A/N: So I finally have finished the story!

If you want an epilogue, sequel, or continuation, just leave a review.

Um, I think this is the longest chapter I've ever had the pleasure of writing.

So yeah. If nobody wants anything, I'll just leave it as it is.

If not, expect something! Or not. You never know.

"Ohmygosh, hi!" Felicity says, pulling me into a hug.

"Um, hi. Come in." I awkwardly step out of the doorway, becoming one with the wall so the broad-shouldered men could get into my apartment.

I shut the door behind them and Barry says, "Oh. Um, hey guys."

I offer them seats and food, but they stand, saying they 'weren't staying long', and 'Roy wants to visit the cupcake place on Fifth'.

I try hinting with my eyebrows at Barry's attire, and he says, "One sec," before flashing out the room, to the obvious freaking out of Mr Diggle. He returns a second later, dressed in his usual clothes, and I excuse myself to go dress, and later I could've sworn that Mr Diggle was watching me expectantly, like I had grown Barry-like powers by being in his proximity for a prolonged period of time.

I hurried my dressing, accidently putting my dress on back-to-front. It's a navy blue one that hugs places, but it seems semi-formal. Of course, I'll change before attending the party, but I felt a bit awkward. Scratch that, very awkward.

Had Diggle ever seen Felicity in her pyjamas? -I had no idea.

I come back after applying lip gloss and brushing my hair to a presentable level, but I hang in the doorway.

Barry's recounting a tale of some funny meta-human-chase-thing he had gone on. I look at him, and a knife feels like it's being twisted in my chest.

I need to grasp the fact that I can't have him, that it's always going to be some other girl he wants. I'm just a friend.

But at the same time, I can't.

I want to run into his arms and have him tell me it's okay, he wants me and no one else.

But that's just a fantasy. Add it to the pile of happy endings I want and never get.

"Cait?" Barry asks.

I snap out of it. "Yes? Sorry, I was just occupied."

"We can see that. Now, please do tell the kindly gentleman and gentlewoman, and yes, that is a thing and you may not convince me otherwise, about how I dealt with the mugger."

I smile. "Which- Oh, that one. Yeah, he basically had a heart attack, like when you don't study for a test and get a near-perfect score. He couldn't believe he was being mugged, and he told the guy, and I quote 'that he Michael Phelp'd in the Olympics of bad luck'."

"Well, when you put it like that," he says, and puts his arm around my shoulders.

My heart still flutters, but I feel the presence of his other hand snaking toward my hip.

"Don't you dare, Barry Allen. For one thing, I am not ticklish, and for another, I have game too."

"Dang it," He mutters quietly, but he slips both arms in front of me, holding me from behind.

Felicity gives Oliver a look, which I don't think Barry quite catches.

"So, do you guys want to head off to- oh wait, the stores are shut." I say, breaking the homely silence filling the air.

"There's always that Chinese place downtown. Remember? The one Cisco made you try? And you spilled soy sauce all over his pants?"

I giggle. "In that case, I say 'Let's go' and 'everyone wear napkins in their laps lest the Soy-Sauce-Spiller srikes again'."

"Soy-Sauce-Spiller? Really?"

"I came up with it on the fly. I think it deserves some credit."

"Stop being so darn cute and get food already," Roy grumbles. Barry's mood shifts, and I can feel it.

"I have a boyfriend. I'm a no-go."

I cuddle into Barry's side.

"Oh-kay." Felicity exhales. "Let's go."

Everybody nods agreement, and we all leave.

I stop for a moment, pulling Barry aside.

"You have nothing to worry about," I tell him.

"I- I'm not worried..." Barry says.

I lean in. "Sometimes, you're an even worse liar than I am."

"Yeah right."

"Bring it on."

"1...2...3..."

I stare at him and he stares at me.

"Don't you dare use your superspeed to blink."

"But how would you know if I did?"

"From the guilty expression on your- oh man I just blinked." I pout.

Barry says, "Is there any game you win at?"

"Let's find out." I can feel the determination emanating from me.

Felicity peeks her head back into the door and clears her throat, sending me like a mile back from Barry.

"Maybe text us the address before you indulge in a make-out session?"

"Uh..."

Barry interrupts my awkward stuttering.

"Give me a second, and we'll be in the car in front of your van."

"I don't doubt it," Felcity starts, but in the next second I'm in the passenger side of the car and Barry's checking his rearview mirror.

