Never Alone

Chapter 1 - Dad

''Flash ? Where are you? Flash? Dammit Barry, answer me!'' Kept on calling Jay Garrick, Earth 3.0's Flash, not even realizing he called the speedster by his first name.

Jay was interrupted in his shouts for the other Flash by his own coughing, caused by all the surrounding dust still in the air created by the falling debris who were now covering the ground of this underground train tunnel. Jay and Barry were tracking down Geomancer who found a way to escape Iron Height and was hellbent on taking his revenge against the Flash and the whole town. They tracked him to the underground train tunnels, but not before the Metahuman had a chance to start one of his biggest earthquake yet. Considering how long it's been since the last report of the second Flash in town, Geomancer might have thought that there was no longer a second one or maybe that even two of them combined couldn't catch him and save everyone at the same time.

He was wrong. At least, mostly wrong.

While Jay was able to apprehend him pretty fast, he could see that even Barry had slim to no chances to get everyone out as the tunnel was collapsing. But, of course, this kid just had to keep zipping in and out as fast as he possibly could.

''It's too late!'' Screamed Jay, sprinting next to the younger speedster, ''Don't go back in there. ''

''I have to! Need to make sure everyone's out!''

''Dammit kid!'' swore Earth 3's Flash under his breath, speeding up to keep up with Barry who was pushing himself at top speed.

Even for a speedster, what came after that happened fast, too fast. Jay remembered everything falling, something hitting his back and everything going black. As he woke up, it was impossible to say how much time passed and while nothing was falling at the moment, there was no telling if the rest of the roof wasn't going to fall on them too. Luckily, by some kind of miracle, there was still electricity passing by, lighting the tunnel with the remaining unbroken lights in the tunnel. It wasn't giving much light, but just enough to discern where Jay was putting his feet off, walking around, and looking for the others speedster. Jay was working hard at repressing the grunts and the pain caused by moving around. He definitely had at least one bruised, if not broken, rib and his left ankle that he moved from under the broken pieces of metal was clearly broken, feeling like hell. Not to mention that his back was killing him right now.

Looking around in the debris scattered and piled up all over, Jay started to wonder if, maybe, the Scarlet Speedster found a way out before the exit was cut off. That was until he heard noises and stuff falling off a pile.

''Barry?'' He asked quietly, rushing to the provenance of the sound, in time to see a red hand barely making it out of the pile, barely moving.

''Hang in there, I'm here.'' All the sudden, he felt almost connected to this kid. Why was that? With all the selfish thing Barry's been doing in the last couple of days, it was hard picturing him as the great hero he thought the kid was after the Zoom rescue. But, despite of that, Barry just risked everything to take everyone out and went back to make sure of it. How can someone be that selfish and selfless at the same time?

Jay couldn't put his fingers on why, but this kid reminded him of himself, his younger self. He couldn't tell why he cared, but at this very moment, he did.

Slowly hurrying, wanting to free the young man as fast as possible but not wanting to disturb or move the younger Flash around if he was injured, Jay pushed away the debris surrounding the speedster. Moments later, the older speedster finally uncovered a masked face, most of the upper body and Barry's left arm. Barry's face was covered with marks, scratches and blood, his eyes closed.

''Can you hear me? Barry?'' He tried again, hoping for any kind of response, which he got in the form of groaning and slowly opening eyelids. The joy quickly transformed into worried when he saw the pain in the green eyes.

''Where are you hurt?''

''I...fi..arg!'' Before the young speedster could finish his sentence, he clenched his jaw and tried to escape a sharp pain right after trying to move the slightest.

''Don't move!''

Freeing the rest of the Flash's body, Jay finally found the source of the Scarlett Speedster's pain: a long piece of metal sticking out of Barry's side, impaled in him. The younger hero shifted a little, desperate to escape the pain, only succeeding in letting out another cry of pain.

''Dammit kid, I said don't move!''

Jay wasn't much of a doctor and the lighting wasn't so great to see the extent of the damage, but he knew it couldn't be good. There was blood all around the wound and probably way more blood lost under the skin, no telling how bad the internal damages and bleeding were. The kid weakly lifted his head to look at the other Flash, barely focusing on the other man, slightly opening his mouth as he wanted to say something, but nothing came out. Barry ended up closing his eyes tightly, his breathing shortened, growing weaker.

''I'll found a way out, I'll be back.''

The Flash from the other Earth limped around as quickly as he could on his bad ankle. There was a pretty big pile of rubble right next to their position completely blocking the way and while it wasn't completely blocked on the other side, it wasn't much better. The immobilized train was taking most of the space, debris were piled up and taking most of the surrounding space around it. Going over them wasn't impossible, but would require lots of climbing and time, sometime they couldn't do in their current position. What could Jay possibly do? Without any medical background and the medical equipment, there was nothing the speedster could do for the kid and without treatment, Barry was only going to get worse until...

Staying still wasn't an option. Nor was taking the piece out of his chest and running away 'til he bleed out. Jay considered taking the boy out of there in his current state, but with his bad ankle and the boy's condition, there was no way he could climb themselves out of there without causing the boy horrible pain. Not to mention without making the wound even worse. Was leaving Barry behind an option? Maybe it was the only one at the moment. Leaving to go find help. He didn't have a choice.

Limping as fast as he could, Jay made his way back to the kid, needing to at least warn him about his plan of going, fully aware he was losing precious time by going back, but needing to let Barry know he wasn't abandoning him. Anyway, he tried to rationalize, rescue teams already knew there was trouble at the station and they were already on their way.

When he made it back to the other speedster, Barry almost looked dead, almost. The only signs he was still alive being his rapid, shaky and painful breaths, each one seeing more and more difficult. A small string of blood had appeared since last time at the corner of Barry's mouth. Kneeling next to the young man, Jay reached for the boy's shoulder with firm hand, trying to rouse him.

'Flash?'' He tried. ''You're with me?''

For a moment, there was no answer, other than the shaking he felt under his palm, the pain irradiating from the body that kept on growing colder. Sighting, Jay was about to give up until he saw the red masked head turning toward him, slowly but surely, eyelids fluttering before opening once more. There was so much pain and...confusion in them. Jay wasn't even sure the kid recognized him, he was getting from bad to worse and was getting there fast, too fast.

''I'll go search help.''

As he was getting up, a shaking hand reached and faintly grabbed his pants. The words that came out after only confirmed his confusion diagnostic and made his stomach sank.

''Dad...please. Stay. ''