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Chapter 10

Central City

Cisco sat with his hands still on his head, breathing hard. When he didn't reply Iris touched his arm.

"Cisco, are you okay? What happened?"

He didn't meet her eyes. "I don't know. That was weird. I need some air."

He struggled to his feet and left the room, heading for the main cortex. Iris stared after him.

So much had happened in the past year that Iris rarely felt like the same person she used to be. Maybe it was the reporter skills she was honing, or maybe it was the fact that she'd seen that same avoidance in Barry right after his coma and could now recognize it for what it was, but she knew one thing for sure: Cisco knew more about what had just happened than he was letting on. She tucked the metal piece securely back into her pocket and followed him.

He was leaning over a console in the main cortex, both arms braced on the surface and bearing much of his weight. He was staring at the console and didn't look up when she entered, but she was sure he knew she was there.

"Cisco, I'm a lot better at knowing when I'm being lied to, and I feel like you're lying to me now. What's going on?"

His eyes flickered up to hers and then back down. "I…see things sometimes. Things that happened, or didn't. I think—" he took a deep breath, like he needed just one more moment before admitting it—"I was affected by the accelerator too. It just took longer to manifest itself."

Iris stared at him. "You mean you're a metahuman."

Cisco made an aborted motion to shake his head, then gave up and nodded. He'd never truly given himself that label before. But there didn't seem to be a point denying it now.

Iris accepted it without drama. He really appreciated that. "What is it you can do?"

"I don't know exactly. Something about seeing the vibrations of the universe. I don't understand it that well." He still couldn't look at her.

Iris nodded, sensing his disquiet. "Still, that's kind of amazing, isn't it? To have a skill like that?"

"I don't want it." His voice was so low she barely realized he'd spoken.

"What?"

"I don't want it!" His voice was suddenly loud and angry. He looked up finally, and she could see the turbulent emotions in his eyes, on his face. It was the closest she'd ever seen him to losing control in any way, so she kept her voice quiet when she replied.

"Why not?"

He looked down again, hands gripping the edge of the console until his knuckles went white. "He gave it to me. He said it was given with love. I don't want anything from him, especially his love." His lip curled on the word, like he could hardly stand to say it.

More than anything Iris wanted to give Cisco a hug, but she wasn't entirely sure he would accept it at the moment. She moved closer and rolled a chair over next to him so she could sit down. It took a few moments, but eventually he pulled the chair nearest him over and sat down as well. Iris took that as a good sign, even though he sat staring at his hands in his lap.

Iris debated possible questions in her head, trying to land on the one that would upset him least. "When did you first notice this?"

"A couple months ago. I started having weird dreams, when I was asleep, and then even when I was awake. About Dr. Wells being the Reverse Flash, and he called me a son and then killed me with a vibrating hand through my heart."

"What?" Her mouth was open in horror.

"Yeah. Turned out it wasn't a dream, it was a timeline that Barry reset. I could remember it but no one else could. I'd figured out the truth, and he killed me for it. Right before Barry went back to save his mom I told Eobard about it. He said he must have had a good reason. That made everything all better." Cisco's sarcasm was so thick it was palpable. "But then he said I could see the vibrations of the universe, and he was sorry. And my destiny was 'great and honorable'." Cisco looked like he might cry.

Iris nodded, then realized— "Wait, Barry reset a timeline already? Going to save his mother wasn't the first time?"

Cisco latched onto the diversion, grateful to move on from a sore topic. "He said it was an accident. He was trying to stop Mark Mardon destroying Central City with a huge tsunami, and he was running so fast he traveled backwards a day. He ended up doing things different so it didn't turn out the same." Cisco shook his head. "That day still sucked, though."

Iris put her hand on his arm. "I'm so sorry, Cisco." He gave her a fleeting smile of acknowledgment. She hesitated a moment, but curiosity got the better of her. "What happened just now? When you touched the piece?"

