The Flash

Jessica Chambers struggled to breathe. Lean legs pumped, and her feet felt like lead as she ran. Her chest was tight, and her lungs seemed to burn as she wheezed through the pain. She couldn’t stop running. She wouldn’t. Not after coming this far. And especially not with him around.

She glanced to her right, eyes squinting through the on-rushing wind, past the few long, blonde hairs that had come out of her ponytail and were blowing in her face instead of behind her. A few feet from her, a man in a red body suit strode with relative ease. The man wore yellow boots and yellow lightning bolts around the gloves and waist highlighted his suit, with a mask covering his face and head, complete with yellow earpieces. Completing the suit was another lightning bolt, which seemed to leap out of a circular white field on the man’s chest.

The man’s name was Wally West. The world at large knew him by another name: The Flash.

Wally glanced over towards Jesse and smiled. He moved over towards her as they continued running, getting close enough that he could speak to her and still be heard over the rush of the wind. He shouted to her. “You all right?”

“Fine!” Jesse replied quickly, she hoped not too quickly. Her body was screaming at her to stop, to slow down, to fall, to do something other than keep up the sonic speeds that she and Wally had been averaging over the past two hours. She had done everything she could to come up with an excuse for stopping that she thought he would buy. Nothing seemed plausible, and she couldn’t bring herself to try one that he would know was a lie. And telling him the truth, that she was in pain and that every footfall made it worse, just wouldn’t do.

Jesse has always hated feeling weak, almost as much as she hated appearing that way. If Wally West could be called ‘the fastest man alive,’ then surely she must have been the fastest woman, which, in her mind, meant keeping up with him, for as long as he wanted, without showing any signs of fatigue, of weakness.

Wally eyed her. Again he shouted. “You sure?”

“Yeah,” she replied, less readily this time. “I’m fine.”

“’Cause we can stop, is all I’m saying…”

Jesse’s eyebrows went up. “Do you want to?”

“If you want to,” he replied with a half-shrug.

She had an out. All she had to do was say the word, tell him she had to get back to the office, or maybe even the truth. She hesitated for a moment, her expression changing as she looked away and considered her options.

Wally cleared his throat slightly. “Let’s stop.”

Jesse looked back towards him. “You’re sure?”

“Yeah.”

“You really want to?”

“Yeah. One lap around and we’ll stop in Keystone, get some food.”

Jesse nodded with a smile, turning away from Wally and pulling out in front of him. He smiled to himself as he caught up with her easily. He had known she had wanted to stop – he could see it in her face. Though he didn’t know her very well, there were some things that could be applied to most people, and Wally could tell the expression a person made when trying to come up with an excuse. He didn’t know if she was worried about disappointing him or about looking bad, but either way, he was content with their run.

This was the first time that he had ever gone running casually with Jesse, though he went for a Sunday-morning run every week. He likened it in his mind to going to church, a chance to forget about the problems of his every day life and to connect with something bigger than himself. In the case of both Wally and Jesse, this was an energy field lying beyond the speed of light that they had affectionately dubbed the Speed Force.

It was Wally’s discovery of the speed field that had first led him to meet Jesse. He had thought himself to be dying – in fact, he was – and, in seeking help from elder speedster Jay Garrick, the first man to be known as The Flash, as well as from Max Mercury and Johnny Quick, he came to be introduced to Jesse. The daughter of John Chambers, Jesse Quick was chosen by Wally to become the next Flash, should Wally die.

Except she wasn’t. It had been a trick, an attempt to get Bart Allen, Wally’s then-newly arrived cousin from the future, to mature more quickly. Wally had wanted Bart – the grandson of Wally’s uncle, Barry Allen – to carry on the Flash legacy, to keep the name in the family. When all was said and done, though, Wally hadn’t died, Bart had come into his own as a hero, and Jesse was left to fume over her obvious manipulation. And while Jesse Quick had become a formidable ally whenever The Flash was in trouble, Jessica Chambers and Wally West had never become friends.

It was the thought of how tenuous their relationship was that stuck out to Wally as he and his running partner pulled to a stop in front of the deli on 4th and Broome. Wally was in street clothes by now, having mentally altered his Speed Force-composed uniform as they ran. He waited a moment as Jesse changed out of her own spandex suit and into a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. Wally had never seen her wear casual clothing before; a business suit was usually what she wore whenever they saw each other out of costume. It was Sunday, though, and time for anyone to relax.

They entered the deli and were soon seated. Wally unfolded his menu and glanced over it. As his eyes passed over the top few selections, he noticed that Jesse was staring at him, her hands folded under her chin, her elbows on the table. Wally lowered his menu. “What?”

