Notes: Thank you very much for the reviews, faves, and alerts! :) I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I did writing it.

The second time Caitlin met Barry, contrary to the "never again" that she had prophesied, turned out to be a mere two days from the bleachers incident.

Now this was how it happened. It was the first day of the semester, and as usual, Caitlin came into class thirty minutes before the bell. She settled on a seat close to the door and the counter where the materials and reagents were stored, brought out her electronic copy of the book for the class, and reviewed the experiment they would perform.

After around fifteen minutes, her coursemates began trickling in, and because Molecular Biology had a grand total population of twelve, she was familiar with everyone. In fact, she could predict the order in which they arrived just based on their time of arrival and the sound of their footsteps.

Like now, for instance: it was twenty minutes to bell and the person approaching the classroom had light, even steps. Caitlin could also make out the sound of keys clinking as the person approached. The only one who drove a car in her course was Bette, and she lived far from school so she always arrived early. Without looking up from her notes, Caitlin said, "Hey Bette," and received confirmation when the voice that greeted back—"How's it going, Cait?"—matched the name she called.

She gave herself a point. She played this game once with Cisco because he also knew her coursemates—they played weird hipster video games together—but he said her guessing game was incredibly lame and boring (strangely after she won the first five points straight). Since he was obviously a sore loser, Caitlin would tell him to shove a lemon in his mouth. (A lemon because sore was a homonym for sour. She was quite proud of herself for that pun, because it was one of the very few she made that sent Cisco into fits of laughter.)

The second person, though, proved to be a problem. The footsteps were light and the gait was languid, something characteristic of people with long legs, but aside from those there were no other distinct sound markers. It was impossible for her to forget someone's sound markers, so he or she was probably someone new. And the only new person expected the visiting professor, Dr. Wells. So perhaps it was Dr. Wells…

"Oh, hey Caitlin!"

Caitlin froze. No bleeding way. After having spent a considerable amount of time in the darkness with only his voice, she had of course recognised it immediately, but for the first time in her life, she actually wished that she was wrong, because if it really was him, then she would have to explain to herself why she was feeling confused about being mortified at the memory of the "the incident", and why she was disgustingly hopeful to see him again.

Great. Now even her emotions had emotions. What in the bleeding world was happening?

"I'm guessing you're here for Dr. Wells' class? So much for never seeing me again, huh?"

Maybe if she shut her eyes she could keep pretending that he didn't exist and that therefore "the incident" never happened; but when the smell of peppermint and aftershave diffused in the air between them, she couldn't indulge herself in further self-denial. It was him.

"Are you ignoring me?" he sounded amused. "Or are you imagining that we're back under the bleachers, doing unspeakable things in the dark…"

On reflex, Caitlin's eyes flew open to glare at him.

He laughed. "Gotcha. Relax, I'm kidding."

Right. Caitlin was anything but relaxed. Upon seeing him, her conversation with Felicity two days ago came back to her unbidden: After she had dropped off the GoPro at Felicity's desk and gathered her bath supplies, she had gone to the showers on their floor. She expected that Felicity would view the video alone and grudgingly award her with a point when she returned from her bath… But she hadn't even been in the bathroom for two minutes when her friend started screeching in the hallway.

"CAITLIIIIIIIN! CAITLIN SNOW! WHERE IN THE MOTHER ARE YOU?"

"Lis? What the—"

Her footsteps became louder as she approached her stall. "Is this you? Oh, yeah, these are your bathroom slippers. Just making sure I'm not spazzing at the wrong door. But oh my god, Cait. Do you realize who you just eskimo-kissed? It's the Barry Allen. Barry-frickin-Allen!"

"You do realize that by adding 'frickin' in his name does not make me any more enlightened than I apparently should be."

"God, Barry Allen as in, the star of the track team? Poster boy of Central Uni? No? Oh come on, his face is plastered on billboards along the highway going to Starling City! I think it was some energy drink or whatever, but anyway not relevant at this point. What I'm saying, Cait, is that you just got a campus celebrity to do your bidding! Like, what the actual frick! Is there something you're not telling me, like maybe you're secretly seducing hotties in your free time? Is that why you're always holed up in the lab? Like, you've been entertaining other labs in your lab?"

