(Sorry for the delay, Jell-O Squares! Don't be too disappointed in this chapter. 3 AM is not a good time to be writing anything. -Doverstar)

The boy in front of Caitlin was asleep.

She had been diligently taking notes, glancing up every now and then to copy some new algorithm Stein had jotted onto the whiteboard, when her pen slid in a jerk as the student sitting just a foot before her let out a loud snore.

Professor Stein did not appear to hear it and plowed on in his lecture. He had been stuck teaching on time travel for the past three days, though he had admitted privately to Caitlin that his outline for the year had been focused solely on transmutation. His students didn't seem to mind the change in course—time travel was just as fascinating as transmutation, especially to someone like Caitlin, who had experienced its repercussions for herself.

As the class dismissed, Caitlin pulled her bag over her shoulder, passing the still-snoozing boy as quietly as she could. Part of her wanted to wake him in the most alarming fashion possible, as punishment for falling asleep in the first place, but she decided it wasn't worth the effort. Besides, she wanted to catch Stein before he left.

"Professor Stein," she called, hurrying down to the main floor where he was wiping down his demonstration board.

"Ah, Miss Snow," Stein turned around with the same dazed look in his eyes people wore after coming out of a particularly good book. "I must say, I'm delighted you could find the time to attend so many of my rather formidable lectures. This will be your, what is it, your seventh class with us, won't it? I know my lessons can sometimes feel interminable." He nodded to the boy snoring in the seats. "I appreciate your sticking it out, shall we say."

"Oh, it's—believe me, it's my pleasure," Caitlin assured him, beaming as she readjusted her bag's strap. "Speaking of time," she added quickly, "I thought you said this was a course on transmutation?"

Stein's glazed appearance wavered. He set the eraser down, licking his lips. "Yes, well, it was. That is, I had every intention of conducting a study on the subject, but...I suppose once I get started on—on such an expandable topic as time travel, it takes a while to get back on track."

"Why the sudden interest in it?" Caitlin wondered. "Time, I mean?"

It took him a moment to respond. There was a distance in the way he hunched his shoulders, in the way he shifted his weight to the balls of his feet. Caitlin recognized his expression; then she knew the answer to her question before he gave it.

"While the theory has always been a point of great interest to me—bordering on obsession, if I'm to be honest—lately I find myself more immersed in it than ever before." Stein glanced at the empty whiteboard, searching it with tired, lonely eyes. "With my wife drawing nearer and nearer to the end of her own timeline...I can't help but travel back to a day where it wasn't so difficult for her, the years during which she was at optimal health, able to stand at my side..." He sniffed, standing a little taller. "Imagining it as a possibility feeds the obsession, if you will."

Caitlin didn't want to disrespect him, or speak out of place. She held this man in high esteem, both on Earth-66 and her own. Back home she had helped him survive and adapt to the impossible, had gotten to know him and his daughter, had been able to count him a friend. Here they had shared coffee and theories and he had released just a taste of his personal life, just a drop of the ache he felt for Clarissa, he had confided in her. He had lived a long, successful life already and could very well go on to achieve even more with the years he had left. But as intelligent as Martin Stein was, as well-read and educated and talented as he was, he was still just an old man, afraid of facing the rest of his life without his best friend. His partner.

Doctor Snow had lived his nightmare for herself. There was an added pain for her. Not one that made hers deeper than Stein's, but one that made it different. She had lost her partner before their life together could truly begin. Ronnie had been taken from her too soon; they would never grow gray and slow with one another, she would never reach back and find as many memories as Stein could. She only had a certain number, and she was loathe to let go of even a second she remembered spending with the man she loved.

That was why she had committed to helping him. She couldn't let him lose Clarissa. Barry's lungs had been corrupted once by Kyle Nimbus' abilities; even if he had the advantage of his own superhuman DNA, there should be a way to save Stein's wife as well. She could shake it—perhaps not in the same way or with the same speed Barry had, but it had to be possible. The key was to find the meta first. Caitlin had to be sure of his mutated properties before coming up with a solution; for all she knew, Earth-66's Mist had a different genetic code than the one on Earth-1. But once they had him, they could begin tests, they could find a cure.

Of course, she hadn't told Martin this yet.

It wouldn't be right to get his hopes up—and there was the small matter of explaining herself and her skills and her experience with Nimbus should she decide to come clean. It might mean telling Stein everything in order to gain his approval, his belief in what she'd say. And coffee chats or no, they were not quite there yet in this little professor-student friendship.

