Each step I left behind
Each road you know is mine
Walking on a line ten stories high
Say you'll still be by my side
If I could take your hand, oh
If you could understand
That I can barely breathe, the air is thin
I fear the fall and where we'll land
We fight every night for something
When the sun sets, we're both the same
Half in the shadows
Half burned in flames
We can't look back for nothin'
Take what you need, say your goodbyes
I gave you everything
And it's a beautiful crime
Beautiful Crime, Tamer
A lot happened and the team still seemed to be recovering from it. Cicada targeted Cisco and for a moment there, they all thought he was dead only to realize that Nora had a brilliant plan and whereas Cicada and the whole world believed Vibe was, indeed, gone; Cisco took some well-deserved time off with Gypsy when recovering.
It also turned out that ever since he'd been back, Ralph had been investigating Caitlin's father for her – ironically named Thomas and providing an understanding to what Cecile had said the night of the Enlightenment when she'd channeled Killer Frost – and now also Cicada. The villain's reactions towards Barry and Nora and some other small clues led the team to believe he was actually a father himself, maybe protecting – or revenging? – his own child.
All the investigations and the newest threat kept them busy and once Cisco came back, he and Barry finally managed to clear their day enough to take Caitlin to where Ralph discovered her father might be hiding. This gave Rachel and Nora some alone time and now that Rachel got used to the idea of having a daughter, she actually was dying to ask her some questions.
"I would love to know how did you first travel in time?" she asked the first one while they were hanging out in S.T.A.R. Labs lounge, eating ice cream. "And why are you coming now? Why this specific time?"
Nora hesitated with the spoon suspended half-way to her mouth.
"Don't worry. I know the rules of time travel. Don't tell me anything you believe I shouldn't know," Rachel encouraged. "I just thought this was an ok question to ask."
"Well… at first I just ran very fast… and it's taken me so long because it's been a lot of going by trial and error, I guess." She shrugged.
"So, is that why you came now? And didn't run back to the moment your dad disappeared? You simply focused on me and Barry's first date? And then our engagements?"
It was clearly very hard for the younger woman to answer and she looked very relieved when the team suddenly returned and… with Caitlin's father in tow.
Rachel frowned, though, not understanding why the answer seemed to be so difficult to receive. It wasn't like she was asking for specific details about the future she shouldn't be privy to. It was almost as… as though Nora needed a helper, someone to teach her, to guide her. She was sure she herself couldn't do it as she wasn't a speedster, so she couldn't possibly explain it to her daughter.
The events following the appearance of Thomas Snow forced Rachel to quickly forget her suspicions since it turned out that he wasn't really Caitlin's dad. He was, in fact, Thomas's alter ego that was the equivalent to Killer Frost, only evil.
In the end, Caitlin needed to protect the team and… Killer Frost just came out, facing the Icicle herself, proving to everyone that she was never really gone. They quickly figured out that DeVoe must've used a different set of powers – another dupe – so instead of taking her away, he simply put a mental block in Caitlin's head that she could now break through. Even though Icicle got away, they were beyond happy to get another member of the team back. It also reminded Rachel that she needed to resume her talk with Nora or maybe better first talk to Barry so she might understand her speedster daughter better, but…
A new meta appeared in the city, calling herself a Weather Witch and she created such a lightning storm that both the speedsters needed to run and help.
Barry was forced to absorb a huge electrical discharge so it wouldn't destroy anything around or worse – kill someone innocent and…
Rachel was powerless as he fell unconscious with Nora just standing there, not knowing what to do and panicking.
"His heart stopped. He's going into cardiac arrest," Caitlin informed, terrified as she was studying Barry's vitals on the monitors.
Rachel could only stand there, completely paralyzed, hearing Nora screaming for her dad and trying to electroshock him back to life as Caitlin advised.
Only it wasn't working.
