And on with the show! I got this done, and it's the longest chapter yet! There wasn't really a good place to cut it, so here it is!

FYI: Tissues might be needed!


Panting, Lian lifted her head from it's place on his shoulder, "Wow."

Bart nodded, appreciating the rubble as he sat her back on her feet, "Can you imagine how beautiful this was?" Lian was silent, and for her, that was strange. "Li?" He said, turning to look at her.

Lian had a hand held over her mouth and if he didn't know better, he'd say she was about to burst into tears. Her chest heaved and she made a strange sound before saying with an unusually thin voice, "Bart, my parents died here." She took a staggered step back before shaking her head and clenching her eyes shut, "I know they're dead, that's not news to me. Why am I doing this?"

Bart put his hand on her face, "Li, you don't have to keep it all bottled up. I lost my parents too. There's not a day that I don't think of them." He moved his hand to take her's, "Come on, let's put some faces to those names. I think it'll help you."

Amazingly, she let him pull her towards the rubble, and left her hand in his. As they wandered through the abandoned hallways Lian asked, "Why are you so nice to me? I'm ill tempered and harsh. I know most people can't stand being near me too long."

Bart shrugged, "You're not so bad. At least you're not trying to kill me anymore."

Lian laughed, and the noise actually startled Bart, and he snapped his head to the side to look at her. He regretted it instantly. With the small little smile on her face and the light sparking in her eyes, she was a hundred times more beautiful. They flushed in unison, but Lian was the first to avert her eyes, "Thank you, Bart. For everything."

"Yeah, yeah. What are friends for?" Bart said, trying to quell the bulge growing against the zipper of his jeans.

Lian's hand squeezed his tightly, an instinctual reaction to her shock, "Friends? I've never had a friend before."

"What about Mr. Blood and Etrigan?" Bart asked, trying not to look at her again.

Lian scoffed, "They're not my friends, Bart. They're the men that pulled me away from my mother. I remember that much. She didn't want to let me go. I remember we were both crying. I didn't understand what was happening, and she was yelling about not being ready. Etrigan grabbed me. My mother screamed for me until the gate closed behind us." She took a deep breath, "I didn't speak for four years Hell time. Here, that's nearly a decade. I didn't say a word."

Bart forced a chuckle, "That seems hard to believe."

Lian bumped him with her good shoulder, "Oh, hush."

"Look there." Bart said suddenly, pulling her towards the remains of one wall. Nestled under two slabs of concrete was a data drive.

"What is that?" Lian asked, crouching next to Bart.

"Data drive." Bart said absently, reaching for the smallest screwdriver he had on him.

"You are such a gear-head." Lian said, rolling her eyes and continuing to wander down the hallway on her own. There were little pieces of history scattered all over. Lian stooped to pick up a batarang that was mostly intact. "Wonder who's this was. My grandfather, my mother, Dick, Tim, my Uncle Damian?" She looked mournfully at all of the damage, "So much pain."

Burt whistled, "Li, come look. Oh, this is clever. Pictures, Li. Just the thing we were looking for!"

Lian jogged back to him, "Oh my God." She sank to the dusty broken floor next to him, "That's her, isn't it?"

"I think so." Bart said, looking at the image being projected onto the wall.

"She was so beautiful." Lian said, taking in Katherine Harper, her Huntress mask removed as she stared unseeing back at them, her long inky hair curling over her shoulders and framing her distinctly Wayne features in a way that was entirely Kyle.

"You look just like her." Bart whispered. It was the truth, Lian had the same eyes, chin, and mouth as her mother, but in his mind, she was even prettier than her mother.

A smile actually formed on Lian's face, "Well, except for the hair."

Bart smiled back at her, tugging playfully on a strand of fiery dark red hair that had escaped her tight ponytail, "Yeah, except for the hair. Let's see if we can find more of that red hair." Lian nodded, and leaned up against him, a small smile on her face.

Looking at a picture of her father, Lian lost it. "I want them back, Bart! I want them to know me."

Bart put his arm around her shoulder and held her as she dissolved into tears. "They do know you, Li. They had four years with you, and I'm pretty sure there wasn't a thing you did that they weren't right there for."

"Why do you say things like that?" Lian said, wiping her face, but remaining nestled against Bart.

"Like what?" Bart said teasingly, a smile in his voice.

"Hopeful things. How can you be so hopeful? We are in the middle of the end of the world, and you spout off things to make me feel better. I know you're not happy. I can see in your eyes that you're just as miserable as I am most of the time." Lian said darkly.

Bart tipped her face so he could look her in the eyes, "In all of this, have you ever thought that all I want to do is make you happy? I know my yammering isn't much, but..." The wide open look on her face killed him, "Screw it." He whispered before he pressed his lips to hers.

