Summary: Tess Morgan didn't die in the car accident. It's a shame that doesn't save her.
Notes: Alternate Universe - Prequel to the story "(Survivor's) Guilt"
The Wrong Face
It doesn't take Eobard long to track down Tess Morgan and Harrison Wells. They're a handsome couple, vacationing on the beach, plotting together to create a future that will ultimately outstrip even their wildest dreams.
It's a shame they have to die.
Harrison Wells is a handsome man, so at least Eobard should enjoy his appearance for the next fifteen years.
He watches them on the beach and then bugs the little bungalow they're renting. Learns when they're leaving for home and then... he picks just the right moment - the right place - to run into the road in front of them.
The car swerves around Eobard, though he still has to run out of the way to avoid being hit. Not the greatest plan he's ever come up with, but not his worst either.
In retrospect, trying to kill the Flash and then murdering Nora Allen in a fit of pique over failing is Eobard's worst plan. It was why he was trapped here in this backwards past, full of climate science deniers and hollow Earth theorists and homes in the ozone layer... the night sky wasn't visible from the cities, all the stars obscured. The air stank like gasoline fumes. This place, this time... this was hell. Eobard wanted to go home.
But, somehow, the Speed Force had gone dormant and so to was Eobard's connection to it - obviously there was a deeper connection between Barry Allen becoming the Flash and the Speed Force's awakening than Eobard had suspected. He had to ration what little speed was left in his veins before it ran out entirely.
There was still the negative speed force, of course, but Eobard was wary of using that to augment his speed without the actual Speed Force there to balance out the worst of its deleterious effects.
Positioning himself as Harrison Wells would give Eobard the perfect positioning to create the STAR Labs accelerator years earlier than in the original timeline and force the Speed Force back awake upon Barry Allen's exposure to a combination of dark matter and electricity. And then he'd be able to use both sources of speed without worry again. Dangle a carrot in front of the Flash's nose and he'd even run fast enough to send Eobard home and reset the timeline in Eobard's place.
Win-win, as the saying went.
Returning to the car, Eobard surveyed the damage. The vehicle had flipped upside down and both Morgan and Wells were unconscious. A shame - he'd have to kill Morgan using a bit of his speed to stop her heart. He'd been hoping she'd die in the crash. It'd make for a much easier cleanup for him. Still, as long as they were both out for the count... Eobard crouched down beside the driver's side door and gazed through the empty window frame at the face he'd soon be wearing.
Definitely quite handsome.
"Harrison?" Tess Morgan's voice was unmistakable. And a problem. "Helps coming, Harrison."
Eobard walked around the wreck, glass crunching beneath his feet.
"Who's there?" Tess demanded. There was a click and a soft 'ow' as she took off her seatbelt and slipped from her seat.
"I saw your car flip over. Came to help," Eobard lied, watching as her door opened next. He helped her out of the car. "I called 911," he added. Another lie, of course. He had no intention of calling the police until the scene was staged just right.
Now he'd have to make it look he'd dragged her corpse from the car.
"So did I, but my phone died after they said ambulances were on the way."
Dammit. Eobard didn't know what the response times looked like, this close to Starling City. But there was at least one hospital and fire station near where this interstate crossed over the city limits. And with the roads clear so late and their location relatively close to the city itself
Eobard had to make a choice. He had time to kill and replace one person as well as hide their body in the grave he'd prepared earlier. He didn't know that he had enough time to kill a second person on top of that.
Gender wasn't particularly meaningful to Eobard. They were pronouns and a presentation. The future - Eobard's present, if he could ever return to it - wasn't so rigid and conformist about social institutions like gender the way the year 2000 was. It was... the physical aspects that made Eobard prefer to take the place of a man.
