Guest: awww sorry for the tears, almost didn't take that route for a while. You're a little evil one too, I love it, ihih
AGirlsTaleAuthor: Don't worry about it, welcome back to the story ;) Hope you'll enjoy the ending despite the tragedy going on.
Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong and Barry could feel it in his entire body as he came back to the world of the living. The man had no idea what it was that was causing him so much distress, but he knew, deep down, that it wasn't just his imagination. Except, despite his desire of learning more, all his body wanted to do right now was to go back to sleep. He was so tired and so sore, everywhere... If only the voices could stop talking and let him rest.
"They're here," whispered a feminine voice not far away from him, "I explained to them everything."
"Are they gonna-" asked a familiar man's voice.
"Not until Barry gets in there."
A third person sighed deeply at that answer. Whatever was going on, it wasn't good, "what are we going to tell him?"
At the sound of his name, Barry turned his head to the side, trying to listen to what was being said. If he could just hang on to consciousness for one more moment he might hear why these people were talking about him. So tired. Why was he so worn out? What was he doing here, in that position and that state in the first place? His chest was in pain, like a horse or possibly a whole herd of horses, ran him over. Every single breath was just so difficult to get out, or in for that matter and that thing obstructing his face wasn't helping. Unless it was helping him and it was just his confused and foggy mind being unable to put two and two together... What was it anyway?
The speedster tried lifting his arm with the intention to get that thing off his nose and mouth, but his limb was just too heavy, just like every part of his body. Giving up on the idea, after barely managing to lift his arm for an inch or two, Barry let it fall back on the bed and grunted from the effort. The sound he produced caused the group next to him to suddenly go silent and approach him;
"Barry, you with us?" Asked the women's voice again. It sounded like Caitlin and the hero wanted to say something, but he couldn't as he drifted back to sleep.
When it came back to, he instantly found out that, first, it was a lot easier to breathe and, secondly, there wasn't anything on his face anymore. Feeling a lot less worn out, he managed to gather the strength to open his green eyes and to look at the ceiling of the... Wait. This wasn't the med bay. It was the speed lab. What was he doing in there? That one and simple observation had his heart rate doubling his speed in an instant. It just confirmed what he felt the last time he woke up; something was terribly wrong.
Alerted by the screaming and recognizable sound of a heart monitor, rapidly approaching footsteps were heard.
"Barry?" Worriedly asked a voice. No doubt now, it really was Caitlin's voice. Moving his eyes to the left and blinking a few times to clear his vision, Barry managed to confirm the identity of the person. "Calm down, you're okay."
As if she was trying to prove her point, Caitlin gently laid her right hand on his left arm and started massaging it gently, slowly. No matter how gentle she was, it wasn't calming the speedster down. Barry's instincts knew he shouldn't be alive; he was dying earlier. If there was one thing his foggy mind was certain of, it was that. He was dead or at least should be. Barry could remember the agony and the anguish as his life was slowly leaving him, and he could have sworn he somehow heard his parents calling out to him as the world around him slowly surrendered to the darkness.
The speedster remembered getting shot in his chest and he shouldn't be alive and yet he didn't feel dead, not at all. No matter how amazing of a doctor Caitlin was and how much faith the hero had in her, he knew there was no coming back from that. There was one explanation Barry could think of, one very plausible explanation, but it was also one he didn't want to consider or think about it. If he was right about his condition on the battlefield and if he was right about his theory…. his world was about to shatter, again. And that was something he wasn't ready for, so there just had to be another explanation, something simpler. Maybe he was just wrong, maybe he didn't get shot after all.
Blinded by the light assaulting his fragile eyes, Barry closed them before rasping, "where is she?"
Silence followed and Barry swallowed the lump building in his throat.
"How are you?" Caitlin finally queried, letting go of her patient and changing the subject, her action making Barry open his eyes to look straight at her.
The hero wasn't stupid; he could clearly see the way his friend was biting her lips and avoiding the one and only subject he wanted, needed, to talk about. The fact that Caitlin moved away by a couple of feet, looking away, just confirmed his suspicions.
