Author's Notes: Altor is Latin for: nourisher, sustainer, foster father, one who raises another's child; foster-father, patron, advocate, protector, educator.
The sound wakes her up.
Barry screams like his heart is being torn from his chest and Iris jerks awake.
His reaction to a nightmare was terrifying the first time it happened in her presence, like a gunshot in the dark. It's not less scary now, but she's more responsive than she was then, half-asleep and frantic to help. Experienced, she reaches out and places a hand on his shoulder, squeezing it. "Barry," she says, tugging him closer as he makes soft, indecipherable pleas. "Barry, honey, wake up, it's okay."
He twitches, and suddenly Flashes upright. Panting, he reaches up, holding his own throat just below the collar. Even in the dark, she can see his face pale. Iris strokes his hip. "Bar?"
He gasps, shaking his head, negating everything, and Iris sits up beside him. "Hey, what's wrong?" she asks. Sweat shines on his forehead. Staring ahead, his eyes remain wide with fear. When she touches his palm, it's cold. Anxiety sweeps over her and she thinks, Call Dad.
She'd call Caitlin, but there is no more Caitlin, just Killer Frost, and Dad is the next best thing to a doctor in times like these. But he seems – okay. "Talk to me," she says, idly smoothing a hand down his back. "What's wrong?"
"I can't – breathe," he gasps, hand tightening a little, and his breath is short and sharp, even for him. "I can't breathe. I can't breathe, Iris, I—"
"Okay," she acknowledges, trying to keep calm. She keeps her phone on the nightstand and presses Dad's number without taking her hand or her eyes off Barry.
"H'lo?"
"Hey, Dad? We need you."
"I'm on my way."
He hangs up. Barry Flashes to his feet and hunches over his knees, breathing raggedly. "Hey, it's okay," Iris tries to reassure, mentally cataloguing his responsiveness. An unreadable distress agitates beneath his skin, stirring up lightning until it's almost a shock to touch him. She dares to. It's Barry. She has to. "Can you sit down?" she asks, thinking it might help him, but he shakes his head a little frantically. She rests a hand on his back, soothing, I'm-here.
Eight and a half minutes later, Dad knocks on the door.
Barry doesn't acknowledge him, even when Dad asks him to look up. So Dad cups his face, meeting frantic shadowed eyes, and says clearly, "I'm here."
It's the way he looks Barry over in one fell swoop that makes something click in Iris' mind. He isn't looking for an injury. For all their sakes he's being a good soldier, triaging anyway. There is no physical mark, no external catalyst for his distress – none that they can see, at least.
But he is still burning, gasping with panic at flames they can't see. He's having a panic attack, Iris realizes, and it eases some of the terrible pressure in her own chest.
Ahead of her, Dad says, "Come with me."
It's painful for Iris to get dressed at 1:48 AM, like she's going out, like life is still some normal for them, but she obliges. Dad coaxes Barry into a pair of sweat pants and a button-up shirt, leaving the buttons undone well beneath his collar. Barry still reaches up to hold onto the top, and Iris loops an arm through his as Dad leaves the way.
The car purrs when Dad starts it. Sitting in the backseat with Barry, Iris keeps an arm around his waist, stroking the skin just underneath his shirt. Dad cranks the heat up to a soporifically warm temperature. Then he takes a deep swig from a cold cup of coffee, flicks on a quiet CD, and drives.
Iris wants to ask where he's going, but he doesn't have a specific destination, ambling around town. Barry breathes shallowly, staring out the window, a mixture of desperation and fear in his reflected eyes. Iris rests her head on his shoulder, aching to take away the agony. He stays tense until the clock reads 2:21 AM, and there's an almost rhythmic quality to his deep breaths. A settling.
Dad speaks with a storyteller's falsetto. "Did I ever tell you about the time when my pop took me to my first baseball game?" Without waiting for an answer, he continues, voice a low, external hum. "I was seven. My pop asked if I wanted to go to a game that weekend. I didn't." Smiling, he explains, "I didn't know either team and didn't really think much of sitting on some hot metal bleachers for a few hours. Baseball wasn't my thing. But come Saturday, there we were – sitting up on those hot metal bleachers, watching two teams we didn't know compete for an arbitrary win.
"The funny thing is," Dad muses, "that you didn't need to know which side you wanted to win to enjoy the game. You rooted for both teams. When a batter was up, you wanted them to crack the ball out of the park. It didn't matter what jersey they were wearing. It felt like a backyard family gathering, just tossing a ball with Pop. I don't remember which team won. Didn't matter. Pop had a smile a mile wide by the end of it."
Pulling up to a red light, Dad looks at her in the rearview mirror and smiles. "He loved you. Thought you were sunshine incarnate." Then, driving on green, he explains, "The night you were born, he stayed with us. Mom was there, too, and she just loved you. Beautiful baby girl. Iris Ann West. Seven pounds, two ounces."
