Prologue

"I packed snacks," Wally said, patting the duffel bag hanging from his shoulder.

Superman, wielding the hyperspace harness onto the Javelin with heatvision, paused long enough for Wally to toss him a plastic take-out container. He hovered down to sit atop the Javelin's hull. Opened the Styrofoam box.

"I made some of the Kryptonian crepes you're ga-ga for," Wally said. "Wondy, candy for your sweet tooth. John, fajitas. Shayera, those little microwave hot dogs. J'onn, Chocos. Bats, I didn't know what you like… or if you like anything… so I bought some of those bodybuilder protein shakes. No protein jokes, I swear this time. Everything else is for me. Not stealing, although I'm open for trades."

Batman, who had been checking off items on the Javelin's power-up sequence, stalked over to Wally. "There are rations in the storeroom."

"'Rations'," Wally repeated in a time-honed imitation of Batman's customary growl. "This is a car trip. We need snacks. Not like we can stop for fast food, dude."

Batman pulled open the bag to check the innards. "Welsh's juiceboxes."

"They taste good," Wally said defensively.

Batman snorted. "You have sophisticated tastes."

He went back to powering up the Javelin.

"Who spat in his protein shake?" Wally wanted to know.

Epilogue

Wally always had been fast. He breezed through the power-up sequence… easy, when you didn't have to worry about preventative maintenance. Wasn't like he was making a return trip. The others registered surprise bordering on shock when he locked them out… all except for J'onn. He was pretty sure J'onn got him. Wally smiled. Momma always said it would take a man from Mars to figure out Wally West.

He concentrated on piloting until he was out of orbit. The computer started plotting the hyperspace vector. Even by Wally's standards, it seemed slow. How hard was it to figure out a collision course. You just point yourself at the really big metal death ball and go.

But now was a good time to do the goodbye thing. That was the part he always hated about making new friends. He could run to anywhere in the world in a few minutes, but if people had moved on, he couldn't bring them back. Not that he'd ever expected to be the one who moved on.

Sitting down in the command chair (damn, Batman left a nice ass-groove), Wally pulled back his mask and pressed the blinking red button.

"Hey guys," he greeted the team. "What's on your mind?"

"Flash…" It was Batman. "West. Get back here. We can think of another way."

"I know I'm not exactly the brains of the team, but I know what a suicide mission looks like. Relax, I know how this works. Press the button, save the world… go boom."

He was glad he didn't have Clark's super-hearing. He really didn't want to hear anything more than their voices on the other end of the communication channel. Even that hurt. He swallowed down the pain, kept his voice as brave as ever even as he wiped tears off his cheeks.

"Wally, listen to me." It was Diana. "Don't do this. There has to be something else."

"I'm open to suggestions," Wally said, unable to keep a pouty sort of gallows humor from his voice. He cleared his throat. "Look, I've done the math here. You guys are the heroes. I'm the screw-up. I got to live pretty fast, now I'm dying young. Beats pulling an Elvis."

He rubbed at his temples. "Look, I know I'm supposed to be the heart of the team, but really… you don't need me. I thought you never did, but apparently you did, so…" He tried to order his thoughts. "I hope you don't anymore. If all of you turn into dickheads, I'm going to be really disappointed. So, I don't know, keep having free elections and not lobotomizing people. That counts as a last request."

"He's really going to do it," Wally could hear Shayera say in the background.

The computer beeped. Course plotted.

"I gotta go now. Uhh…" He rubbed his chin. What else? He would feel really stupid if he forgot something for his famous last words. "My parents are dead, so you don't have to worry about that phone call. Oh! Damn, how could I forget? There's this girl… Linda Park? She's a reporter in Keystone."

"Oh Jesus," John said. Wally nearly choked.

"Things were kinda getting serious. Or they might have. I wanted them to…" This time he did choke. Held a hand over the microphone so they wouldn't hear his sob. He pulled himself back together. "I wrote some poetry… don't laugh… it's on my Watchtower account. So if you could pass them on to her, she might get a kick out of them."

"We will," J'onn said, slowly.

"Wally…" It was Superman. A long pause. "Godspeed."

"Thanks."

Then Batman, sudden and vehement. "West, you have five minutes to get back here! That's an order!"

Wally grinned despite himself. "I think I'll miss you most of all, Scarecrow. I really have to go here. Worlds to save, giant evil thing to blow up. Good luck. You guys remember
not to turn evil. Watch out for each other and all that. Bye."

He shut off the comm channel before he could embarrass himself. Took a deep breath and pressed the button.

The Javelin went to warp.

He'd gotten the mechanics of it down pat, trying to think of a wait to pull it off without sacrificing himself. Three minutes as the Javelin got up to speed, then… it would be quick and painless. And a closed casket funeral, if they even found his body. Wally pulled his mask back on.

Hey. There was his duffel bag! He'd left it behind the science workstation. The Javelin rattled, stars whipping past the windshield, as Wally dug into his bag. It had been a pretty active trade economy during the trip… Wally had even tried some of Clark's Krypton-cakes… but everything was used up and for the past few days it had been back to bland ol' rations. Not much of a last meal.

"A-ha!" Wally cried triumphantly. One last grape juicebox.

He retrieved it, took off a glove to shove the little bendy straw through that impossible porthole thing. Just for symmetry, he took off both gloves. The warp tunnel was elongating, turning all sorts of weird no-good colors. Wally sipped his grape juice and watched. There it was. The skull-speck of his target. It was immortal and the remainder of its lifetime mirrored Wally's. Nothing like going out in style.

Straw slurping, Wally finished his grape juice. Crumpled it and tossed it aside. The skull-speck loomed, a juggernaut, taking up the entirety of his field of vision.

"I got your protein shake right here," Wally quipped. If the thing could hear him, that would totally let it know who was boss.

He collapsed back into his chair. Not the big Captain Picard chair, but his little chair. Even buckled the safety belt for good measure. Hey, you never knew.

The collision alarm sounded. Thanks for the warning.

"Well, at least I had fun," Wally said even-handedly, a second before he died.