S.T.A.R. Labs was quiet.

Laura hated when things were quiet. Silence usually meant that noise was about to rear its ugly head. Keeping herself busy usually helped stave off the uneasiness that accompanied a string of ordinary days, but even now, as she did just that, Laura could tell it wasn't doing any good.

"Thanks." Barry said as he accepted the bag of ice. He still hadn't offered an explanation as to why Eddie had punched him in the face in the middle of the casino, but there were other things – more important things – that deserved their attention.

Like the fact that Cisco had been kidnapped.

By Snart.

By them.

The reveal that Snart had abducted Cisco came as an unwelcome surprise, and Laura might have smoked them both herself had he not-so-subtly threatened Cisco's safety. That explained, at least, how both Snart and his sister had acquired new weapons, since the police had confiscated and destroyed the originals months ago. Cisco had designed the weapons in the first place, so it made sense that they would go to the source.

Knowing all of that had not made it any easier to let Snart and his sister walk away.

Nor did it do anything to suppress Laura's desire to rip them both to shreds.

With Barry's input, it wasn't difficult to determine that the blonde woman who had shyly approached Cisco the night before at the bar was Lisa Snart. Footage from security cameras outside of the bar showed Cisco cluelessly getting into a car with Lisa – one with the license plate iced over – and driving off. The entire story reeked of a plan to get Cisco to go along quietly without setting off any alarms, a plan that had, unfortunately, worked.

"Dammit!"

The table shook as Barry slammed his fist down on it, turning away from the screen.

"Dr. Wells, you were right. I screwed with-"

"Barry," Dr. Wells barked, startling them both, before sitting back in his chair, "don't. You don't know what disruptions in the-you don't know what could happen from talking about this."

From her position in the room, Laura could see the urgency with which Dr. Wells spoke, and how he looked at her out of the corner of his eye. She could also see just how much Barry was struggling to accept the order. He glanced back and forth between them anxiously, seemingly torn between two choices. It seemed to take an eternity for her partner to come to a decision, but when he did-

"No, no, I can't – I can't keep quiet anymore, I just can't. I don't care if I screw up again, I just-"

"Barry."

Both men turned to her. Dr. Wells looked weary and tense. Barry looked overwhelmed and nauseous.

Laura – well, Laura didn't know how she looked, but she knew exactly how she felt.

"What did you do?"


"Well, that explains a lot."

There wasn't enough whiskey in the world to erase Laura's memory of the last thirty minutes, but, at this point, she was willing to try anything.

Just a few feet away, at the end of the table, sat Barry, his hand curled around a glass that he hadn't drunk from all evening. There was a haunted look to her partner, as though he'd just relieved an incredibly horrifying moment, and it seemed there was something in the middle distance that he kept staring at.

"I'm sorry."

It was quiet enough that Laura almost missed it, but she would later be grateful that she hadn't.

"Sorry? What the fuck for?"

"For this, Laura! For all of this!" His sudden burst of manic energy caught Laura off guard as he gestured wildly to the room at large. However, that energy left him quickly, and in the blink of an eye, Barry was slumped back in his seat. "I screwed with time, and now everything's gone wrong."

The whiskey had dulled the edges of her mind a fair bit, so Laura wasn't as nearly as put off by Barry's outburst as she might have otherwise been. Still, there was a great deal about her friend's words that didn't quite sit right with Laura, that needed to be addressed. Barry was so engrossed in his thoughts that he didn't even look up as she clumsily dragged her chair over to his, but he did glance up when she eventually sat down.

"I think you've gotten a few things mixed up here, Red."

"Laura-"

"Uh-uh. Let me finish before you start with the nonsense, okay?"

"…"

"As I was saying, it sounds like you've got some things mixed up in that big head of yours, Red. Yeah, Cisco's been kidnapped, and Iris isn't in love with you, and Eddie hates your guts, and that all fucking sucks, but you didn't ask for those things to happen, did you?"

"No, but-"

"Did you?"

"…no."

"Well, then, there you are. Problem solved."

As satisfied as an inebriated Laura felt with her closing statement, it was obvious that a sober Barry did not feel the same way. They sat in silence together for a while, looking off into opposite directions. Finally, Laura emptied her glass and pushed it aside, mustering all her concentration to focus on her partner and speak as firmly as possible.

"Listen, Barry – maybe this was just always going to be a shitty day. Maybe this was how today was always supposed to go, time travel or not. You went back and stopped Mardon and everything else from going down, so some other shit had to happen to make up for it, you know?"

Many minutes of silence passed before Barry let out a slow, burdened sigh and downed his drink in one gulp.

"To shitty days," he said with a grimace and knocked his glass against hers.