"Where. Is. She?" He repeated, slowly, deeply, and emphasizing every single word.
"She's… in the medbay Barry."
So, she was alive? Right? If Caitlin said she was in the medical room, instead of him, she had to be alive. Probably hurt and in pain, but alive. And she needed him, now. That was the only thought in Barry's head as he pushed aside the blanket covering his legs, not caring how he was shirtless and in boxer underneath and reached out for the sensors on his chest.
"I want to see her," he almost ordered, as Caitlin rushed and closed the remaining gap between herself and the bed, but not before he had already detached the sensors from his body.
"Barry, it's probably not a good idea, you should be resting," she argued, biting her lips nervously and grabbing her friend's hand before he could take out the needle in his left elbow.
The hesitation, her anxious features and her slow and sloppy movements… they were all new and undeniable signs that she was hiding something or lying badly. Good thing Barry's heart wasn't connected to the monitor anymore as it picked up the pace even more and he felt a shiver passing in his back.
"Where is she?" He repeated, loudly.
Shifting in his bed, he was getting ready to get up, which prompted Caitlin to push against his shoulders in a faint effort to keep him down.
"I didn't lie, Barry, she's in the medbay. She's...alive. She's just...not..."
She was alive. She really was. It was the confirmation Barry needed and the one that should've calmed him down, but it didn't. Dread kept on filling his inside and his features just continued to decompose. But, he froze up and stopped wrestling around, a short and temporary win for the doctor. In his half-calmed state, the speedster allowed Caitlin to help him get into a half-seated position instead of laying flat, which was a nice compromise between that and getting back up. Good thing he wasn't standing up when the prognosis was pronounced in the next instant or he might've fallen down completely.
"She's in a coma, Barry, and it's bad. It's really, really, bad."
Barry's mouth opened up in shock and tears instantly filled his eyes as he blankly stared at the doctor.
"No..." he whimpered, suddenly feeling weak as his heart painfully clenched in his chest.
"It's-" Caitlin's sentence stopped midway. Is it going to be okay? No, it's not. The doctor's glance looked back at the chair that was the closest to the bed, almost going to sit on it. No, it didn't feel right to sit right now, Barry needed to truth and Olivia deserved someone strong enough to stand up as the news was delivered.
"You got shot, Barry, and the bullet probably hit a lot of your organs, including your left lung. You… you died, Barry. You died in a matter of seconds and-"
Caitlin stopped, almost choking up on the words as her brain decided to send her straight back to that moment where she helplessly witnessed her best friend's vitals crashing at an astonishing pace on the screen. No matter the ultimate outcome, she knew that memory was never going to come out of her head, she was never going to be able to forget the moment when she was unable to do anything else other than stare in dread. The sensation of feeling her own heart stopping in synchronicity with the monitor and feeling the cold of death itself clenching her insides will always be with her.
As the hero stayed silent at the reveal, staring back in shock, Caitlin grabbed a hold of her feelings and continued her explanation;
"Olivia brought you back. I'm not sure how, but she did. She did an incredible job fixing most of the damages the bullet had done to you; there was no trace left of it when you arrived at the lab. Somehow, the bullet completely dissolved in your bloodstream and while you still were in bad shape, it wasn't fatal anymore. You went from being mortally wounded to suffering from a perforation in your left lungs, blood in it and some other internal bleeding. Except-"
"-it destroyed her, completely, didn't it?" weakly whispered Barry, with his bottom lips shaking.
Caitlin closed her eyes, nodding painfully. She wasn't sure her shaking voice could pronounce the words without breaking, but she still gathered the strength for a couple of seconds as she needed to say them out loud, "yeah, it did."
"Did she suffer?"
Caitlin exhaled deeply at the question, tempted to lie. But, was what the point of sugar coating it? If one thing, Barry deserved the truth after everything he's been through. In the last year, he's been kidnapped by Hyde, starved, tortured, changed into a monster, turned back, saw his new best friend killing himself before his eyes, travelled to Europe, destroyed his enemy's organisation, met a new sister and learned she just sacrificed herself to save his life.
