"Hi. So I need some help."

Cisco yelps, throwing his screwdriver into the air. He spins, finding a short, short-haired brunette woman there. She's a bit on the fluffy side, but well compacted so it's hard to tell at a quick glance over. She's got on brown, fairy-ish shoes, dark wash bootleg jeans, and a tucked in teal tank top. A tattoo of what looks like a feather peaks out on the left side. All around, she looks completely unassuming. But, so far, Cisco has learned better.

"How did you get in here?" He demands, standing and backing away, pointing a finger as he puts the desk and a good twenty feet between them. "I have the security code changed weekly!"

"It's not that hard to guess the code spells Barry's hero name in different languages."

He can see when she realizes her mistake, the way her rhubarb colored lips drop as her hand covers her mouth and her eyes- a pale shimmer with a rubbed in dark pink and gold starting from the corner of the eye out to make them look bigger, black cat eye and mascara to make the hazel pop- get big.

"Uhm, sooo," she drops her hand, seems to fidget really hard and looks ready to bolt, grabs the strap of her purse- how did he miss that fraying, pink and burgundy Vera Bradley bulging monstrosity across her chest?- so hard her knuckles turn white, "I might be, y'know, from another earth?'

She phrases it like a question. It doesn't make Cisco feel any better at all. "Another earth?"

Cisco would swear to God his voice didn't hit two octaves higher. She winces, reaches up to mess with the gold pendant resting below an iron Celtic raven on a silver chain.

"So clearly this is pre-season 2." She stills at that, realization dawning across her face. "Oh shit, is this before Eddie dies?"

"Eddie what?"

"Oh shit." She yelps. "I'm fucking up everything! Oh shit!" She takes in a deep breath and shoves it out her chest, eyes watering, and she quickly wipes at her eyes in the hope of stopping them. "Oh fuck. No no no, I can't cry now." Following this, the extremely strange woman mutters, "I can't get home, so I actually should be crying but you know I can't right now ugh."

She still cried, wiping away fruitlessly and trying desperately to keep her makeup in order. You could already see where the foundation was wiped off and an uneven parlor that didn't match the rest of her body resided underneath.

"I'm so sorry." She tells Cisco. "I must look," she sniffles, tries again to stop the tears, "like I'm mad as a hatter."

Cisco opens his mouth to say something, maybe comforting words, but apparently her own had upset and she sobbed out, "'But you'd have to be half-mad to dream me up'." She mumbled some other things, mostly quiet curses and Cisco finally drifted closer to this crazy younger woman to hear, "Do you even have Burton's Wonderland here?"

Maybe the first thing he understood since she'd stepped into the Cortex and announced her presence. "We do. It was an okay movie for a re-imagining and was the usual dark Gothic style for Tim Burton." He thinks about what she'd said earlier, blinks at her. "You were quoting it!"

She cracks a watery smile at him, nose wrinkling when she rubs away more tears. "Yeah." She sniffles and it sounds absolutely disgusting, making Cisco wince and her look away in embarrassment. "Sorry. I ugly cry. But at least I'm not ugly sobbing. There's be black tracks and it'd be really nasty."

"Why not, uh, come sit down?" He offers, pointing to the nearby chair. "I'm really curious to know how you got here."

After sitting down by the bank of computers, pulling her purse off to stick under her chair, she takes a few calming breaths.

"Well, I don't even know how I got here." She opens up with. "I was actually walking back to my car with my friend Amber from our friend Annie's house after DND and then I got super woozy and passed out. Oh my god. Amber!" She sits up straighter. "She might have had this happen to her too! She just started the show! She doesn't know anything!"

"Whoa, hold on!" Cisco grabs her shoulders and she looks into his eyes. She blinks, calming down. "Okay, first, I need a name. Your name. And second, what show?"

"Oh, jeez. I've been here how long and you don't have my name yet?" She scratches at her arm, still unsettled, then says, "I'm Hannahlee. Most of my friends call me Hannah though." Hannahlee scowls a little. "Ben is a shithead and calls me 'Lee'." She softens. "But it is an original nickname for me."

"Okay, nice to meet you, Hannah. I'm Cisco Ramon." He holds a hand and she shakes his hand, afterwards dropping her hand to her lap. "Now, what show? You said also something about a season 2 earlier."

Hannahlee curls her lips in, looking down.

He ducks his head to hopefully get her eyes. He successfully does and she glances up, shy and scared. "You can tell me."

"I need to know first." She swallows, thinking fast by how she glances around, seems to calculate each word. Hannahlee whispers. "Is Eddie missing?"

Confused, Cisco says, "Yes."

"So you haven't found Eddie yet?"

Cisco's eyebrows go up. They hadn't even come close yet.

"Blink once yes. Two for no."

He blinks twice. She pushes back from him fast, grabbing her purse. "I'm not talking with you here. We need to go."

"We can't just leave. I'm trying to find him right now, right before you came in."

Hannahlee groans, it deep in her throat and exasperated. "God, on the risk of sounding like a Grade-A Mary Sue, you need to come with me if you want any of this to turn out right."

Hannahlee looks over the Jitters menu. She looks at Cisco. "Do they serve hot chocolate?"

"Nope." He shakes his head.

"Tea?"

"Iced."

