I've Got Soul but I'm Not a Soldier

Between Hope and Despair

There's still a lot of rubble around STAR Labs when Len arrives on his motorcycle. Lisa offered to drive him, but he declined; this is something he needs to do alone. He enters STAR Labs and Cisco is waiting for him just inside; apparently the security cameras are still working. Good to know.

Cisco looks exhausted, much how Len feels.

"What happened?" Len asks, watching the tech genius.

Cisco sighs tiredly. "Ronnie and Professor Stein just kind of... appeared, I guess, and they're both very confused. Caitlin's checking them out right now."

"And Barry?" Len asks.

Cisco's expression softens somewhat. "Still nothing on him."

Len nods, because he knew that; Cisco said as much on the phone, but he had to ask nevertheless. Cisco turns and leads the way through the hallways, although Len's fairly certain he knows where's he going; he's cased the place enough, after all. Plus he's been in here before.

The medical room looks intact, at least. Two men occupy the beds, both sitting on the edge, strapped to machines and IVs as they speak to Caitlin, who hurries back and forth between them, collecting blood samples and checking their pulse and blood pressure. She looks up as Cisco and Len enter the room, and her expression softens when she takes sight of Len.

"You don't look well," she comments.

Len rolls eyes. "Nice to see you too, Dr. Snow."

"How are they?" Cisco asks.

"They seem fine, just a little dehydrated, but they are Firestorm," Caitlin says. "Temperatures are normal for them. I've got them on fluids just in case, and I'll monitor them overnight."

"What about Barry?" Cisco asks before Len can, and their attention slides toward the people occupying the beds.

"We didn't see him," the younger man, Ronnie, says apologetically.

"Something strange happened to them," Caitlin says, dragging everyone's attention back to her. "They say it's only been a few seconds for them – they were wondering how it got to be night so quickly."

"Wait – so it's been days for us, but seconds for them?" Cisco asks, mostly to clarify, and there's a knot in Len's stomach.

Caitlin nods. "That's what they're saying."

"Any idea why, Professor?" Cisco asks, looking at the older man with the white hair. Professor Stein, Len recalls.

"Time fluctuation," Professor Stein says. "Perhaps we were too near the center, but not enough to be dragged inside, but not outside of it enough to be set free, either. So we were caught up in its gravity, so to speak, and spat out later, since the singularity dispersed."

All of this is making Len's head hurt. He dropped out of high school, after all; how is he supposed to understand all of this?

Professor Stein seems to see his confusion and tries again. "Time went by quickly for us, but to everyone else it's been days."

That makes a little more sense.

"What about Barry?" he asks, because that's all he really wants to know.

"I am surprised he didn't appear with us," Ronnie says. "We would have been in roughly the same area – well, we were a little further in than he was."

"So, theoretically, he should have been spat out before you two," Cisco says.

Professor Stein nods, and that knot in Len's stomach keeps growing. At this rate he'll never eat again.