A/N: Sorry for the long wait. I do believe another chapter for this fic will be up w/in the coming weeks before it gets put on the backburner again. Stay tuned! (This is also for the WIP week from a couple months back - Day 6, Most Popular WIP)

*Many thanks to sendtherain for being an awesome beta once again.

...

Chapter 5 -

It'd been too long since he'd seen her face-to-face. Too damn long. He'd scrolled through pictures of her, pictures of them, on his phone, in their photo albums, in the many picture frames scattered throughout his apartment. But seeing her in the flesh, being unable to avoid her presence…

She was breathtaking.

Hair parted stunningly on the opposite side of the one she usually chose, her long black locks sweeping across her graceful shoulders, just covering up the classy scoop neck blouse that led to the form-fitting leather pencil skirt that reminded him of all the wet dreams he'd had every day since they broke up that always woke him up in a rush.

A headache hit shortly after every morning, reminding him that they were no longer together, and it had been his call. The cold shower that followed gave him time to think, but never to the point where he'd take back what he said. She was still living too recklessly. He couldn't turn a blind eye to it and pretend he was okay with it when he wasn't.

But God, she was beautiful.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, surprisingly himself by the fact that he didn't stutter.

Iris blinked and then narrowed her eyes a little. He wondered if she'd been briefly as caught up in him as he was with her.

Impossible.

"Am I not allowed to visit my father?" She folded her arms beneath her breasts, daring him to argue with her.

Barry couldn't tell if she was angry, sarcastic, or trying to lighten the tense mood that had hung over them for the past several days, even as they avoided each other like the plague. But since Joe was shifting uncomfortably a short distance away from them, he decided the latter was too much to hope for.

"Yes, of course you are. Sorry. I just—" He shook his head, wishing he hadn't spotted Joe's forgotten files so soon. Or that Joe hadn't forgotten them at all. "Sorry. Nevermind." He avoided her prickly gaze and set the files on Joe's desk. "You forgot these in the lab, Joe."

He didn't wait for Joe to answer him or acknowledge the file folder he'd placed on his desk. He glanced only briefly at both Wests before backing away.

"I…uh…I'll see you—" He stopped himself. "I gotta go."

He turned around and had to forcefully tell himself not to use his super speed to get as far away from there as possible. Instead he managed to speed walk as much like a normal person as he could, taking two steps at a time up the stairs and tripping on the top step, actually falling to the floor because his mind was spinning and he didn't think to catch himself.

When he got up, he brushed off his pants and looked around to see if anyone had witnessed him being the total klutz he'd been before he got his powers. The only person that seemed to be taking notice was Iris, standing there in the middle of the lobby. The look on her face was a far cry from what he'd just seen at her dad's desk. There was concern, though she was covering it up well, especially as the moments passed.

Their eyes stayed locked on each other for far too long. He looked away once and when his gaze returned to her, he nodded curtly – the closest he would let himself get to outward appreciation – and headed down the hall to the CSI lab.

…

"I can't do this, Linda," she announced, landing with a solid plop in the still vacant desk opposite her best friend's.

The intern who'd taken ownership of the desk had left just before Christmas, and Iris had decided the timing couldn't have been more perfect. She needed a place to vent to Linda when her best friend wasn't already holed up in her office.

"What?" Linda asked, still typing away on her computer, only half-attentive to what her best friend was saying.

"This," Iris said, throwing her hands up in the air, as if that explained everything. The pained groan that followed got Linda's attention.

"Care to be more specific?" she asked, one eyebrow raised, though she knew concern was rising in her normally razor-sharp expression.

Iris gave her a look; a do-I-really-need-to-explain-myself-to-you look. Linda knew it well.

"Ah. Barry."

Iris nodded once and looked away.

"I take it your daily interrogation of Joe regarding all things Barry didn't go as smoothly today?"

"Barry interrupted us."

Linda's eyes widened. "Did he."

She nodded again. "Yep."

"What did he say?" She crossed one leg over the other and leaned forward a bit.

