❛ chapter four! ❜

four | all i want—kodaline

       I wrap my arms around myself, feeling the soft fabric of the sweat shirt I'm wearing and stare down at the pair of sneakers Iris has lent me. I think of my little spot under the endless starry sky in the Speed Force and for a minute I wish I was there instead of here, sitting on the floor of the race track in the speed lab as they call it. I sigh after a little while and decide it's not that bad here; it's quiet, private—I cannot see the stars but I have the silence at least. I feel tempted to explore the race track they've built, maybe some other time, for now I'll just limit myself to sit by the ramp.

       I don't think anyone notices my absence, since everyone's disquieted trying to convince Caitlin—whose powers have brought her darkest side to the surface and this new persona is attempting to take over—that she's still the nice and kindhearted person they know and love. I've seen that before, something similar happened back on my earth. When they caught Caitlin and locked her up in a containment cell, all the team gathered in the pipeline, everyone but me. I stayed in the Cortex and heard and saw everything Doctor Snow told them through one of the computers. There, I learned that Barry had run back in time to save his mother and how he created the Flashpoint Paradox. I really had to stop myself from going and reproaching at Barry for doing so, but then again—in a moment of weakness—I would have done it too. I mean, losing someone is not easy and if you have the power to bring them back, it's harder not to feel tempted to do it. I battle with that every single day.

       A loud, tired and frustrated sigh snaps me out of my little daze and my eyes shoot straight ahead. I see Barry Allen making his way to the treadmill in the room and sits on the edge. He doesn't know I'm here. I want to hide so badly, having a conversation with him is the last thing I would want right now, for I feel like I will either stare intensely at his face, or I'll pull him into a never ending hug, to say the least. I slowly rise and start to walk down the race track ramp, as quietly as I can, in hopes to get the hell out of here. I'm almost there; I see Barry's expression, he looks. . .sad, disappointed. Somehow, that pains me; but hell I have to get out of here. I wince with every step I take and these sneakers aren't helping me at all, just when I'm about to turn and disappear through the door, the rubber soles make a loud squeaking sound on the slick flooring. In less than a second, I have his eyes on me.

       "Violett?" He says and I'm still trying to decide which way to go when he speaks.

       "Sorry, I was just—I didn't want to interrupt. . .I was just leaving, it's a nice race track you have here," I bite my tongue to stop the massive rambling I feel coming on and I see the faintest of smiles on his face, which grows gloomy again, "I'm sorry, I'll just leave now."

       "You don't have to leave," he says, quickly adding, "and you're not interrupting anything," I give him a tight-lipped smile while I toy with the hem of my sweatshirt with antsy fingers. Now I feel like I really need to ask, even if I don't want to have a conversation with him, but that's what any friendly and normal person would do.

       "Are you okay?" I ask, genuinely interested and I find myself walking towards him. He inhales deeply and rubs his face with both hands.

       "I can't stop thinking that we should all be working to find Alchemy and Savitar and figure out how to stop them. Instead, we're fighting each other," he says, "you must think we're a joke, I wouldn't be surprised if you did."

       "I don't think you're a joke," he looks up at me and I step closer.

       "I should have just followed Iris inside the house that night instead of running back in time to save my mum," he says, "none of this would be happening, Dante would be alive, Caitlin would be still our Caitlin and Wally wouldn't be in that cocoon; but it's all my fault, I screwed everything."

       "It was a tough moment for you. You had just lost your father," I say as I sit next to him, "when you have the power to do things, to do something like this, is harder not to do it. You wanting to have your family back as it should be is not a bad thing, it doesn't make you a monster, it only makes you human, Barry," I say, blinking at how strange it is to say that name out loud.

       "My friends don't think that, they hate me now."

       "Cisco is hurting, Caitlin's hurting. It's just matter of time for them to realize that they would have done the same," he stares at me, attentively, and for a moment it's like I'm with him, "Don't you think that if Cisco had the chance to go back in time by himself, he'd take that chance without hesitation? It's human nature, Barry; stop blaming yourself for it."

       "But it is my fault."

       "We all make mistakes; we might have powers, it doesn't make us perfect. And, over thinking will destroy you, so don't. Forgiving oneself is hard, but when you do, everything will be easier. Your friends need you, you're the only thing they need right now. You'll find the strength to pull through, Barry," I smile a little and so does he when he thanks me; I let out a quiet sigh, happy that I didn't have a meltdown in front of him, instead, I could say I made him feel a little bit better about what troubled him. Here I am telling him to be strong when I can't do that myself. His eyes narrow as they study my face, causing me to tense up.

       "You don't smile a lot," he utters, his face softening, brushed with a tint of curiosity, "not since you woke up—" he's cut off by the lights flickering around us. A part of me wants to stay in this moment for a little bit longer, but it's clear the moment is over and that we have to get back to reality, a reality where he has to be strong for the sake of the team and a reality where I have to accept that he's just a doppelganger.

       We pull ourselves to our feet and make our way to the Cortex; Iris and Cisco joining us on our way, the latter announcing there's an energy surge coming from said room. When we get there, our hearts stop.

