Disclaimer: Yeah, own nothing. Just playing. The Berlanti Universe owns all.
Passacaglia: a series of continued variations over a bass which itself may be varied. Usually of a serious character.
"Who were we?"
Startled from her contemplation of the printouts of Barry's latest physical exams, Caitlin glanced to find Wells leaning against the doorjamb, light reflecting off the lenses of his glasses and obscuring the expression in his eyes. Not that they would tell her much anyway. The man was a master at masking his thoughts, even more so than his predecessor and as for emotions…
Right. She wasn't sure he had much in the way of those beyond his love for his daughter. His one true redeeming feature.
"Snow—I asked you a question."
She realized she'd never actually answered. Realized she wasn't actually certain what the question had been, given how shocked she was to find him leaning in her doorway.
"Uh…yeah—sorry. Um…" As she struggled to recall what he'd asked—something scientific in all likelihood—he snorted with his habitual impatience.
"Snow—stop blathering and pay attention."
His rebuke stung. Prickled along her skin in sharp little stabs that left her huffing out her own impatient breath and snapping, "I was working, you know."
He waved it off in that way she found wildly infuriating. "Yeah, I know. You're always working. Like me."
Like the rest of them. Except even the rest of them took respites. Breaks to have a regular life. Even Jesse—relative stranger to this Earth—found time to forge a new existence, hanging out with Wally, the two of them close in age and intellect.
She suddenly felt ancient. And very, very tired. And suddenly wanted nothing more than to leave this lab and shell of a existence that currently passed for her life because she was too damned scared to have a real one. That real life stuff—happy endings and promises of a future never worked out well for her.
"What is it, Harry?"
"What were we?"
Her brows rose. "Excuse me?"
"Us, Snow. You and me. What were we—before?"
"I—what?"
He shoved a hand through his hair and yanked off his glasses. The bright blue of his eyes stood out in the unusually dimmed lights of the lab, but unfortunately offered her no more insight into what the hell he was going on about. "Not, me-me—the other me. The Earth-One me."
Pieces began falling into place, but only just. "You mean Harrison Wells."
He rolled his eyes, prompting a chuckle that surprised her as much as it visibly annoyed him.
Stifling another laugh at his irritation, she cocked her head and studied him for a long moment before asking, "Why?"
Because seriously—why? Why now, after all this time. And well, why? At all?
"Because you're the only one I can't figure out." He pushed himself away from the door and began pacing. "Allen and Ramon, they were open with their opinions that I was a dick and well, pretty much hating me. Joe, too. You, though—" He paused in front of her desk and met her gaze over her monitor. "I can't get a read on you beyond you being wary and not trusting me, which I get. And I don't think you like me much."
"You-you or your counterpart you?"
"I'm not sure."
"Well, you, I haven't liked much."
Her flat tone seemed to stop him short. Realizing she wasn't going to get rid of him without some form of explanation, she sighed and used her foot to pull a lab stool alongside her desk and cocked her head in silent invitation.
He sank down and hooked his feet over the metal rungs. "So would I be correct in assuming my counterpart inspired some pretty conflicted feelings in you?"
She stared at the framed picture of her and Ronnie that rested on her desk next to one of her, Cisco, and Barry. "You would be, yes."
"So what were we, Snow?"
She looked back at him—at the silver-flecked hair sticking up in unruly spikes and the hoody and black jeans. Only the eyes, really, retained any semblance of similarity and even those were markedly different. "We weren't anything."
"Semantics."
"Not really."
"So tell me."
Why? hovered on the tip of her tongue. Why did this seem to be so important to him? Instead, she found herself saying, "He was my mentor."
"You and Cisco, both—I know."
"No, you don't."
Her sharp retort rang through the empty lab, bouncing off walls that once upon a time contained so much promise. Sound and laughter and ideas and so many hopes for the future. Lips compressed, she stared at the floor, willing the stinging behind her eyes to go away. The last thing Harry needed was more ammunition in his never-empty arsenal of barbs.
A long-fingered hand drifted into her field of view, hovering for a moment before lighting gently on her knee.
"I'll shut up now."
The muted volume of his voice eased its normally gravelly tone, rendering it almost as gentle as the touch on her knee. The combination loosened the perpetual knot that had lived deep in her chest since the revelation that Harrison Wells had died long before she met him and the man she'd grown to know—to admire—she didn't know at all.
Like Jay-slash-psycho-Hunter.
Clearly, her judgment…sucked.
"He was my mentor," she repeated, keeping her gaze resolutely focused on the hand still resting on her knee.
