That he's having nightmares isn't necessarily what she finds alarming.
She's aware of the signs and symptoms that can manifest status post-trauma exposure. With the exception of the journalism elective that she now owes her job to, her degree is comprised entirely of graduate-level psychology courses after all, but she doesn't need a degree to know that Barry's predisposition to intense sleep disturbances is correlated to the distressing incidents of his childhood, and more recently, his adulthood.
During the first few months he lived with them, his condition was the worst it had ever been. Iris can't recall how many times she woke to Barry's screams from across the hallway, or to the sound of her father bursting into his bedroom to try to calm him. All she could do was listen from afar, powerless to help her best friend, and also somewhat prohibited from doing so. Whenever she raced out of bed to be with Barry, her dad always told her, "Go back to sleep, baby. I've got it." Sometimes Joe didn't get it, requiring a nighttime visit to the emergency room.
It took a few trials with several different therapists, but there was definite improvement after he started meeting with Dr. Quigley weekly, every Wednesday after school, Iris remembers.
"She doesn't believe me, Iris," Barry confided to her after a few sessions with his new psychologist. "I can tell she doesn't believe me about my dad, but she's nicer than the others.
"Her eyes are like my mom's," he added sadly, and Iris had given him the tightest hug she could muster.
The nightmares didn't stop entirely, but they dwindled and were less severe to the extent that Joe allowed her to comfort Barry if he requested it. Most of the time, Iris was the one Barry called for anyway, or her bedroom door was the one he softly knocked on, especially during thunderstorms.
Gradually, Barry recovered enough to no longer need regular assistance from a doctor. At this point, the two of them entered high school, and any of Barry's residual fear was being channeled into his studies and hobbies. Thus surfaced his profound interest in supernatural phenomena that sometimes defied scientific explanation. There began his curiosity in forensic analysis. Here was the origin of his thorough collection of stories and potential evidence that might account for what happened the night his mother was dead, that might exonerate his father from Iron Heights.
Iris can count three incidences of nightmares since Barry stopped seeing his therapist. She's not sure if there are more, given that until now, she and Barry haven't shared a roof since they turned eighteen, but she's aware of only these three.
She knows of one during their first semester of undergrad. Barry had paused in the middle of a phone call with her detailing how his initial round of midterm exams had gone. She could feel that something was bothering him.
"What is it, Bear?" she had probed patiently. "Are you worried you didn't do so well?"
"Nothing…it's silly," he had insisted.
"I already know it's not," she swore.
She heard him sigh over the line, conceding: "I saw him in my sleep last night."
She didn't need any additional details to recognize who he was talking about.
"Are you alright?" she had whispered into her phone. "Do you want me to take a train and come visit this weekend?"
"No, no. I'm okay, Iris," he had reassured her. "It just hasn't happened in a long time."
"Anything specific that might have prompted it?" she inquired sympathetically.
"Probably the stress of the semester catching up to me. And the fact that I might have failed my physics exam on electrostatics," he chuckled. But she knew he was trying to lighten the mood so she wouldn't worry.
Iris went to see him that weekend anyway, she and a tray of his favorite chocolate-chip cookies.
She learned of the second incident thanks to Patty cornering her at the precinct last year, pleading with her to discuss Barry over coffee. Iris had agreed out of concern for Barry, though she immediately regretted the decision to the moment she and Patty were settled at Jitters with their mugs.
"I know that Barry is practically your brother," Patty had opened the conversation with.
If not for the steaming chai latte in her hands, Iris would have stood up and left Patty right then and there, but she did her best to maintain composure.
"I understand that your loyalty is obviously to him, and not me-" (that drove Iris to take a sudden deep interest in her mug) "-but I was hoping that you would think I'm good for him, so you'd want to help me figure him out."
It wasn't that Iris ever had a problem with Patty. In fact, she shouldn't have had a problem with her. Her own father admired her determination and drive, and Joe didn't readily give his respect to any coworker let alone deem them worthy of being his partner. She even had to admit that since the disaster of the singularity, Barry's unabashedly happy smile hadn't appeared until he began dating Patty. She didn't like to admit that, for some strange, churning reason that she couldn't quite pinpoint at the time (how obvious it seems in hindsight that it was because of feelings for him), but it was true: Patty was good for him, more than Iris believed she could be.
Instantly, she had thought of Eobard when Patty let slip that Barry had been waking up from bad dreams. When she confronted Barry about it later though, she learned these nightmares were…different. She wasn't proud of the way her heart sank when she realized how much Barry cared for Patty, but now she accepts she had coveted that kind of love from him without knowing it at the time.
