Chapter Text
Don sped me to STAR Labs. Everyone was in the cortex, buzzing about their latest discovery.
“Anna!” Cisco called out. “We got it!”
“Really?” Best news of the day.
“Well, I mean, Barry and Julian and Harry got it, mostly, but I was there.”
“Thank you, Ramon,” Dr. Wells said.
“We were able to reverse engineer the chemical and discover what the molecule is in its raw form.”
Mr. Allen typed a few commands into the computer, and the molecule came up on the monitors. “Ta-da!”
I walked as close as I could to the monitors and looked at it. I didn’t recognize it. At all. “So this is what is being put into the water sources?”
Dr. Albert joined me at the monitor. “As close as we can tell. It’s not a known molecule, and it certainly doesn’t occur naturally. It would have to be synthetically produced.”
So someone was making raw LP on purpose. This matched with what we knew from Kuttler. It didn’t explain why or who, but it was a start.
“Okay, we need something to neutralize this chemical.” Curing LP wasn’t possible, but if we could neutralize it while it was aqueous, we had a chance of stopping the Event before it happened. That is, if we couldn’t stop Mr. X’s plan in the first place. “It’s the best back-up plan we’ve got.”
Cisco spoke up. “Whoa, we just came up with this molecule and now you want to know how to un-do it?”
“Yes, please?” Don asked.
Cisco laughed humorlessly. “Well, if you’re asking so nicely…”
“Hey, where’s Dr. Brand?” I asked.
Mr. Allen looked down. “She and Harry had difficulty working together so…”
“Oh, got it.” She probably couldn't stand working with her dead boyfriend’s doppelganger. I couldn’t blame her. Working with people that looked like your dead loved ones was hard. A thought occurred to me. “I’m not asking too much of you, am I?”
I was met with downcast eyes and silence. I turned to Don, who nodded his head slightly. Oh . They had just come off the whole Mrs. West-Allen and Savitar deal, so I guess they were tired. But I really couldn’t have them slow down. They only had two days to find out how to neutralize raw LP.
Mrs. West-Allen walked in. “Sorry, guys, I was just going over some details for HR’s funeral.” She looked at all the mopey faces surrounding her. “What’s wrong in here?”
No one said anything, so I replied, “They’re all exhausted, and I don’t blame them. I’m asking for a lot.”
Mrs. West-Allen turned to face her hoard of scientists. “I know it’s been rough for the last week around here, but when has that ever stopped us? You guys worked out the Speed Force bazooka, and I know you can work this out as well. I’ll bring in some coffee from Jitters, and we can work in shifts, ya? That way everyone can get some rest but we’ll know that someone’s always making progress.”
Everyone nodded. Leave it to Mrs. West-Allen to inspire the team like that. No wonder she was team leader for a while. Once I uploaded the molecule to my tablet, I signaled to Don that we should head out, and leave the geniuses to their experimenting. I knew they would figure it out. They always did.
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It was Day 180. Cisco had finalized the mission details, now it was just a matter of getting the rest of the team to sign off on it. He called everyone together. “Everyone” was kind of a loose term nowadays; the combination of Team Arrow and Team Flash didn’t amount to much.
Once everyone was in the Cortex, Cisco made his big announcement. “We have a plan to undo the effects of LP.”
There were murmurs of excitement all around. Dig asked, “Wait, I thought the plan was to develop a cure?”
Cisco held up a finger. “That was the plan. However, that plan has, well, terminated.”
“What do you mean, terminated?” asked Grandpa Joe.
“Don, Tommy, and I have done everything we could, but there’s just no way for us to formulate a cure, or even reverse engineer the chemical.”
Frankie looked stunned. “How long did you know this wasn’t going to work?”
I stepped up to defend Cisco. “Just long enough to formulate this new plan.”
“Exactly,” Cisco said. “And this new plan is going to be it, I swear.”
“What is it Cisco?” Don asked.
“We go back in time and prevent the Event.”
