Title: Come As You Are (As You Were)

Part 3 of 3: And I'll hold you closer if you go supernova

Genre: Romance, Drama, Hurt/Comfort

Rating: T

Word Count: 4,468

Characters: Felicity Smoak, Oliver Queen, Ray Palmer (mentioned)

Summary: To be standing with Felicity now—realizing that she was not the woman who he once depended on dangerously, but instead a new woman who no longer strove to impress him or prove her importance in his life—hurt immensely, it caused his heart to throb painfully in his chest and his brow to furrow heavily. All because he was still in love with her, she was still the only thing in his life he wanted, but couldn't allow himself to have. And she always would be.

A/N: Here's part 3. This is actually draft 4 of this chapter. Draft 1 just sucked, draft 2 I liked but I still didn't feel like it was the right way to end this fic (I may post it as its own stand alone oneshot) and draft 3 was scrapped before it even really got going. But then, suddenly, a few snippets of dialogue came to me and I really built the rest of the chapter around them.

I'm on Tumblr (signedxoxoxonelly), check me out there! I'm still learning the ropes, but hopefully I'll be more interesting on there soon. Maybe I'll post a deleted scene from this chapter? Or a snippet from one of the scrapped drafts?

Thank you to everyone who read, reviewed and favorited. This fandom is absolutely amazing when it comes to feedback and support. I cannot tell you all enough how thankful I am! I hope you enjoy this final installment, and I'm sorry it took so long to get it finished!

xoxoxoNelly

Disclaimer: The lyrics used in this chapter are from the song Shining by X Ambassadors. The fic title comes from Nirvana's song Come As You Are. I do not own either songs, nor do I own the characters of Arrow.

I've been living in the dark for a long, long time

But I see better at night

.

And I'll hold you closer if you go supernova

You will be, you will be

forever my shining, ever my shining star

ever my shining, ever my shining star

He would never be able to explain in words the way his heart palpitated arrhythmically the night that he saw her again, eight months after he told her they were nothing more than strangers.

The last thing Oliver had expected that night, as he limped back into the foundry—after another devastation of the Glades and another seemingly insurmountable foe—was Felicity Smoak.

She stood in the center of the foundry, surrounded by his equipment, his weapons—his life—his darkness. And she looked out of place and at home all in the same moment.

"Diggle said you were hurt."

The words barely registered with him as he stared at her, feeling his blood thrum through his veins, reminding him that he had survived yet another near death experience. He had scraped past the edge of oblivion once more to see the light of the sun breach the horizon line of Star City.

But he was underground, in his shadowed world. A hermit who rarely basked in the warm glory of the sun.

Yet, an artificial light shone brightly down there, ironically sending the shadows skittering away instead of creating more.

"Oliver."

He watched her approach him, but he barely heard her. Her mouth was moving, she was telling him something. His lips quirked as he realized she was babbling, though he had no idea what about. One of his ears was still ringing from a bomb explosion, and his brain was too overwhelmed by the fact that she was there, in his world, in his home.

She stopped suddenly, about two feet from him, her blue eyes wide behind her glasses and he finally, completely took her in.

Dark circles rimmed her lower lids, her ponytail was disheveled, short strands scraping her forehead. Her blouse was untucked from her pencil skirt on one side, and her feet were bare—her heels discarded a few feet away, next to her desk where her bay of computer screens was located.

He mentally cringed at the way he referred to the computers as her possessions because they didn't belong to her, not anymore. At one point in time, they were hers, and in a way, they would always belong to her. But her job was no longer there with them, it was with Palmer Tech, in Coast City.

But then, why was she there?

"You're bleeding."

He glanced down suddenly, his attention drawn to where her eyes were staring a hole into his abdomen. He was bleeding from a shallow stab wound that hadn't punctured anything vital, but was leaking blood steadily, staining the leathers of his suit a dark black.

Oliver opened his mouth to respond, but no words came out as suddenly Felicity was standing right in front of him, her head ducked so she could get a better look at the wound. Methodically, her fingers undid the zipper of his jacket and she helped him shrug out of the material.

Then, she lead him over to the stainless steel table where they had both bled out before and she stripped his shirt off him—cutting the fabric away so he wouldn't aggravate the wound when trying to pull it over his head.

His eyes stayed constant on her face as she worked—cleaning the wound, disinfecting it, stitching it closed, pulling his skin back together almost tenderly.

