Chipped Blocks
An Olicity Flash Fiction

Flash Fic Prompt #45: Jet Lag

Chapter Seventeen

She was a bad Jew.

It had been many years, yet Felicity had always managed to avoid the temptation. She mocked how commercialized it was, how illogical, how it was all just such a convenience to appease the pagans. Without having to even try, she had always been able to find the beauty in her own holiday. But not this year, not this holiday season. Because, as much as she wanted to deny it, Felicity couldn't any longer.

She was officially a Christmas fangirl.

It would be nice if she could blame Oliver for her cheating on her own heritage, but she couldn't. Felicity had no one to blame but herself. After all, she had been the one to push the four of them into watching holiday movies together after Thanksgiving. For their own reasons, both Mia and Connor were still standoffish towards their own parents... and each other, but the two teens could manage two hours of silent companionship with her and Oliver. And it was nice – disappearing into the easily solved and often laughable dramas of other families. Unfortunately, however, there was not a plethora of Hanukkah films out there, and it seemed like, once Felicity opened the can of worms that was carols, bells, and Starbuck's Cranberry Bliss Bars, holding out against the glitter and light that was Christmas was a lost cause.

The next thing she knew, it wasn't just Christmas movies. Felicity found herself making a holiday music playlist, but let's be real: there were more songs (listenable, catchy ones) about winter the season than there was Hanukkah... or any other holiday of the non-gentile persuasion; and Oliver had even caught her singing The Raveonettes' "The Christmas Song" in the shower the other morning. As for why they were practically cohabitating in the sheet-shrunken Queen Manor together, Felicity's only explanation was that it just... sort of happened. And it felt right. Mia was there, Oliver was there, and those Christmas trees (one in every room) were not going to decorate themselves. While all of this – her presence in his home, Connor... mellowing towards him, the decorations, the sense of family and togetherness that they were all realizing had been missing from their lives for far too long – made Oliver extremely happy, Felicity couldn't even use their relationship as the excuse for her festiveness.

"Just... tell it to me straight. What did he do; how much trouble is he in?"

She could, however, use it to explain why she was sitting across from one very nervous and flustered Sandra Hawke in a coffee shop halfway between Starling City and Central City.

"What?"

"I knew it wasn't a good idea to send him to live with his father. Connor didn't need the Queen money and lack of morals to enable his hacking even further, but everything else I had tried and could think of to try were bad ideas as well."

"Connor isn't..." Because this was't the reaction Felicity had been anticipating – she'd thought it would be awkward between them, perhaps even tense, but never so... open yet professional, she struggled with what she wanted to say, with how she wanted to say it. "This has nothing to do with computers, with... technology." Even in denial of the action, Felicity wouldn't acknowledge Sandra's accusation of Connor's ability to hack – both in an effort to protect him and herself. "Besides, if Connor was in trouble, Oliver himself would be the one to tell you."

For some reason, as soon as Felicity said Oliver's name, she watched as Sandra's posture stiffened, as her eyes became hard with suspicion. "I thought you were my son's teacher."

"I am."

"Because you emailed me to ask for this meeting with a Starling Prep email address, with a Starling Prep signature."

Not quite catching the other woman's idea train, Felicity nonetheless went along for the scenic ride. "I did."

"Do you refer to all of your students' parents by their first names, Miss Smoak?"

And then realization dawned. Sighing in resignation, Felicity sat back, shoulders slumped, in her booth seat. This meeting, this conversation, this favor request was not going to go well. In fact, there was a very good chance that they wouldn't even get to the requesting of the favor... which was her entire reason for asking for their little, secret, coffee rendezvous in the first place. With the ice beginning to thaw between Oliver and Connor, and knowing how important spending the holidays with his son was to her boyfriend, Felicity had wanted to appeal to Sandra's love for her child and hopefully her wish that he be able to form a healthy and positive relationship with his father to convince the other woman to allow Connor to spend the holidays with them in Starling City rather than return to his mom's place in Central City during winter break. Unfortunately, that desire for father-son closeness seemed to be sorely lacking in one of them, and that certainly wasn't Felicity. She should have realized her elf errand was doomed as soon as Sandra expressed her low opinion of the Queen family, but, foolishly, she had been blinded by visions of Christmas morning with the four of them together dancing in her head.

