Author's Note: Wow, Chapter 16 and it's only Thanksgiving break! That is boding well for the ending chapter length of this story... :)

For your information:

Iris' dress is from 2x16 (fitting; this is the 16th chapter)

Barry's shirt (I know I haven't done much boy's stuff but it's more than just a suit, sooo..) is from 1x19

Kara's dress is from 2x08 (duh, it's the Thanksgiving episode)

Caitlin's shirt is from 1x22.

For Felicity's section, I used an actual site. So thanks to that site. (it'll make sense when you get to that part)

On Thursday AKA Thanksgiving Day AKA the start of vacation, Iris took the liberty of waking up nice and late. It was nearly 10:00 by the time she pulled herself out of bed and got dressed in her nice Thanksgiving wear. It was a reddish-maroon dress with purple design and black tank top underneath. The tank top was mostly just because the dress was a tad too big and was much too low cut.

She applied a quick coat of makeup (a girl's gotta put something into her appearance on Thanksgiving, even if she is just staying at home), and then walked downstairs and ran into Barry. He, as usual, was up early, his hair combed and wearing a red checkered shirt. "Happy Thanksgiving, Iris!"

"Happy Thanksgiving, Barry." Iris echoed, pecking his cheek. "Dad awake yet?"

"Yup." Barry smiled happily, joining her in moving toward the kitchen. "He put the turkey in and now he's making some pancakes."

"Yum." Iris said vehemently. "I'll grab the bacon!"

Several minutes later, the West family was sitting down to pancakes, bacon, and copious amounts of maple syrup and whipped cream.

"Barry, you're drowning your pancakes." Iris giggled.

"They are not drowning." Barry said, mock-affronted. "They are merely testing out their swimming abilities. I have a life guard standing by." He gestured to his bacon, safe on the non-syrupy area of his plate.

Joe chuckled, and Iris burst into giggles. Barry grinned, pleased to have made them laugh.

After their breakfast/brunch, Joe turned on the TV and Barry and Iris sat on the couch with their phones and a few other things to do, watching the Macy's Day Thanksgiving Parade. They had watched it every year for the past decade (which made them sound really old, but was legitimately true), and even though they weren't 7 year olds that woulds scream and dance around the living room when Santa came onscreen anymore, they still enjoyed the acts.

Iris tried to get her English homework done, but she was considerably more invested with the lucky high school marching band and cheerleaders that got to march in the parade.

"Do you think I should join band?" Iris wondered thoughtfully.

Barry looked up from his own homework. "Band?"

"Yeah. You do band." Iris shrugged. "I could totally do it."

"Well, I suppose you could, but... why?" Barry asked, frowning. "What's the sudden interest in a musical instrument?"

"I dunno." Iris shrugged. "Those marching band people on TV seem like they're having fun, and their music is so catchy. And then I could do a band recital and everything, and we could both play instruments and do duets, and-"

"I think you're getting a bit ahead of yourself." Barry laughed. "You know you have to actually learn the instrument before you can play anything remotely interesting, right?"

Iris shrugged again, undeterred. "Thea does band. She plays the flute." She paused. "Granted, she hates it, but still."

Barry frowned. "Do none of your other friends do band?"

Iris pursed her lips thoughtfully. "Let's see... Cisco does percussion, but you already knew that. And Julian plays trumpet- but you knew that, too. And I think that Laurel's friend Maggie is in the senior band with Laurel. I don't know what she plays, though."

"What does Laurel play?"

"Um... Trumpet, I think. Or maybe it's trombone? I always get those two mixed up; I'll have to ask Sara when I see her." Iris responded. "Kara and Winn do chorus, so they can't do band. And Sara doesn't have time for much of anything that has to do with after school, so..."

"I don't see how Sara has time to even breathe with how much stuff she has going on." Barry snorted.

Iris rolled her eyes. "That, Barry, is something we all wonder."

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A little ways away, Thea was also lounging on her couch, texting with Roy.

What are u doing?

Trying to sleep in. U?

Ah, there was a question mark! Thea nodded in satisfaction. Chilling.

Cool

U gonna have turkey today?

There was a long pause. Thea waited for him to respond, flicking through a few snapchat posts and responding to some tweets on Twitter.

