(A/N )For the Tumblr prompt "things you said too quietly" from Rokesmith
It's my fault.
Somehow she kept herself upright, and somehow she focused, and somehow she responded to people when they shook her hand or touched her shoulder. She felt like it was somebody else, though - like she was watching the memorial service from behind a sheet of ice.
A memorial service, because they didn't even have a body.
Only Cisco hugged her. She let herself be folded into his arms as her own hands dangled limp at her sides. He hugged her a little too hard, so it hurt her ribs, but she didn't mind, because at least she could feel it, at least -
He said something, muffled, against her hair, and let her go.
She blinked at him. "What?"
"Nothing. I - I said I'm sorry."
"Okay," she said, feeling the ice thicken again. "Thank you for coming."
Not even for you.
"Mercury Labs?"
"It's a very good offer. It's very lucrative."
"But - you have a job."
"Oh, Cisco! What we have is a mess. Our boss was an evil villain from the future who's been erased from existence. Do you honestly think we're going to have regular paychecks and up-to-date insurance now?"
"That's what you care about?"
"I want a career. Not a mess."
"You know, you make a good point. I was thinking about saving the city, but actually, you know what's more important is a healthy 401(k)!"
"Don't be like that."
"Barry needs us!"
"Really?"
"He does," Cisco insisted. "He'll come around."
"Maybe he will, but I - " She spread her fingers, looking at the place that had held an engagement ring, and for a few hours, a wedding ring. "I can't stay here after - Not for him."
She added something in a mumble, and Cisco said, "What?" and then, "Never mind."
He threw his ice cream at the trash can, not even caring that it was still half-full or that it missed and bounced off, spattering rocky road on the concrete. "Just never mind."
He stormed off toward the parking lot and his car, thinking he should've known something was up when she'd wanted to get ice cream in the middle of the day.
Maybe I'm jealous.
She kicked the side of the treadmill so it clanged, and he jumped, whacking his head on the bar. "Owww! Caitlin, what?"
She felt vaguely guilty, but she'd needed to get his attention. She crossed her arms. "Why don't you like Jay?"
He rubbed his head, scowling up at her. "Who said I didn't like Jay?"
"Nobody had to say it. I just see the way you don't talk to him, or tease him, or ask him for high-fives, or - or - you haven't even offered to improve his suit!"
"He seems to be fine with his suit."
"Since when has that ever stopped you? He's - he's nice, Cisco."
"He's okay."
"You like everybody. Why don't you like Jay?"
"I don't like Leonard Snart."
"When was the last time Jay took your brother hostage and used his sister as a honey trap? You have no reason not to like Jay."
He stuck his head all the way into the guts of the treadmill. A few muffled words were swallowed up by mechanics.
"Did you say something?"
He pulled his head out, wincing as a piece of the innards caught at a lock of hair. "Nope. Nothing."
She narrowed her eyes at him. "Is it because he never asks you to help him with anything mechanical? I've told him how smart you are. He just - " She blushed. "He said he likes it better when I help."
"He's fine, Caitlin, I like him fine. If it's that important to you, I'll let him braid my hair the next time he asks, okay?"
She wrinkled her nose at him. He grinned back. "Would you pass me that coil of wire, please?"
It wasn't the gloves.
"Wooohooohooo!" Cisco whooped, doing a little happy dance around the workstation. "I mean, I know I'm good, but that was a-MAAAAAA-zing!"
Killer Frost blinked a few times, swallowed, and nodded. "Yes," Caitlin said, reaching up to pop one ice-blue contact out of her eye, and then the other, depositing them in the case sitting on the workstation. "Amazing."
Cisco had based the general idea on the faux-Dr. Light gloves he'd made for Linda, and some of his notes from Captain Cold's gun. Obviously not at full power. He didn't want Caitlin to lose her hands to frostbite. But they'd looked pretty good anyhow, spilling out mist just like the real Killer Frost. The temperature had even plunged.
(Which. Hmmm. He hadn't expected that. Maybe the juice had been a little strong.)
It wouldn't have fooled Zoom, but it had worked on the man they'd all known as Jay Garrick, scaring him white-faced and sending him running from what he thought was his one-time master's pet assassin, come to take care of him.
Cisco laughed, shaking his hair out of his eyes. "Get those gloves off, because I've gotta test 'til the cows come home!"
She bent her head over the gloves, trembling fingers working at the wrist buttons. Behind the spill of platinum blonde curls from her wig, her lips moved briefly.
"What was that?" he yelled out, pulling up programs and unwrapping cables.
"I didn't say anything," she said.
I don't know what we're going to do.
"I'm sorry," Barry said.
"I know you are," she said.
"We'll figure this out," Iris said.
"Close the door."
"Caitlin - "
The ice crawled up her spine, down her arms, reaching for the heat of the people who'd walked her down to the pipeline, surrounding her but at a safe distance, to the superheated cell that was the only thing that might satisfy the craving for warmth, for heat, without killing anybody else.
"Close the door," she snarled, and mist swirled around her, hungry.
Barry slapped the button, and the glass clanged down. She bared her teeth and watched them back away, eyes sad but also scared.
Terrified.
She was a killer now, after all.
Only Cisco stayed. She jabbed her finger at the hall behind him, telling him without words to go. Leave her. Get to safety. Even in this cage, the one he'd built, they might not be safe.
It could be nobody was safe from her.
He pressed his hand to the glass, and before she thought, she pressed hers to the other side. His warmth, even through the thick glass, even with the vents pumping heat into the cell, called out to her like a drug.
His lips moved.
She yanked her hand away, leaving a frost outline on the glass, and turned her head, deliberately letting the ice-streaked curtain of her hair swing between them.
I love you.
"Crack it open!" Barry yelled, and Cisco flung out his hand, searching for that. One. Frequency.
The air split like an egg, and Barry slammed into Zoom's ice-coated body, hurling him through the breach into a nothing dimension, a place where he could never escape.
Cisco let the frequency twist out of his grasp, and the wound in the air sealed up like a zipped jacket.
They all collapsed where they stood, panting. Cisco lay on his back on the concrete, staring up at the sky. His ears rang like bells. He couldn't hear anything except the thud, thud, thud of his own heart, reiterating that he was still alive.
A hand grabbed his shoulder, and Barry's head popped into his field of view, scrunched up with concern. Cisco managed to give him a thumbs-up, and Barry helped him sit up.
"Caitlin?" he asked, and it echoed weirdly inside his own head.
Barry pointed, and he turned his head to look at her.
She looked like Caitlin, like his Caitlin, her eyes brown, her hair dark. She held her hands up, showing him. Mist floated off them, but gently, almost dreamily, and when she closed her hands, it stopped altogether.
His suit. Her suit. It had worked. It was working.
He saw her mouth shape three words, and he said aloud, "I love you too," and he heard it from the inside, echoing.
From the way she smiled, she'd heard it, too.
FINIS