AN: Here it is, the last chapter. I feel like some of you might have been mislead about this story, and I'm sorry about that. This story was never about action; it was about the aftermath. Thank you for reading this far, and I hope you're not disappointed.

Felicity has been living her life in numbers. She thinks that Slade started some sort of clock for her, a countdown of her life and the moments that define it; Felicity hates it. Now, when she thinks back on her life of before, it has a timeless quality to it. Time has always mattered - it always will, to creatures who are gifted with only a limited supply of it - but it had flowed so smoothly before; she had marked its passage, but not like this. Now, Felicity can't help feeling like she's lurching through the days, rather than gliding. She can't get the numbers out of her head: six days with Slade, four in the hospital, five with her family … the clock has started, and now all Felicity hears is the ticking. If there is a way to make it stop, then she does not know of it.

A full seven days passes before Felicity can work up the courage to call Oliver. She's devoted many hours of thought to the contemplation of a woman that she'll never meet, and when she finally picks up the phone it's because she needs to know. She needs to know whatever Oliver remembers; whatever he will tell her.

Oliver rarely looks nervous, but when she opens her front door to let him into her apartment, that's the only way she can describe it. His hands are stuffed in his pockets again. Oliver looks much younger as he stands quietly in her home - more like the boy she imagines sailed away on his family yacht, and less like the vigilante businessman she's come to care about.

"Are you hungry?" Felicity asks as she leads him to the couch. "I just ordered a pizza. Got here right before you did."

"No, thanks."

Now that he's here, Felicity doesn't know where to start, or how. She wrings her hands together as they sit down on her couch, then realizes what she's doing and forces herself to stop. Oliver leaves an entire cushion of space between them, which doesn't seem like much in relation to his size. Felicity tucks her feet up beneath her; Oliver rests his forearms on his thighs and leans forward - away from her. She can't decide if the position is meant to block her out, or something else in.

Felicity knows that whatever question she asks is going to hurt him. Any answer he gives will be new information for her, a second-hand story drained of any emotion that experience would give it; there will be no such mercy for Oliver. A story for her is a memory for him, and she knows him well enough to know that time may have taken the sting out of it, but not the weight. She shifts her legs beneath her, uncomfortable with the knowledge that this conversation is going to hurt him - and that she fully intends to have it anyway. A big part of Felicity hopes that there's some part of Oliver that wants to share the memories with her - that wants to tell her about Shado - because he had offered to tell her about the other woman, and he had came when she called. So maybe, just maybe, they'll both be able to gain something from the experience.

"Um." What a great start, Felicity chides herself.

Oliver tucks his chin down, into his chest, so that his voice is muffled when he speaks. "You want to know about Shado."

It's not a question. "Please," Felicity says quietly.

He doesn't say anything for a while. Felicity envies Oliver's ability to remain motionless for so long.

"Shado was … brave. And patient. I loved her, and … I couldn't save her."

Felicity doesn't interrupt him. Oliver doesn't move from his hunched over position so she closes her eyes and focuses on his voice and the picture he's painting for her. She lets the gravity and tremors in his tone fall away; all that matters is the story he's telling and the woman that Felicity can never know.

The longer she listens, the more certain Felicity becomes that Shado would have been someone that she would have liked to know. Not for the first time - or even the hundredth - Felicity wishes that life had worked out differently for all of them. What sort of people would they have been if the island had never happened?

Oliver tells her about Shado, about how he hadn't known she'd existed until Yao Fei had worked to free her from the men holding her; he tells her about Shado's smile and how in control she always seemed, and how he'd been oblivious to Slade's feelings for her until it was too late. He tells her about Shado in ways that have less to do with words and more to do with the emotions that still color them, all these years later. Hearing Oliver talk about Shado makes Felicity wonder how he would have talked about her if he hadn't been able to save her. What sort of effect has she had on his life, she wonders. What sort of lasting impression would she leave?

Would she leave one at all?

"I'm sorry."

Felicity's eyes snap open. Oliver hasn't moved, his back is still to her, but he's raised his head and seems to be staring at one of the paintings on her wall.

"What?"

He sounds so sincere, but she's not sure what he's apologizing for.

"For everything. For bringing you into all this, for putting you in danger, for Slade. I thought I could protect you. That we could protect you."

A lot of Felicity's life has been disturbed - turned on its head - in the last few weeks. Many of the things that she had taken for granted as immutable truths have been shaken to their foundations; all of her certainties have become variables. Despite this, and the struggles that she has been fighting her way through recently, there is one thing that has remained the same; one truth that she whole heartedly believes in.

"Oliver." She uncurls herself and leans forward, reaching out to put a hand on the curve of his back. "What happened wasn't your fault."

"Slade only went after you because he wanted to hurt me."

