Somehow, over the next week, Caitlin was able to avoid being alone with Barry. Between the regular bad guys and researching her new altered powers, there wasn't much down time. It helped that Caitlin no longer went out into the field, or needed to be ready at a moments notice. This allowed her to really focus on her research, picking up the threads of where she left off several years ago, thanks to Killer Frost first showing up and taking over her life. They had decided early on to research any and every meta power they came across, looking to see if it could be applied in the fields of science and medicine. Some have been beneficial, while others have not. It felt good for Caitlin to be back at work, doing what she really loved. Science.
"You skipped lunch again, didn't you?" Frost asked around mid afternoon, having come back from patrolling with the others. In her hand was a bag of Big Belly Burger.
"Sorry Frost, I lost track of time." Caitlin pulled back from her microscope and moved to her desk in the corner to eat. "I've just been engrossed in my work that I didn't even realize what time it was."
"At least you were able to get something done. Flash has been bugging me all day about you." Frost crossed her arms and grumbled. "I nearly shoved an icicle through his calf again to get him to shut up."
"Jeeze." Caitlin winced. "I've always known he could be single minded when it came to something, I just never expected to be on the receiving end of it."
"Well, to save my sanity and his life, I'm headed home before he gets back, otherwise I can't promise I won't hurt him." Frost rolled her eyes and turned to leave the lab.
"There's a roast in the slow cooker for supper. It should be ready in a few more hours if you don't want to get back out." Caitlin called with a smile.
"Thanks babe." Frost blew her a kiss. "See you at home Caity."
Silence fell over the lab once again as Caitlin ate in silence, shaking her head at the craziness that was her life. She was rooming with her anti-hero, split personality doppelganger who, thanks to science, had her own body. To top it all off, she had the same powers as Frost, just to a lesser degree. Then, apparently, the man she's been secretly in love with has feelings for her in return, even though he's married to another woman. Not to mention that his daughter from the future is in this time as well. Talk about messed up.
There was a light knock on the doorframe, making Caitlin look up. Barry stood in the doorway, dressed in civilian clothes. He looked almost shy, like the boy she used to know before he got jaded by years of fighting evil. It made Caitlin almost smile at seeing that old look on his face. Almost. Even though she was in love with him, it didn't mean that she was going to let him throw away his life with his wife and daughter without a fight.
"You need something Barry?" Caitlin asked. She stood and moved back to her microscope, fiddling with a few of the knobs, bringing the material on the slide into focus on the screen in front of her.
"I just wanted to see you. To see how you are doing after the split and being back at S.T.A.R. Labs." His voice was hesitant as he stepped over the threshold, looking at the images on the screen with interest.
"I'm doing good." Caitlin spared a glance at him before looking down at the tablet in her hand, reading off the numbers running across the screen. "My cells have re-stabilized after the split with a 68% cryogenic ratio. I have cold powers, but they aren't as strong as Frost's. Our genetic markers that my dad engineered have remained unchanged, so neither one of us will be susceptible to ALS in the future. Neurological testing shows that there is only a residual connection left between us, and over time that will fade away, leaving us within our own two minds. The split was successful on every level we could have hoped for."
Beside her Barry let out a low whistle, shrugging his shoulders, settling down on a stool nearby. With a slight smile he said,
"I haven't seen you that deep into your work in some time. Does it feel good to be just Caitlin Snow again?"
"I'll never be just anything Barry." Caitlin shook her head at the meta, not quite frown on her face. "These last few years have changed me in ways I never expected when we started this journey. I'm stronger and more resilient than I ever thought possible. Nothing stays the same, not even people."
"That is true, but is there any chance my Doctor Snow is still in there under the weight of all those years?" Barry asked, voice and tone wistful. Caitlin smiled slightly.
"Is the Barry Allen I knew still in there, or has responsibility buried him?"
