Barry started to run to her apartment. Halfway there, he stopped, realizing that it was close to noon already. There was no way she would be home on a Tuesday afternoon. He rerouted to her high school. He skidded to a stop in the parking lot, searched for her beat down little Honda, then slid a note underneath her windshield wiper. 

Parker Sylas,
This is the last note I'll ever write that consists of me begging to see you, because I don't want to keep doing this to you. I want to be in your life, in our children's lives. I was overwhelmed, which doesn't sound like a good excuse, until I tell you the full story. I will tell you everything, if you just meet me. My house at six? If you don't, I promise I'll leave you alone. It's your decision to have me in your lives. But, I beg of you, please, to just give me this last chance. Then, you'll understand everything. 
-Barry Allen

It didn't take long for Barry decide leaving that note was one of the worst decisions he had ever made. His heartbeat was fast, faster than normal and a nauseous feeling in his gut had begun and wouldn't stop. He was terrified of her reaction. If she was to react badly, not believe him, the rest of his life would have to be lived without her. He wasn't sure if he could survive a life absent of her. 

At six o'clock, Barry slipped out of his front door and took a seat on his porch steps. He laced his fingers together and tapped his intertwined hands against his lips. He hadn't noticed the rocking of his body, nor the obnoxious tapping of his foot. 

"You're nervous."

If Barry's face wasn't already red and flustered, it was after he noticed Parker sitting on the swinging chair on his porch. He scrambled to his feet.

"I meant to knock on the door. I just needed a second to breathe, get my thoughts together," she continued softly, timidly. She didn't meet his eye. "I don't even know why I'm here, Barry."

"It's the same reason I came back: you feel something for me," he admitted. 

"I'm always going to, Bar. You gave me my babies," she said. 

Barry inhaled a breath. "No. I didn't."

"So, you're just gonna tell me I got pregnant by myself?"

"No, I did, but I didn't."

"...Okay?"

For several seconds, Barry's face morphed as his mind tried to piece sentences together. He stared at her, his brow furrowing, then flattening as he decided on a beginning, but then discarded it because each one sounded worse than the last. 

"Barry, just spit it out," encouraged Parker. 

Without thinking, he said, "See, by now, the other Parker would have cursed me out."

"'The other Parker'? What other Parker?" she asked. 

 "Okay, so, I'm not your Barry. I am Barry, but I'm not the one from the life that you know. I come from a different timeline. I changed mine, which turned into this one, which is why I'm here," he explained. 

Parker continued to stare blankly at him. 

"Okay. Let's see... Um, I have abilities. I can run fast, fast enough to change time," he explained.

"So, you're a meta-human?" 

"I am."

"Does that mean our...?"

"No, because you didn't have those kids with me. You had them with other Barry. Now, I'm him, though. So those are, technically, my kids."

Parker blinked, but she still looked utterly confused. 

"Uh, here, watch this," offered Barry. 

To demonstrate his speed, he ran to her apartment. Above the door, he reached to grab the key he had a feeling would be stationed there. His Parker always said how dumb it was to hide a key underneath the mat. He had retorted with a soft, "It's not exactly bright to place it above the door, either," which earned him a night without cuddles. 

"Well, fuck me," breathed Parker upon his return. 

"It's a little early for that," he said coyly. "Do you believe me now?"

Parker tucked her wind-blown hair behind her ears. She reached for him, poking at his arm a couple times. His skin felt normal. The only thing unnatural about him was his speed. She couldn't deny it, despite how much her mind protested that it was simply a trick: her baby daddy was a meta-human.

"I believe that you have speed, but it doesn't explain where you got it from," she said slowly, desperately trying to understand.

"In my timeline, an explosion at S.T.A.R. Labs gave me my powers."

"'S.T.A.R. Labs?'" repeated Parker. "There's no S.T.A.R. Labs here."

