Caitlin's hands were shaking. She could feel her pulse in her ears. Her brain had turned to static and white noise. All because of one small, insignificant piece of plastic in her hands.

She was pregnant.

"Ohhhh my God," Caitlin squeaked. "OhmyGod ohmyGod ohmyGod."

She took the slowest, deepest breath possible, before sprinting out of the bathroom, grabbing her coat, and making for STAR Labs.

The drive over didn't calm her down much, and Iris looked up in surprise and mild alarm as Caitlin slid into the room, hair a mess and without any makeup on. "Iris," she gasped, panting for breath. "Iris I'm- I'm pregnant."

Iris' eyes blew up to the size of small planets. "Oh my gosh," she muttered, grabbing Caitlin by the arm and dragging her to her office so they could have a little more privacy if any of the guys walked in. "You got a test?"

Caitlin nodded, gulping for air. "I finally worked up the courage to do it this morning. I barely slept last night, Iris. I really wanted to wait until Barry was out, until everything settled down but I... I just couldn't take the not knowing."

Iris nodded, rubbing her arm. "What're you going to do?" she asked. "Are you going to tell Barry?"

Caitlin put her head in her hands. "I have to eventually, don't I? I mean, if I wait to long he's going to be able to see it."

"You've got some time before then, honey," Iris told her soothingly.

Suddenly, Caitlin burst into tears. "He's- he's not gonna be here for- for any of it," she sobbed. "F-for the first ultrasound, and it's f-first kick..."

Iris put her arms around her friend and held her, rocking her slightly back and forth. "It's going to be okay," she whispered, rubbing Caitlin's back. "I know that this is totally overwhelming and that your scared. Honestly, I am too. I miss Barry and it's so unfair that he has to be stuck behind bars while you have to go through all of this. But Caitlin- you're not alone. And we are going to get Barry out of jail. If anything, this should just make you more determined. You and Barry deserve to have a happily ever after, or at least to be together to raise and grow with your new child."

Caitlin nodded, shutting her eyes and resting her cheek on Iris' shoulder.

"But just think!" Iris continued, a smile coloring her voice. "You're going to be a mother, Caitlin!"

Caitlin let out a tearful laugh, pulling back and wiping her eyes. "It's pretty amazing, right?" she whispered, placing a hand on her stomach.

"Yeah," Iris agreed, rubbing her shoulder. "It really is."

Flash!

Caitlin had been planning to head over to Iron Heights at her normal 1:30 slot to give Barry the news, but instead, he contacted STAR Labs.

"So, Barry asked you to ask us to get this guy out of prison?" she confirmed, pulling up the profile of the man Barry called Big Sir (who's name was really Dave) on the STAR Labs screen.

"Barry got close to this guy who says he's innocent," Joe explained. "It was a case of mistaken identity."

"Well, from what I could find out from CCPN's archives... Dave's case does sound a bit suspect," Iris said, looking down at her computer. "Fifteen years ago he was found guilty of shooting a guard, but there was no apparent motive."

"Only one eyewitness," Harry added.

"Studies have shown that lineup composition, verbal and nonverbal cues can all lead to unintended false identifications," Caitlin agreed.

"I mean, this is all just fantastic," Ralph spoke up. "But we're... not really gonna do this."

"Yeah, I mean, we've already got a lot on our plate just trying to free one innocent man," Cisco agreed.

"We've kind of hit a wall," Caitlin said, sighing. "And as much as it pains me there's not that much we can do right now."

"But we're not going to get through the wall if we're working on this," Joe argued.

"It's just one case," Iris said.

Harry shook his head. "It's a case that we have to take. Allen has made one request of us since he was incarcerated- no requests that even involve himself. We have to take this case."

"It's unsettling how convincing you can be sometimes," Cisco deadpanned.

"I got a plate match on the Chevelle," Joe said, looking down at his phone. "It's registered to a perp that has multiple breaking and entering priors. Silbert Rundean."

"Why does every villain in this city have a name that sounds like it came straight out of comic book?" Iris asked, squinting in confusion.

"He must go by something for short," Caitlin said.

"Syl," Ralph suggested. "Toby." He snapped triumphantly. "Birdie."

Caitlin frowned, trying to figure out how he had gotten there.

"Anyway," Joe sighed. "I guess I'll go follow up this lead. You guys see what you can dig up here?"

"West and West, on the case," Iris agreed, giving him a high five and sliding into her chair.

Flash!

Somewhat remarkably, it seemed that Silbert Rundean happened to also be the newest meta to plague Central City. Unfortunately, Cisco, Joe and Ralph didn't know that as they went to his apartment to ask him some questions.

At first, the man seemed perfectly friendly. He agreed to let the three of them come in and smiled as they admired his expansive collection of model cars, planes, and other objects.

That was before Joe brought up Mercury Labs. Silbert's jaw went tight, before his spun and shot a yellowish-golden light out of his fist. A small gun, resting on his desk, blew up to normal size and Silbert raised it, pointing it toward the three in his room.

