It happened so often, Barry was almost used to it. He was almost unaffected when the world was against him. Cisco had found the hard drive including the message from future-Barry, and he snapped at him, so loud it had brought the entire team into the conversation.

Diggle was heartbroken Barry erased a daughter from his life.

The Legends felt helpless, considering all the aberrations they had been going back in time and fixing were useless now, because Barry thought it was okay to change anything he wanted, so long as it pertained to him. 

Sara's words hurt him the most. She knew exactly how he felt, the struggle he went through about wanting to bring his family back hit her at home. She desperately wanted to save Laurel, but she never did. Sara knew better. She thought Barry did, too.

Towards the end of her speech, her eyes fell on the baby in Barry's arms. 

He shook his head, pulling his child closer to his chest.

"Flashpoint gave you her, didn't it?" asked Sara. "She is an aberration, Barry, she's not real--" 

"Leave her out of this!" he yelled. 

"Guys!" squealed Felicity, unaware of what was previously happening. "The President's been kidnapped and she needs us right now!"

In the end, it was decided that Barry and Oliver were going to stay behind. Kara was going with the rest of the team, to be the 'big gun' in case it was necessary. She knew the team was weak without the two main leaders. Hell, they all did. It was emotions that were getting in the way of the bigger picture. 

"Barry," said Oliver softly. 

"I left Mel's food at S.T.AR. Labs. I'm gonna go get it," lied Barry. 

"We all might as well go back. It's getting late," said Cisco. He held his hands out for the baby. "We'll take Mel back."

xxxx

When Oliver found Barry, it was in a vault in the wall. He was staring at a projected hologram on the wall, where the headline read: 'The Flash Missing, Vanishes In Crisis.' He was staring at a certain part of the article, the byline, which said the article was written by Judy Greer. It said Iris West no longer. 

"She told me, you know," said Barry quietly. "She used to tell me, over and over, that going back was going to alter the future. I don't know how she knew. Just figured she was worried, you know? But, I did it anyway. I didn't think about the future. I changed so much. God, what did I do?"

Oliver listened, simply because he was frustrated with Barry. He was Barry.  Maybe that was the toll of being a hero, he thought. Blaming yourself for death, putting the weight of the world on your shoulders, feeling the dread of anything and everything bad that happens because you could have done something about it. The difference was, Oliver knew how to channel it and exert it in a helpful way that wasn't wallowing, which Barry excelled at. 

He explained Barry that maybe the future changing was his fault, or maybe it wasn't. He said that choices are made every day, choices that affect the future, that don't have to be Barry's fault. Tragedy happens because of choices that are made, directly by him or not. He told him his own story, about his mother and father dying, and he asked him, "Do you honestly know anybody that, in your shoes, wouldn't do the same exact thing?"

"Parker."

"Maybe. But she was human. She made mistakes."

Barry scoffed. "Her only mistake was getting a job here. She could have avoided all of this, all of me. It's my fault she's dead. Always has been."

"You're not a God, Barry," sighed Oliver. 

Over the intercom, Cisco yelled, "Hey, guys, wherever you are, we need you!"

Barry fumbled with the podium to access the security cameras. Professor Stein and Jax, Diggle, Thea, Ray, Sara, Kara, and Mick, their eyes tinted with red, were busying themselves with tearing apart the exterior of Team Flash's home base. They had gone rogue. 

"Oh, my God, I don't have the money for more repairs," said Barry, defeated. 

xxxx

With Wally's help, Oliver and Barry brought their friends back to their regular mindsets. Wally knocked out half of them, then was knocked out by Kara. Barry received the source of their mind changes, thanks to their tech squad, and he brought Kara there, angering her in a race, until she destroyed the source. 

All together again, outside of S.T.A.R. Labs, Barry placed his hand over the singed sign. His heart felt heavier than before. To the sky, he whispered, "Park, I'm so sorry. Don't haunt me yet. I'll fix your place, okay? I'll fix everything."

"So, what was it like, being all mind-controlled and stuff?" asked Felicity, nudging Mick with her elbow. In their close proximity under an umbrella, he stared at her blankly, and she shut up. 

"I didn't realize he had a mind to be controlled," admitted Jax. 

"Barry, about before..." started Ray. "Message or no message, we're with you."

"Thanks," smiled Barry.

Thea looked around. "Where's Supergirl?" 

"Scanning the city to make sure they're no more of the Orbs that whammied you," explained Barry. 

"So, now what?" wondered Diggle. 

Oliver suggested, "We call Lyla, tell her these Dominators aren't here peacefully."

It was no more than a few steps towards the building when a blinding white light shined down from the sky above and made Sara Lance disappear. Everyone froze, whipping their heads around to find where the light was coming from. In the panic, Thea was taken by the light, then Diggle, then Ray-- all faster than Barry could reach. 

"Everybody inside! Go!"

Felicity and Mick made it inside. Barry stayed, running for Oliver, when the light came down from above. Barry pushed himself faster, extending his hand. He lunged. It was too late. Barry couldn't save Oliver from the abducting light. 

SPACE 

Aliens! In SPACE! Every abductee had been taken into a capsule of some sort, which brought on a conjoined hallucination, where everyone they once knew was alive and well. They managed to escape the dream and escape, though it brought dozens of Dominator ships after them. 

The Waverider came to them in their time of need. It saved the escape pod filled with the heroes from being blown to pieces. With Nate Heywood, a historian turned superhero Steel, as the pilot, he swallowed up the pod and rejoined the non meta-human's together. 

That was it, Ray had noticed. He proposed the Dominators chose them specifically because they couldn't fight back in a way that would hurt. He suggested that the Dominators used the hallucination to keep their minds busy while they probed for intel. 

"Bigger question: what intel are they after? What is their plan?" asked Oliver.

"'Klic-clac-to-nick-lava-shack-too,'" quoted Ray slowly. 

"Gesundheit," excused Thea.

"No, no, it's what one of the Dominators said to one of the others, which sounds like the beginning to a not-so-funny joke, but... Gideon," said Ray hopefully.

Gideon, their A.I. aboard the Waveride, appeared in hologram form above the center table. She informed them she was translating.

Diggle stared at the hologram. "Someone gonna tell me why that thing looks like Barry's wife?"

"Who?" wondered Nate. 

"A friend of ours. She died a few months back," explained Ray. 

"She was created in A.I. form by Barry, in our future," said Oliver. 

Diggle didn't have much of a reaction. He should have expected a crazy situation to follow Parker's death. She was married to the fastest man alive, after all. 

"The phrase loosely translates to, 'we are nearing completion of the weapon,'" said Gideon.

"What weapon?" 

"I'm afraid I have no idea, but I'm tracking the Dominators mother-ship you escaped from, and it appears to be on a direct course for Earth," said Gideon.

Oliver sighed. "To be continued."