Disclaimer: I do not own the Flash.
First attempt at an Arrowverse story, hope you all enjoy it.
Jesse in the Earth Prime Timeline will have a different name given what happened to the Harrison Wells and his wife in this reality.
Not exactly Flash bashing but not friendly either.
The Rebirth of Jessie Quick
In my dreams, I am running.
I see a woman that I know is me running through a city, one that looks familiar and at the same time so alien.
I keep running, yellow lightning trailing behind me and wrapping itself around my body. I am wearing a suit made of materials I can't identify in red and yellow that clung tightly to my body. On the chest there was a small white patch with a black lightning bolt symbol on it while my identity was hidden by a dark red domino mask on my face.
I felt the thrill of running through the city at speeds few could even dream of, the blur of buildings and people as they went passed.
I could take breakfast in France and then lunch in Rome followed by dinner in London all within a day and never have to use a plane or a car or a train to get to any of them.
She had never felt more alive!
- x -
The incessant beeping of the alarm clock woke me from the pleasant dream, the cold reality of being awake made me desperate to return to the amazing dream I had been having but as I tried reaching out to silence the alarm it was out of reach and kept on making that horrible noise until finally, I couldn't take it anymore and I sat up awake and managed to shut it off.
The problem was though now I was awake and the dream was gone.
I sat in my bed and just stared at the wall beyond as I was faced with the reality, I sighed with dismay and put my head on my knees. I felt so bereft in that moment as it was like going from sleeping in the softest bed to sleeping on a slab of granite.
I reluctantly got out of bed and wandered through my crappy three room apartment, going to the shower and making sure to cover the window with the blind as the pervert in the other building and their neighbours' teenage boys watched the windows in hopes of catching someone naked. I had realised that the first week I lived here when I caught them looking at me in my bra.
I sorted that quickly with the blind.
With my privacy now secure I stripped and threw the clothes in the hamper before stepping into the shower and enjoying nothing but cold water as the damn water heater for the building was broken…again! She thought just wishing for some warm water to shower with. Was that so much to ask? She thought with anger as she cleaned herself.
Getting out she went and dried herself with a towel before brushing her teeth before she went back to her room to change. She slipped on some clean underwear and then with another regretful sigh fluffed out her shoulder length dark brown hair which curled slightly at the tip. She put on her drab and boring grey suit with white blouse and then applied her eyeliner and lip balm before looking at herself in the mirror.
She was perfectly presentable and yet felt as lifeless as a doll with glass eyes. She sighed again as she picked up her case which contained her papers and slipped her plain black heeled shoes on.
- x -
She rode the subway to work, it was noisy and crowded, making her wish she could run like she had in her dreams to avoid this every day.
Thankfully she arrived at her stop and got off quickly, taking the escalator to the surface she emerged in the middle of New York, the city was at least something she could like looking at. It might be nosy and hard but it had a life too it, a vibrancy that she loved and sometimes it lifted her mood when she was down. She picked up a coffee and breakfast bagel from the bodega just off the station and enjoyed the smell, feeling good for the first time today.
But that soon faded as she walked into the law form where she worked. The doorman just ignored her as she walked in but she saw some of the other paralegals and other men around the place all started staring at her ass as she walked past. She sighed as she knew they chased anything that looked half-decent and was below twenty-five years old.
Arriving at her tiny office she opened the door and saw the name plate on her desk. She only really had this because of a favour from her father who knew the leading partner at this firm. Not to mention she was actually rather good at her job even if she took no pleasure from it whatsoever.
Harper Chambers, paralegal. Hell, she even hated her own name!
That made her sit at her desk and eat her bagel while sipping her coffee, reading her emails and wanting dearly to drive a spike through her head at the banal nature of her work. She dearly wished for an actual challenge, something that actually made her work and experiment to crack but this work was so boring that she could do it in her sleep.
