Barry woke in the middle of the night to the sound of his son crying. He violently threw off the covers and ran across the dark hallway to Wally's room. The bed was empty and the sheets had been dragged off to one side like Wally had gotten caught in them when he crawled out. Barry dropped to his knees and lifted up the dust ruffle to check under the bed, "Wally?"

A dark silhouette shifted far in the back and he could hear small sniffles and sobs. Barry sighed and sat down on the carpet, leaning his head against the mattress. Nights like this were nothing new. It was going on seven weeks now of Wally having nearly constant nightmares. Each one seemed to be worse than the last.

"Wally, please tell me what's wrong," Barry groaned tiredly. Night after night, Wally refused to say anything to him about the dreams and he wouldn't say why. "I can't help you stop feeling scared if I don't know what you're dreaming about."

"I can't tell…" Wally cried.

"Why not?" Barry tried not to be irritated. He was just frustrated after two months of this and it was hard to be patient.

His voice came out small and pitiful, "Hal said not to."

Barry immediately frowned and his chest ached painfully at the mention of Hal's name. He shut his eyes against the memories of the last night they'd seen each other and tried to be angry instead of depressed. It wasn't difficult. Barry was plenty pissed off about how suddenly Hal had left and the cold shoulder he'd been receiving ever since. "I don't care what Hal said. He's not your father. I am. Now, I need you to tell me what your nightmare was about right now. This can't keep going on. You aren't getting enough sleep when you keep waking up every half hour."

There was no noise from under the bed for a long minute, but Wally eventually crawled out and stared up at Barry with tear-filled eyes. He played with the bottom of his PJs sadly, "…I keep seeing Auntie and Opposite Flash."

Barry wasn't sure what he'd expected, but it wasn't that. He leaned forward and smoothed Wally's sweat dampened hair away from his forehead, "Professor Zoom…?"

Wally nodded quietly, his whole body shaking like a leaf.

"I thought you didn't remember anything about that night," Barry whispered. His throat was quickly closing up.

"I can remember a little bit now," Wally wiped his eyes on his sleeve.

Barry stayed very still for a long time as he tried to figure out what to do. He'd been praying that Wally had been too young and too scared to form any memories about the night Iris was killed. For years, Wally never brought it up so Barry assumed he was right. But, it looked like Wally had just subconsciously blocked the memories out – and now they were resurfacing.

He shifted so that his back was resting against the foot of the bed and hooked one arm around Wally to pull him closer, "Why wouldn't Hal want you to tell me this?"

Wally cuddled against him and gripped his shirt tightly, "He said that he didn't want you to worry."

Barry rested his head on top of Wally's, trying to cut off any confusing feelings he had for Hal before they began, "Tell me about the dream."

"I was putting magazines away for Auntie and I heard tornado sounds," Wally recounted slowly. "Then she started yelling and I heard a lot of things get knocked over. I was scared, but I went to see if Auntie was okay and I saw a bad man that looked like Flash, but he was yellow. He was hurting Auntie and he didn't see me, but Auntie saw me and she told me to run."

"What…?" Barry asked brokenly. He hadn't heard any of this before. Wally hadn't been able to answer any of the detectives' questions when they tried to figure out if he'd witnessed the attack.

"She hit him really hard and did this at me," Wally made a desperate looking gesture with his arm like he was trying to shoo someone away.

Iris had fought like hell, heavily injured and dying, just to buy Wally a few seconds to run away and to keep Zoom from noticing him. That realization slammed into Barry so hard that he couldn't breathe. She'd saved Wally's life and all this time Barry never knew.

"So I ran, but this time he chased me and I couldn't get away," the redhead hugged his knees and his eyes started filling with tears again. Wally's voice choked up again and Barry could just barely make out what he was saying. "What if he comes back?"

A large fissure cracked down the middle of Barry's heart and he felt lower than he had in years, "Wally, Professor Zoom is in prison all the way down in Louisiana. Why would you think he'd come back to hurt you?"

