Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Light sears Barry’s eyes. He blinks rapidly – rapidly as only a speedster can – forcing his pupils to adjust, his vision to focus.

There are images in his head. Memories. Some of them feel right. Others feel wrong. They’re not his. They’re his, but they’re not his.

I was dreaming, Barry thinks.

Are you scared? Eobard had asked Barry, right before – before –

Yes.

Me too.

Barry remembers something else. It starts with: if you keep running – if you keep focused – you’ll find your way back to –

“Barry?”

Barry’s eyes focus.

“Something wrong, man?” Cisco asks. “You were kind of zoning out there.”

Barry orients himself quickly. He’s in STAR Labs. The cortex. Cisco is only a few steps away from Barry, looking worried. To Barry’s left, sitting at one of the cortex terminals, Hartley sits, apparently wholly absorbed by whatever he’s doing.

“Fine,” Barry says carefully. He wonders if he’s lying.

“You did great out there today,” Cisco says earnestly.

“I – I did?”

“Yeah! Blackout was tough, but you guys were tougher.” Cisco breaks into a wide grin. “Also, I’ve been thinking. What’s the collective noun for a group of speedsters?”

“I don’t know,” Barry says, because it’s true, and therefore a safe answer.

“A flash!” When Barry doesn’t respond, Cisco’s smile falters. “You don’t like it?”

“I think we should pick something that doesn’t collide with one of the names already in use,” Caitlin says, coming in from the medbay. “Barry and Eobard both already have ‘flash’ in their name. It would get confusing.”

Cisco sighs. “Back to the drawing board,” he says mournfully.

“In the future, multiple speedsters are often referred to as a ‘pack’,” Gideon volunteers. “The etymology is disputed, but it is believed to refer to the similarity of group behavior to that of a pack of wolves when taking down prey.”

“I love it!” Ronnie crows, coming into the cortex behind Caitlin.

“No, no, Gideon can’t come up with something good!” Cisco wails. “I come up with the names around here!”

“How do you know you won’t come up with it?” Hartley asks rhetorically. He pushes back from the computer, lounging in his chair. “Gideon did say the etymology was disputed.”

Cisco snaps his fingers. “Good point! I’ll just get Iris to adopt it and credit me…”

“Mention it to her at Friendsgiving tonight,” Hartley suggests. He glances over to Barry. “And speaking of Friendsgiving – Barry, weren’t you going to shower first?”

“Professor Thawne’s already down in the gym,” Caitlin adds.

“Of course, he got slimed by that compost truck,” Ronnie observes. There’s a wave of good-natured laughter at this observation.

The memory bubbles up to Barry’s consciousness. His and not-his. Barry and Eobard, chasing Blackout. Splitting up in a simple hammer-and-anvil maneuver. Blackout blowing the lights for three intersections in every direction. A compost truck, trying to make too fast a stop, overturning and dumping its load right on top of Eobard. Who, distracted by Blackout, had failed to dodge in time and will consequently never live it down.

Involuntarily Barry smiles. From hated and feared nemesis, untouchable, impregnable, to a punch line straight out of Back to the Future –

Barry orients himself.

The paradox.

The new timeline.

Oh.

Ronnie is still talking. He’s here, and safe. Not wandering the streets with Dr. Stein locked in his head, aflame and afraid. Hartley has gone back to fiddling with one of the cortex computers. No one turns a hair. Gideon, head visible atop the installed projection unit, offers a running commentary on the progress of some experiment Hartley evidently has underway.

And on the wall, nestled between two large dormant screens, is a beautifully framed portrait of Barry’s mother. Beneath it a plaque: Nora Thomson Allen. Beloved wife and mother. Gone too soon.

He’d let her die. He’d had to. Some things couldn’t be fixed. Some griefs just had to be borne.

“What are you bringing tonight?” Cisco is asking the others. “I made brownies.”

Another memory comes to Barry. Friendsgiving. Friendsgiving is tonight. They’re all getting together at the West residence tonight, the night before Thanksgiving, to celebrate the family they’ve found.

“I made stuffing,” Ronnie says.

“Pie,” Hartley says.

Everyone looks at Barry.

“Uh,” he says.

“I didn’t make anything either,” Caitlin says comfortingly. “I’m going to claim one-to-a-couple privilege.” She grins up at Ronnie.

“Hey!” Cisco protests. “That’s not fair!”

Caitlin demonstrates her maturity by sticking her tongue out at Cisco. Then she asks Barry, “Did Eobard make something?”

“Uh – ” Barry says.

“Sweet potato casserole,” Eobard says serenely, coming in through the main door. He’s neatly dressed in slacks and a suit jacket over a plain white button-down. His hair is still visibly damp. His gaze goes immediately to Barry, and his forehead wrinkles in mild confusion. “I thought you were going to take a shower?”

“Uh,” Barry says for the third time.

“I left your clothes down there,” Eobard says.

“My clothes?” Well, it’s better than uh, at least.

“For tonight.”

Hartley leans back to catch Eobard’s attention. “Before you go, can you take a quick look – ”

Eobard turns towards Hartley obligingly. The new angle lets Barry see it. Nestled discreetly beneath the collar of Eobard’s jacket, looking like an ordinary Bluetooth headset – the device that lets them share their connections.

Eobard, Barry murmurs to him, careful, testing.

It’s like a veil dropping from Barry’s eyes – like the moment when he’d blinked against the harsh lights of STAR Labs – like the moment when he’d oriented himself. Eobard reaches back out to Barry through the speed force, a dizzying blend of relief and eagerness and carefully hidden fear.

