Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There was a storm coming.

Linda could smell it, the sweet zing of ozone tickling her tongue. The pages of her abandoned magazines rippled in the growing winds, a crackling chorus at her feet. With one hand she pushed back her tangle of hair, to stare up at the dark clouds swiftly sprinting across the sky. She could see the signs, could imagine her grandmother staring up at that same sky and shaking her head, calling for her grandfather to go find her. She should really gather up her stuff and run back to the house, leave the meadow for another day.

Springtime in Iowa meant flashing lighting and booming thunder, and this storm looked to be growing into something huge and unstoppable. Every intelligent part of her said to leave, to head back to the house, help gather up the candles and settle in to watch from the safety of the window nook. If she didn’t get moving, this might be the last time her parents let her spend spring break with her grandparents.

But there was a feeling in her gut, a humming anticipation that held her fast. Something was coming, and she needed to be here, needed to know what it was about this storm that refused to let her go. Linda Park didn’t back down, and she didn’t walk away from a mystery.

So she was still there, still standing, eyes fixed on the shifting sky, when it happened.

All she could see was light, a magnesium bright flash of redyellowred burning into her eyes, a crack like a cannon thudding through her senses. Her ears were dull, then ringing, all of her shaking with the sudden shock. Linda fell to her knees, hands thrown out to keep her balance.

Lightning—the storm—it was here, right here in the meadow with her. She blinked, but it still lingered, the redyellow dancing across her vision, darting back and forth. She rubbed her eyes, and it was still there, if anything moving even faster, that streak of redyellowred almost agitated, zipping and sparking back and forth across the meadow.

She’d heard of St. Elmo’s fire, the buzzing glow signalling an impending lighting strike, but this redyellowred felt too real to be a thing mythologized by sailors and poets. Her storm was here, and she was seeing this through.

“Hey!” she shouted, and then again, when the first stumbled in her suddenly dry mouth. “Hey! Stop!” The storm was loud, but she could be louder. “Stop!”

The redyellowred shifted back and forth in an indecisive blur, snapping into sudden focus as it tripped, sprawling at her feet. Linda blinked. It seemed to be a boy, wearing a familiar costume. She might live in Chicago, but she didn’t live under a rock. Everyone knew about the scarlet speedster, the man who could race the wind and win.  

He looked up at her, lighting in his green eyes.

“You’re not the Flash,” she said.  

“No?” the boy said, reaching up with one hand to prod experimentally at his head. He winced.

“Then why are you wearing that costume? Who are you? What are you doing in my meadow?”

“The Flash gave me this costume, its mine!” the boy insisted, zipping a little unsteadily to his feet. “They call me Speedy,” he added quickly, a little too confidently.

Linda raised an eyebrow.

“They call me Kid Flash,” he amended. “But the Flash is the coolest, so that’s a compliment really.”

“Okay—Kid Flash,” she paused for a moment, studying him carefully, waiting to see if he would offer an actual name, but he only nodded earnestly. “That doesn’t explain what you’re doing here.”

Kid Flash looked around the meadow. “Where is here?”

“Storm Lake,” Linda said, and then seeing his blank look, “Iowa?”

Kid Flash’s body blurred for a moment. He was shaking at super-speed, his words sprinting out of him in a rush “butIwasjustinCentralCitytwosecondsago.” He zipped to one end of the meadow and then back again, picking up rocks, and poking at the big oak tree, and flipping through her magazines, lifting up her blanket, studying the ground. “Idon’tunderstand.”

“Kid!” Linda shouted. She wished he had just given her a name; secret identities seemed a little silly under the circumstances. “Back up a second.”

The wind was still picking up, catching in her hair and tangling it around her in a wild halo. She was still shaking from the lighting strike, and the air was thrumming with a storm that was getting ever-closer. A great boom of thunder made both her and Kid Flash jump.

“You were in Central City?” she shouted. She had to shout now; the gathering storm was too loud to do anything else.

“Yeah! I was patrolling with the Flash, and—” he looked at her, the eyes behind his red mask wide with a sudden realization. “We were fighting Captain Boomerang. The Flash has been helping me work on vibrating my molecules so I can pass through solid matter—not that I’m bad at it, I just need to practice more," he hurried to reassure her, hands flying up. "But I thought I could do it so I didn’t move in time, and the boomerang was coming right at me, and the Flash was on the other side of town trying to track down the bomb—and then it all went white, and I was here. With you.” He stared at her.

They stood there, and for a half-second everything was almost still; both of them contemplating what could have brought him hundreds of miles in a flash of light.

Another rumble of thunder boomed through the meadow.

“What’s your name?” He shouted.

“Linda,” she shouted back.

The sky broke open.

The rain fell around them, a torrent of water pummelling down.

“We have to get out of here,” Kid Flash yelled.

Blinking through the onslaught of water, Linda pointed to the house that could be seen just poking out through the trees—“My grandparents live about ten minutes—”

Kid Flash scooped her up in his arms and bolted, without so much as a by-your leave. Linda’s feet touched the porch as she finished, “—that way.”

“Careful,” he said, quieter now that they were away from the heart of the storm. “Most people find superspeed disorienting.” He sounded genuinely concerned. 

“I’m fine,” said Linda, pushing away from him to lean against the wall, crossing her arms over her chest. That was the first time a boy had held her like that. She wasn’t sure what she thought about it. Her skin was fizzing from where his costumed hands had touched her, but maybe that was just the cold.

At least she knew she didn’t like his tone. She had almost been struck by lightning; she could handle a little superspeed.

“Uh—” said Kid Flash, looking around, apparently at a loss now that he had completed the rescue. “I should get back to Central. Do you think your grandparents have a map?”

Linda studied him. “You said you were vibrating when you disappeared. Are you still vibrating?” There was something soft about his outline, a little afterimage of redyellowred that followed him as he shifted from foot to foot, incapable of staying still.

He looked at her, and there it was again, that shock of lighting gleaming in his eyes. “You’re right,” he said, and there was something almost like awe in his voice now. “You’ve got fast eyes.”

“Well you’ve got fast feet.”

“So if I stop vibrating—” he said, and then he was gone.

“Kid?” said Linda to the empty porch. “Kid Flash?”

There was no reply. There was only Linda and the storm, lighting crackling in the distance. Linda couldn’t help but laugh then, shivering in her wet clothes on her grandparent’s porch, lit up with a fizzing energy. She felt so very alive.

A flash of lighting and he was gone. At least he lived up to his name.

“Linda!” Her grandmother was throwing open the door and rushing towards her, ushering her inside. The tutting words over her wet clothes and the scolding reminders of the dangers of thunderstorms swept over her, Linda’s mind already miles away. Something had forged a lightning-quick connection between Kid Flash and herself, and she would get to the bottom of this. Linda smiled. She had a story to chase down.

“Kid Flash!” Flash was beside him in an instant. His hands landed on Wally’s shoulders as his eyes swept Wally for injuries. Satisfied, he pulled Wally into his arms.  “Are you okay? What happened?”

“I—” Wally looked around. He was back in Central, standing in the same street he had left, standing on the churned up pavement. He could see the Captain being loaded into a Central City police car at the end of the block.

“I was in Iowa?”

“Iowa?” Flash said. “You ran to Iowa?”

“No. It was lighting. And this girl. Linda.” Wally blurted out the whole story at top speed.

The Flash looked perplexed when he finished.

“Hmmm,” he said. “That’s a new one for me. But we can ask Jay and see if he has any ideas. In the meantime all that matters is that you’re safe and back in one piece.” He let out a relieved sigh. “Let’s get you back to your aunt before she starts to worry.”

Wally nodded, and the two took off, zooming to Iris’s apartment.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come in?” asked Wally, when they reached the building’s back door. “Aunt Iris likes you. And you’re a lot cooler than her boyfriend Barry.”

The Flash chuckled, rubbing a hand against the back of his neck. “Not this time kiddo, but thanks. You take care of yourself and I’ll do some digging on this mysterious lighting travel. Just you see we’ll get to the bottom of this real soon.” With a wave he was off.

Wally accepted defeat (one day he would make his aunt realize how much better the Flash was compared to a boring stiff like Barry Allen). He quickly changed out of his costume and darted up the steps to aunt Iris’ apartment. Iris was at her desk, typing away at an article, but she leaned back in her chair and smiled as he came in.

“Oh Wally,” she said. “Your hair is all wet, did you get caught in that storm?”

Wally shrugged helplessly, once again wishing he could just tell Iris everything, and pretended to push Iris away as she ruffled his hair.

“Go dry off, and I’ll start dinner.”

Wally grinned, the kind of grin he only found when he was in Central, here with his Aunt Iris and the Flash. He was thankful, for the gazillionth time that week, that Iris had managed to convince his parents to let him come stay with her for spring break. Home was Iris, it was running faster than he thought his feet could ever carry him—it was a girl staring at him as the skies filled with thunder, a port in the storm.

Wally shook his head. He wasn’t sure where that last thought came from. But there was no need to linger on it. Iris was calling him for dinner, and he was starving. The thought felt right, and that was enough for now. Linda. Maybe he’d see her again.

It was only later, as he tucked in for the night in the pullout couch in Iris’s spare room, exhausted head hitting the pillow, that he realized he had forgotten to get her last name.

Chapter Text

Wally had meant to track down Linda. He really had.

He even ran over to Iowa the week after the storm, carefully criss-crossing the state until he found her grandparents’ house. Unseen in his speed, Wally zipped around the property, looking for Linda. But there was only an older Korean couple going about their day, tending to the small kitchen garden and walking the borders of the farm property. The name on the mailbox said ‘Park’ so that was one mystery potentially solved, but it didn’t tell him anything about Linda, or where she might be now.

It was in her meadow that he found the first sign of her. There was a forgotten copy of The New Yorker lying there, all waterlogged and crinkled and half-hidden among the tall grass. Wally recognized the issue immediately; he had his own copy back in his bedroom in Blue Valley. It was the profile the magazine had run on the Justice League three months earlier, a stylized painting of the League poised dramatically on the front cover. The Flash was there with the rest, between Green Lantern and Superman, his mentor smiling proudly in his familiar scarlet uniform. Unlike Wally’s copy, which he had carefully preserved, someone had taken a confident marker to this cover. The Flash was encircled with big looping lines, while a couple of scribbled question marks half-covered Green Lantern’s face.

Half of the thin pages were stuck together, and the ink had blurred, but when Wally flipped through to the feature story, he found it was still mostly intact. The article was mostly what his aunt Iris called “gooey puff,” with descriptions of each of the heroes, mostly just facts and figures any true fan would know already, and a brief account of the formation of the League.

Linda had scrawled notes in almost every available margin. Her handwriting was awful, a sprint of letters and words running together in an inpatient rush. With some careful focus he could just make out sentences like “superspeed = concealing true homebase to throw off reporters? Actually based in Central or is this a ruse?” “relationship with previous Flash—seems close, investigate further, keystone news archives, try library,” “lighting motif—powers activated by storm? Or some form of electricity?” and “Who is Kid Flash??? This last question was underlined twice.

Wally stared at this final question for a half-beat. His heart, which had raced in his chest since that day in the Flash’s laboratory, quickened. She was looking for him.

But who was Linda Park?

The magazine was half-covered in dirt and looked well on its way to beginning the decomposition process, but Wally brushed it off the best he could and took it with him. This was proof that she existed, that she had also experienced that storm. He wouldn’t be leaving it behind for anything.

Wally zipped back to her grandparent’s house, and stared at for a half-second, thinking. He stilled—or what amounted to stilling for Kid Flash, his feet shifting back and forth. For a moment he thought about vibrating inside, doing a proper investigation in the upper floors. But all he could think of was the Flash’s disappointed face when his mentor learned what he had done. Wally was a hero now, he had to act with honor, he had to live up to this gift and this name that the Flash had so graciously shared with him. He was past his hat stealing days. He already felt a bit bad about speed-peeking through the windows on the first floor.

But there was something else too—a dull ache in his chest, which grew stronger the longer he looked at the house. Wally almost felt like he would be sick with the sense of wrongness flooding his veins. Something wanted him to get away, to run back to Nebraska and forget about it all. The longer he stood there, the stronger the urge to run grew.

But Wally knew about running. He knew that to run didn’t always mean to run away. His hands tightened on the magazine. Linda’s magazine. It was coming home with him, and the weird feeling in his stomach would just have to deal with it.

With a final look he turned and dashed home. A half-blink later he was in his bedroom, Kid Flash suit tucked back into his ring. He carefully set Linda’s magazine in his desk drawer, beside some old school papers. He should probably put it somewhere safer, maybe even give to the Flash, but he liked the idea of keeping it somewhere close, where he could check and make sure it was still there. All of this still had an odd, hazy dream feeling to it, like his time with Linda was half a step out of sync with the rest of the world. He liked the idea of having some tangible proof, even if it was a little smelly and still a bit covered in dirt. At least it didn’t look suspicious. His mom would just grumble at the sight of more Flash stuff and his Dad—well Wally didn’t like to think about that, so he wouldn’t dwell on it.