"I'm not just talking about me. You aren't responsible for anyone's actions but your own. What happened to Shado was terrible, but it wasn't your fault. And I'm sure she'd tell you the same, if she could."

"You can't know that, Felicity."

"Not with complete certainty, no," she agrees. "But from what you've told me of Shado, I'm willing to bet that I'm not wrong."

"I chose to save Sarah. Why wouldn't Shado blame me?"

"Because I don't."

Oliver finally glances at her over his shoulder. Felicity feels like she should offer him some sort of smile, to reassure him maybe, but she can't form her lips into the proper figure. Truthfully, she doesn't feel smiling; she doesn't want Oliver to hurt, but nothing about their conversation merits something even close to a grin. Instead, she slides her hand down his back a little in a tiny imitation of a soothing rub and cocks her head until their eyes meet.

"No one could have made that choice, Oliver. It was impossible, and Slade Wilson knew that. And so did Shado."

And so does Felicity. The moment that she'd understood what Slade was going to do she'd known that it was an impossible situation, and that any outcome would irreparably damage someone - namely Oliver. The man with the eyepatch hadn't cared about anything but the loss that would have been left in his wake; the same loss that he had undoubtedly lived with for all those years. A loss that he hadn't been able to reconcile, and had eventually given himself over to.

That's the difference between Oliver and Slade Wilson. One had let Shado's loss consume him; the other has found a way to make her death mean something. Oliver has incorporated Shado's memory into his quest to be a better man - to save the city he loves - and Felicity knows that there is no higher honor from Oliver Queen.

"I hope you're right," Oliver says quietly. He straightens and turns a little in his seat to look at her more fully, her hand sliding off of his back as he does so. "I won't blame you if you want out, Felicity. I can leave right now and you don't ever have to see me again, or come back to the club. You can have your old job in IT back, or you don't even have to come back to QC. Whatever you need, it's yours."

Part of the reason Felicity has been staying away - from the lair, from Oliver and Sarah and Digg - is because she's been asking herself that very question. What do I need? She's been trying to figure out not only what she wants, but what she needs to repair the damage that has been done. Finding balance is a challenge, because there are so many answers that Felicity just doesn't have; she doesn't know exactly what's been damaged. Sometimes she feels like Slade's shadow is worse than those six days in his actual presence were, because she doesn't know how to fight off a shadow.

Now here Oliver is, telling her that he'll give her whatever she needs; even if what she needs is for him to disappear.

But that's not what she needs, and it's not what she wants.

"I need … pizza. And a movie."

Oliver is startled by her answer, both eyebrows rising toward his hairline as he regards her. "Okay," he says, drawing out the last syllable. "I'll leave you to it then."

Felicity had refused her family's offer to stay with her because she was frightened that they would be in danger just by being around her. She has cut herself off from almost everyone outside of the little circle of vigilantes and accomplices that she's surrounded herself with. Watching Oliver stand to leave makes her think of Sarah and the way she'd hugged her; it makes her think of Sarah's reassurance that Felicity would be okay, and that they were there if she needed them.

Felicity does; she does need them, even if she doesn't always have a full of understanding of why or how they can help.

"Or you could pick a movie?"

Oliver stands in the space in front of her for long moments, studying her as if her words have a double meaning that he's trying to ferret out.

"Are you sure?"

This time Felicity does smile. She pulls herself to her feet, standing several inches shorter than she usually does with her shoes, and has to crane her head back to look up at him. Oliver still makes her nervous in ways that he didn't before; Felicity doesn't know if she'll ever be able to look at him again without feeling the terrifying weightlessness of falling, but she hopes so.

No matter how broken Felicity feels; no matter how she worries about whether or not she'll find a way through this mess; no matter how frightened she is; there is one thing that she still has, one shining beacon that can guide her like a lighthouse in a storm: hope.

Slade Wilson had tried to destroy her. A man she had never met had kidnapped her and tried to poison her against the man she … well, a man she cared about. Slade had tried to rewrite the things that Felicity knew about Oliver - about herself; in some ways, he had succeeded. But as Felicity takes a ginger step forward, into Oliver's personal space, and feels his arms come up to clasp her against his chest in a hug, she knows that Slade has ultimately failed.

What happened to her isn't Oliver's fault. She may have doubted him - maybe even still does, a little - but she believes in him, and she has hope; not only for Oliver, but for all of them. Hope for herself, that she will eventually heal and shake off the memory of the man with the eye patch.

Slade has failed, not because he's dead, but because he hadn't accounted for all that Felicity has: a loving family, good friends, and, most importantly - hope.

"Pick something lighthearted, okay?" she mutters into Oliver's shirt.

Oliver's chuckle is like thunder beneath her cheek. "Okay."