Cisco stopped dead, hand on the doorknob. He hadn't even noticed that the migraine had stopped. He had chalked it up to dehydration and sleep deprivation, but it stopped all on its own. He couldn't claim Caitlin's level of medical expertise, but he was pretty certain that ear-splitting migraines weren't supposed to stop by themselves. When did it stop? More importantly, why? Had it stopped when he put in the noise-canceling headphones? It could have been triggered by sensory overload- no, because even though the barrage of noise and sound on the city streets had exacerbated his headache, it had started when he was alone in his completely silent apartment. Maybe it was a hangover from the cocktail of sedatives and anti-psychotics that Caitlin had administered to him throughout the day- no, the only thing that might still be in his bloodstream was the quetiapine, and he wasn't sure, but he didn't think that anti-psychotic drugs were supposed to cause migraines.
He ran down a mental checklist. Headache- gone. He looked at his hands. Not shaking. He carefully surveyed the dark hallway, as if Reverb might be hiding in the shadows. Hallucinations, also gone. I feel fine.
Cisco jerked the front door open and closed it behind him. He looked down and realized that his hands were pulsating with energy. His powers had just turned on without him even thinking about it. He tensed his hands into claws and closed them into fists, trying to turn the energy off. Barry was right, he needed training if he was ever going to be remotely helpful with his powers. But right now, helping the Flash was the last thing that he cared about. He could still feel his heart racing with adrenaline from apprehending the teenage delinquent, and damn, it felt good. For the first time in what felt like days, he didn't feel like he was out of control.
Except… he was out of control. This was the second time that day that his powers turned on without him consciously thinking about it. He'd had his powers for almost a year now, and he hadn't ever experienced this lack of control until a few days ago, until… Reverb. He had let Reverb into his head, and now he couldn't control himself. But Reverb was gone, and so were the other symptoms he'd been experiencing. If he had been sick, he wasn't now.
He wandered into the kitchen and found his favorite mug- it was black and displayed the structural formula for ethanol underneath the words "Technically alcohol is a solution". He was about to turn on his coffee maker when he remembered it was 8:00 pm. On the other hand, he had taken a three-hour nap and his sleep schedule was already screwed up beyond repair. He was filling up the coffee maker when he remembered Caitlin's lecture about proper hydration. And if I don't she'll stick more needles in me.
The water tasted like plastic, but focusing on something physical helped to slow his heart rate and descramble his mind. He rested his arms on the counter and slumped over it, staring at abstract patterns in the granite. They all looked like wavelengths to him. If he stared at them long enough, they seemed to move and ripple in earthquake patterns.
He felt his hands trembling again with pent-up energy that dared him to use it, to hurt another person. He remembered how that same energy had sent the Black Canary flying across a warehouse, how he'd used it to knock Caitlin to the ground when she was Killer Frost- but those times had been different; they were self-defense. When he'd broken that kid's hand, some sick part of him had enjoyed it. What was worse was that that realization didn't horrify him nearly as much as it should have. Besides, he'd barely even hurt that kid- thief. He was a thief, and also seemed like an asshole, and a broken finger would heal.
But Iris- Cisco felt the breath catch in his throat as he remembered what he'd done to Iris. Is she going to be okay? Is it going to heal? What if I shattered her bones to dust? He felt his face heat up and his head throb again with that freaking migraine. This isn't who I am. I don't hurt people.
He dropped the water bottle on the counter, stumbled into the living room and collapsed onto the couch. He pressed his hands to his temples and inhaled, trying to force his heartbeat to regulate itself. You need to calm the hell down. Freaking out solves zero problems. He closed his eyes and tried to focus on breathing deeply and slowly, but all he could think about was what he'd done to Iris- more painfully, how he'd felt while he was doing it. Shocked, originally, because he hadn't meant to do it. Worried, because he knew Barry would freak. But nowhere in that mess of emotion was remorse. Iris, who was sometimes the only other sane person on Team Flash, who helped Cisco hold the team together when they were all on the verge of falling apart. Iris, who went to see The Force Awakens with him when Caitlin said it was overrated; Iris, who he'd literally fought zombies with. He'd hurt her and he didn't even feel bad about it.
A sharp rap burst into his thoughts and he sprang onto his feet, feeling his pulse accelerate again. When did I get so damn jumpy? It's just the door. He shuffled over to the front door and cracked it open.
"Caitlin," he said, unsurprised to see her on the other side of the door.
