(A/N: Hopefully this slightly longer chapter will keep y'all going for a while. I need to re-watch some episodes before I can write more, and I really need to work on my novel. Anyway, this will give you a bit of Felicity's background, though it'll probably just raise more questions for now. And that's okay-gives me something to pay off later. :P So enjoy, and please review. Even if it's just to say you like it.)

Felicity was getting tired of taking work home. But a shot-up computer delivered by Oliver Queen was a lot more interesting than filling out reports and typing up notes. She set the laptop on the kitchen counter where the light was better and got her computer toolkit out of a drawer. Jpeg rubbed up against her legs and purred as she removed screws from the back panel with her smallest screwdriver.

She'd been taking computers apart since she was seven. In no time, she had the panel off and the hard drive out. The casing had cracked, and there was a big dimple on the underside of the computer where a bullet had hit but not penetrated. Salvaging the data would be a piece of cake.

Felicity set up the damaged core to download onto an external hard drive. She badly wanted to peek at the information downloaded from the laptop, but her poker face was terrible. When she showed Oliver Queen what had been on that computer, it would have to be for the first time. While the data transferred, she watched Sherlock,and baked and frosted a batch of sour cream cookies. They were the best cookies in her repertoire, and she hoped they'd go a long way toward smoothing things over with Detective Lance.

The next day, everyone was in the break room, crowded around the tray of cookies, when the back-from-the-dead billionaire strode into the squad room. Felicity saw him because she happened to be standing in the doorway, away from the feeding frenzy. It was easy for her to slip out unnoticed.

Oliver Queen looked pissed. He took her arm and steered her into the hallway.

"Why didn't you tell me you were a cop?" he demanded.

Her mouth dropped open. "I—I thought you knew."

"Do you really think I'd have brought you a laptop with bullet holes in it if I'd known you were a police officer?"

"Detective, actually," she said, fingering the gold badge clipped at her waist.

His expression changed from anger to incredulity.

"Don't look so shocked," said Felicity. "It's kind of insulting."

He tilted his head, giving her a bemused smile. The speed with which his emotions seemed to change was giving her whiplash.

"Aren't you kind of young to be a detective?" he asked.

She shrugged. "I went through the police academy after college. I spent maybe six months in uniform before they figured out I was good with computers. After two years in Cybercrimes, I moved to tech support for Internal Affairs."

His eyebrow quirked up. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that a step down?"

"It was the only opening," Felicity said, "and I really wanted out of Cybercrimes."

"Then how did you go from Internal Affairs to here?"

He was leaning into her personal space now. It was kind of distracting. And annoying. She stepped around him and headed back toward the squad room, talking as she walked.

"I received the highest score they've ever had on the detective's exam. On my first try." She glanced over her shoulder to see that he was only two steps behind. "And I guess Detective Lance has burned a lot of bridges around here, so there aren't many people willing to work with him. I was."

He winced. "You work with Detective Lance? That's just . . . great."

She reached her desk and pulled out her chair. "So now you know what I've done for the last five years. What about you?"

A storm of emotions clouded his blue eyes. The weight of what she'd just said fell on her shoulders, and she dropped into her chair.

"Oh my God. I didn't think—I mean, you don't have to tell me—"

"Felicity." He held up a hand to cut her off. It was a big hand, callused, not soft like she'd have expected of the idle rich.

"This isn't the first time that's happened since I've been back," he said. "And it won't be the last. Now, do you have anything for me?"

"Oh, the computer!" She opened a drawer and pulled out the laptop from between some empty folders.

He grasped her wrist and locked eyes with her. "Not here."

"Oh, don't worry. No one'll see anything." When he let go, she pushed the laptop across the desk, holding the folder on top of it in place. "They're fighting over my cookies."

One corner of his mouth curved upward. "Could you get anything from it, or is it a lost cause?"

"Mr. Queen, when it comes to computers, I don't believe in lost causes."

"Is that a yes?" he asked. "And call me Oliver, not Mr. Queen."

Her nose scrunched up. "You said that before, didn't you?"

"I did." He snagged a chair from the desk across from hers and set it next to her. "Show me what you found."

Felicity pulled the external hard drive from her bag and connected it to her tablet. It seemed wiser than using her work computer.

"The hard drive was only cracked," she said. "Some of the data might be corrupted, but I doubt it."

Lines of code began to scroll across the screen of her tablet. "Hmm."

"What?" asked Oliver.

"Most of this is encrypted. I could probably crack it, but it would take a while."

"Is there anything you can show me now?" he asked.

Felicity scrolled down the list of encrypted file names. "Here's something." She tapped on a file, and it opened. "Huh. Looks like blueprints." She tilted the tablet toward him so he could see.

"Do you know what of?" he asked.

"The Exchange Building." She pointed at the words in the lower right corner.

"Never heard of it."

"It's where the UNIDAC Industries auction is scheduled to take place." She watched him stare blankly at the image. "I thought you said this was your laptop."

"Yes," he said. It did not sound at all convincing, and it was so obviously untrue.

"If this is about Queen Consolidated and Walter Steele . . ." She laid her tablet on the desk and turned toward him. "Look, I don't want to get in the middle of some Shakespearean family drama thing."

If she thought he was looking blank before, now he really was. He knew he was missing something, and his gaze shifted around the room like he thought he could actually find it there.

"Mr. Steele marrying your mom," she prompted. "Claudius, Gertrude . . . Hamlet," she said, indicating him.

"I didn't study Shakespeare at any of the four schools that I dropped out of," said Oliver.

"Mr. Steele's trying to buy UNIDAC Industries," she explained, "and you've got a company laptop associated with one of the guys he's competing against."

"Floyd Lawton," Oliver supplied. He sounded absolutely certain, but Felicity knew he was wrong.

"No. Warren Patel." She pointed at the name associated with the blueprints file. "Who's Floyd Lawton?"

Oliver frowned in confusion. "He is an employee of Mr. Patel, evidently."

"Queen!" Detective Lance growled. "You better be here because you remembered something important about your case."

Oliver rose and returned the chair to where he'd gotten it. "Unfortunately not, sir. Miss Smoak was helping me with a computer problem." He tucked the laptop under his arm, keeping the folder in place that covered the bullet holes.

"That's Detective Smoak," Lance corrected him.

Felicity quickly disconnected the external hard drive and slipped it back in her purse.

Oliver nodded at her. "Thank you, Detective." He left the squad room, giving Lance a wide berth.

Her partner turned to her, eyebrows raised. "Computer problem?"

Felicity shrugged. "Detective Hilton mentioned my name."

He stepped away, then turned back, a half-worried, half-angry look on his face. "Don't fall under his spell, all right? Just don't."

Her eyes widened in surprise. "I wasn't even considering it."

"Good. Things with him never end well." He spun away from her and approached the bulletin board. He gazed at the police artist's sketch. "Now, we have a hooded man to track down."