I can't believe it's almost the beginning of a new year. So much has happened since I woke up in the Flashverse all those weeks ago, and so much is still on the horizon.
Barry and I haven't really spoken much since Christmas Eve, and I've pretty much stayed at home since then too. Robin's been training me a lot more, and I've actually been able to sleep lately.
I'm now able to walk from my room to the kitchen and cook myself a full meal while standing up, and there's not so much pain now. Robin says I'm getting stronger very quickly.
"Wolfgang, come on." I pat my lap and he jumps up obediently.
Where are we going?
For once Robin isn't just referring to itself when saying 'we'.
"STAR Labs. I haven't been since I was sick just before Christmas."
MJ is back. She has your keys.
"We can check in with her on our way." Robin nods and I head for the door, opening it mentally before I get too close.
Robin and I get along a lot better now, and I think it's because we've both had a shift in attitude towards each other. Before, I hated the way it spoke in riddles and was always bossing me around or threatening to ash people. Now, I've learnt to appreciate that it does these things to protect me and maintain as much order as it can. Besides, it paused my timeline so that I can see my family for Christmas, so of course I'm grateful.
Robin seems to be more patient and understanding with me too. It doesn't question me as much, just reminds me of important things like what's going to happen soon or little things about certain people that help me to make the right decisions.
And it's not being as cryptic as before... Either that or I actually understand what it's saying now.
"Cara! How are you?!" MJ's energetic voice makes me smile as I wheel myself down the hallway towards her apartment and the elevator bank.
"Great. I didn't know you were back from Starling." I lie seamlessly. She grins.
"Yeah, I needed to come back for work, but I brought some friends with me." She gestures behind herself and that's when I notice two people watching the conversation. One of which is a very familiar person. "This is CC and Roy."
"Nice to meet you Cara." Roy Harper is friends with MJ?
No. Way.
"You too." I try to keep myself from freaking out about him too much by turning back to MJ. "Hey, sorry to be a bother when we haven't even caught up properly, but do you still have the spare key to my apartment?"
"Oh yeah, it's inside. I'll get it now." She hurries to her apartment, fumbles with her keys, then unlocks the door and reaches inside to the little table I know is beside her door. "Here." She comes over and hands me the keys. I smile gratefully.
"Hey Cara?" Roy says my name and I try my best to stop myself from grinning like an idiot.
"Yeah?"
"If you're planning on going out, you might want a jacket. It's pretty cold out there." He tells me, a kind smile on his face.
"Thanks. I'll go get one." I assure him. He nods as if he's satisfied with my answer, then MJ tells me they have things to do so they all pile into her apartment and I head back to mine to get a jacket.
CC is a strange girl.
"I thought so too, but only because she never spoke. What's your reason?" I open my apartment door and head inside, going straight to my room.
She was here during the particle accelerator explosion.
"She's a meta?"
We believe so, yes.
"What can she do?"
We do not know. We can only sense that she is different to MJ and Roy.
"I'll keep an eye on her if I can." Wolfgang hops off my lap as I stand up and grab a jacket from a high shelf in my wardrobe. My leg hurts, which is strange because it normally doesn't.
It is not your powers causing this.
I frown at Robin, then sit back down, becoming paralysed once again as I roll up the fabric around my sore leg. The bandage covering my knife wound is a gross green-brown colour. It's been fine for the past week, so I thought it was basically healed. I guess not.
We did not think training would do this.
"You mean this is because I've been walking around?" Robin nods again. "I need to get this bandage off." Slowly, I pull away the sticky stuff around the wound, glad that I can't feel it.
I gasp and almost gag at what's underneath the bandage. The wound has become a bleeding, weeping, oozing mess, the skin around it looking angrier than ever in it's bright red colouring.
You look pale. Call someone.
My hands shake as I pull out my phone, dialing Cisco's number since he's probably with Caitlin and I don't have her number yet. My eyes focus on the grossness of my leg as I wait for Cisco to answer.
And thank god he does.
"Hey Cara, what's up?" He sounds like he's been laughing.
"Cisco, you know my knife wound and how it was getting better?" I barely pause before continuing, rushing out words as I start to panic. "It's gotten infected or something and I don't know what to do. I can't feel it but it's gross and I don't want it to get any worse and--"
"Cara, calm down. I'm out of town at the moment but I'll send Barry over and he can take you to Caitlin, okay? I'll do it now. Bye!" He hangs up before I can reply, and despite his effort to calm me down, I know he was beginning to freak out too. Which only makes me panic more.
