As it turned out, a good walk to a local coffee shop was exactly what our couple needed. Because their house was equidistant between their two cities, the two decided to find a new cafe area, as hard as it was to get over the phenomenal work that their baristas did at their separate places. Their new place was called Ragged Caffeine, but the locals just called it Caffeine.
It felt odd to include themselves as locals anywhere. They couldn't exactly call themselves civilians in their own cities. Here, of course they stopped a crime or two without drawing any attention to themselves or their secret aliases, but they felt like they did before this whole superhero thing began and it was nice to just complain about their commute instead of their criminals.
"Yesterday," Kara started a perfectly normal conversation, "I saw the fattest pigeon on my way in!"
"How big was it," Barry smiled. He loved it when she'd talk about animals. Her eyes would light up and she would be a lot more engaged in her own words.
"Oh man," she laughed, "it was huge!" She held up her hands like she were holding it. "Like, this big."
Both Kara and Barry were so invested in this strange story, neither of them saw the person walking parallel to them, and Barry ended up not so gently brushing against their shoulder.
The woman snapped her head back at him. She stood at a couple inches over 5 foot 5, hair cascading down her shoulders in large curls. She wore a full face of makeup and a light grey pantsuit, which complemented her dark skin.
"Excuse you," she said bluntly, turning back to where she was headed and quickly marching forward without a glance into the others' eyes.
Kara's breath caught in her throat as a memory from a vague long ago filled her mind. It was happy, but albeit dramatic. No true evidence yet showed of her knowing this person, though.
"Excuse yourself," Barry mocked in a low volume, kicking his foot lightly against the cement. He cocked his head at Kara, noticing her distractedness. "You good?"
"Oh," she remarked, not counting how many seconds she had dazed off, "yeah, I'm fine. I just thought I knew that lady for a second."
Barry squinted at the back of the woman's head and shrugged, "maybe it's someone you saved. I know I always get those people stuck in my brain somehow."
Kara shook it off. "That makes sense." That reasoning worked fine for her. Why should she bother thinking anymore about it?
But of course that's exactly what she did all day.
======
It just gnawed at the back of her head. Who was she? She knew there was a name attached to the face and she just had to find it out. But her loving husband noticed her absence.
"Honey," he squeezed his eyebrows together as his word formed.
"Huh?" Her mouth said without her brain's consent.
They were laying in bed with the lights off and her eyes were still wide open. It was ten o'clock but she knew there was no chance of her sleeping that night.
"Is everything okay," he asked. "You've seemed kind of out of it all day. Got something on your mind?"
"No," she lied. She was obsessing over something so little again and didn't think it was worthy of his attention. "I guess I'm just having one of those days."
"Are you sure?"
"I mean-"
Barry's watch suddenly buzzed on the nightstand and a bright lightning streak covered the face.
(Cisco found a way to make the best of the couple's living situation by juicing up a watch to alert Barry about Flash emergencies. This was their wedding gift from him.)
"Shoot, babe, I gotta go," Barry sat up. "We can finish this conversation when I get back, just don't let me forget."
He gave her a smooch on the forehead and courteously left the room before leaving lighting streaks behind him.
"Love you too," she rolled herself up in the entirety of their blanket.
======
Barry raced through the night in his pajamas and stopped every so often to let his poor choice of footwear cool off. Central City always seemed farther away at night.
When he finally made it to the lab, It was only Cisco standing there, also in his pjs. While Barry was wearing a tank top and flannel bottoms, Cisco was in full on flash pjs, complete with tiny lightning bolts. He almost laughed about it when he realized he was still wearing Kara's kitten heeled slippers.
Hey, you gotta do what you gotta do.
Cisco looked nearly sleep deprived, which seemed rather odd, seeing as it was only around ten still. "This is going to sound crazy," he looked Barry dead in the eye.
"Been there, done that," Barry waved his hand.
"I think a meta is in my head."
"What?"
"There is a meta human inside my brain, telling me to do things."
"Um, dude, are you okay?"
"Of course I'm not! There are people invading my thoughts!"
He slumped down in a chair, his hands pulling his hair from his face.
"Did you say 'people'? As in plural," Barry rolled a chair adjacent to the other one.
"Yes," he looked up with bloodshot eyes. "Did I not say that before?"
Barry was beginning to get concerned as it became clear that his friend had not slept for several days. "No, it didn't come up. What did you say they were saying?"
"Um, it's usually about how they can see me. Y'know, like, directly through walls and things. Oh, and how no where I go will be safe." Cisco himself could smell his b.o. from his lack of showers in the past couple of days. If they could all see him, why should he make himself so vulnerable by standing naked in a shower ten minutes a day?
Barry eyed something and slipped it into his pocket without Cisco noticing. "You know, I think there's something here," Barry nodded his head. "I'm gonna go make us some coffee and then we can get fully into this."
