44
The Truth
STAR Labs was quiet.
Computers beeped. Machines ran by themselves. Everything ran on autopilot, a program set up by Cisco as a fail-safe system. A fail-safe he'd hoped they'd never have to use. All because there was a traitor in their midst, a traitor they hadn't expected to ever see. Eobard disguising himself as Harrison was something none of them had seen coming. Barry had been more than betrayed when the man he'd seen as another father figure in his life had turned out to be the man that had single-handedly destroyed his life.
He'd put his worries aside when Jay Garrick had arrived on their Earth. There were more than a few worries he'd ignored all because Jay seemed that he was on the up and up…and then it turned out he was Zoom. The very man he was trying to defeat, who singlehandedly destroyed his life even further when murdering his father.
And now…Caitlin was Killer Frost. She'd completely managed to bypass the meta dampener that Cisco had created for her, not just to help her but as a thoughtful gift. They'd let her down and now they couldn't be in STAR Labs. Not when she had been too invested in everything they were coming up with to stop Savitar and Breathtaker. She knew so much of what they had done and what they planned to do, there wasn't much progress that could be made in STAR Labs.
It was why they crowded in the darker corner of Jitters, hunched quietly over their drinks and food as they tried to decide what to do.
"Unless Breathtaker gets a hold of Caitlin, we should be fine," Cadence remarked, tapping her fingers on the sides of her mug. "If he does, there's a really good chance he'd enhance her powers even further than they already are." She curled her fingers into her palms. "Just like he did to me."
"Do you think he needs her, though?" Jesse asked. She leaned back in her seat, rubbing her hand along her neck. "He's already got the rest of the Assassination Bureau."
"He doesn't need her, Savitar does," Wally reminded her. He bobbed his head. "Or, Savitar did if you want to be specific. There's only so much information he can get out of her."
"Don't remind us." Cisco took a long sip of his Frappuccino, licking the froth off the tip of his nose. "Do you think it's a bit early to ask these guys if they can make these drinks a little stronger? Or do you think I'd get some of the same judgmental looks I got at Starbucks?"
Iris smiled and shook her head. "Believe me, you wouldn't be the first person who's managed to sneak something into our drinks. And it wasn't the customer that did it. You should've seen what happened when we had a crowd of students from the university right before finals."
Barry, on the other hand, stayed quiet throughout the conversation. He leaned against the table, chin resting in his palm, mind moving a mile a minute. His stomach rolled, upset with the news he still couldn't get over. No matter what they did to try and change the future, Caitlin still turned into Killer Frost. Even though they tried to keep the future of her and Cadence killing each other happening, it was still going to happen.
What did that mean for everything else? That the STAR Labs Museum was going to flop when it opened? That the Music Meister was going to come back and make that six figure book deal? That he had to get used to his life being destroyed by everyone he allowed into it?
"Penny for your thoughts?" Iris asked. She reached out and grasped Barry's hand, shaking it firmly. "Or maybe a whole dollar, you haven't said anything since we got here."
"I don't know what to say," Barry said honestly. "I don't know what to do. It seems like, no matter what we do, everything comes back to haunt me. First Eobard then Jay now Caitlin and Julian."
"I mean, it's not like you were so excited to become friends with Julian," Cisco pointed out. "Not with that attitude he has anyway. I don't know anyone who manages to make even the sun look less happy than that guy."
That was the other problem Barry faced, with Julian not knowing he was Alchemy, it made things even more tense between them at work. They worked on separate cases and when they did have to interact it was only work related. If it were possible, Julian was even more frosty and short-spoken to Barry than he had been before. Not that Barry blamed him, he had accused him of being Alchemy without being able to tell him exactly why he knew it for sure. And he had played on Julian's suspicions of him being The Flash, making him seem like he was crazy when he appeared as both Barry and The Flash.
"Must be a talent," Cadence murmured. She reached up, rubbing her shoulder and back. "Too bad he couldn't have done it enough to Killer Frost to keep her away from Savitar. Just to make things a little easier on us for once."
Barry leveled a worried glance her way. Not just because she, like the others, had lost one of their best friends and was now in even more danger to have the future come true, but because of the implication of it. It was telling, that she'd referred to Caitlin only as Killer Frost. It had to have been hard for her to make the distinction between the two before, even after vowing to kill Killer Frost if she ever came back.