Crestfallen, she knows she's asking for a water cup. She also has been wrong in all of her fanfictions and that's honestly super embarrassing to learn. They reach the front of the queue and she smiles politely at the barista as she requests a water cup (god bless them for being free). Cisco moves to wait for his coffee while she fills her cup with water at the water fountain they have.

After sitting down, purse slung on the back of the chair, she takes a long sip before setting it down.

"So, does Iris know Barry is the Flash yet?"

Cisco looks extremely guarded. "Yes."

"Bare with me here. I'll explain in a minute but I need to know what is going on and what's already happened. I'm waaay ahead of all this. Like, two years ahead."

Cisco lets out a breath. "So you're a meta."

"No." She shakes her head, scratching behind her ear at the hairline. Now that they're closer and there's no freaking out, Cisco can see ashen blonde roots. "No. Just- let me do this."

"What about Eiling and Grodd?"

"Yes."

"And Eiling is free of Grodd?"

"Yes. Are you sure-"

She reaches over, grabs his hand as he flinches a little. "I am positive I'm not a meta. Now." Hannahlee closes her eyes, taps at the counter with nails covered in chipping nail polish- shiny, metallic purple- to think. "Uhm, the wheelchair? I'm pretty sure that came after Eiling and the whole Grodd thing."

Opening her eyes, she can see the alarmed glint to his eyes and the set of his mouth. "What about the wheelchair?"

"Okay. So this is before Rogue Air. Peachy." Hannahlee laughs at her joke, then frowns, sad. "I've not even been here two hours and I miss Spot and my friends. This suuuuuuuucks."

"Okay, so," he lifts his hands, palms facing her like a protective measure and Hannahlee is extremely happy to know his vibing abilities haven't come in yet or she'd be scared. He then presses them together and puts them against his mouth. "You clearly know things. And say things that imply… unappealing things. Cool, but unappealing things."

"Like the fact you're in a TV show?" She questions, going for the throat.

He winces. "Yes."

"You're on the CW." She adds. "I don't know if you-"

"Oh, we have it. Don't worry." Cisco closes his eyes. "This is both amazing and terrifying to know. Especially if you're CW is as teen angst-ridden as ours. Vampire Diaries?"

"Check."

"Reign?"

"Yerp."

"... Pushing Daisies season 2?"

"No."

"Dammit."

"Same."

He rubs at his neck. "So you come from a place where this," he motions around him, "is all a show. And it's, what, two seasons ahead?"

"Yeah." She nods. "I haven't finished season 2 yet and season 3 just wrapped up for the summer. But I know what mostly happens. College is a bitch but Tumblr is my friend."

Cisco nods. "What's the show called?"

"Weeeell…"

"Just do it."

"The Flash."

Cisco lets out a breath. "Not that bad."

"Arrow has five seasons to Flash's three,"

"That is not fair!" Cisco declares, upset by this. "Have you been watching it the whole time?"

"No. I was going home to start season 2 of Arrow when this happened. I was gonna get to see pre-PA exploding you, Caitlin, and Barry in action." Hannahlee makes a face. "I can't call them by their first names now that I'm here. It's too familiar and weird."

"Sure you can." Cisco shrugs. "Until we can get you home, you'll be here." He grins, friendly and warm and the exact reason he was her favorite out of the STAR Labs team. "We help people, remember?"

Heat pools in the edge of her vision. "Cisco, what needs to happen for me to get home isn't for another year, at least."

His smile falls. "Oh."

Pinching the bridge of her nose to hopefully stave off the tears, Hannahlee sighs. "So, I can't really tell what's going to happen, but I can drop hints. I've seen how this works in most self-inserts and dropped-in-OCs and keeping it a secret fucks over everyone."

"So you think vegueing it will fix it?"

Hannahlee levels him a look. For being so short and un-intimidating, Cisco actually felt a fraction of intimidation. Then again, you were always told to beware the short ones.

"Yes. I already told you about the chair."

"You're right!" Cisco springs up, still holding his untouched coffee. "C'mon!"

"Why?" Hannahlee grabs her purse, following him as she tries to chug her water. It is difficult.

"We're heading back to the labs!" He tells her. "I can call the team and hit two birds with one stone: introduce you and see what you were hinting at."

She tosses the cup, jogging to keep up and thinking, I'm gonna die here because my parents were smokers, I stopped doing soccer seven years ago, and I'm a lazy ass who likes fast food.

"I should also mention you need to start coming up with a way to transport the metas out of the Pipeline." She says as she gets into the passenger seat of the STAR Labs van. "Which, by the way, because this has always pissed me off, that's wrongful imprisonment and kidnapping. I have Issues with that, with a capital I and the trademark symbol by 'issues.' Many fans do. I hope."

Cisco glances at her, defensive but willing to listen. "Good to know."

Hannahlee smiles and buckles in, sinking into her seat so no pedestrians see her.

This is one of my newer fic ideas and one I've had a bit of help on from friends. Each chapter title is going to be named after a song. If you have any inkling as to why that song is chosen, I'd love to hear why! The song for this chapter is Alice by Avril Lavigne.

Willful Kismet is also posted on AO3 under the same name I have here, and I wanted to hit a wider audience so I'm cross-posting.

I love getting any feedback, and hope you enjoy the ride!