"We won't give up on you, okay, that is not what we do. There is a way through this, for all of us."

He was dreaming of Iris. Iris serving coffee at her old job, wearing that Jitters shirt that somehow looked better on her than it did on the other baristas, though they all wore the same one. Iris typing and typing at her computer late at night, keeping the world updated on the adventures of the Flash, wide awake at the thought of his latest success. Iris fanning away the smoke from the stove with a dishtowel at the apartment as her attempt at Thanksgiving turkey was foiled. Iris laughing, Iris flopping down on the couch, Iris paralyzed with indecision at the Frozens aisle in the grocery store.

Savitar had spent the remaining 24 hours before his deadline running through Central City, trying to beat away the nerves making his muscles throb. He was terrified of disappearing, he hated the wait. All that running had taken its toll by the end of the day, and he'd collapsed in his room—cell—whatever, back at S.T.A.R. Labs. The Hammond Cuff was still cold and whirring around his wrist, and he held one arm underneath his chest as he fell asleep, trying to let the feel of it there calm him. He'd been so tired, he hadn't even changed clothes.

At first he was certain he wouldn't be sleeping. It was pathetic. One minute he was the God of Speed, so far from being Barry Allen that Fastest Man Alive just didn't cover it anymore. Brimming with power. And then the next, he was afraid of the dark, in the home of the team that had shunned him in the first place.

Lying there, staring at the ceiling, he had remembered Iris' words of comfort.

There is a way through this. There is a way through this.

Of course, repeating your not-dead not-fiancee's last real spoken sentence to you in the middle of the night would lead to pretty dreams.

Soon she'd be Iris West-Allen. But she wouldn't be his. Unfair simply didn't do it justice.

When he woke up, everything hurt. His scars always hurt in the morning, but today they seemed particularly agitated. His jacket was hot and he considered shedding it—his suit had an inbuilt cooling system. He really missed that suit. His throat was sore; he was thirsty.

Wait.

Savitar sat bolt upright in the bed.

He was awake. It was morning. He was thirsty.

He flashed up the stairs, down the corridors, straight to the Cortex. He didn't know what made his least favorite room in the building the place he chose to stop—maybe he needed to make sure he wasn't still dreaming. Only the sight of other breathing individuals could convince him. Luckily, three such individuals were waiting for him there, and none of them were Iris West. Definitely not dreaming, then.

Barry, Cisco, and Caitlin met him in the Cortex. Cisco raised one fist halfway into the air.

"Look who survived the night, guys," Ramon announced.

Barry was smiling, but it didn't reach his eyes. "Nice work, Cisco."

"Thank you, Flash." Cisco drew the three words out, making sure everyone heard them, giddy with pride. He glanced to his right. "Caitlin helped."

"Caitlin helped," Caitlin agreed sweetly, gingerly accepting a fist bump.

Savitar didn't join their reverie. It was as if 2024 was happening all over again. He flexed his fingers, inhaled as deeply as he could. He was alive. The paradox hadn't reached him.

Then, for the first time, a glimmer of gratitude tried to make an appearance, somewhere buried behind his eyes and below his chest. They had been true to their word. After everything he'd done, they saved him. The only reason he was standing here now, in this lab that, yes, still smelled like a burger joint and clean laundry, was because of the people trading triumphant grins two feet from him.

He had never thought being thirsty would ever feel this good.

Savitar exhaled, letting it soak through him, eyes moving from the Hammond Cuff to Barry Allen. "...Thank you," he murmured.

Barry nodded, just once. Ever the hero. "I told you we could do it."

"And by we, he totally means us." Cisco jabbed a thumb between himself and Caitlin.

Savitar turned to repeat the phrase to the two scientists, a little reluctantly considering the smirk Cisco was wearing, but something stopped him. Just past Barry's shoulder, he saw the security feed on the monitor. The glimmer of gratitude died out and he lifted a finger to shake at the screen, slowly, as if his muscles hurt.

"You've been keeping tabs on me."

The grins slipped away.

"Can you blame us?" Barry asked, before anyone could defend themselves. Cisco pointed at him, nodding.

Savitar nodded. "Yes," he hissed, "I can." His arm swung back to his side, no longer pointing. And even though the old bitterness was back, swirling in his stomach, he let his words clunk out, as if he couldn't really care either way. "You said you wanted to help me. But all the while you're just sitting up here babysitting, making sure I don't step out of line."

