(A/N) Written in reaction to the trailers for 3.10, so that's why some of the dialogue might be off.
Deep in her stomach, there's a knot of cold, numb confusion. Barry's mouth is moving and he's telling her - he's telling her -
No.
The rest of her is taking it in, feeling it sink from her skin through her muscles and down to her bones. She can feel tears rolling hot down her face, fear and horror choking up her throat, boiling in her stomach. She wants to throw up. She ate Chipotle for lunch. It'll be a mess in this gleaming white room, she thinks stupidly, and grits her teeth against the bile rising up.
He catches her by the shoulders - Hey. Look at me.
Barry's touch, the most familiar thing. Barry's hands and his warmth and the angle of his long arms and the wideness of his eyes as he looks at her with an expression she only just learned to identify two years ago, which is not enough time.
Four months isn't enough time either.
None of this is enough time.
Because in five months, she's going to die.
Four months plus five months doesn't equal a year, which means she will never have a real anniversary with Barry. She wants an anniversary with him, more than anything.
She wants a family with him.
She wants a home with him.
She wants to fight with him over stupid things, and laugh with him over stupider things. She wants to see him grow grey and she wants to see him still look at her like he's looking at her now, when she's grey herself.
She wants a life, a full long one. She wants to write big, important things. She wants to be somebody. She wants to leave her own Iris-shaped mark on the world, carved deep. She wants friends and laughter and to see her father hold his grandbabies and to see Wally become his full adult self and build a life too.
Three score and ten, she remembers that from somewhere. Maybe something Grandma Esther says, from the Bible, about the length God allotted to human lives.
She's not a fool, and she's not a child, and she knows that God makes no promises, although He is the only one who can.
But still - she wants her three score and ten, whatever that means, and she wants them with Barry.
She wants - she wants - she wants.
"This is not gonna happen," he promises. "I swear on both my parents' lives, I will protect you."
She nods and thinks, you are not a god; you are not immortal. She'd said as much to him last year, when he was flush with the Speed Force and felt invincible, and she can't stop herself from thinking about what happened next.
"Do you believe me?"
"Yes," she says, and hopes that someday soon, she does.
FINIS