The Queen Diaries
Chapter 2: A QUIVER FULL OF ARROWS
A/N: So here is the second diary/journal entry in this collection. I don't think this qualifies as a drabble because of its length, but I don't think it qualifies as a one-shot either, so yeah... feel free to call it what you like. I just hope that you like it, especially those who have already read the multi-chapter fics from where these entries take off.
In the first entry, we went backwards in the timeline and Felicity wrote about how she had fallen in love with the widower Oliver Queen in my Olicity AU. This one is a future fic. Oliver writes about his family when he is about 51 years old already.
This is especially dedicated to my husband, my Papa, and all you fathers out there, especially to those who are Arrow fans and Olicity shippers. Happy Father's Day!
Oliver's Journal
June 20, 2032
Can't believe the nest is empty now. How the years have flown quickly by… Felicity and I were just talking about it over dinner, the first one of many that we'll be having without any of our children from now on. We've been married for over twenty years, and still going strong. And while I can't be happier and more content in life with anyone else but the love of my life, we both know that the Queen mansion, our home, won't be the same without them. After we had lost Mara when Felicity suffered from an early miscarriage 16 years ago, my wife and I had tried to get pregnant again and hadn't used any form of birth control until today, but… I guess Carrie is indeed our last one.
We said goodbye to her at the airport this afternoon. She's off to Harvard Business School beginning this Fall, but she was far too excited to be with her sisters in Cambridge. She insisted on heading east two months early so that she could spend time bonding with Emily and Liv before her freshman year starts. She had passed all the entrance exams in the best colleges and universities here at the west coast, and I was hoping she'd pick any one of them, just like TJ did a few years ago, so that she'd be closer to home. But she still picked Harvard. Of course! She won't admit it up until she was about to board the plane, but I'm pretty sure there has been a conspiracy going on between my wife and our daughters that all the Queen girls would be "educated" on the other side of the country, far away from the watchful eyes of their brothers and their doting father.
Father. (Sigh) Who would have ever thought that a billionaire-playboy-brat like me would end up the proud father of five beautiful and brilliant young adults? Actually, it's six, counting Connor, even if I hadn't gotten the privilege of really raising him as a real father should.
Well, I must say that it's more than just Felicity's genes and mine; I believe that the greater reason behind that success is the committed partnership in parenting that my wife and I have shared all these years. Felicity is a terrific mother. That's actually one of her most admirable qualities – one that drew me to her the very first time we met at the park when she and I were still single parenting. She wasn't just a pretty face with a winsome smile and a sense of humor. I saw how much she adored and cared for little Emily. And the more I got to know her, the more I became convinced that she was the perfect woman who would fill the void in my life and in my son Stephen's life that my first wife Laurel had left when she died of cancer. Felicity did more than fill that void; she breathed life and joy into our lives. She still does. She helped make me the man that I am today. I wouldn't be the kind of father that I am today if not for her.
Father. I didn't know how profound that word really is. Until today. The day the last of the Queen siblings left home. It's Father's Day, actually, and we had been in church this morning. We had plenty of time to attend the service and listen to the Father's Day sermon before heading to the airport in time for Carrie's check-in. Our beloved Reverend Olsen is finally retiring at 78, and he delivered his last sermon on a particularly interesting Psalm that talks about the family, which really got my undivided attention.
The Scripture text he had preached on said that children are a God-given heritage meant to be treasured and that "the fruit of the womb is a reward." It also said that a man with children is like a ready warrior with arrows in his hand, and that having a quiver full of arrows is a blessing that makes a father happy, confident, and secure. The reverend challenged every father in the congregation to use our arrows wisely, to raise our children as if we were aiming arrows at a specific target and making sure we would hit it with precision and accuracy. A quiver full of arrows… I can only hope that I had aimed well and released each of them into the world as responsible young adults ready for the challenges that life brings their way. Stephen, Emily, TJ, Liv, and Carrie are my greatest reward and the most precious treasures that I share with my wife. Call me cheesy or melodramatic, but right now, I feel like I'm the happiest, proudest father in the whole wide world! The joy and privilege and fulfillment of parenting five children are just so overwhelming.
