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“Caitlin. Caaaaaaaitlin. Caitlin!”
She snapped back into focus, almost whipping her head right into Barry’s. She had been tilting her head and staring at the wall for almost 10 minutes.
“Are you back with us Dr. Snow?”
“Yes, sorry.” Her cheeks flushed quickly as she ran a hand over the top of her head and through her perfectly smooth ponytail.
Cisco gave her a concerned look, but he continued on with his lecture.
“As I was saying…”
As interested as she was in how Cisco wanted to create an anti-freeze gun to stop Captain Cold, her mind wasn’t in the lab today. Or even the same planet. How on earth could she tell her closest friends that she was never going to see them again?
Suddenly there was silence. Why were they all looking at her?
Cisco cleared his throat. “Normally, this is the part where you move your lips up and down to talk… but I’m sure we could come up with something for that.”
She sighed and bit her lip. “Sorry, I did it again, didn’t I?”
Barry, who had been sitting on top of the table next to her with his legs crossed, chimed in.
“Are you feeling okay? ‘Cause you should go home if…”
“No!” She almost shouted it, but she quickly recovered. “No. I’m fine, Barry, really. I think I just need some coffee is all.”
She excused herself and went into the adjacent room. She knew they were exchanging glances behind her, but she hoped they wouldn’t push it any further. There was no way she was going to leave, not on her last day.
She took a deep breath and shook out her hands. She didn’t realize that she had been clenching them either. “Last team meeting. You can do this,” she muttered under her breath.
She spun back around on her heels and went back in. She calmly sat back down in her chair as quietly as possible and smoothed out her skirt. She looked back up to see them all staring at her again.
What had she done this time?
Barry treaded lightly.
“Weren’t you getting coffee?”
“Yes.”
“And where would that be exactly…?”
Dang it. Her carefully concocted lie was already falling apart. If anything though, Caitlin Snow was quick on her feet.
“In the other room. I only needed a few sips. What were you saying about the streams crossing?”
She raised an eyebrow and turned towards Cisco. With her last sentence, she had proven to be somewhat paying attention. At least, it was good enough for Cisco. Barry’s eyes lingered on her a minute longer before he realized he should probably be paying to the briefing too. They finished up the meeting without any further interruptions.
“He struck again!”
Cisco’s voice could be heard throughout the lab. Caitlin had been sitting next to him already, but Barry quickly rushed over.
“He’s at Washington Bank, on 5th av…”
Before he could even finish, Barry was suited up.
Caitlin had always been impressed by how he just whirled around in a circle and was perfectly suited. Realistically, she knew it was for all for show. What normal person would get dressed while walking in a circle? It would certainly make it harder to pull on pants. Nonetheless, she liked seeing him do it.
And then it hit her. This was the last time she’d see that bright red suit. That bright yellow lightning bolt across his chest. Those little ear pieces sticking out on the sides of his head. She reached out a hand and hovered over his emblem.
“Be careful.”
Barry furrowed his brows. She hadn’t meant it to sound so loaded, but where she excelled in lying, she didn’t in concealing. Normally he brushed off her concerns, but this time it was different. He didn’t know why, but it was. Whatever the reason, he reassured her like he always did. He reached up his hand and laid it on top of her arm.
“I will.”
Their eyes locked and he gave her that perfect Barry smile, the one that always made her feel like everything was going to work out in the end. His smile could fuel the sun if he wanted it to. She caught herself daydreaming again, and then he vanished. The papers around her whipped in every direction, and she couldn’t help the smile that followed.
That was the last time Barry would mess up her paperwork.
A knot began to grow in her stomach. How many times would she have say that today? She tried her best to push the thought out of her mind. She turned back around to Cisco, who had already brought up security footage from the bank. Pleased with himself, he looked up to her for validation, only to be completely blindsided.
“Caitlin, are you… crying?”
He was immediately out of his chair, rushing to her side.
“No I’m no—” she reached up and felt wet cheeks. Her body had betrayed her.
She took a step back before he could reach her and pointed at the screens.
