In hindsight Artemis should have known that something like this was going to happen. This was the whole reason she and Wally had quit the hero business after all. As cheesy as it sound they couldn't live without each other. So they quit. They went to college and got an apartment and a dog together and for a while everything was alright. It's true that Wally would always ask Dick for updates when Artemis wasn't listening, and Artemis found herself daydreaming of their hero days far too often, but they had agreed to stop. Things were working out until Nightwing showed up at their door asking Artemis to go undercover. Wally knew as soon as he saw the sheepish look on his best friend's face that he wasn't going to be happy about this. Dick left to give them a chance to talk it over. That was the first real fight they'd had in a while. Sure, Artemis nagged Wally about keeping up with the dishes, and Wally teased her about her obsession with keeping her grades up, but they never really fought. Eventually Wally did admit defeat and give in to Artemis. He knew he would as soon as he saw the stubborn determination on her face. That was part of the reason he was so mad, he knew no matter what he said the love of his life would be putting herself in danger. That was one of the reasons he fell in love with her, she had no problem making sure that she got what she wanted. So she went undercover as Tigress. That was the worst time of Wally's life. Everyone assumed that he was torn up about Artemis' death, so they left him alone to grieve. Then it was over, and they were still teasing each other and kissing. They were going to be okay again. Wally handed the Kid Flash role over to Bart and they were going to get on with their lives. Neither of them expected the Earth to be in that much danger so soon. As soon as Artemis heard the zeta tube behind her announce Wally's departure, she knew she wouldn't get to spend another night with him. She watched as lightning tortured her boyfriend and the other two speedsters kept on running. Why didn't they slow down? Maybe they could have saved Wally. When the smoke cleared and only Flash and Impulse were left her fears were confirmed. She knew that her everything was gone. The next two days were the hardest she'd ever experienced. She kept to herself and only let herself cry three times: at the initial moment with M'gann, when she told Wally's parents, and when she went home to her mother. Afterward she went home to the apartment, their apartment. It felt empty. She lived in her own shell, not leaving and only seeing other people when they brought her food, because that's what you do to someone who's grieving, you stuff them with homemade food, because you can't make it better no matter how hard you try. Now she lays in bed remembering seeing the apartment for the first time and insisting that it was too big for just the two of them. She remembers lying on the couch with Wally making fun of the cheesy romance movies. She remembers when Wally proposed to her just a few hours before Dick asked her to go undercover. She remembers lying in bed after their first time together with Wally's fingers running through her hair. Now she'd curled up in the same bed by herself. She hugs Wally's pillow and wishes that he hadn't decided to do laundry the day before it happened, so that she could maybe still smell a little bit of him on the pillow.