I changed the formatting and experimented with the structure of the dialogue a little bit because I wanted to maintain the flow between characters in different locations. I hope it doesn't end up annoying you. Anyway, the obligatory disclaimers stand. You know the drill. XOXO

P.S. Thanks to those who took the time to comment on the last chapter. Your words are invaluable.

Chapter 14

S.T.A.R. Labs, Treatment Room, 11:00 pm

Caitlin returned to the Treatment Room after the men had finally hit the road. It was almost time for Barry's metabolism to overcome the effects of the sedative and she was mortified by the idea of him waking up without her there. She had had her fill of Barry hitting critical to last a lifetime. She sighed tiredly. It had been a very, very long day.

As she entered the room, the stillness immediately caught her attention. The monitors have been too quiet, she thought. And then she realized that she had silenced their alarms after Barry's last episode so that Joe, Digg, Oliver and Cisco wouldn't have to rush in just for a panic attack that she and Felicity could've easily managed.

The epiphany gave her heart a jolt. She immediately rushed to Barry's bedside to check the readouts. The monitors showed that everything was good and steady. She quickly checked up on him, laid her fingers against the side of his neck to feel his pulse. And it was there – strong, steady, unwavering. Her body trembled at the realization, at the sense of relief that had overtaken her and at the frustration with her own reaction. Her medical training told her to believe what she told Joe, but her heart – her heart was something else.

Now that there was literally nothing else to do but wait – wait for Barry to wake up, wait for her friends to end this threat and wait for this day to finally end – her heart was also now free enough to speak to her most closely held fears.

After Ronnie, it felt like she would never love again, like she would never be whole again. But ever since she had met Barry, she had begun, unwittingly at first, to open her heart to the possibilities. She had begun to heal with him, laugh with him. He had taught her how to live again.

Today had threatened all of that. Today had unleashed the fears she had kept bottled up inside, the fears she wouldn't let others see – the fear of never seeing Barry smile again, never hearing him sing or laugh… her fear of losing him, of loving him, of him never loving her back. And at its very worst, the fear that she will still love him despite all that.

It was ridiculous. Borderline crazy. Illogical. Not at all her. And yet she found herself in this impossible situation. It was only then that she had succumbed to the bitter truth: she was in love with a man who was so in love with someone else that she would forever be just a friend. Her head bowed in defeat. Just this once, because she couldn't help it any longer, she let it wash over herself – allowing it, acknowledging it.

And yet her heart would not let her accept it. She shook her head. It seemed that it, in spite of her brain, had the sheer audacity to hope.

Central City, en route to Starling City Docks, 11:08 pm.

It was a black and starless night. And Oliver, Digg and Cisco had only Felicity's voice to guide them away from any traffic. It was late but the ports were still usually busy at this hour.

"Arrow, take the next left. Then it's all clear to Lake via Windsor. ETA to Target in 2 minutes," Felicity's voice said over the comms.

"Roger," Oliver acknowledged as he sped off on his bike. He was the forward party. Digg and Cisco were taking a more circuitous route.

"Convoy, leave Chubbuck on the next right. Go straight until the fork. Take the right one to Windsor."

"Roger that," Digg said and proceeded to follow what Felicity instructed. As he made the right on the fork, he reported, "On Windsor now."

"Take a left on Quay. Then head straight to the end. There's an alley there that's useful."

"Okay. Heading there," Digg complied.

"Arrow on Target," Oliver reported.

"Copy that," Felicity said. "Convoy, ETA 3 minutes."

"Copy."

"Doing a preliminary sweep. Finding a better vantage point," Oliver stated.

"Be careful. We've virtually going in blind," Felicity reminded him. Until Cisco got his drone up and running, all she had to go by were their GPS signals and it wasn't enough.

Central City, Southern Docks, 11:10 pm.

Oliver concentrated on the job at hand. He was perched atop one of the piled shipping containers, scouting the area. The dark had always been a fickle friend. This time it looked like it had chosen to hamper him rather than help.

"Overwatch, I need night vision."

"On the outside edge of your right eyebrow, there's a ridge. Tap twice," came the instructions.

Cisco, having heard it, audibly smirked, "Looks like we're getting to test drive that baby after all."

