Hello again! This chapter has been sitting in my folders the entire week, and since I'll be out of my city for a few days (no wifi for poor me) I figured I may as well post it tonight and not let you guys wait any longer, so here it is!

Thank you so much for your support and follows and reviews, it just means the world to me and you're all great. Also a big thank you to OrisounAsh who had to answer my never ending questions and put up with me in general this week.

This chapter is Felicity and I know it's too short (don't kill me) but I hope everyone likes it, and I'd love to hear what you think about it. A/N at the end will be my ramble about where the story is going so you may wanna see that :3

I own no one and nothing, and the quote at the beginning is Cassandra Clare's (check her books she's awesome)

Enjoy!

"God knows we're all drawn toward what's beautiful and broken; I have been, but some people cannot be fixed. Or if they can be, it's only by love and sacrifice so great it destroys the giver."

―Cassandra Clare, City of Lost Souls

She can't sleep.

For many weeks now, Felicity Smoak has lain down in her bed every night and stared at the ceiling. At some point she had even counted the cracks running through it and wondered if her bed should be moved. The nights always started with her running through the events of the day, committing some to memory while deposing of others. Locking away the picture of a hostage in the deepest bit of her mind where she'll never find it again, but holding on to that of a smiling daughter whose father's life was saved by the vigilante. And that last word was what haunted her thoughts most of all. The vigilante. The hood. Oliver.

If she was being honest, Oliver Queen was the real reason she's staring off her walls. She loses sleep over him much more frequently than she cares to admit.

At first, Felicity has thought of Oliver as the weird, demanding, hot –extremely hot- billionaire playboy with numerous crazy chores to give her and stories to match. The stories he used to tell her were laughable at best.

It took her all of two meetings to develop a minor crush on him.

Back then she had dismissed that crush easily; he was a careless playboy with a great smile. She was the IT girl working for him. That crush was doomed and would fade away soon enough. Except for how it didn't. And all of that was before. Before he made it wounded and bloody to her car, before he asked her if she were in, before she glimpsed the real Oliver Queen.

Now however –and she sighed as she thought that- she knew who the real Oliver Queen was. Or at least, she knew the parts of him that he so rarely allowed to show. Those weren't helping with her crush.

And hasn't she read somewhere that a crush that lasts over 4 months isn't just a crush anymore? She'll have to research that in the morning.

Felicity's crush wasn't the thing she thought about most however. It was real Oliver and his real Oliver torment that kept her up at night. It was the things ,like that slip about his family a few days ago, or the dark circles under his eyes yesterday, or how he seemed to look through Diggle as the two men talked today, that kept her up thinking. Some days she could swear that he was fading right before her eyes. She didn't like that.

She was used to fixing things, taking control of whatever dared touch her devices and blocking it, erasing it, destroying it. ButOliver wasn't a device and he wasn't hers to fix. She still wanted to try.

At some point, Felicity's life has been fairly easy and quite normal. She would work through her days in the IT department then invest her nights in TV shows and new movies. If she used to lose any sleep at night, it was over her favorite TV couple breaking up, and mind you that is quite painful -besides the point at the moment, but worth emphasizing.

Felicity's days used to be normal. She never used to think of brooding guys who may or may not be in constant war with themselves, she never used to pray that a man who lost his brother could eventually catch the killer; she never used to look twice at every turn she takes and always assess her surroundings. It was all changing now. She wouldn't have it any other way.

Closing her eyes, Felicity tried to remember at what point she has stopped worrying over how many episodes of Doctor Who she's missed and started fretting over the safety, both mentally and physically, of those two strange men.

Yes Felicity did also worry about Diggle. Despite her babbling nature and her constant smile, Felicity did a lot of worrying, and that as well was new. To her defense though, Diggle did throw himself in dangerous situations just like Oliver and he was also stubborn, although slightly more cautious.

