Just a Kiss

Barry was standing so close to her, she could feel his warm breath on her skin. She smiled, and continued her work. "What are you doing?" She asked, brushing past him. It was distracting, having him shadow her like that. She could feel him there, and it made her heart race. Though she didn't understand why the proximity should excite her so. What was going on?

He strode across the room, and gathered her close to him. "Something I should have done a long time ago." Spinning her around in his arms, Caitlin was brought face-to-face with him. God, he had the deepest green eyes. And the way he was looking at her...

Then he leaned forward and kissed her. Caitlin was shocked, and slightly uncomfortable. Her eyes roved, as her brain sought desperately for an explanation. She let him kiss her for a few seconds, and then she gently pushed him back. "Barry, I..."

But when he leaned in again, she couldn't resist. She closed her eyes and kissed him back. The rest of the world seemed to fall away. She forgot where she was, what she had been doing. She had had a dream like this, a couple weeks ago, but she had chalked the dream up to the fact she had had a little too much wine before bed, and had been texting him before she drifted off to sleep.

No one had kissed her since Ronnie. And other than Ronnie, she could count on one hand the number of men she had kissed in her life – Caleb, her first kiss, in his treehouse when they were kids; Alex, her highschool boyfriend, and of her biggest regrets in life; Liam, her college boyfriend; and Cody, the man she had made-out with at a New Year's Eve staff party.

She wasn't thinking about any of them though; she wasn't even thinking about Ronnie. She was thinking about how soft Barry's lips were, about how he tasted like mouthwash and pastries, about how amazing she felt in that moment. She had forgotten how incredible kissing was. She had the sudden urge to cry, because there was something beautiful and heartbreaking in the kiss, and she had never realized just how much she was attracted to Barry.

Suddenly, there was a buzzing sound, bringing her back to reality. Caitlin pulled away from him, with a disappointment she couldn't mask. It was Iris. Out of all the people to arrive at the lab, it had to be Iris. And suddenly Caitlin felt awkward, like she had done something wrong. But she hadn't, had she? Iris was with Eddie, and she wasn't exactly sure how the girl felt about Barry. And it wasn't like she had initiated the kiss. Barry had. But that didn't make any sense either. All he ever talked about was Iris. Why would he kiss her?

"What's wrong with you?" Iris asked bluntly.

Caitlin hadn't even realized she was staring at Barry. In the soft, golden light of the flourescent bulbs, he looked beautiful. "Huh? Nothing. I didn't do anything." Smooth. Iris was going on about the video and Eddie being right-handed, when Barry dropped to the floor. Wells had tazered him. Harrison sure did wheel about quietly. This man couldn't be Barry, he explained; Barry was right-handed.

"I knew it!" she exclaimed before she could catch herself. Wells looked at her questioningly. "Nevermind."

Iris wanted to take the man into the police station so she could prove Eddie's innocence. Wells tried to deter her, but they ultimately had to let her take the man. They couldn't come up with any reasonable lie as to why they should detain him at S.T.A.R Labs. It was one of those times Caitlin wished Iris knew about what they did, how they helped the Flash. She offered to go with the young journalist.

When Caitlin thought about it later, she really should have injected Hannibal Bates with the serum while he was lying on the floor unconscious. Then his powers would have been temporarily hindered, and he wouldn't have been able to shape-shift. It would have saved them a lot of trouble. And it would have saved Barry from the internal torment he felt hitting the man when he was in Cailtin's shape, and Iris's. Barry would hesitate when he saw 'Caitlin' standing before him, when he saw those big, worried eyes looking at him, heard her voice pleading, "Please, don't hurt me." He couldn't do it. He couldn't hit Caitlin. Then the bastard would pepper-sprayed him and get in a few hits. It would easier to throw 'Caitlin' into the fence after that, but it still bothered him. And for nights afterwards, long after his eyes had stopped stinging, he would hear her voice crying, begging, "Please, don't hurt me."

