I hope you guys like this one. I don't know though . . . it's kind of long . . lol
This chapter is a little different and I had it written as a kind of stand-alone piece but it fit in really well to this story once I changed a few things around. It's written sorta like a complete Smoaking Canary-centric episode. Let me know what your thoughts on it.

–Duo–

When Chief Lance had brought her on as a tech consultant, Felicity hadn't been sure what to expect. Fortunately, it had been pretty straight-forward work so far; find any and all available information on the escaped convicts for the detectives assigned to their cases, research any other inquiries they requested, scan city camera footage, track phone calls, and rescue data from damaged devices. In reality, it wasn't all that different from working with Oliver, except now everything she did was legal. It took away the thrill she got from doing something she knew she shouldn't be doing, but Felicity loved it anyway.

Felicity had just finished pinging a cell phone for Detectives Bentley and Gage, and they were heading out of the precinct, when her desk phone rang.

"This is Felicity Smoak," she answered.

"Felicity, hey!" Sara was practically yelling with relief.

"Sara, where are you calling me from? And why did you call the precinct instead of my phone?" the IT-girl asked, immediately surmising from Sara's tone that something had gone wrong.

"My cell phone is sorta . . . um, you know, that's really not important," Sara said. "I'm calling from the telephone booth on Rickards and Main." She must have known Felicity was about to question her, because next she said, "It's a long story. I'll explain later. Can you meet me at the cave?"

"Yes. Of course," Felicity answered.

"Good. Just . . . be mindful of your surroundings, and make sure you're not being followed," the older woman warned.

Felicity got a sinking feeling in the bottom of her stomach and she asked worriedly, "Are you okay?"

It seemed as if Sara wasn't going to respond as she was quiet for so long, then she replied, "I will be. I'll see you soon."

Sara hung up and Felicity did so as well. She had a bad feeling about all of this.

Felicity stood up to go find Chief Lance and tell him she had to leave for 'reasons'. When she turned, she felt another body slam into hers. By some stroke of sheer luck, that body just happened to belong to the man she was looking for.

"Chief Lance, I'm sorry. I have to–"

"I know," Quentin broke in. He leaned in slightly so he wouldn't be heard by the other detectives in the vicinity. "Our girl was spotted downtown. As the Canary."

Felicity pulled back in surprise. "It's broad daylight!"

"I know," Lance replied darkly. "So when you see my daughter, tell her that her father has a few words for her."

Not wanting to get in the middle of a Lance family feud, Felicity just said, "Yes, sir."

As she was bolting out of the precinct, she passed Laurel. The older girl caught her by the arm to stop her for a moment. There was a knowing look in Laurel's eyes when she locked gazes with Felicity.

"I'm guessing you heard?" Felicity inquired.

Laurel nodded minutely. "It's all over the news that the Black Canary is back in action," the elder Lance sister explained. "From what I've heard in passing, every law official from here to the DA's office has an opinion on it, and not all of them are good. She needs to be more careful."

"I know. I'll tell her," Felicity promised.

Laurel smiled gratefully. "Thanks," she said, but from the way she said it, Felicity knew she had more to say. "Have you heard from anybody lately?" she finally asked.

By 'anyone' Felicity knew Laurel meant Oliver. Her concern was not unfounded, of course. Oliver had left town with Thea and Roy just hours after the battle with Slade was finished, and though Laurel had put on a brave face in the aftermath of her kidnapping, all the members of Team Arrow who had remained in Starling knew that Laurel was struggling. Sara had mentioned briefly to Felicity that Laurel had taken Sin in, if only to feel a little less alone, and Sin had been keeping a close eye on her.

"I haven't," Felicity answered with what she hoped was a sympathetic but not patronizing tone.

Laurel looked crestfallen for half a second, before she schooled her features back into a confident mask of indifference. "Oh. Okay."

Felicity couldn't help herself anymore, so she stepped up to Laurel and put her arms around the older woman's back. Laurel tensed in a moment of shock, but soon relaxed and reciprocated the comforting hug that Felicity offered. "They'll be back soon. I'm sure of it. And in the mean time," – Felicity stepped back to a more suitable distance – "you're not alone, Laurel. Just remember that."

"He asked me to go with him," Laurel murmured, as if to herself. Her eyes flashed to Felicity's face. "I'm beginning to think that I should have, but the city was in chaos and DA Spencer was dead. I felt a responsibility to Starling City and I couldn't understand how Oliver didn't– how he could just up and leave when we needed him the most."

Felicity knew that feeling all too well. Oliver had disappeared after his fight with Malcolm Merlyn as well, when half of The Glades had been destroyed. Felicity had wondered back then too. She knew exactly where Laurel was stuck right now.

"When Malcolm Merlyn's second earthquake machine took out half The Glades, five-hundred-and-three people died. One of them was Oliver's best friend in the world, and he blamed himself. This time, Slade did a lot of damage. He injected Roy with the mirakuru, then he used him to fuel an entire army of mirakuru soldiers. He kidnapped Thea. He kidnapped you. He murdered Oliver's mother. He came this close to killing Sara. Now Oliver blames himself again," Felicity explained. "He never even gave himself the chance to grieve his mother's death. Seeing Starling in shambles like it is right now, it wouldn't have helped him. It only would have kept destroying him a little bit more inside. He needed to leave in order to heal. I'm just happy he didn't go back to that stupid island again."

