A/N: Many thanks to thestarkswillendure for betareading and also cheerleading this when I wasn't so confident about it.
Written for simplysnowbarry spring 2019 event, for the following prompts: rebirth, hair dye, body paint, fake tattoos, let's go home.
No claims as to medical accuracy regarding fugue states, this is a fictional meta power.
To See You As You Are
For the umpteenth time in his life, Barry is regretting not learning any languages. Finding a missing person in Rome would go a lot smoother if he knew Italian. Or if Cisco had actually been able to hack the local CCTV to analyze footage, but Rome has surprisingly good security much to Cisco's consternation, but that's an anomaly to check out on another day. Speaking in English everyone thinks he's just another tourist looking for another tourist foolish enough to get lost, or worse, looking for an American who came here to get lost.
It's been over two weeks since the multi meta attack that temporarily took both Cisco and Caitlin from Team Flash, not in body, but in mind. One minute they were his friends fighting alongside him, the next they were completely different people, confused and smack in the middle of a battle. And of course Cisco, not knowing who he was but clearly still able to use his powers instinctually, had breached them the hell outta there.
Locating Cisco hadn't been too painful with Cynthia's help – they might've been broken up but she'd lend a hand if Cisco was in any danger. Vibing Cisco himself hadn't worked like it should have because Cisco wasn't actually Cisco anymore but vibing based on the connection all breachers shared did the trick. After a few false starts that took them to a couple of other breachers on Earth-1, handy to know, they finally got to one very agitated Cisco. He'd already known something was wrong, the memories he had not gelling with what he felt deep inside. All it had taken was a gentle nudge from Cynthia with her powers to enable him to unlock his real memories.
Being able to see Cisco again, to reach out and touch his shoulder and hear Cisco make a quip about how touchy-feely he was all of a sudden - but totally not shying away from it - was confirmation he was back exactly where he was meant to be. At that Barry had breathed easier for the first time in hours since the incident, though they'd been playing "Real or not real?" ala The Hunger Games for days afterward as Cisco sorted through a bunch of new memories. Barry swore some of those questions were the product of wishful thinking on Cisco's part, wanting some extra cool backstory details to be true compared to his actual pretty standard childhood. Not everything he'd been imparted with by Fugue was entirely unwelcome. Cisco kept saying it felt like a really intense dream he'd woken up from, where it was hard to tell what had really happened until you examined it closely enough to poke holes in the memories.
It was great to have Cisco himself again but the trouble was Caitlin was gone and not Vibe-able because she wasn't Caitlin right now. And Cisco had sheepishly admitted to vibing both their fugued selves to Constantinople before he was in his right mind.
"Don't you mean Istanbul?"
"Fugued me really liked Dracula and didn't give a crap about historical or geographical accuracy, so bite me."
Cisco tried over and over to reach out to Caitlin across whatever space there was between them, the connection weak and falling from his grasp before he could pin it down. With his powers failing to do what he usually could do so easily, Cisco reverted to tech to provide the answer.
Joe, Iris, and Ralph were doing what they could from Central City but that wasn't much without any leads. Between them they set-up various alerts designed to look for either Frost or Caitlin, or more generally any out of place Americans making the news. Barry and Cisco reprogrammed the facial recognition algorithms to their widest settings to pick up a hint of anyone who looked like her, no matter what change of appearance she might have taken on with her new persona. They also re-tasked the satellites to search for cold signatures across the globe, manually ruling out each one because the satellites could only show possibilities.
This was their problem, so much data to trawl through searching for breadcrumbs. Cisco visibly angsted more and more each day they failed to come up with any new info; forgetting to change his clothes and alternatingly off his food or comfort eating Big Belly Burger orders Barry would flash off to get them periodically. Barry had given a probably not too convincing excuse to Singh about having stomach flu, although with how sick to his stomach he actually did feel this whole time with Caitlin missing maybe that had sold it, or maybe Singh was more sympathetic to his unspoken double life than Barry expected.
He and Cisco had given up sleeping more than brief cat naps in the Cortex when they finally hit upon a social media post matching their alerts, a photo that showed what could have been Frost in the background at a trendy new nightclub. Plenty of questions were raised by that development but honestly, Barry didn't care why, he just wanted to find her as quick as possible. Not the easiest thing to do when it wasn't currently night-time over in Italy and their best lead was to a club that was closed at this hour. Not that that stopped him from phasing through a few walls into the security room there and nabbing the CD for the footage from the night before. Barry sped it back to S.T.A.R. Labs and one of Cisco's custom programs scanned through the files, pinging up several for them to review. There was no doubt then it was Caitlin. She stuck out easily on the footage, taller than most around her, with her partially Frosty locks evident as she danced enthusiastically in a crowd.
