Barry
I slowly woke to the rather potent smell of coffee permeating the air. I deeply inhaled the delicious scent, stretching my arms across the surprisingly empty bed. I opened my eyes to see that the space next to me was vacant, the dark magenta sheets thrown back from the pillows. I looked around the unfamiliar room in search of the blue-haired girl that was absent. I yawned before sitting up on the comfortable mattress, stretching out my surprisingly sore muscles. I hadn't been sore in a while, and I was assuming that it was because of the amount of energy that I had absorbed when I ran into the bomb last night. I shook of the soreness and climbed out of bed, almost forgetting that I had kept my jeans on when Izzy and I decided on going to sleep. I had done it more out of respect than anything, and I could tell that she greatly appreciated it. I looked around for the sweater that I had tossed on the floor last night, but I saw it nowhere. I furrowed my brow slightly before realizing that Izzy had probably taken it.
Izzy and I had stayed up late into the night last night talking about dozens of different topics. We had mostly talked through her anger towards me about deactivating the bomb. It hadn't been very easy, but we'd managed to get past it with minimal yelling or emotional damage. She hadn't gotten to the place where she could forgive my actions--which I completely understood--but she had managed to accept what I had done without being irate at the subject. After we'd talked everything through, we watched a few reruns of Friends before calling it a night. We'd both had a rather long and eventful night, so we were out like a light once we'd settled into the bed. Holding her in my arms as we fell asleep was something that I thought I would only dream of, and it was hard for me to come to terms with the idea of having to eventually let go of her.
I slowly made my way out into the main part of her loft, seeing her perched on one of the stools at the bar. Her back was turned to me, but I could tell that she was looking down at something on the counter as she sipped her coffee. I smiled at the sight of her wearing the dark gray sweater that I had been wearing last night, finding that the material looked far better on her than it ever did on me. I quietly wandered over to her, wrapping my arms around her waist and resting my chin on her shoulder. She had jumped slightly when I first touched her, but she quickly relaxed into my touch, a smile appearing on her face. I saw that she had been scrolling through Picture News' website on her iPad and reading some of the articles on Hartley's broadcast last night.
"Good morning." She greeted happily.
"What are you doing up so early?" I questioned, having anticipated me being the first one up.
"I was going to make breakfast, but then I remembered that I can't cook." I laughed, resting my forehead on her shoulder. "I'm serious." She chuckled.
"I know." I stated, kissing the side of her head before sitting in the seat next to you. "It just tickled me."
"Did you know that every paper in the city has already written dozens of articles on what happened last night?"
I chuckled lightly. "Iz, you know I don't care about that stuff."
"I know, but listen to this: 'Even going up against as malicious a criminal like The Pied Piper, The Flash's bravery never once wavered. He stared into the face of his own demise, but he did not back down. He stood before his city and courageously fought for our safety at the risk of his own life. He is the spark of hope that our city needed, and we are forever indebted to him.'"
"Who wrote that?"
She smiled. "Iris did."
I chuckled lightly. "Of course she did."
"Well, it is her job, you know."
"So, do you look up Flash articles every morning after an appearance?"
"Only when I have said superhero asleep in my bedroom." She beamed.
I laughed. "You're such a nerd."
"I thought this was already common knowledge." She chuckled, her face lighting up with happiness. It warmed my heart to see her so happy, and I was glad that she was able to put her anger from last night aside long enough to laugh with me.
"It is, and I find it incredibly endearing." She smiled, looking down at her tablet. "Hey, what time is it?"
"About eight-forty five."
I sighed, rubbing my eyes. "I have to get home so that Joe doesn't put out a missing persons bulletin on me." I looked at her with a soft smile. "Don't have too much fun on your day off, okay?"
She nodded. "Don't have too much fun at work."
I smiled, kissing her cheek. "Try my hardest."
I ran out of her loft and made my way back to Joe's house, thankful that I was running so fast that no one could tell that I wasn't wearing a shirt. It was much colder than I had anticipated, and I was shivering by the time I made it back to my room. I immediately pulled on another sweater and a fresh pair of pants, thankful for the warmth. It was going to take a minute to fully retain all of the heat that I had lost, but I was sure that it would come back quick enough. I could hear Joe humming as I walked down the stairs, and he looked rather surprised at my presence. I smiled brightly at him and told him good morning as I walked towards the kitchen, wishing that I had gotten some coffee from Izzy's before running across town.
"And where were you all night?" Joe inquired as I routinely poured myself a cup of coffee.
I shrugged nonchalantly. "I was fighting crime and such." I answered, telling the truth, just not the whole truth.
"You were fighting crime all night?" He questioned, obviously not buying my story.
"I might have stayed at a friend's house." I said, taking a sip of the bitter yet warm liquid to avoid his question.
