Author Notes: Trigger Warning – Not sure what they are, but this is a horrible situation for anyone to be in and Caitlin is understandably depressed and maybe suicidal.

Also, I have only watched up to Episode 14 so far and started writing this fanfic after it was revealed (shortly after aforementioned episode) on Entertainment Weekly by executive producer Andrew Kreisberg that Zoom is Hunter Zoloman, aka Jay Garrick. I'm sure by now the current episode has revealed the how's and why's, but I'm totally ignorant of them and so this is incredibly AU. So if you're caught up with the series and see any discrepancies, this is the reason why. And most likely, I've butchered the concept of multiverse and Speed Force, so apologies for that.

Disclaimer – I don't own The Flash. The fanfic's title is taken from the lyrics in ODESZA's and Zyra's 'It's Only.' The lyrics are surprisingly dark for such a light-hearted sounding song.

...

Chapter 1

The skin around her eyes throbbed, strained from the gut-wrenching sobs that tore from her just hours ago. Sometime during that, one of Zoom's meta lackeys had stopped by and unceremoniously tossed in a water bottle and a box of tissues. Caitlin placed the former on the grimy, cold ground beside her, but never opened it, even though her throat felt like it was tearing apart.

Gradually, her cries and screams had dwindled to silent tears, and finally to nothing as her eyes shed all it could. Caitlin cleaned herself up as best as she could with the tissues, as there was nothing else to do besides wallow in the aftermath as the hours sluggishly passed by. When she was finished, she leaned against the hard wall and drew her legs up to her chest, staying in that fetal position as she waited.

It made her seem small and diminished, especially with the remnants of her breakdown still visible on her flushed and swollen skin. Inside, she was anything but that. It felt as if all her emotions had been leeched from her in that explosion, leaving behind a cold and empty pit that weighed heavily in her chest. The numbness helped her organize her thoughts and even half-heartedly come up with escape plans despite it being futile.

Caitlin knew it was an unhealthy reaction, especially considering the magnitude of what had happened, but she held onto this façade of strength as best as she could. Here, deep in the belly of the monster, she would have to keep all her wits about her if she was to go against Zoom. She knew she couldn't do anything to him, the average human that she was. But she wasn't going down without a fight. If she was going to die, she'd die as the person she could be proud of. Not as a shadow of herself, as someone that had been broken by Zoom.

A chill went through her body as she recalled the man's machinations, the threats and all-too-real promises whenever he wanted someone to do something for him. Zoom was nothing but resourceful. She wouldn't be spared any mercy, even if he had let her live for reasons he had not yet divulged.

Caitlin could only hope she'd last long enough. For her friends, for herself, she had to.

The silence was broken by an all-too-familiar sound. She tensed, keeping her attention on the ground. A quick glance at her wristwatch told her that he had finally come six hours after he had placed her in the cell and left without another word. She could only guess what he had been doing in that amount of time, and the speculations did not comfort her at all.

He did not step in immediately. Although she did not look at him, she could feel his eyes burn into her as he silently stood outside her cell. The hair on the back of her neck prickled, and it was all she could do to quash down the shivers that threatened to shake her frame.

The gated door creaked noisily when he finally lifted it. His footsteps seemed unusually loud as he came in, almost as if he were doing so on purpose. Caitlin's fists tightened, her nails digging painfully into her palms. Then, without hesitation, she stood up and turned around to face him.

His appearance never failed to bring a skip in her heartbeat, and it didn't do so now. He had only taken off that ghastly mask once during that final fight to gloat and mock them, before placing it back on again. It both pained and chilled her to see such a cold and horrible expression on a man she had once loved and trusted.

She distantly noted that it seemed as if the mask was truly a part of him now, and that if she were to lift it, instead of finding the man underneath, it would be the muscles, blood, and bones of a beast.

"Whatever you want from me, I won't do it. I'd rather die than help you." Caitlin's tone was fierce, but the slight tremors in her clenched fists by her sides betrayed her fear. It didn't escape her captor's notice either, if the way that perpetual mimicry of a grin on his mask seemed to stretch further was any indication.

He closed the distance between them in languid strides, stopping several inches away from her. The cackling noise of the blue Speed-Force lightning sounded angrily in her ears. The man loomed over her with the suffocating presence of a monster set to devour the world. Only a single pinprick of light escaped the yawning darkness of his eyes. Even this close, she could not see any reflection in them.

It was hard to read Zoom's intentions. But with the way the air around him seemed to radiate with that murderous aura, Caitlin was sure she was going to die sooner than expected.