"Because Hal is gone!" Wally insisted forcefully. He stood up, and terrified tears ran down his cheeks. "He promised that as long as he was here, Professor Zoom couldn't hurt me. But he's not here anymore! Professor Zoom might come back now!"

Barry took Wally's shoulders in both hands and firmly turned him so that they were eye to eye, "He's not coming back. I swear it. And if he ever does, I'll protect you. I'd die before I let anything happen to you – regardless if Hal's here or not. Do you understand me?"

Wally had calmed down enough that he wasn't crying anymore. He nodded slowly that he understood, and Barry pulled him in for a quick hug before lightly pushing him towards the door, "Good. Go ahead and sleep in my room for the night. I'll be right there, okay?"

"I love you, Daddy," Wally hugged him once more around the middle and ran across the hall with his Flash blanket in tow.

"I love you too," Barry didn't move from his spot. He just stood there in the dark, bathed in light emanating from the Green Lantern nightlight plugged into the wall. The Lantern symbol shone like a beacon and Barry was starkly reminded of how much trouble Wally had sleeping without it. It had always made it seem like there was a little bit of Hal in the room.

Barry glared at the plastic light.

The night Hal left, Barry had panicked. He couldn't believe what they'd done – or that he'd even wanted to. On some level, he guessed that he'd known he was starting to be attracted to his best friend. He didn't know if it was because he was lonely or because of how much he'd gotten used to having Hal in his life, but it was confusing either way. They'd basically mauled each other on the couch and then Hal had run away right after. Barry had been convinced that they'd screwed up their friendship so badly that there was no recovering from it.

The next morning, he'd calmed down significantly. Barry had accepted that what happened had happened and there was nothing he could do to change it. In fact, he didn't have any desire to change it. His heart had been sneaky about it, but Barry could tell that his love for Hal as a friend had gradually shifted to a different kind of love. It was scary, but exciting. Hal had kissed him, so that meant he felt at least marginally the same way. He'd taken off immediately after, but that was understandable. They would have a chance to talk it out when Hal got back from his mission. Barry's main priority was preserving their friendship – whether they decided to explore their feelings or not.

So, he hadn't gotten worried until three weeks had passed and there was no sign of Hal. Barry thought the mission had just run long until he saw Hal on the news one day. He'd prevented a bridge collapse by holding it together with a light construct while it was being safely evacuated. After that, Barry tried calling once a day, but Hal never picked up. He never called back. He never stopped by Central to see them.

That's when Barry knew that Hal was avoiding him.

The first month had been the worst, because Barry still had some hope that Hal would talk to him eventually. He thought surely Hal couldn't stay away from Wally that long, but he did. Hal was completely ignoring their existence. Barry saw him in person a few times when the Justice League was called in on a mission. They executed perfect teamwork, as always, but Hal refused to talk to him directly – he stopped speaking to everyone really. The only Leaguer Barry had seen him interact with semi-normally was Oliver, and even that seemed strained.

Wally had taken it the hardest. He'd become so attached to Hal over the years that he didn't understand why he was suddenly gone. He cried for Hal every other day exactly the same way he'd cried for Iris when she'd died. Wally couldn't understand why Hal wasn't there anymore and Barry didn't have an explanation for him.

Now, it had been nearly two months since Halloween. Barry didn't expect Hal to come back anymore. His feelings were a twisted mess of hurt, anger, confusion, and longing. He wanted some kind of closure over what happened so that he wasn't constantly rehashing things over in his mind, but he would not beg for Hal's attention. And why should he? Hal was the one being childish over everything. Hal should be the one to fix it.

Barry set his jaw angrily and stalked over to the nightlight, ripping it out of the socket and tossing it onto the floor. The room went pitch black, so Barry blindly felt his way to the door and walked out with his fists clenched in determination. He and Wally would be fine.

