Chaos is a beautifully terrifying series of events. One time when I was six, I fell off my bike and broke my arm. My parents rushed me to the emergency room- everyone worried but me. As I sat in the quiet ER I took stock of all the equipment that the hospital supplied. Then out of no where I heard a doctor yell incoming and seven or eight ambulances pull up to the loading zone. The doctor who was casting my arm stopped and ran to the crisis along with about thirty other doctors. People on stretchers were sped into trauma rooms and into empty beds.

In an instant, the quiet and welcoming emergency room turned into a chaotic circus. The doctors were acrobats, flying on trapeze from patient to patient. Nurses were like clowns, moving from act to act trying to do what ever they can to make the show better. And the patients were the lions that were trying to be tamed.

Right now, in this moment, we have one doctor- Caitlin. We have no nurse, unless you count Cisco and Jesse who are doing everything they possibly can to help Caitlin. And we aren't in a real hospital- we are in STAR Labs. There is yelling coming from Caitlin's mouth, telling everyone what they can do. And there is yelling coming from Barry's mouth, who is now conscious. More screaming comes from behind me where Iris is being held back by both Joe and Harry. And then there is me; I just am standing there, watching the circus preform before my eyes. Everything is so loud that it is almost silent.

Cisco and Jesse are yelling at me to do something, but I can't. I'm stuck, I can't move. I just stand there shaking because my brain can't comprehend the idea that Barry might die right in front of me. Someone tells me to take a breath and I comply. Slowly the jumbled up sound becomes a little more clear and the voices that were screaming nonsense before are now screaming words that I can understand perfectly.

"He has a through break in his humorous, we'll have to set it," Caitlin says in a panicked voice. She moves over to his arm and gets ready to set the bones in place. I glance at Barry's --- face and my hazy brain clears once again.

His metabolism will burn through any anesthetic, I think to myself.

"Wait!" I yell at Caitlin. I hurry over to Barry's side and squeeze his hand. I look into his eyes with grace and comfort and immediately his panic flushes from his eyes. Iris is still screaming in the background, most likely because she is watching her best friend bleed out in front of her. I talk to her without breaking eye contact with Barry.

"Iris, Barry is going to be fine," I say calmly. "I've got him, don't worry."

She stops screaming and struggling to get out of the grasp of Harry and her father. Instead she melts into the both of them, sobbing. I squeeze Barry's hand a little tighter and he does the same. With my other hand I stroke his cheek in a soothing way like I was taught in med school to do when a patient is panicked. I speak in the most calm tone I can while on the inside I am so scared that I feel like I am dying.

"Barry I need you to keep as still as you can so you don't do anymore damage," I say. "I'm right here; I'm not going anywhere. You are going to be just fine, just stay calm."

I repeat the mantra a couple of times and then nod to Caitlin, giving her the go ahead to set Barry's arm. As she gets ready to cause some serious pain, I let a tear slip from my swollen eyes. My hand continues to envelope Barry's. She counts to three and on the last number she moves her hands and a loud crack splits the air around me. I'm not sure what comes first- Barry's scream or the pain of his hand crushing mine. I let out a sob not because of my hand shattering but because I can't stand it when Barry is hurt.

"I'm so sorry," I sob to Barry. I see his eyes start to cloud over and a couple seconds later he passes out. I want to wrap my arms around him and cry but I know that if I do I could hurt him even more. I have kept quiet this whole time, holding in all of my emotions, but now that I can't do anything else I let everything out.

The freak out starts with a low groan like kids do when they get assigned math homework. Then I break into a cold sweat and the groan escalates to a struggled hyperventilation. My struggle to breath dissipates as I suck in a large breath and scream at the top of my lungs. I scream again and shake furiously. Just like in all of my nightmares, I am covered in Barry's blood. My legs give out and I fall to the floor still screaming. I hold my head and pull on my hair hard like a crazy person would do in a movie. I scream louder and close my eyes, replaying the events that had just unfolded. I lay down on the floor and blood covers my hair like shampoo. I scream more and more until my voice is hoarse and I can hardly hear anything else.

Jesse and Caitlin just let me scream while they continue to work on saving my foster brother. I stop screaming but continue to gaze at nothing while I lay aimlessly on the blood soaked floor. I should be crying or still screaming, but I'm not. Some pain just hurts too much to cry over.

I lay there, non-moving, for four hours until Caitlin is done and Cisco transports him to another room. Then Caitlin sits down next to me.

"He is stable, Dawn."

I nod not making eye contact.

"Let's go bandage your hand shall we?" That's when I look and see that my hand is shattered in multiple places. I nod again and get up. We make our way over to the Cortex and sit. Caitlin gets out a splint and then walks back over to me.

