Notes: Hi everyone! Well, this has been a long time coming. I wrote like four different versions of it until it finally turned out the way I wanted it to. Please bear with my erratic updates, and thank you so much for your response to the last chapter! I'm humbled by them. I really do hope you guys continue to enjoy this story.

"Hey Caitlin! Where are you?"

"I'm coming. Look to your right."

"Oh, there! I can see you! Come on, hurry up!"

"What? Why?" Caitlin squinted at the entrance of the lecture hall. She saw a few people emerge from the doors before taking their seats in front of the long tables, where various folders were neatly laid out, and Barry was waving at her from beside the Special Topics in Immunology stand. "Barry, they've only started registration—"

"But the line's so long—"

"—and there are just, what, five people in front of you—"

"—and I'm bored! At least when I'm late, I won't have to get in line, and I won't have to get bored. Why do you walk so slow?"

"Why're you so restless?"

"I'm not restless," he said, even as he slipped out of the line and made his way towards her, still clutching his phone.

She arched a brow at him.

"…Okay, so maybe I'm sort of restless," he admitted sheepishly. "I just came from the forensic lab, and I can't stand my lab partner. Seriously. Julian's such a stickler for rules that it drives me crazy. Kinda like you, but like, a hundred times worse."

"That was vaguely insulting."

"Not at all. You know you're my favorite lab partner. We've already established that. And I love it when you boss me around. It's kind of annoying, but also kind of hot."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Still vaguely insulting, Barry."

"Alright, fine. It's really hot. Especially when you do that eyebrow thing and you have one hand on your hip and the other on the lab table—"

"I really do not need to know this."

"See, this is why I have to be vaguely insulting. If I just complimented you straight out, you'd think I'm being insincere and brush it away—hey, look!" he said abruptly, face brightening. "We're near each other!"

"Yes, Barry, that's what walking to the same point does."

"It's weird. I can hear your real voice and your phone voice. Your phone voice is kind of delayed, though. Is my phone voice kind of delayed too?"

"Naturally. Sound travels faster through air than it does through a system. I'll hang up now—"

"No, wait," he said, coming to a stop, "wait, what sounds sexier, my phone voice or my real voice?"

Now Caitlin came to a stop. "What kind of question is that?"

"Please, Caitlin. I really need to know."

"For what?"

"You know how all DJs sound sexy on air? I was thinking maybe it has something to do with how their voices travel through the transmitter. So since you can compare my real voice and phone voice at the same time, which sounds sexier?"

She stared at him. "I don't understand," she said slowly. "Are you jealous of your phone voice?"

"So my phone voice is sexier?"

"What—no—you sound the same either way, except when the signal's terrible—"

"The same meaning my real voice and phone voice are equally sexy?"

She glared at him. "This isn't really about the quality of voice over transmitters, is it?"

He grinned. "It depends on how you answer my question."

"You're a lot more appealing if you don't open your mouth."

"So I'm sexy if I don't talk?"

"That's not what I—"

"I'll shut up now so you can ogle me in peace."

She glared at him and clicked her phone off.

"Although I had a different kind of ogling in mind," he said, grinning and pocketing his phone. "You know, the more adoring kind, not the death-threat kind."

Sometimes Caitlin just wanted to strangle him. Granted, other times she liked him quite a bit, but still, those two didn't have to be mutually exclusive.

She brushed past him and headed towards the lecture hall, and undeterred, he didn't miss a beat falling in step beside her.

"By the way, you look really nice with your hair down," he said lightly. "Not that you don't look nice in a ponytail," he quickly amended, "but, well, you know. It's nice…r."

"Nice…r," she echoed. "Really, I was under the impression that you had a better vocabulary."

"Whoa, did you just… fish for a compliment?"

She gaped at him. "Fish?"

"And to think that until a few seconds ago compliments flustered you," he teased.

"I meant it to be vaguely insulting," she huffed. "Besides, 'nice' in general is too bland a word for anything. I mean, old ladies are nice. Fleece socks are nice, especially in winter. Petri dishes of E. coli proliferating indefinitely would be nice, so I wouldn't have to worry about whether or not I have back-up cultures for…"

She trailed off after recognizing how ridiculous she was sounding. It seemed that whenever she was in Barry's vicinity she either had nothing to say or she was saying too much. Clearly she had deficient brain-mouth coordination where he was concerned.

