A/N: I'm so sorry. Work and family life and blargh just get in the way. In addition, the winter hiatus ruined my muse and caused it to take an impromptu cruise to Hawaii or something. Muse is back now Also, this chapter is about 7k words, so it took a while to write.

A few notes: I'm going to assume Artemis doesn't know Barry is The Flash—not that it's important in this chapter anyway, but just in case anyone is wondering.

Also, I began writing this before the new episodes aired, so the timeline isn't going to be canon anymore :\

Lastly, I'd like to extend a shout-out to my wonderful YJ Fandom on Tumblr, for suggesting the hilarious Charades-idea for Wally ;) My love for you all has no boundaries!

Disclaimer: I do not own Young Justice…or Mean Girls.

A Lingering Feeling
IX. Solar System
The sun goes down
The stars come out
And all that counts
Is here and now
My universe will never be the same…
"Glad You Came" – The Wanted

Mount Justice
November 24, 16:30 EDT

"Fine. I guess it would be…fun, or—"

"Great! I'll come get you Thursday evening at five then!"

Artemis stared at her reflection in the mirror, and ran her fingers through her uncooperative locks of blonde hair. It was Thursday, and exactly half an hour from her debut at the West residence. Awkward nervousness was an exile in her mind, but Murphy's Law dictated otherwise, as partly exemplified by her hair's current rebellious nature.

Her hair—known for normally resembling a glassy waterfall of golden luster—was currently wavy, due to an absentminded mistake on her part for failing to blow-dry it before retiring to bed last night. She looked like one of those girls who lived in the beige sand and salt waters of southern California, their hair forever kissed by the twirls of sea and wind—not an impression she wanted to portray to Wally's family, or the general public.

She turned and gazed over her shoulder at the undulating river flowing down her back, and although her first reaction was to scoff in disdain, her feminine heart fluttered at just how pretty her hair looked against the snowy backdrop of her downy sweater. She tilted her head down to almost kiss her shoulder, and a laugh erupted from her cherry lips—her reflection was practically angelic.

Without warning, there was a sudden blur of color behind her reflection. She spun around in a dizzying rush of adrenaline and immediately kicked her bathroom door closed.

"Wally!" She yelled, her frenetic voice ricocheting off the bathroom tiles. "What are you doing here?" Her fury rose, as did the flush in her cheeks. In the apparently annoyingly incorrect assumption that Wally would not be present for another twenty-six minutes, Artemis had taken the liberty to delay outfitting her bottom-half with jeans.

She heard him laugh behind the door, and almost yanked it open to introduce Wally's face to her fist, but then remembered the reason the slab of wood was between them in the first place.

"Waiting for you, sweet-cheeks."

Artemis heard him snicker after his deliberate emphasis of the last word, and wondered if it would be considered bad karma to beat someone senseless on Thanksgiving Day.

"You said five!" she shouted back.

"I got hungry," he responded, his voice followed by muffled crinkles of plastic and crunching noises. "My mom won't let me touch anything in the kitchen, so I came over here." He paused, and then added with deliberate slyness, "So, black, huh?"

"I will kill you! I will put you in a blender and use your innards as stuffing for a turkey! And then I will feed that turkey to—"

Wally snorted and turned to see a pair of jeans relaxing over the back of a chair. He grabbed them, opened the bathroom door, and before Artemis could react, threw them at her, muffling and ending her tirade.

"Thought you might need these if we're going out in public," he teased, and then yanked the door shut before she could transform the energy of her shocked glare into her fist.

"You are minced meat when I put these on, Wally West!"

Wally snorted again and fell backwards onto her bed, relaxing in his three seconds of serenity before the bathroom door burst open to release a mythical creature from the depths of her fiery lair.

"Minced meat!" Artemis shrieked before lunging at her bed.

Her arms hit nothing but her covers, and she looked up to see Wally leaning against the frame of her doorway, casting an uninterested glance at his nails.

He looked up and stuck his tongue out at her."Have you ever considered being an underwear model?"

Artemis growled. She pushed herself off the bed and tore after the blur of obnoxious laughter. At that moment her personal satisfaction of beating up Wally was on a higher tier of importance than karma's retributions. The speedster zipped away, and Artemis followed him into the kitchen and living room. He paused long enough to grab another bag of chips, and she to slip on her coat and stomp forcefully into her boots.

"Apparently Victoria's secret isn't safe with you," Wally continued to goad with a smirk Artemis desperately wanted to smash into the back of his skull.

"Microscopic minced meat!" Artemis snarled, and resumed chasing the bane of her existence, following his peals of laughter to the zeta-beams.

"You can't mince what you can't catch, lacey Princess!" he shouted gleefully back, before dissolving in a flash of golden sparkles. "See you in Central!"

