song: Hold You, Hanna Ferm and LIAMOO
Rachel wished that for once she could get to the Labs and not be faced with some kind of an emergency. Although this one was not metahuman related since her head remained blissfully pain free.
She did pale though, once she spotted what exactly was happening. At first, she froze, her brain needing time to deal with what she saw play out in front of her eyes and then…
"Oh my god, what happened?! Is he all right?!" She got to Caitlin immediately, seeing that her friend was working on unconscious and half naked Harry who was lying on a lab cot, hooked up to a heart monitoring machine.
"Um… Patty shot him," the answer eventually came.
"WHAT?!" Rachel exclaimed, panicking even more when turning on her heels and noticing a woman pacing back and forth while nervously biting on her nails. It must've been the famous Patty Spivot, Barry's new girlfriend. She certainly was pretty, but clearly not so bright. "Why would you do that?!" she directed at her without preamble.
"Patty, this is Rachel," Caitlin dealt with the brief introductions.
"I'm sorry! I recognized him as Harrison Wells and he was holding something that resembled a gun and… I had no idea about the multiverse!"
"Just… spare me." Rachel sighed when raising her hand and then turning away from the woman, not at all interested in getting to know her, especially not now after she'd shot the man Rachel… what exactly? The man she'd slept with a couple of times? It didn't take a genius to figure out that there was nothing romantic between her and Wells from Earth 2. She couldn't even explain what it really was. Closure? Denial? Grief…? And for him? Probably also a few moments of pleasure in order to forget how dire things really were. "Can you save him?" she settled for asking Caitlin instead.
"I hope so… I need the Flash… Joe!" she yelled, relieved to see the detective walking in, clearly just as distressed as they all were and shooting Patty not so friendly looks.
Barry came running immediately after Joe took Patty out of the building and the bullet was vibrated out of Wells's body at once, thus saving his life. Caitlin's idea worked and they could all breathe out in relief as Harry would pull through and they would continue to work together in order to stop Zoom and save Jesse; and Patty wouldn't go to jail for homicide. Well, technically she wouldn't anyway since Harrison Wells was dead on this earth, but Rachel was still beyond angry with her. She didn't care about the circumstances. It was fucking idiotic to shoot him like this and almost in the heart out of all places! Didn't they teach them anything in the police academy?!
"I just called Patty to let her know. She's relieved. She was really worried," she then heard Barry informing Caitlin on his way back into the cortex.
"I'm sorry… worried?! Worried?!" Rachel erupted when looking at him in fury. "She could've killed him! She bloody would if it weren't for your superpowers! What the hell was she thinking anyway?! Aiming straight at the heart?!"
"Whoa, whoa, Rachel, it's ok," Barry said slowly, calmly while raising his hands. "She knew about Harrison Wells of this world and she thought she was facing a murderer," he began explaining.
"Shouldn't matter! She should've aimed somewhere else!"
"Why are you so rattled by all of this?" He then frowned while narrowing his eyes. "Everything ended well."
"Tell that to Harry who's basically recovering from a fucking gunshot wound!" She refused to let it go.
Barry didn't answer. Instead he kept on staring at her with narrowed eyes and then, they again opened widely in shock.
"No," he still said when shaking his head in denial. "No, it can't be… Are you two…?" he hinted.
Rachel had no idea how he even guessed it. It wasn't as though she was in love with the man, but in the same time they'd had indeed something happen between them, so of course she wouldn't be happy if he died.
In the end, she could've lied. She could've kept the truth to herself, come up with all kinds of possible explanations, but she actually made the mistake to blush.
Barry was left speechless, his mouth hanging open. Caitlin's as well, so it seemed.
"You and Wells? Again?!" the speedster suddenly raised his voice, absolutely stupefied.
"It's not like that," Rachel immediately protested as though in her defence.
"Then how is it?!" he prompted, anger simmering just beneath the surface.
"It doesn't mean anything."
"It doesn't… it doesn't mean anything?!" Barry was absolutely flabbergasted as he finally erupted, look of pure shock all over his face. "Rachel, have you gone insane?!"
Cisco chose that moment to walk into the cortex and he stopped at once, not sure whether to retreat or stay, a lollipop suspended halfway into his mouth.
"He's a doppelganger of the man you were in a relationship with!" Barry kept on yelling, fury taking its reign. In fact, Rachel had never seen him like this, so at first she was stunned just like the rest of the team, not sure how to even react. "He's not the Harrison Wells from this earth who died before you even got to know him! He's from another earth! A completely different person! You never knew, nor can you know the real one!"
"I know that!" she screamed right back, finally finding her voice again. "And whatever the hell I'm doing is my choice! You're not the boss of me, so stop fucking around like this!"
