Has she drove, crossing state lines, she rewind her plan over in her head. The only detail of her Oliver, Tommy and even Cooper knew that could help them tracking her was that her mother was in Las Vegas. That's why Vegas was her first scheduled stop.

In Vegas she would leave the rental and get by her mother's work to tell her she had accepted a new job.

She was sure both Diggle and Cooper would manage to track her down to Vegas so that was the city where Felicity Smoak would end and Megan Smoke would begin. She found it safer using a variation of her own name, in her opinion it lessen the probability of error.

Megan was her middle name, Smoke sounded like Smoak. That made the new name not a complete fake and she felt comfortable with it.

As she drove she couldn't help but reminisce the last time she was on this same road. She was going to Starling City and she felt equally anxious and excited. She just got her job at Queen Consolidated, one of the top IT development corporations in the country. She was going to work on internal system's audit, some would say it wasn't the best position in the IT department, she would argue that it takes one to know one and, as she loved hacking, she enjoyed protection and encryption of systems and, when ever she faced a hacking attempt on her system, she loved analyzing the way it was done and find ways to prevent the hack to work on her system ever again.

Mostly she was anxious for she tend to be introvert. She enjoyed working with computers more than working with people. Getting to a new environment brought challenges, social ones, that required social skills, the ones she lacked having.

Things had gone fairly smooth thought, she found IT tech's were generally more introvert then extrovert and soon Queen Consolidated was like a home to her, her own little nest, of sorts. That was even more true for, arriving at Starling, she could only afford a tiny house part, the rest of the house occupied by her landlady noisy family, in The Glades.

She soon found out that the part of The Glades she was in wasn't the safer part and that public transport was scarce, and generally deem unsafe, mainly from 2 a.m. to 5 a.m. but she couldn't yet afford a better place so she managed the best way she could, which translated in to spending most of her time at work and getting the bus home at 1 a.m. at the latest.

She hardly had any one she could call a friend in Starling, looking back she was sure she didn't even know what a friend was. The few social interactions she had mostly involved hacking databases to erase parking tickets and other fines which usually provided her with a "friend for life". At the time that was what she thought a friend was.

One afternoon, after more or less a month at Queen Consolidated, she heard someone say "Felicity Smoak." immediately she turned and was stunned to find Oliver Queen himself standing in her office.

"Hi. I'm Oliver Queen."

"I know who you are, your Mr. Queen." Oh crap, she felt herself babbling uncontrollably.

"No, No. Mr. Queen was my father."

"Yes but his dead. And your not..." double crap "... that's why you are able to came down to the IT department and listen to me babble." control yourself woman "which will end in 3...2...1..." she struggled to put up her best professional stance to her boss stepson, the faint amused smile on his face didn't help her. Luckily the awkward moment didn't last very long has Oliver presented a laptop and she immediately focused on it.

Someone had made a number on this laptop.

"I had an accident with my personal laptop. I... dropped it."

It was a lie, the laptop look like it had been run over. She couldn't help but to look him in the eye thinking "BS, Mr Queen."

To her surprise he just smile back, with a smile that would melt any woman to the core, and she suddenly understood how so many women fell for him.

"Okay" she looked back to the laptop. Professional as she wanted to show herself to be and that she was, she had to stop looking at that smiley face.

" I was hoping you would help me for I need to recover the data stored in it. I was told you were the go to IT expert for this kind of thing."

She just nodded as she was already focusing on the laptop.

She worked on the laptop for the rest of the day. Someone definitely had run over it but she managed to retrive the users data.

"Hi, again" Oliver was at her office, yet again "I was surprised when security told me I wasn't the last to leave. That one employee was still here. You do realize it's almost 3 a.m."

Oh crap, she had lost track of time. How would she get home at this time of night?

"Have you had anything to eat?"

She had to take a moment to think before answering which was probably funny because there was a smile in Oliver's face again.

"No... I have finish the work on your laptop though."

The smile vanished completely from his face.

"Come one I will take you for a bite to eat and then give you a ride home."

Her first instinct was to refuse but she was hungry and his offer to give her a ride home was her best bet on getting there unscathed.

He took her to Belly Burger's on his bike. The bike ridding scared her a bit but she couldn't back down now and so she focus on the new plan she was developing for updating Queen Consolidated systems security rather then all the raw emotions, she classified has fear, that run trough her.

After they eaten she give directions to her house. She could see in his face he wasn't happy driving to that part of The Glades but he dropped her off outside her door and waited for her to get inside.

The next day, by the end of the day, Oliver and his friend Tommy, were at her office door to give her a ride home.

From that day forward Oliver or Tommy or both were there by her office door to give her a ride home every working day. They would stop for a drink before riding to her house. Oliver and Tommy clearly knew her neighborhood was dangerous and this was their way to protect her, she guessed.