It took him a second, but when he figured it out, a smirk appeared on his face. "You were with Izzy, weren't you?"
I rolled my eyes. "It wasn't anything like that, Joe."
"Then what was it?"
I sighed, scratching my eyebrow in thought. "Last night was kind of rough for all of us." I confessed. "We found the bomb that Hartley had been building, and when I was going to deactivate it, Izzy kind of... confessed that she has feelings for me."
He arched his eyebrows in happy shock. "So she feels the same way about you?"
I nodded with a smile. "After I made sure that the bomb was offline, I went to talk to her about all of it, and I ended up spending the night with her."
"So, are you two...?"
I nodded with a soft chuckle. "We are."
He smiled, hugging me and patting my back. "I'm happy for you, son." He pulled away, beaming at me. "I'm glad that you're finally getting the kind of happiness that you deserve."
"Me too, Joe. I know it isn't going to be easy, but I think that Izzy and I can really make it work."
"I wish both of you the best."
"That means more than you think it does." I told him honestly. It was easier to be in a relationship where all of your friends and family supported you.
"I hate to kill the moment, but we're going to be late to work if we don't leave now."
I chuckled. "You're going to be late."
I saw him roll his eyes before I ran back across town to the lab. I logged into my computer and looked around the empty lab. I didn't enjoy the idea working alone today, but I didn't really have a choice. I had grown so accustomed to having a partner that it was strange to actually be alone in the lab again. I didn't plan on getting used to it, though. I kept telling myself that it was just one day without Izzy and that I could handle the solo work for a little while. It wouldn't be difficult, but it would be silent and lonely.
I spent the majority of the morning doing fingerprint analysis for a few cases downstairs. It was painstakingly boring and tedious, but I was glad that I had something to do. After my third set of having to match, I turned on the radio so that I wasn't sitting in complete silence for the entire day. The slow music calmed my boredom and actually helped me focus on the individual prints. I was annoyed that I wasn't able to find any matches in the criminal database because that meant more paperwork for me to do. Yeah, it gave me something to do to keep my mind off of the deafening silence in the lab, but paperwork was the bane of my existence. It was, in all honesty, just busywork that was going to be filed and never seen again. It was a pointless waste of my time, and I abhorred doing it.
Around lunchtime, I was debating whether or not to stop by Izzy's apartment and see if she wanted to get lunch together, but I was called to go downtown at a murder scene. I packed my forensics case before running downtown, getting there in record time. Joe chuckled lightly at my arrival, and I smiled softly at him. He led me into the bedroom where there were two bodies, a woman on the bed and a man on the floor. Something that I found odd about his body was that he was lying on his back with his knees bent and his feet at his sides, almost in a hurdler's stretch. It wasn't a natural position for a body to be lying in; you really only saw that kind of position when someone had been on their knees and then executed.
"What's the story?" I asked, pulling on a pair of gloves.
"The husband walked in on our John Doe sexually assaulting and stabbing his wife, and he claimed to have shot him in self-defense."
I squatted down next to the body, seeing that there wasn't any blood on his shirt or on his arms. "If he had stabbed the woman, there would be blood on his shirt." I stated, picking up the knife and putting it in an evidence bag.
"You think the husband was lying?"
I nodded, looking up at him. "It would also make sense as to why your John Doe is lying on the ground like this." I stood up and stood next to Joe. "If he had been standing, his knees wouldn't be bent backwards like that."
Joe nodded, writing down my observations on a notepad. "We'll take the husband in for questioning and get a better view of his side of the story."
I nodded, and Joe walked out of the room. I pulled my camera out of my case and started taking the routine evidence photos. It was a rather gruesome murder, and I honestly felt bad that the woman had to die in that way. After I took all of the photos that I needed to take, I checked around thoroughly for any stray evidence that might have been lying around. Sadly, I hadn't been able to find anything, and I was disheartened at the fact. After searching the entire apartment for clues or any more evidence, I was sent back to the precinct to dust the knife for fingerprints. It seemed unlikely that the prints would match those of the John Doe, but I still needed to check just in case.
The next hour hours seemed to drag on and on. When I dusted the knife, there weren't any prints to lift, which cause quite a row in the precinct. After that, I wasn't really needed, so I spent my time scrolling through various web pages and even going far enough to check Facebook to see how all of my alumni from high school and college were doing. That measured just how bored I was, and I felt like I was going to lose my mind after reading the fifth post about how happy yet another cheerleader was living with their successful doctor husband. I eventually just logged out, not wanting to have to deal with reading any more of the same posts.