Iris shrugged, still not making eye contact.

"Something about my dad leaving files in the lab. He was just returning them."

"Think he was telling the truth?" she asked, reached for her coffee cup.

"Probably. He did have files in his hand, and I doubt he brought them down as an excuse to see me. He works with my dad all day. He could've easily asked him about me at any other time."

"Maybe he wants to try and make amends."

"I don't think so. My dad says he deliberately doesn't come into STAR Labs because he doesn't want to cross paths with me." She sighed.

Linda's jaw dropped. "Barry told him that?"

Iris shook her head. "No, but he assumed. He's probably right. He knows Barry almost as well as I do."

"Has Barry, you know…asked about you?"

Iris held back tears. "No. I don't know." She took a breath and grabbed a tissue to blot away impending ones. "My dad says he hasn't – or, he gave me this…pitying look when I pinned him down yesterday, which I hate. And for all I know Barry has the same arrangement with him as I do."

"In that he asks your dad about you and swears him to secrecy that he asked?"

Iris nodded numbly.

Linda bit her bottom lip as she tried to think of a solution other than taking Iris out after her work and getting her drunk enough to forget her real-life problems.

Suddenly, her eyes lit up and she grabbed Iris's hand from across the space between them.

"What?" Iris asked, brows furrowed as she finally made eye contact again.

"I have an idea," Linda said, grinning from ear to ear.

"Does it involve getting drunk?" she asked skeptically. "Because I have to tell you, Lin, I'm not sure how many more hangovers I can take in less than a week."

Linda shook her head. "No alcohol, but I think I may be able to solve your Barry problem."

Iris told herself not to get her hopes up, but inside her heart soared.

"I'm listening…" she said warily.

"You want to get back with Barry, right?"

Iris hesitated, contemplating the alternative. "Right," she finally said.

"And you did tell him you were going to pursue stories even if it means putting your neck on the line…" Iris opened her mouth, about to defend herself to Linda's scornful tone, but her best friend finished with a silly grin that first confused her and then made her laugh. "You little thrill-seeker, you."

"Fooled you for a second there, didn't I?" Linda said smugly. "You actually thought I was going to side with your ex-boyfriend." She paused, then started to tick off her fingers. "And dad. And brother. And…well, pretty much everyone you know except me, right?"

Iris sighed and pressed two fingers to the bridge of her nose. "Pretty much."

"Not – of course – that I want you to actually lose said neck." Iris thought she heard her breath hitch. "You'd call me if you were really in danger, right? Like you were afraid there was no way out?"

Iris lifted her head to look at her best friend, surprised to see the faintest bit of tears shimmering in her eyes.

"Lin." She grasped her arm where it lay on the desk and squeezed reassuringly. "Nothing is ever going to happen to me. I know what I'm doing. And Barry is out there, even if we're not together. He'll know, and he'll save me."

Linda swallowed and nodded. Then her face shifted, as if she hadn't been seriously considering her best friend dying out there in the field for an amazing story.

"Which brings me back to point."

Iris waited, but it was clear in this moment that Linda had a flair for the dramatic.

"Which is?" she supplied.

"You want Barry to stop avoiding you? You want to have a real conversation? End this once and for all before you have to face the horror of a full week without each other?" She gasped.

"You know I do," Iris said to humor her, but her voice was a bit mocking, a bit sarcastic.

It didn't faze her.

"Find that story, Iris West. And make sure he knows you're looking for it."

Iris blinked, trying to find a fault line in the suggestion.

"Already? It hasn't even been a week!"

Linda rolled her eyes. "My point, remember? You don't want to go a full week without him, right? You want to be together by New Year's?"

Iris bit her bottom lip, debating.

"I don't even know a story offhand that could prove dangerous," she said. "The last one slipped right past my fingers when Barry rushed me away from the scene of the crime. It fell into some lucky detective's lap, and due to all my hard research that I was forced to relinquish to the police, the idiot solved it within the day."

Linda sympathized, but couldn't help herself. "I thought the idiot was kinda hot."

