K guys. We're jumping back slightly to Felicity POV. As we gathered in the last chapter (just in case you missed it) after Donna mentions Tommy Felicity storms out of the precinct.
This chapter has a LOT of Tommy in it, via Laurel. This is the last intermediary chapter. Next one is where the real plot begins.
Lies.
She's sick of them. Her mother, the person Felicity thought was the shallowest in the world, most transparent in the world, has revealed so many secrets in the past week that it's making Felicity's head spin. Her world tilts on the axis of how she knew it, colors fading different, light slanting shadows a new angle.
Felicity buries her face in her hands. She's sitting in a café not three blocks down from the station, nursing a latte. Turns out, storming down the street in heels is exhausting.
It's been a rough four days. First she finds out that her mom is marrying a police Captain in Starling City, which now she's okay with, but her mother followed it up with revealing her biological father who just happens to be a mass murder. It's been five years since the earthquake but on her drive into the city she was able to make out the scar that the people have been desperate to cover up. Reminders of a tragedy caused by one mad man.
Felicity wanted no part of that inheritance. Her brief talk with Thea firm the thought that her sister was of the same mind.
When she had encountered Thea at Queen Consolidated, Felicity was surprised with how well Thea took it. Thea had just shrugged when asked, stating simply "No one would claim to be Malcolm Merlyn's daughter unless it was true." Felicity was inclined to agree.
Felicity took another sip of her coffee. Her anger has dissipated a while ago, somewhere between block two and three. She just needed space this time; space to think about Tommy. She didn't' plan on running away again.
It had shocked her, in more ways than one, that her mother had met Tommy. She didn't know when but something said that it was after his first year at Harvard, before he dropped out. He probably flew down to—Felicity didn't know what. The fact that her brother had cared enough about her to watch her and then visit her mother was astounding. The desire to know him suddenly overwhelmed her, craving just one interaction. She already loved Thea, knowing her sister for less than three hours. And Oliver-
"Felicity?"
Her name being called broke into her thoughts. She looked up to see a familiar face, standing with a hip cocked, small black bag over her shoulder. Her gray pantsuit was pressed to perfection giving a sharp contrast to the waves in her brown hair. It was a pleasing and unsettling sight, just the way the woman preferred it.
Laurel Lance.
"It is you! Wh- what are you doing here?" Laurel skirts around a table before pulling out the chair opposite her.
"Your hair is different! i like it. You've changed so much from the last time I saw you-what, five years ago? It's been so long. How are you?"
"Great!" Felicity can't help the sarcastic tone creep into her voice. "Just peachy. Do people say peachy anymore?"
"I don't know. Probably. Are you still engaged to that... Bowen? Carter Bowen that's right. Are you still engaged?"
Felicity had totally forgot about that. She had met Carter via Laurel's sister, Felicity's roommate. Sara and Carter were both in pre med. Carter was her rebound her senior year of college, just after her boyfriend committed suicide.
They had gotten pretty serious right before Donna accident, the one that tore Felicity from her future plans, and Carter had asked her to marry her better judgement, fearful that they were moving too fast, Felicity said yes.
However Carter was planning to move back to Starling City to go to med school, which is why Felicity was looking at companies there after graduation. With her sudden move, they kept putting of the wedding, hoping that Felicity could eventually move there. But after a year, he finally broke it off. Carter had gotten this great opportunity to internship in China, with humanitarian Doctors without borders during the summer months. That had been two years ago and Felicity had never heard from him.
"Ah...no. I actually haven't heard from him for two years."
Something sparked in Laurel's eyes at that.
"Sara's been missing for the same amount of time."
Felicity knocked over her coffee cup in shock. "Sara's missing? When? How have I never heard this?"
"Y ou know how Sara was always obsessed with Ollie, right?" How could Felicity forget? All Sara could talk about was Ollie Queen. There were posters in their shared room displaying his handsome...face. For as much as Felicity was smart, she started kicking herself. Ollie Queen and Oliver Queen were the same damn person.
Sara would be jealous to hear that Felicity had kissed him several times.
"Yeah." She grabbed some napkins to clean up the spilled caffiene. "She wouldn't shut up about him."
"He's back, did you know? Turns out he didn't die overseas."
"I know." Was all she said.
