Dawn West-Allen: Part Two

20

My alarm went off at 5:00 a.m. I quickly turned it off before it woke up mom and dad.

I sat up on the couch wiping the sleep out of my eyes when I noticed it was quieter. Nora's snores usually echoed throughout the room but today I could hear the faint sound of cars on the street below.

My eyes adjusted to the dark and I could see that Nora wasn't there. I heard a thud in the bathroom pulling my attention in that direction. The door was closed and I could see a light shining through the cracks. I didn't want to knock on the door and possibly alert mom or dad so I left without her.

"Hi, Gideon." I said sitting my hand on the white podium in the time vault.

The Blue hologram appeared.

"Good morning Dawnelle West-Allen" she replied. " I have finished calculating yesterday's analysis, would you like the results?" Gideon asked as I unpacked my notes.

"Yes, please." I replied.

I just needed one encounter with flash and Cicada that doesn't cause a catastrophic timeline change or cause multiple casualties. That was my only goal, for now. After, we can move on to bigger things like stopping dad from disappearing or even the crisis from happening.

After hours of Gideon of analyzing we managed to get through over 300 hundred scenarios; none of which worked in the end. My brain was shutting down. I didn't even realize I had fallen asleep until Gideon woke me up with another analysis.

"Thanks, Gideon" I yawned once she finished.

I checked the time and it was almost 8:00 a.m.

I stood up from my spot in the time vault and phased through the wall and began tip-toeing down the hall. Every room was dark including the lounge where Sherloque seemed to be fast asleep; I didn't stick around long enough to check. I opened the bathroom door just a little for me to slip through and gently closed it behind me.

The lights turned on automatically as I walked to the first sink. My hands cupped the water and I splashed a little on my face to wake myself up. As I was rubbing the water into my face, I found myself staring back at my reflection. The dark circles under my eyes seemed to be getting darker every day. We've been at this for almost a week and the sleep deprivation plus the added stress of trying to figure out this time thing was taking a toll on me. Worst of all, I couldn't tell anyone about what was happening, not even Jeven.

Everything was so easy when we were working with Thawne. When our only job was to create ripples. Maybe we could ask for Thawne's help... No, why am I thinking like that? I can't forgive him for what he did to dad, to grandma Nora. Not working with Thawne was the best decision.

I was almost back to the time vault when I noticed the Cortex lights were on. Had that light been on the entire time? Sherloque was still sleeping and everyone else doesn't come in until after 10:00 a.m. Even if they did come in early, my gauntlet would have alerted me that the entrance was unlocked.

I silently tiptoed towards the Cortex room with my phone ready to call backup in case of an intruder. As I got closer, I could see a single shadow walk past the entrance. It seemed like I was breathing louder than usual and my heart was beating faster with every step. I took a deep breath at the entrance to prepare myself for a fight.

I peeked around the corner to see what I was up against.

"Nora?" I said stepping out of the shadows.

She jumped, dropping the dry-erase marker in her hand.

"Dawn?" she said breathily.

"When did you get here?" I said walking toward her.