One did not have to be a dedicated foodie to be able to match a region with its food. Beachy Californians took advantage of their enviable weather to produce and consume fruits and vegetables year 'round and sneer at everyone else who wasn't as healthy. The South rolled their eyes at Florida's fusion dishes over tables groaning under the weight of cream pies, collared greens, and jugs of syrupy sweet tea.
The Midwest stood out, thought Dr. McGee, as she slid into the vinyl booth of one of Central's many diners, because it went out of it's way not to stand out. The Midwest liked to keep things simple, and their food reflected it. Hamburgers, potatoes, steak, and hearty bread could be found even at the swankiest restaurant. While the sameness of it all sometimes got on the London-raised doctors nerves, she did have to admit that it was nice to know that she could go anywhere and be served comfort food, and she needed that, today of all days.
First, Palmer Technologies called to inform her that they were no longer interested in backing any of Mercury's projects, contrary to what thier previous CEO had wanted. Then, the head scientist working on the tachyon project quit without warning. Finally, the idiots living next to her decided to throw a loud, obnoxious party, killing any chance of a peaceful evening.
After the waiter took her order, a sudden influx of noise caused her to look up briefly. A mixed group of young adults had come in and deciding to take temporary residence three booths down.
Initially, she ignored them. She refused to age into a joy-sucker. Then one of the howls of laughter struck a very familiar chord and she craned her neck to see why.
Ah. Dr. Snow.
Her former employee was shaking with laughter at something her co-worker had said. As someone in the know with the tragedy that had struck her early in life with the death of her husband, Dr. McGee was glad to see her enjoying herself.
She recognized the young man next to her—CSI Allen. Although she was aware of his connection to S.T.A.R. Labs, she hadn't been aware that he was on grabbing-a-bite-to-eat terms with the scientists there. She had no idea who the young hispanic male across from her was, or the young brunette teenager who seemed a little young to be working at a research facility was, though.
A minute more of chit-chat passed before a fry was tossed at a previously unseen fifth member of the party. He was slouched in the corner of the booth, and clad in black, which explained why she hadn't seen him earlier. He ate his food mechanically, and shied away from the group. The man's black baseball cap prevented her from seeing his face, but his reason for even attending the little social gathering was unknown, seeing as it was clear that he felt out of place and awkward.
Was she analyzing the relationships of people she tangentially knew? Yes, but sue her;she was bored and a tad nosy as a matter of course. they left.
Dr. McGee didn't catch anything after that. She didn't catch how Jessie playfully jumped onto Barry's back, or how Caitlin dropped an ice cube down Cisco's back, or the ensuing girly scream that followed.
All she saw was the man who stood up out of the booth. Earlier it was impossible to make out his features, obscured by the shadows as they were, but now...now…
There was no doubt about it. The man in black was Dr. Harrison Wells.
….
She had gone home directly after that. Initially, she considered following them, but then good sense had taken over and she saw all of the things that could go wrong in a confrontation where she was out numbered.
So she had gone home, and promptly went to her bed to lay down on top of it and think about it all with a rational, cool head. After a few minutes, it was decided that her thoughts would never be organized until she wrote them down. The cool, familiar weight of her personal notebook made her feel a bit better, and once she started writing, it seemed as if the ink coming out of the pen couldn't keep up.
Things I Know
The man at the diner was Doctor Harrison Wells.
Harrison Wells was supposed to be dead, but clearly wasn't.
He had implicated himself in the death of Nora Allen
Things I Think I Know
He was connected to the Man in Yellow that terrorized Central the previous year
STAR helped him fake his death
Things I Need to Know
How was he alive?
Why would Barry Allen eat dinner with his mother's murderer?
Why would he so publicly confess to a crime on video, if, for some reason or another, he didn't do it?
What was going on at STAR Labs?
Writing it all down made it all feel more real, somehow. Before, she had simply seen something she couldn't explain. Now, she had something akin to a plan, questions that she could answer now that they had been articulated.
With that in mind, she fell into a restless sleep.
…
The next morning, she did something that she hadn't done in twelve years.
She called in sick.
She couldn't go to work, not yet. Not until she had satisfied her questions.
The police were out of the question. Barry Allen worked there, and so did his foster father, Joe West. They had dismissed her when she claimed to have seen him breaking into her lab, which, in hindsight, made it clear that they were covering for him. Instead, she spent the good part of her morning scouring the internet. Article after article was pulled up, thoughtfully digested, then dismissed with the red X. Although they were informative, they didn't tell her anything she didn't already know.
She found her first lead in the last place she would have expected to find anything. It was a mobile app, for heaven's sake, dedicated to gathering metahuman sightings around Central. The app was flood with pictures of the Geomancer, a tall blonde male wearing a strange metal cap, and Central's most famous resident, the Flash.
What interested her, though, was a single picture buried under a mountain of others. It was of poor quality, taken months ago, around Christmas, of a man standing with a remote in what looked like a suburban neighborhood. Even though he wasn't facing the camera, the man was without a doubt, Dr. Harrison Wells.
