sighed and her shoulders slumped, which in turn made the blanket completely drop into her lap – the jig was up.
“It’s a football jersey,” she answered, her tight smile knowing exactly what the next question would be, but hoping she was wrong all the same.
“His?” Iris shrieked.
Felicity rolled her eyes and exhaled with a puff. “Yes, but not from his drawers, it’s new,” she clarified.
“But it’s his number and name on the back?”
Felicity shrugged even though she knew the answer. “I guess.”
Iris gaped as Felicity could see the cogs going into overdrive behind her friend’s eyes. “Has he seen you in this?”
Felicity folded one of her arms across her chest. “No,” she shot back. She knew what Iris was insinuating. “Thea left it in the guest bedroom for me, I put it on after I went to my room and that’s where I still am, everyone has gone to bed.”
She straightened her shoulders and narrowed her eyes as she finished off her sentence with a pop of her lips. That was it, that was the final word to be said on the matter – she should have known better.
“You’re alone?” Iris asked with a smirk lifting up one side of her full, dark-mauve lips.
Felicity tried her best to look perturbed by the question, despite expecting it. “Yes I’m a-lone!”
Iris shrugged her slim shoulders, keeping her smile in place. “Because I mean if you weren’t it wouldn’t be a bad thing.”
“Iris,” Felicity huffed.
“I’m just saying, he asked you to stay,” her friend replied with her hands raised in surrender.
Felicity ran a tentative hand through her hair as she sighed softly. “He was just being nice.”

“Okay,” Iris straightened her shoulders and put her takeout food down on a table just out of sight, “real talk, do you like him?”
The question hung unanswered in the air for what seemed like an hour, but was no longer than thirty seconds.
“He’s a lovely person,” Felicity answered diplomatically.
Iris’ lips pursed. “That’s not what I meant and you know it. If this was second grade and he passed you a note with ‘do you like-like me, tick a box, yes or no’ what box are you ticking?”
“I didn’t pass notes in school,” Felicity answered satirically.
“Felicity…”
“I don’t know, maybe, there was this, uh, moment,” she blurted out as her free hand twisted in the fine Egyptian-cotton sheet.
Iris’ eyebrow rose up her forehead, “Moment?”
The blonde sighed before she reluctantly spilled the truth. “A moment where I thought he might kiss me.”
“Did he?”
“No,” she shook her head softly and a tumble of blonde hair fell over her shoulders, “someone walked in the room and we just left it like that.”
“Did anything else happen?”
Another shake of her head. “We pretty much avoided being alone together the rest of the night, so no.”
Iris sat back in her dining room chair and furrowed her lips as she considered this new information before she sat up and pulled one leg into her chest. “If he had kissed you, would you have been okay with it?” she asked, the excitement in her voice replaced with a careful consideration.
“In that moment, yes, it was all I could think about,” Felicity admitted.
“And now?”
She blew out an perturbed sigh. “I don’t know, it’s complicated.”
“It’s really not Felicity,” Iris argued, “it’s really pretty simple. If he came to your room right now, what would you do?”
“Hang up on you for a start,” she answered with a cheeky smile.
Iris ignored the dig. “Would you let him in?”
“Yes but I…”
“What’s the but?” Iris interrupted, making Felicity clamp her mouth closed like a scolded student. “Do you have a boyfriend?”
“No,” she laughed, holding herself back from added a self-depreciating ‘Obviously’.
Iris quick-fired the next question, “Does he have a girlfriend?”
“No.” At least not as far as Felicity was aware, one could never be certain but she was fairly sure no was the right answer in this instance.
“So what’s the but? There isn’t anything wrong in this equation,” Iris announced as though there was no room to argue with her logic, which Felicity had to admit was very logical. “You’re on the pill right?” Iris added before she collected her food from the table and scoffed a fork-fill.
“Yes,” Felicity retorted.
“Great,” Iris chirped happily, “and I put some condoms in your purse for good measure so you’re set.”
It was Felicity’s turn to choke, but this time on her own tongue. “You what now?”
“Put. Some. Condoms…in your. Purse” Iris started, enunciating each word as she spoke them in slow motion.

Felicity scoured the room with her eyes, looking for her purse, as she tried to remember whether it had come upstairs with her. “I left my purse downstairs, shit,” she mumbled as she remembered tucking her phone and laptop under her arm as she climbed the stairs – sans bag. “Someone could find those.”
“And what?” Iris said between mouthfuls, “they’ll think bad of you for looking after your sexual health? I for one think that’s very admirable in this day and…”
“I have to go get my purse,” Felicity cut her off sharply.
Iris nodded. “Yeah, it’s a good idea to have them close and handy,” she chuckled.
“Iris, I’m going to kill you when I get back to Starling,” Felicity said through clenched teeth and the narrowed eyes of a killer.
“We’ll see,” Iris continued to laugh.
Felicity’s face softened, her face only held ‘angry crazed woman’ for so long. “Goodnight.”
“Night,” Iris waved before they disconnected the call.

Felicity looked down at her outfit and cringed. She’d shed her shorts and while the bright yellow jersey skimmed the top of her knees, she was very well aware that she only had her bra and panties on underneath. She could have spent five minutes putting her shorts back on, but all she could think about was what if in that time someone discovered her twelves boxes of condoms (okay, that was probably an exaggeration on her part, but she was prone to thinking up a worst-case scenario).

“I’ll be fine,” she mumbled as she raced, on tiptoes, to her bedroom door.
She slipped out into the hallway which was silent and dimly light by one lamp near the top of the stairs and another at the bottom that cast the whole landing in a hazy orange glow. She squinted into the areas where the light didn’t touch, just looking for some movement, but she saw none.

She tiptoed towards the first lamp, carefully watching her feet as she walked. Pausing at the top of the stairs she looked down the other hall to where Oliver’s room was. She swore she could hear her own breathing like a train rolling through the house and she half expected him to fly through the shadows asking what all the racket was; but he didn’t. There wasn’t a single peep or movement that she could see.

She continued down the stairs, her eyes glued to each step. She held her breath when one creaked beneath her, but as soon as the noise cleared, she kept walking, one step at a time. When she reached the bottom of the stairs she could see a soft glow coming from the kitchen, but unlike the light thrown out from the lamps, it was whiter in nature and Felicity decided it must have been the moon. She smiled thankfully as she decided that would make finding her purse much easier without the need to flood the room in lights.

Smiling broadly at her good favour, Felicity turned the corner into the kitchen and found Oliver sitting at the breakfast bar. She startled out a yelp which made his shoulders jolt and his body swing around on the stool until he was staring directly at her.

Her with no pants on.

“Hello,” she said awkwardly as her fingers pulled down on the hem of the jersey, “I forgot my bag.”
She spied it over by the table, looking untouched thank fuck, and she made her way towards it, with her back skimming the walls as she imagined her ass inexplicably hanging out the back of the top.

He had his hands wrapped around a mug that let off a pleasant aroma of honey and spiralled a smokestack of steam into the night air. He was looking at her with wide eyes that didn’t seem to blink and a jaw that looked somewhat dislodged and for a brief moment Felicity wondered if she had stumbled upon him in a sleep-state where his vacant expression was because he was actually asleep.

She felt her shoulders absently shrug as she decided that wouldn’t be all that bad just as she reached her bag and grappled it to her chest. But then, she realised, if that was the case, she couldn’t in all good conscience leave him there in a sleep stupor with a clearly hot drink in front of him.

“Couldn’t sleep?” she asked casually as she took a step away from the wall and towards him.
Finally he blinked and she expelled a breath she had held for a moment. “I don’t sleep all that much at night,” he answered softly before his eyes dropped to the countertop in front of him and he trapped them there. “You were awake?” he asked as he swallowed down the sight of her in a shirt that could have come off his own back.

He could feel the lump in his throat and the sudden dryness in his mouth, together with the thumping of blood heading south despite his internal pleas not to.
That could be his shirt.
The one that draped from her body, making her look tiny beneath it.
That could be his shirt.
The one that swept over her pert breasts and skimmed her taut and milky thighs.
That could be his shirt…

“I haven’t been able to work in with the time difference yet,” Felicity answered as a soft smile plucked at the corner of her lips.
“Would you like a drink? I can make you one,” Oliver offered, his words sprinting from his mouth.
The smile she’d been fostering at the corners grew across her whole mouth as she answered him while her fingers touched the arm of her glasses. “Oh I don’t want to be a bother.”
He stood up off the stool, his grey Henley raised a little at the sides to expose his hipbone where his grey sweatpants hung a little loose. “I like you,” he blurted, before quickly correcting, “your company. I would like your company.”

He moved around the counter, and while there, stood a good few feet away from each other, she caught the full-bodied scent of his musk and licked her lips absently in response to its woody fragrance.

“I can help,” she pipped as she followed him around to the kettle.
The muscles across his back flexed beneath the flimsy shirt as he filled the brushed chrome kettle and put it on to boil.

When he turned back towards her, they were only a foot apart.
“About earlier,” he started, his voice soft, if not a little rattled.
Felicity chewed her lip a little before she put her purse down on the floor and answered, “What about earlier?” She was unwilling to immediately admit to knowing what he was talking about – just in case she was completely wrong and he was going to critique her chopping skills rather than comment on the moment they almost kissed.
“Before Tommy came in,” he clarified. Felicity tried to keep her smile in check, but at least she wasn’t crazy to have imagined it. “I’m sorry,” he added.
She buried her surprise under a smile. Sorry wasn’t exactly the emotion she was feeling, so knowing that it was for him was a little blow to her ego and suddenly she felt extremely vulnerable and not just because she was standing in front of him without any pants on.
“Why?” she enquired, unsure what answer she wanted.
“Because,” his eyes dropped to the floor before they lifted and pinned directly onto hers, “I wanted to kiss you.”
She sucked in a silent gasp of air as she watched his eyes for any sort of cynicism, but found none. “Is that something you need to be sorry about?” Her voice was soft and barely reached his ears but to her it felt echoed and booming and she folded her lips in after it.
“I’m not sorry because I wanted to,” he said as he slid an inch closer, “I’m sorry that I was too slow.”

All Felicity could hear was that tiny little Iris-sounding voice in her head, ‘it’s really pretty simple’. “And what about now, do you still want to?” she asked quietly as she slid an inch closer too.
His hands moved at his side to within a hair’s breadth of her waist. “Yes, very much,” he answered with a husky voice.
His answer stole her breath and for a moment she thought about stepping back so she could breathe. But her feet wouldn’t move, no matter how she willed them.
“But I don’t want to be sorry again,” he added as his eyes softened and his lips stayed parted, breathing in warm air – her air.
“What for?” she asked, feeling her body sway up on her tiptoes towards him.
His palm grazed her waist and an electric feeling passed through them both.
“Because I’m afraid if I kiss you, I won’t want to stop.” His reply was gravelled and his eyes focused on her as his fingers stretched out, desperate to feel that same jolt again. Like an addict.
But it was her hand that touched him first, just the tips of her fingers lightly over his hip bone. “You seem pretty disciplined,” she whispered as her eyes became hooded and her freshly wet lips pouted. “Maybe just the one will be enough.”
His thumb touched her bottom lip and gently skimmed over it before she caught him at the wrist. With doe eyes and a soft voice she continued, “maybe that’s all you’ll want…”

His mouth fell against hers and with unsure and restrained lips he kissed her softly, not much harder than that of a gentle stroke from an autumn breeze, at least until she kissed him back and her arms slid over his shoulders; she wasn’t going anywhere.

Their lips pushed deeper together, craving a closeness they were now desperately unable to ignore. Hungrily, their lips parted and panted breaths like scorching lava bled from each of them before his tongue tentatively traced her lower lip and hers plucked at his upper one. After their lips fell back against each other their tongues weaved and danced together, floating from one mouth to the other.

His fingers slipped into her hair and cupped the back of her head as her hands laced fingers at the back of his neck while she sighed in utter contentment; simple.

With his mouth still devouring hers, Oliver stooped just enough to bend his knees before he scooped her up at the waist and placed her carefully on the bench so her knees hung off the edge. She hissed against his mouth and Oliver pulled away instantly, panic set in his expression.
“I’m sorry, I hurt you,” he stuttered as he looked down at her, searching for some sort of injury.
She grappled at the sides of his shirt as a warm laugh bubbled from her lips. “No, no you didn’t,” she assured him as she pulled him closer. “The bench is just a little cold,” she added as the chill of the stone top sparked a flurry of prickles up her thighs.
“Oh,” he sighed as he let himself be pulled against the lip of the counter and in between her legs. His hands moved to her thighs. “Your legs are cold,” he whispered as his palms soaked up the icy sensation.
“They are,” she smiled in response.
Slowly he started to rub them as she watched, amazed at just how much of her leg each of his huge hands could swallow. At first just the tips of his fingers disappeared under the shirt but as she shifted a little closer to the edge of the benchtop, they delved deeper under it until they grazed the edge of another fabric, her soft-cotton panties.
“Better?” he whispered, a kind of growl caught in his throat.
She nodded before she cupped his face and kissed him again, gentle, slow and savoured.
When she shifted even closer his thick fingers moved between her legs and brushed the damp pool bleeding through the fabric.

She pulled away from the kiss but left her hands on either side of his face.
“You want to stop?” he asked as his fingers stilled at the top of her damp thighs.
“No,” she hummed before she looked towards the same door Tommy had bounded through earlier that evening. “I just don’t want to be interrupted.”
She slipped down off the counter and with her body pressed tightly against his, she took his hand and started to move away.

Wordlessly he followed her with his eyes enchanted by the slow, feline sway of her body as she walked. They started up the stairs and halfway up she glanced over her shoulder at him, to catch the bright smile that lit up his face.

Once at the top she released his hand and her own dropped to her side.
“Was one enough?” she asked, her voice whispered despite knowing they were alone in the house.
He stepped back towards the hall that led to his room. “No,” he answered as he held his hand out to her, “Was one enough for you?”
A smile captured her lips and captivated his eyes as she shook her head and took his hand. No.

>>>>|<<<<

She was standing in his room, listening to the sound of her own breath panting from her lips when the click of the door closing made her spine shiver and the added clunk of Oliver locking it made a tantric sigh drip from her mouth.

He was behind her, hovering his hands just above her shoulders as he watched them rise and fall beneath the jersey that bore his name. Carefully he brushed her hair onto one side of her neck before he feathered a few delicate kisses on the creamy skin he’d exposed. Felicity felt her knees trembling before he slipped his arm around her waist and held her up against his chest.

“Are you sure you want this?” he whispered as his lips brushed her naked lobe and his beard grazed the underside of her jaw.
“Yes,” she breathed, her answer hedonistic and true, she wanted it; she wanted him, on her, under her, inside her. She wanted it all and she wanted it tonight.

With his arm banded across her stomach and his hand latched to her hip, he spun her around and caught her at the waist. Before she could speak, his lips were on hers and her tongue was in his mouth.

Unbeknownst to her, her fingers had taken it upon themselves to pull hastily on the hem of his shirt before slipping behind it to claw at his taut abdomen. When Oliver hissed in response, Felicity finally realised her instinctive eagerness and retracted her hands as she flew backwards.

“Oh god, sorry,” she cringed as a smiling Oliver lifted the bottom of his shirt just enough to see the fresh, red scratches marring his skin. She cupped her hand across her mouth to stifle a gasp before she mumbled through her fingers, “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he said as his smile drifted from goofy to mischievous, “I’m only sorry you stopped.”
For the first time, in a long time, he felt alive.

She reached out as she stepped closer and took the hem of his Henley from his hands before she guided it further up his chest and off his body. She teased her nails across the slopes of his chest; from the bottom of his ribs to his core and up over his hard pecs before rounding the mounds and lightly grazing through his smattering of hair and falling away at his Adonis belt.

A nervous energy twisted her stomach in knots as she stepped back and felt for the hem of her own shirt. This was going to happen. He wanted it. She wanted it. This was going to happen.

She lifted the oversized shirt off her body and shook out her hair as the shirt dropped to the floor near his.
“Wow,” he gaped, with his jaw hung loose and his eyes wide.
She blushed as she walked back towards the bed and he followed without prompting.
“You’re beautiful,” he gushed, watching as she slipped her glasses from her face and placed them carefully on the bedside table.
Her cheeks felt warm as the soft blush across her cheeks darkened to a scarlet shade.
“I’m sorry, I’ve embarrassed you. It’s been a while, and I’m not very good at this,” he added, finally blinking his eyes away for just a moment before they moved back to her.
“I think you’re doing just fine,” she smiled as the back of her knees brushed against his bed. She could see the outline of his cock, long and hard, pressing against the inside of his loose-fitting sweatpants and she felt a breath hitch in her throat as she realised that was for her.

With a flood of self-confidence and an aching to move things along, Felicity reached behind her back, found the clasp of her black bra and, keeping her eyes locked on his, she unfastened it and let it drop to the floor.
This was going to happen.

With another kiss they tumbled onto the bed and soon he was hovered above her, his body shadowing hers as the warm lamp beside the bed cast her porcelain skin in a luxuriant amber glow, in tendrils that danced when she breathed. His fingertips cascaded down the slopes of her silhouette, dipping in and out of the light before his thumb grazed over the top of her black cotton and lace panties.

She watched him swallow, deep and heavy, as his eyes fell to the last scrap of clothing left on her body. She lifted her head off the puffy pillow and caught his lips softly with hers before she towed him down as her head lowered again. One of his hands stayed at her hip while the other crept up her svelte waist and dipped in towards her breast.

He kissed a line from her lips, up her jaw and down the slope of her neck, nuzzling his nose into her skin in moments where he could smell her alluring aroma of vanilla.

He kissed the crescent of her breast as it pulled up her chest with a heavy gasp. His tongue touched her nipple first, teasing it on the tip before his lower lip swept back and forth. Felicity's fingers knotted in the opulent bedspread as a desperate sigh broke free from her lips. Fondling slow lines down her waist with his other hand Oliver wrapped his mouth around her coiled nipple and stroked it with the flat of his tongue as he sucked on it gently.

The feeling was euphoric and Felicity soon found herself gasping for air as he gently nipped at her skin before quickly soothing the same. She'd had rendezvous, relationships... sex, but the time he was spending on her body, slowly enjoying it, studying it, making her feel things she wasn't often treated to... had her whimpering his name and begging for more with the press of her hips into his legs. It became increasingly apparent that he wanted to take his time and, her body willing, Felicity was absolutely okay with that.

All sense of time vanished within those four walls. There was only them. There were only those moments where his mouth discovered almost every inch of her body and her keening sounds filled the air around them.

As they kissed for what seemed like the hundredth time, Felicity caught his head in her hands, “Please,” she begged with swollen lips, “my body is on fire.”
He rolled onto his side and took her with him as they lay face to face. “I need, to,” her breathless voice faded as she pressed her sex into his throbbing, but sheathed, mound.
His fingertips grazed down the side of her arm to her elbow as he smiled softly at her. “Allow me,” he whispered as he gently eased her legs apart and balanced one knee on top of his thigh.

His hand slipped between her skin and her panties and Felicity hummed salaciously as he slowly sliced his middle finger between her wet folds. She buried her face in the front of his shoulder as she panted moans into his sweat-drizzled skin.

When his finger was wet with her arousal, Oliver gently skirted her clit making her body shudder against his. His touch felt amazing, the thickness of his finger, the evenness of his strokes and the slight roughness of his pad soon had Felicity teetering on the edge of an orgasm much sooner than she could have ever imagined.
“Can I see your face,” he whispered and Felicity plucked herself away from his shoulder.

With their eyes tethered he burrowed his finger inside her entrance, making Felicity gasp out in elation. Her head writhed and nestled back into his shoulder before Oliver guided it free and held her gently at the chin.

He wanted to see her, to see the unbridled bliss colour her face and bleed like watercolours down her throat, he wanted to savour every second that his eyes were blessed with her vision; not because it made him feel needed or like he held her delirium in his hands, but because seeing how alive her face was made him feel alive too, something he hadn’t felt in a long time.

“Will you kiss me?” he asked softly as her eyes grew wet with rapture.
She opened her mouth to speak, but all she could do was moan and sigh as his finger moved inside her, dipping in and out fluidly while his thumb stroked her nub.
“When it’s time,” he added, his own throb between his legs making his words stutter out.
She nodded feverishly, finally understanding what he meant as her hand curved around his cheek and her nails dug into his scalp.

Keeping the same pace, Oliver added a second finger and firmly stroked them against her pulsing wall. Felicity, keeping to her promise, threw her lips onto Oliver’s the moment she felt the eruption in her core. Her whole body shook and her lips quivered against his, but she kept them there, kissing him long and hard as she came.

Despite the thrumming down his shaft, Oliver would have been happy and content like that, with her leg wrapped around him, her spend warming his fingers and her lips pressed to his, but Felicity had other ideas as she slipped her fingers into the waistband of his pants.

“Felicity, I can’t have sex with you,” he blurted out, stopping her hand as her fingers reached his base.
Her hand froze in place as a sudden wave of anxious-nausea washed over her. “Oh,” she gawked.
“Not because I don’t want to,” he corrected, with a soft, nervous stammer in his voice. “I think it’s pretty obvious I want to.”
His eyes travelled down the length of his body and her eyes followed until they stopped on his very prominent erection. “It’s just that any condoms I might be able to find would probably be expired,” he admitted with an embarrassed blush.

Felicity sat up on her elbow and chuckled lightly. “You have a beautiful laugh,” he smiled, unable to stop his own soft chuckle from bubbling forth, “I just wish I knew what I did to deserve it.”
“It’s not you,” Felicity blinked away, “I have condoms.” His eyes widened. “In my purse, downstairs, the one I was coming to get.”
His eyes lit up light fireworks had gone off behind them. “You do?”
“I could, go, uh,” she shuffled a little towards the side of the bed, “get them.”
“I’ll go,” Oliver said, a little louder and animated than he’d anticipated, but she smiled at his inability to hide his excitement.

>>>>|<<<<

When Oliver returned with her bag, he found Felicity under the covers of his bed with her hair brushed over her shoulders and her knees tented beneath the heavy quilt.

“Did you, uh…” he swallowed as he walked tentatively towards her, “…did you still want to?”
She smiled as she held out her hand and Oliver offered her the bag which he’d run up the stairs with it clasped to his chest as he tried to breath like he wasn’t panting.

She found the box Iris had put in her bag and tore one of the foil packets from the ribbon before she dropped her bag to the floor and handed Oliver the condom.
With a smile threaded across her lips, she reached under the covers of his bed and pulled out her balled up panties. “I’m sure,” she said as she dropped them near his feet.

She watched with her lip caught between her teeth as Oliver peeled off his sweatpants and kicked them across the floor. His erection made her sex thrum as her eyes soaked up the sheer size of it, long and thick and bobbing in the air like a totem pole of taut skin and twisted veins. Dropping her lip from her teeth she watched as he tore the foil packet open and rolled the condom down his length.

This was happening.

She moved over and pulled back the blankets.

He smiled as he clambered in.

This was definitely happening.

They kissed languidly as their fingers lazily explored each other’s bodies under the covers, but still feeling the euphoria from her previous orgasm and with Oliver’s quick sprint downstairs and back having no impact on his throbbing erection, it wasn’t long before their bodies were writhing together, seeking out a friction they both craved.

Her leg coiled over his hip, much like it had done before as her hand found his cock and gently guided it through her damp folds, slicking the latex in her arousal, before she nestled it against her entrance. He pushed forward just a fraction and her body swallowed his tip. They stilled there for a few moments, sharing the same air as they eyes stayed hooked to one another.

His free hand brushed back her hair and pinned it to her temple before she lifted her hips and slid him in deeper. Breathlessly, they moved like that, her body stretching around his cock, until he was completely settled inside her tight, thrumming walls.

There were words on both of their tongues that neither could express, so they kissed. Soft and timid, needy and trembled, deep and wild; with their bodies mimicking each phase, until they were thrusting and gyrating together in a tempestuous storm of lascivious moans.

She could see the passion and carnality in his eyes as every thrust of his cock surged deeper. She moved swiftly, pushing him onto his back and straddling his lap before she slid him to the hilt and braced his hands against her waist. With a gentle rock she lowered her body and Oliver kissed the misted sweat that glistened across her chest before she pressed their foreheads together.

“Five years is a long time,” she whispered, building up the tension along his cock as she rode him slowly. He nodded as sweat drenched his body. “It’s a long time to wait,” she hummed as she tightened his grip on her waist. She kissed him softly as his hands rocked with her hips. “Don’t hold back on my account,” she finished with an impish smile as she sat up just enough to see him.

She braced herself against his chest with her fingers curving over his broad shoulders and her nails anchoring into his muscles like tiny, pleasure-inducing knifes. “Take the wheel Oliver,” she rasped before she bucked forward, pushing him deep and hard and making them both cry out in decadent pleasure.

He did exactly that, with his hands around her waist and his fingers bruising her skin, he took her hips like reins and thrust himself harder and deeper and faster. His legs tented as he thrust her upwards, relishing the way she clenched her walls tightly around him, strangling his cock inside her.

The room filled with their carnal cries and Felicity came in an orgasm that made her back buckle and her head fall to his chest while her luxuriant hair toppled over his shoulder. Coated in a blanket of her warm release, Oliver came moments later, filling his latex sheath and sighing her name.

Finally alive.
Finally living.

For a moment finally able to forget that he’s not.

Chapter Text

The morning sun crept in through a slit in the heavy curtains and teased Felicity’s eyes awake. She fought it for as long as she could but when she peeked one eye open and remembered that she wasn’t in either of the two rooms she groggily expected herself to be in (the hotel room with Iris snoring in the bed beside her, or the chic guest bedroom in a stunning Brazilian house that was worth more than her entire apartment building), her second eye sprung open and she froze with her back to the other side of the bed as she counted slowly in her head to calm her suddenly and erratic breathing.

They had slept together last night; literal sleep coming after the common-use phrase ‘sleeping together’ that was. Her body still felt wonderfully branded by his lips because for a man who hadn’t really touched anyone in some time, he sure did make up for it.

He didn’t leave a single – and she meant single – part of her body untouched by his lips, even treating her toes to a fluttering of soft kisses that made her giggle and plead desperately for him to stop. She could feel her cheeks blushing as she recounted some of the other places his mouth had ventured and while she’d had previous partners go ‘down’, none had embarked on a journey that far, south. It was definitely one of those experiences that you had to try to truly appreciate the pleasure it could unleash. And unleash it did.

She remembered him dutifully offering her the shower first and while she thought about asking him to join her, her body was in desperate need of a recharge.

While he was showering she had contemplated making the short walk back to her room – perhaps a limp because there was one particular position she probably should have stretched before attempting – but she didn’t want Oliver to come out from his shower, see her gone and worry that he’d done something wrong, because, by god, he hadn’t.

So she had sat on his bed, careful not to be nosy around a room that wasn’t hers and she had waited. Only, when she woke up the moments ago and realised she was still in his room, Felicity knew she had fallen asleep while she waited for him. In his room. In his bed.

And now she had a few decisions to make; firstly she needed to know if Oliver was still in the room, let alone the bed. She held her breath to drown out any of her own noises and listened intently to the silence until she caught a slight ruffle of sheets, meaning it was likely he was still in the room and, in fact, still in his bed.

Secondly she needed to know if he was awake or asleep; maybe if he was asleep she could slip out of the bedroom without any awkward need for an apology for falling asleep uninvited in his bed, at least avoiding it for the moment, she would still have to apologise for that faux pas at some stage.

She heard the soft sound of someone – Oliver she assumed – clearing their throat and as she squeezed her eyes shut she considered the next available option; there was really only one, she needed to turn over…

In three, two…ten, nine

Oliver stared at the minute digits of his alarm clock, watching it like a hawk as it switched from 33 minutes to 34. It was 8:34. He honestly couldn’t remember the last time he’d woken up to a number like that. Ordinarily he struggled to get three measly hours a night and even that wasn’t restful as thoughts and worries plagued his head, and that was to say nothing of the pain that usually made itself known in the dark and silent moments.

But last night, last night… he sighed blissfully at the memory of it.
Everything about the night before and the stretch into the early hours of the morning put a smile on his face; the intimacy, the passion, the moments of light-hearted candour. The way she trusted him, the way she felt around his body, the way she kissed him; all of it – all of it – had served to awaken something that had been dormant so long.

They had made love like the world was ending and all they had was the here and now.

When he’d come out of the shower and discovered her curled up on top of the covers, fast asleep with a soft and pouted smile on her lips he wasn’t sure what to do, sure he knew what he wanted to do – climb into bed and fall asleep next to her – but his mind was a tangled web of thoughts on the realities of that.

He could leave, there were spare rooms and without her consent that she was comfortable sleeping – actually sleeping – with him maybe that was a better option, but if she woke up and found that he’d left she might be embarrassed or confused and he didn’t want her to feel either of those things.

He could have tried to wake her, but then some awkward discourse might have taken place where she assumed he wanted her to leave, which he didn’t, not at all, not in the slightest. But waking her might have given her that impression.

There was an armchair he could have made himself semi-comfortable in, in the corner of the bedroom, but it faced the side of the bed she’d fallen asleep on and he wondered whether seeing a 6ft something guy curled up in an armchair, asleep, facing her, might be a little unnerving if she happened to wake up before him.

Deciding it was probably the right course of action, Oliver had found a large, warm blanket in the top of his closet and draped it over Felicity while she slept. He resisted the urge to kiss her softly blushed cheek, but the thought that maybe one day he might be able to had made him smile, despite knowing in reality that it was virtually impossible.

He had dressed himself in sweatpants and a cotton tee and climbed into bed beside her, careful to stay on his side of the bed. For a few moments he considered the possibility that something could happen to him during the night, something which hadn’t happened in months, but something that he knew wasn’t an impossibility.

After all, the five pills a day simply held it at bay.

The prospect that it could happen and scare her terrified him, but it turned out his fear was unwarranted because that night he had slept better than he had in years.

The morning presented him with a refreshed feeling and a smile indelibly scribbled on his face, all thanks to her. Her, Felicity was still asleep beside him and now as morning broke he had a decision to make – leaving didn’t seem right regardless of whether she was awake or still asleep… and anyway, he needed to make sure she was okay.

Okay with last night, okay with what they did, okay with him staying in the bed… he just needed to know she was okay; and there was only one way to find out. He needed to turn over.

In five, four…

They both turned over at the same time and four cheeks instantly blushed crimson.
“Morning,” he said softly, a slight morning rasp in his voice.
She swallowed first, coating her throat in a little saliva to warm up her voice before she answered with a smiled, “Morning.”
“Did you sleep alright?” he asked, his vocal cords finally loosening up.
Her cheeks blushed a little redder and she blinked away, seemingly embarrassed. “I’m sorry I fell asleep in your bed, I was going to leave,” she spoke softly before her eyes drifted back to his and her lips folded in on themselves.
He reached out his hand and brushed his fingertips down the side of her face like a delicate feather tracing the curves. “I’m glad you didn’t,” he said quietly, with his eyes embedded in hers. They both took two small breaths in silence before Oliver spoke again, “Could I kiss you?” he asked.

She smiled at the sweetness of him asking given the romp they had the night before, but she nodded all the same. Oliver drifted closer, lifting his body ever-so-slightly onto his shoulder before he lowered his lips gently onto hers. His hand cupped her face, his palm warm against her cheek and his fingers threaded through her hair. The more familiar the kiss became, the deeper their lips pressed until there was no space between them and they only parted to breathe.

“Good morning,” she said, a pleasant smile hung on her lips as her eyes stayed at half-mast.
Their faces remained close with their noses nestled into each other’s cheeks and their foreheads pressed together.
“Good morning,” he whispered, intoxicated by her eyes, her lips, her taste, her smell, … honestly, just her. They kissed a second time, a soft, almost chaste peck that continued to make them both smile. After the third kiss, Oliver smoothed his thumb up her cheek and her eyes fluttered open.
“Café da Manhã?” he asked warmly.
She pursed her lips trying to decipher what he was saying in his warm, decadent accent, but all she knew was the word café.
“Morning coffee?” he chuckled and her eyes widened with glee, “it’s essentially what we call breakfast. Coffee is a pretty important staple,” he explained, unwilling to take his hand from her face.
“I knew there was a reason I liked Brazil,” she chuckled ardently as her fingers traced the sinewy cords of his forearm all the way to his elbow.
“Pingado, black,” he smiled, letting the Portuguese word roll off his tongue like second nature, “or média, half and half?”
Felicity scrunched her nose as she attempted to match the sound and inflection of the word, “Pingado,” she answered with a look of trepidation. Oliver kissed her gently, stealing the worry from her furrowed lips. When he pulled away, she was smiling. “Maybe just a touch of milk,” she added.

He nodded as he slipped out from the covers, his hands instantly missing the gentle slopes of her body. She almost sighed when she realised he was fully dressed but a quick brush of her hand across her mouth disguised the momentary disappointment. Of course he was dressed, had he have not been, while it would have been a treat to the eyes, it might have left a few questions and her disappointment was quickly replaced by the blissful realisation that he was a good guy, charming, sweet, caring... the type of guy you should fall in love with.

Of course it was far too early in the piece to entertain that idea. Absolutely too early. Felicity wasn’t a blurry eyed dreamer, nor was she the hopeless romantic type, but the thought was there; Oliver was the type of guy love songs prepared you to find.

The way he looked back at her once he was on his feet had her blushing for what felt like the millionth time that morning.
“Belíssimo,” he praised softly, “Beautiful.”
Felicity didn’t need the translation, she knew that word, but hearing him saying it without a scratch of irony was one of the most refreshingly sexy things she’d ever seen.
“Should I,” she started to move under the blanket she realised he must have draped over her.
“Stay,” he breathed and Felicity relaxed into the bed, “I’ll bring it up.”
She nodded with a warm smile, that was an offer she wasn’t going to scoff at; his bed was insanely comfortable.

>>>>|<<<<

Oliver moved about the kitchen like it was a sport, rolling oranges down his arm while stretching his leg behind him to close the fridge door. The aroma of percolating coffee and toasted bread filled the galley-space while a song playing in his head distracted him from the thoughts he was wrestling with. Being with Felicity was a dream, but a dream 5 years too late and deep down, he knew it. But for now he was doing his best to ignore the questions he didn’t want to ask.

Tommy sauntered into the kitchen looking like an extra from a Gatsby movie in a plaid pink shirt and tan slacks coupled with a million dollar smile. Oliver barely paid him any attention as he continued to float around the room, stopping only to smell the flower he'd picked earlier from the garden.

“Someone woke up happy,” Tommy teased as he made his home on one of the stools. “Because this is rare,” he added as he smacked his lips together while eyeing up the delectable spread of fruit, bread rolls and toasted muesli.
“I do this,” Oliver retorted as he danced a mug over to the coffee machine.
Tommy huffed out a belligerent laugh. “Not for me, Thea maybe,” he refuted before stealing an orange segment.

Oliver let the infringement go with only a half-raised brow and a crooked smirk before Tommy continued, “Why so chipper this morning?”
“No reason,” Oliver shrugged smugly, trying his best to hide his smile from his best friend.
Another segment went into Tommy’s mouth, “just no reason?” he spoke as he chewed.
“No.”
Tommy finished his mouthful and stood off the stool. “Hmm, okay,” he started with a smirk of his own, “I left some stuff in your room yesterday I’m just going to get it.”
Oliver’s eyes widened, “What stuff? I can get it,” he announced.
“Oh no, no bother, I’ll just go...” Tommy dusted his hands together as he walked towards the door until his best friend appeared, a little frazzled, in front of him.
“Tell me where you left it.”
Tommy watched, with glee, as the slightly older Oliver hopped nervously from one foot to the other before he stood back on the heels of his loafers, crossed his arms over his chest and smirked. “She’s in your bed isn’t she?”

Oliver gulped.
“Did you two sleep together?” Tommy quizzed jauntily, “and by sleep I mean...”
“I know what you mean,” Oliver interrupted, fisting a hand anxiously at his side.
“So did you?”
Tommy wasn’t intending to brush this aside.
Oliver ran his tense fingers through his hair, nails raking his scalp. “I’m not going to talk about it,” he answered gruffly.
“That’s a yes,” his counterpart replied as a smile turned up his lips. “I’m happy for you man, I thought that maybe with everything going on that you might close yourself off to this, but you didn’t.”

Oliver’s smile dropped and his eyes grew weary. Tommy was right; with everything going on, he shouldn’t have slept with her. Had he made wordless promises to her last night that he knew he couldn’t keep.

Tommy soon noticed the dip in his friend’s demeanour. “Wait, what’s this face?” he said as Oliver turned and took a lumbered step towards the stairs. “Go back to being weird and smiley,” Tommy pleaded, following his friend to the bottom balustrade.
Oliver sighed, as the flood gate of doubt opened in his head. This wouldn’t last and he had no right to start it. “It was a mistake,” he remarked as his forlorn eyes walked up to the second story landing.
“No, god, no go back,” Tommy begged, the strain showing across his brow.
Oliver offered his friend a bleak but apologetic smile.
It shouldn’t have happened; he shouldn’t have let it.

>>>>|<<<<

Oliver returned to the bedroom by himself, without a tray of food or a mug of the promised coffee. Felicity watched him from the bed as he ran a troubled hand through his hair and couldn’t seem to focus his eyes on her.

For a moment he wrestled with his own thoughts and feelings, trying to put something together, but in the end all he had was a muted, “Maybe it would be better to have breakfast downstairs.”
“Oh, okay,” she answered, somewhat taken aback by the change.
His eyes stayed low. “Sorry,” he mumbled.
“Don’t be,” she replied warmly, she hated crumbs in the bed and he had a very nice bed.
“I should go get dressed,” she offered as her fingertips found the shirt beside the bed and dragged it under the sheet.
He nodded lithely, “Okay.”
When he looked up, Felicity noticed that his smile had fallen. He tried to replace it, but it wasn’t the same as it had been twenty minutes ago, something had changed.

>>>>|<<<<

They sat down to breakfast in relative silence and when Felicity had finally garnered enough courage to ask him about the sudden change in his demeanour, Thea appeared, bright and spritely, and took a seat next to Felicity.

“Will you come sightseeing with me today?” Thea asked eagerly before she fed a slice of pineapple between her glossy lips.
Felicity shifted somewhat awkwardly in her seat, the movement making a residual feeling from last night flutter between her legs. “I’m not sure if there is more to do on the article,” she answered simply as she kept her eyes trained on her spoon as she moved the cereal around her bowl with it.

When the silence seemed indefinite she looked up and saw Oliver gazing out the window with an unreadable expression on his face. He turned slowly, his eyes now falling to Felicity's. “I think you have enough. You should go with Thea,” he replied, a melancholy tainting his words.
She wasn’t sure why, but something about his dismissal made her heart twist itself into a knot.
Had she misunderstood this morning?

Thea, oblivious to the strained atmosphere, pointed herself towards Felicity brandishing a wide smile. “We can swing by your hotel so you can check out and just stay here until you’re ready to leave,” she enthused.
Felicity tucked stray strands of hair behind her ear and listened for a pin to drop in the silence.
“Thea, you shouldn’t make choices for her,” Oliver answered bluntly and the next sound was the scraping of Thea’s chair against the floor as she turned to face her brother.
Felicity laid her spoon against the side of her plate and placed her hands on her lap, a suddenly wretched feeling immersing her, He didn't want her to stay?

But he wasn’t done there.
“Ms Smoak probably wants to get back to some normality.”
Felicity practically had to swallow her tongue and wire her jaw shut. Ms Smoak? He hadn’t said that last night while he was tangled up in the sheets, his body above hers, his cock swollen and pumping deep inside her as his wet lips crashed to her neck while he came for the second time that night. Ms Smoak... no he hadn’t whispered that into her ear last night with their bodies ravaged and their breaths rapid and frantic.

Felicity tried to logically explain the sudden bout of formality, and perhaps it might have been for Thea’s sake, but he’d never done that before and even the wriggle on Thea’s brow suggested it was strange in her opinion too. The air felt stale, distant, so incredibly opposite to the languid moments they spent in bed less than an hour ago.

“Yes, I suppose that’s true,” Felicity finally spoke, though her voice was frail and her inflection confused. “I’ll just gather my things, so I’m ready to leave when you are Thea,” she added as she pressed a napkin to her lips, slid the chair back and walked out, desperately trying to hold herself together.

Thea looked suspiciously across the table at Oliver, but before she could say anything, Oliver too had left the room. He caught up to Felicity at the landing at the top of the stairs.

“You can stay as long as you like,” he countered, noting the sombre turn her usually melodic voice had taken when she’d left the table. “John will take you home when you’re ready.” The way she was looking at him forced his eyes to the ground, disgusted at himself.
“Thank you,” she answered civilly, but without warmth. “But I’ll have Thea take me to the hotel afterwards.”
Oliver bit back a thousand words, and settled on eight. “I assumed you would want to leave soon.”
He watched her balance on the heels of her feet as her eyes blinked upwards, damning back emotions. He knew he sounded aloof and distant and that between last night and that moment they were living, it was the difference between night and day. In his effort not to hurt her, he knew he was doing exactly that.
“Last night I wasn’t thinking,” he offered sincerely, scrambling to undo the damage he’d already wreaked, “I made...”
“A mistake?” she finished when he paused.
He shook his head sullenly, it wasn’t a mistake; just not something he had the right to.

“It shouldn’t have happened,” he whispered with his head hung low.
“Why?” she asked pointedly. She wanted an answer, an answer he wasn’t sure he could part with.
“It just shouldn’t have, for you.”
His head was scrambled and his eyes were throbbing in their sockets. He wanted to tell her, but the truth was stuck in his throat. Afraid.
“That’s weak and you know it,” she argued as a single tear escaped her eye and weaved down her cheek. “If you regret it now then just say so.”
Her voice cracked as he could only lift his head and whisper, “I’m sorry.”
She nodded as she backed away, holding his eyes for as long as she could. “So am I, I’m sorry I was wrong about you.”

>>>>|<<<<

“What did you do?” Thea slammed the door to Oliver's office a little after four pm, so loudly that even the usually stoic John jumped up from the leather couch and into bodyguard mode, relaxing only when he realised it’s was the younger Queen.

Oliver rubbed his temple. He was fully prepared to be yelled at when he watched Thea and Felicity leave that morning. There was no doubt in his mind he deserved it, but right at that moment with a migraine niggling across his head he could really use a few hours’ reprieve.
“Thea, we'll talk about it later,” he rasped with his head between his cupped hands.
She continued her march up to his desk, her cheeks flushed with anger. “No, we'll talk about it now.”
“Thea maybe you should give Oliver a few hours,” John said calmly as he placed his hand on Thea’s shoulder. Oliver was pale and his breathing was lumbered.
“Did he tell you?” she asked as she turned her head towards John.

Thump, thump, thump, Oliver could feel the blood moving at his temples like a stampede. His eyes were blurry as his fingers gripped the edge of his desk to stabilise him as the room spun like a carnival ride.

“Thea,” he pleaded, though his words were lost into his palms.
“He slept with her and then basically threw her out. Tommy let it slip and her face told me the rest,” she chastised, threads of hurt colouring her voice.
John looked at Oliver, expecting a challenge to what the younger Queen was alleging, but nothing
No denial, no retort, nothing.
“You used her,” Thea hissed as she swiped the back of her hand through a stray tear. “Is that what it was Oliver, one last fuck until you peace out?”
“Thea, stop,” John said brusquely.
She threw a hand into the air and huffed, “you’re supposed to be better than that Oliver. I always thought you were.”
She left in the same manner she had entered, loud and unmissable.

John uncapped a water bottle and put both it and a small pink pill in front of Oliver. “Drink, take,” he instructed.
Oliver did both, his throat constricting at the pill as it tumbled down it. “No lecture?” he asked before swallowing another mouthful of water.
“You’re a grown ass man, if you want to have meaningless sex with a woman you don’t intend to see again, that’s on you,” John shrugged as he checked the time on his watch. “Maybe should have waited until after the article was released,” he added with another shrug, “but Tommy is the press guy so I guess that’s his problem.”
“It wasn’t meaningless,” Oliver admitted sadly, in truth it meant everything.
John folded his gargantuan arms across his broad chest. “Then I’m afraid you’ve lost me.”
“It wouldn’t work,” Oliver lamented. He had spent hours convincing himself of that; or at least trying to.
“Did you both decide that?”
The question was loaded, and Oliver knew it. “It’s better for her,” he answered without answering.
“Again, who decided that?” John's question poked. “From where I’m standing it doesn’t seem like you gave her a choice.”
“I can’t give her what...”
“Oliver stop,” the older man interrupted. “I know I only shared a few rides to and from here with her, but I think I pegged her right, she’s smart.”
Oliver nodded, “Incredibly.”
“She’s thoughtful,” John continued.
Another sure nod. She saw him.
“And she’s capable of making her own choices,” John finished as he unravelled his arms from around his chest and laid his hands on his hips.

“You think I should have told her everything?” Oliver asked, despite knowing the answer.
“I think you can trust her with the truth Oliver.”

>>>>|<<<<

It took Oliver an hour of playing everything over in his head before he knew what he’d, in truth, known all along. He grabbed his wallet and phone and ran to the front door, only to realise the house was empty and the car was gone.

He stared down at his phone and contemplated calling John back, but he was afraid that if he waited the thirty minutes it could take for John to return to the house, he might have talked himself out of what he was about to do.

He took a sharp breath inwards and yanked the front door open to a torrential down pour. Of course. He didn’t stand on the doorstep for long, aware that the longer he contemplated it the more likely he would find himself retreating.

Another breath to psyche himself up and Oliver ran out into the pelting rain, down the side path of his house, through the security gate and out onto the open road. Panic set in as the noise of the busy street surrounded him, but he was already here; he was going to do this.

He hailed a cab and its tires screeched to a halt in the wet gutter, drenching his shoes in the resulting spray of water.
She would be worth it.

>>>>|<<<<

Felicity was alone in her hotel room, carefully packing her suitcase in a slow, almost mindless fashion. She was in no hurry as the earliest flight she could get wasn’t till the following afternoon, but she would wait at the airport after checkout, because, despite Thea’s offer to take her around some more sights, she really couldn’t put herself in the sightseeing spirit.

She was annoyed at herself, not for sleeping with Oliver. She had wanted to and if she was being honest, she knew there was no promise of anything more than that. But, she was annoyed that for a few moments she had been spellbound by his smile and his eyes and his accent and his words and his lips and his cock... she pursed her lips at the indecency of her own mind, but it wasn’t a lie.

Their night together had been amazing, but the time they spent together in bed the next morning; that had made her believe that it could be more, that he wanted it to be more.

Before she could dissect it any further, a knock on the door pulled her mind away and she walked up to the door and pulled it open. It was Oliver, wet and shivering.

“Can we talk, please?” he asked, his lips a pale shade of blue and his shoulders shaking beneath his white crew neck, so wet it had turned transparent. She left the door open and walked away from it. Taking a clean towel off the end of the bed, she threw it at him as he followed her in and shut the door.

“Why are you wet?” she asked the obvious question first.
Oliver looked dishevelled as he ran a towel across his face and through his hair. “It’s raining outside, there was a lot of traffic and I might have run the last block here,” he explained with a smile.
She turned on the balls of her feet, walking a frustrated circle before she leaned up against the dresser, honed her eyes on him and asked the ‘pink elephant' question, “What are you doing here Oliver? Why did you come?”
He balled the towel up in his massive hands, “I owe you the truth.”
“You don’t owe me anything, we can just part ways and go on,” she remarked as she kicked off from the dresser but only took half a step closer to him before she stopped advancing. “Don’t worry, last night was off the record. I might not be an actual reporter but I have some decency and I’d rather keep the fact we slept together private anyway. I don’t need to be labelled ‘that girl’,” she said tautly as she made speech marks in the air.

“I’m not worried about that,” Oliver promised, though if she did taint him with that brush he believed it would be deserved.
“All the same,” she shrugged with smile-less lips.
She was keeping him at a distance and he knew that too was well-deserved.

“Felicity, last night was amazing, you are amazing and I really care about you,” he started, his body moving like a magnet toward her, but Felicity stepped back against the dresser.
“Oliver don’t, you don’t have to explain it, it’s fine, it was one night, it was enough,” she deflected with the same words she had tried to convince herself with.
“No,” he pleaded, nearly breathless, “I don’t feel that way.”
“Stop, please,” she practically begged as her voiced cracked under the strain. “I’m trying to find a way to be okay with the fact you basically shovelled me out of your life, you saying all this isn’t making it any easier.” She steadied her breathing just enough to continue softly, “Just say you don’t want to see me anymore. It was fun, but that’s all.”
“I don’t want to lie to you.” The words trembled in his throat.
“Oliver stop,” she pleaded.

