Description: Caitlin, let down by her life and friends, decides to travel to another universe and unexpectedly finds everything she was looking for.
AN: Don't think about the plot of the show too much when reading this. It's AU. Harry never traveled to Earth One because Zoom doesn't exist… yet?
AN2: This story was inspired by a video I made. While they both differ and the story will be much more advanced and extended, you can still check it out by getting a link that's in my profile.
Making this decision was a real struggle. Like a battle between what she wanted to do and what she should do. She even felt bad for not telling the rest of the team about her discovery. Then again, she knew once she did that, there would be no choice to be made. They would probably seal the breach and tell her not to talk to the other side since it might be dangerous. And she got that, she really did. Traveling to a whole new universe which should be just like the one she was born in, but in the same time slightly different, was scary. In fact, it was downward terrifying and dangerous. Yet, she was still considering doing it.
The truth was that Caitlin hadn't been happy for a very long time now. Maybe she'd felt that way ever since Ronnie had passed away, she wasn't sure. She'd tried to move on. She really had. She even thought for just a second that maybe, just maybe she could develop some real feelings for Barry. Which was stupid, she knew that now just because the man didn't see anything and anyone else but Iris West. He'd always had. Yet, for a moment, he and Caitlin seemed to connect really well, both still grieving over someone they loved, both trying to move on and finding themselves stuck in place. Only when Caitlin suggested finding someone new to be crazy about, Barry just started dating some girl named Linda whom he met in a karaoke bar while… with Caitlin, actually. Not that she thought it was really a date, but she was hoping for something new to start there. She never got back to thinking about Barry ever again, actually finding herself easily forgetting about any romantic feelings that might've developed there. It made no sense and would only end in more heartbreak since the man clearly did not understand the sense of the phrase moving on.
It only got worse since then.
Dr. Wells, the one man she could truly lean on whenever she needed someone, turned out to be a fraud and betrayed them all. At first, Caitlin didn't want to believe he was the Reverse Flash and defended him fiercely even to a point of having a major fall out with Barry who was shocked that she could care this much for the man. And how could she not if she wouldn't even be standing there with the whole team if it hadn't been for Harrison Wells? He'd given her strength when she needed it the most, he was her anchor. And then he really did turn out to be the Reverse Flash and everything went to hell.
Caitlin couldn't trust anyone anymore. She couldn't find herself again after losing Ronnie and dr. Wells and then Ronnie again. She had Cisco who was still her best friend, but that wasn't enough for her. Besides, she felt like a big mess inside and wasn't sure she would ever be able to put her life back together. It seemed broken. She was broken which she actually told Barry once when he got so consumed with trying to save Iris from the future speedster Savitar. She understood that the girl couldn't just die, she really did, but Barry was so obsessed that he didn't even think clearly and therefore wasn't really in the right state of mind to even approach saving her.
And Savitar turned out to be Barry from the future. Just wonderful. Like they didn't have enough problems. And in the meantime, when Cisco was supporting Barry, when Barry was finally beginning a relationship with Iris and was still working on saving her in the same time, Caitlin was thrown into the backburner, forgotten and remembered only when someone needed medical attention.
She understood the need to save the one Barry loved, she really did because she'd loved once as well. She just couldn't comprehend how Barry could forego everyone else. It was as though Iris was in the centre of his universe and nothing mattered anymore, not his friends, not his father, nothing but Iris. And it hurt. It hurt to be treated like something needed only for medical advice or solving a problem. Caitlin had stopped feeling like a person a long time ago and that was why she was truly considering just leaving.
She'd stayed in the S.T.A.R. Labs for dr. Wells. She'd stayed because everyone else but her and Cisco turned their backs on him and she still believed in that man. Besides, he helped her survive. He always had a job for her to perform and he always offered his shoulder. Those nine months when Barry was in a coma and the three of them, the initial team, were doing their best to find and neutralize all the metahumans created by the particle accelerator explosion, were the worst of her life, yet she survived.
Once dr. Wells – or maybe rather Eobard Thawne since apparently they'd never really known the real Harrison Wells – was gone, she could go on and work for the most prestigious laboratories in the world. She finally rid of her disgrace and was wanted in the field of her expertise again. She even went to work for the Mercury Labs, yet, Cisco and Barry both convinced her to come back, promising teamwork, promising fighting for something meaningful, something bigger than all of them, promising friendship.
It seemed like it ended with those promises.