"This is the worst birthday ever," I say with a laugh. It seems like such a silly thing to think to think at a moment like this but I can't help it. Here I am, covered in blood, getting my shattered hand splinted, on my birthday.

"Barry is alive Dawn, this can't be your worst birthday," Caitlin says.

"Take it from a girl who has been abused, neglected, and isolated on her birthday for half of her life- this is the worst birthday ever." Caitlin finishes with my hand and I thank her.

"I'm going to go check on Iris," I say. Then I decide to add one more thing. "Caitlin, you did great with Barry, thank you."

I trudge into another room to find Iris asleep next to Joe. He looks up at me with sad eyes.

"Are you okay," he asks me. I nod my head yes.

"No," I say contradicting my last statement. He pulls me in close like he is doing to Iris. I cry, creating a stain of tears next to the one Iris made.

"Did I ever tell you about what Barry said to me the day he met you?" Joe laughs at the memory. I shake my head and he continues to talk. "He came home from work or something and he said to me, 'Joe, I met the most interesting little girl today and I have this weird feeling.' I asked him what the feeling was and he said, 'I feel like this little girl is going to change my life."

I smile thinking of Barry saying those words. I smile at the thought of Barry saying anything. And then I start to cry at the thought of almost loosing the privilege of hearing Barry talk ever again.

I cry harder when my memory flashes back to the image of Barry hitting the ground at full speed, his bones shattering so loud you could hear it around the world. I see the image of my yellow suit turning red as if someone put a red sock in the washing machine along with it. I open my eyes to see Iris's face still wet with tears even in her sleep and I realize that she is hurting just as much as I am. Everybody here is. Once someone like Barry has entered your life, its hard to imagine life without them.

"Okay," I say sniffing and wiping away my tears. "I've cried, I'm done now. You need to take care of your daughter." I stand up and move to leave with my head up and the lump in my throat swallowed.

"Dawn," Joe says, stopping me. I turn around to face him. "You're my daughter too."

With that, the hole in my chest fills a little.

-*-

I decide that if I went into Barry's room and saw him that I would freak out again, so instead I go to find Cisco. I make my way through the concrete hallways to Cisco's lab. As soon as I walk in, a pile of tools flies by my face. I look in the direction that the flying tools came from and see an angry Cisco.

"Whoa, hey Cisco calm down."

I looks at me and his anger seems to increase.

"She was our friend! How could she do this?"

I realize that he is talking about Bette and I walk over to him with sad eyes. "Some people do things that we will never understand. And all we can do is keep our ground and bare through whatever is thrown at us. And I know, it sucks what happened to Barry and I know the terrible feeling in our chests is unbearable, but you have to believe that it will pass. It will. I know it will." By now I am talking to myself, trying to keep myself from freaking out again.

"You have to believe that there is hope in the dark," I say as I choke on a sob. No, I say myself as I try not to cry. My lungs fill up with air and then I exhale all of the air.

"He will be okay, right Cisco?" I just need to hear the words from somebody else.

"Of course," he says and pulls me into a bear hug.

"Can you do me a favor?" I ask. He nods slowly. "Will you wait to find Bette until things calm down?"

"If you do me a favor," he answers. I nod this time. "When we do find her, will you kill her?"

I step away from Cisco, floored. I know if I did kill her, Barry would disown me. I would be looked down upon. And even though I want her to suffer as much as Barry is right now, I can not kill her.

I shake my head. "No, she doesn't deserve to die Cisco. She deserves a lot worse than dying." With that I run out of the lab and into Barry's hospital like room. There I sit in a chair next to his bed and lay my head down by his arm. I lay there wondering what Barry would say to me if he was awake. He probably wouldn't say anything- he would just hold me while I cried.

"He did the same thing," someone says from behind me. I sit up and turn around to see Jesse's swollen face and red eyes.

"What?" When I talk my voice cracks because of all the screaming I've done today. Jesse sits next to me.

"When you were in a coma Barry sat in the exact same position you were just in and he didn't move. He couldn't handle the idea of loosing you and while everyone was arguing what to do to save you, I sat in the hallway with Barry while he cried. I held him in my arms while he just cried and cried. And I didn't mind it, because I knew that he was hurting. I also didn't mind because Barry is pretty hot if you haven't noticed."

I laugh at that last part. Leave it to Jesse to bring laughter in a time of melancholy. I shake my head kind of grossed out by the fact that she called my foster brother hot.

"Oh come on, you have to admit it," she says.

"No, I don't. You know he can hear you right?"

"That's a myth," she counters.

I laugh. "No it's not."

She tilts her head for a second and then gasps. "He just heard me call him hot, oh my God."

I burst out in laughter. "Thank you Jess, I needed that."

"You should get some sleep," she says kindly. I shake my head. With sleep, comes nightmares. And I can't live through another nightmare today.