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Captain David Singh was a very busy man and being a very busy man meant that he needed work to be completed on time. Unfortunately for him, his team included a very incompetent CSI.
Going through the paperwork at his desk, Singh realised that he still hadn’t received the evidence report for a case they had completed two days ago. And who owed him the report? Barry Allen.
He could send an email, but where was the fun in that? He knew the kid tried his best, but sometimes watching Allen squirm as he tried to come up with his newest excuse was the only entertainment Singh could get out of his day.
As he left his office and headed up the stairs, all of the lights around the precinct suddenly flickered before going out completely. Great, another problem to deal with. He could hear the grumbles from nearby officers, but they were all professionals. A little storm or power cut hadn’t stopped them from working in the past and it wouldn’t stop them now.
Singh reached the lab door just in time to be blinded by a sudden flash of light. He shielded his eyes with the back of his hand as a large crash and the sound of glass shattering could be heard from inside the room.
Blinking a few times to clear the spots that had appeared before his eyes, he looked around the room to take in the damage. There was water all over the floor; pouring in from the broken sky light, mixing with all manner of coloured liquids previously contained in the now shattered test tubes and beakers. He didn’t even want to know how much this was going to cost the department to replace.
“Allen?” Singh called into the room. He couldn’t see if anyone was inside due the darkness of everything, but he suspected that if the CSI had been there he would have been fretting over the current destruction of his precious lab, not hiding away in the corner.
As he turned to leave the room, what he didn’t expect to see was the person in question lying unconscious on a fallen rack of shelves.
“Allen!” He exclaimed, more out of shock than anything else, as he ran over to the young CSI, being mindful of the fallen equipment covering the floor.
A flash of lightning outside lit up the room enough to give him a few seconds to fully take stock of Barry’s condition. The man was silent and still, mouth parted slightly but Singh couldn’t tell if he was breathing, his face and hands were littered with cuts and grazes and he was covered in broken glass. It was then that it clicked for Singh what the flash of light was that he’d been blinded by only moments ago.
He’d never personally come across a lightning strike victim before, but he knew enough. It was a common belief that touching someone who had been hit by lightning would get you electrocuted, but this was just a myth - one that often increased the risk of death. If he didn’t administer first aid right now, Barry was definitely going to die.
Singh leant down and gripped Barry’s shoulder with one hand, placing two fingers from the other to Barry’s neck. He dared not breath as he waited for any sign of life beneath his fingertips, but there was nothing.
“Barry?” he whispered as he moved his fingers closer to the man’s windpipe, praying that he had just been feeling in the wrong place, but again he felt nothing.
He let out a curse before instantly jumping into action. He didn’t want to waste any time, not when every second counted. He knew that moving Barry could do more harm than good, but potentially causing more injuries could be considered a lower priority than the fact that Barry was technically dead right now - and he needed a flat surface for the next step.
Crouching down, Singh lifted the arm closest to him and rested it over his shoulder, making room to fit his own arm under Barry’s shoulder blades. Next he fit his other arm under Barry’s legs and, forgoing any grace or smoothness, he lifted the lifeless CSI, choosing not to dwell on the slight sickly feeling it was giving him to see Barry’s head falling back so limply.
He carefully made his way around the fallen shelves to a dry section of the floor and lowered Barry to the ground, putting his legs down first before lowering his upper body, using his free hand to guide his head down gently.
When Singh came into work this morning, this was the last way he expected to end his day, but here he was hurriedly pulling his mobile out of his pocket and dialling one of the only numbers he knew off by heart.
He made sure the phone was on speaker before placing it on the ground. He then positioned his hands on Barry’s chest and began compressions, almost keeping in time with the repetitive dialling tone that could be heard clearly over the rain still flooding into the room.
911, what’s your emergency?
******
Iris West reached the precinct just in time to see EMTs walking carefully down the stairs with a stretcher carried between them. Looking around she wasn’t surprised that someone had been injured, the storm outside having caused an unexpected chaos. She had noticed it on her journey back to the station too, the sudden loss of power that every building seemed to be experiencing.
She had managed to get all the way home, change out of her wet clothes and sit down in front of the TV with a cup of hot chocolate before remembering that she had planned to meet her dad at the station. The place she had left not even half an hour ago.
