Work Text:
Frost lies on the floor of the warehouse, Team Flash have a weird mixture of expressions on their faces as he swoops in to retrieve her. Barry looks suitably stricken, Cecile and Joe half-wary, half-relieved, and inexplicably Cisco has a triumphant grin on his face.
But Savitar isn't concerned. This has happened before, it will always happen. He knows exactly what's come to pass. He knows exactly what is coming and any deviation he will find out from Barry.
He forgets the one potential flaw to his plan; he counts on Barry knowing everything, so that he will know everything.
He scoops up Frost in his arms to take her back to the lair, being careful with the suits grip. Perhaps he doesn't need to be so careful, not with her healing abilities, but it's automatic where she is concerned. Rationality will argue it's because she is his ally, he doesn't consider it further. He doesn't want to see the implications. Despite his confrontational nature, there are some things Savitar prefers to leave well alone.
He doesn't realize anything is wrong immediately. Frost is out for the count with a concussion. Due to her healing factor, it won't be long before she wakes up though, minutes at most. She'll be as good as new, ready for the next stage of his plan.
Except she doesn't wake up. Her hair fades to the mousy brown of Caitlin Snow. Worry gnaws deep inside Savitar at this development. This isn't what was meant to happen.
The updated memory of Cisco filling Barry in on some matter at the warehouse filters through his mind, with a lash of pain to each word recalled.
“I know it looks bad with him taking her, but don't worry, I had an ace up my sleeve. Got some outside help. Outside the timeline, if you catch my drift.”
What it means isn't clear precisely. Nothing good. He takes a vial of blood from her unconscious form and isn't shocked to find nanobots nestled in between the cells he'd normally expect to see. He experimentally tries to zap the bots in the sample with a spark of his lightning. They only multiply further at the energy input, speedster proofed. Somebody's clever. Somebody's cheating with future tech far beyond what he knows of personally. Savitar hates them instantly.
There's a shortlist of who could be responsible and Ray Palmer is the top suspect. Ray Palmer who is likely currently ensconced in the time-stream aboard the Waverider. He knows full well where Ray has been in his own past but he can't risk changing anything leading up to May 23 rd . He needs events to stay as they have been. And he needs to get things back on track for what he knows of the remaining weeks.
It's infuriatingly handy for Team Flash that Ray Palmer is out of the timeline. The Legends are unpredictable and only easily traceable by the carnage to history they leave behind. The ripples of that, which give them away, are known only to those who would know better because they were also outside the affected timeline. Savitar could do his research. Track them down. But he'd need to retreat from the timeline himself to do it. It isn't worth it to him. He's a scientist too. He won't be beaten on any count.
Snow wakes up an hour later, groggy, eyes unfocused as she stares up at him. It's undoubtedly Caitlin Snow who wakes up. Frost should always come out on top but instead Snow is looking up at him, confused, her hand reaching up to his scars as he sits on the side of the bed. He regrets the closeness, the familiarity he accidentally has shown her. It wasn't meant for her, and probably it shouldn't even exist for Frost either. He's been complacent, it needs to stop.
“What happened to you?” she asks lightly, and that's exactly what he wants to ask back with more venom, anger flaring inside. He turns away, retreats from her concern. Anywhere else would be better. He needs to think.
He allows himself a pause to consider this development. Taking steady breaths as time crawls around him agoniingly slowly as always, and then, when he is calmer, anger smoothed over, he comes back to tie her up. He speeds in a bed taken from the old abandoned psychiatric hospital, the built-in straps he buckles around her limbs and across her torso. Once he's done, he makes the mistake of slipping back into normal time to test the endurance of the aged leather.
