Per a wonderful suggestion from shannbaskets I'm continuing this story. I really do appreciate any suggestions that anyone might have to offer. I'm going to do multiple chapters. At this point I'm doing one for each child. The first is Tommy, and then so on. The girls stories were mentioned in the first chapter so I'll be explaining those moments. If you have any thoughts prompts you'd like to see drop me a note and let me know. You can leave the review here or find my on tumblr laurabella2930 and leave me a note.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to Arrow or its characters.

Chapter Two: Tommy's first word

Felicity Queen gave me the world when she gave me our son. I thought I knew what love was when I was a child. I thought I knew what love was when I was with Laurel. I thought I knew what love was when I finally let myself be with my wife. I was wrong on all counts. I finally learned what love truly was when my son was born. My love expanded even further with the births of our other three children to the point when asked who does my heart belong to I would have five answers. Felicity will always have my heart, mind, body, and soul. She's owned all of those things since her first babble and the red pen. I was the idiot who fought it but in the end she won out. My children however they own every facet of my being. Without them the world wouldn't make a lick of sense. The first time I felt the invisible pull against my heart was when I saw Tommy for the first time. The boy had lungs and much to his mother's delight had no problem using them. I had a very different perspective on that thought pattern. My mind however changed one Sunday afternoon.

Sunday's were family days. That had been the Felicity Queen house rule since the day I said I do. She even found a way to incorporate it into our vows. She was a clever little minx. The sun was pouring in through the window highlighting Felicity's golden strands of hair. I always woke up about five or ten minutes before she did. I spent those minutes gazing upon her and memorizing every single facet of her face, the sounds she made when she was breathing in and out slowly, and the look in her eyes whenever she caught me. Normally she didn't because Tommy had kept her up till all hours of the night. Our beautiful son was going through a rather interesting phase right now. He was attempting to learn his first words. He was also attempting to vocalize those words and usually attempted to do so around 2am. This had been going on for the past two weeks. Felicity had him on a very strict routine. He was bathed, fed, changed, and ready for bed by 8pm every night on the dot. Not even our Green Arrow obligations got in the way of her timetable. However in the last two weeks Tommy had decided to wake up around 2am to start babbling into the baby monitor. He would go and on and on just babbling for hours until one of us came into the room to tend to his needs.

Last night was Felicity's turn for Tommy duty as she had come to call it. I insisted that I should take the shift but; Felicity had made a rather determined argument against my own. Last night was bad even for my standards. We'd been tracking yet another HIVE agent who had come to Starling to start yet another wave of terror. This one's unique brand of terror dealt with cyber terrorism. Felicity had put Tommy down for the night about an hour ago and was in the "Green Arrow Cave" as she had officially dubbed it. The HIVE agent had no name except for the one that Felicity had given him. The cyberHIVE had been hacking into and destroying people's personal accounts for the last three days. Felicity had hacked every FBI, CIA, and even NSA database over the last three days. She could track him for minutes at a time before he once again fell off the grid. Felicity even called in Lyla and the powers of ARGUS to find this guy. This was how annoyed she was getting with this particular manhunt. I had gone to the coordinates that she sent me in the past three minutes with Speedy and Dig in tow. I was positioned on the rooftop across from the main building while Thea and Dig waited on opposite ends of the site just in case this guy actually showed and decided to run. I was standing surveying the layout of the site when I heard my coms click on. I could hear Felicity and the distinctive sound of our 18 month old son babbling away in her ear. I attempted to stifle a laugh but that attempt failed when Thea interrupted my private listening party. "Felicity your com is on and I hear my nephew in the background. Didn't my dear over protective big brother mandate that my precious baby nephew was not to be in the Green Arrow Cave under any circumstances?" By this point I was barely holding it together I was beginning to laugh so hard. Seconds later Felicity chimed in "Don't worry it's the baby monitor he's safely in his room babbling and not in the cave babbling to me. I was worried that he would wake up so I brought the monitor down here as I always do." This time I chimed in to defend my wife against her own sister in law. "Alright you two that's enough we have a mission to focus on. Thea Felicity is his mother and she has as she has informed me the right to decide if or when our son can be in the cave or not." With that the conversation ended and the mission resumed.

After three annoying and rather boring hours on the roof the cyberHIVE had gotten away much to my wife's growing dismay. Felicity had called everyone home when she called our private line that she had installed into my suit via Cisco the day after we were married. "Oliver something is going on with Tommy." I paused and measured my breathing before I answered "Felicity he's fine he's 18 months old and already attempting to speak. As I recall last month you were worried because he hadn't yet started to speak. I think that our son's nocturnal babbling has caused you more sleep deprivation than even you knew." Silence that was never good with a woman who could talk her way in, out, and the back into an argument; two minutes later she replied back with the soft you were right I was wrong tone. "I'm sorry love I'm just worried. He's my, our son and he's perfect. I just don't want to do anything that could harm this perfect little miracle that we created." Smiling I replied "Felicity with you as his mother how could he be anything but perfect. I'll be home soon and then we can share a pint of mint chocolate chip ice cream and watch some random movie on Netflix your pick." Not even three seconds passed when she came back with "You my husband have a deal."