“I didn’t want it to be just one night,” he continued as he took a tentative step forward.
Her face twisted in confusion, his words now seemed so genuine but masked in fear.
“Why are you so afraid of feeling something then? So afraid of living?”
“I’m not,” he replied. Laid bare.
“Afraid?” she piqued.
“No,” he sighed. Cards on the table. “I’m not living, not really, every day I have is borrowed.” Another breath, shallow and shaking. His eyes on her. “Felicity I’m dying.”

He took a slow considered breath. It was out there now and the weight lifted off his shoulders as they fell forward, tired of being resilient for so long.
“I have Atypical meningiomas, in simpler terms, a brain tumour, actually plural, I have three,” he spoke softly, unafraid of each word now.
Felicity moved closer, her eyes tacked to his. “Cancer?” she asked quietly.
He shook his head languidly. “No, they aren’t malignant, but one is large and growing faster than any treatment can keep up with. If it continues I will die, in about 18 months, slowly losing parts of me.” His voice stayed cleared, a result of the times he’d told himself the same thing on repeat, trying to make his peace with it. “My eyesight, my memories, my nervous system and eventually my ability to move, to eat, to breathe and then the inevitable.” Death a word he didn’t need to say.
Felicity felt a torrent of emotions as she struggled to comprehend what must be an avalanche of emotions in him, though his face never gave way to them. “Can they remove it?”
Before either realised it, they were standing barely two feet away from each other.

“Most surgeons turned me down,” he answered, the process had been weary and his tone reflected that struggle. “But I finally found one that was willing to try. The success rate is about 40% so there is a 60% chance I’ll die on the table.” He tried to offer the percentages as facts, numbers he’d memorized, statistics he knew. He’d approached it the same way when he told Thea he was going to take the chance; risk that 40% chance because dying slowly just wasn’t an option for him.

Felicity wrung her hands together as she quietly asked “When?”
“In two months,” he answered forlornly as he stepped a little closer, closing the gap between them to a foot at most. “Felicity,” her name drifted from his lips like a sigh, “I didn’t want to promise you a future I had no right to promise and no guarantee of. I don’t know if I’ll come out of the surgery the same, if I come out of it at all.” Tears that had formed in the corners of his eyes broke free and slipped like tiny drops of sorrow down his sullen cheeks. “I’ve said my goodbyes to those I love. Your article was to be my final goodbye to the sport I love and the fans I’ve cherished. I thought maybe a part of me would live on in that story if I didn’t.”

She watched his hands tremble at his side as the emotions finally took a hold and ravaged him. “You deserve a love greater than what I could offer you. I should have told you this last night, before we…” he paused and Felicity could see the guilt he was feeling, “I should have told you, but I was terrified of having to say another goodbye when we barely got a hello.”

She watched him take a deep, almost painful breath as he stepped back and a cavern of space seemed to open up between them.
“I’m sorry if I hurt you or if I caused you any pain. That was never my intention. I never went into this thinking I would meet someone like you, someone who, five years ago, might have…” he stopped himself short, there wasn’t the time for what ifs. “When I saw you, I just wanted someone who might see me, you did and I’m eternally grateful to have met you Felicity.”

He took another step away; another cavern.
She wasn’t saying much, her lips quivered and her eyes were watering. She opened her mouth to speak, but only a shaky breath fell out.

“Thank you, for everything,” he whispered warmly as he reached the door. He turned and opened it, but stood looking out into the vacant hallway for a few languished moments before he twisted his head back towards her, offered her the kindest of smiles and said, “A moment with you made me feel more alive than I have in a long time. Thank you.” The last two words cracked in his throat and he knew it was time to go.

He stepped out into the hall, his feet heavy with woe, but his shoulders lifted from the truth.
“Oliver wait,” Felicity called as she rushed forward the few steps to the door.
He stopped just ahead of her and turned.
“Two months?” she asked softly.
He nodded out a shaky, “Yeah.”
“And if you didn’t have this, if you were fine, would you, what then?” she stumbled over the words as her heart thumped and her throat became dry.
His smiled calmed her before he answered. “I would have loved the chance to fall in love with you.”
“Okay,” she breathed as she stepped closer, her body framed by the doorway.
His brow twitched in uncertainty. “Okay?” he puzzled.

She swallowed any hesitation because sometimes life doesn’t have a plan, sometimes it’s a risk, but a risk worth taking.
“Two months with you sounds better than walking away from this without giving it a chance,” she explained as her eyes dropped to her hand. It was still, not even the slightest of quivers; that’s how you know. “Last night you asked me to stay, tonight I’m asking you to stay. Was one enough for you?” she asked as she extended the same hand out towards him and waited.

He took it, folding his fingers into hers. “No, it wasn’t,” he answered faintly as his eyes lit up.
Felicity pulled him into the room and kissed him against the door. The kind of kiss where tears bled into lips and breaths warmed the air between them; the kind of kiss that said everything without a single word being said.

Two months.
About 60 days.
1440 hours.

You could fall in love in 1440 hours.

Chapter Text

The rain hadn't let up and the sound of it tapped against the window pane as the dark sky outside twinkled with the City’s lights. There was something to be said about lying in bed with a delicious ache between your legs and the sensation of a thousand kisses still resonating on your skin in a sort of silent state, watching the world pass by the window. And that’s the state Felicity found herself in; her shoulders against the padded headboard with her body slightly slumped and her knees folded, one covered by dishevelled bed linen and the other exposed at the knee; just watching the minutes slip by. Only there was something sitting at the end of her tongue, a whole raft of something; questions she wasn’t sure she had any right to ask.

“You want to say something,” Oliver noted as he lay across the bed ahead of her with a skewed sheet draped over his waist.
Felicity smiled briefly as she ran her nimble fingers through her tangled hair and shifted her shoulders against the padded headboard behind her.
“It's okay,” he coaxed gently as he drew small circles at the bend of her exposed knee. “Ask me.”
“Does it hurt?” she asked, her voice quiet and timid.
“A little,” he admitted with a forlorn sigh. “Sometimes it's like a thumping I can't quiet and other times it feels like my head is in a vice, slowly being crushed.”
His eyes closed tightly as he recounted the moments of sheer agony and fits of maddening that would have seen him do almost anything to make it stop.

Felicity watched as his lips trembled when he brought them closer to her leg and brushed a gentle trickle of kisses down her skin. “Where are they?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper as her eyes tracked over the seemingly perfect shape of his head beside her.

Oliver scooted a little closer until his head rested by her waist before he sat up on an elbow. Wordlessly he took her hand and carefully stretched out her fingers before he brushed her hand across his temple on the right side of his head. “There is one here. It's the smallest, about the size of a half dollar.” With his guidance, her hand drifted to the left side of his head but down towards his ear. “There is another here, not much bigger.”

He took a shaky breath as he dropped his chin to his chest and moved her hand down to the base of his neck and glided it up to the crown while he flattened her palm and fanned out her fingers, mapping the size of the last. “This is the one that will eventually kill me,” he whispered.

She looked at her hand as it spread out over his crown and her eyes grew watery while she imagined what lay beneath. “When did you find out?”
“About 3 years ago,” he sighed as he sat up, taking the sheet with him. “I took a hit to the head on the field and got knocked out. They gave me a scan afterwards.” His eyes dropped and his shoulders slumped forward before Felicity entwined her fingers with his.
“We don't have to talk about it,” she spoke softly as her hand squeezed his.
He swallowed his trembling breath. “I want to.”
He'd spent so long burying it behind facts and figures, distancing himself from the realities that it was happening to him, now. Perhaps it was finally time to give it a face; even if that face was his own.
“Then I want to listen,” she smiled warmly.

“I don't remember the words the doctor used but I could tell you the colour of the walls in the room and how many times the gurney with the squeaky wheel went past the door, or the way there was a lingered smell of Purell in the air.” His eyes closed when the noises and smells all assaulted his senses as he remembered them. “I remember him giving me a moment to call someone and I just stared at my phone. I never called anyone. I just sat there until he came back.”
His hand trembled in Felicity’s and she gently stroked her thumb over his knuckles before he continued. “The next few weeks were a haze of tests until they knew exactly what I was up against. I took the first course of radiation in secret,” he confessed with a subtle rock of his head. “It was stupid really but Thea was in school, Tommy was going through his own stuff and I guess I was worried that by telling them…” he looked up at her, his eyes glassy with unspent tears, “…I was somehow making it all real.”

“You went through that alone?” Her heart ached for him and instinctively her hand tightened in his.

“It was foolish,” he admitted with a sigh. “The treatment was aggressive and it took a pretty hefty toll on my body. When Thea came to visit I had lost 20 pounds and my skin was a ghoulish white. Needless to say, she noticed and I had to come clean.”

Felicity couldn’t begin to imagine the pain and hurt that those who loved him the most must have felt on learning his predicament; she barely knew him and her heart ached in a million different ways.
“I never went alone to any appointment or treatment after that, even if I wanted to,” he said with a soft chuckle and a deeply appreciative smile.
“The treatment worked?”
“For a time yes. It even shrunk the two on the side and stopped the growth of the third. They had hoped to shrink it so they could perform a resection,” he paused, realising he was using words he once never understood, “removing it, or most of it. But about six months ago, it started growing again, faster than before. Another course of radiation did nothing and I was told there was only one other treatment available.”
“Surgery?”
He nodded slowly. “But it's wrapped around the brain stem and it has fingers in almost every part of my brain meaning no one would touch it. Most suggested I could have 5 years without any neurological effects and that after that specialist care could make me 'comfortable'. I don’t want to live that life, never knowing if I’ll go to bed one night and wake up to my movement or my sight going.”

He paused to reflect on the dark thoughts that had swallowed him up at that time; the rash decisions he had almost committed to and the quietly reflective ones he had resigned himself to. “I finally found a team that agreed to attempt to remove it, but it had to be soon before it grew beyond even them.”

“Thea doesn’t want you to do the surgery?” Felicity asked, her voice soft and treading carefully.
“She thinks there is a better way; that I can wait it out with more treatment which might keep it at bay long enough for them to discover a new advancement or treatment, or a surgery with better odds.”
“Is that a possibility?”
“Sure,” his shoulders limply shrugged. He had come to appreciate that nothing was clear cut and no eventuality could be 100% certain. “It is possible. Radiation shrunk it the first time, there is a chance it could again but in 18 months it will go beyond what anyone is prepared to operate on. At that stage I will be, in effect, signing my own death warrant. I’ll lose parts of me slowly but surely. I don’t come back from this.”

His last few words hung, unchallenged, in the air for a few moments before he continued. “Thea doesn’t remember our parents,” a despondent sigh left his lips, full of regret that wasn’t his burden to bear; yet he did all the same. “She was so young when they passed and my memories are all that keep them alive. If I lose those; which if I don’t try anything, I eventually will, it would be like losing my parents all over again.” A single tear slid down his cheek before it bled into his trimmed beard. “I don’t want to die that way Felicity; stripped of everything I am, everything that I was until I’m nothing more than a shell. I’m afraid of that,” he admitted, “at least with the surgery if I die, it will be on my terms.”
She kissed a second tear from his cheek before she held her forehead against his and brushed her fingertips down the back of his neck.
“How do Tommy and John feel?” she asked, her words like a tranquillity when matched with his turbulent mind.
“John understands,” Oliver remarked as he held her hand against his skin. “He’s a realist and I think with the same factors he’d choose the same course. Tommy not so much but he’s trying and I know he’ll support me in the end, regardless.”
“And Raisa?”
Another sigh warmed the air between them. “I don’t know, all she says is hope keeps a person alive. Faith keeps them fighting and love gives them a reason to hope and have faith.”
“She’s a smart woman.”
Oliver skimmed his fingers over the apple of Felicity’s cheek before he pinned back her hair and studied the crisp blue of her eyes. “It takes one to know one.”

She blinked away, besotted but embarrassed before he lifted her chin and brushed his lips against hers. There was no rush in that kiss, no countdown of days or minutes and no cloud of eventualities hanging over them, it was soft, gentle and for the faintest of moments, it was beautifully tragic.

“So what’s on your list?” she whispered as they broke the kiss but their lips stayed so close every syllable brushed against his.
“My list?” he perplexed.
She pulled a little further away so he could see the smile in her eyes as her fingers toyed with the shorts of his hair at the nape of his neck. “You know, your list,” she repeated with a pleasant laugh, “A bucket list of the things you want to do, see, experience before...”
Her smiled dropped away when she realised she couldn’t bring herself to say it, nor sure she even should.
He swallowed, trying his best to keep the wavering smile on his lips. “Before,” he said simply.
A crimson shadow blanketed her cheeks, “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he remarked while his hand cupped her face and his thumb smoothed over the crest of her cheek. “I’ve kept myself from living for so long, to see it with fresh eyes is a blessing.” He paused to grace the tip of her nose with a kiss. “A bucket list you say?”

Felicity reached over and opened the nightstand drawer where she found a hotel pad and a sign-written pen. She held both objects between her palms like a sandwich and smiled. “A bucket list,” she announced as she handed them to him. “We'll do them together, if you want.”
“I can’t ask you to put your life on hold for me,” Oliver lamented, despite the longing in his heart to beg for her to do just that.
“You’re not,” she answered before she pecked a kiss to his forehead, “I’m just taking the scenic route. So write them down.”
“And whatever I write down…?” he probed.
“We’ll do.”

He nodded as he began to write something. A few silent moments passed before he looked up from the pad, grinned and handed her the list.
Felicity looked down at it and a smile soon filled every plane of her face as she read it aloud. “’Have sex with the prettiest woman I’ve ever seen (hint, that’s you Felicity)’. That’s not really how this works,” she mocked in jest before she dropped her pout and smiled again, “but I’ll allow it.”
“That was supposed to have a twice on the end,” Oliver beamed as his finger tapped the edge of the pad.
“Oh is it?” she casually shrugged as she dropped the pen and pad onto the nightstand.
“Small oversight really,” he hummed, rasp deepening his voice.
Felicity smoothed her hands over his taut pecs and rolled her fingers over his shoulders and up towards his neck where they laced in the centre. As she moved closer, the sheet which had been tucked across her breasts slipped down and her firm mounds lifted up her chest with each deep breath she took.
“I’m almost certain we can come to an agreeable compromise,” she breathed as she lowered her head to the pillow and pulled him down with her.
He kissed her neck, warm and fragrant. “I’m nothing…” another kiss towards her chin, “…if not,” two kisses up her jaw as his chest grazed hers, “…agreeable.” His next kiss was at the very tip of her jaw and she sighed contently with it.
“You certainly agree with my body,” she hummed, husky and alluring.

>>>>|<<<<

Felicity roused to the hazy glow of the lamp, fragmented by Oliver’s form sitting up beside her, pen in hand. Her lips smacked together softly before a yawn stretched out her svelte frame under the covers.
“What time is it?” she asked sleepily, with a smile permanently tacked to her face as her body still tremored from the night of consecutive orgasms.
“About 2am,” Oliver answered as Felicity half sat up. “Sorry did I wake you?”
She shook her head in a tumble from side to side. “No, it’s fine, I’m glad you’re still here,” she cooed before something plucked her eyes wider, “Wait, has John been waiting for you downstairs this whole time?” she panicked.
Oliver leaned over and kissed the fret from the crinkle across her nose. “No, John didn’t drop me off. I took a taxi.”
She shifted up the bed a little until her shoulder braced the headboard. “You took a taxi?” she quizzed, surprise hanging from her words. “An actual taxi with a stranger?”
He gulped, only now realising just what a feat that had been and yet, in that moment, the tremendous amount of anxiety and panic he had felt all seemed worth it.
“An actual taxi, most of the way at least, I ran the last few blocks,” he reminded her as he nodded towards the bathroom where his once-sodden clothes were draped over the heated towel rail.
She looked at him with an enamoured smile before he stooped his head and kissed her, reproducing her smile on his own mouth. “Somethings are worth it, you’re worth it.”

Felicity didn’t know what to say as his words sunk in and her insecurities tried to dissuade them; but before she could dwell on it long enough to shroud the moment, Oliver spoke up again. He had written his list. He offered it to her with a beguiled but nervous smile before he asked her to read it.

She read aloud from it carefully, “Watch the sunset in Starling on the balcony of the Queen mansion. Visit and lay flowers from her garden at my mother’s grave and smoke a cigar for my father. Go to a movie,” she paused to enquire more from him than what was written on that line and he offered it with a guffaw.
“I don’t remember the last time I went to a movie, sat with people all there to enjoy or hate the same thing. Where the floors are sticky and the popcorn is expensive, where for those two-something hours you share your world with strangers. I want to do that and not be afraid.”
She folded her hand into his as it shook by his side. “We can do that, but you better spring for an ice cream too,” she smiled whimsically.
“It’s a deal.”

Her eyes lowered back down to the paper and she continued to read. “Visit a deserted beach where I can sit at the water’s edge and let the ocean swallow my feet. Touch snow again. Ride through town on a bicycle like a tourist.”
He pointed to the last thing on the list and laughed. “That always looks like fun.”
Felicity regaled with him with a smile in return. “This has the makings of a good list Oliver.”
“Are you sure you want to stay with me, I’d understand if you didn’t,” he said faintly, the words hesitating in his throat as his eyes grew heavy with fatigue.

She put the list to one side before she wrapped her arms around his waist and balanced her chin on the cusp of his shoulder. “I don’t have any uncertainty Oliver. I don’t know how to explain it, but being here with you, taking every moment we’re given, it feels…”
“So right,” he finished her words before she could.
“Yeah, that.”
His eyes pinched closed as the dull pain behind them resurfaced. “But you need to rest,” her words soothed him as his body slid down the bed and his head sunk into the pillow.

Her fingers traced along his hairline before gently combing back his hair before she pressed her warm and naked body into his back, feeling each lumbered breath he took. “Rest baby,” she whispered as the lines around his eyes softened, “we’ll have a tomorrow.”

>>>>|<<<<

"So, Felicity will be moving in?" Tommy asked as the permanent smirk on his face lifted even higher on the left.
"Yes," Oliver remarked, the hot flush under his cheeks colouring his complexion as he fielded questions from Tommy and an all-knowing smile from John. Raisa had said something to Oliver in Russian which he had answered in kind and with a dopey smile. Thea, however, hadn’t said anything, but there was a smile of elation brightening her face.
“I don't have to if it's awkward or weird or...” Felicity started before a chorus of “No” came from the other five people in the room.
“Despite the gentle ribbing I intend to give Oliver over this, I think it's great,” Tommy said as he leaned against a wall with his feet kicked out just ahead of him.

Both Felicity and Oliver had decided that the best course of action was honesty with those in their lives and first up was the ones within his circle. They had all looked a little concerned with the news until Oliver admitted that he had told Felicity everything and she was fully aware of the unique circumstances facing him. Pensive lips soon relaxed into smiles.

“So you're going to convince him not to do the surgery?” Thea finally spoke up as she shuffled to the edge of her seat.
“I'm still having the surgery,” Oliver answered as gently as he could, but knowing that wasn't the answer his younger sister would be hoping for.
He was right. Her brow furrowed as her head shook in disbelief. “No,” she lamented while her willowy shoulders slumped forward and her agitated fingers twisted around each other. “You're supposed to give him something to hope in; a reason to want to live."
“Thea,” he sighed, this was an argument he'd had many a time before, “this is my best chance.”
Tears sprouted in the corners of her hazel eyes. “No there are other ways,” she turned her attention to Felicity as her body concaved into itself, she was young and scared of being alone and for the first time Felicity saw that vulnerability she had hid so well. “You were supposed to help him see that.”

Felicity heard the bite in Thea's voice but she couldn't and wouldn't hold it against her, death had touched her young life far more than it ever should have and her embittered words were merely a reflection of that. Before Oliver could say anything the younger Queen stood to her feet and ran from the room.
“I'm sorry,” Oliver said meekly as he squeezed Felicity's hand. He went to stand up but a tug from her kept him in his place.
“Could I go?” she mulled.

Felicity found Thea brushing back tears as she sat in a lawn chair staring out across the back garden, her long arms curled around her narrow waist and her legs tucked into her chest.

“I'm sorry, I don't mean to take it out on you,” she said weakly as Felicity approached.
“It’s okay,” Felicity offered with a genuine smile. “Do you mind if I sit?”
Thea nodded to a seat a few feet away and wordlessly Felicity sat down, casting her eye over the paradisiac garden with its stunning bouquet of colours.
“I just thought being with you would give him a reason to live,” Thea said softly, the words trembling from her throat like she was afraid of them.
“I don’t believe Oliver is having this surgery because he's given up, he's having it because it's his chance to get his life back, his life as he wants it.”
The breeze whipped up the fragrant scent of the flowers with hints of the precipitation still lingered in the air from the night before.
“Do you think he should go through with it?”
Thea’s moved her head towards Felicity, studying her with tear-laden eyes and a troubled quiver in her jaw; her youth desperately bared.

Felicity slowly filled her lungs with the damp, mid-morning air. She didn’t have an answer she could give with any conviction; she understood Oliver’s reasons and she could only imagine what it would be like to be faced with living a life where so much of you could be stripped away slowly and without recompense, but, perhaps selfishly, she wanted more time with a man who she was unmistakably falling in love with.

“I don’t know,” Felicity answered softly, but truthfully. “But it’s not my decision to make,” she turned her head and offered Thea an empathetic smile. “It’s his, it has to be.”
“But there are other paths,” Thea argued, the bitterness falling from her tongue; tainted with fear. “Did he show you any of the research I did? He could live for years without any affects and the medical advancement in two, three, five years from now could give him better odds, a better chance. We could cope with whatever comes if it affected his balance or sight, we’d find ways to compensate, ways to mitigate.” Fresh tears ran down her sodden cheeks. “Please you have to tell him to cancel the surgery.”

Felicity’s lips quivered as her eyes grew damp with tears too. “I can't, Thea,” she whispered, “it's not my place.”
“He's all I have and in two months I could lose him, how can I be okay with that?”
“I wish I knew.” Felicity leaned closer and lay her hand gently on Thea’s tented knee. “All we’re promised in life is the moment we're living; whether we're given two months of moments or 20 years we don't know, so all we can do is live that moment. Cherish it, enjoy it, give it a name and hold onto the memory of it like it’s the rarest of gems.”
Thea lay her trembling hand onto Felicity’s. “I'm scared,” she breathed, her eyes haunted with the uncertainty.
“He is too. He loves you Thea, more fiercely than I think he could ever express; and all we can do is support his choice.”
“What if you start falling in love with him?”
Felicity’s eyes drifted over to the vibrant yellows and the decadent pinks of the flowerbeds as they moved with the gentle breeze. “I think I already am.”

>>>>|<<<<

“Is she alright?” Oliver asked as Felicity walked into the empty sun longue and took a seat on the couch beside him.
“She’s scared of losing you,” Felicity answered quietly as she lowered her head to his shoulder. “You said that losing your memories of your parents would be like losing them a second time. You’re her tie to them too so it would be like having them taken from her again.”
His hand folded into Felicity’s as a troubled sigh fell from his lips. He understood.
“There is something else you should know, an eventuality I’ve prepared for,” he started as Felicity raised her head off the cusp of his shoulder after a gentle kiss. “I haven’t told anyone other than John right now, I will, but not just yet,” she could feel his clammy hand shaking against hers as he continued, “but I promised you complete honesty so that includes this.”
She wasn’t sure how much more she could take, but there were a lot of eventualities she didn’t have the luxury of ignoring. “Okay.”
“If there is irreversible damage done during the surgery that leaves me on life support with no prognosis for recovery, I don’t want to be kept alive.”
She nodded even though the idea felt like rocks in her heart. She watched him taking pause, and another breath; he wasn’t done.
“On from that, if it can’t be removed, if every avenue I try fails,” he screwed his eyes shut as his hand squeezed hers. “When I’ve become only a burden to those I love,” he looked up at her, his blue eyes sodden and shadowed, “I’ve looked into places in other countries that will assist me to end my life.” Felicity did her best to not gasp but the air did fall with a sigh from her lungs as her chest tightened. “I know that I don’t know what will happen in two months, or two years, or more, but I needed you to know, that I won’t let this kill me.”

She didn’t have any words to offer him, just a warm embrace where his ear pressed against her chest and her arms banded around him, holding him, offering him a place to rest from his turmoil.

And in her arms that was exactly what he found.

>>>>|<<<<

Felicity slumped onto the bed Oliver was sitting up in, her eyes and mind exhausted from the various phone calls she had just made. While her nearest and dearest seemed happy with her choice, it was still a veritable mixed bag of reactions. She told them only what she deemed necessary for them to know; she was quitting a job she didn’t care all that much for and spending some time in Brazil, she hadn’t lost her mind and this was a good thing.

She kept Oliver’s health to herself at this stage as it wasn’t her secret to divulge. All they needed to know was that she was absolutely sure of her decision.

Iris understood, with a sort of squealed delight, before she suggested that they should put the interview on the backburner and write a biography instead. A heart-warming tale of find loving in the unlikeliest of ways. Felicity pandered to Iris’ enthusiasm of the idea; and perhaps it was even one worth considering, but the ending could be far from a happy one and that was a reality Felicity wasn’t sure she could put on paper.

Cisco was confused but supportive. She hadn’t expected him to swoon or beguile himself with the idea of a blossoming love story. He offered to take her plants from her apartment and clean out her cubical; which was actually the kind of practical help she needed and appreciated.

Donna Smoak, her mother, had her own branded response that Felicity had expected, almost word for word. She was over-the-moon happy that Felicity was doing something spontaneous and possibly a little nutty. She was ecstatic her daughter had some of her impulsive nature and all she asked was when she could come down and meet the man that had stolen her little girl’s heart.

Felicity had placated her mother with a “soon”; but the truth was she wasn’t sure Donna would ever get the chance before his life rested at the tip of a scalpel ... In approximately 1416 hours.

“It went well then?” Oliver smiled as he placed the pen inside his journal and put it to one side.
“No one demanded I present myself for a psyche evaluation, so that’s good,” she chuckled as she crawled up the bed towards him. “Iris thinks we should write a book and my mother wants to meet you, but don’t worry neither of those things are happening.”
Oliver sunk his hands around her waist and lifted her easily onto his lap with a smile. “It doesn’t sound all that bad,” he chortled as his thumbs skimmed her silky skin under the gauzy tank top.
“Which one?” she said with an effervescent laugh.
“Both,” he answered sincerely.
She opened her mouth but only a shaky breath came out; for what seemed like the millionth time, she was speechless.

“Anyway,” she crooned as her fingertips rubbed over the edges of his brawny shoulders, “I was thinking we could start with the things in Starling on your list.”
It was his turn to go mute.
“We don’t have to of course, I just need to fly back to take care of a few things and I thought maybe it would be a good place to start.”
He could feel himself breathing and he knew his eyes were blinking somewhat wildly as the idea of returning there was something he hadn’t made himself face in a long time – not with any legitimate possibility of it happening anyway.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to,” Felicity soothed her thumbs across the worry lines etched into his forehead. “It was probably a stupid idea.”
He caught her lips with a kiss by surprise and just as quickly he let them go again.
“I want to.”
Maybe he did; maybe he didn’t – he honestly wasn’t sure – but there was only one way to find out.

He was going home.

Chapter Text

“There, you look suitably disguised,” Felicity smiled as she straightened the baseball cap on Oliver’s head and tweaked the large aviator glasses he was wearing.
“This isn’t going to fool anyone,” Oliver laughed as he caught sight of himself in the rear view mirror of the town car.
“You can’t exactly walk into an airport in a full costume,” Felicity lamented as her fingertips tickled down his bristly jaw. “I think you look basic enough that no one is going to pay you a second glance.”
“I don’t know,” he started as he took her fingers from his face and sandwiched them between his large hands, “If I’m walking with you people will look, only not at me.” His thumb gently pressed into her wrist, smiling at the subtle pulse he found there.
She took his flattery with a smile before she leaned in and pecked his ruddy cheek. “Are you sure you want to do this?” she asked as she pulled her lips back. She could feel the reservation and nerves pulsing off him and she could see the fear in his eyes. Perhaps she had asked too much of a man that lived so much of his life within four very carefully protected walls.

His gaze wandered out the window to the crowds of people, like ants, swarming around the airport, minding their own business and oblivious, for the most part, to any one else around them. There were families with small children being towed along behind them, couples with their hands swinging between them, older people carefully studying the signs, business men focused solely on a destination; a quintessential mixed bag of people all in the same place, at the same time; literally thousands of them.

He felt his breath constrict in his throat and his heart pound behind the wall of his chest. Sure, he had been in front of crowds like this, but he’d never been amongst them, not since… He breathed in deeply, letting the warm air fill his lungs as he held it there for a passing moment before letting it go with a silent exhale.
“Maybe we should have chartered a private jet?” Felicity prattled as she felt his hand shaking around hers. “Or driven,” she offered before pausing to realise the realities of such a suggestion, “for over a week straight.”
He took another long and centring breath, feeling the air surround him as he stared the airport down. He had spent long enough hiding and if that tumour was going to kill him, then he would at least die after conquering another fear – crowds. He didn’t want to die afraid.

The sound of the trunk closing startled his eyes back to Felicity, relaxing only when he realised it was John and Thea outside the car getting all their luggage together.

He willed himself to think of it like another football game; something he’d done so many times before. Something familiar and simple, the ‘grass’ beneath his feet, a cool breeze sticking to his wet lips, the aromas of stadium treats and a crisp afternoon, the sights of birds flying unencumbered above him and the low hum of the crowd.

But no matter how hard he tried to change that pavement into grass or the crowds of travellers into football fans; he couldn’t. The football field was so different.
He stayed in his place, people kept their distance and, aside from that one time, security was too tight for anyone to get onto the field. He felt a certain level of safety and even more, he was always so focused on those 90 plus minutes that he never had time to think about anything else.

He wasn’t afforded that luxury now.

But Oliver managed to wrestle a smile onto his face as he opened the door and stepped out. Each footstep around the car to where Felicity stood felt like there was led in his shoes and a magnet dragging him back towards the car, but he trudged on, feeling and fighting for each step until he stood beside Felicity and looked out into the sea of strangers.

All he could think about were the crowds pushing in on him and the noise and his hands began to shake unbeknownst to him, but Felicity noticed.
“Sorry, I shouldn’t have,” she quivered, the gravity of her decision to fly home and her eagerness to cross something off his bucket list now swamping her mind.
“Don’t be,” he begged, his voice thin and weak but his determination sure. “I want to, I’m just-“ his words fell away, unsure what he needed in the moment and loathing himself for holding back.

“How do you cope on the field in front of the crowds?” Felicity asked softly as her fingers grazed the tip of his elbow. “I know it’s not the same, but maybe we can improvise?”
Oliver’s brow crinkled as he considered what exactly it was that made these two places so different. “I’m preoccupied I guess, focused,” he answered airily.
“Okay, so,” she hummed the words through her smiled lips, “we need to find something for you to focus on.” She started chewing her bottom lip as ideas bounced around her brain.
Oliver’s eyes were caught up in that little nuance, watching how the colour of her lip reddened beneath the nude lipstick, how her tongue teased it back in and her teeth grazed over it. It was mesmerising and suddenly the world around him quietened. “That,” he whispered, keeping his eyes anchored to her lip.
Her eyebrows furrowed, “What?” she piqued.
“Your lip,” he reached out a finger, now still and straight, and touched the small indents that were fading fast. “It reminds me of our first night together,” he continued as she blushed. “You did that a lot and when I think about that night, well, I don’t think about anything else.”

She considered what he said with a soft chuckle and a smile that filled her cheeks. “Okay,” she nodded, “so whenever you feel anxious, squeeze my hand and I’ll bite my lip to give you something to focus on.” Incidentally her tongue wet the centre of the same.
“What if it gets sore?” Oliver asked, perturbed at the idea that she would scourge herself for him.
She shrugged her shoulders, less bothered by the idea than he was. “I guess you’ll just have to kiss it better then won’t you?”
His hands sunk in around her waist, pulling her body against his. “I’m pretty sure I can do that.”

They pulled a fraction apart when John announced his presence with a hefty cough; just in case they were going to forget he was there. “Ready to go?” he added for good measure.

Oliver nodded; he wasn’t going to die afraid.

>>>>|<<<<

The noise inside the terminal was almost overwhelming and nearly unbearable; but he took a step at a time, her hand in his with the faint aroma of her lavender and vanilla perfume guiding him as she gave him something else to focus on.

By the time they entered the first class lounge her lip was looking a little swollen but her smile never faulted.

Now, half way through the flight, he could feel himself slumping. First class was hardly cramped and Oliver was fairly certain no one there gave a damn who he was, but as the flight dragged on and sleep eluded him, he could feel the familiar and unwanted embrace of a pulsing migraine. He glanced down at Felicity who had fallen asleep on his shoulder; her lip still wore faint teeth marks and it looked dry around the edges. Sleep looked so peaceful on her, black lashes fanned out over pale cheeks and lips that naturally turned up at the edges. He occupied himself with wondering what she dreamed about and he couldn’t help but wish that somehow he'd made it into them.

Because she’d already found her place in his.

He took slow, measured breaths as he tried to relax the tension that was pulling his body taut. He closed his eyes, squeezing them tightly in an attempt to blacken out the avalanche of anxiety twisting its way through his veins. His grip tightened on the arm of the seat, his knuckles losing all colour and his fingertips turning blood-red. He counted his breaths, one, two, even the voice in his head was shaking.

Nausea came next, it took him like a freak flood, a deluge of the unstoppable. He shuddered as he tasted the bile in his throat. One, two… he wouldn’t die afraid.

“Oliver?” Her faint voice was like a chorus of angels singing.
His eyes stayed closed, imagined he had dreamt it and desperate to hold onto her voice a few moments longer.
A soft graze of fingers brushed across his cheek. He had wept a few stranded tears and not even realised it. “Oliver?”
It wasn’t a figment and he plucked open his eyes to see her worried face looking at him.
“I’m sorry,” he answered her, his voice barely audible, thin and broken.
She lifted herself a little in the seat and, holding his head between her hands, she tenderly kissed his temple, causing the thumping to subside.
“You don’t ever have to be sorry,” she whispered into his ear, her nose nuzzled into his cheek.

Felicity shifted a little on the fawn coloured, leather settee in their little suite and smoothed out the crinkles in her fuchsia dress before she patted her lap with a smile set on her lips. Oliver crooked an eyebrow at her before she explained. “Lie down, I’ll bore you with tales from my old job until you fall asleep, or I could read the inflight magazine, they’re usually incredibly dull.”
“You were asleep,” Oliver remarked, though the thought of resting his head on her lap was immensely appealing.
She pouted her lips and lifted her brow. She wasn’t taking no for an answer. “Lie down Oliver,” she quipped.
He didn’t argue a second time and from the moment his cheek hit the soft fabric of her dress and her scent engulfed him, everything fragile and painful slipped away. He knew it wasn’t forever, but he’d take just a few moments of respite, here, on her lap.

His eyes lulled closed as Felicity gently brushed her fingers through his hair, around his ear and down his jaw.

He found rest much sooner than he ever had before.

>>>>|<<<<

Oliver glanced at the clock beside the bed, smiling as he realised they had spent the last few hours there since landing in Starling.

Her apartment was nice, simply decorated with bold patterns and bright colours in the furnishings and a muted palate on the walls. It wasn’t fancy and Felicity had stood outside the door nervously telling Oliver that he didn’t have to stay there, she wouldn’t be offended. But he loved it. The pillow he was resting his head on smelled like her. The wardrobe was full of clothes that were all her. The photos on the wall were of her with friends, family, animals … it didn’t matter. The truth was, Oliver didn’t know how much time he would have so, like an addiction, he wanted to know everything about her, he wanted to bury himself in everything that made Felicity, her.

The white cotton sheet rustled as Felicity moved against his body. Her head was on his chest as their fingers played in the air, twisting and threading through each other, both their bodies overcome with exhaustion.

“Are you worried about tomorrow?” she asked, the word warm against his stomach as she listened to the rapid beat of his heart.
He puffed out a shaky laugh. “Does it show?”
“A little,” she said softly as she lifted her head and looked up at him.
“I’m afraid I might fall apart,” he noted, a quiver in his voice.
Felicity sat up with the sheet banded across her naked breasts as his arm cuddled around her. “You don’t have to be altogether for me Oliver,” she assured him warmly as her fingertips danced over the taut mounds of his chest, twirling through the slight smattering of hair before resting near his neck.
He answered her with a delicate smile.

“Is this crazy?” she asked poignantly as their fingers once more entwined.
“Which part?” Oliver effused, his warm, breathy laugh making Felicity sigh wantonly.
“This, us, we barely know each other and yet…,” her face crinkled jubilantly as she became the sort of head over heels giggly girl she never imagined she’d be, “…it feels like I’ve known you for years,” she finished with rosy cheeks.
He felt the same way. “Or in another life,” he added as he pinned her hair back from her face, feeling the warmth of her cheek on the pads of his fingers.
“Is that crazy?”
“Probably, but if it is then I want to be crazy,” he smiled broadly, his smile resonating off every plane of his face.
A laugh flirted with her mouth. “Yeah?”
His arms swamped her before he pulled her, giggling, onto his chest, pressing their naked bodies together. He smattered kisses across her collar bone and throat making salaciously playful growls as he feasted on her.

She swatted him away as shrieks of laughter filled her apartment. “People will say we’re crazy,” she panted, as she struggled to regain her composure.
“I’m sure of it,” he remarked. There was a level of sobriety in his words, knowing that it would probably only be a matter of time until his personal life was forced into the spotlight once again and unsure how he would protect Thea and Felicity when that time came.
“They might write articles on just how crazy we are,” she light-heartedly said, though she knew there would be much crueller conjecture thrown about. She wasn’t a fool; Felicity grew up modestly, had a simple job (or at least did until she quit it) and they were in the midst of a whirlwind romance on the eve of Oliver, a wealthy man in both his family’s legacy and that of his own right, going into a surgery that could cost him his life. She knew how that would look, how some would paint it.
“They’ll say we’ve lost out minds,” he added.
She kissed the round of his shoulder, tasting remnants of the salty sweat that had dried there. “They’ll decide this is just infatuation.”
“Lust,” he rasped as his fingers stroked down her bare arm.

“But it’s not, is it?” Felicity asked softly as she sat up and pulled her knees to her chest.
Oliver sat up and held her arms at the elbows with his eyes trained onto hers. “I’ve never been in love before, until now, until you.” His words felt like warm honey to her ears, soft and luxuriant, warm and indulgent and, quite without warning, her spine shuddered at the depth of them before he continued, “Felicity, I don’t know if it’s too soon to say this, and I really hope it’s not, but if I don’t say it, I’m afraid it will burn a hole in my heart because I need to,” he paused as a wave of emotion washed over him, followed by a silent calm as the words gathered at the tip of his tongue. “I love you.” They came on a breath, because to him saying them now felt as simple as breathing.
Felicity didn’t need a moment to analyse them or to consider her reply, the words came to her just as soon as they had left off his mouth, “I love you too.”

>|the next day|<

She held his hand tight; strangulating it might have been a better descriptor as he could feel the tips of his fingers throbbing. But he was glad for it, it kept him focused on something else, someone else.

He had expected to be overwhelmed by sadness as he stepped through the front door and into the marbled entrance of the once magnificent Queen Mansion. It was still magnificent in its architecture and it’s carefully chosen trimmings, but a thick air of dust filled his nostrils as he stepped into a wall of stale air.

But the memories he had feared – the silence of the house after the funerals, the echoed footsteps he heard in the night and woke up hopeful before realising it had only been the cruel invention of his mind, or the sudden, blinding flashes that met him some mornings on his way out the door – they had dulled with time, replaced now by a certain numbness; and years of foggy, but fond memories trumped all others.

He looked down at the trembled hand in his and gently patted the slender wrist of his little sister. It’ll be alright.

Thea knew almost nothing of this life, her memories were vague and vaulted behind years of new ones; but she had admitted in the car as they sat in the driveway looking up at the gothic-style mansion, that she was afraid the scared child that she had so carefully repressed might resurface and bombard her with memories she wasn’t prepared for.

He led her slowly into the living room with Felicity and John trailing silently but closely behind, where the floorboards were stained oak and the walls a faintly patterned ivory, trimmed with the same deep and rustic wood. Memories of dinner parties and cocktail evenings swirled around Oliver’s head; of lying in his bed above that very room and listening to the mumbled voices and smooth sounds of classic jazz. Sometimes he would sneak down, watching for his moment from the top of the stairs, but inevitably he’d be ferried back upstairs with a promise of an activity of his choice the next day and a sweet tart in the palm of his hand. He remembered Christmas morning, with its heavenly smells of gingerbread and hot cocoa and the look Robert would give his wife as the sprawling gifts reached well past the branches of their tree.

He remembered fondly his parents’ warm words that he was fortunate in his life and along with that came the responsibility to help those that weren’t. Every year Oliver would pick five gifts from his haul, together with any toys he’d outgrown from the last year, and they would donate them to a children’s hospital. It might not have seemed like much, and he knew now that his parents both donated far more than just those few gifts that Oliver selected, but the lesson he had learned had stayed with him all these years later.

Thea bent down and touched the side of the fireplace mantle where a groove had been cut horizontally across it a few feet up. “What’s this, I feel like I…” her words trailed off as though she wasn’t sure of them and of what she was feeling.

Oliver knelt beside her and chuckled. He knew that story all too well.
“You were two and a half,” he started, “and I wanted to see how tall you were. For some reason I decided here was as good as any place to mark it; on Mom’s antique 1910 fireplace surround.”
Felicity cupped her hand to her mouth to stop herself gasping quite so loudly as Thea exhaled a laugh.
“Oh no you didn’t,” the younger Queen gaped.
Oliver touched the groove he’d carved with a letter opener from his father’s study. “Oh yes I did.”
“What did she say?” Thea asked.
“I’ve never seen our mother so close to cussing the house down,” Oliver grinned as he spoke and rose off the floor. His eyes traversed the room, jumping from the each of the pieces of furniture shrouded by heavy sheets. “I think the only thing that saved me was the way you would walk past it and clap excitedly. You really saved my ass there speedy,” he winked as he helped her up.
“I don’t remember much,” she sighed as she too looked around the room. There was a sort of familiarity about it but no vivid memories like Oliver’s.

“Come on,” he offered her his hand, “I’ll show you around.”

>>>>|<<<<

“How was today for you?” Felicity asked as she handed Oliver a beer before settling herself into the couch with her Chinese takeout balanced on her tented knees.
Oliver took a long drink from the bottle before he set it down on the table next to his half-eaten dinner. “Surprisingly okay,” he replied as his hand rested on her foot while they relaxed in her apartment, “having you there helped.”
She playfully jabbed her big toe into his thigh as she smiled. “You flatter me too much Oliver, you’re strength is amazing.”
“I don’t know why it took me so long to go back,” he lamented as he took her legs and stretched them across his lap before drawing slow and sweeping lines across her bare skin. “Sometimes I think I’m afraid to remember the good things because that will somehow bury the bad,” he sighed softly as his brow wrinkled with trepidation. “It almost feels like a betrayal to the loss to laugh or smile,” he admitted sullenly.
Felicity set her food down on the coffee table and scooted closer to him until her chin rested on the cusp of his shoulder. “Oliver, you can’t live like that, they wouldn’t want you to,” she said softly as her fingers tangled in his shirt.
“I know,” he said, listless, before taking a deep inhale, “I don’t want to.” His eyes focused in on her, “not anymore.”
She smoothed her thumb across his worried brow; there was something still troubling him.
“I can’t give Thea my memories, I wish I could,” he started sadly, turning his head to kiss the tips of Felicity’s fingers. “She deserves to know that we were happy and that our parents loved us. They tried so hard to have her and I remember how happy they were when they got the news.”
“Maybe you can,” she breathed as she cupped his cheek in her palm. “I saw you with her today, the way you were telling her things, giving her a story and a little piece of your memory. Do that,” she encouraged warmly. “Write them down Oliver, that way they’ll live on for the both of you, no matter what happens.”

A smile lifted the corners of his lips as he wrapped his arm around her back and held her tight.
“I held onto that house because it felt like a vault, somewhere to lock away everything, good, bad, everything. But I realised today that it’s just a shell. The memories aren’t in the walls or the furniture. I let its halls grow silent and its windows fuse closed to try and keep them alive there, but it deserves more than that,” he spoke quietly with his eyes rested closed.
“What are you suggesting?” Felicity asked before pecking a tender kiss to his temple.
His eyes opened, glassy and pale blue. “I still need to talk to Thea, but I want to donate the house,” he said quietly. He’d given it a lot of thought as he’d walked through the rooms, remembering how important philanthropy had been to both his parents. “I was thinking maybe an orphanage in my parents’ name. That house deserves some new memories.”

“I want to make some new memories,” he continued while he drew lazy strokes down her arm, “with you.”

And he did.

>|Mid-September|<

Over the next six weeks they made more memories than some people make in a lifetime.

He rode a bike through the streets in a route planned by Felicity on sunny Wednesday wearing a cap, aviators and a blond wig which Thea had loaned him, tied into a ponytail; and no one paid him any mind.

The movie theatre was almost deserted but it did have a particularly sticky floor and the popcorn was so ridiculously overpriced that Oliver found himself smiling from ear to ear at the fact.

The ‘beach’ may have been a private space less than ten feet long that Felicity had paid an exorbitant amount to the owner to use, but it too was perfect.

Within six short weeks there was only one thing left on his list – to feel snow again.

And in that seemingly short span of time something else had happened; they had fallen in love.
The kind of love that a person might wait a lifetime for and never truly feel, the kind that makes your heart soar and the world just seem so at peace, even when it wasn’t.

For now his symptoms had lessened, or at least stabilised. Perhaps Raisa had been right when she had said that hope keeps a person alive. Faith keeps them fighting and love gives them a reason to hope and have faith.

But even with all that hope, Oliver couldn’t ignore the inevitable and in 10 days’ time he would meet with his surgical team and would stay in California awaiting his operation a few days later.

10 days just didn’t seem fair.

Oliver woke up to a thin slither of mid morning sun peaking through the opening of the black out curtains as he smacked his lips together in a near-silent yawn. Squinting, he looked towards the clock and was surprised to see it was almost 11am. His recent change in medication to counter the effects of nausea from the latest short bout of radiation had left Oliver feeling lethargic and drowsy, a side effect compounded by his body's exhaustion from the radiation itself.

He looked over to Felicity's side of the bed, he wasn't surprised to see it empty given the time, though he had hoped it wouldn't be. He listened out for the shower or any noise from the bathroom but there was none. His eyes fell to his chest as he lumbered through another extended yawn. He smiled when he noted the scarlet oval-shaped mark on his bare chest that he'd expected to appear from last night and a very wild attempt Felicity had made to quiet her deliciously loud moans.

He smiled as his fingertips traced the outline and he decided to himself that he wouldn't be going shirtless today.

He pulled himself slowly up from the comfortable bed and inhaled the bedroom air that had, in the last few weeks, adopted a lingered floral scent that he was extremely fond of. He walked sluggishly towards where he had draped clothes over the chair the night before as another yawn stretched out his limbs.

He found a pair of jeans, a long sleeve, slate-grey Henley and a windbreaker jacket folded on the seat, together with a note:

Put these on and meet me in the front yard.
xox Felicity

PS: I love you
PPS: sorry about the mark on your chest.

He walked back towards the window with a curious skip before he pulled back the curtains and wasn’t surprised in the least to be greeted by the brilliant mid-morning sun bouncing off the treetops that sprawled out in front of where he stood.

He got dressed in the clothes Felicity had instructed and made his way downstairs, his curiosity piqued, and even more so when a noise pulled him towards the front door. But before he could reach it, Thea slid in front of him and spread herself across the entrance.
“You can’t go out there yet,” she announced, with wild eyes and high-pitched words.
“What?” Oliver said, bemused.
“Just, wait, here.”
“What is that noise?”
“Oliver Jonas Queen,” she proclaimed, “wait here or so help me I will give you the worst wet willy of your life, understood?”
He laughed, but nodded. “Understood.”

With her eyes trained ferociously on him, she took a unicorn sleeping mask from her back pocket and handed it to him. “Put this on,” she said brusquely.
“I’m not-“
“Put it on,” she interrupted with one crooked eyebrow.
He grumbled a “fine” under his breath before he put the mask over his eyes. A moment later he heard the door open and felt a hand, he assumed was Thea’s, thread through his arm.

She walked him forward and as the noise he’d heard got louder a sudden blast of frosty air smacked against his cheeks. He reached for the mask, before another hand, soft but chilly, took hold of him.
“On 3 you can take off your blindfold,” Felicity whispered as she walked him a few more steps forward.

