Little warning, this chapter is where the story starts to deviate from both my old version and the arrowverse
When Barry returned to Central City, he started heading towards Joe's house, since that was where Iris had texted him and told him to meet her, though as he ran, he decided to go through the memories of his counterpart from this earth and found that while a majority of his life was the same, there was one key difference. In this reality, he'd worked up the guts to ask Iris out while they were still in high school and now they were engaged, but aside from that, his life was pretty much the same. It was Iris's life that he remembered had been different, since he remember large gaps of time that they'd been doing a long distance relationship, though he couldn't remember the exact reason, though he was assuming it was because she'd decided to study abroad while she was in college, since they'd both graduated already and he was still a CSI for the Central City Police Department and Iris was once again a reporter for Central City Picture News, though he was pretty sure that once J'onn restored her memories, she would likely be quitting to start up her own newspaper, the Central City Citizen.
Anyways, as Barry arrived at Joe's house, he made sure to return to normal speed before he was within range of Thawne's cameras, since Barry did not want him to know that not only had he already discovered his speed, but that he was also much faster than he should be, since it appeared that Barry's speed was still at the same level it had been before Crisis, maybe even faster since the spectre had unlocked his potential, which reminded him, he needed to talk to Oliver about the deal he'd made with the monitor, and that he knew exactly how to use it. He was saving that for when the Reverse Flash made his inevitable return.
When Barry entered the house, he immediately knew why he'd been told to come here, since in addition to Joe and Iris waiting for him, so were Cisco, Caitlin, Ralph and Cecille.
"I'm guessing that J'onn paid each of you a visit while I was talking to Ryan in Ivy Town?" Barry asked and they all nodded.
"Yeah and I have to admit, your reaction when you woke up makes a lot more sense now." Cisco said as he hugged his best friend.
"It looks like the Flash survived Crisis after all." Caitlin said as she got her hug.
"Yeah, but what about your other half?" Barry asked.
"She woke up as soon as J'onn gave us the brain dump as Cisco called and her memories were restored too, which is good because now she won't have a criminal record." Caitlin said.
"Good. And Ralph, you have your powers?" Barry asked and Ralph nodded.
"This time around I got my powers from the particle accelerator explosion, which hopefully means that DeVoe won't come after me again." Ralph said.
"Okay good. Now we'll have the Flash, Frost and Elongated Man to fight Thawne when he reveals himself as the Reverse Flash." Barry said.
"Yeah, you forgot someone." Cisco said.
"That's because you gave up your powers." Barry said.
"Yeah, but one of the changes from crisis is that the cure doesn't exist yet, which means that I haven't given up yet." Cisco said.
"So you can vibe again." Barry said.
"Yeah, Vibe is back." Cisco confirmed.
"We can start working on the cure again." Caitlin offered.
"I appreciate that Cait and while I do still believe that the cure is a good idea, I don't think I want to take it this time around." Cisco said.
"Meaning?" Barry asked.
"Ever since I got my memories back, I've been reminded of how powerful I am, something that Novu reminded me of when he gave me my powers back and honestly, maybe if I hadn't had given up being Vibe, maybe I would've been able to sense the destruction of Earth Two and I could've been able to save Harry and Jesse." Cisco said.
"Cisco, don't blame yourself for that. You know that Harry and Jesse wouldn't want you too and you shouldn't keep your powers if it's only out of guilt." Barry said.
"It's not just guilt. Honestly, I have honestly missed being Vibe. I've missed being able to not only help you guys from Star labs, but also by being in the field with you guys." Cisco said.
"If you're sure about this, then okay." Barry said and Cisco nodded.
"Okay, I think that before we do anything else, we should figure out all the changes that we know of on this Earth, so that way we can better prepare ourselves to deal with it." Ralph said and Barry quickly sped out and returned with a white board.
"Okay, so let's review what we know so far." Barry said.
"Well, I for one got a very significant change in my timeline in this universe." Iris said.
"Yeah, one I'm still not thrilled about." Joe said.
"Dad, it's already done and over with, let's not dwell on it." Iris said.
"And for those of us who don't know what you're talking about?" Cisco asked.
"It turns out that this universe's version of me was a lot more rebellious than I am, since aside from dating Barry since high school, after dad guilted me into withdrawing my application from the police academy, instead of giving up, I decided to enlist in the military." Iris said.
"Really?" Barry asked.
"You didn't remember?" Iris asked.
"I remembered that we made the long distance thing work while we were in college in this universe, but I couldn't remember why. I thought it was because you were studying abroad." Barry said.
"I would've preferred that." Joe said and it sounded like that was both their Joe and the Joe of this reality talking.
"No, I decided that if dad wasn't going to let me join the police force, than I'd go one step further and enlist, since in addition to it covering my school costs for college, was the best way for me follow dad's example without him being able to say no, since I was 18 at the time, which meant that I didn't need his permission." Iris said.
"And I admit I was mad at first, but now I am proud that my daughter served her country, though I'm also glad you only did one tour." Joe said.
"I got all the action I needed from that tour and now even more from Team Flash." Iris said.
"Which branch did you serve?" Caitlin asked.
"Air force. One thing Wally and I have in common is that we're both all about speed." Iris said.
"That explains why you're in love with Barry." Cisco said.
"Enough. You're still a reporter right?" Barry asked.
"Yeah, I still love journalism, but I also wanted to follow dad's example. Plus now I have more contacts I can use for my stories." Iris said.
"Okay, what else is different?" Cisco asked.
"Well, Ralph and I both got our powers in the particle accelerator explosion, though mine didn't activate till after J'onn restored my memories." Cecille said.
"Speaking of the martian, it looks like he, Superman and Supergirl all exist here from what he told us." Cisco said.
"We're all just one happy family." Caitlin said and Cisco nodded.
"I'd say that the biggest change is that we now have the upper hand over Thawne, since he has no idea that we're onto him." Barry said.
"Unless he's watching us right now." Joe said.
"Don't worry about that. Before I left Star Labs today, I went into the Time Vault and had Gideon mess with Thawne's cameras so he can't see what we're doing." Barry said and they all nodded.
"We should also start trying to recruit more allies." Caitlin said.
"You sound like you have someone in mind." Barry said.
"Firestorm." Caitlin said.
"I'm still working on developing the matrix to allow Stein and whoever he's merged with, since we don't know if it was Ronnie or Jax in this universe." Cisco said.
"I'm hoping for Jax." Caitlin said.
"Wait, what?" Barry asked.
"Yeah, another change from this reality is that Ronnie and I never met in this reality and honestly, I'm not sure I want us too, since I don't feel the same way about him that I used to." Caitlin said.
"That's something to be curious about. I guess we'll find out why sooner or later." Barry said and Caitlin nodded, trying to ignore Frost's voice in her head.
It's because in this universe you finally realized that you're not as straight as you think you are. Frost shouted in Caitlin's head and now Caitlin was fighting really hard to keep Frost from coming out.
"Everything okay?" Cecille asked her.
"Yeah, I'm fine." Caitlin said.
"Really, because you can't fool a telepath. Why are you trying to keep Frost from coming out?" Cecille asked and before Caitlin could answer, Frost finally won and took over.
"Because she doesn't want me to tell you that on this earth at least, Caity seems to prefer the comfort of other women." Frost said simply before allowing Caitlin to take back over to find all eyes on her.
"I guess I have some explaining to do." Caitlin said and they all nodded in agreement.