"Hey," she said, and smiled. "Can I come in?"
"Uh, sure." He opened the door wider and held it for her. She walked in, heels clicking, and turned to face him. "I, uh, didn't get your text."
She raised an eyebrow. "My text?"
"To say you were coming over." He crossed his arms. "Y'know, common courtesy and all. I always give you a heads-up."
Caitlin rolled her eyes. "That is entirely untrue, but also beside the point. In any case, I think the last three days are more than enough to warrant me checking on you. As a doctor and as your friend." She strode forward and into his kitchen, appraising the bare counters. "Either doing dishes is some kind of therapeutic action for you or you haven't eaten recently." She looked up to him in a silent question.
Cisco scratched the back of his head awkwardly. "I mean, I dunno-" He couldn't remember eating recently, but he had lost a lot of time the last few days. Maybe his brain had been so overloaded what with Reverb and his powers going haywire that it had blocked out the more menial details of the day to save energy. He looked up to answer Caitlin, but she was glaring at his half-full coffee pot.
"Seriously?" she said dryly. "You're experiencing anxiety and sleep deprivation, and your solution is coffee at 8 pm?"
"Chill. I didn't drink any of it." He collapsed on his couch and pressed his hands against the sides of his head again, trying to force the throbbing to subside.
He heard Caitlin's heels clicking against his hardwood floor and she was at his side. "Headache?"
"Not until you showed up," he muttered. "Uh, yeah. It- it goes in and out. I don't know if it's related, or coincidence-"
"It's not a coincidence," she said so firmly and confidently that he raised an eyebrow at her, surprised. "I mean, I'm guessing it's because you've been so sleep-deprived." She handed him a glass of water that she was apparently holding. "Drink."
He lifted the glass to his lips, and the water was so cold that it made his headache throb again. He reached to set it down on the glass table, but Caitlin intercepted, grasping the cup firmly. She held it out to him again. "Cisco."
He glanced at her reproachfully. "I'm not a kid. I can take care of myself."
"That doesn't mean you have to," she said softly, and he felt suddenly guilty for being annoyed with her.
She looked him over and her eyes locked with his. "How are you feeling?"
"I'm okay, Caitlin." He took the cup from her and swallowed a few sips of water to prove his point. "Really."
She tilted her head, her brown eyes thoughtful and probing. "You sure about that?"
She already knew. She could see right through him, and he hated himself a little for being so transparent. He had lied to her so many times over the last few days, and he hated how it made him feel.
He sunk his head into his hands and exhaled- slowly, defeatedly. He heard the dull clunk of Caitlin's shoes against the floor when she stood up, and felt the couch cushions depress beside him as she sat down. There was a long, weighted pause, and he knew she was waiting for him to answer her.
"Is Iris okay?" he asked in a quiet voice.
"Cisco, she isn't mad at you," Caitlin said quickly. "Nobody blames-"
"No, I mean, is she ever going to be able to use her left arm again?" Cisco glanced up at her anxiously. "I mean, I've literally knocked people out with those blasts, metahumans, and that was when I was controlling them. And, well, Iris is human, and I wasn't in control, it was an outburst, and it was all concentrated into one area of her body, and it could have completely shattered-" His voice cracked and he slumped forward, his heart pounding. Ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum. Too fast. Too heavy.
"Breathe," Caitlin said firmly, and placed a hand on his knee, grasping it tightly. Her touch made him feel grounded and calmer. "It was a non-displaced radial fracture. Just a crack," She traced her finger along the side of his wrist, "About there. It should heal in a few weeks."
"Is the team angry?" Cisco asked, and Caitlin bit her lip hesitantly. "Caitlin," he begged.
She exhaled. "Barry's a little angry, and so is Joe. You know how they get when Iris gets hurt." Cisco hadn't even thought about Joe. He had seen Joe's fierce papa bear come out enough times to know that he did not want to be on the wrong side of that. Ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum.
"Wally was at school," Cait was saying, "but I'm sure he's heard by now, and you know how protective he is of her. Iris was a little freaked out, but she's mostly just worried about you, and annoyed that all of the men in her life treat her like she's seven instead of twenty-seven, and H.R. is probably over-dramatizing it in his novel." She laughed lightly, but he knew it was for his benefit. Ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum.
Cisco leaned forward and gripped his knees until his knuckles turned white. Caitlin's smile dampened and she placed a hand on his back. "Listen. It was an accident, and they all understand that. I think if there's any anger, it's just because they're scared."