They both laughed gently, feeling the years seem to fall away. It was like they were back to when they first started Team Flash, before they began down the dark rabbit hole of Thawne and everyone that followed. It warmed Caitlin's heart, yet at the same time she knew that it was just a moment, that in the end reality would come knocking and they would just be ships passing in the night like they have always been. She sighed softly.
"Why are you really here Barry?" Caitlin asked, finally cutting though the warm fuzzies. "Why aren't you with your family?"
"Who is to say you aren't my family Cait?" Barry responded, smile falling from his handsome face. Tone turning serious.
"You and I both know that I'm not." Caitlin, ever the pragmatist, shook her head. "Iris and Nora are your family. Your destiny. Just because there is one timeline out of countless others where you are with me and happy, does not mean that this is that timeline."
"How are we to know that Iris is my destiny?" Barry leaned forward, eyes flashing lightning in the bright light of the lab. "Just because there is a newspaper article from the future that has Iris West-Allen on it doesn't mean that the future is written in stone. You know how one simple decision can change the future."
"While that is true, Iris is your wife. Nora is your daughter. In this timeline, you and I don't get to have our happy ending." Caitlin sighed. "My lot in this timeline is to be alone. Cold as ice."
"No, I refuse to let you believe that." Barry stood and knelt in front of her, hands warm on her dress pant covered knees. "I am the one who decides who I love and want to spend my life with. Yes, at one time I thought that it would be Iris, but now I know better. YOU are the one I want to grow old with. You, Caitlin Snow, are the one who makes me happy."
"You can't mean that Barry." Caitlin felt tears well in her eyes again.
"Yes, I can." Barry insisted. "For several months now, even all the way back to when you and Cisco pulled me out of the Speed Force, I've felt that things have been off between me and Iris. I wanted to just chalk it up to the stress of stopping DeVoe and then Cicada, but there was more to it than that."
"What do you mean?"
"My time in the Speed Force showed me everything. It has just taken time for my brain to process everything that I saw once I was back in the real world. Past, present, future. Every variation of every timeline there ever will be, and in many of them, there was no Iris West-Allen. In may of them, there was no Iris West. In nearly all of them though, there was a Caitlin Snow. Even if you never worked with me, there was a version on you out there.
"Originally I was so caught up in being married to Iris that I didn't stop to realize how little she meant to me after I came back. I was going through the motions trying to save something that wasn't even there any more. Cisco told me about how she didn't want you to try and rescue me. About how she forced all of Team Flash to move on. Would a wife really give up that easy?"
There was pain in Barry's voice as he spoke, revealing his heart to his doctor. Caitlin wanted nothing more than to wrap him up in her arms and make everything better, but until he was a free man, she would have to bide her time.
"Barry, you have to let Iris know this. You have to tell her what you feel and what you went through in the Speed Force. Have you even told her anything about it?"
"No." Barry shook his head. "Every time I try to bring it up, she changes the subject. Now with Nora here, Iris has a second person to help deflect and keep me from talking about my time there."
"I would have thought Nora would be dying to know anything about the Speed Force." Caitlin wondered.
"She may, in time." Barry shook his head. "Right now, she's still trying to get over the thrall Thawne had on her. You know how persuasive he could be."
"I will give him that, he was charismatic." Caitlin scoffed. "Able to fool us all into thinking he was Wells and actually cared about all of us in his own way."
A sudden thought came to Caitlin, and she knew that it could be helpful in the future, and possibly the past.
"When you tell Nora about the Speed Force, do it in the Time Vault. Have Gideon record it; she already knows all of our secrets anyways. Archive the conversation. There may be things that you mention to her or that she asks about that we may be able to use in the future."
"I'll see if Gideon already has something similar on file." Barry nodded. "After all, she exists outside space and time. There may already be records of our conversation, tools Thawne used in learning how to use his powers."
Barry popped up, and dropped a kiss on the top of Caitlin's head.
"Thanks Cait. I'll see you later." Then he was gone in a flash, leaving ozone in his wake. Glad that she could have helped in some small way, Caitlin turned back to her research, focusing on things other than her potential relationship with Barry Allen.
