(A/N) In this story, Joe isn't Iris's dad, but they do still have the same last name, so sorry for any confusion! There's actually a reason for keeping that.

While she waited, Iris called Gina and broke the news. She got reassurances (reluctant, insincere, but she'd take it) that she could take the rest of her shift off. Because robbed at gunpoint.

A set of cops had just come in and started questioning her when Caitlin walked in between them. "Excuse me, gentlemen, I need to speak to Iris."

One of the cops looked irritated. "Can it wait?"

She turned a cold look on him. "No."

They blanched and nodded, and Caitlin pulled Iris out to a hallway off the waiting room. "He'll be fine," Caitlin said right away. "The bullet hit his vest. Now, the force of it cracked a rib, and there's going to be some deep bruising, but that's all the damage that caused."

"O - okay?"

"The blow to the head is a concern, but not a huge one. We're monitoring him closely for signs of further trauma, but his vitals are good and his brain waves are strong, and it's my considered medical opinion that he's going to be just fine. Okay?" She put her hand on Iris's shoulder. "Iris, he's going to be fine."

"Okay," she said again, faintly, wondering why she was getting all this intimate medical knowledge of a man she barely knew.

"Now, I know how much you must want to see him, so we're going right now, okay?"

"Okay . . . "

She was shepherded through the sterile halls, into a room filled with beeping machines and chemical smells and Eddie, in a hospital bed.

Caitlin smiled at her. "He's still out, but let him hear your voice. It'll be good for both of you."

There was something really strange about that, but Iris couldn't put her finger on what. Before she could ask Caitlin anything more, a nurse pulled her aside with some kind of very important question.

Iris turned back to the bed. She bit her lip, staring down at Eddie's handsome face, the cannula in his nose, the IV drip pasted on the back of his hand. He didn't look so tall, lying down like this. Of course, people didn't. "Uh. Hey there."

Out in the hall, a babble of voices broke out. It sounded like a pack of people had broken past the security.

Iris looked around. A older white couple were charging down the hall, followed closely by a black man their age and a gawky black boy around twenty. For only four people, they were making enough noise for forty.

She found herself pushed off to one side, as they poured in, all talking at once. The black man gave her a quick, thoughtful look in passing, but everyone else was involved in asking questions that they didn't wait for answers on.

The white man pulled Caitlin aside. "Dr Henry Thawne. I'm Eddie's dad. What's his condition?"

Caitlin, clearly more used to distraught families, gave them the same rundown she'd given Iris, with a lot more interruptions and outburst from Eddie's family.

"How did this happen?" Henry asked her.

"He was trying to stop a robbery - "

"Bad-ass!" the boy whooped.

Eddie's mom said, "Wally, honey, please, not right now!" She covered her face and mumbled, "This is exactly what I was afraid of - "

"But Iris saved his life," Caitlin cut in.

"Iris?"

As one, they all turned to stare at her. She felt her shoulders try to dig their way through the window.

"What does she mean, you saved his life?"

"He - he got shot, but it hit his vest, and then he hit his head on the door jamb and, um - "

"Where exactly do you factor in?" the black man asked.

When Iris didn't answer, Caitlin supplied, "She threw something at the robbers to keep them from shooting him when he was unconscious."

"What did you throw?" Wally cut in, his eyes bright.

"A bottle of hazelnut syrup."

He went off in gales of laughter. "That's the freaking best! Yes!"

"Wally," the black man, muttered, rolling his eyes, but looking at Iris as if he were a little impressed.

Henry's mouth hung open. "You. Threw a bottle of syrup? At an armed robber."

"Hazelnut," Iris said.

"You could have been killed," Eddie's mom breathed.

Iris shrugged a little. Even now, it felt like something someone else had done.

"Why would you do that?"

Caitlin gave her a very strange look. "Why wouldn't a woman save her fiance's life, if she had the chance?"

Fiance?

"Wait," Iris said feebly. "What?"

"Fiance?" his mom said at the same time. "Eddie's getting married? Since when?"

"I - uh - "

A babble of voices rose.

"Why wouldn't he tell us?"

"Does Barry know?"

"Dad, why are you asking me?"

"Joe, Barry would have said something - "

"Would he?"

"Calm down, Henry! Barry would have told us. You know that."

"Wait," Iris said, unheard over the din.

"Oh, honey!" His mom turned toward her. "Oh, sweetheart, this must be awful for you right now."

"I actually need to -"

The older woman took her hands. "I'm so sorry it's like this, but under the circumstances - " Her eyes filled with tears, and she suddenly wrapped her arms around Iris and hugged her close. "Oh, I'm so happy to meet you!"

All Iris could do was hug her back, her eyes wide.

When she finally extricated herself, Iris got a fistful of Caitlin's white coat and dragged her out the door and away to a corner. "Why did you say that? That I was his fiancee?"