She had debated texting her dad, letting him know that she was already home after a rather eventful evening, but they had planned to grab some dinner together after Star Labs and she didn’t want to let him down.
So here she was, back at the station, realising that her dad probably wasn’t going to be finished anytime soon if this was what everyone was now having to deal with.
Captain Singh was leading the EMTs, clearing a path for them to get through, but his pace slowed as he caught Iris’ eye.
It wasn’t exactly the first time that she’d spoken to her father’s boss, but there was something different about the way he was looking at her, something in his eyes that she couldn’t quite decipher.
“Captain,” she smiled politely at the man, sparing a quick glance to the injured person.
Instantly it felt like all the air had left the room and she was frozen to the spot. Even with an oxygen mask obscuring half of his face, Iris would recognise Barry anywhere. She thinks she may have whispered Barry’s name but she suddenly couldn’t focus on anything but the sight of her best friend.
Singh gripped her shoulders, forcing her to look away.
“Iris, they’re taking him to the hospital. I’m going to get a hold of Joe, okay, and I’ll let him know to meet you there.”
Iris nodded, her mouth opening as if to reply but she couldn’t find the words.
“She’s coming with you!” Singh called to the EMTs, gesturing towards Iris, and she didn’t need to be told twice to follow them.
They got Barry into the ambulance with a practiced swiftness and ease and raced to the hospital.
Sitting next to her friend, Iris could now see the grazes covering his face and if the EMTs hadn’t have told her what had happened, it would have just looked like he had gotten into a fight and was simply sleeping off the consequences.
But no, Barry Allen, her best friend in the entire world had been struck by lightning.
Ever since the night of his mother’s murder, Barry had, understandably, been afraid of lightning. It wasn’t the ‘hide under the bed’ kind of afraid, but Iris had picked up on it.
Whenever there was a storm outside, he’d be that little bit more jumpy and seemed to crawl back inside of himself.
So now, to almost be killed by the thing he was afraid of. That was just fate’s way of being cruel.
******
Joe wasn’t sure how much time had passed since his partner had been killed in front of him.
An ambulance had come to collect Chyre’s body and more officers had taken over from him to secure the scene and look for the Mardon’s plane wreck. He had wanted to stay and help but a message from one of the officers about Singh wanting to speak to him had him driving back to the station through the still raging rainstorm.
He had barely made it to his desk before the captain had called him into his office.
He wearily accepted the offer of a seat after entering the room and watched as Singh mirrored this on the other side of the desk.
“Joe.” Singh began and Joe knew what he was going to say. He couldn’t help but notice that there was no sign of blame in his eyes. Weariness and guilt maybe, but never blame.
The captain always took the deaths of his officers on his own shoulders and Joe couldn’t let him do that again now.
“I should have covered him…” He spoke up confidently, looking Singh in the eyes practically daring him to contradict him.
“Joe, it’s okay.” And there it was.
Joe shook his head, “It’s not okay, Captain, I should have seen Mardon coming.”
“Joe, I didn’t call you in here to talk about Chyre.”
“What?” Okay, now he was confused. Joe hadn’t exactly missed the chaos going on outside on his way back to the station, but surely the death of one of their own would be still be a high concern for their captain. “But you need to know what happened and we need to call his family…”
“That can wait.” Singh assured him, the guilty look coming back.
“It can wait?! One of your officers has just been killed and all you have to say is it can wait?!”
Singh may be his captain, but Joe had worked with him for long enough that he knew that he could speak his mind without fear of being fired. Maybe it was the shock of Chyre’s death or the stress of the city’s sudden disarray that was affecting him, but the way he was keeping himself so composed made it seem almost as if he was trying to keep Joe himself calm. This realisation made Joe pause for a moment and wonder if maybe something else had happened in his absence.
“Joe, please, just… listen for a minute…”
Yep, something else was definitely wrong.
“There was an accident earlier in Barry’s lab.”
Hearing his son’s name completely threw him. But just because something had happened in his lab doesn’t mean that Barry was there, right? He and Iris were supposed to be at Star Labs this evening after all.
“What kind of accident?” He demanded.