He went back to Storm Lake Iowa a couple more times, zipping over each time he had a spare second, but Linda was never there. Her grandparents almost always were, and part of him knew that he should just go over and talk to them. He was a little unclear on how exactly he would explain why Kid Flash needed to see their granddaughter, but he was sure he’d think of something in the moment.

No, the real problem was the dizzy feeling in his gut, the riot in his stomach, the no, wrong, go back that shot up his spine each time he made a move to go knock on the door. It was creepy, and if anything, made him want to just do it anyways, even if did increasingly feel like his molecules were rearing up to tear themselves apart.

He was still working his way up to it, and he would get there eventually. He would. But even with all his speed, spare seconds to run over to Iowa were in increasingly short supply.

Things were quite simply picking up speed in the life of Wally West.

Wally knew he was the luckiest kid in the world, had known since the day his hero looked at him and smiled, and the two of them ran together, moving through the world at a speed all of their own. Each day that passed was just another reminder of his luck.

First, he learned that his aunt Iris wasn’t actually dating a boring stiff. Barry Allen and the Flash were one and the same, and the greatest man in the world trusted Wally with his secret identity.

He got a spiffy new costume, formed a new team, found true friends in his fellow young heroes. Robin, Donna, Garth, even Roy—friends just as eager to save the world as he was. He helped the kids of Blue Valley and the citizens of Central and everywhere he ran people were happy to see him. He saw sights other kids could only dream of. He travelled through time, carefully controlling his internal vibrations to travel there and back. It almost reminded him of that night in the storm with Linda.

When Wally and Barry asked him, Jay hadn’t had any ideas about what force might have snatched Wally up and instantly teleported him to Linda’s side. He had only studied Wally, smiled with a knowing look Wally didn’t quite understand, and told him it would all work out in the end, and that was his Flash guarantee.

Wally ran and he saved the day, and he ran some more, and so the days passed. He didn’t always make it to Iowa, but he thought of it often. He wondered if Linda, wherever she was, ever thought about him too.

Linda Park didn’t have many friends.

She was friendly enough with the kids in her class. She would chat with them when they were all put together into groups and ask them about their weekend. She had people she sat together with at lunch. She got along with her journalistic colleagues. She just didn’t have anyone she felt particularly close to.

She couldn’t find patience for the silly games the girls around her insisted on playing, their ‘who do you think I’ll marry’ jokes, their whispers and smiles. It was silly, and she didn’t have time for it. She had places to go, things to do. She was sure that two of the science teachers were accepting bribes, she just needed to secure some solid evidence before the latest addition of the school paper went to press.

At this rate, it was shaping up to be yet another article that would get her called up to the principal’s office, where Mrs. Carter would smile that empty smile and call her “Miss Park” and gently remind her that the school paper wasn’t meant to be full of actual journalism. But what was the point of a paper if it wasn’t going to print the truth? If it was just going to be empty lies and pretty smiles then she might as well just skip a step and dump it straight from the printer into the compost heap. Linda would probably be forced to print some kind of retraction when some parents freaked out, but in the meantime she would get her proof and she would write the truth, and that was what mattered.

Linda knew the other girls thought she was too blunt, too bold. She heard them, those whispers in the bathroom. They were overwhelmingly white, and overwhelmingly blonde. She wasn’t.

They didn’t like her much, but that was okay, she didn’t much like them either.

She had work to do. She had her investigations, her schoolwork.

And then there was Kid Flash.

No matter what other projects she was working on—scoping out the source of the mystery meat in the cafeteria, uncovering the shoddy materials used in the renovation of the school gym—he was almost always there, running through her mind, the nagging mystery she had yet to solve. He was a storm on the far horizon, something just out of her reach.

She had begun hunting out more information about Kid Flash, about the storm, minutes after he disappeared. Her grandparent’s copy of the recent profile on the Justice League, however, only left her with more questions. She’d misplaced that first magazine somewhere between Chicago and Iowa, but she quickly acquired dozens more. Each was pretty much the same, puffy press and brief reports of heroic endeavours. She assembled the story of Kid Flash in newspaper clippings, and fan magazines, second-hand tales of his daring exploits. He was polite, the press reported, always eager to help. Somewhere along the way he picked up a new costume, and Linda stared a little too long at the red hair that was now visible on the top of his head.

The oddest thing was the sense of vertigo that came over her, each time she sat down to do research on the Flash. It was like being sea-sick on land, her stomach a dizzy, screaming mess. The feeling only intensified the longer she pushed each research session. One time she looked over her Flash file so long that she barely made it to the bathroom before she vomited. She had pushed herself up the toilet, wiped off her mouth and set back to her desk. Linda didn’t understand it, and it drove her to push herself even further. She wanted answers.

Yet, for all her investigations she didn’t get very far. Linda tried writing to the Teen Titans, using her most juvenile handwriting—she had heard they would sometimes answer direct appeals from fellow teens—but no luck. She wrote to the Flash, general collections Central City, and then the Flash in Keystone for good measure. She even sent a letter to Blue Valley, where Kid Flash sometimes turned up. She never received any reply, not even the kind of canned, pre-signed response the kids in the Flash Club showed her when she cornered them at school.

Linda collected a handful of quarters and placed a long distance call from the phone booth near the library. She called the Central City police department, figuring the local law enforcement probably had some kind of contract with their resident heroes—she was pretty sure she had heard of some kind of system in Gotham. The man who picked up her call was techy and short tempered. He was in the middle of scolding someone when he answered the phone, and she caught the tail end of his rant at someone named Allen for “—being so fucking late all the time.”

When she asked to be put through to the Flash, or to at least to leave a message for him, the police officer had laughed loudly and told her to go play with her dolls, he wasn’t the Flash’s secretary.

Linda approached Picture News with more caution. She knew how important appearances were in media, and she desperately wanted to make a good first impression. Her call was ping-ponged through Picture News, eating up her stack of quarters, until she ended up at the desk of Iris West. Linda immediately recognized the name. Ms. West had been awarded a prize earlier that year for photojournalistic coverage of the Flash and Kid Flash’s encounter with Gorilla Grodd. Linda had tracked down a copy and added it to her Flash-file.

Ms. West answered the phone and immediately apologized, saying she had to run, that some kind of rogue attack had started downtown and she had to go cover it. The call was ended before Linda could even properly speak. Linda had been so close to something, she knew she was. The twisting dizziness in her stomach seemed to think so. She had to spend a few minutes taking deep, careful breaths before she could walk home.

Over the next couple of weeks Linda tried calling back to Picture News a dozen more times. Each time she was met with apologies and answering machines. She seemed doomed now to always be one step behind Ms. West, as if something was holding Iris West just out of Linda’s reach.

Her call with Ms. West, however brief, and the mention of Central City’s infamous rogues, however did give Linda an idea. She could take the bus to Central and hang around the banks and jewellery stores until a guy in a bright costume and a weird gun showed up and the Flash and Kid Flash sped on to the scene. If she waited to the right moment, Linda was pretty sure she could catch them both off-guard and get some answers out of them.

Linda got as far as buying a map and planning out routes before the potential downsides of the impromptu trip hit her. There was the matter of her vertigo, the money for the ticket, the fifteen hour one way bus ride, and the mildly dangerous proposition of purposefully placing herself in harm’s way. Then there was school, her grades and what her parents would say if they learned she went Flash-hunting on her own (she had recently been roundly scolded for illegally camping out in city hall, trying to force the Mayor to give her a statement about the educational spending cuts).

So she grilled the dorky kids in the Flash club, gagging in the bathroom afterwards as her seasick stomach surged, and wrote notes and built up the big Flash-file she kept in a box under her bed, and tried not to think too hard about why she was so intent on finding Kid Flash. It was just a mystery, and she liked a good mystery. That was all.

But this Saturday afternoon Kid Flash could wait. There was her bribery case to button up, and an article to write. She had a stack of confidential files she had borrowed from the front office at school to sort through, spread out on her desk in front of her. Then she could get started on her biology homework. 

She was alone, but not lonely. She was normal and fine and busy working on an article that was going to help her land a by-line on the college paper one day, and that was all she needed. No distractions in sight. Just her and her work.

CRRAAAK.

The explosive crack of lighting that split through her bedroom was so sudden and loud that Linda almost screamed.

Wally put one foot in front of another, running home from Central City after a wonderful day patrolling at Barry Allen’s side. They caught Mirror Master attempting to steal diamonds by sticking his hand through those little mirrors jewellery stores kept on the counter and ran him over to the police. Then Flash and Kid Flash had gotten ice cream afterwards to celebrate, and the girl behind the counter had smiled and given Wally an extra scoop, no charge. Wally ran, and the rolling midwestern fields blurred around him, each step taking him further and further away from Iris and Barry. He half-wished that he could make the journey back to Blue Valley last for hours, that he could just never arrive at his destination. Wally could stay here, running and running forever.

One moment he was in a cornfield, and the next—CRAAAKK, BOOOOOM. Wally gasped as the world suddenly shattered in a crackling explosion. There was only light, his speeding feet twisting and tumbling over themselves as he fell.

And then there was this—white walls, hard wood floor, a girl, and a big thick book on a direct collision course for his face. Years of finely tuned Kid Flash instincts took over in an instant, and Wally blurred to the left, evading the book. This would have been perfect, if his sudden burst of superspeed in a confined space hadn’t propelled him straight into the iron bedframe. The ensuing clang rang through his ears and jangled his teeth.

Wally hissed and leaned back, cradling his head. Superspeed concussions, his old friend. He’d heal up soon enough, but in the meantime—ouch.

Wally looked up at his assailant and felt a second, even more jarring shock shoot up his spine. “Linda Park?”

“Kid Flash? Is that really you?” she demanded. Linda had another thick textbook in her hand, and she looked ready to use it.

Wally held his hands up. He could evade it easy. But—superspeed in small bedrooms, as he’d just been forcefully reminded—wasn’t the best idea.

“It’s me!” he said. “I swear. We met last time in Storm Lake, at your grandparent’s house.”

She studied him for a long moment and slowly lowered the thick book. “Okay. I buy it. But what are you doing here?”

“Where is here?” asked Wally, looking around the room. It was small and a little cluttered, with a bed, a desk and a bookcase. The desk and the bookcase were both covered in precarious stacks of books and piles of loose papers, and the mess looked set to spill over to the bed as well.

“My bedroom,” Linda said. “In Chicago,” she added, as if guessing his next question.

There were posters on her walls, for cool looking bands that he had never heard of. Outside her window he could see tall buildings scaping the bright blue sky. He definitely wasn’t in Kansas anymore.

“Huh.” Wally turned back to Linda.

She was standing beside her desk, staring at him. She wore a faded Cubs shirt and jeans, her hair pulled back in a quick pony-tail. A couple of loose waves had escaped, and they framed her face, her sharp dark eyes. There was a little pen mark on one cheek. She looked absolutely radiant.

Wally was abruptly glad his costume covered as much of his face as it did. Maybe he should talk to Barry about covering it altogether. He just needed a couple of eyeholes to see out of. His cheeks burned, and he was too pale for all of this. Wally quickly looked away.

“I’ll go get an ice pack,” Linda announced abruptly. “You know, for your head. Don’t touch anything.” With a final studying look she left, carefully shutting the door behind her.

Wally wasn’t going to touch anything. But he could do a bit of looking around, surely. He stood up and immediately regretted it as his head spun. Accelerated healing factor hadn’t quite finished the job. He sat back down again, shifting a bit so he was sitting on the rug, trying to get comfortable as he waited. He’d never been in a girl’s room like this before. It was—odd, good? He wasn’t going to examine that thought further right now.

Wally’s new position on the rug put him closer to the bed, giving him a good view of the many boxes Linda had stacked and crammed in the available space under the spring mattress. The biggest one, a battered old storage box, had a lightning bolt scrawled on the front in thick black marker. Well he wasn’t going to not look at something like that. It practically had his name on it.

When Linda got back with bag of peas wrapped in a dish towel, Wally had two notebooks filled with her familiar sprinting writing and a series of annotated newspaper articles spread on the floor in front of him.

Linda dropped the peas into his lap and scowled. “I told you not to touch anything.”

“Did you do all of this?” asked Wally. He pressed the frozen peas to his head and smiled at the cool relief.

“Obviously,” said Linda.

“Wow” said Wally, attention drifting back to Linda’s notes. Her investigation could have given Robin a run for his money. “Is this what you do for fun?”

Linda stiffened. “You think you’re all that, don’t you?” she set her hands on her hips.

Wally shrugged. “Well I am a superhero, and the greatest hero in the world is my mentor.”

“If you’re so great, why is this the first time you’ve shown up? I’ve been trying to find you for ages. What have you been doing?”

Wally blanched. He tried not to think about her grandparent’s door, the amount of times he had stood outside of it, trying to work his way up to knocking.

“You know,” Wally said, shrugging helplessly. “Stuff.”

“Stuff?” she raised an eyebrow.

“The teen titans, being a hero.” He waved a hand. “But—but I’m sorry. You really tried to look for me?”

Her hard look softened. “Yeah,” she said. She sat, still keeping her distance. “I sent letters, I tried talking to a reporter at Picture News, Ms. West—”

Wally stifled a twitch at the mention of Iris. She had gotten so close—but then—why did she never find him?

