Well, here we are! The last chapter of Juncture. It's a bit longer than usual, so enjoy!

(Typical sappy notes at the end of the chapter!)

Iris was helping Jesse when her dad and Harry made their way back up to the cortex. It wasn't that she'd forgotten them down there in the speed cannon room, but the winded speedster in front of her drew a bit more attention. Jesse had managed to make it back to STAR without incident, but all the protein bars Iris was pressing her way didn't do much for her energy levels.

"Thank God," said Joe, running for Iris as Harry ran for Jesse. "When I came to and didn't see you downstairs—I assumed the worst."

"Zoom?"

"Gone," Jesse breathed past Harry's embrace. "Dead. Dissolved. Whatever."

Harry pulled away to look at her. "You…?"

"Both of us," Jesse said, dipping her chin meaningfully at Iris.

Harry cupped her face, a rare moment of brokenness crossing his face. "I'm so glad you're safe."

Jesse's eyes crinkled. On Iris' arm, Joe's grip tightened.

When the moment passed, Iris opened her mouth to speak. She intended to say something reassuring or inspiring or hopeful, but what came out was a shriek of surprise when a breach exploded just feet from the group.

Joe and Harry both immediately dove for the guns they had carried up from the basement and aimed them at the breach. The brief moment of peace unraveled under the sharp edges of fear. It wasn't over, Iris realized. They'd only solved half of the equation, and the other half still threatened to bring them down. One Zoom still ran free.

The breach contracted. Blinked. Four figures tumbled out.

"Don't shoot," said Cisco weakly. "We come in peace."

The breach dissolved, and Iris felt she might as well.

"You made it," she said, her voice coming out as only a whisper. The tears and the joy tightened her throat in equal measure.

Caitlin, still in the same clothes as when she'd been taken days ago, guided a man in a metal mask to a seat. Stationary, Cisco looked ready to crumple under the weight of a barely-upright Barry Allen. The speedster, all red-rimmed eyes and sunken cheeks, caught sight of Iris.

"Hi," he croaked.

Iris leapt forward without a word. Cisco willingly surrendered Barry's bulk into Iris' embrace. She pulled him close, mindful of injuries she couldn't yet see but knew were present, breathing in the copper stench of his hair and the hints of lightning heat that still lingered beneath the surface. His face was too hot against her neck, fever hot.

"Hey," he repeated into her hair.

"Hey," she hiccuped. "Welcome home."

His response was to hold her tighter.

Eventually, when he began to sag in her arms, she knew it was time to relinquish him. Joe took his son around the waist and helped him to the bed that Jesse had whisked out.

Emotionally spent, Iris found Caitlin's gaze next. To her surprise, the other woman's eyes glistened as well, and she shivered visibly.

"Are you okay?" Iris asked. She eyed the dark bruise on Caitlin's jaw. "He didn't hurt you, did he?"

"He's dead," said Caitlin. "I killed him." She bit her lip, and the hug came naturally, before either of them could properly break.

Caitlin was still shaking when they pulled apart, but less so. Her eyes looked harder, more determined.

"Cisco," she said, "you should lie down. Harry, can you grab the handheld x-ray and do a quick scan on him?"

"I don't need—" Cisco protested.

"Just want to make sure," Caitlin said firmly. "Iris, will you help me out with Barry? I'm going to need an extra hand."

The realization that one of Caitlin's thumbs was bent at an unnatural angle struck hard, but Iris didn't allow herself to linger on it. Caitlin certainly wasn't.

"Whatever you need," Iris said. "Talk me through it."

Joe had already unzipped the top of Barry's suit, much to Iris' horror. She hadn't anticipated how bad her friend would look. He had already lapsed into unconsciousness, and she couldn't blame him. His chest looked like a bad finger-painting, smears of blood and bruises, and certainly at least one broken rib. It was hard to know what to look at first.

"Hunt—Zoom let me do a little treatment." Caitlin fumbled to fit a glove over her good hand. "But I didn't have nearly the resources or time to do anything significant. He was half-starved already when I got to him."

Joe gritted his teeth. "I don't care if there are two dead versions of Zoom. I wish I could've shot the bastard myself."

Iris pursed her lips and said nothing. She was done thinking about Zoom. She didn't ever want to think of Zoom again.

But that was hard when his claw marks glared deep and red on the body in front of her.

