Well, folks, we're finally at the end. This chapter is short, sweet, and fluffy, but (I feel like) necessary wrap-up. Because these guys deserve a breath.

More notes at the end. For now, enjoy.

An hour later, Barry was back in his recovery room bed, clad in a fresh, non-bloodstained set of STAR comfort clothes. Even though he still felt confined, useless without his legs, he had to admit that the soft mattress and the pillow and the hot chocolate at his bedside table wasn't unwelcome after the events of the evening. After the initial agonizing struggle of transporting him back up from the basement to the cortex, the electric current of his spinal pain had subsided into a soft, glowing ember. Not great, but manageable.

The rest of the team was scattered throughout the cramped room. In the chair closest to Barry's bed, Cisco gazed off into empty space, eyes glazed, holding an ice pack to the back of his head. Across the room, Caitlin tended to Iris, who had made herself comfortable in a seat with her feet up on another chair. Barry tuned into their conversation fuzzily.

"Just a fracture," Caitlin was saying. "It's not bad, luckily. Still, you should probably take it easy for a few days."

"Not a problem," Iris said, patting her new sling. She then picked up Grodd's headgear from where she'd set it on a side table and inspected it. "What about this? Back down to storage?"

Cisco inhaled sharply and perked up. "Yeah, I suppose. I mean, how soon do you think we'll need giant-gorilla-and-sometimes-nightmare-repelling tech?" He looked around shiftily at all of them. "Uh…hopefully not for a long time, right? Did I just jinx something?"

"No, I'll put it back," Iris said, standing with evident effort and swinging the headgear on her good wrist. "I need to call my dad anyway." She made eye contact with Barry, and he tried to focus on her. "I'll tell him you're okay. You need anything else?"

Barry shook his head. "You were great today," he mumbled. "You saved my life."

"Maybe not saved you life, but postponed the possibility of your death."

"Don't tell Joe that."

Iris tried a smile. She understood, she knew. "Get some rest."

The door closed softly behind her. As soon as it did, Caitlin deposited the last of her supplies and collapsed into Barry's wheelchair, which was also close to his bed. She didn't look particularly chipper herself, sporting a nice bruise above her eye that was peeking out beneath her bangs.

"Another one in the books, huh?" she said, rubbing her neck.

"Definitely different," Barry said. "You guys, what, got trapped inside of a dream?"

Cisco nodded. "We only made it out because I'd done the whole lucid dreaming thing before. My vibe powers really come in handy. Caitlin packed the big punches, though. You should have seen the stuff she created."

Caitlin, though, shook her head. "I don't think I've ever been so terrified. It was like all my worst nightmares compounded into one." She rubbed idly at her forehead. "I can see how it might kill you."

"You think he realizes?" Barry said at once. "Do you think Dee realizes that it was him torturing his wife to death? With her nightmares?"

"Maybe not." Caitlin shifted. "Or maybe he does and he's pretending it's not real."

The image resurfaced from that night months ago, the chill of the hospital, the stranger in the bed thrashing and screaming. Dee's face had been so blank, it was hard to tell if he was menacing or terrified. Barry wrestled with the memory, tried to put it in the back of the mind, but he intrinsically knew that it was part of him now. Perhaps another thing to linger behind his eyelids.

"What did he make you guys see, anyway?" Barry asked, changing the subject quickly.

Caitlin and Cisco both averted their eyes, and Barry instantly dropped it. He knew as well as anybody how personal nightmares were, and how much they could hurt. Instead of pressing, he said, "Sorry you guys got caught in the crossfire. And that I wasn't there to help."

"No, we're sorry we weren't there to help you," Cisco said. "You're the one he was after. You're the one in a wheelchair. We should have been there to stop him."

"Enough with the blame," Caitlin said tiredly. "What matters is that we're all here, and in one piece, and…safe." The last word came out a tad unconvinced, hesitant, but she cleared her throat past it. "Speaking of which, how did you manage to fend off the nightmares, Barry? Why didn't they work on you?"

"Yeah," Cisco chimed in. "We got whammied with some of yours as well, and…um, painful."

Barry chewed on the inside of his cheek, considering his response. He can't show me anything worse than what I've actually seen. Reality is currently more terrifying than nightmares. I already hurt too badly for him to get to me. All of the responses seemed manufactured, squeaky-clean honest, and perhaps a bit too melodramatic.

He settled on a shrug. "You guys must've weakened him."

It wasn't a lie, but Cisco and Caitlin saw instantly that it wasn't the truth they'd wanted. However, they backed off without another word. There were a lot of things they all simply weren't willing to talk about, apparently.

It was familiar picture, the three of them sitting around in the recovery room; if not for all of the new aches and bruises and bandages it might have been as if the past hour hadn't happened. In the fall of adrenaline, the lingering depression was creeping back into Barry's blood. The TV remote still rested innocently on the table beside him, promising access to the outside world, to those news broadcasts and images and talking heads wondering, wondering what new reality was being created in the absence of the Flash.

"One thing's for sure," Cisco said, rubbing his eyes. "I don't think I'm ever gonna sleep ever again. Not after Dee went all Freddy Krueger in my head." He put his coffee to his lips and chugged it.

Caitlin nodded wearily in agreement, but Barry settled back into the pillows and sank into his exhaustion. Monitors beeped beside him, a stillness draped over him, and the tingling in his legs was muffled by the fresh—but brief—batch of pain killers Caitlin had provided him with. Caitlin's word, colored by hesitancy, echoed in his ears: Safe.

Not really, not in the long run, not with his future uncertain and Zoom still on the loose. But maybe for a moment. If they were lucky.

"Actually," he said, letting the tiredness sweep his eyes closed. "I think I'm ready to sleep for a very long time."

Woo! That's a wrap.

It always feels weird ending long stories like this one, because I feel like it all passes in the blink of an eye, and I'm never sure what to say when it's all over. Mostly, I don't know how to express the level of gratitude I have for you all taking the time to read and engage! One of the great parts of fanfiction is the chance to interact with people who love the same things you do, and who are genuinely interested in the things you are creating. This story, especially, has had such an outstanding response, so I cannot thank you enough for that.

As for what's coming next, be on the lookout in the next week or so for a new (shorter) fic, and potentially some one-shots. My semester is wrapping up and things are busy, but I want to make time for writing as well. If you want, you can check me out on tumblr at pennflinn, where I also take prompts for Flash flashfic (which is incredibly fun to say five times fast).

In short, thanks for a great run, truly. I so appreciate you all!

Penn

PS: I mentioned early on that this was inspired by a Justice League episode. If you're interested, it's actually a two-parter, episodes 2x05 and 2x06, "Only a Dream." Check it out!