Though her mouth was dry and her pulse had elevated to the point where Zoom could undoubtedly see it thudding rapidly beneath her neck, there was a sort of fearlessness that kept her standing there, steadily meeting his gaze. The kind of audacity where one had nothing to lose, because everything and everyone that mattered had been ripped away anyway and if she was going to die now, she'd die being defiant all the way to the end.

He raised his hand. Caitlin tensed at the movement, but kept her chin up.

Instead of vibrating and tearing through her heart, it descended over her right shoulder. She could feel the tips of his claws scratch lightly across the fabric of her shirt as he grasped the strands of her hair and twined it around his fingers. Any comprehensible thought fled her mind as she numbly watched him raise it to his face. A soft inhale was the only indication of his intention before he lowered his hand, but still keeping it high enough to retain his hold on her hair.

His voice rumbled like an oncoming thunderstorm when he finally spoke.

"I want nothing from you, Caitlin."

Her lips parted, but no sound came out. All the nerve she had just moments before dissipated at Zoom's unexpected action, replaced by a cold, growing awareness that swallowed her voice.

"You might find that hard to believe. But you'll understand quickly enough," Zoom continued, his thumb absentmindedly rubbing her light brown locks. His tone warmed slightly, a nuance that was at odds with his harsh, sibilant voice. "Our time on your Earth ended sooner than I would have liked. But I underestimated your tenacity to help me when I was Jay Garrick, and plans change…" He relinquished her hair, letting the strands slip down slowly from his fingers. "No matter. I've finished what I set out to do, and I have you here now."

"This isn't the end," Caitlin said unsteadily. She refused to address the dawning realization, refused to acknowledge the impossible reality of his actions and words and the reason her heart was still beating. It was all a lie. A horrible, disgusting trick that she would not fall for again. Not after the first time, when they all had been ignorant of his masquerade. And especially not now. "Someone will stop you."

He laughed. The chilling noise sent shivers down her spine. "All your friends are dead. The heroes here are weak. And the rest of the multiverse has no idea what is coming for them. Your stubbornness is admirable, but foolish. We both know who the victor is."

There wasn't anything she could say to that. The brevity of his statement somehow hurt less than she thought it would, although her fists tightened at his passing acknowledgment – dismissal, really – of Barry, Cisco, Iris, Joe, Wally, Harry, Jesse, and Henry. At the same time though, it was a good thing he did that. She didn't think she'd be able to restrain herself from attacking him if he uttered their names.

I've gone insane, a distant voice in the back of her mind said. I care more for the dead than the living. Think of all the innocents and worlds that will suffer.

But all she could see and hear were them – their gasps and death rattles, the moment when their life was ripped from their chests – one by one, as blue lightning consumed everything.

Everyone but her.

Zoom's gravelly voice wrenched her back to reality.

"But I didn't come here to flaunt my success. I am moving you to a different cell. A room, to be more precise."

"A room?" she echoed.

Laughter again. "You thought I would keep you here forever?"

"I'm a prisoner."

A heavy hand fell upon her shoulder.

"You are my guest, Caitlin," he drawled. For the first time, something foreign stirred in his normally dead eyes. "And I hope you will remember that."

...

Her first attempt to kill herself wasn't intentional. Or at least, that was what she told herself.

Caitlin managed to swallow down the food Zoom brought her, knowing that there would be consequences if she didn't. But as soon as he disappeared, 'taking care of some business,' her meta guard had vaguely said, Caitlin abandoned her façade. She found that she could no longer care enough to get out of bed. She could no longer muster up the will to eat, and her plates always came back mostly unfinished. Gradually it came to the point where water was the only thing she downed. Doing basic necessities was just as hard. It was only when the metas came by and forcibly reminded her to do so that she did it at all.

Everything tasted like ash in her mouth even though it was better fare than a regular prisoner of Zoom might expect, but that was far from the reason for her self-imposed starvation. She couldn't look at the food anymore without ignoring the sickening feeling that steadily grew in her chest. She couldn't appreciate the livable conditions she had been granted with, especially when it came from the madman that was making everyone else suffer. And most of all, she couldn't live day to day without suddenly being aware of every breath she took, when the rest of her friends were rotting – either thrown carelessly somewhere, or six feet deep if Zoom had even bothered to bury them.

But, she thought with a clenching heart and nauseous stomach, knowing Zoom's propensity for sadistic theatrics, he most likely had them hung in public like a macabre banner, a gloating reminder for all that their only vanguard had fallen by his hand.

All but one.

Her.