"You understand him better than I do," Laurel stated.

"No. I've just seen what all of these near-misses do to him," Felicity argued. She smiled wryly, "Trust me, you'll get used to it."

Laurel looked at Felicity as if seeing her for the first time. "Thank you, Felicity."

Felicity nodded with a smile. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go bail your sister out of whatever trouble she's gotten herself into now," Felicity told her.

"Go for it. I'm just glad I'm not the only one doing it anymore."

As Sara had instructed her, Felicity was careful to make sure she wasn't followed on her way to the foundry. She slipped into the vacant Verdant and went into the lair through the back pantry access. She wasn't sure exactly what to expect, but when she came down the stairs to find Sara sitting on the steel table with a bottle of antiseptic, a tin tray, and a roll of gauze sitting beside her, Felicity had a feeling that their brief reprieve from danger and crime-fighting was officially over.

She didn't say anything, just stepped around to face Sara and take a look at the other woman's injuries. Sara had stripped down to her underwear, so her old scars were clearly visible among the new injuries that would surely leave more. She had what looked to be a wound from a bullet graze on her left calf. Her bottom lip was broken open and she had a scrape across her cheek that still had particles of gravel embedded into it. Similar scrapes covered both of Sara's elbows and knees, her knuckles, and her right side ribs and hip. Sara had a pair of tweezers in her hand and was currently trying to pick out as many of the miniscule pebbles embedded into her flesh as she could, but her hand was shaking.

"Here, let me," Felicity said, gently taking the tweezers from her friend's tremulous fingers. She began picking out the dirt as she asked, "What happened?"

"There was this ninja motorcyclist and a girl and then there were more of them," Sara tried to explain.

"The ninjas on motorcycles or the girls?" Felicity asked, looking up to Sara. She felt like she was missing a key element of this story.

"Both," the vigilante answered. "So I changed into the Canary suit and chased after them. One of them shot at me so I changed routes and tried to head them off at Railway Crossing, but they managed to get by just before the train came and I wiped out trying to stop before I crashed into it. I should have just tried to jump it."

Felicity's eyes widened. "Um, no! You shouldn't have!" she yelled. Her tone shooting through three octaves made it clear that she thought Sara was crazy for even thinking of risking herself further. "And why do you think they were ninjas?"

"The first one I saw took out four armed guards in ten seconds, and he was wearing a helmet, which, for starters, is top-heavy and throws off your center of gravity, and it also limits your peripheral vision. Plus, they had a very distinctive fighting style that I've seen before."

"In the League of Assassins?"

"No, with the League of Assassins," Sara said. "They're called Al-Qafelh, 'The Caravan'."

"Why would they be called 'The Caravan'?" Felicity asked hesitantly, knowing that she probably didn't want to know the answer.

"They're an international group of human traffickers," Sara explained. "Mostly women and young girls, but they occasionally capture men and boys when there's a demand for them. Once when Nyssa and I were in Nepal, we saw an entire family get snatched up– father, mother, two daughters, and a son."

Felicity listened as she continued picking gravel from Sara's scrapes and cleaning the graze on her calf. "But you didn't do anything," she guessed out loud.

Sara frowned guiltily. "No, I didn't. Nyssa wanted to – she has this thing about children – but we had a mark," Sara sighed, "and we had to get in and out. When we were done, Nyssa tried to track The Caravan down again, but we lost the trail and were never able to pick it back up. It was like they had vanished."

"Hence the 'ninja' part," Felicity surmised. She finished wrapping gauze around the bullet graze on Sara's calf and tied it off not too tightly. "You're going to need to bathe in antiseptic, you know," Felicity told her, if only for a change of subject. "You literally look like you've been dragged behind a train for miles. I mean, you still look beautiful, but definitely dragged-behind-a-train-ish."

"Gee, thanks," Sara shot back sarcastically. She jumped to her uninjured foot and began hopping over to Felicity's computers. "But I'm more concerned with finding the guys who are taking girls in my city."

Felicity followed behind her hurriedly. Just when Sara lost her balance and began falling, Felicity caught her gently and pressed her into the nearby desk. Sara was reluctant to meet her friend's eyes because she knew they would be full of worry and objection, and sure enough, they were.

"Stop," Felicity told her, taking Sara's injured face gently in her hands. "I know you want to catch these guys, and so do I, but you were caught out in broad daylight as The Canary and the news has footage. Your dad is very unhappy and your sister is freaking out. You're hurt and you're tired." The younger blonde paused and ghosted her thumb across the scrape on Sara's cheek. Her voice was stern and purposeful when she continued, "So here's what is going to happen: you're going to hop on over to the new-age computerized showers that I have painstakingly installed in our sanctuary from prying eyes for just such occasions as these and then you're going to hop on over to that cot over there and you're going to rest and you're not going to argue with me," Felicity added pointedly as Sara pulled back and began to object, "because it's not going to do you any good. Meanwhile, I am going to find us a lead on these guys."

"Fine," Sara said petulantly, pulling away after realizing that Felicity was not going to back down no matter how hard she was glared at. "You win." She began skulking away as best she could while hopping on one foot.