"They're scared of me?" He laughed harshly. "That's comforting. Thanks for that."
"Poor choice of words, sorry. They're worried." Caitlin's palm pressed gently into his back between his shoulder blades. She moved her hand up and around and down and up in a soothing, circular motion. "Cisco, they're not just our team, they're your friends. You're hurting and they care. I think it's the uncertainty that has everyone a little on edge, but please don't get it into your head that they are in any way against you, because we're all on your side."
He snorted derisively. "Yeah, Barry really stood by me when he cuffed me with my own tech."
"Oh, give me a break." Caitlin abruptly removed her hand from his back, and when the comforting pressure was gone, he felt like he'd had an oxygen tube ripped out of his nose and he couldn't breathe. He tilted his head at her and saw that her jaw was set in a hard line, a stark contrast from the gentle curve of her smile just a few moments ago. Her spine was straight, like a mannequin with its string pulled taut. "You created the cold gun in case Barry became one of the evil metas. We were all suspicious of Harry, and even H.R., because of what Thawne did to us." Cisco felt his hands clench involuntarily when she said Thawne. "When you came back from Earth-2, you were antsy around me for a week because of Killer Frost, and I think half of us have been in the pipeline at some point."
Cisco clenched his hands into fists. "What's your point?" he asked curtly.
"My point is that even though we trust each other, our world is so crazy and extreme and dangerous and we've lost so much that sometimes we have to be on guard. When Barry cuffed you, I don't think he thought that you were going to hurt him. He thought that Reverb was going to hurt him." He looked up at her quickly. Ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum. "As soon as he realized his mistake, he let you go. And I'll remind you that you were hallucinating vividly and you definitely weren't stable, and Barry had no idea whether you were in control or not, but after that initial reaction, he gave you the benefit of the doubt. I think it's time for you to repay the favor."
Cisco's hands gripped his knees again and his gaze dropped to the floor. Caitlin was right. She usually was. And yet… ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum. His heartbeat rang in his ears, as if he'd held a seashell up to his ear. His muscles tensed like stone under his skin.
He could feel Caitlin's watchful gaze, searching his face, penetrating his thoughts. She reached out a hand and pushed his hair behind his ear so that she could see his face. Her fingertips brushed against the top of his ear and he trembled under her touch. She leaned forward so that they were eye to eye. "What are you thinking about?" she murmured.
Cisco stared at the floor. His head felt like it was made of lead- it weighed him down and drooped to the floor and he couldn't bring himself to meet Caitlin's eyes. He heard her voice in his ear, feeling his emotions swell and beat at his ribcage. Voices swamped his brain; they were a tepid, permeating fog. One voice rose above the din, ringing in his ears.
A great and honorable destiny awaits you. I hope that you'll remember who gave you that life.
Was this where Thawne's malevolent promise was realized? Was this how it began? Cisco pushed the thought down, down, down, but it grew in his chest, pressed against his heart and beat against his ribcage. Ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum. This wasn't the first time he'd had this thought, of course, but he'd convinced himself before that he could never be like Thawne. He wasn't sure anymore. You're not him, you could never be, you'll never be him… Was the "him" Reverb or Thawne? Did it matter?
"Cisco!" Caitlin's hands grabbed his, and her freezing touch jolted him back to reality, like he'd been doused with a bucket of ice water. "Stay with me. I'm right here."
I'm right here. Just listen to the sound of my voice. Stay with me.
Cisco squeezed his eyes shut, trying to focus on Caitlin and tether himself to her voice like he'd done in the vortex. But this was the second time that Caitlin had repeated, verbatim, something he'd heard in a Vibe. Thawne's voice cut into his thoughts again, like a hot knife cutting through his skin.
You were able to retain traces of an alternate timeline… you were able to see through the vibrations of the universe.
"Cisco." Caitlin's voice was tight. She was straining to keep the panic out of her voice, but he knew her too well not to hear it. She was grasping his hands so tightly that it hurt, but he didn't move, rendered immobile beneath her touch. "Cisco, I'm the only one here in this room. You are in this universe, in this timeline, with me." It was as if she could read his thoughts. Maybe because she was his thoughts. Maybe she was like Reverb, a manifestation of his- no, that wasn't it, but there was something- something that he was so close to figuring out, but it was just out of his reach, but he could feel it, like an assassin breathing on his neck.