Barry was looking at her with unconcealed amusement.

"I'm sorry if my adjective choice led you to think that I was comparing you to old ladies or fleece socks or proliferating E. coli," he said, nudging her. "What I meant to say was, you look absolutely beguiling today. It's fortunate for poor blokes like myself that you've decided to let your… luxuriant… tresses down—"

Caitlin winced at his wording. "Alright, just stop. You've proven that you have a sizeable vocabulary. Congratulations."

"There's this other sizeable thing I have—"

She glared at him.

"Sorry," he said, grinning roguishly and not looking sorry in the least. And then, his features softening, he added, "But you're right. Nice was a lame word to use. You look really pretty."

Caitlin flushed. She suddenly found it very hard to swallow. In a fit of flustered desperation, she gestured to the lecture hall.

"Well," she floundered, "the line's really long now."

"The line? Oh, that line. Right." He surreptitiously cleared his throat. He seemed to have realized that he'd been smiling at her for longer than was usual. Oh, God, could he have noticed her blushing?

…Wait, was he blushing?

Caitlin gave him a sidelong glance, and her eyes widened fractionally in surprise.

She blinked again to make sure she wasn't imagining it, and true enough, there was still a very light pink on his cheeks. He was blushing!

Wait, so if he was also blushing, could it mean that she affected him the same way he affected her? Come to think of it, there had been a few times when he seemed more flustered and inarticulate than usual—sometimes, even, when he was trying to fluster her. She'd registered those moments vaguely, but she just never thought of it in conjunction to her effect on him.

It was all speculation at this point—it was still too nebulous to disprove her null hypothesis—but she wondered how she could have missed it.

As he ambled over to one of the longer lines, she observed, "You don't seem as bothered by the line as you were a few minutes ago."

"I'm not," he conceded. He glanced at her quizzical look over his shoulder and smiled. "I think the reason's pretty obvious, Caitlin."

There it was again—that slight hesitation in his tone, the tentativeness of his smile, the deeper shade of pink crawling up his neck.

Caitlin was still at a loss of what to do, but she bit her lip to suppress a smile. She had a feeling this insight would be very useful in the future.

Fifteen minutes later, they were still in line.

"They're registering manually!" Barry scowled, running his hands through his hair in frustration. "This is going to take forever!"

"Don't be so dramatic," Caitlin said. "Someone ran out to borrow ID scanners. It'll take only a few minutes, and by then we'll already be at the front of the line—"

He gave her a look of disbelief, as if she'd said "a few hours" instead of "a few minutes." He seemed on the verge of complaining again, but then suddenly, his mouth lifted into a mischievous grin.

Oh, she did not like that look.

"Come on," he said, tugging at her arm, "let's go somewhere else."

"No."

"Come on, Caitlin. Live a little."

"I'm already very much alive, thank you."

"You're alive, but you're not truly living. Ooh, damn, that was a good line—"

"—speaking of lines, look, it's moving—"

"They still don't have ID scanners," he said, tugging at her arm again. "Besides, I think you'll like this place. It's near the Observatory, and I always go there to think. It's nice and quiet and I stumbled on it during one of my morning jogs—"

"Barry," she said, tugging fiercely at his sleeve, but he was much stronger than she was, and it didn't take much tugging for him to make her step out of the line. "You have to write a paper on this lecture—"

"—and it's kinda chilly because of the wind but it's pleasant chilly, plus you can see the whole campus from there—"

"—honestly, you have the attention span of a goldfish—"

"—a goldfish? Can't I be a cooler animal, like a cheetah—"

"—see what I mean? A goldfish is perfectly apt—"

"—I bet cheetahs also hate waiting—"

"—and for the record, cheetahs are actually patient hunters—"

"—but I bet they wouldn't be if they had to wait in line behind other cheetahs for the next gazelle—"

She tugged his arm more forcefully now. "Barry."

They paused at one of the exits of the science complex, the one nearest to the small greenhouse of the botany students. He grinned at her, his hand still on her arm. "Yes, Caitlin?"

"The lecture's probably starting already."

"We can go to the one next week instead. And to the one after next week. When they have functional ID scanners. And shorter lines."

She realized that this meant she got to go to the next two lectures with him, but she cautioned herself that it was too soon to hope. "But you said that this was the only lecture with extra credits in Anatomy."