Felicity sat down at her computer chair. "I always do," she smugly replied. She heard a clang coming from behind her, but she didn't look away from her screen. "Please don't fall on your face!" she called over her shoulder.

"You're hilarious!" was Sara's only angry and sarcastic retort.

Felicity chuckled to herself as she launched into full-on research-mode.

After Sara was finally able to fall asleep, her dreams were plagued by the frightened faces of the girls as they were carried away by members of The Caravan, and she woke just a few short hours later in a cold sweat. It took her a moment to regain her bearings and remember where she was. She had gotten used to waking up on Felicity's comfy couch in the homey atmosphere of the IT-girl's apartment, as it had now become commonplace for Sara to slip into Felicity's apartment and fall asleep on the sofa after a night of crime-fighting. The light blue glow of the lights in the lair and the clacking of computer keys tipped Sara off as to where she was and why.

As soon as she stood she was reminded of the graze on her calf and the scrapes across a good portion of her body. Everything ached and she felt weakened by the past twenty-four hours in ways she wasn't used to anymore. During her days in the League, Sara could have stood up and walked around like nothing had happened and she didn't feel a thing; she felt like a wuss compared to her former hardened self.

Sara tried to walk with an even measured gait toward where Felicity was still sitting transfixed with her screens. Sometime in the last couple of hours, dark circles had appeared under Felicity's eyes. Her brow and nose and chin were wrinkled, clearly from scowling for so long now and she looked a little jittery. Sara took note of the giant-sized Java Bean cup sitting off to Felicity's left and she got a bad feeling. Meanwhile Felicity hadn't even acknowledged Sara's sudden presence yet.

"Felicity," Sara said after a moment.

"OH! GOD!" Felicity gasped, jumping about four feet out of her chair before Sara was able to grab her and pull her back down. She turned angry eyes on her former-assassin friend. "Sara! I swear to God, we need to put a bell on you or something!"

Sara put one hand on the side of Felicity's face and smoothed her thumb over the younger woman's cheek soothingly. "I'm sorry," Sara told her sincerely. "I didn't mean to scare you. Are you okay?"

Felicity huffed. "Oh, I'm fine!" the smaller blonde snapped sarcastically, standing to her feet. "You know, aside from the fact that I can't find any trace of our new ninja bad guys, and The Canary is plastered all over the media networks, and they've identified the girls who were taken so now they have names and families and friends which makes the stakes seem just so much higher than before, and now your father is sending Laurel over with everything the police have on the case which evidently isn't much, and I have no idea how to find these guys and even if I did, how the hell are we supposed to take them down when Roy and Diggle and Oliver are off gallivanting elsewhere and leaving us alone to deal with EVERYTHING?!" Finally, Felicity seemed to run out of steam, and the pacing that she had taken up during her rant came to a halt. She looked no less frazzled and worked up, but at least she wasn't screaming anymore.

Pleading blue eyes turned on Sara. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do," Felicity confessed quietly before turning to her desk and leaning on her hands against it with slumped shoulders. "I just hate this and I wish the rest of the team were here. And I've been staring at these screens for so long that now everything is blurry."

A wave of concern for her defeated friend washed over Sara. "You just need to untense," Sara said, stepping up behind Felicity and putting a hand on either of the IT-girl's shoulders. Her face turn into an even more consternate frown at the tightly knotted muscles she felt. "Wow. You really need to untense."

"I don't know how I can when–" Felicity broke off in the middle of her objection when she felt Sara's strong thumbs working at the knots in her shoulders and back. She reflexively dropped her head forward and groaned, "Oh. Wow. Sara, you're a godsend. I don't know what I ever did without you."

Sara leaned in maybe closer than she should have, as she replied, "You know I'd do just about anything for you, but you tend to have that effect on people."

The infliction of Felicity's answering hum caused a pleasant shudder from the crown of Sara's head to the tips of her toes, and her heart to beat a little harder. In fact, all the appreciative sounds that Felicity was – no doubt inadvertently – making, from the breathy sigh of relief that fell from her lips to the throaty groan that issued from somewhere deep inside Felicity, were turning Sara into a bundle of nerves herself. She was just beginning to wonder how Felicity would respond to Sara ripping the sheer blouse off of her, when she heard footsteps on the stairs.

"Oh God!" Laurel's voice rang out throughout the cave. "I'm interrupting something, aren't I!"

Felicity spun on the balls of her feet in abrupt attention. "NO! No, you– you're fine, Laurel. We were just . . . I mean, Sara was . . . It's fine," Felicity stammered.

Laurel's eyes turned onto her sister, whose face was completely covered in a rare burgundy blush. Sara's mind was short-circuiting, both from her inappropriately timed, extremely untoward thoughts about Felicity and from Laurel catching her in the middle of them as if Sara was fifteen all over again. She tried to force her mouth to open and make something intelligible and convincing come out, but nothing would. Even having her hands on Felicity in a supposedly platonic and innocent way had left Sara speechless and reeling. Never before in her life had Sara been so attracted to someone on so many different levels, and she needed time to process this revelation.

"Exactly," Sara finally managed to choke out.

Choosing then to rapidly change subjects, Felicity turned to Laurel. "Um, do you have something for me?" she asked, nodding to the file in Laurel's hand.

