(Author's Note: I'm gonna drop this here and slowly back away as I accept the crushing guilt that comes with not updating in over a month. Again. ~Doverstar)

When he'd been the Flash, cars were things he pointed and laughed at.

Savitar pictured the S.T.A.R. Labs company van on past missions, with Earth-1's team, speeding along beside him as he ran through the city that day. He remembered running past it after defeating metas, when they were all heading home, slowing so that his friends in the driver's and shotgun seats could see him speeding by. He'd hit the back doors to tease Cisco and Caitlin, who would be hunkered down in there with all their equipment. Both of them, rarely. One of them—usually Cisco—more often. The van was a welcome reminder that he could do what no one else could. How that felt, the rush it gave him.

He remembered Joe teaching Barry to drive, how excited he'd been when he finally got his license, only to spend his early adult years never possessing a car of his own. It wasn't that he hadn't wanted one—it sure would've made his relationship with the police chief a lot better, considering how often he had been late to his assignments. He simply never got around to owning a vehicle.

And after being struck by lightning, what was the point?

Barry was faster than the fastest, most tricked-out automobile the world had ever produced. He could travel through time. He could break the sound barrier. All he had to do was put one foot in front of the other and go. And, as his remnant, so could Savitar. Even without a big metal suit. Cars, however flashy, however expensive, looked like a toddler's first bike—training wheels and all—to a speedster. Very cute.

Savitar wanted to point and laugh at the semi Lisa Snart had hijacked and was now commandeering toward the park, but the banner hanging between two trees that read CC Children's Halloween Festival! sucked the desire right out of him. With no sign of slowing or turning, Lisa was—for whatever reason—revving right along in the direction of the festival and its participants.

He hadn't been out looking for Snart. He was supposed to have been looking for Mick Rory, but sometimes running felt too good to pass up. All he could think to do, just for an hour or so, was to move. Racing in between skyscrapers and in and out of open-doored parlors and along the riverfront. It was liberating—no matter what was going on, no matter what little doubts and hisses of negativity were stinging his mind, a good dose of speed was always the perfect quick fix.

And then there were screams and the screech of brakes and the rumble of the semi as Snart tore through downtown, behind the wheel of a vehicle too big and too heavy for comfort. Savitar's joy ride was over.

Of course, he was much faster than a semi-trailer truck. Catching up with it was not the issue.

Several different superpowered scenarios played out in Savitar's mind as he raced behind the truck (moving objects and people out of its way), including one where he retrieved some power tools at the speed of sound and dismantled the truck before it ever reached its destination. But all of them involved injury, or, at worst, a death toll when it came to the pedestrians at the festival. Never mind the pedestrians everywhere else. Dismantle the truck, and the bits and pieces of it would end up somewhere dangerous at high speed. It was too near the park at this juncture for removing and replacing its driver to be any help—the vehicle would still be too difficult to slow in time.

All this flitting in and out of him in a matter of seconds, Savitar came to the most obvious solution. But for that, he'd need eyes where he didn't have any—right now.

He tapped the comms in his ear. "Caitlin?"

Quiet static.

Come on. He huffed a little, tasting a bit of the brisk air and the electricity of the Speed Force around him as he moved. She'd been in the Cortex this morning. Where could she be? "Caitlin!"

A crackling noise, then a voice that was not Caitlin's. "Hey—hello? Can you hear me?"

Savitar almost switched the comms off. "Eddie?" It was a Saturday. The sandy-headed officer's day off.

Eddie sounded hoarser than usual, and a tad out of breath. "It's me."

Of course it's you. There was no time for this. "Where's Caitlin?"

"I'm not sure," Eddie replied apologetically, and Savitar pictured him glancing around the Cortex—toward the labs on daises, behind him to the entrance—with no luck. "I just got here, brought Joe's case file—"

"Get Caitlin," Savitar ordered curtly, skirting around to the other side of the semi. "It's life-or-death."

"What do you need?" demanded Thawne. Was he even listening?

"Get Caitlin, Detective!" Savitar repeated, louder.

