The first week flies by.
Iris emerges with a stack of finished drafts, a gutted apartment, and a cup of coffee that never runs empty. Everyone expects her to stand still, to grieve. Instead she stays in motion, a blurry red pen streaking across the calendar.
Two days after Barry's disappearance, she moves out. Had there been fewer things to pack, she would have left the next day.
Unfortunately, the lease doesn't expire until August, but she clocks overtime and pays the overhead off. An honest conversation with the landowner might have bought her a break, but Barry's secret is too big to buy off. There is no other reasonable excuse to explain his departed status: after all, he might come back. The easy answer – my husband died – is huge and morbid and unacceptable. With no excuse, Iris gathers her stuff, bites back an argument, and walks.
The new place is tiny. She never unboxes anything she doesn't immediately use. It's cold and dark and unforgiving. The floorboards whine at night. But it isn't home, and it's exactly what she needs.
Most of the stuff she stores, or gets rid of, but she keeps the turtle. She doesn't want to, but abandoning a pet isn't her style. Feeding herself is a hassle, but she still chops up fresh veggies for her dependent. With militant rigor, she makes her own bed and meets the turtle's needs. Without conscious decision, the turtle becomes the focal point of her home, a companion for late nights and summer storms.
. o .
Over the first two weeks, there are plenty of both. Whether literal or metaphorical, clouds roll over Central City predictably often. At the first sign of trouble, a yellow streak of light surges into view, barreling into burning buildings and interceding in other hostile affairs. They're there and gone in a Flash.
A truth few people acknowledge: most encounters with speedsters are fleeting and undescriptive, starring blurs of light without human form. A face-to-face encounter with any of them is rare, and many eyewitnesses accept that their rescuer is one of the three known speedsters without ever knowing which one. Occasionally, the players reveal themselves: one or two speedsters may halt in plain view. It's almost always Kid Flash or Jesse Quick, alone or together. If no one immediately catches onto The Flash's extended absence, they can't be blamed; it's an orchestrated plan.
No one can know The Flash is missing.
It's sacrilegious, but the team needs to keep up the ruse for as long as possible. Therefore, at Iris' suggestion, Wally dons Barry's suit and streaks across the city at night, getting "caught" by eyewitnesses at different locations. He stays visible enough that they can see his suit and nothing else. It works; Iris' higher-ups encourage her to keep up with The Flash updates in addition to the Kid Flash and Jesse Quick stories. They're intrigued by the dynamic, with Flash running solo at night and his two partners opting for the daytime patrol. When Iris closes her eyes, she dreams the stories are true.
By the end of week three, she's physically five pounds lighter and emotionally ten fathoms deeper. If she dared to acknowledge her own circumstances and tried to inhale, she would drown. Instead she hovers between the two realities and pretends disaster isn't imminent, like she doesn't need to surface at all. She's strong; she can hold her breath. How long? For as long as she needs to.
She can make it. She has to.
They marvel at her, those who know her secret, those who don't. They compliment her work and encourage her to work harder. They acknowledge her presence and ignore her grief. They work with and against her, stark reminders of her life before that she cannot reclaim in this world after. It would be easy and impossible to move on. Moving on is waking up every day and carrying on without Barry; moving on is taking a breath and not drowning.
Sleepless, furious, anything-but-sad, Iris feels dangerously close to the edge of her endurance.
. o .
Then Cisco and Wally get in a fight.
It's a full-blown, knock-down fight over nothing that she walks in on and it lasts exactly two-point-eight seconds before Wally pins Cisco to the wall and Cisco fires a rib-cracking impulse directly into Wally's chest, staggering him.
The most painful part of the aftermath is not listening to Wally scream, but the opposite: it's the silence, a devastating, hollow, desperate thing that reverberates in the air around them. Wally breathes heavily through his mouth and trembles on his feet; Cisco stares with anguished eyes at his own hands, looking up at Wally and mouthing an apology. "S'okay," Wally grunts, reaching up to hold his chest.
