Chapter Text
Caitlin leaned back in the chair at the desk in the cortex and linked her fingers together, stretching her arms above her head. It’d taken a few hours to register the ache setting across her shoulders, sending the first flickerings of a headache up her spine and into the back of her skull. She sighed heavily and closed her eyes. Cisco was curled up, impossibly small and in a position which couldn’t possibly be comfortable, in a chair he’d dragged up from the storage room earlier. He’d positioned it deliberately in line-of-sight of the med-bay. Cisco’s soft snores could be heard from across the silent room, rivalled only by the faint beeping of the heart monitor beyond the doors.
Exhaustion had settled over them both after Caitlin had treated Barry and made sure he was resting, and after showering and changing into sweats and STAR Labs shirts, they’d both decided to stay overnight to keep an eye on their friend. Caitlin knew Wells had decided to stay on too, even though he hadn’t spoken a word to them after making sure Barry was stable and sleeping. The last she’d seen of him, he’d been heading down to Cisco’s workshop, muttering quietly about having things to work on, and that was hours ago. Cisco had flopped into the office chair at the desk before whining about how uncomfortable it was and Caitlin had tiredly waved him off to the storage room to find something more comfortable. This wasn’t the first time they’d pulled overnighters here; pre-explosion had seen them all spending countless late nights and all-nighters working on projects, but it was the first close call Barry had had that he’d needed rescuing from, and Caitlin knew it had rattled them all.
She kicked her shoes off under the desk and drew her chair closer, leaning forward and pillowing her head on her arms. It wasn’t much after nine, but she felt like the last five hours or so had dragged on for an age. Her eyelids drooped on their own accord and she let them close, allowing herself several blissful minutes to doze before hurried footsteps from the hall roused her again. She jerked up in her chair as Joe rounded the corner, his brows drawn in worry as he crossed over to where she stood.
‘How is he?’ He asked, peering past her towards the med-bay.
Caitlin blinked the weariness from her eyes, rolling her chair back and reluctantly rose to her feet. ‘He’s doing okay. He’ll heal, obviously, but I’m hoping he’ll take it easy for a while.’ She slipped her shoes back on and walked towards the next room, knowing that the detective would follow her.
She stood silently off to the side as Joe leaned against the doorframe, surveying his son quietly.
‘I just have him on some oxygen to take the pressure off his lungs until they’ve healed,’ she explained lowly as Joe’s eyes swept over the nasal cannula. Combined with the bandage wrapped around his head, it made Barry look awfully small on the bed and Joe’s heart skipped a beat at how scarily familiar this situation was.
‘He has a couple of cracked ribs, a fractured clavicle and a broken ankle. I didn’t need to set anything, they’ll heal on his own in the next few hours, but he has a nasty concussion which I’d like to keep an eye on.’ She gave Joe a reassuring smile. ‘He’ll feel a lot better in the morning. He was feeling pretty sore when we got him here, but he’s sleeping now.’
Joe nodded, scrubbing a weary hand across his chin. ‘Seeing him like this…its just too fresh. Too raw.’
Caitlin laid a comforting hand on his arm, steering him back into the cortex. ‘I know,’ she said softly. ‘I mean, I wasn’t close with him when he was in his coma but I knew how much pain it put you guys in. I feel like since I’ve got to know him now, I understand what that nine months put you through.’
Joe pursed his lips, looking away in a futile attempt to hide the glassy shine in his eyes. ‘I know that this-‘ he waved a hand around at the computers and suit mannequin ‘-what he’s doing, it’s amazing, and I couldn’t stop him if I tried, but he’s my son, even if its not by blood.’ He drew in a shaky breath. ‘I can’t lose him, not again.’
‘Today was a close call,’ Caitlin admitted. ‘But he’s fine, all things considered. He’s going to be fine.’
Joe was silent for a minute, face unreadable as he gazed into the darkened room where his son lay. ‘This time.’ His voice was heavy. Caitlin followed his gaze, and realised she didn’t have anything left to say.
