February 2034

Truth be told, Felicity should never have expected it to take this long for the truth to come out. Any reasonable person would have anticipated their secrets coming to light long ago. But it's been years, decades even, and she's grown complacent as time has worn on.

She's also, apparently, forgotten that her sister-in-law is both sharp and crafty.

Thea Queen is more than capable of keeping a secret, but she's also more than capable of waiting for the opportune moment to out it.

Traitor.

It had all started innocently enough. Nate has a school project on genealogy and - Nate being Nate - he hadn't been content to make due with the information and photos on his sisters' family trees from years past. No, he needed to do his own work from the ground up with raw data and new photos. It really hadn't mattered that the information gathered and presented would be exactly the same. Not to Nate.

So, he'd started with census data. Oliver's side of the family is the easy half of things. The Queens and Deardens have been well-documented public figures for a very long time. And Nate traces back to the early-1800s with ease. Felicity's side is a bit harder… especially her father's half. It's not like he's ever been around. Felicity has a vague memory of her paternal grandparents, but it's her mom who fills in the gaps the most. Nate doesn't seem to pick up on anyone's discomfort with the conversation - he's so very naive sometimes - but it's not an easy talk for any of the adults involved.

Frank subtly rubs Donna's back as she relays as much as she knows for her grandson's sake and Felicity's glad for it. Frank's been at her mom's side for just over a decade now - has stuck around longer than her own father, now that she thinks about it - and while Felicity's surprised they haven't gotten married, for all intents and purposes he's her stepfather.

It's strange, she thinks, to know that isn't true in the other universe, the one the first Ellie came from. She wonders what else is different, how many other changes that magical little four-year-old inadvertently caused. But, ultimately it doesn't matter. Her mom seems happy here and it sounded like she'd been happy in that other timeline as well. And that's the part that counts.

Donna has a few pictures she brings with her, ancient things tucked away in a box somewhere that she long ago left to collect dust. Some, Felicity hasn't seen in ages. Some, she's never seen at all. And, in spite of herself, she finds she's enraptured by the yellowed pictures of her grandparents and great-grandparents on both sides. It's not them exactly, who pull at her attention. It's the echoes of her own children she can see in their faces. It's Ellie's smile on her grandfather's lips and Jules' angular cheekbones on her great-grandmother's face and Nate's eyes looking back at her from her grandmother's picture. And really, how could she be expected not to be pulled in by that.

It's jarring, leaves her thinking about people she hasn't given a thought to in decades, but that part isn't the problem. No, the problem is the next day when Thea shows up with a sly smile and huge bag that Felicity doesn't have the foresight to question.

Regret, on that front, comes quickly.

"I already talked to Grandma," Nate points out as Thea navigates her wheelchair over to the coffee table.

"Oh, I know," Thea assures him. "But Grandma doesn't have the good stuff. She's all facts and formal photos. You come to Aunt Thea for the real stories."

That should've been another big clue, but at this point Felicity is more concerned about her husband's secrets than her own. Oops?

"Besides," Thea continues. "Jules and I had a lunch date today so she could spruce up my wheels more." She gestures dramatically at the partially painted side of her wheelchair.

It's new, the wheelchair. Thea had put off getting one for longer than she probably should have, but the need for more help than her cane had been a hard admission for her to make. It had been a decision she'd made at Christmas, when she realized the only way she and Roy were going to be able to enjoy the trip she was giving him was if she had a bit more mobility. She's not completely reliant on it - not yet - but she's using it more often than not and she seems equal parts relieved by how much more she can do and frustrated at her own needs. In her own typical, off-handed way, Jules had offered to help her make it a little less sterile, a little more her own, and the two of them had gotten to work planning out a way to make Thea's chair a bit more fashionable.

Felicity isn't sure she's ever seen her husband as grateful to anyone as he was to Jules after finding out what she'd done.

"I'm here," Jules announces, tromping into the room in paint splattered jeans and a battered KISS shirt. She has a bucket of spray paints in hand.

"You are not doing that in my living room," Felicity says immediately, eyeing the paints and her 19-year-old daughter in turn.

