(Author's Note: Sorry to make you wait 4 days for the next chapter, Jell-O Squares. I love all your reviews, and your comments on Twitter. I feel so loved and appreciated by you guys! Enjoy! ~Doverstar)
"What do you mean they're out of coffee, Barry? It's a coffee shop."
"I don't know what to tell you, man, they said they're dry."
"How do you run out of coffee in a coffee sh—"
"Cisco, look—what do you want instead?"
"Instead of my triple shot French Roast?" Cisco dropped the wrench and reached for a pair of pliers. "I don't know, how much do they charge for ripping the knife out of my back?"
"Cisco." Caitlin's voice was tight. She was hunched over the white winding desk, clicking through files on the computer. "Please."
"It's Jitters, Caitlin." Cisco threw down the pliers, glancing at her over his shoulder, looking past the metal bulk that was the unfinished Speed Force Analyzer. "They're never out of coffee. A freaking black hole opened up over downtown that one time and they still had coffee."
"Cisco?" Barry's voice cracked through Cisco's cell phone speaker.
"I've never felt more betrayed." Cisco's voice was hushed now with disbelief. He turned back to the wires he'd been adjusting. "I'm including the Dr. Wells era when I say that, by the way. Just so everybody gets the magnitude—"
"Cisco, pick a drink!" Barry insisted.
"Okay, all right!" The engineer huffed. "…Six shots of espresso. Over ice."
"Six?" Barry double-checked.
"I have been here since 6 AM yesterday, people. This was no easy all-nighter. You're lucky I'm not hallucinating."
"You're not hallucinating because you fell asleep for two hours after eating five sesame bagels." Caitlin's fingers tapped the keyboard a little harder than necessary.
"See that?" Cisco muttered, half to himself, installing two more wires. "Sesame bagels have my back. Sesame bagels would get me my coffee come hell or high water. Because sesame bagels—"
FWOOSH!
"Come on, man." Barry was suddenly standing in the center of the Cortex, complementing the early morning with an oversized red sweatshirt. "Bros before bagels."
He handed Cisco two cups—six shots of espresso over ice in one, and a large hot cup in the other, sleeve slipping off.
Cisco's dark eyes, ringed with exhaustion, came up to strike the Flash. "What is this?" He held up the hot cup.
"Star City had coffee."
"You have saved this city."
Barry shook his head, grinning at Cisco's exaggerated slurping. He didn't know of anyone else who worked that hard and never lost their ability to joke. …Except maybe Felicity Smoak.
He turned to the white winding desk, setting down two brown paper bags. "Okay...espresso for Cisco, chai for Iris…" Barry's hand vibrated the cup with Iris' name on it, making sure it stayed warm. He knew she wouldn't be up for another few hours. "Black coffee for Harry—where's Harry?"
"Slacking off on Earth-2," said Cisco.
Barry left Harry's Star City coffee on the desk too, still rummaging through the Jitters hoard. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Caitlin bite her lower lip. She was clicking the trackpad as though she wanted her fingernail to stab right through it. Her shoulders were bent toward one another, her hair barely styled. She might even have forgotten to add makeup to one eye, from what he could tell.
"Cait?"
To his surprise, Caitlin blinked hard and didn't look up.
Barry jiggled one of the bags enticingly. "I got muffins."
Was he invisible? Caitlin didn't seem to hear him. A second more of staring told him she wasn't wearing headphones. She was glued to the monitor, and though it was high summer and comfortable in the Cortex, she looked especially cold.
Unnerved, Barry plucked her latte from the drink carrier, coming around the desk to see what had her so preoccupied. "What're you working on?"
He came up beside her and she dodged away from his shoulder, just before it brushed hers. The Flash drew his head back, uncomprehending. What was happening here? Was she angry with him? He hadn't done anything reckless lately. He hadn't overworked himself, and he'd offered to help narrow things down with her Speed Force research just last night, however quickly she'd rebuffed him. He hadn't teased her about anything in days. Why would she be upset?
She'd been this way for months, and Barry hadn't thought anything of it at first. But even he couldn't ignore a repeated offense if it were repeated often enough.
"I'm sorry—I-I need some air." Caitlin turned and headed for the hallway, muttering a last, "Sorry."
Only then did Barry realize Cisco was now standing up. The engineer wiped his hands on an oil rag, mouth pulled down in resignation.
"I'll go talk to her."
Barry held up a hand. "No, I got it."
Cisco made a face, somewhere between a confused squish and a scowl. "Okay, you're gonna take this the wrong way, right, but still don't take this the wrong way, uh—maybe it shouldn't be you who does this little…Caitlin therapy session."
Barry shot him a look. "Something's going on with her—"
"I know, look—"
"No, I mean something—" Barry huffed through his nose, feeling his grip on that poor muffin bag tighten. "Something about me is going on with her. Okay? She's acting off. She's…distant."
