A/N: This is my first entry for the Ladies of Arrow Appreciation Week on Tumblr. This one is more of a drabble but I'll try and up the word count over the next six days.
As always, I don't own anything (except my notebooks). Please enjoy and review.
Felicity had never particularly associated 'family' with anything consistent or stable. Her father leaving didn't give her the best of impressions and her mother was... Her mother. Being a cocktail waitress didn't give the most steady hours and she wasn't the most reliable person around.
Numbers. Numbers made sense to Felicity, they were predictable, dependable and if there was an issue, it could be broken down into logical pieces and solved. Where her family failed her, numbers never did, and her affinity for numbers afforded her the opportunity to go to MIT and build a new life for herself. She'd had dreams of finding her best friends at MIT, her Harry and her Ron or her Gabrielle to her Xena (although, they were totally more than best friends) but when that fell through, the numbers were still there and so was the comfort she found in algorithms and mathematical problems and things she could actually understand.
Accepting a job at Queen Consolidated was easy, and she had almost forgotten her dreams of finding her own family when she climbed into her car one evening and found the Starling City vigilante bleeding out in the back of it (she never did think it prudent to find out if blood stains were covered by her insurance – too many questions).
She finally had people in her life that gave her a new meaning of family, one that she disagreed and fought with, but in the end was there for her and could be relied on. But something still seemed to be missing, even though Diggle was her knight-in-shining-armour and Roy could always make her laugh and she would really rather not think about her feelings towards Oliver, she realised what she wanted after spending more time with Laurel and Sara.
She simply wanted a friend soulmate. Okay, it wasn't that simple, but she wanted the Ann to her Leslie and sometimes she quietly reflected as they grabbed lunch or went out together on a stake-out, that somewhere along the road, she'd found two.
She'd always admired a lot about Laurel but her recent crusade against the vigilante had somewhat tainted Felicity's feelings and she had held some professional jealously against Sara (as well as some personal, she would begrudgingly admit). Felicity was quite happy to have her feelings change.
Yes, they fight. Laurel had to go through the same adjusting Felicity did when she joined – learning how to do what the city needs while not compromising your own ideals is difficult and she tries to support her the best she can. They sometimes have opposing views on how to deal with a crisis but in the end they always work together because that's what Starling City deserves (and Felicity never could hold a grudge).
It's a surprise the first time Captain Lance suggests she tags along for dinner and Sara hooks her elbow into her own like it was expected, Laurel simply giving one of her gorgeous smiles. Somewhere along the way, she (a woman in her twenties) is adopted by this family, with a gruff father, driven older sister and somewhat rebellious younger sister.
Numbers were reliable and consistent, but they couldn't bring you soup when you got sick, or help you pick out a new nail polish shade or show you the best way to throw a punch. They couldn't bring a smile to your face or give you that warm feeling in your chest, they couldn't love you the way you wanted to be loved. It's in the quiet moments that Felicity truly understands what family is and is forever grateful that an idiotic billionaire picked her to spin his outrageous lies to.
A/N: I'll try to shift the focus away from Felicity but she is the love of my life so I'm not sure I have the strength.
Stay healthy!
Adrina Stark.