FINALLY. This chapter gave me hell, and I'm still not happy with it. But I can't stare at it any longer without losing my mind. I hope you like it, and you think it's a good enough ending to the story.

Please let me know what you think!

Without you my hope is small

Let me be me all along

You let the fires rage inside

Knowing someday I'd grow strong

She drowns in him. In his arms, in his mouth, in his heart. She drowns and burns and flies to pieces and comes together as whole as she's ever been.

The love she has for him is overwhelming, a heady mix of all the different kinds of affection she can name.

And with the taste of his lips on hers, she knows no one else will ever hold her heart in their hands the way he does.

That first kiss is the key shifting point in a gradual movement that's been progressing since she first opened her door to him, stepped aside and welcomed him inside.

And from there begins a new journey. One of discovery and restoration.

Felicity learns that when sorrow settles in his eyes, the best way to erase it, is with the press of her lips against his. Gentle and soothing, a whisper of forgiveness, of trust, into his skin that makes him shudder with emotions he can't put into words.

She learns that when the world becomes too much and he feels the walls closing in, the best way to soothe him, is to let him touch her. To feel the warmth of her skin beneath his palms and the steady pulse of her blood beneath his fingers. In those moments he'll wrap his hands around her wrists and rest his forehead against hers, simply feeling the persistence of her life-force, the unflinching rhythm of her heart beating against his until his own slows to meet hers.

It would be so easy to say that from there the road is easy. A beautiful avenue stretching ahead for them to explore hand in hand. But it doesn't work like that. And she's not naive enough to believe that it does.

But after that night, after he bared his soul and darkest secrets, after she stayed beside him instead of turning away as he feared she would, their relationship solidifies into something real and precious.

Something she'll fight to protect.

Their kisses become a recurring thing, much to her delight. She greets him with a kiss every morning, one that always starts as a gentle brush of her lips against his, on tiptoes with a hand resting on his arm, and quickly devolves into a now familiar dance that leaves her breathless and flushed however many times they repeat it.

It always stops there though, he always pulls away when it starts to get to that point where she's wondering why on earth they're wearing so many clothes.

He always steps back.

She understands why. Understands that he needs to take things at a pace he's comfortable with, and there's no way she'd ever push him faster than he wants to go. With her or with himself.

Every time she kisses him he looks at her like he can't believe she's there. Like he can't understand why she'd want to touch him, why she'd want to press her lips to his with a smile and a sigh of contentment. And every time she sees that look on his face, she kisses him again, a promise that she's not going anywhere, she wants to stay beside him for as long as he'll let her. And she'll always kiss him until he pulls away.

Some things don't change, however. At least not straight away.

His bedroom door remains locked every night. As does hers, and even on nights when she can hear him suffering through nightmares mere feet away, she doesn't break that rule. She does as she did the first time, and calls out to him through the walls, reassures him with nothing but her voice until the darkness recedes to the edges of his consciousness. Comforts him as much as she can, while resisting the urge to simply go to him, to wrap him up in her arms and never let him go because she loves him and the sound of his pain slices unforgiving through her heart.

Felicity's very aware of those two closed doors between them. They're as much symbolic as they are physical.

His nightmares seem to lessen as the weeks pass though, even more than they already had, and the bruises under his eyes slowly fade.

She makes note of the every change that she sees on a daily basis. Like when she drops a cup and yelps in pain as it smashes on her foot, his panic is palpable in the seconds it takes him to get from the living room to the kitchen. But once he takes in the scene, she can almost see the strength defeating the fear in his eyes. And then he's the one calming her.

As his wound heals, he takes to jogging in the park by her house every morning. Slowly remembering that exercise is something he enjoys, not just another form of self-punishment.

They continue to learn more about each other with every day that passes, and although their bagel breakfasts are no longer on the side of the road, they still spend an hour every morning eating together and talking about anything that comes to mind. She hopes they'll always do that. That breakfasts will stay their thing.

For someone who spent over two decades thinking herself the antithesis of a morning person, they've quickly become her favorite part of the day.

"I thought I was dying, you know."

It's a Sunday evening and they're watching an old Disney movie after dinner and a day spent repainting the kitchen, a soft yellow replacing the fading blue of before.

