Summary: Being with Team Flash pulls him in too many directions. Harry's memories of Cisco are overwhelming with pride and affection. HR aches for the whole team's approval. Sherloque wants to know if Barry's survival of the Red Skies crisis means that Nora West-Allen will be born after all. Nash just wants to tell Allegra that his decision... his death was not her fault.

But when he's in the past, there's only one voice. Harrison Wells who loves Tess Morgan very much.

It's not his life. But he wishes it was. So that maybe, for a little while, he won't have to wonder which Wells was the source of the words that just came out of his mouth.

Content Warning: Suicidal Thoughts (flashback to Nash Wells, who was not in a good place before he died)

The Uncomplicated Choice

The truth is, the decision isn't really about being with Tess again.

It's easier to say that. To tell them he's the original Wells. Really. He remembers that life, after all.

He remembers all the other Wells lives too, though. That's sort of the problem.

Waking up was a shock. Every memory in his mind ended in death.

He isn't entirely sure what his name was. Most of his memories tell him his name was Harrison Wells. Except when it wasn't. Sometimes it was something else, but most of the time... given name Harrison, surname Wells. He supposes it'll do for now.

STAR Labs is important to him in most lives, so he goes there. He needs to go there.

The problem is, its too far to walk. And he doesn't have any money on him so even if he walks to Starling City, which his clearest memories tell him is just down the road about an hour's walk (well, maybe more like two hours), he can't purchase a ticket for a train ride there.

So he closes his eyes and thinks. How did he get here?

He died here. Clearest memories say he died on the road where he stands now, having walked out of the ditch below where he'd... instantiated. From nothing. Some man, impossibly fast - Eobard Thawne, whispers Harry Wells' memories - had assaulted him, shoved some device in his mouth and... his last moments were agony.

His body must've been buried in the ground below. To hide the truth.

But Harrison - and he figures he might as well call himself Harrison Wells for now. It's not like anyone else living has a better claim to the identity - wasn't buried there. Not anymore anyway.

"Joe and I went to Star City and investigated the scene of the crash," Cisco said, not quite able to look Harry in the eyes. "I was still hoping... I don't know, I was still hoping we wouldn't find anything." He took a drink from the beer bottle he was nursing. "But we did. Skeletal remains of the real Harrison Wells. After the singularity, we reburied him under his real name in Star City, next to Tess Morgan's grave. We didn't know what else to do."

"I think," Harry told him carefully, passing his own beer from hand to hand, "you did the right thing. The truth is stranger than fiction. No one would have believed it and Henry Allen deserved to go free. But now he's at rest with Tess."

Of course, if Harrison Wells was at rest with Tess Morgan, that still begged the question of who he was.

"Because in the vast night sky, you, Harrison Wells, are the only star I see."

But who was he when every star in the sky was Harrison Wells?

And none of this was helping him figure out how to move from point A to point B without one or two hours walking and trying to scrounge train fair and... and he's not even wearing the clothes the original Harrison Wells died in. Why is he here?

He should be at the cemetery and he doesn't eve know which... one...

Except the world floats away like green mist. Or maybe it's him. Maybe he's turning to mist and it feels like when he woke up. Except this time, when the haze clears, he's standing in a cemetery, looking down at a pair of headstones bearing the names of Tess Morgan and Harrison Wells.

On the bright side, he knows how to get to STAR Labs now.

(He presses his hand to Tess Morgan's headstone. He remembered loving her. Loving innumerable versions of her. Every Harrison Wells who ever met a Tess Morgan loved her at first sight. He closes his eyes again and feels tears running down his face. Grieving for her death in the way he doesn't know how for the Harrison Wells whose lives now make up the basis for his own.

It takes a while before he's ready to leave again.)

He arrives in STAR Labs where he's needed most.

"Nash?" Barry sounds wrecked.

"No," he said, stepping forward into the light and feeling Harry's parental affection for Barry. HR's admiration. "My name is Harrison." Sherloque's and Nash's hard won respect. "Dr. Harrison Wells."

Barry needed a Dr. Harrison Wells to tell him there was still hope. That's what Harrison wanted to give him.

Hope.

Harrison Wells had been a fan of Star Trek the Original Series. Which might not seem like an important thing to note, but there were some very profound statements to be found in the otherwise very cheesy sixties show.

But those moments of profoundness explained why it had become the massive franchise spanning multiple forms of media that all proudly proclaimed themselves Star Trek.

