Another chapter! Finally! So sorry for the long wait between chapters but it looks like this is kinda the pace I'll be going at for the foreseeable future because high quality free time is scarce in my line of work. Anyway, I'll leave you to this. Hope you enjoy!

Chapter 3

Central City, 7:00pm

Caitlin had been staring at the dissected remains of the mice she had exposed to the toxin she had obtained from all of the previous three victims. What she had discovered was nothing short of astounding, and if her findings were to be believed, they were all in for a very, very long night.

She had started her experiment a week ago, once she had purified enough of the toxin from the victims' samples. She had tried to determine the lethal dose but since the mice remained alive even if she had been injecting them with loads 10x more than the usual lethal dose of the most potent allergens, she had begun tinkering with route of exposure. She hadn't wanted to waste more of the finite amount of the toxin she had on hand. She had exposed another batch of mice to incremental doses of the toxin via aerosol, ingestion, and direct skin and mucosal contact to determine if the route was the key to the toxin's fatal effects. And yet the mice had continued to live. She had considered it a failed experiment – that is until just after Felicity had finished calming her down and refocusing her enough after her panic attack to notice the putrescent stench that had wafted to the cortex from their cages.

All the mice had died, well, save for her healthy controls and for the few which had been administered the lowest toxin load and lucky enough to survive the next three minutes it took her to give them a timely epinephrine shot. A quick review of the time lapse cameras showed that those mice given the highest toxin load died earlier and quicker than those given a lower dose, but not by much. All fatalities had died within a 2-hour window regardless of dose and route of exposure.

She had just been about to catalog her necropsy findings, when Cisco, who had just returned from retrieving Barry's hard drive from Joe's house, roared, "Caitlin!"

Not again.

But the shrill ringing from Barry's cardiac monitor could not be denied and had her rushing towards the treatment room at a dead run. Her eyes were focused on the monitor as it came into view, and the ominously flat line that registered had her visually checking all of the ECG leads that were connected to him. They were all intact. A quick pulse check as she had finally reached him corroborated the absence of any discernable cardiac activity. Cisco, who had preceded her into the room had already lowered the head of the bed and had already placed a step-stool at Barry's bedside for Caitlin to jump on and start compressions.

She had been about 10 seconds into the compression cycle, when she heard the onrush of footsteps on the floor. Please, God, be Team Arrow, her brain hoped.

Cisco, who was in the process of detaching Barry from the mechanical ventilator and switching him over to a bag valve mask, saw Felicity through the glass and yelled for help over the still piercing trill, "Over here!"

"Oh my God," Felicity exclaimed at the scene that greeted her.

Oliver, who was not far behind and far less stunned, came running into the room, "Where do you need us?"

Caitlin looked over her shoulder to see all three members of Team Arrow. "Oliver, replace Cisco. Squeeze that bag half-way every 6 seconds. Digg, I need you at the defibrillator. Start charging to max. Felicity, help Cisco with the meds," she directed as the men scrambled to do as she said.

Digg was quick to do as he was told, switching on the defibrillator and cranking it to max. Oliver had competently replaced Cisco, who in turn had rushed to the crash cart while calling out, "Felicity, I need your help over here!"

That had effectively unrooted Felicity from the doorway and snapped her into action.

"Oliver, you know CPR, right?" Caitlin asked as her arms began to burn from the effort. She had been pushing hard and pushing fast.

"Yes," her friend answered as he continued to pump oxygen into Barry's lungs.

"Okay, I need you to switch with me for the next round. Cisco, you ready with the epinephrine?"

"Just about," Cisco replied as he took the syringe Felicity had handed over and plunged it into the glass vial of the life-saving drug. "Okay, got it," he said as he finished retrieving the required amount.

"Okay. Oliver, I need a carotid pulse check on my count," Caitlin said as she ticked down to her 2-minute mark. "Digg, you check his femoral… in 3-2-1," she said as she halted compressions, jumped down from her perch and anxiously stared at the monitor. She had her fingers on Barry's wrist as well, triple-checking for a pulse.