“But I just kept meeting dead-ends, letters that got returned unread, phone calls that just went to the machine,” Linda continued. “I think something weird is happening here. My stomach always feels sick whenever I think about the Flash.” She stopped and looked at him, mouth parted, eyes shining. It was the face of someone who had just caught a new lead, eager and excited to follow wherever it led. The face of someone ready for the chase. “Except for right now. I’m looking at you and I don’t feel that vertigo at all.”

She grabbed a pen from the desk and shuffled closer, reaching for one of the notebooks. Wally handed it to her, and she smiled, ducking down to scrawl down her newest observation.

That smile. Gosh, it was like a sunbeam, so bright it was almost blinding. Beautiful.

“What is happening here?” she said when she had finished writing her notes. “None of this makes any sense.”

“I dunno,” said Wally. “The first Flash—the one who wears the kettle hat—he said that it would be fine. I guess we just have to wait and see?”

Linda didn’t look too impressed by Jay’s casual reassurance. “Right,” she said dryly.

“In the meantime, what do you want to do? We could go for a run or something. I’ve never been to Chicago before.”

She studied him, and he could almost see her weighing the options. Staying here in this room or letting him take her somewhere else.

“Why should I trust you? I don’t know anything about you.”

“You know I’m Kid Flash.”

“That’s not that much.”

“It means I’ve made a commitment to being good.”

“I think it mostly means you’ve made a commitment to running around in that costume.”

“Hey!” said Wally, though even he could the laughter in his own voice. “I’ll have you know that the Flash himself designed this uniform for me.”

“Fine, fine,” said Linda a grin teasing at her lips, “You’re costume is very nice. The new look is a good one for you.”

Wally’s ears flushed. Linda thought his new costume looked nice.

His tiny little thought spiral about that particular fact was rudely interrupted by the sudden shutting of a door further in the apartment, and an older male voice that called “Linda, we’re home!”

Linda looked at him, panic in her eyes. “My parents!” she hissed. “They can’t find me with a boy in my room.” Raising her voice she called “Be right there!”

Wally quickly stood, and Linda stood with him. He would just do what he did last time—vibrate his molecules. He was even better at that now.

He handed Linda the melting bag of peas. “Thanks,” he said softly.

He braced, preparing to shift back to the cornfield.

“Wait!” said Linda. She grabbed his arm. “I need a name, an address, something.”

Wally frowned. Visions of Barry Allen, carefully instructing him to keep his identity secret, safe and protected, flashed through his mind. But here was Linda, looking at him so earnestly. And she wasn’t just anyone. She was Linda Park, and there was some kind of mysterious force that tied them together, across space and time. That meant something too.

“Wally,” said Wally impulsively, before he could regret it.

He caught a final glimpse of Linda, eyes wide, and he was gone, back to the cornfield. He stumbled for a second, almost falling, as the weight of what he had just done hit him. But it was too late now. He needed to get back to Blue Valley.

Shaking his head one more time, Wally started to run.

The Narrator stopped, finger catching on a page. She grinned, a smile that was all teeth, and ink. Her eraser made quick work of the existing text. She took up her pen and etched the words “Wally West and Linda Park remained forever out of sync,” in the empty space. Simple, pure, poetic. Now this, thought the Narrator, this would do nicely.

Chapter Text

Wally. That was his name. Wally. Wallace. It was a bright name, a little ridiculous, a little old-fashioned, a little bold. In a funny way, it suited him.

Linda laughed. She felt giddy, wild. Her room smelled faintly of ozone, metallic and charged, like the electric spark of his lightning still lingered. Her hand, the one that had grabbed his arm and held him fast, tingled. Looking down she could almost see the static energy dancing on her skin, electricity flickering against her ink-stained fingers.

“Linda!” shouted her dad.

Linda jumped. “C-coming!” she shouted, voice skipping a beat. “Coming!”

She took a breath, and then another, letting the bright burning fill her lungs. She thought about pale cheeks blushing pink, a happy smile and red hair. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to have a friend after all.

Linda left her room, a polite smile already on her face. She’d ask the right questions to keep her parents talking about the brunch with his accountant friends. She would smile and nod, and pretend her mind wasn’t going a million miles a minute, thinking of lighting, and speedsters and boys named Wally.

Linda wasn’t a fool. She knew the offering of his name was a gift, and she treasured it accordingly. It was a secret, something to protect and hold close. A first name didn’t give her all that much—besides some doubts at his parent’s naming abilities—but it did mean she had something more than any of those magazines and newspaper clippings in the box under her bed. She had a clue to the boy behind the mask.

Linda remembered his start of surprise, and his rather pitiful attempt to conceal it, when she had mentioned the reporter Iris West. She wondered sometimes, late at night, in the half-step between waking and dreaming, whether that was the other half of his puzzle. Wallace West. It would have a nice alliterative ring to it.

Now that Linda had a name, something settled inside her, just a little bit. Her research found new focus. She still chased down general information, still gathered and clipped news articles about the boy (and the men) who carried the Flash name; still read puff pieces on the JLA and JSA, but she had a proper lead now, something tangible she could act on. It still gave her a wicked case of vertigo, but she was getting better at shrugging it off. She was going to get the bottom of all of this. She would figure out the truth behind the lighting, behind this strange force that connected them. There had to be a reason for all of this, and she would find it. She wasn’t obsessed; she was just doing her due diligence as a journalist.

Linda got a subscription to Picture News despite her parent’s confused looks, and diligently read everything Iris West wrote, regardless of whether the Flash was featured, trying to pick out patterns. Iris had a no-nonsense approach that Linda appreciated, though Linda wished she was a bit more aggressive sometimes, that she would dig a bit further. Every once and a while it seemed like there was more to the story, just out of reach. 

Linda wrote to the Central City municipal archive, and after some back and forth managed to convince the lead archivist that she had a perfectly legitimate reason for needing a compiled list of all babies registered as Wallace in the last eighteen years; something about a lost cousin and poorly grandmother and a desperate deathbed wish. She was pretty sure the Kid was around her own age, probably a freshman or a sophomore, but she thought it best to cast a wide net. The list when it arrived was long, and she dutifully copied down each name in one of her Flash notebooks.

In the spirit of a comprehensive search, Linda also tried the same tactic on the Keystone city archives, but found they were a bit tied up in the wake of the Thinker, Shade and the Fiddler’s attack. After years of suspended animation, the Keystone city archives had suddenly become one of the most pristinely preserved collections of mid-century American artifacts in the country, though its systems were hopelessly out of date. A frazzled archivist kindly promised to write Linda back when the hordes of historians, doctoral students and private collectors had backed off. Linda thanked him and told him there was no rush. She was fairly certain Wally was a modern kid, even if his name suggested otherwise.

Linda didn’t have a definitive plan for her list of Wallaces. Maybe she would just read the names out at the Kid until she got a reaction. Kid Flash might have lots of wonderful skills, but a poker face was not among them. He wore his heart too fully on his sleeve to have any hope of hiding. It was one of things she liked about him—that she appreciated about him. He was just a stranger, a hero in a mask—but he was Wally, Kid Flash, the one that accidentally speed-ran into a bedframe, who idolized the Flash and looked sheepish when she caught him looking through her research. The funny thing was, the further she dug, the more information she gathered, the more she realized how little difference there was between Kid Flash and the dopey boy who stared at her with wonder. He was earnest, eager, a little annoying. He was so real.

Linda didn’t know when the lighting would strike again, so she kept one of her flash notebooks, the one with the lists of all the Wallaces, close at hand. It was bit odd to realize that all of this research meant that she knew more about the Flash then the nerds at school. It didn’t quite hit her until one day she found herself opening her mouth to say “actually, you’ll find that it was Captain Cold not Weather Wizard,” and then she had to go stare at a wall for a bit.

She still worked her other cases and kept up her grades and extra-curriculars. She was the vice-president of the debate team, editor of the school newspaper, and devoted her remaining spare time to doggedly bullying the administration into starting a public speaking club and AV group. As much as she liked the written word, she could see where the future was going, and it was moving, and bright and shining out of television screen. She would be prepared. Afterall, if she was going to make anchor by the age of twenty-five, she needed a plan.

When Linda headed to the park that Saturday morning, it was part of one of her on-going investigations. She’d heard a whisper from one of her sources (she’d overheard two women gossiping on the bus), that there was a strange white splotch of nothingness in Lincoln Park. One of the women said it seemed almost unreal, like a spot of emptiness trying to suck up everything around it, like a bunch of bleach spilled on the world. The other woman had joked that they should call Superman, and they had laughed about soft Metropolis types and gotten off the bus before Linda could hear more. 

It was the third time in as many weeks that Linda had caught word of a strange white nothingness. The first had been a freshman kid at school, dazed and a little bumbling from a badly thrown softball, who had sworn around the icepack pressed to his cheek that he had seen a white splotch “like someone had taken an eraser to the world!” when he was lying in the grass by the plate. The other boys had laughed and jeered and told him he had hit his head to hard. Linda, sitting at the table next over, had felt her heart quicken. There was a story here. Linda had gone out to investigate the softball field herself before the bell rang, but by the time she got there, there was no sign of any supernatural otherness, white splotches or otherwise. She looked so long she was late for class and received a tardy slip for her trouble.

The second time was a little girl at the grocery store. She had pig-tails and a bright pink overalls, and between demanding sugary cereal, she babbled about a bird being swallowed up by a white spot in the sky. Her mom, who looked utterly exhausted, didn’t seem to be listening, too intent on keeping the little girl’s wriggling limbs in the shopping cart. The little girl’s mom might not have heard—but Linda, trailing behind her own Mother, had. Linda had almost approached her, to quiz the little girl for more information—where had she seen this splotch? When had she seen it? Could she describe it in more detail? Linda was already reaching for her notebook and pen when the little girl started to scream about pop tarts at the top of her lungs. It seemed that this was the final straw. Before Linda could approach, the girl’s exhausted mother gave the entire idea of the shopping trip up as a bad idea and headed for the check-out counter.

There was something about this case that grabbed Linda and refused to let go. As far as she could tell, there was no official investigation yet into the mysterious white splotches eating away reality. That was fine, she would chase down this story herself, and if it got her extra-credit or a nice by-line for her CV, all the better. She had a lead, and she would follow it.

Yet, it was easy to think big grand thoughts in her bedroom. Now that Linda stood at the entrance of Lincoln Park, notebook and camera in hand, the first rumbles of doubt quivered in her gut. The bustling park stretched out before her, a helpful info plaque at her side politely announcing that the park encompassed over 1,208 acres of land, including two museums, a conservatory and a zoo. That was a lot of ground to cover. Linda took a breath and set her chin. She had best get started then.

The first hour of the search was uneventful, yielding little more than an unexpectedly large number of hot-dog stands. Linda trailed through the park trails, keeping a sharp eye out for white splotches. She tried asking fellow park-goers if they had seen anything, but gave up after the sixth concerned look and an old woman who tried to follow her, and kept asking questions like “where are your parents dearie?” “should I call someone?” Linda finally managed to escape her by tucking into a bathroom and slipping out again among a group of loud teen girls. She kept walking until the overly nosy woman was well behind her. 

Linda settled on a park bench to give her feet a rest, gaze fixed on the empty notebook page in her lap, when a—

CRAAAKK, BOOOOOM split the air.

Linda’s head shot up. She knew that sound. Kid Flash. Wally.

She leapt to her feet, and looked around, eyes intent, but there was no sign of the familiar yellow costume. Instead—there was only this, a boy with red hair, standing ten paces before her. He was dressed in civilian clothing, jeans and a red shirt with a faded lightning bolt on his chest. His hands were pressed to his face, his spine curved, as if bent against a great wind.

Linda was already sprinting forward. She laid a hand on his shoulder, and he looked up abruptly, hands falling away. There was a dark bruise over his left eye, deep purple and swollen. One of his green eyes, his lighting eyes, narrowed to a squint. Linda gasped.

“Wally?” she said. “What happened?” she couldn’t look away from his black eye.

He shook his head.

As she watched, the bruise began to bloom. The dark purple faded to blue, and the blue began to lighten and fade, shifting into yellow and orange. It was like weeks of healing, in a matter of minutes.

He stood stiffly, detached and distant.

“Wally?” she asked again, reaching for one of the hands hanging listlessly at his side.

He took a breath, and then another, squeezing her hand. It seemed to ground him.

“Linda,” he gasped, as his eyes focused.

The bruise around his eye was almost gone. In a second, it would be like it had never happened.

Wally looked around, “Where are we?”

Linda almost laughed. That was always the question. Where were they indeed? She felt like she was going to be sick.

“Wally, what happened?”

“Are we in Chicago?”

“Wally, what—”

“This is one big park—”

“Wally—!”

“Shoot, and I’m not in my uniform, do you think anyone saw?” He tried to lift his arm, but Linda refused to let go, tightening the grip on his hand.

“Wally, what happened? I need answers. Right now.”

He took a deep breath, his wandering eyes finally fixing back on her. There was no sign of the bruise now.

He shrugged. “I did something I shouldn’t have.”

