Author's Note: Hey guys, I'm back again with another chapter! I hope you all enjoy this one! Please, review if you get the chance! They really keep me going! Let me know what you think!

Barry was going to be in a lot of trouble later. He had been well aware of that the moment he had fled from STAR Labs and left his team in the dust. At the moment, however, as he raced through the streets of Central City faster than the speed of light, he couldn't bring himself to care. What he did care about was that there were people in danger, and that they needed him; they needed the Flash.

It took under a minute for the speedster to make it to the Central City Bank. As he skidded to a stop in front of the entrance, however, he felt all of the dizziness and nausea he had experienced earlier that morning return unbidden after the use of his powers. But he took only a moment to collect himself before zipping into the bank, doing his best to push the feelings to the back of his mind. No matter how shitty he felt, he couldn't focus on it. He had to fight through it, especially since he was currently the only one on the scene; the police had yet to arrive.

Barry scanned the bank as he stood there, searching the faces of the terrified citizens for answers. He heard many of them muttering his name hopefully as they spotted him. Not yet seeing the person responsible for setting off the alarms, Barry took quick control over the situation.

"Go, get out of here!" he shouted; the hostages did not need to be told twice. At his prompting, they all got up, scattering around him as they ran for the doors. It was as he heard them close, signalling that everyone had safely gotten out that the perpetrator finally showed their face, stepping out of the vault with a bag filled with what could only be cash. Barry would have loved to say that it was only a common criminal that could easily be taken down even in his current state. Unfortunately, that was not the case, and his stomach did a flip as his eyes landed on a girl he immediately recognized.

"Flash," said the all too familiar voice of Shawna Baez, also known as Peek-a-boo. By Cisco, at least. "Not surprised to see you here."

"Well, I'm a little surprised to see you," Barry replied, keeping his voice calm and confident despite the fact that that was definitely not the way he felt. "I thought you would have taken your chance at escape more seriously and move on from Central City."

Shawna had been one of the metahumans freed by Leonard Snart on the night of a would-be transfer to Oliver's private island prison. Out of all of them, Barry would have pegged Shawna as the one who would be smart enough to get far away. Apparently, that wasn't the case.

Shawna shrugged, a grin on her face. "What can I say? Central City is home," she said. And then she was gone in a puff of black smoke, the bag disappearing with her. Barry knew she couldn't be far, however. There was a downside to her powers; she could only teleport somewhere she could see. Barry whirled around and sped out of the building and, sure enough, there she was just down the street. He zoomed in her direction, but found himself stumbling as he made it in front of her, his dizziness returning with a vengeance. He straightened, but it was no sooner than he had he done so that he broke into a sudden coughing fit, causing lightning to crackle around him in waves. Barry winced; that was definitely new. Shawna watched with rapt interest.

"What's the matter, Flash? Not feeling well?" she asked with mock sympathy.

"Well enough to take you on," Barry replied, but the threat sounded lame even to him, his voice hoarse from his coughing spasm. He sped at her anyways, but she was gone again in an instant. Before he had time to react, he felt pain erupt in his back, and he was down on the ground from the sudden hit. He rolled over to see Shawna standing over him with an amused smile spread across her face.

"Honestly, Flash, this is just pathetic," she told him as the sound of sirens came into earshot; the police force was finally arriving, though it was a little late for their intervening. "We'll have to try this again sometime soon." With a salute using the hand that wasn't holding the money sack, Shawna disappeared once again, and Barry knew he didn't have the energy to go after her. He had barely even done anything, but in all honesty, he was struggling even just to find the energy to get himself up off of the ground upon which he was still lying. His vision was swimming, and he blinked hard and slow, trying to clear it. The sirens were getting louder, and he could hear the murmuring of the concerned onlookers who had gathered, both sounds blending together and pounding uncomfortably in his head. He sat up with a sharp intake of breath, his vision still foggy and disorienting. Standing was a battle, but he finally managed and ran quickly from the noise and the crowd, back to STAR Labs.

