A/N: Here's Part Two! It seemed like the last part's formatting problem was fixed, so yay! Thanks again JediTimelady for helping immensely (You guys should go check her out, she has amazing stories). Please, if you have the time, take a minute to review and tell me what you think because it really helps me grow as an author. Love it, hate it, etc. Just no flames please. This is only my first fanfiction after all.

Anyways, without further ado, I proudly present to you Part Two of Reality!

Reality

Part Two

Caitlin stared at where the breach had been, frozen to the spot and deathly still.

"He's not dead. He's not dead." She repeated the mantra in her head, as if it would somehow become a reality if she said it enough. It could have been her deranged mind playing tricks on her, but she could have sworn that she heard a feminine voice chanting the same thing she was thinking.

"Caitlin?" Barry's voice rang out in her ears. He slowly pulled his mask off and took a few tedious steps towards her, as if she was a wounded animal that might bite anyone who dared venture near.

Turning around to face the team, she repeated it again in her head. "He's not dead. He's not."

"Caitlin?"

The woman in question found herself hearing Iris this time. Why were they all saying her name? It wasn't like she had said anything out loud. No matter, Caitlin couldn't bring herself to act on such distracting thoughts. All she could see was Jay, his pained face etched in her memory like a picture with no delete button.

Like Ronnie's face had been before she met Jay. Before she loved him.

"This isn't happening... this isn't happening again!" She tried to convince herself of the truth in her thoughts, but all she could hear was desperation and muted tones. She wasn't even sure if she was talking out loud, and quite frankly, she didn't care. If the team heard her, so what? All she could manage to care about was the Jay-shaped cavity in her heart, which had been covering up the Ronnie sized one beneath that. Her dead husband's had never been filled, just put aside for later reminiscing and frequent sorrow.

But now she had two craters of used-to-be-love that she had to cast away? That was more than a human, mortal heart could bare.

She felt herself breaking down and crumbling under the weight of the pain in front of the team, and still, she didn't care. They didn't matter at the moment.

"Hey, hey, I got you. Come on." Cisco's voice was steady, a big difference from the ravaging storm of thoughts in her head. Caitlin allowed herself to latch onto something real, in this case, Cisco's shoulder, and begin the struggle to walk all the way back to the cortex without falling off her shaky knees and curling up in a ball on the firm, inviting floor.

She didn't notice when they got to the cortex, or when Cisco told her to sit on the spare bed they kept in a side room. Her thoughts were just too sporadic to concentrate on one, singular idea, so she sat on the bed without saying a word or looking up. Eventually, she felt a blanket being placed over her shoulders and felt the mattress shift as Cisco sat next to her.

"Hey Caitlin. Umm, you feeling warm enough? Do you, uh, need a hug or something? I mean, if you want your space, I totally get it, but, you know, just wanted to let you know that I'm here. But if you want me to go, then just give the command and I'll..." he stopped muttering as Caitlin slowly leaned on his shoulder and whispered "He's gone."

Cisco was taken aback for a second. Caitlin was letting someone touch her that soon after yet another tragic accident in her life? When this had happened with Ronnie, no one one was allowed to touch Caitlin Snow for a month unless you wanted the cold treatment. "I know, Cait, and I'm so, so, so sorry for you. If I could bring him back, I totally would. I'm really, really, sorry. Oh..." he trailed off as the dam to Caitlin's heart burst and the tears came flooding out. She sobbed silently into his shoulder, not caring what Cisco thought of her in the moment.

After a while of their position, Cisco finally needed to move his leg; it had been squished between Caitlin and the wall for far to long. Caitlin lazily moved her head off of Cisco's shoulder in the way one might move themselves when they first wake up. Every once in a while, a stray tear would run down her raw, red cheeks and softly drop to the drenched shirt below.

"Hey, um listen... I know this may be a bad time to ask, but do you want to go home?" Cisco inquired. "It's probably a lot comfier in your own bed then on me, and you might feel a bit better with a good nights sleep in you."

