"You know for someone who wants to be found, she's pretty freaking hard to locate," Barb said examining the computer screens in front of her.
"Yeah, I've done facial recognition on five separate cameras and haven't found anything, I think I'm going to set it to run for the rest of the night and see what I come up with in the morning."
"I just don't know if I should tell Roy," Oliver said to them before rubbing his hand over his face.
"If she's running around the streets shooting arrows at the Arrow and his friends, I would tell him. The worst thing that can happen is he runs into her himself and isn't prepared for it," Felicity told him.
"You're right. I'll go over and tell him in the morning. We should call it a night."
"Are you sure?" Felicity asked.
"We're doing all we can right now. It's like Barb said, she wants to be found, maybe we just have to wait for a few more clues to pop up."
"Great, we're looking for breadcrumbs," Barb sighed.
"She hasn't given us much else to go on."
"Are you going to be okay?" Felicity looked at Oliver.
"I will be. We'll find her. I know we will. He won't hurt her - she's his own flesh and blood. He couldn't live with himself. Not after Tommy."
"I'll come in in the morning and check on your facial recognition scans," Barb told Felicity. "If nothing comes up, I'll just look somewhere else," she told Oliver. "She's bound to show up again."
"Go get some rest, we'll figure it out tomorrow," Oliver told them, sighing and heading towards his bed back in the corner of the foundry.
"What am I supposed to do Barb?" Felicity asked while brushing out her wet hair. It'd been a week since the Thea Queen sighting, and they had come up with absolutely nothing.
Barb sat on the toilet seat still in her pajamas checking her e-mails from Bruce and Dick. They seemed to still be in the squabble they'd been in when she left almost two months ago. All the more reason for Barb to stay in Starling and out of their little – turning into big –argument. "Sorry, about what?" Barb looked up from her phone.
"Oliver."
"You two are hopeless."
"Oh," Felicity got sad face.
"That's not what I meant," Barb laughed. "You both care about each other so much that you'd never even think of never speaking again or never seeing each other again, but Oliver is so terrified of having a relationship with someone because he's the Arrow that you're in relationship limbo."
"So what do I do?"
"Wait. Like I told you the other night, there's nothing you can do about it. He'll figure it out eventually, but you shouldn't hold up your life for him. He'll come around when he's ready."
"You're right. I'm going to stop thinking about it," Felicity turned on the blow dryer and began brushing out her hair.
"I've got an interview tomorrow morning," Barb yelled over the blow dryer.
"An interview for what?" Felicity abruptly stopped what she was doing.
"A job."
"You're staying in Starling?"
"You guys need help finding Thea, and I seemed to be the lucky target last week. If you don't mind I'd like to stay here in the guest room indefinitely."
"Of course!" Felicity jumped excitedly, then grabbed her side wincing, "But what about Gotham?"
"They're doing just fine without me. You guys need me more right now. I could use a break from them."
"Is everything okay?"
"Yeah, of course," Barb lied. "You guys just have more on your plate then Gotham. The imminent threat of Malcolm Merlyn and a possible siting of the League of Assassins? Little more action here on the west coast then the east coast."
"Where is your interview?"
"Let's just see if I get the job first," she had a feeling if she told Felicity where her interview was, she would try to talk her out of it. To be honest, it was slightly dangerous.
"I hope you get it!"
"Me too," Barb watched as her friend grabbed her side again, "Are you okay?"
"I've just got this sharp pain in my side."
"Maybe we should go to the doctor."
"No I'm –" Felicity bent over in pain. "Yeah okay, doctor sounds good."
"I'll go put on pants," Barb went to her room, changed into jeans, black t-shirt and her converses. She grabbed her leather jacket at the door. "Keys?" she asked Felicity.
"In my purse," she came out slowly from the bathroom.
"Let's go Ms. Daisy," Barb helped Felicity to the car and they were off.
"Hey Queen, I was waiting for your phone call."
"Barb? I thought I called Felicity."
"You did, hold on," Oliver could hear Barb talking to someone in the distance, "Are you done your meeting down at QC?" she asked.
"Yeah, why?"
"Can you head down to the hospital? I'm in the surgical waiting room."
"Barb, who's in surgery?"
"Felicity is," Barb talked to someone in the distance, "Hey, I've got to go, her mom is calling me back, I'll see you in a few."
"Barb –" but she had already hung up. Why was Felicity in surgery, and why didn't Barb call him as soon as something happened. More importantly, what had happened and who did it to her?
Oliver burst through the waiting room door ten minutes later, scanning the chairs for Barb who was slouching in a chair in the corner watching one of the many TVs hanging on the walls.
"Barb!" he said too loudly in the silence of the waiting room and ran over to her. "What happened? Who did it? Is she okay, where was she hurt? Just wait until I find the son of a bitch."
"Well, the surgeon is the one that diagnosed her with the appendicitis, so if you'd like to punch him later for condemning her to surgery, I'm sure Felicity would be eternally grateful."
"What?"
"Not every medical emergency is directly related to your nightly festivities, Queen."
"It's appendicitis," he breathed a sigh of relief.
"She woke up with a pain in her side, I went with her to the doctors and he sent us to the emergency room. I would have called you sooner, but she told me not to tell you until you called her phone because she knew you had a big meeting at QC with Laurel today. She didn't want you to bail on the meeting just because her appendix needed removed. No one got shot, or stabbed, or maimed. Had that been the case you would have been the first call I made, no question."
