Author's note: I just wanted to suggest that fans of Kid Flash and the Titans take a look at a drawing of Wally West, Roy Harper and Dick Graysontitled "bah . . humbug" by an artist going by the name "farfie-kins" over at the Deviant Art, Titans page. Terrific

The next morning, despite the evening's nightmare about Jinx betraying him, Wally'shead was full of wisps of a subsequent dream about her. He couldn't recall details upon waking but the feeling it left him with was completely amorous. It seemed to take forever for his waking erection to subside with all his thoughts of Jinx. He barely had normal speed time to get dressed and make the school bus.

He wore his usual outfit to school, but it wasn't the usual Wally on the bus. He just didn't have it in him to compartmentalize his life and be somber Wally irrespective of how happy Kid Flash was. He smiled out from under his dark red knit. He laughed raucously at the jokes that other kids made and thought that it must be the most beautiful day that he had ever seen as he looked out the bus window at light just starting to hit verdant lawns,blooming forsythia bushes anda proud cat moving gracefuly pasta bed of roses. Gotta get her flowers next time, he reminded himself!

In school he shocked his teachers by paying rapt attention to every word, immediately answering the three times he was called on that day. He made a point to say hi to his friends or former friends. He still had affection for his pals. And his onetime pals returned his greetings with some surprise but a little affection, too. He walked around school with a spring in his step, at least one hand in his pockets to keep his pants up and blue eyes alive with feeling and perception.

Maybe it was the allure of the committed man but even Lauren looked at him differently. He gave her a friendly "hi" as he sat down at lunch at the far end of the table where she sat with her friends. At first she was annoyed. But as she listened to the other girls in her circle she couldn't resist casting a glance at Wally munching on his lunch down at the end of the table. The other girls kept talking, especially the one to her left but her head kept swiveling, her eyes circling ever so slyly back to the right where Wally sat.

She considered talking to him after school, but when he walked out of the building, he was immediately set upon by five juniors from the football team. Well, they were juniors for a few more days. But they considered themselves seniors. And to be fair, they considered the 8th grade boys to now be freshmen.

One grabbed each of a complaining Wally's limbs lifting the hundred twenty something pound 8th grader off the ground with ease. They marched over to the pickup truck owned by anotherof them parked in the middle of the school parking lot. They tossed him down against the open gate of the truck. Wally turned his head super fast to put himself in subjective time. Do I have to let this happen? He looked around. There was no way that Wally West could get free of them. It doesn't matter that Kid Flash can. Wally West was trapped. Damn!

Wally squirmed and struggled causing his pants to drop to his knees but they held him in place bent over but pressed tight against the gate, his white boxers showing to the gathering crowd of kids who'd been leaving school.

The truck had one of those bed liners with ribbed grooves. The two huge football players in the back of the truck each grabbed one of Wally's hands and put a foot on top of it so that Wally's long fingers were trapped each in its own groove with a huge sneakered foot on top of it. Wally was effectively locked into place.

"Come on, guys!" he pleaded as ever more kids gathered around to see Wally get whacked.

He spun his head around super fast again to see who was there. 77 kids. Some of his friends. In the background, by the doors, two teachers, Mrs. Corcoran of Pre-Calc and another. Nobody was trying to help him. He let himself slide back into normal time and heard the whistles and hoots of a carnival atmosphere.

"What'd I ever do to you guys?"

"Shut up ya skinny freshman freak" grunted an overstuffed lineman with a mullet.

WHACK! He swatted Wally's backside with a baseball bat style swing of the special oversized fraternity paddle producing a sound like a gunshot.

"Yeow!" Wally yelped in genuine pain as the watching crowd ooo'ed and ahhhed and laughed.

"Hey, I'm not a freshman yet!"

WHACK!WHACK!WHACK!

"Yeow!" Wally yelped again to giggles and laughter from the crowd. The paddle was taken by another junior much bigger than Wally.

WHACK!WHACK!WHACK!WHACK!

Wally groaned as the kids around laughed. This really hurt. His buns felt like they were on fire.

He had to endure a couple dozen more wallops of his rear end,as the watching crowd laughed, before they were finally done. His hands released from under the boots of the two on the back of the truck, Wally thought he'd be let go. That's what these hazings were, right, just getting your butt tenderized, right? But to his surprise, they yanked him up onto the back of the truck. The gate slammed shut behind him and the truck started to move. Wally had three huge juniors sitting on him and two others holding him down in the bed of the truck. They rolled a little bit away from the school parking lot and started tugging at him.

