Here we are again. Part 3 of the Invasion and we're still not finished yet. But I hope you all enjoy regardless. And this is going to be where Barry has realized his feelings. His mind has been opened. Next week will conclude the Invasion and will be moving on with the plot. Oh, and Barry and Caitlin will officially start dating. Yes! Co-authors are Brightburn1985 and ThomasMarieAmell2.0.

Disclaimer: I don't own any part of the Arrowverse

Caitlin felt a chill run down her spine. Like a sense of dread that hadn't made itself known yet. Did something happen to Barry? This couldn't be happening.

Caitlin's fingers felt numb, which wasn't anything different, but this time felt strange. Fear overtaking her at the thought that something might have happened to Barry that wouldn't allow him to return home. To her.

A lone tear unceremoniously fell from her eyes, but it instantly froze, becoming an ice crystal when it landed on her desk.

Cisco noticed her tear and leaned towards her to try to comfort her. "Hey, everything will be okay. We're going to get Barry back,"

"This is so stupid," Caitlin muttered.

"What is?" Cisco asked.

"Me." Caitlin responded. "What am I even thinking about, being in a relationship with Barry when the entire world is always going to be at risk? I mean today, it's aliens. Tomorrow could be a nuclear bomb, or zombie apocalypse, or vending machines becoming the dominant race."

"Vending machines?" Cisco asked dubiously.

"It could happen. You don't know everything." Caitlin retorted.

"Regardless, what brought this on? You've never had these doubts before," Cisco inquired.

"It's going to sound out there," Caitlin gave him a look.

"More out there than vending machines taking over?" Cisco raised an eyebrow.

"I got this feeling that Barry is in danger. But then it was gone. And I just kept thinking maybe it's because the Dominators 'finished' their business with him," Caitlin held back a sob when she said that. "That Barry is gone, and I'm never going to see him again. And I'm never going to be able to tell him how much he actually means to me. And I'm scared that the only thing I'm going to remember about him is the stupid face he had when I kissed him,"

"Wait you-"

"Not now Cisco," Caitlin interrupted him before he could finish his statement.

"Okay, we can discuss this at a later date. For now, you can't honestly think that. Barry is not gone. He's… lost and he's waiting for us to find him. And that's exactly what we're going to do,"

"Lost? You could at least be honest Cisco. He was taken. Kidnapped by aliens whom none of us know what they want from him." Caitlin glared at him. "They've had him in their custody for 12 hours. Anything could have happened to Barry in that time. You can't say that Barry might not be…"

"You're right. I can't say that. But I can't believe that it happened. I have faith in Barry. The Dominators are still here. Which means we still have a chance to rescue Barry, which we will. Oliver and Kara have been discussing a plan to invade the ship until they find Barry and bring him home."

Caitlin let out a heavy breath, calming herself down. "Let's hope that we aren't too late."

"So let's get back to the fact that you kissed Barry, again." Cisco said.

"Who's kissing who?" Felicity chimed in.

"Caitlin was smooching Barry," Cisco said.

"Oh my god. It's about time. You're lucky, he's a good kisser," Felicity smiled.

"You kissed him?" Caitlin asked. Felicity just nodded her head. "See, this is another reason why I shouldn't have tried. Barry is surrounded by beautiful women. Why would he choose me?"

"Okay, first off, thank you. It means so much to me that you think I'm gorgeous. Second, don't sell yourself short. You are beautiful Caitlin, and Barry definitely thinks so too. I mean you've kissed, had sex…" Felicity trailed off when she realized she wasn't supposed to have known that.

"He told you?!" Caitlin shrieked.

"Wait, that happened?" Cisco shouted. "How do I not know about that? And how does Felicity know and I don't?"

"We were drunk. It was a mistake. Neither of us could remember what happened that night," Caitlin waved him off. "How could he tell you that?"