“We’re not sure how it happened exactly, but Barry’s skylight broke during the storm and he must have been standing under it. He was hit by lightning, Joe.”
Joe gripped the edge of the seat. “Is he-”
“He’s alive.” Singh reassured him quickly, clasping his hands together on his desk as he leant forward. “I haven’t heard any more than that but they got him to the hospital.”
Joe brought a shaky hand up to his mouth as he tried to calm down his breathing and comprehend what was being said to him.
“Iris is with him,” Singh continued, “I told her I’d let you know as soon as you got back here.”
Joe wanted to say thank you, for thinking about Iris, for helping Barry, for trying to reassure him. He wanted ask him how Barry had managed to be hit by lightning, to demand that someone be held responsible for the sky light breaking. He wanted to be angry at Clyde Mardon for killing partner, angry at Chyre for getting shot, angry at the damn weather for thinking it was okay to hit his innocent boy with a lightning bolt.
He wanted to be a lot of things.
But he could be those things later. Right now, he needed to get to Barry. Just because was alive when he left here, doesn’t mean he was still okay now and Joe needed to see him. He didn’t think he’d be able to get this sudden crushing weight off his chest until he did.
He rose from his chair as Singh came to meet him on his side of the desk. One look from his captain and he knew that he had been given permission to leave the station.
“But Chyre…” Joe turned around on his way to the door, slightly ashamed that his partner’s death had quickly become an afterthought.
“I’ll sort it,” Singh nodded as he gently led Joe out the door, “go on.”
Joe let out a quiet thank you before rushing off.
******
Joe made it to the hospital in record time, every flash of lightning on his journey encouraging him to speed up just a little more.
He was unsurprised to see how crowded the waiting area was. The usual mix of head wounds and broken bones, worried family and crying children. He weaved past all those in his way and made it to the front desk.
He smiled at the lady sitting at the computer, waiting for her finish talking to a nearby nurse.
He was practically vibrating with a need to find out where his son was but he knew how busy the staff must be and he didn’t want to interrupt their work just to demand he be put first. He had manners after all.
“Hi, I’m looking for my son?” he asked once she had finished handing over some files. “Barry Allen, he was hit by lightning…”
The receptionist didn’t even need to check the system before sharing a look with the nurse. They must not have lightning victims that often because several of the nearby nurses also looked up after hearing the name, each of them sharing a knowing look with each other. Joe wasn’t sure whether he should take that as a bad sign or not.
The nurse gave Joe a sympathetic smile, “Follow me, Sir.”
She stayed a few paces ahead of him as she lead him down the corridor to a set of double doors.
Wordlessly, she pulled one of them open, allowing him to enter first.
The ward was bustling with action as doctors and nurses worked on the various patients that were filling the beds but Joe quickly spotted who he was looking for, his eyes trained through many years of parenthood to find his children amongst a crowd.
He thanked the nurse and swiftly crossed the room to stand by his daughter’s side, noticing how she was keeping a few feet away from the bed to allow the doctors to continue their work.
“Iris,” he whispered, the word fading into the buzz of noise filling the room. He rested his hand on her shoulder and she turned to him immediately, tear tracks still visible on her face.
She needed no prompting to pull her dad in for a hug and Joe did not hesitate to oblige.
Tucking his daughter’s head under his chin, Joe got his first good look at Barry.
He was lying on the bed, hospital gown on and blanket resting on the lower half of his body. His eyes were closed and the harsh fluorescent overhead lights were unhelpfully highlighting the paleness of his skin.
The numerous wires and tubes attached to his body were connected to the many monitors and IV’s surrounding him and worst of all was the ventilator tube snaking out of Barry’s mouth. The sight of it made him feel sick. But his son was alive and that would have to be enough for now.
“He died, dad.” Iris muttered from where her face was buried in his chest. She leant back and looked up at him, wiping the stray tears that had begun to fall, “His heart stopped, it kept stopping.”
Joe didn’t know how to answer. The shock of hearing that brought the crushing weight back and there were no reassurances he could give to make this situation better.
He pulled Iris into the hug again, the feel of his daughter, alive and healthy, in his arms helping to calm his racing heart by a fraction.
He looked over to Barry again and vowed not to leave his son’s side until he too was alive, healthy and held tight in his arms.