Everyone has psychological defense mechanisms that are activated upon unsure situations. Wally's simply was to turn his worries into jokes, and find the laughter amongst the awkward. Playing with Artemis's anger was definitely akin to signing his own death sentence, but he didn't know of a safer way to handle the image of her bare legs and black lace that didn't involve giving into his animalistic instincts.

Because candidly, that split-second glimpse of her in nothing but a soft sweater and black—Wally's mind coughed—made his heart tumble down to his diaphragm, and gave him the urge to run his fingers through the waves of spun-gold, down her back, and hook them onto the elastic of her—

His runaway imagination was swiftly derailed by the sudden crashing of Artemis's weight as she leapt onto his back. She ensnarled her arms around his neck and shoulders, and he choked in surprise and staggered backwards, his bag of chips diving to the sidewalk as his arms flew up to his neck in defense.

"You were saying?" Artemis hissed triumphantly into his ear.

To her surprise, Wally stopped struggling. He looked over his shoulder into her eyes and a sly grin spread across his lips. He swiftly hooked his arms around her legs, and Artemis's eyes twitched. Oh f—!

And suddenly, she was careening blindly through the streets of Central City while clasping onto the rocketing speedster. Memories of their amnestic moments in Bialya returned with the rushing wind, and she remembered how his unreal speed had delivered such an adrenaline rush, and how she had whispered in her mind-Don't stop-because danger suddenly became irrelevant next to the crown of breaking the sound barrier…

Central City
November 24, 16:00 CDT

And just as in Bialya, the adrenaline rush was short-lived—everything was short-lived once Kid Flash pressed the fast-forward button—and soon Wally slowed to halt in front of a charming two-story house with golden porch-lights and a rocking-chair beckoning for summer memories.

"Welcome," he pronounced as Artemis slid off his back, "to my humble home."

"And obviously home of the humble," Artemis responded sarcastically, while concluding mincing Wally in front of his own house might not be wise. In addition, she was quite hungry; annihilating that red-headed bane of her existence would be easier if she at least acquired some energy for said extermination.

She dug through her coat pockets only to discover her phone and a random piece of gum, but nothing to tame her hair. Damn it all to hell, she thought as she roughly ran her fingers through her now-knotted hair and wincing. So much for the sun-kissed-beach image; now she just looked like some Neanderthal-wannabe who lost all understanding of how to use a hairbrush.

She clawed one last time through her tangles, and followed Wally up the porch stairs. Wally opened the front door for her (like the Forever Gentleman he is), and she stepped into what illustrated her every storybook dream for a cozy home. The walls were painted a soothing soft-beige, the furniture emitted invitations for relaxation through their neutral shades and burgundy accents, and everything was… warm. From a set of speakers somewhere in the house, classical music flowed through like breezes and further wrapped everything in calmness.

The sounds of cheerful voices and light clinking of plates trickled from beyond the living room, and after shrugging off her coat, Artemis joined Wally in walking towards the noises.

It was only then did she notice his apparel, and it was eye-catching—in a non-gaudy, good way. He was wearing a long-sleeved black dress-shirt that still remained casual with his dark jeans, but seeing the jokester in anything with a classy collar was interest-piquing, to say the least, and visually inoffensive, to summarize in conclusion.

As they neared the voices, Artemis bit her lower lip and held her breath. She couldn't understand why she was so…nervous. It was actually slightly agitating, but she had no time for self-philosophy at the current moment.

"Hello!" called Wally as they rounded the corner into the dining room. "Dad, Uncle Barry, Aunt Iris, Jay, Joan… and I think my mom is in the kitchen. This is Artemis."

She gave a small smile and wave at the new faces, and felt certain she was going to forget everyone's names in about three seconds.

"Oh, another Greek goddess!" Joan warmly took Artemis's hand in her own, and then winked. "The men in this family sure have a thing for Greek goddesses!"

Wally had just taken a sip of soda behind Joan, and upon hearing the older woman's comment, blanched and released a noise from that sounded like the unfortunate outcome of a blind-date between a strangled chicken and a sputtering flame.

Artemis merely pretended not to hear Joan's obvious allusion and Wally's ungraceful loss of control over his bodily functions, and returned the smile after remembering to finally inhale. "It's very nice to meet you."

"Do I hear a new voice?" came an exclamation from the kitchen, followed by the appearance of a red-haired and green-eyed woman that could only be Wally's mother.

"Mrs. West—" Artemis began before the woman raised a hand and laughed.

"Oh, call me Mary!" She then added with an exasperated whisper, "When I hear 'Mrs. West', I think of my interesting mother-in-law…"

"I heard that!" called Wally's father from somewhere beyond the dining room.

