EMMA
Chapter 24: Emma's Wisdom
A/N: I couldn't wait another day, so here it is. Happy New Year, everyone!
Also, there is a two-week time gap between the previous chapter and the first part of this one, and then another two weeks between the first part and the second part. I hope that helps.
Caitlyn dropped by STAR Labs on a Saturday morning to pick up a file that she wanted to work on but had left on her desk the day before. Due to the turnover of responsibilities and projects that came with her promotion as the soon-to-be Chief of the Biochemistry Division, she had wanted to do some work over the weekend to ensure a smooth transition. She passed by the long hallway on the third floor labs and was surprised to see Felicity there.
"Hey! You're here on a weekend?" Caitlyn asked as she approached Felicity who seemed preoccupied with what she was working on in front of her computer.
"Hi, Cait," Felicity responded, looking up to face her friend. "Yeah, I need to finish up some things for Dr. Wells. He needs my recommendations for possible replacements for my position. Just two weeks to go before I leave for Boston."
"Oh… So, you decided to take the job after all," Caitlyn inferred out loud. "I thought you asked Dr. Wells to give you more time to think about it."
"I did, but then I thought I didn't really need that much time. I spoke with Dr. Wells the other day. I think it's a great opportunity. I have so many ideas for Applied Sciences, and I've always wanted to get a master's degree or two," Felicity said with a half-smile.
"Have you told Emma?" Caitlyn asked inquisitively. She was genuinely concerned. Felicity was more than just a co-worker; she was her best friend. She wasn't about to let her go through heartache all over again, not if she could do something about it. And it wasn't just for Felicity's sake. Caitlyn cared about Emma, too. That little girl had been through enough. She needed her mother just as much as she needed the brother that raised her. Emma needed them both.
Felicity sighed. "Yeah, I spoke with her before I made the decision, actually."
"And how did she take it?"
"Not very well, at first. She cried the whole time I was trying to explain the situation. Wouldn't talk to me for days. She said she felt like I was leaving her all over again," Felicity replied sadly.
"Can't blame her for thinking that," Caitlyn remarked.
"I know," said Felicity. "But when I spoke to her again three days ago at the ranch, she seemed to have changed a bit. I think Oliver talked to her about it. I reassured her that living in Boston for a few years did not mean that I was going to disappear completely from her life. We agreed that I'd come home to Starling every Christmas, and for her birthday and mine, and that every spring and summer break she'd come over to Boston and stay with me. That seemed to calm her fears and convince her to let me move, temporarily, of course."
"And Oliver?" Caitlyn asked again, even more curious this time.
"Oh, he's fine with it. He was actually the one that encouraged me to accept the promotion in the first place," Felicity answered, feigning that everything was fine between him and her.
Caitlyn saw right through her friend's façade. "Really…?" she asked in disbelief, her face contorting in more than one way.
"Yes, he even said that I might regret it if I miss this chance."
"O-kay. If you think that's what's best, and your family supports you, then I support you too," Caitlyn told her, giving her a pat on the shoulder. She did, however, go on to say, "Just… be sure you've carefully thought things through and considered the possible repercussions of being so far away from the ones you love. I mean, things have been going so well. I've never seen you this happy in all the years I've known you, Felicity. When I met you in college, you were stuck. But with Oliver and Emma, it's like you've gone two steps forward in the right direction. I don't want to see you go three steps back to the life you had before. You're my friend, and I care about you."
"I know, Cait, and I appreciate that a lot," Felicity acknowledged. She turned her swiveling chair to face her friend and wrap her arms around Caitlyn's midsection. "I'm gonna miss you so much."
"I'm gonna miss you too, Lis. Please think about what I said."
"I will."
When Felicity let go, Caitlyn asked, "So, if you're here today, then it's safe to assume that Oliver and Emma aren't coming over this weekend?"
Felicity nodded. "Oliver texted yesterday morning that he had something important to attend to. For the ranch."
Caitlyn thought it strange. In recent months, they hadn't missed a weekend of their alternate visits. She wanted to explore the topic more, but hesitated. With raised eyebrows, she only said, "I guess I'll see you Monday morning then. Bye, Lis!"
"Bye, Cait! Thanks for dropping by."
Caitlyn left Felicity's computer lab, hoping against hope that her best friend wasn't making a huge mistake that she might regret in the long run.
"Ollie, when is Mom leaving for Boston?" Emma asked (again).
Oliver sighed. He placed the dirty dishes in the sink and turned around to face the little girl that sat on the kitchen counter with her legs dangling from the edge. "Emma, you've asked me that several times already," he replied, slightly annoyed.
"It's this Friday, right?" she asked, her eyes betraying her sadness.
"Yup, day after tomorrow. Why?" Oliver asked this time.
"You think I could skip school on Friday so we could take her to the airport? I'd really like to send off my mom in person," she requested.
Emma's eyes pleaded with her brother, and Oliver didn't have the heart to say no. He knew that this was hard on Emma as it was on him. They had tried to avoid talking about it too much over the past two weeks since Felicity had finalized her decision, but they could not evade it completely, especially now that Felicity's departure was in just two days.
