ColdFlash- Soulmates

Chapter 11: The Downward Spiral

   Barry felt sorry for Dr Caitlin Snow. Truly sorry. She was pinning for her dead fiancee, someone that she couldn't have. Barry looked at her and used her as an example as to why his situation was not anything that he had any right to worry about.Why he should quit all the self-pity over having a criminal ex that he may or may not still be in love with. It had been a steady downward spiral for the speedster. He had found himself thinking of the man more and more having been so close, now having stood over him as an enemy. When Lisa had freed her brother Barry had found himself silently celebrating, glad that Snart hadn't gone to rot in an Iron Heights cell like his dad had. He had had but a few hours with the thought of Snart imprisoned and he hadn't liked it one bit, hadn't been able to stomach the thought of someone with so much free will being caged. There was something wrong with him, something wrong that he thought that it was a shame to lock up a murderous thief.

  Barry could feel the attachment he felt, the bond that was there so many years ago and he was starting to think that it had never left but that it had continued through the years only he had tried  suppressed it. There had been no way for Barry to see Snart's eyes the last time that they had crossed paths, the time when Barry was left burned and frozen with his scar aching for days and an empty feeling. Barry had wanted so badly to see those eyes, only after did he realise it. The whole thing was one of many reasons that Barry had agreed to go with Caitlin to that club in search of the teleporting meta Shawna Baez and her boyfriend. The club where he had sung in front of so many people... 

  He liked singing but not in front of anyone, not even Joe or Iris but he had done it. He had done it for the same reason that he had accompanied his friend, to 'get out there'. Of course once again it was because of Iris, he was pinning over her naturally- thank God that was what everyone thought. He had wanted a distraction though, but not from the woman that he considered a sister, a distraction from Len and his dammed intense eyes. And a distraction he had found.

  His distraction was a woman by the name of Linda Park. Apparently his public singing did do him some good after all. She was the sports reporter at the CCPN, she already knew Iris in passing from working in the same building. That meant that when Barry came to pick Linda up for their first date he ran into his foster sister. The look on her face when she found out about her co-worker and best friend was one that Barry could only describe as disappointment. The thought confused him and he hurried to leave with his date, he had no idea what the look meant. Maybe Iris had some feelings for him after all, he didn't like that thought.

***

  Barry tried to concentrate on his new girlfriend, she was funny, kind and she was a good kisser... A very good kisser. But then it ended. She thought that there was something between him and Iris, Iris had told her about the crush. Barry couldn't believe that Iris West could be so spiteful, she was attacking from both sides of Barry and Linda's relationship, using the knowledge that Barry 'liked' her to tell him that Linda wasn't the one for him and that he wasn't interested in Linda. Maybe she really did have feelings for him. Yet whatever her motive Barry knew that he would have been fuming if he actually had feelings for Linda Park. More than fuming, because he was already fuming, he would be livid if he had had feelings for his now ex-girlfriend. The truth was, he liked her but as no more than a friend, he wasn't that desperate. Maybe?

  Then he found out about the possibility of time travel. He found out through Cisco and Joe, found out that he was there the night his mum died, well a future version of himself and definitely not just eleven year old him. He was there but not just as a kid but as the Flash. He was there as the Flash who failed to save his own mother's life. His lightning had been the yellow lightning amongst the red of the Man in Yellow.

  It took a lot of research into F.I.R.E.S.T.O.R.M after their run in with Hartley Rathaway but they found Ronnie Raymond. It then took so much more to separate him from Dr Martin Stein. When they went off into no man's land Barry was 80% sure that they were going to die and for that moment he was okay with that. He found that if he lived that was good, that was a bonus but if he died... if he died it didn't really matter that much. That peace scared him, he was 25 and okay with dying? But he didn't die and he resolved not to think like that again, he had a city to protect. But he wanted to go back, to travel through time and succeed where he failed before. He wanted to go back and save his mum. Now he had a goal, something that he could achieve to change all the bad. His dad would never go to jail, his mum would live, he would never have to meet Leonard Snart.