"I weaseled it out of him. I'm sorry. I was trying to get him to admit his feelings for you and one thing led to another and he's telling me you jumped into bed with him." Felicity had an apologetic look on her face.

"Okay, he jumped into bed with me. And he never should have told anybody. We promised it was another thing that would stay between just us," Caitlin shouted.

"Another thing? What else has happened?" Cisco asked.

"They never happened," Caitlin whispered to him with a glare.

"How was he?" Felicity asked after a moment of silence.

"Felicity!"

"What? I'm curious. How does the fastest man alive perform in the sheets?"

"I don't know. It's all blank, I can't remember anything that night." Caitlin stated.

"Hey, what are you guys talking about here?" Kara asked having noticed the very loud conversation the trio were having.

"Caitlin had kissed Barry, and now we're trying to ease her doubt that Barry does love her. He's just coming to terms with it." Felicity said.

"That's great Caitlin. Barry is an awesome guy. And a good kisser." Kara said.

"Oh my god!"

Barry awoke on the cold floor. Darkness surrounding him. Barry tried opening his eyes, but a blinding light forced him to shut them off.

Slowly, Barry pushed himself off the floor. His eyes were adjusting to the harsh light. Barry had no idea where he could be. Hadn't Savitar killed him? He definitely felt weaker. There was no feeling of The Speed Force within him. Was this life on the other side?

Once Barry could finally see clearly, Barry noticed he was staring at a wall. A blue tiled wall.

Barry swivelled around to see he was surrounded. There was only one side that was another wall, and it was the window showing Barry who was on the other side.

The rest of the team was standing on the other side of the glass. Did they seem angry?

"Guys? Come on, please let me out. This isn't funny." Barry said.

Nobody reacted. It seemed as if they hadn't heard him. Barry banged on the glass to see if that would spur a reaction from them.

"Guys?!" Barry shouted. "Please, let me out. If I did something, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for whatever I did, but just please let me out!"

The team seemed to have slowly disappeared. A few people had left the group until it was only Caitlin on the other side of the glass.

"Caitlin please. I can't stand being trapped here any longer. I need to get out of here." Barry was frantically gasping.

Barry never thought himself to be claustrophobic, but being in the cell seemed to have brought that out. The walls seemed to be closing in on the little space he had.

"Please Caitlin. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for everything. I'm sorry for every little fight we ever had. I'm sorry for every offence, for the insults. I'm sorry if I made you feel like an idiot when I left you standing after you kissed me. Just please, let me out." Barry was banging on the glass, trying to convey how sorry he was, desperate to be released.

Caitlin seemed to be slowly inching forward to release the lock on the cell. Barry leaned against the wall, watching her every move. Hope blossomed within him as he watched her about to open the damn door.

But at the last second, it seemed something had pulled Caitlin away and she turned around to walk away.

"No. No!" Barry shouted in despair. "Please don't leave me! I don't want to be alone. Don't leave me down here! Please! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm so sorry that I never got to tell you how much you mean to me. I've been lying to you. I've been lying to myself for years because I never thought you could ever feel something for someone as broken as me. I tried to stop myself, convince myself that it wasn't true and for so long I thought that was it, but the truth is that I love you. I do, I love you. I'm always going to love you, till the end of my days. Just please don't leave me by myself. You don't need to let me out. Just stay with me. I want you to stay! Please don't go! Caitlin!"

Tears were falling from Barry's eyes as he saw Caitlin's retreating form vanish from view. Barry was wracked with sobs as he slid down the wall.

Barry curled up on himself, silently whimpering to himself, sniffling his nose.

"Barry…" a whisper came out.

Barry stilled at the sound. The last time he'd heard a whisper, it was filled with rage and malice with the promise of pain. This voice sounded nurturing. Filled with love and care.

"You need to wake up. You need to leave,"

"Who's there?" Barry asked.

"Be brave. Stand strong. You need to get out of here,"

"I can't. I can't get out of here. I'm trapped. I'm scared," Barry shook his head. "I'm not brave."

