Present

Speedster spotted at boardwalk.

I stare at my phone screen at S.T.A.R. labs, reading the title that the metahuman tracker app read. My mind spun with ideas on who the meta could be and what they would want. I guess my main worry was that this speedster was as cold and vengeful as Hunter had been, and I prayed that we didn't have another one of those situations on our hands. We just got rid of Zoom...we didn't need another one.

"You coming, Raven?" Barry asks me as he quickly puts his flash suit on, waiting for my answer.

Everyone awkwardly stares between the two of us as I furrow my eyebrows. "I think you got this one."

He looks confused for a moment before he's flashing away, heading towards the boardwalk where the speedster was located. After he was gone, Iris looks over at me. "What was that about?"

I shake my head, wondering to myself why Barry was being so forgetful. "Just Barry Allen being forgetful again, I guess."

Everyone finally looks away from me then, and I couldn't help but wonder what they were thinking. I knew that I gave up being Silver Trickster so I could focus on myself, but I had a feeling that the others saw it as something else, such as me being selfish. I wondered to myself if I should be out there with Barry...in case he really did need help.

"Hacking into the street cams now," Cisco says out loud as he types away on one of the computers, the rest of us watching up on the screen for the footage to appear. It only takes a minute before it's popping up, all of our eyes going to it.

Instead of seeing fighting like how I had expected, the footage showed Barry actually talking to the speedster. I can only wonder to myself for a moment what they could be talking about before I pay closer attention to the speedster, finding that their suit looked similar to Hunter's. The breath gets caught in my throat as my eyes freeze, everything flashing back to me in that moment.

"What are they talking about?" Joe asks as he turns towards Cisco, who was typing away on the computer still.

He shakes his head. "I don't know, street camera's don't include audio."

I stay frozen in place before Barry and the speedster are taking off, racing through the streets as they battle it out. It wasn't until then I could pull my eyes away, a breath finally able to escape my lungs. Something about seeing someone that reminded me of Hunter was too much for me.

"Raven, are you okay?" I hear Iris ask me then, her hand resting on my shoulder.

I nod my head as I take a step back. "Yeah, I'm okay."

She gives me a doubtful look before nodding faintly, turning back to the screen to watch Barry come to a halt. It was then I realized that he must have lost the speedster.

"Looks like he lost him," Cisco breathes, shaking his head. "Somehow that doesn't surprise me."

Everyone starts to disperse then besides Iris and I, but my eyes were still glued to the tv screen. I wondered to myself why Barry was talking to that speedster for so long, as if he knew him already or something along those lines. I wondered as well if it was connected to the reason why he was acting so weird.

I guess there was only one way to find out.

-*+*-

I twiddle my thumbs as I sit in the corner at S.T.A.R. Labs, my mind spinning with different reasons as to what was going on with Barry. A part of me was nervous to ask him what was going on, but the other part didn't care. I felt like I had a right to know, and it was making me grow anxious and angry that he was keeping it from me...from us.

"It appears that the sample from the husk you found yesterday doesn't contain dark matter from the particle accelerator, but instead of the speed force," Caitlin says as she types away on her computer, causing everyone to furrow their eyebrows. "The husk actually belongs to a man named-"

"Edward Clariss," Barry finishes before the mug shot can be thrown up onto the screen, causing all of us to give him a questionable look.

Caitlin raises her eyebrows. "And somehow Barry already knew that..."

"Barry?" I ask then, standing before I even realized what I was doing. The itch to know was finally driving me insane. "Can I talk to you for a minute?"

He gives me a questionable look before he nods, the two of us heading out into the hall. When we get there, I can't help but wonder how to word how I wanted to ask him.

"What's up?" he asks me, sounding cautious and curious.

I decide to get straight to the point. "Barry, you promised me that you'd tell me anything if you needed to, right? I just can't help but wonder if you aren't telling the whole truth. Especially about that Edward guy...you acted like you knew him already last night, and you already knew his name before Caitlin said it-"

"I know, I'm sorry Raven," he shakes his head.

I wait for him to continue, but he doesn't. "Barry, tell me right now what's going on. You've been acting strange ever since that morning. What is going on with you?"

"I want to tell you everything," he states simply as my hopes raise slightly, but soon they're falling down once again. "I'm sorry, but I'm going to try and fix all of this."

The next thing I know, he's flashing out of my sight, leaving me standing alone in the hallway. For a moment, I was shocked as to what that had even meant, but then anger starts to flow through me. I guess what made me mad the most was the fact that he said he'd always tell me everything...but this time, I guess I or the others didn't deserve the truth.

