I sit on a white chair in the middle of the cortex. The room is dark except for the soft glow of the computer screens illuminating in front of me. Silence is clawing its way around the room, stroking my hair and face. It deafens my ears to the point where only a harsh ringing remains and it echos throughout the corridors of STAR Labs. The air is still and nothing moves. I don't move. A calmness that has never been present before has now come over my body.

This is odd, I say to myself. But I can't even hear my own voice.

"Cisco is going to be mad," says a voice, breaking the silence. I turn my head slowly too see Barry and my calmness disappears; to take its place- a horrifying consternation. The fear doesn't hit me at first though.

"Why?" I ask in response to Barry's statement.

"Because I got blood on the suit."

That is when the panic and fear come in. Pools of blood surround Barry's feet. I scream but no sound comes out. The once silent room becomes chaotic with noise; laughter, crying, screaming, sirens blaring, an EKG Monitor flat lining. Beep, beep, beep...

BEEP! My alarm clock screams at me too wake up. I sit up gasping for air and holding my head. Sweat beads form on my forehead; I wipe them away quickly along with any tears that threaten to fall from my eyes.

I take deep, long breaths in order for me to calm down. Then I walk out of my room and into a busy kitchen. Joe is sitting at the table reading a newspaper and Iris is standing at the stove flipping pancakes. 

"Morning," I say groggily. "Pancakes?"

"I have the day off," says Iris cheerfully. Barry walks through the door in a hurry, carrying a CSI bag.

"Hey Pickle," Barry says to me. "Pancakes?" 

"She had the day off," I say as I take a seat next to Detective West. "Wait did you just call me Pickle?"

"Yeah"

"Why?"

"Why not? Ugh. I'm going to be late for work Iris, sorry. Looks like I can't eat your pancakes." Iris looks disappointed.

"C'mon, just a bite," says Iris as she stabs a piece of pancake with a fork and feeds it to Barry. A smile spreads across my face.

"They're so cute," I whisper to Detective West.

"Agreed," he responds.

"Hey can I come to the precinct with you, Barry?" I ask because I have nothing better to do. Also I really need to refresh my brain with facts appropriate for my level of intelligence. Online school has made my brain turn to mush with questions like what is a cell and what is the square root of four thousand.

"Dawn I have to leave now," says Barry. As soon as he is done with his sentence I speed off to my room and change out of my yellow pajama shorts and into a pair of black jeans. I throw on a gray STAR Labs t shirt and black lace up shoes. Then I speed back into the kitchen, putting my strawberry blonde hair into a ponytail.

"Ready," I say with a smirk on my face. Barry rolls his eyes.

"Annoying," he says in response.

"How many STAR Labs shirts do you have?" Iris asks in awe.

I laugh. "Four. And a sweatshirt. Oh and then I have the sweatshirt that I stole from Barry's closet."

"Why do you have my sweatshirt if you have one of your own?" Barry asks on his way out the door.

"I don't know," I lie. I'm not going to say the real reason out loud. I walk out the door but not before I see Detective West and Iris exchange a look with Barry.

-*-

"So," Barry says as we ride the elevator up to his lab. "No nightmares last night?"

I hesitate to answer but finally say, "Nope." My foster brother gives me a suspicious look. I focus on the beeping of the elevator going up the floors of the precinct and avoid eye contact.

"Dawn?" Barry questions me like I'm under interrogation. I bounce in my shoes and bite my lips. I am really not fond of revealing my nightmare to him. After another second of his eyes burning a hole in me I break; usually I don't break but Barry can make me announce anything.

"Yes I had a nightmare. There, you can drop it." The elevator doors open and we walk out. A tall man in a coat walks over to us hands something to Barry.

"New case Allen. A bomb went off last night." Barry and I look at each other. A bomb? We didn't hear anything about a bomb.

"Did anybody get hurt?" As soon as I speak I see Barry cringe. Was I not supposed to talk? The man stares at me and I immediately recognize him. Captain Singh. I realize now that I was not supposed to talk.

"Who is this?" He has a strong voice that a tyrant would use. I cower into myself like I do when I'm nervous and Barry nudges me with his elbow as to say 'don't do that'. I straighten my posture once more and lift my head confidently.

"Uh.. this is my friend.. foster.. sister? She is Joe's new foster child. She is just here for.. actually I don't know why she's here. But I promise she won't get in the way." I nod confirming what Barry just said.

"I remember when Joe took you in," the captain says to Barry. "It's nice he is taking in another. Don't let her mess anything up."

"I don't think that's very likely," I say suddenly. "I'm the second smartest person alive. Also I have been here before so I have the whole place memorized down to each spec of dust... I now realize that I am being extremely inappropriate and I am going to stop talking."

"Great there's two of you," the captain says to Barry. Then he turns to me. "Don't mess anything up, Little Allen." 

I nod and Captain Singh walks out the door. Great, I already have a nickname and I don't even work here. As soon as he is out of ear shot I sharply say to Barry, "I didn't here anything about a bomb, did you?"