She shifts her head on his shoulder so she can see his face. Her fingers stilling their soothing pattern over his jean clad knee.

"What?"

He does this sometimes. Simply tells her something out of the blue. She always treasures those moments, treasures what he tells her, treasures the fact that it stems from his own desire to share another part of himself with her.

"That night… When I came to the road and found you there." His voice is quiet, and her heart skips a beat at the memory of his blood seeping through her fingers.

"After the bear."

He nods, his eyes distant.

"It didn't bother me. Dying's never really bothered me. But I…" He looks at her, with that gentle, pensive look he gets sometimes, and twists an errant lock of hair around his fingers. "I wanted to be close to you when it happened."

She fights the lump in her throat for long enough to shakily ask "So that's why you came to the road?" It's something she's always wondered about, but never questioned, why he came to her even when it was so past their usual meeting time there was no way he'd expect to find her waiting.

"I didn't think you'd be there, I just wanted to be in our spot when…"

She twists her head and presses a kiss to his shoulder, burying her nose against his t-shirt and breathing in his familiar smell. Soap and sweat and Oliver.

The thought doesn't even bear thinking about. And for what must be the hundredth time, she thanks every deity she can name that she stayed that night.

"And there you were." He finishes roughly.

Her fingers tangle with his and she smiles, the ache in her chest dissipating slightly when his lips twitch up in response.

"Thank you for that, Felicity." There's a weight to his words, and his eyes bore into hers with an desperate need for her to hear him. Like it's the most important thanks he's ever uttered.

Her reply slips out unbidden, replacing something more thought out, something to ease his sense of debt. But what she says is perhaps the most genuine thing she can say. Because she means it with ever fiber of her being, from the tips of her fingers held warm in his hands, to the ends of her toes tucked between his shins.

"Anytime."

He kisses her then, ducking his head until his lips meet hers in a gentle caress she'll never tire of. His arm curls around her back to pull her closer and she goes willingly, every inch of her feeling warm and loved.

The movie credits are rolling, accompanied by an old song speaking of hope and happy endings. She wonders if it's too dangerous to wish for such things for them.

When their lips part, he doesn't pull away, turning his face into her cheek, sending shivers down her spine with the scratch of his beard against her skin.

He likes to do that, press his face into hers like he simply wants to breathe her in, just be close to her, feel her skin against his. He reminds her of a cat, rubbing his whiskers on her as a sign of affection, with no motive other than simply wanting her close. It's almost better than the kissing.

Almost.

"Are you ever going to tell me how you managed to get attacked by a bear anyway?" She asks after a moment, the intensity of the moment shifting as he chuckles dryly into her neck before pulling away.

"I actually attacked it." He says sheepishly

"What?" She frowns at him and he sighs, running a hand over the back of his head.

"It woke me up, rustling around my camp and I… reacted on instinct."

She takes a second to absorb that, before asking the first thing that comes to mind. "Is the bear okay?"

His laugh is warm and fond and leaves her feeling whole in a way she can't really explain.

"It'll live." He assures her, before settling his arm around her shoulders and reaching for the remote to find another film to watch.

As is usually the rule with life, smooth sailing never lasts long. A storm always hits and the only thing to do is pray that the boat beneath your feet is strong enough to withstand it.

The thing about nightmares, is that sometimes when you wake up from them, they're still there. They cling to the edges of your consciousness, dark shadows that attack when you least expect them to. The same is true for any form of mental distress. It attacks and bites and crushes just when you think that you're going to be okay. And the only thing to do, is pray that your heart and soul are strong enough to control your mind, and keep the demons at bay.

Oliver's demons will never die. And though Felicity's presence, her light and her warmth, hold them in check like nothing ever has before, even she can't always stop them from running free.

She finds him in the bathroom, curled up in the tub, a pillow beneath his head and a blanket thrown over his body, his feet dangling over the edge to accommodate for his size. Her irises sting as she looks at him, the crease between his eyes and the beads of sweat on his brow evidence of his disturbed sleep.