And that's why I'm taking time to write down my thoughts tonight before I join Sleeping Beauty who's already in bed, snoring. She fell asleep after round two and is now wrapped up in the sheets with nothing on. (LOL in my head) Just looking at her right now, seeing those flawless thighs that are still pretty well-toned for a 46-year-old, I'm tempted to put this tablet down, cuddle close to my lovely wife, and bask in her warmth. I've already written more than I'm normally able to jot down anyway. But… today is Father's Day, not Husband's Day, and I think there is no better time than tonight for a sentimental walk down memory lane, counting the arrows in my quiver.
First, there's my oldest, Connor, the son I hadn't known I had. He was conceived...and I say this to my shame...through a one-night stand with a girl named Sandra Hawke, a casual acquaintance in one of the wild nights of my sordid past. I cheated on Laurel when she was still my girlfriend because she asked if we could move in together and that pushed me off the edge that day. Several weeks later, Sandra told me she was pregnant, and then I told my mother, who in her strangely repulsive way of protecting me, paid her off to lie about losing the baby and to disappear. I didn't know I had a son with her until Felicity and I were already in a relationship. The revelation actually almost tore us apart, because Felicity had wanted me to fulfill my moral and legal obligations as Connor's dad. I did, even when Sandra had already married someone else. I was more than a bit relieved that the guy she picked loved our son like his own and willingly took the time and effort to arrange for his legal adoption of Connor, for which I had freely given my consent.
When Sandra died in a skiing accident some years ago, Connor took it pretty hard and started to act out. His dad didn't know what to do. He became reclusive and rebellious. During his early teens, he usually stayed with us here at the mansion during summer and some of the holidays. But that year, he had been knocking at our door every weekend; he used to drive all the way from Central City all by himself as soon as the school bell rang for dismissal, and often without telling his other dad where he'd gone. That year was the year we'd bonded more deeply than ever before. I was able to relate with him in his loss and empathize with him in his grief, having lost someone very dear to me myself. Felicity treated him like her own son, loving him to recovery and beyond. Connor, in turn, learned to love her as his second mother, just as Stephen had. He had bonded quite well with Stephen too, since they both loved sports and were both very athletic.
He had also bonded with Diggle, who was the one responsible for putting the idea in his head that joining the army was one good way to make his life count. When Connor finally snapped out of his misery and brooding, he managed to convince both his father's to let him join the military. He finished the training course and immediately enlisted for his first tour in Afghanistan. After that, he went on his second tour, and a third. In fact, he's still deployed out there right now. God must have doubled or tripled his guardian angels because everyone wonders how on earth he keeps cheating death or dismemberment each time he and his unit get ambushed or sent on a dangerous mission. He is one of the reasons why our family's faith grew deeper. He remains single and isn't bothered by that at all, and he knows that we are all very proud of him as a heroic soldier.
Then I think of Stephen, our oldest. He graduated cum laude from Starling City University with a bachelor's degree in Criminology. After graduation from the police academy, he married his high school sweetheart Katie, Roy's niece, and they now have with two boys – 3-year-old Connor, whom he named after his older half-brother, and 1-year-old Colton, who is named after his best friend. They live in the suburbs on the other side of Starling, and they're also expecting a daughter in two month's time.
His grandfather Quentin and Uncle Roy had been his role models growing up, helping him to look up to local law enforcement with respect and admiration. They were instrumental in him seeing police work as a vocation that's worth his dedication and whole-hearted service. I also think that the two major incidents he had witnessed when he was younger had been a factor in his choice to become a police detective. It was no joke for him to have personally witnessed the assault on Felicity in the Glades on Christmas Eve when he was eight. The abduction of Liv and Carrie and our near-death experience in the hands of Slade Wilson and Helena Bertinelli had also been pretty hard on him in his early teenage years.