       "Joe! What are you doing?" Barry stresses as he gets closer to Joe who's holding a saw in his hands, trying his best to cut Wally out of the cocoon. H.R. stands beside him just observing, not able to stop the detective anyway, "Hey, stop! You can't cut him out!"

       "I have to."

       "Joe, it is as dangerous for Wally as it is for us, you have to stop!" I blurt out, yet he doesn't listen, the saw is still buzzing.

       "Joe, don't!" Barry screams until my ears hurt and I know he's seen the same thing I'm seeing now. The saw has finally perforated the cocoon and this thing is not going to need Joe to continue sawing through it, it's going to explode. Barry's eyes meet my own before we dash to get everyone out of harm's way. There's a blinding yellow light slowly illuminating H.R. and Iris's face when I grab them and push them out of the explosion's way, just like Barry is doing with Joe and Cisco. Although it is not a big explosion, we are thrown against walls and shelves with medical stuff in the last second. I have landed on a bunch of broken glass next to Iris and we both wince in pain, yet we give each other a nod to indicate we're okay.

       "You're bleeding!" She says quietly and points at my forearm; I didn't even notice the moment where the little pieces of glass buried into my skin.

       "It's nothing," I assure her and I turn my attention to the electricity crackling around us, then, like a punch in the stomach, I sense a new overflowing source of the Speed Force. It's not Barry, for sure; the Speed Force within him is like the soft breeze pushing the clouds in the sky, steady and calm, totally under control. What I sense right now is messy and it's not under control, like a tornado trying to unleash all its power.

       The source is Wally.

       We all call his name but he doesn't seem to be listening to us, he looks lost. I try to get close to him, maybe I could do something, but when I'm about to reach for his hand, he looks at me, or at least that's what I think.

       "Wally, can you hear me?" I tell him softly, "Everything's gonna be fine, just relax. . ." I take his hand into mine and feel the Speed Force that now runs through his veins before he speeds off to who knows where. I stare at my hand, which is dripping with the blood that comes from my forearm and is still reaching for Wally's hand.

       "Was this your idea?" I hear Barry ask and get a reply from H.R. as he crouches down in front of what's left from the cocoon, we are still trying to process what just happened. I'm staring at the mess on the floor, what's left of the cocoon when Iris takes me by the arm.

       "Let's take care of your arm," she says with a tiny smile as she walks me to a chair nearby while I kindly protest telling her that it's nothing serious, the doe eyed girl insists, though.

       "No sign of Wally," says Cisco, grabbing her full attention, also mine, "I've got the satellite scanning the entire city for rapid movement," I give my head a slight shake.

       "Your satellites won't be of much help this time," I say, "you use them to detect steady speeds, like Barry's. Wally can't control the flow of speed in his body yet, it will be hard for the satellites to get with him. When we get a hit with his location he could already be in another place."

       "If he's a speedster, he could be halfway across the country by now," says Barry, shaking his head. He's right. I see the tweezers and the cotton pads Iris left onto the desk and I start to pull the pieces of glass from my arm while they talk. It won't be easy, to find Wally, not now that he's out of whack.

       "Barry, we have to find him," says Iris, worry dripping from her voice.

       "I'm more worried about what happens when we do find him. He didn't seem like he was all there, Iris," Barry replies. The conversation ends with Barry paying a visit to Caitlin in the pipeline to get help from her; I feel bad for Joe, he just wanted his son back, now even if we find him, we won't know if he'll be the same. Iris takes the tweezers from my hands and starts to pull the glass from my arm. I can see the struggle she's making not to cry.

       "Caitlin will find a way to get him back to normal," I tell her.

       "I hope so, but how are we going to find him? The satellites haven't found anything yet," she says, taking the last few bits of glass with the tweezers and cleaning my arm with a cotton pad drenched in wound cleanser.

       "The satellite is the less of our problems," I say, observing how she cleans the wounds; Cisco has now joined us and he looks at me through narrowed eyes.

       "Wait a second, if you come from the Speed Force and say that you've never been on this earth before, how did you get to the waterfront and found the Flash? We never told you how to get there," Iris then looks at me, curious while the boy crosses his arms.

       "When I got my powers, I wasn't only gifted with the ability to run faster than the speed of sound," I say, "I was also gifted with the ability to track those tied to the Speed Force, I can feel the Speed Force emanating from Barry and that thing at the waterfront, that's how I found them. I could feel it emanating from Wally, I can track it."

       "You can help us find Wally," Iris cries, a wide smile on her burgundy lips.

       "Why didn't you tell us that before?" Cisco asks, and I can't tell if he's happy or not.

       "I wanted to, before speeding to the waterfront, but there was no time," I say, he seems to understand, "plus, I got locked into the pipeline, so I couldn't," I shrug and let the corners of my lips quirk up a little, not blaming them. Then, he gives me a smile, the first one coming from him. By this time Iris has finished cleaning my wounds and is about to dress my forearm with gauze, "Don't worry, I got it," I say, tightly closing my hand into a fist and the wounds and scratches the glass made start to heal in matter of seconds, leaving my forearm as smooth as silk, "thank you, Iris," I say, and I meet two shocked faces.

