A/N: AU details for this chapter are pretty similar to before - Caitlin never fully becomes Frost, Savitar accepts help from Team Flash, but also Barry has still been to the future as in 3x19. It's set long enough after all that for Savitar to be part of the team but he's still rather dysfunctional, especially with Barry.

Be warned, Savitar is an antagonistic git to Barry in this (and also misappropriating a possible Marilyn Monroe quote) so there's much snark, arguing and Barry not being at his best either. Savisnow is hinted at but not the direct focus. There's also Savifrost implied and Barry/Iris briefly mentioned a few times since Barry is with Iris in this much like in canon.

Written for ScottSalvatore23's suggestion of - "Barry gets jealous when Caitlin defends Savitar and angry when he finds out SaviFrost was together in the future yet he never got the chance to be with Caitlin Snow."

Lose Everything But

There's been a feeling building for some time, a feeling that creeps up on him whenever he sees Savitar looking at Caitlin. There is no one moment that is more meaningful than any other; it's like an irritation, a sore spot rubbed over and over until it is raw.

It bugs him more that he is the only one aware of it, the only one fast enough to catch the hints, the feelings that flit across the man's face when he turns to her. Barry doesn't even know what to make of it, what it is the expressions - that are barely there before they are gone - are exactly. He just knows it disturbs him somehow, a niggling wrongness at what he recognises subconsciously.

Savitar purposefully conceals anything that could be seen as weakness. He can so easily seethe with anger, regale them with bitter retorts and purposefully lets slip his smug amusement at times, but any other emotions appear to be quickly suppressed by him. Barry spies there is something Savitar isn't willing to admit about Caitlin and he doesn't want to know what it is, he just wants it to be gone, for this sickness, that overcomes him when he sees it, to withdraw.

But it worsens over time because even though Savitar is just as good as ever at blanking before others see, Caitlin isn't. She starts to look at Savitar like she cares, in more than just her capacity as a doctor - Savitar's doctor too - or as a good hearted person. Caitlin seems happy to see Savitar and that makes something in Barry wind up tightly; it triggers an ironic fear of being replaced.

Except it isn't quite like that. Caitlin is still the same with him, it takes nothing away from their friendship, and yet she is becoming something more around Savitar, something in her freer when he is present as well.

He should be happy Savitar can fit in with the team in some way.

He is happy Savitar and Cisco have found a way to bond over the competition of online gaming, even if there are frequent accusations fielded about speedforce cheating that get vehemently denied by the speedster. He is happy that Joe and Iris have managed to forgive him for his previous menaces and sometimes invite Savitar for dinner at the West house, providing Savitar with some semblance of family once more. Barry is happy that Harry and Savitar work well together with their strangely productive fights, as they snarkily amp each other closer to a scientific epiphany.

But when it comes to Caitlin and Savitar it doesn't sit right with him how they've nearly effortlessly formed an understanding of each other. They still argue heaps, Caitlin perfectly willing to call Savitar out for areas he is failing in, but compared to how he is with everyone else Savitar tends towards easy agreement with her. And Caitlin is ever ready to help him, an almost endless supply of sympathy for whatever teething problems he is having in his return to heroing.

Objectively, it's good. Savitar needs people to show him the right path. So why does it make Barry uncomfortable? Is it because he feels like Savitar doesn't deserve it? The unwavering support. That seems wrong to wish though, for someone who is, at heart, him.

Neither of them are any less deserving of the friendship that was built up over years, the friendship they both remember with Cait. It's what came after that that makes it hard to accept Savitar – the darkness and fury that he'd given in to, where as Barry never had and vows he never will. Somehow Caitlin sees past those things to the pain Savitar is in and she wants to help. He can't fault her for it. Caitlin has Savitar's back and it shouldn't hurt to see that when Barry has so many others who have his. Somehow it still does; a battle he's lost without knowing he was fighting it.

