A/N: How long has a been since I updated? Almost a month you say? Sorry guys! I was just totally WHELMED by the number of reviews I got for Chapter 11! 48! That's more than some chapters combined! Really, thank you guys sooooo much. I'm sorry I slaughtered you all with feels last chapter, but I'm glad you guys enjoyed it. Also, if some of you don't know, I posted a companion piece to Chapter 11 called Surprise. If you're sad that you didn't get to see Wally take Artemis to Paris, you might want to read that. Completely fluffy to the point of going overboard, but I really enjoyed writing it.

Anyway, this chapter is based off of an Ask Greg question where he said it wouldn't have surprised him is M'gann had told Artemis about Wally's reaction to Artemis' death in the training simulation. It takes place during Disordered. Enjoy!

DISCLAIMER: Unfortunately, none of these characters belong to me. If Wally West belonged to me, I would be the only one allowed to play with him ;-) Any dialogue or plot that looks familiar belongs to DC and Greg Weisman and other people who are not me.

Summary: This is the story of Artemis and Wally and their evolution from teammates, to friends, to boyfriend and girlfriend, to husband and wife, to soul mates and everything and anything in between. Please review! XD

Genre: Friendship, Romance, Action/Adventure, Humor

Rating: T (just to be safe, it might go up later if I'm feeling particularly ambitious)

Characters: Artemis Crock, Wally West

The EVOLUTION of SOUL MATES

Evolution: the gradual development of something, esp. from a simple to a more complex form.

Chapter 12: Crush II

The gym was silent except for the comforting sound of her arrows piercing the targets set up across the room. As she nocked another arrow, she imagined a certain speedster jerk-off's face as the target and let the arrow fly confidently. Bullseye. She felt no satisfaction about it though; it got kind of old when you had been doing it for the better part of two hours. That fact didn't stop her from loosing another half a dozen arrows into the targets and pretending the bulls-eye was the spot right between Wally's eyes.

Wally didn't want to go to Paris anymore? That was just fine. Why had she thought she'd wanted to go with that freckled face idiot anyway? She must have been crazy to think that anything would ever come of the two of them. Wally was obviously as hung up on M'gann as he'd ever been, and she was stuck looking like a love struck fool! Well, she could easily direct her attention to anyone else, Conner even. Her White Rabbit. She'd always found him attractive; after all, boy had it going on, and at least he wasn't a motormouth like Kid Idiot. Strong, silent type; that's exactly what she needed.

Artemis had had her "therapy" session earlier that day with Black Canary and was having a hard time trying to sort out her thoughts on the training simulation. Her head was a jumble of emotions: relief that she hadn't had to watch any of her teammates die, but guilt and frustration over the fact that she'd let her guard down and ruined the whole exercise by getting zapped. She was a survivor, always had been; how could she have let herself get killed, even if it wasn't real, like that?

She loosed another arrow and growled when it wasn't a perfect bulls-eye. This whole thing was messing with her mind. While she wasn't always confident about herself, she was always secure in knowing that her archery abilities were top notch, and right now she needed that to still be true.

On top of the whole failsafe debacle, she had to worry about the Team finding out about her family. To her, it was unfathomable, and she prayed that Dinah kept her secret and didn't inform the team of her less than stellar relations out of some misguided attempt to help her. Really, the last thing she needed was Wally finding out her father was Sportsmaster or that Cheshire was her sister.

Funny how it kept coming back to him; now, in her nightmares, in her therapy session. What was it that Canary had said? So the person you're most worried about is Wally. And Artemis hadn't denied it because it was somehow true. She cared what Wally thought about her, had craved his good opinion since Day One, but had hid it behind her outwardly unshakable self-confidence. And the thought of Wally finding out all of her secrets made her stomach churn.

She thought of their little question and answer session last week before the simulation. She could have turned him down, made him leave her alone; that would have been the smart thing to do, but no. Instead, she'd let him ask her things no one else on the Team knew about. Hell, she'd even briefly touched on Jade. She'd wanted to confide in him. It had been...nice. And now it looked like he was back to barely tolerating her presence. What had changed between then and now?

She nocked another arrow, aimed, and fired, glad when the arrow hit its mark. The door to the training room opened and M'gann stepped inside, dressed in her civvies. She shyly waved at Artemis and started to make her way over to her. Most of the time, Artemis loved the green Martian girl, but it was hard right now when M'gann was the object of Wally's affections. It was petty of her, she freely admitted that, especially since M'gann had shown literally zero interest Wally, but she had never claimed to be a rational person.

"Artemis, I have to talk to you about something," M'gann said quietly, without preamble. Artemis turned from surveying the targets to look at her friend. The girl was wringing her hands anxiously as Artemis had seen her do almost constantly over the last week since the training simulation.

She sighed. "M'gann, you don't have to keep apologizing for what happened in the exercise. If anything, I'm the one that should," she added in a grumble, turning back towards the targets. She lifted her bow, aimed, and fired. The arrow hit slightly right of the bullseye and she mentally growled. This was getting ridiculous.

