When Cisco locks down a location on Atom Smasher, Barry takes off.

He rips out the com system in the suit as he goes, leaving the ear pieces conspicuously on the desk between them because he's tired of not being able to state his case. They're in danger because of him and he can't be responsible for it. He can't keep putting their lives at risk and hoping it ends well because it doesn't always end well.

Looking around the room, he feels a crushing sense of despair.

I can't lose any of you.

Six months later and Eddie and Ronnie still haunt his dreams, but attempting to picture a void the size of Cisco or Caitlin or Iris or Joe makes his heart hurt. He would never forgive himself; he doesn't know how he would even live with himself. How he could possibly wake up every morning and live his life knowing one of them would never do the same.

Tamping the thought down, he channels his frustrated energy into running. If he runs fast enough, then he might be able to outrun the unthinkable. He might be able to keep them alive if they stop chasing him, if they let him go. Barry has been in the field long enough to know the tricks, the surprises; he can handle himself. He doesn't need back up. He needs them to stop chasing him when he runs to put out a fire because they're not fast enough to avoid getting burned.

Neither are you, a cynical side of him retorts.

He has yet to walk away from a meta-human unscathed. With a sickening sense of certainty he knows he wouldn't have walked away from many of them at all without Caitlin, Cisco, and Dr. Wells' intervention.

Dr. Wells. It's a name he needs to erase from his memory because the man he thought was Dr. Wells was an impersonator. A murderer. The real Harrison Wells died fifteen years ago.

Eobard Thawne killed his mother. Dr. Wells had nothing to do with it.

But Barry can't detach himself from the suffocating sense of betrayal, the face and name and person who will forever be associated with his mother's death. The man who killed Cisco. It almost doesn't matter that it isn't Eobard Thawne's body or identity. To Barry Dr. Wells is Eobard Thawne; everything he ever claimed to be was a lie.

The worst part is not knowing that there will never be justice for his mother or father, even though that burns in his lungs like acid. (You took his freedom to the grave, he thinks bitterly.) The worst part is knowing that someone who he trusted like a father and who appeared to love him like a son could betray him. The implication staggers him; he never suspected Dr. Wells, defended him, told people to get off the case (let an innocent man die). He fell for it. He completely fell for it, believed every lie Dr. Wells told him, trusted him when he spoke, listened when he counseled him, regained his footing when Dr. Wells took his arm and steadied him.

It doesn't make sense to him that the same man who raised him to be a hero is the same person who inflicted so much pain on him.

He's gasping by the time he reaches the nuclear warehouse, coming to a halt and feeling a fresh surge of rage under his skin.

He's tired of people hurting them.

The Atom Smasher has to be stopped, and he has to be the one to stop him. No one else can get caught in the crossfire.

Atom Smasher is siphoning huge amounts of radiation from barrels as Barry Flashes to a halt in front of him. He's aware that his heart is beating very fast, nerves surfacing when he realizes just how huge Atom Smasher is, elephantine, gigantic, and he doesn't move like a man anymore.

He sways like a crocodile, luring Barry into a false tangent of beliefs: he's awkward on his feet, he'll be easier to knock over, he can't fight well with huge limbs.

"Well," Atom Smasher says, "this is a curve ball. I thought I was going to have to come to you."

Barry feels something swelling inside of him, a primal fear as Atom sashays closer, shifting his weight more than anything, bracing himself for a terrible blow. A killing strike. Death roll, Barry thinks, remembering the finite way a crocodilian's jaws snap shut and tear. You don't stand a chance once that happens.

Don't let him get a hold of you.

Easier said than done. At least he finds the conviction to speak, hard, resolute. "I'm not going to let you hurt anyone else."

There's a dark smile on Atom Smasher's face as he sneers, "I'm only here to hurt you, buddy."

"Yeah?" Barry says, and he feels anger pulsing underneath his skin because it's not fair, it's not fair that people have to die as collateral damage for him. "Then why'd you kill Albert Rothstein? And why do you look like him?"

Barry thinks of Eobard Thawne, how he took Dr. Wells' appearance, how he stole his life, and wonders if Atom Smasher did the same.

There's a taunting gleam in his eye as he replies, "You wouldn't believe me if I told you." He's advancing now, stepping closer, and Barry thinks get out of the water.

He stands his ground, finds it in him to laugh as he bites out, "Try me."

"I'm about to," Atom Smasher rumbles with a territorial lurch, no-nonsense.

Don't let him get a grip on you.

Barry does the only thing he can think of that isn't retreat: he kicks up twin vortices with his arms, buffeting Atom Smasher with as much energy as he can, forcing him to endure dozens of Gs in the hopes that maybe he will go down, maybe he's not that strong.