The girls handcuffed 'Barry,' and together they carried his weight between them out to Iris's car. They laid him on the backseat, and didn't think again about him. Caitlin refrained from looking back at him. Her heart panged guiltily each time she looked at his still face, at 'Barry's' face.

Then Iris had brought up the Burning Man. What was this, Pull All of Caitlin's Skeletons Out of the Closet Day? She had just kissed one of her dearest friends, who she was secretly attracted to, only it hadn't really been him, it had been some other meta-human, and now she was driving with the childhood sweetheart of said friend, who was dating the man the meta-human had framed, and she had brought up her literally flaming finance – or was it ex-finance? Cailtin wasn't sure where she and Ronnie stood. It was almost too much for her to bear. Why did things have to be so complicated?

Oh no, she was thinking about the kiss again, about Barry's lips. But they weren't Barry's lips, they were Hannibal's. But Hannibal had been in Barry's form. So who had she kissed, Barry or Hannibal? They had to be Barry's lips, right? But would Barry have kissed differently, or did Hannibal somehow assume Barry's kissing ability when he took on Barry's shape? Because, lord, was he a good kisser. She didn't have any other instance to compare it to, and she didn't have anyone she could ask...which would be weird. She kind of wished she could kiss Barry, for real this time, to find out. No. No! She was over-thinking all of this.

Suddenly, a high-pitch scream for help erupted from the backseat. A little redhaired girl – who strangely reminded Caitlin of herself at that age – was yelling for dear life, drawing the attention of the construction workers from the site near the stop lights. Well played, Hannibal, well played.

There was really no good way out of this one. "She's dangerous," Caitlin said, though she heard how ridiculous that sounded. How could a sweet, little girl, crying at the top of her lungs that she had been kidnapped, be the one who was dangerous? One of the men opened the door, and the child sprang out of the car and ran away. Iris and Caitlin got out of the car, and considered chasing "her," but it was no use. The child was gone, and soon Hannibal would morph into someone else and they would lose him.

Iris and Caitlin looked at each other, and at the stunned men, who weren't sure what to do. "I need to get back to the police station," Iris said, glancing at Caitlin. She was worried about Eddie. They had been so close to getting him released, and now her proof was gone. But maybe she could get help from Singh to look for Hannibal. Caitlin nodded, and told Iris to go.

"What about you?"

"I'll get a cab." Caitlin watched Iris speed away. She spent a few minutes crafting some lame explanation to satisfy the construction workers so they didn't call the cops and report her as a kidnapper. Her lies sounded dumb, even to her – she couldn't very well tell the truth, could she? – but they clearly didn't want to get involved. She hailed a cab.

"Where to?" the driver asked her.

Caitlin was about to tell him to take her to S.T.A.R Labs when something suddenly occurred to her. She had no idea where the real Barry was! Somehow Hannibal had gotten close enough to him to touch him. So where was he now? Surely, he would have called and warned her that Hannibal had stolen his shape. Oh God, what if he was hurt? She had gone to Barry's house and instead found Hannibal. What if he had...

She swallowed the bile rising in her throat and gave the cabbie directions to take her to the Wests' house.

TheFlash

The door was unlocked. Caitlin went inside. "Barry?" she called tentatively. "Barry? Barry, where are you? Damn it, Barry, answer me!" She was practically running through the house, checking every room, first downstairs and then making her way upstairs. She peeked into one door after another, and each time her panic increased. She was terrified of what she might find.

She entered Barry's bedroom. The closet door was pulled shut, hiding whatever was inside. She placed her shaky fingers on the wood, and pulled it back.

Barry's unmoving body filled her gaze.

"Oh, Barry!" Please be alright. Please be alright. She turned him over. His eyes were closed, and there was a strip of duct tape over his lips. You don't tie up a corpse, she reassured herself, though that did little to relieve her anxiety about any trauma to his head. For someone who healed quickly, it frightened her how often Barry got knocked on the head. She might pass it off as a joke sometimes, but she was legitimately fearful that someday he would sustain major brain injuries and never recover.

She wondered how long he had been unconscious. Well, there was only one way to snap him out of it. She pulled back her hand, and slapped him hard across the face.

