Hey everyone. I've got something really important to tell you all, so make sure to read the end note at the end of the chapter. We're winding down now. After this, only two chapter left. Hope you enjoy.

Disclaimer: I don't own The Flash.

Months had passed since the announcement, and just like Caitlin predicted, she had terrible mood swings. And to no one's surprise, it seemed her default emotion was anger. Sometimes, it was even like she was feeling two emotions at once. Angry and hungry, angry and sad, angry and horny, and angry and happy somehow. Basically she was just angry a lot.

Much of that had to do with Barry, who she felt was constantly hovering over her, never letting her do anything. She practically lives on their couch nowadays. Don't get her wrong, it was great to have Barry waiting on her hand and foot, giving her everything she could ever need before she even finished her demands. But that got old after day one.

Caitlin suspected Barry would strap her down to the bed if he could get away with it. Actually, that wasn't a bad idea for future references. And maybe she could find a whip…

That train of thought got away from her. Her libido was running high these days. The other day, she actually thought Cisco was attractive. Cisco! She needed to get laid, but Barry practically refused to touch her intimately ever since the baby bump had started to show. Now he's got her thinking that her showing means that she's gotten fat! She was 6 months pregnant and only started showing for the past month! She couldn't have gotten that wide.

Like she didn't already have enough to deal with. Her feet ache, her legs are weak, her hips are huge, her stomach's nauseous, her back hurts, her arms are noodles, her throat burns from throwing up all the time, and she keeps getting migraines. She's in constant pain is what she is saying. This baby better be worth it.

The worst part is that she's been dictated to only be in two places. Home and STAR Labs. Places where her loving husband can keep an eye on her 24/7. The others are arguing to give her a little more freedom, but she can see it in their eyes that they actually agree with what Barry's doing. This is what happens when all her friends in the city are guys. Why doesn't she have any female friends in the city? At least then she can complain about pregnancy with those who can understand her pain.

This whole situation is what led to today.

Barry and Caitlin were in another argument. No surprise there. What was a surprise was that this was the first one that no one knew how long since. Caitlin and Barry had somehow managed to keep their arguments behind closed doors until now. It must have been months since anyone else has actually witnessed a fight, so it was a bit of a shock for everyone to remember that this was supposed to be the norm between the two.

What wasn't another surprise was the topic of the argument. Caitlin's career as Killer Frost and taking care of the baby.

"You are not going out there again! Not until well after the baby is born!" Barry shouted.

"You don't get to tell me what to do. You may be my husband now, and I may be carrying our child, but that does not make me helpless. You don't get to bench me like this!" Caitlin yelled right back.

"Exactly! You're carrying our child. Your first priority should be to the baby, not whether you can still knock a person's teeth out with a punch."

"Which I can still do very well, thank you very much. I can take care of myself, I am not a damsel in distress. I'm not saying to send me out against another meta, or dangerous person. But I can still handle the common thug every now and then."

"Why? Why would you want to do that?! I can handle everything in the blink of an eye. You don't need to concern yourself with that stuff."

"That stuff, as you put it, is our life. We should be doing everything we can to help, and I won't let you sit me out just because you're scared for me."

"It's not just you I'm concerned about. You're not just thinking about yourself anymore. There is a child growing inside of you that you have to take care of. Don't you care at all about what that means?"

"Don't you lecture me about whether I know what it means. It's happening to me. I'd like to see you try to do this. I know my own capabilities. I know what I can handle, and if something happens that I can handle, I'm going to handle it."

"Like hell you are. I'm not letting you. I forbid you from going out in the field."

"Excuse me? I don't think I heard you correctly. Did you just say you're forbidding me from doing something?" Caitlin glared at him.

"Yes, I am," Barry stood firm in his declaration. "The only superhero action you are going to be seeing is from behind this screen." He pointed to one of the computers.

"Believe me, that's the only action you're going to be seeing too for a long time."

"You are not going out there! That is final!" Barry shouted.

"Because you say so? Screw that!" Caitlin retorted and stomped off.

