Snow pelted the windshield of Felicity's beat up Jeep as it barreled along I-54 out of Starling. Oliver had a white knuckled grip on the steering wheel as Felicity sat beside him analyzing the GPS on her phone.

"Take exit 17," Feliciy said, glancing up over at Oliver.

He nodded. His mouth was set in a thin line, his eyes fixed straight ahead. It was pretty much the only expression he wore these days. The fact that they were chasing down an explosive device that would blow five holes in the city right in the middle of rush hour if they didn't shut it off first probably wasn't helping with relax his facial muscles.

It's going to be fine, Felicity told herself for what felt like the hundredth time that day. They knew where a device was: in an abandoned cabin half a mile off a path in Starling National Park. Oliver had…incentivized...the bomber to give up its location. After which Felicity had promptly hacked into its signal and set the GPS on her phone to take them right to it just to be sure he hadn't lied. They'd be there soon and she'd disarm the device before the bombs could hurt anyone. Done and Done.

Her eyes drifted to the clock glowing in the dashboard. 4:15. The bomb was set to go off at 5. They were cutting it close. Why did the psycho have to hide it so far away? Oliver took the Exit 17 off ramp and stopped at a light.

"Which way." His voice was low and tight.

"Left," Felicity said.

A sign at the park entrance stated that all trails were closed due to the blizzard advisory. A gate spanned across the road, blocking their path.

"It's digitally controlled," Felicity said. "I could get out and hotwire it."

Oliver shook his head. "No time." He pressed down on the gas and the Jeep leapt forward, crashing through the barrier and most likely putting a good dent in the fender.

Felicity winced. "There goes my insurance premium." Oliver sent her a sideways glance.

"I know," she sighed. "Not important."

As the Jeep hobbled over ruts and tree roots in the dirt road the GPS on Felicity's phone pinged faster. After a mile the road ended in a small dirt parking lot. Oliver shut off the Jeep and reached for his seat belt.

"We'll have to walk from here."

Felicity had only just slid out of the passenger seat when a wall of frigid air slammed into her breath and ripped the breath from her chest. She pulled her pompom-ed hat further down over her ears. Snow danced around her face as she looked down at her phone.

"This way," she said, heading for the nearest trailhead.

They trekked in silence that seemed exaggerated by the swirling snow and heavy sky that pressed down on them through the skeletal treetops. Since the fallout from Sara's death, they had barely spoken more than two or three words to each other at a time, a high task for Felicity whose proclivity word vomit was legendary. Her silence was not out of spite; she worried that if she spoke she might say something she'd regret. The words she had spoken to Oliver in the immediate aftermath of the Canary's murder still haunted her.

Sorry I have feelings, Oliver, but maybe if you did too—

She hadn't been wrong. But the way his face had crumpled, just for a second before he refortified the walls they kept them all out, had cut her to the core. Just as the silence was becoming oppressive they stumbled over a ridge to find a small cabin with a crumbling chimney, a caved in roof, and boarded up windows nestled in beneath a few large firs.

"It's in there," Felicity said, glancing down at her phone which was now maintaining one long drawn out ping. She switched it off and slid it into her pocket before following Oliver up to the door. The wooden planks nailed over the entrance didn't last long after being acquainted with Oliver's boot. Soon they were stepping over the threshold into the cabin's one small room. Felicity let out a low whistle as she looked around.

"Looks like a tornado hit this place."

A legless paisley couch lay forlornly on the floor like a limbless wild animal. Grey stuffing pooled out of the seats onto the floor and Felicity was relatively sure that some forest critter had made itself a home of one of the cushions. Beside it, a small table lay on its side in a pile of brown crinkled leaves that had blown in through one of the busted out windows. Wind gusted into the room and swirling snow and leaves around her feet. In the back right corner of the room, a rotten staircase led up to a loft and to her left a partially caved in fireplace was embedded in the wall.

"Felicity," Oliver said softly behind her. "This is your show."

Felicity straightened her shoulders. "Right. The device must be upstairs cause there's nothing down here."

She made her way slowly up the stairs, taking care to avoid the rotting parts of the wood. She could hear the stairs creak as Oliver followed behind her. The loft was full of mildewed cardboard boxes stuffed with rusty corkscrews and yellowed newspapers. In the middle of the boxes, a moth eaten blanket had been thrown haphazardly over a lumpish object. Felicity waded through the boxes and pulled back the blanket.

