— 𝑆 —

𝐒𝐎𝐏𝐇𝐈𝐀 𝐓𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐋𝐘 𝐂𝐋𝐔𝐓𝐂𝐇𝐄𝐃 Barry's arm for reassurance.

She couldn't believe her eyes. Standing in the middle of the Cortex, being gaped at by her, Cisco, and Caitlin as he flipped through the autobiography with his face on the cover, was Dr. Wells.

Well, not him exactly. Not the same Dr. Wells who had betrayed them and tried to kill them. A Harrison Wells from a different universe. The same face, the same voice, the same intellect—but without the evil (hopefully).

Also, the crazy alien-tech looking gun holstered on his hip really helped differentiate.

"Very strange to be holding your autobiography," Wells commented, lowering the book, "especially when you didn't write it and it's not about you."

"Sophia Byun, Dr. Caitlin Snow, Cisco Ramon," Barry introduced, giving Sophia an assuring pat on the shoulder, "meet Dr. Harrison Wells from Earth-Two."

"Hi," Cisco muttered, his arms crossed.

"Hi," Wells replied.

"So," Cisco said slowly, raising a finger as he glanced at Barry, "let me get this straight. You're the doppelganger of the man who murdered his mom" —he pointed at Barry— "and is responsible for both Ronnie and Eddie's deaths?"

"Yeah, but he's not even the doppelganger of the Dr. Wells that we knew," Caitlin pointed out, "because that Dr. Wells' body had been taken over by the Reverse Flash, who was really Eobard Thawne and Eddie's distant relative from the future."

Sophia crinkled her nose. It really all was confusing, even for her.

"Yeah, I didn't follow any of that. I'm my own man," Wells told them. "I had nothing to do with the murder of your mother or your friend Ricky."

"His name was Ronnie," Caitlin corrected.

"Him either."

"You told me you have proof of your identity?" Barry asked, his eyebrows raised.

"This almost hit me when I went through the portal." Wells walked over to a chair in front of one of the desks, and he pulled out a gray satchel. "Your stabilized breach downstairs connects directly to the STAR Labs on my Earth."

Caitlin tentatively took the bag from him. "Technically, this could be mine, but I want to run some tests on you."

"I'll be genetically indistinguishable from my Earth-One counterpart; your tests will reveal nothing."

"Great! Still gonna run 'em."

"Be my guest."

"Why are we even listening to him?" Sophia muttered.

Cisco nodded quickly in agreement, keeping his voice low as he walked to her and Barry, "How do we know he's not evil like the other guy?"

"He saved my life last night," Barry answered, then swivelling his head back to Wells, who was slinging the strap of his gun around his shoulder. "The question is why. I'm guessing you didn't travel between dimensions just to meet the Flash."

"That's exactly what I did," Wells corrected. "I came here to help you, Barry, to stop your greatest enemy."

"He already did that," Cisco interjected.

"I'm not talking about Reverse Flash. I'm talking about Zoom."

Sophia's lips thinned. Wells caught her expression.

"I see you've already heard of him."

"Yeah," Barry confirmed. "Zoom has been sending meta-humans from your world through the breaches to fight me."

"Well, they're the symptoms," Wells said gravely. "Zoom's the plague—one that's infected my world, and now he's coming for yours."

"What do you know about Zoom?" questioned Sophia.

"Everything. I created Zoom. I'm responsible for all the Earth-Two meta-humans, a fact I've ignored for far too long, but now" —he cocked his gun— "I'm doing something about it."

"Yeah, well," Cisco sighed, throwing his hands up as Wells put the gun on the chair, "we're batting a thousand against these breachers."

"You're batting a thousand, Crisco? What's your sample size? Ten? Less? Zoom is obsessed with speed. He will never allow there to be another speedster in the multiverse, and he's gonna keep sending these metas here, one after the next, all with the same goal: to kill the Flash unless we stop him together."

"Last time we listened to a guy with your face," Cisco said quietly, "some bad things went down."

Caitlin nodded. "We lost people we cared about."

"Everyone loses someone they care about, Snow. The real test of character is what you do once they're gone."

Footsteps from the entrance drew Sophia's attention.

Joe was walking in—and it seemed that he had spotted Wells as his eyes widened and he pulled his gun out.

Sophia flinched as three shots rang out. In an instant, Barry was knelt on the ground, his fists clenched. The clinking of bullets falling on the ground sounded.

