Snowells follow up on 1x19 – Caitlin's reaction to finding out Harrison's real identity
"Ruin your life?" Barry frowned, having just heard that from Caitlin. "What are you talking about ruin your life?" Now he was even more confused. He couldn't understand why she, out of all the people, would be so stupid to go over to dr. Wells's house at such a late hour to demand answers. He got that she believed in the man and couldn't yet accept the truth, but this was a little too extreme. And now, as he actually had to snatch her right from dr. Wells's doorstep, she said something like that.
Caitlin sighed, looking away briefly, a strange expression appearing on her face. Something was clearly bothering her. It was as though… oh, no, immediately crossed Barry's mind. She couldn't actually be working with Wells, could she? She was too good for that. He'd eventually believed dr. Wells was a murderer after giving it a lot of thoughts, not able to comprehend that himself at first either, but Caitlin? No. Not possible.
And then she went and said something he so did not see coming.
"I love him." The answer was simple and straight to the point, bare honesty clear on her face. And fear. So, so much of devastating fear.
Barry truly didn't know whether to comfort her or…
In the end, though, shock won over.
"Caitlin, you can't love someone like that."
"But I do!" Now there were tears in her eyes that she couldn't seem to stop anymore. She also started to shake. "Barry…"
"Hey, it's ok… I'm sorry… I didn't mean to snap at you. I just… It came as a surprise, but… Caitlin, he is the bad man here. You just made a mistake of admiring him." He reached for her as though he wanted to hug her, but she made a step backwards, holding up her hand.
"Barry, I didn't mean that I loved him from afar because I'm impressed by him. I'm in love with him and we're together."
"Wait… what?" One more time that night Barry was rendered speechless. He started to think that being surprised would soon become his permanent expression.
"You don't know the whole story. We're both… very private," Caitlin continued her explanation. "You ever wondered why I just let Ronnie go? I told him the truth. I told him I chose Harrison and he… he decided it would be best if he left and train with professor Stein somewhere else. I'm sorry, but this is the truth."
Barry covered his open mouth with his hands and then raised them up to run them through his hair. He turned around, still trying to come to terms with all that information.
"But… but, Caitlin…"
"Not now. I… I need time!" She was just gone, running away from him into the night and he didn't even try to stop her. He knew she was right. She did need it. And he would give it to her. He would watch over her to make sure she was safe, but he had to give her as much time as she wanted.
After a completely sleepless night, Caitlin arrived at the Labs early, feeling strangely numb as though all of her sensed were dulled. She couldn't think clearly. In fact, she couldn't think at all, feeling like some kind of a ghost with feelings out of control and all over the place, as though it was all too much and her system just crashed when being overloaded.
It was then that she nearly jumped on hearing Harrison's voice coming from behind her. Yet, his arrival wasn't even the worst thing. The worst was that on barely hearing his voice, everything inside of her seemed to awake and be electrified. And she hated herself for it. She hated herself for still having those feelings, for still caring for him beyond any measure, beyond common sense or rationality.
"Is everything all right?" he asked, the strange expression on her face, despite her desperate attempts to hide it, not missing his attention, after all.
"Yes, of course. I just… I couldn't sleep last night." Well, at least it was the truth, even if not in its entirety since she couldn't possibly tell him the reason.
To her surprise, he sighed before reaching for his glasses and taking them off. "Yes, I understand, Caitlin," he said and for a brief moment she was terrified that he'd already figured everything out and she was screwed. Next, he put the glasses back on and looked her straight in the eye. "I know hiding this… relationship," he finally put a label on it, "is hard for you. I don't want to complicate your life even more, Caitlin. We can tell the team. If you want. If… or when…" he then corrected himself, "you're ready."
In the end, there wasn't really much she could do or say without breaking down, so she settled for a nod. Being around him was just getting too hard for her, especially when her heart that was already in love, didn't want to listen to her brain.
"You know that I love you more than anything, do you?" Harrison then added, taking her silence for not really being sure. "All in the right time, Caitlin. I'm a patient man. I just wanted you to know where I stand."
She was already opening her mouth slowly after she swallowed hard, ready to tell him something, just about anything and still not being sure what when they were interrupted by the arrival of the rest of the team.
Caitlin released a breath of relief, glad not to have to talk to him seriously just yet. She knew what that talk should be about – or maybe the better solution would be not talking to him again at all – but her heart still seemed to act so treacherously. She felt torn beyond belief and was lucky to have come up with a reason to disappear in her lab.
She needed more time.
Caitlin had been handling herself quite all right so far, considering… Well, that was until she actually saw the corpse.
For a moment, she was truly speechless, listening to her friends and Joe about how the DNA matched and the body they were seeing had used to belong to Harrison Wells.
"But if this is Harrison Wells…" her own words had trouble reaching her ears as suddenly everything became so surreal, so misty. She couldn't hear, couldn't feel, could only focus on her breathing, on not passing out, on holding on.
She could make out some sounds and eventually, with a slight delay, the words. Her friends were speculating whether the Reverse Flash had somehow replicated or stolen the original Harrison Wells' body…
The worst thought appeared in her head when she realized the implications and she started hating herself for it. Because she actually dared think that Tess Morgan wasn't the love of the current Wells's life. That if he were really someone else, just wearing dr. Harrison Wells' body suit… then he truly meant it when he'd told her earlier that he loved her. That she was the one and only for him…
She staggered and needed to find some support against the desk behind her as her word started spinning.
You know that I love you more than anything, do you? His words were echoing in her head and she couldn't help it. Her heart was reacting. Her heart was always reacting. It was always pulling her in Harrison's direction even when her brain argued loudly and more viciously than ever.
What was she supposed to do now?
You know that I love you more than anything, do you?
You know that I love you more than anything, do you?
You know that I love you more than anything, do you?
His voice, the way he looked when he said that, his eyes conveying so much honesty…
She believed him. Damn her, but she did.