The gleam in Laurel's eyes told both girls that this event would be brought up at a later time, but she turned her attention to the problem at hand. "Yeah. Four girls were taken from four different locations throughout Starling City," she explained as she handed the file to Felicity who flipped the manila folder open. Sara began reading over Felicity's shoulder, as Laurel continued her explanation.
"Jessica Myles, age 14, was taken from the Starr Shopping Mall. She was with friends who say that a man on a motorcycle drove through the mall, grabbed Jessica in one arm, and kept riding. Christine Chamberlain, 19, was with her father at Diamond Stadium. Witnesses saw her being snatched from the parking lot when she went out to get something from the car. Tammy Wright was sixteen, and she was taken from an art gallery downtown."
Felicity flipped to the last profile and saw a girl who looked a little too much like a Sin-Thea cross-clone for Felicity's liking. "That's Delphine Kastle. 15. She was–"

"Abducted from the City Pavilion just outside Leo's Sandwich Stand," Sara finished, taking the photograph of Delphine Kastle from the file and looking at it, "where The Canary tried to stop her kidnappers."

"Out in broad daylight," Laurel added pointedly. "What were you thinking, Sara?"

Just as Sara was about to launch in with a defensive retort, Felicity held up her hand. "Guys," she interrupted sternly. "Do you two think you could postpone your sister smack-down until after we find these girls? Please and thank you?" Both Lance sisters begrudgingly conceded, but Felicity's sole focus was still on the case file. "Okay. Four teenage girls, abducted from four different locations, by four different ninja motorcyclists. This seems too random to actually be random," Felicity mused out loud. "I mean, Sara, you said this Caravan was a huge organization right? And an organization implies that its members are organized. They have to be, otherwise they would have been caught by now. Maybe I've been looking at this wrong."

"What are you thinking?" Sara asked, seeing that Felicity was going somewhere with this.

Felicity turned to her. "Maybe it's not where the abductors disappeared to after they ducked you at Railway Crossing," Felicity said to Sara. "It's not about how they vanished, it's about their destination. They're human traffickers, right? They traffic humans. But how? How are they going to move the girls? Jessica, Christine, Tammy, and Delphine, their faces are all over the news networks, police are searching everywhere, there isn't a single law official who isn't on the lookout for these girls. I mean, the SCPD has blocked off every road in and out of Starling City and they are watching. So how are these men intending on hiding these girls? They can't hold them in the city, because there isn't an inch of ground in a ten mile radius that isn't being combed over with a fine toothed brush. They can't drive them out of the jurisdiction because all the road accesses are being scrutinized. They can't fly them out because, I mean, come on," Felicity said emphatically. "Airport security is tighter than the CIA these days. So what's the one other way out of the city?"

"By boat," Laurel said. "It's low-key–"

"–And once they get a hundred miles off American shores there isn't anything that anyone can do about it," Sara said. "We have to be looking down by the ports, the docks, the harbor . . ."

"Which is a lot of area for one person to cover alone," Felicity told her.

"Lucky for you two, she's not."

Felicity turned toward the source of the familiar voice and she almost squealed with delight and relief. She ran and practically threw herself into John's strong arms and he lifted her off the ground for a moment before setting her back on her feet. Felicity turned to hug Lyla as well. "Digg, Lyla," she greeted them warmly. "Man, did you two pick a good time to come home."

Digg laughed his deep, rumbling laugh that always put Felicity more at ease. "We've been keeping up on the latest in Starling City news," he explained. "When we saw this one" – he nodded his chin toward Sara – "dressed as The Canary in the middle of a crowded marketplace, we figured you were probably in hot water, so we decided we should head home."

"Well, we were doing pretty good right up until today," Sara defended with an affronted frown.

Laurel turned to Diggle. "What she means is, thank you for coming home to help bail her out of trouble," the attorney explained. "And I really wish we had more time to catch up and ask what you guys have been up to, but we're kind of on an amber alert right now."

"Absolutely," Digg said, already in his protective mode.

"By what we heard on the way down here, we're looking for a boat?" Lyla asked.

"Human trafficking," Sara explained. "The best way to smuggle the girls out would probably be on a cargo ship, unless they have a private boat which is doubtful. I don't think they would want to draw attention. Docking in Starling before the kidnappings and leaving right after? That would look suspicious."

"But freighters run on schedules every few days," Digg supplied. "That would make more sense. The best place to look would be at the docks."

Lyla turned to the girls, specifically to Sara. "John and I can start at the north end and you can start at the south."

Diggle's whole body became tense as she said this and he whipped his head around to her. "Are you sure that's such a good idea?" he asked worriedly in a hushed voice. "Maybe you should stay out of the crosshairs while you're . . ."

Felicity looked between the two several times, the cogs and gears in her head turning as she tried to figure out why her friend was attempting to deter his special agent girlfriend/ex-wife from going with them. She noted the anxiety that had clung to John like a blanket since the couple first arrived, and the slightly amused but irritated glow surrounding Lyla. It wasn't that hard to put two and two together.

"Oh my God," she said out loud, a smile starting to split her face. "Oh my God," she repeated. Sara and Laurel looked at her like she had suddenly sprouted a second head, while Lyla smiled knowingly at her and Digg looked caught between amusement and reluctance. "Lyla, are you . . . are you pregnant?" Felicity asked, her excitement beginning to outweigh everything else.

