It had taken nearly a month for Iris's condition to stabilize enough for her to be transferred back to the state, since she'd been badly hurt and she still wasn't out of the woods, but now the doctors at their triage facility had confirmed that she was stable enough to return home, though she was still in a medically induced coma to spare her the pain she'd no doubt be in when she woke up, but it also meant that she'd sleep peacefully throughout the flight home, something that Gabriella honestly envied about her, since while night terrors were one thing every soldier shared, but ever since the ambush things had gotten worse. Every night when Gabriella closed her eyes, since like Iris, she'd been on leave from active duty since the ambush and she was also receiving an honorable discharge, but every night she saw her squadmates, her friends, die in that explosion and considering the fact that the mission had been a set up, she'd been reluctant to talk to any military therapist about it, since she didn't know who she could trust in the ranks right now. One of the reasons she'd decided to resign from active duty. She no longer trusted the military to protect her and she couldn't be a part of something she didn't trust or believe in anymore.

Anyways, Gabriella had refused to return to the states until Iris could, since honestly, she didn't like the idea of Iris being alone around people they weren't sure they could trust, but she had to admit, she couldn't deny that she was relieved to finally be heading home, where hopefully Iris would get the help she needed, though Gabriella knew that Iris would never truly be same again, while her scars would heal, some of her injuries wouldn't. While she'd been luckier than the rest of their unit, since she'd survived, Iris hadn't come out of the incident completely intact. While Gabriella had found Iris in the wreckage after the explosion, her right arm had been pinned and crushed by debris that had been too heavy to remove, especially considering how unstable the remainder of the building us, so the field medics had been forced to resort to amputation to her out and there was still a chance of other damage being done that the base's medical center just wasn't advanced enough to identify.

Anyways, as Gabriella sat on the plane that was taking her and Iris home, she began to pray for Iris, since her father had been a priest, leading to Gabriella relying heavily on her faith, especially while she was overseas. But now she wasn't the one who needed the strength of God on her side, Iris was. Then she heard over the plane's PA that their ETA would be in another 5 minutes and Gabriella was definitely looking forward to returning home and more importantly, eating a nice greasy burger from Big Belly Burger. Along with also finally getting to meet Iris's boyfriend Barry Allen, since she'd heard a lot about the man from Iris and she knew that Barry would be even more concerned for Iris's wellbeing than she was.

The second the plane touched down and they were cleared to exit, a team of doctors rushed on board to transfer Iris onto a gurney and moved her towards a waiting ambulance.

"Where's her family?" Gabriella asked.

"Waiting at the hospital, they thought it would make more sense there than to crowd her here and potentially get in the way." one of the remaining medics said as Gabriella saw her own family approaching.

Joe West was a nervous wreck. Getting the phone he feared most from Eiling had been terrifying, the only thing that could've been more terrifying if the call had been saying that Iris was dead and that was still a possibility. He wished that they would've let him fly overseas to be with Iris while she recovered, but he knew the military strictly forbade civilians or even veterans from setting foot on active military bases in foreign countries for security reasons. Still, at least now Iris was home and she had the best medical specialists in the country working with her, since the Allens or more accurately, Carla Tannhauser was footing the medical bill for anything not covered by insurance that was necessary to save his daughter's life.

They'd already gotten word that Iris had been admitted to the ER, but now he, his wife Cecille, his 16 year old son Wally, along with Iris's boyfriend and Joe hoped, her future husband, his father Henry, his stepmom Carla and his stepsister Caitlin were all sitting in the waiting room, waiting for news, since the Allen family cared about Iris almost as much as the West family did, and after what seemed like forever, finally, a nurse came out.

"I'm looking for the family of Iris West?" the nurse asked.

"That's us. I'm her father and this is her mother." Joe said as he and Cecille jumped up and so did the others.

"How is our daughter?" Cecille demanded, only to be put off by the nurse's face.

"She's alive, but barely. Her arm was amputated while she was overseas to save her life, but a lot more damage was done. The medics overseas managed to stabilize her condition and we repaired the remaining damage as best we could." the nurse said.

"But?" Joe asked.

"The damage done to her spine was too severe for us to repair." the nurse said.

"She's paralyzed?" Cecille asked.

"I'm afraid so. And modern medicine is not advanced enough to cure her. At least not yet not with this level of damage." the nurse said.

"Can we see her?" Cecille asked.

"She's still in recovery, I only came out here to let you know what her status was. I'll come back when she's allowed to have visitors." the nurse said before she walked back into the ER.