Spoilers: Orion references characters, events, and themes from all episodes of The Flash through 02x22 Invincible, all comics featuring Zoom/Hunter Zolomon, and various comics released under the New 52.

Warning: Orion contains adult content, graphic description of violence, and dark material that exceed canon-typical levels. Please mind the M rating.

Chapter Summary: Caitlin recovers from the trauma of the siege at the Comet.

Chapter Ten
Keeper of the Months

Caitlin stared at the magnificent waterfall that stretched up, up, up into the sky, so high she couldn't see where it began. It was breathtaking.

She got close, so close that its roaring was deafening. She reached out and ran her hand under it, testing the pressure and temperature before she ducked under the cascade, letting it drench her to the bone, relishing the sweeping rush as it washed everything away.

A hand was at her elbow, warm and gentle, and she knew who it was before she turned to see him. He was already so close she could only see his face and a titillating glimpsed of his bare chest.

How much of him was bare?

She shuttered at the thought, thrilled with the possibilities. Then his arms wrapped around her as his mouth captured hers, and she became lost in his tongue and lips and teeth, drowning in his eyes, more black than blue, blown wide with desire. She drank him in as he lifted her, wrapping her arms and legs around him as she sank over his flesh, groaning helplessly into their kiss.

His thrusts reached a punishing pace, the rhythm wild, reckless, perfect.

"Hunter!" she moaned as her climax crashed into her like a riptide.

She gasped for air just before the undertow dragged her down, out of his arms, and into the ocean, covering her with salt and cold and panic. She struggled against it as she fought her way to the surface, desperate for her next breath.

She was nearly there when something stopped her. It was as if a glass wall held her beneath the waves. She kicked, frantically maneuvering to escape, only to find herself completely boxed in: encased and submerged.

Caitlin threw strike after strike to no avail, and with the very last of her breath, she screamed, unleashing nothing but a flurry of bubbles.

Caitlin snapped awake, clawing at the blankets and reeling in confusion. She had just enough awareness to stumble out of bed, down the hall, and into the bathroom, where she nearly fell to the floor as she wretched over the toilet.

Her throat burned as a horrible taste filled her mouth, her stomach churning furiously and bringing up nothing but bile.

She collapsed. Now she was awkwardly splayed across the cold tile floor, reality returning slowly.

She was in a medical gown, light and loose over her skin, but she couldn't remember putting it on. The last thing she recalled was overlooking a wreck of a building as blue lightning streaked in the morning light. She had been wearing the Bellatrix suit - her suit.

No, that wasn't right. She had been called away. Blink had taken her to Totem because... because...

A wave of nausea overcame her as the images flashed through her mind: Hunter's injury; his pale, vacant body; and his blood... his blood everywhere, but most especially on her hands.

Caitlin pulled her knees to her chest as she fought the sob rising in her throat. Her memory collided with her last dream - the waterfall red with blood and his warm embrace as cold as a corpse - jumbling together into a kaleidoscope of pain and passion.

The lurid images of her unconscious mind were entirely unnecessary. She already knew that Hunter had dragged her down and now the weight of him was crushing her, holding her under. She was trapped.

And there was no going back. Not to Earth-1 and not to who she used to be, assuming she survived that long.

You've made it this far. Don't give up.

She wanted to laugh, but it caught somewhere in her chest. She didn't know how she'd gotten back to the Comet - Blink, probably - but it was only a matter of time before the MTU or some revenge-driven metahuman came calling. Hunter was - had been - the only one on Earth-2 who cared if she lived or died. With him gone, she was truly alone.

The soft padding of paws on tile drew her attention. A gray fox stood a few feet away, staring at her with... concern.

Must be one of Totem's familiars.

"I'm fine," she said, assuming Totem could hear her. "Fine."

It took everything she had to pick herself up off the floor. She flushed the toilet and washed her hands before driving the horrible taste from her mouth with her toothbrush. After she splashed cool water on her face, she caught sight of a figure in the mirror. Someone was standing behind her in the bathroom doorway.

It can't be.

Caitlin whipped around, certain that the man she saw couldn't be there.

