We're back for season 6. Hello there everybody. So glad to be back. Thanks for coming and hope you're having a great day. This first chapter is just to see the impact of the previous season. Nothing too dramatic, but I hope it puts a smile on your face to see the family acting all domestic, hence the name.
Disclaimer: I don't own The Flash.
Every year, Joe felt his family fall further into the darkness. This year was no different. Actually, he thought this was the furthest they'd ever gotten from the light, which was a shame considering what this past year had brought them.
The reason was because the birth of his granddaughter, Ramona Allen, who the two new parents named after her godfather, Cisco Ramon, had been overshadowed by the betrayal and death of their time traveling son, Ace, and nothing seemed to be able to pull the couple from the feeling of being overwhelmed. Everyone else was feeling the effects as well, but not like those two.
Joe understands why this is happening though. Their future son, Ace, had come back to the past with the sole mission of preventing the aforementioned baby's birth. By any means necessary. The boy was even willing to sacrifice himself in order to achieve his goal. That would mess anyone up.
Usually Joe would say the fault didn't lay in his son and daughter-in-law, at least not completely. Ace had been a fluke, a bad egg. Still, he could feel the young parents had taken the betrayal heavily and blamed themselves regardless of the actions of their son. He didn't know how he would feel if Iris, Wally, or Barry had made a plot to kill him, only to fail and kill themselves in the process.
Fortunately, no matter how guilty they felt, they didn't let it impede taking care of Ramona. They loved their little girl to death.
That might actually be a poor choice of words considering the reason Ace had wanted to rid himself of his sister was because he viewed that his parents loved her more than him.
Still, they were coddling her. It made sense that they wanted to tend to her. After the loss of a child, it was typical that the parents would put an excessive amount of focus on their other children.
The same couldn't be said for themselves. Joe could see it. They were drifting apart, avoiding each other. Again, this was typical behavior among parents who'd lost a child. Each parent subconsciously avoided the other because they each saw the other parent was the one at fault for the loss.
Therapy couldn't help. They couldn't explain their situation without going into detail and they didn't trust their therapist that much. It wasn't like they could talk about their future son coming back to kill his mother in order to prevent his sister from ever being born. So their attitudes were left unchecked. Joe feared that one day their animosity towards each other would affect Ramona, intentionally or not.
Usually Joe would have their best friend, Cisco Ramon, to help him whenever the two were being idiots, but he wasn't even in Central City at the moment. He was in rehab in a facility out of the city, getting fitted for a robotic prosthetic.
After Cicada had chopped one of his hands off, he was in a dark place. Joe wouldn't have been surprised if Cisco had been traumatized by the event. Barry had pulled some strings to get Cisco on the list of volunteers to test their new prototype prosthetics so he wouldn't be forced to spend the rest of his life with a stump or plastic hand. And he would be gone for at least another month.
So Cisco was out of the question of asking for assistance.
Joe had hoped this was just going to be a little bump in the relationship. And maybe it still was. But something needed to change soon for the sake of little Ramona and Joe couldn't wait any longer.
Joe showed up at the Allen household after work and knocked on the door with Ramona in hand from picking her up from her Nana Carla's place. That's where Ramona spent the day since Barry and Caitlin proclaimed they were going to be busy all day. Meetings and conference calls and they didn't want to be preoccupied with Ramona. At least they were able to act as a united front.
The door opened. "Joe, hey. Thanks for picking her up. You want to come in? Can I offer you anything?" Barry asked.
"I want to talk to you and Caitlin." Joe stated.
"Yeah, all right. She's just doing some paperwork. I'm sure she could use the distraction," Barry's eyes lost a little bit of sparkle at the mention of his wife. Joe should have done this much sooner.
The two men and baby walked into the house. "Caitlin! Joe's here! He wants to talk to us about something,"
Footsteps were approaching and Caitlin walked in. She was wearing a pantsuit, looking like she'd just come from a meeting. "Hey Joe, thanks for picking up Ramona for the day." She picked her daughter up from Barry's arms. "I'll put her in her crib and then we can talk."
Caitlin went up the stairs to where Joe assumed they had made Ramona's room. Barry led him to the kitchen and Joe sat at the island. "Do you want anything to drink?" Barry asked again.
