Death strides casually into the Cortex.
Cisco's speech halts mid-sentence. The others – occupying opposing corners of the room, Caitlin, Jesse, Iris, Harry, and Joe – regard Death with silent wonder. It is no longer unfamiliar to them.
Wearing Its stately black suit, Death walks with a human's gait across the floor, footsteps quiet but not silent. It blinks, occasionally. It breathes, arrhythmically. It pretends to be like them because It fears their reactions if It presents Itself as anything other than human. It dreads the idea that they would recoil from It, fear It. Still, it's been almost three years: Death cannot mimic Its life forever. It will forget.
Iris steps forward, and Death's shoulders straighten. It extends a clawed hand towards her reflexively before retracting it, almost violently. The room tenses anticipatorily, but Iris doesn't flinch, approaching steadily. She pauses three feet away and looks up at Its face. Death's breath halts and does not resume; the intermittent blinks cease, forgotten. Staring at her, hungry and quiet, Death is almost human.
At last, she asks softly, "What's wrong?"
Death cannot speak, nor can It touch the living without extinguishing them. Mute and stranded, It can only look away after a long moment, unable to convey the ten thousand emotions that brought It here.
I wanted to see you.
I wanted to get over it.
I wanted to see this place.
I wanted to rest.
I wanted to run.
Instead, It holds up a hand, palm facing her. She looks at Its hand, then back at Death's unblinking eyes, and finally she mirrors It. Their hands do not touch, an inch of space hovering between them.
It is only when Death pries Itself away, lowering Its hand, that Iris does the same.
. o .
What's it like, being in love with Death?
More ordinary than one might think. Death sits with her at the table and holds an empty coffee cup between Its clawed black hands while she talks to It, telling It about the articles that she is writing and the projects she has planned. Death walks alongside her in the woods, a deep part of the woods where no one else will find them, and in silence they appreciate the living, breathing forest together. Death finds her in the middle of the night and knocks Its knuckles against the doorframe, tugging her out of a sound sleep so they might sit on the couch together, not touching. Death kneels in front of Its own grave, silently reflective, holding a dead rose in Its hand.
It's been three years since Death became a fixture in their lives, a tangible presence that they dare not touch.
It's been three years, two months, and sixteen days since Barry died.
Death sits on the swing on her father's porch, staring out into the quiet street. There isn't much space next to It, but Iris feels bold, today. She sits next to It, barely any space between them. Its breath stops, but she merely rocks the swing with her feet. It picks up the motion without missing a beat, rocking on Its own feet, permitting her to lift hers off the ground. The air smells like freshly-mown grass.
She wonders if It can smell the grass. There are so many things she wants to ask Death – how much It understands her, how much of their world It even perceives – but her questions elicit only nods or head-shakes, indefinite replies. It can't speak. It can gesture and interact and reside, but It cannot manipulate reality like she can. It is a quiet participant.
It rocks them slowly on the swing, back, forth, deep, familiar creeks accompanying each outward motion.
"I still miss you," she tells It.
The swing pauses. She doesn't turn to see Its gaze on her. It resumes rocking, slow, steady, rhythmic.
"Every day," she adds softly, like a terrible secret. "They say it takes two years on average for a person to overcome the loss of a close loved one. It's been three years. I'm not over you." She finally looks over at It, meeting Its quiet green eyes. It looks down at her, barely two inches away from It. She can sense the palpable longing to touch her, to reach out reassuringly. It's the loss of those tactile touches that convinced her how total the loss really was.
At first, they were so desperate, so happy to be reunited, however terribly imperfectly, that they didn't care. She ached, relentlessly, to touch It. She longed to take off that black mantle and find her living husband underneath, waiting to fold her into Its – his – arms. She wanted, so badly it hurt. It festered, an ache in her chest and an ache in her soul, demanding acknowledgement in the dark, lonely hours when she realized she was never going to live a normal day with Barry again.
It was impossible to survive his death. Somehow, she did, anyway.
She mourned Eddie, genuinely grieving for him, but the loss she feels with Barry's death is beyond total. She doesn't know how to exist without her sunshine. She doesn't know how to move on, to live, without him.