"I overheard you," Caitlin said. She twisted the ring on her left hand. "You said you were going to marry him."

Iris's mouth fell open. "I'm not engaged to him, I've barely spoken to him."

"What?" Caitlin slapped her hands over her mouth. "You're not?"

"No!"

"Oh my god. This is bad. This is so bad."

"I know! His family thinks we're getting married and I barely just learned his last name!" Thawne, she thought. Eddie Thawne. It was nice.

Caitlin looked sick to her stomach. "Never mind that, I've just violated HIPAA six ways from Sunday, oh, fuck - They would be well within their rights to sue me. I could lose my license! Why would you say that?" she demanded.

"I never did!"

"But at Jitters - you said you were going to marry him!"

It took a moment, and then she realized that Caitlin was talking about her stupid, babbling moment right after the Flash had disappeared with Eddie. "Oh my god! I was talking to myself."

Caitlin's eyes narrowed. "Well, next time you're talking to yourself, tell yourself you're single and end the conversation."

Iris' mind had already leapfrogged away. "His mom," she said despairingly. "She held me so tight, and she was crying - " And it had felt so good to be enfolded like that, to be treated as if she belonged, as if she were part of a family. Even if it was fake.

"Everything okay?"

They both jumped. Joe West was standing a few feet away.

(That was his last name; West. Wally's too. There had been a little round of "West? You have the same last name? Oh how funny! Is it possibly you're related?" and Iris had said, "I don't really know my dad's family," and it had gotten dropped.)

Eventually, with proper introductions, she'd worked out the relationships in the room - Henry and Nora were Eddie's parents, Joe and his son Wally were close family friends.

And then there was the elusive Barry. Who was - what, exactly?

"Oh, fine," Caitlin said smoothly. "We're fine. Do you need me?"

"Henry's got some questions for you."

"Of course," Caitlin said again. She glanced at Iris, shook her head, and walked off toward Eddie's hospital room.

Joe turned to Iris. "How are you doing, honey? Hanging in there?"

For a moment, tears rose up in her throat and choked her. The sound of his voice, the gentle endearment - it was like her father was back, standing in front of her. Not thin and sick, like he had been at the end, but healthy and strong.

She wondered if they really were related.

Joe patted her shoulder. "Tough day, I know. Tough day for all of us. But Eddie's a strong kid. Always has been. He'll pull through."

She nodded, still unable to speak.

"Don't think I'm being callous, but this could be the best thing for everybody right now."

"Wh - what do you mean?"

"You know how long it's been since Eddie talked to his parents. It's been rough, and on top of that, ever since Barry's accident in the summer, he's started drifting away, keeping secrets - " He shook his head. "I feel like I've been watching the Thawne family fall apart. But an engagement - a new member of the family - a wedding - those are the kinds of things that pull people back together."

Iris's stomach tied itself into knots. Fuck, she thought. If I tell them I lied, I will legit be imploding an entire family.

"Anyway. I know we just met, but we're here for you." He rolled his eyes a little. "All the loud trampling pack of us."

"Thank you," she managed. "That means a lot. It really does."

Joe's eyes flicked over her shoulder. "Boys," he said, and Iris turned to find the two cops that Caitlin had dragged her away from earlier.

"Can we please take your statement now?" one of them said peevishly, and she thought she heard Joe laugh to himself.

"Sure," she said. "Yeah. Great. Fine." She gave Joe a little smile, and he smiled back at her.

As he went back down the hall to Eddie's room, he answered his phone. "Bare? Where the hell have you been? We're at the hospital."

She went with the cops, promising herself that she was going home after she talked to them. She desperately needed a nap. Or a drink. Or a really good cry.

She'd had all three by that night, and she sat on her couch, staring blankly at the twinkle of lights on her tree. Well, it was certainly the most unique Christmas she'd ever had, she thought.

She wrote a brief post about the Flash's rescue this morning. If Eddie hadn't been involved, she would have been worried about her tone being too breathlessly fangirl. As it was, she just worried about doxxing herself by making it too obvious she'd been part of the situation. So far she didn't have a huge readership, but her dad's lessons about internet safety had sunk in at an early age.

After that, she tried to get some more work done for her blog, trawling social media for mentions of metahumans and weirdness, listening to the police scanner for awhile. But aside from her coffee-shop drama, the good guys and the villains seemed to have taken Christmas off.

She spent some time wondering if there were any Jewish metahumans. Muslim, maybe. Atheist. Then she realized she'd been staring at the Christmas lights again without thinking anything.

Eddie, she thought, and then, The Thawnes. Oh my god. The Thawnes, who had a son unconscious in the hospital and thought they'd met their future daughter-in-law today.

What was she going to do?

She tried to pinpoint the moment where it had all spun out of her control. She got annoyed at Caitlin all over again - how could she possibly have taken that stupid burbling mumble seriously?

