"Good Morning!" The smell of coffee engulfs my senses. For a second I think I woke up but when I open my eyes the Cisco before me is the perfect imitation, but his weight is shifted slightly different, his footsteps a little lighter, and his shirt less wrinkly. 

"Thanks," I grumble. My face no doubt is imprinted by the desk and a dried line of drool beside my mouth. "Drink up. There is a dozen boxes of donuts downstairs. Save one box for us!"

When he leaves I take a drink of the coffee. "You know Cisco can't make a cup of coffee to save his life," I speak to the SpeedForce. "He didn't. I did," Caitlin walks through the door.

I flinch as she comes near. The memory of the dead red head in my arms haunted me.

Last night I attempted to escape by not going to sleep, but it didn't work and even if it did it wouldn't save her. "We have rules. You will not acquire what you wish if you do not follow them," she places a hand on the desk.

"You have a little spot," she points to the side of her lips, "here". Licking my thumb I wipe away the drool.

"Hey!" Cisco runs through the door. "Look!" He runs into the entrance wall, "t. v. " he breathes. Caitlin turns on the t.v.

"There have been reports of a masked women terrorizing local businesses and today she strikes the CCPD!" The blond news anchor reports.

"Joe Barry!" Caitlin pushes me into action. Putting on my suit I think of how to save her. Letty will be there and in danger.

Running I begin to hear the shouts as I reach the coffee house. Walking into the precinct I am faced with a line up of all the city's police.

"Flash!" Joe whispers. His face is burned and he is barely holding himself up against the wall.

The second his words reach my ears fire shoots past him and lights the door behind him on fire. "What did I say about talking?" The voice was that of one that seemed engraved in my memory.

Letty is dressed in tight dark blue jeans, black high heel boots, and a black leather jacket. Her red hair danced on her shoulders just like the flames on the wood.

"Well what do we have here," Her piercing eyes look me up and down, "please. This is it. This is Central City's finest hero?" Her voice is at a normal octave but it is easily heard by all.

All the cops lined up shift in their place as one of their own, one of the cities protectors, is threatened. "Letty," I put my hands up. "What did you just say?" Her hands come up much like they did last night. Only this time she wasn't going to hit me with her fist she was going to hit me with fire.

Her hands are engulfed with fire and as the fire engulfs her arms she takes a stance that sends every instinct in my body into overdrive. Despite my mind screaming to run I cement my feet to the ground and keep my eyes locked on hers.

"I am The Human Torch," Her tone is threatening, but the fire that is now to her shoulders and the tips of her red hair have the  CCPD quivering, "no one has called me by that name in years." Her green eyes flash to Singh.

"It appears the Flash has made some human connections. I have never understood that. All that power and you use it to save them?" She then throws up her hand and blasts The Captains leg.

The smell of burning flesh was quickly filling the small entrance area. Out of the corner of my eye I see Joe reach in his pocket.

"Let-Human Torch," I feel It coming, "Your in danger-". She laughs as the last inch of her body is engulfed in flames, "I'm in danger? I think your Captain is in danger." She then points her hand to Captain Singh.

In the same second that her fire is released from her hands a bullet is fired from Joe's gun. I had a choice save The Captain or save Letty.

Using my speed I wrap my hands around the flames. The fire attacks my suit but is repelled.

I pray that the SpeedForce doesn't snatch my speed and I am granted that wish as we stop outside of the prescient.

"Letty," I ask as i place her feet on the gravel. Her flames dimming. "Help!" The officers inside scream. Probably standing over the burning body of the Captain.

I soon realize something is wrong when she falls limp in my arms and her flames die out completely. "Letty, no. No." Her green eyes stare up at me as I lift her hand that is laid across her stomach.

"No, I choose you. I tried. I tried," tears began to form in my eyes. I lost Iris, I lost Wally, I can't loose someone else again.

At that point I was convinced that she was real. Wether it was an allusion or not I didn't know, but I finally accepted it.

"You choose me," She tells me. A small smile forms on her lips as the life leaves her eyes.