One of Harrison's favorite episodes was The City on the Edge of Forever. And there's a point where Kirk says "'Let me help.' A hundred years or so from now, I believe, a famous novelist will write a classic using that theme. He'll recommend those three words even over 'I love you'."

It wasn't just Harrison the words stuck with. And many a Star Trek fan would write essays about the poignancy of the words. The importance of offering help being a greater indicator of ones humanity than love. That compassion was a stronger force than anything else in the universe... that compassion, not love, conquered all.

So after stringing together a plausible explanation for his existence and hoping Barry'll buy it, Harrison tells him, "let me just say... let me help you. Because they would want me to."

And Barry is afraid. So very afraid and tired and grieving and circumstances have only grown worse since the last moment Nash and the other Wells remembered.

But Barry has always been stronger with Iris by his side. Harry understood that. HR died to ensure that. Sherloque had watched Barry and Iris survive the worst kind of pain that parents should never endure because they were together. "Aren't you the paragon of love?" asked Nash. "Look, anyone can save the world with their speed. With their might. But it takes a real hero - a once in a lifetime hero - to do it with his heart." Harry and Nash said together.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

Compassion might have been Harrison's greatest strength. But love was Barry's. And it was HR's. "It means run, Barry. Run toward love."

"Nash?"

That's... going to happen a lot, he supposes, smiling in resigned amusement. "No," he says, turning around... but the smile on his face dies as he sees Allegra.

"You lied!"

"Yes! I lied! Because I'm the organic receptor. And I'm not ready to die yet." Nash didn't know how to explain in a way that made sense. Made the panic, panic, panic running through his brain form into the right words.

"Okay, look, Barry wouldn't let anyone die for the Artificial Speed Force," Chester interjected. Trying to help, but making it worse.

"Yeah, so why lie about it?" Allegra pressed.

Just because Barry wouldn't want to let anyone die for the Artificial Speed Force didn't mean it was Barry's choice. It was Nash's choice. "Because I was scared." He'd seen so many universes die in fear and agony because of him. He was afraid of dying like that. In pain and alone because... they'd try to stop him if they knew that even though he wasn't ready to die, he kind of thought he deserved it.

He was afraid to die. He was terrified of living even more.

"I get it," Allegra said.

And for a moment Nash hoped she really did.

"I thought you had changed."

The accusation hangs in the air long after she leaves and Nash sends Chester away.

Allegra crosses the room and hugs Harrison, latching onto him hard. Desperate for a miracle and hoping against reason that maybe some of the darkness had lifted.

He couldn't lie to her. Not about this. "Allegra... Nash thought... very highly of you." Nash had loved her. Not his Mara, but a daughter in her own right. If only there had been time.

Harrison wants to tell her it's not her fault. Nash didn't kill himself because of her words. But she pulls away, embarrassed. And then the others arrive, but Nash's words are for her ears only. So Harrison doesn't speak them.

Caitlin gets it immediately. "The new Wells." Like she'd almost been expecting yet-another-iteration to show up.

Dr. Snow was always very bright.

"You're here to save us?" Chester asks. Hope still burns the easiest in him. He hasn't had to pay the toll for saving the city and the world and the multiverse again and again and again like Cisco or Caitlin or Barry have.

Cisco watches carefully. Silent. Pain in those eyes because... Harrison isn't the Wells he wants standing at his side in a crisis.

In some ways, HR was the wisest and smartest of them all.

Harrison had to wonder, as Barry explained the spark he'd felt with Iris, if HR would have known the Speed Force was still alive. Not dead, but dormant.

"No, but the Speed Force is an elemental part of the universe," Harrison said, musing out loud. "So theoretically..."

"Theoretically," Cisco took over the explanation... the way he would have with Harry, "it could have never disappeared."

"And you think its still in Iris?" Allegra asked.

More like a link to it. She'd been a speedster herself once, if ever so briefly, and her speed had come from Barry. Nora's speed came from both her parents, in turn.

Sherloque had always wondered about that purple and yellow combination in the temporally displaced speedster's lightning. Harry remembered the way Iris had looked, fearless and brave like his Jesse, as she'd trailed purple lightning around the city.

"We repurpose the ASF to tap into an organic source instead of an artificial one," Cisco said, in answer to the question of how they tapped into that link that resided inside of Iris.

"I can help with that," Harrison promised. Or maybe it was Harry.

