FF#19: Deputy Mommy – Part Eight

Flash Fic Prompt #19: That Night

"I saw you on TV before."

Screwing up her face in confusion, Felicity glanced at the half pint beside her. They were sitting side by side on the couch, feet propped up on the coffee table. To account for OJ's less than impressive length, she had long since pushed the coffee table practically up against her sofa, for this was a routine of theirs, of sorts. They'd sit together, and watch television, and eat cookies – Raisa's cookies, which were homemade and all-natural and how Felicity justified the obsessive-compulsive snack. Plus, they dipped them in milk – usually chocolate, so yay calcium and vitamin D. Through a mouthful of chocolate-chocolate chip, she said, "but I'm on TV all the time."

"Not now," OJ giggled. He did that a lot – giggled at things that only he found funny. Felicity found it endearing, charming, and adorable – cute even, but OJ had suddenly developed a disliking of that word. "Then," he clarified.

Yes, because that helped so much. "Then when?" And since when had her communication skills taken a nosedive into Roy territory?

OJ shrugged, making a grab for another cookie, but he had already had three, so Felicity snatched the plate away before he could get his greedy, grubby little hands on another one. Instead, he took a sip of his milk. After swallowing, he turned to look at her and answered, "before."

"Before... I became deputy mayor?"

"Well, yeah," he replied, a grin lifting the corners of his chocolate stained mouth. The move showed off the space where he had lost a tooth the week before. Felicity had slipped a dollar under his pillow while he was sleeping, only to wake up and find that her dollar had been replaced with the remote control car OJ had been asking for. Apparently, Oliver now used his ninja skills to shame her Toothfairy abilities. "But I mean before before.

She was so confused. "Before before what," she pressed the child beside her. Felicity still wasn't sure how old OJ was. Despite now talking even more than she did – an impressive feat, he still absolutely refused to tell them anything about his life from before he came to live with her.

Oh!

Swallowing past the lump that had suddenly taken residence in her throat, she managed to squeak out the query, "do you mean from before... with your family?"

"My mom," OJ confirmed, nodding and becoming somewhat pensive. "I never had a dad. Mom said he died. Then, she said he was as good as dead... whatever that meant."

Felicity had no idea, and, while she wanted to know, she wasn't sure how to go about asking. "So, you saw me on TV before you met me," she returned them to their former conversation.

"Yeah. I was supposed to be in bed. Mom was watching TV. But I couldn't sleep, so I snuck out of my room..."

"Sneaked," she corrected him. When he screwed his face up in disbelief, Felicity rolled her eyes. "I know, it sounds ridiculous, but that's the English language for you. Binary makes so much more sense."

"Anyway," OJ continued, shrugging off her tangent. "Mom didn't see me, so I saw what she was watching on TV."

It didn't matter why OJ was now living with her, there was no reason in the world good enough to make her like or respect his mother, but that didn't mean that she couldn't sympathize with the other woman over having a child that absolutely refused to stay in his bed. On most nights, OJ fell asleep at the Foundry. So, after Roy dropped them back off, she'd carry him into bed before either catching up on her shows or reading. More often than not, OJ would wake up and come find her, crawling onto the couch beside her (for cookie time) or squirming his way into her bed. Felicity knew it wasn't a good habit to encourage, but she couldn't help but feel that it had something to do with OJ's abandonment fears, and she just couldn't deny him the reassurance that, no matter what, she wasn't going anywhere.

And maybe she needed the reassurance that he wasn't going anywhere either.

Prompting him to divulge more, she asked, "why was I on TV?"

"I don't know," OJ said, quirking his mouth and face in bewilderment – his eyes widening almost comically so. "They said you were Ollie's girlfriend, that you used to work for him, and that they were surprised you were sticking around because he lost all his money." For a child who couldn't remember to toss his dirty laundry in the hamper, OJ certainly could recall a news report from more than six months before in stunning detail. Kids were weird. "Did Ollie used to be rich?"

That sentence wasn't OJ's strongest, but she let it go, focusing, instead, upon the content of the question. Sure, it was plebeian to talk about another person's former wealth, but she was from Vegas. (She used that excuse to get away with a lot of things.) "We're talking Daddy Warbucks." The funny thing was that Daddy Warbucks' actual name was Oliver as well – Lieutenant General Sir Oliver 'Daddy' Warbucks, but she was going to keep that little nugget of trivia to herself. Oliver never needed to know about it. Neither did Roy.

