Soulmate AU, but I didn't want to start my summary with, "In a world where ..." Takes place during the episode "Going Rogue", after Barry finds out about Cisco making the cold gun. This conversation would replace the conversation that Felicity has with Barry when she finds him on the treadmill. Based on the post post/155182183508/promptsfordays-soulmate-au-where-your-tattoo
Dusting … done.
Vacuuming … done.
Dishes …
Caitlin looks at the sink of sudsy water, filled to the brim with bowls, cups, and plates. How in the world did she get so behind on the damn dishes? She's only one person, and she's barely ever home, yet the entire contents of her cabinets seem to be floating in the sink in front of her. She scrubs a single bowl, rinses it, and sets it in the drain board to dry.
Dishes … getting there, she adds as an update to her mental checklist.
She glances over at the microwave. The time displayed is set against the atomic clock at S.T.A.R. Labs so she knows it's accurate.
Ten after midnight.
Caitlin groans.
She can't sleep. And when she can't sleep, she cleans.
She doesn't want to be cleaning. She'd much rather be unconscious, her mind powering down for eight blessed hours to reboot and recover. But after everything that happened yesterday - at the movie theater, and between the team - she can barely keep her eyes shut for longer than a minute before the cacophony of angry voices in her head forces them open again.
Nope. She doesn't see sleep anywhere in her near future.
She doesn't know what hit her worse – the dressing down that Cisco received from Dr. Wells, the pain in Barry's voice when he told them about the usher he couldn't save, or the hurt on Barry's face when Cisco admitted to making the gun that killed him.
When he admitted to making a gun that could stop Barry.
Or just plain memories of Ronnie. He's her constant specter. He haunts her every step. She can take down his pictures, take off her ring, but he's still there with her, and in the most intimate of ways.
Rolling up her sleeves to save the cuffs from the soapy water, she subconsciously reminds herself how.
Across her left wrist - two lines, six words – she sees her soulmate tattoo. The words written there, the first words Ronnie thought the second he laid eyes on her, in his own handwriting:
Someday I'm gonna marry that girl.
They were a vibrant red when they first met. After Ronnie died, they turned a morbid black, leaving a void on her skin that will scar her until the day she dies.
She used to think those words were corny, the kind of thing you'd hear the romantic lead say in an old, black and white movie. But every day she spends alone, the more precious those words become. Sometimes they give her comfort. But on days like today, when she needs Ronnie to turn to, they make her feel completely and tragically alone. The kind of alone that makes you want to run away from your life and start over fresh in a new place, where no one knows you or your sins.
Where you can rebuild from scratch.
She can't leave, not now, not with Barry as part of their team, not with this new mission they've taken on as protectors of Central City. But she feels like the walls are closing in, everything from her apartment to her own skin too cramped, too tight, and no amount of cleaning is going to cure that.
She can't be here right now.
She leaves the remaining dishes in the sink, grabs her coat and her keys, and walks out the door.
She can't leave her life behind, so she might as well throw herself headlong into the middle of it.
It's after one in the morning by the time Caitlin gets to S.T.A.R. Labs. She hears a mechanical hum the second she walks through the door - not the usual consistent rumble of electricity pulsing through the pipeline, but a high-pitch whirring, like that of an electric can opener.
She didn't assume she'd be alone here. S.T.A.R. Labs is where all of their problems originated, where they've evolved, so you'd think they'd run for the hills the second they got the chance. But it's become a sanctuary – the base of operations where they perform their penance, trying to undo the wrongs that they've done.
And she's not the only member of the team who suffers from an excess of conscience.
She walks through the lab, checking room to room, searching out the other bee in the hive. She has a feeling she knows who it's going to be.
Of the three men who might also be deprived the sleep of the just, only one would be using the treadmill.
She finds Barry running full speed, wearing the same S.T.A.R. Labs sweatshirt and khaki pants he had on when she last saw him. He's a blur on the machine, but from what she can see, he's sweating buckets. For Barry to be sweating anything, he has to be pushing himself hard.
Or he has to have been running for hours.
He must hear her walk in because he turns his head, catching her eyes, and Caitlin smiles sympathetically.
"Hey."
Barry slows to a jog at her approach, but he doesn't stop running. "Hey."
"When did you come back?"
"I haven't left," he admits. "I just … I couldn't. I have to work harder. I have to get faster. I have to be able to outrun that gun."
"So … this is about the usher?" she asks gently.
"Yes," he admits with no hesitation, followed by a pause, and a heavy swallow "… and no. I mean, I can't get him out of my head. I can't stop seeing his face. I watched him die, and … that's never going to leave me. But … that's not the only thing."
"Is this about Cisco?"
Barry sighs. Whatever his answer, he's obviously been thinking about Cisco a great deal. "No. Not anymore. I understand why he built that gun. I haven't exactly come to peace with it, but … no. This isn't about him."
"Maybe it would help if we focus on trying to track down Snart. End this once and for all before he can do any more damage."
Barry stops running. Like flipping a switch, he comes to a complete stop. "I … I can't. I can't deal with him right now."
"Why not?" Caitlin asks, confused as to why Barry isn't eager to hunt down the man behind all of this and put him behind bars where he belongs, get justice for the innocent people he's hurt and killed in just a few short hours.
Get that gun back to S.T.A.R. Labs, and closure for Cisco.
Barry puts his hands on his hips. She can't help but notice that the hand on his right hip rides higher, covering his flank more than his hip, pressing over the spot where he got shot yesterday afternoon. Could something have gone wrong with it? Did the wound return, some sort of delayed reaction? Is Snart's gun – Cisco's gun – more powerful than they thought? That's the only thing Caitlin can think of that would keep Barry from going after Snart right this second. They have to fix this first, but she needs him to tell her definitively what's wrong.
"Barry? Please, talk to me."
"I'm sorry," he says, shaking his head. "Something's … happened. Something that I'm having a hard time dealing with. Something that's going to effect the rest of my life."
"Wha - what is it?" she asks, wondering what in the heck could have happened in the few hours she's been gone. She didn't get any calls or any texts. Whatever it is, Barry hasn't told anyone.
He's not looking at her, staring down at his feet as if he's actually considering running instead of giving her an answer. "I … I don't … know if I should tell you."
"Barry, didn't we just go through this? W-with Cisco?" She almost backpedals on mentioning his name, not wanting to reopen this freshly closed wound, give Barry any reason to be angry anew. "We need to communicate better with one another. All of us need to be more open."
"I know, I know," Barry agrees. "But if I tell you, you might want me to leave the team."
Caitlin puts a hand on Barry's arm. She means it to be reassuring, but he looks uncomfortable being touched, like he'd rather shrink away into a dark hole and disappear. "Barry, you have to trust me. I'm here to help you."
Barry nods, but more to himself, as if he's been debating in his head, coming up with a decision separate from this conversation. "Alright, I'll show you. Maybe … you can figure out a way to fix it?"
"I'll do whatever I can," she says. "I promise."
Barry grabs the hem of his shirt. Staring down at his hands holding the fabric, he seems afraid to lift it up. He looks into Caitlin's eyes, fear growing, widening his pupils, his hands starting to shake. She nods in encouragement, her heart inside her chest pounding its way up her throat in anticipation of what it could be. With a sigh of resignation, Barry rolls up the hem, revealing the patch of flank that earlier was black with frostbite. There's no frostbite that she can see (thank God) but what she can see is just as dangerous. Just as terrifying. They're words that Barry swore he'd show no one, but he can't hide them … or what they mean. Where the cold gun hit him, there's a sentence written in chaotic red script:
Nice ass. Too bad I'm gonna have to freeze it off.