After that confirmation they were looking in the right place, it was unfortunately many hours before any of the clubs opened, but Barry had no intention of sitting around waiting for her to turn up there again. They at least knew which city, if she was still there. Unfamiliar as it was, he could cover plenty of ground and asking around to help pinpoint where she might be wouldn't go amiss either. A great plan in theory. He wasn't finding it working out well in practice.
Hours later and he was pretty wound up from many frustrating interactions with locals and tourists alike, and with nothing to show for his efforts. At least the clubs were opening now. The chances she'd appear at the start of hours weren't too good but Cisco hit upon the idea of adding their own surveillance, piggybacked onto educational wifi hotspots that peppered the city. It took longer than Barry would have liked - each camera placement required real-time sync with Cisco as he tried to connect to it and directed Barry to calibrate, and sometimes recalibrate, the positioning. A Speedster's impatience coupled with his aching concern for Caitlin meant his frustration grew with every minute she was still missing.
When the notification from their impromptu camera network came in finally, Barry felt his heart lurch in his chest, a sudden panic at the confrontation to come. Caitlin was here in this club, but she wasn't going to remember being Caitlin. They didn't have a quick fix for what Fugue had done to her. Cisco hoped he could trigger her memories by vibing her to significant moments of her life but they couldn't do that in the middle of a club. Breaching her out would cause too much of a scene and besides, it wouldn't be good to antagonize someone with her powers at their disposal.
Quickly changing out of his suit and into something a little more casual - jeans, t-shirt, and an open button-down – he phases through into the club to avoid the queue outside. And as he takes in the dress of those already in the club, he figures he's also avoided his likely getting turned away for being dressed much too casually. He feels so out of place and way too hot when his Speedster's heat is added to that of the throng of bodies surrounding him on all sides as he moves onto the main floor.
That's when he spies her. Arms in the air and her movements so free compared to the tightness Caitlin carried with her. The only time he'd seen her drop that tenseness had been either when she was drunk or Frost. But here, she's something else.
He can see the fun-loving casualness of Frost evident in this woman but Frost's white hair which is lifted up into a haphazard French braid has, surprisingly, some streaks of blue and pink dye threaded through it. There's UV body paint in lighter glowing hues spiraling around her bare arms. As he closes in, pushing his way through the crowd, he sees what he assumes is a fake tattoo on her exposed midriff. Proper tattoos weren't an option; Frost had tried to get one, much to Caitlin's dismay. She has leather pants on, which seems to perfectly suit Frost's style but he's never seen either Frost or Caitlin with a crop top. It's very weird seeing her like this, unsettling in a way he doesn't wish to dwell on.
The one thing he can't fail to notice is that she looks truly happy for the first time in ages and it makes him wonder if he should leave her be. He remembers what it felt like when they used the cerebral inhibitor on him in an attempt to foil Savitar's plan and it had backfired. Not knowing anything about his life for a while had been a gift. He'd felt unburdened of his past, and all his trauma, for that day. Life had felt uncomplicated then and it was good. Of course, he'd gone back to being the Barry Allen they knew and he didn't regret the team's decision to guide him back to who he was, but he'd still been glad to have that time. Will Caitlin feel the same?
He's barely a meter away and he has no idea what to say to her. As she glances up at him he sees she has Caitlin's soft brown eyes, not the bright white-blue of Frost. And she has Caitlin's smile for a moment. Except she's not Caitlin. She's also not Frost. She catches his eye and her smile turns from sweet and shy into something else entirely he would never have expected directed at him. She looks like someone in between them but is possibly neither. Who has she been made into?
He wants - they all want - Caitlin back but she deserves a choice. She needs to be reminded of who she used to be and he has to see how she feels about re-embracing that life. No one can force her to do what she doesn't want to do. No matter who she is he's certain that's still true. But it's easier said than done. No words come. His mouth goes dry and he struggles to swallow his nervousness down as she sidles closer and closer to him, moving sensually to the beat of the music. He's never seen Caitlin like this, so care-free. All she appears to see when she looks at him is a random guy staring at her.