They didn't need Hal.

Wally slept just fine with Barry watching over him, but he didn't get even a wink of sleep. He just lay awake for hours brooding over Hal until the sun came up. After that, their Saturday morning and afternoon went by like usual. Barry cooked Wally special pancakes that he only made when they were having a particularly bad day – and that seemed to help banish any lingering thoughts of Wally's nightmare. Then they went out to play in the late December snow. They'd had a pretty mild blizzard hit the week before, so the white powder was piled up almost three feet high.

Wally immediately dove right in and burrowed an intricate tunnel system through their backyard while Barry watched from the porch. He wanted to be upset and simmer over Hal's idiocy, but Wally's excitement was infectious and soon he was smiling and laughing with his son. Together they rolled piles of snow into three huge sections to assemble into a snowman and Barry pretended to have trouble lifting them into place until Wally lent a hand.

He and Wally perfected their snowball packing technique, argued over who made the most effective snow fort, and spent a good two hours waging a one-sided snowball fight against their sorry looking snowman. They were having so much fun that Barry waited as long as he could – until Wally's whole face was as red as his hair – to drag them both back inside to warm up. He turned on the TV to a Christmas special and fixed Wally a mug of hot chocolate while they both went through half a box of tissues in record time.

Barry speed read a few books while Wally was busy coloring and snapped the last one closed when he was finished, "Hey, buddy, I'm gonna go make some lunch. Why don't you write your letter to Santa while you wait?"

"Okay," Wally pushed his coloring book aside and pulled out a fresh sheet of construction paper to start his list on. "But isn't this a little late? Today is the 23rd."

"Yeah, well, Santa is magic. He works really fast," Barry said as he moved out of sight into the kitchen. Truthfully, he'd already finished buying all of Wally's presents weeks ago. He just wanted to make sure there wasn't something Wally really wanted that he'd missed. Superspeed really was awful for enabling his bad procrastination habits.

"That's not a plausible explanation," he heard Wally's skeptical voice from the living room.

Barry smiled as he smeared peanut butter on a slice of bread, "Sure it is. You can explain anything with magic."

"Hardly…"

He had to laugh, and reminded himself to tell Zatara that Wally didn't believe in magic the next time he saw him. Barry had hired a magician for Wally's fourth birthday party, and the kid had spent the entire show debunking all the magician's parlor tricks. Hal had laughed so hard that he nearly choked to death on birthday cake.

Barry cut off the memory and took Wally's sandwich out to him on a plate. The redhead was licking the seal on an envelope and pressing it shut. Barry set the plate in front of him and opened a juice box, "That was fast. You sure you got everything in that letter?"

Wally nodded happily, "I've thought this through."

"Well, alright," Barry laughed at his businesslike tone and took the letter that had been addressed to the North Pole in red and green crayon. "I'm gonna go put this in the mailbox. I'll be right back."

He slipped on a heavy coat and went out the front door, peeking in the front windows to make sure Wally wasn't watching. Then he carefully slid his finger through the envelope and pulled out the folded up letter inside. He expected a long list with things like a bicycle or a rocket ship on it, but when he read Wally's scribbled handwriting he found that it was very short.

'Dear Santa, I only want one thing this Christmas and that is for my Uncle Hal to come back and live with us. Could you do that please? I really really really miss him. Thanks! - Wally'

Barry's hands shook as he read the crayon words. Unbidden, his eyes started stinging with stunned tears and he sank down to the wooden planks of the porch. He clenched the letter in his fist and covered his mouth with his other hand as his chest started aching again. His son only wanted one thing for Christmas, and Barry couldn't give it to him. His heartbreak returned tenfold and he let go of all his anger towards Hal. He could forgive him if he just came back and apologized for leaving.

Barry missed him so much.

He sucked in a deep breath of icy cold air and got back on his feet. God, he didn't know what he wanted. He couldn't even decide if he was angry or sad.