If Caitlin were to graph the movement of sensible thought in Felicity's rambles, it would be a very, very steep downward-sloping line, and by the end of this particular ramble Felicity had hit a point outside of the graph in her mind's eye. To rectify this immediately, Caitlin hastened to explain how they met, relaying the entire debacle and leaving out only the tiny detail on why he was there.

"Interesting," Felicity said. Caitlin couldn't see her face but she could practically feel her smugness emanating from the flimsy wooden door. She vaguely wondered why Felicity couldn't have waited for her to finish showering, because speaking to her while stark naked was extremely uncomfortable. "So what do you think of him?"

"He was… cooperative?"

"No, no, as in, feeling-wise. Or aesthetics-wise."

Caitlin paused. "Ummm—"

"Oh my god, you like him! You stopped and said 'ummm' instead of 'nothing'!"

"I was going to say—"

"Nuh-uh. That was so a confession. I am a genius for coming up with this. Planning the next dares will be so much fun…"

Felicity sauntered off, cackling gleefully.

Caitlin saw her entire life flash before her eyes.

When she had gotten over worrying what exactly Felicity might do to her—or make her do—Caitlin attempted to engage in introspection about her suspiciously smitten-schoolgirl reaction to this Barry Allen, if only to disprove Felicity's absurd conclusion of her non-confession. But then the very idea of attraction made her cringe—it might lead to contemplating physical attraction, and she couldn't tolerate her own company if she pursued that train of thought—so she abandoned it in favour of reciting the elements on the periodic table to calm down.

Right now, though, she was so discomfited that she couldn't even remember what came after lithium. Stupid green eyes. Stupid black polo on his stupid broad shoulders. "What are you doing here?" she bit out.

"To see you," he said blithely, taking a notebook out from his varsity bag. "And, you know, nothing at all to do with taking a required class for my major."

She decided to let the first comment pass, because otherwise she would let on how flustered it made her. "But only molecular biology students take this class in the first semester."

"Yeah, but this is the only class that Dr. Wells will be teaching, so I had to take it. I mean, how cool is it to learn cell and molecular biology from the person spearheading research in biochemical engineering? Right? Right? Come on, you're the nerdier one here. Share my enthusiasm."

"You know Dr. Wells?"

"'Course. Founder of STAR Labs, with a PhD in quantum physics and biochemical engineering. Currently researching the effects of particle accelerators on living organisms. Why do you look so surprised? You didn't think I knew this, huh. Because I'm just some typical jock."

Caitlin was, in fact, thinking that. To know the name Dr. Wells was normal—he was a bit of a celebrity in Central City—but to actually rearrange one's subjects in order to take a class that Dr. Wells was teaching… well, that was a different brand of nerd. Caitlin could hardly reconcile this with the fact that he had an actual billboard along a highway, a few televised interviews, and a fanpage ran by rabid high school girls who haven't quite mastered capitalisation (none of which she actually visited—she just typed his name in Google and went through the first page of results, just to, you know, check if Felicity was telling the truth).

But instead she told him, "Well, I don't think that typical jocks flee from their exes by hiding under the bleachers."

"Hey!" he said. "Well, I don't think that typical nerds eskimo-kiss complete strangers."

Her cheeks flamed, and he grinned wolfishly. "I only did it because it was a precondition for winning," she said tersely. "Nerds are very competitive."

He laughed. "How'd that go, by the way? Did you get the point?"

Caitlin stiffened. Felicity had actually conceded three, but he didn't need to know that. "Yes. Thank you."

"No problem. Glad to be of service. By the way, do you have a lab partner?"

"Yes. We've had the same partners since first year."

"Aw, man. Can I join you?"

She blinked. "No."

