- Iris West-Allen: I scanned the crime scene photos and got a match. This is not Lang's first rodeo. CCPD put out a warrant for him for carjacking. He killed the whole crew inside.
- Barry Allen: And now he absorbs kinetic energy?
- Caitlin Snow: He only gets stronger if you punch him, you shoot him, you throw him into traffic.
- Cisco Ramon: Which could only make the traffic worse. God, I'd hate to be stuck in that gridlock. Gridlock... Gridlock... I came up with the name. I am fortune's fool.
- Joe West: Damn.
- Iris West-Allen: Dad.
- Joe West: You found my spot.
- Iris West-Allen: You knew about this?
- Joe West: I've been napping in here since day one.
- Barry Allen: Uh, well, Nora was gonna stay here, if that's all right with you.
- Joe West: Okay, well, now I can get to know my granddaughter.
- Nora West-Allen: [Looking at the Flash coffee] My dad's lightning bolt is so much cooler than Lightning Lad's.
- Barry Allen: I don't have a suit.
- Nora West-Allen: I actually have a backup.
- [gives Barry the Flash ring]
- Nora West-Allen: I got more than just a list of metas from that museum.
- [Barry slips on the ring and activates it, he speeds into The Flash suit]
- Cisco Ramon: Damn, Gina. I made that?
- Nora West-Allen: Uh, Ryan Choi, actually.
- Barry Allen: Oh. This is a supersuit. No offense.
- Cisco Ramon: None taken.
- Barry Allen: How old were you when it happened?
- Nora West-Allen: I was born, um, a few years before you vanished, but I don't have any memories of you.
- Barry Allen: So the wedding was...
- Nora West-Allen: Was pretty much the first time I met you. I imagined so many different things to say to you. Still can't believe I went with "Remember to say 'I do'."
- [first lines]
- Nora West-Allen: Okay, let's back up. My name is Nora West-Allen, the fastest woman alive. When I'm from, 30 years from now, I'm the guardian of Central City. I'm a speedster, just like my dad. People call me XS. Every day, I hope to live up to the legacy of The Flash... But I've still got a long way to go.
- Barry Allen: You're saying you're our daughter?
- Iris West-Allen: From the future?
- Barry Allen: Named Nora?
- Nora West-Allen: After your mother.
- Cisco Ramon: Anybody need a refill? No? Just me?
- [gulps down champagne]
- Nora West-Allen: Cisco Ramon, always the cutting the tension with a joke.
- Nora West-Allen: My name is Nora West-Allen, and I'm the fastest woman alive. When I was a child, my father disappeared in something impossible. Then I grew up and became the impossible. Now I'm trying to live up to the legacy he created so that one day, I'll stop him from ever disappearing. I'm XS. How schway is that?
- Ralph Dibny: [hearing Nora's story] Are we talking about actual time travel here?
- Cisco Ramon: Do you just, like, not pay any attention when we have our briefings?
- Wally West: Y'all didn't teach him about the Legends?
- Ralph Dibny: Look, nobody said bupkis about time travel.
- Caitlin Snow: [Ralph has only just figured out the multiverse] What did you think we meant when we said "Harry was from Earth-2"?
- Ralph Dibny: That is he from Earth, also.
- [He heard "Earth-2" as "Earth, too", hence the "also" meaning]
- Joe West: You want to go back, don't you?
- Wally West: I can't. I mean, I just got here. I don't want to leave the team. I don't want to leave you.
- Joe West: Wally, everybody in this rooms loves you, especially me. But you didn't finish what you set out to do, and nobody's gonna get in your way. So promise me, when you find what you're looking for, come back, or you're gonna have a very angry-looking dad in your zen garden.
- Wally West: Will you take care of him, XS?
- Nora West-Allen: You got it, Kid Flash.
- Barry Allen: This is so, so weird.
- Iris West-Allen: Yeah, I mean, I can't believe that's our daughter up there.
- Barry Allen: We have been lied to before.
- Iris West-Allen: Barry. Yellow lightning like yours, purple lightning like mine? I mean, it's... it's gotta be her.
- Iris West-Allen: We're meeting our daughter for then first time, Barry.
- Barry Allen: Yeah, well, look. If it is true, Nora could say the wrong thing or step on the wrong butterfly and screw up the whole timeline. I mean, she could Marty McFly herself out of existence.
- Caitlin Snow: Killer Frost has been gone since the night that DeVoe took over your body.
