Kara and Barry's Apartment (Barry POV)
I unlocked the door and walking in with a bag full of groceries. I was hoping to make Kara's favorite dinner in hopes of maybe trying to die down the tension between us.
As I made my way to the island, I noticed Kara was already here. She was standing over by the couch folding my clothes.
"Hey!" I greeted her with a smile, in hopes that she would return it, "You're home early, I was hoping to have dinner ready before you came back."
Kara looked at me, but didn't smile back. She kept the stern look in her eyes and just continued to fold up my clothes, "Yeah. I asked James to let me off early so that I can help you get a head start on packing."
I watched her stuff my clothes into a suitcase, it didn't make me feel good.
"Well... Um, thanks for that, but I can do that later. You're probably tired from a long at work, how about I cook us some dinner while you relax, how does that sound?"
I really wanted her to stop. I hated having to watch her pack up my things.
(Kara POV)
"No thanks Barry, but I'm not hungry, I'm trying to get this done before it gets to dark. Hopefully we can get you out of here by tonight."
"Kara please..."
"Alex gets off at seven, I'll text her right now and ask her if we can borrow her car. I really don't feel like having to carry all this stuff."
"...Stop you don't need to do this..."
"I wanted to ask, do you want this photo?" I asked holding up a picture frame with a picture of the two of us from the time we went to the zoo together. It was of Barry and me standing in front of the hippopotamus habitat. Is was actually Barry's favorite picture because in the background you can see that one of the hippos managed to photo bomb the picture.
"...Don't do this..."
"You know, I'll just throw it in. I have a couple more of us in my room, I won't miss one. You can decide what you want to do with it later."
"...Cut it out Kara..."
"Hey are you going to want help unpacking when we get there or is Linda planning on-"
"Enough Kara!"
I felt my skin jump at the sound of his voice. Never had I ever heard him talk with such force to anyone, not even criminals. I was about yell back at him, but I stopped myself when I noticed that he had tears forming in his eyes.
"What's wrong Barry?"
"Stop doing this.... Please Kara. You're hurting me."
"Well now you know how I feels Barry." I felt my eyes begin to water as well, "That pain you feel right now,Barry, that is what you did to me earlier. I had me go through the entire day like that, and now you have to too."
"I'm so sorry for not telling you. I honestly wanted to, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I'm sorry I didn't tell you about my apartment earlier."
I spent all day feeling nothing but anger towards him, and when I came home all I wanted to do was give him that same sense of pain I felt all day...But after seeing him right now, all I wanted to do was take that pain away. How could I have been so cruel, how could I hurt the man I knew I love... I now he didn't mean to hurt me, he probably had some good intentions, but I couldn't help but feel hurt. And although I felt a very heavy feeling of guilt in my heart, that didn't stop me from wanting answers from him, "Why Barry... Why did you do it... Are you not happy here?"
"What? No, Kara. I love everything about living with you, I'm happy here. I'm happy being with you."
"Then why are you trying to leave our home? Why are you trying to leave me?"
"I'm not trying to leave you Kara. That isn't my reason for doing this."
"Then what is your reason Barry? Tell me. Stop hiding it, stop going behind my back and just tell me what you want! What ever it is, I'll give it to you. What do you want from me!?"
"I want more Kara!"
I froze at that moment. I couldn't help but remember Alex's earlier words to me, "What?"
"I said I want more Kara... I can't keep squatting off you like this, I want to move forward with my life. I... I can't live on a couch for the rest of my life, I can't keep living off you like this anymore Kara. I... I don't want to be a burden to you anymore."
At the sound of his last sentence, I felt like slapping him. I had to hold back my hand, trying my best to repress my reflects. This isn't the first time he's this brought up, every time he did I always answered the same way, "Barry you're not a burden! I don't know how many times tell you this, but I love having you around. My entire life is better because you're around. If you leave, I don't know if I can go back to how things were before. Barry... Please don't leave."
"I need to Kara. I can't keep holding you back like this. I'm sorry, but this is the best thing for the both of us."
"No. No! How is this good for us? Tell me, in what way are you holding me back?"
I watched as he struggled to answer my question. It wasn't that he didn't have an answer, it was that he did, he just didn't want to say it. He looked at everything in the room, except me. After what seemed like two long minutes, he finally had the guts to say what was on his mind, "What happens when you get a boyfriend?"