"He can't vibrate," Iris muttered under her breath, to which Linda couldn't help but gasp.

"If I had a drink right now, I would have choked on it," she informed her. Iris avoided her gaze. "It hasn't even been a week and you're already missing the sex."

Iris glared. "You haven't had a vibrator boyfriend, Lin." She clutched the arms of her chair and leaned towards her. "You don't know what it's like to—"

Linda batted her eyes innocently. "What, Iris?" She crossed one leg over the other, grinning from ear to ear. "Tell me about your sex life."

Iris groaned and leaned back in her chair, a hand draped lazily over her eyes.

"I need sex."

"And we will get you some," she assured her, laughter evident in her voice. "All you need to do is find this story, make sure Barry knows about it, and fight – fight – fight!"

Iris opened her eyes again. "I thought we were supposed to be getting back together, not…"

"Fighting has one of two results. Either it ends in you crying over how much you miss each other and deciding to get back together no matter how long it takes to figure out a real solution, or—"

"Or?"

"Or…you have hot angry sex to release the tension but once it's over you go back to being pissed and nothing is fixed."

Iris frowned. "Are those really my only options?"

Linda shrugged.

Iris sighed. "Oh, God."

"This will work, though," Linda said reassuringly, holding Iris's hands tightly. "I know it will. Barry is still crazy in love with you. He misses you. He wants to be with you. All you need to have is another conversation and everything will be fine."

Iris eyed her suspiciously. "You're sure."

"Positive," she said, smiling brightly. "But just to be extra sure…" She pulled back enough to log into her computer again. "We are going to tailor this story exactly to our liking. There will be no loopholes, and it will be completely in our control."

Iris's brows furrowed. "Wait, what do you mean our…" Realization dawned. "Wait, Lin, are you saying—"

"Yep!" She popped her lips. "We're going to make it up."

…

Against his better judgment, Barry found himself in the elevator at STAR Labs waiting to be carried to the floor where presumably his friends would be just down the hall. The ride felt endless. He hadn't left on the best of terms with Cisco, and if Wally was there…

Was this really a good idea? Was it too late to turn back? He could just phase out of the elevator and run outside, no biggie. It would be like he hadn't even been there, like he'd stubbornly stuck to his decision to avoid everyone like the plague after breaking up with Iris.

Because it had been him to do the breaking up, right? Or had it been mutual because Iris hadn't fought for their relationship? A sinking feeling came over him when he realized he hadn't fought for it either. His heart fell deeper into his chest.

He'd waited a lifetime for Iris West to feel the same way he did, to want him the way he wanted her, and now he was just throwing it all away because he didn't like that she was being a little reckless? He wasn't a fan of how far she went to get a story and so he was just cutting her out of his life?

Stop it, the voice inside him said, the one that had been so convinced this was the right decision – the only decision – he could have made after months of holding his tongue for fear she'd lash out and he'd lose her.

She's not just being reckless. She's being stupid reckless. She's running into situations any sane person would run away from. She's not even wearing a bulletproof vest when those she's so determined to catch in a lie – or a truth – have guns at the ready, maybe pointing at her before she's even opened her mouth.

She trusts that he'll save her; and time and time again he has. Though sometimes just barely. And every time he almost misses he remembers when that glass punctured her shoulder almost a year ago, when he wasn't fast enough.

At least in the timeline he remembered. Maybe that hadn't happened in this timeline, but it had been burned into his memory. After months being more or less out of touch with her, he'd almost lost her. And he'd lost so much in his life. He couldn't bear to lose her too.

He'd rather lose their relationship and still know she was alive than have to attend her funeral the one time he wasn't fast enough to save her. She'd probably be happy that she'd died doing what she loved, but he would be a wreck. He would never recover.

Ding.

The elevator doors opened. No one was in the immediate vicinity to greet him. He couldn't hear any voices from down the hall. He could easily press the button to go back to the first floor. He could speed out of the building. He could go home and sulk in his apartment that still smelled of Iris, walk past all the pictures of the two of them that he'd turned over, watch the shows she watched just to torture himself with the memories of when they'd watched them together.