The first blast was at Joe, who just had time to throw himself to the ground before his head would have been blown off. Then Silbert fired at Ralph and Cisco, who dodged out of the way. The glass display case they were standing next to exploded, and by the time they had shaken the glass off of them Silbert was making a running jump for the window.

Joe ran to the window and peered outside in time to see Silbert touch down, a parachute fluttering to the ground. "Cisco!" he called. "Get us to the alley!"

Quickly, the three of them leapt through a breach, but Silbert was gone. "What?" Cisco asked, looking around in bewilderment. "He wasn't that quick, was he?"

Joe told them to search one end of the alley while he checked out the streets. As he was getting into his car, he saw Silbert's bald head appearing from around the corner. "Guys, he's here!" he yelled, diving out of the car a second before the entire thing shrank to matchbox size.

"Hey, hold it right there!" Ralph ordered, he and Cisco running forward.

Suddenly, Silbert shot out his hands and captured Ralph and Cisco in glowing yellow circles. The next thing they knew...

They were tiny.

Flash!

"This..." Harry muttered. "Is ridiculous."

He, Joe and Caitlin were all bended over a STAR Labs table, looking down at Ralph and Cisco. "You okay, guys?"

"Are we doing okay?" Cisco echoed, tiny hands on tiny hips. Even his voice was tiny, about a half-octave higher than normal. "Are we doing okay?! Does it look like we're doing okay?! We're TWO INCHES TALL, CAITLIN!"

Make that a full octave higher than normal. Caitlin winced.

"Yeah, I'm like... Cisco-Sized, now," Ralph said, and if he had been bigger Caitlin would have been able to see the smirk on his face. "Is this how you always see the world?"

"Okay, that's really funny man," Cisco snapped. "I guess your body just finally shrunk down to a size that's proportional to your brain!"

"Ralph, have you tried just... stretching back to normal sized?" Caitlin asked.

"Uh..." Ralph's middle section began grow, but then it abruptly snapped back into place. "Ah! My back! Jeez..."

"Okay, you know what, maybe I can breach us out of here," Cisco suggested, thrusting out his hand and opening up a breach.

Except, a second after he jumped through it, he appeared two inches away and smacked into the coffee cup that was lying on the table. "I... really thought it was gonna go farther than that," he muttered, looking embarrassed.

Harry's mouth pinched. "You're no less annoying at that size," he told them sourly.

They ended up putting Ralph and Cisco in the Lego scale-model of Central City they had created when Savitar was going to kill Iris. It wasn't ideal, but it would have to work while they figured out how to get Cisco and Ralph big again. At least it would keep Iris from stepping on Ralph again, which had left both Iris and Caitlin (who had to pluck him off the bottom of her shoe) a bit squeamish.

A couple hours later they were faced with a new problem. It turned out that Silbert had stolen some of the dwarf star alloy, the kind used in Ray's atom suit, and had had it on him when he boarded the bus that had been hit by the Dark Matter when Barry came out of the speed force. By repurposing the Speed Bazooka, Harry had tried to un-shrink Ralph and Cisco.

Instead, it had completely destabilized their molecules, meaning that they would only have ten hours before they exploded.

They didn't take the new very well, but at least they were killing two birds with one stone. If they could capture Silbert, not only would they take down a metahuman (and a bus meta), but they would hopefully get him to confess to killing the security guard that Big Sir was convicted of murdering.

Through all of this (plus the new complication of Cecile suddenly having telepathic powers, most likely caused by her current phase in her pregnancy) Caitlin still hadn't made it over to prison to see Barry. She hadn't wanted to go without news on their attempt to get Big Sir out of prison... and in reality, she was dreading going at all.

How was Barry going to react? She was pregnant with their first (and who knew? Maybe even only) child, and he wasn't with her. She knew that it was hard enough as it was for him to keep his moral and his optimism up. What would happen if he knew how much he was missing?

In short, she couldn't tell him. Not yet.

Flash!

It didn't take long to figure out that there was no way to un-shrink Ralph and Cisco without tricking Silbert into doing it for them.

As Caitlin hurried to get her jacket on, Iris grabbed her arm. "Look, Caitlin," she said seriously. "This is... really dangerous."

Caitlin frowned at her. "Of course it is, Iris! We're fighting a metahuman. It's always dangerous."

"No but..." Iris bit her lip. "It's not just you anymore, you know?"

Caitlin squinted, and Iris hurried to continue. "It's not just you," she repeated. "You're pregnant- you have someone else besides yourself to look after. If you die, so does your unborn baby."

"Are you benching me?" Caitlin asked, bewildered.

Iris hesitated. "I just... I know that Barry would kill me if anything happened to you. But he would doubly kill me if he knew that I had let you go into danger with your child on the line."