"He'll recover, won't he?" Joe asked, already reaching for the damp rags that Jesse had sped over.

"We've got some work in front of us," said Caitlin, "but he should be fine. He hasn't stopped fighting yet. She paused as Iris reached over to help with the glove. "Thanks."

"No problem," Iris replied. "Just tell me what to do."

It was quiet in the supply closet. The quietest place Caitlin could find—and the smallest. After an hour of quick heartbeats, panic, medical instruments clanging and people shouting, this had seemed like the logical place to go. It didn't smell like antiseptic or blood. It smelled warm. And it was just dark enough that she could pretend, for a few minutes, that it was the only place in existence. No wide-open spaces. Sturdy walls and a sturdy door.

She was huddled against the wall with her knees up against her chest when she heard the footsteps, when that door creaked open.

It was Iris, of course. She took care in closing the door before taking a seat beside Caitlin.

"I wasn't sure where you'd gone," Iris said. "I can leave if you want to be alone."

There was a scream, maybe a very old scream, that was lodged in Caitlin's throat—she feared that if she opened her mouth, it would burst out of her like an alien creature. Instead of speaking, she just shook her head.

Even though she'd run her hands under warm water, there was still blood on them. She hadn't taken the time necessary to wash it all off; after finishing her exhaustive treatment on Barry, she'd fled the scene quickly.

"I didn't have a chance to talk to you. You need medical attention too, you know." Iris pointed at Caitlin's hand. "May I?"

Caitlin nodded, and Iris gently took Caitlin's injured hand to inspect it. The pain hardly registered anymore.

"He did this to you?"

"No. I did it. To get away."

"Oh," Iris said softly. She lowered Caitlin's hand, then frowned. "Cait, you're still shivering."

Without prompting, she reached up for a blanket from one of the shelves. It fell heavy around Caitlin's shoulders, instantly providing warmth, but she still trembled so hard she couldn't keep her hands still.

"I k-killed him," she said. "I killed him."

The three words had repeated themselves on a loop ever since she'd retreated to this quiet place. They cut deeper and deeper each time, surely by this time embedding themselves in her bones.

"Shh," Iris said, drawing close. "You did what you had to do."

"I killed him and I think—I think I would do it again," Caitlin said. "I think he was right about me. I think that I'm a—"

She couldn't say the word. She'd called Hunter a monster so many times, the word tasted stale. No, not stale. Bitter. Bitter like cough syrup, bitter like bile in the back of her throat.

"I don't know what I am," she decided, after Iris allowed her space to catch her breath.

"Human," Iris said firmly. "We're just beings who love fiercely. Terrifyingly. Beings who aren't ever one thing at one time." Caitlin noticed that despite the confidence in Iris' voice, her hands were shaking. "Hunter wanted so badly to be a god, to shape us in his image. To make us worse. But I have to believe that we're more than what he made us do, in the end. That we aren't some set of moral scales, tipping one way or the other."

Caitlin looked over and saw that Iris' cheeks were glistening.

"I'm sorry," Iris said. "Really, I am."

"Me too," Caitlin whispered. She offered Iris a corner of the blanket. Iris accepted with a soft thank you. "Can we just…sit here for a while?"

"Yeah," Iris said. "Yeah, I think I would like that."

Caitlin flattened her spine against the wall, closed her eyes, breathed in deep. STAR Labs whirred about them, steady on and oblivious. For a long while, they were content to listen.

"Staring at him isn't going to make him better."

Cisco turned at Jesse's voice. He blinked heavily, trying to bring her to focus. "You're supposed to be resting."

"Aren't we all?" Jesse said.

After the initial frantic medical business, Team Flash had set up all the beds they could spare, forming a sort of dormitory in the cortex, but all of those beds save Barry's and Cisco's were suspiciously empty. Cisco perched cross-legged on his, facing Barry. He'd been observing, through half-lidded eyes, the rise and fall of the speedster's chest, the monitor by his bed. A smudge of blood still adorned his jaw. Cisco had been meaning to get up, to wipe it off, to make everything look a little more normal, but he hadn't yet worked up the energy.

"I can't sleep," Cisco admitted. "I abandoned him there. It's a miracle he's still breathing. I can't imagine what it was like, to be there for so long."

