Chapter Text
STAR Labs wasn't a medical facility.
There were labs dedicated to the development of medical advancements, but it wasn't designed or meant to house patients. But in the aftermath of the particle accelerator explosion, they did have a patient.
She looked so small laying there in the hospital bed, connected to all those machines, even with the fact she was tall for a woman. Perhaps it was how pale she was, how young she was.
At almost twenty-five, Carrie Allen had a remarkable life for one her age. She had seen her mother murdered by something she didn't understand, had witnessed her father put in jail for the murder he hadn't committed. It was this that set her on her path for chasing the impossible as well as going into forensic sciences from a young age.
When other girls had been obsessing over hair and makeup, she had her nose in a book, studying, always forever studying. That dedication had helped her graduate High School and begin College at a young age.
Now she worked at the some police department that had arrested her father; the tall, awkward girl who was forever late but also exceedingly good at her job.
That and her foster father Detective Joe West were probably the only reasons she kept her job, especially after her stunt of going to Starling City in search for the urban legend called the Hood. Or Arrow. Depending who you asked.
But now, the life that had been going forward at full speed...had stopped.
On the fateful night her hero and idol Dr Harrison Wells had activated the particle accelerator, a thunder storm had rolled in. And then unexpectedly, there had been an explosion from STAR Labs, followed by a crimson lightning bolt coming through the leaking skylight of her lab, striking her in the chest.
And now...she was here. In the hospital bed that they set up in one of the many small labs of STAR Labs.
In a coma.
Just because she had been struck by the lightning didn’t mean she had lost complete awareness, though she probably wouldn't remember most of it when she woke up.
As it was, she drifted in and out, though not enough to fully awaken during her coma.
Sometimes she could hear Joe talking to her.
Other times it was Iris or Felicity.
Sometimes there were others there - she recognized Diggle’s gruff voice, occasionally it was Oliver or Roy.
Every now and then she heard the voice of her idol Dr Wells.
She could never make out what they were saying though. At times she thought she felt a hand brushing back her hair or a press of lips against her own or on her forehead. Other times she had the feeling of her hand being held or someone – Iris? - crying on her shoulder.
Not that she'd remember it.
Though now, she was starting to wake up, slowly rising up from the tranquil nothingness of the coma...
She wouldn't be waking up to the familiarity of the faces or voices of her family and friends.
Right now though she was hearing...Poker Face by Lady Gaga?
No those voices didn’t sound like Iris or Joe or anyone else she knew. Someone - a guy, young maybe her age if his voice was anything to go by - mentioned her Facebook account. She didn’t know that voice...or the woman who replied.
Who were these people?
Abruptly she bolted upright, the sheets pooling around her waist her vision rapidly clearing. It was amazing what adrenaline could do for the system. “Where am I?”
“She’s up!” The guy was staring at her with wide, shocked brown eyes. He was around her height, his shoulder-length black hair framing his round, kind face. The clothing he wore was casual, a nerd shirt like many she herself owned and a pair of comfortable jeans and sneakers.
“Doctor Wells---” The rest of what he was saying was inaudible, a woman – wearing a lab coat, a doctor? - shinning a penlight in her eyes while rattling off Carrie’s pulse rate and other vitals. Auburn hair, styled with a casual elegance that Carrie normally envied, matched by her professional yet feminine clothing.
Carrie jerked back away from the light and the unknown woman, who had long auburn hair and intense green eyes. What was going on? The last clear memory she had was--
--the red lightning bolt.
Coming through the leaking skylight at the lab, hitting her right in the chest--
How had she survived that? Where was she anyway? This wasn’t the hospital, she concluded, looking around with wild blue eyes. She scrambled, trying to climb from the bed, the words of the woman and guy dim in her ears as they tried to calm her.
“Easy, easy! You’re in STAR Labs,” the guy told her.
Well that caught her attention! Her head snapped about to stare at him – standing she found he was maybe an inch or two shorter than she. His dark eyes were certainly earnest...
“STAR Labs?” she echoed. “What? Why? Who are you?”
“I’m Cisco Ramon-” He gestured to himself, and then to the female doctor, “and she’s Caitlin - Dr Snow.”
“I need you to urinate in this.” There was a specimen cup shoved under Carrie’s nose by the pretty, petite older woman.
Thankfully the guy calling himself Cisco took it away from the woman - Dr Snow - telling her not that moment. Automatically Carrie liked this guy. No one should shove those in people’s faces, especially not when they were as confused as she was already.
“As for why....you got struck by lightning.”
Well she knew that much...she could still see that red lightning bolt even when she closed her eyes.
Confused she turned away from them and saw a monitor...that was showing her belly, exposed by the short camisole top she wore.
---when did she have abs like that?!
“....lightning....gave me abs....?” she said in confusion, lifting a hand to touch her stomach in disbelief. She’d never had abs before, not even when she did those gymnastic classes with Iris back in middle school.
Dr Snow came around, gently prodding Carrie’s slender and strangely toned arms. “Your muscles should have atrophied but instead are in a state of some form of chronic, heightened cellular regeneration----”
Cisco guided her away from the confusion that was Dr Snow. “Come over here. Sit down.”
Oh thank God, someone who talked common sense... She started to sink down on the edge of the bed.
“Look...you were in a coma...”
Nope! She was back up on her feet. “What?! For how long?!”
“For nine months.” It was not a voice she had been expecting to hear, one she knew well because of how much she admired the person who spoke - Dr Wells.
Carrie whirled around to see that the doors to the room she was open and in a motorized wheelchair was...Dr Wells? She stared at him in confusion, blinking at him with a poleaxed expression on her face, her hair sticking out in a hellacious case of bedhead. Shivering faintly, she abruptly feeling very cold and exposed in the thin cotton camisole and boy shorts she had been dressed in.
What on Earth was going on? What had happened when the Particle Accelerator malfunctioned?
...she was in her underwear in front of her idol. Her crush. A dark blush crawled up her body, from her belly, up under the camisole, to her hair line. Subconsciously her arms came up, reflexively crossing before her in embarrassment. Oh God, why didn’t that damn lightning bolt just kill her?
“Welcome back, Ms Allen.” He was smiling, his blue eyes glinting behind his glasses. Maybe he wasn’t noticing the fact she was in her underwear. And blushing. Or if he did, he was politely ignoring that. “We have much to discuss.”
The most undignified of whimpers escaped her.
