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Joe was actually surprised at how quickly he had been able to separate the man that they now knew as Harrison Wells from the one who had turned out to be Eobard Thawne. There was something about how he carried himself, the way he used his face, the way he talked. Where Thawne had been reserved in a calculating and observant way, Harrison was quiet in an uncertain way, as if he had no idea where he stood with the people around him. Which was fair enough, Joe supposed, since none of them had any idea where they stood with him either. Futuristic body-snatching that wound up looking a lot like old-school demonic possession was kind of a new area for all of them.
But the more he observed him, the easier it became to think of Harrison Wells as a completely different man. There was a vulnerability about him that Joe had never seen with Thawne. He’d gotten a hint of it when Thawne had used his memories of Wells’ dead wife to try and manipulate him into backing off his investigation, but there had been something off about that. Joe had been taken in by it at the time, but the fact that Thawne only ever seemed to bring up Tess Morgan when Joe’s trust in him was wavering had been a red flag. Harrison, however, genuinely seemed like a man who had been hurt, who had lost people. His smile was wistful, his eyes pained when he looked at Barry, at Cisco, at Caitlin. Their pain hurt him.
As a result, Joe found himself feeling strangely protective of this new Harrison Wells. Sudden upwellings of protective feelings were nothing new to Joe, given his tendency to parent any young person that he came across, but Harrison wasn’t exactly a young person. In fact, Joe was pretty certain that he was actually a few years younger than Harrison if one were to actually count birthdays. But the fifteen years he had lost to Eobard Thawne meant that Harrison seemed younger than he actually was. Which wasn’t all that surprising, considering that his last genuine memories were of being thirty-something and losing the love of his life in a car crash before being attacked and murdered himself. That was bound to affect someone deeply.
So Joe found himself sending encouraging looks Harrison’s way whenever he tried to engage with Cisco or Barry or Caitlin. The continued presence of Martin Stein was also helpful, as Harrison became remarkably animated when talking about science things and Professor Stein was one of the few people who could keep up with him. The man had obviously been a genius even before he had been body-snatched by a time-travelling madman from the future, and Joe knew that genius-types thrived on intellectual stimulation.
A few days after Caitlin had declared Harrison recovered enough from his injuries to leave his makeshift hospital room, Joe decided that it was about time he took over the attempts to get him back on his feet. He’d noticed that Harrison still hadn’t left STAR Labs, put two and two together and realised that this was because he didn’t want to return to the house that his impostor had been living in. Joe could understand that, but it just wasn’t feasible in the long term. Whether he liked it or not, Harrison was going to have to leave the building eventually. Realising that he wasn’t going to do it of his own accord, Joe decided to take matters into his own hands.
When he eventually tracked him down, Harrison was working on a computer in one of the lower level labs that Joe had assumed were no longer in use. Apparently this wasn’t the case. Or, at least, wasn’t the case any more. He knocked on the doorframe, and Harrison turned around with an inquiring look on his face.
“Hey, Doc,” he said. What’re you doing down here? There’re plenty of perfectly good computers upstairs, aren’t there?” Harrison conceded the point by pulling a face in agreement, and then chuckled. That was potentially a good sign, Joe thought.
“You have a point, Detective, but I was finding it a bit crowded up in the Cortex. Down here I can get some space, as well as some peace and quiet.” Joe was grateful that Harrison had provided such an easy opening for what he wanted to say.
“You know, there’s a much easier way to get space, and that’s actually leaving the building. It’s been over a week, Harrison.” He deliberately used the man’s first name, something he had never done with the fake Wells. Harrison sighed, and rubbed his eyes under his glasses.
“That’s easier said than done. In case you’re forgetting, I’ve got a pretty recognisable face, and the world associates that face with a man who is paralysed and uses a wheelchair. I’m not all that keen on having to continue that deception.”
“I get that,” said Joe, leaning against the doorframe. “But I’m not saying you should necessarily go out in public. You do have a house that you could go to.”
“That’s the other problem,” Harrison said, with a bitter expression. “It’s not my house.”
“But it could be,” said Joe, and Harrison looked up at him skeptically. “I mean it. I’ve been to that house, and it’s got next to no personality. Thawne barely lived in it- he spent most of his time here at the lab. Paint the walls, replace the furniture, hell, even just leave some stuff lying around and it’ll start to look like yours in no time.”
“I will admit, I’ve been thinking about doing that,” said Harrison. “But thinking about it and actually going back there are two different matters entirely.” He looked down at his hands and fidgeted with his thumbs.
“What if I went with you?” Joe asked, and Harrison looked back up, suddenly. The expression on his face was surprised, but also grateful.
“You would do that for me?”
“Sure. What are friends for?” Harrison frowned.
“I’d hardly call you and Thawne friends.” Joe gave him a look.