Lyla looked beside her at Digg. "See, Johnny? I told you she'd figure it out in the first ten minutes," she told him smugly. Lyla looked at Felicity and said conspiratorially, "He owes me twenty bucks. Don't let him forget that."

"Oh, wow!" Sara said, just as Laurel announced, "Congratulations!"

"Ah!" Felicity squealed, waving her hands at her sides before she was able to calm down. "Sorry. Okay. I'm good."

"We have a lot to catch you up on," Lyla told them, "after we find these girls and get them home to their families." She looked at Digg pointedly.

The man still looked apprehensive about the idea of sending his pregnant wife into a situation involving potential gunfire. "Lyla, you could stay here with Felicity and still be a part of this," he offered as an alternative.

"John, I'm going," Lyla stated plainly, leaving no room for argument.

Felicity scoffed at Digg and crossed her arms over her chest. She quirked an eyebrow at her towering friend. "And who said anything about Felicity staying here?" Felicity demanded indignantly. "I've had my eyeballs glued to computer screens for the last five hours and I am not about to spend another second cooped up down here playing the cyber-sidekick. Besides, I've got some new thermo-imaging tech I think might be useful."

Sara looked like she really wanted to argue. Felicity had a bad habit of getting hurt every time she stepped outside her 'cyber-sidekick' role during a fight, but Sara couldn't honestly say that she was much better. She had the scars to prove otherwise, and if that weren't evidence enough, she now had a whole new set of fresh injuries that Felicity had spent most of her morning cleaning up and dressing. Felicity wasn't stupid or reckless and she had spent a lot of time training with Sara in the last three weeks. Sara had seen the improvement herself and she was incredibly impressed and proud. Felicity was getting really good, just maybe not quite ninja-motorcyclist-international-human-trafficker good. Yet.

"Like Lyla said, she and Digg can start at the north end, and Sara and I will start at the south," Felicity went on, ignoring Sara's obvious discomfort. "Laurel, can you call Sin and see if she'll come watch from here with my eyes in the sky? She's figured out all my equipment already. You should tell your dad the plan so he can have his men check the ports and harbor, just in case we're missing something."

"Okay," Digg said reluctantly, "if we're gonna do this, we better get started."

Everyone started moving toward the different sections of the lair. Laurel went into the back to call Sin, John and Lyla went to put on their gear and arm themselves, and Felicity went over to her station and started gathering her tablet and new tech. Sara followed Felicity over and stood next to her, but she didn't say anything for a long time. She just stared at Felicity, wondering how best to go about trying to deter Felicity from going without sounding controlling or condescending. Finally, just when Sara was about to open her mouth and speak, Felicity turned her head. Their eyes met and Felicity sighed as she turned to face Sara fully.

"I know you're worried," Felicity began, "but I need to do this. Especially for myself, but also . . . for you." Sara opened her mouth again, but Felicity continued before she could get a word in. "I saw the look on your face when Laurel mentioned the boats, and when Lyla and Digg started talking about cargo ships and freighters. You were scared. You try to hide it, but I see it."

"That doesn't mean you need to put yourself in danger, Felicity," Sara argued back. "Especially not for me."

"I told you, I'm doing this especially for myself, Sara," Felicity told her emphatically. "It's one thing to spar with you down here," she said looking at Sara and around the lair, "but I'm never going to feel like I can really defend myself unless I'm facing someone who I know will actually hurt me, and that's not you. I know that you would never hurt me, Sara, and I love you for that, really I do, but I'm never going to know if I can do this if I don't take a risk." Felicity blue eyes bore into Sara's green ones with an intensity that made Sara want to pull Felicity closer and melt into her. "Saving you from Slade was pure chance, and I don't want to leave it to chance anymore. If you're in trouble, Sara, I want to know that I can save you, every time. I don't want to be just the cute IT-girl anymore. I want to be more."

Sara placed her hand on Felicity's warm arm and stepped in a little closer. She stared into the younger woman's eyes and smoothed her fingers through the blonde hair that ran from Felicity's temples. "You are already so much more, Felicity Smoak" Sara told her in a hushed and honest voice, "but if you really feel like you need to do this . . . then we'll do it together. But we're doing it together, Felicity. You and me, as a team."

Felicity smiled. "Dynamic duo?" she questioned.

Sara gently bumped her forehead against Felicity's in a sign of affection. "Dynamic duo," she agreed. "So let's go take down some bad guys."

"This is it," Felicity said, stopping Sara with a hand on The Canary's forearm. She looked at the feedback from her thermo-imaging device.

Sara came to look over her shoulder. "How can you tell?" she asked, scanning the well-defined heat signatures aboard the cargo ship.

"The four teenage girl-sized heat signatures all bunched together in the lower hold kind of gives it away," Felicity explained, pointing to the huddle of red, orange,and yellow colored figures.

"They're scared," Sara noted, seeing that the four figures seemed to be burning a little hotter than all the others on board.

"Yeah, well, I would be too if I weren't wearing Kevlar and carrying a compound crossbow pistol," Felicity remarked dryly. She pressed the comm in her ear to initiate the automatic audio transceiver. "Digg, Lyla, we found them. I'm sending you our location in three . . . two . . one."