"I don't know where she is!" Eddie shouted back—not angrily, in an even tone, as if he figured all the raised voices meant Savitar needed help hearing. "If it's life-or-death, getting her here's gonna take too long. I can see you onscreen, what's going on?"

Savitar swallowed a heavy sigh. He didn't want to do this. He didn't want Eddie on the other end of the comms. Eddie didn't know how to work the system in the Cortex. Eddie couldn't do anything to help. Savitar was certain of it. But he could hear Doctor Snow in his head, just days ago—You promised to give them a chance. The speedster shook his head, as if to shake her voice from it.

He could just choose to sort this out himself.

Lisa swerved slightly, deliberately attempting to swing nearer the sidewalks flanking her stolen automobile.

The people in the park wouldn't care if it was Eddie or Caitlin or Cotton-Eye Joe on the other end. Time was of the essence.

"Okay," he said aloud, tone rising again above the wind as he ran. "Snart stole a semi and it's heading for the park. Swipe right on the right screen and you'll see…"

"Heat signatures," Eddie finished for him. Savitar heard loud clicking of keys. "I'm getting the other one to track the semi." His voice was quick and brittle, almost professional. A cop's voice. Not giving Savitar a chance to wonder how he knew the workings of the tech, he explained, "The CCPD had stuff like this before the fire. Wells made a donation four years ago; Joe said I should learn how it—"

"That's great," Savitar interrupted, rolling his eyes. "Tell me how many are up there."

"What?"

"People!" Savitar spat into the earpiece, sliding further sideways as Lisa veered violently right, just slightly in his direction but not enough to change course. "The festival. How many people do I need to move?"

The semi's front wheels had just hit grass. Savitar ran around ahead of Lisa, scooping up the nearest two toddlers and depositing the children three streets away, zipping back for more. He could have done this without someone in the Cortex, of course, but the park wasn't just a square of foliage and picnic spots—it ran all along the riverside, down several blocks, practically the toes of the city's body. However quickly he ran, that was a lot of moving back and forth, and he couldn't be sure without 'eyes in the sky', or heat signatures, whether he had gotten everyone out of the truck's way.

Eddie spoke rapidly. "You've got forty-five civilians in the entrance and twenty by the fountain." A beat, then he corrected a little awkwardly, "Sorry, twenty-one by the fountain."

The fountain, old as the city itself, was the center of the park, where every path eventually led. Lisa was heading straight for it.

Savitar worked from the semi itself up, dodging trees and snatching costumed festival-goers every few heartbeats. He could barely feel the ground beneath his feet, legs and arms pumping as he weaved in and out. One minute there would be grass and the smell of pumpkin guts and imported hay, and the next there was the usual scent of asphalt and gasoline, heels hard against cement, as he dropped innocents off on the same street, a good distance from the Halloween event.

All the while, Eddie was silent unless there was information Savitar definitely needed. "Semi two minutes from the center," he updated after a moment, in that same crisp, clear way.

"How many left?"

"Just two. One at the fountain, one on your right, you should be able to see 'em."

"Got it."

Savitar glanced to the right and immediately spotted a little blonde girl in a ballerina outfit, sitting under a tree just a few feet from him. The semi was barreling just seconds from the fountain, and the girl's tree was altogether too close to both.

Savitar picked her up bridal-style and had her on the sidewalk beside the others seconds later. He sped away before any of them could register he'd been there and back again, headed for the last person he had to rescue.

On the wall of the fountain, a German Shepherd puppy was standing shakily as the truck, completely out of control and moving too quickly to stop now—not that Lisa seemed vexed—raged into view.

"For real?" Savitar grunted to himself. The last heat signature was a dog.

He tucked the animal underneath one arm like a football and leapt off of the fountain's wall. The semi was inches from crashing into the large marble structure. At the last second, Savitar wrenched open the driver's side door and used his free arm to grip Lisa by the wrist, yanking her out of the vehicle and speeding both the criminal and the puppy to the safety of the sidewalk.