But through the burning in his arms he sees Atom Smasher's feet sinking into the ground, holding his position. He crushes a disheartening shiver of fear as the crocodile rears its head when the currents vanish, utterly undeterred and horribly satisfied.

That all you got?

Tackling a twenty-foot creature with bare knuckle and bone is impossible. But Barry rushes him anyway, hoping to maybe catch him off guard, to punch him hard enough to unnerve him, and he isn't thinking, the panicking side of his brain is taking over because he should be paddling away, beating frantically for shore, not turning in water deeper than his head trying to take down a creature that can grab him and drown him before he gets out the first scream.

He gets in a handful of punches and feels the insubstantiality to their impact, and then the crocodile's jaws catch him, his airway crushed as Atom Smasher hauls him high in the air, collared by an iron grip, catching a glimpse of a demonic smile as Atom Smasher holds him effortlessly, taking his time.

"My turn."

It takes a long time to drown.

Each impact feels less like blunt trauma and more like pulverization. He struggles against Atom Smasher's grip but it's inexorable, tight, and he doesn't know how much longer he can stay conscious when he can only snatch air in thin, breaking gasps, plunged into a world of darkness and pain and I can't breathe over and over and over.

Atom Smasher takes his time with him, smash-smash-smash, and Barry thinks my head is going to explode when the fire alarm system goes off.

He sees the flare go up and knows a diversion when he sees it. Atom Smasher doesn't realize him – his focus is too acute for that – but his grip loosens and desperation propels Barry free.

And then he runs as fast and far as he can.

He's aware through heaving breaths that he's back in Star Labs, but he can't seem to draw in enough air and his head still feels like it's going to explode, and he thinks, Don't come after me, don't hurt them, don't touch them—

He's staggering, struggling to keep his feet underneath him, and he thinks dry drowning before he finally loses his ground and collapses.

. o .

Barry doesn't remember their conversation exactly.

He remembers the crushing sense of powerlessness, the inescapable tide of emotion threatening to pull him under as he struggled against it every day because he had to be strong for Mom and Dad. They didn't leave him behind so he could fall apart; someone had to keep their family alive.

"It's been six months, Barry."

He knows. It doesn't make it feel any less like it happened yesterday (and he needs to stop waking from a dead sleep to Ronnie and Eddie's pleas for help, for a second chance, for mercy, but he can't, he can't, he can't, he deserves the rebuke, the savagery of the pain).

And Mom's dead. Dad's in jail.

He's eleven years old. It's a lot to take in.

"You gotta eat, son."

Barry aggressively shows the bowl of mac and cheese away because he doesn't want to eat, he wants Mom and Dad, he wants to be hugged and told it's okay and be home again.

Joe sighs, but there's an invitingly paternal air to his tone when he speaks. Like it's okay. I'm a dad. I know Dad things. I can see when you're hurting when you don't think I can and I'm going to make it better.

Except he doesn't say, "Stay strong."

He says, "It's okay to be sad. You can be sad, Barry."

His eyes are burning and he's trying so hard not to cry because he hates that he never gets to wake up from this, that this is his life now.

"Your parents will understand if you're not strong all the time." He's definitely crying now, and it should feel wrong, like he's betraying them, because Mom and Dad need him, he has to help them and how can he do that if he isn't strong?

"That is why I'm here."

Barry has his arms around Joe's middle and he's trying to hug him hard enough to make the pain go away, to make it stop, to take away the reality of his new life.

"It's okay, son," Joe says, hugging him back, and there's something so Dad-like about it that Barry feels safe again, he knows Joe will protect him and help him and make him feel so, so loved. "I've got you."

. o .

Consciousness hits him hard, startling him back to the present, and coma lightning singularity death surge to the forefront of his thoughts as he reboots.

He gasps, trying to sit up, because Atom Smasher—

"You're good." He turns to look at Joe, startled, how did Joe get here, Joe's in danger, they're all in danger, Barry has to protect them— "I got you." He takes Barry's hand and for once Barry notices Joe's hand is warmer, and he's cold and sore and tired and it's the easiest thing in the world to just trust him.

I've got you.

"Where is everyone?" he asks slowly. He knows they'll want answers, knows he deserves the verbal beat-down that's coming.

"I figured you wouldn't want an audience when you came to," Joe answers, squeezing his hand.

Barry huffs because he's not an eleven-year-old boy and he needs to own up to his world, he needs to face the choices he makes and not look away, he has to be responsible, he has to be stronger. He can't be this breakable. They're going to die if he's this breakable.

He's already failed them: Ronnie and Eddie are dead, his dad is imprisoned for life, and a man he thought he could trust turned out to be their greatest enemy.

He can't fail them again. He can't.

But his chest is tight and he's sore, he's so fucking sore and he just needs a break.