“I’m not talking about Thawne, I’m talking about you. Who cares what I thought about Thawne? You’re not him. Besides, me not being friends with Thawne is probably a good thing. I don’t have nearly as much painful history with the guy as Barry or Cisco or Caitlin does. I look at you and I see a man who had his whole life ripped away from him and is struggling to build a new one. You’re as much the victim here as anyone else. If not more so.” The expression on Harrison’s face was hard to read, but his eyes were bright and damp beneath his glasses.
“Thank you, Joe,” he said, heartfeltly. “I really appreciate that.” Joe waved a hand in a ‘think nothing of it’ gesture.
“Hey, it’s what I do. Now, what say we go and check out this new house of yours?” Harrison hit a few keys to turn off his computer, stood up, and smiled.
“I’d say that sounds like an excellent idea.”
----
Some time later, Joe and Harrison pulled up outside the house that was technically Harrison’s. After some messing around with the wheelchair, during which they discovered that Harrison was nowhere near as good at faking paralysis as Thawne had been, they finally approached the front door. Joe looked down at Harrison, who looked distinctly uncomfortable.
“You remember the keys? Or am I going to have to use my decades of experience dealing with folks on the wrong side of the law and break in?” The joke lightened the mood slightly, but Harrison’s small smile didn’t quite reach his eyes, which were wide and nervous.
“I’m not sure if I can do this, Joe,” he said, his voice small and wavering slightly.
“Sure you can. Just think of it as moving into a new house.”
“But I’ve got all his memories of the place.”
“Okay, moving into a house that you’ve visited a bunch of times.” Joe wasn’t going to let him turn back now, whether Harrison liked it or not. He put his hand on Harrison’s shoulder, and the other man flinched slightly, and looked up at him. “Hey, I’ve got your back.” Harrison pressed his lips together, nodded slightly, squared his shoulders, and took a deep breath. He then toggled his chair forward, and the large front doors of the house opened automatically, apparently sensing some sort of beacon in the chair. Joe couldn’t help but be impressed. He may have been a liar and a murderer, but Thawne had known how to spend his money on a cool house.
His face set in a determined expression, Harrison wheeled forward into the large hallway. Joe followed a few paces behind, glancing around briefly as the doors closed smoothly behind him. He then turned back to Harrison, who had paused with his hands on the arms of his wheelchair.
“You okay?” Harrison nodded, but didn’t otherwise move.
“Yeah, it’s just… Thawne had this routine that he always followed when he got back here. It’s a hard habit to break.”
“What was the routine?” Joe asked, curious, figuring that keeping Harrison talking would help him to stay focussed in the present moment.
“He’d get up out of the chair, switch the lights on, pick up the remote from that shelf,” Harrison indicated with a brief tilt of his head. “Switch on the sound system, which was usually set up for classical music of some description, and then go into the kitchen and pour himself a drink.” Joe smiled.
“Now you’re talking. I’m not technically on the clock, so a drink sounds pretty good right about now. This way?” He pointed, and Harrison nodded, still not shifting from his otherwise frozen position. “So why’d he have such a specific routine?” Joe asked, as he retrieved the decanter from the top of the bar-like kitchen unit.
“It helped him break character, adjust to being alone again. Also, he had the same sorts of problems with overwhelming stimuli that I do, so it helped him to calm down after a long day of dealing with people.” Harrison gave a humourless chuckle. “I wonder if he picked that up from me, or if it was something he dealt with before he stole my life?” Joe had been looking around for some glasses while Harrison spoke, and quickly located them on one of the other counters. He turned to Harrison.
“You want a drink?” Harrison shook his head emphatically. “Don’t suppose you mind if I…?”
“Be my guest,” said Harrison. “I don’t think I want to touch another glass of bourbon in my life.”
“Seems a shame to miss out,” said Joe, sniffing his drink appreciatively. “But I can understand that. So, you gonna get out of that chair or what?” Harrison looked down, and seemed to only just realise that he was still sitting frozen in his wheelchair.
“Oh, right.” He relaxed his shoulders a little and stood up, slowly and carefully. It was a sight that Joe still found strange, but he smiled encouragingly at Harrison. Glancing nervously around the open plan house, Harrison folded his arms around his chest. It made him look far smaller and more vulnerable than than Joe would have thought possible for a man of his age and height. Joe sighed internally, and put down his glass. He’d expected that he’d have to guide Harrison through this, but he’d held out a little hope that the man would be a bit more proactive. Thawne had really done a number on him…
Shrugging off his suit jacket and hanging it on one of the pegs in the hall, Joe started to roll up his sleeves.
“What are you…?” Harrison asked, confused.
“We’re here to clean this place out, aren’t we? If you’re going to move in, we need to get rid of the old resident’s stuff. Not that he had much stuff,” Joe admitted, “But we gotta start somewhere. So, pick a room.” Harrison nodded, his arms falling back to his sides. He looked more focussed now that he had a specific goal.
“It makes sense to start in the kitchen. There’s food still in the refrigerator that’ll have gone off by now.”
