Remember Season 1 Episode 17? Yeah, that's when Felicity comes to. In the middle of that quagmire.

In this universe, Felicity changes between one blink and the next, the sound in the air is too familiar so by the time there's a pressure at her neck, she is already moving. She doesn't know where or when she is, who she has to protect – William? Mia? – but there's no hesitation. What Anatoly hadn't taught her, Nyssa had back before, when Mia was too young and later, in the evenings, when her daughter was asleep. Felicity had quickly been deemed a 'good enough' shot by Nyssa with guns (in other words – she'd given up on being able to improve her from what she was able to accomplish by then), but found she had absolutely no skill with bows and arrows. However, far more importantly, she had become proficient enough in hand-to-hand to be deemed 'acceptable' for protecting Mia; which was all she'd ever wanted.

Still, it means that her head jerks to the side first, and she uses the arrow hitting her monitor – the sparks – as a momentary distraction to take on the person targeting her. First with her entire arm swinging sideways, then a stomp on the foot while she yanks her elbow back, managing another hit before she has to duck. Then her opponent manages to hit her with the entire crossbow just when she's back to being upright, trying to regain some space from her. The other woman is trying to point a crossbow at her – only Felicity is more well-trained, managing to break her opponent's wrist with a twist and a lot of force, sending her weapon to the floor, scraping across her hand as she yanks it back. Then they wrestle – her opponent is taller, but not as well trained. But Felicity's body is not trained either, not the way her mind is, but she still finally manages to land a punch in her opponent's throat – strong enough to send her to the floor, gasping for air. Not enough to kill.

She pins her down, making sure there's no easy escape before taking a moment to look around herself, trying to pin down if there are other opponents outside or other people she's protecting. If Mia and William are safe.

But there's no one there. Just her old office. Really, really old office like way back when she first met Oliver. Confused, Felicity identifies Helena Bertinelli underneath her, pinned to the ground by her.

Well. That's not great.

…

Or is it?

Then she realises her phone is still on when she gets the end tone for the recording – on Oliver's voicemail. Of course.

Felicity sighs.

"I don't suppose you'll agree to go back quietly?" She asks, despite knowing the answer. The woman is still gasping for breath but the angry scowl on her face is answer enough. Misappropriating some spare computer cables to tie up the huntress, she places a call to Detective Lance for pick-up before hacking Oliver's phone and deleting the voicemail, replacing it with a text message from her phone to say all is fine and not to worry. Pinging his phone, correlating the address and realising her husband is currently with McKenna, she sends a second text message to say she knows where he is and not to worry – again – and that it can wait until tomorrow, ignoring the furore of jealousy inside of herself with the ease of practice.

Felicity heaves out a breath, hoping it would work and Oliver doesn't come swanning in for a belated rescue – that would not help with the police suspicion this early on.

Her third contact is to Dig just saying she's safe and unharmed and wants to talk tomorrow. Then informing QC security of the breach and impending police presence.

Alright – this is going well, Felicity thinks to herself just as Lance bursts in with a few other armed cops. At least Helena is no longer gasping for air, but she's still safely secured to her desk for the moment, with two security guards keeping safe watch. After a glance around, Lance holsters his gun and gestures for the others to do the same.

"You are the one who called me?" he asks her directly and Felicity nods.

"Yep. Hi. Felicity Smoak – that's me," she completes with a dorky wave before jerking her hand down – but it's enough to elicit a small smile from the man.

"Are you alright?"

"Yeah," Felicity waves him off, "I'm fine." He must have expected more damage, she expects, given he's nicknamed Helena the Huntress.

"Are you sure? We can take a statement after you've had some medical attention," Quentin offers again, brows furrowed but Felicity just smiles brightly. You can really tell the man has two daughters with how concerned he is for her, a complete stranger. It's sweet.

"Don't worry," she tells him, "I'm honestly fine."

He hesitates for another moment but finally nods, sending his partner to watch over Helena and focuses on her.

"Alright. If that changes at any time, let me know. So, what happened here?"

