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She’s gone.
‘Flash missing - vanishes in crisis’. That was the future they had dreaded. The thing they had tried to avoid at any cost. At first, the headline itself hadn’t seemed important, so much was going on, still ten years away, ‘missing’ not ‘dead’. Then Nora had made the threat real. ‘Vanished’ and never to return. Still, they had a few more years to figure it out, to alter the future doom gleaming on the horizon. There had been time. And then there had been none. Near, so near. ‘Flash missing – vanishes in crisis’ And they had tried, they had worked, every effort, every step taken, to avoid it, to avoid his fate.
Some days he had even thought ‘vanishing’ might be worse than ‘dead’, though he had never uttered a word of this to his friends. There’s a sense of calm certainty in death. There’s nothing certain in ‘vanished’. Where to? For how long? In which state? No ‘vanishing’ doesn’t bring calm or quiet at the end of the road, not in the way ‘death’ did.
But they had worked, they had fought with everything they had, tried to outsmart fate, change time … again.
And suddenly they had succeeded. Crisis averted. Multiverse saved. Not vanished. Ecstatic, he had kissed Iris, joyful in his ignorance, his selfishness. For he had not known just yet, had not known that she was gone.
And though the Flash did not vanish that day, in the end, Barry Allen had.
He’s standing in the time vault staring at the newspaper article once again. ‘Frost missing – vanishes in crisis’. The pain that cuts through him… he deserves every second of it. And it still isn’t enough. Blinded, selfish, arrogant, never once had he thought… never once considered… He had cheered and celebrated. Cheered and celebrated even though Caitlin … No, he hadn’t known, couldn’t have known… He should have known. But that Barry Allen is gone now, lost the day he lost Caitlin. Only the Flash still heads out, still saves people. It’s what she would have wanted. The only thing he has left to give her.
“You have to stop punishing yourself,” Cisco says, his voice rough.
“I’m not,” he replies tonelessly, but they both know that’s a lie. But Cisco lets it slide as he enters the vault and steps next to him. “We’ll get her back.”
Barry turns towards his friend whose eyes are red and puffy, have been for weeks, but still hopeful. A stark contrast to his own, dark and empty. No, Barry doesn’t hope, he doesn’t deserve to hope. A sharp response lies on his tongue, but he swallows it. He shouldn’t lash out at Cisco, the only one still left, the only one still hanging on. Not because he wants him here, or even needs him here, no he would have preferred his friend to leave as well, preferred to do this alone. But because Cisco deserves better. He lost her too. So Barry just turns back to the screen, retreating inside himself, back to the endless torture that is his own mind. Nothing more than he deserves.
It had taken Iris one week, one week to gather her things and leave, one week to claim she lost him that day anyway, one week to declare she didn’t deserve this, one week to walk out on them. It had taken him one day, one day to realize she had left, one day to discern that he didn’t care. She had been the first to leave, but the others had followed. Joe had tried, time and time again, but in the end, he just told him the door was always open when…if he was ready, and had walked away as well. It had taken Barry less time to realize he did care. But not enough. It didn’t matter in the end. She was gone. And so was he.
She’s gone. It has become his mantra. She’s gone. The first thing he thinks about when he wakes up, the last thought before he falls asleep. Cisco thinks he’s punishing himself, and maybe he is, but that’s not really why he’s thinking it, why he *has* to think it. Because when he didn’t…
It had happened a few weeks after Crisis, Barry had been in his lab, running a new testing procedure on a sample of DNA from a crime scene. The new method was difficult enough to have him completely focused on it, no time for any stray thoughts. Just himself and the science. But then the results had made no sense, had he made a mistake? Could this be the actual results? And just like that, a thought slipped into his mind, as it had a thousand times before. ‘I have to ask Caitlin about it’.
A millisecond later his brain caught up to him, the truth hitting him full force, the realization that there would be no more asking Caitlin anything. Never again could her help be freely given. With a drumming in his ears, his vision blurry, his breathing ragged, his heartbeat erratic, he had sled down the wall and crumpled on the floor of his lab. He didn’t know how long he sat there, hoping no one would come in, hoping the searing pain would pass, not letting himself think of Dr. Snow, because for once she would make things only worse.
Afterwards, he had been more careful, he couldn’t forget again. And it had worked for a while.
Until a meta had gotten the upper hand, knocking him out cold. He had woken up in the med bay, courtesy of Cisco, he found out later. But for a fleeting moment when he opened his eyes and came to, he looked for her, expecting her by his bedside, as always. And once again, realization crashed over him, pulling him under. Never again would he wake up to find her waiting for him, worried, relieved, maybe a little mad if he had been careless, but always understanding, always there. Never again.
When he had been in a coma, his heartbeat would become so quick, it registered as heart failure. He didn’t know if this time it was even quicker or just failing. He could barely make out Cisco rushing over to him, every noise coming through as if behind a dense fog, probably trying to figure out the cause, but unable to do so, because physically he was fine, physically his speed healing had taken care of it, but there was nothing his speed could do about this. His breathing was so rapid, in the end, he had passed out, his body trying to protect itself. To his credit, Cisco never mentioned what happened. He only closed down the med bay, any medical attention the Flash needed to receive was done in the Speedlab from then on.
And Barry had learned his lesson, he could never forget it again, not even asleep or unconscious could he allow himself to get blindsided.
So he thought it. She’s gone. Always at the back of his mind. She’s gone. Never to be forgotten again, even for a second. Because as bad as this pain was, he could at least survive it. And he had to survive it. He had to survive because that was why she’s gone. He has to survive to honor her. He has to survive for her. Always for her.