"Ronnie?"

No, he was dead. Not just her Ronnie, but Deathstorm, too. So how was he here? She wondered if she had died in that forest, and all of this just echoes of her dwindling mind, complete with the ultimate wish fulfillment: reuniting with her husband.

But then she noticed that Ronnie was holding RJ on his hip. Their matching eyes stared at her, as if to say, "Come with us." So when Ronnie turned and walked away, she followed without hesitation.

Does this mean that Hunter is alone?

The question came unbidden and abrupt, and she stumbled in both her footing and resolve. He was dead because of her, because she failed to save him. She wondered if maybe he was waiting for her... wherever it was she was headed. Her thoughts churned and writhed, threatening to throw her into an eternal stasis of what-ifs.

She couldn't stop now.

Ronnie's long stride and quick step had already put considerable distance between them. She managed to climb out of her own head just in time to see him disappear into her room.

She scrambled after him, crossing the threshold mere moments later, panicked and thrilled at the same time.

The sheets were as she'd left them, carelessly thrown to one side of the bed, where RJ sat, his eyes sleepy and wide as he sucked on his fingers. She spun on her heel, scouring the room, but she and RJ were the only ones there.

She sat on the bed and wrapped RJ in her arms, desperate to feel something real. His weight and warmth grounded her and eased her breathing, yet she couldn't help but wonder if he, too, was a figment of her imagination.

"It's okay," she said, more to herself than RJ. "It's going to be okay."

She dragged the crib so it was right next to her bed before she placed RJ inside. As soon as his head touched his tiny pillow, he fell asleep, and she felt a weight lift from her shoulders.

"It's going to be okay," she repeated.

She almost meant it that time. Almost.

"You're awake."

Caitlin didn't look away from RJ. She recognized Totem's voice, but she wasn't ready to respond. She wasn't ready to accept that she was alive and awake, that some part of this was real.

"Bellatrix?" Totem asked. "You collapsed. Do you remember?"

Caitlin nodded her head, yes.

"It is good to see you on your feet," she said. "But you should rest. At least until morning."

Caitlin didn't think she could go back to sleep. She was afraid that lying down would send her mind into overdrive, obsessing over what the morning would bring. Or worse, she might fall asleep and dream.

I'm losing my mind.

"No," Totem said firmly.

It took a moment to realize that Totem was responding to her thoughts. She finally looked at the other woman, somewhere between furious and relieved.

"I apologize," Totem continued. "I had not expected you to wake until morning. Ghost came to check on the boy before I knew."

Caitlin digested the words, her comprehension slowed from her jarring awakening. Then she remembered that Totem had mentioned that the children in the Comet had two caretakers: Cloak and Ghost.

"Ghost?" she repeated.

"You cannot look upon her face," Totem said, as if that explained anything.

"So, when I saw him... it wasn't him, just a meta's powers?"

Suddenly, a faceless metahuman using Ronnie's image as a stealth mechanism felt infinitely worse than losing her mind. It was an insult to his memory.

"Ghost cannot control who or what you see," Totem explained. "Apart from myself, the only ones immune to her affliction are children."

The word affliction was like a dagger, cutting through her emotions with a searing edge, leaving nothing but sadness in its wake. Exhaustion soon followed.

"I know you are tired," Totem continued. "But I must ask that you tell no one of this. Please. She does not deserve to be punished for my mistake."

Caitlin didn't understand why Totem was so anxious for her silence on the subject.

"Don't worry," she replied. "There's no one left to tell."

Something flashed behind Totem's eyes, and somehow, Caitlin knew that it was about Hunter. But that didn't make any sense.

"He lives," was all Totem said.

"He lives?" Caitlin repeated, unable to believe it.

"He lives."

Pure unrelenting relief swept over her. She hadn't failed him. She'd saved him. Hunter was alive. She wasn't alone.

Zoom lives. Because of you.

The thought was more accusatory than congratulatory, but she didn't care. She didn't care that a part of her hated herself for being happy that he was alive, and she certainly didn't care that she was being torn in two by the conflict.