I sit there on the back road holding her as I wait for the SpeedForce to change the scene. As if rubbing it in I stay in the same spot with the dead villain in my arms, but she is more than that. She is a victim of the SpeedForce just like me. She is a person with a life.

____________________

"Kara?" National was my new location. Sitting at the DEO I let the tears continue to fall. "Where is Kara?" A man with an very unusual appearance demands.

His question isn't necessarily directed at me or anyone but Winn answers. "Confronting Reign". Winn's answer apparently  doesn't satisfy the man with lights on his forehead and wild white hair.

His hands slam down onto the table as he controls his tone, "alone?" Winn rightfully scared takes a step back and looks at me.

I reach up to wipe the tears of my cheeks and gave him a don't look at look. "Shadow Lass went with her."

The alien, I think it's safe to assume, huffs before turning on his heels. "Barry!" He shouts as he walks away. Getting up I quickly spot my suit and am next to him in seconds.

"Ugh, she is-" he continues to rant nonsense. "Reign?" I ask. He looks at me skeptically, "No Kara. You know on my planet when a women gets married some of their traits evens out but damn she is just as stubborn and irrational as she was before we married."

My steps falter slightly as I hear him. "Married?" I ask. He looks at me, "Barry I know that you weren't at our first one or this you wasn't, but you were at this decades wedding." His words only further my confusion.

Why is the SpeedForce introducing people I've never met and changing our lives. In the past the SpeedForce takes from real life and uses the bodies of people I know.

"Come on," He holds out his hand as we reach the DEO exit. "Barry run!" He is serious now. I sense his fear for Kara.

Fighting Reign was odd. Everything was new.

"Brainiac," Kara had sighed when we had shown up on the roof where a masked woman was standing. Their reunion was cut short as Reign knocks Brainiac to to the ground. "Supergirl this fight is ours." She then uses heat vision to shoot me. Using my speed I move from place to place.

"Shadow Lass now!" Kara yells. Shadow Lass steps out of the shadows, literally, and the whole world goes dark. Reign continues to shoot lasers out of her eyes at me as I try to dodge her I hear something thud to the ground and then the darkness retreats.

"No!" Kara begins to fly after Reign but stops once she removers Brainiac  and see the fallen hero. I kneel down.  "Shadow," Kara's body falls to the roof as she lays her friend's head in my lap. When she removes her hood my throat closes up and I try to move away.

"Shadow," she shakes her friend, "Letty please" she pleads as she holds me and Letty forcing me to stay in place.

Letty's red hair was covered by a dark hooded cape and her green eyes by a dark mask. Today she was known as a hero. Shadow Lass.

The cycle continued with every monster, villain, and weapon on every Earth, planet and timeline. Letty was never safe, not even with the hero's and legends. She died in my arms each morning, evening or night every day. Just like she I was doomed. We had faced and lost to every force out their except one.

Chapter 4

The day soon came that we faced him. This is enough. It's time. Letty, Letty wake up

"Ugh!" Covering my head with the pillow I attempt suffocating my self. Groaning I finally roll out off my no the SpeedForce's version of my bed.

My hair is disheveled and my shirt in the floor. Rubbing my palms on my eyes I try to remember my dream. It was dark. Terrifying. So much so that it is relief that washed over me now instead of dread.

Grabbing my shirt and throwing it in the dirty clothes bin (magically all my clothes are clean the next day) my shorts soon follow as I strip on the way to the bathroom. Despite the invisible house elves that clean up after me Hermione's and my moms words are drilled into me.

Stepping onto the cold stone I turn on the mildly warm water, but immediately turn it up so that the bathroom fills almost instantaneously with fog.

Closing my eyes I try to leave my mind blank but a face fills the black void. I am confused at first because the normal dark hair and dark skin are replaced with hair that looks as if it is dancing flames and a laugh that almost forces me back into reality.

As the water falls down my face I think of my mom. Is that why I feel this connection because of the similarities? Is it some sort of traumatic stress?

After scrubbing my hair and cleaning my body I step out of the shower. Looking in the mirror I see the same me. The same me that was struck by a lightning bolt. The same me that believed in his dad when no one else did. The same me that loved Iris West. But something is different. Something has changed.

