What did you say?
As with any relationship or marriage, there are good days and then there are bad days. Harry tried to tell himself that Barry was not to blame for his current mood and tried to understand his husband. Although it was difficult.
He denied that after the birth of the triplets it was really too much, they didn't have time for each other, the fact that they were actually taking care of seven children resulted in them just collapsing in bed after all their children were asleep and not even changing a few times before they fell into a deep sleep, completely exhausted, tangled in each other, but that didn't mean Barry had to act like an ox.
It wasn't easy for Harry either, the triplets consumed all of his time, Cameron was the one who helped him when he came home from school and it was Joe, Caitlyn or Jullian at their house in the mornings.
Oh how Harry understood why Barry wasn't home so much. But lately it seemed to him that Barry was spending more time as the Flash than Barry Potter-Allen. But Harry was tired too. He also needed to relax after a long day, maybe just with a book that he couldn't finish after giving birth. He already put up with the ever-energetic Jacob and Sam, the two could be a breeze when it came down to it, but on this particular day they didn't do anything to help him, not even Barry's mood.
He noticed it.
Sure, Harry knew he couldn't cheat on him once they got past the awkward stage where they had no idea how to treat each other, but once they fell in love, their bond was much deeper and they just couldn't cheat on anyone with the other's poison. They would feel it.
But if Barry had made up his mind to come home, then he was perpetually irritated, angry, or to be sure, he didn't speak at all and went straight to his bed.
He just wanted to know what was going on with his husband, but he didn't want to intrude. He didn't want to dig into something that didn't have to be his problem.
He just wanted to help, nothing else. But when he opened the door to their bedroom and asked, "Is everything okay?" he had this damn bad feeling that something was...wrong.
"Nothing is wrong. I come to work: noise. I come to StarLabs: noise. I'll come home, what do you think? Another noise. I'm not even counting the fact that I'm exhausted, there's never a moment of peace, our bedroom is a constant mess, there's always some kid jumping over my head, except for the triplets of course. They're only three months old, you can't yet -”
“You know what Barry? Make it your own. I don't care who you call for help or if you can do it yourself, but I'm going away for the night. Maybe two, I'm not sure yet.” Harry knew that was stupid and that he should have chosen much different words or wiser actions than running away, but what he had heard and how Barry had been acting in the last few weeks, Harry figured it would be best for Barry to experience what it was like for himself.
If his husband could talk like that, surely he could arrange for the children to be taken care of with his super speed.
After all, it wasn't such a bad idea for him to take an unexpected night shift at the hospital. Apparently his colleagues were happy for him to take a night in the emergency room, and since he was quite a curmudgeon and one intake after another, Harry didn't have to think about anything else.
It wasn't until the boy was brought in after the car accident, connected to all sorts of tubes, covered in blood and unconscious, that he remembered what had happened the day of the particle accelerator explosion.
_________
It was just another night shift. There was no indication that anything out of the ordinary was going to happen today. Sure, the agenda for the day was the launch of the particle accelerator, which Barry was really looking forward to, but Harry couldn't go with him, so he left with Iris, who he was trying to befriend, even though it was doomed from the start. Harry knew it, Joe knew it, all their friends knew it, but since the two of them had grown up together, no one had said anything to dissuade them from the idea.
He knew Barry was safe, that Iris couldn't try anything on him because he and Barry were married. Although they are short, they are still there. It was a marriage of respect and friendship rather than love, but as long as Barry was safe from the greedy clutches of Iris West, he could have a quiet night's shift. A few cases of fractures or appendicitis were nothing he couldn't handle, after all, shifts in the emergency room are more psychologically demanding, because there you see things that you won't see anywhere else, for example, like a car driver after a traffic accident with an open fracture of the shin bone. No case is the same and the children who are seen every day are really about the fact that they must be really mentally healthy. He couldn't afford to make a mistake in the ER.
Sure, it wasn't every day that he had blood on his hands or had to rush to the operating room because he was one of those great surgeons who can operate on a ruptured small intestine on a four-year-old by midnight and walk away basically rested.
But that day his magic hummed under his skin. She warned him of the imminent danger that something would happen and it would be very bad. Harry never underestimated the warnings of his magic and was alert, waiting to see what would happen that night.
He didn't have to wait long
He only marginally noted on the TV that the particle accelerator had been started and that it was stable for now, he didn't pay any further attention to it as he was currently busy sewing the eyebrows of some teenager who had gotten into a fight with his brother who basically beat him to a pulp. The amount of stitches he had already done on his body definitely matched that.