I'm about to wheel myself out to the living room when I hear the front door open. Assuming it's Barry, I keep moving out of my room. But I stop just short of entering the living room; I can hear Ben's voice.
Shit.
What if Barry zooms in here while Ben's around? What if Ben sees my leg and gets all overprotective again? What if--
"Yeah, Levi, I know. But moving to Gotham is the best thing for me right now. Whenever I look at her, it just reminds me of them. Sure, I'll be living in a house that was going to be theirs, but at least I'll be in a completely different city and I won't see traces of them everywhere I go." Ben's voice is quiet and quick. He's moving to Gotham? "Yeah, I'll tell her eventually, just not now. Look, I gotta go. See ya." I hear the front door open and shut again.
He is gone. Barry Allen is here.
A second later, there's a knock on the door.
"It's open!" I yell, moving towards the door once again. It barely opens and Barry's suddenly standing in front of me.
In very little clothing. I can feel my face heat up and I look away.
"Barry? Why're you wearing nothing but your underwear and Iris's bathrobe?" I ask, guessing that the pink material doesn't belong to him.
"Cisco said you needed help." He says, looking at me expectantly.
"Yeah, my leg's infected... But that doesn't explain what you're wearing." Honestly, my panic is nothing compared to the thoughts I'm trying so hard to keep out of my head.
What can I say? I'm a die-hard fangirl.
"I just got out of the shower and this was the first thing I grabbed." He reasons with a slight shrug. How is he so casual about this?
"Wow okay. You can use some of Ben's clothes. There should be more than enough to pick from in the laundry." I point to the little room off the kitchen, looking in that direction so I don't have to see Barry's barely-covered body.
"Don't you need to get to a hospital or something though? Doesn't it hurt?" There's that sweet concern again.
"Barry, I can't feel my legs." I remind him bluntly. "Besides, Caitlin said she's able to take care of most things quicker than normal medicine can... And you have super speed so I shouldn't be waiting too much longer."
"Right, yeah, I'll get changed then." He disappears and I can hear him digging through the clothes. It takes a second for me to realise that it's not just Ben's things that I washed, it's also mine.
Oh god. Kill me now.
"Everything okay?" I call when he takes a little too long. He appears a second later in some of Ben's sweats and a hoodie, his cheeks red and his eyes avoiding mine.
Oh god no.
Now you have seen each other's underwear. Next is--
I block Robin from my mind before it can finish it's sentence, my cheeks heating up in the process.
"Um, can we go now?" I ask awkwardly, gesturing towards the oozing sore. Barry glances at it and goes pale, then comes over and picks me up.
"Ready?" He asks. I nod, holding onto him tightly as the floating sensation takes over like it normally does. The trip seems longer this time.
Maybe it's because I'm losing blood and getting dizzy.
When Barry stops running, I find myself in the STAR Labs infirmary once again, Caitlin rushing over as Barry disappears to get my wheelchair and Wolfgang.
"What's wrong this time?" Surprisingly, Caitlin's tone isn't annoyed or condescending like normal. She's actually smiling. What the hell?
"My leg." I point and her face goes super serious, heading to a cabinet and pulling out a needle filled with clear liquid. If she's that serious, it's bad.
Panic mode re-initiated.
"I need to knock you out so that your body's less active and less blood gets lost." She tells me. I nod and Barry reappears just as the needle goes into my arm. Without even thinking about it, I reach out my hand to him. He comes over to me and takes it, forcing a smile as concern and panic flash through his eyes. He looks at Caitlin, watching her as I watch him.
"Barry, I..." My whimpering voice trails off as the sedative finally starts working.
The last thing I see is his handsome face looking at me with so much concern and fear for my health that I can't help smiling as darkness takes over my mind.
~§~
Elise, wake up. Your guard is down.
I groan slightly, wanting nothing more than to sleep.
You cannot sleep. Your mind is too open. Guard it.
I slowly peel my eyes open, lifting my head to peer around the room. Wolfgang is playing guard again at the door, and I can see Wells and Caitlin talking on the other side of the cortex.
Barry is obtaining sustenance.
