There was this song lyric I liked.

"All the broken hearts in the world still beat / Mine's beating, but bruised / Hopefully not for long / The one thing I do know is / Time changes everything."

~

I had been called to a auto repair shop as the fire investigator.

I walked in, looking around.

Barry and Joe walked closer.

"Vera, you good?" Barry asked.

"Yeah," I answered. "Yeah. You know, it's just, it's weird. Patty's not here."

Joe sighed. "Oh, not for the same reasons, but I miss Patty, too." Barry and I looked at each other, thinking about the other day, smiling despite ourselves. Joe sensed the difference, looking between us. "What's going on between you two? It's like it just got sunnier in Central City."

"What?" Barry asked. "Nothing. Come on."

"What do we got?" I asked.

"Victim's name is Daniel Burge," Joe answered. "Not exactly a Boy Scout, but managed to buy this garage two years ago." I knelt next to the boy, lifting the sheet. "It looks like he was dipped in a volcano."

I sighed. "Oh, yeah. Actually, the depth and uniformity of the burn pattern is something you would see if the body was covered in something like lava, but with a lower burn temp and an added chemical characteristic." I made sure no one was looking toward us, using flickering fire from my fingertips to touch the body, burning only the point where I touched, letting the fire fade. "There's no secondary accelerant. If there was, the rest of the body would've caught fire when I touched it."

"It's a meta, isn't it?" Barry asked.

"Definitely," I answered, standing. 

"All right, let's take a sample back to STAR Labs," Barry told me. "Have Cisco run some tests."

"Good," Joe told us. "I'm gonna go meet Iris for lunch. She wants to talk to me about Wally." He looked at me. "And thank you for uniting us. Girl, you are a genius, no matter how many bumps in the road there are."

I smiled a small smile. 

"Yeah, how's that going, you and him?" Barry asked.

Joe nodded. "Great. Well, good. I don't know. Baby steps. I'm trying to give him space. I mean, he just lost his mom. Just met me and his sister. He's got a lot on his plate."

"Yeah, he just got the best dad he could've wished for," Barry told him. 

"Oh, you say that now, but you didn't always think that," Joe told him.

I smiled, chuckling.

Barry chuckled. "Well, you were pretty strict. That's for sure."

I chuckled. "But strict isn't always a bad thing, especially when you know it's coming from love."

"I'll talk to you later," Joe told us, walking away, leaving.

I knelt next to the body, taking up a sample of what burned him, putting it into a container.

Barry groaned. "How can you stand that? That's disgusting."

I looked up at him, smiling a small smile. "You're asking me this when you're a CSI?"

"A CSI that doesn't do well on an empty stomach," Barry told me.

I chuckled.

Barry smiled.

~

Cisco, Barry and I walked into STAR Labs.

Cisco was showing us an app on his phone. "Okay, click here. Bam, that's my app. See, the app just went live. So, you can sink up all social media postings about metahuman activity. Somebody sees something cray in Central City, I get an alert about it."

"Yo, man, this is cool," Barry told him.

"You have too much time on your hands," I told him.

Cisco chuckled sarcastically.

Barry laughed.

We walked into the Cortex.

Harrison was there.

"Hey, Harry," Cisco told him.

Barry looked at Cisco. "Wait, so if that app gives you eyes and ears all over the city, then why don't you use it to find the next Ms. Right?"

"Did I just make the metahuman Tinder?" Cisco asked.

Barry nodded. "Mm-hmm."

"Nope, not starting that fetish," I told them. Barry was checking something on the computer. I scoffed playfully. "Stop checking your profile. This is not a place for that."

Barry smiled.

~

Cisco, Caitlin and I were in the Cortex.

Barry walked in.

"Hey, I ran your crime scene samples six ways from Sunday," Cisco told us.

I noticed something off with Barry. "You okay?"

Barry shook his head in confusion, looking toward the door. "I was... Uh, nothing. What's up?"

"Two things, very strange," Cisco told us. "One, definitely metahuman cells in the oil."

"And two, he didn't die from his burns," Caitlin told us. "It was suffocation."

"Suffocation?" Barry repeated.

"That makes sense, actually," I told them. "The burns indicated the body was covered in something."

