I'm not sure what this is or where this idea came from in the mess I fondly call my brain, but here we are. Let's hope it's not totally ridiculous, eh? Yeah, right. I'd give you a better summary than I've henceforth provided but I think you should be able to glean the gist of the plot or plot-like substance from this first chapter. That's my hope anyway. Let's get to it, shall we?
It was one of the worst crashes she'd seen in a long time. And as a police officer in a big city, Anna Morales had laid eyes a lot of them. Too many, really. Too many drunks and reckless drivers and just plain tragic accidents. Too many lives lost and ruined, often at the hands of booze-addled idiots who never deserved to make it out with hardly a scratch on them – while at the same time their victims' families were receiving a call or a visit they never expected.
Tonight was one of those nights. Officer Morales stood beside an overturned grey sedan on the side of the highway and watched with solemn resignation as Jimmy Davenport limped away in handcuffs and was shoved unceremoniously into a squad car by her partner Miles.
No matter how many times she'd seen it, she always had a hard time watching the victims get pulled from the destroyed vehicles. Paramedics had declared them DOA. A married couple this time – she could see their blood-spattered wedding rings glinting in the light of the streetlamps.
One of the paramedics handed her a clear plastic bag and Morales nodded gratefully. Inside were two wallets and two cell phones. She reached in to grab the man's wallet and flipped in open.
Notification was always the hardest part.
Officer Morales took the job of locating next of kin while her partner dealt with booking Davenport and cleaning up the rest of the scene.
The address listed on the driver's license was for a white rambler situated in a small neighborhood only a few miles from the site of the accident. Lights were on in the house when Morales pulled up. It was only 8:30 in the evening so that wasn't necessarily a surprise, but she wasn't sure who she was going to find inside, whose life she was going to irrevocably alter.
The faint sounds of the doorbell echoed back to her through the door as she stood on the front stoop. A minute later, the door swung open to reveal a short brunette of about eighteen, whose curious expression turned to one of concern when she fully registered Morales's badge and uniform.
"Hi," Morales said. "Do you live here?"
The girl frowned, gripping the doorknob tighter. "No. I'm just the babysitter."
Morales's heart dropped. Babysitter meant young child. She sighed inwardly. "I'm Officer Morales of the Tucson PD. May I come inside?"
Hesitantly, the girl asked, "Um, what is this about?"
"What's your name, hon?"
"Lexie."
Morales stepped forward. "Lexie, can I come in?"
Lexie finally nodded and moved aside to let Morales in before shutting the door and leading her to the kitchen.
"Did… Did something happen to Matt and Jennifer?"
"How old are you, Lexie?" Morales asked.
"I just turned eighteen."
Morales nodded and sighed, then continued, "Lexie, I'm really sorry to tell you this, but Matthew and Jennifer were killed in a car accident this evening. It was a drunk driver."
"Oh, my God," Lexie gasped.
Resting a gentle hand on her shoulder, Morales asked, "Where are the children?"
Lexie squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head, clearly trying not to cry. "Just one child. Ethan. He's in his room." She pointed down the hallway behind her. "God, he's only eleven."
"Will you show me to his room?"
Telling the boy was hard. When they'd entered the room, he'd been sprawled on his bed playing a handheld videogame – just a happy young boy who had no idea in that moment that his entire world was about to change.
After a few minutes spent sitting in silence after sending the babysitter home, Officer Morales sighed sadly and leaned forward in her chair.
"Ethan," she said, laying a gentle hand on his shoulder. The boy finally lifted his gaze from his lap. His blue eyes focused somewhere to the left of her own, not actually meeting hers – but it was a start. She took a breath and asked, "Do you know of any family nearby that you could stay with? Maybe an aunt or an uncle? Grandparents?"
Ethan bit down on his lower lip and shook his head. It broke her heart to see him trying so hard not to cry.
"Nobody?"
He shrugged, eyes falling back to the clasped hands in his lap. "I don't think so."