And the guilt and despair was eating her alive.

Perhaps the only comfort she had was the certainty that Zoom would never sexually assault her. Despite his callousness and disregard for human lives, he seemed to loathe hurting her - physically, at least. Killing her friends and keeping her imprisoned was more than emotionally crippling, and he readily did that without hesitation.

This was one of a handful of truths that Caitlin knew about him. He rarely divulged anything from his past. But, she managed to figure out after a particular conversation, of all the lies and half-truths he had given her and the others as Jay Garrick, one of the few facts that applied to him was his sexual orientation. He identified as asexual like her. There were many variations of asexuality just as there was sexuality, and they both fell into the category where they could be romantically attracted to someone without any sexual interest involved.

Ronnie wasn't - hadn't, she corrected herself with a painful twinge in her heart - been asexual. But he understood and supported her, unlike her past boyfriends. She had felt guilty that she couldn't return his affections in a sexual manner, but Ronnie quashed that insecurity, assuring her that he wouldn't make her do something she wasn't comfortable with. Their time together had been too short, but she treasured each and every second and truly believed that she could never love someone as much as she did Ronnie.

Then Jay Garrick came. At first, it was just a tentative friendship. And then it became something more. She couldn't help but fall for his charms, gentle demeanor, and intellect. The ache in her heart was still there though, never having abated after all those months, but she had reconciled with it and accepted that Ronnie's ghost would always be with her. They had promised each other that they would move on and search for happiness should the other pass away. Knowing that Ronnie would always wish the best for her lessened her inevitable guilt.

It was, of course, still easier said than being done. She would have never made a move if she hadn't seen that 'Jay' had been blatantly interested too. And like with Ronnie, it was sometime into their relationship that she nervously revealed her asexuality.

Unlike her past significant others though, instead of a confused or politely perplexed expression, a look of recognition flitted across his eyes. It was only when he reached out to take her hands between his that she realized they had been shaking.

"I am too," he had said, looking down at their clasped hands. "To be honest, I was planning on telling you soon, but you know…"

"Yeah, I know." They both laughed at that, a mix of self-deprecation and relief. "I…I'm glad you came through the breach. Not that I'm saying I'm happy about what happened to you," she quickly added before he could get a word in, seeing the mischievous glint in his eye. "But I'm so…grateful to have met you. It's been a long time since Ronnie…that I've been happy."

There was a strange expression on his face. It didn't seem to be a negative reaction - his hands had tightened around hers while she had spoken. But it was hard to read. She couldn't tell what he was thinking.

When he raised his hand and rested it against her cheek, she realized what it was. "I'm happy too," he said quietly. Warmth bled into his features, rendering her breathless for a moment. "You are the best thing that has happened to me in a very…very long time."

"What? A handsome, goodhearted man like you having trouble in the romance department?" she asked jokingly.

He didn't laugh. "You are one of a kind," he said seriously. "I've never met anyone who made me feel this deeply."

After they had found out Zoom had been masquerading as Jay all along, everything that he said to them - to her - became a lie.

She could have never imagined that there would have been a grain of truth in all that deceit. Caitlin denied it at first, desperately wanting to believe that this was some sick game he was playing for some obscure plan. But it became increasingly clear as the days stretched into weeks, through one-sided conversations, bizarre gestures, and a conspicuous absence of orders to aid him in his goals, that he really did love her in his own twisted way.

How she wished that wasn't the case.

...

"They tell me you haven't been eating."

The glass cup slipped from her hand as she jerked in surprise, startled at the sudden voice. Blue lightning filled her vision before she could curse at her clumsiness, and a wall of black leather and fabric suddenly materialized in front of her. In her visitor's clawed hand was her cup, whole and intact. The surface of the water barely rippled.

Caitlin froze, unable to lift up her chin and meet the gaze that was burning a hole into the top of her head. A soft clink sounded out when he placed the cup onto the bed-stand.

"I don't think you are intentionally starving yourself," Zoom continued in that terrible voice. "Otherwise you wouldn't be drinking either."

"I haven't had much of an appetite lately," Caitlin said, her eyes flickering to the transparent door. None of the guards were there. He must have come a while ago and sent them away. She inwardly berated herself for being inattentive. How long had he been watching her? Goosebumps raised on her skin. Her eyes returned to him, but stayed on his chest. "So I compromised with water."

"Is that so." It wasn't a question.