Nora was crying harder and harder, rubbing her hands together and electroshocking Barry over and over again and Rachel froze, her heart beating so fast it could as well be beating for both her and Barry, her blood turning into ice, her body shaking, breathing becoming shallow… She was going straight into panic mode and she couldn't seem to control it. The man she loved was technically dead. Their only chance was Nora trying to bring him back.
Was this it? Had their daughter running back to meet them actually caused Barry to die sooner? Would Nora soon disappear as well since obviously, Rachel was not pregnant yet?
"We got him!" she then heard full of relief voice as Caitlin informed.
Next thing Rachel knew, there was a sudden whoosh of air and both Barry and Nora were standing there, breathing hard from the shock and everything that happened.
"Barry!" Rachel ran to him, throwing herself into his arms, just desperate to feel his solid, warm and breathing body against hers. "Thank god… Barry… I thought… I thought…"
"I know. But I'm ok. I'm back." He returned the embrace just as tightly.
In the meantime, Nora seemed to disappear somewhere.
"I want you to stop being the Flash," Nora blurted out, completely stupefying Barry and causing Rachel to look at them in surprise from her position by the coffee machine as she needed some caffeine.
"What?" Barry automatically responded with. "Nora, I can't just stop being the Flash. I am the Flash."
"Yes, you can." His daughter faced him, her expression stubborn and hurt. "For your family. You can. This way nothing will happen to you in the future and we can be the family we deserve to be."
"Nora… um… I have powers that keep this city and the people in it safe. And if you have such a gift… you have to help."
"But why?" she simply asked, shaking her head in disbelief. "Why do you have to?! Let someone else put themselves in danger now! Ralph, Frost, Vibe… they all have powers! They don't need you!" With that, she ran out of the lounge, leaving surprised Barry and Rachel in her wake.
"I… I really did not see that coming," Barry admitted, helplessly scratching his head and then making his way to his fiancé.
"I understand where she's coming from, though. It seems obvious to her that you giving up being the Flash will save us."
"Do you?" Barry suddenly asked, looking at her in curiosity.
"No," the honest answer came. "As much as the thought of losing you hurts… Well, actually, it's unbearable, but… if you stop being you, that is not going to help anyone. Besides, even if you did, we don't exactly know what will happen in the future and what crisis we will face. Giving up doing what you're doing… is not the answer… Let me…" she hesitated, "just let me talk to her, ok? Maybe it will help her when she hears it from the perspective of someone who's always been terrified of losing you."
"Rachel…" Barry started, reaching out to her, but she only shook her head.
"It's ok, Barry, really. Let me do this."
"Nora…"
She was sitting on the ground in one of the unused labs, looking so sad and miserable that Rachel's heart constricted painfully. She didn't want to lose the love of her life that Barry turned out to be. She didn't want to face a life without him and with a daughter that she would have to see miss her dad every single day; a dad she'd never even gotten the chance to actually know.
She needed to swallow her own tears as she approached the small form and sat down on the ground next to her.
"Here," she said, handing her something.
As Nora looked at the object, she recognized it was a book. More so – her mother's book, dedicated 'To my hero'.
"I remember this," the girl said when opening it on the dedication page and running her fingers over the words. "It doesn't look so new in the future, though."
"It's the…"
"…first copy of it that you ever got. Yes, I know." She nodded.
"Listen… I loved your father before I even let myself admit it," Rachel slowly started. "I just refused to face that truth because I was a meta myself. I had visions of him dying over and over again… Dying in… in a horrible way," her voice broke at the memory. At her worst fear. At seeing Barry just melting away in an unimaginable pain… "Now I'm pretty sure that's exactly what's going to take him from us in the future… I kept my distance from him for a very long time because of it, but deep down inside I knew how important he already was to me. I also knew I could never ask him to stop being the hero he's become." Here she pointed the dedication in her book. "This amazing, wonderful, beyond brave man. I love him the way he is. I always have... Nora, you see, you can't change people. You can only accept them. And the decision you need to make is whether you will live with this or leave. I couldn't leave. I know the danger is now again very real, but no matter how much it can hurt in the end, I will never leave him. I love him. Barry is the love of my life. It's the love that made… or will make… you. He is the hero and he will always be mine. And I can only try to be one as well. By being by his side for better and worse. Forever."
