In response to the guest comment: To me, age doesn't matter as long as the people involved are both consenting adults. I've argued this before so I'm just going to take the same thing I said and rewrite it here: I think that Harry and Caitlin just click together on many levels. For one, they both understand how it feels to lose a loved one. Honestly spending time with someone you love, no matter how short of a time that may actually be, is better than not spending time with them at all.
In addition to that, I also believe that we've been given quite a few scenes where Harry and Caitlin are hanging out outside of S.T.A.R. Labs, particularly in the last couple of seasons, which leads me to believe that they've already become closer and that they seem to confide in one another (for example, a scene that doesn't exist in my narrative but one that I love: At the end of Enter Flashtime when they discuss Harry's healing relationship with his daughter and Caitlin's relationship with Frost. The line that particularly stands out to me is, after Caitlin denies something being wrong, Harry saying "Come on. I know you well enough to know when something's on your mind."
I've listed other reasons and motivations throughout this story as well (for example when Harry's first discovering he has feelings for her - the reasons he lists off are the reasons that come from my viewpoint). Sorry to have turned this into somewhat of an analysis (which, again, I have no place to do since I'm a math major and I don't know the first thing about English or character relationship analysis) but hopefully you see this and hopefully it showed you a bit about where some of us who ship Snowells are coming from. Thank you so much for reading despite not agreeing with the ship in the first place!
Thanks to Mustard Lady for yet another kind review! There is going to be a bit of a rough ending to the chapter but bear with me.
Disclaimer: I don't own The Flash
Chapter 12: Revelations
Caitlin was the first to wake the next morning. She stared up at the blanket ceiling and sighed. This was the first time since Harry left that she was alone with her thoughts. A feeling of melancholy filled her as she shifted to lie on her side. She saw Iris soundly asleep beside her and she smiled. They had all been through a lot and she was thankful that her friends finally found some peace. Barry and Iris could finally take it easy and enjoy some time together. That is, until the next threat presented itself. But for the time being, things were looking good.
Looking past Iris and the others, Caitlin stared at the Christmas lights hanging on the wall. They were strangely calming and almost lulled her back to sleep when she heard the faint sound of a phone ringing in the distance. Creeping out of the makeshift tent, Caitlin put on some socks and snuck towards the phone in question.
"Hello?" Caitlin said in a hoarse voice.
"Caitlin? It's Joe. I was just getting back to Cisco's text about meeting with Marlize. The only time we could get was in an hour," came Joe's voice on the other end.
"Okay perfect, I'll let the others know," she said.
After she hung up, she quietly went around to wake up Barry and Cisco. They quickly got ready and made their way over to meet Joe for breakfast. Then, the three of them went over to Iron Heights, where Marlize was currently being held.
Upon their arrival, they headed into the visitor's room. Marlize was brought in shortly afterwards, accompanied by her lawyer. She was dressed in a blue prison uniform, her expression unreadable.
"Barry Allen," she said without emotion, "to what do I owe the pleasure?"
"We captured your husband yesterday. It's over," Barry stated.
Marlize scoffed, "So you've come to gloat?"
"We've come for answers," Cisco replied.
"And what would I get in return for those answers?" Marlize asked. She kept an even voice but the three of them sensed her desperation. She was in jail, her husband was captured, and her professional reputation was tarnished so her situation was quite dire at this point.
"I can get your sentence reduced to a year, seeing as you didn't actually kill anyone," Joe said honestly.
"Well that beats rotting away in here for the next five years… What do you want to know?"
"Honestly, we just want to know what Clifford's plan was," Barry said.
"Let me get this straight. You came all the way down here, offered to cut my jail-time by four years, even though you're convinced that Clifford has been stopped, all just to satisfy your curiosity?"
"Well… yeah," Barry said lamely.
"Hold on, why did you say we're convinced that he's stopped? We've captured him and he's being held in a facility where he won't be able to use his meta-abilities ever again," Joe said.
"Ah but have you stopped Ruth?" Marlize asked calmly.
"Ruth? What does she have to do with it?" Cisco asked.
"She was the contingency plan," Marlize said. "Initially, Clifford had intended on absorbing all of the bus-metas to gain their powers and become the most powerful man on the planet in both intelligence and physical power. He planned on using these powers to better the world by implementing his ideas without running into obstacles along his way."
