A/N: Barry and Caitlin aren't a couple in this one-shot.
"Yo Cisco!" Barry said entering the cortex. "Do you have a way to stop that metahuman?"
"Better," replied the young engineer. "I have a name for him. 'Tremors'."
Barry just sighed. He knew better than to underestimate the importance of naming a metahuman to Cisco. "And to stop him, we need to..." he started, encouraging Cisco to focus. He caught Caitlin's smile from the corner of his eye.
"Oh easy. I built two devices. They're really awesome guns, by the way. They each emit vibrations that will oppose Tremors's... well, tremors. What we have to do is corner him, one device on each side of him, and that will stop his powers. Then you'll go in and knock him out - we'll stop the guns, of course - and you bring him to the metahuman prison."
"Great plan," said Barry. "Just one question: does the 'we' in your plan reference to Caitlin and yourself?"
"Yup." Cisco was clearly proud of himself.
"Then we're absolutely NOT going to go with the plan."
"WHAT?! Why not?"
"It's too dangerous Cisco."
"No it's not. What can possibly go wrong?"
"That's exactly what people say before everything goes wrong. Tremors could hit you with vibes, for one," Barry tried to get Cisco to see the faults in the plan, but the young man was having none of it. "OK man. One, I vibe, he sends tremors. Two, he will never know that we're working with the Flash. He won't attack us. He's never killed someone with his powers unless he's deemed them as a threat. He's just been sending tremors to scare people. And three, do you have a better plan?"
Barry just sighed, shaking his head, and then Caitlin's hand was on his shoulder and her voice reached his ears. Gentle. Always so gentle. "He's right, you know. It's a good plan, and we don't have time to come up with one that's better. Tremors is out there, ready to give this city the final blow, and we need to stop him. "
"I just..." Another sigh. "I just don't want to lose you," he said looking at her. Then he quickly added, "...guys. I don't want to lose you guys." He shot a quick glance at Cisco to see if he had noticed the mistake. It was clear that he did. But he didn't say anything, just smirked.
"Barry, we'll be fine," Caitlin reassured him. "But we need to do this now."
"I can't believe I'm saying this, but..." He took a deep breath, "Cisco, get the guns."
"Is everyone in position?" Barry asked through his comms.
"Yup," came Cisco's reply, followed by Caitlin's "All set."
"Alright. One metahuman coming right up."
Barry made his appearance known to Tremors by walking out of the shadows of a building. The red suit sparkling with electricity drew the metahuman's attention from the citizens to their hero. "This city is mine," yelled Tremors.
"Yeah, yeah," the Flash spoke aloud. "That's what they all say," he said to himself. He then started running away from their 'villain of the week', fast enough to stay ahead of him and avoid his pulses, yet slow enough for him to stay on his trail.
"Guys, ETA is 10 seconds," Barry informed his friends.
"Copy that," Cisco replied. "And did you learn 'ETA' just for this op?"
Caitlin let out a chuckle, "You two need to stop watching spy movies."
Barry's voice came again, "3...2...1..."
A gust of wind passed the two scientists, and suddenly, Tremors was between them. They both aimed their guns at him, but before they could fire, they were hit in the chest by an invisible force. For a few seconds, they were suspended in the air, weightless as time seemed to stop. As they landed, Cisco on a car and Caitlin on the floor after hitting a wall, they realized the gravity of their mistake: they'd underestimated Tremors's perceptiveness. He'd realized that they were the enemies, what with the guns and the secluded location.
The comms came alive with Barry's panicked voice, "Cisco! Are you OK?"
The man in question grunted, "I'll live."
That's all it took for him to rush to Caitlin's side. But before he could say anything, she told him, "Go! I'll be fine. Get than son of a bitch."
So he did. He picked up her fallen gun and went to confront Tremors. The latter smirked when he saw him. "Did you honestly think I was that stupid? That I wouldn't realize I was walking into a trap? Please! I can suddenly keep up with the fastest man alive. That has 'trap' written all over it. Besides, I recognized that woman. She's the one you outed yourself for when she was kidnapped by those dudes with the fire and ice guns." He tilted his head to the side, "I'd recognize those eyes anywhere."
Barry had had it with this guy. He set the gun to its maximum power and blasted the metahuman with it, who, caught off guard, didn't counter its effect and landed a few meters away. Then Barry hit him again, and again, and again, for Cisco, for Caitlin, for everyone he hurt in Central City. Joe's voice came out of nowhere, pulling him from his angry, clouded thoughts. He looked up from Tremors to see the CCPD scattered around them, some keeping citizens at a safe distance, others watching the scene unfold. Confident in his adoptive father's ability to handle the situation from there, Barry gave him the gun and went back to Caitlin.
He didn't expect her to look like this. She shouldn't be lying on the ground. Her breathing shouldn't be ragged. She shouldn't be clutching the front of her shirt.
