A/N: Wow! Amazing support there, thanks guys! Gonna try to get the next chapter sooner

Update 29/09: Chapter 2 is now edited, enjoy!

One week, one entire week, that's how long since Barry disappeared, vanished into thin air without leaving a trace. One entire week during which he was a prisoner somewhere with someone probably doing God knows what to him.

The police had been on it within the next 24 hours, putting every available resource on the case. The official story was that Barry was talking to Cisco when they walked passed the fire and had stopped to watch the Flash in action, only to notice something weird and decided to check it out. Of course, he just had to go play hero and get himself kidnapped. Obviously, no witness had been able to place Barry at the fire on the day he went missing, but, hey, who could blame them? They were either being rescued by The Flash or were too absorbed by what was happening all around them to notice one nondescript man wandering around with his friend. Or at least that's the version Joe sold to the cops at the station, everyone was now in battle mode, doing everything they could to find their missing CSI, but the situation kept on getting more and more frustrating with every passing day. For every new clue, there were 5 dead-ends and cold trails waiting for them.

The fire was arson, somebody definitely prepared all of this as some sort of trap. The police force couldn't find any reasons why anyone would set a trap for Barry or even assume he would be at the scene, so they just figured the kid was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Everyone at S.T.A.R labs knew better. The cameras and a witness spotted a blue van driving away quickly from the scene, except this van has been rented the morning of the fire under the false identity of a newly deceased person, a person who's been coincidently murder on the same day. CCPD managed to find the van, abandoned a few towns over and burned out of all evidences about the people who's been in there or where they left to.

Team Flash searched just as hard as the whole police force put together, probably harder, but they never seemed to be any closer to the answer, even after calling Team Arrow for some help. Felicity promised to search with every satellite and camera available, but Oliver was incredibly busy with his new position as Mayor and his now mostly-solo vigilante operation. Especially now that all the criminals in town were trying to take the empty throne left by Darhk's demise...

What really mattered for now was that everyone in the lab swore that there was no giving up until Barry was found and was safe and sound at home again.

***FLASHFLASHFLASH***

Two weeks since the day they lost track of Barry. It's been all over the news that the CSI, son of the woman murdered by the infamous Dr Wells, was missing. Relentlessness of fate. Or at least that how the Media was trying to sell it. A call line had been put into place for anyone, any witnesses, who had any sort of information. But, so far, nothing concrete had come out of it.

CCPD was working closely with cops of the surrounding cities, turning over every stone, looking in every nook and cranny. Even Oliver and Felicity had come into town to lend a hand to their friends and helped them during every waking minute they had. Nobody was happier to see them than Iris who'd been spending the last couple of days trying to convince her dad to rest. He had barely slept or eaten in the past two weeks and every time she, or anyone else for that matter, would confront him on that matter, his only answer was always close to ''When we find Barry.'', reflecting the emotional state of when they were at the hospital during Barry's nine month coma.

Joe finally gave in, accepting to rest a bit whilst Oliver revisited every place related to the Barry's disappearance.

''We'll find him, Joe.'' Said Oliver, not realizing he was just repeating the most heard sentence of Joe's life, a sentence that had become almost meaningless in the last few weeks.

Despite all of their effort, even Oliver and Felicity (two of the greatest detectives they knew) had no leads on their missing friend, but their presence did give a new energy to the occupants of the labs, a new hope.

***FLASHFLASHFLASH***

Cisco walked into the labs like he did every morning, coffees in hand to fuel the people at STAR Labs. He knew by now that Joe was always passing by at this time of the day to hear any news on the search before heading to the station.

It'd been a whole month since Barry had vanished from the face of the Earth. Where was he? No ransom was ever claimed, whoever did it wasn't after money and probably wasn't even after Barry, more likely they were after The Flash himself.

Cisco surprised himself a couple of days ago thinking that maybe, just maybe, it would be better if his friend was already dead instead of still suffering whatever he'd been enduring for so long now. The engineer felt disgusted with himself for that thought. No, Barry was still alive he had to be alive and they wouldn't let him down, their friend deserved way better.

Before Cisco even entered the lab, he could hear the sound of a very loud argument going on in there. He walked into a heated discussion between Joe and Oliver.

''Just like that! You're giving up. You don't even care about my son, he's still out there!''

''Detective, Barry means a lot to me too, but crime in Star City is way up since I've been gone, I need to get back.''

''It's Barry, it's MY son we're talking about. He's still missing!''

''I know, but we've already looked into every single lead we had and come up empty. We're not giving up, we'll keep our eyes-''

"And keyboards!'' added Felicity behind, trying to add some Felicity's humor to lessen the tension, failing miserably.