But he'd been doing that for the past four or five days, and it never made him feel better. It made him feel worse; sad and angry and lonely and numb.

Now as the seconds past slower than they could for anyone else, Joe's words washed over him.

Cisco and Caitlin miss you…

Iris has Linda to confide in and help her cope. Who do you have, Bear? Have you talked to anyone?

He remembered the annoyed look on Cisco's face when he urged Barry to just get over himself and beg Iris for forgiveness so they could just be together.

He's still your best friend.

With one agonizingly slow sigh, Barry pushed himself out of the elevator as the doors started to close. He traveled down the hall until he made it to the cortex where he found Cisco and Caitlin quietly bickering over something they'd found on each of their respective computers. HR wasn't in the room. Neither was Wally.

He walked into his room, and barely daring to breathe, he cleared his throat.

"H-hey, guys," he said, in response to their simultaneous turning around immediately and staring at him in shock.

Their jaws dropped.

"I, uh…" He wrapped his arm around the back of his neck and awkwardly shifted from one foot to the other, finding it difficult to keep eye contact with them gaping at him the way they were. "I thought… I mean, Joe said… He thought…"

He stopped trying. He didn't know what to say, and everything inside him was screaming for him to leave.

But just as his gaze turned to the entryway, to the freedom only mere steps away, he felt the shift in the atmosphere and all of a sudden Cisco was pressed up against him, his arms wrapped tightly around his frame, his voice muffling some angry nonsense into his shirt.

"What?" Barry asked, surprisingly fighting a smile.

Cisco pulled back and glared, but it wasn't the type of glare he'd received before. Barely a beat later Cisco smacked him lightly.

Ow! He thought to himself, but he wasn't sure if it was safe to voice it, to tease that he'd hurt him a little.

"Don't you ever do that again!" he demanded.

Now Barry's mouth hung open. "You…forgive me?" he half-asked, half-stated.

Cisco rolled his eyes.

"You…goof."

Caitlin joined them in the center of the room and pushed them against each other in a group hug with her.

"Welcome back, Barry," she said, snuggling into both of her boys.

Barry felt himself relax into them, the two shorter than him, his best friends who had been with him since the beginning of all of this, since the lightning.

"Hasn't been the same without me, huh?" he tested.

Cisco snorted.

"Baaaarry!" came from behind them. They all turned, two of them suppressing sighs, one of them making his sigh well known. "Are you guys having a group hug without me?" HR accused cheerfully.

And then he was squishing all four of them together, and even Cisco couldn't be that annoyed that he'd ruined their moment.

"I knew you'd come back. I just knew it. I told them so!" He took a step back and grinned widely at the three of them. "Now we just have to get Iris here."

Barry stilled. Cisco just barely held in a groan. Caitlin winced and looked away, shaking her head.

"What? What'd I say? I just thought that—"

"Coffee!" Cisco said suddenly.

HR blinked. "W-what? But we just had…"

"We need more." Cisco pushed HR towards the entryway until he was sufficiently into the hallway. "Now. Please."

"Wow." HR took a reverent breath. "A please. You said." He clutched at his heart. "It must be a really magical day the day you say—"

"HR!"

The doppleganger ceased talking briefly but smiled warmly, unable to look away.

"Of course," he said calmly. "I shall get the coffee."

And then he was gone and Cisco returned to Barry and Caitlin, half-surprised Barry hadn't just bolted.

"You're still…here."

Barry took a breath. "Still here."

Caitlin quirked her head in his direction. "Going to stay here?" she asked quietly.

Barry nodded, albeit reluctantly. "As long as I possibly can."

He met their eyes head on and watched them relax. He relaxed with them and knew it was going to be all right. At least until Iris was brought up again. But he got the strangest feeling that when the pressure of HR's oblivious chattering about the new situation between them started to get to him, that these two beside him would have his back.

They were, after all, his best friends. And if those hugs had been any indication, they missed him too.