"You mean dictating the world without interference from anyone else," Barry cut in.
"Say what you will about Clifford but his intentions started out good. If along the way he had become corrupted, then I would blame that on Ruth. She was power hungry and wanted to rule the world together with my husband. Although she was persistent, I'm not saying she's completely to blame. My husband was a fool to fall for her," Marlize said bitterly.
"Can we get back to the part where Ruth was the contingency plan?" Joe prompted.
"Ah yes. You see, Clifford was going to absorb each bus meta one by one so as not to overexert his current host body. He was saving Ruth for last because she has quite a unique power that allows her to take in additional souls. Ruth can extract Clifford's soul from whichever host-body he is currently in and bring it into her body, thus keeping him alive even if he were to approach death. This is also a handy ability to have when someone is locked up in a facility that prevents that person from using their abilities because Ruth is the one using her powers, not the person who is locked up," Marlize explained.
"We have to alert Lyla," Barry said to Cisco who was already on it.
"I'd wager that it's too late," Marlize said. When the look on Cisco's face confirmed her guess, she went on to say, "Your best bet now is to keep Caitlin Snow safe."
"Because she feeds off of ice powers," Barry said, finally understanding why DeVoe was so anxious to get ahold of Killer Frost's powers.
"No, not just ice powers in general, but specifically Killer Frost's ice powers. There is some sort of genetic compatibility between Ruth and Caitlin that only allows Ruth to become stronger if she is blasted by Killer Frost's attacks."
"Then why let her go when you kidnapped her?" Joe pressed as Cisco alerted those at S.T.A.R. Labs to be on high alert.
"That was Clifford and Ruth's overconfidence that led to a hole in the plan," Marlize said. "Clifford intended to have you take Caitlin back to S.T.A.R. Labs as a distraction to the team leading up to the trial as well as having Caitlin be overtaken by Killer Frost. We had assumed that Caitlin would drink the poisoned soup and, in saving herself by using Frost to heal, she would give all her control to Killer Frost, who would then run wild, hopefully killing or seriously injuring a few of you on her way out. When that happened, Killer Frost was supposed to come back to Amunet for some work, where we would then either try to win her over or simply capture her if she refused to cooperate. It was all simply to add a dramatic flare to his plan. However, things did not work that way at all and there were so many factors that we had not accounted for. When things went wrong, Clifford blamed me. I told him he was overexerting himself and the reasons for his miscalculations were likely due to putting too much strain on his new host-body but he wouldn't listen. He demanded that I develop some sort of technology to make him stronger - like I could just pull something out of thin air and present him with it in such a short time period. When I put my foot down, he ended up storming out. He likely went to Ruth, I'd imagine…"
"If you knew all this, why didn't you say anything the day of the trial," Cisco asked carefully, leaving out the part where they had injected her with a truth-telling serum.
"I don't know," Marlize answered honestly. "For a while there I was unable to stop talking. It was like I was obligated to answer only truthfully for what seemed like ages and then suddenly, poof, I was back in control. By that time they were already releasing Barry Allen and taking me in for questioning so I didn't really have the chance. But I've told you everything I know now. Can you promise a reduced sentence?"
"One more thing," Joe said, "where do you think we will be able to find Ruth now?"
"Like I said, keep Caitlin Snow close. You won't have to wait long before they come for her," Marlize said seriously.
"Okay, thank you for your cooperation and I can guarantee your reduced sentence," Joe promised as the three of them got up to leave.
"If I were you, I'd hurry it up a bit," Marlize said casually as the three made their way to exit the area. "Clifford is likely blinded by anger at the moment and he will be even more dangerous than before now that he is serious."
Harry should have been focusing on the task at hand but his mind kept wandering. So far he had only been on Earth-2 for about 12 hours and already he was thinking about his friends back home.
Home
Yes, Harry had known that he no longer belonged on this Earth for a while now. From the moment he got there, he felt out of place. But he no longer felt anger or betrayal at the notion. As his daughter showed him all of the changes that had been made since he was last there, Harry only felt proud of his daughter and happy for her in place of the frustration that he had felt when he worked on their team.