He started to circle around her, pacing like a predator examining its prey for weakness. She caught sight of the steaming food on the table when he moved out of her sight, something that hadn't been there before he came. Her eyes widened when she realized it was her favorite soup from the café that she and Zoom, as Jay, had visited frequently. The soup was a smaller portion than what she was normally given. Most likely he didn't want her to gorge herself after a week of barely eating anything.

Did he travel to Earth-1 to retrieve it? She immediately dismissed that ridiculous thought a second later. It probably came from Earth-2's version of that café.

"Something tells me it isn't a matter of appetite," Zoom said from somewhere behind her. Caitlin tensed when he lightly skimmed his hand across her shoulders. The tips of his claws made a scratching noise on the fabric of her shirt. The hair on the back of her neck prickled at the sound. "Perhaps you want to starve yourself to death."

"There are quicker ways to kill myself," she replied steadily, staring straight ahead. "If I wanted to do it, I would."

Zoom hummed, a sound that was distorted by the growling undertone in his voice.

"I have no doubt about that. But with your guards watching you every second, you would be foolish to try something like that." He slowed to a stop in front of her. "How coincidental that this happens the week I leave."

The corners of her lips pulled down into a frown. What did he want from her? The meandering direction of the conversation perplexed and frustrated Caitlin. First he said he thought she wasn't purposely starving herself. Then he accused her of trying to commit suicide. And subsequently, he acknowledged the futility of such an action and then implied in the same sentence that it was a suicide attempt anyway? She couldn't make heads or tails of his intentions. It made her already tense shoulders even more wound up, if possible.

Caitlin settled for the most neutral reply she could think of. "Like you said, I wouldn't bother with water if I wanted to do that."

The long silence that followed augmented the already thick tension in the room. Caitlin studiously kept her attention on his chest.

Her bangs blew from her face when he suddenly closed the distance between them, crouching down so that she was forced to meet his eyes. His clawed hands fell on each side of the arm-rests, trapping her within the cage of his arms. The wooden material creaked under the force of his grip. Caitlin inhaled sharply, but otherwise did not react to the abrupt breach of her space.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, a clinical voice noted at how much Zoom had grown in the short time he had been gone, something she was only made aware of now that he was this close and she had no choice but to examine him in his entirety. How many Earths had he been to already? How much Speed Force had he stolen? How many Flash incarnations had he killed?

Maybe not as much as she feared, Caitlin thought desperately. After all, there was only so much a person can do in a week. Their own battle with Zoom had been drawn out for months, and he had been terrifyingly fast even then.

But that was back when he was limited by the degenerative illness that forced him to put those lulls in their fighting, back when his greedy consumption of the earlier botched Velocity serums had wrecked his system. Now that she had practically handed him the precursor to an almost perfect elixir when she was ignorant of his true identity, he had undoubtedly improved it. Whatever vulnerabilities that forced him to scheme for so long, to assimilate into their team and gain their trust, to draw out Barry's life for as long as he had was all gone.

Now, he could wreak as much havoc as he wanted on a scale beyond the nightmare he had inflicted before.

These thoughts churned noisily in her mind as she stared back at Zoom, who had been unblinkingly scrutinizing her the entire time.

"You are the only one making this harder on yourself, Caitlin." His deep, raspy voice thrummed in the small space between them. The way he dragged out her name made her feel violated even though not a single inch of his skin touched her. "I have done nothing to warrant such behavior."

Something inside her snapped. All the lethargy and the tiredness and grief that had been holding her back disappeared as her world narrowed onto the monster that had ripped away everyone and everything she held dear.

"You bastard," she spat, her body quivering with unrestrained rage. "You and your damn greed are the source of everyone's problems. How can I not act this way when you have destroyed so many lives across cities and worlds? How can I not feel devastated when the murderer of my friends – my family – has imprisoned me against my will? How can I not feel guilty for being the only one alive, living in relative comfort, while everyone else suffers? How can I not?"

Caitlin's chest heaved at the end of her diatribe, her breathing loud and harsh in the sterile room. Somewhere along her furious tirade, she had unconsciously moved her face closer to his until they were practically nose to nose. He was close enough for her to feel his cold breath fan across her face, close enough for her to see the single pinprick of light that managed to escape his unfathomable onyx eyes. Close enough to kiss.

That last thought took longer than normal to process in her tired mind. When it did, Caitlin recoiled and tried to push the chair back, but his hold on it was too strong. It didn't even budge.

A low, throaty chuckle sounded from the mouth-slits of his mask. It wasn't a mocking one at all. The wrinkles at the corners of his eyes had deepened and his broad shoulders shook from restrained, full-out laughter. Almost as if he was –

"It's good to see that spark of life in your eyes again," he rasped. "I was beginning to think the most tenacious of my guests would fade away into a husk of herself."