"What? Why not?" He feigned hurt. "After all we've been through—"

"We've only been acquainted for a total of thirty minutes—"

"—and after taking advantage of me—"

"—it's not 'taking advantage' if you volunteered for it—"

"—how could you be so cold-hearted as to refuse a friend—"

"—I'm not cold-hearted, I'm just being practical—"

"—wait, we are friends, right? Or are you still considering it?"

Caitlin paused. "I suppose it's not an entirely unpleasant arrangement."

"Gee. What an exciting way to describe friendship."

"I could take it back—"

"Hey, I didn't say I was against this 'not-entirely-unpleasant arrangement'. Well, since we've established that, can I be part of your pair?"

"No."

"Still no? Come on, don't I have like, friendship rights or something?"

"Friendship isn't the only factor to considering whether or not you can be part of our pair," Caitlin replied. "For one, the usual protocol for lab is either work in pairs or work alone, so having a group of three is structurally impossible. Thus my 'no'. But even if it were possible to have a group of three, I would still decline, because empirically speaking, no one can stand being my partner or Hartley's partner for long."

"Why not?"

"Well." She shifted in her seat. "According to popular consensus, it's because I'm anal and Hartley's an asshole."

He grinned. "Yeah? Well, I think I can handle anal."

"I don't think you could."

"Never know until we try, right?"

She glared at him. "The innuendoing isn't appreciated."

"Who said I was speaking in innuendoes?" he said innocently. "Gee, get your mind out of the gutter, Caitlin."

"Your mind was in there first," she said testily.

"So now yours is in it, too. What do you think our minds are doing together in the gutter?"

Caitlin huffed. "I won't debase myself by further participation in this conversation."

He burst out laughing. "Hey, I was just kidding. It's just so fun to rile you up."

"Has it crossed your mind that maybe I don't enjoy being 'riled up'?"

"Yeah, it's crossed my mind," he shrugged. "But then," he added, smirking, "I don't think my riling you up is an entirely unpleasant arrangement."

Thankfully for Caitlin's sanity, Dr. Wells chose that moment to arrive. A collective, reverent hush fell over the room. The only noise came from Barry, who couldn't seem to stop bouncing in his seat in excitement.

Dr. Wells pulled out an attendance sheet from his envelope and surveyed the class. "We will begin the first experiment today. I understand that everyone already has a partner?"

"Sir," Barry raised his hand. "I'm not part of this block, so I don't have one."

Dr. Wells glanced at the attendance. "Ah, Mr. Allen from forensic science. Who's Mr. Rathaway's partner?"

Caitlin raised her hand. "I am, Sir. Hartley will be running late today."

In truth, however, Hartley was always late for lab classes, because the first part of lab consisted of a short lecture, which he claimed to already know and which was therefore a waste of his time. Besides, the only times that he did come on time, he would attack the professor with such aggressive, rapid-fire questioning that the professor would eventually cry or send him out. But Caitlin tolerated him because he performed experiments with a professional, no-nonsense efficiency, and he was the only one in class whom she hadn't driven crazy with her meticulousness. They weren't friends, but they understood each other's neuroses and respected each other's work ethic, and they alwaysgot As for lab—which, in a sense, was way better than being friends.

"Tell Mr. Rathaway that I do not tolerate tardiness or disrespectful behaviour, and that I do not hesitate to expel students," Dr. Wells said, snapping on a pair of gloves. Caitlin cringed. Hartley's reputation sure did precede him. "Ms. Snow, you will work with Mr. Allen. Mr. Rathaway will work alone."

Caitlin's jaw dropped. Barry turned to look at her triumphantly.

"Is there a problem, Ms. Snow?"

Caitlin despaired. She wanted to say that this whole thing was problem—not because she would be distracted by Barry's stupid peppermint-and-aftershave smell, or his pretty green eyes, or his broad shoulders, of course not, god forbid, really—but because she didn't know how he worked, and unfamiliarity bred miscommunication, and miscommunication led to mishaps and slip-ups, which in turn led to a grade that wasn't an A if she didn't pick up on his slack, and not getting an A meant not getting a high GPA, which meant not impressing Dr. Wells, which meant not getting a job at STAR Labs—which, in Caitlin's books, was the end of the world. So, yes, it was a bleeding problem, but of course she couldn't say that, because he was her future employer and protesting might get her expelled.

