A/N: This one is pure angst. Hang tight. All the rest will be fluff.

*I own nothing. No copyright infringement intended.

...

She Said Wait

The last thing Iris had expected upon coming home, even when she saw the rose petals and a million candles and smelled the wonder that was Grandma Esther's noodles – and mint chocolate chip ice cream in the fridge! – had been a proposal.

A proposal. From Barry Allen.

Lord, she loved him. She loved him more than anything. More than her own life, she loved him.

And he'd gone all out. He always went all out. He loved her as much as she loved him and his grand gestures never got old. Sometimes she even felt like she wasn't giving enough in the relationship because she swore she couldn't possibly make him as happy as he made her. After all, what had she done besides tell him how much she loved him on repeat for months? She gave him pep talks when the Flash needed them, but that hardly qualified as contributing to their romantic relationship.

But any uncertainty she held on that side of things faded away when he looked at her the way he was looking at her now. And in bed. Because hell if she couldn't give him just as much pleasure as he gave her. She might not be able to vibrate, but she had a body he couldn't resist and a voice that made him come undone and a tongue that did plenty fine when it wrapped around him or dove into his mouth.

All things considered, she felt she was doing enough to satisfy him. After tonight, how could she not be? He was down on one knee proposing to her.

And therein lay the problem.

She'd just assured herself that she was pulling her weight, even though she'd yet to really make a grand gesture the way Barry did. So that wasn't it. It was the timing.

It wasn't too soon for a proposal necessarily. Sometimes couples knew each other only a few months before they got married, and some of those couples stayed together for the rest of their lives.

Besides, they'd been dating for almost a year. She wasn't blind to the fact that Barry had probably foreseen this from the moment she'd confessed her feelings for him before he'd stepped into that second particle accelerator experiment and proceeded to shatter her world, no matter how briefly.

But…Savitar.

The evil god of speed was supposed to return somehow and kill her just over three months from now. Would Barry really be down on one knee asking her to spend the rest of her life with him, if her life might be over before they could even set a date for the wedding.

"Iris?" came Barry's voice, low and uncertain, worried.

She focused on him and got to her knees so they were level on the floor. She set the roses beside her and cradled her face in his hands.

"Barry," her voice broke, tears brimming in her eyes.

Not happy tears. Tears that said I'm sorry. Tears that said I wish things were different. Tears that didn't want to say these things out loud. Tears that bore an uncanny appearance to the ones she'd shed the night he first told her he loved her all those years ago.

Barry looked away from her. He didn't pull back, didn't wrench her hands from his face. But he did put the ring back. With shaky fingers, he put it back into the metal container, and it hit the wooden floor with an unintended clang and fell amongst the rose petals. He tried to pick it up again, but he couldn't seem to grasp it in his fingers. Sweat beaded on his forehead. His emotions went into overdrive. He wanted to leave and cry somewhere, yell and scream about how could he have been so blind? How could he have not even thought that Iris might say no to him?

Iris's hand closed over his. She picked the box up for him, placed it in his trembling hand and wrapped his fingers around it. She guided his hand to his pocket and helped him slip it inside. Then silence descended, thick and heavy, and they both sat there, neither daring to move.

Finally, Iris spoke.

"I'm not saying no, Barry," she said softly, though she couldn't meet his eyes at first. "I'm just saying not now. I'm saying wait."

He couldn't meet her eyes initially either, but when he did it was with heartbreak he couldn't hide if he wanted to.

"Wait until when?" his voice broke. A tear streamed down Iris's cheek.

"Barry, you know I love you," she said and swallowed hard. "You know I want to spend the rest of my life with you."

"Do I?" his voice rasped.

"Yes. God, yes." Her hands clutched tightly around his face. "I just want to make sure the rest of my life doesn't end three months from now."

Barry shut his eyes. This time he was tempted to wrench his face away.

"You don't trust me." His eyes flickered back to her face. "After everything you've said and everything I've done, you still don't think you're going to live."

Her hands dropped by her own accord.

"I just don't want you to be proposing because you think my life has a quickly approaching expiration date," she said quietly, not meeting his eyes.

