I was currently training with both Courtney and Sara. We were using her weapon of choice: bo staffs because I knew it was also something that Courtney had experience fighting with, though it was not her staff specifically because we did not any unexpected projectiles. I hadn't told Courtney that Sara and I had slept together, but it wasn't like I needed to since the two of us were only friends after all. Sara had managed to impress me, but it was probably best not to talk about it. There was a phrase about not kissing and telling that I should adhere to. Suddenly, Courtney hit Sara in the face, which I was pretty sure was accidental.
"Oh my god, I'm sorry." She apologized as Sara rubbed her face.
"Let me see. It's bleeding but it's not deep." I explained.
"Good. I don't really want any more scars." Sara declared before she looked at Courtney's arm. "So how did you get that one?"
"Olivia's dad gave it to me." Courtney explained. I wished that she wouldn't refer to him as my father, even though he was my father where I was from. I just didn't like thinking of this version like that. "He really roughed me up."
"Yeah, but a lot of people got it a lot worse than you did." Sara commented before she showed off her ankle. "This is from a grenade."
"I've never been hit by a grenade before." I answered. "At least as far as I know. I don't really get scars anymore."
"It's too bad that serum took so long to develop because then you might not have any at all." Sara remarked. "It also means that you can eat whatever you want without gaining any weight. That sounds like it's pretty good to me."
From there we exchanged a few stories of how we got our scars. It was a little bit strange especially since Courtney didn't have very many.
"The only one I have is from falling off the staff." Courtney remarked.
"I mean your staff is pretty cool. You might not having powers, but neither of us can fly." Sara pointed out. She realized how scary flying on the staff could be.
"We should get going. You don't want to be late to your own welcome home party." I told her.
"You didn't have to throw me a party." Sara declared with a groan.
"Compared to the one that Tommy threw me this should be pretty tame." I pointed out. "Besides, it's a Queen family tradition for coming back from the dead."
Well okay, we didn't throw Robert a party, but I was sure no one wanted to do that.
"Well I don't know how it will work as a Lance family tradition considering my sister wants nothing to do with me." She argued. "Not to mention, we hold grudges for a long time. How long did it take my father to stop blaming you for what happened to me after all?"
"Around the time that he realized that he wrongfully arrested me." I answered.
"How did you manage to pull that one off anyway?" Sara inquired.
"It's the benefit of having a bodyguard who's only an inch taller than me." I declared.
"So maybe we should keep what's going on between you and me a secret." Sara stated.
"There's something going on between the two of you?" Courtney asked.
"Oh you were keeping it a secret." Sara declared with a blush. Yeah that made things really awkward. "But since I managed to survived Lian Yu and Nanda Parbat, I guess I can handle a cocktail party."
"It's more of a mocktail party." I quipped. Especially since I was inviting Dinah, even though I didn't know if she would come.
I was pretty sure that the party was going to go okay. I knew that there was a potential that things could go wrong, but most of our parties went off without a hitch. I was inviting some friends over, which were mostly just my employees. I didn't really feel the need to have a lot of friends and I also hadn't talked to Quentin about Sara going to school. In all honesty, I thought she would be better off getting her GED.
There was also one person that I considered a friend who didn't work for me. I then remembered that I had met her father. The two of us didn't really interact in my world. That was probably why Sara had gone to such lengths to protect her. I was worried about other things and I also didn't spend a lot of time in the Glades outside of work and vigilantism. It was also pretty inconvenient that pretty much every plane that could have gotten us off the island ended up getting shot down.
Of course, thinking about the island made me think about Slade. He had yet to reveal himself and I didn't know if he was even still planning something. It was possible that someone else could have been Sebastian's secret financier, but if I was a betting person, I would probably bet money on it. I didn't know who I would bet it with because the only people that I could bet with probably wouldn't be able to pay me. Even with my enhanced abilities, I still didn't know if I would be able to defeat him without the mirakuru cure. Not to mention, there were also some psychological issues that I had from seeing some of these people again. I already knew that it would be a good idea for me to see a therapist, but unfortunately there were no therapists that could deal with the stuff that I had been through, mainly because of the world traveling.
The party still wasn't going to be at the club. It was at our house. I saw that Sara had come with her parents. From what I understood, she was staying with Quentin, but I wasn't sure how long that would last. I then noticed that they were standing in the doorway.
"Oh come in." I invited. I forgot that I was supposed to do that.
"I can't believe that I'm getting to meet you." Emiko declared as grabbed Sara's hand and led her to the party. Suddenly, she was hugged by Sin, which I was pretty sure that she wasn't supposed to do. It made things a little bit awkward. "Sara, this is Sin. Do you two know each other?"