The others, which included Jet the mechanic/tech guy, another hacker named Amanda, a trained marine named Erin, and the new addition, Kyle, who was a jack of all trades, weren't as bad as he remembered either. They were thrilled at his peace offering gift of cookies and, though they were initially wary when Jesse told them he would be visiting, they all took to sharing their progress with Harry as well. Harry had to admit that they had all improved vastly. Although he wouldn't admit it, he was slightly impressed by them all. Feeling a bit amiable towards them, Harry even agreed to show Jet how to trace a cross-dimensional signal.
"Dad, what's the status on the meta?" came Jesse's voice over the sound system, interrupting his thoughts.
"Be patient. We're waiting for him to come out of the bank so he doesn't harm any hostages," Harry said, silently thanking god that his distraction didn't lead to the endangerment of his daughter.
"Okay now!" shouted Chester.
Harry stepped back and watched as the team expertly handled the situation smoothly. The meta had attempted to run back into the bank and use a hostage as blackmail. The meta had the ability to temporarily nullify other metas' abilities so instead of putting Jesse in a position where she could be vulnerable, Amanda hacked into the police radio and set up a sneak attack as Chester talked Jesse through what the say to manipulate the meta into falling into their trap. Meanwhile, Erin and Kyle, who were on the field with Jesse, cleared the bank by leading the other hostages out the back door. Within minutes, Jesse had managed to lead the meta near a window, which was smashed by the police to create a distraction. Then, Kyle sprung at the meta which caused him to loosen his grip on the hostage. Jesse sped the victim away to safety as Kyle fought him off. Just as Kyle was about to be overtaken, the police stepped in and took the meta down.
Jesse made her way back to S.T.A.R. Labs with the others but the second they returned, there was another meta-human alert. The team hopped right to it as Harry retreated further backwards and watched them work, seeing that he wasn't needed. He was now completely satisfied with the team's capability and was currently working on what he would say to Jesse once things had calmed down.
Once Cisco had breached them back to S.T.A.R. Labs, everyone, except for Vicky and Shannel who were patrolling, began brainstorming. Cisco contacted Gypsy who breached over to help. They couldn't get ahold of the team on Earth-2 and took that to mean that they were dealing with their own crisis at the moment.
"I vote we breach her to another Earth," Iris said.
"Yeah because that worked so well when we were trying to protect you from Savitar," Cisco said sarcastically. Then realizing that that was going to far, added, "Sorry, I didn't mean it like that."
"No, it's okay. You're right," Iris agreed, her eyes momentarily darkening as she remembered H.R.'s sacrifice.
Ideas kept being suggested and refuted. They realized they were running out of time but no one could come up with a way to keep Caitlin safe and defeat Ruth/DeVoe.
Caitlin, who had been quietly observing and hearing out each suggestion, finally said, "Use me as bait."
"Absolutely not," Barry and Cisco said simultaneously.
"It's the only way," she insisted. "We have no technology to stop DeVoe, Ruth is an insanely fast and resourceful fighter, and they have an invisible meta on their side too so we will literally not know what hit us."
"Yeah see those all sound like extremely BAD things that make me think we should do the exact opposite of what you are suggesting," Cisco said with a pointed look.
"No, think about it. Marlize probably doesn't know that we've teamed up with other metas. There's two of them and 10 metas on our side - excluding me because I probably shouldn't be using my powers to fuel Ruth's. We can definitely take her down so why are we running?"
"Caitlin is right," Masuma agreed. "Let's finish this so we can all stop hiding away."
The rest of the new metas, Wally, and Ralph agreed with Masuma, leaving Barry, Cisco, Joe, and Iris unconvinced.
"Look, impatience isn't going to get us anywhere. All it's going to do is get someone killed," Joe urged.
"But it's not impatience," Caitlin insisted. "What's our alternative? Wait for them to come to us? Do we just hide away in this building until that moment comes? And what if they don't come right away but instead recruit more metas to take us out? What if they do come right away but have set up traps between when they were spying on us and Ruth's infiltration that we are oblivious to? We know nothing. All we know at the moment is that they want me and are probably crazy enough to come out into the open to get me. They also don't necessarily know that we've met with Marlize and know all about DeVoe's fusion with Ruth because for all they know, we just think Ruth attempted to free DeVoe and failed."