"Just because you're scared, doesn't mean you can't be brave. It's the fact that you're scared, yet you do it anyway is what it means to be brave. Stand tall."

The voice disappeared and Barry was left sitting in silence.

Barry slowly stood up, staring at the outside of the cell. He needed to get out of here. He needed to break through. "Nothing's changed," Barry whispered.

He silently hoped the Dominators were listening. They were trying to break his resolve, but Barry refused to bend. "I'm going home. And none of you can stop me,"

Barry closed his eyes and searched his soul, looking for the strength that would free him from this prison.

There it was. That light crackle of lightning surging just beneath the skin. Barry held on to that feeling. Opening his eyes, Barry could feel the power pulse behind his eyes.

Lifting his hand, carefully vibrating it, he made the quick motion and plunged his hand into his own chest and squeezed.

Barry's eyes shot open and he found himself stuck in a pod with wires attached to him in several places. And there was that feeling. A familiar feeling, as though something were pulling something from him that he didn't even know was there.

Barry tugged the wires off himself and smashed through the glass of the pod that was keeping him contained. Maybe he was still feeling the claustrophobia from his dreamscape. Maybe he would have to deal with it forever, but that didn't matter. He just needed to find a way out of this ship.

Right after Barry escaped, he came across a horde of Dominators that were now all looking at him. Alerted to his escape, the lead alien growled something and the rest came charging at him.

Barry got out of there as soon as he could, running through the halls of the ship to see if there was anything that he could use to help him escape.

The wall suddenly exploded and two figures came out of the smoke and debris.

"Kara? Oliver?" Barry shouted in shock.

"Barry! I'm so glad to see you're okay," Kara exclaimed, pulling him into a hug that left him feeling sore everywhere but he didn't complain. He was just so happy to see them.

"How did you get here?" Barry asked.

"Long story," Oliver replied.

"We used the Waverider. Apparently it travels through time and space," Kara said.

"Okay, I guess it wasn't that long." Oliver grumbled.

"How did you know I was here?" Barry asked.

"Do we really have time for these questions right now?" Oliver asked.

"Cisco vibed you on this ship. We just kept looking through the ship until we found you," Kara said.

"Apparently you do," Barry cheekily replied.

"Let's just get back to the Waverider before the Dominators show up and we waste more time on questions that can be answered when we're away from danger," Oliver said.

Barry grabbed a hold of Oliver and he ran behind Kara, who was leading them back to the Waverider to make their escape.

They encountered a few Dominators, but they quickly left them behind.

Once they'd made their way back to the Waverider, the area was crowded with Dominators waiting for them. When the three heroes saw them, they hid behind a wall to remain out of sight.

"Please tell me somebody is guarding the ship inside," Barry said.

"The Legends were the ones to drive us up here," Oliver responded. "They should be inside."

"So how do we get inside?" Kara asked.

Barry contemplated the situation for a second before coming to an answer that might work. "Grab a hold of me. I'm going to phase us through the crowd and into the ship,"

"You can do that?" Oliver asked.

"I should," Barry nervously replied.

"Is that a yes?" Oliver asked once again.

"It's a maybe,"

"I think we should talk about this before you do something potentially dangerous," Oliver said.

"No time," Barry grabbed his friends and vibrated his whole body, taking Oliver and Kara along with him and ran straight through the crowd. Barry kept a firm grip on his two companions and charged at the closed door to the Waverider.

Pulling on his powers for the final stretch, Barry phased through the wall with Kara and Oliver right beside him.

"Oh god, that felt weird," Oliver groaned at the strange sensation of moving through solid matter.

"Made me feel tingly. Now I want to see if I can do that myself," Kara grinned at the feeling.

"Guys! We're on board the ship, get us out of here!" Barry shouted, hoping that one of the Legends would hear him.

The three made their way to the brig of the ship where the rest of the crew were. "How did you guys get through?" Sara asked.