"No." Sara lied. You know I didn't really see the reason for lying there. Maybe the goal was not telling people that she had previously been in Star City.
"I just love people coming back from the dead." Sin declared.
"You should have come to my coming back from the dead party then," I joked. "Seriously, being the youngest one there was really awkward."
"You know I'm still older than you." Sin pointed out. Artemis and Emiko both looked pretty confused.
"Anyways, I'm Artemis." She stated as she held out her hand. You know it would probably be a good idea to tell the two of them about each other, though if she knew that I was doing things with Sara, she might get jealous, even though I had no proof that Artemis had feelings for me.
I still noticed that someone wasn't there. Well Tommy wasn't there either, but I was pretty sure that he was also trying to get her to come. I took out my phone and called her. I only got her voicemail. I thought about just leaving a text. I was pretty sure that I was starting to think like I was in Gen Z, though I wasn't even sure if I was in Gen Z. I also couldn't help but wonder what Mia's generation was supposed to be called. I would have to ask her sometime.
"Hey Dinah, it's Livvy." I told her. It was kind of weird calling myself that, but it did make me sound more approachable. "I really want you to come to the party. I know that things between you and Sara aren't the best right now, but you two need to start your road to forgiving each other. You only have one sister and most people don't have secret family members that they don't know about. Anyway please come, if not for Sara then for me?"
At that point, I found Quentin was there.
"Hey, Dinah's not coming." He told me.
"Maybe she just needs time," I wanted to be optimistic about it. I also really wanted her to get help.
"Yeah, I needed time to. When you came back, I was pretty harsh on you." He apologized. "I guess I didn't think that your father tried to murder you."
"He's not my father." I remarked. "Also, you don't need to apologize."
"Yes I do. You were just a kid. You just wanted to have a friend with you. Even if she hadn't come back, I was out of line blaming you. You're not a killer, Olivia." He explained. I knew that wasn't true, but it still felt good knowing that he was forgiving me. He then held out his hand. "Also I appreciate that you're not serving alcohol here"
"Well, I knew that you're in recovery and Dinah needs to be." I stated.
"I've been trying, but I can't get through to her." He admitted.
We then went back to the party. At that point, Artemis grabbed me.
"Olivia, I want you to meet my dad." She declared as she introduced me to a man.
"Hey, Artie has told me so much about you." He declared.
"I hope she hasn't told you too much." I quipped. I was pretty sure that she was going to keep the secret.
"Well she told me that you're going to help me get a new gym." He stated. "You are in really good shape for someone your age. Have you ever played any sports."
"Just a little bit of softball and cheerleading when I was a kid. I don't really have time for it now." I answered. I did think it was kind of weird that he was mentioning my physique.
"I would like to know what your training program is." He added.
"Dad, can we just talk about business?" Artemis suggested.
"Yeah, I kind of wanted to build it by the docks." He responded. "But I may not need your help after all. I have someone else who's interested."
"Who?" I questioned. I hoped it wasn't Slade.
"It's the guy who's running for Blood's seat." He remarked. I was pretty sure that was not Slade.
"Well, I really think that I should pay for it because even though Robert Queen wasn't my father, I can't help but feel responsible." I declared.
At that point, I went over to my mom who was talking to Sara's mom. Afterwards, her mom went to talk to Quentin. There interactions were a little interesting.
"So do you think that your parents might try to fix their marriage?" I asked her.
"To be honest, I've been too focused on my sister to think about it." Sara stated as I noticed Quentin got what appeared to be a work-related phone call. At that point, I also got a call from Mia. I went away from Sara and answered it.
"I'm on my way." I told her.
"Do you have precognition now too?" She questioned.
"No, but Detective Lance just got the same call." I explained.
I looked over at Sara. I couldn't help but wonder how she was going to escape from her own party, but we managed to head to the crime scene.
"Are you just on every crime beat now?" Quentin asked.
"I saw you leave." Sara told him.
"The coroner pulled this out of a guy named Eddie Walzak." Quentin explained.
"I've never seen a knife like this." Sara remarked.
"That's because it's not a knife. It's a minute hand." Quentin explained. "From a clock. Now I've dealt with Walzak before. This morning he and an accomplice were involved in a robbery-homicide."
"What did they steal?" I asked.
"It's some high-tech gizmo. The Kord rep called it a skeleton key." He responded. That wasn't good. I groaned aloud and he noticed that. "Do you know what it is?"