"Cross-referencing 02 levels in the organic matter, I found a direct match to animals trapped and preserved in an asphalt seep," Cisco explained. "The guy was fossilized."

"So who ever killed him is like a walking..." Barry trailed off.

"Tar pit," Barry and Cisco sat the same time.

Cisco put a hand on Barry's shoulder. "Mm, too slow. It's okay."

Caitlin and I exchanged an amused look.

"So, he basically drowning them in tar," Barry told us. Caitlin nodded in agreement. "God, that's a horror show. Why did he target Daniel Burge?"

There was a creepy ringtone coming from Cisco's phone.

"Oh, that's my metahuman social media app," Cisco told us. "That's right. There's an attack in progress. 6th and Bell, downtown."

Barry zoomed to get both me and him in the suits, leaving the building.

Once we were outside, I started to use fire to fly to 6th and Bell.

We got there, coming to a stop on the ground.

Tar Pit had tar leaking out of him and black eyes, looking at a man by his truck. "Remember me, Clay?"

Clay was in denial. "We killed you."

"I bet right now you're not thinking... 'yummy'," Tar Pit told him.

The crowd around us was taking videos.

"Yo, are you guys seeing this?" Barry asked.

"Oh, yeah, we see it," Caitlin answered.

Tar Pit made a flaming ball of tar appear in his hand, throwing it toward Clay.

Barry zoomed to grab Clay and get out of the way, going a little bit slower than he usually did, making the tar ball hit and burn its way through the truck door.

I faced Tar Pit. "All right, any ideas?"

"The velocity of tar lowers as its temperature lowers," Caitlin told us.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, and it hardens," Cisco told us. "Hey, find a way to cool him down."

"I bet that's gonna be hard for you, huh, Pyra?" Barry asked.

I knew the double meaning, tilting my head, looking around, seeing a fire hydrant nearby. "Not so much."

I used a long ray of fire to hit the fire hydrant, making it explode, the water raining all around us, onto me and Tar Pit, making the fire on my hands go out.

The water made Tar Pit change into his tar form, making him sink to the ground.

Cisco laughed. "Oh, yeah! Team Flyra!"

I walked out of the water, toward Clay and Barry.

"Hey, buddy," Barry told him. "We've got some questions for you. Let's go."

Barry zoomed off down the street with Clay.

I used fire to fly through the sky.

~

We were back in STAR Labs, wearing normal clothes.

"All right, Tar Pit," Barry told us. He looked Cisco. "Tar Pit, that's what we're calling him?"

"That's right," Cisco answered.

"Tar Pit was after one Clay Stanley," Barry told us. "Stanley, as it turns out, is a suspected hit man that the CCPD has been trying to track for a while, but they haven't been able to make anything stick." Cisco laughed. "No pun intended."

"Do we know why he was attacked?" Caitlin asked.

"Uh, Stanley wouldn't answer any of our questions," I told them. "He was pretty scared."

"When a hit man is scared, you know something's wrong," Cisco told us.

"Hey, uh, did you get an ID on our metahuman?" I asked.

"Yeah, I'm running it through five different facial recognition systems right now, so it should take a minute," Cisco told us. The information came up on the screen. "And there it is. Who's the best hacker in the world, people?"

"Felicity Smoak," Barry, Caitlin and I answered.

Cisco gave us a look. "What is wrong with you three? That's not friendship."

We shrugged.

"Our metahuman's name is Josephin Monteleone," Caitlin told us. 

"Oh, he looks friendly," I told them sarcastically.

"'Monteleone was reported missing', surprise, surprise, the night of the particle accelerator explosion," Barry told us. 

"And what's the connection between Monteleone and the two victims?" Caitlin asked.

I shook my head, shrugging.

"I'll call Joe," Barry told us. "Have him run background checks on all three guys."

"Okay, I'm gonna run some tests on the tar samples," Caitlin told us. "See if I can find his weakness."

Barry walked out into the corridor.

I followed. "Hey, are you feeling okay?"

Barry turned to face me. "Yeah. Why?"

"You're going slower than normal," I answered. "I noticed it out there, and Cisco said you clocked in at 1,450 miles an hour. And he also said that you usually run 1,500. You sure you okay?"