Joe broke the quiet after a minute. ‘He’s been working himself to the bone,’ he sighed. ‘Between this and the precinct…he’s been looking so tired lately. I’m worried it’s too much for him.’
Before Caitlin could answer him, Cisco grunted and shifted on his chair. Slowly, his legs unfolded and he rolled his neck out, wincing a little. ‘Oh hey, Detective West.’ He blinked sleepily and stretched his stiff limbs out, climbing to his feet. ‘Man, we need to invest in some better chairs if this is gonna be a regular thing. How’s Barry?’
Caitlin groaned internally and stifled the urge to drop her face into her hands. Joe turned incredulous eyes his way and Cisco winced, backtracking quickly. ‘I mean not this - not because Barry gets hurt a lot, I mean, more if we’re gonna pull all-nighters…we work late here a lot?’ he offered weakly.
Caitlin glared pointedly at the engineer and turned to Joe. ‘Do you want a coffee? Cisco and I are staying here tonight.’
Joe shook his head and rolled his shoulders wearily. ‘No, no, it’s fine. I’ve just finished a few back-to-back night shifts and if I have any more caffeine, I’m pretty sure I’ll have a heart attack. Singh let me leave tonight's one early after you called. I told him Barry had gone home sick.' he glanced around. 'Do you have a spare chair?’
Caitlin raised an eyebrow at him. ‘With all due respect, Joe, I don’t think he’s gonna wake up tonight and you look like you need the sleep as much as him.’
Joe went to protest, but Caitlin cut him off. ‘Go home. Get some sleep. We’ll call you if anything changes, okay?’
Joe’s shoulders fell, weariness settling over him like a blanket. He heaved a sigh. ‘Yeah…yeah. Okay.’ He levelled a gaze at the two of them. ‘Call me if anything changes, is that clear?’
‘Yessir!’ Cisco stood a little straighter and nodded vehemently.
Joe raised an eyebrow at the enthusiastic engineer before turning back to Caitlin. ‘Are you sure? I could-‘
‘Go,’ Caitlin gave him a reassuring smile and pushed him gently towards the hallway. ‘I’ll send you a text with any updates, and I’ll phone you if we need you.’
Joe sighed, allowing himself to be walked to the exit. ‘Yeah, yeah, okay. Means I'll just have to figure out what to tell Iris, she was expecting Barry at the house tonight and me to be on shift.' his expression was rueful. 'Good night guys, get some sleep too.’
‘We will.’ Caitlin promised him. She watched Joe’s retreating back until he was out of sight and then turned to Cisco. ‘Is there still that stack of blankets in the storage closet?’
Cisco frowned. ‘I think so? I haven’t exactly gone looking for them lately, though.’
Caitlin sighed tiredly and ran a hand through her hair, sweeping it away from her face. ‘Let’s go have a look. These chairs are uncomfortable and I’d like to get at least an hour’s sleep. Even if it is on a pile of blankets on the floor.’
Cisco blinked, suddenly awake.
He rolled his head to the side, catching a glimpse of Caitlin ensconced in blankets on the floor a few feet away from him. Her slow, even breaths were almost inaudible. The cortex was almost dark, pinpricks of blue light diluting the darkness from the standby lights of the monitors around the room. He suppressed a groan and stretched out his aching back. The cortex floor didn’t make the most forgiving bed, even with the multiple blankets he’d piled on top of it and his muscles protested at the movement.
Cisco held his breath, blearily wondering what woke him until he heard the quiet, muffled whimper from the med bay. He frowned, worry speeding his heart rate up a little. Quietly, so as not to wake Caitlin, he pushed the scratchy woollen blankets off his legs and stood, padding barefoot towards the other room. He could hear the intermittent rustle of sheets punctuated by short, quick gasps and painful whimpers. Cisco bit his lip and quickened his pace, thankful that the dim glow from the monitor displaying Barry’s vitals bathed the room in enough light to see where he was going. ‘Barry?’ he whispered.