It’s me, Barry says. Are you –

Fine, Eobard says back. Just a little dizzy – one minute I was with you in 2000, the next I was in a shower –

Sorry, sorry, I dropped you off kind of hastily –

You protected me from the paradox. There’s a question there, carefully embedded, leaving Barry the option of pretending he hasn’t understood it.

I wasn’t going to lose you, Barry says fiercely, ignoring this offer entirely.

“They’re doing the thing again,” Cisco is groaning.

“You’re the only one bothered by it,” Hartley says.

“They’re having an entire conversation we can’t hear! That’s not creepy to you?”

“Not really,” Hartley says dismissively.

Cisco looks to Ronnie and Caitlin. They shrug.

“Anyway, thanks, Professor. I’d better get going.” Hartley stands up and grabs a jacket that had been draped over the back of his chair. “Caitlin, are you driving?”

“Yep,” Caitlin says, jingling a pair of keys with a STAR Labs keychain attached. “Ronnie already called shotgun.”

“Left side,” Hartley and Cisco say in unison.

“What about Barry and I?” Eobard asks mildly.

“Run,” Ronnie suggests, following a still-bickering Cisco and Hartley out.

“See you at the Wests’,” Caitlin chirps. She brings up the rear.

Barry waits an extra heartbeat, to be sure they’re really alone. Eobard drums his fingers on the console, but the feel of him is patient, too. He’s long since learned patience.

Finally: “Gideon?” Barry asks aloud. “How’s the timeline doing?”

“All analysis shows successful reintegration.” Gideon begins to populate several screens with data, sounding downright cheerful. “The paradox energy has dissipated completely, and the resulting timeline is stable.”

“And no one else knows?” Barry checks.

“No, Master Allen. Yourself, the Professor, and I are the only ones who retain any memories of alternative timelines.”

“You did it,” Eobard says, coming up to stand next to Barry in the center of the cortex.

“We did it,” Barry says firmly. He lets himself close his eyes for a moment. Lets himself, at last, relax.

They did it.

It’s over.

“I have these memories,” Eobard says slowly. “They’re – well, they’re mine. But they’re not mine.”

“I know exactly what you mean,” Barry says. He can separate them out, if he thinks about it. Recall them as two distinct sets. He remembers his mother’s death, his father’s trial, coming to live with the Wests. He remembers ‘Dr. Wells’’ betrayal. He remembers traveling through time. He remembers seeing his alternate future self murder himself as a child. He remembers the alternate 2024.

He remembers killing his future self. The moment he’d felt the other man die. Felt the jolt, running back up through his hand. Felt the way the energy had been absorbed into Barry’s body, there to remain, until Barry himself meets his end.

Barry can feel it. If he closes his eyes, he can feel it. His molecules spinning just that little bit faster. The life energy not his own, that he’d taken from another living being.

Eobard had been right. About that, as about so many other things, he’d been right.

But if Barry lets his mental gaze unfocus, a different set of memories come into view. The life he’d built in the moment of paradox, out of the building blocks of his former past. The life he’d chosen. The life he’d given to his younger self, who will never remember that the world had been any different.

“What happened?” Eobard asks.

The universe opening around him. Everything freezing – no, not freezing – just moving very, very slowly –

“It was – I could see it,” Barry says, fumbling for the words. He tries to share the memories with Eobard, but they won’t go. They’re too uniquely Barry to be given to another. He’s left with words, inadequate but available. “I could see everything. All the timelines beneath my feet, branching out into infinity.”

“Astonishing,” Eobard murmurs. Curiosity beams out of him: scientific, philosophical, personal…

“I could look at any of the roads and see where they led.” A dozen dozen timelines, grasped in the blink of an eye. All the choices that might be made. Not just by Barry, but by everyone in Central City, everyone in the United States, everyone in the world. The momentous and the irrelevant. Except that there had been no truly irrelevant choices. In one lifetime, Barry had skipped getting coffee one morning, and the whole course of Central City had altered…

“I didn’t have time to see them all,” Barry sighs. Wistful, even now. In the moment itself the regret had been nearly overpowering. “Being a speedster was the only way I could see even a handful. You might have seen more, if you’d’ve been there. Maybe one day there would be someone fast enough to see them all. To pick the optimal timeline. I don’t know.”

“You picked the one that was best,” Eobard says confidently. “You – ” he stops talking, and Barry knows, from the sense of him, that he’s seen it.

The portrait hanging on the wall of STAR Labs.

Nora Thomas Allen. Beloved wife and mother. Gone too soon.

“You didn’t save her,” Eobard says. Disbelief now, and dismay, and even, underneath it all, anger. We went through all of this and you still didn’t save her – I thought you were going to put it all back –

“I did,” Barry says aloud. “I did put it all back.”

Eobard’s gaze snaps to Barry, darkening. His eyebrows draw together. Barry can feel the gathering wave of anger through the speed force, the way Eobard is getting ready to say something that will hurt.

“I didn’t choose,” Barry says, cutting Eobard off. “I – how could I choose? That’s how the other me got into trouble. Thinking he knew best. Thinking that everything would be better if only he could fix it.” Barry’s a little angry himself, he realizes, as he spits the last two words out like they’re poison. “All the choices that were offered to me in that paradox – they weren’t just mine, Eobard! They were yours. Cisco’s. Caitlin’s. Iris’.” Barry shudders, entirely involuntarily. “Whatever I chose, whatever happily ever after I picked out, I wasn’t just picking it out for myself. I was making the decisions for everyone I’ve ever met, everyone I’ll never meet, and saying, this is how your life’s going to be, because it’s the way I think best.” Barry runs out of steam at the end, and lets his hands drop, only then realizing he’s been gesturing angrily. “I couldn’t do it.”

“So what did you do?” Eobard asks after a moment. His anger’s gone, too, at least temporarily. He just sounds… sad.