For a second—all she could see was a parade of cuts, and bruises and breaks, everything he had endured as a hero. The injuries that faded in minutes, until nothing was left behind but a torn uniform.

But he wasn’t wearing a uniform right now.

Linda wanted to scream.

Wally was in Chicago, and Linda was looking at him like—like he didn’t even know what.

She looked mad, but he was pretty sure she wasn’t mad at him.

He hoped she wasn’t at least. He already knew he angered and disappointed his parents; he wasn’t the son they wanted him to be. He didn’t think he could stand it if he also let Linda down.

Wally looked down, staring at the way her hand fit in his, his flash ring shining next to her skin.

“Linda?”

She huffed out a breath.

“So what brings you to the park today?” he asked, deciding it was time to change the subject. Besides, he was curious. He could see binoculars and notebooks in the bag she dropped by her feet, and he had a feeling that this wasn’t just a fun jaunt to the park to soak up one of those rare sunny fall days. Linda was chasing something; he just knew it. Wally wanted in.

“Wally, you’d tell me if there was something wrong, right?” she said, and her tone was deadly serious.

For a second, the spot where his dad’s fist had caught him tingled, an echo of the pain that had flared there. But it was gone in a second, like the bruise. Out of sight, out of mind. Besides, the bruise was nothing compared to the burning words his dad had said that morning, when he saw Wally wearing his favourite flash shirt. A child, his mind in the clouds, wasting his time, wasting all their time, a disappointment—Wally shook his head. No point dwelling.

Linda studied him, and for a second Wally almost believed she could see it all, every thought that tumbled through his head. And then the hard line of her lips softened.

“Okay.” She said. “Okay.”

Wally had a sinking suspicion that Linda wasn’t going to give this up entirely. She would want answers eventually. But she was letting it slip by for now. He would almost call it a kindness, but that couldn’t be right, because there was nothing to be kind about. He had a bruise, and now it was gone. He got bruises all the time in the course of duty. Never mind that Barry always checked him over, always made sure he was okay before running him home.

“What are you working on?” asked Wally. “You bird-watching?” he nudged her bag with the binoculars with one foot.

Linda made a face and let go of his hand to snatch the bag up. His hand felt abruptly empty. He was going to say something, though he wasn’t quite sure what—maybe 'please please let me hold your hand again' like he was a singer on one of Jay’s cheesy vinyl records. Thankfully before he could open his mouth, Linda was standing and grabbing for his hand.

“This way,” she said, tugging him forward. “Let’s find a map and I’ll show you where I’ve searched so far.”

As they walked, Linda filled him in on her investigation. The longer she talked, the more Wally could feel his eyebrows raise. This business with the white splotches, these patches of nothingness, were complete news to him. He knew he was good as Kid Flash, whether he was running solo or with Barry or the Titans, but he was fairly certain this smelled of the kind of world-splitting stuff that the heavy hitters should know about. He told Linda as much, and she scowled.

“It could be serious. We need to do something,” he said. “I can go tell the Flash right now, and he can alert the rest of the JLA.”

“We are doing something,” said Linda, lifting her camera like it was weapon. “I’m going to find it, figure out its source, and publish the story.”

“This isn’t just a story,” said Wally, shaking his head. “This could be serious.”

“Do you really think I don’t know that?” said Linda. “I’m taking this seriously. Look around, no one cares. I care. I’m going to get to the bottom of this, and then the entire world will know. This is my story, my investigation, you can’t just lock me out of it.”

Wally could feel his temper rising, and Linda’s cheeks were flushed. She was mad, Wally could see as much. They were both too quick to snap. And yet—he looked down at their conjoined hands. They still held on to each other.

They could find a way pass this. They had to. 

“Okay, how about a compromise?” said Wally. “I’ll help you with your investigation today, and then if we don’t find anything, I’ll tell the Flash, and we can see if he has any ideas.”

She looked him for a long minute, and then finally nodded. “Fine. But we better get moving. We have a lot of ground to cover.”

Wally grinned. “Lucky for you, I’ve got just the thing for that.”

Two seconds and a quick change later, and Wally was back in his uniform. He carefully scooped Linda into his arms, feeling the electric static zing sweep up and down his arms as he held her.

“Don’t go too fast, or I won’t be able to see anything,” Linda said, her bag in her lap and a map in her hand. She pointed. “Run that way first.”

Wally ran.

With Linda as navigator they raced through the park at a steady clip, Wally carefully weaving through the crowds. He ran a couple of notches below his regular speed, fast enough to ensure the momentum kept Linda light in his arms, but slow enough that she could also keep an eye for strange white splotches. In arms, Linda was protected by his aura, and it felt so right to run with someone at his side. He’d never felt particularly lonely running before, but it was nice to have the company. It was like running with Robin or Garth or Roy or Donna to a mission, but even better.

Linda and Wally didn’t talk much, both intent on the search, but there was still time for passing jokes, like their shared expressions of revulsion when they passed by a woman wearing a truly hideous amount of dyed pink fur. They pointed at things that might be white splotches, and Wally doubled back around to find again and again that it was only a golf ball, or a plastic bag, or on one memorable occasion a fat seagull. After a dozen false calls, and a two spins around the park, Linda called for a break.

Wally set her down carefully, keeping one hand on Linda’s back as she took an unsteady step forward.

“Superspeed,” she groaned, holding her stomach. “Now I’m dizzy.”

As if on cue, Wally’s stomach growled.

Linda shook her head, but her lips cracked into a smile. “C’mon Red, let me buy you a hot dog.”

In the split second it took for Linda to take a step towards the nearest hotdog stand, Wally made the decision. His costume was tucked back in his ring, and he was smoothing one hand over the familiar worn lighting on his t-shirt before Linda’s foot could even return to the ground. As much as he loved his Flash suit, there had already been too many confused glances from civilians attempting to figure out what Kid Flash was doing in the windy city. He didn’t want to panic anyone. And, well, it was nice in a way, just being Wally, hanging out with his friend.

Linda blinked at his sudden change but only nodded. They carried on together, Wally and Linda.

“So,” said Linda. When they both had hotdogs in hand, sitting on a park bench.

“Mhmh,” said Wally, mouth full of food.

“Do you usually wear your own merchandise?”

“It’s not my merchandise,” said Wally taking another bite. “It’s the Flash’s.”

Linda laughed then, and her laugh was a lightning strike right to his heart. Blazing, beautiful.

“He’s really your hero, isn’t he?” asked Linda.

“Yeah,” said Wally. There wasn’t that much more to say. “I get to run with him. I’m the luckiest kid in the world.”

“Wally—” she said his name carefully, like it was special, like she cared. “The Flash would never hurt you, right?”

Wally was so startled he almost spit out his mouthful of hotdog. “What? No! Of course not!”

Linda looked at him, an expression he couldn’t read on her face. It was determined, concerned, worried, angry. Everything, all things, at once. “Who hit you?” she asked softly.

Wally looked away. He couldn’t look at her and lie. “Nobody.”

She slid down the bench, until she pressed gently against his side. That was question enough.

“I don’t want to talk about it right now,” mumbled Wally.

“Okay,” said Linda. “But you could talk to the Flash, if you wanted to? He would listen?”

It was difficult to imagine talking to Barry or Iris or Jay about this, but Wally knew they would listen if he needed them to. He still wasn’t convinced this was even something he needed to talk to someone about—this was just normal stuff, this was just how things were. His bruises always healed fast enough, and the rest was just words.  

But Linda was worried, and that stirred something in his gut. Maybe something was wrong.

Wally nodded. “Yes, the Flash would listen.”

“Good,” said Linda, firmly. 

“Good,” Wally echoed, and Linda smiled. It was a small smile, but it warmed him.

“You know,” said Linda, fiddling with her hotdog wrapper. Her voice was ten degrees brighter, like she had set it there by pure force of will. It was clear she was changing the subject, and Wally could have kissed her for it. “I wrote Central City archives, to see if they could give me any information about boys named Wallace.”

Wally snorted. “You what?”

Linda shrugged. “I figured it was worth a shot. I’ve got your first name, but I still don’t know your last.”

“West,” said Wally immediately.

Linda gaped at him and then her mouth split into a massive, beaming grin. “I knew it!” she crowed, and Wally really could have kissed her.

Of course, that was when the screams began.

Wally was up like a shot, his suit back on a half-beat later. Linda was standing as well, eyes wide.

“The splotch!” she cried and grabbed his hand before he could zip off alone. “Together!” she shouted, and he didn’t have time to argue. He didn't want to. He swept her up in his arms and ran, rushing towards the shouts.

Wally skidded to a stop before the conservatory, mouth falling open. They’d found the white emptiness.

It was at least fifteen feet in diameter, hanging ten feet above the ground, a gaping white wound carved into the world. Everything it covered was just empty, white, blank. A bird collided with it, setting off another round of screams as it abruptly disappeared, swallowed whole. The edges of the splotch were rough, less like a perfect machine, and more like an eraser dragged haphazardly across the sky by a giant hand.

The crowd was gone now, the public that had delighted in the bright autumn day running desperately for the hills. It was just Wally and Linda, facing down her mystery.

“Red!” shouted Linda. “You need to go get someone, right now.”  

Wally nodded, eyes still locked on the white splotch. It was subtle, but with a close enough stare, he could see that it was growing, slowly spilling outward, catching up more of the brightness of the world and rendering it nothing.

“Wally!” Linda screamed, right into his ear. “Wally West!”

Wally blinked. “I know, I know,” he said, trying to steady his thoughts. It was time to run.

Wally had memorized the map of Chicago months ago. Two seconds to the front door of her apartment building, one more second to linger in the feeling of her hand in his.

Five seconds to run to Central City, to run up the walls and through the window of Barry’s apartment.

Half a millisecond to shout--“Flash! We have a problem!”

She had wanted her debut to be big. Of course she had, that’s how one made the charts, and everyone knew that pre-orders were important.

The Narrator thought first about the big three, the Trinity. Go big or go home, as they always said. But there were so many moving parts, too many variables, and her power was limited to one change, the easement and revision of a single line. Two bullets, great wealth, and a city of corruption; an entire planet erupting, and kindly parents on each side; an island of fierce female warriors, the boldest and kindest of hearts—there was too much. With others, the story was too often told, repeated and inscribed again and again, and made difficult to budge in the retelling.

The Narrator had thought first that the Flash was the same. This was a legacy if she ever saw one. But there were cracks here too. These were just men and women, gifted with a quick step by a simple twist of fate. Luck.

And Wallace West, why he was the luckiest of all.

She couldn’t help but peer closer, she was nosey that way. The Narrator couldn’t unmake the Flash, but she could see the pattern, all the hands and rogues that had come before. So many had decided to change him by ripping Wallace of his love. A single change, to unmake his world, and tear it asunder. 

The Narrator grinned. Now this, this would do.

Chapter Text

In the end, Linda never got her exclusive scoop.

One second she was in the park, screaming Wally’s name, staring down at the awful empty nothingness, feeling the icy desolation reach for her, twisting down her spine—it wanted her gone, it wanted to erase her—and the next she was in the doorway of her apartment building fifteen blocks away, blinking back the dust, hair awhirl with the sudden surge of speed.

Wally must have held her hand, must have paused for a second that stretched, because Linda felt the echo of a squeeze.

“Wally—” she started, but he was already off, the redyellowred blurred away before she could even cry out for him to stop, to stay. His bruise was faded and he was gone.

Hours earlier, racing through the park in his arms, she could have almost imagined it was a spring day, bright and alight with possibility. Now all she felt was the coming cold chill of winter, creeping through the falling leaves.

Linda stood on the sidewalk and shook, adrenaline, fear, and the cold running a riot through her. Her pulse was a hammer beat in her ears, as she stared at the empty space before her, furiously thinking.

Who did you report teen sidekick abuse to?

Superman?

Wally had all but confirmed that Iris West was a relation—her work on the Flash was just too much of a coincidence—but was she a cousin, an aunt? Surely not a mother, not with the pace of her writing career. There was a phone booth two blocks away. Could Linda walk there right now, call Picture News, and tell Iris everything?

But did Iris even know that Wally was Kid Flash? It wasn’t Linda’s secret to spill, for all that she wanted to scream it to the roof tops if it meant that Wally wouldn’t look like that ever again—blank, still. Linda could just pretend she was a friend,  but from where?—Blue Valley? Linda couldn’t imagine any other reason Kid Flash would hang out in a dinky Nebraskan town, if it wasn’t where he hung up his Flash ring at night. All she needed was an explanation, one a talented investigative reporter wouldn’t see through in a second, for why a random girl in Chicago knew that Wally West needed help. Pen pals? School exchange? Psychic visions?

Then there was the Flash. She would just to redouble her efforts to contact the scarlet speedster, she would keep trying until her messages went through. She would figure out his identity and send the messages straight to his door. He would help; he would have to. Wally believed in the Flash, and Linda believed in Wally.

But damn it, there was still too many unknowns, too many questions. She needed to move, get back to Lincoln Park before it was too late. Never mind that the thought of the white splotches sent sparking terror through her. She wasn’t going to get anything done just standing here.