So he manages a dry, "Yeah. Thanks." He'll own up to it. He'll fix it. All of it. He'll fix it.

Joe's voice cuts across the anger and shame burning him up. "You're not gonna do this anymore."

Barry stares at him, disbelieving. You're gonna stop me? he thinks, almost taunts. They couldn't stop him. They could never stop him. He would run himself to his grave before he would let them stop him from saving people.

"For the last six months I've given you your space to work all this out, come back to us, but today you proved that you'd rather just get yourself killed."

Barry laughs, soft, bitter, because Joe can never understand. Joe didn't understand why he would rather be alone than talk it out, why he would rather compress his emotions than try to understand them.

Because they were too strong for him, and he was ashamed that if he let them show he might never come back from the pain, might never recover.

So he clings to bitterness, to apathy, keeping the feelings away, reducing them to his subconscious, to the pulse that underlies everything he does but has no voice in his thoughts. "It's better than getting my friends killed," he says quietly.

It doesn't sound like an admission: it sounds like a death sentence.

Joe picks up on it, squeezes his hand, holds him down. Keeps him from running away. From what?

Barry knows. He knows, doesn't say it, listens instead.

"You want me to tell you it wasn't your fault?" Joe says, and there's an iron inflection to his tone, and it says Dad. It doesn't say be stronger, it says listen to me. No one is strong all of the time. No one. And you need to accept that. "Guess what? I can't. It was."

Barry closes his eyes. He doesn't understand why but it makes him feel better, anything is better than pretending it didn't happen. Anything is better than pretending the pain that keeps him up at night, that robs food of its flavor, the world of its color, and his life of its vibrancy, doesn't exist.

It exists. And he can't take it anymore, he can't take it anymore, he won't let anyone else get hurt because of him.

"You weren't the only one making decisions that day," Joe says, staring at him, refusing to let him just be alone with it, to let it burn him. "All of the rest of us were there, too. Eddie and Ronnie, they chose to help you stop Wells, and stop that—"

He fishes silently for words. Barry throws him a line. "Singularity," he rasps.

"Singularity thing," Joe finishes, voice firm, grounding. This exists. It hurts like hell. Pretending it doesn't exist makes it worse. "It's on all of us, Barry. So stop with this hogging all the blame and regret. We gotta live with it. Move on."

I can't move on. I'm still in that living room, I'm still in that room, I'm still in thatroom and I watched her die and I didn't save her and Eddie is dead and Ronnie is, too.

He thinks of them and he's trying to tell himself it wasn't your fault, but he knows that it is. And he knows he didn't save them.

They didn't want to be saved. They chose to die to save people.

I should have saved them. There had to be another way.

There wasn't. There was no time. They made their choices. They made their choices.

I should never have put them in that position.

You didn't. Eobard Thawne did.

The realization hits him hard. Stop hogging all the blame and regret.

He might have opened the singularity and drawn people like Eddie into the crossfire, but he could never have changed the bloodline Eddie shared with Eobard. Eddie could never have hid from him: Eobard would have found him no matter how far he ran, would have done everything he could to control Eddie's life, to ensure that his own future was secure, and then when Eobard's future was secure he would have killed him.

Eddie chose to take a different path. He chose to die and take Eobard with him. He was the one who killed the Reverse-Flash. He stopped the person who ruined so many lives, who would have ruined countless more, and he died willingly to do it. No one put a gun to his head. No one forced him to do anything.

There had to be another way.

Eobard would have gone to extraordinary lengths to ensure there wasn't. They didn't have enough time; they couldn't have do anything else to guarantee that Eobard would die.

Eddie made that choice.

And Ronnie made his, too. Barry opened the singularity, but Barry didn't tell him I need you to do this.

All he said was, I have to try.

And Ronnie and Stein made the same vow.

The fact that any of them made it out alive was miraculous. But the fact that Ronnie hadn't crushed him.

He should have saved him, he should have saved him, he should have saved him.

There are tears in his eyes and a lump in his throat, but he lets neither stop him from saying, "What do I do now?"

"Well," Joe says, and there's a cadence to his voice, a gentleness, that Barry knows stable hands adopt around skittish horses. Very, very steady. "I know you've been rebuilding Central City at night." Barry thinks about all the hours of labor he's poured into it, knows it can't be enough, that other people died, too, and that no matter how much time he spends he can never undo what the singularity did to them. "It's just bricks and paint," Joe adds gently. You can't undo what happened, Bar. You need to stop trying. "Maybe you should start trying to rebuild . . . things that really matter."

Barry turns his head to look away from him because he can't meet his eyes, overwhelmed by what it means.

