A/N: For anybody familiar with the story Les Miserables, well, this is basically that, but different. It is very heavily inspired by that story, but I will be trying hard to follow not just that show, but this one as well. There will be some changes, to both stories, but I hope you'll bare with me for this.

Also, as I was writing this first chapter I realized just how many inaccuracies there are (not to the shows, but to real life). So please, don't question the strangeness of this world I'm apparently writing in, just go with it.


Three years.

That was how much time Henry Allen had lost from his life. Three long, hard years in prison.

It didn't sound like that much time, but to Henry, it had felt like much longer. Especially considering he had only been arrested for stealing some food. He hadn't threatened anybody, nobody had gotten hurt. All he had wanted was something to feed to his hungry wife and child.

His family had been all but starving. Five years before he had been arrested Henry had been the prime suspect in a murder investigation. He hadn't killed the man, but, of course, nobody believed him. The only reason he hadn't been sentenced to prison because of the murder was because of lack of evidence. And yet since then he was still treated as a criminal.

In those years Henry had a difficult time holding up a job for more than possibly a few months at a time. Many people didn't hire him, because they didn't trust that he was innocent. The few people that did give him a job only did so because they hadn't known who he was and what he had been accused of. Eventually though they did find out, and they fired him as soon as they did.

It was only thanks to Nora that they had made it for so long. With Henry unable to find work Nora became the breadwinner of the family. It wasn't a favorable situation, but things worked out well for a while.

And then Barry was born.

Both Nora and Henry had been overjoyed to finally have a child, though both were also concerned because their living situation was just not one suitable for raising a child in, and things only got worse from there.

Nora had to quit her job because she couldn't juggle taking care of Barry with her long work hours. With Nora no longer earning money Henry had to try even harder to earn just the smallest amount of money. It was tough not being able to be around his wife and kid as much as he wanted to, but Henry bore through it, because they didn't really have a choice.

By this time Henry and Nora had been speaking about moving far away, possibly to the coast. Someplace where nobody knew who Henry was. He would be able to get some decent work, possibly finally put that medical degree that he had worked so hard to get to good use. They would be able to start over.

As much as they wanted that chance, it just wasn't possible. Packing up and moving their lives was something that would take money, and that was just something that they didn't have much of at the moment. Henry was able to make enough for them to scrape by, but that was it.

Money and food were always scarce, but it was at least manageable most of the time. Other times though, not so much. Henry would always have his bad days where he just wasn't able to get as much as he needed to support his family. Occasionally he would have a number of successive bad days, which were always difficult and stressful.

And then there were the rare bad periods that lasted even longer than that.

Henry had been going through one such period for three full weeks, and he couldn't stand seeing his family suffer because of it. His wife was scared, his son was hungry, and there was nothing he could do about it.

Completely desperate Henry had resorted to doing the one thing he had promised himself, and Nora, that he would never do.

He stole.

It was a stupid decision, one that Henry had regretted ever since. Even if he hadn't been arrested for it he still would have felt guilty. But he had been arrested, and because of that one stupid decision Henry was sentenced to five years in prison, with a chance at parole halfway through his sentence.

And now here he was, three years later, finally out of prison and ready to move on with his life. Henry's not dumb though, he knows that things won't be easier. They'll probably be even harder than they had been back when everyone had just thought that he was a criminal, but still, anything's better than being in prison. At least out in the world he'll have his wife by his side again.

Greatly anticipating being able to see her again, to hold her again, Henry walked out of the prison, his heart feeling lighter than it had in a long time. There was a cop waiting for him outside, whether to escort him or intimidate him, Henry had no idea. He had expected the cop, but he would never have thought that they would have sent a detective.

"Joe, what are you doing here?" Henry asked as he walked up to the man that he once had called a friend. Over the years though that friendship had faded and practically disappeared when Joe had arrested him. Still, Henry was civil towards him because Joe West, while he made it perfectly clear that he saw Henry as a criminal, he still had occasionally visited Henry to tell him how his family was doing, because Nora wasn't often able to visit him.

Joe looked at Henry and, as usual, he could see the hard judgemental look in the detective's eyes, the same look that he gave to all criminals he had to associate with. But there was something else in Joe's eyes too. More hesitant, sad almost. It looked like he felt sorry about something.

