Author: thecivilunrest

Fandom: Young Justice

Story Title: "Walk in My Direction"

Summary: I won't tell your heart where to go, or make it feel something it won't.

Character/Relationship(s): Wally West/Artemis Crock, M'gann M'orzz/Conner Kent, Kaldur'ahm/Lorena Marquez, Zatanna Zatara/Babs Gordon, Ollie Queen/Dinah Lance, Mary West/Randy West, Dick Grayson, Roy Harper, Lian Harper, Jade Crock

Rating: T

Warnings: Language

Story Word Count: 2000+ (so far)

Disclaimer: I don't own anything, I promise. The title/summary belong to Thriving Ivory and Young Justice belongs to Warner Brothers and other affiliated titles.

Notes: This will be long. This will be cheesy. This will be full of angst. But I don't care. The entire time I was watching The Vow, when I wasn't crying, I was thinking about how I could twist this into a feasible Wally/Artemis story. And I think I've done a decent job. We might not get to see all of the couples that I listed above up close and personal, but they're the ones that either have the most to do with the story and/or canon in this universe. This will be three parts at the least, probably five at the most. Anything more than that and I'll get skittish. So yeah, I hope everyone enjoys and doesn't think that I'm nuts. (:

Walk in My Direction

Wally's always had this thing about an instant. He's always been faster than the average guy—thanks, super speed—and so he knows first hand how fast an instant can be.

Sure there's instant rice, which takes fifteen minutes to cook, or instant pudding which takes an hour. But for him an instant has always been an instant.

Like how one instant can be the deciding factor of whether or not he saved someone's life. It had been an instant, a split second decision on Nightwing's part to entrust Wally to who his secret identity was. An instant was all that it had taken him to decide that, flaws and all, Artemis was someone that he had wanted to be with. He'd grabbed her shoulders that day and had kissed her for only an instant before he had pulled back and tried to apologize. That had been an instant that had turned into dozens, thousands, millions.

So when he was on the phone with Artemis that night, the last thing that she had said to him was, "I love you, see you at home," he was about to hang up when he heard the screeching of breaks and Artemis saying, "Oh, shit," and then the line went dead.

It had taken only an instant for her head to hit the windshield.

.x.

The Flash (The Flash?) was standing at the end of her bed. That was the first thing that she noticed. The red of his costume drew her eye, the only spot of color in sterile white. Then she noticed a doctor with a notepad, the fact that she was in a hospital bed.

Artemis frowned. What was she doing here? Did she get here when she'd tried to help those kids in the gym? Had it been those electric monkey things? The last thing that she remembered was firing the arrow that would have saved Kid Flash's life and then... nothing. A huge, empty sea of nothing.

Mom was going to kill her. She didn't even know that Artemis had sneaked out and now she was stuck in the freaking hospital. Grand.

"Oh, you're awake," the Flash breathed (why did he sound so relieved, why was he even here, why did nothing make sense) and the doctor straightened.

"Artemis?"

"Why is he here?" she asked, saying the first thing that popped into her head. At least seeing Batman would have made sense, here in Gotham, but the Flash? She only saw him in the news. His costume looked different than it did in the news, though. Maybe it was just because this was the first time that she had ever seen it in person.

"Oh, he saved you, took you out of the wreckage and here to the hospital himself," the doctor answered, placing a soothing hand on Artemis' arm. She moved her arm away. In a lower voice the nurse continued, "He's stayed here for the whole three days that you've been in a coma too."

"Three. Days?" she croaked. Three whole days. Mom was going to have her head.

"You were in a car accident, honey."

"A car accident? But I can't even drive!"

The doctor and Flash exchanged a look, before the doctor said, "You were in a car accident," the Flash informed her slowly. "You were driving home after work and a car rammed into you from behind. You weren't wearing a seat belt," here the Flash's voice got tight, almost like this was personal for him, "and your head hit the windshield."

"We had to do some tests on you," the doctor informed her, "and put you in a medically induced coma to help reduce the swelling, but you should be good as new."

"Is memory loss possible, Doc?" Flash asked.

"Yes. And at this point... I think that this might be a symptom of Artemis'."

Artemis was barely listening to them anymore, even as they continued to talk. She was in a hospital... had been for three days... Her mother should have been notified. If she'd been driving then she'd obviously had some kind of identification on her, and they would have known to call her mother. They would have had to.

Paula would never had left her stay this long in a hospital without at the very least coming to visit her. Artemis would have expected her mom to be by her bedside, not the Flash.

"Can I talk to Artemis alone for a moment, please?" Flash asked the doctor, and she obliged.

"Artemis... do you know who I am?"

She just stared at him blankly, because who wouldn't know who he was? He was on the news weekly, saved the world via the Justice League bi-monthly, and whose merchandise was sold everywhere. Duh, she knew him.

"You're the Flash."

He looked surprised. Even though half of his face was covered, she still saw the way that his lips thin and how the bottom half of his face drained of all color. Was he expecting a different answer... really? "Now where's Mom? Does she even know that I'm alright? It's been three days, I can't let her think that I left like-" she paused, because the Flash doesn't need to know about all of her familial drama. He'd probably blame her for it.

"Artemis..." the Flash's voice grew gentle. "Your mother passed away. She died two years ago."

She sucked in a breath. Of course she hadn't died two years ago, Artemis had just seen her that night talking to Dad... only, she'd been in a car accident and lost her memory. She hadn't remembered that either, though.

She didn't remember anything.