"Bingo."

A silver cylindrical device lay at her feet. A small rectangular screen in the metal counted down to zero. It only took her a few minute to surmise the wiring of the device and cut the correct wires to shut it down. When it was done, Felicity smiled up at Oliver, who was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, and waved her hand toward the device.

"One diffused bomb, Mr. Queen. Just like you ordered."

Although his face didn't change she thought she saw some of the tension leave his shoulders. Felicity was so relieved heading back down the stairs that she didn't noticed her foot heading for a particularly rotten section of wood. She let out a little yelp as the board gave in beneath her foot and she tumbled down the last few stairs. For a moment she lay on the ground while white stars spun across her field of vision. Slowly they faded away replaced by Oliver's face, eyebrows drawn together in concern. She made to sit up only to squeak and flop back down as pain shot up her left leg.

"Don't move," Oliver said softly. "I think you hurt your ankle."

His fingers ghosted across shin before gently pushed up her pant leg. She bit down a groan.

"It's sprained," he said. "We better get you back to Starling." He scooped her off the floor as easily as if she were a sack of flour.

"Hey, I can walk!" Felicity protested.

Oliver only raised an eyebrow and kept walking. "Trust me. You don't want to do that."

No really I would, she wanted to tell him. The pain of walking on her injured ankle would pale in comparison to the emotional damage that pressed up against him was doing to her heart. He stepped through the broken door and a Felicity caught her breath as the cold air cut into her exposed skin like a knife. She instinctively turned her face into Oliver's chest. The snow was swirling thicker than before and the air felt as if it had dropped 10 degrees. When they made it to the car Oliver slid her into the passenger seat as gingerly as if she were made of glass. Felicity swallowed and tried to bury her regret at the loss of his strong arms around her. She couldn't remember the last time he'd touched her.

Oliver got into the driver's seat beside her and turned the key in the ignition. The engine sputtered. He turned it again. It sputtered louder this time then died.

"The transmission must be frozen." He glanced over at her huddled form. "I'll call Diggle and ask him to come pick us up."

She nodded mutely.

Oliver ran a hand through his shorn hair. "We should probably go back to the cabin and wait for him. We'll freeze if we stay in here."

Felicity didn't complain this time when he hoisted her back into his arms. It wasn't that bad being cradled against him, she decided. She poked out her tongue to catch a few snowflakes and she felt a soft rumble against her cheek. When she looked up Oliver was staring straight ahead but she thought there might have been the slighted shadow of a smile on his lips.

Back in the cabin, Oliver laid Felicity down on the broken couch then pulled off his jacket, balled it up, and slid it under her injured ankle.

"Oliver, you're going to freeze," she protested.

"I'm fine," he said.

She wanted to snap at him that he wasn't fine. Not in any sense of the word. After Sara's death he'd adopted a cloak of asceticism so strict that sometimes she felt more like she was talking to a robot instead of fellow human. She knew he had a reservoir of emotion swimming under that guise but if he was determined to keep those feelings on lock-down there was nothing she could do about it. Oliver was a master in hardheadedness as well as archery and it was his life, his choice. Just as it had been hers to tell him that she wasn't going to wait around for him. So she bit down the words that were threatened to pour out of her mouth and concentrated on not shivering herself right off the couch. Oliver wrenched the legs off the broken side table with his bare hands (show off, Felicity thought) and carried them over to the fireplace. His body blocked her view of what he was doing but a minute later she heard a hiss and a pop and when he moved away a thin but bright fire snapped and twisted in the fireplace.

Oliver pushed the couch closer the fire then disappeared up the stairs and came back with the ratty blanket that had been thrown over the bomb device. He tucked it around her body as carefully as if he were swaddling a child. As he tucked the fabric around her shoulder she caught his hand.

"Thank you."

He just nodded and continued what he was doing. Felicity felt a stab of..something. Regret? He couldn't even bring himself to look at her. When he was done Oliver slumped down at the foot of the couch and leaned his head back so that he was staring up at the ceiling.

"I'm sorry," he said. "This is my fault."

"Oliver," Felicity said through chattering teeth. "This is not your fault. You need to stop blaming yourself for everything bad that happens in the world."

He murmured something so softly that she couldn't hear it. She didn't prod him. If he wanted her to know he would say it again. They fell silent again, watching the flames stretch up toward the chimney.

"You're shaking," Oliver said, after a few minutes.

