Disclaimer: I don't own Arrow and intend no copyright infringement.

~ For a very special weasel… thank you for being there, always… ~

"Good morning, Mr. Queen! Can I get you a cup of coffee?"

Oliver had been wrapped up in his own thoughts, contemplating his mother and Thea, Isabel Rochev, the financial state of QC, Sara… In summary: There had been a lot on his mind when he walked into his office that Monday morning.

The chirpy, cheerful tone, however, and the offer to get him coffee, totally unheard of in this part of the building, alerted him to the demands of the present pretty quickly.

"Who are you?" Wheeling around in a motion way too fluent and feline predator like for a supposed socialite and CEO newbie, he zoomed in on the young woman behind the desk at the entrance to his office. "Where is Ms. Smoak?"

The poor thing shrank under his piercing look like an ice-cube under a laser beam.

"The staff department sent me", she stuttered. "Ms. Smoak has taken a personal day and I'm supposed to substitute for her. The CEO can't be without a PA, can he?"

Was this another one of Isabel's attempts to outmaneuver him? He wouldn't put it past her, especially since his "partner" had made derogatory comments about Felicity's skirts and qualifications on more than one occasion.

Because Felicity would never simply disappear without telling him.

Or would she?

Come to think of it, he hadn't seen her all weekend. Which wasn't exactly surprising since the Arrow had decided to spend it with a certain Canary for a little R&R.

Could this be another Jealous!Felicity attack? Had she taken a day off to teach him a lesson?

Sighing in exasperation, Oliver headed to his desk and contacted Diggle: "We've got a problem." And for good measure, he also alerted the rest of the team.

Felicity, predictably, did not respond to his message.

… … …

"You've hacked into QC's staff database?" Glancing over Sara's shoulder, Diggle looked at a certain IT girl's personal file. "Do me a favor and don't mention your hacking skills to Felicity…"

"Don't worry", Sara replied. "This stays between me and you. And I'm not really good at it anyway. Just some make do I picked up here and there. The League's training is excellent when it comes to fighting skills, but the computer age hasn't really reached Nanda Parbat yet."

Diggle smiled at the image of a horde of veiled, fully dressed up assassins in fighting gear complete with daggers and veiled faces, cursing about some phishing mail spamming their accounts. Important message from Nigeria…

"Do you see what's missing in her file?", Sara asked.

Diggle looked, frowned, looked again. "She didn't seriously…?"

"Apparently she did."

"Have you found anything yet?" Oliver came heading down the stairs of the lair, worry written all over his face. "I've checked her apartment, she's not there. No signs of a struggle, though. I don't know what triggered this… I've really tried not making her feel left out…"

"It's not always about you, Ollie" Sara motioned him to come over to her and take a look at the computer screen.

Just like Diggle Oliver looked, frowned, looked again.

"There's no date of birth in her file – how is that possible? When she started working for QC they must have noted it. That's essential data."

"And of course it's highly unlikely that a woman who can destroy evidence in a crime lab with a few mouse clicks could be capable of erasing her own birthday from her employer's data base…", Diggle said.

They heard the lair's door opening an in came Roy. "I think I've found her!"

… … …

Roy had ears and eyes not only all over the Glades, after the Arrow had hired him to provide him with information he had slowly but surely extended his net of informants so that it now included the other parts of the city, too.

MacRiordan Park, a bench by the lake.

There she was, sitting all by herself… Well, not all by herself… Felicity was surrounded by at least two dozen very lively ducks, scuffling for the breadcrumbs she was throwing them. They didn't even take much notice of Oliver forcing his way through the feathery mass. Some indignant quacking and wing beating was the only acknowledgment of his presence.

Felicity made no sound at all. She just kept throwing breadcrumbs.

She did bite her lips, though, knowing the man in the elegant suit who had noiselessly taken a seat right by her side, wasn't exactly pleased.

"We should really talk about this habit of disappearing you've picked up lately", Oliver said after a while.

"I always take this day off. You just didn't know because this time last year you were still on that island." Felicity remembered the headlines well that had been plastered all over the city, not long after her birthday – Billionaire, back from the Dead. How strange to think that back then she had had no idea how dramatically said billionaire would change her life…

"You could have said something. Last time Diggle asked for a few personal days he was planning to head to Russia and break his ex-wife out of prison. We don't take personal days just like that."

"I don't know anyone in Russia. Oh well, actually I do, but she's not in prison and I have never really met her, I don't think I would try and break her out of prison, there was this computer problem a couple of years back, I was still at MIT, and we…"

"Felicity…"

A moment of silence passed. Felicity wasn't sure what to do now. He would not let go. Oliver could be incredibly blind to the problems of the people around him, but once he got wind of something…

"I don't really like ducks", she finally said, reached into her bag of breadcrumbs and threw some more to the ground.

"I could catch one… It's almost dinner time." One of the ducks, a dark green one, had constantly pecked at Oliver's shoelaces for the past few minutes although he had tried shooing it off a couple of times. And on top of that it had also left droppings on the expensive Italian leather. It was rather fat. Hmmmm…

"I don't dislike them that much."

"Why don't you tell me what all this is about?"

Felicity sighed. "As a kid I was promised something by my mother. Instead we went duck feeding."

There he had it. Shortest possible version of the story. And she was not willing to expand on it.

Felicity speaking in parataxis? Sure sign of hurtful memories.

Not to mention the fact that she turned her face away from him.

… … …

"Seriously? You don't know how to bake a cake?" Diggle couldn't stop shaking his head over Sara, still partly covered in flour.

"Assassins don't bake cakes, they buy them and put poison in it."

"I've found a bakery selling freshly made strawberry cheese cake at this time of night." Roy entered Felicity's kitchen, balancing a pink box. "Maybe we should put it in a fridge till we're done with the pizzas."

Noises from the entrance door.

"Do I want to know how you all got into my apartment without any of you having a key?" Felicity's voice in the living-room.

"Your locks need replacement", Sara smiled, rounded the corner and hugged Felicity. "Happy birthday."

"So does your oven." Diggle hugged Felicity, too.

"What?"

"Long story. Involves an assassin that can't bake." Roy shook her hand, then turned to Oliver and gave the piece of straw on his sleeve a questioning look.

"There's a new baby elephant in Starling City Zoo", Oliver murmured. "And their locks are really in need of replacement."

Diggle went into the kitchen and came back with several big pizza boxes. "We should eat them as long as they're half-way hot."

"Hang on... You don't really think you can wriggle your way out just like that?", Sara's voice took on a slightly menacing tone.

"Ugh, Sara…" A choir of complaint arose from her friends.

"We talked about his… defectors will be punished… on three. One, two…"

And so they sang. Happy birthday to you…

As she listened to her friends, who were definitely great at a lot of things, but singing wasn't one of them, Felicity decided she would not go duck feeding ever again.

They had given her something new to remember.