Runnin' Home to You

Chapter 4

         

Warning: Long chapter

Barry looked down at the case file on his desk; another person was murdered, this time it was not a metahuman. Barry rubbed his green eyes that held exhaustion of the past two weeks. The first week had been hectic with teaming up with Team Arrow to find and defeat this Vandal Savage, an immortal psychopath who was trying to kill Cisco's reincarnated Egyptian Priestess ex-girlfriend and her apparent reincarnated Egyptian Prince soulmate; Barry also accidentally went back in time from when Savage incinerated a whole city and had to work hard not to let it happen again. The second week consisted of going to Earth-2 for the first time to get Harry's daughter and [try to] defeat Zoom. However, that didn't work as he and Cisco met their doppelgangers and Barry got captured by Zoom and his henchmen; then he got rescued by Cisco, Killer Frost, Earth-2 Barry, and Earth-Iris and they all immediately fled back to Earth-1, which ended with Jay getting killed by Zoom. Now he's back to arresting criminals by day and trying to find a way to defeat Zoom by night.

Barry sighed tiredly and thought, I need sleep, hopefully, Central City will be kind enough to grant me that. The young CSI sat up and attempted to get some work done on the case file, but he couldn't focus. His mind kept going back to two weeks ago when he talked to his father about his memory flashes when his suspicions were confirmed.

Henry stared at one of the monitors in the Cortex after taking off his coat.

"Iris showed me what happened, with Zoom. That was hard to watch," He admitted, the word 'Zoom' leaving his mouth with a bad taste.

Barry looked down and said, "He showed everyone in Central City that their hero wasn't good enough to stop him." Henry slowly walked in front of his son and confirmed, "That's certainly what it looked like. Was he, right?"

Barry kept staring at the wall in front of him, not daring to look his father in the eyes; he worried that if he took one glance, all he would see is the disappointment for not being fast enough. Not only that, he was worried that if he looked at his father, he would instantly back down in the question he so desperately wanted the answer to.

All he did was scoff and looked further away from his father. Henry continued, "Your body's fully healed, yet here you are. Feeling the shame of losing." All Barry could do was shrug hopelessly, "I can't stop him. I know it, he knows it, and now everyone in this city knows it too. They don't believe in me anymore, dad."

Henry looked at his son, who has lost all his hope by that damn speedsters. Why is it always the evil speedsters what want to destroy my family? He wondered before admitting to his hero of a son about how he felt the same way Barry does now when everyone stopped believing in him, that they believed that he killed his wife in cold blood in front of their 11-year-old son. He knew how it felt being destroyed by the loss of belief.

Barry looked up at his father with moist eyes. "How did you get past that?" He wondered.

"I embraced it," Henry replied proudly. Barry was a little taken back by that answer. How did he embrace losing everyone's faith? Barry asked himself. It was as if Henry heard the question in his mind and answered with, "Accepting it was the only way I could move forward, but I knew if I could survive that...," he stood behind his son and grabbed his shoulders gently, "...and learn to believe in myself again, I could survive anything." Barry kept looking at the wall, soaking in his father's words like a sponge soaking up water.

Henry spoke again, "I know that you can survive this defeat and get stronger, Barry. I also know that you can get through whatever changes you're going through that the others are worried about." Barry made a confused expression and looked up at his father. "What are you talking about?" He asked, but he already knew where this conversation was going.