I was a little later getting home than I thought. I was ambushed by three HIVE agents when I was zip lining down from my roof perch. I wasn't badly injured but enough so that Felicity had insisted that she take the shift with our son instead of his beaten and bruised father. I kissed her nose, her forehead and then finally her lips before she left our room to tend to our son. So now that it's morning and our son is finally sleeping soundly I can lay here and watch as she begins to fully wake up. Her eyes softly flutter as she adjusts to the bright light of the early morning sun. She moves her arms away from their position around my waist and stretches them up towards the ceiling. A slight yawn escapes her mouth as she sleepily mutters good morning. I adjust my position against the headboard to come down beside her body until I'm lined up completely against her and resting my forehead against hers. Her smile widens and her eyes stare longingly into mine. "I love you. I know you know that but I feel like I don't tell you often enough sometimes." I closed the gap between us and lightly kissed her lips before replying "I love you and I know that I don't tell you that enough." Sensing that our conversation is about to take a turn towards the slight snoring in the other room I pull her against my chest fully so that her face is firmly placed against my neck and my face is buried in her shoulder. "He's fine you know that don't you. He's learning to talk and just like his mother he's learning via the babble. I really can't imagine where he picked up that trait from." I was slightly laughing by this point as was she. "I know I just wish he would work out whatever it is he wants to say and just say it already." We stayed this way for another twenty minutes just laughing, talking, caressing, and just enjoying connecting to one another once again.

It was around noon when I heard the knock at the front door. Felicity yelled from the kitchen "Oliver it's Laurel she's here to help me go house hunting. Remember you promised you would go with us this time so let her in and then once Thea's here we'll leave." I got up from the leather couch that always beckoned my name whenever I entered the room and went to get the door. There on the other side was indeed Laurel Lance former girlfriend current friend and partner of Green Arrow. She smiled as we exchanged a quick hug and hello as she entered the house. Laurel's and Felicity's relationship had always amazed me. Given how much the two women had in common I was surprised when she quickly became my wife's best friend and constant companion. We walked back into the family room where Tommy was sitting in his rocking chair just swinging back and forth and yes babbling nonstop words that still made no sense at all. Laurel stopped and dropped down in front of my son to grab his two little hands in her own. "Hello my little nephew, hello my beautiful Tommy; how are you today? Are you still keeping mommy and daddy awake at all hours of the night?" She kept talking to him sweetly and he just kept laughing and grabbing at her hands until she removed him from the swing and held him her arms. "I think he likes being held by you." I remarked as she sat down my son in her lap. "Of course he does I'm his aunt Laurel, I'm family what's not to like." Laurel and I had come a long way in the past few years. I was against her become the Black Canary but once I accepted her for who she was becoming things got easier.

She must have noticed my far away expression because she asked "Hey Ollie what's going on in that thick skull of yours?" I laughed and replied "Nothing I was just thinking about how far we've come in the past few years. I was also thinking how ironic it is that you and Felicity are best friends." Laurel smiled softly before responding. "Felicity changed you for the better even I had to see that. You lit up around her in a way that you never did with me. I should know because Tommy was my Felicity. He opened up my heart in the same way that she opened up yours." She took another breath before continuing on. "Felicity and I are best friends because we decided that Ollie and Oliver we're two different people. Ollie broke my heart and died on that island. Oliver came back and showed me that we were never meant to be. Oliver came back and gave me the truth which Ollie had never done. Oliver came back and became the man that I always hoped Ollie could be. Oliver came back and fell in love with Felicity. We loved two very different people and I'm glad that her person was the one that came back." I smiled and simply said "Thank you Laurel." She replied "Anytime Oliver."

Felicity came into the room with blueprints and various home layouts for all of us to go over before we took the tour of a thousand homes. I was attempting to look interested when my son finally chose his moment. By this point Laurel had passed Tommy off to his mother who was going over the various layouts with ease. She and Felicity were going on and on about different layouts and how if we had more children we would need to have this many rooms with access to a larger backyard and so on. I was barely listening since I was too wrapped up in watching my son as he attempted to get his mother's attention. He was using his chubby little hands to pull her hair out of the low ponytail she was sporting today. However Felicity just kept gently moving his hands away and resumed her conversation. My son apparently didn't like being ignored much like his father and took matters into his own hands. Without any warning Tommy spoke. "Momma" clear as a bell and distinctive as could be he said it again. "Momma up" Felicity paused, Laurel's head snapped up with awe and joy, I sat there dumbstruck. Felicity was the first to regain her voice. "Two weeks of non-stop babble and you come up with momma up." She was laughing and smiling down at our son as if he was the whole world. "I'm so proud of my smart boy, yes I am." She lifted him as he had commanded and he started laughing and kept saying momma, momma over and over again.

House hunting was put on pause that day in honor of our son's first words. Laurel and Felicity had snuggled up together on the couch both holding one of Tommy's hands in their own. They kept taking turns getting him to speak while attempting to get him to say different words such as dada, and down. Thea came in an hour later and joined the three of them on the couch. I called John and told him to come over with Lyla and Sara. Felicity had always said that Sunday was family day and it seemed right that most of our family should be together to celebrate my son's first words. As I said I never knew what love was until my children were born. That night as I lay in bed holding my wife stoking my finger tips down her bare back I whispered into her ear "So today you and Laurel were planning our future." She moved her head from my shoulder to move it closer to my face. Rubbing her nose against mine as she often did and replied very softly "So what if we were? I told you that night in Maine I wanted children with you. That means more than one. I do love our son more than I ever thought possible but that doesn't mean I would mind maybe adding one or two more to the equation." I paused before I moved my face to rub against her nose before also softly replying "Well than maybe we should think about doing something that would add to our family equation." Her mouth was on mine in an instant and my hands re-positioned to move her body closer to mine. A few months later we we're having another family Sunday celebration but this time to celebrate the soon to be new addition to our family.

Notes: So what did you think? I really wanted Felicity/Laurel to have a bonding moment but it felt right for the moment to be w/Oliver instead.