Chapter Text
Wally West was no stranger to feeling sad. He'd been told from a young age that everybody got sad from time to time, and it was normal and healthy to feel like that. He was taught emotions, like sadness, was the body's way of telling you something was wrong.
And something was wrong.
Something had been wrong for a long time.
Things had been so wrong, for so long that it had almost felt normal. It wasn't a good normal, just a recognisable normal.
The problem was, the wrong thing was inside Wally. Whether that wrong thing made him sad or the sadness caused the wrong thing, he didn't know.
What he did know was that wrong-sad thing inside of him had driven his parents away.
He still had nightmares about it. His mother at the door, there was paper, there was yelling, there were tears and then there was nothing. It was quiet. He never saw his mother or father again.
His uncle and aunt were sad and he didn't understand. They were also angry, but not the angry his father got. Well, they sort of were; he knew they were mad at someone but they never did anything about it. His uncle never took his aunt by the hair, he never yelled at Wally, never started destroying things around the house.
It took some time to notice that he wasn't being dropped home yet or being picked up either. When he asked about it, he got a hug from his aunt and uncle. They cried and told him he wouldn't be going home. Again he had asked why and was told his parents weren't coming for him, nor would they take him to them. Like any young child, he asked why for a third time.
It was a long and hard conversation but Wally eventually understood that his parents had left him to live with his aunt and uncle forever. Initially, he had been sort of happy; he loved his aunt and uncle. But then, as the conversation went on, he felt the infantile need for his mother. The need to see her, hear her voice soothe him, to be in her arms. He wanted her the more he understood she wasn't coming for him.
That she didn't want to come for him.
That she didn't want him.
She had left him, given up on him or given him up. He felt the ache of abandonment entrap his very body, seizing him of everything he knew. Why did this happen? Why didn't she want him anymore? What did he do wrong?
Wrong. He had to be at fault. All the other kids didn't have a wrong-sad thing inside them like he felt, and none of their parents suddenly left them so that had to be it. No matter how many times his aunt and uncle promised him it wasn't his fault, he knew that had to be.
It was the wrong-sad thing inside him that caused his parents, his mother, to abandon him. It made him unwanted. He was unwanted.
Yet, in contrast to this, his uncle and aunt seemed to only want him more. He had always been showered in attention and love before, but now? It was a constant, never-ending steam of affection and care. Wally hadn't ever been treated like that. Wally hadn't ever known how badly he had wanted, needed to be treated like that.
And still, he was terrified that the wrong-sad thing inside him would drive them away too. That they'd find out something was wrong about him and they’d pack up and leave.
But they promised him they would never, ever do that to him.
He wished that quelled the burning fear in his brain more than he pretended it did.
Indeed, Wally West was no stranger to feeling sad. And he never outgrew that wrong-sad feeling inside him even years later. Instead, he learnt its name.
Depression.