"No pulse," Digg shook his head after a beat.

"Same here," Oliver said – the both of them confirming what the absence of rebound against her fingers had signified.

The monitor showed some agonal complexes. Not good enough. "Start compressions," Caitlin tapped Oliver as she took over the bag. "Cisco, push it now."

"First epi given," Cisco said as he delivered the drug into Barry's IV line. He told Felicity to note down the time as he filled the syringe with another dose.

Another tense two minutes had passed before Caitlin yelled for another pulse check. Oliver had stopped pressing down on Barry's chest as she laid her own fingers against Barry's neck.

Nothing. No pulse.

"Nothing," Digg confirmed but he knew as soon as he saw the jagged lines on the screen that the defibrillator would be needed. He had the paddles at the ready even before Caitlin screamed, "Shock him!"

He laid the paddles on the conductive pads that were already on Barry's chest and shouted, "All clear?"

"Clear!" Caitlin and Oliver responded as they both stepped away from the bed.

Having visually confirmed the 'all clear', Digg discharged all 360 Joules on Barry's chest. A taut second passed. "We've got rhythm!" He exclaimed when he saw the regular ECG waveforms that started to form onscreen.

"I've got a pulse," Oliver said after a few beats.

"It's holding…" Caitlin said as she continued to pump oxygen into Barry's lungs and anxiously waited for the read out on his blood pressure. "And we've got pressure," she said as screen showed the return of arterial pressure. She stopped pressing on the bag and laid her hand on his chest to see if he was breathing on his own. Please, Barry! Breathe!

The answering rise of his chest against her fingers had her almost sagging to her knees with relief. "He's breathing. O2 sats are holding," she reported. "He's back!"

The tension around the room had visibly eased after that. Caitlin took a deep steadying breath before she found herself engulfing Oliver in a grateful hug. "I've never been so happy to have you guys here!"

"Same here," Oliver said as he returned her hug and passed her on to Felicity's waiting arms.

"How are you holding up?" Her blonde friend asked as she pulled her into a tight embrace.

"Barely, but thank you so much for coming," Caitlin sighed into her friend's hair. "I don't think Cisco and I could pull this off by ourselves."

Felicity gave her another squeeze and whispered, "We've got your back. Don't worry."

Caitlin squeezed her friend back in gratitude before she went over to Digg. Of the three, he would be the one from whom she would need the most help. "Thank you for being here," she said as she greeted him with a hug.

"Anytime," Digg said as he returned the embrace.

"Ever done a dialysis in the field?" She asked as she stepped back and looked up at him.

"Once," he answered matter-of-factly before he glanced back at Barry. "Is he that bad?"

"I hope not but with how things have been going… I… I just want to be prepared."

She felt Digg give her arm a reassuring squeeze. "Just tell me when," he said as he finally let her go.

"I bet you guys are hungry," Felicity said after all their hellos were dispensed with, "You guys can catch us up later. We brought dinner."

"Please tell me you got me a Big Belly Deluxe," Cisco prayed.

"No dressing, extra mustard. Onion rings and sriracha on the side," Felicity smiled.

"Oh my God, I could kiss you right now," Cisco exclaimed happily, then warily backtracked when he saw a menacing glint pass through Oliver's eyes, "Or not."

Felicity chuckled as Cisco hurriedly escaped to the cortex to mostly get away from Oliver. She turned back to Caitlin and looked at her expectantly. "Caitlin?"

"Go ahead. I'll finish up here and change first. I need a shower," she answered as she shooed her friends to dinner. She remembered what she had been doing before Barry coded again, so she sniffed herself and the air around her to check if any of the fetid stench of murine death had permeated past the mouse lab. Looked like Cisco's supercharged charcoal nanofilters had done a great job, she thought when nothing but sterile air hit her nostrils. Thank heavens for that!