At first, I didn't want him to pursue his dream because of the inevitable dangers that went with the job. My father-in-law and I argued all the time after Stephen announced his plans of enrolling in the Academy. It was the same with Thea. Felicity believed in our son, saying that he had a strong moral fiber inside him that would give him the character and integrity that law enforcement demanded these days. Katie stood by him ever since, supporting his single-minded aspiration of following in the footsteps of his grandfather and his uncles – Diggle included. Diggle was the one who convinced me that the physical prowess and kinesthetic abilities Stephen had inherited from me would definitely be put to good use, if only I'd give him my blessing. I figured that helping to keep the city safe was far more significant than winning basketball league championships and earning medals as a track star, so I did. I gave him my blessing, supported his education and training at the Academy, and I couldn't have been prouder of how my son has turned out.
At age 30, Stephen is one of the best detectives in his precinct. He was awarded a citation for heroism a few months ago for taking a bullet in the back for a homeless guy that got caught in the crossfire during a drug bust in the Glades. When we got the call that he'd been shot in the line of duty, we were terrified. Everyone was afraid he wouldn't live to see his daughter born, but he pulled through and is back to his old self.
Thomas John, our younger son, is now a senior in Stanford taking up Arts and Design, majoring in Industrial Design. At 20, TJ envisions heading up the Applied Sciences Division of Queen Consolidated, as suggested by none other than his mother. Even before he became a tweener, he had already outgrown drawing cars, spaceships, and other childish contraptions. I couldn't believe the machines, gadgets, and other inventions he had been designing until he actually built life-sized models of some of them in our basement. I did not need a lot of convincing when he showed me his college application papers and asked for my support.
Felicity had been the first to spot his talent even as a preschooler. (No one in the family would forget his significant contribution to the rescue and recovery of his sisters when they were kidnapped. His vivid, detailed illustration of the abductors, coupled with his eye witness testimony, became the breakthrough lead in that case.) My wife had done her homework, searching for the best schools way back when TJ was still in middle school. In the beginning, Felicity tried to persuade him to go to MIT where she graduated from, because according to the QS World University Rankings, it ranked 3rd in the world in the field of Arts and Design. Nevertheless, TJ chose Stanford – which still ranked reasonably and respectably well as 10th in the United States – because he wanted to stay close to family. Felicity and I were glad he did, and it wasn't really a surprise that he wanted to be near. Among our five children, TJ is the one most attached to me and Felicity. He drives the long distance between Starling and Stanford every other weekend just to see us and Stephen's family. He'd tell stories about school and the amazing projects he's working on. He's now the one who takes me to car shows, explaining the latest features in automobile designs.
In the last couple of visits, he's brought along a girl. Her name is Jen, and she's also an Art major in Stanford. Felicity likes her a lot. The first time, I didn't know yet how serious he was about this girl, but I must say, my son has impeccable taste in women. (My wife says she's got a very good hunch about who he gets that from.) Before TJ and Jen headed back to Stanford in their last visit, I pulled our son aside, intending to give him a short man-to-man talk. When my son saw the look on my face, he immediately smirked and said, "No worries, Dad. We're not fooling around." He calmly reassured me that the talks he'd had with me and his older brother growing up have been permanently "drilled into his brain" and "etched upon his heart." He sounded both practical and poetic, and knowing my son, I couldn't help but think there was more than just friendship going on between him and Jen. "She comes from a family with the same values as ours, Dad. I made sure," TJ added. He explained that she was not just attractive and extremely artistically talented but also kind, thoughtful, and decent. That was enough to put my fears to rest.
TJ's twin, Olive Rose, is also on her senior year in college, taking up Linguistics in Harvard. That was an easy decision for Felicity and me to make, considering how verbally-linguistically gifted our daughter is. What better way to put her babbling to maximum profitable use, we had thought. The results of Liv's IQ test were off the charts, and she had passed the entrance exam in every university she applied for with flying colors. In fact, she missed only one item in the Harvard entrance test, and her interview impressed the faculty panel so much so that they offered her a full scholarship even if they knew exactly how financially capable her family is.
