"There are two kinds of secrets. Those we hide from others and those we hide from ourselves."

. . .

The fact that John was so adamant about finding Felicity Smoak and/or for once and for all know what happened to her. The thing happened to her. The thing was, John and Oliver both needed closure. She got that, she did. It was just that after three years she had expected them to accept the fact that Felicity was gone.

That hadn't happened.

Even though Lyla was in charge of the local ARGUS office, sometimes having a primarily desk job had its perks, but she still reported to Amanda Waller. Waller would see her search for Felicity Smoak. She'd know that she was doing it because of John and Oliver. She wasn't worried, though, Waller had had Team Arrow doing so much more for ARGUS in the previous three years than any of the prior years. She doubted that she'd mind. Plus, Lyla wasn't prepared to find anything. So, she sighed and typed in Felicity's name into the system.

Nothing.

Nobody in the world had anything on Felicity Smoak for three years. The last entries that came up were three years old and from Starling City's Police Department in their missing person's case on her. Lyla thought about going to Waller and explaining the situation. To give them closure, even if it had to be manufactured closure. John and Oliver needed sometime in that department.

She hated owing favors.

Especially to Waller.

Amanda Waller was the last person you wanted to owe a favor to.

ARGUS was dangerous.

Waller was deadly.

Her fingers tapped against the desk as she thought of some other way to search the system. Next, she typed in The Arrow. The normal stuff that she would expect came up. A lot of it had to do with ARGUS missions that Team Arrow had assisted on. None of it had to do with Felicity Smoak, not for those three years.

It wasn't like she hadn't looked through the ARGUS database before for Felicity or something related to her. It was the first thing she'd done when Felicity had originally gone missing. Even with their network of satellites and all of their operatives, no one had any information that led them in the direction of finding the Arrow's IT girl. The thing was, Lyla liked Felicity, she just wasn't as affected as John and Oliver. She wanted closure and some answers, but she wasn't going to let it rule her life.

Oliver Queen.

Lyla started to type in Oliver Queen, expecting to get the same matches that she'd gotten for The Arrow. Though, Oliver Queen's search yielded far more information than she'd originally expected. She expected to get the same results, but here she was with information that spanned back to the time that Oliver had been missing. There was also information on Robert and Moira Queen.

The Queen's Gambit.

Lyla stared at the file title. She knew that name. For a moment, she just thought about it. Everyone in the world knew about Oliver Queen and his mysterious five years away after his father's ship had gone down. The ship… The boat… It had been called The Queen's Gambit. The only problem was that the file she was currently staring at had an originating date as of around the time Felicity had disappeared.

Curious, she clicked on the file.

What came up was not what she expected. Instead of it merely being a file that contained information on The Queen's Gambit (the boat), Robert Queen, or Oliver Queen…an ACCESS DENIED screen flashed up. Lyla frowned and tapped at the keys. Her access level was not high enough. The name on the file told her everything, though. The file was protected by Amanda Waller. If she wanted answers, that was who she needed to go to.

Did this file have information, though?

Information that she could use?

Bringing this file up with Amanda was about the last thing that Lyla wanted to do, but at the same time…she was fairly sure that all files that Amanda had locked like this were tagged to alert her if anyone attempted to open it. The way she started to see it, she really had no choice in it. This was it. Not only would Waller be able to answer questions regarding that file, but maybe she'd assist her in closing the case of Felicity Smoak.

Or at least she hoped so.

. . .

"Agents Michaels…"

"There's a file—"

"The Queen's Gambit?"

"My access code isn't high enough to access the information within it."

"And you want to know the contents of the file?" Waller questioned.

"I want to know if any of the contents lead to Felicity Smoak."

Waller smiled. "Careful… You may not want to go down that path… Consider your request carefully… It's certainly not something that you can un-see."

. . .

TBC…