"Well, after graduation, Sara got into med school. I always told her that she could do it. About three years ago, right before we got the news that Ollie was MIA, Sara received a scholarship to Xinjiang Medical University. SCU wanted her to finish her schooling there. Since the last we heard of Ollie was in Afghanistan, and Sara was desperate to be close to him, She left. Her last response was a little more than two years ago." Felicity could see tears slipping down Laurel's face.
"Laurel I'm so sorry. I'm so so sorry." These were the only words Felicity could speak. She was numb; Sara had been her best friend. But she had gotten so caught up in her own pain and suffering, that she hadn't contacted Sara since college. She was a horrible friend. And now she was gone.
Everything that had happened that day, from secrets to Oliver and to her mother, she was overwhelmed. Panic started building inside of her, tearing her heart. "Laurel, I'm so sorry, I have to go."
Leaving Laurel crying on the table, Felicity left the cafe, wandering the strange streets, sobbing until she couldn't walk. She found an alley and ducked down it, her shaky legs sinking to the floor where Felicity cried and cried.
XXXXXXX
Time heals all wounds- or at least lessens the sting.
Felicity pushed the revelations and complications of the past two days to the back of her mind and focused on what she could control, herself. She put the what-ifs, and the maybes, and the probabilities in a little box Felicity labeled Oliver.
For some reason she kept opening it. She knew how Pandora felt, curiosity gnawing at her stomach.
Felicity spent hours at Diggle's house alone, either on a tablet or just staring at her wall. It gave her time to think through one thing at a time.
Sara was a shock. Mostly because she had been so selfish as to get wrapped up in her own pain and ignore her friend. For years. Usually she wasn't so forgetful. And the knowledge that she couldn't make it up to Sara bit painfully. It was guilt. Guilt that churned her emotions to poison, swirling liquid in a pot.
Her anger at her mother dissipated slowly. Knowing Oliver as she did, and Tommy vicariously through the altered version he gave her, it would make sense that Tommy would want to know more, just like she did at this very moment. Her mother was such a flake that since Felicity was away when Tommy came, and trying desperately to protect her from the knowledge of Malcolm Merlyn, Donna was valid in her reasons. Didn't mean Felicity had to forgive her immediately.
And then there was Oliver.
The enigmatic Oliver Queen.
Felicity had met three facets of him: the playboy heartthrob Sara obsessed about, the stranger in the convenience store and the suffering soldier. Which one was the real Oliver though? The playboy was a defense mechanism of unattentive parents. The stranger felt genuine. however, no one could place a mask on ptsd reactions. Diggle had tried and she had always seen through it.
There were so many faces, masks in place, that maybe, perhaps, they were the same. A six sided dice. Felicity just had to see past them all to look at them all together. The finished piece, not the brush strokes.
He was a puzzle and she hated mysteries.
That exact moment she picked up the phone. After all, it was her that had ran out on him. She slammed it down a second later. She didn't have his number. The next thought was to see him at the Queen Mansion, but that idea died quickly. They wouldn't let her in the gate.
She went to QC to see Thea periodically, just incase she could catch him. He never came. Thea also couldn't talk long, being a very busy intern even though her name was on the building. Verdant wasn't open before Dig came to get her.
Felicity didn't tell anyone that she was trying to reach Oliver, deciding it was best she kept that to herself. Diggle definitely wouldn't approve.
One night when she was going to sleep, an app distracting her on her tablet, she heard Diggle go outside. Interested, she peeked out the window to see the man she was so desperate to talk to, sitting on his bike, just staring at the house. Diggle and him had a conversation before Diggle stormed back in the house. Oliver left soon after that.
Felicity waited the next night, and the next but he never came back.
That week passed and still no sign of Oliver.
Another and Felicity started at QC. She hoped that since she was at a set location that Oliver would seek her out. He never appeared.
Three weeks passed since that day and she started looking at apartments. Her mother was moving up soon, (a small and simple wedding planned), planning to work in one of the casinos here. Felicity got busy house hunting, and responsibilities at work and wedding planning that four weeks ticked by without her noticing.
Then came the Starling City's Annual Gala. As assistant Director of QC's Applied Sciences, she was required to attend. Her mother, who had come up this weekend, was Captain Lance's date. His daughter, someone she hadn't met, was also supposed to be there.