Mary chuckled and rolled her eyes affectionately in the direction of her husband's voice.

"She is quite…the character, though," she whispered with a wink. "Well," she digressed as she raised her voice to a normal volume, "dinner's not going to be ready for a while, so Wally, why don't you show Artemis what Barry got you for your birthday last year?"

Wally lowered his soda and nodded. "That wonderful gem."

He grabbed another soda can and tossed it to Artemis. She caught it gracefully, but was more than tempted to catapult it at his head after his next comment.

"Come along, Princess; let me show you my throne!"

There was only one way Artemis could describe Wally's room: Nerdtopia.

She peered at his collection of action figures and laughed. "You're a nerd, you know that?"

"Hey!" exclaimed Wally. "It was this nerd that saved our butts against the Reds that one time they invaded-"

Artemis turned and narrowed her eyes at him.

"And you!" he quickly added. "You saved us too…"

She grinned and returned her gaze to his bookshelf overflowing with comics and what seemed to be college textbooks.

"Nice save," she snorted.

"Whatever," Wally scoffed, "Black Swan."

Artemis tilted her head. "Black…? Oh." She placed her soda down (it gave her a feeling of pride that she did not actually slam it down) on his desk and jabbed a finger at him. "I'm still going to annihilate you for that."

Wally merely laughed and jumped onto his bed. He relaxed onto his back and gestured to the space next to him, to which Artemis recoiled with an audible exclamation. He rolled his eyes and grabbed a sleek silver remote from his nightstand, pressed a series of buttons, and a blue holographic dome of iridescent constellations blinked to life above his bed. It floated lazily like a futuristic mobile, or a gigantic jellyfish revealing undiscovered fluorescent microbes under its silent umbrella.

"Now will you join me?" he asked with his characteristic smug grin.

The lightning-blue glow drew Artemis forward like a moth to a lantern, and she slowly sank down onto the bed. She drew her knees to her, and then hesitantly, relaxed and shifted her weight until she was lying down next to him.

Wally pointed out a familiar grouping of stars, "There's Cetus—"

"—the duck with a really long neck and no bill," Artemis interrupted.

"It's not a duck!"

"Says you, but not says me."

"Open sesame!"

Artemis slowly turned and regarded Wally with an expression of forced monotonous patience. "Sometimes I don't know why I hang out with you, Wally West," she sighed.

"Be-e-cause I show you pretty stars in the shape of a genetically mutated duck?"

Artemis laughed and turned back to the hologram, reaching out a finger to literally spin the heavens into a kaleidoscope of fireflies.

As Wally's eyes drifted away from her face to their artificial night-time wandering, something froze his gaze, and his inability to look away confused him until he realized what had caught his eye: it was a thin scar that slithered down her statuesque sternocleidomastoid, glowing under the blue holograms like an eerie creature from a midnight science-fiction jungle.

"Where's that from?" he blurted out spontaneously.

Artemis shifted her gaze to him, and the scar retreated into the shadows of the jungle.

"What's what from?" she repeated, before pausing and suddenly casting her eyes downwards as she reached one hand to her neck in realization. "Oh, this…"

"I'm sorry. I, uh, didn't-" His eyes fluttered away.

"No it's okay. Um. It's actually why I broke up with Cameron—"

"He hurt you?" Wally's voice lowered into a frightening tenor and he jerked his face back to her.

Artemis's eyes snapped up to meet his in alarm. He was so close; she could see the dark pupils in his eyes dance like black flames.

"Um, no," she replied quickly, "actually, not—not directly at least."

She stopped, teetering at the edge of a symbolic cliff. She knew that one inch forward would cause her to slip into a whole new maze of rabbit-holes. All the cracks in the mirror she had built for her carefully synthesized reflection would zig-zag alive like lightning bolts in the wavering storm of her confessions.

But as she tip-toed and warily looked back, the force of Wally's fervid green eyes tipped her over the edge, and against better hind-sight sense, she sighed into the artificial celestial bodies floating above her, and let herself fall.

"Um, long story short, we were at a party together… and I caught him—" she scowled, remembering "—cheating, so I left the party early, by myself." She bit her lip and inhaled deeply. "I got attacked by a group of—" Her throat suddenly became parched, and she took the scratchy stings as a cue to open the parachutes.

"But Dad, I was outnumbered!"

"You are a disgrace."

Beside her, Wally remained silent. She could feel the hot bursts of his exhales against the tendrils of her hair and cheek, and was uncannily reminded of the conclusion to their sparring session last month.

"He's not worth it," he murmured.

Artemis slowly inched her face to the side, and the sliver of space between them definitely pulled her mind through a sensory-rush reminiscent of that moment after their spar. She fathomed playing connect-the-dots with the freckles that sprinkled across his face—the constellations that matched the soft glow from above, but unlike a hologram, these stars were real.