Stein rubbed his hands together. "Listen to me. Not to worry, I won't go senile just yet, Miss Snow. Endlessly prattling on about the good old days. There is more to life than the things gone by—I talk far too much about the past already. And I am of the opinion that one should stride forward instead of spending all of one's time focused solely on what they've left behind. I assume you agree?" His eager old eyes searched her face, looking for the usual enthusiasm and compassion they found there.

Caitlin, lost in thought, started when he said her name. "Absolutely," she stammered, not sure what she was responding to. "Professor—I've been meaning to ask you—the man you told me about. The one that attacked your wife."

Stein's jaw tightened, but he gave a single nod, urging her to spit it out.

"Well, this might seem like a silly question, but...have you looked for him at all? I mean, do you have anything to go off of, did anyone happen to give you a description?" Caitlin wound the heels of her hands against each other, meeting his twinkling dark eyes.

"Not as such, no," Stein murmured. He lifted a finger, heading for his desk and straightening it up a bit as he spoke. "But there are witnesses from that terrible night, people who saw what Clarissa saw. The trouble is, the culprit seems to have distorted his own person too quickly before anyone could get a good look at him. No one can give me a clear image."

Caitlin paused, trying to think of the best way to tell him. She couldn't just say Yeah, his name is Kyle Nimbus and I have somewhere perfect to stash him. Even someone with as open a mind as Stein would write her off as a lunatic; it was too soon, she needed more time to nail things down. But he had to have some kind of hope. She couldn't stand by and watch him drown in his problem when she knew there may actually be an answer.

"Professor," she began, clearing her throat. "I wanted—"

Stein smiled at her, but it was a thin one. "I do not ask for pity, Miss Snow. Don't get me wrong. Clarissa's predicament is my burden to bear, and I'd hate to be accused of complaining. Everyone has their own weight to carry, and mine is no greater than yours." His brow furrowed. "Or Mister Jefferson there."

He strode purposefully to the sleeping boy, picked up the student's binder, and rapped him soundly over the head with it in one hand.

'Mister Jefferson', only roughly 18 or 19 by the looks of him, jolted upright with a yelp.

"Jefferson, how can the mysteries of the universe set your young mind ablaze if you won't even prepare a spot for the fire, hmm?"

Jefferson squinted at his professor. "Did I fall asleep again?" he slurred, clearly suffering from a case of napper's-mouth.

Stein's eyebrows rose so high they could've graced the arching metal ceiling. "Again?"

Caitlin bit her lip, but it wasn't because something was bothering her. She was trying very hard not to laugh at the groggy kid's expression. "I'll see you tomorrow, Professor," she called. She could tell him about her plans later. Besides, this gave her more time to sort out the details first.

Stein was too busy giving poor Jefferson a second, more biting lecture to see her leave.

Savitar was hungry and unashamed.

Before, when he had been in the thick of convincing the world he was a god, he had had to eat anything and everything in secret locations. Because gods did not need to eat. They didn't feel pain and they didn't need to eat, but until he could actually become immortal, he had to appease his superhuman appetite discretely. If someone saw the God of Speed downing twenty-five Big Belly Burgers, no matter how impressively, they might start to question his title.

Now, having given up on being a god, he was free to eat wherever and whenever he wanted, regardless of prying eyes. Did it look odd to see a speedster in a dark leather suit lounging on the roof of a Wendy's with a chocolate frosty and forty discarded fry cartons beside him? Cartons he sometimes dropped over the edge onto passers-by out of sheer boredom? Yes. Not as odd as it would have looked in his previous, metal suit—which had been laid to rest, dormant, in his old lair on Earth-1—but the sight was still fairly ridiculous.

As a speedster, his body required far more energy, far more calories than the average runner did. And when he ate enough, he'd just burn it off within the next 24 hours. Result: he, just like Barry, Wally, Jesse, and Jay, was always, always hungry. He simply didn't have to worry about who knew it anymore. It was freeing.

Today was quiet in Earth-66's Central City. He'd taken to exploring when things were quiet here. This Earth had a few differences in location—certain shops and gas stations were not where they were supposed to be, and the explosion from Earth-66's particle accelerator had actually permanently compromised some of the plant life closer to S.T.A.R. Labs' neck of the neighborhood. There was definitely a tang in the air that wasn't going away any time soon—he felt it inside of him, in his meta half, he sensed the energy of this Earth rippling with the aftertaste of an experiment gone wrong. Without anyone to race over and rescue, he didn't have anything to do but think. And a duplicate had a lot of thinking to do.