“I rewound,” Barry says simply. “Reset the timeline to the state it had been before it had ever been meddled with. And then left it to take its course.”

“Everyone got to make their own decisions.”

“Yes.” Barry sighs. “It was the only way.”

Eobard bobs his head, considering. “I… understand. I think.” Pauses. “I think…” He slides a tentative thought in Barry’s direction.

Oh God yes, Barry sighs, practically throwing himself into Eobard’s arms. Call him clingy; he thinks he could snuggle right up against Eobard and sleep for a month. That hasn’t changed. He sinks into the warmth of the embrace, grateful for another human touch. Grateful that it’s Eobard, who understands.

Eobard seems perfectly willing to hold Barry as tightly as Barry likes. He nudges Barry back a few steps, to one of the chairs by the cortex computers, and guides them both down into it. It’s a little small for two full-grown men, but they make do.

Barry would be quite content to not move or speak again for a solid half hour. Eobard’s still thinking, though. Eobard is like that, and Barry smiles in the crook of Eobard’s neck, amused.

“Your mother's still dead," Eobard says slowly. Over Barry’s shoulder, he’s still staring at the portrait of Nora Allen. “She didn't die the first time around.”

“She did," Barry says sadly.

“Barry, I was there – ”

“No, actually. You weren't. Not the first time." Barry sighs, pulling back a little so he and Eobard can have this conversation face-to-face. “In the paradox, I could see it – the first time around, Mom dies in her sleep. Heart failure. Dad came home late from helping another patient. Found her.”

“Oh my God,” Eobard says.

“Yeah, it wasn't – wasn't good. Dad didn't go to prison, it was pretty obviously death by natural causes, but he blamed himself. For not noticing her symptoms sooner. For not having been home when it happened... and a lot of people cast it up to him that doctor's wives never get a pill.”

“I thought your father was well respected!”

“People are never rational in the face of death.”

Eobard concedes this point with a shrug.

“This was the first thing evil me changed,” Barry says. “As soon as he figured out that he could time travel with his powers, he went back in time and saved mom. Called 911 before Mom even had the heart attack. Because he'd never learned that there are some things that can't be fixed.”

“Forgive me, Barry, but I don't see that saving the life of an innocent woman – ”

“By itself, if that's all it had been, maybe not. But evil me wasn't satisfied. Because when he came back to his present after saving Mom, he discovered that Iris was no longer dating him, in that new reality. That she was, in fact, dating Eddie Thawne.”

Understanding seeps through the speed force. “And he couldn't permit that.”

“Of course not." Barry sighs. “The first changes were subtle. Evil me wasn't up to murder quite yet. He went back in time a few years, transferred Eddie out of Central City before Eddie and Iris could meet. Presto, Iris is back to dating him again. They eventually get married. Problem solved, right?”

“Why do I have the feeling that it wasn't?”

“Because you still exist." Barry finds a gallows smile somewhere for Eobard. "Evil me walks in one day and finds Iris and Eddie making it on the couch."

“Barry," Eobard says blankly. "Are you saying that I'm the love child of Iris West-Allen and Eddie Thawne?”

“The love great-great-great-grandchild. Yeah.”

Eobard is speechless. Barry lets himself enjoy that for a moment; it’s a rare occurrence.

Then Barry goes on, “At least in that universe. Eddie and Iris - I'm not prepared to say that there's some grand force in the universe pulling soulmates together, because that sounds over-the-top even to me, but – after catching them in the act, evil me went to further and further extremes to separate Iris and Eddie. Every time they came back together.”

“There are certain elements in the timeline that are… not precisely fixed… but… heavily favored,” Eobard says slowly. “They are lynchpins, on which many things depend. I have seen before that the timeline has some limited capacity for self-repair. That if it gets too disturbed, it will seek to correct itself.”

“Who’d’ve thought Iris and Eddie getting together would be that important?” Barry wonders.

Eobard shrugs, the movement abbreviated by Barry’s arm, which has found its way around Eobard’s neck at some point. “Not necessarily they, but something they do, or something they enable to be done… their descendants, even – ” he laughs. “Egotistical as that sounds.”

“The butterfly effect,” Barry muses. “Eddie and Iris get together, and humanity – oh – develops warp drive, say. They don’t, and we blow each other up in World War Three.”

“Or something,” Eobard agrees.

“Anyway…” Barry sighs. "Evil me kept going farther and farther trying to keep Iris and Eddie apart. Eventually he escalates to straight-up villainy. As near as I can tell, that was the tipping point that finally let enough variables line up to create you. Not just Eobard Thawne, professor of chronodynamics. The Reverse Flash."

"Because that was the point at which he made a large enough impact on history to be remembered, a hundred and thirty years later," Eobard theorizes.

"Probably."

"And then I come back in time to meet him, and practically the first thing I do is undo all his good work." Eobard laughs, as if he can't help it; the sense of him in the speed force is not remotely amused. "I kill his – your – mother."

Barry nods. "Murder diverges from the original timeline, but not by as much as you'd think. Mom still dies, Dad still goes away, so I still get raised by Joe and form my crush on Iris... and Iris still meets Eddie. Right on original schedule."

"But then there's you," Eobard says. "You don't come out the same. Because it was murder instead of heart failure? Because you wanted to catch your mother's killer?"

"I don't think so," Barry says thoughtfully. "I think it was – you."

Eobard blinks. "Me?"

"You are not Harrison Wells. Harrison Wells, apparently, is something of a jerk. I got a peek in on the universes where he survives. He does not take anywhere near so strong an interest in my growth. Either as a speedster or as a human being." Barry gestures to Eobard. "You may have had ulterior motives, but – you helped me. You taught me. You motivated me to do good." Barry manages a smile with somewhat more warmth. "Believe it or not, that's the first time in any timeline anyone besides Joe tries to do that.”