She slapped him, skittering away like he'd burned her, kicking the data drive, sending it spinning down the hall. "What was that?" Lian yelled at him, scrambling to her feet clumsily, not taking her eyes off him.

It took everything Bart had not to show the hurt on his face, "I just kissed you. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have."

Lian had her hand against her lips, "Oh. That was a kiss?"

Bart wanted to drown, "I know I'm not that experienced, but I don't know what else that could have been..."

"I've never been kissed before." Lian blurted, cutting off his self deprecating rant. Lian looked at her feet, going up on the balls of her feet before lowering back several times like a child, "My mother wrote about kissing a bit. I don't think I mind."

Bart's eyebrows shot to his hairline, "What?"

The corners of Lian's mouth twitched up, "I don't think I mind kissing you, Bart. You just...startled me. I'm not used to being taken by surprise. You surprise me."

"So I can kiss you again?" Bart asked.

Lian smirked, looking just like the photo they'd seen of her grandmother, "Maybe. Someday. Only if you're good though."

Bart rolled his eyes. "Who's bossy again?"

"I am. I make the rules." Lian said, tipping her head back, smirking at him.

Bart shook his head, a wry smile on his face, "Sure you are."

She chucked a piece of rubble at him, and it clipped the side of his head, "Ouch!"

"You deserved that." Lian said, picking up the data drive and cradling it close to her chest, "Can we go back now?"

Bart nodded, stepping down a still standing step so she could wrap herself around him again. He stooped his head to kiss the hand in front of his mouth, "Let's go, Princess."

That time, when her arms were clenched around his neck, they were far more tender.

Things had changed a little after that. Well...a lot. He'd unknowingly created a monster. Lian grabbed him all the time to jerk him into a corner so they could make out. Bart didn't mind in the least, of course, but now Lian freaked everyone else out even more. It was like they'd decided that she wasn't human, and seeing her with someone scared them.

Lian didn't seem to let it bother her, and she had shut Jason down when he'd begun a long winded lecture, "Jason, you are not my father. I like Bart, and for some reason he likes me too. We can kiss if we want to."

Lian also took to falling asleep next to him, and nothing made him happier. "You're so warm, like my own personal sun." She'd explain as she'd curl up under his arm to rest her head on his chest. That always made Bart smile, and he'd wait until she was asleep to finally close his own eyes, running his ringers through her red hair until he joined her in sleep. Lian was always gone when he woke up, and the first time, he'd been angry, until he realized that before she left, Lian had taken the care to tuck him into their blankets, and she left him a candy bar. Lian did it every day.

She was still sharp towards him sometimes, but she'd shoot him a little smile that made him forget to be frustrated with her. She'd go right back to reaming someone about breaking safety protocol of course, and everything in their little camp continued as it should.

He kept the time machine from her. Most of the time, he couldn't justify his actions even to himself, but he kept quiet, sneaking off to work on it with Nate pretty much any time Lian wasn't looking. She never asked about where he vanished to, but that made it pretty clear to him that she knew somehow. She confirmed it when just after the new year, she walked up to him and Nate.

"So this is where you're always zipping off to." She said, eyeing Nate critically.

Bart started stuttering, "Li, I..."

Lian held a hand up, stopping him, "Hush, you." She stood toe to toe with Nate, looking just about as intimidating as Bart had ever seen her. "Are you two doing something that could get Bart killed?" Nate nodded slowly, obviously alarmed by the teenaged girl's aggressive demeanor. "Then today is the last day you two work on this without me. I won't have some prisoner getting the only person I care about killed."

She didn't know much about temporal imbalances and time travel, but Lian was very quick. In about two hours, she was pointing out program errors to them. Nate was overwhelmed and scared of her. Lian had no problem with that. Nate sidled up next to Bart, who was watching Lian skim through their code and make changes every tenth line, "Is she normal?"

Bart shrugged, "She's a genius who was emotionally stunted after the age of four. I think she's just about as normal as can be expected."

"She's pretty." Nate commented.

Bart glared at the older man, "Yeah, and she's mine."

Nate snorted, "I think you're hers, Bart."

Bart gave a dopey smile, "You're probably right. I don't mind though. She's stopped trying to kill me!"

Lian looked back at him over her shoulder, "I can start that up again if you want, Bart."

"No, I'm good!" Bart said, holding his hands up, a smile on his face.

Nate looked at him, "I've never seen you like this. She makes you happy."

Bart nodded, "She does." He sidled up behind Lian and kissed the side of her neck, "You want to go find something to eat?"

"I'm not..." Bart bit the spot he'd just kissed, and Lian stopped protesting, "Know what, I could probably eat something right now." That was all he needed to hear, and he took her back to the small cave in camp where they'd made their home to kiss her senseless.

With Lian's help, they completed the machine, and it was her idea to look in the Hall of Justice for a power source. Bart fooled around, trying to lighten the sour mood she'd thrown herself in, "Smile!"