"Copy that. We're on our way," Digg answered.

Sara made a face at Felicity. "And you look damn cute wearing your nice, safe, bulletproof vest that will save your life if you get shot in the chest again," she retorted sternly.

Felicity still looked unhappy as she quietly tiptoed aboard the ship. "I don't see you wearing anything bulletproof!" she shot back in a whisper.

"I'm an international assassin!" Sara argued. "I learned the hard way– by getting shot and stabbed and sliced open a couple hundred times!"

"You still get shot and stabbed and sliced open!" Felicity muttered under her breath as the two crept quietly into the cabin. "Sin, I need you to broaden the range of the thermo detection to include us now, it'll let us know when we're getting close to the girls," she added. She watched with bated breath as the image on the device's screen started to look less like a color spectrum and more like a game of Pac-Man.

After a few more minutes, a few more well-aimed arrows from Felicity's crossbow, a few more crew members incapacitated by Sara, a few more barbs exchanged between them, and few hundred more steps, Sara was bending down and opening a hatch to reveal four scared teenagers. They looked even more scared at the sight of a crossbow-wielding blonde and The Canary, but Felicity tucked her device into a pocket and set down her crossbow. She held her hands up where the girls could see them and Sara followed her example (for once, Felicity thought).

"It's okay," Felicity assured them. "We're the good guys." She tipped her head toward Sara, "This is Canary, and I'm . . . Not important. What is important is that we're going to get you guys out of here and back to your families, okay? Come on." She offered out her hand to each of the girls as they clambered from the hold. Felicity noticed how two of the girls, Christine and Tammy, were holding Delphine up.

"You're hurt. What happened to you?" The Canary asked Delphine.

Gritting her teeth, the sixteen-year-old girl answered, "They wanted to take Tammy somewhere alone. I wasn't completely comfortable with that idea, so I tried to stop them. They took me instead."

Felicity noticed the angry glare in Sara's eyes that was not directed at Delphine, but instead at her attackers. When Sin and Felicity were talking in the hospital before the battle with Slade, Sin had mentioned something that Sara had said to her once. No woman should suffer at the hands of men. Delphine had clearly suffered at the hands of men, and now Sara looked like she was out for blood.

"Keep it in check, Canary," Felicity warned her in a low voice.

"We've gotta get you girls out of here," The Canary said.

Felicity took Delphine to her non-dominant side, so she could still aim her crossbow. "Canary's going to lead. The rest of you follow her. I've got Delphine," she instructed. Sara nodded to her in understanding and they left the hold to work their way back through the labyrinth of corridors.

When they finally reached the upper deck, Felicity couldn't remember ever feeling so relieved before in her life. She decided then and there that she hated boats almost as much as Sara did. She could see Digg and Lyla hopping on board and helping Sara get the girls back on the docks. Felicity passed Delphine to Digg, who scooped her up in his arms and carried her back toward solid land. Felicity was the last to try to climb off the boat, but when she did, she felt someone catch her by the ankle and drag her roughly back onto the freighter. She lost her balance and smacked her chin off the railing as she fell face-first onto the ship's deck.

. . .

Lyla and Sara only stopped running the girls farther onto shore when they were out of earshot of the docks. Jessica tripped and fell forward into Tammy and Christine barely managed to catch the both of them before they all fell in a panting heap on the cold, hard, cracked pavement. Lyla began checking them all over for signs of harm and, aside from mild dehydration, hunger, and a few cuts and bruises, they looked reasonably unscathed on the outside. John ran up behind them with Delphine in his arms and he lowered her to the ground and bunched his jacket under her head as a pillow. It took them all a moment to regain their bearings and allow their minds to catch up with the rest of them. When they finally did, one thing became startlingly clear to Sara.

"Digg, where's Felicity?" Sara demanded, suddenly on high-alert again.

Diggle turned around as if expecting to find Felicity right behind him. His eyes widened as he met Sara's gaze. "She passed one of the girls to me. I thought she was right behind me," he said, fear creeping into his voice as well.

Sara's head snapped back in the direction of the ship.

. . .

The pain of Felicity's jawbone vibrating from its collision with the railing and the sting of the scrape on her temple that she acquired when her head hit the steel deck was nothing compared to the kick she received to her stomach or the headache that became full-blown when someone grabbed her by the hair and yanked her head back. She found herself face-to-face with a dark-masked man. Felicity tried to land a solid punch to the man's stomach but found her hand in pain from hitting lead instead of flesh.

"Ah!" she cried out.

"You think you can come onto my ship and take what belongs to me!" the man yelled, tossing Felicity forward.

She managed to catch herself by her hands and push herself to her feet before he could do anymore damage to her. "Those girls don't belong to you!" Felicity screamed back at him. She splayed her hands to either side of her and quipped, "And what ever happened to finders keepers?"

With an angry roar he charged at her again. It was all Felicity could do to defend herself against his blows, but she managed to land some of her own, though they were few and far between. The trafficker seemed to have endless energy and Felicity's own was quickly waning. She knew she was no match for him; Sara had been right, she wasn't prepared to take on international human trafficker ninjas, but she was where she was. She tried to drive a kick into his shin, but in doing so, she gave up her strong foundation. The man clocked her and suddenly Felicity was looking up at the night sky, rather than her attacker, then she was looking at both as he merged into her line of vision.

