Chapter 7

Hunter's icy glare seemed to pierce straight through the one way mirror in the interrogation room, eyes unknowingly fixed upon Barry, who felt uneasy despite knowing that Hunter couldn't actually see him. It'd been three days since they'd brought him and Caitlin in and still, he'd refused to talk.

Caitlin had been released to the paramedics upon arrival at the precinct and promptly whisked off to the hospital for tests. Captain Singh had sent along two officers to stand guard outside her room until she was released, they were to escort her back to the precinct then so she could give her statement.

Still reeling from Hunter's attack, there were many officers in the precinct that were advocating for multiple life sentences. After all, Hunter hadn't only killed 14 officers, only one of the 15 sent out to the scene of his trap having survived, he'd also killed the family who ran the tow truck service Barry had dialed when he'd visited Hunter.

They hadn't discovered that particular crime until one of the neighbors had called the precinct in hysterics, having found the bodies. Once the connection had been made, Barry, sick with the knowledge that a family was dead because of him, had insisted on being the one to canvas the area. He needed to see what his actions, his impulsiveness, had caused.

He'd held it together fairly well, in the garage where the parents' bodies had been found, until he saw the little girl. Seeing her pale little tear-streaked face, the bloodied cat print pajamas, the blank eyes that stared off into space as she sat, wrapped in a blanket, it was all too much. He'd had to excuse himself, barely making it outside to the bushes to throw up. A child, alone in the world without her parents; it was a painful experience he was only too familiar with. She was alone because of him too. If he'd known this would have happened when he made the call, he never would have made it.

Behind him, the door opened. Barry turned, attempting a smile when he realized it was Joe. Joe had been running himself ragged in the past few days, helping Captain Singh arrange the service for the fallen officers, trying to sort out new partnerships for the remaining officers, always worrying about Barry, trying his best to reassure him that what had happened to the DeSantis' family was solely on Hunter.

Barry didn't quite believe that but he puts on a brave face for Joe's sake nonetheless.

"The hospital is releasing Caitlin. She'll be arriving in about 10 minutes," he said quietly, eyes flickering to the one way glass. Barry nodded in acknowledgement. "I'll meet you in the interrogation room."

Joe shut the door behind him. Barry looked back at Hunter.

He'd cracked the case. He'd found Caitlin. They had Hunter in custody... But it was a pyrrhic victory at best. Hollow and with too great a cost.

Leaving the room, he motioned to the officers stationed outside the interrogation room to escort Hunter back to his cell, knowing they wouldn't be getting anything from him today.

He makes himself a cup of coffee and grabs a water bottle for Caitlin, setting up in interrogation room 2. Finally, he joins Joe and Eddie in the lobby to wait for Caitlin's arrival. Every time the elevator chimed, his body tensed, unsure of what to expect. He hadn't expected her to hug him like she had that night. But she'd been emotional and he was a familiar face… At least, he hoped he was a familiar face to her. They hadn't really spoken in the drive back to the precinct, Caitlin silent and still beside him, not quite present in the moment.

When the elevator door finally slides open to reveal Caitlin and the two escorting officers, something in Barry seems to settle at the recognition in her eyes. She looks better, more alert, her forehead wound healing nicely and taped over with butterfly stitches. Someone, probably Cisco, who Barry had called shortly after they'd arrived back at the precinct, had gotten her some new clothes - or old clothes?

They seemed to fit loose on her frame. Her hair too, had been washed and now curled softly at her shoulders. If it weren't for her eyes, melancholic and weary, he never would have guessed the sort of ordeal she'd gone through.

Joe welcomes her, apologizing that she had to come in so soon after beginning her recovery.

"It's protocol to have witnesses give their statement as soon as possible so we can get as many details as they're able to remember," Eddie adds, giving Caitlin a warm smile. Disconsolate eyes shift to him, seeming to ask how she could ever forget what had happened to her. Eddie grimaced, shifting uncomfortably where he stood. After an awkward moment of silence, he excuses himself quickly, claiming he had paperwork to finish.

