Chapter 2 - Waking Up and Discoveries
Everything's dark. But I can hear something….it sounds like people arguing...but there's something else. There's music...Where am I and why do I what sounds like Lady Gaga. And then I remember. The lighting. The explosion. I hit my head. Barry was struck by lighting. Holy Shit I've got to wake up. I finally get my eyes to open only to see a face not two inches from my own. I jerk at the sudden proximity and scream. Well what would you do if you just wake up and see a strange face right in front of you. The face pulls back yelling at someone. My eyes dart around the room and I see Barry lying unconscious next to me. My eyes go back to the man with what looks like licorice in his hand.
"Where am I!?" I demand of the man as I jerk into a sitting position. That was not the right thing to do apparently as pain erupted in my head. Then a pretty brunette comes into my field of vision and shines a penlight in my eye. She mutters that my pupils are extremely dilated. Then I hear movement from the bed next to me. I turn to see Barry sitting straight up looking just as confused as I am. The man with the licorice jumps and presses what I'm assuming is an intercom telling Dr Wells to come to the Cortex. "Dr Wells!?" I think. I move to get up. I manage to stand up and reach out a hand to help Barry. The lady starts hovering over us, poking and prodding, checking our vitals. "Where are we?" I demand again. "Relax guys, you're at STAR Labs." "S-STAR Labs!?" I ask confused "But didn't that blow up…" I was struggling to remember anything my head hurt so much. "Who are you?" Barry asked. "I'm Cisco Ramon. She's Caitlin uh Doctor Snow" the man introduced. The woman introduced as Caitlin holds up two plastic containers. "I need you both to urinate in this" she says. "Wow. Blunt much." I think. The man, Cisco, take the containers muttering "not right now." Me and Barry share a look, I offer him a smirk which probably looked like more of a lopsided grin. I turn my attention back to the other two people. "Will someone please tell me what's going on!" I demand again. "You got thrown into a wall and Barry here got struck by lightning" Cisco said, almost sounding...excited about it. Barry looked confused and turned around, looking at a mirror. "Lightning gave me abs?" He questioned. I snorted. Out of all the things, you notice that you now have abs. Not that I was complaining...
"You're lucky" I remarked, "all it gave me was a killer headache" "Your muscles should be atrophied, but instead they're in a chronic and unexplained state of cellular regeneration." Caitlin explained. Cisco grabbed as both, forcing us to sit on the bed, "You were in a coma." He said. "Again with the bluntness" I thought. Barry and I shared a look. "For how long?" Barry asked. "Nine months." Said another voice, I looked over to see none other than Harrison Wells, in a wheelchair, looking at us. "Welcome back, Mister Allen. Dr Holmes. We have a lot to discuss."
*Later on*
To say waking up from a nine month coma to come face to face with your hero is a shock would be an understatement. But here we were, in the middle of STAR Labs talking with THE Harrison Wells.
Me and Barry walked on either side of Dr Wells' chair as we went down a hall. "It's hard to believe I'm here. I've always wanted to meet you face to face." Barry explained excitedly. I gotta admit it was pretty surreal. "Yeah? Well, you certainly went to great length to do it. STAR Labs has not been operational since FEMA categorized us as a class 4 hazardous location many were injured in the explosion. Myself amongst them." Dr Wells explained.
"What happened that night?" I questioned as we looked over a barrier at the remains of the accelerator. "Nine months ago, the particle accelerator went online, exactly as planned. For forty-five minutes I had achieved my life's dream and then, then there was an anomaly. The electron volts became unmeasurable, the ring under us popped, energy from that detonation was thrown into the sky, and that, in turn seeded a storm-cloud…" Dr Wells trailed off. "That created the lightning bolt that struck me" Barry finished. "And the energy that was released is what pushed me into a wall" I added. "That's right." Dr Wells said as we walked back into what they called the Cortex. "That still doesn't explain how we ended up here though" I wondered. "The hospital where you were was undergoing unexplainable power outages every time Barry was going into cardiac arrest, which was, actually a misdiagnosis, because you see, you weren't flat-lining, your heartbeat was moving too fast for the EKG to register it. Now, I'm not the most popular person in town these days but, Detective West and his daughter gave me permission to bring you both here, where we were able to stabilize you." I thought about this. "Ok, that makes sense for him," I nodded to Barry, "but what about me? I didn't get hit. Why would you bring me here." "We suspected some of the lightning travelled from the explosion into you since you were in the same room." Cisco explained but I had a feeling they weren't telling me everything about my "condition". Barry didn't seem to notice. "So Joe knew about us being here?" He questioned.