She would—

Linda’s knees buckled, hands flying up just in time to stop herself from braining herself on the concrete. She hissed as the grit tore through the thin skin of her palms.

“Miss Park!” shouted the doorman, Mr. Rogers. She could hear his footsteps approaching, the smart clip of his polished shoes.

Her stomach surged. Everything was spinning, whirling in a kaleidoscope of colour. White spots danced in her eyes. Empty like the splotch. For a second she could have sworn it knew her, could have imagined it said her name. Linda would figure this out; she would solve this—

The dark rushed up to meet her.

It was only later, much later, after the trip to the ER, a series of waiting rooms, the prescription for ‘less stress’ and a marathon twelve hour nap, that Linda started to piece together the events of the day.

The morning after Wally, the splotch, her fainting spell and the ER, Linda sat at the kitchen table pouring over The Planet, her forgotten oatmeal quickly congealing at her side. From the glimpses of grainy live footage she had managed to catch in the hospital waiting room, and The Planet’s report, Linda was increasingly certain her collapse had coincided with the arrival of not one but three Flashes to the greater Chicago Metropolitan area. Apparently all it took to knock her out was a bunch of men in lightning bolts. One day, she swore, she was going to find who or whatever was causing this Flash-induced-nausea, and she was going to beat the shit out of them. Linda took a big sip of coffee and read on.

The Planet’s report was comprehensive, if a little overblown. Lois Lane and Clark Kent’s headline boasted of “Mysterious Anomalies in Chicago Park.” According to Lane and Kent, the Flashes had played vanguard for the broader combined forces of the JLA and the JSA, who rushed to Chicago “out of an abundance of caution for the safety and protection of the general public.” In an extended exclusive interview, Superman reassured readers that “the negative zones disappeared approximately ten minutes after we arrived. The situation currently poses no danger, but the JLA will continue to monitor and provide updates. In the meantime, Lincoln Park will remain quarantined for further analysis and study.”

Flipping to page two, Linda found that the rest of the article was largely devoted to justifying the appearance of two major superhero teams in Chicago for what appeared to be an isolated, non-crisis level event. There was one mention of “reports of earlier sightings,” which meant Wally had said something to someone about Linda’s research, though there was no mention of the plucky teen reporter who had gathered that essential information in the first place.

Linda read the article again, silently fuming about up-start journalists who stole perfectly good stories. She was careful to keep her protests quiet, though. The last thing she needed was her parents suspecting she had been anywhere near the ‘negative zones,’ let alone actively investigating them. Linda contented herself with the smug comfort that at least her Flashes could outpace Kent and Lane’s precious Superman any day of the week.

There was only one direct reference to Wally in the Planet’s coverage. Linda worried her lip as she read it again and again, trying to eke out more information from the sparce text. Lane and Kent only noted that “Kid Flash assisted Green Lantern, as the Flashes of the JLA and JSA conducted a broader survey of the surrounding area.” That didn’t give her much of anything. It didn’t make sense. Why would Wally help Green Lantern?

Linda’s jaw tightened as she considered her own sudden fainting spell. The thought of that happening while sprinting at mach 7—well, it wasn’t something she wanted to think about. At least the article hadn’t declared ‘Negative zones reign triumphant—Kid Flash pronounced dead at the scene.’

Linda snapped the paper closed with a sharp whack.

That, she decided, was enough news for the day.

Linda scraped her oatmeal sludge into the trash and headed for the door, absently calling out a good-bye to her parents. Lane and Kent might have stolen her thunder, but she still had a story to write. She was pretty sure she could get a good eight or nine inches out of the splotches, even after she redacted everything with Wally. Her investigation wasn’t done just because some fancy Metropolis paper published a report—there was still too many questions. There was something about it all that resonated in her chest—call it fate, call it institution, but Linda had a sinking suspicion that it was all connected—the splotches, the lighting, Wally. Something had brought them together, and that same thing had ensured that Wally had appeared in the park, a mere hour before the splotch made its dramatic appearance.

She also had approximately ten letters, and half a dozen calls to make to various Flash and Flash-adjacent leads.

She had better get started.

“Hey Kid Lantern,” said Hal, appearing in the doorway.

Wally scowled.

Hal laughed. “Relax kiddo, I know where your loyalties lie.”

Hal ruffled a hand through Wally’s hair. It was nice, warm, and grounding. Wally leaned into it, letting his eyes fall shut. He was too tired to keep them open any longer. His foot twitched, a spike of pain shooting up his heel as it cramped. Too much running, too many footsteps, and they were still no closer to finding any answers.

Wally could hear the squeak-creak of the old office chair as Hal settled in beside him.

“Fuck,” swore Hal at the uncomfortable seat. “Bats is cheaping out on us.”

Wally nodded. His thoughts exactly.

“They’ve got you two hopping,” said Hal. “How many patrols has it been now?”

Wally half-shrugged, still not opening his eyes. With his eyes closed he could almost pretend he was napping. Half-napping. Robin was always going on about micro-napping, or zip-sleeping or whatever he called it when was trying to justify his abysmal sleep schedule. Wally would do that. Just for a few minutes. Zip-zip-zip to dreamland.

“Kid?”

Right, the question.

It took a second for Wally to find his thoughts. He was a hero; he could do this. He pried his eyes open and blinked blearily at Hal. He was in his full green lantern get up, though he’d ditched the mask now that they were all back at the JLA headquarters.

“A million?” said Wally, only slightly exaggerating. “Barry said it’s hard to say because the real point is really just for us to be in constant motion. Batman wanted constant updates so he could get all the data and figure out the shifting patterns worldwide and this was the best way to do it. Barry and I ran, and Jay helped Superman with the radio reports.”

“And this all started, when? Yesterday?”

“Two days ago,” yawned Wally. “But Jay and Clark have helped cover so Barry and I could sleep for a bit and eat.” At this point, Wally was probably more granola bar then boy. Even now, there had to be at least two dozen wrappers in the trash can by his feet.

Hal whistled. “Guess I should be glad I pulled monitor duty. You look half-dead.” Hal jerked his chin back at the closed door. “Bar’s still busy giving the report to the bigwigs, but he asked me to come check on you.”

Wally yawned again and nodded. He knew all about reports. The last two days had been nothing but reports.

“Here Walls,” said Hal, his ring alight with a familiar glow. “No one who has run as much as you have in the last 48 hours should have to make do with one of these shitty waiting room chairs.”

The green light blossomed and grew, solidifying into a green camp cot, with a puffy green sleeping bag and a plump green pillow. Beside it materialized a comfy looking lazy-boy, also green.

“That’s a lot of green,” said Wally. “Is that your favourite colour or something?”

Hal huffed. “Get into bed, smart ass, before Barry tells me off for not properly checking on you or something.”

Hal settled into the construct chair, grinning the grin of a man no longer forced to put up with the cheap JLA office furniture.

Far, far too tired to argue, Wally peeled off the remains of his boots and collapsed onto the cot. Hal very kindly reformed the construct sleeping bag around him, when Wally’s efforts to actually get under the covers failed him, his energy utterly and totally drained. The construct was surprisingly comfortable, even if it was almost obnoxiously green. At that moment, Wally could have passed out on a pile of rocks—but it was nice to know that Hal cared, that Barry cared.

“You gotta take better care of yourself, Kid,” said Hal, softly. “You gave us all a scare with that business in Chicago 'couple weeks back.”

Wally nodded absently. It wasn’t like had planned to pass out mid-sprint back to Chicago. His pulse had already been racing that day—what with the adrenaline, the sprint to Central to warn Barry, and then a dash to Chicago when he had abruptly snapped back to his bedroom in Blue Valley, where the lighting had snatched him up hours earlier. All that running had been nothing compared to the triple beat of his heart, at the lingering feeling of Linda’s hand in his. It had been luck, pure and simple, that Jay had caught up with Wally as they approached Chicago, and so Jay had been there to catch him when Wally had suddenly slammed into a proverbial wall and fainted.

So much for helping with the investigation into Linda’s splotches. All Wally had gotten was a juice box and an overbearing Green Lantern babysitter.

He hoped Linda was okay. He had wanted to run to her immediately (part of him always wanted to run to her), but Barry and Jay had told him to wait, to take things slow. “Can’t have you running yourself into another wall, son” Jay had said, while Barry had patiently reminded him “that major head trauma is very serious.” Most of Wally was pretty sure they were just over-reacting. But a voice in his head, the one that sounded increasingly like Linda Park, was less sure. Sure, he bounced back from injuries all the time—but maybe that wasn’t a good thing?

Whatever the answer was, he was too exhausted to untangle it now.

Hal leaned back in his green construct chair.  “You sleep, Kid, and I’ll give you and Bar a ride home when things finally wrap up.”

“Thanks Hal,” mumbled Wally.

“Anytime. Us Green Lanterns and Flashes have to stick together.” Hal let out a deep sigh. “Jeez what a way to spend thanksgiving.”

Wally didn’t reply, already sprinting off to dreamland. Zip-zip-zip.

The long weekend hadn’t started out all bad.

Wally almost jumped for joy when his parents told him they were packing him off to Central for thanksgiving break. He’d have done it too, if he hadn’t known how mad it would make his dad. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t like Wally was the one packing his kid off, so he could play pretend he was childless for the long weekend.

It didn’t matter anyway. Wally did a little victory dance of his own, in the privacy of his room, and set to packing. Four whole days of freedom from Blue Valley. He was going to savour it.

Iris was waiting at the Central City bus depot when Wally arrived, a massive smile on her face.

“Wally!” she shouted, and Wally let himself put on a little extra kick of speed, so he could rush straight into her arms.

Iris spun them both around. “Oh kiddo, you’re getting too big for this!”

“Never,” said Wally. He was never going to do be too big for Aunt Iris’s hugs.

Iris laughed. “If you insist. C’mon, Barry’s waiting back at the car.” She slung an arm over Wally’s shoulder, and together they set off.

“You’re on-time and Barry drove?” teased Wally.

“Haha, very funny kid. I drove, Barry’s just minding the meter, anxious thing that he is. Maybe between the two of us we can keep things running on time this weekend.”

Wally could see Iris’ car now, and Barry inside, looking somewhat worriedly at the sign that noted that he was parked in ‘a two minute loading zone.’ With his smart red bowtie, and his lab coat, Barry must have come straight from the lab. The thought warmed Wally.

“Aunt Iris? When are you going to marry Barry?”

Iris stopped. She looked down at him, though she didn’t have to look too far. Wally was nearly fifteen now, and almost her height.

“When he gets around to asking me. You know Barry, he can be a little slow on the uptake.”

“But you will marry him?”

Iris studied him for a moment, a grin cracking through her lips. “Yes. I think I will.”

They continued walking. A moment later Barry spotted them, and he waved, beaming.

“Walls!” he said. “How are you doing?”

It had barely been three days since he’d seen Barry last, when the Flash and Kid Flash patrolled the streets of Central City together. It had mostly been an uneventful afternoon, just a couple of minor pranks from the Trickster, so they’d spent half the route talking through Wally’s math and science homework.

Barry opened his arms, and Wally eagerly leaned into his embrace. Uncle Barry. It sounded right.

On the phone last month, Iris had laughed and told Wally she thought it was funny how quickly Wally and Barry had bonded, especially after the rocky patch in the beginning. “I only found out you replaced the photo of Barry in my Filofax last week, when I went to look up a number and that scarlet suit was staring up at me!”

They all tumbled into the car. Wally couldn’t keep the smile off his face, as he looked from his mentor to his best friend and back again. He was finally home.

Barry had to head back to the office, but Iris was free, so Wally spent the afternoon glued to her side, braving the last minute shoppers together to pick up the supplies for thanksgiving dinner. Barry came by Iris’s apartment that night, and they got pizza and played board games, the West contingent happily besting the Allen at scrabble. When Wally woke up the next morning, Barry was already there, his shirt sleeves carefully rolled up and a determined expression on his face, playing Tetris with the turkey in Iris’s little oven.

It was, in every possible way, the perfect holiday.

The kitchen was small, and neither Iris, Barry or Wally claimed to be a particularly good cook, but they made do, jostling elbows and knees, and putting together something that generally resembled a thanksgiving meal.

Somewhere between finishing up the scalloped potatoes and trimming the green beans, Barry stopped, and stared down at his watch, brow wrinkling.

“Iris, honey. It looks like we’re running low on potatoes, do you mind if I take Wally out to pick up some more?”

“Sure,” said Iris, waving them off. “You boys go get some air. We’ve pretty much got everything sorted out anyways. I have no idea how we're going to eat this much food!”

Wally followed Barry, careful to make no mention of the extra bag of potatoes piled by the front door. If he knew Iris, she was going to take this chance to sit down on the couch with a book, and they could all use a bit of a break from the hot kitchen.

“What’s up?” asked Wally, when they were suited up and on the street.

“League business,” said Barry, and started to run.

By the time they arrived, the conference room in the JLA headquarters was nearly full. Wally stood by Barry’s chair, and listened, stomach twisting. Batman had a projector and slides full of statistics and pictures, and none of it looked good.

