Waking up to a quiet house filled with light was an unusual but welcome feeling. As I travelled down the familiar stairs with the cloud of sleep hanging over me I immediately missed the smell of fresh coffee. "Barry you ready?" Joe shouts putting on his badge. For a moment I stand not understanding. "Good morning Barry" Iris walks past me on the stairs giving me a kiss on my cheek. "Hey man you all right?" Wally looks up from his magazine noticing my dum gaze.

I reach up touching my head as the memories from yesterday resurface. It wasn't a dream. It was real. I'm really home. "Yah, I'll be back in a flash." Rushing upstairs with my newly acquired speed I prepare for my first day back at work in my world.

________________

"How are you really?" Iris questions as we walk at the pace I have become all to accustomed to. For most of the walk we walked in idyllic silence. Iris while I was up stairs sent Joe on his way with promise to talk to me later. Joe gladly accepted the time that it gained him to collect his thoughts.

"It's weird." I state looking around at the familiar trees. Listening to the same sounds, but the people are different. Even the same Jitters but not the Jitters.

"For everyone here I never left, but to me I was gone for half of my life." Slowly we reach The side walk leading to the entrance of the caffe. "That's got to be strange." She mutters paying more attention to my body language than my words and because of that she quickly zones in on my change of posture as she moves to enter Jitters. "Barry, look I know you and that you feel bad for leaving us all behind" I go to interject but she places her hand in the air silencing me. "But we love you. And we all know that there is a point in all of our lives where we wish we could turn back the clock." "But the point is that y'all can't" I tell my best friend as a grab her arm pulling her away from the coffee shop where I had my first date and first kiss with the love of my life.

"They might be mad at that for a little while but you came back! And nothing changed. Correct?" She demands slowly pulling me towards the forbidden doors. "Two seconds" I reply before quickly running in and grabbing two Carmel Macchiato's with whip and an extra shot and laying the cash by the register. "Here" I tell her zooming out of the doors without so much as sparing a glance at the inside of the building. "You really don't want to go in there do you?" She smiles as she takes a sip of her coffee.

Pulling her away from the building and towards her work I sigh "everyone has every right to be mad at me. They should be!" I hate the warmth that my coffee gives off, when all that would assuage my desire is the touch as cold as ice.

"Okay" she pulls me to a stop just a block away from Jitters. "This is not all about us and our feelings" she locks her eyes with mine gazing over my face with a delineate passion. "This is about something else...someone else" she cocks her head and whatever emotions she read on my face seemed to corroborate with her thoughts. "It was a girl! You left a girl behind!" She jumps excitedly. Any outsider would assume by the display that we had not ever considered being in a relationship ourselves; let alone considered it yesterday (by this worlds time). "Iris..." I fidget a little uncomfortable. "Look we are friends, family. Just because we decided to date and the not date doesn't mean that things changed." She states. "Okay," she sighs knowing I don't want to talk about it at the moment. "Just promise me you'll talk to her."
"I promise" with that I wrap my arm around her waist and run the short way to her work.

Stopping at a tree absent from human sight I free her from my grasp. "Wow that feels good." I smile as I feel the energy race through my body once again. "I'm glad your back Barry." Iris says kissing me in the check before turning to head into her office building.

Thoughts? Comments?

I thought this chapter was a bit lethargic,
but I'm just setting up for later chapters... What do you think?

zoeymeyer  I threw some Easter eggs in there for you! It's not a whole chapter/ story but I just threw a few in there!