We learn some more of Felicity's back story here and Laurels gets a shock - a rather pleasant shock.
I don't own anything; everything belongs to DC Entertainment and CW.
Apologies for a longer gap between updates. To make up for it, I am posting a longer chapter :)
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The next week ran smoothly. Felicity would come in everyday after work, some days she would stay in till late and have dinner with Dig and Oliver and a couple of days, she would leave early to spend time with Daniel. Oliver would grimace and murder a couple of practice dummies on those days, but that was it. Dig would look at him, smirk but not say anything. He is a smart man and knew that there would be no point in saying anything at all.
On Friday, Felicity came, ran a couple of checks and decided to leave just after an hour. Oliver who was getting ready to make an appearance upstairs came out and saw her with her coat and bag and asked, "You are leaving already?"
"Yes, I need to take care of a few things at home and I am afraid I won't be in during the weekend. Do call me if it is urgent but please try not to get in situations where you have to call me," Felicity said looking between Diggle and Oliver.
Oliver wanted to ask her so many questions but felt it was inappropriate to do so, especially with Dig in attendance. That man looks way too deeply into things as it is and he does not want to hand him further ammunition. He was surprised when Dig took pity on him and asked Felicity if she was going out of town for the weekend. When she said that she was not going anywhere, Oliver was somewhat relieved. At least she would not be spending the next 48 hours with the lawyer she's dating, even though they have been dating exclusively for a good six weeks, he cannot bring himself to refer to Daniel as her boyfriend.
Though Oliver knew she was not going out of town with Daniel, he kind of thought that she would be spending the weekend with him that is why he was shocked when he heard Felicity's voice when he walked into Big Belly Burger before noon the next day. Diggle who was following him almost collided with Oliver when he abruptly stopped, when he followed Oliver's gaze he saw three blonde heads looking down at something on the table with Carly standing next to them looking at a brochure of some sort, going gaga over it. Dig walked up to Carly to say hello and Oliver followed him after a few seconds to the table.
Felicity took one look at them and then closed her eyes. Here are the two people she did not want see during the weekend but then she was sitting in the fast food joint run by the girl friend of one of those men, what was she thinking? In her defense, she thought she would be out of the place before noon and Oliver usually does not make any public appearance before lunch time.
Carly was excited to see Dig and introduced him to everyone sitting in there.
"This is John, my boy friend, Felicity and John work together and that is how I know her. John, this is Felicity's mother Esther and her sister Faith, they are visiting Felicity this weekend," Carly introduced Diggle to both the older and petite version of Felicity with short hair and a taller and more glamorized version of Felicity. The family resemblance was uncanny. Diggle shook hands with both the women and nodded at Felicity with a question in his eyes.
Faith however was more interested in making Oliver's acquaintance who was standing a little further back and raised her hand to shake his. "Hi, I am Faith and you are…?"
Before Oliver could have said anything, Felicity jumped in. "This is Oliver, my boss, and Oliver, this is my mom Esther and my sister Faith."
Oliver moved forward and shook hands with both Faith and Esther.
"I am not really her boss; we work together on some of the projects," Oliver beamed his thousand watt smile at Faith.
"Well not technically, because what you know about IT can fit on the top of a matchstick, but you are the boss – the big boss whose name is on the building," Felicity rambled on.
"Ah, you must be Mr. Queen – the man who returned home after half a decade, and Felicity, he is definitely more than your boss. You have never introduced me to any of your bosses with their first names before," Faith shrugged.
Oliver chuckled at that. This no brain to mouth filter is obviously a family thing.
Felicity, who probably did not want to prolong her embarrassment, got up and prompted everyone, "Faith, I have never introduced you to any of my bosses before. In any case, let's get going, we have to keep our appointment, I have already paid for everything in advance and they have no refund policy."
"Just gimme a couple of minutes to ditch the apron and I am all yours," Carly said while running towards the counter.
Diggle turned to look at his girlfriend and then looked at Felicity. "Carly is going with you guys?"
Before Felicity could've said anything, Faith jumped in. "I am going to join my husband in Dubai in a couple of weeks time so Felicity arranged this ladies weekend with me and mom. We got in here last evening and she took us to see this play which was okay and then we went to this awesome sushi place by the bay. You know Felicity, how meticulous she is, so she planned everything in advance and today would be even better. We are spending the day at a spa and Carly is coming with us to make the quartet. It will be so much fun." Faith clapped in glee and both Oliver and Diggle were looking at her with their jaws hanging.