The Queens were also planning to attend. Something that Felicity was betting on.
She was on the slide lines sipping a glass of wine, watching people mingle and drink. Her "boss" Bryon, motioned her over once in a while, but mostly left her alone.
(She was wearing a green floorlength gown, with off the shoulder sleeves and a low back, with a slit that went to her knee. She wore it as a nod to Oliver's green hoodie.)
Felicity was mostly invisible, watching, waiting for the Queens to show up. They were usually fashionable late but it had been an hour since the gala had started and there was still no sign of them.
Then all went still, like a breaker about to be opened, the slow motion before the action, the calm before the hurricane.
A whisper wind blew across the room. Nothing would be the same after this.
Felicity saw Laurel Lance, dressed in a stunning coral dress, stalk across the room to where Donna stood with the Captain and slapped her across the face right before the Oliver and Thea appeared in the doorway.
A gasp went through the audience as the two women stared at each other, both furious. Felicity all but ran over there, grabbing her mother's arm and dragging her to the nearest door which thankfully opened into an empty hall. Quentin and Laurel followed behind.
Once the door was shut firmly behind them Felicity whirled on Laurel.
"What the hell Laurel?!"
"That… That Vegas Slut is marrying my father!"
Felicity gaped at Laurel, mouth open like a fish, horror flashing across her face.
"That "vegas slut", " she stated slowly, emphasizing each word, " is my mother, Laurel."
This time, wheels turned in Laurels head as understanding broke upon her features. They were interrupted by the door to the ballroom opening again and being confronted by the beautiful perfect Queens.
"Felicity!" Thea carefully embraced her, trying not to ruin her hair. Over Thea's shoulder, Felicity watched as Laurel looked back and forth between them.
"You know Thea?"
Felicity couldn't help but sighing. She turned to Oliver who appeared behind Thea. He was crisply sharp in a black tux, blue eyes darkened in the hallway. He looked positiviely delectable. Butterflies erupted in her belly when they made eye contact.
She might just have feelings for this non-stranger.
"Oliver will you explain it to Laurel? I feel like I've had to explain this to everyone we meet."
Oliver opened up his mouth to respond but Thea beat him to it.
"Laurel, this is Felicity, my sister. As you know, my dad is Malcolm Merlyn. So is Felicity's."
Laurel's eyes widened, her hand covering her mouth. "You're Tommy's sister. This makes so much more sense."
"What does?" Felicity was eager to know anything about her brother.
"Tommy and I dated back in College. We both were attending Harvard. He had attended his first year before dropping out with Ollie, his second at SCU, before transferring back to Harvard. He said he wanted to be close to me, but now I don't think that's true."
"I didn't know this." Oliver whispered beside her.
"Every time I hung out with you and Sara, I always tried to have him come. He never would, always making some excuse."
Felicity felt a tear slip down her cheek. Why didn't Tommy want to meet her?
"Because I had asked him not too." Donna spoke up. It turned out that Felicity had said her thoughts outloud. Oliver placed a comforting hand on her shoulder.
"I believe he went back to Harvard to try and keep an eye on you. But he was honoring a promise to me to not approach you."
"I told him all about Felicity Sara's Roommate. He was always smiling when I talked about you. Now I know why."
Felicity wiped away her tears. "Thank-you. Oh! Laurel, I guess you're going to be my step-sister." Laurel pulled her into a hug. "I guess so," laurel smiled.
"This just keeps getting weirder and weirder." A familiar voice remarked.
"Roy!" Felicity turned to her cousin who had come and stood by Thea's side.
"Hey blondie. Aunt Donna."
"It's nice to see you Roy." Donna and Roy started catching up, Thea following her boyfriend. Captain Lance slipped back to the ballroom, returning quickly with more drinks.
Oliver's hand had slid down her arm to her hand, fingers entwining. Laurel raised an eyebrow knowingly.
"Did Dad tell you I'm engaged?" She held out her left hand, a large diamond princess set embellishing it.
"Oh! No he didn't! Congratulations Laurel"
"Congratulations." Oliver echoes the sentiments, pulling Laurel in the kiss her on the cheek. A thrill went through her that Oliver never let go of her hand.
