The Crisis is a stressful time for everyone. Most of the time no one knows what's going on; only that people are disappearing and that the skies have turned a burning red. But Jay has been through crises before. He has faith that this one will turn out the same as the others. But when Batman reports that he's seen a vision of Barry, dying and begging for help and shriveling away is the first time that the twisting belief settles in his chest. The belief that this time, this time above all others, something is going to change.
No one knows what to make of Barry. He's gone: vanished into thin air after he was acquitted for murder, and then he was sighted twice more, each time begging for help before disappearing again.
There are whispers that he has already died.
Katana murmurs that there is little hope, even Carter seems somewhat resigned. He's lived too long; has too much experience to anticipate a happy ending to this story.
Jay knows he should feel the same. Barry has probably been kidnapped. Evidently, he cannot escape himself. Worlds are disintegrating and dying, the end of the universe may be at hand. They cannot assume that anyone will make it out alive.
But he can't convince himself to believe it. He's seen Barry come out on top of a thousand different traps and dangers. This is the man who discovered the multiverse. Who took a chemist's education and built a time machine out of exercise equipment. He must have a plan. He must come home.
The Anti-Monitor said he wouldn't. The sky was drenched in splintered black, the Earth itself had been kidnapped from orbit and relocated to the antimatter universe, the Antimonitor projecting his image to gloat one final time.
He boasted of his murder of Supergirl. He boasted of his murder of the Flash.
And then he unleashed unholy fury on the planet in the form of a thousand silent shadow demons.
But what did that mean? Barry had been reported dead before. And what reason did they have to trust the Anti-Monitor anyway? So when Jay had seen Wally shifty-eyed, throwing glances towards Harbinger, Jay had silently given the boy his blessing to follow into the anti-matter universe.
To find out what had really happened to Barry.
Who knew? Perhaps Wally was the only one who would be able to find Barry if he was still alive. This could be his last chance. Wally would go, and if anyone could find Barry and bring him home… it would be Kid Flash.
Jay's full concentration is demanded by defending the world from the crisis at hand, but there is a nervous tremour about him, a piece of his mind that won't stop wondering.
A baited, nervous anticipation.
And when the shadow demons are pulled away from the planet he busies himself with relief work. And the thoughts continue.
Only when the heroes start to trickle in, returning home, does he learn the truth. Wally is unconscious, but Superman gives him a look and Barry's costume is there, and even the ring: the clever little ring that Barry designed and Jay had almost wanted to ask for one because it was so fantastically clever but never had - a sticker for tradition; Jay.
It glints in the light.
It glints and shimmers like shattered hope.
Jay sits by Wally's bedside untill the young man wakes up. He won't lose a grandson today too.
The crisis has drained the life-blood from Jay's world. Carter, possibly dying. Ted, crippled. Barry, gone.
The Flash Museum seems lifeless, when Jay thinks about it. A museum. A museum to an old man and a dead man.
They ought to build Barry a big statue, Jay thinks. Perhaps a plaque to go with it. A nice posthumous certificate to stick in his museum. It'll gather dust if no one cleans it. Someone ought to clean it.
Jay drags a hand over his face. Dead. Dead. Gravestones and memorials and speeches and statues. Dead. History books and plaques and holidays. Museum.
Museums full of dust.
Wally groans and green eyes flutter open. With his metabolism he should be up shortly.
Wally meets his eyes and swallows, a thousand silent apologies go unsaid and for now, for this moment in time, Jay sees Wally as 10 years old again, tiny and vulnerable and in need of a hug.
The moment doesn't last forever. When Wally gets on his feet, gets well again, he takes the costume - the scarlet and the gold - and he makes it his own. Makes it new.
Every weekend Jay visits the Flash museum, and brushes invisible dust off spotless exhibits. There is a statue for Barry, and plaques and commendations, and everything Jay had thought there would be.
But there is also a scarlet blur patrolling the streets of Central and Keystone city, and Jay sees it pass his house every day.
Barry has saved the multiverse, and Jay couldn't be prouder - will never let that pride fade. But Wally is keeping a legacy alive with every step he takes, and on rain-soaked days when lightning cracks across the sky… that's enough.
