Chapter Text
In the six months since Barry had…disappeared, Iris dreamt of him often. More specifically, she dreamt of the night he’d left her.
“I have to go.”
“This isn’t fair! We were supposed to have our happy ending! I’m ready to be Iris West-Allen.”
“And you always will be. But you need to keep living your life. Keep growing, keep loving, keep running, for me.”
Some nights, the memory of that alleyway, of the cold wind in her hair, and the hot tears streaming down her face, the feeling of his hands on her cheeks, was all that she could think about.
“Promise me you’ll run, Iris.”
And so she did.
Six months.
That was how long Iris had been running.
Six months of running from calls from her dad, from coffee runs with Cisco, dodging family dinner invites from Wally.
Six months of anger. At Barry, for leaving her, for thrusting a city full of responsibility upon her back before she was ready, at Caitlin for disappearing, for being so silent, for not being there when she just needed someone to talk to, someone who could understand, who knew the anguish of her loneliness, who could help dilute some of the grief that persisted waking up in an empty bed every morning. Someone who knew what losing a lover, a husband, could do to you, who was well-learned in the art of an unemployed mouth, a name forever in her mind that would never be brought past lips again in the present, in joy or sorrow or anger.
Six months coming home to an empty, silent, loft, the detritus of her Barry's shared life together littering the rooms, woven through the trinkets and the closets, and the pictures like spider silk.
Although, she'd put most of the pictures face down after the first two months. What was the point in looking at them? She couldn't bear to see his face if it was never going to be coming back through their--her--door again.
Sometimes it felt like all Iris knew how to do anymore was run.
And now, she was here, standing in some back office at CCPD, while her husband-to-be stood in the middle of the room, inexplicably returned to her, either through a combination of Cisco and the teams’ scientific efforts, or a gift from God.
But how much of a gift was it, really? Iris wondered. What kind of gift had she been given, by having her almost-husband returned to her, in all but mind. Physically whole. Mentally shattered.
It felt like a cruel joke.
Barry spun in circles, pausing only to clutch at his head, to wince in pain–a part of Iris briefly wondered if this was an aftereffect of his returning, like a Speed Force version of a hangover or a migraine–or to write on the walls, in some odd geometric language he must've learned while he was gone, speaking gibberish to himself.
There were snatches of phrases that made no sense, giggles and screams and gasps that went nowhere, gazes and glances at each one of them, and barely-there moments of lucidity, quickly drowned under a six month long wave of unintelligibility.
But Iris knew Barry. And she knew he wasn't there when he looked right into her eyes, with all the love in the world, and murmured, “Nora shouldn't be here.”
Iris's heart dropped into her stomach. She could hear the concurrent exhales of confusion from the others, though she tried her damnedest to ignore them. She swallowed hard, and said, quietly, "Your mom isn't here Barry. It's me, Iris. You're home."
Maybe, she thought, he's in shock. Maybe coming out of the Speed Force rattled him and he's having a flashback of his the night he lost his mom.
But then Barry turned to Cecile, as though Iris hadn't said a word. “Your Honor, I'm innocent. I didn't do this, I didn't kill anyone.”
Before anyone could ask Barry what the hell he was talking about, he shouted, “Can you hear the stars, singing!? Rhyming, timing, chiming,” he mumbled, his hands coming up to clutch at his head, a black marker someone had given him before they’d arrived clutched in a shaking fist, coming dangerously close to his eye.
“Every hour, every minute.” He mumbled into his hands, and Iris’s heart sped up in chest. She felt her mind tumble backwards, and now she was sitting on their window seat while he sang to her, asking her to marry him.
But I want you in it,
Every hour, every minute–
“You said the city was safe-!” Barry yelled again, yanking Iris’s mind back to the present. His face was stormy with anger, and he pointed a finger, accusatory, at Joe. “That there was no residual danger, but that's not true! What really happened that night–”
Iris stepped forward, unable to stop herself. “The city is safe,” she insisted, watching as Barry's gaze latched onto her face like a drowning man to driftwood. A frown began on his face, furrowed between his brows, confusion bright in his eyes as he stared at her. “You saved it,” she continued. “You saved us all.”
A calm smile came over his face, and Iris felt her heart lift as his shoulders slumped. She heard herself give out a stuttered gasp, eyes burning with tears. There he is, she thought. There's my heart.
“Stars melting,” Barry said, still smiling. He was staring right at her, voice low and hushed, whispering like he had when they were children, like he was letting her in on a secret, just between them. “like ice cream, dream, gleam–”
He broke off with a groan, turning away from them all, a hand swiping across his mouth, like he was going to be sick. He paced to the window, still murmuring. “Nothing seems-” he broke off, clutching the edge of the window frame with his fingers, rocking on his heels, swaying. He turned back to look at them all.
“Nora shouldn't be here.”
Why bring him back to me– Iris thought again, aiming her despair, her anger, out at the universe, at Cisco, at her father, at Wally and Caitlin, at God, as pain lanced its way through her heart–just to make me lose him all over again?