He paused, catching his breath long enough to set the German Shepherd down and keeping a firm grip on Snart. "Stay," he huffed to it. The puppy licked its nose.

"Yes!" Eddie crowed over the comms. The speedster could hear the sound of general destruction in the park behind them—the fountain wouldn't be recovering, but there weren't any living people left to get squashed. "Don't worry, the impact slowed it down. Semi's dormant."

Clapping broke out all around as the festival's patrons realized who had rescued them. Savitar heard the sound of smartphone cameras going off and vibrated furiously. It was too late. His secret identity wasn't at risk—he was fully clad in his suit—but Sandra Peterson would probably be pleased to discover multiple photos of an actual person behind the Shadow that had been racing through Central City of late. There would be no shutting the newscasters up now.

Lisa, spitting a golden curl or two out of her mouth at the sudden stop, glared ice chips at him as he fastened meta handcuffs around her wrists. She may not have any abnormal abilities, but the cuffs worked just as well on the average villain.

"Snart," greeted Savitar gruffly, meeting the glare with bored eyes.

"Roadrunner," Lisa replied, sneering.

He turned the dial on her handcuffs and they tightened. "Let's go."

Lisa Snart did not need metahuman dampening cuffs, and she didn't need a metahuman prison. But considering the only prison S.T.A.R. Labs had was the Pipeline, she'd have to get used to it. And Savitar wasn't really interested in what made her comfortable.

"Caitlin mentioned Snart might be in league with Mick Rory," Eddie had reminded him on Savitar's way back. "As long as we've got her here, we should see if we can get any information out of her. She might give us some clues and we can go from there."

Savitar wanted to roll his eyes at every we and us, but with the way today was going, that might give him a sturdy headache after the first three rolls. One mission and suddenly Eddie was the new Joe West. He doubted Snart would give them anything, but after weeks of searching for Heat Wave with zero results, Savitar was willing to try almost anything. If Lisa had even a sand grain of detail on Rory's whereabouts, that would be more than what he had now.

So he and Eddie stood, a hero in costume and an officer in jeans, having a nice little stare-off with Snart as she got familiar with her new home in the Pipeline.

Beyond the glass separating two from one, Lisa stood almost like a Marine, legs straight, heels together, feet turned out. She had a funny little smirk on her face—she'd been wearing it since Savitar had apprehended her. The way she was looking at them both, as if she were not at all annoyed or even inconvenienced by today's events, made even her shadow seem stronger.

Savitar's first question was a blunt, "Why did you attack the festival?"

Lisa's smirk grew. "I was really bored."

Savitar's head wagged. "You were following orders. Right? Isn't that what you do, you and your group, someone's got you all on a leash?"

Lisa was silent, posture and expression betraying nothing.

The speedster narrowed his eyes. "You're not getting out of there any time soon, Snart, so it's not like you've got anything better to do. Tell me."

More silence. The smirk stayed where it was. Her eyebrows did quirk in what appeared to be faux pity.

"You'd be dead in that truck if it weren't for us." Eddie took a step nearer the glass. "Least you could do is give us some answers." He tried a smile. "You owe us."

Lisa straight-up pouted at him. "That's so sweet, Detective. How does dinner and a movie sound? My treat?"

"First tell us about your boss, and we'll see what—"

Savitar rolled his eyes halfway back into his skull and grabbed Eddie's arm, hauling him around roughly so that their backs were to Snart. "What are you doing?" he rumbled.

Eddie blinked, gesturing a little with both hands between the two of them. "Well, I—thought we were doing a good-cop bad-cop kind of—"

"No."

"I just figured since you were—"

"No. Stop talking."

"—doing the whole stern—"

"Stop talking. No." Savitar waited for Eddie to obey and shook his head slightly. "Unbelievable."

They faced Snart again.

Lisa raised her eyebrows. "Should I leave you two alone, or…?" She pointed backward with a manicured thumb. "I can stand in the corner."

"You work with Mick Rory." Savitar began, steadfastly ignoring Eddie, who shifted beside him into a more intimidating pose, arms crossed and legs apart.