"Quartet!" Diggle obviously was flabbergasted with Hurricane Faith.
"They called yesterday and said that they will be handing out discounts if we go in pairs, so I suggested that Felicity should bring in one of her friends and make it a group of four," Felicity's mom explained.
"Yeah, I mean she spent far too much time on her feet here so I thought we should take her out, I hope you would have no issues with it" Felicity was twisting her fingers when she looked up at Diggle.
"Of course not, it is really sweet of you guys, I am sure she will enjoy her day out," Diggle said.
Felicity saw Carly walking in so she said her goodbyes to the men and walked towards the door. Esther and Faith followed her and just when they were about to leave, Faith walked back and leaned in to Oliver, "I hope I get to see you one more time before I leave, we must talk."
Oliver nodded and smiled and waved at the group of the ladies. He also wondered about what Felicity's sister wanted to talk to him about.
Oliver did not see Felicity for the rest of day, nor did he see her for most of the Sunday but she was never far from his thoughts.
Around 8.00 pm on Sunday, Oliver was training all by himself in the lair when he got a cryptic text from Tommy. All it said was, "Get here ASAP, I need reinforcement. And by here I mean at Felicity's."
Oliver was perturbed, he tried calling both Felicity and Tommy but no one picked their phones. Oliver changed into jeans and charcoal colored Henley and stepped outside. Two minutes later, he came back, picked up a bottle of wine, hopped on his Ducati and raced towards Felicity's house wondering what happened.
Before he could ring the bell, the door was opened by a red head in a trench coat who looked ready to get out of her apartment if they keys in her hand and a purse dangling from her shoulder was any indication.
"Excuse me, I thought this was Felicty Smoak's apartment," Oliver was confused.
"Oh honey, it still is. Come on in," she waved him in, walked back to the living room with him and announced, "Felicity, I found this guy outside your apartment on my way out, he is looking for you." With that she turned her back and left. Oliver, who had his helmet in one of his hands and the bottle of wine in the other walked in. The scene that awaited him was not what he expected when he got Tommy's call. Felicity's mom was sitting with half closed eyes and a glass of red wine on a chaise lounge with her feet up the coffee table, Felicity and her sister were on the couch, the coffee table was littered with far too many bottles of wine and glasses for just 8.00 pm so they probably started drinking very early and the table was moved aside to make room for Tommy Merlyn who was half sitting and half sprawling on the rug with Laurel sitting at his feet doing something to his toenails. He then noticed that Felicity was massaging Tommy's head.
"Oliver my man, you are here," Tommy looked pleased when he saw Oliver. He then turned to Faith and said, "I told you, my buddy would not leave me by myself, the reinforcement is here."
Oliver who has moved in to the living room by then asked his friend, "What reinforcement, I only brought a bottle of wine, had I known there would be more people, I would have brought more."
"Nah, we are good with wine, I only needed you my friend. There are so many women around me, the air is filled with estrogen, I needed testosterone reinforcement and that is you, if you had not come, I probably would have developed boobs or something with the estrogen overdose" Tommy grinned.
Oliver just looked at him, wondering what happened to Tommy that made him delirious or crazy or both. It was then Laurel explained. Felicity's mom, Faith, her two cousins who had left already, Tania – the red head who opened the door and was Faith's best friend, Laurel and Felicity had a rom-com marathon that Sunday afternoon. Around 5.00 pm Tommy Merlyn crashed the party saying that he hardly ever gets to see his girl friend, because she is working all the time. They tried to kick him out but he sprawled in the middle of the living room. In revenge, Felicity and Laurel are treating him like another of their girlfriends. Laurel apparently is painting his toe nails in pastel pink and Felicity was giving him a head rub with jasmine scented oil. Tommy on the other hand is undeterred and looked blissful.
"Dude, pink toenails? What's next? Ballet slippers and tutus?" Oliver laughed while looking and the decided to settle next to Tommy and slipped on the rug, imprisoning Felicity's legs between him and Tommy.
"OMG, you actually know what a tutu is? I thought you were all brooding silence and grrrr," wine has further loosened her inhibitions; otherwise she would not have mentioned Oliver going grrr in front of Laurel and her family.
"Oh Felicity, I wish you had not spent your life with binary numbers and codes and had read some gossip rags in your youth, then you would have known that Oliver caused quite a furore back in the day in the theatre community. He slept with the ballerina Odette in Swan Lake and the actress playing Sophie in Mama Mia during the same week and was photographed with both by paparazzi. Apparently they had this long standing animosity and Oliver only added fuel to that fire. Let's just say he learnt a lot more about ballerinas than tutus and slippers," Tommy was relishing telling that story.