Cisco shook his head slightly. "I don't know. It was…different. I saw things, lots of things all at once, and they didn't make sense. It wasn't like last time, where I got a full image, instead it was just flashes…some sign…a park…trucks…stars…it was freaky."

"Why would a piece of metal do that to you?"

"I don't know."

"Will you…touch it again? Just to see what happens?" She sounded hesitant; it was a lot to ask.

He gave her a doubtful glance. "I don't know. My head still hurts. I'd rather go to bed and pretend this never happened."

"I can understand that, but Cisco don't forget what you told me about Barry. He didn't choose to get his powers, but he did choose what he did with them." She gave him an encouraging smile. "You never know what kind of good you might be able to do with this."

He gave a sarcastic laugh. "Good? From Eobard?"

"He did help Barry become the Flash." Her eyebrows raised, slightly challenging.

Cisco gave her a long-suffering look. "I knew that conversation was going to come back to haunt me."

Iris bit her bottom lip. "Cisco, if you do this, I'll go to Jitters with you."

Cisco gaped at her. He knew she hadn't been there since the day she lost Eddie and Barry. "You want this that bad?"

"I want you to be able to handle this that bad. I want you to feel better about it that bad, yes. That's what you get for being my friend." She put an arm around his shoulders, squeezing it in a hug.

Her offer and the hug made him feel a little better. When she produced the piece from her pocket again, he stared at it a moment as he gathered his strength and wits. Finally he reached out to take it from her again. At the last moment, she pulled it back. "Wait."

"Whaat?" The suspense was getting to him.

"This time, try to control it. See if you can get a fuller image, or focus on one you want to see clearly, anything like that."

"Why?"

"If you're in control of your powers, maybe you won't hate having them as much, who knows. You can make them work for you."

"Yeah, this isn't the Matrix, but I'll try." But even as he reached for the piece, he found himself thinking there is no spoon.

Spoon or not, it was definitely less of a shock when he was prepared for it. He was somewhat aware of his eyes rolling back in his head this time, of Iris shifting nervously next to him. But his focus was mainly on the visions that were once again colliding in his head. He could see the Central Cinnamon Rolls sign, but was diverted by the construction site, then the dark sky with stars took precedence. Even as he moved from one to the other, trying to slow them down, he became aware that each vision was almost like a puzzle piece; blurry on the edges, focused and clear in the middle, like a watercolor bleeding out to unfinished edges. He tried to focus on just one, to make it the center of his attention. The playground slid to the forefront, now shrouded in darkness and lit streetlamps. And as it did, the edges began to fill in, creating a full picture as it sprang to life. Suddenly it was much more like his dreams about the reset timeline.

A lone boy was jumping off the swings as a strident voice echoed from a far corner.

"I called you to come in an hour ago! Get inside!"

The boy ran across the grass to what looked like his father, who turned and began walking at a slower pace as he waited for the boy to catch up.

Another image swung into his perception and he automatically grasped it, trying to fill it out as well. Two men sitting on a couch took center stage, but the image filled in to include the entire room, bleeding to the edges and then filling in as the door swung open again, just like last time.

Oliver entered (or it kind of looked like him…was that a goatee?) and pulled off a Robin-hood style green hat and his mask. "Hey, I heard about the anklet thing. Are you on house arrest now?" He gave the man on the couch a smirk.

Barry was sitting on the couch. He just shook his head as the man to his left replied.

"More like world arrest. Hopefully we can all get some sleep tonight, I'm exhausted. He keeps trying to get back on his own, and he's going to get hurt."

"It's not my fault, I don't even know I'm doing it…"

Cisco's shock jarred him right out of the vision. Still holding the piece this time, his eyes snapped open wide. "Ohmygod."

Iris was hovering next to him. "What? What did you see?"

He looked at her, mouthing wordlessly. How could he even begin to explain what he was seeing? But she was waiting, growing impatient, while his brain was furiously working and puzzling. He jolted to his feet. "I need pen and paper."