So she settled for a terse "No, Sir."

Barry grinned at her. "Guess you're stuck with me. This is going to be so much fun."

Caitlin groaned. It was going to be a looong day.

Barry Allen was officially the most infuriating partner that Caitlin ever had the misfortune of having.

Case in point: "Hey, Caitlin, what did the substrate say to the enzyme?"

She tried to ignore him and instead concentrated on locating the paramecium in the microscope's field of view.

"Come on, humor me. Ask me what it is."

"What?" she said, exasperated.

He leaned in towards her, and said in a low baritone, "We fit like lock and key."

He was even worse than Cisco. She stared at him. "What if the substrate and enzyme weren't complementary? Then the enzyme would have to force the fit, but I suppose your pick-up line would fail to be romantic if you don't conveniently overlook that fact."

He pouted. "Really? Not even a chuckle?"

"I would laugh at factually correct jokes," she said dismissively. "Are you finished with the diatom?"

"Yup. Here."

Caitlin perused his drawing. "You didn't label the illustration."

"I… did, in a manner," he said, pointing to the margin of his notebook.

"But this is a drawing of… armour?"

"Not just any armour," he clarified. "If you read Arrow, you'll probably recognise Ray Palmer's ATOM exosuit. I put a number two beside it. And voila, diatom! See what I did there? Oh, is that a smile I see on mademoiselle Caitlin Snow's face? I should take a picture of this momentous event! Wait, let me get my phone—ow, I was kidding, don't hit me—"

Caitlin composed herself. This was maddening—she went from irritation to amusement in a matter of seconds, from contemplating how bad his jokes were to how adorable it actually was, and she wasn't getting any work done properly this way. "You'll still have to label it correctly."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Let me see the diatom again."

"What, you don't trust me?"

"I… do," she said. "But I trust myself more."

"Fine, two can play at that game. I'll check your paramecium."

"Help yourself."

"Do you have a name for it?"

"For my paramecium? Why would I name it?"

"You don't? Everyone in my zoology class named their microbes, so I assumed it's a thing—oh, I call dibs on naming my cheek cell. We're sampling my cheek cell, right? I'm calling it Barry Junior."

"How inventive of you," she said dryly. She checked the diatom under low- and high-power objectives, and was mildly surprised that his illustrations were close to the actual. Not as detailed as she would like, nor was it as detailed as Hartley's work, but she supposed it would pass for a low-bracket A.

"Or maybe I should call it Bartholomew. It's my first name, but no one ever uses it."

"Your Barry is short for Bartholomew?"

"Yeah. What did you think it was?"

Caitlin discreetly labelled his illustrations with the diatom's scientific name. "Bar…ney?"

"Aw, really? Do I really look like a Barney to you?"

Caitlin made a noncommittal noise. She reached for the calculator in her backpack and rechecked his computation of the magnification of illustration.

"Barney as in, the purple dinosaur or Barney as in, Ted's BFF in How I Met?"

"I'm only familiar with the purple dinosaur."

"Seriously? So when you heard 'Barry', you immediately associated me with Barney the dinosaur. Your first impression of me was a singing purple dinosaur. Geez, has everyone's first impression of me been a singing purple dinosaur?"

"Hm?" He was looking at her expectantly, with such pathetic distress on his face that she couldn't suppress a smirk. She decided that she rather liked distraught Barry over confident, innuendoing Barry. (Where, of course, she meant "like" in a purely objective preferential way.) At least when he wasn't teasing her or being cocky as heck, she was in control of her emotions and reactions, and she didn't need to lash out in confused irritation. "Do you realise that you're distressed over conclusions that you yourself have drawn?"