Her eyes light up as she reaches him and he stands his ground, a playful smile dancing on her lips. She calls out a greeting that he thinks might be "Hey, handsome." but it's hard to tell over the noise of the club. Standing there, frozen in place, he tries desperately to get his brain back into gear. It's a lot harder to than he'd expect. Especially as she slides her arms casually around his neck and presses up against him. All he can think of is how her coolness is a sweet relief from the near-suffocating heat of the club. Until it filters through to his mind that this is Caitlin pressed up against him.
They're closer than they've ever been and this is very different than any contact he's known before – the closest being Frost's deadly kiss in the street that he's not even sure Caitlin knew about. Despite being a stranger to her, she's drawn to him, wants to get to know him and clearly in ways neither of them would seriously consider under normal circumstances.
"I – er – you sure you want to do that?" he almost shouts out, only barely audible but he knows she hears him when she raises her eyebrows and quirks her lips in amusement. It's so odd how much like Caitlin and Frost she can look when she isn't exactly either of them right now. Just how much of her is left? He really doesn't know but he can't believe Caitlin would do this.
She leans closer to his ear, all the better to be heard but he doesn't think, with how she's acting, that it's the only reason.
"Well, aren't you cute. Don't worry, I don't do things I don't want to. Which means I want -"
He catches onto the implication pretty fast and means to cut off that sentence, and chain of thought, with a redirect about...the music? Her outfit? Anything other than having him hear what he knows she's going to finish that sentence with - something Caitlin would probably be mortified to know she'd said, even if it was ultimately unintentional, when not herself. Instead, he ends up tongue-tied, spluttering barely the start of each of his half-formed thoughts and then mostly coughing a lot in the absence of any reasonable distraction. At least it interrupts her. Though he doesn't plan on also tripping over their feet in his coughing fit and being caught further in her embrace.
"Sorry, I...Um," he says much more gently now he's within decent earshot. He tries and fails to get his composure back, and ends up clumsily disentangling them in an attempt to retreat to a safer distance. Something less "friendly". Once he's drawn back enough to see her expression, he notices she's grinning at him, at his fumbling, as if it's adorable. Not many people have ever reacted to his awkwardness like that and it flares an emotion in him he pushes down as fast as it appears. She pouts a little as he extricates himself from her arms but thankfully doesn't leave because of his withdrawal. Even if she's eager for more, it seems like she's appeased by dancing next to him.
Focusing on acting calmer than he feels, he takes a shaky breath and swallows hard. He has to get her somewhere they can talk. It makes total sense he should play along, doesn't it? Until he can figure out how to naturally suggest going somewhere else. A ploy. She's not Caitlin and he doesn't have to be Barry here. It's okay. Just go along with it. Listening to the thrum of the music, he starts to relax. She dances closer again but doesn't put her arms around him this time, testing the waters. Somehow he manages to avoid stumbling. He settles into a pattern of swaying with her, bodies not quite touching. It helps if he doesn't look at her face. Dark as it is, his blush must give him away and he's grateful she doesn't comment on it, letting him be. He can pretend in this moment they are just two people having a good time, on holiday perhaps. Some taste of who they could be free from a life of heroics. But he knows it isn't that. He has to give her the chance to come back to them.
He leans over to whisper in her ear and senses her sharp intake of breath at his movement. He doesn't stop to think about it but his body responds with his own short pant and she shivers at the hot puff of air he hadn't intended from that.
"I need to talk to you," he says somewhat gruffly, keeping it as brief and mysterious as he can to hopefully be enticing to her. Abruptly, he takes her hand and is pulling her after him before he thinks better of it. Luckily she lets him lead him off the dance floor, but once they've made it into the mostly deserted corridor he finds her shifting the balance in her favor. He'd felt bad implying things that weren't going to happen just to get her alone, but it backfires on him when she takes him for more than his words, pushing him up against the wall. It's his turn to shudder at the sultry whisper in his ear.
"Talking, is that what we're calling it these days?"
He doesn't do anything. He should be doing something, saying something. Yet he's mentally stuck on how forward she is being. At how much she appears to want him. She isn't Caitlin but it short circuits him regardless because this still feels like his friend who has herself pressed tight to his body. He feels guilty for enjoying any of it and for the fact some part of him doesn't want to push her away. At his lack of response, she pulls back and he sees doubt flit over her face before annoyance replaces it.