"Iris—"

"Barry." She sighed, aggravated, not wanting to explain but knowing she had to. "I just—" She swallowed hard, then her face whipped up so that her gaze met his head on. "Would you be proposing to me tonight if Savitar wasn't supposed to come and kill me in just a few months?" Her eyes blazed.

"I'm proposing because I love you," he said very seriously. "Because I've loved you for as long as I can remember, and I want to marry you because you're everything to me, the only woman I've ever loved and ever will love for the rest of my life."

"But why tonight, Barry? Why did you have to do it tonight?"

Barry scoffed. He couldn't help it. He'd put so much into this. He'd gone all out. He'd been so sure this was the way to go, to not let Savitar dictate their future by always fighting against it, but instead living it to the fullest.

And here she was irritated that he'd done it at all. He couldn't believe it. He was horribly offended, but he was also mad at himself. And he was insecure now too. He worried that she would've turned him down no matter the circumstances.

Iris tensed across from him. She'd known this conversation would be hard, and she'd known it would break him, but she hadn't expected this distance from him. Or maybe she just hadn't wanted to.

"You're right, Iris," he finally said, trying as much as was humanly possible to not insert bitterness into his voice. He lifted his eyes to her and knew some of it shone through in the way he looked at her. "I decided to propose tonight because I didn't want to stop living just because there's a threat hanging over your head."

Iris crumpled in on herself.

"I didn't want to let Savitar win even before he tries to by determining that I spend more time trying to stop the future than trying to make one with you."

"You're still making a future with me, Barry. I still live with you. I'm not moving out."

Barry looked away and shook his head.

"How long?" he asked.

It was, she realized, the same question she'd asked when he'd told her about the future that very first time in the time vault.

She swallowed hard.

"How long until what?" she asked cautiously, barely able to get the words out. "How long until—"

But Barry got to his feet and walked away from her before she could get the rest of her second question out, before she could try to reason with him.

For Barry's part, he realized that he didn't know. How long until she left him? How long until she wanted to marry him? How long until she decided that everything he'd done and said to her since finding out about Savitar's plan to kill Iris had been a lie?

His mind was screaming at him that maybe she didn't believe a word he said and had done everything with her out of fear that she might die. It was ludicrous and he knew it, but he couldn't stop the thoughts from swarming in his head and driving him mad.

Iris heard the sniffle he didn't mean to let out escape him and went to him immediately. She turned him around and saw the tears streaming down his face.

"Oh, Barry."

She reached for him, but he didn't want to be comforted. Not by her. Not in that moment. He just wanted her to say yes. Or he wanted… He didn't know what else. He didn't know what could possibly make this better.

"Do you believe anything I've said to you?" he forced out. "Do you…Do you even believe I love you?"

Her jaw dropped, shocked beyond all measure.

"Of course," she said as soon as she could find her voice. "Of course I do, Barry. I know how much you love me. You show me and tell me every single day."

Barry closed his eyes and nodded. Iris thought she saw some of the tension leave his shoulders, but it was so slightly that she wasn't sure if she'd imagined it.

"And you love me," he said, but his voice wavered. She hated how it wavered.

"I love you," she said, determined to make him believe it. "And I want to marry you, Barry. I do."

The words should've comforted him, and he knew if she'd said yes they would've brought him nothing but joy, but she hadn't said yes. She'd said… What had she said?

"You just don't want to make that promise today," he said softly, his voice more strained than cold, more heartbroken that angry.

Her expression changed, looked uncertain, even a little surprised, as if he'd said it in a way she never considered.

He sighed loudly and ran a hand over his face.

"I just… Maybe, maybe you're right. Maybe if Savitar wasn't a threat to you I wouldn't have proposed to you tonight." He fixed his eyes on hers. "But there just as much a chance that I would have. Time moves so fast and sometimes I move with it. Sometimes I move faster than time, and sometimes I need to slow down. But Iris, when I'm with you…everything feels the way it's supposed to. I don't want to hide that from anybody that you're the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with. Everyone pretty much knows it, but knowing you want it too, seeing that you want other people to know it…" He paused and tried to breathe. "But you don't want that right now."

Iris shut her eyes tightly and turned away. She wanted to scream. She hated that he couldn't just accept what she wanted and hated even more that she understood where he was coming from and that she was as broken as he was that she hadn't just said yes.

