This two week gap between updates seems to becoming a pattern now. I'm only going to warn that my next update will also take a little more than two weeks due to school and theatre (and having procrastinated for a convention, meaning I've got to make my Beast Boy cosplay in a week) and all that fun stuff.

Speaking of fun stuff, here's a cute chapter to heal you all from the heartbreak. c: Though please keep in mind that Dick is still registering the events that he's gone through (which, keep in mind, he doesn't even know why they happened). If his reactions to hearing certain news seems off, he's just in shock.

Bruce had left an hour earlier, and that made Wally unbelievably angry. Bruce and Dick had been separated for longer than Wally knew (he gave up on counting the days when the only thing distinguishing one day from the next was when the sky grew dark, and that wasn't very helpful when he was inside), and Bruce still had the audacity to leave Dick alone?

That Bat had better be glad Wally wasn't solid enough to punch him. Though, the memory of being in Alfred's body rose unbidden to the forefront of Wally's mind, and he shook it off as best he could.

Wally didn't know where Bruce had gone, but he didn't care all that much. What he cared about was how forlorn Dick's hunched figure looked, gazing unblinkingly at the ceiling (that was the only real movement he'd made for hours - the transition from staring at the fireplace to staring at the ceiling). When he'd had enough of staring at Dick staring at the ceiling staring back at Dick, Wally quickly went to his room in Central City and grabbed his sweater (sweet Iris had the sweater once more folded neatly on his bed), and brought it back to the manor with him. Standing in the main hall, he had to stare hard at the floppy fabric hanging between his hands before he was hit with another brilliant idea.

The former speedster walked into the kitchen, where Alfred was slowly beginning to set out vegetables in preparation for dinner, and plopped the sweater unceremoniously onto the cutting board. When Alfred turned back around with an armful of potatoes, he frowned.

"That is rather unsanitary, Master Wallace," he said smoothly, rolling the potatoes onto a different cutting board before considering the arrangement of the sweater. It was stretched out into an H. "I'll say, your handwriting in sweaters is far better than your handwriting in pen."

Wally laughed (he was also slightly offended, but considering he could no longer hold a pen, he didn't really care) before shifting the shape of the sweater into an O. Alfred watched and said the letters out loud as Wally spelled out T, then C, O, C, and O.

Alfred went back to cutting potatoes. "I hope you don't intend on drinking hot chocolate, because I must inform you, that might be just the slightest bit challenging."

Wally didn't say anything, and Alfred seemed to go back to slicing in silence before he stilled and took a soft breath. He said nothing to Wally. Instead, he took a rag in his hands as if he were drying them off, but there was nothing to dry so it struck Wally as more of a nervous habit, and walked slowly to the end of the room in order to peer around the wall into the living space. Dick was, of course, still there.

Alfred went back into the kitchen and put a pot on the stove. It was the strangest way Wally had ever seen hot chocolate being made, and the ingredients seemed simple enough, though Wally still lost track. He was reading the label on a container of heavy cream when Alfred finished pouring chocolate chips into the pot and, soon after, the pot into two mugs. He carefully placed them on a tray and elegantly carried them into the next room.

As Wally watched, Alfred delicately placed a mug in front of Dick. It was one that struck Wally as out-of-place, with a thick edge and cliche smiling snowmen with snowflakes covering it. Still, he felt that it was appropriate for what Dick stood for.

Or, what he used to stand for amidst the dreary darkness of his depressing surroundings. Wally hated the thought that instead of standing out, Dick would eventually just mesh into it, melt into the shadows as if he and the shadows were one and the same. They were not one in the same. They were not supposed to be one and the same.

Alfred sat down delicately beside Dick's feet, where they were stretched out across the couch. "Master Dick, I made you hot chocolate."

Dick didn't answer, remaining to stare unblinkingly at the ceiling. He looked robotic. He looked like he wasn't even there.

"Master Dick?" Alfred asked softly after a few minutes, laying the palm of his hand on one of Dick's shins. "Dick," he finally said, "please."

