A/N: I never wanted to write chapters for this fic out of chronological order, but it just happened. I was inspired for the other two first and we got spoilers for the first two episodes pretty simultaneously, so...yes. This chapter is essentially a how-Barry-gets-shaved-after-coming-out-of-the-speed-force scenario. Enjoy!

*Many thanks to sendtherain for her amazing last minute beta job! :D

*I own nothing. No copyright infringement intended.


Inspiration: the Hero Reborn promo featuring Barry a bearded Barry and an eager Cisco trying to bring his friend back by saying, "I made you a new suit. Want to take it for a spin?


Iris sat in the next room and tried to stuff her emotions back beneath the surface. Barry had come back. He had actually come back. What they had done had worked. He was here. In the same building. With all of them.

But he wasn't Barry.

She'd dissolved the minute she peeked into the room at CCPD and caught a glimpse of his form.

Her Barry was home.

But he wasn't.

He was talking gibberish. He didn't appear to remember any of them. His biggest focus was on drawing strange symbols all over the walls that didn't make any more sense than the words he spoke aloud. He wasn't the Barry they knew, and she was falling apart all over again.

That couldn't happen.

We shouldn't have done this. I shouldn't have done this. I should have prevented this from happening. I should have…

But she knew she wouldn't have. For all her resolve and determination that not rescuing Barry from the speed force was the best course of action, there was a little flare of light inside her that whispered to her what if…?

And that light – and Cisco and her dad – had pushed her to help. And they'd brought Barry home, even if they didn't realize it at first.

It was just his body, though. It wasn't him. Maybe he was buried down there deep somewhere. But if he was – he was, she assured herself – they didn't know how to bring him to the surface. The predicament threatened the six long months of sturdy walls she'd built around her in order to keep the team together. She couldn't fall apart at this venture, and so she left Barry's bedside to get some breathing room.

She he didn't go far though because…well, Barry.

Unlike herself, however, Cisco was feeling much more cheerful and proactive about the situation. He strode right past her down the hall, not even glancing in her direction, and entered the room where Barry was currently lying on a bed, presumably sleeping.

"Cisco—" she tried, but her voice was too soft for him to register her.

She followed just to the doorway of the room and waited, watching to see what would happen.

He hovered, then shone a light over Barry's closed eyes. Iris's brows furrowed, getting mildly annoyed.

Barry's eyes must've opened because Cisco's form bounced slightly, his words carrying when he informed the nearly comatose man, "I made you a new suit."

Iris blinked, unsure if she'd heard him correctly. Cisco shone the light over Barry's eyes a few more times. She could see Barry squinting even from where she stood on the opposite side of the room.

"Cisco."

The younger man stopped suddenly and spun around, flashlight aimed directly at her for a second until she squinted as well. She wondered how it could affect her from across the room with the lights on, but Cisco was known for his high-tech gadgets. She wouldn't be surprised if this particular light could shine into the darkness for miles on a dark night.

"Iris." His eyes were wide, his mouth hanging open in surprise.

Deer caught in the headlights, she thought.

"What are you doing?" she demanded.

"I-I-…well," he stopped and glared at her. "What are you doing?" He put his hands on his hips, which was somewhat difficult with the flashlight still in one hand.

She raised her eyebrows. "Watching over our patient."

He tried to fold his arms across his chest but that proved difficult as well.

"Oh, yeah? Then why weren't you in here?" he demanded.

"I was." She shrugged nonchalantly. "I stepped out a moment before you got in here."

He eyed her suspiciously until he decided she was probably telling the truth.

"Well, can I have a moment alone with him?"

Iris's lips parted in a prepared refusal, but then she realized that would probably be unreasonable.

"Please?" he added, and the guilt set in.

She nodded and stepped out of the room, retreating to her spot slightly down the corridor where she was out of sight but not out of hearing distance should some cause for concern suddenly arise.

For maybe five minutes she didn't hear anything. Some pacing, maybe Cisco sliding a chair over to sit on by Barry's bedside. But she couldn't hear either of them speaking and wondered if Cisco was okay. She was on the verge of pushing herself off the wall to check in on them when she heard…

"Want to take it for a spin?"

"Oh, God," she muttered under her breath and charged into the room. "Cisco, what the hell are you doing?"

He spun around again, eyes and mouth both wide again in apparent shock at her arrival, but there was no flashlight to blind her this time.

"Iris!"

"Cisco."

"I…I'm…" His eyebrows narrowed again. "I'm trying to reach him."

Iris folded her arms beneath her breast. "And you're trying to reach him by…?"

He shrugged nonchalantly, avoiding eye contact.

"I'm just uh…telling him about his new suit."

He lifted his gaze to meet hers and immediately felt intimidated by her offending stare.

"Even if he's all Flash and not Barry, he has to be excited about that."