"Obviously," Jules replies, rolling her eyes. "We'll take it out back in a bit. You check out the new ramp yet, Aunt Thea? Dad and Uncle Roy played carpenter. Don't worry. It'll hold. Will and I jumped up and down on it a lot just to make sure."

Felicity quirks her head to the side at that with a hint of a grin tugging at her lips. What a mental image that is… their 19-year-old daughter and 25-year-old son jumping up and down on a ramp. It's equal parts thoughtful and childlike, two qualities that Will seems to bring out in Jules. She's glad for both.

"I have not checked it out yet," Thea tells her, looking every bit as amused as Felicity feels. "But I will. That dad of yours had turned into quite the handyman, huh? Ramps everywhere."

"Not everywhere," Nate counters, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. He can be so serious, sometimes, so literal. "Just the ground floor."

"Well, that's probably enough," Thea tells him, leaning in conspiratorially. Nate looks relieved at that, like he'd thought his aunt might be upset she couldn't traverse the entire house, but he's also clearly still unhappy about her restricted access to their home.

Limitations on Thea's mobility seem to bother Nate more than anyone else. More than Thea herself, even… at least judging by the face she presents to them all - Felicity's not entirely convinced she's as accepting of the changes to her body in private as she is aloud. But, Nate is such a feeler, such a sensitive kid, and he wants the whole world to shift to accommodate his aunt rather than see her struggle. He wants everything as unchanged as possible. Reality is a lot harsher than that and it forces him to catch glimpses of how his Aunt Thea's body fights back against the effects of her condition and decades of treatments she's put it through. Nate mostly handles this by metaphorically sticking his head in the sand, but sometimes he's visibly frustrated and defensive instead and Felicity hasn't been able to figure out how to help him through it.

It's going to be so very hard on him when Thea inevitably loses her struggle. It'll be unthinkably hard on all of them, but Nate…

"Where's my Ellie-bug?" Thea asks, looking around and snapping Felicity back to the present where her sister-in-law is alive and coping relatively well. A swell of guilt rises up at her thoughts a moment before. It's unfair to Thea to fast-forward to the end of her journey. It's unfair to all of them, really. They have her here now and treating her like the embodiment of what's happening to her is a disservice to everyone.

"She went for a run with Dad," Nate says, craning his neck to try and catch a glimpse inside the canvas bag Thea is drumming her fingers against on her lap. "She'll be back soon, I think."

"Good," Thea grins. It's an impish smile and for an instant she looks like the teenager Felicity first met all those years ago. "She won't want to miss this. I come bearing gifts. Jules, pull up a seat. I do believe you're going to enjoy this."

That's more than enough to pique Jules' curiosity and the smile on Thea's face sends a premonition of dread through Felicity. Her sister-in-law is up to something.

"I'm going to tell you a story," Thea says as Jules sits. She and Nate both eye their aunt with rapt attention. Felicity is every inch as interested, but a whole lot more wary. It's well-founded. "Once upon a time, your parents got married. It was lovely. Well… aside from a scuffle we tried to keep from them, but that's a story for another time."

Felicity can't help but snort and roll her eyes at that. Scuffle is a bit of an understatement, but hey… everything had gone off without a hitch in the end. Or, well, actually there was the one hitch, but it was the intended one, so that was sort of the point.

"But, what was-" Nate starts.

"Another time," Thea cuts him off, waving dismissively. "Trust me, this is better."

"Okay…" he says warily. And, bless him, he's sitting there with his tablet in hand ready to take notes.

"So, your parents were getting married," Thea continues. "And I put myself in charge of a lovely little video montage for the reception. Cute little snippets of their adorably sappy life together, which we projected down onto the tables like centerpieces."

"I've seen that," Nate tells her, sounding slightly disappointed.

"Patience, my man," Thea insists. "I'm setting the scene, here."

"Sorry. Go on," he nods, sitting back and watching her. Jules, expectedly, keeps quiet and soaks in everything being said.

"As part of my incredibly selfless and generous efforts, I tracked down as many pictures as I could," Thea continues. This is when the warning bells in the back of Felicity's head get loud enough she can't quite ignore them anymore. "Your grandmothers were a huge help, but so were old news clippings, the Lances, old college roommates..."