"I still don't feel good about this…" Cisco said but the others seemed to reluctantly agree with Caitlin.
"Look, all I'm saying is that we have a chance to set up a controlled run-in with DeVoe and I think we should take it," Caitlin said, looking to convince Cisco.
Cisco sighed and relented before they all set out to figure out their game plan. As the non-metas strategized, the veteran metas spent some time training the new metas a bit more. While everyone was busy, Cisco slipped away undetected to breach to Earth-2. The first person he ran into on that Earth was the one he wanted to talk to.
"We've got a problem," Cisco said to Harry, who had just walked into the breach room to see who was coming through.
"Nice to see you too," Harry said sarcastically.
Ignoring his comment, Cisco launched into an explanation of their recent discoveries. Once he finished, he said, "And I get her reasons, but I still don't feel comfortable with Caitlin offering herself up as bait."
"Yeah, that's not going to happen," Harry said gruffly. "Come on, we're going back."
After informing Jesse of the situation, Harry and Cisco got back to Earth-1 just in time to see that everyone was ready to go.
"Hey Harr-" Caitlin began before being cut off.
"You are not doing this," Harry said firmly.
Caitlin crossed her arms and said, "And I'm just going to do what you tell me to?"
"Yes," Harry said shortly. He could also see Iris wince in his peripheral vision while Caitlin's face hardened with defiance as he realized that he had said the wrong thing.
"Come on, let's go," Caitlin said to the rest of the metas.
"Snow I-" Harry said before Caitlin cut him off.
"You know what, Harry? I don't have time for this," Caitlin said before walking out.
Cisco looked at Harry briefly before joining Caitlin, Masuma, Vicky, Sam, Shannel, Tiên, Olivia, Barry, Ralph, and Wally. Joe had gone back to the precinct so Harry was left alone with Iris to instruct the others on what to do.
Harry let out a long sigh and scratched his head.
"I know it's probably going to be hard to focus, but we need your help, Harry," Iris said to him.
"I don't agree with this plan at all. What were you guys thinking?" Harry demanded.
"We were wary at first too but this is the most logical choice. Trust us," Iris said. "Now, I need to fill you in on the plan quickly so you can help out."
After her explanation, Harry tried his best to remain calm. From a logical standpoint, yes, they should be able to easily take down Ruth/DeVoe and Whisper with eleven of them on the field plus the two behind the microphones. But Harry was on extra high alert now that Caitlin was being used as bait. It wasn't just that he cared for her safety because at the end of the day, this was something they did on a daily basis. His friends and family were all in the business of putting their lives on the line every single day so he was used to the risk. But this was different for two reasons. One, they had been battling DeVoe for so long and this was a critical moment that could make it or break it for them. If they didn't stop him, he could go on to recruit more metas or even worse, he could successfully kidnap Caitlin and use her powers to become powerful himself.
Then there was reason number two. This was Caitlin. Even though he would take a bullet for Barry or Cisco, Caitlin was quickly becoming such an important part of his life. The only other time he would lose all sense of logic when it came to someone was his daughter and it terrified him that Caitlin had such a hold on him but at the same time, he wanted to see where this was going. He wanted the chance to let her into his life and let her flip it upside down. He loved that she was a kind and caring person but that she would also stand up for what she believed in. He loved the smile on her face when he told her he would be back and he hated that he ruined it by being an ass to her just now.
"Let me go with them," Harry said suddenly.
"What? No, that's not part of the plan," Iris said.
"You hadn't factored me into the original plan anyway. Let me go there and help in case something goes wrong," Harry said.
"There are 11 of them! What are you possibly going to be able to accomplish that they can't?" Iris countered.
"Who knows but it's better than me being here and just telling them what they already know," Harry said, already setting out to retrieve his gun.
Iris just shook her head. She knew this was driving him crazy but she honestly didn't know if it was better for him to be out there or to just stay still so she let him go rogue. She figured one of the others could hold him back if he tried to do anything drastic.
"Let's get this show on the road," Iris called through the microphone as everyone assumed their positions and signaled that they were ready to go. "Good luck, everyone."