Open-ended question. Nice. Perfect for Felicity to babble to – and say too much. But actually, genuinely perfect for her. Because she needs to say too much this time.

"I just had this brilliant idea for a software update," Felicity has genuinely no idea why she was here or what she was doing here. Her memories are still a bit scrambled – so many more decades from the future overwriting and overwhelming the present memories. But she knows how to feign excitement, so that's what she does – offering a wide smile and a half-stopped fist pump.

"But then she came to me – no idea why. Well, no, I'm the only left here in IT this late, so that's probably why. And she wanted me to find her father. And, well, if it's on the internet I could find it. I am that good – it's why I was hired straight after MIT. Only I didn't want to. She wants to kill her father – so, well, I fought back. And she didn't seem to expect – no one ever does. But you don't grow up in Vegas with a mom who is a cocktail waitress without learning a thing or ten about self-defence, you know."

It's so, so many lies, one piled onto the next. But she'd learned how to obfuscate, how to lie – being CEO and a politician's wife (boy, had she rubbed that in Oliver's face a time or ten), never mind being 'Erin' in witness protection. She couldn't lie to those who knew her worth a damn, but people she had no attachment to – such as unnamed Police Officer B straight behind Quentin? Easy peasy.

"So, I hit back and then she was on the floor and I had computer cables because, well, I'm in IT. And then I called you?"

"And why me, Ms. Smoak?"

"Well, because you're Detective Quentin Lance," Felicity tells him, blinking in surprise, before remembering that at this time no one knows of her ties to Oliver.

"Oh- I should probably start with saying I know Oliver. He comes to me with IT problems," Felicity says and watches, as Quentin looks at her in surprise before his eyes narrow and he looks like he's trying to figure out if she's lying. She wonders what set him off.

"You know – five years on an island really interfere with your basic skills. How do I turn this phone on. How do I make the internet work? What even is a router and WPS? How do I play candy crush? Okay, so that last one is a lie, but I'm sure that question is coming soon. I'm looking forward to it. He won't have time to be a playboy, lost behind the screen like the rest of us mundane non-billionaires. Anyway, yes, so I know of you and when I needed the Police, I figured I'd call you. Oliver trusts you. I trust him. Therefore, according to the transitive property, I could trust you. And here we are."

There is a smile twitching on Quentin's lips even when he ducks his head to hide it. Still anger in his eyes when she talks about Oliver, a grimace on his lips, but he's not transferred that hate to her. Good. He's amused by her – meh. Not a bad foot to start off on.

"Is there anything else you can tell us, Ms. Smoak," Quentin asks as two of the Police officers haul Helena up off the floor after securing her with handcuffs (and struggling to remove the knot Felicity had put into the cables, she noted with pride).

"Ooh, yes, she was ranting about my boss – well, not my boss. My boss' boss' boss?" Felicity tilts her head in confusion and Quentin's eyebrows are up – even Helena looks confused between her ferocious glare in Felicity's direction.

"You know, Mrs. Queen. Steele-Queen? Queen-Steele? Oliver's mother? Well, she thinks she's the Arrow. Not Mrs. Queen – Bertinelli thinks Oliver's mother goes shooting arrows into people between galas and… I don't know what she does, actually. Tried to tell me that she would tell everyone Oliver's mother was the Arrow but I just pulled up footage and pictures which showed that some obvious attributes are missing, you know, for that to be true. So now she's insisting Oliver's the Arrow. I'm frankly surprised she didn't pick Malcolm Merlyn – much better fit. Especially with all that anger about what happened to his wife in the Glades. Whereas Oliver? What the hell is meant to be his motivation? Bored of playbunnys and parties?" Felicity snorts and half-shrugs.

"Anyway, just warning you she has some sort of vendetta against the Queen family. Maybe because Oliver took her on that date? Maybe it was a really bad date. I wouldn't know how to judge from just a picture in the news outlet, but I also don't try to follow crazy people's logic. … Except for now. When I am trying. Which I will stop – right now."