Barry crumpled up the letter and quietly placed it in the trash bin beside the steps. He went back inside where it was warm and gave Wally a big smile when he looked up. Barry was just pulling off his snow boots when the communicator in his ear went off with J'onn's clinical but urgent voice.

"We have a League-wide S.O.S. from Aquaman. He's requesting assistance preventing the abduction of Atlantis' queen."

Barry froze. Someone was trying to kidnap Arthur's wife?

"The terrorist Black Manta is behind the attack. All available Leaguers proceed to the coast of Maine with haste."

Haste, huh? Well, Barry was the best man for that. He ran to the phone and started dialing Jay's number, "Wally, one of my friends really needs my help with something. Will you be alright if Grandpa Jay watches you for a few hours?"

"Yes, Daddy," Wally answered placidly from the living room.

"You're such a good boy," Barry told him hurriedly while the phone rang on the other end.

"Hello?" Jay answered cheerfully.

"Can you babysit Wally for a little while?" Barry dashed upstairs and retrieved his Flash ring from a false bottom in his medicine cabinet behind the bathroom mirror. "There's been an emergency and I need to be at the east coast like right now."

"This wouldn't happen to have anything to do with the brouhaha going on in the Atlantic, would it? It's all over the news; Aquaman's tearing through Black Manta's army basically by himself," Jay sounded like he was mildly impressed.

"That would be it," Barry jammed the ring onto his finger. "What kind of numbers am I looking at over there?"

"Well, it looked like about six of the Atlantean royal guard versus a couple hundred of Black Manta's troopers."

"Great," Barry sighed.

"Go head over there and even the odds some. I'll be in Central soon."

"Thanks, Jay," he hung up the phone and dashed back downstairs to ruffle Wally's hair before darting out the back door. "I'll be right back, little man. Be good for Grandpa Jay!"

Once he was outside, Barry changed into his Flash costume and tapped into every ounce of his powers to get him to Maine in minutes. He aimed for the shore and followed the sounds of screams and people running away. The battle was raging about a mile off shore, but that wasn't any problem for Barry. He sped right on top of the water, weaving towards the army of Manta troopers decked out in armored, black suits and masks. They moved around Aquaman and his scattered guard, corralling them into one spot and laying down heavy fire. Each henchman was on an array of advanced, weaponized jet skis or Manta-flyers that attacked in ever-shifting, highly coordinated patterns.

Barry sped around Arthur, stirring up the water around them into a weak waterspout to give them a moment of reprieve, "I'm here! What's the situation?"

Arthur hurled his trident at one of the sleek black jet skis as it passed, and the golden weapon speared the vessel right in the engine. It exploded with an abrupt bang and sent both manta troopers into the water. Arthur swam out to retrieve his trident as Barry chased down and disabled five more of the jet skis trying to shoot them with red energy rays. He was shaking with such rage that the water dripping off him could have been boiling into steam, "They took Mera!"

"Where is she?" Barry ripped as many of the ray guns as he could find right out of the hands of Black Manta's troopers and dumped them in the sea a few states away before zipping back.

"I don't know. The guard and I chased them all the way from Atlantis and I knew we were behind because I could sense where they were in the water, but that's gone now," Arthur rose up on the back of some kind of terrifying looking giant fish that Barry had never seen before. "None of the marine life can spot them either."

"Then that means they're on land," Barry glanced back at the grey looking shore as he sped in a circle around Arthur when a lucky shot slammed into his shoulder and knocked him off balance. He tripped on top of the waves and went crashing into the freezing water, gasping out all his air in a rush of bubbles. The shock of sudden cold locked up his muscles and Barry struggled to swim back up for air. He tried to right himself when a large, glowing platform materialized below him and rose up to lift him above the surface.