"Eight pounds, four ounces," Barry chimes in sleepily, cheek on the window.
Dad flashes a smile. "Attaboy. Bartholomew Henry Allen."
"Thank you for not naming me Bartholomew," Iris murmurs, nuzzling Barry's shoulder.
Dad chuckles. "I tried," he teases. "Francine wouldn't have it." Sobering a little, he rounds a corner, wheels gliding, car following his path obediently. "She used to sing you to sleep, you know. Voice like cinnamon. Sweet, distinctive. The kind you'd ask to sing you a song just to hear how it would turn out. It was always better. Even if it sounded nothing like the original, it sounded like it was supposed to."
"You have a nice voice," Barry tells him quietly. His eyes are closed; Iris can feel the lightning simmering down, too, like a wolf curling its tail around itself, restful.
"Sometimes Francine was sick, or working late, or just didn't have it in her. And you would not fall asleep without a song," Dad continues, nodding at Iris, following a path outside of the city. "So it was up to me. Pun intended: my singing is nothing to write songs about."
"That's not true," Barry insists, pillowing his head on the glass more comfortably. Iris finds his shoulder substantially cozier. "It's wonderful. I could listen to you sing all day."
Dad's lips twitch in a smile Barry doesn't see. "Sweet, delusional child 'o mine," he muses in a sing-song tone. Barry's smile mimics his. "I don't know when you stopped needing it to sleep. But by the time we picked up you," a nod at Barry, whose little smile transmutes into a soft, somber warmth, "you could fall asleep without me."
They loop at a barn, turning back towards the city, driving at the same sedate pace. "Now, you, Bar. You weren't even a nightlight kid. I tried, but you just wouldn't fall asleep unless I was there."
"'Cause I was afraid of the dark," Barry agrees.
"I thought about getting a dog," Dad admits, "somebody to keep you company. But my work hours were still pretty late, and I wasn't about to dump some poor animal on you two."
"I would've liked a dog," Iris says, smiling at the thought. "A corgi. Maybe two."
"I've always been more of a Bernese mountain dog kind of guy," Dad says.
"I kind of like the corgi idea," Barry replies, and Iris surreptitiously files that away in her future consideration folder. Nuzzling the window a little, almost unconsciously, he adds, "I liked it when you stayed."
"Me too," Dad admits. Wheeling back into downtown, he says, "You're a good kid, Bar."
Iris teases, "What am I?"
"Oh, you'll always be my baby girl," Dad assures. "Best thing that ever happened to me. You too." He reaches back, holding her hand briefly before squeezing Barry's knee, returning both hands to the wheel as the light changes once again. "Kids are the best kind of trouble there is."
"Just wait till you have grandkids," Iris says unthinkingly.
There's a beat, and then Barry chimes in, "Paw Paw."
Dad takes a sip of cold coffee and agrees, "Paw Paw."
They don't talk about it, about the seemingly inevitable, because it doesn't seem inevitable, not here, in this safe-in-between space, where Dad is there to protect them, and Barry, too, a wall between her and the rest of the world. Iris shuts her eyes and doesn't mean to fall asleep, but it's almost three in the morning.
When the car halts at her apartment, she realizes she must have dozed off. Barry is snoring quietly but audibly against the window.
Dad flicks the car off and Barry stirs, golden eyes glowing a little in the window. Iris sits up so he can straighten, too, stretching his arms, making a pleased sound before tipping his head back towards the window. "Uh uh, you are not sleeping in my car," Dad says lightly, skidding the window down just a touch to jolt him away. "C'mon."
The apartment seems much farther on the way up, but then they're home, home. Dad finds and picks up McSnurtle's aquarium carefully, charging, "Say goodnight to him."
Barry blows a kiss to the turtle. "G'night."
Iris smiles and replaces the turtle back on his spot. "Good night, McSnurtle." Then, hugging her dad, she adds softly, "Thank you."
He kisses her forehead and squeezes her back. "Any time."
Barry doesn't even wait for her to let go, just hugs them both, and Dad snakes an arm around his shoulders, holding onto them both for a long moment.
After he leaves, the space still seems fuller than when they left it, Barry's movements slow but more at ease. She realizes that even the simple act of acknowledging the turtle feels like flicking on a night switch, a visual reminder that even in their chaotic world, some things are dependably stable. She takes a moment to linger over McSnurtle, smiling at the memory of his namesake, still tucked away, and then joins Barry on the bed.
He's still sitting up, bare-chested once again, and she can feel the wariness radiating from him, a soft undertow, but she pulls him down gently with her, half-under and half-on top of the sheets. Hugging him from behind, she holds on, trying to inject as much confidence into her grip as she can. It's okay, she says in the kiss she presses to his shoulder. I'm here.
He turns in her arms, hugging her to his chest, and closes his eyes. "Thank you," he murmurs.
She's already gone, drifting with him and the waves. Safe. Whole.
For now, it's all she needs to be.