A/N: Welcome back to this first of many weekly updates of this story to come. Enjoy!
"Hey, Barr. I really hope that you can hear me; I need you to stop doing this to us. My old heart can't take much more of this."
For the whole evening and most of the night, Joe hadn't left his foster son, sitting by his side the whole time, monitoring his condition and looking for the most imperceptible changes. As dawn was approaching, the man had managed to mentally register every detail of how Barry's chest was rising and falling under the artificial breathes and the pattern of his weak but still beating heart on the monitor. At this moment, he was almost just as qualified as Caitlin to identify a hypothetical change in Barry's condition, not that he would know what to do about it. The detective was determined not to let a single flinch go unseen by his eagle's eyes; he was going to be there at the very first sign his son would give that he was finally ready to come back to them.
That was if his exhausted body wasn't going to fail him and drift into sleep first without his permission. His hand went for his hair as he inhaled and exhaled deeply before continuing, "at this very moment, I really don't care that you lied to me about what you saw in the future, just… just come back to us. Just come back to me."
He almost choked out on the last words, feeling his eyes filling themselves with water, he couldn't lose Barry. Not now, nor ever.
If someone was to look fast enough at the unconscious speedster, they almost could've said that Barry was just sleeping peacefully. Peace would've been good, peace is what the hero had been needing the most. Since becoming the Flash, the weight of the world had been on his shoulders, whether it had been Reverse Flash, rebuilding the city, Zoom, the death of his dad, Flashpoint or now, Savitar. The poor kid hadn't had a single break in years. Well, he looked peaceful if you didn't pay too much attention to all the wires connected to his body and the tube down his throat.
It would be a lie to say that part of the detective's worry didn't include the fact that the best chance, the best person, to protect his daughter against Savitar was down. Was it selfish to think like that when it was Barry's life on the line at this very moment? A hand suddenly landing on his shoulder jostled him.
Quickly turning his head around, he ended up facing his daughter who looked just as exhausted as he was feeling right now, even if the night wasn't even done yet. It wasn't exactly his first sleepless night, especially not since Barry started risking his life on a daily basis, but the adrenaline leaving his bloodstream after Barry's heart stopped was having quite a toll on him, physically and mentally speaking.
"Dad?" Iris asked, concern shining in her eyes as she stared straight into her father's own eyes to make sure he was with her, "I've been calling you a couple of times already, you okay?"
Joe scoffed; was he okay? Surely not. While his right elbow was resting on the bed, next to his son's too still form, he rubbed his eyes with his right hand and sighed deeply.
"Sorry, I was just…thinking," as he was talking, he didn't even open his eyes or looked at his daughter, "I just don't know what I'll do if he doesn't come back to us this time or if his condition become more…permanent. I can't do this again.'' Overwhelmed by the grim future that could be ahead, Joe buried his face between his hands.
Yeah, Iris didn't think she could do it again either. Putting on her brave face and locking away her fear and doubts for the next couple of minutes, she moved next to her dad. Gently, she took his arms away from his face and patiently waited for him to look at her. Her own heart almost broke when she saw the traces of tears in the corner of the man's eyes.
"He's strong, as strong as all of us combined," she reminded him, "he made it out and came back once, he can do it again, I know he can. Plus, don't forget that Caitlin and Cisco are among the smartest people on this planet; if anyone can figure it out, they can. At this very moment, Cisco is trying to figure out how it happened, you'll see."
Joe just shook his head, he didn't care about the how it happened; he just wanted his son back.
"Why? Why did he have to go to the future again? Why did he have to risk his life?"
"Because he's a hero," she simply said with a bittersweet smile, "and because he needed to protect me. Isn't that what you taught him to do?"
Passing his hands in his short hairs and wiping the water in the corner of his eyes, Joe forced himself to be as strong as his daughter, "he never needed me to teach him that, he would've done anything for you no matter what."
True to that... a knock on the side of the medical bay's entrance had both West's turning around to see Caitlin standing there with a Big Belly Burger bag in her hands.
"Am I interrupting something?" Seeing both West's shaking their head negatively, she continued, "H.R. came back with some food, you want to join us in the cortex? It's going to be a long day."
"It's okay, we'd rather stay here for an extra moment," Iris replied for both herself and her dad.
''Thought so," answered back the doctor, entering the room as she placed down the bag of food on the desk, not too far from the bed. Coming down, she had already guessed it that Barry's family wouldn't want to move away, and she wasn't going to start a fight she couldn't win. "Just, make sure not to drop anything on my patient," she said, trying, and failing, at lighten up the mood.
