Hey, guys! Wow, I can't believe I'm finally putting this up.

So, if you hadn't guessed, this is the fanfiction that I've spent the spring slaving over. I had planned to put it up this summer, but I went to Armenia and I still haven't actually finished it. I have the last chapter to put together, but I'm fairly certain that I'll get it done before it's time to post. Therefore, yes, I have already written just about this entire fanfiction, and I've done that so to be certain that this will never be on hiatus or get discontinued. I'll be posting consistently every week on Friday, starting next Friday.

I'm so excited to share this with everyone! I hope you guys enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. As ever, don't forget to review - I really do want to hear everyone's thoughts, both to improve my writing/plot (so yes, you are free to nicely point out negative things, too) and to give me motivation to start writing the next story.

Cheers!

"Flat line, no pulse, but eyes open,

single file like soldiers on a mission,

if there's no war outside our heads,

why are we losing?"

-Life Less Frightening, Rise Against

Ironically, the voices started in the therapist's office.

Well, it was just one voice but, at the time, it felt like many. There was something different about the voice of the dead. There wasn't a specific source. It was as if the sound engulfed a person just to make them listen. Over time, Dick had adjusted, and it had gotten to the point where, if he just paid the least amount of attention, the voice sounded like any other normal person's. But right there, at that moment, that wasn't the case. He was just a teenager freaked out and panicking in the office of what should have been a one-time visit to a therapist, who he had been trying for the past five minutes to convince that nothing was wrong with him.

"How have you been taking the loss, Dick?" Miss. Frances asked cheerfully, in her eerie way that Dick was becoming fast accustomed to, dipping her head to try and look into Dick's eyes, which were staring at the ground. Dick fought the urge to dramatically scowl.

"Now or before? Now I'm just angry. You know, one of those stages of grief?" And, in her case, stage of PTSD or something equally serious? Honestly, what was that woman's problem? It felt as if she were deliberately trying to prove that something was wrong with him. Miss. Frances nodded and scribbled a little on her clipboard.

"Do you blame him for leaving?" she asked instead. "Is that why you're angry?"

"He's stupid. That's why he died. You can't be angry with stupidity," Dick spat curtly back. It was true. He was angry. But the source was unclear and, if he knew anything at all, Dick was sure that he was less mad at his best friend for being constantly stupid and more mad at himself for letting his best friend be constantly stupid. But, really, that was just how Wally had been.

He hated thinking about it. Ever since the mental simulation gone wrong with the rest of the team, Dick had realised that he wanted no part in becoming Batman's clone, and it was at a point where anything that resembled being like Batman personality-wise had Dick cringing away from it. Brooding over the past, over what he couldn't change, over failures that would never be corrected was a very signature trait of his mentor's, and Dick knew that he shouldn't follow in those footsteps. From a mental health standpoint, ignoring the event completely wasn't a good habit either, but he couldn't help it. He hated it. He despised remembering it. So Dick blocked it out and blocked it out, sitting stiffly in his chair, until he couldn't think anymore. All he had was a strange pain in his chest and he didn't want to think about anything anymore, especially not about Wally.

"I'm not that stupid!"

"What?" Dick started, his back instantly straightening and his hand darting to feel his hips, where he suddenly wished his utility belt was.

"What?" Miss. Frances responded, instantly alert.

"That- did you hear that?" Dick stammered.

"You heard that?" the resonating voice said again.

Dick's eyes widened, but he couldn't make more words move out of his mouth amidst all of the shock. Miss. Frances smiled almost childishly. "Calm down," she soothed. "There are construction workers upstairs, and they've been at it all morning." She winked. Dick didn't know why she was winking.

Dick also didn't think that drills could speak English. "Tell me, Dick, have you been this jumpy lately?" Miss. Frances continued, her high pitched voice ringing in Dick's ears.

