The Darkest Hour

Chapter 6 - Breath

Caitlin suppressed a yawn as she injected the content of her syringe into the IV's tube of her badly shaking friend, her ears closely listening to her patient's breathing pattern as she was finishing her task. She looked down with worry, noticing how in the last half hour Barry's struggle to breath had gotten worse once again. Caitlin was able to stabilize the speedster when the Captain first brought him in with the nasal canal, but the equipment wasn't doing much help at the moment.

''What are you doing? '' Asked Cisco's voice from behind, almost causing the doctor to jump scare, deeply concentrated in her work.

Despite Cisco's best efforts to hide it, Caitlin didn't miss the accusation in the engineer's tone.

''I'm not going to hurt him, if that's what you're asking. '' She answered a bit more dryly than intended. ''I got outvoted and I respect the team's decision. '' She added as she approached her friend, taking the coffee he handed to her.

Sighting and apologizing under his breath, his tone softened: ''I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make it sound like that. I'm just worried right now...''

''Don't worry about it. '' She wasn't going to hold it against the engineer, she understood what stress and fatigue could do to your mind and your patience. ''I just gave him another dose of what I used earlier, hoping it would stop his shaking and keep him from having another seizure. '' She explained. ''His tremors increased a lot since you left and I'm trying my best to keep him as comfortable as I could...I already gave him twice the safe max dose for normal people. ''

Another particularly loud yell of agony made them both turn their attention to the laying patient, as his eyes were tight shut in agony, still clinging to consciousness.

''I wish he would just completely pass out already, he's suffering too much. '' Whispered Cisco.

Understatement of the year. Ever since the team took their decision, the stubborn speedster just wouldn't let his mind and body drift off, away from the pain. The evening had been long, too long and now that they were entering the night, passing midnight, Caitlin found herself questioning, again and again, if they took the best decision. What if Iris, Cisco and Singh were right, what had she done by almost killing her best friend? But what if they weren't? Every minute was another chance for her mind to switch side.

''Are you sure you can't give him anything for the pain?'' Asked Cisco, interrupting her thoughts.

Getting up and reluctantly moving away from Barry, Caitlin walked to her computer, checking one more time at the last results.

''Just finished testing some pain medicine with Barry's infected blood sample; morphine isn't going to mix with the poison and harm him more....but even at double dose, it's not going to do much to help.''

''No matter how small it will, we need to try and give Barry as much break as we can.''

Nodding in agreement, the doctor turned toward the medicine cabinet to get the dose ready. At this point, they had nothing to lose.

''You should know I managed to get Felicity on the phone while I was coming back, Team Arrow had a pretty busy evening, but they're about to leave very soon, they should be here by morning.'' Said Cisco without much enthusiasm as he carefully watched the doctor's every move.

Caitlin nodded absently, sure it was a good thing to know that help was coming, but it wasn't going to help Barry. She tried her best to ignore the way Barry's eyes widely opened up, overwhelmed with pain and looked past her like she wasn't even there, like she didn't exist, stuck in his own world of agony. It wasn't the first time he had done this since getting infected five hours ago, just like it wasn't the first time his mouth opened up in a silent scream, his voice too tired and sore to scream as much as he did earlier. It was too hard to watch and keep emotions at bay. Fighting tears, the doctor injected the morphine dose, desperately hoping it would do anything.