Now, it wasn't just a vow.
Cadence had decreed it with so much seriousness that Barry knew nothing would change her mind. They were rivals now and nothing was going to stop either of them if they saw each other again. When Caitlin turned to Killer Frost, she immediately took hold of Cadence and whisked her away from the rest of Team Flash.
Cadence explained what had happened when Killer Frost left her alive once more. Caitlin slowed to a stop, her ice slide dissipating within seconds when the two were alone. She threw Cadence to the ground, watching with an air of disinterest as she rolled to a stop, wincing in pain at the icicle in her leg. Caitlin tilted her head, bringing her hand up to twirl her hair around her fingers.
Caitlin paused, looked at her finger. Her long brown hair had turned blonde. She pursed her lips, lowered her eyes, straining to see if they'd turned as blue as the polish on her fingers. She grinned. This was going to be more fun than she thought. Caitlin watched Cadence sit up and create a fire aura, the icicle in her leg immediately healing.
Blood dripped to the ground from the open wound. Didn't become enraptured with the flames, didn't bubble and boil, didn't emit any smoke that proved it burning. Caitlin looked back into Cadence's face. "Blood can't burn," she remarked. "So when you're touting off that little spiel, you're just burning your victims from the inside out." She tapped her lips with each word of her next sentence, "Just like you've been."
Cadence chuckled, rising to her feet. She looked Killer Frost in the eye. "I've got more than one trick up my sleeve."
"And you're as much of a liar now as you've always been," Caitlin replied.
She started to pace, her footsteps echoing among the empty area. Cadence watched her closely, her eyes shifting to the concrete that surrounded them. The dilapidated suburb of Central City. The parts that people pretended didn't still exist within a city filled with 14 million people. The area where cost of living became too great and people left in droves. Their remaining houses, office buildings, businesses, and apartments left behind to be taken over by vegetation and tags from the gangs within the city. Even tags that, amongst others, mentioned deaths to metas and all the other messages that continued to grow as the Metahuman Registration Act continued to grow, as more and more metahumans appeared in the city as the days went on.
"What can I say?" Cadence shrugged. "You've got to keep your cards close," she said. She mimicked Caitlin—no, not Caitlin. She had to remind herself of that. It was Killer Frost, blonde hair and all. If she allowed herself to think of her as anything but Killer Frost…she wouldn't be able to finish what had been started. "Know when to hold them and know when to fold them."
"Friends close and enemies closer," Caitlin agreed. The two started to walk in a large circle, keeping a close eye on each other for any quick movements. She flicked her wrist, creating another icicle that she spun between her fingers. "But you were the one who said you wanted to kill me the next time you see me, right?" Her lips curled. "What if I said I wanted the same thing. To kill you?"
Cadence's eyebrow ticked upwards. She continued to pace, the limp in her step slowly receding with every step she took. "You'd have to take a number, I've already got the rest of the Assassination Bureau on my ass, it's only a matter of time until God himself wants to take me down." She shrugged. "If you believe in that, anyway."
"Ii haven't believed in much since my father died," Caitlin said matter-of-fact. "Believing in people and things, it gets to be so…so boring. It's all a show, people are only around to make your life miserable. Life is dark, people die, things end, we all just need to accept it and move on." She leveled her gaze to Cadence. "That's why you decided to kill, right?"
Cadence moved her eyes aside. Not that she was ashamed, she'd spoke enough about her past, laid things out to her friends that she didn't feel much shame for what she had to do anymore. Finally explained to Barry what it was about her past within the Assassination Bureau had followed her for years; how it wasn't them that had made her do her first murder, but they'd harvested it within her. Made it easier for her to kill as she worked with them. Not always for bad reasons; she remembered the ones that had begged her to do it. To give a sense of relief for them.
The others…that hadn't been her doing.
"And why you haven't," Cadence pointed out, the thought suddenly coming to her. "You tout yourself with the name Killer Frost, you throw your icicles around." Fire started to flicker at her fingertips. "There's more than enough people around for you to figure out who you want to kill. And yet you never do it. You didn't even come close to killing me and my friends."