"Oh," Lisa tapped her chin. "That's right. You caught the stink bomb and—now—the brains of the outfit," she smiled, obviously referring to herself, "so I guess the pyro's next on your bucket list, huh, boys?"

"He's murdered about thirty people in the course of two months," Eddie cut in, voice clipped and dark. "Some of them were friends of mine. He put an innocent man in jail. And now he's hiding under a rock, waiting to do more."

Lisa's smile twitched away, but otherwise a frozen gaze made her indifferent to Eddie's description. She was listening, though, Savitar could almost sense it. He knew what a mask looked like.

"Help us stop him," Savitar offered, tone low. "You know where he is."

"But…" Lisa snorted, showing a palm. In that moment, he was reminded vividly of Killer Frost—2024—waving her finger at a Barry from the past, refusing to give anything away regarding the God of Speed's true identity. Lisa had the same set about her jaw, the same look of lazy teasing in her eyes. But her next words were very un-Frost. "I tell you that and my days are numbered, gentlemen. There are consequences to backstabbing in our little clique," she added dryly, "and no offense, but they're much scarier than the two of you."

"Whoever you're working for can't help you down here," Savitar argued.

"Which means they can't punish you either," Eddie joined in, standing a little straighter. "Tell us what you know. You don't have to be locked up here forever. You can do the right thing."

Lisa laughed. "Oh, I was waiting for the big hero line! I mean, I expected it to come from Speedy," she gestured to Savitar, who raised an eyebrow, "but I'm not disappointed. He wasn't really giving off the righteous and just vibes anyway." She swung her arms a little, the picture of carelessness. "Honey, it's going to take a lot more than a pair of blue eyes and an ultimatum to get me to tell you anything." She bared her teeth in a grin. "I'm no snitch. Besides! It's more fun to watch you scramble."

This was not the Lisa Snart Savitar remembered from Earth-1. The girl in Barry's memories had been a little easier to talk down, a little easier to shake toward the light. He remembered Cisco being a key factor in that. Grudgingly, Savitar wondered if they would have had more luck getting Lisa on their side if Ramon had been there with them. Somehow, though, he felt that this version of the Golden Glider was a bit too rough around the edges to be persuaded by a fanboy engineer.

With a glance at Eddie, who seemed out of questions for the time being—Savitar recognized his own exasperation mirrored in the detective's expression—he rested a hand on the palm-scanner, closing the door to Snart's cell.

Caitlin was having a bad day.

For starters, when she walked into the Cortex that morning, Savitar was nowhere to be found. Knowing he never slept in late, she checked the tracker on his suit. The monitors revealed that her speedster friend was zipping around the city, not really stopping anywhere, in the throes of what was undoubtedly an adrenaline-charged waste of time. She'd be eating her breakfast alone. That was all right, she'd told herself. She and Savitar hadn't spoken much since their (really baffling) argument over having a team two nights ago.

There wasn't a single carton of strawberry Jell-O left in the mini fridge—the cons of sharing a building with someone who had to consume a minimum of ten thousand calories a day. Not wanting to drive all the way to Jitters or the grocery store when she could be doing something more productive, Caitlin had skipped the morning meal.

She'd called Professor Stein to see what time he'd be in to check on their antidote (it still needed plenty of preparation in order to gain access to the hospital itself), but all she'd received was an impatient voicemail.

And to top it all off, getting back to Earth-1 was proving even more irritating than what she'd been preparing herself for.

Wally was in the engineering wing during most of his free time—he'd almost asked for special time off from work, but Caitlin had assured him there was no need. He could take it slow. He'd only been working on it for about a week now.

It wasn't that she wasn't in a hurry to get home; she felt the urgency for the doors between Earths to open just as painfully as she had since discovering the problem. But it would've been worse if Earth-66 had nothing familiar, if there was no comfort to be found here. That wasn't the case. She had friends and a to-do list that, to her delight, was finally growing. She was making use of a building that hadn't seen teamwork or a mop in four years or so. She'd even managed to make Savitar laugh the week before (after a truly ghastly Peek-A-Boo impression while giving him a play-by-play of a past mission—one she realized too late that he'd have in his memories). Things were brighter than she'd thought they could be, in this Central City that was beginning to feel like a reimagining of a book she'd already treasured. She could wait in this new story a little longer before returning to the original.