The acrobat frowned, heart racing, but he was so used to the adrenaline rush of unknown situations that he managed to keep his voice steady despite the nerves. "I've always been jumpy." His mind was already elsewhere. He needed to get out of there - he wasn't crazy. Crazy was the Joker. Crazy was a little bit of Batman, entirely necessary to catch baddies like they did. He wasn't crazy. But the room was still suffocating.

"Has it increased since the incident?" Miss. Frances pressed.

"...No," Dick answered softly.

Dick walked out of that office ten minutes later, entirely unnerved and spectacularly unsatisfied. He had been beyond uncomfortable in there. Sharing feelings wasn't something that he did, and he supposed that, according to an expert, that was all the more reason to get 'help'. But even if he had wanted to, Dick couldn't get full help from a random civilian. He couldn't explain his frustrations during missions, he couldn't tell her the names of his teammates, he couldn't rant to her about how he hated being Dick Grayson and he just wanted to be Robin. He couldn't show her the true scope of how far his and one Wally West's friendship had extended, how they had trusted each other with their lives every day, how they had managed to keep smiling no matter what situation they were in as long as they were near one another. He couldn't even tell her how he had died, and it certainly hadn't been from something so simple as a mugging. Bruce had created that scenario, and Dick was only left to wonder why it so much resembled the deaths of Bruce's parents.

Black Canary, or Dinah as she preferred to be called, would have been a more suitable option, as she knew Robin, but she didn't know Dick. Dick supposed that Bruce really didn't know how to handle therapists. Talking only about one half of his life and lying about the other offered no relief.

Dick had also settled with the conclusion that the voice he had heard in there had just been part of his imagination. Maybe he really did need some recovery time.

Because he swore that it had sounded just like Wally.

Dick didn't hear it again until school a week later. He was drifting off in English class, a subject that he was good at in the same way that he had to be good at everything else. The only thing distracting him was himself. His thoughts were wandering, and wandering, and straying so far off that they were becoming hopelessly lost and tangled. Eventually, they became so lost that there was nothing in his mind at all.

Dick had to consider if that might have been his own relaxing mechanism. There was always something on his mind. Training, school, missions, identities - sometimes, he wanted to just be. So, that was what he was doing, his mind wiped clean and his eyes starting to burn because he was forgetting to blink.

"lease...ick...D...p...long...he..p...l…" It sounded like a broken remix, breaks within the echoing techno giving off a feeling of chaos and discord. Dick's heart sped up. It sounded just the same as before - as it had within the office. "Ca...you...me...heard...you heard...you heard me...fore...you heard me before!" When a full sentence did come up, it wasn't as soft and confused sounding as the jumbled syllables from before. It was harsh. It was loud and harsh and screeched against the inside of Dick's skull. He slammed his palms against his ears.

"Can...hear me? Is that...blocking your...are you… can you hear me? Pl…" Dick began shaking his head and rubbing his ears, hoping for that awful sound to go away, but if anything it only got louder. "I can go through...object...solid...sound waves...sure that your hands won't do anything."

What was going on? His thoughts were screaming, telling him to run from it, but he couldn't run. He couldn't even get up. He was in the middle of English class. Running out shouting was sure to earn him a trip straight to the counselor.

"Richard, is there something that you would like not to hear?" Dick instinctively darted his hands away from his face and looked up to see his English teacher glaring down at him with the heat of a thousand suns. Dick blinked and gaped, unsure of how to transition from the surreal panic attack-like event that had just happened to consoling his offended teacher.

"Uh, no," breathed Dick, attempting to calm his racing heart. Mr. Billard, his teacher, didn't look the least bit amused. He must have mistaken the cause of the catastrophe of emotions on Dick's face for something else, though, and only stood there for a second more before walking back to his desk.

However, the second that Mr. Billard moved, Dick could clearly see what was directly behind him. It felt like his heart jumped and stopped at the same time.

