(Author's Note: I FINALLY get some days off soon. Work has been work. Also I entered a short story writing contest, so that had a deadline and came before finishing this nonsense chapter. Anyway! Enjoy, really sorry I haven't been updating as regularly as I had when we began this little story. I'd love to see your reviews, as always, if you have a mind, Jell-O Squares! ~Doverstar)
Savitar had been gone a full 24 hours.
Caitlin glanced at her watch as she exited the Pipeline. 11 PM. He hadn't left in his suit yesterday; she couldn't track him and figure out whether he'd gone on a jaunt around the city to clear his mind, or had actually run as far away from S.T.A.R. Labs as he could get. The possibility that he might just race off and not come back seemed ludicrous. But Caitlin had never been one to feel comfortable in the dark—and she had no control over the situation. She couldn't tell where he was, where he was going, or whether he'd return. He hadn't even taken his comms. Ludicrous or not, her brain was jumping to all sorts of worst-case scenarios, playing each over and over like a black and white movie as she carried out the day's routine.
What if Cisco's Hammond Cuff malfunctioned? All the interference this multiverse problem was causing could affect the only tether the speedster had to corporeality.
What if he ran into Rory? The pyro still hadn't been apprehended and was apparently following the same destructive agenda that Lisa and Nimbus had. Without any way to contact S.T.A.R. Labs, if this Earth's Heat Wave melted the skin clear from his skull, she wouldn't have any idea and Savitar would come back too late, too damaged for her to patch him up again. If he survived.
What if he vented his feelings at the expense of a few muggers, or a car thief? Bad people who didn't deserve the even worse Savitar could easily dish out. She'd be the cause of it, at its core; she'd made the speedster angry—and he wasn't above a little maiming. Infantino Street had proven he didn't cringe at the thought of deliberate violence.
What if he ran into another telephone pole? (This was not a worst-case scenario, but it was unhealthy.)
What if he never came back, and Wally fixed the breach machine, and the last thing she'd said to him before going home was to remind him she wasn't always going to be there? That he was selfish and uncaring, when he'd proved multiple times that yes, Barry's heart—though fractured—was still in there somewhere.
What if she didn't get to say goodbye at all?
If there was one thing Caitlin was good at—besides performing surgery under pressure—it was worrying. And as the day had progressed, she'd wound herself into a compression spring of concern, so that she felt she could bounce apart at any moment.
She didn't let it keep her from being productive, though. One could worry and work, and she could've taught a class on just that. Several classes. She could've written the curriculum herself.
Item number one on the Keep Doctor Snow Busy list, Caitlin had gone down to feed the stoic Kyle Nimbus and Lisa Snart three times that day, as usual. It would be Lisa's first meal experience in the Pipeline, but she hadn't seemed surprised to find Caitlin depositing breakfast, lunch, and dinner into the chute attached to her cell. In fact, she was even sitting near it, as if expecting her food, and had the gumption to look as though Caitlin wasn't on time.
Snart's eyebrows had arched nearly to her hairline when the breakfast burrito slid into view. "What?" she'd asked. "No latte?"
"We're not going to starve you," Caitlin had replied, as civilly as she could. "But that does not mean we're running a catering service. This isn't a hotel."
"Clearly," Lisa agreed, smiling glitteringly, starting her meal nice and slow. She did have all the time in the world—unwrapping a burrito was probably the most excitement she was going to get for a while. "I don't see the bellboy anywhere."
Caitlin pushed the trolley out with a little more force than was necessary, declining to comment.
Nimbus sat with his back against the glass when she opened the main door. Caitlin was surprised he wouldn't want to see as much of the world beyond his cell as he could, but he faced the blue-lined wall and didn't turn when she sent his breakfast inside. She wondered briefly if he was asleep—or meditating—or something, but just as she was about to turn the corner, she heard him speak.
"Don't worry, doc. You won't be doing this forever."
Caitlin paused, peering back at him over her shoulder for a moment before heading out. What a macabre thing to say. They didn't intend to leave the metas to die in the Pipeline. But this Earth, from what she had researched, had no Iron Heights in which to store superpowered criminals yet. The Pipeline would do for now, but that didn't mean she'd leave Earth-66 harboring secret metas in S.T.A.R. Labs' basement forever. They would need a more permanent plan before she went home.
If she ever did get home. If there was a we to plan with anymore.
And she was right back to worrying.