He's told her not to touch him when he's like this. But he's also told her to follow her instincts, so she does what comes naturally, because she'll start to cry if she doesn't try to help him. Carefully, she climbs in on top of him, keeping her movements slow and smooth, the pressure against his body gentle but firm. His muscles tense and bunch, but he doesn't wake.

She pulls the blanket aside and settles herself against his chest, head resting on his shoulder, the stubble on his jaw scratching her forehead. She curls against him, before tucking the blanket back over the both of them. He twitches, muscles coiled, his heart an uneven rhythm beneath her ear, breathing rough. She turns her head into his neck and presses a soft kiss to the underside of his jaw, a few tears sliding unbidden down her nose to disappear into his shirt.

It breaks her to see him like this, to feel how incapable she is of truly helping him. To know that all she can do is love and support, and wait for him to fight the battles in his mind.

The next few days are rough. He puts on a brave face for her, and plays it off, blaming the weather or a migraine he can't shake. But she can see that he's struggling.

She's not sure what triggered it, or even if anything did. From what she's learned from her hours of Internet research, PTSD doesn't always need a trigger to rear its spiteful head. Sometimes it's just there and it taunts and belittles for no reason whatsoever.

She tries to help where she can, but she has this chilling feeling that he's slowly turning to sand and slipping away through her fingers as fast as she can try to hold him together. They're in the eye of the storm and she knows that this is the moment they'll either sink or swim. She just isn't sure how to guarantee the outcome she wants.

A breaking point is reached on a rainy night in August, when she wakes to the sound of him moving around downstairs. She pulls a robe on over her pajamas and pads out to find him. And when she does, any lingering fatigue is quickly replaced by panic.

There's a bag packed by the front door, and Oliver's sitting beside it, bent over a notebook, a shaky hand moving across the page.

She's in front of him before she can blink, yanking the book out of his hands and tossing it aside, her throat burning as she tries to keep her eyes dry for long enough to speak.

"What are you doing?" It's choked and she sounds as angry as she does scared.

He can't meet her eyes and that just makes the panic rise faster and harder because if he won't look at her, how is she supposed to get him to stay? It's irrational and foolish, but losing him isn't an outcome she's willing to live. What they've created together is a bond that's beyond precious, and she knows he feels that too. Knows that however tenuous it might seem to him at times, he believes in what they have.

She falls to her knees before him, her hands reaching for his face, roughly pulling it up until he's forced to look at her. His eyes are cloudy and dark and his name catches in her throat, somewhere between a whisper and a sob.

"What are you doing?" She repeats, because it's all she can think to say, all the air feels like it's been sucked out of the room and she's quite sure that in a few seconds she won't be able to speak at all.

"Felicity." It's a prayer on his lips. A cry for help and a plea for forgiveness. "I have to-"

"NO." She doesn't let him finish, for once she doesn't want to hear what he has to say. "You don't have to do anything Oliver. Whatever you're thinking, just stop okay? Just stop."

He looks at her then. Properly looks at her. Looks at her until she feels like he's staring right into her soul.

"This isn't fair on you Felicity. I'm going to have days, weeks, maybe even months like this for the rest of my life. And I can't put you through that. This is never going to stop, this is me, ups and downs and I can't…"

"You can't what? Accept that I don't care. I don't care if you spend the rest of your life sleeping in a fucking bathtub as long as it's our bathtub. I don't care Oliver. I just need you to stay. And we'll get through it all together, the good and the bad and the really, really painful. We'll manage." She's crying, tears falling freely, voice breaking over words she'd repeat again and again if that's what it took.

But those demons are there, the hounds that made him run from his home, that made him retreat into solitude as repentance for his sins. They're yapping at his heels and she can see the hope slowly seeping out of him, to be replaced by a dark fog of self-loathing.

"You can't fix me, Felicity." He asserts roughly, dragging his eyes away from her. He rakes a hand down his face and she thinks he's trying to reign himself in, keep himself in check before he changes his mind and stays by her side.

"I'm not trying to fix you. You know why? Because you can't fix what isn't broken."

The pain on his face is cutting and blatant. And all she can think is how can he not see it?