When they stopped, she counted down with her mouth so close to his ear that her lips brushed the syllables against his skin.
“Three,” breathy and warm, “Two,” followed by a gentle kiss at the edge of his jaw, “One.”
She lifted the mask from his face and while it took him two blinks to adjust to the bright light of the outdoors, he saw her surprise almost immediately in the 3 feet by 5 feet mound of snow, with a snow machined working overtime beside it.

“I was hoping for a little more ‘snowy wonderland’,” Felicity pouted as she looked at the molehill-sized mound. “But you do live in Brazil and this is the best I can do. Happy ‘snow’ day Oliver.” She exuberated joy as she spoke and Oliver couldn’t help but smile from ear to ear.

“You did this all this, just so I could see the snow again?” he asked as he held her hand tightly in his.
“Do you like it?” she playfully grimaced.
“I love it,” he assured her before he lifted her chin with his finger and kissed her chastely. “But,” he started as he turned to Thea, “Aspen.”
“I know, I tried,” Felicity sighed. “But it’s really popular right now because apparently people love film and balloon festivals and I couldn’t get anywhere to stay, I’m sorry, I know that place meant a lot to you.”
He seemed a little confused as his eyes stayed on his sister. “The old cabin,” he simpered.
Thea’s eyebrows puckered together. “We still have that?”
It was Tommy that piped in, “Oh yeah, I thought you knew that.”
“You thought we knew and just wanted to make snow in the backyard in this kind of weather?” Thea retorted, gesturing wildly.
Tommy shrugged.
“Wait,” Felicity huffed, “you have a cabin in Aspen and no one told me?”
“Technically two,” Oliver grinned. “There is the larger one and a short walk on the same property is a private chalet.”
“I’ve been out here since four in the morning,” she sighed as she stared down at the white sludge near her feet.

Oliver embraced her tightly before peppering her head with a fluttering of laughing kisses.
“But I love this, you made it snow,” he assured her between kisses.
“Well I made a puddle of icy sludge, but same-same.”
He picked up a small ball of ‘snow’ and gently tossed it at Felicity, smiling as it broke apart on her jacket. “What do you say, want to go to Aspen with me?”

Chapter Text

“This was supposed to be my surprise to you,” Felicity sighed as she looked out the window of the private jet to the world passing beneath them.
Oliver, who was sitting on the seat across from her smiled as he batted her knee with his foot. “You already gave me the best surprise,” he replied before he slouched back in the cream, leather seat and listened to the hum of the jet engines.
She laughed and his smile grew. “You mean that puddle of sludge in your backyard?”
He sat up and beckoned her to lean closer until his hands touched her knees. “No, that’s not what I meant,” he spoke softly, making sure Felicity stayed as close as she was so she could hear him, “although I did love that sludge.”

He patted his own knee before taking her svelte hand into his, pulling her from her seat and onto his lap. She brushed her hair back from her face as she laughed, warm and bubbly. He craned his neck and tenderly kissed the warm spot on hers, turning her laugh into a soft sigh. He kissed her in the same spot a second time as she melted into him, huddled in their own little corner of the plane, far enough away from the other handful of passengers to be noticed.

“I meant you,” he whispered when his lips met her ear.
“I was a surprise?” she asked as she turned to face him and gently combed her fingers through his beard with memories of the way it felt against the tops of her thighs blushing her cheeks.
“A beautiful surprise,” he effused as he leaned forward and Felicity grappled her arms around his neck to stop from falling.
When he straightened up she felt a graze of knuckles down her spine and his lips folded into a knowing smile before he deposited a black, velveteen box on her lap. “Surprise,” he whispered.

Felicity blinked at the large jewellery box Oliver had left on her lap until he cracked it open to reveal a stunning diamond necklace. Every ‘link’ in the piece was a diamond; alternating a circular-cut with a rectangular-cut one of equal sizes but for the slightly larger one at the centre. It sparkled like a thousand stars against a backdrop of midnight as Felicity’s finger grazed across the vintage piece.
“I hope you like it,” he whispered as he watched her chest rise and fall with slow, ponderous breaths.
She was silent, unblinking, almost catatonic before Oliver’s thumb brushed the edge of her willowy neck where he imagined the small fortune of diamonds might sit.
“Oliver, it’s too much,” she breathed, her voice shaky and rasped. She was no expert in the field of diamonds, but she knew she was looking at something probably worth more than her annual salary.
He brushed her golden hair back from her shoulder before he pecked a kiss on the cusp of it, its warmth felt even through her clothes. “It’s only money,” he cooed softly.
“And we’re flying in a private jet to a cabin you own in Aspen,” she remarked as her fingers drew back from the necklace. “It’s too much. You don’t need to do all this.” She closed the lid and offered it back to Oliver.
He didn’t take it back, pushing it back with his eyes. “Felicity, please take it,” he implored. “I have money, a lot of it and honestly someone who has been a recluse for as long as I have, hasn’t really had much of a chance to spend it. Thea and Raisa are taken care of and Tommy and John need only ask. Let me do this.” His voice was pleading and his eyes were wide with entreaty.

“This isn’t why I’m here with you, I don’t need this. It’s not why I love you,” she spoke softly, the words falling like silk from her nude but glossy lips.
He brushed his fingers up her cheek and down her neck. “I know,” he assured her as he opened the box lid once again. “I’ve known that about you from the moment I saw you. I want you to have this because I wanted to buy it for you. But if you don’t like it, or you truly don’t want it, I’ll return it for you. I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable.”
Once he had opened it again, he pressed his lips to the slope of her neck and kissed her amorously, misting her skin with his tepid breath. “I saw it and all I could think about was how it would look on you.”
Her eyes grew heavy as the gentle drag of his lips down her décolletage made her sigh breathlessly.

“And where would I wear this?” she asked, her voice barely heard above the hum of the engines.
“I was hoping in bed and wearing nothing else but a smile on your lips and me between your thighs.” His fingers trickled down to the point of her cotton shirt before they fell to her knee.
“Is that on your list?” she pondered coyly.
“A late addition,” he rasped before he winked.
She snuggled against his chest and dragged her ivory-painted nails down the threads of his throat and over the taut slopes of his chest, puckering his shirt. “Well then, if it’s on the list,” she replied with a silky mewl.

>>>>|<<<<

“This isn’t a cabin,” Felicity stressed as she stepped inside the sprawling open-plan living area of the 4000 square foot ‘cabin’.
“Yes it is,” Oliver quipped as he followed her deeper into the house. His eyes roved up to the high, vaulted ceilings with its slats of varnished, native red wood. He hadn’t been there in sometime, at least 6 years, but thanks to Tommy’s frequent stays and a letting service for the rich and famous, there was not a mothball or dust pile in sight.

“No,” Felicity bantered as she playfully pinched Oliver at the elbow. “A cabin is a tiny little place where you all huddle around a small fireplace for warmth and there is a distinctive whistle through all of the window frames when the wind blows.” Oliver shrugged as he followed her to the wall of glass that overlooked the wild, mountainous terrain. “This is a mansion set at the foot of sprawling mountain range,” she commented as he took the bag from her hands and dropped it onto a nearby tan, faux-suede couch. “It even has 7 bedrooms,” she added with a dramatic sigh.
He slipped his arms around her waist and nestled his chin onto her shoulder. “Technically 9 if you include the guesthouse.”
Her body shook with a silent laugh, because of course it did.

Tommy joined them near the patio doors and stretched his arms above his head as he yawned loudly. “I’ll never get tired of this view,” he exclaimed just as Thea walked alongside him and smacked the side of his ribs.
“I still can’t believe you didn’t tell me we still owned this place,” she snipped as she looked around the lavish chalet. Thea had only visited the property a handful of times and had somehow imagined the Trust had sold it when Oliver sunk back into his reclusive state. Had she have known otherwise, maybe she might have been able to convince him to visit it, knowing it held many happy memories for him and was remote enough for him to have some peace.
Tommy rubbed his ribs with a pouted expression on his face. “I thought you knew,” was all he could offer.

John walked in a few moments later, dusting a light flutter of early snow from his shoulders as he kicked off his boots at the door. “The perimeter is safe and security looks good,” he commented as he strode over to the rest of the group.
“Relax big man, George Clooney rents this place, it’s safe,” Tommy jested as he slapped John’s shoulder.
The older man looked down at his shoulder, stone-faced. “That’s what I’m here for.”
“No,” Oliver argued, “you’re not my coach or my security detail right now John, you’re here as my friend.”

“It’s a shame Felicity couldn’t convince Raisa to get on a plane,” Thea laughed as she took her time to reacquaint herself with the furnishings that hadn’t really changed but sure seemed smaller now.
“I did try,” Felicity hummed as she mindlessly swayed in Oliver’s arms.
“I really think you almost had her,” Oliver chortled before he gave her a squeeze and kissed her temple. “Another week and I think you would have won her over to the idea.”

A knock on the door echoed through the opulent home.
“Perfect timing,” Oliver mused as he unravelled his arms from around Felicity’s waist. She looked at him bemused, the quick wink he gave her not helping to clear anything up. “I have another surprise for you,” he said gleefully.
That was all he said before he made his way over to the door and opened it.
“Surprise!” Cisco and Iris cheered in unison, just like they had practiced most of the flight.

“Oh my god,” Felicity howled before she clamped her hands over her mouth and rushed forward. It hadn’t been that long since she’d seen either of them, but it sure felt like it had.
Iris and Felicity embraced in a fit of happy shrieks while Oliver stepped back and let new people into his life, literally and figuratively.

He could feel his anxiety twisting his chest and strangling his throat, but this was for her and seeing the smile on her face would make the gnawing feeling inside him worthwhile in the end.

“Holy shit, this place is fancy,” Cisco remarked as he shuffled his jacket from his shoulders and hung it over his arm. “I mean, Hi, how are you? Cisco Ramon, friends call me Cisco.” He jutted out his hand towards Oliver, a man he’d heard about but hadn’t, until that moment, met.
Oliver looked down at the outstretched hand as his breath stopped in his throat and his hands trembled into fists.

Iris smacked Cisco’s hand and glared at him with unbridled rage. “What is the one thing I told you in the car ride over here?”
Cisco squinted before he looked down at his hand and gaped. “Oh shit, the hand thing, sorry man,” the newcomer quickly apologised.
Oliver wiped his clammy palms against his legs, but left them anchored there. “It’s nothing personal.”
“Oliver, you don’t have to explain,” Iris remarked kindly. “Honestly I’ve seen what his office space looks like so I don’t even touch his hands.”

The awkwardness disappeared with a few moments of laughter while Cisco admitted that was true with a bob of his head.

>>>>|<<<<

“Are you happy?” Oliver whispered as he found Felicity in a quiet moment in the kitchen brewing coffee a few hours into the evening.
She turned in his arms, with her back against the grey, marble benchtop and smoothed her palms down the lightweight Henley he was wearing. “Oliver, you invited people you don’t know,” she fretted, searching his eyes for flashes of anxiety he might be trying to hide.
He bowed his head in a soft and slow nod. “But you trust them?” he asked as he lifted his head.
“Yes, of course,” she replied swiftly. She had known Cisco since college and she’d met Iris the day she arrived in Starling, she trusted them both implicitly.
“Then I trust them too.”
She pulled him down to meet her before she brushed a soft kiss across lips. “And you’re okay?” she asked; it was a simple question but her eyes asked so much more.
“I’m fine,” he offered as she dabbed a remnant of her lip gloss from his bottom lip. “And, we have the guesthouse to ourselves so I still have somewhere if it gets too much.”

She smiled at the compromise as her hands laced around the back of his neck, her fingers toying with the shorts of his hair. “Promise me you’ll tell me if it does?”
Her eyes were like anchors to his, drawing the answer from his soul. Hers were the kind of eyes that would never make a liar of him.
“I promise.”
“Good,” she popped the sound of the word out through puckered lips before she spun around in his arms and poured two mugs of dark-roasted coffee. “Now take these to Tommy and Thea.”
“Yes ma’am,” Oliver jested after he pecked a quick kiss atop her warm cheek.

Oliver scooted around Iris as she entered the kitchen alcove.
“This is a gorgeous house,” she remarked as her eyes wandered around the fancy abode.
“It really is,” Felicity answered as she watched Oliver carefully deliver the two drinks.
“So you quit your job,” her no-nonsense friend quipped as she leaned against the kitchen island, opposite to where Felicity stood.

Felicity nodded blithely. “I know. It was reckless and crazy, but…”
“No,” Iris interrupted with a smile, “I think it’s perfect. You found someone you could see yourself with for years…” Felicity looked down at her feet; 8 days could change that. “…and you took it. You love him don’t you?”
Trust Iris to cut straight to the hard questions. Only it wasn’t hard at all; for Felicity the answer was simple.
“I do,” she blushed. It was mushy and sappy, but she loved Oliver. She loved him more than 8 days could allow for. “Is that crazy?” she asked timidly.
Iris lifted her shoulders in a brief shrug. “Look, as far as I see it, any chance taken on love is at least a little crazy when you think about it, whether that happens after knowing them for years, months, days, even hours,” she said with a wink. “ But he makes you happy?”
Felicity couldn’t help but grin as she answered. “Stupidly.”
“Then that’s all that really matters,” Iris said with a decisive nod of her head. “Also, his friend Tommy is kind of cute,” she added coyly.

>>>>|<<<<

The guesthouse might have been much smaller than the main house, but it was no less extravagant. It had two bedrooms, a small living and kitchenette and two full-sized bathrooms. It was decorated in much the same way as the main house, luxuriant fabrics in cosy natural tones, high ceilings with exposed beams and a wall of glass that framed the picturesque surroundings.

It was after 11pm when the travel-weary group had gone their separate ways and, with one last surprise up his sleeve, Oliver had prepared the master bedroom in the guesthouse with a chilling bottle of champagne, a roaring fire and a single red rose, tied with a ribbon, place on the ivory bed.

Not to be outdone, Felicity had absconded into the bathroom with a coy grin and her suitcase.
“Close your eyes,” she instructed through the oak door.
Oliver, sat on the edge of the padded bench at the foot of the bed, folded his arms across his brawny chest and chuckled; before he did just as she asked and closed his eyes.
“They’re closed,” he called back as he shuffled his bare feet through the thick-pile rug.
“You promise?”
He could hear the grin in her voice and it made his smile even broader. “I promise.”

He listened for the lock on the bathroom door which came moments later. It took every ounce of self-control he had not to peek.

Felicity waved her hand in the air, testing to see whether Oliver was true to his word before she sauntered into the bedroom, walking on the balls of her feet as her yellow, satin robe floated around her knees.

She stood in front of him, stealing a moment to study the figure he cut in the plain white tank and his tight boxer-briefs until she found herself hungrily licking and nibbling her own bottom lip. She took one last look down at herself, fluffed the ends of her hair and checked the loosely tied knot around her waist.

“Okay, open them.”
Oliver didn’t need to be told twice and as soon as the words left her smiling mouth his eyes flung open, only for his jaw to drop seconds later.

She was dressed in black lacy lingerie that peeked out behind a satin robe in a brilliantly bright yellow, trimmed with a vivid green. He managed to crank up his jaw and swallow the breath that had hitched in his throat and his eyes devoured every inch of her; from the way the dark lace look against her alabaster skin to the way the yellow looked like liquid gold wrapping around the perfect curves of her body, or the way her hair caught the light above her, making a hazy halo around her beautiful face.
“Do you like it?” she asked as she dipped into a little curtsey.
“You look breath-taking,” he sighed, refusing to blink.
“Wait till you see the best part,” she grinned as she rubbed her palms together.
“I’m not looking at the best part?” he replied with a smirk as he skimmed a finger up the inside of her thigh.
“Nope,” she popped as she winked. She turned slowly and folded her hair over one shoulder. “Surprise.”

On the back of her robe was the number 1 and above it, also written in green, was his name ‘O. Queen’. It was just like his jersey only in a fabric that melted like liquid over her pert rear.
“Wow.” His mouth was wide and his eyes even wider. “Wow.”
“Say something else,” she laughed as she turned back around.
“Wow.”
“Oliver,” she teased as she clipped the back of her hand against his arm. “I know it’s silly and a little cheesy, but…”
He smacked his lips together. “Wow.”
She could feel the heat from his eyes making her cheeks flush a ruddy peach colour. “Do you like it?”

He stood up and delicately feathered his fingers down either edge of the robe, grazing the tips of his thumbs down over her skin. “I love it,” he rasped huskily.

She took his hand and ran her thumb over the backs of his knuckles. “Watch the stars with me?” she asked softly before she led him to the patio windows. It may have been only late September, but the early snowfall looked magical that night.

“Are you okay?” she asked as she leaned back against his chest and let her eyes drift out to the equally stunning view the guesthouse boasted.
“Exhausted, but okay,” Oliver replied, lifting his lips off her neck for only as long as it took him to answer. “Cisco talks a lot about superheroes,” he added with a chuckle that prickled her skin.
“You should have rested,” she said, eyeing his reflection in the glass.
“I didn’t mind it.” His lips feathered across her shoulder as he slipped her silky robe off the edge. “It’s nice to just talk to people.”
“People who don’t know?”
She watched his reflection sigh after he lifted his lips from her skin and buried his face in her luxurious curtain of hair. He inhaled her, letting the subtle notes of her fragrance embed on his memory; flowery, delicate, like spring before the sun melts away the morning dew.

“Right.” He exhaled a raspy sigh as Felicity, tired of only seeing the flat lines of his reflection, turned in his arms and threaded her arms around his waist. “There is always a little sadness with those that know, almost like they’re afraid to be happy around me. I see it the most in Thea,” he admitted sadly, his azure eyes downcast and his brow thick with pain.
“It must be hard for her Oliver, you’re all she has.”
Her fingers slid under his white tank and traced the edges of his spine. She watched him swallow down her words and gnaw at the inside of his cheek for a moment before he spoke. “I was hoping not anymore.” He breathed out a weighted sigh as he held her in silence a moment or two longer. “Tell me if this is too much to ask, but I was hoping if something happens to me that you’ll stay with her for a little while. I’ll make sure you have enough money to cover anything you need or want. I know she has Raisa and Tommy and that John will always be there, but maybe with you she’ll find a friend.”
Felicity looked down as she felt tears growing behind her eyes; he was talking in finalities.

He touched her chin and raised her head only to see a tear slide down her cheek. “Hey I’m sorry, I shouldn’t put that on you, you have a life and other…”
“No, Oliver it’s not that,” she quivered, interrupting him as another tear escaped. “It’s just hearing you talk like… like you might not come out of this,” she sobbed as the last word stumbled from her mouth. She hadn’t wanted him to see her like this; especially not when all he wanted was a few more days of happiness.

He pulled her head against his chest and let her cry, feeling the tears as they soaked through his top.
“Baby I’m sorry,” he whispered as he swayed her in his arms. “Sometimes I forget I’ve had much longer to come to terms with it than you have.”
She swatted tears from her cheeks as she pulled her head from his chest. “It doesn’t scare you?” she asked with a tremble in her voice.

“I don’t think it’s as simple as a yes or no,” he lamented as his thumb caught a tear on her cheek. “I don’t want to die, but the reality is I could. The only thing I control is making sure that if I do, that I’ve done everything in my power to help the people I love come out the other end okay.”
No matter what he did; he couldn’t control the outcome in 8 days.
“How can you be so philosophical about it?” she wondered aloud.
“Oh, I wasn’t always,” he answered with a light-hearted chuckle. “I’ve been through every emotion, every phase. I even named them.”
Her eyebrow hitched up her forehead. “The tumours? You named them?”
“I sure did, snap, crackle and pop.”
“Wha-why?” she laughed even as another tear slalomed down her face.
“I read somewhere that it takes away some of the power they have, makes them less scary.”
“Did it help?”
He nodded. “It helped me at least.”

Oliver uncoiled his arms and walked over to the champagne he’d put on ice earlier. “I don’t want to leave this world Felicity, especially not when I only just found you in it. But I have to know…” his voice shook a little as he poured two flutes of the rose-coloured bubbles, “…that I’ve taken care of the ones that have made my life beautiful.” He handed her a glass and she took it, “And that includes you.”
“And what about you?” she lamented.
“I try not to think too much about me,” Oliver conceded, “it’s better that way.”
She touched his face with delicate fingers. “You don’t have to hide your emotions from me, no matter how raw they are.”
“You make me happy,” he gushed. “Being here with you, having a chance at this,” he looked down as a smile touched his eyes and then faded, “I wish I could offer you more.”

“Just offer me the now,” she whispered before she took him by the hand and led him outside. The snow was light, barely a dusting but it felt like soft kisses as it landed on their cheeks. “Here’s your snow Oliver,” she whispered with her lips near his.

His forehead leaned against hers as they shared each other’s air as tufts of warm smoke floated around them. Locked in time. Frozen in a moment.
“You’re freezing,” he remarked as his knuckles touched her waist.
She laughed after a shiver ran down her spine. “It’s cold out here.”
“One more surprise then.”
She looked at him with a hitched brow as her head cocked to one shoulder. “Oliver, enough…” But she walked with him anyway, across the rustic flagstone pavers that covered the deck, stopping next to the sunken infinity pool on the very edge of it.

When Oliver lifted off the cover a cloud of steam rose up into the chilly night, misting warm droplets against Felicity’s frigid skin.
“It’s a spa pool?” she asked rhetorically as the warmth coming off it already gave her the answer.
Oliver touched a button with his foot and jets along two sides sprung into action.
“We could go inside and get changed,” he spoke with a husky voice and a wiry smile as he dipped his foot onto the first step.
“Or?” she asked before taking a sip from her glass.
“Or, we could…” he walked down another step, the water now at his knees, “…not,” he chuffed as he pushed back into the water, completely soaking his clothes. “Did you think I meant skinny-dip? Naughty girl,” he laughed briskly before he sat down on the bench, a jet of water either side of him.

Despite being warm, the moment Felicity slipped her leg into the hot tub a shiver cracked up her spine and shook her shoulders before her arms instinctively hugged around her narrow waist. She breathed in sharply at the sudden juxtaposition of her warm legs and the frigid air around her upper body. Moments later she was walking towards Oliver with the warm steam rising up around her and a gentle lap of water against her thighs. Her satin gown floated behind her until the weight of water submerged it.

Oliver's hands waded out towards Felicity and caught her at her hips before she slid forward and dipped her body into the water. When she emerged again her top was sodden and her nipples looked like mountain peaks through the sheer fabric.

They kissed ravenously as their fingers moved greedily over their wet bodies. His tongue pressed into her mouth just as hers rolled into his. Frantically their tongues fought and their lips mashed together with burning desire.

His fingers coiled in her hair as her fingers traced the sinewy twists of his arms, wet, silky and smooth, until, breathless her lips broke from his and her eyes, raw with arousal, burrowed into his.
“Can anyone see us?” she asked, need making her voice raspy and stretched as she rode her body against his washboard stomach.
“No,” he kissed her, feasting on her swollen lips for only a moment, “it’s a private balcony.”
“Good.”

Her fingers traced the thin lines of shadow and light the amber glow from inside their room cast across his face before she reached down between them and found the hem of his tank top. After snatching his lips with her own in a heated but fleeting kiss, Felicity lifted the drenched top up his body and, with a smile turning up the edges of his wet lips, Oliver lifted his arms and allowed it to pass over his head, sloping water down his chiselled features.

Felicity slapped the sodden item onto the stone patio, laughing as it made an unapologetic splosh. Her fingers swam down Oliver's chest, paying special attention to his budded nipples. Pinching both nubs between her thumbs and forefingers, Felicity watched the pleasure leak from his expression with a heavy and salacious sigh. It was something she had discovered quite by accident; but Oliver Queen liked to have his nipples played with.
“God,” he growled under a low, raspy breath as she tweaked them tighter before soothing them with the balls of her thumbs. “You know me.”
She nipped the edge of his jaw with her teeth, just enough to feel his body shake beneath hers. “I’m an avid learner.”

Felicity stood off his lap and Oliver watched as the streams of water weaved down her taut figure before she shook her saturated robe from her shoulders, bundled it up and tossed it towards where Oliver’s shirt lay. The frosty air prickled her skin as it swept against her arms before she dipped her hands just under the surface of the heated water and banded her thumbs over the waistband of her black panties.

With her eyes trained on him and his teeth hungrily chewing on his bottom lip, Felicity shimmied her panties down her legs, crouching just enough to slip them off her feet, one after the other. She waded over to Oliver with the balled up fabric dripping from her palm. He sighed wantonly when her naked thighs brushed against his as she leaned over him to place her panties in the same spot as the other discarded clothes.

The water lapped at her waist while Oliver’s fingers skimmed up the inside of her thigh and his knuckles grazed her naked sex.
“Are you sure no one can see us Oliver?” she asked, her tongue peeking out between her full and rosy lips.
“I promise, no one can see us,” he assured her. “It’s just you and me baby.”

Her lips pecked his while her hands snuck around her back and unclasped her bra. After severing the kiss, Felicity walked each strap down her arm until her breasts were exposed to the chilly night air and Oliver’s fiery gaze.

When seconds lapsed into a half a minute of silence and Oliver’s jaw was still hanging open, Felicity felt a laugh bubble from her lips before she playfully splashed him.
“Say something,” she teased, as a blush bled down her throat and fanned out across the tops of her chest.
His mouth closed, then opened, then closed again as only grunted sounds came out.
“Shit,” he laughed as his head shook in embarrassment. “I could look at you like this for a hundred years and never tire of it.”
She took his hands into her own and stretched out his fingers before gripping his wrists. “You can do more than just look,” she said as a coquettish smiled flirted with the tips of her mouth. “You can touch.” She lowered his hands onto her aching breasts and sighed when they swallowed her completely.

His hands swamped her breasts and gently he massaged the heels of each into the underside as his thumbs drew shrinking circles around her puckering areola before he puckishly pinched the scarlet tips.
“Mmm,” she hummed as trickles of pleasure filled her core.

His hand slid to her waist before he turned them in the water so Felicity was sitting where he had been. Her arms dangled over the lip of the infinity spa, dropping off the balcony and swaying in the gentle breeze while her legs floated up, warm water gliding between her folds. Oliver caught her ankles and folded her legs around his waist before he leaned in and began to tenderly kiss Felicity's aching breasts while the deliciously warm ripples his shoulders made lapped against her supple body.

He sucked her breast until the skin pulled taut in his mouth and her head fell back in delirium. His tongue teased the tip and his teeth grazed the edges until the scarlet tones of her pleasure glowed beneath her milky skin. He dropped her breasts into his cupped hands and began to massage both while he kissed the scarlet threads of her throat, relishing each decadently heavy thump of her pulse.

Her hips bucked against him, seeking out friction but instead she found the smooth slopes of his sculpted chest until one of his hands dropped between her thighs and gently explored her humming folds and her heated breath spiralled like a smokestack into the thick night air.

There was a need gnawing at her core as Oliver's fingers dipped in and out of her, pleasuring her with every twist and drag down her cushioned walls.
“Please Oliver,” she begged, her words shaky and desperate as the need became too much.
His mouth had moved back to her breasts teasing one and then the other with gentle tugs and slow sweeps of his tongue when Felicity's heels pushed down the back of his briefs. When his waistband grazed his thumping cock he moaned against her heaving breast which sent a delicious shudder down to Felicity's core.

They turned in the water again until she was straddling his lap and his briefs were lost somewhere at the bottom of the agitated water. He pulled her down for a kiss, feasting on her swollen lips as her body sought him out, rubbing against his hard length of taut skin and twisted veins until he hissed against her mouth.

Neither of them could wait a moment longer.

Holding his thrumming cock at the base, Felicity lowered her body onto him, moaning as his thick member impaled her slowly. She arched her back, dipping the tips of her hair into the water, before Oliver caught her with one hand, long fingers stretched across her narrow back.

Her hands crawled up the slippery slopes of his chest and anchored at his shoulders as she swallowed the last few inches of him. Her back concaved as he moved to hold her hips and with his fingers stroking the dimples near her spine Felicity began to rock her body against his while Oliver stayed motionless, letting her take whatever pleasure she needed.

He nuzzled her cheek with his nose and Felicity looked up at him; pleasure imbued in her eyes as her mouth dripped with near-silent moans.

She soon sped up, bucking against him in rhythm with their soft pants that dissipated into fog around them until she was taking him quickly, slapping their bodies together and churning the water between them into high-peaked waves. Her nails gripped him over the rounds of his shoulders and he could see she needed more, but he was waiting for her.

They kissed feverishly, missing each other’s lips more than a few times before she broke away and, her chest pounding with uneven breaths, she begged, “More.”
He knew what that meant and he took over as soon as the word fell from her mouth. His thumbs soothed her belly, rubbing slow lines down towards her sex to build dizzying anticipation before he tipped her just enough so that her clit grazed the base of his cock, her sobbed moan letting him know it hit its mark.

He hopped promiscuous kisses across her chest, sucking and nipping her breasts before he lifted himself fractionally off the seat and lunged upwards. The first thrust was like a bolt of lightning and Felicity found herself chomping down on her lip to stop from screaming in sweet gratification. The second and the third had the stars above her splintering into static lines.

She soon lost count as each surge of his cock deep inside her made her delirious with carnality, arousal and adrenaline coursing through her body.
“Look at me,” he begged and her head snapped forward.
His lips were woven into a smile, sweat beaded across his forehead and his arm muscles bulged like the mounds of pulsing flesh that they were.
Unbridled pleasure suited him.

And with a few more tantalisingly deep thrusts, Felicity’s body exploded. Her head fell to his shoulder and her mouth clamped the shredded cords at the crook of his neck. She bit down, sucked, and then lathed her tongue across the tortured skin until Oliver surged deep into her convulsing walls and came with her panted name on his lips.

Unbridled pleasure suited them both.

>>>>|<<<<

The next day was a whirlwind; from an early morning walk to breakfast and a few lazy hours spent biking around the town, to a last-minute hike up the trails of the Marron Bells’ multi-coloured slopes in the brisk but pleasant weather. By the time evening found them wandering back into the house, they were all exhausted.

“Tomorrow no walking,” Iris sighed as she flopped down onto the nearest seat, which happened to be a round, cow-hide ottoman.
“I’m with her,” Tommy groaned as he slumped onto the floor nearby and gave Iris a lazy high-five.
“I barely broke a sweat,” John shrugged as he set Thea down on the floor, after giving her a piggyback from town.
“You are not human my man,” Tommy remarked from the floor.

“Oliver you should rest,” Felicity suggested as the two hung back from the others, worry fretting with her brow. There was no denying the pale, sunken lines of his cheeks or the dullness of his blue eyes.
He tried to placate her worry with a smile, but when that didn’t work he added, “I’m fine.”
John soon joined them as Oliver started the gas fire. “I think she’s right man,” he noted as he clapped a hand on Oliver's shoulder.
“I’ve played professional football for years, I have more stamina than you give me credit for,” Oliver snipped, clenching his jaw to distract from the slight twinge he felt at the base of his neck.
“And that’s 90 odd minutes. You didn’t stop today,” John replied, the same bite in his tone.
A shallow laughed jiggled Oliver's shoulders as he placed his hand on John arm and smiled. “Honestly, I’m fine.” He leaned over and pressed a kiss to Felicity's cheek. “Now if you’ll excuse me I have a game of foozeball to win,” he grinned while his hands rubbed gleefully together.

“Is he always like this?” Felicity sighed with a furrowed brow.
“Bull headed and stubborn?” John chortled. “Absolutely.”

Felicity watched as Oliver scored the first goal against Cisco much to the other man’s dismay. He was having fun and it wasn’t up to her to treat him like an over tired child, even if her chest was aching with worry.

>>>>|<<<<

It was a few hours later and little before midnight when the group had finally disbanded around the house. Felicity, who had been nursing a herbal tea while she read a book she’d found on a virtually untouched bookshelf, yawned as she closed a paper napkin into the page she had stopped at.

In Cisco's quest to beat Oliver at anything they had unearthed an old Shoots and Ladders game, which he appeared to be losing. John had left to make a two hour phone call to his internet girlfriend and Thea was flicking through the Lifetime channel.

A quick scan of the room and Felicity couldn’t place Iris or Tommy; they must have called it a night.

There wasn’t much time for Felicity to dwell on their whereabouts because when her eyes moved back towards Oliver she found him slightly crouched over and rubbing his temple. She threw off the blanket that had been keeping her legs warm and ran over to him.
“Oliver?” she asked, fret colouring her tone.
“I’m...okay,” he answered, although the colour had almost completely drained from his face.
“Please, call it a night.”
“You’re right.” He offered a weak, thin smile at Cisco. “You win this one.”

“Do you need to lie down on the couch?” she asked quietly as they made their way towards the door.
“Mm, no, I’m okay,” he replied, his breathing shallow and lumbered as he opened the side door that led to the guesthouse a short walk away. The frigid air blanched Felicity’s cheeks as she followed him out into the delicate dusting of snow.

But he only got a few steps down the path before the soft light along the edges turned into hazy waves and then nothing.

Felicity didn’t realise she had screamed until everyone flooded out of the house with varying stages of panic in their eyes. John had his service weapon drawn. Thea was still holding the TV remote and Cisco had a mouthful of the shortbread they’d purchased earlier that day. Tommy was in a pair of black boxers and Iris was wearing only a sheet and a dishevelled hairstyle.

“What happened?” Thea fretted as she ran around to Oliver, pressing her fingers hard against his pulse, sighing gladly when she found it.
John helped Felicity off the ground, her body half caught underneath the weight of Oliver's.
“He just...” her whole body was shaking, including the words as she spoke them, “he just collapsed.”
“Ambulance is on the way,” Tommy announced as he reappeared with a phone in his hands.

>>>>|<<<<

It was less than an hour later that Felicity was chewing on her thumbnail and pacing the white linoleum hall of the hospital. Oliver had come to in the ambulance and the confusion and panic in his eyes had been something she wouldn’t easily forget. John and Thea had followed in the car and had arrived only a minute after the ambulance. Since then all they could do was wait.

“Were Iris and Tommy getting it on?” Thea wondered absently as she stared at a black scuff mark on the otherwise pristine floor.
Felicity pulled her thumb from her mouth, but she had no answer and John simply laughed. It was a break in the sombre air that needed to happen.
“She seems much smarter than the other girls he’s dated,” the younger Queen continued.
“Well it wouldn’t be hard to be,” John mumbled with a smirk.
“Remember Cassie?”
John screwed up his face and Thea laughed.

“I’m so sorry,” Felicity interjected while her shaking hands rubbed her arms.
“About Iris?” Thea quipped, “We should really apologise to you for Tommy, he is batting well above.”
“No,” Felicity stammered, “Although I’m definitely going to revisit whatever that was between them. I mean because of Oliver, today was my idea, we did too much and I should have made him slow down.”
Thea laughed again. “Felicity, none of us can make Oliver slow down if he doesn’t want to.”
“The hike was my idea,” she argued as she fretted with the arm of her glasses.
“And so was getting some rest hours before he collapsed. You don’t have any fault in this,” John added.
“This isn't the first time he’s collapsed,” Thea explained, making her slightly cavalier attitude more understandable. “But it wasn’t a seizure and you said he was awake and coherent on the ride over.”
Felicity nodded. “He had the oxygen mask on and he was a little disorientated but the paramedic said all his vital signs and reactions were good.”
“Oliver tries to push his limits, that’s what happened,” Thea sighed, half a smile turning her lips.

“Oliver Queen?” a tall doctor with a head of greying hair, a warm southern accent and a hearty smile asked as he stepped into the deserted waiting room.
“Is he okay?” Felicity asked before she could stop herself. Thea was his sister and John one of his closest friends; she was just a girl he met less than three months ago.

“We’ve run all the tests and we’ve been in contact with his team in California.” Thea nodded as he spoke. “He’s dehydrated and a little woozy, but insofar as the tumours, there isn’t any worry there. Everyone is happy with what the scans are showing, but just to be sure we’d like to keep him overnight for observation. Was someone with him when he fell?” The doctor asked as he glanced down at his notes.
Felicity raised her hand, only then noticing how much it was shaking. “Do you need me to go over what happened again?”
“No, no, that’s quite alright,” he smiled warmly. “Just thought you should know you did him a great service by catching his head in your lap.”
“I, I...just was there” she stuttered.
“Is your wrist alright Miss?”
She looked down and realised she had been rubbing her skin red. “Uh, it’s fine.”
“Did you land on it?”
“No, I don’t think so.” She really had no idea.
“Maybe we should take a look at it.”
“No, really, it’s fine. Is he, is he okay?”
“He’s awake and well, you can all see him if you’d like.”

>>>>|<<<<

“You’re an idiot.” Those were the first words out of Thea’s mouth as she walked into Oliver’s room, John two steps behind.
The smell of hand sanitiser and latex was what Felicity forced herself to focus on as she followed John into the room, afraid of what she might find if she looked at the bed in the centre. She knew he was sick; she’d gone with him for treatments and met his doctor back home, but those were routine, organised, planned. He went into a room and came out some time later, looking a little drawn and tired, but nothing a few hours’ rest wouldn’t cure. But this was different, this was confronting and real and she was wholly unprepared for it.

“Love you too Thea,” Oliver replied. His voice was thin and croaky and his breathing was laboured.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” Thea retorted; this wasn’t so jarring to her. “But you’re an idiot. You should have rested.”
With her eyes still nailed to the floor, Felicity heard him cough out a laugh, strained and weak, and she knew she couldn’t avoid this reality any longer. She looked up and saw him, white hospital blankets pulled up around his chest, a baby blue smock sitting like a tent over his shoulders. His skin was greyish and pale and his eyes were almost colourless. His lips looked dry and an IV line ran a clear liquid from a bag into his hand, a drip a second.

“At least I didn’t break anything this time,” Oliver remarked before trying to swallow the invisible cotton balls that made his mouth feel dry.

It was then he saw her; eyes wide, lips trembling, arms banded around her body – she was afraid. He had never really considered how unsettling and confronting this must be for Felicity; she hadn’t had years to become immune to the sights and smells of a hospital like he had.

“Can Felicity and I have a moment?” Oliver asked quietly, his eyes drifting from Thea to John before falling back to Felicity. He needed to make sure she was okay.
“Glad you’re alright,” John said as he tapped the end of Oliver’s bed before him and Thea left.

Even the quiet click of the door made Felicity jump, her entire body still clearly on edge.
“Hey,” he whispered softly while he held out his hands, “c’mere.”
She took a shaky inhale and stepped a few feet closer; all she could see was his lifeless face lying on her lap and all she could feel was the icy bite of the ground beneath her. She swallowed down the thoughts and moved close enough so that their fingers could touch. When they did, he gently pulled her a fraction closer until their hands entwined.
“Don’t tell me you’re blaming yourself for this,” he said, concern furrowing his brow.
She smiled, somewhat bleakly, as one shoulder shrugged. “How did you know?”
“Felicity,” he sighed, distress wetting his eyes.
“I pushed you Oliver,” she confessed, her voice trebled and fraught with regret. “We should have come home earlier, or split the day up. I shouldn’t have made you…”
“Now come on, made me?” Oliver interrupted while he gently squeezed her hand. “Felicity, part of what I love about you is that you don’t treat me like a child or an idiot or an invalid. You treat me like a person. A person who, in this instance made a mistake, and that’s on me, not on you,” he continued, a stern smile on his lips.
“I was so scared Oliver,” she admitted as a tear weaved down her face and sunk into her skin near her dimpled lips.
“I’m so, so sorry baby,” he breathed as he took her hands to his lips and peppered them with kisses. “I understand if this is all too much for you. You didn’t sign on for this life.” She felt his tears wet the backs of her hands. “I understand if you want to…” his voice became shaky and thin, “…if you want to leave.”
The word stung him to say. It felt like a blade dragging up the inside of his throat and like hot coals as it shook from his lips. But he couldn’t blame her; nobody would, if she realised that night that loving a man like him was too much of a burden.

Her hand turned in his and her fingers brushed down his bristled jaw.
“Now that you’re in my life,” she whispered as her fingers followed the lines of his face, “I realise just how unwilling I am to let you out of it.”
He cupped her hand against his cheek and smiled as his eyes lazed closed. “I feel the same way.”

“Are they getting worse?” Felicity asked, despite being afraid of the answer.
“No,” he said, a smile turning up his lips as he kept her warm hand against his face. “If anything the last course of radiation therapy has shrunk them even more. My surgeon is pretty happy with it and wants to go over some options when we meet.” He kissed the inside of her hand languidly as he looked up at her, warmth filling his eyes. “Today was me doing too much, wanting to feel alive, that’s all.”

She nodded softly; and even though threads of guilt remained, seeing his smile – the one she’d fallen in love with – eased enough of her worry so she could smile in return.
“Sit with me?” he asked softly as he patted a space he’d made beside him.
“You need to rest.”
“I promise I will.” He patted the same spot, “just a few minutes.”
She relented and climbed onto the bed beside him before she curled her body into his and she gently rested her head on his chest. Listening to it thump, hard and deep and prominent made her relax and her eyes grow heavy.

“I’m sorry Felicity.” He leaned down and delicately kissed her forehead. “I’m sorry I scared you.”
“We’ll have a tomorrow,” she breathed, the words so quiet they were almost lost in the air between them.

After a few silent moments her eyes walked up his broad chest and met with his. “Do you have any other wishes?” she asked, before adding, “we still have a few more days left.”
“One,” he answered gently as he drew lazy circles on her back, “but it’ll wait.”
When she looked away from him, his smile faded, replaced instead by a solemn sadness; the last thing on his list wasn’t something to be ‘ticked off’, it was something he’d long since resigned himself to knowing was out of his reach.

“Tell me,” she whispered to his chest.
With her head on his chest and their fingers entwined, Oliver finally admitted something he’d never told anyone before. “I wish I’d had a chance to start a family of my own.”
Felicity lifted her head slowly off his chest as his softly-spoken words echoed through her mind. “You want children?”
His fingers brushed down her spine as she sat up on her elbow. “Wanted, yeah,” he answered wistfully. “I’d always figured that after I retired, it might be nice to have that, a wife, a couple of kids.” His chin sunk into his chest, he’d given up on that so long ago, but it was still painful. “It’s a bit late for all that now though.”
He forced a smile, but the best he could offer was a fleeting and shaky one.

“Okay,” she breathed, surprised at just how easily the word fluttered from her lips. Confusion tinted his expression, had he heard her right? Had she just suggested… “What if we could have a baby?”

He’d heard her right and only one answer came breathlessly and excitedly to his lips.
“Okay.”

Chapter Text

The surgeon, a Dr Warren McAlistar with eyes the colour of faded blue jeans and salt and pepper hair sat back against his leather executive chair with his hands lying flat against his trim chest and his lips furrowed into an unreadable expression.

It felt something akin to a trip to the principal’s office and Oliver could feel a nervous sweat down his spine when he got done explaining what he wanted.

Twelve months.
He wanted twelve months.

“You want to postpone the surgery,” the Dr finally spoke, his voice calm and commanding with a sort of no-nonsense edge to it, “for twelve months.”
Oliver nodded as he felt Felicity fidget beside him. It was a pleasant 65 degrees outside, but in that chair, in that office it felt like an inferno.
“You realise there are three tumours in your brain Mr Queen, one of which has been known to have spontaneous and unpredictable growth?”
Oliver ran the pad of his thumb over the back of Felicity’s knuckles. “I realise that.”
“The last time I saw you, you were ready Oliver,” he swung forward in his chair and spread his palms out on the oak desk. “What’s changed in that time?”
Oliver’s mouth felt dry, but he head was as clear as it had ever been and he needed to get it out as concisely as he could.

“The surgery is risky,” Oliver started.
“It was risky then too,” Warren interrupted.
Oliver acknowledge him with a nod. “I was ready to be risky. I was ready to take the odds that I would come out of the surgery the same, or even come out of it at all. I’d made my peace with it because I didn’t think there was anything that wasn’t worth risking.”
“Do you remember what I told you at our first meeting Oliver?” His face was still entirely unreadable, but he was reading Oliver’s expression like a Young Adult Novel.
“You told me I seemed eager to look death in the face.” He felt his throat constrict with each word, knowing Felicity was beside him listening. It had been the truth, a part of him wasn’t worried about whether he lived or died, but it would be on his terms either way.
“And now?”
“Maybe I’m not ready to look down that barrel just yet,” he replied honestly as he looked over at Felicity and smiled. “We want to try for a baby and I want to be there when they’re born.”
“Okay,” the surgeon remarked, his body relaxing a little in his chair and a smile now altering his expression.
“Okay?”

“I was hard on you for a reason Oliver, this is life and death stakes you’re playing with in either decision you make.” His four fingers grazed the side of his greying beard, and even in silence he captivated the room. “I told you when you first came to me and pushed the idea of operating that you weren’t really preparing to live, you were preparing to die. I took your case on because I think it’s possible to do the surgery,” he lifted one hand into a pseudo shrug before adding, “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.” A tempered sigh as he leaned forward with his elbows on his desk. “I needed to see a fight from you. I didn’t see that until today. My job is only part of the equation. A patient thrives when they fight and I wasn’t sure you were ready to really fight.”
Oliver nodded, he wasn’t wrong.

The doctor opened the manila file on his desk and nodded as his eyes traversed the top page, familiarizing himself with words he’d already poured over. “Your last scan results were positive,” he looked up and caught Oliver’s eyes again, commanding attention silently. “Looking at your case and the rate of growth, the smaller we can make this tumour the better the odds of excising them.” Both Felicity and Oliver held their breaths, there was a but coming. “But, I can’t give you a year, it’s feasible you will get that, it’s even possible that we could decelerate the growth so much that you could have two years or even longer before surgery becomes necessary.”

Felicity squeezed Oliver's hand as she sensed his discouragement, albeit momentary because the doctor wasn’t finished.
“I’ll make you a deal,” he flicked through pages of notes, making markings in some margins before he flicked off his pen and sandwiched it between his skilled hands. “Treatment and testing cycle every 2 months. Two months clear, one month targeted treatment, scans and tests. You’ll live your life on that three month cycle until something changes, hopefully for the better. Any changes in size or condition of the tumours and we go for the surgery. Agreed.”
He would live in three month increments, a heavy ask; or it was until he looked at Felicity and saw three months with her, three months growing a family, three months living a lifetime’s worth of happiness.
The answer came easily. “Agreed.”
“And in the meantime,” Dr Warren continued as he thumbed through a rolodex of business cards until he found the one he wanted. “Here is a card for my colleague, Dr Munroe, she’s a fertility specialist.” He handed Oliver the card. “If you don’t get pregnant fairly quickly, say a few months then I suggest seeing her. The radiation was targeted to your head Oliver, but the risks are still there and the sooner you know what you’re working with the better.”
“Thank you,” Oliver responded as the men shook hands.
“I’ll see you back here in two months,” their hands broke away, “and good luck.”

>>>>|<<<<

“So?” Thea asked nervously as she shot up from her chair when Oliver and Felicity emerged. “Are you having surgery?” Her voice was thin and shaky and her youthful eyes were glassed over with unspent tears.
“No,” Oliver said softly as he reached his sister and offered her an embrace. She fell into it with a sigh of relief. “We’ve decided to postpone it, treat these bastards a little more and see if we can’t up the odds.”
“Until when?” Thea cried into his shoulder, her waif frame shaking with emotion.
Oliver peeled her from her shoulder, cupped her head and smiled. “Until it’s a safer option or the only option.”
“Really?” she asked through tears.
“Really,” He nodded, “And I want you to go back to school.”
She shook her head. “No, I want to be here for you.”
“And I don’t want you to stop living Thea. I shut myself away from the world and I don’t want the same for you. For any of you,” Oliver said as he glanced around the faces who had seen him through the best of times and the worst. “You all deserve a holiday where I’m not part of the equation,” he chuckled lightly, but the truth was he knew each of the three had structured their lives around his long enough. “Thea, go back to school,” he said softly as he gently squeezed her shoulder. “John, go and visit your lady friend,” he winked. “And Tommy...” Oliver paused as he considered what his friend ought to do.
“I was thinking of visiting Starling,” Tommy remarked as he swung onto the balls of his feet and nervously studied the floor.
“Hmmm, I wonder why,” Thea jested with a sarcastic smile.
“Starling then,” Oliver grinned, Felicity had filled him in on the Iris situation. “This is good.”
“And what about you two?” John enquired for the rest of them.
“Well,” Oliver looked at Felicity before he scooped up her hand in his, “we're going to stay in Aspen for a few months, it’s a close flight back to LA and I’d love to see it in winter again.”
“We'll keep in contact with you all,” Felicity added, sensing the younger Queen’s anxiety. “You’ll know if anything changes.”
Oliver nodded as he shuffled his hand through Thea’s locks. “This is a good thing speedy.”
“Okay,” Thea sighed, finally allowing herself to smile.

