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Felicity turned in her bed again, huffing to herself in annoyance. She’d been trying to sleep for an hour now but Oliver’s words kept echoing in her mind.
“Are you keeping the door open for us?” he’d asked. She’d denied it to him and to herself but in the quiet of her bedroom, which used to be their bedroom, Felicity couldn’t lie. Now that he’d asked the question Felicity knew exactly why she’d kept her new boyfriend a secret from Oliver, and it wasn’t to protect him. It was because she didn’t want him to know that she was seeing someone so he wouldn’t start seeing someone. Because deep in her heart, Felicity held out hope that they would get back together.
“Fuuuuccckkkk,” she groaned not sure how she’d managed to lie to herself so thoroughly.
The next morning Felicity was waiting for Billy outside his apartment with a nervous smile.
“Got time for breakfast?” she asked.
“For you, of course,” he agreed grinning at her. Felicity suppressed her urge to twitch with guilt, still it had to be done. They settled at an outside table at a café down the street from Billy’s place and after getting their food Felicity took a fortifying sip of coffee before starting to speak.
“I, umm, I need to talk to you about something. Well, not just something, but a specific thing, about us…” Felicity started, clutching her fork. Billy froze for a moment before taking a deep breath and leaning back into his seat.
“Why do I have a feeling you’re about to tell us there isn’t going to be an us anymore?” he asked.
“Because you’re smart,” she blurted out, wincing right along with him at her own bluntness. “Shit, I’m sorry that was…really not a good way to put that,” Felicity apologized.
“No, but I’ll take blunt over drawn out,” Billy said. “Does this have anything to do with the conversation I had with the Mayor?” he asked tightly.
“No, it has to do with the fact that…I’m still in love with Oliver. I realized last night that the reason I was holding off on introducing you to people is because I’m holding out hope that he and I can fix things between us. Being with you while loving him isn’t fair to any of us, especially you,” Felicity explained quietly. After that there wasn’t much else to say to each other.
Felicity made her way into the lair and over to where Oliver was using the salmon ladder. She took a seat and watched him, smiling a wider as she noticed him flexing a bit more than necessary. Of course he knew she was watching. When he finished, Oliver jumped to the floor and casually picked up a towel wiping the sweat off his face. Felicity stood and walked over to the mini fridge, opening it and pulling out a bottle of water that she opened and offered to him wordlessly.
“What’s up?” he asked taking the bottle with a raised eyebrow.
“I lied to you last night. Not, you know on purpose or anything, it’s more like I lied to myself so I thought I was telling the truth, but I actually wasn’t, unintentionally,” Felicity babbled. Oliver couldn’t repress the smile her familiar speech pattern brought to his lips.
“Okay, what did you accidentally on purpose lie to me about?” he wanted to know.
“When you asked me the thing, about keeping the door open for us, yeah, total lie. I realized, after you were gone, that I’ve been rebounding with Billy and keeping it a secret because I’ve been holding out hope that we would get back together,” she confessed. A small, hopeful smile spread across his face.
“Are you still rebounding and keeping it a secret out of hope?” Oliver asked taking a step closer.
“No,” she said shaking her head at him. “No Oliver, I broke up with him this morning. So now I’m standing here in front of you hoping that…that we can still find a way to fix things between us. Tell me we can do that,” she said reaching out a hand for him. Oliver stepped forward, wrapping her in his arms and holding on tight letting out a laugh of pure happiness.
“That’s all I want Felicity, losing you has been a living nightmare. I can take losing the team, or my parents, but ruining things with you,” he shook his head in regret. “I should have told you, I should have told you everything,” Oliver confessed.
“You should have. Oliver I love you and I want us to be together but you have to do better,” she insisted pulling back enough to look him in the eye. “You need to be honest with me. I need you to swear to me that no matter what your instincts say, at the end of every day we will sit down and talk about everything. And I mean everything. No detail too small here, you’re sock has a hole in it you tell me. You find out you have a second cousin you didn’t know about you tell me, you have an uber dangerous and ridiculous idea for how to stop the bad guy that you’re absolutely sure I’m going to argue about and could put me in danger if I know about it you still fucking tell me. If you can’t do that, then tell me now Oliver because I can’t take one more hit to the trust we have in each other. Swear to me on our family Oliver,” Felicity insisted. Oliver crushed her against his chest, a sob hitching in his chest at the way she called them a family. Sliding to his knees Oliver captured her hands and looked up at her.
“I swear to you, on the family we want to build, the children we want to have, no more secrets. It’s not going to be easy, I’m…so many things have happened to burn the openness out of me, but I’ll do it. Every day we talk, Felicity I swear to you I don’t want to lose you. I know damn well if I fuck up again I’ll lose all of you, not just your love but your friendship. I swear, I will tell you everything,” Oliver promised.
Felicity slid to her knees in front of him, never losing hold of his hands as she did.
“Please don’t break my heart again, I can’t take it,” Felicity pleaded tears spilling down her cheeks. Oliver wrapped her gently in his arms, pressing a tender kiss to her lips and then her temple.
“I won’t, I won’t,” Oliver swore. The couple pressed soft kisses against each other, exchanging sincere words of renewed devotion until Felicity’s knees began to ache.
“You should come home with me,” Felicity said pulling back.
“So we can talk some more?” Oliver asked cautiously.
“Oliver, you should come home with me,” Felicity repeated with a soft smile.
“Home?” he repeated needing to make sure they were on the same page.
“Home,” Felicity confirmed with a nod as she stood and held out her hand to him. A beatific smile spread across his face as Oliver took her hand and stood. It didn’t take him long to tug on a shirt and stuff his clothes and the few belongings he hadn’t either left for her at the loft or put into storage, into his duffel. It was a matter of five minutes before they were riding the elevator up to street level and were on their way home her hand entwined with his. Home, the best word Oliver had ever heard.