Disclaimed.

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'Past'

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Wally sat on the beach staring out at the gentle waves. Had an onlooker been present; they would have believed him to be thinking deeply. The meaning of life, a scientific formula, the love of his life, or perhaps a tragic past kept hidden would come to mind as topics of deep thought. Of course, those onlookers would be wrong. Completely and thoroughly wrong.

Wally's mind was blank. Completely and utterly blank.

There was far too much for him to think about and he just didn't have the energy to force himself in to thinking about any of it. Besides the ocean loomed far too pretty to taken for granted with the sun setting in the horizon and the beautiful colors reflec-

Oh god. He was becoming one of those romance novels his Aunt Iris read. Yuck. Maybe thinking about things would be a better alternative, despite his lack of desire or energy to think about such things. With everything going on, he really probably did need to think things through. With a sigh, Wally leaned back using his arms as props. The sky was quickly darkening and water had started taking on a dark, almost black hue.

Roy joined the team; to Wally that seemed like a good place to start. Roy had joined the team that he walked away from to begin with. The only reason he had joined was as a favor to the League and possibly to spite his mentor in a backhanded manner. Not too long ago, Wally would have thought Roy was just reclaimed the place that was rightfully his on the team; and as much as he loved Roy as a friend, he just didn't fit.

Over the past few days, Roy had completely thrown off the precarious balance the team had found without Artemis. In the time apart from Green Arrow, the boy had gone from the kind, mischievous teenager to this angsty, angry shadow of their Roy. More often than not, Roy was rude and unnecessarily harsh. After the Megan fiasco when they had found out Roy was their temporary teammate, the eighteen year old had gone out of his way to be colder and almost cruel to the Martian. Megan had stormed out of the room three times either in tears or out of fury due to an argument or comment Roy had made. And just when one of them had had enough to tell the older teen off, he snaps back into his old self with a small joke or comment or just a nice smile. It was taking a toll on the team.

Roy was taking a toll on the team.

Then, of course, there was the situation with Artemis.

As he had been the only one that Artemis contacted, Kaldur had assigned him the unofficial mission of convincing her to return. Or at the very least, Wally was to find out what had spurred her departure in the first place. He was determined to get her back, as he knew that it was his fault she quit in the first place. Wally hadn't tried to talk to the girl ever since the night he had run all the way to Gotham in his pajamas. He still hadn't gotten a message back from her. Here he was with all this responsibility on his shoulders and he had no idea what to do with it. Wally had kicked himself over and over again as he replayed what he had written in his letter, his short conversation with Paula Crock, and the night he stood in the streets of Gotham. There were so many different things he should have done, all beginning with the words, 'I'm sorry'.

Wally scowled and closed his eyes, blocking out the vivid colors of the twilight sky and their reflections on the dark water. He tried to clear his mind and it worked well enough for a few moments. There was no Roy nagging away, guilting him into feeling as though he was a bad friend; nor was there a sad looking Artemis, glaring with large, grey, tear-filled eyes trying to coax him into saying the wrong things. There was just emptiness. Emptiness and peace.

"BZZZZZZT! BZZZT! BZZZZZZZT!"

The sudden muffled sounds of his phone vibrations registered before he even felt them in his back pocket. Wally's eyes opened sluggishly and he exhaled, his breath forming a small white cloud in front of his face before disappearing into the now dark, cold night. Everything was tinted in a soft blue hue and he noted that the sky was filled with ominous looking clouds that blocked out the silvery moonlight. Lifting up from the ground, he slid his hand into his pocket and grasped the warm phone. Wally was actually surprised at the contrast of warmth between the phone and his own hand. He couldn't have been sitting out there for more than an hour; and normally, it took much longer for his external body temperature to lower in a mild climate. His fingers were stiff hitting the unlock code on his screen and he soon found that he had been here longer than an hour and that the temperature was far less mild than what he had imagined.

