Darkest Hour

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Author's Note: I'm back! You missed that story(and me)? ;) Just so you know, we're closing to the end and there's going to be about 21 chapters to the story, unless I cut the ending of Chap.21 to make a short epilogue. We'll see, stay tuned!

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A trail of yellow flashes of lightning on the final stretch before the Galways' lab was the only clue for the people inside that a speedster was approaching. Well, not the Galways' lab. Scratch that. There were no longer two of them; it was Daniel Galway's lab once again, and it didn't look too good. In fact, the security was down to old fences filled with holes. At that point, they were merely playing a decorative purpose, and the entry was only being kept closed by a chain and a lock. A mere handful of guards was circulating around the small building, and none of them were keeping an eye on the entry point. The building they were securing was barely one-third of the size it used to be and only had one floor, plus the basement.

Or, it was more accurate to say that the alternate version of the lab was three times his actual size. Semantics.

Things were back to the way they were before Jay was forced to save Polly many, many, years ago.

Entering the basement, where he, Lily and this Earth's Cisco got trapped a whole week ago, Jay finally stopped. The senior speedster was back inside the tiny, smelly and dirty lab with brown walls. A few tables and testing equipment were placed all over; used and cleans syringes were behind Jay, and there were a few testing tubes a little further back in the room, next to the sole microscope.

Under these circumstances, it was a real miracle Daniel managed to create anything, especially a serum that could control speedsters. As much as Jay hated to admit it, being a scientist himself, he had to give it to him; Daniel was smart and resourceful. Speaking of, the voice of the last remaining Galway boomed behind and let's say he wasn't thrilled.

"Where's my wife?" Daniel Galway growled, anger rising with every word. "You weren't supposed to come back without her!"

The evil man was standing in a washed white lab coat over a black sweater and old jeans with holes, completed with messed up dirty hair. Daniel had seen better days.

"It's over, Daniel, give it up," firmly affirmed Jay, turning around and standing tall in front of his adversary.

"I'm ordering you to go back and bring her," shouted Daniel again with all the authority in the world.

Slowly, the possibility that, for some reason, the serum wasn't working anymore on his prey and that Jay wasn't about to change the time for him crawled his way inside Daniel's mind. Slowly, Polly's widower moved around the hero while keeping his distance. Despite the sudden change of strength in the balance, there was no fear in the man's eyes.

"Your wife isn't coming back, but you're coming with me for what you've done," commanded the speedster.

Jay's calm and composed demeanour and tone of voice were harder to keep than what the appearances were suggesting; this Earth's Flash was boiling inside at the thought of all the harms that man brought, mainly to Barry and Lily. Well, technically, it was Polly who did most of the damages. The worst part about it was that she was the one who operated on both of them and these crimes would be left unpunished.

Struck by a sudden thought, Jay froze; was it a mistake to bring both young speedsters back to Earth 1? Since Polly never survived, she never could've hurt them or put a pump inside their body. So, were there any chances Lily and Barry would've gone back to normal when time adjusted itself? While taking Barry and Lily to the people who had the best chances to care for them had been done with the best of intention, Jay wondered if that was the right course of action. Doing so, bringing them on another Earth, the hero ensured they would be unaffected by the next change in the timeline.

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