"-open. '' finished Oliver. ''If you find anything new, let us know and we'll be back.''

With that, Oliver started walking away, leaving a heartbroken Joe West even more broken and hopeless. First, Singh cut back in half the search party, unable to keep so much manpower in search of one person, no matter who it is...and now this. It felt like the whole world was giving up on ever finding Barry again. Joe didn't even care about people seeing the tears falling down his cheeks as the Green Arrow walked away with Felicity trailing behind.

For the first time in a month, the dark and cruel possibility that Barry will never be find slowly crept his way into Joe's mind. It felt like a dark hand going into his chest to crush his beating heart, there was no explaining the pain, the hopelessness.

***FLASHFLASHFLASH***

''You can't be serious? You're just giving up, you too!'' exclaimed Joe, feeling his anger rise alongside his despair. The two emotions that've been co-existing in his mind since everything had started.

''Joe, please, you need to understand, it's been almost 2 months now. I value Barry a lot more than you think, but I can't keep so much of the precinct 's resources on the active search without making it look like I'm doing a favor for a someone in the force.''

''Captain, this is Barry, we can't leave him to die. Please! '' The detective begged.

''Joe.'' Singh started carefully, not wanting to raise the possibility Barry might already be dead. ''We're not giving up, Smith and Johnson are still going to have the case and will keep searching, but so far every clue we found has led to a dead end. I promise that if they find anything new, I'll allow more manpower for the search. Until then, my hands are tied.''

''He's out there, we've got to find him, we've got to.'' Repeated Joe, like he hadn't hear a thing the captain had said to him, his brain tried to process the fact that with less people out there, their chances of finding is son were slowly diminishing.

''I'm sorry Joe, with the The Flash who has also disappeared, maybe he's been kidnapped too, the criminals started rising again and it only got a lot worse in the last month. We need as many resources as we can get to not lose Central City again at the hands of the criminals.''

Singh watched the broken man working hard on keeping his face up without breaking down. The poor man has been through too much in the last two years, without this. The captain could see Joe losing more of himself every day, starting to look more and more like a shell of his former self.

''You can get as much time off as you need to, Joe.'' He said gently.

Joe didn't say a word, getting up and walking out of the office.

***FLASHFLASHFLASH***

Caitlin was making her way into the empty lab when she was stopped by what sounded like crying coming out of the treadmill room. The second she turned around and looked into it, there it was, Iris West sitting on the treadmill, crying, sobbing, elbows on her knees, her face hidden in her hands. The scene on its own was heartbroking. Feeling her own heart clenched in her chest, Caitlin approached the other woman as slowly as she could. Hearing the footsteps, Iris rose her head to check the identity of the person who had entered the room, not even bothering to wipe off the tears cascading her face.

The doctor made her way to Iris' side, sitting next to her, not saying a word, knowing full well how useless empty promises and meaningless chitchat would be. She patiently waited for Iris to be ready to talk. The reporter wiped the tears on her cheek, but her respiration stayed quick and short.

''Deep breathes Iris, I'm here.''

Iris worked on doing what was asked of her, breathing in and out under the hand gently rubbing her back, until she had her emotions under enough control to speak.

''Singh gave up the search, he's classifying Barry's disappearance in the unsolved cases. It's over.''

After all that time, it shouldn't be that surprising, but it still somehow came as a bombshell, reality slapping Caitlin hard in the face. Barry vanished at the end of May and now there were closing in on September, summer had come and gone and they were no closer to find the missing speedster today than they were on that first week.

''Now Barry's only a file and a pile of boxes in storage.'' Iris added, between two sobs.

''Iris…I'm so sorry. We're not giving up here, we won't. You know that, right?'' Caitlin added, trying to comfort her friend, going against her gut feelings at the moment that the situation was hopeless and the captain might be right.

Iris tried speaking, but only ended up sobbing harder, her breath already getting sharper again, so she opted instead to just shake her head.

''No…He's gone, Caitlin…He's d-dead.''

''Iris…'' Caitlin was shocked to see Iris giving up on finding Barry alive. She didn't expect Iris of all people to be the first one of the gang to abandon all hope.

''I can feel it. It's been 3 months.'' Iris said.

What was Caitlin supposed to say? They were going to find him? He was going to be ok? Everything was going to be ok and return to normal? She was in no position to make such promises. Whoever took their friend was probably not keeping him in a 5 star hotel. Was he being tortured? Experimented on? If the responsible party didn't have all the information he needed out of Flash by now, one way or another, after three months, there would be no reason to keep Barry alive any more…

The doctor had been desperately clinging on to the last shred of hope, using the strength of the team to keep fighting. But, she wasn't sure she could keep it up on her own.