A single question floated through the murkiness of her thoughts, before evanescing like a tendril of vapor past her lips to softly brush against the stars on Wally's cheeks: but are you?

Suddenly, she remembered a distant conversation that had occurred with her mother the day after she received the Wayne Scholarship to Gotham Academy…

"Artemis, you can never rely on a man," her mother had told her sternly. "Girls your age fall in love with their Prince Charming, but sometimes that's all a mirage, and you end up like me—in a wheelchair and with a husband that would rather run away than face his responsibilities. I thought he loved me—he did love me—but when I became a burden, he wanted to take out the trash…

You have to learn to never put your full trust in anyone but yourself. You have to make it on your own two feet, which is why going to Gotham Academy will be good for your future…"

She had dismissed her words then, focusing more on her silent lament of having to transfer schools, but as she recalled the previous months with the boy currently staring at her, those words drifted into her mind like a lone star gliding through the pitch-black sky, ensnaring her focus.

Wally sighed loudly, startling her. He had settled onto his back once more, and Artemis found herself staring at a blank sheet of unanswered thoughts.

"You know what I love best about stars?" Wally began. "They all appear the same from far away—but when you look closer—" he reached a hand to the constellation of Cetus and splayed his fingers, and suddenly they were flying through space until they paused to hover over an iridescent planet of orange "—you discover they're actually complete worlds."

Artemis slowly nodded, finding the metaphor strangely applicable.

"And check this out," he continued excitedly.

He zoomed them away from Cetus, and tapped a code into the remote controller in his hand. Suddenly the dome was filled with a dozen moving comets, each lazily floating in circles around a glowing point of light. He pointed at one orbiting the Earth's sun in an elongated ellipse.

"That's Halley's Comet. It originated from the Oort Cloud, was flying it's merry little way through the solar system, before getting pulled into our sun's orbit."

"Our sun is quite the charmer then," Artemis murmured, shoving away all previous thoughts and returning them to an environment of mirth.

"The denser a body of mass, the stronger its gravitational pull," Wally explained.

"And that must be why I'm so drawn to you!"

"I don't know how many layers of sarcasm that contained."

"When am I never sarcastic around you?"

A sudden knock on the door cut through Wally's retort teetering at the tip of his tongue.

"Wally? Artemis?" It was Barry.

"Yup!" Wally called back. "Come in!"

The door opened and Barry rested his arm against the doorframe, holding out a mug. "Dinner's ready!" He lifted the mug to his lips and took a long sip, before beckoning them. "Also, eggnog!"

He lifted himself off the doorframe, but then leaned back with an amusing afterthought. "Can I get you guys anything? Some snacks? A c—"

Wally, fortunately, recognized the movie his Uncle was in the process of embarrassingly quoting, and jumped off the bed with a very loud exclamation of protest.

"Okay then!" He practically shouted, drowning away Barry's next word, "Let's go eat!"

On their way down the stairs, Barry pointed at a framed picture of toddler-Wally's graduation from kindergarten. Mary was kneeling beside him with a thousand-kilowatt beam, while Wally seemed adorably confused at the attention.

"He was cute, huh," Barry commented.

Wally gawked at the use of past-tense, and was on the brink of disputing when Artemis laughed and agreed with Barry.

"I know right. So what happened?" she quipped.

"I upgraded from cute to flawless, of course," Wally riposted with saturated charm, and then slid smoothly down the banister…only to skid into the opposite wall with an echoing thud and "I'm alright! It's all good! All under control!"

Artemis and Barry exchanged looks of unimpressed exasperation.

"So much for an upgrade," Artemis sighed.

Mary ushered them all into the dining room, and proudly announced: "May I present to you: Thanksgiving Dinner, West style!"

There was no awed exclamation in the English language properly-suited to describe the cornucopia of colorful dishes before them—other than maybe a bucket of growling stomachs and drool. There was butternut squash-cheddar gratin with rosemary breadcrumbs, green beans with caramelized shallots, fluffy mashed potatoes, steaming dinner rolls, spirals of honey-roasted ham, cheesy lasagna, sweet potato casserole—all circling around the center stage of a golden-brown turkey, still crisping from its perfection in the oven, and wafting swirls of irresistible invitation.

Artemis peeked over to assess Wally's condition, but in his place was simply a quivering sheet of air molecules as he zoomed into his chair, tongue lolling and reminding her of Finnegan the Corgi. She rolled her eyes and, after looking around to see which chairs would be occupied, took the seat next to him. Then, without any further ado, Wally metaphorically—and quite literally with his fork-dove into paradise.

