Within Seconds: Sylas & Allen

Goodbye, My Lover

Parker, in a million years, never believed Barry was going to be a factor in her death. Some part of her thought she would go peacefully. A majority of her head space was different ways she could go painfully. But this? This was never a scenario she prepared for. 

Because Barry thought with his heart, because he was an incredibly loving husband and father, because he loved his girls more than anything in the world, he didn't think. He was overwhelmingly ready. He was psyched, because he thought he was taking the road less traveled in his mission. 

Parker screamed. That's all she could do. She screamed and she sobbed through the duct tape. Her throat was raw. In those moments, she hated him. She hated that he loved her. All it ever did was cause him pain.

His footsteps against the creaky floorboards above her sounded. His steps were quick. He was ready to be reunited with his family again. He was ready for the scare to be over.

She was privileged to be intelligent. Zoom didn't have to tell her his foreseen plan for her to accurately guess the outcome. It wasn't going to be a lethal shot. It was meant to be a warning shot, aimed at likely his chest, his lungs, if she was taking a wild guess. Zoom wanted Barry to be alive, in immense pain, but intact enough to watch him snatch Parker from his fingertips. It was never going to end. Playing Barry was only going to continue, on and on, until Melody was born. 

"Parker, I'm coming baby!"

By her hand, it was going to stop. Parker jammed the tip of her toe into the cold cement. Bouncing the chair on her toe, she rocked her body back and forth. To whoever was up there listening, she prayed for it to work. 

He would never see it as a payback for the numerous times he saved her. He was never going to see her actions as her final chance to be his hero, or a way to save their child from being killed, or from growing up in a life without love, if Melody had lived through Zoom sucking the Speed Force out of her tiny body. 

Tipping, tipping, tipping. Her chest heaved for any air she could catch. She rocked her body to the left one final time. 

Barry's excited eyes were forced to watch her frightened eyes beg for him to leave. He saw her head snap forward with an alarming amount of force, only to bounce back into place. For a mere second, he was witness to the bullet lodged above her left eyebrow. It was covered by her curls instantly when the wobbling chair gave in smack against the concrete. He saw the smoke from the rifle float carelessly into the air. He remained paralyzed in the doorway. 

He had been so caught in the idea of not having to say goodbye. He missed the alarmingly fast rate Cisco traced the cell phone, as opposed to what Zoom taunted. He didn't hear the gun cock, or register the sound of her wooden chair scraping desperately against the floor. How could he miss her screaming?

My girl, Barry was thinking as he opened that door. My beautiful girl and my baby girl are going to be with me again. They'll be safe, I'll keep them safe.

Slow, weak steps brought him to her. His trembling fingers fought to untie her feet, then her wrists. She rolled from the chair. Barry sobbed. He cradled her beautiful body tightly in his arms. He held on as tightly as she once held onto him. 

"I didn't mean for this to happen," Zoom had told him, as though that would lessen the pain.

"You killed her! You killed o-our... Our..."

"She made that decision herself," he continued before he exited, "and she left you to live with that."

He just wanted to feel the life within her. He wanted to feel her heart against his ear, her fingers in his hair, or her lips brushing against his skin. All he wanted was her. But what he wished for was no longer applicable. 

For their family's sake, he never divulged into exactly what he witnessed. He never told them that he knew what her head look like blown out. He decided to not tell everyone that he was forced to physically close her eyes. He was never going to tell them how it felt to stand in the doorway of that room, waiting, hoping, praying, then knowing that his beloved Parker and Melody Allen were truly gone.