"I guess that makes sense. It's probably because Eobard Thawne wouldn't have taken over Dr. Wells' body, so there would have been no reason to have been S.T.A.R. Labs created," said Barry thoughtfully. 

"What?"

"Disregard that. Point is: I went back in time and I changed an event so I live in the timeline that I do right now, where you and I were previously together and you had our children at age eighteen."

"You're an entirely different Barry Allen than the one I know, then. I can understand that, but what happened to my Barry?"

"I became him."

"Then answer a question for me," she offered.

"Anything," agreed Barry. 

"When was our first time?"

Barry furrowed his brow. "Parker, I have no idea. I told you I'm not from this timeline."

"But if you became him, shouldn't you have his memories?"

"No, because I'm not from here. Until a few weeks ago, I never lived or experienced this life."

Parker stared at him, assessing his face. Everything in his demeanor told her he was telling the absolute and whole truth. Face blank, she raised her glasses to rub at her eyes. 

"Where's your head at?" he wondered cautiously.

"I believe you're not my Barry," she said. "I just don't understand why you would come here, to this... timeline, you called it. What made your other life so bad you felt you had to change it?"

Barry shrugged, as if he couldn't decide on a single thing to tell her about. "I lost my mother when I was eleven. Later, after I got my speed, I lost my father, then my wife and my unborn child. And if that's not already bad, everyone of their death's is on my hands."

"I'm sure that's not true."

"Parker would say the same thing," he muttered.

She raised her eyebrow. "You knew me then."

"In the other timeline? Yeah, I knew you pretty well, Park," he told her. He demonstrated his left hand, which still held his wedding ring. 

"You and I were married," she breathed. 

"We had our first child on the way, when... When, uh..."

"I died," she finished. 

"Yeah. Yeah, you did," he said softly. 

"And that's why you came back in time. For me, for your family. It's why you freaked when you saw my babies," she diagnosed. "You freaked because you're not ready. You're grieving, Barry, and you wanted me to fill the hole she left in your heart, but it stopped helping when you saw what could have... What should have been yours."

Barry didn't have the voice to say anything to contradict her statement, or agree. Instead, he took a seat on the porch swing next to her. He felt her hand clasp his own, no romantic gesture behind it, just a simple form of comfort. 

"You have no idea how much I love her," he said. "She didn't even know, and I told her every day."

"Am I like her?" 

"I see you in her, sometimes. You're never going to be her replica, though. I knew that when I changed the timeline. I just hoped, you know? But I'm starting to be okay with that."

"You just want some version of her in your life."

"Of course," said Barry. "It was a love/hate relationship, really. We were weird. Sometimes when I gave her ten percent, and it happened a lot... She gave me ninety. But, always, there was one hundred percent love. Where she led, I would follow anywhere that she told me to."

Parker giggled. She slapped her hand over her mouth. 

"Was that funny?" asked Barry, confused. 

"No, no, not at all. It's just that you accidentally quoted Gilmore Girls. Like, the theme song?"

"I'm a little too familiar with it. My Parker would always watch reruns."

"There's another thing we have in common," joked Parker. She giggled again. "You know, our little girl's name is actually Evelyn Rory."

"Evelyn Rory," repeated Barry passionately. "Beautiful name. I'm sure she's a beautiful girl, too. Nathan was handsome, Park. Although it wasn't me, we still did good." 

Parker set her head on his shoulder. "Yeah. Yeah, we did."

Barry let them  sit in silence for a while. He didn't have many words to say. He was too appreciative in her understanding of the timeline changes to have any other comments. Their future was unknown, but he didn't mind living it out, if it was with her. He could learn to love her. He could learn how to love this life. 

"If you want to, Barry..." she whispered. 

"Yeah?"

"I'd be happy to start over with you, if you wanted. I can learn about you, you can learn about me. My kids can have their father around. We can have a life together. Even though you're not my Barry and I'm not your Parker, we'd still have some form of each other."

"Parker?"

"Yes, Barry?"

"I think I would really like that."