"Oh, Artemis—"

Artemis looked up from her plate to see Mary's convivial smile across the table, and briefly caught the flicker of anticipated jollity in her green eyes.

"—let me tell you a hilarious story about Wally here."

Wally jerked his eyes up from his plate, horrified. "Mo-o-m!" he hissed exasperatedly. "Wh-y-y?"

"Because it's my maternal duty to embarrass you in front of every girl you bring home, be they girlfriends or girls who are just friends."

Wally's eyes widened. "This is so not fa—"

She cut him off and turned back to Artemis, and animatedly began: "When Wally was six—or seven? I can't quite remember—he had this little kiddy laptop that had all these educational games on it. You couldn't pry him away from it!"

Wally groaned, clearly recollecting the specific fiasco.

Mary continued: "It had to be constantly plugged into an electrical socket for power, and one afternoon, Wally took the laptop upstairs to the hallway to play. However, apparently the socket was loose, so the plug kept falling out—"

"It kept restarting my game," Wally grumbled into his mashed potatoes.

"Well, Wally here was already such a genius back then, so he decided that he was going to fix the problem with super-glue."

Artemis let out a low chuckle, which granted her an irked nudge from Wally's elbow.

"He took the bottle, and squeezed it all over the plug—" Mary dramatically mimicked the motion with her hands, "—and also squeezed a good helping to the edges of the socket as well."

"It worked," Wally interjected.

"Yes, dear, until you finished your game and went to unplug it!"

Artemis raised an eyebrow at Wally, who sulked even further into his chair.

Mary continued grinning. "So he tugged and tugged, but to no avail, until he finally put his feet up against the wall, and pulled with all his six-year-old body weight, until the socket finally gave in and—" She dissolved into laughter and had to pause for a few seconds to regain her motherly-talent of further embarrassing her son. "I heard a loud thump, and ran upstairs, only to find that not only did he manage to pull the plug out, but also the entire electrical socket."

Artemis snorted and turned her full attention to the disconcerted boy beside her. "You pulled the entire thing out?"

"So there he was," Mary continued louder between her chuckles, "rubbing the back of his head with one hand, dangling the electrical socket and all its little wires in the other, and all the while staring with horrified eyes at the gaping hole in the wall across from him!"

Everyone on the table joined in on the merry laughter, except for the pouting main character.

"Still not fair," he mumbled. "I was six."

"Once a klutz, always a klutz," Artemis teased, raising her glass of apple cider to toast him.

Mary casted a sideways glance at her husband, which he returned her approving look with a brief upwards twitch of his lips.

To Artemis's relieved surprise, the entire dinner passed without a single personal question directed at her. She suspected Wally and his big mouth had already divulged all facts known about her. The current conversations mainly revolved around some recent cases Iris had to report, which lead to a few discussions on current events that Artemis voluntarily opted out of. It wasn't because she had no informed opinions to give; she just didn't feel comfortable intruding her thoughts on a family she literally had just met.

When Artemis felt she could not even bear to see another image vaguely resembling anything edible, Mary and Iris cleared the main courses and presented them all with dessert: the mother-load of pies—pecan pie, pumpkin pie, apple pie, peach pie, berry pie—every pie with the exception of 3.14. Artemis watched with amazement—when in truth she should be quite accustomed to this program—as Wally took a slice of each, along with a good slathering of whipped cream and vanilla ice-cream.

"Are you ever full?" she mocked him lightly.

"Full of awesome!" he returned with a large grin, before chomping down on a forkful of pie to revisit the land of scrumptious bliss. "Glucose," he added pointedly after swallowing, "is fuel for the brain."

Artemis raised an eyebrow at her own slice of pumpkin pie. "In that case," she returned flatly without glancing from her plate, "you should probably go eat an entire sugar cane factory."

From down the table, Barry nearly choked mid-snort. "And zing."

Before clearing the dishes, Mary announced that they must play at least one round of Charades first. It was a family tradition! It prevents the brain from shutting down after such a feast!

Wally groaned and slouched into his seat. "But I can't mo-o-ove," he protested.

"Girls versus guys," his mother suggested.

At the proposal, Wally straightened and his expression flitted from one in a stupor to bright animation.

"Well in that case," he nudged Artemis, "prepare to be smoked!" He pushed himself off the chair and went to give his uncle a fist-bump.

Artemis hesitantly stood up, and Joan linked arms with her on their way to the living room.

"Honey, have you ever played Charades?" she asked the obviously panicked girl.

"Um, no not—"

Joan shooed her answer away with a flick of her wrist. "Oh don't worry; it's easy. You basically have to act out whatever the card says, but you can't speak, and your team has sixty-seconds to guess the word on the card!"