He waved a hand. "I think I'm already pretty good at Anatomy, anyway."

She arched a brow at him.

"Oh, don't give me that look," he said. "Here, I'll prove it to you."

She narrowed her eyes, expecting him to say something lewd, but instead he lifted her left hand with his right hand, and held hers palm-up between them.

His gesture was so unexpected that she stilled.

Dimly, she figured that she should probably pull away, but the moment when it was appropriate to pull away had passed.

His fingers grazed the tips of hers before curling around them. They were warm on her skin.

He was touching her.

He was holding her hand.

Caitlin felt very aware of her own body, and how all sensation seemed to concentrate on the nerve endings in her hands. She was in the thrall of his touch.

His thumb ran over the tips of her fingers.

"Phalanges," he said lightly.

Phalan—oh.

Oh.

His fingers moved down to trace the lines of bones at the back of her palm.

"Metacarpals."

He was naming the bones on her hand.

Her cheeks flamed. She was painfully hyperaware of his exploring fingers. It was like he was leaving a trail of fire in the wake of his touch.

He turned her hand over again and moved to the base of her palm, and ran his thumb across the pale skin there.

"Hamate, capitate, trapezoid, trapezium."

His thumb skimmed the top of her wrist.

"Triquetral, lunate, pisiform."

He glanced up at her and gave her a half-smile. "See?" he said. Her hand was still resting on his palm. "Just learned that today in class, and I've already got it all down to pat."

She blinked at him.

"Not quite," she said, more out of reflex than out of a conscious decision to speak. She bit her lip, surprised that she could even produce sound, what with her airways so terribly constricted, but she supposed that she couldn't resist correcting something. He was looking at her expectantly, so she took a much-needed breath to steel herself and moved to place her hand under his.

With her thumb, she touched the bone near his pulse point. She might have been imagining it, but the frantic thrumming under his skin seemed to match her own unsteady heartbeat.

"You forgot the scaphoid," she said.

His eyebrows shot up, and that signature sheepish grin of his was spreading across his face. "Damn. Nine out of ten. By your standards that's probably a failing mark."

"True," she conceded with a shrug. "But I can make an exception."

He let out a snort of laughter, and then regarded her with his bright green eyes. He slowly brought up his left hand to trace the delicate skin under her eye—her contracting orbicularis oculi, she realized belatedly—and the pad of his thumb was rough against it.

She took a shaky breath. He was so warm, and she had the sudden urge to turn her face to his hand and close her eyes, but she resisted it valiantly and trained her gaze on him.

His smile softened. "I'm glad I'm the exception."

It was even more difficult to breathe now. They were treading a minefield here—her hand was still resting on his, and he was still standing so close that if Caitlin looked up and stretched on her tiptoes, her lips would have touched his—and she didn't even want to dwell on how she came to replace actual measurements for distance with how easily she could possibly come into contact with his lips.

She needed to stop this—whatever it was—before she inadvertently stepped on a mine.

Caitlin looked away from him. "Don't let it get to your head."

"Can I let it get to my heart instead?"

She pulled her hand away. "Barry," she said, "we really should be going back."

A flicker of bewilderment crossed his expression, and he slowly tucked his hand into his pocket. Oddly enough, the moment that he did, Caitlin felt like the whole incident—the whole naming her bones in the guise of holding her hand—had never happened, and that they were probably not going to talk about it.

"There's really nothing I can do to convince you?"

"Well, the lecture's already starting…"

He shook his head and gave her a half-hearted smile.

"Alright, if you say so." He turned back to the direction they came from. "Let's go back."

"Really?"

He looked mildly puzzled. "Yeah?"

Caitlin blinked. She didn't expect him to give up easily—or rather, she didn't expect him to give up at all. Granted, he did usually give in to her, but he'd whine and complain and tease her while giving in. He never gave up sounding this resigned.

She pursed her lips in thought. What if he wanted to go somewhere else not because he was being annoying as usual, but because he was exhausted? If this place was a place he went to think, it was likely that it was also where he went to take a break, and right now he did sound like he needed one…

She sighed. The things she did around this boy.

She abruptly faced the direction opposite the lecture hall and tugged his arm. "Let's go."

"The lecture hall's—"

"I'm not particularly interested in this lecture series anymore," she clipped. "I prefer the one next week on Frontiers in Bioengineering."