Finally: We didn't get any.

She frowned. ? Why not?

Dad hasn't gotten his paycheck yet this week.

Thea's eyes widened and she bit her lip. With everything that she had... everything that she had always had... she often forgot that not everybody had the same things.

Her fingers shook a little as she typed back her response, messing up on a couple of words and forcing her to go back and fix them.

She hesitated just before she pressed send, and called into the kitchen. "Uh, Rasia?"

"Yes, Miss Queen?" The maid/cook called back, sticking her head out of the kitchen doorframe. "Can I help you?"

"I was wondering if you'd mind setting 2 more places at the table for Thanksgiving Dinner?"

Rasia gave her a quizzical look, but smiled her quiescence. "I would love to, Miss Queen. It will be nice to have someone tasting my expert cooking more then just you and your brother."

"Thanks, Rasia." Thea said, and pressed send.

You and your dad want to join us for dinner? We've got plenty of space (and a turkey) and it would be way less boring without you ;)

This time, the response only took a second.

Sounds good to me.

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Sara had woken up at 7:00, driven an hour, and now was stuck in traffic listening to horrible music and trying to concentrate on her homework.

And for what?! To go see her mom and her stupid boyfriend and to sit through an excruciatingly awkward Thanksgiving dinner. That's not how vacation was supposed to go. She should be home and eating turkey and mashed potatoes with Laurel and her dad, and then she would give Leonard a call and wish him a Happy Thanksgiving.

She wondered what he was up to right now. When she had tried to figure out his Thanksgiving plans, he had murmured something about "nothing special". She wasn't sure if it was an excuse or if it just... wasn't anything special. Sara knew that Leonard had a little sister, one named Lisa, but beyond that, she had no idea about his family life.

Except that he walked a mile after practice every night (until she had convinced her dad -and Leonard- to drive him home), because his father didn't bother to come pick him up. She had never heard about a mother, or any relatives, or even pets. Just Lisa.

Sara flicked on her phone with the intention of sending him a text. She cursed softly when she saw that she didn't have a shred of connection.

That was just the moldy cherry on top of her freezer burned ice cream.

When they finally arrived at Mrs. Lance's house, 2 hours later, Sara was baking from riding in the car in the sun, sick of driving, had a headache, and was ready to throw herself out of the car while it was still moving.

"We've arrived, girls!" Quintin said in what Sara considered to be much-too-chipper of a voice. "Just in time for lunch, too."

They pulled their bags out of the car, small carryons prepared with a night or two of supplies, and walked up the front steps.

"So, how does this work, again?" Sara said sarcastically, in a positively foul mood. "Are we supposed to knock on our mother's door? Or should we just barge right in?"

Quentin shifted uncomfortably, but Laurel saved him by giving her younger sister a look. "Sara, stop it and knock on the door."

Sara huffed and rapped her fist against the wood a few times.

After a couple of moments, the door opened and Dinah Lance poked her head out. Her eyes lit up when she saw her daughters. "Sara! Laurel! Quintin."

"Hello, Dinah." Quentin said with a small smile, giving her a hug. "It's nice to see you."

She nodded stiffly at her ex-husband and lead her girls inside. "You need to tell me all about school, and how your studies are going- and Laurel! Have you gotten accepted into any college yet? And you have been very vague about your friends, Sara, but I seem to remember a certain boy came up in conversation quite a few times..."

They walked down the hall together, and Dinah showed her daughters upstairs to their rooms.

As Sara was walking down the upstairs hallway, she ran straight into a guy coming out of another room.

He was tall, maybe in his 50s, with thick, greying hair and dark, intense eyes. Sara blinked at him a few times. "Um... sorry. Didn't see you there."

The man smiled, holding out his hand. "No worries; I should have looked where I was going. I'm Derek. You must be... Sara? Laurel?"

"Sara." Sara confirmed, shaking his hand firmly and giving him an appraising look over. "So you're the boyfriend, huh?"

Derek raised his eyebrows in surprise. Thankfully, Laurel was there to save her little sister, as usual. She came striding down the hallway and placed a restraining hand on Sara's shoulder. "What she means is that you must be the man that our mother has told us so much about."

