"Trapped! Help! Please!" Barry yelled out repeatedly in his sleep. The problem was Iris couldn't wake him up, he seemed to be trapped in his nightmare with no way out. They had only had a few peaceful hours of sleep before Iris had woken up, having heard Barry's cries. In his sleep tears poured down his face and Iris could only imagine when he was seeing.

"Barry wake up!" She would say over and over again until after about an hour, he did.

His eyes snapped over and before Iris could comfort him, he had shot across the room with a flash of lightning and was now sitting with his knees to his chest in the corner and shaking so fast he was vibrating. She slowly made her way to him, holding her hands up in front of her as a sign that she wasn't a threat. "Hey Bar, it's okay. It's just me, it's just Iris. You're here" she said softly. "You're with me" Barry looked up, his face wet with tears and etched in complete terror.

Iris made her way on the floor so that she was faced to face with her fiancé. "Barry look at me" she said as she put her hand to his reddened cheek. His dilated eyes searched her face for a few seconds before finding recognition.

"I-Iris?" Barry stuttered.

"Yeah babe," she said. "I'm right here".

"Trapped" Barry said the panic rising in his voice. "Trapped" he repeated.

"No Barry, not trapped" Iris assured. "You're here with me" and she pulled him close wrapping her arms around as tightly as she could. But Barry didn't copy her movements. Instead she lifted his own arms and wrapped them around herself, then regained her grip around him. There they sat, on the floor, together until morning came.

It was at 8:02 that Joe walked into CCPD, nervous about the conversation that was sure to come. He'd been taking about what he'd tell Singh all night. And sure enough, the moment Joe had grabbed on to the metal railing to climb the stairs he heard a voice calling out behind him.

"Joe, can I have a word with you? In my office. Now?" The captain asked. Joe turned around and nodded, knowing that he couldn't avoid this forever.

As he walked in, Singh closed the door behind him and then sat down with his arms folded at the large wooden desk that took up half the office space. "I want the truth, Joe" he said pointedly, it was obvious that he wasn't in the mood to play games, this was serious.

"About Barry, you mean?" Joe asked, knowing that trying to play the innocent card with Singh wasn't a smart idea, he'd known him to long.

"I want to know why a CSI I was told was on sabbatical, was found over 300 miles from here, and why you tried to cover it up" The captain said. Crap, Joe thought. He knew everything.

"David-" Joe began.

"The truth, Joe from beginning" He cut in. And Joe took a deep breath, here goes nothing.

"Seven months ago...Barry just left".

"Left?" Singh asked.

"Iris said she woke up one morning and he was gone. Disappeared" Joe lied straight through his teeth.

"And you didn't think to tell anyone on the force?" The captain asked.

"Well...we didn't think it was unusual" Joe said.

"That he didn't come home that night?" Singh asked. "Or what about after a few days".

"We weren't surprised, I mean me and Iris, that he left" Joe said and somehow the lies grew easier to tell.

"Why not?"

"Honestly David," Joe said. "We'd been expecting it. He's lost so much in this city, it was beating him down. So we he was gone, we all thought he just had enough of everything here, and I honestly I didn't blame him" Joe said sadly.

"And when he didn't contact you for months?" Singh asked.

"I thought maybe he'd had enough of all of us as well. Didn't want to talk".

"So why lie, Joe?" The captain asked, now holding his hands together in front of him with his elbows along the desk. "About the inexistent sabbatical. Why lie to me for

seven months?"

"Because" Joe began and truthfully he didn't know whether to applaud himself for getting this far in his 'story', or to be ashamed. "I guess that was that father in me hoping his son would come back" saying those words made Joe's eyes burn for real with tears, because he did go six months without Barry. He went six months without his son.

Singh looked up at Joe, who couldn't tell what the captain was thinking. Then he spoke. "But then he did come back Joe. Barry came back a month ago according to state police records which state that they found him naked and unconscious. That's not something you hide, Joe" he said.

"I know" Joe said remembering that exact day Singh happened to have been in Coast City. "But something happened to him. He hasn't been speaking, half the time he doesn't even know I'm there. His doctor thinks it might be PTSD" he lied thinking of how Caitlyn spoke about the damage being neurological.

Singh looked at Joe, no longer doubting his story but now looking rather concerned.

"Joe" he said. "PTSD, you need to bring him in to questioning later, for all we know he could've been kidnapped " Singh then stood up from his desk and walked out leaving Joe wondering what the hell he'd gotten Barry into.