Felicity's answering chuckle followed.

Oliver ran his right hand over the edge of his mask. The sensor was right where Felicity had said it would be. He tapped twice and was astonished as the whole landscape came alive in front of his eyes.

"Heads up, Convoy. Looks like it's going to be a long night," he said as he finally got a view of how wide an area they would be searching and the many objects that littered and blocked the way.

Central City, Quay Alley, 11:13 pm.

"Why do I suddenly feel like a rabbit in a foxhole?" Cisco pondered from out of the blue as Digg rolled the van to a stop. There were in a secluded corner just outside the Southern Docks.

"Because you are a rabbit in a foxhole," Digg answered as he finally put the cark in park. To Felicity, he reported, "Overwatch, Convoy in Target."

"Noted," Felicity said.

"Heads up, Convoy. Looks like it's going to be a long night," said Oliver's voice through the comms.

"Copy that," Digg answered. To Cisco, he asked, "You ready, Rabbit?"

"As I'll ever be. But we're going to have to work on your naming skills later," he replied as he got out of the van.

"Convoy, looks like we won't be able to spot a needle in this haystack. We'll have to do sector sweeps," Oliver said.

They had previously talked about the possible need for this back when they were suiting up and it looked like they're going to have to implement it. "No problem," Digg answered as he made his way to the back of the van. Once there, he donned the helmet Cisco had given him earlier. One of its perks: night vision.

"Copy. You take Sectors 2 and 3 in the South," Oliver directed.

"Roger that," he acknowledged as he readied his Glock. He turned to Cisco then, who was unpacking his drone – not like it looked like a drone but more like a modified industrial fan – in its collapsed form anyway. "You good here?"

"Yup. Go. I'll have this up and running in a minute," the engineer answered as he finally extended all four rotors of his quadcopter.

Central City, S.T.A.R. Labs, 11:15 pm

"Sector 1 is clear," Felicity heard Oliver say over the comms.

"Copy that, Arrow," she said.

"Still not seeing what I'm seeing?" he probed. They tried to stream video between them but the transmission was too laggy and grainy for them to run the feed through their gait and facial recognition systems in real-time. The uplink from Digg's helmet was similarly buggy.

"Nope. We'll just have to wait for Rabbit to get his drone up and running. Speaking of…" she trailed off before calling Cisco, "Hey, Rabbit! We hopping there or what?"

"If by hopping you mean up-and-running, then yes. Establishing handshake in 3… 2… 1," he answered.

Felicity looked to the holographic display as the aerial video from Cisco's drone came in, "Copy that, Rabbit. Signal is clear." And since they now had the drone as both eye-in-the-sky and signal booster, she began to network Oliver's lenses and Digg's helmet into their system. "Arrow and Convoy, establishing handshake with your visuals now… And we are live, people." The display now showed live feeds from all three sources.

"I've got auxiliary," Cisco reported after she had mirrored Oliver's and Digg's feeds into his display. "We are looking good. Overwatch, I'm getting a closer look."

"Copy that, Rabbit," Felicity said as she began to run their gait and facial recognition software. The bug in her gait recognition program that had her cursing earlier was still being a pain, though. She had to fix that and fast. But to do that, it needed her full attention. "While you're at it Rabbit, could you take over on point for a minute? I have to fix the glitch in gait capture."

"I've got you, Overwatch."

"Sweeper teams, it's Rabbit on point," Felicity announced as she took a momentary leave and muted her end of the comms.

"Looks like you've got everything handled here," Joe said. It was the first time he'd had good look at how they operate on a live mission from behind the scenes.

Felicity started at the detective's observation. She had forgotten that he was still in the cortex. He'd been silent all along. "I hope so," she said. "But there's still a long night ahead."

Joe nodded. "On that note, I'll do a security sweep of my own." It was a big building. He better get started. "Call me when you've got something," he said as he took his leave.

"Will do," she promised.

Central City, Quay Alley, 11:17 pm

"Sweeper teams, it's Rabbit on point," Cisco heard Felicity say. After Oliver and Digg copied her announcement, he took over the live comms. "This is Rabbit on the helm doing a flyby at 5000 feet. Say Cheese!" He said as he guided the quadcopter to swoop over Oliver, Digg and the rest of the old dock.