She allowed her mind to drift backwards to a time when she had been choosing her course for college and then uni. She had done well in school, really well and could have done any course she wanted. She had taken a look and decided on bioengineering or genetics, the idea of being on the frontier of science excited her greatly and maybe even physics and mathematics, she was sure she could do it all.
But her family…she thought with anger, hadn't liked that at all. They were lawyers, all of them and had been for generations now and saw such subjects as a complete waste of time, refusing to pay for her to go unless law was her course.
She had refused at first, desperate to have something that would at least in her mind actually be worth it but her father had many friends in the system and her attempts at getting a scholarship had all been turned down and given the high tuition costs not to mention her father preventing her from getting a job she had the option taken away from her. Something that she honestly hated so much that she had not spoken a word to any of her family in years now.
She was wondering if she should go back to school and pursue her dreams again and tried to put aside enough money to do it but it was harder to get in now given the time since her high school days. She was working on it but getting the money to go back to school was taking time.
So, she sighed and went to work, looking at the cases that were passing through. Dearly wishing for her life to change.
- x -
She wasn't just running now, she was fighting.
The woman in the costume was running fast to dodge arcs of lightning being thrown at her by a man in rough looking clothes.
She circled around a stone building and seemed to disappear before reappearing behind him, coming up from out of the ground vibrating rapidly before slapping some kind of handcuffs on him that seemed to nullify his powers.
- x -
Harper woke again in a sweat, almost as if she had been actually running. She took a moment to realise that she was only in her apartment and not fighting some supervillain.
In some ways she was relieved but in others, she was disappointed.
That woman, the one in the costume. She was a hero, a genius, a fighter…someone to look up and admire.
Harper herself, was a nobody.
That stung very deep. Harper hated the idea of her life not having any meaning, that it was being wasted and she could do nothing about it. She reluctantly got up out of bed and went about her morning routine again but couldn't help but feel that something was…different somehow.
She wasn't sure how but she knew that something had changed. Maybe it was this sudden surge of energy she had, doing her normal activities with renewed vigour or quickness. She just wasn't sure but she honestly felt better than she had in a long time.
Even later in the day she still was on that buzz as she sat in a meeting with the rest of paralegals and their boss Joe, a junior partner in the firm.
"This case is tricky." Joe told them, having gotten his position through his father who was a senior partner he had little actual wit to do his job properly. He was actually dependant on them to do most of his work for him including presenting evidence and questioning people in court. Harper honestly wanted to strangle him sometimes especially as he constantly flirted or even stalked anyone young and was half way good looking. That included her.
Harper was about ready to just take a nap she was that bored before taking one look at the crime scene photos and position of the victim when he was shot. Then where their client was who the police were sure had fired the shot, largely due to the victim and the client having gotten into a fight the previous morning. She could actually imagine the scene and realised something when she saw the position of the victim and the client.
"He didn't do it." She said with a bored voice that had all of them looking at her in surprise for speaking up since it was unusual for her to bother speaking during these meetings.
"Well, it is our job to prove he didn't." Joe said, annoyed that she had interrupted him but Harper without a care pointed a glaring problem with him firing the fatal bullet.
"There is a delivery truck making a stop." She said pointing it out on the photos taken by local CCTV at the time of the shooting. "The van is obstructing the line of sight between them at the time the shot was fired. Besides the shot penetrated the victim closer to the left side of his body which meant it was fired from the opposite direction. From the car that was parked across the street on the other side most likely." Harper pointed out.
It was simple geometry after all.
Geometry Harper suddenly realised, seeing to her own surprise that she had done all this in the space of seconds without a computer or visiting the scene. Rechecking she saw she was right and could hardly believe it. While basic stuff was easy the speed and ease that she had done it with shocked her.
The others all looked on in amazement before taking a close look at the photos themselves and seeing that she was right.
"Good job…Chambers." Joe said with a confused look at the paralegal who had rejected him but had friends of her own that stopped her from being fired.
Harper herself soon left the meeting and went back to her small office before getting on her computer and tried to reason why she had suddenly become so much better at geometry since yesterday. She honestly couldn't understand it but then it got stranger.