Even in her befuddled state, she arches an eyebrow at his choice, her face setting in anger before she modulates it into a more neutral state. Or what she probably thinks is more neutral – he can tell by the clenching of her jaw that she is determined to do something. Show no fear, perhaps? Escape somehow? It's almost cute how she thinks she has a chance against him. The recognition of what she means to do sends a flicker of residual pride through him, a relic emanating from the man he used to be, once her friend. He's not her friend anymore, but he can admit she's not so far from Frost in moments like this, formidable in her own way. Still, Frost is who he needs and he'll get her back in due time. Doubt isn't really in his vocabulary anymore.
He runs test after test, determining at the very least that the nanobots are specifically dampening her powers, and haven’t rid her of them with an obscure cure that he knows was being worked on. The technology is not unlike the dampening cuffs, except in miniature, and with more defensive measures to ensure they do not fail.
He tries to ignore her presence in the background. A gag had been necessary once she became more cognizant. She would not go quietly. She tries to communicate anyway, the muffled sounds are possibly more annoying. Every muscle in his body is tense, set on edge by his foiled plan, by the lack of Frost, by her.
Despite being terse with her when he attends to her all too human needs - giving her no foothold emotionally - she foolishly continues to call him Barry. Occasionally angrily, with a vehemence that echoes memories long past and surely forgotten by either version of him. Sometimes it is instead spoken in a resigned manner, somehow also clinging resolutely to that one defiance to call him as he despises, as who he despises. And sometimes she's clearly trying to use it to appeal to his supposed better nature that she has no idea is thoroughly burned out of him by now.
In the meantime, with no progress on a solution to the dampening, he rather tediously has to look after Snow. Food is delivered, her hands and torso unstrapped, and he attempts to ignore her as much as possible while he still keeps watch from the corner of the room. It galls him how she looks at him, he can't stand the pity. The twinges of curiosity are better but not welcomed either.
Her trying to reach out to him is the worst thing. She's still somewhat strapped down, not a threat in any real way. Except, each time he sees her like this there is the possibility she will speak to him again. Every kind word instead of anger risks him feeling something he can't afford. The flickers of sympathy for her stuck here, or remorse for putting her in this situation, or a traitorous longing for what he used to have with her.
There isn't enough distance between them for his liking and it reflects another ugly truth - that there isn't quite enough distance between him and who he used to be either. Not every tie to his old life has been severed as completely as he believed and it is showing up unpleasantly here. But he will deal with it. Snow will be banished and he will get himself back on track. He's gotten good at running away from his feelings, he just needs to push harder and faster and come out the other side of this patch of history he's reliving.
Growling at the results, Savitar lashes out, swiping the (stolen) fancy equipment of the workbench. He can't resist the curl of anger that spikes as he realizes he's met his match, scientifically speaking. The one mercy is at least it isn't Barry Allen.
Predictably, Caitlin Snow calls out panicked from the other room. She's getting good at working her gag off by now. He ought to tie it tighter but he figures it takes her long enough that it's still useful to do, gives her something to focus on. He pities her for the boredom she must be subjected to. He's sure he's going to regret it right now.
“What happened, Barry?!”
Something in him snaps at her utterance.
“That's not my name.”
He's up close in her space as he spits out the reply, said practically ferally. This is the most cool he's lost with her so far, usually snide and prone to eye-rolling more than anything else.
She doesn't flinch, he's surprised. There's a glint in her eyes as she regards him in return.
“What happened, Savitar?”
It's her first acknowledgment of his name, that she knows full well who he's become. The name isn't said mockingly, not exactly. There's scorn there to match the pity and absolutely no reverence like he is used to from most who utter it. He's not sure what else he should expect when Frost was wry about his illusions of godhood too, in progress as those plans were.
He's spent years with lesser beings in that character, building up the legend, and he found it did no good to give up the pretense with her. Savitar was created with intent, with whispers in the dark and with the foreboding of the suit to back that up. So too was Savitar created with the scars tracing down his face, forever reminding him of the cost that would make it necessary. The words he repeated to tell the tales required became another form of armor he wore over the top of those scars, the promise of relief when the time came. Whether Godhood was achievable or not, that was the plan, the finish line to this marathon. Frost was mocking of that and it might have grated on him, though he didn't let it show past a minor outburst of his ire. However, with Caitlin, it is only half so, and the other half is pitying – the pity is what he finds he can't take.
