-Barry's POV-

The museum was very well decorated. I had been here a few times, to drag Elizabeth from her archives when she'd been down there for hours on end, but it looked different now. Waiters walking around with trays of champagne, lights decorating the walls, visitors dressed in their best formals…Elizabeth and her team had done well. "Alright," I tell Jay and Caitlin as we all look around at our surroundings. "Keep an eye out for the Turtle…never thought I'd say that." The three of us go our separate ways, I walking into what looked like a dance floor. I make my way over to the bar, where Elizabeth had said she'd meet me. The man behind the counter hands me a drink as I thank him. As I turn my head, starting to look around the room, I see Elizabeth walking into the room. The breath immediately leaves my body as I see how beautiful she is; a black dress with intricate gold beading on top hugging her frame, her hair pulled back into a simple, yet elegant bun. My mind quickly flashes back to the dream of her being thrown off the building by Zoom—

"You have a really weird look on your face," she says as she comes up to me. "Do I look weird? I had to get ready in my office and I-"

"No, no." I say quickly. "Um, you look like a dream."

She smiles at me widely, reaching up to brush her fingertips along the lapel of my jacket. "You look very handsome." I lean down slightly, her heels making her taller than usual, and kiss her. "I can't wait for you to see this painting…"

"What painting?" I mumble at her. She smirks at me, like she had caught me in a lie. "Oh, the painting. Uh, yeah. Me too…yeah." I reach down and take her hand in mine, starting to lead her to the dancing. "How about we talk first?" I can practically feel the confused look she was surely giving me.

-Elizabeth's POV-

"Okay," I say. A second later, Barry stops in the middle of the dance floor, turning me to face him and placing a hand on the small of my back. I place my other wrist over his shoulder, my grip tightening on the small clutch I was carrying. As uncomfortable as it made me, security for the museum had suggested staff carry some sort of firearm during the event in case the newest villain, The Turtle, decided to show up. I wasn't against guns…I had just never used one before. Barry and I start to sway to the music playing softly from the speakers "I can't figure you out, Barry Allen…"

"That is because I work hard to hide who I really am," he says, giving me a serious look.

"You don't have to hide with me," I tell him, giving his hand a small squeeze.

"I just have to really trust someone," Barry says, still looking at me almost grimly. I was getting nervous…what was he trying to tell me? "If they're gonna know the truth."

"Do you?" I ask, almost timidly.

Barry finally smiles at me, breaking whatever tension I was starting to feel. "I trust you, Elizabeth."

"I trust you too," I tell him.

Barry takes a deep breath before talking again. "Elizabeth, um-" He takes another deep breath. "After I was struck by lightning, when I woke up—" He stops, looking at something over my head.

"Barry, you were saying?" I say, hoping he'll continue.

"I have to go," he says suddenly, looking back at me. "I'm sorry."

"What?" I say as he turns and all but runs away. "What? Barry!" As he disappears from my sight, I look around, at a loss. I was used to him cutting dates short or cancelling all together…but this was new. As I turn as look behind me, I see a man with a green hood lifting the painting off the wall. Without even thinking about it, I grab the gun out of my clutch and aim it at the guy. "Hey! Stop right there!" Everyone around me moves away, looking to where I was aiming the gun. The guy just turns to face me, still holding the painting. He looks at me for a moment, then suddenly disappears, reappearing in short bursts. Then, the gun was gone from my hands. I look around, trying to find the guy. When I turn around again, I see him standing on the staircase, pointing the gun directly at me. My hands immediately go in the air. "How are you that fast?"

I hear the whooshing of air before I see the red blur appear at the top of the staircase. "Oh, no," a voice says. I turn to see the Flash standing at the top of the staircase. "He is much slower."

I had never actually seen the Flash in person. I stare at him longing I probably should when there was a gun aimed at me; but, there was something familiar about him. Like I said, I had never seen him before and his face was blurry…but something struck me as familiar with him. "What's this, a trap?" The Turtle says. I turn to look at him as he talks to the Flash. "I'm slow, not stupid."

Everything that happens next…literally happens in a blur. I hear gunshots, the room goes dark, an arm around my waist pulling me, then I'm lying on the floor with the chandelier crashing to the ground mere inches from my feet. When I start to come to, finally coming to my senses, the room is deserted and I'm alone. What the hell just happened?