Barry sighed and rubbed his forehead from all the stress he was feeling. The fact he was going to be a father for the first time along with the fact Caitlin wasn't listening to him about his concerns. He was just about to go after her when Cisco spoke up.

"You know, I'm not sure if I missed this or not," Cisco idly commented.

"I'm sorry you had to see that," Barry apologized.

"Don't be. You both have legitimate concerns. And it was about time for you guys to have a blow up. Gotta let all those feelings out sooner or later. At least this argument wasn't about something inane like your coffee preferences."

"That was one time. That you saw."

"Moving along, you're worried. I get that, and you make some good points. But you might be overreacting a little. Caitlin's a hero. She always has been with and without her powers. Did you really expect her to stop?"

"Yes. I expect her to stop endangering herself when there's a whole person growing inside of her."

"Okay," Cisco raised his hands in a peaceful gesture. "I hear you. But Caitlin's not going to outright stop. You know that. She's always going to try to save people and now that she's started showing, she's got a bit of a timer on her before she's going to be forced to stop for a time. So is it really a surprise she wants to get as much hero action as possible while she still can?"

Barry sighed and groaned at once. Of course he knew that. He was just hoping he might convince her otherwise. At least for a time.

"You should find her before she gets too far," Cisco advised him.

"Thanks Cisco. You're a real bro." Barry smiled in his direction.

"Call me Broda." Cisco's smile immediately fell off once he said that. "Actually don't do that. That sounds weird."

Barry just smirked. "Later Broda,"

"I just said don't call me that!" Cisco shouted. "This is why you and Caitlin argue so much!"

Caitlin had stormed out of STAR and was just meandering around, stewing in her anger, and enjoying the little moments of freedom she'd gotten for herself. She knew where Barry was coming from, she felt the same way, but she wasn't going to let this dictate how she was going to live her life. She understood the risks. She understood there was more at stake now than just her life. How dare he accuse her of otherwise? She was still fully capable of being a superhero at the moment. This was just toxic masculinity in action.

Caitlin's musing was interrupted when she heard an alarm coming from a store near her. Something must be wrong. People were rushing out of the building and they were coughing and had a light coat of ash on them. There must have been a fire started. Caitlin's eyes lit up. This was just up her alley. Use her powers to absorb the flames, problem solved. This was going to be easy. This would show Barry that she wasn't going to just sit around until the baby was born.

She let her powers flow through her in order to disguise herself. Caitlin needed to find a more portable way to bring her suit along. She wasn't like Barry who could run back and forth to change clothes at a moment's notice. An issue to bring up another time.

Activating her powers was a more difficult ordeal than she remembered. Not much, it just took a second longer than she was used to. Or was that just the pregnancy brain? Another thing to think about some other time.

Caitlin ran in the burning building and got to work. She coughed a few times from the smoke inhalation. She may be immune to the flames and heat, but the ash was everywhere so she couldn't avoid that. That wasn't going to be good for the fetus inside her. To compensate, Caitlin covered her mouth as much as possible with one of her sleeves and continued using her powers with the other. It took twice as long for the flames to recede, but it got the job done. There, that turned out just fine.

As Caitlin was turning around to exit the building and assure people that everything was safe now, a whistling sound reached her ears and before she knew it, there was a dagger sticking out of the side of her stomach region. With a jolt of fear, she realized that if she hadn't moved, just a few inches to the side and it could have seriously injured or outright killed her baby.

Fear took over Caitlin's body, but her doctor's mind was still working. Without medical equipment, she'd need to keep pressure on her wound and not do anything to cause more damage, so loathe as she was, she kept the blade in her body, even though everything else told her to take out the foreign object.

That option was taken from her though as the blade forcefully jumped out of her side, sliced across her palms and into an outreached hand. The deep breathing gave it away. Cicada.

Somehow, Cicada was the lesser threat at the moment. The bleeding on her side, the smoke inhalation, and now that her powers were gone, she was vulnerable to the intense heat that lingered from the fire.

