#spallen

Her bed felt empty. It was so ridiculous; they’d only started staying the night at each other’s homes about a month before the breakup. Or mutual leaving. Or… whatever it had been. Every lanky guy with brown hair looked like Barry from behind, and her heart would do this stupid leap up into her throat before he turned and she realized his jaw wasn’t right, his eyes didn’t sparkle with warmth and mischief, and he usually had bad acne anyway. Then her fellow student would keep walking to wherever he was going and the hollow feeling in her chest resumed.

It didn’t help that she knew for a fact Barry could show up here any time he wanted with no trouble at all. But he didn’t. Not that he had a reason to.

She knew she’d hurt him by going, and a little piece of her had wanted him to hurt. Had wanted him to know what it felt like to get shut out of something huge in his partner’s life. But that little vindictive streak had died out pretty much the minute he’d left the train. Now she just felt alone.

She hadn’t thought she was lying to him about the grad school. She’d sent in the applications months ago, just before they’d even met. Reading his reports had inspired her to go for her dream, for crying out loud! She’d always meant to tell him she was waiting to hear back, but then they’d been going on dates and it wasn’t really a good idea to tell a date you were possibly moving a few hundred miles away. And then they’d been together, and she’d known she should have brought it up, but then there were all these little things she felt like he wasn’t sharing with her — why he’d really been out sick that one week, what his nightmares were about. It wasn’t like she’d known it was because he was busy being a superhero!

She read articles about the Flash, now. Voraciously. Anything that was published. Was that stalking him? She decided no, because it was publicly available information. A well-informed citizenry was best for democracy, after all. Even if all she was informed on was forensic science and her ex-boyfriend.

She liked Iris’ articles best. They really gave the sense that there was a person, Barry, there under the mask. Probably because she knew. Patty didn’t begrudge her that; Iris was Barry’s best friend and Joe’s daughter, and Joe totally knew. He’d known a lot of stuff he wasn’t willing to share with her despite being her partner. Didn’t trust her, she guessed.

Had Barry just not trusted her? She understood him holding onto the truth at first, of course. Wouldn’t be good form for a superhero to go around revealing his secret identity to every person they met. But he’d said he loved her. Didn’t trust come with love?

Maybe Patty wasn’t worthy of either. After all, she’d proved his point, right? Up and left. At the time, she’d felt it was necessary. She didn’t want anyone to think they could go on just lie to her face over and over and she’d go along with it.

But maybe, maybe they could have talked things out more, explained how and why they were feeling. If she hadn’t thrown the grad school bomb into the middle of things, if Barry hadn’t clammed up… maybe it still would’ve ended this way, but who knew?

Patty kind of wanted to find out.

Her spring break was coming up. Patty still had the apartment back in Central — the lease was up next month, and she hadn’t wanted to pay the extra fee to break it. She could go back. She could go home. Just for a little while, anyway. She could see Barry, if he wanted to see her, and try and get to the root of their troubles, come up with some kind of compromise. Even if they just came out of it as friends, he’d been the best part of the last year or so of her life and she missed him.

So Patty booked a train ticket back to Central and spent the last week of classes in anticipation. And, as she kept reading articles, a bit of worry started to cool in the pit of her stomach as well.

The Flash didn’t seem as active of late. Supposedly he was still being glimpses around the city, but he wasn’t really stopping to chat or doing much of anything. Was he okay? Had he been hurt? Was it just all in her head?

Patty’s fingers drummed on her thigh the whole train ride. She thought about calling. Then she thought it was best not to give a guy with superspeed a head start on running away. What if he didn’t even pick up her call? What if he’d blocked her? She was scared to find out, so her phone stayed in her pocket.

Patty got into the city and dropped her duffel at the old apartment. She didn’t stick around long, still able to remember when that man had caught her unawares in her own home and the terror she’d felt waking up in that warehouse. It was important to find Barry anyway, before she lost her nerve.

She tried the precinct first, nodding to the desk sergeant when she walked in. “Hey, Spivot!”

She grinned as she entered the bullpen. “Vukovich, how’s it going?”

The older officer shrugged. “Same as usual. What’s brought you back?”

“University’s on a break. I wanted to see some people. Uh, Barry, for one.”

“He’s off for the afternoon,” Vukovich told her. “Hey, if you get that fancy degree, bring it back this way. We could use more than one smartie, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Patty said with a light laugh. She couldn’t help wondering what that might be like, working side-by-side with Barry — in his day job, even if he didn’t want her involved with Flash stuff.

A glance over at Joe’s desk showed he wasn’t in, either. Maybe they were having a family thing?

“Well, I should get going. Good seeing you.”

Patty debated with herself the whole way over to Joe’s if she should be dropping in unexpected. Her old partner had only just found out about his son right around when she’d left. Family time was probably important to them.

It turned out she needn’t have worried. There were no cars in the driveway when her taxi pulled up outside the house. No one was home.

“You need to go somewhere else?” Her driver asked.

“Uh…” if Barry wasn’t at work and wasn’t at home, did she have any hope of catching him running around out there in the streets?