>>>>|<<<<

Back in Aspen, and the group had gone their separate ways. When Oliver and Felicity arrived back from LA, it was late, dark and a wintery breeze meant it was time to light the fire. As the evening closed in around them Oliver rested on the couch while Felicity made a few calls to tell people where they could reach her for a while.

Her first call was to Iris.
“So is everything alright? Cisco and I were worried when you all had to leave early,” Iris remarked down the slightly crackled phone line.
Felicity ran a slow hand through her tumbled locks. “I’m sorry about that,” she sighed haplessly, “but you guys got home okay?”
Iris' soft chuckle lifted Felicity’s smile. “Your boyfriend flew us back to Starling, first class, we’re just fine,” she effused. “But are you?”
Felicity let go of a silent exhale as her eyes gently closed; she didn’t want to lie to her friend but it still wasn’t her secret to divulge. Rock meet hard place.

“He’s fine,” she remarked, cautiously stepping through her thoughts. “He just had an old injury that he wanted to make sure wasn’t causing issues,” she answered with her eyes closed so she wouldn’t see her reflection in the window she was sitting in front of watching plane lights in the distance. Somehow not being able to see yourself fabricating the truth made it easier to do.

“Is that why he retired?” Iris probed, the journalist inside her snapping up the headlines of it. “Was he injured?”
Felicity let silence drop between them, her lips slightly parted, but her brain not nearly firing enough at this time of night to come back with something that didn’t exacerbate the lie too much; or falter on the side of truth.
“Oh god sorry,” Iris cringed to herself as she dug a thumb into her eye and rubbed. “Look at me going all Reporter Iris on you, I’m sorry,” she breathed, her lips crinkled into an apologetic smile before she changed the subject. “So you’re staying in Aspen for a little while?”
“Yeah,” Felicity answered with a nod as her eyes fluttered open; she could go back to star gazing now she wasn’t fibbing. “We’ve decided to spend some of winter here and really enjoy the snow. But I’m more interested in what you’re doing?”
Felicity caught her own reflection and noted the mischievous smile that had appeared on her face.

“Oh me?” Iris answered with a cagey stutter, “nothing, I’m just working.”
“Sorry, I should have said whom you’re doing,” Felicity snickered.
She heard Iris gulp, “you noticed?”
“It was kind of hard not to.”
“Cisco said the same thing,” Iris groaned as she held her head in one hand. “I’m sorry.”
Felicity laughed. “For what?”
“Making the weekend scandalous, I don’t know, I just feel guilty.” Iris head lolled around as she spoke.
“You have no need to, Tommy is a great guy.”
“I didn’t plan on it, one too many drinks,” Iris admitted. “But he’s coming to spend some time in Starling, is this crazy?”
“You’re asking me, the woman who quit her job and is holed up in a mansion in Aspen?” When Felicity said it out loud and without context it sounded ridiculous and she found herself cringing, but it still felt right.
“Good point,” Iris chuckled.

>>>>|<<<<

Despite Oliver and Felicity’s every intention to start that night, when Felicity finished up on the phone with Iris and told her mom where she was staying, they both felt the heaviness of the day slump their bodies and tug their eyes closed.

It wasn’t long before they were yawning in sync.
“We should get some rest,” he sighed, his tepid breath brushing against her temple before he warmed it with a kiss.
Felicity blinked sharply a few times before she sat up, with a straight back, on the couch. “Or, we could do something else,” she remarked coyly, a smile flirting with her lips before she inadvertently yawned.
Oliver laughed huskily before he stood up and offered her his hand. “That can wait until tomorrow.” She slapped her palm into his before he pulled her lethargic body from the couch. “It’ll give you more time to,” he paused as he studied her eyes, momentarily losing himself in them, “…to be sure,” he finished breathily.

She delicately danced the tips of her fingernails down his cheek and along his jaw, teasing out a raspy sigh from behind his closed lips. “I’m sure Oliver,” she answered, softly but with a resolution in her tone.

Having a baby with a man she’d known only a few months was crazy; it had never even remotely featured in any of the plans she had once regimentally stuck to and while someone on the outside looking into their lives might conclude that Felicity was giving something up for Oliver, she knew in her heart of hearts that this wasn’t about not following the path she’d once laid out for herself, it was about discovering a new path, one that she had no hesitation about following.

>>>>|<<<<

The next day they slept in, Felicity bought a few groceries and they spent most of the day watching Hallmark movies unrepentantly.

After a light dinner they made their way to the master bedroom where Felicity absconded into to the bathroom while Oliver set about making the room something a little more special.

With the fire lit, a bottle of champagne chilling near it and every candle he could find in the house (about 20 in total) littered around the room, Oliver waited nervously on the edge of the bed.

The butterflies in his stomach were performing a stunt show and no matter how hard he attempted to stop the flighty smile that kept rising up on his lips, he really couldn’t.

Meanwhile, Felicity hovered her foot over the trash can and, after a deep breath, she pushed down the lever and dropped her half empty packet of birth control pills into it.

Absolute madness. That’s what she would have told anyone who might have suggested 6 months ago that she would be doing this, but right then, at that very moment, there was an indescribable calm set over her that she could see in her reflection; this felt right.

She watched the lid close over something which had been her constant companion since her mother had taken her to the health clinic the day after her 15th birthday. It was only day two without taking them and she knew it was symbolic more than anything else, but as she fastened her hair into a top knot near her crown and touched a delicate finger along her décolletage, she gave herself permission to smile. This felt right.

“Hi,” Felicity said softly as she came out from the bathroom with a satin robe pulled tightly around her frame.
“Hi,” Oliver answered, the word throaty and rasped before he cleared the husk and repeated it, a little smoother the second time. “Hi.”
"Is this what you had in mind?" she asked as she opened the robe and slid it slowly from her body, letting it pool at her feet. Her finger moved tantalizingly slow along the crest of her shoulder and down the edge of the diamond necklace before it fell like a feather to her heaving breast and rose-tinted nipple. She stroked a circle around it fondly as she kept her eyes laced to him.

Oliver swallowed heavily before his mouth fell open and his eyes grew wide like saucers. He trailed his sight along the path her finger had taken, carefully watching as she teased her perky, milky-hued breast and a smoky sigh bled from her lips. He traced every part of her, rolling down her lithe arms to her nipped waist and the smooth curve of her belly, down to her small thread of hair between her legs. Every inch of her was a delectable feast for his eyes.

“It's much, much better than I imagined,” he sighed before his tongue instinctively traced the outer edge of his bottom lip, wetting it, while his eyes both savoured and devoured the sight of her.
A coquettish laugh lifted her smile lopsided as her cheeks blushed a soft peach hue; despite her provocative stance and the deliberate, slow drag of her fingertips down the centre of her breast bone, she'd never had a man look at her quite like Oliver was at that moment. The seductive siren wasn't her modus operandi but she was enjoying the way his teeth fought with his lips and his eyes hooded with desire. There was something so carnal about it.

“Pour me a drink?” she asked as her eyes nodded towards the champagne Oliver had set in an ice bucket to the side of the pillow mountain he'd made in front of the fire. “It might be the only one I’m allowed for a while.”

Oliver poured two flutes full and handed one to Felicity, watching her plump, wine-tinted lips fold over the crystal edge and bathe in the bubbly, gold-hued elixir before he too took a sip.

“Is it weird to feel nervous?” Felicity asked after the airy bubbles had trickled down her throat. “It’s not like we haven’t done…” she paused to touch her hand to the convex of his chest, her thumb tracing the underside of his pec, “…this,” she finished, breathless.
Oliver took her hand delicately and traced the backs of her knuckles with his lips. “We’ve definitely had our share of doing this,” he smiled as he looked up her svelte arm, his lips brushing her hand as he spoke before he walked her slowly towards the bed he’d made on the rug. “How about I relax you?” he whispered while he kissed the words up her silky arm, breaking away at her shoulder.

“Mmm,” she hummed while she took another sip of her drink, “and what did you have in mind?”
His fingers swept down the side of her ribs, guiding her body closer to his before they veered at her waist and dipped into her naked heat. “Lie down for me and I’ll show you,” he promised as he took her glass from her hands and set it aside.

Felicity stretched out on the decadent rug, letting its soft fibres tease and stroke her naked flesh while the fire licked it's warm glow across her breasts and stomach.

With the weight of a feather Oliver delicately traced the curves of her body, watching her writhe and lift and sigh helplessly with every touch. The apex at her thighs was warm and radiated heat from her glistening sex, now misted in a delicate sheen of perspiration. The nip of her waist and the taut skin of her hip bone were asking for a kiss and Oliver obliged by leaning over her to brush a wet and soft kiss along the slender bone before nipping the edge with his teeth.

Felicity groaned with a salacious wetness in her tone as her back arched and her fingers knotted together above her head. He kissed her a few more times, dragging his supple lips from the clinch of her waist to her silky and taut stomach which shuddered under the graze of his beard.

He could smell her, heady and aroused as the aroma of her need sent spikes of desire to the throbbing rod between his legs.

“May I discover you tonight Felicity?” he asked softly, a husky rumble thick in his words, lusting and needy.
Her eyes fluttered open, wide with wonderment as her lips furrowed with a dozen questions, but she nodded all the same, her body aching for him.

He spent a few moments tracing the diamond necklace that hung beautifully across her clavicle and moved slightly with every breath she took. Each diamond shone radiantly against her milky skin, which was dusted with a translucent rose tint that sat just beneath the surface.

His fingers ghosted down to her breast, a wake of skin prickles behind it, before he teased her nipple into a tight bud which he then wet with his tongue and grazed with the edge of his lip. The skin, now rippled and crimson, glistened with his salvia as Oliver dipped a finger into his champagne and skated the effervescent liquid around her nipple.

He did the same a second and a third time, relishing the way she moaned and writhed as the champagne beaded on her skin, before he leaned down and drank it up like dew on a petal. She clasped at the fibres of the rug and twisted them around her fingers until it had no more to give. Her eyes fought between open and closed and her voice, rich and husky, pleaded his name over and over again as Oliver sucked and lathed and teased and soothed her breast in his mouth.

When he pulled away, Felicity was breathless and her thighs were damp with arousal as her body clenched around emptiness. Her skin was tingled and her breasts ached while her body trembled with rampant desire.

With a smile curving the very tips of his lips, Oliver fished out an ice cube from the stainless steel bucket and held the frigid sphere between his thick fingers.

“Do you trust me?” Oliver asked, his eyes drifting over the landscape of her body.
She looked at him with bright and wild eyes and a bottom lip that bore marks from her teeth. “Yes.” The simple answer shaking as her body rocked and shook, dizzy and intoxicated with need.

Oliver licked the bevelled edges of the ice cube, carefully rounding and softening them with his lips and tongue before he held it above her and let the warmth from the fire melt droplets that fell like puddles onto her chest.

Her eyes fluttered and she cried out in ecstasy as the tantric play had her drowning in pleasure. His lips were next, still chilled from the ice as they marked their way across her body, dancing to the thin skin at her wrists and making Felicity shiver with bliss, all while he dragged the shrinking ice up the inside of her thigh, inching it ever closer to her inferno.

His lips reached her mound and he stilled to breathe her in deeply and let the heady notes of her arousal spill into his senses before he looked up her lissom body and caught her eyes.

“Felicity.” Her name was raspy and guttural and every inch of her body sighed when she heard it. Her wild eyes focused on him as her tongue fretted to wet her parched lips. “I want to pleasure your clit with the ice and my lips.” Her head bobbed frantically with a nod even before he’d finished. “Is that alright?” he asked, despite her pre-emptive agreement.
“Yes,” she answered, her voice thin and wispy as she brushed the back of her hand across her damp neck.
“Tell me if it’s too much,” he spoke softly as he settled himself between her legs and spread them wide to gaze at the fleshy pink folds of her sex, now wet with desire.

He ran the ice slowly around the outer line of her sex, easing Felicity into the sharp but pleasurable feeling of it while her shoulders lifted off the floor and her frenzied eyes studied the smile on his lips. It made her toes curl and her heart race and there was little Felicity could do to stop her tiny convulsions as Oliver continued to draw laps around her.

“More,” she moaned when the sensation had numbed to her and Oliver answered by sliding the ice through her slit, making her thrash with undulating wails of utter hedonism.
When her sex was drenched, Oliver lifted the ice to his lips and sucked it into his mouth whole.

It was faint, but he could taste her on the smooth surface of the sphere as he rolled it around his mouth and watched the delight spark in her eyes. Every part of Felicity felt drenched except her lips as she sighed and moaned with salacious enjoyment.

He pushed the slither of ice into his cheek and bent over, letting the rush of her aroma wash over him again before he kissed her nub, drawing her sensitive clit into the icy and wet cavern of his mouth. Relentlessly Oliver teased and kissed her sex, slicing his tongue between her folds and grazing his lips around the edge of her clit until Felicity was a mess of happy sobs a moment before her orgasm exploded like a jack-in-the-box of carnal ecstasy.

Oliver lapped at her sex, drinking in her climax with possessive and hungry grunting before her fingers tangled in his hair and pulled him away.

“Please…inside me…” she purred as her trembling walls ached to be stretched and filled.
Oliver shucked his pants to his knees and lifted himself above her while Felicity guided his rigid cock to her pulsing entrance.

He entered her slowly, savouring the way the throes of her climax had her walls palpitating and crushing in around him. It was warm and wet and throbbing as he found himself sighing her name while he eased deeper, relishing ever inch she gave him. Her fingers knotted in his hair on one hand while the other palm ran over his sculpted and sinewy back, curving and rolling over the brawny avalanche of muscles.

Her aching need to be filled by him had her feasting on her lower lip while her hips tipped up towards him, taking the rest of his cock to the hilt. She stayed there, watching as his eyes glazed over with pleasure. Her hip pressed against his and her rear lifted off the floor until she felt a spasm down her thighs telling Felicity that they couldn't hold her up much longer. His biceps were doing the same as the veins that twisted down his arms thrummed and his muscles tensed.

Felicity dropped her body to the ground, breathlessly moaning as his cock slipped a few inches out of her. But barely a breath later Oliver dropped his waist and thrust himself deep within her, catching her pleasured scream with his mouth.

His tongue traced her parted lips before dipping into the wet realms of her mouth, hungrily exploring every inch as he drove his cock between her grasping and cushioned walls. His lips fell to her neck, tasting the saltiness of her skin as he sucked her wantonly into his mouth. Fingertips stroked her cheek, her neck and her lithe shoulders before they fell away where the dancing flames licked their amber hues up her porcelain skin.

Her body trembled around him as the room filled with desperate gasps. Her body craved him, his naked flesh gliding into her wet sex as his base grazed her tightly coiled nub. Feverish fingers stroked and mapped the mounds and valleys of his sweaty chest before she cupped his head between her trembling hands and buried her eyes into his.

This felt right.

His rhythm was fast and his pace frantic as their bodies shook and flailed together until Oliver felt the tight pull across his core and the distinctive prickle down the back of his thighs. He continued driving his body into hers, matching thrust with breath until he had almost nothing more to give. With their eyes locked, Felicity came again in a stream of warm silk that covered Oliver's length.

“Are you sure?” he grunted, his body on the very precipice.
A kiss, pure, warm and tender gave him her answer.
This felt right.

Moment after his stride fumbled and his pace grew frenzied and erratic, Oliver spilled his seed inside her in long ribbons that felt warm against her crushing walls.

It was right.

>>>>|<<<<

They had moved to the bed after the second time while the hours slipped by. The fire was turned low, just enough to keep the air pleasant enough to need nothing more than a sheet over their ravaged and naked bodies.

Oliver couldn’t stop smiling as he studied her rosy and swollen lips while they drifted into a content smile. His hand sought her out under the sheet and his knuckles gently grazed the soft slope of her belly.

“Do you think we made a baby?” he asked, his eyes raptured with her and his mouth relaxed into a soft grin.
Felicity laughed buoyantly, her eyes dancing with delight and her throat still wet with the trail of kisses he'd made and a subtle mist of sweat. “Probably not.”
His smile lifted higher at one end, turning into a smirk. “We should keep trying then.” His fingers circled her pert nipple as he looked up at her coy pout.
“Also mixing it up,” she hummed before she bucked and pinned him to the bed. “Who knows what the best position is.”
His hands slid up from her knees, thumbs grazing the inside of her naked thighs before he stilled them at her hips. “You read my mind,” he sighed huskily.

>>>>|<<<<

Felicity woke up the next morning to a luscious floral scent teasing her nostrils and a distinctive but appealing ache between her legs. The luxuriant mattress cradled her body as she slowly roused to realise she was alone in the bed. With the decadent sheet melting like silk around her body, Felicity languidly turned beneath it to find a large bouquet of red and white roses, bound with gold ribbon fastened into a bow.

The sight made her instantly smile and breathe out his name. She brushed her thumb across her bottom lip, still swollen and tender from the hours they spent caressing his, and let it drift slowly down her neck, over the diamond necklace that made her blush and down between her aching breasts, happily bruised. Further down her body the tips of her fingers skimmed over her mound and her smile lifted higher. The memories were lucid and blissful and she let out a droll sigh at just how utter ravished she felt.

She slipped out from between the sheets and found her robe discarded at the foot of the bed. After she wrapped it around her body, Felicity floated to the other side of the bed and scooped up the large bouquet which needed both her hands to hold.

She buried her nose into a blossoming ones and breathed deeply, sighing as she expelled the breath.

This felt right.

As she walked from the bedroom another familiar and delicious scent wafted past Felicity’s nose.
Coffee.

She rounded the end of the hallway into the living space and found Oliver, in a charcoal Henley and grey jeans, bouncing around the kitchen with a radio station playing classical rock faintly in the background. He stopped when he saw her and padded over to her with a dishcloth draped over his forearm.

He pecked her lips with his before he brushed back her tumble of hair and sunk a second kiss against her forehead.
“Good morning,” he hummed as he pulled back from her. “Do you like them?”
“I love them,” Felicity gushed before she leaned in for another quick smell. “Did you have them delivered?”
Oliver slapped his hands together gleefully as he walked backwards to the kitchen, wearing a dopey grin.
“I went and got them,” he announced with a lopsided shrug. “And I got some things for breakfast and those pastries that you like from the little French Café in town.”
He ducked down behind the counter and popped back up holding a large glass vase which he filled with water.

“Wait,” Felicity gaped as she strode a few steps closer, “You went out?”
He nodded as he set the vase on the breakfast bar.
“Oliver, you didn’t need to do that,” Felicity fretted as she placed the flowers beside the vase and walked over to him, concern colouring her expression.
“I know,” he answered, and the truth was it had taken him walking in and out of their front door at least six times before he finally pushed himself. “I don’t want to be afraid anymore Felicity,” he added with a soft tremble in his voice as he looked over at the cap, scarf and sunglasses he’d used to hide behind.
“Something about this place,” he continued while he cradled her hands in his, “something about being with you, it makes me feel like I can live again and for the first time in a long time I can see a life beyond these,” he sighed as he walked his fingers across his head, taking her hand with him. “I can see a life beyond the walls I built around myself. I don’t want to hide anymore.”

Felicity’s hand cupped the back of his neck as his eyes flooded with emotion and a single tear bled down his cheek. “There is a life beyond them Oliver, because I won’t let them have you,” she whispered as a smile warmed her face.

This felt right.

>>>>|<<<<

It was the day before Halloween, the scent of pumpkin spice and cinnamon was fragrant in the air and Felicity was late.

Two weeks and 3 days late to be specific.

She knew there was a high probability that this was nothing more than her cycle sorting itself out and she had therefore tried her best to temper her excitement as best as she could for the last few minutes – namely by trying to pick a favourite between pumpkin spice and cinnamon – while she and Oliver sat on the edge of the bed silently letting the minutes tick by, their fate awaiting them on the edge of the vanity a short walk away.

Oliver, in his anxiousness, wrung his hands together and did everything he possibly could to stifle the urge he had to tap his foot on the bedroom floor; because she was late, two weeks and 3 days to be exact.

He practiced his responses to a negative result briefly in his head; it was only the first month, trying was the fun part, he could get tested earlier… but no matter how hard he tried to temper it, his excitement that it could be positive was palpable.

The timer on his watch beeped and the two of them looked at each other with frozen expressions until Felicity finally spoke.
“Okay, so…” she rubbed her trembling hands nervously together. Had they made a baby? The question echoed in her head as she took a deep, settling breath and stood up. A wave of nausea took her, but that could have been for a multitude of reasons as she exhaled slowly through parted lips. “Do you want to look, or…” her voice trailed off as her eyes blinked towards the bathroom door, now seemingly like it was a treacherous hike away.
“You should,” Oliver bubbled as he too stood, his knees buckling in excitement for a brief moment while his hands felt like waterfalls of perspiration.
“Maybe we could look together,” Felicity effused as she took the first step towards the answer.

Oliver walked with her until they were standing in front of the little white, plastic stick, holding hands.
“It could be negative, just my cycle sorting itself out,” Felicity chatted as she squinted then looked away.
Oliver turned her towards him and pulled her into a comforting embrace.
“Whatever it says, I love you,” he said softly, his words lifting the soft wisps of hair that floated by her cheek.
“I love you too.”
She reached out and plucked the pregnancy test from the marble vanity without looking. Breathing in sync with him, Felicity held it between them and at the same time they looked down and saw the same thing.

Seconds drifted in silence until Felicity sobbed out a happy and gleeful laugh, followed closely by Oliver exuberantly lifting her into the air.

“We made a baby,” she smiled as she threaded her arms around his neck.
He kept her tight against his chest, his brawny arms holding her easily as he looked up at her radiant smile. “We made a baby.”

It was right.

Chapter Text

By the time December rolled around, everyone important in their lives knew about the pregnancy, some – those who didn’t know about the clock ticking over Oliver’s head were surprised; and some (like her mother) hid the surprise under a happy exterior, while others (Iris) took the news with a slightly pinched brow. Felicity couldn’t blame her, there had never been any maternal plans in the future Felicity often talked with her about, and while she did love kids and had always eventually thought she would have them, one day, the news that one day would be in a few months was understandably hard to take for one of her best friends.

Cisco didn’t say much and while he congratulated her; Felicity couldn’t help but feel a pang of guilt over walking away from the plans she had once held. On the surface, she must have looked like the girl that fell hard and fast for a guy she barely knew. She only prayed that one day they would understand her choice a little better.

Pre-natal care had become a bit of a logistical trapeze act between Aspen and LA, but as circumstance would have it, they were in LA in December for Oliver to receive some treatment.

With a few treatments under his belt, the two of them were now happy for a short break from the heavy toll it took on Oliver’s health; and what better way to do it that than to see their baby on screen for the first time.

Oliver seemed more nervous than Felicity as his hands rolled over each other and his foot tapped on the linoleum floor of the room. Felicity, already on the leather-padded examination bed reached a hand over and beckoned Oliver closer. The legs on his chair made an ungodly sound as they scrapped across the floor, not unlike the sound of nails on a chalkboard, and his shoulders swallowed his neck in an apologetic shrug.

She held his hand and squeezed, much like she had done when the last round of radiation had him, near-crippled, on the floor of their apartment bathroom, a short walk away from the treatment centre.

For an hour she had held him, telling him gently stories of what their baby might be like, brushing a cold flannel over his forehead and offering him a smile to hide the sudden, engulfing fear that she was feeling.

She brushed a tear from her cheek with the back of her hand; but not before Oliver noticed.
“Are you okay?” he asked softly, but his voice felt like it echoed around the silent room all the same.
Felicity nodded, nipping the edge of her bottom lip to still it from quivering. Just the hormones she had tried to convince herself; and maybe there was some truth in that. But that sinking feeling in her heart that she had fallen for a man who seemed far more mortal than any other ‘fish in the sea’ – whether or not that was the truth, but the pendulum of death that hung above him sure seemed more apparent – was something that sat, like a constant reminder, in the pit of her stomach.

“Just hormones,” she answered with a peppy smile; or at least her attempt at one.
Oliver opened his mouth to venture further when the door to the room opened and the moment to talk was lost.

“Felicity…and Oliver?” the technician in a clean white coat asked as she pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose and read the file while she walked.
“That’s us,” Felicity replied, instinctively touching the small bump that had already started to appear.
“You have an OBGYN here in LA and one in,” she paused to check her notes, “Aspen?”
Felicity looked at the young woman, she barely looked old enough to drink let alone work a machine that would tell her the baby she was carrying had all fingers and toes accounted for, but she bit back her thoughts as best she could, hormones.

“We’re between the two places, so we thought it best to have someone in each place,” Oliver answered rather succinctly
Hormones also seemed to have a sort of ‘staring into middle space’ effect on Felicity that would render her speechless for, what she believed, was a few seconds while she conjured up the words she was thinking of. Unfortunately it was actually more like half a minute where she appeared to be rendered completely mute; a time that put it well into ‘awkward’.

“Okay,” the perky brunette said as she took a bottle of the ultrasound gel and warmed it up between her palms. “Firstly, my name is Alena, and I have to say I’m a little new at this.” Felicity mentally high-fived herself, knew it. “But I assure you this is all very routine, I’m going to take a little look, count all the toes and fingers and take a couple of measurements.” She continued rolling the bottle between her palms. “I have a supervisor that can join us if you’d prefer, but if I see anything that I’m unsure about I will bring them in just for your peace of mind. Is that okay with you?”
“That’s fine,” Oliver answered and Alena smiled kindly.
“Because I’m actually putting my hands on this stomach here,” she laughed, hovering a palm above Felicity, “I need an okay from you if that’s alright.”
“I’m fine with that,” Felicity answered sincerely; after all she herself had been a child prodigy and she knew better than most that you shouldn’t judge someone based on their perceived age.

Alena was probably completely competent and able to give a sonogram; they were, after all, in one of the most well-respected clinics in the city, not some back alley pop-up.

“Is this your first scan?” Alena asked as she inputted a few details from the chart into the machine beside her.
“Mmmhmm,” Felicity answered together with a nod.
They had heard the heartbeat in Aspen, but this would be the first chance to actually see their baby.

Despite being warmed for a minute or two in Alena’s palms, when the gel went onto Felicity’s bare stomach the chill of it made her shiver for a second before she regained her composure as the lights in the room dimmed.

“So you’re about 11 weeks along,” Alena continued talking as she scooted her chair closer and held the wand above Felicity’s belly. “We’ll get a much more definitive due date today,” she started to lower the wand before she snapped it back up, “before I forget and if you’re actually a lot further along than you think, the baby’s gender, is that something you want to know?”

Both thought about it and answered in sync with a definitive, “no.”
After all, there was something sort of fun about the surprise of it all.
“Alright, good,” Alena nodded before she looked towards Felicity, “this won’t hurt, but I might need to push a little hard to get a good look, I’ll let you know though,” she chatted as Felicity nodded, somewhat impatiently.

Alena pressed the wand into Felicity’s stomach and instantly a grainy image appeared on the projection screen while the room filled with the whomp, whomp, whomp of a heartbeat, although slightly echoed.
“These are two very strong heartbeats,” Alena nattered away as she worked the wand down and around Felicity’s stomach.
“I should hope mine is strong,” Felicity laughed, it was a dumb joke, but Oliver humoured her with a little laugh too.
Alena looked up and smiled, “Oh right, I know,” she quipped as she used her free hand to scuttle her glasses back up her nose, “but I meant in there.” She nodded towards the screen that had a black and white image of Felicity’s womb on it.
It seemed like they were talking about something different, but Felicity couldn’t be sure that it wasn’t the dreaded pregnancy fog playing tricks on her. “Me, one,” she said pointing to her nose, “baby two, right?”
“One,” Alena pointed to where Felicity had, her nose, “two and three,” she continued pointing at Felicity’s belly.

“What? I don’t,” she couldn’t even finish her sentence as she tried to make sense of the moment she was living; was this some sort of Twilight Zone?
Alena looked just as puzzled. “You’re having twins right?”
Oliver choked while Felicity’s jaw sprung open like jack in the box. “Noooo,” she finally managed, but it came out slightly drawn and very Neanderthal sounding.
Alena looked confused, glancing from screen to stomach to the utterly confused faces in front of her. “I think maybe I might need to get someone else to come in,” she said as she busily stood up, nodded and curled a loose bit of hair around her finger.
“I think so,” Felicity answered staring at her exposed belly like it held secrets.
“Okay, I’ll, uh, be right back.”
Oliver and Felicity’s surprise clearly had befuddled the girl and she took a few, rapid, steps out the door, closing it behind her.

“There has to be a malfunction, or a technician that isn’t still young enough to be in elementary school,” Felicity ranted.
“Didn’t you graduate college, summa cum laude at 19?” Oliver added to the conversation.
“Not the point,” she snipped back, her hormones were really giving her a run on the emotional-scale today.
“It might explain…”
She cut him off with a narrow stare. “You think maybe…,” her words trailed off into thin air.
“You were saying that your stomach looked larger than the ones on the pregnancy websites,” Oliver offered, rolling his thumbs back and forth over her knuckles, something he had come to learn relaxed her.
“I decided it was the five tacos I ate the night before,” Felicity sighed as she danced feathery fingertips over the swell in her belly. “Tacos,” she repeated, “Not a whole extra baby.”

The door opened and an older woman with rich mocha skin and curly, salt-and-peppery hair pulled back into a full bun, walked into the room with Alena a few steps behind.

“I’m Lucy and Alena has asked me to take a little look at your ultrasound if that’s okay with you dear?” she said calmly and warmly and Felicity felt almost instantly at ease with her soft, melodic voice.
“That’s fine,” she breathed, as Lucy set about her task, quietly humming a happy melody. There was something to be said about how easily a person who enjoys their job can relax an anxious person. She pushed down on Felicity’s stomach, rolling and manipulating it just enough, and just on the level where it was uncomfortable but not painful.

She made some boxes on the screen and took a few images before she set one of the screenshots up on the big screen. “Baby one,” she cooed softly as she mapped out the line she’d drawn with the cursor. Both Felicity and Oliver nodded in sync. “And this here,” she pointed to a smaller black blob which Felicity didn’t recall seeing the first time, “Is baby number two. Congratulations, you’re having twins.”

Three words they were definitely not expecting. You’re having twins.

“But there was no other heartbeat a week ago,” Felicity gaped still staring at the still image ahead of her.
“That can happen, and even at 11 weeks sometimes twins can be missed if one is sitting behind the other. Alena did a good job finding it.”
Felicity touched her stomach, gliding a little through the gel. “Are they both, are the okay?”
“They both look perfect. Baby two is a little smaller, but that’s entirely normal. These are dichorionic diamniotic twins or DD Twins, which is just a fancy way to say they have their own living quarters and their own placentas. Your OBGYN will explain it a little better, but,” she put her hand gently atop Felicity’s, “you should know this is the safest type of twins you can have.”

She waited a few moments to let that assurance sink in. “Now I’ll let Alena finish up her measurements and the like, unless you lovely folks would like me to stay on?”
“No, no, it’s fine, thank you. Sorry you had to be called in, we just weren’t…” Felicity started before the word escaped her.
“Expecting it,” Oliver finished.
“No problem at all.”

>>>>|<<<<

“So who do you want to tell first?” Felicity asked as the two stepped out into the warm afternoon air, the breeze whipping up the small wisps of hair around her still-surprised face.
They were having twins.
Two babies.
One.
Two.

There was no way to tell gender at this stage, so no way to tell whether they were identical or fraternal, but after another meeting with the OBGYN down the hall, what Lucy had said was confirmed. Each baby having their own placenta and amniotic sac was the safest ‘type’ of twins to carry; in that it presented less complications with two babies, one sac and/or placenta. She had summed it up with the simple analogy that they both had their own bed and their own food source so they wouldn’t be fighting for either.

Although the news was still a shock and Felicity was busy trying to wrap her head around it, she did take some comfort in that. Right now, nothing in her prenatal care would change but as the pregnancy progressed she would be more closely monitored and, as the due date, now set at 9 July, grew closer they would need to have a discussion about natural delivery verses assisted.

Oliver’s lips turned up into a smile. “What if we didn’t?”
She turned to face him, watching the mischief spark in his oceanic eyes. “When we come back from the hospital with two babies, I think they’ll notice Oliver,” she replied, swatting his arm with the back of her hand.
“I know, but it might get a few laughs,” he bantered, tapping her arm with his elbow before he leaned close to her stomach and whispered, “Our little secret?”
He looked up her body at her and with a dramatic sigh, tempered with a smile, she gave him the answer he was looking for. “Fine,” she chuckled, “our little secret.”

>>>>|<<<<

After the test and Oliver’s treatment, they returned to Rio de Janero for Christmas. Felicity was amazed to find that Raisa had done her best to incorporate Hanukkah traditions into the festive decorations and Tommy declared that the older woman had finally gone soft.

No one mentioned Felicity’s blossoming stomach or the fact it seemed rather advanced for the 13 week mark – they wouldn’t dare, and Felicity and Oliver kept the surprise all to themselves, sharing nothing but knowing smiles and almost-too-small-to-see winks.

It was mid-December, a few days out from Christmas when Tommy answered the video doorbell from Oliver’s front gate. He stared at the image of a blonde woman in stilettos and a royal blue cocktail dress. “Huh,” he said to himself as he cocked his head to the side and watched her brush her sun-kissed hair over her shoulder.

He heard a door close upstairs and he found Oliver with a pool towel around his neck heading down.

“Why is there a really hot blonde woman at your front gate?” Tommy called out without looking away from the screen.
Oliver took the last few stairs two at a time before he reached Tommy by the security camera display, set just to the side of the front door. “Huh,” Oliver remarked as he idly tapped his naked chest; Felicity was already outside by the pool and once he’d had his ‘insisted upon’ rest, she’d told him he could join her – for a reward. “I don’t know who…” his voice trailed off as he leaned in to get a closer look; she looked a little familiar but he couldn’t place why.

Tommy grinned as he set his weight on one foot. “If I didn’t have a girlfriend,” he remarked casually just as Felicity walked in through the kitchen.

She was wearing one of Oliver’s shirts as a dress over her togs with her little bump jutting out the fabric. She walked on bare feet and a soft sway of her hips that Oliver became instantly enthralled with – losing interest in the monitor. Her hair was piled onto her crown in a messy bun with tendrils spiralling down from there, damp at the ends. Her lips were glossy and her cheeks wore a natural blush. Her milky complexion was free of makeup and a glow across the apples of her cheeks and the bridge of her nose perfectly highlighted the light smattering of freckles there.

“What are you boys looking at?” she asked as Oliver made a beeline for her, scooping his arms around her before she could see it for herself.
“Hi,” he whispered near her ear, his lips brushing her skin and sending a shiver of prickles down her spine. During his ‘designated rest’ time, Oliver had found himself amidst a rather erotic dream about the woman in his arms and while, originally, taking a swim with her in the pool had sounded like a perfect afternoon, seeing her had made him hungry for something quite different.

Felicity had gone through the kitchen in search of a snack because she was nearly ravenous, both in actual appetite and sexual appetite, but stumbling upon Oliver instead she licked her lips salaciously as pressed her body tight against his – because Oliver was looking like a whole meal.

“Are you expecting a hot friend?” Tommy called out before he added with a grin, “aside from the hot friend I’m currently seeing.”

“No, why?” she muttered, her eyes affixed to Oliver as tiny sighs tumbled from her mouth.
Tommy looked at them and huffed loudly. “Why are you looking at him like you’re about to have sex right here?” He turned back to the monitor and huffed dramatically a second time. “Get a room guys.”
“Is he still sexually frustrated because Iris isn’t flying in until just before New Years?” Felicity pouted, her tone laced with a light chuckle.
Oliver grinned. “Must be.”
“No,” Tommy shot back; lying.

“So, why the question about whether I’m expecting someone?” Felicity asked, finally uncoiling herself from Oliver’s arms, despite his groans of protest.
“There is a hot blonde at the gate, Tommy figures you all know each other,” Oliver answered with a coy smile brightening his eyes.
“Aww, you think I’m hot?” Felicity cooed, wrapping her arms back around Oliver’s waist.
“Of course,” Oliver breathed, swaying with her.

“OH COME ON!” Tommy heckled loudly. “Hot blonde. At Gate.” His eyebrows pinched when he spoke. “Wait, please don’t tell Iris I said that.”
Both Oliver and Felicity laughed at Tommy’s expense.
“I’m not expecting anyone, but should I go out there and shoo them away with my pregnant belly?” Felicity asked as she walked towards Tommy. She put her hand on Tommy’s lean shoulder and squeezed, “we can’t have a hot blonde woman making you weak at the knees, now can we?”

“Oliver said she was hot too!” Tommy argued, his lips smirking as he tossed his head back towards Oliver.
“I… I didn’t, I was quoting you!” Oliver retorted brusquely. “That’s different.”

“I need to see this hot blonde,” Felicity remarked as she leaned in closer for another look. “Ohmygod,” she squealed, loud enough that both Oliver and Tommy jumped a little in their skin.
Oliver hurried over. “What?”
She pushed down the intercom and spoke into it. “Mom?”
The ‘hot blonde’ clapped her hands together excitedly before she waved at the camera.

Oliver looked at Tommy, as they both mouthed “mom?”

>>>>|<<<<

“What are you doing here Mom?” Felicity asked, after she threw on a skirt and met her mother at the gate.
“I needed to see you, I miss you and it’s Christmas,” Donna prattled off as Felicity ushered her into the property for the long stroll back to house.
“We’re Jewish,” Felicity replied, humourlessly as she gestured her mother to the small path through the clearing. “You weren’t even going to be home, weren’t you going away with Michael?”
“Kevin,” Donna corrected and she clipped down the cobble path on her towering shoes.
Felicity looked over her shoulder with a wide-eyed expression. “Who’s Kevin?”
“Oh never mind, he’s no one now,” Donna answered cheerfully. Felicity would give her mom that; she never got unreasonably depressed when a relationship fizzled out. “Is the house far?” she asked as she swatted back brush branches.
“In those shoes, maybe?” Felicity jested, nodding down to her mother’s impractical footwear.

Oliver had offered to drive up, but Felicity wanted the walk to understand why her mom was here and be sure she understood the unique set of circumstances that she needed to be mindful of.

“Why are you here mom?” Felicity asked as they came to the end of the path, the stunning Villa now in sight with Tommy and Oliver standing just outside the door, a short walk away.
“Can’t I just come for a visit?” Donna asked furrowing her lips and tipping her head to one side. Felicity sighed before her mother continued. “I haven’t even met Oliver yet and you’re having his baby.”

Felicity felt a pang of guilt in her throat before she swallowed it down. “I explained why,” she said softly and Donna nodded reluctantly.
“The recluse, I understand, I just thought,” Donna spoke softly as she lifted one of her slender shoulders into a shrug.
Felicity heard the scuff marks of shoes on gravel and looked briefly over her shoulder to find Oliver walking towards them, Tommy a hesitant few steps behind.
“It’s not fair for you to just show up like this.”
“I can behave, I promise,” Donna pleaded her case as Oliver walked nearer.

It was too late to do anything; Felicity knew Oliver would never ask her to leave no matter how uncomfortable he felt. When the footsteps stopped, she looked to her left and found him stood there.

“Oliver, this is my mom, Donna Smoak,” she introduced with an apologetic half-smile, “Mom, this is Oliver.”
Donna squeaked and Felicity could tell the overly zealous and crazily enthusiastic woman she’d known her whole life desperately, desperately, wanted to hug Oliver; and for a moment Felicity held her breath expecting it. But, to her surprise, Donna kept her hands to herself.

“It’s a pleasure to finally meet you Ms Smoak,” Oliver said warmly as his arm brushed against Felicity’s shoulder. Instinctively she took his hand and gently squeezed, until his body relaxed beside her.

“You’re going to make my grandbaby very cute with those cheekbones,” Donna cheered, fingers fidgeting with the hem of her dress and Felicity imagined she was desperately stopping herself from pinching Oliver’s said cheekbones. “Speaking of,” Donna continued looking back to Felicity, “you’re blossoming.”
“Thanks mom,” Felicity gushed, with a trickle of fingers down her growing stomach.
“Like really blossoming, you’re actually quite big, are you sure there is only one baby in there?” Donna jested and Oliver conspicuously cleared his throat while Felicity squeezed his hand.

“So, you’re ah, Felicity’s mom,” Tommy said as he finally reached them and while he scuffed his toes into the drive, looking a little sheepish.
“Oh call me Donna,” she chortled as she briefly eyed up the new arrival. “Now is this some sort of three-way relationship, I wasn’t expecting it, but I’m very open-minded.”

“Mom! No, no, not, no,” Felicity immediately retorted. “Tommy is Oliver’s friend and manager.”
Her mother shrugged innocently as she smiled. “You never know.”
Something then struck Felicity like a bucket of ice water. “Where are you staying?” Felicity asked, her eyes wide in expectation of the answer.
“Well…,” Donna started, dipping her head in a look Felicity knew all too well.

Shit.
She was planning on staying with them.

>>>>|<<<<

It had been settled; Donna was staying with them for a few days. Oliver was being far too saintly in Felicity’s opinion in letting her stay in his house, which he corrected her with a soft, our house. It was also not lost on him that Felicity’s mother would be the only grandparent in their babies’ lives and while her family wasn’t any larger than his – two people – that was double and he’d take it.

It was now into the evening and Felicity was helping her mom unpack a few things in the guest room Felicity had once stayed in; it might have only been a few months ago, but it felt like a lifetime now.

“So is this where you’ll have the baby?” Donna asked casually as she peaked out the window to the twinkling lights in the distance.
“Actually we’re splitting our time between a few places,” Felicity answered as she checked the bathroom for clean towels. She strolled out holding her hands against her stomach, almost intuitively. “But when I can’t fly anymore we’ll be staying in LA. We have an apartment there where we’ll set up the nursery.”
Donna turned, her eyebrow arched with a flash of curiosity, and Felicity could almost guarantee she knew what her mother was thinking – LA had never been on Felicity’s radar, it always seemed far too fickle a place for her to live.
“An apartment in LA?” she asked, keeping the eyebrow raised.
“Oliver has some work in LA so it’s easier to stay there.” The lie rolled easily off Felicity’s tongue but her eyes stayed pinned to the floor in guilt.
“You sure are giving up a lot for this guy, your job, your house, your friends.” Donna voice was soft, kind and she took a step towards her daughter as she spoke.
“It’s not really like that, it’s just for now,” Felicity answered, her words throaty and thin as a few tears she couldn’t account for started to build behind her blue eyes.

“You’re brilliant Felicity, smarter than I ever could have imagined and you have so much fire in you. If you’re in love with Oliver and he’s the right man for you then you know I’m behind you all the way,” Donna assured her.
Felicity looked up, barely holding the tears at bay. “I know, and he is,” she couldn’t disguise the quiver in her voice though.
Donna folded her finger through a loose curl of Felicity’s hair near her cheek. “Well I just had to come down and see it myself.”

“I’m sorry we didn’t come around sooner, things are just a little complicated,” Felicity offered before her attempt at a smile made a tear slip from her eye; shortly followed by another and then another, until there were too many to count burning tracks down her skin.
“Baby, what’s wrong?” Donna fretted as she pulled her only child into a tight embrace.
“It’s just hormones,” Felicity sobbed against the familiar shoulder; she’d spent years crying against it as a child when her father never came home.
“I know hormones,” Donna breathed, her hand tumbling down the back of Felicity’s head. “They don’t do this.”
“I can’t,” Felicity pulled back and violently brushed the tears from her eyes.
“Felicity, you need to tell me what’s wrong.”
“I can’t,” Felicity repeated as she turned and ran out the door, stopping only when she almost collided with Oliver.

He looked terrified as he held her face between his palms, but she wouldn’t look at him; she couldn’t.
“Is everything okay?” he asked gently as her shoulders sobbed forward and Donna appeared from the room.
“It’s okay,” Felicity pleaded.
But the truth was she was scared; scared of being alone, and tired; tired of lying to the people she might one day desperately need. But she couldn’t ask Oliver for this, and this wasn’t her truth to tell.

“It’s not okay, something is wrong with my daughter and I think I have a right to know.” Felicity wasn’t sure the last time she’d heard the mama-bear pop out of her mother, but even Oliver realised that it wasn’t to be messed with.

He brushed back Felicity’s hair and kissed her forehead. “If this about snap, crackle and pop,” he whispered with a gentle and kind smile, “then you should tell her. Or better still, we should tell her together.”

So they did.

She took it much better than Felicity would have guessed; there was no hysterical crying or melodramatics. She asked sensible questions and waited for the answers; questions about his prognosis, the surgery, where he would have the surgery and when, and then she offered to stay with Felicity while Oliver was recovering, because “after all her daughter was having twins.”

To both Oliver’s and Felicity’s surprise, Donna had guessed there were two babies, citing a mother’s intuition, but she promised to keep their secret – both of them.

Breaking the news to her mother lifted a weight off Felicity’s shoulders and Oliver knew it was time to let the other people Felicity would one day need support from, know as well. Felicity told Iris and Cisco soon after and, once the initial shock wore off, the reason why it appeared that Felicity and Oliver were living their relationship in fast forward made sense.

It was then Felicity admitted her deep fear that something might happen to Oliver and that she would be left alone to cope with everything, to which Iris simply replied, “You’ll never be alone. You have everyone in his life and in yours. Whatever happens, you will never be alone.”

>>>>|<<<<

It was just after New Years and, much to Tommy’s delight Iris had arrived. It was a Sunday, mid-morning, and the decadent smell of pastries and coffee lingered in the air from the late breakfast. The sun was warming up and the pool was calling out to everyone when Oliver took a call from John.

It was a short conversation, barely a minute, when John told Oliver he’d sent him something that he and Felicity should see.

A few moments later and Oliver was staring at the online headline 'Footballer Oliver Queen claims “She Trapped Me!” '

Famed goal keep and world champion, Oliver Queen, got more than he bargained for when he invited a woman back to his house for an interview, his first ever, and we’re betting after this, his last.

A source close to the star says that Felicity Smoak, a simple office worker from Starling, Queen’s old home town, weeded her way into his life and his bed and tricked the recluse into believing she was on birth control when she wasn’t.

The same source has revealed that Queen feels trapped and duped by the petite blonde, but there is little he can do about it. “He wants to be a part of this baby’s life and even though she’s lied to him, he’ll do what he needs to, to keep the peace”; even if that means having her move into his multimillion dollar home which once belonged to his late parents; a move which has created a rift between him and his younger sister, Thea Queen.

He just doesn’t know what else to do.

There were two pictures accompanying the article, one of Oliver at the press conference he held before the winning game and one of Felicity taken only a few days ago when she ventured out, somewhat incognito, with her mother to a café not far from the Villa. The caption read that she was ‘Enjoying life at the top with friends’.

“How can they print this?” Oliver roared, every feature of his expression tortured with anger as he looked to Tommy for answers.
He had none and his eyes quickly roved across the room to Iris; while Felicity fell back against the kitchen counter, speechless.

“I would never write something as disgusting as that, but they can fabricate a story like that and they often do,” she explained. It was a sad truth and proving it wrong was often hard when the only substantiated claim it contained – that Felicity was pregnant – was in fact true.

“But it’s all bullshit,” Thea said angrily as she paced the room. “They can’t just claim a source.”
“Is there anything we can do?”
“You could try and argue libel with them but I’m not a lawyer, I don’t know how easy that would be,” Iris offered, but there were other options. “You could ignore it and hope it goes away or…” she paused to look between Oliver and Felicity.
“Or…?” Oliver prompted.
“You could respond to it.”
“How?”
“Social media is instant, or a press conference, but that can take a few days to coordinate,” Iris remarked as Oliver ran a troubled hand through his cropped hair.
“I’ve been running a professional page for you for years,” Tommy added. “You have about 8 million followers. You could do a live video post.”

“Do it, let’s do that,” Oliver announced, though his nodding head looked less sure.
Felicity finally spoke up. “Oliver you don’t need to, we can just ignore it,” she said softly. The truth was the words were bitter to read and to say they hadn’t hurt would be a lie, but Oliver didn’t need to step outside his metaphorical walls for her; he didn’t need the stress.
“No, I can do this,” he remarked, rolling his hands one over the other. “I spent my life hiding from people because I couldn’t change what they were writing about me fifteen odd years ago. But I can now. I won’t let them do this again. Not to us.” He stepped closer and gently touched her stomach. “Not to any of us.”

>>>>|<<<<

Oliver could hear his own heart beating as Tommy gave him the thumbs up sign, it was time to talk. The camera was pointed at him and he could feel his anxiety pushing acid up his throat; but when he looked at Felicity and he recalled the two heartbeats of his babies growing inside her a wash of peace came over him and he spoke.