Lian glared his direction, but when she saw the data drive in his hands, her face broke into a small smile. They were his favorite smiles, and his heart leapt at being able to get one down permanently. The next time she got pissed at him, he'd have something to console himself with. She took his hand and kissed his cheek, "My Gearhead!"

Bart laughed, tugging gently on her ponytail, "Yup!" They approached one of the only unbroken doors, some power still keeping it locked, and Bart went to the keypad, furiously trying to figure out the code that would bypass the hand scanner.

"Let me." Lian said, easing him aside, handing him her black fingerless gloves, and placing her right hand on the scanner. For a few seconds, nothing happened, but when the door whirred open, Bart gapped at her in shock, "My mother wrote that they'd wired me into all the security systems. Glad it's finally been of some use." They both wandered through the hall, a still memorial to powers long gone. "I'm not seeing anything." Lian said, audibly dismayed.

Bart sighed, looking around, "We'll find som... Get down!"

He heard Lian grunt as she barely dodged a laser beam. "Shit!" He shivered when he saw what she'd seen. Blue Beetle.

Lian scrambled to her feet and grabbed his hand, and he could see that she hadn't dodged, the first shot had grazed her abdomen, "We need to get out of here!"

An explosion buckled the ground beneath them, pitching them apart. Blue Beetle was laughing, "Aww, sorry to break that up!" He raised his cannon shaped arm, "This is the end, Visage. Say hello to your parents for me!" Bart caught her before she hit the ground. For all his speed, he was too late. The beam had sliced into her upper thigh, and that wound alone poured out blood. Lian, brilliant as ever, shot her hand down and started digging, whining against the pain as she tried to pinch off her severed femoral artery. She was quick enough, and once he had her on the ground at a safe distance, her hands were slick with blood but her leg had slowed it's bleeding. The wound on her stomach oozed blood too, but at a slower rate. Either wound was deadly.

Lian's face was pale as she looked down at her ravaged body, "Bart?"

He kissed the side of her head, moving her so she was in his lap and he could press his hand onto her stomach, trying vainly to keep her blood in her body, "I've got you, Li. Shh, catch your breath and I'll take you to get help."

Lian smiled up at him, lifting her left hand to pick up her gun and shoot at something behind him, dropping the metal back to the ground, pale at the effort it took just to lift something she'd been carrying since she was a child. "It won't make a difference."

"No, Lian. I'll get you help." Bart said firmly.

She laughed shallowly, her eyes going wide in pain. She worked up the air to speak, "I'm going to die, Bart. Not even you and your speed will change that."

Bart clenched his teeth. "If I have to run faster than I've ever run before, I'll get you to help. Don't give up. Damnit, Lian! Don't you dare give up."

Lian was looking down at her leg where her own fingers were stuck inside, "You'd have to move me, Bart. As it is, I'll bleed out within a half hour. I'll have maybe a minute once my fingers leave my artery." A tear ran down her face, "I'll be dead before we're out of Happy Harbor. Besides, you have to get to the machine before they do."

"I'm going to save you." Bart said pleadingly.

Lian shook her head, looking him with as much peace and love as she could muster, "No you aren't, Bart. You're going to save the world."

"I don't care about the world!" Bart yelled, his chest heaving as he started to cry. "I love you!" He'd never said those words to her before, but he wished he had.

Lian's smile grew brighter as her face grew paler, "I love you too, Bart Allen. That's why I have to do this. They'll kill you if you stay here, and then it's all over. Nate can't do what you can. It has to be you, Bart."

"It's supposed to be the both of us." Bart protested.

Lian struggled to lean up to him, kissing his lips, "It was always just you, Bart. I wasn't ever going to go. You can do it on your own. I know you can." She took a deep breath, "And you're going to have to do it without me." Lian kissed him again, and he froze when he felt her right hand on his cheek, slick and warm.

He ripped back from her lips, "No!"

Lian's heart was racing, and she grabbed his face with both of her bloody hands, ignoring the warm feeling of her blood pulsing out of her body through the gash in her leg, "It has to be this way. Trust me, Bart. You trust me, don't you?" She kissed tears from his cheeks, her movements slowing with every pump of her heart.

He nodded furiously, "Always, Lian."

She smiled, tucking one of her hands into one of his and resting it on her sternum, "Okay, than just hold me until I fall asleep. Once I'm asleep, you go, as fast as you can, and you change the world. You made me a better person, now make the world better."

Bart smiled despite his tears, "God, you're even bossy while you're dying."

Sweat beaded on her face as her body fought to keep up with her blood loss, "Have to keep some things the same. Don't hate him...for this." Lian said, and Bart almost fought her. Blue Beetle had just mortally wounded her, and she wanted him to play nice in the past? Her breaths came in short pants and she shivered in his arms, "I'm cold."