“Okay, then. Now, where did he keep the trash bags…?”
----
It didn’t take long for Joe and Harrison working together to clean out the refrigerator of all the food that had gone off. Thawne hadn’t been much of a cook, it seemed, as there were more microwave meals and boxed takeaway leftovers in the fridge-freezer than anything else. Some of it could probably still have been eaten, but Joe declared that a clean start was required and threw it all out. Harrison didn’t object, and in fact was rather enthusiastic in dumping the lot of it in the trash. After they’d cleared the fridge, they emptied the cupboards as well, although there wasn’t much in those either. Joe hadn’t been exaggerating when he said that Thawne had barely lived there.
Once the kitchen was clear, they moved on to the rest of the house. The living room was mostly devoid of personal effects, except for the large DVD collection. Harrison debated getting rid of it, but then decided against it.
“I think the best thing I can do is rewatch all of these so I can form my own opinions on them,” he said, and Joe agreed. He then suggested that Harrison ask Cisco to join him in that endeavour, since watching movies was one of the things he did with Thawne. Harrison objected at first, on the grounds that surely that would be unpleasantly familiar for him, but Joe claimed otherwise.
“It’ll help him as much as it’ll help you to replace the old memories with new ones.” Harrison promised to think about it, and they moved on from the living room.
Up next was the dining room, which had obviously seen next to no use. After all, Thawne wasn’t exactly the type to host dinner parties. They then binned everything that they found in the bathroom, and moved on to the slightly harder rooms; the study, and the bedroom.
Thawne’s study was one of the few rooms of the house that didn’t look like a showroom. There were papers everywhere, covered in untidy, spiky handwriting that was simultaneously just like Harrison’s and quite different. Blueprints and sketches were scattered on all the surfaces as well, and that was one area where Harrison and Eobard distinctly differed. Harrison found a crumpled sheet of paper on the floor, and held it up to show Joe.
“Well, there’s at least one aspect of my life that Thawne wasn’t able to steal.”
“What’s that?” said Joe, looking at the untidy sketches of a building that looked like it may have been meant to be STAR Labs.
“He never picked up my ability to draw.” Joe smiled, surprised.
“You can draw, too? What is it with you genius types and being good at everything?” Harrison snorted.
“Everything academic, perhaps. Everything social, not so much.” Joe laughed.
“You said it, not me. So, what are we doing with all these papers?”
“Keeping them, I’d say. I think Thawne owes me a few ideas at this point, don’t you? But let’s file them away for now.”
Once they’d finally loaded all of Thawne’s papers and blueprints into the various filing cabinets in the study, they finally moved on to the bedroom. Harrison paused in the doorway, and Joe turned to look at him.
“What? Awkward memories?” Joe threw a meaningful glance at the bed, and Harrison actually blushed.
“No, no, nothing like that. Thawne never did anything in here but sleep but… that’s kind of the problem. He actually spent time in here. It’s probably the one room of the house, other than the study, that has any sort of personality.”
“Well,” said Joe, waving the trash bag he was carrying, “Let’s do something about that.” Harrison gave him a small smile. He stepped over the threshold into the bedroom, and his eyes were immediately drawn to the picture frame on the dresser. It was the only one in the entire house that actually held a photo. Without being quite aware he was doing it, Harrison walked over, picked up the picture and stared down at it.
“What’s that?” Joe asked, curious. “Harrison? he asked, when Harrison didn’t respond.
“Oh, uh...” he mumbled, and held out the picture for Joe to see. The photo depicted Cisco, Barry and Caitlin, all grinning broadly. In front of them, included in the group photo as if he were a true member of the team, was Thawne, doing his best ‘enigmatic scientist’ smile. Harrison frowned at it. He’d never understood the concept of having a ‘photo smile’. He just grinned broadly. Yet another way in which Thawne differed from him, he supposed. The other man had been very precise and in conscious control of his facial expressions, using them to specifically communicate rather than just pulling faces that corresponded with his mood.
“So,” said Joe quietly, breaking Harrison out of his thoughts. “What are you gonna do with it?” Harrison frowned down at the picture.
“I… don’t know. Even though it’s him and not me, I don’t really want to get rid of it.”
“Throw it in the attic box, then,” said Joe, indicating the small cardboard box they had retrieved from the study for that very purpose. Harrison walked over to the bed and gently placed the picture inside. He might have got caught up in staring at the photo for a little longer, had he not been distracted by Joe bursting out laughing. Harrison turned around, saw what Joe had found so funny and couldn’t help but smile himself. On the back of the bedroom door, which Joe had just pushed closed, was a large Back to the Future poster. Joe pointed to it, went to say something, and just started giggling again. It was infectious, and Harrison found himself laughing as well. Eventually, Joe wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and managed to say “I don’t know why I find that so funny…”
“There is something highly entertaining about a supervillain who was stranded in the past being excessively fond of a movie with a similar premise,” Harrison agreed, his own grin still on his face.