Joe takes that as his cue to lead the way towards the interrogation room. When they enter, Caitlin settles in on the lone chair on one side of the table, Barry and Joe taking the other two seats.

"Can I get you anything else? Coffee, maybe?" Joe asks, gesturing to the water bottle Barry had placed on the table only a few minutes ago.

"No, thank you. This is fine," Caitlin murmurs, fingers picking at her the edges of her sweater.

Joe nods, clearing his throat. He opens her file, it's edges worn down from all the times Barry had thumbed through it.

"Detective Thawne and I, we're the officers that were officially signed to your case but unofficially, Barry's been the one doing all the heavy lifting. Captain Singh thought it best to have him on the case, coordinating with your family and friends, considering that you went to school together. I hope it's okay with you, that he's here."

Caitlin's eyes don't look up from the table but she nods all the same. Barry's stomach twists.

"Now, there's a few things we're unclear about and we'll go through those questions later but right now, we just want to hear your side of things. Start at the beginning and walk us through," Joe adds softly, pen poised on the legal pad he had before him.

Barry settles back in his seat, uncertain of what to expect.

The memories come to Caitlin in a flurry, making her chest unbearably tight with the weight of a thousand emotions. Swallowing, she forces herself to speak.

"Hunter came to me in the beginning," she starts, recalling the day when she'd first walked onto her floor at Mercury Labs and found Hunter waiting outside her office.

Then, she'd found him to be a handsome stranger, a curiosity by virtue of the issue he'd brought to her attention, a welcome distraction from the monotonous blur of days that life had become after Ronnie's death.

"He was sick. A rare kind of degenerative illness, that started at the cells. He wanted me to find a cure."

He'd been willing to pay, she remembered. At first, she'd taken him up on the offer, needing the funds to work on the serum. But as they'd grown closer over the following months, while she worked on it, she found the money left a bitter taste in her mouth. Even the feelings of closeness she'd begun to feel for him, felt wrong.

After all, Ronnie hadn't been dead more than five months when Hunter first came to her.

Bile rises in her throat as she recalls that day in September, when he'd first kissed her.

It was shortly after she'd made the first successful batch of the serum (mostly a mixture of benzene methanol, carbon disulfide, dioxygen difluoride). They'd been celebrating in her office, a quiet affair with a single bottle of champagne, long after everyone else had gone home. Caitlin had been laughing about something, she couldn't remember what anymore, but she remembered the warmth in her chest, as bubbly as the champagne in her hand. She'd glanced up at him in that moment, still grinning.

The expression on his face…she remembered how it knocked the air from her lungs, how it reminded her of how Ronnie used to look at her. Like he was so very lucky to even be in her presence. Heart in her throat at the thought of Ronnie, she'd frozen when he leaned in, chapped lips pressing against hers.

Hand on her hip, he'd pressed forward, crowding her against the edge of her desk, the kiss growing more urgent when she'd hesitantly pressed back, wanting nothing more than to drown the guilt that had begun to build within her. For a moment, she did.

She'd pulled back just as quickly, head swimming and turned away in shame. Goosebumps rise alongside her arm now as she recalls Hunter's huffed breaths against her cheek, how he claimed that he cared about her.

"Caitlin…" Another voice calls softly, bringing her back to the present.

She looks up, glancing first at Detective West's concerned expression and then Barry's anxious face. The sight of his green eyes, wide and earnest, soothes a not-insignificant anxiety in her. She was safe. Hunter couldn't get to her anymore.

With a deep breath, she steels herself and continues.

"Hunter grew to… care for me in the months that we worked together on the cure. He told me that for the first time in his life, he didn't feel alone... I couldn't handle that…"

Those kinds of comments had been small and far in between in the beginning, breathed in quiet moments, as thanks, as acknowledgement and later on, as a lament. But he became possessive as time wore on, angry when she held him at arm's length, caught between grief and unwelcome feelings.

