Description: Just the way I would want this season to end.
AN: Inspired by a talk with my snowells family. I love you, girls! This is the first of many inspired shots to come!
He knew he would be kicked out as soon as DeVoe was taken care of. It was no secret, really. The blame was partially his as he remembered well telling Cisco that he could feel free to breach him back to Earth Two once things got out of control.
And they had. They so had.
The power of the intelligence booster – which the team insisted on calling the thinking cap – was grand, yet it still wasn't enough to get ahead of the Thinker. In the end, after consulting with his Wells friends scattered all over the multiverse, Harry knew they had to take some drastic measures, that there had to risk everything in order to win. Trying to do so without that risk would get them nowhere. Yes, he estimated it to be pretty high, but if they didn't take that chance, they would definitely fail and many more of them would die.
He just wished the team had shared his views on the matter.
First to go was Cisco, surprisingly, since Harry always thought of him as of his best friend. The moment Ramon turned his back on him, it stung. In fact, it hurt a lot and Harrison was able to hide it well. Maybe even too well, but she could tell anyway and she was immediately there, right by his side, comforting him.
It was both the worst and the best thing that had ever happened to him. She stood by his side when the team wanted nothing to do with him anymore. She actually understood. He was still at awe that he hadn't realized before that she always knew him best, could tell without a doubt what he was thinking and what he would do. That was why she hadn't tried to stop him when he'd come up with the intelligence booster idea. That was why she'd asked Cisco for help. And it went both ways, truly. Because he knew her, too. All too well.
They'd grown very close ever since he'd arrived at Earth One to stay and it happened almost imperceptibly. In fact, he himself noticed when it was already too late, the magnitude of his own feelings for her nearly knocking him off his feet.
The reason to why she was still with him when no one else was had a lot to do with what she herself had to go through with Killer Frost. She understood nothing was black and white, she understood that risks needed to be taken in life. She understood that there was no other way.
So, in the end, they did win, only it came with a cost the team still didn't seem to accept.
It was Harry who sent Dibny to DeVoe's den once figuring out a way. It was Harry who armed him and let him go without telling the whole team. There was risk, yes, but there would always be.
Unfortunately, Dibny didn't make it, DeVoe taking over his body and then fighting Barry when wearing it.
Nothing about it was easy.
Then again, nothing about winning a war ever was.
And right now, they took a vote and Harry was out. Again. Once again he was kicked off the team. The difference was that now it actually hurt because he cared about every single one of those people.
She found him when he was packing his stuff in the small room he had just for himself in the Labs. He'd actually grown attached to this place and started calling it his own. Apparently, nothing last forever.
"So, you're just gonna leave?" he heard her voice coming from behind him and he froze, his bag zipped half way. "You can't just give up, Harry," she continued, walking inside and then she was right behind him as he straightened up, her hand on his shoulder. "They will come around. I'm sure of it. You just need to give them time."
He cleared his throat before saying, "They don't want me here and I won't beg."
"What if I want you here?" she asked, her fingers brushing over his shoulder.
He sighed before turning around and facing her. And God, she was so beautiful, he thought, his chest starting to actually ache at the expression of love and devotion in her eyes. He couldn't even begin to tell her how much her support meant to him. He wouldn't be able to do anything without it.
He had to at least try, though, he decided when reaching for her hand and closing it in his own.
"Caitlin…" he still couldn't get used to calling her that. He'd always addressed her as Snow, but ever since things had changed between them, this had to change as well. "It means the world to me that you stood by side," he finally continued with another heavy sigh, "but I don't want to be the reason to why there's suddenly this wedge between you and the rest of the team." He noticed her eyes growing a little watery, but she held on, listening to what he had to say. "They don't want me here, so I am not staying. I'm sorry."
"But… Harry," she called his name in a slightly broken voice and it was like a knife sinking straight into his heart, because the last thing he wanted to do was to hurt her as well.
