I originally posted the first chapter of this as part of a one-shot collection of mine named Dust to Dust. I decided I wanted to expand on that one-shot and write a series based on it, so I'm moving it here.

This group of "one-shots" are all part of the same story/journey and timeline and will be posted in chronological order, but they can be read as stand-alones.

The title comes from Sonnet XVII by Pablo Neruda.

Special thanks to rummyjoe for the beta work!

As I wrote in the summary, I'll update this every day until it's complete. Okay, here goes!

Oliver finally locates Felicity when he parts a sea of A.R.G.U.S. agents, shoving through the crowd of them gathered on the street outside the treatment plant. Slade's long gone, ushered away in handcuffs by Waller and two large men. Now they just have to tend to the business of the aftermath: rebuilding the city and chasing away the demons this night unleashed within all of them.

His heart skips when he sees her, looking shaken but trying like hell to hide it. She's hugging her arms to her body, shivering, and Oliver can't contain the rage that bubbles up inside him. He yells at anyone who will listen, doesn't someone have a blanket? Seconds later, a small woman in a paramedic's uniform is placing one in his hands. He shakes it open and wraps it around her shoulders, gathers the edges in his grip and pulls her close, right against his chest. He winds his arms around her and holds on tight, like somehow he'll be able to cocoon her inside his body, carry her around with him to keep her safe.

He risked too much tonight, put her life and her heart on the line. And now that they're both standing on the other side of the fight, safe from one madman even though others are waiting for them just over the horizon, Oliver's not sure if the risk was worth it. Felicity has withdrawn into herself, and he knows how she feels. He's all too familiar with the emotional crash that comes when you finally start to realize all the fears the adrenaline chased away. He never wanted her to become familiar with it too, but she's too far in now, he won't ask her to leave. In fact, he holds her tighter. She'll keep pushing him along the path to becoming a hero and he'll always come up just short, because he doesn't think he'll ever stop being selfish when it comes to her.

He told her he loved her. It was a stupid, reckless thing, but he couldn't help himself when he was faced with the grim reality of what he was asking her to do. He wonders if she knows he wasn't lying, but does it really matter? Those words have consequences whether she knows he meant them or not, and Oliver wonders what his will be. What will he do if their relationship changes? What will he do if it doesn't?

"Are you okay?" Oliver whispers. He waits for an answer, gets a feeble nod against his chest in return. He needs to see her face, so he crooks his fingers beneath her chin and tilts her head up. Her eyes are watery, but she won't cry, and he traces the pad of his thumb along the delicate curve of her lower lip.

He wants to kiss her; warm and slow, until his mouth chases the chill from her body and the doubt from her heart. It would be such a comforting thing, but she pulls away and turns her head, quietly tells him that she wants to go home.

He nods, tosses the blanket aside, and leads her to the alleyway where he stashed his bike. She settles onto the seat behind him and he reaches back, sliding his hands over hers and guiding them into his jacket pockets. He didn't bring a helmet so he tells her to hold on tight, press her cheek against his back and close her eyes.

The rumbling engine shatters the early morning silence, and they ride off into the night.

Felicity's in the shower for a long time, stretching the limits of her hot water heater.

Oliver sits, hunched over her tiny kitchen table, staring at the delicate flowered pattern on her tablecloth. He balances a small plate on his knee, on top of which is his attempt at dinner. On the island, he learned how to cook a rabbit to perfection. With an open flame, he could turn a fresh kill into the perfect meal. Here—in a modern kitchen—he's lost. But he knows how to use a knife, so ham and cheese it is. He just hopes that she'll eat it.

Eventually Felicity pads into the kitchen with her wet hair piled on top of her head, her small frame drowning in a fluffy pink bathrobe. He pushes the plate toward her. She looks at the sandwich, picks at the crust. The shower washed away a lot of the blood from her head wound, and only now can he see how large the gash truly is. Someone should've given her stitches. He should take her to the hospital now, but she'd fight him and that's the last thing he wants. He reaches over and skims his finger along the edge of the bruise that's blooming just below Felicity's hairline, and tries to ignore the ache in his chest when she flinches at his touch.

Not used to silence when he's around her, Oliver stares down at his lap, picking at a hangnail as he works up the courage to ask the question he's afraid of hearing the answer to. It gets caught in his throat every time he attempts to ask it, until the words finally just spill out.

"Did he hurt you?"

She looks up from her sandwich and there's no warmth in her eyes; Oliver feels like he's looking at a stranger. It's disconcerting, but he buries the feeling. This isn't about him.

"No," she says quietly, then shakes her head. "Not in the way that you think."

Oliver stops breathing and squares his shoulders, ready to fight an invisible enemy. "What did-"

Felicity's chair scrapes loudly against the floor, and Oliver watches her disappear up the stairs. He waits an hour for her to come back down.

She doesn't.

The buttery yellow slice of light shining through the crack beneath Felicity's bedroom door leads Oliver down the hallway like some kind of beacon. He raises his hand to knock, but thinks better of it. She won't talk to him until she's ready, and he'll wait. Maybe it's time he was the one waiting on her for a change.

Exhausted from the events of the night, Oliver leans against the wall, rests his weight there until his legs can't hold him up anymore and he slides down onto the floor. His head lolls back against the doorframe and he closes his eyes. Not for the first time, he wonders what his life would've been like if he hadn't gotten on the Gambit. He wonders what would've happened after his relationship with Laurel ended, once she found out about Sara. About all the others.

How long would it have taken him to grow up and get his shit together? Would he have started working at QC like his father wanted him to? He imagines running into Felicity at Big Belly during the lunch rush, asking if he could sit with her because there weren't any other open tables. He'd hold out his QC badge so she'd know he wasn't trying to put the moves on her, and she'd do the same. They'd talk about work. She'd tease him about how quickly he ate, and he'd laugh at the way she flipped her burger over and reassembled it from the bottom up before she would eat it. She always does that. He thinks it's cute in this life, he would've thought it was cute in that one.

He would've loved her in that life, too. He wonders if she could have loved him.

Their plane to China is ready to board, and Oliver stands, slinging his duffel over his shoulder. He picks up Felicity's bag with his free hand, then looks down at her. She's still in her seat, all hunched over her tablet.

"What are you doing?" Oliver asks. She still isn't talking much, but she's coming around.

She looks up at him, her eyes brighter than they have been in hours. There are bags under them though, she needs to sleep. On the plane he'll insist.

"I'm researching," she says.

"Researching what?" He steels himself, a little worried about the answer.

She presses the button that puts her tablet to sleep and stands. "Making transistor radios out of coconuts. You know, just in case we go Gilligan. I really hate that island, I'd never make it five years."

Oliver laughs, and the sound is so foreign that it surprises him, but it manages to draw a smile from Felicity. It's been at least day since he's seen one from her, much too long. He sighs, can't take his eyes off her.

God, he thinks. She's beautiful.