Chapter 3 :- In the Sunlight I Will Watch Her

"The first time I saw you, my heart fell. The second time I saw you, my heart fell. The third time fourth time fifth time and every time since, my heart has fallen.
I stared at her.
You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. Your hair, your eyes, your lips, your body that you haven't grown into, the way you walk, smile, laugh, the way your cheeks drop when you're mad or upset, the way you drag your feet when you're tired. Every single thing about you is beautiful.
I stared at her.
When I see you the World stops. It stops and all that exists for me is you and my eyes staring at you. There's nothing else. No noise, no other people, no thoughts or worries, no yesterday, no tomorrow. The World just stops and it is a beautiful place and there is only you. Just you, and my eyes staring at you.
I stared.
When you're gone, the World starts again, and I don't like it as much. I can live in it, but I don't like it. I just walk around in it and wait to see you again and wait for it to stop again. I love it when it stops. It's the best fucking thing I've ever known or ever felt, the best thing, and that, beautiful Girl, is why I stare at you."

―James Frey,A Million Little Pieces

Caitlin has always considered herself a creature of habit. From early childhood all the way to adulthood, Caitlin has had structure in her life. Even when Ronnie barreled into her orbit, bringing with him his spontaneity, she had held a certain degree of order and organization when proceeding through day to day life.

So it is not unusual that at precisely seven o'clock Caitlin exits her apartment and locks the door securely behind her. She takes a moment to admire the serenity of the early morning. The city is still calm, just the soothing hum of commuters making their way to work and the sun shines lazily down on Central City bathing the entire place in its pale yellow light.

Caitlin pulls her ice blue coat tighter around her neck. There's a slight chill in the air heralding the arrival of the fall. The fall has always been her favorite time of the year with the changing of the leaves and the bite of the chilly wind. The fall atmosphere solidifies her decision to walk to work today. It's been a while since she embraced the city.

Ever since Ronnie's death, Caitlin had closed herself off to the world. She functioned for the sole purpose of survival and lived her day to day life in monotonous loop of typicality. That period of time just after the particle accelerator exploded was a blank space in her memory. There are vague images that swirl on the edge of her subconscious now and then that she recognizes but for the most part she recalls nothing but the empty feeling in her chest.

Then one day Dr. Wells had roused her from her mourning and brought her back to the labs alongside Cisco. They were the only two left at the S.T.A.R Labs- the only two loyal enough to stay. He brought them back for the sole purpose of helping him take care of a young man who had been struck with lightning the night the particle accelerator had exploded.

At the time Caitlin didn't realize it but that had been her salvation.

As with everything in her life, Caitlin had dived in head first into the task of taking care of the comatose young man. It offered her a distraction from her dark thoughts that plagued her mind in her every spare moment. Caitlin never told anyone but she had contemplated the thought of giving it all up more than she would like to admit. Her life felt so lonely and useless, devoid of all meaning. Her reputation had been dragged through the dirt, her once promising career now non-existent and the icing on the cake, her fiancé dead.

So needless to say that her mind had gone to very dark and disturbing corners the likes of which she could scarcely fathom.

As Caitlin walked along the pavement she inhaled the crisp morning air. She had forgotten how much she loved alfresco walking. So long had she been drowning in her own sorrows that she had lost most of herself. When Ronnie left he had taken a big piece of Caitlin with him - gone their spontaneous date nights and luncheon outings to the park and corner coffee shops. He had taken with him to his death bed the life Caitlin wanted for herself. All that was left of her was a hollowed out depraved shell.

Ronnie's ghost had haunted her for so long, like a spectre trailing behind. His memory haunted her everywhere she went. There was once a time when everything thing about Central City had reminded her of him. The Italian Restaurant on Sixth Street where they had their first date. The bench in the park where they shared their first kiss. The little café just down the road from the lab that they always snuck away to for lunch.