Barry was standing just around the corner, unseen and listening, wiping tears from his eyes.
"I leave you with this, so you can think about it," Rachel encouraged her daughter before getting up and heading to the exit.
She was startled to see Barry lurking there.
"Thank you," he only whispered. "Thank you so much for saying yes and taking that chance on us." Then he swept her into his arms, burying his face in her hair.
"My heart never had a choice. It's because of who you are. You are a hero and I never stood a chance."
He only tightened his hold on her in response when they heard Cisco's voice coming from the comms for all of them to meet him in the cortex.
"Perfect timing as always," Barry complained and chuckled. "Come."
They knew who Cicada was.
They found him by tracking all the children who'd gotten hurt during the night of the Enlightenment. There was a girl named Grace who'd been in a coma ever since, her parents both dead because of metahuman attacks and her legal guardian, her uncle – Orlin Dwyer - was visiting her usually twice a day.
"Let's go get him," Barry suggested. "We have him. He has a motive. He was struck with the dagger. It's Cicada."
"But… how?" Cisco just asked. "Dude's got a power dampening dagger. We need to find a way to first negate its powers…"
"We could create something more powerful than that," Caitlin suggested.
"Yeah, but how? We don't have anything like that and…"
"But you, guys, did. In the past," they suddenly heard Nora say.
She was sitting in a chair, looking into her diary filled up with time language. "Everything you need was basically scattered throughout time and…"
"We can't time travel," Barry immediately interrupted, shutting her down. "It's too dangerous and you've experienced it yourself."
"But you don't need to change anything," she disagreed while getting up. "All you need to do is pick up items forgotten through time. No one will ever know you were even there…" and she proceeded to explaining what in the end turned out to be a pretty impressive plan.
"And you just… happened to come up with that?" Rachel asked, still shocked. "That's pretty elaborate, Nora."
"Yeah. Like I said, I studied dad all of my life. After that, it wasn't really that hard. So? What do you say? Are we going to do it?"
"Barry!" Rachel screamed, her eyes opening widely in shock as she spotted Savitar behind him, clearly attacking, having nothing else to lose, therefore capable of anything.
On hearing her, Barry dodged and Savitar sped right past him and then straight at her, but Barry was faster, grabbing her and then putting her back to the ground in a safe distance, by then Savitar fading away as time finally caught up with him.
He was no more.
Rachel's hand found Barry's and held on...
"Come on, Nora, grab the shard. We gotta get outta here," Barry placed his hand on his daughter's shoulder as she was watching the scene playing out in front of her with open mouth.
"Barry, are you ok? Barry?"
He was lying on the floor, breathing heavily, sweat covering his face while Zoom charged himself with his speed and disappeared.
"It's gone," was all Rachel heard from the former speedster, his voice low and hoarse and all she could do in response was to just put her arms around him, giving him whatever comfort she could even though she knew it wasn't much…
"Come." Nora nearly yelled in surprise, again watching her parents interact, seeing the clear love there even before they got together. Her mother was so right. Everything she'd earlier heard from Rachel was true.
Now her dad had what they came for and…
They were startled by Zoom.
She couldn't really understand why her suggesting they asked Wells for help caused such a strong reaction in Barry. She knew they were arch nemeses and hated each other, but this was a bit too extreme, especially when considering…
"Dad?" she asked, realizing he was just standing there around the corner, his body visibly tensed, shoulders squared.
Barry did not intend to stumble upon this when coming back to the night of the particle accelerator explosion. He would never plan it, yet, somehow as they made their way into the Labs to hide before they could charge the device with dark matter, he almost walked straight into Harrison Wells and… Rachel.