"Normally, I would partake in more pleasant activities with a pretty woman on her back," the man sneered, "but I'm afraid your thievery and insolence detracts from your appeal."

"Not from where I'm standing," The Canary announced from her perch on the ship's railing.

Her arrival distracted the man long enough to leave him vulnerable to Felicity's strong uppercut. He stumbled back and she leapt to her feet and turned to look at Sara. Just as Digg and Lyla showed up with their guns drawn and pointed at the man, he lunged forward and grabbed Felicity. The trafficker pressed his forearm against her throat and kept her body close to his as he shuffled back away from the firearms.

"Let her go, you sick son of a bitch!" Digg yelled, finger tensing on the trigger.

"You steal my girls, I steal yours," the man returned. "So here's how this is going to work: You can keep your whiny teenagers and I'll take this lovely creature instead. She'll fetch a fair price at auction, as long as she doesn't open her bitch mouth."

Sara tensed at the word, but before she could do anything, Felicity moved into action. She drove her heel into the abductor's toes, causing his pressure against her throat to slacken, then Felicity pivoted and jabbed her elbow back into his lower torso, before hitting him with a second uppercut. Sara watched as everything seemed to slow down suddenly and, as the man fell backwards over the railing towards the dark harbor waters, Felicity was pulled back with him.

"FELICITY!" Sara, Digg, and Lyla's collective scream rang out into the night air.

The three rushed over to the other side of the deck and looked down into the liquid shadows. Sara felt like her heart had migrated into her throat and she climbed up on the railing to John and Lyla's shouts of, "Sara, no!" She threw herself over the side and dove into the dark waters after Felicity.

It was somehow colder than Sara had expected it to be, which was saying something considering she had been expecting it to be as cold as the North China Sea. She couldn't see a thing, just blackness and her own hands in front of her. Her eyes burned from the ocean water and it wasn't long before her lungs were burning as well from lack of oxygen. Sara couldn't tell if she was blacking out or if it was just that dark, but soon she felt an arm slip around her waist. She fought as first, as she thought the arm was dragging her down deeper into the waters, then everything began slipping away from her.

. . .

As Felicity's head broke through the surface, she sucked in a deep gasp and tried to keep Sara's head above the water as well. She looked up to see Digg and Lyla searching the darkness for her, so she yelled up to them, "Nice night for a swim, don't you think?"

"Felicity?" Digg yelled down to her finally spotting her. "Hold on, okay? We'll meet you further down the docks!"

"Okay!" she responded loudly enough for them to hear her.

Felicity turned onto her back in the water, keeping her arm secure around Sara's waist, and swam like that until she got to a ladder on the dock. Digg and Lyla ran over and met her there, and each reached a hand down to grab onto either of Sara's arms and pull her up. Shivering like it was December in Chicago, Felicity quickly followed and Digg laid Sara on her back on the dock. The two former soldiers looked The Canary over.

"She's not breathing," Digg said.

"I don't know CPR!" Felicity yelled, now completely panicking.

"It's okay. I do," Diggle told her. "I just need you to breathe for her, Felicity."

"What?!" she nearly screamed as he started chest compressions.

"You have to breathe for her, Felicity!" Digg repeated. Felicity's mind was reeling, trying to make sense of John's words. He looked up at her and told her urgently, "Breathe for her, Felicity! Now!"

It didn't give her anytime to think about it or shy away. It definitely wasn't how Felicity pictured her first kiss with Sara would be, but since she was pretty sure there was never actually going to be a real first kiss with Sara, Felicity supposed the kiss of life was more than enough. So she breathed breath into Sara, trying not to focus on the sparks she felt when she did so. Saving Sara's life was the priority, and Felicity would do anything to save Sara.

When she broke away and Digg started chest compressions again, everything felt more real and defined to Felicity. The thing that felt the most real was the fact that Sara wasn't breathing. And Felicity needed her to breathe, she needed Sara to breathe as badly as she needed to breathe herself. She ran her hand over Sara's wet head and looked at her fearfully.

"Just breathe," Felicity urged her quietly. "Please, Sara, just breathe. Please just breathe."

Miraculously, it was at that moment that Sara did decide to breathe again. A stream of water spouted from her mouth as she coughed and rolled to her side to empty the water from her lungs. Felicity helped her to sit up as the last few pockets of salt water were dislodged from her friend's trachea. Sara slumped against Felicity and Felicity held her until her senses seemed to slowly return. The Canary picked her head up and looked at Felicity.

"You're okay," she remarked happily.

"I was never not okay," Felicity told her. "My reflexes obviously leave something to be desired, but I'm a solid swimmer." She stared at Sara and asked, "Are you okay? You're the one who nearly drowned."

Sara nodded her head. "Yeah. I'm fine."

"Good," the tech girl told her. "In that case,"– she slammed her hands against both of Sara's shoulders forcefully – "WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING?!" Felicity screamed indignantly. It did not go unnoticed that Digg and Lyla seemed to clear out pretty fast at that time. "Having one of us in the water wasn't enough? You had to jump in too?" She waited expectantly. "Well?"