*Please Barry, come back to us, please.*

***FLASHFLASHFLASH***

Team Flash started to slowly fall apart in the following weeks. Iris barely even came to the lab anymore and to be fair to her, she didn't really leave her home any more either and while Joe still came by from time to time, but it was getting clearer every day that he wasn't exactly expecting to find his son alive any more.

Cisco and Caitlin still both came daily, but there weren't many leads to look into that hasn't already been explored in the last 4 months. Summer has gone and past, fall was starting to settle in as October grew closer. Felicity and Oliver came back a couple of weeks ago to look in the surrounding towns once more, but they couldn't find any new clues that would finally crack this case wide open. They eventually returned home, empty handed, once more, needing to look into a weird case that the SCPD couldn't quite comprehend. They had a ghost criminal entering and leaving locked houses without breaking or picking any doors or windows. Felicity suspected it might be Metahumans related, but Caitlin couldn't care less about it with Barry still missing.

From time to time, Caitlin would be surprised to see her co-worker hanging on to things that used to be Barry's, especially parts of the Flash suit.

Every time he would try to Vibe his best friend, Cisco would only end up seeing all sorts of random stuff about Barry from different parts of his life as Flash, but he just couldn't get anything that was connected to Barry's kidnapping or anything beyond that point. It used to freak him out that maybe, if he couldn't see anything, it meant Barry was gone, but it didn't stop him from hoping and looking for his friend.

But this time, this time was different. Caitlin could tell the second she entered into the cortex and saw Cisco sitting on the ground, the Flash suit lying next to him, the white symbol in Vibe's hands. He was looking totally lost in his thoughts. There was more pain and fear in his eyes than Caitlin has even seen, pushing her to sit down next to her friend who barely even looked up at her, bringing to the forefront of her mind the talk she had with Iris almost a whole month before.

''He's gone, Caitlin, he's gone and he's not coming back. I can't vibe him anymore.'' his voice almost emotionless, so detached, as he was talking. It sounded just as empty as the engineer was feeling right now.

''What do you mean you can't vibe anymore?'' Asked Caitlin cautiously. ''I thought you couldn't since …..'' *Barry disappeared* She didn't say.

''It's more than that. I tried vibing him earlier. I felt, nothing, I saw nothing.''

Caitlin frowned, unsure to understand what Cisco was talking about.

''I don't get it. You did make a connection, correct?''

''It's...it's hard to explain. Darkness, emptiness, cold. That was all . It felt like all my own energy was being sucked into obscurity. It felt like I couldn't breathe. I'venever felt like that before.''

He finally looked up, his eyes might be dry, but they reflected the pain of a man who just realized, accepted, he would never see his best friend again.

''Someone or something messed with my vibe before, but now there's just nothing to connect with...he's gone Caitlin.''

The scientist looked away as if some invisible force was clenching her own heart, trying to tug it out of her chest. No, no. It couldn't be. She didn't want to give up, she needed to be strong despite witnessing so many people letting go, one by one. But, there it was, the end of the bumpy road. Game over.

''I'm sorry, Barry.'' she whispered to herself so softly she had no idea if Cisco even heard it. In her soul she knew she wasn't strong to keep on searching on her own.

***FLASHFLASHFLASH***

Getting lost under a scorching sun wasn't exactly Dave's definition of fun, why did he even let his girlfriend convince him to participate in this stupid Star City annual rally in the first place? He tiredly dragged his feet in the hot sand, staying closely behind his partner as he was looking around for the next clue.

''Come on, babe, we're clearly not at the right place. I told you, the golden floor clue is not for the sand.''

''What else would it stand for?'' Answered her partner without look back at him.

''I don't know, but there's nobody here, Clara.''

''Look! '' She said, pointing toward the end of the beach, where the sand portion of the beach met grass and wooded area bust still remained by the coast, touching the water.

There was something on the sand, something long and dark that could've been a clue, but Dave only wished he hadn't watch that horror movie last night because he swore it looked like dead b…oh gosh, it was! ''Clara, wait!''

Clara saw it too, but instead of taking off in the opposite direction, she ran straight to it, her nurse instincts rushing in to take over. In an instant, she found herself kneeling next to the body on the ground, lying on his side, wearing a dark hoodie and messy dark blue jeans, the hood concealed any of his facial features. The second Clara took off the hood and she revealed the pale, skinny features of Barry Allen, she recognised him instantly as the missing boy in the news.

She pressed shaky fingers to the young man's throat to check for his heart beat. "He's still alive!" She screamed "Call 911!''

A/N: Don't be shy, leave a review!

And nope, it's not a search and rescue fic like What Makes Him Tick, but you just wait for it, there's a catch about Barry's reappearance.