"There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me."
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

Felicity hasn't been carried that often in her life, but one doesn't need to be an expert to recognize the feeling, even though dimply. She feels a sensation that could be a kiss on her forehead (the familiarity of it making her jerk a bit more into wakefulness, if only to hold on, to be there), before she is set down somewhere soft. There are voices around her, distant and strange, but she doesn't really register them.

Her hands try to hold on but her fingers slide off something cool and supple, maybe leather. A brief flash of the vigilante hauling her off to god knows where startles her into jerking but not though to overpower the terrible exhaustion pulling her down.

In the end, Felicity doesn't even remember when exactly she lost consciousness for good, only that she woke up at the hustle bustle of the Hospital. Her mother's is the first face she sees, and then Lance and Laurel at the foot of her bed, smiling at her.

"Hey, baby. You scared us for a moment there." Donna says softly, leaning in to press a gentle kiss on Felicity's cheek. Felicity though can only stare blankly, trying to blink herself awake. Her face is numb, she can't feel her fingers and her toes and there seems to be sandpaper behind her lids.

"What… What happened?" she croaks, and her throat is so dry it actually hurts to talk.

Thankfully she doesn't have to do a whole lot of talking from then on. She just has to listen. And what she hears startles Felicity into wakefulness like nothing else before. Words like kidnapped, and vigilante and poison all swirl through her brain without making any kind of sense. She doesn't remember any of it. The only thing she remembers is behind shoved into a car, the mechanical creepy voice telling her 'I'm not gonna hurt you' over and over. Then she remembers the dreams, fragments of nightmares, and being cold, so cold… and then not.

She tells all this to the detective that comes in half an hour later to take her statement. It's almost funny how Quentin hovers and glares at the man every time he prods too forcefully or talking makes Felicity cough.

"And you did not see him?"

Felicity sighs. "I barely even looked at him. I lost consciousness in the car. I think I must have woken later, but…"

She stops, trying hard to remember.

"But what?" The detective asks. Even lance is frowning and laurel is keeping a hard eye on both of them – not hesitating to tell them to shove right out if she detects any kid of distress on Felicity's face.

"I don't know. I can't be sure of anything really, I think I started having hallucinations at some point." Felicity says tiredly.

"How can you be sure? Maybe you saw him and…"

Felicity turns a frizzled glare to this annoyingly enthusiastic man. "I'm pretty sure seeing dead people counts as hallucination, detective." She snaps, just as Laurel warns the man not to harass her client or he will be escorted out without preamble.

Felicity sighed. "I'm sorry for snapping detective. I'm just tired. All I want is to get out of this paper dress and go home. You know where I live; I'll be available anytime for you ok."

The middle aged man looked at her carefully but then gave a stiff nod. "Very well, Miss Smoak. This is it for tonight. Now, I need to ask one last thing from you."

And the he goes on explaining how he needed his CSI team to collect samples from her skin, because they might find a fingerprint on her if the vigilante touched her – something they are pretty confident about (Of course they are. After all, hadn't she been just told that her every wound had already been cleaned and bandaged properly before she came to the hospital? Of course he'd touched her). A shiver races up Felicity's spine and she feels like bugs are crawling up her skin, because god, thinking about him touching her when she was passed out and completely at his mercy made Felicity want to scream. It made her want to hunt his ass down and bury him and no matter what the circumstance this is a visceral reaction that Felicity can't control. But a part of her, a small part that still remembers the circumstances she came to be there, in that hospital room, reminds her that she doesn't know if the vigilante had had gloves on or not when he touched her. It reminds her that they might very well find a print and the man that man, whoever he was, might go to jail because he took a chance and saved her life.

He'd saved her life…

Out of 7 people who had been shot, two had died, three others were in critical condition and she was the only one that was doing well enough to be discharged tomorrow. Because the Hood had chosen her , out of all the others.

Oh my god… oh…

"Felicity, are you ok baby?" Donna asks softly. Felicity looks up and finds that only Laurel and her mother are in the room with her.

"Where are…"

"They gave us a moment." Donna says, taking her hand. "Felicity honey… did anything… did…"

Felicity sighs, closes her eyes. "Mom, I'm fine. I am."

"It's ok if you don't want to go through with this. If…"

But Felicity interrupts Laurel before she can finish that. The last thing she needs is rumors starting about things that most definitely didn't happen.