After a month of dormancy, reports had flooded in that the ‘negative zones’ (Wally liked Linda’s name better) were spreading rapidly, blinking in and out of existence globally at an alarming rate. There was currently no discernable rhyme or reason to the sudden outbreak, though the zones did seem to have a slight preference for midwestern America, “possibly due to the large swaths of empty farmland.”  

Batman continued. “What we need is more information. Flash and Kid Flash will start continual global patrols tomorrow morning. Superman and Jay Garrick will transcribe their reports. The holiday will allow all parties to devote their full attention to this matter.”

Zatanna only shrugged when Batman turned the floor over to her. “The negative zones seem to be some kind of spell, or magical phenomena. Maybe seeking out something? Or someone?”

A shiver shot down Wally’s spine, and he gripped the back of Barry’s chair to keep his balance steady. He didn’t like this.

Robin was over on the other side of the room by Batman, but Robin wasn’t trained by the world’s greatest detective for nothing. Robin caught Wally’s shiver, and he shot Wally a look. Wally only shook his head.

Robin cornered Wally after, but Wally didn’t have any answers for him then either. “I don’t know. I just don’t like it. I really don’t like it.”

“We’ll figure it out, twinkletoes,” said Robin, and his voice was all steady reassurance. “If the JLA can’t handle it, we Teen Titans will take over.”

Wally snorted and Robin smirked his sly grin, and it helped.

Wally and Barry sprinted back to Central to make it in time for dinner, and even though the turkey was dry and the potatoes were burnt, it was the best thanksgiving dinner Wally could imagine. 

They ate till they could burst, and then Iris bested them all at cards. While Wally slumped on the couch, groaning about his too-full stomach--for once even he was full—Barry put on one of his jazz records, and did a little nerdy dance, utterly lost to his music. Iris and Wally met each other’s eyes and stifled giggles, and then Iris got up and joined him, dragging Wally up with her.

“Dance with me, Wally,” Iris laughed, and Wally spun her around, while Barry grooved next to them. They danced and laughed and danced some more, and for a minute the white splotches and negative zones were just a distant memory, a blip in the rearview mirror. For a minute Wally was safe, and warm and loved.

The warm glow had almost faded by the next morning, though, leaving a heavy weight in Wally’s chest. He had to lie to Iris today. Wally hated lying to Iris.

Yet, when he stumbled from the pullout couch and into the kitchen, the universe once again reminded him that he was the luckiest kid alive. An exhausted looking Barry sipped coffee in one chair, while Iris slammed back what was probably her third cup of the day. She was already dressed, and her camera bag and notebook were laid out on the table in front of her, ready to go.

Wally halted in the doorway, brain trying to catch up with the sight before him.

“Wally!” said Iris, spinning in her chair. “I was just about to come wake you. My editor called. They want all hands on deck to cover this ‘negative zone’ nonsense.” Iris leapt up and grabbed for her coat. “Barry’s kindly offered to take you camping while I’m stuck in the office.”

Iris paused in front of Wally, setting her hands on his shoulders, a frown creasing her perfect face. “I’m so sorry kiddo. I know this was supposed to be our long weekend.”

“It’s okay, Aunt Iris,” managed Wally.

“That’s my brave boy,” said Iris, pressing a kiss to Wally’s forehead.

Iris turned and kissed Barry, who blinked blearily up at her, and then grabbed her bags. “You boys have fun. I can’t wait to hear all about your adventures.”

The door clicked shut behind her and she was gone. Wally quietly got himself cereal. It was nice, not having to lie to Iris, but he still couldn’t shake the twang of disappointment. On that long, long bus ride from Blue Valley, he’d hoped there would be more moments like last night, when everything was happy and bright.

For a second, Wally wondered what it would be like to spend a perfect day, a perfect dinner like that with Linda, dancing by her side while an old jazz record sang a bittersweet song. It was just a second—but Wally could let a second linger.

“Wally?” said Barry, sometime around Wally’s third bowl of cereal and Barry’s second cup of coffee. “You ready?”

Wally nodded. It was time to run.

The next two days were a blur, of running and cat-naps and food. Batman gave them special radios with boosted signal, and they were told to report everything they saw, and there was a lot to see. Wally had run global patrols before, but never like this, never on such a fantastic, continual scale. They found negative zones in Winnipeg, and Cairo and Moscow, and on a tiny island in the Atlantic ocean that didn’t seem to have a name. Each time they spotted a new splotch, Wally felt that familiar shiver zip up and down his spine. By the fourth uncanny emptiness, he could have sworn there was a sound to them, a vibration emanating from the nothing that called out to him. 

There were still no reports of fatalities, but the threat was so random, so wide-spread, they all know it was only a matter of time.

Back in Keystone, Joan cooked up a storm, creating a veritable thanksgiving feast. She made sure they every time they looped through the mid-west, there was a plate set out for them to gobble up.

Wally ran and ran and ran.

Wally napped for a bit on the Garrick’s couch, while Barry consulted maps and scarfed down half a turkey dinner, and then they were off again.

Wally sprinted through rainforests and deserts and over oceans waves.

He slumped half-asleep in the waiting room in the JLA headquarters and passed out on a green construct cot. He woke to the feeling of arms gently lifting him. Wally was getting too big to be carried like a little kid, but Barry was a superhero, he could take the weight.

“Hey, Walls,” murmured Barry. “I got you. Let’s go home. We’ve got more running to do tomorrow.”

Wally let his head loll, slipping back into slumber. Barry had him. He was safe.

He hoped Linda was having a more relaxing break.

“Check out this gnarly costume!” said Rick, pressing his face against the glass.

Linda nodded. She had to admit; it was a gnarly costume.

There was a little plaque beside the case, which identified its contents. Linda didn’t need to read it though. She would have recognized that scarlet suit anywhere.

Linda peered closer. There was a faint run in the fabric by the left knee. She wondered if it had been caused by the rock Wally tripped over in her meadow in Iowa, back on that stormy day.

“The Flash published an article in the journal Science, where he explained some of the physics behind his low-friction suit. Absolutely fascinating stuff—” started Rick. “He cited some early work from Thompson and Spears…”

Linda was trying to listen, she really was. It truly was fascinating stuff. It was only, at this moment, she was rather more invested in the wearer, then the uniform itself. She was also fairly certain Wally would be delighted to tell her about the science behind his uniform himself. There would probably be lots of hand waving and references to how great the Flash was. Linda smiled to herself. She’d have to ask Wally the next time she saw him.

Linda hadn’t believed her luck when she’d learned that the Mid-Western All-Regional Debate Championship would take place that year in the Central City. She had already had her heart set on going—she needed it for college applications—but this only sweetened the pot.

Linda made it clear to her teammates, in no uncertain terms, that losing was not an option.

And so Linda had strongarmed her way into a school sponsored bus trip to Central City, with her smart Ralph Lauren blazer and a bag full of letters. If her calls were going to keep dropping, and her mail returned unopened, she would just have to deliver the letters herself.

Her mom had complained about the date, worrying over Linda spending thanksgiving alone. Linda reassured her it was fine—thanksgiving after all was just a capitalist celebration of colonial powers, and with two hundred teenagers stuffed into a conference hotel, there was no way she’d get any time alone.

The first two days were busy, and Linda deftly helped led her team to victory. The final day was meant to be a half-day, with an outing planed to the celebrated Flash museum in the afternoon. Of course, things went over, because they always did at events like this, and the herd of unchaperoned teenagers was only dumped at the Flash museum in the late afternoon, two hours before closing.

Rick Shavers was from an opposing team, but he’d impressed Linda during the debates, so she let him stick by her side as she made her way through the museum. He was cute, and wicked smart, though he seemed a little too aware of his own intelligence. Linda imagined she could maybe grow to like him, in another life. Right now, surrounded by the familiar lightning bolt, that imaginary Linda seemed very far away.

Linda stalked through the museum, chomping on anti-nasua meds, looking for a museum director. Rick trailed behind her, pointing at things and spouting flash facts. There had to be a director—someone with a direct line to the Flash. She was in the middle of the Rogues exhibit, eyes peeled for a service door or office, when she spotted it. It was a tiny splotch, barely bigger than her hand, floating in the air above the Captain Cold model. As she watched, mouth dry, it started to expand. It was a foot, and then a meter, swallowing up the Captain’s head and starting to make its way into Golden Glider.

“Um, Linda?” asked Rick.

Linda whirled. He was pointing at another splotch, this one the size of a small car, making short work of Gorilla Grodd.

“What’s happening?” cried Rick.

“It’s the negative zones,” said Linda. She felt eerily calm, the quiet before the storm. “We need to get everyone out of here right now.”

Now that she knew what to look for, she saw them everywhere. Most of the splotches were small, tiny empty spaces, but all were growing. She could see them—and she could feel them, hear them—a pernicious whisper vibrating under her skin.

Screams were starting, echoing through the galleries of the museum.

In her earlier patrol of the museum, Linda had made note of several emergency exits. She headed for the nearest now, waving to a nearby group of kids to join them.

“Run,” said Linda. “Run!” Linda took off, Rick panting behind her.

She was almost at the door, when she spotted it. Linda skidded to a stop, hearing the crowd behind her awkwardly stop, as they all took it in. There was another negative zone before the door, and it was massive, stretching from the tall ceiling to the glossy concrete floor. It was white, empty, horrific whiteness.

Linda took a quick breath. It was fine. There were more doors.

“This way!” she shouted, leading the way.

But the second door had a splotch, and so did the third. Sweat was dripping from her brow, her breath coming ragged and rough as Linda pulled up short in front of the main doors. It was all negative and it was growing.

Behind her someone was sobbing. Someone else was screaming.

They huddled in the main atrium, watching as the negative ate and ate and ate. The other kids kept looking to Linda, like she would have answers.

Linda looked around desperately. They needed to make an exit somehow--but museums didn’t tend to keep large destructive objects on display, not if they wanted to preserve their collection.

They needed a hero, but everyone knew Superman and Green Lantern were off planet, investigating possible alien interference, and the Flashes were on the other side of the world, running intelligence gathering patrols for the JLA. Linda had seen Wally on the TV that morning, standing by the Flash’s side and drooping a bit with exhaustion, as the Flash gave an interview to a local reporter in Japan.

Could they even get here in time?

Linda’s head was pounding. She wanted Wally. She needed him.

Linda tightened her hand into fists and squared her shoulders. Well then. She would just have to bring him here.

Linda had suspected, from the very first lighting strike in her meadow, all those months ago, that it wasn’t a simple matter of luck. The second strike only confirmed it. By the third, she had known with a certainty that the bond between Wally and herself was a living, essential thing. The lighting brought them together when they needed each other—to save them from a stray exploding boomerang, to offer comfort and friendship to a long lonely day, to bring them back to themselves. The lighting strike carried Wally to her side when she needed him most. She just needed to convince the lighting that this was one of those times.

Linda took a step forward and then another. She was certain she was right. Still. This was a hell of a way to test her theory.

Behind her Rick shouted, but Linda kept her focus on the splotch. She had to keep moving. She walked and then ran, sprinting, straight at the splotch. All she could see was the white.

The CRAAAKK, BOOOOOM tore through her.

“Linda!!” Kid Flash tackled her.

Linda gasped, a sob wracking through her throat. Wally was crackling with electricity, and he was here, here, here. She grabbed him and let herself have a second to just hold him, before she forced herself to let go.

“We have to get everyone out of here, right now,” she said.

He was a blur at her side, as he took in the situation in an instant.

“Got it,” he said.

Linda was abruptly outside, blinking in the dust. “I didn’t mean start with me!”

Rick appeared next. He immediately vomited onto the pavement.

Linda watched as the courtyard outside the Flash Museum filled in fits and starts, as Wally dashed back and forth, vibrating through the walls, carrying people out.

The splotches were still visible though, and they were only growing. She needed to get everyone further away, to evacuate the site and call the JLA.

 “C’mon!” Linda shouted, at the dazed crowd. “We have to keep running!” She forced her shaking knees to move.

Rick, the poor guy, wiped the vomit from his mouth and started to run.

“Linda, you’re incredible,” he gasped.

Wally zipped to her side.

He looked at Rick. “You call that running?” Wally asked icily.

“Play nice,” panted Linda.

She scanned Wally up and down, searching for injuries. He didn’t seem to be hurt, just tired, like he’d looked on tv.

She almost tripped when she spotted it.

Linda stopped and stared. She was going to be sick.

“Linda? Er, random citizen?” asked Wally.

Linda could only point, down at the white spot that was slowly consuming Wally’s left foot.

“Shit!” gasped Wally.

It was spreading, growing, rapid and quick, like all the other splotches in the museum. It was up his ankle now, reaching for his leg. Wally collapsed, his leg no longer capable of supporting his weight.

“You have to run,” he said.

Rick took Wally’s words as a direct instruction. Adrenaline hit and he was gone, racing in the other direction. The other kids streamed out around them, giving Linda and Wally a wide berth. Someone was still screaming.

“Linda,” said Wally. The splotch was starting to pool out around him, creeping up his left leg, and his right.

“No,” snapped Linda. There were tears in her eyes, but she angrily blinked them away. “This is my fault.”