She accessed her computer only to discover that it was lacking some useful programs that would have made her work easier. She had requested them to be installed by the IT department last week but either they were lazy or Joe had countermanded it. More than that they had reset her security access so she couldn't do anything but take a look around her own desktop. Probably on purpose just to make her life miserable she thought with annoyance.
But before she knew what she was doing though her fingers were flying across her keyboard and accessing directories that she hadn't even known were there before. She was reformatting code and adjusting software at a frantic pace, not really aware of what she was doing.
Then her computer unlocked and she gasped, getting to her feet as she saw what she had done. Computers were not her speciality; she knew enough to work one but never in a million years could she code or hack to save her life.
Yet that was exactly what she had just done. She had completely broken all of the security code on her computer and even installed the programs she had wanted without any problems in so quick a time that it beggared belief.
Now starting to feel unsettled Harper got to her feet and left her office, rushing down the stairs rather than wait for the elevator and out of the building, breathing quickly from the rush but more so from her own fears.
These abilities…were empowering she thought with some loving of it, she liked it but at the same time she didn't understand where they were coming from?!
At the same time as she used them…she felt something else…another mind on the edge of hers. Apart, but at the same time familiar and so much like her own it was like looking in a mirror.
Harper was so confused, she stood there on the street, not sure what to do when she looked up at the street beyond her breath was caught in her throat.
There was a young boy that had wandered off from his mother who was busy with her phone, he was only small and was wandering very close to traffic. Harper's heart stopped as she saw him step out into the busy road.
Then to bring an extra sense of horror she noticed a car was coming fast down the street without any sign it had noticed the boy.
Time seemed to stop for Harper, the whole world almost frozen as she realised what was about to happen. The little boy so happy and playful, not aware that his life was going to end in mere moments from a combination of a careless mother and a driver that wasn't paying proper attention.
Although Harper couldn't have known this her eyes began to fill with yellow lightning, arcing fiercely as she started to move.
In a split second, she was outside the law office, standing still. But before she even knew it, she was right in front of the boy and picked him up and putting him back on the sidewalk right by his mother before unable to resist with all the sudden momentum she had built up kept on moving forward. Over the road and further, stumbling to a stop in Central Park! Nearly going headfirst into the water at the centre.
Over a mile from the office!
She managed to stop just before and looked around in confusion, not understand what had just happened but felt rather than saw that her shirt was fire! She quickly shrugged off her jacket and then shirt in a panic, thankful she hadn't gone braless today.
Harper now that her clothes weren't burning picked up her jacket and slipped it back on while looking around but thankfully no one seemed to have noticed her. She was so confused at what had just happened and more than a little afraid. She just wanted to get back to her apartment and get out of sight till she could figure out what was going on.
She turned and started to jog back to the subway station with her mind fixed on going home but suddenly she just felt the electricity running through her again and she disappeared in a rush of yellow lightning. Appearing moments later outside her own apartment feeling a little winded and drained but at the same time elated.
She looked at her hand and saw it was shaking or rather vibrating at a terrifying speed, almost resembling a blur. She couldn't believe her eyes but at the same time she realised what she had just done.
She'd ran…like in her dreams!
She'd saved a little boy's life!
Harper was honestly too in awe of what was happening to even be frightened anymore, she started smiling as she realised just what this meant.
She had powers! Her dreams…they weren't just dreams! They were real.
"They're real! THEY'RE REAL!" Harper said out loud with a huge grin on her face. She was elated…ecstatic and on top of the world, feeling for perhaps the first time in her entire life that she actually had some say in the way it turned out!
She didn't waste time she went straight into her apartment and sat down on her bed, getting an energy drink before falling back and started laughing.
She started wondering just what else she might be able to do? Harper thought and went for her personal laptop, she remembered that there was someone else who had super speed wasn't there? She pondered trying to remember the name and where he was from…the Flash! That was it she thought with excitement and he lived in Central City.
