Caitlin Snow is a doctor. She's a professional. She knows not to get attached to her patients. She knows how to force her tears back down when they threaten to rise. She knows how to make her voice sympathetic to the patient, but still not have too much emotion. She knows how to control herself. She knows how to use the ice that resides inside of her to harden her heart, to keep a calm and cool exterior. Because in the medical world, emotions around patients just doesn't work.
She can do this around strangers, and she's done it before. But it isn't a stranger who's on the gurney, fighting for his life. It's her friend. It's Barry Allen. Quirky, intelligent, big-hearted, goofy Barry Allen, who helped comfort her when she needed it, who believed that she could fight the Killer Frost inside her.
She's treated him when he's had serious injuries before, like after he broke his back in his fight with Zoom and after he was stabbed by Savitar. But even that pales in comparison to what Barry's going through right now. Without his accelerated healing capabilities, he'd be dead. Even with his accelerated healing capabilities, he's so close to dying that Caitlin can't help it: the tears fall from her eyes. They land on her hands and on Barry's bloody, mangled arm. The others look up in shock. Because Caitlin Snow has never cried when treating Barry, and they know it's bad.
Caitlin curses inwardly to herself as she inserts an IV into Barry's hand. Crying is unprofessional. Crying isn't what doctors do when faced with an emergency situation. But she can't help it. Because her friend may die, despite her efforts.
In all honesty, she doesn't know whether it's for better or worse that she knows exactly what's wrong with Barry: massive internal bleeding, multiple compound fractures, a hemothorax and a collapsed lung. What worries her the most is his head injury, what she's diagnosed as a Grade III diffuse axonal injury. The most important regions of Barry's brain are damaged: the regions that control memory, thought, language, emotion, and so much more. If Barry wakes up, he might not be the same person he was. The others don't know this. They are safe in their ignorance of the severity of Barry's condition, but at the same time their ignorance leads them to imagining the worst of possibilities.
Later when Barry's stabilized as best as he could be, she's in the pipeline, and she's sobbing into her hands: for Barry's condition, for crying in front of the others, for everything. Someone comes and wraps their arms around her, and she leans into that person, unable to stop. She realizes it's Cisco. He doesn't say anything, just holds her until she slowly stops crying and starts to hiccup. He doesn't say anything when he gives her a napkin to wipe her face. He doesn't say anything when she breathes deeply, trying to calm down; he just sits there, holding her. He knows her too well that he knows when she just wants to be hugged, not talked to.
It's only when Caitlin takes a shaky breath and stands up, saying, "I'm gonna check on Barry," when Cisco leans in and whispers: "Screw professional."