Barry had never pictured what she'd look like. He'd started to wonder of course but he had never actually pictured her in his head. He already had one woman in his life who his dream expectations had nothing to do with her reality; he didn't want to bring KF-lady into anything that resembled that mess.

She was tall and thin, willowy was perhaps the adjective for that in a female, as opposed to his own labelling of lanky by so many because of his frame and height. She had brown hair that was long and wavy, almost curls but not really. She had pale skin and light pink lips. Her eyes were round and a deep brown.

She was pretty, really pretty.

"Hi," he managed to garble out, his hand waving lamely before even his super speed could stop it.

"Hello," she answered, licking her lips nervously. "Mr Scarlett?"

"That's me," Barry nodded. "Or rather my handle. You know, the name thing for the email chats. But you can call me Barry. Oh, should I have asked if you wanted to know real first names? Not saying that is my real name if you don't-"

She let out a helpless, nervous laugh. "I thought maybe your babbling on email was a fluke because I can be such a slow typist sometimes."

"Nah, I'm a genuine babbler in any occasion. And pretty quick in any forms of communication too." Barry smiled sheepishly. "Can I start over a little? Hello, I go by the email name Mr Scarlett. You must be KF-lady?"

She smiled at him. "Yes I am."

"Awesome. Would you like to stick with those names or use first names, real or otherwise invented?"

"As much funs as otherwise invented names sound… I'm Caitlin."

"Barry. I'm Barry."

"Nice to finally meet you."

"Yeah, you too." Barry grinned at her and then they lapsed into silence. Awkward first meeting over, he thought to himself, now time for awkward everything else.

The silence stretched on for a few minutes, Barry shuffling his feet whilst Caitlin bit her lip. They both seemed to stare at each other then look away, then stare at each other again.

"So scarlet is a shade of red and red is my favourite colour," Barry blurted. "Which is why I made it my email name. Not very cool of me but it was all I could really think of. Does yours mean anything?"

Caitlin wrapped her arms around herself, almost like she needed the comfort of a self-hug. "It's kind of why I'm here actually. Do you want to sit and we'll talk? About why we're both here. Properly, since we weren't allowed to discuss it in the emails."

"Sure," Barry answered and motioned for her to precede him to the sofa that sat along one side of the square room. They both sat and Barry turned towards her but Caitlin stared dead ahead, her shoulders stiff.

"So KF stands for Killer Frost," Caitlin said briskly. "It was a nickname a friend of my ex-boyfriend's came up with after he saw what happened one of the times we were kissing. Frost because my meta ability is cryokinesis and killer because I 'made it so cold I killed the mood'. His words not mine. It was spread around their group of friends and before long everyone was using it. I couldn't stand to be around them anymore. I felt so negative and then my powers would kick in and make it cold which just reaffirmed what they were saying. I hated it but when I decided to join this programme I thought I'd use it, try and give it some positive power over me instead of negative."

"Wow, that's…. I mean," Barry struggled to say something. "Those guys are douches."

A small sad smile flitted across Caitlin's lips. "Some of them most definitely. But as horrible as it sounds it made me realise I needed to do something about this." She flicked her hands open so her palms faced upwards. "I don't want to live the rest of my life alone and afraid because of these abilities." A light covering of ice, a white mist spread over her hands. "The ability to absorb heat and redirect it as ice, manipulating it however I want to."

"That's-" Barry breathed out, then ducked his head and looked up at her from under his fringe "Are you going to go all killer on me if I say…cool?"

Caitlin pulled a funny face, tucking her hands away but Barry saw the small pull on her cheek; she was definitely fighting a smile. Suddenly it didn't feel awkward at all, not being in this strange room, not the reason they were there or what they could end up doing; it was worth it just to try and make Caitlin smile.

"You don't do that a lot, do you?" Barry asked.

"Talk about my powers? No not really."

"No I meant, smile," Barry said. "You don't smile a lot."