"Did you have to be so hard on him?" Caitlin asks testily. She crosses her arms in a huff and waits impatiently whilst Barry tidies up the chaos caused in the medbay by the aftermath of the team's latest outing. He doesn't have to do it but it takes him all of five seconds. It's an excuse to avoid this very conversation. It's also an attempt to mitigate the scorn he's surely earned from her.

The correct answer to her question is no. Barry isn't going to admit that though. It doesn't matter that Savitar hadn't done anything he wouldn't have if he had been in the same position. What had spurned him to be such a hard ass in the face of Savitar's many injuries had been something else.

There's the usual annoyance she can predict - Barry's frustrated Savitar failed to tell Cisco and him the plan he'd made last minute, lone wolfing it in a move so typical of him. The difference today had been Savitar practically willing to sacrifice himself, leaving himself vulnerable to the brunt of the attacks in his mission to rescue a busload of civilians.

Barry should be proud to know Savitar is still capable of that selflessness. A part of him is relieved to find that out, and maybe at some point they will talk about this judder of progress, but a larger part of him is concerned with what else he has learnt today, what the unguarded gaze of a concussed Savitar has left so plain.

Savitar had been battered and bruised, multiple shrapnel wounds already healing around the shards of debris when they'd brought him back. His head injury had been the least of the immediate concerns, but of course it was the hardest to predict leading to Caitlin fussing over it, trying to give a neuro exam in between the quite agonising extraction of the metal that required cutting out by that time. Savitar did his best to grin and bear it, but it was clear he wasn't with it, more so than simply the pain would explain. His focus wandered and he kept slipping into, and out of, flashtime inexplicably, vibrating in the bed unpredictably, making his treatment more difficult. Eventually Caitlin got Savitar to focus on her, on the sound of her voice, on her hand wrapped around his to ground him.

Barry dug the rest of the fragments out, plenty familiar with how to do so – Caitlin had long ago trained him in procedures he might need to perform on himself in a pinch. And in between each extraction he'd watched Savitar staring up at Caitlin, for once his expression was open. There was absolute trust in her, a feeling Barry knew well – the faith she would save him – but there was more underneath that, a tenderness Barry wished had remained hidden. Things hadn't gone well after that.

Things probably weren't going to go any better in round 2. Round 2, however, was going to be private, not an argument where he danced around what he really wanted to talk about. He leaves Caitlin without an answer and speeds off to find the still concussed doppelganger of his who hadn't been willing to stick around after the worst of his wounds were dealt with.

It isn't hard to find him. Savitar always retreats to places Barry would prefer to avoid.

This time it's their childhood home, which stands empty except for a few pieces of furniture left behind by the previous occupant. He'd bought the house a while back, with some of the inheritance left by the Wells estate, from a vivacious woman named Sherry for whom two murders in the house was a little too much to get over. Even though he can't seem to let go of this link to his past, he doesn't exactly blame her. This is still the last place Barry wants to be, which is probably why Savitar retreats to here, some kind of spite that if Barry must follow he'll suffer too.

"What are you doing?"

"Recovering," Savitar says flippantly, sprawled across an abandonned couch.

Barry has to swallow down the bile that rises in his throat as he steps over the threshold of the living room, over the space his father occupied as he died. He won't let this get to him. He won't let Savitar succeed in his mind games.

"What are you doing with Caitlin," Barry reiterates pointedly.

Savitar sits up then, interest piqued it seems, but he also seems to regret it, holding his head and looking distinctly queasy. For Barry that's a small victory, to have caused Savitar discomfort, considering how he feels just standing in this room.

"Making friends. You wanted me to, no? I'm meant to be...the affable...amiable, Barry Allen, right," he says in a stilted fashion, struggling a touch with getting the words out but still managing just fine in lacing them with the appropriate level of scorn. Mock concern follows from him,"Oh, wait, did I do too good an impression? You want your friend back now."

Barry sighs. Savitar never makes anything easy for him. Which doesn't make him want to cut him any slack, so Barry cuts to the chase instead, no desire to beat around the bush now they have no audience. "You're in love with her."