Cisco scoffed as thickly as was humanly possible. "I'm sorry, I thought the total lack of a dude named H.R. around here would've been reason enough to keep an eye on you. And you're welcome, by the way."

Savitar opened his mouth to retort, but like always, Barry Allen was louder.

"Look, it's not that big of a deal, okay?" Barry's hands were in his pockets; he lifted a shoulder. "It's just an extra precaution. If we wanted to lock you up for real, we could've done that already. You've gotta start trusting us more."

Savitar snorted. "Can you blame me?" That thank you tasted like acid now.

Caitlin broke the short, tense silence that followed. "It's not just an extra precaution for us." She turned her own monitor, and not just Savitar, but the other two men in the room swiveled to see it.

Displayed on Caitlin's screen was a record of Savitar's current weight, mass, and general atom count. She had been tracking his actual existence, and the timer stuck at 0:00:00 told him it had been that way all night long. Savitar honed in on the timer, trying to process this information—Snow had taken it upon herself to actually read any warning signs that the Cuff might be failing, even as he slept. Had it malfunctioned, her indicators would've given them a chance at fixing the problem before the paradox hit.

Apparently this was news to her buddies.

Cisco's chair rolled nearer to the screen. "You're even tracking cells," he realized, impressed.

"Is this what you've been putting together all week?" Barry demanded, fist against chin.

Caitlin nodded. "I thought it could come in handy." Almost as if she were approaching wildlife, she turned ever so sightly to meet Savitar's gaze.

The corners of her mouth were further pressed than usual, even in smiling. Her hands were neatly, casually laid in her lap. Caitlin was feeling pretty good about herself, and her steady posture told him she was waiting for a reaction.

Savitar dipped his head to her, suddenly unable to look at her straight on. He refused to say thank you again, fool him once. But to his surprise—a rare feeling—she mimicked his duck. It was such a familiar gesture between the two of them, it was as if part of his heart hadn't been beating since 2024, and she'd just given it a jumpstart. A thank-you without audio, across the room. Something Barry and Caitlin did often, something Savitar recalled doing with her but had never actually done. For a moment he wondered if he'd imagined it, it felt so good.

A jumpstart. He still had a heartbeat. Suddenly faced with his new life, Savitar felt as if he were looking down a very dark tunnel with no guarantee there wasn't a dead end.

He posed the question to Barry for the second time. "How's this gonna work?" He raised his eyebrows to Cisco, then Caitlin. "Should I get a job somewhere, carry my own weight? I won't exactly make sense over at the CCPD. Think of what the chief would do if there were two Allens to screw up." Barry did not look amused, so Savitar dropped the examples and asked point-blank, "What am I supposed to do now?"

Barry waited a moment before responding. "Iris and I were talking about that last night," he said, which did not make his doppelganger feel at all reassured. It just as if Mom and Dad had been discussing what on earth they were going to do with Junior. He turned to Cisco. "We need to find out if there's an Earth missing its own Barry Allen."

Caitlin's earliest memory of a really scientific idea was a kind of portable copy machine. At eleven years old, she'd walked right up to the teacher at the end of class and told her all about this remote she'd imagined that could copy any one place, right down to the tiniest details. She'd fantasized replicating a whole aquarium, just so she could take her time reading each fish's description, no other kids on their field trips around to interrupt her. She could have copied a grocery store and eaten all her favorite things, she could've copied the perfect forever-home.

That was how she saw the other Earths in the were copies, zapped by the remote her 5th grade self had dreamed up. But they were also coloring pages, in a way—they could all have the same outline, but the details, once colored by different pairs of hands, would make each picture independent of the others. The details on the other Earths were never the same as the ones on their own.

Barry was off on a mission, Kid Flash at his side. Nothing too dangerous; a robbery down at the jeweler's by the waterfront. Caitlin watched Cisco hooking his Vibe goggles up to the laptop, scanning and scanning the multiverses. She knew he was exhausted—one too many all-nighters for the sake of a former enemy—and her fondness for her friend grew even deeper, watching him put his all into doing the right thing, despite what he'd suffered for Savitar. Even sleep-deprived and grieving, Cisco was still one of the team's most prominent heroes.

Sometimes he would grace her with a commentary, as they sat there working.

"Ooh—nuh uh. This Barry's a cop, like an actual cop. In line for a promotion, that's dope."

"Look at this one's hair, Caitlin!"

"Aw, got one married to Patty. Still a forensic scientist, though. Nice tux."

"Heyyy, CEO of S.T.A.R. Labs, what! That's my boy!"