Oliver nodded as he approached her. "Sure. I'll talk to your teacher tomorrow," he answered.
"Thanks." Emma flashed him a half smile that didn't quite reach her ears.
Oliver could tell that there was something else going on in her above-average mind. So he stopped right in front of her and asked, "Was there something else, Emma?"
Emma shrugged and looked down as tears fell from her eyes. She then leaned forward and hugged Oliver, burying her face in his chest. She shifted the position of her head to the side, so that she could freely speak. "How much did it hurt to say goodbye when Felicity first left?"
Oliver closed his eyes. Of all the questions she could ask, why did it have to be related to the gnawing pain that he'd been trying to ease with work and chores for weeks now?
Stroking her dark brown hair to soothe her, he answered poignantly, "Too much."
Emma was quiet for a moment, trying to process her brother's brief but weighty response. Oliver could practically hear her thinking. Then she pulled back, looked at him stern-faced, and asked frankly, "Then why are you letting it happen again?"
"Emma… It's not that easy."
"Isn't it? Ollie, if it's too painful to let her go, why won't you do anything to stop it? Whenever I get hurt, you're always there to make the pain go away. Whenever I get a boo-boo, you always say you'd kiss it better. I thought you said you'd do everything to protect me, that you'd do anything to make me happy. Well, Mom leaving? It sucks. It hurts. Really bad."
Oliver was impressed at Emma's no-nonsense argument. No one in his right mind consciously and willfully allows himself to get hurt if he could do something about it – that is, no one except him. Still, he stubbornly held his ground against an eight-year-old.
"Felicity leaving isn't going to kill us, Emma," he replied. "We've talked about this before, right? We'll be fine. It used to be just the two of us, remember, even before Aunt Thea came back from college? We can do it again."
Emma was chewing on her lower lip – a habit that made him remember Felicity all the time – because once again she was thinking about what her brother was saying. Her face clearly showed that she was still unconvinced of his argument.
"Maybe we can," she responded, "but it doesn't mean we should. Ollie, I get what you're saying, and I believe you. We can make it, just the two of us, but we won't be fine. We'd be hurting without her close by. Every. Single. Day. Is that what you really want? Coz that's not what I want."
"What I want is for her to be happy."
"I don't think she will be."
"Why not?"
"Because she's already happy here. With us. Over there? There will be no us. So, she won't be happy. If you really want her to be happy, she should be with us. It's that simple," Emma wisely explained.
Emma already had her arms crossed in front of her by the time she was done arguing her point. Now she raised an eyebrow, as she tapped her fingers on her forearms, waiting for him to concede defeat.
Oliver shook his head. He couldn't believe he was losing an argument with an eight-year-old. In a last ditch effort to wiggle his way out of embarrassment, he said to Emma, "It's too late to talk her out of it now. Felicity has already made up her mind."
"Then make her unmake it."
"Unmake is not a word."
"Yes, it is, and I can prove it."
Oliver glared at his little girl and faked anger, but he couldn't keep up the pretense long enough. He knew Emma could see right through him. He shook his head once again and sighed. Emma knew she'd won, and she was grinning like a Cheshire cat. Why did his she have to be so smart? She was Felicity's daughter after all.
He rounded the corner of the kitchen counter and picked up the wireless phone that was on the dining table. Less than a minute later, Emma heard him say, "Hello? Office of Dr. Harrison Wells, please."
Emma was thrilled.
Felicity was irritated that she hadn't thought about wearing stockings underneath her pencil skirt. It got quite cold in Boston at that time of the year, and she knew that as soon as she steps out of Logan International Airport later that day, her legs would literally start to freeze. The business ensemble she wore and the coat she was bringing wouldn't be enough to keep her lower extremities warm.
She hurriedly put on stockings, but then she noticed that it had a hole at the right heel running up to the back of her right knee. Ugh! The cab taking her to the Central City airport was supposed to arrive any minute. She should have thought of this earlier. She was really out of her element, but in all honesty, it wasn't entirely the fault of her outfit.
Felicity wouldn't admit it even to herself, but she still had second-thoughts about leaving that day. She had gotten Emma to accept the fact that she was leaving, yet her daughter rarely smiled anymore during their video chats in the last couple of weeks. She had Oliver's support, and yet he'd been calling and texting less since she took his suggestion and accepted the promotion. She had scarcely left, but things had already begun to change for the three of them. She didn't think it would weigh her down this much. She just wanted to get to the airport, check in, board the plane, and take off. Maybe when she was already thousands of feet up in the sky headed east, she'd finally feel like she had made the right decision. There really isn't time for regrets at this point. Or is there?
She went back to her dresser and settled for the only pair of stockings left in the top drawer. (The newer and better ones had already been packed in her suitcase, which she had already sent down to the lobby of her apartment building earlier.) She pulled and tugged until the top elastic portion of the stockings reached her hips, and then she went over to the mirror to check if there were no runs or holes along the back of her legs. However, when she stood in front of the mirror, what caught her attention was the faded scar on her lower abdomen that peeked from the edge of her bikini bottom's waistband.