Jesse didn’t say anything as their waitress, an attractive brunette named Kat, stepped up to the table and took their orders. A moment later she was gone, and Wally and Jesse were again left alone and silent.

“I don’t get you,” Jesse said, finally breaking the silence.

Wally looked confused. “What do you mean?”

Jesse sat back in her chair. “I mean I don’t get you.”

“I honestly don’t think there’s a lot to get.”

“Why did you ask me to run with you?”

“I dunno. We’ve never run together, I thought it might be fun.”

They sat in silence for another long minute. Wally hadn’t given her the real reason for why they had gone running, and he knew she knew. If there was one thing he had learned about himself over the years, it was how terrible a liar he was.

He smiled at the woman across from him. “Do you have a phone on you?”

Now it was Jesse’s turn to be confused. Yeah…” She slid her hand into her pocket and pulled out the small cell phone, handing it across the table to Wally’s out-stretched hand.

“Thanks,” he said, flipping the phone open and dialing. “Gotta call Linda real quick, I’m sorry about this…”

Jesse shrugged as Wally placed the phone to his ear. Both waited for a moment. Finally Wally exhaled and spoke into the phone. “Hey, it’s me. Yeah. Yeah, it was fine. Yeah. No, we’re…we’re getting lunch right now. Right. So hey, listen…I was gonna tell her. About the thing. Yeah. You’re okay with that? You’re sure? Okay. I just…I wanted to make sure. Okay. Right. I’ll see you when you get home. Okay. I love you, too. Bye.”

He flipped the phone closed and handed it back to Jesse, who eyed him curiously as she took back what was hers. “What are you going to tell me?”

Wally smiled and opened his mouth to speak as a bell dinged in the background. It stuck out to him for some reason, and he glanced over Jesse’s shoulder towards the source of the bell’s ringing: the door to the deli had been opened, and a middle-aged man with a receding hairline and a ponytail stepped through and into the restaurant. The man wore a jacket and jeans, and his hands were shoved in the jacket pockets.

Wally knew his face instantly. He froze for a moment, his eyes following the man as he made his way to the counter of the deli.

Jesse leaned forward. “What is it?”

Wally looked at her frantically. “Don’t…don’t look.”

“What, don’t…don’t look at what?”

“At who.”

“Don’t look at who?”

“It’s…okay, you can look, but…just look casually. The counter.”

Jesse turned her head slowly, craning her neck to peer over her shoulder. Her eyes scanned the patrons at the counter, initially glossing over the man Wally had recognized.

Wally glanced back at the counter. “Notice anyone familiar?”

She looked again more carefully, taking time to notice the features of each customer. Her eyes finally rested on the man Wally was referring to. “I think I’ve…oh. Oh, holy…”

“Yeah.”

“Is that…”

“Yeah. He just keeps coming back…” Wally looked at Jesse with a smirk. “No pun intended.”

She smiled. “Right. So what do we do?”

He sighed. “We don’t want to scare him off, so we shouldn’t move too fast. Just…carefully. We’ll surround him, but…casually.”

“God…this is just so weird. I mean, when does this happen? How often does this happen?”

“Not very,” he shrugged. “I once ran into the Weather Wizard in line at the bank. That was a while ago.”

They paused for a moment. Again Jesse broke the silence. “So you wanna…”

“Yeah,” Wally replied, sliding out of his chair.

He and Jesse seemed to glide across the restaurant, stepping up behind the man, who was hunched over a cup of coffee. Wally glanced towards his partner and nodded. He reached his hand out and clamped it down on the man’s right shoulder, startling him. Wally plopped down on the stool to the man’s left. “How ya doin’, Digger?”

Digger Harkness jumped at the sight of the fastest man alive. Instinctively he reached for the inside of his coat.

“Uh-uh,” Wally said calmly, shaking his head. “She’s got them.”

Digger turned around to see Jesse sitting on the other side of him, holding three boomerangs in her hand. She shrugged with a smirk.

He sighed. “For God’s sake…I just wanted some coffee.”

“See, this is just bad luck,” Wally said, his hand still clamped to Digger’s shoulder. “Captain Boomerang walking into a restaurant where The Flash and Jesse Quick are having lunch, that really…that’s not your fault. Don’t get down on yourself. That’s just bad luck right there.”

“I wasn’t even…God damnit…I don’t believe this.”

“Now it’s not that we don’t trust you…”

“We have every faith in the fine, upstanding citizens that you rogues are,” Jesse added.

“Yeah, but…” Wally paused. “You weren’t planning to dine and dash, were you?”