Things had changed though, when she discovered that the serum, despite prolonging his life by slowly replacing the dead cells in his body, was also killing him. Caitlin felt compelled to be there for him then. After all, he'd been handed a death sentence once again.

Hunter was only too happy to revel in her presence, her comfort. And she was stupid enough to fall into complacency. It was a short-lived complacency however, Caitlin coming to her senses not long after.

"I broke off our partnership, knowing he would be furious and I took precautions, in case he tried something. It's not like I hadn't seen the warning flags before…"

She'd done it to protect herself really, not wanting to get any closer. But Hunter didn't see it that way. He didn't care that she offered to show him how to make the serum himself, if he chose to keep taking it. He only saw her abandoning him.

"I just didn't know what he was capable of," she finished, words hollowed and weary.

Her heart ached as she thought of all the officers Hunter had killed, dead because she'd provoked him.

"You aren't to blame for the atrocities Hunter committed," Joe offers quietly, words pointed in a way that makes her think he isn't only speaking to her.

She glances at Barry from underneath her lashes, catching the aggrieved expression on his face. Did he blame himself too?

"Caitlin… Can I call you Caitlin?" Joe asks, continuing when she gives a clipped nod. "Did Hunter ever… pressure you into -?"

"No," Caitlin answers, cutting him before he can finish his question. A shiver runs down her spine at the thought, knowing how lucky she was in that sense. Barry and Joe's simultaneous sigh of relief underscores that thought. "He kept saying he wanted me to be with him, not because I felt compelled but because I genuinely wanted him".

She doesn't dare look up to check their expressions, feeling dirty and ashamed, even as she told herself there was no reason to feel that way.

"Cait…"

She jolts at the nickname, her mind immediately going to Ronnie. Except Ronnie isn't here.

It's Barry's voice, soft and compelling, asking for her attention. When she looks at him, she's finally able to take him in properly, see how the years have changed him.

He doesn't look very different from high school, his facial structure sharper and more defined but his eyes, green and warm and kind, are the same. His hair still looks as soft as ever and she almost smiles as she recalls the numerous class sessions she'd spent sneaking glances at him, longing to run her fingers through his hair.

Her heart aches suddenly, for the girl she used to be, unaware of what the future held for her.

"I wouldn't have been able to solve your case, to find you without everything you left behind. Without you taking the risks you did to send that message out…" He sounds so sincere and it kills her. Didn't he see how guilty she was? How she'd enabled Hunter?

"You're so incredibly brave," he says, almost breathless with emotion, emotion that pricks at her skin with its warmth and understanding.

"'Discretion is the better part of valor,'" she quotes, trying to sound dismissive but failing. When his brow crinkles in confusion, she clarifies. "Shakespeare's Henry IV. We read it in Ms. Walsh's English class."

Barry flushes. "I don't remember that…"

No, she thinks. You wouldn't remember that. Always too busy staring at Felicity Smoak.

Joe coughs meaningfully, eyes flicking from Barry to Caitlin and back.

"Let's continue…"

When Caitlin leaves the precinct, feeling hollow and cold, Cisco is outside waiting for her.

Joe had offered her use of a safe house, courtesy of Captain Singh and the CCPD but Cisco had already offered his place, insisting it wouldn't be an imposition on him or Cynthia. Caitlin had accepted, if only because the thought of a safe house, lonely and impersonal, made her heart seize with fear. She'd be isolated once again. She didn't want that.

She'd had enough isolation to last her the rest of her life.

When she gets into the passenger seat of Cisco's car, she rolls down the window hurriedly, the slight bout of panic in her chest unfurling as she felt the fresh air on her face. On the car ride over to the precinct, she'd freaked out, feeling like the car itself had started to shrink, the air inside growing thinner and thinner with every inhale and exhale taken by its passengers. It wasn't until she'd leaned over one of the officers at her side and had rolled down the window, that'd she felt her chest loosen, gasping and sucking in greedy lungfuls of air.