"So how long ago did she go in?"
"About forty five minutes, I've been watching the screen over there that tells you when they're out of surgery, the doctor said the procedure took about an hour, but it depends on whether it burst or not. She's still in surgery though."
"Okay," he nodded in relief looking down at his hands. Five minutes ago his mind had been racing with a million different scenarios of what could have happened and what awaited him when he got here. Luckily for him, none of those scenarios were real.
"So how'd your meeting go?"
"Huh?" he was brought back to reality.
"You're meeting at Queen Consolidated. How'd it go? Laurel went with you right?"
"Uh, yeah, not a lot of good it did me though, there's no way I'm getting the company back easy. I guess that's what happens when you nonchalantly hand over reign to an evil bitch, huh?"
"Well, from what I heard, your business side wasn't the most reliable."
"Oh yeah? Who'd you hear that from?"
"Felicity told me she had a huge stack of pink slips and you never returned one call."
"I was a little distracted by Slade Wilson."
"Yeah, which was exactly the point. You got distracted, trusted the wrong person, and BAM! No more company."
"Are you trying to be helpful or are you just being your normal charming self."
Barb laughed at his joke and shook her head, "So who's the guy gunning for the company?"
"Guy named Ray Palmer, wants to buy the company."
"I know that name."
"He is a well known billionaire so –"
"No, it's more familiar then just a tabloid name. He tried to buy out Wayne last year."
"To no success I assume."
"He was only interested in one division."
"Which one?"
"Applied Sciences. The one sector of Wayne Enterprises that Bruce would never give up. Plus, if he sells Applied Sciences he might as well sell his secret identity with it - the amount of prototypes he's used himself are pretty extensive."
"Palmer buys QC he gets everything. Including Applied Sciences."
"Nothing good can come from someone needing a division like that. If he wanted to, he'd start his own, but instead he wants one that's already established. That throws up a red flag to me. What does he need with a division like that, and what is he planning on doing with the information he gets out of it?"
"You think he needs to be looked after?"
"I think it wouldn't hurt to get Felicity to check up on him from time to time."
"Barbara Gordon?" the doctor walked into the waiting room reading Barb's name from a clipboard.
"Over here," she waved to him and he smiled, coming to sit down next to her and Oliver.
"Hi, Dr. Kaiser," he reached out and shook Barb's hand and then Oliver's.
"Barbara Gordon."
"Oliver Queen."
"Yes, she has your name written down here as an emergency contact as well," the doctor pointed at his chart. Oliver smiled slightly at that. "Well, surgery went well, nice and clean, it didn't burst, she's groggy right now, she'll probably spend the rest of the night sleeping, so if you want to go in and see her and then leave soon after, she won't even know your gone probably. We're going to keep her tonight, she'll probably be ready to go home some time tomorrow afternoon."
"Thank you doctor, are there visiting hours, or can we just come right over tomorrow morning."
"We don't really having visiting hours, so whenever you'd like to come by in the morning is just fine. It was nice to meet you both, a nurse will come down and get you when she's in a room."
"Thank you," Barb and Oliver told him.
"Your welcome," he smiled and left the waiting room.
"Do you think you can come over in the morning and check on her?" Barb asked Oliver.
"Yeah, sure, but where are you planning on being?"
"I have an interview tomorrow."
"For a job? What about Gotham?"
"I make one phone call and I'm good."
"What's really going on Barb, you've been spending an awful lot of time in Starling lately."
"I'm just trying to help out."
"You can't bullshit a bullshitter."
"I'm having some boy troubles and if I could get some time away from it for awhile it might clear my head. There, happy?" she asked him.
"Trouble in paradise?"
"He seems to be having trouble distinguishing necessary risks to unnecessary risks, and he doesn't seem to care about my particular opinion on the matter. I think a couple months away from each other might do us some good."
"So where is your interview?"
"You can't talk me out of it when I tell you."
"Shoot."
"Merlyn Global."
"What?" Oliver looked at her confused.
"IT department."
"Why would you get a job at Merlyn Global?"
"We both know they have a closed network."
"And?"
"And, if I can get a job at Merlyn Global, I'll have access to that network. And I'll be able to keep tabs in case something is going on with Merlyn."
"You think he's still connected to the company?"
"Merlyn had your mother trapped under his thumb for five years, you don't think there might be a few Merlyn loyalists in that building. He can't be working alone. And he has to have some source of income, right? All his accounts that we know of are frozen. So where is he getting his money?"
"So you think if you can get into Merlyn Global –"
"I might be able to track down Merlyn. Or even just get a clue. I'm slightly overqualified for the job I'm interviewing for tomorrow, and I have a wonderful sparkling personality," she fake smiled, "I can get in. And no one knows who I am, no one would even think twice about who I am."
"So you'll stay in Starling with Felicity?"
"Yes, she's all for it. And she's been trying to convince me to take a break, like I'm talking about, so as long as I'm staying I might as well be useful."
"I would like to get a clue on where my sister is."
"It's settled, I'll call my dad, ask him to send me some things, and I'll be good. It's been a week and a half since we've had any leads. It's time to go digging."