The alcohol might have had no effect on him, but the worried tension her partner had been carrying around the past few days no longer seemed so heavy. Granted, one long talk and enough shots to down an elephant didn't fix much. It didn't even begin to tackle changing someone's mind about mistakes they might have made, as close to a Herculean task as one could get. Still, Barry looked a heck of a lot better than he had when they had started the conversation, and Laura felt better than she had all day.

That itself was enough of a victory, at least for now.

"To shitty days."


There was a bruise on the side of Cisco's face, and burns from a cigarette on his hands, and Laura wanted to throw up.

Seeing him back in S.T.A.R. Labs had been a shock, to be sure, but in that moment, all Laura had been able to think was that he was safe. That happiness, that relief, disappeared the moment she saw the tears in his eyes, the moment he began to talk, his voice shaking and cracking as he recounted the events of the night before.

How his brother had been abducted by the Snarts to get him to comply. How he and Dante had nearly escaped, only to be foiled at the last minute by Rory. How they had tortured them both, how Snart had threatened to do more than just freeze Dante's fingers.

How he'd told Snart the identities of the Flash and Frostbite, in exchange for his life and his brother's.

And how, for that, he didn't deserve to stay.

By the time he was done, Laura was shaking with something closer to horror than it was to anger, her stomach turning violently. She almost didn't realize she had started emitting cold until frost had almost completely covered the tablet clutched to her chest. It clattered loudly as she dropped it on the desk, drawing the attention of everyone in the room to her – even Cisco.

She was ashamed to say that she couldn't even look him in the eye.

"I'm sorry, I – I need to-"

Nobody called out after her as she darted out of the room, and for that, Laura decided as a wave of nausea crashed over her, she was grateful. It took her far too long to find the nearest bathroom, and even longer to steady her shaking hands long enough to open the door. The door had barely shut before Laura dropped to her knees in front of the toilet, just in time for her stomach to expel its contents, the bile burning her throat on its way up.

Laura lost track of time as she knelt there on the floor, retching over and over. When the dry heaving finally stopped, Laura fell away from the toilet, her face damp with sweat and tears, and a near-crippling wave of exhaustion washing over her. As she fought to catch her breath, the sound of the door opening went unnoticed by Laura. Only when somebody tapped her lightly on the shoulder and pressed a bottle of water into her hands did Laura even realize there was somebody else in the room.

"Come on," Caitlin said, guiding her to her feet when the bottle was half empty, "you can lie down in the on-call room."

"Cait, I-"

"Don't you dare tell me you're fine." Caitlin sounded angry, so much so that all ideas of putting up a fight fled Laura's mind. She remained silent as Caitlin walked her down the hall to the tiny room, taking a seat on the bunk bed in the corner as directed. Already exhausted, it was not hard for calm to sweep over Laura and convince her to close her eyes. She dozed for a while, swimming in memories of strawberry milkshakes and a room half empty, until a hand clamped down on her shoulder and-

"Here, these should keep the nausea from coming back." Laura stared at her hands, now occupied by a couple of pills and another bottle of water, then stared up at Caitlin. Caitlin stared back expectantly, sitting in a chair on the other side of the room.

The look on her friend's face brooked no argument, and so, under Caitlin's watchful gaze, Laura downed the pills and chased them with a healthy swig of water. She winced a little as she swallowed, her throat raw where bile had forced its way up, which would certainly stick around for the next few days. When she was done, Caitlin had still not ceased staring at her.

"Sorry about that." Laura said, after a while.

"Laura, don't…don't apologize."

Laura was confused. Caitlin had sounded angry earlier, after all, so there was probably something she'd done that she needed to apologize for. She watched, suddenly unsure about what to do, as Caitlin stood up and took a seat next to her. Was there something she had missed?

"I don't like seeing you like this."

"Like what?"

"Laura, when I found you, you were dry heaving out your guts in the bathroom. I left the room for five minutes and you fell asleep sitting upright."

"We've been under a lot of stress lately." She countered, wincing inwardly at how weak it sounded.

"Exactly," Caitlin exclaimed, "but I've never seen you react like this before, to anything. That's what worries me, Laura, because I thought that out of all of us, you were the one who'd at least be doing okay."

Laura blinked. She opened her mouth, then closed it.

"All of us have been through so much, this past year. But you never said anything, and I, well, I just assumed you were doing okay. And I understand why you wouldn't want to talk to us about what you're dealing with, I do. I just…I just wish you didn't feel like this was the only way that you have of dealing with whatever your problems are."

