"Stars they're shinning. Rhyming. Timing. Running out of time...I'm running out time!" Barry yelled out before falling to the floor of the cell. And then he laughed. A sound of pure joy escaping from his lips. Felicity couldn't help herself but smile at her friend's happiness as she stared at him through the computer screen in the cortex. She just wished she could hear that laugh for real.
"What about his drawings?" Felicity asked turning back to face the group. She realized that she wasn't the only one who had been watching Barry. "Do they mean anything?"
"Oh believe me, what ever he's drawing its just scribbles" Cisco said putting a tablet in Felicity's hands.
"This house is bitchin'?" She looked up confused.
"Yeah don't ask" Caitlyn said.
"Have you done tests on him? Caitlyn!" Oliver said loudly to Caitlyn who seemed to be spacing out.
"Sorry" she said jumping up.
"What about brain scans?" Oliver asked.
"All of it looked normal, healthy even" Caitlyn said. Then suddenly Barry yelled out again in pain, clutching his hands to his ears but with moments he was smiling again.
"You should do another brain scan, there may be something that you missed" Oliver said.
"Yeah I agree with the Mean Arrow over here" Cisco said and Oliver gave him a look. "It's been over a month since you took those initial tests and that was when he had enough sedative in him to knock out a person with his metabolism".
"A sedative shouldn't effect his brain scan though" Caitlyn said under her breath, almost rolling her eyes as Cisco knew almost nothing about modern medicine.
"Hey don't go all frosty on me" Cisco joked.
"I think we should go get Barry. There's got to be something you missed" Oliver interrupted.
"No let me do it" Cisco said pulling out a syringe from his pocket. "If we open that cell Barry will start running around this place and we'll never get him to stop. But I'll vibe right into his cell and get him from there". And then Cisco put up his right hand and a circling blue vortex opened up in front of them and he stepped through.
"Help me get him on the bed" Cisco said as he was trying to keep his unconscious friend from hitting the floor. But with barely any effort Oliver lifted the speedster's limp form over his shoulder.
"Well" Cisco said. "Don't try to show off too much" and then he watched as Oliver slowly lowered Barry gently on the bed.
"How long until he wakes up?" Felicity asked.
"Long enough for you to do whatever you need" Cisco said to Caitlyn.
"Ok" Caitlyn said after about an hour. She walked back in the Cortex and all heads looked up.
"And?" Felicity asked hopefully.
"Normal" Caitlyn said flat out. "Also he's awake".
"So that's just it?" Felicity asked. "He just stays like that, forever?" She felt like crying again. Barry Allen stuck in a padded cell for the rest of his life, drawing pretty circles on the walls. His smart mind and amazing powers gone to waste. Felicity couldn't handle it, she couldn't understand how Iris possibly could. No, Felicity thought. Iris probably felt a million times worse. He fiancé was insane and there wedding was supposed to be a month and a half from now. A wedding that won't happen unless they do something.
"I'm going to talk to him" Felicity said and without waiting for any objections she walked to the med bay.
Barry was already up and about, drawing shapes along the walls. Or at least he was trying to. He didn't have a marker this time, all he had was the fog his breath made when he blew on the glass windows.
"Barry" Felicity said, no reaction. She repeated and he turned around, his blank eyes staring at hers. He grinned. She couldn't help it and grinned back a sad smile.
"Hey".
"It's so bright" Barry said and she knew he was on to his nonsense way of speaking again. "Light, kite-"
"Sprite?" Felicity offered and this time there was a real smile, from both of them.
"He just seems a little tall" Barry then said.
"What?" She asked but then a sense of realization hit Felicity. He had said those words to her when she had been dating Ray.
"Barry" Felicity then said urgently. "I need you to listen to me" she had to try.
"Stars are gleaming".
"It's me, it's Felicity you're friend" she said slowly.
"I'm you're super friend" Barry sang out as if something clicked with the word.
"I didn't even knew you could sing, but yes friend. Really good friend. And I'm trying to help you, you need to wake up. Iris needs you and so does the rest of your Team. You're in Central City. Star Labs. And not in whatever that Speedforce place called hell" Felicity said.
"Hell?" Barry asked. But it took Felicity a moment to realize that he said it, not in the dazed voice she kept hearing from him, but in his voice. Barry's voice.
"She promised me I would be in Hell" Barry said. He had stopped drawing, and now looked rather confused. Then he dropped to the floor and leaned against the wall the same way Iris had, with his knees to his chest.
"She promised" Barry now began to cry, real tears poured down his face.
"Uh guys!" Felicity yelled to the Cortex and multiple pairs of feet came running. Cisco was the first to appear, eyeing the sobbing man on the floor.
"What did you do?" He asked. Over the past few weeks he'd seen Barry act all kinds of ways but his wasn't one of them.
"I don't know" Felicity answered. Iris ran forward and sat on the floor next to him.
"Barry?" She asked nervously reaching out a comforting hand to touch his shoulder, and for the first time in a month he jerked back, actually acknowledging a presence next to him. But then he began to shake, violently. He breathing got rapid and he was taking rapid gasps of air.
"He's having a panic attack!" Iris said not knowing what else to do but to wrap her arms around his shaking form.
"Barry. It's Iris".
"You can't just keep locking me in here!" Barry sobbed.
"What's he talking about?" Oliver asked. A lot of the phrases Barry said had been familiar and he could make out when they had taken place but this wasn't one of them.
"I think he's talking about the Speedforce" Felicity said.
"What do you mean?" Cisco asked
"Barry said that 'she was promised he wouldn't be in hell' and that's how this happened" she said gesturing to Barry still sobbing.
"Who's 'she'?" Oliver asked.
"His mother". Iris said, remembering that horrible night that she saw every time she went to sleep. The night Barry went into the Speedforce.
"What?" Oliver asked.
"Yeah, not to be insensitive or something but isn't Barry's mom, you know...dead?" Felicity asked.
"No it was the Speedforce version of- you know what, whatever its confusing. But when Barry sacrificed himself for the city the Speedforce promised he wasn't going to hell".
"Obviously they lied" Felicity said wondering what kinds of torture Barry was put through.
"But I think by using that line you were able to get through to him" Cisco said.
"Really? It looks like all I did was remind him of his suffering. At least before he was peaceful" Felicity said.
"Peaceful and trapped" Oliver said looking towards Barry who was still wrapped with Iris's arms around him, then he went limp.
"I think he fainted" Iris said.
"All that strain on his mind would do that" Caitlyn said.
"Do you think he'll be Barry when he wakes up?" Felicity asked.
"I don't know" Caitlyn answered honestly.