A/N: I almost didn't post it here considering how nobody seems to read and/or like the story anymore since there wasn't a single comment for the last chapter. I don't know if anyone is gonna read this, if you do, hope you'll enjoy. Let me know if you want more.
Feeling that his strengths were suddenly leaving his still recuperating muscles, Barry gripped the main desk to stay upright. It wasn't right. Cisco couldn't be gone, Gypsy was mistaken. Because, if he was, what about the voices Barry had been hearing? What about the visions? The hero could feel it. It was his friend. Vibe was asking for help. And, what about this shadow that suddenly started appearing right after the incident? It couldn't be a coincidence; it had to be related to Cisco's disappearance. Yeah, the hero was missing and wounded, but nothing more; Barry needed to believe that.
"No, Cisco got transported into another dimension. The shadow took him. It was an accident. He needs help. He needs me. I have to find them, I-" the speedster rambled incomprehensible, unable to look up from the furniture that was keeping him upright.
"Dad?" Worriedly asked Nora, hesitantly walking closer to her father and stopping a few feet before reaching him, uncertain of her next action. "I'm sorry, I tried."
Advancing faster and without stopping, Iris passed right by her daughter, brushing her shoulder on the way, before joining her husband's side. "Honey, are you're okay?"
He wasn't, obviously, considering his words and how his whole being was starting to shake.
Thank you, mouthed Iris to Ralph when the stretching hero handed her a warm, black blanket.
Where the hell did that thing come from? Too shaky, in every sense of the word, to question the object's apparition, Barry gracefully accepted the additional heat on his shoulders and the two gentle pairs of hands that lowered him down on the chair. Allowing his friends to take control of the situation and take care of his crumbling and broken being, Barry closed his eyes and let his head fall into his waiting hands.
"You have to stop fighting Barry, it's not always up to you to save everyone," said Ralph, "you should take a break, Rookie. You really should take a break; we'll take care of the town for you."
Suppressing a sob, Barry nodded. What else was there to do? They were right; every member of his team was; he needed to stop fighting.
***FLASHFLASHFLASH***
"Are you sure you'll be okay?" Gently asked Iris with her hands on her husband's cheeks and her glance locked in his.
"I will be if you join me soon enough," answered back Barry, teasing and smiling through the pain while ignoring his distressed stomach struggling to deal with the ultimate realization that he genuinely failed at saving his best friend.
Moving a few inches closer, the hero managed to get close enough to share an intimate kiss with his soulmate.
"I won't be long, I promise," Iris assured after she broke contact and moved away, handing the interdimensional extrapolator over to the hero.
"See you later," he said as the young reporter walked a few steps back and gave to Barry all the space he would need to open a breach.
Maybe his team was right; maybe he needed to stop fighting his past and his guilt. Taking a break for a few days, or more, from all of this might be what he truly needed to move on from his hallucinations. For the moment, the plan was to take it easy at the loft and take it one step, one day, at the time and see where this was going to lead him. After one last glance back, Barry directed the device toward the central portion of the breach room and opened a portal.
Stepping outside of it, the hero found himself back in his home, and he instantly took a deep breath to try to clear his mind from everything that went wrong in his world during the last week or so. It was midday, and the soft rays of the sun were shining brightly inside the living room. It was just so peaceful. A gentle breeze was the only thing missing to make all of this even more calming. The man who used to protect Central City would've preferred not to be alone at the moment, but he would need to settle in on his own for now while his wife was taking care of something else before coming back.
Of course, the universe wasn't going to cooperate with the CSI. As soon as his worn up body, both physically and mentally, slumped on the comfortable brown sofa, a familiar shivered passed in his spine and the feeling of being observed washed his entire being. Before Barry had the chance to spin his head around to scan the room, Cisco's voice came back to haunt him, again.
"Barry, don't give up. Don't stop fighting," whispered the voice.
It was with his breathing getting caught in his throat that Barry swiftly twisted his neck around, strongly enough to hurt, to try and get a glimpse of his deceased friend who was standing right behind. Surprisingly, it wasn't despair nor grief that popped into his mind, but a mix of anger and irritation.
Jumping to his feet, and tensed all over his body, Barry turned around to face the apparition.
"Why aren't you leaving me alone? What do you want? Are you even real?"
"Don't stop fighting," blankly said the apparition on the same mechanical, yet slightly sad, tone. It was with the same tired voice than before that Cisco's mysterious apparition continued with similar words; "don't give up on me, man."