She'd gone down the Keep Doctor Snow Busy list in that twisted up way for the rest of the day, the list growing longer and longer as she went. Professor Stein had hurried into the building at precisely 3 PM, eager to get to work on preparing Clarissa's antidote for the hospital. The conditions, he said, had to be perfect in order for them to present it to his wife's doctors. "I'm afraid several PHDs and a prolific IQ will not be enough to trump standard medical procedures," he'd complained. The hospital would need to believe fully in their cure in order for them to clear its distribution to Mrs. Stein. It had taken them barely two hours to perfect the stability of the gas when exposed to certain room temperatures, enough so that they could 'bottle' it without an overflow of chemicals like last time.
When Stein had gone, Wally was the next guest in the Labs. He had managed to get off work early and went straight for the engineering wing. Caitlin had offered the walkie-talkie in hopes that this time, he'd manage to contact Cisco, but Wally grinned and handed it back to her.
"I don't need it," he'd said proudly.
"But—" Caitlin struggled to maintain a composed tone. Everything else was up in the air today. Why not her only chance at going back to her friends and family, too? It was only fair. "Wally, you said yourself, you don't know how to do this without—"
"Cisco. I know." Wally waved his hands slightly. "But he came through—look."
He'd led her over to the silver, high-tech printer gathering dust in a corner of the engineering wing. Caitlin would have said for certain that it hadn't been in use since this Earth's particle accelerator explosion, but then she saw the blue Power light blinking periodically on the far right of the machine.
She'd glanced in surprise at the teen.
Wally gestured to the mouth of the printer. "I was polishing the frame yesterday, after you left, and I hear this weird sound and—I don't know how he did it—but this thing was up and running. And he left these—"
West hurried to the other end of the room, near the breach doorway's metal frame, which was propped carefully against a wall. When he returned, he held a small stack of regular old printing paper. Caitlin took it from him, eyebrows pinched, and scanned each picture hungrily.
"Blueprints," she mumbled. They were Cisco's for sure, and not just because his name was scribbled on the corner of each one. The shadows of a few copied coffee stains could be seen on the third and sixth papers. She looked up at Wally, thinking aloud. "But all our communications are down—we can't even call him—how can an interdimensional fax be the one loophole?"
Wally opened his mouth, but Caitlin didn't give him time.
She leaned toward the printer, clutching the blueprints a little more tightly. It was as though, through the appearance of these page-by-page instructions, she could hear Cisco's constant pop-culture references and smell his hair product there in the room with them. "Is it because it's older than the rest of the tech here? And even if he modified the printer on our Earth, he couldn't do anything to this one to send a transcript through the multiverse without—"
"Hey," Wally interrupted, palms up. "I got nothing. I just work here."
Caitlin paused, gathering herself. His light tone brought her back to the present. The line I just work here pushed a smile out and in his direction. It was easier to smile, having a coworker in S.T.A.R. Labs after so many months of just a hero and his high-heeled conscience. "Sorry. I should've learned a long time ago not to question Cisco's methods…however unorthodox. Here." Reluctantly, she passed the blueprints back to their rightful owner. "You'll know more about what to do with this than I would."
Wally shrugged, glancing down at the information. "I gotta say, it's…" He chortled a little, rubbing the back of his neck. "Some fancy stuff. But I like a challenge."
He sounded so like the Kid Flash she knew. Caitlin's smile grew. "Good luck. And—thank you, Wally," she added quickly. "I know it's a lot to take in, but…you have no idea what you're doing for me."
All he seemed able to do was to beam and look at his shoes for a moment. She could see how the praise made him taller just by watching the corners of his mouth relax.
She'd almost made it to the corridors when he called after her, suddenly curious: "Hey—Caitlin!"
She turned on her heel.
"Where's Savitar at?" Wally's eyes screwed up—he looked very Iris in the moment. "I haven't seen him all day."
Caitlin could have pointed out he hardly saw the speedster anyway. She could've made up some excuse. But the unexpected reminder that he wasn't just zipping around the city doing his thing—that he had deliberately left and had been gone too long—made her stomach curl and her brain hesitate for a moment. Worry couldn't stay away. Not even blueprints from her best friend could keep it back.
Breaching her silence, Wally offered a bit awkwardly, still cheery, "On the run?"
Caitlin blinked, clearing her throat. "Yes," she said curtly, tightly. "He's on the run."
She remembered it while she was wiping down the white winding desk. She remembered the last time she and Ronnie had fought. It couldn't really be called fighting—and the two of them, so different, could argue like children when the moment was right. It wasn't that way then. Ronnie had done most of the arguing.