She called up all the videos and information on him that she could find, watched them all and saw him take down bad guy after bad guy and even team up with other superheroes. It was awesome she thought with excitement and wondered if maybe…just maybe he could teach her?
She closed the laptop down and without any hesitation and a huge smile on her face she decided to take a trip to Central City!
Train Coming into Central City, Two Days Later…
Harper had enough vacation time build up that she was able to go immediately and was still as excited as she had been when her powers had first appeared.
So, she had gotten to Central City as quickly as possible, not caring at all about how much of a leap she was taking or if the Flash would actually want to help her. She was just so glad to not just have these abilities, something that made her special but also that she was for the first time doing something for herself.
When she wandered out of the station she looked eagerly around and smiled at the city, not sure why but just being here felt good.
Like she was home, more than she had ever felt in New York although why she felt that completely mystified her.
As she wandered through the city streets, looking at certain buildings and feeling a great sense of familiarity…not déjà vu she thought, like she actually knew some but others were completely alien to her.
Harper was starting to get more confused and more eager than ever to find the Flash on the off chance that he might be able to help her. That was when she realised that as a secret vigilante, he wasn't exactly going to be listed in the phone book.
She stopped and then bit her lip as she realised that she had no real idea just how to find the Flash. Or attract his attention short of committing a crime and she would rather not do that, Harper thought feeling rather silly for not thinking more about this beforehand.
However, as she wandered around, she saw a bunch of men at a bank and looked to be robbing it. She smiled as she realised this was the perfect chance to see if she could measure up and took a scarf she had and wrapped it around her lower face before concentrating and began to run.
The lightning appeared all around her and she began to move so fast that everything seemed to be slowing down, she rushed into the bank and ripped the guns from the robbers' hands and left them right by the police before running out. She felt a little winded but elated as she ran outside but as she ran some distance away, a whoosh sound appeared next to her and she looked up and smiled brightly as she had found exactly who she was looking for.
Standing there in his bright red costume was the man she had been so desperate to see, he had his mask on but she could see his eyes and mouth and both were wide with shock when he looked at her.
"Jesse!" He said, his voice was shocked and seemingly disbelieving while he stared at her face.
Harper was confused at how he seemed to know her even though he called her by another name. However, the mention of the name 'Jesse' made her feel a great sense of familiarity and seemed more right to her than her own name. Still, it was very confusing and so she corrected him.
"No, Harper. I need your help." Harper told him, hoping with all her heart that he would be able to explain all this and maybe even teach her how to master her speed.
The Flash was seemingly reeling from her and blinked as he processed what she was saying. He frowned before telling her.
"We need to go to see some friends of mine. Then we'll see." The Flash told her and without asking permission, he grabbed her by the waist and started running.
Being dragged at such high speed was not as pleasant as when you were running yourself Harper thought with discomfort and it was even faster than when she ran which made it all the worse. She was actually feeling a little bit sick but they quickly arrived at the STAR Labs building. She had heard of the big accident that had happened here years ago and how that had created all the metahumans including the Flash but she had never in a million years imagined that she would get to visit this place. Again, she was struck with a deep sense of familiarity, she didn't understand how but she knew somehow that she had been in this building before. No many times before she realised with confusion as she had never been to Central City in her life.
The Flash finally stopped and let her go when they arrived in what she felt was probably a control room, four other people were either standing around or sitting at the arched computer desk and two of them looked up at her in shock when they noticed her.
"Jesse?" A woman with light brown hair said in confusion while the other woman who was darker skinned and had black hair took one look at her and seemed annoyed at her presence.
"No, Harper." Harper said again with confusion as to just who Jesse was. She turned to see the Flash standing there and he took charge saying.
"Caitlin." He told the light brown-haired woman. "Can you run some tests? She has speed and I have no idea how."
"Speed?" One of the other people asked looking at her with surprise, there wasn't anything familiar about this man or the woman sitting next to him but when she looked at Caitlin and the other woman there was definitely something about them that seemed familiar. Iris? She thought as she looked at the other woman that seemed not to like her. That name just popped into her head.