He gave her an incredulous look. "I don't want you to feel like I've been dragging you around—"

"If you haven't noticed, I'm doing the dragging now," she said. From all her tugging—he was incredibly difficult to budge—her hand had slipped down to grasp his fingers. It was all well and good, since his skin possessed better traction than the slippery sleeve of his jacket (or so she told herself).

His incredulity melted into a smile, and he tugged her hand so she'd stop walking. "Well, in that case," he said, "you're dragging us in the wrong direction."

She blinked. "Oh," she said. "Fine. Lead the way, then."

He was smiling again. "You're awfully cute when you're trying to be nice, you know," he said, hand tightening around hers.

"Don't call me cute. It's condescending. And I wasn't being nice."

He grinned. "Don't worry, Caitlin. Your secret's safe with me."

"Barry, where exactly are you taking me?" Caitlin said—or wheezed, much to her embarrassment. "And why does it already look like we're miles away from civilization?"

Barry glanced back at her, and since he was a few meters higher up the slope than she was, the look he gave her seemed both amused and condescending. The nerve—she'd practically given in to all his whims out of the goodness of her heart and now here he was, gloating over her suffering. "A forest right behind the observatory is hardly miles away from civilization, Caitlin," he smirked. "Don't tell me you've never explored this place before."

"No," Caitlin said shortly. She leaned against a nearby tree to catch her breath, and Barry promptly paused to wait for her, adjusting the strap of her backpack on his shoulder and his hold on his varsity bag. She glared at him. How was he still breathing normally? Caitlin felt like her lungs were on fire, and she wasn't even carrying anything. "Is there anything about my pasty complexion and conspicuous lack of muscle mass that suggest I enjoy hiking through forests?"

Barry laughed. "No need to be so snappy," he said genially. He jogged back to where she was, still looking fresh and energized, while Caitlin felt like she'd run a marathon. Well, not really—she'd never ran a marathon before. Not unless it was a Friends marathon, which was a different kind of marathon altogether. "Come on, we're almost there."

"I can't believe you dragged me into this," she muttered.

He began walking alongside her now, matching her pace. He'd been doing a lot of that over their hike up the slope—wandering a few meters ahead of her and teasing her for being slow, and then rounding back to walk beside her. She would've been found it considerate if he weren't also deliberately showing off. As if she needed to be reminded of how fit he was.

"If I remember correctly, you dragged me into this."

"If I remember correctly, I was about to drag us in the direction of the library, where there's an air-conditioner and an elevator and nice, un-rocky flooring."

"Fair enough," he said, his eyes still bright with laughter. "It's not too late for us to turn around."

"I'll shove you down that incline if you dragged me all the way up here for nothing."

"I'd like to see you try."

She glared at him. "Oh, I will—"

But before she could get her hands on him, he'd swiveled out of her reach with an ease that she could only dream of having. He crossed his arms and grinned down at her. "Is that the best you can do?"

She glared at him. She was sweaty, and she felt grimy and clumsy and unattractive, and he was just so painfully graceful and athletic and so bleeding attractive in comparison that it was putting her in a terrible mood. "You should try staying still for five seconds."

"No thanks."

"Barry."

His lips quirk up in amusement. "That tone won't work on me, Caitlin."

"What tone?"

He shrugged. "The one you use when you want me to shut up and give in to you. You always use it when you're ma—oof!"

While he'd been talking, Caitlin had inched her way up the distance between them, and she'd given him a light push—but when she'd launched at him, she tripped and ended up hurling her entire weight on him.

She squeaked and shut her eyes and braced herself for the impact of the fall.

When it seemed like she didn't hit the hard ground, Caitlin slowly reopened her eyes and propped herself on her arm, only to realize that she was leaning on a very warm, very muscular chest.

Oh Lord.

"Are you okay?" he said. She was still leaning on his chest, and he was looking at her so worriedly that one would've thought she'd taken the brunt of the fall. It irked her to no end that even Barry's upper body was so perfectly toned when he only really needed his legs for running.

A fierce blush crept up her cheeks, and she tried to move but found that she couldn't, not with her waist in the vice-grip of Barry's arm.

"Don't be ridiculous, I wasn't—your arm!" Caitlin gasped, alarmed. She shoved his bag aside and lifted his arm up slowly to check for injury. "Does it hurt?"

"No, I'm fine," he said. He stretched it gingerly. "It's just a little sore, that's all. My back is, too, but I've had worse. It's all good."