Her reaction was immediate. Head shooting up, Caitlin fiercely shook it side to side. "No! I can't! It'll just make me think off him more, and then I won't be able to sleep at all, and I have work tomorrow, and I have to fix up Barry, and I if I don't sleep good, I'll just make everything in everyone's lives worse, again!" She started hyperventilating, desperate to get rid of the agony filling her chest every time she tried to breathe.

"Hey, hey, hey, Caitlin stop, ok? I just need you to breathe in and out with me. That's it, in and out. Keep going. In and out. You're doing great. In and out. In and out..."

Following Cisco's steady voice, Caitlin eventually managed to get her lungs to stop burning and her muscles to relax, even though there was still an immense pressure where her heart was from the sorrow.

"See what I mean?" she whispered so quietly, Cisco had to lean in even closer then he already was to hear her. "I'm just a pain and a burden to everyone. I lost STAR Labs best engineer, Ronnie, just because I wanted him to come with me to a celebration of the particle excelerator. Then I lost Firestorm, just because I wanted to have Ronnie as my husband. I lost him both times for my own selfish reasons. Then Jay came, and I wasn't sure if I would be able to handle another love, but he was so kind to me, and he felt just like Ronnie. But if I hadn't pursued him in selfish love, then he wouldn't have been there in front of the breach to get killed! And I can't even make myself not hysterically cry in moments of stress!All of it's my fault!"

Cisco was dumbfounded at what to say. Caitlin had been carrying all that with her the entire time since Ronnie's first supposed death? No wonder she had been so cold and distant.

"Cait..." he started, not sure how to comfort someone to this level. "I'm sure it wasn't your fault. Ronnie made the choice to go down in the Particle Accelerator, and he made the choice to go with Stein as Firestorm into the wormhole. He probably would have done those things even if you hadn't been there, because that's who Ronnie was. He was kind and selfless, and always put others needs before his own."

Hearing a sniffle from his best friend and feeling her adjust a bit in his hold, he decided to continue on. "And Jay, well, Jay was a great guy. Sure we all had our doubts at the beginning, but you were the bravest of us all. Braver than Barry, braver than me, braver than Harry, Iris, Joe, The whole lot of us. Do you know why?"

Caitlin just shook her head.

"You were braver because you had faced so much in such a small amount of time with Ronnie, but nevertheless, you persisted. You kept coming to work, you never let us down, and you were always there for us, even though we weren't sometimes for you. Then Jay came, and you were brave enough to try again, to pick yourself back up off the ground and start over, when half the people in your type of situation would have just stayed at rock bottom. But not our Caitlin. You turned yourself to the here and now instead of reminiscing on the past and moved yourself forward. And that makes you braver than all of us, so never forget it, alright?"

Slowly nodding her head, Caitlin gradually sat herself up with the blanket and Cisco's arm still around her shoulders. "I just... I don't know what to feel right now. It's like there's nothing going on inside me, like time is still going forward even though I want it to stop and there's nothing I can do about it."

It was Cisco's turn to nod. "I know, and it'll probably feel like that for some time. But this time, we'll all make sure that we're here with you. Ok?" Not getting a response, he got off the bed, still holding the scientist up by her shoulders. "I think that you should go to sleep. Get some rest, and we can talk some more when you wake up. Or we can just hug. That's ok too. Hugs are great. Whatever you want."

Caitlin moved her eyes to meet his. "I can't sleep. His face is etched into my memory, and I see him whenever I close my eyes. But I'm so tired."

Oh. That was a problem. "What if I stayed with you?" Cisco proposed. "Then if you wake up, I'll be right here besides you so that you're never alone again."

Thinking about it for a second, the woman in front of him eventually nodded and lied down on the bed. "Promise you'll stay?" She asked in a small voice.

"I promise." With that, he sat in the chair next to her and held her hand until soft breathing echoed throughout the silent room.

A/N: Tada! What did you guys think? Sorry if the ending sucked. I honestly didn't know how to end it without going even further into the episode. Besides that, review? It'll really help me grow, and it'll only take a minute if you keep it short and sweet. If not, that's completely fine too. I know what little time a busy lifestyle spares you can't always be taken by reviewing. No problem. Anyways, thank you sooo much for reading! See you next time!