The vitals on Barry's suit tank.
"We're losing him," Caitlin reveals, voice thin and scared.
Urgency tries to slow time down, but Jesse holds onto the moment long enough to ask in a dead voice, "Where is he?"
Cisco replies, "There's a tracker on the suit, he's—"
And before he is done pointing at the screen Jesse takes off.
. o .
It takes eight minutes to find him.
She is quick, but it's dark and Barry doesn't make a sound to help her. Even course-correcting with Cisco's advice in her ear, she struggles to lock down a location, skidding to a halt when she sees the tiniest twitch of movement out of the corner of her eye. Focus arrested, she freezes time and stares at the contorted stack of splintered crates leaning against the alley wall. With every detail brought into sharp focus, the murky hint vanishes, a flickering light turned off. Deliberately slowing down, she waits until real-time passes and she sees another feeble twitch, accompanied by the barest scratch of gravel.
"Barry," she breathes.
He doesn't acknowledge her, maybe doesn't hear her at all, but Jesse doesn't need his permission to act. She darts forward and puts a hand against the crates hovering over him, afraid that he's crushed underneath them.
But he's not – there's a small, safe niche carved out, clearly a last-attempt at sanity, I can't let Savitar find me. He bites his lip hard, muffling a continuous whine of pain that escalates when Jesse crouches and nears. He shivers under her hand before she even touches his shoulder, shying back before she makes contact, and then he freezes. She says, "Barry." He twitches and whimpers, huddling in on himself. "Hey, it's okay, it's—" She trails off, her gaze locked on the thick metal slab embedded in his right shoulder.
Words fail her, and for a moment she's afraid it's already too late, that she's too late. Then he twitches and she reminds herself, He's not dead yet and resolves to keep it that way.
Reaching up with a trembling hand, she presses the mic on her suit. "Cait—Caitlin, I need—" Her plea for help dies in her throat because she's the rescue party. They need her. Barry needs her. He came for you, she reminds herself, remembering the way he insisted and promised and prevailed against Zoom, and it helps firm her resolve.
Refocusing, she shuffles closer and gets an arm around Barry's back. He groans and bites his lip hard enough to almost bleed. Joining her hands at his abdomen, she pulls him out from under the pile as carefully as she can.
Best efforts slip and the metal in his shoulder catches on a crate, just hard enough to be felt.
Barry howls in torture.
Jesse drags him out, ears ringing, and gets her hands underneath his arms. Cry later, she tells the rebellious tears clouding her vision even though she can't do this, she's not – she's nineteen, she's not even legally old enough to drink yet – but she has to, she has to. Someone has to. And Wally isn't here anymore.
A sob hitches in her chest, but she pushes past the breakdown to pull him to his feet. Barry is deadweight against her, unresponsive and heavy, but she slows down her heartbeat and his weight evaporates. Thank you, she tells the Speed Force. It doesn't respond; she doesn't need its permission, either. Just help me, she insists, hitching an arm over her shoulders, please.
She takes off, leaving only a streak of red lightning behind.
In full light, the injury is more gruesome than Jesse feared, overtaking his shoulder, protruding nine inches from it. She has a second to jerk in surprise before she halts in the Cortex. Instantaneously three pairs of hands take over. "All right, mate, it's all right, you're gonna be fine," Julian says, while Cisco adds, "Hang in there, man, hang in there." Barry shakes and Joe bears the brunt of his weight, all but carrying him to a gurney where Caitlin already waits.
The machines are loud, so loud, and Jesse doesn't know how Caitlin can think, let alone act with the screaming in her ears. Barry hits the table hard and lurches, visibly wrestling with a scream. Jesse steps back, putting distance between herself and the melee, between Joe at Barry's shoulders, Julian and Cisco on either side, and Caitlin flitting back and forth, doing. Someone has to. Dizzy with relief that it isn't her, Jesse falls back and finds herself paralyzed at the line in the sand Iris has involuntarily drawn, posture tense, radiating a worry so sympathetically strong it's like a Speed signature, unable to step closer.