She'd never been particularly claustrophobic as a kid, always seeking out new nooks and crannies around the house for a variety of reasons: quiet reading spots, playing hide and seek with her dad, hiding from her mother after one of their fights.

Now, enclosed spaces were just ugly reminders, picking and teasing a wound still fresh and raw. When she looked through the windows of a car, all she could see in her mind's eye was a lab from beyond thick glass. She could imagine that the stale air inside was the same recycled air she'd been breathing for three years.

Cisco shivers when he settles into the driver's seat beside her, glancing at her and the open window in askance. He doesn't say anything though, instead turning the ignition and guiding them out of the parking lot and onto the streets.

As he drives, Caitlin watches the streets of Central City pass by, trying to determine how much the city has changed since she last walked its streets. The evening air is cool on her cheeks, rustling her hair. She closes her eyes for a moment, wishing the sun were still out so she could feel the warmth of it on her face. When she opens her eyes again, seeking moonlight, the sky is a darkening royal blue, only a couple stars visible and twinkling brightly in the expanse.

There wouldn't be many more throughout the night, she thought, glancing at the bright lights of the city around her. Growing up in the outskirts of Central City, she'd been able to see more of the stars naturally but even that couldn't compare to what she could see when she looked through her telescope, the one she had built with her dad.

She'd spent so many nights in her backyard with him, trying to name the constellations.

Turning to Cisco, she picks at the ends of her sleeves. "Cisco…" she starts, voice rough after having spent the day recounting her tale. "What happened to all my stuff?"

In the chaos of it all, she hadn't gotten the chance to ask. She hadn't spoken with her mother either, although she'd been told that she had visited Caitlin while she'd been asleep that first day in the hospital. The officers had barely allowed Cisco in, only relenting in the end because Caitlin had insisted on him being family. Cause he was, he was the family she'd chosen and seeing him again…

It was the happiest Caitlin had been in a long time.

They'd spent the afternoon just crying and talking and holding onto one another, both afraid that if they let go, the illusion would shatter.

When she glances at him, taking in the familiar long hair, the bronze tone of his skin alight in the glow of the streetlights, brown eyes warm and concerned as they glanced at her, she can't help but feel grateful. She'd hoped she would someday see him again, of course, but…

Somewhere along the line, she'd lost faith. The scenario had become nothing short of a miracle, in her mind. One that seemed impossible, unlikely to ever occur. Yet it had and now, here she was, sitting in Cisco's car. Safe and alive and free.

"When you… went missing, your mom asked me to pack up your stuff," he starts tensely, tone belying the simplicity of his words. Cisco knew how complicated her relationship with her mother was. From his tone, Caitlin had no doubt in her mind that he now had his own complicated relationship with Carla too.

He continues, glancing at her guiltily. "I've kept all your stuff but uhhh… I gave all the boxes to Barry to look through when he came to speak with me about reopening the case, I thought it would give him some clues."

Caitlin blinks, feeling faintly bewildered. Somehow, everything lead back to Barry Allen.

"He asked to come by the house tomorrow to return them. That okay?" Cisco asks after a moment of silence.

Caitlin nods, turning back to the views outside her window.

It should bother her, the thought of her belongings being combed through by a virtual stranger. But it doesn't and she's not sure whether that easy acceptance comes from the fact that her belongings, with all the clues she'd hidden away in them, had helped Barry find her or if it was just Barry himself.

He put her at ease. She couldn't say that for a lot of people. She'd have said it was an ease borne of familiarity except… she didn't really know anything about Barry's life now. All she knew was that because of him, she sat here today, traveling under the light of the moon.

But perhaps she owed it to herself to find out…

Who was Barry Allen?

NOTE: AHHHH only 3 more chapters left! Thank you all for your continued support and all the lovely reviews! They've really kept me motivated on this story and I really appreciate them. Let me know what you think of this chapter! Until next time.