"Thea, what does this have to do with genealogy?" Felicity asks, a dangerous tone to her question.

Unsurprisingly, Thea just grins wider, looking as chipper as can be. "Understanding our background better is genealogy, right?"

She's stretching things, but Felicity lets it slide… for the moment.

"Part of the point of a family tree is seeing just how human your ancestors were," Thea says, looking back to the kids. "It's not just names and dates. It's how they lived, too. It's knowing that your dad's great-great-great uncle panned for gold, but was so bad at it that he quit and opened a tavern instead. It's knowing your mom's great-great grandmother invented a part still used in railroads today, even if her husband got all the credit."

"She did?" Nate asks, wide eyes turning to his mom with more excitement than she'd have expected. But then Thea's always been good at building up a story.

"Yup," Felicity replies with a smile. "Somewhere my mom has a box of things that belonged to my dad. There's a letter in there that his great-grandmother wrote to the local paper, calling them out for crediting her invention to her husband. Of course… her husband was more than willing to call it his own. And both of these things tell you everything you ever need to know about my father."

She's learned bits and pieces about her dad over the years. Her mom has given her a glimpse now and then, little windows into what her dad was really like. As best as she can tell, her father is a greedy, manipulative, brilliant man who will use anyone and everyone around him to his own benefit. Given her high profile job and marriage as well as her extreme wealth, Felicity suspects her mother thought that her dad would try to find a way to insert himself into her life and exploit his relationship with them. But she hasn't seen her father since she was a little girl. That he's steered clear of them shows that maybe he has one redeeming quality, anyhow. She doesn't need him in her kids' lives.

"See? Family trees are great," Thea's chipper voice chimes in. "They're even better when they come with art."

Let it never be said that Thea Queen Harper doesn't know how to make a dramatic presentation. With great flourish, she tosses the top of the box aside, grabs the photo on top and slaps it down on the coffee table.

For a long moment, everyone is utterly silent as Felicity's cheeks flush and her skin pales simultaneously.

"Oh. My. God," Jules announces before cracking up in riotous laughter. "Oh… Oh that's…"

"That's not mom," Nate says. His poor little voice is so uncertain.

"Thea," Felicity admonishes.

"Family history's important," she replies brightly.

"Oh my God, mom, the ankh and everything." Jules is positively cackling with amusement. She can scarcely catch her breath and her eyes are tearing up through her laughter. For all Felicity's embarrassment, she can't help but think this is worth it for Jules' reaction alone. She's so very beautiful when she's expressive and happy. Nate's reaction, however, is another matter entirely.

"That doesn't look like mom," he says. It's so uneasy, so quiet that Felicity might not have heard the eleven-year-old had she not been specifically listening for him.

"Oh, that's me," she tells him as she sits down next to her little boy and wraps an arm around him. "People change, Nate. We learn and grow and refine who we are as we do. I wasn't born with dyed blonde hair and a pair of heels, you know."

"Did you go listen to death metal while reading Anne Rice in the cemetery or…?" Jules asks. God, she's so amused.

"No," Felicity counters. And it's true. She did not do those things… simultaneously, anyhow. "I mostly spent a lot of time on the dark web raging against The Man."

"To be fair, The Man had it coming," Jules acknowledges. "Do you still have that jacket somewhere?" she asks, a hopeful edge to her voice. The smile seems permanently affixed to her face at the moment and Felicity finds it's contagious, spreading across her own lips even as she shakes her head at her daughter. "If you do, can I borrow it? That thing is vintage awesome."

"Pretty sure I Goodwilled it before you were even born, but I'll ask Grandma Donna if she happens to have it in a box somewhere since apparently she was hoarding things from my goth days," Felicity replies.

"It doesn't look like you," Nate says again. He's clearly having trouble processing this.

"Wait til you see the pictures of your dad," Thea tells him, leaning in with a devilish grin. "There's his mugshots of course, but there's also one I like to call his serial killer picture."