She hasn't had to, not since that day they met almost thirty years ago.
Thirty years.
Their ten-year wedding anniversary is coming up.
The surge of pain she feels is almost like fury, that the universe would conspire so thoroughly against them, that he would die before they could save him, that he wouldn't come back when they sought out the omnipotent Speed Force. But the Speed Force didn't give them back Barry: it gave them Death, clad in Its regal black suit. Resembling Barry so closely that anyone at arm's length would recognize that face under the mask.
It still looks just like him, three years later. She wonders if she would find the hole in his chest under the suit if she looked, but she knows, intuitively, that she wouldn't. Death's appearance is almost illusory in nature, barely there. They cannot touch It because, in some way, It simply is not there. It is a specter as immaterial as Speed, vanishing without a trace into the multiverse, connected inextricably to the Speed Force, grounded to Its lightning rod. Death doesn't bleed out. Death doesn't experience pain.
Death is at peace.
It's the living that remain at war, and even unto and after his own passing, Barry has the living in mind. He protects them. He seeks them out. He wants to make sure that they're okay.
Death lingers beside her, rocking back and forth on Its heels, making the swing sway with Its movements, serene and unpresumptuous. It is there for her – nothing more, nothing less. It was Barry, but there is no Barry hiding under the suit, no Barry waiting to fold her into his arms and assure her that the last three years were a terrible dream.
There is only the Black Flash, a fusion of the person her husband was and the Speed Force Itself.
It aches for her like Barry, but It isn't Barry, and it's that thought that brings tears to her eyes, suddenly. She doesn't want to cry, not here, not now, but she can't stop it. A sob wrenches past her throat, and she doubles in half, hugging her stomach and weeping.
Death is gone when Dad appears. Unwittingly, he settles beside her in Death's place, sliding close so he can hold her like Death couldn't.
The rain arrives, but it does not cleanse her.
. o .
At the CCPN, a gun fires.
Iris hears the shot and instinctively braces for an impact that never comes. She feels the air displaced behind her, and knows before she turns that it isn't Wally or Jesse or Jay or even the Accelerated Man. No: it's a black-suited speedster, holding the bullet between Its clawed fingers. It strides towards the gun's owner and Iris says without thinking, "Barry."
When she turns around, she expects to see a ragdoll human dangling from those sharp claws, lifeless. Instead, she sees Death with Its hand extended towards the gunman, mere inches between them. The gunman is completely paralyzed, face ashen pale as he stares at Death, whose gaze is fixed on her. Slowly, It retracts Its hand, and idly plucks the gun from nonresistant hands, crushing it. She sees Its eyes burn red briefly, like a stoked furnace, absorbing the energy from the annihilated weapon.
The gunman hits the floor, and Death vanishes in a breath of smoke.
According to later reports, the gunman experienced a non-fatal heart attack on the scene, fortuitously foiling his would-be crime. Iris knows better, but she doesn't correct the story. It would give no comfort to the city that has stopped waiting for The Flash to return to show them a fantasy, to dangle the idea that their beloved speedster is waiting just behind the curtain.
Their beloved speedster has an unoccupied grave and a present appearance so viscerally terrifying it can almost kill you with a look.
Death is not Central City's hero.
But it is her hero.
She keeps the bullet, discarded on the floor, as a tangible reminder of another near-Death experience.
. o .
NDEs.
People ride rollercoasters to achieve the high, alter their ways in the wake of major car accidents, and regard those who know what comes after with wonder and fear.
Her near-Death experiences consist of lying in bed, ignoring the gentle knocking on the doorframe, because she doesn't want to see It tonight. Her NDEs consist of reaching for Death's hand across the table, only to abort the mission at the last second, knowing what would happen if she succeeded. Her NDEs consist of wondering if she's completely lost her mind in the wake of Barry's death and has imagined the entire thing.
She clings to the bullet crushed between Death's claws as a reminder that she isn't crazy, but it doesn't make her feel any saner.
. o .
Barry did not die softly, cradled in her arms with a declaration of love on his lips.
