𝑊𝐼𝑆𝐷𝑂𝑀 | 𝐁𝐀𝐑𝐑𝐘 𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐄𝐍

𝟐𝟒 | 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐀𝐍 𝐖𝐇𝐎 𝐒𝐀𝐕𝐄𝐃 𝐂𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐋 𝐂𝐈𝐓𝐘 | 𝟐/𝟐

— 𝐵 —

𝐁𝐀𝐑𝐑𝐘 𝐉𝐄𝐑𝐊𝐄𝐃 𝐀𝐖𝐀𝐊𝐄, though a warm hand reassured him.

"You're good. I got you."

He let himself relax upon the sight of Joe, who was sitting beside his bed. Sophia was standing beside him, her arms folded and her lips in a frown.

He calmed. He was safe. He was in the Med-Lab.

He sighed as he looked around the room. He figured there were going to be at least three other people fretting over him and scolding him about going in with no comms. To his surprise, the rest of the room was empty.

He looked back at Joe. "Where is everyone?"

"We figured you wouldn't want an audience when you came to."

Barry leaned his head back against the pillow. "Yeah, thanks."

"Iris is right." Sophia sat on the edge of the bed, placing a hand on his arm and giving him a soft smile. "We're not gonna do this anymore. For the last six months, I've given you your space to . . . work all this out, come back to us. But today proved that you'd rather just get yourself killed."

Barry let out a small scoff. "It's better than getting my friends killed."

"You want me to tell you that it wasn't your fault? I can't. It was," Joe said quietly. "Guess what? You weren't the only person making decisions that day. All of the rest of us were there, too. Eddie and Ronnie . . . They chose to help you stop Wells, and stop that . . ."

"Singularity," Sophia muttered.

"Singularity thing." Joe nodded. "It's on all of us, Barry. So stop with this hogging all the blame and regret. We got to live with it. Move on."

Barry didn't even realize he was tearing up until he felt a tear rolling down his cheek. "What do I do now?"

Joe tilted his head up. "Well, I know that you've been . . . rebuilding Central City at night. That's just bricks and paint. Maybe you should start trying to rebuild . . . things that really matter."

— 𝒮 —

"We gotta, like, quadruple the power on this thing," Cisco muttered, heaving the Boot onto the table in their workshop. "It barely did anything to Rothstein."

"To be fair," Sophia said, sitting on one of the stools, "he did triple in size. We never really accounted for a giant meta. I'm sure it would've worked perfectly on a normal-sized one."

"We'll have to fix it." Cisco shrugged as he sat beside her. "I'm happy to be back here, though. Home sweet home."

"Yeah," she agreed. "CCPD's nice and all . . . Nothin' like this place, though."

"Okay, before we start . . ." He sighed as he glanced at the clock. He patted his stomach. "We might be here a while and I'm starving. Chinese or Thai?"

She grinned. "I've been craving some Kung Pao."

He returned her grin before pulling his phone out of his pocket to call their favourite Chinese restaurant (which he had on speed dial).

"Sophia."

She looked to the entrance to see Barry. He was leaning against the doorframe, and she wasn't all too fond of the frown that was on his face. Whatever he came to tell wasn't going to be anything good.

Her eyebrows furrowed. "What's up?"

"Can I talk to you for a minute?" He glanced at Cisco and sighed before adding, "Alone?"