Barry didn’t answer, and when Cisco reached his side, he could see his friend’s face was bathed in a sheen of sweat, and his eyes were clamped shut. His hands fisted the sheet around his midsection, and as Cisco watched, Barry’s head pitched to the side and he moaned pitifully, before drawing in a stuttering breath.
Cisco’s concern ratcheted up a notch, and he reached a hand out and gripped Barry’s good shoulder lightly. ‘Barry? Hey man, are you okay?’
Once again, Barry didn’t answer him, but his face screwed up as if he was in pain and Cisco almost had to lean forward to catch the breathy ‘no…Mom’ that escaped Barry’s lips and accompanied the tear that rolled down his cheek.
Cisco’s heart plummeted. Barry was dreaming, and Cisco warred with the decision over whether to wake him or not. His mind was made up fairly quickly as Barry’s body twitched violently in his sleep and he began gasping shallowly, his hands fighting the sheet that had been tucked around his waist. ‘No, no…no please.’
Cisco gripped Barry’s shoulder a little harder and shook it. ‘Barry! Hey, can you hear me man? Its okay, you’re okay. Wake up, dude.’ He vaguely registered the sound of Caitlin extricating herself from her own stack of blankets and hurrying over, her footsteps light and quick on the tiles.
‘He’s having a nightmare, I think.’ Cisco informed her over his shoulder as Barry’s movements became more frantic, his breathing quickening. More tears leaked from the corners of his eyes, painting faint streaks down the side of his face.
Caitlin quickly turned the overhead light on, dimming it so as not to alarm the speedster but allowing both her and Cisco a bit more light to see. She moved to the other side of the bed and ran her knuckles firmly up and down Barry’s sternum, watching his face for a reaction. ‘Barry, can you hear me? You’re having a nightmare.’
Barry’s only response was to clumsily try and push her hand away, eyes remaining screwed shut. Cisco glanced up at Caitlin, alarmed. Caitlin frowned. ‘I’m not sure if the concussion is making him harder to rouse, or if it’s something else. He’s responding to stimuli, but he’s not exactly waking up in a hurry.’
‘I don’t know how long he’s been like this,’ Cisco’s hand stayed planted on his friend’s shoulder. ‘He wasn’t this panicked when I came over, but it did wake me up-‘
He was cut off when Barry let out a sharp cry, back arching slightly on the bed. ’No - Joe!’ His hands began fighting against the leads plugged into the monitors, tangling in them, which only increased his panic and Caitlin startled into action, mostly concerned that he was about to rip his IV out. Barry began to sob haltingly, limbs shifting frantically under the blanket which had become even more twisted around him.
She met Cisco’s worried eyes. ‘Call Joe, I think we’re going to need him.’ She ground out as she attempted to keep the speedster’s hands still.
Cisco nodded sharply and stepped back from the bed, fumbling for his phone in his pocket. He squinted against the brightness of the screen and thumbed through the short list of contacts, jabbing his finger over Joe’s name. The phone rang three times before the line connected, and Joe’s voice, thick with sleep, came over the line. ‘Cisco? What’s wrong?’
‘Uh…I, we, think Barry’s having a nightmare.’ He stumbled over his words, keeping half an eye on Caitlin in case she needed assistance. ‘But we cant get him to wake up.’
He heard a rustling on the other end of the line as Joe got out of bed. ‘He hasn’t had nightmares in a long time,’ Joe sighed wearily. ‘At least, not that I’m aware of.’
Cisco heard him grunt softly, accompanied by background noise and more rustling as Joe pinned the phone between his shoulder and his ear. ‘Cisco, they can get pretty bad and he can be pretty hard to wake up. Caitlin said he has a concussion? I don’t think that’ll be helping things either.’ He paused for a second. ‘Keep trying to wake him up, okay? I’ll be there in ten.’ The line went dead, and Cisco pocketed his phone and returned to Barry’s side. Caitlin glanced up at him.
