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So far, death was not all that bad. Neither all that good. It was just a lot of nothing. But not a despair filled pit of blackness that threatened to tear away his sanity. It was more like a Saturday morning on a rainy day; you don’t have really anything urgent to do, so you just burrow into the covers. Not quite sleeping, not awake, just drifting in that feeling of contentment. Maybe it could get boring after one eternity or two.
“Welcome, Eddie Thawne” Or maybe it wouldn’t last that long. He opened his eyes, blinking a couple times to adjust them to the dim light, and one thought assaulted him; the afterlife looked rather futuristic. A bit sterile, not very into warm colors but still comfortably soothing. “You are finally awake; as obvious a statement that is, it is meant to inform you that you were sleeping” Eddie blinked his eyes again, trying to find the source of that voice. “You have slept for eighty nine earth hours; roughly more than three days, I am aware that your people prefer using approximations” that very, oddly mechanical sounding voice. So when he saw a metallic sphere floating above him, flickering what appeared to be a gigantic lens, he wasn’t all that surprised. Still enough to startle and push himself against the headboard. “I sense discomfort; it is your wound causing you pain, Eddie Thawne?” That was the first time since he woke up since he remembered what happened; the pain of realizing it was the only choice, the pain of the bullet searing him open, the pain of Iris crumbling face and falling warm tears.
“I’m dead” That’s what happened, right? The sphere seemed confused. How does a ball look confused? Eddie thought. He sat on the bed, and although he could feel the wound in his chest, it did not cause him pain.
“That is factually inaccurate; Your functions shut down. I repaired you” The sphere moved around, interacting with panels that looked like monitors to Eddie’s understanding.
“I am not a machine” Eddie let that thought simmer in the open “Am I?”
“Yes” Eddie’s eyes widened; the sphere levitated closer, almost excitedly “Humans are organic systems. Nomenclature aside, you are as you have always been… Mechanically speaking” Eddie could almost hear the hesitation on that last phrase. He took a deep breath and tentatively sat in the bed, dangling his legs over the edge. The sphere hovered worriedly, but remained silent as Eddie stood up carefully. The floor did not feel cold, despise looking like tile. He realized he was wearing something like scrub pants, surprisingly normal for how the rest looked -although he could see on a monitor pictures of several different types of medical apparel. He could swear he also saw the white strappings Milla Jovovich used on The Fifth Element. -
“I assume you wish to accustom yourself to your surroundings?” And Eddie could tell the sphere sounded unsure, if still excited; why would a sphere would have emotional responses is something that eluded him, but there was so much he could question without going mad.
“I wanna know what happened” Eddie walked towards the other side of the room, and almost as if sensing him, the wall opened to reveal glass from door to ceiling. And it was magnificent. It was vast and encompassing and infinite. Swirling galaxies miles away, yet so bright that he could swear he could touch them, dotting the infinite blackness of the universe, pinned almost as if by design.
The Sphere took a while to respond, Eddie couldn’t say if it was allowing him to soak in the view or it was trepidation. “Your actions created a paradox within the time-stream. Something that does not exist cannot alter a frame in the linear progression and rewrite causality. Yet your situation, and choice, were dependent of said alteration. Your actions could not exist if Eobard never existed himself ”
Eddie’s head spun a bit, and so did he to face the sphere. He understood, at least he thought so. “So, paradox”
The sphere nodded -bounced- “Thus the universe manifested a singularity. It’s a way to course correct the linear progression, from a point before alteration. So events can unfold as causality dictates.”
“Wouldn’t that mean everything would happen again, the same way” Eddie could feel his head hurt a little, the sphere hovered next to him, as if too wanted to just enjoy the view.
“It would. It did. Several hundred times before Barry Allen managed to reverse the singularity using the speed force”
“He can do that?” Eddie’s eyes widened amazed as the sphere nodded -bobbed-. For a moment, he felt no resentment for his choice. It was the right thing to do. “You said this happened hundreds of times”
“Yes” The sphere sighed -Eddie was sure it was a sigh, or sigh adjacent- “Critical failure had a high probability in every iteration; in more than fifty percent Barry Allen didn’t even live to try to stop the singularity” Eddie gulped, pushing his hand against the transparent surface, a hit of his own reflection doing the same.
“Do I die in every “iteration?” Eddie wasn’t sure what brought that question. As far as he knew, this was all the delusions of a dying mind, or a dream lost in time and space. But as long as he was here, there was no sense in avoiding the scenario.