He sees Savitar clench his jaw at his words but he then sets his face into a clear mask of incredulity. He doesn't get up, like Barry expects. He's often eager to be toe to toe for 'discussions' like this, trying to unsettle Barry as much as possible. Savitar works to get him off kilter when they disagree even remotely. He's still petty like that, attempting to lord it over Barry any way he can, probably overcompensating for the inadequacy he feels at being a time remnant, at being a broken copy as he puts it.

"Do you even hear yourself, Barry?" Savitar starts, somehow imbuing the question with his own brand of scathing cockiness, "Iris is the love of your life. The love of my life too, or was it the hate of my life? It was hard to tell the difference for a while."

Barry draws a hand across his brow, frustrated and doing his best to ignore the blatant jab he knows Savitar intended as a distraction from the real issue.

"So, the way you were looking at Caitlin earlier wasn't love, that's what you're saying?"

Barry asks it in all seriousness, trying to keep his tone neutral and hoping, most likely futilely, for an honest answer.

"Why? Are you jealous?"

Barry rolls his eyes. The last thing he wants is for Savitar to get any inkling that he feels displaced. It might make Savitar feel better but Barry is in no mood to concede him that. Savitar takes his silence as invitation to continue in that direction anyway.

"If you're worried we have something that you don't, then you're right," he says matter-of-factly, like it's undeniable.

Barry narrows his eyes at this weird admission, unsure what he's suggesting.

"What are you talking about?"

Savitar becomes more animated with that prompt, a little too happy to elaborate on it for Barry's liking. "You have a past with Caitlin. I have more. I had her future, once upon a time."

Whatever worry Barry had held onto is released at this explanation because it turns out to be nothing of consequence.

"That's another timeline. And that wasn't Caitlin," he says with confidence.

But Savitar laughs at him for it, smirk edging on his lips as he finds what he wants to throwback against Barry's bold statement. "Caitlin. Frost. They're more alike than you think...and they're not as separate as you think either."

"You don't know what you're talking about, you're concussed."

Savitar purses his lips and shrugs amusedly in return. "Don't believe me? Think about it, Barry. Both steadfastly loyal. Both brilliant, sharp as a tack, quick under pressure. Plus-" he says holding up a finger in the air to make his point, "-you remember what you thought Caitlin was like at first. Brittle, cold. It was her protection, just like Frost is...was." Savitar says it all with the satisfaction of knowing Barry remembers the same as he does.

"What does that prove?"

"You don't know her, not like I do," Savitar replies, with that smirk of his returning at full force afterwards. Barry wants to wipe it off his face.

"At her worst you mean?" he snipes back.

Even that doesn't deter Savitar from his smugness. "If you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best. Think that applies here?"

It takes a ton of self control but Barry ignores his sass. Having had enough of Savitar's prattle, he decides to end this fool's quest. If Savitar wants to live in denial he can do so for all Barry cares. The longer he does that the better, so long as he keeps whatever it is to himself and saves everyone, Caitlin included, the drama that might otherwise ensure. Maybe she can be spared the heartache. Maybe the way she looks at Savitar isn't anything more...and Savitar is simply misguided, living too much in his past and the memories of a nonexistant future. Either way, time to leave.

He hears Savitar take a deep breath, like he's steeling himself for something, but Barry isn't prepared for his parting shot.

"You don't know what she wants, what she likes."

He pauses his journey to the door, before turning back to see Savitar looking up at the ceiling, at nothing in particular, like he's fondly reminiscing. Then Savitar angles his head back towards Barry, fixing him with a hard stare that rankles Barry alongside the comment.

"What does that mean?" he demands.

"What's the matter Barry, I thought it didn't count if it was in another timeline."

Savitar is still staring at him, eyes piercing, challenging. He couldn't just leave it alone. He wants Barry to know where he stands. Wants him to be left with this doubt as to what is true, what is possible, what could be.