"Oliver Queen, I think you just got more interesting, I am really glad Tommy called you tonight," Faith said, perched on the corner of the sofa. Oliver turned his neck to look at her, and bumped his head on Felicity's knee. It took every ounce of self restraint on Felicity's part to not react to that.
Oliver gave Faith another one of those mega watt smiles and said, "I am glad to be here," and he then let his head rest on Felicity's knee as if that was the most natural place for him to rest his head. Felicity was flustered, so she got up and started picking up the glasses from the coffee table.
"If I had known that these two will end up here following our movie session, I would have invited Daniel as well," Felicity said on her way to the kitchen.
Oliver scowled a bit at the mention of Daniel – like he always do – and before he could've mocked something about him, Felicity's mom Esther, who seemed to be half asleep until now woke up and glared at her, "Felicity Smoak, I did not raise you to be that dependent and clingy girl who can't seem to do without mentioning her boyfriend every 45 seconds."
Both Faith and Tommy who were taking a sip off their wine glasses spluttered at that tone. Felicity who was at the kitchen door, dumped the glasses on the counter and raced back with a groaned out "Mom, please, not now, not here."
Faith who composed herself by then added fuel to the fire and said, "Yeah, we met him only last night, it has not even been 24 hours since we last saw him."
"Come on Faith, cut him some slack, he was only trying to impress you guys, and you saw these two clowns yesterday as well, you have no issues seeing them again," Felicity was this close to stomping her feet.
"Well you are not dating these guys, so they don't come under the same scrutiny, plus, I think I love Tommy already, I have already invited him and Laurel to come visit us in Dubai," Faith languidly stretched on the sofa.
Felicity's jaw dropped. "I am your sister, your only sister, your baby sibling and you have not invited me to come visit you and he gets the first invitation. You met him only last night!" Felicity was clearly agitated and it looked like an old issue between the two sisters. Felicity then threw a dirty look at Tommy, who was nudged by Laurel to resolve this. He got up and put his hands on Felicity's shoulders, she looked at her and it seemed that she was very close to tears so he half pulled her in an embrace and walked her to her room and closed the door behind her.
Oliver who was quietly witnessing it all sat up straight and looked between Faith and her mother Esther. It broke his heart to see Felicity like this. No matter how much he hated Daniel, he did not like Felicity being publicly chided by her family. When he saw Laurel looking between the two other women as well, he had to ask. "What was that all about?"
Faith who was staring at her mother then broke her gaze away and had the grace to look sheepish, "I am sorry you guys had to see our family drama, it almost always ends up like this. Mom and I get along fine, Lis and I get along fine, even Lis and mom are okay even though they don't talk much, it is only when the three of us get together sparks fly."
Both Oliver and Laurel looked at each other and then back at Faith because that did not explain much beyond the fact that they don't get along when they are all together.
"Felicity is the smartest of all three of us, even though she is 8 years younger than me and 6 years younger than Ben, our brother. She is so sharp that she was able to do things in grade school that we were unable to do in high school and we are not stupid people. Ben is a distinguished lawyer and I run my own digital design business. Anyways, we have always felt very protective and very proud of our Lis, it was like she was not just mom and dad's child but ours as well, and she has always been so sweet that she lets us boss her around. Growing up, Felicity was quite a hermit, back in school, Laurel was probably the only friend who ever visited our home. Because she was gifted student and far ahead academically than her peers, she was placed with older kids and ended up being younger than everyone around her both in school and college and consequently did not form close relationships with anyone – especially boys. Mom, being a super feminist always drummed it into her that she does not need men so she kind of isolated herself even more. I was married and Ben was away and we were living our lives so we did not notice that back then. I think she had her first real boyfriend after she graduated from university. When I found out, I encouraged her to meet more people, date more and even tried to hook her up with people, mom on the other hand always discouraged her that she does not necessarily need a man in her life."
Laurel who was listening interrupted Faith and asked, "But all that happened in the past, what happened with Daniel and why did she become so angry all of a sudden?"
"Err, we went out with Daniel last night when we bumped into you guys, he was nice and charming and everything and on our way back, when I asked Felicity how serious it was, she said that she introduced him to us so it has got to be serious. Mom flew off the handle at that and said that she does not need to saddle herself with a man at 24, one day she is in love and next day she would be pregnant with a child and her career would be over."
Laurel raised her hand and said, "Whoa, stop it right there, she only met him a couple of months ago, they are barely steady and there are certainly no children in the way."
