Hello!

Thanks so much for checking out this fic. I realize it's a bit silly to present a season 2 AU while we've just finished season 3, but I've had this idea brewing for more than a year now, and I've been working on writing this for months. It's going to be a long one, but I hope you'll stick around to see the twists and turns: the places I was dissatisfied with the season's choices.

This will get dark, although not as dark as my last series of fics. Warnings will be placed prior to chapters as necessary.

This is likely my last longfic for this fandom, and I've worked really hard on it, so a huge thank you again for joining me. I hope you enjoy the ride!

Zoom's lair was as cold as it was dark, and it became more of both every minute. When Barry was first deposited there, hours and hours earlier, those things hadn't registered; he had been too preoccupied with the throbbing in his head and the terror that could numb worse than any draft. He thought the chill and the dimness would've lessened, too, when Cisco and the rest of the rescue party swung into view. It did, for a time. But, like any good spike of adrenaline, the high dropped off as quickly as it had come and left him the worse for it.

Because even though his rescuers were all hopeful, he was realistic. He'd long overcome his fear of the darkness, but this was a darkness that shoved itself under his fingernails and siphoned air bubbles into his bloodstream. He couldn't help but be afraid of it, as it swallowed him whole.

"You can't phase out of this thing?" Cisco said. A few strands of hair stuck to his forehead. His mouth, a slash beneath flushed cheeks, turned downward.

Barry shook his head in response. He knew what he needed to say, but he couldn't force the words. This was wrong, all of it wrong. He couldn't phase out—he was trapped in a glass cell, a voyeuristic device of entrapment that was seemingly designed to strip him of his powers. He couldn't go fast enough to phase out. He couldn't go fast enough to escape. And that had always been his problem, hadn't it? Never fast enough.

"Just go, alright?" The words that he knew he had to say came up in a rush, before he could continue convincing himself not to say them. His heart beat faster just by uttering them. "Before Zoom comes back."

Cisco took a step forward. His expression shifted in such interesting ways—moving nuanced through stages of grief. Denial. Anger. "We are not leaving you here."

Barry knew better. "I'm not getting out of this cell," he said. "I've tried. A lot. I'm not fast enough to phase through this. You've got…just leave, alright?" The emotion, the fear, of what he was doing crawled up his throat, choking him. He tried to keep himself steady, knowing that if he broke down now, his friends would never leave, and he'd be putting them all in danger. "Just leave."

Cisco's face continued its transition. Bargaining. Depression.

Unexpectedly, Barry Two pressed forward, a sudden surge of force. Barry didn't know his other self, and he didn't know everything he'd been through in the rescue attempt, but he could see how much it had affected the man. This Barry was dirty, disheveled, his bow tie hanging loose around his neck.

"Do you know what we did to get here, Barry?" he said, brandishing wildly. "We convinced her, Killer Frost, to show us the way." Barry looked. He could hardly see Caitlin in the woman who stood uncomfortably off to the side. His gaze slid back to Barry Two. "Then we climbed some insanely steep cliffs outside on footholds made of ice. Ice!"

The walls of that terrible, cold, gray place closed in. The urgency was rising, drowning all of them, but all eyes temporarily shot toward Barry Two. Barry's last words lingered sour on his tongue like the aftertaste of vomit. Just leave.

"All of us risked our lives, knowing Zoom was after us, to rescue Jesse…and you," Barry Two continued, full of nervous but earnest energy. "Now, I don't know you, and you don't know me, but I can tell you that today I…I did things that I never thought possible, because I needed to prove to my wife and to myself that I could. Now, if I can do the impossible today, so can you." He sighed. "I'm just Barry Allen, but you're the Flash. If you tell yourself you can phase out of there, you'll do it."

The bubble of expectation tightened, and all attention was drawn to Barry now, standing there with a hand pressed to the impenetrable glass.

Run, Barry, Run, he'd been told.

You just need to go a little faster, he'd been told.

Impossible is just another Tuesday, he'd been told.

The world got a little less cold. There was no such thing as cold, he reminded himself, just the absence of heat. He gathered up all of the courage and strength that was left in his body, all of that well-meaning belief of the people around him, and began to vibrate.

