The lab is quiet now. There's just him and Barry and a blissful sense of calm and utter stillness that wraps around him like a comforting blanket. It's been a long week and an even longer night and day and now 24 hours after Barry was hurt it's a relief to be sitting in the dimly lit room with nothing but silence surrounding him.
It helps that the lab is not like other hospitals. There are no smells of ammonia or disinfectant or a thousand other chemicals that always seem to linger in every other hospital ward he has ever been in. Instead there is just the faint scent of a woman's perfume, light and fresh, like some kind of summer flower bending in the breeze and dancing on the edges is the faint aroma of freshly brewed coffee, beckoning in its fullness.
The quiet is different too. There are no sounds of machines beeping and whooshing or footsteps walking up and down corridors or voices talking in the distance. The machines here seem to make no noise and the only sound is the faint tap tap tap of busy fingers working away on a nearby keyboard and that he can only hear if he concentrates hard enough.
His focus though is on the man laying in front of him. It's the first time since last night in the dark and the wet that he has really looked at Barry and what he sees makes his heart ache. There's a part of him that would really like to just reach out and hold his hand and tell him that everything will be alright but he doesn't and it feels strange not to. He's not one to hold back his emotions, has always been a tactile person. A touch here, a touch there, physical contact as a way of connecting with someone, of letting them know he was there for them. But he's kind of hollowed out at the moment, his feelings so raw and overwhelming that he's had to push them back. He needs to be strong. Has to be strong. For Joe, for Iris, for all the people that care about Barry.
The gently touch of a hand on his shoulder pulls him out of his thoughts and he looks up to see Felicity standing there, a mug of coffee in one hand, her smile a little tight, her eyes a little sad, as if she is forcing herself not think about how close they had come to losing Barry for good. Eddie knows how she feels. Knows that he will never forget the sight of Barry falling or of the blood on his hands, so red, so dark as it seeped between his fingers as he tried to stem the flow of it as it ran from Barry's body. He has a feeling that those two images will haunt his dreams in the nights to come.
"He'll be alright" she softly says, her words an exact echo of the words Eddie had said to Joe much earlier as she hands him the coffee.
He takes it gratefully, glad for the use it gives his hands to do something other than to sit idly by and nods in reply, his gaze flicking back to Barry. He doesn't know Felicity that well, if barely at all, but from the brief times he's seen her he can tell that there is a strong friendship between her and Barry. And her presence, along with Diggle's and Oliver's, has already made a difference.
Diggle had been a blessing to Caitlin, working alongside her to help stitch Barry up and offering his steadying influence when they needed it the most. Felicity too has played her part, putting her IT skills to use to monitor and shape all the online talk and news feeds about The Flash, feeding out information where and when necessary as well as providing them all with strong, hot coffee and sweet, sticky donuts. Oliver's presence can also be felt, invisible though it is. Like Joe and Eddie he is uncomfortable doing nothing so instead he has donned his Arrow persona and is watching over the city, making sure that the bad guys don't take advantage of the Flash's absence.
It is good that they are here.
Felicity squeezes his shoulder again offering, in her own slightly awkward way, reassurance with the simple gesture and then her fingers are gone and all he is left with is the lingering scent of her perfume and the steady beat of her high heels getting fainter and fainter as she returns to her post.
He turns his head in her direction, his face pale, his eyes glistening with pent up emotion. "Thanks Felicity."
Surrounded by computers, she smiles back at him, knowing that the thanks is for far more than just the coffee and sits back down at her station, losing herself once again in the world of ones and zeros.
Turning back to his vigil Eddie leans forward a little, resting his elbows on his thighs, the coffee mug clasped firmly in his hands.
The gently rise and fall of Barry's chest is all the reminder he needs.
Barry is alive.
Badly hurt, yes. But alive. That at least is a start.
His pale skin is marred with cuts and abrasions and bruises, the more serious wounds hidden underneath a swab of dressings and metal clamps holding together fractured and broken bones. Tubes weave there way down to each arm, silently feeding him medication and fluids, while another tube, stretches across his face, giving him a steady supply of oxygen. Through it all Barry has laid there silent and still, oblivious to the activity around him.
He would heal - in time, at least that's what Caitlin thinks, but for now the waiting begins.
Waiting.
It's not something that Eddie has ever been that good at. He believes in action, in doing, in living. Waiting just means that life is passing you by and Eddie is not the kind of person to let life just drift on by him. But for Barry he'll wait. He'll wait because Barry is his friend, because he knows that Barry would wait for him. As for the other reason, he's never really let himself consider it before but now it's there. In his head and in his heart. If he's truthfully honest with himself it's always been there. A faint hum under his skin that drew him to Barry. He had felt it the moment they had first met. A fissure of electricity, a spark of something that hinted at possibilities. But the timing had never been right. There had been the whole thing with the particle accelerator, Barry being struck by lightening, the meta humans...
The list of reasons were long and complicated and he hasn't even gotten to the fact that Joe, who was Barry's father in all but name, was also his colleague and partner. And then there is Barry. Eddie has no idea what he feels. if he feels anything for him at all. There were times when he had thought there might be something there but something always happened and then the moment was gone and Eddie had been left wondering if it had really been there after all.
So he had done nothing.
That was a first for him. To do nothing, to not take a chance, to not put himself out there and take a risk. It wasn't like him at all. But he had done it because it had seemed like the right thing to do. And in return he's gotten to be Barry's friend and that is a good thing. It's not something that he wants to lose. But with everything that has happened he wants to try for something more. He wants the possibility. The possibility of him and Barry. Together. Wants it more than he's ever wanted anything before.
So he'll wait.
He'll wait because hope and possibility are all he has right now. All any of them has.