"You stay away from her!"

"You don't tell me what to do, you little brat!"

"AH!"

"Just be glad I didn't hit you harder. Too much like your mother."


"It's okay. Don't cry."

"I hate him. I hate him so much."

"I know. I hate him too."

"I wish we could leave. Just…just go."

"Not without her."


"Laura? You still in there?"

"Y-yeah."

"You can come out now."


"A-are you hurt?"

"No more than usual. Hey, hey, don't cry. I'm fine, I promise."

"I don't like it when he yells."

"I know. I don't either."

"I'm scared."


"Do you really hate Daddy?"

"Yes."

"I hate him too."

"No, you don't. Not yet."


"Where're you going?"

"Down to the store."

"Can I come too?"

"'Fraid not, kiddo."


I hate you.


It was cold.

She didn't like the cold, not really. Most people would assume that she preferred the cold because she worked with ice. Ice, she was fine with. Ice was fascinating. Entire continents made up of ice simply sitting at the either end of the world, holding so much potential discovery about one of the greatest feats of nature. Seeing a nature documentary on icebergs for the first time, albeit on a crummy TV barely bigger than her grade school lunchbox, had sparked her love for science, and for ice.

She shivered as yet another frigid wave of cold passed through her. Her entire body felt detached from all reality, as if she were floating in the infinite darkness that surrounded her. The heaviness that weighed down her limbs weighed down her eyes as well.

Fire.

A scream nearly tore its way out of her throat as images of flames flashed before her eyes, and she remembered everything. She remembered falling to the floor, alarms blaring as someone – Cisco, Cisco Ramon – screamed for her through the phone. She remembered being unable to move. She remembered her skin burning and cracking as fire engulfed the room. She remembered closing her eyes. She remembered being cold.

Help me.

Her entire body was burning, as if every cell in her body was trying to rip away from each other and tear her apart. It was becoming almost unbearable, and Laura could barely suppress a scream as the sensation peaked. Fluid entered her lungs, and she started to choke on it, her eyes flashing open to meet only a burning sensation and a world of murky grey and blue streaks. Her hands lashed out, hoping to grab on to something, but they only met cold hard metal. Through her panic, she dimly recognized that she was floating in some sort of tank.

"Laura!"

The voice calling out to her was laced with fear and confusion and muffled by the liquid she floated in, yet it only served to increase her panic. Laura suddenly heard a deafening whirring, the noise amplified in the liquid, and her vision was blinded with white light as the metal before her disappeared. However, the pain the light caused was quickly overshadowed by the sensation of skin burning. Her entire body felt as if it were on fire, and Laura screamed in agony. Everything burned. It was just too much.

Not like this. Please, not like this.

Suddenly, she was being pulled upwards, her body too heavy to move on her own, and Laura lashed out as the skin, overpowering the sensation of burning. As she screamed, Laura was dimly aware of her hands becoming numbingly cold, and a surge of energy rising in her chest. Laura was so far gone by the time the hands grabbing at her jabbed a needle into her neck that she wasn't even aware she'd lost the battle.


As Laura quickly plummeted into unconsciousness, Cisco Ramon and Caitlin Snow stared down at her and tried to stop their hands from shaking violently.

"No entiendo, no entiendo lo que está mal, no lo entiendo…" Cisco rambled, pacing back and forth around the small room as he wrung his hands out over and over again. Laura's screams of agony had frozen him on the spot, and his hands had shaken so much that he'd nearly missed her neck with the hypodermic needle that had ended her torment temporarily.

"Cisco-" Caitlin tried to butt in, but she was quickly cut off by Cisco's frantic rambling.

"¿Que esta mal? ¿Qué pasa con ella? ¿Por qué no se dejan de grit-"

"CISCO!"

The young man stopped short at the stern tone in Caitlin's voice, and he went still as she approached him. In the ten months they had worked together since the incident, they had developed a rhythm of sorts, but every so often, he would do something out of line, or forget to eat or sleep, and then he'd have to face the fury of the might Dr. Snow. Which usually ended up with them not speaking to each other for at least a few days.

"Stop that! It's just the tank. We knew when we put her in there that there would be side effects, but now that she's awake, we can help her. Okay?" Caitlin could be frightening at times, but now Cisco could plainly see that seeing Laura in so much pain had shaken her as well.

Ten months ago, in the hours following the explosion that had everyone talking for the next, well, Ten months, Cisco and Caitlin's phones had rung on opposite sides of the city.

"We've found her. That colleague of yours that we weren't able to place."

"Laura? Laura Sanders?"

"Yes, her. But, you should know…she's probably not going to make it through the night."

"What? Can't you do anything to save her?"

"I'm sorry, but the way her temperature's been plummeting faster than we can manage, her organs are going to fail soon. And the burns covering her body have destroyed almost all of her nerve cells. I'm afraid there's nothing we can do."


"Psychrophiles! Psychrophiles! Of course! Caitlin, you're a genius!"

"Cisco, what the hell are you talking about? Do you have any idea what time it is?"

"Three thirty in the morning, but I know how to save Laura! Meet me at the hospital in thirty minutes! We don't have much time!"

"Steady. Steady. That's good."

"It's incredible. I've never seen anything like this."

"I-I don't understand; the blast alone should have killed her."

"It seems Dr. Sanders is much more durable than she appears."

And now, ten months later, Laura was awake. Months of monitoring her systems and constantly adjusting the temperature of the tank to keep her stable had not been spent in vain. Still, the pain they'd heard in her screams would be enough to keep both of them on their toes for a while longer. With a sigh each and a crick of Cisco's neck, they began to prepare her for the outside world.

Hey guys! I'm finally posting the second chapter of A Rogue's Call to Arms, and I really hope you like it.

Also, if anyone was wondering what Cisco was saying in Spanish, it's along the lines of this:

I do not understand, I do not understand what is wrong, I do not understand

and

What's wrong with her? Why won't she stop screaming?

Anyway, I hope you guys like this chapter, and please review when you can!