“Yes” The sphere hovered ecstatic, and Eddie could not decipher what feeling was supposed to conjure. A half spin, almost hectic, and the sphere hushed, definitely conspiratorially. “Do you understand the implications?” Eddie frowned, was his fate to die every time? Was his choice ever his choice? As if feeling the doubt, the sphere shook from side to side. “No only you die every time; every time you do so to stop Eobard. No matter the circumstances, even if you are not close to Barry Allen, it always comes to your choice. I can’t measure your choice by any parameters; it is as if you, Eddie Thawne, are outside causality” The sphere shivered mid air, as if excited. Eddie thought he might opt to feel the same, until realization struck him, and his chest hurt so bad, knowing it was not from his wound.
“If I die every time; does it mean that nowhere, no-when -that I never get a future? So there is no Eddie and Iris that live together, happily after?” Now he felt resentment. The sphere spun, almost unbound, and Eddie was pushed out of his reverie by the frantic humming coming from it.
“Oh, oh Eddie” The sphere was almost unhinged -emotionally unhinged-. “You only met Iris West in 53,7% of the iterations” Eddie was ready to ask how, not willing to believe that even possible, but the sphere wasn’t done “Joe West in 51,7%; Caitlin Snow, 48,9%; Cisco Ramon, 36,2%; David Singh, 29,1%, Laurel Lance 20,2%, Oliver Queen 16,3%, Felicity Smoak 15,6%…” Eddie had to physically stop the sphere from continuing by tapping its lens “Apologies” The sphere took a breath, at least what would be taking a breath for mechanical spheres. “You meet your father in 94,5% of the iterations, your mother in 98,6%” And the sphere actually took a moment to let that sink in “Eobard Thawne; the man you die to stop, you only meet him 98,8% of the iterations. There’s only one person you meet every time, and no matter if you have met him since you were children, or two hours before you die; or if you even like him, you hate him or you love him; you always meet him”
And Eddie had realized who it was before the sphere had finished. It was the only name important enough to all of this that was still missing.
“Barry Allen” The sphere sputtered almost as if unable to hold on to the name a second longer. “It is an statistical impossibility, even when Eobard Thawne never meets him, you do. I don’t know why, my calculations won’t tell me why” And that mechanical voice almost unraveled “You are Barry Allen’s constant”
“I…” Was the only thing Eddie could say, it was also the only thought he could form. I? “I don’t understand; we were never that close…” And Eddie can’t stop the thought of even if I wanted to.
“This time, in this iteration. Every one of them is different, some of them are very much alike, But you always make your way to him, even when causality is against that. I… I can’t explain” And the sphere spun and hovered away from the window, returning to its monitors and displays at the side of Eddie’s bed. “None of this can explain it” Eddie trailed it, his steps as uneasy as he feel, the need to sit weighing him down.
“I can’t… fathom? That. How is that even possible” He dropped into the bed, his elbows resting on his thighs as his hands held his head, almost keeping it from falling. As the sphere was ready to interject, he continued “Rhetorical. I get it. You can’t explain” He just sat there, for what seemed hours, maybe seconds? He really doesn’t know. How? How? Why?… Is there a reason why the universe wants me to keep running into Barry? He remembered his smile, and the way just looking at his face made him think the world was a good place after all. It wasn’t love, perhaps not even attraction -perhaps- but it was contentment, warm; the reason why he was drawn to seek him out. Apparently, in every timeline. In a weird way, he almost felt that he was cheating on Iris. He touched his chest, and the love he felt for her was still there, still as bright and shiny and hot. Whatever Barry made him feel, at least this version of him, wasn’t like that; at least, he never bothered to think if there was any overlap.
Still, one pressing issue remained unsolved. “Does any of this matter at this point? As far as I understand, every version of me dies -is dead. Figuratively, this me is dead for the world too. What, what even happens now?” And with this, the Sphere lost it. Literally, it lost its physical form. It crumbled on a heap of circuits and pieces on the floor, and Eddie jerked backwards, ready to loose it to.
“This is the moment when our action is required” The voice then sounded all around him, as the floor itself collected the scraps in the floor and neatly put them into a compartment in the wall. Eddie could see a red light pop on the wall, humming softly. “We are moving towards the singularity” Eddie sat in the bed, as the ship -because if this whole thing is moving, it must be some sort of ship, right?- And not a couple of seconds later, he could see the tremulous swirl of matter and electricity and energy and god knows what else dancing in front of him through the window. “Even if Barry Allen managed to close the singularity from his end, it still exists outside the timestream, where we are. With you gone, there’s no Eobard Thawne, there’s no Reverse Flash, Barry Allen doesn’t loose his mother so he never travels back in time to save her, so this singularity cannot exist. It literally cannot exist” But it does, remained unsaid.