"Good. I'm starving." I mutter groggily as I sit up and pull my wheelchair closer. My arm hurts where the needle went in, so I wince when I lift myself into my wheelchair. Wolfgang barks once and comes to sit on my lap once I'm settled, carefully avoiding my injured leg.
"You're awake." Caitlin states the obvious as she and Wells come over to the doorway of the infirmary. "How're you feeling?"
"I didn't know you cared so much." I grin tiredly. Okay, I need to turn down the amount of Elise I'm letting out.
"Barry's out getting some food." Wells informs me with an amused smile, glancing from me to Caitlin and back again.
"I guess I'll try out my piano then." I shrug. The pair move and separate to do things independently. I guess that means the conversation's over then.
I wheel myself to my desk, where Cisco has set up my special keyboard-piano. I look up some tutorials on the small computer in the top of the piano, about to start playing something super simple until a pair of arms wraps around my shoulders from behind, startling me.
"I'm so glad you're okay." It's Barry. I decide that since he startled me, I'll just ignore him. I look at the screen in front of me and start to slowly play through Mary Had A Little Lamb, purposely stuffing up every now and then. Barry's arms disappear and so does he, but then Wolfgang is on my head.
"Barry, what the hell? I'm busy." I try not to, but a laugh escapes my lips as I grab my poor puppy off my head. I hold him close to my chest and he nuzzles into my neck.
"Let's go do something." Barry stands beside my desk, still wearing Ben's clothes. He's acting fidgety, reminding me of some of the kids I teach back in my world.
"I don't want to do anything with someone who scares the living daylights out of people and puts dogs on their heads." I put on my best cranky face but it's hard with a puppy snuggling into me and Barry standing there looking so desperate.
"Please? I got pizza. We could go watch some movies or something." He suggests. He kneels down beside me and takes my hand, looking up at me ever so adorkably.
"Barry, I won't marry you." I say as expressionlessly as I can. He's confused for a second, but then his cheeks go red and he let's go of my hand.
"S-sorry." Aw I made him blush. He starts walking away but I manage to catch his hand.
"Pizza and movies? As long as it's not Netflix and chill, it sounds good." I smile. He grins and picks me up eagerly.
"My place or yours?" He wiggles his eyebrows at me.
"I've never been to yours." I point out, holding Wolfgang firmly. Barry grins.
"My place it is then." He says as the floating sensation takes over. I hold on as tightly as I can, this time not because I'm scared or losing blood; I don't ever want to stop being so close to him.
When we stop, we're in a mostly neat lounge room. Barry puts me on the couch and disappears, only to come back a second later with my wheelchair and some pizza boxes.
"I hope you're okay with Disney movies, 'cause that's all I wanna watch." I say childishly as Wolfgang goes off to explore the apartment. Barry grins and turns on the TV before sitting down at the other end of the couch and setting a pizza box between us.
Kept apart by food. Dammit.
"Frozen sound good?" Barry asks. I shrug, hiding the fact the I'll be okay with anything as long as it's with him.
Oh god, I sound like one of those annoying, sappy girls that's pining over a guy she can't have.
But let's face it; that's basically what I've become.
"Just don't complain when I sing along or laugh at all the lame jokes." I warn him. He chuckles slightly and plays the movie.
Is it wrong that I'm hoping for the chill to go with this Netflix, even though I said I didn't want that?
Barely twenty minutes into the movie and halfway through the pizza, I notice that a certain speedster's eyes aren't on the screen. He's staring at me and pretending to watch the movie whenever I look at him to say something.
"Have you ever noticed that basically every Disney butler looks like a monkey?" I point out something that I look for in every Disney film. This time, Barry doesn't even pretend he's watching the movie. And he doesn't respond either. I look over at him. "What? Is there something on my face?"
"Not at all." He smiles. I frown, confused as hell but not wanting to question him any further. Maybe it was a bad idea to do this.
We keep watching the movie for a while, then Cara's phone dings from my pocket. I pull it out and roll my eyes when I see that it's from Ben. He's apparently not going to be home until tomorrow after something came up in Starling.
Whatever.
He is resigning from his old job. Levi is going too. They will organise his transfer to the Gotham Police Department when they get back.
Yay. That ruined my perfectly good mood.
"Everything okay?" Barry asks. I nod as I put the phone down and focus back on the movie. I can't even watch this now without thinking about how Ben keeps hiding things from me.