"Cisco, it's like- this is like Sméagol and the ring, right? When he's in the boat with his friend, and he hears the ring whispering to him, telling him to drown his friend and go find the ring… and the voice drags him down underwater, but you don't have to let it." Her grip was really starting to hurt, but the pain made him feel present in his body again. He clung to it. Caitlin was rambling now, her voice accelerating with desperation. "Or- or like the Horcrux locket in The Deathly Hallows. If you wear it alone for too long, it gets in your brain, colors the way you see the world, makes you suspicious and angry, but if you let someone else carry the load for you-"
"So does the ring," Cisco mumbled, and Caitlin's grasp around his fingers relaxed slightly.
"What was that?" she whispered.
Cisco extracted one of his hands from her grip and rubbed the side of his head. "The ring has the same effect as the Horcrux locket. One of the many things that Rowling co-opted from Tolkien. You should have just stuck with the ring analogy."
Caitlin's eyes filled with relief, and it flooded across her face in the form of the color returning to her pale cheeks. "I have to admit, I've never actually read Lord of the Rings," she said, and smiled tentatively. "And the only time I've watched the movies is with you."
He sat up straight with mock indignance. "Girl, get out of here." She laughed and he cracked a weak smile. He pressed his free hand against his chest to feel his heartbeat. Slower, calmer. Thawne's voice was gone. Two minutes ago that would have come as a relief, but he had been on the verge of solving something. Now it was gone and it was killing him.
He turned his body slightly so that he was facing Caitlin. "How did you know to say that?" He asked.
She tilted her head to the side. "Because you're a giant nerd and I can always get through to you with fictional analogies?"
"No, not that." He pulled on his right hand, which Caitlin was still clutching with a death grip. She glanced down distractedly, as if she'd forgotten she had been holding it, and released him. He stretched his arm behind his head, feeling the warm stretch in his shoulder muscles. He dropped his arm back down to his lap and clasped his hands together pensively. "What you said about the universe, and the timeline."
"That was just off the cuff, I guess," she said brightly, and stood up. "Hey, listen, I need to- I forgot something at the lab. Are you going to be okay by yourself, or do you want to come with?"
Cisco stood up, following her every motion with his eyes in an attempt to analyze her body language. The way her eyes avoided his when she said "off the cuff". How she tensed her shoulders when she said "at the lab". The way she'd tripped over her words from "I need to" to "I forgot something"- like she was improvising an excuse.
She always has an agenda, Reverb whispered in his head.
He locked his eyes with hers to see how she would react. At first, her gaze darted to the left, but then her eyes snapped back like a rubber band, staring him down. Defiantly?
"Caitlin, what aren't you telling me?" He asked slowly.
"Nothing, Cisco," she said calmly. "I was researching Alchemy before I came here; I wanted to see if I could dig up anything on one of his followers that would help us. I left my laptop at work on accident." He narrowed his eyes, trying to see through her pretenses, but Caitlin was much better at guarding herself than he was. Or she really was telling the truth, and the paranoid part of him- the part that had decided his sociopathic, guyliner-wearing doppelganger was an awesome way to manifest his subconscious thoughts -was making him second-guess her. That was wrong. If he wanted to fight back against Reverb, he had to show a little faith in the people around him. That was one of the defining differences between him and Reverb- Cisco was a pack animal and Reverb was a lone wolf. More like a hyena. Stalking, pacing, laughing… Forget Reverb. His biological infrastructure was shaken up by the dark matter, and the only way he could reorganize it was by focusing on the things that made him Cisco and kept him from being Reverb.
Caitlin was still gazing at him, her expression unreadable. "Okay," Cisco said finally. "Yeah, I'll be fine."
"Okay." Caitlin grabbed her coat off of the coffee table and strode back over to his front door. She glanced back over her shoulder at him, her face laced with concern again. "I'll be back soon."
He joined her at the door and opened it for her. "You don't have to come back over. Go home, get some rest."
She ignored him. "I'll be fast." She ducked through the door and Cisco pushed it closed behind her.
Caitlin made good on her promise. She was back in forty-five minutes, which was beyond impressive, because when he heard her high heels click through his front door again, she was hefting a brown paper takeout bag along with the black leather briefcase that she kept her laptop in.
"What's this?" He asked, maneuvering the bag into his arms and peeking in the top suspiciously.