"What happened?" Henry asked, his eyes narrow in concern. Something must have happened, because detective Joe West never looked at criminals with something like pity or compassion, and he most certainly never felt sorry for them. For their families, sure, all the time. But not criminals.

Joe sighed and shook his head. "There's something you should know." Instead of saying anything more though Joe just got into his car and Henry, taking the hint, follows. He wants to question Joe more, figure out just what he needed to know and where they were going. Henry doesn't ask any further though, because he knows that Joe is not going to answer him until he's good and ready.

They drive in silence for a good while before Joe finally pulls over and stops the car. Henry's blood seemed to turn to ice when he saw where they were.

A cemetery.

"What are we doing here?" Henry asked quietly. He remembered the sad, pitying looks that Joe had been sending him and thinks that he understands. He prays that he's wrong. Oh, God, please let him be wrong.

"It happened a few months ago." Joe said slowly, avoiding Henry's eyes. "We got a call about a disturbance, and by the time we got there…" Joe shook his head. "She was already gone."

"N-nora?" Henry felt as if his world was collapsing around him. It's difficult to breath and time seemed to freeze for a while as Henry tried to process the thought that his wife...that she…

Henry takes in a shuddering breath and tries to put aside the pain. He couldn't grieve for her, not yet. He had something else to worry about. Someone else. "What about Barry?" He asked hesitantly, terrified for the news that he might hear.

"Your son's fine." Joe assured him and Henry breathed a sigh of relief, eternally grateful for that.

"Where is he?" Henry asked. He wanted to see his son. No, he needed to see his son. His boy.

"I'm sorry, Allen, but I can't give that information to you." Joe said, and while he sounded sincere in his apology, his voice was still firm.

"What?" Henry looked at Joe in disbelief, that cold, icy feeling running through his veins again. "Why not?" Despite asking why, Henry didn't really care to hear any excuses. "My son needs his father!" Henry said hotly, his voice raising.

"What he needs is to live in a stable home with good people." Joe said, matching his tone. "Neither of which is something you can give to him." The two of them glare at each other. Henry felt absolutely furious, even as his mind tells him that Joe was right. He couldn't provide Barry with those things, not really. Or, at least, not with the stability.

As much as Henry was willing to admit that maybe he wasn't prepared to take care of his son again, especially now that he was a single father, he was not willing to just sit down and let these people tell him that he couldn't see his son. Barry was his, and nobody was going to take that from him.

"I will get my son back." Henry said lowly. He turned and began slowly making his way into the cemetery, to pay his final respects to his wife.

"Don't do anything stupid, Allen." Joe warned. "We will be watching you." Henry stopped in his tracks. He turned to address the detective.

"So business as usual, right?" Henry said darkly before continuing on his way. Of course the cops would be watching him. They had been keeping a ridiculously close eye on him for the past eight years, so why would that change now?

Not knowing precisely where to go Henry wandered around around the cemetery, looking at every grave that he passed. Finally he came across a tombstone that made him stop. Even though he had been expecting this, Henry still felt a numbing chill come over home when he read the name displayed on the tombstone.

Nora Jean Allen.

A tear fell from Henry's eye and he fell to his knees, overcome by the emotion and overwhelming feeling of helplessness when the gravity of his situation finally seemed to hit him. Nora, his wife, his best friend, was dead. His son was gone, and he had no way of knowing where to find him.

He was well and truly alone. He had no friends to turn to, no family to love. Nobody.

Not for the first time Henry realized just how dark, cruel and lonely the world could be. The difference between this time though and all of those other times was he had nobody to turn to. Nobody to give him hope for a brighter future.

All he had was everlasting darkness.


A/N: Not bad for a chapter that's mostly meant to be exposition. I hope I did an alright job writing Henry. I wasn't too sure, because he's probably the one character from Flash that I'm least familiar with. But I had to have him be the lead, because he's a perfect Jean Valjean.

Honestly though, the character that I'm most worried about portraying well is actually Joe. The character that I'm basing him off of from Les Mis...well, hopefully I do okay with portraying both of these guys well.

Later on in the story, when more characters are involved, it'll probably be really obvious really quickly which characters are my favorite. My goal though is that by reading this you won't be able to tell which characters I simply don't like. Here's hoping.