"Don't you recognise me?" Wally asked, looking just as colourful and healthy as he had the last time that Dick had seen him. The only difference was that his emerald eyes glittered with a suspicious liquid and his mouth held a morphed expression of sadness that was entirely unsuited for his face.

Dick screamed.

He awoke in a hospital bed. Dick knew that for certain because he was awake before he opened his eyes, and the incessant beeping of the heart monitor was all too clear. Usually, after he was heavily injured and ended up in such a place, he wouldn't remember what had happened until he was given a reminder by someone walking in or by the room itself.

But that time, he remembered. He remembered perfectly, and it felt as if he hadn't slept at all, because Dick could still feel the tendrils of panic and stress gripping his heart. He felt like crying and, suddenly, for the first time in a long time, Dick wanted anything but to be alone.

He changed his mind a couple of seconds later.

"Finally! Thank God you're okay." The voice sounded almost as panicked as Dick felt, on top of concerned and nervous. It kickstarted Dick's own heart to start racing again and the tear that was gathering in his eye fell at last. The monitor went insane. He didn't want to look around the room. The voice sounded just like Wally's and Dick had seen Wally and that meant Wally was probably with him in that room and that was a scary, scary thought because Wally had exploded, he shouldn't have been alive, couldn't have been alive.

Dick wasn't insane. He swore that he wasn't insane.

"Are you crying?" Wally's voice exclaimed. "Are you okay? No, no, you're not okay, you freaking fainted, man, and I know that's probably because of me but-you-really-shouldn't-be-afraid-it's-just-me-and-I-can't-believe-you-can-even-hear-me. It's-a-miracle-dude-I've-been-trying-for-so-long-"

"Shut up!" Dick screeched, and Wally did. Dick slowly exhaled. "You're not real, you're not real-"

"What?" Not-Wally sounded so offended that Dick stuttered in his own chanting. He continued, though, over Not-Wally's words, still hearing them and not wanting to at all. "I'm real. I'm real! Dick, no, I'm real! Stop!" he was frantic, suddenly appearing at the foot of Dick's bed. Dick shut his eyes tightly. "I'm right here, man. Please. You have to help me. You're the only one who can hear me, let alone see me," Wally begged. Then the redhead took a deep breath and shouted, "Dick!"

Dick was startled into silence, Wally's shout bouncing around inside of his head.

"Answer something for me, Dick, please. At least give me that," Wally continued softly, and Dick slowly opened his eyes to see stunning green ones instead. But there was something different about them. Even without their happy shine, Dick thought that there was something off, but he couldn't put a word to it. "What happened?" When Dick didn't respond, he elaborated. "What happened to me?"

"Exploded," Dick croaked out softly. "You exploded. We...got a mission. In California. They were making some illegal chemical compounds or something, but they found out we were inspecting them, so they...put a bomb. In the building. You...I found out, and you grabbed it and ran, but it…it exploded."

Dick remembered that. He remembered standing, pressed against the window of the building that had once held the bomb and seeing the yellow streak that was Kid Flash zipping away. What he remembered most, however, was seeing his best friend reach a building some ways away from the window that Dick had been looking out of just as that building seemed to explode for no reason.

He used to remember a body, too. But those memories were buried so deeply that Dick didn't think he could ever dig them out again. That was the moment when Dick thought that he had discovered why Wally's eyes looked so different.

They were dead.

"I'm really dead," Wally said shakily. "I actually...died." There was silence for a moment. "I never really thought that I could die, y'know? I've, we've, gone into so many situations where most other people would die plenty times over, but us… We didn't. And I guess I just got so used to that."

"Are you trying to tell me that you're a ghost?" Dick swallowed. Whatever that was happening was not happening. It couldn't be happening. But Wally's eyes creased downwards and his lips parted just the smallest bit and he looked like he wanted to cry.