"So, if you'd like to follow me." Caitlin said as she gestured towards a small medical bay which Harper somewhat reluctantly followed as the Flash talked to the other three. As Caitlin took a sample of her blood she listened and could just about hear what they were saying.
"How the hell is Jesse back? Earth 2 was destroyed." Iris said with an edge to her voice.
"I don't know." The Flash said with confusion in his voice. "But she isn't the Jesse we knew. She doesn't seem to remember Earth 2 at all."
"Sorry, what is this all about? Who is she again?" The other man asked, dark skinned too with dreadlocks.
"She looks like Jesse Wells. The same witch from another universe that broke my brother's heart and made him run off." Iris said bitterly and the mention of Jesse Wells again filled her with familiarity that was starting to make her feel a little afraid as it seemed more real to her somehow than her actual life.
"Wally wanted to find himself, Jesse ending their relationship was just the trigger point." The Flash said with a sad voice. Wally, Harper thought that was yet another name that resounded with her and she felt a painful pang when she heard it. Regretful.
Again, this only increased her confusion.
Hours seemed to pass as she sat in the medical bay while Caitlin prodded and poked her, she smiled though and her warmth made Harper smile too.
"So, when did the speed start happening?" Caitlin asked, turning on a sort of 'doctor' voice. Feeling very much like she was in a medical appointment Harper did her best to answer.
"A couple of days ago, but I've been having a lot of dreams lately. Of a woman, she looks like me but she's a speedster running around a city that looks a lot like Central City." Harper admitted. Caitlin frowned a little at that and seemed to think for a moment before saying.
"Describe them."
So, Harper did, she told Caitlin all her dreams and what happened in them and Caitlin nodded understandingly before putting a hand on her shoulder and telling her with a wide smile.
"We'll figure this out. Don't worry."
"Thank you." Harper said now smiling herself.
- x -
She was asked to wait in the med bay but the others kept their distance, helping herself to some of the special food bars that the Flash apparently ate to keep up his strength while using his speed and bored she eventually went to wander the facility for a while. It was really cool she thought looking down at the particle accelerator and she really wanted to go down and get a better look but felt she should probably ask permission first. She walked up the corridor looking for Team Flash as she had decided to call them and as she was passing some kind of rec room she heard the Flash, Caitlin and two other people talking. Leaning in carefully, and aware she probably shouldn't she listened in.
"I've analysed the samples and Chester and Allegra checked her background going all the way back. Barry, she has never been to Central City before and yet the Dark Matter in her blood says otherwise." Caitlin said with frustration as if a mystery was eluding her.
"There are other ways to come into contact with dark matter." Another man said, Chester she presumed.
"None of which seem to apply to her." Another female voice, Allegra probably said. "No mad scientists experimenting, no weird anomalies."
"But somehow she is getting the memories of her old Earth-2 doppelganger." The Flash who she now knew was called Barry said with confusion. "Maybe she is Jesse and just forgot after Crisis and now it's coming back."
"No, I checked her blood. Its native to our universe, I analysed Earth-2 blood back when Jesse was poisoned by Velocity 9 and I can spot the differences." Caitlin said.
Harper was now feeling unsettled, dark matter? That was real she thought having heard of it but wished she had been given the chance to study it more since it was now in her body! Earth-2? What was that? Harper asked herself and wondered if maybe it was an alternative reality? She only wished she had the chance to study these things more but had to stop thinking about that so she could listen more.
"So somehow she is interfacing with her old Earth-2 doppelganger and now has her powers." Flash/Barry said and Harper could almost imagine him pacing around the room.
"Yeah, and judging by what she told Caitlin, it could be like Jesse is taking over. Slowly replacing her." Iris said with obvious accusation in her voice. Harper should have been scared at that but somehow, she wasn't…no she could feel it in her gut that this wasn't like that.
