Here we are, finally at the last chapter of "Aspic of the Universe." I'll save the sappy comments for the end, but, for now, thank you for coming along this far.

Enjoy!

At first, it wasn't so bad. The shivering, he could handle. If he pressed himself into a tight ball, muscles taut, he could even ignore the headache for a while.

After what felt like hours, but what was likely only one, Barry sincerely wanted to die.

It wasn't just the shaking, or the headache. Not even the nausea, the cold sweat, the dizziness. It was the sensation that something was nesting under his skin, in between tendons and bones, that was fighting to claw out. Pain, pain throughout his entire body, but an unusual kind of pain. The kind that festered and manifested in a whisper:

Let me out. You know you want to—this isn't the best version of you. Of us. Let me out.

At some indeterminate point in time, Caitlin brought him water, food, but thankfully honored his desire to keep the pipeline cell shut tight. He didn't see her come or go; his head was buried in the darkness of his knees in an attempt to stave off the worst. He heard her leave though, heard the too-loud clacks of heels on metal. Perhaps she was afraid to stay too long. He wouldn't blame her. In fact, he expected it.

Let me out, Flash. Let us be fast. You can't do anything for anyone locked up in this cell. You think this will solve your problems?

"It will get rid of you," Barry mumbled into the scuffed leather of his knees.

You don't want to get rid of me. You want to be fast. You want to stop Zoom from hurting anyone again.

Barry scrunched up his face, breathed in shallow gulps of stale air.

Don't fight it.

"Go away," he said, more firmly.

"Ouch. Can't say wasn't expecting a tough crowd, but I didn't know you wanted me gone that much."

Barry jerked his head up and the world outside of the cell swam into focus. Cisco stood a few feet from the glass, hands shoved into his pockets. How long he had been there was impossible to say, but from the looks of it he was more than a little disturbed by what he was seeing.

"I wasn't talking to you," Barry croaked.

"Oh, that makes me feel loads better," Cisco said. "'Hey, I wasn't talking to you, I was just talking to the voices in my head.'"

It was true, but Barry figured it was wise to drop the subject. The words I'm sorry still sprang to his tongue, but Cisco spoke again before he could form them.

"Caitlin told me you'd locked yourself in here," Cisco said. "She said you were already making progress." A pause. "Is it true?"

"I don't know, Cisco," Barry said tiredly. "Does this look like progress?"

Cisco considered. Looked him up and down, catalogued the sweat and the vibrations. Shrugged. Removed his hands from his pockets. Crossed his arms.

"What made you do it?" he said, instead of answering. His voice had gone very quiet. "You can tell me that, at least?"

Barry's initial response was to ask Do what? because, in truth, he had done so much damage in the past few days he wasn't even sure where to begin. He closed his eyes against a swell of dizziness, the sensation of falling, before speaking.

"Eliza and Trajectory were two separate beings," Barry began slowly. "The V9 kind of…divided them. It was almost the same with me. There was me and then there was…a better me. A faster me."

"Jekyll and Hyde."

"Sure," Barry said, eager to agree with Cisco. "After Zoom, after he proved to me time and time again that he could beat me, I've been stuck in this place where I know I'm not fast enough. The V9 gave me that. It gave me the ability to go fast enough to save my friends. When you're already nursing that desire, it doesn't take a huge catalyst to bring it to the surface."

"Yeah, with one key problem," Cisco said coldly. "Unless killing me is somehow part of your grand plan to save me."

"That other voice, the one that needed to be better—it took control," Barry explained. "It was just so desperate, and so angry, and so afraid."

Cisco shifted.

"See, the thing is, Barry," he said, "you're talking about this like it's a different entity, when you said it yourself: this V9 divides a person. That other voice, the better Barry, that was still you."

"I know." Heat pooled behind Barry's eyes. "I know that. And I'm so, so sorry."

Instead of looking at him further, Cisco looked over at the control panels for the cell door. "You know, under normal circumstances I would trust you enough to open this door and make you come up to the medical bay."

The hollowness of the unspoken dug a chunk out of Barry's stomach. "Do you trust me?"

Cisco's lips tightened. "No."

With a quiet sigh, Barry leaned back against the wall. "Good."

Without another word, Cisco turned his back and strode out.

Time passed indeterminately, an inconsistent construct. When Barry closed his eyes, he was assaulted by nightmares, mostly featuring Zoom, but some more horrible ones involving Cisco, Caitlin, and Iris staring sightlessly upward with holes in their chests. The dead person in question was always a surprise in these dreams, but the one thing that never changed was the fact that Barry himself was the culprit.

Eventually the voice at the back of his mind faded, removing significant pressure in his skull, and he stopped vibrating so violently. Caitlin, Iris, or Joe occasionally came down with food, which he couldn't keep down. An overwhelming part of him wished that the security cameras for the cell had been turned off, but when Caitlin arrived at his door to clean him up minutes after he vomited up his lunch, his suspicions were confirmed.