Caitlin gaped at her. "This isn't your choice to make!" she protested. "We don't have Barry to help us anymore, Iris. Or Ralph, or Cisco! In case you hadn't noticed, you and Harry don't have powers."

"No," Iris admitted. "But we've got guns. And yes, it is my choice to make. I am the leader of this team and I'm telling you that you need to stay here. Besides, you need to work on the cure to stop Ralph and Cisco from exploding. If this doesn't work, they don't have much time."

Caitlin sighed, knowing there was no point in arguing. "Fine," she muttered, turning away and heading for her lab.

Twenty minutes later, Iris and Harry had to abandon their van because Silbert had blown up a toy car and thrown it at them. He had also spotted Cisco and Ralph, flying overhead on Cisco's drone, and had shot them down from the sky.

"How's the cure coming?" Harry demanded.

"It's not ready!" Caitlin replied, hurrying from one computer to another. "The boys only have on minute before they go subatomic!"

"I don't want to explode!" Ralph wailed.

"No," Harry agreed. "So it's time to go to plan B."

He ran out from behind his cover, firing two shots with the intention to miss. Silbert turned around. "I'm gonna shrink you to the subatomic level," he threatened angrily.

Harry smirked. "You'll have to catch me first."

He raised his gun again, but Silbert was faster, sending two streams of golden light toward Harry's chest.

For a second, it seemed like nothing had happened. Then Ralph and Cisco suddenly bloomed into the air, full size. Then, a second later, Iris fired the Boot onto Silbert's neck, dampening his powers.

The Team came back triumphant, but the mood wouldn't last long. Silbert refused to cooperate. He wouldn't admit to killing the guard, and the appeal for Big Sir fell through.

They may have succeeded in stopping the metahuman, but they had also failed. Big Sir wasn't getting out of prison any time soon.

Flash!

Caitlin finally went to visit Barry after everything with Silbert went down. His face, like always, lit up like a spark when he saw her.

"Hi!" he said as soon as he had sat down and picked up the phone.

Caitlin peered at him. Even if he was happy to see her, he didn't look like man who had just been told that he he would have to let down his friend. "Hello yourself," she replied. "What's going on? You seem happy."

Barry glanced around and leaned in. "You know how you guys couldn't get Big Sir out?"

Caitlin nodded. "I really am sorry about that, Barry, we tried everything. I even brought Frost out to try and scare him into talking. It didn't work."

Caitlin didn't mention that after Frost had come out, she had been so suddenly dizzy that she had had to sit down. She was concerned, and didn't know exactly what was going on, but she hadn't told anyone. The last thing she needed, with Barry still incarcerated, was Iris having another reason to bench her.

Barry kept on grinning. "Yeah, but it's all fine!" he exclaimed in a whisper. "I ran him out. Last night."

"You what?" Caitlin gasped, though a smile was starting to spread on her face, too. "You... ran him out?"

"Yeah," he agreed. "When the camera turned away I grabbed him and ran him all the way to China. That's where he wanted to go- he wants to live with the monks. And now he can!"

"Oh, Barry, that's great," Caitlin said happily. "I'm so glad."

He nodded. "So what's been going on with you guys? Other than stopping Silbert. How are you?"

She opened her mouth, heart starting to thump. She had to tell him- she had to. It wasn't fair to him that she was keeping this a secret.

But looking at his wide, sparkling eyes and his big grin... she hadn't seen him this happy since he came out of the Speed Force. She couldn't tell him; not yet. She couldn't break the hope on his face that everything was okay.

"Oh, yeah, it's been great!" she said instead, putting on a smile. "I mean, not great, you're not there. But we're managing. We got Silbert- that was a big win for us. And Harry is determined to outsmart the Thinker. He still thinks this is all one big plan... I mean, what are the chances of the exact person you want us to convict being the newest metahuman we have to stop?"

"Yeah, that's pretty crazy," Barry agreed, frowning thoughtfully. "I'm sure you guys will figure it out, tho-"

The alarm buzzed, signaling that their time was up. The guard called in a bored voice that they had to finish up, and Caitlin let out a sigh.

"It'd be nice if we had more than ten minutes," she said, pulling a face.

Barry smiled ruthfully. "Look, if I learned anything from today it's that there's always another way to solve a problem," he told her, putting his hand to the glass.

Caitlin pressed her's to the glass, too, opposite of his. With all the eyes on them, she was sure that he wasn't going to phase through, but it would have been nice. She could use a good, solid Barry-hug right about now.

"Love you," she told him, kissing her fingertips and then putting them back on the glass.

"I love you, too," Barry told her, mirroring the action. "See you tomorrow?"

She nodded, and turned to go. Maybe tomorrow she would be brave enough to tell him that she was pregnant.

But for now, she would just have to deal with it herself.

Author's Note: AHHH when do you think she's gonna tell him?!

Soooo... a lot of that was recap. But at least I'm getting better at recap, right?