Author's Note: I plan to continue but I may be heading in a new direction. I've got a wild hair and I wanna see where it takes me. I own nothing.

12. Sacrificing a Pawn

Eddie Thawne was not suspicious by nature. Once you got to know him he was a well balanced man who loved his girlfriend more than life itself and wanted nothing more than to be included in her family. Which was part of the reason he'd been going to Barry more and more for cases. That and she really was the best they had. He figured that was why she had her own lab but he'd never asked. So, it wasn't unusual for him to be heading up to her lab with a manila folder of evidence for her to do a quick review of. These days it also wasn't unusual for the door to her lab to be closed. That had apparently happened a lot before the lightning too and usually meant that she was in the middle of a case or cases and shouldn't be disturbed. What was slightly unusual was the door being open just a crack. Eddie frowned wondering if he should knock or not. Before he got the chance though he heard the sound of shattering glass. He was about to open the door to see what was going on when he heard Barry laughing and Joe chuckling.

It had been a few hours since they had arrived back at the precinct and Barry had stormed up to her lab, the universal sign that she'd had a fight with someone. Joe had made three coffee runs up to her before she'd seemingly forgiven him for whatever they were arguing about.

"So you're saying that could happen to anything not just a glass?" Joe's voice was easy to recognize.

"Well in theory yes. You'd have to know the right vibrational frequencies but I am completely sure that that's what happened at Dr. Wells' house. He's using some kind of sonic technology." Eddie raised an eyebrow, pretending to flick through the folder he was holding instead of listening in to his partner and the same man's daughter. But if Wells was using some kind of dangerous technology, he needed to be stopped. There was a frown in Barry's voice as she continued.

"It doesn't make sense though, why wouldn't he have mentioned Rathaway before." Eddie pulled a pen out of his pocket and scribbled the name down on his hand. He heard Joe sigh.

"I feel like there's something Wells is hiding about this Rathaway kid, about what happened between them." There was a sound that could only be a scoff. "I'm serious Barry. There's a lot Dr. Wells doesn't talk about, like his girlfriend who died."

"Yeah who would want to talk about something traumatizing like that?" There was a bite to Barry's voice that Eddie didn't recognize. It almost sounded like bitterness. But she apparently wasn't done yet. "How did you even know about that?"

"Well," Joe sounded almost apologetic. "He's become a big part of our lives. I wanted to know more about him." Barry sounded upset as she responded.

"If you wanted to know more about him why didn't you just ask me?" One of the other officers tapped Eddie on the shoulder and spoke.

"Sounds like you don't know him as well as you think you do." He barely caught that last sentence before he rapped sharply on the door before entering Barry's lab.

"Joe, we've got multiple nine one one calls, coming in from Rathaway Industries, apparently they're under attack." Joe nodded and followed him out of the lab as Barry answered her buzzing phone.

The run to Rathaway Industries didn't take her long. The actual fight didn't take very long either. Barry couldn't help but feel a bit suspicious about that. She'd known she had to shut him down quickly when he'd called out her team. But as she escorted Rathaway into the Labs her mind was buzzing. What had he meant, he figured out who Harrison Wells really is? What was this secret he had mentioned? It bothered her to think that he might know something that she didn't. He grinned at her slightly as they exited the elevator.

"You know, being scooped up by someone in head to toe leather has always been a dream of mine, shame you aren't a guy, then it would have been perfect." She had to repress a laugh, he was kind of an asshole but that had been kinda funny. Cisco and Caitlin were waiting for them.

"Well, well, well. The gangs all here." His grin was shit eating. "You've lasted a lot longer than I thought you would Cisco." Cisco crossed his arms.

"And you didn't last ten seconds against the Flash." The smile Rathaway shot Cisco made Barry a bit uncomfortable, he looked like he knew something they didn't.

