Heal Thyself
By TheLostMaximoff
Disclaimer: I don't own these characters. Caitlin Snow is still my favorite character, and the writers really need to keep this storyline going for the rest of the season. R/R.
She doesn't know where she is. Her vision snaps into focus and Caitlin Snow stares down the hallway of an unfamiliar building. There's something in her hand and she notices that it's a clipboard. She tries to make sense of what's written on the papers attached to it but the writing is hard to decipher. She may not be able to read what it says but she recognizes it. Everyone always says that doctors have the messiest handwriting ever. She notices something else too. She's wearing a white lab coat, the kind a doctor would wear.
Caitlin tries to make sense of what's going on and it's then that she recognizes the hallway. She remembers this hospital very vividly. It's the hospital where her father died. She can smell that faint chemical smell in the air, the kind that's used to sanitize everything. There's a room at the end of the hallway and she senses something behind that closed door. Her feet move on their own, taking her down towards the door. She can feel herself shaking and tries to get herself to stop walking. The number on the door is the room number of her father's room. It's burned into her brain from all the times she visited him. She can't stop herself though. She's not in control of her own body and it scares the hell out of her. Her feet stop moving when she reaches the door and she mechanically puts her hand on the handle.
The second that Caitlin opens the door, she feels the blast of cold air. The room looks like a freezer with all the ice covering the walls. She shivers as she steps into the room. Her eyes focus on the room's only occupant, the girl's facial features unmistakable. It's like looking into a mirror except for the streaks of white in the girl's hair. The facial expression is different too and it chills her even more. Caitlin remembers the look on the face of her doppelganger from Earth-2. She never thought she could look that callous and cold. Now it's even worse because she's not staring into the eyes of Killer Frost from Earth-2. This Killer Frost is straight from her own mind.
"I got bored waiting for you to show up," says Killer Frost, gesturing to the ice coating the walls. "I decided to redecorate. So, give me the bad news, Dr. Snow. How sick am I?"
"Where the hell am I and what's going on?" asks Caitlin.
"I thought maybe we could have some quality time together. As far as the scenery goes, I just wanted to mess with you. I do know all the right buttons to push, after all."
Caitlin thinks about leaving but the door slams shut behind her. She hears the turn of its lock clicking into place and knows that she's not getting out of here until her evil twin feels like letting her out. Killer Frost is the one in charge so Caitlin is content to let her play out whatever twisted scenario she wants. She knows there's no way any of this can be real.
"Fine then. You've got me here so say whatever you want to say."
Killer Frost grins, glaring at Caitlin with her ice-cold eyes. "You're the doctor here, Caitlin. Aren't you going to diagnose me?"
"You're a coldhearted, manipulative, evil bitch," says Caitlin. "In my professional opinion of course."
"Brilliant diagnosis," says Killer Frost, clapping slowly. "There's one question you haven't really answered though. Why am I such a bitch? For that matter, why do I even exist at all?"
"Because Barry screwed with the timeline and gave me powers." Caitlin thinks that answer is simple enough but she sees something in Killer Frost's eyes, a glimmer of anger.
"You really think this is all Barry's fault?" she asks, the scowl on her face growing darker. "You think that you just woke up one morning with me magically in your head? You really do suck at this."
"If you're a part of me then why don't you diagnose yourself?" asks Caitlin.
"Doctors aren't supposed to self-diagnose. Fine, since I'm not a doctor I'll go ahead and humor you. See, you science types love to put everything in neat, little boxes with labels on them. That's what you did to me, Caitlin. I've been here longer than you think, way too long. You bottled up all that anger you had over your dad's death and Ronnie's death. You didn't let yourself grieve so your brain found a place for it. I made a nice, warm home here."
"You tried to make me murder my best friends."
"You think I give a damn about your so-called friends?" Killer Frosts laughs now and it's a sound that Caitlin swears will haunt her until the end of time. "You think they give a damn about you? They wanted to lock you up and throw away the key."
"Because you were hurting them. Maybe if you'd stop being so damn angry and cold towards everything and everyone then things would be different."
"I'm only what you made me to be."
Caitlin realizes that she's right in a strange, terribly unhealthy way. Her natural response to anger or pain is to shut it down. She's bottled up so many things in her life and kept all of it in a dark corner of her mind. All this time, she thought that Killer Frost was a result of Flashpoint but maybe she was wrong. Maybe she had misdiagnosed herself as going crazy when really she was just feeling what came naturally. So what's her treatment then? There's no vaccine that makes her immune to suffering. She realizes maybe that's the point. She's a doctor and that means she wants to heal and fix everyone. It means she can't stand watching people suffer.
"I can't get rid of you," she realizes. "You're always going to be here in my head."
"So what treatment are you prescribing then, Dr. Snow?" asks Killer Frost, a satisfied smirk twisting her facial features into a dark mirror of Caitlin's. "You can't get rid of me and you're definitely too scared to let me out. Are you ashamed of me, Caitlin? Are you ashamed of how you really feel about everyone in your life?"
"I only feel that way about them sometimes," corrects Caitlin.
"That makes you the lucky one. Here's the cold, hard truth since you seem to not get it. One of us has to be angry so the other one isn't."
Caitlin looks at this twisted version of herself and realizes something. There's a way out of this dichotomy that she's locked the two of them into. She's tried for so long to not feel the emotions that come to her naturally. She's tried so hard to lock it all up because she's so scared of letting it be free. She was bandaging up her wounds so tightly that they couldn't bleed. She needs to bleed a little. She turns and walks towards the door, opening it with ease. She looks back at Killer Frost and steps aside so she's not blocking the exit.
Killer Frost gives her a strange look, realizing that this has to be some sort of trick. It actually looks like Caitlin's going to let her leave the room. That's not possible though. The only time Killer Frost ever got out of this room was when she broke through the door. Caitlin never willingly let her out. Killer Frost cautiously gets up from her chair and takes a couple steps towards the door. She's waiting for Caitlin to dash through the door and then slam it in her face. She's done it so many times before but this time feels different.
"There's a door at the other end of the hallway," says Caitlin as she follows Killer Frost out of the room. "You can't go past it. When I can tell that you're not going to hurt my friends, you get more freedom. I'm meeting you halfway here. Are you going to be flexible or are you too emotionally frozen to compromise with me?"
"I guess it's a decent start for a recovery." Killer Frost tries to look disinterested but Caitlin knows herself better than that. "You're a real miracle-worker, Dr. Snow. I think our time's up for now though."
Caitlin is about to ask what she means when everything goes black. She opens her eyes again and finds herself in her bed safe under the covers. She reflexively curls into a ball, trying to burrow further into the protective shell of blankets around her. She feels the comforting weight of her power inhibitors around her wrists. She thinks about her father and Ronnie and finally feels some of that grief leaking out of her like a dam with cracks in it. She thinks about Zoom and how his deception tore out her already fragile heart. The tears spill out of her eyes and she lets them. She thinks about Barry and the anger towards him that's still somewhere inside her. She wants to will away that anger but she lets it stay with her for the moment. Her fingers dig sharply into the pillow and she cries for as long as she needs to, refusing to keep track of time while doing so.
When her tears stop flowing, Caitlin Snow sits up and reaches for the tissue box on her nightstand. She dries her eyes, cleans herself up, and goes into the bathroom to throw the tissue away. Despite the warm confines of her apartment, she feels a cold chill run up her spine for just a moment. It's a reminder that Killer Frost is still in there somewhere. There's still a lot of healing she needs to do.