She does, every time she looks at him. Every time she looks into those beautiful, tragic eyes, she sees it. His strength, his soul. He's not broken and he never will be, never has been either. She's not his savior or his medicine, she just sees him clearly, and accepts him as he is.

Damaged, yes. Defeated, no.

It takes him a minute to compose himself, and when he does it's with tears of his own threatening to fall. But the darkness isn't giving in without a fight and her fingers shake around his as he speaks.

"Whether you think I'm broken or not doesn't really matter. Either way, I'm not good enough for you." He whispers.

"Why? Give me one good reason. Tell me how you're not good enough for me, Oliver. Because all I know is that you make me happy and I love you. Shouldn't that be enough?"

He rests a hand against her cheek, and she can feel him trembling against her. Feel the weight of his emotions seeping out of every pore. She leans into him, leaning her forehead against his. His hand falls to her neck and his thumb strokes back and forth, chafing at the soft skin. Finding her elevated pulse and drawing comfort from it, in that way he likes to do.

"I don't want you to waste your life on me."

And that's the crux of it, really. They can fight back and forth over who deserves what, but at the end of the day, his lack of self worth will battle against his love for her for as long as he's breathing. All she has to convince him of is that it's worth it. That every moment of doubt, every moment of angst and sadness and pain, is worth all the good moments. All the wonderful, beautiful moments that they can share for the rest of their lives if he'll just stay.

"Time spent with you could never be a waste." She says the words slowly and carefully, filling them with every drop of sincerity she possesses, every ounce of love she feels for him summed up in ten syllables.

"Felicity." He can't keep saying her name like a blessing and a curse and not expect her to crumble to dust before him.

"Don't leave." She abandons reason, because she's quickly losing control of her composure and she just needs him to understand. Needs him to hear how much she needs him. More than he'll ever understand. She didn't save him, not in the way he thinks, they're in the process of saving each other, and the thought of losing him is irreconcilable. "I'll never love anyone like I love you. Please don't leave!"

She can see the war raging in his eyes, and whatever battle he's fighting, he either loses or wins, or perhaps it simply gets put on hold and tucked away in a drawer, because then his mouth is on hers and the ice that's been slowly filling her stomach starts to melt.

His lips are rough and hot, a desperation replacing the gentleness she's used to from their kisses. A desperation she feels just as much in her heart as in his. They can both taste her tears. Her chest is tight and painful and her hands scrabble against his shoulders, pulling him closer, afraid he'll disappear if she lets go.

His hands find her waist as his tongue strokes along hers, and she's caught between burning need and aching love.

"Felicity." He groans her name into her skin and she can feel the tenuous threads of his control threatening to snap. His body thrumming with the effort of keeping himself in check.

"I trust you Oliver. So trust me, please, I trust you. Trust me."

There's a second of hesitation before he lets go, and God does he let go. She's surrounded by him, encompassed by his body and heart and the world could be ending just outside the door and she wouldn't notice or care.

He takes her with him as he stands, pressing her back against the wall, a hand buried in her hair, angling her head to the side so he can kiss her like they've never kissed before. It's deep and hard and hot and she forgets how to think, getting lost in his taste and touch.

A moan escapes her as his lips travel down her neck, wet and hungry, sucking marks into her skin. She barely notices him moving, barely notices as he carries her up the stairs and into her room.

But then he's laying her down on her bed and gazing at her with dark eyes swimming with every emotion in the book, and she thinks it should be impossible to feel as much as she does in that moment.

Feel as much as she does for him.

He descends on her then, all tongue and teeth and strength and love and it's almost too much, just as it's not enough.

She shrugs out of her robe, and his fingers find the hem of tank. He meets her eyes for one last confirmation, her quick nod all the answer he needs before he draws the material up and over her head. He pauses then to take her in, and she should feel exposed and vulnerable, spread before him in nothing but her purple sleep shorts, but she's never trusted a man the way she trusts him. Scars and beard and calloused hands. His reverent gaze and imposing form leave her feeling warm and protected as opposed to intimidated. And she makes sure that that show on her face, in her eyes, in her hands as they trip over his scars. Makes sure he sees the unflinching trust she has in him, and watches as the understanding grows in his own eyes. She trusts him with her body and her heart and anything else he might want to take. He holds it all in his hands, metaphorically and physically, and she wouldn't change it for the world.