He died alone in a gasoline-covered street, impaled by a wickedly jagged piece of debris after a tanker exploded. If he had any last words, they would have been strangled in his chest, unable to surmount his collapsed lungs. He had an elbow up on the curb, propping himself up, using gravity one last time to relieve some of his pain before his heart simply stopped beating. It happened in less than six seconds, from the percussive blow to the sudden, sickening thud of a body of bones striking pavement. She only saw the afterimage of him hovering, holding himself up, his final declarative action as a human being, before he collapsed.
She wishes she'd never seen the street view security footage because the images haunt her. She has spent countless nights visualizing all the windows of opportunity, the milliseconds needed to escape, the anywhere-else possibilities that would have meant Barry survived. It didn't matter. It happened too fast, even for him. His life ended in less time than it took her to tie her shoes. Even Cisco, breaching over as soon as the brilliant white flash faded, was too slow.
It wasn't a hero's death. It was a human death – an instantaneous, terrible, killing accident that stopped Central City's finest in his tracks as soon as the tanker detonated less than six inches from him.
The blast alone shattered half of his ribs, his left knee, and most of his fingers. Bruises wouldn't form on his face despite multiple contusions – he'd bled out too fast for them to form. In Cisco's arms, limp and already dead, he looked almost revivable in the red suit at first glance. But the metal fragment, jaggedly blown from the tanker's siding, had punctured deep into his chest, indiscriminately causing harm.
It was not a soft death, and she could not speak about it, not even to Death Itself. It was simply too arresting, too disarming, too indescribable to accept.
Barry had been hurt more times than any of them could count, sustaining a number of gruesome injuries over the years, but there was something about seeing his dead body hanging in Cisco's arms, Cisco's own face ashen and tear-streaked, that tipped the scale, that removed her ability to think about it abstractly.
He died in a lot of pain, and maybe it's that that haunts her, that he was hurting and she couldn't do anything, that he was dying and she couldn't do anything, that she was so close and she couldn't do anything.
Death sits beside her at the console while she reads through an article, on standby for Cisco and Wally. Death has Its feet propped up on a chair, mimicking idle contemplation. Its breath, decidedly clearer and more regular today, is deep, timpanic. She tries to ignore the burning in her eyes, because she would have given anything for Barry to have breathed again, to have been anything but unrevivable when they found him, but she refuses to hold it against Death.
Death swept in not to be cruel, but to be kind: It ended the unspeakable pain. Who was she to selfishly wish that it had never visited them, that all she had were rollercoasters and car accidents to remind her of Its existence?
There's a gravestone reminder, too, but she doesn't visit it.
It's too much like closure.
Turning to regard Death, she sees It lifts Its eyebrows, a surprisingly human gesture, and for a moment she only sees Barry.
She aches, so intensely she cannot speak at first, and then she forces out the words: "I still love you."
Death blinks, once, and she can almost hear It reeling. Slowly, It points to her with a single clawed finger, then taps Its own heart. Haltingly, after a few moments, it indicates her again. When she stares uncomprehendingly, It repeats the gesture smoothly, and the message clicks. I love you.
It repeats the message, once, twice, three times, and then It lowers Its hand, and she aches to reach for It.
One day, she has to believe, it won't hurt this much.
One day.
. o .
She asks Wally to take her to the Speed Force because –
Because.
She knows she won't find Barry there, but she needs to go. He's wary, anxious about the risks, but he caves with fairly little resistance. He respects her decisions. He takes her along, and she has Cisco's tether around her wrist, and in the perfect darkness of the Speed Force, they wait.
A single white light appears in the distance, and without thinking she surges towards It, running full-tilt towards it. Wally shouts warningly after her, Iris!, but she doesn't slow down or turn around. She chases the light, chases it in the dark until Wally is a distant memory, the rest of the world silent and still and beyond her, here, even the tether feeling weak –
She crashes into him, tackling him to the Speed Force's invisible grass, a surface provided the second she needs it. A laugh punches out of his chest, and he wraps his arms around her back and mouths her name against her cheek, Iris, and it is the best sound she has never heard. Burying her face in his shoulder, she holds onto him as tightly as she can, him and his boyish, youthful, happy face still clad in that black mask. His clawed hands rest so gently on her back they're almost human. His breath underneath her feels warmer, fuller, more real here, because she can feel it.