She smiled politely and shook Derek's hand. "I'm Laurel."

"Derek." Derek introduced. "It's nice to meet you."

"You too." Laurel gave Sara a look. "Shouldn't you be... unpacking?"

"Right." Sara gave her a smirky little grin. "Yeah." She shouldered her bag and slipped past Derek into her room.

She didn't do much unpacking, just threw her bag onto her bed and texted the Thea and Iris group chat (named School-Girls - which Sara personally thought was a pretty awful name).

I hope you two are having a better first day of vacation than I am.

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Kara woke up to the smell of french toast, and it shoved her out of bed immediately. She bounced downstairs in her Thanksgiving dress, which was grey-brown with red and gold flowers, and her hair braided around her head.

"Morning, Mom!" Kara cried, giving her mother a kiss on a cheek and hug from the side. "Happy Thanksgiving!"

"Happy Thanksgiving, Kara." Eliza Danvers said, slipping past her daughter with a pan laden with fresh french toast. Kara's mouth watered at the sight of it and she followed her mom like a hungry puppy around the counter and toward the dinning table.

Alex came down stairs in a nice black shirt and jeans, rubbing her eyes. "Mmmm... something smells good."

"I hope that it tastes good, too." Eliza said with a smile. "Dig in, girls."

Breakfast was inhaled in record time, and that left Kara to clean up the dishes for her mom and flick on the television to see if she could find the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade.

She texted with Mon-El for a little bit, who was spending the day with his parents at his grandparents place. Apparently all of his 5, 6 and 7 year old cousins were there (there were eight of them in total), but he had escaped into the bathroom for a bit to ask how her day was going.

Alex wandered around, watching a little bit of the parade and working on homework in between reading and surfing through Instagram. Eliza bustled around the kitchen, occasionally asking her daughters to help her with their lunch/dinner/Thanksgiving meal.

When the turkey was done and the table was set, Kara turned off the TV and joined her sister and mother at the dining table. She smiled happily at the sight of all the yummy food, but was stopped from immediately digging in by her mother.

"It being Thanksgiving, before we start eating I think that we should go around and say what we are grateful for this year." Eliza said. "I can start, if you girls want."

Alex and Kara both nodded, so Eliza began. "I am thankful for you two. For everything that you do and that you have become, and for being easy, helpful, loving, amazing daughters."

"Aw, mom." Kara said, smiling happily down at her lap. Alex shook her head fondly and glanced away, too. "I'm thankful for you, too. And also for the fact that we have a home and a family and friends and everything that we do."

"So..." Alex raised her eyebrow. "In other words, you're just thankful for everything."

"Yep!"

"That's a pretty hard thing to go after." She grinned. "But I'll do my best. I'm thankful for the life that I have, and the fact that I have colleges and future at my fingertips. I'm thankful for my friends and all the experiences I'm having in high school, and that I managed to find a life as a teenager that actually means something."

"That was beautiful." Kara said, nodding. "Now can we eat?"

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Felicity and Donna Smoak had a small, quiet Thanksgiving meal. Felicity had cooked a turkey and some green beans and Donna had made mashed potatoes and a few different kinds of bread in between calls from work.

They spent the time talking and eating, and Felicity felt the calmness of finally having some time to just sit and be with her mom.

After lunch, Donna pulled out some frozen pies and stuck them in the oven. Soon, the smell of pumpkin and apple was filling the whole house. They dug in with spoons and vanilla ice cream, and eventually found themselves, stuffed, lying on the couch.

"Happy Thanksgiving, honeybun." Donna said with a smile.

"You too, mom." Felicity responded. "I feel as though I'm going to explode."

"Pretty sure that's normal." Donna laughed. "For Thanksgiving, anyway."

Felicity sighed, patting her stomach. "So. What now?"

"I've got no idea." Donna shrugged, forcing herself into a sitting position. "What do normal people do on Thanksgiving?"

Felicity shrugged, too. "No clue. Should I look it up?"

Donna laughed again. "I don't know if you'd get much of a result, but you could certainly try."

Felicity pulled out her phone and searched 'What to do on Thanksgiving'. After glancing through a few results, all the top ones showing specifics like, What to do on Thanksgiving in LA, or, What to do on Thanksgiving in New York, she changed the search.

