Warning: Drug use. It's not recreational, though. It's for pain.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Iris West woke with a groan, her eyes fluttering open to see a ruined street, rubble lying everywhere.

"What the…?" she glanced around. She could see Caitlin, Cisco, Julian, H.R, Wally, and her dad all lying unconscious around her. No Barry. Where was Barry?

And then Iris remembered. They had all been at Star Labs. Barry and Wally were fighting a metahuman who could teleport and Wally had gotten injured. They got another hit on the meta, and Barry ran out to stop him. But then the meta teleported into Star Labs and attacked them and-

Then everything went blank.

"Guys?!" she yelled. "Guys, wake up!"

Her friends and family started groaning, all wincing and sitting up.

"Where are we?" Cisco sounded alarmed.

"I don't know," Iris said.

"Did that metahuman teleport us to another dimension?" Caitlin asked.

"I don't recall him opening a breach," Cisco said. "But we're definitely not in Central City anymore."

"Yes, you are," a vibrating voice sounded behind them.

Team Flash spun around to see a Blue-clad speedster vibrating so his features were indistinguishable. He was surrounded by blue lightning, like Savitar and Zoom were, and it didn't look like the lightning was going to stop coursing around him anytime soon.

"Okay, I don't know what world you're from, but this is not Central City," Joe said.

"I'm from Earth One, and yes it is," the speedster said. "But you are not Joe West. Nor are all of you Caitlin Snow, Cisco Ramon, Iris West, Wally West, Julian Albert, and… what version of Harrison Wells are you supposed to be?"

"How do you know who we are? And how did you know we knew multiple Harrison Wells?" Caitlin asked.

"I just said you aren't the people who's faces you're wearing," he said. "It's impossible. All of you died twenty years ago, teleported to the bottom of the ocean by a metahuman the Flash was battling."

"The meta who attacked us," Iris whispered. "He didn't teleport us to the bottom of the ocean. He teleported us here. We're alive."

The speedster wavered. He looked like he wanted to believe them.

His gaze turned to Cisco. "What song were you playing the day Barry Allen woke up from his coma?"

"What?" Cisco looked horrified to be put on the spot.

"What song was it?!" the speedster hissed. "Answer me now." His hand vibrated menacingly.

"Uh- Poker Face," Cisco stammered. "It was on his Facebook page."

The speedster stopped vibrating entirely. "Cisco? That's really you?"

His voice was suddenly recognizable. Recognizable, hopeful, suspicious, and vulnerable all at the same time.

"Barry?" Iris breathed.

The blue lightning surrounding the speedster suddenly dissipated as he slowed down. He pulled back his cowl, revealing Barry Allen's face. He didn't look older, at least not on the outside. A speedster really did have decelerated aging. However, his eyes held an old, sad look, like he'd seen way too much of this world.

"Oh, my God, Barry!" she lunged at him, engulfing him in a hug. Barry froze up for a moment, not reciprocating.

Iris took at step back, shocked. She and Barry were in love, and even before they were together, he always reciprocated her hugs.

"Dude, what's with the new suit?" Cisco asked. "I feel betrayed."

"Sorry," Barry said, "but the suit I was running around in didn't do too much to protect me if we're being honest here. It didn't catch fire, but there was a reason I broke my back. This one is almost as durable as Palmer's Atom suit."

Cisco looked mildly offended, but he had to admit, Barry had a point. The speedster may have had accelerated healing, but he still got beaten up a lot. It had to hurt, even if he did heal from it.

"What happened to Central City, Barry?" Iris asked.

He shook his head. "It doesn't matter. It already happened and there's nothing anyone can do to change that."

"Okay, I know everyone kind of attacked you for time traveling to save your mother, Barry," Caitlin said, "but this might be a case where time traveling might be a good idea. How much worse could you make things?"

A dark expression overtook his face. "A lot." Blue lightning flickered angrily in Barry's eyes. Team Flash felt the hair on the backs of their necks stand on end. He looked deadly.

"Allen, are you alright, mate?" Julian asked.

"No," Barry said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "But there's nothing to be done about that. Hold on a moment."

Suddenly, they were all flashed into Star Labs, or rather what was left of Star Labs.

"What happened here?" Caitlin asked as she stared around at the ruins.

"Same thing that happened out there," Barry replied. He stared at them all like they were ghosts, like they were about to fade away at any moment.

"Bar, you okay? You look like you've seen a ghost," Joe said.

"Well, I kind of have," he replied. "I'm still wondering if you're all hallucinations or not."

"Why would you be hallucinating?" Caitlin sounded worried.

"Number of reasons," he said. "There is one way to prove I'm not though. Gideon?"

The AI Barry created appeared as a hologram on his arm. "Yes, Barry?"

"Can you scan all of them? Make sure they actually have heat signatures and aren't all in my head?"

"Of course," she replied. Gideon scanned each of them. "They're real," she confirmed.

Barry still looked hesitant, but much less so than he did before.