"So how do we make it stop?" Barry asked. "I mean she has a life and I don't want to have her erased just so we can have an old friend back. So, we take away those powers as soon as possible before it gets any worse."
Make it…make it stop? Harper thought suddenly as a cold feeling ran down her spine.
No, she thought desperately, she didn't want it to stop. She wanted to know more about this 'Jesse'! She wanted to know what it was like to be a hero! She didn't want to go back to being that boring paralegal who had to drag herself out of bed every day and do a job she hated while working towards an impossible dream of studying the sciences that might take years to do if it ever happened.
She wanted to use her powers to help people! To understand them and see just what she could do!
They were going to take it all away from her Harper realised with a near panic taking over.
She had to get away!
That was the only think on her mind, get away from them before they took away the only things in her life that gave it meaning!
Harper didn't waste a single moment and blasted off at as fast a speed as she could manage. She was out of STAR Labs in the blink of an eye and had no real destination in mind except to just get away from Team Flash, a tear ran down her cheek as she had hoped they might want her around, might actually teach her to be a hero or even be her friends but all they wanted was her gone! She thought with misery.
She didn't belong anywhere Harper realised with her heart breaking as she surged through the city streets. Not with her supposed family, not as a lawyer, not as Harper and not as a speedster.
She then felt the urge to look behind her and saw to her fear that the Flash was quickly coming up behind her, desperately she turned and forced herself to go even faster, the world seeming to stand still as she pushed herself further, but it didn't seem to make any difference as the Flash was right behind her and getting closer every moment.
Feeling more and more trapped the closer he got she could feel the walls of the deary life she'd lived before closing in around her, only increasing her panic and she thought desperately to get away from him! Anywhere but here! She thought but just as the Flash was about to grab her a simmering portal opened before her and she ran straight into it before it closed leaving the Flash behind.
- x -
The Speed Force…Outside of Time…
Harper honestly had no idea just how to describe the place she found herself in.
It was completely surreal, the colours seemed off kilter and yet more vibrant, the sounds seemed to reverberate around her. She walked through corridors that looked just like those of her apartment building but somehow, she knew this was not the same place at all. She opened the doors and saw other places from her life including her office, the subway car she rode to work every day and her apartment.
But what got her the most was the feeling of calm she got from being here. A moment ago, she had been panicking but now she honestly had never felt safer in her life! Like she was wrapped up in a big safety blanket.
She smiled and looked around in awe, spinning on her heel before suddenly someone appeared before her, an attractive older woman with red hair and a kind face which looked at her with curiosity.
"Harper. I didn't expect you here so soon." The woman said with a friendly smile that put her at ease. "I wondered if you would come to see me with Barry." She said, knowing somehow that he wasn't here. This only made Harper feel down again.
"He wants to take away the speed!" Harper said with fear creeping into her voice and her face fell. "I just want to use it to help people but he doesn't even ask me what I want."
The woman frowned before telling her.
"That boy is only doing what he thinks is right but in this he is very wrong." The woman said sadly and then smiled again before telling her. "I am the Speed Force and I am the one who gave you your speed, let those memories come to you in dreams so you might be inspired to do great deeds with it. But I think that it's not me you need to speak too." The woman said and then she disappeared in the blink of an eye which made Harper wheel around to look for her but instead she found someone else.
Another woman appeared, roughly the same age as Harper herself with the same dark brown hair that she had except it was tied back wearing the same suit from her dream. Harper's breath caught in her throat as the woman took off her mask and revealed a face that was identical to her own.
The two of them stood face to face and the other woman smiled.
"You're Jesse." Harper said, not able to fully grasp all this but knowing that much at least.
"And you're Harper." The woman said in the same voice which was unnerving. "Now what is bothering you?" Jesse asked her with a kind smile.
"I just want my life to matter." Harper said with some desperation. Jesse frowned sadly before telling her.
"You do matter. You are unique, you're not me just like I'm not you." Jesse said trying to make her realise that she had value, but Harper just shook her head.