But making sure she got to the hospital, making Eddie her priority on a day that had already been crazy, making sure Iris knew he was going to be okay -

If Eddie really had been her fiancé, Iris probably would have been nominating her for sainthood. The patron saint of steamrollers, maybe. But sainthood all the same.

She collapsed into her couch cushions and moaned.

The obnoxious thing about working the opening shift all the time was that Iris generally woke up by four in the morning whether she wanted to or not. She'd negotiated today off with Gina as part of working yesterday, and she pressed her face into the pillow and ordered all the exhaustion in her body to put her back to sleep.

Then she remembered the day before, and gave serious consideration to self-suffocation with her pillow.

Think, she ordered herself. Think! You need to figure out what to do.

Instead, she remembered Nora's arms around her.

Henry's smile.

Joe's hand on her shoulder.

Wally's clear delight in her syrup-related shenanigans.

Obviously she should confess. But it would get Caitlin in trouble, and then all those things would go away. She wouldn't blame the Thawnes, or the Wests. What kind of creepy girl pretended she was somebody's fiancée?

Around and around and around her mind went, until she reached out and grabbed her phone to distract herself.

A couple of texts shone on the screen. She blinked at it, trying to work out who would be texting her. If it was Gina, she was going to throw her phone out the window.

Then she remembered - Nora had insisted on getting her number at the hospital, and apparently everybody had it now.

She had sent a picture of Eddie with the caption "he has some color!" And a string of the old-fashioned kind of text hearts, as if she were one of those people who refused to learn about emojis.

Henry had sent, "Dear Iris, we're celebrating Christmas tomorrow and we'd like to have you with us. Thanks, Henry." As if he were sending an email.

Oh god, olds were so cute.

Then she read it again and thought, Shit, they're inviting me to Christmas.

Like she needed to feel like more of a fake.

Wally had deluged her with requests for her handle on various platforms. Most of her social media was dead as a doornail, placeholder accounts so she could go techno-snooping around Central City. Her Twitter was linked to her blog, so she didn't send that, but she found herself adding him on Snapchat. Hopefully he wasn't the kind of kid who posted incessant bathroom selfies and gym selfies. She thought Joe might have something to say about that.

Nothing from Joe, she noted, and told herself not to feel sad.

She stared at all the connections she suddenly had, connections she had no right to, and gulped.

Then she swiped her phone open and looked up visiting hours at the hospital. They started at six. She checked the time, calculated the bus schedules, and thought, If I get up right now and take my makeup bag with me, I can get there ten minutes before visiting hours start.

It was her day off, for cripes sake. She should go back to sleep.

At five-fifty-five (the nurse had said, "oh, just go on in"), Iris walked into Eddie's room. She stood for a moment, listening to the beeps and the wheezes and all the sounds of a hospital and of a person whose body wasn't working the way it should.

"Hi," she said softly.

Eddie, of course, didn't answer.

"I'm supposed to be at home, asleep," she informed him.

Again: no answer.

She sighed. "So, in case you missed it, your family thinks we're engaged. Which was a surprise to me too." She rubbed her tired eyes. "I don't know how it happened, really, and I don't know what to - I mean, I do. I should tell them the truth. I should. But they were so happy to meet me. They really love you, you know."

She sat down, fiddling with the edge of her sleeve.

"This is the weirdest first date I've ever been on," she said. "Probably you, too."

A machine beeped.

"So, I know your name now. Edward Thawne, AKA Eddie. And I'm Iris. I think you knew that. Probably. Did you ever really see me? People don't, you know. They look right through you even when you see them every day. But you're a cop. Observant, right? So I'm sure you must have noticed my name tag. I mean, at least once or twice."

Eddie kept his silence.

"Well, if you want my full name, I'm Iris Ann West. Which is weird, I know, my last name and your neighbor's name, identical like that. I don't know any of my dad's family at all. They never made any effort to meet us."

She wrapped a loose thread around her fingertip. "Iris Ann West," she said again. "Um. I grew up in Keystone, I moved to Central City a couple of years ago. I work too much at Jitters. But you knew that already. Uh - I have an apartment, and a car. Sometimes. Oh, and most of a journalism degree. And that's it, really. That's everything about me."

She started to tell him about her blog, but at the last minute closed her mouth. Nobody knew about her blog.

"Sad, huh? That all I have is things, and even those aren't very good."

She studied his face.

"Look, I kind of had to go by what I picked up, and that wasn't exactly comprehensive. So I know you're not talking to your family, but I don't know why. And I know it's not my business, but maybe you should try to work it out. Because, believe me, you're going to want to talk to them when they're gone. You're going to want that so much."

She rested her head in her hand. Her own fatigue dragged at her. Her tongue felt thick in her mouth as she told him, "Being alone - really, really alone - it's no fun. Take it from me."

Just outside Eddie's room, Joe eased back from the door. He rested his shoulder against the wall and let out a very small sigh.