He got to his hands and knees and took in a deep breath of air, feeling the wind slice through to the bone. Barry studied the transparent green raft he was on and quickly found Hal hovering high up in the air in his Lantern uniform. He almost shouted out 'thanks' in reflex, but stubbornly kept his mouth shut, insisting that the sudden racing of his heart had absolutely nothing to do with seeing Hal again.

"Are you alright?!" Arthur asked through gritted teeth. He was grappling with Black Manta over his trident, each trying to spear the other with the prongs. Manta released a deadly beam of energy at Arthur's face, but the Atlantean king ducked out of the way and slammed his elbow into his visor.

"Fine," Barry inspected the burnt patch of fabric covering his shoulder and rolled it to shake off the lingering pain. His metabolism was already shifting through the myriad of bruises it would take to heal. Alright, so it wasn't a lucky shot that had hit him; it was Black Manta. Barry looked around the battlefield at superspeed and didn't see a trace of Queen Mera. So, Black Manta wasn't personally escorting her anywhere. That was unusual.

Hal grabbed Black Manta with a giant hook construct and unceremoniously flung him away into the water. He shielded them against a barrage of retaliation fire and dropped low enough to speak, "This idiot brought half of his army to kidnap a queen? That's stupid. Hasn't he ever heard of stealth?"

Arthur twirled his trident back to a fighting stance and glared at the terrorist leader as one of his lackeys picked him up on a jet ski, "He needed half his army just to take her down. Mera must be unconscious if they've gotten this far with her. The entire ocean is her weapon."

Barry had only seen Mera in action once, and it had been one hell of a sight. She was a powerful sorceress and could command the sea to do whatever she wanted through hydrokinesis. Arthur was right; she had to be in a lot of trouble if she hadn't fought back – or hadn't been able to.

A squad of Manta's troops closed in on them from behind and Barry planted his feet firmly on Hal's construct, swirling his arms to create two lethal vortexes that he aimed at the watercraft. The force slammed one ski hard into the water and hurled another into the air along with its riders. The third jet ski peeled off to escape and headed right beneath Hal's position.

The rider was a female leaning low over the controls. She thrust one arm out over the water and the lines of her armor started glowing bright blue.

"Watch out! That's Siren. She's Mera's sister," Arthur shouted a warning, throwing his trident right at her. It grazed the trooper's helmet, knocking it loose and unseating her from the watercraft. "She can make the same hard water constructs as my wife!"

She landed on the surface of the water in a graceful roll and ripped the helmet off. Long, shockingly violet hair whipped free, and Siren fixed fully luminous blue eyes on Hal. Her hands swirled over the waves as she stood on the surface as if it was nothing, pulling the water together into two lethal spears. Siren took them both in hand and launched one dead center at Hal's chest.

"Hard water constructs, huh?" Hal deflected the missile with a solid, hard light construct of his own. The spear flipped away end over end and he lowered the light shield, his mouth slanted into a smirk, "That's not all that impressive."

Siren threw the other spear at him and raised both arms above her head. A massive column of water shot up behind her, twisting and contorting into a translucent sea dragon that arced towards Hal with the force of a locomotive. It crashed into his shield and sent them both splashing into the ocean. From beneath the waves, part of a glowing green sword sliced through the air, but the dragon was gone. Hal burst back out of the water and shot right at Siren. The two fought intensely, churning the water like a hurricane and filling the sky with flashes of green light like fireworks.

Barry systematically dashed to each of the Manta squads, dodging lasers and pummeling dents into armor with punches thrown like machine-gun fire. In the center of the fight, Arthur was like a whirlwind. He speared Manta-flyers left and right, and flung troopers away with his bare hands like he was banishing them from the ocean. But, no matter how hard he fought, he couldn't even advance an inch towards the shore. Barry could've made it in a second, but he couldn't leave his friends in the middle of this. They were being overrun and losing the offensive. Every second they wasted, Mera was being taken further and further away. Soon, they'd have no way to track her down and the trail would go cold.

"Get out of the water now!"