She raises a hand to his cheek, the smile she gives him nothing less than adoring. He turns his head and presses a kiss to the inside of her wrist, before following the line of her arm, kissing his way down to the sensitive crease of her elbow, licking a wet stripe into her skin that leaves her gasping before continuing on his path. When he reaches her collarbone he gently bites down, teeth scraping softly against her skin, before soothing the area with his tongue and sucking yet another mark into her flesh.

Her hands run up his back, following the curve of his spine, exploring every muscle and scar, dragging his t-shirt up as they go. He detaches his mouth from her skin for just long enough to lean back and pull the shirt over his head, before he continues his mission to taste every inch of her. His lips trail down her chest, to the valley between her breasts, leaving reverent kisses as he goes. When he finally takes her sensitive peak into his mouth she keens, arching into him, the fine line they're dancing between gestures of love and lust swinging quickly to the latter with every careful scrape of teeth on heated flesh.

Her hands aren't idle, mapping every ridge and dip of his broad back, his strong shoulders. She memorizes scars with the soft pads of her fingers, learns the places that make him shudder and press his hips into hers.

Her shorts soon join their tops on the floor, and his jeans follow not long after. He tells her how beautiful she is, and she repeats the words back to him, which makes him smile into her skin, even as a look of bewildered wonder fills his darkened orbs.

It's not just about sex, about two people who love each other needing to be as close as two people can be, it's about more than that. It's a gesture of trust, a show of intimacy and connection that can't be expressed with just words. It's also a promise. As their bodies join and their eyes meet they both know he couldn't leave her if he tried.

And he's done trying.

She wakes in the dark to the warmth of his body pressed against hers, and the gentle touch of his fingers sifting through her hair. She looks up at him, to find his eyes already watching her.

"Can't sleep?" She asks softly, and his fingers still in her hair, eyes dropping from their gentle perusal of her face.

"I'm fine." His thumb brushes over her forehead, carefully tracing over the line of her eyebrows before following the curve of her nose. "Close your eyes, it's too early to get up."

She almost does just that, sleep already pulling at the edges of her mind, but she forces her eyes to stay open just a little longer.

"What's keeping you up, Oliver?" She tries to sound firm, a no nonsense voice that requires an answer straight away, but she thinks the effect is probably slightly ruined by the muffled yawn tacked on at the end.

He's silent for a long while, and she's almost given up hope of an explanation when he speaks. His thumb has drifted to her cheek now, and the soft rhythm of his caress is tender and comforting.

"I don't want to hurt you." He sounds so vulnerable then, tired and sad.

She thinks of the two doors that usually stand between them when they sleep, the lecture he gave her when he first walked into her home, the baseball bat he wanted her to keep by her bed for fear she would have to defend herself against him in the night.

"You can go back to your room if you want. I won't be upset, because you need your sleep. But… I trust you." She wonders how many times she'll have to repeat those three words before he believes her. "I don't think you'll hurt me if you let yourself sleep. I trust you, Oliver."

She stretches up and presses a lingering kiss to his lips, before snuggling back down under the covers and letting her eyes drift shut. It's his decision to make, and she'll give him the space he needs to make it. That's really all she can do in these moments, give her opinion and then give him time to work through his thoughts and come to a conclusion on his own. She hopes she's doing okay, hopes she's doing everything she can to help him.

The next time she wakes it's to the feel of a chest rising and falling beneath her head, and the warm weight of an arm curled around her back. The mottled morning light falls over Oliver's sleeping face, painting him in colors and patterns that almost hurt her soul in their beauty. She tucks her head back into his shirt and feels a wide smile creep across her lips.

She's happy. And she thinks maybe, he might be happy too.

Slowly, one baby step at a time, they ease into a somewhat normal way of life. They start going out for dinner at the weekends, they take walks along the river, they visit exhibitions, and even attend a baseball game. It turns out pre-war Oliver was a bit of a sports nut, and although Felicity was worried about the crowds and noises, he loved every minute of it.