He materialized seconds later in the Cortex to the surprise of the small group still occupying it, but he didn't have the time to take in their expressions. As he came to an unsteady halt, the world seemed to collapse around him, and the sensation of falling came almost in slow motion.

The last thing he was aware of was the warbled cacophony of voices calling his name before everything went black.

Caitlin was not at all pleased with the current predicament. She would have loved to say that Barry had willingly taken her advice to rest and not use his powers until he was better, but no, of course that wasn't the case. The second the crime alert had gone off, he had been gone in - well, in a flash. The pun might have been comical, if things weren't so serious. The speedster had failed to put his com on before fleeing STAR Labs, so they had no way of reaching him. All they could do was huddle around the monitors, keeping a careful eye on Barry's tracker and vitals.

After the speedster had taken off, Joe had immediately wanted to go after him, to do something. Despite wanting the same thing, she had managed to convince him that staying here was the best option. Joe's police coworkers would already be on the way to the scene, and Barry would be back eventually. And when he did come back, she knew it would be best if they were all there to help him. Or, more accurately, to help her. If anything happened, it would be good to have the extra hands for tending to him. She knew she had made the right call when his vitals on the screen started fluctuating. From that point, it was about two more solid minutes of anxiously waiting before Barry came speeding back in.

At first glance, Barry seemed relatively fine. Though there was no accounting for anything under his suit, and he looked unnaturally pale as he skidded to a wobbly halt. Suddenly everyone was on high alert, moving towards him, calling out his name with worry mingled in their voices. He didn't even meet their eyes, however, and seconds later he was down for the count, his eyes rolling up in his head as his knees buckled and his body met the hard floor. Caitlin was the first to reach him, and she knelt down beside his sprawled out form, peeling back his cowl and putting two fingers to his neck to check his pulse. She breathed a sigh of relief as she felt it beating steadily, perhaps a little fainter than usual but still there.

"Barry. Barry, can you hear me?" she asked as the others made it to the unconscious man as well, all hovering over him, their concern palpable. Barry didn't respond, just continued to lie limp, breathing rhythmically in and out as if he were just asleep. That, at least, was good; a visual sign that he was alive.

"What's wrong with him?" Iris asked, her mouth pulled into a tight frown as she looked down at Barry.

"I don't know yet. Joe, Cisco, get him into a bed," Caitlin instructed. The two men didn't need to be told twice. Within seconds they had Barry's weight supported between them and carried him rather easily off down the hallway to the med bay.

"Iris, go with them," Caitlin added after a moment. "Get his suit off, I need to examine him. I'll be there in a minute." Iris nodded solemnly and was gone just as fast as her father and Cisco. Caitlin took a moment to gather herself, taking a deep breath before grabbing clean gloves from her stash. When she made it to the med bay, it was to see Barry lying still in the bed that just minutes ago he had been sitting on, aware. He was in only his boxer briefs. In light of him being the Flash, and constantly getting himself injured, she couldn't even say that this was a new sight for her. Modesty was a thing of the past at STAR Labs.

Caitlin frowned as she got closer and her eyes raked over her friend's body; not because of injuries, but ironically because of the lack of them. He looked completely fine, but she knew that couldn't be the case; there was some reason he had passed out. Was this all illness based? The young doctor stood over the speedster, doing another quick once-over before grabbing a syringe from a nearby drawer and pulling on her gloves, grabbing Barry's arm to search for a prominent vein she could use to draw blood. She grimaced at how hot he seemed even without touching him with bare hands. She would have to take his temperature again; it appeared that it might have gone up, and that couldn't indicate anything good after such a short amount of time.

"Why are you taking blood?" Joe asked from his place beside the bed as Caitlin slid the syringe into his arm and began filling it with the warm, red liquid.

"I want to study what's happening with it," she explained. "He doesn't have any visible injuries, which would suggest that his loss of consciousness was caused by his illness. If that's the case, then the symptoms show themselves more when he uses his speed." She finished drawing the blood sample and capped the syringe, placing it on the medical cart that still sat idle next to the bed.

"So it gets worse when he uses his powers," Cisco said slowly, almost a question, trying to interpret what Caitlin had said.