"Sorry, I meant actual talking. Not that you aren't attractive, anyone would be lucky..." he trails off his reassurances, realizing it isn't helping and he needs to get to the point, keep her interested in what he has to say. Stay on track, Barry.
"Right," she says, crossing her arms and looking elsewhere, looking like she's about to slink off any second now. Really he doesn't know what's kept her here this long.
"Something happened to you a couple of weeks ago, didn't it?"
She narrows her eyes at him but also tilts her head and steps towards him again, curious. Like he knows Caitlin would be.
"It happened to another – to one of my friends too. He was the one that helped you get away from the..." he pauses, considering how much to tell her, how to phrase it but there isn't any point in sugar coating things when she has to know what is going on so he finishes with, "- the battle."
"You can tell me what happened that day?"
He nods and at that, her expression hardens with a resolve to get answers.
"Then tell me."
"You have powers."
He expects it to be a surprise to her. There have been no odd reports of incidents with an icy woman, but she doesn't react at all.
"Thought you were gonna tell me something I don't know."
"But..." he struggles to readjust his tack on the fly. He was prepared for explaining it all from scratch and it's hard to know what to say instead, what she doesn't know. What she needs to know. "Do you know how you got them? Or what you do with them?"
"I don't do anything with them. I mean, I do what I want. But I keep to myself, stay off people's radar. I get to enjoy the world."
Her smile seems superficially satisfied, yet there's something to how her eyes crease that doesn't sell her fantasy to him. The thought occurs that maybe she wanted to run away, but as Caitlin she'd wanted to run away to protect people. Further back in their past there's a painful conversation he recalls, about her wanting Ronnie to be just her husband, no heroics in her life. Caitlin keeps being called to do great things and time and time again she answers that call, but it hadn't been what she'd wanted originally. Is this what she wants, a simpler life, or is it what Fugue made her want, to make her run away again?
"Does that feel right to you? Doing nothing with your powers? Having no one?"
"I... I have fun, a good time. And there's always people around," she says, motioning to the masses they'd left behind. No matter how it looks there's an edge of loneliness present too. Her smile falters for a moment but she forces it back brighter.
"Who you are now isn't who you used to be. Another meta, she changed your memories. You have friends. You have a job. You do good, you save people, with your powers and with your brains."
Barry can't help the fondness that springs forth and works its way into his tone as he considers all the memories that make up who he knows her to be. She looks away again, uncomfortable – he can't tell what it is she wants to avoid.
"So, you're telling me I'm some kind of do-gooder."
"More or less. You had your issues. It's...complicated, but you chose to help people. It's who you are, deep down. I'm hoping you'll see that again."
She doesn't answer him for a long while. They stand there at a stalemate and there's clearly some inner turmoil she'd wrestling with.
"Is that me? Or is it who you want me to be?"
There's a chilliness to her testy response, much more Frost-like in her challenging his claims but it's still Caitlin's eyes staring back at him. He can't help but feel those eyes are secretly pleading with him for it to be true, only questioning it because she needs proof, but what proof is there without the knowledge of every moment that made her Caitlin to start with. What can you trust when don't know what you don't know?
Instinct. In a split second, he takes one of her hands in both of his without hesitation. He can see her consideration when he touches her, noticing now that they are away from the packed dance-floor his abnormal warmth that can't be easily accounted for.
"Feel that. I run hot, because of my powers. And you know you run cold, right. We balance each other. We keep each other in check. You've helped me so many times. I'm here to help you now. We can fix this -" He stops himself there, hesitation catching up with doubt over his rashness.
That leaves them in an uncanny bubble of quiet, her staring at him with an intensity that makes him feel hotter under the collar somehow. When he looks around he notices for the first time they're in Flashtime he hadn't meant to slip into and she follows his gaze, gaping a little at the stopped scene they stand in the midst of. He promptly drops her hand, looking away, letting everything fall back into real-time and adding the all-important caveat, "- if you want."
Her reply comes softer now, "How do I know I can trust you? You could be trying to use me."
And unexpectedly her hand pushes against his chest as if for emphasis, though the only thing it brings into clarity is his racing heart. The action throws him off his own train of thought as her fingers flex against the bunched up fabric of his t-shirt. He takes a deep breath and tries to find the words she needs. What he needs to say to leave here with her.