       "How the hell did you do that?" Cisco asks, pointing at my forearm, a deep crease formed between his brown eyes, "I've never seen a wound healing that fast, not even on a speedster."

       "Oh, that?" I look at my arm, "I guess you learn how to speed it up."

⚪⚪⚪

       Calm starts to lurk amongst the members of the team. The satellites won't work, but I can go track Wally; Caitlin is back and she's working on a serum to get Wally's biochemistry work as it should, so we could say this day is already saved. We are all gathered in the medical bay. I'm sitting on the medical bed with my legs crossed, listening to Caitlin as I try on H.R.'s hat.

       "I think extracting Wally early from that cocoon left him in a fugue state," she continues, and we all listen attentively, "his synapses aren't used to functioning at super-speed, so his mind and muscles are misfiring. I've synthesized a neural compound that I think will get his mind and body running at the same speed. We just have to find him first," I get on my feet and leave H.R.'s hat onto the bed.

       "I can help with that. I can get a head start and start looking around the city if you'd like," I say and Iris explains to everyone about my abilities. Caitlin suggests that Barry does the same to cover a larger radius and that when we find Wally he injects him with the neural compound. Cisco walks up to me and hands me an earpiece and explains to me how to use it, "Got it. Okay, I'll track him and I'll let you guys know his location immediately," I say, feeling at my wrist, "I'll just need my bangle back, please," they look at me, puzzled.

       "Why would you need it?" Caitlin questions as she pulls the bag they've been keeping it in from a secured drawer and hands it to me. I put my wrist through it and it automatically shrinks to my size.

       "Because I can't go out there wearing this," I reply, looking down at the sweatshirt and pants I'm wearing. I tap on the bangle and a tiny sensor goes on, allowing my suit to materialize over my body, weaving gracefully over it and covering it with a layer of crimson fabric that hugs my curves tightly like a second skin.

       "Your suit fits into that bangle?" Iris asks in awe and I nod.

       "Technically, the nanobots are stored in it and when I tell it to go on by tapping on it, they come out and form the suit," I brush on the explanation, "Flash, are we ready?" I ask Barry and we all see a red streak crossing out and then back into the room when he comes back all suited up.

       "We're ready."

       The Flash and I go on separate ways. Although I'm trying to focus all my attention on finding Wally, I can't help but think this earth is amazing, the city is almost an exact copy of what my city used to be. I saw the same Chinese food restaurant on Bentley Avenue and I was aghast to the point of almost running straight into a car. I let everyone know that I'm getting close when I rush into Keystone City.

       "Flash, can you hear me?" I ask.

       "Loud and clear."

       "We're going to need that serum, you have to get to Keystone City now, he's here, I can feel it," with the help of the provisional tracker Cisco put in my suit, he tells the speedster my location. Joe has decided to join the search party and he's just called Iris to let us know that Wally's probably at the house that he grew up in. I can hear Iris through the coms say that he used to go there when he missed his mother. She's not even finished the sentence when I make a turn into the suburbs of Keystone City and I spot Wally.

       "Found him."

       I breathe out, coming to a halt in the middle of an empty street. I can hear the sighs of relief coming from everyone at S.T.A.R. Labs over the insects chirping as they hide into the overgrown grass. Wally's standing there, in front of an abandoned house. Carefully, I walk closer to the boy, trying not to scare him away while I wait for the serum.

       "Wally?" I call, and the domino mask covering my eyes disappears when I order it to, "I'm Violett, I'm your friend," he turns his head in my direction, I don't even know if he's actually listening to me. I'm standing two steps from him now, "We're gonna get you home buddy, you'll be fine."

       He reaches out for my hand now, maybe he does remember me and he is listening to me after all. I take his hand and feel how overwhelmed by his powers he is. For a moment it's like I'm trapped in whatever state he's in, I don't like it, it's like fear is trying to consume me.

       "Wally!" Joe's voice booms across the street, snapping me out of my reverie and making me let go of the boy's hand. I barely noticed the sound of his car, "Wally! It's your dad, son. You're gonna be all right," finally, Barry shows up with the neural compound and injects it to Wally, "we're gonna take care of you, okay?" Joe takes his son in his arms right before he passes out.

       "You okay?" The Flash asks me as he steps next to me.

       "Yeah, I'm okay. We better take him to Doctor Snow," I tell them, relieved that the serum worked. My eyes get caught on Joe and his son, he holds him tight against his chest and suddenly the detective's dark eyes meet mine.

       "Thank you."

       He utters, a diffident smile tugging at my lips when I feel my chest warming up with those two words.

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AUTHOR'S NOTE:

is it too early to ship them? oh well, i do. any ship names? barlett, or barriolett? lol, let me know in the comments. thoughts on her version of the flash ring? i thought the bangle was appropriate for our girl. i love writing this story and i'm so happy to know you're enjoying reading it!

dedicated to queenofpurgatory for the lovely comments and feedback and because she's downright awesome! 💕

ghost readers i dare you to comment and vote 💪 show ya girl some love!