"Well, it's co- cold."

"Itwouldbewarmerifwewerecloser," Oliver said.

"What?" Felicity said. "I didn't catch that."

He took a deep breath as though he was going to regret what he was about to say. "I said, it would be warmer if we were closer."

Wordlessly she lifted the edge of the blanket. Oliver hesitated, then slid under the fabric, and adjusted them both so that Felicity's head was resting on his chest. If anyone had asked Felicity two hours earlier if she could imagine herself huddled under a blanket with Oliver Queen anytime in the near future she would have said absolutely not. But something about the snow had altered her perspective. It was more than the cold. It was as if nothing that happened in this moment was real. Felicity felt completely unconcerned with the repercussion this cuddle session might have for both their emotional states later on.

"You know, I thought I loved the snow," she said ruefully. "I might have to revise that stance."

Oliver laughed and Felicity filed the sound away for when he inadvertently morphed back into surly mode.

"When I was a kid every time it snowed Tommy would come over and we'd make snow forts," said Oliver.

"Forts? As more than one of them?"

She felt him nod against the to of her head. "We'd stay out all day. We usually ended up with four or five of them all connected with tunnels and protected by moats."

She smiled at the thought. "To keep dragons out?"

"More like little sisters," Oliver said. "We should have just let her play." He sounded wistful that without thinking Felicity tilted her head and pressed a kiss to the underside of his stubbly jaw. She felt him suck in his breath and for a moment they seemed to be frozen in some kind of suspended animation. Then she felt his chest depress and he continued. "Everything was so clean and new. It felt like anything was possible. It was the happiest I can remember being."

Felicity ran her finger around and around the ridge of one of the buttons on his shirt. She imagined young Oliver, sandy hair flopping over his eyes, getting hit in the face with a snowball. The Oliver in her imagination spluttered then laughed, a doubled-over rib cracking laugh. She could hear it rolling over the sparkling snow drifts. She wanted to tell him that that he could have that kind of happiness again. But she knew he wasn't in a place to accept that.

"I'm guessing it didn't snow much in Las Vegas," he said.

Felicity shook her head against his chest. "Not really, no. But my mom used to read me these stories about magic snowstorms that made everyone forget who they were for as long as the snow lasted. I used to love them. Probably because for a long time I wanted to forget who I was. Be someone else. Now I'm glad I didn't. Forget I mean."

"So am I," Oliver said softly.

Felicity smiled into his shirt. "The first time I actually saw snow was a week after I arrived in Starling. I was coming out of a job interview and there was all this white stuff swirling around. I stood on the sidewalk for ten minutes just staring up at the sky and watching the flakes flutter down. Then I went back to my apartment and made a little snowlady in the front yard." She let out a low chuckle. "I got a lot of weird looks."

"I wish I could have seen that." He turned his face toward her and she knew he was going to kiss her. She knew she shouldn't let him. She could have stopped him. But she didn't want to stop him. And then she'd waited too long. His lips were on hers and the kiss was warm and soft, equal parts sweetness and bitterness.

It wasn't a reset button. She knew when they got back to Starling he'd still be an obstinate ass set on a life of deprivation and she'd still refuse to be the girl who refused to wait around for him to decide he was ready for more. But in that moment she couldn't bring herself to care. She drew the kiss out as long as possible so that when they finally pulled away they were both gasping for air. Their eyes drank each other in as though the weeks of avoiding each other's gaze had left them starved for the mere sight of each other. Oliver raised a hand and brushed the back of his knuckles against the ridge of Felicity's cheekbone. Then he bent his head and kissed her again. This time their lips barely brushed; it was just punctuation on a moment that was already slipping away. Afterward Felicity lowered her eyes and laid her head back onto his chest, letting herself meld into the warmth of his body.

"This doesn't change anything," she murmured. His arm tightened around her waist but he didn't argue.

"I know."

When Diggle found them there an hour later they were both asleep, wrapped up in each other, as the fire burned down to glowing embers beside them. Dig felt like a thief stealing into their moment of peace, shattering the truce that the snow seemed to have gleaned from them. But he woke them because he had to and when they tugged open their weary eyelids and realized the position they were in both sat up and quickly pulled away, as if each felt that the other was fire and neither one wanted to get burned. Dig was the one to carry Felicity back to his car. Oliver followed a few steps behind, head down, hands stuffed in his pockets, and the they drove in silence through the darkness and snow back to Starling.