Just as Barry was thinking that the voice sounded like Clark, a green band closed around his waist and lifted him into the air. Arthur and his Atlantean royal guard were given the same treatment, hoisted up clear of the waves by Hal's power ring.

Clark came whistling through the air and stopped beside where Barry was hanging. He took in a deep gulp of air and used his super breath to chill the surface of the water into a solid sheet of ice. Many of Black Manta's henchmen were thrown from their watercraft as the vessels jerked to a halt and others were trapped in the ice itself.

Hal let them all down on top of the ice and Clark sped in front of Arthur to block a blast from Black Manta, who was free and perched atop the wing of a crooked Manta-flyer. He threw several small sting ray shaped devices that detonated on impact with the ice, dislodging the vessel and righting it in the water. Manta dropped into the hatch and the flyer sank beneath the waves without warning.

He was going to try and escape!

Behind them all, Siren gave a great scream of effort and all of the ice started breaking apart in a spider web of cracks.

"Don't underestimate her," Arthur pointed at the violet-haired Atlantean trapped in the ice. "If she's within a mile of water, she's deadly."

"I'll keep her busy," Hal created a harpoon launcher with his ring and aimed it at Siren. "You guys go after Mera and Black Manta!"

Clark turned towards the shoreline in the distance and squinted as he looked through the layers of concrete, steel, and flesh, "Flash, five of Manta's henchmen have her in a van moving southwest at seventy miles per hour. You can get to them the fastest. Aquaman and I can pursue Black Manta."

"I'll bring her back," Barry promised, mentally mapping a path through the ice floes to get up enough speed to run on water.

Arthur didn't say anything, but he sent Barry an intensely grateful nod. He and Clark dove into the icy water while Hal fought to restrain Siren, and Barry took off in the direction Clark had told him. He was on land in seconds and tearing through the streets of Rockland. He took every main road, side street, and highway until he came across a large black moving van being driven by two Manta agents.

Barry fell back a few feet when the passenger side door flung open and a trooper leaned out to fire at him. He skirted around the lasers and zipped to the other side of the van for cover, easily keeping pace as it sped up. There was one sure fire way to stop them…

Barry unscrewed the lug nuts from all four tires and removed the wheels, stacking them up neatly on the side of the road. The van fell onto the rotors and slid on the asphalt, screeching and shooting sparks as it went. It hit a guard rail separating the road from a deep ditch and shuddered in place from the impact. Barry pulled the driver and passenger from the cab and tossed them unceremoniously down the embankment.

He dashed around to the back and ripped open the doors. A wave of intense heat hit him in the face like he'd opened the door on an oven. Barry accidentally sucked in a lungful of scorching air and ended up gasping for breath. It had to be nearly two hundred degrees in there! Twelve red hot coils lined the walls and ceiling inside the van, radiating heat like a furnace. And lying right in the middle of the floor was Mera, unconscious and crumpled into a heap. Her red hair was damp and matted to her skin with sweat.

Barry climbed into the back and lifted Mera in his arms. Intense dry heat was extremely dangerous for Atlanteans. He sped over to a snowdrift on the side of the road and laid her out flat. It felt silly, but Barry didn't know what else to do to bring her temperature down in a hurry. He just started scooping snow right on top of her until she was completely covered.

"I've got her," Barry said over the communicator. "But I think she's really dehydrated. How do I help-?"

A laser beam shot past his shoulder and Barry ducked instinctively. Dammit. The two Manta lackeys he'd tossed earlier were climbing back up to the road. There were still cars slowly inching by on the highway, so Barry elected to keep the collateral damage to a minimum and draw fire away from the bystanders. He dashed down the hill, clothes lining one of the troopers and landing him flat on his back.

The second trooper raised his weapon at Barry and a thin stream of water coiled up behind him like a cobra. It lashed out, knocking the gun out of his hands and whipping him so hard that it dented his armor. Both troopers were down and out cold. Barry looked up at the road and saw Mera hunched over the guard rail with her eyes glowing bright green and one hand outstretched in a claw. He zipped over to her side and grabbed her shoulders to keep her steady, "Sorry about the snow. I didn't really know what else to do."