How can he move to Gotham and just leave me here? I know it's kind of selfish and I'm not a fan of his over-protectiveness, but he seems to have forgotten that paralysed people need to have someone living with them. And Levi's in on it too? I thought he and Cara were good friends too.
Suddenly the movie stops. It's not like I've been paying attention to it for the last few minutes, but now that Olaf is paused mid-song and mid-skip, I've noticed.
"Why'd you stop it?" I ask, looking over at Barry in confusion, only to be startled by the fact that he's a lot closer than last time I looked.
"Something's bothering you." He says. My eyes flick to Robin, then I look down at my lap. "Cara, you know I'm here for you, right?" I nod numbly.
As Elise, I'm terrible at this whole 'sharing emotions' thing. Cara, on the other hand, is an open book.
Which means I need to tell him what's going on.
But I don't want to... Because no matter how much I pretend to be Cara, I'm still one hundred percent Elise on the inside.
"Ben's moving to Gotham soon and he hasn't even told me about it yet." I say quietly. Barry sits further forward on the coach, facing me as much as he can without falling off the seat.
"How do you know?" He asks.
You are Cara to him. You must tell him. Cara trusts easily.
"I heard him talking to Levi on the phone about it just before you picked me up earlier." I explain, my voice shaking with the emotions that my body is fighting to let out. "It's only been three months since the accident and I don't know if I can handle losing him too."
"Cara, you aren't losing him, he'll just be a little further away. If you ever wanna see him, just ask and I'll run you there." Barry's trying to get me to look at him, but I refuse to as tears start to well up in my eyes.
"No, I couldn't ask that of you. It's half a country away." I point out with quivering lips.
(A/N: Central City is in the middle of the country, and Gotham is right on the Eastern coast with Metropolis.)
"I don't mind. It's not like you're heavy, and it'll probably actually help me to get faster." Barry assures me. "Besides, anything that makes you happy is worth running to the other side of the world and back for."
My eyes lock with his as heat gathers in my cheeks and the tears starts to fall.
"Why, Barry?" I frown. "Why are you so kind to me when we barely know each other?" He smiles and reaches out to wipe away my tears gently.
"I thought you would've figured it out by now." He says, a hint of teasing in his voice. I look away again, shaking my head in denial.
"You love Iris. You always have." I'm nearly sobbing, my nose starting to run, the waterfall of tears littering my shirt with little wet spots.
"I thought so too until about two months ago." Barry's voice is quiet, almost challenging me to do something about the feelings we apparently have in common.
"Barry..." I trail off, shaking my head again and not knowing what to say. He can't love me. That's not how this is supposed to work. He's meant to love Iris and they're meant to get married and have kids. It's inevitable.
Or at least it was.
But even if he does love me and I love him back, it can't work out well in the end. Robin said that Cara is no more, so when I go home... Barry will be destroyed.
What if I don't go home though? What if I was to stay here with Barry and Cisco and everyone else I've befriended in the past two and a half months? What if I give up being Elise altogether?
No. I can't do that. I have a life I need to get back to. I have a family I need to see again. I have friends I need to share more adventures with. I have a job with so many great kids.
There should be no question of whether I'm staying here or not, and yet...
"Cara, we've known each other since we were kids. Iris, you and me. I get that you moved schools and things happened that got in the way of us staying friends, but Iris and I are more like siblings than anything else. I want to be close with you too, but... not like siblings." Barry lifts my chin so that I'm looking at him and god we're so close to each other that I can feel his breath fanning across my face. I can't look away.
"I-- What do you mean?" I ask, half confused and half wanting to make sure I'm not misunderstanding him. He smiles like he knows something that I don't. He probably doesn't, but he looks so good that I don't mind.
"Stay the night; you shouldn't be alone with your leg still healing and all." He says casually, changing the topic completely but maintaining the close proximity.
"I live right up the hall though. I can call if I have any trouble. I do have a phone, you know. And besides, you can be there in a blink." I may be rambling and completely ruining the mood, but it's just because I don't know if I should kiss him or not.
"Your apartment's too far away." He says simply. I frown slightly.
"Barry, it's like fifty met--"
His lips softly touch mine, cutting off all conversation. For a second, I sit there in shock, but then the war inside me suddenly stops and nothing matters except Barry.
Barry and his love for me.