"It was intended as a codebreaking tool to be used on foreign intelligence targets." I answered. I hoped that I wouldn't have to explain how I knew it. "I know that Queen Consolidated was working on something similar but it was shut down when they realized what it could be used for."
"What can it be used for?" Sara inquired.
"It can be modified to be open a bank vault…any bank vault." I responded.
"Well Walzak was a small-time crook on a good day. I'd bet that he wouldn't even know how to use this thing, let alone break into a place like Kord Industries."
"Walzak was just the muscle. We need to find the brain." I responded.
I knew that was also something that I needed to work on. I would have to find out the identity of Courtney's father. I knew that the best thing that I could do was talk to her mother, but I would have to be discreet about it because I didn't want her to know that I was digging. I decided that the best thing that I could do was to see her in her office. I went right after school.
"Olivia, it's good to see you, at least as long as you're not in any trouble." She remarked.
"No, I'm good. I wanted to talk to you about something else." I explained.
"Well then please have a seat." She responded. "Do you want some chocolate?"
"No." I answered. "So, the other day when we were at my mom's campaign announcement, Courtney mentioned that she really didn't know much about her father. Can you tell me anything about him? Like what was his name."
"Well the truth is that he and I were never really together." She explained. "I was young and just finished law school. I really didn't think anything would come from it."
"Do you at least know a name?" I questioned.
"All I know is his name was Arthur." She answered.
"Can you at least tell me where you got your degree from?" I asked.
"It was University of Nebraska." She remarked.
"Okay. I just have one more request." I stated. "Can you not tell Courtney about this? I wanted to surprise her."
"Okay, but you have to realize that you might not like what you find about him." She responded. "I also hope that you're not doing this as a way to get back with her."
"No. I'm actually seeing someone new right now." I declared.
Afterwards I went to the club to see what we could do.
"So do we have any progress with finding out who might have taken the skeleton key?" I asked.
"I've been going through Walzak's known associates with people on the NSA watchlist but it's taking some time." Mia explained.
"And I've talked to my contacts in the agencies, but none of them know anything." Iris added.
"Well we don't have a lot of time. The key isn't just a codebreaker. In the wrong hands, it's a weapon." I explained.
"Well whoever killed Walzak, in addition to finding creepy uses for clock parts, is very good at covering their tracks." Mia pointed out.
"It's a good thing that we are very good at uncovering tracks." I stated.
We managed to find something and got a signal. There was a bank robbery in progress. It wasn't that big, so I was by myself. I knew that we were being watched. However, by the time that we made it to the vault, there was no one there.
"They're already gone." I stated.
"I think I might know where. I can track the skeleton key." Mia remarked. "I've got a signal in the alley near the bank."
"But you won't be going there." A voice interrupted. Now I remembered who this guy was. He was a very capable hacker.
"He's hacked our transmission." Mia told us.
"My associates will be in that alley, but the 940 bus from Crescent Circle is about to collide with the Starlight Freight Express." He remarked.
"He's right it is." Mia remarked.
"By my calculations, you can't be in two places at once," He declared.
At that point, I sent Courtney a text while also signaling for Sara to go after the robbers.
Courtney and I were riding on her staff while we tried to make it to the railroad crossing.
"He's hacked the transit authority. I can't get the crossing barriers down." Mia explained.
"Doesn't the bus have a radio?" Courtney asked.
"He's keeping me out." She stated. "I feel so helpless."
"Hey, we've got this." I told Mia. As we flew in front of the bus and managed to stop in front of it in time for it to miss the train.
Later, I was at work because I did need to work. I had to answer the work phone and I got some very unfavorable news.
"What do you mean you're quitting? I need a bartender and it's Emiko's night off. Why couldn't you tell me before I made the schedule?" I asked. She then hung up. I hated work sometimes.
"Is this a bad time?" Thea asked me.
"Well I have to work someone else's job tonight but other than that I'm just great." I remarked. "Sorry. I'm just kind of stressed out."
"Well I get that it can be kind of tough running a business. If only I knew about that." She quipped. "But don't think that I haven't noticed some things between you and Sara."
"There's nothing going on between me and Sara." I lied. How was she so good at seeing through my lies? Part of me wondered if she knew that I was the vigilante and just didn't say anything about it.
"Yeah and my hair is blue." She retorted. That made me wonder what she would look like with blue hair. "Don't forget that I was right about Courtney."
From there, I went downstairs.
"So what happened?" I asked.
"He hacked us. I upgraded our firewall but all of this is reminding me that I'm not Mom. I'm nowhere near as good as this as she was." Mia lamented.
