Earth 1
8:55pm
The house was eerily unlit as Barry pulled up their driveway. The bumps were not kind to the massive amount of furniture he had stored for the nursery in the bed of the truck, but he considered the lack of crashing noises to be a good sign. As he parked and walked out of the car, he looked toward the front door, wondering why Iris hadn't left the porch light on for him. She always kept it on in case he got swept away for Flash duty in the middle of the night, but regardless he figured some light should be on. He took a quick glance at his phone. Maybe she had left with Linda or Caitlyn to do some baby shopping. He shrugged it off and put the key in the door, only to find it had been left open. Barry froze.
"Iris?"
Instinctively, Barry sped through the perimeter of the house. Almost instantly he was stopped by a sight he could never fathom in his worst nightmares.
There was Iris, cut open and bleeding to death on the ground.
He screamed for her and rushed to her side, lifting her head and checking for a pulse. He shook her. "Iris, baby, c'mon talk to me!" There was a part of him that could barely register the situation, that had to pretend that he didn't see the extent of her injuries in order to remain calm and under control. He felt a numbness as cold as his wife was to the touch, and when he heard a gasp from her lips, he quickly picked her up and sped to the hospital, conspicuousness being the last thing on his mind.
"What happened?"
All around him Barry could hear the question being asked, but all he could focus on was the bloodstains on his clothing and arms, Iris's blood. The voices sounded distant and muffled, and the last thing Barry wanted to do was answer them. If anyone was there that he knew, he didn't know. He felt like he was underwater, like everything was in slow motion and weighted to the floor. All he could see was the blood.
He felt a pair of arms wrap around him, and then another placing a sweater- or blanket, he couldn't tell- around him, both taking their time to hold and comfort him. He couldn't make out their faces in the sea of chaos around him, but he was sure it was Joe and Cecil. God, the blood. Iris. His mind wouldn't- couldn't- think about their children. Despite his best efforts he couldn't block out the sight of her injuries. Her exposed abdomen, the blood spewed around her. Deep down he knew. But awareness and acceptance are as far as oceans, and right now he was waiting to see if Iris would even survive. He felt his head fall into his hands. The tears began to drip into his palms and down his face, but he couldn't feel or hear himself crying. All he could feel was Joe's arms wrap around him again, clinging to him for dear life. The ER doors pushed open, and through the commotion an infant began to cry in the distance.
Don. Dawn. Barry shot up, taking Joe aback. "Wh-where are they?!" Beside himself, Barry began to look around, panicked. Joe and Cecil took his arms, attempting to console him. Where were his children? They called to him. They needed him. He was The Flash. Could he really do nothing? Joe eventually restrained him, to the safety and comfort of the waiting room patrons, and Barry sat back down, still on edge. Joe's face came into focus. He was telling him something, something about "figuring something out" and staying "strong". It sounded like a foreign language. Slowly, Barry succumbed to the one thing he knew would be his downfall. Fear.
There was a chance Iris could be dead.
Their children could be dead.
His strength was with them, there was no being strong. Like a train Barry was hit with the overwhelming fear and grief he had been suppressing. He wept into Joe's chest, and he held him like he had all those years growing up. He tried to stop, tried to pull himself together, but just couldn't. This could be it. His entire life could be over. He wailed into his father. He was The Flash, and he had never been more powerless.
There was far too much blood on his hands.