"What? I—ok." Iris moved to get him some from a nearby console. Cisco braced his hand on the console again and laid the piece on it, staring at it and still thinking hard. Iris rushed back with a pad of paper and pencil and tried to hand them to him, but he pushed them back at her. "No, you write. I'll try to talk. Write down everything I say."

Iris looked utterly lost, but she sat down immediately and turned to a clean sheet of paper. "Okay." She sat with pencil poised.

Cisco took a deep breath and stared at the piece again. "You got this that day? It broke off something that fell when Barry shattered the accretion disc?"

Iris blinked. "Yes."

Cisco gave a disbelieving huff, half laughter half exhale. He sat back down and carefully reached for the piece. "Remember, everything I say."

"Right." Iris could feel the tension pressing in on them both, even though she had no idea what was happening right now.

"Okay. Okay." Cisco sat down and picked up the piece again.

The effect was once again immediate, but he could feel the control he had over it this time. He pushed away the pain in his head so he could focus, trying to relearn how to make his mouth speak words as he also tried to bring images into focus.

"Central Cinnamon Rolls, neon, closed, First Street…stars, the big dipper, north star…construction site, skyscrapers, junkyard, crane, trucks, bulldozer… pop can, Pepsi… street, Big Belly Burger, Thai food, oh that place sucks…playground, slide, curved slide, two swings, jungle gym, apartment buildings, Trickster?... Grass, picnic table…rocks, gravel, empty lot, brick building, old sign…apartment, couch, pictures, Barry, Oliver, so weird, another Barry, again?"

"What?!" Iris broke his train of thought this time, staring at the last several words she'd just written. Cisco opened his eyes, put down the piece and held his head again.

"Oohh my head is killing me now."

"Cisco, what did you say about Barry?" Iris was shaking his shoulder, trying to get him to focus.

"If I said it you wrote it, you know what I said."

"What did you see?" Her tone was rapidly growing angry, the stress taking its toll.

"I saw…an apartment, and Barry was sitting on the couch, and the other man sitting on the couch was Barry too, except he looked just a little off, older maybe. And then Oliver Queen walked in, but he looked very different, he had this mustache and goatee, and this ridiculous Robin Hood hat with his mask."

"Why would he have a mask on?"

"Ummmm because…he's the Arrow? Or was, anyway." Cisco glanced her way to see how she was taking that.

It was a testament to how much she wanted to hear anything about Barry how fast she processed that little fact and moved on. "What else?"

"Something about an anklet, and house arrest, but it was world arrest, and he keeps trying to get back on his own and is going to be hurt and Barry said it wasn't his fault he doesn't even know he's doing it. And then you started talking." Cisco massaged his temples. The pain was starting to ebb. "Maybe I was dreaming that sounds like some kind of whacked out nightmare."

Iris gave him a shrewd glance. "You don't think that."

Cisco stared straight ahead, blowing out a breath, afraid to get his hopes up. "No. I don't."

Iris looked to be in exactly the same position. She held her breath, then asked, "What do you think?"

Cisco glanced at the paper full of hastily scribbled writing. "I think we need to go searching for these other places I saw. I have a theory, and I need to see if I can back it up."

Iris stood up. "Let me get my coat."

Martin Stein was sound asleep at 6am when his cell phone woke him. Cisco was on the other end, and he was so excited Martin could barely detect anything but individual syllables.

After making out "Barry—need you—S.T.A.R. Labs" Martin agreed to meet him, then rolled out of bed with an annoyed sigh and started to get dressed. Clarissa's head lifted off her pillow.

"Martin? Is everything okay?"

"Everything's fine, dear. I think. Cisco wants to talk about something. I'll be back as soon as I can."