"You… ah, Caitlin… you will never truly… know… what you actually mean to me," he told her just then, tightening his hold on her hand and bringing it to his chest to place over his heart. He wasn't good at expressing his feelings, so this would have to do for now, memories of what happened between them, of their first kiss as they grew so much closer after Cisco turned his back on him. Memories of that one and perfect night they had, of rumpled sheets and heat as their bodies collided so naturally as though they always belonged together… She was truly all he needed, but he couldn't ask her to follow him. She had her life on this earth and he had to leave.
"Harry, I don't want you to go," she repeated just then, getting closer and putting her arms around his neck, breathing him in, reveling in the familiar and dear smell of him, of his body pressed tightly against her own. They fitted so well together that it made her believe that they were simply meant to be.
"I don't want to," he confessed just then, straight into her ear, "but I also care too much about you to ask you to choose. It wouldn't be fair. Your life is here and I have no right to uproot you. I…" he sighed again, the words he so desperately wanted to say dying out in his throat. He couldn't do this to her. He couldn't say it and then just leave. So he settled for saying goodbye and kissing her cheek before extricating himself from her arms and leaving.
And God knew it was one of the most difficult decisions he'd ever had to make.
Caitlin tried. She really did. But in the end no one listened to her. They didn't listen even when she told them straightforwardly that she had feelings for Harry, very strong feelings and she couldn't lose him. Not after everything she'd gone through in the past.
"Then don't!" Cisco just screamed, throwing his hands up into the air. "We're not asking you to give him up! We're just asking him to leave!"
Right now as she was standing in the empty room that used to belong to the man she loved, she felt that emptiness to enter her chest as well, filling her heart with terrible loneliness and longing.
In that moment, she finally understood what Harry didn't want to say. She understood that she loved him even more for it, because he never asked her to make a choice. He left all of that to her.
And she was choosing right now.
She took up running, leaving his room, making a dash to the breach lab, feeling so damn relieved that he was still there, just now waiting for a breach to open.
She didn't say anything when she walked over to him and took his hand.
He jerked in surprise and then looked at her with his mouth hanging open.
"Snow…" he said in a hoarse, disbelieving voice, the old nickname he had for her just slipping out of his mouth on its own. "What are you…?"
"I love you," she simply said when giving his hand a little squeeze, the terrible ache in her heart finally disappearing, being replaced by overwhelming feeling of belonging and affection for this man. It was just proof that she made the right choice. That there was truly no other.
His gorgeous blue eyes opened widely and then he said the only thing he could, "I love you, too," in a strained voice.
"Good," she smiled to him just then, facing him and cupping his face, "then take me with you." Then she kissed him. "The team isn't my home, Harry," she added in a whisper against his lips. "You are. And I am not letting this go because I believe we found something special here. We've both been helpless for so long… I think it's time we accept this and just be together."
He closed his eyes, pressing his forehead against her own, not believing what he just heard, his heart singing in joy and happiness and hope.
"Are you really willing to do this? Leave your own earth behind and move to mine just to be with me?"
"It's nothing you haven't already done," she reminded him and then she kissed him again. This time he pressed her tighter against him, losing himself in the kiss, accepting the suddenly bright future they were going to have. "I'm sure they'll come along eventually, but until then," she said when they faced the already opened breach, "let's just be together."
He smiled at her, taking her hand in his and giving it a little squeeze. "Let's do this," he agreed, suddenly not able to believe that he'd been so broken once that he thought he could never truly move on and find happiness again. The worst part was that she'd been there the whole damn time and he was just too blind to notice. Good thing they both finally did.
Next, they moved together, crossing over to his earth, the breach closing behind them.
That was the moment Cisco ran inside the room, thinking maybe he did owe Harry some kind of a goodbye. They'd both grown so close over the years that it hurt the younger man that he was actually ready to let him go like this.
It was too late, though.
When he returned to the cortex, he was still shocked with what he'd seen.
"What's wrong? You didn't catch him?" Barry asked, seeing the strange and troubled look on his friend's face.
"No," Cisco admitted, "but that's not all… It's Cait, actually..."
"What about her?" Barry wanted to know, frowning.
"She went with him."
Everyone present in the cortex gasped.
