❝ 003 ❞ v i d e o ( forward dated to the 31st )

[animosus]

[Hal's recording this from Barry's place and he looks uncharacteristically hesitant.]

I think Barry's gone. My ring can't find him and I know it couldn't find people when everyone did that ghost trick a while back, but he also left his-- [He belatedly realises he can't say Flash ring.] --wedding ring behind and he'd never forget it.

[He falls silent again as he figures out what else to say.]

It's like I just got him back and now he's gone again. [He hasn't worked it out, but it feels like in all the years he's known him, Barry was dead longer than he was alive.]

I never really paid attention to what people did in this situation, but I guess I should tell Bart to get over here. Anything else I should do?

Comments

action;

[animosus]

[Hal knows that he's not going to be able to get a word in when a speedster is doing his thing and just stands there awkwardly trying to figure out what to say. At least Barry's real wedding ring doesn't appear to be here. While he wanted nothing to do with that kind of stability, he could appreciate it in others and it would of been just wrong if it had been left behind as well.

When Bart finally stops moving, Hal still takes too long to say something. Actions speak louder than words right? Hal opens his palm and reveals Barry's Flash ring.]

He's gone, not dead. [What does it say when Bart expects him to be dead rather than gone? He's looking into conspiracies when the best option would have been to believe that people get returned to their worlds when they go missing from here.]

action;

[backinakidflash]

[That it's Barry's Flash ring is strangely comforting. The first thing Bart had thought about was how much his grandma had hated the past, without Barry. It just hadn't seemed right, for him to not have that.

But Hal knows Barry better than Bart does. Maybe this should be as upsetting, but Bart's more accustomed to the idea of multiple Flash rings. Wally's, Barry's, his. Heck, there's ones for half the JLA in the Flash museum. But only one wedding ring.]

You don't know that. Stocking said Tim's soul wasn't hanging around the Turtle. That doesn't mean he made -

[But that line of thinking is too hard to follow through, and Bart cuts it off there. Taking the ring from Hal, he turns it over in his hands.]

I still don't get how these come with us, if we're clones. I don't even know how he came back with it back home. Last I saw it, I had it. I guess it got boxed up with my stuff. I never asked what happened to all of it.

action;

[animosus]

[Multiple Flash rings or not, this one was uniquely Barry's and for that alone would mean everything to him.]

Maybe I... Back then before... gave it back to him. [Who knows everything he did back in those days.

He lowers his head, fists clenched. He's missed a lot of things and just when he thinks he's got everything another detail smacks him in the face.]

Anyway, I can send out something to scan for kedan approaching so we can get fair warning. [His ring then sends out green orbs to watch for them.

Fair warning. Hal didn't even get that last time. He got someone sending him a vision of Barry telling him he was dead.]

action;

[backinakidflash]

[Bart has no earthly idea what Hal is talking about, and, while part of him doesn't much care about random babble, it's obviously Barry-related. He can't help poking at it, to see if there's a cool story there.]

Back when what? Back when he died? No, that doesn't make sense. [He snaps his fingers, completely unaware of how harshly blunt that was.] Back when he came back? So like. Last month. That was last month, back home. I think. I've been stuck here so long it's getting kinda blurry.

[He suddenly stops yabbering and blinks a few times.]

Hey. Are you from the future? Tim would never say much about it.

[But Hal has a big mouth like Bart, so there's hope.]

action;

[animosus]

[He blinks. That is so far off from what he's talking about that he doesn't see where that came from.]

That's around the time with the Reverse-Flash, right? Yeah, I'm from a little past that. There was some stuff with the Black Lanterns, but that's it really.