"What else could I be? I can't touch anything, I go right through. The only thing I don't go through is the dirt," he hissed, before his voice softened sadly. "No one can hear me or see me. Winds usually blow me away - literally. I can't feel anything but myself. I'm never hot or cold, but I can still feel my own emotions, and they're usually painful." He continued past what was necessary to answer Dick's question, probably speaking more than he had first intended, and he didn't seem as if he were able to close his mouth. "It's like- it's like- oh my God, Dick, I'm just- I'm so happy that I finally have someone to talk to. How long's it been? I don't know, I don't know, but it's been so long, and-"

That was when Wally finally burst into tears, with the illusion of salty water that disappeared the second it fell off of his cheek. "Dick, you have to help me. Please, help me," he sobbed.

"I don't know how," Dick breathed, eyes wide and, though he wouldn't say so later, tearing up at the sight of his friend that looked so real, so solid, crying as if he would never be able to stop. He didn't think he'd ever seen his friend like that. He hadn't thought he ever would. Fortunately, or unfortunately, Dick felt so spent that he couldn't garner up the energy to cry with him.

"Don't know how to do what?" Dick jumped and whipped his head around to stare at the door opposite of where he had been originally looking. There was a tall woman in a white coat standing there with her mousey brown hair gathered tightly into a ponytail, a clipboard in her hand and a frown on her face. She was waiting for an answer.

Wally answered for him. "How to help me," he said, wiping away his tears angrily and attempting to slam his fist on the table beside Dick's bed. He only grew more frustrated when it went straight through. Dick's eyebrows creased and his eyes dried in relief at the distraction from the onslaught of distraught emotions.

"Calm down," he demanded, and Wally only crossed his arms tightly. Dick was surprised at how easily he was able to get used to Wally's presence. Then again, Dick and Wally were the best of friends, weren't they?

"Why can't you calm down?" the nurse asked slowly.

Dick stared at her. "You can't see-" Of course she couldn't see Wally. But Wally just looked so real and Dick was so used to him being real that the acrobat was having a hard time comprehending that it was possible for someone not to notice the redhead.

"No," Wally interrupted quickly, and he looked frantic. "No one else can see me but you. I've tried."

Dick was about to demand why Wally hadn't told him that earlier, but by the look on the nurse's face, he knew that wouldn't help the situation at all. He decided to pretend that Wally was just as he had always been. Wally was there and Dick wasn't crazy, so Dick was just going to think that everything was normal. It was easier.

"See what?" she asked.

"The birds," Wally said quickly.

"The birds," Dick echoed. Her eyebrows shot up her forehead and he glared briefly at Wally, who shrugged sheepishly. "Uh, yeah, outside. They kept flying into the window and I was telling them to calm down," he elaborated, tilting his head with an award-winning smile.

To Dick's distress, the nurse glanced at her clipboard and quickly scribbled something down. He barely kept himself from groaning aloud.

"Alright, well, I'm just here to check your vitals. If everything's good, we'll call your dad to come pick you up," she explained as she moved over to the heart monitor. Dick nodded and the room was quickly bathed in silence. At least, silence for the nurse.

"You have a dad?" Wally exclaimed, and Dick was startled by the sudden change in subject. Though, Wally never did have the best attention span. "I thought- y'know, the circus and all-"

"Kind of. He's my guardian," Dick whispered when the nurse was at the sink on the other side of the room. Then he frowned. "Wait, hold up. You know my name's Dick, where I go to school, my backstory, and yet you don't know who I live with?"

Wally frowned. "What was I supposed to do, Google you? Searching up 'Dick' probably isn't the best course of action, dude. I don't know your last name, remember? It's not like Google gives us non-movie stars our family trees, anyway. I don't care who your family is." Dick snorted at that. Wally would be surprised how much of a family tree Google could give for the wards of billionaires.

"So you don't recognise me?" asked Dick incredulously.

"...Should I?"

If Dick were honest, he found it kind of endearing how Wally hadn't immediately jumped on stalking his entire history upon finding out his first name. "Nah," Dick said. "You're good."