"Hey! Leave me alone you jerks!" Wally fought as much as Wally West would be expected to fight but in short order they pulled off all his clothes.

"Yeah, this is what I thought you guys really wanted" he grunted over his shoulder eliciting a couple smacks on the back of the head and an elbow slammed between his shoulder blades

Pinned on his stomach, he could see trees and signs and houses on hills over his shoulder. They were heading toward his house. He didn't understand. But then they paused a minute at the driveway to stuff all his clothes and sneakers into the mail box before accelerating away.

"See, nobody stole anything of yours"

Wally checked and made sure that he still had his special ring with is uniform. He did. But now, Wally really had no idea what was up. He struggled as much as he reasonably could to free himself but they were all much stronger than him. Eventually, after driving what seemed like ten minutes along a bumpy narrow road, they screeched to a halt with renewed laughter and shouts in his ear that he was worthless for being a freshman.

Wally sniffed. The air smelled terrible. What the hell was this? But before he could ponder it very long, two had has arms and two had his legs standing up in the back of the truck. Again, he couldn't free himself. One remarked in surprise about what good condition he was in. "Jeez, yeah, whooda guessed it" seconded by another. A third guffawed at the sight of the front of Wally. Another pointed and doubled over in laughter. Another frowned in disgust. "That ain't right." He shook his head in more disgust. Wally gritted his teeth in anger at being their entertainment, but not for long. A moment later they were swinging him back and forth and on the count of three throwing Wally over a high fence.

Splat! Squish!

Ugh. He landed, naked, in the mud and filth of a giant pig pen.

Ahahahahahahahahahahaha!

Ahahahahahahahahahahaha!

He slipped getting up, so that he was nearly covered, his pale skin and orange hair all gray brown with the horrible smelling mix. He saw the juniors falling all over themselves laughing and taking his picture with a phone. "Everybody in school'll have this in their email stack by the time you get home ya pathetic freshman freak!". Their laughter mixed with the snorts and squeals of the pigs, mixed quite well it seemed to Wally.

"You bastards!" he shouted at them. "I'll get you for this!"

They just laughed. And I will get you, vowed Wally. I've gotta take my lumps publicly but privately you'll all get yours with interest he averred to himself before moving on to thoughts of escape. The pig pen was gigantic. A hundred by eighty with a sort of many celled, roofed enclosure inside it that left one corner of the fencing not visible from the truck. All sorts of pigs and piglets and giant sows lounged about the edges and squealed running across the muck. Wally jogged through the filth to that corner, A giant sow sniffed at him and eyed curiously this creature twice her height but a third her weight. Another pig approached Wally aggressively, snorting and making as if ready to charge. Wally got a spot of good footing, and started his molecules vibrating then stepped right through the fence.

He ran super speed through the farm to trails through the woods and a pond. He dove in, the water was still cold in June, and swam the mud and filth off himself with a few super speed laps across the pond. He gave a dog shake to get the water off and sniffed. Still not quite right. He glanced at his ring but didn't want to get a smell into his uniform that would be hard to get out. He ran ahead on the trails to the edge of a yard with an in ground pool.

"Ah, chlorine" he said to himself. Just the thing. He ran around the house twice at super speed and determined that no one was home at that moment then dove into the pool, churning the water into a bubbly froth like a jacuzzi with super speed laps by the score before jumping out and drying himself with a towel hanging on a fence.

He got his Kid Flash uniform from his ring and sped back to his home fast enough to be nearly invisible and then adding a vibration of his molecules as he approached the neighborhood where he lived to make himself even less visible and to prevent any telltale sonic boom. There in the mailbox was all his stuff, pants, shirt, boxers, hat, socks and sneakers. He almost sprinted straight from there through the thin wall into his bedroom but caught a glimpse through the window of someone there.

Dammit! I just told her last night to stay out of my room! This is too much.

Kid Flash went around the obscured side of the house and changed there. He opened the front door and walked in wearing his civilian scarlet knit hat, oversized shirt and giant pants.

"It's me!" he called out from the door then made his way through the kitchen to his room. The door was ajar. He tried to calm to a reasonable level of anger as he pushed it open. She didn't throw me into a pig pen.

"I thought I told you to stay out of my room, sis" he snarled.