"Hey your mother struggled with this guy was as well." I informed her as I put my hand on her shoulder. "He's very good at this, but I know you can get the upper hand on him."
"I think I have something." Sara declared. "I have a blood sample."
"I can try to run that." Iris offered.
"I actually studied blood anomalies when I was with Ivo." Sara replied. Something told me she would be able to pass the GED exam. "There's some significant cell damage and the platelet count is really low. It sounds like Macgregor's Syndrome. It's a genetic defect that leads to fluid buildup in the lungs and multisystem organ failure. It's terminal."
"Do you think that we can look for a list of known patients?" I asked.
"I'm already on it." Mia responded. "I've got William Tockman. It even says that he used to work for Kord Enterprises."
"Why is he doing this if he'll be dead before he can spend all of the money?" Iris asked. You know if he was trying to cure himself, he may be better off trying to steal some of my blood, but I wasn't even sure if my blood was able to cure genetic defects. I did know that it couldn't cure cancer because cancer was already caused by rapid cellular reproduction.
"He's not stealing the money for himself. He's doing it for his family His sister has cystic fibrosis and she needs a lung transplant.' Mia explained.
"Do you have an address?" I questioned.
"It's 52 Nelson Way." Mia explained. What was with another random 52?
It was then I remembered something.
"Wait. Stop tracking immediately. He's going to hack us again." I stated. "Shut it down. We need to regroup later."
"You just want us to give up?" Iris asked.
"What we're doing isn't working." I pointed out. "We have to come up with a new plan."
"Well I stopped him from getting the money, so he'll probably be looking for more." Sara declared.
"Then we'll give him one." I stated before calling Malcolm.
"Hello?" He answered.
"Hey, so I kind of need your help catching a criminal. Can you have someone create an account for Sara and put 8 million dollars in it?" I questioned.
"I don't see how this is going to work." He explained.
"The Clock King wants to steal a large sum of money and I want to set a trap for him." I explained. "I know it's a lot of money but we can write it off as reparation for what Robert did."
"You need to tell me that this is going to work." He remarked.
"It'll work." I promised.
"Consider it done then." He stated.
"So am I really going to get to keep this money?" Sara asked. I hoped that she wasn't already planning what to spend it on.
"Yes, but you have a dinner to go to." I pointed out.
"I'll only go if you come with me." Sara bargained. "I really don't want to face her alone, even if my mom, dad, and Tommy are going to be there."
"We'll call you once we know something." Mia replied.
The two of us went to the apartment and I knew that we were going to be in for awkward time.
"Olivia, we weren't expecting you." Mrs. Lance declared.
"I know it's last minute but I asked her to come with." Sara stated.
"Funny how she can just invite you like that." Dinah declared.
"Hey, be nice." Tommy suggested. I didn't know if that would help.
"So we're having…" Quentin interrupted as he entered holding some pizza boxes. He seemed surprised by me being there. "Olivia."
"Hello Detective." I greeted him.
"So we're having pizza. There was an incident in the kitchen. Maybe that's what happens when you haven't touched an oven in six years." Quentin quipped.
A few minutes later, we were seated at the table.
"So are you still teaching?" I asked,
"Yes I am. Greek and Medieval History at Central City University." She answered.
"You know my bodyguard is from Central City." I declared.
"It might be a good idea to give them notice." Quentin declared. At that point, she told him that she wasn't going to return to Star City. I expected things to be awkward but I wasn't expecting them to be this awkward. Even though her teenage daughter was back, she still wanted to stay in Central City.
She also revealed that she was dating someone.
"Oh. Congratulations." I remarked.
"It's great, Mom. You deserve to be happy." Sara declared. "Everyone does."
"So that's why you wanted to bring her here." Dinah said. "You've been back for a week and you've got everyone under your spell already."
"Calm down." Quentin told her.
"Dad, you are no better than they are." She added. "What did you think that Mom was just going to wait for you for six years to bake her chicken?"
"Enough." Quentin ordered.
"You what it is enough. You can eat and then you can get out." Dinah replied before she stormed off.
"Well I had some news, but I don't think it's the right time for it." I stated before I followed her into the hallway. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?"
"Why does it matter to you? My relationship with my sister is none of your business." She yelled. "Everything was fine before took her on that stupid boat. You two should have never come back."
"So I guess this is all my fault, but tell me this. Is you being on drugs, or a drunk my fault? I know you lost your job but I've been wanting to help you with that, but you don't want anyone's help right now, do you?"
"Fuck you, Olivia." She retorted.