Barry groaned in pain and his eyes snapped open. She felt her body relax in relief. She reached forward and pulled off the tape with a swift, single movement. Barry's lips were red and tender. "For real? Why did you slap me?" he asked. Idiot.

"Because you were unconscious." Caitlin reached for the tape on his wrists and started tearing it off. Slapping seemed to be the easiest solution. And it also may have been payback for the kiss, even though it hadn't been him. Or maybe she was slapping him because it hadn't been him and she wished it was?

"Smelling salts work just as well."

"Sorry. You okay?" she asked, though she figured he was, since his sarcasm seemed to be intact.

"I think so. Yeah." He sat up and worked on freeing his feet. She hovered over him, traces of her earlier anxiety still clinging to her. "Wait, Caitlin. Bates, he was here."

"Yes, I know." Should she tell him about the fact Hannibal had kissed her, as Barry? She looked at his face, and rubbed some tape residue from the corner of his mouth. No, better not. She still wasn't sure what she thought of it herself, and she didn't know how he would react. It wasn't Barry who had kissed her, and Hannibal couldn't absorb memories, so he hadn't been acting from any desire of Barry himself. Barry didn't think of her that way. And if he responded with something typical like "Ew" or "I would never do that," she didn't think she could handle it. Why shouldn't Barry want to kiss her?

Caitlin couldn't help staring up at him as they raced to S.T.A.R Labs. As they sped through the city, he was the only thing not blurred. She could see the set of his jaw, the determination in his eyes. "What's going on with you?" he asked, taking his eyes off the road and glancing down at her. There was something odd in her face.

"Nothing." She had decided not to tell him about the kiss, so she wasn't worried about that anymore. But she couldn't believe how long it had taken her to realize that if Hannibal was with her, that meant Barry was somewhere. Who knows how long he would have laid unconscious in that closet if Hannibal hadn't happened to escape from them? What if she hadn't have thought to go back to the house? What if Hannibal had done more than just knock Barry over the head, and she had found his lifeless body instead? She shivered at the thought.

How could none of them have thought to check on Barry? Iris was worried about Eddie, sure, but if anyone should have been concerned about Barry, it should have been her. She didn't know that he was the Flash. She didn't know he had powers. And Hannibal was an attempted-murderer. He had shot those two cops. What if Hannibal had decided to shoot Barry? For all Iris knew, Barry could be as easily injured as any man. If it had been the other way around, and Hannibal had been impersonating Iris like that, Barry's very first thought would have been to make sure she was okay.

Caitlin wouldn't hold it against Iris though. She was too ashamed at herself for the same thoughtlessness. Seeing Barry on the floor of the closet, she had been reminded of how vulnerable he really was. He wasn't indestructible. He wasn't immortal. He could die. Someday, some meta-human could kill him.

The truth was that kiss had jarred something inside of Caitlin, released feelings she didn't know she had, the extent of which had become apparent to her when she had found him, bound and eerily still, in his own home. She didn't know what she would do if she lost him...

They stopped in the lobby. The world stilled around him, and she became aware of the warmth of his arms. She felt safe when he held her. And she didn't feel safe that often anymore. She thought about the other night at Wells' house, and how he had whisked her away. Swept her off her feet and out of danger, like some knight in shining armor.

When he set her down, he leaned forward, and his cheek brushed against her forehead. She wondered if he would taste the way Hannibal did. He was so close, so near to her. She could reach out and...

"We need to find Hannibal," he said, turning toward the elevator.

Caitlin groaned. Between meta-human villains, burning fiances, traitorous speedsters, and handsome superheroes, her life had become much too complicated. What happened to getting a simple bioengineering job at a high-tech facility? She sighed and followed Barry. She supposed she would have to just forget about what had happened today, and shove it deep inside, like she did everything else. It was, after all, only a kiss.

END

Did anybody else die during that kiss scene? I was simultaneously happy and frustrated. WHY COULDN'T IT HAVE BEEN BARRY? Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed. If you did, please leave a review! =) ~BCA