"Damn it!"

A fist pounded the desk, alarmingly close to where John's head was resting on his outstretched arms.

"Hey," he cried. His vision angled to any degree but upright as the blood drained from his head as he sat up.

Batman dragged a hand across his cowl in dismay and ignored John's disapproving look when he sat back in his chair in a gesture of resignation.

"This is getting us nowhere," he muttered.

John's eyes widened in disbelief, "You're not giving up are you?"

Bruce glanced at his companion momentarily before returning his attention to the screen.

John would have taken the lack of an explanation as an invitation to release his own anger on the desk but he merely nodded in response. He had been surprised that their endurance had taken them this far in such a tedious self-assignment. Until he realised…

"We can't just give up," he spat, his jaw set in determination, "We don't know where Wally is, or what he's going through. Anywhere, he could be anywhere, with anyone and wherever he is, he didn't choose to leave us!"

Bruce turned to him; a listless look hid the repressed anger at his team mate's ignorance.

"We don't know that," he snapped blatantly.

John was silenced by his words for a precious few seconds before realisation dawned on him.

"He wouldn't," he said, his hands curling into fists.

"You don't now that," Batman repeated before leaving John to his own devices and to think his reaction through for himself.

John remained where he had been for most of the past few days. He took deep breaths and a swig from his can of soda, savouring the cooling sensation as it trickled down his throat.

"You don't know that!" he retorted, his faith in his friend now burning with a new passion. Fuelled by his fury and determination to see his best friend unharmed; he decided to look else where for some sort of advice and maybe even some help in the task of recovering his lost companion.

He had to look no further than the canteen to find that help hunched over his coffee, girlfriend in hand. He turned to his companions and reattempting his task of trying to convince Ralph and Booster that the girl scouts were to be taken as a serious threat and were responsible for the sudden decline of Asian elephants.


A shadow danced across his face but Flash didn't stir. His mind was caught between vague dreams and conscious thought. His senses, which were usually alert to some point beyond an unaltered human's capacity, were now so dumb he thought that he was drunk. Nothing had stirred for days and the only sound he had heard for hours was the shuffling of his own feet and the rubbing of the braces that bound him as he made another feeble attempt to brake free of their clutches.

His head now rested against the tree behind him and he sighed in defeat, yet he continued to rub the braces half-heartedly.

It felt like he had been in that exact same position for three days, but that was impossible because that meant that he had gone for more than three days without food or water which would be a personal record for him, not to mention impossible.

Still he was alive and had no-one to complain to therefore he wouldn't complain.


John eyed his new companion in complete and utter dismay.

"So you're saying he's not here?"

"Nope. Not on the tower nor on Earth, nor on any other planet of this universe."

"So he's in an alternative universe?"

"Could be."

"What do you mean 'could be'?"

"I mean that there are other places our little red friend could be inhabiting at this moment in time," Question replied, too nonchalantly for John's liking.

So he could be dead?"

"As far as I know he could well be."

John frowned, "Okay, so we've established that he could be anywhere and…in any state or form, but how the hell did he get there?"

"That's for the narrator to decide."

"The narrator, as in the person who decides the path of our lives."

"Don't you mean god?"

"Nope, I do not believe in God."

"…Right."

Question rubbed his chin whilst swirling his cold coffee that had managed to remain untouched and undrunk for the whole of two hours.

"Aren't you going to drink that?"

"Why would I do that?"

John raised an eye-brow, "It's coffee, you're meant to drink coffee."

"I know."

"So why aren't you drinking it?"

"It's cold."

"So why didn't you drink it earlier?"

"I didn't want to."

"Then why did you get it?"

"I like the smell."

"…Why did I come to you?"

"Because you were desperate due to the lack of a normal detective, though personally, I think that if you could call Batman normal then the world is really going to plummet without the help of girl scouts. You also wanted to retrieve your best friend from what could possibly be evil clutches and, ultimately, impress your girl friend."

John would have glowered at Question if he had the heart to do so, but found that he had lost said will somewhere between Question's explanation of every line in the play Hamlet, written (in his opinion) by Shakespeare and why they should not save the desert rat from its impending doom.

"For such an unsociable person you know a lot about people." He muttered in a tone of disguised curiosity.

"I do not," Question pointed out abruptly, "I just know where you keep your diary."

John was gob smacked for a moment, "Y-you looked in my diary."

"Don't be alarmed, I know where everyone keeps their diaries except for Bruce and ironically Wally. Though to my own credit, Bruce is incredibly paranoid and has probably installed it in a heavily bolted safe with a cloaking device. I also doubt that Wally has the patience to keep a diary, then again, at the speed he's going, I don't think anyone would bother to try to keep track of his life."

John groaned as he sank into his chair. That was when he spotted Clark talking to some of his fellow heroes, his stature unfazed and John couldn't help but notice that Clark didn't look like he'd lost any sleep over their current predicament compared to John who had admitted to himself a day ago when he'd had time to check his appearance that he looked like the walking-dead. The adrenaline began to surge, sparked by the sudden revelation that Clark hadn't been affected by their current in any way, shape or form. John gritted his teeth and looked at Question who had cocked his head in interest.

"Do you know how we can find him?" John asked.

"Nope."

"Can you find out?"

"Possibly."

John stood to his full height and smirked when he received a sideways lance from an agitated Superman who no longer looked so Super-ish to John whilst he was clutching the lead box containing a certain green rock that Bruce had apparently forgotten to take from John who was prone to bouts of fury which led to his "I'll-regret-it-later" acts of foolishness.

"Then we'd better not waste any time here." He stated. Still gripping the box, he turned and began to stalk away, motioning to Question to follow suit. He was going to find his best friend and win over his yet-to-be girlfriend He would then find Clark and Bruce's diaries (with the help o his cloaked companion) and pin every incredibly sensitive and private entry to the notice boards.


But that would be a perfectly straight-forward ending and this narrator don't do straight-forward.

So anyway, sorry for not updating but I had enough course work to feed a paper shredder and there's till a pile sat on my desk. Anyway, half term's coming up so I should get the next chapter up and running.