With numb jurisdiction, Iris steps forward, takes Wally by the arm, and guides him to one of the gurneys. She raids the cabinets for morphine and tosses him the whole bottle. Killer Frost watches without intervention, and Iris feels fury crest in her chest at the thought that she had ever denied Barry the same respite. To hell with too much. She finds a thick roll of white bandages and brings it back to the same table, Wally's breathing shallow but steady, eyelids sinking below half-mast. "Stay with me," she orders, forceful but not unkind, and he shrugs off the suit obediently – thank God for the zipped front – and allows her to bandage him up.
Once she is satisfied, Iris turns to Cisco. He's still standing off to the side, arms folded over his chest, looking sick. "I'm sorry," he says, and Wally lifts a hand in acknowledgment, too sluggish to speak. "I'm sorry."
Iris steps forward and takes him by the shoulders. "It's okay," she repeats, pulling him into a hug. "It's okay."
Cisco holds onto her tightly, chest hitching with silent sobs, and she's reminded of how desperately people hug Barry, friends and strangers alike. She has seen The Flash embrace dozens of strangers over the past two years, their hands clutching the back of his red suit like it can protect them, hugging fear-long and adrenaline-hard, desperate for him. They need him to stand tall no matter how hard they push him, to stand steady no matter how strong the winds are. They need him to be their rock.
Iris lets Cisco hold on, and when he finally eases off she lets him go and knows exactly what she needs to do.
Cisco and Wally don't fight again, but both seem more relaxed over the next few weeks. Iris makes two big changes that make all the difference: she takes the middle seat at the console, and she shelves Barry's suit for good.
The next and only person to wear it, she announces, will be Barry. Cover be damned.
. o .
Freeing Cisco up to be in the field and removing Wally's obligation to perform the macabre duty of wearing a dead man's suit takes the pressure off both, removing the tension between them.
Claiming the Captain's chair, Iris lives with the police radio, listening to reports and coordinating assaults with her team of speedsters and Vibers. It's simultaneously easy and infuriating to be stuck on the stationary side of the mic. She wants to be in the thick of things. Instead, she sits at the mic with Killer Frost at her side, at attention, ready to be backup if needed.
In the field, they tag-team, pairing off Vibers with speedsters to decrease the odds of encountering an assault neither meta can handle. Worst case scenario, it's hoped, one of them should be able to create an escape route. The arrangement proves useful on more than one occasion.
There's an almost playfulness to it. Jesse and Cindy have a particularly spectacular success rate, so much so that they have to alternate partners to keep the game interesting. It brings a joy back to the team. It gives them purpose.
They get good. Really good.
It still isn't enough. Maybe it never will be, Iris thinks, and resolves never to say it out loud.
. o .
"He's been gone for nine weeks," Killer Frost observes one evening without prompting.
Iris feels so sick to her stomach that she has to take the rest of the night off, leaving Killer Frost at the console and Cindy de facto leader.
She drives Dad's car forty miles outside the city, parks, and steps outside into a sea of cicadas. Gazing skyward, she waits until the headlights cut out, plunging her immediate surroundings into blue-black darkness. The grass sways synchronously with the wind on either side of the road, deep and inviting.
Determined to lose herself in it, she walks across the road.
I want you to promise me something.
His voice is so faint in her memory she can barely hear it. Her heart beats faster in her chest, and she stands at the cusp of the field, wild and expectant.
Promise me that you'll run, Iris.
She draws in a deep breath.
Run.
And she plunges into the darkness.
. o .
She thinks she's losing her mind the first time she sees the Ghost.
It's a literal ghost, a black specter without definite shape, hovering nearby on the rooftop. She steps forward and it stays standing, familiarly humanoid, letting her approach. She asks, "What are you doing here?" and it finally turns to look at her. It doesn't speak. She closes the gap between them and waits, but it does not move. Reaching out, she hesitates just before her hand makes contact.
This is a dream, she thinks, even though the night is humid and heavy around her. This is a dream.
She presses her hand against its chest and the Ghost disappears.
Aching hopefulness vanishes, leaving only cold in its wake.
. o .
