vivifier | Lyrics Prompt Open Box

She thought she could try as that would be a name that would be close enough to his own name.

"Iris managed to keep Team Arrow and the Legends updated from within the Time Vault, actually," she replies, amused at how tenacious her friend is. "So Oliver knows. What about..." She's interrupted with a message, frowns, then looks at him. "...as your physician, I think you should wait for visitors, but Barry wants to see you for himself."

He's honestly surprised the Legends didn't bounce in here and try to fix things themselves. Would anyone have? Probably not.

He looked...well, he looked unnerved at the idea of talking to what was essentially himself. Did he want to? Eventually, he'd have to. Might as well get it over with, whatever the other him had to say. "...okay? Okay."

Caitlin presses her mouth into a thin line and neatly taps on her tablet to respond to Barry.

"Doctor's orders. You need bed rest and time to recover before talking about anything." The corner of her mouth quirks up a little. "I will freeze you to this bed if I need to."

He had, honestly, meant it was fine if she let him come. But. But, he is absolutely fine with her misunderstanding that. He's not really sure he's ready to talk to anyone.

Even if he really, really wants to talk to Joe. Or Cisco. Or Iris.

Her threat, however, gets a slightly amused look from him. "That doesn't seem fair." Or does it? "How long? Will it take, I mean." To recover. The last time he was this bad off was Zoom, and that took...entirely too long.

"A day, at least, for bed rest. I think we should be able to find an older power chair for you after that if everything looks well enough for you to sit up for longer periods of time," Caitlin replies. She recalls when Zoom broke Barry and left him wheelchair bound for a while. "Until then, I'm afraid you're stuck with me until you're ready to take on visitors."

A slightly amused and tired snort. "It's not like your bad company, Caitlin." He can't think of anyone else he'd rather be helping him. Though. "What about Julian? Isn't he waiting for you?"

That was something she hadn't shared with Team Flash.

"Julian and I aren't seeing each other anymore. We haven't since Savitar showed up and we needed to concentrate on making sure Iris was safe. He's much more interested in finding a cure for me and insisting that Frost is some kind of disease." Something neither of them were big fans of.

That was in fact something he didn't know. He looks concerned, or as best as he can with half his face covered in gauze. "I'm sorry. I didn't know." A slight frown. "Probably doesn't help, the Alchemy...thing."

"Yeah, that was...something I as willing to look over as part of who he was. It wasn't something that determined who he is and who he could be," she explains. "But I guess he didn't see it that way for me." Caitlin gives him a small smile. "I haven't had a chance to tell everyone yet. But..I don't think it'll be a big deal."

"His loss." Certainly not Caitlin's. It wasn't like he had ever been fond of Julian. "It's a big deal. You should be with someone who wants you." All of her. Not just the parts that are good.

"It's a little difficult to find people who would be comfortable with both of us. Let alone accept both of us." Caitlin gives him a small smile.

She glances at something that had been tucked away and was gathering dust. She sets down her tablet and reaches for it, pulling out the chess board that she played against Barry when he first got his powers.

"If you're up for it, I believe this means that I can play chess against you at a normal speed," she teases.

And there's a smile. Distractions are distractions and distractions from pain are great. "Yeah, I think I'm up for it. You're on."

He will absolutely need her help sitting up for it, though. As much as he can, anyway.

She sets the board aside for a moment and grabs the remote to help elevate the bed up a little so that he could have some semblance of sitting up. Caitlin sets the board up carefully on a table between them and lays out the pieces. She then goes around the bed to his other side to help him shift a little to not put so much pressure on his spine.

"Does that feel all right?"

He nodded, settling in as best as he can. "Thanks. I think so." As much as it can feel alright. There's going to be some pain, it just has to be pain he can stand.

She makes her way back around and takes a seat and starts the game.

"No one's really asked me about Julian," she admits, "I think it's because they're afraid that Frost is going to come out and I'll give them the literal cold shoulder."

"I guess I have more perspective than that?" After getting his ass handed to him by Savitar, anyway? Apparently so. "Or maybe Iris told them to be cool about it."

Pausing. "Uh. Pun unintended."

That gets a laugh bubbling out of her. And here she thought Snart was the only one that did cold puns.

"I haven't even told Iris. And she's the one that helped Frost and I get along." She pauses in her movement. "I guess it just didn't seem all that important. What with everything going on."

He certainly has a patent on them, doesn't he?

"Maybe you should." A slight frown, as something occurs to him. "Did I...we...I make it seem like it wasn't?" Pronouns are going to be a horror show until these identities are straightened out.

"No. It was a personal choice to not talk about it." She looks at him. Yeah, pronouns were going to be an important thing to sort out. "We had to save Iris from Savitar. And we did. I was going to tell everyone eventually."

Was she? There was a long line of bad taste in men after Ronnie's death. Jay being the major one. Then Julian. Probably should stay away from men whose names start with J.

That's clearly the problem right there. The letter J. "We did. Save her." And yet, something still bothers him. "We still don't know who he was."

"Maybe we will, maybe we won't. What's important is that he's not bothering us anymore, Iris is safe." She moves another move, concentrating on the board in front of her. "Who knows? After DeVoe, most bad guys seem like a breeze. And maybe we'll actually get a vacation from superheroing for a little bit."

He makes a countermove, smiling slightly. "Yeah. Maybe." And if not, hey look. More of him to go around.

Ha ha?

They can't just settle back into their regular lives. So much has changed because of Savitar.

Iris is now much more vigilant and cautious. Cisco would continue to work away for new toys to give out to all of them. HR...will continue to own Jitters and assist Tracey. And Joe will be even more wary of metas. They'll work on figuring out who Savitar is. How he got here. Why he is so desperate to kill Iris. But besides the suit being destroyed, whatever body was inside seemed to disappear. No evidence was left behind of who or what Savitar was.

Caitlin would periodically check on his vitals, adjust his speedster painkiller IV. When it began to draw late, she asks, "I've been working on a mild sedative. It's essentially morphine for speedsters so that when this happens...they'd be able to sleep off the healing. Or at least get about nine hours of decent sleep. Would you like me to administer that?"

Barry, this Barry, had no doubts that they'd eventually see him again. After all, he'd claimed to be from their future. Hadn't that been half of his schtick?

He looked at her, thinking about her question. Did he want that? He had no reservations that he'd be able to sleep tonight without it. Too much pain and too many thoughts running through his head. Too many worries, and there wasn't anyone really around to abate them beyond Caitlin. "...yeah. Might be a good idea."

"I'll start you off with a small dosage. Then you can try to get to sleep on your own." It seems like the pain was manageable at the moment. "But I'll be here to keep an eye on your vitals."

Honestly, sometimes, it felt like she had Ralph and Cisco as nurses and they...well, they definitely try but aren't medical professionals. One thing she would miss about Julian would just be having another medical professional around.

His injuries are extensive enough to require round the clock monitoring but Caitlin doesn't mind. She wonders if he would be like Barry. A million thoughts run through her mind as well. He essentially is Barry. With all of his thoughts, quirks, feelings. But those are questions to be addressed when he's not in as much pain.

Making a move with her piece, Caitlin gets up to go through her drawers to find the speedster morphine.

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