Chapter Seventeen

"I want to love somebody because I want to be loved."

Arley stood outside the Martian bio-ship with her arms locked around herself despite wearing the jacket that though belonged to Superboy, both she and Artemis shared between themselves. Arley looked up at the sky. She and the others— all of whom were sleeping inside the bio-ship —were just outside the border of Biyala; Queen Bee's blood was still caked under the former Lanterns' nails.

From what Arley understood Queen Bee, like Ra's Al Ghul was more banker than participator in the Light. She paid and helped fund every misdeed that went on but unlike Savage and Luther and The Brain, she never actually got her hands dirty. After all, the Light was mainly U.S-American based and Queen Bee was— had been before Arley had cleaved in her skull with the butt of her glock —the dictator of a Middle Eastern country.

Or at least that's what the woman had said; Arley wasn't sure if he believed her or not. She hadn't cared, Queen Bee hadn't just worked for the Light, she lead them.

She was more than guilty, even if all she ever did was throw money at the beast.

The stars were bright, and Arley's chest ached harder and harder the longer she continued to stare up at them. She could remember a time she would use her ring to tell her the names of the solar systems. She could remember a time when the heart in her chest didn't feel heavy and husk like.

When Wally smiled at her.

All Arley had been able to think about since John Constantine had told her the boys were alive wasn't just finding them, it was thinking up a contradictory life with them.

Arley didn't think— she knew —she wasn't walking away from this, that she had died the moment she had chosen to sneak around Cadmus labs all those years ago, her body had just yet to be informed but knowing Wally— her Wally; Handsome, Genius Boy, Baby —was alive and was waiting on her to come waltzing through the door, gun blazing, well it made her think about after.

After the Light was gone, after she had saved him and the others.

How old would he be? Arley was nineteen, her birthday had passed some months ago. Would Wally be sixteen? Seventeen? When had he and the others been captured?

Immediately after her?

That would make him what, fifteen?

Arley grimaced at the thought— she really hoped that at the end of all of this she didn't end up in her own fucked up version of Vampire Diaries —as she closed her eyes. She could still— if she strained her mind and tried to —remember what his hand felt like against hers. Warm and calloused, sender fingers and one prominent vein that ran across the back of his hands.

"Hey." Arley turned, her eyes open. Artemis, no longer in the body armor she'd been wearing when the five of them had breached Queen Bees mansion— palace; the woman had lived in a palace fit not for royalty of any kind but rather the kind of place that belonged to some godly-earthbound being —but rather a baggy pair of sweats and a thick wool sweater.

"Hey," Arley nodded her head in acknowledgment before turning back around to look out at the wide expanse of desert.

Artemis moved next to her; their shoulders barely touching, the fabrics just brushing against one another.

"Can't sleep?" The blonde wondered.

Arley shot a sly look at her teammate— her friend; Artemis had been with them for nearly a month and with each passing day Arley liked the other girl more and more —the corners of her lips twisted upwards. "Like I ever can."

Artemis blew air out her nose in place of a chuckle. The silence that fell between wasn't awkward, Arley didn't feel the need to talk to Artemis as the two of them stood side by side with their hands stuffed under their armpits as they looked up at the stars.

Arley wondered what Artemis saw when she looked at the night sky, when she looked at all those different galaxies swirling light years away, because Arley knew what she saw when she looked at them.

The life she had lost. She couldn't, as she looked at the twinkling stars, ignore how heavy her finger felt under the night sky.

"Can—" Artemis paused; a cool breeze blew past them. Arley looked at Artemis while Artemis just looked at the space of dirt between them, "—Can I ask you something? I don't want you to take it the wrong way or anything but I gotta ask it."

"After today Artey? You can ask me anything." Artemis had taken a bullet for Arley back in Queen Bee's palace when they had initially breached the premises. It hadn't been anything life threatening— it hadn't even penetrated; it'd been a simple graze to the blondes upper arm —but it was the fact that Artemis had taken a bullet for Arley— fragile, normal, human Artemis —so easily, and with no hesitation that made Arley tip her chin up in earnest.

Whatever Artemis wanted to know was hers.

"Why do you love Kid Flash?"

"What?" Arley's brows shot up. Color, despite the darkened night, flooded Artemis' face.

"I don't mean anything by it, I'm just lost," Artemis said. "I mean he got caught for you, no man left behind and everything, I get why you're looking for him and the others, I do," Artemis assured, "But I don't know, almost four years? I think I'd move on."

Let go. That's what Arley heard. If Artemis was in her shoes she would have let go of Wally.

Arley didn't get mad though, the former Lantern nodded understandingly; she'd been fifteen when she'd been caught. Her and Wally had a school yard romance, twelve and on and if that was all it had been maybe Arley could see where Artemis was coming from.