For a moment, there was silence before Barry added, this time in a tone of voice that resembled his normal one, "You need help, Rachel. Maybe even therapy. What happened, what Eobard Thawne did to us, to you… it was awful and traumatic and we all need to find ways to deal with that, but… but sleeping with his literal copy is not it. If so, that's not normal, that's just insane."
"Just… don't talk to me," she told him, clearly deeply offended and then she walked away, missing the sudden flinch on his face, the pain marring his features.
Caitlin shot Barry a knowing look and was just opening her mouth, but he ignored her, also choosing to leave, but taking a different route.
Rachel needed to finally admit it to herself – Barry wasn't entirely in the wrong. Deep down inside she knew it. She'd known from the moment Harrison Wells from Earth 2 had made a move on her that she shouldn't have said yes, that she should've said no and pushed him away. Nothing about this was healthy and nothing about it made it easier for her to deal with what had happened. If so, she'd only invited more chaos into her life by sleeping with the doppelganger of the man she'd once loved, the fact that he'd been a traitor and an impostor only making it all worse.
She needed some time away in order to calm down and once she actually managed to do so, she felt awful about the fight she'd had with Barry. For now, they seemed to keep avoiding each other, especially with him busy getting faster and stronger in order to be able to fight Zoom and juggling his time between work and his new girlfriend. Even Harry seemed to be distant at the moment, always somewhere in the Labs, but never really engaging into any discussion or simply being social with the rest of the team. Whatever had happened there between them was over now and she had no hard feelings whatsoever. She was even glad about it since distancing herself from him only proved to her how wrong it'd all truly been. She hoped to just forget about the whole thing like Harry seemed to already.
Before she realized, Christmas came around the corner and everyone was heading to Joe West's house, which had clearly become their tradition. She only had two options – to follow or to celebrate alone. The last time, Harrison – or maybe rather Eobard – had abandoned her during this time of year, now everything making perfect sense in her head since it'd been around Christmas that he'd baited Barry by running around the city as the Reverse Flash.
When Rachel knocked, it was Iris who opened the door, smiling at her brightly and accepting the bottle of wine she brought before inviting her in. She spotted Barry immediately, talking to Patty in the corner. Strangely enough, his eyes met hers in the same moment as though he'd been searching for her and he quickly excused himself, heading straight over to her.
"Um… Rachel… hi…" he started, feeling absolutely awkward, but he couldn't just leave things like this around Christmas.
"Listen, Barry, I'm sorry," she sincerely apologized to him. "I'm sorry for a lot of things, actually. I am truly sorry I didn't immediately come back to the team. I'm sorry that it happened just when I brought Harrison there. You were right. About everything. Nothing about this was healthy and…" She shook her head briefly, looking away for a moment. "That was just about the lowest point I've ever reached… Well, it's over now and I truly wish it never happened. And it shouldn't have taken you to tell me that. I see that now, too. I should've been smarter and realized it myself before…" She was shaking a little now, tears filling up her eyes against her own will as she met his soft gaze.
"Hey, hey, it's ok. Come here," Barry encouraged and then pulled her into his arms.
As they enveloped her and the warmth of his body reached her, she really started to cry and just held onto him for the time being. "The truth is, I still haven't been able to fully deal with what happened and I'm not sure I ever will," she suddenly confessed. "I don't even know how to."
"That's ok," he whispered straight into her ear, still holding her, his hands running over her back soothingly. "It's not a race. And I'm going to be there to help you," he promised.
Rachel didn't know why and how it happened, but whatever she seemed to be doing, every path always seemed to lead to Barry. And Barry was destined to die. So yes, she couldn't even begin to deal with all of that. She couldn't even tell him.
They didn't notice Patty watching them closely from the other side of room.
Just when he let Rachel go and she wiped her tears, she was struck with a vision that left her absolutely horrified.
"What's wrong? What did you see?" Barry immediately asked, his hands resting on her arms.
She only looked at him with her eyes widely opened.
She saw Eobard Thawne.
Not the Eobard wearing the body of the Harrison Wells that she'd dated. She saw Eobard with his original face and blond hair, landing up in their current timeline. A time remnant as Harry Wells explained. And they found him. Starting from Rachel's vision that informed them about his arrival from the future and ending with Cisco who tapped into his own powers with the help and genius of – not so nice, though – Harry.
They had him. The Reverse Flash – the one from before he'd killed and taken over the body of Harrison Wells from Earth 1 – was currently locked up in their pipeline.
While they were discussing what they should do with the speedster, Barry and Caitlin seemed to be casting small glances at Rachel as though waiting for her to either break or demand to finally talk to the man.
"I don't want to," she eventually informed them, tired of feeling their eyes focused on her.
