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Caitlin checked Gchat and smiled. Felicity was online. Hey.
What's up?
Just got back from the lab.
So your usual Saturday-night orgy is about to commence?
Caitlin rolled her eyes and tucked her feet farther under the blankets on her couch. You're one to talk. Are you or are you not in the Arrow cave right now?
Excuse me, we are not calling it that. Oliver's orders.
So you actually started listening to Oliver?
Good point.
What are you doing? Can you tell me? Or is it national-security level?
Please, we're not at the level of national security. Yet. Actually all the fun is over and Oliver's on his way back, so I'm just shopping online.
What for?
My college roommate is getting married and she sent me the dresses to pick from to be her bridesmaid. And she's so lucky I love her.
Bad?
Soooooooooooo bad.
How bad?
Worse than my prom dress, but to be fair, not quite as bad as my bat mitzvah dress.
Oh, I bet mine was worse.
Do you? Because you haven't seen this horror.
I do. I really do.
Because mine was bad. Like, there are zombies wearing brain-smeared rags who think that was a poor fashion choice.
Nope. I claim the crown. Mine was worse.
I demand pictorial proof, Dr. Snow.
I can supply that, Ms. Smoak, as long as you reciprocate.
Done, but don't say I didn't warn you.
Shaking her head, Caitlin went crawling through her mother's Facebook photo albums. She'd managed to untag herself (which had been a solid week of her mother complaining because "how will people know it's you, baby?" and her saying, "Trust me, Mother, they'll know.") She cringed when she found the picture she was looking for.
Her thirteen-year-old self, making a death-rictus grin through a mouthful of the clear braces that were supposed to be invisible but really just looked like you had awful tarter. As she did whenever she looked at this picture, Caitlin hunched up her shoulders. She was always amazed that the Pepto-Bismol pink lace slip dress, dotted with gold applique daisies, hadn't just slid straight off her body. The only thing the deep V-neck showed off was ribs. At her mother's insistence, she'd had a sweater over top of it for the actual ceremony, but she'd taken it off the instant she got to the banquet hall, which really just proved the whole thing about frontal-lobe development.
She sent the link to Felicity, almost at the same time as a link popped up from her.
Caitlin clicked it, then let out a shriek that made her neighbor's yappy little nightmare dog start howling through the open windows.
Thirteen-year-old Felicity was a Cabbage Patch doll of a girl who wore thick, round Harry Potter glasses and an expression of existential embarrassment, possibly because she was wearing a nightmare of fluffy teal lace and green satin that looked like someone had watched Gone With the Wind on acid.
OH MY GOD.
THIS. WHAT IS THIS.
FELICITY WHAT ARE YOU WEARING.
MY EYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYES. THEY BUUUUUUURN.
They shrieked at each other in capital letters for awhile until they finally calmed down, and Felicity said, Would it make any difference if I said my bubbe made it? I mean, doesn't that deserve the crown?
Uh, no, it actually means I win.
I was wearing a dress that a sixty-five-year-old woman designed. Yours is worse how?
You were wearing it to make someone you loved happy. I was wearing it because I genuinely thought it was beautiful. I picked it out myself.
OH MY GOD.
YES.
OHHHH MYYYY GODDDDDD.
You're laughing aren't you.
Do you expect me not to laugh at this? Oh my god. Caitlin Snow, we are gonna be ninety in the old-nerd's home and I'm gonna turn to you and put in my teeth and go, "You seriously picked that thing out YOURSELF?"
You wore a grandma dress!
Nope, nope, nope, you win, here's your crown. A sparkling gif of the tackiest crown available on the Internet popped up. Uncontested.
Turn on your webcam, I want to show you what I think of your crown.
What was your mom thinking?
After five straight weekends of dress shopping, she would have let me wear a paper bag if I finally said I liked it.
That would have been better maybe.
The thought has crossed my mind.
Okay, so here's my very serious question. How did you go from someone who would honest-to-god pick that out on her own, to your fashion plate self?
Caitlin hesitated, fingers hovering over her keyboard. Promise you won't laugh. More.
I can't promise that. Did somebody hypnotize you? Do you cluck like a chicken at Macy's?
No hypnotism, I swear. I can't believe I'm going to admit this.
That's what friends are for. We know all your most embarrassing secrets and we can hold it over your head forever muahahahahahaha.
Okay, what's Oliver's number? I have a picture he needs to see.
YOU WOULDN'T DARE.
Totally would.
Fine fine fine I won't laugh.
Okay, remember that movie Clueless?
You mean the movie where Paul Rudd jump-started my puberty? Yes, yes I do.
Puberty? At, what, six years old?
Excuse me PAUL RUDD.
Oh, right. Anyway, you remember how Cher had that giant closet? And the computer program.
Wait. Waaaaait. You wrote a computer program to dress yourself?
Actually my sophomore roommate wrote the program. But I did the research. A lot of research. So much research. You are laughing, aren't you?
No, I'm sitting here totally judging myself. I'm the computer genius, why don't I have a Cher Horowitz wardrobe database?
Because you actually started with a baseline fashion sense, as demonstrated by your expression in that picture.
Caitlin's phone rang. She typed BRB phone and leaned over sideways to pick it up, trying not to flip her laptop off her knees. She checked the caller ID, waffled briefly, and accepted the call. "Mom?"
"Hi, honey. What are you doing, answering your phone on a Saturday night?"
Caitlin rolled her eyes to the ceiling. If she hadn't picked up, her mother would have left a message asking why she was ignoring her phone. "What is it, Mom?"
"Just checking in. What are you doing? Are you at home on the couch in your pajamas?"
Caitlin shifted uncomfortably, tugging at her pajama top. "I'm actually hanging out with a friend."
"Oh. Cisco? Here, pass him the phone, I want to say hi."
"No, Mom, not Cisco. You don't know her. Her name is Felicity. We're bonding over terrible bat mitzvah dresses."
"Did you tell her I didn't pick that out?"
"Yes, Mom."
"Because people think I did, you know."
"Not after you tell them otherwise, Mom."
"That was really an awful dress."
"Felicity agrees."
"She's a smart girl, then."
"Yes, she is, that's why we're friends. Look, I'm gonna get back to her, okay? We don't get to hang out that much. She's got a demanding job and so do I."
"Okay. Love you, baby!"
"Love you, Mom."
Was it your mom?
YES. But you saved me. I told her we were hanging out.
Which we are. Internet age style. Okay, I can't take any more of these dresses. I'm going to go blind. Netflix or Hulu?
Caitlin fumbled for her remote and turned on the TV. Hulu. I still haven't caught the last two episodes of 'Agent Carter.'
I can rewatch those any day. So, marry, fuck or kill: Dooley, Krzeminski, Thompson, GO.
Caitlin grinned and settled in for a debate with her friend.
FINIS