The flyby allowed the onboard FLIR system to capture heat signatures. As multiple red dots laced his screen, he checked the location against the sector lay-out Oliver had previously described then warned, "Look alive, people. Sector 4 is hot."

"Copy that. Sector 2 is clear. Heading over to Sector 4," Digg said at the information as he abandoned his pending Sector 3 sweep and headed to where the action was.

Central City, S.T.A.R. Labs, 11:20 pm

The men's audio stream played in the background while Felicity looked at the script of her program. It had returned several error messages but she can't seem to find anything wrong with the script. She decided to go through the event log again, just to check if she had missed something, but before she could really delve into it, a call from Starling came in.

"Go ahead," Felicity instructed even as she kept one eye on the event logs. Multi-tasking was a skill – and she was good at it. She listened to Tommy with half an ear before she heard him say, "We've found some things." Felicity's perked up at that. "Don't keep me in suspense, Merlyn," she said when Tommy didn't say anything after that.

"I'm not. It's just that, I think Laurel and I had just begun to unravel how deep this rabbit hole goes. Look, I'm sending over what we got."

She quickly opened the files Tommy sent. "What am I looking at here?" she asked as she saw what looked to be bank account numbers.

"Shell companies connected to all 12 victims regularly route money to different banks in South America," Laurel said. "Then they move money around a lot from there, too. What's interesting is that a part of that money always ends up in at least one of the four bank account numbers we sent you. All of them from Gotham National Bank."

Felicity's jaw dropped. Gotham National Bank may have some legit business on the side but it was common knowledge that GNB handled the financial dealings of a lot of shady businesses, too. Too bad they do it on this side of legal. If not, they would have come tumbling down long ago – or not. Powerful people seem to be ensuring the bank's continued existence, she thought as she remembered the numerous scandals that had plagued the bank and the same number of times the organization had come away scot free.

"Problem is, we dead-ended there," Laurel continued. "We can't trace to whom those accounts belong, legally anyway."

"Looks like we need to go on a fishing trip and my newbie powers won't cut it," Tommy said.

Tommy was right. But GNB was an organization that was not to be trifled with. They didn't have the time or the manpower. But she could do an end-run on that if she looked at tax records, couldn't she? She wasn't sure but it was something to think about. "Uh-huh. Let me think about that. What about the shell companies themselves?"

"I wasn't able to dig as deep yet. So far, the only link I could find," Tommy answered, "was that they all seemed to be served in one way or another by the same law firm."

"Which is?" Felicity asked, a little miffed that Tommy wouldn't just come out and say it.

"Kiehls Goodman Partners & Co.," he supplied.

"Ha! More like Partners in Crime," Laurel snorted sarcastically.

Felicity didn't think her jaw could drop even lower but it did. Kiehls Goodman, formerly Goodman Dyce, is a law firm and corporate service provider headquartered in Gotham that has about 45 offices worldwide. She was familiar with it because it was attacked by a hacker collective known only as MoD a few years ago – and she kept track of these things. The incident had led to a massive document leak that embroiled hundreds of politicians, celebrities and a whole slew of rich powerful people in an international tax scandal. The firm had maintained that they were above reproach and that they had adamantly followed international protocols to ensure that the companies that they had incorporated were not being used for illicit purposes. But now, regardless of the name change – well, as they say, a turd by any other name… and with many turds in the same place… "Did we just step into a criminal conspiracy here?" she asked, repeating what Tommy had earlier speculated.

"Well, unless we can uncover more solid evidence, we might as well be wearing tin foil hats," Laurel said, sounding audibly frustrated from the other end of the line.

Felicity sobered. Laurel was right. They had a lot of things that suggested it but none that would hold up in court and against very powerful enemies. Unless they could prove what the money in those bank accounts was used for, they essentially had jack. Zilch. Nada.

"But we'll look into it more," Tommy said at the heavy silence from Felicity's end. He and Laurel both knew just how much was on her plate right then. "If we got this from a fifth of the data you sent us, there has got to be more in there."