After giving a statement to the police, Joe's partner Patty to be exact, I was finally able to go home. I never could find Barry and he wasn't answering his phone. At home, out of that constricting gown and into some comfy clothes, I make myself a cup of tea, chewing something over in my mind. Where had Barry went? Why wasn't he answering my calls now? What had happened back at the museum? Was it the Flash that had pushed me out of the way? Why was he so familiar? Where had he gone? As I sit down on the couch, I pull out my laptop and start looking at different stories about the Flash. For some reason, one of the theory making parts of my brain whispers to me: maybe Barry is the Flash? I immediately shake it off. It was crazy…however—

My thoughts are interrupted though by a knock at the door. I shut the laptop, pushing it to the side. When I peer through the peephole, I see Barry. Opening the door, I'm sure I looked pissed off. "I was right," he says, almost timidly. "I thought that you would look mad and you do."

I shake my head at him as I walk away from the door. "What happened?" I ask him as I cross my arms over my chest. I hear the click of the door shutting behind me.

"Um…" Barry says, walking behind me. "I don't really have a good excuse."

"Nothing?" I say, turning on him. "Nothing? I mean…come on, Barry. Anything is better than nothing." He just lets out a sigh, shoving his hands into his pockets, taking the verbal rocks I was throwing at him. "Holy crap, I've been a really, really cool girlfriend. Most girls don't have the self-esteem to handle to the…'Plans? Oh, no plans. That's cool.' Or the waking up in the middle of the night screaming again? Fine. Whatever…actually not whatever I'm really worried about that. But then the really, really fancy plans? Which was awesome that you joined me at that but then you ditched me right before I almost died. And I almost did! I had to use a gun and the Flash showed up and I'm still not sure what happened…"

"Well, I- when you put it that way…" Barry was smiling, like he could flip this into a lighter situation than it really was.

"I'm actually really upset," I say, squashing that notion.

The smile disappears from him face quickly. "Yeah," he says, hanging his head. "I know."

"Look," I say, taking a deep breath and step closer to him. "We've been having fun and fun is really, so great. But I'm moving past fun to the close part." Barry takes a step closer to me as I cross my arms over my chest. "That's what I want, okay? That's where I'm going. I really want you to go there with me…but you need to decide and let me know if that's what you want…and fast." I don't wait for him to say anything before I walk out of the room. I was on the verge of tears and I didn't want him to see them. Hiding in the darkness of my kitchen, I hear him leave the apartment.

A little while later, I'm sitting on the couch again, this time drowning my sorrows in a glass of whiskey. My heart gives a little jump when I hear a knock at the door. "Barry?" I say as I practically skip over to it. I hated fighting with Barry. "Hey-" I start to say as I open the door but then stop when I see it's not Barry, but the man from the museum. I try to push the door back shut, but he easily stops it, pushing it back open and me to the ground. I crawl over the end table where I had a taser in the drawer. As I reaching in, he grabs me, knocking the table over in the process. I try to fight against him but then stop when I hear the cocking of a gun and feel the cold metal press against my neck. "What do you want from me?" I ask as he roughly wraps an arm around my neck.

"The thing most precious to the Flash," he says. I try to turn my head to look at him…what did he mean? "You." I don't have time to voice my protests before the butt of the gun comes down on my forehead, knocking me out.

When I start to come to, I hear a ticking noise. Once I'm fully awake, I recognize it as someone typing on a type-writer. I look around, seeing that I'm surrounded by random objects. Then, I realize that I'm tied down to a chair. In vain, I try to move then to see if the ties will break. I try to find the source of the typing and see a man sitting a desk across the room from me. "What do you want with me?" I ask him again.

"For you to stop moving," he says before finally looking at me. "Forever."

My veins run cold at the tone of his voice. Despite that, I decide to keep him talking. "What do you get out of killing me?"

"Oh, I'm not going to kill you." He says. "That's much too fast and messy. I like to take things nice and slow."

Yet again, I'm scared out of my mind…but keep talking. "You don't have to hurt me to try to prove a point."

