Sorry for the late update guys. They tell you to write about what you know but the problem with that is that I'm writing about a newborn baby while I have one. And they don't really cooperate with anything.

The song for this chapter is Forever (Pretty Little Girl) by Savannah Conley.

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Disclaimer: I, sadly, do not own Arrow or its characters.

Chapter Three: Forever (Pretty Little Girl)

"You know, I just saw an ad for golden retriever puppies in the paper. That's like a baby." Felicity rolled her eyes at her best friend's dry suggestion.

"I'm not getting a puppy, Barry. I know you think I'm crazy for wanting this baby but I have never been so sure of anything in my life. Not even knowing that I wanted to go to MIT." She walked down the street at a quick pace towards her favorite coffee shop. She'd just left from checking on the baby. Lyla had pulled some strings and made recommendations but there was still a somewhat lengthy process that she had to go through. Barry had been supportive but he frequently checked her resolve. She knew her actions seemed rash and to an extent, maybe they were. But Felicity had learned from a very young age to trust her gut and every cell in her body was telling her that she needed to protect and cherish this child. She and Barry had been friends long enough that he knew she could make her own decisions but she suspected that he was worried she was giving up on finding a man and having children the natural way. She wasn't opposed to dating. She just hadn't found anyone who would stay.

"I know, I know. So what are you doing now? Wait, let me guess! You're on your way to get coffee," he said knowingly. She laughed as she crossed the street.

"Caffeinate, caffeinate, caffeinate," she said, mimicking a dalek from Doctor Who. Barry laughed happily.

"You know, everyone thinks the biggest question of Doctor Who is 'what's the Doctor's name'. But that's not it. The real question is how do the daleks build anything? Seriously; they have a whisk and a plunger for hands!" Felicity chuckled at the joke. He brought it up any time they watched an episode with daleks in it but she still found it amusing.

"You're a nerd," she teased good naturedly as she stepped into the coffee shop. The comforting, familiar smell of roasted coffee beans surrounded her and she felt rejuvenated already. The shop was mostly empty this late in the morning. There were a couple of women in workout clothes with cups of green stuff talking in a corner. At a table near the window, a man sat with his back to her, deeply engrossed in a book. She walked slowly up to the counter. The barista grinned at her with easy familiarity.

"Felicity Smoak, you are late! Your usual, I presume?" She smiled flirtatiously.

"Cisco, you know me so well," she said breezily and he laughed as he entered her order.

"Are you flirting with Cisco again," Barry asked suspiciously over the phone. "You better be careful, Felicity," he warned teasingly. "He might take you seriously and then you'll have to find a new coffee place when you tell him you were just using him for his access to the latte machine."

"You're a horrible person and I hate you."

"No you don't. You love me." Cisco called her name and she went up to the counter. He slid the coffee cup to her and then placed a muffin next to it with a friendly wink. She winked back and carried her items to a table by the window. She took a pull of coffee and sighed contentedly. "I ran into Dr. Wells yesterday," Barry said somberly. Felicity blanched. Dr. Wells had been Barry's idol from the time he was ten. He'd even taken Barry under his wing and given him an internship at Star Labs until Barry figured out that he was stealing his research and publishing it under his own name. Barry had quit despite Wells' best efforts to persuade him to stay and things could definitely be described as 'tense' between them.

"Did he say anything?"

"Oh yeah. He was with some young woman, his latest protégé, and he introduced me as 'what could have been the brightest mind of our time' if I hadn't 'treated my internship like high school'. Can you believe him? He has no class!"

"Please, he's as classless as a Marxist Utopia," Felicity said and Barry laughed. "What happened after that?"

"He stormed off like a prima donna with his sycophant." Felicity rolled her eyes at the older man's antics. For a world renowned genius, Wells had the attitude of a three year old. She noticed the guy who was reading a few tables across from her sneaking glances at her. She subtly checked her front for dropped food but only found pristine, blue cloth. What was he looking at?

All Oliver wanted to do was to read his book. Was that really too much to ask?

Judging by the not-so-quiet phone conversation the blonde across from him was having, it was.

Still, she was really cute.

He sighed into his book, rereading the last page for the fifth time in between sneaking glances at her from under his lashes. He didn't know what it was about her. Maybe it was the bright attitude she gave off even as a small crease appeared between her eyebrows. Maybe it was the bright colors she wore proudly –and well. Maybe it was that she had this whole cute nerd girl thing going on with her black rimmed glasses and Bluetooth headpiece in her ear. He couldn't say for sure why he was having a hard time concentrating but he felt mildly annoyed at himself for even caring. He'd given up on meeting women, hadn't he?

