Disclaimer: I do not in anyway own Arrow or any of its characters. DC Comics, the WB, and others have that honor. No profit is being made, and no copywrite infringement is intended.

AN: So the challenge was a "time loop" a la "Groundhog Day," preferably for a show you've never written for before. And I've considered doing Arrow for a while. My muse has returned!

Starts after 3x4 The Magician, and takes place over the week between that and the next episode. (Although if this had happened things would be a bit changed from then on.) For anyone who needs a quick refresher: Sara is dead, and the main suspect is Malcolm, who everyone has just learned is alive. However Malcolm has sworn on Thea that he didn't do it, and Oliver believes him. Thea is working to reopen Verdant, and no one knows she trained with Malcolm. Felicity is working at QC with Roy, and has just gotten back from visiting Barry in Central City. She told him that she knew about his powers, and also admited to him that she's still in love with Oliver. Laurel is learning to box and hiding from her father that Sara is dead. And John and Lyla are learning the joys of parenting baby Sara. I think that's about all you need.

Tuesday

by Lady Callista

Chapter 1: Wednesday

Oliver didn't even notice until almost noon on what should have been Wednesday that anything was wrong.

He'd woken at sunrise and gone on a ten mile run, then returned to Verdant and spent a few hours in the basement training, and then another few working on crafting arrows.

It was almost noon, and he'd just been thinking of what he wanted for lunch, when his phone rang.

"Hey Thea, what's the emergency today?" Oliver answered the call with a grin. One of the only good things about no longer being Queen Consolidated's CEO was that he had enough spare time to help Thea reopen Verdant without cutting into his nighttime activities. She had wanted to do everything herself but it was a rather complicated process, especially since she was also apartment hunting, not to mention just catching up after being out of town, and out of business, for over six months.

"You don't happen to be near Verdant, do you?" Thea's voice was filled with frustration.

Oliver managed not to chuckle as he looked up at the ceiling. "I'm fairly close, why?"

"Because I'm across town dealing with about ten miles of red tape, but the building inspector is going to be there in about fifteen minutes, and it'll take days to reschedule it, and..."

"I thought we took care of that yesterday." Oliver interrupted, not trying to hide the confusion in his voice. He was certain she had called him yesterday for the exact same reason, her words were almost identical.

"Yesterday I was working with an electrician, and you dropped by for, well, I don't actually know what cause I saw you for all of five minutes."

"Wasn't the electrician in Monday?"

"Yeah, and it's Tuesday, Ollie." Thea's voice held a mixture of amusement and tried patience. "You really need to get a job or something if you're losing track of days."

"I'm not losing track, I just..." Oliver managed a strained sounding chuckle. "I guess we've spent so much time on Verdant in the last week that I'm having dreams of it."

"Oh, I hear that, although mine are more like nightmares." Thea's laugh was genuine. "I swear I woke up in a panic a few days ago because I was convinced I had been denied a liquor license that I can't even apply for until Friday. So you can help me out?"

"Sure, I can be there by noon." Oliver replied, absently turning an arrowhead over in his hands, still convinced he had done this the day before.

"Thanks." Thea replied. "It'll take at least an hour, and I should be there by one to talk to him, so you really just need to power everything up and let him in and..."

"And then stay out of his way, I know, Thea. I've done this before." Oliver said as he hit the secondary power switch, turning off all the lights in the bunker but leaving the computers and all their various search programs on, and headed up the stairs.

"Are you still claiming you did this yesterday?"

He actually did still think that, but there was no point in worrying her. "No, but I had to have it inspected when I first opened it."

"And it was a little less, uh, damaged, I know." Thea said. "Hold on a sec."

Oliver began powering up the lights in the club as he heard his sister talking to someone else, and then she was back.

"Look, Ollie, I've gotta go. One of my main distributers is finally free and we're working out the contracts, pending the license approval. Although I'm not really worried about that, weird dreams to the contrary."

"I'm fine, Thea." He sighed, knowing she was bringing dreams up again for a reason. "I know it's crazy right now, but you're doing a good thing here, and this will work out."

"Thanks, Ollie, I needed to hear that." Thea's voice was soft before it became business-like once again. "I'll be there as soon as I can."

"I've got this, sis." Oliver reassured her. "Go kick ass."

"I'll give you the names I take." Thea grinned. "Thanks, see you soon."

Oliver was very tense when Thea walked in nearly an hour later, handing him a take-out bag with a grin. "I'm sure you didn't get lunch with rushing down here."

He had discounted the weird deja-vu that had come with the start of Thea's call, because the rest of it hadn't been remotely what he had remembered from what he had thought was the day before. He had decided it had to have been a weird dream, and moved on.

Until the building inspector was the man Oliver had dreamed about. Until he was wearing the same suit and tie, and asked the same questions.

Thea arriving with Thai food, again, was the final straw.

But Oliver was used to controling his body language and expressions. In less than a second, his public face was back in place, and he loosened his body enough to lean on the bar. "Thanks. Phat Thai?"

Thea's eyebrow raised suspiciously. "How did you know?"

"Well, it is my favorite." Oliver said with a fake grin. The problem was it was rare for her to get his favorite, she always picked them both up whatever the special of the day was. But she had brought it for him yesterday. Or in his dream of yesterday. Or whenever it was in whatever the hell was going on. But she would think he was completely nuts if he told her he was reliving an entire day.