I didn't expect this from him. His answer left me confused, "What?"
"What happens when you find someone you love Kara. I can't stay here if you get a boyfriend, he wouldn't want me here. I don't want my presents here, stopping you from finding someone that makes you happy."
I felt a presents of anger begin to build up tightly in my stomach, "That won't happen Barry. You don't need to worry about that."
"Stop pretending like it won't happen. Any guy would be extremely lucky to have you Kara. I just don't want to be the reason that stops you two from being happy."
My anger had built up to the point that my face was burning, "It won't Barry. Trust me, there is no other guy. There will never be another guy."
"You're being unrealistic now Kara. The entire time that I've been here, you've never once gone on a date or even looked interested in anyone. I'm the reason for that Kara, you don't want to bring anyone home because I'm here."
I gripped my teeth. I wanted to yell at him, but I refrained myself, "Well maybe the reason for that is that there is just no other guys to look at."
"Maybe not now, but what happens when you meet the one."
"That won't happen."
"Kara stop lying to yourself."
"I'm not lying, because I already found him!"
"What? Really? Them why haven't you introduced him to me."
"Barry it's not that simple."
"What do you mean? Do I know him?"
"Sorta yeah."
"Who is he?"
"Barry please drop it?"
"No Kara. You've been keeping you this from me, why?"
"Barry stop."
"Who's your boyfriend?"
"Barry!"
"Kara who's your boyfriend!"
"Well I was hoping he would be you!" My eyes immediately shot open and I quickly covered my mouth when I realized what I just yelled. My face was red, redder then it had ever been, it felt like I was on fire. I can't believe I just told him that. This is not how I wanted to tell him, I actually was hoping I would never have to tell him, but he just made me so mad that I blurred out my most inner thoughts. I wanted to take it back, say I was just lying, but I didn't, because it felt good. The second I said that, I felt a million times lighter, like a massive amount of weight was just lifted off me, but that still didn't stop me from panicking.
As soon as I saw Barry's face freeze of shock I began to panic, "Wait Barry, that so not what I meant say! Well it is what I meant deep down, but I didn't mean to say it like that! What I wanted to say was.... Well actually I don't know what I wanted to say. I've thought about it a lot, but I can't remember what I wanted to actually say! I just screwed it up! I'm sorry, I... I don't know what got into me. Alex got into my head. She said you were going to leave me, and I didn't believe her. She also warned me that someone else was going to steal you away from me, but I didn't believe her until lunch with Linda. I got scared and I panicked. That is why I went off on you earlier today when you told me about the apartment. I'm actually really happy for you Barry. It's just that I'm not happy it's so close to Linda. I'm jealous ok. I hate her. I hate how she looks at you. I hate how she talks to you. I hate how she touches you. Barry I don't like it when I see her or any girl be like that towards you. I know we aren't in a relationship, but that is how I feel. I like you ok! I really really like you! And I... I... I... I-"
"Kara, Kara! Stop please." Barry calmed me down. He took my hand in his and got close to me, "Just breath ok. Just breath."
I did as he said and just breathed. I instantly felt my heartbeat slow down, but it was still abnormally fast, "T... Thanks"
There was a long moment of silence between us. It was the most dreadful of silent moments, but there just nothing more I could say. I literally blurred out everything. It was Barry's turn. I just stared at him, waiting for him to say something. Anything that would end this horrible silence.
"Um... You... Um... I'm sorry, but how long?"
"I don't really know. Since forever."
"Forever?"
"Yeah." My voice was low and quite, "The feelings have always been there, I just didn't know what they were until we got closer. I guess I've always liked you, since the beginning."
"Wow. That is a long time."
"Yeah."
There was another long silent moment between us before he asked another question, "W... W... Why didn't you ever tell me, Kara? Why keep it in for such a long time?"
"We had such a good thing going between us Barry, I didn't want to mess it up. I don't know, I guess just having you around all the time was enough to keep me happy. I forced myself to take what we had, but I always knew deep down, I wanted more between us. I never asked for more, because I thought that if things didn't go well between us, we'd lose everything we had."
Barry remained silent again. We interlocked our eyes the entire time, but I couldn't tell what he was feeling. He became unreadable to me, and that scared me. I didn't see anything; no anger, no sadness, no happiness. It was the most suspenseful moment of my entire life, I had no way of telling what was to come. The only thing I absolutely knew, was that whatever came out of Barry's mouth next... was going to define where our relationship went next.
