"How are they doing?" Barry asked Ronnie, breathless from his run. It was hard, finding the time to sneak out to Starling, with Dr. Wells so suspicious lately, though he'd bought the story Barry had spun. It had helped that the confusion and grief at having failed a friend was real, though it wasn't the failure Dr. Wells assumed. Even three weeks later, Barry couldn't close his eyes without seeing the melting frostflowers on Caitlin's skin, the way she'd savored Felicity's soup, or the haunted look in Cisco's eyes, the way footsteps had made him flinch. They had been his team, and what had he done, believed lies?
There had been nothing left of the Facility for him to salvage for Felicity or her new friend, Ray, to dig into, to discover what had happened in the four and a half months Eiling and his Morally/Ethically bankrupt brutesquad had held Cisco and Caitlin, but from their condition, from what Bette had said before she'd been murdered, Barry knew it was the stuff of nightmares, the worst of nightmares.

"Better," Ronnie had said, a grim smile in place. "Better. Cait's doing ok, now that the professor and I—we can keep her warm, and that helps. Can't sleep through the night, but—none of us can, really."

"And Cisco?" Barry chewed his lip.

"He's…" Ronnie shrugged. "Better than I would be. Some of the things he's seen. He has visions, Allen. A scrap of cloth, someone's hand, and he sees things. But he's—he's always been a tough kid. Had to be, I think."

Barry nodded. "I'm sorry," he said again. "I should have—have known, have done something."

"I should have, too." Ronnie closed his eyes against the memory of the flame. " Sometimes I wonder if we all would have been better off it I hadn't redirected the blast. It would have killed everyone in the building, but—there are things worse than death. And so many more have been hurt because of Metahumans."

"Like me." Barry winced. "Ronnie, you did what you thought was the right thing."

"I did. And I lost 15 months of my life, and the woman I love paid the price for it." Ronnie shook his head. "Is it safe for you to be here? Like this? If He finds out—your family—"

"Joe and Eddie are on loan to Starling City for a case. Iris came for the ride. I figure…now's as good a time as any. Maybe the best chance we have. Harrison Wells killed my mother, he did all of this. To you, to me, to Cisco and Caitlin. This may be our only shot at taking him out."

Ronnie nodded, solemn. "Then I'm guessing we don't have much time to waste."

Cisco didn't flinch or startle when Barry approached, but his back was to a wall, a somewhat sheltered corner of the Arrow Cave, with a view of the door, and the rest of the hideout. No surprises.

"How are you?" Barry asked, remembering to keep his voice quiet. The last time he'd snuck a visit, Cisco had divulged that part of his powers were sonic based, that every sound was amplified. Barry didn't want to think about how Eiling had tested that, or the thin scars visible through Cisco's too-short hair behind and around his ears.

"Better. Sleeping better, I guess, and…yeah." Cisco leaned against the wall, using it to steady himself as he stood. "Thank you, man."
Caitlin and Ronnie-Stein-Firestorm with glowy white eyes that Barry was literally never going to get used to joined them, careful not to crowd, But Cisco shook his head. "I'm not…glass. Your heartbeats are—good sounds. I can't explain it so much, but…it helps?" He shrugged, nodded at Barry. "Yours is like—a hummingbird, just a buzz. And yours—" to Firestorm "is like—doubled, but there's just one heart. I can still hear two, but there's only one. Like, an echo."

It was Ronnie's voice, but Stein's laugh, a little grating. "I think we'll take your word for that, Mr Ra—Cisco. Extraordinary."

"And Cait's is—like in the movies. All dramatic and slow. But I guess that's not a good thing?"

Caitlin tucked herself closer against Firestorm's side, his arm wrapping around her instinctively. "It's not. But—I remember from Their tests, and what Felicity and Laurel helped me with. It's my new normal." The tiny smile faded. "Normal. What a joke."

Barry reached out, ignoring the sting of cold in his fingertips and palm for a moment before drawing bavk.

"I'm so sorry this happened, but—we're going to take him down. The general's dead, but the man in Yellow—we have to stop him. I'm not sure how much time we have before he figures out I'm lying."

Oliver watched from the entryway, but didn't insert himself into the conversation—he'd learned the second night that scaring Cisco was a great way to end up flat on your ass with your ears ringing. Laurel had taken notes for her sonic device tactics, but the poor kid had started panicking and begging them not to hurt him. It had taken three mugs of hot chocolate and a collection of piano and guitar lullabies played from the computer to get him to relax.

"You fought him." Cisco said. "I saw it."

"At Christmas," Barry agreed. "But I got my butt handed to me, he wasn't trying to kill me, just—prove that he was faster, better, stronger."

"No," Cisco shook his head. "You fought him. Before, but—but not before. In another—another place. Another time, the future, or—something. I thought…I thought it wasn't real, it doesn't feel real. But—you can trust it. You can trust me. The things I see, I know they're real, somehow, somewhere, somewhen. The me that was there didn't have…" he reached up and touched his hair, tugged his earlobe. "And Cait wasn't cold. We weren't—affected. Or weren't affected yet. I don't know. But it took all of us. You and Martin, and Ronnie, and—them." Cisco pointed but lowered his hand quickly, palms flat and shaking. Oliver and his team shrugged.

"Whatever you need. You've all helped us, and—if we can do something…" Oliver glanced at his suit and weapons. "You have my bow."