We have also observed that Liv is more independent than any of her siblings and more than capable of living alone. At age 4 she could bathe herself quite impressively, and as early as First Grade she could manage to do homework by herself. When Emily left home to study at MIT, Liv proved to be the more responsible sibling, helping us take care of Carrie and look after her twin brother. In school, she was often elected class president, and in junior high, she ran for president of the student council uncontested and, of course, won.
For a time, Felicity and I were worried that Liv's independent, headstrong personality was a deterrent to her social life. She wasn't the cheerleader type, neither was she athletic. She didn't really like going to parties and sleepovers. The few girl friends she had were almost always on the geeky side (like her). There were no boys calling on her, no guys asking her out. We felt that boys were intimidated by her intelligence and aggressiveness. It's too bad they couldn't see her charming side, which often was evident only to family and close friends. Felicity even had to ask Diggle for a favor to have his son Andy take Liv to the prom. Twice. There was one nerdy-looking guy in senior high that showed interest in her, too much interest for my liking. And when that boy crossed the line and began stalking her, my wife was furious! She threatened to mess with his email and all his online accounts and to hack his academic records to make sure all of his college applications would be denied. The guy backed down, afraid that the rest of his life would be ruined just because of a smart girl (two, actually). After two weeks of surveillance, Diggle informed us that Liv was safe.
Now we're no longer anxious about Liv's social life. She has adjusted well in Harvard, where she's surrounded by more people who are "normal" based on her standards, and she doesn't feel out-of-place anymore. She has blended in and has made more friends and acquaintances than all those she'd considered "friends" from first to tenth grade put together. She has also met someone – something that Felicity still can't get over until now.
His name is Hans, and he's an exchange student from Finland that Liv had met when she took up a language elective. When Liv Facetimed last year to introduce Hans formally to us as her boyfriend, Felicity cried tears of joy. Liv and Emily came home last Thanksgiving, and Hans was with them. The night before they left to return to Massachusetts, when our girls had all gone up to bed, Hans asked to speak with me and Felicity. He asked for our blessing because he intended to propose to our daughter sometime after Christmas. He's a good kid, the son of government clerks (but with the manners of royalty), who had earned a full scholarship through hard work and sheer brilliance, especially in the field of European languages. That night, after we gave Hans our blessing, Felicity cried even more. She cried again on New Year's Day when Liv had Skyped, telling us that she's engaged and showing off her ring.
Liv and Hans had Skyped again just last April to greet us on our wedding anniversary and Felicity's birthday. Felicity cried even more when took the opportunity to share their upcoming plans with us. Apparently, after graduation Hans was going home for good because he already had a prestigious job offer for a teaching position in the university. Their plans include Liv applying for a master's degree program in Linguistics. In Finland. After their wedding. In Helsinki. In August. For which they were both hoping that not only Felicity and I would agree to, and that all of us – family and friends – can attend.
Felicity and I were dumbfounded. This Finnish boy was taking away our Liv. Although we did give them the green light, we still have mixed emotions. We are happy for our daughter; it's just that we will miss Liv terribly once she settles in Finland and starts her own family there. It's not like we can't afford to visit her as often as we like, especially once we start having Scandinavian grandkids (whom we are hoping will take after their mother and have the knack to be bilingual so that we could communicate with them). But the Queen family wouldn't be the same with Liv living on the other side of the globe. TJ was particularly sad that his twin sister is moving far away, but he felt better when Liv invited him to visit them in Helsinki to check out Scandinavian art. Oh yes, we are very happy for Liv; it's just that we also didn't expect for her to be the next in line to get married. We had always thought it would be Emily.