"No way. This Barry found a cure for Ebola. This essay is unbelievable, where did he come up with the tech for this stuff? Caitlin, read this."

Caitlin did lean over a few times to study these different Barrys. They may be leading vastly contrasting lives, but the kind green eyes and helpful grin was always the same. She couldn't help smiling back, just a little, at a few of the happy little photos. After about an hour of research without any luck, Iris, Wally, and Joe had joined them, bringing tidings of great java from Jitters. Caitlin noticed that there was more than one Mocha Flash in the bunch, not anyone's usual, and a pang of homesickness for H.R. stabbed her again.

"This is way too many Barry Allens," Joe finally announced, following another 45 minutes of searching. They all made noises of assent, but no one tore away from the monitors.

"Can you look up other Wallys with this thing?" Wally demanded, grinning. "Or...Joes? Or Jesses?"

Cisco glanced at him dubiously out of the tops of his eyes. "Down, boy."

"You know what I'm realizing?" Iris said, dabbing the coffee from her upper lip with a napkin, beaming at the screen. "All of these different versions of him—I mean, they might not be the Flash, but...they've all dedicated their lives to doing good. To helping people somehow."

The warmth Caitlin felt there, surrounded by her friends, laughing and talking over various interpretations of their favorite speedster, grew at Iris' words. She offered the other woman a small shrug. "That's what he does."

"Hold up." Cisco interrupted them, rubbing his yes. "Look at this." He pointed to the screen, underlining sentences as he read aloud. "Earth-66. This is a news article from March 14th, 1989."

Joe squinted, peering over Cisco's shoulder. "'Nora Allen dies in childbirth'..."

"Oh my god," Iris murmured behind a hand, staring at the words as if she were reading a different language.

Caitlin hadn't known Barry's mother, but she could tell from Joe and Iris' expressions that what they were looking at was shaking them. She knew the feeling. Even if you were completely aware that what happened on another Earth was a separate event from your own, it still felt personal. Like watching Zoom stab Killer Frost with her own ice dagger. Caitlin had nightmares regularly of meeting the same fate.

"Henry tried to save her," Joe was summarizing in a hushed tone. He shadowed his eyes with a hand, though the light in the room and from the screen was set for optimal reading conditions.

"'Beloved local doctor Henry Allen lost a promising family future in last night's tragic accident,'" Iris read. "At approximately 10:55 PM, Nora Allen began to show signs of...'" She scanned the rest silently, and Caitlin wondered if she were imagining being in that room with Barry's distraught father and dying mother. "He couldn't save Barry either."

Caitlin felt her stomach flip over. They had found what they'd been looking for. It was an ugly result, but they had found it. She scrolled the article down with a finger, almost illogically afraid to touch the screen, as if she were touching the alternate Henry's memories, soiling them. "According to this, this Earth's Barry was stillborn."

Wally exhaled with his mouth in an O, folding his arms behind his head. "That's it, right? This is the Earth where we dump Savitar?" He sounded fragile, like glass, gazing at the photo of Nora Allen's grave. Iris gave him a cutting look; no doubt she figured he was being insensitive.

"That's sweet, Wally." Savitar had joined them. "Don't tell me you're not gonna miss me?"

Caitlin let the others turn to stare first this time. When she did look back at the time remnant, he was fixed on the screen the way they had all been. The difference was that he didn't seem to mind what he was seeing. His face was completely neutral.

Wally was leaning slightly away from the former speed god, right hand gripping the next until his knuckles turned white. It was the only thing that could betray the way his heart must have been slamming against his chest. Caitlin bit the inside of her cheek, giving him a doctor's once-over. She knew from treating Wally's post-battle wounds, from quiet confidence in the early morning hours when he came to exercise his broken, superhuman-healing leg, that Wally was suffering from slight trauma where Savitar was concerned. Being injured by a man with the countenance of his mentor, his big brother, being tricked and trapped in the Speed Force by a face he should've been able to trust, was not something a 22-year-old could just walk off.

"Earth-66, Hot Pocket," Cisco greeted Savitar passively. "Home sweet home."

It was cold in the pipeline that evening as Caitlin made her rounds through the metahuman prison, serving each their preferred supper. She was even considering donning a jacket if the Cortex turned out to be this chilly. When she had been Killer Frost, she had hardly felt the cold, but Caitlin Snow welcomed the discomfort. It meant she was still in control, still herself.