Dick blinked and opened his mouth. He stayed like that for a few more moments, until he suddenly took a deep breath, possibly the first more dramatic movement he'd made in hours, and said, "No thanks." His voice was breathy, as if he couldn't muster up the energy to project it more than a few centimeters in front of his mouth, as if simply shifting the air around his teeth was accomplishment enough.

Wally expected Alfred to try and persuade Dick to drink his hot chocolate, or even force him because as far as Wally knew it was Alfred who was in charge, but Alfred acknowledged the atmosphere too much for that. Instead, he softly stood up, the cushion of the couch barely bouncing, bent down beside Dick and stroked his hair away from his face. He gently began to move Dick's head, and then his neck, and then his torso until Dick was gradually being raised into a sitting position. Alfred placed two pillows behind his back and set one of the mugs in Dick's hands.

Dick stared at it with zero motivation to drink.

"Hey, buddy, you can do this," Wally whispered, and he wanted to slap himself for opening his big mouth. The air felt so fragile, so sad, and Wally had shattered it like breakable glass. Granted, Wally wasn't one for fragile or sad things, but he had to admit that he needed to learn how to read situations better.

A bitter corner of his mind muttered that he didn't need to change anything at all, it wouldn't matter because he was already dead.

"All you gotta do is move a bit. Start with your eyes. Blink them, even if it takes a million years. You just gotta blink," he continued. Though he wasn't the most tactful person in the world, Wally felt a part of his own past get cleared of dust as he looked at the condition his best friend was in, as if he were staring back at himself.

Depression wasn't something that could be fixed easily, if at all.

He remembered only a bone deep exhaustion when he recalled living with his father. And only towards the end, and then more prominent when he first moved in with Barry.

Most people believed that being in a horrible situation was when someone is suddenly hit with a dragging depression, as if it were a sudden thing, as if it occurred during the hardship itself. Rarely it did. The mind was too occupied with surviving to think about living. It was only after the entire incident was over, it was only once everything was better, once the painful need for survival was overcome, did the mind seem to give up on itself. It was only after things seemed to be looking up that the mental state just wanted to look down, because nothing actually felt better, and then the person suffering in silence would just want to lay there forever and do nothing because what was the point? Even if they could conjure up a million reasons as to why there was a point to getting up in the morning, there would always be the question, the oblivious question that held no regard to what it could be answered with because it would always be there, eating away at their energy. It was a heavy virus, chipping away at the inside of their bones and living there, magnetting them to wherever they happened to be. It pushed down at their lungs and sat on their chest until they couldn't breathe. It clung to their mind, as if it were hanging off of a cliff and their mind was the hook but the hook wasn't sturdy and it was slowly giving way to that immense pressure.

Wally could see that Dick's eyes were glossy, and he probably couldn't be bothered to blink them back into focus.

It took time. It took a lot of time and Wally was about to try again when Dick blinked. "Try again," Wally encouraged, because that first time didn't seem to give the effect that he had wanted. Dick blinked again. And then it was a rapid one or two more times after that as his vision swam back into focus and he just stared sadly at Wally. But it was better than no emotion at all.

Dick took a deep breath, looked at Alfred, then back at Wally. Then, he began to cry. They were hiccuping, weak sobs and they didn't stop so Alfred slowly removed the mug from Dick's hands and drew Dick closer to himself, tucking him beneath his chin. Wally was the only one to look up when he heard the tap of polished shoes against the polished floor and was faced with the sight of a stoic Bruce Wayne in the doorway, mouth set in a thin line. He wanted very much to throw a tantrum and yell at the man, but knew that would do no good for Dick. Wally calmed down some as Bruce set his coat against the adjacent loveseat and sat on the arm of the couch where Dick and Alfred were sitting. It took a few moments, but Alfred gently removed himself from Dick, whose sobs were starting to ebb away some, in order for Bruce to cautiously move into his place.