He was alive. There was still time.

"You must rest, Bellatrix," Totem said.

Caitlin climbed into bed rather than replying. She doubted she would sleep right up until she closed her eyes.

Hunter returned to the house after midnight, stiff and drained from the day's battle. It had taken twelve hours to execute burn site protocol, and he had wasted another four recuperating in one of his old hideaways, fuming over the fact that his healing had slowed to such a degree. He wanted to check up on Caitlin, but he couldn't risk the trip with his injuries, so he sustained himself with the unbearably terse status reports from the Comet.

After hours with little more than confirmation that she was still breathing, he was desperate to see her face, to know irrefutably that she was alive and well. It took every shred of his will to step lightly up the stairs when every molecule of his being demanded that he race to her side.

And there she was, bathed in moonlight. She was beautiful like this, completely relaxed with her hair spread across the pillow. He could easily stand here and watch her like this for hours on end.

He had been so consumed with seeing her that he hadn't registered the crib alongside her bed, so close that it trapped some of her sheets. He hadn't forgotten about the boy, but he hadn't thought about him since he ordered Totem to make arrangements, either.

He tried to remind himself that this boy was likely no more than a patient, but there had been hundreds of children at the MTU facility. What set this boy apart from the dozens of other captives his age?

Hunter could stand in the doorway and watch her sleep all night. It would've been a welcome reprieve from the events of the last two days, but he couldn't afford such a luxury, not yet. The MTU would soon regroup, and he wouldn't let The Cause be unprepared for their next strike.

And he needed to identify this boy. Just in case.

Resolved to his next steps, he walked over to the far side of Caitlin's bed, leaned over, and placed a gentle kiss on her forehead.

"Sleep well," he whispered.

Then he left her room and descended into the basement, donning his Zoom suit before proceeding into the chaos he knew awaited him in the Comet.

Caitlin awoke to the sound of RJ crying. People always said that a mother knew her child's need by the sound of the cry, but for the life of her, she couldn't tell. Probably because - DNA not withstanding - she wasn't really his mother.

She took him to the bathroom and changed him, and the crying stopped. Then she put him back in his crib so she could shower.

She took longer than necessary under the water, trying to shake the stiffness from her limbs. She kept wondering if the conversation she'd had with Totem was real or part of a very bizarre dream.

She was relieved that he was alive, and she hated herself for it. She drudged up every one of his sins: pretending to be a hero, kidnapping Jesse, breaking Barry's back and stealing his speed. But no matter how many horrible things she thought about him, her righteous anger evaporated with the memory of him broken and empty on that surgical table.

She was too tired to be angry with him and too emotionally exhausted to hate herself. So, as she dried off, she made a mental list of all the patients she wanted to see.

She wasn't ready to face the day, but she tied her still-wet hair into a ponytail and carried RJ downstairs for breakfast anyway.

She should've expected him, but nevertheless, she stumbled when she saw Hunter waiting for her downstairs in a dark green t-shirt and jeans. The table was already set, including a new highchair.

"Caitlin," he said as he got to his feet. "Good morning."

It was so mundane - so painfully normal - that she wasn't sure how to act.

"Hi," she replied lamely.

"Here, let me take him," he said as he reached out.

She stepped back and clutched RJ to her chest, her first instinct to keep him in her arms. Hunter stopped dead in his tracks, his arms dropping, clearly stung by her unwillingness to hand him over.

"I thought you might be hungry. Both of you," he said, the tremor in his voice betraying his calm demeanor. "I... I would never hurt him, Caitlin."

"Oh, no, it's not..." she said, fumbling as if her tongue had swollen to twice its size. Luckily, she didn't have to think hard to explain herself. "It's just - your arm. The cast should still be on. Isn't it - "

"It's fine," he said, interrupting her as he stepped in close and put his hands on her shoulders. He seemed pleased with her answer. "I'm fine. Thanks to you. I thought breakfast was the least I could do."

Even though she was reluctant to let him go, she held him out. Hunter wouldn't harm him.

That's just what you want to believe.