Joe shook his head no and waved his suggestion away. "This won't take long, I hope."
Barry shrugged and joined him for a seat while they waited for Caitlin to return. Barry took out his phone and went through a couple messages.
Caitlin came back and took a seat on the other side of Joe. "So, what did you want to tell us about?"
"I wanted to talk to you," Joe corrected her. "It's about Ramona. I'm worried about her. The way you're acting around each other is going to negatively affect Ramona."
"What are you talking about? We haven't done anything," Caitlin said with Barry nodding along.
"For now, which is why I haven't said anything until now." Joe said. "I don't blame you. After the loss of him, we're all feeling a little vulnerable right now." Joe couldn't even say his name. "The feeling is still raw, and you're confused over what could have caused all this and you're pushing each other away because of it. Stop doing that. Ramona needs her parents, not a couple of toddlers."
"Hey, we take care of her. When she wakes up at night crying for something, we take care of that. We supply her with everything she could ever need. We dedicate everything we can to her. So don't you dare say I'm not caring for my daughter Joe," Barry narrowed his eyes at Joe.
"Yes, you are. That's good. But you're neglecting each other and Ramona is going to pick up on it. She's too young right now, but she won't always be. You need to get over this little bump in your relationships. Stop blaming each other." Joe lectured them.
"I blame myself." They both said.
"I'm the one who unintentionally killed my own son. I didn't know it at the time, but that was when he really turned against us." Barry said.
"I attacked him. He was coming for me, and instead of trying to talk him down, I just attacked him. I didn't give him a chance to defend himself," Caitlin added.
Joe looked at them with a hint of pity. He knew neither of them wanted it, but he couldn't help himself. "It was in the heat of the moment. Barry, you didn't know. You can't blame yourself for things that you had no idea about. And Caitlin, it was self-defense. You knew Ace was coming for you. You knew he wanted to kill you. You just acted first."
"We can't go through this again." Caitlin said, tears welling in her eyes. "Ace killed her. He murdered his sister in a fit of jealousy. And then he tried to do it again by wiping her from the timeline. Do you understand Joe? It is our fault. We made him feel that way,"
"It is not your fault. It is not either of your fault." Joe said. "Ace made his decision. He paid the consequence. He's gone. Killers, they're not born. They're made. We're each born with the capacity to kill, but it is our experiences that let us pull the trigger."
"We were his parents. We gave him those experiences. No matter what you say, it's always somehow going to be our fault. We made the next Reverse Flash." Barry said.
"Exactly! You're his parents." Joe shouted. "It's normal to blame yourself for your children's actions, but they are not a reflection of you. Their choices are their own. You may have influenced them, but ultimately they were his own. Ace was an adult. He knew what he was doing. He knew what he did was wrong. But instead of trying to atone for his mistakes, he decided to run away from them. Don't make the same mistake,"
Barry let out a sob. "I don't know what to do anymore Joe. Everyone I have ever loved, they've been taken from me for one reason or another. I don't know if I can survive enduring that again."
Joe patted Barry's back. "Son, that's the easy part. Don't be afraid to love. Ramona, Ace, and all the others that come after. Love them as much as possible. Because they're your kids. You can never not love them. No matter what they do,"
Joe turned his gaze to Caitlin. "Anything you want to add?"
Caitlin took a deep breath to steady herself. "I blame myself. I'm not fit to be a mother. We failed Ace as parents. So much that he was willing to kill me without a second thought. I was nothing but collateral damage to him. My son thought I was sacrificial."
"That's in a future that will never come. Focus on the here and now. The future will come when it happens and we get to decide what it is. What do you want?"
Caitlin sniffled. "I want to be a mom for Ramona. I want to love her."
Joe's facial features softened. "Then have faith. Love each other. It's what you both deserve,"
The couple looked at each other with their eyes slightly red from crying. They both nodded their heads. "Thanks Joe," Barry smiled slightly. "We needed this. After what happened this past year…"
"No need to explain." Joe raised his hand. "I understand completely. If we were under normal circumstances, I would've let you two grieve a little longer. You deserve it to get your head together. But you have a little tiny human depending on you and I couldn't let this go on any longer."