It was probably Harry.

"Okay, well, I'm gonna need-"

"Yeah, I got it."

... definitely Harry.

Sherloque was always the one who questioned things. And Harry's hubris had taken a hard knock after the thinking cap had drained his intelligence. They ask Barry if he's sure.

Harrison needs to know the answer.

But then Iris walks in and puts her hands on the ASF without even the slightest hesitation - is she really okay, HR wonders - and that's answer enough.

Barry runs. And the Speed Force wakes up.

And in the hallway stands another Barry and another Harrison.

Time travel. He's... timeless. That's...

Harrison's ability to travel from point A to point B in a haze of green starts to make a startling amount of sense.

It's compassion that saves the day.

Barry's love for Iris wakes her up. Iris' compassion for Eva breaks through Eva's bitterness and rage. Opens her eyes to the consequences of her actions.

But it's all too much for Harrison.

HR's fear when Iris runs into danger. Harry's terror at the idea of losing Cisco the way he'd lost Jesse and his Tess and his whole Earth. Sherloque's worry that this time Team Flash has encountered an enemy they can't beat.

Harrison knows they win. He saw his future self with Barry.

But he also knows he can't stay. Can't stay with so many different voices chattering in his brain. He doesn't know how Nash lived like this for so long. He needs just one voice.

It doesn't even have to be his.

He said he was the original Harrison Wells. So maybe he should make that reality. Until Team Flash needs him again.

Harrison suspects he'll like the quiet.

He's not lying when he says he can see the full scope of his life. Past, present, and future. And in a way, he was arguably the original Wells after all. His life - his memories - were tied most strongly to that man. So who was to say they were different people entirely?

At the moment the Speed Force was reawakened, he didn't just see himself there with Barry, watching from a distance the rebirth of the Speed Force. He was standing there in that hallway, with Barry, watching himself as all the Forces woke up. Including the Force that had bonded to him and brought him back to life at the exact moment he was needed most.

All the possible paths his life could take and it's as much of a burden to know them in this moment as it was to remember all the thoughts and memories of every other Wells who'd ever existed.

He knows he'll see Cisco again. At least one time more. Harry has more to say to Cisco and Harrison, well...

He had ninety-two years of life to look forward to and only a tiny fraction of that had been lived thus far.

And reliving his four years with Tess over and over again wouldn't count. Not really.

So he knew he'd see Cisco again. And Barry and Iris. Allegra and Chester. Nora and Bart. Nora's daughter Jenni. Bart's kids, Don and Dawn. (Bart shouldn't be allowed to name children, honestly.) The Flash family through the ages...

When they needed him, there was always going to be a Harrison Wells waiting and willing to help.

All they had to do was ask.

Cisco says "you're not even like him." And then he talks about Eobard Thawne. The man who'd pretended to be Wells.

Harrison takes it as a compliment. Even as he knows what Cisco isn't saying about all the others, because it's too much, too painful.

So many loved ones dead and Cisco has to learn to let them go.

"How do you miss someone you barely even know?" And who knows if Cisco means Eobard Thawne and the man he'd pretended to be. Or Harrison, who somehow has all the shared history of the other Wells and all the familiarity of a stranger.

Of course, Harrison knows this isn't really goodbye. And maybe the other Wells' love for this man isn't his, but it burns just as strongly in Harrison as it did in any of them.

"Before you go... how exactly do you travel in time?" Cisco's curious smile seems a little lighter than it did before.

"Easy," Harrison tells him. And the showman in him - not just HR, there were more than a few who liked their dramatic gestures - said, "just like this." And with a wave of his arm he moved through time.

He arrives just minutes before Harrison Wells meets Tess Morgan and lets himself go.

The man who walks into the next room doesn't remember who Cisco Ramon or Barry Allen even are. Has never met Allegra Garcia. He doesn't know that in four years he'll be murdered.

It's for the best. Everything is loud and complicated when he isn't living in these four years. And Harrison Wells can feel the exhaustion of lifetimes settling in his bones when he's out there. But here things are... softer. Full of hope. Uncomplicated.

So the Harrison Wells who walks into the next room - to give his first physics lecture to a group of university students - meets his fellow guest lecturer for the first time. And falls hopelessly in love with her when they spend that evening debating theoretical physics over beer at the campus bar.

And the Timeless Wells, who knows, now, exactly who he is... sleeps. Waiting for when Barry will need him next.