Words needed to be spoken, yet none came to his lips, even after she had set down the scissors after snipping off the excess surgical thread at the end of his stitches.

After several long moments, she lifted her eyes, slowly dragging them up his body. She didn't make it far, her eyes stopping on the right side of his torso, on the scar that lay just under his pectoral, a wound that had punctured the bottom of his right lung. A wound that had killed him, a wound that had ruined whatever their relationship could have been.

He sucked in a breath through his teeth when her fingertips ghosted over the puckered skin. Her eyes shot up to his as she witnessed his reaction, but she didn't remove her hand, instead, she flattened her palm over the scar.

He locked onto her gaze—the overwhelming bright spot in his life of darkness—a light he had been denying himself, a light he had told himself he could not harness because it needed to be set free. A light, he had convinced himself, that needed to shine on something, or someone, more deserving.

"Why are you here?" His voice was hoarse from disuse, and his words came out sharper than he intended, but he felt that was a good thing. He needed to maintain at least an emotional distance from her, so that, when she left that night, he wouldn't be left in pieces.

She opened her mouth to respond and then froze, reconsidering her answer. Her mouth settled into a grim line before she replied, "you're not a stranger to me Oliver."

He failed to see how that answered his question and his eyebrows furrowed as a result. She seemed to recognize his confusion, "Diggle said you needed some—he said you shouldn't be left to stitch yourself up."

Oliver blinked at her blankly for a moment before he fully translated the words into a meaning in his head. He nodded.

She was here because Diggle had asked. Diggle was at home, spending some well-deserved time with his own family. Roy was nursing a fractured ankle, Thea at his side. Laurel was mending her relationship with her father. There was no one else who could have helped him.

He swallowed, "thank you for coming."

There was a tremulous moment, where her jaw quivered just slightly as his eyes swept up to her face for a brief moment.

"You don't need to thank me," she finally whispered before stepping back, drawing her hand away from his scar. He closed his eyes briefly as her skin parted from his and he was left with the bitter cold air in her wake. His whole body felt suddenly freezing, like when he had bled out in the snow, his whole body going numb from cold until suddenly it felt like a searing burn.

"You should get going," Oliver said, opening his eyes and meeting hers, noticing the calculating look in her gaze, "it's a long trip back to Coast City."

Her head cocked to the side, "Coast City?" Her eyebrows rose in confusion, her pink lips turned down in a frown.

He titled his head slightly, eyes studying her but she looked truly confused, "that's..." he paused, chin ducking to his chest as he looked away, "that's where Ray, and Palmer Tech is."

"Oh."

He couldn't bring himself to look at her in that moment.

"I don't live in Coast City, Oliver."

His gaze shot up to hers so quickly the room blurred in his peripheral.

"I resigned from my position at Palmer Tech, respectfully, after he announced the move. My home is Starling."

The way her voice caressed the word, the fact that she had even chosen to use his city's old name, caused a pang in his heart—because Starling City was the city they had set out to protect, as a team.

Somewhere along the way they had lost everything—each other, their team, even their city.

"You and Ray?" He knew it was torture to ask, and maybe he was a bit of a masochist, but he needed to hear the words from her. He needed to know, even if he didn't want to know.

"We broke up six months ago."

Six months. Two months after the night they had last spoken.

His eyes were suddenly on hers again, his mouth parted as he stared at her. "I didn't..." he should apologize, but he couldn't bring himself to say the words out loud, because the sick, twisted dark part of him didn't feel sorry at all.

Yet the man inside of him that yearned to do the right thing by Felicity felt horrible, because he had felt Ray could make her happy, and that obviously had not worked out.

"I never loved him. I tried." She swallowed thickly, a soft sound leaving the back of her throat as she choked on her words, "but I just couldn't."

He couldn't begin to comprehend why she had confessed something like that to him. He didn't deserve her secrets, he didn't deserve her feelings.

"I've spent months trying to forget what you told me the last time I was here. I've spent well over a year trying to forget what you told me the day you left to face Ra's al Ghul. I've been desperate to forget the look on your face when I told you I was with Ray the day you came back."

Oliver closed his eyes, focusing on his breath, the way it entered through his nose and exited through his mouth. He needed to keep a tight control of himself as Felicity spilled out these dark secrets that were more painful than the stab wound in his side.

