Barry clapped his hands to get the attention of the whole room. "Listen up people!" he announced. "We are going to build a time machine to help Eobard get home."

Cisco's jaw dropped. "A time machine?"

"Yes."

"We're going to build a time machine?"

"Yes."

"A machine to travel in time?"

"That is the general idea of one, yes."

"Does anybody else think that idea is mad trippy?" Nobody responded. "Ok, just me then."

Barry handed him some blueprints. "These are for the time machine. Eobard said all the pieces can be found in the work room."

Cisco looked at it and bit his lip to stop himself letting out an excited squeak. "Ok. I'm on it."

Barry turned to leave the room but Sophie stopped him with a hand on his arm. "Barry?"

He shrugged her off. "Not now."

"Yes, now." She positioned herself directly in front of him. "What did Eobard say to you? You haven't even looked at me since you entered this room!"

"Nothing."

"Bartholomew Henry Allen, I am your sister I know when you are hiding something. Tell me now or I will….I don't know what I'll do but you won't like it."

He sighed heavily, like the weight of several worlds was resting on his shoulders. "I'll…talk to you…later…I need to go see Eobard." He pushed past her and she let him.

"You literally just went to see Eobard!" she called after him. "He's not actually going to see Eobard, is he?"

Iris shook her head. "I don't know what he is going to do, though."

"He's obviously not ok," said Joe. "This has got to be hard on him. I mean, it's hard on all of us but even before this he admired Dr Wells."

Cisco poked his head back into the room. "Caitlin can I borrow you for a minute?"

"Of course." She followed him out into the corridor. "How can I help?"

"It makes me feel smarter if I have somebody to talk too, and I also need an extra pair of hands."

They entered the workroom where Cisco had spread piles of mechanical parts across the table.

"So, if Wells is as fast as Barry, what does he need a time machine for?"

"Apparently he lost his speed when he killed Barry's mom. He gets it back sometimes but only in spurts. He can't fully control it. So after Barry opens the wormhole, he's gonna need the ship to travel back to the future. He's been squirreling away the parts for yonks."

"Now we just need to put it together," said Caitlin, picking up a spanner and fiddling with it.

Cisco shook his head sadly. "Caitlin, I love you, but this is a time machine, not a bookcase from IKEA." He frowned at the blueprints and one of the components in front of him. "We got a problem. These tiles are made of tungsten."

"Well, tungsten does have the highest melting point of any other element," Caitlin pointed out.

"Yeah, but the dust it generates is flammable. The pressure exerted from the wormhole could cause a hole to be melted into the exterior and it…could explode." He winced.

"Any ideas?" asked Caitlin.

"Let me ask Dr Evil. Which used to be a name that made me smile." He rolled his eyes.

…..

Cisco entered the pipeline where Eobard was sat in his cell eating a Big Belly Burger. "Something on your mind, Cisco?"

"No." He pulled a face. "Yes. How did you fit your Reverse-Flash suit into that little ring? Is it some sort of compressed micro tech? Or actually, forget it. I don't care. Well, maybe a little but not enough to ask you about it." He held the blueprints up to the glass door along with a tungsten tile. "It's gonna blow."

Eobard shrugged and wiped his hands on a serviette. "Not if you cement the tiles with a cobalt resin. That'll prevent degradation in conditions of extreme heat."

"Okay. Fine. We'll try that." He rolled up the blueprints and turned to leave.

"That's it? That's all?" asked Eobard, mildly surprised. "I thought that of anyone, you'd be a little more understanding of my predicament. I don't belong here."

Cisco stopped, but didn't turn around. "Is that what you told yourself? When you tried to kill me?"

"What?"

"It was an alternate timeline. One that Barry reset. But I never forgot it. It just kept coming back to me. And I can still picture the way you looked at me when you called me a son and got ready to crush my heart with your fist. Who knows, maybe you would have done if Sophie hadn't come in."

At the sound of Sophie's name Eobard gasped slightly. "Cisco I'm sorry."

"Yeah. It sucked," he said with a bitter laugh.

"Not for trying to kill you, I'm sure I had a good reason. I'm sorry for the fact that you're able to retain traces of another timeline. You're able to see through the vibrations of the universe. It means I wasn't sure until just now."

"Sure of what?"

"The night the Particle Accelerator exploded you were affected too."

"What are you talking about? No. I wasn't," he said, still not turning around. It was easier to have this conversation when he could forget this villain had been the man who was like a father to him.

"Don't be afraid, Cisco. A great and honourable destiny awaits you now. I only hope that as you're living your great adventure, that you remember who gave you that life. And that it was given out of love."

Cisco re-entered the workroom and Caitlin could immediately tell something was wrong. "What happened?" she asked, walking over to give him a hug.

"Eobard tried to tell me that I'm a metahuman. How crazy is that?"

Caitlin bit her bottom lip. "Not that crazy, I'm afraid. It would explain your dreams and how you knew where the Reverse Flash was after touching the cell door."

"Gahhh. When will this day be over?"

"Hopefully soon," said Caitlin.

…..

There was a familiar shadow on the rooftop of Jitters when Iris arrived. "I thought I'd find you here," she called.

"Hey," greeted Barry. "I just had some thinking to do." He looked back out across the skyline.

Iris stood next to him and followed his gaze. "About what?"

"Our futures. Eobard said Sophie becomes 'the woman who saves the multiverse' whatever that is. That got me wondering about what is in store for the rest of us and if we could ever have a normal life."