They'd been walking out of the Pipeline together at the time—Ronnie had proposed a month ago and the two had been very much entwined in one another. Caitlin had never known anybody could look as warm as Ronnie did, and Ronnie could smile at her like she was brighter and funnier and better than she knew she was.
Ronnie had started it, actually.
Caitlin had mentioned with delight that they were close to finishing the particle accelerator, and when she'd speculated about the future—about what they would do once the machine was built, once the work was over and they'd gone on their honeymoon and come back—Ronnie had interrupted her, voice tight. Ronnie never interrupted her. He always listened and waited for her to finish.
"Cait, we can't just come running back to S.T.A.R. Labs."
She'd glanced up at him, gait faltering, surprised. "What do you mean?"
"After this—thing—goes online?" Ronnie glanced backward, where the spotless blue-lit hallways led to Wells' masterpiece, with undisguised exasperation. He'd been there more nights than anyone—apart from maybe Cisco—working nonstop to get the massive project finished. "You guys keep saying everything will be different."
Caitlin's mouth gaped a little. Ronnie so rarely became agitated. He was a passionate person, but most of those emotions were positive, from what she'd seen. If he was angry, it was always over something worthy of the fire. And though she could understand how done he probably wanted to be with the accelerator, it would be her crowning achievement, the next step in her career. She felt the need to defend it, and the nerd in her seized the opportunity to be heard. "Ronnie, it—it's going to change the world. Life as we know it will be drastically—"
He interrupted her again. A new record for her future husband. "I know, that's what I'm saying. Who knows what you'll be doing after this? Where Dr. Wells' big project's gonna take you? You, Cisco. Everybody here." He stopped walking, still holding her hand. "When we come back after the wedding, what if everything changes?"
Caitlin tilted her head. He wasn't talking about the world in general, about the revolutionary product of all their hard work. He was talking about them. The forthcoming Mr. and Mrs. Raymond. "The world won't be the same," she murmured after a moment more of thought, watching him. "But that doesn't mean we'll change."
Ronnie shook his head, almost halfway, at a speed that told Caitlin she wasn't picking up what he was putting down. "You could be gone at—I don't know—big press conferences with Wells, or—fancy dinners with guys in white collars."
Caitlin grinned, nearly laughing at the image, but Ronnie seemed to be swallowing amusement of his own to get his point across, eyebrows dipping into a scowl.
"Across the country winning science awards, far away from normal life. It could happen, Cait. Easy." His mouth stretched thin. "If we're gonna do this, I want us to be sure—that even if we all grow an extra eye after the accelerator goes online, you and I are still us." A slight crooked smile. "Stable."
"Actually, genetically speaking, the possibility of us growing an extra eye would be far—"
"Cait."
Caitlin shook her head and looked intentionally into those big brown eyes. "Ronnie, even if, in a year from now, I become a scientific superstar—and I am only a biological consultant; Dr. Wells came up with the idea—even if I'm worlds away…" She tightened her grip on the warm, strong hand she'd been holding. "It can't change you and me. I can't imagine not needing you anymore."
The Keep Doctor Snow Busy list was complete and carried out by nightfall. The Cortex had been cleaned, Wally was still hard at work in the engineering wing down the hall—waving off Caitlin's attempts to get him to go home and rest—and their criminal prisoners had been fed and taken care of. The antidote for Stein's wife had been monitored on and off all day, and there was no change to suggest it would need more work before being shipped off to do its part in saving a life. Caitlin's room was fully tidy, organized, and re-organized. Eddie had been called to go over Joe's case file—which said nothing the two of them did not already know. In fact, because it clearly left out Mick Rory's involvement, it said less than what the two of them already knew. Caitlin had tackled problem after problem throughout the day. It was like trying to carry an armload of groceries, doing battle against that ever-tedious second trip out to the car. Keeping her eyes on the house—or in this case, the end of the day—and trying to ignore the ache in her arms or the lack of balance in her feet. In this case, ignoring the worry.
But it was 11 PM now. She'd given the prisoners their very last check-ups and was walking back to her room. The biting-her-lower-lip dread would not be sent to the back of the line again. It had reached the front, and Caitlin could find nothing else to put in its way.
On Earth-1, whenever she got too anxious, an arm around the shoulder from Cisco could push it down in minutes, when it had taken Caitlin a week just to keep it from showing on her face. Dr. Wells would present her with a task, a knowing purse to his lips and a glint in sharp, dark eyes, and the fears would be banished to the back of her mind, because Dr. Wells needed her and she didn't have time to be afraid. Ronnie would take her hand and they would leave. They'd leave her apartment, or S.T.A.R. Labs, or the sidewalk they were strolling down, and he'd physically change her surroundings—most often without warning—to make her head clear. They'd eat pizza and he would make her laugh and nothing was all that bad anymore, come on, Cait, really.