"I wasn't aware I did smile," Caitlin answered, but there was something in her tone, just under the edge; an awareness of her almost-succumb to humour. "Between my profession and my lack of control of my powers a blank expression kind of feels like the way to go."

"I guess that brings us back to this place," Barry waved his hand to indicate the room. "We've both here because of lack of control huh?"

"What's your ability?" Caitlin asked.

"Super-speed," Barry answered. "Or if you want to make it sound fancy then I suppose you could say access to the energy of the speed force."

"The speed force," Caitlin muttered "I read the paper that went online about it a few months ago."

"Yeah it was a pretty interesting read, wasn't it? About the categorisation of all the metas, that some were natural through evolution, some were altered by dark matter and some were hosts to dimensional energies, such as the speed force."

"Dr McGee is a great scientist. She was on my list of who to work for growing up."

"You had a list of who you were going to work for when you were growing up?" Barry asked incredulously.

Caitlin flushed. "I believe we were talking about your powers."

"I'm totally coming back to that at some point," Barry said with a grin. "But okay, yeah my powers. I have pretty good control over them in general, even taught myself some tricks and things that I don't think any other speedsters can do. But I do have a problem with controlling myself in one area."

Barry held up his hand and vibrated it, watching as it moved in a blur and small sparks of electricity leapt off it.

"If I forget or get carried away I could hurt someone, give them friction burns or shock them with too much electricity. And sometimes everything just feels like it's moving so slowly I want to push it along and then that can be dangerous for other reasons too; sickness, vertigo, whiplash. All things you really don't want to happen at an inopportune moment."

"Let me guess," Caitlin said softly. "The area of your difficulty is similar to mine. Intimacy."

Barry rubbed at the back of his neck sheepishly. "Yeah. The closest time you can be with someone and it's when I can be the most dangerous to that someone."

"Me too."

The two sat there for a moment in silence, both wrapped up in their own thoughts. Barry wondered if she could be thinking anything other than what a moron he was and how stupid it was he couldn't protect those closest to him. Especially the one person that would be closest to him of all people in the world.

"The match programme seems to have the right idea about us at least," Caitlin suddenly said.

"What do you mean?"

"Star institute says that the match programme is about pairing up metas whose abilities will enhance each other to overcome the problem they are facing. Well in our case our powers might enhance each other but in a… personal situation, I think they might actually be closer to cancelling each other out."

Barry frowned. "My speed and your ice?"

"You channel the speed force thereby causing your atoms to vibrate and move at a higher velocity, creating friction and heat as a by-product, correct?"

Barry nodded.

"I create ice by removing heat from the environment around me and redirecting it in a cryo form."

"So the heat I'd create from my speed vibrations…"

"I would be able to absorb and channel as ice." Caitlin finished.

"I shouldn't be able to burn or shock you." Barry muttered.

"And I shouldn't be able to freeze you. Your vibrations from use of speed wouldn't allow any ice to compromise you."

"Because our powers would, if we were using them at similar levels-"

"Cancel each other out."

The two started at each other the implications of what they had just figured out weighing heavily on their minds. It felt real now.

Barry swallowed around a suddenly dry throat.

"The last time I kissed a girl her scarf caught on fire," he said nervously. "I got it off her and away and I was lucky It wasn't her hair but all I can think of now is that. That moment when I was so excited and so full of feelings I just let my speed take over and then it was less than a millisecond and it all went wrong and she could have been really hurt." He gulped again. "I could have really hurt her, just because I couldn't control it."

"It wouldn't have been your fault Barry," Caitlin said, her voice reassuring.

"Yes it would," Barry insisted. "And she said something to me the next day and it made me realise I have to do something about it, not just run away and think it will solve itself, work out the way I want it to just because that's what I want. So I started looking up people to help and found Star Institute and here we are."

"Yes, here we are." Caitlin looked away and bit her lower lip. "But where do we go from here, now we are here?"