“That time he randomly did a Doc Brown impression… Thawne always seemed kinda serious. I should have known Cisco and Barry would rub off on him.”
“It wasn’t just them- Back to the Future has always been one of my favourite movies. That’s actually my poster, from, well, before.”
“I thought it looked kind of old,” said Joe. “I take it that one’s a keeper?” Harrison nodded, his grin fading slightly. Joe obviously noticed, because his expression became more serious as well. “Hey. We can take a break if you need to.”
“No, no,” Harrison said hurriedly. “We’ve started so we might as well finish. The closet’s up next, I would say.” He brushed quickly past Joe and opened the closet doors. Surprise, surprise, every single thing in the small assortment of clothing items was either black or grey.
“So, what are we doing with this lot, then?” Joe asked. “You sticking with the black thing?” Harrison went to shake his head, almost reconsidered, and then shook his head firmly.
“No, I’m not. It may have been something I would have decided on if it had been me, but that doesn’t change the fact that it was Thawne’s decision. I’ll keep it up in public for a while, since ‘Harrison Wells’,” he made quotation marks with his fingers, “has quite a recognisable image. But long term I’ll need to figure out what I’m comfortable with wearing.”
“Sounds like a plan,” said Joe. “So, leaving the clothes for now. Gotcha.” Harrison nodded, and then caught sight of something at the back of the closet and froze. “Harrison?” Joe asked.
“That box…” he trailed off. Joe followed his gaze and, obviously realising that Harrison wasn’t going to do it himself, retrieved the box from it’s resting place behind a pair of black sneakers.
“Mind if I…?” Joe asked.
“Go ahead,” said Harrison quietly, staring at the cardboard box as Joe set it down on the bed and opened it. Carefully, he lifted out the various items inside and placed them on the bed. There was a stack of photographs held together with a rubber band, a bundle of assorted ticket stubs, a small drawstring bag, several paper tubes that looked like rolled up posters, and a large cardboard folder. Joe opened the folder first, having a careful flick through the papers inside.
Harrison, of course, knew exactly what was in that folder, exactly what was in the entire box. With the exception of the Back to the Future poster on the back of the door, that box contained the sum total of the items that Eobard had retained from Harrison’s life before he had taken it over. The folder that Joe was currently thumbing through contained all the various scientific rewards Harrison had ever received, right down to his college diploma.
“So this is the stuff he kept to help him pretend to be you?” Joe asked, still looking down at the various documents and certificates. Harrison nodded, and then remembered that Joe wasn’t actually looking at him and thus wouldn’t have seen the gesture. He cleared his throat.
“Yeah, that’s right. I think he was worried about how well he’d retain my memories, so he kept ahold of all of this as insurance.” Joe pulled a ‘makes sense’ face.
Realising that he was still standing frozen by the closet, Harrison walked over and sat down on the bed next to the carefully laid out records of his past. With a fond smile, he picked up the bundle of ticket stubs and started shuffling through them. Star Wars, Star Wars, Star Wars, Alien, Star Wars again… He held up a few to show Joe.
“Guess how many times I went to see Star Wars in total,” he asked.
“I don’t think I want to know…” Joe said, with a laugh.
“The grand total across all three original films was 47.”
“You should not sound quite so pleased with yourself for that.” But it was obvious Joe was joking around, rather than actively making fun of him.
Putting down the ticket stubs, Harrison looked at the small drawstring bag and frowned. By this point Joe had finished looking through the folder, and placed it gently back in the box. He looked up at Harrison, and saw him staring.
“What’s up?” Harrison indicated the drawstring bag.
“Those are the dice I used to use for playing tabletop games.”
“So what’s the problem?” Joe looked puzzled, not understanding. Harrison sighed.
“Did Barry ever mention the time that he, Caitlin and Cisco played Dungeons and Dragons with Thawne?” Comprehension dawned on Joe’s face.
“Oh, I get it. Thawne used your dice for that game. And that makes it weird, because now there are associations that aren’t from your own memories.”
“Exactly.”
“Well, it’s like you said with the movies. If you watch them again for yourself, it’ll override the memories of Thawne doing it. All you have to do is set up another game with Barry, Cisco and Caitlin.”
“I’m not sure any of them are going to be in a gaming mood any time soon,” Harrison said, sadly.
“No, but give them time.” Joe pointed at the stack of photographs. “So, do I get to see embarrassing Eighties college pictures or what?”
----
Joe watched as Harrison carefully removed the rubber band from around the stack of old photos. He seemed slightly reluctant, and Joe realised that that was probably because he knew exactly what the photos were. Maybe this wasn’t the best idea…
“Hey, we don’t have to look at them if you don’t…” Harrison shook his head quickly.
“No, I want to show you. Someone other than me and, well, him, needs to see these.” Joe nodded gently and shifted position so he could see the photos properly.