"And my ax." Felicity chimed in. "Not that I have an ax. But I could buy one. I'd probably suck until I had some training, Dig, can you teach me to use a battle ax?"
"Not in the next three days or less," he said rolling his eyes.
"Oh. Drat. Well, you have my computer…hacking…stuff."

"We'll need a trap. Something that can hold him. Cisco?" Barry asked, suddenly worried—there was some kind of etiquette no-no about asking a friend who'd been caged to build a cage, right?

Before Cisco could nod, Caitlin interrupted. "We don't if we just…kill him."

Barry closed his eyes. If they didn't get a confession, his father would be in prison forever. Then again, would anyone buy the confession of Harrison Wells? A time traveling murderer, one they couldn't exactly put on trial? And his family wasn't the only one that had suffered. How many more had died, would die?

"That can be plan B." he said at long last. The icy gleam in Caitlin's eye was not reassuring, but he found he couldn't blame her. No one else seemed eager to protest.

Of course, it went wrong. Nothing ever went right. They'd set up some kind of trap in one of the warehouses down the waterfront at Central City, but the Man in Yellow had been a step ahead, always a step—a yard, a mile, a marathon—ahead. Barry had insisted Caitlin and Cisco hide, they were still recovering, still shaky and weak—he hadn't wanted them in the same city but they'd insisted—and now his only thought was to keep them safe, this time. Nothing else mattered but keep Dr. Wells distracted, occupied, long enough for—for what, he didn't know. It was hardly a matter of containing, it was question of surviving the night. Lightning crackled and swirled around him, around the cavernous space as Barry struggled. If only he could force Wells into the force field, even if he got trapped there, too, that would be alright. Maybe he'd die, but—but he could deal with that if it happened.

But Wells was fast, too fast, even running angry, and Barry knew he couldn't keep this up. His legs felt studded with nails, and dragging in air felt like breathing in fire. Sooner or later, he'd trip. Maybe the other him that Cisco had seen had won, temporarily at any rate, but so much had shifted. The other Barry had kept his friends safe, the other Barry had been stronger, better. But all there was was the same not-hope that Cisco and Caitlin had clung too—surviving, somehow, because that was the only option. So Barry ran, dodging, punching and kicking, possessed by the speed.

Firestorm and Oliver joined in the fight, but it was hard to get clear shots, clean shots, as Barry and Wells raced and ran, a tangled ball of jagged lightning. The lucky strikes they did manage only seemed to piss Wells off further. He sent Firestorm flying through a skylight, and Oliver raced out after him, hoping Barry could hold his own for a few moments.

Cisco and Caitlin had hidden, their compromise to Barry's "maybe you shouldn't be here," and it was only the steadying affect that Cisco seemed to have on everyone that kept Caitlin from screaming when Ronnie crashed up and out through the skylight—or maybe she had screamed, and he'd just pulled in the sound. Either way, Caitlin knew she couldn't hide, not any longer, not if Ronnie was going to die, Ronnie, and Barry, and everyone. Speed and cold are opposites, Cisco had said once, a lifetime ago.

"Cisco," she hissed, as they both stared at the pulse of red and gold lightning. "Cisco, we have to do something. Can you do your…thing? If we could get one hit…if I could…"

Cisco nodded, swallowing hard. "It might hurt Barry…"

"We're all going to die if we don't." Caitlin hissed back. She'd have been at peace with that, welcomed that, weeks ago, chained like an animal, freezing herself from the inside out and so alone. She'd thought Ronnie dead, and probably Cisco, and Barry, and everyone else. But they were alive, now, and she refused to stop fighting again. Not now that there really was hope.

That was when the lightning stopped. Wells had Barry by the throat, pinned against the far wall, mask down and face bloody. Caitlin couldn't hear the threat he made, blurred by the hum of his vibrating hand and her own too slow heartbeat in her ears. But Cisco heard every word.
"Plan B," he breathed, the word pulsing as if only Caitlin had been allowed to hear it. Caitlin and Barry, who gave the tiniest of twitches.
Wells was focused on his prize, on the surety that no one could actually stop him. Caitlin raised her palms, the frostflowers already forming, and this time instead of drawing in heat and pulling it close to melt the ice from her bones, she pushed. Beside her she saw Ciso do the same, the sound waves almost visible, a ripple through water. The sound struck first, knocking Wells off balance, enough for Barry to get free.
Caitlin put every frozen tear, every shiver, every moment of despair from the last five months into that blast, feeling the frostflowers dig in to her hands with icy spurs that drew blood, but she didn't care.
The man she had looked up to, who had comforted her as she comforted him in the wake of the Accelerator, the man she had trusted with her life, who had sold her out, handed her over to a nightmare like an old sweater, hit the ground with the second of Cisco's blasts, the sound pulled from his own heartbeat, from Barry's, from Caitlin's, three chords woven together.

And as he hit, face caught in a snarl, hand still outstretched as if to gather lightning and plunge it through flesh and bone and heart, he shattered.
Caitlin slumped to the floor, Cisco following and Barry crashing to a stumbled halt beside them seconds later. It was over, overoverover, o-ver o-ver o-ver, their heartbeats seemed to say, and for the first time in months, they breathed freely. Firestorm and Arrow burst in again, confused and terrified by the sudden end to the fight, but relaxed enough, Ronnie pulling free and going to Caitlin, an arm around her. They sat for a long moment, letting the reality of what had happened settle over them, not a funeral shroud but a blanket of comfort.

Everything was still, and quiet, and warm.

The end! Hope you enjoyed it. :D Please do leave a comment if you feel so inclined. Have a good new year!