Or she could wait for him where he went after he was done with Flash stuff. Patty has never been told, but it didn’t take a detective — former or otherwise — to know that Barry was incredibly close to the good folks at STAR Labs.

“STAR Laboratories, if you don’t mind.”

As they returned to downtown, Patty noticed a growing number of clouds in the sky. By the time they were turning down the road that led to the Labs, thunder was booming and lightning streaked overhead. She couldn’t help the growing feeling that something was about to happen.

“You sure you wanna go here, lady? This place gives me the creeps.”

Patty glanced away from the window at her driver and made up her mind. “You know what? I’ll get out here.” She paid him quickly and watched as he made a quick u-turn and sped off. Then Patty started walking towards the parking lot.

Though, as she approached, was there a person standing on the roof? She sped up to a jog, then a run.

“Hey!” She called out. “What do you think you’re doing?”

As she got closer, she could see it was Barry’s friend Cisco standing there, stretching his arm up high with some kind of metal rod in his hand. Patty’s emergency training kicked into gear and she barreled through the Labs. She had to get to the roof access door before Cisco found out why Ben Franklin’s friends had thought he was crazy flying a kite in a thunderstorm—

There was a great boom that rocked the whole building, and Patty stumbled as a strange yellow, crackling light swept down the corridor, knocking her off her feet.

Her eyes slipped shut as the energy seemed to rush all through her, a voice echoing in her ears. “Patty… Patty…”

“Barr...y?”

---

Barry had never realized just how much he’d needed to learn about the speed force until he was within it, literally talking to it. Having it assume the form of his mother had been toughest of all, and yet, he felt better for having heard her words, since the speed force had told them they were hers as well. He very nearly felt at peace in a way he hadn’t for a long time.

It had seemed like he was out of control for the longest time, the others constantly offering this or that advice making him question if he was really making his own choices or not. He knew they didn’t mean it that way — or most of them hadn’t. He still couldn’t shake the bitter regret from having listened to Harry about what to do regarding Patty, only to find out that the man had been working with Zoom behind all their backs. Only Jesse’s captivity at the time allowed Barry to forgive him, but the regret still sat in his heart.

Then there had been his Earth 2 counterpart, and Iris’. A year ago, he would have been over the moon to view a world where they were together. But, despite what Harry had thought, he knew that wasn’t really them. He could care about what happened to an Iris on any Earth while acknowledging that at home, they were not husband and wife. Even when a future newspaper said they someday would be.

But that future no longer existed, and Barry couldn’t help resenting the idea that a newspaper and another Earth had to be the things that prompted Iris to think about the possibility of being together. That it wasn’t him alone that could make her see him in that light. 

He knew that was his fault. If he’d told her the truth when he’d first gotten his powers, maybe she would have seen him the way he’d always wanted, before she’d fallen completely in love with Eddie. And while Iris was learning to let Eddie go, Barry couldn’t shake his own guilt; he was the reason Eddie was dead, because he hadn’t been able to beat Thawne on his own. He couldn’t be happy with Iris while knowing that, exactly the way Thawne had predicted in his message from beyond the grave.

He’d been happy with Patty, but he hadn’t fought for her. He’d just let her walk out of his life.

Guys like him didn’t get the girl, Oliver had tried to tell him. Oliver, who himself was no longer engaged. But a relationship wasn’t the kind of life either of them were allowed to have. Speaking with the speed force, however, had given him a sense of purpose and a clear head, and these would have to be enough.

It was as he thought this that Barry was finally able to catch hold of the black blue he’d been chasing. As it solidified, it asked in a voice he instantly recognized, “Barry?”

“Patty?” He stepped back in shock. How was this possible? Was it just the speed force?

She turned around to face him, and his breath caught. He hadn’t forgotten her, but she was so much more beautiful in person than in memory. She met his eyes, and a smile lit up her whole face. “There you are.”

“What are you doing here?” She didn’t have the calm manner of the speed force, nor was she frantically calling out the way Cisco had.

Patty gave an easy shrug. “I don’t know where here is,” she said, looking around his old home. “But it’s nice. I wasn’t expecting a nice dream after I got knocked out.”

His brow furrowed. “What do you mean? What happened?”

“I don’t really know, but I don’t want to worry about it right now.” Patty walked up and wrapped him in a hug. “This is dream you, so we can just be, right? Don’t even have to apologize yet.”

“Apologize for what?” Barry asked, choosing to ignore for the moment that Patty was under the impression that he wasn’t real somehow. Definitely not the speed force. But then what was she? If she was the real Patty, then how?

“For leaving,” she muttered into his shoulder. Barry’s arms, which had landed loosely around her waist when he’d automatically returned her hug, tightened, although there was something strange to her. It was as if she wasn’t fully solid, wasn’t fully there. “I know why you felt like you couldn’t tell me. There was stuff I didn’t tell you, too. But I thought that was maybe changing at the art show, and then…”

“It didn’t,” he finished for her.

