( OPEN POST )

[accelerate]

preferred canon point: seasons 2, 5 and 6.
✓ starters ✓ pic/otherwordly prompts ✓ continuations ✓ texting

Comments

\ (•◡•) / smol humans who are sad

[scovilles]

[ barry saves her. he's a superhero, that's his job. but he saves her, and then he tells her to run. at first, she wants to protest - running is his job, fast as the lightning emblem on his chest - but he doesn't let her. just keeps telling her, run away, run away, run home. be safe.

so she runs. she runs until her legs start to give out, until she feels the cramps pinching at the back of her calves, until she's curled into a ball on the side of the road, out of breath and in pain all over. she runs until she can't anymore, and texts caitlin and iris and cisco, who pick her up in the team flash van and bring her back to star labs.

it's in star labs that linda lets caitlin check her vitals, tend to her minor wounds, put ice on her calves to soothe her aching muscles. it's in star labs that cisco holds her hands, tells her it'll be okay, rubs her back. it's in star labs that iris brings her a computer, tells her to jot down what she's feeling, get it out. she can't do any of it, can't look anyone in the eyes or let it process quite yet.

it's too much, too fast, and then iris and linda's phones go off at the same time - pictures taken at central city picture news, of barry's bruised and mangled body, of zoom laughing and crowing over the terrified reporters. and then another alert - pictures from the police station, the same miserable scene. iris leaves, to find her father, to put together a plan, and caitlin and cisco ready star labs for their next patient, and suddenly linda feels extraneous in a new and especially painful way. she isn't part of this, not quite, not really.

while their backs are turned, while everyone is distracted, she leaves. she hails a cab from the next corner, ice packs still attached to her legs with medical tape, ekg sensors still stuck to her chest and shoulders. the cabbie asks her if she needs the hospital. no, just her bed, she tells him, and he brings her there, careful not to take the speed bumps on the side roads too hard. he helps her climb the flight of stairs to her apartment, tells her not to overdo it, wishes her well. linda thanks him, and locks the door behind her, flips the deadbolt, pulls the security chain. things she's never thought to do.

now, late in the evening on some number of days later, linda finds herself curled on the couch, blankets wrapped around her and a channel of television she doesn't remember selecting narrating nonsense into the air. it makes her feel a little less alone. she hasn't left her apartment in days. her phone has a million text messages - from iris, from cisco, from caitlin - but she can't bring herself to reply. she doesn't know what to say. she doesn't know how to explain her feelings, or if they're even worth talking about. ]