I turn and head back into the main room then as I lower my head, a million questions racing through my mind. I don't make it far into the room before I feel a gust of wind whiz past me, causing me to look up and see Barry standing there in front of all of us.

"Guys, there's something I need to tell all of you," he says then as he looks at me, eyes hard as stone. I knew that what he was about to tell us was something big.

Iris takes a step forwards. "What's going on, Barry?"

Barry takes a deep breath in that moment as his eyes start to water. It made me nervous for what was coming next. "After my father and R-" he pauses and looks up at me, shaking his head."...had died...I wasn't in the right headspace. I thought that the only way to help was to go back in time and to save my mom."

"Wait, is your mom alive?" Wally asks, his eyes wide.

He shakes his head. "She was, but not now. After I had gone back in time, I had created a different reality that was completely different than this one. I lived there for a few months, and I was happy. I felt like I finally was at peace with everything that had happened. I wasn't even The Flash for most of it. But then this guy Edward Clariss, who was known as The Rival there, started causing problems, and I knew I had to fix everything that I had done. I went back in time again and made sure my mother died again, which is the timeline that we're in now. It's not as different as the last one in large ways, but in small...meaningful ways to all of you, it is. I thought I could reset things to how they were but...I can't ever really put it back together like how it once was."

I blink as I stare at Barry, all of this starting to make more sense in my mind. It explained as to why Barry was acting so strange; he hadn't really lived the timeline we were in now to understand everything that had changed. It only made me wonder what changes those were.

"My father and I got along in that other life, didn't we?" Iris asks, tears filling her eyes as she shakes her head. Barry simply nods. "That's why you're so focused on fixing everything between all of us, isn't it?"

A tear falls down Barry's face. "I will tell you all what's different, if you want to know, but you'll have to live with those differences. I can't fix them, and I'm sorry about that. But at least you'll know, and you deserve that choice."

"So you decided that it was okay to run back in time to save your family member, but when it comes to someone in mine..." Cisco fades out then as Caitlin rests her hand on his shoulder, but before he can finish, he's walking out of the room, leaving the rest of us behind.

I take a deep breath as I watch him leave, finding that I had tears on my face as well. I wasn't quite sure why I was so worried about these changes, since this wasn't my original earth that I lived on. There's no way there could be that major of changes to my life...is there?

"Why did you pause?" I ask suddenly as I look up at Barry, tears leaking down my face. "You said when your father and someone else had died. Who?"

Something in Barry's eyes told me that I didn't want to know who, but that didn't change the fact that I was curious to know. He slowly shakes his head as he hesitates to tell me, but eventually he says the name I least expected.

"You did, Raven."

I furrow my eyebrows as everyone looks over at me with hazy eyes. For a moment I let the words sink in, but then I start to question his statement. "Me? What do you mean I died?"

Barry licks his lips slowly. "That night we defeated Zoom...right as the time wraiths were carrying him off, he grabbed your ankles. I had managed to grab ahold of you, but they just wouldn't let you go...you told me that you wanted to be the hero and for me to let go, and I did. I let you go, and they carried you away with Hunter."

I find my throat growing dry in that moment, something coming over me that I couldn't quite explain. "Y-You're telling me that...that I died that night with him? H-How am I here now, then?"

"When I went back and put the timeline back in order, I made a stop to that night to make sure that didn't happen," Barry says, taking a deep breath. "I couldn't move forwards knowing that I had let you go, Raven."

I feel my legs become shaky in that moment as I stare at the floor, letting it sink in that I had actually died. In that other timeline, Hunter had gotten what he had wanted all along; he took me down with him. The idea of that being a reality made me grow sick to my stomach, and it made me feel as if I wasn't even really in my own skin.

I quickly grab the side of the counter as I struggle to keep my balance. "That's...that's a lot to take in, Barry."

My mind starts to spin in that moment, realizing that in that other life, he had won. Instead of being here like I am now with Barry and the others, he had dragged me to Hell with him, just like how he had my whole life. The thought of knowing that I had actually been sucked away with him was almost too much for me.

But there was one thing I knew for sure after hearing Barry's secret, and that was that I wouldn't let this second chance go to waste.

-*+*-

aw my poor baby Raven knows now. let's just say that this will help shape her character more and help her strive to be better, and I couldn't be more excited.

don't forget to comment and vote!