Reality Check : : Barry Allen/The Flash

21

"Hey, I think she's waking up. Call Ben."

Slowly, my eyes open. I squint around the room, finding Iris and Caitlin looking at me expectantly from either side of my hospital bed.

Damn. I guess I shouldn't have hoped to wake up in my real body back on my own Earth.

"What happened?" I ask, unable to gather my thoughts. It's like my brain's been swamped with a heavy fog.

"A guy broke into your house and stabbed your leg." Caitlin states bluntly. Iris gives her a disapproving look over the bed.

The red eyes flash through my mind and the words of Reverse Flash replay in whispers. I fight to keep my hands from shaking with fear.

"It's okay now though. Dad and Eddie are working to try and figure out who he is. Ben even got a few days off work to stay with you." Iris informs me, placing her hand on mine. I notice straight away that she's got a bandage of some sort around her hand.

"What happened?" I ask, repeating myself from not even two minutes ago. This time though, I think I have a fair idea of the answer.

"Some guy could turn into metal and he held me hostage and all that, then the Flash saved me, and I saved him." She grins, looking at her busted up hand proudly.

"When was this?" I ask, genuinely confused about the timing of things. Wasn't Bette discovered only a day or two ago? That's what the bombing that Iris went to see was. So Tony grabbed her the next day? That doesn't seem right.

"You've been unconscious for the past ninety-eight hours." Caitlin says, looking at her watch. Four days and two hours? That's too much. Now I only have just over four weeks to get home.

Pardon my French, but holy shit.

"Ben can't get here for another half hour, and Joe needs both of you." Cisco comes into the room looking all serious as he puts his phone away and gives Iris and Caitlin instructions. Caitlin leaves without a word and Iris slowly follows, waving as she goes.

You must know.

A series of images flash through my brain so quickly that I can't actually understand any of them. When they're gone, I suddenly have the answer to the unasked question of how Cara knows Cisco.

Basically, Ben was injured somehow in the particle accelerator explosion and I came to the hospital regularly to visit. Cisco had been observing Barry for Wells -Cara didn't know that, but somehow I do- and I'd bumped into him multiple times. We got talking and often gave each other updates on our respective injured person.

"Seems a bit ironic that this hospital is what's bringing us together again." Cisco grins, clearly thinking about our meeting as well.

"Last time it wasn't one of us that was stuck in bed though." I point out. He sits down where Caitlin had been and leans back in the chair. "Shouldn't the nurses know I'm awake?"

"They said they'll come check on you in a while unless there's something wrong straight away. Besides, Caitlin's a medical genius and she'd say something if you weren't okay." Cisco says with a shrug.

"Oh." I don't really know what else to say; most Flash fans dream of a close friendship with Cisco, but I can't fangirl or be myself because I'm not me. Cara wouldn't be overly talkative, even though she already knows him.

"So Cara, how do you keep managing to get yourself into trouble? First the coffee burns you gave both of us, then the coma, then Captain Cold nearly killed you, and now some guy's broken into your apartment and stabbed you. Do you have a target on your back or something?" Cisco tone starts off playful and fades back to being uber serious towards the end. I can tell he cares deeply about Cara.