“What? No, it’s mine, my foot must have brushed it during that last trip back inside.”

“I’m the one who brought you here in the first place!”

The white splotch was up to his chest now, and Wally looked up at her, terror alight on his face.

“Linda you have to get away, call Barry.”

“No,” Linda shook her head. “I’m not leaving you.”

She was no hero. But he was her best friend.

She rushed forward, diving towards him. Hand found hand.

The splotch opened up

                           and Linda and Wally

                              tumbled

                                   down 

                               down 

                                           down 

                                                    into the

                                              emptiness

                                                                              together.

Chapter Text

There was nothing.

Wally’s senses felt dull, empty. His ears were ringing, but it a distant sound, a noise echoing from far away. His limb hung awkward and unsure. His mouth was full of cotton, his tongue thick and useless.

Everything was blank.

He was Kid Flash. He was a Teen Titan. He was a hero. He was—

He was alone. He was nothing.

It was going to consume him. Erase him from existence. Who needed Wally West? He was just a kid, useless, lazy, slow. His parents didn’t want him; Barry didn’t need him.

He was alone. He was—

Something squeezed his hand.

Wally forced his eyes open.

There was someone with him, here in this endless white.

She looked about his age. Her eyes were half-closed; her face twisted in pain. Her grip tightened. There was no sound in this place, but she was still speaking, saying something again and again. It almost looked like his name.

She was calling for him. She was holding on to him.

She believed in him.

The thought hit him like a lighting strike.

Linda.

This was Linda.

Wally reached for her other hand, creating a closed circuit. He could feel it now, the energy running through him, running through them both. He could feel it—and then suddenly, he could see it, a crackling line of lighting flowing between them. The energy felt warm, and real. It was his speed, and so much more. It was here, because they were both here, in this awful place beyond all time and space.

It was here, because she believed in him.

Wally held Linda close and reached for it, this force that stretched so far beyond him.

He was getting them both through this storm.

KRAK-A-BOOM

Wally ran.

He didn’t have a direction in mind, but Linda was in his arms, and he could feel her heartbeat thudding a steady beat against his chest. That was enough of a compass for now. Somewhere safe, that was all he needed. The rest could come later.

The world blended and blurred around them, as Wally tore through the whiteness, carrying them into a steam of pure light.

“Wally! Wally!”

Wally groaned. Every part of him ached. His body was slumped on the ground, his face pressed into something soft and damp. It smelled like wet earth and rain.

Wally blinked. Linda knelt before him, one hand gripping his shoulder and shaking it gently. Beyond her, the sky was a dark, stormy grey. The city skyline that stretched beneath the clouds looked almost familiar.

“Wally you have to get up,” Linda sounded worried. 

“Where are we?” asked Wally. He lifted a hand to prop himself up and stopped. It was his hand—but it was dotted with white spots. Wally’s mouth fell open, as he stared at Linda, through the hole in his hand. As he watched, it slowly began to close, leaving a bleached white stain on his Kid Flash uniform.

“What’s happening?” said Wally, speeding to his feet.

“I don’t know,” said Linda. She had splotches of her own, on her hands, her chest, her face. They were all slowly fading, but not fast enough. Wally wondered, for a fleeting half-second, whether Linda would notice if he vomited really really quick.

“Why did you bring us to a graveyard?” asked Linda. Her hands were trembling, but her voice was steady.

Wally shook his head, slowly turning to take in their surroundings. It was a large graveyard, and it stretched out all around them. “I just thought about bringing us somewhere safe,” he admitted.

Linda peered down to study one of the graves.

“Wally.” she said suddenly. “I think we might be in—”

But Wally’s eyes had already fixed on a familiar scarlet blur, tearing through the graves. He'd never been so happy to see the Flash. In one quick motion, Wally scooped up Linda and raced forward.

“—Keystone City,” finished Linda, as Wally skidded to a stop before a kneeling figure in scarlet and gold.

“Flash!” cried Wally. “It’s me and Lin—”

Wally’s voice faltered as the man stood and turned.

He wore the Flash suit, but this wasn’t Barry.

Feral, savage grief was etched into every inch of the man’s face, his broad, bent shoulders. He looked inches from clawing the world apart.

Wally could feel it, as the stranger’s shifted his gaze from him to Linda. Wally raised a useless arm, trying to protect her. If an adult speedster wanted to hurt Linda, he would have to go through Wally first.

But the stranger in Barry’s suit just stared at Linda. For one long moment, that’s all he did, stare at her with his horrid blue eyes. Then he opened his mouth and unleashed a torrent of noise.

“NONONONOSHE’SDEADSHE’SDEADSHE’SDEADNONONONONO—”

The stranger ran, the wail trailing behind him, echoing in his wake.

Far above them, the sky boomed and shook, like the sky too wanted to cry out its pain.

Linda stumbled forward and stopped, looking down at the stranger’s grave.

“Wally?” she said, voice trembling.

But Wally couldn’t move. He’d seen it too—the words etched in the stone. He couldn’t seem to get air to enter his lungs.

LINDA KIYO PARK

BORN 19—

DIED 19—

Wally tore his eyes away.

“That’s me. That’s my name, and my birthday. But I’m here—I’m alive.” Linda shook her head. “I’m alive.” Her voice had never sounded so small.

“We have to go, right now,” said Wally.

“Wally—”

“Now.”

The heavens started to weep, rain pouring down in a sudden rush.

The raindrops caught on Linda’s face, trailing down her cheeks like tears.

Wally didn’t care if this place, this reality, was safe. They couldn’t stay here. He would find them somewhere else.

Linda reached for him, and Wally lifted her into his arms. He relished the familiar electric zing as he held her close. She was here; she was alive. That gravestone was  for another Linda Park. That’s all it was. Another Linda, in a completely different, utterly divergent reality.

“Run,” said Linda.

Wally ran.

The light bent around them, and he gave himself over to the lighting.

When Wally opened his eyes, all he could see was grey. It wasn’t the stormy, shifting grey of the sky over the graves. This was a cold, clinical grey, of concrete and metal.

He turned away from the wall.

“We’re in an apartment,” said Linda, before he could open his mouth. “In Chicago.”

She pointed out a massive window, which stretched from the floor all the way up to the ceiling. Far below them, the city spread out, a million lights cutting through the night. Wally stepped closer, shivering a bit with the height. This was an impossible view; the kind of view Batman or Oliver Queen would throw around. His little house in Blue Valley had never felt so far away.

They seemed to be in some kind of hallway. There was no identifying marks on the walls, no posters or scuff marks. Wally winced, looking down at the muddy footprints he had already left on the pristine marble floors.

Linda took his hand, and they started forward together cautiously.

The apartment felt impossibly large. They crept down one hallway, and then the next. The only door they passed led to some kind of bathroom. It was utterly pristine, like something in a hotel, with carefully pressed towels, and an empty cupboard, offering no hint to the kind of person its owner might be.

Wally and Linda each stole a towel and attempted to dry their rain splattered clothes. They carried on, towels draped around their shoulders.

Wally shivered. The temperature in the apartment wasn’t all that cold, but it felt icy all the same, as they passed through yet another empty room. The entire place was like some kind of museum, a showroom of what a fancy apartment could be.

Wally was starting to think this really was a showroom, that his attempt to bring them somewhere safe had landed them in one of those fake houses, when he spotted it.

After the long stretch of empty walls, the photo in its simple black frame seemed like a sudden scream amongst the silence. Wally hurried forward, Linda at his side.

It wasn’t a photo.

The frame contained a cutting from a newspaper. It was the headline in Picture News. In thick, black font, it stated WALLY WEST, THE FLASH, KILLED IN ACTION. The headline was accompanied by an image of a Flash suit, lying empty on the ground.

Most of the actual article was cut off, but he could make out the author. LINDA PARK, CENTRAL CITY CORRESPONDENT, ran the byline.

He’d died, and they had made Linda report on it.

Beside him, Linda shook her head wildly. “No,” she snapped, as if her refusal was enough to rewrite this story. “No.”

Wally’s ears were ringing. He couldn’t stop looking at it.

“Red,” she was tugging on his hand now, desperately trying to pull him away. Wally couldn’t move. He felt fixed in place, staring at the words. THE FLASH. KILLED IN ACTION. WALLY WEST. “It’s not real. You’re here, you’re alive.”

Wally looked from the headline to the by-line and back again. KILLED IN ACTION. THE FLASH. The Flash was dead? The Flash couldn’t die. He couldn’t die.

“Wally,” Linda snapped. He was stuck, but she was strong and she was insistent. She yanked at his hand until it ached, until the hurt tore through the fog clouding his head.

Wally stumbled to the side, blinking away tears.

“C’mon,” said Linda, pulling him forward. She didn’t seem to care where they were going, so long as it pulled them away from that awful text. Linda rushed onward, and Wally stumbled behind, their attempts at stealth long abandoned.

They turned the corner and stopped.

There was a woman sitting at a table in the center of the room. She was Korean, with threads of grey running through her black hair, which was twisted back in a stiff bun. She wore round glasses, and an expensive suit. There was a glass of wine next to her, and a pile of files and papers spread out around her, along with something that might have been a computer, though it was fancier then anything Wally had ever seen before. Despite the late hour, the woman looked utterly intent on her work.

For a long moment, Wally was half convinced she hadn’t heard them, that the woman hadn't noticed the sudden intrusion of two teens in her empty house.

The woman looked up and blinked.

Linda gasped. Future-Linda stared blankly at them both.

“No,” she said. Her voice sounded clinical, flat. “No.”

She stood, picked up her wine glass, and walked away.

“Wally, we need to go,” said Linda, voice cracking.

Wally looked to Linda. She stared down the dark hallway, her eyes glistening, as she watched the other-Linda, the Linda that lived in this cold, empty apartment, walk away. The other-Linda who wrote the article telling the world of other-Wally’s death.

Linda turned to Wally and set her chin.

Wally nodded and wordlessly scooped her up.

It was time to run.

When Linda opened her eyes again, they were in an alley. It smelled like piss and cigarettes, but it felt worlds away from the feral grief and the sterile cold. Linda breathed it all in and tried not to cry.

“I don’t care if it’s safer, we can’t go back there,” said Wally.

“Obviously,” said Linda, digging her fingers into Wally’s flash-uniform. “FLASH KILLED IN ACTION,” screamed the headline, hanging on that empty wall, in that empty apartment. Linda leaned forward, letting her vision fill with the familiar, warm yellow.

A dull creak made them both jump. In an instant Wally was in front of her, his exhausted muscles tensed. The door at the other end of the alley swung open, and a man stepped out, a cigarette already perched between his lips. In the dull light of the bare bulb above the door, Linda could make out basic details. He looked to be in his 30s, his long reddish blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail. He had hearing aids in his ears, and his t-shirt said “Central City Jazz Fest” in curly script. He didn’t seem to be armed, though there was something that looked like a flute slung in a harness at his hip. Linda eyed it suspiciously.

Wally twitched, boot scraping against the rough concrete. To Linda, standing at his side, the noise was almost inaudible. The man at the end of the alley reacted like Wally had set off a gun. His head whipped up, his attention snapping to them. Linda tensed. This was just what they needed. But the man only gaped, the cigarette tumbling from his lips.

“Holy shit,” he said.

The man stumbled forward. Wally pushed Linda back.

“Wally West?” the man breathed.

“Stay back,” said Wally.

“The Kid Flash uniform and everything.” He shook his head in astonished disbelief.
“You’ve got to what, fourteen, fifteen?”

“Who are you?” demanded Linda. “How do you know Wally?”

The man’s eyes found Linda, and his eyebrows raised even higher. “Oh my god. Little Linda. Now I really don’t understand why you didn’t want to share your yearbook pictures, little you is adorable.”

He took another step forward.

“Don’t come any closer,” warned Wally, raising his fists. Linda and Wally both knew that Wally was utterly exhausted, but this stranger didn’t.

The man stopped. “I won’t hurt you, I promise. My name is Hartley Rathaway. I’m friends with you—or at least—older you.” Hartley studied them. “Judging by the colour of your costume, we’ve probably already met.”

Wally shook his head. “I don’t know any Hartleys.”

Hartley smiled. “I’d have been wearing a bit more green, and there would have been some polka dots.”

Wally gasped. “Pied Piper? But you’re a rogue!”

Hartley shrugged. “Reformed rogue. Or well, mostly reformed. Someone needs to keep the capitalist pigs in line. And Len runs a good poker night.”

“We’re really friends in the future?” asked Wally, incredulously.  

“You’re my best friend,” said Hartley. “I know that your name is Wallace Rudloph West, that you hate baseball, and that you have an imaginary friend named Krakkl—and actually, funny story, he’s a little less imaginary then you think.”

Wally slowly lowered his fists.

“You hate baseball?” hissed Linda. “What’s wrong with baseball?”

“It’s boring!”

Hartley started to dig for something in his jacket.

Linda snapped her attention back to him. “Hands were we can see them!” she shouted. Wally might be convinced, but she still didn’t trust this guy. It all seemed a little too convenient.  