Artemis's chest tightened at the phrase "act out". Acting really wasn't her strong suit; actually it was more of a wet-paper bag than a suit…

Joan gave her a reassuring pat on the hand. "It's extremely fun, dear. Here, I'll go first to show you how it's done."

The two teams separated themselves onto the long couches in the living room, and Mary fished out a stack of colorful cards and miniature hourglass from a side-table.

"Now," she began, shuffling the cards on the coffee table, "which team wants to—"

Joan's hand shot into the air. "I volunteer!"

Mary chuckled, and handed the cards to Jay. "You better choose something hilarious."

He smiled and winked. "I don't think I'll be able to find her own name in here."

"I'll take that as a compliment!" His wife replied merrily, before walking over to her husband to see what word he had chosen for her to act out. "Easy peasy lemon squeezy," she commented upon viewing it.

Jay leaned forward and his hand hovered over the hourglass. "Ready when you are."

His wife walked to the front of the room and smoothed her shirt in a dramatically dignified manner. "Oh, I was born ready!" she exclaimed with excited ambition.

Jay flipped the hourglass over, and Joan began. She looked around suspiciously, and started snatching invisible objects into her arms.

"A hungry squirrel!" Mary yelled, which earned a snort from Joan.

"Thief!" Iris suggested, and Joan nodded in her direction, but waved her hands to coax another answer from her. "Um," she pondered, "Burglar?"

Joan shook her head and changed tactics. She mimed someone going mentally crazy, which earned a hearty handful of laughs, and then returned to snatching things from invisible tables and shelves.

And suddenly Artemis put the two together and sat up. "Oh! Kleptomaniac!" she shouted.

Joan threw her arms into the air and cheered. "Plus-one for the girls! Way to go, Goddess of the Hunt!"

"I'm next!" Wally called out, and tossed the stack of cards to Artemis. "Don't disappoint me," he teased.

Artemis smirked at him in response, and began flipping through the cards. As payback of his room intrusion earlier that evening, this was her chance to embarrass him even more than Mary's dinner-time story. Fortunately, Karma was definitely on the side of the avengers, and she didn't have to search far. She waved him over and cupped the card in her hand, and Wally's expression instantaneously flopped from an eyebrow raise of bemused anticipation to a grumble of absolute resentment.

"Don't disappoint me," Artemis mimicked, her voice oozing with sarcastic victory.

Wally snorted and made a theatrical show of loosening his shoulders and cracking his neck as he deliberately shuffled to the front of the room at a snail's pace. Artemis blinked at him with boredom and loudly flipped the timer.

Wally began by taking a few calculated steps back, and then darted across the room, only to teeter backwards as he smacked into an invisible—

"Wall!" yelled every member of the Boy's Team in unison.

And then Artemis laughed so hard she almost forgot how to breathe.

Mary went after her son, and the Girl's Team nearly ran out of time in their hilarious attempts to guess "Belligerent Drunk".

"Drinking!"

"You're drunk!"

"Bar fight?"

"PMS!" screamed Joan, and both teams dissolved into raucous laughter.

Following a side-splitting performance by Jay in an attempt to act out "Plastic Surgery", Joan motioned to Artemis that it was her turn, and handed the cards to Wally.

To Artemis's astonishment, the anxiety that had prevailed the entire evening like a continuous bass hum had completely disappeared. Somewhere between the laughter, delicious food, jovial jokes, and yelling of far-fetched phrases, she had finally abandoned the final vestige of her insecurity, and replaced it with simply a twirling air of fun. Never before in her life had she experienced this sense of spontaneous blithe with a family, and certainly not with her family. It was new, exhilarating and relaxing at the same time, and she was completely enjoying herself.

Wally snickered as he held a card in his hand, and she inwardly grumbled. Great. It's probably something like… 'Unclogging Toilet' or 'Changing a Baby's Explosive Diaper'. She was expecting all sorts of outlandish phrases, but none of them came close to the word in his hand: Cupid.

She slowly lifted her eyes and met Wally's in disbelief, but he simply smirked and handed her the card.

"Don't disappoint me," he echoed, turning the hourglass over.

Artemis scoffed at him and stepped to the front of the room. She embarked on her adventure for the next Oscar's Award by pretending to notch an arrow to an invisible bow, and with her form so streamlined and precise, Wally could practically envision her dark green compound bow and sleek arrows. To his surprise, she turned to him and released the imaginary arrow straight at his chest. He dramatically brought his hand to his tingling wound and flopped back into the couch. Artemis laughed silently at his performance, and notched another arrow, this time aiming at the wall to her right. She let the arrow fly, and switched roles from archer to a common civilian taking a nice evening stroll, when she suddenly gasped and coughed. A lighthearted smile replaced her frightened features, and her eyes locked adoringly onto Wally's. She rushed over to sit in front of the coffee table, propped up her elbows, and cradled her head while slowly fluttering her eyelashes at him.

