Preface: I usually post my drabbles and one-shots on Tumblr, and recently I've decided to put them together as a collection instead of posting them as individual stories, since these are all stand-alone and most are pretty short (under 2k words). They're Snowbarry-centric. Ratings will vary for each chapter, so I will indicate the rating at the beginning of each. I am open to taking prompts and requests, so you can PM me if you're interested. If you're a guest reviewer you can leave your prompt or request in a review, or you can message me on Tumblr (eccacia..tumblr..com).
Notes (11/11/15): The missing scene in 2x06, when Caitlin says, "Stay with me, Barry…" Caitlin-centric drabble. Timestamps based on the fact that there were still people at work the time that Zoom dragged Barry around town. I have an early class in the morning but ugh this idea seized me with its demonic claws…
Word Count: ~1,600
Rating: K+
Vigil
6:39 p.m.
When Zoom brings him in, Caitlin shoots out of her chair, and his name is a strangled bird's cry in her throat. Her vision narrows to Barry, bloody and bruised like she has never seen him before, and while she feels movement around her—Cisco silently taking the gun, Harry whispering that he had made a mistake—all she thinks is no no no no not him oh god please not him…
In the end, Cisco saves his life, but it's up to her to make sure he stays alive. She is the first by his side, and she knows with a cursory glance that he isn't breathing. This knowledge creeps to her heart and clenches around it like ice. "Stay with me," she whispers, placing her hands on his chest. "Please, Barry, please—"
When Barry finally lets out a stuttering breath, Caitlin springs into action. She and Cisco drag him onto a mobile bed—Cisco remarks on how strong she is, and she mutters adrenaline, but in truth she is so, so afraid because the threat of losing him is more real than ever, a threat like a dagger on a string hanging over their heads—and she immediately gets to work: she strips him of his suit, hooks him up to an IV, wires him to the heart monitor, checks for broken bones and internal haemorrhaging, and she panics because his list of injuries is nearly as long as a page in her medical textbook, and she wonders if his body can take it, if there is a limit to his regenerative abilities—
She barks at Cisco to bring her her medical equipment. "Barry's going to need stitches," she says. "He's got so many injuries that energy goes to repairing the damage to internal organs first—I have to stitch him up to stop the bleeding—"
Cisco winces at her tone, and quickly brings them to her. She sets her mouth in a thin line and tries to keep her hands steady as she works. Hang in there, Barry, she says, over and over again, even if he cannot hear. Hang in there…
After the stitches, she sets dislocated joints, puts his neck in a cast, wraps sprained areas tightly, and realigns his bones by traction. Cisco stands by in awe, muttering that he had never seen anyone work so fast before, and Caitlin replies shortly that Barry isn't healing as fast as he normally does and it should be a cause for worry—
When she finishes, she sponges the blood from his wounds. She tries to erase evidence of the encounter, tries to erase memory of the fear that gripped her heart when she believed him dead.
10:15 p.m.
She watches him non-stop in what seemed like four hours of hell before his vitals finally stabilise. By this time she is so tired that she does not even have the heart to be mad at Harry the way Joe is. "Barry's vitals have stabilised," she says. "Let's let him go."
But she supposes that a father's ire cannot be appeased so easily, and she barely follows the scene that unfolds between Cisco, Harry, and Joe. She slinks back to Barry's side at the end of it.
"Caitlin?" Joe says. "You're not going home?"
He and Cisco are standing at the doors of the Cortex, coats on and ready to leave. She smiles wanly, shakes her head and says, "I'm on guard duty tonight."
11:23 p.m.
She catches sight of the Thai food that Joe had thoughtfully bought for her and Cisco earlier, and realises that in her panic she forgot to eat. But she also realises that she isn't hungry, anyway.
1:09 a.m.
Caitlin watches him dream.