But if Eobard was remembering his history correctly - and he always remembered his history correctly - Tess Morgan was the real genius behind the STAR Labs accelerator. Not to say the Harrison Wells wasn't an impressive genius in his own right, but his wife was the sort of powerhouse of brilliance who might have been a genius by Eobard's standards too. If Eobard wants to keep history relatively on track, then maybe he needs to forget Harrison and focus on Morgan. Certainly the circumstances Eobard found himself in now lend credence to that theory.
"Please, will you help me get my husband out of the car? He wasn't waking up, I'm afraid he's got a concussion." Tess brushed past Eobard, but he turned and caught her arm. "Hey! What are you doing?!"
"I'm really quite sorry, Dr. Morgan," Eobard said, backhanding her hard. He watched dispassionately as she hit the ground and tried to get away, letting out a yelp of pain as the glass shards from the windshield cut into her hands. "I didn't expect you to survive the crash. But perhaps this was always meant to be." He darted forward, pinning her to the ground and, before she could stop him, he set up the genetic graft. "I promise, your husband will be safe from me." He turned on the graft device and screamed along with his victim as, in seconds, everything changed. When Eobard stood up again, he was shorter. Curves in the wrong places. Glancing back at the car, he thought he saw Wells' face move.
Walking back to the car, Eobard checked but the scientist still trapped within was unconscious. No change there, then.
Eobard returned to Morgan's body. What remained of her, anyway. A quick change swapped his clothing for hers and then he all he had to do was take her down below the bridge to the creek, drop her body in the shallow grave waiting there, and cover her up. Back up to the car with barely a moment to spare as the sirens made themselves known.
He'd been right. Not enough time to stage the scene. Any tramping around from the paramedics would obscure any traces of a third party, not that anyone would be looking for such a thing.
As the first paramedics came running over to Eobard, he pointed towards the car. "Please, help my husband first. He's still trapped inside. Please," Eobard insisted as one of them hung back to check her over, "you've got to help Harrison."
"Of course, ma'am." The EMT led him over to the ambulance and draped a shock blanket around Eobard's shoulders.
Being referred to as a woman was going to take some getting used to.
"Can you tell me your name?" The EMT started checking Eobard's pupil responses next.
"Tess Morgan. I'm Dr. Tess Morgan and that's my husband, Dr. Harrison Wells. Is he alright?"
"My guys are checking him over right now and then we'll all be headed for the hospital. Now, do you remember what happened?"
"There was a... an animal on the road. Something... big." Eobard made a show of struggling to remember. Shock and trauma always made memories a little fuzzy, so best to play that up. "I think it was a moose." While not common in Washington state, there were still plenty of moose around to blame the accident on. "I knew they were big, but this was... huge." Eobard huffed and then listed a bit to one side. "Came out of nowhere. Harrison swerved and we flipped over."
"Well, we're going to get you and your husband to the hospital now."
Tess Morgan was in physically good shape. Eobard has to admit that though not his first choice, being Tess Morgan positions him just as perfectly to create STAR Labs and ensure an early run of the accelerator as being Harrison Wells would have been. Being a widower - or a widow - would have been a lot simpler to deal with than being married. But pushing Harrison Wells into divorce would be easy enough.
He almost feels sorry for the man. The genetic graft had brought with it some of Tess Morgan's memories and feelings, the strongest of which was her love for Harrison Wells... and her desperate desire to protect her husband from the man threatening her at the moment of her death. So now Eobard wants to protect Harrison Wells too.
It makes the decision to divorce Wells that much easier. Because the person Eobard most wants to protect Harrison Wells from... is himself.
"Tess..." Harrison smiled at Eobard, relief coloring his face as Eobard walked into the hospital room. "You're okay." He reached out and, reluctantly, Eobard came over to hold the other man's hand.
"I'm doing better than you. How's your head feeling? You were pretty out of it earlier."
"Better now that you're here." Harrison smiled softly, gently squeezing Eobard's hand before letting go.
Eobard smiled even as he felt something in his chest squeeze painfully. Tess Morgan's love for Harrison Wells was... distracting.
The sooner Harrison Wells was out of Eobard's life, the better. For both of them.