Chipped Blocks
An Olicity Flash Fic Story
Flash Fic Prompt #33: Hide From Evil
Chapter Five
Felicity Smoak was very much a creature of habit. She liked routines. She liked predictability. She even liked schedules – always had... even as a child. While she was invariably the first to embrace new technologies, she had been drinking the same cup of coffee – not literally, because one cup would never be enough and also was there anything worse than stale, hard java? Okay, yes, there was mayonnaise. Felicity had an almost obsessive hatred of the condiment. And there was Windows... every generation. But this wasn't her point. Her point was that she had been drinking the same brand of coffee since college... minus that nine month sabbatical she'd been forced to take away from that which was practically her life blood. And she never rearranged her furniture. (Wasn't that just asking for a stubbed toe – or worse – in the middle of the night?) And she always cleaned the bathrooms on Saturday. After all, cleanliness was practically next to godliness, right, so what could be more observing of the sabbath than scrubbing soap scum and toilet bowl rust?
Even when something happened in her life that was a surprise – like Oliver asking her to have lunch with him after their impromptu, irrational dinner the night before – Felicity tried to balance the deviation away from her norm with tried and true behavior. So, she was treating that morning like any other. She got up, she made coffee, she brushed her teeth while waiting for the beloved stimulant to percolate. While drinking her first cup, she meandered around online, checking out the morning's news-news and, more importantly, its tech-news. She ate a bagel (with smear). She showered, she shampooed, she soaped. She spent a ridiculous amount of time taming the wild nest commonly considered her hair. Felicity then put on her makeup, and she made her way towards her closet where, upon a long ago established pattern, she selected the next outfit up for wear. It was simpler that way – allowing yet another schedule to dictate her fashion choices in the morning. Otherwise, she'd spend far too much time weighing her options, and, with Mia, Felicity didn't need any more reasons to be late.
Seemingly in one motion, she laid the dress of the day upon her unmade bed and untied the belt of her robe. As she shrugged the silky fabric off her shoulders, she crossed the room towards her dresser, opening the top drawer to remove the coordinating undergarments that would work best with that day's outfit. Humming softly to herself because, despite trying to tamper down any feelings she wouldn't be experiencing if her lunch was with any other parent besides Oliver, Felicity couldn't deny that she was excited about their... planned meal together, she first slipped on her panties and then shrugged her way into her bra. Afterwards... like with any other morning, Felicity turned to grab her dress, but, for reasons she didn't understand (and wasn't sure she wanted to contemplate too intimately), her gaze became caught in the mirror, her eyes immediately drawn to the vast amount of skin on display while she wore only her lingerie. To her cleanly kept bikini line. To the faded but still very visible scar resting low upon her abdomen and just above the line of her panties.
Mia had been a c-section baby.
It hadn't been planned, and it wasn't because of immediate distress upon either Felicity or her unborn daughter at the time but rather her labor had been progressing too slowly, her cervix failing to open up enough for vaginal delivery. At the time, Felicity had just been scared and in pain. She hadn't been capable of thinking too much about why her body had fought so hard against giving birth, but, now, looking back, she wondered if it was just because it knew she wasn't emotionally ready to be a mother. Rubbing the fingers of her right hand against the scar, Felicity smiled softly at the overly sentimental thought, because, seventeen years later, she knew that no woman was ever really ready to become a mother, let alone one who was a child herself.
With her eyes tightly shut, Felicity ground her teeth together. It no longer hurt. Well, that was a lie. She was pretty sure her body would never not hurt again, but this type of pain was different than before when she was still trying to naturally give birth. This was the remembered stiffness of abused muscles; this was the dull ache of exhaustion. As she listened to her doctor and nurses flutter about her, preparing for the cesarean they were about to perform, she braced herself not for the searing, white hot burn of a scalpel slicing through skin, for she had been given an epidural and was now blissfully numb from the waist down (if only the numbness could spread towards her heart as well), but because her time was up. Whether she liked it or not, her daughter was going to be born in a matter of minutes. There was no more running, no more hiding.
When she had been asked if she'd like mirrors positioned so she could see her child's birth, Felicity had snapped. Even without offering an explanation, her quick and heated dismissal had been met with smiling eyes and soft smiles. A baby practically herself, the nurses just assumed Felicity was squeamish – that the thought of watching a knife cut into her belly and then her uterus; of a messy, rubbery infant being pulled out and away from inside of her made Felicity close her eyes in fear of throwing up. It didn't cross their minds that, in reality, while labor was disgusting, she really didn't want to see the birth of her own child, because the visual would only make it that much more real. No one – not the nurses, not her doctor, not even Felicity's own mother – was aware of her very complicated, very thorny emotions in regards to becoming a mom.