The second time, she knows she's seeing things. Because no one else in the Cortex acknowledges the otherworldly creature in their midst, standing in front of Barry's suit, looking almost puppyishly eager, leaning towards it. Let's run, it seems to say, distracting her from all other conversation. Please, please. Let's run.
She runs that night and knows, without ever confirming it, that the Ghost is still with the suit.
. o .
She learns not to get close to it.
Maintaining a respectful distance, she watches it, eager to ask but even more curious about whether or not it will stay if she is careful, and it does. It lingers for a long time, inhabiting her spaces – at CCPN, at the forensics' lab, even at his mother's grave – and letting her know it is still there. She resists the urge to ask anyone else about it.
They need her to be strong. Strength requires sanity.
Seeing ghosts scarcely qualifies her for the latter position, but she can't find it in her to deter it.
Because she knows exactly what it is.
Speed Force.
. o .
Four months pass.
At the CCPD, Julian takes on twice as much work as he has to in order to retain Barry's position. It's grueling, but he doesn't complain. In fact, he does exemplary work.
This has to be enough.
The alternative is finalizing Barry's departure, and no one is ready to do it.
The team doesn't see him much, but he's still part of it, still working for the same goals. Iris stops by a couple of times, and every time she sees the Ghost occupying the opposite side of the room, like it's holding Barry's position for him, too.
. o .
Five months find her with tears in her eyes at her mother's grave.
"He doesn't have one," she whispers to Francine, aching to her soul. "He doesn't have one."
The Ghost stays nearby, almost close enough to touch, as she sobs into the headstone where no one else can hear.
. o .
And then one day almost six months exactly since Barry left, a crackle of thunder wakes her from a deep sleep.
Iris knows at once that something has changed, and she surges out of bed. She leaves her phone on the nightstand in her haste and doesn't correct it at the door, too focused on the next rumble of the approaching storm.
She runs, down the flight of stairs, out onto the street, bursting across the concrete with the kind of adrenaline-fueled endlessness that lets her run almost effortlessly. It's raining, harder by the minute, and Iris knows that if she's wrong she's endangering herself.
But storms have never scared her. They've always felt more like the Earth is talking to her, a conversation carrying across cloud and concrete sea, engaging a visceral sense of the indefinable.
Out of breath but still in motion, she gasps as she closes in, terrified to be too late, to miss her chance, to lose him forever. She streaks down the sidewalk and sees the Ghost standing in the middle of the field, and she runs the final leg with breathless momentum her sole provider, and crashes into him.
"Bar—Bar—" she tries to gasp, as something solid and decidedly not vanishing holds steady in her arms. Drawing in a breath, she manages to say his name once, clarion-clear: "Barry."
A brilliant flash of white light erases her world.
. o .
Iris blinks, and it's Barry in her arms, Barry with a brilliant smile, electrifying golden eyes, and a breathless laugh caught in his chest as he reels her in tightly, hugging her until there is no space between them.
"Iris," he says, nuzzling her hair, and his all soft spikes sticking upward. "I missed you so much."
He lifts her off her feet because he is light and lightning both, and she wraps her arms around his neck and holds on, and the storm is pure joy around them.
. o .
They're both needed.
It's a realization that unfolds as Barry settles back in, shaking hands and accepting hugs and making promises he will keep. They're both team leaders. They're both stabilizing forces in the storm, essential to the team.
They're both needed, and Iris leans her shoulder against his and reconciles his absence over the past six months with his presence now.
I needed you then.
I still need you now.
. o .
He adjusts without complaint to their new living quarters.
The first thing he does is walk over to the terrarium, pick up the turtle, and hold it at eye level. He smiles like a kid on Christmas morning with tears tracking down his face.
It isn't until much later that night that Iris remembers who gave them the turtle, and she picks up the turtle and looks it right in the eye and understands.
Barry is warm and too big for her bed, and she wouldn't have it any other way.
. o .
It takes a while to truly adjust.
It takes a while to find a new apartment, to settle into the new team dynamic, to relearn the city, to relearn living.
But for both of them, it's home. It's everything.
And it is worth all of the time in the world.