Oh. It seemed so clear, all of a sudden, the reasoning behind Caitlin's reactions. As realization dawned over her, Laura was hit with the sudden desire to apologize to her friend, for worrying her so much, to apologize for so many things that Caitlin wasn't even aware of. Laura knew from experience, however, that an apology wouldn't be a welcome response. Instead, she clasped her hands together, suddenly extremely aware of just how tired she was, and cleared her throat.

"I thought I was doing okay. I thought I didn't need to talk about it anymore. I didn't really want to talk about it anymore."

"Maybe you should try talking about it again. See if it helps at all."

"…yeah."

Yeah, maybe.


The money was being moved.

Hidden from view from their position on the side of the road, Laura and Barry watched the faint image of the headlights in the distance approach with a growing sense of anticipation. An hour or so after Caitlin had found her in the bathroom, it occurred to the two of them that the Snarts' plan made absolutely zero sense. Making a statement against the Santini family by attacking their casino was one thing, but attempting to rob the place in broad daylight with crowds was just plain stupid. And if there was one thing Leonard Snart wasn't, it was stupid.

"Cisco, how far out are they?"

"Less than two minutes – ah, there they are."

It was a great comfort to Laura, hearing Cisco's voice relaying info on the other side of her earpiece. She couldn't be certain as to what Dr. Wells had said to him during their conversation, only that it had convinced her friend that he deserved to stay with S.T.A.R. She couldn't even begin to voice how grateful she was for that.

"What is it?"

"Someone just started following the truck – make that three someone's."

As the headlights steadily grew closer, the sudden, echoing sounds of gunfire and other weapons being fired caught Laura and Barry's attention. Laura grabbed onto her partner, her hands already starting to frost over, holding on tight straight as he ran them into the melee. As Barry snatched Snart out of his motorcycle, Laura took care of Snart's sister and Rory, freezing their bikes to the road with a few quick blasts after they crashed into each other.

"Motherfuck-" Rory snarled as he climbed to his feet, leveling his weapon at Laura. She dealt with that quickly, freezing the barrel of it with one blast, and taking out Lisa Snart's gold gun with another. They stared at her, silently seething at their defeat, until a streak of yellow lightning came rushing out from the darkness and she was swept away.

When Barry finally came to a stop, it was in the middle of the woods, pale moonlight casting shadows on the area. In front of them, to Laura's immediate anger, stood Leonard Snart, looking both frustrated and a little out of breath.

"Barry. Laura. Glad you join me."

Laura did nothing to restrain the glower on her face as she slowly removed her goggles, watching out of the corner of her eye as Barry pulled back his cowl. Standing there, before one of their greater enemies, with her face exposed felt wrong to Laura, but she forced herself to remain calm as Barry took charge of the conversation.

"We already know that told Cisco you our identities. And what you did to make him tell you."

"What can I say," Snart shrugged carelessly, anger violently welling up in Laura as he did, "it wasn't an easy choice I gave the kid, giving you up or losing his brother. At least now you know where his priorities lie. Might make it a little easier for you two, the next time a situation like this comes along."

In a few short steps, Laura crossed the distance between her and Snart. With a cry of rage, she grabbed him by the collar of his jacket, and pushed him back a few more steps back to slam him against a tree. He began to struggle against her, but stopped as she grasped him by the throat, digging her fingers into the skin there. Her hand was white with cold now, and frost was beginning to spread up and over his face at an alarming rate.

"Give me one good reason," Laura snarled, almost yelling in her anger, "one fucking reason."

Had she gone through with it, Leonard Snart might have ended that night, in the middle of nowhere, at the hands of someone he barely knew, of someone who did not want to know him. It would have been painful, of course, as painful as she could make it. He might have died slowly, or quickly, and no one besides those he kept close would have mourned. It might have ended there.

It should have ended there.

But then there was an unyielding hand on Laura's shoulder, and she was being pulled back and away. She nearly grabbed the hand, still blinded by her anger, but the sight of familiar red leather brought her to a halt. As her anger slowly fizzled, Laura was tempted to avoid eye contact with Barry, but it inevitably happened as he pulled her back. She was a little shocked to see that there was no anger in his eyes – at least, none directed at her – and his grasp on her shoulder was gentle, neither harsh nor punishing.

"You might want to keep yourself in check, Laura," Snart said, rubbing away the frost from his face with a smug grin, "getting rid of me would hardly be beneficial to you and your partner."

The drawl of Snart's voice sent shivers racing up Laura's spine. It was too familiar, too close to something Laura had tried desperately to forget, and she turned away to try to drown him out. Luckily for them both, Barry stepped forward, relinquishing his grip on her to put himself in between her and Snart. It was almost enough to make her feel safe.

"What are you talking about?"

