Episode tag for 2.17: Flash Back.
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He left her alone with the ghost of a dead man. The voice followed Barry up the stairs but he already knew the words by heart. He'd been the one to record them, after all. It was his hands holding the phone while Eddie smiled and gushed and poured out his love in a promise he never had the chance to keep.
Guilt sat heavy on Barry's shoulders as he made it to his room and closed the door, shutting himself into silence. He sat down at the desk and opened his laptop with the vague idea of using work as a distraction, but minutes passed with no more progress than typing in a password. His mind was on Iris, on the pain in her eyes, on the hope that he'd done the right thing.
On the fear that he hadn't.
A soft knock startled him out of his reverie. Before he could do more than half-rise from the chair, the door opened by an inch.
"Barry? Can I come in?"
"Yea, sure. Of course."
He was on his feet instantly, widening the gap and gesturing her inside. When she took the chair he'd just vacated, he perched on the edge of his bed and sat facing her. It was obvious she'd been crying, and the evidence of her tears twisted painfully in his gut.
"Iris . . ."
"You have some explaining to do."
She interrupted him with a tiny smile that bordered on tart. When she held up his phone, confusion changed to alarm. His mind raced.
Did she figure out I went back in time and recorded that? How could she know that? What did I do wrong . . . Barry almost groaned out loud. The date stamp on the video. Of course. How could I forget the date stamp . . .
He was so busy berating himself for the mistake he was sure he'd made that it took a few seconds before he realized the photo she was showing him wasn't one of Eddie, it was of her. And the real Iris was none too pleased with it or with him.
"Where did you get this?"
Relief made him laugh. She was thirteen in the picture (he knew that because he'd been there the day it was taken), with a fading pattern of freckles across the bridge of her nose, and bangs. When he remembered how much she now claimed to hate those bangs, he laughed again.
"I downloaded it from Facebook. When you added Wally to your friends list, you were comparing school pictures, remember? I was afraid it would disappear forever so I saved it."
Iris gave him a good frown, then turned the phone back around to glower at the photograph. "I have braces. And what's with my hair? How many butterfly clips can one head hold?"
Barry's grin widened. The subject of their middle-school awkwardness seemed to ease the air of sadness from earlier, and he was happy to see a sparkle of humour replace the glimmer of tears.
"I don't know but I think I have some pictures around here from our eighth grade formal. We could count them and see."
She was comically horrified. "You promised to burn those pictures, Barry Allen! I don't want any trace of them left behind!"
When their laughter faded, Iris offered the phone back to him. The atmosphere turned somber again.
"Thank you."
Barry tossed the phone on the bed behind him and reached for her hands. The wheels of the desk chair squeaked when he drew her closer.
"Are you okay?"
One slender shoulder rose in a shrug. Her attention seemed focused on watching her fingers play absently with his. "Yea, I am. It's just hard, you know? I think about him, about what life might be like if he were here. And . . ." The pause was so brief as to be almost unnoticeable. " . . . then there's you."
Barry was taken aback. He studied the smooth line of her forehead and the sweep of her downcast lashes. "Me?"
She glanced up with a teasing, if bittersweet, smile. "Iris West-Allen? It seems the only version of me that isn't married to you is this one. I can't help but wonder why that is."
For the span of a minute, Barry forgot to breathe, conscious only of the feel of her hands in his and the depth in the rich brown eyes that stared back. When he finally spoke, his voice held the softness of old velvet.
"I guess those other versions of me were smart enough not to lose you."
Around them, the house settled into the night. Hardwood floors creaked in the changing temperatures. The refrigerator hummed to life. A rabbit darting across the backyard triggered a flood of light at the corner of the garage. Inside the bedroom, oblivious to everything else, Barry and Iris faced each other across a gap that was at once much greater than the space between their bodies, and much smaller than it had been only a few hours before.
The air was taut with words left unspoken. Uncertainty lingered; fearful of change that might destroy instead of create, burdened by memories of failure and haunted by a ghost that had not yet been vanquished, they remained silent. Their hands were still joined, however, and that connection said what they, for the moment, could not.
An efficient series of beeps from Barry's phone finally intruded. He gave Iris a crooked grin.
"Cisco."
Her smile was as warm as sunshine. "You didn't even look."
Barry shrugged. "He's the only one that texts me this late. Except you and since you're here . . ."
Iris laughed and, with obvious reluctance, pulled her hands free of his and stood.
"I should be getting home anyway. I have work tomorrow."
"Right. Work."
Barry got to his feet, too, and with nothing else to do with his hands, crossed his arms over his chest. He was careful to keep any hint of jealousy over her new boss from his tone but the hint of mischief in Iris' smile said his efforts were less than successful.
He waited downstairs while she gathered her things, then followed her out to the little coupe parked in the driveway. When the engine rumbled to life, he patted the roof and stepped back.
"Send me a text when you get there."
Iris hesitated before backing out. "Do you . . . do you want to meet for lunch tomorrow?"
Surprised, Barry nonetheless nodded at once. "Sure. Yea, that sounds good."
The stars in the night-time sky sparkled a little brighter when she smiled. "Then I guess it's a date."
With a cheerful wave of her hand, Iris drove away.
Barry stood in the driveway watching after her long after the tail-lights of her car had disappeared.
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I can't get over Barry just handing Iris his phone and walking away. That's trust right there, on both ends. (And I love the idea of him keeping old pictures of Iris, too. That's just all kinds of sweet.)
Thanks for reading!