"No, it's not about that; at least, not entirely," M'gann told her hesitantly. "It's about, well, it's about Wally."

Artemis froze. Had M'gann guessed about her stupid crush on him and come to interrogate her about it? Or maybe she had come to apologize for his fawning over her? Another thought, slightly more ridiculous than the others, pinged around her head. Was she coming to stake her claim on him and tell her to back off? Artemis swallowed the lump in her throat and tried to act casually. "What about him?" she asked, firing off another arrow. This one didn't even make it near the bullseye. Damn it.

"In the training exercise, when you...died, everyone was really upset," M'gann started, and Artemis wondered where this was going. She heard M'gann take a deep breath behind her as she launched another arrow. "He probably wouldn't want me to tell you this, but no one was more upset than Wally."

This caught Artemis' full attention. She lowered her bow and turned to face the Martian girl. "What?" she asked, her voice deadly serious. Maybe she hadn't heard her friend correctly.

"He was completely devastated," M'gann continued, her voice full of emotion. "I've never seen him like that before-"

"Your emotions must have heightened his," Artemis interrupted with what was likely the logical reason.

M'gann shook her head, however. "No, it doesn't work like that," she said firmly. "If anything, his emotions heightened mine." She rested a hand on Artemis' shoulder. Artemis had the strongest urge to shrug it off and run away from this whole conversation, but there was a part of her that wanted to know everything. "I've never seen him so angry. I mean, you know Wally. He's usually so happy-go-lucky."

"He was just angry that I let myself get vaped," Artemis argued, but M'gann was shaking her head again before she even finished her sentence.

"Maybe angry isn't the right word," she amended. "It was more than that. I don't know how to describe it. It's like he was...heartbroken." She paused for a moment, and Artemis tried to absorb her words, tried to understand how any of what she was saying could be true, but her head couldn't make heads or tails of it. "When he thought there was a chance that you were alive, that you had been teleported somewhere instead of disintegrated, he was beside himself. Nothing else mattered but finding you."

She couldn't handle M'gann's intense gaze on her so she pulled away from her and looked back at the targets across the room. It didn't make any sense to her. If he had been heartbroken like M'gann said, did that mean he had feelings for her? And if he did, if he'd been so upset, more upset that any one else on the Team, why he had acted so indifferently to her after?

"Why are you telling me this?" she asked M'gann suddenly, turning back to her.

"I know you and Wally got off to a rough start," she replied, "But I thought you should know that he cares about you, even if he has a hard time showing it."

"Apparently he can only show it after I'm dead," she mumbled darkly, burying her face in her hands more out of frustration and confusion than anything else.

M'gann, rather wisely in Artemis' opinion, saw this as her cue to leave. "Anyway, I just though you ought to know. I'll let you get back to your training," she said quietly. She was about to turn away before she suddenly bopped herself on the head. "Hello, Megan! I forgot to tell you. Happy Harbour High is having a Halloween party next week, and I thought we could make it a team thing and all go together! It'll be fun! Costumes, games, candy. I think it's just what we all need, and it'll be mine and Connor's first Halloween!"

Artemis didn't need to tell her that it would be her first Halloween as well. She and Jade had never had the luxury of trick-or-treating as children. "It sounds like fun," she said, albeit a little less enthusiastic sounding that M'gann probably wanted. "Thanks, M'gann," Artemis re enforced, and she knew the Martian girl understood that she wasn't just thanking her for inviting her to the Halloween party. M'gann nodded, gave her a half smile, and floated away and out of the training room.

When she was finally gone, Artemis expelled a deep breath and her whole body fell into a slump. She let herself fall into a chair nearby against the wall, resting her elbows on her knees. Why did boys have to be so confusing? Why couldn't they come with some sort of manual that told you why they did the things they did? If Wally liked her, which seemed to be the logical conclusion given his reaction to her "death, why was he all over M'gann? Why had he decided to take back his offer to go to Paris?

She tried to put herself in his shoes. If it had been the other way around, what would her first instinct be? And as soon as she thought it, it dawned on her. He was doing what he did best; he was running. Not literally, but figuratively. The thought almost made her laugh, but it sent a bitter taste down her throat. If that's what Wally was doing, fine, she didn't need any cowards in her life. If he thought he could turn off his feelings so easily, than so could she.

She would start with the Happy Harbour Halloween party, she decided then and there. She had no experience with the holiday, but she would get someone, maybe her friend Bette from Gotham Academy, to help her make a kick ass costume that was sure to grab attention. And she would focus all of her energy on flirting with Conner who would realize that she was one of a kind. Maybe they would even dance together.

The only question at the end of the night would be, Wally who?

A/N: Well? I realize this is complete speculation and headcanons at work on my part, especially about Artemis having a crush on Wally from the beginning, but I feel like it explains some of her actions. Anyway, let me know what you guys think! Please keep up the amazing reviews! You're all awesome!

Shameless Plug: I started this collab fic with the lovely ovp called The Archer and Me which is a YJ mash-up with the movie The Prince and Me. It's some fun Spitfire stuff with a hint of Chalant and I would love if you'd all read it! XD