"It fine. Send them in." and then, after a deep breath and trying to sound as calm as she possibly can (puppy eyes help too) "Please tell me that you got some real clothes and my tablet."

That's when two women come in, with a kit in hand for evidence gathering.

"Am I awesome, or am I awesome?" Laurel asks wiggling her eyebrows, as she pulls out that same table from her bag. Felicity almost sags with relief.

"You're awesome." She says with a genuine smile as she reaches for her baby with both hands – forgetting that her arms was hurt only hours prior. When it pulls, she hisses, immediately sobering the faces around her.

"I'm ok, really." Felicity insists. "Barely hurts."

She lets the CSI work in silence, and once they're gone she feels sticky but doesn't mind much. Trying to seem as natural as possible, she reclines back on the bed in her plush pajamas, and sends out messages and emails to everybody she knows, telling them she is ok and getting out of the hospital tomorrow morning. Nobody but the police and her family know that the vigilante had anything to do with her and she has been advised to keep it that way. And as Laurel fills her in about what happened, Felicity busies herself with hacking (as discretely as possible) into the SCPD mainframe, the CSI Labs servers and every other facility connected to the case that had a digital banking system. The second she gets a hit on the fingerprint, if they are even able to find one, she will know.

It doesn't even occur to her until hours later, that this is the first time she has done any substantial hacking in years. Guilt settles heavily in her gut. Four years ago Felicity had promised herself, vowed really, that she would never hack into anything ever again. She betrayed that promise. But on the other hand she would have betrayed herself if she became the reason why the Hood went to jail, or got killed. He was a killer, yes. But she owed him her life all the same.

That forgiving mood was whipped clean out though, exactly the next day, when her tablet pinged as she entered her apartment. Despite her soreness and overall dizziness, felicity was quick to snatch her table out of her bag and substitute the results with the false profile she had prepped beforehand – one that would lead the police to a dead end.

It wasn't until she saw the actual results, more out of curiosity that anything else, that her world cracked, just a little bit.

oOo

Oliver is still a bit shaken from the talk he had with Digg the other night, and again today, in a lost corner of the Glades.

Oliver is pretty familiar with murder. It's not something that he really thinks about anymore. The part of him that used to flinch at it was buried long ago. He had had to stop a lot of things throughout the years: he had to stop trusting, stop believing, hoping. He had to stop caring. Eventually he'd stopped feeling like a person, just as he stopped seeing other people as people. For the longest time that had been the only way to survive. What made him human had been just another thing that could kill him, so he'd stopped - and survived anyway. He'd become this… entity he was now. The kind of man who could stand having an old friend call him a criminal and a murderer to his face, without giving up. The kind of man had looked into John's eyes and dispassionately told him about how his father had killed a man and then shot himself in the head to ensure his son's survival.

Oliver had known going in, that he would have to be upfront with Digg if he wanted to have a chance at convincing him. Comparing his own dethatched retelling of one of the most horrible thing to have happened to him, and Digg's emotional response to that same event puts in contrast the differences between the two of them and Oliver is not unaware of that. There had been measured weariness on Diggle's face as Oliver explained him his reasons.

In the end, John had accepted his offer. It had been a relief, a tiny victory, but Digg's words kept ringing in Oliver's ears.

…with me, there'll be fewer casualties.

What Oliver had told Jon was true: he wasn't looking for salvation. He didn't really think there was a chance for him to obtain it, much less a possibility of him deserving it. But if he could do this one thing right, maybe all the ugliness and the horror he had been through could mean something. All that sacrifice could come to some conclusion, some purpose, instead of being just senseless pain.

You are fighting a war Queen, except you have no idea what war does to you. How it scraps off little pieces of your soul. And you need someone to remind you who you are, not this thing you've become.

But what John didn't seem to understand was that Oliver already had that person. His mother, his sister – they were a thought he tucked at the back of his head, needing them to remind him that not all the things in this word were broken… but it had been with Felicity that he had shared everything with. She was not a conscious thought, not really. But when he had been the only living person in that life-raft, she'd been with him. And later on the island, she'd been with him. Even now as he sat sharpening one of his arrows, she was with him, tucked at the corner of his vision, looking at him with that head tilt of hers, curious and knowing at the same time.

