Chapter 3

Barry and Cisco stood by Caitlin's bed. No hospital was equipped to deal with something like this, so Dr. Wells had all available scientists and lab assistants working around the clock to create treatments for Caitlin at Star Labs. Barry's fists were clenched as he attempted to keep himself out of the way of the doctors. His eyes were raw from crying and he didn't know if he had a job anymore because he hadn't been to work since a barely-coherent Cisco had called him with the news.

Caitlin didn't look much better than she had that night, besides the fact that she was no longer writhing in pain. Barry sometimes found himself selfishly wishing she was, because then at least she wouldn't look like a corpse. Frost clung to her skin and hair, even coating the insulated flannel she was now clothed in. The scientists had been forced to saw through the clothes she'd been wearing when she was shot – they were frozen solid.

I should have been there. Barry thought about it constantly. It was torture – knowing he had the power to think faster than the speed of light and yet had been unable to keep his girlfriend, his Caitlin, safe.

"This is all my fault."

For a moment, Barry thought he'd been the one to say it. When he realized he hadn't, he looked over at Cisco. "What are you talking about?"

Cisco's face was contorted in agony. "I should've…" He took a deep breath to steady himself. "I should've seen this coming."

"Oh, Cisco," Barry forcibly pulled himself away from his own self-loathing. "No, it wasn't your fault." Cisco wasn't convinced and Barry searched for the part of him that always seemed to know how to connect to people. "You said yourself that even with your vibes you can't see everything in the future…especially split-second decisions, right?" He gently turned the psychic meta towards himself. "Caitlin deciding to push you out of the way was a split-second decision. You couldn't have seen it if you'd tried."

"I should've…"

"You couldn't have." Barry said firmly.

Cisco looked his friend in the eyes and crumbled again. "I'm sorry, Barry."

Barry swallowed hard. "Why don't you go get us some coffee? Preferably from Jitters, I hate that break room stuff." He forced a small smile.

"Ok." Cisco nodded slowly. "Ok."

"I'll call you if anything happens." Barry assured him.

"You better." Cisco replied seriously.

Barry waited until he was out of earshot to go over to the telephone. He kept an eye on the only pseudo-nurse in the room at the time as he casually lowered his hand to the desk on the side of the phone facing away from her. She wasn't paying attention to him; too busy checking and rechecking the charts because her body temperature is negative one hundred, she shouldn't even be alive right now.

Barry vibrated his hand against the side of the phone until it rang. The nurse looked over, but he smiled at her, waving her off as he picked it up. "Hello?" He said to the dial tone. "Uh-huh. Yes. I'll tell her."

The nurse was obviously curious when he hung up.

"You're needed on the third floor. Dr., uh…" Barry hit the desk a few times and looked up as if to jog his memory. And three, two… He trailed off as his eyes landed on Caitlin's still, cold form.

The nurse smiled gently. "I'll go find out what they want." She said.

Barry smiled back sheepishly. "Sorry."

"Don't worry about it, sweetheart. Everyone forgets things now and then."

And then she was gone. Barry forced himself to walk at a normal pace to the door. He closed it and locked it slowly, careful not to break it with speed-induced strength. And when all that was done, he turned back to his comatose girlfriend, repeating what Dr. Wells had told him in his head.

"When she was struck by the cold gun, her metagene was activated. We don't know why this instance triggered it and not the particle accelerator explosion, but the main point is that the blast from the cold gun caused her metagenes to mutate in unnatural ways. As far as we can tell, the powers she would have had had her metagene activated normally were based in healing. For example; substituting resources from the environment into materials she could use to heal herself or others."

"She's not healing, she's getting worse." Barry had argued angrily.

"On the contrary, she's absorbing the heat from everything around her to fight off the effects of the cold gun."

"Kind of like a heat vampire." Cisco had mentioned that without his usual dose of humor or fascination.

"That's the reason the room feels cold even though the thermostat is set at two hundred and all the nurses have to wear special protective gear. If anyone touches her bare skin, they'll instantly freeze solid." Barry didn't want to know how Dr. Wells had figured that one out.

Barry remembered all that as he shrugged out of his sweater and his T-shirt. Bare-chested, he stood beside Caitlin's bed. He shivered – not from the cold, but from the tendrils of fear that snaked through his being. "It's going to be okay." He told himself again. "I did the calculations. It'll be fine."

He knew he wasn't going to talk himself out of it, but he still lingered at the edge of the bed. "Come on, Barry. The nurse will be back any minute now." He knew it took longer than a few minutes to check with every Dr. Something on the third floor, but he had to do this before anything went wrong.

Determinedly, Barry slid onto the bed and took Caitlin in his arms.

The chill shocked him immediately, but it wasn't just the cold that surprised him. The chill, while latching onto him and penetrating his body instantly, seemed to linger, feeling him out as if to determine whether he was a viable source of sustenance. Barry let it test him, pressing Caitlin's face into the crook of his neck and linking his fingers between hers. He closed his eyes tightly as the cold came to a decision and seared into his flesh.

Hang on, hang on.