"I can," said Jesse gently. Now that Cisco was more in tune with speed, he was able to sense when Jesse's drew closer. "I know I never felt abandoned there. Scared, sure. But never resentful."

"I can't shake the feeling that someone's going to come whisk him away again," Cisco said.

"They're not," Jesse said. "I think we've made sure of that."

Cisco shifted on the bed, winced. Every one of his muscles were stiff. Harry had confirmed that there were no broken bones, but the effects of taking Jay's speed still made themselves known in a big way.

"Iris filled me in on what you did out there," he said. "How you defeated him. That took a lot of guts."

Jesse smiled something of a private smile. Then she said: "That's actually what I wanted to come talk to you about. I mean, I wanted to say thank you. For training with me and for…for showing me how to have faith in myself. I know you were afraid of your powers. But you did great things when you embraced them. I think I want to do the same thing."

She fiddled with the end of her ponytail, clearly shy about what she'd said, but the words struck Cisco deeply. Unexpected warmth bloomed in his chest, the cavities where doubt so often lingered.

"I hope you don't mean tonight," he said, though the quip had a softer edge than usual. "I need my beauty rest, and I can't let you go out in the field without a proper suit."

Jesse's face brightened. "You're serious?"

"Pinky-swear serious."

"Wow, thank you." Jesse clasped her hands in front of her, seemingly fighting the urge to jump up and down on the spot. Boundless energy, boundless hope—Cisco prayed she would never stray from it. "Well, I'm going to head downstairs; I think my dad's camping out down there. Unless you need anything?"

"Go," Cisco said. "You two deserve some time to talk without the end of the world hanging over us."

With another bright smile, Jesse flashed away.

Cisco couldn't help but smile to himself, too, if only for a moment.

He had resumed his vigil over Barry by the time Iris and Caitlin entered the cortex, but he turned at their arrival. They walked slowly, both of them clearly exhausted, but sticking close.

"Hey," he said, automatically lowering his voice. "You both disappeared. Everything good?"

"We'll get there," Iris supplied for the both of them. Caitlin didn't appear capable of talking—or, at least, not willing. Shell-shocked, Cisco thought. It appeared that Iris had at least managed to bandage up the chafed-up wrists, but he knew that the hurt ran deeper. For all of them. "Any space for a few sleepy superheroes?"

"Plenty," Cisco said. He watched as Iris and Caitlin found two of the empty cots. Seemingly out of habit, Caitlin made one last pass over Barry before settling down in her own bed. Cisco regarded her nervously. "Still look alright?"

Caitlin nodded, carefully settled herself on her side.

Iris spoke for her. "He's still fighting."

"Not fighting," Caitlin said. "Healing."

"You're right," Iris said. "Of course, you're right. Not a bad idea for all of us. He'll probably be out for a while, anyway."

She looked pointedly at Cisco, who reluctantly followed her lead in lying back down in his cot. He took a last look at Barry's emaciated form, and all the fear and guilt from the past few hours made one more pass through his chest.

It was over, he reminded himself. It was all over. He took a breath.

Caitlin and Iris were asleep within minutes. Ever vigilant, Cisco waited until all three of his friends were breathing evenly before closing his own eyes. It wasn't long before he joined the rest in oblivion—a semicircle of sleeping forms in the cortex, a quiet full of blissful peace.

The first thing Barry wanted to do upon waking up was go back to sleep. He felt dense, heavy, cold. It was no longer the sensation of floating outside of his body, although the ceiling did spin when he opened his eyes.

The first indication that he was no longer in the confines of his cell was the brightness that stung his eyes. Then the softness beneath his spine. Then the steady, familiar repetition of a heart monitor beeping somewhere to his right.

Barry knew home intuitively. And he felt it now.

When he slowly began searching the room, his gaze alighted first on Cisco. His friend's face stretched into a grin.

"Wakey wakey," Cisco said. "Wow, you caught me in the act. You still need to prevent crime, even when you're comatose, huh?"

"What?" Barry grunted, finding it hard to track threads between words.

Cisco held up something red. "I'm stealing Caitlin's jell-o. I came in here on the pretense of checking up on you, but I was really just going to eat this jel—you know what, never mind, it doesn't matter, you're awake now." He set down the cup of jell-o, face softening. "How do you feel?"

Barry blinked long and heavy. "Like…I was just held captive for two weeks."