"Joe!" Barry exclaimed. "Put the gun down!"

"How is he still alive?" shouted Joe, coming around the front desk only for Barry to press his hands against his chest. Though he was being pushed back, he glared at Wells and jabbed a finger in his direction. "How are you still alive?"

"I don't know," Wells said venomously, "because you missed?"

"Hey," Barry scoffed, "I'm trying to keep him from shooting you. You're not helpin'." He turned back to Joe, patting his chest. "Let's take a walk, all right? It's all good."

"We know someone who can verify everything that this guy just said," Caitlin murmured to Sophia and Cisco, while Wells patted himself down to check if Joe really had missed. She patted Cisco's shoulder. "Be careful."

Wells turned to them. "I don't suppose you have a Big Belly Burger in this universe, do you?"

"This isn't happening," Cisco groaned softly.

Sophia rested an arm on Cisco's shoulder, squinting her eyes at Wells. "I don't know if I'll ever get used to this."

Cisco rubbed his forehead. "I need a drink."

Sophia was sure Cisco meant the kind of drink that was hard to swallow and would make all of this feel a lot less heavy, but it was also two in the afternoon. She slapped a hand on his back. "Sure. Let's go get a drink."

"What about that guy?" he questioned, nodding his head toward Wells, who was now inspecting his gun.

She waved a dismissive hand. "I'm sure he can survive on his own."

She waited until Barry was finished talking with Joe out in the hall. Joe excused himself with a small wave goodbye and a wary glance towards Wells, saying that he had to catch Iris up on the ordeal.

"Acai-Barry," Sophia started, fixing the collar of his light blue button-up.

"Yeah?" He pressed his lips into a small smile as he looked down at her.

"Me and Cisco are gonna grab a drink. Wanna come?"

Barry pulled a weird expression, checking his watch. "It's only two."

"I mean coffee," she chuckled. "Well, Cisco means tequila, but I think that'll be a later thing."

"I mean, I was down for either." Barry shrugged, grinning when Sophia slapped his arm.

Cisco was less down for that option.

"You do realize that when I said I wanted a drink," complained Cisco as they walked through the coffee shop doors. "I didn't mean a latte, right? I was talking about alcohol. Like, mind-numbing alcohol."

"All right, look," Barry sighed as they stopped at the back of the rather long line, "you guys gotta give him a chance, okay? He's not a speedster. He's just a regular, normal guy . . . from another universe."

Sophia shook her head. All this meta-human business was weird enough, and though they've been talking about the multiverse for a little while now, she still wasn't used to the idea. Even her trillion IQ brain hated thinking about it. "I never thought I'd miss time travel. Or there being only one Dr. Wells."

"Okay," Cisco sighed, squeezing his eyes shut, "can we not use the name 'Dr. Wells'? I'm just gonna call him 'Harry.'"

"Okay. Harry," Barry muttered, "yeah."

"I don't know that guy, but I already hate him," Sophia said, leaning into Barry's side.

"It's crazy," sighed Barry. "Every time life isn't so bad, Dr. Wells—Harry, somehow manages to show up."

Sophia scrunched her nose. "Uh, I think life was pretty bad, with Zoom and all."

"Besides," added Cisco, raising a finger, "there's always gonna be Harrys out there, but you can't let the Harrys of the world get in the way of you living your life. You gotta . . ." Cisco's eyes drifted, and Sophia followed his gaze to the barista, who had a bright smile on her face as she served the woman in front of them. "You gotta be bold."

"For no reason at all," lightly said Sophia, "when was the last time you asked a girl for her number?"

Cisco threw her a glare. "Watch and learn."

She shrugged. "I'm watching."

"Oh, this is gonna be fun," muttered Barry to her, and she grinned.

"Hi," greeted the barista with a smile as Cisco walked up to her. "What can I get you?"

Cisco leaned his hands on the counter. Any trace of confidence he had a second ago was now gone. "Hi, there."

"Hi . . ." the barista's smile slightly faltered as she awkwardly chuckled, "again."

"Uh . . ." Cisco was clearly lost for words as he nervously scratched his chin and let out shaky breaths.

Sophia shook her head, murmuring, "This is hard to watch."

The barista straightened up. "Do you want some coffee?"

"Yeah." Cisco nodded eagerly. "I'll get some coffee—no, uh, no, I don't want coffee. You know what I do want though? I want to ask you this." He leaned in a little closer. "Do you want to go out with me?"