"I like the nicknames, been calling myself Pied Piper." Cisco remained silent but Barry could tell from the look on his face that he actually liked the name. Hartley turned to Caitlin, his eyes growing slightly sad though his smirk remained in place. "Caitlin. Never did get that wedding invite." Barry grabbed him by the collar and shoved him forwards.

"Shut the fuck up." She had to admit as she and Cisco dragged Rathaway off to a cell that she had never thought her life would end up this way. She'd never liked jails, now she was filling one on her own. It made her twitchy that they couldn't put the people in their prison on trial, hell they couldn't let them out of their cells without risking them running wild on the city. She was working on an idea for that though. Metahumans could only remain a secret for so long after all and once they were found out to be true the world would need a way to contain the bad seeds of the group. She was almost ready to go to Cisco with her idea. She just wasn't sure he'd like it. Once she was sure Cisco could handle him Barry left for the Cortex. She grabbed a few of Cisco's latest protein bars and sat down at the main console pulling up the video feed for the Pipeline's main entrance just in time to catch the end of a sentence in Spanish spoken by Rathaway. She watched as he switched to French when speaking to Caitlin and frowned. Dr. Wells rolled up to the entrance and asked the others to leave. This time Hartley didn't even bother to start off in English. Barry actually didn't recognize the language he was speaking in. Dr. Wells must have though because he answered in the same language.

"God I wish I'd taken a language in college." Barry muttered to herself as she bit into one of the bars. She'd taken French in high school but had decided to skip out on languages in favor of a few criminal psychology courses. She listened as Dr. Wells apologized, smiling slightly. That was the man she'd come to know.

"Not bad. As far as heartfelt apologies go I would almost call that one genuine. Except it wasn't for my benefit." Rathaway looked up directly into the camera. "That was for you Flash. I know it feels nice to have the great Harrison Wells on your side, but one day this man will turn on you in a flash, and even you won't see it coming. I can only hope he leaves you in better shape than he left me, you seem like a decent, if misguided, person. If you're lucky he'll only kill you." Barry frowned. There was a niggling doubt in the back of her mind. She couldn't help it. She faked a smile as Cisco and Caitlin walked into the cortex. She turned back to the screen as he went on about the screaming he apparently had to listen to twenty four seven.

"I almost forgot I told you scarlet knight that I know your dirty secret Harrison. Good luck explaining that." It took Dr. Wells a good ten minutes to return to the Cortex. Cisco, Caitlin and Barry sat in silence while they waited. He looked exhausted when he finally did wheel his way into the room.

"I assume you were all listening." Barry nodded, the others not speaking or moving much.

"What did he mean, deep dark secret?" Barry asked, watching Dr. Wells closely.

"He was right, I have not been honest with you. With any of you." He took a deep breath and sighed looking down at his shoes like a defeated man. "Hartley told me there was indeed a chance that the accelerator could explode. I didn't listen to him. His data didn't show that there was a one hundred percent certainty. Just that there was a risk, but it was a real risk. But I went ahead with the project anyway. I decided that everything we could learn, all we could achieve simply outweighed that risk. I am sorry." The three of them stared at him for a moment. Then Caitlin stood slowly.

"The next time you decide to put all our lives and the lives of the people we love at risk, I'll expect a heads up." Barry blinked slightly as Caitlin headed out of the Cortex. Cisco followed her close behind. Barry stood, much in the same way Caitlin had.

"After the explosion when everyone else left you, they stayed. They stood by you. You owe them more than an apology." Dr. Wells ran a hand through his hair.

"Well they may soon get much more than that with Hartley intent on seeing me leave this world." Barry shook her head.

"That wouldn't make it right with anyone, we both know that, so how about you stop lying. You broke their trust, our trust." Barry shook her head, stepping out of the Cortex. She thought for a minute before she switched back into her costume but she didn't leave Star Labs to go on patrol as she often did to let off steam, no this time she headed down to the Pipeline, she had a few more questions for Hartley Rathaway.