No, the amount of time Wally took to build Cisco's interdimensional doorframe was not the problem.

Whatever was keeping Vibe from vibing her back, whatever was causing their dimension-crossing communication devices to malfunction, was getting worse every second. Not even 24 hours ago, the glitches during Cisco's Skype-coaching had been frustrating enough to make Wally throw a wrench into the wall. This afternoon, they hadn't been able to reach Earth-1 at all.

"Maybe it needs to charge," Wally offered weakly, pursing his lips. Caitlin had to wonder if he was considering tossing the walkie-talkie too.

"Cisco's inventions never need to charge," she'd replied irritably. And as a bitter afterthought: "Unless you're me, and you have things to do, and it's inconvenient." She didn't have time to explain a certain pair of Killer Frost-containing cuffs to the poor boy. He was confused enough.

They couldn't gain any live video from the projector option, and when Caitlin attempted to actually call Earth-1, all she'd gotten was the odd word from Cisco and a lot of very loud static. If the white noise of an electronic void could sound broken, Caitlin had a feeling that what she'd heard must have been pretty close.

"Do you remember where you left off yesterday?" Caitlin had asked desperately, folding her arms around herself and glancing at the finished framework of the machine, which was leaned fragilely against the wall.

"We were gonna start with like, a generator of some kind…" Wally scratched at the back of his neck. "This thing's gonna soak up all the power from here to Starling City if it works. Needs something to feed it all by itself. But I can't get it going without Cisco. I don't even have a blueprint, and that's just basics." He glanced at her out of the top of his large brown eyes, attempting to get a smile out of the clearly-stressed bioengineer. "I know I'm a genius and all, but this is still kinda new territory."

Caitlin tried to smile, but she simply couldn't find one. "I'll take it upstairs," she offered. "Maybe I can get a better…I don't know." She let an arm slap against her side. "Signal, or something, there. I'll page you over the intercom if I figure it out."

"Cool." Wally let out a short, quiet sigh. "I guess I'll—polish this thing up." He glanced at the frame, running a hand through his tight, styled hair. "Sorry, Caitlin."

"It's not your fault," Caitlin assured him, heading up to the Cortex.

It wasn't his fault, it wasn't her fault, but why was this happening at all? As if things hadn't been challenging enough, now she had four men depending on her in order to take the next step in their lives and no way of moving forward herself. She'd come to Earth-66 to make things better—better for everyone. It seemed she was being punished for it. Maybe if she had moved faster, if she'd done things differently, she could have been back on Earth-1 by now before…whatever-this-was had kept her from it. But she'd never know. All she could do was stick around and hope, preoccupy herself, work work work as best she could.

And of course, it looked as though she could no longer communicate with her family at all starting today, until this whole mess was sorted out.

Now she was pacing the Cortex, walkie-talkie collapsed into a Bluetooth communicator clipped to her ear, listening to the constant stream of static and wishing she could even hear a snatch of Cisco's voice anymore. The thought of being completely cut off from him, from all of them, for the foreseeable future, made the situation a bit tenser than it had been an hour ago. Yes, Earth-66 was brighter, but that didn't mean she could go without true Team Flash in her life. Especially during a multiverse crisis.

Savitar chose this moment to speed into the room, in search of something to eat.

Caitlin looked up when he entered, watching him scour the mini fridge on the east dais. After a moment of staring stubbornly into the fridge—as though that might make all the strawberry Jell-O magically reappear—Savitar slammed the little door shut and exhaled a bit through his nose, turning to leave and spotting Caitlin.

"What's wrong?" he demanded, peering at her through hooded lids.