"I got us Chinese because I've been working all evening, and you haven't eaten in three days and everything in your fridge is either expired or processed and full of preservatives," she said matter-of-factly, setting her briefcase down on the counter with a dull thump.
Cisco raised an eyebrow at her. "Says the pizza pocket aficionado."
Caitlin mumbled something about how they were convenient and busied herself with unloading the contents of the bag. Cisco leaned against the counter, watching her.
After a few moments accompanied only by the rustling of the paper bag and the squeak of the waxy paper boxes as Caitlin handled them, he said, "You don't have to do this, you know."
She paused and turned her head to look at him. "What do you mean?"
"You don't have to take care of me like this. I mean, it's nice, I really appreciate it, thank you. But you don't need to-"
"Don't be stupid," she interrupted. She paused to fiddle with the lid of one of the boxes. She pulled the flap loose and the air filled with the aroma of chicken and rice. She looked up at him fervently. "Cisco, I can't think of a single occasion over the last four years when I needed you and you didn't drop everything to be there." She ripped off the paper covering of the chopsticks and seized a piece of chicken. She lifted it to her mouth, chewing thoughtfully. "It's funny, usually I'm the one resisting support. You don't usually have a problem with being taken care of." She tilted her head at him, her expression softening. "So what gives?"
He shrugged. "I dunno."
"That's not an answer." She pushed one of the takeout boxes at him. "Eat."
He opened the takeout box and unwrapped a pair of chopsticks. He stirred the contents of the box idly as Caitlin efficiently speared chunks of chicken and rice. The fluorescent lights in his kitchen flickered slightly above them, and the faint sound of horns honking on the street beneath them filled the silence. He knew Caitlin was waiting for him to say something, but he didn't know what to say.
"Cait-" He began, and broke off. She raised her eyebrows and nodded slightly, encouraging him to continue. He took a short, sharp inhale and forced himself to maintain eye contact. "When I broke Iris's wrist- I think I enjoyed it."
The muscles in her face twitched, but her expression remained neutral. "What do you mean?" she asked calmly.
"I don't know," he said again, frustrated. "I mean, it's not that I enjoying hurting Iris, I felt bad, I was freaked out, I was worried Joe was gonna shoot me when I got back-" Caitlin snorted with laughter and he raised his eyebrows. "That's funny?"
Her face sobered and she shook her head. "No, sorry. Go on."
He rolled his fingers over the chopsticks, trying to regain his train of thought. "It was weird. It was like, I got this weird adrenaline trip from hurting her. Not hurting her, specifically, but, like, it was the physical action or something-" Caitlin's forehead was creased with something in between intrigue and worry. "I sound like a psycho, don't I?"
"No, not at all," she said hastily, and set her takeout box down on the counter. "Do you think it could be because you use your powers so infrequently? Maybe activating them releases some kind of endorphin rush, but you're just not used to it because you don't use them enough."
"I thought you said there was more to this than lack of use." Cisco leaned against the counter.
Caitlin waved a chopstick in the air dismissively. "I said maybe. But even if there is, this is a part of your physiology that you've suppressed for a while, and that was dormant for even longer than that. It's like trying to run on an atrophied muscle- it hurts like hell and it doesn't work."
"What are you saying?" He leaned forward, watching her intently.
She shrugged. "That not everything is a sign that you're going to turn into an evil supervillain. Maybe you need to start giving yourself the benefit of the doubt, too. You know what kind of person you are, I do, we all do, and you're a good person, Cisco. I think it'd take more than a few vivid delusions to change that."
How can you say that? He couldn't exactly blame her, since she didn't have the full story. She still didn't know about the beetle or the teenage thief, but he had no intention of telling her. "You don't know that," he argued.
"You're right, I don't," she said quietly. "But we write our own stories, remember? You literally had a Vibe of me, fighting you as Killer Frost, and I was so sure that I was going to become her, but I didn't." She twisted a strand of her soft brown hair around her finger. "I still worry about it, of course. But I have faith, in myself and in my friends to help me through it. Something that you were very good at until a few days ago."
Cisco stared at the chopsticks in his hand, twisting it absently. Should I tell her about the vibe of our fight? Should I tell her that I went to the future? He shook his head to clear it, an action that did not go unnoticed by Caitlin.
"You know that song in Hamilton?" she said out of nowhere. "What was it called… the one that Aaron Burr sings after Hamilton gets married." Her tone was too conversational, like she was trying to ease his mind by babbling. "The one that you think is going to be a sob story to justify him sleeping with a married woman and killing Hamilton, but instead turns out to be a surprisingly nuanced and complex-"
"You mean 'Wait For It'?" he inserted, cutting across her banter.