But as he opened the door he saw not his little sister but his 37 year old Aunt Iris, Flash's reporter wife who looked like a model just a little past her prime in a black pantsuit with a white blouse underneath seated on his bed, legs over the side flipping the pages of one of his thick books.

"You really go for this stuff, Kid?"

"Aunt Iris!"

"I mean, this is bone dry, Kid"

Wally grinned from ear to ear. Since he'd become Kid Flash, that's what Aunt Iris had called him, "Kid". It wasn't a coincidence. She knew what had happened to him at age 11 and what he was now. She'd washed his chemically and electrically charged clothes for him that evening or tried to. They'd nearly fallen apart in the washer. She'd had to give him some of her husband's comically too big things to wear home, her husband Barry Allen, The Flash. It also fit because Aunt Iris was the sort of fearless woman who just might talk like the lines had come out of an old movie.

"Gosh, it's great to see you Aunt Iris!"

"Don't dodge the question, Kid. I've had tougher than you try to slip through my traps in my 15 years in this business"

Wally just grinned. That's all he could do. Rather than joke with him some more, Aunt Iris got up and gave him a hug.

"Jeez, you've got shoulders now, Kid. Look at you!"

She stepped back a foot and put a hand atop his head running it in a level line over to hers. "Five eight?"

He nodded to go with his grin.

"Good for you Kid. Good for you" she said and couldn't resist another hug. He hugged back as she rubbed his back then gave his speedster's butt a slap through his giant pants.

He winced.

"That hurts, Kid?"

"Well . . it's like this, Aunt Iris. I'm nearly a freshman now. And I just got back from being jumped by a bunch of guys who're nearly seniors . . ."

She smirked then raised one eyebrow. "Isn't it kind of homoerotic, Kid, to want to paddle another boy's buns to initiate him into your group? What, exactly, is the group about then?"

Wally burst into laughter.

"Especially when they pick on such a handsome boy" she added rubbing his cheekbone. "So, seriously, Kid, you really go for this stuff?" she said flipping open the cover of The Abstract of Physical Security Systems.

"It's a Kid Flash thing, Aunt Iris"

"Kid. You're Kid Flash"

"I mean, it's something I'm doing because I'm Kid Flash"

"Trying to bone up on all the background information that might come into play in investigations?"

"Yeah"

She looked at the three stacks of books, roughly knee high next to his bed.

" . . Forensic Ballistics . . Industrial Metallurgy . . Advanced Polymer somethingorothers . . " she shook her head looking at her nephew. "You're only 14, Kid. You don't need to know everything"

"I'm almost 15, and I want to" he smiled.

"Well, just don't be upset if you don't get there, Kid." she smiled and then pulled off his hat in one motion.

"Hey!"

"Not so fast, after all if you don't see it coming, are ya, Kid?" she chuckled.

He only smiled.

"I just wanted to see that beautiful head of hair" she said mussing his wavy orange locks with one hand. "It's too bad it's so distinctive"

"Your hair's not any less pretty for not being a weird color, Aunt Iris"

She tilted her head to one side that he knew meant a joking reproach was coming. "Kid, you don't mention the words color and hair in the same breath to 37 year old women. You just don't. That's a minefield you want to stay out of'"

He nodded with a smile.

"So, I know it's a Friday, but how's about you and me take a ride into the City and I'll buy my favorite nephew a dinner and maybe some other stuff?"

"I'm you're only nephew, Aunt Iris"

"So, you rigged the game in your favor, huh Kid?" she said with a push to his shoulder. "Couldn't stand a little competition, could ya?"

Wally grinned and followed her out into the kitchen where he put on his hat then picked up paper and pen.
"What're you doing?"

"Leaving a note"

She sighed theatrically. "Always the responsible one. How do you think I got in?"

"Well, you said you could pick just about any lock"

She slapped the side of his knit cap covered head. "I don't B and E family, Kid. Your sister was here when I got here. She was going off to her dance thing. Some big recital or something. Least, that's what the woman at the school said when I called last week to make sure my visit conflicted"

He laughed.

"Once again I don't get to dole out my attention so truly evenly like your mom" she said and snapped her fingers. Darn.

Wally grinned all the way out to her two seater sports car, Mercedes SLK 320 AMG. She got a kick out of the way Wally's eyes lit up at the sight of it and the way he gawked at it as he slowly circled it. She let him have a minute of rubbing his palms on the silver gray surface and looking intently up the hood and down the side of the car.