Getting dressed in normal street clothes I grab a cup of coffee before heading out to whatever destination the SpeedForce has planned for today.

"You know," I speak to the walls as I walk downstairs, "I will save her." A women who lives a couple doors down walks past me at the door.

Her gaze holds mine a second longer than normal courtesies. I continue talking, "I am not scared to talk to you. Your like Big Brother. I know your at my- the copy of my apartment but that is kinda creepy, so to keep from loosing it I will talk and talk to remind my self where I am."

Turning the street corner the scene changes so that I am a street away from STAR Labs. "STAR Labs. Okay." I slow my pace I flash back to all the nights of holding Letty. "Not today."

"Not today?" Caitlin joins me on the elevator to the second floor. She is holding a weapon in her hands. "Savitar," she explains.

Every bone in my body freezes as I am truly reminded of the reason I'm here. Savitar is the reason for all of this. He put Wally in the SpeedForce and he plans to kill Iris.

"Barry!" Caitlin scolds me as I stand frozen in the now open elevator. Rushing at normal pace after her rushed legs we enter the lab.

"Yes!"Cisco exclaims upon seeing the weapon in Caitlin's arms. Looking around I notice the void of Joe and Iris. "Where's Iris?" I ask.

Drum sticks in hand HR looks at my shoulder as if I have a second head sprouting out of it. "Iris! BA I think you are a bit sleep deprived or perhaps you haven't had enough calories-" Cisco interrupts, "Letty is safe."

"Where?" My heart races as I think of loosing Letty to Savitar too.

"We can't tell you Barry. It's best if no one knows but HR," Caitlin looks at HR with a sisterly glare. She is worried just as everyone else is.

"So you figured out how to stop him?" "We umm," Cisco's unsure gaze floats back and forth, "are 90% sure." "90%!" My voice raises. "Letty's life is on the line and you are only 90%??"

No one says anything. "Today won't be 90%. Today I am going to save her. HR make sure Letty is far away from here as possible now."

As I prepare my self for meeting of Savitar I fail to notice the perfect performance of anguish that the SpeedForce has HR play.

"What?" I ask wearyly. My sanity is thin, my hands twitchy, and my heart pounding I watch as HR takes a minute that passes by in slow motion as he collects his thoughts.

"Spit it out!" Caitlin yells causing us all to jump. My anxiety clearly affecting the SpeedForce. "I thought it-he was you," his hands twitch as the drum sticks in his fingers swing.

"you've all given me so so much, you know? You've given me a home, you've given me a purpose.

Now you've led me to the woman that I adore," referring to the person I assume that we got the weapon that could possibly kill Savitar from, "that I wanna spend my future with, and through it all, what have I done? What have I done? What have I contributed except" drums on hat, "some fair-to-middling drumming, and lead Savitar directly to Letty."

My heart starts beating so fast I am concerned that it will phase through my chest. I turn on my heals after using my speed to put on my suit. At the door I stop.

I know that he isn't real but the part of me that is beginning to believe that this isn't just an allusion forces me to comfort him. "Savitar tricked you HR." " I'm the one who opened his big, fat mouth, and now we're all in trouble, and especially Letty, 'cause I couldn't keep my mouth shut!"

Using my speed I stand directly in front of the unique and most favorable yet unlikely Wells, "It was not your fault." My voice is stern as I will him to believe me, "it could have happened to any of us. You gonna hold down the fort," I punch his hat lightly. "Yeah" he chuckles.

"Of course you are. 'cause that's what you do.You show up.You're ready. Dependable when we need you the most." With that I depart to the location I already know the SpeedForce has set up for the next scene.

As I reach the all to familiar street I am met with Savitar whose identity is still not known to me and Letty held tightly in his metal grip.

Her red hair lights up the dark sky around her and her green eyes that are always filled with mischief, good or bad, yet undecided, are hopeful even before she spots me.

She is counting on me. She isn't pleading or crying. She trust me.

"Now the moment is upon us." Savitar's voice fills the air, "My ascension to become a god." "Not tonight," I step up to him keeping Letty's facial features in the forefront of my vision.