"But I can't forget you Oliver. And I can't regret moving on from you either." She huffed and he opened his eyes to see her chin tilted down dejectedly, her arms crossed over her chest, "I don't understand why I can't let you go. Because you've made it very apparent that that's what I have to do, that that's what you've done."

"I never wanted to let you go, Felicity." The words are begrudging as they leave his lips. "I don't want to get over you, but I was trying to do what-"

She looked unconvinced when he glanced at her, "what's best for me," she finishes for him, she arches a blond brow.

He sighed heavily, shoulder dropping, "I don't know what you want me to say."

She stopped, her shoulders lifting as they tightened, "I want to know what you want, Oliver. Take away the bullshit about protecting me, or wanting me to be happy with someone else." She turned her back to him, one of her hands lifting to her face.

His jaw tightened, because it seemed incredibly unfair, he'd always told her what he wanted, and explained to her why he couldn't have it. She may not understand his thinking, and she may not agree with it, but he understood it, and he lived by it. Yet, she had never been clear on what she wanted from him. She'd never tried to take control of their relationship, and in fleeting moments he wished she had.

"I don't know what you want Felicity. That's how it's always been for us." He swallowed, "I think I've always made myself pretty clear with what I feel for you and what I want. You've just never liked what I said."

She whipped around to face him, her blue eyes alight with a fire he had missed.

"You're joking, right?" She laughed sarcastically, "you never made it clear what you wanted! You would touch me, and look at me like you adored me and then you'd tell me you couldn't be with me, that we were better apart. Mixed messages, every damn day." Her voice shook with the vehemence of her words.

He didn't have the heart to tell her that that was just him not being strong enough to resist her.

"I've told you countless time that I love you, Felicity. And I made it clear that we couldn't be together, for your safety and for mine. I call that being pretty clear," he slowly pushed himself off the edge of the table, dropping down onto his feet. He may have seemed unfair, but he was always clear.

"There was a silent maybe in every sentence you spoke. You always gave me some sort of hope that one day you'd change your mind. You were leading me on and then you died!"

"You can't keep holding that against me Felicity." He roared suddenly, throwing his arms out, ignoring the stab of pain that shot through his side as he aggravated his stitches. She quieted, looking stunned by his sudden outburst.

Her mouth closed and her argument died on her lips. "You're right."

Silence echoed between them and it stretched on for several minutes where Felicity chewed on her bottom lip and Oliver stared at the wall of the foundry just over her shoulder.

"I didn't want to die Felicity." His voice was quiet, broken even to his own ears.

"Of course not, I know that," she whispered, closing her eyes and looking mortified, he could see the tears beginning to pool against her lashes.

"I wanted to come home to you." He whispered this confession in a devastated tone, because he had dreamed for months of coming home to her, of taking her into his arms and having her for the rest of his life.

"I know." She whispered back, barely audible, muffled by the soft sounds of his footsteps.

"I don't think you do." His voice was gravely, heavy with regret and pain and restraint.

She opened her eyes and he was standing just in front of her and she gasped at his sudden proximity. His eyes were a clear blue, a color she hadn't seen in months, an expression on his face so reminiscent of the ones she had seen him take on before he made harrowing decisions in the name of protecting the ones he loved—her heart ached at the sight.

"No, I remember what you said th—the last time we spoke. Those words have haunted me for months, Oliver. Knowing that if I had just waited, if I had been a little more dedicated, I could've had what I'd been dreaming of. To know that this time, it was my fault we weren't together." She reached up and ran a hand over her head, "it was always so easy to deal with us not being together, because I could just blame you. But suddenly, it was my fault, and I didn't know how to deal with that. I didn't know how to deal with me being the reason I couldn't have you."

"You've always had me, Felicity." He shrugged, exasperation softening his voice, but his throat seemed to constrict on her name, squeezing the word out painfully.

"But never like I wanted." She countered, shaking her head solemnly, her lips turning downward.

"I've been here Felicity. I've been home for months." His hand reached out for her, stilling in the air between them, just next to her shoulder. She turned her head, stared at his long, calloused fingers and thought back to times when he had touched her freely—grasping her shoulder, cupping her cheek, grazing the small of her back. She shuddered at the memories.

"And you made it pretty clear I couldn't come back. Strangers, remember?" She tore her eyes away from his hand, moving her gaze back to his face, ignoring the tears that were beginning to blur her vision.