"Oh, thank God." Cisco brought his hands together, pressing them to his mouth. "I was starting to think all that speed had stopped reaching your brain, of course something's going on with Caitlin!" He threw down the rag and reached for his coffee cup. "You know who would've known something was going on with Caitlin, hmm? Sesame bagels. That's right, Flash."
"What?"
"I don't know." Cisco massaged his temples, muttering now. "I'm working off of 46 hours with no sleep, Barry; Speed Force Analyzers are no joke to set up. And that's still not its official name, by the way." He let out a low moan, looking wildly around. His voice rose, blended with the moan, to an uncomfortably-loud level. "Where is my coffee?!"
Barry raised his eyebrows, pointing slowly. "In your hand?"
Cisco stared at the cup for several seconds, neither man moving. Finally, he sighed. "Just—go talk about feelings in the hallway."
With that, he went back to work.
When Barry caught up with Caitlin, she wasn't in the hallway anymore. She was in the med bay, refilling the ice cooler. Barry saw her carefully placing cold packs into plastic bags, even organizing them by color. Everything in the room seemed to tower over her, suddenly; she looked so small. He knew without having to face her that she was still biting her lip, and there was no way the snowflake pendant on her necklace had gone untouched, either. Caitlin's whole body screamed of more unrest than Cisco, with his 46 hours of sleep, could have boasted.
Barry closed the door, walking over to stand with the empty gurney between himself and Dr. Snow. "Cait, you've gotta tell me what's going on."
Caitlin must have heard him come in; she didn't seem startled. She also didn't turn to greet him. "I'm just tired."
"Cait—" Barry came around the gurney, intending to look her in the eyes so they could talk properly.
Caitlin whipped around. "Barry, don't."
Her voice was so stern. It as if he'd come back to S.T.A.R. Labs with a broken rib, and she was about to give him a lecture about risks.
Feeling a wounded expression bend and curl his features, Barry slowed down, coming to a halt at least five feet from his friend. Was he just now noticing the absence of touch between the two of them? How long had it been since she'd hugged him? Even smiles were becoming rare for Caitlin.
She looked embarrassed, now, doing that thing she did whenever Cisco teased her about her outfit, or when she got a calculation wrong in front of Harry. She slumped a little, looking at the floor or the cooler. Never at him.
Had they even locked eyes for more than five minutes lately?
Suddenly Barry couldn't take it anymore. This wasn't how they were with one another. He was always there when Caitlin needed security, needed comfort, and Caitlin was always there when he needed safety, support. She'd been the only person he could talk to about his mother, the year they'd met. Iris had always believed him when he spoke of Henry's wrongful conviction, and Joe had always at least listened when Barry had talked about that night.
But Caitlin had been there to hear Barry's stories. She knew what Nora Allen usually made for breakfast when Barry was sick. She knew what Barry remembered his mother smelling like, she knew what Nora would say when Barry started getting angry as a child. Barry had spent so long, at that time, talking or thinking about his mother's death—he had forgotten to share how his mother lived, to keep the memory alive.
Dr. Snow had understood. She'd lost Ronnie. She needed to talk about him, about his smile and his worries and his favorite food. They had spent long hours in the Cortex, sharing their pain, sharing their sense of loss, and Caitlin had become someone Barry felt unabashedly safe with.
They were a constant light to one another, and had been since they'd met. They were always shining, relating, pointing the way out of the dark house. Glowing at the end of a tunnel black with the gray shadows of grief and trauma. Gleaming and spinning on the shore, drawing the other person back to what they still had, what they should keep living for.
Last year, if anyone had asked him, Barry could have said for certain that Caitlin felt it too. That she was safe with him. That she could tell him anything, and he'd always be there.
But now…now that confidence had waned. The reality of the gap that separated them was just starting to dawn on him.
And he was sick of it.
"What happened?" he asked simply, shaking his head. He felt his arms flap out, loosely, half-heartedly, and lightly smack against his sides.
He saw sympathy and guilt in the corners of Caitlin's mouth, the pinch of her eyebrows, the roundness of her eyes. She watched him for a moment, as if trying to think of how to respond. At least she wasn't brushing off the question anymore.
"I can't—" Caitlin paused, thinking again. "It's not exactly easy for me to explain."
"Is it your powers?" Barry groped wildly for something, anything that would make sense of her distance. "Did the necklace stop working?"
"No, it works perfectly, it's—"
He had to ask. "Did I do something wrong?"
"No." Caitlin raised a hand, looking slightly frantic now. "Barry, it's not your fault, I promise."
Somehow, that didn't make him feel any better.
"It's—Savitar." Caitlin dropped the name as if it hurt her, as if it had been stuck in her throat for days and getting it out was a painful process.
