Seated at the edge of an open-pit fire, Savitar proclaims softly, "If the Speed Force destroyed the Multiverse, then Existence would be better."
"Emptier," Barry retorts, standing in the shadows nearby, shoulder to a tree.
Savitar shakes his head, warming his hands against the open flame. "The Speed Force is fuller than the Multiverses, combined, could ever hope to be," he replies. "How could Existence be empty, if Speed Force was all that was?" Reaching out, Savitar lifts a log and holds it aloft, letting the flames bathe the darkness in red light. Then he casts it back into the flames and replies, "The lie of the thing is more beautiful than the reality. There is no fire without pain in the Multiverses." The index and middle finger of his right hand rest idly on the burned section of his face. "Fire in the Multiverses is painful. Fire here is harmless. Why would anyone want the former to exist if the latter could be all that there ever was?"
Barry searches in vain for an answer. Stepping forward, he meets Savitar's glowing golden eyes. At last, lowering himself to sit across from Savitar, he permits, "I don't know."
"People say God is great – that God is benevolent. So why –" once again, Savitar lofts a log from the fire, holding it like a torch, "would God create fire that burns?" Shaking his head, he sets the log gently back on the pile. Red flames dance across it. Barry has the impression that it will take a very long time to burn down – eons, maybe forever. He knows, with the same unspoken certainty that the fire has been burning for eons already. Still it is brilliant. "Maybe there is no God," Savitar allows, gazing intently into the fire, searching for answers. "Or maybe God wants us to burn."
Barry folds his knees up to his chest, looping his arms around them and resting his chin on them. It makes him feel younger and smaller than he is, but next to the ethereal Savitar, ancient and hardened, there is no point in appearances. "I don't know," he repeats.
"If I were God," Savitar begins in a deep, steady tone, "I wouldn't create the Multiverses. I would let reality sleep forever, a dream unactualized. This …" he reaches forward and scoops up the red flame in open palms, declaring, "this would be all that creation would know. This wondrous place where nothing hurts. This fantastic state of being where pain cannot exist." He opens his fingers, and the flames sift through them, spilling back onto the logs, its brilliance undimmed. "But I am not God," he says, and there is a dark sadness there, a revelation and a confession acknowledged at last. "I am not God, and the Multiverses exist. And they are so intrinsically broken that pain is intrinsic. Pain is the disease we cannot cure – the tragedy we cannot avoid."
"Pain is temporary," Barry counters quietly. "Reducible. Not eradicable," he agrees, meeting those golden eyes, reddened by the firelight, "but reducible. We can minimize it."
"Why try?" It is stated without heat, but Barry feels the weight of the words, resonating with him like the same shaking disappointment that he has felt a thousand times that he has failed to save someone. "If it is an ineradicable component of the Multiverses, then we are trying to quench a fire that will never stop burning. And we will get burned in the process. Our impact will be negligible in the short run and invisible in the long run. It will be as if we were never there." Again, a hand lifts meditatively towards his face, tracing the scars. "I keep these, even here, to remind myself why trying to make a difference will only lead to failure and pain."
"What happened to you was a tragedy," Barry permits softly. "But we were the same person, once. And I know what we did before that moment, that single split-second in real-time when we became two different beings. I know that we tried to make the Multiverses better. They can't be perfect," he agrees, and it makes his heart lodge in his throat, but he presses on, "but they can be better. And that's what we have to try to do. To make life for everyone better."
"Why?" Savitar asks, his voice as open as a child's. "Why should we make it better?"
The answer comes to Barry at once. "Because that's what it means to be human," he says simply. "To face the insurmountable problems and decide to do something anyway. To keep trying, even when total success is beyond our grasp. To do what we can instead of looking at what we can't. Tragedy is inevitable – yes. Pain is ineradicable – yes. But the degrees – the amount of tragedy, the degree and duration of pain – can be changed. These things aren't immutable. They're tough, and the failures hurt. They remind us that we're never going to stop fighting. But we have to keep fighting. We're human because we try to help."