Caitlin had been right. He didn't want to be forgotten. In fact, he was terrified of it. He was playing hero to keep people looking. Did he feel a spark, a splash of satisfaction when someone took his hand as he pulled them from some kind of wreckage? When they looked at him from far away and mouthed thank you after he had chased off the danger and kept his distance? He did—but not the way Barry Allen used to.

It was as if his heart were a painter's palette. When Team Flash of 2024 had turned their backs on him, they had each taken a color out, until only black and gray were left, until all he felt was the bitterness and the loneliness. Now, every time he helped someone, a drop of color was added to the empty sockets. Just one drop in one area, but it was something where there had been nothing. It was a strange sensation, recognizing feelings he'd smothered for eons. It was stranger to think of how he should respond to gaining them. Mostly he felt hard and broken still, reluctant to tap into any positive emotions he might feel lest they go away too.

He had been colorless for such a while—red, yellow, blue, green—any new shade might hurt, and he was so tired of hurting.

Caitlin hadn't interrupted him on the comms all day. It was night now, and Wendy's had closed an hour ago. He ran down the side of the building, knowing his governess would be on her way back from Stein's little sci-fi convention by now. He would make it to S.T.A.R. Labs before she did, which meant he'd get to head to bed without being asked a barrage of questions regarding the day's activities.

She had been aloof with him for the past few days, ever since he'd caught Rory—at the expense of a shoulder. Not that she hadn't always been aloof with him. But more so lately, more so since she'd had her little relapse of missing Barry while she stitched him back up. He didn't miss her nagging or her constant staring when she thought he wasn't watching. But it was true that the absence was suddenly an obvious thing to him, that now he noticed it. He noticed she wasn't in the Cortex unless she was tending to Wally. He noticed she wasn't on the comms when he went on little missions. He noticed she was at Jitters more often, noticed she was calling Team Flash more and more frequently in the mornings. He could hear her talking to them; S.T.A.R. Labs' sleeping quarters were all in the same general area of the building. Her conversations with Earth-1's heroes ran longer every time she contacted them.

He couldn't understand her. He couldn't understand her desire to help him—unless she wanted to fix him, as he had suspected all along. There wasn't a point, anyone could see that. Her little Team Flash-66 idea was off to a pretty rough start. Stein only met with her once every other day, and probably wasn't at all in the know for it. Wally was almost fully recovered by now, so he'd be leaving the Labs soon, and he knew only a sand grain more than Stein did. If Caitlin couldn't build him a team—and he didn't do domestic labor—what could she hope to do for him here? Hadn't he made it difficult enough?

Trees and highways blurred past as he made his way to S.T.A.R. Labs, catching sight of the sickly yellow electricity following him, reflected in the windows of cars rendered still as he raced past.

As aforementioned—a dead horse beaten thoroughly—he remembered being Barry. There is a lot in one person's memory, and being a time remnant didn't diminish the flashbacks. It increased them, because there was an added awareness, an awareness that none of it had actually been experienced by this body, this mind.

Specifically, he remembered being Caitlin's Barry, the one that made her snarl and huff, the one that had her running no matter what she was wearing or how far away he was, because she had to get to him and help him up, stop the bleeding. He remembered a face without scars that she wasn't afraid to get physically close to when the situation called for it, a face she didn't shield herself from with her hair or turning on a heel.

He remembered looking at Caitlin Snow and seeing a mountain, something immovable and powerful. He had meant it when he said Barry Allen was safe when she was around. He could recall being unable to breathe or unable to walk, often tasting blood, less often coughing out an unknown, superhuman substance. And whenever everything was dangerous and spinning like that, if she came into the room, onto the side of the road, at the edge of a body of water, in the back of a van with her doctor's instruments at the ready, he was completely okay. He was calm again, because if Caitlin was there, he knew that soon—in a few hours or just a second more of pain—none of it would matter anymore and he'd be back to normal.

And that was just the physical assurances. Emotionally, if he couldn't find his footing, she was there every time. She wasn't the only person he'd gone to to feel balanced again, but there was something in her that understood him better than the others. Caitlin had been through so much suffering, and she'd come out of it, and when she spoke to him he could feel her quietly sure he would come out of it too. Even as their conversations began, just by hearing her, he would breathe more evenly. He was being convinced, maybe even subconsciously, that there was a light at the end of the tunnel, and that her footsteps, leading unsteadily to the exit, were already printed in the mud before he'd stepped into the dark himself.