He hadn't see in her five days, ever since he dropped her at the hospital…

"Oliver!"

He looks up, surprised at the edge in Tommy's voice. When he sees what Tommy is seeing on his computer screen his heart almost stops beating.

"What…" his breathing shortens, his heard hammers in his chest, blood suddenly a rush in his veins. "What is she doing here?"

"How the hell should I know?!"

"We have to leave." And Oliver is already picking up one of his hoodies and a baseball cap.

"And leave her to snoop around here alone? Are you insane?"

"Then distract her! Get her out of here!" Oliver hisses, and Tommy knows that he'd rather roar, but doesn't want to be heard.

"Distract Felicity? Are we still talking about the same person?"

"Tommy!"

"Look, she is not here by coincidence, because where Felicity is concerned, they don't exist." Tommy insists and he can practically hear Oliver growling (but he is not fooled – he knows what panic looks like in his friend's eyes.) "Look just let me handle it."

Tommy gets out from the back door, just as Oliver melts in the shadows, a tiny voice in his head accusing him that this was all his fault, because he has thinking about her and dreaming about her and if someone told him right now that he had made this happen through the sheer force wishing her with him, Oliver would have believed it… for two full seconds, at least.

oOo

She is dressed in a pair of rarely-worn black jeans, old dusty boots that Tommy recalls were her style years ago, a black hoodie and a faded grey leather jacket that looks like has seen much better says. She is dressed, Tommy realizes, to fade in the background of the Glades, and it kinda makes him smile because of course Felicity would think better of standing out too much in a place like this. (she still does though, with her golden hair and her bright pink mouth. Someone should tell her that camouflage is more than the clothes on your back… or maybe not. It's not in her nature to fade in the background anyway.)

Its really not that encouraging that she can calculate those kind of details. It shows she put some serious thought into this, which will make derailing her about as likely as derailing a train.

Less likely, really. A train he could handle. Felicity Smoak – less so.

"H-hey Felicity. What are you doing here?" he tries to keep his tone light, natural. As if him hanging out in an old factory in the Glades is a pure coincidence and there's nothing amiss. Her eyes widen when she sees him, her mouth falling open, but then her eyes narrow in suspicion.

"Tommy Merlyn." She says his name as if its brand new. "What are you doing here?"

"I could as you the same thing."

"You could yeah." She says and then turns back to her tablet, walking by him as if he's not there at all. Tommy follows her immediately.

"What are you doing?" But one look at her table tells him exactly what she's doing. She's tracing a signal – a signal that happens to come from straight beneath them. Tommy grits his teeth against the curses that come up.

"Felicity!"

"Stop it, Tommy." She snaps, turning to him with anger in her eyes. "Stop pretending and stop trying to distract me. I may be blonde Merlyn, but I'm the farthest thing from stupid you will ever meet in your life, so don't. even."

"What are you talking about?" he tries again, but its useless because she is already plugging her tablet into the electronic lock that will lead her straight into the basement and into Oliver's little hideout.

She cracks the security in less than 20 seconds and Tommy swears. She gives him a single raise brow as she opens the door and walks in. Tommy stops her by catching her elbow before she has taken another step.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"Let go of me." She hisses at him and Tommy feel like shaking some sense into her.

"Do you have any idea…"

"I know exactly what I'm doing Merlyn. And you need to get your hands off me please."

"What you're doing is trying to go into the hideout of a known killer."

Felicity raises her chin at him, shaking his hand loose.

"Yeah, I am. A killer who saved my life." But instead of walking in, she steps right into Tommy's space. "You know, I thought I heard you that night. Later, I was convinced I must have been hallucinating, but now I find you here." She scoffs. "I wasn't hallucinating was I."

She walks away, straight into the basement and this time, Tommy swears out loud, and followed right after her.

She walks slowly, taking everything in with sharp eyes that miss no details. Tommy wearily follows after her.

"Huh. This is underwhelming, but not unexpected." She says as she stops in front of the computers, presses a couple of buttons, opening three windows at the same time. "For someone who has half of SCPD after him, the Hood's network looks like it's from the '80; and not even the good part of the '80. You should talk to him about that." She leans in a bit, opens a few more windows and then rolls her eyes. "It was almost easy to find him; kinda made me wonder nobody else has."

Tommy huffs.

"Nobody I know can do what you can with computers."

