Summary: Inspired by the prompt, "I have lived ten, fifty, a hundred lifetimes. But the only ones that mattered are the ones that had you." This features many alternate universes where Wally and Artemis have met and fallen in love, met and never got together, and even barely met at all.

Notes: This was written for the stunning and beautiful delirious-daydreamer for the 2013 Holiday Exchange. She has always been a sweetheart to me and I wanted to give her the best holiday gift I could think of. I tried to cater the AUs to her personal taste, but I will expand from that now that I am posting this separately.

Also, the title comes from Anne Campbell's poem, You are the trip I did not take.


Alternate universe in which Wally and Artemis never get together after their New Year's kiss.

It's ten minutes to midnight and Wally would be lying if he said he hadn't been spending the evening trying to get to exactly where he was at this moment.

"Hey," he starts casually as he slides up beside Artemis, hands shoved in his pockets and his fingers crossed.

She's standing off by herself, leaning against in the wall in all her usual, cool indifference. There's a glass of something dark and suspicious in her hands, something she swirls around absently in the tumbler before swigging it all down in a single gulp and turning her steely eyes to Wally.

"Give it a rest, West. I watched you circling," she informs him, voice hoarse as she winces down her alcohol.

Ears burning madly, he wonders why he thought it was wise to sneak up on a hero in a room full of heroes. Really, every single person in the whole Watchtower probably watched him maneuver his way over to her. He dreads to know what Dick'll have to say about it later and frowns to himself.

She smirks at his reaction and holds out her now-empty glass idly. He wants to refuse to take it, to let her hold it, but his hand works against his thoughts and he finds himself taking it from her politely.

"Can't blame a guy for trying," he shrugs, trying to play off his slight desperation to talk to her with nonchalance.

"Actually, yes, I can," she retorts with a single arched eyebrow. "I'm with Cameron, remember?"

As if he could forget.

"Well, I didn't see him here," Wally responds, making a big show of standing on his tiptoes to look around the Watchtower. Unless Icicle Jr. is hiding out behind Conner's broad shoulders over on the east end, he's not here. And honestly, if he wasn't with Artemis or with Conner, he'd be nowhere in sight.

Artemis sighs, stuck in this moment and in this conversation. She shuffles her boots on the floor, leaving scuff marks that Wally knows Red Tornado will buff out with a strangely sentient beep of exasperation tomorrow morning.

"Somehow I thought that might not be the wisest of decisions," she allows, a one-shouldered shrug that lets her angle her body away from Wally. Even as she pulls away, he can catch a whiff of her drink left over on her bated breath.

"So you admit he can't be trusted."

Wally catches her in the slip up, a tiny crack in her facade and she freezes. Her jaw sets and he can practically hear the click in her mind as she focuses her steel eyes on him, laser-like and precision to kill.

"I still don't know why you're with him," he blurts out, anything to avert her stare.

"He's not all bad," Artemis says, snappish to defend her absent boyfriend.

Wally purses his lips, but doesn't say anything more. He knows that's just her way of saying she's not all good.

He doesn't know why they always end up here. Well, he does know. It's just something they never talk about, a bad subject gone sour after being swept under the rug for so long.

They hold their stares for an indeterminate amount of time and Wally can actually feel his eyes start to water with the need to close themselves away from her. But it's Artemis who looks away before he can even move, her eyes cast down at floor and the fight gone from her shoulders as she slumps back against the wall.

"Look, I'm sorry," Wally grits out through strained teeth, "I didn't come over here to fight."

"But isn't that what we always do?" she shoots back, words tight and precise and exactly like every arrow she always shoots.

"Not always," he reminds her. She has to know what he's referring to. It's been five years to the day and they're standing right here.

"Wally," she strains his name out into broken syllables and he can hear the alcohol in each letter. He knows she remembers as well as he does.

"Since we're here," he continues, frantic to keep her attention like he hasn't been since they were sixteen and idiots. He tightens his grip on her glass, since forgotten in his hand, "Wanna be my New Year's kiss?"

She stares at him, a little tipsy and a little offended that he even suggested such a thing. He had meant for all of this to go down a little smoother, with a little more grace, but he's never been good at holding on to anything around Artemis. He's never been all that good at holding on Artemis, either.

"I'm not going to kiss you at midnight," she swears.

"You did before."

She gives him a look, something twisted with annoyance and frustration and that signature Artemis-glare that, even five years later, only he has ever been able to inspire in her. Her mouth, thick and soft and an imprint he remembers on his own lips, opens and shuts with just enough slack around her jaw to make the bottom of Wally's stomach fall to his knees.

Instead of giving him an answer, she just snaps her teeth together, shiny and hard behind those soft lips, and walks away from him just as the countdown starts.

She disappears into the throng of heroes beside them, lost in Zatanna's arms and Barbara's embrace, and he holds her glass close to his chest.

The numbers dwindle to zero and as everyone cheers for the new year around him, Wally presses her tumbler to his lips, catching the last drops of her drink and the faint traces of her taste on the glass.


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