Iris, he repeats against her cheek, soundless but sincere, nuzzling the soft skin he finds there like he never lost her. Iris.
Sobbing, laughing, she clings to him even though he is still wearing that terrible cowl, that otherworldly mantle. He's full of palpable affection; she feels lips ghost over her jawline, melting butterfly kisses that fade too soon. He's so real beneath her that it's impossible to believe it's anything but her Barry, her Barry, and not just the Speed Force's projection of him, a helpless imitation trapped between their irreconcilable worlds.
A single word tantalizes on his tongue, but he doesn't make a sound. She still hears it clearly.
Stay.
She clutches his suit, pinning him to the ground and daring the Speed Force to take him away from her. It doesn't need to: it already has. The black suit won't switch back. Her heart aches, and feels like it is breaking as she holds onto him, warm and soft and real beneath her hands, and still not real enough.
"Don't leave me," she begs, holding onto him.
He shakes his head, and she hears it. I'll always be here. Whenever you need me.
It's not enough. It will never be enough.
I know. He strokes a hand up and down her back slowly. His fingers graze bare skin, the sensation unimpeded by a Speed Force reality without tangible counterpart. It makes her shiver. It makes her hungry.
"Don't you dare leave," she warns him, and he chuckles, a soft, silent puff of air against her cheek. He blows a raspberry there, and it is so absurd she feels some of the tension leaking out of her. So Death has a sense of humor. It's somehow sobering and humbling to imagine. "I love you, too," is all she says.
Cheek pillowed on his shoulder, she lies with him in the Speed Force grass for a brief eternity, his breath beneath her familiar and deep. He trails his fingers down her back lightly, careful not to use those sharp black claws, to impress no discomfort whatsoever upon her. Eyes closed, she can almost pretend it's him, fully him, and they're young and happy and free again.
. o .
There is no passage of time in the Speed Force. Everything happens at once. Their embrace lasts, and lasts, and lasts, and neither multiverse nor Speed Force burn out. Slowly, humming silently, a familiar Speed-purr, Barry draws her upright, sitting up. Sitting in his lap, she holds onto him, clinging to him.
He presses a kiss to her forehead, holding it there for a time, and mouths her name against her skin one more time. Iris.
Then his grip loosens, and her own mimics it, until he's slipping effortlessly from her grasp. Seated on the grass, feeling childish and small and strangely at peace, she looks up as he straightens, gently smoothing his hands down his suit. He looks beautiful, golden light dancing along the edges, full of light here in this realm beyond-living where he can live for – forever, really.
She leans back on her hands, regarding him as he turns in a slow circle, arms extended, showing off the gold. He halts in front of her again and extends a hand to her, partially bowed, and she reaches out and takes it, letting him pull her to her feet. It's effortless – nothing to hold her down here, nothing to slow her down here – and when she is settled in his grip, just holding one of his hands, she sees the Black Flash again. It is the Speed Force's interpretation of Barry, the Speed Force's own variant on the Grim Reaper, the Speed Force's necessary burden.
The Black Flash tugs her gently, and she follows It into the perfect darkness. It lets her hand go at some point and veers off to one side, and she turns to follow but finds herself stuck in place. The Black Flash pauses at an indistinguishable point, crouching in the dark, gently curling Its arms underneath something and lifting the shape up. It cradles the shape to Its chest for a long moment, and she watches, mystified, until suddenly the shape in Its arms dissolves into silver sparks. Letting Its arms down slowly, looking at the place where the shadow was, It finally turns to regard her again. It returns to her side. It takes her hand again. They walk on.
It repeats the task at regular intervals – a few paces, a few hundred paces, a few thousand paces, until they have been walking for a great time and it hasn't retrieved anyone. She doesn't need to ask It to explain – Death has but one role in the other realm, her realm – but her curiosity burns as they amble along.
Finally, It pauses, and It turns to her and walks in front of her, holding her hands between them. As It moves, It edges into the shadows, slowly disappearing, and she holds Its hands tightly. It's okay, It promises, and then It's gone entirely, and she is utterly alone in the dark, the infinite Speed Force.