“It’s okay!” said Hartley, raising his arms, a worn wallet in one hand. “I was just getting my wallet. If I know you, Linda Kiyo Park, you’ll need some tangible proof to buy my story.”

Linda wrinkled her nose at his use of her full name. He did seem to know an awful lot about them.

Hartley slowly extracted a photo from his wallet and held it out to them. Wally zipped forward and grabbed it. He was back beside Linda in an instant. Together they studied the picture.

It seemed to be a candid shot, the subjects jostled together, limbs loose and happy. The woman at the center of the frame wore a white wedding dress, her glossy black hair adorned with flowers and a veil. She was staring at the camera, a dancing smile on her red lips, arms flung over the men at her side. The man on her left wore a tan suit, his red hair tousled and wild. His attention was fully fixed on the bride, a lovestruck expression on his face. The man on her right was unquestionably Hartley, in a black tux and a green polka dot tie, a raised glass of champagne in one hand, his mouth open wide in the midst of some kind of speech.

“You’re pal Donna took that at your wedding, a couple of weeks ago. Well, technically you’re second wedding, the one where you actually got to finish the ceremony.”

“We get married?” breathed Wally, staring down at the photo. A bright blush bloomed over his pale cheeks and ears. “Wow.”

Linda looked from Wally to the photo and back again. It was strange, to see this glimpse of a supposed future. This future-Linda, this bride-Linda, looked so incandescently happy. The Wally at bride-Linda’s side was taller and broader, a big goofy smile on his face. She had never seen someone look so adoringly at another person. It was so clear that this future-Wally loved this future-Linda with the kind of love that blazed and burned and rewrote all rules of time and space. This was the face of a man who would cross heaven and earth to be by this woman’s side.

Something in Linda’s chest ached.

“Well, that Linda and Wally get married,” Linda said, because it was important to be rational about these things. “We don’t know if this is just another reality.”

Linda steadfastly ignored the disappointment that filled her at the thought.

Wally frowned, eyes still fixed on the wedding photo. “Yeah,” he said quietly.

“So do you trust me?” said Hartley. “Because no offense, but you kids look like you’re about to keel over. My apartment is just upstairs, and I’ve got a pullout couch.”

Hartley opened the door. He looked back at them both expectantly.

“If things start to look hinky, you know you can out-run me.”

Linda noticed that he made no mention of the flute-thing hanging at his side. If this really was the Pied Piper, he was used to dealing with speedsters.

Linda turned to Wally. He looked half-dead on his feet, sagging just slightly into her side. He’d spent days running global patrols, then unleashed some kind of electric energy and hurdled them both through three different realities. He needed rest, food, sleep. If she was being honest, she desperately needed a breather herself. This Future-Linda and Future-Wally had seemed so happy with Hartley at their side. She would just have to have a little faith in that future.

“Okay,” said Linda. She grabbed Wally’s hand, holding it tight in her own. “We’ll come, but no funny business.”

Hartley led them into a room that looked like a musical mad scientist’s laboratory. Every surface was covered in wires, electric amplifiers and brass instruments. A soldering iron and a heap of bits and bobs covered a worn worksurface, beside a familiar scarlet mask, its golden ear-piece wings pulled apart.  

“What are you doing with Barry’s mask?” asked Wally.

Hartley stopped abruptly.  

“Barry’s mask,” he repeated.  

“Yeah,” said Wally, poking at the mask. “Are you also friends with Barry?”

Hartley suddenly seemed to be at a complete loss for words. “Sure,” he said finally, his voice tight. “You could say that. I’m just making some adjustments to this back up suit to help him tune into the police scanners better.”

Wally brightened. “Oh cool, can you do that to mine too? It’d be awesome to get the radio for my runs.”

Hartley headed for the staircase, turning his back to them both. “Sure, Wally. I’ll see what I can do.”

With a final look at the Flash mask, Wally and Linda trailed after him. There was something fishy about the entire interaction, Linda just knew it. Maybe Hartley and Barry weren’t actually friends. Hartley seemed almost sad.

“Barry?” asked Linda, bumping her shoulder against Wally’s.

“Oh yeah,” Wally’s cheeks flushed again. “The Flash. He’s my uncle—or like—he will be my uncle soon—Barry Allen. He’s dating my aunt Iris. He works as a police scientist in Central City.” Even in his exhausted state, Wally was more than excited to tell her about the Flash.  

Linda couldn’t help but notice the way Hartley’s shoulders tensed, as Wally continued to talk about Barry.

When they reached the top of the stairs, Hartley clapped his hands together loudly, cutting off Wally’s story of the time college-age Barry used oxidation and science to apprehend bank robbers.

“Right,” said Hartley, a bit louder than necessary. “You’re in luck little Linda and little Wally. My Wally and Linda are off somewhere with the JLA right now, so the local speedster hasn’t had a chance to gobble up all my snacks. I’ll go fix us something. The pullout is made if you want to get it set up.”

Hartley’s apartment was small, but cozy. The stairs led straight into an open living room, with a couch and tv, a record player and speaker system, and a dining table with mismatched chairs. The kitchen was half-hidden by a wall, but Linda could still see Hartley, as he bustled around opening cupboards and setting water on to boil. There were only two doors off the main living space, and they seemed to lead to tiny bathroom and a bedroom. Like the workshop downstairs, Hartley’s living space boasted its own collection of musical instruments and random bits of technology. Linda was pretty sure the contraption on the coffee table was a hurdy-gurdy, but she’d never seen one in person before, let alone heard it. The walls were covered in a series of posters for socialist and musical events.

Linda and Wally set up the pullout couch together, piling up the cushion to one side, and pulling out the creaking gears to reveal the clean sheets. Linda was desperate to collapse. She was pretty sure no bed had ever looked so promising as this springy old mattress.

“We should probably change our clothes first,” she said, looking sadly down at her debate uniform. It had started its life as a clean, smartly pressed tartan skirt and suit jacket. It was looking decidedly less clean and smart now, smeared with grave dirt, rain and sweat, and bleached out in places where the splotches had leached all the colour from its surface. Even after they had escaped its grasp, the splotches still left behind an awful mark.

Wally nodded miserably. If anything, his Kid Flash uniform looked even worse for wear, dirty and torn in places, and flecked with its own bleach splotches. Linda’s jaw tightened. She loathed the sight of that empty whiteness, the way it ate away at Wally’s bright colours.

“Here kids,” said Hartley, suddenly appearing at their side, his arms full of clothes. “I figured you’d need these. There’s extra towels in the bathroom.”

He handed a stack to Wally, and Wally immediately zipped off.

Hartley offered Linda her own set of clothing, and she took it cautiously.

“I figured you’d appreciate this,” he said. “More material proof that I’m telling the truth. This shirt is actually yours. I borrowed it last week, when Wally spilled wine on me during game night.”

Linda slowly unfurled the shirt. It was large, and soft with wear, and the crossed hockey sticks of the Keystone City Combines logo covered the front. Linda’s eye caught on the tag, and the name scrawled there. ‘Linda Park’ declared handwriting that wasn’t quite her own. It was eerie, like the Future-Linda in the wedding photo had been eerie—a sudden glimpse of who and what she might become. Maybe one day her handwriting would be just like this, a little quicker, a little more incomprehensible, flowing and fast.

“Hartley,” Linda said. Her eyes flicked to the closed bathroom door and back again. She thought about the stiff, stilted way Hartley carried himself when Wally asked about Barry. Linda had a sinking suspicion that if she asked, Hartley would tell her. For the first time in her life, she realized she didn’t want to know. Linda fingered the soft material of the Combines shirt.

“Is the future safe?” she said finally. “Is it good here?”

 “Oh sweetheart,” Hartley said softly. “Yes. Wally makes it safe. We all work together to make it safe. The future is good.”

Linda let out a slow breath. “Okay,” she said. “Good.”

A moment later, Wally was back, his hair wet and sticking out at all angles. He’d traded his Kid Flash uniform for over-sized sweatpants rolled up a couple of times, and a ‘Keystone Rocks’ sweater.

“Wow,” said Wally, peering down at the shirt in Linda’s hands. “Future you has even worse handwriting then current you. I didn’t think that was possible.”

“Whatever you say, Mr. Rock Star,” teased Linda, poking at one of the little sparkly guitar embroidered on Wally’s sweater.

Wally pulled a face at her, and Linda laughed. It felt good to laugh, after everything that had happened. Linda grabbed her pile of clothes and headed off to take her turn in the bathroom.

When she emerged, more settled now that her hair was washed and her clothes were clean, Wally and Hartley were carrying plates, and a massive pot of macaroni and cheese to the table.

“I tripled the recipe,” Hartley explained, spooning a big helping on to each of their plates. “Speedster portions.”

Wally seemed to almost take it as a challenge. While Linda and Hartley ate at a normal pace, and Linda told Hartley about the splotches and their multi-verse sprints, Wally plowed through five heaping servings, his fork little more than a blur in his hand.

“The splotches have a sound to them,” added Wally, when Linda finished her story, his fork briefly stilling. “Like this vibration that calls out to you.”

Linda shivered. “I could have sworn I heard it call my name.”

Hartley was watching them both closely. “Could other people hear this sound? Or feel this vibration?”

Linda looked questioningly at Wally, who shrugged. “Barry or Jay never mentioned it and Batman didn’t either—so I don’t think so?”

Hartley hummed thoughtfully. He stood suddenly and gathered up his mostly empty plate. “You kids finish up and head to bed. There’s extra toothbrushes in the bathroom cupboard.”

“Where are you going?” asked Linda.

Hartley smiled. “You’ve just given me an idea.”

Hartley whistled as he headed down the stairs, the sound growing fainter as he disappeared somewhere in his workshop below. Linda was too tired to demand a better answer then that.

Linda let out a jaw cracking yawn. The debate championship felt like years ago. Maybe it was, technically, after all that time-travel and universe jumping. Across the table, Wally was sagging into his seventh bowl of mac and cheese.

“Bed,” announced Linda, forcing them both to their feet. She herded Wally to the bathroom, raided the cupboard, unwrapped new toothbrushes for them both, and nudged Wally until he used it. Linda reasoned that it was her job, as the navigator, to ensure the guy who did all the running actually brushed his teeth.

And when Linda’s eyes kept closing, and struggling to reopen, Wally was there to gently elbow her and push her back on task.

When Linda finished in the bathroom, Wally was sprawled out on his side of the springy old pullout bed, half-asleep already. Linda flipped off the main light, and stopped for a moment, watching his chest slowly rise and fall in the half-dark.

Sleeping in the same bed as a boy was weird. But this was Wally.

After the splotches, and that gravestone with her name on it, and the cold empty apartment and WALLY WEST KILLED IN ACTION there was comfort in knowing he was close. That he was real, and alive, and here with her now, despite everything.

Wally seemed to think the same thing. As soon as Linda settled under the covers, and turned on her side to face him, Wally reached out and took her hand. It was dark now, and hard to make out his expression. But even in the shadows, Linda could see—she could feel—his lighting eyes fixed on her.

“This time isn’t safe, not like the other realities were,” Wally said, “We’ll have to keep moving in the morning.”

Linda bit her lip. Someone had to say it. She opened her mouth and let the monstrous truth fall out.

“The splotches are after us.”

Her words seemed to ring in the dark.

They both knew it. They had run through realities and seen it with their own eyes. The only safe reality was a world where one of them was dead.

Linda drew a quick, haltering breath, dread pooling in her stomach. This wasn’t a school assignment, or a story to crack for the paper. This was a thing of superheroes and giants, monsters and villains. She was just Linda Park, normal girl. What was she doing here? What could she do against these odds?

Wally squeezed her hand.

“Linda—” he said quietly, his soft voice an anchor in the storm. “We’ll fix this. I promise.”

Linda seized on his words, the way he placed careful emphasis on the we. They would fix it.

“Good night, Wally” she whispered.

“Good-night,” he mumbled, voice soft with sleep. 

There would be challenges, and she didn’t know what tomorrow would hold. But at least she knew they would face it together.

With Wally’s steady breath at her side, Linda slowly fell asleep.

The Narrator smiled. She was doing so well. She’d chosen her target, made her mark, and now all she had to do was wait. She would be a star in no time.

The Narrator stared down at the page. “Wally West and Linda Park remained forever out of sync,” said the book, in her lovely looping handwriting. She’d gotten good grades once, for her penmanship. She was proud of that. It was important for authors to know how to leave their mark. Everyone knew that.

The Narrator ran a finger slowly over the text.

 “Shit,” the Narrator snapped, as a sudden electric spark zapped her finger. That wasn’t supposed to happen.

The Narrator stuck her aching finger in her mouth and peered closer. Her words, her beautiful words, were sparkling, as if alight with some kind of electric current. The words were twisting, reforming, until it became “Wally West loves Linda Park.”

The Narrator reached for eraser. What the fuck. This wouldn’t do, this wouldn’t do at all.

She erased the words and tried again. “Wally West and Linda Park remained forever out of sync,” The Narrator wrote, in what was quite possibly, even better penmanship. She believed it was important to constantly try to outdo oneself. For self-improvement and all that.

The words started to crackle and hum, glowing with electric light.

The Narrator swore and grabbed her eraser.