Runnin' Home to You

Chapter 2

         

Everyone has noticed something was wrong with Barry. Anyone who knows Barry knows how horrible of a liar he is; they also know how readable his facial expressions can be, no matter how hard Barry tries to mask his feelings. It's a miracle that Barry has managed to keep his secret for this long.

For the past, few weeks, Barry has been rather jumpy for reasons that only Barry knows. Ever since the Christmas memory a month ago, Barry has been receiving more of those memory flashes; this time, however, they have been appearing more in his sleep. Every time Barry falls asleep, memories of the same two men appear, but they are becoming more in-depth. Only a few days ago, Barry relived a memory of the two men smiling down at him and he could hear and see everything vividly. Not only did Barry get the memory flashes in his sleep, he gets them anywhere and everywhere, whether he's daydreaming or in the present. Whenever they come, he is out for a good five minutes simply watching and reliving.

At first, all this happened when he was alone, so he didn't have to worry about anyone questioning him; however, that quickly demolished when at the third week of this they began happening publicly. When they are talking about a new meta that popped up or something about Zoom, Barry is zoned out into another memory and it takes everyone repeating Barry's name to jump him back into reality. With this now happening on a regular basis, eventually, all of Team Flash was going to notice. Most likely Captain Singh has also noticed Barry's constant moments with his head in the clouds.

As of now, Barry is leaning against the railing of the cortex desk in order not to topple to the ground from his now blind state. Everyone else was either talking about what to do about Dr. Light or elsewhere in the building. Barry wasn't paying attention, as a new memory popped in front of his eyes.

"Barry! Come back right now, young man. I need to dry you off!" A man with curly hair yelled as he ran after the young toddler. The two-year-old giggled and laughed as he ran faster, getting farther away from his father. Said father sighed a little and looked over at some of his friends for help, who just chuckled and watched the father-son interaction. The man just shook his head with a smile before running after his son again. This time, he took several shortcuts and ended up with a squealing and giggling Barry in his arms.

"Got ya!" The man kissed his son's cheek before another man with short black hair wrapped Barry with a soft red towel and said, "Looks like our boy's gonna to be quite the runner when he's older." The curly-haired man just nodded with an exhausted smile. "He sure gave me a run for my money."

"Sounds like Tony," A dirty-blonde haired man retorted as he grabbed his cup of coffee. Both men holding the smiling boy rolled their eyes before kissing both of Barry's cheeks.

"Barry..."

"Barry."

"Barry!"

"BARRY!"

The speedster jumped and accidentally tumbled to the ground, landing right on his ass. Two pairs of hands were quick at helping the blind boy up and placing his hands back on the rails.

"Barry, are you okay?"

Barry turned his head to where Iris' voice came from. "Yeah! Yeah, I'm fine," he tried to convince her, but knew he failed when a second voice said, "Really? You call being so out-of-it that we've been calling your name for seven minutes 'fine'?" Barry sighed and turned to where Cisco spoke, "Really, I'm fine. I just zoned out."

"Yeah, you've been doing that a lot lately. What's going on?" Iris asked, and Barry can clearly hear the thick layer of concern in her tone. Barry wished he could tell them all, but they wouldn't understand it; Barry doesn't even fully understand it yet. So, Barry just lets out an exasperated sigh and explained, "I'm fine, honestly. I've just been a bit tired recently."

"Okay, I call bullshit on that poor excuse of an excuse," Cisco claimed. Barry furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. "What?" He asked.

Cisco exclaimed, "You know we need a better answer than that, right? Dude, you've been doing this for four weeks! You almost got killed in fighting metahumans by zoning out at random times! Tell us what's been really going on. We're your friends, you can tell us anything."

Barry's shoulders tensed as he drew in a deep breath. He really needed to find better excuses to give. "Really, I'm fine! Just tired, okay? I'll just turn in early tonight and rest," He replied. Barry felt a soft squeeze on his shoulder and turned his head to the right again.

"What about your date with Patty?" Iris questioned. Barry shrugged half-heartedly and said, "I'll just cancel and reschedule, I guess. It's not like I can go while I'm blind away."

Iris shook her head, though Barry couldn't see it, and said, "Or can you?" It took a few seconds to register what Iris meant before perking up and turning to where he thought Cisco was and walked in that direction, meanwhile Cisco watched from his chair amused.

"Cisco!" The speedster yelled out. Iris chuckled, "The other way, Barry."

Barry turned around and walked in the opposite direction, walking right past where Cisco really was.

"Cisco!"

Iris laughed again and shook her head at her silly friend before frowning slightly. She really hoped he would be okay soon, or else he's going to be bombarded with everyone asking him questions until he tells them or at least gets better; he definitely would not like that.