“Hi everyone, so this is really me,” a shaky smile lifted his lips. “Yes, I am seeing someone and yes, she is pregnant.” He glanced to Felicity sitting just outside frame. “We are happy and we’re starting our lives and our family together. Whatever else you read is lies made from false sources and half truths.” He swallowed the anxiety and tugged a comb of fingers through his hair. “I was driven into reclusion because of how the media hounded me and my younger sister when we were children. I will no longer stay silent while this same atmosphere is created for my unborn child.”

He paused to gather his thoughts before he looked into the camera and continued. “If you have ever respected me as the player I have always tried to be, I ask you now for your support. I ask for your respect and I ask for privacy during this time. I hope one day to feel safe enough to share more. Obrigado. Muito amor.”

He closed the video with a smile just before Thea walked into the room. “Your video is going off, I even commented,” she said cheerfully.
“ ‘To whoever wrote that article, Fuck You’,” Tommy read aloud. “Very, uh, diplomatic Thea.”

Oliver walked over to Felicity and took one of her hands between both of his.
“Write the article. Write it all, the tumours, the surgery, my childhood. Write it all, everything I told you,” he said, locking his eyes onto hers. “I can’t stop them finding out, I realise that now, so I’m going to make it on my terms, I need you to write this for me.”
Felicity nodded. “Okay.”

>>>>|<<<<

|March|

Felicity typed the last words before she paused and let the cursor sit there blinking at her for a few moments before she placed the final full stop and pulled her fingers away from the keyboard.

She looked at the screen once again as her hand crept to the tail of her back, now aching from sitting at a desk too long – that was something she would have to get used to as her pregnancy progressed.

A moment later, she pushed send.

It was done.

The article Oliver had told her to write was finished.

She brushed back a tear that sprung surprisingly from her eye before it reached her cheek as her other hand brushed over her swollen stomach. She was now 5 months pregnant, but with twins she carried more like 8 months. Another tear, but this time joined with a soft chuckle. She was the size of a metaphorical bus but all their friends were far too polite to say anything.

Oliver still took great amusement in not telling anyone and while he had showed Thea the cot they had bought for Baby Queen, what he hadn’t said was that there was an identical one stowed away under their bed. She would let him have his fun, but honestly, Felicity wasn’t sure this charade would last much longer.

The weather in L.A. was pleasant enough as the afternoon rode into earlier evening and Felicity pushed herself back from the desk.

She should get ready, she decided with a gentle nod as she lifted herself from the leather office chair. They had dinner reservations at 7pm with Thea, Tommy and Iris before Oliver started his next round of treatment, knowing that he would soon lose his appetite like he had previously.

On the way to the bedroom Felicity stopped at the doorway of nursery; decorated in sunny yellow and apple green and Felicity smiled at the white, sleigh cot Oliver had spent an entire day putting together. Four months.

She brushed her palm against the firm round. “See you in four months,” she whispered.

>>>>|<<<<

Oliver smiled as he listened from the doorway to the continuous taps on the keyboard. He took the small black velvet box from his pocket and stared at it for what seemed like the millionth time. His thumb worked over the soft fabric before he carefully pried it open with delicate fingers as though the box itself was fragile. The white diamonds reflected the light above him with near perfect symmetry as he glossed a feather light touch over the polished band.

They had lived their relationship in fast forward and quite possibly Felicity was the first person he'd ever loved; but Oliver recognised the feeling better than he ever thought he could and he knew, without a doubt, that he only saw a future with her in it. Felicity was it. She was the pinnacle only a few people ever reached. She was his forever; and tonight in a moment they stole away together, alone, he would tell her.

He's practiced the words. He knew it by rite. But even if he forgot them all, his heart wouldn't change. Tonight he would ask Felicity to marry him. He would promise her his forever, even if however long that proved to be wasn't up to him. But she would have it all. Every day. Every minute she would have his love.

His head snapped up when he heard the tapping slow and with a smile Oliver slid the small box into the pocket of her other surprise for her discover.

He stripped off the rest of his clothing and strolled into the bathroom, absently closing the door behind him before he turned on the water.

The sound engulfed the bathroom, bouncing it's soothing sounds off the ivory marble tiles as Oliver smiled at his own reflection.

“Felicity, will you marry me?” he asked the question to his reflection and laughed at the nerves he felt jolting up his arms.

The sudden pain across his temples pushed him back from the vanity and, for a moment, stole the breath from his lungs. He found the wall behind him with his hands in an effort to find something stable but it was seconds too late and with no warning Oliver was engulfed in darkness.

>>>>|<<<<

Felicity walked into the bedroom to the sound of the water running in the bathroom and the sight of a new red coat laid out in the bed. She chuckled as her finger wove down the buttons. She had seen it in a store they strolled past late last night, after hours, and at some stage while she was finishing the article to send to Iris, he must have gone and bought it.

“Oh-li-ver,” she hummed as she tugged her loose sweater off her body and headed towards the bathroom.

The door clicked open as she purred his name a second time as her eyes danced over to the stone and marble, double shower. Only it was empty.

The fog from the hot water beating down made her squint. “Oliver?”
Warm air filled her lungs as she turned around slowly and then gasped.

He was on the floor.
Blood marred the white vanity, the floor and the left side of his face.

“Oliver,” she screamed as she jolted towards him and fell to her knees.

His eyes were open but he wasn’t consciously with her. His lips were a pale blue, the colour of ice, as he took sharp, short and uneven breaths, while his arms jerked in stiff bursts. Oliver was having a seizure.

It took most of her strength but Felicity rolled him carefully onto his side and held a towel against the cut on his head. “Stay with me baby okay,” she sobbed as she wrestled her phone from her pocket.

His blood seeped through the white towel. “Stay with me.”

“911 what is your emergency?”

Stay with me.

Chapter Text

There are days
I wake up and I pinch myself
You're with me, not someone else
And I am scared, yeah, I'm still scared
That it's all a dream

Felicity stared down at the grey thread on the yoga pants she was wearing. It was oblivious to the world around it, inanimate and unaware; just drifting on the soft breeze that wicked up from the air vent under the waiting room chair. It danced on that breeze without purpose and to a rhythm all its own.
It was free from structure or intent, it had no fears, no worries, no guilt.
Felicity wasn’t so lucky.

She could feel her hands as they trembled in her lap. For the first twenty minutes she had poured every bite of willpower she could muster to still them; but like the grey thread and the breeze which had mastery over it, they moved out of her control and it was futile to try and stop them.

She glanced down at them again and her eyes were drawn to the blood embedded in the cuticle. She hadn’t been able to wash it clean and even scrubbing them until her knuckles were skinned and her fingertips blanched white didn’t help; the vivid red stayed as a reminder.

A reminder of the fear.
The worry.
The guilt.

Let’s do this, let’s have a baby.
Her words echoed like a recording through her thoughts.

They had been so happy, taking a chance on something, playing the odds.
He’d postponed his operation for her; for them. For every good reason in the world, and yet.

Felicity bit the edge of her lip, forcing herself to feel the pain because the numbness felt so much worse.

There were noises; wheels on linoleum, the tapping of fingers on a keyboard, the whoosh of the door opening and the clunk from the small child playing with a few wooden blocks in the corner. But, all Felicity heard was the thump of her heart as she tried to breathe – just breathe – not for her own peace but for the two babies growing inside her.

They were awake and she could feel them.

The next whoosh from the door brought with it a gust of air and a scamper of feet. She heard Thea’s voice, but she didn’t know how to look up or how to look away from that grey thread as she wished it could be her; inanimate and oblivious.

Because this moment hurt too much to live in it.

“Queen, Oliver,” Thea asked, her voice shaking almost as much as her palms as she tried to still them on the oak reception counter.
Tommy grazed her elbow with his and pointed towards Felicity, hunched over staring at the ground with her trembling hands on the cusp of her knees.

Thea walked over, skidding her shoes as she did, while an air of dread accompanied her. But Felicity didn’t look up because looking up made it real and she didn’t want it to be real.
Why couldn’t this be a grey thread?

“Felicity,” the young girl dropped onto the seat beside her, encasing her shoulders with slender, shaking arms.

Neither of them wanted this to be real.
They said nothing because silence was easier. Silence wasn’t so absolute.
“I’m sorry,” Felicity whispered; to his sister, to his best friend, to his children.

“Queen?” a voice asked through the near-empty waiting room.
Felicity looked up to a young man with black-rimmed glasses, a white coat and a plaster on his index finger.

Silence was out of reach now.

“Is he okay?” Thea asked, each word more shaky than the last.
“The tumour on the temporal lobe seems to have grown which put pressure on the brain and caused the seizure. It appears he hit his head on the vanity as he fell, so it’s extremely fortunate someone was with him at the time.”

Thea gave Felicity a squeeze as an unspoken thank you. Not that Felicity felt she deserved it.
Let’s have a baby…

“That’s not the one they were worried about,” Felicity spoke up, her voice whispered and soft. She wasn’t sure what she expected the man with a badge she couldn’t look up long enough to read was supposed to say to something like that; and she didn’t actually expect a response. Those were just her thoughts spoken dryly and aloud, void of anything but sadness.

“What now?” Felicity added.
“His surgeon will be around soon to discuss what comes next,” the man pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose as he spoke, “but Mr Queen is awake and alert, getting his head sutured so you can go in and see him now.”

>>>>|<<<<

Felicity and Tommy followed Thea into the private room where the undrawn curtains showed a city's worth of twinkling lights. Felicity hadn’t even realised night had fallen so thickly, and it seemed that somewhere between walking into the foggy bathroom and entering that hospital room, Felicity had lost a few hours.

Oliver’s eyes tracked straight to his light and the spots of blood on her shirt before his shoulders lifted from the bed. “Are your okay?” he fretted.

The nurse stitching his head looked a little agitated as she guided his shoulder back to the upright mattress.
“Oliver stay still,” Felicity pleaded as her hands wrung tightly over each other.
He offered her a brief smile in lieu of a nod. “Are you okay?” he asked a second time.

She grazed her fingertips down her pronounced bump. “We’re fine.”
“Did they check you out, did they make sure?” Worry threaded through his brow despite the fact it was his dry blood that was being cleaned off his jaw.
“Oliver, you’re the one in the hospital bed,” she gently reminded him.

He reached out and she took his hand, and gripping it he pleaded with her, “please just tell me you’re alright.”
Felicity turned his hand slowly in hers and kissed the back of his knuckles. “We’re fine. They checked and everything’s fine.”
He visibly relaxed. “Baby, I’m so sorry.”

Felicity opened her mouth to answer him but before she could, Dr Warren McAlistar walked in, looking down at his notes and balancing a pen between two fingers.

He looked up and sighed; it felt like a rumble through the room and it meant nothing good.
“It's time,” he said calmly as he looked to Oliver first and then the others in the room as though he was wordlessly apologising for the interruption.

“I thought it was shrinking,” Thea piped up. She looked so small and so frail with her arms wrapped tightly around her waist. Something Tommy must have felt as he coiled an arm around her shoulders.
“It was, but there is too much pressure on his brain now. We need to operate.” The neurosurgeon’s pale blue eyes seemed heavy across the brow as he spoke.
Oliver squeezed Felicity's hand and soothed his thumb over her knuckles. “When?”
“Tomorrow.”
Oliver lowered his eyes to Felicity's stomach as a troubled tear rolled down his cheek. “She's not due for another 4 months.”

“I’m sorry Oliver, truly I am, we couldn’t have predicted this, but we can’t wait around,” his apology was etched in the softening of his brow as he spoke. “I think we have a good shot at this, at removing all of it, or at least most of it. You’ll be prepped for surgery tomorrow morning.” Oliver’s eyes lowered into a stagnant blink. “You were lucky, but we can’t guarantee luck will be on your side again. It’s time. Do you have your bag ready?”

Oliver nodded.
“I'll go home and get it,” Felicity remarked but Oliver wouldn't let her hand go.
“I'll go,” Tommy offered and Oliver gave him a thankful smile.
Felicity didn't argue. “It's in the bottom of his closet on the left.”
“I'll be back to see you first thing tomorrow morning.” Dr Warren commented. “I'm truly sorry Oliver, but we have a good chance here.” With that he left and Tommy followed a few moments later.

“Have you eaten?” Thea asked, her attention directed towards Felicity, the colour drained from her cheeks.
She opened her mouth to answer but no words came out. Her mind was foggy and speaking seemed beyond her, let alone trying to remember whether she’d eaten or not. A tight pushing into her ribcage was, however, enough to push the words up her throat; she hadn’t. “No, not for a little while, but I’m fine,” she answered, her voice thin and barely audible.

“I’m going to go get you some food, anything my future niece or nephew doesn’t like at the moment?” Thea smiled weakly as she put one hand on Oliver’s leg and the other on Felicity’s shoulder.
“Really, I’m fine,” Felicity argued, with a blink she couldn’t seem to control. “You should be here with Oliver.”
“We’ll have our moment,” Thea answered softly, “this is something different, what you have. Just no deli meats right?”
Felicity brushed back the tears that had sprung like leaks from her eyes as she nodded.
“I’ll be back in a little bit.” The younger Queen leaned in a placed a soft kiss on Oliver’s cheek.

Once Thea had left, Oliver shifted to one side of the bed and gently tapped the empty space beside him. “Sit, please.”
Felicity contemplated arguing the weight limits or the necessity that he be comfortable, but she didn’t, because she too wanted to be as close to him as possible.

'Cause you still look perfect as days go by
Even the worst ones, you make me smile
I'd stop the world if it gave us time

They found themselves almost instantly settled into each other, with her body curled against his and his hand lying gently on her stomach.
“Are you sure they’re okay?” Oliver enquired softly as he tried his best to memorise the tightening of her skin with the growing hardness beneath it.
Felicity put her hand on top of his and gradually pushed down until a tiny knock struck Oliver’s palm. “See they’re fine Oliver,” she smiled wistfully. “They can’t wait to meet you.”
He left his hand there as his eyes locked to hers. “I’m sorry,” he breathed, regret carved in those two small words.
“For?” she asked, her voice strained in her dry throat.
“For scaring you,” he answered before he looked around the room, “and for all of this. Do you regret us?”
She cupped one side of his head in her hands as they held each other’s gaze. “I haven’t regretted a single moment that I’ve spent with you, but I’m sorry too.”

His eyes fluttered to make sense of her words, but he couldn’t. “What for?”
“Maybe you should have had the surgery months ago, maybe things would be different, maybe…” she sighed as her fingers dropped from his face.
Oliver caught it and pressed it to his chest and for a moment Felicity watched their hands, clasped together, rise and fall with each breath he took. “I would give up all the maybes for what I have right now, for what you’ve given me since the moment I met you. Do you know what that is?” His eyes softened as Felicity shook her head. “Something to lose,” he whispered, strangling her hand in his, “Which means I have everything to fight for.”

His words settled into the air as she rested her head on his shoulder with their fingers laced on his chest.
“Do you ever think maybe we’ve known each other before, in another life time or a different universe?” Felicity asked softly, her warm breath misting his neck.
“I’ve thought that since the moment I first saw you, you pulled me in like I’d known the comfort of your eyes for years.”
“Maybe in one of those universes we get a forever, we get a happily ever after,” she whispered as a tear seeped into his skin.
He held her head and brushed his fingers down the back of her golden tresses. “Maybe that’s this universe, but if it’s not then I’ll find you in another one Felicity. I always find you.”

Seconds ebbed into minutes where neither spoke, until Oliver finally did, and turned the subject to something needed; a lighter moment of levity.
“We never did settle on names,” Oliver said while his fingers idly combed through the lengths of Felicity’s hair.
She tipped her chin and smiled up at him. “You liked Becker,” she remarked, letting herself smile in the moment.
He nodded. “And you liked Ethan or Matthew.”
She tapped a painted, but chipped, nail against her nude lips. “What about Eli instead?”
“I like that.”
He watched her nose crinkle absently before she replied. “Though we can’t have Eli and Ethan so if it’s two boys then Eli and Becker,” she spoke resolutely.
Oliver kissed her forehead as he agreed, “Perfect.”
“And girls?” Felicity quipped, fingertip tapping along the edge of her belly.
“Madeline.”
“And Ally.”
She listened to the content sigh from inside his chest. “This reminds me of an old willow tree we used to have in Starling and when my mother got pregnant with Thea she would sit under it and say the names aloud to see how they sounded.”
“And Thea sounded the best?”
Oliver shrugged. “I suppose it did.”
“It’s a pity we don’t have a willow tree here,” Felicity said with a warm smile as she let her lips form languidly around the word Willow.

The door cracked open and Tommy snuck his head in. “I can come back,” he said quietly as Oliver’s bag hung near his feet.

They didn’t get a chance to answer before Thea pushed the door open and strolled in, carrying food.
“You guys weren’t going to have sex in here right?” she laughed as she slapped a hand against Tommy’s shoulder. “He’s been standing outside for like five minutes, worried he would walk in on something.”

Felicity slipped off the bed and straightened her tee with a soft laugh; another brief but appreciated moment of vivacity.
“How about we eat that outside to save Mr Nil-by-mouth here,” she remarked as she smiled back at Oliver, after which her and Thea left.

"Tommy," Oliver said, his voice a husk of the depth it usually carried. "I've asked a lot from you over the years."
"Yeah, you're a right pain in my ass," Tommy remarked, a soft chuckle doing little to hide the glassiness behind his eyes.

“Remember when we were kids and you decided you could fly?” Oliver reminisced before Tommy started laughing.
“Turns out I couldn’t.”
“We’ve sure had our moments,” Oliver sighed wistfully, “and I count you as one of my truest friends, and most certainly my oldest so I need you to tell me they'll be okay.”
Tommy's chin dropped to his chest at the finality of Oliver's words; but he understood them. His friend’s parents had died suddenly so Oliver had planned for his death the day after his diagnosis. He didn’t want to leave the world as abruptly as they had.

“Everything you asked for is done and sitting with your attorneys. We've got them Oliver, I promise you.” His hands fisted in his pockets to stem the tears, it was futile and the first ones soon slid from his eyes. “But, this isn't it for you Oliver, you don’t go down like this.”
Oliver nodded. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't; of that he had very little control, but he could control what was left behind.
“Thea will need some time but please make sure she doesn't go far.”
Tommy nodded and he handed Oliver his bag. “I got her.”

Oliver unzipped the canvas duffle, reached in and took out a small notebook with frayed edges and a creased spine. “I need to ask one more thing of you.”
“Whatever you need,” Tommy agreed.
“I need you to hold this,” Oliver asked as he held the book between both hands and offered it to Tommy. “When I wake up I need you to give it to me.”
Tommy took it from Oliver’s hands. “Okay.”
“And if I don’t…”
A sigh. “Oliver…”
“Please,” he begged his friend to let him have this, to make every contingency he needed, to which Tommy relented with a soft sigh and a small nod. “If I don’t wake up from this then I need you to give it to Felicity.”

Tommy tapped the cover of the book as he sucked back his tears and pulled it to his chest. “I’m going to hold this for you, and give it back to you because you’re going to be just fine.
Oliver nodded, he could accept that promise. “I owe you a lot.”
Tommy shook his head as his lips played with a frown. “You owe me nothing, but if it’ll make you feel better then when you get through this I’ll let you buy me a beer; a real fancy one, an artisan one,” he quipped as his eyes lit up. “And then we’ll be even.”
Oliver held out his hand and Tommy shook it. “It’s a deal. But if I don’t, save that beer for when my kids are 21 and have it with them.”

With their hands still clasped in a shake, Tommy nodded before a smirk lifted his lopsided mouth. “You know Thea is going to freak out when she finds out you kept the fact it’s twins from her.”
Oliver laughed huskily. “It’ll be worth it though right?”
“Absolutely.”
“I only told you because of the paperwork I needed,” Oliver puckishly remarked.
“Even still,” Tommy said as he brushed a hand across his shoulder. “This is a win for me.”
“Thank you, for everything.”
The two shook hands again before they moved into a back-slapping embrace.
“Like I said, this isn’t it Oliver.”

>>>>|<<<<

After Tommy left he sent Thea in at Oliver’s request.
“C’mere speedy,” Oliver said as he patted the edge of the bed.
She walked over wearily but didn’t sit, instead grazing her thigh along the edge of the bed as she swayed in one spot. “Oliver if this is some sort of goodbye, I don’t want it, because you’ll be just fine. You heard the surgeon, you have good odds and you’re fit and healthy,” she prattled as her fingers plucked at the ends of her hair.

Oliver took her shaky hand from around her waist and buried in between his. “I will do everything in my power to come back from this Thea, you know that.”
She nodded as the tears started.
“I will always be thankful for the way you pushed me, the way you incited me to fight when I would have given up,” he continued, the weight of his hand on hers drawing her closer.
“We’re fighters,” she whispered, her eyes turbulent pools of brown.
“We’ve had to fight more than we ought to have, but you more than most and as your brother I’ve watched you grow and never stop fighting,” he paused to capture her fleeting smile. “They would have been proud of you Thea. They would have been so proud.”

“And they would have wanted you to have Queen Consolidated,” he added after a small pause.
Surprised startled her expression wide-eyed. “What?”
“Thea, you are far more equipped to run this business than I am, I know that, I’ve known that for a long time, I’ve simply been looking after it for you. You will take their company and you’ll build an empire with it and I’ll do everything I can to be there cheering you on, but know that if I can’t be, if this is one fight I can’t win, I will be with you in spirit.”

“I can’t run a company,” she said and fretted breaths dropped from her lips.
He tapped her hand in assurance. “I’ve always believed in you so do me a favour and believe in yourself. You have a good head on your shoulders, trust it.”
He studied his younger sister as she drew in a breath and nodded as she exhaled.

“Tommy has all the paperwork you need, its all just waiting your signature when you’re ready. We’ve already talked about your share of the estate and anything you need will be taken care of.”
“I need my big brother.”
He rubbed her hand with his. “I’ll work on it.”

He stilled himself for a moment of reflection before he continued. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For giving me hope when I was almost all out.”
He watched her youthful face brighten with a smile. “Felicity is the one who gave you that.”
“But that’s all because of you. You told me to do that interview, hoping I would find something that I had shut myself away from for years.”
“And you did,” she commented.
He smiled, tremulous but grateful. “And I did, because of you.”

He reached into his bag a second time and returned with another book, similar to the one he had given Tommy, but it’s pages were thick with photos and worn at the edges. “I’ve got one more thing for you,” Oliver expressed as he held it out to her.
She took it with a hitched brow. “What’s this?” she asked as she cracked it open.
“It’s everything I could remember, everything I knew about them, about us as a family and about who they were as people,” Oliver said while his fingertip ghosted along the tops of the pages. “I wish I could give you your own memories, and I know this isn’t the same, but my memories are yours now Thea. Know them like I did and remember them like I do.”

Fresh tears sprung from her eyes that she neither hid nor brushed away; and his started soon after.
“I’m going to take this,” she whispered, shaky and breathless.
“Good.”
“And when you’re sitting back here after tomorrow with a shaved head and not a tumour in sight, you’re going to read me the first page and that’s an order.”
“Yes ma’am,” he smiled behind his tears before she fell into his arms and cried against his chest.

“You’ll never be alone Thea,” he whispered to her crown. “You have people who love you, let them. Our family is made up of more than just us now. You’ll never be alone.”

>>>>|<<<<

All my life
I thought it'd be hard to find
The one 'til I found you
And I find it bittersweet
'Cause you gave me something to lose

“Please don’t, please don’t do this,” Felicity whispered as she stood on the very edge of the room, her back pressed into the door handle, staring at Oliver across the seemingly vast, empty hospital room. “Bringing us each in to say goodbye, Oliver, please don’t.”
He beckoned her closer with his hand and, although every step she took felt like a stab to her soul, she went.

“I love you,” he said simply as his fingers folded through hers.
“I know,” she answered faintly, her cheeks sodden with tears and her body swaying on the balls of her feet.
“Whatever happens tomorrow I need you to know that…” He squeezed her hand and she nodded, slight and sombre. “…I need you to know that nothing either of us did could have been done differently, that I didn’t fight hard enough to stay with you or that anything is your fault.”
She looked down, seeking out the grey thread with her eyes.
He lifted his other arm slowly and carefully placed it on top of hers, swallowing her trembling hand between his, much larger, ones. “Promise me that you will never think that, never believe that.”

She looked up, her eyes pooled with tears, distorting the blue of them to look like the depths of a cloudy ocean. “How can I not?”
“Felicity,” he sighed, sitting up a little in the bed, “five months ago, three months ago, yesterday, the risks of the surgery would have been the same. But in waiting you gave me something I would have never had, you gave me hope. You gave me peace. You gave me light when I lived in shadows and you gave me colour when I saw only greys. You gave me a life for the first time. I saw beauty, I saw the world,” he reached a hand towards her, ghosting fingertips over her stomach, “I saw life. I saw their hearts beating, their bodies moving, I felt them kick.” He paused to let his throat shake through the tears. “You gave me all that. Promise me that you will keep that with you for always; knowing the gift you gave me.”

His thumb drew the softest circles on the back of her hand as Felicity watched it behind a wall of tears. “I promise,” she whispered, raw and intimate.

He let her two small words sink in to his heart as they drew a hopeful smile across his cracked lips.
“Now I need you to know about a few contingencies, in case…,” Oliver swallowed the last few words; they both knew them, he didn’t need to say them.
“Don’t” she mouthed, her lips crumpling into a shaking breath.
“I need you to know, please,” Oliver begged, “this is all I control.”

She took a few steadying, deep breaths before she nodded with a barely audible, “Okay.”
This is what he needed; she knew that.

“Everything I’m about to tell you has been done,” he started softly, “Tommy knows everything and it’s all done legally with my attorneys. You don’t have to remember this or write this down.” A small smile lifted one side of his lips; he was trying. “But I want you to know.”

Felicity could feel his hand trembling against her, he was no more willing to leave her than she was willing to let him, but this wasn’t something either of them could counter no matter what they did – what would be, would be. She lifted his hand and brushed the curve of his knuckles with a dusted kiss; she would give him peace.

“There is $50 million in trusts, $15 million for each of the children when they turn 25, but if they need it for school or a first car, then all of that is written into the trust structure.” Felicity listened as Oliver spoke, clearly and concisely. “Tommy and you are trustees and there is a third independent trustee, the same firm who has been running my affairs for years, so it won’t be a problem for you. The other $20 million is for you. Set up your own business, travel, anything you want.”
Felicity’s jaw fell open as the words came from his mouth. “Oliver, I don’t need that,” she pleaded.
He smiled and tapped his fingertip along her knuckles, “I know you don’t, but this is what I want to do; and it’s already done.”

“The house in Aspen is yours too,” he added warmly.
“What Oliver, no. That belongs to your family,” Felicity argued, shock colouring her expression.
“You are my family now, all three of you. I already spoke to Thea about this and she wants you to have it too, she hates the cold and the house has no memories for her. Apparently she wants to buy a house in the Maldives.” He paused to take her hand to his lips. “You love it in Aspen and it’s where we made something pretty amazing. I would love for them to know that place.”
“They will,” Felicity whispered and Oliver pressed his lips to her fingers. “I promise.”

Her words lifted his smile, and for a moment they enjoyed the silence, before Oliver continued. “There is one more thing. Tommy has started up a portfolio for each of the babies, they’re small but he’s pretty good at it and they’ll be something when the kids are ready to take them over; and about 6 months ago he started another one for me, it’s mostly stocks in small companies, ideas, that sort of thing and your friend Cisco helped me out a lot.”
Felicity’s eyebrow sprung up, she hadn’t realised Oliver and Cisco had been talking, but, given Oliver’s reclusive nature, it made her happy.
“Whatever happens tomorrow, that portfolio is yours. You had a plan before you met me and I know you’ll do amazing things. I just hope that I get to see it.”

“Oliver this is all too much,” Felicity said softly.
“Not from where I’m sitting,” he smiled. “The next thing I have to ask I know I don't have any right to ask of you.”
She smiled serenely at him. “You know you can ask me anything.”
“I'm afraid if I can't... if I don't....” She soothed him with a comb of fingers down his bearded jaw. “I’m afraid of what will happen to Thea if I don’t come through this. If you could maybe.” He words stopped again as his throat tightened and his lips trembled.

She brushed her thumb across the edge of his soft lips. “Thea is my family now, and theirs,” she spoke down to her stomach. “I promise you, she'll always have a family with us. They'll know Raisa and adore their uncles Tommy and John.” She kissed his forehead tenderly and her lips lingered there as she continued. “I promise you Oliver.”

Felicity lifted herself onto the bed and coiled her arm around his chest, and as his fingers drew delicate lines down her arms, spilling goose bumps in their wake, she kissed his cheek and offered him something priceless, hope.

“They’re both going to love you,” she started, her words whispered in his ear. “You’re going to teach them how to kick a ball probably before they can walk. On crisp afternoons you’ll play with them in the back garden and all you’ll hear is their happy laughs. We’ll grill every weekend in summer and we’ll build snowmen in Aspen every winter.” He closed his eyes as she spoke, imagining every word as it drifted from her full, ashen lips to his tired ear. “They’ll call you papa, and you’ll give the best shoulder rides. You’ll teach them, and me,” she chuckled softly, “to speak Portuguese, and maybe even Russian. During the holidays our house will be full of mayhem and noise and family and we’ll wish it would quieten down, but secretly we both love it. We’ll watch them grow, take them to their first day of school, tend to their knees when they scrape them. Brush their hair, clean their teeth and tuck them into bed. We’ll have all those things Oliver.”
He left his eyes closed, breathing in the scent of her skin as he listened to her shallow breathing.
“Do you truly believe that?” he asked, brittle and whispered.
“We’ll have a tomorrow Oliver. We’ll have a thousand tomorrows.”

>>>>|'Tomorrow'|<<<<

There was no grey thread to stare at this time, no enchanting dance on a breeze to take Felicity's mind off the tick of the clock above her. Sure, there were other sounds; the chatter of strangers, the words of friends. The brush of feet on the floor and the soft echo of doors closing in the distance. There were sounds, so many, each with their own story to tell. But only one was telling her story, the soft tick of the clock.

It had ticked through a minute some 300 times, and while Felicity hadn't sat in that same seat listening to each one, those she did hear sounded like a thud through her chest.

They had walked, paced, and taken turns keeping a vigil in the small, private waiting room a few doors away from where Oliver's life was in the hands of one of the world's leading neurosurgeons and his hand-picked team.

It was a veil of comfort though, and as it rolled ever closer to 6 hours since she'd watched Oliver have his head shaved before he was wheeled away, Felicity grew ever more anxious.

“No news was good news,” Tommy tried to console both her and Thea and they offered him soft smiles in return.
“Tommy's right,” John piped in as he wrung his large hands over each other.

He had made it from the airport in just enough time to wish him luck and promise Oliver he'd protect his family, always. He'd also brought Raisa with him, and for that Oliver had been grateful.

It was a comfort that helped Oliver give them all one last smile. One last goodbye.

That was nearly 6 hours ago.
They had said it would be 4.
Felicity placed a hand on her stomach as she squeezed her eyes closed.

When you love someone, you open up your heart
When you love someone, you make room
If you love someone and you're not afraid to lose 'em
You've probably never loved someone like I do.

6 hours.
Tomorrow.
Tick.
Tomorrow.
We'll have a tomorrow.
Tick.

The door opened and a force Felicity couldn't explain pulled her eyes up from the floor.
Tick.
Her breath stopped in her throat, it was Dr McAlistar.

Tomorrow.
“We did it,” he said simply as he brushed a tired hand through his slat and peppery hair. Thea moved first; sobbing happily into Tommy's arms. “We got them all.”

A tiny kick knocked Felicity's hand down her stomach.
“Oliver's doing phenomenally well, there are still risks and monitoring overnight to make sure there is no swelling or bleeding, but I'm pretty confident.”

As he spoke, Felicity pinched her arm and the sting of pain shooting up her arm was euphoric because it meant this wasn't a dream.

“When can we see him?” Tommy asked.
It was a question Felicity wanted to ask but her mouth wouldn't move.
“An hour or so if he's awake,” the Dr replied. “We need to run a few tests to check his vision and hearing, but there is no doubting that Oliver fought this thing, and I think we won.

Felicity let the relief wash over her like a calming breeze.
Tomorrow was theirs after all.

Chapter Text

Thea walked in the VIP room first, with its white walls, taupe furnishings and a view that would give a five-star Hotel a run for its money, just as the surgeon was running through a few things with Oliver.

“We’ll have a physical therapist assess your mobility first thing tomorrow and an occupational therapist will be assessing you as well. Your speech seems normal so we can probably skip the speech language pathologists unless you feel it’s necessary?”

Oliver shook his head, slow and slight being the best he could muster.

Tommy followed Thea in, silently studying the luxurious hospital room with an approving and emphatic nod; he was satisfactorily impressed. John trailed in behind, showing just a flash of the same awe as Tommy, although he kept his much more guarded.

Felicity waited just outside the door, on the cusp of stepping through or falling back, with a feeling in the pit of her stomach she just couldn’t shake. She stayed there, listening to the surgeon’s words, and waiting for Oliver to speak.

She just needed to hear his voice.

“Your scars will take about 5 days to not hurt so the nurses will take care of that for you,” Dr McAlistar continued. “No getting out of this bed until you’re cleared by myself and the physical therapist, understood?”

Oliver managed a shallow and reserved nod, before he attempted to clear his throat to speak.
“How long until I can leave?” he asked, his voice thin and cracked, chaffing at the edges before it dropped away at the end.

“Realistically a week, possibly more, but at least you have a nice view,” he chortled as he gestured his steady hand towards the window.

Felicity heard what sounded like a chuckle in Oliver’s husky voice and a smile lifted her lips. Despite that, she stayed just out of sight, gazing at the foot of the bed with her heart in her throat, for reasons she didn’t, at that moment, understand.

Dr McAlistar gripped the foot of the bed and leaned a little against it. “I’m not going to lie to you Oliver, you just had major surgery. You might have moments of fogginess or incoordination. Healing takes time and you need to be patient.”

“But,” Thea chirped in, slapping Oliver’s feet under the blankets, “now that they’re gone you’re going to have to stop being so dramatic, and you can read that book to me now.”

Oliver’s eyebrows pinched inwards with a crinkle across the bridge of his nose. He wasn’t entirely sure what book she was referring to but he was too taken aback by how much older she appeared, that he answered somewhat absently, “Sure.”

Thea had noticed the crinkle preceding his absent reply. He looked a little lost, despite the conversation only happening the day before.
“Is everything okay?” she asked, turning her head towards Dr McAlistar.
“There is some swelling so Oliver may experience some tiredness, trouble focusing and some slight drops in memory, but we expect he’ll make a full recovery. Physically Oliver is doing fantastic, with no loss in any of the motor skills that we’ve noted. Of course, the physical therapist will be looking for smaller deficiencies just in case.”

Oliver took the cup of water from beside his bed with a slow and steady hand, smiling until he brought it to his lips and took a sip. “I’ll be back on the field in no time,” he remarked, his voice a little less croaky, as he set the cup back down.
Tommy laughed. “That will be the come back of the century.”
Oliver smiled, the month he’d had off the field wouldn’t keep him from the World Cup.

He shuffled a little up the bed as a nurse fluffed the pillow behind him. “Someone has to make sure you get paid,” he teased his friend with a coughed laugh.
“Oliver for god’s sake lie your ass down,” John remarked with a disappointed growl threading through his voice.
“Ahh come on Dig, I’m invincible.”
“You’re a stubborn son of a bitch,” Thea goaded as she glanced towards the door and saw Felicity stranded there.

With a smile she waved her in, and it was the jolt Felicity needed to take that first step, and then the second, third… until she was standing near Thea looking at the father of her children, alive and well, lying in the large, plush, hospital bed in a room that had artwork on the walls.

She felt the relief across her whole body, from the loosening in her jaw to the air that filled her lungs, he was bandaged and likely bruised, with an IV taped to his forearm; but he was alive – and by all accounts, he would be ready to live again soon

But, then she caught something else.
Oliver tensed across his shoulders before they concaved towards his chest. He was shrinking into himself, not unlike he had the first time she had met him.

Reactively she touched her stomach and exhaled, slow and deliberate – she was seeing things.
“Hi,” she said warmly as an affectionate smile pinked her cheeks.
“Are you Thea’s friend?” he questioned hesitantly.

Felicity studied his fraught expression carefully, the glint that she ordinarily found in his cerulean eyes was gone, replaced with shadows of confusion and threads of anxiety.
“Oh ha, ha,” mocked Thea.
But, Felicity saw it, his confusion was genuine. There was no recognition in his expression.

With her heart thumping and her hand holding onto her stomach, Felicity locked her eyes on his. “You don’t know me do you?” she enquired, each word she spoke like acid in her throat, knowing already, like she did, the answer.
His brow folded into deep and troubled lines, while his eyes fluttered. Felicity could see he laboured through each breath in a desperate attempt to keep his panic at bay.

He looked afraid
Of her.

“Stop being stupid Oliver.” Thea jostled his foot with her hand, but the panic was starting to leach into her voice as well.
Dr McAlistar checked Oliver’s pulse and closely watched as Oliver’s breathing became rapid but lumbered.

Felicity didn’t need to be told, she could see it written in the trenches of his face.
He didn’t know her.

“Am I supposed to?” he finally implored, the words shaking as he spoke them.
“What’s going on?” Thea fretted as Felicity fell a step backwards.
“Oliver what year do you think this is?” Dr McAlistar asked, checking the dilation of his patient’s pupils.
“2018 World Cup year,” Oliver responded almost immediately.
“Oliver it’s 2019 and this is Felicity,” Thea badgered, though she hadn’t meant to.
“I don’t…understand,” he panted, his chest heaving and his eyes bouncing around the room in a panic.

“Thea stop,” Felicity begged as she placed her hand gently on the younger Queen’s slim shoulder. She could see Oliver getting more panicked with each second she stayed there. He didn’t know her; a man with severe anxiety and a fear of the unknown, ‘unknown’ that now included her. “Oliver, it’s okay,” she said softly as she stepped further back.

“What’s going on?” Oliver pleaded of his Doctor.
“It seems like your short term memories may have been damaged for now.”
“Is that normal?”
“It’s hard to define ‘normal’ when dealing with things like memory, but it’s within the scope,” he assured the room. “This may be as simple as your brain going through a reset, or it may be something more, we won’t know for a few days.”

Amidst his words, Felicity ducked out of the room, knowing her presence in it was too much for Oliver.

Maybe it was too much for her as well.

>>>>|<<<<

The tears pooled behind Felicity's eyes, so much so that the spotless-white linoleum floor under her feet became like a hazy pool, until the flood gates opened and they cascaded down her cheeks like a river bursting it's embankment.

Oliver didn't know her. Nine months, wiped from his memory.

The smile she had come to know, now replaced with fear and confusion. The body she had spent months lying next to had become like a guarded wall.

He didn't know her.

With hot tears scouring her cheeks, Felicity looked down at her pregnant belly and choked back a sob.

He didn't know them.
But, Oliver was alive and free of the tumours that had threatened to take everything away from him.

Was it selfish not to see how amazing that was? He had a life now, and maybe the fates decided the cost of that was the last year.

The year that included her.

He didn't know her.

She saw Thea's red trainers first and with the back of her hands, Felicity roughly wiped the tears from her cheeks and bit the inside of her lip in an effort to halt the rest.

“Are you okay?” Thea asked softly as she took the seat beside Felicity and clasped her hands on her lap.
“Sorry I left, I just thought it was too much for him,” Felicity answered, her voice bearing a slight husk as she tried to steady her trembled breathing.
“I didn't ask about him, I asked about you.”
“I should be happy, he's alive, and these,” she brushed a finger gently across her sodden cheek, “it's so selfish of me.”
“It’s really not,” Thea encouraged.
“He could have died. He could have lost the ability to walk or talk. He's alive. He has you and his parents’ memories, that's what's important.”

“Dr McAlistar thinks it’s probably temporary. Apparently your senses can reset too, so he was in there complaining about Tommy's cologne been too strong,” Thea said, wringing her hands over one another as she laughed, short but genuine.
Felicity, for her part, managed a weak chuckle.
“He has to remember you and the baby, it made him so happy,” Thea lamented as she dropped her head into her hands, dragging her nails across her scalp before she looked back up. “He has to.”

“Even if he doesn't,” Felicity sighed, a fresh tear sliding from her eye. “If that's the price we pay for him to be okay then it would be worth it.” Her lips quivered and her voice bled away into thin air as she blinked back tears.
“Please don't leave us. Don't leave him,” Thea begged ruefully.

Felicity gently wiped a fresh tear before it fell from her jaw and took a silent and agonizing breath. “Oliver is going to be a father and I would never take that from him…,” she paused with another tremulous breath, “…as long as it's still what he wants.”

“He hasn't forgotten you,” Thea remarked as she stiffened her shoulders. That was her reality, and she wouldn’t be swayed from it. “He just needs some time to find the memories again.”

Felicity offered her a brave but desperate smile; she would like to believe that too. Only, she had seen his face and read each line of fright etched into it.

He didn’t know her, she grazed her knuckles down the side of her waist…them.

>>>>|<<<<

That night Felicity stepped into the apartment they shared with a sense of foreboding resting on her slender shoulders. There wasn’t much to be done, and very little that could be said as it followed her around the desperately empty rooms while she switched on every light she found in an effort to make the cold walls feel a little warmer.

She had come home the night before, curled up on the sofa and stared into the night hoping for a miracle; and while it could be said that today had in fact brought her one, it came at a cost that felt like a diver’s belt around her waist, weighing down every step she took.

She hadn’t touched a single thing in the apartment last night, leaving everything just as it was. It was as though moving things, putting things away – even the simple task of washing the cup she had left in the sink with its remnants of orange juice now dried around the inside – would make everything real, and she hadn’t been ready to do that.

In all honesty, she wasn’t now either. But, it was real. Oliver was alive – a fact which she clung onto as though it made up the very fabric of her soul.

She walked sullenly to the sink first, poured far more detergent into the cup than needed and spent ten minutes with the tap running down the drain while she slowly moved a brush around the glass. After rinsing off the amass of bubbles, Felicity took a cloth and dried it before slotting the tumbler back into its place.

Thea had offered to stay with her, or get them a room together at a nearby motel, but Felicity needed this, she needed the solitude to breathe and, once she carefully closed the kitchen cabinet, cry.

And cry she did.

Silent streams dampened her cheeks until the trickles became like torrents, and she did nothing to stifle them. With her palms anchored into the granite counter top, she leaned over and sobbed into the silence. The walls drunk up her cries and after what felt like an eternity, she stood up, took a breath that came like a puff, brushed back the last few tears and set about her next task.

The bathroom.

She stood in the doorway of it long enough that she began to sway on the balls of her feet, before she reached around and switched the light on. The scene was of no surprise to her, but she gasped all the same. Blood still marred the lip of the porcelain vanity and where it had pooled on the floor, one of the first responders’ footprint had smeared it.

There wasn’t a lot of blood as she had been there within moments of his fall and the towel she had pressed into his wound had taken most of it. But, despite it fading into a dark, muddy red, it still stood out harshly against the soft whites and warm greys of the bathroom décor.

She sat down the bucket of warm, soapy water a foot away from the beacon on the floor and sunk the blue cloth into it with slow reservation. The sound of water flooding from the cloth as she lifted it from the depths of the bucket hauntingly echoed off the tiled walls before she wrung out the same almost robotically.

Logically, Felicity knew there were people that could do this for her, but as she pushed the cloth through the tacky blood, watching it wipe clean, all she could hear were her sobs for him to stay with her as they sprawled together on the floor waiting for help.

She needed this.
For reasons she didn’t think she could ever verbalise or perhaps even understand, she needed this.

Only after every spot had been removed, some 40 minutes later, Felicity finally sat back with her back against the cool wall, tented her knees as best she could with a growing stomach, and cried. The tears silently rocked her shoulders forward until her arms banded atop her knees and she dropped her head onto them. She cried until she had emptied her soul and her body physically had no more to give.

Lifting her head, Felicity let the air slap against the hot tears embedded in her cheeks until they dried. She took a warm shower, letting the rivers of water cascade down her face and body until the water ran tepid. Then she dressed in clean clothes and discarded the last ones in the laundry basket.

She moved noiselessly through the house, walking on small footsteps with only the soft hum of the air conditioning above her for company. She had a glass of water, washed and dried the same cup; forced herself to eat a handful of dried fruit and a few saltine crackers before she found herself standing in the doorway of their bedroom once again.

The lamps either side of the bed bathed the room in a rich amber hue and for the first time a gentle smile absently passed across her lips as her fingertips grazed the edge of the chocolate-toned bed linen while a few images of their time spent there, together, gave her a few moments’ respite.

Her eyes fell to the red coat Oliver had bought and she retracted her hand, tucking both hands carefully under her arms as she walked closer. She imagined he would have something to say about the coat, some reason he had gone back for it and a story to go along with it. She wouldn’t take that away from him.

Gently, Felicity folded the coat in half and lay it on an empty shelf in Oliver’s closet where it would wait for him, hopefully not in vain.

Inside the closet she found Oliver’s handy-cam and for the second time that night, a brief smile lifted her spirits. He’d followed her around the apartment with the camera, finding himself more at ease behind it than in front of it. He’d filmed for the twins, narrating about how beautiful their mother was, how their room was coming along and, for the very brief moments he turned it on himself, how excited he was to see them.

She had woken on a few lazy Sunday mornings with the sound of Oliver giving his children some pebble of sage advice as he tried to find semblance of ease in front of something that had once been such an enemy to him. Some moments he found it easier than others, and a few times she had taken his unsteady hand between hers and offered him a smile that said she was with him. She was with him.

With delicate hands, Felicity took out the camera and sat, cross-legged on the bed, breathing in the sound of the linen crunching beneath her.

She set the camera on a stack of pillows and positioned it well enough before she took a breath and started recording.

“It’s nearly April and you guys are getting so big and agile in there,” she smiled weakly as she touched her stomach. “You’re about the size of grapefruits and we can’t wait to meet you.”

She shut off the camera before the tears flooded down her cheeks – turns out, her body still had a little more to give.

Oliver had wanted this video journal; and she wouldn’t let him miss a moment.

>>>>|<<<<

The next day came with its own set of promises and expectations, but Felicity tried to counter them with uneasy breaths as she hugged a bag of Oliver’s clothes tightly to her chest. She stopped just outside his door and let her eyes rove sullenly around the wood grain.

She knocked faintly, maybe in the back of her mind hoping no one would hear her and she could retreat, leaving the necessaries with the nurses she’d passed on her way.

But she wasn’t that lucky.

“Come in,” Oliver huskily answered as he muted the TV and lay his palms flat onto his lap, ironing out the creases in the blankets.
It was probably another nurse coming to check his stitches or see if he needed anything like they had periodically done throughout the morning. He always tried his best to focus on the view outside the window, a landscape of skyscrapers jutting towards the heavens and a watercolour of blue sky, streaked with white clouds. It took his mind off the deep knot that formed in his chest every time a face he didn’t know entered the room.

Felicity cracked open the door and stepped in, hoping to find Thea there to pass the bag over to before seeing herself out again, she realised she wasn’t that lucky either.

Oliver was alone in the room, and when he turned his head away from the window and caught sight of her, he stiffened.
“I just brought you some things from home you might need for your stay, I can just leave them here,” she said softly as she placed them on the teak dresser.

He didn’t say anything and he barely moved, but for the slow blink of his eyes and the shallow lift of his chest as he breathed.

“I should…” she turned and looked towards the door, “…I should go.”

When he still stayed silent, Felicity took a few steps towards the door.
“Wait.” His dulcet tone was so familiar to her that Felicity found herself tearing up at the sound of it.

She turned slowly and met his eyes with hers.
“I’m sorry,” he said softly as his eyes floated between his lap and her. He was trying so hard to maintain eye contact but his anxiety soon got the better of him and his eyes were trapped downcast.
“You don’t have to apologise,” Felicity answered with a faint smile that could be heard in her words; a natural response to ease his worry.
It seemed to work, and reactively Oliver raised his eyes and gave her a faint smile in return while his shoulders relaxed a fraction.

“Thea told me you were important to me.” When he spoke his words were timid and reserved and every inflection and feature he made was a call back to that meeting room nine months ago when he shakily asked her to interview him and she couldn't understand why.

Only, now Oliver's life was free from the noose of three brain tumours. He didn't need her now like he had back then.

She tried her best not to cry, holding the tears back behind a few unsteady breaths as she instinctively shrouded her arms around her stomach while she nodded, slight and inconspicuous.