"I'm taking you to the hospital." His tone left no room for arguing.
She gave him a barely perceptible shake of her head. "I don't have that kind of time. I just... Let me spend what - what I have left with you. Please."
He opened his mouth to object, but nothing came out. This couldn't be happening.
"It's O..OK..." She turned her head to the side, coughing and wheezing, before looking back at him. He seemed so devastatingly sad and so terribly scared that she almost wanted to hang on for him. But she was a doctor after all, and she knew the odds weren't in her favour. "You're gonna be O...O...Kay."
It was like she was choking on a lie every time she said 'OK'. Because there was no way he was going to be OK after this. He was never going to be OK without her.
He was in love with her. He was sure of it now. He'd just found her, he couldn't be losing her already.
"Can you - can you sing to me?" Her voice was lower than a whisper. He didn't know how he heard it, with all the panicked yelling and the sirens blaring in the background. But that was exactly what they were: background noises, sounds with no importance. He had ears for her, and her only. He always had.
He wanted to say no. He wanted to tell her that things will turn out fine. That she was going to make it through. Because maybe if he didn't do what she wanted him to, she would stick around until he did. Maybe denying her dying wish meant that she wasn't dying. But he knew better, and he never could deny her a request anyway. So he sang, softly, putting his forehead to hers and stroking her cheeks.
"I built a home, for you, for me... Until it disappeared, from me, from you..."
Suddenly, he didn't feel her hot breath on his face anymore. He pulled away to look at her. But her eyes were glazed over. "No, come on, don't disappear on me." Yet she didn't budge.
"No. No no no no no no no. Come on, Cait. Please. Come on, please stay. Just stay. Come on Cait, come on. Don't do this, Cait. Stay with me, keep your eyes on me, I'm here, I'm right here. Don't you dare leave me. I need you. Please Cait, I need you. I can't do this without you. Please, please, I'm begging you, please."
He shook her. He shook her with all the desperation and anguish that escaped his control.
She didn't move.
"NO!" he cried out, clutching her body, lifting it to meet his, because he wasn't letting her go. He couldn't.
At some point, Cisco's voice came through Barry's earpiece, cool and collected. Or maybe Cisco was next to him. He wasn't sure, and he honestly didn't care. But the message was clear: he had to stop holding on.
He lifted his head enough to see her face, and, for the last time, he brought his lips to hers. They'd never been so chilly, but he didn't mind. "I'm sorry," he whispered to her ear. "I'm so sorry." Reluctantly, he lowered her body to the ground and stood up. "Goodbye Caitlin."
Cisco repeated the medical examiner's words numbly. "The trauma to her chest punctured her lung. Through that hole, air escaped thus putting pressure on the lungs and preventing them from expanding like they should. So oxygen diminished progressively until she eventually lacked it. She basically asphyxiated because of a collapsed lung."
Barry nodded, his mouth tight. "Could she have been saved?"
Cisco nodded. "If she'd gotten to a hospital in time, they could've drained the air from her chest so her lungs could re-expand, and they could've given her oxygen if she'd needed it."
"THEN WHY THE HELL DIDN'T SHE LET ME SAVE HER?" Barry screamed, before swiping the desk's contents to the floor in one angry motion.
When Cisco spoke, his voice was calm though wavering, and Barry hated how Cisco was the voice of comfort in a time like this when he himself needed comfort. "It was either her or the whole city, Barry. She knew you wouldn't be able to make that choice so she made it for you."
"I could have saved them both," Barry said, sounding like a child confident in his ability to fly and ignoring the signs that he couldn't.
"No you couldn't." Cisco put his hand on his shoulder, and Barry remembered how the last physical contact he had with Caitlin before everything went to Hell was what Cisco had just done. But the young Hispanic didn't seem to notice Barry's sudden stiffness, or maybe he just ignored it, for he continued, "You had to stop Tremors first, or he would have wiped out half the city. When you were back by Caitlin's side, she had like half a minute left, and it was already too late because doctors wouldn't have had the time to do anything. So she got to spend her last moments with you, not on some gurney countless of people have bled in."
"I can't do this without her, Cisco," he choked out. This time, he sounded like a man who'd just lost everything. On second thought, he had lost everything because Caitlin was the only thing that mattered to him.
"I want to say that I shouldn't have let her tag along, that this is all my fault, that I could have done something to help her, but I know that she'd tell me none of that is true. I just can't accept it."
"Hey," Cisco said softly, " If you accept it right away, then you're not the man Caitlin was in love with. Yes, she was in love with you," he asserted at Barry's agape mouth. "What she loved most about you was your compassion and your empathy. Trust me, I know. I had to spend hours listening to her gush about you. I have no idea how you two could not see that you had feelings for each other. Seriously, dude, it was so obvious even Oliver...I'm getting way off topic. If you move on so easily because you think she wouldn't want you to be sad, then you'd just be insensitive. Take your time to come to terms with her...passing, but don't dwell on it too much. Don't let it destroy you. Don't let it turn you into something you're not, something vengeful and ugly. Okay? She wouldn't want that."
