This one is for Cammien Ray

The first time he met her was the first time he'd truly smiled in years. The five years he'd spent on the island were too hellish, weighed too heavily on his soul, for him to relax emotionally-until he met her.

The survival skills he learned on Lian Yu didn't include how to recover data from a laptop with bullet holes in it. He'd tried, of course, but the thing wouldn't even turn on. Then he remembered that Queen Consolidated had its very own IT department. Surely someone there could help. A quick inquiry to Walter's assistant had yielded the name of just the person he needed. He didn't realize at the time how very much he needed her.

She was sitting behind her desk wearing a pink shirt that should have looked ridiculous on someone her age, but instead just brought her features into brighter focus. Her blond hair was pulled back in a neat ponytail, with a pen stuck behind her ear. The blue eyes that fixed on him as soon as he walked through the door were hidden behind librarian-type glasses. He guessed her age to be somewhere between thirty-five and fifty.

"Felicity Smoak?"

"Yes?"

"I'm Oliver Queen."

"I know who you are Mr. Queen."

"Mr. Queen was my father."

"I know. I knew him, I mean. I knew you, too, though you don't remember it. Past tense in both cases, of course, since neither one of you made it back from that trip."

He cocked his head, trying to fathom what she was saying. "I'm here."

"Are you?" She asked it with a smile that didn't quite make her eyes. "But you didn't come down here to ask my opinions on your family." She looked pointedly at the laptop.

"I was in a coffee shop and spilled coffee on my laptop. I was wondering if you could help me with it?"

She took the damaged equipment and flipped it over. "Coffee? These look like bullet holes."

"My coffee shop's in a bad neighborhood."

Felicity Smoak looked over the rim of her glasses in frank disbelief. Then she surprised him. She laughed. It was a pleasant, joyful, sound.

Then he surprised himself. He smiled—really smiled—for the first time since being home.

When he walked out of her office, Felicity let her features drop into a frown. Oliver Queen pre-island had been an obnoxious brat, immature and oblivious to the dangers of life. The man who'd been sitting beside her for the past fifteen minutes wasn't the Oliver Queen who'd left on the Queen's Gambit. Felicity was forty-eight years old. She didn't fall for winsome smiles and well sculpted muscles. It hadn't been that playboy charm that'd convinced her to help him. She'd heard the rumors about his physical scars. She suspected the emotional trauma was more extensive. There's was something there, though…

So she watched him. She tracked news stories on-line, listened to the gossip around the company, made sure he knew her door was open if he needed more IT help. When he came around asking her to track down black composite arrows and syringes filled with "energy drinks" she played the role of innocent middle aged employee. Unknown to him, she placed a small tracker device on the arrow he'd brought her.

When Walter Steele asked for discreet help to track down missing funds, Felicity's curiosity turned to concern. By the time Walter disappeared, shortly after she'd alerted him to the hidden handwriting in the small leather bound journal, Felicity had put the pieces together. Oliver Queen was the vigilante hero of Starling City and he had no idea how powerful were the forces arrayed against him.

Finally, one dark rainy night, Felicity sat in her office finishing some mundane programming task. She kept one eye on her hacked feed of the company's security feeds. When the motion sensors outside the executive level offices were triggered, she grabbed her keys and purse. She watched the feed on her tablet as she made her way to the garage. When the Hood stumbled out of the elevator shaft she pulled her car up and opened the door.

"Get in."

"How…?"

"I'm not that blonde, Oliver. You're bleeding and need a hospital, now get in."

"No hospitals, take me to abandoned steel mill."

"Oliver, my first aid skills don't extend to bullet wounds!"

"Please."

She'd figured out Oliver's secret, but hadn't connected the dots to account for John Diggle. She wasn't sure which of them was more shocked when she hurried down the foundry stairs. As they worked to stop the bleeding, Diggle interrogated her.

"How did you find him?"

"Hacked the QC feeds." She rolled her eyes at his raised eyebrow. "Mr. Diggle I am very, very , good at what I do. Even if I didn't have a degree from MIT, I would've figured out what Oliver was up to. For a man leading a double life, he's a remarkably bad liar."

"You haven't turned him in."

She didn't reply at first, busying herself washing the blood from the scarred chest of the young man on the table. "I had a…nephew."

The way she hesitated made Diggle wondering if she was being entirely honest about the relationship.

"He was eight when he died. Drive-by on the edge of the Glades." She looked away and blinked several times. When she faced Diggle again, her eyes were bright with unshed tears but her tone was fierce. "This city is infected from top to bottom, Mr. Diggle. If Oliver, and you, can save it—save us—then I don't see why I should stand in your way."

"It's dangerous."

Felicity snorted. "Mr. Diggle, I've spent my life on a computer. I can assure you, there as many dangers in my world as there are in yours. I might not have the physical skills to assist you in this crusade, but I want to help." She stopped to glance down at Oliver. "I need to."

By the time Oliver was up and moving again, Felicity had already started re-wiring his computer network. He asked her to help, unaware that she was already a member of the team.

Slowly, in fits and starts, Diggle and Felicity whittled down Oliver's walls. He opened up about the trauma of the island. She pushed him hard, making him stay focused but urging him toward non-lethal means. And on that horrible night when Tommy Merlyn died, it was Felicity who soothed a sobbing Oliver. She kept him from running away from the city and his problems.

Felicity was his rock and his conscience.

If anyone was shocked when Oliver promoted the middle-aged IT genius to be his assistant, they were quickly disabused of the notion that the change in job title was unwarranted. After all, Ms. Smoak was the only person in world able to quell Isabel Rochev's razor edged tongue with a single glance. Moira, upon her release from jail, immediately recognized the threat that Felicity posed-both for her son's loyalty and his filial affections.

The woman the world knew as his mother had betrayed him, but it wasn't for her that he went out every night.

He went out for Felicity Smoak-to avenge her loss, to earn her approving smiles, to avoid her disappointed snarky comments.

He didn't put the hood back on to avenge Tommy.

He put the hood back on, picked up his bow, and went out night every night to make her proud.

This one was trying to morph into a multi-chapter monster as well. I just don't have the time to re-write the entire series, though. So, thanks for the challenging prompt (Oliver and Felicity with a 20 year age difference—even if I did misread it) and I hope the excessive exposition wasn't too distracting. Also, I reserve the right to come back and add to this AU version of Team Arrow, should I ever find the time!