"Still… thank you." Caitlin said. "A little shove to show us that we weren't the only ones suffering from wallowing in pity saved us a lot of time."
Joe smiled and left. His work is done, or at the very least, started. The rest was up to the two of them.
The couple sat together, basking in the silence, before one of them spoke up.
"We should talk about what we're going to do," Caitlin stated.
"What do you mean? About what?" Barry asked.
"About Ace. Ace was erased from existence, but we don't know how. Something changed, but we don't know what,"
"So the question comes, what do we do now?" Barry restates. "How are we going to prevent that Ace from coming back?"
"The most obvious and easiest way is to go with the path of the Reverse Flash. Make it so he isn't born in the first place. We won't have kids anymore," Caitlin said. "But…"
"We won't have more kids." Barry said dejectedly. After everything he went through, being raised as though he were the only Allen, Barry had always dreamed he'd one day have a big family. In a way he did, but it wasn't the same. But they were stuck. Their victory over Ace was dependent on the fact he was erased from the timeline, but they themselves had yet to do anything to change it. If they ran the risk of having Ace again, they might actually change their past and allow Ace to survive long enough to kill Caitlin.
"We have to," Barry shook his head from his thoughts. "It's the best solution. And we have Ramona. It's not like we're lacking in anything. And we could always adopt if we want more kids."
"Adopting a child when we have one of our own? I feel like that's going to cause a lot of tension between them." Caitlin pointed out. "And Ramona possibly having powers in the future is going to get complicated when our foster child doesn't. It's why Ace felt that way in the first place. It just feels… unfair for them."
Barry sighed. "I hear you. That makes sense. I just… Do you really want to stop at just one?" He asked with a devastated expression. He already knew the answer.
Caitlin pursed her lips. "Do we really have a choice?"
Barry looked down in sadness before looking back up with a slight smile. "I guess that's it. We didn't really need to have more kids. One is enough to last a lifetime. And a metahuman child? We're going to have our hands full," Barry forced a small laugh.
Caitlin copied. "And the pain of childbirth? If we were ever going to have another child, you're going to be the one carrying it," she joked.
The two continued joking around that having another baby would be too much of a hassle and that Ramona would be all they would ever need. And it was true. They had everything they could ever need.
They just didn't have what they wanted.
For the next few weeks, Barry and Caitlin had spent more time with their daughter together. They were communicating with each other better, but there was always a hint of sadness. Joe expected that though. It would have worried him if they didn't.
Taking care of Ramona helped to distract them though. They had finally taken a leave of absence from work. Their house was stocked from top to bottom with toys and baby supplies. Taking care of the baby helped to keep them occupied. The two were stressed all the time, but they didn't want to change anything.
The two had decided that Ramona was unfortunately going to be the only child they would bring into the world. And if that were the decision they would have to go through, they were going to make sure Ramona would never grow up wanting. Her life would be filled with love from the two of them.
Caitlin was currently feeding Ramona her bottle. It seemed like she had her father's appetite. Barry meanwhile was trying to construct a playpen for her. But unfortunately, he was struggling to understand the instructions.
"Are you still working on that?" Caitlin asked, having just put Ramona in one of her cribs after feeding her. She was carrying a baby monitor to make sure Ramona wasn't crying.
"It's not my fault. These instructions don't make sense." Barry threw the papers at her. Caitlin crouched down to pick them up and took a quick glance at them.
"Well of course they don't. They're in Chinese. Why would you get this model?" Caitlin asked.
"It was rated best online. And the English translation is on the back." Barry explained.
"Okay, let's see. It seems like Mommy here is going to have to do all the work," Caitlin said smugly. "So this pole is… is it saying it's piece A or B? Place into 58 for happy." Caitlin looked at the assortment of pieces on the ground. "Which one's 58?" She asked since there were no pictures.
"Here. This is the only piece that fits," Barry handed her a large pole.
Caitlin looked at the two to see whether the dimensions would fit and nodded. "Looks about right,"
She easily slid the two poles together. "Okay, pass me a screw to keep them in place." Caitlin held her hand out.