If he'd had any idea what was really going on, he might have used a different word. Once Martin arrived at S.T.A.R. Labs he walked into the main cortex to see two extremely coffee-fueled individuals chattering in what sounded like chipmunk frequencies as they poured over several assorted pieces of metal fragments arranged on a table. Dark circles and lines were forming under both Cisco and Iris' eyes, but neither seemed to care. Cisco chugged the rest of his latest coffee and bit off a piece of licorice with vigor before he presented his findings to Martin, whom Iris escorted to a chair so fast he felt like he had roller skates on. He sat in front of the table with the metal fragments, observing both people with a wary look as he waited.

Cisco took a deep breath, trying to slow his breathing and speech so he could be clear. Iris could hardly hold still next to him, bouncing with excitement.

"Okay, Martin, we would like to know if you have ever entertained the theory of multiple universes, or multiple worlds."

Martin blinked. Maybe he should have stopped for coffee himself before he came in. It was too early to be thinking about things like this.

"Uh, well, I've never written anything on it, but I've heard the theories. The 'bubble universe' idea, that if our universe is ever-expanding then new so-called 'bubble universes' are constantly forming next to and around us..."

Cisco was jittering his nods. They ran so close together that he looked like he might be vibrating for a moment. "Yes, yes, yes, but what if those bubble universes all exist on their very own frequency? And what if someone would just need to tap into those frequencies to see them?"

Martin stared. "What?!"

It took another twenty minutes to fully explain Cisco's abilities, because at this point even Cisco didn't truly understand them. But he did know enough. Martin's jaw dropped once he heard about the timeline Barry reset that Cisco never forgot, Eobard's revelations, and the piece of metal that he had touched the night before.

That led to a new explanation of everything he'd seen. Iris presented the list Cisco had dictated to her. Martin was an intelligent man, and he started to formulate the same theory Cisco had as the story came out.

"That piece came from the singularity?"

"Yes! You see?"

"I do. Did you—"

"—go searching for all the other pieces based on the locations I saw when I touched the first one? Yes we did!"

"What did you find?" Martin's voice was breathless.

"We found pieces at that playground the Trickster parachute bombed last year, one in the street down the road from a Big Belly Burger and a really bad Thai place—"

Iris jumped in. "We found the construction site, it's the building that was broken apart the day of the singularity, they're clearing out the site to start rebuilding, and—"

"—we searched the entire radius of the singularity and finally found the old Pepsi can with a piece right next to it!" Cisco finished triumphantly.

Martin stood up, glancing over the table with the pieces. "And what didn't you find?"

"We can't find the piece that looks up at the stars, we could search for a month and not find it, there's nothing else to go on, and we can't find the empty lot with the old sign and brick building next to it." Iris looked far too happy delivering such news.

Martin gave them an expectant look. "And?"

Cisco laid down his last piece of evidence with the confidence of a poker player with a straight flush. "There is no Central Cinnamon Rolls company on First Street. That business doesn't exist anywhere in Central City…in this world. Professor Stein, we think Barry somehow crossed a universe that day. We think he's trapped in another world, and he's trying to get home."

By the time Martin had called in Joe, Caitlin and Ronnie, it was 8 am and he was gibbering as badly as Iris and Cisco were, completely unaided by caffeine of any sort.

There were quite a few surprised exclamations as the evidence and story were laid out.

Ronnie was staring at the assorted metal pieces on the table. "So, these were all part of the accretion disc in the singularity? And they fell when Barry broke it apart."

"Yup." Cisco's exhaustion was starting to catch up with him, but he wasn't slowing down. "And a few ended up in the same world Barry did, and some stayed in ours."

"And they all have the same unique frequency?" Caitlin picked up a piece, unable to feel anything different about it.

Martin was getting very excited about the theory. "They've all been affected! They all have a unique signature due to the heat and stress and being part of the massive energy event of a black hole! They, and we think now Barry, all bear this unique frequency, and the fact that pieces remain in both worlds provides us with a bridge from one to the other." He paused for breath. "Well, maybe not a bridge, perhaps a telegraph line? But you see what I mean? This unique signature they all have, we can't detect it, would never think of checking for it, but Cisco can! He can detect it when he touches them. He's our telegraph line."

