She's barely conscious of his arm around her waist. She doesn't comprehend that he's carrying her bridal style and running. His voice is just a faint buzzing in her ears. All she can register is blood. So much blood. Some of it runs along her fingers onto the ground. There's more of it in a puddle on the floor, smudged on her face from his fingers and in the gaping hole in her chest. She belatedly realizes that all this blood is hers, but for some reason, she just doesn't care. At some point, she's not looking at the dark sky anymore but at bright lights. Voices around her multiply, seemingly panicked, but she can't find his. Then sounds disappear, and everything goes black. And she can't help but think that this is the most peaceful she's been in a long time.

"We've put her in an induced coma."

The doctor telling him this stood in front of him looking extremely pallid in the hospital's fluorescent lights. Barry made him repeat that phrase four times before he sank back down in the plastic chair. "Why?" he managed to croak out.

The doctor's voice was annoyingly calm. "She lost a lot of blood which means that not enough oxygen circulated in her body at some point. We don't know how long her brain stayed deprived of it. So we don't know how much damage her brain sustained. A medically induced coma is the best option to give her brain the time to heal."

Barry wanted to ask so many questions, but there was one he particularly wanted to know the answer to. "Is it possible that she'll have memory problems?"
"You want to know if it's possible she won't remember you," the doctor stated, rather than asked, with a small smile. "Everything's possible. There's a chance she'll wake up with memory loss and an equal chance she'll wake up with no problem whatsoever."

"And there's a chance she won't wake up at all, isn't there?" asked Barry, already knowing the answer yet not wanting to hear it.
The doctor simply nodded, the smile having disappeared from his face.

Barry still remembered how they had fought for half an hour about whether or not Caitlin would come with him on the mission.

How they both went undercover at a gala to stop a robbery although the thief wasn't a metahuman but a simple man that the CCPD couldn't outsmart and catch.

How everything went south a few moments after they started dancing.

How the thief showed up to steal a ruby necklace and, seeing the Flash head towards him, started shooting in the random direction of the superhero.

How one of the bullets hit Cailtin.

How her scream got Barry to abandon the robber and rush towards her, desperately trying to stop the blood oozing from her stomach.

How he held her face, begging her to stay awake, leaving smears of blood everywhere.

How he rushed out with her in his arms ignoring the looks of astonishment from people in fancy dresses and suits.

How the hospital staff in the emergency entrance got too distracted by seeing the Flash that they didn't notice the woman he was holding until he yelled at them to help her.

How Cisco had stopped shouting in his ear piece asking what had happened and had showed up ten minutes later at the hospital when Barry told him Caitlin got shot.

How he had changed into regular clothes and come back to the hospital a few minutes later as Barry, frantically trying to get information about Caitlin.

How, after her surgery, he had told the hospital staff that his father was a detective and would make their lives a living hell if they didn't let him see Caitlin.

How the nurses finally agreed and complied because of his tears, not his threats.

So now, he was watching her motionless form in front of him, trying to hold back tears of sadness and guilt.

It wasn't supposed to be like this. He wasn't supposed to be waiting for her to wake up from her coma. He wasn't supposed to be sitting next to her hospital bed in an uncomfortable chair, holding her limp hand, praying that she'd come back to him. He wasn't supposed to feel this helpless. But also, he wasn't supposed to feel that way about her. He was scared that she wouldn't wake up, but he was also scared of what he would say when she woke up. There was no entertaining the idea that she might not, that her light brown eyes might never meet his again.

He wasn't quite sure yet what it was that he felt towards her, but it was definitely something deeper than friendship. He didn't really know when he had started to care for her as more than just a friend, but he did, and he regrets that she had to be on the verge of dying for him to realize his feelings for her. It hurt him more that she was in a medically induced coma because that meant he had messed up so badly that they had to physically stop her from being with him in order to protect her.

"She's going to be OK," he thought. She had to. For his own sanity.

"Today's the day," the doctor announced cheerfully.

Barry looked up at him from beside Caitlin's hospital bed. The dark shadows under his eyes stood out in contrast with his pale face. He had spent the last eight days in Caitlin's room watching as nurses checked on her and getting yelled at by Cisco to go home and do something besides sulking.