Caitlin stopped pacing and smirked. "Maybe because it's not for me to kill you."
"But Savitar is." Cadence hid her smile, noticing Caitlin falter.
Gotcha.
It wasn't that Cadence thought Caitlin was someone who would immediately turn on them and their friends. It took a while for her to conclude she'd been working with Savitar. A strange thought that'd entered her head, really, the last time Caitlin remarked that she'd lost time. So she watched Caitlin carefully, making it seem like she wasn't—making it seem like she was much too preoccupied with what was going on in her own life to be convincing—to watch for any changes.
Caitlin was quieter about a lot of things, made it so that she continued to sit back and watch what was going on in the field. Didn't do as much to help the others as she had done before. Her insistence to not user her powers was another hint to her. Yes, at the beginning, Caitlin had been terrified of her powers. But with the work she'd been putting into it with Cadence's help and the time that she had willingly fought off Savitar with them, it was enough to make Cadence's radar go off when Caitlin once again started to refuse.
Those weren't the only thing she'd noticed. The averted gazes, wringing of her hands, quieted voice, lowered heads, all were small things that no one else had noticed. It was only a matter of time, Cadence realized, that something was going to happen. Her voice quivered whenever Killer Frost was mentioned, almost as if she were wondering what Killer Frost would do next, breaking into her head within the second she was summoned, so to speak.
Savitar had only been a guess, he had to have someone working for him to know where they were always going to be and to know when to attack them. There were more than enough pieces of evidence to prove it and the brief surprise that shot over Caitlin's face was all she needed.
"Savitar is the one who's supposed to kill us," Cadence continued. She slowly, very slowly walked towards Caitlin, who watched her from her glare. "He wants to kill Barry, to become the fastest speedster. To rule. And the only way he can do that is if we're gone, too. That's why you haven't killed us, haven't killed me yet. Because you're saving us for Savitar."
Caitlin slowly grinned. She folded her arms, shook her head. "You've seen the future, you know what's going to happen. We're supposed to kill each other." She spread her arms. "Why not do it now? Get it over with? The future will be sealed, and the only thing left will be poor Iris West. That's what you want, right? For Barry and Iris to get together like they're supposed to be?" She started back toward Cadence, the two walking toward each other with increasing speed. "That's what the future was supposed to be. Before…certain events were thrown out of whack." She held her hands to the side, icicles forming in her hands. "Let's get this over with." She pointed one towards Cadence's chest. "It was your collarbone that was broken before, right? I wonder how much it'll hurt this time."
"Funny, I was going to ask you the same thing," Cadence replied. She ran forward and teleported behind Caitlin, striking her in the back with her shoulder. Caitlin fell forward, allowing Cadence to teleport once more and lifted her knee, catching her rival in the chest. A low grunt accompanied by a woosh escaped Caitlin's mouth as the wind was knocked out of her. Cadence grabbed Caitlin's arms, forcing them around and behind her back. "Do you want to go into captivity first or answer my questions now."
Caitlin grinned, a wheezing emitting from her mouth as she sucked in short gasps, trying to catch her breath. "You can't do it, can you?" She taunted. "You can't kill me. You care too much about that nerd, Caitlin. You talk a big game but can't walk the walk—" A scream escaped Caitlin's mouth as a burst of flame ripped through her shoulder.
"I've learned a lot of things from Breathtaker that Savitar couldn't even begin to teach you," Cadence said. Caitlin's eyes widened, feeling Cadence continue to hold onto her, with a mirage standing in front of her, holding onto a flame sword. "Now, why don't you tell me what it is that Savitar is up to."
Caitlin grinned. She lifted her feet, lowered them to the ground and threw Cadence over her head. Cadence landed gracefully on her feet and turned back, reaching out her hand and grabbed the icicle that shot toward her face. Caitlin wind milled her arms, throwing icicle after icicle towards Cadence. Cadence projected herself into the air and threw a fire tornado back to her.
With a flick of her wrist, Caitlin threw out a blast of frosty air, knocking it aside. She didn't move fast enough to keep Cadence frocking kicking her across the face. Throwing her enhanced strength into the hit, Caitlin was knocked clear across the ground, knocked out as well. She had more than enough opportunity to do worse than knock her out but figured there was no point. If Caitlin were that weak, to be taken down by one punch, her powers weren't nearly developed enough to be too big a threat.
