(A/N: I am not going to make excuses or apologize for how long it's been because, frankly, I never expected to write fic again. I extricated myself from the fandom when it became too toxic for me, and I turned my focus back to work on my novels. Then at the end of January, I was in a car accident. The injuries to my neck and shoulders kept me from writing, or spending much time at all in front of a computer. When I was released from physical therapy and felt recovered enough to try working on my laptop again, I thought fic might be a good way to dip my toe back into the writing waters after four months. I didn't expect to finish this chapter, and I didn't expect to post it, but finish it I did. Though it felt like it took forever. I'm not promising anything, but I do feel like I'm not quite ready to let this story go yet.)

Chapter 22—Revelations Through the Viewfinder

Oliver made a quick exit after Felicity's low-key reveal. It wasn't how she planned to tell him she knew his secret. She hadn't planned it at all—she was still in her hand-wringing, indecisive stage. It slipped out in the midst of her concern for him, and she couldn't take it back. Not that she really wanted to. It was kind of a relief.

After Oliver left, Felicity went to bed. She spent an hour tossing and turning, then got up and poured herself another glass of wine to finish off the bottle. She was still a little unsteady from her encounter with her former captain, and she couldn't help obsessing over how her friendship with Oliver would change now that his secret was out in the open between them. It was a friendship, though it was based on his terrible lies.

How would it change? Would he still want her help? Oliver had known from day one that she was a cop, but would he still trust her? Knowing the identity of the much sought-after vigilante and sitting on the information for as long as she had was a massive conflict of interest. Even worse, she was lying to her partner 24/7. Did Oliver understand that she was putting her career on the line whenever she helped him?

And then she felt petty for worrying about her job when Oliver risked his life every time he pulled down that green hood to hide his face.

At some point, Felicity switched from wine to coffee, and the sun was up before she knew it. When she arrived at work, Lance was antsy, pacing in front of her desk like he'd been there for a while, waiting for her.

"If something's up, why didn't you call me?" Felicity asked as she handed him a coffee from her favorite place near her apartment.

"I need a favor," he said, scrubbing a hand through his hair. "It's case-related, but I didn't think we should talk about it over the phone."

"Okay, I'm intrigued." She set down her coffee and locked her purse in her desk.

"I need you to bug this." He slid a phone toward her.

"I won't ask about a warrant," said Felicity, eyeing the phone but not touching it. "If you had one, you would have gone to someone in Tech."

"Come on, you're smarter than all those sweaty desk jockeys. You can work up something untraceable, right?"

Flattery? From Quentin Lance? Felicity gave him the side eye.

"My daughter's the one who turned the Hood onto the arson case that's been on the news the last few days," said Lance. His voice dropped, jaw clenched. "They've been communicating. With this."

Felicity had reached for the phone, but now she snatched her hand back. Could Oliver really be that stupid? Could Lance?

"You want to bug your own daughter?" she asked him.

"This is our best lead on the Hood."

"Didn't he just save a bunch of people from that club fire last night? Including your daughter?" Felicity picked up the phone to inspect it and avoid eye contact.

"I raised both my girls to work within the law, not around it or outside it," Lance said. "Laurel knows better."

So did he, but Felicity didn't point that out. She was the last person to judge him for going a little rogue.

"I'll do it at lunch, away from here," she said. Somehow she'd have to warn Oliver. But that would mean talking to him, and she wasn't ready for that yet.

The phone went into the locked drawer with her purse, and they began their shift as usual. It was a slower-paced day, filled with paperwork and witness interviews to wrap up the hostage case. At the end of the day, Lance not-so-casually approached her as she stood in the breakroom fixing a cup of coffee to keep herself awake on the drive home.

"Smoak, are we good?"

"Good? We're great. We're awesome," she said distractedly, trying to remember how many sugar packets she'd just used.

"The phone is awesome?"

"Oh, the phone!" Lance winced, so she lowered her voice. "We're good. I got a strong signal from the transmitter I hid in the speaker, and it can't be back-traced, unless the person doing the back-tracing is me. But there's only one Felicity Smoak!"

"Thank God for that," Lance muttered, but he was sort of smiling. Felicity's mouth was used to taking that as a sign of encouragement, so she began rattling off the specs of the transmitter and why it was better than anything from the tech department. Until Lance stopped her with an upraised hand.

"Talk to me like I'm a third grader, please," he said.

"Next time Laurel calls the Hood, we'll able to listen to every word."

Lance nodded and turned away.

"Detective," Felicity called after him. He turned back. "I know you swore to bring this guy down, but using your own daughter as bait, that's stone-cold."

Lance shot her a look and then walked off.