She sighed and looked back at Barry, whose eyes were scanning the ceiling with no apparent direction.

"He's…he's not even…" She held out her hand in a gesture and then dropped it to her side.

"What?" he demanded.

"I mean…" She walked across the room, stopping just short of the bed. "Just look at him, Cisco. He's practically comatose. He doesn't speak, and when he does speak it's all a bunch of nonsense."

"Oh, you mean like that diapers bit?"

"He doesn't even remember us," Iris said sadly.

Cisco moved to comfort her, but she suddenly lifted her gaze to his, eyes blazing.

"And you pushing him to answer a question like this, and being so- so-"

"What?" he demanded, annoyed.

"You're…you're jumpy and excitable and it's…it's more than he can take right now."

"You don't know tha—"

"He's not even shaved yet!" She threw her hands up in the air.

"Fine!" Cisco managed to outdo her in volume. "Then I'll shave him!"

"You can't shave him! I'll do it."

She moved to leave and presumably gather supplies, but he stepped in front of her suddenly, instantly halting her departure.

"I'm a grown man. I know how to shave. I can shave my best friend's nasty ass speed force beard!"

Iris's eyes narrowed, but Cisco's determined stare never wavered, so finally she nodded.

"Fine. You can shave him."

"Thank you!" he declared, leaving the room now to gather the supplies.

"Or try to," she muttered under her breath.

It was a little weird, Cisco admitted to himself, slathering up his best friend's half-covered hairy face with shaving lotion. Especially since the speedster's eyes alternated every so often between darting around the room and staring numbly up at the ceiling. At one point, Cisco wondered how long it had been since Barry had blinked.

He shook off the agitated, worrisome feeling though, and resumed his duty. He patted the lotion down when he was finished, his brow furrowing when he realized his hands were full of the stuff. It took him a moment to remember the dry washcloth lying on the nearby rolling table.

He could practically feel Iris either glaring or rolling her eyes from the other side of the room. His face burned from the sensation, but he refused to turn around. He didn't need any more pressure when the expectations were already so high, or at least they felt that way to him.

As soon as he'd finished wiping his hands, he grabbed the conveniently located razor and approached Barry's bedside again.

And then he floundered.

He searched Barry's face, looking for an appropriate starting place. There was foaming lotion everywhere beneath his cheek bones, plenty of clear opportunities for where to start. But Cisco second-guessed himself, wondering if one place was better than the other and trying to remember where he started when it was him. And that maybe it should be the opposite of how he did it then. Or if it should be the same. Or if there was some middle-ground.

There was also the worry if he accidently cut him. Or if Barry moved suddenly. Or if in his nerves, patches of hair were left unshaved beneath his chin or along his jawline or down his neck.

Reluctantly and shamefully, he turned to look at Iris helplessly, the razor hanging pathetically at his side.

In her seat by the door, she raised one eyebrow and said nothing.

"It's different when it's not yourself…"

"Oh, for God's sake-"

She strode across the room, hand already outstretched for the shaver, but at the last minute he pulled back.

"No, No, I got this! Let me do it!"

Her temper just barely reigned in, she backed off.

"Fine. Fine. Do it then."

"I will," he sassed, nearly sticking out his tongue in retaliation.

Iris rolled her eyes but refused to create more distance or sit back down.

Trying to put her presence out of his mind, Cisco returned to Barry, picked a spot he told himself would be remarkably easy, and in one long piece shaved the hair from his pale skin.

He was too quick about it though, and it nicked Barry's jaw. The speedster winced as the couple droplets of blood started to seep onto his skin where the cut had been made.

Cisco barely had time to gasp before Iris jumped between them.

"Give it to me," she demanded. Cisco abandoned resistance and handed it over. "Now go," she instructed, not even bothering to look at him.

Cisco's shoulders slumped, feeling dejected.

"Please," she added as gently as she could manage. It isn't easy. "I'll call you if I need you."

He nodded and eventually found his way to the corridor outside the room.

Not far away, Joe leaned against the wall, perking up slightly when he saw Cisco coming around the bend. Raised eyebrows was all it took for Cisco to explain the recent events without underscoring how he had been unequal to the simple task of shaving his best friend's face.

Joe chuckled though and nodded.

"I think Iris got her death stare from me," he said, to which Cisco raised his own eyebrows. "I taught Barry how to shave, but Iris had watched me shaving for years. She'd even shaved me herself a few times when the two of them got into high school, whenever I had a particularly bad case and didn't want to face the world the next morning. I think she wanted to shave Barry at some point, but he always refused. I think he must've worried what she'd think of him if he needed help with something as simple as that." He shrugged. "But I think she just wanted to."

"Huh." Cisco contemplated that.

"Now, I don't know if she ever shaved him before he…you know, left, but…that might have something to do with it."

He glanced over at Cisco who looked deep in thought.