He thinks of those six months of quietly wishing he'd been the one to taken down to stop the Reverse-Flash, that he'd been the one destroyed in the singularity. He thinks of those hours spent trying to be absorbed books he can't read anymore, those runs that don't clear his mind anymore, those drinks that don't touch him; anything to escape the pain of reality. He thinks of tearing his old life apart and throwing out every reminder of Star Labs he can find. (He burns them, lets a year's worth of memories go up in flames and still feels like he can't breathe for the weight of them.) He thinks of their voices and he has to run until he's screaming or he's going to lose his mind.

It's a quiet sort of madness, where every place he goes, he's reminded of them. He can't look at other people. Everything is still there, and he's aware of blue skies, of children tugging on their parents' hands, of how breathtakingly vivacious the city is, but it doesn't feel like he belongs to it anymore. He feels like a ghost, venturing across the city at night, painting until he can't feel his arms, struggling under the weight of projects that would consume the time of a dozen people, that drain him but never tire him, never make him think I have to stop.

He stops sleeping early on and starts dozing off in random places. Sometimes he just zones out completely, isn't even fully aware that he's awake when his mind is miles away, when he comes to and there's cold coffee in his untouched cup. He starts slacking at the precinct, and he can't bring himself to be upset or feel properly rebuked when Captain Singh catches him sleeping on the job. The work is impossible to focus on. Every dead body brings bile to his throat until he's heaving behind a locked door for hours, hit too close to home, bombarded with stark reminders of Ronnie and Eddie and the people in his lives he doesn't have anymore, Mom.

Throughout it all, he sees – Joe, quietly unlocking the door from the outside with a flattened paperclip and saying nothing as he helps Barry back to his feet, his knees frozen from sitting on them for so long. He sees Joe putting food in front of him at odd hours because he doesn't feel hungry anymore, never takes a proper lunch break, avoids dinner; so Joe brings him food, anything, anything, anything, and Barry eats it because it's there, because he has to do that much for Joe. He feels Joe drape a blanket over him when he falls asleep on the floor of the lab because he can't go home, he can't look at Iris, he just can't do it anymore. He feels Joe's presence as he helps talk Barry down from a nightmare, never touching him because Barry could give him the shock of his life without even meaning to but promising him, over and over, it's okay until he's finally safe enough to hug.

I got you.

There are tears, and he's making little choked noises trying to suppress them, drawing in deep, shuddering breaths, and then Joe's arms are around him and he's hugging him and telling him, over and over and over, "It's okay."

Barry clings to the back of his shirt, sobs openly against his shoulder, letting the pain finally hit him. It cuts through the listlessness and it hurts, so, so much, he wishes he could just bottle it up and cast it away at sea, but he can't, and this is his, this is his, this is his, and he's hurting so much he almost forgot he could.

He thinks, I can't let them get hurt.

But as Joe hugs him hard and lets him hold on, the profound empathy radiating from him makes Barry catch his breath. He isn't just sorry for Barry, he isn't just aware of his pain, he feels it, he understands it intimately, and he's in pain, too, but it isn't about keeping it from touching them.

Loving anything is a risk, and pain is that inevitable price.

But that doesn't mean their lives culminated in the moment they ended.

They were so much more than sacrifices. They were heroes. Their whole lives reflected that: they were brilliant and kind, ambitious and introspective, capable of good and prone to mistakes, and it made them human, it made them his friends, and as he holds onto Joe he almost can't take how much it hurts to realize they're gone.

Joe shushes him softly, rubs his back, lets him cry, tells him, "It's okay, Bar" until slowly, slowly he starts to realize that maybe it is.

Or at least: it's going to be.

It's going to be okay.

I got you.

Maybe his friends aren't the only ones who needs saving.

Maybe it needs to be about not hurting himself, too.

When at last, utterly exhausted, he just rests his head against Joe's shoulder, not looking at him but aware of his breathing, his heart beat, the way he holds Barry like he's something worth keeping, he finally feels it.

It's going to be okay.

Joe's got him.

Ronnie and Eddie – Ronnie and Eddie would forgive him.

And Joe and Iris and Caitlin and Cisco are still alive. They have something they can still save.

They can keep going.

Clearing his throat softly, unable to think of anything to say, he lets go of Joe, sinks back against the covers. His chest feels lighter, six months of tension finally easing, and he knows that he'll never be the same but maybe he can keep going.

Maybe – together – it really will be okay.

Joe gives him time, lets him breathe, and when he feels less like he's fallen apart and more like he's finally come back to himself, he says slowly, testing out his own voice, "You can let them in."

Caitlin checks him over, Cisco asks him about the upcoming Star Wars movie, and Iris just looks at him, and he finally meets her gaze, wordlessly projecting, I'm sorry.

When Caitlin is satisfied, Iris finally steps forward and hugs him. It's okay.

They're worth keeping. Not just alive – but in his life.

And he's worth keeping, too.