When together they keep the conversations light. Felicity liked to keep personal things to herself, the past being too painful the present none existent; Oliver and Tommy where tired of people asking question and demanding answer's.

By the time she moved to a better neighborhood, to a place of her own, and bought a small car, the three of them were already so used to the routine of closing the day's work by having a drink and talk about everything and nothing that they just keep doing it.

Then there was the Cooper incident Oliver and Tommy were there for her. When the Hospital told her they were releasing her, has she only had shallow cuts and bruises she didn't need to stay, it was Oliver that drove her home. And it was Oliver that sleep in her sofa that night even if she insisted she was fine. For the first time she understood what it was to have friends.

She remember quite clearly when things started to went south. Oliver was especially happy when they sat at the table at the end of that day.

"I asked Laurel to marry me and she said yes." Oliver stated with an elated smile on his face.

Inside her something broke, she didn't know what, but suddenly, for a moment, her breathing felt short has a strange acute pain, feeling almost like a panic attack, took over her. Both she and Tommy made the customary wishes but something had change, she could feel it.

Later that night at home she cried herself to sleep as she realized what had broken. Her heart had broken. And she blamed herself for it. She always knew Oliver and Laurel were an item how did she turn in to the oldest cliche in the world by falling for the unattainable guy?

And for that mistake she was paying her due.

She was driving back to Vegas, jobless, heart broken, her life in ruins; so much the opposite of the way she first travel this road.

It was morning when she arrived in Vegas. She was beat but, purposely, rented a storage locker for her stuff and returned the SUV to the rental.

Next she went by her mom's work. She knew she was there, Felicity always had her mother's schedule downloaded from the Casino's server's every week. She loved her mom and needed to know she was safe. At work, with all the Casino Security, she was.

Since Cooper had resorted to use Donna to get to her last time, Felicity started telling everyone she and Donna didn't get along anymore. In her mind if Cooper thought she and Donna were estranged he wouldn't target Donna. Felicity was willing to pretend if that meant keeping her mom safe.

"Felicity sweetie what a nice surprise." Donna hug her daughter tight in her arms. Felicity struggle a bit to embrace her back has her arms were almost pinned down by Donna's.

"What's wrong?" Donna could see her daughter wasn't well.

"I'm just tired that's all" Felicity forced a smile. She knew she couldn't fool Donna. Over the years she had tried over and over again to fool her mom, but Donna amazingly, always knew when something was up.

"You should rest, sweetheart. Are you staying? You can stay with me." Felicity knew her mother all too well, if she'd stay Donna would extract every bit of information off of her, effortlessly.

"No, mom. I just came by to tell you that I will be gone for a while. I got a very good job offer, the kind we can't say no to, but it's quite far from here."

"Oh! And you took it didn't you?" Felicity could tell she was upset, almost mad.

"Yes, mom. It was an offer I couldn't refuse."

"Which means you are leaving." That was really the only problem. Donna had, like Felicity, serious abandonment issues after Felicity's father left.

"I came here, personally, to tell you about it and to tell you I love you very much and that I will never ever leave you. I'm not my father, mom. He hurt us both remember? I would never do that to anyone."

Donna knew her daughter enough to know she was telling the truth.

"I will be in touch." Felicity added.

"Promise me?"

"I promise." Felicity didn't know how she was going to do that but she was going to stay in touch, she wouldn't abandon Donna, ever.

She left Donna with a kiss and a renew of her promise to be in touch and went through to the Casino floor. It had been ages since she was in a Casino floor. The last time, Donna saved her from going through the very bad hour the security guards reserved for card counters.

Back then she was just a reckless kid counting cards, but now she was a grown woman, she was not reckless, she was smart, she needed the extra money, this security guards team didn't know her and she had gotten better in counting cards, so ,with a smile, she sat at a blackjack table. At the end of the hour she manage to earn a fairly good amount of money, she had lost and she had won, but the balance wasn't in favor of the house this time, she thought with a smile.

Next on her list was writing Oliver a letter. It was the most difficult thing she ever did but she couldn't leave him without at least telling him she was safe. Like she told Donna she wasn't her father.

She would send it to Queen Consolidated making sure he would get it only after his honeymoon with Laurel.

She posted the letter and that was Felicity's Smoak final act.

Exiting the Casino's bathroom she was the dark haired girl she was born to and ready to start her life over has Megan Smoke.

She got to the Casino's parking lot and opened the door to the car she bought. The car dealer, a very nice Canadian guy trying to make a good living in Vegas, was happy to help Ms. Smoke dealing with everything online and by phone, it helped she paid for it in full via wired transfer.

From Vegas she headed South. She needed a nice warm state and a place by the sea. She smiled to herself as she look at the long road ahead.