‘Joe’s on his way,’ Cisco explained. ‘Apparently this is nothing new for him.’
Caitlin’s gaze dropped to the speedster, her expression a mixture of sadness and sympathy. ‘Sometimes I forget we’ve only known him a short while.’ She said softly, rubbing Barry’s forearm comfortingly.
It took a few minutes, but Barry’s sobs subsided and his breathing evened out a little. He stopped thrashing, but his limbs still twitched intermittently. The STAR labs t-shirt they’d help him change into before they allowed him to sleep was drenched in sweat. Caitlin’s heart clenched painfully as she noted the trembling and the way Barry tried to curl in on himself as much as his injuries would allow. She’d only splinted his leg, as she figured it’d have more or less healed by the time he was to wake up in the morning. She was in the middle of rescuing the sheet tangled around Barry’s legs when Joe’s quick footsteps one again sounded in the hall.
‘Oh, Bear.’ He sighed, arriving at his son’s bedside and laying a hand on his sweaty forehead. ‘Did he wake up at all?
Caitlin shook her head, moving towards the monitors to check Barry’s vitals. ‘No, but he’s settled down a bit now. I was a little worried he was going to hurt himself with all the thrashing around.’
Joe smoothed back Barry’s sweat-slick hair from his forehead in a repetitive motion with one hand, and thumbed away a fresh tear that rolled down Barry’s cheek with the other. Barry’s head tilted towards him, face pinched and he whined in his sleep. ‘Shhh, Bear.’ He whispered. ‘Easy, son.’
Barry’s breathing evened out a little more, and he shifted subconsciously closer to his foster father. Joe hooked a leg through the chair that was pushed up against the wall opposite the hospital bed, and dragged it closer so he could sit by his son’s head without breaking the contact. ‘I think I’ll stay here tonight,’ he said to Caitlin and Cisco, fingers still carding through Barry’s hair. He sat back against the chair and closed his eyes wearily.
Cisco thumped tiredly back against the wall for support. ‘Not gonna lie, that was a little scary. I’ve never seen someone have a nightmare like that.’
Joe cracked his eyes open again, glancing down at Barry’s sleeping face. ‘They were bad like this after his Mom died,’ he admitted. ‘He’d wake me and Iris up most nights, for months after he came to live with us. Waking up to screaming down the hall isn’t exactly something you get used to in a hurry. Sometimes he’d wake up straight away and I’d have to sit with him for hours until he settled and went back to sleep, and other times it’d take ages to wake him up and he would just be so out of it.’ Joe looked pained as he recalled the long nights he spent sitting up with his foster kid. ‘It was almost like having a newborn in the house.’
‘He’s never mentioned them before,’ Caitlin said softly.
Joe grimaced. ‘I’m not surprised, he’s always been so embarrassed of them. He used to apologise to me and Iris for burdening us-‘ his face screwed up a little, as if the word left a bitter taste in his mouth. ‘-as if we didn’t know beforehand that taking in a traumatised kid would come with some challenges. It was always so hard to convince him that he wasn’t a burden.’ Joe swiped a hand over his mouth. ‘He’s gonna kill me for telling you guys all this.’
Cisco remained uncharacteristically quiet, brows drawn and arms wrapped around his middle. ‘Has he had them like this all this time?’
Joe heaved out a breath. ‘God, no. They got less and less frequent after about five or six months, and he’d have them intermittently as a teenager, especially if he was stressed out. He never said anything about them when he was away at college though, and then he’s had his own apartment for a while so I’m not sure if this is a one-off.’
The three of them sat in contemplative silence for a few minutes, before Caitlin moved over to Cisco and laid a hand on his arm. ‘Why don’t we all get some rest? Barry seems to have settled and we could all use some sleep.’