"Yeah. Yeah, she did," she answered quietly while looking away and avoiding eye contact, not wanting to see the agony she probably just inflicted on her friend.
Swallowing badly, Barry shivered and nodded with difficulty, "thanks for the honesty," he answered back. The doctor barely even heard it as Barry's voice was barely above whisper like he was afraid he wouldn't be able to control it if he was to raise it higher.
"What if... what if she wakes up?" He said hopefully, after a long silence. It was with desperate, pleading eyes, that he looked up at his friend who was still refusing to look at him, preferring to stare at the wall and the speed lab's computers.
"Barry, listen, she suffered horrible injuries because of her actions. She suffered countless organ failures, really bad internal bleedings and a ruptured aneurysm, which led to a severe intracranial haemorrhage. She's-" Caitlin took a moment to regain some composure before continuing, feeling her eyes filling up with tears and her voice shaking under the emotions, "she suffered from extensive brain damages. Even if we did manage to restart her heart in the lab, it's too late. She's been on artificial support and there'd been no cerebral activity since she came back, three days ago. Even if she does wake up, which is a chance in a million at this point, she'll never be the same."
The doctor really was expecting Barry to do… something. To be honest, she didn't know what to expect specifically, but she thought for sure Barry was going to be overwhelmed by emotions once hearing the news. But, no, nothing. Instead, the speedster just closed his lips and put his stoic face on.
"Her parents are already here and they said their farewells. They're waiting for you to be ready to do yours before we-"
Caitlin swallowed with difficulty before she could say the words. It was getting harder and harder to keep her professional doctor face as she was trying to explain to her friend that they were waiting for him to see Olivia one last time before pulling the plug on the machines that were keeping her alive. Still staying as emotionless as possible, Barry nodded slightly before slowly, almost dramatically, turning his head in the opposite direction in total silence.
"There's no rush to get in there, you need to recuperate first. And if you want to talk about i-"
"Leave me alone," harshly requested Barry, still looking away. His words cut like a knife into the doctor's heart, all she wanted to do was help.
"Barry-" she tried, reaching out for his shoulders, but stopping mid-air as Barry shifted away before repeating himself.
"Leave. Me. Alone," he growled, angrily.
"Alright... I'll be in the other room if you need me," Caitlin said sadly, yielding and passing her hand in her hair as she turned around. Before passing the door, she stopped and turned around one last time, wondering what she wouldn't have given right now to give him some comfort. If only there was something she, or anything, could do. Except, the people who could've helped him, Matt and Olivia, were both gone now. On her way out, she brushed Iris' shoulder as the reporter was about to get back in the room with Cisco.
"Hey, what's going on?" She instantly inquired, seeing the silent tears starting to fall off Caitlin's wet eyes.
"He knows," she whispered, crying both for the speedster and for her own grief.
***FLASHFLASHFLASH***
The medical room got completely cleared out the following morning as word spread that Barry was ready to go back on his feet and demanding to go say his farewell. The speedster didn't look too good with his puffy red eyes and the dark circles around them as he entered the room. It had probably something to do with the fact he just sobbed and cried himself to sleep last night, only falling asleep right before dawn.
"Hey girl," rasped Barry, with his hoarse voice.
He was alone now. He was officially the only survivor of everything he went through in the last 9 months. There wasn't anyone left to talk about the horrors he's seen and endured, there wasn't anyone left alive who would actually understand.
Sniffing and shaking from head to toe, Barry sat down on the chair next to the bed, gently touching the delicate arm that was way paler than what it used to be. With every passing minute, every new detail he saw crushed his heart a bit more; a ventilator was pushing oxygen in the battered body, wires were connected everywhere and sensors were connected on each side of her head. Her face had been completely cleared of all blood and her long beautiful blonde hairs were resting untie behind her back as the machines were beeping steadily, keeping her body functioning 'til…. 'til outside source will pull the plug.
