A/N: This is going to be an open ended fic for Barry and Caitlin one shots that are around 1000 words each chapter (flashfics for The Flash, it amuses me) and I am aiming to work my way through writing at least one per episode - chapter names will indicate what episode they relate to.

Mostly they will be gen/friendship and canon compliant in terms of major events mentioned but likely to get into implied UST/feelings territory later on.

Not betaed sorry, don't have one for this fandom but if anyone can help me out there let me know.

Chapter 1 - preseries/1x01 - Caitlin POV - For Caitlin Snow, Barry Allen started off as a mystery and an annoyance. Content warning for grieving/depressed Caitlin.

Something Else

After...Cisco was her lifeline; he reminded her to eat when she wasn't hungry, he coaxed her to go home at least some of the time and occasionally dragged her out to Jitters or his own place for a movie. He couldn't make her feel better really, not when everything she'd worked for had gone up in flames along with the man she loved, but he tried his best and she tried not to make things worse for him. They'd both lost a lot when the particle accelerator had malfunctioned and they were more or less all each other had left, apart from working at the now disgraced S.T.A.R. Labs. So she went along with what he asked of her, she went through the motions of living, and in doing so he helped her survive the hardest months of her life.

Then Wells had brought them Barry Allen, a medical mystery - possibly of their making - presented to her like she should care to solve it. There had been a flicker of curiosity certainly but mostly she'd been annoyed that Wells expected her to actually care for him when she'd been struggling to look after herself in the aftermath of everything. Suddenly her priorities, and her job, were radically changed. They couldn't afford fulltime nursing, though at least she found someone for the night shift. Cisco organised remote access for the medical machines and alarms to go off should anything unusual happen, which happened an awful lot at first until they adjusted the equipment for his 'unique' stats. She taught Cisco some basics of nursing to lessen the load, and Joe and Iris helped out where they could when they visited.

Caitlin had to get used to the routine of it all. She knew it in theory but as a research scientist it had been a long time since medschool when she'd last had patients to look after, to be responsible for, and here she was suddenly on call pretty much 24/7. The days seemed longer now, she felt more exhausted with them full of work to do, actually eager to go home to her bed and able to easily succumb to sleep again. It still wasn't living, but it was more than just surviving; she had a purpose. She might not be doing it for herself but it got her up each morning and it gave her something to think about other than the things that could break her back down again. Cisco looked less worried about her watching her flit about between the cortex and the medbay. She liked that she wasn't as much of a burden for him thesedays. Busy was good. It kept her going.

Of course that only lasted so long before she found her world shaken up once more, again by Barry Allen. Awake, confused and hurrying out as soon as he could. Really he shouldn't have left, shouldn't have been able to leave like that after 9 months in a coma, but he was. She could have insisted he stay but she wasn't sure he'd have listened to some random person who claimed to be a doctor in a private lab, rather than a hospital he might have expected to wake up in. He just wanted to get back to his life and she couldn't blame him, nor stop him short of sedating him without his consent.

At least he came back, which made Dr. Wells less irritated that Cisco and her had let him go in the first place. As she held a vial steady, moving her gaze from it filling with blood to look up at his face it felt strange to find him watching her. She'd become very familiar with his visage as he'd slept and it was odd to see him up and about, to see his curiosity about the tests she was running and the slight fear too that he didn't bother to hide. She'd learnt his features as he lay there blank, just like she'd felt herself, and now she saw them come to life, so full of expression. It was an unflattering contrast with how she schooled her own.

Part of her wanted to run with that enthusiasm he showed, longed to have someone to talk to about all her theories as she mulled the data over and over in her mind, but she didn't. He was her patient and he was still very much an unknown quantity, both in personality and in abilities. He could be dangerous so it made sense, for more than one reason, to keep her distance as much as feasible.

Despite her quietness his curiosity didn't seem to falter, he simply stopped asking questions, instead he irritatingly peered over her shoulder at results where he could and provided a running commentary of his own thoughts. Mostly it was statements of fact, about his observations, a strange one sided version of a conversation she was attempting not to have. It wasn't until the airfield that he finally said something to her directly that wasn't about the science, a different direction for his curiosity.

'I just noticed you don't smile too much.'

There was something about the way he watched her, waiting for her reply, that unnerved her. She wasn't used to people seeing her anymore, as a person. She did her work, she bought groceries, she organised what was necessary, but she didn't engage in small talk, she closed herself off as much as possible and walked through her life as if invisible to the world. She wasn't used to anyone reaching out to her except for Cisco and Wells and they knew her well enough to know when to leave her alone. They knew her, so they didn't ask awkward questions or point out uselessly how she wasn't how she used to be, how people might expect her to be. She felt a flash of anger at this stranger who didn't know better and for once she didn't hold back what she wanted to say, everything falling out of her mouth the unfiltered story of the ruined life she'd been trying to live with for longer than she'd even known he existed.

'My once promising career in bioengineering is over, my boss is in a wheelchair for life, the explosion that put you in a coma also killed my fiance. So this blank expression kind of feels like the way to go.'

She almost regrets saying any of it, not because she was a bit rude like she might have expected to feel some remorse for, but because she'd unintentionally said more to him than she's said to her own mother about it all. She doesn't like losing control like that when she'd had every intention of remaining professional, detached. At least he wisely says nothing back, finally giving her the silence she'd prefered and wished for the whole afternoon.

She watches him do the impossible and then she watches him do the idiotic, crashing into barrels at a high enough velocity he had to have broken something. She supposes at this rate he's proving the need for her job as it stands, personal physician to one Barry Allen, whoever and whatever he is now he's faster than he has any right to be. There is a worry there too, because if so now she's still needed, none of it over simply because he woke up, and she doesn't want to be needed when sometimes she still feels like she could fall apart.

Plus she's spent so long looking after him, ensuring he is taken care of, that she finds frustratingly she does care that he's hurt, in more than a peripheral way she ought to as a doctor. She doesn't know Barry Allen but she cares about the person she has watched over for more than half a year, and she doesn't want to. There's the anger flaring up again, the second time in less than five minutes. In truth it's more than she's felt in months, something other than the numbness that has protected herself from feeling, and she can't tell what to make of it.

End note: If you have any oneshot suggestions that you'd like to see that would fit with the canon/friendship/preship sort of focus of this series then do feel free to suggest either in a review or PM me. I can't promise inspiration will hit me for them but I'm happy to consider them. :)