"I apologize if my email misled you, Sandra." Acknowledging that the familiarity of first names may not be appreciated, Felicity amended, "I mean, Ms. Hawke. But that was not my intention. While, yes, I used the convenience of my school email address to get in contact with you, I did so as Oliver's girlfriend and not Connor's teacher. I guess, by your reaction, that you didn't realize we... I mean, I," Felicity amended her own statement, her face screwing up in the chaos of her thoughts and her distress, " … was one in the same person." Suddenly fearful that not only had Sandra believed her meeting to be with her son's teacher but that she had been unaware of Oliver dating anyone, she asked, "you did... know about me, right? I mean, the Felicity-me, not the teacher-me. Well, obviously, you knew my name was Felicity. Felicity Smoak. Because I signed my email with my signature... which, like signatures do, includes my name. My full name. But not my middle name. Which is Megan, by the way. In case you were curious." Biting her lip, looking away, and blowing out a harsh, nervous breath, Felicity exhaled the words, "but I'd imagine that you weren't. Curious, that is." Sotto voce, she added one last thought. "Or prepared for that... verbal purge of unfortunateness."

Curtly, Sandra asked, "are you finished?"

Felicity snorted. "Trust me, I'd like to promise you that I was, but one never knows when it comes to my babble." A glare from the other woman had her changing her regrettably non-Raveonettes tune. "Yes. Right. Of course. Quite. Quite finished. Now."

"Yes, Oliver did inform me of his... situation... with you, and, what he didn't tell me, Thea had the grace and good sense to fill in for him."

Well, if that's how Sandra wanted to be, two could play that sharp and blunt game. "Meaning?"

Standing up, the other woman accused, "meaning that I know about your daughter, Miss Smoak and that, whatever the reason you wanted to meet with me today, it was a waste of my time and a manipulation."

"Whether I contacted you as Connor's teacher or not, this is still about your son." Remaining in her seat and doing everything within her power to keep a leash not only upon the volume of her voice but also on her quickly flaring to life temper, Felicity continued, "as for my request to meet with you being a manipulation, as I already stated, that was certainly not my intention."

In her anger, Sandra struggled to shrug her purse onto one of her coat covered shoulders. "And what exactly were your intentions?"

Chin held high, Felicity stated, "I want you to allow Connor to spend the holidays with his dad."

"You're joking, right?"

Because people were starting to stare, she suggested as calmly as she could, "would you please sit back down so we can talk about this like the adults..."

Sandra cut her off. "You have absolutely no business asking me for anything, especially not in regards to my son. After everything that Thea has told me about you and your daughter..."

This time, it was Felicity's turn to do the interrupting. "Mia is clean, and sober, and doing really well right now. Even if I am the one who is asking you for a favor, I won't allow you to take that away from her."

"And what about Oliver," Sandra prompted, seemingly on a roll. "Why would I ever want my son to spend the holidays with a man who thinks it's a good idea for him to be around a drug addicted wild child and you? In fact, maybe it's time for Connor to come home with me in Central City. Permanently."

And it was there that Felicity was drawing her line. Rising to her booted feet, she squared off against the other woman. "I don't care what Thea told you or what assumptions you've made about me, but I am a good mother." Sandra went to contradict her, but Felicity just talked right over the brunette. "I won't deny that I made mistakes with Mia, but at least I never willfully kept her father away from her, at least I never gave up on her when things got a little rough. Oliver's not a perfect parent either, and he and Connor are still struggling to connect – thanks to you keeping them apart for Connor's entire life. But try. Just try to take Oliver's son away from him again and see what happens, because I can promise that you will not like the results. Connor might be mad at his dad for missing so many years of his life, but you caused that anger, and absence is a much easier pill to swallow than abandonment."

Unlike her counterpart, when Felicity slid her own purse onto her shoulder, she did so gracefully... which was a small holiday miracle onto itself, for she never seemed to manage anything with poise and composure. Righteous fury, apparently, agreed with her. Without even deigning to glance over her shoulder, Felicity left with a chilled and pointed, "travel safe, Mis. Hawke."