"Thanks, you two," Felicity said at their persistent determination because there was nothing else to say. "Thanks so much."

"No problem," Laurel said. "You leave this to us."

Central City, Southern Docks, 11:25 pm

Oliver and Digg staked out the whole sector by working two different angles. Oliver was on top of another one of those containers, while Digg was earthbound.

"Heads up. New players coming in from the north," Oliver reported, as he noted some men entering their area of interest. He repositioned himself to get a better view.

Digg adjusted his position to spot them. Since his helmet had more space for the numerous thingamajigs Cisco had thought up compared to Oliver's re-engineered mask, he had been the one assigned to lace their targets up for the software to ID. After a few moments of fine tuning to get the focus just right, he said, "I have a visual." There were three of them – generic, unremarkable men who could pass for dock workers to anyone, but to his trained eye all he saw was one principal with two bodyguards.

"Woah," Cisco said as he got several hits. "Says here, these guys are from Blüdhaven and allegedly part of the White Sharks gang. Who are they and what are they doing here?"

"What are you thinking?" Digg asked Oliver.

Oliver had heard of this particular gang. They had their fingers on pretty much any criminal pie in Blüdhaven primarily because they were fixers. He didn't like the feeling in his gut, especially when he remembered that they also controlled their city's port. "I don't like this," he said as he contemplated what to do. But before he could make a decision, a tall figure in a dark hoodie emerged from the shadows and approached the man. "Track but do not engage," he ordered as he began to stealthily stalk his new prey.

"Roger that," Digg said. He needed to move if he wanted to get a face on their possible target. But before he did, he hailed Cisco over the comms and said, "Rabbit, call Overwatch, would you? I have a feeling we're going to need that gait software and fast."

Central City, Quay Alley, 11:28 pm

"Rabbit to Overwatch," Cisco called to Felicity. In the background, Digg and Oliver had begun to track their person of interest. The latecomer seemed of particular interest since all indications point to their perp. "Rabbit to Overwatch," he repeated when Felicity didn't pick up.

"Go ahead, Rabbit," Felicity's voice crackled.

That was new, he thought as he heard static break up her words. They didn't have any problems earlier. But they had more pressing problems now. "How are we with the gait recognition software? Looks like our perp is here but we couldn't get a good visual," he reported as his two friends followed their target from two different vantage points.

"There wasn't any problem with the program itself. The problem was that it was designed to run independently but it was running as a subroutine within the facial recognition software. That's why it was producing an error…"

"Felicity, no time for a play-by-play here. Possible target in sight," Cisco reminded her.

"Ooh. Sorry," she said. After a second, "It's up. I'm running the …"

As the screen pinged with a match, Cisco cut her off, "Heads up, Arrow! We have a match. I repeat. We have a match."

Central City, S.T.A.R. Labs, 11:28 pm

Felicity's attention was diverted from the main action by a startling epiphany. The error in the gait recognition program was not a runtime error but a logic error. Her eyes almost bugged out of her head. Because the gait recognition was being forced to run under the auspices of the facial recognition program, it couldn't accept her manual input because it created an internal logic error – meaning that she was trying to put a gait profile on the wrong face.

Meaning… Meaning…

Oh Frak! Oh, Frackity Frak!

She quickly checked all the data the gait recognition program had acquired on automatic capture. It took a couple of minutes to collate but there was no denying what was on the screen before her.

"Oh my God, Oliver!" she gasped. I think there are two of them!"

Central City, Southern Docks, 11:30 pm

"Say again, Overwatch?" Oliver asked. Felicity's last transmission was drowned by static. He and Digg had been listening to the conversation between their suspects courtesy of one of his Trick Arrows before that last burst. But before he could get anything else, a loud bang coming from the docks had diverted all their attention.

It had caused their perp to look to her right, catching Digg on her sight line. That had caused her to run and the three other men to scamper in different directions. "I've been made," Digg said as he ran after their target.

"I'm on your six," Oliver said as he ran after them but through the tops of the shipping containers.

"I'll try to head her off with the drone," Cisco said.