Harrison lifted the small piece of paper that had been used to protect the top photo from the rubber band, and snorted with amusement. The photo was old, probably dating back to the 70s judging by the colours, and depicted a gangly teenaged boy dressed in the distinctive white costume of Luke Skywalker and posing with what looked to be a homemade lightsaber. Joe put a hand over his mouth to stifle a snigger when he saw the dark hair and large-framed glasses and realised who this must be.
“That’s you!” he said through his hand, delighted. Harrison grinned.
“I saw the Star Wars films 47 times, remember? Luke was my hero as a teenager, as I suppose must have been true of most people my age at that time. And one tends to want to emulate one’s heroes.” Joe giggled, and made a motion with his hands imitating the way that teenaged Harrison was holding his lightsaber. Harrison rolled his eyes amusedly, and tucked the photo to the bottom of the stack.
The next photo was obviously from Harrison’s graduation from high school, and Joe was unsurprised to see how young he looked. In the photo, he was stood in between a middle-aged couple that Joe assumed were his parents from the family resemblance, and all three of them were smiling broadly. Harrison was all limbs, and was already towering over his mother and as tall as his father.
“So, what age did you graduate at?” Joe asked. “Because you definitely don’t look 18.” Harrison laughed.
“No, I really don’t. I was 16 when I graduated. I could have done it earlier, but no college would take a fifteen year old no matter how smart he apparently was.”
The next few photographs were all the distinctive size of Polaroids, and had apparently been taken while Harrison was at college. Joe picked one up to take a closer look, and Harrison gestured to it.
“My roommate had a Polaroid camera and was always taking pictures of people. He was quite sneaky about it, though, so you’d only learn that he’d taken your photo when he dropped a bundle of them on your bed. If I remember correctly, he did go on to become an actual photographer.”
“Quite the partier, weren’t you?” Joe joked, indicating the subject of the photo, which was a still very young-looking Harrison staring intently at a piece of paper on his desk, chewing on a pencil, surrounded by textbooks with titles that Joe could barely pronounce, let alone understand.
“You say that now,” Harrison said, holding up a finger in mock-seriousness, “But I’ll have you know that I had quite the social life.” He pointed down at one of the other Polaroids, which depicted a group of people sat on a mismatch of chairs and sprawled on the floor around what looked like a boardgame of some description. “The weekly games of Dungeons and Dragons that we hosted in the common room were the highlight of the social calendar.” Joe gave Harrison a ‘really?’ look, and his serious expression cracked into a broad grin. “Okay, I was a huge nerd with no life. But at least I was enjoying myself.”
Shuffling through the rest of the Polaroids revealed various entertaining images of typical 80s college life. The most entertaining, however, were a pair of photos, the first of which showed Harrison enthusiastically gesturing at some manner of apparatus that he had set up. The second showed him attacking the same apparatus with a fire extinguisher as it enthusiastically blazed away with oddly red flames. Both Joe and Harrison had a good laugh at that one.
After the Polaroids was another graduation photo with Harrison’s parents, and this time Harrison actually looked like he was old enough to be there. The other thing that was different was a sudden increase in quantity of hair. Joe declined to comment on this, however, as that topic of conversation would end up embarrassing them both. He hadn’t made the most sound hair-related decisions in the 80s either.
It was at this point that Harrison paused before putting the graduation photo to the bottom of the pile. He looked up at Joe, and answered the unspoken question.
“I met Tess in grad school.” He then took a deep breath and shuffled the graduation photo to the bottom of the stack. The new top photo once again depicted a group of people playing some sort of tabletop game. Harrison was easy to spot, what with the large glasses and mess of dark hair, and there was a blonde woman sitting next to him that Joe was pretty sure he recognised. She was much younger than in the photos that had been attached to the publications Joe had tracked down when investigating Thawne-as-Harrison-Wells, but he was pretty certain that was Tess Morgan.
“Is that…?” he asked. Harrison nodded, and then smiled fondly.
“This was actually the first time we met. It was the first meeting of the tabletop games club, and I was the only one who laughed when she made a truly appalling science joke. Needless to say, we hit it off instantly as a result. We wound up spending pretty much all our time together, and when we picked up Tina as well… Well, the three of us were pretty much inseparable for the entirety of grad school.”
“Wait, Tina? As in Christina McGee, the head of Mercury Labs?” Joe asked, remembering that Dr McGee had mentioned a history with Dr Wells when they had been tricked into acquiring her tachyon prototype on behalf of Thawne. Harrison nodded.
“One and the same. She was Tess’s roommate, and she and I were TAs for the same professor, so it all happened very naturally.” Harrison shuffled to the next picture and gestured at the three figures it depicted. Tess was in the middle, with one arm around Harrison and the other around a woman that, after a moment or two, Joe recognised as a younger, brown-haired Christina McGee.
“Didn’t she find it a bit awkward, being the third wheel to you and Tess?” Harrison looked surprised by the question.
