1x23 - Caitlin faces the most difficult decision of her life.
This was probably the hardest thing she'd ever have to do, Caitlin thought when the door opened and suddenly, she found herself face to face with Harrison Wells – or maybe rather the man who wore his body. She still couldn't accept this to be true, couldn't believe she was such a fool, that she let him lie to her, use her, make her believe he loved her.
It cost her a lot to face him now, but there was one question she desperately needed an answer to.
No one knew that she was there as she made sure the team cleared for the night. She didn't want them to know that she faced him. They never knew about their affair and she'd rather it stay that way. She wouldn't be able to look them in the eye otherwise. She felt ashamed enough as it was.
The moment she saw his handsome face and, most importantly, those piercing crystal clear blue eyes, the pain that was a constant now, grew even stronger within her heart to a point in which she even thought she'd have trouble breathing. She felt her own eyes stinging and she blinked a few times because she'd be damned if she let him see her cry.
"Caitlin," he finally spoke, looking at her like a thirsty man on a desert at his oasis. And she hated that, too, because she couldn't believe it was real anymore. "I actually expected you much sooner."
"Save it, please," she just said when raising her hand, inside shaking all over but proud that she hadn't let it show yet. "I have enough of your lies. I just need to ask one thing and I expect an honest answer. I think you owe me as much."
"My dearest Caitlin, you deserve so much more than that, but of course, ask away. I'm an open book." He spread his arms as though to emphasize that fact, intense eyes never leaving her face.
She took a deep breath and queried, "Was any of this real? Between us, I mean." She had to look away just then, catching a glimpse of him flinching as she did so.
He sighed heavily, bringing a hand to his forehead and rubbing there before he looked at her again.
"Yes," he answered shortly and straight to the point, his voice poignant, hoarse, carrying more meaning than he probably intended. "Everything," he added after a moment, gauging her reaction perfectly, seeing the impact his words made on her, even if she tried to hide it.
"Don't," she said, wincing in pain and cutting the eye contact. "Don't lie to me."
"I'm not. It's true. Everything. Caitlin, I swear to you, I have never faked my affection for you. It was all real."
"Then it's even worse," she decided, the dam finally breaking, eyes filling up with tears.
"I've never faked my feelings for you," he rephrased, knowing exactly what his words were doing to her. "The truth is that my falling for you was never part of the plan. You are everything to me."
"If that were true, you'd stop," she told him bitterly.
"No," he denied, sending a jolt of pain straight through her heart. "Caitlin, you have such a brilliant mind. I come from the future and you, out of all the people from the past, have never ceased to impress me. I don't care for anyone else. They're all dead where I come from, but you… you I cannot possibly allow to meet a similar fate."
She frowned on hearing that and just had to ask, "Really? Then how are you planning on changing that?"
"Come with me," he blurted out and she was close to remaining speechless. "Your mind belongs to the future. Come with me, Caitlin."
"What?! No! My friends… I can't… I…My friends… I can't just leave them!"
To her surprise, Harrison smiled before saying, "The fact that you're thinking about it tells me you actually can." While she just continued to stare at him, too shocked with this possibility, he began again, "Is it really just back and white? You see me as a villain here, but you don't know the future or the Barry from there. You know me now. You know how I am with you. That was all real. You have no idea why Barry is my nemesis, what his actions have done to me, my life and everyone I cared about."
"Still," she said then, folding her arms over her chest when fixing him with a stare, "that's no excuse for striking back by coming back in time and trying to kill him as a child."
"Really?" he asked, making a step closer, almost walking into the glass wall separating them, his eyes only growing bigger, more intense and in that moment Caitlin realized he actually thought he had a chance at convincing her. It scared her. "I had nothing to lose. I was broken. I needed revenge. I had nothing and no one. And then I had even less when my plan didn't exactly go as it was supposed to and… and then I found you and for the first time I actually believed it all happened for a reason. That I was supposed to make the trip to find you."
"For what cost?" she asked, tears streaming down her face, heart aching in pain as she began backing out. She couldn't. She just couldn't. If she were to say yes to this, what kind of a person would that make her? "A perfectly happy family, destroyed." She turned around and made her way to the exit before he told her some more. It took everything from her, but she did leave, hearing him calling after, hearing actual emotions in his broken voice.
When Caitlin walked away, she could swear she tore her own heart away and left it with him.
She came undone under one final begging and full of blue stare.
It was all it took and the decision was made. Or maybe it had been made a long time ago, but she just now realized it, ready to let go of everything that had been so far holding her back.
She made a step towards him and he saw that. He was ready to wait one more second until she jumped into the vehicle and came with him, not looking back.
Just then, when he saw what she was about to do, he almost smiled, eyes filling up with hope when…
Everything went to hell in a handbasket with Barry making a chaste comeback, knocking Wells out of the time vehicle and Eddie sacrificing himself to take the bad guy down.
Caitlin cried out, not able to control herself, shocking the remaining people present and then… she ran away. She just turned around and ran away from everyone she'd ever called a friend, from everything around her, from singularity forming in the sky. Though she wasn't able to outrun the horrible pain in her heart, suffocating her, taking away her entire will to live.
Just then, when she was ready to collapse, to just give up and stop breathing, she felt the all-too-familiar whoosh of air.
Only when she looked up, ready to scream at Barry to leave her alone, she wasn't faced with the scarlet speedster. She was met with radiant blue eyes.
"Whaaa…?" The shock was way too big. She couldn't comprehend what just happened. How could he even be there right now since she witnessed him being erased from existence right in front of her eyes. "I watched you die," she finally gasped, wondering what kind of a trick might be at play here.
"You all should know better. Time travel paradox and its implications. No matter what you do, you will never get rid of me."
"Good," said still stunned Caitlin before she reached for him, nothing mattering anymore now but the fact that lost him and got another chance at being happy. "Take me away from here."