"Yeah, I feel fine," Barry answered. "The difference seems negligible. Fast is fast, right?" I shrugged. Barry smiled. "So, about the other night..." I smiled a small smile, pressing my lips together. "I'm glad that I was with you."

I nodded, teasing him. "Me, too. You know, that song I sang, it really meant a lot, coming from me to you."

Barry chuckled. "Oh, and that's all your remember? The song?"

I smiled, laughing quietly. "The other part was amazing, too."

We both smiled.

Barry gently pressed me back into the wall to kiss me.

~

We were back in the Cortex.

Joe walked in. "Hey. I ran background checks on everyone involved in this Tar Pit mess. Came up empty. I mean, they all have records, but they're sealed, so I can't read them."

"Well, that's 'cause you're bound by ethics, Detective West," Cisco told him, hacking into the CCPD database.

"How many felonies are we committing breaking into sealed court records?" Joe asked.

Cisco shrugged. "Eh, three or four. Nope, five."

"Well, they were sealed because the records are all juvenile offense," Barry told us.

"They weren't arrested together," Joe told us.

I looked at the information on the screen. 

"No, but look at this," Cisco told us. "They served in the same juvenile detention facility. Actually, Monteleone and victim one were bunkmates."

"Who do we have shacked up with vic two?" I asked.

"Bronwen, Clark," Cisco answered. "Good luck finding him. He has a ton of addresses and I can't seem to find anything current. I'll run his picture through facial recognition."

Iris walked in. "That won't be necessary. In this case, I am facial recognition. I know exactly where we can find that guy, and, Dad, you are not gonna like how."

"Okay, you can tell me about it on the way," Joe told her. 

Joe and Iris walked out, leaving.

Harrison walked in with a device.

"What is that?" I asked.

"Breach implosion reactor," Harrison answered. "You ready?"

"Yeah, let's do it," Barry answered.

"Have fun fixing the universe, you three," Cisco told us.

Harrison, Barry and I walked out into the corridor.

I looked at Harrison. "Hey, you okay? You seem like you're in pain."

"What?" Harrison asked. "No, no. I have a... headache."

~

We stood by one of the invisible breaches after dark.

"If our calculations are correct..." Harrison trailed off.

"And they are," Barry told me.

Harrison nodded in agreement. "And they are." I smirked. "When this device detonates, it will collapse the event horizon on this side of the breach, thereby shutting off any connection to Earth-2 permanently."

Barry yawned.

"You okay?" I asked.

Barry nodded. "Yeah, I'm just a little tired. I'm not feeling myself. I'm good, though." 

Harrison looked down. "Yeah."

"It's gonna work, Harry," I told him.

Harrison nodded. "Yep, yep. Okay. You ready?"

"Yeah," Barry answered. "Give it to me."

Harrison handed the device to Barry.

Barry walked toward the invisible breech, using speed to throw it inside.

Once the device reached inside the breach, the blue portal appeared. It writhed, shaking, imploding on itself, disappearing.

"Come on," I told them, walking toward where the portal had been. Nothing was there but air. I turned back to them, smiling. "You did it." I laughed. "You just rewrote the laws of physics. Don't smile or anything."

Barry smiled, laughing.

"Yeah, I guess that was pretty cool," Harrison told us.

"Yeah, I think so," Barry agreed.

"One down, 51 to go," I told them.

Harrison sighed. "Yeah. Thank you."

"It's just the first step in getting your daughter back," I told him.

We walked along.

~

We were driving.

I looked at Harrison. "You good? Been a little quiet ever since we closed the breach."

"Listen..." Harrison trailed off.

Barry's phone went off. He pulled it out. "Hey, sorry. It's... real quick." He answered his phone. "Hey, let me call you back, Iris, I..." He looked at me. "We gotta go." 

Barry zoomed us both out of the van, putting Harrison in the front seat, and then got us in the suits, going even slower than before, but it was hardly tellible.

We got to where Clark was having the street races.

Where Joseph Monteleone AKA Tar Pit was making tar fill the street and rising above the ground, making the two cars racing swerve and drive up the makeshift ramp, the cars back flipping.

