Emma

Chapter 4

A/N: After three chapters, it's time we tell the story from Felicity's POV. Don't you think so?

Okay, so I'm really not technologically savvy. I don't really understand facial recognition programs, but I tried my best to write out what I wanted for this scene. So those of you who do understand, please cut me some slack. ;-) Thanks! I hope you enjoy this one.

"Wow… How did you do that?" the little girl asked in wide-eyed wonder.

Felicity had been enjoying talking to the girl for the last twenty minutes or so, and she couldn't help but think that this mini brunette beauty was perhaps the smartest little girl she knew – that is, other than herself, of course. The little girl couldn't be more than seven, but she was asking all the right questions, and Felicity was very much impressed.

"Oh, I didn't do that. The computer did. It's very smart, you know," Felicity answered with a wink.

"Sure, but weren't you the one that programmed it to do that – recognize the faces of people?" the girl asked a second time.

"Yes, I guess you could say that," Felicity replied, chuckling a bit at the compliment given by her most avid fangirl yet. That day, a small group of teachers and kids with their adult chaperons from out of state were scheduled for a tour of the STAR Labs facility in Central City where she'd been working for the last two years now, and her boss, Dr. Harrison Wells, had her stationed at the Computer and IT Exhibit.

Felicity thought that the little girl was absolutely adorable. She was chatty and conversational, and just as inquisitive as she had been at that age (when she had built her first computer with her dad's help). If the little girl had blonde hair and a pair of glasses to match, they would have easily been mistaken as related.

The thought suddenly caused her stomach to turn. It was a good thing that the girl was so engrossed in the facial recognition program at the very center of the exhibition area; otherwise, the girl would have noticed that her bright disposition had suddenly fallen. For a moment there, she was lost in thought, wondering what had become of the baby girl that she'd left at Rev. Steele's, the beautiful child that she had given up for adoption about seven years ago. The only information she had gotten out of the social worker, which she had tracked down a few months after she had signed the papers authorizing the state to proceed with the legalities of finding suitable adoptive parents for the infant, was that another single mother from a well-to-do family somewhere had adopted her baby girl. Her little Emma.

Emma would be seven, Felicity thought. (That would still be her name if her adoptive parents hadn't opted to change it.) Her daughter would be just about the same age and height as this cute, curious little lady, who found her computer program the most fascinating thing in the entire exhibit. Would her own daughter be as fascinated with her genius if circumstances were different? She will never know. Would she ever get a second chance at raising a child, much less parenting one with a loving, respectable man? Maybe, maybe not. Not if anyone interested in her knew her complicated past.

Felicity bit her lip as it quivered slightly, reining in a mixture of emotions and keeping the tears that pooled in her eyes at bay. She couldn't very well cry in front of a young girl or leave her station. Dr. Wells would not like that at all; the man was too serious and stern for his own good.

"Ms. Felicity?" the little girl called out, tapping her wrist gently. That snapped her out of her unhappy thoughts. She must have wondered how the girl knew her first name, but then she remembered she was wearing her STAR Labs lanyard.

"I'm sorry, what were you saying?" Felicity reacted with eyebrows raised.

The little girl's grin morphed into a frown, her little forehead crinkling somewhat. "I asked if we could use the program to find my brother. He told me to stay put in here while he went to the men's room, but he hasn't come back for me. It's been a while, I think. Our tour group has already moved on to the next science exhibit. Star Labs is a really, really huge place! Maybe he got lost somewhere. You do have cameras all over this place, right?"

"Well, yeah. The computer can do that. But we need a picture of your brother. Do you have one in your phone or tablet, maybe?" Felicity asked.

"Oh, no. No, I don't. Have a phone, I mean. Or a tablet. No gadgets with me right now…"

Great. The little girl also speaks in sentence fragments. Felicity was definitely amused by her "mini me."

"My brother is kinda strict about me and my gadgets," the girl explained. "He doesn't let me bring them when we leave the house. He's concerned about me losing them because I tend to be forgetful. Like my older sister Thea."

She has a sister named Thea.

Felicity replied, "I'm afraid the program won't work if we can't give the computer an idea of what your older brother looks like. Unless… unless your brother is a very important person who has his pictures floating around on the Internet. Does he have Instagram or Twitter, Facebook maybe? If it's on the Internet, I can find it." She smiled at the little girl confidently, bouncing on the balls of her feet. The gloomy feeling had started to ebb away.

"Oh… That's too bad," the little girl replied, frustration written all over her face. But she rambled on, "My brother isn't really fond of stuff like that. He's rarely on social media. He doesn't have too many friends, you see. Sometimes I think he works too hard and does not have enough fun. He doesn't even have a girlfriend. You know, my Uncle Tommy… my brother's best friend, thinks he's going to grow old alone if he doesn't do something about it soon."

Her older brother is single and has a best friend named Tommy.

The girl added, "I don't want that for him. He works really hard at our ranch so that he could take good care of me and Thea. He deserves to be happy."

Her older brother was single, had a sister named Thea and a best friend named Tommy, and owned a ranch. What are the odds?

Felicity honestly didn't know what to make of all that, except that this conversation was starting to make her feel uncomfortable, more so now than before. One minute she was explaining in simple terms about facial recognition software to this little girl; the next minute they were talking about her older brother's love life, or the lack thereof. This little girl sure sounded a lot like her, as her mother used to say. She was so sweet, talking about her brother that way, but there were way too many coincidences for Felicity's liking – coincidences that were starting to dredge up a past that she had buried in her subconscious for far too long.

Felicity ventured to ask, "Where did you say your tour group was from?"

"I haven't said anything about that, but yeah, this is actually a field trip for my school. It's a really small school with just a few teachers, so they asked each of us to have one adult companion each. We've come all the way from Starling. Took us four hours to get here, you know. Starling's a small town right at the heart of the state next to this one. That's where I live, with my older brother and sister. Do you know Starling Town?"

Of course, Felicity knew Starling Town. It used to be her home. She hadn't gone back there in more than seven years, but she hadn't forgotten about it and about the people that lived there. She had just learned to ignore the memories that popped up every once in a while.

Felicity did not have time to overthink all the details from this very unusual and unexpected conversation; she hadn't even made up her mind yet if she was going to excuse herself and walk away, or to ask about the girl's and her brother's names. The next thing she knew, the little girl's attention had been captured by someone behind Felicity near the entrance to the Computer and IT Pavilion.

Waving to someone she recognized, the girl excitedly called out, "Ollie! Over here! I want you to meet someone."

Her brother's name was Ollie. What were the odds?

Felicity pursed her lips and closed her eyes shut. She stood frozen on the spot and didn't bother turning around even when the little girl tugged on her wrist. What was she supposed to do now? She never thought this day would ever come.