These Prison Walls (An Arrow: Season 7 Fanfiction)

Chapter 15: The Letter

'If I knew there were this many boxes, I wouldn't have had them all delivered to our living room,' Felicity said as Oliver brought over a box and started digging through it. 

'This feels like a waste of time,' Oliver replied. I was digging through a few boxes on the floor, and I laughed humourlessly. 

'Hey, you call this a waste of time?' Felicity said, holding up a drawing to show the both of us. I laughed again, shaking my head slowly. 'I don't know, you were pretty good.' 

'Please, I was the better artist. Mom put all of my pictures on the fridge in kindergarten,' I replied. 

'Hey! She put some of mine too!' Oliver exclaimed. 

'Oh, don't be such a big baby,' Evelyn scoffed. 

'Yeah, well, you clearly weren't too happy about Thea being born, though,' Felicity said. 

'Yeah, but she grew on me,' Oliver replied. He pulled out an envelope, Felicity and I chuckling softly in the background. 

'What's that?' Felicity asked as he perused the envelope. 

'This is a letter to Walter Steele... from our dad,' he replied. I got up from my search and walked over to the kitchen bench to look over Oliver's shoulder at the wedding. 

'I always forget that Walter and your dad were friends before Walter and your mother, you know?' Oliver and I gave her a look. 'What does it say?' Oliver sighed, then read the note. 

'Dear Walter. As you know, I haven't always made the best choices, and if you're reading this letter, it means I'm gone. I need your help to right one last wrong. There's a woman - Kazumi Adachi. I loved her. We had a daughter. And I treated them both unfairly. I abandoned them. I'm not proud of what I did, but I'm trying to make it right. You're the only one I trust with this. Please take care of Emiko.' 

Felicity walked up to Oliver. 

'Are you okay?' she said, rubbing his arm in a gesture of comfort. 

'No,' Oliver replied. 'I don't know what to think,' he added, walking away from her. 'Emiko and her mother were supposed to be taken care of in the event of my father's passing. It clearly didn't happen.' 

'Oliver, that's not your fault,' I said. 'That's out of our control.' 

'The secret identity of your unknown sibling has been locked in a storage unit for years,' Felicity spoke, Oliver turning around to face his wife and his sister. 'Your mother made sure of it. God, you both must have so many questions.' 

'This answers most of them,' Oliver replied, gesturing to the letter. 'I mean, it'd be one thing if my father had... an affair.' He walked forward, his voice breaking. 'He had a second family! He... he had a woman that he wanted cared for, he had a child that he wanted to be protected.' 

'That he loved,' I said. 

'How am I - how are we, Evelyn and I, how are we supposed to believe that he's ever loved anybody but himself? How - how could he abandon them in the first place?' 

'I don't think Moira gave him much of a choice,' Felicity spoke up. I shook my head slowly, letting out a strangled sob. 

No. No, don't tell me it's true. No.' I stepped back and sat on the couch with a bump, the room spinning suddenly from the shock of it. I looked up at them. 'So... you're saying that the woman who tucked us into bed at night, Oliver, the woman who soothed our tears and rocked us to sleep and was possibly one of the most caring women I have ever known - just, she just - she made our father abandon a woman and her child? For what? To save face? To save the family name? I - I can't believe this.' I sunk back into the couch, letting out another sob as I put my head in my hands. 

'I - I worked so long and hard to redeem my family's name after the terrible things that they've done,' Oliver said. 'We - my sister and I, we both have. But abandoning this woman and her little girl? It's unforgivable.' Felicity stepped forwards, touching his arms in a gesture of comfort. 

'What do you want to do?' she asked. He simply looked down at her, then over at me, and our eyes met once more. 

Underground bunker. Star City. 2040. 

Dinah walked down to the bunker, where Zoe was busy on a few computer screens. She walked past the girl. 

'ARCHER access codes, as promised,' Dinah said, passing Zoe the piece of paper. 'How long will this take?' 

'William wrote us a targeted search algorithm,' Zoe replied, typing some buttons into the keyboard. She finished typing and stood back. 'If you got the codes, that means my dad decided to help us,' she said with hope in her voice. 

'Not exactly...' Dinah replied. 

'What do you mean not exactly?' a voice said, but it wasn't Zoe. Evelyn came around the corner with a flask in her hand, and she leaned against the desk, taking a sip of the alcohol inside. 

'I forced him to,' Dinah replied. 

'You forced Rene to give you the codes? Smart.' 

'I thought seeing you would help him remember who he used to be,' Zoe replied. Dinah stepped forward, placing a hand on Zoe's shoulder. 

'Hey.' The girl looked up at her. 'Your dad may have lost his way, but deep down, I still believe he's good. Don't give up on him yet.' Just then the computer beeped and the AI voice spoke. 

'Access granted.' 

'We're in,' I said, letting out a short chuckle and coming to stand near the two. Zoe pulled up video feeds. 

'This is the video feed from yesterday, but we now have unfettered access to the ARCHER program's entire security interface,' Zoe said. Dinah looked at her, and then Evelyn. 

'Let's find those bombs.' 

Star City. Present-day. 

Emiko stood in front of Robert Queen's grave. 

'People say that revenge corrupts the soul... that if you go down that path, you'll never come back. But sometimes, embracing the darkness is the only way to get justice. My name is Emiko Queen. I will get justice for my mother, and no one will stand in my way.' 

She turned around from the grave to see Oliver and me standing behind her. 

'Hello, Emiko,' Oliver said.