"But there could be, all it take is one slip up," Felicity's mom interjected.
"Oh God, mom, its not the sixties, the nuns really did a number on you in that catholic school of yours. Plus look at you, you had three children, you put dad through law school, you wrote not one, not two but 9 books and you retired as Dean of your program. That is more than what most people achieve – both men and women in their lives and you are only 63; I seriously don't know why you go ballistic every time she gets serious about a guy."
Felicity mother looked remorseful. "I want her to be happy but she has always been my little girl, the quiet and shy one. I am just afraid that she will make a mistake and get her heart broken."
Oliver who was listening to this whole exchange quietly couldn't stop himself, "I don't know which Felicity you are talking about, may be what you remember is a 12 or 13 year old girl who was unsure of herself. The Felicity I know is one of the bravest, smartest and kindest persons I have ever had the privilege to meet and work with. Believe me, I can be quite intimidating when I want to and at times, she is only one who stands up to me, tells me to mend my ways, and guides me to do the right thing. She is not afraid of anything – be it swinging off the buildings or bosses who refuse to listen to her. She is kind and compassionate to even those who do not deserve it. She is like a light that cannot be dimmed, how can any man – a mere mortal – extinguish that? She is strong, outspoken, intelligent, extremely witty, capable of anything that she puts her mind to, beautiful and nice and any man she chose would be good because her choice cannot be wrong, you must give her credit for making an informed intelligent decision."
All three women were dumbfounded at that declaration of admiration from Oliver. Laurel had some idea that he liked Felicity but that was "head over heels in love" kind of confession. She most certainly was not expecting that.
"If you think she is the bee's knees, why don't you date her yourself? You do realize that you will have my blessings because I know that you know how precious she is and how I feel about men who know what it takes to be worthy of my daughters?" Esther raised her eye brows.
"Moooom, stop interfering in her life!" Faith wailed.
Oliver looked down at his hands, his callous hands, that have blood on them, that he sees all the time but Felicity refuses to see and insists that he is a hero. He raised his head and looked Esther in the eye and said, "I would but I respect her decision and she wants to be with Daniel, in any case, she is far too good for me."
"Oh Oliver, for a seemingly sharp man, you are quite dense. Like you said not a minute ago, she is smart enough to choose the right guy and if you she chooses you, then you are right guy. Your logic is flawed on another count. How can she make what you say 'an informed decision' if she has no idea how you feel about her? Listen to your own advice, and trust her to make the right decision and for that you need to step up and be open about your feelings for her," Esther advised him with a smile.
Oliver looked down at his hands again. He cannot tell them about what he does in the dark and how many demons that he is still fighting. Even though he desperately wants Felicity by his side, he is not sure if he should involve her in his life anymore – at least until he is done fighting his demons.
He looked up at Esther again and gave her a sad smile. Laurel who was sitting right across him on the rug saw the look of utter desolation on his face. She got up and put her hand on Oliver's shoulder. No matter how much Tommy screamed Team Oliver, deep down she suspected that Oliver may not have feelings for Felicity and just like her sister and mother, Felicity invoked some strong protective feelings in Laurel. This was the moment Laurel was convinced that Oliver really love Felicity and she could see what Tommy knew way before anyone. Her heart was filled with affection for her boyfriend who is so considerate of his friends and she truly hoped that Felicity and Oliver work out whatever their issues are because it is clearly a lot more than what meets the eye. It was at that moment, Felicity's door opened and Tommy and Felicity came out. It was obvious that Felicity had cried and washed her face.
Tommy looked at Laurel with a question in his eyes when he saw her crouching beside Oliver and comforting her. She smiled at him and shrugged towards the door. She nudged Oliver to stand up and bid good bye to Faith, Felicity and Esther. It was time that Felicity and her family sort things out. In any case, she cannot wait to tell Tommy what happened between Oliver and Felicity's mom.
The minute they were in their car, Laurel squealed, "Tommy, you missed the most dramatic confession ever."
Tommy did not really get it. He was in the room with Felicity for no more than 15 minutes. What could have happened in those 15 minutes? "Who confessed what?" He was still perplexed.
"Oliver went on this long tirade about wonderful Felicity is, he practically confessed his love for Felicity and if that is not shocking enough, Felicity's mom – her dragon of a mom – approves of Oliver, she basically told him to get his shit together and date her daughter."
Tommy banged his hand on the steering wheel and asked his girlfriend, "Please tell me you recorded all of it on your phone?"
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