He looked curiously down at where her thumb was drawing slow and soothing circles just on the cusp of her belly.

She easily noted the curiosity flecked in his eyes, because while he may have lost his memories of her face, she still knew him unmistakably well. He looks confused.
“It's okay, you can ask it,” she remarked kindly.
“Is it mine? Like the normal way?” The way his eyebrow arched and he looked a little curious with the concept had Felicity smiling gently.
“Yes, the normal way,” she answered, chuckling.
She caught the flickering of a smirk at the corner of his mouth before Oliver clasped his hands on his lap and gave himself one peppy nod.

As far as he knew it had been quite some years since he'd had any contact with a person, developing a debilitating anxiety over the touch of someone he didn't know; but somehow the pretty woman in front of him with mesmerising puddles of blue for eyes and an enchantingly soft voice had overcome hurdles he'd figured were impassable, or at least not worth the effort, and she was carrying his child. His. Child.

“But actually,” she lifted a finger and he noted the soft peach on her cheeks, “two babies,” she finished with a hopeful smile and a second finger.
His mouth dropped open and his eyes blinked rapidly. “Twins?” She nodded as he cranked up his jaw. “Thea didn’t say.”
“Thea doesn’t know,” Felicity remarked, idly walking her fingers from Twin A to Twin B, or at least where she had come to decide they sat. “You thought it would be funny to surprise her.”

“Who knows?” he queried, puckishly satisfied with himself.
“Aside from us, Tommy and my mother, who guessed. Oh and the OBGYNs of course both here and in Aspen,” Felicity rattled off.
His eyebrow flinched. “Aspen?”

Before she could answer, Oliver had twisted his fingers around each other, draining the blood from the long digits and his whole demeanour had tightened as he stared straight ahead.

She didn't know whether to walk closure or to leave, stuck in the limbo of maybe not knowing this part of Oliver as well as she thought.

When she had met him he had decided on his own mortality, he had set in motion a goodbye, he'd pushed through a personal and amazing success in his sporting career. This Oliver had lost those precious moments and his regression was embedded in the panic strew across his face.

This Oliver had never imagined returning to Aspen, let alone somewhere like Starling - the place which had destroyed and taken so much.

“I went back there, I left?” His words were soft and Felicity wasn't sure if they were meant for her or not.
“Maybe we could talk about something else?” Felicity offered, instinctively stepping towards him.

The feeling in his throat was not new, the strangling breath that seemed virtually out of his control. The stabbing in his chest as he struggled to breathe was not new either, nor was the heavy weight that consumed him.

What else had he done?

“Did I go anywhere else?” Oliver asked the question with shaking and trembled words.
She shrunk back. “Oliver, I don't think...”
He gasped as a painful shiver jolted his spine. “Please. Where else?”
His eyes searched hers and while he saw worry entrenched in them, he needed to know.

“Starling,” she whispered.
“Starling, I went back there?” he stuttered, breathless, as his body recoiled into itself.

Flashes of his past played in front of his eyes like a bright assault of colours and noise, a nightmarish mirroring of camera flashes. He could feel each breath in his throat but he couldn't take them and he could hear the thump of his heart behind his chest but he could do little more than clench his jaw at it.
Oliver what were your parents hiding?
Did you have something to do with their disappearance?
Do you know who did?
Faceless voices yelled at him. Booming, echoed, frightfully close as his shoulders caved in towards his chest.

Felicity lived every moment with him, reading the fear and the anguish written on his face like he was a work of literary wonder. She felt every sharp breath he took, as though the air was been strangled from his lungs, and, without thinking, Felicity put her hand to his.

He felt her touch like a jolt of electricity and his eyes shot down towards her. The first touched he'd had in years... or at least that he could remember.

She saw the sheer panic. The fear was unmistakable. He didn't know her touch and it no longer soothed him.

It pained him.

Thea walked in and it took only seconds to know the scene playing out before her. It was one she hadn't seen for sometime, but it was one she had lived enough to recognise.

“Oliver, focus,” she said sharply. Sharp enough that his eyes snapped up to her and he gasped for air.

Felicity took her hand from him and stepped back, pressing herself into the handle of the closet until she could feel the pain of it.
“Oliver breathe.” Thea squeezed his hand, so tight that Felicity imagined it must hurt them both.

He nodded. Taking a few short and uneven breaths before his lips mouthed out the words, one, two...
“Five letter word beginning with H?”
Felicity puzzled at the randomness of Thea's question but when she saw Oliver's shoulders start to relax and his eyes soften, she realised that distraction was the key.

“Haven,” Oliver muttered a few moments later before his breathing started to shallow and soften.
“Remember that time Tommy singed his eyebrows lighting the barbeque?” Thea chuckled softly as she sat on the edge of the bed.
Oliver laughed before he took a deep breath in through the nose. “He thought he could make a trend out of it.”
Thea relaxed her hold on Oliver's hand as she nodded with a smile. “He looked terrible.”

Felicity stepped back from the closet and glanced towards the door before she silently took the path there.

She hadn't known him like this.

>>>>|<<<<

“Hey I thought I might find you here,” Thea remarked, strangely cheerful for the stagnant walls of the cafeteria where Felicity was staring into a deli drawer of cold meat sandwiches. “Are you tempted?”

Felicity smiled as one shoulder limply shrugged. She wasn't sure of much anymore.
“I'll buy you a muffin instead?”
Felicity turned to see the willowy brunette lifting onto the balls of her feet. She looked tired behind the facade of a smile and Felicity couldn't blame her; she doubted she looked much better.
“Throw in a coffee, my only one for the day I promise,” Felicity winked, “and you have yourself a deal.”

With a double chocolate muffin and steaming hot coffee ahead of her Felicity relaxed into the slightly padded chair as Thea mulled over her espresso.

“I've never seen him like that,” Felicity admitted meekly, her eyes tacked to the table as she stirred a teaspoon through the velvety foam.

She could see the first signs of tears growing behind Thea's eyes, but the young woman managed to hold them at bay, her chestnut eyes glassing over. “He hasn't had an attack like that in a long time,” she answered, layers of sadness echoed in her words.

Felicity gently blew across the top of her coffee before she admitted what troubled her. “I'm sorry I couldn't help, I think I only made things worse.” She glanced down at her fingers and recounted how his hand had shook below them.

“The first time I saw the two of you together I knew he'd find peace with you,” Thea remarked gently, hands swaying as she spoke. “Which he did,” she added. “And, I'm certain he'll find it again the same way.”

The same way.

Memories of her rummaging through her bag, laughing at her un-reporter like behaviour of bringing colouring books to an interview. But they had given them effortless moments to talk freely and easily.

That gave Felicity an idea.
“There's a gift shop nearby right?” she asked as her eyes sprung up.
Thea nodded with a mouthful of blueberry muffin before she pointed to the right.

Maybe this could work?

>>>>|<<<<

Oliver seemed pleased when Felicity stopped by his room for the second time that day with something tucked under her arm and he invited her in with a little less apprehension than the last time.

“I'm sorry-,”
He started but Felicity hushed him with a small smile and a gentle shake of her head. “You don't need to say that, remember?”

She stopped a few feet from him and held out the paper bag she had under her arm. “I won't stay long, I just thought you might want something to do.”

He took the bag with a curious glint in his eyes, a fleeting reminder of the man she knew and loved. “What's this?”
“Open it.”
She swayed on her feet a little, stretching out the ache in her back, as Oliver tore open the taped bag.

Inside were two colouring books and a pack of Jumbo Pencils. They were made for children, but it was the only ones the gift shop stocked. He laughed as he looked from the robots to the unicorns on each of the books' covers.

“What are these for?”
“We had a little trouble talking when we met, something like this helped.” She crinkled her nose as her cheeks turned a pinky hue. “I just thought maybe you'd enjoy it.”
“Will you stay?”
She bit the edge of her lip as she sucked in a breath that she held. “Only if you want.”

He looked down at his hands; they weren't shaking.
“I'd like you to,” he replied.
There had obviously been something about her; something that had helped him do things he'd never imagined he could. Thea had told him as much, and there was a great, encompassing part of Oliver that wanted to discover what it was... or perhaps rediscover.

He handed her the book of unicorns and wordlessly Felicity took it.

>>>>|<<<<

It was around 8pm, shortly after a visit from the physiotherapist which had ended the child like innocence of sitting in bed colouring in, when Tommy sidled into Oliver's room.

“Sorry it's taken me all day to get here,” he sighed as he slumped down into a chair. “Trying to hold the vultures at bay.”
Oliver nodded, he understood the reference. “I appreciate it.”

Tommy sat forward in the chair and smiled. “I'll buy you enough time to be out of here before they even realised you were in here.”

Oliver wasn't sure that was possible, but he smiled appreciatively all the same.
“I can't stay long, they're going to boot me out soon, but I made you a promise.” He started as he reached for his satchel and it landed with a thump on his lap.

Oliver wasn't sure what he meant and that nuance wasn't lost of Tommy as he didn't wait for a response but pulled out a leather-bound journal and handed it to Oliver.
“What's this?” Oliver asked as he took it.
“No idea,” Tommy shrugged. “You asked me to hold onto it during the surgery and to give it back to you after.” His friend tapped the cover while it lay flat between Oliver's hands. “It seemed important to you.”

The night nurse cleared her throat at the door and Tommy stood up obediently. “I'll be back tomorrow for your PT.”
“John was going to help,” Oliver breathed, his eyes still trapped walking around the edge of the journal.
“Oh I just intend to get the bloopers on film,” Tommy chuckled, not an ounce of truth to his words, before he leaned over and gave Oliver a hug. “I'm glad to have you here,” the usually stoic man remarked with a slight, but obvious, quiver in his voice.
“Glad to be here,” Oliver sighed.

The two friends parted with the promise of tomorrow; and when Oliver was alone in his room he cracked open the journal as flicked through pages of his own handwriting to the very first page.

Hello, if you're reading this and you have no recollection of writing it, what you feared might happen, happened.

I don't know how much you, I suppose we, lost, but if you happened to lose the memory of the woman you unequivocally love and adore, the mother to your children, the colour to your shadows and the reason you find your smile again... don't worry.

See, we were scared of this reality and while it's probably hard to grasp and perhaps a little overwhelming, know this; you are a lucky man because you'll get to fall in love with her all over again.

And boy is she worth it.

Let's start with the first time you saw her...

The words ended there on the page and Oliver instinctively turned to the next.

Oliver paused reading as he thumbed through the journal. There were pages upon pages, all filled with words, and a few photos carded between. It was nearly a year's worth of memories by his own hand, carefully recorded in words where senses held context and feelings were laid bare.

In the passages his eyes picked out, he had exposed every thought, every fear and every feeling like a raw nerve, hoping perhaps, to spark what might have been lost... so sure that he would fall in love with Felicity once again.

Chapter Text

The first time you laid eyes on her you could barely pry them away. I don't know if she ever saw me looking but I remember her eyes so vividly. She was holding a camera and for a split second you forgot how to breathe. The blue of her eyes, look at them. The next time you see them really look.

There are flecks of every colour on the blue spectrum; dark sapphire; brilliant cobalt, soft maya and the faintest hints of azure. They are truly magnificent. Like a galaxy where the centre is a black pearl.

And while they are naturally remarkable, they are even more endearing when you make her smile.

She has 5 different smiles and I will teach you all of them later, but for now all you need to know is how to make the one that causes her eyes to shine. It's the smile she makes when she sees something beautiful and it will leave you breathless.

Here is what you need to do...

>>>>|<<<<

When Felicity came the next afternoon, Oliver was in the midst of getting his dressing checked. It was unseasonably warm in his room despite the high-end air con and Oliver was sitting up in his bed in a simple singlet with his eyes roving out the window while his surgical wounds were getting tended to.

Felicity stopped in the doorway and felt a gush of air suck in through her mouth at seeing him. It wasn’t that she hadn’t seen him like that before; in fact she’d obviously seen him in far less, she reminded herself as her fingertips skated over her pregnant stomach. But there was a gnawing inside her that she had been trying hard to ignore this week, and seeing Oliver, with his arms glistened with sweat and his muscles twitching as he felt slight pangs of discomfort, had her inadvertently licking her lips.

That was until he turned to look at her and she swallowed down as best she could every debauched fantasy she was having; silently rebuking her hormones for thinking about that at a time like now.

“I can come back,” she said as she hung around nervously in the doorway.
“Come in please,” Oliver replied, sitting a little higher in his bed. “It’s okay,” he added when she still looked unconvinced.

Felicity stepped inside on his beckoning and a few feet into the room a floral scent caught her attention. Her eyes following her nose to a large, clear vase of flowers; namely vibrantly-yellow roses and large white daisies with rich greenery threaded around the arrangement.

“An admirer?” she commented as she couldn’t help but lean over to let the aroma embrace her senses.
“Actually, I had them delivered to liven the place up a little,” Oliver clarified, trying his best to hide the peaks of a smile that were growing across his lips.

Her eyes closed as she inhaled deeply, enjoying the heavenly scent. “Yellow roses are my favourite,” she talked softly, almost to herself, but just loud enough that Oliver heard.
“They are?” he piqued, biting the inside of his cheeks to stop himself from smiling.
Felicity turned and Oliver saw the smile; softly pouted lips, with the wingtips curled up towards her cheeks. A single dimple dancing with delight. Full, rosy cheeks. Bright, enchanting eyes the colour of a stunning summer’s day, a flutter of dark lashes and her finger gently brushing over her ear, if by instinct.

In that over-all-too-soon moment, Oliver realised that he'd once known her so well and studied her so closely; there wasn’t a doubt in his mind that the rest of the book he’d written himself would be equally as accurate.

“How are you today?” he asked as he saw her wince with her hand near her side.
“Growing pains,” she shrugged it off with a brave smile, but the truth was it felt a little something akin to period cramps, only they pulled across her ligaments like a sharp and jabbing pain she could do little to alleviate. She yawned and Oliver cocked his head to the side, questioning her once more with his eyes. “Sorry, they were so active last night, I barely slept a wink without you there talking to them.”

Oliver held himself back from finding the book to skip ahead to the part where he talked to his unborn babies. “I talk to them?” he queried, sitting a little higher in the bed.
He watched her fluster for a moment with her hair before she took a steadying breath. “Sorry, sometimes I forget that you're not you. I mean you're you, you're just the you that I knew.”

He smiled to show her she had said nothing to be sorry or embarrassed about. “I talked to them?” he reiterated.
She nodded gently as her fingertips skirted around the foot of his bed, anxiously trailing her eyes behind them. “We discovered it would settle them down every night. By the second week you'd run out of things to talk about so you started to read from sports magazines.” A soft laugh as she looked up with a more reclusive smile on her face, but a captivating one all the same. “Still not sure if it calmed them or bored them.”
“Hey now,” he laughed, feigning insult.
She raised her hands in surrender. “Your words I swear.”

Oliver listened as her soft laugh seemed to warm the room. There was something so utterly familiar about it and yet, to his recollection, he’d never heard it before.

He wished he had read on, discovered the other smiles he had once known so well, and uncover whether he’d deciphered her laughs the same way. There was a strange sensation bubbling through his stomach and while he couldn’t pinpoint its origins or a way to settle it; it seemed like the thing it quested for was knowledge; knowledge about her.

Oliver wanted to know her.

Like he once had.

“They're letting me walk today,” he spoke, filling the silence that had grown between them.
She smiled kindly, perhaps with a spark of joy entangled in it. “That's wonderful.” When she answered it felt to Oliver like she meant it, it wasn’t said reactively.
“Just the hallway to make sure I have the cognitive...,” he paused and laughed as he shook his head. “... there were a lot of big words I didn’t understand. But I'm told walking requires a lot of bodily cohesion we take for granted.”

He watched her laugh with a sense of pride; he hadn’t needed himself to coach him how to get it; that was all him. Another idea that was all his own floated across his subconscious; he should ask her to walk with him. Granted, Thea had already offered but he was certain she wouldn’t mind forgoing for the day.

He shuffled in his bed and opened his mouth to speak, but before he could, Felicity did and the conversation changed.
“You'll be home by the end of the week at the rate you're going,” she commended him.
“Here's hoping.”
“I'll find somewhere to stay as soon as I can, a hotel in the meantime so I hope it's okay to leave the babies things there so I don't...”
“You're going to move out?” Oliver interrupted, slumping a little in the bed.

“I thought you might…I don't want to...,” Felicity tried to cohesively put across the point that the man sitting in front of her barely knew her and she understood the uncomfortableness it could pose for him if they cohabitated.
Oliver for his part thought something similar, only he was worried about her and how hard it must be for her to be struck from his memory at a time when they had planned something altogether different. “If it's better for you,” he answered with a hitch of sadness caught in this throat.
“I just don't want to make things harder for you,” she tentatively said.
“You should stay,” he nodded his head swiftly. “I'll find somewhere else.”
Felicity reactively folded her arms around her chest, like she was going to let the famous football star who had just undergone major surgery find a hotel to stay in... “That's ridiculous.”

“It has more than one room, you should both stay in it,” Thea piped in from the doorway.
Both Oliver and Felicity turned, startled, towards her, neither sure how long she’d been there.

She popped a bubble from her gum with a smirk before she walked the rest of the way in. Oliver looked at Felicity for corroboration of the same – he had no idea what their apartment in LA was like.
“There are three rooms,” Felicity explained, “I could stay in one of the other bedrooms if that would be alright?”
“Of course, it was your home too,” Oliver assured her as his fingers walked over the bedding, snaking closer to hers without his knowledge. They were less than a foot away from touching when Felicity stood up.

She checked her watch and sighed. “I’m sorry, I have an appointment, but I can come back later?” She nodded towards the stack of colouring books.
“That would be…” he nodded, “yeah.”
“Good luck with your walk.”
He mouthed the word ‘thank you,’ before Felicity left.

“You ready for that walk?” Thea probed as she pinched his toes where they tented the blankets.
His eyes were anchored to the door as he let go of a held breath, leaving his lips like a sigh. “I loved her didn’t I?”
“You're not exactly an open book,” Thea joshed, “But from what I saw you loved her very much.”

>>>>|<<<<

As the halls grew quiet and the night grew heavy, while Oliver was alone in his room, he found the journal where he’d put it earlier and thumbed to the page where he’d left off. Picking up just after he’d described the first of Felicity’s smile and how to retrieve it.

The second is one felt and shown in empathy; a sad advert or a lost puppy. During her pregnancy this one has come out more often. It's wistful and soft and when you see it, it will invoke in you the need to embrace her. Don't fight that need.

The third is the second’s opposite. It comes from laughter. It's bright and sunny and when you happen upon it, it will make even the gloomiest of days seems blissfully perfect. It's even more radiant first thing in the morning. If you can make her laugh while she's furry eyed and her hair is toppling down her face, it's magical.

The fourth is the one she wears without even realising it. It comes out when she's working or trying to cook, which she can't really but she tries and you eat it all the same. It's shy and embarrassed or it's deep in thought. It's a strange sort of paradox and it comes often with a breezy laugh and a crinkle across her nose.

The final smile is one that is all of the others combined. It's soft and pouted. It's blissful and exotic. It's one that you seek out the most and it's one you will work tirelessly to see. It's the smile she gets after you're together. For now I will hold the secret to finding that one because the discovery of it the first time is worth finding out for yourself. Trust me.

Oliver held his thumb in the page as he looked up and, staring at nothing at all, he felt a heavy sigh bleed from his lips before he closed his eyes and squeezed them tight. Flashes of whites and sparks of colour leaked in through his eyelids as he closed them tighter, giving everything he could to finding the memories that were once his.

But when he opened his eyes, and after the hazy white fog dissipated, he was still left with a void. A missing year, which, as he clutched the journal in his hands and thought about the life he’d had between the pages, felt more like a lifetime.

>>>>|A Week Later|<<<<

Just 10 days after surgery, Oliver was released from the hospital and, with both trepidation and excitement, he’d made his way to the apartment close by.

There were still things to contend with, moments of ambiguity where words or phrases alluded him, and there had been times he had, quite without meaning to, switched from English to Portuguese to Russian all within one sentence. He got headaches, but they were centred near the incision and they were to be expected as the skin ached and itched, and there was little to be done about either. The medication made him drowsy and his focus came and went in ebbs and flows, where holding a long conversation was far too taxing.

He slept a lot, his body pooling all of its resources to work on healing at the expense of staying awake. And, while his major motor functions, such as walking, lifting his arms, and moving his body, had returned, his finer motor skills were still proving to be a challenge. However, all the specialists who saw him assured him that he was making great progress and he could expect a full recovery.

But for one.
His memories.
There was no chart on those.

They could come back as a flood, the connections in his brain finally meeting once more. Or they could surface as though they were dreams, splinters of memories that might grow from there. Or he could be left with only partial memories, vague ideas of things as though they happened decades ago. Or, he could never regain them; the book he had in his possession the only window to a life he didn’t know and never really would. His brain might imagine memories to try and soothe himself, but they would never be real, but rather like a well-written novel with word pictures that he could paint himself into.

After a quiet ride in the elevator and a slow, tentative walk to their apartment, Oliver stepped into the apartment and was suddenly engulfed with a heavy weight of anxiety across his chest.

Nothing sparked anything.

He searched with his eyes for anything that gave him even a hint of familiarity, but as he took another step into the unknown there was nothing but echoes of empty memories and the realisation that he'd lived a life that was no longer his.

It swamped him. Choked his throat. Stole his voice.

“Oliver?” She brought him back with her soft voice and he turned towards her, his expression trapped in anxiety. “Twelve letter word that means impossible to overthrow?” she asked and his mind snapped to the absurdity of her question.

“It should really be something I would know the answer to,” he laughed. Air spilled into his lungs as he breathed again.
“Oh right,” her cheeks flushed peach, “Sorry, it was in a crossword I did this morning.” She paused from a moment then asked something different, “What's the pole called along the top of a goal thing?”

He laughed a second time and the colour returned to his complexion. She wasn't quite as efficient as Thea but she might have been more fun. “That's the cross bar and it’s 8 feet by 24 feet.”
Felicity walked as she nodded. “What else?”
Oliver reactively followed her, chatting away about the netting, and before he knew it, he was deep inside the apartment, his breathing settled, and his body relaxed. Perhaps he knew this place after all and he only needed to stop trying to remember and let himself.

Oliver soon found himself looking at photos on a bookcase with glass shelves. There were ones he recognised, Thea, Tommy, Football, set among ones that were new to him. The smiling face was his, with Felicity beside him. His lips were pressed to her cheek in one, or her small frame encircled by his arms in another. Close, intimate. But looking at them was like looking into the eyes of a twin you never knew existed. A twin that had assumed and lived your life for the past twelve months. A stranger who had done a better job at living than you had for the years before.

Another step deeper had Oliver meet with a familiar scent and his eyes greedily searched out the momentary fragment of recognition. He found the source of the ambient scent in a trinity of candles on a nearby shelf.

“You told me you loved the smell because they reminded you of autumn in Starling,” Felicity explained as Oliver picked up the tallest of the three and breathed it in deeply.
“Cinnamon rolls on the patio,” he sighed while he let the memory lick up the back of his throat, engaging all of his senses. “I told you a lot of things, didn’t I?” he remarked as he set the candle back down.
Felicity answered with a glimpse of that empathic smile Oliver had read about. “Over time.”

He couldn't imagine opening up to someone but he had. He'd made himself vulnerable and open and she hadn't used that.

Maybe having the chance to discover that comfort for a second time made him lucky after all.

>>>>|<<<<

Felicity stared up at the ceiling in the dark, trying as best as she could to make out the shapes the shadows cast across the room. It was the hazy time of the night when everything looked gloss in mossy greys and eerie blues and where the white of the moon sat as a pale glow behind the curtains.

The house was still and all Felicity could hear was her own breathing and the rustling her feet made at the end of the bed.

Her body was tired; with aching limbs and a pulling low across her stomach. Both things she had come to appreciate, and had been warned that carrying twins tended to double those sorts of aches, which Felicity realised may have just been what her OBGYN had told her as an offering to placate her moaning.

But either way, despite the fact that Felicity's body was calling out for the embrace of a bed and the depths of a restful sleep, her mind was on a completely different page and there had been nothing that could shut off the ramble of thoughts knocking around up there.

Not to mention the babies playing trapeze in her womb.

By the time the fifth sigh bleed from her lips in the span of a few minutes, Felicity was out of bed and heading towards the door. Maybe a snack would help? It certainly couldn't hurt.

With a smack of her lips in a drawn yawn she walked on bare feet down the hall, her fingertips swaying around her bare thighs where the tee stopped just barely below her black cotton panties.

One hand rubbed gentle lines down her stomach, bunching up the already short cover-up as she rounded the hall into the dark living room. She headed straight for the kitchen without looking around, all while she nattered away to herself.
“You two need to behave in there and let me get some sleep,” she hummed before a yawn took her over.

Felicity opened the fridge and stared into it like it held all the answers. It didn't, but it did have cheese whip and she knew of some saltine crackers in the top cupboard. Ordinarily she couldn't imagine anything worse, but at 2am this culinary travesty would be her little secret.

She grabbed the cheese whip and an apple she fully intended to just stare at rather than eat, and bumped the door closed with her hips.

She decided to herself that she should be ashamed really, completely and utterly ashamed. But, Felicity had read a book that night which advocated the notion that when a woman has a baby she leaves a certain amount of dignity at ‘the door’; and as the time ticked over to 2:14am, Felicity concluded that she might as well get a jump on that belief now.

After putting the nozzle of the 'you legally can't call it cheese' bottle to her lips, Felicity pulled the trigger, sending a rush of congealed... she wasn't even sure what... into her mouth.

She shrugged to her inner nutritionist before she reached up on her tippy toes, exposing her round ass to the gentle breeze of the air con, to reach the saltine crackers in the top cupboard.

All while Oliver watched.

He should say something; but he was locked in that awkward phase of not wanting to give her a fright if he did verses absolutely giving her a fright if she turned around and saw him there, sitting in an armchair in the thick darkness of the early threads of morning.

He'd listened to her talk to her stomach with a hand gently patting the side and he'd watched as the fridge light illuminated her body while she balanced from one foot to the other, her short tee slowly getting shorter with each move she made.

He'd seen her take a swig of cheese whip and berate herself with a sigh before she chuckled; and then he watched her as she’d lifted onto her toes, one leg slightly behind the other, and she rummaged through a cupboard.

He should say something.

Or he could move, put himself deeper into the shadows of the room, maybe behind the curtain. He could hide. That might work. Then she could jauntily have her snack and leave and be none the wiser.

Only...what if she didn't? What if she took her snack into the lounge, turned on the lamp or the TV, and sat down for the long haul. How long would it be before he made a noise, or before she noticed him? Then explaining that would be a million times worse that just saying ‘Hi’ now. Right?

Oliver took a few more moments in still silence to appreciate the sight surreptitiously. Felicity was stunning. Her legs were shapely and looked like silk to the touch. Her ass was round and full and the way she arched her back gave her a very definitive curve. She had a body that he wished he could remember touching, kissing, feeling warm around, beside, or underneath him.

While the only life he remembered living for the last 5 years was one shut off from companionship, it never, not for a single moment, felt unbelievable that he would end up with her.

But, she was going to think him crazy if she turned around and found him there. He needed to do something.

He settled for a soft clearing of his throat.

The box slipped from Felicity's hand as the sound of someone else in the room made her jump, and saltine crackers spilled onto the marble floor around her feet.

“Sorry, sorry,” Oliver bleated from the other part of the room as he turned on the lamp beside him and raised his arms cautiously.

Felicity spun around and swallowed the last mouthful of cheese timidly. “How long have you been there?” she whimpered as she asked the question.
“A while,” Oliver replied with an awkward smile.
“You saw me...” She hid the cheese behind her back but the jig was up.
“Sorry,” he reiterated genuinely, “I didn't know if I should say anything or whether it would be worse if I didn't.”
“Worse if you didn't,” she sighed with her hand on her heart as it started to slow back down.

She looked down at the crackers around her feet, but something else stole her attention. She grappled with the hem of her tee shirt and pulled it down as far as it could stretch. “And déjà vu,” she muttered to herself. Once again Oliver had found her without pants in his kitchen.

Oliver smiled coyly to himself, he’d had reached that part in his journal.

“How about you sit,” he commented as he gestured down to the slate-grey couch, “and I’ll make you a sandwich.”
His voice had created a lull in the babies’ movements, though Felicity kept that knowledge to herself, not wanting to put more pressure on Oliver than he was already presented with. But in that lull, she realised how utterly exhausted she was and his idea sounded like heaven.

She thanked him with a warm smile, the fourth type if he wasn’t mistake before she walked around the other side of the couch to him and sat down.

“Aioli instead of mayo?” he chattered from the kitchen.
Felicity looked up at him with a crinkled expression. “How did you know?”
Oliver swallowed down a breath as his eyes wandered toward the journal he’d spent the last few hours devouring. He knew a lot. “Lucky guess,” he shrugged and she laughed, likely too tired to delve any deeper.

He would tell her about the journal, but for now it was as though he was testing himself. Testing the Oliver that had known her, and delighting in each facet, big or small, that he got right.

Felicity sighed happily when she took the first mouthful of the sandwich Oliver prepared as he pushed a navy ottoman in front of her and gestured for her to put her feet up; which she did without argument.

“Are they?” he asked, nodding down towards her stomach.
“This is the first time they’ve been still in a few nights,” she remarked after she’d finished off half of the sandwich.
“Because of me talking right now?” he asked, and she looked too troubled to answer. So, Oliver didn’t make her. He picked up a sports magazine from under the glass coffee table and crouched down in front of her.

He looked nervous as he flicked through to find an article and with a few bites left Felicity spoke up. “You really don’t have to Oliver, we’ll be fine.”

He glanced up, flecks of candour in his eyes. “If it helps, I’d like to.”
She touched her stomach and nodded. It helped.

He started reading an interview with a racing car legend just as Felicity finished off the sandwich. The twins had stirred and she was currently having her organs crumpled against each other, but within a few minutes of Oliver starting, they had settled down and her eyes grew heavy.

“You should lie down,” he offered as he looked up from the printed page.
Once again, Felicity didn’t argue. She lay down with her head at one end, propped up on a pillow, and her feet down the other end, tucked down the side of the cushion. Oliver moved onto the ottoman and continued reading.

It was barely 20 minutes later when Felicity’s tiny snores told him that she was asleep.

He took the blanket he’d been using and draped it over her, ensuring that it was tucked in, before he instinctively kissed her head.

It wasn’t until Oliver was halfway down the hall that he even realised he’d done it.

Maybe his mind couldn’t remember her; but his body did.

Chapter Text

The light was hazy, an early morning glow that teetered near the start of twilight, far too early for anyone to truly join the land of the living, but enough that as Felicity roused, she realised, albeit in a foggy sort of dreamlike state, that she was on the couch instead of tucked up in bed.

It wasn't the first time she'd woken up like that, heavy lids, not quite lucid, and with a blanket draped over her, and she was vaguely aware enough to realise it probably wouldn’t be the last.

Rolling hers legs off the couch, Felicity noticed the magazine laying nearby and a smile lifted her lips. She must had fallen asleep while Oliver read to the babies. She pulled herself up with a tottle like a bowling pin before she sleepily navigated the hall.

She was tired, beyond tired, and her body moved like a lethargic tank as she shuffled her feet down the dark hallway. With little to no thought, Felicity passed the second bedroom and slowly pushed through the door at the end.

She sighed as the familiar scents enveloped her; the fragrant unlit candles in their shared bathroom and the subtle notes of his lingered cologne.

Dozily she crept up to the bed, found her side in the dark, and fell into the warm and billowing embrace of the same.

Felicity was asleep moments after her head hit the pillow.

But Oliver wasn't.

He hadn't really been to sleep since slipping into bed about an hour beforehand. Instead, he had tossed and turned, huffed and puffed, and thought of everything he should be doing.

Kissing Felicity's head had been instinctual and when the realisation he'd even done it hit him, there was a frustration that came along with it. He was navigating a life he barely knew; but his only concern was for her. What he couldn't give her - namely, the man that had written an entire journal about how much he loved and adored her. She deserved that man, not the one she got.

When the door crept open and he saw her outline in the gauzy light, Oliver sat up a little on his elbows and waited. He'd expected her to say it was too much, she couldn't live like this, and that she was leaving. But she didn't, she simply walked around the bed, pulled back the covers, and got in; without saying a single word.

“Felicity?” Oliver said softly, after what seemed like a lifetime’s worth of silence.
Nothing but a small snore that, according to past-Oliver, Felicity had developed about a month ago, probably due in part to the babies restricting her air flow. He had described it as “beguiling, but never to tell her that she did it because she was embarrassed.”

Oliver leaned a little closer, careful not to touch the silhouette she formed in the darkened room. She hummed in her sleep as her feet sought him out, stilling only once one was wrapped through and around his leg.

“Felicity?” His hand lightly touched her shoulder, before sliding down her arm. She didn't rouse but, reactively, she lifted her arm while her other hand tugged his arm through the gap. A moment later and her arm had come down, stapling his in place. Oliver’s arm went rigid as he contemplated the situation.
“I love you,” she mumbled, barely audible, but the room was so still he heard it crystal clear.

Oliver carefully tugged his pillow closer and lay down behind her. Almost instantaneously she nestled her back into his broad chest. He found himself smiling into the crown of her head while his hand relaxed and lay gently on her stomach.

He found his own rest barely 5 minutes later.

>>>>|<<<<

Oliver woke up with the sunrise a few hours later, as the early morning rays sliced through the gap in the curtains. He didn’t startle, or move, but he did lift up just enough so that he could see whether Felicity was still asleep. She was.

Her body had remained snuggled up against his and his hand had spent the night resting on the cusp of her stomach, with his fingers spread and draped over the edge. His body was stiff and a small ache drummed across his shoulders. It was clear neither of them had stirred, let alone moved, in at least 5 hours.

There was something so incredibly natural about it though; and while his mind demanded that he remove his hand and put some distance between them, he ignored it, keeping it there a little longer.

He thought about closing his eyes and laying back down, carving out a few more precious moments where questions didn’t require answers. He contemplated lying to the woman beside him, telling her his memories had returned while he used a book to navigate lost months. Perhaps he could do that? Perhaps he could live with the secret of if it made them both happy.

She had made him happy once before.

And then he felt something push against the heel of his palm and roll down his fingers. It was slow and methodical, but just as soon as it had started, it finished; one of the babies had moved. Rolled over or turned around, it didn’t really matter, but the sensation of it drew tears to the corners of Oliver’s eyes.

While that was his first real memory of feeling the babies move, Oliver knew it wasn’t the first time, and that he couldn’t feign memories that weren’t his own. He couldn’t lie to her, or himself.

When she stirred, reactively Oliver slipped his arm out from her vice and pulled back.

He left before she woke up.

>>>>|<<<<

Felicity woke up groggily, her eyes taped down with sleep as a long, drawn-out yawn took over her entire body. Limbs stretched under the blankets while her lips smacked together, before a sweep of her tongue wet her parched lips.

As the room came into a hazy focus Felicity reached out to the nightstand expecting to find her glasses where she had left them the night before. While her hand rummaged across the top of the bedside, she began to gain her lucidity.

And then it hit her.

Her eyes flung open and she sat up as quickly as being 5 months pregnant with twins allowed. Her head swanned around the room. She wasn't in the room she had gone to sleep in the previous night.

She was in their room.
His room.

Foolishly Felicity lifted the blankets on Oliver's side of the bed but, of course, he wasn't hiding beneath them.

She threw on some clothes from her closet and pulled her hair back into a ponytail before she scampered sheepishly out of the room. The smell of breakfast, specifically eggs and the wafting aroma of a dark roast assaulted Felicity as soon as she opened the door.

After stopping by her room to collect her glasses, Felicity walked into the living room quite prepared to apologise. But before she could, Oliver, dressed in a loose tee and baggy sweatpants that still seemed to cling to his lower regions, looked up from a fry pan and smiled.

“Good morning,” he said huskily, as though he hadn’t been awake much longer than her; but the sliced fruit, brewing coffee, and French toast he was babysitting while it cooked seemed to say otherwise.
Her mouth opened, but her words had vanished. Felicity was looking at the man that she loved, the man she’d made plans with, discussed baby names with, that man that with his last remaining words before surgery, had assured her that he believed in her – as a mother, as an inventor, as a woman.

She had tried not to see that; fearing that recounting those last moments they shared as two people deeply in love, would make the pain of what was now in front of her unbearable – she had been right.

“I’m sor-,” she started as she crept deeper into the room.
“Please don’t be,” Oliver replied genuinely. “We’re both just,” he sighed and she saw flickers of the difficulties she felt herself.

This wasn’t easy for either of them.

“Just trying,” she offered and Oliver nodded.
“I made breakfast,” he said proudly as he pointed with the spatula towards the breakfast bar. “Please sit down. The French toast shouldn’t be too much longer.”
As if on cue, Felicity’s stomach growled, prompting her to graciously accept his offer with a smile and a soft, “Thank you.”

When she was seated on a stool, Oliver, beaming, brought a tray of sliced fruit and a piping hot coffee, freshly poured, over to her. “In the meantime, you can start with this,” he said as he sat it down in front of her.

Her eyes tracked over the array of seasonal fruits as her mouth began to water; but both stopped when she saw the pottle of yoghurt. Her stomach flinched as she instinctively moved fractionally away from it. This Oliver wouldn’t know about her pregnancy-related aversion to the dairy product.

“Sorry, almost forgot,” Oliver chatted away as he plucked the yoghurt up and ferried it away, “yoghurt makes you nauseous.”

Felicity sat silent for a few moments, watching Oliver’s face as his words dawned on him as well.
“How did you know that?” she asked as her hands wrung together. Had he remembered? But if he had, why was he keeping that from her?

Oliver walked over to the bookshelf, opened the door at the bottom, and pulled out the journal. It was time she knew.

“Because of this,” he admitted quietly as he set the same in front of her, tracing the outline of it with his finger before he stepped back, leaving it for her.
“What’s this?” Felicity asked as a curious finger lifted the corner of the cover.
“It’s a journal, about us.”

Felicity lifted the leather dust jacket and thumbed through the pages, picking up words as she skimmed through the book’s leafs . “Where did you get this?” she enquired

“From me apparently,” Oliver offered by way of explanation as his shoulders reactively shrugged. “I guess I was worried I might forget a few things.”

Her fingers stopped at a page where Oliver had detailed their first bike ride, noting details as ordinary as the way the wind had caught her hair and blown it across her face when they stopped for ice cream at a tiny shop at the base of the winding mountain trail. It was detailed, thoughtful, it was Oliver. She shut the book before the tears started. “And you've been reading this?” Felicity asked as she kept a trembling hand on top of it.
“Yes,” he admitted.
“That's how you knew about the aioli... The flowers?” she glanced at the yoghurt, nodding towards it silently.
“Yes.” Whispered.

“You shouldn't...,” she pushed the journal aside, the thought of all the beautiful things Oliver had thought or said was like a dagger to her heart because that Oliver wasn't around right now, he might never be. “You shouldn't read this.”

“What?” His eyebrow shot up and his lips furrowed. “Why?”
“Oliver this was…,” she tapped her finger on it before pulling her hand back entirely. “This is who you were and I loved him so much. But you're not him. This man had a clock over his head. You have your whole life now.” Each word tumbled from her lips, sad and shaking.

Oliver looked at her, a soft crinkle across the bridge of his nose. “What are you saying?”
“Don't love me because you used to,” she spoke, barely above a haunting whisper. “Because this book told you that you once did.” She could see the painful confusion etched in the corners of his eyes.

But, that was the truth. Guilt and obligation shouldn't see himself forcing a life that might not fit him anymore. Maybe it had been timing and circumstance that had allowed them to fall in love the first time; but maybe now both of those things had changed...

She sucked back air as the tears formed behind her eyes. She hadn't allowed herself this self-depreciation before, afraid of where it might take her, but it was unavoidable now. Love wasn’t an obligation.

“I need to get ready,” she said softly before she left the room.

She cried only once her back fell against her bedroom door.

>>>>|<<<<

When Felicity returned to the living room nearly 40 minutes later, she found Oliver sitting facing the window, watching the world pass below their 22nd floor apartment with the unopened journal clasped in his hands and laying on his lap.

For seconds that felt stretched into hours, Felicity watched him, unsure what to say while a heavy weight sat across her chest; making each breath she took, a laboured one.

Sensing her presence, Oliver turned and offered her a faint but endearing smile.
“Sorry I was a little hard on you,” she admitted as she wrung the shoulder straps of her bag between her fist.
“You weren't,” Oliver remarked gently. He tapped the top of the journal and offer another, sweetly apologetic, smile. “I'm sorry I kept this from you.”
“You have nothing to apologise for Oliver.” There was no right or wrong in this situation, there was just a floundering existence of two people trying to make sense out of something they had no control over. She sighed, soft and rueful. “I just,” words escaped her with another drawn sigh. “These babies are yours, that won't change and I hope you choose to be in their lives but I don't want you to feel like you have to be in mine,” she breathed, flinching with her own words.

Oliver stood, dropping the journal to the seat before he closed the gap between them. “And what do you want?” he asked without even a hint or irony or malice.
Her lips quivered and she could barely hold her eyes up to his. “I'm still very much in love with you,” she confessed. “But that's my burden to bear. It's not yours.”

>>>>|<<<<

Felicity had met up with her mother and Iris for an early lunch in the warm early afternoon, in a bustling but petite café not far from the hotel where Donna was staying. With their food now in front of them, Felicity began to refill her water glass, but a moment’s lapse in concentration found her spilling some onto the slated-wood table.

“Fuck, fuck, shit, fuck, fucker,” Felicity blurted as she threw every paper napkin on top of the small puddle of water.
“Everything alright there?” Iris asked as her fork, with a stab of salad on it, hovered near her gaping mouth.
“Oh everything is just peachy,” Felicity retorted, with a biting sarcasm that was new for her. She huffed at her tone while she dabbed up the water. “Just fine,” she concluded with a heavy sigh.

Both Iris and her mother were staring at her, surprised by her outburst. “Sorry, I’m just wound a little tight,” she replied, proof of the same in her clenched jaw and pursed lips.
“And by that you mean?” Iris quipped before she fed the salad through her plum-toned lips.
“She’s horny,” Donna answered candidly while a shrug lifting her shoulders as if to imply that it was glaringly obvious. “Us Smoak women get very sexually charged when we’re pregnant,” she continued as she reached for her own glass of cool water. “I once had Felicity’s father go and hire…”
“Please for the love of everything, do not finish that sentence Mom,” Felicity warned.

Iris shrugged, “I kind of want to know.” She shrugged a second time when Felicity glared at her. “Your mom has a lot of great stories.”

Donna nodded to herself while she took a sip. “Could you self-sooth?” she asked her daughter, whose cheeks had turned fuchsia.
Felicity bleated out a small sigh. It wasn’t like she hadn’t tried that. “I don’t think I can manoeuvre around this,” she commented as she pointed both hands down at her stomach. She may not quite be in the third stage of her pregnancy, but with twins her stomach was just as cumbersome as it would be if she were.

“And Oliver?” Donna puzzled.
Felicity felt the moment her eyes rolled, but this itch had made her frustrations nearly impossible to hide and it seemed to show itself in irrationally sarcastic behaviour. “No,” she groaned. “How exactly would that conversation go?” she continued. “Oh, hi Oliver, I know that you’ve been a recluse for a really long time, and you don’t have any memory of me, but hey, do you think you could scratch this very specific itch for me?”
“That sounds reasonable,” remarked Donna.

Felicity guzzled down half of her water while she muttered away to herself about how utterly unreasonable that sounded, before she set the glass down again. “I'm not a nymphomaniac. I'll be fine.”
“So are you two, together?” Iris asked. It was a question no one else had, but it always seemed to hang heavy in the air.
“I don't know.” That was the only honest answer Felicity had.
Donna reached over the small round table, causing it to wobble just a fraction, and placed her hand on top of Felicity’s. “How do you feel?”

Felicity felt the gush of tears that she had spent so long repressing break free and slide down her cheeks, before Iris offered her a travel pack of tissues from her purse. “I’m still in love with him,” Felicity admitted as she dabbed her sodden cheeks. “I’m not sure how I'm supposed to feel.”

Donna’s thumb smoothed over the ridges of Felicity’s knuckles as she spoke. “He'll love you again.”
“But what if he shouldn't?” Felicity mouthed, her voice cracking. “The Oliver that told me he loved me thought that he had one foot in the grave and that he was living the last parts off a bucket list. But, this Oliver has a new world ahead of him.”
“What are you saying?” Donna posed quietly.
Felicity looked up, a crumpled tissue in her fist and the weight of the world twisted in the irises of her restless eyes. “I don't know.”

And she didn’t.

>>>>|<<<<

It was a week later and Felicity was trying to ignore the dense ache through her sinuses and the scratchy pain down the back of her throat as she slipped into a dress over leggings and fastened her hair in a messy bun. Her and Oliver hadn’t spoken much about the journal, or what would happen when the twins eventually made their grand entrance. It seemed like both of them were afraid of the kind of finality that a talk such as that might bring.

So they never had it.

They lived this delicate balance of quiet smiles and glances that lasted far longer than they needed to, but neither willing to express themselves beyond that.

For her part, Felicity loved Oliver. Her memories hadn’t gone. She could still recount their moments together, both intimate and seemingly innocent. She saw flickers of that man, that Oliver, when he smiled and there were times that she would have given anything to fall into the arms she’d once been so accustomed to. But she couldn’t. It wouldn’t be fair to him.

So, she lived in her work. Busying herself any way that she could just to try and be okay.

Oliver was not much different.
His motor skills were improving each day and he had begun training with John in a nearby gym. An hour’s session drained him to the point of exhaustion, but it numbed the cacophony of thoughts in his brain.

What Felicity had said was accurate; reading his own words it had become obvious that 'Before Oliver' had resigned himself to death. He’d settled up his life. Crossed his T’s and dotted his i’s. He’d made every contingency plan for dying on that operating table – before her.

Somewhere between those two points he’d found a reason for living.

In the present, Oliver longed to know what that must have felt like beyond reading words off a page. There were moments, quiet moments, when he stole looks at her without her realising, that he so desperately wanted to know that feeling. And for some fleeting seconds he could convince himself that he did; that in fact there was a quickening in his heartbeat and a warmth in his breath… maybe that’s how it felt?

Maybe he was in love with her now too, he just didn’t know it.

His thoughts stopped when she entered the room; eyes locked and smiled offered.
“Are you ready?” he asked softly. Their car was downstairs waiting, but it would wait longer if she needed it to.
She opened her mouth to say something but it closed seconds later and simply nodded instead.

Oliver collected his keys from the breakfast bar and opened the door to their apartment for her. She stopped just on the cusp of the hall and looked over to him.
“You don’t need to come if this is,” she struggled for words, like she had since this was all thrown at them. “If this is too weird or you don’t want to.”
“I’d like to come, if that’s okay?” he answered warmly.

She tried not to feel it, but her heart skipped a beat.
She didn’t notice, but his did too.

Coming into her final trimester, Felicity would now have more frequent visits to her OBGYN and today she would have a scan to ensure everything was as it should be. It was the first since Oliver’s operation and he’d asked to join her.

>>>>|<<<<

When the first images appeared in front of him, Oliver felt something deep and overwhelmingly protective wash over him. He could see arms and heads and feet, everything already sculptured into something recognisable.

He knew he’d seen this before.
He knew he’d been there the first time and every time since; but as he stared, unblinking, at the grainy image before him, he started a new memory. His own.

Instinctively he took Felicity’s hand as he leaned closer, desperate to be as close to the screen as perching on the very edge of the chair would let him. She took his hand without thinking and held it. It was shaking just as unspent tears in the corner of his eye caught the light

This wasn’t a journal.
This memory was his.

“Everything looks good with Baby A,” the OBGYN remarked as she glided the transducer over Felicity’s belly.
Felicity looked at Oliver. “The larger one at the front,” she explained and Oliver thanked her with a grateful nod. She looked back at the specialist, “And Baby B?”
The older woman pressed the head of the transducer into the side of Felicity’s rounded belly, gently coaxing it until Baby A shifted enough.

Baby B was less active, tightly curled into themselves but all limbs accounted for. “Baby B is a little smaller, but nothing to be concerned about.”
As the OBGYN finished up Baby B rolled away, shying away under their sibling’s shadow.
“It's like they already have personalities,” Oliver remarked, a smile of awe stapled to his lips.
“They do,” Felicity added softly, smiling as his thumb drew tiny, virtually ghosted, circles across the top of her hand.