"Now, why would you ever feel like that?" Cisco teased, though the concern made itself known in the crinkle between his eyebrows, the sympathy in his eyes.

Barry tried to lift a hand to his face, to try and clear the blurriness from his vision, but his arm might as well have been weighted with sand. Cisco waited patiently for him to orient himself, find the train of conversation again.

"How long was I out?"

"Longer than we would've liked," Cisco said seriously. But also not long enough for any of the bruises on Cisco's face to start healing, Barry noted. "Zoom did a pretty poor job of keeping you alive. I'm sorry—" He paused, collecting himself. "I'm sorry it took so long."

"You came back, just like you said," said Barry. "You made good on your promise. I can't thank you enough."

"Yeah, well," Cisco said, "you saved me back there too."

"Mm." Barry squinted up at the ceiling, unable to focus on anything in particular. Vibrating out of the cell, those heart-pounding moments of watching Jay nearly stab Cisco to death—it was all dreamlike. If Cisco hadn't brought it up, Barry might have been inclined to believe it hadn't happened. "Guess needing to save my friends was better incentive to getting out of that cell than needing to save myself."

"Stop," Cisco said gently, self-consciously. Then: "Stop, dude. Wait, don't try to move so fast. You're all bandaged up like the Mummy." Barry had tried, unsuccessfully, to sit up, but had fallen back trembling. "Hold on, let me get Caitlin. Sit tight."

Barry didn't have much of a choice, as Cisco hustled out of the small recovery room and into the cortex beyond. Barry had done enough "sitting tight" lately to last him a long while. The constricting fear was replaced by swaths of bandages, the confines of the cell swapped out for the tether of an IV line. He was still far too weak to move; that, coupled with the relative smallness of the recovery room, was enough to set his anxiety rolling.

Two weeks. Had it really been that long? Now that he was back in STAR, it was easy to pretend that it had all been a dream. The horror was pushed back a notch, though still close enough to touch. He was suspended somewhere between surrealism and true reality, the ache of near-death hopelessness still hanging over him.

"…thought you said he was awake."

"We had an actual conversation. He must've fallen back asleep."

"I'm awake," Barry said, dragging his eyes open and realizing that he'd accidentally drifted.

Instead of just Caitlin as Cisco had promised, Iris also joined the group that now packed their way inside the recovery room. He saw her first, and she gave him a sad smile. It looked like she hadn't slept in weeks.

"I knew you probably didn't want an audience, but Iris insisted," Cisco said, perching on the counter to give Caitlin more room to work.

"Thank you," he tried to say.

"A little light," Caitlin warned, before clicking on the penlight and shining it into his eyes. His eyes watered, but Caitlin looked pleased. "All looks good there. How's everything else feeling?"

"I've been better." No need to sugar-coat things at this point. He could see the splint on Caitlin's thumb, the butterfly bandages on Cisco's face, the bruising on Iris' throat. There wasn't much to hide in this room.

"That's not surprising," said Caitlin in her usual matter-of-fact tone. "The Speed Force in your cells has not fully regenerated after the damage that was done, so your wounds aren't healing like they normally would."

"On the plus side, you've got some sweet painkillers," Cisco added.

Caitlin ignored him. "The real damage is in muscle atrophy and malnutrition."

"What does that all mean?"

"It means I'm worried about you," Caitlin said. "But that you're going to be okay, with time. You won't be outrunning evil speedsters any time soon."

"Good thing I don't have to," Barry said, looking meaningfully at her, then Iris, then Cisco. He tilted his head so his cheek met the pillow. Outside, in the cortex, he could just see the the other members of Team Flash. They mingled around the central console, chatting too quietly to hear. One face made him frown.

"You guys called my dad?"

Everyone paused, and Barry got the distinct impression that they were all silently judging who would best respond. Iris did, at last.

"No," she said, with a touch of guilt. "We haven't told him yet. That man in there, he's…well, he's your dad's doppelganger. He's the man in the iron mask."

Barry tried to clear his vision, tried to get a better picture of the somber man who sat at a distance in the cortex. He'd never seen his dad with a beard before.

"You didn't tell him the best part," Cisco said. "This dude's from Earth-3, and guess what? He's the Flash on that earth. He's the real Jay Garrick—Zoom stole his name."