"Kara... I don't know what to say." Oh no, "I... I can't find the right words."
I couldn't go another second of this. I wanted him to tell me where he stood on this issue. I couldn't take any more suspense, "Well, is there another way you can tell me. Maybe without words?"
Barry remained quite for a moment. I noticed his face begin to glow red, and his mouth grow dry, "On... Only one."
"Well do-"
I was immediately cut off in the middle of my sentence when Barry pressed his lips against mine. He held onto my waist and lowered his face upon mine. My brain was going wild, there was so many thoughts racing through my mind that I couldn't understand any of it. It took a while, but I finally came to terms with what was happening. Barry was kissing me. He... He liked me back. I wanted to kiss back too, but I couldn't bring my lips to repeat the action. It was like my entire body was disconnected from my brain. It was like I thought of the action, but I couldn't perform it. This was everything I ever wanted, I wanted to kiss Barry back, but my stupid body was in to much shock to respond. By the time my body had finally had enough time to recover, Barry had pulled away. He looked into my eyes and said nothing. His cheeks were bright red and I'm pretty sure mine where as well.
I quickly filed through my brain for any possible combination of words I could use to explain to Barry how magical and amazing I felt right now. I took my time and shuffled through every single word I knew of and finally came up with the single best possible representation of my feelings right now, "Wow."
I noticed Barry laugh at me when he heard what I had to say. I would have been mad at him if he didn't look so cute. So instead of getting mad, I laughed with him. We enjoyed a light laugh together before getting serious again, "So..."
"So..." He repeated after me. Both of us had no idea what came next.
Instead of wondering about this all day long, I decided just to ask him, "What happens next Barry."
He thought about this moment before flashing me a smile, "I think... we are thinking way to hard about this. We should just continue to do what we have been doing for the past four months."
"Really?"
"Yeah." I felt his hands wrap tighter around my waist, "Do what we've been doing, just with a little more of this..."
He leaned into me and kissed me again. This time I was ready for him and I kissed back. I flung my arms around his neck and pulled him down closer to me. As I did this, I noticed the force around my waist tighten and bring me closer to his body. We had no space between us at that point, but to me that was perfect. The less space, the better. We stayed like this for a while before finally breaking for air.
"I can work with that." I told him with a smile.
He chuckled at my joke as he cleared my face of a loss strand of hair. He smiled and looked into my eyes, "I really like you, Kara."
"I really like you too, Barry." That was a lie. I loved him, but I figured we should hold off on the big 'L' word until later, when we were both ready.
I noticed Barry look back at the couch and look at his suitcase, "Man... I can't believe I was so close to making the biggest mistake of my life."
I couldn't help but smile even wider when he said this. He wasn't going to move out, "Well you weren't all wrong, you were right about one thing."
"Really? And what is that?"
I placed my arms around his neck again and got close to him, "You can't sleep on that couch for the rest of your life."
I noticed his smile when I said this. I felt his arms go around my waist again and bring me in close, "Oh... And what do you suppose we do about that?"
"I don't know. I could always... share my bed. It's a bit to big for one person."
We shared another kiss before Barry pulled away and continued our little game, "Well I'll like that very much."
I smiled, grabbed is hand, and began to walk backwards towards our bedroom, "Come one. Let's get you settled in."
"Wait shouldn't I bring my stuff?"
"We'll get them later, come on." I pulled him into the room and closed the door behind him.
I finally got it! Yes! I'm so so so sorry, this is like three days late, it's just that I just couldn't figure out how to write this chapter. I tried, I honestly tried for such a long time. Everyday I would pull up the story, but I just couldn't get it right. I erased and rewrote this so many times, I lost track. Uh, I'm so happy it's finally over! Now I can continue on with the story. Just a heads up, and to get you guys hyped up, Earth 38 Barry and Kara will be heading to Earth 1 real soon. I'm going to be writing two filler chapter next, so they won't actually be meeting Earth 1 Barry until chapter 25. Hope you guys stick around for that. Anyway next chapter will be up tomorrow, tell me what you guys think about the chapter or the story in general, and don't forget to follow me so that I can notify you guys about any changes or possible new stories. Anyway see you guys next time.