"Nothing in my life had any meaning until this." Harper said with misery. "I hated my job! My family doesn't care whether I'm alive or dead and no-one is really my friend. This is the first time that I have actually felt like I had something to contribute…something worthwhile."
Jesse sighed before extending her hand to Harper. "You do have value; you can do more…all you need is to believe you can. Take my hand and I will show you."
Harper hesitated, not sure what this meant for her but all the same she was desperate to believe what Jesse was telling her. That she did matter, and the sky was the limit for her.
So slowly she reached out and took her hand, a bright glowing light formed where their hands touched. Harper and Jesse both smiled as they connected and shared all that they were. They stayed like that for a long time before finally separating and Jesse disappeared back into the Speed Force.
Harper stood there for a moment, her eyes lined with lightning and smiled broadly.
- x -
STAR Labs, Central City…
"Then she disappeared into a breach. I didn't know she could do that." Barry said with frustration as Harper seemed to have panicked for some reason and run off before they could help her return to normal.
"Maybe we should have asked her before deciding to take her speed away." Caitlin said with a worried look on her face. She was glad Frost wasn't here as she was pretty sure that she would get an earful from her sister about all this. "I mean Iris could have been wrong about her being taken over by Jesse."
"Have to admit Barry she seemed pretty excited by being here and the extra help could have been useful." Allegra said with a reluctant look on her face.
"Another speedster." Chester said with a smile and a wistful look in his eyes. "Be cool to see you two race each other."
"Guys!" Barry said trying to get them back on point. "The fact remains a young woman is about to lose her mind and we have no idea just where she is or when if she time travelled." Barry said, not sure just what Harper might be capable of in a panic.
Suddenly two more people entered the room, Iris and more surprisingly Wally was with her.
"Where is she?" Wally asked, not exactly eagerly but when he heard from Iris that Jesse was back, he just had to come and see for himself. He had run all the way from the other side of the world to get here this fast and he was not in the mood to waste any more time.
"Hey Wally." Caitlin said with a smile, glad to see him and gave him a hug which he gladly returned.
"She disappeared. I think she overheard us talking about taking her speed away to try and stop her being overwritten by Jesse." Barry said with a frown, not even taking the time to greet his brother-in-law. Iris frowned at Harper's disappearance.
"Well let's find her." Iris said but Chester just shook his head.
"Not a chance, according to Barry she disappeared into some kind of breach. She could be anywhere or when by now." He told them and they all frowned before looking to the picture on the monitor which showed Harper's driver's licence.
Then there was a sudden whoosh as air rushed through the room accompanied by a figure shrouded in yellow lightning. The figure stopped in the middle of the room, all those in the room looked to see a young woman in a dark red suit and domino mask. Her dark hair was tied back behind her head and she stood tall and with purpose.
The others all took a moment to recover as they considered her sudden appearance, Wally looking at her like he was seeing a ghost.
"Jesse." Caitlin with surprise having never expected this. The woman took off her mask and the familiar face appeared. Barry looked angry at her appearance and made no point of hiding it.
"Jesse! You can't do this! That isn't your body!" He told her shortly and Iris jumped in right behind him.
"Give it back right now."
Wally however was looking at her and maybe because of their intimate history he noticed some small things about her eyes, the way she stood and the expression on her face that told him something else.
"Guys." He said quietly at first and then when Barry and Iris ignored him, he then spoke more loudly and managed to get their attention. "GUYS!"
"What?" Barry and Iris said together, annoyed at the interruption. Wally glared back at them, remembering now why he had decided to leave the city.
"That isn't Jesse."
"Spot on Wally, thank you for noticing although I did borrow the suit." Harper said with a warm smile for him. She walked over and stood face to face with him, knowing there was something she had to say. "And I just have to tell you that Jesse, she always regretted what she did to you. She wished she'd not taken the coward's way out by ending it the way she did but she just didn't think with her on Earth 2 and you on Earth 1 that you could both keep it going however much she wanted it too. She wanted so many times to come over and see you but she was too afraid you would hate her. But know that she loved you and just hoped that you managed to build a good life for yourself." Harper said with a sad smile. Thinking of the lost relationship that he and her doppelganger had shared.
