A/N: Sorry not sorry for that last chapter ;) Enjoy!

JediFlashDemigod: Wait...what do you mean I'm evil? *Do puppy eyes and re-read Wounds of the Spirit and Darkest Hour endings...* oh ok nevermind.

"Let me verify if I got everything right; when Barry got disconnected while he was vibing with you, his consciousness got lost and accidentally jumped into the computers instead of going back in his body. Does this sound about right?" Joe questioned, who was standing and facing the back of the cortex where Cisco and Caitlin just finished exposing the whole ordeal while leaning against the back of a chair.

"Pretty much," confirmed the engineer, avoiding eye contact.

"I don't get it," admitted Joe, still trying to make sense of what they had told him, "if Barry was the anomaly in the system, why did he try to electrocute himself to death? Twice?" His comment received nods of approval from his son and H.R. who was standing close to him.

"I don't think Barry was trying to harm himself. Quite the contrary, he probably was trying to avoid being destroyed by our attempts," explained Caitlin.

"When he saw that I was coming up with a plan to destroy him and realised he was still unable to communicate with us, Barry probably tried to jump back into his body on his own," added Cisco to help clarify the whole situation.

"So, what you said about Barry being-" Wally made a quick side glance to his family, not sure what word he could use; deceased, brain dead, dead-dead? He turned his attention back toward Caitlin, "What you said about Barry being gone, it's because what's making Barry…well, what's making him Barry was in a computer?''

"Exactly," nodded Caitlin, causing Wally to smile enthusiastically. So, hope wasn't all lost… right?

"So, we can bring him back in his body and wake him up?" Joyfully asked the young speedster.

Cisco looked down while her doctor friend gently laid down a soothing hand on his back, "theoretically it could be possible. Except, since we rebooted everything, we can't find any trace of him."

Getting up from the chair he had been slumped in during the whole exposé, H.R. straightened himself up and banged on the main computer desk with his drumsticks to draw the attention on himself.

"I might not understand much of anything about what you're talking about, but how can you detect if a person's soul, or whatever you want to call it, is gone from your computers? Couldn't B.A. just be hidden in some dark corner of your facility? Could've he have jumped into something else without the need of a cable?"

"Is that possible?" Inquired Iris, her eyes shining with renewed hope. Her mind was desperate enough at the moment to jump on anything, even H.R.'s words.

"I… I don't know, Iris," stated Caitlin, "I really, really wish that I was able to tell you all that there is a way out of this and that Barry is going to be fine, but it's been hours since the reboot and we can't find a single sign of him."

"I killed him," Cisco mumbled sadly, barely above a whisper. His voice was barely loud enough for anyone to understand before he threw his black marker on the ground and stormed out of the room, brushing against Joe's side on his way out.

Nobody said a thing, what was there to add? Barry was gone. The hero had been desperately calling them out for help, as he knew he was about to see his consciousness get destroyed and what did they do? They simply decided it wasn't worth considering it. What did Iris do? She preferred spending time writing her article. Why didn't she spend more time looking out for solutions or for signs he was still out there?

Wait...Her article.

Iris' eyes widened suddenly as she gasped, "I was writing an article."

Confused faces turned in her direction.

"I was writing an article!" She loudly exclaimed, sensing her blood pumping faster in her veins and her heart painfully beating in her chest.

With all the attention turned toward Iris, nobody, at first, noticed how Cisco made a couple of steps back and was now standing at the entry of the cortex, curiously looking at the scene unfolding through his watery eyes.

"What?" Asked Caitlin for the rest of them.

"Just before you rebooted everything, before you turned the power down, I was writing an article for my boss!" She hastily explained with her speech speed getting faster by the second.

"I still don't get it," Wally replied, still having no idea where her sister was heading with that.

"My computer power cable was connected! And my computer turned to black just as Cisco announced the lab was about to go on a complete blackout," as she was speaking, she gestured to the entry of the room where Cisco was standing.

She instantly caused the whole crowd to turn around while Vibe's expression turned blank and his mouth opened as the information made his way to his brain.

"Oh my god!" Cisco exclaimed loudly, snapping his fingers together with renewed interest, "it could be!"

"Cisco?" Caitlin questioned her friend as her deep furrowed in confusion.

"You guys wanna share with the class?" Wally butted in, still clueless about the whole thing.

"Barry!" Breathed out Cisco, "he could've jumped into Iris' laptop before the reboot. He might still be out there! He might not be gone after all!"

***FLASHFLASHASH***

"And you haven't opened it since that moment?" Cisco asked again with obvious worry as the whole team was intensively staring at the black laptop on the Cortex's main desk like it was some sort of holy relic. Well, as far as they were concerned, might as well be.

"I probably should've, to meet my deadline, but with everything happening, I couldn't bring myself to continue my article."

"That's probably a good thing; restarting it with an anomaly could've caused your computer to try and reboot automatically in order to open correctly," Cisco commented, lifting the upper part of the computer, and cracking his fingers like an athlete stretching himself before a supreme effort, "we just need to get into the operating system before the laptop starts his normal opening procedure."

Even without doing any physical movements, the engineer was still drenched in sweat, with his mind filled with doubts and fear; what if they were wrong? Just because their facility was flashing the lights in a distinct pattern didn't mean for sure that Barry was alive. The tension was at its highest in the room and everyone was wondering the same thing.

"Let's do this," whispered Cisco to himself as he solemnly pushed the starting button.

Barry might be the fastest legs alive, but not one has faster fingers on a keyboard than the engineer himself. Well, no one except Felicity, Maybe. All right, maybe not faster than Barry, but surely more precise and effective. Clicking a few touches had the electronic device going completely black in a matter of seconds, only leaving the flashing white line indicating the cursor's position and waiting for anyone to start entering codes or else.

"Here goes nothing. If there's anyone in there, we should be able to communicate," Cisco informed them before quickly backtracking, "that's if I'm right... theoretically..."

"Cisco!" Reprimanded Joe, clearly not liking the way the scientist was making anyone fear for a possible failure.

"Sorry," apologized Cisco.

What was Cisco supposed to write down to this entity? Might as well start with the basics, so he started typing.

-Hello?

...

...

Everyone was tightly pressed around him, all vying to get a clear vision of what was being written on the screen as silence descended upon the lab. Nobody was daring to make a single sound, even keeping their breath, like they were terrified they wouldn't hear the answer that was taking forever to come. Just when hopes were about to get brutally crushed, letters magically appeared one by one, on the screen to form a single word.

-Help

"We're here, buddy," said Cisco aloud before leaning back over the keyboard to type again.

-Barry? Is that you?

...

...

-Help... me

Could the entity really comprehend them? At least, they now had a proof of his existence. If only it could answer the most burning question. Determined, Cisco tried again:

-Who are you?

-...it's me...

...

B…

Barry

Iris was the first one to gasp at the confirmation. What if she hadn't tried to charge her laptop on that day?

-We're here. We're going to find a way to help you.

-Dark...Trapped...hard...to...communicate

-We'll get you out, you'll be fine. I promise.

-h...e...l...

Even while simply writing short messages on computers, Barry sounded so scared and so lonely. The whole team just kept on staring at the computer, waiting for the next message that never came.

-Barry?

Waiting and waiting, but nothing came. Cisco sighed and turned toward the group after over a full minute of radio silence.

"So how do we fix this?" Asked Joe, stating the obvious.

A/N: Leave a comment :)

See? Not that evil...well, not all the times, ihih. Had any of the person I told to re-read chapter 5 saw the subtle hints I put in it about that twist?