"And Joe isn't enough?”

"If I'd never become a speedster - Joe would have been enough." Barry shrugs. "But once I could access the speed force, I just had too much power. It took another speedster - it took a villain - to keep me on the side of the heroes."

Eobard forces a chuckle. The sense of him in the speed force is churning, just on the edge of being too much for Barry to understand. "My service to the people of Central City," he gets out after a moment.

"Eobard." Barry dares to reach out, cup Eobard’s face in his hands, make Eobard look at him. "You made me the hero I am today."

"So you left your mother dead in order to return the timeline to its original state," Eobard says, retreating into practicalities to cover his emotions.

"That's the one thing we were all denied," Barry says intently. "Even me. We were denied choice. The other me, the evil me, he made everyone's choices for them. Subordinated them all to his monomaniacal quest. And I can understand why." Barry's voice slows; unbidden, he remembers it again. Remembers the endless vista of opportunities. The paths spiraling outwards, ready for the taking, each of them promising the fulfillment of all of Barry's dreams.

"It was tempting," Barry whispers.

"Then why weren't you tempted?" Eobard whispers back, breath ghosting on Barry’s lips.

"There was something I wanted more than that."

"What?"

Barry laughs. "I wanted to be a hero."

Astonishment, again, from Eobard, drowning out the still-churning confusion. “Barry Allen.” He kisses Barry then. “I never will see you coming.”

“Excuse me, Professor Thawne, Master Allen,” Gideon says. Barry is not too proud to admit that he nearly jumps out of his skin. “Cisco asked me to remind you both at the necessary time to, ahem, stop making out and shower or you really will be late.” Gideon made a noise approximating a throat clearing. “Message ends.”

Eobard drops his forehead against Barry’s shoulder and groans. Barry echoes the sentiment.

“Cisco,” Eobard says in tones of disgust that in no way match up to the warm amusement rolling off of him in the speed force. “Friendsgiving. Ugh.”

“It’s a fun idea,” Barry says, though he’s rueful, wishing he could freeze the universe for just a few minutes more. “You even baked for it.”

“That,” Eobard says with dignity, “Was the other me.”

Barry nods. That – that had been the tricky part of the paradox. The separation of the alternate Eobard and Barry, who would get to grow up without all the mess of memories that he and his Eobard now have. Into whose shoes he and his Eobard have now gotten to step. Their other selves are coming up behind them, living their lives one day at a time, always and eternally one day behind the two speedsters standing in the cortex on the night of Friendsgiving.

Creating a way for them both to exist, without colliding or deletion – that had been tricky. But the power of a paradox had been strong enough to manage it. The last gift of evil Barry to his other selves, made possible by his death, a way for him to receive redemption even after he’s gone.

“Sweet potato casserole, huh?” Barry says to Eobard, not even trying to stop the smile tugging at the corner of his lips, knowing that Eobard can feel the rest of it: grief, yes, and a quiet regret that he’ll carry for the rest of his life; but also safety, and comfort, and the joy of the family that Team Flash has made together.

“Shower, Barry,” Eobard says fondly. “Iris will be upset if we’re late.”

They make it to the West house only a few minutes late, and hastily fix each others’ hair on the stoop. Barry, despite everything, finds himself nervous.

Iris, he can’t help thinking. How can I face her? With what evil me did…

She doesn’t remember, Eobard murmurs. None of them do. It’s over, Barry. It can’t hurt them anymore.

“Barry!” Joe’s Dad-sense appears to be in fine working order; no one had rung the doorbell, but Joe pulls the door open on them both and smiles widely. “Come on in! Iris is just pouring wine, do you want some?”

“I, uh,” Barry says. He finds himself herded inside, the door firmly closed behind him and a hug bestowed by a man who has no idea what his foster son has done. “I can’t. Remember? Speedster?”

“Barry, the point of wine is the taste, not the alcohol,” Joe scolds. “Come on. Red or white?”

“Uh,” Barry repeats.

“White for us both,” Eobard says to Joe.

“Be right back,” Joe says.

Barry’s gaze cuts to Eobard. I don’t even like wine.

It will make Joe happy for you to hold a glass, Eobard says calmly. Something you taught me, Barry – making someone happy can be an end unto itself.

And Joe does seem happy, when he brings Barry a wine glass and Barry accepts it. Tentatively Barry takes a sip. Joe beams.

“You’re the last to arrive,” he says cheerfully. “Now we can all eat. Ho!” He turns towards the rest of the house, raising his voice. “Turkey time!”

They assemble around the table, eleven of them in total. Joe and Iris and Eddie, Cisco and Hartley and Caitlin and Ronnie, Dr. Stein and Clarissa Stein. Eobard. Barry. There’s two leaves in the table Barry has seen before and a third leaf he hadn’t even known this table had. Judging by the way it’s several shades darker than the other leaves, and a little sticky to the touch besides, Barry isn’t surprised.

“Joe made me help haul it up from the basement,” Eddie says ruefully when he sees Barry’s surprise. “It was covered in spiderwebs.”

“Serves you right for getting here early,” Joe says without a trace of regret.

“He made me clean it.” Eddie shudders. “I hate spiders.”

“No good deed goes unpunished.” Joe grins. Everyone laughs.

Barry looks around. The table is wide and groaning with everything that’s been put on it. The people sitting around it are smiling. Everyone looks relaxed. Everyone looks – happy.

Joe doesn’t bother to sit. “All right, everyone. I know you’re all eager to try my turkey – ” someone’s stomach growls, as if on cue – “but a toast is traditional, and you’re all gonna have to put up with me.”