It was different when Barry showed up. Ever since he'd gotten struck by lightning and had donned that red suit, when Caitlin was worried—and there was so much more to be worried about after the particle accelerator disaster—distractions didn't quite do the trick any longer. Barry sat beside her or stood across from her and looked at her and forced her to talk about it.
Maybe not forced. She felt she really could do it with Barry. She could say what was bothering her—she could snap it and snarl it, even if he was the reason behind it—and there was a feeling of oxygen and clarity that she hadn't realized was possible before. The others helped remove her from the problem. Barry removed the problem from her.
But there was no one here on Earth-66 to do any of that. She'd used up every obstacle she could think of. Now it was time for bed, and as she went to the closet down the hall to get clean sheets, Caitlin was terrified.
What if I never get back home? What if Savitar's gone for good? How will I stop Mick Rory on my own? I don't have super speed. I can't take the necklace off. Where did he go? What if he's really in danger? What if he's suffering from some kind of multiverse-flux-induced imbalance and I don't have anything to treat him with? He's an anomaly. The only thing keeping him safe from other anomalies is that stupid Cuff. Why isn't he back? Why didn't he take his comms? I shouldn't have said temporary. I'm not just his teammate. What if he hates me? He'll never forgive me. It was a ridiculous thing to imply. I can't believe he just ran off. If Wally doesn't succeed, I'm stuck here. Stuck here without Savitar, because Savitar won't come back. Clarissa's cure may not even be submitted to the hospital. What if I've wasted all this time? What if I gave up my Earth for nothing? What if he runs the Cuff right off? Did Cisco remember to brace it for any unstable bouts of Speed Force energy? What if they all forget me here? What if Barry tries to run here and the effort burns him up? I'm not just his teammate. Should I try to track him again? Should I check the news? I cannot just sit here. What if he never comes back?
Caitlin began to wonder if she'd had this headache all day and hadn't realized it until now.
As she got her bed all made and comfortable, curling up and trying to dismiss the pounding in her temple, her eyes flew open. She'd left Cisco's walkie-talkie in the Cortex. If he'd managed to make the printer work, he could manage the communicator too. Maybe in the middle of the night. But she wouldn't know because she'd be doing unnecessary things like sleeping—
And she was on her way to the Cortex. For what felt like the fortieth time that day.
The emergency lights were still on; the room was low-lit and the computers were shut down. The silence in their base of operations was foreign to Caitlin. She'd spent so many overnighters in Earth-1's version of this lab; the lack of electronic hums and ruffling papers turned it into a completely different place for her. It was like coming to an evening Open House in your elementary school, feeling baffled and out-of-place when the entire staff wasn't there, when it was dinner-dark outside the classroom window instead of sunny and tempting.
Caitlin spied the communicator sitting innocently on the white winding desk, squinting at it sternly. She wouldn't have to walk all the way up here if she'd just taken it to bed in the first place. But she'd been running around too much that day.
Or yesterday. It was past midnight now.
The clearing of a throat on the right-side dais made her jump nearly ten feet in the air.
Caitlin whirled around, visions of Kyle Nimbus' pale green gas filling the Cortex making her heart rate quicken. But it wasn't Nimbus.
Savitar came onto the main level and walked up to her. He was wearing the same clothes he'd been in when he'd raced out, and was working his jaw as he moved. With a ginger, fragile expression, he held out a closed fist and opened it, revealing two round white pills. He'd brought her aspirin.
"I thought you might have a headache by now," he explained throatily.
Caitlin dropped the walkie-talkie and threw her arms around him.
He huffed a little bit, like she'd hit him in the chest, but slowly hugged her back. They stood like that for several minutes, Caitlin's headache dying out as if she'd been imagining it, the speedster's rigid stance melting.
"Sorry." Savitar said it so quickly and softly, it might've been another exhale.
She pulled backward, feeling her eyebrows pinch. "Sorry? Savitar—I'm the one who should be sorry." Caitlin impatiently shoved a curled lock of hair out of her face, to see him better. "Everything I said—I was angry, it wasn't your fault—I should never have told—"
"Yeah," Savitar chortled quietly, as though amused, and glanced to the side. "It wasn't a good day for me either. So I guess we're even."
Caitlin stood a little straighter. "Where did you go? Why didn't you take the comms? You could've been anywhere, I didn't know what to do!"