And that's when Wally realized the silence—specifically, the absence of any guesses. He looked alarmingly at his family, and to his added bewilderment, they were simply regarding the two with wordless enjoyment. He lurched forward for the hourglass and waved it in front of his mother's transfixed stare.

"Ten more seconds," he warned.

Mary chuckled and pushed the hour-glass away. "We all knew the phrase was 'Cupid'. We were just enjoying the show!"

Wally's lips went into a glowering line and his cheeks flushed to a dainty pink color. He heard laughter, and turned to see Artemis leaning back and giggling like the heartless mad-woman he concluded she was.

"I don't like this impromptu Pick-On-Wally-Day," he grumbled as he handed the cards over to the other team.

Artemis returned from center-stage and plopped herself down next to him. "Karma must really hate you."

"Whatever, Cupid," he countered. "At least now you have some feathery wings to go with—"

He was cut off with sharp jab of Artemis's elbow, and a grey-eyed-glare meant for causing forests to self-combust.

As the evening progressed, the two teams raced neck-to-neck and were in a full-blown tie at the end. Since the ladies commenced, the Boy's Team would be the one to finish the competition with a bang and some fireworks. They would bring home the crowns of the Charade-Kings if they correctly guess Wally's word.

Artemis definitely did not feel the pressure as she shuffled through the cards. "Batman" seemed to be a tough one to imitate correctly, right? There was only so much brooding and butt-kicking one could perform silently.

Wally glanced at the card and immediately snorted. "Oh man I really wish Robs could see this."

"No need to subject him to inhumane torture," she returned swiftly.

"Aren't you hilarious when you're about to lose."

Artemis shot him one last challenging glare, and snatched the hourglass from the table. As soon as she turned it over, Wally coolly grabbed a blanket from the back of the sofa, swished it around his shoulders, and glowered coldly at Barry and Jay.

Both men's eyes sparked in recognition and they instantaneously shouted, "Batman!"

Wally threw off the blanket and fist-pumped triumphantly in the air. "Guys win!"

"Oh hold on!" Artemis objected. "You cheated! No props!"

"Ex-actly!" Joan concurred zealously, rising to her feet.

A tussle soon followed over rules and points and nit-picking of other miniscule details, and would have continued all evening if Mary didn't clap her hands and insist that bottom-line, she still wore the permanent crown, and the Queen of the House declares a clean-up!

Wally had obstinately insisted on walking Artemis back to the zeta-beam. He casually joked about needing the exercise to keep his stunning figure, but she was the only one who caught him fleetingly glance at her neck. After a chorus of gratitude's and farewells, and warm embraces from Mary and Joan, Artemis and Wally made their way back outside while hugging mugs of hot chocolate-for the road, Mary had insisted.

"I still say you cheated," Artemis argued, as they walked along the silent streets. The moon overhead glowed lazily through thin clouds like a cotton ball in the middle of black velvet.

"And I say you're just being a sore loser," Wally countered, refusing to relinquish as usual.

Artemis scoffed in response, and silently sipped her hot cocoa.

"So, have you been Picasso-ing it up lately?" Wally asked, referring to her birthday present.

"I already told you," she replied with mock impatience, "I'm sketching a picture of me beating the crap out of you with my bow."

"Stick figures?"

"You doubt my abilities."

"All the time."

"And I'm pretty sure I've been proving you wrong every single time."

"And I'm pretty sure your ego is way bigger than mine."

Artemis scoffed and muttered something under her breath that followed the same structural organization of their current argument, but with a few different choice words. Even so, Wally recognized her meaning and snorted.

"I'll be sure to kick you there next time then!"

"Careful," Artemis retorted in a forced mellow tone, "don't disturb the partying termites."

She managed to glance at him briefly before both exploded into laughter that jangled like bells through the quiescent neighborhood.

"You're-evil!" Wally managed to choke out between staggered laughs.

Artemis pitched forward and nearly spilled her hot chocolate. "So," she breathed out finally, "on a scale of tomato to hot-sauce, how red did you turn?"

Wally grimaced. "I slammed my head onto my desk…" he mumbled begrudgingly.

The archer let out a hoot of laughter. "I can inflict pain on you even when I'm not physically there? Oh, that's just too perfect."

"And how does that make you feel, Miss," responded Wally in a faux-pompous tone, "to be the source of an innocent boy's torment?"

"Like the luckiest girl in the world, actually, Sir," Artemis returned with mirrored pizzazz.

