Spitfire One-Shot Collection

Need To Hold On To You❎-By RedSpazz-

She decided the best way to do that would be to ask him first. If he felt comfortable enough to open up to her about his troubles she would take it as a sign that she could talk to him too.

"Do you... want to talk about it?" She asked tentatively.

Wally sighed as he tore his eyes away from hers, flashes of his nightmare flicker through his mind, and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. He scrubbed his hands up and down his face in a tired motion, almost as if trying to rub the memory from his mind.

After a few seconds of contemplative silence, Wally, with his face still in his hands, mumbled out a cracked reply,

"Every time I close my eyes I see you die. Over and over and over again."

Wally sat up and looked over at Artemis again,

"It's driving me nuts! It's getting to the point where every time I see you I have to resist the urge to run over and poke you just to make sure you're real. And when you leave the room it takes everything in me to not follow you around to make sure you come back alive. But, its whatever. It's just a stupid dream. I'll get over it eventually. What about you, what's got you so shaken up?"

Artemis shrugged and looked away, letting her hair fall over her shoulder to hide her face slightly.

"Same thing basically, only I'm remembering what it's like to die."

Her voice wavered slightly as she choked back tears when she neared the end of her sentence.

Wally felt awful. Here he was complaining of nightmares when Artemis literally knew what it was like to die. That's got to haunt a person. While he and everyone else technically 'died' too, it was close enough to M'Gann waking up that they didn't really remember much of it before they were woken up. He leaned over slightly to grip her chin and turn her face towards him as he tucked her hair behind her ear.

"Artemis, I'm so sorry. I didn't even think what this whole ordeal would be doing to you. Here I am complaining about some stupid insecurities when you've literally experienced death."

Artemis let a few tears loose and shook her head at Wally as she formed a reply.

"No, Wally. Don't downplay what you're going through. We all went through crap with that training exercise and it probably had some traumatic effects on everyone."

Wally wiped her tears away and smiled appreciatively at her words. He then wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her into his side as he leaned back on the bench a little more.

They sat like that in silence for a few moments while Wally rubbed soothing circles up and down her arm and combed his fingers through her long blonde locks periodically.

He stopped for a moment as he contemplated a question and started again with his ministrations before quietly asking her,

"What was it like? For you?"

It was so silent after he asked the question Wally almost thought that she had fallen asleep. But, then she nuzzled a little closer to his side and started speaking so quietly he had strain to listen.

"Awful... It wasn't painful or anything. The initial blast. But, after that, I woke up in nowhere. I can't even describe what it was like being stuck in that weird Martian mind coma. I really thought I had died. It was almost like a big, empty, dark room. And it was cold. So stinking cold. I felt like I was being abandoned all over again. My... my family Wally. It's screwed up. I wish I could tell you but I just can't get it out. Not tonight. But to give you the short version my mother was... temporarily out of my life when I was younger and my sister left shortly after that. And after my sister, my dad. But being there. In that dark room. Like I said, it was like that all over again. First my family. Then you guys. I just couldn't handle it. I balled up in a corner and cried for what felt like ages but was probably only the few hours I was in that coma. I tried to call out to you guys a few times but all that came back was my own echo. Being alone in my room at nights is killing me. I just, I feel like I need to be around people at all times or I'll get stuck back there again."