"How's it going?" Thea asked as they settled in at the bar.

"Not bad." Oliver commented, even as his thoughts whirled. "I showed him the contracts for the plumbing repairs, and the electricians, and of course the structual reports and our plans there. It sounds like as long as all that works out, you'll be good."

"Good." Thea said as she dug into her khao soi. "So what are you up to for the rest of the day?"

"I'm not sure." Oliver replied as he unwrapped his chopsticks. Chatting with you for about an hour until the inspector is done, then going down to the basement to finish off my arrowheads and finding Felicity there with news that one of her searches has finally located a guy we've been tracking for a few days, the city's newest gun-for-hire, well in this case shuriken for hire, apprehending him after a very long night and...

"I'd say we should do dinner, but I've got more meetings scheduled after this, and I've been up since around 6." Thea grinned. "I think by dinner I'll be having leftover Thai in my pajamas and zoning out to some bad sitcom or other."

"Have fun." Oliver managed a smile. He felt horrible about keeping up this pretense with her, he had promised her no more lies, and, well, Arrow-related things not withstanding, he meant to stick with that. But he knew she would just laugh, or maybe call a shrink or something.

He couldn't even be positive this was happening, or that if it was it would happen again. Oliver buried all his misgivings in a corner of his mind and steeled himself to go through the day exactly as he remembered doing yesterday.

"Are you okay, Oliver?" Feicity asked at nearly midnight as he came out from changing out of his suit. It had been just the two of them and Dig tonight, and Diggle had gone straight home once they caught the ninja star guy that had dropped five bodies in the past three days. Apparently baby Sara really wasn't getting on board with the whole sleeping through the night thing, and even two people trained to function without sleep were approaching their limits.

"I'm all right." Oliver answered without looking at her as he worked on putting his suit back in its case. This was something that hadn't happened yesterday, she had been closing her station down by the time he came out and just quietly wished him good night.

"You're like a frelling Time Lord, aren't you? Where all right is code for really not all right at all?"

Oliver turned towards her, blinking in confusion.

"And okay, I didn't expect you to get the quote, but the show is like fifty years old Oliver, you have no excuse there." Felicity said as she rose from her chair. "You've been acting strange all night, and you made a really weird choice tonight, that, okay, worked out, but..."

"It worked out, Felicity, can't we just leave it at that?" Oliver asked with a sigh. He'd made what would have been a bad tactical decision if he hadn't known something that Felicity didn't, and had saved John a bullet graze on the thigh by making what looked to both his partners like a bad decision at the time. He couldn't regret it, but he didn't want her to push him to explain it.

"But Oliver, you and John trained me in tactics. You taught me when I needed to alert you to a shooter, or how to recognize a tail, or how to invade a building, and wow I say so many sentences I never thought I'd say outside of a gaming group. But I don't understand what you did tonight, and I want to."

"Would you believe I got lucky?" Oliver side-stepped the question still in her voice, finishing putting his suit away and closing the glass door. The truth was he had indeed, in a way, gotten lucky, because he had trusted his memories of yesterday. Of Tuesday. Of his dream. Or whatever. And he had changed their planned entry at the last minute, because if he was right he would save Dig from triggering a trap. He had been right.

Felicity studied his face for a long moment, and whatever she saw there caused her to sigh. "If it was one of your crazy skills, Oliver, or even just your gut, you can say so. I honestly just want to know what I missed."

"You didn't miss anything, Felicity, it was just a gut feeling." He said softly as he approached her. "We're not exactly unknown in the city these days, and I use tons of rooftop entrances. It just seemed too easy." And now that he thought of it, Oliver realized that was really something he should consider more often.

"Okay." She acknowledged with a small smile. "I probably won't be in tomorrow until around seven, cause I know the board meeting will run late, it always does."

"See you then."

"Oh, and Oliver, the next time you leave Phat Thai in the fridge please let me know. I got all excited about an hour ago because I was starving and found leftovers, but then I opened it and, well, you know, peanuts." Felicity said as she rose and started putting her light coat on. "I really wish we could order delivery down here."

"You do understand the term secret hideout, right?" Oliver graced her with a real smile before turning serious. "But I am sorry I didn't tell you, we never leave anything with nuts in there." He had been a bit distracted today.

"Don't worry about it, I do know your favorite Thai on sight. John's too." Felicity added the last quickly as his eyebrow raised. "And now I'm gonna go and try to get at least six hours of sleep before another full day tomorrow."

Oliver flinched at the reminder that he had no idea what he would wake up to tomorrow. Thankfully, she was looking down at the counter, scooping her tablet and phone into her bag, and he had his expression under control by the time she looked up. "Sweet dreams."

Felicity smiled softly. "You too, Oliver." She reached out and squeezed his hand before heading out.

Oliver watched her go. He had been a second away from using their joined hands to pull her in for a kiss, because he wanted to and she wouldn't remember tomorrow anyway. But the chance that she would made him put his hands in his pockets as she moved up the stairs.

He really hoped today had just been a bizarre episode of deja vu and tomorrow would be normal again.

TBC...