OJ, on the other hand, knew the reference, because Felicity had taken to reading him books and watching movies with him that featured a main character who was both a child and an orphan. She hoped that it would show OJ that he wasn't alone and that, just because his family abandoned him, he could still be happy, wanted, and loved. So, when she said that Oliver had once been Daddy Warbucks rich, he giggled once more. "What happened?"

She stood up, gathering their now only half filled plate of cookies and empty glasses, taking them to the kitchen as she continued to talk. "An evil woman tricked him and stole all of his money." That was an overly simplified version of the events that had transpired because of Slade and Isabel, but it was still a variation of the truth, so Felicity went with it.

She could hear OJ's feet pattering behind her, so she wasn't surprised when he next asked, "is that why his house doesn't have any windows," the words littered and stretched out with not just one but two yawns.

Felicity chuckled at the inquiry, making a mental note to share it with Digg. He'd appreciate the humor. In fact, she often found herself sharing parenting stories with her friend. Despite the fact that Sara wasn't even crawling yet – let alone talking... and talking quite fluently... like OJ, parents just seemed to speak a universal language, and, whether her name was on OJ's birth certificate or not – not that she would know, because she'd never seen his birth certificate, she was now a mother. In fact, Felicity was starting to look into what she would have to do in order to make her role in OJ's life permanent. Finally returning her attention to the little boy who was now scowling as he waited for her response, she said, "that's one of the reasons." She knew that OJ would just ask for the others... which were reasons she couldn't exactly share with him, so, instead of giving him the chance to voice such a query, she posed one of her own. "So, then, what happened with your mom... when you saw me on TV?"

As OJ talked, she rinsed out their cups, put them in the dishwasher, and placed some saran-wrap around their leftover cookies. "She got angry."

"Because you weren't in bed?"

"No, she never saw me."

Intrigued by his story and wanting to see his face as he told it to her, Felicity spun around, leaning back against the countertop. OJ had climbed up onto a stool – his stool, the one he had used the very first morning they met and the same stool he had used ever since. The child certainly was a creature of habit. "So, then, why was she mad?"

He propped an elbow on top of the island, resting his chin upon a small, fisted hand. "I don't know. You and Ollie were on TV, and she was laughing... only it wasn't a funny laugh; it was an ugly one. And she was crying, too. I saw her wipe her tears away. I wanted to know what was wrong – why she was sad, but I didn't want to get into trouble."

"For being awake?"

"Yeah. And for bugging her. Mom didn't like it when I did that."

Felicity did not like that answer. In fact, it made her irate, but, luckily, OJ didn't seem to notice, for he was too lost in his recollections. She didn't like to display her darker emotions in front of OJ, because he was oftentimes bothered by them. Now, she finally knew why. "Did she say that you bugged her a lot?"

"Uh huh," OJ responded, yawning again. Realizing that, despite wanting to continue their conversation and knowing that it was something that OJ needed – to get these worries and fears of the past off his chest, they didn't need to remain in the kitchen while doing so, Felicity crossed to him, lifting OJ into her arms, and carried him towards his room while he wrapped his legs around her waist and his arms around her neck. Oliver, John, and Roy all said that he was too big for Felicity to carry around, but they didn't understand, and she was fine. "She said I wasn't worth it."

"Worth what?"

"Two million dollars."

She had been expecting OJ to say all the work, all the time, or even all of the stretch marks – not two million dollars. However, she couldn't very well say that to him. After all, who wanted to explain stretch marks – or their origins – to an eight (they were still going with that age) year old? So, instead, she told him, "that's because you're worth two hundred billion trillion dollars," as she playfully dropped him onto his bed, automatically reaching down for the blankets. As Felicity tucked them around the little boy she now considered her own, she whispered, "that's because you're priceless."

OJ grinned widely, and Felicity leaned further down to plant a kiss on his forehead, both of his chubby cheeks, and then on the tip of his nose. It was their routine. "I'll see you in the morning."

"Hmm... morning," OJ agreed, already half asleep. "Love you, Felicity."

"I love you, too."

As she flipped off the lights, she cursed underneath her breath. "Frack. I should've had him brush his teeth again."

Oh well. No parent was perfect, especially not OJ's birth mother – whose identity was now the ultimate

two million dollar question.