It's already Wednesday! Let the angst train continue.
Enjoy!
There was a hole in Caitlin's rain boot. Unfortunate, considering the purpose of rain boots.
Another puddle submerged her foot, and yet more rainwater soaked through her socks. She sloshed through the streets and tried not to make eye contact with anyone passing her. Everyone-well, Iris, since that was the only person she was currently in contact with-had warned her not to go outside so soon after the tsunami, but she couldn't stand being cooped up inside or in a car. She had to see the damage herself. She was masochistic in that way, she supposed.
She and Iris had dared to turn on the news the day after it happened, but the video could in no way capture the scope of the city's chaos. On the edge of town, by the shoreline, houses and low-lying buildings had been damaged or else completely toppled. Water sloughed through the streets of the city, rushing past businesses that had been evacuated too soon to put up "closed" signs. A few of them had already been victim to looting, as evidenced by the broken windows and destroyed storefronts. Only a few people dared go out in the streets like Caitlin, and even fewer dared to wander in some of the further streets, where water rushed as high as their knees.
In addition to the water in the streets, the skies had retained their dull gray sheen since the day of the attack. Thunder boomed occasionally, and a steady drizzle of rain had become standard. Given how apocalyptic everything felt, it was hard to remember that the tidal wave had wreaked its destruction only two days earlier.
On flickering news screens in the better part of town, newscasters speculated about the cost of rebuilding parts of the city, estimated casualties, played footage of search and rescue teams kicking open doors of homes and scaling down helicopter ladders to rescue people on rooftops. On the banner that stretched along the bottom of the screen, the words "The Flash: dead or missing?" scrolled ceaselessly. People guessed. Couples in the street muttered to one another, asking about Central City's hero, swapping stories of things they had seen at the beach that day. A red blur along the sand, sucking away at the tidal wave that threatened them. A red blur that disappeared as the wave crashed down.
Something rumbled in the distance-thunder, or the crumbling of a severely damaged building? Caitlin looked up at the sound and, in the corner of her eye, spotted a lone figure in a red hoodie. It was a boy, looking to be around eight or nine, walking by himself past an abandoned convenience store. His fists created lumps in his pocket, his shoulders hunched. Caitlin veered off of her aimless path toward him.
"Are you alright?" she asked, taking note of the dirt streaked down his cheek and the smudged nature of his eyes. "Do you need help?"
He looked at her, considered, and ran.
His feet splashed in the puddles, but Caitlin didn't pursue him, just watched him go. Where was he running to? Or what was he running from? Her stomach turned at the thought of it, at the thought of the other people fleeing from buildings or worse, trapped.
Another rumble. She ducked her head and tried to block out the sound.
Central City, or at least this part of it, was nothing short of a disaster zone.
Safety, Caitlin thought, was an illusion.
Soaked through, Iris closed the door behind her and kicked off her boots. Her fingers were numb from the cold and the wet, and she fumbled with the buttons of her coat. When she'd managed to get it off and hang it on the coat rack, she pulled out her phone to text Caitlin.
It's bad out here, read the last text from her. Understatement if there ever was one, Iris thought. She typed out her response.
Made it home. text when you're back. stay safe
The two of them had been staying at Joe's place since the incident, Iris curled up in her childhood bed—now a guest bedroom—and Caitlin in Barry's. Although there wasn't much they would be able to do against Wells if he was truly the Reverse Flash, Iris and Caitlin agreed that it was best to stay close, not alone. Seeing as Eddie had taken it upon himself to work nonstop on finding Joe, there wasn't much reason for Iris to go back to the apartment, anyway, and she didn't like the idea of Caitlin alone at her own apartment at night.
No response from Caitlin, but Iris guessed she was still wandering through the city trying to pick up clues, as Iris was. Or, at least, that's what they were trying to tell themselves. Picking up clues. The only useful thing they could possibly do.
Exhausted from wandering up and down the beach all day, Iris collapsed onto the couch and flicked on the TV. It had become habit to check the news. Nothing changed, but it felt productive to catch up on new developments. She was a reporter, after all, and with everything Caitlin had filled her in with about metahumans, she figured she might have the ability to spot something a newscaster might not.
"Two days after the disastrous tidal wave that devastated Central City," said the newscaster, a put-together brunette who appeared curiously passive about the incident, "rescue teams are still working to evacuate civilians. The rubble surrounding the old East Bank has now been all but cleared, and people trapped there have been transported to Middlebury Hospital. As of now, there is still no update on the status of the Flash, and many Central City residents are beginning to question if he was killed in the wave. We're live with John Bradden in the West District, where witnesses say the Flash made an appearance hours before the wave struck."
The camera switched to another reporter, a balding man in a bright blue raincoat that was cinched tightly under his chin. He launched into his opening statements. Beside him, two witnesses, shriveled by the rain, waited for their chance to speak whatever truth they now believed. Iris muted the TV.
A minute later, the front door of the house opened. Iris swung around, realizing that she hadn't locked the door-a habit that she would need to get back into-and crumpled in relief when she saw Eddie's pop of blonde hair.
"Hey, babe," he said, closing the door heavily and shrugging off his sopping wet jacket. Dark circles surrounded his eyes. "Why are you still up?"
"It's only 8:00," Iris said, frowning.
