Caitlin doesn't miss the irony.
"My boss is in a wheelchair for the rest of his life."
She can still hear Barry crowing, Peter Pan-like: "Wanna see how fast I can run backwards?"
It's exhilaration when he skids into view, her heart rate slowing to normal because he's home, and a little singed – build in a bigger time cushion, Barry; that was too close – but otherwise fine.
"You sure you want to do this, Bar?" Joe asks quietly.
Barry looks dazed, battle-weary (you should talk to someone, she thinks but doesn't say, knowing he won't; he's had one too many negative experiences with 'shrinks' to go back), but he still manages a slow nod, jaw set. "Yeah."
And he climbs with painstaking slowness to his feet, Joe wrapping a supportive arm around his back to keep him steady if he falters.
"Do you think he'll ever walk again?" Cisco asks in the main lab, out of Barry's earshot, and Caitlin wants to say yes, but she knows what happens to people with injuries like this, she knows what could be Barry's future, and she can't lie to him.
"I have no idea."
Looking at the fallout, she watches him take a single hesitate step.
She can still see him in his Flash suit, shoulders thrown back, smile broad and encompassing, stance tall and unbreakable, radiating confidence in his grin, his walk, his very being. It doesn't seem to scare him that they're pushing their luck, day after day.
Bring it on, a younger Flash challenges.
Barry takes a second step and she's holding her breath because she took the scans this morning, gave him permission to try, but she's afraid of what will happen if he crumbles. What it will do to his morale if he's incapable.
Come on, Barry, she thinks, willing him to keep going.
He takes a third step.
Each step forward builds confidence and she almost doesn't see it until it's too late as they take down meta-human after meta-human, the stakes increasingly exponentially with each jump and they can't stop now but—
You're going to hit a wall, Bar.
"Okay, I can't do it right now," he says, crumpling, staggering three painful steps into the chair Cisco pushes forward to meet him.
"Oh, yes you can, Barry," Joe replies, cajoling.
Barry's eyes are full of pain and Caitlin wants to look away, feeling intrusive. She's used to dealing with the improbable and handling the impossible, but watching Barry's confidence shatter is still one of the hardest things she's ever done.
He's bitter and self-deprecating when he says, "Six whole steps. Someone get me a Bozo button."
"Hey, give yourself some credit," Cisco interjects, calm, persuasive, "you just broke your back."
Barry looks out of it and Caitlin doesn't need to ask if he's okay to know the answer.
"Yeah, a normal person would have been paralyzed for the rest of his life," Iris adds, and it's brushing over him, she can see him shutting down, running away in his mind.
"How long until I'm fully healed?" he asks, looking right at her, and Caitlin can see the silent help me in his gaze, the wide-eyed terror behind the blank expression.
But she can't lie to him, and honesty isn't a virtue when it stares back at him and says, I can't.
So she does what she can: mitigate.
"The initial MRI I took a week ago showed a complete dislocation at the T12-L1 interspace of the thoracolumbar junction," she explains, and it's comforting because it's science and science is certain, like the way thunder crackles over a darkened horizon, a promise of normalcy. She knows that it offers a trace of real hope, proof. Odds work in their favor: he has an extraordinary capacity to heal, accessibility to the right resources in the interim, and a wealth of knowledge in their combined mental power. If it's possible – and Caitlin has seen that virtually anything is – then they'll do everything they can to make it happen.
Putting the two MRIs side-by-side, she says, "But this is the MRI I took this morning. It's remarkable, but you're almost completely healed."
Even Barry seems struck silent for a moment, staring at the screens. Caitlin sees 90.4% improvement and feels calmer, hopeful, even.
When Barry swivels to her, he's pale, and there's a flicker of something in his expression Caitlin can't pinpoint.
"I'm still having trouble breathing," he admits, and she can see his hand rising to his collar to tug at it even though he doesn't move, the tiny quirks of his personality subdued into a sort of dull stupor that she still sees through.
"That's totally normal with a spinal injury," she says. "It should clear up soon."
And she can see how much he trusts her because some of his anxiety relents, and it isn't healing but it's something like it.
He wheels around to the suit and inches forward, staring at it like it isn't his.
It'll always be yours.
"We're going to get you back in that suit, Barry," Joe tells him like it's a promise, and Caitlin's grateful because she doesn't have the heart for it, can't be the one to disappoint him if it's a lie. "Real quick, trust me."
Barry doesn't say anything and she hopes he isn't crying, but when he turns his eyes are dry and it's worse, somehow, like she knows what he's crushing down to live with himself.
"What are we gonna do about Zoom?" he asks, and they're making plans, chasing ghosts, and Caitlin knows they wouldn't stand a chance if Zoom came back but he hasn't, and she's not going to borrow trouble.
"Maybe Zoom's not coming back," she offers, because it's possible. Maybe they really did kill him. Maybe they can breathe again.
Then Harrison walks in and says quietly, "I highly doubt that."
Barry stares at him and Caitlin thinks that something should fracture, some continuity should snap, because it doesn't seem right that he can still walk.
He's not Dr. Wells, she reminds herself. She sees Barry do the same, knows it because he doesn't fight him, scarcely acknowledges him at all as Harrison makes plans to go home.
Then she's too focused on making him stay to think about the Flash.
She has to stop Cisco because she knows he's frustrated, she's frustrated too, but she also knows that there is no guarantee Barry will ever be able to run again. If he can't run, he can't stop Zoom.
And if Barry can't – who can?
It all comes back to Barry and Caitlin can see how dangerous their reliance on him is, how fatal their helplessness could be, but she doesn't see an alternative.
We have to get stronger, she thinks, and it's suddenly clear to her: they need to take a leaf from the Arrow's book.
They need to become a triumvirate.
. o .
Hours later Caitlin finds Barry sitting out in his chair under a perfect blue sky.
He's staring at the clouds and she wonders if it's like flying, what he does – the escape, the freedom, the sensation of being untouchable and above it all, safe.
She knows he can hear her approach, but he doesn't respond right away. When she's close enough to touch him, she says, "Hey."
He draws in a shaky breath, turning to look at her. "Help me up," is all he says.
It's not a suggestion; it's a command.
So she wraps an arm around his shoulder and feels him pushing upward, resisting gravity, torso shaking finely under her grasp.
He holds the position and she feels him stabilize, feels his muscles responding, and there's pain but he still manages a step, and she doesn't let him go.
Step by step. Inch by painful inch.
They walk ten feet and then he stops, so she does, too, and she can feel him trembling but his exhale is almost laughter, and she can't remember the last time he actually laughed. It's been a while. (Too long.)
"Is it terrible that I'm proud of ten steps?" he asks huskily, and she thinks that underneath the mental warfare there's physical pain, too, making every step that much harder.
But he still tries, and after everything that's happened to him he still hasn't lost that belief in the impossible, that determination to do good, to be better than he has to be because that's the sort of world he lives in. He has to help. He has to try.
So she says honestly, "It's admirable."
He looks at her, smiling painfully, before saying, "Thank you for saving my life."
"What else was I supposed to do?" she asks lightly, helping him back to the chair.
And she doesn't know what's coming, can't predict Grodd's erratic behavior, can't stop the world from being strange and wonderful and impossible—
But she knows one thing with absolute surety:
Barry is going to fight like hell to save the Flash.