"No, I would never...You need to know what happened. To know the truth. Whatever you do with that is up to you, but we miss you. You have a home. You have friends. You don't need to be alone."
"What if alone suits me?" It sounds like it should be a question but it isn't exactly. Everything about how she speaks that line sets off an ache inside him and he isn't over it, isn't prepared either, for what she says next. "It doesn't feel like it's something new, am I wrong?"
Barry cringes at that, at how he can't lie about how alone she has been at times, even when surrounded by the team. Secrets, grief and trauma have cut them off from each other too many times, but they always come back to each other too - him, Cait and Cisco.
"Your name is Caitlin. And Frost." He leaves off the 'Killer' bit of her other name, figuring it's about time they let go of defining her by things she never turned out to be.
An eyebrow raises at the second name and he guesses having two names like that is something that has become usual, taken for granted as pretty normal to people like them, but not to her as she is.
They're doing this so out of order. He settles for starting with an introduction like maybe he should have to begin with, offering his hand for her to shake. "I'm Barry."
"Let's go home?" he half-asks, trying to keep the question light. To not imbue it with the longing for his friend. He simply holds out his hand and hopes.
The grasp of his hand returned feels so good. Like a lifeline thrown out into the sea, the tug on his heartstrings as the lines are pulled tight and he knows his friend will be safe. His sigh of relief comes too quick to be noticed by her and he speeds them back to Cisco before the next beat of the bass finishes behind them.
Sometimes it is hard to know how much pressure you are under until you surface. He'd known Caitlin being missing had him stressed but it's her return, the sudden ease with which he can breathe now, that lets him know exactly how crushing it was.
Cisco did his mojo, vibing Caitlin into key moments from her past to unblock her memories piece by piece. For quite a while, Cisco and Caitlin sat silently in medbay with their locked hands and only the rapid movements under their eyelids to indicate their near-dreamstate. He knows she's herself when they finally come to because the first thing she does is go into doctoring mode.
"How long were we vibing?" Her gaze flicks to the clock on the wall, no problem finding it, she knows exactly where she is.
"An hour?!" Whatever shock she has about Cisco's determined stint to get her back she shakes it off almost instantly returning to her focused self. "Barry, can you get two bottles and a protein bar?"
Before he goes to get the food and drink requested, he hears a disgruntled noise from Cisco, probably about the protein bar – they don't taste much better today than when Cisco first came up with the formula.
"And you mister, " she says directing a fond but exasperated glare at Cisco and his bloody nose, "you need an MRI! Why didn't you take a break?" She swats him lightly but pulls him into a hug right after and Cisco rolls his eyes but accepts. Soon enough they both wave Barry over to join in for a well-needed group hug.
Things seem right in the world for the first time in a couple of weeks and Barry is so looking forward to a decent night's sleep.
It's much later, after said full night's sleep, that he thinks back on what she said when she came back to them. Caitlin knew what the time was when they started vibing. Caitlin remembered what not!Caitlin knew. Which meant Caitlin remembered everything that had happened to not!Caitlin, everything she'd said or done. Everything.
He's not keen to have a conversation about the fact she practically grinded with him in the club or pressed him to the wall using her curves, but he should at least check in with her. Make sure they're okay. Possibly without actually talking about those specific things.
It's not hard to tell by the way he approaches her – eyes flitting about surreptitiously, hand unconsciously moving to rub at the back of his neck - that Barry has something on his mind, something he's nervous about talking to her about. She's pretty sure she knows which things are on his mind because they've been on hers too.
"Hey, Caitlin. How you holding up?" Barry asks as he towers over her desk, hands grasped tightly, not quite wringing them. For some reason, he blushes at his own words and there's an awkward silence while she works out why, what association he's managed to link them to. She blushes too once she remembers what. Like it was yesterday because, well, it was yesterday and there's not been as much time between that incident and today's imminent discussion as she'd prefer.
"Er...up to much?" he continues, strangely showing signs of blundering into his rare enough, around her anyway, rambling mode. "You know, doing anything interesting, like...science stuff. Medical stuff. Or anything at all. So...what are you working on?"
He folds his arms loosely, attempting to act casual but she sees the tension in how he's holding himself around her and she mentally cringes, hating this change.