Her pitying eyes must watch him go, must wonder where he is going, and what he will do when he comes back. He couldn't care less what she wonders. He hopes she fears his return, the retribution he can't take out on her but let her think so. Other than that, the one thing there is inside him is the desire to run, to sweep past this mess in front of him and run away from his problems finally. Really, he only has one problem he'd admit to. He'd say it was running from her meaningless compassion, the emptiness of her faith in inherent goodness above all else.
His blood pumps supercharged as he runs and he doesn't let himself think of how meaningful it is that she elicits this response. There's anger to be sure, but deeper there is a fear hidden - the stomach tightening clutch of disappointment, a feeling so unfamiliar after eons that he can't name it anymore.
She goes on a hunger strike. Sitting with her hands clasped and pointedly not touching the meal he had provided. He leaves them there tauntingly, he won't make it easier for her. She doesn't give in. He can see this may become a problem.
Teeth grinding a touch, he regards her coolly, and in return she futilely attempts to stare him down. They're both stubborn. If it's a match of wills, they'll both ultimately lose. No, he'll have to try another tactic with her if he wants a different outcome. Too casually he leans against the end of the bed, his proximity a subtle threat to go with his next statement.
“If you don't eat this burger, I'm going to phase it directly into your stomach.”
Head jerking up, he sees her eyes widen at the statement, making her look like a scared rabbit trapped in the headlights of his scheme.
“Have you ever done that to someone?”
“There's a first time for everything.”
“But...what if it goes wrong? You need me.” The hints of doubt crop up with the hesitation she starts on, not dispelled by the definite statement she finishes on. Whatever she may be (mostly) convinced of, her panic is real and she can't hide it behind words that sound certain.
There's a flash of satisfaction and a warm smugness that settles into his body at knowing he can inspire fear despite the truth of what she parrots to him. Fear will prompt cooperation with far better results than force.
“I need your body. I need your abilities. I don't, however, need you,” he replies pointedly and leaves without a further look to her. He doesn't strap her hands or torso back in. No matter her resourcefulness, he doesn't fear her escape. She'd never get far, he's too fast and too prepared, sensors on every exit for early warning of intruders, or for a prisoner like her. When he goes back later on, there's a discarded wrapper on the floor, one hand hanging limply over the side of the gurney as she snores lightly. She doesn't give him any more trouble over food after that.
There's no disabling the nanobots. Filtering them out is the next best thing and his primary route forward to solve this dilemma that is plaguing him. He should have solved it weeks ago but the solution is alluding him.
He modifies a plasmapheresis machine and intends to get her hooked up in no time at all. However, Caitlin Snow has other ideas, which isn't unexpected. He expects her to protest outright, yet she doesn't. Instead, she merely winces as he approaches her arm with the needle.
“What?” he asks tersely, little patience for her obvious discomfort.
“That's not how you should do it. That'll hurt.”
He glares back silently.
So many minor medical procedures are known to him, but Caitlin never taught Barry Allen exactly how to do this. He knows how to do a blood draw or get an IV going, on himself. The thing is, Barry was taught everything at another angle. He'd practiced every now and then to ensure he could retain the knowledge but never with much consideration for how much he might hurt himself - he was always in a hurry and knew he'd heal any damage done. She had taught him how to do those things if he was ever alone, and those skills had served him very well once he was truly alone, rejected.
There's a twisty sensation in his gut at the reminder of how he'd suffered the burns without her, or anyone, at his side. He pushes it aside and decides he probably ought to know this too, know how to do it well, if only for himself. Knowledge is powerful.
