Disclaimer: I do not claim any rights to any of the characters or places within this story owned by Warner Bros. and DC Entertainment. This is a just-for-fun work of fanfiction.
The sallow evening sun skulked on the western horizon as a chilly autumn wind blew in from the Atlantic. Somewhere in the countryside, miles to the west, the last tree frogs of summer would be singing as if nothing in the world had changed. Wally reminded himself that he could be there in moments to listen to him, if he liked, but he put the thought aside. There was still work to be done here, even though the initial oil spill had been contained, the booms spread out beyond the shallow breakers and the workers removed from the distressed ship.
Weary to his bones, Wally prayed the oil wouldn't catch fire. He wasn't quite sure he could put it out, if it came to that, without endangering the emergency workers attempting to patch the hole in the ship's hull. He had volunteered to do the job himself, but the local fire chief had reminded him that, at his speed, the chance of stray spark was too high. People were quick to point out his limitations now. Not that he minded it at this particular moment, kneeling on the docks, an empty ache that had nothing to do with exhaustion seeping into his bones. The wind picked up and a shiver went down Wally's spine. He hadn't yet turned to look at the mostly-abandoned city behind him. He still couldn't get used to the silence of Metropolis.
He had been trying to hold out hope for the city for the last two years. It hadn't seemed right to allow Clark's home to fall to pieces, despite the barbed wire, graffiti, and encroaching wildlife. On his way to the harbor today, however, he had paused in front of the Daily Planet and watched as a pack of wild dogs emerged from the broken glass of the main revolving door, and had taken it as a sign. Metropolis, like so many other places around the world, was a memory. At least they were fairly sure that the city was empty of everyone but a skeleton crew. It was fairly easy to leave no man behind when there were so few left to manage. Wally still hadn't plucked up the courage to see what was left of Smallville. The whistling streets of Central City, the mold-eaten classrooms in Irey's middle school, were painful enough to witness all by themselves.
"Mr. West?" The voice sounded old and strained, like the grind of a rusted water pipe about to break. How he hated that sound now.
Still, Wally looked up at the fire chief and forced a pleasant smile on his face. He never allowed himself to grieve in front of civilians. They had grief enough. Running his fingers through his close-cropped red hair, Wally shielded his eyes from the Sun with his other hand. The fire chief was a tall black man approaching what would have been retiring age with a resigned grimness, his face showing the all-too-common blemishes caused by inexperience with a shaving knife. Wally was reminded again at his luck in having Linda to shave him. He'd already given most of his own mirrors away, and didn't want to make things more difficult for his kids by borrowing theirs. So much of what they knew was gone already.
"It's Wally, remember," he gently scolded the chief, who rolled his shoulders uncomfortably beneath his protective suit. His boots and pants were slick with tarry black oil. Wally had long since given up his secret identity. It hardly seemed to matter now, and his family could more than take care of themselves.
"We're done now," the chief continued, nodding towards the patchwork seal on the leaking oil tanker. He paused a moment, a question suspended somewhere in the air between them.
"It's all right, Gabriel," Wally said. "You can ask it."
"Have you seen my wife?" The chief's voice crackled with emotion on the last word, and if Wally didn't now have Gabriel's question memorized he might not have understood him.
Gabriel knew the answer. Everyone who asked him such a question knew the answer, but he never stopped them from asking. When a full sixty percent of the world's population vanished overnight, taking heroes and villains and spouses with them, hope, however slight, might be all that kept those left behind moving forward. The ache in his belly burned so terribly for a moment his teeth hurt, and he thanked whoever might still be listening that his children, his wife, had not vanished as well. He didn't think he would have been strong enough to bear it.
"I have not seen her," Wally replied sincerely, taking Gabriel's hand into his own. Oil seeped into the fabric; it would be ruined. He could not bring himself to care.
Gabriel nodded for a moment and then stared out to sea. Far to the east, a ship bedecked in dazzling lights cast a long pool of silver under the encroaching night. Stars winked on overhead, and the barest hint of the Milky Way blushed into existence. "I'll see you tomorrow, Gabriel," Wally asked, trying to keep the begging out of his voice. Too many people like Gabriel had already walked into the sea.
Gabriel started and spun to face Wally, and his expression twisted into momentary rage before settling into something cold and baleful, much like how Bruce had looked when he had the cowl on. "Don't you think I would do it. Don't you think it of me."
Wally raised his hands, palms upright in supplication. "I would not think it of you."
This seemed to satisfy the chief, and he nodded as his attention returned to the spill. "I will see you tomorrow, then." He rubbed his hands over his arms, and Wally tried to reach for a coat he didn't have. Even now, he was rarely cold. Gabriel saw the gesture but did not react to it. Wally watched him walk towards the end of the dock to a waiting boat, and the darkness swallowed him as the distant vessel plummeted below the horizon.
A hand tapped his shoulder and he jumped, but relaxed when he saw Laura. Laura, a petite redhead with a constellation of freckles blossoming over her cheeks, had been a school nurse in Metropolis when the mass disappearance had happened, and now she was one of the foremost doctors in the Metropolis area. She was one of so many who had stepped into a new role without being asked, had taken up new responsibilities in the wake of their own shattered futures.
Wally found his thoughts traveling to Stephanie's mother, whose new network of hospitals on the East Coast seemed to save lives by the power of her will alone. Stephanie herself seemed content to follow and protect her mother and her precious medicines until more could be made. When he had last seen her, he had asked her whether she had thought of returning to Gotham.
"He - They are gone," she had replied, refusing to reveal anything in her voice as she absently bobbed a child on her knee. "Gotham is dead. Cassandra and I secured Bruce's cave. There's not much else to do, and I refuse to rot in that grave when hope is needed out here." Stephanie had handed the child to one of her gang of college friends, and Wally had moved on.
Gotham seemed to be one of the cities most emptied by the disappearances, and the only balm to the loss of the Wayne family was that they seemed to have taken the Joker and his friends with them. There were plenty of other places needing aid - New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Los Angeles - they were getting themselves back on their feet, and every small village in the world was demanding help and supplies. There was no time to mourn the dead, no time even for the Flash. Stephanie was right; there was nothing left in Gotham to protect. And precious little left of Metropolis, except for the occasional leak caused by neglect and disuse.
The smell of coffee brought him out of his reverie. "I had it made for you," Laura said with a smile, and Wally took it as he rose and dusted himself off. The dark towers of Metropolis were lost in the moonless night, and if Wally used his imagination, he could almost pretend they were no longer there. "Thank you," he said, taking the cup from her and rolling coffee that tasted like ash around his tongue.
"Be sure to stay with them," Wally warned her as he nodded towards the firemen now working under a spotlight.
"I will," Laura replied. "And I have my gun." She moved the jacket she wore over her scrubs to show a .45 tucked into a holster strapped to her side.
Wally gave her one last nod and then rolled his shoulders before taking off into the night. The lightning and thunder of his passing bounced around the buildings and momentarily flooded Metropolis with an unnatural magnesium light, tinged with the gold of a midsummer moon. His wearied mind told him to take the straight road home, but he took a moment to meander across the globe, letting the storm he carried with him be seen around the globe. It made people feel safer, and it reminded those who they feared that the world had not been completely abandoned by its heroes.
He stopped momentarily in Paris to see the Eiffel Tower, still luminous in a stubborn show of French pride. A woman offered him a fluffy crepe at the base of the monument, and he took it with thanks. With so few people using the speed force, he no longer seemed to need food to run. He always took food and drink. For some, charity was all they had left in the world.