"You're good," the nurse copied, straightening up. "Your father will be here in a few minutes." She smiled kindly and left.

Wally pouted. "Oh come on, nurses were never that nice to me whenever I ended up in the hospital."

Dick shrugged it off, figuring that Wally would find out why normal civilians tended to be so nice to him sooner or later. But since the nurse was gone, Dick found that he was definitely not in the mood for casual chatter. "How come I'm the only one who can see you, if you're a ghost like you say?"

"If I'm not a ghost and you can see me, what else could I be?" Wally frowned. "A hallucination? Yeah, right." It seemed that the redhead was more unnerved by the possibility of Dick thinking that he was a hallucination than he let on, however, because he quickly continued talking. "But I really don't know. Barry can't see me. Iris can't see me. Did you do something...special before hearing me?"

"'Special'?" Dick snorted. "Like what, dark magic? I don't know how to summon ghosts, Wally."

"You're a bat. Dark magic is totally a possibility. Not that magic is real or anything," replied the redhead. "I meant something with your mind. M'gann can kind of mentally force her way into other people's thoughts, right? That's something with her mind. Hers is a species thing, of course, but...I don't know, it's worth thinking about."

It was worth thinking about. "Well, I was spacing out? In class, at least. Yeah, I was spacing out in English," Dick replied. Wally perked up.

"Spacing out? That's it? Spacing out as in your mind was kind of blank and you weren't thinking about anything? It actually makes sense," Wally rambled excitedly. "If your mind is blank, then you can hear things that would otherwise be obscured by your thoughts. Or you could hear me because you weren't thinking about anything and I could get my...ghostly sound waves or something into your head. And now that you've heard and seen me, you're aware of my existence, which means you can hear and see me all the time." He grinned. "I never knew you were a spacey person."

"I'm not," Dick defended. "Just during class when I already know everything that's being said."

"Wow, modest much?"

"It's true," shrugged the acrobat.

It was finally settling in. The scare was over, and Dick had momentarily forgotten about the horrible grieving line of events for the sole fact that he was able to banter with Wally as if they were both suiting up at the mountain again. But finally, it was finally registering. What if Wally really was a ghost? As much as Dick didn't want him to be dead…

It was better than him being gone.

And that made him happier than he'd been in months. That happiness was reflected in Wally's face, the same one that had been sad and angry minutes before. Wally was a ghost, Dick decided to believe. A ghost who had said that he hadn't been able to get anyone else to see him. Did that mean he had felt as alone as Dick had? Dick had lost a best friend, the one and only person who he had confided everything to. Whenever he saw something funny, he hadn't had anyone to tell it to. Whenever he was sad, he hadn't had anyone to express it to.

And neither had Wally.

That was when the door decided to open. Dick whipped his head around briefly to look at one Bruce Wayne, but, much to Bruce's puzzlement, he turned his head back to the window to look pointedly at Wally.

Wally rose his eyebrows, but otherwise didn't react. "You have a dad who looks like that and is still single? I'm finally not the only single attractive man," he commented. Dick laughed.

"Uh, Dick?" Bruce prodded.

Dick turned to Bruce and grinned, which only grew as Bruce's eyes widened in surprise. He couldn't blame his guardian, though. When was the last time that Dick had actually looked happy? "Hey, Bruce Wayne!" he exclaimed with a wave.

Wally sputtered.

"Holy shit!" he yelled in surprise, rushing right up to Bruce's shoulder and staring him in the face. "Oh my God, I knew I recognised him! Man, I never watch the news. Is this why- freaking hot damn your dad is Bruce Wayne, no wonder you're so filthy rich!"

Dick couldn't hold it in. He burst into a fit of cackles at the blunt awe displayed on Wally's face, and when he had slightly recovered in order to look back up again, Bruce's pure expression of utter bewilderment sent him through another round.