Author's Note: Alright, so this isn't my first Snowbarry fic, but it is the first that I'm posting both here and on Ao3 (@Moodypetrichorlove). Uh, and I know there tends to be a lot of hate in The Flash fandom regarding ships, so before we go any further, please know that this work of fiction does not mean to hate on any character involved in the show. Also, if any of you are anti-Snowbarry, please don't read this only to leave me hateful comments. It would be greatly appreciated.
On to the story itself now: uh, this is just my wishful thinking manifesting onto your screens. Timeline wise, think of this happening sometime after Season 6. In my version of The Flash, WestAllen did become canon, but along the line, Barry and Iris found out they didn't really belong together and broke up. Preferably after that fight in 5x19 after Barry took Nora away. So, Barry here is single. And so is Caitlin.
And that's all you really need to know.
I know it can get a bit cheesy and cliche, but I don't know what was happening. I just wrote what I felt.
Hope you all enjoy reading this. :)
P.S. Pretty sure all the Snowbarry shippers will get the reference in the title! ;)
Just a couple of hours ago, Barry had accidentally travelled to an alternate timeline, and the moment he got back, he had flashed into the Speed lab, running a marathon on the treadmill and refusing to talk to anyone who tried. Caitlin was out of the lab at the time, running a personal errand. When she got back, Cisco was the only one present in the cortex and the one to tell her about Barry's strange behaviour.
And that was how Caitlin found herself there, at the entrance of the speed lab. Chewing hard on her lip, she peeked inside and saw him sitting on the treadmill, facing away from her, slumped shoulders telling the story of a defeated man. She contemplated going in and talking to him, but for some odd reason she was feeling hesitant. She was at a crossroads; desperately wanting to talk to him and simultaneously wanting to give him the space he oh-so clearly needed. Part of her was also worried that he might turn her away, too, and she wasn't quite feeling up to being rejected. She decided she wouldn't be able to take it if he gave her the silent treatment – it was always hard for her to see happy, joyful, optimistic Barry be glum – and so she turned away from the door.
"You might as well stay and talk to me now that you're here."
His voice reached her ear and she startled. But more than his words, the tone of his voice giving her pause because it didn't hold the sweet and gentle softness it usually did whenever he talked to her. It was hoarse and taut, making him sound snippy and cutting, and by the time she turned around to look at him, he was already facing her. And she did not like the gasp that escaped her when she got a good glimpse of his haunted, hollow face.
It was not the first time she had seen him look this sad, a shield of seemingly quiet yet simmering rage surrounding him, but it never got any easier.
"What?" He stood up from the treadmill blindingly fast. "I'm not even worth talking to now?"
That effectively snapped her out of her stupor, and she managed to form a few insufficient words with her tongue and throw them at him in her lingering haze of confusion, "What? Barry, why would you think that?"
He looked away from her then, prompting her to move until she was standing right in front of him.
Taking a deep breath, she asked him, "Hey, are you alright?"
She knew it was a stupid question because he seemed anything but. However, she didn't know what else to do right then. As much as the look on his face and the silent tension emanating from him scared her, she was aware she couldn't just leave him. She would gladly incur his wrath if it meant he would share with her whatever burden was weighing so heavily on him. Giving her a cursory glance, he muttered, "I need some fresh air." And since she didn't think him being alone was the best thing at the moment, she told him she'd go with him. He stared at her for a few seconds, a dark green forest of emotions in his eyes and she felt like someone was sucking all the air out of her. It was somewhat of an uncomfortable feeling, and yet she was transfixed. Suddenly she felt warm,oh-so warm, hands wrap around her waist and the next thing she knew, she was on the roof of Star Labs.
It was a little after noon, the sun glaring at everyone and everything its golden rays could reach, but it wasn't mercilessly hot thanks to the light breeze that was currently teasing Caitlin's auburn tresses mischievously.
Once she got her bearings, she saw Barry sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall of the roof. Mustering up all the courage she felt she would need for a conversation with this sullen-looking Barry, she walked towards him and slid down the wall until she was sitting right next to him, shoulder-to-shoulder. Caitlin did not know why, but her gut told her she should begin, so she said the one thing that had been troubling her the most since Barry had snapped at her down in the speed lab. "Never in my life would I ever think Barry Allen is not worth talking to."