Pushing himself off the sand, Wally brushed himself off and started towards the entrance to the mountain's interior. He aimlessly fiddled with the edge of his case with one hand, while the other tapped away at the screen using his thumb. He paused mid-step as the frayed corner of a piece of stationary slipped from its spot inside the case. Wally wasn't even hesitant as he removed the case, pulling out the paper that had been crammed into it, and replacing the shell back onto his phone carefully. Pocketing the phone entirely, his hands now fiddled with the worn, folded paper.

By the time he entered the base, the paper had only one fold left to undo. Wally didn't really have any desire to unfold the paper and reread what was on it, but he was trying to get rid of some of his thoughts, wasn't he?

Wallace,

Your mother and I think that it's about time for you to come home. We haven't been the greatest parents, Wallace; we know that now. We've worked on it though and you need to give us another chance because we are your parents. We're all that you've got, kiddo.

You've been a burden on Iris and her husband, Benny, long enough, wouldn't you say? So instead of playing house with them, you should be home thinking about your future. Mr. Evans, my shift supervisor, said that the minute you turned seventeen he could legally hire you. That he would hire you as a favor to me, so you'd have a full time position to start your own life. An entry level job, but it's still a job in this economy.

I'll give Iris a call and smooth out all the details. We'll be seeing you soon enough, kid.

-Rudy West

Wally's eyes skimmed over the page more than once. A blank expression was carved into his face as he stared at his father's left-handed, messy scrawl. He didn't even bother to get Uncle Barry's name right, even though he knew it. His father had hated Barry since the day Iris married him, but Wally had no idea why.

Uncle Barry was a great guy; his father, Rudolph, wasn't so much.

He had his spats with his father more often than with his mother when he still lived with them. Both of his parents claimed to be realists, but in hindsight, Wally saw that they were pessimists. They rained on his parade more than once, so to speak. Never once had the perfect scores in science and math been enough to appease the two; it was always 'Well what about the next test? Do you know that information?' Then his father had the sick idea stuck in his head that Wally would work at the power plant with him starting the moment he graduated. Even now, Rudy had convinced his boss to hire him on at seventeen when he didn't even live in the state.

They had fought about that most of all before Wally left to live with Aunt Iris. Rudy wanted his son to follow his footsteps, but Wally's interest lay elsewhere. Wally knew he was capable of more, and that he wanted to do more. Rudy hadn't liked that. Wally was still fairly young when those arguments started, he knew he couldn't have been any older than Robin at the most. He and his father would shout it out, both saying things that they didn't mean, or at least shouldn't mean. Wally pushed his father out of his life, just as Rudolph West was trying to force Wally into a copy of his life. Mary and Rudy would fight about the same thing when it wasn't father and son having it out. Never once had his father lifted his hand against his mother or him, but when the plant was temporarily shut down indefinitely due to problems with a reactor that changed.

Since the plant had been shut down, the workers were pretty much suspended without pay leaving many high and dry financially. In desperation, Rudy turned to the bottle, something he hadn't touched since his younger years before the birth of his son. More often than not, one would find Rudy stumbling around drunkenly or passed out somewhere in their house. His mother turned a blind eye to it, lying to Wally and herself claiming that it wasn't a problem. The fights had stopped completely for more than three months.

Wally knew that it was the stress, but there was no other provocation for Rudy's reaction. He had come home from school in the late afternoon one day in the spring, expecting his father to already be passed out or possibly at the bar. Instead, he found him in the hallway beating on the bathroom door. Expletives escaping his mouth every other word and his sentences slurred together. Drunk. Wally had stayed quiet, surveying the front room. Pictures were on the floor, more than one lamp was broken on the floor, and his father's favorite recliner was overturned on the floor. Other than that, the house was completely normal. Except for the raving drunk in the hallway.

Rudy West must have caught his son from the corner of his eye while he was looking around the front room in shock, as he had turned his attentions completely to his son. His disappointment of a son. Wally couldn't help but to take the harsh words to heart from his father's drunken rant and by the time the man had stumbled over to Wally, the bathroom door had been pulled open and his mother was in the hallway, screeching at her husband. That did nothing to deter Rudy, perhaps it served to infuriate him even more, as the next thing Wally knew was the floor. The cold, hard, wooden floor that his father had installed less than two years prior for their wedding anniversary and his mother had loved so much. The same wooden floor that was covered in different pieces of glass from the lamps and the multiple picture frames that scattered the floor.