"Yes him and his daughter…" "Iris" Barry finished for Dr Wells. "Yes, Iris. She visited here quite often." "She talks a lot." Caitlin commented. "Also, she's hot." Cisco added. I rolled my eyes at that. Suddenly Barry said we needed to leave. "No, you can't." Caitlin burst out. "No, no, no, Caitlin's right, now that you're awake; we need to do more tests. You're both still going through changes, there's so much that we don't know." Dr Wells urged. I agreed with them. "We don't know how this affected us, we shouldn't just go running-" my thoughts were cut off by Barry hurriedly dragging me out of STAR Labs with him hastily saying that we both felt fine. "Thanks for saving our lives" I called. I heard Caitlin mutter a "Really?" Barry then backtracked, still keeping me in tow. He stuck his head back in the door only to ask if we could keep the sweatshirts they had dressed us in. Dr Wells waved us off and suddenly I was being dragged back down the streets of Central City into the bright lights after just waking up from a coma.
It was very disorientating and it made my head hurt even more. But Barry didn't seem to notice as we stepped into Jitters. I hung back as Iris ran and hugged him, she even waved at me. I managed a weak smile but God my head hurt. It was like all my senses were dialed to 11. My breathing got more laboured and the air around me got...lighter I looked over and saw a mug on the table float… I immediately shut my eyes, trying to keep myself from panicking. "Something's definitely wrong…" I heard the cup land back on the table. I looked around to see If anyone had noticed. I saw Barry looking like he'd just seen a ghost. He came over to me and gripped my shoulders. "Are you ok?" He questioned. I nodded. It was just my head and I'm just imagining things. I rubbed my eyes trying to calm down. "Let's go see Joe" Barry said. I agreed. So we headed to the precinct.
"You scared the hell out of us kids" Joe said as he clapped Barry on the back. Then another cop walked by "that was quite a nap you took there Baby Face. And you still look twelve, and you're still short." He joked. He wasn't wrong, I was barely 5'2", coming up to Barry's chest on a good day. And I had to admit Barry did have a boyish face. Joe grabbed both of our shoulders "you guys look ok. Are you really?" He asked, concerned. In truth my head felt like it was going to explode, and the incident at the coffee shop had rattled me. But I didn't want Joe to worry so I just flashed him a smile and nodded.
Then a policewoman came up to Joe "Detective West, we've got a 5-50 in progress at Gold City Bank. Two dead. Storm's really picking up on the south side. Grab your rain gear." Joe looked at us apologizing "I'm sorry, guys, I gotta run." "Do you need our help?" Barry asked. "No, No, you both take it easy. There'll be plenty for you guys to do once you've settled in." He waved us off. "Let's go partner." He called to none other than Eddie Thawne. Eddie walked over "Hey, Allen. Holmes. Glad to see you both still alive." "Thanks, Eddie." Barry said, awkwardly. Eddie turned to Iris, "Hey." "Detective, you should go, my dad doesn't like to be kept waiting." Iris brushed him off. "Glad you're back." Eddie nodded at us. We turned to watch him go when something caught my eye. It was a glass box with a picture of Chyre, Joe's partner in it. The top said "In loving memory." "The night of the explosion, Clyde Martin shot and killed Chyre. Martin and his brother died trying to escape their plane crash." Iris explained. An Inspector interrupted us, "Iris! Got a minute?" He turned to us. "Hey Barry. Quinn. Good to see you both." Barry nodded. Iris left with the Inspector. I felt a rush of air and suddenly Barry was on the other side of me. I noticed two officers struggling to keep an accused handled. "Screw you!" He yelled as they dragged him away. Iris came back over, "You ok?" She asked Barry who looked rather pale and confused. "I-I'm fine. I I just need some air." He stuttered. He took my hand, leading me with him.
We made it out the back door into an alley. I was doubled over in pain from my head and I could see Barry clutching his hand which appeared to be….vibrating. I groaned, I could feel some sort of power building up inside me, and then just like at the coffee shop the air around me got lighter only this time instead of a mug floating, I was floating. I looked down to see myself floating about 10 ft off the ground. I gasped looking down at Barry who was looking up at me with utter amazement. And then suddenly Barry was on the other side of the alley. I leaned forward as a test and literally flew to the other side where he was. I did this a few more times, getting the hang of it. "Holy shit! I'm flying!" I was screaming in my head. I looked down to see Barry speed through a car window. When he got his footing I saw him look both ways down the super long alley. There was a laundry truck at the end. Perfect landing ground. "Hey!" I yelled down, "race ya!" I winked. And we were off laughing at the utter absurdity. I mean we had powers. Actual powers. I felt the wind whip my hair as I pushed myself to go faster, but I could see Barry a few feet ahead of me as we neared the truck. I dipped down to get lower and BAM! We landed in a heap laughing like idiots. The guy stares at us like we were nuts "that was awesome!" Barry explained. And I had to agree as we high fived and climbed out of the poor man's truck. "We gotta go back to STAR Labs" I said. He nodded, picking me up and we were off.
A/N: How was that guys! As always Reviews, Comments, Love, etc is ALWAYS welcome! Hope you guys are liking this story!