He does look up the proper procedure for how to hook her up to the machine, without her ever knowing he's done so – a blip in and out of the room before she'd be aware of any movement. Not out of any concern for hurting her, of course. Not because he cares. Not because of the duty he could potentially feel, to repay her for every caring touch, every apology of the hurts she had to inflict to help him in his past life. It's simply better not to risk botching insertion when he isn't completely sure this is going to work. If she isn't returned to Frost by the filtration, she won't heal speedily. He is silent throughout the procedure, focused on the science.
The science isn't on his side either – the filters clog up with nanobots but ultimately no progress is made. Samples taken from her at intervals show the bots are replicating too fast to be filtered out adequately, meaning the process is too slow. The nanobots must be networked in some way – a command programmed to replicate when one is removed from the system, from Caitlin Snow or a blood sample they think is part of Caitlin Snow.
He knows from experimentation with samples that there's no way he can phase them out of her or vibrate them into destruction without killing her in the process. The frequencies required would prove too risky. Team Flash have him beat for now. In a move becoming far too common, Savitar takes his anger out on his equipment. It's easy enough for him to get more and it's something to do, something he can do in the face of temporary defeat.
The commotion has Caitlin piping up from the other room, with simply “Savitar?”
As ever, even with that one word, she is still somehow asking what happened. What happened to your face. What happened to you. To me and you. She might as well be asking what happened to everything good in his life because none of that is left and that's what happened.
Storming back into her room, he can't resist unleashing his fury on her verbally.
“You want to know what happened? The future - my past - everyone turns their backs on me. Everyone.”
“I wouldn't -”
“No, you didn't. You,” he points a finger at her, “were dead. Iris was dead. Frost was there, the only person there for me in the end. I didn't matter to them, now they don't matter to me.”
Caitlin pauses, thinking for a beat, before she tempers her voice, strangely aiming to reassure him.
“Iris wouldn't turn her back on you either, she doesn't deserve this.”
It's so predictable of her - Caitlin Snow always standing up to the bad guys, trying to appeal to the humanity left in him. Always thinking people aren't so bad deep down. He used to have that in common with her, he used to be able to forgive. He used to have hope.
“What's the date?”
He doesn't know why he answers her, what purpose it serves.
“April 27th.”
Caitlin smiles. It's the first time he's seen her hopeful here.
“That's 4 weeks until –“
She won't say until Iris has to die. Caitlin doesn't believe it or doesn't want to believe it.
“– until things diverge. That's 4 weeks to come up with a solution. There has to be another way. No one has to die.”
He dismisses that outburst. Leaves. Takes a break, a breather to think about the bots. If he can disrupt the network...If he can get them all out at once... There's got to be another way for the problem he's fixing. He doesn't need futile attempts to fix a different problem, one he's long given up on, one where he is the problem.
Of course she said that. She doesn't want to die either, via Frost taking over once more as intended. He doesn't want to believe he can take her help. It would be so much easier to believe it's a selfish offer. Just words with nothing to back them up.
Caitlin doesn't get the memo. His silence, nor his angry retorts at her suggestions, doesn't convince her to give up on him. Finally, he tries tying her gag tighter, but her suggestions then become the first thing she does when he goes to feed her, and he can't, much as it would reduce that behavior, stop feeding her, so she has him there.
She keeps going on about ideas, trying to brainstorm in a one-sided conversation. She's practically a one-woman think tank even though she hasn't got much expertise in physics or the Speedforce. She tries so hard, to save him. He knows nothing will work. There's nothing he hasn't thought of already when he was desperate but still hopeful - still too much a hero - to avoid it all.
And then she comes out with a genuinely new idea. Thrown out there into the void of hope and his brain zeroes in on it, already aware there's something to it.
“What did you say?”
“What? Oh. Just about synchronicity and the uncertainty principle. And quantum superposition. Theoretical disentanglement too. Which was it that interested you? I'm so sleepy I don't know half of what I'm saying.”