"Are you sure?" Caitlin stretched his arm, and when he didn't make any sounds of protest, she rested it by his side again. "Wait, let me get up—I'll need to check your back—"

"Oh, no you don't," he said, tightening his grip around her. "I can't believe you really tried to push me down the slope."

She tried to use his chest as leverage to pull herself free, but he was pretty strong, and his chest was proving to be more distracting than it was useful leverage, so she placed her hands on the grass instead and scowled.

"Up the slope," she clarified. "I wasn't trying to kill you, no matter how annoying you were being."

"You still pushed me. We could've fallen onto a rock or something."

"Yes, I know, and I'm sorry," she said, attempting to wriggle free again. "Next time I'll make sure that the terrain is suitable for shoving infuriating people down onto, without causing life-threatening injuries—"

"—wait, Caitlin, can you just—can you stop—stop moving—"

"—so I'd appreciate it if you let me go, because this is unsuitable terrain and you could've sustained life-threatening injuries, and I need to make sure I'm not guilty of involuntary manslaughter—"

Barry made an abrupt movement, and Caitlin let out an undignified squeak when she suddenly found herself on the ground and Barry on top of her. "See?" he said. He tried to sound smug, but he was extremely flushed, and he was breathing heavily. "I'm perfectly fine."

She was about to say something snarky in return, but it died on her tongue when she saw the look he was giving her. His pupils were dilated, and his normally bright green eyes had turned a shade darker. She could feel the strong muscles of his arm around the small of her back, and his legs straddled her on either side of her hips.

She bit her bottom lip hard in an attempt to bring herself back to reality, but then Barry followed the movement of her lips with his eyes and let out a soft, strangled noise.

He only needed to move his head slightly for his lips to land on the shell of her ear. He whispered her name in a low growl that was nearly inaudible, and his breath was hot on her skin.

There was a coil of heat in her belly, wound tight and ready to combust. She fisted her hands in the grass in an attempt to control herself and she shut her eyes.

His nose skimmed the line of her jaw, a touch so light she might have imagined it.

It was so hot, and she couldn't breathe. Or she didn't dare to. She didn't understand this feeling. She wasn't even in control of her own body anymore. All she knew was that she wanted this nearness, this heat; she wanted to tilt her face to his and just—just…

Suddenly there was a loud rustling all around them.

Barry blinked, looking as if he'd come to his senses, and then abruptly scrambled away, startled.

Caitlin's heart was still beating wildly against her ribcage, and she was sure that the redness in her cheeks hadn't yet receded. She touched a hand to her temple, feeling flushed and disoriented and confused.

"So…" Barry said, awkwardly clearing his throat. He'd shuffled to his feet, pulled his shirt down quickly over the front of his jeans, and hefted their bags over his shoulder. When she glanced at him she saw a deep shade of red crawling up his neck. "Do you, uh, need help standing up?"

He held out his hand.

She blinked at it.

"No thanks," she said slowly.

The wind rustled around them.

She thought about how ridiculous it was that something like the wind could startle them so easily.

But then again, had they not sprang apart like they had, what would have happened instead? For a moment there she was sure that Barry—Barry Allen—was about to kiss her, and she was about to let him. Either that, or all the suffocating heat she'd experienced just moments ago had gotten to her head, and she'd somehow conjured up a very elaborate hallucination.

But, alright, assuming it wasn't an elaborate, heat-induced hallucination, how were they ever going to deal with the repercussions of something as unambiguously romantic as a kiss? Unless they both mutually agreed that Barry had slipped and landed on her lips, a confession would inevitably follow. And he would either say he liked her back, or he was just… what? Kissing girls in the woods for sport?

She frowned. That didn't quite add up. She'd been so focused on receiving some form of confession from him that she never considered what, exactly, happened after the confession.

She could feel a headache coming on. She didn't have enough functioning brain cells to think about this right now.

"Okay," he said lamely, letting his hand fall back to his side. "Not that I'm implying you're helpless or anything," he added as an afterthought, as she stood and dusted the back of her jeans. "It was just, you know, kind of a gentlemanly reflex, and I, uh, wanted to make sure you didn't injure your, uh, scaphoid or anything."

"My scaphoid," she echoed. "You were going to check an injury at my scaphoid by pulling me up by my wrist, which is essentially where my scaphoid is."