"Tell me."
She did. She wasn't sure how long she spoke, gaze never wavering from the hand that remained on her knee, never moving other than the occasional tightening when her words faltered or when she got to the revelation about Eobard Thawne and what had actually happened to the real Earth-One Wells.
"Dr. McGee says he was a lovely man—deeply in love with his wife. She described him as rather romantic, actually."
"There'd be no mistaking the two of us then." For the first time, Harry moved his hand fully off her knee. The loss of warmth left Caitlin shivering slightly. "Last thing anyone would call me is romantic."
"But you were married."
He paused in the midst of stretching to nod. "I was. And I loved my wife. But the way you say McGee described Wells' love for Tess? I—"
"What?" she prompted when he stopped, shifting on the stool before standing and moving restlessly around the lab, the shadows cloaking his expression.
"I don't know that I would have been willing to die for her." From the depths of the shadows his voice emerged, even more gravelly than usual. "In fact, sound like I have a hell of a lot more in common with Eobard Thawne than with this Earth's Harrison Wells."
"Don't say that." Once again, the sharpness of her voice appeared to startle him almost as much as her, forcing him from the shadows into the circle of light cast by her desk lamp. "You would die for Jesse."
"She's my daughter," he said. Somewhat helplessly, she thought. As if that should explain everything. Which it did. But clearly, not to him. Not the way it should. For such a brilliant man, he really was remarkably obtuse. She wondered if the real Earth-One Harrison Wells had had a similar foible. It was kind of endearing. When it didn't leave Caitlin wanting to strangle him. Among other reasons.
"So clearly, you're capable of that sort of depth of feeling."
"Maybe."
"No maybe about it." It left her unaccountably sad, however, that he hadn't felt that way about his wife. She'd been on the receiving end of that sort of love. She'd like to think she would have done the same for Ronnie. She knew she would for Barry, even if the love she felt for him was vastly different from what she'd felt for Ronnie. She mustered a smile. "Take it from someone who knows."
His brows knit about the rims of the glasses he'd resumed wearing at some point during her tale. Circling the desk, he leaned against the edge and crossed his arms over his chest. Yet, despite the easy, even slightly defensive posture, Caitlin couldn't help but think there was something uneasy…even nervous, about him now.
"Can I ask you a question, Snow?"
"Now you're asking permission?"
He shrugged, the gesture loaded with his usual insouciance, but there nevertheless seemed something oddly restrained—even tentative–about it. Whatever he wanted to ask, it was actually rendering him hesitant. The sheer novelty of that alone had her nodding and saying, "Shoot."
"Did you love him?"
Pain shot so sharply and suddenly up her spine, it took Caitlin a long, stunned moment to register the feeling of cold tile beneath her hands. No sooner had her dazed brain made the connection that she felt herself being lifted off the tile, warm hands supporting her beneath her elbows.
"I'm not sure if that reaction means you were in love with him or that the thought of it is that appalling."
The dry, gravel, roughed note was back in full force, bringing her more fully back to her senses than an entire pool's worth of cold water could have.
"I…"
"You know what—it was a stupid question. Forget I asked."
"I can't." She pulled away from his hold and took her own turn pacing the lab's perimeter, hoping the shadows would hide the flush she could feel creeping up her neck.
"I'm not like you, Harry—I can't just shut down emotionally."
"You've done a pretty damned good job of it from where I sit."
"Oh, have I?" She increased her pace, her breath coming in sharp gasps. "The panic attacks after what Jay—Hunter—whatever the hell his name is, looking like emotionally shutting down to you?"
"That's not what I meant. I—"
"I know what you meant, Harry. You meant about you. Because this is all about you, right? About satisfying your own curiosity and ego." What was this voice coming from her? This shrill, ugly thing?
"You know, from that standpoint, you kind of do bear a striking similarity to Eobard Thawne—that son of a bitch only cared about his own desires, too."
"Caitlin—"
It was hearing her name—so rare from him—that stopped her dead in her tracks, leaving her leaning against a wall, gasping for air and heart pounding as if it would burst free of her chest.
"I don't know what I felt, Harry." Her legs watery and loose, she allowed herself to slide down the wall until she was on the floor, head tilted back. Through her lashes, she watched as Harry slowly approached and took up a position next to her.
"I can't deny I had a crush on him—the way a teenager has a crush on a rock star, because that's what he was to me. A rock star in our field. I admired him—so much. I believed in him, Harry—even after everything that happened with the particle accelerator explosion and Ronnie and…everything—I believed in him when so few others would. If I hadn't fallen in love with Ronnie, I—"
"Would have fallen in love with him."