He sighed, his eyes falling to the floor for a moment, his hand dropping to his side, "I remember."

"I was respecting your wishes. I didn't want to make things harder on you, because it was my fault that you felt the way you did." She crossed her arms over her chest and angled her body away from his, showing her level of discomfort plainly. She wanted to run, being so near to him was suddenly taking a devastating toll on her. "I did this to us."

He stepped back, giving her space—reading her mind and her body clearly, because he still knew her, despite the time they had lost—and she glanced at his face when she noticed the movement.

"That night," he sighed, raking his fingers through his hair as he leaned back on one of his feet, away from her, "that night was hard for me. I said some things I shouldn't have in order to protect myself. I was heartbroken—I am still heartbroken."

Her eyes are suddenly intent on his, "it's been eight months." She wanted to hide the disbelief in her voice, the awe that he still carried feelings for her when she had given him no reason to still care. Sure, Oliver had been clear they couldn't be anything more than strangers, but she hadn't really fought against him—she hadn't argued for them being together, she had just accepted it. She had settled.

"It could've been eight years, Felicity, and I still wouldn't be over you." Oliver smiled sadly, ironically, like there was some joke to be laughed at in his words that he had never noticed before until now, and it was too late to enjoy the light-heartedness of it.

"Oliver." She started and he stopped her.

"I'm still in love with you. My feelings haven't wavered in the slightest, they're still as strong as they were the day I left to face Ra's al Ghul, and the day I woke up alive and ready to return home to you."

Felicity's breath was swept out of her lungs by a force and desire she hadn't felt for months. Suddenly, her hands lifted and framed his cheeks, and she pressed herself flush to his body, her mouth brushing against his in an effervescent kiss. A teasing touch, a maybe, a flicker of hope. A kiss that represented their past.

His left arm came up to curl around her waist out of instinct as he let his nose slide along hers, his lashes lowering as he took her in, her taste just a breath away. Then, slowly, he angled his head into hers, his mouth pressing softly to her lips.

It was lightning in her veins and Oliver immediately gave into her.

She tilted her head, her hands sliding from his cheeks, to his neck—angling his mouth how she wanted it, kissing him in a frenzy—making up for all the moments she had denied them by stepping into Ray's arms seventeen months ago.

Felicity's gasped, her mouth pulling away from his, when suddenly Oliver turned and had her pressed up against a cement support beam.

He froze suddenly at their disconnection and then, he was standing several feet away from her.

She stared at him, her hand lifting to trace her lips—knowing her lipstick was smeared or completely wiped away from Oliver's kisses.

Her eyes found his across the space.

"Felicity, I can't."

He'd said the same thing the last time she had been in the foundry, and she had understood that night—it was too painful for him to be around her because he hadn't forgiven her.

"You're going to walk out of the foundry, Felicity, and things will go back to the way they've been for the past eights months. As much as I want to..." he trailed off, his chest heaving with his labored breaths. He closed his eyes briefly, continuing to speak with them still closed, "hold you, touch you," his fingers twitched at his sides, "actually acting on those desires will only make it worse when you're gone."

"I don't have to leave."

His eyes opened to stare at her.

"I could stay." She pressed her shoulders back into the support beam as she let her own words sink in.

"You shouldn't. You shouldn't stay down here, you shouldn't be a part of this life. You've separated yourself from it already, it should stay that way."

She felt her bottom lip quiver, then she stalked across the room, past Oliver, to the stainless steel table. She picked up her purse, shrugging the strap onto her shoulder and then she turned back around.

Oliver stood just behind her, heat radiating off him as she tottered back on her heel. His hand reflexively shot out, wrapping around her waist to hold her steady.

She met his eyes for a moment as they stood there, "just know, you're making me leave. I've chosen this life before, and I'd choose it again."

"There's no choice to be made."

She bit down on her bottom lip and stepped around him, her shoulder brushing his as she passed.

She was halfway across the floor, headed for the staircase, when Oliver spoke.

"I just need to hear you say it once Felicity. Then you can walk out of my life and never come back." Oliver's voice cracked before he whispered, "just once."

She knew without asking what he wanted to hear. She turned slowly, exhaling slowly to keep herself calm. She lifted her eyes to his face, where his gaze was fixed on her, "I have said it. I said it the last time we spoke—you just didn't hear it."