Morales sighed again. She was doing that a lot tonight. "Okay, Ethan. Can you pack a few days' worth of clothes? You can bring your game too, if you want." She looked to the end of the bed and spotted an empty backpack, grabbing it and setting it at his feet. "I'm going to have to take you back to the station with me, all right? Someone from Social Services will meet us there."
Kevin Lynch jumped and turned around as Officer Morales knocked on the wall of his cubicle.
"Mr. Lynch, I need you to do something for me."
Kevin nodded. "Anything."
Morales scuffed the toe of her boot on the floorboards. "You hear about the car crash on the highway?"
"Yeah, I did. It's sad how often that crap happens, y'know? Damn drunk drivers."
"Absolutely." She tapped the edge of the cubicle wall. "The couple left an eleven-year-old son behind," she told him, and dropped the parents' bagged IDs on his desk. "His name is Ethan, and I need you to check for any next of kin that might be willing to take him in. Please."
Fifteen minutes later she returned with coffee and a hopeful expression, but Kevin only shook his head apologetically.
"Come on, Kevin, find me something. I don't want to have to send another kid into the system if we can help it." Having spent a few years in the foster care system herself long ago, Morales knew how hard that life could be.
"I'm searching, Officer Morales, but… To be honest, it's not looking good. So far I've found that both paternal grandparents are deceased and the maternal grandparents are in a nursing home, not fit to care for themselves, much less a kid." He tapped a few keys and another window came up. "His mom is… was… an only child."
"And the father?"
Kevin sighed and gestured to the screen and Officer Morales leaned in to get a better look. At mug shots.
"One brother. Unfortunately, Paul here has been in prison since 2008 and he won't be getting out anytime soon. And I don't know about you, but I don't think a felon arrested for armed robbery would make the best guardian." He continued typing as he spoke and Officer Morales huffed out a frustrated breath.
"So that's it, then?" she asked.
The TPD computer tech nodded his head slowly, clicking through the various records and scanned documents on his screen. "Not even a distant cousin or… Hang on." He opened another window and brought up some kind of certificate. "Damn, I almost missed this. Looks like Matthew, the father, was married to another woman prior to the boy's mom. They divorced over twenty years ago and he remarried eight years later after moving here to Tucson from Las Vegas, Nevada. Her name is Donna, she kept his last name, and she still lives in Vegas. And here's the kicker," he looked over his shoulder, eyebrows raised, and continued, "They had a daughter, born 1988."
Morales focused on the screen, where a black and white birth certificate was displayed. "Which means Ethan has a half-sister."
"Yeah, and she's twenty-five. Plenty old enough to take guardianship."
"The boy didn't mention her. Does she still live in Las Vegas too?" Morales asked.
"Give me a minute." Kevin started typing again, bringing up yet more windows at a speed she could hardly keep up with. "Nope," he declared a minute later. "Felicity Smoak currently resides in Starling City, Washington."
So Felicity stated in one of her speeches to Oliver (when they were in the, for lack of a better term, backup lair) that she moved a thousand miles away from Vegas to live in Starling City, and since Star City in the comics is roughly equivalent to Seattle of the real world, I decided to situate it there for the purpose of my story. In my opinion, the atmosphere of Starling City on the show feels more Californian than Washingtonian, but hey, what do I know, right? Don't answer that. But basically any given city in California is somewhere less than 900 miles away from Las Vegas, Nevada so I suppose I'm trying to be as geographically realistic as possible here. Granted, I could be totally off and it could actually be set in some Midwestern state, but I feel like they'd be living in a coastal state. Or maybe I'm just crazy. I'll let you draw your own conclusions.
Anyway, let me know what you guys think of this – whether it's worth continuing or not. I know there are a lot of great Arrow fics out there that are more interesting than this, but I don't know. The more, the merrier, yeah? Yeah… Okay, I'm done now. Thanks for reading!