When it was finally time for my shift to end, it took all of the energy I had in my body to not bolt out of the precinct. I was excited to see Izzy again, wanting to spend as much time as possible with her before we went up against Hartley. After I had deactivated the bomb, I searched all around the warehouse district in hopes of finding him but came up with nothing. I knew that it would only be a matter of time before he resurfaced yet again. I was terrified of what he was going to do, but I was doing my best to hide my fear. I didn't want anyone to pick up on it and think that I wasn't strong enough to handle someone like Hartley. I knew that he was incredibly smart and that he would probably be three steps ahead of me, but I knew that I could beat him. If I tried hard enough and strategized correctly, I could take him down for the last time and keep him locked away in the Pipeline.
I raced over to Izzy's loft as quickly as I could, getting there within a matter of seconds. Since the day manager was much nicer than the night manager, I decided to take the stairs this time. He greeted me with a small wave, and I returned the gesture before starting up the stairs. After I was past the first flight, I ran up the rest of them, knocking lightly on her door. I waited a few seconds, listening for any sound coming from inside the apartment. I was surprised that there weren't any, and I knocked again just in case she hadn't heard me. I was confused as to why she hadn't answered, seeing as how she didn't tell me that she was going anywhere today. I dug her spare key out of my wallet and unlocked the front door, walking into the empty apartment.
I was hesitant to close the door behind me, feeling that the air in the loft wasn't right. It wasn't warm and welcoming like it usually was. It was cold and empty, something that I'd never experienced with Izzy before. I called out for my blue-haired girl and got no reply, raising anxiety in my throat as I made my way throughout the entire loft, checking in every room I could. She wasn't in either her bedroom or her guest bedroom, neither bathroom, and that was when I started to get increasingly anxious. My mind was racing, trying to figure out where she could have gone as I dialed her cell phone number. It went straight to voicemail, and I could feel a panic attack threatening to overtake my body. I collapsed on her couch, running my hands through my hair as I closed my eyes and started slowly counting to ten in an attempt to calm myself down.
Izzy is fine, Barry. I told myself repeatedly. She's probably just out getting groceries, and her phone probably died without her knowing it. If you just wait a few minutes, she'll walk through the front door, and you'll feel foolish for thinking that something had happened.
But that didn't happen. I waited ten minutes to see if she would come home, knowing that she seldom took more than a few minutes in the grocery store that was just down the street. I could feel my anxiety growing worse and worse with every second that passed, and I felt like the silence in the loft was going to suffocate me. I was about to leave the apartment when I noticed a small note sticking to the refrigerator. I swallowed hard, hoping that it was something from Izzy so that my actions would feel foolish. I took hold of the small piece of paper, seeing a simple note written in a rather neat handwriting. Checkmate. My entire world shattered around me, and I dropped the note as left. I ran to S.T.A.R. Labs, knowing that if Izzy had gone missing, Cisco would be the only person who would be able to find her in a timely manner so that she wouldn't be harmed. Running seemed to only add to my anxiety, and by the time I got to S.T.A.R. Labs, another panic attack had consumed my body. I collapsed on the floor just inside the front door, gasping for breath as my entire body shook uncontrollably. I closed my eyes as I tried to regulate my breathing to no avail.
"Barry." I heard Caitlin's voice, but it sounded faint. I felt her hand on my shoulder, and I jolted away from her touch, my body not reaching well to physical contact. "Barry, what's happening? Are you hurt?"
I shook my head, still struggling to breathe correctly. "Panic attack." I informed her, my voice rushed.
"I didn't know you had a background in anxiety." Cisco thought aloud.
I opened my eyes at them. "Izzy..." I struggled. "She's... missing."
I saw them exchange a nervous glance before helping me off of the ground and towards the Cortex. I was slowly but surely starting to even out my breathing, and I collapsed in one of the chairs behind the desk. Cisco stood over me as Caitlin ran off somewhere. I hunched over in the swivel chair, closing my eyes and slowly rocking back and forth as I took deep breaths. I felt him pat my back in an attempt to make me feel better, and I was surprised that I didn't jerk away from him like I had Caitlin. I guessed that it was because I was starting to calm down, so I wasn't as sensitive to contact as I was before.
"Drink this." Caitlin said, handing me a bottle of water. I took it with a shaking hand, and took a few sips from it, only now noticing how dry my throat was. "Can you tell us what happened, Barry?"
"I went to Izzy's house after work." I told her softly, my voice slightly hoarse. "When I got there, she was gone, and I found a note on her fridge that said checkmate."
Cisco and Caitlin looked at each other with wide eyes. "Hartley." They said in unison.
**
so, i totally meant to upload this yesterday, and then i just completely forgot because i wrote like three more chapters, and i may or may not have made myself cry because of them.
GUYS, THE FLASH COMES ON TONIGHT AND I'M SO EXCITED OMFG!! please tell me that i'm not the only one who watched the first episode and went, "wait a second, this isn't how things are." because this stupid fan fiction has completely consumed my life.
i regret nothing. xx