"Barry, how did your lightning turn blue?" Cisco asked. "You haven't been taking V9, have you?"

"What's V9?" Wally asked.

Caitlin explained the speed drugs to Wally.

"So, why didn't you guys just give me that when I was training to stop Savitar?" he asked, a little ticked that they wouldn't even bring it up as a suggestion. If Wally took V9, he would probably be faster than Barry, and then get faster than Savitar. Wally would get to be the hero then.

"Same reason I didn't take it when I was training to stop Zoom," Barry snapped. "It gave a woman named Eliza a multiple personality disorder and killed her. And on top of that, taking V9 breaks the speed force's rules, and those rules have been broken enough. The speed force is a living thing; you can't manipulate it like that. It will punish you."

"So, you never answered my question, Barry," Cisco said. "How did your lightning turn blue?"

"It just did. Naturally," he replied. "I got faster. It turned blue. I can't make it yellow or orange anymore. It's just… blue. Forever."

"So, how fast are you?" Julian asked.

"Fast, very fast," Barry said.

"Yeah, do you have an exact number?" Caitlin asked.

"Gideon measured it as over six billion miles per hour last time we did a test run… but that was a while ago," Barry said. "I try not to go that fast. It's dangerous."

"Six billion miles per hour?" they were gaping at him.

"Yeah, but like I said: I try not to go that fast," Barry said.

"How'd you get that fast?" Wally asked. He couldn't help but be jealous. He wanted to be the fastest, to prove he was the best, but he couldn't imagine going six billion miles per hour. He was always jealous of Barry, to be honest, since the first moment he met him. Wally wanted Joe to see him as his son, not the young man he fostered, and Wally had always been obsessed with speed. Wally had been competing with Barry a lot lately, and it ticked him off when the other speedster didn't compete back but rather reminded Wally of the mission.

"It just… happened," Barry said. "I was fighting Savitar. You all were gone. He killed so many people, his metas overran this place… they destroyed it. I had to take him down. Suddenly, nothing was holding me back anymore. I… destroyed Savitar. I don't know how, but I was hitting him so hard so fast that I ripped a hole into the speed force. He flickered away and has been gone ever since."

"So… what's wrong with the city now?" Joe asked. "Why didn't anyone rebuild?"

"Everyone died," Barry said. "Or they were transformed into metas by Savitar. Metas outnumbered humans ten to one. Things got insane. I couldn't stop it. Not without… never mind." Barry grimaced suddenly, as if he was in pain.

"Barry?" Iris asked. "Are you okay, honey?"

Barry glanced over at her, surprise flickering in his eyes, accompanied by love. It had been so long since he had seen Iris, since he had heard her voice. An ache filled his chest as he thought about her, about all of them, how much he missed them.

"I'm fine, Iris," he promised, knowing he was lying. "I just… I was fighting another meta earlier today. He got my ribs. They should be healed soon, but I probably shouldn't got running around a bunch."

"Do you want me to take a look?" Caitlin offered.

He shook his head. "No thanks, Cait. I think I just need to lie down for a while. You guys… make yourselves… at home."

With that, Barry flashed out of there, leaving them all in the ruined cortex of Star Labs.

Once Barry was alone, his breathing turned ragged and he suppressed the screams of agony threatening to tear their way out of his throat.

He removed his sleeve from his arm, exposing his veins and tightened a belt around his bicep. He fumbled for a syringe of the morphine he enhanced to be able to metabolize. He slid the needle into his vein like an expert and pushed down on the plunger.

The moment the morphine entered his system, the pain alleviated and Barry relaxed, stumbling back onto his cot. A drugged sheen glistened in his eyes and he let out a small moan of pleasure as the pain dampened.

He was too weak, too drugged, to remove the needle from his arm.

"Gideon?" he murmured weakly. "Tell me… tell me if anyone… comes in… here, 'kay?"

"Yes, Barry," she said, "that is, if you're conscious."

The Blue Flash's eyes fluttered shut and he drifted into unconsciousness, just as Gideon predicted.

AN: Okay, so this is chapter one of my Future Flash story. It's my first time writing for the Flash, so bear with me, okay? Those of you who are not familiar with the comics, the Blue Flash is the Future Flash who's living in a nasty future where the speed force is falling apart. It's my headcanon that having the speed force be falling apart when you literally ARE the speed force like Barry is would HURT, hence the pain that he alleviates by injecting himself with enhanced morphine. Barry isn't really an addict, (though after taking this stuff for so long, he would probably go through withdrawal if he was ever able to get off it), but he is in a lot of pain, which is what prompted him to take the morphine, so he doesn't writhe around in pain. I hope he didn't seem too OOC, considering he was so stunned to see his friends and family that he kind of acted like it wasn't real, (though in the comics, the future Flash kills his villains, so it's plausible that he could be a little more standoffish at first, especially since he hasn't seen them for twenty years). Anyway, let me know what you think of this chapter.

-DragonsintheMoonlight