Jay was sick.

He was terribly sick. He was dying, and I had no idea.

It was a serum he'd taken, one that he simply called Velocity. It was created to make him run faster. It was what gave him his lust for more speed. Or perhaps it was merely the start of a lust that was already there. The need to be the best that ever was.

That need was killing him. His very cells were degenerating, and I hadn't had the slightest clue.

But then, I also hadn't known there were other earths.

"Jay?" I walked into a room that was emitting strange sounds. He was standing in front of a blue blob, crackling with a thousand shades of why-the-hell-are-you-touching-the-dangerous-science-thing.

Jay turned, face split into that insane grin.

"I found it. I found a cure. An answer, Katnip!"

"A cure? For what?" My first thought was cancer, but why would a man who had killed so many people be doing such a noble thing?

"Me."

He vanished through the blob, and it disappeared.

"Jay?!"

Knock. Knock knock knock knock.

Knock. Knock.

Knock knock knock knock. Knock knock.

Knock knock knock knock. Knock knock knock knock.

Knock knock. Knock knock.

Knock knock knock. Knock knock knock knock.

Knock knock knock. Knock knock knock.

Knock. Knock knock knock knock.

EARTH ONE, the masked man had rapped.

WHAT EARTH ONE

NEW PLANET

OTHER UNIVERSE

YES

I was shaken to my core. Another universe. Another earth. But why did Jay need a cure?

The answer was obvious. He was sick. Or I was sick, since we were the only two people he cared about in any world.

That scared me. It scared me terribly. That Jay could be sick and I wouldn't have known. That one day he might have simply not come, and I would never know why.

For not the first time, I had an attack of fear. One that clenched at the bottom of my stomach with fangs of ice, and one that made my limbs shake with the stress of terror.

At first, it had been fear of what Zoom would do to me. Then fear of what Hunter would do to others. And finally, fear of what Jay would do to himself.

He never questioned them. But if Jay ever found me in the midst of one, he would hold me close enough that I could feel his heartbeat. I knew they hurt Jay, so I hid them as best I could.

It was easy this time; he was in another universe. Searching for a mystery cure to a mystery illness.

When he came back again, it had been quite some time. I'd had two of these terror attacks, both of which he missed. I hated myself for that fear and giving into it. Each time, I'd had to chant to myself that he'd found a cure for whatever it was.

"Jay?" I asked tentatively.

Jay swept me up into his arms. "They have it, Katnip. A final speedster. All I need is his speed."

I was so relieved to have him here to answer my questions that they all tumbled out at once.

"Who's sick? You, you need the cure, don't you? But why? What's wrong? Who's the speedster, why do you need his speed? Another world, Jay?" I looked up into his blue eyes, confused and worried and all of it smoothing over in his prescence.

Jay kissed me. A long, gentle kiss. Then he told me about the Velocity, and how a speedster named the Flash from Earth One could cure him.

"I just have to take his speed. It will take time, but I can do it, Katnip. I don't have to die."

I hadn't even known he was dying. And I didn't like what he had to do in order to prevent it. But in that moment, I was so happy that he was alive, that I was in his arms, that he'd washed the fear away.