Caitlin was coughing up a storm, but Cicada was fine. Of course she was, that mask prevented her lungs from being contaminated with all the ash in the air.

For the first time in quite awhile, Caitlin was scared of death. Actually, truly scared that she was going to die. And she was pregnant. Her eyes moistened at the thought. She gingerly placed her bleeding hands on her abdomen. Her mind must have been playing tricks because she almost thought she could feel it move inside her. And now it wouldn't get the chance to live. And it would be all her fault.

How was this possible? She should have been able to survive. At least long enough to give birth to Ace if all this was meant to happen. Did they make a mistake? Did Ace's lack of knowledge of future events mean he'd made a mishap somewhere that unintentionally led to here? The future was always in motion and constantly changing. One didn't know what was going to happen, even with a time traveler. They shouldn't have been as relaxed as they had been. They'd been arrogant, so assured in at least part of their future when they shouldn't have been.

Cicada continued to advance and Caitlin fell on her butt. She squeezed her eyes shut. Tears streamed down her face. It was all so hopeless.

The tell-tale sound of a speedster reached her ears and with that, brought a feeling of safety and comfort. Barry was here. He'd come for her and he was going to save her. Save them.

Barry tackled Cicada from behind and they both fell to the ground. He wrapped his arms around Cicada, even with her struggling against him. She must not have been very focused to forget that she had super strength and could have easily broken out of his hold on her. "Grace!" Barry shouted.

That only seemed to make Cicada more angry. "Don't call me that! You don't get to call me that!"

"That is your name, isn't it? It's the one you were born with. The one your parents gave you, what your uncle called you. You're Grace Gibbons."

"That name doesn't mean anything to me. Not anymore," Grace snarled and finally got her head back on and broke out of Barry's arms. With her identity gone, Cicada ripped her mask off to show her beautiful young face that was marred by that angry scowl. How could one so young bear such hatred in herself?

"Cisco, I'm here, but so is Cicada. Caitlin is injured. You need to get her out of here," Barry whispered into his comms in an attempt to prevent Grace from hearing. Caitlin mentally cheered. Cisco would get her out of here whilst Barry would deal with this lunatic.

In an instant, a breach opened up behind Caitlin and she rushed to enter it to safety. Grace moved to follow and Barry tried to intercept, except to Caitlin's horror she heard the sound of billowing wind again created by a speedster. But that shouldn't be possible. And the next second, her husband was gone with just the barest sight of another flash of yellow lightning.

Without Barry to protect her, Caitlin's only hope was to escape through the breach before Cicada could catch her, but Caitlin seemed to be getting all the bad luck today because, while Caitlin did enter the breach, it was because Cicada tackled her into it, sending both of them through the tear in space and time.

The two bodies crashed on the floor of the Cortex in STAR and Caitlin scrambled to get away from the young female.

Grace sent her dagger flying through the air and it went sailing without a drop of blood being spilled thankfully. It lodged itself into a wall and stayed there. Cicada wasn't recalling her weapon back to her for some reason. They had to keep Grace distracted since Caitlin needed to find something that would stop the bleeding, both from her palms and her side, leaving Cisco to try to stop the deranged metahuman on his own.

"Hey, listen to me. I'm not as good at this as The Flash is, but guessing from that streak, looks like my buddy has got his hands tied with your partner," Cisco said with his hands raised in a placating manner. And what a surprise. Another speedster, and one willing to work with this person? The very antithesis of every metahuman has managed to strike a partnership with someone else? And Cicada let them? The more they learned, the more confusing this whole Cicada situation seemed, but that speedster was Barry's problem right now. Along with Ace who had rushed off to help his father in another speedster battle.

"Move out of my way. I'm not here for you," Grace said, which was a little strange as this was the first time for Cisco to confront her face-to-face. So now he could see the anger on her face instead of just hearing it. "Not today at least. I'm here for her!" Grace pointed at the woman who had taken off her bloodsoaked clothes and was wrapping herself, which must have been a pain with both her palms cut and bleeding.

