Chapter 3: Applying for classes
3 months and 2 weeks and 3 days to deadline
Sara Diggle tried not to make any noise as she made her way to the kitchen. While she loved having Jess as a housemate she had learnt pretty quickly that waking Jess up was never good idea.
Sara walked into the kitchen and froze. Jess was already sitting at the counter fully dress working on something on her laptop.
"Are you ok?" Sara asked slowly.
Jess jumped at the sound of her voice.
"You scared the crap out of me." Jess yelled.
Jess glared at her.
Sara shook her head and walked over to the coffee pot.
"I was trying not to wake you up." Sara argued.
Jess looked up guiltily. At least Jess knew she wasn't exactly the nicest person to be around in the mornings.
"Coffee?" Sara asked and Jess nodded.
Sara poured them both a coffee and handed Jess over her drink before taking a sip of her own.
"Thank you." Jess said before looking back at her computer screen.
"What are you doing up so early anyway?" Sara said looking at the clock, it was just after 6 am and Jess was rarely up before 9. With her job at the club she didn't have any reason to be up before 9.
Jess looked up from her screen.
"I have a few errands to run today and I'm not sure how long there going to take." Jess replied with a shrug of her shoulders.
"You not working today then?" Sara questioned.
Normally Jess would have to be at the club by eleven to deal with the suppliers.
Jess nodded her head.
"Yeah but not till tonight." She replied.
"One of our bar staff is out sick so Thea is going to deal with suppliers while I help out on bar tonight." Jess added.
Sara nodded. It was still so weird to see Jess up so earlier.
"I was thinking that of taking some exercise classes." Jess said warily.
"That sound good." Sara replied.
Jess smiled excitedly.
"I'm glad you think that because I was wondering if you would want to come with me?" Jess asked.
Sara shrugged, she could do with getting more exercise.
"As long as we can work it round my schedule I think that would be good." Sara told her.
Jess nodded.
"Of course." Jess agreed.
"So what kind of exercise classes where you thinking of taken?" Sara asked taking a sip of her coffee.
"Pole dancing." Jess said slowly and Sara spat out her coffee.
Of all the things she expect Jess to say pole dancing was not one of them.
"Are you ok?" Jess asked handing Sara a cloth to clean herself up with.
Jess begun to clean up the sides.
"I just didn't expect you to say pole dancing." Sara confessed.
Pole dancing was exciting and as much as Sara loved Jess, Jess was as plain as people went. Jess never seemed to have interest in anything other than getting through life day by day, the idea of Jess taking pole dancing classes was so surprising.
Jess shrugged her shoulders as if it was nothing and turned her computer screen round for Sara to look at.
"I was thinking it could be fun." Jess replied.
Sara looked at the screen. The pole dancing started next Wednesday and she had to admit it looked pretty good.
"Ok. Why not?" Sara replied.
Tommy smiled as he read Jess's text.
Sara agreed to the pole dancing classes, just signed up online. The class starts next Wednesday :) J xx
She seemed so excited. Tommy looked at his watched he had ten minutes before he was due to start work, he had time to give her a quick call.
"Don't you have work?" Jess asked answering after the first ring.
"I've got time." Tommy pointed out.
"What did Sara say when you asked her about going with you?" Tommy questioned.
Jess laughed and Tommy couldn't help but smiled. Jess had a nice laugh it was just a shame she didn't use to very often.
"She spat her drink out." Jess told him through giggles.
Tommy laughed. He wished he could have seen that.
"So what's next?" Tommy asked her when they finished laughing.
Jess cleared her throat.
"I have a few errands to run then I am going to talk to your dad about teaching me Russian." Jess replied.
"He said he was going to pop to the lair tonight." Tommy added helpfully.
He stilled didn't understand how she was going to get his dad to agree to the lessons without telling him about the list.
"But good luck with that." he told her.
Jess sighed.
"I've got it covered, don't worry about it." Jess promised.
Tommy frowned. If she said she had covered he had to believe her.
"I was thinking about the bar crawl." Jess said changing the subject.
"Oh yeah?" He asked.
"Yeah. I was thinking we could get everyone to go." she suggested.
"When you say everyone, does that include our parents?" Tommy questioned cringing at the thought of going clubbing with his parents.
Jess laughed.
"Yeah. No." She replied.
"For that to happen I would have to tell them about the list and we're not doing that." Jess continued.
"I was thinking me, you, Andy, Sara, Connor and maybe Katie if she wants too." Jess suggested.
It was a good idea.
"I like it." Tommy replied.
"Not sure about Sara and Katie together but it would be nice for everyone to take a night off from team arrow." Tommy added whispering the last part so no one could hear him.
Connor and Sara hooked up once when they were in college there was nothing more to it than a onetime thing but ever since Katie found out she had been funny with Sara and it made being around them awkward.
"There not that bad together." Jess reasoned.
They were but Tommy didn't have time to argue. He really needed to go or he would be late.
"Look I have to get to work but we'll talk more later." He promised.
Jess put her phone down and sighed. After Sara left for work she had driven to the cemetery. It wasn't very often that she came to her mum's grave but after the last couple of days she felt she needed to. While her dad came to the cemetery most days Jess had always found it too hard. Her dad had always said that he came here to talk to her mum but Jess could never understand how someone could spend hours talking to someone who never talked back.
Jess got out of the car and walked towards her mum's grave. Her dad had arranged for her mums grave to be near her Auntie Sara's, he said he didn't want her to be alone. It had seemed strange to her as a child, but now the thought brought her some comfort.
Jess stopped in front of her mum's grave and knelt down.