It was her being Killer Frost entirely that was the problem.
Savitar must've thought the same, the second she knocked her to the ground, a white flash of light whisked her up and raced away. Cadence frowned, watching the spot Caitlin had been only seconds before. Savitar had every mean to take her down, to take her captive if he needed to. But he'd left her alone. Was only interested in Caitlin.
And as far as Cadence was concerned, Caitlin didn't exist anymore. There was only Killer Frost and she wasn't going to let Killer Frost grow into her own potential. Even if that meant having to take her down before she was taken down herself.
"So, what are we going to do?" Iris asked. "We've already abandoned STAR Labs—"
"—Not abandoned," Jesse reminded her. She smiled sheepishly. "HR is still looking after the place."
"Oh right, like that makes me feel better. All my life's work is at his disposal and we all know he's going to mess something up." Cisco scowled into his coffee. "I hope he hasn't gotten into my candy drawer. If I see one single South Patch Kid out of place, I'm going to kill him."
"At least it'll be quieter," Iris murmured.
Barry hardly cracked a smile. "I don't know, there has to be something we can do. Things should be clear at STAR Labs by now. We can check out the Encyclopedia that Caitlin had been working on and see if there's anything she's added that we haven't seen before."
"You think she may have written about herself?" Wally asked.
"It'd make sense," Iris agreed. She, finally, took her hand from Barry's and used it to brush her hair behind her ear. "Caitlin is very scientific. She likes to look at things from a cause and effect point of view. If things were happening to her, she would've written it down. We know she had her powers, but we didn't know that her powers were making her evil."
"If it was her powers making her evil," Cisco interrupted. Barry flickered his gaze toward his best friend. Cisco took Caitlin's change the hardest. When Cadence came back and confirmed that they'd been tricked, that it was only a ploy for Killer Frost to get away, Cisco screamed and ranted and yelled, demanding her to tell him it was a joke. That Caitlin hadn't truly changed.
It wasn't until Cisco had seen her necklace, her broken dampener necklace, lying on the ground, that he knew it to be true. It was one thing to see it before your eyes, anyone could deny something they say, tried their hardest to dispel what their minds couldn't wrap around. What their hearts couldn't take in. But it was true. Caitlin had betrayed them. And while Cisco was slowly coming around to the truth, he still spoke about Caitlin in the present tense and with more fondness than Barry had ever heard in Cisco's voice. More friendly than he'd heard.
Barry's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean, Cisco?"
"The way Caitlin talks about her mom, you'd think that she was the spawn of Satan," Cisco explained. "'But they just don't get along. Dr. Tanhauser is good at what she does and she does have emotions, she just didn't know how to connect with Caitlin."
"I don't understand, what does this have to do with Caitlin?" Jesse asked.
Cisco thought for a moment. He turned a pained gaze to the ceiling, blinking rapidly, as if trying not to cry. "I mean, that's what we knew about her because that's what Caitlin told us about her. What we know about Killer Frost being evil is what we've seen from Earth-2's Killer Frost. Caitlin, our Caitlin, has never killed anyone. And yet, Caitlin was still terrified of becoming her. We think it was Caitlin's powers making her evil…but what if it wasn't?"
Barry sucked in a deep breath. Worried about his next words, knowing it would either hurt Cisco beyond repair of make him indignant. Unable to see what was happening. It's not true, he quickly scolded himself. Caitlin isn't evil. She doesn't have an evil bone in her body.
"What if it's something else?" Cadence murmured, seeming to pick up on Cisco's thought. "We know Caitlin's not evil. And we know it's not your power set that makes you evil, or else Caitlin and I probably would've become a metahuman Thelma and Louise at this point."
"So, the question is, can being evil be learned?" Iris clocked on. "And if so, where did she learn it?"
The answer hit Barry like a ton of bricks. It'd been in front of them the whole time. "From the one person she'd terrified of. Terrified of becoming." Killer Frost. He looked to Team Flash. "We need to talk to Tess."
Central City University, along with Hudson University, was the cornerstone of higher education within Missouri. Not only did it boast a highly regarded reputation within academics, but it's sporting teams proved to be futile as well with numerous teams and clubs receiving the highest honors, trophies, awards, and titles within the years since it's inception.
