Chapter 2

Wandering off along the shoreline, Wally found himself a nice patch of warm, dry sand, and stretched out to rest his aching muscles.

Robin watched his best friend carefully- there was something off about Wally, he just wasn't sure exactly what it was yet.

Robin knew the red head better than anyone. And sometimes that meant he was the only one looking out for his friend, even though they'd all moved in to support "team unity". After all, everyone else was trying, but they just thought Wally was ADD all the time. (Which wasn't a lie, or anything. Just not all there was to his best friend.) Here, Barry wasn't around to notice something off with his protege, and Robin had been gone all week, so he had no idea what was making Wally act weird.

Sometimes Wally could be a real idiot. But it wasn't like it was his fault. Barry and Iris did their best to watch out for Wally, but they also spent a lot of time reminding him that having powers normal people didn't meant responsibility. They didn't mean to, and Wally would kill him if Rob ever told Wally what he thought about that. But it wasn't fair. And Wally couldn't seem to get the fact that having a superpower didn't mean you had to be, well, Superman.

And since Wally was so oblivious, he had to have someone look out for him. That was what best friends were for.

Strolling over to M'gann, Robin decided maybe he should see if anyone else had noticed, just in case. He would probably need all the help he could get. "Hey M'gann. How's your week been?"

The martian girl smiled at him, tucking her hair behind an ear. "Oh, it was great! I do not think I will ever get tired of the beach! We didn't live by such a large water source back home."

"I'm glad you like it here. Has Wally been a complete dork about missing all the fun during school again?" He asked with a little smirk, hoping it was the right question to ask. When M'gann turned to look at him fully, he realized he must have let something slip- she knew he was up to something.

"No. Wally has been...quiet. He was late for school every day, much later than usual. And he got home far later than normal too, like he was going slower," M'gann informed him uneasily. Oh. So she HAD noticed something was off, and was just worried. It was weird how girls seemed to see straight through his 'innocent' questions.

"He hasn't been eating as much either. There were still strawberry pop-tarts yesterday- well, there were till I ate them, at least. And he hasn't spoken to me once lately- not even to taunt me," Artemis sauntered over, the eavesdropping snob. "What's up with him?"

Robin frowned at her overfamiliar concern. What did she care? Before he could voice his thoughts, however, M'gann sighed. "I fear it has something to do with his...drowning," she spoke the word softly, as though saying it in a whisper would somehow make it less real. "I can hear him coughing sometimes, but whenever I ask if he's alright, he just tries to flirt with me!" Her exasperated expression would have made Rob laugh, if he weren't so focused on the clues she was sharing.

Kaldur wandered over to Superboy, who was staring at the hotdogs like it would make them finish cooking sooner. "Superboy. I'm fairly certain staring doesn't make them cook faster." He smiled welcomingly, but blinked when Superboy glared at him instead.

"I hate waiting."

"Ah. Perhaps a...diversion while we wait, then?" Kaldur glanced over towards the peaceful -if extra pale- looking Wally. Superboy followed his gaze, then smirked. "What did you have in mind?"

Wally sighed, closing his eyes and melting into the hot sand. Because of his metabolism, temperature usually didn't bother him too much, as long as it wasn't extreme, but the heat of the summer sun was sooo delicious. Though, as his body relaxed, his sore lungs and throat started to bother him more. It hurt to breath, which was lame, since he wasn't even running- at all. Normally he had to work his way far past the sound barrier for the physical effects to show up, if they ever did.

He rubbed at his chest, trying to relieve the pressure, when hands suddenly grabbed his arms, and before he knew it, he was airborne. His throat seemed to close off, not letting him breathe, let alone scream. When he opened his eyes, all he could see in front of him was the green-blue of ocean water, and then he hit the surface. It felt like a load of bricks being hurled into his chest, and the salt stung his eyes. It was lucky, then, that he couldn't even gasp for breath, since it prevented him from involuntarily inhaling the water in his panic.

Then he was beneath the surface, sinking, tumbling head over heels, disoriented. There were white bubbles everywhere, and the water seemed to tug at his lungs and stomach, trying to fill them, suffocate him, and Wally panicked even more. NO! Not again! This couldn't happen again! He gasped uncontrollably, sucking the icy seawater into his lungs, trying to find the air he desperately needed. No matter how much he flailed, he couldn't find the surface. This wasn't like a pool. As his mind whirled, spinning endlessly like the water he was in, he vaguely realized he must have been thrown pretty far out, considering how dark it was, and the currents pushing him around, flipping him till he was hopelessly lost.

As the first rush of adrenaline died, and the fear took over, his body started shutting down. Convulsions wracked his frame as he sank deeper into the icy water, so far from the sun he had been enjoying just moments before.

In what seemed to take forever, Wally slowly gave up, his eyes slipping closed, and his body relaxing and twisting helplessly in the tide.

AN: So. Don't hate me too much? *runs away*

Don't worry, this is NOT a deathfic.

I've never really been out swimming in the ocean, so I kinda took some liberties here.

THANK YOU to everyone who reviews. You make things like this possible for me!

To everyone else - review, and let me know what you think! If you've got any suggestions for the characters, I would love to hear it! The new-ness of this show makes it hard for me to get a good idea of what they're all like.

I'm going out of town this weekend, so I'll try to get chapter three up before then!

Have a fantastic day!