Message in a bottle

Chapter 3 - Hypothetically

"Ow!" Squealed Iris, flinching at the contact. Instantly, she stopped staring at Barry and turned around to look back at Caitlin's work as the doctor was bandaging her friend's hand, "careful! That hurt."

"I'm almost done, it's a bad burn you have there. And be glad it hurt, otherwise it would've meant you had permanent nerve damages in your hand, which, gladly, isn't the case."

Iris didn't answer and moved her glance away from her hand to come back at supervising the rhythmical rise and fall of Barry's chest as the machine was pumping the precious oxygen in his lungs. It was with eagle eyes that the young woman was keeping a close tab on every equipment presently attached to the speedster, the machines that were keeping him alive. As long as they were beeping steadily, everything was under control. Whether it was a lie or not didn't matter, as long as that thought kept the hope burning inside Iris' mind.

She currently couldn't care less about how bad her wounded right hand was, nor did she cared about finding the reason why the wire shocked her when she disconnected Barry. The only thing that did matter right now was the comatose man in front of her. Why? Why were these things always happening? How long until he was going to come back to them? One day? One month? Nine months? More? Sighing deeply, she lowered her head and brushed her forehead with her left hand.

Sitting on a chair at the right of the reporter, Caitlin was finishing to delicately treat the burn on Iris' hand. Every action was being taken with the deepest of care and concentration like she was doing the most delicate surgical procedure instead of a simple bandage. Actually, she had been off and uncharacteristically quiet since she dropped the coma bomb to the group, not that anyone could really blame her under these circumstances. Truth be told, the first time Barry was in that same condition and under the doctor's cares, he only was an unknown patient to her. All she had to do at that time was to keep a close tab on the man's vitals and adjust her treatment; a simple daily routine before going home to a peaceful sleep. Now? Now emotions were running high as her close friend's life was hanging in the balance. No matter how hard she was trying, she just couldn't detach her fears from her actions, nor could go she go home and take the situation out of her head for the night.

"How is he?" Cisco asked, walking in the medical room.

"Still the same," informed Iris before Caitlin had the chance to do it.

Of course, he was still the same; the doctor would've informed everyone in an instant if there was anything significant changes, but still, the engineer hoped. He had hoped his friend somehow got cured miraculously so he could ease his own guilt about that whole fiasco.

"I can't find the reason as to why the system overloaded," he said, passing a hand in his hairs. What kind of person puts his best friend in the coma like that without having anything to offer to fix him or even being able to explain how this came to be?

"I don't think it's your fault, Cisco." reassured Caitlin, releasing Iris' hand and taking off her medical gloves.

"Thanks for trying, but-" started Vibe, clearly not believing she was saying that for any other reason than to make him feel any better.

"I'm not just saying this," interrupted the doctor, getting up from her chair and pushing back her hairs behind her shoulders, "the wound on Barry's head was an exit wound, not an entry one."

That sentence had both the engineer and the reporter on the chair frowning and looking up at their friend with interrogation all over their features.

"What are you saying?" Asked Iris while looking back at Barry and tilting her head to see if she could find the burn sign in her boyfriend's hairs.

"It means that I don't think the headset shocked Barry and caused him to seize; it's more like the SpeedForce somehow discharged itself on the wires."

Cisco's eyebrows furrowed in confusion as he stared into his friend's eyes, trying to put the pieces together, "why? Why would his powers do that? And why is he in a coma if he didn't get shocked by the computer?"

Breaking eye contact, Caitlin looked slightly away as she bit her bottom lip, "I wish I had the answers right now, but I don't, yet," she paused and turned her back on them all, "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said something before I knew what it meant. I'm about to do some scans and tests to see if I can find out what's wrong."

A barely contain sob suddenly escaped her lips, hating to have nothing to offer to everyone around who was desperate for comfort and good news.

A hand appeared on her shoulder, "hey, I'm trusting you," said Cisco, forcing a smile on his lips, "if anyone can fix him, it's you."

"Thanks," she wiped her eyes, and just in time too since footsteps made themselves heard, entering the cortex and announcing the return of Wally and Joe. Both men entered the room, with Joe carrying Plunder's gun over his shoulder. It was two more people who needed comfort, two people who didn't need to see the person they were counting on barely hanging in there.

"Morillo isn't going to bother anyone again," Wally stated emotionlessly, his usual smile absent on his face as was the enthusiasm that used to accompany every small victory from the young speedster.

Without wasting any more second commenting the fight, Joe loudly dropped the gun on the cortex's main desk and strode forward, almost jogging, toward the medical lab.

"How's..."

A quick and sad head shake from his daughter was all the answer the detective needed. Closing his eyes in defeat, he let himself fall in the chair that was the closest to the bed and took his foster son's hand into his owns, watching him sleep with the grey sheet up to his shirtless waist.

"What's the plan?" He asked after a moment of silence.

"I'm going back to the future," said Cisco, reiterate his initial plan, "I don't care about the risks, I need to know if Barry is going to be ok."

"Don't," Iris stood up and gently, but firmly grabbing his arm, "no matter what you're going to see, your actions to cement your vision or to keep it from happening will alter it.''

"Iris is right," Agreed Caitlin, "if you see that Barry is present and fine on May 23th, our overconfidence might prevent us from taking a risky action that caused him to get better. Or, if he's not there..."

"We could take reckless actions we wouldn't consider otherwise," Cisco completed for her as he sighed, "yeah, I know she's right...I just hate doing nothing."

"Cisco..."

It's not like the rest of them were doing much of anything; there was nobody to go out and punch 'til Barry was free from his current state.

Their chat got interrupted as the lights suddenly started fluctuating, on and off and on and off again. Every time, the power only turned off for a split of a second, but enough for everyone in the room to stop and held their breath.

"Hypothetically, let's say we were to lose power... what would happen to Barry?" Nervously asked Iris.

"All the life support is directly connected to the rest of the building's power, so, if we were to lose all of it..." Cisco trailed off.

"Thought you were checking out the systems while we were gone," Joe asked accusingly, a little rougher than intended.

"I did," said Cisco, baffled by the situation. Was that simply a coincidence, a little short-circuit in the power grid of the lab considering the bad weather starting on outside...or he really missed something important? Something that got affected by the Speed Force's discharge released by the seizing speedster?

The how didn't matter, the only thing that did was that his best friend's life was depending on finding the source. Cisco gently touched his friend's too still arm.

"You stay with us, all right buddy? We'll take care of you."