And it was within that same university that Barry received his degress in Physics and Chemistry as he double majored, working toward his goal of becoming a CSI, so that he could solve his mother's murder. He had never aniticpated being back on campus, if he were being honest, since graudating. He made a vow not to go back unless he found his mother's murderer.
It was one thing to have everyone in Central City know what had happened to his mother and how his father had been falsely accused, but for those who were from all over the country to know? It was hard for him to bear. He'd find a sense of relief when he found someone who didn't look at him with pity when he introduced himself, but when the relief would be yanked from beneath him the next time they met up, no doubt hearing the whispers around he hallway.
He'd received a dorm room to himself freshmen year; a room he was to share with a roommate who pulled out to room with someone else after a month. "We just thought you'd be more comfortable," his RA had said. A nice senior guy who enjoyed Dungeons and Dragons as much as Barry, but who rarely invited him to play wit him and his friends. He was one of the guys who look at Barry with pity.
After freshman yeah, things got easier, but Barry still found himself alone. Even going to university in his own city, he tried his hardest not to call Joe and Iris, did his best not to go visit them on the weekend. Wanted TO stick it out. Sophomore, Junior, and Senior year was much, much easier in terms of making friends. He put himself out there a little bit more, joined clubs and organizations. His papers and projects brought so many accolades to the school that when his name was reported in the paper, mentions of his parents were either kept to the very end or slowly but surely phased out.
Walking across the familiar campus, following Cadence as she led the way to Tess's office was a trip down memory lane. Wally pointed out the different places that he and his friends hung out while he was going to classes, stopping to chat with a few of his friends as he went. Iris would listen eagerly to each of his stories before starting a conversation with Barry, each sentence starting with, "Remember when?"
"Remember when dad and I dropped you off and he started crying the second you turned away?"
"Remember when we came and visited for the first time?"
"Remember when I stayed here for a weekend?"
"Remember when you got threatened to be kicked out?"
"Kicked out?" Cisco repeated, his eyes widening. He turned to Barry, who blushed indignantly. "You?"
Barry shrugged modestly. "I may have set off a few red flags with some of the materials I was requesting for my experiments."
"He nearly had the FBI looking after him," Iris jumped in. She grinned at Barry, who blushed harder. "There's now a list of materials that CCU can't have in their possession without having it cleared by the proper authorities first."
"That was you?" Cadence asked. She looked to her fiancé with a grin. "That explains why I wasn't able to go with my original idea for my finals project."
Barry looked at her in surprise. He'd forgotten she'd mentioned she'd gone to CCU when she graduated. Sometimes he forgot she'd been in Central City almost as long as he had been. It wasn't a surprise they never bumped into each other, Central City was a big place if you weren't trying to be found and at seventeen with a baby, she had been trying to lie low. "I forgot you went here," he admitted.
Cadence shrugged modestly. "I don't talk about it a lot," She said. Not nearly as much as she talked about her time in high school. Worse memories, probably. "How could you remember?"
"I wonder if we ended up having any classes together," Barry mused.
Finally, Cadence smiled over her shoulder at him. "I doubt it. You were a sophomore when I started, and I didn't take any science classes other than my freshmen requirements. Biology, Chemistry…I stacked my freshman year with what was required then stopped after that."
Barry's eyebrows slammed together. "But you were Pre-Med," he pointed out, knowing the track that many students studying to become a doctor followed. His father had explained it numerous times when Barry asked, curious about why his father had wanted to become a doctor. He'd even looked into it himself as a possible career choice when he was still deciding, though knew in his heart of hearts forensics was his go to.
"I was. Like I said, I finished those requirements then majored in Sports Management and minored in Psychology," Cadence explained. She looked at him out the corner of her eye. "Didn't I ever mention that before?"
He couldn't remember if she had. And if she did say it before, only once, he had a good idea why. When she started university was when she first got into the hands of the Assassination Bureau. Knowing what she studied probably made it easier for them to keep their clutches in her. Made it easier for her to weed out and determine their next targets when the time came.
Psychology.
How ironic.
"And your mom is a professor in psychology now?" Jesse asked.