"She's my friend," Cisco stood firm in the face of power. "If you want her, you're going to have to go through me." Cisco put on his Vibe gloves which he'd been developing to enhance his powers. He didn't strictly need them, but they helped to focus his Vibe blasts instead of the large scatter shots he'd usually make. Not that it would be particularly helpful in this situation, but the metal parts would certainly give his punches a bit more to it. Still, he hoped his words would be enough to bring her down.

"I don't want to have to do this, but I will if I have to. This isn't what your family would want. They would want you to be happy, not filled with such rage,"

"Well they're gone, so it doesn't really matter what they want. I'm doing this for them. Because they were taken from me too soon. By people like you. By people like me," Grace said that last part with such despair.

Cisco came to a realization. And the longer he kept talking, the more time Caitlin had to heal herself and wait for Barry to return. "I get what this is about now. You blame yourself. You're angry, and you're projecting that anger at others, but really you're just angry with yourself."

"Not all of it." Grace admitted, somewhat at least. "My parents are gone. They're never coming back because of your particle accelerator." Grace spat those words like poison. "I don't blame myself for that, I blame you and all the other metas out there who got lucky and they didn't. But my uncle, the one who took me in, the one who helped me, who loved me, he's dead because of them, and it was all my fault."

"Okay, I understand. I know what you're going through. I lost my brother because of an accident, and for a time, I was so overcome with grief I lashed out at anyone. I lashed out against my best friends. I didn't talk to them for months. So I understand. But that anger, it kills you more than it does anyone else. Don't do this to yourself. Don't let this control you for the rest of your life." Cisco pleaded with her, looking at this little girl with such compassion. "Turn yourself in. We'll get you the help you need. It's not too late to stop."

Grace's panicked mind wasn't processing what Cisco was actually saying. Her manic eyes looked across the room. Caitlin had even paused to see if Grace would take up the offer, but it was in vain. Grace's mind was so jumbled, his words became distorted, coming out as agreement with her actions and his full support in what she was doing. And ended with what she perceived as an open invitation to kill him.

"Really? I can?" Grace looked upon him with a confused expression. That wasn't what she was expecting at all.

"Yes," Cisco grinned at her bewildered expression. He thought he was getting through to her. "I promise. All you have to do is…"

"... take your dagger, send it flying through my neck…"

"... and things will get better. I'll make sure of it," Cisco promised.

Grace looked at him with tearful eyes that the others saw as regret, but what they didn't know was that it wasn't for her past actions, it was for what she was about to do. "Okay," she nodded.

Grace stretched out her arm, so Cisco thought it was for a handshake to signify their deal, and stretched out his own to meet hers, clasping it in his own. Grace didn't even react to the contact of a foreign hand in hers.

It was at the last second when Caitlin detected movement out of the corner of her eye that the dagger in the wall was loosening itself from its position in the wall that she realized what was actually happening. "Cisco!" Caitlin yelled out in warning.

Cisco turned around to see what was wrong just as the dagger went out of the wall straight to him. When he saw what was coming at him, Cisco tried to duck out of the way, and he did. The dagger flew right over his head and into Grace's outstretched hand. The one that was holding onto his own hand. Actually it still was since the flying dagger had severed it from his wrist.

For a moment, all Cisco could do was stare in shock. He was on the ground, but one of his hands was still in Grace's along with the dagger. Technically speaking, only half of his hand was still there due to the angle of which the dagger sliced through it to reach its destination, Grace's hand. But all five fingers were still there, so Cisco didn't really consider what he had left to be his hand.

Cisco's mortification and numbing of the pain was broken when Grace transfixed her gaze to his fallen form. "Why did you move? I thought we had a deal."

Cisco finally seemed to grasp what had happened as he looked to his fingers in her hand and the bottom of his palm that was currently leaking crimson fluid. Cisco let out a scream filled with pain, horror, and despair, along with many other emotions that he couldn't think about at the moment.

Cicada ignored his screams and looked up to see who she was originally gunning for. Caitlin looked ready to bolt at that instant. Cicada calmly pried the fingers clutching her hand off and crushed them in her other hand. That seemed to draw a louder scream from Cisco, and she prepared to throw her weapon at the woman again. This time, she wouldn't miss.