Joe nodded, kicking his shoes off and propping his socked feet up against the side of Barry’s bed. ‘Sounds like a plan, get some rest guys. I’ll keep an eye on him in case he wakes up.'
Caitlin nodded, steering Cisco back towards the cortex and the pile of blankets on the floor.
A loud cry ripped through the med bay and Joe jerked in his chair, feet tangling on their descent from the side of the bed, and it was a pure miracle that he managed to catch himself and not end up in a heap on the floor as the chair skidded backwards on the tiles.
Barry's eyes were once again screwed shut, hands palming the sheet frantically, and stray tears mixed with the streams of sweat that rolled down from his hairline. He cried out again, marginally quieter this time, unintelligible words spilling from his lips. Joe's heart constricted painfully; it had been a long time since he'd had to deal with this, and it was almost worse seeing Barry in this much pain as an adult.
Joe planted one hand on his uninjured shoulder and used the other to smooth back his sweaty hair from his forehead. 'Barry! Son, wake up, it's just a nightmare. You're safe, you're safe.'
Joe had to stop himself from stepping back in surprise when Barry's eyes flew open and he jolted on the bed with a strangled gasp. Bleary, watery eyes darted around the room before landing on the detective, and Joe could see the wheels turning in Barry's head as he struggled to piece together reality. 'Joe?' he croaked.
Joe gave him a soft smile. 'Yeah Bear, it's me. You were having a nightmare.' He shifted back from the bed a little, but left his hand firmly on his son's shoulder. 'You okay?'
Barry scrubbed his hands over his face to clear the tear tracks, and took a shuddering breath. 'Y-yeah, I think so. Sorry if I woke you.' his gaze dropped to his hands, now in his lap, and he picked at the tape holding the IV in place on the back of his hand. Awareness crept into his senses suddenly, and he jerked his head up to look at his foster father. 'What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be at home?'
Joe suppressed a frown as he noticed the trembling that Barry was trying to hide. 'I was at home,' he said, gently. 'Cisco rang me a few hours ago, you had another nightmare but they couldn't wake you, so they called me.'
Embarrassment flared on Barry's cheeks and he tilted his head back on the pillow, cupping his hands over his face to hide it. 'Oh god.' he groaned, the sound muffled behind his hands.
Joe squeezed his shoulder sympathetically. 'They were just worried about you, Bear. Blame it on the concussion, if you like.' He was actually surprised the two of them hadn't come running in already, but a quick check over his shoulder confirmed they were hanging back, just outside the doorway, taking his lead by the looks of it. 'Which is something else we can talk about in the morning.' he scolded, only half-jokingly.
Barry didn't say anything, but his hands dropped slowly from his face, and he closed his eyes and shivered. Joe frowned. 'Are you cold?'
'Yeah-no...I'm not sure.' Barry's voice was quiet, thick with exhaustion. Joe disentangled the sheet and the blanket from where Barry had pushed them, and drew them up around his shoulders. Barry snuggled gratefully into them, head tilting towards Joe and prompting the older man to cup his cheek with a warm hand, much like he used to do when Barry was a kid. His eyes remained closed, but Joe heard a whispered 'thanks Joe' and he smiled. 'You okay, kid?'
Barry nodded against his palm, and let out a shaky sigh. 'Yeah, I think so.' he paused for a beat, before continuing softly. 'Will you stay?'
'Of course, son.' Joe settled back in his chair, resigning himself to the fact he was going to have a numb hand in the morning and that he was doing his back no favours, but there wasn't much he wouldn't do for that kid. He glanced over at Caitlin and Cisco who'd shifted into the doorway, and gave them a reassuring nod. Caitlin returned his nod and she and Cisco turned and disappeared back into the darkness of the cortex.
Joe waited until Barry's breathing had evened out in sleep. Checking his watch, he grimaced at the time. He supposed a few hours sleep would be better than none.