She comes through the door with a tear-streaked face, her red eyes concealed by the fogginess of her glasses, her ponytail swishing dangerously as she runs and throws herself at her father, whose attention is diverted from the television as soon as he sees his baby girl crying.
She doesn't say anything for a long minute, and the only other sounds in the living room are her occasional sobs as she wraps her chubby hands more tightly around her father's neck, trying to pull him closer to her.
He can hear the shower running upstairs and for someone so naturally beautiful, he knows that Donna is not coming down anytime soon.
"What happened baby?" He asks her worriedly.
This isn't normal for his daughter. She loves school, runs out the door and onto the bus with a wide smile every day and comes home with a bigger one. Considering everything he noticed during her unconscious rambles, no one's bothering her at school either, if anything, all the kids respect her for her smarts.
She lifts her head off his shoulder and his heart breaks at her dampened face, devoid of the happiness she was named after. She sniffles for a moment, before seating herself more comfortably onto his lap, brushing her loose dark hair off her forehead.
"Clara...Clara," she sniffles some more, trying to get her breathing back in control and he gives her another moment, waiting patiently.
Clara, he knows, is her best friend. The little girl has come over to their house many times since his daughter started school and he knows that Clara has taken residence in his genius' heart for a long time.
'What about Clara honey? Is she alright?" He urges her to continue, placing a hand on her back when she totters slightly on his lap.
"She left," Her eyes water again and this time, he wipes the tears away before they can roll down her cheeks.
She continues with a scratchy voice, "Her momma and dada left her and so she has to go and live with her nonna in Arizona."
He rubs his hand on his daughter's back to soothe her, "It's going to be okay honey. You'll make new friends. Everybody wants to be your friend."
He soon learns that it wasn't the separation of a friend that got his daughter so upset. Her brain is far more different and advanced than most people. She launches herself at him once more and buries her face into his shoulder, so that he has to strain to hear her muffled words, "But she's got no family no more. What if..."
He hears the unasked question and pulls his daughter back so that he can look into her eyes and hope that his message registers into her for the rest of her life.
"Felicity Kuttler, you are always going to have a family in me, no matter what, I will always be here with you. And you, baby girl, you're always going to be my family. Don't you ever forget that."
"FAMILY ISN'T DEFINED ONLY BY LAST NAMES AND BLOOD; IT'S DEFINED BY COMMITMENT AND BY LOVE"
Noah Kuttler
The wine here is the best I've ever tasted in a long time. It's rich and smooth, and it doesn't taste cheap and warm.
Being on the run isn't ever easy. You have your bank card stocked with loads of money, and you know you can afford to go to the classy hotels that serve champagne with every meal and have suites the size of houses but you can't because cheap motels don't have enough in their pockets to install security cameras that are near to impossible to hack.
But once in a while, I stop running, and I treat myself to a lavish restaurant, heavily tipping the servers and ordering the best and most expensive food as an apology for the shitstorm that will soon hit the restaurant after I leave and the FBI catches the whiff of my presence. By then, I will have to be at least out of the city, stuck in another dingy hotel room, eating cold turkey and stale beans.
I have my suit on, gold watch on one wrist, platinum ring on the other. Still surprises me to this day at how the manager and servers immediately took me into the private room I requested for, returning in a second with a glamorous display of their best wine.
I'd asked them why I wasn't able to dine in the room next to mine, which was undoubtedly larger and fancier, but the restaurant employees were adamant that I couldn't, until the manager explained to me that the room was rented out specifically for their special guests, who had close ties with the big boss.
"Besides," The man had told me, "The room, is designed with a two-way mirror. The guests are informed of that obviously, but it's for the false feeling of privacy and quiet even when all the other patrons are staring wildly at the women that are fixing their hair."
I chuckled at the mental image the sentence formed in my head and dismissed the server with a wave of my hand, prepared to fill my empty stomach.
