My beautiful boy, Moira thought as she watched Oliver place the ring, his fingers shaking a bit, on the souffle.
She knew that she was probably the only person who would ever call Oliver that. Most people would call Oliver handsome or attractive rather than beautiful, and after what he'd been through in the years since the Queen's Gambit sank, there wasn't really anyone alive who would that Oliver was anything but a man.
Moira was not most people, and she wasn't exactly alive, and when she looked at Oliver, she looked past the scars and loss and the titles he held and just saw her son, a person she'd loved unconditionally from the moment she first held him in her arms, a person she would have done anything to protect from any harm the world could throw at him.
The five years Oliver was- gone- had obviously changed him, from a carefree and irresponsible boy into a brooding, responsible man, and if Moira had been anyone other than his mother, that's the person she would have seen. But she wasn't, and even after seeing the evidence of the hell he'd gone through, after figuring out how he spent his nights, she'd never gotten over her gut instinct to protect and shelter him. He was her son, after all.
When she'd figured out that Oliver was actually the vigilante, she'd started paying more attention to the people he was choosing to spend his time with. Obviously, John Diggle knew- despite the appearances they put up, she knew that they were close, and that they worked together, and that they were well on their way to becoming as close as Oliver had once been to Tommy.
It wasn't until after Oliver came back to Starling City after the Undertaking that she even realized that John Diggle wasn't the only new person in Oliver's life. She'd honestly been a little shocked at Oliver's relationship with Felicity Smoak- her very limited interactions with her before the Undertaking had kind of given her the impression that she was just one of the countless women Oliver slept with- but then she'd seen how they acted around each other.
When Felicity had confronted her about knowing that Malcolm was actually Thea's father, Moira had said that she'd seen the way Felicity looked at her son, and she hadn't been bluffing- it was easy to see how much Felicity cared about Oliver. She also hadn't been completely honest- as much as Felicity cared about Oliver, it was easy (for her, at least) to see how devoted Oliver was to Felicity.
As much as it had annoyed Moira- Felicity had no right to be as close to Oliver as she was- there was still something about her that made Moira secretly respect her. She'd hit her where it hurt- the possibility of losing Oliver- but in telling Oliver, Felicity had proved that her feelings for Oliver were stronger than her fear of Moira, and that took more than a hint of steel in her spine.
If Slade hadn't killed her, there was every chance that Moira would have eventually grown to like Felicity. In a way, Moira felt that Felicity was a bit of a kindred spirit, both in her strength and determination, and her love for Oliver, even if that took a different form than Moira's.
Moira's love for Oliver had always been informed by the fact that he was her son, and the ultimate manifestation of that kind of maternal love was shielding him from harm. Felicity, however, loved Oliver Queen as a man, and instead of standing in front of him to protect him, Felicity stood beside him in support. It was why Moira had eventually started to support the idea of Oliver and Felicity being together- it was obvious that they could be as powerful as she and Robert had been, but they would have the added advantage of being great lovers, which she and Robert hadn't been.
She'd honestly been excited when Oliver had finally asked her out on a date, and couldn't help but marvel at how he looked. When he'd first come back, Oliver had been cold and distant, not wanting to form or rebuild emotional attachments. Now, he was smiling, and stumbling over his sentences, and Moira had had the painful realization that Oliver hadn't looked that genuinely happy and carefree since he was a kid.
And then, of course, things went south, and Oliver drew back into the protective shell of the Arrow, at the expense of being Oliver Queen- of being happy, for the first time in almost two decades, and it had pissed Moira off no end. Her beautiful boy was choosing to make himself miserable, and if she'd been alive, Moira would have probably yelled at him. God knows Tommy was- he'd been one of the first person she'd met in the afterlife, and he was equally as invested in Oliver's and Felicity's relationship.
She was still proud of Oliver- how could she not be? Her boy was turning into a hero- but if he thought that not acting on his feelings for Felicity was a good idea, then he'd clearly hit his head too many times after the Queen's Gambit sank. She certainly hadn't raised him to be such an idiot when it came to matters of the heart.
When he and his team finally defeated Ra's, Moira had actually fist-pumped in excitement when Oliver said that he wanted to go away with Felicity. The excitement, however, had turned to happy tears when, just before they left town, Oliver had gone and retrieved the engagement ring Robert had given to her. He knew- and she knew- that he would wait to propose, but he was definitely going to, and honestly, Moira really couldn't think of a better person for Oliver to give that ring to than Felicity Smoak.
She'd been anticipating this since this morning, when he'd shown the ring to his neighbors while Felicity was inside the house, and now all she could think was about damn time. Sure, it wasn't exactly the future she'd envisioned for Oliver- that had involved running Queen Consolidated and having a successful marriage to someone like Laurel Lance- but clearly, life had other plans for her son, and if those plans involved marrying a blond computer genius... well, at least he was happy.