On the table, Barry twists convulsively, pressing a desperate hand against his forehead, anything, anything to distract from the pain. Jesse flinches when his back arches, his chest heaving with suppressed screams. Cry later, his panicked, frantic movements say.
"I can't give you any anesthetic," Caitlin apologizes in a quick, nightmarishly fixed tone. It doesn't say, I'm here to help. It says, Brace yourself. "Your metabolism will burn right through it."
Gasping in palpable desperation, Barry pleads, "Just do it, all right? Just do it."
Caitlin orders them to hold him down and she can't move, but thank god she doesn't have to, because Cisco and Julian and Joe somehow find the strength to comply instead. Joe gives him a roll of gauze to bite down on and Jesse sees Barry's control slipping fast, his nod frantic when Caitlin breaks. "I'm so sorry."
Still the countdown carries: "Three—"
Jesse finds herself freezing the room for barely a second, capturing a moment of Renaissance agony, before the scene Flashes back into focus.
"Two—"
And Barry starts screaming.
. o .
Jesse's ears are still ringing when the biggest concern switches from get it out to stop the bleeding.
It's almost worse than the screaming because at least then she knew then that he was alive. Utterly still, Barry lies unresponsive on the table, his grip in Cisco's hand gone, and Joe's grip has tightened on Barry's shoulder in undeniable anxiety as Julian helps Caitlin work, holding down the bandages.
She doesn't want to, aches to stay away, but Jesse finds herself stepping forward and helping, and Julian's look is powerfully relieved when he glances at her. They're all falling apart, she realizes, in their own quiet ways.
Cry later.
The blood soaks through the bandage slowly. Jesse closes her eyes and doesn't exhale again until Caitlin replaces it with a clean one and tells her, "You can let go now."
But she can't let go. Not now. Not yet.
She releases Barry's shoulder and steps back, holding on.
And then because she cannot stay, she runs, and no one follows her.
. o .
The suit is torn and tattered, a single patch of tripolymer yellow with that burnt lightning shield, but Jesse would recognize it anywhere.
Savitar left it for them, and she tries and wants to cry but she can't, wrung out beyond emotions, beyond terror. Picking it up, she aches and aches and aches, tearing off to STAR Labs because someone, anyone, will be able to use it.
Yet as soon as she skids into the Cortex, her determination vanishes. The suit is cold and unresponsive in her hands, not-his, not-him. She passes it off unthinkingly and Joe is the one to step forward and claim it.
She doesn't cry. She can't.
Some pain is too deep to feel.
. o .
Sensation returns when Barry wakes up.
His voice is thin and shattered glass, crushed in his jaw. "How long was I out?" he asks, and it's so soft that Jesse feels her throat tightening because Barry yells, Barry resists, Barry stands up, and Barry soothes, but Barry does not break.
"Not long," Caitlin assures, and Jesse almost can't hear her. "Are you in much pain?"
He's holding his bandaged shoulder, his body radiating a lightning Caitlin can't sense consciously but everyone can feel. No one, she knows, misses the fact that he doesn't reply. Somewhere he finds the strength to tamp out the emotional fires before they can spread. Until he sees Joe. And then he crumples.
"Joe," he rasps.
Jesse feels tears burning her eyes. Not now, not now, not now.
"I'm sorry. I'm sor…"
Joe shakes his head and cannot articulate his anguish for three unbearable seconds. "Not your fault," he says at last, shaking with it, and Jesse notices the tattered remains of Wally's suit tremble in his hands. Her control thins. She barely needs to hear him say, "Where is he? Is he in pain—"
The sobs break from her chest and she runs, not at Speed but in real time, because none of this and all of this must be real.
. o .
It doesn't even matter that HR isn't Dad.
He's her rescue.
Standing in the hallway, she holds onto him and lets herself fall apart.
. o .
Barry insists on going alone.
Protect the city, he overtly justifies.
Let me save him, he quietly insists.
She's ashamed and relieved to hand over the burden to the broken-shouldered speedster with more soot on his heels than Wally and her combined. He knows what he's doing.
She has to hope he knows what he's doing.
. o .
Scarcely two hours since his first brush with death of the evening, Barry's vitals crash again.
