Outbreak

[run_barry]

It starts with Cisco and a case of the sniffles.

He spends a couple of days with a runny nose and a cough , pouting and complaining about feeling icky. Caitlin catches it soon after and Barry, sympathetic to them feeling under the weather, does the kindly thing and tries to look after the pair as they deal with their colds; making tea, fetching cough syrup and tissues from the drug store, and even retrieving Cisco's favorite comfy blanket from the man's apartment when Cisco gets the chills real bad.

Things escalate quickly with the bug, and when Caitlin sees Cisco's worsening condition and realizes it isn't just a common cold, she gets to work trying to identify the cause and hopefully come up with a cure.

Even as Barry takes care of her and Cisco, Caitlin is at work using what energy she has to try and get to the bottom of the disgusting illness.

Symptoms and tests don't lead anywhere and Caitlin recruits Barry's help and he sets about the task of speed-reading through every medical journal he can get his hands on. Making use of Milliways and its time freeze, Barry discovers the reason they're having trouble identifying the bug is because it isn't from their world.

Entering the Labs, he's working out just how to tell Caitlin they need to look else-world for a cause and cure because the illness she and Cisco have comes from a place that sits at the end of the universe.

Juggling the tower of books he took with him into the bar, Barry crosses the Cortex into Caitlin's lab.

"Hey Caitlin? I think I-- " Caitlin's at her microscope station and Barry is just stepping across the threshold into the lab when she lifts her head and throws him a worried look.

"Barry… "

A moment later and she swoons, eyes rolling up and body going limp.

Barry watches as she slips off of the stool she's sitting on and starts falling to the floor.

"Caitlin!" Dropping the books, Barry speeds over to her, catching her before she hits the floor. She's burning up, and Barry gets her to a bed near Cisco's.

When she comes back around they settle on a compromise; he won't run her to the hospital if she'll stay put in the bed. Neither one of them are very happy about it, but Caitlin drifts off after awhile and Barry has to keep his promise to let her stay here in the labs.

*****

Barry finds himself running a patient ward when Dr. Wells, who hovered on the edge between not feeling well and being just fine, finally succumbs to the illness. Barry sets everyone up in Caitlin's lab, doing his best to make them comfortable and making sure they're all taking their medicine.

Not that it seems to be doing much good for them.

From there it only gets worse.

Wrapped up in taking care of the S.T.A.R. Labs team and handling Flash situations alone, Barry doesn't realize Joe has been getting sick, too. Joe had just popped into the Labs for a short while when Cisco was first starting to decline, but that was enough it seems and by the time Barry gets back to work and Joe, Joe is already presenting symptoms. It only takes three days for the virus to spread around CCPD and suddenly half the precinct is down.

Short on manpower in the police department, the calls stack up and Barry is left running from one situation to the next trying to pitch in and help. With no one at the helm in the Cortex, Barry tunes his comms to the police band and gets his directions from there.

For a solid week Barry tries to keep up with it all; covering for all the missing officers as the Flash; running back and forth between S.T.A.R. Labs and Joe's house to take care of the team, Joe, and eventually Iris who quarantines herself from Eddie who is one of the few cops still standing; picking up what slack he can at the precinct in his 'day job'; and still trying to research and work out a solution for the virus. Towards the end there is no gas left in the tank and Barry is pushing himself along on fumes.

The virus starts spreading to the city, but there are still plenty of people out there unaffected and unfortunately a sad number of those people are the criminal types eager to take advantage of the situation. With hardly any cops around they have a field day.

The worst comes on a day that Barry starts off with almost no sleep over the days preceding, and feeling more than a step or two slow. The afternoon sees three bank robberies, only two of which Barry can get to in time to stop. There's a jewelry store heist on one side of town, while a pair of idiots decide to knock over a cell phone store at the same time across the bridge.

Barry gets back the jewels and one of the idiots, but a four-alarm fire pulls him off the trail of the other robber and takes him to a burning apartment complex.

Everyone gets out safe, thank God, and Barry is still coughing smoke and ash when another call comes in: high-speed chase, two motorcycles fleeing yet another robbery.

Barry cuts across town again and catches up to the chase just as the two suspects split up.

A police car is in pursuit of one, so Barry takes the other. It should be an easy grab, Barry can usually outrun even the fastest motorcycle with ease, but when the bike cuts a sharp corner Barry's stamina falters, his footing doesn't land right to take the corner with the motorcycle, and his turn turns into a wipeout.

Barry hits the asphalt hard, tumbling across the intersection and rolling up underneath the front end of a truck that thankfully stops just in time. Picking himself up, it takes Barry a moment to shake out the cobwebs, but the call over the radio comes again: suspect spotted while the other has been cornered by the officer in pursuit.

Regaining his bearings, Barry takes off again. It takes some grid-pattern work, speeding up and down the streets in the area searching, but he finds the motorcycle and gives chase.

This time he pours on speed to run the bike down on a straightaway, and as soon as he's caught up to the vehicle he reaches out to pull the keys.

In that moment his speed lags again and Barry once more loses his balance. Instead of getting the keys Barry flails out and jerks the handlebars. The bike goes off balance and starts to pitch into the air. By some miracle Barry is able to grab the driver from his seat, pulling the man free and tossing him aside to safety.

Barry goes down again, hitting the ground in a rough skid, but keeping his head up to watch as the motorcycle somersaults forward; straight for a parked car with flashing lights. There are two men beside the car, one of them is about to be handcuffed and the other is Eddie, still on-duty through the precinct outbreak.

Eddie throws his prisoner out of the way and then dives for cover himself, just managing to avoid being hit by the flying motorcycle.

Everything happens in a split-second, and then it's over and the two criminals are running, both of them hopping onto the back of the other motorcycle and speeding off, while Eddie gets up from the ground.

Barry rises, moving to give chase, but the world swims for a moment and Barry struggles to grab back his balance again.

When Barry regains himself he looks up just in time to see Eddie coming at him, an angry expression on his face.

"HEY! You just let them get away!" Eddie shouts.

Barry looks in the direction the two men went, frowning because he knows he'll never catch them now.

He throws Eddie an apologetic look, probably lost in the distortion of Barry's blurred features as he vibrates in place to keep Eddie from recognizing him. Injured, with no real way to apologize for the screw up, Barry takes off; leaving Eddie and his empty handcuffs behind.