Barry felt his spine straighten up, tight and stressed. He didn't feel the rage or terror that had once come with the former God of Speed. He didn't even feel the guilt, the weight of responsibility he usually felt for his time remnant. What was making him tense now was the implications of what Caitlin was trying to say.
Barry crept toward her, step by step. "Savitar?"
Caitlin watched his feet as he walked, eyes flicking back up to his face and away again. Like a cornered cat.
"He didn't—" Barry passed a hand over his mouth, letting it rake violently through his hair as he tried to calm down. "Did he hurt you?"
The idea that a version of himself, an echo of Barry Allen, might still try to harm Caitlin Snow, especially after they'd gone and saved him, given him a life of his own—it was more than he was willing to forgive.
Caitlin's response was immediate, and frostier than her meta counterpart had ever been. "No, he did not hurt me. Savitar is a hero now, Barry. He saved my life, he—" She inhaled, slowly, through her nose, obviously trying to relax herself. "He wouldn't do that."
Barry stopped, just two feet from her now. Encouraged by the close proximity, he slackened up, let his spine breathe again, trying to tell her with his eyes to keep going. She used to be able to pick up on those signals from him. These days, she seemed to have been avoiding even a scan.
To his relief, Caitlin did understand. She took another sharp breath and went on, "He's—different now. We're different. He's my friend, it—we were—"
Suddenly she stopped. She looked Barry in the eyes, briefly, and he knew she had something important she was keeping in. Something she was desperate to say, something she was apparently trying to decide whether or not to tell him.
Barry waited, patient and sturdy as ever.
Finally, Caitlin looked away and said, "It's not easy, being away from him. From them. I mean—that Team Flash. For a while there, they were…really starting to—I don't know—come into their own."
Her voice was normal now, no wobble of indecision, no strong wave of emotion threatening to engulf them both. Barry wondered if she was telling him everything, but he kept silent, just glad she was sharing at all. This was more than she'd said to him for the past month.
"And Savitar?" Barry's tone was soft. "Cisco gave you that…MP3 thing. How's he been?"
She hesitated for what seemed like a long time then, mouth twitching as if she wanted to smile, but that might hurt too. "Busy."
"Is that why you've been so down lately?" Barry asked. "You're missing him?"
Caitlin nodded slowly, and she looked just a little bigger, as if talking this much about it were making her warmer, better. That, at least, was something. "I miss them all." Her words were careful. Firm.
"Look, Cait—" Barry sat in a nearby chair, looking up at her and willing her to keep that warmth, to make it grow. "I know what it's like to get all caught up in another Earth. I mean, Earth-2? Even Grodd's world. I know what it means to…care, feel like you need to be everywhere at once."
Caitlin glanced up, and his heart skipped a beat, suddenly frightened.
"You don't…" He tried to keep his voice even. "You're not thinking of going back there? Are you?"
Then she was frustrated. Then she was louder, strong, more like her usual self. "Barry, this is my home. You, Cisco, Iris—I would never leave, knowing I still had you. I've had a hard time adjusting, but…" She gave him a small smile. "This is where I belong."
Barry drank in that smile, wishing he could do more, help more. Make her fully the way she'd been before Earth-66, make her happy and whole. Help her feel the way he did nowadays.
"Still good to have you back," he said, grinning back. "And you know if you ever need to talk—"
She tilted her head, eyes flicking from his and down to the cooler again, still maintaining her smile.
"—I'm always here."
After Barry had gone back to the Cortex, Caitlin shoved the last of the ice packs into the cooler, closing and locking it with fast, frustrated movements.
Talking to the Flash used to be such a salve to her. She could've confessed almost anything to Barry Allen. He wasn't just Central City's hero; he was her hero. He had come into her life at a time when she'd given up on almost everything she'd ever had faith in. If she couldn't share things with Cisco, she could always share with Barry.
Unless her heart was fastened to another Barry, one that made talking to her best friend a battlefield in itself.
Telling him at least a piece of what was going on inside her had been good. She'd needed to get some of it out. Barry was always so calm when she was panicking, when she was struggling. Even if she couldn't look at him the same way now—no, for now—temporarily, it had to be temporarily—she could still feel a little taller after confiding in him.
But she hadn't told him everything. She didn't even know where to begin. How could they understand? Savitar had tried to kill Iris once. He'd succeeded in killing H.R. Wells. He had tormented them for a year, and no matter how reformed she assured them he was, telling them how much she felt for the former God of Speed now might be a huge mistake. They would need a much longer time to come to terms with her feelings. She just had to figure out how to break it to them—if she ever ended up telling them at all.
One thing she knew for certain. She couldn't go on like this. Not forever.
(Author's Note: Next chapter coming soon! I hope you like this one, however short it may be. I'm struggling to find motivation to write, to be honest, but you guys help a lot. Please keep sending in reviews, as detailed as you want! I love hearing that someone is enjoying what I write. ~Doverstar)