She was too shocked to immediately reply to that. Horror dawned upon her when Caitlin realized that she had allowed herself to do exactly what she promised herself not to. And of all people, the perpetrator was the one to recognize it and reach out to her.

Her voice shook slightly when she spoke. "What do you want from me? What are you waiting for? You know I'd rather die than help you."

"I already told you, Caitlin," he said patiently. Somehow, his gentle tone made her more scared than it would have had it been threatening. "I want nothing from you. You're my guest."

"You keep prisoners, not guests."

"Hmm, you're right. It would be more correct to say that you're my only guest." In an almost forlorn tone, which was mangled by his sibilant voice, he continued, "I have been nothing but a good host, Caitlin. Would you continue to deny my generosity? My good will is not everlasting. Eventually, there will be repercussions."

Although his voice stayed level and never gained that threatening nuance, Caitlin flinched. Zoom was merciless. He knew how decent humans ticked. Especially her. Innocent civilians would be dragged into this. Things would get messy, fast. She couldn't let her grief get to her, even though all she wanted to do was close her eyes and let oblivion swallow her. There were people whose lives depended on her cooperation. She couldn't allow herself to be selfish. Not yet. Not now.

It was a conclusion she knew was right and logical, but the sickening pit in her stomach roiled at the thought. 'So what if more lives were lost?' an insidious voice whispered from the fringes of her mind. With an insatiable monster like Zoom and no one powerful enough to stop him, they were all dead anyway. And so was she.

Zoom took her silence as compliance and finally released his hold on the armrests. The respite from his suffocating presence lasted briefly. He returned with the dinner tray. She numbly accepted it from him and placed it on her lap. Whatever hopes she had that he would leave her alone were dashed when he pulled an extra chair over and set it in front of hers.

It was curious how he sat exactly like the Jay persona he had donned – on the edge of his seat, his elbows resting on his thighs and his hands steepled between his legs. Or perhaps it was never a habit the real Jay Garrick had. Harry hadn't known Jay well enough to know the minutiae of his behaviors, and so Zoom had successfully played them all by acting half-truths and half-lies. This was solely a Zoom, or rather, Hunter Zoloman preference. With the way he always donned that mask though, she was sure that in his mind, the man he was before was as good as dead.

Her hand trembled when she picked up the spoon. Even now, with the delicious smell of the soup wafting to her nose and Zoom watching her with those eerie eyes, she could not find the strength to raise it to her mouth. The sickening pit in her stomach roiled, and the accusing cries of the ghosts in her mind stalled her.

Zoom quietly observed the flickering emotions across Caitlin's face and the way her eyes became distant. After a moment of watching her internally struggle, he reached out and wrapped his clawed hand around hers. She jerked in surprise at the sudden contact, nearly wrenching away before she remembered such an action was futile.

He did not speak, waiting until the tremors in her hand ceased.

"If you do not eat," he said in the softest voice she had ever heard from him, "I will kill one civilian for every meal you missed."

It didn't take long for Caitlin to make her decision.

I'm sorry, she thought, thinking of her friends and their glassy eyes and stiff limbs as she lifted the spoon to her mouth. Zoom's hand fell from hers, settling instead on her knee like a cold, heavy weight. I'm so sorry. Her silent cries fell unanswered in her heart, twisting it and cracking it further.

What choice did she have?

Zoom never bluffed.

...

Author Notes:

1. There's not many ace!fics with Caitlin, so I thought, let's add to that! Some of her experience is based on what I've experienced as an asexual. Nowadays, I usually keep quiet about it since I almost always get a negative reaction.

2. I'm assuming the real Jay Garrick is the Man in the Mask, although I have a feeling that recent episodes have blown that idea to pieces. How does Zoom look like Jay? Will explain that in future chapter. Maybe. Also, is it me, or did Zoom grow when Harrison gave him Barry's speed force?

3. Originally a one-shot, but then it got longer. So I decided to cut it up into parts.

4. If I offended someone, I deeply apologize for it. English is my second language, one which took me an embarrassingly long amount of time to adequately understand (and I still don't really understand it even now haha – so any constructive comments are always appreciated – like if I used the correct tense when Caitlin referred to Ronnie :-o ), and so I might have conveyed meanings I might not have intended to. Please also note that there are obviously certain beliefs the characters have that do not reflect my own.

5. This fic is also posted on Archive of Our Own under the username Floating_Red_Lotus.