He knew, instantly, that his first attempt wasn't enough; his hand remained pressed at the glass rather than moving through it. Faster. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and focused everything he had on the vibrations. There was no such thing as cold, just the absence of heat. There was no such thing as stagnation, just the absence of speed.

You just have to hit the right frequency, he tried to tell himself. Just feel it. Feel the Speed Force. You've gone faster than this before.

But this wasn't before. This was now, after nearly a day of inactivity and pain and cold and hunger. And this was here, on an Earth he did not know, cut off from all of the speed he'd spent so long working to perfect. The speed had abandoned him, left him to die.

When he opened his eyes, he was no closer to phasing through the wall. His hand was still vibrating, but he could feel it lessening, along with the hope that Barry Two had so briefly inspired. With a heavy heart, he lowered his hand and swallowed, hard.

"I can't," he said, and a sharp clanging noise somewhere in the bowels of the lair startled him. "You guys have to get out of here to get out of here before it's too late, okay? Just go. I'll be okay."

"You won't be okay if we leave you here," Cisco insisted, bridging the distance between them in two quick strides and banging his fist against the glass so forcefully it was a small wonder it didn't shatter on the spot. "You won't be okay if Zoom comes back."

Barry's jaw worked as he tried to keep up his confident face, his brave face. It was worth it, he decided. At least, he forced himself to decide. "Maybe you're right," he said. "But he will kill all of you if you don't get out of here. Every single one of you. And this will all be for nothing. Is that what you want?"

"Just—try again, or—" Desperately, Cisco pounded on the glass again, one fist, then the other. The glass didn't budge. Barry pulled away from it, even as Cisco's attempts weakened.

"Cisco," Barry said firmly. "Go. You have to get them to safety."

Cisco drew in a shaky breath, his fist sliding down the glass just as Barry's had done. His head remained bowed as he recovered. One breath. Two breaths. Three, and they finally evened out. When Cisco lifted his head, he didn't look at Barry, but turned. "Okay. Let's move."

Harry nodded sharply, almost soldier-like in his readiness for action. "Let's go, everyone. Jesse, lean on me."

As the others gathered their wits and made for the exit, Cisco finally turned back to give Barry one last desperate look. "I'm coming back for you. I am not leaving you here with Zoom. I swear to you, I will be back."

"You won't even be leaving."

The monstrous voice sent a chill through Barry's blood, and it had nothing to do with the damp warehouse. Zoom stood, blocking the way of the rescue team, blue lightning flickering threateningly. Barry knew it was over, then. It was all over. With bile rising in his throat, he knew that his friends were dead.

"Thank you for leading me to them," Zoom said to Frost, who broke eye contact almost immediately.

Cisco swung toward her, aghast, all emotion of their goodbye forgotten. "You double crossed us? He killed Ronnie!"

Frost shrugged. "I guess my heart is as cold as you thought after all."

"I can't believe you," said Cisco venomously. "Other you would be so disappointed in you right now."

Zoom stood dangerously still, but Barry could see the tension in his body, like he was ready to spring. Barry threw himself against the glass, more afraid than he had ever been in his entire life. It was one thing to be helpless as Zoom broke his back, dragged him through the city, stabbed him in the gut. It was far, far worse to be stuck here in this glass cage, helpless to do anything but watch as Zoom stood with the power to kill all of his friends in seconds.

"Don't do this," he said. "Zoom. Let them go."

"All you need is me and Barry," Wells added, but Barry knew immediately that he had said the wrong thing.

"You're right," Zoom growled. "I may not be able to kill you yet, but I can kill them."

He zipped forward, and Barry screamed, his fists colliding with the glass again and again with bruising force. Suddenly Jesse was in Zoom's grasp again, terror streaked across her face. Time slowed, stuttered. Zoom lifted a hand, the hand would kill her, the hand that would shred her heart in seconds before shredding Iris Two's heart, Barry Two's heart, Cisco's heart.

"I told you I would kill you in front of your father," Zoom said.