Seeing the grateful nods for being allowed to stay at the hero's bedside, Caitlin just smiled and turned around, silently sniffing. Of course, they were all thinking she was going to magically fix this, why was everyone so sure she had the answers to everything? She needed to find Cisco next; she hadn't seen him for many hours now. The poor man had been eating himself up about what happened while trying everything he could to at least figure out the multiple power problems that the lab had been experiencing during the whole night. The lights and power just wouldn't stop going on and off again in some parts of the facility at random moments. Thankfully, no complete power cut occurred, yet.
If Cisco wasn't in the breach room, where everything started, nor in the cortex, that only left one obvious other location; his lab. That's where she headed to and where she, indeed, found him. The engineer was asleep in his chair with his crossed arms placed on the desk and his head resting on them. His doctor friend almost wanted to let him sleep and walk away; he was probably worn out by his restless night at searching for the problem, but she needed an update. That and the small part of Caitlin really needed her friend right now.
"Hey... Cisco," she softly said, gently shaking his shoulders in an attempt to rouse him back to consciousness.
"Mm mm...time?" He mumbled, sleepily, barely lifting his heavy eyelids as moistening his lips with his tongue.
"Almost morning. There's breakfast ready in the cortex."
"Food sounds good, so hungry," came Cisco's tired reply, finally straightening himself up and opening his eyes, looking disoriented for a second like he was wondering what he was doing waking up in his lab. Not that it never happened before, to be honest, "Barry?" he suddenly said, remembering last night's events, "how is he?"
"No changes…" while speaking, she glanced at the computer screen displaying coding in apparently random order all over the screen, almost matrix style, "Looks like you found the glitch."
"I did," Cisco confirmed, "I'm just not sure what to make of it, I've never seen anything like it. Whatever the Speedforce did to our system, it didn't appreciate it."
"Can you fix it? And fast?"
Now completely awake, his tiredness and hunger were all but forgotten as he leaned forward on his desk and frantically typed on his keyboard, "I had the computer analyse it for a couple of hours, I must've fell asleep during it…let me look. If I can find a way to isolate it, then I can destroy the glitch before-"
Before this sentence was even completely over, it got interrupted by a high pitch scream yelling for help. Iris? Barely losing one fraction of a second to share a glance of horror, both young friends started dashing toward the cortex, hearing a little louder with each step the distress call coming their way and footsteps approaching their direction. Turning the corner, they almost bumped into Joe who was meeting them halfway.
"BARRY! HE'S…. HURRY!" He said urgently, gesturing toward the medical bay. Trying to ignore the pit in her stomach, Caitlin started racing again, brushing the detective's shoulder as she closed in on her patient's location.
The speedster's muscles were uncontrollably twitching in all directions, seizing all over the bed. Iris's hands were hovering over the man's body, unsure what she could do to help without injuring him or herself while Wally was standing next to her sister with his eyes just as wide open.
"Help!" Shouted the standing speedster as soon as he saw the cavalry arriving.
"What happened‽" Exclaimed Caitlin, striding inside the room and pushing the people behind to take control of her space in order to work.
''Everything was normal, 'til I heard something weird, like a crackling sound on the monitors! When I turned around to see what was going on, I saw sparks all over," she babbled, on the verge of panicking, "and then, Barry started gasping… and seizing, I don't...don't know what ...oh God."
Her hand went to her mouth as she saw the young man's back violently arching over the back while throwing his right arm in the air and tearing off his IV in the movement.
"Try to keep him down and lay him flat!" Shouted Caitlin to whoever was listening
Was that all happening because of the glitch? A global glitch that coincidentally attacked Barry the exact moment Cisco was trying to destroy it...No time to think about this now, not while Cisco and Wally were fighting to keep their comatose friend down. What was that stinking smell assaulting her nose anyway? It almost resembles... wait, was that the smell of burning flesh? Wrinkling her nose, Caitlin turned her attention to the usual suspects.
"What the..." whispered Caitlin, snatching away the wires and pads connected to her friend's body with one swift movement without taking the time to explain what she was doing.
Anyway, there was no need of that since the people in the room all gasped simultaneously, taking notice of the dark reddened and freshly burned skin underneath. The moment she disconnected the speedster, his friend's body finally relaxed a little. Well, more like completely. And, for a second there, the doctor almost did the same, until a yell from Cisco put her back on high alert.
"Caitlin! The ventilator!" Pointed out the engineer; the equipment sending oxygen wasn't functioning anymore. If the speedster wasn't breathing, it wouldn't take long before his heart and other organs would stop working.
"Dammit, we need to isolate the equipment from the rest of the lab. Wally; go grab me the generator downstairs-"
"On it!" Replied the speedster, gone in a second.
'"-and Cisco, help me, we'll ventilate manually. I'm ready to restart his heart if we have to..."
This nightmare clearly was not about to end.
A/N: leave a comment
Are you starting to figure out what's happening?
The story is moving to the Wednesday next week and will have a weekly chapter for many, many weeks. Starting next week the schedule will be:
Wednesday: Message in a bottle
Friday: The long way home