"There is none." Barry declared.
"What? That doesn't make sense," Caitlin exclaimed.
"Believe me, I tried them all. All the ones here are either too big or too small to fit properly." Barry said.
"I don't believe you," Caitlin went through all the screws, and even looked into the box to see if they missed any. Just like he said, nothing was right.
"How exactly did this get the highest rating?" Caitlin complained.
"Because it's the safest when it's complete. I looked through the reviews. Everybody agrees. They just hire somebody else to construct it for them,"
"We're not everybody else. We're the impossible. We're special. We're going to do this ourselves," Caitlin declared.
It took hours, a few breaks to check on Ramona, and well into the night, but they managed to get a result that was in the right shape as what was indicated on the box.
"Do you think this was important?" Barry asked, holding up a single screw but not seeing anywhere to put it in.
Caitlin chose to ignore him and judged the product and lightly poked it. "Do you think it'll hold?"
"Let's test it out," Barry grabbed a teddy bear and gently placed it inside the pen.
The playpen was still for a moment, but then the legs gave out and all their hard work was reduced back into the heap they first started with.
Barry sighed and looked at his wife. "Do we give up?"
Caitlin huffed, her gaze defeated. "Should we get someone else to do it, or just buy a pre-made one?"
"Let's wait for Cisco to come back. He may have a better idea as to how to construct this. If a mechanical engineer can't build this we'll return it and buy a new one. This time with English instructions and pictures."
"When will he be back then?" Caitlin asked.
"At least another two weeks." Barry answered. "He needs to undergo physical therapy to get used to working with the prosthetic. Usually it'd be closer to a year so they could observe him, but I got them to release him early with the promise of the best doctor I know to keep tabs on him."
Caitlin smiled. "Flattery will get you everywhere, Mr. Allen."
"Funny, it didn't work before," Barry teased her.
"That was then. This is now," Caitlin brought him in for a kiss but before they could go forward they heard crying from the baby monitor. They both sighed.
"I'll get her this time," Barry declared and ran off.
"You always get her! Stop trying to make her like you better than me!" Caitlin called after him. "He's already gone. I'm talking to no one. Why am I still doing it?" Caitlin asked herself.
After a particularly fitful night, Caitlin awoke to sounds coming from the kitchen. She could never understand how her husband could wake up so early in the morning sometimes, and then sleep til noon on others. There was no consistency to his sleep schedule. And that was before the baby had been born. Now his sleeping habits were all out of whack. Barry would wake up at the slightest sound coming from the baby monitor and check on her, and sleep through the wailing that could be heard through the walls.
Caitlin got out of bed, quickly brushed her teeth and went down wearing a robe.
Caitlin snuck up behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist. "Good morning." she whispered sensually into his ear.
Barry moaned. "A very good morning," He turned around and captured her lips with his. "One I hope will lead to a good day,"
"Where's Ramona?" Caitlin asked, noticing her daughter absent in the kitchen.
"Still sleeping. She looked like an angel. I didn't want to wake her up."
"Should we wake her up for breakfast?" Caitlin asked.
"She's four months old. Her whole life right now surrounds eating, sleeping, and pooping. I think letting her sleep the morning away isn't going to be a cause for concern."
Caitlin sighed. "She's going to become a night owl at this rate. That's going to be a nightmare to deal with. I blame your sleeping habits for this,"
"Someday I'll find something to blame you for Ramona," Barry teased.
Caitlin rolled her eyes. "Oh please. Everything good about her, she got from me,"
"We'll see about that," Barry smiled and reached out to untie her robe but his hands got smacked away.
"No. We fooled around enough last night."
"Inbetween Ramona's cries in the night. That doesn't exactly leave one satisfied or hot and ready." Barry complained.
"Well that's the life you chose when we decided we were going to have a baby," Caitlin smirked and sat down to have breakfast. Biting into her toast, she looked back to her husband. "Take a cold shower. Maybe you'll cool down after," she suggested.
Barry huffed in frustration but abided by her decision.
"Any meta activity recently?" Caitlin asked.
"None more than usual. CCPD has a handle on it. No need to don the red suit yet." Barry said. "What about you? Killer Frost coming out of sabbatical anytime soon?"