Joe was staring at Cisco. "I thought that was just some kinda fluke, you remembering that other timeline. You have metahuman abilities?" He shook his head, still coming to grips with that.

Martin had already done that hours ago. "It would appear so. But without this ability, we might never have discovered what happened to Barry that day. And we certainly wouldn't be able to entertain the notion of somehow getting him back."

Joe's shock registered in every cell of his body. "Wait—you—you think you might be able to help him cross back?"

Martin raised his hands. "Why not? He managed to cross over from here. I'm going to need some new dry erase markers, I have to start assembling this data to ascertain how it might be done." He was already rubbing his hands together, moving toward a board in the corner.

Caitlin stepped forward. "What can we do, Dr. Stein?"

Martin looked at the assembled group. Ronnie stood at attention, ready to build anything that might be useful. Caitlin was by his side, ready to put her intelligence to any puzzle she was asked to. He looked at Cisco, exhausted but happier than he'd seen him in a long time, and Joe, just barely hopeful that he might get Barry back somehow. And finally he looked at Iris, who was two minutes away from falling asleep but looking more peaceful than she had since Eddie died. The invigoration of new hope and energy could be felt in the air. This team was ready and willing to do whatever it took. They had felt fractured apart since Barry disappeared, but now they were coming together.

He smiled. "We're going to need lots of coffee…and maybe some sleep first for you two." He pointed at Iris and Cisco.

The group went separate ways but with one purpose in mind.

Iris hugged her father, who held onto her longer than necessary, and then headed out with Cisco, each headed for home. They were in the hallway alone before she spoke again.

"Don't want them, huh, Cisco?"

Cisco's tired face split into a smile. "Okay, I want them. Screw you Eobard. We're getting Barry back."

Iris took the day off and went to sleep. After getting proper rest she headed back out to S.T.A.R. Labs, but made a detour to Iron Heights prison first. Seeing Henry walk in and sit down made her smile. She should have come to see him long ago. They both picked up the phone.

"Iris! How are you?" His eyes were lined and weary, but still so concerned for her.

"I'm…doing okay." For once, it felt true. "I should've come to see you before now, I just…didn't know what to say…" Her voice drifted away.

Henry smiled gently. "You were dealing with your own problems. I was so sorry to learn about Eddie."

She nodded and managed a smile. "Thank you."

"So, what can I do for you?" Henry flashed her a smile that reminded her of his son.

"Actually it's more what I can do for you, but I thought you should know. We think we might know what happened to Barry that day."

He perked up immediately. "Really?"

"Yes, and we think he's alive but trapped. We're trying to figure out how to get him back." Iris simply couldn't stop the hope rising in her eyes, in her voice. It was all over her face.

She expected to see the same thing in Henry, but instead he smiled, utterly at peace. "It's about time. That boy is always late."

Iris stared at him. "What do you mean? You knew about this?"

Henry shrugged. "No, I didn't know. But I had faith that he'd come back. It didn't make sense he could be dead. I've just been waiting. It was a matter of time. I won't say it was easy, but I'm glad it didn't take nine months this time." His eyes sparkled at her from the other side of the glass.

Iris laughed. A true, honest laugh emerged as she smiled at him. "Henry, I should have come to see you a lot sooner. Would've done me good."

Henry laughed too. "I've always had faith in him. He hasn't let me down yet. He thinks he has, but he hasn't. And now, he just needs to have faith in you and the crew at S.T.A.R. Labs. You'll get him home. I have no doubt."

For the first time in a long time, Iris felt lighter. "I definitely should've come to see you sooner Henry. I won't take so long next time." She graced him with a fond smile.

"I like the sound of that. There's nothing like your ray of sunshine to break up the monotony in here, Iris."