"Not really," she says, aiming for getting more to the point, seeing as Barry doesn't seem like he's going to anytime soon if she's reading the situation correctly. Saving her file on the computer, she turns her attention back to Barry in full. There are definitely things that need to be said, if she can get to them through the cloud of her embarrassment. "I haven't been able to concentrate. Still got a lot of stray memories rattling around inside. It's...disconcerting."
Barry immediately switches to concerned, which is a response she doesn't mean to trigger in him but at least it gets him over his jitters.
"Are you okay?" His brows furrow and he moves around to her side of the desk to come sit on the edge. It's closer than she was expecting him to get and she pushes her chair back, hopefully imperceptibly to him. Judging by a slight tightening of his jaw at the same time, she fails. He crosses his arms again, much stiffer this time. She's the one that's anxious now and suddenly speechless. After a few moments, Barry perks up a little, relaxing a touch as he's clearly thought of an ice-breaker to the tense hush of her lab.
"I don't know what you're going through right now, but I've kinda been there too, something like it. I remember what it was like to not know who I was. I felt happy at the time. Happier than I could remember being for so, so long. It was freeing...and if I had the choice maybe I would have been tempted to stay that way. But you didn't. Even when you weren't you, you chose to come back to us. It means a lot. We appreciate it. I appreciate it."
Barry means it sincerely as he often does. He's just matter-of-factly sharing the anecdote to show her what they have in common, so that she doesn't feel alone in this but it catches her unaware with how chock full of emotion his statement is, how grateful he is to have her back. She has to look away. It makes her want to reciprocate, open up to him too, but that also makes it harder to admit she'd felt so similarly.
"I did...I did feel happy. Happier. I lost my guilt, I was unburdened. I don't think I realized how much my pain shapes me. I was happy, but I wasn't me, " she says with a shrug, still not able to look at him. "That's not who I'm meant to be."
She glances up once it is said and Barry looks like he's going to protest, probably that she doesn't deserve to be burdened, to be unhappy, and she throws him a look that stops him from speaking, letting him know she's not done.
"I know what it is to be that person now. That's not me, I can't just leave my past behind like that, but it showed me a possibility. There's a lesson in everything I guess. I can be happy, I just need to remember how and those memories, they'll help me, they're something fresher to hold on to. But even so, I was someone who...who did things to a friend a friend really should not do."
Barry blushes at her bringing it up, very intently reading the old safety procedures poster on the wall rather than face her. The blush fades quickly enough and she senses Barry's mood turning to thoughtful by how intently he is staring, no longer at the poster itself but seemingly past it. When he looks back to her, his eyes seem somehow darker and she doesn't know what he's going to say next.
"You weren't yourself, but you did what you wanted at the time. It was...different."
"I'm sorry. I know Frost likes to flirt with you, say inappropriate things at times, but I don't even think Frost would have gone that far. Really, I'm so sorry Barry. "
"You don't have to apologize, Cait. It's...It was weird but trust me, I can more than cope with you having done those things if that's the price I have to pay for getting you back."
He's blushing a bit again, still definitely embarrassed as much as she is by this but he's trying hard to be nice about it, to be reassuring much like he'd tried in the club when he thought he'd accidentally insulted her attractiveness. In a word, it is so... Barry.
"Besides, it's kinda flattering, you know," he says, sporting the start of what she reckons might develop into a cheeky grin and she decides she ought to come up with a retort to wipe that off his face in case he gets a little too into ribbing her about it as a way to lighten the mood.
Except there's a part of her that tells her to try something different, to take a page out of the book of her short-lived, but still well-lived, other self. To not be embarrassed, to be emboldened. It tells her to try harder, to reach for what she wants but wouldn't allow herself. Being that other her reminds her of what she wants. Of what is possible. Perhaps she shouldn't let go of that person so easily.
"And what if I did them now, as me?" is what comes out of her mouth.
Barry blinks at her, quiet all of a sudden. She pushes her chair forward, instead of away she had earlier. Honestly, she doesn't know where this has gone exactly, where they are is entirely unfamiliar territory.
There's a new intensity to his look as he takes his time to think on her question and there's not a lot of room between them now, her knees brushing up against his legs. Barry does the unexpected too, reaching out to take her hand and not taking his gaze off her, the intensity held.
"I'd trust that whatever you do, you'd do it because you made the choice to, because you wanted to."