Caitlin yawns; he's gone before her yawn hits its peak. Leaves her sitting there with no clue what she's opened up in his mind. The spark of light showing him a way out. Iris doesn't have to die.
He works what feels like all day, a fraction of the day to anyone else. Sweat mopping his brow as he sticks to the confines of Flashtime to enact his plan without further delay. It checks out. He views the scrawl of circular symbols on the blackboard that would be incomprehensible to almost everyone who will ever exist. The maths adds up. He's home free, in theory.
Suddenly none of his prior plan matters really, but he wants to punish Barry, himself in essence – he feels like he deserves it all, whichever version of himself he's talking about.
He has always wanted to make those who turned their backs on him feel the same burn of irrelevance, failure, and rejection they had made him feel, but none ever had to die like what was required of Iris to force this timeline into forging his unique instance. The misfortunes that had unfolded across the timeline for the others were as much of a casualty to his temporal conundrum as his own suffering was. Ways to wound Barry most of all, to mold him into someone else. Applying the immense pressure required to compress that naïve boy into a man who was tougher, sharper, a more useful tool to his plans. Into his jaded form. But now he won't need any of that anymore. Once this is done, it is a matter of what he wants, for the first time in years. Something more than just survival.
He enacts the temporal fix himself without her knowing. He doesn't feel different, and naturally a fear of 'what if' causes doubt to mount up over the possibility the threat still looms, overshadowing the initial success. He can't ignore it when the cost of being wrong is too high. There's no one he can turn to though. He has no one else to check if his calculations are correct. The only way is to see for himself, to see himself in the future - an assurance of his success.
It's a simple enough prospect to engineer. All he has to do is keep one appointment, perhaps the most important appointment of his life. At midnight May 20th 2018, he'll be there - he commits that idea to memory and braces for the run. He arrives at the cemetery an hour early, staking out a spot in trees; a vantage point overseeing the rows of tombstones that somewhere in there those of his parents stand too.
He leans back against the tree to steady himself. The night air is cool, though only a mild inconvenience to a speedster. No, what bothers him is the shakiness of his whole body, a subtle nervousness that strains his muscles like they are willing him to give up already. Inside him, something says it's over, you can stop running, but he pushes back harder against the idea. He has to be sure. He can't afford to be wrong.
After a long wait, he sees a figure approaching the familiar spot, coming into view well enough for Savitar to confirm it looks like him. The scars. The dark denims exactly as he wears now, like his uniform. As his watch strikes midnight, the other him turns to look over at his hiding spot, a slight dip of his head in recognition. It's as he expects, as planned. Except something unexpected occurs that throws everything into question.
He tenses at the sight of another figure lightly stalking down the row towards Savitar. Caitlin Snow bundled up in a coat and scarf, hands in her pockets. She comes to a stop by the side of his future self and Savitar waits with bated breath to find out the meaning of this. The other him had looked to her and remains calmly standing there with Caitlin Snow by his side. The man he is to become takes her hand like it's nothing out of the ordinary and Savitar catches view of a small smile on her face at the action.
It worked. He's grateful to her, that's why he's sharing the victory, surely?
But he hasn't got this far in life, in staying alive, by accepting what there is at face value. He'd made that mistake too many times as Barry. The question still remains - what if it's a ruse to make him think he's safe? He can't get proof of who it is he's watching without confronting his future self.
And then, something even more unexpected happens. Something that he can't fathom in the moment, knocking the metaphorical wind out of him, leaving him speechless and thoughtless for witnessing it. This incarnation of himself turns to take Caitlin Snow's head in his hands gently and kisses her slow and tenderly under the moonlight. Reciprocated.
Barry wouldn't do that, not if Iris lives. So there's no conceivable reason that this display would be part of any ruse to convince him that it was himself standing there, and the realization sets off his stomach churning over the implications.