"Hm." It was too much new information for him to handle at the moment, so Barry didn't say anything more. It was something he could process at a later time, along with everything else he'd apparently missed: Cisco's transformation into a full-fledged superhero, Jesse's powers, the way Caitlin and Iris leaned more closely on each other for support.

"Everyone is fine?" he said, the one question he immediately needed an answer to.

"Everyone is fine," Iris said. "Bumps and bruises and scrapes. Some things that may take a little longer to heal." She nodded at Caitlin, whose lip quivered almost imperceptibly.

"I was able to vibe a message to the Earth-2 gang, like I was able to vibe Iris into Zoom's lair," Cisco added. "They're all okay as well. I told Dante to look for Killer Frost, wherever she ran off to. Now that they're both reformed, I mean."

"Dante?" Barry said.

"Long story," Cisco amended, "which I will tell later. Given the state of you, I don't think you'd last through half of it. Suffice it to say, I have a lunch date with my Earth-1 brother on Friday."

Barry opened his mouth to question further, but Caitlin stopped him.

"We'll all have time to catch up later," she said.. "Nothing strenuous, remember?" She looked at the others pointedly.

"No, I want to hear everything," Barry said. "Being alone there, being…not able to talk to any of you…that was one of the worst parts. I didn't know if any of you were dead, or hurt, or…"

"It's okay," Iris said, perhaps sensing that Barry was working himself up and placing a hand on his wrist to calm him. "We're all here."

Barry tried to collect his rapidly spiraling thoughts, needing to get the words out before his eyes closed of their own accord. "Thank you," he said softly, "for coming back for me. For not leaving me there."

"Oh, Barry," Iris said. "Did you ever doubt we would?"

Yes, Barry thought, thinking again of those terrible hours of feeling his body shutting down, the realization that dying might not be the worst option he'd had. In his lucid moments, of course he had no doubt that his friends would do anything in their power to save him. But there was no room for rational thought in that juncture between life and death.

"Just…thank you," he mumbled. "I don't know what I can ever do to thank you enough. All of you saved my life."

"You don't have to do anything," Cisco said with a somewhat forced, somewhat sad, smile. He patted Barry's knee. "Just heal."

"Not a bad idea," Barry said, and the room lifted with light chuckles. He tried a smile too, and it came out lopsided. His muscles were slow, his speech slurred. "We should do…something…movie, or…"

There was a split second of realization that his eyes were closed, and then his consciousness was wiped clean like a blackboard.

When he woke again, he was sure he'd been in the middle of saying something, but he couldn't remember what it was. The recovery room was darker than it had been before, and it was also empty: a fact that startled him more than anything, until he peered out the open door and found that everyone was still gathered in the cortex.

Content to remain an observer, he watched them for a bit. Harry, looking as though he were about to depart, shook hands with a surprisingly-amiable Joe. Cisco spoke quietly to Caitlin off to the side, both of them serious—but even as Barry watched, a brief smile broke across both of their faces. At the central console, Iris and Jesse mirrored each other, feet up on the table, chatting like old friends.

Barry watched it all for as long as he dared, feeling light creep back into hollow spaces. He didn't want them to notice that he was awake; he wanted to keep the snapshot untarnished. A snapshot of this one beautiful moment, somewhere between bleakness and jubilation, of these people he could never let go of. A snapshot of something deeply hopeful. Something deeply human.

They had, he decided, created something good in this place. It was enough to counteract the fear and the hurt, for now, and he suspected it always would be.

And with that thought, he closed his eyes to rest. Morning would wait for him: warm, and light, and full of the voices that lulled him to sleep.

The main thing I need to say is: thank you.

Thank you for coming along with me on this crazy journey and indulging my AU that got quickly out of hand. This isn't like my normal stuff-it isn't driven by plot, there's a lot of dialogue, it runs the risk of being boring-so I am floored by the amount of support you all have given me. It's so gratifying to write the story I really wanted to write, and then to have people actually like it.

As I have mentioned, this is almost certainly the last of my longfic (though I never want to say never!). For those who have supported me through all of my stories, gold star to you! To those who have only read this one, gold star to you! What an incredible gift to have so many people I can love.

As always, I would be thrilled to hear your final impressions on this chapter or the story as a whole in the comments below. And please, HMU on tumblr if you want to chat more, especially now that the new season is starting.

There are not enough ways to say thank you, so I'll stop while I'm ahead.

Till next time,

Penn