don't give up on me [baby]
"Because lightning plus sand equals…"
"Glass."
Barry finishes her sentence and Caitlin feels something click back into place, like a first step in an old pair of favorite heels you haven't worn in a while. A weight she hadn't even realized she was carrying falls away from her skin and her breathing finds a normal she hadn't known she'd been missing. She hadn't realized everything had felt off but as her world rights itself, it makes sense immediately, this poor calibration she's been the unknowing victim of the last day and a half.
They're back in sync again; all of them, and the impossible has once again ceased to be a unit against which they measure their outcomes. Everything is back to their newly minted definition of right and her lips curl into a smile that's part satisfaction, part relief, part fondness for the way they all fall back into their places, already adjusted for their newest addition, ready to save the day. They can do this, they can be okay, they can handle anything that anyone (any meta human, from the likes of Sand Demon to this mysterious Zoom) throws at them.
Her faith was never shaken, not really, but she's not upset to regain the tangible feeling of it thrumming in her veins, warming her limbs and her thoughts and her actions.
That thrumming, connecting feeling doesn't leave after that, but it picks up, sharp and sure and wonderfully familiar, a little while later. She's speaking with Jay, reassuring him in a way that feels incredibly familiar (she thinks of a night with a power outage, a time when they weren't so close, when she'd seen the fight stolen from Barry's Atlas-like shoulders, when she'd first professed the faith that she'd felt so strongly today) when she sees Barry approach.
She knows his every step these days, knows the way he holds himself when he's afraid, excited, worried, ashamed. It's the set of those shoulders, once again, that is her first sign, and then the way his gaze skirts sheepishly to hers and the guilty acknowledgement behind his smile as he readily accepts the chastising she hides between her words. There's no begrudgement in the slope of her smile, warm and fond, when she watches him (because she understands his reasons, certainly had her own moments of doubt, and can't fault him for his caution or even his anger, not now that he's left it at the wayside).
It's in that moment, eyes caught and sharing a look of amusement, that the feeling comes back: punctuated by his laughing exhale and the retreating click of her heels.
Caitlin allows herself a moment on her walk out to revel in it—time she didn't have earlier in the day. All is right and well in their world (the relative parts of it anyway). It's warm and reassuring, those moments when you feel how well placed your faith is, when you can see the proof with your own two eyes.
My episode 2 (season 2) tag. Not as many Snowbarry moments in this episode, but that picked up sentence definitely caught my attention. I also wanted to include the shared look at the 40-41 minute mark but it felt like it would have been repetitive. This seemed like a good place to end.
Also, on a Boyce Avenue kick if you couldn't tell. They're awesome, if you don't know them. Their version of The Script's 'For the First Time' seemed like the perfect thematic fit for the tone of this story.