Bart tightened his arms around her, kissing her forehead, all thoughts of argument fleeing from his head, "I've got you, Li. You go to sleep now, and when you wake up, it'll all be better."

"I'm tired." Lian said breathlessly, tilting her head to rest over his heart. "Goodbye. I love you, Bart Allen."

Bart let go of a sob, "Sleep, Lian. I love you so much." He watched her eyelids flutter shut, locking their crystal blue away forever. A small smile on her face, she was still breathing, shallow and quick, but he knew deep inside that she was asleep and that she would never wake up again. Bart pulled one of his bloody hands across her pale cheek, "We should have had more time. I'm so sorry, Lian. Don't leave me!"

His cries fell uselessly across the barren landscape, and in one terribly visceral shudder, Lian let go of her last breath, going completely limp in his arms. Sobbing soundlessly, he stood with her body cradled against him, and ran as fast as his uncoordinated legs would take him toward Nathaniel and the time machine.

Nate's smile at the sight of him fell when he saw Lian's still form. His eyes darted from the blood dripping from Lian's right hand as it hung below her to the tears on Bart's heartbroken face, "Oh no."

Bart pulled himself together, laying her against the rocks that hid their machine at the base of the ruins of Mount Justice. He looked down at their joined hands, and realized numbly that she'd been pressing the Lantern's ring into his palm. She must have seen it right when they'd gotten attacked, and she hadn't let go. Bart kissed her lips for the last time, pulling away from her, "I love you, Lian Harper, forever."

He stood, pouring water from his flask over his hands to wash away her blood before taking her fingerless gloves from his backpack and pulling them on, setting to work. Nate watched in silence as Bart added the final piece to the machine, "Finished?" Bart nodded, attempting to wipe the tears off his face, but only smearing her blood across his cheek. Nate ached for the younger man, "I'll bury her, Bart. They won't get her." He held a small box out to Bart, "That should strip past me of my powers." He closed his eyes, "The jump will fry the circuits, you won't be able to come back."

Bart looked over at Lian's corpse, her head tilted to the side, her red hair cascading down her shoulder, and the rest of her covered in blood. "Is this really a place worth coming back to? She's all I had. All I've ever had." He smirked, "Now I won't feel so bad if I have to take a few aliens with me."

"Good Luck." Nate said tightly.

Bart sighed, "Got to get into character! I know, Nate! Big job, big mission, I've got to go!" His bluster failed him, and he looked at the other man, "You'll take care of my girl?"

Nate nodded, "You have my word, Bart. She'll be at peace. They won't touch her."

Bart nodded back, "Thank you." With the Green Lantern ring acting as it's power source, his machine had had no trouble leaving the future behind.

Bart opened his eyes and found himself looking into crystalline blue eyes. Katherine. "I've got you, Bart!" She cried, catching him as he fell forward out of his containment pod and out of his nightmarish dreams at last. As usual, the familiarity of her mannerisms slowed his brain, but a few seconds in her arms and he was off, finding Jaime.

He made the decision then to tell Jaime what was in his future. Jaime had stared at him in shock, "You're lying. I would never let him take over like that!"

Bart pulled the data drive out of it's home inside his belt line. "This is Lian, Bart. I loved her, and your Blue Beetle is what killed her. I would never lie about that. You can't let them get control over you, or this is what the future will look like." Behind Lian and her smiling face were the ruins of the Hall of Justice. "Blue Beatle did that, and killed over half the League by himself when he did it." Bart's eyes were riveted on Lian's face. "I can't let you do that, Jaime."

Jaime blanched, "Ese, are you going to kill me?"

Bart forced a laugh, putting the data drive away, "Nah, Jaime, as long as you're in control, we've got no issue. We're crash!"

"And if Blue Beetle does get back in the mode?" Jaime asked, although the creature in question was already answering.

Bart's smile turned hard, "If you're ever moded, it will be my job to take you offline. Permanently."


"Staring at the ceiling in the dark
Same old empty feeling in your heart
'Cause love comes slow and it goes so fast

Well you see her when you fall asleep
But never to touch and never to keep
'Cause you loved her too much
And you dived too deep

Well you only need the light when it's burning low
Only miss the sun when it starts to snow
Only know you love her when you let her go

Only know you've been high when you're feeling low
Only hate the road when you're missin' home
Only know you love her when you let her go

And you let her go (oh, oh, ooh, oh no)
And you let her go (oh, oh, ooh, oh no)
Will you let her go?"

"Let Her Go"
By: Passenger


Whew! All your reviews were awesome! Keep it up! That's the end of my Bart/Lian flashbacks(forwards?), but I'm thinking of doing a spin off with them and expanding on the scenes from RM, but that won't be until this is very close to finished.

Let me know what you thought!
-Jenn