They brought me this wine as I was waiting, and I put down my phone as the server poured the glass, smiling at me before walking away.
Sipping the rich texture leisurely, I comb through the security cameras of the building, blurring out the areas where I am clearly spotted. I make it so that it doesn't seem highly unusual, but enough so that the facial recognition program won't be able to pinpoint anything too soon.
There's a loud commotion at the door, and my head shoots up in a slight panic but I relax when the absence of authority is clear.
The commotion comes in the form of four individuals, all dressed to the nines, lead by a striking slim woman with brown hair and matching eyes. She charges towards the room next to mine, the room that I had initially wanted, the room with the two-way mirror, and surveys the area as the older man of the group speaks with the restaurant manager, who eagerly nods at whatever he is being told.
The tiny, slim woman gestures for the older man to walk faster, her arms frantically waving, "Quentin, come on. We don't have all day!"
The man, who I now identify as Quentin, shakes his head as he enters the room, "Hold your horses, Thea. They won't be in until another hour. And knowing your brother, they're going to be late."
One of the four; a tall, dark man with arms the size of Texas speaks up, "Ya, if only they were late because they're admitting their feelings to each other instead of dancing around them."
I see the small chuckle on their faces before Thea takes charge again, calling everyone by their names and allowing me to pinpoint who is who without having to base them off their physical appearance.
"Okay, John, you order the food and drinks. Quentin and Laurel, you two set the banners and streamers. I'm going to go call Barry and tell him to keep an eye out for Starling tonight." Thea goes marching out the door, and I trail my eyes behind her, wondering why she looks so familiar. I chalk it up to her obviously rich status, and probable involvement with the news and television.
The remaining three in the room perform their assigned task; cleaning up, setting the table with a ridiculous amount of cake and drinks and showering the ceiling and walls with banners and balloons all with a matching message of 'Congratulations!'
"Come on, come on!" Thea comes barrelling into the room a moment later, her hands waving frantically in the air.
The other woman, Laurel, looks down from where she's perched up on a chair pinning the final banner into place, "What's wrong now?"
"They're here. He's early for once." Thea responds, and the four of them rush around the area, cleaning up their mess in record time, before waiting in front of the door.
I look towards the front entrance, just in time to see the doors swing open and two people walk in, a tall, handsome man and a woman, who's hidden behind the man, her small hands cupping his eyes, directing him towards the door.
Her heeled foot kicks on the door twice, and as it opens, she brings her hands away from the man's eyes and the whole room erupts in a shout that is a mix of the words 'surprise' and 'congratulations'.
I find myself craning my head to see the woman, who seems so familiar, but she's now standing beside the man who I recognize as Oliver Queen, media darling, whose bulky frame is preventing me from getting a glimpse of the blonde haired girl.
The Queens, of course. How can I not recognize them?
Oliver Queen's return to his family's company has been splashed all over the news, along with his decision to fire some company executives and replace them with far more capable, talented people. I suppose the so-called celebration that is taking place right now is to commemorate this very victory.
Queen lets out a surprised laugh and I take yet another sip of my wine as I watch him move forward to his sister, probably to wrap her in a hug.
The next thing I know is that I'm choking on the red liquid, the burning in my throat diminished by the excruciating pain in my chest and I know that the tears in my eyes aren't only the cause of liquid seeping through my lungs but also because of the onslaught of memories that threaten to overtake me.
Because standing right there, on the other side of the mirror, is my daughter, the little girl I used to tuck into bed after reading stories. The girl who made me the happiest person on the planet when she called my name for the first time. The little girl who used to whisper 'I love yous' into my ear and run to me when she had a nightmare. The little girl that I abandoned. The little girl I refused to fight for. The little girl who was subjected to the horrors of her father breaking his promise of always being her family because I was a coward.
I wipe the tears off my cheeks, unaware of how they got there, and I'm unashamedly staring at the two way mirror, as the long-haired woman whom I think is named Laurel, pulls Felicity into a hug, "Vice President of Queen Consolidated. Way to go Smoak!"
