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Rating: K+

~J.H.

"Help! Someone please—help us!" Barry staggers into the hospital, panting and tired, cradling her broken body to his chest.

"Oh my God!" one of the nurses exclaims, pressing her hands to her mouth. She yells over her shoulder, "Nancy, page Doctor White, tell him we've got a girl, unconscious—"

"She's bleeding!" Barry shouts. Her warm blood is dampening his shirt, and she's shivering, despite his jacket around her shoulders. "Please—please you've gotta help her."

"It's alright, son," a calming voice says from behind him. Barry turns to see an older, motherly-looking woman. Gently, she takes Caitlin from his arms and sets her down on a bed, signaling to a nurse who's waiting nearby. The nurse quickly wheels the bed down the hall, taking Caitlin far, far away from Barry. He makes a move to go after her, but the woman who spoke to him stops him. "Follow me," she says.

"No…no, I have to be with Cait—"

She looks at him, "Sweetie, you're a mess. You're shaking, pale, and I'm pretty sure all that blood isn't your girlfriend's." She glances at his blood-stained shirt, but Barry honestly cannot remember if he got hurt or not. The woman continues, "I'm Nancy," she holds her hand out for him to shake, putting her other arm around his shoulders and leading him to a room.

"Barry," he says, not shaking her hand; his own hand is covered in Caitlin's blood.

Nancy nods, "Okay, Barry, let's get you cleaned up, and then we can talk." Then, seeing his concerned look, she adds, "And then we can go see your friend, alright? But, right now she needs to be with the doctors, and they can't have anyone in the way."

"No, no I need to see if she's okay now." He's half tempted to push Nancy away, to run down the hallway back towards Caitlin, but the other half of him knows that she's right—he'll only make things worse if he's there, in the way of the doctors.

"That's not going to happen until you've been taken care of," Nancy says firmly. She nods at the bed, and Barry sits down, wincing at the pain in his side. She notices, and goes to take a look. Once she's cut away the material of his soaked shirt, she gasps slightly as she sees the wound.

"Okay, honey, while we stitch you up, you're gonna need to start talking. How did this happen?"

A flash of events plays through his head—it had been just like the night his mother had died. Flashes of red, yellow, and green zooming up to him when he was alone, hitting at him repeatedly. At first he'd tried to fight back, then he'd tried to run away, but they were too fast—they were faster than him. He'd tried to see their faces, but they moved in such a way that even Barry couldn't keep up. They took his phone, looked at the wallpaper—a picture of him and Caitlin, laughing-and then they were gone. The phone should have been his first clue—he should have rushed immediately to S.T.A.R labs to find her, help her, but he wasn't thinking straight. His first thought was to take care of his own injuries, not to go help Caitlin.

"Stupid!" he mutters to himself, "stupid, stupid, stupid! It's my fault. It's all my fault."

Nancy loo "You need to tell me what happened," she says, her voice firm but gentle.

Barry knows he can't tell the truth. "We…um we were on a date. And we…got mugged."

From the look on Nancy's face, she doesn't believe him.

"By a gang," he adds.

"Then how is it your fault?"

"Oh—I used to be part of the gang."

Her eyes sweep over him; he's not exactly "gang material".

"Yeah, and I owed them some money," Barry lies wildly, "and so they came for me, but then they went for Caitlin." Barry feels a lump forming in his throat, "and it's all my fault."

The light above her is bright. Too bright. She has to squint when she looks around. Slowly, everything comes into focus and she tries to make sense of where she is. To her left is a computer screen, monitoring someone's heart. It takes a moment for her to realize that it's monitoring her heart. To on her right arm is an IV.

"Caitlin, can you hear me?"

Barry's voice. His face looms above her, and has trouble putting it into focus.

"Caitlin?" he takes her hand.

"Barry," is all she can manage.

He breaks out in a smile, relieved, "Yeah, yeah, Cait, it's me. It's me." He hesitates a moment before saying, "I'm so sorry."

Immediately, she knows what this is about, "No, Barry, this isn't your fault."

"If I had gotten there…if I had been fast enough,"

"Barry Allen," her voice is stern, "None of this is your fault, alright? None of it."

He shakes his head, holding onto her hand tighter.

"It won't happen again," he says, "I swear on my life, Doctor Snow. It won't happen again."

She squeezes his hand, wanting to comfort him. "My hero," she says, smiling a little.

He kisses her hand, "I hope I can be that."