Savitar's eyebrows shot up. "You weren't worried," he moved past her, slipping the aspirin in her hand as he went by, "were you, Doctor Snow?"
Caitlin felt the corners of her mouth twitching; she tried to hide a grin at the teasing in his voice. "As a matter of fact, I was, Flash." She didn't notice some of the light go out of those eyes at the name. "Someone who hits telephone poles and treats grocery robbers like they're in pro wrestling matches needs to be monitored."
"Baby-sat."
"Kept in check." Caitlin returned his smirk. It slid away after a moment, and she couldn't keep the guilt from swamping her any longer. She tried again to apologize, realizing that unless she said what she'd been rehearsing subconsciously all day, that same feeling of being unable to breathe—the feeling Barry Allen could clear from her—would be just as prominent now. "When I told you I was temporary, Savitar, it was—"
Savitar paused behind the white winding desk, looking back at her with a more serious expression. "I know." He pursed his lips. "And I know I'm making it harder."
She wanted to think he sounded like Barry. And he must have, scientifically, logically. He physically couldn't sound like anyone else. But for some reason, she couldn't picture Barry standing there in his place, talking to her with that gentle voice and those dipping eyebrows. All she could see was Savitar, in his dark clothes and bad posture and sleepy rasp.
Savitar hesitated for a few heartbeats, eyes moving from her to the keyboards and then the floor. "I want a team, Caitlin," he murmured. "I want friends. I want what—I remember having." One side of his mouth quirked up and he glanced at her again, but it wasn't really a half-smile. It was a tired, exasperated look. "That's not the problem."
Caitlin felt her spirits lift in a way that they hadn't in months, hearing him say that. "Then what is?"
It was like he'd snap back to being hard and sardonic if she spoke too loudly. Like she'd wake him up to his norm. But something was different about him. In the short three minutes of silence that followed, she studied him.
Maybe he'd had too much time to think over the last 24 hours, maybe hearing her say all those awful things made him cautious about his temperament—whatever the reason, she could see something was different. That this something was difficult to wear. He was having a hard time. He always seemed to be having a hard time. Barry had lost his parents, his powers, several friends and more than one hero figure in his life. He'd been through more fire than Caitlin cared to consider. But Savitar recalled doing all of that and then had actually, physically lost what was left. Sometimes—no, too often—she forgot who he was, focusing too much on what he was. She tried to treat the wound without examining it at all.
Savitar met her eyes and remained still where Barry's head would have wagged slightly. He was working his jaw again. When he spoke, it was slowly, and Caitlin was a bit shaken to hear how carefully he went about it. Intentional, deep sincerity. It seemed awkward and frustrated, coming out of him.
"Even if I have them, it's not gonna be what I want." He kept pausing, as if giving her time to interrupt, but she waited, listening. "If Wally stays, Eddie stays. Stein." Savitar tapped the desk with a finger to emphasize as he continued. "I could have this whole Earth worshipping the ground I walk on. It's not enough anymore. Caitlin—" Savitar stopped, swung his arm a little, and started again. He sped up, eyes darting to the exit and back. "I don't want—"
Frantic footsteps thundered over the first half of that last sentence, and Wally's voice interrupted any ending to it. Savitar was out of the Cortex, protecting his identity, before Caitlin could take another breath, just as Wally reached the entrance. He must have, with his speed, heard West coming in time to zip out before he was seen.
Wally leaned halfway on the arch, out of breath. Oblivious to the speedster's presence in the building. "I got it," he gasped out.
Caitlin had her brain full trying to look simultaneously as if Savitar hadn't been there half a heartbeat before, in civilian form, and as if she weren't in her pajamas, and as if Wally's interference was not extremely irritating. This late at night. After fretting over the speedster all day and finally having a moment to talk to him and, for a change, listen to what he had to say to her.
"It's working," the non-Kid Flash tried again, eyes screwed up in an encompassing smile. He looked sweaty and very tired, but energy obviously flowed through him as he jittered in place, halfway back out into the corridor already. "I did it. Just hooked up the generator."
Caitlin didn't respond for a moment, trying to process what he was telling her. Her mouth bobbed open and shut as she tried to work out something between you're amazing, thank you and explain right now.
Wally's voice finally became steady. "I think we can test Cisco's machine."
(Author's Note: This fic's got 7 more chapters to go, according to my outline. Hang in there. This monster's nearly slain. And as a reminder, check my Twitter account for updates on how close the chapters are to being done! ~Doverstar)