Savitar doesn't want to hang about and risk seeing the look on his future counterpart's face afterwards, in case he sees the taunting possibility of some happiness. He doesn't want to know more about how this comes about. It doesn't matter. He should know the future doesn't have to be what you see. It isn't destiny no matter what lines he's spouted to make his past actions seem reasonable. He survives, he can believe that. It's the idea that he might move on from this anger that burns him inside, making it harder to accept.
He doesn't know where he's running away to at first. Seeking something undefinable, something more from the future to make sense of everything. Where he runs is to a newspaper stand, searching for a byline that ends up being innocuously next to a puff piece on a charity, but it's those words that start the process of healing something deep inside him. If he can believe it - media can be manipulated.
He makes one last stop in the future for the sake of thoroughness. His heart beats thunderously in his chest as he slides to a stop inside the apartment. Their apartment. There in the bed, sleeping deeply, and thoroughly unaware of his presence, are Barry and Iris. He knows then for sure, the cemetery couldn't be a ruse. This is real. They live. He lives.
It isn't happiness stirring inside him, but there's a genuine feeling seeping into spaces he hasn't allowed any for years. Relief. A sigh escapes him for the nightmare of his creation nearly banished. That doesn't mean he likes seeing this domestic bliss that could have been his though. Eager to get out of there now that he has the corroboration he needs, to finally remove his dark presence looming over their lives, he isn't as stealthy as he ought to be. Stumbling against a pile of laundry left out, it cascades across the floor, and no matter how fast he is, there's another almost as fast as he who is an extremely light sleeper making disgruntled noises behind him suddenly.
The clothes left where they are, Savitar turns his attention to Barry, who's staring bleary-eyed up at him from the bed. Savitar readies himself for a confrontation - fists clenched and his body willing him to strike first. Part of him wants to hurt Barry still but... so much more of him wants to simply leave, tend his wounds without risking further horrors inflicted. He doesn't have to fight anymore. He doesn't have to do anything. He could just be, somewhere far from here.
The fight he's tensed for doesn't come. Barry merely nods, reminiscent of the nod his future self had given him in the cemetery. Recognition, acceptance. Barry knew this was a possibility, was expecting this visit. They stare at each other in the dark of the room and eventually Barry backs down entirely. Lays down as if to go back to sleep. There is no anger or fear of Savitar here, a sign that oddly enough things really have changed. Confirmation no one has to die, not even him. All of what he's seen in this future as proof that things can be changed.
He doesn't return to the lair. Ironically, having all the time in the world has him at a loss for what to do or how to feel. There's a hollowness inside him – his heart emptied out now the anger is subsiding without the adrenaline fuelling him from the threat to his existence. He goes to the one location that matches how he feels: the abandoned Vanishing Point, once home to the defunct Time Masters. Out of time, there is no pressure to be anything immediately.
Without a plan, without necessity of action, a peace settles over him, though it sits uncomfortably in his weary bones. He never expected to be able to rest until he was a God and this lull feels like a trick to a body used to being constantly on high alert. A wary voice in the back of his mind says, don't get used to it. It's too much like an undeserved gift that might get snatched back at any moment. A pause he could make use of but it doesn't feel like he can't rely on to last.
Eventually, he comes to the conclusion that he needs to be able to trust this to move on. He can't forever be looking over his shoulder, wondering when the shoe will drop, when the specter of the Black Flash might come for him. As much as it pains him to admit it, there is only one place that has the answers he needs – the Speedforce.
A shudder goes through him at the idea of returning more than momentarily to the source of his imprisonment, but the Speedforce is part of him too - made up out of him - and he can never escape that without giving it up. One way or another, this must end. He needs it to be resolved. Can it let him simply be after all he's done?
The static surrounds him as he runs toward his fate this time, pinpoints of energy prickling his skin. Breaking through to the realm he knows so well is still disorientating to him. There are so many visages he could be dropped into by the capricious forces that govern it, but once again he's returned to his childhood home. A reminder of just one of the sources of his perpetual ache he could never quite heal.
“Hello, son.”