"Who's the lucky man? Do I get to meet him?"
"Yes! He's here tonight. He supposed to give a speech. He's the Mayor." She gushed. Laurel was glowing with happiness, something that Felicity wanted badly.
"Laurel, honey? They said you were in here." Someone called from the door. They all turned.
"Oh, here he is now. Felicity, Oliver, meet Sebastian Blood. Bastian, meet Felicity Smoak, my future step-sister and friend, and Oliver Queen."
The curious thing happened. Felicity's unique connection to Oliver alerted her to the fact that Oliver tensed upon hearing Sebastian's name. His face hardened a second later.
"Zima v nashikh zhilakh" Oliver challenged, the strange words gliding over his tongue.
"Raduysya, brat" Sebastian responded.
All of a sudden, Felicity was pushed behind Oliver, hand still entwined. Felicity could see the same thing happening to Laurel.
Whatever was going on with Oliver, Sebastian was a part of it. Words too fast for her to catch volleyed back and forth between the two, Oliver growing more and more on edge. She looked back over her shoulder at her mother, who was blissfully unaware what was happening. Captain Lance, on the other hand, was watching the two men carefully over his champagne glass, his other hand drifting towards his gun. Apparently, this confrontation wasn't normal. Since Felicity never knew what "normal" was obviously.
"You better watch your back, Queen."
"Is that a threat?" The question caught her off guard. This conversation had startled her, and there had been threatening tones bantered around. But having it in a different language had lessened the impact. Hearing the words plainly, had reality crashing back.
"A promise." Felicity glanced at Sebastian which she later regretted. He eyed her lecherously, blatantly following her arm down to where it was connected to Oliver. He smirked, which made Oliver push her behind him all the more.
"Leave her alone." Sebastian said nothing, turning to Laurel instead, whispering in her ear as he led her out of the hallway. Laurel looked back at Felicity, a wide-eyed look. Felicity tried to smile reassuringly but fell short.
As soon as the door swung shut behind Sebastian, Oliver was tugging her down the hallway to another door labeled 'Exit'. The bitter wind hit her then, making her shiver. She had forgotten her coat inside. Oliver shrugged off his jacket then, wrapping it around her shoulders.
"Come on." His jaw was clenched as he proceeded to drag her to the front.
"Oliver!" He wasn't listening. "Oliver!" She wrenched her hand out of his, making him turn around.
"What the hell is going on?! And don't say—"
"Nothing."
"Nothing. Bull. Shit. Something is going on and I demand to know what it is. I haven't seen you for weeks. Weeks. I thought what we shared was mutual but apparently it isn't. I thought you would seek me out, since I have no way of contacting you. I work at your family's company for heaven's sake, you think you would drop by sometime. Or was that whole talk about becoming CEO just that, talk?"
"I've been busy." His answer was infuriatingly short.
"No, you don't get to say that to me. I've been busy too. But I would have made time for you had you just shown up." Felicity ran her hands through her hair, messing it up. He was so frustrating! She closed her eyes, counting down from ten, breathing deeply, trying to control the irritation building up.
When she reached one, she opened them to see Oliver's shoulders slump, his thumb rubbing his fingers as a tick showing he was nervous. Whatever the situation was, it had Oliver tangled up in knots. Yelling at him wouldn't make it better, it would just put him more on alert, have him draw away from her. So she tried a different tactic.
Felicity came closer, her hand slowly raising to his cheek. "Tell me what's going on, Oliver. Please."
The fight went out of him. "I can't tell you—yet. But I need you to be safe. How did you get here?"
"A-a taxi," she stammered. "Diggle wanted to spend a night with Lyla; she's home for a couple days."
"I'm driving." He motioned to the valet by the door who picked up a phone. A few seconds later a towncar pulled up in front of them. Oliver opened the door for her.
"Call Diggle," he commanded, sliding in behind her. "Tell him to meet us at Verdant. Now."
"But why? Why are we going there? I don't think more alcohol will help diffuse the tension."
Felicity could see a hint of a smile appear in Oliver's cheek before he sobered. "I have something to show both of you."
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Зима в наших жилах— Zima v nashikh zhilakh-Winter is in our Veins
Радуйся, брат – Raduysya, brat -Hail, Brother