"No, I mean… it's just…" Nate starts, his brow furrowing as he shakes his head and looks down at the picture of his mom. "It's just, she looks like Jules."

"Excuse you, I do not wear all black," Jules protests with a snort.

"I didn't mean that," Nate huffs. "I mean she looks like you. Or, I guess you look like her. Just like her."

Felicity looks back to the picture with fresh eyes. She hadn't been thinking about the shot in terms of her older daughter, but now that it's been suggested, she sees the likeness immediately and it's way more than just genetics.

She's nineteen in that shot, the same age Jules is now, and with her hair dark and her skin paler, she really does look strikingly similar to her daughter. Glancing up at Jules, she finds the teenager biting her lip and staring down at the picture with smiling eyes. Her cheeks are rosy and she's only barely masking how deeply this affects her. It's unexpected, but maybe it shouldn't be. Her whole life, Jules has needed to see more of a connection to her parents, but fought against showing it.

"I've always seen a lot of myself in Jules," Felicity says. Ostensibly, she's responding to Nate, but in truth her words are for Jules. The girl's eyes snap up to meet hers at the statement. There's a soft sense of surprise and gratefulness there, a window into the vulnerability Jules so rarely shows, and Felicity finds herself mirroring the look almost exactly, a small smile tugging at the edges of her lips.

The moment is interrupted by the sound of the front door, though, and all four of them turn to find Ellie and Oliver returning from their run. They must have really pushed themselves because they're both a sweaty mess and Felicity finds herself gnawing on her lower lip as she looks her husband up and down. He'll be fifty next year, but he's still in the best shape of anyone she's ever met and she's so affected by him that her skin tingles just at the sight of him. It's like her nerves awaken whenever he's near, like they've learned to anticipate his touch. By the time she finishes skimming her eyes down his body - and that takes a minute because his sweaty shirt is clinging to his abs and God damn but that's worth spending some time looking at - she finds him looking back at her with a wolfish grin.

"Gross," announces Thea loudly. "Save it for the bedroom, would you?"

"We didn't do anything!" Felicity protests, head snapping to the side to look at her sister-in-law. Her flaming cheeks probably don't work in her favor, though, and Thea clearly doesn't buy a word of it.

"We could, though," Oliver adds. And, oh… he's in that kind of mood, then, isn't he? Well that's just delightful. Felicity finds herself distracted by trying to come up with plausible ways to escape with her husband without making it super obvious precisely what they're doing, and the conversation around her only barely registers.

"Ew, Ollie," Thea gags, wrinkling her nose.

"I don't come into your house and give you a hard time about staring at your husband, do I?" Oliver asks.

"If you do, can I come? That sounds like fun," Jules says.

"Why are adults gross?" Nate sighs dramatically.

"Hey, what's up with the mopey look, Jules?" Ellie asks. It's that last question that pulls Felicity back into the moment and she looks toward Ellie to find her quizzically appraising the photo on the coffee table. "That's a little over-the-top for you, don't you think?"

Part of Felicity wants to protest that it is not - in fact - over-the-top, but mostly she finds herself just blinking at her not-quite-sixteen year old daughter. She and Jules look a great deal alike, yes, but to be confused for each other by her own daughter…

"That's your mom," Oliver laughs, looking over Ellie's shoulder.

"It is?" Ellie gasps, her eyes darting between the photo and her mother's face and back again. "Really?"

"Really," Thea confirms. "And that, my darling niece, is just the start of what I've brought along for the day. There's a whole box where that came from. Just want til you see the goods I've got on your dad."

"Thea," Oliver groans.

"Fair is fair, brother-mine," she tells him, her tone absurdly cheery. "I've been looking forward to this day too many years to turn back now."

"Fine," he sighs, relenting. He always caves when Thea's involved. Felicity suspects he always has. His sister means so very much to him.

"Great!" Thea claps gleefully. "Shall we start with the mugshots or the party pictures? My personal favorite involves him drunkenly wearing someone else's underwear as a hat while he and your Uncle Tommy played Twister with a bunch of sorority girls using dyed whipped cream."