The second thing that Wally noticed was the bitter coppery taste that had filled his mouth. The third was the pain. The sharp pain in his right cheek, throbbing from where his father's fist had met his face and then the burning sensation of the entire left side of his head. Wally would later find out that more than fifty-two pieces of glass would be picked from the side of his head, all varying in size. Multiple more pieces would be extracted from his arm and side as well.

His father lumbered over him, but his mother had restrained him. Well…she had jumped on his back, demanding that he leave her son alone. Wally gained his sense enough to move and preserve his life. Within seconds, the young boy was off the floor, blood pouring from the length of his left side and trickling from his mouth. Suddenly he was out the door, leaving it wide open for the world to see.

The letter was crushed in Wally's fist now, his eyes closed and his breathing was labored. A pained expression on his face. He remembered when Aunt Iris and Uncle Barry arrived to the police station; they had gotten there in record time. Both had been desperately worried about the younger West, even though Wally could only remember meeting his aunt's husband twice before excluding the wedding. The two rented a motel room, until an agreement had been reached. Rudolph West had agreed to let Wally live with his sister until he finished anger management classes, an alcoholic awareness program, and found a steady job once more, among other things. Wally hadn't realized until years later that the car had been absent until the morning after they had arrived, he imagined Uncle Barry had disappeared while they were asleep and drove all night to get back before he woke up.

That had been the start of his life now, as he knew it.

Wally West stood in the hallway of the base where he reported to as a teenaged superhero. The renowned Kid Flash. Not Flashboy or Flash Jr. He wasn't some deadbeat in a small town, content with working at a dead end job. Nor was he friendless and completely helpless like he was back then. Here he was, doing something more; something far more than he had ever dreamed. Most importantly, he enjoyed it above everything else.

Wally West stood in the hallway of the base where he reported as a teenaged superhero. Unclenching his fist, he smoothed out the new crinkles and creases in the paper with the short and completely meaningless letter on it. He knew he wouldn't go back there, his aunt and uncle wouldn't allow it. Especially if they got the adoption papers drawn up as quickly as The Flash liked things to go. Folding the paper back to the original state he had kept it in, he put it back to its place in his phone case for safe keeping.

Now that that was off his mind, he could focus on more important matters. Like getting Roy off the team and getting their archer back. With a small smile, Wally walked through the halls to find the probably angry or upset alien girl. He had an idea in mind, but the finer tunings of it would need a woman's touch. Preferably the touch of a hot, green woman.

If things went right, he'll be able to kill two birds with one little 'I'm sorry'.

Ten reviews for the last chapter already. Wow.
Go you guys!
I love how everyone loves Roy to death even when he's a jerkface! And I picture Megan being the completely and utterly loyal friend when it comes to jerkfaces like him, hence her out of character sassiness.

So this.
This is the Wally chapter I've been putting off writing for quite some time (not that any of you knew this). I had to talk to my comic book man a little bit today, even though he just kind of rambled on about other topics. He barely touched on Rudolph and Mary West, other than them being rather…not-so-awesome parents. So I took my creative liberties with this. Hopefully, I'm the only one that it seems crazy long-winded to. If not, I'd like to point out, in my defense, that my fingers weren't satisfied and continued typing until they got tired.
Forgive all the fragments. There are a lot of them. My Microsoft Word lights up and looks all festive for this chapter. I just kind of like fragments though. :c

So. Two more reviews and someone gets a one shot. Who's it gonna be? ;o

Oh yes. And four more chapters until Christmastide is done. Anyone think I can finish it by midnight on Christmas night? (I don't, but I wanna try, dammit!)
Okay.
I'm going to bed. I love all of you reviewers since you make my heart smile, my mind think, and my mouth laugh like flippin' crazy.

You will see me soon.
Very, very soon.