"What do you mean?" Caitlin asked in an innocent tone.
"I don't want to talk to him," Rachel specified. "I never knew him wearing this face and clearly, he doesn't know me either. Yet." The last word came out a little bitter and she quickly excused herself, needing a breather.
"Rachel." Barry went after her immediately, his hand already reaching to her arm.
"I'll be ok," she assured him when turning to him. "It's just… seeing this man… what he really looks like, how he is…" She took a deep breath, fighting tears that threatened to flood her eyes again. "All that happened between me and… the other Wells… it was all a lie. Nothing more. So I'm just… I feel like throwing up. I just need some air." After that, she fastened her footsteps, really needing to be away for the moment.
However, fate had different plans since she was stopped once again and by no one else than Harry.
"You all right?" Yet, the tone of his voice betrayed that he didn't really feel comfortable asking her that. "Listen, Rachel…" he started then and she needed to stop him for a change.
"Harry… just…" she lifted her hand, "it's ok. This isn't about you. We're good, ok?"
Before he managed to say or not to say something to that, Cisco came from around the corner, pale as death and bleeding profusely from his nose.
Both Rachel and Harry called his name in concern, getting to him and helping him out before taking him to see Caitlin.
It was an incredibly long and incredibly emotional for everyone day.
Barry faced a horribly difficult choice, but in the end it was no brainer, really.
The very presence of the original Reverse Flash was killing Cisco, quite literally wiping him out of existence, so The Flash didn't have any other choice but to help his enemy get back home to the future. Thankfully, that stopped whatever was happening to their friend and he was alright again.
Barry suggested he would walk Rachel home since they all started to slowly leave the Labs and she agreed, feeling like they both needed each other at the moment.
"I'm sorry you had to do this," she said as they walked through the already dark streets.
"Cisco's life was more important. I would never let any of you, guys, suffer or die because of me or my desire to catch Thawne."
"My mind is still spinning… It makes you think that you cannot truly erase something. Eddie sacrificed himself and yet, whatever happened, happened and somehow we got to see… him again."
"Time travel and altering time has its consequences," Barry agreed with a nod. "I'm sorry you had to live through those awful memories again as well."
"Strangely enough, seeing that man didn't bring up the Harrison I knew… It's…" She came to a stop and sighed. "I know that technically it's the same person, but it doesn't feel like it. Maybe it's because I knew him long years after he made the trip to see us today…"
"Maybe… then again…" Barry started slowly.
"I know. I know what you want to say. That it's Eobard Thawne, set on his goal, a perfect actor. Just, still… I can't quite figure out how being with me benefited him. I understand you and Caitlin and Cisco, the Labs… but me?"
"Maybe it had something to do with your powers," Barry suggested. "And it was too early to tell what he was really waiting for." There was also something else on Barry's mind, something that he'd been thinking about a lot ever since his last talk with Wells-Thawne, but he didn't dare say it aloud. It didn't matter anyway.
"Well… still, he was always different around you guys and at work than he was with me."
"Who knows… maybe even villains like Thawne want to get home at the end of the day. Maybe that is what you were for him," Barry said slowly, carefully, trying not to think too much about it since it brought him an unfamiliar and nearly unbearable kind of pain.
"I guess we will never know… And we should look into the future. God knows we've spent too much time hating this man. Maybe it's finally time to let him go. The Thawne we all knew is gone and he's not coming back."
"Amen to that," Barry agreed and they came to a stop in front of the building in which she lived.
"How's Patty, by the way?" Rachel asked before saying goodnight.
"Um… That… that's over, actually," Barry admitted when avoiding his friend's eyes and looking down at the ground.
"Oh, no! I'm so sorry. What happened?"
"Couldn't put her in danger. And… I guess it wasn't really meant to be anyway," he cut his answer short.
"Still, I'm sorry, Barry. You deserve someone really amazing. Maybe this time someone who isn't blindly shooting members of our team," Rachel then added her signature jab at Patty.
"You're not going to let that one go, are you?" Barry chuckled, amused.
"Not anytime soon. Nope." She was glad though, that they could joke about this now. She so did not want to go back to that awful fight they'd had. "I do hope that someday you will find the person who's just right for you," she then said before following with, "Goodnight."
"Goodnight," he responded, watching after her as she disappeared inside. Then he sighed heavily and headed home himself.
The moment Rachel entered her building, her phone rang. It was her publisher, informing her of a date set for her new book release. As she walked into her apartment and closed the door behind her, she went straight to the window and still managed to catch a glimpse of Barry disappearing around the corner, clearly not feeling like using his speed and in need of a slow walk tonight. She released a heavy sigh. It seemed like the cat would be out of the bag soon.