Power Tools

An: I do not Own Arrow

Summary: Oliver comes home after a longer than usual errand through town to find his girlfriend using a power saw. He soon learns a lot about Felicity's past and the way she grew up. Set during the summer road trip.

Oliver had left early in the morning to run a few errands around town. First up was the post office to send off their latest post cards to Starling City, Central City and Roy. They were in a small town in the middle of Great Plains. They had rented a small house for three weeks. The condition of the house left much to be desired but Felicity didn't seem to mind. She had apparently grown up in something similar in Las Vegas and Oliver was curious to see how she lived her life growing up. After the post office he went to the pharmacy to pick up a few necessary items, one of them her feminine products. The female cashier had raised an eyebrow at him but Oliver wasn't embarrassed at all. Anything he could do for Felicity brought him great joy. She had given up a lot for him, picking up items for her was the least he could do to show her how grateful he was that she had joined him on his trip. Afterwards he had to make a trip to the grocery. While there the fire alarm had gone off and he had to leave his trolley and head out into the parking lot. It was an hour later before he had been allowed back inside to complete his shopping. Once he had finally finished with the grocery, a text message from Felicity had asked him to collect Chinese food. From the size of her order, he suspected they were having lunch with the two pre-teen girls that Felicity had taken under her wing next door. It had been easy for them to listen to her because they had these huge crushes on Oliver and so the girls jumped at the opportunity to come over and be near him.

On the way back out to his neighbourhood, two old men had run into each other at the intersection and they were arguing back and forth about who was right and who was wrong. Oliver was irritated. Move your cars first and then argue who is right and wrong. It was a full thirty minutes before a police officer arrived and instructed them to move their vehicles so that traffic could flow again.

By the time Oliver arrived home it was after lunch and he was expecting to find Felicity on the patio in the back with the two girls reviewing their summer studies. Both girls had been failing school badly and had to attend classes in the morning to catch up on their school work. Felicity had started helping them with math but eventually extended herself to help with all of their other classes, sometimes googling things late into the night so that she would know the answers to their questions the next day. Usually one of the girls would be complaining bitterly about having to study and how none of what they learned at school applied to real life. Felicity thought they were too focused on boys and were trying to define themselves based on what their peers wanted.

Today he heard a sound of a power saw coming from the girls' back yard. He stepped out on his back patio and found it empty. He looked across into their yard and found Felicity, dressed in a tight ripped blue jeans and fitted vest with a brown tool belt around her waist. Oliver's mouth went dry. She was bent over a plank of wood with a power saw in her hands. She had just cut off a six foot length of wood and she handed it to the girls. Both girls used a measuring tape to measure the length and took it over to their patio where they placed it over one of the rotten floor boards on their patio. They ripped a piece of masking tape off, labelled the piece and then placed it on the side where Oliver saw at least 10 other lengths already cut and labelled. They headed back over to Felicity and measured the next segment that was to be cut. Felicity adjusted the wood and got herself in a position to make her cut. Oliver had to admit, the view of Felicity bent over was quite pleasing to his eyes. He decided to head over. Once she had completed her cut and put the saw safely down, he interrupted her.

"What's going on here?" Oliver asked. Both pre-teens faces lit up and he could swear their eyes turned to the shapes of hearts as each squealed, "Mr. Oliver!"

"Today's lesson plan, practical applications of Math, History and Spanish," She said wiping the beads of sweat off of her face.

"I get the math, but I don't get the history and Spanish," Oliver replied with a smile. Since he had left for his road trip with Felicity, he hadn't stopped smiling.

Before his girlfriend could explain, the girls jumped at having a conversation with him, "That porch was built in the past, so it is history. It is an action that happened in the past that we can learn from. Eventually this present will also become our history that we can learn from when we're older. As for the Spanish, all the planks are numbered in Spanish. Felicity didn't allow us to use the numerals; we had to spell out the words and she made sure we spelt it right."

Felicity gave him an evil smile, "I just finished cutting the last floor board," she said handing him a crowbar, "Can you use those large muscles of yours and rip out the old ones?"

"Aren't you usually supposed to do that first?" he asked.

"I'm not a professional carpenter. I can't look at a space and know how to build things in it. I have to see the original and reverse engineer it. I took detailed pictures of the design and then I cut each board to match and labelled them according to the pictures so that everything can be reassembled."

"What if the support beams need changing?" Oliver prodded his girlfriend.

"I checked them. I knocked each piece of wood and they are all solid. It was only the floor boards that were starting to rot. And to make sure the new ones last longer, I ordered a few gallons of marine varnish to paint the wood to protect it from the elements. While you remove those boards for us, we'll just set up lunch."

Oliver chuckled and started his task. It was harder than he thought it would have been and his shirt was nearly soaked with sweat from the exertion. Even though it was takeout food, Felicity still set the table for them to have a proper meal. She also had a nice ice cold beer for him. Oliver wasn't a beer drinker but he certainly wasn't complaining as the cool liquid went down his throat. The girls sat with them eagerly trying to gain his attention.

"So how was your day?" they asked.

"Good, so when did this little lesson plan start?" he asked. They had only been there a week. When had Felicity decided to do all of this?

"From the moment I saw that porch," Felicity admitted. There was a story there, Oliver knew it and he knew it went back to her childhood days in Las Vegas. If Felicity didn't expound on her sentence that meant she was reluctant to discuss it at the moment.