Pure shock and little bit of hurt was written in Sara's features. "I was thinking you were going to drown and I was saving you!" Sara yelled back angrily.

"So it was better if we both drowned?" Felicity questioned, the anger still there but waning now. "Do you have any idea what it would have done to me if I hadn't been able to find you and pull you to the surface? If you would have drowned? If Digg hadn't been able to revive you?" Angry and fearful tears welled reflexively in Felicity's eyes at the thought. "You scared the hell out of me, Sara."

Sara's entire demeanor softened at Felicity's tears and heartfelt confession. "I'm sorry. Okay. I'm sorry," Sara told her. "But you scared me too. I really thought for a minute there that I had lost you, and I can't go through that."

"Haven't you figured it out by now?" Felicity questioned her with a soft smile. "You're not getting rid of me that easily, Lance. Compared to Slade Wilson and a caved in building, tonight was just an impromptu dip in the harbor until you jumped in after me and we had to bring you back from the dead. Again."

Sara laughed, wiping a few errant tears from her cheeks. "Thank you for saving me. Again," Sara said.

Felicity swept away the last of Sara's own tears and smiled. "Anytime," she replied. "But how about not anytime soon, okay?"

She stood to her feet and held a hand out for Sara to take. When Sara was on two stable feet, Felicity wrapped an arm around her waist and led her off the docks and back to Diggle's van. He and Lyla were watching the police reuniting the four girls with their respective parents. Laurel came across the scene to stand with them and Chief Lance nodded to the five over the roof of his cruiser, before he got in to head back to the station.

After all was said and done, Laurel turned to look at her sister and friend. "Why are you two soaking wet?" she demanded bewilderedly.

Three months. That was how long it had taken Felicity to develop the thermo-imaging device, and now it was completely waterlogged. Destroyed. Irreparable, even by her hands, and that was saying something considering she had once recovered blueprints off a bullet-riddled laptop. She really hated international human trafficking ninjas. Like a lot.

When she considered it in hindsight though, it could have been a lot worse. It could have been one of the girls who were destroyed and irreparable. It could have been Sara. Felicity could rebuild and replace the device; it was of no real value. Sara was irreplaceable. Sara was priceless. Felicity didn't know what she would have done if they hadn't been able to save their friend.

"Is it salvageable?" Sara asked from behind Felicity. She had just stepped out of the shower in the Arrowcave and put on clean clothes. She was still drying her hair with a towel as she walked over to Felicity's worktable.

"Not even a little," Felicity laughed, turning in her chair so her knees were pressed against Sara's where the older girl was standing and facing her.

Sara smiled hesitantly but her brow furrowed in confusion. "You don't seem all that upset," she commented. "I know you worked hard on that."

Felicity stood slowly, giving Sara time to step back from her if she wanted to, but she didn't. The IT-girl tucked damp locks of hair behind Sara's ear as she met her green eyes earnestly. "I salvaged you," Felicity said quietly. "That's all that matters to me. I can build another thermo-imaging device," – Felicity looked down as she interlaced her fingers with Sara's, then she looked back up into the older girl's eyes – "you're irreplaceable."

Sara's breath hitched at the look in Felicity's eyes that was directed entirely at her. Goosebumps crept across her skin, causing a delicious shiver over her whole body and Felicity, mistaking Sara's shiver as a symptom of the hero still being cold, took the dry cardigan off the back of her chair and wrapped it around Sara's shoulders. The younger woman pulled the two sides of the sweater together across Sara's front and held them closed with her hands.

For the second time that day, Sara had the overwhelming urge to close the miniscule distance between their bodies and make Felicity hers. The only thing holding her back was her fear that Felicity would not be so receptive to such advances. But, for just a brief moment, Sara could have sworn she saw Felicity start to lean in and her eyes flit to Sara's lips. She would never know for sure, because at that moment, fate seemed to intervene.

"Um, am I interrupting something?"

Felicity's head snapped in the direction of the voice. Her face flushed with happiness and something else as she saw who it was. "Oliver!" she laughed, leaving Sara to stride over and throw her arms around her friend. "You're back!"

"I'm back," Oliver confirmed. He gave the tech girl a tight one-armed hug in return. "Ooh, I missed you."

"Missed you too," Felicity replied.

Reality came crashing back to Sara as she looked at the pair and felt a painful twinge in her heart. This was what was real; Sara loved Felicity, Felicity loved Oliver, and Oliver was probably the most emotionally unavailable man Sara had ever met. She ducked her head to give herself time to mask the disappointment on her face.

"Laurel is going to be so happy to see you," Felicity then told Oliver. Sara's head snapped back up to look at her. "She's been going out of her mind. You should go see her."

Oliver looked from Felicity to Sara and back again. "Diggle called and told me there was an emergency," he said.

"There was, but Sara and I handled it just fine on our own," Felicity told him, looking over her shoulder at Sara and beaming with pride.

"Yeah, way to show up after the crisis is already averted, Ollie," Sara played along, feeling a little lighter with every second Felicity's eyes remained solely on her.

"So go," Felicity told him, giving Oliver a little shove toward the exit. "See Laurel. Make things right. We've got everything under control." She looked at Sara again. "Dynamic duo. Right, Sara?"

Sara felt a smile split her face. "Dynamic duo," she replied.