"Well, firstly, it wouldn't exactly be hero-like behaviour, would it? And, second, you wouldn't be able to shut down the private uplink I set up to broadcast your identities to every news station in the country."

Barry and Laura went perfectly still.

"So, you have two choices. Either you let me go, or you get rid of me and the world gets to see you for who you really are."

"We're not going to let you just keep stealing whatever you want, whenever you feel like it. It has to be stopped."

"That's not really going to work, Barry. It's what I'm good at."

Too familiar, too close.

"Maybe you should try finding a new line of work."

"Don't want to."

Too close to him.

"Why stay here, if you like it so much?" Laura asked, her voice hoarse. "You know what we can do, what we're capable of. What's the point of playing this game if you're always going to lose?"

Snart was quiet for a few seconds, his gaze slowly sliding from her partner to her. As they stared at each other, unwilling to yield and admit defeat, a shadow of emotion crossed Snart's face. Whatever it was, she could not discern it, and it disappeared as quickly as it had come, the façade slipping smoothly back into place.

"To be honest, sentimentality. I love this city too much. It's my home."

It's my home too, you fucking bastard.

"We're not going to make you disappear," Barry said, slowly making his way closer to Snart, "but we're not going to let you do as you please. If you're as good as you say you are, then you shouldn't have to kill to get what you want. You want to walk free, then no one else dies."

"…that's fair."

"But, if you, or any of your rogues, even think about going near our friends, our family, again? Who you tell our identities to, I promise you, is going to be the last thing on our minds."

Snart was silent for a moment, his lips pursed in contemplation.

"You've got a deal. Consider your secret safe with me…for now."

It was far more perfect, and nowhere near what Laura wanted. But whatever anger she had felt before had abandoned her completely, leaving her with nothing but a dull, empty sensation that filled her chest. Returning to that anger was a thought that exhausted Laura, and so she simply pulled her goggles over her eyes, grateful to be able to look away from those piercing eyes. But as she and Barry sped away from the woods and the secrets they held, all Laura could think about was those eyes.

Too close.


The small cul-de-sac would be a nice place to grow up, Laura thought, as she strolled along the sidewalk. It wasn't as pricey as some neighbourhoods in Central could be, but it was nicer than most.

Laura checked her phone again, sneaking a glance in at her watch while she was at it. While most of the houses were dark this late at night, one house in particular still had its lights on. The number on the post outside matched the address that Caitlin had texted her, and as she approached, the sound of a guitar being played filtered through the windows.

The music did not stop when Laura knocked on the door, which was opened shortly after by a familiar looking Latina woman.

"I'm sorry, can I help you?"

"Mrs. Ramon?"

The woman eyed her suspiciously, pulling her housecoat tightly around herself. Laura did not know if it was the dimness of the porch light, but she thought that Mrs. Ramon looked like she had been crying.

"Yes. And you might be?"

"Oh, sorry. I'm Laura. I'm a friend of Cisco's from work. I was just – I was just wondering if he was here."

Mrs. Ramon nodded slowly, though she still looked a little dubious. "I'll let Cisco know you're here. Please, come inside."

Laura nodded, moving into the foyer and shutting the door behind her. She stayed put as the older woman made her way back into the house, the sound of the guitar filling the halls. Alone with her thoughts, Laura took a long look at her surroundings. There were a few photo frames arranged on a table in the hall, and it was shockingly easy for Laura to find one of Cisco. The boy in the picture was quite young, probably not even having just started middle school, with a haircut that his mother had clearly forced upon him.

"Hey," she jumped slightly at the voice, looking up to see Cisco leaning against the wall, "I didn't think you knew where I lived."

"I asked Caitlin for the address. I…I wanted to see how you were doing. We were really worried, when you went missing."

"I think Dante got it worse than me, actually." Cisco shrugged, wiggling his fingers a little to get his point across. "I probably got off easy."

Even in the relatively low lighting of the house, Laura could still see the bruises on Cisco's face, as vivid to her as they had been hours earlier. He looked a little less sad than before, though, and a little more comfortable in the house that he had grown up in. She wondered when it had all changed, when he had changed, but decided that that was a question for another time.

"Laura, are you okay? You don't look too good."

Was it? Was everything okay, after all the things that had happened to them?

Was she okay?

"Cisco?"

"Yeah?"

"We need to talk."


Hachi machi, it's been a while, hasn't it guys? The well's been a little dry these past few months, and I've been a little busy with stuff, but I hope to get back into updating this baby on a semi-regular basis.

This is one chapter I've been wanting to write for ages, partially because it's so integral to the storyline I've worked into the show's plot. I hope that you enjoy this chapter, and I really hope you are ready to see what comes next.

As always, reviews, comments, and criticism are welcome. Thanks for reading!