“Here we go,” Iris sighs ostentatiously. Barry’s avoided looking at her, but she grins across the table at Barry, inviting him to share the joke of their foster siblinghood. Barry, helplessly, grins back, forgetting to be afraid or guilty or anything else in the sheer relief of seeing her smile.

It’s over, Barry thinks, a warm feeling starting to spread through him. It can’t hurt any of us anymore.

“Traditionally – ” Joe stresses the word, with a mock-glare at Iris and Barry, “On Thanksgiving, you talk about what you’re grateful for. This year, that’s harder than usual.”

Barry sucks in a hard breath.

Heads nod around the table. Ronnie reaches an arm around Caitlin’s shoulders and gives her a hug. Clarissa and Martin Stein look at each other. Under the table, Eobard’s hand finds its way into Barry’s.

“This last year’s brought a lot of changes,” Joe says. “Some good, some bad – although even the bad ones led to something good in the end.” He looks to Iris and Eddie, holding hands on top of the table. The band of gold around Iris’ finger glints in the light. “I lost my old partner in the line of duty. But I gained a new one who’s as good as any one can ask – who may yet manage to turn into an adequate son-in-law one day.”

Everyone laughs, even Eddie. Barry, who is used to a much more hostile Joe on the subject of his daughter’s romantic life, relaxes enough to join in the chuckles before his silence becomes suspicious.

“Then the particle accelerator exploded, and Barry was in that coma…” Joe’s attention has switched to Barry now, and Barry has to fight to remain steady under it. “I thought that was it. That we were going to lose him.” He shakes his head, visibly misty-eyed. “But then along comes Dr. Wells – well, that’s all I knew at the time!” he protests, interrupting himself when everyone else around the table breaks into good-natured jeers.

“Deadnaming,” Cisco sing-songs.

“No shame at the table,” Caitlin counters.

“All right, all right,” Joe laughs. “Then along comes Professor Thawne. And I thought I was just about losing my mind – here’s Barry, his heart stopping every five minutes, and here’s the man who’d built the particle accelerator, and he tells me he’s a speedster from the future and the only one who can save my foster son!”

Barry’s eyebrows fly up, and he only just gets them under control. Eobard, at Barry’s side, stiffens.

Everyone around the table, though – they’re laughing. Sympathetically. And Joe shakes his head at himself. “I was about ready to check myself into Arkham,” he says frankly. “But then you guys – ” He gestures now to the rest of the table; Caitlin, Cisco, Ronnie, Hartley and even Dr. Stein. “You guys swore it was all true. And I, well.” Joe puts his glass down for a moment. He looks down at the table and just breathes for a second. When he looks back up, his eyes are misty again.

“I’d be lying if I said I believed you even then. But it wasn’t likely that you were all crazy together. So either it was a prank, and you were harmless – in which case I had nothing to lose – or it was true, and you could help Barry.

“I could never have predicted what my decision would lead to,” Joe goes on. “I certainly didn’t know what I was agreeing to when I said yes. But I’ve come to learn that sometimes, that’s just the way of things. We make the best decision we can with the information we have, and then we make the best of the results. And I got lucky.” There’s another round of nods. Hartley even pounds the table lightly, a relic from his college debate days.

Barry has to close his eyes for a second, because – with the exception of Eobard – everyone will take it the wrong way if Barry starts crying right now.

When he opens his eyes again, Joe’s looking at him. Smiling, though it’s watery.

Joe says, “I hope you don’t regret that I said yes, Barry. Because I sure as hell don’t.”

“Hear here,” Hartley cries, pounding again. Eddie emulates him, laughing.

Underneath the table, Eobard is gripping Barry’s hand, tight enough that Barry’s fingers tingle.

“I don’t,” Barry manages to say. He grips back. Holding on for dear life. New memories are peeking through the old ones, growing up side-by-side with the events Barry recalls from his first timeline. Now he remembers waking up in STAR Labs surrounded by his friends and family. Remembers Eobard among them, taking the lead. Explaining Barry’s accident. Telling him he’d gained superspeed.

Telling Barry everything, right from the start. His real name. His real birth year. The circumstances that had led to him adopting the alias of Dr. Harrison Wells. Promising to help Barry every step of the way.

Everyone else promising the same. Even Eddie, Joe and Iris. Even Hartley. Even Ronnie and Dr. Stein, who had never been thought dead.

“And even though it’s forced me into the premature realization that both of my kids are having sex – ” Joe pauses to make a face, and the table erupts in laughter again, this kind much less emotionally fraught. Iris blushes charmingly. Eobard is stiff again with shock, and Barry rewinds what Joe had just said – both his kids? – in time for Joe to say to Eobard, sotto voce, “ – which reminds me, you’d better follow your great grandpa’s lead and put a ring on it – ” and Barry has to drop his head into his hands, the better to hide his acute embarrassment.

Except Eobard doesn’t let Barry’s hand go. Which means the whole table gets to see that they’d been holding hands underneath the table, which earns them another round of laughter.

Good-natured laughter. Inclusive laughter.

None of them, sitting around this table on the night before Thanksgiving, in the West family home where Barry had grown up, are the least bit afraid. Of either of the speedsters in their midst.

“ – I can’t say, in the end, that I’m sorry for what the year has brought.” Joe picks his wine-glass back up, and raises it in a toast.

“To friends,” Joe says. “To family. To friends who become family, and family who remain friends. To a crazy 2014, and, hopefully, a 2015 with fewer twists and turns.” Another round of chuckles greets this, rueful but edged with hope.

“Cheers,” Joe says.

“Cheers!” the rest of the table choruses.