Felicity stared into her TARDIS mug. "I really just said that, didn't I?"

She couldn't have helped herself, even if she had more control over the words that came out of her mouth. It was the kind of thing her father might have done, and Detective Lance was supposed to be better than that.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket. Felicity went ahead and took the call since she was already clocked out for the day. "Hi, Mom."

Felicity held the phone away from her ear, braced for the inevitable squeal. Donna Smoak behaved on every phone call as if she was catching up with her best friend after years spent apart. Eventually she settled down and began to speak like an adult. It didn't take her long to reveal the true reason for her call.

"So tell me exactly how long you've been seeing Oliver Queen."

"Wh—what?" Felicity sputtered. "No, no, no, that's not—"

"Tell me everything," said Mom. "It's the least you can do after holding out on me. I had to find out from a magazine in the grocery checkout lane."

"A magazine? Wrote something about me and—" It occurred to her that the SCPD breakroom was not the best place to be using her Loud Voice. She brought it down a few notches. "About me and Oliver? And you saw it in Vegas?"

"There's no article, just a caption on some grainy pictures. You haven't made the cover yet."

"'Yet'?"

"Oh, sweetie, it's only a matter of time," Mom replied. "I think the pictures were taken through a window across the street, but I'm telling you, you two look very cozy."

Felicity startled when the door to the breakroom swung open and three dispatchers entered, talking and laughing. The swing shift was coming on, so there would be a steady stream of people in and out soon.

"Mom, I can't talk here," Felicity said. "Let me call you back when I get to my car."

She had parked in the employee parking lot, only about a fifteen-second walk from the door, but she wanted to get off the phone long enough to check her tablet. Her personal e-mail was flooded with Google alert notifications.

"No, no, no, no," Felicity moaned.

It was Scoop, one of those cheesy tabloids that published pictures of actresses without makeup or flaunting their cellulite on not-so-private beaches. Hardly a bastion of journalistic integrity or hard-hitting news, but it had hundreds of thousands of readers. She brought up the pictures.

"Oh my God."

There were three photos. From the clothes, Felicity could tell the shots were taken the day Oliver first asked for her help. In the largest one, he was the main focus, because she sat with her back to the window. The enterprising photographer had caught him in the act of pulling out the other chair at her table. And the way he was looking down at her . . .

Utterly charmed was the phrase her mother used on the phone moments later.

"You two are adorable," Mom said after emitting another squeal. "Now spill. I want all the gory details."

"Gross, Mom. There's nothing to tell. There is nothing between me and Oliver Queen."

"Please. There's something. That photo just screams something. So how did you meet him?"

"Just like that," Felicity said. "This picture was taken when we met. I recognize my clothes."

"We'll talk about what you were wearing later, believe me."

"Oh, I know we will," Felicity muttered.

"How on earth did you land the universe's most eligible bachelor?" Mom asked. "You are a Smoak, and Smoak women always get their man, but Oliver Queen? I wouldn't believe it if I didn't have proof right in front of me."

"Proof of what? It's a blurry photo of a technologically hopeless billionaire asking me for computer help."

"That's not all it is," Mom insisted. "He's looking at you like you hung the moon. Utterly charmed."

She pressed for more details, but Felicity had few to give. Most of her interactions with Oliver were related to his nightly hooded activities. But Mom was so insistent that Felicity finally broke down and told her about the Queen family Christmas party. It only elicited more shrieking, and reinforced her mom's belief that there was something more than platonic going on, but it eventually allowed Felicity to wind down the conversation with a minimal amount of guilt.

After the unsatisfying and unsettling conversation with his mom, Oliver returned to his room. His faith in her had been more shaken than his faith in his father. Nothing else he could learn about Robert Queen would shock him, but it didn't have to be that way for Thea. It shouldn't be. He would keep his mother's secret for now, but he had his doubts about her recent interactions with Malcolm Merlyn. Thea was still a kid, but she'd always been observant. If she saw something that bothered her, more than likely there was something to it.

Oliver sat down again in front of his computer and woke up the screen, but he wasn't even sure what he was looking at. He knew his way around the internet, but ARGUS hadn't tapped him for his tech skills.

He sighed, shutting his laptop. He needed Felicity.

It had been almost a week since she had blurted out his secret in the middle of her kitchen over a bottle of wine. The first time someone had found out, he'd killed them. When Diggle found out, it was because Oliver had no alternative. With Felicity, it had been a long week waiting for the hammer to drop. On day one, his heart leapt into his throat every time a door opened or his phone buzzed. But there had been no midnight knocking, no handcuffs, and not a word from Felicity.

But Oliver would need her help to crack this. He didn't know anyone else with her skills. He trusted her.

And he missed her.