"She is," Cadence agreed. She tilted her head, looking at Jesse closely. "What about your mom?"
Jesse shrugged, shoving her hands into the pockets of her jean jacket. "I don't know," she said, honestly. "I never got to know her and my dad didn't talk about her much at all since she died." An awkward silence stretched between them.
Or else, it felt awkward to Barry. The curse of the doppelgangers struck again; on one Earth, Jesse was alive but had lost her mother. On another, Jesse was dead, but her mother was alive. A chance that neither of them got to know their daughter or mother and still couldn't due to the traveling between Earths and—what Barry really thought Jesse held back—was that Jesse didn't want to get to know Tess if that Tess wasn't her Tess.
Just as the parents on Earth-2 that were still alive weren't his parents, and neither were the ones from Flashpoint, one of the catalysts that made him go back to his real time.
Lifting his chin, Barry continued to look around CCU's sprawling campus, noticing how, technically, it was the epicenter of a lot of things that had gone on in his life. He went to school there, Cadence had gone to school there, Tess was a current professor, Laurel's mother, Dinah, was a professor of Greek and Medieval History there, Simon Stagg graduated from CCU…how many more things could connect them there?
Cadence led the group into the largest building on campus, the Arts and Letters department, she explained, and got them into the elevator that took them up to the top floor. She took them down a few winding hallways before knocking on the doorframe of the last room at the end of the hall, tucked in a corner.
Professor Mina Chaytan.
Professor Marlize DeVoe
Professor Clifford DeVoe.
Finally, Dr. Tess Morgan, read the nameplate.
Tess sat at her desk when they arrived, Barry was slightly surprised to see Harrison there as well. Only slightly. Since Tess had come back into Harrison's life, the two had been inseparable. Though they didn't spend too much time around STAR Labs, it wasn't something that Barry missed. It was something he longed for, a time long gone, when his parents were still alive.
"I was wondering how long it would take for you to get here," Tess remarked, a smile coming to her lips.
"With a couple of speedsters, a teleporter, and a breacher, we thought it'd be much sooner," Harrison agreed, his own smile stretching his face. Barry glanced at him then looked away. How similar the smiles were, and yet one was filled with complete malice while this one was completely innocent.
"We didn't want to bring too much attention to ourselves," Wally suggested, smiling sheepishly.
Tess's smile widened, her eyes flickering over the group. "A group fo young adults who look like the cast of some CW show walking around campus? Right, I don't think you'd bring too much attention to yourselves." She waved her arm, getting up from her seat. "I have a conference room booked out for us, we don't be bothered. I don't have my next class for another few hours."
Even Cadence looked surpised at that, her eyebrows rising. "You got room on such short notice."
"Sweetie, when you mentioned that you might've had a breakthrough on what's been going on with Caitlin, I practically cleared my schedule," Tess explained. She placed her hand on her daughter's shoulder, steering her out of the room and to the coference room a few doors down. Barry had to keep from gasping aloud, along with Jesse and Iris, when they saw the view from the top floor of the building, seeing the sprawling campus.
"I haven't seen this in forever," Barry breathed. He stepped closer to the windows, watched as the students on campus walked back and forth, each living their own lives. Some walked through the grass on the quad, others threw a football back and forth, some people ran, jogging to keep in shape through the warm winter months. For a moment, Barry longed for his collegiate years, where he ws blissfully aware of what his future held, the excitement of it.
Compared to everything they'd been going through as of late, he wished things would slow down. Wished he could stop time and just sit back and watch the flowers bloom. That reminds me, Barry thought. I need to call a florist for the wedding.
"It's a spectacular view, isn't it?" Harrison remarked. He leaned against the closed conference room door, legs crossed and hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans.
"'One of the best," Barry agreed.
"Huh." Cisco grunted. "Not bad, but you should see the view from STAR Labs. You know…" he turned a pointed look to Barry. "If we'd ever get the roof fixed to get up there." Barry glared at him. "Just saying, bro, I like to look at the stars every now and then but I don't like to get rained on."
"Tess, is it alright if I record this conversation?" Iris broke in. She sat at the long, oblong table, taking out a notebook and a tape recorder. "Not only for our own information at STAR Labs but for an article?"