"Um," he said. "Maybe you injured it while shoving me… or… something."

She arched a brow at him. "You're still not bitter about me shoving you, are you?"

At her question, the tension seemed leave his shoulders, and he shook his head. "No, I'm not." He flashed her a grin. "You were only probably finding an excuse to grope my chest."

Caitlin spluttered. Damn it, how could he recover so quickly? This Barry wasn't supposed to make an appearance!

"As if there's anything remotely gropable about your chest—"

"Gropable? Tell me, Caitlin, how would I meet your standards of gropability?"

"If I did have standards for that, which I don't, you'd be the standard for ungropability—"

"I'm wounded, I really am, right here in the center of my extremely gropable chest—quick, Caitlin, put your hand over it to stop the bleeding—"

"You're being ridiculous—"

"Ah, another fatal wound! Now you have to put two hands on my extremely gropable chest—"

They bickered the rest of the way up the peak. Neither of them spoke about the Incident on the Slope for the rest of their time together that day, just as they did not speak about the bone-naming and dragging around campus as a shoddy guise for hand-holding. Everything was yet too new and too fragile, and they both felt that to speak about these small, new intimacies was to lose each other.

Caitlin, especially, couldn't bring herself to obsessively rehash anything just yet, let alone talk about it. It would stay there in the back of her mind, niggling at her consciousness, never fully surfacing. But she did feel something else surface, as Barry continued to alternately tease her and help her up the slope with a hand on her arm or a grip on her hand: She felt… happy. It wasn't the placid kind of happiness that ran throughout her body like a stream; it was a happiness that came in bursts, like a geyser—the kind of happiness that was difficult to contain, so that intermittently it shot tingles to her fingertips, crept into her smile, made her heart jump like it was going to fly out of her chest.

There would be another time for her overthinking. Maybe for once, she would just savor the feeling while it lasted.

The view they had when they reached the top lived up to the hype Barry made about it. It was breathtaking. Caitlin could see the entire campus from there, and she could see the lights from the stores and restaurants of the university town flickering to life. All around them they could hear the sounds that were audible only in still silence—the leaves rustling, different birds chirping, the wind whistling. Far off in the distance, they could see the sun inching down the horizon.

Barry was sprawled on his back on the dry grass, and she was seated down beside him, her back against a tree. For perhaps the first time in the past two weeks, she felt completely at ease being near him. Her body was more relaxed, and her mind wasn't constantly abuzz with its usual self-conscious monologue. It was probably the effect of the place. It seemed like the stillness here had crept under her skin, seeped into her bones.

They watched the sun and the patterns of color in the sky in companionable silence.

After a few moments, Barry spoke. His tone was subdued, as if he understood that to raise his voice a decibel louder was to shatter the peace.

"Hey, Caitlin," he said, "what's your full name?"

It was another of his random questions. Normally it would've set her on edge, but right now she'd been lulled into such a peaceful state of mind that none of her usual fight-or-flight responses were triggered. She wasn't even overthinking anymore. She was always overthinking, anyway, so skipping it this time wouldn't hurt.

"Caitlin Tannhauser Snow," she said.

"You don't have a second name?"

"None."

"Man, you're lucky. Must've been a breeze to learn your name."

She snorted. "Unlike Bartholomew, I imagine."

"Bartholomew Henry. It was a nightmare," he laughed. "Where did you grow up?"

"Keystone. You?"

"Here, in Central. Been here my whole life. Blood type?"

She arched a brow at him. "I should just give you my biodata."

He grinned, unapologetic. "But it's more fun this way. Blood type?"

She sighed. "AB positive."

"Nice. I'm an O positive. Which means if you ever need a blood transfusion, I can donate blood to you."

"I'll keep that in mind," she replied dryly.

"And you can donate plasma to me," he added. "Won't you? Will you donate plasma to me if I really needed it?"

"I don't think I would leave you to die."

"Great. Henceforth, we shall be blood buddies. Isn't that great? Say you'll be my blood buddy."

"What? No."

"Please, Caitlin. Say it. Give me this one acknowledgement of our friendship."

"We don't need a blood pact to be friends."

"It's not a blood pact. Blood pacts are so stone age. Blood buddies are the way to go."

"…You're very strange, you know that?"

"And you're very amused right now."

"I am not."

