Bart Allen

It’s April, and Alabama should be thawing out soon.

Bart’s been spending time out of the Bar lately, averting minor disasters and stealing to get by with almost equal amounts of undirected teenage defiance. What with the fight with Clark and the general moodiness that settled over him and Jenny, it’s just not as worth it right now.

Somehow- in retrospect, he wasn’t entirely sure when it happened, given that he preferred running as his only form of transportation- he found himself at a bus stop in Alabama. Change of scenery, he figured, would be good, and sometimes it was nice to know where you were going to end up.

It had the makings of a success, or whatever, because nobody paid much attention to the kid sitting around with his hood pulled over his head and a sour, don’t-even-think-about-sitting-there look on his face. At least, until a girl ran out in the middle of the road in front of the bus that was fast pulling in.

He didn’t even recognize her until he was pulling her out of the way of the incoming bus. She wasn’t paying attention, and he wasn’t paying attention, not till the last possible fraction of a second, but that was plenty of time to notice she was

                                    wearing a backpack with the name ‘Jennifer Allen’ neatly printed on it

sixandsomuchtallerandshe’dleftherstuffedturtleintheroadandhe

                    ’d given it to her for her third birthday

snatched that up, too, before it could be run over.

He stared at it, shell-shocked, for the few seconds the bus hid him from view, then tucked it into Jennifer’s backpack before she could realize it was missing and disappeared before she could realize he wasn’t.

And this time, when the door to the Bar opened up for him, he didn’t fight it.