#this also wasn't heavily edited so my sincerest apologies for mistakes

[overlyobsessed223]

second chances

another halbarry ficlet. spoilers for kevin smith's GA bc this story takes place directly after his run. can maybe be read as platonic. featuring spectre hal and afterlife barry, enjoy :)

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Heaven has never been a particularly loud place. The sprawling hills that seem to stretch on endlessly provide each resident more than enough space to comfortably exist, and even then, the blissful peace that comes with complete and utter contentment lends to a lack of a need to converse or even speak in and of itself. Save for the whoops and laughter of the young boy wonder who inconspicuously showed up at the pearly gates only a few years after him, Barry has always known the afterlife to be nothing less than tranquil.

And yet, as he runs his thumb along the shaft of one of the arrows that have, as of recently, been left abandoned in the luscious green grass, he can’t help but think Heaven seems the quietest it’s ever been. 

Too quiet, even, perhaps. 

Seeing someone enter through the gates of this place only to return back to the land of the living has been far from unheard of. Barry remembers his bittersweet reunion with Clark some time ago, only for Clark’s soul to be pulled back to his body a short time after. But he has to admit, Oliver’s revival, in particular, has him slightly… surprised, due to the way Ollie had adamantly and consistently refused the second chance Hal so desperately wanted to give him.

Speaking of Hal, Barry senses his presence before he sees him. Well, mostly he senses the Spectre’s wild, angry, vengeful spirit, but he can perceive Hal, too, the loving, sentimental, willful man he’s always been veiled just beneath the powerful force of the wraith he’s bound to. There’s also sadness and guilt—so, so much guilt that it seems to physically weigh on his shoulders and in his eyes, and each time Barry sees him he’s harshly reminded that Hal has not yet earned his place in paradise. 

“So, he’s really gone fully back?” Barry asks, continuing to study the arrow in his hand.

“Yes,” Hal’s voice answers from somewhere behind him. “For now, at least.”

Barry hums and nods. He swallows hard, feeling a prick of bittersweet grief in his chest. Zooming around the valley and scooping up all of the arrows scattered in the grass, he places them back into the quiver and leans it up against the target next to the bow. 

“I kinda thought you’d seem… I dunno. Happier?” Hal comments after a moment. “Now that he’s gone. You two always did butt heads.”

“Yeah, we did,” Barry lets out an amused breath of laughter. A lifetime of heated arguments and cutting words flashes through his mind, and he remembers them fondly.

Oliver’s quick wit and snappy remarks did not die with him, but Barry was met with a very different Oliver Queen standing at the gates of the afterlife, one who he at first almost didn’t recognize. Ollie carried a certain kind of weariness, hollowed to the core by a life of mistakes and insecurities and internal struggles. His eyes had welled up with tears, actual tears when he saw Barry. He’d yanked him into a long, tight hug, and Barry for not the first time had wondered what exactly became of the world after the crisis and why it seemed to leave all of his friends shells of who they once were.

“It was nice having him around,” Barry says. He runs his hand down the edge of the red and white target, reminiscing as he’s so prone to do nowadays. “He mellowed out in his old age. I liked his company.”

He pauses, glancing at the empty valley he and Oliver used to spend hours playing in together.

“But,” he adds, “I’m glad he’s embraced the second chance he’s been given on Earth. If not for him, then at least for the people who loved him.”

“I wanted to bring you back, too.”

Barry stops. He turns around to look at Hal for the first time since he showed up and can just barely catch a glimpse of a too-pale face and dark eyes under a large, shadowy hood. 

“I tried,” Hal’s eyes lower fractionally, like he can’t bear to meet Barry’s gaze. “But you—it’s been so long since your—there just wasn’t anything left of you to put back together.”

As he speaks, his words are heavy with shame. Whether that’s due to his failure to bring Barry back to life or that he tried to do it at all, Barry isn't sure. 

“Well, that’s okay,” Barry says, and he offers Hal a genuine smile to show him that he means it, really and truly. “My time in the sun is long over, Hal. From what I’ve heard, Wally’s filled my boots just fine as the Flash.”

“It wasn’t the Flash I was trying to bring back,” Hal’s eyes lift to look at him head-on. The light of Heaven’s eternal day hits his face more, illuminating his tightened jaw. “It was Barry Allen.”

“Hal…” Barry sighs. He reaches to pull back his cowl and runs a hand through his hair. 

“There’re people who love you, too,” Hal says, his voice slightly wavering. “People who would do… anything. Anything to have you back with them.”

Hal pushes back the hood on his head, letting it pool around his neck and shoulders, and Barry can see his entire face, from the deep frown tugging at his eyebrows and lips to the despair glimmering in his eyes. The years of compounded grief that, even in death, has left him looking aged and worn. Barry’s heart begins to ache. 

“I know,” Barry says softly. 

Because even before he died, Barry never doubted that Hal loved him. There was a special, unspoken connection between them, and in his final moments, one of Barry’s biggest regrets was leaving it unspoken. Now, though, Barry’s realized that maybe it wasn’t as unspoken as he’d thought. 

Their individual paths of life split off from one another long ago, with Barry’s cut short and Hal’s a dark, winding road of pain and suffering. But in death, here they are, together. Although it isn’t like it used to be, and it’s far from a second chance for both of them in the way they'd like it to be, it’s still something to cherish and make the most of. 

“Hey,” Barry moves to stand at Hal’s side, bumping their shoulders, “you don’t need to go back to work right away, do you?”

“No,” Hal tilts his head, that unruly chunk of hair becoming dislodged. Barry doesn’t bother to hold himself back from reaching to push it back into place. “Why?”

“Because we should race,” Barry gestures to the wide, open valley. “Like old times.”

Hal blinks. Then, he breaks out into a grin that’s rare nowadays. In a flash of green light, Hal is wearing his Green Lantern uniform, ring pulsating on his fist as he levitates from the ground. 

“Alright, Barry,” Hal says, and his voice has already brightened significantly. “Let’s race.”

Barry pulls his cowl back onto his face, dips into a running position, and waits for Hal’s starting gun construct to go off. 

Things aren’t the same. They’re on borrowed time before Hal has to go back to his work as the Spectre. Barry will have to remain here, and it could be minutes or eternities before they find themselves together again. 

So all they can do now is make every last second count.