It seemed that Dick didn't care who was sitting there. He leaned his head against Bruce's shoulder almost immediately. Thirty minutes later, Dick was fast asleep and the hot chocolate had gone cold. Wally watched as Bruce swept Dick into his arms and walked up the many stair steps of the manor. The man was about to habitually head for Dick's room, but changed his mind last minute, and instead walked down the hall to another room. When Wally followed him into that room, Wally could only reason that it must have been Bruce's. Bruce carefully placed Dick underneath the covers, with some hesitation kissed him on the forehead, and left. It had been the only time that Wally had ever seen Bruce (or Batman) express affection.

It took three hours for Dick to wake up again, and Wally only knew that because he had been sitting attentive vigil right beside him. Dick didn't seem to have any more energy than before but instead of staring apathetically at the ceiling, he seemed surprised at his surroundings. His eyes landed on Wally.

"Hey," Wally said with a small smile.

Dick didn't say anything for a moment, then, "I haven't slept in here since I was nine."

"Why'd you sleep here when you were nine?"

Dick gave a puff of air through his nose that might have been meant as a chuckle of some sort. "I was afraid of the dark."

"So you decided comfort was in sleeping beside the personification of darkness? Ironic."

Dick smiled. It was a sad, nostalgic smile, but Wally loved it nonetheless. "I didn't know he was Batman at the time. I had only just moved in."

Wally didn't think it would be a good idea to continue that trip down memory lane, so he changed the subject. "How are you feeling?"

"Like shit." Wally waited for him to elaborate. He didn't. "How long has it been since I moved back here?"

"About two weeks."

Dick's eyebrows furrowed. "Doesn't feel it."

"Longer or shorter?"

"Like a 336 hour day."

Wally narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "Did you just calculate how many hours there are in two weeks in your head?"

"Yeah?"

"I can't even remember my name when I first wake up," Wally remarked incredulously.

"Well, I wouldn't want to remember a name like Wallace either."

Wally gave a startled bark of laughter. "You're one to talk. You had to be named Dick so you would remember you had one."

Dick's eyes widened in surprise and a smile touched his lips at the unexpectedly jest.

Wally knew that they had a lot to talk about. They hadn't exactly been the best communicators during...well, everything that had happened. But he also knew that the meat of it could wait for later, when the both of them had taken their own mental health breaks. Mainly Dick. When silence began to lapse again, more comfortable than before, Wally interrupted it with, "I'm so sorry I didn't find you earlier."

"I'm sorry, too...for everything else," Dick said vaguely, in a way that made Wally feel as if Dick could read right into Wally's soul and find all the reasons why everything went wrong. Honestly, no words were needed, and Wally found that calming. They had no expectations from one another. What was done was done, and they had made it out mostly intact, which was the only thing that mattered in the end. "How did you all find me, anyway?"

"No one knew how...bad things were. And no one could really do anything about it either. Apparently Gotham doesn't care much for parental consent, it's only up to the psychiatrist whether or not you get put into a...facility. Anyway, uh, I found out where you got taken and I popped in and saw all that...and then told Barry and Bruce and we went sorta ninja-like and busted you out," he briefed.

"Wait, you told Barry and Bruce?" Dick said skeptically.

Wally suddenly grinned in excitement. "Yeah! I can pick up a few objects that I used to own, like birthday pencils or school projects or that Resident Evil game you got me or that ugly sweater Iris made me. I arranged all of it on the floor and gave them the message that you were in trouble."

Dick smiled to match Wally's excitement. "Thank you," he said softly.

"Dude, being your knight in shining armour is part of the bro code."

Dick nodded. His smile faded a little. "What about Miss. Frances?" He sounded betrayed. "Why...why did she put me in there?"

"Uh…," Wally really didn't know how to go about telling Dick the truth. "She's...kind of dating the Joker? So she's crazy. That's basically why."

The acrobat stared at him. "That's…" he began, "not very surprising, actually."

Wally couldn't help it. He laughed. The conversation was completely absurd. He decided that he might as well get everything out into the open all at once. The topic was already crazy, what was a little more? "I also accidentally possessed your butler's body."

Wally wished he had a camera to take a picture of Dick's face.