Felicity just shrugs that off. "And I had access to police evidence. That hacking arrow was cute, but it wasn't so hard to trace its originating signal to here."

But her ramble doesn't have its usual spark. She sounds something between utterly disinterested and gearing up for a Yellowstone-sized eruption.

"So… the idea that I might be the Hood didn't even cross you mind? I gotta say, I feel insulted." and he makes an effort to sound like a flake, the way he figures the old him would have, but Felicity's unflinching look nips that one in the bud. She's not buying his bullshit.

God, when has she ever.

"I know you're not the vigilante, Tommy. And don't even try play your way around this."

Tommy winces, but keeps his mouth shut, because anything else would make this a lot harder than it needs to be. He watches her wearily as she moves around, eyeing the rows of arrows, the bow, the supplies. The mess…

Tommy's breath catches when she picks up the bow like it's a toy and tests its way in her hands, pulls back the string. He itches to look back into the shadows – he would pay good money to see the look on Oliver's face in that moment. But the shadows of the foundry don't move. The silence is as deep as if they were alone.

"Not to be cute or anything… but why are you so convinced I'm not him?" Tommy asks, because he is honestly curious. Felicity pins him with an unyielding look.

"Timing." She says, almost dismissively. "Temperament. Height, build, inclination, Laurel. Pick one."

Tommy rolls her eyes at her. He doesn't miss how she doesn't say that he wouldn't be physically capable of it though, which sets Tommy's teeth on edge, as everything else about Felicity when she gets real observant.

"This bow has put arrows in quite a few people." She says in a tone that is maybe absent minded, maybe flat. Tommy cant tell, he cant get a red on her this time.

"Bad people."

She looks at him then, and Tommy ahs the urge to flinch away from her gaze, to close his eyes, something. He likes Felicity, she is one of the people he holds dearest, but he has rarely allowed himself to be truly open around her. He can't: she notices things and there are things about himself Tommy doesn't want noticed. But he's both off guard and off kilter here and he hasn't the first idea of how to gain back his footing without fucking everything up.

"That doesn't bother you? Because I've always had this feeling you were the kind of guy it would bother."

Tommy wishes he were better at reading her in that moment – not the generic body language, but the thoughts behind her words. He wishes she wouldn't have steered the conversation in this particular direction, because if she rejects the Hood and Oliver hears it, Tommy doesn't know what would happen after that.

Its too much responsibility for one person to carry, especially if they don't know the power they hold in their hands. It's cruel to allow it, but this whole mess is on Oliver's hands for not coming clean to her before things got so fucked up. It's as if the idiot loves to set himself up for disaster!

"I haven't killed anyone, if that's what you're asking." Tommy says softly.

"But he has."

Tommy exhales a long breath.

"I really don't know what you want me to say Felicity. I guess… if I had to see his way, to would say this whole thing is a war to him. And wars always have casualties."

"Collateral damage you mean." She specifies, eyes sharp and unyielding.

Tommy bites his lips, shoving his hands in his pockets.

"You could call it that, I guess. Is this really what you're here to talk about?"

Felicity puts the bow down, very carefully and turns to look at him in the face, her no-nonsense expression on. The one she wore whenever she was about to tear a new asshole to someone who had blocked the old one with their own head. And Tommy has sharp enough instincts to know that if he feels like he's about to be hit with a ton of bricks, it's probably because its true.

"No. I'm here because the Hood saved my life, and because I believe that despite his methods, he is trying to right some wrongs in this city - and I respect that. I came here, because I believe in second chances, and this was supposed to be me giving him one." Felicity spoke calmly all the while even though she had not been looking him. But then she raised her eyes to his and they burned with anger.

She was anything but indifferent, no matter how even her voice sounded.

"But then I find you here…" she says between gritted teeth and Tommy doesn't understand why that particular part of this whole thing should make her so angry, but then Felicity goes on… and he gets it.

"The police had the Hood on camera when he dropped me off at the Glades Hospital – ATM from across the street. She took my clothes for processing and recovered a partial print off it. I hacked into the database and manipulated the results."

She says it as if it's nothing. As if it's the weather. Tommy feels himself go pale at her words.

Because Oliver had a record, didn't he. And that meant…

Oh shit… Oooh shit!