Hunter took RJ to the highchair, which had cheerios and yogurt set out on its tray. She helped herself to pancakes and eggs, and he followed suit.

She did her best to ignore the image of a nuclear family sharing a meal. This wasn't real. It was just a passing mirage.

"I know that what you saw yesterday was... difficult," he began. "But there's more. It would be easier to show you."

"Show me? What about all the injured?" she asked.

"The Comet isn't expecting you," he replied. "You passed out the other day."

"Only because I hadn't eaten," she replied, more defensively than she intended. Then she added, "It's just - I'm needed here."

"You'll always be needed here."

Her mouth went dry, his sincerity as unexpected as his even temper. Everything about him this morning had her off-guard.

Only because you thought he was dead.

"Then tonight," he said.

She couldn't think of anything to say other than, "Okay, tonight."

He's manipulating you.

"And what about him?" he said, indicating RJ.

"RJ," she said automatically.

"He needs a nickname."

"He's not a meta."

"You don't know that," he said. "And even if he's not, everyone has an alias in the Comet."

She stared at RJ, unsure of what nickname might suit him. She could use another name from Harry Potter, but none of them seemed right. She considered his parents's aliases, Deathstorm and Killer Frost.

"Frostbite," she said, saying the first name that felt right.

"Frostbite," he repeated. "Much better than Killer Frost Junior."

She started at his offhanded comment, but she shouldn't have been surprised. He probably went looking for RJ's identity as soon as he heard that she demanded to keep him at her side.

"Did you know that Deathstorm and Frost had a son?" she asked pointedly.

"I knew they had a secret," he replied. "They were far too powerful to be kept under Reverb's thumb for so long. I assumed he had leverage."

"You mean, keeping it secret from you?"

"Probably," he replied. "Little did they know, they had far more to fear from Reverb. I don't hurt children. Reverb, on the other hand..."

"So you didn't know that Deathstorm was a father when you killed him?"

She hadn't meant to ask that, and she regretted it immediately. But part of her - the part that kept reminding her that Hunter was monster that could never be redeemed - needed to know, even though Deathstorm wasn't her Ronnie.

Caitlin anticipated a raised voice and a grimace, but instead, all she saw was pained resignation, as if he had hoped for better but expected a response exactly like this.

"No," he said. "Even if I had known, it wouldn't have changed anything."

"How can you say that?" she asked. "You said you don't hurt children. What do you think happens when you take their parents away from them?"

"Would you have preferred I let him kill Barry?" Hunter asked, an edge to his question that was somehow worse than his usual anger.

She didn't have anything to say to that.

Thankfully, Hunter took that moment to rise from his seat and take his plate to the sink, even though he hadn't eaten much.

As he walked back, he stopped next to her chair and put his hand on her shoulder.

"Tonight," he said. "I'll be back at seven."

She nodded her head, yes, and he continued out the front door.

She turned to RJ, who was too happily playing with his food to be bothered with the incredibly odd conversation that just transpired.

Half an hour later, Caitlin carried RJ downstairs, his cheeks slightly pink from her scrubbing. She hadn't realized how difficult it was to wipe yogurt off a two-year-old.

She had expected to find the corridors brimming with people, but the top floor was empty and eerily silent. She walked into the room that served as her office, and no sooner had she arrived than a gray-and-white streak bolted out. She caught enough of a glimpse to recognize the fox from the night previous.

She settled RJ into the new playpen by her desk. She hadn't had time to consider what it would mean to take care of him, let alone what she'd need to do it. She was lucky that Totem had things in order.

She felt a twinge of guilt. Totem had been with her in the field and at the Comet, yet she had somehow not only anticipated her new needs but also arranged for the appropriate supplies. Surely she - and, frankly, everyone else - had better things to do in the aftermath of a siege.

But she was very grateful that she could have RJ within arm's reach.

She opened the rolodex on the computer. There were hundreds of new patients, though, thankfully, most were admitted for injuries like minor burns, broken bones, and lacerations. Even those without meta-healing would likely make a full recovery.

There were a dozen critical patients. Half had been brought in with gunshot wounds, and the rest had catastrophic injuries: extensive burns, severed limbs, and even one listed as near-decapitation.