He pressed his mouth into a thin line and cocked his head.

"I was telling you about Ray and I, that we had always been attracted to each other but I was too in love with you to care."

Recognition dawned on his features, smoothing out the lines of his brow for a brief moment before his expression hardened.

"That's a coward's way of saying it." And it was, cloaked in words that distracted him, hidden beneath layers of pain. It was just a way to make herself feel better about it—that the words were out there, but she'd said them in a way that he hadn't even heard them. Because she was afraid of what would've happened if he had noticed her confession.

He wouldn't have let her leave that foundry. He would have kissed her that night, she would have given herself to him and left Ray the next morning.

"I know." She agreed, with a resolute nod of her head, accepting her cowardice.

She stepped closer to him and he watched her warily, she'd never seen him afraid of her before, and it stung.

"Oliver, you have to understand—saying those words to you—they're not just words. Not to me."

"They're not just words to me either."

"But for me, they're words that lead to abandonment."

Oliver's eyes widened and cleared for a moment before his jaw tensed. She knew he wanted to say that he'd never abandon her, but he couldn't, because he had already left her once before.

"Telling you...that, it gives you the power to ruin me, Oliver. If I give that to you and then lose you again, I don't think I could ever put myself back together."

It was then that Oliver realized that loving someone was giving them the power to ruin you and trusting that they wouldn't. It was a realization, and an epiphany, that for once, had not come too late for him.

Felicity had been abandoned so many times—always by men she cared about, people who said they loved her, himself included—that she no longer trusted the people she loved not to break her heart. She had come to associate love with loss and pain. So she avoided it, she refused to give her love away, because if she never ascribed love to anyone, she could never be hurt when they left her.

It was a defense mechanism, and Oliver could respect that, he had dozens of his own.

But he didn't want Felicity to defend herself against him. He should be defending her, shielding her from the disappointment of others. He shouldn't be a source of her disappointment.

However, that is what he had become. That was why she had moved on to Ray—he hadn't disappointed her, he hadn't abandoned her, he had stayed by her side when all others vanished.

He stepped forward, his fear suddenly forgotten, his eyes shifting. This time, when his hand lifted to grasp her shoulder, he didn't hesitate—he let his fingers curl over the bone and he leaned his head down so their eyes were level.

"I know, there are no words I can say to you that will reassure you that I won't leave you again. And I can't promise my safety, but I love you Felicity. I want nothing but your safety and your happiness, and I've come to realize that maybe, I could be the man to give you that."

A tear slipped over her bottom lip and trailed down her cheek. His hand lifted from her shoulder, the backs of his fingers wiping away the lone tear before curling beneath her chin.

"I love you, Felicity." He repeated

"I-I love you too." She stuttered over the words, but she meant them.

He kissed her softly, his mouth tenderly moving against hers, stealing her breath from her like he had stolen her heart three years before. Everything about him was a soothing heat that ebbed away at the ice that had been slowly freezing her solid over the past twenty months where she had given up her passion, her mission.

He pulled back slowly, her lips refusing to part from his. Oliver's breath curled around hers as her fingers reached up to grip his neck, attempting to pull him back to her. She had deprived herself of this for too long.

"Eight months ago, you told me it wasn't too late," he whispered, one of his hands reaching up to remove hers from his neck. He squeezed her fingers tightly, drawing them to his mouth, brushing a kiss against her knuckles. Her eyes lifted to his as his next words left him. "It's not too late now, is it?"

He expected her to smile, but instead the set of her mouth was serious, her eyes bright with tears, her jaw trembling before she whispered, "no Oliver, it's not."

And then she kissed him again—rising up onto her toes—and a light invaded his chest, causing it to expand as a weight lifted from him. Weightlessness suddenly swept through her stomach, partially from the freedom of allowing herself to finally have the man she'd always wanted, and partially because Oliver lifted her feet just off the floor.

She loved him. His darkness and his lightness and all the shadows in between.

And he loved her. Her tenacity and caution and all the insecurities in between.

When the sun rose above Verdant the next morning, Oliver rose from beneath the ground with it, his hand wrapped around Felicity's, her light melting into that of the sun and leading him forward into his city—Starling City-where Oliver Queen and the Arrow coexisted, and Felicity Smoak saved the city's savior each day with just her presence.

I'm still in denial about last night's episode. Make me feel better with a review? xo