Revival ⚬ Barry Allen [2]

16. Escalate

Barry's POV

Before my parents had died, my life had been simple. Wake up, go to school, come home, repeat the day. At times, I thought that it was boring as hell, but now that things aren't so simple anymore, I missed those days. When did things get so complicated?

After talking to Raven, things only seemed to get more complicated. We told Cisco and the others about what was going on with her, which didn't go quite that well. Of course everyone was confused and upset about it, but some of them had...different ideas. Caitlin threw up the idea to just stay in her doppleganger's body, but Raven quickly shot that down. She said that she wasn't going to just steal someone's body, especially since it was  a death sentence for her duplicate.

When I first heard that idea thrown around, I thought the same as Raven had. But as time had slowly moved on, I started to wonder if it wasn't that bad of an idea. I sure as hell didn't want to lose our Raven, and this way, she would still be with us, even in her own body. All of this was my fault in the first place...why should Raven have to pay for what I did?

But of course, I realized that even that was wrong; we couldn't let someone else die for my wrongdoings either. So, Raven switched back with her doppleganger, getting both of their bodies back. As for the doppleganger, we decided to let her go. She was only doing all of this for her sister. We decided that we'd keep an eye on her if she went off the rails and used her powers for bad, so she agreed.

Before we let her go, I made sure to tell her that we couldn't help her sister. We wanted to; I wanted to, but it just wasn't something we could do. Instead, I told her to spend as much time with her as she possibly could; to still hold onto hope. I made sure to let her know that if she needed anything, we were here. We were always here.

Ever since then, things have slowed down, but  just a notch. I've been working on being The Flash while Cisco and the others have been working on fixing Raven. Of course, I've been helping to, but sometimes that's hard when there's a new problem arising around Central City; such as the new rogues and a monster that was only a hologram. It's been a little different working solo again, but I knew it was only temporary; it was worth it, if it saves Raven in the end.

"Find anything yet?" I ask as I walk into the cortex, finding Cisco sitting at one of the computers in the center of the room. He turns and faces me then, and that was when I realized that Caitlin was no where to be found. "Where's Caitlin?"

He licks his lips slowly. "Nothing on Raven...we've ran almost every test, Barry, and they all show the same thing: nothing is wrong with her. Caitlin had to um...step out for awhile. I'm not sure what came over her."

I lick my lips slowly as I stare at the floor for a moment. "Cisco, don't sugar coat anything when it comes to Raven, okay? I want you to always tell me the absolute truth-"

"I know," he cuts me off, nodding his head in a sad manner. I could tell that he was tearing himself up about all of this just as much as I was, and it wasn't even his fault. "The truth is Barry, we can't really do anything to help her if we don't...if we don't even know what's wrong with her. We need some sort of diagnosis, and we don't have that."