"Oh my God..." Caitlin whispered to herself as she began to pace.

"Caitlin -" Barry started to speak, but Caitlin kept pacing and shaking her head.

"Barry, you have to understand that I only -I only kissed you because I was scared, I got caught up in the moment, and it was a rash decision and I'm sorry," Caitlin said, running her words together in a jumbled mess, her eyes searching Barry's expression, hoping to find any giveaway that he understood.

And it looked like he did.

"Cait, it's okay," Barry said, "I understand,"

As Caitlin breathed a sigh of relief and turned to walk out, Barry fought the urge to say something. Something along the lines of, "Wait, I love you!" came to mind, but that was terribly cliche and naive, and while he did feel a measurable amount of affection for Caitlin, he didn't think he loved her yet.

Instead, he turned around himself and sat down. What was he supposed to do? He didn't think he could do anything. Not yet anyway. He would just keep quiet, and act like nothing ever happened, and hopefully Caitlin would do the same. Dr. Wells didn't have to know, and Cisco didn't have to have a reason to awkwardly walk around on his toes. It was better this way, and besides -

Caitlin made it clear that she didn't mean for the kiss to happen.

And that's what they did the following week. Barry pretended it never happened, and he pretended that he wished that the kiss, even if he was "unconscious", meant something to Caitlin. But pretending worked.

Barry did his thing, running off to save Central City, and Caitlin did her thing, staying at STAR Labs behind the comm system and silently praying that she wouldn't lose yet another man she cared about. Dr. Wells never knew, and while Cisco did still shoot them glances every now and then, he didn't tiptoe around.

"A bread store robbery...who wakes up in the morning and goes, 'I think I'll have some toast made from a ninety nine cent loaf of bread that I stole'?" Cisco said, shaking his head when Barry got back from the task, "He can afford those expensive ass clothes, he can buy himself some bread!"

Barry looked at Caitlin, his eyebrows raised in question. She shrugged in response. Meanwhile, Cisco groaned and covered his face as he leaned back in his chair.

"Just kiss her already!" Cisco said, becoming aggravated.

There was no response from either of the two.

"Cisco, I told you, I was worried, and -" Caitlin began.

"And I told you that you put your lips on his face, and that is not a side effect of worry!"

Cisco shook his head and stood up from his chair. He walked over to Barry, grabbed him by the earlobe, and tugged him over to wear Caitlin was standing. The two were facing each other, about a foot apart.

"Now, you two, are going to kiss," Cisco said, crossing his arms and glowering at them like a parent scolding a child, "I'm going to turn around and count to ten,"

Cisco turned, covering his eyes with his hand as he did so to shield himself from the reflection on the windows. And he began to count.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

Six.

Seven.

Eight.

Nine.

Ten.

"Ready or not, here I come," Cisco said, turning back around.

Instead of the flushed faces he halfway expected to see, he saw the two still twenty feet apart. They stared at him in bemusement.

"Look, I don't know what your definitions of kissing are, but mine requires this twenty foot space between you, to be gone," Cisco said, "Diminished,"

"Cisco, we're not going to kiss," Caitlin said.

"Maybe not right now, but you will..." Cisco mumbled conspicuously.

"He marries Iris in the future, Cisco," Caitlin said, trying to accept it herself as much as she was trying to get through Cisco's thick skull.

"Are you literally going to listen to a piece of paper? Okay, well, technically, it was a hologram of a paper, but still...don't listen to it!"