It wasn't that he didn't like women. On the contrary, Oliver Queen loved women. And women loved him.

And that was the problem.

He wasn't just Oliver with these women. He was Oliver Queen, semi-famous heir to the Queen family fortune. Sure, he'd been a bit of a loose cannon in his younger days. As a trust fund baby with distracted, mostly self-involved parents, he really hadn't had a chance at fighting that particular cliché. But he had since cleaned up his act. He'd established two different charities in Starling City as well as started to take over running Queen Consolidated. He hadn't been in the tabloids in well over five years. And yet, people couldn't seem to let go of who he used to be. Women thought he'd be fun and reckless and were disappointed when he wasn't. Not to mention all the women that saw him as nothing more than a bank account. So what choice had he had, really? It was either give up on forming a real connection with someone or accept that he was going to be bankrolling some expensive lifestyles for someone he couldn't be sure didn't just love him for his wealth.

For some reason, the girl across from him didn't seem like the kind to care about money.

He shook his head in annoyance at the thought and scowled at his book as her warm laugh filled the café. He tried not to listen in on her conversation –who was she even talking to? –but she wasn't being that quiet and he found her presence to be quite distracting.

"…sorry I missed all the fun the other night because I had to work until two in the morning catching a bad guy," she was saying into the phone with mock regret. The person on the other end of the phone said something and she did a tiny fist pump in response. "Finally! Not that I didn't think it would happen but it's about time he proposed to her. Caitlyn's been more obsessed with gold rings the last three months than Gollum." A startled chuckle sounded and the blonde looked up to meet his gaze.

Wait, was that him?

"Yes, I know I've made that joke before," she huffed into the phone irritably. "It is too funny. Some guy in the café laughed," she said quieter but Oliver heard anyway and tried to hide his smile. "I'm hilarious," she defended seriously before sighing. "Fine, go to your crime scene, lab rat. I have a cup of coffee and a muffin begging to be eaten." She said her goodbyes and hung up. Oliver felt a wave of awkwardness descend between them and wasn't sure whether to break the silence or ignore it in the hopes that it would go away.

"I can tell a knock-knock joke if you're hard up for entertainment," she said and he looked up to see her staring at him, one corner of her mouth turned up in the beginnings of a smile. Her blue eyes sparkled with mischief and he felt his heart stutter.

"Beg your pardon," he asked politely. She gestured to his book.

"The Odyssey was pretty good but a little heavy for a Saturday morning, don't you think?" He laughed and shook his head.

"It's an old favorite. I read it once every two or three years." Her eyebrows shot up in surprise.

"Wow. Most guys I know can't even finish an issue of Wired." He laughed again and watched her cheeks grow redder.

"What can I say; I'm a unique kind of guy."

"Oh really? So you don't just read the Spark Notes of classics to pick up women," she asked teasingly.

"No," he said with a chuckle. "I don't know many women who would be impressed that I read classic novels."

"Yeah, I can't argue with that," she said sheepishly. "I'd apologize for my gender but I don't think it would change anything." He laughed in surprise.

"No, it probably wouldn't." He stood and approached her table awkwardly. "I'm Oliver," he said, reaching his hand out. She smiled and blushed before taking his hand.

"Felicity."

"Felicity," he said. "This is going to sound kind of cheesy but I swear you look familiar. Have we met before?" She smiled mischievously and gestured him closer. He leaned in.

"Do you watch a lot of porn," she asked conspiratorially. He froze, smile still in place.

"I'm sorry," he asked politely. She stared at him before she started laughing, bending over and trying to catch her breath. He realized the joke and sighed before he too started laughing.

"I'm sorry, I just… you should have seen your face," she said.

"I can imagine," he said happily. She looked down at her coffee while he rubbed his thumb and finger together. "So this will probably be a little weird but would you like to have dinner with me?"

"Not weird," she said and then dropped her head into her hand in embarrassment. "Sorry, I have a problem filtering. Yes… is what I am saying. I would like that." He grinned at her.
"Okay. If you would be so kind as to put your number into my phone, we can make a plan," he said and she grinned before grabbing the phone from his hand and typing on it. She handed it back with a smile.

"No booty calls," she warned as she stood up and shrugged into her coat. "I know I'm a famous porn star but that means I work long days and so I can't have you calling me in the middle of the night asking if you can come over." He laughed in surprise and she stopped, her face twisting into mortification. "Okay I am going to leave before this no filter thing makes this really awkward. It was very nice meeting you," she said quickly before walking out the door and into the light drizzle of the city. Oliver stared after her and then chuckled.

There was something about Felicity.