Author's Notes: I'm baaack and I am crying and planning to assault CN headquarters with torches and pitchforks. I'm not over it, won't ever be over it and I feel like curling into a ball and sobbing. Happy times.
Summary:That was the odd thing about death, Wally was no longer here, he was the one that was gone, but was he really the victim? Barry was left to suffer, to carry the guilt, to feel as if he was the one who was dying.
Disclaimer: I wished I owned some tissues right now.
Breaking Falls
The funeral was a tricky thing, how do you begin to explain this sort of situation? How do you explain a death that even they had yet to comprehend? There would be a small article in the newspaper about how a promising young college student died from a car crash and that there was no remains left to be salvaged. A few lines about how he was survived by his parents, his Aunt and Uncle, the older couple that were like family, his girlfriend of five years and his dog. There wouldn't be any mention of the long nights he spent on his homework, how he was a favorite to graduate as the valedictorian of his class (or that his girlfriend would have been the Salutatorian). His professors all knew the kid with the red hair and the quick wit, no there would not be any mention of that. Or how proud his parents were of their son when he told them that he was going to be a hero, that he would be able to save people (and their cats). The relief they felt when they saw their son that one night when adults and children were separated, or the similar relief they felt when he told them that he was going to hang up his metaphorical cape and go into early retirement. Even though they could still say that their child was a hero, they took solace in the fact that they could say that their son was safe, and that mattered most of all.
No one would know about his teammates and closest friends, no one would know the sense of loss that they would feel for the days, months, and most likely years to follow. The close friend who resided in Gotham that would close himself off from the world in the month coming, while secretly trying to find a way to save his best friend, refusing to believe that he was actually gone. How could someone be gone so fast? Death was a factor that everyone in their business had to come accustomed to, but normally they had solid proof that the flicker of life had been snuffed out. This time, there wasn't any other than the fact that he was no longer here.
The world would never miss Kid Flash, the world would never know what happened to the side kick of the Scarlet Speedster. The story passed around was that it was to keep Wally's identity a secret from the world, but still there was a part in the original five that wanted to let the world know what they had loss, what the entire world had loss. But that would be a muted cry. The world had come to believe that Kid Flash had quit the hero business and would find a month later that he had come back or at least, the mantle had been taken up by another speedster. No one would know that the first Kid Flash was no longer running. A nation wouldn't miss Kid Flash, but those who would were the only ones that mattered.
There would be two funerals held, one for Wallace Rudolph West and another for Kid Flash. The press would have had a field day about how Gotham's own Bruce Wayne and his ward, Richard Grayson attended this particular service or how Star City's Oliver Queen came as well. But they were evaded and the service was quiet. For many who attended and knew both sides of Wally, this would be the most important funeral for them to attend. A costume was only that, a costume. It was the person inside, the one who carried the title, Wally West was the real hero, the hero they all believed in and still believed in. But even as it were, that was not the service where they could talk about the person he truly was, that was saved for the second service, the one for Kid Flash.
Behind a podium stood the Scarlet Speedster, the lightning bolt insignia prominent against his chest. Before him, seated in the rows of pews was every member of the League and members of the Team, both past and present. In the seats closest to him were the other members of the "Flash family", Bart and Jay/. Nightwing and Artemis sat on the same pew, the rest nearby. He looked over the clone that he had long ago come to accept part of the Kent family, so much different than the boy Wally had brought home all those years ago, the Martian who despite all that was going on around her seemed more at peace with herself sitting beside the young Super, the Atlantean leader who had saved the Earth probably more times than he would ever know, the acrobat Superman had watched grow from the grinning nine year old to the solemn masked hero that sat before him, the red haired archer that had only recently found his place in this world, and the blonde archer that he feared would always feel the pain of this moment. They had all come so far in the past five years, but they had lost so much as well.
He stood before them because even though there was a weight in his chest that refused to leave, he owed it to Kid to be the one delivering this speech, "I don't think that I need to tell everyone here that, everyone here has a secret to their great strength, for the Green Lanterns we know that it is their rings that give them the ability to form anything out of nothing, for Martian Manhunter it's the powers that he was born with, for Superman it's the yellow sun of the Earth. For Kid Flash, someone can tell you that he became the hero that we all know today because he made his parent's basement explode by creating the same experiment that gave Flash his powers, but we all know better than that."
"There are days, that even if we do our best to prevent it from happening, we have met people on the worst days of their lives, they've just lost a family member, somebody they loved. A piece of their heart is gone and will never be replaced. The phrase that we have come familiar with in these situations is, "I'm sorry for your loss", but as we know now, it doesn't offer much. When Wally first became Kid Flash, he was only a kid, far too young to know how life can end so suddenly. But I believe that because of the symbol he proudly wore, that he learned how precious life is and so he lived his life to the fullest, each day as if it was his last.
All the traits that defined Kid, his tenaciousness, his deep sense of loyalty…his courage to risk his life for what he knew was right, all those traits were with him on his last day." Barry paused, his eyes starting to sting beneath the scarlet cowl, the weight becoming even heavier, "I know before his last day, Wally was together with the members of his team, his friends…his family." his voice breaking, "And Wally, he was..he was." the weight in his chest choking him off, "I'm going to miss him so much."
He heard the familiar hitched breathe of the girl Kid had come to love, the soft murmurings from Nightwing as he attempted to comfort her as best he could. Flash bowed his head, keeping one hand flat against the podium, the other covering his eyes. He barely noticed the additional hand on his shoulder.
"It's okay Barry." the wizened voice of Jay whispered, "You did great, Wally would be proud."
The past tense might of hurt the most, that Kid would be proud, that Wally wasn't around anymore so they had to go off on their own belief that they were doing him proud. It was a small comfort, but like all small comforts, they would never mask the pain completely.
That was the odd thing about death, Wally was no longer here, he was the one that was gone, but was he really the victim? Barry was left to suffer, to carry the guilt, to feel as if he was the one who was dying, and he wasn't alone. But maybe that was another small comfort, that he wasn't alone, but how much peace could that possibly bring him.
Final Thought: I'm sad, screw grammatical and spelling errors! You know, just because I've killed Wally my fair share of times doesn't mean I wanted it to actually happen. I don't wanna continue this by the way, I might...but too sad right now. The speech, due to me not being clever was "borrowed" from CSI.
Until the next time this is a very very very sad Fallen saying, stay classy readers.