"You and her, you...and now you, what, want to recreate that? Is that your plan? Get Frost back?" Barry's fuming by the last question, bristling at the idea of a further betrayal, and Savitar merely looks peeved, like he has a tedious headache. If the shouting is aggravating his concussion he's doing a good job of hiding it.

"I don't need Frost back," Savitar says, exasperated, getting up from his prone position to lean against the doorframe, "Haven't you been listening. Caitlin is Frost, Frost is Caitlin. There isn't one without the other. You don't get to pick and choose, Barry." Savitar actually has the audacity to look semi-outraged. Two can play at that game and Barry's feeling righteous right now.

"You promised her, the other her, in the future, you'd get rid of Caitlin. She sat in her cell at Iron Heights and thanked you for it."

Finally Barry finds something that makes Savitar flinch with that. He can't tell what bothers him about it but it definitely hits a nerve. His reply is quieter, possibly regretful despite the assured words. "Caitlin was never gone. Caitlin was liberated. She just had different priorities."

"You turned her into a murderer!"

Savitar almost snarls at him in response, apparently baited enough to close the distance between them in his ire, getting within spitting distance. "And you turned yourself into a murderer. Proof it's in anyone if they're desperate enough."

"I thought you'd changed. I thought..." Barry doesn't finish his thought, Savitar pushing forward, hands against his chest shoving him back aggressively in bursts as he vents. It's nothing Barry can't take but it's a surprise.

"That you could control me? Make me into someone who if you squint sort of looks like Barry Allen but never too like Barry Allen, never a threat to what you have. You thought that you could carefully dole out scraps from your life to keep me satisfied. It kills you I had something you can't, doesn't it? That I could still have that and you never will. You chose Iris. You don't get her too. Who's second best now?"

He wants to punch Savitar. To erase that superior look evident on his face inches from his own. But Savitar is already swaying on his feet. He settles for roughly manhandling his unconscious form once he hits the floor in a faint. Barry should have caught him before he does but he's nowhere near that generous currently. He deposits him in the medbay, not daring to speak to the confused and concerned Caitlin waiting there, lest he say something he really shouldn't.

It is later, much later than he'd like, that Barry comes to terms with the revelations of that day. He spends a whole week avoiding both Caitlin and Savitar. Which means he spends a whole week avoiding explaining to Iris, to Cisco, to anyone else who notices his behaviour, why he's doing that. Being annoyed because of the mission mishap only goes so far to excuse it.

He tries to understand it the best way he knows how, to put himself in Savitar's shoes. He knows Savitar has lived with countless years of resentment and without so much of that which keeps Barry anchored. And yet somehow he has come home, has found enough peace to function in amongst that unrelenting emotional chaos. It shouldn't be much for Barry to live with knowledge of this one aspect he's to be denied, for this one potential he'd never explored to be something Savitar gets.

It shouldn't be that hard, but it's so different to face the prospect, not in another universe, but played out in front of him – of a Caitlin who will not only accept him, like he knows she would if they had ever been that to each other, but accept him having seen him at his worst.

Barry loves Iris, but nevertheless the thought of Savitar and Caitlin haunts him, like a persistent reminder of a regret he'd long since let go of. He wonders if it will haunt him even half as much as seeing him with Iris must haunt Savitar. There's some anger that wells in him at the idea this might be a kind of revenge Savitar is playing out, but deep down he doesn't believe it is.

He knows it's real because he knows how he feels, how deep his need to be believed runs – one of the few balms for the trauma of his past is Iris accepting him completely as he is. Savitar must feel it too, all the more keenly for his rejection, and as much as it grates on Barry that Savitar has feelings for Caitlin, it's also a relief. An ease to his own guilt that Barry hasn't taken everything away from him if Caitlin might return his affections one day, when Savitar can admit to having any. He's not there yet but there is still hope in Savitar's life, some promise of better to aim for, something enough to hold onto and to keep him in the light.