"We'll need you to stay back though so we can work properly," the doctor continued.

Barry simply nodded, suddenly filled with energy, his eyes regaining back their spark. A few nurses joined the doctor as they unhooked machines and IVs from Caitlin's body, checked some charts and did other things Barry lost track of. Finally, the number of people in the room decreased to the doctor, a nurse, Barry and Caitlin who began stirring after a couple of minutes. Barry stepped closer to her bed, but the doctor gently held his arm to stop him.

She eventually opened her eyes slowly, and Barry let out a shaky breath and closed his eyes in relief. When he opened them back and tuned into the conversation, the doctor had just finished briefing Caitlin about her situation. He figured it was the best time to make his presence known to her. He stepped out from behind the doctor's form and approached her bed.

"Hey," he said with a shy voice. "How are you feeling?"
"I... I'm... I'm sorry, but who .. are you?"

Barry's heart suddenly beat faster, and he felt he might have a panic attack. He was in desperate need of fresh air and maybe a bucket filled with iced water he could dump on his head.

"Give it time," the doctor said. But Barry heard none of it as he stumbled on the foot of the chair- the one he spent so much time in - trying, as fast as possible, to get as far away as he could from the woman who would break his heart.

This wasn't happening. This wasn't real.

This wasn't real.

When he comes back to her room, eyes puffed and red, she's sitting up in her bed. For a moment, all he can think about is how beautiful she looks. True, her hair's a mess and her face is pale, but she's alive and that just makes her gorgeous.

"Hey," she says, and his eyes immediately snap up at her gentle tone. When he doesn't respond, she goes on, concern evident in her voice, "Barry, what's wrong?"

"You... you recognize me?" His voice is barely above a whisper because he thinks he's dreaming, and he's afraid any loud noise will wake him up when he wants to hold on to that beautiful fantasy.

Her expression turns from concern to confusion. "Why wouldn't I?"

And suddenly, it's like he's alive again, like the world put an end to the cruel joke it was playing on him, like everything has fallen back into place because she knows who he is.

"You don't remember when you first woke up?" he settles on saying when he's contained his joy.
"I just remember the doctor telling me that I had been in a medically induced coma, and then I tuned out because my head felt like it was going to explode. Wait, did I do something? Oh God, I did something, didn't I? Please don't tell me I embarrassed myself."

He laughs and shakes his head because she's adorable when she's like that. "You didn't do anything embarrassing, don't worry. I guess your mind was still a little foggy from the drugs, so you weren't focusing on anything. But everything's good now. Everything's great." He's silent for a while, and she's just leaning her head against her propped up pillow, her eyes lazily focused on him.

"I'm sorry," he finally says. "You, being here, getting shot... it was all my fault." He refuses to look her in the eyes until she practically screams his name.

"Barry Allen," she speaks with a calm yet stern voice. "I am in no mood to listen to your guilt trip. So I will only say this once, and if, forever reason, you say something that necessitates me repeating the following, I will get Oliver to shoot you with arrows again. I consciously and deliberately made the choice to go on that mission. It wasn't your fault that that asshole randomly fired that gun. So it is not your fault that I'm here right now. Capiche? Don't you dare blame yourself for what happened. I make my own decisions. True, they don't always end up in my favor, but I've never regretted any of them. And I sure as hell don't regret this one."

He wants to argue, but the conviction with which she spoke convinces him otherwise. He then remembers how, while seeing her unconscious, he didn't understand his feelings for her. But when she woke up, looked at him and said his name, he knew exactly what he felt towards her. He was in love with her.

He's in love with her, and he hopes she feels the same way about him.

So he walks towards her bed and closes the gap between them, then his face gets closer to hers and closes the gap between them. Well, almost, because he wants to be sure that she won't hate him for it. And when she doesn't jerk away, he completely closes the gap as his lips meet hers, slowly and gently. Her hand comes up to cup his cheek while she drapes her other arm around his neck and pulls him closer. When they pull away, neither have seen the other smile brighter than they do now.

And when Cisco clears his throat in the doorway then proceeds to tell them "took you long enough", they just ignore him.

A/N: This is probably not why patients are put in medically induced comas, but for the sake of the story, just go with it. My apologies to people who have studied medicine.