Emily is 25 and still single. She followed in the footsteps of her mother and went to MIT to pursue a bachelor's degree in Computer Science. After graduating magna cum laude with a GPA that almost came close to Felicity's, Emily was recruited by the FBI in Quantico, Virginia upon the recommendation of Ms. Penelope Garcia herself. (Garcia and Felicity had stayed in touch and had become very good friends since the BAU team of Agent Aaron Hotchner worked the abduction case of our daughters in 2016.) Garcia had planned to take advantage of early retirement and wanted someone she could trust and train to take her place as senior technical analyst before she left for good.) Emily passed all the tests and interviews and got hired as a technical analyst of the Behavioral Analysis Unit after a full year of paid internship under the mentorship of Ms. Garcia.
When Garcia finally retired, Emily was immediately promoted to senior technical analyst. She loved her job. She constantly shared with Felicity highs and lows of the various cases they were working on – both the successful ones and the not-so-successful ones. She would tell me and her Uncle John about how well she was doing in the occasional field assignments that the BAU team asked her to join. There was this one time when she got hurt in the field. A serial killer they'd been tracking took her hostage and when she tried to fight back, the guy punched her in the face. It was a good thing her unit rescued her and apprehended the un-sub just in time before she got hurt even worse, because if that had happened, I would've been on the first plane out to Virginia to bring her home for good. After that incident, Emily started training in self-defense and how to shoot with a hand gun. She even bragged about her sharp-shooting abilities and dared to challenge her grandfather and her uncles, John and Roy, to a shooting contest when she came home to Starling for a visit.
That was how she met Vince. He was an FBI agent, the newest addition to Agent Hotchner's team, and the one who had offered to give her free self-defense and shooting training. The first time I saw Vince in a picture Emily had sent to Felicity's phone, I couldn't help but think that our daughter's taste was a lot like her mother's. Vince looked a lot like me when I was younger, except that he had dark brown hair. He was handsome, well-built, tall, had cropped hair and a stubbly jaw. It didn't take long for Emily to fall in love with the guy.
The first time Felicity and I met him when we visited Emily on a side trip to Washington D.C. on business, I found him a bit cocky and overly confident, but maybe that was just me being overprotective of our eldest daughter. Felicity and Emily coaxed me to give the guy a chance, and I did. As we got to know him better, we understood him better. Vince was an only child, and his father had died when he was fourteen, causing him to grow up sooner than most young men his age. His mother relied on him for almost everything she couldn't do, and because of the burden of responsibilities, Vince had to learn how to be tough.
Emily and Vince's relationship had been pretty serious. They'd been together for almost two years. Felicity and I had always thought that they would end up together, and we were sure Vince was ready to pop the question. But one fateful day when their unit was working a serial case in Austin, Texas, Vince was shot twice in the chest and eventually died in surgery. Emily took his passing real hard. Why wouldn't she? She'd been on the comms with the team the entire time, and when he got shot, his last words before he fell unconscious were meant for her. He had told her how much he loved her.
Emily quit her job, came home to us depressed, and spent the entire summer grieving. After a series of grief counseling with Reverend Olsen, and with the steady, unwavering support of family and friends, Emily began to recover emotionally. She got her confidence back. That's when she decided to go back to school and pursue her master's degree in Computer Science and Engineering. She promised me and Felicity that upon graduation she would come back, poised to take over her mother's job as the head of QC's IT department. Now she's back in MIT, living a pretty normal life, but she says she's not yet ready for another relationship at the moment. That's okay. She has plenty of time, and I believe she has yet to meet the love of her life. I know from experience; I was only finally able to let go and stop grieving over the death of my first wife when I met Felicity. I hope and pray that Emily, in God's time, will also meet the one who will sweep her off her feet and make her never feel lonely ever again.
That's also why Carrie Cruiser Queen is off to Cambridge early. She wants spend time with Emily to keep her company and cheer her up. She knows that when Liv leaves, it'll just be her and Emily in the bungalow that we had purchased for them there. Carrie also wants to bond with Liv before she gets married and leaves for good in two months. The three of them will be planning the wedding together over the summer, with their Aunt Thea as the eager and enthusiastic consultant. Who knows what those girls are up to? They're full of surprises, and they can brighten up anybody's day, just like their mom brightens up my day.