Surprisingly, Iris didn't make a huge fuss when she returned to the Cortex the next day. Caitlin didn't go out of her way to greet the other woman. She kept busy with her research while the rest of the team gathered, going over the plan for the day. It was the usual, split Central City up onto quadrants, and each meta was given a section to patrol. With her lab just off to the side of the Cortex, Caitlin was able to hear any conversations had in the other room, so to drown out their distracting voices, she had music playing softly in her lab. That was why she didn't hear Iris until it was too late.
"He's going to pick you, you know." Iris stepped up to the end of the table Caitlin was working on, arms crossed, frown on her face. Her eyes were red, and her appearance was a little less put together than normal.
"I'm sorry Iris." Caitlin was genuinely remorseful. "I've told him that he needs to be with you and Nora, not me. I don't want him to give up on you. In the end though, it's his choice, not mine."
"Noble of you, but how can I trust you?" Iris said emotionlessly.
"Why wouldn't you?" Caitlin was taken aback by the way Iris seemed to spit poison without thought or emotion.
"You've always wanted Barry; you said it yourself."
"Yes, but has there been a single time I've ever actively gone after him? No. I respect him and you more than that. I am not a homewrecker, and I never will be." Caitlin said firmly, standing to face the other woman. She had finally had enough of the other woman's bitterness.
"I don't appreciate being disparaged for something that I haven't even done. You have been a respected colleague on this team, and I have tried every effort to be civil to you, but I have to put my foot down Iris. Please leave my lab, and don't come back unless it's for something related to a meta we are trying to capture."
The dark skinned woman stared at her for several long moments, and on instinct Caitlin called up her cold powers, fists clenched at her sides. She didn't want to hurt Iris, but if she needed to get forceful, she would. Suddenly Iris turned, pouting as she stomped out of the lab and back to the center console of the Cortex. Caitlin let out a breath and released her grip on her powers, dissipating the cold with ease.
Killer Frost walked in just as the last of the ice faded away, turning to look over her shoulder at Iris. She rolled her electric blue eyes before reaching over and closing the sliding glass door to the lab. Iris studiously ignored them, plopping her laptop on the console in a way that would have made Cisco wince.
"What crawled up her ass?"
"The fact that she wants to blame me for Barry beginning to fall out of love with her. I haven't encouraged him in any way, yet she wants to pin all the blame on me. She fails to realize that she could be part of the problem. Or that there is no real cause other than Barry's time in the Speed Force."
"Let's chalk it up to both things. Iris has always been a pushy, narcissistic chick, who knows nothing of what really goes on here. Being in the Speed Force simply removed the blinders that Barry had on before." Frost shrugged, arms crossed on her chest.
"Do you have an idea of when she'll meet the person that she ends up falling in love with in this timeline?" Caitlin asked. "No details, I just want to know that she will eventually move on and be happy."
"Jeeze, you are such a bleeding heart Caity." Frost rolled her eyes again and huffed out a sigh. "Yes, I do. She's already met him, and part of why she's becoming a royal pain in the ass is because she's already begun to develop feelings for this person. She's feeling guilt right now, and that's feeding her anger. Don't worry though; once things are finalized with her and Barry, she'll move on. He has no connection to S.T.A.R., so once she leaves, we won't see her ever again."
"Really?" Caitlin tried to hide her joy, but the smirk on Frosts face made her realize she didn't hide it as well as she thought. Caitlin felt her face flaming, and proceeded to stick her tongue out at Frost. The other woman in turn laughed, shaking her head.
"Feel better now?" Frost's voice sounded down right evil when she smirked like she was. Caitlin glanced at Iris and felt her grin become even wider. The other woman was trying to inconspicuously shoot daggers at the two cold metas while trying to do her work.
"Yeah, now that Iris is trying the 'I'm gonna kill you with laser eyes' thing that she's doing right now."
The two doppelgangers laughed and decided they were through with the other woman for the day. Together they got back to the business of unlocking their genetic code.