He took a long, deep sigh and then mumbled, "I don't know why I said that. I'm sorry, Caitlin, I didn't mean to, please –"
"Hey, Barry, it's alright. Just please remember that from now?"
Huffing out a rough chuckle, he replied, "Will do, thank you."
She felt a huge wave of relief wash over her. This seemed more like the Barry she knew; the gentle, kind, never-meaning-any-harm, goofy friend she had secretly fallen in love with.
"So," she glanced at him, "want to tell me what's going on or am I going to be turned away as well?"
Her words provoked him to think. Would he turn her away? Dr. Caitlin Snow, Personal Physician to the Flash, who patches him up every time he breaks something; Killer Frost, the Superhero, Flash's partner in crime-fighting on the field; and, most important of all, his best friend. The person he had a unique and strong connection with – a connection forged out of the shared pain of losing loved ones again and again, and waking up one fine day at the lab to massive, life-altering changes. She was one of the few people he was closest to and he could talk to her about anything, without any fear of being judged or not being understood. Because that was the truth; she always did understand him.
In the beginning, he really thought Caitlin and he were going somewhere 'just friends'do not usually go. In the far recesses of his mind, there was a chamber adorned with all the moments he was fortunate enough to have shared with her in the past six years of his life. If anyone were to ask him now, he would tell them he firmly believed he had missed a chance to see what 'Barry and Caitlin' would have been like. And then there was definitely a part of his heart that regretted this one could've-been.
"No." He leaned his head on the wall behind and looked her way. "No, I would never turn you away. Don't think I could, to be honest."
She was clearly affected by what he had said, if the light blush on her cheeks and her wide, doe eyes were anything to go by.
"I accidentally travelled to another timeline today. I was up on the treadmill, doing my daily run when I think I got carried away with my thoughts because I didn't know it had happened until I found myself standing still in the middle of a road."
With a sad smile on his face, he continued, "I saw them… My parents. They were still alive in that timeline. Healthy, happy. Not just alive, but living their best life."
Caitlin could imagine his feelings; the happiness he must have felt at getting to see his parents alive entwining with the sadness and misery of his reality, twisting into a sharp reminder of what waited for him back home. Just as she was thinking how life certainly owed Barry Allen a long break from all the foreboding gloom, the next words out of his mouth bring her to a standstill.
"You know why they were living their best life, Caitlin? Because I wasn't there."
Her eyebrows scrunched up and a feeling of dread claimed her. Carrying on in spite of it, she asked him, "What are you saying, Barry?"
With tears pooling in his eyes, he clarified bitingly, "I wasn't there becauseIdid notexistin their world."
Caitlin felt all the wind being knocked out of her for the second time that day and this time most definitely hated the vacuum-like sensation it induced inside of her. She could only stare at him, tears steadily sliding down his face and welling up in her own eyes.
"My parents were alive and happy and I knocked on their door expecting to be welcomed with open arms. Instead, all I got were pitying looks and an addled apology for not having recognised me. They didn't know who I was. I never existed for them, Cait. And somehow that hurts more than them being dead here does and I do–" A big sob swallowed the rest of his sentence and he began weeping like a little kid who gets lost in the mall for five minutes and thinks he's never going to be able to see or be with his parents again. Sometimes Caitlin felt like she could see the broken eleven year old who was robbed of too much all too soon still inside of Barry. This was one of those times.
She turned her body towards him and took him in her arms. She didn't know what to say to him, a feeling of inadequacy blocking any potential consolatory ideas from popping up in her mind; the least she could do was offer him some warm support. So, she hugged him, let him bury his head in the crook of her neck and cry for as long as he wanted to.
In all the alternate universes he had time travelled to since he had been the Flash, he had never once come across a reality where Henry and Nora Allen were not his parents. Hence Caitlin could understand what kind of devastation and damage this new revelation must have caused inside of Barry.
Once he quieted down, his breath evening out, he let go of her. He didn't face away, though, and neither did she.
Clearing his throat, he looked at her, "Thank you, Cait, for listening."
"Don't mention it." She said, smiling ruefully. "I'm sorry I don't have any reassuring words to say. I just… I don't know what to tell you, Barry," she added.
He smiled then, "Oh, Cait, –" tucking away a flying lock of her hair behind her ear "– your presence is assurance enough, trust me."
Caitlin ducked her head at that, forcing his hand to also fall down, both of them immediately missing the intimacy of the added connection.