Nate turns so beat red at this idea that he looks like he's got the worst sunburn in history and Felicity honestly feels bad for her poor, sensitive little boy.

"Dad!" Ellie protests with a sharp laugh, looking over her shoulder at her father who has his lips pressed tightly together as he nods at his sister.

"Keep it PG-13, Thea," Oliver directs.

"Obviously," Thea scoffs. "They can google for the rest of it."

"No," Felicity counters. "They really can't. There are advantages to marrying a computer wiz, you know."

"Have I mentioned lately how lucky Ollie is to have you?" Thea asks, head quirked to the side. "Because he is. Like, really lucky. Like 'won the lotto' lucky."

"I'm aware," Felicity smiles. "So is he for that matter."

"Good," Thea says crisply. "He should be. Now… back to my treasure trove of evidence from my darling brother's less wholesome days."

"This is gonna be a really long day, isn't it?" Oliver asks, rubbing at his brow.

"Maybe for you," Thea grins with a shrug as she grabs another photo from her box of evidence. "Now… kiddos… I present to you exhibit A…"

By the time Thea's done, Felicity's not sure who's more embarrassed, Nate or Oliver, but Thea's beyond gleeful at her presentation and that means a lot. Will stops by with a pile of laundry near the end and reacts pretty much opposite to his little brother. But then Will and Oliver have always had a lot in common and Felicity suspects he loves seeing the younger, goofier side of his father. Ellie mostly just shakes her head at her dad in some mixture of amusement and judgement, which is a combination that seems universal amongst fifteen-year-olds.

Jules, though… Jules pays little attention to the photographic evidence of her father's boyhood antics. She winds up holding the picture of her mom, looking down at it with a soft kind of joy that rings entirely true. And Felicity… Felicity finds herself paying more attention to that than the teasing going on around her.

She's not surprised at all when Jules slips that photo into her pocket, keeping it for herself. But she is surprised when Jules offers her a hug and a kiss on the cheek before she and Thea eventually make their way out back to work on the wheelchair art. Everyone else's embarrassment aside, that reaction alone makes the entire day worth it. And, in spite of Nate's suddenly inability to look his father in the eye and Ellie's joyous taunting of her dad, Felicity's pretty sure Oliver agrees. As Will raids their fridge, Nate scurries upstairs with his tablet and a few choice photos, and Ellie disappears to go take a shower, Oliver wraps his arms around Felicity and presses a lingering kiss to her temple.

"I love seeing her happy," he says, looking toward the doorway Thea and Jules had disappeared through.

He could have meant either of them. His statement surely applies to both, but Felicity instinctively knows he means their daughter.

"She's so beautiful when she smiles and laughs," Felicity agrees, leaning back against him.

"Of course she is," he says. A chuckle rumbles through his chest and she feels it through her whole body. "She looks just like you. And I'm so very glad she does."

Felicity looks back over her shoulder at him with a blatantly affectionate smile, reaching up to touch his sweaty hair. She can't mind. "You know… as much as I love this amazing hug, now we both need a shower."

"We do," he agrees, raising one eyebrow at her. It somehow manages to look suggestive and she unsuccessfully fights a shiver going down her spine at the sight of it. "We should probably shower together. It's important to save water, after all."

"Did you use that line on a girl after the whipped cream Twister game?" she asks. It's all amusement at her husband's expense.

"Not successfully," he laughs. "If I remember correctly, Tommy shoved me into the pool and I wound up falling asleep on the lawn. I woke up to find someone - and by someone I mean Tommy - used a Sharpie to draw some dirty pictures on my chest."

"It could've been worse," Felicity points out. "It could've been on your face."

"That's how I know it was Tommy," Oliver agrees. "Now about that shower…"

"Lead the way, stud," Felicity winks. "Just don't expect me to play whipped cream Twister on the way. I'm bendy, but I'm not that bendy."

"Flexibility is all about practice," Oliver grins widely, taking her by the hand and heading toward the stairs. "And I'm absolutely willing to help you train for that."

She laughs at him, open and brightly. "So selfless of you, Oliver. Of course you are."

He just grins, winks and - ultimately - follows through in a very, very thorough way.