Barry zoomed to get both of the drivers out of the cars, one of them being Wally.

One of the cars was soaring toward Clark on the ground.

I stood in front of Clark, using fire to shoot at the car, using it as a form of shield, but it took both hands to make the fire strong enough to stop it, eventually grabbing onto the car with fire.

The other car crashed, flipping over the ground repeatedly, jagged glass flying everywhere, one right toward Iris.

Barry zoomed after the piece of glass, trying to get to Iris in time, but he didn't catch it or move it before it stabbed into her shoulder, making her gasp in pain and fall down. 

Barry was horrified, catching her as she fell. "Iris!"

Joe ran closer.

I lowered the car in the air to the ground.

Clark stood, trying to run.

I stopped him. "Don't even try." I looked at Barry. "Get her to the hospital."

Barry stood, zooming off with Iris.

Wally stood, looking at Joe in shock.

I sighed, looking at them in worried sympathy.

~

The next day, Barry, Cisco, Caitlin, Harrison and I were at STAR Labs, in the Cortex.

Barry was blaming himself, being so hard on himself.

"Don't worry," I told him. "We're gonna find him."

"I'm sorry," Barry told me. "What?"

"Tar Pit," I answered. "You shouldn't worry. We're gonna get them."

Cisco gestured to Harrison. "With these nitrous grenades." Harrison tossed one to Cisco. Cisco gave him a look. "Each one of them has ten times the concentration of a hot rod's nitrous tank. And it's triggered by extreme heat. So we're talking 650 degrees. So, we get Vera to activate one of these puppies, make contact, and you got a Tar Pit popsicle for dessert."

"All right, that's great," Barry told us. "Um..." He looked at me. "Hey, look, I think that maybe you were right. I felt slower last night. You know, not by much, but enough." He looked at Cisco. "Do you think there's something wrong with the suit maybe?"

"Not likely," Harrison answered.

"The readings from the suit are normal," Cisco told us. "You know I take care of that thing."

"Then what?" Barry asked. "Am I sick?"

"I don't know, Barry," I told him. "Feel any different?"

"No, not really," Barry answered. "I mean, I know that I'm slower in the moment, but I can't tell by how much."

"2%," Caitlin answered. "Tests on the components in your blood show the force at a 100% for the last 60 days until today. It dropped to 98."

"Phoenix stole Jay and Quinn's powers," Cisco told us. "Do you think maybe, during your with with Zoom and Phoenix, yours might have diminished?"

"But that was weeks ago, and nothing's happening to me," I told them. "And why would he just be feeling those effects now?"

"Dr. Wells?" Barry asked.

"Yeah?" Harrison asked.

"You've studied the force more than anyone," Barry told him. "What do you think could have happened?"

"It could be any number of things," Harrison told us.

Barry nodded. "Yeah. All right. I guys, look, Iris could have died last night."

"She's gonna be okay, Barry," Caitlin told him.

"You know, this time, but the fact is, she is hurt right now because of me," Barry told us. "I wasn't fast enough to protect Iris just from some metahuman. When Zoom or Phoenix attack again, I need all of my speed and then some. I can't lose anyone else."

Harrison sighed in defeat. "You won't." He stood, turning to face us. "I did it."

"What?" Barry asked.

Harrison walked over to the Flash suit, taking out a device from underneath the emblem on its chest. 

"Whoa, whoa, what is that?" Cisco asked.

Harrison tossed the device to Cisco.

Cisco caught it.

Joe walked in.

Harrison looked at Barry. "I stole your speed. I gave it to Zoom."

Barry shook his head in confusion. "No, no, no... this doesn't..."

"What, you're working with them?" I asked.

"No, not at first," Harrison answered.

"We trusted you!" I told him angrily.

Joe punched Harrison in the face, making him fall. 

"Joe, stop!" Caitlin told him. Joe pulled Harrison up, pulling him out of the room, down into the pipeline, with us following, seeing him throw Harrison into a cell, closing the door. "Why did you put him in there?"

"Because if I didn't, I would've killed him," Joe answered, walking away. "Let's go find this tar freak."

Joe, Cisco and Caitlin walked out, leaving.

Barry and I watched as the door between us and Harrison closed, looking at each other, following.