All these little reminders that were just mocking her and throwing it back in her face that she could never go back to these places without the lingering memory of Ronnie in the back of her mind, sneering at her. The pictures of both of them at her apartment seemed to laugh at her whenever she dared look at them.

The very place she worked was the biggest stake in her chest. The sight of it every morning from her car sent palpable waves of anger coursing through her veins. Because here was the place that her Ronnie had sacrificed his life for – and what was it now?

A hollow corpse.

The place now devoid of the buzz of life and innovation that had once encompassed its magnificent structure. S.T.A.R. Labs had lost its soul the night the particle accelerator exploded.

But as she had to come realize one emerald eyed speedster had become her deliverance. Barry Allen had unexpectedly crashed into her life and turned it upside down. From the moment he had woken up from his coma Barry Allen had been rescuing her from her worst enemy, herself.

He had brought back a new life to S.T.A.R Labs, one they did not realize they had lost in the first place. He gave them all purpose once more and a reason to wake up every morning. They found their salvation through him. With every person he saved and every criminal he locked away they got a little piece of their sanity and self- respect back. Because for once there was an actual silver lining in the clouds and something good did indeed rise from the proverbial ashes of the particle accelerator.

The thought of Barry Allen always brought a smile to Caitlin's face. A smile she would plaster on her face as she made her way through the sparsely populated streets of Central City. The cool weather made Caitlin's walk an extra delight. She was so lost in her thoughts that she did not realize that she walk being watched. Ever since she had stepped out of her apartment, a pair of cold blue eyes had been glued to her.

In the early hours of the morning, Leonard Snart had found himself stationed across the street from Caitlin's apartment buildings. His gaze was locked, unwavering on the door brandished with the bronze number 18 on it. He had stared at the door in the pale early morning sun waiting with what could on be described as baited breath for the slightest hint of movement. There was a fire in his gaze, one that could burn down the entire apartment complex. With each second that passed without movement his frustration magnified.

Then the door handle shifted and Leonard felt all the oxygen leave his body because there she was standing across from him. There she was, all flesh, bone and blood. It still astounded Leonard how much the sight of her had an impact on him. He could feel his heart beat quicken and his palms begin to sweat. He was like a hormonal teenager. The sweet irony of it all was that he did not go through this stage when he was an actual teenager.

But the sight of Caitlin bathed in the brilliance of the pallid sunlight, her blue coat hanging loosely around her slim figure is breath taking. It was do different seeing her in the light. Snart could just make out the striking royal blue of her dress beneath his coat. He had always liked the color blue and now seeing it on Caitlin, it had cemented his love for the color. He admired her from afar.

After securely locking her door Caitlin had stood on the little balcony in front of her apartment and stared out at the city line. From the look of serenity on her face Leonard knew she was in quiet contemplation. He took the opportunity to simply observe her and memorize how she looked. The cascading rays of sunlight glowed around her like a halo and shimmered through her auburn curls. Snart yearned to move closer, to get a better unimpeded view of Caitlin as she stood savoring the warmth of the sun but that would be foolish – no matter how much he desired to be in her orbit. He would have to be satisfied with watching her from this distance, for now.

He tracked her progress down the steps with a predator like gaze and watched as she diverted from the path leading to the car park. He was pleasantly surprised to see that she had opted to take a stroll through the city. How ideal for him.

Snart was good at reconnaissance. He had had years of practice. He stayed ten steps behind Caitlin at all time. She was oblivious to his presence behind her. He tracked her every moved with the precision of a well- trained hunter. While walking, Snart lost all sense of time and place. His sole focus was the woman walking in front of him. She now consumed his world. The place had seemed so dull and dismal before he had found her. It was as if her very existence had brought color back to his black and white world. Snart had never found something so worthy of his attention before. Caitlin set the world back into motion for him.

However, his musing was cut short when Caitlin stopped suddenly in front of a warmly lit coffee shop. Caitlin looked up at the coffee shop and then down to the thin silver watch clasped around her dainty wrist. A small smile crept to her face and Snart locked the image away in the back of his mind. He looked up at the sign above Caitlin's head, C.C Jitters. Leonard stored the name away for future use.

