(Author's Note: This was written in 2019! No point in reading it if you haven't read my unnecessarily-long fanfic Chasing the Light. Enjoy! ~Doverstar)

"This isn't working."

They were on the charred, dusty roof of Earth-66's S.T.A.R. Labs. This visit of Caitlin's would only last two days. She marched over to the foldout table that held their training monitors—Eddie's old laptop and an archaic scanning system from the engineering lab—and reached for her snowflake pendant.

Before her fingers touched it, it was in Savitar's hand. His eyes glittered down at her from the other side of the table, and in the green and blue she saw levels of exasperation to match her own. On Earth-1, she carried the mantel of Most Patient proudly on the original Team Flash. But here, Barry's reformed time remnant had swiped the baton when she wasn't looking. He had had plenty of practice.

Practice. She hated that word. As of an hour and a half ago, anyway. It was a deep hatred.

Her throat felt full and icy, which should have been welcome in the summer heat, but it was usually a sign she was losing control. "I don't know why I thought we could do this."

"You need to stop whining." Savitar came around the table and leaned against it, still holding her necklace. "Whining is the opposite of focusing."

"Savitar," she said, the echoes of Frost's voice chasing her words, "I have been focusing so hard that I have a migraine. Barry loses focus on—practically every mission, and his performance is steady. Wally too. The problem isn't my focus. It's me. I'm not ready to be a—a superhero."

Casually, too quickly, Savitar slid the power-dampening necklace into the pocket of his black jeans. "Turn around."

"And I haven't had enough time to control it completely." Her eyes traced the pendant worriedly as it disappeared. "This has—"

"Turn around."

The metahuman inside her, white-haired and sneering, wanted to freeze his shoes to the cement. She could picture doing it. She could feel the desire swirling through her arms and making her fingernails heavy against her digits. But he'd been coaching her through taking control, keeping Killer Frost buried while she familiarized herself with this ship's sails. So she didn't do it.

Instead, she obeyed and turned around, a hand on her hip. The pose, at least, seemed to pacify Frost, give her enough room to breathe in Caitlin's subconscious. Like standing up after sitting on a long flight. The relaxation of her alter ego's pressing—a pressing that had begun when she'd taken the necklace off three hours ago—made Caitlin relax, too.

"Pick a spot." Savitar's voice was brisk, all-business. Almost hard.

Caitlin fixed her mind on his voice—the thudding bluntness of it, however testy, was comforting somehow. She narrowed her eyes against the sun, staring down one of the training dummies Eddie had left for them from this Earth's CCPD. It was sort of human-shaped. It didn't have a face, and it was mounted on a metal base, but it would do for now. She didn't have the energy to imagine it was an actual enemy.

"Now concentrate on that spot. Don't think about hitting your target." Savitar shuffled, and she knew without looking that he was leaving the table to walk up to her. "Think about how hard you want to hit it. Picture the effect. Once you know what kind of result you wanna get, you won't overthink your aim."

Caitlin tripped up mentally, a little distracted when he joined her, and Frost stepped in. Her hair didn't change, so it wasn't too bad, but the tone and the eyes gave it away. Chilled and bored.

"Speaking from experience?" She glanced over to smirk at him.

Savitar met Killer Frost's gaze with complete disinterest. She saw the first glimmer of impatience; it winked through as he willed the villain to fade, willed the physician he liked so much to rush back to the surface. "Eyes on the target."

"Whatever you say, Master," Frost grunted, turning back to the pile of boxes, the old shelf, and the dummy all placed strategically on the edge of the roof. Her options.

For a good eighty seconds, there was a struggle as she stood there. Caitlin was fighting to get back in charge of the reins, and Killer Frost was kicking and twisting to be allowed to stay up front. Brown irises glowed white twice, three times, but the rest of her was perfectly rigid. Her chest heaved with the effort.

Savitar watched this scuffle, eyebrows going lower and lower, until the eighty-fifth second passed. Then he dropped his arms from their folded position, lazily, and let his fingers brush hers, only talking curtly and on a breath, something she'd really have to pay attention to in order to hear it. "Cait."

At that tiny touch, brown pushed the white out, and she was Doctor Snow again. Caitlin squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, as though clearing a brain freeze, and locked her gaze on the dummy.

"Put all your energy into one blast." Savitar's head followed the arm she raised. "When you're ready, you let it out."

She tried. It got all the way to the heel of her hand. But at the first sight of the cold air, the sub-zero atmosphere swirling around her wrist, everything spun beneath her and Caitlin dropped her arm. The cold subsided a little, and Caitlin backed up enough to lean on the table.

"That's it," she gasped, "I can't do it."

He pressed the necklace into her hand on his way to the cooler they'd stocked for the afternoon. Fastening it beneath her hair was a feeling akin to closing the door on a loud party behind you. Bliss.

"You wanna quit." Savitar asked—it was really more of a question, but dry and disbelieving. He leaned against the table with her, pointing underhand to the target lineup. "I haven't seen you hit a single one of those things since we got up here."

"What's going to happen if I can't get Killer Frost down every time?" Caitlin reached for her water bottle and fiddled with the top, twisting it on and off and on and off, not intending to drink from it after all. She needed to do something normal with those hands. "If I break concentration for just a second, it's over. She's in. How am I supposed to fight anyone if I have to fight myself at the same time? It's ridiculous—it's impossible, I can't."

Savitar took a swig from his fifth can of orange soda—those necessary 1,000 calories a day would not be ignored—and raised his eyebrows high as he swallowed. "You wanted to train."