"Oh." Eddie rubbed the back of his hand over his eyes. "I guess it all kind of starts to look the same."
"You should get some sleep," Iris said. "You're no good to anyone if you're asleep on your feet."
"I could say the same to you," Eddie responded, moving closer to the couch and looking her critically in the eye. "Have you been outside?"
Iris pulled back her wet hair into a ponytail. "Maybe."
"Iris." Eddie gripped the back of the couch. "You haven't been walking the beach again, have you?" Iris said nothing, and he puffed out an angry breath. "We've talked about this. You shouldn't be out there alone. Besides, there's nothing to find."
"There could be," Iris said. "A body, or..."
"Bodies, exactly," said Eddie. "Iris, I don't want you stumbling upon a corpse. I don't think that's what you want either."
As frustrated as she was at Eddie, Iris was even more frustrated at the tears that sprang to her eyes. "I need to. What if it's the Flash, or-"
"Or Barry?" Eddie completed her statement for her, stepping back jerkily from the couch. "Is that what you want? You want to find Barry's body?"
Iris opened her mouth, but no sound came out, so she let it close again. The hot tears slid down her face, and she turned back to the TV, drew her knees up to her chin. Behind her, Eddie let out another breath, softer this time.
"I'm sorry," he said. "It's just...it's been a long day."
"Yeah," Iris said. "I know."
Slowly, Eddie circled around the couch and sat on the edge, looking at her as if across a great divide. She didn't meet his gaze but could feel his eyes on her.
"We'll find your dad," he said. "And we'll find Barry. I promise. We'll find them. They'll be okay."
All of the normal arguments seemed useless-how do you know? what if they're not?-so Iris picked at a loose string in the couch instead. Eddie moved closer.
His hand, tentative, was warm on her leg.
"I'm really sorry," he said. "The truth is...I'm scared too. But we have to believe that things will turn out right. We have to. I believe that we'll find your dad. And Barry. I believe that we will be okay. I understand if you don't...but I hope that you'll try."
Finally Iris looked him in the eye, found him desperately searching her soul. She did want to believe. She wanted to believe that all of them would be okay. She wanted to believe in her and Eddie. But just as soon as they'd made eye contact, she looked away.
When she looked Eddie in the eye, all she saw was that day in the park, with Barry's lips on hers, with Barry's hand on her cheek, how the world spun in giddy circles around her. Barry had been so warm.
The memory, the last happy memory that she had, plunged her further into guilt.
"Maybe I will go to bed," she said, pulling away from Eddie's touch, feeling it burn her through her jeans. "I'm pretty beat."
Eddie stood with her, like a gentleman might. "Yeah, I think I'll hit the sack too."
"Goodnight, then" Iris said definitively, and she walked toward the stairs without looking back. She could feel Eddie's hurt behind her, his confusion-her words like a closing door.
There was really nowhere else to go, if Caitlin was being honest with herself; she'd walked as many streets as she was able to, stopping only once at a coffee shop with an unfamiliar name to warm up. She tried hard to convince herself that it wasn't self-punishment, wandering these streets, but another part recognized that her path was leading her gradually back to STAR.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket. A text from Iris. Stay safe. She clicked off the screen and shoved the phone back in her coat pocket, burying her hands deep.
Although she knew Iris had been obsessively traveling up and down the beach for the past day and a half, looking for any sign of Barry or Weather Wizard, she hadn't yet had the guts to go herself. Now, unsure of what else to do, she cut down a side street that headed out to the water.
"Hey," shouted a woman from the window of an apartment building. "Careful out there."
Caitlin nodded vaguely and continued.
She was forced to step over some rubble on her way to the park, and hardly even occurred to her that what she was stepping over was not a product of intentionality, but of destruction, of failure. That this had once been a building, and people once lived or worked there. Her core was numb to this kind of information now, although she felt the facts click into her memory for further reflection.
Ahead of her, the beach stretched out for miles. She'd been out here plenty of times for early morning runs, but now all of those tracks were gone. Uprooted trees, torn-off branches, human trash littered the area. Sand from the beach, once confined to the strip along the water line, was now flung in abstract patterns across the park. Brown and gray smudged the once-serene area, and the beach itself looked more like an ugly scar than anything else.
Caitlin shrugged her coat up higher. The beach-that was where Barry had run, where he had cut his way through the sand, back and forth. She'd tracked his progress on the computer until his signal had blinked out, until the wave hit. It was odd seeing it now in person, the last marathon stretch in the liminal space between peace and destruction. When she looked out like this, from her vantage point on the rubble, she could picture all of it. The wave. The desperate attempts to stop it. The people, running for their lives, tearing across the landscape before the landscape tore itself apart.
Waste. All of it waste.
She pictured Mardon, Weather Wizard, standing above it all, watching the wave wreak havoc upon the unsuspecting city. Watching invisible people die.
The numbness in Caitlin's chest melted. In its place was fire, heat, anger.
Without a second thought, she turned on her heel, kicked out at a piece of rubble, started back in the direction of STAR. It was late, but she didn't care. She walked, her mind sparking from the blaze in her breast. She knew what she had to do.
She had to find Weather Wizard. And she had to take him down.
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed, please please leave your thoughts below! It seriously brightens my day and lets me know that I'm not writing into a void. See you Sunday!
Till next time,
Penn