She used to be Kuttler.
Oliver pulls away from his sister, to give John a handshake and tell Laurel, "She should have been CEO, but she refused."
My daughter mock glares at the blonde haired billionaire, "I don't want your company, Mr. Queen."
Quentin chuckles and intervenes the pretend fight, "Ya, ya, why don't we start eating. I've been starved since five."
He places a kiss on Felicity's cheek and fondly praises her, "I'm proud of you sweetheart."
My little girl beams at the older man, and the sight brings a pang to my chest, "Thanks, Quentin."
John pulls her into a hug before guiding her towards the table full of the food he was required to order, "Dinner is both your favorites. They wouldn't let me bring in Big Belly Burger. Sorry, Felicity."
She adjusts her glasses, a tendency that I recognize from her youth, "This will most definitely do. We could have just gone to Big Belly you know that right? Not that I don't want to be here or that here is awful. It's amazing. But you didn't need to do this for the two of us."
Queen's little sister waves her off, "You two worked so hard the past few days trying to get this company back. It's the least we could do."
Laurel scoffs and moves closer to Thea (and inevitably the mirror which Thea rests against) to whisper into her ear, "Besides, we deserve it too. We were the ones who had to resist the urge to smash their heads together when they bickered like an old married couple these past few days."
Thea replies with a well-practiced eye roll, "Past few days. Try past few months."
Oliver waves the two gossiping girls over with one hand, his other hand serving Felicity some food.
I watch in fascination at the way the group interacts for the rest of the night, more specifically, the way my daughter interacts with the group of people and vice versa.
If her hair and appearance is any indication, I know that a lot has changed between then and now, but it still baffles me on how much. It seems like I still expect her to be the shy, little eight-year old that I gave up on, but she's a grown woman, with her own opinions, preferences, and attitude that fascinates me.
What also fascinates me is the way the people around her seem to know everything about her. Especially Oliver Queen. In fact, the way Felicity interacts with Oliver reminds me of another blonde. The one I also gave up on all those years ago.
He knows all her favorite foods, and she knows his. He stops her after two glasses of champagne because "You get tipsy Felicity. You babble and then wake up the next morning mortified and make me promise not to let you drink that much ever again. This is me keeping that promise.".
She picks up the peas from his plate because she knows that he hates peas. And she always asks for a specific dish for the billionaire in advanced, even before the man asks for it himself.
And soon after, when the entire party is over and Thea and Laurel are drunk of their minds and escorted back home by Quentin and John, Oliver and Felicity are left to clean up the mess, a chore they happily agreed to do.
It's captivating to watch them work together in sync. The way Felicity opens a garbage back and turns around to let Oliver throw things in once in a while, always a perfect shot. The way Oliver maneuvers Felicity subconsciously when she's about to bump into something, obviously knowing that she may not be drunk but that she isn't completely sober either.
The way Felicity and Oliver stand side by side in a completely clean private party room that they didn't have to clean but did, smiling proudly at their work as the new CEO softy stares at her with such an intense look in his eye saying, "That was nice."
"That was a reminder Oliver Queen. You have a family. We are your family. Don't forget that."
I can't see her face, but I know that my daughter is staring at the man with an equally intense look in his eyes, filled with the same amount of adoration and tenderness.
And as he places a hand on her back and leads her out the door, opening it for her after helping her put on her coat, I feel a pang of sadness and misery as I pick apart Felicity's words for what she really means.
"You're my family Oliver Queen. Don't forget that."
And after everything that I know my daughter went through; after everything I have done that must have broken her, seeing Oliver Queen treat my daughter in such a way has me thinking:
As far as family goes, Oliver Queen might not be that bad.
"FAMILY IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN TWO PEOPLE FALL IN LOVE"
Noah Kuttler knows that Felicity Smoak found her family in Oliver Queen.