My seatbelt is on.

Aww...

It actually only makes the heartache worse.

I close my eyes and lean my head back for a second, stoppping my train of thought.

"You okay?" Barry asks from my side as he turns on the ignition.

"Yeah," I smile, lying through my teeth, being very careful not to bite my lip.

I know its my tell.

His eyes linger on my lips for a second, and apparently satisfied that I am telling the truth, looks up at the road.

I cheer up a bit for no reason whatsoever, my seemingly endless moment of desperation over.

For now, at least.

-A bit and a half later, Chinese food place, Downtown Central City-

"I'm honestly stuffed," Felicity says, reclining and throwing her napkin into her now-empty soup bowl.

I couldn't help but nod in agreement, but the men made little noises of something vaguely whiny.

"You have 5 minutes, Barry," I tell him. "Or I'm leaving without you."

"You wouldn't dare," he replies, his mouth half-stuffed with dumplings.

"Oh, I would, and you know it."

His eating tempo increases somewhat.

"Come on, let's go," I tell him, five minutes later. "Is it cool with you guys if we leave?" I direct the question to Team Arrow, who all nod.

I get up. "Barry, you have five seconds. 5, 4, 3, 2..."

A whoosh sounds as air is displaced, sending napkins fluttering off the table like unmanned parachutes.

"One," Barry finishes from behind me. I whirl around.

Roy is giggling.

"So cool." At my look, he amends his sentence.

"No. So not cool."

Barry's look is enough to make him pause in shoveling down his spring roll.

I nod towards the door.

"Lets pay and go home."

"Kay, he grins at me, sending butterflies running a marathon through my stomach.

We drive back to my place in relative silence.

I drive this time, and he keeps tapping the sidebar with a rhythm that I don't know.

We pull up at my apartment complex.

"I'll get changed and you can go flash and come back. Don't forget to come through the window, or Iris will see you, and Eddie will shoot you. I'm not pulling out any bullets today."

"Yes, ma'am." His face is playfully serious and it's endearing.

And cute.

Definitely, majorly cute.

So I walk upstairs, mentally running through my closet in my head until I come to the perfect outfit.

Not saying I was a girly-girl type who always obsessed over fashion, but come on, I'm in love!

Ten minutes later, I'm all dressed and finishing the final touches of the light make-up I'm wearing to the party.

There's a knock at my door, and I pad my way down the hall, affixing my earrings to my ears.

I open the door and Barry's there.

He's dressed up a smidge nicer than usual, my mind notices.

"Ready to go?" He asks, holding out his arms.

"Let me go grab my purse," I smile at him.

I do so, chucking some money and my phone in a fancy gold one I've barely used. I grab the cheesecake from it's place on the table. I didn't really have a nice box for it, so I put in an oversized Tupperware container that I have no memory of owning.

Everything nowadays seems to be turning up when I need it.

Except for the heartache, of course.

That was way uncalled for.

Speaking of the heartache, the cause of it was standing at the door. I come back out to the hallway, jingling my keys with a mitten-covered finger, while holding the cheesecake, with my purse chain on my shoulder.

"We're taking the car, aren't we." Barry grumbles.

"Yep. I ain't risking our food baby getting smashed." I lightly pat the cheesecake in my arm. "By the way, aren't we supposed to pick up the puppy?"

Hi face gives an utterly adorable uh-oh expression, then he disappears. I grumble under my breath for a minute, but start walking to the car.

He appears just as I've put the cheesecake in the passenger seat. He puts the small white puppy onto the ground, where it stumbles sideways for a few seconds, seemingly dizzy, but it shakes its head, regains its balance, then starts yipping happily.

He leads Snowbarry over to me with a yellow leather leash. I crouch onto the snowy ground, and the puppy immediately bounds over to me in the most adorable way possible.

It jumps into my arms, and I unclip the leash before it strangles itself. I notice that the tag and the collar that we bought for the dog that was almost ours is on the dog, and I hug it tighter into my grip, but not too much, lest I strangle it.

I hear numerous snaps behind me, and my head whips around to look, body shielding Snowbarry as if it were my own baby.

Barry's whipped out his phone, and is taking pictures. Lots of them.

"Come on," I tell him, "We better get to Iris' party."

"Kay," he smiles.

We get into the car, Snowbarry in the backseat, Barry in the passenger seat, cheesecake carefully balanced between his knees, and with me driving.