She follows the outline of his eyes flit back and forth under the skin of his lids, and remembers the time when he was in a coma for nine months, remembers how knowing that he was dreaming was far more comforting to her than seeing that his vital signs were stable. After all, most comatose people had stable vital signs, but they couldn't dream because of extensive brain damage. His dreaming—both then and now—indicates that his memory's intact; it's the surest sign she has that he will wake up.
But she also remembers how his dreaming—or, she hypothesised then, his nightmares—would often precede a blackout: his breathing and heartbeat would become so erratic that even the machines couldn't keep up with his pulse, and on a few occasions, sparks of electricity would dance on his fingertips. He muttered things under his breath: his mother, dead, murdered, blood, knife, father, innocent, prison, and—Caitlin's heart constricts at the memory—Iris, Iris, Iris,like a mantra, a prayer. She remembers instinctively reaching for Barry's hand, in thick rubber gloves, of course, but still against Dr. Wells' and Cisco's advice; she remembers smoothening the crease in his brow in the darkness while Cisco descended to the foundation of the lab to switch on the generators.
Until today Caitlin still cannot fathom why she had reached to touch him, why she tried soothing him the way she did. Maybe it was because he reminded her so sharply of herself, of the times when she would wake from the cold fingers of a nightmare of Ronnie's death, craving heat and human touch…
Right now she wonders what he's dreaming about. He is quiet tonight, she muses. And because she is in a nostalgic mood, she mimics the path her hand had traced on his face so long ago, after his nightmares, before he knew her name, before she knew how much he would come to mean to her. She smoothens the imaginary lines on his forehead with her thumb; she trails it over the shape of his brow, the velvet of his lids; she traces bridge of his nose and lingers over the curve of his lips—
"Caitlin," he breathes, and, startled, she pulls her hand away as if scalded. But she realises that he is still asleep, so there is no way he will know it's her.
And besides, his utterance of her name shouldn't mean anything.
3:21 a.m.
Caitlin flits in and out of consciousness, and her dreams are so vivid that they feel like her waking moments. She sees Ronnie many times: she sees him again in the chamber of the particle accelerator, walkie-talkie pressed to his chest; sees him disappear into the whirling singularity. As the night wears on her dreams become more and more surreal: She dreams she is walking on a tightrope, her belly round with child, a girl with her hair and Ronnie's eyes; she dreams of an abyss that swallows light beneath her feet; she dreams of eating fire, of knowing the child she is carrying will die; she dreams that she is holding the grey stillborn flesh in her arms, its eyes wide open, accusing, You could have saved me, you could have saved me…
She also sees Jay. He is standing on the island of Atlantis, smiling and asking her to come with him; he tells her there are so many things in his world that he wishes to show her, he tells her that she will enjoy the shark-hunting, the dolphin-riding, the mermaid sightings; he promises her happiness. She stares at him from the little white operating room she is in, littered with medical equipment crusted with blood, and she stares at Barry sleeping, breathing, alive, and she shakes her head at Jay and tells him gently, no, you don't understand, this is my happiness…
She dreams of Barry, and she dreams that they are in love. They are on a beach, somewhere far away from Central City, and he is holding her hand. She is wearing a white sundress and he is trying to get her to swim, and she tells him she doesn't know how, and he laughs and tugs at her, says, do you trust me? and she nods, yes, of course, but I'm terrified of drowning,and he leads her to the water and kisses her hands and holds her waist, lips pressed to her shoulder, as she wades deeper and deeper and struggles against the waves, but she knows she is safe because he is holding her.
And when the dream finally ends she feels her heart bursting with light and warmth, and in a daze she whispers to him, my god, maybe I do love you…
4:36 a.m.
When Cisco arrives at the Cortex that morning, Caitlin has finally fallen asleep at Barry's side, her hand intertwined with his. She looks so peaceful that he doesn't have the strength to wake her, so instead he covers her with a blanket and quietly leaves to buy her breakfast.
7:04 a.m.
When Barry wakes, he feels the ghost of a warm touch lingering in his hand, feels a twinge of sadness for the loss of something he cannot remember having.