At her back, she hears, unexpectedly near, Wally shout, "Iris!" Turning, she sees him in precisely the same place as before, his demeanor as poised to spring as before, as if no time at all had passed.
I just saw the end of the universe, she thinks, and doesn't tell Wally as he embraces her, relief palpable. The darkness shatters as they reappear in the Speed cannon room. Cisco leaps up from his seat on the steps, looking surprised and alarmed.
"What happened?" he asks.
Wally shakes his head, and Iris turns, half-expecting to see the Black Flash at her heels, but It's not there.
She can't define the emotion that fills her at Its absence.
. o .
A week passes before It makes a reappearance.
Iris is closing up shop when she sees the Black Flash ambling across the room, idly glancing down at the desks and their papers. It seems oddly benign, almost childish in Its curiosity of the affairs of the living. How humble they seem next to eternity, she muses, but still she understands the compulsion. If anything, her focus has rarely been sharper at work, despite Death's prolonged absence.
She doesn't want to read into the deeper meaning there.
She finally finishes up, and on cue It looks right at her. A hint of a smile graces Its lips, and It points to Its heart, then her, slow and sweet, making sure the gesture is understood.
She mirrors It, and Death actually grins.
Sobering, Death points a thumb over Its shoulder, go, and then points to her. It wags Its forefinger back and forth a few times. It does not repeat the gesture, but Iris' throat is already tight.
I have to go. Don't follow.
She steps forward a little, and It watches her with something like sad fondness, and she leans back, holding her ground. It nods, pointing to Its heart, and then her. There are ten feet between them.
It feels like nothing, and the entire universe.
It's okay.
It steps backwards, just like before, and begins to fade again. It's okay. She watches It, and then she blinks and It's gone again, only a flicker of silver sparks visible where It was.
Sliding to the floor, she sits cross-legged, back against a desk, until morning finds her, unable to move.
. o .
Death doesn't come back. Not for her, or for them – It stays in Its realm, and she in hers.
She still sees Its specter, occasionally – catching a bullet and vanishing in the same instant, walking alongside a woman laying flowers at a gravestone, dancing with her in her dreams, surrounded by golden streaks of light.
She aches for Barry, grieves for Barry, and holds Death close in her heart, and somehow it allows her to live again.
. o .
Fifty-four years pass. It's a breath, and a lifetime.
She's old, now, and happy. She has kids – adopted and raised by a village, because growing up in a family of speedsters leads to contagious energy – and grandkids. She has Pulitzers and prized pictures on her mantle. She has a swing that she loves and warm summer days behind her. Fall is nearing, but she isn't worried. Her life is good. It's sweet, and simple, and full.
In a dream, she hears the little knock on the door.
Joy floods her as she surges out of bed and yanks open the door, and Barry is there, Barry, boyishly charming with that dignified black suit, holding out a hand to her, his golden light suffusing them. He lifts her in a bridle carry, holding her to his chest, and she remembers this image from the other side, and wonders if it is half as comforting for him as it is for her.
It's like dancing – one moment she is in his arms, and then she is sliding smoothly out of them.
Before she can wonder where he went, she spins slowly in a half-circle and sees him standing in front of her, adorned in his brilliant red suit, mask down and smile beaming. He holds out a hand, and when she gives him hers, he kisses it. "Iris," he says softly, out loud, and she twirls closer to him until they are nearly nose-to-nose on tiptoe. "I love you."
"I love you more," she murmurs, leaning up a little more to kiss him again for the first time in forever. "My Barry," she muses, and he lets out a little laugh against her, grinning as he slips out of her hold. She chases him playfully, no urgency, following him step-for-step until he increases his pace, just a little, jogging backwards, all boyish enthusiasm. When she charges, he turns and takes off at a run.
She's young again, bounding effortlessly, tirelessly after him, laughter in her own chest as she calls teasingly after him. At last, he turns around and holds out his arms invitingly. She doesn't slow down, launching herself at him and laughing as he catches her, spinning her once playfully. Setting her down, he takes her hand and twirls her under his arm. She goes along with it.
Together, they dance for eternity.