"Not at all," Caitlin shook her head. "Ramona needs at least one of us with her all the time. So I'm actually thinking about putting Killer Frost into early retirement unless she's really needed,"
"Wow!" Barry exclaimed. "I can't say I'm surprised, but I didn't expect this so soon."
"Well parenthood puts some things into perspective. One of us needs to be with Ramona and the other needs to protect Central City should the need arise. And I'm conceding to the fact that you're the better superhero."
Barry smirked a smug grin. "Did you just admit that I'm better than you at something?"
"Don't get a big head," Caitlin smiled. Her eyes twinkled at Barry's expression, but there was something hidden in them.
"You don't know me at all. I'm going to milk this for all it's worth. You admitted that I'm the best superhero." Barry gloated but then realized something. "Wait a minute, if I'm the better superhero that means you think I'm the lesser parent!"
"Well you are." Caitlin admitted. "I carried her for 6 months. You made her in 2 minutes."
"2 minutes? Maybe chronologically, but in perspective we were going at it for hours." Barry argued.
"Maybe your perspective, but not mine," Caitlin countered.
"Now I know you're lying, because I remember taking you into Flashtime whenever we decided to get our powers involved in the bedroom."
The couple had taken to Barry sharing his powers between the two of them, getting the idea from when Barry had been under the thrall of Devoe when he managed to place a bit of The Speed Force into other objects for a time. By sharing his connection to The Speed Force with Caitlin, she was also able to perceive the world in slow-motion as well, allowing them to spend hours together in the span of a minute. It definitely helped to conserve time to get their itch scratched quickly without having Ramona get in the way of their alone time.
"Can we really say bedroom when that's just the starting point of our activities?" Caitlin questioned.
"Well then what do you want to call it? Getting jiggy with it? Making whoopie? Or perhaps you want to get a little more vulgar? Fu-?"
Caitlin quickly covered his mouth with her hand. "Shut up," She shushed him. She could feel him smirk under her palm.
Barry took her hand off his mouth. "Interesting how our conversation came back to this. You sure you don't want to jump my bones for a quickie? Or just one bone in particular?"
Caitlin glared at him. "Typical guy, always thinking with his lizard brain. Maybe we can talk about this later tonight, but for now I want to get to STAR Labs."
Barry rolled his eyes. "Fine, I'll get Ramona ready." Barry said a bit disappointed.
"We're taking the car! Remember that!" Caitlin shouted.
"I know! I know!" Barry responded.
Caitlin had forced Barry to make more use of his car now that they had a child. She had concerns about going long distances at super speed with a baby in tow and made Barry promise that outside of the house, Barry would take Ramona out in a car like a normal person. Barry didn't like it. As a speedster his nature was to move, not stay cooped up in a metal box. But he never wanted Ramona to be placed in danger because of him, so he adhered to her decision. It made him twitchy, it made him feel stiff, but he would deal with it.
"When is Cisco supposed to be back?" Caitlin asked when they were in the car.
"Sometime this week if he's not already on his way. Why do you ask?"
Caitlin shook her head, indicating she didn't know. "I have a feeling in my gut that something's about to go wrong."
"You're not usually one to listen to your gut. You usually wait for me to listen to my gut and see if our evidence can back it up." Barry commented. "Is something wrong?"
"Like I said, I don't know. I just have a strange feeling. Something's changed."
The next few days were quiet. Disturbingly quiet. Nobody on Team Flash liked it. Criminals popped up every now and then, there was even a hostage situation at a bank, but with The Flash, that problem was taken care of in less than two minutes.
With the added time, Barry decided to learn a few new tricks that Ace had shown him in their fight. Prolonged lightning strikes, and levitation by magnetism. He'd managed prolonged lightning strikes once, but that was under duress and his control was flimsy at best. He also wanted to try firing from individual fingers rather than his whole arm. The lightning would be smaller, and therefore not as powerful, the objective was for a larger range. More than two lightning bolts could accomplish. Quantity over quality. The electric claws were also something to work on, but Barry was satisfied with an electric punch at the moment. But then again, shaping his lightning might afford him the control needed to fire lightning from each individual finger.