The sound of gunshots rang through the air along with the piercing of flesh. Cicada let out a gasp of pain, dropped her knife to the ground and collapsed on her knees, blood leaking out from the back of them. Cicada was moaning in pain.

Caitlin and Cisco looked up to see who had made the shot to see Julian with a smoking gun in his hand that had been aimed directly at where Cicada's leg was. Joe rushed in and pulled out his handcuffs to restrain the wounded metahuman.

"Everybody okay in here?" Joe asked as he led the young woman away. Julian was kind enough to get a wheelchair for the girl since she couldn't walk with the busted knee.

"No!" Cisco shouted.

"We'll live," Caitlin responded at the same time. She was crying. She had been so scared that she would die at that moment. "Thank you Julian. You saved us," Caitlin put her wrapped hands on her belly. "All of us,"

Julian grinned at her. "Well for all your powers you metas possess, you forget that sometimes a gun will do the trick in a sticky situation."

"Guys!" Cisco shouted. His left hand clutching his right wrist to stop the bleeding from what was left of his right hand. "My hand!"

Caitlin winced and sucked in her breath at that. "Right, I forgot about that. We should get that looked at."

"How did you forget about this?!"

Barry had decided that he just couldn't have nice things. That when the world gave him something, they were going to send something even worse again and again and that it was never going to stop.

He'd found out his wife was pregnant. That was great. But then came the arguments with his wife about their hero activities and his desire for her to step away from that until the child was born. Was that too much to ask? She didn't even want to be a hero in the first place. Of course his wife disagreed with him and ended up storming out. And when she did, she encountered Cicada who had stabbed her. And just when Barry had come to her rescue, he got whisked away by another mysterious speedster.

Like he said, he just couldn't have nice things. Not without something worse to add on.

So Barry was being dragged across the city, waiting for his speed to return to him. His mind wandered to how on earth did a partnership form between Cicada and, well, anybody. Let alone another metahuman. Cicada hated metahumans. And that this speedster was able to retain their powers even in the presence of Cicada. She must have trained herself to specifically target individuals instead of the widespread assault she used. That occupied Barry's mind for the second that took his body to reclaim his speed once again.

Barry wrenched himself out of the speedster's grip and literally bounced away. Painful, but it gave him his freedom. Any scrapes would be gone and the only truly lasting injuries would be a broken bone, if that, that Barry's adrenaline could fight through until he could get that looked at.

Once Barry reoriented himself, he assessed the damage. Not as bad as he feared. A few cuts that were already closing and wouldn't hinder him at all. Not for long.

Barry chased after the new speedster through the streets. This player seemed new, but it looked as though they'd gotten some experience at some point. Just a little though. The way they ran just seemed more clumsy than it should have been.

Out of nowhere, someone else barged right into the new speedster. It was Ace! Barry was glad to see his son here. While he probably could have handled this guy on his own, it never hurt to have help.

Ace tackled the orange speedster to the ground, but Ace had angled the fall to make it so that the mysterious speedster was the one to take the brunt of the impact and they skidded through the street. Ace had the orange speedster pinned to the ground, holding the speedster by the scruff of their neck and repeatedly slamming their head up and down against the pavement.

The orange speedster finally had enough and sent a lightning coated fist into Ace's side, knocking the wind out of him. That gave the speedster enough time to escape and send his knee right into Ace's forehead when Ace was trying to catch his breath.

Barry rushed over to his son to catch him while the speedster moved back a safe distance.

"Are you okay?" Barry asked in concern.

"I'm fine," Ace responded. He pulled out a cylinder that expanded into his bo staff, brandishing it while sending a look to the orange speedster. In response, twin yellow suns lit up behind the visor, indicating the speedster was channeling a large amount of power.

Barry glanced around him to see several civilians crowding around them. "We need to get out of here, keep the people out of harm's way."

"I'm taking him on now," Ace declared and made a reckless charge at the orange speedster, waving the staff in his hand threateningly.