There had been a journal entry near the end where he had said something similar, but for Oliver to see it now, with his own eyes, was something to behold.

Baby A is the bigger of the two and the rowdy one, they’re always moving and kicking and they like to play it up for a scan. There are moments when you look at that grainy window into life where you wonder if they can see you right back. Of course you know they can’t, but there is this fleeting moment where you wonder if you waved, would Baby A wave back?

Baby B is the smaller and shyer of the two. At first you thought it was Baby A hiding the other, but the more you saw them the more you realised that Baby B didn’t like the spotlight on them, and it was them that moved, Baby A was simply protecting them.

They have their own sacs and their own food, but if you look closely it looks like they’re pressing their bodies against each other, hugging through their walls.

I can’t wait for you to see them for yourself. They are yours. Made in love. You might not remember that, but trust me, it was never about just having a family, it was always about having one with her.

When Felicity moved to sit up, a sharp pain cracked down her lower back and she winced.
“Felicity, everything okay?” the OBGYN asked cautiously.
“Just normal aches and pains,” Felicity recounted, trying to play down the excruciating sensation like daggers across her pelvis.
But no one was buying it. “That didn’t look normal, have you been resting?”
“Uh yes,” Felicity half-shrugged.
“She’s been running herself ragged,” Oliver ratted her out and she looked at him, mouth gaped in betrayal. “Well it’s true.”
“I’ve been busy,” she admitted sheepishly.
“There is less room in there with two babies, it means there is more likelihood of an early birth, we discussed this,” the specialist warned. Felicity nodded. “I’m putting you into compulsory bed rest.”
Felicity blinked at the suggestion, rather order. “What?”
“Felicity, you need to rest. We need to keep them in there as long as possible. The pulling across your back and your lower pelvis means there is pressure there, we don’t want that. If you go home and put your feet up for at least most of the day for a few weeks, and nothing more strenuous than a light walk to the bathroom or kitchen, we’re good.” The specialist was not having a moment of it, and Felicity could tell.
But she had to ask, “Or?”
“The alternative is I admit you to hospital for a month, where you’re forced to rest.”
She gulped, they wouldn’t allow her to work on her tech there. “I’ll take the first thing.”
Now it was Oliver’s turn. “I need you to be on this Oliver. Get a cleaner, hire a butler, but make sure this lady stays in bed. I’ll see you in three weeks.”
He nodded dutifully.

>>>>|<<<<

When they arrived home, Felicity had barely stepped through the door when Oliver ordered her to bed. “Bed is that way and you’re taking the master bed, no arguments,” he said with a tight but kind smile and a glint of cheekiness in his sapphire eyes.
“Oliver you just had surgery,” she reminded him with her head tipped to one shoulder.
“And you’re carrying around two growing humans, you win, bed.”
He shuffled her down the hallway and, aside from fighting him, she had little option. And honestly, bed sounded quite nice to her at that moment.

Once she was settled on the bed, Oliver sat down beside her.
“I know things are odd between us Felicity and I know that the future is unstable, but seeing them today with my own eyes, not just from my words, I,” his words choked up in his throat, his breath coming out uneven and shaking, “I really want to be a part of this. I choose that,” he finished with splintered words.
Felicity smiled softly as she nodded.
“If there is anything I can do, please, let me do it,” he begged.
And she agreed without hesitation. “Okay.”

Where everything else was unknown, at least she knew that. Oliver, this Oliver, wanted these children. For now, that was all that mattered.

Chapter Text

Felicity held the tissue up near her nose, her whole body teetering on the precipice of a sneeze she knew was coming. As she waited in a stagnant state of expectation, a dull itch crept up her foot under the covers; and she was suddenly faced with a rather torturous decision – to itch or not to itch?

If she itched and moved her hand, and the tissue clutched in it, away from her mouth, she was bound to sneeze and she was convinced her body was made up of more parts snot to water these days. There was a definite teasing of Murphey’s Law should she risk that, and the last time she sneezed without a 3 ply barrier – well, it wasn’t pleasant.

But, if she ignored the itch that was now sitting around her ankle, it would certainly spread; because no itch left unscratched simply vanished.

Nope, she decided indignantly to herself. She wouldn’t be controlled by either a sneeze OR an itch.

Not on her life.
She was a certified genius.
She had an IQ that would rival most.
She had graduated at 19 from MIT with two degrees under her belt.

No sneeze or itch was going to best her.

She swiped the tissue across her nose and dabbed it twice before she slowly peeled it away. She took a breath; slow and steady, letting the air fill her lungs. Then another. Testing the waters until the third breath rolled into the fourth without much thinking.

Sneeze – 0
Felicity – 1

She sat the unused but crumpled tissue on the nightstand and pulled back the covers of the bed. She scrutinized her leg and foot, carefully seeking to pinpoint the exact spot that was itchy – she was nearing 6 months pregnant (having been on bed rest for just over a week), and with twins no less, so there was a certain level of ‘one shot at this’ about it. She couldn’t stay bent in half, stretching to reach her foot for much more than a few seconds, and it was an awkward few seconds at best that required some lean-to and careful balance. She soon honed in on the spot; the front of her foot, just below the curve of her ankle.

With the sneeze abated and the itch targeted, Felicity lined herself up to take the shot. Her fingers were poised and ready, her eyes narrowed and focused, as one corner of her lips lifted into a slightly-cocky smirk.

She bent her knee just enough to place her foot a little closer and then, one more breath later, she reached.

Only…

At that exact moment another itch near her tailbone sparked into life and instinctively her other arm went in search of it. The sudden jolt that it gave her echoed like a tuning fork up her spine and then…oh fuck no.

She sneezed.
Cataclysmically.

The kind of sneeze that might have wiped dinosaurs off the planet if they still existed.

It was a snot-crime scene.

And Oliver chose that exact moment to walk into the bedroom holding a tea-tray with a bowl of steaming chicken soup and some warmed bread.

She must have looked like a pregnant pretzel the way Oliver’s looked both mortified and concerned; but Felicity managed to pull herself together within a few moments.

“Are you okay?” Oliver asked as he made a careful, but speedy beeline for her.
She cringed and contemplated briefly pretending to be asleep – but the reality set in that he wouldn’t buy that and he wasn’t going anywhere until she answered him.

“I’m fine,” she sighed as she ran a hand through her tresses. “Just,” she reached for the tissue she’d set down before and held it against her nose as she sneezed a second time. “A sneeze,” she finished once it had subsided.

But the itch was back.

She was in no mind to try that manoeuvre again so she would just have to try and wait this one out.

Oliver set the soup down on the nightstand and the delicious aroma gave Felicity something else to think about – for a few seconds at least.

“What’s this?” she asked, leaning over to get a deeper smell of the creamy delectableness.
“Chicken soup,” he said proudly as he turned the tray so the spoon was on the right. “It’s one of Raisa’s old recipes, she normally guards them with her life, but she let me have this one.”
“You made this?” Felicity quipped before she inhaled it again. It was everything and her stomach rumbled in a tantrum that demanded she do more than sniff it.

She wiggled herself up the bed with a pillow behind her back against the headboard while Oliver unfolded the legs of the tray and set it over her lap.
“It might not be as good as the original, but at least you haven’t tasted that before so you’d never know,” he smiled cheekily.
“I don’t suppose I would,” she chuckled before she dipped the spoon in and lifted the hot liquid to her lips. She gently blew on it, creating a ripple across the surface before she hesitantly touched it to her top lip. Satisfied it wasn’t scalding hot, Felicity took a sip off the spoon and moaned.

If that wasn’t the damn finest chicken soup she’d ever tasted.

In fact, it was so good that she felt tears welling up in the corners of her eyes because of it.
“Shit, was it too hot?” Oliver fretted, but she shook her head to allay his fears as she plucked another tissue from the box and wept into it.

“It’s just that you’ve had brain surgery and I have a cold,” she cried, hormones entirely in control of the moment. “I should be the one bringing you soup. Not that I can cook soup that isn’t dried in a sachet,” she sniffed before she blew her nose.

Oliver smiled as he perched his cumbersome frame on the edge of her nightstand. “The way I see it, you’re growing two children in there, making you soup seems like a fickle way to appreciate that.”

He smiled again, and she smiled appreciatively back, mouthing the words “thank you,” before she took another sip of tasty soup.

“When I came in it looked like you were trying to do something, can I help?” he asked eagerly.
“Just a silly little itch,” she remarked between mouthfuls.
“Is it still itchy?”
She looked up and nodded slowly. “It is,” she admitted. She had managed to push it to the back of her mind, but it was still there tormenting her.

“Tell me where,” Oliver said as he lifted back the bottom corner of the comforter and exposed her feet.
She used one foot to point to the vicinity of the itch on the other. “There-ish.”

Oliver crouched beside the bed as though it was a carefully orchestrated surgery, studied her foot and the spot to which she pointed, before he scratched it, quite perfectly, with all four fingers.

She moaned, unrepentantly, as he hit the exact spot.

The itch dissipated and a smile of undying bliss set across Felicity’s face.
“Better?” he asked as he sat on the edge of the bed, the mattress buckling a little underneath his weight.
“So much better,” she sighed; her itch had gone, the warmth of the soup had settled her irritated throat and it seemed like the fragrance of it had numbed the incessant need to sneeze.

“Anywhere else itchy?” Oliver asked innocently and Felicity felt a reminding tingle between her legs.
“No,” she lied.
“Well next time there is, just ask and I'll scratch it for you,” he amusingly answered.
She nodded, a discrete smile lifting the tips of her mouth. Not every itch.

“How about a foot massage?” he quipped as he glanced down at her slender feet. They were quite perfect and he caught himself staring at them way longer than he needed to. Her toes, tipped with chipped pink polish, were dainty and slanted in perfect height order, her arches were high and her skin soft. He found himself momentarily distracted by them, wondering if he'd ever been allowed to kiss them slowly from ankle to toe. It wasn't in his book, but none of those more intimate details were.

“I've been lying in bed all day for a week, they haven't been used enough to be sore,” Felicity remarked with a soft chuckle which snapped Oliver's eyes away from her feet.

“You might be surprised,” he breathed before his large hands cupped one of her feet. His thumb pressed up into the high arch and Felicity practically purred.

“Holy shit,” she sighed as she rolled her head from side to side. “That's amazing. How did I not know...,” her breath and words paused in her throat as he ran a heavy line down from her heel to the pad of her toes. She shivered and moaned. “How did I not know you could do that?”

Oliver smiled; something past Oliver had kept from her, and while he sensed it wasn't an intentional secret, her discovering something new about him, for a change, was quite liberating.

“I have a few tricks you still had yet to discover,” Oliver smiled as Felicity finished up the soup, leaving barely half a dreg in the bottom.

“Well this one is,” she sighed, “perfect.” She put the tray to the empty side of the bed and slowly melted down into her pillow.

Oliver kept going; rolling the balls of her feet with a solid fist and fanning his thumb down the underside of each toe, until her eyes were dozing closed.

“You get some rest,” he soothed with a soft but deep voice that made Felicity hum to herself. He patted each foot gently before he stood and put the comforter back over them. “I'll rub them again later.”

She moaned an “Uhhuh,” as she succumbed to the warm and full stomach and the pleasantly relaxed feet.

“And remember, any time you have an itch,” he chuckled as he walked from the room.

But she was already asleep.

>>>>|<<<<

It was 2 weeks later and a little over a month since Oliver's surgery; since Felicity found herself erased from his memory.

At least the OBGYN was happy with her blood pressure now and she was, thankfully, allowed resume normal activities.

But that had done little to dull the frustrating itch that still sat just beneath the surface of her skin.

It was like fire embers between her legs and nothing she had done could extinguish the sensation. For instance, while a warm shower with a pulsing showerhead had helped, it had been only temporary.

She kicked her legs as she walked and had developed a pursed lip sort of smile whenever the urge hit her. Every part of her logical makeup had Felicity gritting her teeth at the absurdity of it all; she was angry but horny... horngry.

Felicity blew out an exhale that shuddered from her lips like a sigh as she walked into the living space. She hadn't meant it to be quite so loud, but it was like the exacerbated and overly dramatic sound a child would make, and it was loud enough to pull Oliver's attention.

“Everything alright?” he asked as he hit pause on a recorded football game he was watching.
She wasn't the only thing Oliver had forgotten. He'd forgotten one of his most amazing sporting triumphs; and that fact hit her again in that moment. He'd lost so much and here she was acting like a petulant adolescent because she was horngry.

“Fine,” she managed to say as her sex clenched around thin air.
“You look...,” he paused, tapping a finger to his lip as if he was trying to settle on an appropriate word, “...Frazzled.”

He wasn't wrong.
Felicity combed a fan of fingers through her hair and shook it out at the ends. “A little maybe,” she offered honestly, before adding, “but it's nothing. You should keep watching.”

Oliver shut off the TV and stood from the chair. “No, you're not getting out of it that easily,” he chuckled and she tried to smile back but her heat was aching and she couldn't think about much else.

“Is there something I can do?” Oliver asked, his attention on her.
Yes, Fuck me, she blinked like Morse code. “No.”
“Are you sure? Are you hungry? I can make you something? When was the last time you ate?” He peppered her with questions while he glanced down at his watch in an effort to account for the time since he'd last looked.
“No, I'm not hungry.” For that. “I'm Fine, thank you,” she finished sweetly.

“We agreed, when I can help; you would let me,” Oliver argued.
Felicity bobbed her head in agreement; but he couldn't help. Well he could, but he shouldn't. Right? She honestly didn't know anymore. Her mind was scrambled and her body was twitching with prickles that all originated from between her legs. Tiny needle stabs that flittered across her skin.

“I know we did, but this isn't,” she sighed. “It's nothing.”

“Are your shoulders sore?” Oliver asked as he moved around behind her like a breeze and laid his hands on her shoulders.
She shivered at his touch as his thick fingers curved over her slender shoulders and grazed her collarbone just below her throat; skin on skin made the aching nearly unbearable.

She sobbed out a strangled sound as she pulled away from him. “No, please, just, please,” she begged before she side stepped him and headed towards the safety of her bedroom, with a door to hide behind.

He followed a few steps. “Felicity tell me.”
“I can’t.”
“Tell me.”

She stopped her retreat down the hall. “I’m aching," she blurted out as she spun back around to face him.
“Where?” His eyes searched her body.
“Somewhere you can’t go.”

His fingers brushed her arm in a manner to urge her to confide in him. But she couldn't; not this.

His fingers felt like tiny blow torches against her arm before she snapped it away.
“Please don't.”
“Felicity tell me.”
She blinked up, eyes welled with tears. “My body aches Oliver, inside, for you,” she admitted as she backed away. “For that.” She blinked down and he knew what she meant, but she clarified all the same; after all she’d come this far. “For release.”

She sighed, frustrated at everything, before she walked into the bedroom. Oliver stayed in the hallway, nailed to the floor; stagnant, caught between two decisions.

Until he made one he'd been trying to deny, or at least understand, for two weeks.

“Could I kiss you?” He asked as he walked in after her.
Felicity hugged her arms tightly around her waist with her chin to her chest and her back to him. He watched her shoulders lift and then slump with a lumbered breath before she turned around slow. Glassy eyes met with his.
“Why, because your book tells you to?” she whispered, her voice cracking at the edge.

He took a step forward, a step closer.
“No,” he replied, soft and husky. “Because my heart does.”

He was standing close, dangerously close, so close that the same warm air swirled around them with every breath.

His lips were full, slightly parted, wet, and slightly turned up at one corner. His eyes were honed and calm, while hers were tiny whirlpools of turmoil. But her feet were anchored to their bedroom floor and she was frozen with a tortuous throb between her legs.

Oliver's fingers ghosted across her cheek and Felicity whimpered against the soft brush.

She opened her mouth to will him away but all that came out was a soft, breathless sigh.
“May I?” he asked as his thumb rolled over her plump bottom lip.
“Do you want to?” she whispered, her voice shaky and thin.
His lips drew closer. “More than I can understand or explain.”

His lips fell against hers, delicate and hesitant at first, but as her lips parted Oliver's tongue slipped between the pillowed pout and his fingers tangled in her hair.

Felicity kissed him back, unsteady and whimpering as her body cracked with electricity. She didn't want pause or even a moment to breathe as her hands fisted instinctively in his cotton tee until her fingers too ached. She held her tongue barely at bay, as she let his slowly explore the edges of her mouth, but when he lightly flicked the tip of his tongue against hers... all bets were off.

Her tongue surged forward and coiled around his, reeling him in deeper and crushing their lips harder with a bruising kiss. His fingers tightened at her scalp while her nails dug through his shirt and embedded in the soft spots at his hips.

It was frantic and all either of them could hear was their own muffled peeps and each other's dulcet groans. Before she registered that his hands had moved from her face to her waist, Felicity was lifted into the air and without a moment’s hesitation she wrapped her legs around him, anchoring her heels into the small of his back. She rolled her ankle, just enough, to make him feel the grind of her heel on the crest of his ass and Oliver moaned salaciously against her swollen lips; she knew he liked that and, apparently, Oliver was rediscovering it's ricochet of pleasure for himself.

He carried her to the bed and let her down gently onto the billowing linen and only then, for the first time since he'd leaned in close and gently taken her lips with his, they broke back with swollen lips and ragged breaths.

He hovered above her, close enough that her hands easily slid over the ripples of his clothed-chest and sunk around his neck. He watched as her full breasts strained behind her baby pink sweater before his hand moved over one, his thumb grazing the tip of her aching and budded nipple.

Felicity thrashed her head against the mattress as a guttural cry sobbed forward.
He retreated his hand and pulled back a fraction as worry sat in the creases around his pale eyes.
But her hands still held his neck and they laced tighter around the back.

“I want this,” she sobbed as whips of pleasure wracked her body. “I want this more than I can explain.” She could hear her voice; it was stretched and thin, manic even. She took a breath, slow and considered, as she tried to push her throb to the back of her mind. “But I need you to want it too. I don't want you to pity me or think this is your duty.”

He dived into her eyes, they were frazzled and tempestuous but it wasn't pity that he was feeling as his cock pressed against the seam of his jeans.

“Please stop now if you,” she huffed as though she was out of breath, but it was her hormones fighting for control of the last threads of restraint she had. “...If you don't want this.”

He kissed her, taking her lips by surprise for a few moments until they formed perfectly around his. It ended just as soon, and when Felicity's eyes fluttered open, she found him smiling.

“I want this,” he whispered, still smiling, before he tenderly kissed each tip of her lips.

His fingertips slipped under the hem of her little black dress she wore under the sweater sending a shiver of raised prickles up her thigh. He guided the airy fabric up her body until it slipped over the cusp of her swollen belly and fell down the other side.

He gently kissed the slope of her stomach, relishing the delightful little tingles her skin made; like a flutter against his lips. He could smell her arousal; musky but sweet, an aroma that had his cock engorged the moment it touched his nostrils. Her black cotton panties glistened, wet with her.

His mind had checked out the moment his lips touched hers and now there was only one thing his body wanted.

“May I taste you?” he asked, his lips wavering between a smile and a smirk.
“Mhmm,” she sighed and his thumbs hooked over the waistband of her panties.

He tugged them down her legs, gently guiding one foot and then the other out before he dropped them off the edge of the bed. Her thighs were damp, and her delicate folds were blushed pink, like a delicate rosé wine. Oliver leaned in closer, inhaling her scent, before he spread her folds open with two fingers and kissed her bud.

Her hips bucked off the mattress at the same time as her leg rose. He caught her gently at the underside of her knee and skated his hand down the back of her thigh before his thumb brushed against her apex and he let her leg drop and dangle off the bed.

His tongue sliced between her folds and twisted as he met with her clit. Her palms slapped into the bed before the fisted into the linen, as though she was holding herself down; afraid to float away.

She tasted so sweet and the more nectar that trickled out of her, the more ravenous Oliver became until he was feasting on her decadent folds like a ripe fruit.

His middle digit skirted her wet entrance as Felicity rolled her hips into him, grinding her sex against his mouth. He slipped deeper, stopping at the second knuckle and relishing the way her heat surrounded him and her walls crushed around, sucking him deeper until his entire finger was buried inside her.

Listening to her husky pants Oliver slid a second finger inside her and linked the two, twisting and thrusting them until her walls tightened and quivered around them. His mouth stayed pressed to her sex, his tongue drawing slow figure eights around her clit and sweeping through her drenched folds.

The more she bucked, the faster he swirled his tongue and thrust his fingers. Their rhythm was perfect chaos until the moment where her thighs crushed against his head and hand.

He lifted his head and replaced his tongue with the slow caress of his calloused thumb that brought a delicious friction with it.

Her hair was matted, and wisps were glued to her sweaty brow, while her eyes fluttered.

He could feel the ripples quickening between her walls as he watched pleasure wash over her glistening face.

“Let go,” he said softly and her eyes widened.

With a pulse echoing through her core and a sob in her throat; she did just that.

His fingers were coated in her and his lips glistened with her spend the next time he appeared from between her legs.

“Better?” he whispered, husky and raw.
Felicity sat up and kept his eyes locked to hers as her fingers deftly moved down the zipper of his jeans.

“Not just yet,” she whispered, her tone soaked in desire.
He caught her hand just before she had a chance to slid it into his briefs, but her knuckles still grazed the tented outline of his cock straining against the lycra-cotton blend.

“Are you sure?” he panted.
“Are you? Because I am,” she answered, smirking.
She tipped her head up, caught his lips, and tasted herself, salty and sleek, on his mouth with a swipe of her tongue.
“I am,” he nuzzled against her lips.

>>>>|<<<<

“Wow,” Oliver breathed as one arm held Felicity curved against his body. His eyes were tacked to the ceiling and his body was damp with dried sweat. To say he was thoroughly and utterly spent would be and understatement. But even though his body was tired, all he could think about was doing that again.

Well, again-again.

“Wow.”
“You said that,” she chuckled, her warm breath spreading across his chest and flaring up a line of excited prickles in it’s wake.
“Wow. We.” He smiled at the hazy white above him. “We are quite...”
He turned and instinctively kissed her forehead. It wasn't planned, it was natural.

Felicity looked up at him, her hair tangled around her shoulders, her crystal eyes a facet of blues framed with dark, fanned lashes. Her cheeks were dusted with a dewy blush and her lips were full and lightly scoured at the edges where she'd chewed them as she came around his cock the second time.

“We are quite,” she answered him with a smile.
“Were we,” he paused to catch his breath as his cock twitched against his leg, as though the appendage was signalling it's desire for more. “Were we always that?” he laughed as his free hand gripped the tangled sheets.

Felicity folded her lips together as she pressed her nose against the soft dip of his shoulder. His scent was such a familiar one; something no brain surgery could take from him.

When he realised she hadn't said anything, Oliver let his fingers drift slowly up and down her arm. “I'm sorry, I shouldn't.”
She looked up and smiled. “We were.”

“Wow,” he mumbled.

They lay in silence, just the in sync sounds of their breathing the only company, for a few minutes, while their bodies lay as close as they could possibly be.

“Are you okay? Everything...okay?” he finally broke the silence.
She nodded against his chest.

He had been gentle and adaptive to their circumstances; namely a pregnant belly not allowing for a lot of the frantic and passionate positions. But they had made it work... both times.

There were probably serious conversations to be had. But they could wait; for now they would just enjoy this, and make the rest up as they went along.

>>>>|<<<<

They didn't talk about it when it happened the next night or the times it happened the week after.

They didn't dissect it either when Oliver started "sleeping over" in the bed they had once shared, and no actual conversation was had when, 10 days after the second-first time (for him at least), Oliver asked, 30.4-week-pregnant Felicity out on a date.

Felicity smoothed the lines of the grey jersey dress with her palms as she gave herself another (another) once over in the full length mirror.

Oliver came out of the bathroom in a charcoal knit sweater and a pair of midnight black pants. He paused just inside the bedroom with a smile on his face.

“You look, wow,” he gushed.
Felicity felt a familiar warmth across the apples of her cheeks as she blushed before she walked over to the bed and looked between the two coats she'd laid out; a black slouched cardigan that was soft and warm, and the coat that Oliver had laid out for her nearly 2 months ago, right before he...

She bit her lip and tried to banish the images of him bleeding on the bathroom floor. This was the first time she'd taken that coat out of the closet.

Oliver's eyes followed Felicity as she stood in front of her two choices; there was something about the red one that kept his attention... something familiar.

Felicity could sense his eyes lingered on it. “You bought this just before,” she paused to fold her lips together in an attempt to stop them quivering.

He didn't recall that but he nodded to acknowledge it all the same. There was a faint, foggy thought about the fabric passing over his hands and something... something about the pocket.

Something.

He grimaced, trying to force himself to find the memory associated with the coat. But nothing more came.

Felicity danced her fingertips around the buttons; as light as a feather.

But in the end, she chose the black one and the red coat returned to the closet.

Chapter Text

The sky was dark and speckled with stars and a half-moon that dappled its heavenly-white light across the railing of the dimly-lit patio where Felicity and Oliver sat. For her part, Felicity felt unable to sit still, a constant urge pulling at her to shuffle – even slightly – in her seat, or play with the stem of her wine glass (filled with non-alcoholic grape juice mind you), or fold, unfold and refold the white linen napkin beside her barely-touched dinner.

The first mouthful of the creamy risotto had been delicious, as had the second and third, but as a band struck up a melodic song half a restaurant away and she finally allowed herself a moment to take in the beauty and serenity of the night, the restaurant, and the company; she had succumbed to the ache in her chest she’d been trying to ignore.

This was the restaurant.
The one Oliver, past-Oliver, her Oliver, had made arrangements for them to have dinner one of the last nights she got to have him in her life.

The reservation had sat untouched, until tonight.
The Oliver sitting across from her knew, but that didn’t stop the pang of guilt that stole her appetite and made the soft, orchestral music like an assault to her ears.

Her Oliver would have loved the restaurant; the view, the food, and the dulcet music.
The thought was both overwhelming and confusing and it kept her shuffling and tweaking, in the wayward hope that she might be able to bury those thoughts a little deeper.

But there it was; as clear as the moon sitting in front of the clouds that night; she felt guilty. Guilty because she was in love with two men.

Absurd, she had tried to tell herself. Because it was.
You couldn’t be in love with two people who are actually the same person; could you?

She was still in love with the Oliver that she had known, the one who had made love to her with vigour and passion, the one who had made the children growing inside her, the one that had taken her to Aspen, opened himself up, and been vulnerable but strong in the face of death. She loved him, with every ounce of blood that flowed through her thrumming veins. She had never stopped loving him; her Oliver.

But she was also in love with Oliver; the Oliver that sat across the table from her. The one that was a little more reserved, the one who struggled inwardly with a smile on his face outwardly; imagining she couldn’t tell. The Oliver that tried to piece together a life that was different to the one he’d thought he’d known.

The Oliver she was currently sleeping with.
The Oliver who filled her at night, spilling himself into her with deep, guttural moans; but nervously held her hand during the day, still unsure of his place in her world. The one who made her feel every heightened climax, each one more cataclysmic than the one before.

But this was a new love; one she hadn’t admitted to and most surely one coloured by the love she’d had before.

She loved two men.
Still clinging to a past; afraid to plan a future.

It was a total, unavoidable, mind fuck.

“I picked a nice restaurant,” Oliver commented, his voice was soft and low, and almost lost behind the music. He had noticed she had stopped eating, and honestly, he understood why as his steak sat virtually untouched.

Sleeping with Felicity was amazing.
He felt alive and virile; but when he collapsed beside her, or behind her, sweaty and spent while he listened to her panted breath match with his, he felt an intense measure of guilt.

Guilt because she wasn’t his girlfriend.
In some moments it felt like he’d stolen her away from a friend, taken her hand and fallen into bed with her, but he was nothing more than a place holder. He wasn’t the one that had written pages upon pages of why he loved her. He wasn’t the one who had discovered parts of his past he had tried to bury under a weight of concrete in his mind. That wasn’t him.

That was an Oliver that didn’t exist anymore, but should.
That was an Oliver that he would give anything to bring back, so Felicity could have what she’d lost back too.

He couldn’t live in those shoes, he couldn’t even tell her that he was falling in love with her. He didn’t have the words. But, her Oliver had; he’d had a whole journal of words. Thoughts and anecdotes, moments and memories, declarations of love and shared secrets that he’d never put to paper.

That Oliver had made the lives that were growing inside her.
This Oliver would have love to have known what those moments were like; the talk about children, the mutual decision, and the look in her eyes – he knew none of that. It felt as though they weren’t his babies; so he didn’t have a right to be there, watching them grow.

“You did,” Felicity answered, just as soft, as she pushed the back of her fork through her food.
Oliver’s eyes wandered to her plate before they turned back to his own. “You should be here with him, not with me,” he spoke sadly, regret filling the corners of his eyes. “I wish I could give you that life back.”

She looked up, a heavy burden weighing on her usually bright eyes. “We have to stop straddling between the past and the present,” she remarked, perhaps for both of their benefit.
Oliver closed his eyes, took a breath; a moment before he opened them again. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Okay,” he repeated as a nervous smile crept up his lips. The moment fell silent as he forced himself to look at her, to open his mouth and speak. “I’m in love with you,” each word was shaking as he spoke it, and his mind a torrent of fear that she might just stand up and walk away in exactly that moment. But she didn’t. She stayed; giving Oliver the confidence to move on. “Me, as just me. Not for what I was, but for who I am now. I’m in love with you. I love you.” The words came thick and fast, like an avalanche, but she still stayed. “I don’t know if that’s okay, because a part of me keeps thinking that it isn’t, that you belong with that other Oliver, the one who wrote about you with so much love and adoration, the Oliver that you agreed to have a baby with, not me, broken and damaged and…,”
Felicity trapped his trembling hand between hers and the table. “Stop,” she interrupted, and he did. Her fingers gently caressed over his knuckles as she pulled her hand away. He expected this was it, this was the moment she would leave and he would have to let her. But she didn’t and after her hand lifted off his, it floated back down and rested gently on top.

He looked up at her, unsure.
“I love you too. You, you. The Oliver that’s sitting in front of me right now telling me he loves me,” she spoke softly, but he heard every delicate word. “I’ve held onto the other Oliver because I knew how he felt, but I love you.”

He turned his hand on the table, putting it palm to palm with hers.
“It’s clear that I felt alive with you even when I thought I was dying. Now I am alive and I want to know what that feels like because I’ve never felt that before.” Fingers traced the lines inside her palm. “I’m not sure if I can get my old memories back but I would like to make new ones with you, as me.”

A smile quivered on her painted lips.
“I would like that too.”

So, over the course of the next four weeks, they did just that; they made memories. New ones, all their own. Not faded or coached. But new, and real.

>>>>|<<<<

At 31 weeks, at the end of April, they drove up the Coast, only an hour’s drive away just in case, to a small hideaway on the cusp of a private beach. It was springtime and budding flowers scented the early evening air as Felicity buried her toes into the slightly-cool granules of sand while the breeze toyed with the ends of her ponytail.

Her hand was in his and a serene quiet had curtained them as they walked, slowly, and listened to the cathartic sound of the waves crashing to the shore. The sea was choppy, stirred up no doubt by a storm far out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, but making itself known at the very tips of it.

Felicity’s walk had become something more of a waddle and despite the use of a belly band for support, the weight of her stomach was starting to ache across the lower half of her torso.

“Do you mind if we sit?” she asked before she glanced over her shoulder at their beach-side cabin in the distance; she wasn’t making it back there in a hurry without a rest.
Oliver’s eyes widened with concern before they did a haphazard once-over of her body.
“I’m fine,” she chuckled, the wind chilling her wet lips as her tongue swiped innocently across them. “Just before I make the waddle back to the cabin, I might need a minute,” she paused to rest her hands at the back of her hips, stretching her body gently, “or ten.”

“I can run back and get a chair or…” Oliver began, but Felicity stopped him with a playful squeeze of his hand.
“I can sit on the ground, just fine,” she chortled, “although I expect you might need to help me up.”
She lowered herself carefully and strategically (without bending like any normal person could) onto a spot with a slight incline at the bank of the beach and sighed like the move had stolen more energy than she had been planning – which, it had.

She only touched her neck the once, pressing the pads of her fingers into a spot that was stiff and tender, before Oliver moved behind her and took over, gently massaging the inside knuckles of his thumbs into mirrored spots either side of her lower neck where her shoulders sloped in.

Felicity sighed blissfully as her head lolled and her eyelids grew heavy.
“You’re….so….good….at that,” she breathed, her voice melting away into a warm puff of air.
Her skin felt like silk under his fingertips and when he leaned a little closer, her scent rose off her like a warm embrace of vanilla to his senses.

“Did we ever talk about the delivery?” he asked softly, the warmth of his breath creating a waterfall of prickles down her neck. “The journal said something about some private Lamaze classes, but it never mentioned what we’d spoken about.”

Felicity stayed her answer to consider it carefully, she couldn’t recall with everything going on, whether they had ever actually had that talk. She had always just assumed he would be there; and she didn’t really have a choice about being there or not. “I don’t think we really did, but whatever you decide,” she turned her head just enough to see him, “it will be okay.”

She tried to hide her fear that he might not want to be there and the realisation that she might need to go this ‘alone’ behind a smile; but she needn’t have worried.
“I’d like to be there,” he answered swiftly, adding a “if that’s okay,” when he realised how rushed the first part had sounded.

A smile lit up her expression before her chin dropped for a few short moments while she tried to settle it. “You were there when we made them, so,” she laughed as one shoulder raised up into a shrug. “I’d like that. I mean I’m hoping for a swift birth and you’re a professional goalkeeper so I might need you to catch.” She made a whooshing sound as her palms slid over each other in an amusing gesture.
Oliver laughed, it might have been the hardest he’d laughed since he’d found himself in a life that was ostensibly new. “That is as equally hilarious as it is troubling.”
She leaned back against him, relishing the way his chest still shook with the last trickles of his laugh. She had missed that.

His arms moved instinctively to her stomach. After his fingertips grazed the centre, he went to withdraw them, finally realising he hadn’t asked permission for them to be there in the first place. But, Felicity held them, palms flattened to her stomach, wordlessly telling him he didn’t need to.

“John rung today,” Oliver spoke casually after a few moments of calmed hush had passed.
“Oh?” Felicity hummed, her eyes taken with the sight of the rocking water catching the hues of the last fingers of the burnt sunset. “Everything okay with him, what did he want?”
She felt Oliver take a lumbered breath, his chest expanded with air as he held it there. “He said that Roma has contacted him to see if there is a chance for me to be signed. Liverpool has called too.” He expelled the breath he’d been holding and it came out with a sigh.
“Wow, Italy or England? That’s amazing,” Felicity replied, surprise colouring her tone. She hadn’t considered it before that moment, but Oliver had withdrawn because of the tumours; something that in all likelihood he was now completely rid of. “What did you tell him?”

A breathy chuckle warmed her neck and she imagined he was smiling as he spoke. “I told him I have two babies on their way and that’s all I want to consider right now.”
“You love football,” Felicity retorted softly.
He shrugged. “I love this more.” His thumb stroked a reassuring line down her stomach. “Whatever comes after that will come second.”

She nestled the back of her head against his firm chest while they sat there a little longer and watched the very last spindles of the sun sink below the horizon.

>>>>|<<<<

At the 32 week mark, Thea had come around for dinner and when Felicity had excused herself for yet another trip to the bathroom, leaving the siblings alone as the kitchen filled with the mouth-watering smells of dinner, the younger Queen stood with one foot tucked behind the other as she tossed the fresh salad while Oliver cautiously checked the salmon steaks he was carefully cooking, skin down.

In the last few weeks Felicity’s abhorrence of all seafood had turned into a craving; a craving which Oliver was happy to oblige.

“How long?” Thea asked with a smile lifting up one corner of her lips.
“About 5 more minutes,” Oliver remarked with a decisive nod.

“Not the fish, how long have you and her?” Thea's grin grew more pronounced as she nodded her head towards the hallway that Felicity had disappeared down a few moments before.

Oliver lifted the fish slice after checking on his ward once again. “I don't know what you mean,” he casually answered, a slight shrug lifted his brawny shoulders before they dropped with a sigh. It was his attempt to maintain an offhanded composure despite knowing exactly what his little sister was insinuating.

But it wasn't for him to answer, or at least he didn't think it was. They hadn't really spoken about telling people they were sleeping together; it wasn't exactly information that needed to be said and he wouldn't want Felicity to be embarrassed by people knowing they were fumbling their way through this unique set of circumstances with fully satisfied needs.

But Thea, he should have known, wasn't one for beating around the bush. “You and Felicity are sleeping together,” she remarked adamantly.

His back stiffened and his eyes stayed glued to the cracking pops of oil in the fry pan.

“How long?” she quipped, baiting her older brother with a nudge of her elbow.
He felt his chest tighten and his breath expanded in his throat, choking him.
“Never mind, I don't need to know that,” Thea decided as she tapped the salad tongs on the side of the bowl. “I'm glad though. She made you happy.”

She playfully dug her crooked knuckle into his dimple. “Happy suited you.”

>>>>|<<<<

At 33 weeks, dressed as inconspicuously as he could, Oliver went outside.
His hands were clammy and his chest was tight, but the gentle way her thumb passed back and forth over the inside of his wrist seemed to sooth him.

It had been his idea.
A claw back of the life that he had gained. The other Oliver had just begun to experience life, so he could too.

They were going shopping for baby clothes and he was going to ignore the throbbing tension down his spine and the sharp strangle across his chest; because he wanted to. He needed to.

Reading a few more pages from the journal had spurred him on, the realisation that he – past Oliver – had set about making his life something more normal, knowing that his children deserved that. As if abiding by the wishes of a departed friend, Oliver was going to see to it that what he had started wouldn’t end up being in vain.

He felt the passing looks from a few people, but after a while he realised it wasn’t him they were looking at after all. It was Felicity; in all her pregnant glory.

Their little excursion only lasted for a little over an hour before Felicity found trundling around the busy mall, getting bumped and brushed against, all too much; not to mention the extra weight the last month had put on her small feet and frame.

But they didn’t exit empty handed, as Oliver couldn’t help but buy two soccer-print rompers in new born size; completely enamoured with the fact that in a few weeks they would have two little bundles that would fit them.

They finished the rest of their shopping online from the comfort of the couch, where Felicity lay across the couch with the laptop balancing on her pregnant mound while Oliver sat behind her and massaged her shoulders.

A beautiful balance between the present and the past, as they planned for the future.

>>>>|<<<<

At 35 weeks, the last few days of May, and with the babies’ due date a little over a month away they had begun the arduous task of packing up things they no longer needed. The apartment was nice and fitted their needs, but they had both decided to return to Brazil once given the okay to travel with the babies. With Oliver’s near-perfect bill of health (although there was the need for ongoing tests and monitoring, which could easily be handled there) and the invaluable help that Raisa would be, the move back just made sense.

Accordingly, as the weather grew seasonably warmer and the move drew closer, they were packing up winter clothes amidst other things, to send ahead of them.

It was during that time that Felicity once again found the unworn coat that reminded her so vividly of the sight of Oliver crumpled on the floor with a puddle of blood around his head, like it was a stain entrenched in the fibres of it.

Unwilling, perhaps unable, to let the emotions well up inside of her, Felicity tossed the coat towards the box, desperate for it to leave her hands and take the haunting memory with it. It missed the box and fell at Oliver’s feet.

He scooped down to collect it. He knew what it was, what memories it held for Felicity, and he watched her brush away a tear with the back of her hand as he wrung the luxurious cashmere between his hands.

But, as it passed through his palms when he folded it, something else came with it. Something he couldn’t pinpoint, just the flash of a hazy memory in a store with white walls and a beige-tiled floor. Mirrors and chrome, the scent of lavender – almost overpowering – a woman with sharp features and even sharper stiletto heels. A rack of coats in sensible winter shades, browns and greys, dull.

And then red.
This red.
This coat.

He held it tighter, strangling it between his fists, as he delved deeper, trying to force something out. Like a scene recorded on an old VHS where the tape had been stretched and worn and the picture shuffled and jolted with jagged lines running through it, his mind played and replayed the brief, faded, images. Had he invented the images from excerpts in the journal?

No.
The coat wasn’t in there.

He pushed his subconscious deeper, ignoring the throbbing behind his eyes.
“This is perfect.” His voice; clear but distant.
Tap, tap, tap.
Heels on marble.
The scent of leather catching his attention.

Sounds; White tissue paper and the drag of tape on a dispenser. A distinctively southern accent behind him, cheery enough to make him smile. Did they say something funny?

Oliver screwed his eyes tightly searching for the sounds. Tape dragging, snap.
He could feel himself smiling – not laughing. The southern accent was laughing. He didn’t know why, his eyes were focused elsewhere.

Outside, a baby. Cooing and smiling in its mother’s arms while its father, Oliver had assumed, was rummaging through a large pale blue bag. He emerged, relieved and thankful, with a stuffed dinosaur in his hand. That would be them soon.

The sense of excitement bubbled even now, as though reliving a response thought lost.
But were these memories, or fantasies?
He wasn’t sure.

He took the coat and headed for the hall, while Felicity, still with her back to him, continued folding clothes and stuffing boxes.

Oliver stopped abruptly at the office and peered in with a semblance of a memory – maybe – haunting his vision. A fresh cup of coffee warmed the air with its decadent scent. The sound of typing; fast and in bursts. A smile; her smile.

Looking up at him stood in the doorway.
“Dinner tonight, you, me, private balcony at Amano one hour.”
Her eyes widened with excitement before an animated frown took over her expression. “No seafood, it makes me gag.”
He laughed as he committed to writing the same down. “Noted, no seafood. And no smoking right?”
Felicity shook her head ferociously as Oliver moved into the room in a sneaky attempt to peek over her shoulder. But before he could read a single word, she covered the screen with both hands.
“No peeking,” she condemned.
“It is about me,” he grumbled, but he couldn’t hold the frown for long after she dropped her head to one shoulder and blinked doe-eyed up at him. “I love you,” he sighed.
She answered with a subtle pop of her lips. “I love you too.”

Oliver got down onto his knees, sporting a smile that he knew she wouldn’t fully understand…yet, and then he leaned in close to her stomach. “I love you too babies,” he whispered as he lay his hands gently on either side of her round stomach.

A rolling kick tumbled against his palm; not the first time, but it was still just as amazing.
“That was them saying they love you back,” Felicity answered matter-of-factly.
He looked up and winked. “You think?”
She smiled, effervescently. “I know. I’m very wise.”
He didn’t argue with that; he couldn’t. It was the truth. He pecked her lips on the way up. “The wisest person I know.”

After one last attempt to clandestinely see what she was typing, Oliver made his way to the door. “I’m going to go shower,” he started.
Her smile evolved from effervescent to coy. “Give me ten minutes and I’ll join you.”
He hummed his approval before his tongue wet his bottom lip. “I’ll warm it up for you.”

Spotty images flashed in Oliver’s subconscious; a tap of his hand on the wall, a happy strut down to the bedroom, and the sound of frantic typing growing more distant. He followed haplessly until he was standing in the bedroom, in a space between the past and the present.

He looked back towards the office. His cheeks hurt. He was smiling, deliriously so. Nerves; bubbling up like a volcano on the brink of eruption.

The bedroom, Oliver looked around, taking in the space; the linen was different and the curtains were closed, but this was the same room. He breathed in, deeply, trying to awaken more of the memories that were locked behind a wall he once thought impenetrable.

The door clicked as he closed it with a gentle push. He checked it a second time.
A paper bag sat on the bed and the sound of ruffling and crinkling filled the space around him when he emptied it, despite how carefully he tried.

The coat.
Soft, luxuriant; he loved the way it felt in his hands.

It was the same coat he held in the present; gripped between his vice-like hands.

His hands. He set them to work, busying into his pocket as he kept one eye towards the door. He felt it, small, smooth, square, and unmalleable. He knew just what to do with it.

A smile.
A nervous breath.
He knew.

“Oliver?” Felicity asked as she glanced over her shoulder. He seemed deep in thought, entrenched in something ahead of him, but there was nothing there. He was staring at a void while his fingers twisted and danced over the fabric of the coat she had discarded moments before.

She stood up and worry etched into the corners around her eyes as she stepped closer to him. She said his name again and he turned, briefly, to look at her. His eyes were wide and his lips slightly parted as though he was about to say something.

Oliver plunged his hand into the pocket of Felicity’s coat, the smooth satin lining brushed against his knuckles until his fingers found the seam. He batted his hand back and forth just to be sure, but the pocket was empty.

“Is everything alright?” Felicity asked when the silence between them lingered too long to explain.
He wanted to speak, but he was afraid that the moment he did he would lose these fickle memories. They had to be. They had to be real. They felt real.

He exhaled, his breath trembled and uneven; stilling himself for only a few seconds before he found the second pocket. With more reserve than the last time, Oliver dipped his fingers inside, sinking them slowly into the satin-walled cavern while he held his breath and his eyes held her attention.

And then he felt it.
Small, smooth, square, unmalleable.

It was real.
It was a memory.
His memory.

“I remember,” he whispered, so quietly in fact that Felicity wasn’t sure she had heard him right and her brow twitched in confusion. “I remember,” he offered a second time, a little louder, but her confusion remained.

Oliver pulled out his hand with the treasure embedded in his palm.
“I remember.”
He opened his fingers like a blossoming flower to reveal a small, velvet box.

“I don’t…understand,” Felicity answered, stuttered and breathy.
“I remember. I loved you. I love you.” The smile lifted his lips as his eyes washed over with a glassy wall of unspent tears. “I love you and I loved you.”

He opened the box with careful, shaky hands. Inside was a round-cut diamond ring set above a platinum band with a double infinity symbol woven into the same and decorated in tiny diamonds that captured the light from all angles.

“I don’t remember what I was going to say, or how I was going to do it,” Oliver whispered, his voice fraying around the edging as it threatened to break. “But I do remember putting this in here with a smile on my face and the thought of you on my mind. I remember knowing without a single shred of doubt that you were my all, my everything, my world. I remember loving you almost exactly like I learned to love you again. I remember wanting to marry you, just exactly like I want to marry you now.”

Felicity felt his hand touch hers as the first tear slid from her eye. She glanced back towards the nightstand with trembled and unsure lips, to where Oliver kept the journal he’d once written. She was afraid to ask the question, and she didn’t need to.

“It’s not in there Felicity, none of this is. This is me.” He cupped her face and slowly moved it back until their eyes met. “We’ll have a tomorrow,” he breathed and her chest sobbed forward.
“You remember?” she asked as she let the tears slid down her cheeks.
He nodded, fast but sure. “All I need to know, I know. I loved you and I love you. As I was and as I am. I know.”

Oliver carefully plucked the ring from its case and discarded the velvet box onto the bed before he took her hand and stoked his thumb across the back of her knuckles.

“Felicity, will you marry me?”

Her mouth opened to answer, but a sudden and engulfing sensation stole her words before she could.
“Oh no,” she gasped as her free hand moved swiftly to her stomach.
Oliver looked saddened, thinking her words to be her answer.
“Oh, oh not no, no,” she fumbled for words as her breathing grew slightly panicked.
She glanced down and Oliver’s eyes followed, stopping when he saw the small darkened patches on the carpet. “Is that...,” he started.
Felicity nodded. “My water just broke.”

Chapter Text

By the time they got to the hospital, Felicity’s contractions had started, sped up, waned, and then completely stopped as it appeared their babies had unequivocally changed their mind. Much to Felicity's dismay as she arrived at the hospital with her 'go' bag and just the remnants of a slightly aching lower back while the poor woman ahead of her was climbing up the frame of the wheelchair she was sitting in screaming at her partner to "get the fuck away from her."

However, with the loss of umbilical fluid, the assumption was that labour had just “stalled” and would likely restart itself in a couple of hours.

It was not unusual for twins to be earlier and in fact it was surprising to her obstetrician that Felicity, given her frame and the unavoidable stress she had found herself under, had managed to cook the babies for 35.2 weeks. She handled Felicity with a cheery and encouraging smile but it was somewhat unspoken that if labour didn't restart in a few hours they would need to give her something to induce it.

That been said, a band and monitor that sat across her swollen stomach, stretched to what Felicity felt was it's limit, indicated that the slight, shallow tightening Felicity felt across her lower back were in fact small contractions.

They wouldn't be leaving the hospital without two babies.

The stall in progression did however give Felicity and Oliver the chance to make a few important phone calls.

The first went to Thea who screamed so loudly that even holding the phone a good half a yard away from his ear, they could both hear her quite clearly. She didn’t want to crowd them, but she’d be nearby if they needed her. Oliver had then made a light hearted joke that she would be pacing the hospital parking lot, Thea didn't deny it.

