Surrender: The Flash (2)

10.0

10.0 the turtle

I feel Barry shoot up from the bed beside me as I open my eyes in worry. "Hey, hey, hey," I whisper, calming him down. "You're fine. Hey."

Barry looks at me worriedly and hugs me. "Barry?" I ask but he just hugs me tighter. "Hey, I'm here. You're okay. You're fine."

He's not fine.

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"Barry, can I talk to you?" I ask him.

"Yeah," He says. "About what?"

"Barry, you know what," I say, sitting down next to him.

He sighs. "I'm fine," He says.

"Barry, I'm worried about you," I tell him. "You keep waking up from these bad dreams, and I- I- Barry, please tell me what's wrong." I grab his hand and intertwine it with mine.

"Please, don't worry about it," Barry says.

"Barry," I say moving closer to him. "You- You have this habit of carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders, but now- Barry, I'm here for you. You don't have to do this alone."

"Okay. Okay," He sighs. "I- I've been getting these dreams- nightmares- about Zoom, k-killing you."

"Barry," I say, softly. "Barry nothing's happening to me."

"But it's supposed to isn't it?" He says. "You're supposed to die. What if its Zoom who's responsible for it?"

"You're right. We don't know if he's the one responsible. But there's a chance that he may not be the one responsible. Right?" I ask as he nods.

"Zoom- Zoom doesn't seem like a threat to me Barry. Zoom seems to be obsessed with speed, and I'm pretty sure I'm killed by an archer, not a speedster," I say.

"Wait, What? When did we figure this out?" Barry asks.

"I- I'll explain later," I tell him. "Now will you stop worrying?"

"I- Yeah," He answers. Yeah, that's a no.

I guess you can't ever really stop anyone from worrying.

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"As some of you may well know, I've been deeply embroiled in a secret, one-sided battle with an invisible enemy," Cisco says as me and Caitlin sigh.

"Oh no, not the Turtle again," I say.

"What?" Harry asks.

"What is the... Or who is the Turtle?" Barry asks.

"It's Cisco's white whale," Caitlin says.

"Half whale, half turtle," Jay nods.

"No," Cisco says. "Do you see what you're doing, Caitlin? Everybody's confused now."

"Get to it," Harry says.

"I stumbled upon a few of these cases when we were looking for the Reverse Flash, robberies that were seemingly committed at high speed... people holding their beloved items one second. Those items were gone the next. Tell me what you see," Cisco explains, showing us a video.

The video starts off normally, and then the people freeze. And a guy in a good walks around.

"So he can... what? Stop time?" Caitlin asks.

"No, no, no. Look at the time code. It's still running," Cisco says.

"Yeah, okay. So he's slowing time down?" I ask.

"Yes. He's slowing down everything around him. And that is why we call him the Turtle," Cisco says.

"Why have you never mentioned this guy to me before?" Barry asks.

"Oh, I don't know, I think we've just been a little distracted, you know, what with Captain Cold and the Weather Wizard and Gorilla Grodd... Do I need to go on?" Cisco asks.

"Okay, but this puts us at a disadvantage. Olivia is defenseless against him," Harry says.

Cisco and I sigh. "I can just work off the field for this one," I say, in disappointment.

"Okay, so if we can catch him, figure out how he uses his powers..." Jay trails off,

"Maybe we can show Zoom what life is like in the slow lane," Cisco finishes.

"How would you even know where to find him?" Harry asks.

"Well, the robberies in the videos all correspond with police reports that were dismissed as lost or missing items instead of thefts," Barry says.

"The suspect's M.O. being..."

"Items of immense personal value," Barry says and then uses his speed to search something on the computer and then speeds out. (Quick A/N- never understood how Barry did that. He has super speed but the computer doesn't.)

"Uh... oh, it appears that there's a press conference at CCPD, because the Vandervoort diamonds have just been recovered," Caitlin says.

"From Hell's heart, I stab at thee," Cisco quotes. 

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"Well, the good new is whatever the Turtle did, it only affected you temporarily," Caitlin says. I pat Barry's shoulder and he gets up as we walk into the main room of the Cortex.

"Yo. What was it like being in Turtle Time?" Cisco asks.

"Yeah, no, it was weird. It was like waves of inertness... like all the energy was suddenly sucked out of my body, and then it would return," Barry says.

"That's because that's exactly what was happening. He has the ability to transfer all the surrounding kinetic energy into himself," Harry says.

"Leaving everyone else in a temporary state of potential energy," I say.

"That's right."

"So why could I still move?" Barry asks.

"Your speed. Your speed allows you to change positions faster than anyone else," Harry says.

"So you can convert your stored potential energy back to kinetic energy," Jay says.

"Excuse me, where are you going?" Cisco asks Harry.

"Trying to figure out how to use this against Zoom," Harry says, "You remember Zoom?"

"Cisco, please join me. We'll use your idea and take it to new scientific heights and save the world." Yes, I'd love to!" Cisco says sarcastically as we chuckle.

"Okay. Facial recognition software found us a match from the press conference footage. The Turtle's name is Russell Glosson," Caitlin says. "He was a small-time thief who stopped thieving after the particle accelerator explosion."

"All right, I'm gonna head to work... catch Joe up. Let me know if you find anything else," Barry says. He gives me a kiss before walking out.