Her lighthearted comment was followed by a very placid pause as the two strolled along in the developing comfort of each other's company. They sipped their warm drinks and allowed the calm night to settle around them like the snow that was about to come.

"I'm glad I joined the Team," Artemis professed as she slowly moved her finished cup of cocoa away from her lips.

Wally remained quiet and looked up at the tiny diamonds embedded in the black velvet above. In his mind, he saw Halley's Comet throwing behind the need to pretend in a flare of stardust as it drew closer to the sun.

"Me too," he finally murmured. In both ways…

There was another steady break in conversation, and their voices were exchanged for the rhythmic tapping and scrapes of shoes against concrete. Artemis watched as their shadows cast by the streetlamps fanned out before disappearing and reappearing in a hypnotizing swing dance. As a child she would pretend the elongating and shrinking shadows were time rewinding and fast-forwarding her return to a baby, or her growth into an adult. It was a ridiculous notion; she would never want to return to her past. It was best left as a shadow that fades in the morning.

The pair stopped in front of the zeta-beam (humorously disguised as an out-of-order Port-A-Potty—blame Barry) and turned to face each other.

"Thanks," began Artemis, who found herself suddenly enthralled with the empty mug in her hand. "And I guess, plus-one for an amazing Thanksgiving dinner," she added. For my first Thanksgiving dinner.

"Hmm, I think I'll pass that one onto my mom," Wally replied.

She looked up and found dark emerald orbs glowing back with mirth. She was amazed he would decline the offer of something he had so enthusiastically coveted in the past months, but she was equally as astonished at how readily she understood his obvious reasoning.

Wally took a step closer. He suddenly felt like a comet pulled from orbit, drawn to the gravity of Artemis's eyes. It wasn't the infinite darkness that allured him, nor was it the framing long lashes; it was the manner in which she gazed up at him in the same inquisitive way she looked at the stars…

Suddenly Artemis coughed and her eyes darted away. She raised her empty mug between them and stepped sideways towards the door of the zeta-beam. Wally slowly took the mug in his hand and silently watched her.

"Um, thank you," she exhaled, her hand on the door, "once again. For inviting me, and—" she blinked and the edges of her lips twitched upwards on their own accord, "-everything."

With one last backwards glance, she slipped inside, and in a flash of gold, left Wally with two empty mugs, and a bizarre longing in his heart.

He pursed his lips and let out a small laugh. It actually surprised him she didn't try to attack him in revenge for—

His phone buzzed, and he shifted both mugs to one hand and dug out his phone from his pocket. It was a text from Artemis, and Wally smirked as he read it. Maybe had spoken too soon.

"I will still annihilate you."

Mount Justice
November 24, 23:40 EDT

As Artemis blow-dried her hair later that night, her mind couldn't resist comparing the vast differences between her life and Wally's. His family was like the perfect packaged stationary—the type with hollies and vine-flourishes used for writing hearty Christmas letters to friends. Her family—if you could call it that—was a crumpled newspaper with too many words and not enough pictures, and torn through the columns, taped in others, and crinkled from evaporated tears. He had a past of smiles and balloons and cotton candy; she had a past of things she would rather forget.

She turned off the blow-dryer and stared at the sink with unblinking eyes. She would never truly belong in such a world as wholesome as Wally's; she was the wayward broken sliver of glass that somehow found its way inside a bouquet of lilies.

She wondered if Halley's Comet regretted that it even though it was drawn towards the sun's gravity, it would never be able to truly be next to the everlasting star.

Central City
November 24, 22:40 CDT

If Wally turned his face at a certain angle, and inhaled at a certain rate, he could still recognize the lingering scent of Artemis on his pillow. It smelled like lavender and some nameless spring flower, mixed with a calming spice that both sedated and thrilled Wally's mind. And with every breath, his thoughts were pulled further down into the orbit of dreams he didn't even realize he had wished for.

"Barry, why are you still awake?"

"Texting Ollie."

"What's so important that can't wait until morning?"

"Telling him that his quote-unquote 'niece' and my nephew are totally going to get together by summer."

Iris rolled her eyes and groaned. The light from Barry's phone darkened, but just as he was about to wrap an arm around Iris, his phone lit up and released an obnoxious buzz. He grabbed it, squinted into the screen, and released an explosion of laughter.

"He wants to bet on it! He says April! Ha! Old man you are on!"

A/N: Thank you once again, for all your reviews! I try to reply to each one :) (With the obvious exception of Anonymous ones. I've turned them back on again though.)

Also, you can find me on Tumblr under the name Jncera, where I post random Spitfire drabbles that don't get published on FFnet (you can view them by clicking "My Writings on Tumblr" on my blog's header-thing).

Thank you for being awesome, my beautiful reader!

P.S. I love Barry and Joan XD