But all Barry could register was that she loved him. That he never got much time with her, and it was absolutely unfair.
Though if life had taught him one thing, it was that you're bound to lose your loved ones. Sure, time makes it easier to bare, but not to forget. And he didn't want to forget the way her eyes darkened when she was angry, or the way her smile made her eyes disappear, or the way she'd bite her lower lip worriedly. He always wanted to remember how they'd team up to tease or prank Cisco, how she'd stare at his abs whenever he changed shirts, how her soft skin felt against his and how her hands would always linger longer than they should when she patched him up.
So day after day, he tried to move on. He really did. But some days, the pain of losing her would become too much, and he'd travel back in time to see her. He'd watch her from afar, careful not to disrupt the timeline - Harry had made it abundantly clear that if he tried to save her, something worse than her death could happen to Caitlin. He'd wait to see the things he missed about her. He'd watch her at her happiest. He'd revisit the moment they met and notice the small details he was too busy to see like the relief etched on her face when he finally woke up from the coma. Most of the time, he'd go back to that night they sang karaoke just to see her carefree and remind himself that along with all the bad, came some good. But there was one moment, one moment he couldn't bring himself to visit. Until Cisco practically made him do it, saying that he deserved to know.
So Barry ran, ran until he found himself in the cortex, a couple of days before the "incident". That's what they were calling it because there was no way he was going to refer to it as the "death". He hid in the adjacent room, just as Cisco and Caitlin walked in. They were already deep in conversation.
Caitlin was gesticulating, barely sparing Cisco's face from a hit. "He can't keep doing it, Cisco. He can't just continue to protect everyone when he doesn't try to protect himself."
Cisco sighed. "Well why don't you tel him that instead of repeating it to me for the gazillion time?"
Caitlin's voice dropped in volume, defeated, "You know Barry won't care if I'm the one telling him that. I'm just his 'personal physician'," she air-quoted. "His friend, at best."
"I think you're more than that to him. But I know you, so I know you won't believe this. I also know that he's more than a friend to you."
Caitlin's eyes refused to meet Cisco's. "I think I love him." It was shy and furtive, nothing like the usual Caitlin.
"Then show him," Cisco encouraged.
"He'll never know that I feel that way. He's never been good at reading people. And me? I'd never tell him."
"Why?"
"Because I don't have the courage to do it. Because I'm afraid it'll ruin our friendship."
There was a silence during which Cisco stared pensively at his friend. Then he shook his head as he spoke, "Nah. That's not it, is it? I mean there's a bit of truth in that, but it's not entirely it."
Caitlin looked taken aback. Barry, watching intently, was taken aback too. Cisco was never the type to notice what people's facial expressions meant, let alone what they were hiding. He'd usually just babble on, oblivious to tensions in rooms and unsaid words.
Caitlin found her tongue again, and faltered defeatedly, "I just... I don't..." She sighed, and the words finally came out, "I can't take the pain of rejection. Not from him."
Cisco's features softened in compassion, manifesting a small smile. "I'm gonna say it once again. You're not just a friend to him. Would you please, for all our sake, just tell him how you feel? Then I can utter these beautiful words: 'I told you so'."
"Maybe."
"Maybe? What's that supposed to mean?" Cisco raised an eyebrow.
"It means that it's not the right time," she replied.
"Well if I left it up to you to find a right time, we'd have to wait till a meteorite threatened to extinguish the human race," he quipped.
"Cisco..." she drawled, as if explaining to a small child, "There's a metahuman creating earthquakes, so Barry's mind isn't exactly awaiting a love confession."
"There's always going to be a new 'villain of the week'. Just squeeze a proclamation of love in between metahumans. Tell him after we catch this guy," he urged.
"After we catch him," she consented.
Cisco grinned his content before excusing himself to tinker with his new weapons that were going to 'blast this sucker so far, so fast that the USS Enterprise wouldn't be able to catch up to him.' Caitlin had no idea what he meant.
"After we catch this guy," she repeated again, taking a deep breath. "I love you, Barry Allen," she muttered to herself, tasting the words on her lips. She smiled. "That didn't sound so bad."
"It sounded perfect," Barry thought. "I love you too, Caitlin Snow." He smiled. "I love you so much."
A/N: So I'm sorry this took so long. This chapter was hard to write; add to that the fact that life got in the way. I am not sorry however about the content. I had this in mind since before I wrote chapter 3. But LittleMermaid1990 left a review about how this fic is like Snowbarry the Rom Com, and I felt bad as I wrote this chapter to shatter that conception.
And I know that this whole story is about the kisses between Barry and Caitlin, and that the kiss happened halfway throughout the chapter, but this just kept getting longer and longer until I lost all control.