She ignored the submitter's caption that railed on about body snatchers and zoomed in on the address of the house in the background, then typed it into Google Maps.
Less than fifteen minutes away. Hmmm.
She printed out a photo of Harrison that had appeared on the back of his autobiography, then swiftly pulled her coat over her clothes. She was going to investigate.
…..
Theman whose house had been caught in the background was a dead end. He had been passed out drunk on eggnog Christmas night and knew nothing. His neighbors had either refused to come to the door for fear that she was trying to sell them something, or told her politely that they remembered nothing about the previous Christmas except for the presents that had literally flown out their door only to be sucked into a wormhole in the sky. One man seemed very peeved when the subject of the presents came up, explaining that the stupid little thing had broken a window on its way out.
Finally, she knocked on the house directly across the street from where the photo had been taken. The man who answered the door looked as if he just wanted to lay down somewhere and never get up, but patiently bore her question before turning around and yelling into the house for Mary, who was presumably his wife.
A perky woman with a blonde pixie cut came to the door, looking vaguely confused but pleasant with a eight year old trailing her.
The man, Mr. Timothy gestured for her to show his wife Harrison's photo. "Isn't that the man who showed up here on Christmas?"
Dr. McGee's hands began to shake in excitement. Maybe this venture hadn't been a complete waste.
The mom barely needed to glance at the photo. "Yep. That's the guy. Showed up on our doorstep, and told little Archie here that he, 'Needed his toys. All of them.' Creep."
The husband then took over the story, clearly having told it many times. "Then a present that we had gottenfor Archie from the mall Santa just flew out of here! No wheels, no propulsion, nothing!"
She thanked them for the information, then left her thoughts to ruminate in her head. A quick search on her phone brought up the presents that all the neighbors had spoken of. At Christmas, the Weather Wizard and the Trickster had been seen publicly beating the Flash to death, and only stopped with a stream of presents had flown into the sky. Police had searched for a correlation between the two events but had rapidly come to the conclusion that the only person who could answer that was The Flash, and he didn't exactly talk to the police.
Was the Flash involved somehow? Had STAR Labs, Barry, and Harrison somehow worked some form of a deal? If so, such an arrangement would benefit all parties involved. STAR Labs could rid itself of a CEO with a terrible baggage, but keep Harrison's brain, Barry would have a scapegoat to get his father out of prison, and Harrison could escape the public eye. He didn't have any relatives that would suffer from his confession of murder.
Still, something was nagging at her. Something was missing.
Without knowing why she searched details of Nora Allen's murder. It seemed to be the crux of everything.
Then she found it, the detail that she had read without really remembering it.
A young Barry Allen had claimed to see his mother being murdered by a man in a yellow suit, a man that could move faster than the eye could see, a man covered in lightning. A man like the Flash, fourteen years before the Flash had made his first appearance. A man matching the description of the man who had attacked her and threatened to kill her and had stolen her tachyon prototype all those years ago.
Her fingers flew across the handheld screen faster than the software could keep up. Had no one made this connection? Certainly Barry must have said something. Unless...Unless he had plenty of reason to keep quiet or had bigger plans. He must have known that no court would release his father based on sightings of a man that matched the description of a traumatized eleven year old.
Somehow, Barry must have worked out a deal with Harrison to fake his death. She would bet her entire company that Barry Allen was the one that had reported his death.
That left the Flash. Somehow he played into this entire situation.
Barry, in all probability, would not talk to her about this. Neither would Detective West. As more pieces of the puzzle fell into place, it was increasingly looking like a situation that was best left alone.
However, she knew in her heart of hearts that she couldn't leave this alone. Harrison had broken into her facilities, and she had been targeted by the man in yellow twice. She had no reason to believe that it wouldn't happen again.
That, and she wanted to talk to Harrison. Actually talk to him. Ever since the accident, they had drifted apart.
She wanted to talk to the man who she had met in the lab after he set the fire blanket on wanted to talk to the man whom she had driven to his first date with Tess after a few jocks let air out of his tires. She wanted to talk to the man who made her watch Back to the Future in exchange for help with her language arts paper.
Barry seemed to be too personally connected to this. But the Flash didn't seem to be. She didn't know how to contact him, but she knew who did.
After less than a moment's hesitation, she lifted her phone to her ear and punched in a number that she used whenever she needed to set a news conference for Mercury Labs.
"Central City Picture? Hello. May I speak to Iris West?"
Author's Note:
YOU LOVELY MONSTER. You know how much of a sucker I am for Wells and his adorable past. )8C ~Mumble
I Try. For all the times that Harry goes out (like in Gorilla Warfare) or its implied (The Reverse Flash Returns) it amazes me that someone hasn't seen him. Well, other than Patty. Then again, this is the city that didn't notice King Shark strolling through the city other than a few scattered reports. Anyway, this'll probably have a part two, and then be done. -Whitter