Title: regression

Summary: In which Felicity gets transported to the past and meets a very young Oliver Queen. (A.K.A. Oliver's memory is better than Feiicity expects).

Written for the Olicity Hiatus Project

Prompt: AU's!

AU: Time Travel

"I'm having some trouble with my computer and they told me you were the person to come and see."

To be fair, she dealt with computers, not with… time machines.

(Clearly the unsuspecting yellow box with its broken lights and faulty wiring was the T.A.R.D.I.S. in disguise!)

Because that was what this clearly was. She thinks. She hopes. One second she's trying to get the wiring on this stupid box fixed so that Diggle and Roy could move it out of the Foundry safely without electrocuting themselves (boys. hmph) while simultaneously reprimanding Oliver on not switching the green and yellow wires, and the next second she's suddenly out of the Foundry and in … the Queen mansion?

Felicity looked around in awe of the majestic area. The mansion never did lose its affect on her, and right now she felt like a kid in a candy story.

"Who are you?"

Felicity almost jumped and spun around to face the childlike voice coming from the stairway. She stared in shock for a second, because she didn't think her time travel theory was actually true. It couldn't be. That kind of stuff was reserved for television and the twilight zone.

Except there was a mini-Oliver Queen staring back at her in light blue pajamas.

At least… she thinks it's Oliver. Truth be told she has no issue stating that she herself is a nosy little piece of work, so she already had an idea of what baby! Oliver queen looked like.

Okay Felicity step back. Time to think about this rationally like every other normal human being.

… Maybe Oliver had a son? The thought made her chest tighten with anxiety.

Except the kid was so cute. He couldn't have been more than ten years old. Feiicity wanted to pinch his cheeks before she stopped herself because she told herself that when she grew up, she would not be like her nana and her claws of doom.

"I said who are you?" the kid angrily demanded. "And why are you in my house?"

Felicity blinked and said the first thing to come to mind, "I'm Felicity." And then she wanted to face palm herself because everyone knew you didn't mess with the past. The butterfly effect all but insured that her telling baby Oliver her name could change the timeline completely and would have horrible horribly terrible consequences all because she couldn't keep a lid on her mouth. "Who are you?"

The kid raised an eyebrow (oh wow so that's where that mini bout of sass that was definitely in adult Oliver), "Oliver Queen. Duh. I live here? My name is on the door?"

Actually it wasn't but she wasn't going to crush his fantasies.

"Why are you in my house?" he asked, paddling down the stairs loudly the only way a 10-year-old could. Felicity bit her lip, weighing the pros and cons of what she wanted to tell him, but figured in this case, when dealing with a kid, maybe the truth wouldn't be too much of a stretch for them to believe.

"Well actually I don't know", she said, looking around the mansion. "I'm from the future, and I just landed here."

Oliver's eyes widened and Felicity's heart stuttered at how sweet and innocent her looked. (And then she felt the gaping hole from where her heart dropped down her chest, when she realized how much he was going to lose in a few years, and it burned her tongue to keep the secrets inside but she knew she couldn't change too much history without there being severe repercussions.)

"The future?" he asked, walking closer to her and warily glancing at her, as if she was going to disappear. (Well she might. She didn't know the details of time travel beyond her Doctor Who marathons.) He slowly reached a hand out and poked her thigh, making sure she was real. She almost laughed.

"Yep!" she said, popping the "p". She crouched down to be at his height and made a show of looking around before bopping him on the nose. Oliver's face scrunched up afterwards and she made sure to remind herself to try that at home. "I actually work for you in the future."

His eyebrows furrowed at that, as if not understanding what she meant. "Where?"

"At Queen Consolidated silly!" she said excitedly, blanching as she realized how bad this would go if Oliver knew that he had no interest in the company.

But that wasn't the case in this timeline, apparently, because Oliver's eyes widened even more and he started jumping up and down. "You mean I become the boss like my dad?"

Seeing him so excited to work at Queen Consolidated made her smile sadly, trying to keep the charade up for him. What in the world could have happened between now and the shipwreck that made Oliver so… irresponsible?

Not for the first time, Felicity wished she could help him now, change his life for the better.

(Even if it meant she might not actually be in it. The thought broke her heart a little.)

"Yeah. I work in the I.T. Department", she said, trying to grin as baby Oliver stared at her in wonder. "I fix computers better than anyone". Her mind went to the bullet riddled laptop and Oliver's silly excuses, and she started missing adult-him more than ever.

Something told her it was time to go back.

"Why don't you come find me in a few years?" she asked him, bringing her hand out so he could give her a high-five. Her stomach churned when she realized that "a few years" would be much, much later. "When you're all grown up and have a really bad computer problem that no one else can fix?"

Oliver looked at her in amazement before nodding eagerly and she motioned for him to turn around and go back upstairs. Hopefully the time travel business was over, because she didn't think she could take much more of this longing to fix what went wrong in Oliver's life.

Oliver was still bouncing up the stairs when she realized that she wasn't … leaving or anything. Panic filled her thoughts and her mind went back to the moment she disappeared from her reality, where Oliver was fiddling with the yellow box.

"Hey Oliver?" she called out before he was about to leave, trying one more idea out before she had to start walking back to wherever home was now (2000 miles away).

"Yeah?" he asked, tilting his head to the side as he waited for her question. She couldn't stop the smile from growing on her face at the familiar gesture.

"Remember to switch the green and yellow wires back."

Oliver looked at her curiously and in bewilderment, but nodded anyways and resumed his flight back up the stairs.

Seconds later Felicity opened her eyes and found herself back in the Foundry, sitting across from Oliver with the yellow box in between them and the green and yellow wires in his hands. He was looking at her with a big grin on his face, and it took her breath away, the way he made her feel like no one else was in the room.

"Welcome back", he said quietly, and Felicity smiled, glancing at the wires in his hands that Oliver had switched. He remembered.

"Welcome back from where? Where did she go?" Roy impatiently called out, but Felicity and Oliver ignored him.

Things clearly happen for a reason.

"Felicity Smoak?"

She looked up and Oliver Queen was staring at her with a strange smile, his eyes lighting up in recognition.

"Hi. I'm Oliver Queen."

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