The nurse who backs her out of the emergency operating theatre maneuvers her round the corner and grips her just below the elbows and very deliberately says something to her. Iris doesn't know what it is, but it sounds soft and the woman repeats it until Iris drags her gaze away from the twin doors and onto her. Then she says it again. The tilt of her chin indicates it's a question, so Iris nods even though she still can't think of anything but Barry, flatlining on a gurney as frantic doctors call out numbers and codes, and oh god that zigzag of red right across his chest.
She's being led away by the wrist and her ears still feel like they've been muffled with cotton wool. "Stop," she says, or thinks she says, but in the next moment it doesn't matter if the nurse has heard her anyway, because her knees hit the ground and the dull pain barely registers.
Her head clears a little at this newfound altitude. Although that may have more to do with the fact that she's been physically worked into a recovery position she recognizes from first aid training. Head between her knees instead of lying down, because it's a bustling hallway; paramedics are rushing in with other casualties of what she dimly realizes counts as a genuine technological disaster. Here, in Central City. It's a horrifying revelation. And she's curled up into herself staring at the linoleum floor while her best friend is getting defibrillated not twenty meters away.
Iris lifts her head and forces herself to meet the nurse's gaze. She hopes she doesn't look as unhinged as she feels. "I'm calm," she enunciates, as lucidly as she can manage. "I can wait outside."
It's a reserve of strength she's fallen back upon before, a combination of her own resolution, and years of civilian courses attended both before and after her father's refusal to let her join the police force. Her chest twinges: Barry attended those classes with her, horsing around a little about the dummies they were told to practice on, but going stony-faced and more teary than she pretended to notice at the part on stab wounds.
Apparently she's convincing enough, because the nurse helps her up and walks her back to the glass doors that read 'Emergency' in capital letters. With a tremendous wave of relief, she notices the blips on the EKG machine, telling her his heart is beating again. He's so still and pale under the fluorescent light, though, and medical staff are still bustling around him, beginning to treat the burns on his hand and foot, producing medical equipment she's never even seen before.
When her new acquaintance starts to pull away and re-enter the theatre, Iris reaches out reflexively, touching her shoulder and breathing the words, "Thank you." She's watching Barry's chest rise and fall ever so subtly as she speaks, and it feels like thanking the universe.
The other woman hesitates fractionally, glancing between her and Barry. "You're his... family?" she asks for confirmation. At Iris' nod, she says, "I don't know if I can let you stay here. I'm not that senior, and—" She seems to gather her nerve then, and looks directly at Iris. "But I have a boyfriend, and I couldn't bear to sit in the waiting area either."
Iris blinks at that, the woman's mistaken reading of the situation taking a moment to sink in. But the truth is too complicated to explain to a stranger, albeit a kindly one, so she smiles and repeats, "Thank you," her voice stronger now.
It is only six minutes later that the line on the EKG goes abruptly flat, and then the lights in the whole hallway go out. Nine times this happens, nine times the medical assistants reboot a spare generator for the room alone, before Joe finally strides up the hallway to her, coat drenched with rainwater and eyes too dark with grief. Nine times over, she stands alone and watches Barry die and come back, heart lurching each time along with his.
Title taken from Ben Hammersley's "Stairwell Wall": but you're my favourite sadness / and I'm wondering if you'll find your way home.
Also available on the AO3!
I have a great many feelings about Iris West.
m.e.