“Help Barry!”
Unsure of what to do, his arms hung in the air for a moment and he struggled for words, but no sound came out. She was right though, he had to help Barry first. He scrambled back into his seat and called out directions for Barry on how to use his new anti-freeze gun.
When Barry was out of danger and the cops had Cold in custody, Cisco was finally able to remove his headset and focus all his attention on his best friend.
But she was nowhere to be seen.
She made it back to her apartment with relative ease, though she did have a scare when she almost went through a red light. She decided that when it was time to leave, she would call a cab. She was much too distracted to trust herself right now.
She turned her phone on to discover she had 5 missed calls and 3 new voicemails. She took a deep breath and pressed play. The first two were from Cisco.
“Hey, Cait, give me a call when you get this, okay?”
“Hey, me again, just let me that you got home okay. You don’t have to say anything else.”
She paced back and forth around her apartment as she waited for the third.
“Caitlin! Hi. Cisco mentioned you weren’t feeling so great. Just wanted to say, feel better.”
Cisco hadn’t told him. She wanted to give that man a medal.
She sent a quick text to Barry thanking him for the concern, but that she just need to lie down for a while. She knew if she talked to Cisco, she’d break. Barry would pass along the message to him anyway. She decided that lying down was actually some good advice, and headed towards the couch. She needed to clear her head.
She woke up a few hours later to pounding on her door. Someone was clearly frantic on the other end. She scrambled towards the door, the hardwood floor giving her a shiver as she walked across it on bare feet. She flung the door open.
It was Barry.
He rushed past her, fidgeting with his hands and pacing her floor. He wasted no time in saying what was on his mind.
“How could you not tell me?”
For the first time since she’d met him, he was angry. The hurt and betrayal across his face was more than she could have imagined. He knew. How could he though? There was no way he…
“Felicity...” she muttered under her breath. Of course she had helped him.
“You were really just gonna move to California without telling me? Without telling Cisco? He’s your best friend. And I thought we were…”
He gestured between them with his hands, not sure of what motion to make.
“I thought we were friends.”
“We are…”
He huffed and proceeded to correct her. “No, we’re not. Friends tell each other when they’re moving away. Friends talk to each other about life changing decisions. Friends tell each other when they’ve gotten a fancy new job offer from Kord Industries.”
He knew about the job too. Felicity was good.
His voice rose with each passing question. “Did you think you could just run away from us? From me? You do realize I’m the fastest man alive.”
On paper, his last sentence would have looked like a joke. But neither of them were laughing.
She resigned. “Fine, Detective Allen, you win. I don’t like goodbyes.”
She said it calmly, but to a keen ear you could hear the strain in her voice. The tiredness, the want for it to just be over. The sooner she resigned, the sooner he would leave her alone. She knew if he kept pushing, she would break. Only a few more minutes and his barrage would be over.
He huffed at her again. “How could you just… I can’t even imagine what is going through your head right now. Did you think we would hate you? Not support you? Or did you just think, hmmm, how can I hurt them the most? I know, I’ll just leave and never tell them.”
And that was her tipping point.
“Enough!”
Her body began to betray her again.
Barry had started off being angry at her, but at some point it had morphed into something else. At some point, it had turned into everything he had been bottling up over the past year. He hadn’t let go in a very long time, and now Caitlin was taking the brunt of his blows. The anger had just consumed him, he couldn’t control it. Now he was finally seeing clearly again.
He looked up at Caitlin, and realized he hadn’t actually looked at her since she opened the door. His face fell instantly. She was a wreck. Her cheeks were flushed and tears were streaming down slowly. She had bags under her eyes, dark ones. She didn’t even look like his Caitlin.
Now he was angry at himself. Of course this was hard for her, he had no right to accuse her of anything less. Why was he so angry?
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”
He reached a hand out, but she didn’t acknowledge it.
Still calm, she looked anywhere but Barry.
“Barry, I think you should leave.”
“Cait—”
“It’s Dr. Snow. Please, leave.”
