A/N: So, this happened.
I love me some dark!fic so bewarned, this is dark!snowells.
Missing scene for 1x15 aka what happened before Barry ruptured time.
Caitlin does not think about where Dr. Wells has gone.
She does not think about how he left without his wheelchair and why.
She does not think about anything Cisco said or Barry said because it is impossible.
But she leaves the coffees behind and doesn't wait for change back before she's rushing out of Jitters, trying to dial Cisco's number on her phone, her hands shaking and her mind racing a thousand miles a minute.
He does not pick up.
She does not think about what it means.
She possibly – probably – breaks every speed limit, trying to hurry to S.T.A.R. Labs while vehemently not thinking about why no one is picking up their phone, not Cisco, not Barry, not Dr. Wells.
Her hands are still shaking as she punches in the code for the main door and when she runs through the hallway to the lab, the echo of her heels clicking on the floor is disquieting in a way it has never been before.
The lab is empty.
"Cisco?" She calls his name out anyway, hoping that he will pop his head out from behind the corner and smile at her and say that everything is fine and that there will be a totally rational and reasonable explanation for why and how Dr. Wells got out of his wheelchair and-
"Hello, Caitlin."
His voice from behind her startles her and she feels a shiver creeping up her spine; there is something quietly uncomfortable about the tone of his voice, something dangerous and foreign about it.
She swallows heavily and takes a deep breath before turning around, ever so slowly.
The sight should probably surprise her less but she's sure her eyes are wide and her mouth falls open when she sees him standing in front of her – standing on his own two feet – and regarding her with an appraising look.
"I didn't think you'd be back here this fast, to be honest. I guess Barry's superspeed is rubbing off on you."
It could almost be a joke, the kind of silly thing Dr. Wells likes to say but Caitlin gets the distinct feeling that the man in front of her is not Dr. Wells anymore but something different, something darker and menacing.
She wants to ask so many things or tell him so many things or maybe try and run but from the myriad of thoughts in her head, only one emerges, as all of them coalesce into this fixed point of absolute, though unbelievable, truth.
"You're him."
He cocks his head to the side and smiles slightly. "Interesting. Cisco said the exact same thing."
Cisco's name snaps her back into the reality of not seeing Cisco and the dread washing over her is almost too much to bear.
"What-what did you do to him? Where is he?"
He sighs heavily and steps closer to her, prompting her to take a step back but he doesn't take his eyes – his eyes, unhindered by his ever-present glasses which are missing now – off of her.
"I'm sorry, Caitlin."
He doesn't say it out loud but she knows what he means by that, what he is apologizing for, and the dread blossoms in her chest as her throat clogs up. She knows what he's done but she can't bring herself to say it out loud.
"I didn't want to do it, believe me." He continues talking when it's obvious that she won't respond and walks over to her; she takes a step back for every step he comes closer but the desk is right behind her and she bumps into it, trapped in place between the desk and the door and him in between that.
"But Cisco figured it out. I knew he would, I knew that if anyone wanted to get to the bottom of this, it would be him. So, you see, in a way, he brought this upon himself."
And it hurts, it hurts so badly that he's talking about Cisco like they haven't been working together for years, like they weren't friends, like it meant nothing.
"How could you?" She wants to yell at him but it comes out as a broken whisper and her eyes well up at the thought of Cisco somewhere in this building, dying or already dead.
"I didn't really have a choice, Caitlin. I could distract him for only so long but I knew that Joe was getting into his head, filling it with suspicions and it was only a matter of time before he would find out something he really wasn't supposed to be looking into."
She looks at him and wonders if he had contingencies for every one of them, if he's calculated just how far he'll let each of them go before the only solution left is to discard of them. She wonders how far he thinks he can push her.
Almost like he hears her unspoken question, he continues. "I worried less about Barry, you know. He worships me – or he worships Harrison Wells – and he would never want to believe in any of this, not unless he had some kind of hard undeniable proof."
He keeps coming closer and she pushes herself against the desk, the metal edge not budging despite her best efforts, and there is nowhere to move as he stops only a few steps from her, holding her gaze with intent.