He gave her an incredulous look and sat up. She could see the playful challenge in his eyes. "Yes you are. You have these tells. You'll roll your eyes a bit, and then you bite your bottom lip to keep yourself from smiling, and then you'll put on this half-smile instead since you won't let the full smile out. See, there's that half-smile again. You're way amused."

"Do you always watch everyone this closely?"

"I—uh—well, you're amused a lot around me, so. You know. I notice it. I mean, I'm pretty good at it, being a noticer."

"…A noticer."

"Yup," he said, popping his p. He then turned away from her to lie back down on the ground. "So, what do your parents do?"

She was still mildly puzzled by the exchange, but again, she didn't think much of it. "My mother's a nematologist."

"A nematologist?" he perked up. "As in, someone who studies parasitic worms for a living?"

"Yes."

"Whoa. I don't know if that's gross or cool."

"Mostly gross. Imagine growing up with preserved roundworms in jars lying around the kitchen."

"You're serious?"

"Mm-hmm. She was always a bit absent-minded around the house, but she's absolutely brilliant at what she does. She's practically the figurehead for worms. I mean, regardless if you were studying roundworms or earthworms, you couldn't not know about her."

Caitlin didn't know what possessed her to say all these things—she'd always thought of herself as a private person—but there was something about the place, something about Barry at that moment, that made her feel like she could talk about anything.

"She likes the attention," she added after a slight pause, "but she never stops working. She reads all these new articles on nematodes for breakfast, writes her lectures over lunch, and drafts her research papers from dinner to after midnight. She's awfully dedicated to her career."

"Wow. That's insane. Now I know where you get your work ethic."

Caitlin scoffed. "Not really. Sometimes she just works at mealtimes because she spends the rest of her time watching YouTube videos. It's terribly inefficient. I made her timetables, but she never used them."

He laughed. "So you got your work ethic from her lack of work ethic."

"That's one way to put it," she said. She rested her head on the trunk of the tree. "I learned about real work ethic from my father, though. He was a lawyer. He was the one who gave me the timetables." She paused. "I was around ten."

"No way. I don't think I was even aware of time at ten. All I knew was meal time, snack time, and bed time. And the time that Pokémon airs on TV."

She smiled at the memory. "Me too. My father taught me to put those down in my timetable, even watching Pokémon and going to a friend's house."

He whistled. "That is ruthless."

"Just strict," she said. "And very efficient. I wouldn't be surprised if he started the whole time management craze. He was the epitome of time management."

Barry turned to look at her, a tentative question in his eyes. "Was?"

She stiffened imperceptibly and looked away. "He died years ago. Multiple sclerosis."

"Oh my god." He sat up, reaching to touch her arm. "I'm so sorry—"

"It's alright. You didn't know. There's no need for apology."

"Crap, the lecture series today had MS as a subtopic—"

"Barry, stop. No apologies. Please." She squeezed the hand on her arm to emphasize her point. "I've read the outline for the lecture and there's nothing new. MS is still chronic, and painful, and incurable."

His eyes turned sad. "That must have been hard."

A flurry of memories flitted into her mind's eye. Her mother crying over the phone one day. Visiting her father in the hospital, seeing him for the first time since he remarried. Watching him struggle to stand and walk each time she visited, watching him prove to her—but more to himself—that he was still fine. Sitting through all his mood swings, trying to make herself small so he wouldn't take it out on her. Bearing the moments when he'd forget little things, like the day of the week, or big things, like her name. Touching his hands, cold and stiffly folded across his body in the casket. Staring at the yawning furnace that would turn him into ash…

Caitlin looked at her hands. "It was terrible. But it's been years, so… it doesn't haunt anymore. Not as frequently, anyway. And not so painfully."

He leaned back against the tree trunk, his shoulders touching hers. "I understand," he said. "Uh, if you need someone to talk to, I'm just a call away. I mean, I know not everyone's experience of losing someone is the same, but I guess there are things that're universal, so…"

Caitlin glanced at him. "You lost someone, too."

"Yeah. My Mom." He closed his eyes. "She died a year and three months ago." He paused. "The entire thing was so senseless. It was the start of summer break, so I was out celebrating with my track buddies, and Dad was working late. He was usually home before dinner, but he had some emergency to take care of, so Mom was home alone. She never locked the doors, because we've lived in that neighborhood our whole lives, you know, and it was a good neighborhood. No one locked their doors because nothing ever happened."