Mera shook her head to show she wasn't angry, tucking her long red hair behind her ears, "Thank you. It helped."

"Wait here one second," Barry ran back for the two troopers and locked them both inside the back of the van. He dusted off his hands and jerked his thumb at the doors. "There we go. Justice."

"Flash? Is Mera alright?! Your last transmission got cut off." Arthur's frantic voice asked over Barry's earpiece.

He plucked the communicator out of his ear and offered it to Mera like it was any other day and he was handing over a phone, "Your husband wants to talk to you. I want it noted that there was zero concern for how I was doing."

She took the earpiece and held it close to her own ear, fiddling with the device to figure out how it worked, "Arthur, I'm alright. Listen to me: Do not attack Bialya."

"Bialya?" Barry frowned at Mera, completely baffled. He could hear the two Manta troopers frantically banging on the inside of the van to be let out. "Why would he?"

Mera ignored him and answered Arthur on the other end, "We'll be right there. I'll explain everything."

She handed the communicator back and Barry took his cue. He picked Mera up and carried her back to the ocean where Arthur and Clark were gathered together on one large ice floe. Siren was tied up and being watched by the armored Atlanteans Arthur had brought with him. Barry set Mera down on the ice and Arthur immediately reached out for her, but she was in no mood for a reunion. Mera held him back with one hand, "This whole thing is a set up. Black Manta was hired by Queen Bee to goad you into leading Atlantis into a war with Bialya. Queen Bee wants the current government overthrown so she can take over."

Realization dawned on Barry and his jaw hung open a little in shock, "And trash Atlantis' global reputation in the process…"

"Why would I want to attack Bialya in the first place?" Arthur asked, looking just as confused.

"Flash reached me before we got to the teleporter, but they were going to stash me in the desert and frame Bialya's ruler for the kidnapping," Mera recounted angrily. She looked furious that terrorists had planned to use her to wound her own country.

"And I'm sure it was more than a bonus for Black Manta to see Atlantis take a hit for retaliating," Clark looked deeply unsettled at the massive international incident they'd nearly dodged.

"Where is Black Manta?" Flash looked around at the handful of troopers they'd captured and found no trace of their leader.

Arthur looked like someone had forced sour milk down his throat, "He got away…"

"His ship disappeared as soon as we got close," Clark explained grimly. "It looks like we aren't the only ones with teleportation capabilities."

"We'll need to do damage control before anyone gets wind of the story," Barry rubbed the back of his neck. "And Colonel Harjavti will need to be warned in case Manta and Queen Bee had a backup plan."

"I'll fly to Bialya and give him the heads up," Clark offered.

"Mera and I will take her sister and Black Manta's henchmen back to Atlantis," Arthur strapped his trident to his back and signaled for the royal guard to gather their prisoners. Mera lifted her own sister by the hair and slugged her in the face when Siren spit at her. That was one family talk that Barry was grateful he didn't have to deal with.

He glanced up at the sky to look for any sign of Hal, but found nothing. Barry already knew the answer, but he couldn't help asking, "Where's GL?"

Clark gave him an odd look, "He took off as soon as I got back to the surface – said he had something important he needed to do."

Yeah. He had to take off before there was a chance that he had to talk to Barry. Hal hadn't said two words to him – not even to coordinate during the fight.

"Hey," Clark placed a hand on Barry's shoulder in concern once Arthur and Mera cleared the ice floe and retreated into the water. "Is everything alright? You haven't exactly been yourself lately. And…neither has Hal. Did something happen? I've never seen you two so clammed up around each other before."

Barry didn't try to pretend around Clark. There wouldn't be any point. He just respectfully shrugged off his hand and stretched for the run back to Central, "I'll be fine."