There’s a few moments of chaos where everyone leans around to clink glasses with everyone else. With eleven at table, that’s quite an undertaking, and several people get out of their seats to walk around the table and exchange hugs. Everyone drinks their wine. Everyone smiles.

Under cover of it all, Barry dares to lift the hand that Eobard’s still holding and kiss it, surrounded by everyone who loves them both.

Eobard watches Barry do it. He shakes his head once, like he can’t believe his senses. Then he leans over and kisses Barry in truth, with white wine on both of their lips, and the eternal wariness in the sense of him in the speed force begins to be overtaken by hope.

Joe, of course, shatters the moment. “Whoa, whoa, I’m not ready for that!” he shouts from the head of the table. “I need some kind of warning!”

“Dad, shut up,” Iris recommends laughingly, and turns to kiss Eddie as well.

Joe’s speech proves to be the only time harder topics are touched upon. The remainder of the evening is taken up with only the good stories of times gone by. Everyone takes it in turn to recall some happy former memory. Even Dr. Stein, perhaps cowed by the presence of his wife at his side, shares a story about the semester Hartley and Cisco were in his undergraduate quantum physics class that manages to be neither condescending nor abrasive. Clarissa Stein smiles at him approvingly, and the story she tells of Martin as a young postdoc at a faculty dance is positively sweet. Barry sees Caitlin squinting at Dr. Stein, trying to reconcile the crabby old man she’s used to with the charmingly smooth student who’d won Clarissa’s heart. Ronnie, at Caitlin’s side, doesn’t seem anywhere near so surprised. Barry guesses Ronnie already knows about Dr. Stein’s softer side.

Dinner is followed by party games, which is followed in turn by dessert. The TV is tuned to whatever sporting event comes on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Cider is passed around. More stories are shared. Jokes are told. Joe drags out the baby pictures, a form of torture to which Barry has long since become inured.

The night gets late. People start making their excuses. Barry feels the nudge from Eobard and responds affirmatively: they should step out, too, if they can. Find a moment and a place where they can be alone and… talk.

With that in mind, Barry carries a load of dishes into the kitchen, where Joe is already playing dishwasher Tetris, and says, “I’m going to go out for a bit.”

“Oh yeah?” Joe raises an eyebrow, straightening up from his attempt to wedge a salad plate in between two pot lids. “Where to?”

“I, uh,” Barry says. He finds himself looking anywhere but Joe and curses himself, knowing how this is going to sound but unable to think of a way out of the situation. “I think I left some tests running at STAR Labs. I was just, uh, going to check on them.”

“Uh huh,” Joe says, entirely undeceived. “Barry, come on, give this old man some credit. If you want to go off to have sex with your boyfriend, just say so.”

Barry feels his face erupt into flame. “I – ”

“Thanks for a lovely evening, Mr. West,” Eobard says, sticking his head into the kitchen. “I appreciate the invitation, but I’m afraid I need to head out now.”

“Going back to STAR Labs?” Joe asks archly.

Eobard’s expression and voice take on notes of wariness. “I left a few tests running, so…”

Joe laughs. “Man, you two are a pair. Matching excuses and everything.”

Eobard, if anything, only becomes warier. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Of course not.” Joe gets himself under control. “Well, you boys have fun.” He claps Barry on the shoulder and points a finger at Eobard. “Remember what I said about that ring.” He turns back to the dishwasher, still chuckling to himself.

Barry seizes the moment and escapes, grabbing his jacket from the coat-hook by the door and slinging it on while wishing the floor would open and swallow him up.

Eobard’s footsteps are easily distinguishable approaching the door over the desultory chatter of the small knot of people still clustered around the TV watching the end of the game. “What was that about?”

“Joe thinks we’re going back to STAR Labs together,” Barry says. The to have sex part, he thinks, is implied.

That’s confirmed when Eobard says, “Ah.”

“So shall we?” Barry finishes pulling on his jacket. “Since I’ve got a hall pass for tonight, apparently.”

“Curfew’s at midnight!” Joe calls from the kitchen.

“It is not!” Barry yells back.

“This? Right here? Is why I moved in with Eddie,” Iris says, on her way back into the dining room to pick up another load of dishes.

“Though somehow we’re still stuck on cleanup duty,” Eddie sighs at her heels. He gives Barry and Eobard a rueful look. “Escape while you can.”

Eobard continues to be visibly flat-footed, so Barry takes it upon himself to say, “Good idea.” He tugs Eobard out the door before anyone else can traumatize him further.

They run, of course. But their pace is leisurely by the standards of speedsters. Neither of them are wearing speed-safe clothing, for one thing. For another, Barry wants to enjoy this moment. The familiar lights and sounds of Central City 2014. The bracing feel of the wind in his face. The comforting sound of Eobard’s footfalls, perfectly in sync with Barry’s own.

They don’t go to STAR Labs. They go back to Eobard’s house, because Barry is hoping that Joe had absolutely right about their plans.

“Good evening, Professor Thawne, Master Allen,” Gideon greets them as they arrive.

“Good evening, Gideon,” Eobard says out of what has to be pure reflex.

The house has changed. There’s no wheelchair, of course, nor any of the other trappings of physical disability – in this timeline Eobard had never pretended to have been injured in the particle accelerator explosion, had never pretended to be other than he is. But the changes are deeper than that. The few times Barry had been in Eobard’s house before, it had been just that: a house. Impersonal. A showpiece, not a place where someone lived. Now – now it feels like a home.

The basic bones are the same. There’s lots of glass everywhere, and chrome, and technology. Ultramodern. Hard edges, just like before. But now there are soft touches, too. Pillows on leather couches and throws jumbled on ottomans as if kicked off by lounging feet. A stack of books on an end table. A discarded bowl with congealed dairy on the kitchen counter. Pictures. There are pictures on the walls, and they’re not all landscapes.