Beloved wife, mother and friend. Taken too soon but never forgotten.
"Hey mum." Jess whispered.
Her dad must have been by because there was a bunch of colourful flowers next to her mum's headstone.
"I'm sorry I haven't been by in a while." Jess said.
She took a deep breath and sat down.
"I never really felt like I knew you." Jess admitted.
"Then I found the journal, the one with the bucket list and I thought maybe, just maybe I could finally get to know you."
Jess took a shuddering breath.
"To finally see the women you were before you got sick, the women dad fell in love with."
Jess pulled the journal out of her bag.
"I can't believe you flashed Uncle John, I wish I could have seen his face." Jess added with a laugh.
Jess opened the journal to the last 15 items.
"There was so much that you wanted to do and so much that you couldn't." Jess said.
She smiled sadly as tears slipped from her eyes.
"But I don't want you to worry because I'm going to finish the list and Tommy's going to help me." Jess promised.
"We both know if Tommy helps me we will defiantly get the list completed." Jess added with a teary smile.
She took a deep breath.
"I'm going to do everything you wanted to do on this list, I am going to feel everything you wanted to feel from this list."
"I am going to know you." Jess added determinedly.
Jess whipped the tears from her eyes and stood up.
"I wish things could have been different. I wish you could have been here, making dad laugh again, teaching me how to live. But you can't change the past you can only move forward." Jess told her as a sob broke from her throat.
"I think I have been stuck all these years." Jess confessed.
Jess dried her face on her sleeve.
"But now I'm going to live, I'm going to live for you." Jess promised.
"I love you mum." Jess added.
Jess took one last look at her mum's grave stone. Nothing was going to stop her from keeping that promise.
Oliver Queen had to admit he sometimes missed going into the field. He missed the adrenalin rush it gave him, but he was very proud of what his boys and his godson had done with his legacy.
When Connor was twelve he decided that what Felicity did for team arrow was much cooler then wearing the hood and Connor told him he wanted to be just like Felicity when he grew up. Felicity had cried in happiness at his son's kind words but when Connor was old enough he took over from Felicity.
Tommy had always been a natural in self-defence so when he found out the team Arrow secret he told them he wanted to put on the hood, he wanted to protect this city and Oliver knew better than to ignore that determined look. Oliver hated the thought of his son getting hurt but he had an amazing team in his brother and his backup in the field Andy.
When Andy turned 18 he followed his parent's footsteps and joined the army where he quickly progressed until he excelled as a sniper never missing a shot. Andy served two tours before coming home and joining Tommy in the field and his parent's security company. Criminals of Starling city had nicknamed Andy the ghost, no one could see him in the field but they knew he was there.
Sometimes Oliver would come down to the lair and watch his sons work, Roy and Diggle did the same from time to time. Felicity even came down to the lair on occasion for nothing more than to be there. The lair had been a huge part of their life so long that not being there was difficult.
That's where he was when Jess found him.
It was half eleven, Tommy and Andy were patrolling and Connor was taking a night off to celebrate Katie's dad Ted's birthday.
"Hey Jess." Oliver greeted as Jess reached the bottom step.
Jess smiled at him. He and seen her working when he came in.
"You taking a break?" He asked and Jess nodded.
Whenever Jess worked late she would sometimes come down to the lair to talk and spend time with them, but most of the time she came to the lair looking for Tommy.
"Tommy's still in the field I'm afraid." Oliver told her.
Oliver had to admit he never really understood their friendship. Jess was quiet and quite withdrawn, Tommy was loud and extremely playful but somehow their friendship worked and they brought out the best out in each other.
"I know." Jess stated.
"I was actually looking for you, Tommy said I could find you here." Jess added.
"Oh, ok." Oliver said caught completely off guard.
"What can I do for you?" Oliver asked.
Jess took a seat opposite him.
"I have always wanted to learn another language and I've been trying these online course but I can't seemed to get on with any of them." Jess told him.
Oliver nodded unsure where she was going with this.
"Then I remembered you spoke Russian." Jess added and Oliver had a feeling he had this conversation before.
He felt like he had this conversation before.
"I was wondering if you would consider teaching me." Jess asked as realisation hit him.
Sin had once asked him the same thing.
FLASHBACK
Oliver looked at Sin with wide eyes.
"You want me to teach you Russian?" He repeated in disbelief.
Sin nodded. Roy had said that today was a good day for Sin but she was having more and more bad days lately.
"I have this list of things I want to do before I die and learning another language is one of them." Sin told him seriously and Oliver froze.
"You're not going to die." Oliver told her but they both knew it was a lie.
The doctors had already told them there was nothing more they could do.
"Thank you for lying but we both know I am." Sin argued, she smiled at him sadly.
Oliver took a deep breath. They fought every damn day to save the people of this city but they couldn't do anything to save one of their own.
"Why Russian?" Oliver asked.
Sin smiled.
"I remembered Felicity saying how beautiful it was when you spoke it." Sin told him.
Oliver smiled.
He knew Felicity loved him speaking Russian but he was surprised to hear that she had told Sin.
"Will you teach me?" Sin asked.
There wasn't a lot that any of them could do for Sin now and if she was asking for this he was going to do it for her.
Oliver nodded.
"If you tell me what else is on your list?" He asked with a smile.
Sin laughed.
END OF FLASHBACK
They had only managed a few lessons before Sin became too sick and a few weeks after that she died.
It was a strange request and he hadn't been able to teach Sin but maybe he could teach Jess.
"I would love to." Oliver told Jess.
Jess smiled brightly. She looked so much like her mum when she smiled.
"Thank you." Jess replied.