Her amusement as she watches realization sink into him is anything but funny. She looks bitter, and sad and angry…

"So you knew then." She nods, lips pursing in the way they always do when she is angry. The minute way she shakes her head speaks of disappointment though. "You know, if it had been just the Hood using a dead man's fingerprints for convenience, or because he thought it was funny, I could have found it within me to let it go… after a while. But this isn't some random person in leather and a stupid bow; this is you, Tommy." She inhales brokenly, and the anger falls away, leaving only heartbreak behind.

"Oliver's fingerprints Tommy? Really?" She whispers, but she might as well have screamed. "How could you do it? How could you even consider it?"

Tommy swallows heavily. So she hasn't understood then. Of course she hadn't: she thought Oliver was dead. He had been dead to her for years. It was a lot less painful to come to terms with that than to life with hope permanently lodged into your heart like a splinter.

He watches then, as the hurt fades, leaving its place to a steadily growing anger, and though it makes him decidedly a coward, Tommy prefers it, because honest to god, even though he had wanted Oliver to bring Felicity into this, not that Tommy faces firsthand the possibility of her heartbreak, he finds himself scared shitless. He has no idea how to deal with it and hell if that doesn't make him empathize all of a sudden with Oliver's certainty that she would never ever forgive either of them for this.

So yeah, her anger is easier to handle.

He opens his mouth, but she stops him with a raised hand, glaring at him something fierce.

"I don't need you to answer that. I am past caring and frankly at this point it doesn't even matter. Here's what does: you and you new BFF in the leather tights are going to find someone else to be your cover. Anyone else. God help me, I will reproduce a pair of fake fingerprints for him myself if I have to, but if I ever…" she clenches her jaw, nostrils flaring as she tries to calm down. When she speaks next she is not looking at Tommy anymore, but at the deep shadows and groves surrounding them, as if she knows Oliver is there, listening even though there is no way she could possibly.

"If I ever get wind of you pining your murders on Oliver Queen's memory again, I promise you I'm gonna devote my considerable talents to burying you so far in the ground that the heat from the earth's core with incinerate your sorry ass."

"You think threatening a murderer is the way to go here, Felicity?" Tommy doesn't know what makes him ask her that. The words are out of his mouth before he even is aware that he is speaking. But maybe its not her he is trying to rile up. Maybe it's the idiot hiding in there from her.

When Felicity turns her narrowed eyes to him though, Tommy almost thinks better of it.

"I don't care." She hisses at him. "And don't think for a moment you're home free here Merlyn. Does Laurel know?"

Tommy freezes at the mention of laurel's name.

"And don't bother lying to me about it Tommy – you're pathetically bad at it. You go stone cold when you try, and I can tell a mile away, so just be honest."

Tommy winces at that and it costs him some effort to answer but he does.

"No. no she doesn't."

Her anger makes Felicity's lips thinner. "That's just great. Awesome. Lie to her some more, why don't you."

"Felicity…" and it's a warning, but she is clearly past the point of caring.

"Don't you 'Felicity' me when you're the one in need of a reality check. So let me remind you, Merlyn, that your stupid neck is not entirely yours to risk anymore, because you seem to have forgotten that. Next time you make a stupid decision, take the time to look back to the wreck that will be right behind you[1]."

Tommy is frankly surprised by how much her words sting. He has been trying to impress that same idea into Oliver for a while – that, though he hasn't seen them in years, he still has people who love him and need him alive - and it hasn't taken at all. Maybe later, he will be thankful that Felicity did say that, because maybe now that she's said it, Oliver might actually listen. But in that moment, he is annoyed – because she is talking about something she has no idea about… and it's still uncomfortably close to the truth.

It makes him snap back for exactly that reason.

"What is it that bothers you so much Felicity? That I was complicit to using my dead best friend's fingerprints and that was disrespectful, or that people might add murder to the list of Oliver's fuckups?"

He feels like shit the second the words are out of his mouth. He wants to reach in front of him, grab at them and pull them back in, because they were petty and mean and he didn't mean them at all.

He opens his mouth to apologize, but the way he startles her into looking at him in the eye, her devastated reaction choking the apology before he can utter the words.

Because yes, it bothered her that the memory of a man so dear to her was being brought back this way. It bothered her that, had the press gotten wind of it, the whole thing would have blown all over Thea's face, and Moira's, and that would have hurt them in the soul (she knew it would because that's the way it had hurt her). It bothered her that the flair of shock and hope she had felt had been instantaneous and it had almost cracked her open before she realized that it was impossible and dissolved into tears for the first time in years.