Put aside her age. Forget that Felicity had always promised herself that, no matter what, she'd never become Donna Smoak 2.0. Those concerns, while they had initially weighed upon her shoulders when she discovered her unplanned and certainly unwanted pregnancy, had long since faded. In comparison to everything else she was feeling, self-disappointment and embarrassment were petty and unimportant. No, what mattered was the obligation Felicity felt towards having her unborn child and the resentment that obligation bred within her heart.
Upon discovering she was alone – not because of a one night stand or because of a breakup but because her boyfriend was in federal prison – and knocked up, Felicity had gone to visit Cooper in jail. The decision about what to do in regards to their child wasn't just Felicity's, and she was selfish enough to want the reassurance of the man she loved... even if he was offering it to her from behind a bulletproof, plate-glass window. Only, seeing Cooper did absolutely nothing to calm Felicity's anxiety. She told him about the baby, and he dismissed the issue, treated it – he or she – like they didn't matter. And maybe, when you're already set upon suicide, the lives you leave behind fade in importance. But Felicity hadn't known, during that visit, that her boyfriend planned on killing himself. It was only afterwards that she started to put the pieces together.
At that point, however, it was too late. Cooper killed himself, and, no matter how she felt about becoming a statistic, Felicity couldn't kill the last connection she had to the man she loved. At the same time, she hated that Cooper left her with such a responsibility, with such guilt. How was she to look in their child's eyes and tell them that it was her fault their father was dead? Felicity kept her baby because of a man who wouldn't fight to stay with them, and then, because she had nowhere else to place those weighted, heavy emotions, transferred them unto the tiny, innocent shoulders of her daughter. While she knew it wasn't fair, neither was life, and, as she bit through her lip to the point of drawing blood in the effort to keep from crying – from sobbing in fear, and heartbreak, and shame, and remorse – Felicity prayed that time would slow down, that her daughter would never be born; she prayed that the doctors and the nurses would just get it over with already.
"Hey mom," a gentle voice interrupted her concentration. Without thinking of the consequences of her actions, Felicity whimpered at the sweet, unwanted moniker being used to address her, and she opened her eyes. "I'm sorry," the nurse quickly apologized, apparently recalling Felicity's directive to never call her that. "I meant Felicity." The nurse sounded harried and flustered, confused as to how to react to such a cold and unconventional delivery. But Felicity could pay her no mind. In fact, she barely heard the words coming from the other woman's lips. Instead, her attention was solely focused upon the squirming, squalling child displayed before her. "Would you like to hold your daughter?"
"Mia. Her name's Mia," she whispered, already reaching for the infant. As soon as the baby was in her arms, Felicity explained her insistence... even if no one was listening or cared. "She's not mine. And she's not his. She's... her own person – as tiny, and as new, and as sticky as she is in this moment." And then she laughed. She laughed at herself; she laughed at her naivete. She laughed at, objectively, how gross a newborn baby was but how beautiful she found Mia anyway. She laughed at how foolish she had been, how blind, how stupid, because, with one look at Mia, Felicity fell in love. And she didn't love the little girl because she was a part of Cooper; she loved her because, when she was placed in Felicity's arms, Mia stopped crying. And she loved her, because she was stubborn, and proud, and impossible. Five minutes old, and Felicity could already tell that Mia would be a handful. And she loved her, because, really, Mia left her no other choice.
With a shake of her head, Felicity pushed away her memories from the day Mia had been born. Because she had been right all those years ago – Mia was stubborn, and proud, and impossible, Felicity did not have time to stray from her carefully crafted schedule. She left both the mirror and the past behind, and she moved towards her bed. Stepping through the open expanse of her dress, she wiggled the fabric up and over her hips before stretching her arms behind her to zip the sheath closed. Moving back towards her dresser, she snagged a cardigan for warmth and then slipped on a favorite pair of dangling earrings. It was only in selecting her shoes that Felicity paused, angling her head to the side in consideration.
"Oh, what the hell," she remarked playfully, tucking her feet into a pair of impossibly high heels instead of the flats she usually wore to work. Although she loved fancy shoes, she couldn't afford the good ones, and teaching was not a profession that lended itself well to wearing stilettos. Usually, Felicity saved her high heels for days when she knew she'd be seated the majority of the time – days when all she was doing was administering standardized tests, days when the kids were off and she was stuck in mind-numbing meetings – and nights when she rarely went out on dates.