She nodded. "That's the one. Remember, near the end of the song, he says, 'I am the one thing in life I can control.'" She paused, raking her chopsticks through the rice pensively. "I had that line in my head the other day, and I just thought, maybe we should start thinking more like that. It feels like there's always something bigger than us and stronger than us- Zoom, Alchemy, the speed force even- and every single day it gets more complicated, what with foreknowledge and all-"
You really have no idea, Cisco thought dryly.
"-and every day, we learn something new that makes the universe seem even more vast and scary than before," Caitlin was saying. "It feels like we're pawns sometimes, like we might inevitably become-" Her breath caught in her throat. "You know," she said quietly, glancing down at the inhibitors on her wrists. "But that doesn't mean we should give in. At the end of the day, the only thing that we have complete and total control over is ourselves."
He cocked his head quizzically. "When did you become cultured enough that you started making surprisingly relevant Hamilton references?"
"How could I not? You've played the soundtrack at work, like, fifty times."
More than that, Cisco was sure. Caitlin was watching him again.
"You okay?" she asked.
He nodded. "Yeah. Just exhausted."
"I don't blame you." She tapped the side of the takeout box he was holding. "You can sleep after you eat half of that."
"Cait," he groaned, but she was insistent, and after a few minutes of her harassing him, he started eating the stupid rice and chicken just to get her off of his back, and he realized how hungry he actually was. Also, it was really freaking good Chinese. He ended up eating the whole serving, much to Caitlin's smug triumph. He told her he was going to take a shower, so he left her in the kitchen and went back into his bedroom. He entered the bathroom and closed the door, finding himself face-to-face with his own reflection. Haggard, pale, and unshaven for who-knew-how-long. He stared into the eyes of the reflection, as if he could see into his own eyes and figure out what he was thinking. He had been so close earlier, but it was hanging just out of his reach.
He switched the bathroom fan on so that Caitlin couldn't hear him. He took a deep breath, summoning all of his courage, and whispered, "Reverb."
He waited a few moments, expecting the gloating voice to respond to him, but the only sound was the whirring of the bathroom fan. "Reverb," he said, louder. Nothing. Dammit.
After a few more unsuccessful tries, he took a shower- all cold water, it made him feel awake and present in his own body -and by the time he had dressed, the whir of the bathroom fan was grating in his head, so he switched it off. He was toweling off his hair when he heard Caitlin's voice drifting in from the living room.
"-yes, of course," she was saying. "I'll send you the results as soon as the tests are finished, but it'll be a few hours still. I barely got away long enough to start them earlier."
Cisco cracked the bathroom door open and moved quietly into his bedroom so that he could hear her better. He stood just inside of the door, listening intently.
"No, of course I don't," she said angrily. "Besides, I don't remember asking your opinion. I called you because I'm stuck, and you're the best scientist I know." She paused. "And… Cisco needs to see you. He misses you." Cisco raised an eyebrow. Definitely talking about him, then. "He needs you to talk some sense into him. He's letting all of this get to him and he's only a beard away from out-Oliver-Queen-ing Oliver Queen." Cisco winced. That was… slightly hurtful.
"I told you, there's no way that it's just psychosomatic," Caitlin was saying. "I thought that at first, too, but I gave him fifty milligrams of quetiapine and he was still-" She broke off, as if whoever she was talking to had interrupted her. Cisco made a mental note to look up what the safe dosage for quetiapine was. "No, I didn't do an EEG. No, I didn't do a PET scan either, because I didn't want to make him hyper-focus. He already thinks something is really wrong, and I didn't want to affirm his anxieties and make it worse." Another pause, and Cisco felt his chest constrict. Caitlin did think something was wrong, despite her telling him not to worry.
"Yeah, well, there's a reason you're a scientist and not a therapist," Caitlin said dryly. "Emotions never were your forte. Despite your PhD in psychology and six other areas."
Was she talking to…? No. That's not even possible. Cisco inclined his head slightly so that he could hear better.
Caitlin fell silent, and the pause was much longer this time. When she spoke, all she said was, "Okay, I'll call you back when he falls asleep." Cisco felt his muscles seize up involuntarily. Caitlin sighed and then said, "Yeah, I know. Thanks, Harry."