Caitlin also kept good on her promise to read to him, sitting on the other side of the glass and reading a chapter out of Game of Thrones, or Harry Potter, or, if he was particularly unlucky, one of the science books she was currently invested in. Though their talk was minimal, the sentiment was still appreciated.

"Don't tell me you don't read these kinds of books on your own," Caitlin said one time of the science books. "You're a scientist."

"I may read them, but I speed-read them. They're not the kind of books you savor," he responded.

"Section 4.2," Caitlin continued loudly, and Barry groaned dramatically. Caitlin smiled just a smidgeon at the gesture. Humor, they'd both found, was one of the most helpful strategies they could come up with to speed up recovery.

In between spells of company, Barry dozed when he could, or else stared idly at blank spots in the floor or the wall. Once upon a time the quiet and the nothingness might have driven him crazy, but now the white noise almost acted as a bleaching agent on the thoughts at the back of his brain. Constant pain gave way to weakness, anger dissolved into sadness—but all of that, he reasoned, he could deal with. In time.

Some time later, after three chapters of Game of Thrones, five chapters of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and two chapters of Caitlin's science book, Barry heard soft, hesitant footsteps at the entrance to the pipeline. He kept his eyes closed against a curl of nausea that had begun that morning but called out, "I really hope it's Harry Potter this time."

When there was no response, just footsteps, Barry opened his eyes and was shocked to find not Caitlin, but Cisco, walking toward him.

"Sorry to disappoint," Cisco said. He shuffled forward, and Barry readjusted himself. "I guess I forgot to take your book order."

"It's fine," Barry insisted. "I just thought you were Caitlin."

"Again, sorry for the disappointment."

"Cisco." For the first time in days, Barry allowed for some firmness in his voice. "Can we talk about this?"

"I don't think there is much to talk about," Cisco said. He visibly swallowed. "I understand that you weren't in your right mind. I'm sorry, even, that you felt like you had to go to such drastic lengths to compensate for something you already have."

He chewed on silence. For once, Barry didn't try to interject.

"But," he continued, "it's still pretty damn terrifying watching your best friend in the world try to kill you."

"I'm so sorry," Barry said, and he knew he wouldn't stop repeating the words on a loop for weeks to come. "I don't expect you to forgive me. I messed up."

"Big time," Cisco said, but at this his shoulders relaxed just a fraction. "And I do believe that you're sorry. That's how I know you're Barry again."

The space between them hung on tenterhooks—for what it was worth, it might have been miles long. A vacuum of sound. An aspic of broken glass, suspended. Barry again felt a pang of hurt deep in his stomach, the agony of a hole that could not be stitched up. He saw it on Cisco's face, too: layers and layers of scar tissue that smoldered instead of dutifully going numb.

After a slight pause, Cisco walked forward a few more steps. "Caitlin says you're doing better."

"Yeah, but don't let me out," Barry said, for the first time panicking, raising his hand to stop Cisco. Cisco, however, barked out a laugh.

"Oh, trust me, that's the last item on my list of things I want to do. Right after 'marathon the Transformers movies.'" When Barry shot him a puzzled look, he pulled something out from behind his back. "It's not Harry Potter, but it should at least pass the time alright."

Barry squinted at the title and, all at once, felt a single stitch pass through that hole in his gut. Wrath of Khan.

"I mean," Cisco said, with the barest hint of a smile, "if it's all the same to you."

Ten minutes later he'd gotten the projector set up—ironically, the same projector he'd used when organizing his infamous rogue movie nights—and clicked on the movie. Twenty minutes later Barry quietly did his first Shatner impression, which elicited an even tinier, barely-suppressed smirk from Cisco.

Thirty minutes later Caitlin walked into the pipeline and found them intently watching the film as they did every other month. It was notably more subdued than usual, neither one even attempting the standard quips and outrageous comments that permeated their viewings. But still silently watching, shoulder to shoulder on opposite sides of the glass.

That was how she found them, and that was how she joined them, taking her place on the floor beside Cisco and blessedly pretending not to see the way Barry sagged with unexplainable emotion when she did.

The pipeline whirred around them as they huddled there, willing time and space to reorient themselves. Barry pressed his forehead against the cool glass of his cell. He chanced a glance over at his friends, watched the light from the projector flickering on their faces.

Second by second, beat by beat, the world began its slow turn back to normal speed.

That's it, folks!

Like I said, thank you so much for joining me on this wild ride. I feel like it's over so quickly, but I have really appreciated all of your feedback. I was incredibly nervous to tackle this kind of story because it was new to me both stylistically and thematically-but the comments I've gotten back have been outstanding! This really isn't the same without all of you, so thank you, thank you, for taking the time to read and respond to my work (the fact that you do is still amazing to me!).

Another longfic(ish) is in the works now, but it may be a while before that one is completed and ready to post. Until then, hopefully some one-shots and the like, or come pass the hiatus time with me over on tumblr at pennflinn.

Thanks again. Truly.

Till next time,

Penn