A phrase I read, triggered a thought which triggered another. I blame free association for this entirely.

Or when Felicity takes matters into her own hands, sometime after the date which didn't quite work out. Set in season three.

"What are you thinking about?" Oliver asked, casting a sideways look at his blonde partner, laying on a grassy field next to him at two in the morning.

She didn't answer straight away.

"Kissing you."

His eyebrows skyrocketed and he began to choke on the water he swallowed after asking the question. The statement was so honest, unshadowed about what they should and shouldn't do, so much in fact that he had almost trouble remembering the list of reasons why doing so was practically forbidden, until the image of her bloodied, on their date like a theatre curtain, plunged down in front of his eyes. He tossed the water bottle in his hand to the side.

"Felicity look, I-"

The words tumbling out of his mouth came to a sudden stop, and his gaze travelled down despite it being too dark to see anything. Her beringed hand, accessorized for the mission few hours earlier, slowly, blindly found his.

"See that teapot over there?" She asked, lifting their intertwined hands towards the sky, whilst shuffling closer, to be in the same line of vision as him.

"Right there!"

The stars above them seemed to twinkle, as if appreciating the enthusiasm they have managed to elicit in Felicity.

"I think so?" he said tentatively.

"It's the Sagittarius constellation."

"Oh." His chest rose, as he took a deep breath. "Latin for the archer," he heard himself say.

He could almost feel her smile.

"It's supposed to represent the centaur Chiron. The half horse, half man who was said to have had a great heart. He wasn't the beast everyone came to expect from centurions. In fact, apart from his many talents such as archery, he came to mentor the likes of Hercules and Achilles and Jason." Felicity listed.

As much as he was impressed with her knowledge of mythology, he wondered where she was going with this; whether the Chiron was an allusion to himself in some bizarre sense, sans the obvious bow and a quiver of arrows.

"He tried to be so good, Oliver, that one day it came to bite him back. Hercules wounded Chiron with a poisoned arrow."

Frowning, he felt Felicity move her thumb along his hand that was still holding hers, making him realize that they were far too close. He promised himself, he would move, putting a respectable distance between them, injust a moment. He needed one more minute with her by his side before letting his sense of obligation and rationality take the dominant stance.

"Oliver you try to be so good, that you think by pushing me away, you're protecting me. But you're not. And you know what else? You're not protecting yourself either." She pushed herself to the side, so that she was facing him completely. He swallowed. He didn't want to have this conversation.

"By trying to be so righteous in the choices you make, by doing this- this thing you perceive as the best for everyone around, but putting yourself at the sideline, you're just stopping yourself from being happy."

"No Felicity, by knowing you're safe because you're not with me - that's the only way I can be content."

He heard her sigh loudly before plopping down to her back.

"Actually, you're wrong."

He let out a long, deep breath, trying to figure out what argument she would use now, to try shake his ground.

"When I was eleven one of my mother's more irascible boyfriends almost managed to kill me by throwing me out of the house - it was December, and far too cold." Taking a steadying breath, she continued, "When I was in college, I had a stalker - it took months to get back to normal after he was put in jail for drug dealing. When I started working in QS, one night on my way home, I had to stop at a convenience store- curdled milk and mouldy lasagne did not sound appetizing for dinner that night - so yeah I had to get some groceries, when an armed robber came in. Things escalated pretty quickly and he held a gun to my head. If the police hadn't arrived when they did, he would have shot me."

His jaw hurt from clenching it more at each of the revelations. "God, I'm so sorry." His hand travelled to her face, to brush her cheek.

"I didn't say this, so you'd feel sorry for me Oliver." His hand stilled against her skin. "What I'm trying to say is that for all you know, I could be hit by a bus tomorrow. By being good through pushing me away, it will still hurt if the said bus swipes me off my feet because you weren't there to remind me pay attention to the road" He nearly shook his head. Trust Felicity to use dark humour to illustrate a point.

"Danger is around us, but that's just life. You haven't increased my odds of coming face to face with it. It's always been there. But with you around, I don't feel I have to look over my shoulder. I just feel safe. I know you will not be always be there to make it alright, but when you are, I feel safe. And that's enough."

Turning back to face him, she whispered "I want you around, Oliver." Her head drew lower to his, and when her lips almost shyly at first, brushed his, he didn't pull away. She tasted like the honeycomb lipbalm she used, and coffee to which she was hooked for the past few days. So rather, than ignoring all what she said, and turning the other way, he took the time to learn how good her lips felt against his, to rummage his tongue against the scar which she told him she gained when her wisdom teeth had been removed.

He flipped them over so now she was laying beneath him, and kissed her harder.

When they pulled away to catch their breaths, he moved his head to her ear, and whispered "In two months, you'll be complaining about me having completely infiltrated your life, Felicity."

Rather than reassuring him that would not be the case, she looked excited. Excited and delighted. "Two months - I see you're planning this to be a long term occurrence," she said signalling to kiss by planting one on his jaw.

"I tried not to, but somebody just wouldn't have it."

"That somebody must be very wise," Felicity mumbled.

"Or just very stubborn." He said, kissing her again before she could answer, pushing the image of her in her red dress, on the cold medical table to the back of his mind.