Barry looked at her. "What do you think we should do?"

"I guess, test our powers against each other? Theoretically they should cancel out but we're going to need to test that. And here is the safest place for us to do that."

"Yeah. There's medical people and stuff in the other room, you know, just in case. So we're definitely safest here."

"How shall we test it?" Caitlin asked.

Barry looked at her and suddenly all he could think about was the word intimate. It circled round his mind, faster and faster and he was hyper-aware of everything; his thoughts were running so fast it seemed to slow everything else down and energy began to build in currents around him. Caitlin was still looking at him and she was biting her lip, drawing his gaze down. She really was very pretty. A pretty girl, an intimate situation and all his eyes could focus on were her lips, pink and plump. It was all he could do to not lean forward and-

"H-hands," Barry stuttered suddenly. "Maybe h-hold hands?"

"That would be a good base point," Caitlin agreed, nodding her head. "It would allow us to watch the interaction and observe any difficulties whilst still offering a physical barrier to overcome."

"Holding hands is a physical barrier?"

Caitlin shuffled a little on the sofa. "We are practically strangers Barry," she said softly.

"I guess. I mean, the email conversations we've been having just seemed so natural-"

"Whilst under the construct of an unnatural process," Caitlin said. "No matter how easy it is to talk to someone through a medium, meeting them and then having a physical relationship – even in the form of today, which is holding hands – is different and can be challenging. And that's without adding the element of our powers into it."

"Well I knew you were smart before and now I definitely know it so not that much has changed."

Caitlin rolled her eyes and her lips quirked; she was fighting off a smile again.

Barry grinned at her and relaxed. This was the KF-lady he knew from the last few weeks, just now he could see her in person. And she was so much more than she had been through the emails alone. He'd had many different reasons for doing this, for using Star Institute to help him, but now he wanted to help Caitlin too. They were already friends, of a sort, and Barry wanted to see that grow.

But it wouldn't do to jump ahead, as with his speed he was prone to do. So those thoughts that had begun to form earlier would have to be pushed back. No more hyper-focusing on Caitlin's looks, body parts or words that could lead to dangerous imaginings.

They were here to help each. Friends helping each other.

Besides he still had Iris to think about, right?

"Are you ready?"

Barry took a deep breath and then help up his left hand, vibrating it as he felt the speed force move through him.

Caitlin watched him for a moment, an intent expression on her face; something between awe and scientific curiosity. Then she took a deep breath and held up her right hand, cold white mist flowing from it.

Slowly they inched their hands closer together until the tips of their fingers met. A jolt ran through Barry as the cold hit against his hand but it wasn't unpleasant; it was strangely alluring. Caitlin gasped. Then their hands were touching properly, sliding along each other to intertwine fingers and lock together. His vibrations were slower against the ice he could feel Caitlin was generating but it wasn't detracting from him. It was as they had said; their powers were working against each other, perfectly matched.

Barry couldn't help but over his hand against Caitlin's, squeezing her fingers, rubbing against her palm. It sent feelings shooting up his arm and over the rest of his body. It was like pleasurable pins and needles; prickles of sensation rushing all over his skin.

He looked up at Caitlin and watched as she stared at their hands with an intensity that made her eyes deepen. It was like her whole being was pinpointed on where they were touching. The thought sent even more feelings rushing through Barry.

"Wow," Barry said softly. "That feels… I don't think I have the words."

"N-no," Caitlin stuttered. "Me n-neither."

They stayed like that, holding hands, grasping and caressing each other gently with Barry watching Caitlin and Caitlin watching their hands.

"I'm not hurting you," Caitlin whispered.

"We're not hurting each other," Barry amended and grinned when she looked up at him.

And Caitlin took his breath away with a beaming smile.

AN:

Thank you to all those who reviewed! They were amazing to read and it's exciting for me that people are interested in this idea and where this story is going. I hope you liked this chapter and would be grateful for anyone who reviews it.