There’s the picture of the whole STAR Labs team, in pride of place. Not just the snapshot of Barry, ‘Dr. Wells’, Caitlin, and Cisco. This is the full team. Eobard is standing center with Barry, arms around each others’ waists, and grouped around them is the full team. The same eleven who had sat down for dinner. Smiling, and there aren’t any shadows in their eyes, this time.

Next to it – another picture. Barry Allen, aged ten, hugging his father goodbye.

“He had to leave,” Barry says slowly, the memories curling up again.

“Why?” Eobard comes up to stand next to Barry, looking at the picture as if he’s never seen it before. Which is nothing more than the truth, though the second set of memories in both of their heads would disagree.

“He blamed himself for mom’s death.” Barry sighs. “He – apparently PTSD isn’t just something you get on the battlefield. Coming home to find your wife is dead, trying and failing to save her – that can cause it, too.”

“I am not surprised,” Eobard says gently.

“Dad tried to tough it out, but he was a doctor, he couldn’t lie to himself for long… after the third time in a year he had to check himself in to Arkham House, well, it was clear to everyone he needed more help than he was getting.”

“He went away for a while,” Eobard says, slowly now. He’s getting the memories at the same rate Barry is, drifting through the speed force connection they’ll always share. “And even after…”

“He couldn’t bear to come back to Central City.” Barry sniffles, feeling the familiar gentle burn behind his eyes. “He got a teaching position at Midway Med. Asked me if I wanted to come with, but... I was happy here. I had Joe, and Iris. And the psychiatrist Joe had me seeing recommended against making the move if I wasn’t 100% sure I wanted to do it.”

“So you were raised by Joe West after all.”

“Chalk another one up on the list of universal constants, I guess.” On the list of things that can’t be fixed.

“I’m sorry,” Eobard murmurs.

“It’s okay,” Barry says. He’s crying, he knows, but he’s also certain. “I – even the first time, when I went back to try and save Mom, I didn’t have entirely unmixed feelings. I wanted Mom and Dad back, but I didn’t want to lose Joe, or Iris, or any of the other things I had gained when I lost them. This way, at least I can have Dad back in my life.”

“There’s a difference between having your father several hundred miles away and having him here at home with you.”

“Yeah,” Barry agrees. “There is. But I can call him any time I want. I can pick up my phone and talk to him. Any time I want. Or I can video call him. I can see his face. If I buy plane tickets? I can visit him.”

“Airfare is expensive,” Eobard says carefully.

“Fortunately I happen to know a billionaire,” Barry says, without a trace of shame.

Eobard’s smile becomes a trifle warmer. “Ah.”

“This is better,” Barry says. He lets the truth of it echo between them. “This is – this is a miracle.”

“I feel like that’s my line,” Eobard says, honest in his turn. “Barry… have you remembered yet…” He takes a deep breath. “The other memories I have, about myself. They’re not just different, Barry. They’re – ” Eobard shakes his head. “I don’t deserve them.”

“What are you talking about?” Barry says, baffled.

“These new memories – they say that I never visited 2024. They say I came right back to the year 2000, when I first time traveled back to try to meet the Flash.”

“Oh,” Barry says, recalling it now, taking the memories from Eobard’s mind as Eobard had taken them from Barry’s. “And you landed in the middle of the road – ”

“Right in the path of an oncoming car.”

“Dr. Wells swerved to try to miss you. But he rolled the car, and he and Tess Morgan were both killed.” Barry takes a deep breath. “Their deaths – their deaths were an accident.”

Barry can see it now, through Eobard’s eyes. Through the eyes of the Eobard who is coming up behind them. The wet road. The headlights of the oncoming car. Disoriented from the time-jump, not understanding what’s happening until it’s too late as the headlights swerve and the car rolls and there’s a terrible noise –

Running to the wreckage. Pulling the doors open, pulling the people out. Both of them injured beyond help.

“And it’s not just that,” Eobard goes on, looking more and more distressed by the moment. “In these memories, I – I try to save them. And I recognize Harrison Wells from my research, I know he’s the man who built the particle accelerator. I know that, now that he’s dead, I’ve changed history. I take his place – I stay in this time – not because I’m trapped, not because I’m trying to get revenge on you, but because I want to fix the damage I’ve caused!”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“It’s not true,” Eobard says. “Barry, I’m – I’m a very, very bad man. This new person the timeline says I am – it’s all a lie.”

“No,” Barry says intently. “You said it yourself; when you first came back in time, you were a pampered academic trying to meet your hero. You weren’t a murderer. Evil me made you a murderer. If you never meet evil me, you never have to become that person.”

“That may be all well and good for that earlier me,” Eobard says, quiet now. “But for this me, it’s a pardon I’ve done nothing to deserve.”

“Tell me you don’t regret killing Harrison Wells,” Barry dares. “Tell me you don’t regret killing Tess Morgan, or my mother.”

“My regret doesn’t bring them back. Erasing their blood from my hands doesn’t absolve me. It just betrays the dead.”

“It may not absolve you,” Barry concedes. “And maybe you will spend the rest of your life trying to atone for their deaths. But the Eobard Thawne who is coming up behind you never has to be a murderer. He gets to go back to being that innocent professor.” Barry nods to himself, working it out. “In the original timeline you never became the Reverse Flash – but you have to be the Reverse Flash, or else I couldn’t have seized the paradox, and we’d be right back where we started. So this is the timeline correcting itself. You come into being, and come back to this time, and meet me. Under better circumstances.”

“I don’t deserve it,” Eobard says again.

“So become deserving of it,” Barry challenges. “You’ve got the rest of your life.”