- Ralph Dibny: Jeez, Louise! No one tells me anything.
- Barry Allen: Nora shouldn't be here. Look, I'm... I've always wanted a family.
- Iris West-Allen: I know.
- Barry Allen: You know, and when we got married, I knew that one day, we'd decide to have a baby. We would try, and you'd get pregnant. I'd be there for the sonogram, I'd hear her first heartbeat, and then she'd come. And we'd take her home, see her first smile, her first tooth, the first time I read to her. Her first steps. The first time she ran. But her being here now, don't you feel like we missed all those firsts? That we skipped all the good stuff?
- Iris West-Allen: Baby, we will still have all of those firsts. Just not in that order.
- Barry Allen: But my whole life's been out of order. These powers, time travel; that's the reason my mom was killed, why I grew up with my dad in prison. They missed so many firsts. They missed our wedding.
- Iris West-Allen: I know.
- Barry Allen: I don't know, I just thought that when it was our turn to have a kid, that life would let us have this one little thing the normal way. Just once. But we lost that chance.
- Iris West-Allen: No, we're not losing anything by having her here now. We're only gaining something extra, Barry. And look, if we figure this out, I mean, by the time we do have a baby, we are gonna be the best parents ever.
- Barry Allen: Maybe you're right.
- Iris West-Allen: I know I'm right. You're gonna be there to put that quarter under her pillow, and you're gonna be there to drive her to her first day of school, and you're gonna be there to cheer on her first run. We are gonna have all of those firsts. I promise. And think about it. We have a kid who defied the laws of physics to hang out with her parents. I mean, that's pretty... that's pretty schway.
- Barry Allen: What happens to me in the future? You said that you spend your whole life with your mom, but you didn't say the same for me.
- Nora West-Allen: My poker face is that bad, huh?
- Barry Allen: I need to know.
- [cut to them looking at Iris' article in the Time Vault]
- Barry Allen: How long?
- [pressing a button on her gauntlet, she shows him another article reading that he remains missing after 25 years]
- Nora West-Allen: You never come back.
- Barry Allen: You're not stuck here, are you?
- Nora West-Allen: [handing him a small disc from her gauntlet] I found it in the museum archive. Negative tachyons, harnessed on demand. Really should work on that poker face, I guess.
- Barry Allen: This didn't have to be a secret. Why'd you keep this from us?
- Nora West-Allen: Because if you knew I could have gone home, you would have sent me back the second I walked into Grandpa's house. I mean, it's like you said, dad. Speedsters have to be responsible. But... but I-I'm not responsible, am I? I'm... just selfish and really, really bad at being a speedster.
- Barry Allen: Nora, you're not bad.
- Nora West-Allen: I mean, I can do some cool things, you know? Sometimes, I run so fast I reverse time a bit, but I can't do the things you can. I don't even know how to phase yet. Guess there's only so much you can learn from a museum.
- Barry Allen: What about your mom?
- Nora West-Allen: Yeah, I... she's around, you know? It's just, uh... just me and her.
- Nora West-Allen: I shouldn't have lied. I just wanted to see you so badly and spend a day with you. Go for a run for the first time together.
- Barry Allen: [emotionally] I missed all your firsts. I was so worried about screwing up your childhood and screwing up our family, but... I'm not even there.
- Wally West: Uh, and your nickname is XS?
- Cisco Ramon: Clearly not my doing.
- Nora West-Allen: No, uh, it's a nickname that you gave me when I was a kid, Mom.
- Iris West-Allen: "Mom"?
- Nora West-Allen: You said I did everything in excess. Guess I've always been like that. Overdoing things, getting in way over my head. Like, uh, recently.
- XS: It's not working. I can't do this.
- The Flash: All right, yes - listen to me, just breathe. Feel the floor beneath your feet. Feel the rumble of the plane.
- [from Harrison Wells: Feel the air. Feel that wind on your face, and the lightning]
- The Flash: And the lightning. Feel its electricity pumping through your veins, traveling to every nerve in your body like a shock you never want to end.
- [from Harrison Wells: "You are no longer you now."]
- The Flash: You're no longer you.
- [from Harrison Wells: "You're part of something greater."]
- The Flash: You're part of something greater.
- XS: Part of the Speed Force.
- Caitlin Snow: How much champagne did you have at Joe and Cecile's?
- Cisco Ramon: [tipsy] This is the first opportunity I have to process my breakup with Gypsy, okay?