He crossed the road and stood opposite the glass front of the coffee shop. He could easily track Caitlin's movement from here. He saw her wait in line and before long she was talking to a dark skinned girl at the counter. They both laughed at something and Leonard longed to be in the same room merely to hear her laughter. Before long Caitlin was handed a large cup of something, by the looks of it, it wasn't coffee. There was a short string hanging off the side of the cup so he guessed it was probably tea. He watched Caitlin walk away from the counter and move to sit at one of the small one person table to the side.

Any other time Leonard would have considered this a rash decision but today he was throwing a little of his caution to the wind. He crossed the street in long measured strides. He paused in front of the coffee shop for a minute before he pushed the door open. As soon as he entered his senses where assaulted by the scent of freshly brewed coffee and warm pastries. The coffee shop was much warmer than the chilly Central City streets. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Caitlin sitting at her table. She had taken out her tablet and was studiously reading something on the screen.

Snart noted that Caitlin had taken off her long coat. The warm draft of the coffee shop did not warrant the use of the coat. Snart was glad she removed it. The large coat had looked baggy on her slim frame. He could now see her blue dress and how it clashed beautifully with her reddish brown hair.

At the counter he ordered a large black coffee from the dark skinned girl Caitlin had spoken too. The girl gave Leonard a warm flirty smile, one which he returned with a lop-sided side ways smirk. He took his coffee and proceeded to sit at table about ten feet away from Caitlin where he had an uninterrupted view of her.

Leonard was discrete with his observing. He took out his phone and proceeded to scroll through his contacts. Every now and then he look up to gaze at Caitlin for a minute before he returned his attention to his phone. Snart learned quite a bit for his silent musing. He soon found out that Caitlin bit her bottom lip when something confused and that she would unconsciously run her finger around the rim of her mug while she read.

He found himself quiet content to simply sit there and stare at Caitlin foe the entire day if he could. But Leonard knew things were never that simple.

By the time Caitlin had finished sipping her tea, she had finished reading her article. Leonard waited until she stood and gathered her coat in her arms before he made any move to get up. He allowed Caitlin to leave before he moved from his table. With one last wave to the girl behind the counter, Caitlin exited Jitters and turned left in the direction of S.T.A.R. Labs.

Snart was about to make his way out when something caught his attention.

"Did you hear about what happened at the train station?"

It was the dark skinned girl who had served him his coffee. She was speaking to her co-worker behind the counter. Intrigued by the conversation, Leonard stopped to listen for a minute. He knew he could easily catch up with Caitlin afterwards.

"They say some crazy guy with some kind of sci-fi ice laser froze the tracks and was threatening to freeze the people on board."

The comment earned an amused chuckle from Leonard. It was so amusing to hear how information got distorted as it was passed from one person to another. Ice laser- what trivial a description of his freeze gun. However, the girl next statement wiped the self-satisfied smirk off Leonard's face immediately.

"I heard that the Streak was there too. He saved everyone from the manic."

"Come on Iris. You can't be serious about this Streak thing. How do you know if the guy's even real?"

The dark skinned girl – whose name Leonard guessed was Iris- seemed to huff indignantly.

"People just refuse to believe to want they can't understand. I'm telling you Candice, he's real. Even my friend Caitlin thinks he's real, and she's a legit scientist."

Leonard felt all the blood in his veins run cold. Caitlin spoke about her affiliation with the Scarlet speedster. Was that what they were laughing about earlier? Was his Caitlin somehow attached to this fool in spandex?

The thought had a blinding rage building up inside Snart. The Scarlet Speedster had already bested him once. He would be damned if he let the fool get the better of him now.

Instead of following Caitlin back to S.T.A.R. Labs Leonard turned right and headed to his safe house. He was going to get rid of this red menace once and for all.