Ready for the day and whatever it might bring and armed with the confidence high heels afforded her, Felicity left her bedroom and moved down the hall towards Mia's. Unlike Felicity, Mia did not have a morning routine. She didn't take the time to slowly wake up over a steaming cup of coffee, and she certainly didn't eat breakfast. Perhaps it made her a bad parent, but, with all their other fights, that was one battle Felicity had long since given up on. In fact, they were just lucky if Mia managed to roll out of bed early enough to shrug on some clothes in time for Felicity to drop her off at school. It'd be easier if Mia went to Starling Prep, but Felicity's daughter had burned those bridges – and the paper her scholarship had once been typed upon – years ago.
Knocking softly so as not to trigger her daughter's temper but loud enough to show her that she meant business, Felicity spoke through the heavy wood, "Mia, come on, we're going to be late." While, typically, Felicity didn't receive a polite response, Mia usually said something to her – some mumbled complaint or yelled obscenity. There were even mornings when, instead of talking with her words, Mia told Felicity just what she could do with her admonishments by throwing something towards the closed door. However, silence was rare enough to immediately cause Felicity worry, because she remembered what a quiet Mia had meant in the past.
She'd never be able to forget.
"This isn't funny, Mia," as her anxiety grew, so, too, did the volume of her voice. "Open this door. I need to see that you're up. I need to know that you're..." The word that flashed through Felicity's mind was alive, but she wouldn't put that thought out into the universe and give it weight by actually saying it. " … that you're awake." When still she didn't receive a response, Felicity ignored all of Mia's requests for privacy and trust – trust that she had broken, and abused, and failed to return so many times in the past – and tried to open her daughter's door. Only... it was locked. Swallowing past the lump in her throat, Felicity slouched against the jamb, her forehead falling to rest against the wooden door. "Oh god, no. Not again."
Deciding not to panic, deciding that jumping to conclusions (even if they were heavily supported by evidence from past behavior) wouldn't help anybody, not Felicity and certainly not Mia, in that moment, she quickly pushed aside her panic and fear and, instead, tried to approach the situation logically. Striding back down the hall towards her own room, Felicity immediately went to her bedside table where her cell phone was charging for the day. Without checking to see if it had a full charge yet or not, she unplugged it, unlocked it, and was dialing an all too familiar number before she could second guess or dismiss her hope.
"Ugh, too early," her mother grumbled once she picked up after five rings. "I love you, but some of us work at night. And have a life."
Briefly, Felicity wondered what Donna Smoak would think or say if she knew her only, perpetually single daughter had a sort of, kind of, maybe lunch date with a sizzling hot billionaire that afternoon. But that instinct to throw Oliver in her mother's face was born from years of listening to her mom harass her about her lack of a personal life, and it was quickly forgotten in light of her worry.
"Mom." Her harsh, clipped tone immediately sobered Donna. In her mind, she could see her mother sitting up in bed, her sleeping mask pushed up and into hair messy from sleep and the previous night's abuse. "Have you heard from Mia? When was the last time you talked to her?"
Felicity and her daughter didn't get along. They couldn't agree on anything, and they had nothing in common. It was a haunting reflection of Felicity's relationship with her own mother when Mia's age. Yet, despite her lack of respect towards her only parent, Mia adored her grandmother. The two were close enough that, when Felicity couldn't find her daughter, her first instinct was to call Donna despite her being more than five hundred miles away in another city, in another state.
"No, no, she hasn't called me in a few days, and I've just been so busy..." Her mother's words trailed off as they both realized how weak yet honest of an excuse that was. With a resigned sigh, Donna asked, "it's starting again, isn't it?"
Sitting down bonelessly on the edge of her bed, Felicity used the strangling hold she had on her cell to help keep her frustration and panic at bay. "When has it ever really stopped?"
Not knowing what to say – with nothing to say, both women just sat there in silence, united over space and long forgiven and forgotten past differences by their grief. For several minutes, they just... were. They breathed. They supported each other by being there the only way they could. But then Felicity squared her shoulders, because sitting around long enough so that she was late for work wouldn't solve anything. Standing up, she kicked off her heels and shoved her feet into her regular, dependable flats. "I have to go, mom, but I'll call you... when I know something. When I find her."
"Alright. I love you, Felicity."
While it went unsaid, she could also hear, in her mother's declaration, everything that Donna didn't say: I'm proud of you. I believe in you. You're a good mom.
"I love you, too."
Ending the call, Felicity dropped her phone into her purse, picked up her tote, and went to work.