"Barry phased us through the door. Let's just go!" Oliver shouted.

Sara operated the controls and got the Waverider launched from the Dominator ship and sent them back to Earth.

"So glad to see you're okay Barry," Ray commented.

"Thanks. I appreciate you lending us the Waverider to rescue me." Barry said. "So what's the plan to deal with the Dominators?"

"We'll talk about that later. For now, let's just get you home," Jax commented from his seat.

Caitlin was with Felicity and Cisco, accompanying them as they waited for the others to come back. It has been half an hour since they left and they haven't heard anything from them since.

Suddenly, the roaring sound of the Waverider's engine filled her ears and she was immediately filled with anticipation. They had Barry back.

The rest of the heroes gathered outside to see the Waverider land and cloak itself from view of any onlookers. The hatch opened and the Legends, Oliver, Kara, and Barry stepped out of the ship.

Caitlin's eyes were fixed on Barry. He seemed thin. The Dominators probably weren't feeding him anything. After going 12 hours with no food, it was a miracle he was still standing. And there was a look in his eyes that seemed haunted. Like he'd seen the world in the time he'd been gone.

Caitlin rushed to support Barry because it seemed as if he would fall over with a slight breeze.

"Are you okay?" Caitlin asked worriedly.

"I'm fine. Honestly. Tired, hungry. I'll be good as new once I get some food in me," Barry dismissed her, but the fact he was heavily leaning on her for support as they walked was telling another story.

"You're not okay. I need to get an IV for you to get you back to strength. What happened to you? What did the Dominators do to you?"

"Tried to keep me complacent. Put me in a fantasy. Or more like what they thought was my fantasy by poking around in my head," Barry said.

"You got any idea what they wanted from you? I mean, they kidnapped you for a reason," Cisco asked.

"They didn't really say. But they wanted me to stay in the fantasy for as long as possible. I think they were trying to drain the Speed Force from my system." Barry said as he got on a bed in the hangar. "When I woke up I had all these wires connected to me along with the familiar feeling of having my energy drained."

"Why would they do that?" Oliver asked. This might be their key to defeating the Dominators.

"Well, the Speed Force is an endless source of energy. The Dominators might have taken Barry to use as a battery of some kind." Caitlin suggested.

"Or maybe they wanted to put Barry in their alien zoo," Cisco said in a conspiratorial tone.

Everyone just rolled their eyes as a response to Cisco's theory, not even worthy for an answer of any kind.

"What else happened Barry? I need to know how many IV bags we're going to need from STAR to get your energy levels back to normal," Caitlin said.

Barry shrugged helplessly. "I broke out of my containment unit and started running around, looking for an exit until meeting up with Kara and Oliver,"

"What else?" Caitlin could tell Barry was holding something back.

"It was nothing I couldn't handle," Barry waved her off.

"If it was nothing, you should tell me. Already, I can tell the fact that you managed to get out was purely due to adrenaline. How much more of your energy did you tax when you did?" Caitlin was not taking no for an answer.

"In order to get into the Waverider, I might have phased myself, Oliver, and Kara through the hull of the ship," Barry sheepishly said.

"You idiot!" Caitlin shouted, slapping his shoulder. By now, the rest of the heroes had gone off to do their own thing, leaving the doctor to her patient. "Do you realize how dangerous that was? To not only phase yourself, but you brought along two others with you. One of them being an alien from another universe who's vibrational frequency might have prevented you from phasing. Something you've never done before, and you were doing it while running on fumes,"

"But I did it. Everything worked out in the end. I don't get why it's such a big deal. What does it matter what might have happened? It didn't," Barry argued.