"Show me your the hero," he mocks as his grip tightens on her throat causing Letty to gasp, "Let's see what happens."

"I'm gonna stop you," I inform him as the night officially falls on us. Savitar shoves Letty to the ground.

My body flinches as anger courses through me. In the vision I was a wreck. I was pleading, but despair isn't the emotion I feel. No I feel overwhelmed with feelings of hate, rancor, and animosity towards the SpeedForce and Savitar.

"Cisco there isn't much of time," I tell him through the coms. "Now Barry."

Using the weapon that is shoved through the portal into my hands i shoot at the spot he had been standing, but as expected he runs.

Following his movements I try again and again to hit him. Our game from above must resemble that of a cat and mouse. And today I'm the cat.

"It's working!" Cisco shouts in the com. Savitar goes to his knees as I continue blasting him.

Standing up Savitar opens his arms and dispels the energy. "What?" For the first time my tone shifts to despair. Letty lies on the ground next to Savitar. Her head on the cold concrete steps and her eyes closed.

"That's it?" Savitar laughs. "You think that I would allow myself to be trapped again?" My brain doesn't register that technically he is trapped now as am I.

Crushing his hand the last trace of the red energy now known as the SpeedForce dissolves, "you stuck me in the SpeedForce for an eternity of hell," again his words have no impact. All I see is her beautiful green eyes.

Bright red hair. Her dressed as a villain, a hero, a victim. Hear hear her laugh. The girl who is destined to die.

"Barry," Cisco's voice comes through the coms, "she is conscious. She is faking it. Keep him distracted." I look at the women laying in the step at Savitars feet.

Her skin is pale and her eyes closed but I can see her shiver slightly wether from the cold or her future actions I'm not sure.

"Then kill me!" I yell. "I won't let you kill her. Not here. I will not let you win. Not here not outside of the SpeedForce not on any earth!" Harrison would tell me that my anger isn't just toward Savitar but the SpeedForce. Either way neither of them will take Letty.

"Kill you?" Savitar steps forward his hand that had reached down to pick up Letty hangs at his side. "I will kill everyone you have ever loved. Letty, Joe, Wally, Iris, Caitlin, Cisco" he steps toward me with every name.

Then a really bad idea hits me. I run straight at him phasing through the front of his suit pushing him out.

"You will never touch them." My voice sound like that or Savitar.

Looking down at the man in the suit a moment of recognition flashes in my brain but I quickly tell my self I'm delusional as Letty pulls out a pen that turns to a sword and stabs the man in the chest.

I vibrate my body at such a high frequency that it shatter the metal. Stepping towards the living breathing red head I fall onto the ground of Savitar dissolving body.

Pulling her into my arms the image of the man on the ground leaves my mind. The sun is gone and she's still here.

I hear sighs on the other end of the coms. "You did it," Letty whispers against my shoulder. Loosening my deathly grip I correct her, "you did it. I guess that's what had to happen you. You had to save yourself."

She looks into my eyes, "Barry Allen you might as well be speaking in tongue, but then again we both almost were killed so I excuse you for being a little disoriented."

My happiness for her survival caused me to forget that she doesn't remember any of the past nights, any of her past lives.

"I have a lot to tell you," I keep one arm around her waist and let the other travel up to play with a wild strand of hair resting on her shoulder.

A cough is forced into our bubble as almost the full SpeedForce cast shows up.

"Why don't you go explain to Letty some where more private," Cisco jokes as he motions toward our close proximity.

Moving closer to the group I pull Letty with the arm around her waist. I know what it looks like, but I can't stand to let go of her not after...not until we get to leave with Wally.

"It's over." I tell the SpeedForce Cisco. I don't mean Savitar I mean the trial. I found the lost item. I saved her. Now we get to go home.

"Not yet," Caitlin scrunches her nose. "Not yet?" The anger is back in a snap. I step forward my hand dropped from Letty's waist and is in a ball at my side.

Letty places her hand on my chest. "Barry," she looks at me with life in her eyes. Closing mine I confess, "I can't take this anymore. I'm going crazy."