The third incident, she's a current witness to.
And what she finds alarming is that Barry isn't calling for her help like the eleven-year-old boy who used to.
She pushes the covers off to switch on the lamp settled atop her nightstand. It was time to get to the bottom of what was going on with him, time to learn why he kept waking in the middle of night, shaking violently.
When it first happened, she was simply too sleepy to realize what was ensuing, but when it became a recurring incident, she couldn't help serious worry. It was always the same episode: she would wake to him quivering next to her, he would take a few deep breaths to steady himself, he would stand to walk to the bathroom, she would hear the door closing and the faucet running, she would feel the bed dip when he climbed back in beside her.
He would also pull her close to his chest before drifting back to sleep. When she would open her eyes in the morning, it was always to his pleasantly cheerful face, as though nothing out-of-the-ordinary or worth mentioning had occurred during the night.
Admittedly, she hadn't probed him about it because she was waiting for him to reveal that he was having nightmares only to be disappointed every night his arms wrapped around her yet again while she pretended to be asleep.
She isn't going to pretend this time.
The bathroom door swings open and Barry steps out before halting at the sight of her sitting up in bed, awake, alert, awaiting him.
"Iris," he remarks, noticeably taken aback. "Did I wake you?"
"It's fine," she replies, watching him carefully before the words come out of her mouth: "It wouldn't be the first time."
Barry stares, momentarily agape. She can practically see the wheels turning in his head, knows he's contemplating how he's going to disguise this, how he's going to put on his best performance to assure her nothing is wrong.
Sure enough, his astonishment becomes a tight-lipped smile that doesn't meet his eyes.
"Everything's alright, Iris," he starts. His tone is gentle, but it still sounds like a recital, one he's rehearsed, one she's heard too many times. "I'm sorry I woke you-"
"Barry," she interrupts, not able to bear another second of his exhibit. "Not this again."
He has enough shame to at least glance down uneasily, fidgeting with his fingers, though he persists.
"You need to sleep, Iris," he says quietly to the floor. "You have to get up in a few hours for work, and then later we have the museum grand opening-"
"Barry," she warns again, more firmly, refusing to be coerced, no matter how genuine he was about her needing rest, no matter what might account for this display, no matter the excuse for shutting her out this time.
"Iris," he beseeches, still unable to meet her eyes.
She's surprised at her own austerity, given that he's likely dealing with something grave, but she knows when she has to be strict with Barry.
"You cannot keep things like this from me," she declares, figuring it's best to just come out with it explicitly. She draws a sharp intake of breath before continuing: "Not if you love me."
That prompts him to finally meet her eyes, which she's stunned to see are brimming with tears.
"I do love you, Iris," he murmurs, the tears falling now. "More than anything. That's why this is so hard."
She's torn between heartbreak at his shattered expression and resolve to resume her interrogation. More than any of those however, she's conscious of an unnerving apprehension creeping over her after considering his words and the way he's quietly weeping. The stillness of the room, the distance between where she sits in bed to where he stands across from it, the shadow the dull lamp casts over his face only contributes to the unsettling eeriness, and to the impression deep in Iris's bones that something isn't quite right.
After what seems like an eternity to her (she wonders what it must seem like for Barry), she opens her mouth to speak.
"You still have to tell me," she states, simply but determinedly.
To her surprise, he doesn't object further and nods, outwardly accepting defeat.
He swallows. "Tomorrow."
She raises her brows questioningly.
"I'll tell you everything tomorrow, Iris. I promise. I just-can we please have this last night?" The corners of his eyes crinkle with his plea. "Before everything changes."
What to make of such a somber request, Iris has no idea, but she concurs, for him, in spite of her growing sense of uneasiness.
"Tomorrow," she agrees, before planning further: "After the museum opening?"
He appears tense, but nods slowly. She moves to switch the lamp off and leans back against the pillows, turning onto her shoulder to face him. Barry remains hesitant, evidently unsure of what to do next, until she motions for him to get into bed beside her. He complies, carefully settling onto the mattress, supine at first, before deciding to twist his body in her direction.
They lay eye-to-eye with Iris conscious of every heave of his chest, every blink of his lashes. The familiarity of their positions, of the setting, of the context reminds her of so many nights before, years ago, when she would gaze at him and he at her until they weren't sure who fell asleep first. She's particularly struck by the recollection of the first night her father let her tend to her eleven-year-old best friend, the first time she was free to hold him while he sobbed into her shoulder.
"Can I-can I still hold you?" Barry's subdued voice inquires after a lengthy silence, shaking her from the memory. "Or are you too upset with me?"
Instead of speaking, Iris reaches for him.