Everyone fell into shocked silence. I’m sure it had crossed everyone’s mind at one point, but no one had ever vocalized it. It was against the rules we usually played by. It was against everything we had been taught.
“I thought we weren’t allowed to do that.” Dig was right, under normal conditions.
I stepped up again. “Desperate times. This one event could be undone, unlike thousands of other catastrophes that this world has seen. So why not do it?”
“Because we have no idea of the ramifications, for one,” Don said. Was he really going to speak out against me? “Even if we avoid a paradox and destroy time, we still would have to deal with the fact that we’d be changing the entire timeline. And we can’t undo that.”
“You’re right. But explain to me what we have to lose at this point.” I looked around the room to emphasize my point. Too many people were missing from it.
“We’re not gods,” Mrs. West-Allen proclaimed as she stepped into the room, probably coming in late from some assignment. “It’s not our job to fool with the timeline, not like this.”
Grandpa Joe turned to her. “Sweetie, think about what they would want.”
“I am thinking about that, and I think they would want us to keep the timeline intact.”
“At the risk of hundreds of millions of lives?” Frankie asked her mom.
“You mess with time, and time will mess back. You know that,” Mrs. West-Allen chastised her daughter.
Dig turned to Cisco. “How would it even work, anyway? If we were to do it?”
“I’ve isolated a range of dates where the LP could’ve been introduced. We send a team back there to prevent it from happening. We can’t neutralize the water or inoculate the potential victims, so that’s the only way I see to do it.”
“Unless Mr. Allen figures it out,” Tommy offered.
“Tommy, what are you talking about?” Cisco asked.
“You’re always saying Mr. Allen would probably be able to help you crack the code. Well, you’ll have access to him in the past.”
“Actually, that’s not a bad idea, kid,” Cisco replied. “It would mean he wouldn’t be able to guard the water supply, though.”
An idea began forming in my head. “Team Arrow is pretty big in 2017, right, Dad?” Dad slowly lifted his head, took his time to comprehend the question, and then nodded. “So Team Arrow could take care of all the physical mission work, while Team Flash worked on the cerebral portion.”
“That’s not a bad plan. I think it could work.” At least Cisco and I were on the same page. “Let’s take a vote. If anyone disagrees, we won’t do it. All in favor?” Everyone but Mrs. West-Allen raised her hand. I was surprised that Dad was taking the initiative to consider the plan and vote for it, but he didn’t know I was planning to go with.
“I can’t condone this,” Mrs. West-Allen said, and then wandered off into the hallway.
“Let me go talk to her,” Grandpa Joe said. After he left, Cisco began explaining the plan to the team. He would need Mrs. West-Allen’s and Dad’s input on the timeline, but he could at least narrow Team Flash’s involvement to a four day timespan within the timeframe he had hypothesized. Dad didn’t seem very forthcoming on other details, but I knew I could get them out of him in private. The only question now was who would go, assuming Mrs. West-Allen came around.
Finally, Mrs. West-Allen and Grandpa Joe emerged from the hallway. “I’m not going to pretend I think this is a good idea, but I won’t stop you from doing it.”
Cisco’s face lit up. “Then Mission Flashback is a go.”
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Back in the Bunker, everything seemed to be under control. Mom was busy with the encryptions, and my tablet was running as well. It was getting late, and most of the team had already left. Just as I was about to approach Mom and check on things, Dig came out of the elevator, with a little toddler. Could it be?
“Hey, I’m sorry to spring this on you guys, but Lyla got called in on a last-minute assignment, and the babysitter’s busy. I thought I’d bring the guy down here while I helped out.”
Mom smiled. “Of course. You know little John is always welcome.”
Don turned to me with a worried expression, and I tried to be okay. I really did. But I just couldn’t. Not this time. I quickly got out of there, as far away as possible. As I was retreating, I heard Dig say, “Did I do something wrong?” I hoped Don would be gracious enough to answer for me, because nothing was going to stop my tears from flowing now.