She was so caught up in the admission summaries that she hadn't noticed the names. She jolted when she saw that both Colonel Cold and Heat Wave had severe burns and severed limbs. She was about to pull up their full medical charts when another alias caught her eye: Killer Frost.

Her doppelganger had been brought in after surviving multiple gunshot wounds and a lengthy field surgery to remove the bullets.

Caitlin typed frantically, trying to pull up any other details, but the digital medical chart hadn't been updated since her arrival over twelve hours ago. All she could find was that she was in Unit C on the second floor.

Caitlin scooped up RJ and went to the elevator.

The second floor was teaming with people, all too busy to notice her ducking into Unit C.

Frost was barely conscious, but her bed was set to support her in a semi-upright sitting position. Her normally-blue skin was white as marble, and, if the machine read-outs were correct, her vitals were alarmingly weak.

Caitlin grabbed her medical chart. It appeared more detailed than its digital counterpart, but she couldn't tell because she only had one hand free with RJ on her hip. Unable to flip through it, she scoured the top page, hoping she'd find something to explain Frost's condition. She had been admitted hours ago. So why wasn't she healing?

She's not metahuman.

Somehow, Frost had obtained powers without the expression of an active meta-gene, which meant she couldn't assume that any of her knowledge about metahumans applied here. It was possible that Frost didn't possess any kind of accelerated healing.

Or that something the MTU used on her suppressed whatever regenerative powers she does have.

Her stomach tightened as she recalled Scrap's screams, Lullaby's terrified eyes, Grodd's separated-yet-still-living head, her - no, Frost's - mother, half-frozen. Her hand tightened against the chart as her mind wandered down a dark path, wondering what the MTU had had in store for RJ.

What they could have already done to him.

"Get out."

The words were hoarse and harsh but also so quiet that Caitlin wondered if she imagined them. Frost looked no more lucid now than she had a few minutes ago.

"GET. OUT!"

Her lips barely moved, but there was no doubt it was Killer Frost speaking. Clearly, she didn't want visitors right now.

"When you're better, we'll be back," Caitlin said.

She returned the chart and left for her office.

With all the new staff on hand, she didn't know who to ask to make a copy of Frost's chart, and she couldn't just take it, not without risking Frost's care.

As she placed RJ back in his playpen, she thought, Would it really be so bad if she didn't get better?

She bit her tongue. Whatever crimes Frost was guilty of, she didn't deserve to die. Even if she did, RJ didn't. He had lost too many family members already.

"Bellatrix," Totem said from the doorway.

"Thank you," she blurted, remembering the guilt. "For... everything."

"You should not be working," Totem said bluntly.

"I - what?" Caitlin replied, fumbling at the unexpected response.

"You are still under Doctor Midnight's care," Totem explained. "You were relocated to your room after being successfully rehydrated, but you were not discharged."

"I'm fine," she replied. "You must need help here. After yesterday - "

"All patients have assigned medical care," Totem interrupted.

"Did Zoom put you up to this?"

"No," she replied. "A number of tests were ordered for you and are still being processed in the lab. You cannot be cleared to treat patients until those results verify your health."

"Totem, I - I can't go back upstairs and do nothing," she said.

"Then wake my son up," Blink said as she joined them.

Blink Junior had been scheduled to come out of his induced coma, but a stable patient like him wouldn't be a priority. Not with so twelve critical admissions on top of hundreds of minor cases flooding the same facility.

"I'd have to review his latest scans," Caitlin said to Blink. "To make sure he's ready."

"He is," Blink said. "I can feel it."

It was clear Totem didn't approve of this idea, and Caitlin wondered if her wariness came from having seen or sensed something.

Before she could ask, Totem spoke, an unusual edge to her voice, "I recommend that you take Frostbite upstairs and rest. If you will not, I must ask that you remain on the top floor and treat only Blink Junior."

Caitlin considered protesting but put it out of her mind. Even without patients, she still had a tremendous amount of Earth-2 medical research to read. She also could use the computer to find out how her other patients from the siege were doing.