Heading back upstairs with her cart of Big Belly Burger wrappers and empty takeout boxes, Caitlin was surprised when she turned a corner and nearly rammed the cart into a strolling Savitar.

Savitar's hands moved at a blur, stilling the other end of the cart before it could collide with him. He gave her an impatient look, very similar to the one her father used to give when she interrupted him while he was on the phone.

"What are you doing down here?" Caitlin tried to be polite, tried to keep the suspicion from her voice. It didn't work. Satisfyingly enough, she found she didn't care.

"Releasing all your metahuman prisoners and taking over your base," Savitar replied casually, words crystallized with sarcasm. "Vive la resistance."

He tilted his head at her, almost smiling. It would not have been a friendly, teasing smile. His hunched shoulders and tightened grip on the cart announced constant anger.

Caitlin didn't feel like repeating her question. She just stood there, holding the cart, practicing standing her ground against that marred face. When Barry got this way, agitated with her for intoning that he shouldn't take so many risks out on the field, it was best to remain silent because she knew he got the message, he just needed quiet to let its logic sink in. Too much quiet made Barry Allen feel guilty; he almost always followed up any sarcasm or exasperation with apologetic explanations.

She was more than a little stunned when Savitar responded the same way.

"Contrary to popular belief, I don't need to run every time I want a change of scenery," he told her defensively, straightening. "I took a walk. Considering there's over forty security cameras hidden inside the rafters down here, I figured that would be okay with my babysitters upstairs."

Well, almost the same way. Barry didn't explain with so much mouth.

"I guess I was wrong." Savitar conceded, tone clearly conveying that he felt he should've expected her disapproval, and had started walking back toward the exit. "If you need me, I'll be in my nursery."

Caitlin watched him leave, watched Barry's left shoulder swing a little more than the right as the speedster strolled away, listened to him favoring his right leg. Everything about him physically was recognizable. She wondered if he knew at all how similar he still was to the man whose life he'd tried so hard to ruin. She wondered if it would make him even angrier to find out...or if he did know, and wanted someone to see it without curling their lip. She had felt the same way for a while when Cisco and Barry had returned from Earth-2, afraid she'd become Killer Frost at every angle. Couldn't they just see her? She was Caitlin, their Caitlin.

For a moment, remembering that directionless wave that had washed over her when her friends looked at her, too nervous to notice her hair wasn't white and her lips weren't blue, Caitlin understood Savitar. Just for a second. Watching him turn the corner, out of sight, he didn't look quite so frightening in that heartbeat. He looked like Barry—and if there was one thing Caitlin knew, it was that Barry was not to feel alone if she was in the building. It was terrible for his health.

She left the cart where it was and hurried in her closed-toe doctor's shoes—much better for running than heels—around the corner, catching up to him in the most dignified way possible. It was only slightly humiliating that even when he was walking, both Barry and Savitar were much faster than she was, super speed or not.

"Is the cerebellum inhibitor giving you any trouble?" When she didn't know what to say, science always had her back.

Savitar did not turn around and did not slow his pace. For all she knew, he had been aware she was behind him from the moment she left the cart. "Nope. Works great."

Clipped words said, don't talk to me, mortal. Caitlin had lived with Harry for a year or so. It didn't faze her.

"Listen," Caitlin began, trying to pretend it was just Barry, she was talking to Barry, and Barry was always ready to listen to her when he was down. "I know it's not easy, coming back here after everything that's happened." Even if, admittedly, the majority of it is your own fault. "Living on a different Earth isn't the ideal solution, but...it is the best option. Anything else would involve way too many hurdles to jump—for you, and for the rest of us."

Savitar stopped walking, and she ran into his back. He turned around and she narrowly avoided collision with his black-clad shoulder, too. "What do you want?" he demanded, syllables drenched in irritation.

Caitlin sized him up. She couldn't see much Barry in him anymore, suddenly. Cold settled in her chest—her fallback feeling when something was not going the way it was supposed to. Like this conversation. She was so accustomed to Barry responding with equal heat, reaching for her hand to help him back to his feet. Standing there while his face and his body bore down on her—with very little enthusiasm—was not exactly proof of things functioning properly.

Finally she clicked out, "I just—wanted to see if there was anything I—"

Savitar's scoff was wet and antagonized. He rolled his eyes, his neck, his whole head. He held up the arm wearing the Hammond Cuff. "You're gonna weld this thing to my wrist, throw me in some cheap copy of Central City, and close the breach to make sure I stay put." He raised his eyebrows. "But I guess that kind of fits, I mean, I'm still just a disposable Barry Allen, right?" He put up a palm and walked backward, away from her. "Sorry—not Barry Allen. Toss the duplicate Flash into a duplicate world. All your problems are solved. So no, there's nothing you can do, Doctor Snow."