Doctor Snow shook her head. "Nothing." It was meant to be sarcastic—so many things, the biggest things, things regarding her home and her sanity, were wrong—but it came out with less feeling than sarcasm required, and the former God of Speed didn't pick up on it.

He didn't use the two or three steps leading from the dais to the main floor of the Cortex, skipping them in one long-legged stride, coming down to stand near her as she paced. "You're biting your lower lip."

"I'm fine."

"You're biting your lower lip," Savitar repeated, a little harder, looking up at the ceiling and then back down at her. "So you're not fine. What is it?"

Why did he have to sound like her distress annoyed him? Like she was bothering him by being upset about anything? It was so contrary to what she was used to with that voice and that face. Caitlin felt icicles start to grow and harden somewhere in the back of her throat, somewhere beneath the already-solid frustration that had been building in her since she woke up.

Her tone was just as pointy and frigid. "We can't get in contact with Cisco to build the breach machine. I can't go home." It should have been obvious what was wrong.

A few seconds passed then, and they took these seconds to observe each other. Not really talking in two days—you had to catch up on comportments.

Savitar didn't seem in the most chipper of moods either, now that she was looking at him full-on. His mouth seemed smaller, the way Barry's did when he was angry. Caitlin's father used to wear the same expression; it made her warier when the Flash was really struggling with something. Was Savitar still angry with her from their previous argument? But she hadn't done anything wrong—he was the one making things harder, not accepting a team when it was practically drawn up for him; all that was left to do was to color it how he saw fit.

Whatever the reason, one person's anger matched the other's, so that both tempers stood at the same height and waited, shifting and ready to make the tightness in chests deplete, even at the emotional cost of their opponent.

Caitlin wanted to be controlled. She wanted to collect herself and respond with dignity, the way she'd practiced over and over in life. But today, somehow, just now, it was so hard. The pendant around her neck almost seemed to hum as she studied Savitar's demeanor. He was watching her with eyes tired and strained. He seemed just as frustrated as she was—definitely not about the same things, but in the past two days, she'd only seen that frustration when he looked at her. It was hard to miss. Time remnant or not, Barry Allen's face had always been his heart's billboard in one way or another. And a physician was trained to notice every detail.

He didn't move much then, apart from shaking a hand slightly as he pointed to the ground. His head was cocked. "That's why you weren't up here earlier." A low voice.

Caitlin paused in her pacing. "What do you mean? What happened?"

Savitar shook his head. "Lisa Snart," he said slowly, tone vibrating with lividity, "stole a semi and tried to ram it into sixty-five people today." Every t, every s was annunciated. He was even angrier than he was trying to let on.

The Bluetooth device suddenly felt colder against her ear. "Lisa Snart?" Caitlin shut her eyes for a moment, afraid to continue. "Was anyone—"

"I took care of it." Savitar sneered, looking away. "Thawne showed up too."

Caitlin's heartbeat slowed, and there was a slight warmth of relief washing over her expression. She spoke a little more softly. "Eddie helped you?" It was almost too good to be true. Savitar had allowed Eddie to help him.

But, of course, he didn't seem to see this as a positive development. And the moment the words left her mouth, he looked more vexed than ever. "No, he shouldn't have needed to. But you were downstairs with your arts and crafts project, so I didn't have much of a choice, did I?"

The icicles were growing in number, just at the way he was glowering at her. At the way he was taller than she was, the way he was standing there so self-righteous and sneering.

"An arts and crafts project?" The fact that the pique rising within her felt familiar—not just because he'd caused it in her before but because Barry had, and this was too much like those times—made Caitlin even further rankled. "Savitar, I am trying to get back home—"

"Teammates aren't supposed to run off and do their own thing," Savitar interrupted, almost shouting, getting closer. "Right? You bring me all these…other problems you took on. Stein, the metas, Rory. You brought them, Caitlin, not me, but you want me to fix everything while you duck out, all focused on getting back to your Earth."

Caitlin opened her mouth to object, but the speedster wasn't finished. Barry's strong shoulders and several inches on her were prominent as he went on.