He had, in his head, an entire three years' worth of friendship with this woman and, like with everything else Barry had left his remnant, Savitar had to learn to process and discard those memories. Because ultimately those were things he had never done and never felt and never said. All of it was. Not just with Caitlin Snow. With everyone, everything. None of it was actually his—no wonder there had been no room for him on Earth-1; everything he recalled as his, in reality, already belonged to someone else. Iris, Joe, Wally, Cisco, Caitlin, S.T.A.R. Labs, the CCPD. It hurt to remember having a place somewhere, having people of his own, and to be hit with the fact that—every time—Barry Allen possessed every inch of it.

And he wasn't Barry Allen.

He had to find his own common ground with Doctor Snow, but wearing someone else's face made it even harder than it should have been. She knew him and she didn't. They were both dealing with the same bizarre obstacle. Where it made her nervous, struggling to regain control of the situation, it just made him angry. Angry that he had to be reminded again that he had been born with a life he wasn't allowed to pull up as a reference guide. Angry that she couldn't look at him and treat him the way his memory told him she should treat him. Angry that she had insisted on coming here, on meddling and simpering and ordering him around. Trying to turn him into someone he had already been shown he couldn't be. She wanted to rewrite him into Barry Allen—and he was torn between wanting her to treat him that way and wanting her to stop wishing he was someone else. He remembered being friends with Caitlin. He wasn't used to her disappointment. It irritated him.

But time had taught him not to care this much about it. Caring made you hurt in the long run. It was cliché, but the best way to guard himself from the agony and the eventual hate that had ripped him in two and killed H.R. was to keep his distance. So he wouldn't dwell on it. Despite Caitlin being the only person from the core Team Flash to be left with him on Earth-66, despite everything inside him being naturally drawn to her for this reason, he would lean away. He would warn her backward with looks and growls and bullet wounds. He didn't want her sympathy. He didn't want her advice. He didn't want her company or her time or her agenda for him. He didn't need her. She was extra, she was optional, and in order to keep the possibility of rejection at bay without becoming a god, he would let her be aloof. He would let her learn the hard way, slowly as she liked, that he would not be her experiment. That she didn't know him and she was just like the others—preferring the original, only room for one Barry. Conditional.

By the time he reached S.T.A.R. Labs, he was hungry again. Caitlin had a kind of addiction to strawberry Jell-O, he knew. He also knew it was always located in the mini fridge on the dais in the Cortex.

With his costume still on, he snagged a cup of Jell-O and a plastic spoon. Of course, it was empty in half a second, and as he was reaching for a second cup, a voice stopped him.

"I knew it."

Savitar's arms swung down, his weight shifted from foot to foot, his head hung back. Body language equivalent of a sigh.

Wally was sitting up, legs hanging off the gurney he had been confined to, eyes on the speedster with something fragile shaking in them. Something similar to what his acolytes had when they looked at him. Hero worship.

"I knew you were still here," Wally went on, pointing to him shakily. "She said you were out there helping people, but she never said you lived here."

Savitar scowled, vibrating his body so that no distinctive physical qualities could be seen. "What makes you think I live here?"

Wally's eyes strayed to the plastic spoon that had clattered to the floor. "You're—eatin' Jell-O."

The speedster dropped the empty cup, folding his arms. "What do you want, Wallace?"

West's eyebrows shot up, his voice cracked. "You know my name? I mean—I mean, my name's Wally, nobody calls me...uh, Wallace."

Savitar rolled his eyes, which was difficult to do when vibrating one's eyeballs. "I know who you are. What do you want?" He gestured to Wally's general area. "You're basically healed. Free to go. Why are you still here?"

Wally licked his lips. "I've been stalling," he finally admitted, offering a small grin.

"Why?"

"I wanted to see you," the boy blurted. "I couldn't just leave without..." He took a deep breath, obviously very nervous, and started again. "Look, you saved my life. You didn't have to—Caitlin told me you were trying to stop the guy who did it. He got away. Because you went to help me." Wally exhaled, staring at the speedster for a moment before finishing seriously, "I'm not worth that—but you saved me anyway. So...thank you." He pursed his lips. "I'm not gonna throw away the chance you gave me."

Savitar let his arms unfold, dropping them. He remembered hearing that same phrase from Earth-1's Wally once, on Jitters' rooftop. He'd given up his abilities for this wide-eyed engineer barely in college. That was before he knew what Wally was really like. Before he discovered that Barry Allen's face and memories and feelings were not enough to draw compassion from. Before he'd been told, by a Wally that had barely been able to think a coherent thought and still managed to out him as a duplicate, that they were not brothers.

It was that nigh-catatonic Wally, in Joe West's living room, that he saw sitting on that gurney. Not this Earth's slightly shorter, quieter version in the yellow jacket.

"You're right," he said musingly. "You're not worth it."