He stands numbly in the center of the living room, regarding the form of Nora Allen. She smiles warmly, acting graciously at his appearance as she gets up to greet him, closing the familiar book in her lap. The memory of his acceptance of her fate that they had teased out of him once riles up the anger that still burns on what little there is left for it to consume. It would never be considered preying on his weaknesses by them, but they did it anyway.
“Good to see you came home. We'd been wondering when you'd get here.”
She says it as if it was inevitable he'd return. As if he was always expected to forgive the injustice fate had subscribed him to and walk into those welcoming arms, no harm done. He can't do that yet. He hasn't healed the wounds inflicted, never able to rest enough to have that luxury.
“You're always welcome here.”
She sits back down and pats the seat next to her. Something white-hot flares up in him, disbelief prompting him to finally speak.
“I'm welcome? You... you-“
“What you saw here, we didn't create. The loop you were ensnared in was never intended to hurt you. You decided that for yourself. Both of your selves.”
“You could have stopped it! You could have kept me here without torturing me, you could have-
“Saved you? Oh, my beautiful boy, if you're saying that you don't understand,” she says with a mournful shake of her head, “That's like asking to be saved from gravity. There's power here but we do not wield it.”
Which he interprets as purely a polite and cryptic way of saying 'you did it to yourself'. It's true, in more than one sense that is unique to the vagaries of this bizarre situation only a speedster could end up in. Maybe that's the key. He doesn't need forgiveness from them, it, whatever the Speedforce is – he needs it from those he wronged and from himself most of all. The pain won't go away unless he lets go of the whip he's been hurting himself with too.
He moves to sit next to her and is sickened at the desperate hope that swells when she smiles so warmly again at him at his choice, making him feel lovable for an instant before he recalls the fakeness of it. This is not his mother, not an afterlife, not a deferred happy ending for Nora Allen – she's an imitation formed from what little he remembers of her, intended as a comfort that turns out just as much disconcerting as successful.
But he lets himself have a few moments anyway, to breathe easier and believe he might deserve it. It feels almost real, the way the sunlight scatters through the curtains and casts its pattern warmed on his skin. This could fool him if he let it and that eats at him, the desire for more and the knowledge he could have it here. He could have safety and that comfort for eternity as easily as he'd had hell here, if he chose that. And it would be almost enough to fill him up – the feeling only falling flat at the last minute. The plummeting lurch of regret taking over in how it would never connect fully. For all the sights and sounds, the lifetimes he could have, he would remain alone exactly as he'd feared.
There is silence for a few seconds as he contemplates his options and then there are distracting noises from beyond the house. Looking to Nora Allen, he sees her fond gaze in the direction of the window, her expression blooming into one beaming with pride in a way that seems as genuine as the Speedforce could possibly manage. He furrows his brow and twists around to lift the curtain to see what the commotion is, realizing it's the sound of children playing outside.
Two girls are playing in the yard. He can't see their faces but one has bunches just the same as how Iris wore them as a kid, and could almost be mistaken for a young Iris from behind, except for her lighter skin. The second girl is taller with pale freckled arms visible and a trail of long brown hair flowing behind her as she runs after her companion.
“If you want to live my boy, then live.”
For the first time in their encounter, there's a palpable sadness to her words. They are so plaintively said that he turns to meet her tearful expression, finding her hand reaching to trace his scarred cheek affectionately. He closes his eyes, the ghostly touch inspiring too much emotion in him. When it is gone, he opens them and finds so is she. He's alone again.
He goes back to the lair, waiting listlessly in the cold, dank air of it that had never bothered him before. He still doesn't have any idea what to do now. How he's meant to get back to living in a real and meaningful manner. It's hard to let go of what little he'd had and there is nothing to replace it with yet.
In the end, he's letting her go a few days before he'd be due to phase out of existence. Knowing he won't, but of course she doesn't. Caitlin keeps on with her suggestions as he unstraps her hands first, never tiring of providing hope, as much for her as for him he thinks.
