Echoes
The Flash had made a mistake, and a woman was dead. A woman who looked so similar to Wally West's mother that it had thrown him, slowed him down, and he hadn't been fast enough.
He heard the shot, watched the light blue blouse bloom with murky red, saw the expression of surprise before the slender frame crumpled. She was dead, and he hadn't saved her.
And now he was curled up, back against the closet door in his apartment. He'd dragged off the cowl, the symbol of his powers too hot and heavy, and sat with one arm wrapped tightly around his chest, the other hand clenching helplessly in his hair. He was barely aware of the blood that covered his hands and costume.
Wally had enough to focus on the present, but the past was dragging him back, relentlessly. It was instinct to take the same hiding place, the same protective position, the same guilt and failure and pain, as when he was a child.
In his head, Wally was nine-years-old again, watching his father, a big man with exhausted and furious eyes, yell and scream, shaking and punching the tiny redheaded child, blaming the boy for everything. Wally didn't know why his father was so angry, he tried to be good and quiet and not bother his dad, but he accepted every cutting word and bruising blow as his due. He must have done something to make Dad hate him. And normally, Mommy stayed out of it. They both knew it was beter to let the man's rage run its course.
But this time, Dad was so loud, so mad, and Mommy's eyes were wide and scared. She was running forward, stepping in front of the cowering child, putting herself between her husband and his target. And there was a gun in Dad's big hands and Wally tried, but he was too slow. There was a sound, ugly and ripping everything, before crimson started soaking through Mom's shirt. She looked confused, unsure, and then she was falling.
Wally didn't remember reaching for her, running to her, hugging her as the body chilled. He didn't remember crying silently while his father raged through the house, breaking things, before leaving for the closest bar. He didn't remember the man coming back, stumbling around, or the cops breaking down the door, taking the gun, dragging Dad away. He didn't remember the policeman who put him in a car and drove him to the nearest orphanage, or the woman who helped him clean his hands and face, change his clothes into something that wasn't covered in drying, flaking red. He didn't remember anything, up until the moment that he found a closet and collapsed inside, one arm held close, the other in his hair, yanking and trying to feel any kind of pain besides the hole in his chest that said Mommy was gone and it was all his fault.
She should be alive, he should be dead.
And now, here he was again, a lifetime later. Everything was different, and everything was exactly the same.
Even when he was the fastest man alive, Wally still wasn't fast enough.