Emma.
Memories of the day she delivered her baby girl into this world came rushing back into her mind. She had been in labor for more than half a day, but the baby wouldn't descend. She had been all alone – no family, no friend to hold her hand when the contractions came, each one more intense than the one before. She was surrounded by nameless doctors and nurses at the hospital where the Steeles had brought her when her water broke in the middle of the night. She'd been so tired, her body racked by excruciating pain. She'd been so scared, especially when the doctor explained to her that they needed to perform an emergency caesarian section to get the baby out before it went into distress. It was a good thing that she had already passed the age of 18, for she had no one to sign consent for surgery if she had still been a minor. Two hours later, Felicity had heard the cry of her newborn, and it was still the most unforgettable sound she'd ever heard in her life. Her baby had been placed on her breast to latch, and she had bonded with her daughter for the first time.
Felicity reminisced how it had felt to hold her tiny daughter in her arms. She remembered thinking how beautiful her baby girl was, how fragile, how precious. She remembered wondering why it had only taken her minutes to learn to love the child. She remembered telling the baby that her name was Emma and getting a cute yawn from her in return as a sign of approval. Sadly, she also remembered sobbing, repeatedly asking her baby to forgive her for what she was about to do, and explaining to an innocent little person why her mother had to give her up, even if she was too young to understand. She remembered crying when she left the baby at the Steeles' who had agreed to provide temporary foster care as approved by the social worker assigned to her case. She remembered trembling when she signed the legal documents later on, yielding her rights and making Emma someone else's child.
Felicity ran her the pads of her fingers along her scar. It had healed, inside and out. It no longer hurt. Sometimes when it was cold, she would feel a slight stinging sensation, reminding her that she once had a wound on that part of her body, but that was it. Now it was just a scar, a reminder that she had survived the sting of the past.
Nine years ago, she had believed that she wasn't capable of taking good care of her daughter because she was irreparably damaged. She had believed that she was not ready, not fit to raise a child on her own. She had believed that Emma would have a better life with adoptive parents who were "stable," and that Emma was better off not knowing where she'd come from. She had believed that giving up her child for adoption was the best solution to her messed up situation, as well as the best option if she were to realize her dreams of making it big someday in the scientific and technological world. On hindsight, she realized that she had been both short-sighted and selfish, and she regretted that.
Nevertheless, Felicity had been miraculously reunited with her child. And after a year of spending time with Emma and getting to know how wonderful her daughter had turned out to be, she realized that she'd been wrong on many counts all along. She was damaged, but not irreparably so. She hadn't been in the best condition to raise a child on her own, but that condition wasn't permanent. Even if Emma did have a good life with the Queens, it didn't mean that she couldn't have had a good one with her birth mother if she had given it a try. Emma became happier with Felicity in her life, and astoundingly, she was better off knowing where she'd come from. It had made her daughter stronger, wiser. Among her many realizations in the past year of helping Oliver raise Emma was that her former insecurities had been unfounded. She was capable of raising, nurturing, and loving a child. She was happiest in life when she shared it with Emma and Oliver.
Oliver.
Nine years ago, she had believed that Oliver would take one good look at her and the baby in her belly and reject her, reject them. She had believed that he would accuse her of cheating on him and of not keeping their promise to stay pure until marriage. She had believed that he would never forgive her, like she couldn't forgive herself. Her worst fears had come true. She and Oliver had been separated by for years their mutual inability to deal with conflict and misunderstanding in a mature way.
Nevertheless, Felicity had been mercifully reconciled with the man she loved. And after a year of spending time with Oliver and getting to know how wonderful he had turned out to be, she realized that she had been wrong about him on many counts as well. When she told him the truth about what had happened to her, he was not repulsed by it or by her; on the contrary, he had blamed himself for not being there to protect her and fight for her. Although he had believed for years that she had cheated on him and failed to keep her promise, he humbly apologized and asked her to forgive him. And in spite of everything that had happened to her and between them, he still loved her and wanted a relationship with her.
Felicity ran her the pads of her fingers along her scar once more. It had healed, and it no longer hurt. It was just a scar now – a reminder that she had become stronger and wiser. It was also a symbol of when she first became a mother, and of the hope that she could do it again and make better choices. She might be committed to her career, but she did have dreams of settling down and having a family, too. And she couldn't think of anyone else to be with when that dream came true but Oliver.
Oliver was the love of her life. Emma was the light of her life. She had just discovered what those meant, and she was happy. So, why was she leaving again?
Felicity hastily put on the rest of her clothes. By the time she made it to the lobby of her building, the cab pulled up on the curb. Leaving her luggage inside the building, she ran outside and spoke with the cab driver. "Uhm, I'm afraid there's been a change in plans. Please take me to STAR Labs instead."
A/N: Final chapter coming soon. It will have two parts - the conclusion and the epilogue. Thank you so much for sticking with this story. I hope it has touched your heart and maybe even taught you some lessons along the way. This has been quite a journey. It's bittersweet that it's about to end.