"Good idea," Cisco pointed his finger at him. "We can't fall asleep because of them either."
"Got it."
Barry moved to the kitchen, unfortunately knowing what he had to do. He made tea instead of coffee, so the effect would be greater. He pulled out of his pocket liquid Valium. Lord knows why it was just sitting out in the cortex like that. He added about twenty five milligrams into one of the mugs.
A few minutes later Barry came back in with two mugs in his hand, giving one to Cisco.
"This is tea," the latter said with anger.
"Yeah, we didn't have any coffee, so drink up." Barry did the cheers motion at the other man and drank his tea.
Cisco gulped his. He probably hoped that he would get caffeinated quicker this way, but just the opposite seemed to be happening. His vision was getting blurry. His eyelids felt heavier than they already were as his gaze fell upward onto his friend.
"What did you do?"
And with that he was gone.
======
Fourteen hours later, Cisco woke up in the med bay bed, feeling more aware than ever. It was terrible. The wort part was that he remembered every moment of the night before. Barry must have put him in bed.
"I told you not to call," a voice hissed.
It was one of The Voices.
"What do you want," he asked, running out of patience.
"I want you," it responded with its masculine/feminine/other worldly tone. "I need you to do something for me?"
"Yeah," he chuckled unhumorously. "And What do I get out of it?"
"Nothing. Weren't you working on being a better person? You already bothered one of your only friends, and now you're just going to flat out ignore me? The one who specifically told you not to. Listen to me this time, let's just say, you'll have a hard time regretting it."
"How can I trust you?"
"After that entire speech I gave, on why you should trust me, you still need to ask?"
"Fine! I guess I'll just do whatever. Doesn't seem like I have much of a choice."
"Cisco," Barry called from the other room. He must have heard the other conversing.
"Close your eyes," the voice ordered.
Cisco complied.
"Hey, babe, I'm gonna have to call you back," Barry said into his phone.
"Yeah, yeah," Kara nodded. "Do what you need to. Love you."
"I love you too," Barry hung up.
He jogged over to the med bay and poked his head through the doorway. Cisco appeared to still be sleeping, so he chalked it up to some other noise and left.
"Hey Caitlin," he entered the lab, "any theories yet?"
"I mean, it'll be hard to tell until he wakes up," she glanced up at him. "Thanks for that."
"He hadn't slept in days," Barry shouted. "There's a chance all of this could have been due to lack of sleep."
"I know, I know," she raised her hand. "I just wanted the answers faster. I guess I'm just concerned and impatient."
That was only fair. The two had been friends for years, and to know that he'd been struggling for days, and not come to her, that really stung.
"I was thinking, maybe psychosis," he introduced. "I've been researching mental illnesses all night, and apparently, auditory hallucinations are a symptom of psychosis."
"While that is true," Caitlin winced with her medical knowledge, "it's not as common as it is with paranoia, schizophrenia, even. And let's not rule out insomnia. I mean, he hasn't slept in days, Barry."
"Wait, I thought schizophrenia was seeing things," he tilted his head.
"Oh, no," she shook her head and almost chuckled. What was common knowledge to her, she didn't realize would be unknown to your average joe. "Schizophrenia patients can hear, see, and feel things that aren't there. Ooh, manic depression!" She quickly jotted down the mental illness on the notepad in front of her.
"Depression? He hasn't been talking about being sad in any way," Barry almost sounded offended at the thought of his best friend being depressed.
"No, but, knowing Cisco, he probably would have said something sooner about the voices if he hadn't been isolating himself; isolation is a symptom of depression."
"Okay, but, hearing voices is not a symptom."
"Actually, it is, but it is a much larger concern in manic depression, which basically takes the worst parts of both paranoia and depression."
Barry huffed. "I don't know, Caitlin. I'm just worried about him."
"I know. I am too," she looked at the floor. "But we won't get any answers until he finally wakes up."
"Any ETA on that, by the way?"
"Well, with the amount of Valium you put in him, he should be waking up soon, but his body has been needing the rest," she rubbed her forehead. "You said he didn't want to be vulnerable, right?"
"Yeah," Barry nodded.
"That probably means he'd been working nonstop, and surviving on borrowed time."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, even if he hadn't been working himself so hard, he would be awake by before now."
"What are you saying?"
Her face was filled with equal parts seriousness and fear. "We need to go check the bed."
They rushed to the med bay to find an empty bed, the sheets untucked, and the air cold.
Just as the sheer terror and calculations of what to do next was forming in Barry's brain, his phone buzzed with Kara's name on it.
"Barry," her urgent tone shifted all of his attention to her.
"What's wrong? What happened," he turned his head and alerted Caitlin.
"I think there's like an alien or a meta human in my head," she cried out.
All of the color drained from his face.
"Barry, I'm scared."