While unconsciously clenching his fists, Barry walked around the furniture to get closer and raise his tone of voice a bit more with every passing sentence, "why are you haunting me? I'm sorry I couldn't save you, but you need to leave now. You need to leave me alone!"
When the CSI moved around and changed his position toward Vibe, he noticed how, once again, his dead friend's glance didn't follow. Instead, Cisco was left staring at a spot just slightly left of the Scarlet Speedster, a place where there was nothing to see. Why was it so hard for ghosts, or hallucinations, whatever the hell it was, to have the decency to keep looking at their interlocutor?
It wasn't enough that Cisco was haunting him, he didn't even have the respect to look at him before speaking, "I'm sorry, Barry, but you can't leave me."
Was this mysterious apparition's only goal to taunt his victim?
"Enough, you gotta leave. NOW!" Shouted Barry, as he felt rage taking him over and allowed flashes of yellow lightning to sparkle all around his left arm. He couldn't run, not yet, but he could still graze the surface of his connection with the Speed-Force.
Without thinking, Barry took his arm far behind him, in order to make his momentum, before throwing his punch forward at full strength. Just as Barry should've expected, if he was thinking clearly, his attack passed right through the apparition and, swinging in the non-corporeal presence almost caused the young man to lose his balance. The speedster stumbled and completely passed right through his dead friend before the CSI awkwardly found back his balance. By the time he managed to straighten himself up and turned around, it was to realize that Cisco was gone. The ghost had disappeared again, just like it did the last time Barry reached out for contact.
"Just, leave me alone," he whispered to the universe, one last time as he felt his energy leaving at the same speed than his words.
By the time the last syllable left Barry's lips, all anger was gone. In the next instant, his legs buckled underneath him and the defeated hero's knees silently hit the ground. The pain from the hard contact with the ground barely registered in his brain at that point as all he had the strength to do was stay down, alone and sobbing. It was in that position that his wife found him more than an hour later and when Iris saw him, she chose not to say a thing and silently knelt next to him. Gently, she wrapped her arms around her husband and took him closer, letting him cry against her for what felt like forever before whispering gently to his ears:
"It's gonna be okay, everything is going to be okay," she gently told him, over and over again 'till the man finally calmed down and relaxed.
The road to recovery was going to be long and not without a few bumps.
The few following days unfolded slowly for the shaken man who was jumpy every time a sudden movement or silhouette would manifest itself on the corner of his eyes as if he was half expecting to see another apparition staring creepily back at him if he was to turn around. Every single time that happened, after Barry made sure he was in the clear, he sighed and went back to do whatever he had been doing before being jostled while pretending nothing happened. Yielding to the man's silent wish, any witness to these events acted like they didn't see a thing.
That pattern went on for days, and the exact numbers of incidents got lost on Iris who would stay at his side for most of the time and was trying her best to keep her absences as few and briefs as possible. Many members of the team came to visit and try to lift their teammate's spirit during this tough time; they made sure Barry never was alone and supported the hero every single step of the way.
Slowly, but surely, his condition seemed to improve as Barry started to accept the fact his friend was truly gone, and the visions started to go away. By the end of the week, almost half a month had passed since that fateful day in the forest.
Possibly, his friends might have been right. He just needed to calm down and stop fighting this and stop fighting them to move on finally. It would be a lie to say it wasn't still hurting like hell to think about how he let his friend down and how Cisco was dead because of him, but he had no choice but to move on from this.
But if Vibe was gone, why was that strange feeling still agitating his stomach and messing with his mind? Hard to tell if that was simply because of his guilt or if it was his hero's instinct, for whatever it was worth.
The speedster's head popped up, his fists clenched suddenly, and his heart picked up the pace at a surprising silhouette approaching the side of the couch on which he had been seated for the last hour or so. His breath caught in his throat as he swiftly jumped to his feet and turned his body around, only to sigh in relief when he instantly recognized his daughter.
"You scared me," he said, not that it wasn't obvious already with his fast breathing and his hand over his speeding heart, "I didn't hear you come in."
Nora winced in sympathy.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to frighten you. How are you today? No more hallucinations?" She asked while approaching her father with her arms wide open.
Leaning forward and opening his arms, the speedster gratefully accepted the hug and allowed the young XS to lay her head down on his shoulder for a second.