“Oh no, we were very much a tricycle. Tess and I weren’t actually a couple at that point. Actually,” Harrison laughed, “We didn’t decide we were a couple until we were about 30.” Now it was Joe’s turn to look surprised. “Neither Tess nor I were interested in anything other than a friend at that point in our lives. Despite all the assumptions that we were dating, we were never anything other than the best of friends until much later on. And when we were in grad school, Tina was as much a part of that relationship as either of us. Of course, we naturally grew slightly apart when she decided that she wanted to pursue different research to Tess and I, but that was Tina for you. Always following her own path. She remained our best friend, though, even when we weren’t seeing her every day.” Harrison’s face fell. “That’s one of the many things I regret, that Thawne pushed Tina away. But I’m glad she did well for herself. Mercury Labs is quite the accomplishment.”
Joe decided not to say anything just yet because he didn’t want to get Harrison’s hopes up, but he and Barry had been discussing the possibility of bringing Tina McGee into their circle of confidence. It would help to have the resources of Mercury Labs behind them if they needed them, plus it would be a huge benefit to Harrison if he was able to reconnect with someone who had known him before Thawne had stolen his life.
The sound of shifting paper brought his attention back to the photographs. Harrison was now staring wistfully down at a picture of himself and Tess wearing winter clothes and surrounded by snow. Joe noticed something strange, and peered more closely at the image.
“Is that snow in her hood?”
“Oh, uh, yes. Yes it is,” said Harrison, smiling again, although the expression was still slightly wistful. “She’d pushed me headfirst into a snowdrift earlier in the day. My revenge wasn’t particularly swift, but it was incredibly satisfying.” Joe chuckled.
The next few pictures were equally adorable, and Joe found himself wishing that he’d had a chance to meet Tess for himself. From the photos and the accompanying stories, she seemed like a wonderful woman. And she and Harrison had been perfect for each other, something that was made especially evident by what seemed to be the last photo in the stack: Tess and Harrison, both dressed as Jedi, standing in the queue for the midnight premier of Star Wars Episode I.
Harrison froze again at this point, his hand poised to lift the photo off the top of the pile. After a few seconds, he finally moved it, revealing a white envelope that had been hidden at the bottom of the stack. Written on the front, in a tidy cursive that obviously wasn’t Harrison’s handwriting, was the label ‘Wedding Photos’. Harrison ran a finger gently over the words, and Joe realised that Tess must have been the one who wrote them.
“So,” said Joe, gently. “How long did it take for you two to realise marriage was a thing?”
“Huh? Oh,” said Harrison, and chuckled slightly. “You’re right, we pretty much forgot that getting married was something that people did. We’d been living together for so long, and it would have changed so little about how our lives worked, that it never really occurred to us. That is, until Tess’s mom dropped a few unsubtle hints.”
“So when was the wedding?” Joe asked.
“October, 1999,” said Harrison, staring wistfully into the middle distance with his fingers still hovering over the text on the envelope.
“But that means…”
“That we were only married for four months, yes. We were actually on our honeymoon when, well…” Harrison’s voice tailed off. Mentioning the car crash that had killed Tess was obviously still too painful for him.
“I was wondering what you two were doing out near Starling City, since you worked back in Maryland. Seems a bit of a strange honeymoon destination.” Harrison smiled slightly.
“A bit, yes. But it was actually just one stop on an around the country road trip. Tess and I always enjoyed travelling, and we also used the trip to scout out potential future lab sites. It was during that trip that we decided that Central City was the perfect location for what eventually became STAR Labs.” Joe chuckled slightly.
“If I’ve learned anything about you two from these photos, it’s that you don’t know how to separate work and fun.” He held up a hand to stall the inevitable response. “And yes, I know that ‘science is fun’- Barry always used to say the same thing when I found him in his room doing what looked like homework in the middle of summer vacation.”
“Sounds like a true scientist to me,” said Harrison, his smile widening slightly. There was a pause as Harrison continued staring into space, seemingly on the verge of getting lost in memories. Joe hated to prompt him to do something that would probably make his smile disappear again, but Harrison had seemed pretty adamant about showing him all of the photos. So he gestured to the envelope in the other man’s hands.
“So, we still planning on looking at those wedding photos?”
Harrison’s gaze dropped back to the envelope, which he then picked up very gently, as if it was impossibly fragile, and handed to Joe. “Could you…?” Joe instantly picked up on what wasn’t being said, and nodded.
Carefully, he opened the envelope and slid out the small bundle of photographs. At first glance, it was obvious that they weren’t the professional, posed wedding photos that one tended to see.
“Who took the photos?” Joe asked, looking at the first one, which was of a small crowd of people in varying degrees of formalwear standing outside what looked like a large stately home. From the colour of the leaves on the trees, it looked to be fall.
“I don’t think it was any one person,” said Harrison. “It was my camera, but it got passed around all day.” He wasn’t quite looking at the photo, instead staring down at his hands in his lap while he fidgeted with his fingers and snuck occasional glances out of the corner of his eye. Joe just adjusted the way he was holding the photos to make sure that Harrison could see them if he wanted to, and started looking through them.