Caitlin's own eyebrows puckered to combat his elevated ones. "We are trying to give you a life. Which is more than you deserve."

It was the standard masculine habit. The angrier he got, the closer he seemed to get physically to the person he was angry with, as if he had to prove he was wider and taller than his opponent. That he could breathe faster. One minute he had been eager to make her rush to keep up with his strides, the next he was inches from her face, and she could see the scars winding above his left eyebrow and giving up on his forehead.

"I didn't deserve to be thrown away from the beginning."

Caitlin didn't break her gaze. Thrown away. She knew what Barry had told them, she knew that the future Team Flash hadn't wanted the last time remnant. She knew what Savitar believed of them, but she couldn't believe it. It couldn't be true. It just wasn't them. Wasn't the present team proving that? That they were willing to help him? And this Team Flash was dealing with a remnant that had killed their friend and tried to destroy them all. There was just no future in which she could see herself and her family here turning their back on anyone, and certainly not someone who was at least half of Barry Allen.

"We saved your life," Caitlin reminded him icily, and he leaned his head back, exasperated. She went on, determined to make him see that they were no longer against him. "We could have stopped there, but instead we're working together, for you, figuring out how to give you the best chance possible." She let the ice drop out of her voice, trying to find even a spark of her best friend in that single green iris. "Don't you want that chance?"

Savitar slid his hands into the pockets of his jeans, silent. He seemed to be lost in thought, eyes on her but not focusing. Like he was searching for something, weighing everything.

Then she saw it. The way his mouth twitched. He pulled a hand free to run it through his hair. It was Barry again, giving in. It made her shoulders relax, suddenly all the tension in her body was gone, because she no longer felt she was standing in front of a stranger blocking out her words. He really was someone she knew, so far beneath the rugged, stinging surface, afraid to access that version. But he was tapping into it now, and it looked good on him.

"Okay," he whispered, looking at the far wall, nodding over and over to himself. He said it again, a little more feeling in the word. "Okay." He let out a breath, pinching the bridge of his nose. His bravado was gone. "Say it works," he conceded, more loudly this time. "It works, I go through. What kind of life am I supposed to have? When I can do this—"

He lifted a hand to her, vibrating it so that it was blurred and sputtering. Caitlin eyed it, knowing the damage it could do.

"How does my speed," Savitar continued, "apply to that Earth? Am I supposed to be the Flash again?" The way he said the name, Caitlin would have thought donning the red and yellow was impossible for him.

Caitlin bit her lip. "We'll figure it out."

"Will we?" Savitar grunted.

Caitlin nodded hard, firmly. "Together. We'll be behind you, we will make sure that you're in good hands before we close the breach."

He shook his head, wagging it back and forth, back and forth, slowly, deliberately. "How?"

Caitlin opened her mouth to respond, but the answer just didn't come. They couldn't pull the right life for him out of thin air. Would he be the Flash? Would he find the right job, the right home, have friends? How was he going to explain his scars, his eye, his general disgust with the world around him? Worst of all, would he do the right thing? Left alone to his devices, would he become just another Zoom, terrorizing another Earth? He might not return to heroism. He might just fall back into being the villain of the story. Barry Allen could be both, he was proof of it. Without people that loved him, this was what he became. Savitar didn't have the luxury of growing up on Earth-66; he'd be dropped into it, physically 27, without knowing a soul that could steer him in the right direction. They didn't even have an assurance that he would gravitate toward the light, once they didn't all live in the same place.

Suddenly, she remembered something she'd said to Barry, her Barry, when he had lost his father. "When this happened to me, you were the one who kept me in check."

Kept me in check.

That was what they had always been to one another, a shoulder, a push in the right direction, someone who understood, perfectly safe if they had each other.

That was what Savitar needed.

In a split second, she was reminded of Cisco, glued to his monitor, doing the right thing no matter what it cost him.

Caitlin felt the words rush out of her the moment it hit her. "I'll go with you."

(I want to say that I really, really appreciate the reviews I've gotten, I wouldn't feel like writing this without them. Please keep telling me your thoughts, I read every one of them! Next chapter coming soon. Let's GET CAITLIN IN EARTH-66, y'all. Isn't this taking forever? Thanks again! -Doverstar)