“I’m a villain,” Eobard points out, as if Barry could somehow have forgotten.

“So am I,” Barry says. Knowing it to be true, even as Eobard shakes his head in frustrated denial.

The seeds of the evil Flash are within Barry. Dormant, thank God, and Barry will spend the rest of his life making sure they stay that way. But if it’s actions, not choice, that differentiate good people from bad –

“Whatever kind of villain you are, it’s the kind you learned to be from me.” Barry steps closer again. Close enough that they could embrace. Close enough, that when Barry tilts his head down slightly and Eobard tips his chin up, that they could kiss. “Well, I’m still here. Still teaching. Don’t you think you could keep on learning?”

“And then what?” Eobard tries to smirk. He doesn’t quite succeed. “We live happily ever after?” Deliberately he steps back. Turns away. Leans over the counter in the kitchen, arms braced heavily against it. “This isn’t a fairy tale, Barry.”

A piece of trivia Iris had shared with Barry once floats through Barry’s head. In spite of himself he has to smile at the thought of Iris. He’d remembered this factoid because of the hopes it had once raised in him of his future and Iris’ together. Perhaps it’s fitting that he uses it now. Perhaps it’s fitting, in a way, that having grown up as siblings, they’ve come to love two members of the same family.

Maybe they’ll even end up sharing a last name after all, if Joe has his way.

“The fairy tales we got happily ever after from were the Grimm tales, and they were originally written in German,” Barry offers. “The translation isn’t exact. The original stories don’t say happily ever after. They say, und wenn sie nicht gestorben sind, dann leben sie noch heute.”

“I don’t speak German,” Eobard says after a moment. “And I never studied fairy tales, either.”

“More accurately translated, it means, and if they haven’t died, they are still alive today.” Barry dares to smile. To come up behind Eobard and slide his arms around Eobard’s waist. Settle his chin on Eobard’s shoulder, taking advantage of that slouch that Eobard deplores. “Sounds like a lower bar to clear to me. What do you say?”

Eobard trembles briefly. For a moment Barry thinks he’s angry, or upset. Then he realizes Eobard’s laughing.

“You’re not going to give up, are you?” he asks. He twists slightly, just enough so that he can meet Barry’s eyes.

Barry gives in to the temptation to steal a kiss. A brief one only. But never let it be said that Barry is above a little sly persuasion. “Nope. I’m too stubborn for that.”

“The great and mighty Flash,” Eobard murmurs. “How can I say no to you?”

“You haven’t shown much aptitude for that before,” Barry has to agree.

The blood of Barry’s future self is still on Barry’s hands twice over, even if that man had now never existed. As Harrison Wells’ and Tess Morgan’s blood is still on Eobard’s, even if the timeline has altered to count those deaths accidental. As Nora’s blood is still there. But the younger versions of Barry and Eobard, the ones who are coming up behind them, who exist because of those sacrifices – they never have to kill. Their molecules can keep on spinning naturally, just the way they’d been born.

Someone had given Barry that gift once. Eobard Thawne had given Barry that gift. Barry regrets that he couldn’t keep it; he knows, now, how much Eobard had valued it. But he doesn’t regret having been able to pass it down.

“Then I suppose I have no choice.” Eobard sighs. “It won’t be easy,” he adds with a flash of self-recrimination. “I’ve done a lot of things.”

“Me too.” Barry shrugs as best he can without letting Eobard go. “But there’s certainly no going back. Not with the Swiss cheese we made out of the timeline. So let’s go forward. Find out what comes next.”

“You’re like a walking heroic cliché,” Eobard grumbles. “What next, you’ll tell me to listen to my inner light? That I’m not all bad, and I can mend if I try?”

“You told me something like that once.” At Eobard’s snort of disbelief, Barry has to grin. But – “No, really! It was the last thing you said to me. 2015 you. Before I came back here and made the regrettable life decisions that led me to take up with you-you.”

“What did I tell you?” In spite of himself, probably, Eobard sounds… wistful.

Barry kisses Eobard again. He really can’t help it. “You said that… that it would get darker before it got lighter. But that if I kept running, if I stayed focused, I’d find my way back to the light.”

“Ugh,” Eobard says. He kisses Barry back, though, which speaks considerably louder than words.

“Cliché’d in retrospect,” Barry has to agree. “But it meant a lot to me at the time. And at several times since.”

“I suppose…” Eobard muses. “I suppose it can’t hurt to… try.”

Eobard turns the rest of the way around in Barry’s arms, freeing himself temporarily to hoist himself up on the counter before pulling Barry back to him. With the added boost they’re more of a height. Barry slides comfortably between Eobard’s slightly spread legs and is rewarded with a thoroughly villainous kiss.

Eobard captures Barry’s hand when they pull apart again. Barry’s left hand, he realizes suddenly. All of Joe’s jokes over dinner rush back into Barry’s head at once, and Barry turns bright red.

Eobard sees it and laughs. “Put a ring on it, huh?”

There’s only one way to react to that, really. Only one way they can stand right now, with whatever there is between them still so new and fragile.

“You’re wearing the dress,” Barry says firmly.

Eobard shudders, mock-horrified. “There are plenty of ways to have a wedding where no one wears a dress.”

“Maybe in the future there are.”

“Well, we’ll start the trend early.”

“Eobard Thawne, are you proposing to me?” Barry flutters his eyelashes outrageously. “What happened to ‘it will never work, I’m too steeped in sin, we’d better not try’?”

The mockery slides off Eobard’s face. Eobard looks at Barry, far too seriously for the lighthearted moment Barry had been trying for, and the sense of him through the speed force is terrified and exhilarated and determined all at once.

“My hero told me otherwise,” Eobard says, and pulls his reverse back in for another kiss.