Oliver didn't sleep.

She'd thought she'd known and understood that about him before – before them. Before that day when he'd first settled into bed next to her, and she'd curled around him, nose buried deep in his neck, hand warm against his heart – feeling the thump thump, thump thump assuring her that he was still very much alive, that she hadn't lost him to their fight yet –, his arms like her own safety blanket.

She'd thought she'd known, because how could she not? She noticed everything about him, had never been so in tune with another human being in her life (her dog had been another story but, like, dogs couldn't talk anyway so they had to find other ways to communicate, didn't they? And Diego had been blessed with the most expressive eyes and – oh wow, so not the point).

Felicity spent ninety nine percent of her waking hours with Oliver, and she herself didn't sleep much anymore. On her best days she managed to get five, maybe six hours of blessed sleep, and that was when she went straight to bed after an uneventful night shift. It wasn't hard to understand that he slept even less.

Unless he was called away for a family emergency, he always stayed later than she did at the Foundry and she'd never once, hard as she'd tried, managed to get to QC before him in the mornings. Instead, she'd become accustomed to seeing him in his chair as she came in, lost in his thoughts or painfully studying the day's files, seeping his second cup of coffee in an attempt to counterbalance the bags under his eyes. He'd smile at her in greeting, his eyes not leaving her until she picked up the coffee he'd brought her. It was always warm and just as she liked it.

She'd seen him worn out and beaten and hunched over under the weight of all the lies, of all the betrayals, of all the pain. She'd seen him close his eyes in weariness, seen him sit in silence after a particularly intense workout, rehashing everything he thought he'd done wrong. Heard him sigh as he ran a hand over his tired eyes.

Sometimes, she wondered how he still had enough strength to go about his day. To spend hours studying reports, negotiating with hardened business people who underestimated him and belittled him every chance they got. To keep up a façade he hated, all day long, even with some of the people he loved the most. To go through insanely vigorous workouts before going out into the night to fight crime. How could he do that, running on less than five hours of sleep a night? Anyone else would have fallen over by now, really, and holy shitballs, it was like he was some kind of superhero or something. Except alright, he was a hero, just not a super one. Not that he wasn't super! He was, definitely, all kinds of super – super intense, super driven, super skilled, super pigheaded, really, and super handsome, obviously. Just not… super powered. If that made sense.

Sometimes, she would catch herself wanting to go sit next to him after his nightly workout and wrap him in her arms in an effort to get him some much needed rest.

She'd thought she'd known that Oliver didn't sleep.

She hadn't known at all.

She fell asleep before him every night without fail and it didn't matter when she woke up, because whether it be the morning or the middle of the night he was always awake, holding a quiet vigil over her. Nightmares, he'd explained, plagued him every night. They were filled with scenes from his past, or with what may yet come to pass – all of them gripping in their intensity and chilling him to the bone. More and more, he'd said, they were about her.

Oliver didn't sleep more than an hour or two every night, and the mere thought of it made Felicity's heart constrict painfully in its cage.

So one night where Oliver looked particularly ragged, she decided to take the matters into her own hands. Instead of settling against him, her head on his chest, she settled down on her back and gently guided his head to lie on her breast. Soft hands ran through his hair and down his back in soothing patterns as she quietly sang a song he'd confessed to loving.

A sense of peace enveloped them both, and her eyelids soon grew heavy but she refused to succumb to sleep until she felt his breaths deepen and his weight heavier against her.

In the morning, she awoke to butterfly kisses on her face, a hand stroking her hair and a dazzling smile on his lips.

Oliver didn't sleep much, hadn't for years – but with Felicity, maybe he could get there again.