Savitar watches the flickering flames of the fire, keeping his silence. Barry doesn't press him for a response, entranced by the soft red darkness and the quiet peace that is the Speed Force. "I know you wanted to fix Existence," he goes on, and suddenly knows it to be true as Savitar looks at him, unblinking. "You wanted to fix the Multiverses, too. But the Speed Force is apart from them for a reason. There has to be a reason," he insists, fiercely, hopefully, as though he will lose all faith in his own ventures if it proves untrue.
"Even if we never find out why the Multiverses exist, there has to be a reason for their presence. They're here. Erasing them won't change the fact that they were brought into Existence, that pain was part of the life we knew. Pain isn't just part of the Multiverses – it's part of Existence. And maybe that's why humans exist – to counteract it. To salvage what can't be escaped. And erasing humanity will only diminish Existence. Yes: it will end the pain."
Hungrily, Savitar says, "Even you accept that. It will end the pain. Ending the Multiverses will remove pain from Existence. At last, Existence will know true peace. It won't need the Speed Force as a refuge – all it will be is Speed Force. Painless, perfect Speed Force."
"But at what cost?" Barry insists. "Is it worth taking all of that away from Existence? To take away the joy, the love, the fulfillment we experience in our lives? Are we willing to remove everything good along with everything bad?"
Without flinching, Savitar says, "I came to peace with the idea a long time ago. They're all going to die. All the good is going to go away, whether it's today, tomorrow, or ten thousand years from now. Extinction events, wars, calamities, the expiration of the hundred-trillion-year-old stars – all of it will end eventually. To prolong the illusion that the good will last is to live in constant fear of the end. I don't fear the end. I don't fear it for anyone. No one can be saved in the end. No one."
As he says it, he reaches beside himself, and a fresh log materializes in his hand. Setting it on the fire, Savitar continues conversationally, "I killed Iris because I needed to prove to myself that nothing I loved, or thought of as good, or cherished more than my own life, could escape the inevitability of the end. Pain would consume everything, just as it would consume me if I tried to interfere.
"Keeping myself apart from it was the only way to free myself. Death was one option, but my death alone wouldn't change anything. There was only one way to truly change it. To break the endless suffering." Manipulating the logs with his hands, allowing the flames to climb higher, he carries on, "I wasn't afraid to undertake it. I wasn't afraid to fail – because I wasn't afraid anymore. I knew that I would lose everything, no matter what I did. The good can't be saved.
"Eradicating the bad is the noblest thing we can do. It is the only thing we can do, in the end. We can destroy it all, or watch as everything we love is destroyed, and still the poison persists in our blood." Looking at Barry, he states, "So, yes – it is worth destroying the good to destroy the bad. The good succumbs regardless, and shortening the finite but still painfully long lifespan of the Multiverses is a kindness to Existence. It is kinder to kill it than to prolong its suffering."
Fixed in place, unable to speak for the unspeakable emotion that swells up inside him at the mere mention of Iris' death, Barry does not respond for a time. At last, he reaches forward, and plucks a burning log from the fire. He holds it in both hands, and Savitar watches him without fear or reprimand, waiting to see what he will do. Rather than responding, Barry waits for the log to burn out, and a great eon of time passes, reducing it to a dim orange glow. Patiently, Savitar holds his silence. Setting the colder log down, Barry speaks.
"Existence is so infinitesimally brief that mathematically, it precludes itself." He waits for the remark to sink in, repeating, "It is so infinitesimally brief – finite, a thing with a beginning and an end, a fraction of Totality, of everything that could be, beyond what even is – that it should not exist. If you take smaller and smaller slices of a bulk sum, you approach a zero value – a tenth, a hundredth, a thousandth, a millionth, until you reach an infinite bulk which does not exist. If you could reach it, you would realize that the finite sum becomes zero – it is zero parts of infinity. Existence becomes so humble on the scale of everything that could be that it becomes nothing.
