It wasn't the fact that leaving Starling City caused a physical ache in her chest.

It wasn't the fact that when she got back to her new lab, to her new friends, that nobody greeted her with the same unrestrained warmth that Roy or Diggle had when she saw them in Starling.

It wasn't the fact that the expensive penthouse apartment she lived in felt cold and foreign, even though she'd only been away for two weeks.

What finally convinced Felicity that she had made a mistake, was seeing Ray again for the first time.

When she locked herself in her hotel bathroom the night before, waiting for Oliver to leave, she had been furious. For the past week, she had been living a wonderful fantasy. She was in Starling, she was back with her family, and she had Oliver. And then he had to go and ruin it by asking her to stay, and reminding her of all the reasons why it had never worked, all the reasons she chose to leave, all the reasons it wasn't real.

Just because they had sex, it didn't mean that anything between them was going to change. It didn't mean that he would let her in.

So she left, like she had a year ago, for Coast City, and for Ray. But once she made it there, it didn't take her long to realize that she couldn't stay. Because seeing Ray again for the first time? It felt nothing like it did when she saw Oliver.

Seeing Ray didn't make the whole world seem like it was coming into focus. He didn't make her heart beat faster or cause a flutter of anticipation in her stomach. Seeing Ray didn't make her feel like she was home.

She cared for Ray, he was brilliant and kind and loving. He was an amazing person in so many ways. And that was why she had to end it. Because he deserved better than a women who was in love with someone else.

It was the second hardest thing she ever had to do.

She didn't know what to say, how to start, how to make it hurt less. Ultimately, she went with honesty, maybe too much honesty; the look that crossed his face when she told him she had slept with Oliver broke her heart.

"So you're leaving me for him," Ray said as a statement, not a question. His voice was tinted with a bitterness she couldn't blame him for.

"I don't know what will happen between Oliver and I," she answered truthfully. "But I do know that I can't stay here and pretend that I don't love him."

She told him she could stay in a hotel until she moved her stuff out. He said she could have the run of the place and he'd stay at the office. The truth was that neither of them wanted to be in that apartment just then.

Ray told her that her job at Palmer Tech was still hers if she wanted it, saying he had hired her because she was the best, not because they were sleeping together. It was a selfless offer, but she couldn't accept it, couldn't put him in that position. She'd find something else to do.

They didn't know she was coming back. Felicity wasn't quite sure what to tell them. Sending Team Arrow an email explaining that she was leaving Ray because she realized she was still hopelessly in love with Oliver didn't seem like the way to go. And telling them that they were her family and that she'd never felt more loved or accepted anywhere else? That was something she'd rather do in person. So when her plane landed in Starling City just days after she'd left, Felicity slipped back into to her city unannounced.

She'd looked up his address before she left. As much as Oliver Queen might try to keep his home address off the radar, there wasn't a lot of information out there that Felicity couldn't find if she put her mind to it, and this one wasn't even a challenge. She drove there straight from the airport, slowly manoeuvring through the neighbourhood in her rental car, circling the block way too many times before she worked up the nerve to park the car and walk to his building. A woman was coming out of the front door, her arms full of boxes. Felicity trotted up the steps to grab the door for her, then used the opportunity to slip into Oliver's building without buzzing through the intercom.

She stared at the outside of his door, hands stuck in the pockets of her trench coat, for a least a minute before she knocked. When he opened the door, the surprise on his face was evident.

"Felicity," he said with disbelief in his voice. "What are you doing here?"

The bluntness of his question almost made her laugh. It cut some of the tension she was feeling.

"I realized I never got to see your place," she said.

"I thought you went back to Coast City."

"I did," she said, before she took a breath and added "but it didn't take me long to figure out that I didn't belong there."

Oliver just looked at her, his expression almost slack-jawed. She might have found it adorable if she wasn't rehearsing everything she wanted to tell him in her head.

"Can I come in?" she asked.

The question seemed to knock him out of his stupor and he took a step back to let her through. They walked into his living room, her eyes scanning the space. It was nice, a little bare, but nice. And somehow, it just felt like Oliver.

"Thanks," she heard from behind her, and it took her a second to realize that she'd made her observations out loud. She turned around and smiled at him sheepishly.

"Why aren't you in Coast City?" Oliver asked. This time, the question was more curious than blunt.

"Because I wanted to come home," she answered.

"To Starling?"

"To everything," she said. "The city, the foundry, the team, everything. For a year, I tried to build a life somewhere else and it never felt right. One trip back to Starling City and I figured out why. Because this is the place where I fit. And the life that I want, is with you. And I know that you didn't make me any promises, I understand that, but - "

The slant of his lips over hers cut her off. She had been so focused on what she was trying to say, that she hadn't even seen him move. One second, he was across the room, and the next, his hands were in her hair and he was kissing her for all he was worth. After an instant of surprise, she was kissing him back just as hard.

When they finally pulled apart, both dreamy eyed and panting for air, Oliver whispered "I want my life to be with you, too."

Felicity couldn't help the smile that split her face then, and Oliver beamed back at her before pulling her closer and kissing her once more.

Hours later, when they were curled up together in Oliver's bed, sleepy and sated, he pressed his nose into her hair and told her that he'd never stopped loving her. And she told him that she knows now that she never stopped either.

In the end, Felicity's new life in Starling City was, in a lot of ways, similar to her old one. She still spent her nights in the Arrow Cave working, in her way, to make the city a better place. She still spent her days at a job that she loved, and she still surrounded herself with the friends that had become her family.

But now, instead of working in a big, glass-paneled office building downtown, she worked from her office in the home that she and Oliver bought together as the sole employee of her own computer security company.

And her left hand? It now hosted a simple gold band that Oliver put there one afternoon at the Starling City courthouse, while her mother and Thea and team Arrow enthusiastically cheered them on.