"I—what? But you said—"

She raised a brow. "I said that I was familiar only with the purple dinosaur, in response to the two options of Barney that you suggested. I never said that it was my first impression of you. Actually, the only reason I said 'Barney' was because it's phonetically similar to Barry."

"Oh. Oh. So… I'm not a singing purple dinosaur."

Caitlin paused. "It's not unimaginable."

"Hey," he gasped. "You're smirking! Stop imagining it!"

Caitlin found that she was liking flustered Barry. Maybe this was what he meant when he said he enjoyed riling her up. "I can imagine whatever I want."

"Well, why don't you imagine Dr. Wells in a pink tutu?"

"Barry is a dinosaur who lives in our imagination—"

"—or you could just imagine me naked in a jacuzzi—"

"—and when he's—what? Ew, no, disgusting—"

"—I didn't know disgust made you blush, Caitlin Snow—"

"—I am not blushing—"

"—denial makes you blush even harder—"

"—ugh, can we please get back to work?"

Barry smirked. Well, he was back to being a smug bastard. So much for thinking he was likeable. "Suit yourself. What's next?"

She glared at him. "Preparing the wet mount for hydrilla."

"Cool. I'll do it."

Caitlin started reciting the elements of the periodic table to herself to dispel thoughts of Barry naked in a jacuzzi. She tried to convince herself that the mental image was disgusting, but another pesky, traitorous part of her brain was whispering that he did have a very… aesthetically pleasing physique from all that running, and wouldn't it be absolutely wonderful to run your fingers over those corded muscles on his back—beryllium! Right, beryllium came after lithium, and then boron, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, fluorine…

She was going through the transition metals when he came back with the sorriest excuse of a slide she had ever seen.

"What is this?"

"Hydrilla?" he supplied.

She frowned at it. "Here, draw the paramecium. I'll prepare another mount."

"What's wrong with mine?"

"Everything. The specimen isn't even in the middle of the slide, there are air bubbles—"

"So?" Caitlin walked up to the materials and reagents counter, with Barry right behind her, looking perplexed. "It doesn't really make a difference. We'll still be able to see the cells, anyway."

"I'll feel more at ease if I redo it. It won't take more than a minute—"

Barry reached for the beaker with hydrilla and lake water before she could and held it high above her head. "I'll do it again, if that'll make you happy."

He was smirking at her, and the treacherous part of her brain—the part that was probably possessed by Felicity—was composing a running commentary on how fine he looked, leaning casually against the counter, his body all hard planes and angles, and she really did not need that this moment—or at any moment, for that matter. "Oh come on, just let me do it, it'll appease my supposed anal-retentive id a lot faster—" Caitlin swiped at the beaker, but even if she jumped her fingers only grazed the bottom.

He grinned down on her. "Isn't this situation familiar?"

She glared at him. "The beaker, please."

"I wonder what kind of kiss you'll be stealing from me next…"

Fuming, Caitlin lunged at his forearm, hoping to force his wrist down so she could reach the beaker, but unfortunately she had pulled too hard and the next thing she knew Barry lost his balance and she lost her balance and the entire beaker of hydrilla and lakewater spilled on her hair and her neck—

For a heartbeat everything was still. The first thing that Caitlin thought of was that she wasn't going to get an A for this class. The next thing she considered was that Dr. Wells would probably never hire her for STAR Labs, so she needed to find another career fast, and maybe in the meantime while she was dirt-poor she could inconspicuously bum at Oliver's garage (if he and Felicity were still together) and live off the scraps from his table—

"Mr. Allen, Ms. Snow, care to explain what's happening there?"

Caitlin flinched. Eating scraps from Oliver's table seemed very, very appealing right now.

"Hey, Caitlin, I'm really sorry. I swear I never intended this to happen, I was really just teasing you so you'd lighten up and all, because you seemed so serious…"

He trailed off. Caitlin was still decidedly and petulantly against speaking to him, even if he had lent her his varsity jacket to change into. Huddled in a stall in the comfort room, she finished plucking the last string of hydrilla from her hair and from her skin. She peeled her lab coat and shirt off and was upset to find a mild rash blooming on her neck. Since hyrdilla was a kind of weed, she supposed that it grew in microbe-infested lakewater, and said microbes were currently crawling all over her skin. Great.