"This isn't about hurting you." He says, as if that should be obvious to me. "This is about hurting someone who values you."

I was confused by what he meant. "Who?" I say, trying to think of who he meant. "Barry?" He was the only person I could think of.

"No." he says, looking at me slightly confused. "The Flash."

"What does he have to do with this?" I ask quickly. Now I was scared and confused.

The man stands up and takes a couple steps towards me. "I saw the way he saved you-"

"Yes, that's what he does. He's a hero." I say without even thinking about it. "He saves people who need saving."

"It's a waste of time, saving people." The man says, as if my statement ha personally offended him. "They take everything for granted."

He finally turns back and goes to his desk. I look away from him, at all the random objects piled in the room. "So you take what matters most to them…"

"My wife, Rosalyn, took me for granted." He lets out a humorless chuckle. "Ironically she was an archivist…like you." I turn my head slowly to look back at him. "She wanted to leave me, the thing I valued most-"

"So that's what this is about?" I ask. "You're hurt because your wife left you?"

A crazed look creeps into his eyes. "I couldn't let that happen." He comes to a stop in front of something large, covered by a green cloth. He looks back at me suddenly. "So I made her mine. Forever." He turns quickly and pulls the cover off the object. I hold back a scream as he reveals the woman in the case, mummified…dead. My gaze is only pulled away from her by him moving, grabbing whatever he had been typing on off the type-writer. He walks over to another object, pulling the cover off of it to reveal an empty case identical to the one his wife was in. "I do hope I spelled your name right." As he slides the card into the holder, I can see my name typed on it: Dr. Elizabeth Cambridge. I shut my eye tightly, trying to hold back another scream.

When I open my eyes, I see him walking over towards me. On a table next to me, he starts preparing a concoction, what I'm sure is the embalming fluid. I start struggling against my restraints again as he moves towards me with an i.v. needle, a liquid dripping out of it. Before he can push it into my arm, a bang in the distance grabs his attention. A second later, a red blur speeds into the room. A second after that, the Turtle is halfway across the room, the Flash falling to the ground. I watch him as he turns over, looks up at the Turtle and then speeds out of the room. The Turtle looks at the door for a second before walking back towards me. "I guess he doesn't care about you as much as I thought." I stare at the door in horror…where did the Flash go? My attention is diverted by the Turtle picking up a knife as he nears me.

"No, no, please," I beg as he comes towards me. My pleas don't deter him though. I continue to beg, struggling against my restraints. Another bang distracts us, the Flash returning. Seconds later, the Turtle is flying across the room, crashing into the wall, and falling to the ground unconscious. I look back at the Flash as he bends over panting. He then comes over to me, grabbing the knife off the ground.

"Elizabeth, it's alright," he says, still breathing hard as he cuts the ties around my ankles. When he cuts the ones off my arms, I spring out of the chair, throwing my arms around his neck. I'm not going to die, I'm not going to die, I think to myself as his arms come around my waist, still telling me I was going to be okay.

"Thank you, thank you so much," I all but sob into his shoulder. As I hold onto him…that familiar cord I had had at the museum stirs in me again. I hug him for a second longer before pulling back to look at him. I didn't even think about it, looking him in the face, but when I do, I'm met with what I think are familiar eyes before I pass out from shock. "Barry?"

As I come to for the second time that night, I realize this time I'm in a hospital. I look around, the lights were off except for the monitors displaying my vitals. Barry, was dozing in a chair right next to my bed, holding my hand. I turn my hand over in his, the slight action waking him up. "Hey," I say, sounding somewhat hoarse.

"Hey," Barry says, sitting up straighter. "How are you feeling?"

"Tired," I say, also attempting to move up in the bed. When I go to move, I notice the bandages on my wrists. "Sore." Barry agrees with me as he moves the chair to face me. "How did you know I was here?"

"Uh, CCPD," Barry says. "Joe and Patty arrived at the scene after the Flash stopped the Turtle. Joe called me." I nod my head. I look closely at him, staring directly at his eyes. The Flash's eyes were still haunting me…and they looked exactly like Barry's. "Do you need any-"

"Are you the Flash?" I blurt the question out before I can think it through.

Barry stares at me, his face shocked. "What?"