Sophia was surprised he had even managed to get the words out. She was more surprised when he smirked a little and raised his eyebrows.

She had seen a lot of bad things. This, undoubtedly, was at the top.

"Oh," stated the barista, uncomfortably.

Her reaction slipped him up. "To—we—I mean, we could go get coffee or we—"

"No."

Cisco nodded slowly. "That's a no. That's totally cool. It's cool. Respect."

As Cisco walked away, Sophia sighed.

She turned to Barry, who had a frown on his face. "Babe, could you get the coffees? I'll . . . make sure he's okay."

Barry quickly nodded, and she stepped toward Cisco, who had his back to her.

"Hey, man," she called. "You okay?"

She put a hand on his shoulder, and he all but jumped. Her eyebrows furrowed at the startled expression on his face as he turned toward her.

"What's wrong?" she questioned worriedly.

"It happened again," he breathed out, his eyes nervously darting toward Barry, who had just finished paying. "I saw—"

He didn't finish the sentence as Barry joined them.

"Yo," Barry sighed, putting a hand on his hip. "It's her loss—"

"We have another breacher," Cisco quickly told him.

"What?" he questioned. "How do you know?"

"Central City Bank. You gotta go now!"

— 𝑆 —

"Her name is Doctor Light." Harry exhaled as he plugged in a USB into the computer. Screenshots of news articles began to load on the screen—all headlining the woman with some sort of metallic visor. "Small-time thief on my Earth until exposure to the dark matter from the particle accelerator and became a meta-human with the ability to derive power from starlight."

"Oh, very cool," Cisco breathed out.

Sophia wrinkled her nose. "Stars have a temperature of five thousand, three hundred degrees kelvin, plus they have blinding luminosity. Maybe not so cool."

As Cisco glared at her, Barry said, "Okay, so obviously, Zoom brought her here from your Earth like the others."

Through a bite of his burger from—you guessed it—Big Belly Burger, Harry hummed and replied, "Now that we know that, we can use that to gain advantage."

"What do you mean?" questioned Barry as Harry began to cross the room.

He stopped in front of the main desk, turning to them. "We capture Doctor Light and use her to lure Zoom here."

"You are insane!" Jay suddenly walked through the entrance, Caitlin tailing closely behind. His glare was aimed towards Harry. "Okay, we are not luring Zoom anywhere!"

"Apparently," added Caitlin, "they know each other, and Jay is not a fan."

Sophia raised her eyebrows. That was pretty obvious.

"Well, well, well," Harry mused, a humorless smile on his face. "Like everyone else, I assumed Earth-Two Flash was dead. Why am I not surprised to find Jay Garrick here, still alive and in hiding a full universe away from Zoom?"

"I'm not in hiding," replied Jay indignantly, taking a few steps toward the other man. "Zoom nearly killed me and stole my speed before the Singularity pulled me here."

"Is that right?"

"Yeah, that's right."

"Well, whatever the case, in your absence, Zoom has only gotten more powerful, faster. Barry" —Harry turned his eyes to Barry— "you have to defeat Zoom now while you still can."

"No," Jay argued, "this isn't the time to be reckless. We don't even know why Zoom sent Doctor Light here. She's a thief, not a killer."

"Zoom can make people do things out of character," Harry told Jay before looking back at Barry. "Thief or not, she'll kill you.

Barry sighed. "All right, look, hey, we can decide what to do with Light later. First, we have to find her, okay?"

Harry picked up his soda, replying with a loud slurp as he walked back to the other desk. Sophia rolled her eyes.

Barry's quiet question to Cisco caught her attention: "Hey, how did you know that she was breaking into the bank?"

Cisco hastily fished his phone out of his pocket. "I got an alert on my phone. There is a little ring-a-ding" —he (terribly) imitated a ringing sound— "every time, like, there's a robbery at a bank."

Barry's expression was nothing short of confused. "What?"

Sophia silently groaned. She needed to save Cisco before he exposed himself.

"You know what?" She stepped toward them, putting a hand on Barry's arm and pretending as though she hadn't been listening. "I think I can get the STAR Labs satellite to scan for any irregular solar radiation emissions and we can find Doctor Light's light."

That distraction seemed to work. Barry nodded, pulling his phone out. "Okay, I'm gonna also call Joe, see if CCPD has any leads. Why don't we keep them apart" —he gestured to Harry and Jay— "until I get back?"

Caitlin nodded. "I am sure that won't be a problem."