The first few seemed to be from before the ceremony started, as they mostly depicted people milling around and chatting. He recognised a few faces from some of the other photos, chief among them Tina McGee. He didn’t see Harrison’s parents, though, and, combined with the fact that Harrison had only mentioned Tess’s mom earlier, realised that meant that they probably weren’t still around. That was bittersweet, in a way, because, although they had missed their son’s wedding, they had escaped the ordeal of him apparently losing his wife in a car crash and pushing everyone he knew out of his life.
Speaking of parents, he also quickly identified a woman who bore a distinct resemblance to Tess. Harrison confirmed with a small nod that that was indeed his soon to be mother-in-law. Entertainingly, she was the most formally dressed of everyone present, complete with a fancy hat.
A few photos in, Joe spotted Harrison, who had his arm around Tina and was talking animatedly to an older, grey haired man. When Harrison glanced at that particular photo, he quietly explained that that was the professor that he and Tina had worked for during grad school. Compared to the professor, who was very neat and presentable, and Tina who was immaculate as always, Harrison looked slightly out of place. He was wearing a dark grey suit and a white shirt, with a distinct lack of a tie of any sort, and his hair looked like it hadn’t seen a brush in a number of days. Somehow it worked for him, though, and Joe now understood why the guests varied so much in their choice of clothing.
He turned to the next photo, and there she was: the bride herself, wearing a light blue sundress, loose hair, and an incredibly bright smile. Joe couldn’t help but smile himself, and when he glanced around at Harrison he saw that he’d abandoned his fidgeting and was now staring directly at the photographs. His eyes were red, and he was obviously on the verge of tears. That was a good thing, Joe thought, although it always pained him to see another person upset. He had no idea if Harrison had allowed himself to properly cry during the past week, but it was the only way that he was going to start to heal.
“Can I…?” he asked softly, motioning to turn to the next picture. Harrison gave the tiniest of nods, and sniffed loudly.
The next photo was of the ceremony itself, although the photographer had apparently been too caught up in the emotion of it all to capture the exact ‘you may kiss the bride’ moment. Instead, the photo showed Tess and Harrison standing in front of the minister and hugging each other tightly. Harrison was obviously making an attempt to lift Tess up, as her feet were slightly off the ground and she was laughing. His glasses had also been knocked squint, and he was beaming broadly. After so many months of associating Harrison’s face with the stoic, calculating personality of Eobard Thawne, the wide, bright smile was a strange thing to see. But it was the good sort of strange. Hopefully, Harrison would eventually find new things to smile about.
Joe flipped through the next few photos, which were a bit more posed than the others. Someone had obviously decided that they wanted to get a group photo of the whole wedding party, so all the guests had assembled under the spreading branches of a large tree. Since he was unfamiliar with the majority of the guests, he wasn’t aware of the context for the various smaller group photos that followed, but he appreciated them nonetheless.
He slowed down when he reached a photo of Tess, Tina and Harrison which was reminiscent of the college one he had seen earlier. The wind had apparently picked up, and Tess was now wearing Harrison’s jacket. The three of them were smiling as broadly as they had been in the older photo, and it was as if no time had passed despite them being visibly more than ten years older.
The next few pictures had clearly been taken in close succession, and Joe chuckled at the events depicted in them. In the first, Tess, Tina and Harrison were almost completely obscured in a sudden downfall of leaves. The second showed their surprised reactions, and the third had Harrison and Tina laughing as they picked fallen leaves out of Tess’s long, blonde, and now distinctly windswept hair. Joe heard Harrison’s breathing catch in his throat, and looked around to see that Harrison had hidden his face in his hands, knocking his glasses far up onto his forehead.
Joe had a sudden moment of indecision, because his first instinct was always to hug someone when they got upset. But did he actually know Harrison well enough for that to be okay? Also, he’d noticed that Harrison had a tendency to flinch or tense up whenever he was touched unexpectedly. Would hugging him do more harm than good?
Carefully, Joe slid the wedding pictures back into the envelope and set them to the side. He decided to pick the middle ground option, and reached out to put a comforting hand on Harrison’s shoulder. Harrison didn’t react at all, but a few seconds later Joe felt more than heard him sob gently. That was it. Joe shifted his position on the bed and put his arm around Harrison properly. That did get a reaction, but after he tensed up Harrison slowly relaxed again, leaning against Joe’s shoulder and starting to sob in earnest. They sat like that for a long time.
----
When Harrison had eventually cried himself out, he sniffed and shifted position slightly. Joe took this as the signal it had been intended to be, and let his arm fall away from Harrison’s shoulders. Harrison immediately found himself almost missing the contact, and realised just how long it had been since he’d been hugged by another person. Eobard hadn’t exactly been the most physically demonstrative of people. Harrison could understand that- he’d always had quite strict rules about what sort of touch he was comfortable with and what he wasn’t, but even the most touch averse person could find hugs comforting on occasion.
