Prologue: True Disaster
Caitlin
I frown and rub my hands together. Despite the power-inhibiting bracelets, my fingers feel half-frozen, and an irresistible shiver seems to rack my body every few minutes. I just can't seem to get warm these days no matter what I do. Sometimes I wonder how much of that is my power fighting to get free and my foolishly doomed attempts to press it back down, and how much of that sinking, awful feeling has more to do with my heartsick emotional state. Maybe some of the physical discomfort is a result of my psychological distress and unease.
I can think about all this and analyze it as a scientist, half-detached and staring down at myself with critical scrutiny. But science doesn't provide me with the comfort it once did. It seems instead to reinforce my worst fears about myself: that I'm pretty much crazy. And totally, just in general, screwed.
Everyone else in Star Labs is downstairs listening to Joe and Wally argue about whether the latter is mature enough to be a superhero for the billionth time (or at least, it feels like that many recurrences). God, why do we all feel the need to keep battling against what is totally inevitable? Wally's obviously going to become Kid Flash no matter how terrified it makes Joe. Maybe Barry, in all his impetuous whimsy, is the most honest of us all. After all, he follows his heart and his instincts no matter what, but the consequences are so heavy that it makes everything seem like a no-win scenario. Be yourself, be true to what you really need to be happy, and risk ruining life for everyone around you.
Ironically, I was never much of a pessimist, despite my run of incredibly bad luck (yup, that's putting it lightly). Even now, grappling with two impossible quandaries — what to do about my growing powers, and how to deal with the feelings I have for a certain unattainable someone — I carry a spark of hope in my heart. I think about how much I love my friends, how much I love my work. I think about the way his arms felt around me right before he left. A rock in the middle of a hurricane-swept ocean that surrounded me for miles.
"Cait, you okay?" Cisco asks the question even though the weight of sadness in his own eyes rivals mine. He takes the time to check on me when his impeccable best-friend instincts tell him I'm feeling overwhelmed and stressed. I smile and say I'm okay, that I just want to be alone, up here staring out the window over Central City, when in reality, I'm more than half-wishing I was a whole world away.
I can confide in Cisco about my fears of the icy strength running through my veins and threatening to burst forth at any moment and snap these stupid bracelets off like the foolish contrivances they are. But as far as that other issue that's clouding my mind, I can't bring myself to put words to such jumbled and desperate emotions. How long can I go on like this? As long as I have to, the answer comes back from the logical part of my brain. Caitlin Snow, the brilliant scientist. Sigh.
Kindly leaving me to my solitary musings, Cisco heads back into the fray. I linger at the window for a few more minutes, wondering what's going on in that whole other world.
Where is Dr. Harrison Wells of Earth 2, and what is he doing right now?
Does he ever think of me?
And what would he possibly think or say if he knew I was helplessly in love with him?