- [to Barry and Iris]
- Cisco Ramon: How was I supposed to know that your future daughter was gonna come show up and crash my pity party? How was I supposed to ancipitate that?
- Nora West-Allen: [after trying to help stop Gridlock] Oh, grife. You're mad at me.
- Iris West-Allen: No, Nora, we're not. We're just...
- Nora West-Allen: Please don't say "disappointed". That's so much worse.
- Nora West-Allen: I know how bizarre this must seem, meeting your daughter from the future as an adult. But really, this wasn't my plan at all, but I-I'm kind of stuck here now, and you're the only people who can help me. So... anybody know what to do?
- Nora West-Allen: What you working on?
- Barry Allen: I don't...
- Nora West-Allen: You are crazy behind.
- Barry Allen: Hey, so I thought you were gonna stay at S.T.A.R. Labs, with, um... with your... Iris. Mom. Your mom.
- Nora West-Allen: You know I'm a forensic scientist, too? CCU grad, just like you. 5.6 GPA. I could help you get through this.
- Barry Allen: Oh, I don't know. I mean, i-it's...
- Nora West-Allen: [speeding into his chair, case file in hand] So, the fire marshal at this site says crazing in the melted glass suggests a liquid accelerant.
- Barry Allen: Mm, any petroleum-based household product could cause crazing.
- Nora West-Allen: Well, like floor wax or shag rugs, even balloons.
- Barry Allen: [taking the file back] Yeah, the glass melts under the surface, like ice cream in the cracks of a waffle cone.
- Nora West-Allen: Oh, like when you get two scoops of cookie dough ice cream with extra sprinkles at the Mason Family Ice Cream Shop in...
- Nora West-Allen, Barry Allen: Happy Harbor, Rhode Island.
- Barry Allen: My parents used to take me there when I was a kid. It's my favorite dessert.
- Nora West-Allen: Mine, too.
- Nora West-Allen: M-0-3, th-that's a meta attack.
- Barry Allen: Yeah. My suit's all torn up. I don't have anything to...
- Nora West-Allen: [speeding out and back] Direct from Cisco's back closet. One first-edition red emblem OG supersuit. Total fan favorite.
- Cisco Ramon: Gridlock, huh? Boy, the future's got some great names.
- [groaning in pain]
- Cisco Ramon: Ahh! This lighting.
- Caitlin Snow: How did you know who he is?
- Nora West-Allen: Flash Museum.
- Cisco Ramon: Did you say... "Flash Museum"?
- Nora West-Allen: Yeah. It has all the villains and battles in chronological order. I've studied everything.
- Iris West-Allen: So you know this guy's real name?
- Nora West-Allen: Mr. Myles, the curator, he scrubbed all the names for legal reasons. But it really shouldn't matter. I mean, Gridlock was a one-and-done. You guys beat him i-in one try, or at least... you were supposed to.
- Barry Allen: I've made way bigger mistakes than this time traveling. We'll get this guy; you don't need to worry about that. But the longer you stay here, the more things might change. We need to get you home.
- Nora West-Allen: But I can't go fast enough to get home.
- Caitlin Snow: What about the tachyon absorption enhancer? The one that Thawne used to increase his speed?
- Cisco Ramon: Mm, and if we charge it up, we could uh, boost the Speed Force in her cells, like some kind of, um... thing that boosts Speed Force in cells.
- Nora West-Allen: I can't believe I'm wearing the same tachyon enhancer my dad used to meet Supergirl for the first time.
- Nora West-Allen: I know King Shark is technically a bad guy, but you should see... just wait. When he fights Grodd, it's...
- Cisco Ramon: Um! Spoiler alert.
- Wally West: Sorry I was too late. It took me a while to find where the Legends were. Well, when they were. But we got their Gideon to scan Nora's blood sample.
- Barry Allen: What'd she find?
- Wally West: Negative tachyons.
- Cisco Ramon: Negative tachyons? So, what, instead of speeding you up, they slow you down?
- Wally West: Yeah.
- Cisco Ramon: Oh, damn, I was just joking. That's a real thing?
- Wally West: Yeah, Ava and her team at the Time Bureau have encountered them before, but no one knows where they come from or how they're generated.
- Barry Allen: Like dark matter for the space/time continuum.
- Wally West: Exactly, and they're saturating Nora's body and keeping her from entering the Speed Force.
- Barry Allen: What about the Waverider? Can the Legends take her back?