"In theory, yes."

Joe let out a sigh, massaging his temples as he looked down at his son. "That would make sense," he said. "This morning, he was practically fine."

"How many times did he use his powers?" Caitlin asked as she reached for the thermometer, sticking into Barry's mouth and turning her head to look at Joe.

"I don't know," the detective admitted. "At least twice. He overslept this morning, so he used them to get ready and then to get us both to work. I didn't see him again until lunch, when we brought him here. At that point things had escalated a lot."

Caitlin nodded thoughtfully, taking the thermometer from Barry's mouth now and reading it with a frown. It had definitely gone up. Before he had left, it had been 102.3. Now it was pushing 104, and she didn't like the rapid acceleration. If he didn't already have a higher body temperature, it would have been even higher cause for concern. With a sigh, she put the thermometer back down and grabbed the blood-filled syringe again.

"His fever's gone up," she informed her friends. "I don't like how everything is progressing so quickly. I need to look at his blood now and see exactly what's happening; Cisco, you should stay here and keep an eye on him. Joe, Iris, why don't you two head back to work? I wouldn't want you both to get in trouble. We can handle him."

Iris shook her head firmly. "We're not leaving," she said. "I'll call Linda, ask her to cover for me."

"And I already told Singh I was leaving," Joe input. Caitlin nodded, seeing no point in arguing the matter. She supposed it would be better to have them here anyways.

"Alright, fine. Then why don't you get him into a pair of sweats?"

"Baby? I'm back!" Shawna called out as she walked into the abandoned warehouse she and her boyfriend had been calling home for the past several weeks, the sack of money from the bank slung over her shoulder. Despite the fact that he had abandoned her when they had both been apprehended by the Flash some time ago, Shawna had still managed to find her way back to Clay Parker. What could she say? It wasn't her finest moment, but she had admittedly never quite gotten over him.

Clay materialized from the opposite side of the warehouse, striding over purposefully and eyeing the bag she carried greedily. "Took longer than it should have. How much did you get?" he asked as she set the bag down on the floor.

"30 grand," she replied. "And it might have been a little faster if you had wanted to help," she added haughtily.

"I need to keep a low profile," he replied. "I'm the one who was actually in prison, remember? Not some makeshift meta jail. And besides, you're the one with the teleporting abilities; you're better off by yourself."

Shawna rolled her eyes, crossing her arms over her chest. "Well, guess what else."

"What?" he questioned, his voice mostly uninterested as he opened up the sack and began rifling through it, looking quite pleased at the large quantity of cash.

"The Flash showed up."

Clay looked up at this. "Really?" he asked, raising an eyebrow and seeming slightly more interested now. The Flash was a real pain in the ass; he had been the one to ruin the nice thing him and Shawna had had going. He had been the one who had caught up with them and forced him to flee, taking Shawna, the one true asset he had upon being broken out of prison, away.

"And you were just able to get away? Last time he caught you."

Shawna scowled at him. "It's not like you were there to help me," she pointed out. "But anyways, there was something off about him. He wasn't on his game."

"How so?"

Shawna paused. "I think - I think he might be sick or something," she replied. "He could barely even run without tripping up. Then he practically started coughing up a lung, and lightning just went crackling all around him. It was way too easy to take him down."

As Clay processed this information, he suddenly started to chuckle. Shawna raised an eyebrow this time, arms still crossed as she examined her boyfriend. "What's so funny?"

"Babe, the Flash is literally the glue that holds this entire damn city together. He practically does the police's work for them. If there's actually something wrong with him, do you know how easy it would be to get away with crime? We could have Central City eating out of the palms of our hands!"

Shawna gave him a skeptical look. "We're just two people, Clay," she said. "The police force may have gone a little soft since the Flash has shown up, but they're not useless."

"But the Flash is always the one to handle metas," he pointed out, giving her a pointed look. "The CCPD can barely handle one." He smirked. "How well do you think they'd be able a group?"

"What are you suggesting, Clay?" she asked.

A pause, and them. "How many metahumans do you know?"