"Can't you compromise, Barry?" she said bitterly. "Can't you bend a little?"

The words stung even to her, but Barry didn't respond aversely.

"Can you?" he asked softly, his boiling emotions starting to subdue.

Iris took a breath. "What do you propose?" She cringed at her poor word choice.

Barry swallowed. "Wear my ring—"

"Barry—"

"Around your neck," he continued, then turned to face her and she hesitantly did the same. "Wear it on a chain around your neck. That way you can hide it if you want. You can tuck it beneath your shirt and no one has to see. But I'll know it's there. I'll know that the only thing holding you back is your future, not how you feel about me or what you want."

Iris swallowed and nodded, fixed her eyes on the pocket where his ring lay tucked safely away in the little metal box.

"Okay," she said softly. She closed the distance between them and took his hands in her own, laid her head against the familiar skin. "I can do that."

…

The next morning when Iris woke up, she had trouble at first remembering all that had happened. Gorilla attacks. A proposal. And oh yeah, she hadn't said yes.

She cringed at the memory and wasn't wholly satisfied when she remembered their compromise, was even more crushed when Barry had put his foot down and said they'd put the ring on a chain in the morning, that there was no need to wear it to bed.

There was tension between them the rest of the night. Neither had an appetite. Neither wanted to do anything. But they both knew it was dangerous to separate, so they sat on the couch together and she fell asleep. Next thing she knew she was waking up in their bed. She had no doubt he'd carried her there.

She spotted his jacket across the room and couldn't take her eyes off of it, especially that pocket she knew the ring was hidden in.

Barry was turned away from her in bed. She didn't know if that was deliberate or not, but she decided this time that it was to her advantage.

She pulled back the covers and crept across the room, digging through the pocket in his jacket as soon as she reached it. She found the ring box immediately by touch and pulled it out, uncapping it and staring at the glittering jewel inside.

It really was beautiful, and it had such a wonderful story behind it. Never before had she been so touched by something someone had said or given to her. She wished she'd said yes now. She wished she hadn't ruined it.

Just to see if it fits, she told herself as she slipped the ring onto her finger and stared at it, enraptured.

It fit perfectly, as she had suspected it would. And for reasons that had nothing to do with her wanting to wear pretty things, Iris very stubbornly did not want to take it off.

She wanted to wear that ring. She didn't want to put it on a chain and hide it away. She wanted people to know how deeply she loved Barry and how she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him. God help her, even if that was just a few months. Why should she let Savitar have so much power over her that she couldn't even plan a wedding?

And Barry meant everything he said. He loved her. He wanted to marry her. She knew that with every fiber of her being. She also knew she'd have said yes to moving in with him if that had been the proposition instead. So why not this? Why not?

The clarity she wished she'd had last night dawned on her, and Iris saw how a proposal now didn't necessarily mean because of the timing, but rather in spite of it.

"Barry?" she called out, not turning back to him. She heard a quiet groan but that was it, so she went back to the bed and sat next to his sleeping body. "Barry," she said more softly, but it had just as much success as the first time. So she switched tactics and laid the ring still adorning her finger upon his cheek.

Barry's eyes flashed open. They slanted towards the source of the cold so he could see what he suspected was true. Then he looked at her, eyes questioning and confused.

"Are you—You're wearing it?"

Iris smiled gently, wishing she could do the whole night over.

"Is it too late to say yes?" she asked, causing Barry to slowly sit up.

He studied her, searched her face for some falsehood, some explanation for what had changed her mind.

She didn't know if he found it but very suddenly he kissed her. It was quick and passionate and when he pulled away, he pressed his forehead to hers and made every attempt to breathe.

"No," he swallowed hard. She heard it. "It's not too late."

"Then I say yes," she said and kissed him. "I say yes right now and forever. No matter what happens in the future, I want people to know I want to marry you." Her eyes flickered up to his. "I want them to know today."

"You're sure?" he pressed. He couldn't bear for her to change her mind again.

She nodded against him. "I'm sure."

Barry didn't question her further. He knew he'd find time later, maybe that day, maybe not. But right now her changed mind was enough. Her changed mind was everything.

She said yes.