"I've done everything that I can to try to help you. Do you think that you're the only one who is having a hard time right now? Do you realize that what you're going through isn't all about you. Tommy is at his wit's end with you. Your father has been through addiction. I have fucking PTSD! You're blaming everyone but yourself for your problems."
"Are you done?" She asked.
"Yeah. I'm done. Congratulations, you've pushed me away. If you want to ruin your life, I won't stop you." I declared before I walked off.
At that point, my phone rang.
"Tockman took the bait." Mia told me. "I'm reading his signal at Star City National."
"How do you know this?" I asked.
"Because I'm here. If I can't stop him with my computer skills, I'll stop him with my bow." She declared. "Don't worry. I've got this."
"Mia, don't." I replied, but she had already hung up.
Okay, I definitely regretted being so headstrong sometimes because it was a trait that I had passed down to her.
From there we went to the bank and the first thing that Mia did was grab Courtney and throw her to the ground.
"What are you doing here by yourself?" I asked.
"I told you. I'm going to stop him." She explained.
"And what if he hacks something again?" I challenged. "I get that you're feeling inferior right now, but this isn't someone that we can beat with brute force alone."
"Olivia and I will go after the robbers." Courtney volunteered. "You two stay here with Mia."
So Courtney and I started to heads towards them.
"You know there's something that I wanted to talk to you about. How long have you liked Sara?" She asked.
"Courtney, it really just happened." I remarked. "This really isn't the time for our relationship drama."
We then found the robbers and started to fight them off. I knew that this would be the easy part and Mia was going to have the hard part. She would have to find out where Tockman was and would also have to stop anything that he could do to upend us. I knew that I needed to have a parental conversation with her once we were done with this.
"So it looks like your girlfriend is still going to get paid." Courtney stated.
"I've got a read on him." Mia declared. He ended up shooting at her, but Sara screamed causing the bullet to lose traction before Mia was able to shoot him with a net arrow. "I've got him."
Once we were done, I pulled her aside. I knew it was time for our conversation.
"So even though your plan ended up working, it was still a bad idea." I told her. "You're very reckless."
"Who do think I got that from?" She asked. "I'm not you and I'm not Mom."
"I know you've got the best of both of us." I remarked. "I know that it can't be easy having to be the smartest. I get it. In school a lot of people try to cheat off of me.
I then went upstairs to find Sara was behind the bar.
"Try this." She declared as she handed me a drink and I drank it. "It's good, isn't it?"
"Yeah if I didn't know better, I would think there's alcohol in it." I stated. "There's not, is there?"
"Nope, but I couldn't help but overhear that you needed a new bartender." She remarked. "And I also know that you're pretty much the only place that I can get a job that doesn't require me to run a cash register."
"You know you have to check people out." I pointed out. "That's how you get tips."
I kissed her before I got a text from Thea telling me that I needed to come home immediately.
As I was on my way out, I noticed Dinah was there. She looked at Sara behind the bar.
"You can go." She told me. "I'm not here to kill her or anything."
I left, seriously hoping that there would be a reconciliation between the two of them.
I went home, wondering if Thea's plan was to get me away just so Sara and Dinah could make up. I got a call from Tommy on the way.
"So I've got some good news." He stated. "Dinah told me that she is going to go to an Alcoholics' Anonymous meeting today."
"Do you still have that ring?" I asked.
"I never bought it." He admitted.
"Well you should probably look into buying one soon." I told him. "I need to get going. Thea said that she had something that she needed to talk to me about."
I headed home and found that Thea was in my room and Emiko was there too.
"What's going on?" I asked. Emiko didn't seem to know either.
"I wanted both of you here because I've been doing some digging." Thea remarked. "After the quake, there were no coroner reports matching Robert Queen. There wasn't even anyone who died from a wound that could have been caused by an arrow. The truth was Mia and I had left him there.
"What are you saying?" Emiko asked her.
"Think about it. He faked his death before. There's reason to believe that he would be able to do it again." Thea remarked. "I think that he could still be alive."
At that point, I heard some voices. I had a bad feeling about this.
"Who else is here?" I asked.
"Some Australian guy is having a meeting with Mom." Thea explained. At that point, I briskly walked out of the room and to the sound of the voices and found once again, Slade Wilson was in my house.
"This is my youngest. Olivia, I'd like you to meet Slade Wilson." Mom introduced.
"It's a pleasure to meet you." Slade declared as he shook my hand. "You look lovely today."
So Mia experienced something similar but also difficult as she felt her issue was not being Felicity. Also there's a bit of a hint to who Courtney's father is, but the most important thing is Slade made an appearance. Please don't forget to review.