I don't go too fast while driving, and frequently check behind me for any signs of sickness.

I see Barry regarding me with some amusement as we pull into the street.

I park a bit away from the house, on the curb, so Snowbarry can get some fresh air; I then recline back onto the seat, sighing, leash in hand.

"You ready?" Barry asks me, about ten or so seconds later.

I very nearly stopped, to ask him what this was all about.

To ask him what we were doing.

Why was he so nice to me while he should have been doing these things for Iris?

Iris.

She's one lucky girl.

So I really want to know why he hangs out with me and comes over and sleeps over at my house, for gods sake.

He was supposed to do this for Iris, not me.

But I couldn't bear to ask him the question.

I'm being selfish, I know, and I'll pay for it a half dozen times over.

But I love us.

So I open the door and exit the car, peacefully clipping the leash onto Snowbarry, who is esctatic at being outside, and start leading him to the West residence, picking up the cheesecake before I lock the car door, checking it is locked. The door, not the cheesecake, just to clarify.

Barry jogs to keep up, running backwards so he can face me, talks.

"Joe is going to be so happy that we bought a puppy!" He babbles. " I know he's a dog person. He never really got over the little puppy from Russia. Don't worry, I made sure he's toilet trained."

At this I look at him with a new expression.

"You checked?" I say incredulously. Barry didn't strike me as the type who thought about these things.

He nods, then shrugs.

The I see the streetlamp he's about to back into.

"Barry, watch-"

Too late.

-CLANG!-

I rush over to him, but Snowbarry is faster.

Probably due to the fact that I am wearing high heels.

Barry is lying on the ground, head in his hands.

I curse myself for wearing this particular dress.

It's navy blue, low-cut, short and extremely stretchy around the thighs.

To be honest, I didn't really care, flinging myself to the ground (perhaps flinging is a little bit exaggerated) But, my hands are on his head as I kneel next to him. Snowbarry keeps jumping up.

"Snowbarry, down." I tell him. He resorts to standing guard.

"You okay?" I ask him.

"Yeah, thank God it's fricking freezing and there's all this snow."

"Language!" I admonish him.

It slightly worried me, because Barry didn't really use bad language unlesss something was really hurting, and even that was swearing under his breath.

Still, it's not exactly swearing, but can I help the fact I'm a mother hen?

He puts his hands up in a don't-shoot-me gesture.

"Okay okay. Help me up, dear lady." I do, but the snow is a little bit more slippery than I had expected, so I fall, pulling him back down with me.

Well, to be more exact, him on top of me.

I open my eyes to see his face close to mine, closer than the moment laughing in the kitchen. It seems so long ago.

I feel my breathing hitch.

He seems closer than ever when I've finally blinked, after what seems forever.

He hesitates, giving me a chance to escape.

I don't take it.

Maybe life doesn't want me to suffer loneliness for all eternity after all, I think to myself as his lips come crashing down onto mine.

Fireworks explode as the tense, built-up passion is released. Violently.

Every thought goes spinning out of my head. There is just him and me and nothing else.

I feel secure and safe in our little eternity. I forget about Iris, about Ronnie, about the crushing isolation of losing someone you care about.

This must be heaven.

Snowbarry barks, draining the white from behind my eyelids abruptly.

I open them to see Barry, still dazed.

"Barry, we'd better get to the party, we're late!"

"Wow. Oh. Um, yeah." His eyes flutter, and I pull him to his feet.

He picks up Snowbarry's leash, and grabs my very already cold hand with his warmer one.

I squint sideways up at him, studying him for about two seconds before a small snowy branch thwacks into me.

Good thing Barry's holding the cheesecake.

It had started snowing again, and the thick flakes were spiralling down.

Snowbarry yips, trying to eat the flakes, which makes me giggle and Barry smile.

"Head better yet?" I ask him, just as we reach the Wests' house. I look for the answer. There would be no patient fooled under my watch.

He glances at me sideways with a coy smile.

"I don't know, Doctor Snow. Maybe I need another kiss, just to make sure."

I smile, tilting my head up at him. "Gladly."

I kiss him again, feeling the same fireworks.

And I knew.

He's the one.

And he will be.

Forever.

A/N: So there's that. I wasn't really happy with it at first (it went through a lot of partial rewrites), and then there's the fact it would not upload to the website.

Don't forget to drop by a review! Or not. Entirely your choice.

(I am partial to the former, just letting you know.)