They avoid cinemas, the dark and crowded rooms a recipe for disaster, and they find that he struggles in certain shops. She'd ducked into a crowded Apple store once, to look at some new tablets, but it hadn't taken a genius to see the anguish on Oliver's face beneath the fluorescent lights. So she pulled him out with a smile and a kiss on the cheek and assured him that she'd check out the tablets by herself another time.

When he has bad nights, he sleeps in his room with the two doors closed between them, but on the good nights she falls asleep wrapped in his arms, and wakes up to his smile.

They fight when she receives her monthly bank statement to find a large transfer from him sitting in her account. It's enough to cover the rent of her small townhouse for the whole year. But when she tries to give it back to him, he explains that while he chooses not to use his money, he has more than he'll ever need. He feels indebted to her as it is, and sees covering the rent as the least he can do for her in return. That spurns a rather long conversation about preconceived debts that do not exist, and ends with sex on the kitchen table and an agreement that they'll split the rent.

She does worry a little about his social isolation; he doesn't talk to anyone aside from her, at least not in a personal way. She knows he has a few friends at the local gym he joined down the road, and he'll chat to them when he's there, but she's his only support system.

So one night she quietly gives him a piece of paper with the numbers of three of the best psychiatrists in the city scrawled across it, with a note explaining that should he ever feel the need to seek any sort of professional help, he should do so. But only if it's completely, one hundred percent something that he wants to do. They don't talk about it, but he doesn't throw away the numbers.

It's not until she comes home one evening to find him gazing at a picture of his sister that she dares broach the topic of him reconnecting with his family. She's spent hours considering the best way to bring it up, the perfect way to say it, and in the end she asks him like it's a matter of pizza preferences. She's learned over time that the best way to talk to him, is to simply do what feels best in the moment.

"We could go and visit them if you want." Her voice is light and calm, and she sits down beside him, resting her chin on his shoulder and gazing down at the photo in his hands.

"I'm not sure they'd want anything to do with me." He says quietly, and she sighs, shifting a little closer until she's completely pressed against his side.

"I can guarantee you they would."

He tucks the picture back into his pocket and turns to press a kiss to her forehead.

"Maybe." He stands and pulls her to her feet with her hands in his. "But in the meantime, what do you say to chicken Parmesan?"

But two weeks later, as they're lying tangled in bed, his hand stroking patterns up and down her spine, he's the one to ask.

"Would you do something with me this weekend?"

She twists so she can see his face and chuckles lightly into his shoulder.

"I do lots of things with you every weekend, you'll have to be more specific."

"It's Thea's birthday in a few weeks, and I was thinking maybe it's time… Maybe I'm ready." He almost can't get the words out and she knows the guilt of leaving his family still weighs heavily on his mind.

"You want to go see them?" She tries to keep her voice casual, not give away her excitement at the idea. Because this is a huge step. Not for them as a couple, although perhaps it is in that way too, but it's a huge step for him.

He was so afraid of hurting the people he loved that he cut them out of his life altogether. He denied himself the good moments to save them from the bad, just as he tried to do with her. But he stayed with her, he accepted the fact that she loves him, dark days and all. And although she knows he sometimes still struggles to reconcile himself with the fact that she actually wants him to stay with her, that she actually wants to know him inside and out, good and bad, he's stopped trying to convince her to change her mind.

She knows his family will feel the same way about having him in their lives, and desperately wants him to discover that for himself.

"You'll come with me?" He's such a big man, so strong and capable, but in that moment he sounds as vulnerable as a child asking his mother to leave the door ajar to keep out the dark.

"Of course I will."

The driveway is long and winds ahead like a ribbon, the gate a wrought iron defense against anything that may dare seek entrance without permission. She can see what he meant before, when he described how overwhelming it was to come back here after years in the desert.

She feels his hand tighten around hers as he drives towards the gatehouse, rolling down the window until the stony faced guard can see him. The man makes a valiant effort to hide his surprise, but fails pretty spectacularly, fumbling for the controls without a word, the gate swinging open quickly.

They drive forward and she strokes a rhythmic pattern across his knuckles, feeling his tension right down to her bones.