“I made the Midway decision without you because I was upset, and I’m sorry,” she told him, leaning back to look into his eyes. “I’ve really missed you, Barry.”

“I’ve missed you, too. It’s okay you were upset. I was gonna tell you, and then I backed out.” If he’d just listened to his heart instead of letting his fears get to him. He couldn’t let his fears control him, he had to let them go. Just like the speed force had shown him. “If I could do it all over again—”

“What if we could?”

Barry gave her a funny look. “What, you want me to go back in time and change it?”

“Okay, you saying that like it’s a possibility is super interesting,” Patty said. “But, no. I meant more like, what if we just started again? It’d be long distance, I guess, but we could call and text. Write letters for some dramatic effect. Even just as pen pals!”

“You’ve really thought this out.”

“I kept trying to come up with a speech or something on the train ride back, but this is much more helpful practice,” she explained, which left Barry even more confused. Patty really was talking as if she was the real deal. Not the speed force, not an illusion, but his Patty. And if what she said was real, he needed to get out of here.

Almost as if his very thought had summoned it, Cisco’s vortex reappeared. Though instead of Cisco, it was Iris who called out to him. “Barry! Come home!”

“Whoa!” Patty backed up this time in alarm. “What’s that?”

He looked from the Vortex back to Patty. “I have to go.”

Her face fell. “Okay.”

It wasn’t a trick to make him stay. Patty thought she was dreaming, and her dream had suddenly turned into a bad one thanks to him preparing to leave her. He didn’t want it to end like this.

“Barry!” Iris shouted again.

Barry looked back and extended his hand. It didn’t matter if it wasn’t how this was supposed to work. He had caught back up to Patty, and he wasn’t letting her go again. “Come with me.”

Patty nodded, reaching out. Her fingers twined through his own.

“Run, Barry. Run together,” the speed force said in his mother’s voice, and so Barry did run. To his surprise, Patty did right along with him.

Iris stood within the vortex, her hand reached out as far as she possibly could. He clasped hands with her and felt himself pulled through.

The next thing he knew, he was back in STAR Labs, the others embracing him in joy. Barry looked around, his left hand empty. “Where’s Patty?”

The others’ eyes all widened. “How’d you know?” Joe asked.

“I saw her. She was—” He turned around on the spot, feeling frantic. Had he left her behind after all?

“You can see her once we got Girder taken care of, dude. Promise,” Cisco told him. It was quickly relayed to him what had happened to Tony Woodward thanks to the second explosion, and Barry rushed to complete the task with the electromagnets to end the meta’s reanimated rampage.

His father insisted on checking him over after, and Harry was insistent on him seeing Jesse, who had been knocked into a coma like he had once been. Barry somehow knew what he needed to do to revive her, however, and she quickly awakened to the relief of her father.

At last, Cisco and Iris showed him the room they had placed Patty in.

“We don’t know when she got here or what happened, exactly,” Iris said. “But it was hard to move her.”

That was due to the electricity that seemed to crackle across the surface of her skin. Like before, Barry reached out with confidence. He felt a jolt rush through him, and it filled him with warmth and hope as Patty’s eyes flickered open.

“Barry?”

“Patty.” She had really come back. She really wanted to try again. It hadn’t been a dream. Barry day on the edge of her bed, drew her up from her prone position and hugged her. This time she felt truly solid, and he relished the feel of her in his arms again. “For the record, I would love to be your pen pal,” he murmured in her ear.

Barry felt her stiffen in his hold before she drew back with wide eyes. “How did you know I… and what happened? There was this light that hit me in the hallway and then that house and then — and Cisco! You’re okay!”

“Uh, yeah,” his friend said, confusion evident as Patty gasped at him.

“What were you doing on the roof in the middle of that crazy storm? You could’ve gotten killed!”

“It’s fine,” Barry interjected with a laugh. “He knew what he was doing. And it all worked out.”

“Maybe a little too well,” Iris noted. “Bear.” She nodded to Patty’s right hand where it rested on the bed covers. It was vibrating.

“Oh wow,” he breathed.

“How is this happening?” Patty asked in wonder as she held up her hand to stare at it.

“You were in the speed force with me. It must have forged a connection to you.” He hadn’t been imagining it when he left for the vortex with her; she had been running with him.

“I can’t make it stop,” Patty said, her amazement shifting to worry.

“Yes, you can. Patty, just focus.” Barry took her hand in his, watching as she worked to slow her breathing. Her hand stopped trembling in his and was still. “See?”

Her smile returned, tentative at first, then growing as he smiled back at her.

“Speedster couple. Awesome,” Cisco said. Iris bumped his shoulder and he quickly added, “Or not couple. Not trying to assume anything.”

“It’s okay,” Barry told his friends with a grin. Barry looked back at Patty, who nodded. “We’re ready this time.”

He leaned towards her, and Patty met him halfway in a kiss that sent sparks straight through him. It felt like they kissed for an eternity, but his heightened awareness of his speed told him it had only been a few short seconds for everyone else. These extra moments were something they could share together now, just the two of them.