He opened his mouth to say more, but nothing came out. He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. He debated staying, to fix the damage he had done, but right now he knew he would only make it worse. He did as she wished and left the apartment.
She stared at her alarm clock, somehow thinking that that would make it go faster. It was four in the morning and sleep was not her best friend.
She woke up again a couple hours later, but this time it was close enough. She managed to get through a quick shower and headed into her living room with her hair wrapped up in a towel. She had just made it to the coffee table when she heard a knock on the door.
Without thinking, she opened the door, revealing Barry Allen standing on the other side.
She really needed to start using the peephole.
He didn’t look angry, or sad. No, it was more… determined. He pushed past her again, a behavior that she’d have to correct sometime in the future. She decided now might not be the best time to bring it up.
“I don’t want you to go.”
He blurted out the words so fast she could hardly understand him. That, coupled with her lack of coffee and that it was six in the morning, made her inquire again.
“What?”
She had seen his puppy dog eyes before, but the ones he had on now were cutting deeper than they ever had before. He looked at her with a spark in his eyes. This was important.
He repeated the phrase, much clearer this time.
“I don’t want you to go.”
“Barry, I—”
“No, please, I have to say this. I know that we haven’t known each other very long, I mean it’s only been about half a year, not including the whole coma part, and I know you can’t possibly consider what I have to say as a reason for—”
“Barry, I really think—”
“Please, let me finish. It took the whole car ride over for me work up the nerve to say this.”
Car ride?
“Dr. Snow, do you believe in fate?”
Her jaw dropped. That certainly wasn’t what she expected to come out of his mouth… and she didn’t expect him to want an answer.
She cleared her throat. “Well, as a scientist…”
He cut her off and stammered on, thrusting his hands into his pockets and shifting his feet. “Of course you don’t, nevermind. The point is, I think… I think you’re in my life for a reason. You once told me that maybe there was a reason I got my powers. I think the same applies to you.”
He swallowed hard before continuing. There was no turning back now.
“I think Iris and Eddie got together for a reason, and even though Ronnie is back, there is a reason that you two can’t be together either. What I’m trying to say is…”
“The universe has a funny way of matchmaking?”
He knew it was a joke, and he wanted to laugh, but he couldn’t just now. This was too important.
He paused, now taking his time with the phrase. “I don’t want you to go.”
Every word held weight. He had carefully chosen these words, she knew that now. He could’ve said that he liked her, he could’ve said that she was more than just a friend… all of the cliché sayings. This way though, it meant more in some way. He didn’t have to say he liked her.
He asked her not to leave him.
She managed to stutter out the words she had been trying to tell him the last five minutes. The words he needed to hear.
“I already called them.”
She couldn’t tell how many emotions crossed Barry’s face in that moment, but he slowly relaxed his stance as she began her explanation.
“I woke up a few hours ago, and it just hit me. I just realized that this is where I’m supposed to be. This is my dream job. Maybe I’m not doing some fancy new medical research that might make front-page news, and I’m not interacting with more than one patient, but I am making a difference. It wasn’t what I signed up for in college, but I’m signing up now. This is what I was meant to do.”
He just stared at her. Maybe he hadn’t heard her. She repeated it for him in simpler terms.
“I’m not going.”
She could see the gears turning in his head. He was getting ready to backpedal. She wasn’t going to let him.
“And you’re not going anywhere either.”
He raised his eyebrows.
“Yes.”
“Yes to what?”
“Yes, I believe in fate.”
In just a few short minutes, “fate” had become a code word between them, and he’d just had confirmation that he wasn’t alone. Barry started fidgeting with his hands again, a quirk that she quite liked.
“You know, I always thought that I was the rambler in the group,” she teased as she stepped towards him. “Based on what I’ve seen in the past 12 hours, I think we might have to re-access the situation,”
He let out a small chuckle, and she got to see a glimpse of his perfectly white teeth again.
“I don’t think it was that bad…”
“Really?”
He quirked a brow and was struck speechless as she wrapped her arms around his neck.
“You’re so much worse.”