"Why should we make a small Existence smaller? Why rob it of the Multiverses? Even if we can't end pain – pain is part of Existence. Maybe we need pain. Maybe we need problems to be human. Maybe we're only humans because we have problems that are so much greater than ourselves we can never hope to overcome them, and still we persist in trying to gain the most from this precious thing. All will be overcome, forgiven, ceased at the end of Existence – but to end the Multiverses, to deny Existence an opportunity to flourish, is to prematurely bring about that inevitable end. And all we will have achieved is making a small Existence smaller. We will have squandered something indescribably precious. Existence – even in its imperfections – is precious."
He sets a hand on the dimly lit log, barely alive, now, and repeats softly, "Existence is precious. It will end. All of it – even the Speed Force." At last, without fanfare, the log grows dark and cool under his palm, burned out. "But we have to savor these finite things because they are good." And slowly, the log turns to ash. "Even though the memory of the thing will die with us someday, long after the tangible parts are gone. The memory, Savitar. That's what we fight for. The experience. The ability to keep going into an unknown and hope for the best. Whether God is real, whether God wants us to burn or not, we have the power to help each other, and we have to. Or else we lose what little we have: our humanity."
Savitar blinks once and reaches for the pile of ash in front of Barry. He scoops up a handful gently. He sifts it over the still-burning fire, and it flares briefly, turning redder, before fading to orange once more. "Memory," he muses. "A barely-real thing to make reality worthwhile."
"I didn't say it wasn't paradoxical," Barry admits, watching the flames, reaching for another dying log. "None of this—" he picks up a log with reverent care, "is real, either. Not by our definition. It has no true properties. It's an illusion." And so the log turns into ash, which he scatters upon the ever-smaller fire. "Existence is the strangest and only thing we know. We do the best we can with it. Even though we don't understand it. Even if we can never understand it. That's why we're here, Savitar. To try to make Existence better. Not by destroying it – but by living with the bad and the good. The peace and the pain."
There are just two logs burning. Savitar reaches for one and takes it firmly in hand. Barry goes on. "The fire here doesn't burn us, because that's not what the Speed Force is. But the fire we know is still part of Existence. And fire was humankind's first great tool. It changed us. It bettered us. It allowed us to thrive." He picks up the last log carefully, continuing, "Few things have shaped us as much as fire. It's ancient. It's fresh. It's kind and cruel. And it's fleeting."
In an instant, his log crumbles to ash. Savitar's remains alight, burning brilliant orange in his hands, before it, too, dissipates. And then it is dark, with just the two of them to keep the vast emptiness of the Speed Force company.
Savitar draws in a shallow, audible breath. He says slowly, "I cannot undo what I have done."
"No," Barry agrees. "That's Existence. We have to live with the pain, with the things we do wrong. No matter what we do, we can't undo anything that has happened. But we can do better, going forward. We must see what we have done, but we can't let it blind us to our future. You have a future. It's up to you to use this gift, this preternatural and phenomenal gift, wisely."
He unfolds his legs and rises at last. "I forgive you. Not because I forgive your actions – I'll never be okay with what you did, but I know that you can do better. You can be more. I believe in that.
"And no matter what I do, I can never stop you from existing. You will always have been here. It's irreversible. You will live on in memory as long as memory exists, and after in the impression of this finite thing we call Existence, an invisible fraction of Totality." Smiling wryly, he adds, "It's all a bit convoluted at its core, but it's beautiful, too. That we are so small and yet so powerful. We don't need to destroy the Multiverses to help them. We can help them as they are, to become what they could be. That's what we can do. That's what we have to do. And the Multiverses exist, not to be destroyed, but to be enjoyed."