"Boys and cars" she sighed. "Could you be any more excited about a girl?" she asked and saw him flash a very quick but meaningful glance her way. She burst into guffaws and got into the driver's seat. She squeezed his shoulder when he buckled in next to her at the thought that her nephew had met a girl about whom he was really excited. In the course of pursuing stories, she'd interviewed them all, the full gamut from presidents and kings to killers and scoundrels, sometimes more than one category being covered at a time. You didn't get information out of a man if you tried to get it before he was ready. Having a poker player's sense of how to judge people had made "An Iris West exclusive" something that got the public's attention. She didn't traffic in "that Barbara Walters, Diane Sawyer pap" , as she called it. She did real news where the people didn't always want to tell you a damn thing. The Kid would clam up if she pushed him now. But he'll tell later.

As the sports car roared away from the curb, Wally let out a sigh and glanced at her with admiration. It'd been months since she'd dropped by to visit him. It was always like this, just bang, hey Kid let's go for a ride. She never showed up with any notice. She said her job digging up stories didn't let her plan her schedule. But Wally wondered if she didn't do it that way on purpose. Without a schedule, any day might be the one when she'd show up.

Along with knowing that he was Kid Flash, she knew the ins and outs of the West household. And she wasn't afraid to say something about it. Wally was supposed to be asleep back in late January when she'd shown up and dropped him back home late at night. His first NBA game. But he could hear her talking to his mother. "What are you nuts? You give one of your kids one present for christmas and the other 7 or 8!"

Just to have someone say that it was nuts made it bearable to him, even if it didn't change things. Just to have it said meant he didn't have to. He wasn't sure what, if anything his other relatives felt for him but Aunt Iris loved him and he loved her back.

She sped along, zipping in and out of traffic, passing on roads that were marked with dashed center lines but on which Wally had never seen anyone else pass another car. Then when they got to the highway, she really stomped on it. He was silent for the start of the ride, just smiling and adjusting to his feeling of pleasure in her company. She broke the mood with a laugh.

"You are one unusual passenger, Kid"

"How's that?"

"One of my colleagues calls this car 'the truth serum-mobile' "

"Truth serum-mobile?"

"Yeah, because I like to take people I want to question in it for a spin and they tell me stuff they never intended to tell me because they see their lives passing before their eyes."

Wally chuckled as she quickly downshifted to slow the sportscar as they were about to run up the back of an SUV, leaving a patch of rubber as she braked and then jumped to the middle lane and then the right lane, followed by accelerating as fast as the 349 horsepower car could manage.

"But I'm probably not going to impress somebody with super speed, am I, Kid?"

"I can moonwalk faster than this, Aunt Iris" he said and she burst into guffaws as she powered past the other cars into the fast lane and turned them into specks in her rear view mirror.

They joked back and forth as she roared through traffic, expertly picking the right lane to make the best progress time after time. Finally, she skidded to a halt, perfectly positioned in a parking space on a side street just a block from the most upscale mall in the city. As they got out, Wally saw a couple unshaven guys in overcoats staring hungrily at the car from against a wall. Aunt Iris went right up to them.

"Either of you gentlemen know where the special gun sale advertised in the NRA flyers is being held?" she asked, affecting a Texas drawl, and then pointed to Wally. "We should have the paper with us. Unfortunately, m'nephew's a handsome one and the best shot in his class but cannot be counted on to remember instructions more complicated than draw a bead and fire"

The two stammered and looked at each other.

"Well allright thank ya anyway" said Aunt Iris with a tilt of her head and she walked away from them taking Wally with her. Once around the corner, she squeezed his arm and chuckled, "Oh, they might still steal it but I can't resist making them feel a little fear regarding the enterprise"

They made their way into the mall and, at first, walked around in no particular direction. Wally asked her a few questions about the stories she was working on but she knew how to shepherd a conversation and brought things back to him over and over. He resisted at first but saw that she was very clever at this particular game and quite determined. He gave up.

"How are you physically outside of a sore pair of buns?
"I heal real fast, Aunt Iris. My butt's fine. And I feel great in general"

"Good. How's things . . well, let me put it this way. How's the stress level, Kid?"