After lunch was finished, Felicity gave them a half an hour break before they would resume the porch. The girls' wanted to surprise their mother when she returned from her day shift which meant that they needed to do the installation quickly. Felicity washed up the dishes while to Oliver's horror, she left him to deal with the girls.

"Let them down gently," she had mouthed to him before she disappeared inside with the stack of plates and a wide smile on her face.

Oliver looked back at the young girls and for the first time felt panic, the hearts in their eyes had gotten even bigger.

"You're really good with the crobar," one said.

"I couldn't imagine Miss Felicity trying to do that. She said we need to be more reliant on ourselves and that we shouldn't put so much emphasis on boys but you're always helping her with everything," the other commented.

"Just because I help her doesn't mean she can't do it. We function as a team. I pick up for her weaknesses and she helps with mine but if for some reason I am not there, I'm confident she can handle herself. That's part of what she is trying to teach you. It's great to have a boy around but don't build yourself around that idea. You can't prop yourself up on another person. And honestly, a girl that can take care of herself is really sexy."

"Ok the dishes are all done," Felicity said coming back outside, "You ready to start,"

"Yes," the girls said excitedly.

"Where are the hammer and nails?" Oliver asked,

"Do I look like a hammer and nails type of girl Oliver?" Felicity teased as she picked up a drill and screws.

"Why do it the hard way, when I can do it the easy way," she lined up a screw into the first floor board that the girls had picked out and placed in position and used the drill to drive the screw into the wood. "All done, I would still be pounding on that nail and possibly nursing a sore thumb because I missed the nail once," she commented.

Oliver couldn't help but be proud of his girl. She never ceased to amaze him and though this trip was supposed to be him finding himself, he kept learning more and more about the amazing woman that was his girlfriend. He tried to help move the boards but he was told he was messing up the order in which they had laid everything out and he was sent to go make some lemonade because they were thirsty.

When all the boards were in, Felicity gave the girls face masks and showed them how to paint the varnish on to the boards. While they were occupied, Felicity cleaned up the back yard and Oliver decided to ask her the burning question in his mind, "How did you learn to use power tools?"

She looked a bit sad, "you know that it was just my mom and I and whatever money my mom made paid for basic essentials. I don't know if we were lucky or not but we did own our house and we had a mortgage that mom was barely meeting but it was still ours and she didn't want to give it up. Unfortunately it was old and it needed a lot of maintenance, which we couldn't afford. Since I was good with wiring and computers, I had started doing some of the minor electrical work like fixing lighting fixtures and plugs. There were several leaking pipes and after watching a plumber at school change an angle valve, I decided I could do it. It was a little more complicated than I thought, I didn't know about thread seal but the plumber at school explained it to me after I flooded the bathroom. Also, I later discovered that youtube is a fantastic teacher!"

Oliver chuckled at that. Felicity had once threatened to film a video of him as the Arrow sharpening his arrows and post it on youtube as a DIY video of how to sharpen your arrows.

"When I was 16, we got a new neighbour, an old war veteran that was retired. He enjoyed wood working and made a lot of amazing things. He had some problems with his phone system and his communications provider didn't know what was wrong but I was able to fix it for him. He wanted to do something in return for me. Our patio was in a much worse condition than the one next door and he offered to fix it. It took a full month during my summer vacation to fix it, partly because he spent a lot of time teaching me. I learned how to use a drill, a power saw, a level, and a measuring tape. There were so many lessons and he particularly emphasised safety. I was so afraid I would drop the saw on my foot. I remember he taught me how to change the blade on the saw. Getting the knot off was so hard, I had to use my entire body weight to press down on the ratchet to loosen the knot. When it did move, my hand flew down on to the silver guide rail and I squeezed my middle finger. You wouldn't believe how important a middle finger is until you can't use it!"

"Sounds like you enjoyed it?" Oliver said.

"I did. Much like their mom, mine was never home. She worked a morning and night shift to pay the bills. It did get a little lonely. He died a few months after the patio was finished but he taught me a lot of things. He even gave me free boyfriend advice."

"He did. What did he tell you?" Oliver asked curiously.

"Forget about the high school boys," Felicity laughed. "You know, I think he would have liked you a lot Oliver."

Oliver pulled her into his arms, his hand running circles on her back. He sensed she needed the hug and he was happy when she relaxed into him. He had never had that type of hardship in his life until Lian Yu. There were so many things he had been forced to learn in that five year period.

When the porch was completed Felicity looked over at the girls, "So how does it feel girls, to know you had a hand in rebuilding your porch?"

"Tired,"

"Exhausted, I could sleep for three days,"

Felicity laughed, "Your mom is going to love it. In two days time we can throw a little party on your patio and invite all of your school friends."

The girls beamed at her and immediately started texting their friends. Oliver's arms circled around her waist, "And how much did this little project of yours cost us?" he asked.

"Hmmm, not much," she replied.

That night Oliver lay in bed waiting for Felicity to emerge from the bathroom. When the door finally opened she emerged from the bathroom wearing nothing but her tool belt.

"Mr. Queen," she purred, "I heard you needed some assistance erecting something."

Oliver didn't know what he did to deserve this vixen in front of him but he was thankful he did it because tonight he was going to enjoy himself immensely.