Digger stammered for a moment. “Are we gonna do this here or what?”

Wally shook his head again. “We’re not gonna do this anywhere. It’s two against one and you’re unarmed, and you’re still thinking about trying to get away?”

“That’s the point, isn’t it?” Digger smiled. “That’s how it was with Barry, anyway. It’s the challenge.”

“Yeah,” Wally said with a shrug, “but you’re so obviously caught right now.”

He thought for a moment, glancing back and forth between Wally and Jesse. Wally could see a glint of something in his eyes, and he could tell that Digger was seriously considering trying to escape. After the moment, though, the glint disappeared, and the man known to the world as Captain Boomerang let out a heavy sigh. “Fine, whatever, you win.”

Wally smiled as he leaned forward on the counter. “Kat?” He waited as he and Jesse’s waitress made her way down the counter to where they were now sitting. He smiled to her. “We’ll take our lunch to go.”

Jesse couldn’t stop grinning. As she and Wally finally sat down an hour later to eat their lunches – this time in the kitchen at Wally and Linda’s suburban home – it was almost difficult for her to chew her food through the smile that refused to leave her face.

Wally couldn’t help but smile. “You alright?”

She grinned a little wider. “That was…that was just so much fun.”

“Yeah, it was,” he said before taking another bite of his sandwich.

“I mean…and you…see, I just…I really don’t get you, man.”

“Again with that. I really don’t know what you mean, Jess.”

“I mean, there was you, in that diner, and you were…I don’t know. I can usually get into someone’s head and I can’t get into your head at all. There’s part of you that’s so cool, like you were in there, you’re smart and you’re confident and you know what you’re doing. And then there’s part of you that is just…irrational, and irresponsible, and…”

“A jerk?”

She looked away from him, smiling self-consciously. “Yeah, kind of…yeah, a jerk.”

“Linda and I are trying.”

Jesse paused. “You’re…trying?”

“Yeah. She’s trying to get pregnant, I mean.”

Again she paused. “I…wow.”

He smiled. “Yeah. I’ve…I’m so ridiculously excited. I mean, we’re both really excited, but I…I’ve wanted to have kids from the moment we got married, and it was just…y’know, waiting until she was ready for it. And a few weeks ago she decided she was ready, so…yeah, we’re trying.”

“That…that’s great, Wally. Really, congratulations.”

“And we haven’t told anyone else we’re trying yet, we probably won’t until she’s pregnant. But I wanted to tell you.”

Jesse’s eyebrows perked up. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

A long pause and then Wally let out a deep breath. “All right. You asked earlier why I asked you to run with me this morning.”

“Right.”

“It’s because…I asked you to run with me because I trust you. I trust you and I like you and I have absolutely been a jerk to you in the past and that’s not cool at all and I’m sorry.”

Jesse sat back, her eyes widened, her mouth hanging slightly open. “I…”

“I know, you don’t have to say anything, I just…I wanted you to know. I wanted to tell you. I really am sorry.”

She closed her eyes for a moment. Finally she exhaled and looked back at the red-haired man. “Thank you.”

He smiled back to her. “I’m sorry it’s taken me so long.”

“No, it’s…thank you. I’m just not sure what else to say.”

“I’m really not good at this. And I feel bad, because we’ve known each other for this long and there’s a thing hanging there over our heads and I don’t want that there anymore. That’s stupid, we’re adults, so…there. No more thing.”

Jesse smiled with a laugh. “Right, no…no more thing.” She paused again before continuing. “So what does that have to do with you telling me about the trying?”

“I actually…I hadn’t planned to tell you right away, I was going to wait, but…well, it felt right.”

“Okay…”

“If and when Linda gets pregnant, someone’s going to need to take care of the baby.”

Jesse sat up quickly. “Whoa. Wait. Hold on. You asked me here because you want me to be your nanny? I’ve….oh my God, I’ve got QuickStart Enterprises to run, I’ve got the heroing thing, I’ve…I have my own life, Wally, I can’t believe you would-”

“Jess,” Wally said, interrupting her. “I just got through apologizing for being an ass to you in the past, do you really think I’d do it again so quickly?”

Again, self-consciousness showed itself on Jesse’s face. “I’m sorry, that was…wow. Now who’s an ass?”

“Forget it,” Wally replied with a smile. “That came out wrong anyway. When the time comes, I’m going to be taking care of the baby so Linda can keep working.” He paused before continuing.

“I’m not asking you to be the nanny. I’m asking you to be The Flash.”

Next Issue: Jesse’s response, a Bat-villain comes calling, and some more good news.

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