"The stress level's pretty high, Aunt Iris. Mom and Dad and school. And I had another of those sort of catch 22 situations. I was on my way to a girl's house for a date and the damn ring buzzed twice. Police emergency. So I change to my red and yellow and go all over these hills looking for a lost scout. Nothing. I can't find anything after 2 hours. Me! Then I look in the opposite direction from where the police said to look and I find him in a few minutes. I wanted to hightail it out of there right then but they tell me the kid's family wants to see me and thank me. So I stick around and then it's too late to go over her house. The next day, the papers are all full of Kid Flash this and Kid Flash that but Wally West doesn't get any of that credit. I tried to talk to the girl and ask her to trust me that I had a good reason for not showing but she doesn't want to have anything to do with me anymore."

"Well, Kid, first of all, I don't think that's really a catch 22. You're just screwed is what you are" she said very casually and both she and Wally laughed.

And while he laughed, she watched closely, even as she laughed too. Nope. Whoever the girl he unintentionally stood up is, she's not the one. He's laughing too easily now for that look at the car. She's the girl before The Girl.

She asked her nephew what he wanted. He shrugged.

"Just because you're here with a family member doesn't mean you have to go into stoic-ascetic mode, Kid. It's okay to want something"

"I thought you weren't supposed to buy me anything but a basic. You had that big argument with my mom"

"You heard that?"

He nodded.

She sighed, taking stock of things. "Allright, Kid, I got you these indestructible but still soft pants last time" she said tugging at his pants and pulling them out half his own width beyond him "and the special but simple looking shirts and the hat" she said tapping his head. What's left? Socks and Underwear?"

Wally nodded with a smile. She shook her head. "Can you imagine if I gave your sister, princess, a blank check like that?"

They went to the pseudo outdoorsman stores. They went to the chichi clothing stores. In a shop called Extremes that catered to the rock climbing crowd, Aunt Iris bought Wally several pairs of socks that the salesman described as "comfortably indestructible". At one of the men's clothing stores, a tailor ran a tape around Wally's waist and then around his hips. He raised an eyebrow and took the hip measurement again. Just the thing! He came back with a dusty box of white, stretchy cotton boxer briefs. Wally protested that he only wore boxers. Try these. He did. "Really really nice" was his verdict. "They fit as if made for my body". She bought two dusty boxes for him. The price explained the dust.

"We couldn't make some underwear shaped right to fit you here in America, Kid? Kiton Athlete's Wear? What the hell kind of Italian name is that, Kiton?" mock complained Aunt Iris, happy to get him something expensive even if it was something as prosaic as underwear.

The shopping "spree" over, Aunt Iris took him to an expensive restaurant down the street. When they entered, she pulled his knit hat off his head revealing a thick head of wild, wavy orange hair. "Put your hands in your pockets and keep your pants up. No sneak peaks till we leave, okay" she chuckled and stood in front of him so that the maitre de couldn't even much see him. She got them a booth and ordered wine for them.

"You can drink wine safely, can't you, Kid?"

Wally nodded quickly.

"Ha! So you've tried"

He blushed. Caught.

"Two years ago at a friend's house. Some german wine. I didn't even know they made wines"

"Might've been a Riesling, Kid and they're pretty good but this wine will be a real treat for you. And your mom will never see it so it's okay for you to accept"

"You know, there's something else involved in not getting a whole bunch of new clothes, Aunt Iris"

"What's that, Kid?"

"I might be wearing my red and yellow all the time in the near future"

"How's that?"

"I applied to the Teen Titans for membership"

"You did!" She asked with delight and squeezed his bicep.

"Uh huh" he grinned.

"Heard anything back, Kid?

"Not yet, Aunt Iris. But it was only a few days ago"

"So, if they take you, you'd spend all your time in your red and yellow?"

"Well, most of it, I think. The important thing is I wouldn't have to spend most of the day pretending not to be what I am."

"That's what you want, Kid?"

He nodded. "Home is . . home is just a place where I change clothes" he said looking down somberly. "I-I wish it wasn't but you know the story"

"I do, Kid" she put her hand over his on the table.

"And things have worked around to where all the friends I had were pushed away. On top of that, school is just torture. It was boring before but since I started reading lots of books, it's sheer torture"

"You do that thing Uncle Barry does, Kid, where it looks to me like he's just fanning through the pages but he's reading a whole book in a second or so?"

Wally nodded. "Sometimes less than that. And the more I know, the more of a waste school is. I don't know what they do for classes at Titans Tower but it can't be any worse than now. I never intended to, but with hiding myself and being cut off from friends and saving my energy for when I''m wearing my red and yellow, I-I end up sitting there in this completely somber state all day long."