Wiping his face dry with his sleeve and settling his glasses back on his nose, Harrison smiled weakly at Joe. He smiled back, and it was clear that he didn’t need to hear the words to know that Harrison was grateful to him for the hug.
Turning his attention back to the contents of the box that were still laid out across the bed, Harrison realised that they’d now looked through almost all of it. He sniffed, cleared his throat, and then glanced over at Joe.
“We should… we should, um, probably pack this stuff away again.” His voice was weak from crying, but it got steadier towards the end of his sentence. Joe nodded, and carefully started lifting things from the bed. First the folder of certificates, then the ticket stubs, the photos and eventually the bag of dice were all packed away. Last were the posters, which were fragile with age so Harrison simply told Joe what they were. Joe rolled his eyes exaggeratedly and pulled a ‘why am I not surprised’ face when they were all from various sci-fi movies. Once those too were packed away, Harrison realised that they had almost finished the task they had set out to accomplish. All he had to do was decide what to do with the box of memories, and then they would have successfully sorted through and cleaned out the entire house.
“So, what do you wanna do with these?” Joe asked, gesturing to the box. “Stick it in the attic with the rest of the memories?” Harrison thought about this for a few seconds.
“No. No, I don’t think so. Those memories are mine, not Eobard Thawne’s, so I’d like to keep them around. Back in the closet for safekeeping sounds like the best idea for now.” Joe nodded, and Harrison gently picked up the box and carried it back to the closet. Rather than hiding it in the back, like Thawne had done, Harrison sat it right near the front. He then closed the closet, and turned back to face Joe. “Am I right in thinking that we’ve now finished the task we set out to do?”
“We have, yes,” said Joe, grinning. “I would say ‘that wasn’t too hard, was it?’ But, well…” Harrison raised his eyebrows and grinned wryly back at him.
“Indeed.”
“So, what’s the plan now?” Joe asked. “You planning on spending the night here?” Harrison shook his head rapidly, and was actually slightly surprised by the vehemence of his response.
“I can’t do that yet. Maybe once it actually starts feeling like my house.”
“Fair enough.” Joe nodded in understanding, and then tilted his head as if he had just gotten an idea. “Here’s a thought: why don’t you stay over at mine tonight? It’d do you some good to spend the night away from STAR Labs, even if it does mean sleeping on my sofa.”
“That’s very kind of you, Joe, but I don’t think that would be fair on Barry,” said Harrison, shaking his head. “I… don’t think he knows where he stands with me yet, and I certainly don’t know what he thinks of me. I think he’s been avoiding me, so I don’t want to make things awkward for him by staying in the same house.”
“Good point,” said Joe. “But don’t worry. It’s going to take Barry a while to recover from everything that’s happened over the past few days, but he’ll get there. And I don’t think he’s going to keep avoiding you for long.” Harrison nodded.
“I appreciate that. So, are we going to head back to STAR Labs now?”
“Yup,” said Joe. “Although there’s two things I want to deal with before we do.”
“Oh?” asked Harrison, curious.
“Number one, you’ve gotta promise me that you’re going to keep working on making this somewhere you can live. I know it might seem easier to keep sleeping at STAR Labs and avoiding this place, but that’s not going to help anyone, least of all you. Promise me?” Joe stuck out his hand, and Harrison, after a moment or two of surprise at how well Joe seemed able to predict his potential actions, reached out and shook it.
“I promise,” he said.
“Good. Now, number two: I’m starving, so we’re stopping for takeout before we go back to the lab. Any suggestions?” Harrison smiled. Now he thought about it, he hadn’t actually eaten since early that morning. And it was now getting on well into the evening.
“Thanks for not automatically assuming Big Belly Burger,” said Harrison.
“Well,” said Joe, “Thawne did mention that they were out of cows in his future, so I figured the burger obsession might have come from him. Do you even like the things?”
“I do, actually. I think the burger obsession was also partly me.” Joe laughed.
“So, any food suggestions?” Harrison thought for a second.
“Why don’t you choose? I’m not actually very familiar with other options. Thawne had a habit of finding something he liked and then sticking with it, and he wasn’t particularly adventurous when it came to 21st century food.”
“Okay, then,” said Joe, turning and heading back in the direction of the front door. “Hmmm… Well, there’s this Mexican place I’m rather fond of.”
“Sounds good to me,” said Harrison, following Joe out of the room that he supposed he was going to have to get used to calling his bedroom. It was strange, but the good sort of strange, to know that he now had a concrete place to start when it came to re-establishing his life in the brave new world of 2015. Thanks to Joe, he now had a house that he could eventually come to call home.
And, as he listened to Joe extoll the virtues of ‘the best burrito in the city’, he realised that that wasn’t the only thing that he had gained. Somehow, he had also gained a friend. And that made his uncertain future seem just that little bit brighter.