Oliver –and here she goes again- was more reckless, not with his job or responsibility as The Hood, not with the way he fought or with his missions but with himself. According to Diggle, Oliver had the self preservation sense of a fruit fly. She really didn't understand that though, and when Diggle had somberly remarked it, she had questioned him mercilessly.

"Still doesn't make sense" Felicity said "I've seen him fight for his life, Digg. So have you! His survival instinct is more powerful than any other sense he has," she paused "or so I think."

"If there's one thing the army has taught me," Answered Diggle "it's that fighting for survival and wanting to actually survive are two very different things."

At that Felicity has shook her head and worried her lower lip between her teeth. "You think he doesn't want to survive?" she asked hesitantly.

"If you've seen the way he fought today, within an inch of his life," Diggle drew in a breath as he said that "you would have thought so too."

Felicity felt her shoulders sagging in defeat and a frown crawling its way across her forehead.

"I'm not trying to make you worry," Diggle said with a frown of his own "I just.. I think he listens to you more than he does to me. He actually pauses at your words."

Something tightened in Felicity's chest as she heard those words and she tried for a deep breath "what should I do?" she sounded like a little kid; small and lost. She didn't know what to do. She saw Oliver's selflessness and the way he puts everyone before himself, of course she did, but she never thought of it as anything other than Oliver being, well, Oliver. Now however, as Diggle pointed it out, Felicity started to reconsider.

Sighing again, Felicity decided to give the poor ceiling a rest and stare down her left wall instead. She tossed and turned a few times in hopes that the constant movement would somehow shake away the memory. It didn't.

That day Diggle had answered her last question with a long look and a muttered "you'll figure something out" before he took off, leaving her to a whirlwind of thoughts and emotions.

That conversation took place five months after she had started working with Oliver. It was about that time that she started constantly reminding him to be careful. It's not like she didn't do it before Digg and she talked, it's just that it became more frequent and much more heartfelt. She hated to think of Oliver fighting for survival out of mere duty.

She groaned at that train of thought as it has once cost her two days of sleep in a row, with no outcome but proving that understanding tormented heroes was much more exhausting, and complicated, than it originally seemed. And complicated was literally Felicity's field, so that was saying something.

No matter how long and how hard she thought, she always ended up with three things on mind:

Firstly, Oliver Queen needed saving. A thought she'll never voice; since she valued her head intact and un-pierced.

Secondly, what he needed saving from was himself. Something she came to realize very recently.

Thirdly, she had to be the one to do it. And she's thought this one so many times lately that it became a mantra.

She stayed awake a while after that; trying to figure out a way to get Oliver to talk to her without her having to ask –she knew he'd shut her out and away from his life faster than she could say arrow if she voiced her concerns the wrong way- and fantasizing of wrapping her arms around him and hugging him tight.

The fantasies soon turned less logical as Felicity yawned and felt the first traces of sleep slowing her thoughts, jumbling them and making memories blend in with images of worried friends and haunted blue eyes and big warm hands brushing her cheek.

She was sinking slowly into sleep but there was a thought still echoing in her mind of broken things being beautiful and how she'd still like to mend them.

A/N: So this chapter is basically an introduction to the way of thinking of my Felicity; she's awesome and funny but also very intense and somewhat serious, and I hope you find her well written. I honestly tried to make her sound like her usual quirky self on the show, but I believe that the inner workings of Felicity's head are a bit more complicated than we'd all like to think.

As for where the story is going, first of all I'm not sticking to the time line or events of the story so expect anything, but the undertaking will happen (just by a different time) and I'll probably use the episodes on the show but with different events. I'm also planning to write post-the-undertaking which is why I've been peppering my father with legally related questions and figuring out what could befall Moira Queen due to her confessions and work, so basically this will be a long fic. I think.

Next chapter will be much longer and will be here soon... and will have lots of Oliver. Now please tell me what are your thoughts on this one and if you think this Felicity is good or a bit OOC. Did you like the chapter, did you hate it? Review! And thanks for reading the A/N, you're awesome!