"You don't have to do this, you know." She says softly. He glances towards her quickly, eyes running over her face, before they're trained back on the road. "If it's too much for today, it's fine. There's no shame in that." She continues, and his hand gently squeezes hers, thumb brushing against the inside of her wrist, feeling the thrum of her pulse.

"I'm okay. I need to do this now." His voice is low and quiet, but determined, humming with that strength that she thinks must come from an endless fountain within him.

But then he looks across at her again, and there's a hint of vulnerability on his face, an openness that he doesn't show with anyone else, something she's grown to treasure as further evidence of his trust in her.

"Just stay with me?" He whispers and she feels a surge of protectiveness for him rush from her heart to the very tips of her fingers.

He's big and strong and he'd jump to her defense without blinking. He'd put himself between her and a bullet, between her and anything that might cause her harm. She'd do that for him too, of course, but knows it's not quite the same. She doesn't have the ability to fight off an attacker, to protect him from bruises or broken bones as he does her. But she protects his heart. His soul. His mind.

"I promise." She whispers fiercely, and she can see that he understands that she's not just talking about today, but every day that lies ahead of them.

When she climbs out of the car and gets a proper look at the building in front of her, she realizes that 'house' is a loose term. She's sure there are a hundred Royalty puns that could be made, but she manages to hold her tongue. He's no doubt heard them all already.

She expects him to walk straight towards the door, but instead he comes around to her side to meet her. Standing in front of her, he looks at her for a second that quickly becomes a minute, before he's ducking down and pressing a brief kiss to her lips.

"Stay with me." He says again, and she's nodding even before he's got the words out.

His hand finds hers, and with their fingers laced together, he turns and walks towards the main entrance, towing her behind him.

He rings the bell, and she briefly wonders how strange it must be for him, to ring the bell on his own front doorstep. But then she realizes that he doesn't see this as his home anymore. And thinks that that must be even stranger.

A man in a suit answers the door, stepping to the side and holding it open without so much as blinking. Felicity realizes that the gatekeeper must have called ahead to let them know who to expect.

They step into the foyer together, feet in sync, despite their divided attentions. She twists and turns, eyes wide as she takes in the glamour and wealth that this house seems to drip with. While his gaze seems to shift between the floor and her.

A ragged gasp fills the echo-y expanse of the room, and Felicity's eyes fly to the source, feeling Oliver tense as his do the same.

Because there, standing at the bottom of the staircase, is a young, beautiful girl, looking at him like the moon just floated down from the heavens to hang just for her.

"Thea." He breathes the word and his hand tightens around Felicity's to the point of pain.

"Ollie!"

She's a blur of movement and Felicity tenses as the girl throws herself into Oliver's arms. Her hand remains firmly held in his as she silently wills him to stay calm. It takes him a second but she can see the moment he relaxes, and then his spare arm is wrapping around the Thea's back and holding her tightly against him, a ghost of a smile finding its way onto his face.

"I missed you." She whispers into his shoulder and Felicity feels a lump grow in her throat. She looks away to give the siblings as much privacy as she can, while still anchored to Oliver's side.

She feels the moment another part of him heals. With his sister crying happy tears into his shoulder and a few minutes later when he ducks down so his mother can reach up to kiss his forehead, as she must have done when he was a child.

It's overwhelming for him, undoubtedly, but healing nonetheless. The weight of his guilt over leaving them eases with every minute he spends surrounded by their unwavering love. And when they welcome Felicity with nothing but warmth and grace, his hand finally eases its grip on hers.

They don't spend all that long with his family. They stay for lunch, but as the hours pass, she can tell when it starts to become too much. They leave with promises of returning soon, and there's a light in Oliver's eyes that's as rare as it is beautiful.

And later that night, when they're eating dinner in the house she's come to think of as theirs, his gaze finds hers with a thank you that's intense with sincerity.

"You've given me everything, Felicity. I don't know why the world thought I deserved someone like you in my life, but I'll spend every day thanking God that it did."

With her lips a mere breath away from his, she promises the same.