"Really wanted to," she utters in a low tone, not quite believing she's saying it. She knows he must hear it though, by how he swallows hard and licks his lips. She doesn't move closer, they're close enough in theory. Too close already, for friends. She still wants to though. He's still holding her hand, her cold one in his warm one and she doesn't think, for once, that she is imagining the yearning between them.
How had they gotten here when she hadn't even intended to talk about what had happened any longer than need be. But here they are. Saying things that sound so different from what they would normally, from what they have been together before, but somehow also not that far removed from what makes sense, at least now that she has a new perspective on the both of them.
"Caitlin Snow," Barry's speaks up with her name, though his voice wavers on her name in a manner she's completely unused to. He pauses, glancing at his feet, and then swallows hard, clearly nervous once more. She watches the trajectory of that action, his Adam's apple bobbing, and can't shake her building worry about what he's going to blurt out once the dam bursts. Did she push too hard? Did she say something she can't come back from?
When he finally continues, she's still anxiously holding her breath and is relieved his answer comes out in a rush, no further delay to knowing if she's messed up.
"Do you wanna go to a club with me? One far, far away from Central City where no one knows who we are."
A club isn't really either of their scenes but it had been freeing and she doesn't have to worry about overheating like she used to. As Barry stares down at her, waiting for her answer this time, her mind flashes back to the previous night. To the feel of him dancing up against her, the way he'd looked at her that she'd put down to surprise or going along with the scene, but had he enjoyed it as much as that other her had? Both of them dancing as if nothing else mattered. She looks back up to Barry and her heart skips a beat at the thought of him wanting to do that again too and it gives her a boost of courage, to go further down this rabbit hole.
"Did you want to dance or...talk?"
"I don't see why we can't do both," Barry counters immediately, possibly before he can think better of it - he flushes red at the same time and looks down briefly, biting his lip. It's a habit he's picked up from her, not that she knows for sure if he does it for the same reason she does.
The implication sits there heavy between them, a callback to her invitation, of what she'd implied they should do when she wasn't herself. The idea stirs up old feelings of something wanted and long denied. She'd given up hoping for anything like that years ago and for some reason even once Barry was single again she hadn't reconsidered the prospect, assuming they were past anything like that. Other her hadn't known better.
Her brain is stuck on the unreality of what is happening, no idea what to say to that and it latches onto a stray thought meaning she rambles an answer to him that's so much the opposite of smooth.
"Except the noise levels. You know it's probably high enough to cause hearing loss."
But she knows she hasn't blown things when he grins wide as can be in return.
"Lucky we heal in a flash then, or a frost," he teases and she playfully swats his arm at the joke.
Strange as her answer was, it's very her, very them. They slip back into a pattern that is comforting and familiar in among this new thrum of what is between them.
The moment is broken by a blast of static over the comms system and Cisco calling them to witness his latest suit innovation.
Barry holds out his hand, a small smile on his lips, "To the Cortex?"
"To the Cortex," she confirms, taking his proffered hand and letting him pull her up gently.
She doesn't need the help but she isn't going to give up the opportunity to touch him and wonders if that's why he offers. She's already buzzing, metaphorically, in excited anticipation of more, but that's later and this is now. Work is now.
They walk side by side in companionable silence this time and she notices Barry sticking very close indeed, causing their shoulders to bump together as they make their way along the corridor. Despite the ease, how in sync they remain, it becomes hard to look at him now, exactly because she wants to so much.
As they circle around to the Cortex, a whole afternoon of work left to do before they can sneak off, she wants to smile, an irrepressible urge, and she realizes she doesn't have to repress it, does she? She could choose to let herself be happy.
Entering the room, Barry flashes into his suit with the convenient reason of testing it out, not that he knows what the improvement is yet. Hiding in it. She doesn't have that option which leads to Cisco doing a double take when he spies her expression.
"What's got you so peppy and looking like you stepped out of a rom-com?"
Caitlin resists a glance to Barry, not wanting to be obvious. Cisco has a good enough chance of working out what is evolving in front of him without her making it that much easier.
"I just remembered how much I love dancing," she replies and she leaves it at that, a touch worried if she mentions her and Barry's plan it'll turn into an OTF night out. She loves Cisco and she should make plans to go dancing with him too, they've had their fun dancing together before, but tonight she wants to enjoy being around Barry alone.
Alone together, in a crowd of strangers who don't know who they are and don't care if she dances that much closer to one of her best friends.