It was a few seconds before Oliver had heard the whir of the quadcopter above him. Good, he thought. Having lost sight of both Digg and their subject, he decided that this would best be fought on the ground, with Digg and him cornering their perp from two angles while the drone completed the triangle trap from overhead. So he vaulted across the last two containers in his path and proceeded to jumped down from container wall to container wall until he was safely on solid ground. Once he bounced up on his feet, however, he found himself face-to-face with their cold-blooded murderer - the woman with the deadly kiss.

"Love the color. But it'd look better on me," she said before he had the world pulled from right underneath him.

Oliver looked around him as he hit the ground and saw that his feet were all tangled up in vines that seemed to sprout from where she stood. What the ever living fuck?!

Central City, Treatment Room, 11:30 pm

Caitlin was getting antsy. After Barry hadn't woken up as predicted, she had checked his blood glucose level and found it on the low side of normal, so she had opted to change his IV from cold saline to a custom mix of dextrose fluid in the hopes of giving his body a much needed energy boost. She'd done that four times in a row since then to no visible change in his status.

Please don't slip into a real coma, she mentally pleaded. She shuddered at the thought because it wouldn't be something she could control. She looked at the monitors again. Everything looked okay.

She had no reason to doubt them but a sense of insecurity had begun to invade her. She knew she was beginning to get a little paranoid, but she just couldn't help herself. So, she quietly lowered the rails of his bed, sat beside him and laid her ear against his chest just to make sure his heart was still beating and that he was still breathing.

xxxxXXXXxxxx

Barry had blinked against the harsh light. He had just come to in a place he knew wasn't his bed. He started to take stock of his body. There was something on his chest. He looked down and saw what looked to be a crown of brown hair. "Cait?" he asked, still a bit groggy.

He saw her sit up. His waking brain wondered, though, why she was blushing.

"You're awake," she said, with obvious relief in her voice. She reached for the clamp on his IV to turn it off before she disconnected him from it.

He started to speak but his lips erupted in pain.

Caitlin, having realized the source of his pain, quickly retrieved a small jar from the crash cart. It was medicated lip balm. He knew then that his lips were chapped because of dehydration. It was known to happen to him now and then, especially when she'd needed to revive him with sugar – lots and lots of sugar. It seemed that the pain had jolted him into complete and utter wakefulness. But it was Caitlin's presence that brought him into acute awareness. He just looked at her then, seemingly mesmerized as she proceeded to rub her fingers against the balm then unto his lips. She carefully smoothed them over his broken skin. It should've hurt but her cool fingers had soothed where she touched.

xxxxXXXXxxxx

Caitlin knew that her blush was intensifying under his stare but there was no way to stop it, so she focused on the task at hand. She carefully lined his lips with her balm-coated fingers as she tried to calm the pounding of her heart. She can disguise her laying her head against his chest as a medical necessity all she wanted but she knew better than to lie to herself. She'd been caught. It was embarrassing. But there was no helping that.

Once she was satisfied that she'd covered the affected area with enough of the drug, she began to withdraw her hand. But before she fully could, Barry caught it in his.

"Thank you," he said.

She smiled meekly at that.

"And I'm sorry," he muttered contritely.

"For what Barry?" she asked with a confused arch of her brow.

"That voice in the phone threatened you, Cait. That's the only thing I remember clearly before everything becomes muddled. I'm sorry for dragging you into this mess," he said as he averted his guilty eyes.

"Barry," she said as she squeezed his hand and prompted him to look right back at her. "I would have been in this mess regardless. And I would rather be in this with you than without."

He pulled her into him then, to give her a warm, if awkward hug. She ended up with half of her body on top of him but it felt, with the way he held her, that he was more than okay with that. "I'm sorry, Caitlin. I really am," he said into her hair.

A heady warmth began to spread through her at his embrace but before Caitlin could savor it, a series of loud crashes from outside the room had broken their moment.

"Aww, would you look at that," a shrill voice taunted from the door.

That had them both scrambling out of bed – with Barry doing his best to shield her. He managed to do so just before the seemingly crazy woman stalked menacingly towards them.

"Sorry, puddin'!" she cackled as she socked him with a solid right hook. "But she's gonna' have to come with me!"

So, how'd you like that? Leave a review below to let me know what you think! Kisses!