"Certainly could have." She stared down at her hands, tightly clasped in her lap. "But he betrayed us. Betrayed me." She released a long, slow breath. "And the simple truth of the matter is, that man was never Harrison Wells. I never got to know the real man behind that mask. So if I've seemed a little guarded, it's…with reason."
Even if she herself hadn't been aware of the reason until forced to articulate it by this maddening, stubborn version of the man who inspired such conflicted emotion in her.
"Look, Snow—Caitlin—" He paused and then reached over to pry her hands apart, his touch as gentle as it had been when he first touched her earlier. With a tiny, dispassionate corner of her mind, Caitlin realized this was the most he'd ever touched her. Had he ever touched her before this?
Another, even tinier part of her brain was registering that she actually…liked it.
Bemused, she watched as he took one of her newly freed hands and wrapped it in his, the skin warm and slightly rough against hers. The Wells from this Earth had had smooth hands, she recalled. Almost preternaturally so.
She preferred this. In a way, it reminded her of Ronnie.
"I get it now—I really do. But believe me when I say that I am not him."
She cocked her head. "Which him?"
"Either one." His mouth compressed. I'm for damn sure not as kind and altruistic and romantic as the original Earth-One Harrison Wells was purported to be and while I'll freely admit to being an egotistical, somewhat self-serving bastard, I'm at least not an evil egotistical self-serving bastard. I'm just…me. I may not have always been honest about my intentions, but I've never hidden who I am."
They lapsed into silence then, hands clasped, and sat there for God knows how long.
"Why does it matter, Harry? That I know this?"
"Because, Snow—" He rose, pulling her up by their joined hands until she stood, swaying from a combination of emotion, exhaustion, and legs and ass numbed from sitting so long. Smiling faintly, he put his hands beneath both her elbows and steadied her. His eyes, behind the lenses of his glasses, were the same glacier blue, but something deep within them had softened, allowing her to see a faint glimpse of humor.
"Of all the people I've come across in this godforsaken place, I've found exactly one person I actually like. Without reservation."
She stared up, studying his expression and trying like hell to see if he was pulling her leg. While his habitual sardonic expression was firmly in place, she could nevertheless tell he was being absolutely honest with her. Maybe it had to do with the way he held her, long after she'd regained her equilibrium, his hands firm and steady. Much in the way his gaze held hers.
She felt herself smiling. "I still don't like you much, you know."
The edges of his mouth twitched. "I know. But we've got time."
Her smile faded. "Do we?" Their lives—they were so uncertain. And that was on a good day.
And this man before her—he inspired in her such a mass of wildly complicated feelings. Feelings she'd avoided poking at for a long time. Especially lately, with her wounds from Jay still so raw.
"We can take what time we have, Caitlin." His voice had dropped once more, the roughness of the day-to-day Harry blending with the smoothness of the Harrison Wells she'd known into a tone she knew no one else around here had ever been privy to. A tone that, coupled with the flicker of uncertainty that briefly darkened his features, rendered him surprisingly boyish. "Can't we?"
She still wasn't sure exactly what he was asking.
She still wasn't sure exactly what she wanted.
She did know she was damned tired of hiding.
And that she was really hungry.
"We can talk more over dinner."
His expression lightened. "Big Belly Burgers?"
She shuddered as she turned to walk toward the door. "Don't you ever eat anything else?"
"It's familiar."
"How about Italian?"
"What about it?"
"Is that familiar, too?"
"Well, yeah—of course." He pulled up short and looked down at himself before looking at her in a way that left that damnable flush creeping up her neck again.
"But neither of us is exactly dressed to go anywhere decent."
She grinned. "I'll have you know my apartment is perfectly respectable, has great wine, and no dress code. You can even kick off your shoes. I know I will."
Both brows rose above the rims of his glasses. "Your apartment?"
"I can cook."
"Not what I meant, Snow."
"I know." Her grin broadened as she collected keys, jacket, and purse, and turned off the computer and desk lamp, leaving them in a dimness that would have been wildly uncomfortable even just a few hours earlier.
"Caitlin—are you sure?" he asked as she joined him in the door.
"It's just dinner, Harry." For the first time, she reached out and took his hand in hers, feeling a slight tremor going through him as she did. "As for anything else—we've got time."
His sigh ghosted across her temple, as fleeting and warm as the most delicate kiss. "We'll make time."