Caitlin had ordered Cisco to transport to STAR Labs and return with a minimum of 30 IV bags for Barry. "It matters because you never think these things through. So what if it worked out for you this time? It's not always going to. You can't keep testing new abilities when lives could be at stake. You got lucky, but you can't depend on your luck to save you every time,"

"Okay, I'm sorry," Barry conceded. "I should have put more thought into my plan, but in my defence, we were surrounded with the entrance to the Waverider blocked off. I had to think of something, and smashing a ship when we're in the cold vacuum of space didn't seem like a good option. I had to try. To get home."

Barry's eyelids were beginning to feel heavy, and his mind began to feel as if the whole world were swirling. The rumbling of Barry's stomach made it apparent what was going on.

"Don't worry, Cisco will be here soon with the IV bags, and if he's smart, he'll bring some calorie bars so you'll actually have something in your stomach." Caitlin consoled him, trying to ease his hunger pain.

"Caitlin, there's something I need to tell you about what happened to me," Barry mumbled, but it was loud enough for Caitlin to hear.

"It was entirely your fault, but you weren't thinking rationally at the time. It's okay, I understand. I'm sorry I got so mad," Caitlin said, thinking he was talking about his rash decision to test his ability to phase other objects along with him.

"No, it's…" Barry tried to say, but he passed out before he could finish his sentence. Hopefully Cisco would return soon with the IV bags. Barry desperately needed them if he was already passing out.

Barry was resting with several IV bags hooked up to him, pumping nutrients that he desperately needed.

The rest of the heroes were working, coming up with ways to drive the Dominators off their planet.

Stein had come up with the idea of a disruptor that they would place on their body. With Kara and Barry's speed, they could place one on them without any of the Dominators noticing. It would be tiny and at first, painless to put on, so it wouldn't run the risk of the Dominators taking notice. But once activated, it would deliver massive amounts of pain through their nervous systems. The problem was making the amount needed since it seemed there were Dominators all over the country. The good news was there were no Dominators all over the world. It was just focused on the US.

An image shimmered to existence in the middle of the room that called the attention of everyone.

"What is this?" Oliver demanded to know.

"What you Earthlings are seeing is a projection that we have placed in your minds. We have sent this message to let you know we do not desire war." A voice sounded in their head as the image seemed to be looking at each of them.

"You have a funny way of showing it after you killed our president," Sara snarled, remembering the image of the president being transformed to ashes.

"A small casualty. But already he has been replaced. We simply ask for you to return our prisoner, and we will leave in peace,"

"You want The Flash? Why?" Cisco asked in concern for his friend.

"The Flash holds the power to save or destroy the multiverse. His very existence threatens the life of all who live, and all who have yet to come,"

"So why is he still alive? Why didn't you kill him when you had him in your custody?" Kara asked, questioning Barry's continued existence.

"The Speed Force would work to prevent that, taking him to shelter before restoring him."

"Which is why you had to drain him of his powers before you killed him. If you had done beforehand, The Speed Force might be able to bring him back,"

"The lightning must be extinguished before the vessel can be destroyed," They agreed.

"Well Dominator… what do we call you?" Cisco asked, not knowing the name of their negotiator.

"We have no names. You humans bear names because you don't know who you are. We know who we are, hence, we don't have names."

"Well then, you're just going to be disappointed, because we're not giving up Barry. You said that he could save or destroy the multiverse, so I don't think it's fair you get to decide what happens to him when he's yet to do anything," Cisco said defiantly.

"So be it. This was your last chance of a surrender. The next time we meet will be on the battlefield," The image disappeared from their minds.

So Barry's confession was a bit much, I'll admit. But I really wanted to hit the emotional points, and since it was in Barry's mind instead of reality I figured some things aren't going to be as filtered as they usually would. But Barry has escaped, I addd some needed humour, and the Dominators bargain. Well, more like a demand.

So nobody guessed what I based the nightmare of the Dominator's fantasy on. I'm not sure if it's because nobody bothered or that nobody knew, but I based it on Coraline. Not the movie, the book, but the movie is a work of art.

But I guess that's the end of this chapter. I'll see you all next week for the union of a speed demon and an ice witch.