"Uh, if it helps, I'll talk to Dr. Wells later and tell him it was all my fault. Lab performance grades are individual, anyway."

Caitlin regarded his varsity jacket uncertainly. It was a dark red with gold accents and with "ALLEN" emblazoned on the back, and even as she held it at arm's length from her, the his distinct peppermint-and-aftershave smell wafted to her nose.

Caitlin chewed on her bottom lip. She may be daft when it came to social cues and conventions, but she definitely knew that wearing a girl wearing a guy's jacket highly suggested that she was"his bitch", as Felicity would put it. Caitlin disagreed with the term, because obviously the girl might just be a friend that the guy so gallantly offered his jacket to because she was cold, or some other faux-chivalric reason, but she supposed the general sentiment was that the girl and the guy were intimately acquainted. And while he did lend his jacket because it was an emergency and because it was technically his fault, she still felt that wearing it was wrong, because she wasn't the kind of person to him that wearing the jacket would suggest. It felt like she was pretending to be someone she wasn't.

That and her wearing it would fuel unnecessary speculation. And if what Felicity said was true and he was as popular as she claimed he was, then Caitlin wanted to avoid gossip at all costs. She definitely did not want to be branded a fangirl or a groupie.

As of now, though, she didn't really have much of a choice. Dr. Wells was giving them an hour to finish the rest of the experiment, and they weren't even half done…

"Hey, Caitlin. What did the postsynaptic cell say to the neurotransmitter?"

Maybe she could wear the jacket now, leave her shirt here to dry, and come back for it right after the experiment ended. She supposed it was better than waffling here in indecision, and definitely better than wearing his jacket while she walked back to the dorms.

She took a deep breath, slipped it on, and zipped it all the way up so it would hide the rash. It was two sizes too big and the hem reached mid-thigh, and her cheeks were burning because now she could smell him on herself and she wasn't wearing anything but her bra under his jacket and it wasn't supposed to mean anything but she couldn't help imagining scenarios where it meant something—

BERYLLIUM! shrilled the rational part of her brain. Right, right, she was being irrational, she had an experiment to finish, and she was just probably overthinking. This didn't mean anything to Barry, because for bleeding sake they had only met and he was popular and he probably lent his jacket to a million other girls or a million other girls probably bought his jacket from sports merchandise stores so this was really nothing special.

"Cait?"

Caitlin hung her shirt on the door of the stall—she doubted anyone would steal a shirt—and took another breath to steel herself. I have an experiment to finish. I have an experiment to finish.

"What did the postsynaptic cell say?" she said, cool as can be, sweeping out of the bathroom.

Startled, Barry turned around. His eyes seemed to turn a shade darker when he saw her—but she wasn't sure if she had just imagined it, because in the next moment his expression cleared and he was donning his usual smirk. He leaned against the wall with his arms crossed and gave her a look that seemed more like a caress. Caitlin suppressed a shiver.

"It said," he intoned, tilting his head down until his lips hovered near her lips, close enough for her to feel his hot breath on her skin but not close enough to touch her, "'You turn me on.'"

Caitlin moved away from him, feeling a strange mixture of arousal and discomfort, her heart pounding so hard she felt like it would leap into her throat. "Neurotransmitters can also turn them off," she managed to say.

He gave her a wolfish grin. "Not if they're excitatory."

She frowned and muttered, "I liked you better when you were being contrite."

He laughed, and suddenly the tension between them just moments ago dissipated. "I really am sorry, though. I swear I'll talk to Dr. Wells."

"Okay. Thank you for lending me your jacket."

His tone softened. "No problem."

Caitlin felt a few stares on her when she entered, but other than that, the rest of the class passed without incident. She had expected Hartley to arrive, though, and was mentally preparing a speech to appease his tantrum, but it turned out that he didn't show up at all, which was strange even for him, but she wasn't inclined to worry on his account.