He imitated himself, leaning back against the leather booth seat and putting his arms forward onto the table while looking down to one side completely lost in solemn thought, his face expressionless, his school self.

"There's almost nothing in the lectures to bother having to think about so I sit there thinking about the Brotherhood of Evil or Mr. Element or a crime syndicate or something"

"And you can't talk about it with anyone"

"No, Aunt Iris. And it completely sucks. The thing that makes me what I am I can't share with anyone. What kind of life is that?"

She leaned over, hugged him about the shoulders and rubbed his orange haired head. "A lonely one, Kid" she said and watched him closely. She worried about his anger at the circumstance in which he was stuck but slowly, his eyes brightened and a faint smile curled his lips. She leaned back intrigued.

"But the girl I'm seeing now only knows me in my red and yellow"

"A new girl, huh, Kid? How'd you meet her?"

The conversation paused while food was served. Aunt Iris watched him hungrily shovel down his food at a pace that was at the brink of super speed.

"You know, they could torture dieting women by showing them footage of you eating and how thin you still are" she said.

He shrugged. What can I do?

She gave him a joking slap on the head. "You should slow the pace down at least a little bit, Kid. That was suspiciously fast"

He nodded. "Yes, ma'am"

"So, where'd you meet this girl, Kid?"

"On a mission"

"Uh huh"

"I . . " he considered how to explain it. "This is going to sound stupid. She's-she's kind of on the-the villain side of things"

"What!"

"I-I was covering in Jump City. I did super speed recon of a few areas and I saw this group called the HIVE Five which, of course, consisted of 6 members, preparing to rob this place. So, I watched 'em closely. And one of 'em didn't belong. She was better than to be mixed up with them. There was something about her, right away -"

"She was very pretty?"

"Well, yeah, but it wasn't just that. I listened in to her explaining what was in the museum to the others and there was intelligence and love of learning and more, just-just listening to her!"

"Keep going, Kid"

"Well, they were setting up to rob this museum. But I-I didn't want her to be put in jail. I-I couldn't. So when they took things I just took 'em from them and put 'em right back and when I had all of the group outside the place, I set off the alarm so that they'd run. Then I followed them back to their hideout, this pretty elaborate underground deal. I tangled with them a bit and was whipping the whole bunch of 'em and got to speak with her in the process. It seemed like I was making an impact in just a few words of talking with her."

"So, you beat them but separated her from them?"

He blushed deep red looking down to his sneakers. "Um, well, not exactly"

"What did happen?"

"They um, they caught me and put me in a cage"

"They caught you! Were you distracted by her?"

"Well, sort of. She hit me over the head and knocked me out and when I woke up I was in a cage"

Aunt Iris chuckled. "This girl hit you . ."

"And well wanted to give me to the Brotherhood of Evil"

"And wanted to . . Wally!"

"I knew it would sound stupid. But it really isn't. She didn't. In the end she kept me from being given to them. That was two weeks ago and last night I went to one of the costume balls with her"

"In your red and yellow?"

He chuckled. "Of course. I could go around in my uniform and not be out of place with all the other costumed people"

"Except yours fit. So, how was it, Kid?"

"It was great, Aunt Iris. The night was so perfect it amazes me. I'm going to see her again Monday night"

She first shook her head slowly then burst into extended laughter. "Oh, Kid. Here I was thinking you're this rigidly rational, scientific sort of boy reading your books and all and suppressing every emotion at home, all your anger and here you've gone and done the most romantic thing possible, putting yourself on the line for love of a girl. Oh my god" she laughed some more and rubbed his shoulder.

"I try to be as scientific about it as I can, but" his eyes went wide with excitement and he let out a big exhale. " . . Aunt Iris! When I'm running . . when I'm in my uniform and really sprinting, really pouring it on I . . " he sighed "I feel sometimes like I could sprint ahead to the horizon, like I could reach the horizon and get there before the next line of hills became the new horizon, and everything would be possible and I'd make my life what I want it to be. I feel so good using my super speed and kind of . . . I don't know . . . pure, like I'm tied in to everything more than other people and I'm fast not because of something extra but because I don't have something blocking . . something that everyone else has that separates them from being part of everything. I love being Kid Flash."

She reached over and hugged him.

"You are what you were meant to be, Kid. Just be careful about the girl, you promise."

"I promise"

She looked at him smiling and shook her head. "You liar. You're completely hooked. You couldn't be careful if you tried!"

He looked down and away from her suppressing a huge grin.