Blood started boiling in his veins, his heart pumping so much of it he could feel it at his temples; rage hitting him, hands fisting as he spotted them.
Wells – Eobard Thawne in Harrison Wells's body – was pressing Rachel against the wall with the length of his entire body and she was giggling and holding onto to him while he was kissing her neck.
"Dad," Nora whispered, tapping him on the shoulder and then grabbing his arm. "Dad, we need to move."
That woke him up. He couldn't let his daughter see this, though it was probably too late. All he could do now was to minimize the damage and listen to her.
They found themselves in the time vault in no time.
And just as he took a few deep breaths to calm down, he spotted Nora reaching out to touch the Reverse Flash suit.
"Nora!" he yelled at her, still not fully under control and she recoiled in fear, casting him a very startled look.
"Is that why you hate him so much? Because he used to date mom?" she suddenly asked and that shocked him completely.
"What?" he asked with a confused frown. "Nora, what do you really know about the Reverse Flash?"
"I know that he was your arch enemy and he was dating mom," she responded. "But the hate you have… it seems to be more than just that."
"Yes," Barry admitted with a nod of his head. "He killed my mother when I was eleven."
Nora visibly paled, clearly not being privy to that particular information.
"I… I didn't know that," she said in true shock.
"And if that wasn't enough, he stole your mother from me before I even had the chance to get to know her, because he knew we were together in the future he was coming from. He wanted to destroy my entire life from the start. He dated her purely to keep us apart and to mess with us."
There was stone silence as Nora seemed to be processing that information.
"So, yes, I hate him."
In that moment the particle accelerator blew and they couldn't waste any time to get back to where they came from, Nora still shaken up.
After this, there was really no time for further conversations and it was quickly forgotten on Barry's side as he and the team faced Cicada, ready for his dagger…
…that he easily retrieved from outer space to where Cisco breached it and they would've all died if it hadn't been for Killer Frost who somehow turned out to be immune to its power.
Maybe they didn't exactly celebrate victory that day, but they looked into the future with hope since they not only knew the identity of Cicada, but they also knew that Frost could face him since her powers hadn't come from dark matter.
"You killed my grandmother?!" Nora, feeling angry and betrayed, decided to run to the future to talk to her mentor face to face instead of just sending a message.
"Yes. Yes, I did."
"You never told me that!"
"Honestly, I thought you knew. I thought that your mother would've told you that."
"My mother…" Nora shook her head and bit on her lip before looking Thawne in the eye again. "You stole my mom to keep her way from my dad!"
Eobard hesitated, binding his time, weighting his words, "Maybe originally that was the plan. The truth is, however, that I love your mother."
Everything was suddenly upside down. Ever since Nora found out that Eobard Thawne, the very man she'd sought out earlier because she wanted to learn, because she wanted to actually talk to the only speedster alive except her since her mother couldn't answer those kind of questions… the mentor who'd helped her, told her how and when to run back and was with her every step of the way… she felt shaken, betrayed and out of balance. And the worst thing was that now that she knew all of this, she couldn't possibly tell anyone. They would start hating her too.
"Really?" she eventually asked. "If you did, you'd let them be! Just… why? I only want to know the why behind it all."
"Because just like you I was eager to meet the Flash. I was inspired by him, in awe of what he could do and how good he was… I wanted to be him, but I realized I never could. That realization is what broke me. So I started hating him and everything he stood for. He only showed me how awful, despicable… evil I am. And I want to repent," Eobard suddenly added. "I want to make at least some of my wrongs, right. Have I not given you the chance to run back and meet your father? Your hero? Have I not told you how and where to run to? To choose the exact moment in time when they were facing a meta you knew nothing about, so you wouldn't do much damage? Have I not told you what you can change and what not in order to avoid another Flashpoint? You can trust me. I want to help you."
"I don't want your help. Not anymore."