"I let you down, I should've protected you, I never should-" Barry cut his sentence short as he needed to take a couple of shaky breaths to regain control of his voice and his violently shaking body.
"I can't do this without you," he added, sobbing and hiding his face between his hands as he clearly was on the edge of breaking down. What kind of hero let all of his friends die like that?
A couple of days ago, he was ready to get back in his suit and be a hero again, but now? How could he ever be one again? Rising his head, he tried reaching out for the too-still hand, but he choked out halfway, unsure if he could make contact again without losing it completely. Why was it so hard to get any oxygen in? Barry breaths were becoming shorter and faster by the second, sounding more and more like a choking sound, 'til high heels clicking on the ground made themselves heard. The hero didn't move an inch, nor did he turn around. There was no strength left to care about anything anymore. Hell, at this very instant, he didn't have the energy to keep on going with his life in general, he couldn't care less about getting his job back or what Central City's citizens were going to think about their hero disappearing again. It seemed like everything he was touching ended up dead. Always. Like Matt. Like Olivia.
Not a word was spoken, but a moment later, arms wrapped themselves around him from behind as the hero choked out;
"I k-k... ki… killed... he-" sobbed Barry while putting back his head in his hands, crying with everything he had.
"Shhh, it's ok, Barr, it's okay," soothed the voice. Iris. The reporter patiently waited in that position until Barry was ready to lift his head again and wipe his tears away, sniffing.
"If I hadn't met her… if I hadn't... she would still-" he pronounced with all the difficulty in the world.
"She would still be a prisoner to those monsters," reminded Iris, gently kneeling right in front of the speedster and taking his hands between hers.
"Maybe if I had found a way to make her stay with her family, she-" the man tried to argue back, his wet eyes lowering to look at the ground.
"-would've run on her own into the field anyway and would've been too late to save you," interrupted Iris once more, trying to help him see the truth beyond his overwhelming grief. "It's always been easier for you to blame yourself for everything, easier than blame the ones actually responsible, hasn't it? "You need to remember that it was Katie who shot you down, she's the one who caused all of this."
Barry sniffed again and tried to look away, "I just want her back, I just..." he whispered, looking down at the soon-to-be-dead Metahuman. All he wanted was to hear her voice one more time. He needed to see her braid dancing as she walked. He wanted to hear her laugh again... was it too much to ask?
"I know you do, Barr, I know. So is everyone here. Cisco, Caitlin… they've been keeping the strong facade for you, but I've seen them as they tried to save her during these three days. While you were recuperating, I can assure you they were devastated by her fate too. Believe me," continued Iris, still keeping a strong, yet gentle, hold on the man's hands.
Despite the reporter's best efforts, her cheering only had the opposite effect as Barry exhaled loudly, before getting his hands free and gently caressing her too-still friend's hand.
"More pain because I killed her."
Delicately, Iris touched the man's chin and moved it around 'til he was looking back at her with new tears running down his cheeks and down the trail made by the ones from last night, "Barry, she didn't die because of you, she died for you."
Barry scoffed, "what's the difference?"
"The difference is, you didn't pull any trigger nor did you cause her death. She chose to sacrifice herself for you. She chose to exchange her life for yours knowing that every person you're gonna save in the future is going to live because of her action."
Slowly blinking, Barry stared back at the woman, thinking intensively about what she just said. The hero didn't even notice how water suddenly stopped rising in his eyes. Iris was right. The pain was still burning him inside, but something was different. Did he have the right to let everything go, to stop helping people, after Olivia's sacrifice?
"I don-"
Iris smiled, interrupting him once more, "just, think about it, alright?"
Swallowing the pain, Barry nodded as the girl got back up, kissed him on the forehead and slowly left the room as fast and gracefully as she entered it, leaving the man to his thoughts.
A/N: One more chapter to go for the trilogy, leave a hug for Barry and a comment ;) Sorry for the tears everyone