"For half a second there you made me think I was having one," nervously chuckled Barry while letting go of the physical contact. "But I'm good. I haven't seen Cisco since-"
Stopping and unconsciously raising his right hand into the air, the speedster started to mentally recall the events of the last couple of days and count them on his fingers. This last week had been pretty much a blur; it was easy to lose the sense of time while staying at home all day for an extended period.
"Last time I had one was the day before Ralph last came to visit, so that was just over three days ago," he finally said.
His answer caused Nora to widely smile as she was unbuttoning her long brown coat before taking it off.
"That's great to hear, truly," she declared while throwing her coat on the couch, "I hope dinner's almost ready; I'm starving."
Dinner? What din-
Oh, wait. Barry looked down at his watch and slightly cursed under his breath, was it already this late? Was it today that he was supposed to make dinner? He somehow managed not only to forget it was the night he promised to cook for his whole family but he also totally didn't see the hours flying right by him today.
"I'm sorry, I guess the day got away from me," he badly apologized while desperately looking around and feeling electricity building up in his veins. He still couldn't speed his way around, for some unknown reason Caitlin was still working to figure out, but at least he still had few slight bursts of Speed-Force, here and there.
"It's okay. We can go grab some Big Belly Burger," hurriedly added the young speedster upon seeing the guilty face of the CSI, "I came here to see you, not eat a five-star gourmet. Even if it would've been nice," she added after a quick pause, winking.
"Come on," she said, taking place on the sofa and inviting Barry to join her by gently patting the furniture, "you must be going crazy to stay here all day long, aren't you?"
Hello, understatement of the day. Barry nodded; he sure was sick and tired of these four walls.
"I've been thinking," swiftly continued XS before the speedster had the chance to add anything, "we could do a little family day out somewhere tomorrow since you're feeling better."
"I'll be down for it," approved Barry, sitting on the couch arm and leaving only his daughter's coat between him and her, "do you have any suggestion?"
"I thought we could go see a movie, or what about a trail ride? I know a place," she excitedly proposed, causing her father to chuckle.
Trail ride, as in horse riding? Really? That's one activity Barry hadn't done in forever; last and only time was with his parents when he was about eight or nine years old.
"Are you serious?"
"Sure! I know a great place not too far we could go that just opened and that's still going to exist in my future; I went a few times when I was younger. In my time they have this stubborn old mare called Peps Lucky Rose who's a real dragon to ride-" started to say the young speedster with contagious enthusiasm.
Her words were lost on the older CSI when his ears started buzzing, and the heat cranked up almost instantly, alongside the pain in his back.
No, no, no... not again, he thought, tensing up all over. He was healed, and the shadow was gone forever, it couldn't be happening.
"Barry," growled a deep eerie voice, a curiously familiar voice.
Just as expected, when the speedster dared to glance behind his daughter, he saw it, he saw the shadow floating ominously in the room. Wait. Right behind the apparition; it wasn't the loft living room anymore, it was S.T.A.R. Lab. More precisely, it was the room and the trap they used to trap the Reverse Flash years ago, or tried to catch him was even more accurate. The dangerous and unknown creature was hovering in the middle of it, looking trapped.
Do I know you? I feel like I do, wanted to ask the speedster, but a voice seemingly from far, far away stole his attention the question could come out.
"Dad? Dad!" Loudly asked the voice of Nora West-Allen before her worried face suddenly appeared in front of his eyes and caused the whole scene to swiftly dissipate into thin air which jostled the Flash right back into reality.
"Wh't-" mumbled Barry, gasping and digging deep with his nails into the couch's fabric.
"Did you see something?" She slowly asked, hesitant, and scared.
"No," answered back her father, a tad too quickly. "I didn't see anything, I just got lost in my thoughts," he lied. Why did he lie? To stop XS from worrying? Barry couldn't tell, but he just knew his instincts were telling him to do it.
"Tomorrow's should be fine. We can go tomorrow afternoon," added Barry, going back into the earlier conversation like nothing happen.
It was taking him all his will to stay focused on his daughter's face and not look at the spot where the apparition was. The shadow was dead. It was gone. Was that a new hallucination? There was no way his friends would've captured it and pretend it wasn't alive, right?
If that was a certainty, why was that thought roaming in his head all evening long and followed him in his bed, forcing him to turn around restlessly till he finally surrendered to the darkness? He needed to ask some questions to his friend tomorrow.
A/N: uh ooohhhh! It was too easy to be true, right?
Are you guys still into the story? Want more? Any of you want to make one last guest about what's happening to Barry ?
Let me know if you want me to finish posting this story here or not