Maybe it's not such a bad idea to take it easy.

"Okay," Caitlin said. "I'll treat Blink Junior."

"Hubris!" Totem shouted.

The silver fox raced into the room, sliding on its paws as it came to a halt beside RJ's playpen. It - no, he - looked up at her with wide, eager eyes.

"Be careful, Bellatrix," Totem warned before sweeping out of the room, leaving Hurbix the fox to watch over her.

After a tremendous amount of squabbling, Blink agreed to wait outside in the hallway with RJ as Caitlin brought Blink Junior out of his induced coma.

Hubris the fox eyed Scout the macaw as she worked, reducing Junior's intravenous medications to bring him out of the coma as gently as possible.

She had calculated the values carefully, taking his meta-healing into account, yet the boy snapped into consciousness as if she'd yanked him out violently.

It was clear from the look on his face that his vision remained compromised. She did her best to talk him through it, but he was too terrified to really hear her.

He's probably terrified of doctors after what the MTU did to him.

So she invited his mother into the room. Between his familiar and his positive response to his mother's presence, Caitlin decided it was safe to give them some space. They'd been apart long enough.

She spent the rest of the day in her office with RJ and Hubris, checking in on Junior and Blink at regular intervals, the hours slipping by quickly, probably because she was spending more time entertaining RJ than reading.

Then, at four in the afternoon, the computer came through with updated charts, including her own. Apparently, she was cleared to treat patients starting tomorrow afternoon.

She tried to pull up the lab results, but for some reason, they wouldn't load.

Caitlin didn't have trouble bringing up anybody else's files. She found that... suspicious.

Totem must be hiding something from you.

If something was being hidden from her, Zoom was the true culprit.

She really didn't like that possibility, so much so that when she checked in on Junior again, she asked Blink to obtain a paper copy of her lab results. To her surprise, the teleporter vanished immediately, returning less than a minute later empty-handed.

"Sorry, couldn't find it," Blink said. She put her hand on Caitlin's shoulder and added, "You ever need anything, Bellatrix, just ask."

She was disappointed until she realized Blink had slipped a note into her pocket. It read, "Upstairs bathroom between the towels. Don't let the fox see."

It seemed unnecessarily stealthy to hide it like that.

Unless Zoom gave the order.

So she went to her room and settled RJ into his crib before going to the bathroom, where, like Blink predicted, Hubris wouldn't follow her.

Still, she couldn't help but feel silly about all this. While Hunter could be concealing any number of things from her, what possible reason could he have to keep her lab results from her?

It was easy enough to spot. Blink hadn't just taken her lab results; she had stolen her entire medical file.

Caitlin riffled through to the most recent lab results. She had obviously been very dehydrated, given the electrolyte imbalance. Other than that, there wasn't anything out of the ordinary, except that her estrogen levels were off the charts.

Her eyes stopped at the bottom of the page, her mind and heart faltering at the result.

It's a false positive.

She flipped to the next page of blood results. They were the same tests, run earlier in the day.

No, it can't be. It's not possible.

The next page was likewise a repeat test, done the day previous. There was a fourth from yesterday morning, likely run when she was first brought in.

Four tests. Four. It would be unlikely that one would be a false positive. It was impossible for all four to be incorrect.

She stared at page, hoping it would sink in and start making sense, but all that did was sear the words into her mind: "Pregnancy: POSITIVE."

End of Chapter Notes

Chapter notes: The title of this chapter, the Keeper of the Months, is from an epithet for Átse Ats'oosí, the Navajo name for the constellation Orion, which translates as 'First Slender One' or 'First Slim One.' Átse Ats'oosí always appears before the constellation Dilyéhé (the Planters), leading them safely through the night sky, making him a symbol of protection. He is called the Keeper of the Months because the calendar was built upon the movement of the stars, and it is the duty of Átse Ats'oosí to ensure that every star appears in its proper place and season, protecting the calendar that marks the months of the year.

Author's note: I hope you've installed this latest installment. Hopefully the next chapter (entitled "The Saucepan") will be ready in about three weeks.