The kid was lucky it ended up on his body, because when he heard the particle accelerator go off and then heard the noise of the sirens leaving the hospital, he realized Barry was there and started to panic.
His first thought was that he couldn't call him, and why the hell couldn't he when his husband carried his phone with him all the time and even when he went to sleep he put it next to his head on the bedside table. He actually only knew that because he sometimes woke him up to work when he fell asleep. Not that he was snooping. Not at all. In any case.
His phone did ring. But it wasn't Barry.
“Harry. This is Joe. They're taking Barry to you. I had to talk them into taking him to see you, apparently all they needed was the fact that you were his husband and that you had the right to, but Harry…Barry's unconscious. I don't know what happened but it definitely wasn't good because it looks awful. But all indications are that he was struck by lightning-” Harry's phone dropped from his hand after the message.
He only heard one single shot. He only saw one single flash of lightning. Sure, he thought, it was really close to where Barry worked. He didn't think, it didn't even occur to him, that Barry would get hit by that lightning.
It took them ten minutes to get to the hospital by ambulance under the lighthouses. Eight, if the driver was really fast, that meant Harry should leave the room he was in and wait for his husband.
But it was total chaos. There were so many wounded in their hall that Harry couldn't even count them, and he'd never even seen them in his life. There have never been so many people at their emergency room at once. But all he could think about was how to see Barry as quickly as possible.
“Doctor Potter. We have your husband!” Harry thought he was relieved, but when he saw the state he was in, he couldn't.
Then it was more chaos. Barry couldn't be stabilized for almost an hour, his heart kept stopping, they couldn't feel his pulse, they couldn't get him cannulated, for some reason the punctures healed very quickly, but he was still unconscious.
Just when Harry thought it was finally over, Barry's entire CPR started again as his heart was not beating again. Somewhere in the distance he heard Iris West's scared voice, but he couldn't react when she told him to do his best and that he wasn't trying hard enough when Barry's heart still wasn't beating, he heard Joe somewhere in the distance too, but he didn't react either. He didn't have time for that. He was so horrified that he almost couldn't even concentrate on steadying his husband for the third time that evening, and when he hoped it was the last time and he didn't have to do it again, he collapsed on the side of the bed in exhaustion, laid his head on the bed and immediately fell asleep.
He was woken up by someone who was very conscious, but he could not remember because he had just woken up, or it was simply no one important.
“It is very unusual for a doctor to sleep with his patient.” the man in the wheelchair spoke.
Try as he might Harry just couldn't remember the man's name. He had seen him somewhere before, he was sure. But where?
“Excuse me, but who are you?” the man flinched, looking…hurt?
"My name is Harrison Wells-"
"I see. Look, I don't know what you want here, but I'm not sure this is the right place for you to be. Your accelerator explosion has really caused us a lot of trouble, and thanks to you, it's far from over. Please run away.”
“The boy needs help. If I'm not mistaken, he keeps losing his heart. And you lost power whenever his heart stopped. It's not like that, His heart is beating so fast-”
“Mr Wells. Patient medical records are unavailable. So how is it possible that you were able to hack into our system and access our patients' medical records in one morning? What you're telling me here is a disclosure that you got into our system or told someone else to get that particular information for you. Either way, it's a crime because you didn't get permission from me to get those records.” Harry watched as Harrison Wells' face turned into confusion.
"Excuse me, but who are you?"
"Doctor Harry Potter-Allen."
It was rather amusing to see even more confusion on the scientist's face, but Harry didn't really care at the moment. He had no interest in anyone else digging into his husband's medical records.
"Brother?"
"No. His husband. Now run away before I call the police on you. And you won't like the consequences.”
“I just want to take him to StarLab. We have better medical equipment there than what you have here. We could help him more, we can find out his brain activity, and why you feel like his heart is stopping even though it's the exact opposite. There he will have peace and a room all to himself. You can go see him anytime, or stay there with him.”
But Harry found himself agreeing to the suggestion. His magic did warn him that something was wrong, but it wasn't the sense of danger he had the day before before the accelerator exploded. Joe agreed with that too. He wouldn't let Barry go without Joe's consent or knowledge.