Caitlin also wasn't slacking in enhancing her powers. Her powers worked better as a way to control the environment. Causing the area around her to drop to freezing temperatures, she worked to make that an instantaneous effect. Her hands were still recovering and she was picking little shards from Cicada's dagger, so she couldn't shoot ice projectiles out of them. So this gave her a chance to work on her mental control. Her hands always acted as a way to guide her powers, as a focus. With them out of commission, she could work her powers to function without such grand and obvious movements. As well as another thought. Freezing from a distance. She'd usually need to be touching the object, or at the very least, in close proximity, but if she could drain the heat out of a target at a distance, that would lower the risk of needing to get close and personal.
Their training was slow, and sometimes their practice would turn into practice bouts between the two. Electricity against ice. Cold versus speed. Ramona enjoyed watching the elements clash against each other whenever she watched. She had a smile on her face when they did and the parents were doing everything they could to keep that expression on their daughter. On some level, they kind of hoped that seeing such grandiose displays of power would inspire Ramona to show her own if she had any.
So it was kind of a disappointment when they found out Ramona had used her powers for the first time when spending time with her Uncle Julian.
Apparently he'd burned his tongue when drinking tea, and seeing her honorary uncle in distress prompted Ramona to subsequently freeze his drink in a puff of cold air in revenge.
Caitlin decided to focus on the fact that Ramona had inherited her cryokinetic abilities rather than the fact that Ramona had shown them to Julian rather than her own parents.
Barry did not have that luxury.
When Cisco finally returned to STAR Labs, nobody was there. Ramona had gotten a fever and was rushed to the hospital. When it came to their daughter, everybody thought it better to leave her healthcare in the hands of someone impartial and not wracked with maternal instincts. The whole team had gone in support. But Cisco did not know that. He'd tried calling them, but none were answering their phones. Instead, he'd decided to search for them.
His search led him to the Time Vault. When he stepped inside, the first thing that greeted him was the future newspaper. At first glance, it looked the same. But upon further inspection, Cisco noted the differences. The major one was the new date it was posted.
Cisco didn't know what to do. He took out his phone and pressed his panic button. It was the only thing he could think to do.
Barry was sitting in the waiting room, bouncing his knee in anticipation for the doctor to report back. That's when he felt his phone alerting him to the distress signal. He pulled out his phone to see that it was from Cisco and the signal was coming from STAR Labs. Barry didn't even know Cisco was back yet.
"Barry? What's wrong?" Joe asked across from him.
In response, Barry showed Joe his phone to see Barry's new cause of worry.
"That's Cisco," Joe commented. Barry just nodded, not even knowing what to say right now. "Go! We'll explain to Caitlin when she gets back with Ramona."
Barry gave a sharp nod. "Thanks." Barry got out of his seat and moved somewhere without any eyes and ran off in a burst of lightning. He made his way to STAR Labs and found Cisco in the Time Vault.
"Cisco! You're back! What's wrong?" Barry quickly asked, scanning the area to see if there was anyone else besides the two of them.
"That's what's wrong." Cisco proclaimed, pointing a finger at the holographic newspaper.
Barry hadn't been in this room for months. So when his eyes landed on the hologram, his eyes widened in shock. "That's impossible." He murmured to himself.
Barry had practically memorized the newspaper from top to bottom. But what was being shown wasn't the same article he'd first seen all those years ago. In fact, the only thing the same was the title of the article. The picture was different. It showed a much younger version of him. The contents, they told a different story than before. The Reverse Flash was still mentioned, but only passingly. In addition to him, there was another speedster in red with a man in glowing armor that sounded like the man Barry had confronted last year with The Book of Destiny.
And finally the date. What was once April 25 2024 was now December 8 2019.
They thought they still had almost 5 years until the Crisis. They were wrong. Something had happened and Barry had a sneaking suspicion as to what, but the cause was irrelevant now. They didn't have 5 years. They had 2 months.
So now we can really get started. This beginning part is going to be really short. It's mostly going to be the team preparing and panicking about Crisis and setting up for the rest of the season, so I hope you all stick with it for just a little while.
It's good to be back. See you all next week.