Felicity had nodded at her before the trio left her with Barry. She came to his bedside again, grabbing a stethoscope from the crash cart, just before she started a quick physical examination. Everything was abnormally normal. If everything was really fine, this shouldn't be happening – these repeated crashes. And then she remembered that Barry had always been an exceptional case, and therefore, always an exception to the rule. Add to that the relatively unknown effects of the mysterious toxin, and hello, she usually found herself always a step behind. It irked her that she always had to play catch-up, with Barry suffering in the process. She couldn't help but brush her fingers against his hair.

Please don't die.

Her tears began to well up at the thought, so she distracted herself from it with work. She went about drawing multiple blood samples before he reattached him to the ventilator. She had hooked him up earlier to support his breathing and she hooked him up again to do just that. She'd also ask Cisco to take a chest x-ray at the very least. The more information she had at this point, the better. She had to be able to correlate Barry's data with those of the mice.

The mice reminded her of the shower she had needed. After she had convinced herself that he was fine for the moment (after another quick run through of his vitals), Caitlin finally left Barry's bedside, asked Cisco to run Barry's blood and headed straight for the showers.

xxxxXXXXxxxx

She came back to the cortex after a quick shower, dressed in a S.T.A.R. Labs sweatshirt, an old pair of leggings she had discovered in her locker and a pair of Crocs she had stolen from one of the Labs' clean rooms. Her first instinct was to check on Barry but Digg had intercepted her and led her straight to their makeshift dinner table. "I just checked on him a minute ago. His vitals are steady. Eat. I've got him," Digg said as he left her to return to Barry.

She nodded and took a seat beside Felicity, who quickly laid out her food in front of her. Oliver handed her a couple of napkins from across the table.

"Thank you," Caitlin smiled gratefully at the both of them as she unwrapped her burger. It was a Big Belly Deluxe – the slightly healthier version, since it was in a lettuce wrap.

And then Felicity slid a generous helping of cheese fries in front of her. "I thought you might need this," she said with a conspiratorial wink.

Caitlin found herself smiling even more. She hadn't counted on her friend to be very creative when it came to switching around her caloric sources. "You thought correctly," Caitlin replied.

"Dig in," Oliver said, "before Cisco swipes your share of the fries."

"Hey," Cisco protested, "Felicity said it was okay to have hers."

"Yeah, her half not mine," Oliver teased.

"You could have snatched it back from me with your ninja skills, but you didn't," Cisco stated as he took a generous bite from his own burger.

"You could share mine," Caitlin said as she offered hers to Oliver.

"Nah, I'm good," Oliver said then whispered, "I just like to give Cisco a hard time."

"I heard that!" Cisco retorted.

"Cut it out, you two," Felicity playfully admonished. To Caitlin, she said, "I didn't know what you wanted to drink but we brought soda and bottled water. Cisco made coffee but it's still brewing."

"I'm good with water. Thanks," she replied. Felicity retrieved a bottle from one of the paper bags on the table and handed it to her.

She was left to eat peacefully after that. The chatter between her friends soothed her enough to get food down, when she hadn't before. This meal was the first thing she had eaten all day. She had finished her burger and had polished more than half of her fries when Detective West came in.

The detective was surprised by the presence of their Starling City friends but greeted everyone just the same. Felicity invited him to dinner by handing him another burger, which he gratefully accepted.

"I didn't know you guys were coming," Joe said to Felicity and Oliver as he munched on his food.

"I called them," Caitlin said. "I figured we'll be needing back-up."

"Good thing you did. We are way in over our heads," he replied as he handed Cisco a thumb drive.

"So, you think it's a meta-human?" Cisco asked as he took the drive from the detective.

Joe looked at him thoughtfully, contemplating a way to answer his question without sounding silly. But there was no way better than the straight up truth. "No, I'm beginning to think it's a ghost."

Can't help but be excited for Flash's return from hiatus! Who's with me?

Anyway, don't forget to leave your comments/reactions/reviews below. Kisses!