In front of him, Savitar begins to fade into the darkness. Barry extends a hand, and he takes it, leveraging himself upright. The scar on his face is still visible in the faintest glow of lightning between them. Looking in those dark, searching eyes, Barry sees his own reflection mirrored in them. Taking Savitar's shoulder in hand, he squeezes it, releases it. "Be good. We'll meet again." Then he steps back and vanishes.
Emerging where he started in an empty field of grass, he stands slowly, the ache in his left hip profound but not intolerable. At thirty-nine, he's far from the boyish hero he once was, covered in invisible scars and the not-so-invisible limp that accompanies every step. When he runs in the Speed Force, all is forgiven, and he is light and limber enough that it becomes nothing more than an echo left behind. But when he is slow and present, it is a permanent reminder of an encounter that he should not have survived with the Reverse Flash.
So many enemies, so few friends, he muses, walking home at a sedate pace, using a cane for balance on the rough terrain. But it's not entirely true – he has the entire city and a small army of friendly metahumans on his side. He's far from friendless. Indeed, the odds are tipped generously in his favor. Yet it is the sworn enemies, the most stalwart of adversaries, that he seeks out in the Speed Force, even though it would be easy to dwell in that place of peace with only the friends he knows.
Love thy enemy, he thinks, and smiles a little. He doesn't know if there's a God, or Gods, or a force of nature beyond nature without categorical description, but he knows that he is human, and what he can do as a human is profound. He can save the world. One person at a time. Even Eobard. Even Hunter.
Even Savitar.
Especially Savitar. His own self, in another lifetime – once indistinguishable and now almost unrecognizable, so warped by his own schemes. It'll take more time than exists in the present Multiverse to heal some of the wounds inflicted, but there are many Multiverses to come, and the Speed Force is there for all of them. There is all the time in the Cosmos to contemplate, to resolve, to amend.
Indeed, their finite nothingness seems vast, when compared to the twinkling twilight of another dry summer evening. One small day with an enormous impact on the shape of Existence. It's extraordinary. Every single day is truly extraordinary, and Barry has become very fond of every one. Indeed, the Speed Force perspective of trillions of empty cosmic years before the Multiverse decays into ash leads him to appreciate the vivacity of his own present moment.
And he appreciates the warmth of the little bungalow on the street with one light still on in the living room. He steps inside it with careful steps, trying not to make too much noise, but he needn't worry – Iris is awake and sitting at the kitchen table, gnawing over an important article about The Flash's latest adventure.
He sidles up behind her – his gait generally approaches a sidle nearly all the time, now – and kisses the top of her head. "You do know how late it is, right?" he chides gently, projecting warm affection that he knows she can feel through his Speed Force aura.
She tilts her head to look at him and smiles. It's beautiful. It's worth a thousand Earthrises. "Do you?" she challenges lightly.
Humming, he looks at the screen – FLASH ON FIRE: CRIME RATE AT RECORD LOW - and smiles to himself. "A little on the nose, don't you think?" he teases.
"Alliteration sells," Iris says sagely, and he snorts softly and tugs at her chair a little.
"It's late," he reiterates, and she makes a concurring sound and pushes back from the table at last, shutting the laptop on the way. "We should get some sleep."
She tangles an arm around his waist, supporting him as much as the cane, and agrees, "We should."
The kids are already asleep – he peers at the cracked-open doorway and sees the twins in their beds, Don nearly on the floor and Nora sprawled across the sheets – and smiles. Beautiful babies. They're eight-years-old, which blows his mind. But they'll always be his babies. No matter how much time passes, or how many lifetimes he encounters – indeed, he's seen them both as adults already, and only loves them more now for that knowledge of what they will become – he will always consider them his babies.
"They're perfect, aren't they?" Iris whispers in passing, and he nods once, gently ambling past.
"Absolutely perfect," he agrees, and there is no lie in it.
In the corner of their room burns a little nightlight, a little hint of Speed Force without Speed Force, and Barry falls asleep with the thought that everyone is safe and well, and is at peace.