Author's Note: This is just a one-shot of my own take on Season 2 Episode 1. In my opinion, the plot for this story was seriously wasted, and I felt as though CW could've taken this chance to take Season 2 to an even darker path than it turned out. And for the sake of logic, instead of the borderline obsessive and forced WestAllen ship, I'm going to emphasise more focus on the more sensible SnowBarry ship
Please excuse me if you find the story terrible, this is my first fan-fiction story ever, and I'm typing this quickly since I'm going to fly over to the UK tonight
If this story gets enough love and support, I might consider making this a series when I have spare time
Warning: if you hate edgy shit, please stop reading, because there are indications of survivor's guilt and suicidal thoughts
Also, spoiler alert for those who haven't watched the first 2 seasons of The Flash. And I don't own the characters, thank CW and DC
Barry's POV:
Ronnie Raymond. I didn't know him for long, but had we met under different circumstances, I'm almost certain that we would be best friends
6 months. 6 months since Eddie took his own life to save mine, 6 months since Ronnie saved Central City from the brink of destruction, and 6 months since the day I took away two of the most valuable people from two of the most important people in my life: Iris and Caitlin. And it was all my fault
I don't know what I did in the future to piss off Wells, but Eddie and Ronnie never deserved to die, let alone in the way they did. Many people died that day, I'm no hero, what good can "the fastest man alive" do when he can't even save the people closest to him? little, if not nothing, because I wasn't fast enough
They aren't going to forgive me, and I don't expect them to, so I changed my number, rented out a place on the edge of Central City, and did my best to avoid everybody: Joe, Iris, Caitlin, Cisco, Professor Stein, Oliver, Felicity, basically everybody who knows I'm the Flash besides Dad. I didn't want to cause them more harm than I knew I could've, and to be sure that Cisco won't be able to track me down using the S.T.A.R. Labs satellite, I stopped running whenever I'm anywhere near the apartment to blend in with the crowd, making me "traceless"
Caitlin's face when she realised Ronnie was gone broke me emotionally, an influx of emotions flooded my mind, and I couldn't bear to watch her cry any longer, the moment she let go of me was when I made the decision to stay as far away from them as possible and ran. Sometimes I wished Wells, or rather, Thawne pretending to be Dr Wells, killed me off there and then, this is a fate worse than death, and I deserve every agonising second of it. What kind of a person puts the people they love into situations where nobody ever wins?
I hate having to lie to Dad about the past 6 months, if anything, I find it difficult to even talk to Dad at all, Joe has to know I would come looking for him, but for some strange reason, he didn't
"What's wrong, slugger?", everything. Being The Flash is arguably the best and worst thing to happen to me, with the incredible powers I possess comes the responsibility to do the right thing and to use my powers to help others, yet I can't help but feel like I abused this power
"The singularity, I can't stop thinking about it", I couldn't lie to Dad any longer, tears began to form and my hand started to shake, "I wasn't fast enough"
In a Game Of Thrones type of world, I deserve a lot worse than the Walk of Atonement. My eyes gave in and I was unable to form any words to elaborate, although thankfully, I didn't need to
"Barry, you did what you could, you can't blame yourself for being unable to save everybody", as anyone else would tell me, but the truth is that I didn't live up to my title as "the fastest man alive", I allowed Wells to get the better of me and forced Eddie into the position to kill himself
Something inside of me finally snapped, "Dad, the truth is that 6 months ago, Eddie killed himself to save me from the man in the yellow suit, I was struggling with my feelings for Iris, and because I didn't deal with them earlier, I made him feel undervalued, to the point where he thought me and Iris belonged together. That might be true in an alternate universe? but certainly not in this one, I didn't just take away the love of Iris' life, but I took Caitlin's as well, I don't deserve forgiveness", it hurt me to say it, but there was no denying it, although I certainly won't use that to make me look like a victim in this situation
And before he could respond, I stood up, looked him in the eye and told him that I needed some time by myself. Dad merely nodded and watched me as I hung up the phone and walked away
I finally told him, what does Dad think of me now? would he tell Joe? did I just push away the last person in my life that made me what I am today? why was I so stupid? do I need to move to Coast City to start over? I needed to go back to the apartment for a nap
As my mind flooded with God-knows-how-many thoughts, today was about to take another turn for the worst, my biggest mistake was trying to unlock the door to the apartment, because the door flew open and there she was, Caitlin's face was red with emotion, her eyes were bloodshot and she certainly wasn't happy
"WHERE THE FUCK HAVE YOU BEEN FOR 6 MONTHS?!", a sentence I wasn't expecting Caitlin to say, let alone scream at the top of her lungs, I knew I would have to confront one of them eventually, but I didn't know she would care for my well-being, especially after what I did to her
"WE'VE BEEN LOOKING EVERYWHERE FOR YOU!", she couldn't resist hitting me in the chest as she yelled, I was surprised, shocked, confused yet touched all at the same time, and what's worse is that I didn't know what to tell her, so I hugged her and she began sobbing hysterically onto my shoulder
Why would Caitlin Snow still care about Barry Allen after failing to save Ronnie Raymond? that was the million dollar question, and before the neighbours could come out to see where the commotion was coming from, I made my way inside and locked the door behind me, as all of this was happening, Caitlin was still holding onto me, she wouldn't let me go, not even for a second