"20 fun things to do with your family on Thanksgiving." Felicity read out. "Number 1: Take a walk."

"I'm much too full to go for a walk." Donna said, raising her eyebrows.

"Same. Number 2: Play touch football. Um, nope. Number 3: Boardgames."

"We could handle some boardgames."

"That we could. But we have 17 more to go- let's see what they've got. Number 4 is Play Charades... then we've got a Sing-A-Long- that would probably be dangerous for our ears. Hm... memory sharing-"

"Sounds cheesy, but I don't think that's so bad." Donna spoke up.

"Share thanks- gee, is Thanksgiving Day Cheeseball Day or something?- Silly Dance Contest... Kids Talent Show... I Love My Family Because... Share The Love... Treasure Hunt, Name That Tune, The Questions Game, The Craziest Thing... The list goes on."

"What's the Share The Love one?" Donna asked, trying to read the phone screen over her daughter's shoulder.

"You go around in a circle and say what you admire about the person next to you." Felicity snickered, glancing up at the two of them. "I think that we'd need a bit more people."

Donna shook her head, smiling. "Of course not! Felicity Smoak, I admire you because of your bravery to be what and who you want to be."

Felicity smiled down at her lap, blushing. "Thanks, mom. I admire you because of your ability to keep on pushing, even when things start to go downhill."

Donna reached over and gave Felicity a quick, squeezing, hug. "Love you, honey."

"Love you too, mom."

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Caitlin's mother didn't believe in holidays. She went to work, just like always, leaving Caitlin had home with the crushed dreams of a Thanksgiving meal. They would eat some turkey and classic Thanksgiving food together at dinner; nothing special, nothing extravagant, nothing celebratory.

So when Julian called her up, bemoaning nearly the same situation, she was struck with an idea.

"Want to go to lunch?" She asked, pulling down the hem of her black, white and red pattered shirt. "Just the two of us? I could pick you up and we could drive somewhere. That way we'd at least be spending Thanksgiving day with someone."

"I, uh, yeah, I- yeah. I think that sounds great." Julian stuttered out. "I can, uh, pick you up, I just need to text my parents to tell them where I'm going."

"Thanks. See you in around 20 minutes, unless they say no?" Caitlin asked, already readying herself to end the call and text her mother. She knew the answer would be yes, or no answer at all. Her mother didn't really care what she did, just as long as it didn't include drinking or bad decisions (or punching a guy in the nose, something that she had avoided bringing up in conversation).

"Sounds great. Bye."

Julian showed up at her front door wearing a checkered collard shirt and a grey vest. He held up Caitlin's car door, making her blush and compliment him on his gentlemanliness, and then they drove around town, looking for a place to park.

It wasn't too hard to find a place that was open and empty. There were a few big groups of people at various restaurants they tried that had reserved places for family gatherings, but they got a seat for just the two of them and got their meals.

"I wonder if anyone else in the world has parents who don't even want to spend Thanksgiving with them." Caitlin sighed, picking at her salad and taking one of Julian's french fries instead.

He bit into his fried fish, shrugging. "Probably. I'm sure we're not the only ones."

"I least I have you." Caitlin said sentimentally, giving him a little smile.

"Of course you do." Julian responded promptly, patting her hand where it lay conveniently on the table. "You'll always have me."

After lunch, Julian took Caitlin's hand and they went for a walk down the downtown sidewalks. They got giant chocolate chip cookies from a place called Jitters and then started on their way back to Julian's car.

When they got back to Caitlin's house, Julian walked her to the door, still licking cookie crumbs off of his fingers.

"Thanks for going out with me this afternoon." Caitlin said with a shy smile.

"Or course." Julian nodded, sticking his hands in his pockets.

Neither of them moved.

"I should be going, then."

Still no movement.

Caitlin glanced behind her at her house; dark, large, uninviting, and empty, and then back at Julian's adorable, open face.

"You want to come in for a bit?"

He grinned, and followed her inside.

Author's Note: And that is that for Thanksgiving!

Well. Part 1. The next chapter will be continuing some of these scenes. (the ones that need continuing, anyway)

Sooooo what was your favorite part?