Artemis looked at the Flash's face, trying to decipher any sort of lie, but she couldn't find anything there except pain and worry. He was telling the truth. Her mother was dead and she had no idea who she was.

That was when she started to cry.

.x.

Artemis pulled herself together quickly, and Wally was almost surprised. The first time that she had learned that Paula had died she'd cried for two days straight before making the funeral arrangements and putting everything that needed to be put into place into place.

But she didn't know who he was, she didn't remember him. At least, not as the Flash. It'd only been pretty recently that he'd dropped the Kid from Kid Flash, though, so her memory probably didn't reach back that far yet.

But as long as she still knew who Wally West was... that was all that mattered. She needed to remember him. He needed her to remember him.

Glancing around Wally shut her curtains.

"What are you doing?" she asked, but he didn't answer. Instead he took off his cowl and her eyes widened. "Why are you doing that?" she whispered.

The words hit Wally like a slap to the face. "What? Don't you remember... me?"

"No. I don't. I have no idea who you are. You're still just the Flash to me."

She didn't remember him. Artemis didn't remember him.

There was a time that they had both forgotten one another, but that was not even the same thing. Their memory loss hadn't been because of a medical trauma, it had been temporary, and one of them wasn't stuck remembering everything that the other forgot.

Wally had to grab the edge of her hospital bed so that his knees didn't collapse. Artemis didn't remember him.

"Did I... Do I know you?" she asked.

"We're engaged," he informed her. "Have been for a month now."

Artemis raised her eyebrows. "We're... I'm supposed to be marrying the Flash? How..?" she shook her head.

"The wedding's going to be off, of course," Wally told her. At least until you remember me. "We were going to have a long engagement anyway. We're both still in school."

Artemis nodded, like this all made sense. Wally put back on his cowl. He couldn't stand her look at his face and still not recognizing him. The mask made everything feel better.

"You aren't just some freaky stalker, though, right? You were really my fiancee?"

Were. "Yeah, I was. If you don't believe me I can have Batman tell you. Or anyone from the League, really. Black Canary, Nightwing, Arsenal, Green Arrow..."

"No, I believe you. I just." Artemis bit her lip. "Where do I live now? Now that Mom's..." Artemis' face crumpled up in pain, but she straightened it out again quickly, like she didn't want him to see.

"We live in Central City. Together. You're in law school..."

"A lawyer. Me?"

"That's what I said."

Artemis glared at him, and Wally had to bite back a smile because none of this was funny. But that glare was so like her that it made him hopeful. Maybe things could go back to how they used to be. The doctor said that the memory loss was most likely temporary anyway. Thank God.

"We're on a team together, a team of superheroes, and-"

"Me? A hero?"

"Yeah. You. We were on a team together, called Young Justice, back when we were fifteen and we've been on it ever since. Though she all got inducted into the League when we turned eighteen..."

"I'm on the Justice League."

"Pretty much." Wally thanked God that this was a hospital, and as such no one was listening to them. The results of this conversation getting out could be devastating, but he had faith in the people of Central City anyway.

Dr. Rosenbaum stuck his head in between the curtain at that moment, and Wally stepped aside so that he could walk in. He probably had some things to tell them. Good things, hopefully.

"You can be released now, Artemis. I've talked to my supervisors and everything will be a-ok. Have you figured out what you want to do after you leave here? I'd recommend going through your daily life, going back to what it used to be before the accident."

Artemis glanced at Wally before saying, "That sounds... reasonable."

It was a start.

.x.

Artemis hated the mandate that stated that all hospital patients had to leave in a wheelchair. She was plenty able to walk, damn it. The Flash—Wally, oh God that was going to take some getting used to—had come pick her up in his civilian clothes. He was going to be taking her to their apartment, the one that they shared.

Artemis couldn't imagine what the place looked like. Really, she couldn't. The only thing that she could think of was Mom's apartment and how empty it was.

Once she was through the sliding glass doors Artemis stood up and put the bag of clothes that Wally had brought over her shoulders.

"You're really going to like the apartment," Wally was telling her, and Artemis nodded, unsure of what to say.

She didn't even really know what to do with Wally. When he'd finally came and visited her in his civvies, without the mask, she'd noticed how he'd looked at her... so hopeful and sweet and she thought she saw something like love in his gaze.

It made her uncomfortable, just a little bit. She hardly knew him. At all.

She didn't even know if she wanted to know him. He was kind of obnoxious and the Flash and just—he didn't seem like her type. But evidently she'd liked him enough to almost marry him at one point, so that was something.

Central City was so different from Gotham that it was almost like being in a whole different world all together. The air tasted different, the sky seemed more blue. The buildings were newer and less claustrophobic. Gotham still had traces of colonial America, but Central? It was new, too new.

But it looked safer and most citizens didn't walk with their shoulders hunched, glaring at the ground like the sidewalk was the source of all their problems. So that was something.

"Where are we going?" she asked, because he was driving away from the residential part of town.

"We're going to Rhode Island."

"Rhode Island? I thought you said we lived here."

"We do." He smiled at her from the driver's seat, attempting to be comforting. Artemis' stomach rumbled unpleasantly. He wasn't helping.

"Everyone's just been dying to see you, but I didn't want to overwhelm you at the hospital."

But I won't be whelmed ever seeing people that I don't know but know me, Artemis thought, and then she frowned. Who even said 'whelmed'? That didn't make sense. It wasn't even a word. She took a deep sharp breath through her nose.

"So we're going to drive there?"

"Nope, zeta tubes."

"Oh." She'd never ridden in one of those before. Or, she had, but she didn't remember doing it. At least that was something.