"Go ahead," Tess encouraged. "What with the climate around metahumans continuously fluctuating as the days go on, having a neutral party's opinion will be very helpful."
Barry smiled gratefully at Iris, who nodded back. The more information they got on metahumans, the better off they'd be. Not just because it would help Caitlin if anyone were able to recognize her from her mug shot, but also for metahumans in general. He couldn't miss the Death To Metas flyer as they passed the student center.
"Now, can you explain everything that's happened with Caitlin?" Harrison prompted.
And so Barry, Cadence, Jesse, Wally, and Cisco all took turns explaining everything they'd known about what had happened with Caitlin and her powers since Barry returned from Flashpoint. Even Iris took a few minutes from her note taking to give her two cents. Barry finished the explanation, remarking how he'd come to feel that Caitlin only used her powers for evil because she was afraid she'd turn evil.
"But that'd be crazy, wouldn't it?" Wally asked. "Why would she use her powers to scare someone if she were sacred?"
"No, no, it makes sense," Harrison said. He pushed himself off the door and walked to the whiteboard that sat on wheels across the room. He turned, catching the marker Tess tossed to him before following her husband. The two strode to the whiteboard and started to write.
First Caitlin then Killer Frost with an arrow drawn between them. Then, as the seconds passed, they added little portions form Caitlin's life on Earth-1 on the left side and Killer Frost's of Earth-2 on the right. Two things linked them together, Mind-Meld and Flashpoint.
"From what we already know, the mind-meld makes it so that when you touch your doppelganger from another Earth, you will fall into a state where you experience each other's lives up to that very point of existence. A meeting of the minds as it were, thus why we called it a mind-meld," Harrison explained.
"And during that time, it renders those who are mind-melding in a point of stasis where they are vulnerable to attack," Tess took on the explanation. She motioned to Cadence. "Just like what happened to her when Burnout first received her memories. "Within that moment and to the information that is passed back and forth. Thus making it almost impossible to stop your doppelganger if they were to be evil and try to kill you."
"So…what does that have to do with Caitlin?" Iris asked.
Harrison nodded, tapping her finger to his temple. Beside him, Tess nodded encouragingly. "But what if it goes further on than that? What if there was a point in the mind-meld that makes it so that the meeting of the minds makes it so that the doppelgangers are also taking in each other."
"Literally," Harrison added.
Barry's eyebrows came together. He exchanged a concerned look with Cadence. They'd both spent a lot of time with their doppelgangers while on Earth-2 the year before. That hadn't been changed with Flashpoint, Barry knew all too well. Even within Flashpoint, he'd had moments where what he was experiencing in that moment was like what Earth-2 Barry had experienced with his parents. Sometimes, he wasn't quite sure what was his own memory, if it weren't for Earth-2 Barry's glasses being a major giveaway.
Did that mean he was taking in Earth-2 Barry completely? And what did it mean the other way around? Was that Barry suddenly receiving powers that he thought were simply impossible if not having seen Barry himself exhibit them?
And what does that mean for Cade? Barry added. Does it meant she's only destined to work with the Assassination Bureau?
"There is a case that we study within psychology that questions why there are some people who may be chameleons," Tess remarked. She wrote the word on the board, underneath Flashpoint. "As in, their personalities change around the people they're with. They're more into sports when hanging around jocks but when are with their family they prefer the arts. Not in an obvious way, not as one would do when a teenager and trying to fit in or reject their embarrassing families,"—at that, Cisco grunted and Barry cringed. He definitely remembered telling Joe "it's not a phase" when he became obsessed with Dragon Ball Z at one point, Iris's sudden amused smile proved she felt the same way—"but a subconscious decision. Mirroring." Tess tapped her marker against her cheek. "What if, when Caitlin mind-melded with Killer Frost they took on parts of each other. Caitlin took on Killer Frost's killer ideals, thus making her evil when she uses her powers. To that extent, it'd mean that Killer Frost took on Caitlin's humanity."
Wally raised his hand into the air.
Jesse giggled, shaking her head toward her boyfriend. "This isn't a class, Wally," She reminded him. "You don't have to raise your hand."
"Yeah, right." Wally smiled, embarrassed. Then he addressed Harrison and Tess. "Okay, well, if what you're saying is true, then what about Cadence and Burnout then?" Cadence looked at her mother curiously. "Does that mean that Burnout's becoming nicer while Cadence is destined to become a homicidal maniac?"