She and Barry were able to finish the experiment by the end of the class with only two or three more terrible jokes on Barry's end. Once they finished cleaning the glassware, they approached Dr. Wells' desk, wearing identical looks of shame. "We're sorry for the incident today, Dr. Wells," Barry began.

"Yes, about that," he said dismissively. "From what I understand, you've just met today." In a manner of speaking, Caitlin thought to herself. "So I expected a little difficulty in your dynamic, but I don't appreciate your bickering like gradeschoolers."

"It won't happen again," Barry said, at the same time that Caitlin uttered "I'll try my best to ignore him."

"Hey!" Barry exclaimed. Caitlin gave him a pointed look.

"Children," Dr. Wells warned, in a tone that sounded suspiciously playful. "However, that wasn't the reason why I wanted to speak with you."

Caitlin knitted her brow. "It's not?"

"Of course not," he said. "You're both too old for reprimanding. What I really wanted to discuss was your respective lines of research…"

In the next few minutes, Dr. Wells proceeded to explain, to Caitlin's growing disbelief, that he had heard from the department that they were already working on their undergraduate theses as early as now (Caitlin mused that Barry didn't seem like the type to start early, but she had definitely been experimenting in the lab during her free time—not seducing hotties, as Felicity had accused), and that he was quite interested in their topics—recombinant DNA on Caitlin's part, and optimisation of luminol photography for blood in crime scenes on Barry's.

"I'm afraid that your efforts might be frustrated by this university's lack of facilities," he said. "So I'm offering you the opportunity to experiment in STAR Labs. Given that, of course, you inform me a week ahead of time, and that you will credit STAR Labs in your output."

"No way!" Barry breathed. "Is this shit for real? —Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to curse, please don't take back the offer—"

Caitlin was less subdued in expressing her excitement, but she felt a silly smile on her face, and the warmth of happiness settling in her chest.

Eventually, Dr. Wells gave them a B-minus for that experiment, which still bothered Caitlin because she wasn't used to such a low grade—the last time she got a B-minus was during her only mandatory physical education class in high school, and honestly she was surprised she even reached B-minus in that class, what with her dismal attempts at basketball—but in the end, she supposed it all turned out fine.

It was only during their walk back to the comfort room where she had left her shirt, and after Barry had expended all his energy racing down the hallways, that he noticed the rash peeking out of his jacket's collar. "Is that a rash?"

Caitlin tugged the collar up. "Kind of."

"Kind of?" he reached for it. "Let me see—"

Caitlin evaded his hand. "What for? It's not like you'll be able to diagnose it—"

"I've had my fair share of rashes, so let me see—"

"—ugh, don't touch me—"

Barry held his hands behind his head. "Okay, okay, I won't. Just, can I see it, please?"

Caitlin reluctantly inched the zipper down until a little below her clavicle. Across her neck and spreading down her chest were angry-red bumps the size of mosquito bites, and Caitlin saw Barry flinch at the sight. "Looks like swimmer's itch," he said. "Although I didn't know it could get that bad from such a small amount of water."

"My skin's always been sensitive to allergens, so it's not entirely your fault."

"Still, I'm sorry for fooling around. I'll make it up to you next time," he promised. "And hey, from what I remember, you were the one who reached for my hand."

"I was reaching for the beaker. Your hand was in the way."

"Sure it was. I bet you unconsciously wanted to touch me."

Caitlin rolled her eyes. "I bet you're projecting and you're the one who wants me to touch you."

"I bet your unconscious wants me to project that I want you to touch me."

"I bet your unconscious is projecting that it wants me to project—god, never mind. This is a completely futile exercise."

"Ha, I win!"

"But wasn't a competition!" Caitlin exclaimed. "Besides, I was the first one who realised we were trapped in a loop—"

Caitlin stopped speaking when she noticed that Barry's gaze had shifted onto something behind her. His expression hardened.

"Linda?" he said. "What are you doing here?"