Barry pressed desperate kisses to Caitlin's face and forehead, silently begging her to wake up. He knew, even with his breakneck metabolism and lightning rejuvenation he wouldn't last long against Caitlin's uninhibited power. But maybe he could warm her up enough to bring her out of her coma and back to him. Maybe he could give her enough heat and her metagene would fight off the cold and heal her.

Caitlin, please, come back to me.

"You know, a normal person wouldn't last more than half a second pressed up to her like that."

Barry stiffened, tightening his grip on Caitlin.

"Good thing you're not normal, right, Zoom?"

Barry closed his eyes. "So you know." He tried to keep his voice level. "Do whatever you want to me, but let me help Caitlin." His teeth were chattering and he was shaking from the cold, which put a damper on the seriousness of his words. His mind was already going fuzzy with hypothermia, so he didn't dare try again.

"I think you've helped quite enough for one day, Mr. Allen."

"N-no. Just a l-l-little longer."

"Barry."

"Dr. Wells, I…" But Harrison was already pulling Barry off the bed.

The boy's skin was blue and he was shuddering violently. Harrison rubbed Barry's arms, wishing he could share his body heat as the boy had with Caitlin but knowing that if he took his protective gloves off the frosty residue on the boy's skin could freeze him just as easily as if he'd embraced Dr. Snow himself.

Barry was crying softly, tears freezing to his cold cheeks as he curled up into a ball at the foot of Caitlin's bed. Harrison tugged at him, trying to get him to stand, to move away from the one person he didn't ever want to leave. It was tearing him apart to see her like this, but he couldn't leave her side. Yet Harrison knew that if he didn't get Barry somewhere warm quickly, the boy's systems would start shutting down.

"Come here, Barry. Come on."

Harrison half-carried Barry out of the room. They'd set up a makeshift break room next to Caitlin's ward with a large observation window cut into the separating wall. Thanks to the constant chill that lingered in the ward, blankets were stashed in the corner of the break room. Harrison deposited the speedster in a chair and grabbed the blankets to drape over him.

"W-what are you g-going to do to me n-n-now?" Barry asked, looking up at the scientist cautiously.

Harrison rolled his eyes. "Wow, Garrick really doesn't trust me, does he?" Making his way to the coffee without turning around, he added, "I've known who you two really are for months. If I wanted to do something to you, I would've done it already."

"Makes s-sense." Barry murmured.

"Here." Harrison pushed a steaming mug into Barry's hands. "You really overdid it in there. Even your enhanced metabolism can't fight off infinite cold that easily."

"'s not infinite cold." Barry murmured. "Cait's body is just sucking the heat out of mine. She's not freezing me. Not like everybody thinks."

"I know." Harrison replied. "Cisco knows, too. And all of the scientists who have even a remote understanding of biochemistry. Which, I'll admit, isn't many. Dr. Snow was always the mastermind in that field. I suppose I took her talent for granted and didn't think to hire any backup staff."

"You don't need to worry." Barry shivered. "Caitlin will get better. She'll still be the only one you need."

Harrison smiled sadly. "That's what Jesse says."

Barry's lips twitched upwards at that. "How's she holding up?"

"Not great." Harrison sighed. "I've banned her from the Labs because I know Caitlin wouldn't want her to see her this way, but I'm sure it's only a matter of time."

"No ban powerful enough to stop Jesse Quick." Barry muttered, using his nickname for her. "No man or woman fast enough to outthink her."

"Isn't that the truth?" Harrison sighed. Suddenly curious, his eyes slid over the young forensic scientist. "Allen, what's Garrick's plan to deal with that Black Flash?"

"Black Flash?" Barry smirked. "I bet that was Cisco's idea."

"That it was."

Barry hummed, thinking over the question. "The last time we talked, Jay was planning to draw the creature into a secluded location so that no one would get hurt."

"And then…?"

"We don't know." The boy's forehead creased. "We don't know what it is or what it wants yet, so Jay wants to go in carefully first and gather information."

"You can gather information from the creature just as well once it's contained." Harrison frowned. "What's Garrick's plan? To talk to it? See if it's willing to call a truce?"

"It hasn't hurt anyone yet."

"Maybe not, but it's definitely scared people." Harrison had to calm himself down, remembering that Barry hadn't so much as left the wing of the Labs where Caitlin was being held since she'd been shot. "You haven't seen the news, but it descends on people like a cloud and does something to knock them unconscious. It's paralyzed people for up to an hour."

"I'm sure Jay has it under control."

"I wouldn't be too certain."

"Dr. Wells…" Barry stiffened when he caught sight of something through the observation window. His mouth opened and closed once or twice, and then he was bolting towards the door at just over normal speed (due to the cold, most of his power had been invested in his regenerative capabilities). "Cait?! Caitlin? Oh, Cait…!"

Harrison turned to see a pale Caitlin Snow standing in front of the observation window. "Allen, wait…!" There was something wrong, something off about her. For one thing, her skin was still covered in frost, her lips still blue. Her hair was still bleached and the way her eyes followed Barry was almost predatory. But of course Barry didn't listen. Instead, he wrenched the door open and bounded over to his girlfriend.

"Cait, you're alive! You're okay!"

And then she lunged.