Undoing the restraints on her legs gets her attention because normally that would go hand in hand with him immediately speeding her into the vetted bathroom for her break. He isn't doing that this time, stepping away as the straps fall to the side. He indicates to the door on the far side of the lair, “Go.“
Swallowing, she regards him warily, like she doesn't trust she can really leave.
“It's not a test or a trap.”
“Isn't that exactly what you would say if it were a trap?”
“Go!” he practically shouts, exasperated with her resistance to the freedom which she must have yearned for for weeks.
But she's not moving.
“There's no strings on this. I won't stop you.”
He turns away after, letting her go. It doesn't mean anything when he is so fast he could always stop her if he wanted, but it's symbolic, a show of intent. That and he can't watch her leave, knowing he's condemning himself to be alone once more, even if it is the right thing to do. One of the few right things he has chosen recently. She was always going to leave, one way or another. This time there's no Frost to back him up.
He can't hear any movement. What will it take to convince her? Ah, yes. It's never going to be about just her.
“And I won't kill Iris. It's over.”
He has nothing now. Not even a cause to fight for. Existence was the mission, was all he cared about past the cover of revenge. What does he do now when it's all redundant; ghosts of a future that won't happen, like he is. The remnant, a loose thread left awkwardly hanging. A messy consequence not going anywhere fast. The anger won't disappear all at once, but the doubt floods back in to replace some of it. He's already regressing to someone who isn't so unlike Barry Allen, just with a lot more scars to show for everything.
There are footsteps, finally indicating she is taking him seriously. He stays turned away, tapping his fingers on his leg impatiently, despairing how long it takes. If he was being pragmatic about this, he should leave before she does but he can't walk away somehow.
Instead of the expected retreat out the door, her pace falls short – her approach is to him. Confusion makes him distrustful, alarms bells ringing at how close she is. Watching her slowed down at first to gauge her intentions, he sees her arms spread out wide but empty, looking fixedly at him. Switching to normal time, once satisfied there is no threat to it, he is engulfed suddenly as she wraps her arms around him soundly. He has no semblance of composure at this development, his breath knocked out by her hug. There's no reply that wouldn't be a stuttering shamble of the one query he can form – why?
“You don't have to do this alone, Savitar. I'm not going anywhere,” she says resolutely as she holds onto him tight. He's not sure he could push her away even if he wanted to. “I promise we'll save you. No one has to die.”
He knows she means it.
That prompts him to hold back tight like she is his lifeline.
She completely unaware she's already given him what he needs. There's no apparent hope that she knows of right now, but the hope she has for him is inherent. That's the faith inside her, the need to help everyone she can. But it's more than that to him. It means so much that she wants to help him, despite the mistakes he made, compounded over so long.
Caitlin is the first person since Frost to not turn their back on him. She knows the reality of his situation and she isn't running back to Barry at her first chance like he expected. She calls him by his chosen name, Savitar, but he suspects deep down she still thinks of him as Barry, in a way no one has since his creation. Barry hadn't given up on her in the pipeline, seeing beyond her icy bluster, and she isn't giving up on him here, seeing beyond his feigned detachment. Theirs is a mutual trust that time and circumstance haven't quite managed to erode past rescue.
His own flicker of faith, at her inspiration, to make the choice to try another way before it was too late, has set them all on a new path and paved the way for things to change more than she can know. For the first time in a long time, there is hope inside him, that the cycle of suffering could be truly ended. Not simply for Barry and the others, but for him too. No longer rejected outright, coming in from the cold.
Her hand curls against the nape of his neck, stroking his hair there comfortingly. He leans into her touch with a barely suppressed shiver at the care she offers willingly. Allowing himself an ease he hasn't had for so long. The foreknowledge he has of a year from now still feels like it taunts him but can't let that sway anything in this moment. There is time to figure things out. There is time to stand, to rest, in her embrace.