"Wait! No!" Barry shouted for him to come back but his offspring didn't listen.

In response to the attack, the speedster flexed both of their arms, letting lightning wrap around them in an unnatural manner, even to Barry. It was similar to Barry's coat of lightning armor he would sometimes use to help shield himself from close range fighters or long range attacks when possible. But this was focused solely on the arms and shaped in a specific fashion. The electricity formed around the hands and extended to their fingers, creating a protective layer but shaped in a way that resembled claws. The electricity jumped and dissipated when it got too far, but the form of the lightning remained as writhing yellow claws.

The orange speedster chose to ignore Ace for the moment and went after Barry instead, his lightning claws at the ready and Barry was sure they would inflict much more damage than without them. Barry raised his defenses, bringing his lightning armor around him to hopefully shield against this new attack, a way to assess this unknown.

Just as the speedster lunged forward to sink their lightning against Barry, Ace used his staff to bat away the strike by smashing the weapon against the speedster's wrist, altering its trajectory. Ace followed up the attack with the other end of the staff hitting the speedster's helmet, creating a satisfying crashing sound. He'd broken through the helmet.

Ace smirked at the speedster and when their adversary raised their head, it showed the visor had been shattered on one side, revealing a singular eye that was glowing with yellow lightning and staring at them with such hatred.

"Who said you could interfere?" The speedster growled with their disguised voice.

Ace was moving to continue the fight, but Barry grabbed hold of his son before things could escalate and dragged them both out of there. Barry was almost positive their enemy would follow and sure enough, there was another lightning trail behind them. Barry had to get them away from the people, so he brought all three of them near the water. This would be a safer location.

Once they stopped, the orange speedster kept going, ready to attack with all the momentum behind him and Ace stepped forward defensively, ready to protect his father and block the attack like he'd done before. Ace swung his staff in a split second, aiming to knock that helmet right off their head, but with incredible reflexes the orange speedster caught the staff mid strike with one hand and used the other to slash at Ace's midsection with their lightning coated phalanges.

The claw shaped lightning actually pierced through the suit, leaving four deep gouges across his chest, drawing a massive amount of blood. Ace screamed in pain at the attack and wilted to the ground.

"No!" Barry shouted in a combination of fear, panic, and rage. Just as the speedster snapped the metal staff in half over their leg, Barry sent them flying into the air with twin arm tornadoes.

The enemy speedster went sailing over the water but quickly flipped themselves around so they would be positioned to run across the water when they landed.

The father and son had a few seconds while they waited for the orange speedster to land and return, so they quickly talked amongst themselves to prepare themselves for another bout.

"Are you okay?" Barry asked, quickly assessing his son's injuries. The blood that was coming out of his wounds and staining his suit wasn't good, but the blood had stopped and the cuts were already beginning to close. They looked worse than they actually were in Barry's humble opinion.

"I'll be fine. We can take him Dad." Ace said confidently.

"I know we can, but that doesn't excuse us for being overconfident and sloppy. We make mistakes when sloppy, and making mistakes gets us killed." Barry lightly berated him. "Like I said before, keep your head in the game. Don't get distracted. Now let's do this,"

How was that? Was that a satisfactory ending for Cicada? I hope it was. Sorry if the fight between Caitlin and Cicada wasn't exciting, but she's 6 months pregnant right now. She's not going to be exactly graceful. And I cut off Cisco's hand. That might bite me back in the future, but I thought it was fitting since we saw a Cisco without hands in the future. Not to mention the foreshadowing from the first chapter of the season. And Julian was the one who took down Cicada in the end with a gun. I honestly think that would have been very effective against Cicada in the show if they managed to catch him unaware.

Next week will be the three way battle between speedsters. Will it be revealed who this unknown speedster is? We'll see.

Speaking of that, I have an announcement to make. I'm going to be posting a day early next week because I'm going to my sister's wedding and won't be available during my regular time. So you'll be getting your speedster battle in 6 days rather than the usual 7. See you all then.