The second call went to Tommy, who, in a very professional moment promised to bury any news that might spring up and give them the time they needed without the media sniffing around.

Another call went to Raisa who offered Oliver some advice in Russian. After the phone call Oliver explained that the gist of it was that he needed to shut up and do whatever Felicity needed him to do. He agreed.

The next call Felicity would make was to Iris who had agreed to be a support person through the birth if Felicity needed it, given the unique set of circumstances their situation raised. While Felicity didn't necessarily need that support, she had promised to make the call at the start of anything.

“I managed to get a flight that leaves in 55 minutes and in a taxi on the way to the airport. Do not have those babies yet,” Iris answered, slightly breathless and panicked.

“Wait, what? You're where and how did you know?” Felicity quipped until Oliver raised a brow and the ball dropped. “Tommy told you?”
“Was I not supposed to?” Tommy remarked, clearly Iris had put them on speaker.
“No more of the confirmed bachelor rhetoric for you then?” Felicity teased while Oliver chuckled with an air of satisfaction.
“It only took finding the right one,” he crooned which made Iris ‘Awwwww’ loudly.

“How did you get a flight so quickly?” Felicity wondered aloud.
“A best friend slash investigative journalist has her means,” Iris answered coyly.
“I'll keep that in mind.”
“My half brother isn't having kids anytime soon if at all and we know Cisco is a hopeless case so I'm adopting these babies as their aunt,” Iris remarked matter-of-factly.

“Do not tell Thea there are two,” Felicity quickly reminded. They had managed to keep that a secret from her and as one last tip of the hat to past Oliver, they had decided to see it through to fruition.
Iris gasped audibly. “She still doesn't know? You were huge, how did she not ask?”
Felicity chuckled amusingly. “Honestly, I think she was probably too scared to. But, if she doesn't find this whole thing amusing after the fact, then it was all Oliver's idea.” Felicity glanced at him and he shrugged before he mouthed ‘deal’.

“Anyway,” Felicity started off with a sigh. “You might not need to rush, I’m apparently having contractions but they aren’t strong enough to count yet,” she rolled her eyes as she recounted the obstetrician’s worlds while reminded of the painful throb near the base of her spine. “Tell that to my lower back though. Point is…” she began.
“We're at the airport!” Iris interrupted. Felicity heard the commotion of car doors slamming and Iris, away from the phone yelling, “Pay the man Tommy.”

Felicity could only smile as she heard her friend puffing and the chaotic noise synonymous with an airport terminal. “My point is, they could be 12 to 24 hours away. You probably don’t need to rush.”
“My first act as god momma will not be missing their birth. Do not let those babies come out until I get there. I've been training to be a support person for months. I got to go, but my flight is two hours and thirty-five minutes, keep those babies inside. Love you bye.”
Felicity laughed. “We’ll talk soon.”

Finally, Felicity called her mom. She wasn’t able to get much further than telling Donna Smoak that they were at the hospital before Donna started sobbing uncontrollably.
“Mom, why are you crying?”
“What If I miss it?”
“It’s not a limited time offer you know and we already discussed that you can’t be in the room with me because you faint at the sight of blood.”
“I know, I know, but…” she cried uncontrollably, every word stuttered.
Oliver asked for the phone and Felicity handed it over
“Ms Smoak?” he asked and he got a sniffled hum of recognition. “There is a private plan landing at the airport nearest you with your name on it in about 20 minutes. John Diggle is on the plane and he’ll get you as fast as he can.”
Her crying got louder; almost to the point that might be considered wailing.

“I can’t understand her,” Oliver whispered as he put his hand over the microphone. Felicity gestured for the phone back and he returned it.
“Mom did you hear that? Get to the airport okay?”
Donna continued to cry. “I’m going to be a nana. Love you baby girl.”
“Love you too mom, now go pack.”
“Already packed. Have been since the day you told me you were pregnant.”
Of course she had.

“When did you do that?” Felicity asked as she hung up the phone.
Oliver smirked broadly. “I sent John a text on the way over, I’ve had it all ready to go when it was needed.”
“That was very sweet of you,” she smiled as her hand reached for his.
“We’re a small family that’s about to get bigger. I knew it would be important for you to have her close,” he answered warmly as his hands sandwiched hers.

Felicity desperately wanted to say something, to speak about the dozen pink elephants that were huddled in the corner of the room; the question left unanswered.

Will you marry me?

It hung, unanswered, in her mind and tethered to a million questions she didn't know how to ask, but couldn't move on without the answers. Her mouth opened, poised and ready; simply waiting for the words to come, only - they didn't.

His hand was warming hers, and his eyes, softly lidded with an outwardly ethereal peace about them, one that hid his turmoil.

Felicity pushed through the silence until the words swung on the very tip of her tongue, but a sudden jab of pain, although fleeting, completely stole her breath and every word she had mustered to say.

Oliver looked panicked as her hand instinctively retreated from beneath his to hold the side of her stomach. “I’ll go get someone,” he said, and before Felicity could salve his worry by telling him the pain had passed, he had gone.

Oliver returned, looking no less frantic, with the obstetrician on his heels. She seemed far less panicked as she made a beeline for the monitor that Felicity was hooked up to. She checked the record with a careful eye before she finally spoke. “Getting some contractions?” she asked.

Felicity nodded as a milder pain flashed near her pelvis, burning hot like an erupting star.
“A little I think,” she managed after it subsided.
“Okay, that was one, so this is good,” she nodded as she spoke and her demeanour was what Oliver needed to allow the panic woven across his brow to finally dissipate. “You should probably try and get some rest while you can. I don’t expect you to be able to sleep much, but try. I’ll give you a little something for the pain, just to take the edge off,” she continued as she set about prepping a solution she feed into the line on Felicity's hand. “It won’t pass through to the babies, but it should ease it enough to allow you to rest while you wait. Once you move into active labour we'll make the decision we spoke about for an epidural.”

Felicity nodded, recounting the conversation they'd had some time ago. It was still her hope to go without, but the decision needed to be evaluated closely with twins, in case a problem presented itself and an emergency C-section was required.

The pain relief seemed to have nearly-instant effect as Felicity settled back down into the bed. She was exhausted and, technically, it had barely even begun.

She watched as Oliver started to leave a few footsteps behind the doctor.
“You don’t have to leave,” she spoke softly as she reached out and caught his hand. His fingers tangled instinctively with hers as he turned and stepped back towards the bed.

Oliver leaned over her and tenderly kissed her forehead. “I’ll be right outside, but she’s right you should try and rest.” He gave her another kiss, warm and languid. “You were wearing the necklace that I bought you,” he said as he pulled back, the faded image circling around his head. His fingers trickled down to her stomach. “You looked so beautiful then, but if I might, you look even more so right now.”

He remembered.

Lifting her hand up to his mouth, Oliver carefully dotted a kiss on each of her knuckles. “Right outside,” he reiterated.

As he left, Oliver dimmed the lights so that the room fell into a soft glow where the dappled lights from the city looked like a string of fairy lights against a backdrop of coal. Her eyes, weighted with lethargy as the night crept on, dropped closed and Felicity was soon asleep with both her hands resting on her stomach.

Soon.

>>>>|<<<<

Despite the nervous energy coursing through her and the occasional twinge of pain rolling across her taut stomach, Felicity did manage to rest and when she woke up about an hour later with dry lips and a slight feeling of hunger, she was pleasantly surprised to find Oliver sitting quietly in the corner of the dimly lit room.

“I hope it’s okay that I’m here,” he remarked sheepishly. “The waiting room was getting a little crowded and it was making me uh,” he looked down nervously as his clammy hands rolled over each other.
“Of course it is, have I been asleep long?” she said before she yawn as she reached over for her phone.
“About an hour,” he answered and when she tapped her phone she saw it was a little after 9:00pm. “Are you hungry?”
“A little,” she admitted.
He promptly stood up. “I’ll go find you something to eat,” he announced; happy to be doing something useful.

Felicity considered stopping him to have that talk that still prodded her subconscious. She needed to know that he was certain about what he had said; what he had asked. But, her nerves got the better of her and she wordlessly watched him leave on his benevolent quest to find food.

Once alone, Felicity called Iris a second time.
“Tell me I haven’t missed it?” her friend blurted, her pitch almost at a scream.
“You haven’t,” Felicity assured before she listened out for Iris' audible sigh.
“Oh thank god. We’re just boarding. Are you okay? Is everything okay?”

Felicity chewed her lip as her fingertips nervously played with the edge of her gown.
“He says he remembers,” she answered, almost as a whisper but it didn't matter, Iris heard it anyway.
“OH MY GOD!” Iris squealed, unabashedly swatting away the perturbed look of an older female passage sat across the aisle. “What does he remember?”
“He remembers?” Tommy called out in the background.
Iris answered him with the phone still at her ear. “She said he said he did.”
“Put her on speaker,” Tommy insisted
“I’m not really,” Felicity started to say, but before she could finish she heard Tommy pipe in again.
“Felicity, you’re on speaker, what does he remember?” Tommy’s voice was excited and hurried.
“Iris, can you please take me off speaker?” Felicity groaned; having a conversation that bookended her feelings for and about Oliver with his best friend listening in while she sat on the precipice (hopefully) of active labour, was not what she was going to do right now. Or ever.

Tommy huffed, but the background noise and echo vanished and it was soon just Iris and Felicity on the line.
“What does he remember?” Iris asked.
He says it’s blurry, but he remembers us, Felicity explained, her teeth absently finding her fingernail. “And…” her words faded into silence.
“And?”
And… “He asked me to marry him.”
Iris shrieked. “Oh my fuck you’re getting married?”

A crinkled brow and a soft sigh later, Felicity replied, “I didn’t exactly answer him.”
“You didn’t exactly, or you didn’t at all? Because that’s either a ‘did or didn’t thing’,” Iris stated simply; as only she could.
“I didn’t answer him. My water broke and we haven’t been alone since,” Felicity explained. It was almost the truth. ‘I've been too scared to bring it up in case I lose it all’, would have also been a truthful response.

“What do you want to say?” Iris enquired bluntly.
“Yes, but...,” Felicity started.
But iris interrupted, “Then no but.”
“But…,” Felicity said it anyway. “I don’t want him to think he has to, that he’s obligated because we’re having two babies.”
“Do you think that’s what he thinks?”
“No, but…,” There was that word again and Iris replied the same way.
“Then no but,” Iris remarked, matter-of-factly. “There is a steward coming towards me who is about to tell me to put my phone away, but Felicity, stop thinking with your head just this once. Do you love him? Do you think he loves you? That’s all you need to ask and you’ll have your answer.”
“That simple aye?” Felicity chuffed.
“I will see you soon. Cross those legs.”
Felicity smiled. “I’ll try.”
Placing her phone on the cabinet beside her Felicity sighed as the questions ruminated in her mind.
Do I love him? Yes
Do I think he loves me?

Oliver walked in the room carrying a large paper bag scrunched up in his hand and two different sports drinks tucked up under each arm. “I wasn’t sure what you might want so I got a selection…,” he paused to catch his stretched breath, “…of food.”
“Did you run there?” Felicity quipped with teasing laugh.
“I might have closed the elevator on someone who asked me to hold the door,” Oliver shrugged impishly. “But I didn’t want to miss anything.”

He put the paper bag beside her phone on the cabinet and began to rummage. “There is a Tuna roll, no mayo. Or a vege wrap, or...,”
Do I think he loves me? Yes.

“Yes,” Felicity said. Resolved.
Oliver looked up, bemused. “Yes to which one?”
“Yes to you,” Felicity added as she plucked his hand from the bag and held it tightly. “To the question you asked at home, if it’s still a question.”

Oliver's entire face lit up like a moonless sky on July 4th. “Yes?” His eyes sought confirmation that he wasn't hearing things.
Felicity nodded, slow and assured, while her eyes stayed glued to his. “If you promise me that you’re doing this because you truly want to not out of some misguided thought that you need to, then yes, my answer is yes.”
He clutched her hand and Felicity could feel it trembling. “I’m doing this because I want to, with every fibre of my being I want to.”

“Then yes.”
That simple.
He kissed her, deeply and with quivering lips, drenched in emotion. This was love. Found, treasured, lost, and renewed; their remarkable love.

“I still have it,” he breathed, the words felt on her lips. He fumbled for only a moment before he pulled out the same box from his jacket pocket. After brushing his nose against the tip of hers, Oliver pulled back and opened the box. “Felicity, will you marry me?”
He whispered each word until the last one fell away silent.
This time she answered. “Yes.”

>>>>|<<<<

It was just over two hours later when Felicity’s labour kicked itself off again, and it took another 30 minutes after that for the labour to move into the active stage and Felicity was given a precautionary epidural.

It was time.

Mid-contraction Felicity's phone rang and Oliver answered it with one hand as Felicity was squeezing the blood out of the other as she breathed through the contraction; her brow wet with perspiration.

“Am I late? Please don’t tell me I’m late,” Iris puffed.

Oliver looked at Felicity as she relaxed for a moment's respite into the pillows propped up behind her. The pressure on his hand released slowly, as did the white-knuckled clutch she had on the other side of the bed.

“I think you might be right on time.”

>>>>|<<<<

37 minutes later Baby A was born. Exhausted, Felicity dropped back onto the bed as a staggered and bleating cry echoed off the walls.

She smiled, frail and faint, as the baby's cries sent an unexplainable gush of relief down her body.

“Congratulations we have a little boy,” the Doctor announced as she presented the wriggling bundle to Felicity. He was frowning, his entire face wrinkled into an expression of distrust and annoyance, until she held him against her chest. It was then, warm and safe in her arms, when his face softened, and the creased across his brow instantly settled smooth while he lazily blinked.

Oliver didn't try to stop the first tear, neither did he scold the second or third that followed as he bent over Felicity and their child, completely and utterly enamoured with them both.

“A little boy,” Felicity repeated the doctor's words while she cautiously stroked her thumb across his chubby cheek. He seemed so tiny, yet at a bit over 5lbs he also seemed much larger than she had prepared herself for.

His hair was wispy and dark and even though he was squinting, they could tell his eyes would lighten to a splendid blue.

Oliver dabbed a damp washcloth across Felicity's forehead and offered her a drink from a glass of water. Taking the few moments of respite offered, Felicity slipped the straw between her lips and gently sucked. The icy water was instantly refreshing as it slid down her parched throat.

Where this would almost the end for some, Felicity was well aware she would need to repeat the same process again at any given minute.

“Take a few minutes to rest Felicity, but Baby B won’t be far behind,” the Doctor reminded and Felicity managed a fleeting nod as she finished her drink.

Resting her eyes for just a moment, she took it all in. The feeling of Oliver's hand on hers, the thump of their baby's heartbeat against her chest, and the peace which flourished from both of those feelings.

Oliver kissed the top of their baby’s head while Felicity rested her eyes. He was speechless and his eyes were filled with happy, syrupy tears; it was everything in a moment that he’d spent his life unsure he would ever find. Right there, in front of him.

A family.

Felicity shuddered involuntarily as spasms of building pain sprung across her abdomen. It was time.

“Okay Felicity, ready for round two?”
Oliver set the glass of water down as Felicity nodded. With a gracious smile she handed Baby A to Oliver; his father.

Oliver could feel himself shaking but his arms stayed perfectly still as his little boy plucked one eye open to investigate the disturbance.

“Hello o menino, you'll see momma real soon,” Oliver whispered softly as another batch of tears made their way down his cheeks. Their little boy forced his fist through the gap in the white towel and tapped his hand against Oliver's neck, before he closed that one eye again and sighed so heavily that Oliver saw his little chest rise and sink beneath his white swaddle.

Even though her body was on the brink of exhaustion, and there was the looming knowledge that the breathing apparatus and incubator in the corner of the room were for Baby B if needed, Felicity gave the last of everything she had with an unsuppressed cry; and Baby B was born 7 and 1/2 minutes after her brother.

A girl.
Felicity heard the words like an echo as her body collapsed, utterly and completely spent.

She waited for a cry that didn’t come for a few harrowing moments, but when it finally did and the tiny bundle was placed in her arms, the floodgates of tears and relief streamed down Felicity’s face.

“Is she okay?” she asked, stammering.
“She’s a little smaller than I’d like, but it’s nothing a little stay in special care won’t fix. Have a few moments and then we'll get her all set up.” The Doctor smiled as though she could read the worry on both parents' faces. “She'll be just fine.”

>>>>|<<<<

Once Felicity and the twins were settled, BabyBoy nursing and BabyGirl under the watchful eye of Iris and trained staff in the NICU for the few moments he was away, Oliver found the tiny crowd of friends and family in the waiting room.

“How is she?” Donna asked first as she raised from her seat. Oliver smiled, admiring the love a mother had for a child; even an adult one.
“Felicity is perfect, she’s just having a rest right now. It all went amazing. She’s amazing,” Oliver gushed as fresh tears sat unspent in his azure eyes.
Donna sighed, a weight lifted off her shoulders.

Oliver could see Thea twitching beside him, waiting for the moment where she could ask the questions that were undoubtedly bubbling on the tip of her tongue.
“It’s a boy, no name, nearly 5lbs.” Oliver answered the first question he assumed she would ask and by the sudden explosive gush of happy tears that left Thea’s eyes; he figured he had indeed guessed right.

Donna was crying too, and tracks of black mascara, which she had only just applied while they waited, weaved uneven tracks down her cheeks. In fact, even Tommy and John looked on the verge of tears as Oliver showed the little unit a photo of BabyBoy.

“I have a nephew,” Thea sobbed.
Oliver smiled, wide and puckish. “And a niece.”
He scrolled to another photo, his daughter, and Thea screamed.
“Twins? Oh my god what?” she gaped.
“Surprise,” Oliver beamed.
Thea slapped his arm frantically, before she noticed she was the only one reacting that way. “Why is no one else surprised?”

Tommy smirked. “He had to tell me for legal reasons.”
“I guess,” Donna piped in.
“Come on, it was an easy bet,’ John added.

“Are you mad?” Oliver asked without dampening down his smug smile.
Thea hugged him before she hit him in the same place a second time, and finally she hugged him again. “I might not remember them all that much,” she started as she wiped away the tears on her cheeks. “But I think Mom and Dad would be proud. You have your family.”
“We,” Oliver corrected warmly. “We have our family Thea. You will always be a part of it.”

>>>>|<<<<

It was a few hours later and the (still)nameless Baby Boy had woken up unsettled and neither Felicity or Oliver could lull him back to sleep.
“Is he hungry?” Oliver asked as he gently swayed with his son in his arms.
“I’ve tried, I don’t think so,” Felicity worried as she shifted up the bed. Everything ached and for a moment even that small movement made her gasp. “Maybe we could take him for a walk to see his sister,” she continued as she gently moved her legs off the bed.
“Are you sure you’re up for walking around?” Oliver fretted as he offered his hand to her, Baby Boy nestled perfectly in his other. “I can get a wheelchair again.”
“No, I need to start moving and I’m okay,” Felicity smiled, somewhat weakly as she slowly lifted herself off the bed.

Her grin hid the ache, but it soon settled and they took the short walk.

He was still unsettled when they reached the NICU and found the bassinette with “Baby Girl Queen” written on it. She was doing well, much better than initially thought, and while she would stay a little longer to be sure, and she needed a little time under the lamps for her jaundice, she was breathing on her own and happily sleeping.

“She’s so tiny,” Felicity gushed. The difference between the two was fairly obvious, even at a passing glance. “I wonder if I ever actually felt her.”
She stirred a little in her slumber as his small, lamb-like cries bleed into the silence of the room.
“Do you think?” Felicity started as she carefully took Baby Boy from Oliver’s arms. She lay him gently in the space beside his sister. After a few whimpered groans, the last remnants of his cry, his eyes closed and his furrowed brow relaxed.
“I guess he missed her,” Felicity breathed as Oliver held her hand.
“I don’t suppose they can go the rest of their lives being called Baby A and Baby B huh?” she added after a wordless minute as they watched over their sleeping babies.
“Probably not,” Oliver chuckled lightly.

“I still like Eli, maybe Eli Becker Queen?” Felicity remarked, sounding the name out a second time to see if it fitted; and it did.
“I like it,” Oliver agreed. “Madeline for her?”
Felicity screwed up her face. “No, it doesn’t feel right,” she remarked before she repeated the name to be sure.
“Ally was the other name,” he suggested.
Once again she said it softly, but out loud. It wasn’t right either. “No,” she sighed. “When we were talking about names you told me a story about your mother and how she named Thea, do you remember?”

Oliver nodded, having the conversation with Felicity was foggy, but he knew what his mother had done. “She would walk out under this massive willow tree in the back garden and she would say it out loud just to see how it sounded.”
“Well, what about Willow?” Felicity proposed with a radiantly sunny smile.
He was surprised. “Really?”
“Willow,” Felicity repeated as she stroked a soft finger across the little girl’s brow. “It suits her.”
“How about Willow Ally Queen?”
They turned to each other and smiled. That was it.
“Hello Eli and Willow,” Oliver whispered and both babies stirred just a fraction, moving closer to each other.

You're home.

Chapter Text

Bedlam.

That would be how Felicity would describe the few weeks after the twins’ birth. Willow continued to thrive and was moved from the NICU within a few days, and left the hospital a couple of weeks after her brother. At 6 weeks new, they all made the trip back to Brazil; and with Tommy keeping his promise they did so in virtual obscurity.

Oliver announced the twins’ arrival on his own terms with an Instagram post and a comment that simply said “my heart is full”.

Three months on and they finally fell into a semblance of normality – at least for them, now. Donna had returned home with a steadfast promise to return every few months (or at the whim of her daughter if Oliver sends the plane again). She had been invaluable in helping Felicity settle into something of a routine; she might have been somewhat of a flippant parent when it came to things like not allowing a 10 year to be at a cocktail bar or buying your 17 year old her first fake ID, but Donna Smoak was excellent at rolling with the punches, adapting to the circumstances, and her unbreakable belief that things will turn out ‘just fine’. And that optimism was exactly what Felicity needed during those bewitching hours where she felt akin to a milk tanker covered in vomit.

Thea had stayed sometime with them too, keeping a watchful eye on her brother and a fiercely protective eye on her niece and nephew. She returned when Oliver assured her – repeatedly – that he was okay, and only after he promised to keep her informed of every check-up he had. But, he’d told her, she needed to return to her own life, chase her dreams, and make him proud. So, after Felicity promised to spam her with photos of the babies every day, she returned to University with a determination to take up the mantle Oliver had helped her believe she was worthy of and when she was ready, Queen Consolidated would be there for her to take over.

Oliver, through John, was still fielding calls from clubs both near and far, but his decision hadn’t altered from that which he’d already given – he wasn’t ready to even begin to make a decision. His focus lay at home.

And that was that. For now.

>>>>|<<<<

It was a little after 9pm, the sun had long since disappeared below the horizon and a full moon dappled its white light in through the gap in the gauzy curtains. A gentle breeze swept around the room from the vent above and the pleasant scent of lavender tickled the air; a natural sleeping aid that Raisa swore by, and which seemed to be working.

While rocking slowly in the honey-oak rocking-chair, Felicity carefully stroked the pad of her thumb across Willow’s nearly-translucent forehead as the new born slept soundly in her arms. Felicity was humming a tune to a song, but she wasn’t sure what it was, or how she even knew it. Perhaps her brain was addled from lack of REM sleep, or perhaps it was a melody from her own childhood, once locked away in her subconscious. Whatever the case, humming it seemed to make the corners of Willow’s little pink lips lift up into a lazy smile, so she kept on.

A few moments later Oliver walked into the room, with a wide-eyed Eli held against his broad chest, fresh from his second bath of the evening; born out of necessity after a poo-eruption covered the little boy’s entire back.
“All better?” Felicity asked as she watched Willow’s brow furrow in her sleep.
“The onesie from your mom is a little worse for wear,” Oliver jested before he planted a few haphazard kisses on Eli’s forehead. “But we cleaned it off as best we could and left it soaking.” Eli babbled whimsically along with his father. “I’ll call Raisa tomorrow because she undoubtedly has some miracle stain remover made from a combination of household items and a saying to go along with it.”
Felicity laughed gently, careful not to stir Willow. “Undoubtedly,” she whispered with a smile. “He might need a top up with the bottle,” she continued as she stood up and carefully placed Willow into the crib before laying the blankets under the little one’s arms.

Felicity was heading for the door when Oliver stopped her. “I’ll feed him, you go rest. Eli and I left you a present in the bathroom.”
She screwed up her face, thinking of the type of “present” the twins often left in their nappies.
“Not…that,” Oliver laughed as Eli mimicked it with a cooing laugh of his own. “You’ll like it.”
He kissed her forehead, short but infused with so much endearment that it made her sigh happily before she left the room.

When Felicity entered the ensuite bathroom, the first thing she noted was the beautifully floral fragrance playing on the warm amber-hued air. There was a happy eruption of silky bubbles nearing the rim of the large spa bath, and the entire room was lit by flickering aromatherapy candles.

The sigh Felicity let out was audible and unashamed as she quickly rid herself of her clothes, bundled her hair onto the crown of her head and sunk blissfully into the embrace of the warm and velvety water.

That was about as perfect as it could get.

>>>>|<<<<

Eli was fussing with the nub of the bottle, rolling it between his gummy smile and flicking it sporadically with his tongue; but every time Oliver pulled it away, assuming (wrongly) that his son was full, the little boy made his annoyance known in a sudden and sharp cry.

“I don’t think you know what you want,” Oliver sung in a pleasantly melodic tone as he moved his arms with a slow, consistent jiggle. “I think you’re pretty sleepy though right?”

He put the bottle down and soothed the grumbling noises Eli let out with a gentle and calming “ssssh” as he swayed around the room in something akin to a waltz.

He couldn’t imagine how utterly ridiculous he probably looked in that moment, but if he’d learned one thing over the course of the last three months it was that being a parent meant you didn’t care how foolish you looked, or how uncomfortable your arms got; you do it all, happily, and without resentment, just to make that little bundle – or in their case ‘bundles’ – safe, happy, and content.

So if he had to play peek-a-boo continuously for an hour straight, or dance a convoluted tip-toe dance that only he knew the steps to, then so be it. That’s what he would do.

As had happened in the quiet times over the last few months, when Oliver allowed himself to dwell on it, he couldn’t help but feel a swell of emotion starting in his heart and appearing in his watery irises as he thought about just how lucky he was.

Luck.
That wasn’t a word Oliver had ever used lightly, because the concept of it meant he had to face his demons about how ‘unlucky’ his parents had been; and that never served to dull that long and deep wound.

And, while the concept of luck was still somewhat foreign and unattainable, he couldn’t help but feel it pulsing through his veins as he watched Eli drift off to sleep.

For now he would count himself a lucky one.

>>>>|<<<<

Nearly 30 minutes after Felicity had sunk her body into the warm embrace of the luxurious bubble bath, there was a small rapt on the slightly-ajar door.

An airy and content “mmhmm?” left Felicity’s mouth and Oliver walked in with a smile on his face.
“I was going to ask if you were decent and then complain if the answer was yes,” he chuckled as he gently pushed the door almost-closed with his foot.

Felicity lazily snaked a finger through the tepid water as she looked up toward him. “You and Eli did good,” she sighed, blissfully.
“To be fair, it was more my idea then his,” Oliver jested while he sat on the edge of the tub and dipped a solitary finger into the water. “It’s a little cold, you should run some more hot water.”
He went to retract his hand and do exactly what he’d just suggested when Felicity caught him by the wrist.
“Or you could join me and we could heat it up?” she offered with an impish grin.
Oliver’s brow shot up towards his hairline. “That’s not why I ran you the bath,” he answered before he playfully winked.
Felicity shrugged and her naked, soapy shoulders glistened as they raised above the water. “All the same, join me anyway?”

Her eyes tangled into his and he let out a breathy and rousing sigh. That was an offer he wasn’t turning down.

He slipped his tee over his head first as a decadent and brazen sigh bled from Felicity’s parted lips. Oliver leaned a little closer to the bath while Felicity moved to the edge and dangled her arms over the side. Playfully he bopped her nose while he kept his face a few inches from hers. “If you start catcalling me or throwing dollar bills,” he began with a smirk.
Without taking her eyes off his, Felicity deftly ran her fingers down the closure of his jeans before she tugged them down with a sudden jerk.
“You’re taking too long,” she hummed while her teeth flirted with her bottom lip.

He didn’t say another word as he shucked his pants and briefs, and kicked them towards the corner of the room. His cock sprung free, rigid and glistening at the tip.

There was a small plop as Oliver dipped his foot into the tepid water. Ripples broke out from around his ankle before he slipped his other foot in and then he simply melted into the welcoming silky water with a soft sigh.

With a small smile tugging up the tips of Felicity's lips she moved fluidly through the water until her soapy body was pressed against his shoulder.

His hands ran up the sweeping curve of her back as she rode her body deliberately slow against his ribcage.

Reaching around him, Felicity turned the hot tap on and drizzled some bath gel into the agitated water. Soon the bath was filled with a fresh batch of heated water and airily-fragrant bubbles. The sensation of the warm water spilling down his back made Oliver exhale a content sigh as it loosened up and soothed his aching muscles.

Then another sensation startled him when Felicity grabbed his cock, without warning, tightly with one hand. He hissed with an impish grin as she strangled his hard shaft. The blood draining from every other limb was almost instant, and within a few seconds Oliver could feel the deep, shuddering thud of the blood pulsing down his erection.

“Nice to know I still have that effect,” Felicity chucked. Her breasts skimmed against his body with yet another, soft and supple sensation that had Oliver moaning into the thick cloud of steam that now enveloped them.
“There won’t be a time when you don’t have that effect on m-”
His words were cut short when Felicity started to pump her hand slowly up and down his shaft, squeezing near the ridge of the head and running her thumb gently across his slit.

Her lips sunk into the curve of his neck, gently sucking up tiny beads of water melded with a mist of sweat. The temperature in his body swelled with each perfectly languid kiss that made a dragged path up to his slack jaw. Her tongue flicked playfully over the bristled edge of his chin, creating a delirious shiver to rocket down his spine.

Her ass bobbed up from beneath the lapping water as she ground against his body with a happy little whimper tickling his ear.

Oliver, his jaw locked with a carnal growl that started from the deep guttural spaces of his stomach and hitched in his throat, clung to both sides of Felicity’s waist and lifted her with ease. Water slopped over the edge of the ivory tub and flooded the slate bathroom floor before Oliver reached behind him and fumbled with the faucet until it shut off.

He kissed her breasts delicately, tasting the velvet traces of the fragrant water still on her skin while her legs nestled on either side of his lap. With her hand guiding his length he entered her slowly as he dragged his lips up to hers and they kissed.

Her body took him halfway before she stilled and let the feeling of fullness wash over her. The stretch was fantastic, and she didn’t temper her agreeable moans into his mouth while his tongue coiled around hers.

With him half-buried inside her, Felicity rolled her hips in tiny circles which skimmed his rigid head against her cushiony wall. He felt every soft ridge that he passed over and each twitch that clamped around him as her body pulsed.

Soon the bathroom was an echo chamber of decadent moans and heavy, dripping breaths before Felicity dropped her body and impaled herself on Oliver’s entire cock, his girth spreading her wide. She gasped as she threw her head back and tiny convulsions shook through her core.

Worried, Oliver rested his hand behind her head and gently drew it forwards to face him. “Is it sore?” he asked, a worrisome frown woven across his brow. This wasn’t their first time after the twins were born, but what her body had endured was no easy feat and he was careful to study her each and every time for any signs of discomfort.

When her head bounced back she was smiling and nibbling at the centre of her plump lower lip with a whimsical look of delirium in her eyes. “I’m perfect,” she hummed as she bucked forward, making his cock stroke her body just right as her clit grazed perfectly against his base.
“That you are,” he whispered and his fingers entwined in strands of her hair while his thumb stroked the curve of her neck, wet and hot.

Water lapped against them when Felicity began to move, rucking her body backwards and forwards, taking Oliver out an inch before grinding him back in. As her body elongated and her head tipped back again, Oliver began kissing her moist skin and teasing her taut nipples with the tip of his tongue. Her body shivered and her breathing grew faint and ragged as the heightened sensitivity she felt in her breasts made the light flicks of his tongue feel like a hedonistic avalanche of pleasure.

He didn’t suck, or nibble, but with slow and even strokes, Oliver kept her on the cusp between pleasure and pain, until her wild eyes told him she couldn’t take it a moment longer.

“Oliver I…,” she stuttered, her body so close to tipping over the edge of her orgasm.
His finger found her clit, stroking a fast rhythm over it with the pad of his forefinger as she shuddered around him.
“I’m going…,” she couldn’t finish her words as her breath halted in her throat and her legs tightened at the thighs around his hand.
Scarlet threads cascaded down her alabaster chest, making the beads of water there glisten.
“Are you going to come Felicity?” he asked, deep and raspy.
She nodded, before managing only a tiny, whimpered, “Yes.”
“Good,” he smiled after smacking his lips together. “Please do.”
His velvety words seemed to be all Felicity needed to tip over the edge into an orgasm that had her slump forward into his chest as her release coated his embedded member.

It felt like heaven to him; a warm and silky embrace that lingered long after the initial blanket, and he swore to himself that, if she was willing, he’d like to feel that same feeling at least three more times that night.

>>>>|<<<<

From the bath they moved, naked and still not entirely sated, to the bedroom where they spent deliriously long moments just been present with each other; her body an extension of his hand and his hand becoming one with her body. They kissed, and they touched, and they drunk each other in, until exhaustion found them both.

Still, they lay entangled in each other, with sheets barely strewn across their naked bodies, just being.

There was something quite magical about just being in the moment, letting it encase you, wash over you, allow you to feel the moment’s warmth and safety, knowing full well that the person beside you felt the same way.

The predictable sound of his heart beating beneath his chest was a perfect accompaniment to the warmth of his breath near her temple as Felicity idly wove her fingers around the defined slopes and ridges of his statuesque torso.

After a loving kiss near her temple, Oliver lifted her hand and placed it palm to palm with his own. Her navy-tipped nails just barely reached above the second knuckle of his middle finger, and he smiled as he held her just that little bit tighter because of it.

The engagement ring on her finger refracted the tawny-streams of light from the lamp beside them before Oliver swept his fingers across it; as if to check that none of this magic was make-believe.

“I guess we haven’t really found the time to talk about that?” Felicity remarked before she lifted herself up and turned, just enough to see his face.
He felt her pebbled nipples glide against his chest and her leg coil over his.
“I would say we’ve been kept a little busy,” he chuckled and she moved with his body.
“I would say a lot busy,” she said with an effervescent laugh.

His laugh settled into a calm smile. “I still want to,” he breathed and she nodded, she still wanted to too. “It should be perfect, everything you’ve ever wanted,” he folded her damp hair back behind her ear as he talked. “Just name it, anything you want, it’s yours.”

She bit the edge of her lip, but the smile she was trying to temper grew behind it all the same. “I want a horse drawn carriage,” she started, a soft giggle in her voice.
“It’s yours,” Oliver answered immediately.
“And a dress that is just ludicrously huge, like massive,” she sat up and made animated gestures with her arms, stretched as wide as they could.
Oliver laughed gaily. “Okay then,” he remarked with a bemused furrow across his brow.
“And I want a string quartet,” she chatted away, but before he could answer she upped the ante, “no, make that a whole orchestra.”
“You want a whole orchestra?” Oliver piqued.
She nodded buoyantly. “At least 50 people and a conductor. They can play Gustav Mahler’s third symphony, it’s about 103 minutes so it’ll need to be a loooong aisle,” she chatted away with a cheeky glint in her eyes.
“Is that all you want?” Oliver asked with an impishly tilted head.
“And doves!” Felicity announced, but it was all too much for her to keep a straight face and she collapsed onto his chest in a fit of laughter.

“So no doves then?” Oliver remarked as he felt her tears of laughter seeping into his chest.
She looked up, her cheeks blotchy with happy tears and her eyes filled with the same. “No doves. No orchestra and no insanely massive dress.”
“But still the horse drawn carriage?”
Felicity screwed her nose up. “Not that either.”

She sunk her palm into the dip between his pecs and sighed. “All I need is you, me, our children and the tiny little family we have around us.”
Oliver moved his hand slowly up her arm, along her shoulder, and up her neck until it rested on the side of her face. “I want that too,” he whispered.

“All I need, all I want is to marry a man who loves and respects me, who trusts me enough to be vulnerable and who loves me enough to be present in the moment.” Felicity’s fingers curled into his chest, grappling at him. “I found that, and that’s why I said yes.”
She stooped down and Oliver took her lips gently with his own. The kiss was warm and tender, and both of them quivered through it, until she pulled slowly back.
Forehead to forehead and with their noses brushing they lingered in the quiet moment.
“That’s why I asked,” he whispered.

“I don’t need or want those things Oliver, I would marry you tomorrow in our backyard and we’ll grill hamburgers for dinner afterwards,” she remarked as a smile plumped her cheeks and danced in her eyes.
“How about a month from tomorrow instead? Our lives are probably always going to be a little crazy from here on and we haven’t exactly courted normality in our lives, so why start now?” He laughed, soft but gingerly, as she nodded – they certainly hadn’t. “I don’t know what this ‘right time’ that people are always talking about looks like, but I know that I love you.”

Her chin rested on his shoulder as her smile softened into one of adoration.
“Okay,” she answered him, with the same depth and love that she had before.
“Okay?”
She kissed him, slow and delicate and as she pulled back slowly, she answered, “Okay.”

>>>>|<<<<

So they did.

One month and one day later they got married mid-morning with a warm sun sitting high in a cloudless sky, under an archway that was built from one salvaged from the Queen Mansion and set beneath a canopy of plants in their backyard; each one of them holding a baby as they promised to live every moment with love, trust, and honesty, in front of the only other people that mattered in their lives; Iris, Cisco, Tommy, Thea, John, Donna, and Raisa – their own chosen family.

Felicity and Oliver had met and fallen in love in a whirlwind of circumstances and thwarted plans. Theirs was a story of loss, fear, hope, strength, and maybe just a sprinkle of fate.

They had found the type of love that comes only once in a lifetime.
She was his one.
And he was hers.

-The End-

Chapter Text

>>>>|Eleven Months Later|<<<<

Eli Becker Queen was a baby who was heard.

He didn’t cry a lot, but when he did there was no missing it. He was ravenous and grew out of his prem-sized clothes within a few months. He was rambunctious and curious and used his mouth to test every object (or person) that came within grabbing reach.

His hair lightened to an ashy-blonde while his eyes deepened to a sapphire blue.

He was spirited and determined and as the months ticked over those qualities became ever more present.

His sister, Willow Ally Queen, however was quite the opposite. She spent the first two weeks of her young life in the hospital, growing slowly but consistently, while she watched the world with a quiet, almost weary disposition. She touched things with cautious fingers and was quite content to study the world around her over experiencing it.

That was them, two babies with the same birthday, but entirely different ways of navigating the world.

And for the most part, that would be how the world would see them; Eli the strong and confident type, the boy who would try anything and achieve most things. The one who was never afraid and had a thirst for adventure, and Willow, the gentle child with a soft spot for things much smaller than her and the inner calm that followed her around like a pleasant breeze on a hot day, or a warm glow on a wintery morning.

And yet, when they were together, swept up in their own little baby-focused worlds, and utterly unaware that anyone was watching them, Eli sought out Willow’s hand, or shared his half-eaten biscuit with her. When he hurt himself on one of his many toddler adventures he instinctively went to her first for comfort, and it was with her wordless encouragement and effervescent smile that he felt able to face the obstacle once more.

She was his anchor. His rock.

As their first year rolled into the start of their second, Felicity and Oliver finally found themselves settled into the beautiful-chaos of their lives. Oliver had started a charity benefitting orphans in Brazil and had set up a foundation to offer assistance to fund live-saving medical treatments, such as the one he’d undergone. Felicity had started up her own fledgling tech company, with Cisco right beside her, and together with Iris they finished what they had started so long before.

Thea had graduated college and, under the watchful and mentoring eye of the acting CEO, she had begun to take the reins of an empire their parents had built. Under her guardianship, Queen Mansion was carefully restored and was now a respite home for children and their families.

As for his footballing comeback … there was definitely something on the horizon.

With a fruity punch in her hand, the warm sun at her back, and a pleasant breeze rustled the trees that shaded her, Felicity sat on a lawn chair watching Oliver run around the garden with his children in a rabble of excited noises. Eli was running along beside him, the 14-month old’s chunky legs moving as fast as they possible could, despite the speed-wobbles, and laughing rambunctiously. Willow was on his back like a baby koala, chanting directions in his ear – which he followed to a tee, even when that instruction was to roar like a lion.

Her phone buzzed on her lap and after checking it briefly she squeaked, stood up, and ran towards the house without an explanation. She returned barely a minute later with a shoe-sized box that she sat down on the table at the edge of the lawn.

Oliver stopped what he was doing and helped Willow off his back. Both children, thoroughly engrossed in their game, didn’t protest him leaving and instead went off to kick the soccer ball between them, amidst bouts of hysterical laughing when Eli tumbled over it.

“Is that what I think it is?” Oliver asked before he took a gulp of water from the glass on the table.
“It is!” Felicity answered with an excited shriek. “Iris said it was on its way and it’s finally here.”
She tore into the box without restraint and once opened, brushed back the packing chips that covered it. She’d seen it in draft, but the sight of the book staring back at her still took her breath away.

One: The Story of Oliver Queen
Child, Orphan, Superstar, Survivor
As told through a series of interviews and accounts.

Written by Felicity Smoak and Iris West-Merlyn
Forward written by Oliver Queen

“Wait,” she gasped as she pointed at the last line. “You wrote the forward?”
He took the book from her hand, turned to the page and handed it back to her. “Surprise,” he smiled.

She looked at the text and then back at him, before looking down again to read.

I once, so long ago now, believed that life was just a sprinkle of moments set against the backdrop of mortality. I had endured a loss that, even today, I am unable to put succinctly into words. I found safety in solitude and enjoyment in the few moments I could be welcomed into the green embrace of a football field.

To many, I was living a dream, and I know that I have been fortunate where others have not. But, to say I was ‘living’ is to say that a potted plant left to wilt an overgrown garden is thriving. I breathed, and I existed; but I wasn’t really living.

When I found out I was dying, there were a few moments where I didn’t feel fear, I felt relief.

Then one day, I remember my palms felt sticky and my throat was dry, I told the world that I was ready to speak. For me, I was ready to say goodbye.

But instead I got a hello, a chance, and hope.

To my wife; I adore you. You gave me something I had never been able to find before you, peace. In your arms I am at peace. You showed me how to live without fear, love without restraint, and hope without confines.

I am a better me, with you.

You are my one.

~ Oliver

The tears had already set in by the time Felicity was finishing the last few words, and when she looked up she saw the same mirrored in his eyes.

“You wrote this for me?” she asked, a quiver in her voice.
He nodded softly. “And I meant every word. Every little one.”

The rest didn’t need to be said, their smiles and their eyes said it for them.
I love you.
I love you too.

|Family Album |

Wow guys, we made it. I know this didn’t seem like a long fic, but over 106,000 words later, it sure as heck will be one that I remember.

I remember the day Ash and I started talking about this, throwing ideas around and then I decided that I wanted this to test another part of my writing that I don’t often get to. I wanted heart, and tears, and that type of love story that is reminiscent of Run to the Water; it’s against all odds.

And, I wanted it to hurt, just enough to see if it could.
I wanted to know if I had this sort of story in me to write.
I’ll leave it to you to decide if I did it justice.

Thank you for reading, dropping a kudos, or offering a comment. It really does make the hours I spent trudging through medical journals online worth it.

To Ash, I’m a better writer because I have a you.
Your support, encouragement, spiralling, and (of course) your introduction of Alisson Becker, made this story what it is.

|end.\

Chapter Text

Hi guys, so I'm running a thing at the moment where if you make a donation to help Australia, DM me and I'll give you something in return, a spoiler, an aesthetic for your own fic, a flash fic, as a fandom and as a community.  If you're not on Twitter you can do the same through Tumblr

@someonesaidcake

This flash fic was a request from Michelle and Nikki, who wanted to check up on their little family.

Please consider sending a donation to any of the organisations involved in fighting the Australian fires.  Such as Wildlife Rescue  or Wildlife Australia 

Thank You ❤

please note, I wrote this in an hour and it is unbeat'd xo

| takes place directly after the epilogue |

Felicity looked up from her novel as Oliver walked into the bedroom wearing a smile, albeit a frazzled and tired one.

Both twins were teething and whatever shred of a sleep schedule they once had, had completely gone out the window a week or so back, and there was little sleep being had by anyone.

Oliver climbed onto the bed with an exhausted huff and curled up around the hump in the blanket where Felicity's feet were rested, coiling his arms around the same.

“Mom suggested Brandy on their gums,” Felicity chortled as she folded a bookmark into her novel and set it down on the bedside table.  The clock beside it read 12:05 am; that didn’t surprise Felicity.
Oliver looked up, his eyes were drawn and his lips barely holding a smile, but his sense of humour remained completely in tack.  “Don't tempt me,” he answered with a wink.

Felicity patted the empty mattress space beside her and Oliver clambered the rest of the way up the bed, before he nestled his head into her lap, sighing pleasantly at the comfort such action brought him.  Lazily Felicity combed her fingers through his hair and grazed her nails across his scalp.

Oliver hummed softly into the pale ivory blanket while he listened to the steady, enchanting sound of Felicity, the love of his life, breathing. He could listen to that soft lull for a million eternities and never tire of it or the peace it gave him.

She twisted her finger around the hair at the nape of his neck as she began to hum a song quietly, a lullaby.  Oliver rolled over and looked up from Felicity's lap, diving into her pearlescent blue eyes.  “I love you,” he spoke warmly, barely above a whisper, but without a shred of uncertainty.

Her fingers swept over his cheek and trickled down his jaw as her charming smile stole his breath, just like it did every time his eyes were blessed enough to see it.  “I love you too,” Felicity cooed.  Her thumb smoothed across his full, bottom lip, tapping it just once in the middle.

Oliver lifted Felicity's grey cotton tank top just enough to show the smooth, silken skin of her navel before he feathered an intimate kiss low across her soft belly.

He loved the breathy laugh that fluttered from her nude lips and the prickles that erupted across her skin in response; because Felicity was ticklish.

“Ol-li-ver,” she giggled as she playfully swatted at him.  His tongue drew around her belly button in cruelly slow circles as her whole body trembled with a laugh.  “Stop,” she snorted, but he didn't relent.

His large hands cupped her waist as she playfully squirmed beneath him, her shoulders slipping down the headboard as Oliver climbed higher, pinning her to the mattress.

His fervent kisses peppered the side of her ribs and Felicity had to clasp her hands across her mouth to stop from shrieking.  Her legs thrashed under the skewed blanket as Oliver's fingertips mapped the other side of her torso up to her armpit, with deliberately ambled strokes.

With her mouth clamped shut, Felicity's laugh was shallow and suffocated, but it was music to Oliver's ears all the same.

He licked the centre of her breastbone and Felicity shook wildly as her feet twisted in the bedsheets.
“Is this not sexy?” Oliver growled as he covered her stomach in sloppy, wet kisses.

She laughed as she reactively kicked out at him.  “No, god no,” she cackled, each word fragmented with a laugh.

Oliver filled the room with deep, salaciously dramatic slurping noises as he worked his mouth back down to her navel.  Her hands flew off her mouth and Felicity laughed so hard that her whole body shook and the sound echoed off the walls.

Oliver looked up with a wicked grin and a hitched brow before Felicity stapled her lips closed with her teeth and both of her hands, for good measure.

But, it was too late, and the baby monitor beside the bed erupted into a chorus cries, two very distinct ones.  Both of the twins were awake.
“That's probably my fault,” Oliver remarked sheepishly.
Felicity cupped his face between her palms and pecked a kiss onto the bow of his lips.
“Why don't you bring them in here,” she offered.

Dutifully, Oliver returned a few moments later with a toddler on each arm.  Eli was chewing on the head of a dinosaur toy, growling as he gnawed at it, while little Willow was taking in everything with wide, blue eyes and just the remnants of a few tears rolling down her red cheeks.

Eli climbed up the bed the moment Oliver set him down and excitedly showed Felicity the slobber-covered toy before he nestled his chunky body against her.  Willow, however, clung to her father and pressed her tiny ear against his chest while she absently tickled her fingers into his beard as he sat down in bed.

Oliver looked across the bed at Felicity and smiled.  “I love you,” he mouthed as both babies yawned.
Felicity kissed the top of Eli's head and brushed her fingers down Oliver's arm as it linked with Willow's.  “I love you too.”