~

Joe pulled Clay out of the CCPD after dark.

"Yeah, what the hell, man?" Clay asked.

"Shut up," Joe told him.

"I thought I was being transferred," Clay told him.

Joe chuckled. "You're not being transferred. You're the bait."

"What?" Clay asked.

Tar spread up from the ground, forming a monstrous form of tar. "This is for two years ago, Clay."

As Pyra, I flew closer from above Clay and Joe. "Hey, black lagoon."

Clay and Joe ran aside.

I used fire at 650 degrees to activate the nitrous grenade, throwing it into the tar monster.

The tar around Joseph was frozen, cracking, shattering, leaving Joseph to fall to the ground.

Joe looked at Clay. "Stay." 

Joe walked toward Joseph, punching him hard enough to knock him out, walking back toward Clay.

~

While we had been doing that, Barry had been talking to Harrison.

In normal clothes, I walked into the pipeline to see them talking.

"You know, it's ironic," Barry told him. "I was just saying how much you remind me of the old Wells, and here we are, just like we did with him, standing on either side of this glass with me asking you, 'Why?'"

"I'm doing what I have to do to save my daughter," Harrison told us.

"Yeah, at any cost, right?" I asked. "The cost of Joe's daughter?"

Harrison looked at Barry. "I told you, 'I would betray you'. I told you, 'I would have to choose'. But I just sacrificed my daughter to death to save you."

"You want a pat on the back?" I asked.

"I want you to send me home," Harrison answered. "Send me back to Earth-2. Think about it." He looked at me. "Zoom wanted me to steal Barry's speed so that he would not have his powers any more. So that when Zoom and Phoenix came again..."

"It would be just me against them," I finished.

"So I didn't do it just to save Barry, Vera," Harrison told me. "I did it to save you. After you send me back, use the implosion reactor to shut down the breach. Shut down all the breaches. Close them all and they will never be able to crossover ever again, and that'll be the end of it."

"What about your daughter?" I asked.

"Jessie's my battle to fight, not yours," Harrison told us.

Barry and I exchanged a look.

Barry closed the door between us and him.

We walked out, leaving.

~

In the Cortex, Caitlin was showing us lab results. "This is a sample of Barry's cells after whatever Harry did to them. As you can see, not only is it drained of the speed force, but it's also presenting itself as chromosomal damage. If Harry kept doing what he was doing, he could have taken your powers permanently."

"Even evil Wells couldn't figure out how to do that one," Cisco told us.

"Well, look, somebody better send his ass back to where he came from or I'm gonna shoot him," Joe told us.

"Amen," Cisco told us.

"No," I told them. 

"What do you mean, no?" Barry asked.

I turned to face them. "What would we have done if we were in his position?" I looked at Joe. "I mean, what would you do if it was Iris, Joe? And Cisco, when Snart kidnapped you, threatened to kill your brother unless you helped him, you did, and none of us judged you for that. We still don't, because when it comes to family, when it comes to the people that we all love, we're all vulnerable. None of us are above making a wrong decision." I looked at Barry. "He could have done it. He could have stolen your speed, Barry, and he could have gotten away with it. None of us would have even known, but he didn't, and now his daughter's gonna die. And we're okay with that? I can't just give up on her. I can't give up on a world. This is a world full of people who are facing death. I don't know, we may not be good enough to beat Zoom and Phoenix yet, but I'm not gonna just close the breaches and forget about it. We have to help Harrison. What do you think, Barry?"

"I think that was beautiful," Barry answered. I tilted my head. Caitlin and Cisco smiled small smiles. "Look, guys, I... I was the one that trusted him first. I own that. I let him stay when literally all of you told me not to, so everything that's happened up until this point, it's on me. But this has to be a group decision."

We all thought for a moment.

~

Everyone walked down into the pipeline.

Barry opened the door between us and Harrison in his cell, opening his cell. "Come on."

Harrison stepped out of the cell toward us. "Well... I guess this is goodbye."

"No, it's not," Barry answered. "I told you, we're a team. Now you're a part of it. We're gonna help you save Jessie. We're not sending you through alone."

Harrison looked at us in confusion.

I smirked. "We're going to Earth-2."