"Barry," said Iris. "You have superpowers. Why on earth would you want a normal life if you have the opportunity to help people? To be a symbol of hope and justice."

He smiled and let out a slow breath. "Well, when you put it like that…"

"There is evil in the world, but there is also good. Everything you do at S.T.A.R. Labs, saving lives, is a pure good. There will be hard times ahead but that doesn't cancel out everything you have done and will do."

"Thank you, Iris," said Barry sincerely.

"My pleasure. Now, shall we get back to S.T.A.R. Labs?"

…..

"So how does this work? Your grand plan?" asked Barry once they were all assembled in the pipeline.

"Well, it's really not that grand at all, Barry. In fact, it's rather simple. We use the Particle Accelerator," explained Eobard.

"The Particle Accelerator," echoed Cisco. "The last time that happened, you caused an explosion that hurt a lot of people."

"This time, the accelerator will operate exactly the way it was designed to," said Eobard. "Except, instead of two particles moving in opposite directions, colliding at the speed of light in the inner ring, we're only going to inject one particle into the accelerator."

"And I'm what it collides with," said Barry.

"Come again?" asked Joe worriedly.

"And if you can go fast enough, Barry, if you can hit that particle with enough speed, you will punch a hole right though the fabric of reality. And you will create a portal connecting this time to infinite times. A wormhole. Through which one might travel back to the past, say, to the night your mother died or forward to the future, to, say, my time."

"You said if I run fast enough," said Barry quietly. What happens if I don't?"

"If you don't achieve the desired velocity, Barry, you'll die."

"Well that's just not what you want to hear," muttered Cisco. Then, at normal volume, "According to Wells' calculations, Barry super-speeds inside the accelerator ring. Once he reaches optimum speed, we then launch a hydrogen proton into the accelerator. Then when the collision happens, a wormhole forms, opening a gateway into time itself. It's at that moment I plan on shouting something along the lines of 'Eureka' or possibly 'Excelsior, 'I'm uncommitted."

"What do you think?" Barry asked Joe.

"I mean, on the one hand, it does make a kind of sense. In a weird sciency way. On the other hand, why? Why, why would you ever consider doing this?" asked Joe desperately.

Sophie folded her arms and raised her eyebrows. "Yeah, why Barry?"

"I…uh…" He looked to Iris for help who waved one hand towards him in a 'it's your call' gesture. "Eobard threatened you. He said he'd mess up your future if I didn't help him."

Sophie nodded slowly. "So that's why you're acting all weird and not letting me help. Thea and I have been going crazy not having anything to do while y'all were fretting over this time machine business. Haven't we, Thea?"

Thea nodded solemnly. "We have. You could've at least given us something to go on!"

"I'm so sorry," said Barry.

"It's ok. Save the world or whatever first, then I'll yell at you later," shrugged Sophie.

"Anyway," said Caitlin with forced cheerfulness. "For this to actually work, how fast would Barry have to go?"

"By my estimates, Mach Two at a minimum," explained Cisco.

"I've never gone that fast," worried Barry.

"So what happens if Barry doesn't reach that speed?" Cisco asked Eobard. "I mean, I'm imagining a bug hitting a windshield. How far off am I?"

"Not very far, I'm afraid," apologised Eobard.

"Let me worry about how fast I have to go," said Barry. He got into position in the ring of the accelerator and took a few deep breaths. "Ready?" he called up to his friends.

Caitlin and Cisco had gone into the cortex to monitor his speed on the screens, Eobard was seated in his time machine and Joe, Iris, Sophie and Thea were stood above the track watching him.

"Ready," replied Cisco through the intercom.

Barry set off, pushing himself to new limits. He used reserves of strength and speed he didn't even know he had, the lightning almost becoming a part of his soul. Thoughts of his friends and family were his companions as he ran, helping him to focus on what he had to do.

"He's not running fast enough!" fretted Caitlin over the intercom. Iris buried her face in her dad's chest, Thea shared a look with Joe and Sophie nervously chewed her thumbnail with wide eyes. "He's slowing down!"

"When do we release the particle?" asked Cisco.

"Not until he reaches Mach 2!" shouted Eobard.

"That might not happen!" cried Cisco.

"He's never gone that fast, it might be physically impossible!" said Caitlin frantically.

Sophie watched the lightning generated by her brother and had another really bad idea. "Oh, for Pete's sake!" she yelled and leapt down into the ring.

"NO!" thundered Eobard, but it was too late. Joe let out a strangled cry and Thea closed her eyes.

Sophie gained momentum and grabbed her brother's hand, tugging him with her as she broke Mach 2.

"It's now or never," said Cisco quietly as he pressed the button to release the hydrogen particle.

There was an almighty flash of light as a crack opened up in front of them. Eobard pressed some gears in his time machine and was gone before any of them had registered what had happened. One minute later the crack vanished as quickly as it had come.

"Well that was anticlimactic," commented Cisco.

Sophie panted and looked at her brother with a triumphant grin on her face. "We actually did it! If I wasn't so exhausted I would do a victory dance."

Cisco and Caitlin ran down to the accelerator, meeting Joe, Thea and Iris on the way, and everybody hugged tearfully.

"So what happens now?" asked Barry.

"I don't know about you guys, but I really need a nap," announced Sophie.

AN - here it is, the final chapter. Over the course of this story I have been overwhelmed by the positive responses from all of you, so thank you so much. You are all awesome! The sequel will be up soon and I have the first 5 chapters planned out, so don't forget to keep an eye out for 'Family Matters'.

Thank you!

Beth