"No. Wait, these files are military issued." His face is a mask of warning and almost a tinge of fear. After walking into his lab, Barry opens the file. The look in his eyes is one of confusion.

"What is it?" I ask.

"I don't understand."

"What!"

"The bombs where set off by a metahuman."

Amazement fires in my brain. "A meta who can set off bombs? Cool!" Barry looks at me with a disappointed face. "But awful."

"It's not just any meta," Barry says as he looks somberly at the file. "It's Bette Sans Souci."

"Who?"

"This doesn't make any sense. Bette was a nuclear bomb specialist for the US Military until the particle accelerator exploded and she turned into a metahuman. She blows up everything she touches. But she died three years ago."

"Well obviously she isn't dead," I say jokingly. Barry shoots me a look; he doesn't think its a good joke. Barry starts to mumble to himself as he goes through the filing cabinet near his desk. I look through Bette's new file and see the location of the bombing. "Barry, the bombing was at hospital near the outskirts of Central City. This doesn't look like an accident."

Barry's head snaps in my direction. "No, Bette is a friend. She's on our side."

I nod but still don't believe that someone who bombs a hospital can be on 'our side'.

"So, was Bette on the team?" I ask distantly. The way I see it, someone who makes bombs for a living must be pretty smart. I find myself wondering, was there another me before me? Barry snorts.

"Yeah, for like a day before she blew up. Or at least we thought she blew up." I feel a twinge of happiness that I know I shouldn't. Barry sighs as he sits in his desk chair. He seems a bit confused as to why a 'friend' would bomb a hospital, something I have been wondering myself. "Call Cisco, tell him Plastique is back."

-*-

"Well," Caitlin says as Barry and I walk into STAR Labs. "Bette is alive? Should we track her down or just wait until she shows up?"

I vote on tracking her down before she blows anybody else up but everyone vetoes the idea. "She is a friend, not a danger. She will show up when she is ready," Caitlin offers. Everyone seems to agree with her.

"Then we wait," I say before sighing. Cisco, Caitlin, and Barry start to share stories from before I joined the team. They talk about giant gorillas, men in yellow suits, time travel, and evil Wells? I'll have to ask about that later. I roll my eyes and sigh. "Well, if nobody is getting robbed or killed, I would like to feed my famished stomach."

"Food sounds amazing," says Iris as she enters the room with her dad. Barry waves at them subtly.

"Drinks sound better," Cisco offers. Jesse and I look at each other with annoyance because we are the only ones under age. Well at least Jesse can get into a bar, my fifteen year old self won't make it past the front doors. Everyone in the room looks at each other and then at me. The awkward silence in the room is too much to bare.

"Fine," I say. "Go."

"Are you sure," Barry says.

"Yes, go, have fun. I'll just go home.. alone.. with my non-alcoholic beverages.." I laugh to show that my disappointment is fake. Barry smiles and then everyone leaves. I run home in seconds and get on more comfortable clothes. I exchange my black jeans for a pair of navy blue pajama shorts and then put on Barry's sweatshirt. It's about ten sizes too big for me but it's ridiculously soft and warm. Sitting on the couch I turn the TV on. Then the front door opens and Detective West walks in. 

"Detective West, you didn't go with Iris and them?" 

"Nah. I'll let them be kids for tonight. And how many times have I told you not to call me Detective West. Just call me Joe like everyone else does." 

"My apologies, Detective West- I mean Joe. Sorry, I'm so used to addressing people by their proper names."  Joe laughs, sits down in the chair opposite of the couch, and picks up the newspaper he was reading this morning. Around midnight Barry and Iris walk through the front door laughing. Joe and I look back at them and then back at each other. 

Iris gasps, obviously drunk. "Dawn! You should have come with us!" 

"Oh yeah, next time for sure," I say laughing. She lurches forward and covers her mouth. After swallowing her puke, she says to Barry, "I think I'm going to go to sleep now." 

Ten minutes later Barry is back down the stairs. After getting a glass of water he announces that he is going to sleep and suggests that I do the same. 

"I will."

"Good night," he says to me and Joe. 

"Good night. And hey! Don't forget what day it is tomorrow." 

Barry's eyes go wide and he takes a sudden interest in his shoes. Did he really forget? 

"What's tomorrow?" Joe asks. 

"Really guys!? It's my birthday!"

They seem to come to a sudden realization. Barry smiles a smile only he could give. I smile in return. I stand up and give him a hug before returning to my bedroom. I lay in bed and wait a second to turn off the lights. My brain spins with thoughts and I try to clear them until only remains. I have a family.. even if they forget that it's my birthday. I laugh at the thought. Then I marvel at the thought that exactly a year ago I was locked in the basement of a foster home. And in about an hour last year, Barry would come to my rescue. I turn out the lights, close my eyes, and prepare myself to wake up to a terrifying nightmare. 

In retrospect, I should have wished for a nightmare.

---

A/N: I hope you enjoyed the fluff while it lasted *evil grin*