His first I love you comes in the wake of a difficult reunion with his old training officer, John Diggle. She doesn't go with him for that one, both of them realizing that it's something he needs to do alone. She thinks it will be good for him to reconnect with someone who experienced similar things as he did. Who can truly understand what he's going through, who can help in ways she'll probably never be able to. She's right about that, in the end. But it takes time. And he stumbles home from their first meeting looking haggard and older than his thirty odd years. They don't speak, there's no need. He crumbles against her, where she sits at on the couch. She quickly moves her laptop from her lap and lets Oliver take its place.

They've grown accustomed to understanding what the other needs without words. Learned how to provide comfort in just the right way, at just the right time.

Sometimes he'll pull her into her arms and surround her with his strength, pressing kisses into her hair and in those moments her sorrow never stands a chance. And sometimes he comes to her like this, buries his face into the crook of her neck, letting her hair shield him from the world. She rubs her fingers in soothing circles over his tense shoulders, until the muscles slowly relax.

Words don't always come easily to him. He's the stoic, silent type, who often says more with his eyes and body than his mouth. She knows he loves her. He shows her every day, and since the night he chose her over his fear, she's had no doubt in her heart that his love matches her own.

But it's not until that afternoon, after a painful trip down memory lane that he says the words out loud. He whispers it into her skin, his stubble scratching her collarbone, his breath warm against her neck.

"I love you, Felicity."

And even though she already knew it, her heart still skips a beat or two, swelling with something resembling adoration.

She cards her fingers through his hair, now cropped short, and leans closer to him, until they're as close as two people can be while still wearing clothes.

"I love you too, Oliver." She replies, turning her head until her lips are against his temple. His hands tighten around her, and they stay like that for what seems like hours, neither willing to move and break the spell.

Diggle quickly becomes a regular in their lives, much to everyone's happiness. Felicity grows fond of the older man and falls head over heels in love with his baby daughter. And Oliver gradually regains another connection he cut off in his quest for absolution.

They have Sunday lunches together, and sometimes Thea and Moira will join them too, a mismatched hotchpotch of people gathered around Felicity's kitchen table, drinking wine and learning that family comes in all shapes and sizes.

On those days, Oliver will catch her eye across a room full of friends, with a look of such overwhelming gratitude that it floors her.

She knows that in his mind, he would never have any of this without her. And while they disagree on that point, with her insistence that he would have found his way even without her, she's as grateful as he that things happened the way they did.

The weight on his broad shoulders will never fully shift, nor will the sadness that rests deep in the blue of his eyes. The damage to his heart is permanent and destructive, but it's the fight that defines him, not the scars. He puts one foot in front of the other, every day, discovering new reasons to smile, new reasons to laugh, new reasons to keep going.

That's really the most important thing she's given him. Perhaps the only thing she's given him. A reason to fight. A reason to want to take those steps every day, a reason begin the healing process. As endless as it may be.

And for Felicity, that's all she could ever ask for. His strength is his own, it's fierce and beautiful and she'll remind him of that every day until he believes it as wholeheartedly as she does.

Whatever's to come, whatever more life chooses to throw at them, together or apart, the strength they find in the other's eyes will be enough to get them through to the other side.

With cream cheese bagels and a love that grew from nothing to everything, Felicity's confident they'll stand the test of time.

Without you, without you

A sailor lost at sea

Without you

The world comes down on me

AN:

One of the reasons I decided to write this story is to address one of my main problems with the writing on the show. PTSD isn't something that can be thrown casually into a conversation and then forgotten about. It isn't something that effects a person when it's convenient and then simply drifts into the background when it's not. I was diagnosed with PTSD when I was fourteen years old. Six years have passed since then and it's still something that I actively suffer from on a daily basis. It has effected my life in more ways than I can name. And yes, there are days, weeks even when it doesn't rule my every move, but it's still there. A constant that will never go away. It's not often spoken about, but PTSD is an illness that one never fully heals from. In my psychiatrist's words, some people learn to manage it, while others let it manage them, but no one ever truly leaves it behind. TV writers are often guilty of touching on topics that they don't have any true understanding of, and many, myself included, let it pass unmentioned because we don't have first hand knowledge of what they're talking about either. But this is something I do know about, something I do suffer from, and I wanted to make my feelings about their almost callous treatment of a serious mental illness known. PTSD is not a party line, it fucking sucks and it never goes away.