But no one knew that Barry would be in a coma for nine months. Harry didn't know what to do for nine months, wondering if his husband would wake up or not, answering questions both personal and career, but he had no idea how this would help Barry, but he needed to think about something other than just that Barry was in a coma and Harry couldn't do anything for him. Although he still couldn't shake the strange feeling he had around Wells, he never revealed all the information he wanted him to know, just as he never answered the question of why Barry married him.
Harry knew that, and no one else needed to care.
Caitlyn was amazing at what she did. Even though she told him the story about her fiance dying in the particle accelerator and how lucky she was that it didn't affect her the way it did Barry, even Harry had no idea if it had affected him too, which he was sure it had, he just didn't know the difference and didn't deal with it that way.
Cisco was surprisingly funny. He was easily able to get his attention and Harry could think of nothing but the fact that he had been completely clueless for the past few months, even at the hospital only getting day shifts for surgery only to go to StarLabs for the rest of the day and wait for some change.
Nothing happened for nine months. There was no change at all, Barry looked the same as the day he left their house for work in the morning, which confused Caitlyn, but Harry didn't care, especially since his husband wasn't dead.
And then one day...
He honestly scared the crap out of everyone who was there that day, which was everyone, Harry even dropped his coffee mug when Barry suddenly woke up and sat up on the hospital bed.
He never wanted to experience that again.
For Harry, it was the worst nine months he had ever experienced, and he had experienced the war. He was sure it meant absolutely nothing to Barry, but it did to Harry, he was very glad that his husband was awake and nothing more serious.
But it didn't end there. Later that day when they found out how the lightning strike affected him, Barry almost demolished half of their living room because he had no idea what was going on, neither did Harry, so Barry did what he thought was appropriate.
He used the damn speed.
___________
Harry rubbed his face in frustration.
After spending three days in the hospital, he still couldn't bring himself to just go home. He had no idea why, and it honestly bothered him.
Every day he thought about what he had done wrong in his life to deserve such an attitude. Sure, it wasn't their first or last fight, but Barry never acted selfishly and always thought of others more than himself, throughout their marriage they both had their share of fights where they said something they didn't have to or didn't want to, but they always they were able to reconcile by the evening, so why did it suddenly take three days now?
His colleagues were thrilled when he offered his services, at least for a week, because he simply needed to rest, even if it meant sleeping in the hospital and not coming home.
He missed his children. He didn't deny it, and he wasn't going to. He wondered if Cameron thought he had abandoned him, but they texted each other every day and Harry regularly reassured his son that no, Harry hadn't abandoned him, he just had to leave for a while because he really had too much going on.
In the end, Cameron turned out to be an understanding young man and didn't blame him for leaving the house, for which he was grateful.
“Doctor Potter? Someone came to see you.” their head nurse's voice snapped him out of his trance and he went straight after her to find out who came to see him.
It could only be Joe or Jullian because no one else knew where he was. Joe came to him because he wanted to know what happened between him and Barry, he ended up leaving angry at Barry for even saying such a thing, Jullian always somehow knew where Harry was and he himself suspected that he had a tracker on him charm, just like Harry had on Draco.
But these two were never announced by the nurse. They always came straight to him wherever he was.
But it turned out that Barry was standing there and… he looked awful. Harry almost didn't recognize him because he was a completely different person with the dark circles under his eyes, the pale face, and Harry found himself being touched by the sight, but it also made him fold his arms over his chest and wait for some explanation.
He didn't get any and instead got into a tight hug before Barry launched into his little speech.
"Sorry. I don't know how you feel when you are alone at home with the children, but now I have an idea of how many things you have to take care of and how much strength and energy it costs you. And I'm not even talking about the fact that you haven't gone crazy yet. I shouldn't have said that. Yes I was tired here, but now I see that you are much more tired at the end of the day and you never said a single word about being upset.” Harry realized that those were actually the words he wanted to hear and that Barry got exactly the lesson Harry wanted him to get.
Instead of saying anything, he stood on his tiptoes and kissed his husband firmly. He missed him. He didn't deny that, and he was ready to forgive him if Barry came up with the logical excuse he'd just been given.
He felt Barry's hands move to his cheeks and Harry knew it was all right.
As far as he was concerned, Harry never regretted his decision to move to Central City, and he was assured every day that he would never regret his decision.
He had a husband, he had a family, he had people around him that he considered family and then he had people around him that he considered friends and he wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.
Even though the circumstances of his marriage were completely unexpected and unconventional, waiting for his Happyend was definitely worth it.