"Jesse!" Wells screamed.

Please, Barry thought, and maybe he was saying it, too—he couldn't be sure, fear was bubbling reality like acid on film. Please not this, please…

Then there was a burst of blue flame. No, not flame, ice. The streak flooded out from Frost's outstretched hands, hitting Zoom square in the chest and sending him flying backward. Frost advanced, concentrating the stream on the speedster, her icy blue engulfing his electric blue.

"Caitlin," Cisco said breathlessly.

"You were right," Frost said. "He killed Ronnie."

Cisco looked thunderstruck, relieved, and terrified all at the same time. "Thank you."

Harry gathered Jesse up off the floor, already sprinting toward the exit with no regard to the rest. Barry Two and Iris Two followed shortly. Only Cisco remained, unwilling to leave Barry's side, the conflict evident in his body language.

"I can't hold him forever!" Frost screamed.

And that was it. The moment snapped between them, and Cisco was off, running toward the rest of the group. When he turned the corner and left Barry alone, the emptiness of the warehouse was like a slap in the face. Barry immediately stumbled back from the cell wall, his knees weak.

In front of him, the battle between Frost and Zoom raged in full force. A bubble of ice had piled on top of Zoom, smothering him, but it seemed that as soon as more ice was added to the pile, it would melt away. Barry knew from experience that lightning could be hot, and Zoom's was the hottest of them all. Blue lightning Blue-hot.

Even though it was happening so close, and so intensely, Barry could not keep his mind on the fight. His mind was outside of the warehouse, fleeing like the rest of them. If Zoom escaped Frost's attack, he would go after them. He would hunt them down, and it would be too easy. Too easy to find them, too easy to kill them. He would drag back Harry's beaten body and that would be it—both of them captured and used for Zoom's sick purposes, the rest dead. Zoom might even bring back their bodies, too.

Barry couldn't be certain how much time elapsed before Frost failed. When she finally stumbled, trembling with exertion, it was the only chink in the armor that Zoom needed. He broke forth from the ice cocoon in a burst of light and sound, fragments of frost spiraling across the floor, colliding with Barry's cell and shattering upon impact like pieces of shrapnel. Frost fell back, and Zoom was on her in an instant, planting a knee on her chest and a hand on her throat.

"How dare you try to stop me," Zoom said. "Did you learn nothing from the death of your beloved? From the death of Reverb? I have no qualms killing you, Frost."

"Then do it already," Frost wheezed. She clawed weakly at his arms, but it looked to be more of an instinct than anything. All of the fight had gone out of her with such a huge expenditure of her powers—she must have known she could never truly win against Zoom. Her act of defiance had been her last.

Barry watched with detachment, perhaps a symptom of the shock running through his bloodstream. Even as he looked, he couldn't help but think, again, how odd it was to be seeing Caitlin like this. Even with the blonde hair and the white eyes and the blue lips, he could still imagine his friend there on the floor, and, like everything on Earth-2, it was incredibly unsettling.

It would have been so simple for Zoom to kill her, too—snapping her neck, plunging a hand through her heart, crushing her windpipe until she choked—but he paused. Looked at her.

Then he slammed her head viciously against the floor and her eyes rolled as the blow knocked her out. Without another word, he flashed away, toward the exit. He was gone before Barry could blink.

He was going hunting.

Barry's gut twisted, and he felt that he was about to throw up. He had nothing to throw up—he hadn't eaten since arriving on Earth-2, and he doubted he would be eating anything in the foreseeable future—but his stomach rebelled against him.

He slid down the wall, unable to keep his feet after everything that had happened in the past fifteen minutes, and hit the ground with a thud. Even though Killer Frost lay unconscious just a few feet away, even though the man in the Iron Mask sat in a cell far across the room, Barry felt the emptiness of the cell crushing him. The emptiness of the lair, suffocating him.

Lonely, too. He'd forgotten that word before. Cold, and dark, and lonely.

Thanks for reading! As usual, my posting schedule will be Sundays and Wednesdays from here on out. And please, please leave a comment if you have a moment! I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Till next time,

Penn