But it wasn't.

"Because I don't know how to do this without him," Arley said. "Wally, he's always been the best part of me. Before this I was an actual soldier fighting on the front lines of intergalactic wars and taking down the kind of people that Savage wants to be and before that I was in foster care, in Gotham," Arley said with a head nod and an inferring tone to which Artemis nodded at; after all nothing good or conducive ever came from Gothams foster care system. "And for a while I thought that was all that was out there. People who hurt other people."

"He showed you differently?" Arley nodded.

"Hal and Kilowog, they got stuck with me cause I had this—" Arley flashed Artemis her ring, "—They were nice to me because I was like them. Wally, he was nice because that's the person he is. He was good. Sweet. I was such a dick to him at first, you know? But he still defended me."

Arley looked up at the moon. At the stars.

There was more to it than just that; there was Wally's smile and the curl of hair that came out whenever his hair was wet and just long enough. There were his freckles and his laugh and how he would promise her not the moon or the Earth or something like Hope Diamond but rather that he wouldn't just take off and leave one day.

That he would stick by her and talk to her when things got tough.

That he would stay.

"How can you not love someone with a heart like his?"

"No clue."

"Yeah," Arley agreed. How could she not love Wally West when that was so much a part of her— so big a part —it was as if it was ingrained in her DNA. As if she had been made for him and he her; two parts of a whole.

Her fists clenched at her sides, under her arms.

"Come on," Arley said solemnly, "We need to get moving. Wake Lex, I got Megs and Superboy. We should get out of here before the Light figures out we're still here."

"Alright." Artemis nodded only to pause when she reached out and grabbed Arleys hands in hers. The blondes calloused fingertips bit into Arleys palm.

Arley met Artemis' eyes with a raised brow.

"We'll get him back."

Arley didn't smile, though her chest warmed at Artemis' determination, the former Lantern simply nodded. "I know we will."

She would get him back.

Because there was no other option.

…

Queen Bee was dead and while Hal Jordan couldn't even make himself feel the slightest bit sorry— she had been a dictator of a small country; she not only oppressed her people to help herself but used the money she pilfered from her citizens to fund the Light —she'd been a dictator.

But her death meant Bialaya was without a leader. Which meant people would suffer.

The United Nations was in a panic; if someone could kill Queen Bee who else could this someone kill?

But it wasn't just someone. Hal knew it, he could feel it in his bones the same way he knew Arley had always been alive.

Arley and her band of misfit toys had somehow gotten to Bialya, broken into Queen Bee's place and killed her.

And no one could know. Both Batman and Superman had made that much clear; if people— the United Nations —knew about Arley then they would know, or at least want to know, about the Light and that would mean that they would then knew about how the Light had flown under the Justice Leagues radars all these years.

About how they had all be Vandal Savages' puppets for years.

And the League couldn't have their trust jeopardized. Even if that meant Arley would never really get justice; that her story would never be heard and no one would ever really know what had happened to her in the line of duty.

Hal scoffed as he laid on the floor of his empty apartment.

Carol, years ago— before he had left to search the stars for Arley; after he had laid it all bare and told her everything from when he had first gotten his ring to why he was leaving —had continued to pay rent on the place just in case Arley managed to come back one day.

The furniture was gone. Boxed up and put in storage lest the apartment get broken into.

Arley was gone. Missing in action, fighting a war when he was right here, ready to help.

Hal had chosen this apartment when he'd been given the responsibility to raise her. Before her he'd been living in a full on bachelor pad that's studio floor plan wasn't even close to being suitable for a kid.

Back then he'd been upset about leaving, his studio apartment had been the first place Hal had ever called his own. But he had a kid; he did what he had needed to.

Arley had made him better. Better than the Corps alone ever could have.

Hal had never wanted children. He'd seen the damage a parent could do to a child and he had sworn to himself that he would be better than his own mother had been to him; that he wouldn't pass down the baggage he carried.

But then she'd been thrust in front of him with a ring just like his and a job she shouldn't have been dubbed with.

She'd been eight and in need of love and protection from someone. And he had let the universe use her. He'd tried to stop it— Hal could remember the hours he had spent yelling at the Guardians, begging them to send her, a child, back to Earth; this life wasn't one for a kid —but he hadn't tried hard enough, had he?

He hadn't looked hard enough either.

She'd been there in Washington.

He'd been sectors away, hopping between planets despite knowing she would never be there. Because he had always known Arley was here, on Earth.

And yet he'd still left.

That was all he was good at, ruining and running and failing those who needed him most.

Arley had made him a better man. Forced him to grow up and become the best version of himself he could be. But he; Hal had just ruined her, hadn't he?