He was nearly nose-to-nose with her now. A tone that had been blunt and loud seconds ago was now growing dangerously quiet. "Home sweet home, who cares about some other Central City? Doctor Snow has more important things to worry about. But it's okay, right, I'm just another Flash, I can handle it." The tiniest of tremors in his voice. "A disposable hero."

"That's not true."

"Here to clean up after you and your hobbies."

She waited a few heartbeats, eyes flicking from his left—green—to his right—blue—trying to quell the ice making her jaw clench and her fingers curl. But the cold she felt had nothing to do with her powers. Right now, she was all Caitlin, and she was furious.

"Hobbies?" she repeated, struggling to get the words out with composure. The way he'd spoken, the words he chose, made her feel she might be seeing him clearer than ever. "You think I'm selfish."

He didn't waver.

She glared up at him, exhausted by the certainty and the contempt she was sure she could see in his face. "I'm trying to cure a man's wife. I want to free an innocent father from jail! I want to catch the bad guys and save the city. Be better, like we've always tried to do." She felt her head wagging back and forth, just a little, felt the Bluetooth dislodge halfway against her ear. "But you're not. You don't want that."

The surprise of that thought struck her. The contrast to what she'd thought was in him. There was a very agitating lump in her throat, and she was worse for acknowledging it.

"You don't want to help these people. All you care about," Caitlin swallowed, "is you."

Stiff as a statue, he gave no sign he was even listening save eye contact.

She blinked hard. "Wally is going to finish the breach machine, and—you're gonna have to learn how to work through things here without my help, because I'm a temporary teammate, Savitar."

Savitar finally moved backward. He only took one step, but it made all the difference.

Caitlin felt the air around her clear, the tightness in her chest dissolve. The lump in her throat didn't leave, though, and she thought it might actually have gotten bigger. Especially because he was staring at her as if she'd just removed the ground beneath him.

She faltered, suddenly running through what had been said in her mind, analyzing it in moments. She didn't need to. Physicians noticed every detail. Savitar's eyes were wide open now, and they were empty of nothing.

The members of Team Flash had never been the most professional, the most chill band of coworkers in the world. There was, weekly, some sort of drama. Some deep, long talk. Caitlin should have been used to the fallout at this point. But she was sort of dizzy—she'd lost control of her tongue so quickly. Barry Allen brought out the mother bear, the fire in her. Savitar always seemed to bring out the ice.

A temporary teammate. Wally and the breach machine. She was going to leave. And Savitar wasn't coming with her. And she'd just reminded him. How wicked could she be? She wasn't supposed to freeze people like that. She was a healer. But there had been no supervillain attitude behind what she'd said. She hadn't even needed to touch her stupid necklace.

The way he wasn't moving, just standing with their eyes locked and his mouth closed, made Caitlin tremble inside, though she was just as rigid outwardly as he was.

"Savitar," she began, forcing calm into the name, "I'm—not—"

Too slow.

He was already gone. Off on another run. One moment he'd been staring at her and the next, whoosh, nowhere to be seen. She thought she saw multicolored blurs where he'd been, like the ones that appeared after you looked at the sun too long and saw echoes of it just seconds after glancing away. A blip of sickly-yellow lightning and then she was alone in the Cortex. It wasn't like a moody teenager storming out after an argument with their parents—it wasn't as if he didn't want to deal with the drop in temperature between them. That expression he'd held said he couldn't think and she could only assume he'd needed to go somewhere he could.

The fact that she hadn't even seen him turn away and go made the action of leaving all the more stinging.

They'd made so much progress. That was her friend, the man who'd just left. Not a temporary teammate. Her friend.

Caitlin blinked. It was the only movement she could really make now, too busy overthinking. It was her job to fix things. That was why she'd come here. But she'd just taken a knife and ripped her fresh stitching job to frayed pieces with a few heated words. As herself, no metahuman alter ego necessary. Guilt and shame made the lump in her throat impossible to dismiss. How could Caitlin Snow be crueler than Killer Frost?

(Author's Note: The Flash is a superhero soap opera...I tried. Oh, drama.)