"And as for you, Caitlin, I knew you would never want to believe I could be anything less – or more – than you had envisioned me to be. I gave you so much – this job, my mentorship, my attention which you craved so much in the beginning, the possibility of so much more."
He smiles and she can feel the blush on her face because she can't deny the power he held over her in those first months, the way she followed his every move, wanted to impress him to be the best scientist, the kind he thought her to be. She can't deny that she developed a totally inappropriate crush on him, that while he's always been untouchable to her, she's always craved to do exactly that.
"And then I even gave you Ronnie back when you asked me to. Not that I really wanted to do that because I knew the potential you could have."
She doesn't understand what he's referring to with that but the unspoken implication that he had purposefully sent Ronnie to his death does not escape her. "You knew he was going to die in that explosion."
He shrugs his shoulders impatiently. "Well, I was hoping for that but I didn't quite account for Martin Stein, if you must know. So he didn't die. And when he came back, when you asked me to bring him back, I could hardly tell you that it wasn't a good idea but at least you were willing to send him away from here. He was a rather inconvenient distraction."
He says it so callously, so matter-of-factly that it burns in her heart and her eyes and she does not understand who he is. "Why are you doing this?"
"I just want to go home, Caitlin. Cisco didn't understand it – and that was unfortunate – but I think you do. Cisco was so morally set in his ways, so honest, so pure and always seeking the justice, the fairness of it all. I knew I could never convince him to do anything but reveal my secret and destroy everything I've been working for."
She stares at him incredulously because he's talking about Cisco in the past and because what he is implying with his words cannot be true, and because the implications of his words are uncomfortable to hear.
But he continues looking at her and even smiles. "I know you have darkness inside of you, Caitlin. I know you were not unaffected in the explosion but you are afraid of embracing it, you don't want to unleash the potential you could have."
His hand moves before she can see it and he places his palm directly over her heart and the heat of it seeps into her skin and she knows he can feel how fast her heart is beating because how could he possibly be insinuating what she hasn't even let herself consider?
His eyes bore into hers as they stand, unmoving, his hand feeling every beat of her heart. "You see, I think you want to help me. I think you do understand what I've been doing, you understand what it feels like to be on the outside and not know if you could ever belong."
His voice wraps around her and she shakes her head because he is wrong, because he is a murderer and he is not the man she thought him to be and he doesn't know the first thing about her.
"You're wrong. I am not like you, I am good."
He chuckles at that and his hand seems to grip her a bit harder, pressing down over her heart but not quite hurting her before he leans closer and whispers in her ear. "I know what you dream of, Caitlin."
And she is frozen in the moment because she doesn't know what he means, because she buries those things deep down – the flashes of ice, the embrace of the cold, the magnetic power of pure rage – and doesn't hint of them, doesn't let herself contemplate what it all means. But somehow he knows and it frightens her because she frightens herself when she thinks of that.
"I've seen your future, Caitlin, I know what you could become. You want to hide from your destiny but you can't. You can't deny your nature any more than I can pretend to be Harrison Wells and why should we then hide from each other, hmm?"
His breath is hot in her ear but she holds herself very still and does not let herself react though she knows that she's breathing faster and her heart, her treacherous heart will not stop its relentless beating under his hand.
He pulls back and holds her gaze once more, even more intense and scrutinizing than usually and the world is suspended in this moment, her trapped between a desk and Harrison Wells – or whoever he is –, and his words still hanging in the air.
"Come on, Caitlin, you know you want to lose that control you try so hard to exert over yourself. You want to know what you can do and you should – it will be beautiful."
And she does not want to say yes, she will not say yes because this is crazy and he has killed Cisco, and probably countless other people, and he is not who she thinks he is.
But then he is leaning closer again, eyes flickering to her lips and she should be disgusted, she should be terrified, she should hit him and scream at him but she can only feel her heart beat even faster and her own eyes gaze over his mouth and when she looks back into his eyes, he's almost smiling and her lips part of their own volition and-
Time ruptures.