Yes, it bothered her! Everything about this bothered her, but the only reason Tommy Merlyn got was a slap to the face.

He didn't even try to flinch away from it.

"I'm sorry." She hears him say softly, as she rubs her stinging fingers together. "I didn't meant that."

Felicity feels her breath whoosh out of her, and just like that, her anger drains out too and all she has left is an unbelievable exhaustion that reaches all the way to her bones.

Her shoulder slump and she sits at the side of the closest table, pulling her arms around herself, as if to hold herself together. Thank god Tommy gets that she doesn't need comforting, because she doesn't think she would be able to handle it right now.

She looks around, takes in the darkness and dingy appearance of this little cave and she can see nothing but pain in it.

"I'm sorry too." She says after a while. "I shouldn't have slapped you."

"I deserved it." Tommy admits as he sits beside her.

"You did. But I still shouldn't have slapped you."

Tommy huffs out a breath chuckle. Silence settles between them and its not so tense as before. They're both exhausted.

"It's been years since I've thought so much about him… and now he's everywhere, and I can't escape him." He hears her confess in a whisper, as if she is afraid of speaking those words any louder. Afraid of what they might do to her.

Tommy turns to look at her. "What do you mean, everywhere?"

But Felicity shakes her head, dismissing her own words, even though Tommy can see that it wasn't just a slip of tongue. And now that he is closer and there is a bit more light, he can see her better and she looks pale, and tired and there are dark circles under her eyes. She looks like she hasn't had a good night's sleep in a long while and Tommy asks himself if its because of the shooting, or the poisoning… or finding out that the city Vigilante is running around with your dead boyfriend's fingerprints.

"It won't work." Felicity says after long moments, her voice breaking a little (deep in the shadows, hidden up in the rafters, Oliver knows she is holding back tears by a breath or two, but Tommy doesn't. He doesn't know her that well.)

"What?"

"This. Whatever it is that you're doing. This!" and she points all around her at the foundry – and Tommy finally understands. His spine straightens just a tiny bit, he shifts his weight uncomfortably from one foot to another.

"It won't work." Felicity repeats, looking at him in the face this time, with big, sad eyes.

Tommy huffs out a fake laugh. "You make it sound as if helping a leather-wearing vigilante chase down the worst scum of Starling with a bow and arrows is a lunatic idea."

But even as he delivers that line, his tone falls flat at the end, because of the look she gives him: she absorbs his levity and Tommy can see that instead of lightening the tension, it actually hurts her.

(The small breath she lets out actually sounds like a whimper, and Oliver cringes at the sound of it.)

"Whatever you're trying to do here… none of this will bring him back, Tommy." Felicity murmurs softly, eyes shining with the strength of the emotions she was containing. And when confusion clouds Tommy's eyes, she shakes her head. There are tears in her eyes that she is stubbornly refusing to let fall, but she can't help the way her voice thickens with emotion, the way it trembles. "He is not coming back. And I know he was your person, but he's gone. Forever. And there's nothing… nothing…" her breath catches in her throat, the words failing her, but Felicity refuses to let this get the better of her. (a small, cowardly part of her that has never said these words aloud, not in 5 years, wishes she had never come here) "There is nothing we can do that is going to bring him back! So this – this whole thing you're doing, you have to stop before you get yourself hurt, or worse."

She turns away from him, hides her face

"You have to, Tommy."

Tommy takes a deep breath.

"I'm not really helping him, you know. I just… come down here sometimes."

Her disbelief is transparent on her face. "What, to keep him company?"

Tommy shrugs. "Yeah."

He hears her sign deeply. "I guess I must be lonely for him. Just… just be careful Tommy. You have too many people who love you, who count on you to be safe."

Tommy nods, laurel's face flashing in front of him, Thea's smile. He hoped to god Oliver was listening this because if there ever was a reality-cold-shower, this was it.

"You want me to take you home?" he asks, falling back into the familiarity of their relationship. Her sigh is tired, but there's a small smile curving her lips.

"It's ok, I drove here. Bye Tommy."

