"Why can't you just let me relax!?" Barry heard his daughter's muffled shout come through the door to the loft. Barry and Iris exchanged glances as Barry turned they key in the lock and pushed the door open. They looked around, expecting to see someone else in the room but there was only Nora, lying on the couch. She had been really stressed out lately with their plans to catch Cicada so the team had insisted she go home and get some rest while they put the finishing touches on their next plan. She had finally relented. She currently had Netflix on the screen but she had paused her episode of Criminal Minds. Weirdly, the remote was on the floor, a good distance away from her, like it had been thrown. Nora, for her part, looked near tears and was pushing her head back as far into the cushion as it could go, her hands clamped onto the sides of it, like she was trying to restrain herself.
"Nora? Are you okay?" Iris asked concerned. The young woman looked up, having just noticed her parents.
"Where do you keep the heating pad?" she asked.
"In the closet, I'll go get it," she said and then walked down the hall. Barry kept looking worriedly at Nora who was now sitting up and rubbing the back of her neck with both hands. Actually, it was more like she was restraining her neck with both hands.
"What's up?" he asked her.
"I'm just having a tic attack, it's no big deal," she said. Then it dawned on him.
"Oh, you have Tourette's Syndrome," he said. "I didn't even realize."
"It's okay, most people don't," she said. "I have a really mild form. It's just been worse lately." He wasn't quite sure what to say. He wanted to make his daughter feel better but he also knew there wasn't much he could do, there was no cure for Tourette's.
"Is there anything that you usually do to calm them down?" he asked, sitting beside her.
"I used to be on medication for it and that would usually mute them but now my metabolism works too fast for them to have much effect," she said. "Hence the heating pad." Iris came back into the room at that moment and handed it over to her daughter. Nora immediately plugged it in and placed it on her neck and leaving back into it. She re adjusted her neck a few times, almost violently before finally finding the sweet spot. She closed her eyes bust started wringing her hands together. He noticed it was patterned, she moved her fingers a specific way. "Can you guys unpause the show for me?" she asked. "My wrists decided it would be a fun idea to snap downwards and I dropped the remote….well, threw it accidentally." She laughed but then her head jerked again and the laugh turned into a growl.
"Fuck!" she yelled. "Just stop already!" Iris was still standing m=by the couch and had a confused look on her face. Barry gave her a look that said "I'll explain later" and then turned to Nora.
"Is there anything we can do?" Barry asked.
"Not unless you can make my nervous system agree with me," she said dryly. Her hands clenched into fists, then un clenched, the repeated a few times before she balled them really tightly and sat on them.
"Can you guys please just give me some time alone?" she asked.
"Yeah, sure," Iris said, still confused but aware of her daughter's discomfort.
"Can you turn down the heat?" she asked as they were leaving. Barry quickly adjusted the thermostat before heading up the stairs.
"Okay, what was that?" Iris asked once they reached her bedroom.
"She has Tourette's Syndrome," he explained.
"I think I've heard of that," she mentioned. "It's that thing where kids make random uncontrollable movements right?"
"Sort of," Barry explained. "They're not entirely random though, normally you do something once and then you have an urge to repeat it, from there it can develop to become a recurring tic. And it's more like she has a strong urge to do or say something that is mentally difficult to hold off. Atleast, as far as I know, I haven't done a tone of research on the subject matter."
"But isn't it genetic? Neither of us have it," Iris asked.
"No one really knows what causes it, sometimes it runs in families but not always," Barry explained. "It can go away in adulthood but it's not curable. Medication sometimes helps but Nora said that now that she has speed her metabolism stops it from working."
"Oh my God, I feel so bad for her," Iris responded.
"She's used to it Iris," Barry said. "She doesn't need us to pity her, she just needs us to let her do what she needs to do. Follow her rules, everyone handles it differently."
"What are her rules?" Iris asked.
"I think we should save that conversation for tomorrow, stress usually makes tics worse," Barry said sitting down next to his wife. "She's going to have a rough night." Barry put his hand on hers and they shared a look. A look of two parents hating that their child was hurting.