Wally's expression froze and stuttered, but it didn't die out. Savitar had been searching for the same loss he'd once felt at West's words on that face, but he was to be disappointed. Wally seemed to think Savitar was spewing some kind of heroic wisdom, that he was making a valiant, sobering point.

"I know. I know, but I'm gonna do my best to be worth it," Wally decided aloud, nodding. "I'm gonna get as close as I can, right? Like you."

"Like me?" Savitar laughed, harsh and short.

"Yeah. You're fast—like, you've got super speed." Wally glanced over a shoulder at the wall monitors. "You're all over the news, man. You're a legend—this shadow that runs around helping people just cuz he can? That's how I wanna be. I wanna do more." He was smiling again. It was infuriating.

"Really?" Savitar stopped vibrating, but he kept his distance. He rubbed his chin. "Good luck. Because this—"

In a flash of electricity, he was out of the room. Out of the building. Out of the city. All the way to Keystone.

A heartbeat had passed, and he tossed a small box of pizza into Wally's lap. "—is not something you should try at home."

Wally gaped at the warm cardboard slab. "Woah." He opened it and took a slice of pizza out, responding between bites, "I know. And believe me, I wouldn't try it even if I could. Speed—" He swallowed, wiping tomato sauce from his lower lip with a thumb. "That's not me."

Savitar quelled the surprise in his voice. "'Not you'," he repeated, dumbfounded.

"Yeah, um..." Wally's eyes were on the pizza joint's logo, pasted to the side of the box. He glanced furtively at Savitar. "I don't like going too fast, you know?"

Savitar looked at him as if he had grown a third nostril.

Another swallow. "So—when I was nine," he set down his pizza, speaking a little more clearly now, "my mom got in a car accident. It was raining, we were on the highway on the way home from school. We were already late for dinner, so she broke the speed limit—she starts hydroplaning. We spun out of control—ended up crashing into someone else."

The former God of Speed raised his eyebrows, the only emotion he showed at the story.

Wally's tone got louder, more confident, eager to be talking to the man that had rescued him at last. "We were spinning so quick...I remember I didn't think we'd stop moving ever again." He shrugged. "We survived—I got a couple stitches outta the deal, so that was a cool story to tell my friends. But uh," he cleared his throat. "I never wanted to go that fast again."

Savitar narrowed his eyes. "You're afraid of speed." He lifted a finger, pointing underhand at the boy. "Wouldn't that make you afraid of driving, though?" He smirked.

Wally's shrug rose to his jawline. "Hey, you don't get to pick your phobias. Long as I don't go over the speed limit, I can handle it."

The speedster turned, moving for the exit. "You can walk again. You're breathing. There's no reason for you to be here anymore."

"Hold up—" Wally slid off of the gurney, to Savitar's surprise, and hurried after him. The burn marks were pale against his face, fading already. "Isn't there something I can do to help you guys? I know Caitlin's got you wired when you're out there. I've seen her telling you what to do. I can do that too—like, when she's not here, like right now."

He sounded so desperate to be heard, Savitar practically squirmed with pleasure at the chance to shoot him down. Once upon a time, the roles were reversed; he too had begged, and he'd been sent away. He'd wanted to do this for over a lifetime. Trapping Wally in the Speed Force had been good, but there was something about this—even if it was one-sided—that was just so deliciously deliberate.

"Go home, Wallace," Savitar tossed carelessly over his shoulder. "There's nothing for you in S.T.A.R. Labs."

West stopped walking. "It's Wally," he said firmly, and the speedster turned to look at him. "And I know you can use me somehow. I want you to. Caitlin said you're looking for extra hands, like a team. I can be your first recruit." He smiled, unfazed. "I'm pretty good with my hands."

Those Iris-dark eyes, that little quirk of the mouth, the yellow that was so like Kid Flash's costume. The tone he used when he was beating Barry at a game of Halo Reach, when he was going to race the Flash across the city, when he was Joe's first choice in Charades on Family Game Night. What had once been warmth, fondness, pride—it curdled, turning to rage and utter dislike.

A rattling sigh, a shaking of the head that made his mask chafe against his scarred ear. "No matter which one I'm talking to, you still think you're some kind of gift to the world." Savitar strode up to Wally, looking down with undisguised contempt. "You're not burnt. Your back's as good as new. You're taking up space and you're wasting my time. You don't belong here, Wally West. Get out. Go. Home."

He sped from the Cortex. He'd only been indoors for roughly twenty minutes and already he needed some air.

(I know, no ScareBare and Caitlin scenes? What foul trickery is this? It's up next, I promise. -Doverstar)