"Did you breathe at all?" Lance asks, eyebrow raised, but gathers himself when he hears on of the uniformed officers snigger, clearing his throat quickly, a small flush on his cheeks.

"Sorry, Ms. Smoak, that was not appropriate. Thank you for your statement." Felicity waves him off, smiling. "Do you mind if Ben here takes your details if we have more questions? And do you have any injuries we need to record?"

"No, I'm all good, Detective Lance," she tells him and he looks at her in surprise.

"Really? What about that?" He taps the side of his neck to illustrate and she mimics him, surprised to come away with a blood on her fingers. Huh. Might have been closer than she thought, Felicity concedes. Well, Spectre had said she'd be there for Felicity's who were about to get themselves killed. Still, this will probably not even need stitches. She'd arrived in the nick of time, she thinks to herself with a wry grin.

"Oh," she says, mouth open in surprise. "I think that's all there is," she adds hesitantly.

"Do you mind if one of the officers takes you to the hospital to check? That way we can add it to her file."

"I- No, of course not. My software can wait. Well- not my-my software. QC software. But still – it can wait." Felicity reaches for her bag and follows the officer she was assigned – Ben Murdoch – to the patrol car.

She has two still-forming bruises, as it turns out, a cut on her hand and the cut on her neck. Felicity had been so disoriented – still was – she hadn't really noticed any of the other injuries Helena had inflicted on her. Ben diligently noted down her address and details as well as her injuries, once she gave the Doctor permission, as well as grilling her throughout the entire procedure. It's kind of fun to talk super-vague about everything and make everything seem a lot more superficial than it is.

Naturally, with her phone back in hand, she checks it even while the Doctor is talking to her (it's not that important – she's had years of looking after Dig's and Oliver's far more serious injuries, she knows the drill), she had received messages from both Oliver and Dig to say they'd meet up tomorrow for burgers (probably fearing Helena might turn up at the Arrow Cave again and trying to make sure she remained safe – ha, too late for that). And a missed call from Moira. Apparently, she'd been alerted by Security and Felicity had the next week off to recover and a meeting with HR to make sure she still felt safe to return to work.

Felicity is slightly amused that the woman who had been involved in a plan to kill thousands of people in the Glades has thought to organise HR and make sure Felicity feels safe where under Oliver's leadership, she'd been kidnapped, threatened, jumped out of windows and hit people over the head without anything similar. Well, not until she organised it for other employees on her own initiative but under Oliver's name. Still – amusing. Oliver's mother has also requested a meeting with Felicity whenever she feels up to it to talk.

Fair enough – the amount of publicity, bad press and legal trouble she could throw their way is kind of amusing. Not that she has any intention of doing so, but it's still funny just how much hot water she could put them into. Means also that instead of going for her jugular, Moira's first approach will likely be to kiss up to her – awesome. Not that she's vengeful, or anything… but yeah, maybe a little bit.

Felicity wonders for a moment if that sentiment is from future her or more from the more reckless version of her, but decides it doesn't matter either way in the end. Still, sleep would probably be good – helpful even. Might sort out her scrambled brain. Give her a reprieve.

…

Only she doesn't want to. Her mind's running a mile a minute and she doesn't want to make her way to a home without her husband lying in bed with her there. Too reminiscent of the decades she spent without him at her side already. Too strong a reminder that her husband is currently in another woman's bed.

No.

Verdant, the basement – the lair. They're a much better outlet for all the processing she needs to do. For all the energy and brainpower that has to go somewhere. Ben drops her back off at QC where she picks up her own car and drives off.

When Mia was young, before she relaunched her career as Overwatch… well Felicity wouldn't have done that, not if she hadn't made absolutely sure her daughter would be safe. And so she'd done it the only way she knew how.

By creating a new programming language and writing an entire operating system.

And while she didn't remember every inch of the system she created, she knew most of it – and what she didn't, she could recreate over the next few days.

Author's Notes: Please review, comment and let me know your thoughts. The next chapter I've tried to be a bit more dialogue heavy - I tried here as well, but I think this one was still more a mish-mash of both.

Anyway, please share your thoughts! Review!