"Bye Felicity."

oOo

When she walks into her office later that night and the vigilante's voice comes at her from her from one of the dark corners, Felicity almost jumps a foot up in the air and the only thing stopping her scream is the fact that she slapped her own hand over her mouth.

"Easy, miss Smoak. I'm not here to hurt you."

Felicity takes a deep breath, and then another. Takes a step back too and wonders why oh why she hadn't turned back when she realized that the lights wouldn't turn on, instead of walking to her desk.

She steels herself though, looks blindly in the dark, not seeing him at all but at least having a vague idea where he might be.

"Why are you here for then?"

She would have liked to say that she sounds as determined as she did that afternoon, but the truth is that there's a tremble to her voice, because she is afraid. It doesn't matter thought. She'd been afraid out of her mind earlier today as well, but that hadn't stopped her from walking in that little cave this man had set up for himself.

"I came to say thank you." The mechanical voice scraps at her nerves making it even more eerie when the shadows move, his siluete emerging from the darkness. "And that I'm sorry."

Felicity blinks in surprise, not knowing what to say to that. Maybe it's her imagination, but even beneath the distortion of his voice modulator, she things she can hear the hint of real feeling in his voice… and that scares and confuses her. Felicity had expected a whole lot of things, mainly not so nice things from this man – but it had never occurred to her that the Hood might actually apologize. (which was why she had set up a virtual tracking system on her person and linked it to Quentin's phone – it would have gone off with the fury of seven hells if she hadn't checked up within the hour). It sounded almost unbelievable… but then why should it? There was a person underneath that hood, wasn't there. A person. And a person would apologize for hurting another person's feelings… (if said person didn't have a reputation as a ruthless killer, that is, but that's details apparently.)

Felicity manages a stiff nod in his general direction.

"Um, thank you too. For before. With the bullet… and the poison. Yeah. Thank you."

Wow, that was now. She hadn't been this nervous in a long time, not since she was a kid. But instead of babbling into tangents she actually bit her tongue and kept it short.

He steps back into the shadows and only then does Felicity remember…

"Wait!"

And wow, he actually does, turning the blankness of his hood towards her. The fact that he listened floors her for a second, but she recovers quickly.

"Why did you help me? I mean, there were others that… why me? And then before that, with that file. Do I need to be concerned here?"

It was so stupid asking him these questions. He could lie and she'd never know. She could be playing right into his game, whatever that was. He could be a dangerous sociopath (and the whole murder thing really pointed in that direction)… but for some reason, it had felt really important asking him that. She wanted to hear his answer. She wanted to judge him off those answers, whatever they might, for whatever reasons given, and not keep herself guessing anymore.

"I helped you, because doing nothing was not a choice I could live with. And I gave you that file because you seem like someone who would appreciate it. And no, you have nothing to fear from me, Miss Smoak."

There's a strange finality to his tone, but then again, that might very well be the creepiness of the modulator.

"Right. Ok then. So we're like, even now?"

"Yes."

Felicity nods jerkily. "Good. Awesome. For future reference, if you want to sneak into my office again – don't! it's creepy and it wigs me out. And don't nail stuff on my walls, I don't deal very well with… all pointy things. Which… you do not need to know. Or care about. Just, you know, start thinking about the virtues of knocking, maybe?"

She could have sworn she heard a huff, something that might easily have been a chuckle if it weren't for the deep tone of it that made it sound almost like a cough. Maybe it was a cough. Wow, she was starting to run around in circles in her head. Adrenaline was so not her friend.

"I will take that under consideration." He says and wow, maybe she really is insane but he sounds like me might be smiling. Definitely not so doom and gloom as before. "One last thing."

Felicity waits, all ears, for him to talk.

"I do not… wear tights." He says slowly – and Felicity's eyebrows shoot up for her hairline. The silence between them stretches.

"Oh wow… is that a joke, or a threat?" She hears that breathy huff again and ok, that was definitely a chuckle. He doesn't answer her, but she kinda gathers it was a joke, which wow… way worse. "It might have been better if it were a threat."

"Goodnight miss Smoak."

She opens her moth but her breath catches when she sees him jump out of the window… of a twentieth floor.

"Ok, that is awesome… just a tiny bit." She says to herself. But then shakes her head, banishing the thought. "For a vigilante with an archery fetish, anyway."

[1] I am so sorry for dragging 'Highschool Musical' into this, but this line rocks ;P