- Wally West: If negative tachyons come anywhere near the 'Rider's time drives, uh, the reaction will vaporize the ship.
- Cisco Ramon: I present Gridlock: a mystery in three acts. Please note the dark matter levels. Act one, Gridlock attacks the cops before Barry shows up.
- Caitlin Snow: Okay, but these dark matter levels are perfectly normal for a man of his size.
- Cisco Ramon: Until Act Two. He gets lightning punched by Barry.
- Ralph Dibny: His dark matter levels increased.
- Cisco Ramon: Which brings us to our third and final act... Gridlock hits back.
- Ralph Dibny: Even higher. How... how is that possible?
- Caitlin Snow: It isn't, unless every time Gridlock got hit, his cells absorbed the kinetic energy.
- Cisco Ramon: That would increase his dark matter quotient, thereby increasing his powers. If this is true, then whatever movement he's exposed to...
- Ralph Dibny: The stronger he's gonna get.
- Caitlin Snow: So if Gridlock keeps moving, he becomes unstoppable.
- Iris West-Allen: So, figure it out yet?
- Barry Allen: Whatever these negative tachyons are, it feels a lot more like science fiction than actual science.
- Iris West-Allen: I wasn't asking about the science. I was asking about the scientist. You and Nora, you guys have such a strong connection. I mean, it's... it's effortless. So why are you so intent on sending her back?
- Barry Allen: I mean, what do you mean? First of all, she can't stop talking about the future. But... I mean, you know the danger that her being here poses to the timeline.
- Iris West-Allen: Yeah, I do, but I also know you, Barry. Look. You're the guy that went back in time to borrow Snart before he died.
- Barry Allen: I know.
- Iris West-Allen: You're also the same guy that traveled to 2020 to figure out who Savitar was, and 2015 to train with Wells. You changed fate to save my life. So, now that our daughter is here in front of us, asking for our help, you expect me to believe that you're worried about the timeline?
- Wally West: So, how do we find this guy without Sally the satellite?
- Cisco Ramon: We don't need a satellite to hack a cell phone. And if we want to find his cell phone, we'll find it...
- [surprised by the result]
- Cisco Ramon: By the airport?
- [digging deeper, he understands]
- Cisco Ramon: Got it, 'cause he's on a plane that just took off. Central City Air, flight number 5201.
- Iris West-Allen: Why would he get on a plane?
- Barry Allen: [realizing] Because he's gonna crash it.
- Barry Allen: You okay?
- Iris West-Allen: Yeah. I thought I missed out on my chance to connect with Nora, but now that she's staying, I get another shot.
- Barry Allen: If you could have seen her on that plane, you'd know that you guys are already connected.
- Iris West-Allen: Really?
- Barry Allen: She was fearless, just like you.
- Ralph Dibny: If Barry can go back in time, why didn't he stop the Thinker from killing me?
- [seeing Cisco and Caitlin's looks]
- Ralph Dibny: Kidding, I'm kidding. Guys, I'm kidding. I realize that I could have upset the delicate balance of the universe. Besides, if he did that, who knows? He might have created a timeline where I died in that particle accelerator explosion.
- Cisco Ramon: Wishful thinking.
- [seeing his look]
- Cisco Ramon: Kidding. I'm glad you're here, and I'm glad that we don't have to hold your hand through the time travel thing; you're figuring it out.
- Ralph Dibny: While you guys were fighting Gridlock, I was, uh, running this down.
- Caitlin Snow: [taking a manila envelope] What's this?
- Ralph Dibny: An answer. And a lot more questions.
- Caitlin Snow: [looking at the contents] It's my father's death certificate.
- Ralph Dibny: A friend at County helped me out with that. The M.E. who signed off on it, Cameron Mahkent? He doesn't exist.
- Cisco Ramon: So then, this death certificate...
- Caitlin Snow: Is a fake.
- Iris West-Allen: You should get some rest. You've had a long day.
- Nora West-Allen: Ooh, I'll try. I'm just so excited. Like, literally. Phasing excited all of the electron clouds in my body.
- Barry Allen: Well, if you're not tired, two scoops of cookie dough ice cream sound good right now.
- Nora West-Allen: From Happy Harbor?
- Barry Allen: [to Iris] If that's okay with you.
- Iris West-Allen: [Nora looks at her in anticipation] It is, yeah. Just, uh, bring me back some mint chip.
- Ralph Dibny: ...if Eddie wanted to erase Thawne from existence, why didn't he just have a vasectomy?