"I don't know." Tess smiled at her daughter. "Have you had an murderous urges lately?"
Cadence smiled and shrugged. "Only in rush hour traffic."
"And does that mean that Barry is going to become even more of a dork than he already is?" Wally continued. Barry gave him a look that read "For real?" while Wally smiled and shrugged.
"In theory," Harrison agreed.
Cisco frowned, taking their words in. "That also means…the time she's been losing to Killer Frost…she'd be able to see it, right? We'd know where she was."
"Well." Tess paused. That's only if these Killer Frosts are one and the same but, technically speaking, yes." She looked around the room. "Keep in mind that we're not saying this will happen with every mind-meld; it might not happen to both partners. It might not happen at all. It appears that if one doppelgangers is longing for something the other has, that's when they'll take on a part of the other."
Iris spoke tentatively, "So Caitlin wanted to turn into a killer?"
"No," Cadence realized. "She wanted to control her powers. She wanted control. That's what she's always said. She was afraid to go out into the field because she was afraid she'd lose control of her powers" Her gaze moved to the table top. She looked at it so hard Barry was afraid it'd burst into flames. "And it happened anyway."
"What about Killer Frost then?" Cisco demanded. "From Earth-2, I mean. What did she want from our Caitlin? Not her wardrobe, that's for sure! She put it down every chance she got."
It came to Barry just as quickly as the realization of needing to speak to Tess and Harrison in the firce place. Came so quickly it made his stomach ache with guilt and sadness because he knew, that without it, he would've fallen so far in life. Would've, maybe, ended up as badly as Zoom. They were a lot similar than he'd ever wanted to admit and now…now he knew what Jay, that Jay meant.
"A family," he remarked. "She wanted a family."
The thought swirled through his head when they left Harrison and Tess an hour later, with all the information they'd needed. Team Flash walked quietly, all thinkinga about what they'd been told, what the truth was about their mind-meld. Wondering what it meant for Caitlin as she went rogue. Barry strolled along the sidewalk, kicking dead leaves and twigs out of his way, tightly grasping Cadence's hand in his as they walked in what should've been a peaceful lovers stroll.
Barry looked to Cadence, studied her face. She kept her blue-green eyes angled in front of her, a neutral expression of innocence, but could see in her eyes, the storm brewing within it for what things meant for Caitlin and for themselves as well. If things went badly…if they didn't have a choice…she'd made a promise to Caitlin, one he thought she'd been crazy to do. Now he knew how hard it had to have been to make it.
He needed her to make a promise to him. Something much more meaningful than the one represented by the gleaming ring on her left hand, that Barry gently nudged with his fingertips.
Cadence looked at him carefully, her eyes searching his, studying every plane of his face and understanding the sorrow and confusion that swirled with each blink of his eyes.
"If you have to do it," Barry murmured, words coming out in almost a whisper. Quiet enough for their intimate moment, too powerful to say with stronger conviction. He looked Cadence in the eye. "If you have to kill her…don't do it in front me."
Cadence nodded. "I promise," she whispered back.
Barry nodded. He kissed the side of her head, pulled her closer to him as she wrapped an arm around his waist.
They could pretend, for the time being, that things were normal.
That there was nothing to be scared of.
Except the future.
And it was coming at them head on.
A/N: I hope that the reason why Caitlin turns into Killer Frost made sense, if you're still confused let me know and I'll try to explain it better. We're not up to the big fight between Cadence and Caitlin/Killer Frost yet, but now you can see that Cadence, finally, has moved away from seeing her as Caitlin and is just Killer Frost.
Also, did anyone expect to see DeVoe so soon? ;)
I just hope it was all enjoyable.
Cheers,
-Riley
Review Replies
Ethan: You were exactly right with it being Caitlin's fear, but also slightly wrong with the explanation I've given. Great job, you're on a roll!
DarkHelm145: Sorry, it's not time for them to fight yet. But they've at least honestly declared they're each other's rival now. I remember I got your advice for that portion a while ago and it was that as well as something else I'd thought of combined that came up with the mind-meld reason as to why she's evil. So, thank you!