So this is basically a fic focused on how I ~hope~ the show will handle the psychological trauma Iris (and to an extent, Barry) will have to deal with following the s6 Mirrorverse storyline. While this chapter mainly focuses on Barry, the rest will have a heavy focus on Iris, so stay tuned! There are at least 3 more chapters to come. :)

It didn't take much to wake Barry Allen these days. In fact, his restlessness the past few weeks hadn't been this bad since he was eleven years old. Back then, it was the image of his mother, reaching out for him as red and yellow lights swirled around her that he knew he would see when he closed his eyes that kept him up. And while the last few years had created countless horrific scenes to relive in nightmares, nothing had fostered the level of unease he now felt surrounding him with every breath. Now, it wasn't fear of sleep that kept him up, but of everything around him in waking, and of the flashing watch on his wrist that reminded him he didn't have the power to fight them.

A few nights ago specifically, his restlessness couldn't even confine him to his bed. Instead, it drew him into a late night purge. It was well past 2am by the time he returned home to a space full of shattered mirrors. Between the energy used for speed healing and his late night rendezvous several county's over, everything in his body told him to sleep, to rest, to fight this battle tomorrow. But with every step he took deeper into the home he hadn't lived in for a week, so much felt foreign to him.

This is where we ate together. This is where we binged that new crappy reality show on Netflix. This is where we laughed, this is where we kissed, this is where she crumbled to pieces in his arms ...

Every space felt tainted with falsehoods. Moments he thought were something else entirely being rewritten with every glance around the loft.

It wasn't her. All that time it was someone … something else.

But as every place in the apartment felt damaged, each was equally matched with some of the very moments that were driving him forward.

This is where he and Iris held their first Thanksgiving. This is where they played scrabble with their daughter. This is where she fell asleep in the first movie of the Star Wars marathon. This is where she spilt an entire glass of red wine across all 3 rugs. This is where he told her he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. Twice. This is where she said yes. Twice. This is where they lived.

Though now, of course, it was only he who lived there.

With his mind more alert than ever, he shoved his tired body into motion. Not with speed, but with determination.

This was going to be their home again. And when it is, it will be theirs and only theirs.

He swept up all the glass shards he could find. He then carried the bagged up remains and all but one mirror down to the curb outside the apartment. He questioned throwing them all away, wondering what Eva could still do to them, with them, in such a close proximity to him. But she was not the only one connected to that mirror. If there was even the slightest chance that Iris could hear him, could see him, could sense him in any way through it, could escape through it, he would string it across his back to keep it with him at all times if he could.

The 4am frenzy that followed was not planned or calculated. But as simply as Barry had put the piece of their apartment together 3 years ago, he found himself doing it again.

What if he moved the couch under the window? What if he changed the direction of the dinning table? What if he moved this art piece, this vase, this book, this glass, this -

It was nearly daybreak by the time Barry realized there was one room, one big room, he had missed.

As he crept up the stairs he found it harder than he had anticipated to enter the most intimate place in his home.

This was the only bed that had ever been theirs. From the moment it was delivered to the center of their cold cement floor living room to nearly every night since. That was the last place he had been with her. The last place he has seen her, through slits in his eyes as he drifted to sleep. Before she left to follow her lead. Before she got trapped in that place.

Before he knew it, he was stripping the bed clean. First sheet, then comforters, pillows, all haphazardly thrown to the floor. He caught a glimpse of the towels in the bathroom and threw them into the pile as well. Then he began pulling at the bare mattress and bed frame, turning them around in the opposite direction. This resulted in the movement of side tables, dressers, chairs, everything.

Everything needed a new place.

By full fledged morning nearly every moveable piece of furniture in the loft has been adjusted. Bed covering sat shoved into trash bags by the front door, the bed they had once covered still bare and unoccupied. The current sole resident of this loft had instead finally found slumber across the slim window seat that spanned the length of the apartment, the sparsely drawn curtains behind him pulled to hide the now bright morning sun.

While the following night he did get replacements for all his discarded linens, he did not use them for the next several days. Instead, he slept on the just-too-short couch he had just moved from the center of the apartment and tried his hardest not to think of all the nights Iris did the exact same thing when he was in the unknown …

Tonight, however, was different. Tonight he sunk deeply into his mattress as if it were the most comfortable place in the world. And to him, in fact, it was, leading to the soundest sleep he had since his all began.

And that was entirely because he had fallen asleep with his wife safely and tightly enveloped in his arms.