"She knows what she's doing, Cisco." His expression changed to one of deep amusement. "More than you do, apparently."

His mouth opened and closed, but no words came out.

Joe laughed and pushed himself off the wall, heading down the corridor to where the others were waiting.

"Now wait just a minute," Cisco tried, but his voice was lost as they grew farther and farther away.

Soon the only sound Iris could hear was her pounding heart and Barry's steady breathing.

She pressed her finger to the small cut along his jaw, wiping the specks of blood from his skin. It didn't so much as agitate, since his skin had already healed itself. She smiled softly.

"Must be nice to heal so quickly," she remarked, cleaning the shaver swiftly before bringing it to his face again.

He appeared to tense beneath where her hand hovered, so she relaxed her arm, lowering the device to her side a bit.

"It's okay," she said. "It won't hurt when I do it." She ran her fingers lightly through his hair. "I promise."

He relaxed now too, and she returned to the task at hand. She wondered how much he understood her, the way he reacted to her words and her movements just now. She also wondered if some part of him recognized her. The things he said made no sense. They were all backward and confusing. Not to mention all those symbols he wrote that looked like an ancient language she'd never seen before. The speed force had done something to him. She didn't want to think about how long it would take to undo that, if it even could be undone.

Don't think that way, Iris, she thought to herself as she cleaned off the razor again. You brought his body back. Now you just need to bring his mind.

She licked her lips and gently set the razor to his skin again, dragging it down the side with extreme precision.

"You know, these six months have been awful," she said aloud, deciding that if the Barry she loved couldn't talk to her, the very least she could do was talk to him. "Not Flash-wise, I mean. Or…Kid Flash or Vibe-wise either. The guys still haven't decided on a team name." She attempted to laugh lightly, but it came out strangled. "We've been doing all right on that front," she said softly. "And I…I've been keeping it together. Mostly."

Barry turned his head, presumably to grant her more access to that side of his face. She was surprised, but he still said nothing.

"It's worse than when you were in a coma," she admitted, focusing whole-heartedly on shaving his face, not even glancing into eyes that might or might not be looking at her. "At least then I could come visit you. I could talk to you the way I'm talking to you now. You wouldn't be expected to respond, but you could just…be." She sighed shakily. "I could touch you."

She felt fingers wrap around her elbow lightly and her breath hitched.

"Barry."

She looked into his eyes swiftly and found them staring back at hers with a warmth she hadn't seen before.

"Barry?" she asked again, abandoning the warning to not hope for too much.

His hand dropped back to his side. His eyes flickered red and then dulled. He turned away, staring at the wall with no particular interest, waiting for her to finish what she had started.

She choked back a sob, rested her hand in her lap until it stopped shaking, and then continued to shave him.

"I got so good at not crying," she laughed through her tears when the razor his skin again. "Who would've thought all it would take was you coming back and not quite being you to change that?"

He didn't react to her words this time, just stayed still, which she supposed she should be grateful for.

When she'd finished the one side and managed to successfully shave the underside of his chin there, she gently urged him turn his head in her direction, which he did. His eyes stared into hers then. There was no Barry in them, and for the moment no lightning either. It broke her, but it also brought her some relief, because here he was in front of her. She could touch him. She could talk to him. He wasn't evaporated into the speed force. He was right here in front of her, even if he wasn't all there.

There was a big part of her that wanted to scream at him for leaving her, for leaving all of them, for not giving them any specific instructions beyond protecting the city and being heroes before he vanished from their lives, presumably forever. But she didn't want to startle him or cause him to bolt, which was a possibility in the state he was in now.

It was frustrating because that was only one side of what she wanted. The other part of her wanted to hold him and love him and kiss him and beg him to ravish her, because it'd be so long since he felt him touch her and felt him touch her like that.

Just shave him, Iris.

She shook her head, trying reel in her emotions. Then she picked up her chair and moved it to the other side of the bed. His eyes didn't follow her and his head stayed facing the same direction as before. She needed to get the remainder of his hair shaven and apply the cooling gel she always used. She'd done as much as she could from that particular angle.

"I love you, Barry," she said on a sigh, letting her hands linger on his skin after she'd rubbed in the gel.

He turned to face her then, a flicker of Barry in his eyes, but she knew not to hope this time. Still, she couldn't help but lean in close and press a kiss to his unmoving lips. She pulled back to see him the same as he'd been before, and tears filled her eyes.

She backed away from his bedside, swallowing hard, trying not to break down as his gaze followed her in her deliberately normally-paced walk to the doorway.

And just before she left, a beat between the heels she was taking gradually slower steps with, she heard the ragged whisper.

"Thank you."

She clutched at the wall she was nearing to steady herself and looked back at him, his eyes still on her. She told herself to breathe, to not jump to conclusions, to just accept.

She licked her lips and nodded subtly.

"You're welcome, Barry" she said, and left the room.