“So, we have to travel in time to stop Wells- Thawne, without me killing -myself?” Eddie wanted to lie down, but he was too electrified with everything happening. The voice actually laughed this time.
“If only it were that simple. Oh, you are indeed right, but we have to stop Eobard Thawne in every iteration of the time-line” Eddie could only make an O shape with his mouth “When you went through the singularity, you became every Eddie Thawne before you in the linear progression, because the singularity is, has always been, the same. Here, outside time. The only way to close the singularity for sure, it’s to prevent it from ever been created, in every iteration”
“Do we have… time to do that?” Eddie now could literally feel his head hurt, and things where starting to look too bright around him. But he was elated, he would see Iris again, feel her skin under his fingertips, hear her laugh and smell his scent, his green eyes and his warm smile under his own lips.
“It would be impossible; every one of them is happening at the same time, so we have to be there, on all three hundred forty seven of them, at the same time” Eddie tried to ask something else, but the headache was now too much, and everything really, really bright. He could see the singularity almost in front of him, taking the whole space of the window, its maw open, hungry and black. Only the thought of seeing Barry again made him not avert his gaze. No, not Barry, Iris, that’s the one he loved. Her dark eyes, warm and shiny, her laugh, the one she only saved for him, how she chose him even when fate told her that Barry was her future. He smiled, and he could see her behind the blond wig and mask, kissing him hard as he removed his hood dropping his bow, Laurel… “The same way you became every Eddie Thawne when you went through the singularity, you will return to be each one of them… “
It was too bright, only the mouth of the singularity the only point of darkness, purple and swirling in front of him. The walls themselves now seemed reflective, and now he could see every version of Eddie Thawne that existed by his side, sitting in the same reflected bed. He tried to remember which one was him, but he was all of them, and for one second he remembered three hundred forty seven lifetimes that he could not believe were his own. He was a cop many times, many others he was a criminal, in others he was still in college, or working on a coffee shop, in ones he was an emerald archer, in other he was the Flash, in some of them he was a father, in other a mother, an uncle; sometimes loved, hated, ignored. He was so many things he felt infinite, and every time he saw Iris his heart swelled, and it did the same when he saw Barry, and Caitlin, and Cisco, and Oliver, Laurel, Felicity, Shawna, Tommy. For a second he thought he could love the entire world, because he had loved so much.
“We are close; remain calm, this will pass soon” But Eddie didn’t want it to pass, even heartache was beautiful reflected within himself. He felt almost hundred times voices telling him not to go “I will find you. Sometimes you will remember, sometimes you won’t, let’s hope I can convince you”
“How will you find me? Where will I end up?” And it was a choir, and all Eddie’s voices were beautiful.
“Your constant, Barry Allen. You will arrive at the moment you met him, I will find you after that” Eddie smiled, because if some of him hated him, most Eddies loved him, and all of them smiled. “Be prepared Eddie Thawne; you have to save the world three hundred forty seven more times”
“Well, I am a hero”
“Well, I am a hero” And it was odd for Eddie that his head felt so empty, wasn’t it supposed to feel like a choir, like there was… The sound of the radio snapped him back to reality. “Yeah, on it” He responded assuredly starting the police car and making his way to the location. The thug jumped the fence Eddie could get out of the car, but the police lights scared the criminal enough to make him doubt and waste time deciding where to run. Thirty seconds later, Eddie had the thug pushed down the damp asphalt, his hand expertly putting handcuffs.
“There he is!” He heard a woman’s voice approaching as he picked up the thief “Thank you so much” She nodded politely and he smiled, must be the victim, he thought. Then Eddie noticed the lanky guy behind her, his nose still bleeding.
“Are you alright?” The guy nodded at his question, his cheeks flustered, and Eddie was surprised by the sudden reverberation he felt in his head.
“Barry here tried to stop him” Iris said slightly apologetic, slightly teasing. Eddie smiled at him. Barry. The guy looked so embarrassed Eddie just wanted to… He caught himself smiling so hard he could see the woman and Barry giving him a strange look.
“Alright, let’s meet at the station so you can get your bag back miss, you know how to get there?” The woman nodded.
“Barry works there, my dad too. Don’t worry” Ah, perhaps Det. West’s daughter. Eddie nodded at them, but before leaving, and not really sure what impulsed him to do so, he took his handkerchief and put him on Barry’s hand, unable to stop himself from lingering there. Apparently, it was so obvious the woman had to cough. Eddie quickly let go, still relishing in the fact that Barry’s checks seemed to be more flustered.
“Sorry for being late” Eddie said, unable to hide the smile that formed in his lips.