Wally was stunned as was everyone else in the room by the declaration but at the same time he did feel a little better now that he knew why Jesse had done it and how much she had regretted it. He smiled a little and Harper as he knew her now did so too.
Glad to lay those demons to rest.
Harper then turned to Barry and gave him a glare that made him feel very uncomfortable. She might not be Harrison Wells' daughter in this reality but she had his hard glares down.
"You didn't even give me a thought, did you?" She said with a cold voice that sent a chill up their spines. "You thought you knew what was best and that was it. Are you so blind to the feelings of others that you would assume that I wanted to go back to a boring life as a paralegal which I hate and to having no friends or real purpose in my life? But you didn't even know that because you didn't ask Barry, you might be the Flash and the favourite of the Speed force but that doesn't mean you get to play God with the lives of others."
"Hey wait a minute…" Iris started saying but Wally took hold her arm suddenly and turned her to look at him. She was so shocked by this but Wally told her sternly, acting more like the elder sibling than the younger.
"You and Barry are so caught up in yourselves half the time you don't even see what is happening to those around you. I get you two are in love and always seem to be on the edge of some kind of disaster but that doesn't give you an excuse to miss how others might feel when they are being ignored or always act like you know best." He told her sternly, remembering his own anger at how these two were sometimes. They were his family and he loved them both but that didn't mean he liked how they acted like the world revolved around them at times.
Barry and Iris both seemed shocked not just by what Harper had said but the fact that Wally was agreeing with her and the looks of discomfort on the faces of the others in particular Caitlin who had been with them the longest shocked them. They just couldn't believe that those they thought of as their best friends were holding such resentment inside them. Or thought that they were so wrapped up in themselves they didn't notice, which they started to realise with great unease wasn't exactly without untrue. They often did forget that the others might be going through their own thing or have their own opinions sometimes.
Both Barry and Iris were so unsettled that neither could say anything while Harper and Wally faced each other.
"Are you going to stick around?" Wally asked her, wondering if she intended to join Team Flash but Harper shook her head with some regret.
"No, I might have her powers and her memories now, but I need time to figure out what all this means to me. Find my own way forward like you did." She said with a smile which he returned; any bad feelings that might have once been there long gone now.
"Where will you go?" Caitlin asked, uncertain if asking her to stay was the right thing or not here. Harper just smiled before saying with the most easy-going smile on her face.
"Just wander the world for a while, see a little, meet new people. Figure out what me being Jessie Quick in this reality means. But one day I will be coming back." Harper said before giving Wally a hug that he returned and then one to Caitlin before taking off at a run.
That left the cortex very quiet and tense after what had just been said, Caitlin, Wally and the others left so Barry and Iris could think about what had just happened. Not sure if they wanted to believe that they had been so blind to what others had been going through or felt.
- x -
Southeast Asia, Some Time Later…
Having super speed had so many perks, namely that one could run across oceans and travel continents in the blink of an eye.
Harper now dressed in shorts and a t-shirt with a backpack on and her hair free around her shoulders had never felt so good in all her life. She had quit the job she hated, left the apartment and cut those who had never really wondered what she might want out of her life. Now all she was intending to do was travel for a while, not burdened by things like making flights or buses or anything like that.
Just to explore and make some connections of her own, to learn from these cultures and maybe find out some new things about her speed. Ahead of her she saw her first stop. A temple with monks moving around in a calm and organised fashion while some sat on the floor and stayed completely still.
She had heard they were experts in meditation and on managing your perception of time.
This she thought with excitement might just be the place to start. So, she walked forward and embraced the future.
There we are, just an idea I came up with some time back when I heard a rumour that Jessie Quick was going to make an appearance on the Flash but it didn't happen in the end so I decided to write this up to show an idea of how it could happen.