This time Jesse knows what it's like to stand back, to be utterly helpless to act, because before she strangled on being the only one to help, but now she watches the monitor helplessly, sharing Caitlin and Cisco's panic and knowing there is nothing she can do to stop destiny from playing out.
Abruptly, the readings black out.
Jesse closes her eyes and pretends she can still hear them.
. o .
They send Jay in after Barry hoping and needing him to come back, full-handed.
. o .
He doesn't.
. o .
Wally and Barry are thrown from the Speed Force, crashing into the floor, and Jesse can't breathe for how fast her heart is pounding at the sight of them.
They did it they did it they did it they did it.
But Barry doesn't rise from the floor, and Wally doesn't say a word. Jesse feels victory stalling between them, lapsing, error messaging their higher commands.
We lost, the signals say, even as they accept hugs and relieved welcomes, because they're one-minus their steadfast quota.
Jesse feels the devastation between them and steps forward to hug Wally, not to dissipate the pain but to share it.
He hugs her back and she knows the feeling is mutual.
. o .
May comes and brings with it promises and heavy sunshine, palpable on her skin.
Jesse sits out on the grass, basking in it, and doesn't open her eyes when Wally sits beside her.
Sharing warmth, she thinks, We're okay.
He takes her hand and squeezes it gently. We're okay.
Jesse doesn't say anything out loud, doesn't need to. She can almost hear the arguments not circulating in the air in the Cortex about Barry and Savitar.
It's been six hours since they disappeared the Speed Force, but Jesse knew the visit this time wouldn't be fast. She has to trust the Speed Force. She has to, or it will consume her.
The thing that keeps her sane is the Ghost, insubstantial but present, keeping vigil with Iris in the Cortex. Even from a distance Jesse can feel the Ghost's presence, heavy sunshine, stormy, nearby.
Ready to strike.
She puts her head on Wally's shoulder and feels him, anxious and hopeful at once.
If the Ghost is with them, then Barry is, too. Somewhere.
Somewhere.
. o .
Two days pass.
Then, without warning, Cisco jerks awake at the computer console, an epiphany written in his wide-eyed expression as he stammers out, "Breach room, now." It doesn't matter what obscene hour in the morning it is: they scramble to comply.
With fumbling hands and plenty of curses Cisco gets the goggles on, throwing a breach into the space before them like he was born to do so, and he's breathing shallowly in anticipation. Unconsciously, Jesse steps up beside him, fisting a handful of his shirt at the shoulder, ready to anchor him if need be. It proves necessary: the invisible line Cisco reels catches, violently, and he jerks and would fall into his own portal if Jesse didn't tighten her grip immediately and strain backgrounds to hold ground. She feels Wally step in, and he's Speed-warmth and hopeful, frantic, even, as Cisco mimics the urgency and digs in his heels.
Just as soon as it arrives, it's over: with a tangible snap, the line releases.
Jesse stares in disbelief, wonder, devastation at the portal, at the sudden loss of contact.
Her chest hurts and she can feel the fine tremor of emotion building in all of them, Speed and non-Speed mingling, when with a slow step Barry steps out of the portal.
Wally and she nearly knock him back into it, and Cisco clamps his hand shut instantly to ensure they don't, which means his breath punches out of him as they crash and Barry they say, dragging him from the center of the room like the breach will change its mind and reclaim him. He has an arm around both of their shoulders, a gentle squeeze sending a wave of calming Speed through her, and she relaxes involuntarily.
Iris steps in and Jesse and Wally both let go so Iris can bury herself in his arms.
"I'm okay," Barry tells Iris, chin tucked over her shoulder. "I'm okay."
Joe's crying, Julian's laughing, and Cisco seems beyond both but has his hands clenched into fists, a single victorious shout perforating the silence.
"He's never coming back," he tells them without letting go of Iris. His eyes glow gold when he says it and Jesse believes it, immediately, unquestionably. "Ever," he insists softly, and nuzzles Iris' hair.
Jesse feels Wally tuck an arm around her own waist and leans into it, feeling his Speed curl with wolfish relief around her. Family, it says. The family is home.
And so it finally is.