…

Dick, Kaldur and Wally sat around the isle in the Titans Main kitchenette area. Though Dick could hold his liquor well enough and though neither Wally nor Kaldur could get drunk— Wally due to his metabolism and Kaldur due to his Atlantean genetics and how they had evolved over the course of history —meaning there was no real point in drinking their weight in alcohol, beer bottles still lettered the countertop.

Roy wasn't Roy.

They'd been led around by their noses— again —by the Light for months.

Roy wasn't Roy.

It had been days since they had all learned their comrade— their friend —was nothing more than a clone, meant to act as a mole and sleeper agent for Vandal Savages' whims and yet it didn't feel anymore real.

"Do you think the original Roy is really still alive?" Dick asked. Constantine and Kyle had told them that Roy Harpers— the original Roy Harpers —soul was still Earthbound; tied to a body and still alive but it had been years since the young sidekicks capture.

"Realistically?" Kaldur asked over the rim of his fourth bottle. Dick nodded; Wally kept his focus on his own drink, palmed between his two hands.

Barry had told Wally it had to be at least seven since the original Roy Harper had been captured.

"No. I don't."

Why would the Light keep someone for seven years when they were no use to them? They had been more than willing to dispose of Arley the minute they didn't need her anymore.

Sure Kyle and Constantine said one thing— sure they said Roy Harper was alive —but it didn't make sense.

What use could the original Speedy even be?

Wally didn't look up as Dick let out a whiny sigh from the back of his throat.

Wally was supposed to be smart, wasn't he? A genius with genius level intelligence. And yet he had let himself get played over and over again, always at the expense of those close to him.

The speedster raised his glass to his lips.

"Do you guys think if we hadn't left the Hall that day everything would be different?" Wally asked lowly. It was a question he hadn't stopped asking since he'd gotten that call from Hal, asking if he knew where Arley was. "I mean, do you think we'd be dead or clone's or-or, do you think—"

"—Wally," Dick said softly, shaking his dead, "Don't. Don't go down that road."

"Why not? It's a fair question!" Wally snapped. His knuckles tightened around the bottle, "It's our fault Arley went to Cadmus' alone! We got played and she fucking paid the price, didn't she!"

Dick didn't flinch at Wally's harsh words and even harsher tone— after four years he'd heard this all before, even if only slightly different —but hurt flashed through his eyes.

"What would you like us to say Wally?" Kaldur snapped back, his face cool and expressionless. "If we had gone we'd probably be wherever the original Roy Harper is, if not dead."

"Or we'd be with Arley! Maybe we could have gotten out, maybe none of this would be happening!" Wally's voice raised, it echoed off the tall ceiling.

"And maybe something worse would be!" Kaldur snapped. "You can't focus on the what-if's Wally. Only on the now."

What's happening now though, was that Roy wasn't Roy and Arley didn't trust them and that she had been captured and toured for years and the fake Roy Harper had found her several times over— always made to forget after though, keeping her trapped —despite the fact that none of them could find her once.

What was happening now was one disappointment after the next.

All because he had let his pride take way four years ago.

All because he'd been an idiot.

"Whatever," Wally hissed before turning, bottle still in hand. He couldn't breathe. The walls of the room, despite its massive dimensions, we're closing in on him.

He needed fresh air. The stars.

Arley.

Wally needed Arley. That much to the ex-sidekicks— and anyone else who knew the speedster; who had the absolute pleasure of speaking with him —was clear.

…

Crescent City, California— the city in which Brother Blood had set up right outside of —was near the Oregon border.

It was four hundred miles from Star City. Six hundred away from Los Angeles where Kyle lived. Just over seven hundred from Jump City where those well made fakes of her boys resided and nearly nine hundred from Coast City.

It was weird to be back in California. Just as weird, Arley supposed, as it would be to be back in Jersey.

The five of them and Wolf, had anchored the Bioship on the bank of Lake Tolowa. The wooded area they had all parked was not only far enough away from Brother Bloods compound so as not to get picked up by any scouts or drones patrolling the area but also close enough to Crescent City that Arley and the others could walk when they needed supplies.

It'd be a lengthy walk— two or so hours —but the spot they had chosen was safe. At least for the time being.

With Savage alive and the Light still in control of the Justice League nowhere was truly safe.

Arley could smell the crisp ocean air in the breeze. She was so close.

She was going to get her boys back.

Her Wally.

She was going to save them.

And then she'd finished what she had started several months ago, back in Washington. She would crush the Light, and Savage.

And maybe, with Wally by her side, she'd live to see the end of this fight.

Notes: Sorry for such a short chapter but this will be the last (second to last?) filler chapter! It's plot for now on! Before I go though, shout out to both Guest and Null128, thank you guys for the comment's, they really helped me keep going when I was down with motivation / writers block. Feel free to let me know all your thoughts about this chapter in the comments down below!