"I wanted lessons in self-control." Caitlin sighed, giving up on the lean and sitting fully down on the table. It almost made her as tall as he was. "So far, I'm not seeing a positive result."

"This isn't a science experiment," said Savitar. "It's about channeling your abilities," he faced her and took the pendant of her necklace between thumb and forefinger, "so you don't need this anymore."

"I don't have to channel them." She sulked. "I can suppress them."

"For how long, Caitlin?" Savitar dropped the necklace and stayed where he was, close and tall and smelling faintly of rubber from a car chase he'd stopped that morning. "Your powers are part of you. They're in your nerves, your muscles. Your bloodstream. You keep them down your whole life, they'll eat you. Starting from the heart, out."

She made a face at him, almost petulant, hoping to distract from the lecture. "You're doing the intense, God of Speed thing again."

"Oh yeah?" The speedster was not listening to her any more than she was to him. He kept glancing from the pendant to her eyes, as if checking for traces of Frost, and when he didn't find any he'd just go on looking.

Caitlin showed him a small, teasing smile in between layers of her exhaustion. "Do you have to build up to that, or does it come naturally at this point?"

He shook his head, lips pursed and quirked as he held in a smile back. "You can't quit."

So now he was more patient, more dedicated, and more mature than she was. At least in this area. Caitlin couldn't tell whether she should be outraged or endeared to him. With them, it was normally a nice lemonade mixture of both.

"You're the one who asked for this." Savitar shrugged. "If you want to back out, fine. But you gotta try first."

"I am trying!"

"Not until you hit something, you're not."

The sun was making her scalp sting, and there was little to no breeze way up there. It had been too long since she'd eaten, and though she'd put sandwiches in the cooler, suddenly PB&J wasn't all that appealing. And water in a throat that still felt like ice was making her sick. Caitlin was done with today. But her multidimensional significant other seemed as laid-back as ever.

"You're just as stubborn as Barry," she growled.

"Makes sense." Savitar let it roll off, cocking his head and still looking placidly down at her. "Biologically."

"At least he knows when to take a break."

"Trying to pick a fight, Doctor Snow?" The smile was definitely fighting to be freed.

He shouldn't be smiling. She wouldn't be bribed. "No—"

"I'm not letting you quit," he repeated, "until you freeze one of those." He jerked his head backward, in the direction of the poor dummy and its inanimate companions. "No matter what you say. You want control, you do the work."

He meant it. Caitlin felt real panic rise within her. The presence of Frost was still making the backs of her eyes throb. She slid off the table, brushing past him toward the elevator. "You cannot make me keep doing this," she told him with a scoff, pressing the downward arrow after a palm scan.

She thought she'd stepped into the elevator as soon as the doors slid open. But when her foot hit the ground, she was still on the baking rooftop, pointed the wrong way, in front of that stupid, faceless dummy. How could it be grinning at her in such triumph without a face? But she could swear it was.

"No," Savitar was inches behind her, and she realized he was gripping her hand, probably from the blast of speed he'd used to turn her around. "But I can keep you on the roof."

Caitlin yanked her hand away, a punishment that was normally effective for him. "I need a break." She made for the elevator, training sneakers slapping against the ground in an angry, brisk walk.

But he was in her way before she could blink. "Now," he said slowly, "you made me come all the way up here, in 85-degree weather, in August. Because you need my help to work out your powers. So we're gonna do it."

Caitlin glared at him. Then she drew herself up, feigning composure. Strong, independent doctor woman. "I'm done for the day." She made for the stairwell.

He blocked the door there, too. Stronger, more independent jogger man. "If we don't do this now, you're just gonna drag me back up here tomorrow."

"Savitar, when you—"

He forced her away from the door, walking right at her so that it was either collide or back up until you were back in the practice area. "And I don't know about you, Cait, but I really don't want to be up here tomorrow. Or tonight." He clicked his tongue and gazed beseechingly down at her with all of Barry's beagle eyes and twice as much sarcasm in the pleading. Savitar knew full well he was winning, no beagle eyes necessary. "Okay? It's hot."

Caitlin shook her head. "You don't understand. I know I said I needed to figure this out before I hurt someone, but—it's too big a risk right now. Training can't happen if I can't trust my own mind." She gestured to the patch of ice that had gathered on the roof where she'd stood moments before, fighting an inner battle. "The truth is, Savitar, I—I don't have a handle on Killer Frost yet. I might never have—"

"Stop saying that." Savitar's teasing was gone. "You're stronger than that. Killer Frost isn't some different person inside you, Caitlin. She's you. She's all the pain, and anger, and darkness you keep bottled up. Your powers just bring it out."

Caitlin glanced down, shoving her hair out of her face and sniffing. "Is this supposed to be motivational?" she said, with a slightly-bitter chortle.

"You're stronger," Savitar went on. "I've seen it. You don't let it control you. And if you get out of your own head, start focusing that strength on what you want to do, you'll get it."

She tilted her head, giving him a grateful smile. "I guess I have been through a few things," she conceded.

"Makes two of us." His returning smile was more in his eyes than on his mouth. "You taught me I could fight it. Now show me how it's done."

For a moment, she watched him, considering.

Then she nodded, grinning, and admitted quietly, "That was a good pep talk." Her hand went tentatively to the snowflake pendant. It was warm and electronic against her fingers. "If I didn't know you better," Caitlin said, "I might call you my hero."

His best answer for that was to kiss her, then slip behind her to unfasten her power-dampening necklace.

"Good thing you know me better."