"You know there was this one good thing in that timeline," started Barry with that beatific smile of his she loved seeing on him.
"Really? What was it?"
"I had a friend, the best I've ever had. Generous, gentle, compassionate, way more giving than humanly possible. Made me laugh, even after I found out about my parents, so you can imagine the power she holds over me. I spent all of ten minutes in this timeline, only four of which were with her, and that was enough for me to figure out how in love with her I was," he explained with a small yet gleeful smile.
Caitlin, convinced he was talking about Iris, looked down at the ground and tried hard not to choke on the lump stuck down her throat. Iris West, Barry Allen's destiny – no matter what else changes in any of the however many godforsaken timelines out there, this would be the one constant.
Thanks to Barry taking a hold of her hands and gathering them up in his lap, Caitlin's chain of melancholic thoughts was broken. He then lifted up her chin with his index finger, however, Caitlin was determined not to look at him since she was not too keen on having him see the anguish swelling up in her eyes. So she let her eyes wander everywhere but at him.
"Hey, would you look at me, please?"
His voice, silky and soft, was powerful enough to break the shaky wall she had built around herself and she couldn't find it in her to say no to his request. The moment she looked into his eyes, she was hooked. She knew she could not turn away now and she knew Barry knew it too.
Once he was sure she was concentrating on him, he continued, "Feeling all that love for her is what snapped me out of the haze I was in and I told myself I needed to get back here. Go home. So I did.
"When I arrived back here, Joe, Cisco, and Iris were all here, worried out of their minds. They started asking me all these questions and I was so overwhelmed and I didn't want to answer them. See, in all honesty, there was only one person I wanted to talk to at that moment – my best friend, you know, and I soon realised she wasn't there."
He could see her eyebrows kink up and her nose wrinkling at that, her confusion standing out. (He had to admit she looked absolutely adorable like that.) She then, in a very matter of fact tone, proceeded to exclaim, "Barry! Iris was literally right there!"
He burst out laughing (she really was extremely endearing), and to think only a few minutes ago he was crying his eyes out. He shook his head, thinking,oh, only you, Caitlin Snow.
"She was, yes. You weren't, though."
"So?"
Arching up his left brow, Barry cajoled her into thinking a little harder to solve the easy-peasy riddle her genius brain was having troubling with because of her stubborn, in-denial heart.
And then all of a sudden, as if she just had aEureka!moment, her face lit up in recognition laced with incredulity. Her face looked truly, utterly gobsmacked.
"You mean me?" she inquired in a quiet voice and he nodded in response.
Voice full of wonder and awe, she breathed out, "You wanted to talk to me? I… made you laugh?"
Barry could see she was recalling everything that he had told her, dissecting and piecing it all together in her head, in a way she would best understand.
"Barry," she began sceptically, "did you actually say all that or am I hallucinating for whatever pathetic reason? Or is this some sort of cruel joke?"
"I'd never! Hey, trust me. I would never joke about something like this with you, ever. This is too important, Cait. You're too important."
Straightening up, he divulged, "I love you, Caitlin Snow. When I started this journey I loved Iris, but somewhere along the way, I fell in love with you. You sneaked your way into my heart and I didn't even realise. I don't know exactly how it happened. I just know that I do not want to lose you, ever. I love you so much some days it hurts, and I know I want to be with you. If you will have me, that is?"
He didn't mean to, but his speech ended up sounding like a question. Probably due to his confidence faltering a bit towards the end of his speech at the wary look on Caitlin's face, further discouraged because even only the thought of Caitlin rejecting him caused him way more pain than Iris initially rejecting him ever did.
"You adorable dummy," chimed Caitlin, her voice thick and enveloped in all the emotions she was feeling right then, the adoration she felt for Barry shining through, "Of course, I will have you. Actually, I would like to keep you forever, because in this unpredictable life of ours, the one thing I am certain of is that I'm in love with you, too, Barry Allen."
Beaming at her, Barry leaned forward and pressed his forehead to hers. He knew in his heart that if he tried to imagine his future with Caitlin, he would see a glowing, radiantly splendid life, even with all the curveballs the universe liked to throw at him. No matter what life threw at him in the coming future, he would always come out on top of it all with Caitlin by his side. Like always.
Luckily enough, he did not have toimagineanything.
He had just taken the first step leading to that wondrous life.
Thank you for reading! :)
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