I really miss our girls. And I'm surely going to miss Carrie, our youngest.
The day she was born was the day I started calling her our "pretty princess." I do not mean to brag, but believe me when I say that she is most beautiful girl on the face of the earth. People say parents shouldn't play favorites. But when it comes to beauty, charm, and grace, I'm sorry, but I had broken that parenting rule long before Carrie learned how to walk. Surprisingly, Carrie came out a brunette like Thea, but she has Felicity's smooth and wavy hair texture. Her face is shaped like mine, but her nose is definitely her mother's. She also has our ocean blue eyes, and she has the most captivating smile anyone could ever lay eyes on. She could melt any person's heart with just a grin or a chuckle. Straightaway I knew that when she grew up into a young lady, boys will be lining up at our door just to ask her out, so I promised myself that every single boy that would show even the slightest bit of interest in my daughter would have to come through me. And come through me they did. Only a handful ever made it into our house, and I could count with the fingers of one hand the ones who had the guts to come back a second time. If I remember right, only a couple of decent-looking boys have been able to take her out on a date so far.
I'm not worried at all about her going off to college thousands of miles away. Sure, she has had a lot of guys running after her all throughout high school, but she has never had a boyfriend. Not even one. She must have taken to heart her mother's advices. I've constantly reminded Felicity to teach Carrie how to be very careful about boys and extra careful about relationships, especially with her million-dollar looks and magazine-cover figure. She'd also been very open to us about her crushes, particularly one Trevor Rogers, a transfer student who had shown interest in her last year. That didn't work out, though, because the cute and cool guy turned out to be a scumbag who only wanted to get into her pants. Felicity had to restrain me bodily to keep me from charging into the school and confronting (more like punching) that idiot. Instead, she sent John to take care of the problem. Carrie did learn her lesson because of that, especially when Felicity opened up about her experience with Ray Palmer that led to her getting pregnant with Emily out of wedlock and becoming a single parent at 22.
The day she got accepted into Harvard, she bought herself a promise ring and slipped it into her finger in front of me and Felicity. She said that with God's help and our guidance, she would keep herself pure for the right man all the way up to their wedding night. She said that she wanted to honor us. She had remembered the story we had told her and her older siblings over family dinner on our fifteenth wedding anniversary; it was about how Felicity and I had both wanted to give each other the gift of purity on our wedding night, but couldn't, because of the crazy, regrettable choices we'd made in our youth, and how we had promised one another during our honeymoon that we would teach our sons and daughters the lessons we had learned the hard way so that they would get the chance to do it right when the time came for them to make the same choices. Carrie wears the ring to honor that desire, and we love her all the more for it.
Wow, I've written quite a long journal entry. Oliver Queen does have a lot to say after all. Maybe the years of experience are catching up with me. Maybe I just need to write more often instead of storing up all the memories in my head most of the time.
Well, so much for counting the arrows in my quiver. Six children. Six wonderful children now all grown-up. I'm happy and proud to be their dad, more now than ever before. I am blessed and satisfied that my quiver was full of them. Today's the first day that it's empty. I've shot all the arrows in the air, hoping that each of them will find their rightful place in this world and be truly happy. Now Stephen – who had made me a grandfather before I hit the golden age of 50 – has his own quiver of arrows to sharpen and shoot, and maybe TJ - and hopefully someday Connor, too - will follow suit sooner than we expect. I can only hope that our sons will be the kind of father that will also aim their arrows straight to their targets. I can only pray that our daughters will choose the fathers of their children wisely.
I love you – Connor, Stephen, Emily, TJ, Liv, and Carrie.
And I love you most of all, Felicity Megan Smoak Queen. Thank you for being the mother of all my children.
"Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one's youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them!" Psalm 127:3-5a
Happy Father's Day!
A/N: Thank you for reading this, and if you liked it or any part of it, please drop a line or two. I'd really appreciate to hear from you.