i just wanted to post something cute but this is worse than i imagined it to be.

Your harmony to the melody
It's echoing inside my head
A single voice
Above the noise
And like a common thread
Hmm, you're pulling me

-You Are the Music in Me, High School Musical

Harrison Wells may have been an evil superpower-ed speedster who could rival Barry Allen, who was the fastest man alive, but he was also a genius. And when a genius – under the disguise of another kinder genius – decided to recruit one woman into one of the most renowned research and development companies in the country, that would be kind of a certification to her brain power.

So, Caitlin Snow liked to think she was a smart person, a person with an above average IQ with an affinity for bio-engineering. She liked merging medicine with engineer to come up with a million new and unexplored objectives. She particularly enjoyed it when she saw the strands of DNA warped into shape with a little tweak of engineering. She loved the new inventions that could happen down the road if she combined the two professions together. She loved how the human bodies work, with the mysterious DNAs and blood work and the mechanism of the organs.

She would say she understood human beings quite well, but she didn't understand human beings at all.

She could easily tell you the function of the heart besides all the things you learned in high school textbooks. She could list out the periodic table accordingly with a snap of her fingers. She could help you stitch your wounds perfectly without leaving behind a scar. She could look at you, take a look at your chart for five minutes tops, and tell you what your problem was and what needed to be done.

She could do all that. What she couldn't do was deduce the human minds. Why did people do what they do? What were they thinking when they were doing it? What was their motive behind doing it? Would it benefit them in some way? Why was Barry Allen staring at her when he thought she wasn't looking?

Caitlin had started to take notice of that when she accidentally caught him staring at her in the reflection of her dark computer screen. He obviously didn't know that she caught him, because even though she'd cleared her throat more than ten times, all he did was ask her if she was okay and then went back to staring at her when she told him she was fine.

Sometimes, she wasn't even sure if he noticed that he was staring. She would find him suddenly snapping out of his focus on her when someone called his name. He would stare blankly at them for a moment, blinking slowly, before she watched his pupils zero into the person talking to him and actually talk. She knew him well enough to know that those actions were things he did when he was distracted.

She couldn't very well believe that he was distracted by her, could she?

Jay was…Well, she didn't know what he was.

It was too early to fall in love with someone all over again. Her husband did die just six months ago. But she wasn't even sure if she would be able to fall in love with Jay had it been longer than six months.

The man was easy to talk to. He was easy on the eyes too. She didn't find any difficulty to talk to him. They almost never ran out of topics. What was there to not like about him?

Maybe she should have thought about the fact that he was literally from another parallel universe and he was going to have to have go back sooner or later. But other than that, she could easily see herself with him.

And yet, whenever she left the room and felt his eyes on her, she didn't feel the tingles. The ones she used to feel when Ronnie was still alive and the ones she felt now when she left a room with Barry in it.

That should be a sign in and of itself.

"Do you mind if I ask you something?"

She lifted her eyes from the microscope to the woman standing under the arch of the entry into the main room of STAR Labs. She nodded and made a sound for her to go ahead.

Iris pushed away from the arch and approached her from behind, taking a seat on the chair Cisco used to occupy. "What's up with you and Barry?"

"W-what?" she sputtered.

Iris's eyes narrowed slightly and her head tilted. "You and Barry," she clarified. "Are you seeing each other or something?"

"We're always seeing each other. He comes in and out of here daily. It's hard to not see each other," Caitlin said pretentiously, avoiding Iris's eyes.

"Caitlin," Iris pronounced, her tone indicating that she knew Caitlin wasn't that stupid to not understand what she was talking about.

"Nothing is up with me and Barry," she said, looking back into her microscope at the foreign metahumans cells.

"Well, he definitely sees you," Iris dismissively imparted.

Caitlin's head lifted abruptly from the microscope and she turned to look at Iris with a frown. She spun her chair a little and asked, "What do you mean?" She was just interested, that was all. Or so she tried to convince herself.

Iris smirked enigmatically. "The boy can't keep his eyes off you. You know, for a superhero, he's really not that good at camouflage."

"That's because he's fast," Caitlin muttered under her breath. "Yeah well, that's probably nothing. He probably was thinking about something and didn't realize he was actually staring at me as he was thinking."

Iris hummed, her agreement startlingly mocking. She stood up, her hands braced on the table surface. "Maybe you're right. But I really can't think of anyone who'd stare at the same person whenever they're thinking." Iris left with a wink.

"What?"

Barry's eyes widened in shock and he hurriedly shook his head. "Nothing."

Caitlin raised her brows. "You're staring."

"No, I'm not."

Caitlin rolled her eyes, straightening up and tossing the cotton ball in the trash can. "You're all set. That'll teach you to not run with your eyes closed." She pulled off the latex gloves and tossed them in the trash can as well. "And yes, you are. In fact, you've been staring since god knows when."

"I –"

"He likes you," Cisco said from behind. They both spun to see him absentmindedly swiping his tablet, as if he hadn't spoken at all. "He's liked you since god knows when." Well, now they can confirm it was Cisco.

"Shut up, Cisco," Barry snapped.

Caitlin blinked in surprise. Barry never snapped. Well, he did. In fact, he'd snapped at her a few times before, but normally there was a metahuman involved.

Cisco looked peeved but didn't look all that guilty, judging by the smirk on his lips. "I'll catch you guys later," he said with a click of his tongue before dashing out of the room.

"What's he talking about?" Caitlin asked.

"What? Nothing. Just ignore him."

Caitlin intended to ignore him but as she watched him, she felt like she shouldn't. Barry was fidgeting and avoiding looking at her. She narrowed her eyes and shook her head. "Barry, what is Cisco talking about?"

"Nothing."

"Barry!"

He winced at her snap and sighed, plopping down on the stool with a defeated posture. "I…He…I like you." He timidly raised his eyes to meet hers. "I don't know when or how but…I just…One day, I just find myself staring at you and then every day since I just can't seem to stop."

She stared at him, a little surprised at his confession. She became a guppy fist for several moments, opening and closing her mouth a few times. She then truly looked at him, her brain couldn't but going through a ton of data – that was what she called them.

Barry Allen was undeniably good-looking; she'd known that since the first glance. And if she would admit it, there were times when she felt a little more than attracted to him. He was a really nice guy. And she seemed to find herself in complicated romantic situations with metahumans, as she came to realize.

And that time when she kissed Everyman – thinking that he was Barry – she actually wanted to kiss him back.

She gasped when her brain came to a stop. She didn't feel the tingles with Jay because…because she felt it with Barry.

"I know. I know it's not the right timing. And maybe I'd be a sad sack for the next I don't know how long after two minutes but…would you like to go out with me?"

She returned to reality only to find him just a few feet away from her, looking down at her. He had a hopeful look on his face but he also seemed ready to be disappointed at any given time.

"Okay."

yeah, this is awful.