It wasn't the life she wanted nor needed, Caitlin knew that much now and she felt awful about it, so… trapped by it that if she didn't make a change soon, she would just keep on watching her life go by, going to waste. If Ronnie was alive and by her side, he would tell her to do what would make her happy for a change, to stop putting so much on her shoulders just because she thought she had to. The truth was that everyone was replaceable when it came to their skills. It was the person they were that was the irreplaceable part and Caitlin had the worst of feelings that none of her team mates would care if she was someone else. They occasionally needed a medic, but they didn't seem to need her anymore.
And then, one day when she felt particularly depressed, she wandered to the speed lab and saw the device Cisco had been working on. He'd been trying to understand his powers fully for quite some time now, so he made this multi-dimensional thingy that would in theory help him with his vibes. It was then when Caitlin noticed the small whirlwind up in the air appearing and disappearing just as fast. But that was not the end. There was a note lying on the floor right below where the portal appeared. And she didn't tell anyone about it.
Someone was looking for help, for someone they could trust, someone experienced with speedsters and that was definitely Caitlin since the person actually required medical training as well. In fact, it was as though that note – which must've been sent to multiple earths through multiple dimensions – was written specifically for her. The one thing that prevented her from writing back on the spot and offering her services was the name at the bottom of the note, though printed out of a computer and not signed by hand, it said dr. Harrison Wells.
Caitlin wasn't stupid. She realized this wasn't the dr. Wells she knew and worked for, but still, it seemed weird to even consider this job offer. It would be a completely different person who just looked like dr. Wells she remembered, but it still made her feel strange.
Then, there was the other thing she didn't even want to admit to herself – she missed working with him. Not that she missed the murderer he turned out to be, but before that, she actually loved working for the man and ever since he died, the Labs didn't seem the same anymore. She knew Barry did his best while having a daytime job, owning the Labs now as dr. Wells had signed it over to him, not to mention being the Flash and having a successful dating life with Iris, but still… it pained her that he just ran the Labs to the ground. The place was a ghost town, no employees, no fascinating break-throughs or projects, just the cortex and the speed lab with the Flash doing his best to save the city every day and night and having a life of his own. Maybe Cisco was all right with it since he also worked as a consultant for the police now, but Caitlin wasn't. In fact, soon she would run out of money to support her own living as Barry couldn't pay them well or at all for that matter. Maybe for him owning the Labs and letting it be was convenient since he didn't have to look for another secret place for team Flash, but… yes, for Caitlin it just seemed like such a waste. She never knew the real Harrison Wells, but she suspected he wouldn't like what happened to the Labs at all. He would love for someone to turn it back into the place it'd used to be, a place of innovation and development, not this shadow of its past glory.
The note was left unanswered and Caitlin still didn't say anything to anyone, but she was thinking more and more of the possible trip to another earth all the same. Maybe that was the answer to all of her problems. Maybe if she couldn't seem to start over where she was, she would have to go somewhere else – to an actual another universe. She was kind of interested in meeting the real Harrison Wells even though she knew he wouldn't be the same man who'd used to live on her earth. Still, he was the owner of S.T.A.R. Labs and a genius all the same, right? He couldn't be that much different. Maybe in character, but not in mind.
She would just do it, she decided one day when she was so bored she was dangerously close to falling asleep on the job. Nothing happened. Absolutely nothing. With Iris saved along with the West-Allen future, Barry was out enjoying his life with his now fiancée as nothing bad was happening around the city and Cisco was on a CCPD assignment. Caitlin was left all alone with nothing to do and no life to lead.
That was when she answered the note, including her resume and a history of work she'd done so far for the Flash. There was nothing left to do but wait.
And she didn't have to wait for long since the answer came almost immediately, surprising her. She was in just like that. She could leave any moment. She could actually start a new life now.
She was really terrified when she went home, made some arrangements for her apartment to turn off water and power for indefinite period of time and… and just left.
The thing was that her fear of the unknown, of the new to come, was also exhilarating her. She was scared, but also excited for the first time since she could remember. She welcomed a new challenge with open arms just like she'd used to do back in the day when the Labs had been open and running and she was working to actually earn money and discover new things.
She couldn't bring herself to face her 'friends', though, so she left them a letter. She explained everything as best as she could, telling them she couldn't say all those things in person because she was afraid they would make her change her mind and then she signed it – I'm sorry, but I have to do this. Caitlin.
The portal opened in the appointed time and she just jumped through without looking back.