He swallowed, and instinctively, Caitlin moved to touch his hand. He wrapped his fingers around hers like it was the most natural thing in the world.

"And then, there was this… college kid who came stumbling into our house. He was really high and out of his mind. He was having these… paranoid delusions. He thought my mom was conspiring with the people out to get him. When my mom reached for her phone, he lunged at her with a kitchen knife and stabbed her. Nine times." He turned her hand over in his, tracing her fingers. "Nine times. Can you imagine?"

"That's terrible," she said, hating how hollow the words sounded. She didn't know what else to say in the face of such naked anguish.

"She could've survived one, or maybe two or three, but not nine." He pressed his lips together. "Joe heard all the commotion, and he was able to call an ambulance, but she was dead before she reached the hospital. And in the meantime, I was out partying. Couldn't hear anything above the noise. I missed Joe's call. I missed her call. Her last words to me went right to voicemail. Just, Barry, I love you. I love you so much." He swallowed and closed his eyes. "Her voice was all cracked and desperate. Like she was crying."

He was quiet for a few more moments, lost his grief, and Caitlin stayed beside him in silence, letting him hold her hand.

"I'm sorry," he said suddenly, looking up at her. "I didn't mean to dump all that on you. We were talking about your dad…"

"No, I really didn't have anything more to say," she said. "And I understand. It's only been a year since your mom died. It's still fresh."

"Not fresh enough," he murmured. "Sometimes I feel like I'm forgetting her already. I mean, I know it's supposed to get better with time, but doesn't it get better because you remember less?"

He paused, silent for a moment as he traced the jagged lines of her palm.

"Like right after… it all happened, everything hurt. All the time. When I remembered her, I felt surrounded by the memory. Like watching a movie I couldn't get out of. Her smile. Her voice. Her favorite floral blouse. The way she called me Slugger on normal days, Barry when she wanted me to do something for her, and Bartholomew Henry when she was going to give me a real whipping. Verbally, of course." He smiled briefly. "And then, eventually, the memories become fuzzier around the edges. Shorter. Not a movie anymore, just faded pictures. Like the ones in your wallet. You put a picture there so you'll always see the people you love the most, but after a while you forget it's even there. And when you look at it and really see it again, it's already yellowed and faded, and there's a crease over her eyes and her smile, and the color of her hair's this dull brown instead of deep red, and the edges become this soft, brittle fuzz. Does that make sense?"

"It does," she agreed. "It's a very poetic way of describing it." She saw his budding smile and added, "Don't let it get to your head."

His grin was a full one now. "I don't get it. You're insulting me but you're making me feel better. How is that possible?"

"Maybe you're a masochist. It's the only plausible reason you've tolerated my company for this long."

"Why I enjoy your company," he corrected. "It's not so bad. It's like being with a cactus and holding on to the non-prickly parts."

"Normally, people don't hold onto cacti in the first place. And how am I a cactus while you still get to be a human being?"

"Well, you're pretty cactus-y, and I'm pretty human-y."

She arched a brow at him.

"Point is, I liked the idea. It doesn't have to hold up to logical scrutiny."

"What a cop-out answer. But fine. I'll let you off the hook this time."

"Thanks. I'll make you the human being in my next metaphor."

"I think I've had enough of your metaphors," she said dryly. "Anyway, you were talking about memory?"

He gave her another smile before turning his face to the sun. Only a tiny sliver of it was left on the horizon. "Yeah. Uh, well, I think time heals all wounds because it makes us forget better. I mean, not all the time. Sometimes there are these moments when I remember my mom so sharply it hurts. And how… how those nine stab wounds looked like. But for the most part… I don't think of her so much anymore."

"And when you remember that you haven't thought about her in a while, you feel guilty," she said. "You feel like you've done something wrong."

"Yeah, exactly," he said. "Time heals by making you forget, but guilt's there to make sure you never forget completely."

"And to remind you that to be a good son or daughter, you must remember. It's the last tie that binds us to our family, this obligation of remembering. Or maybe re-membering…"

"That makes sense. Since they're not there anymore, physically, you try to put your memories of them together, over and over again…"

"…to approximate their presence," she finished. "No matter how incompletely."

"It's not a bad obligation."

"It's neither good nor bad. It just is."

"I watched this series recently called Westworld," he said. "The characters who've lost someone, they always say that they don't want to forget their pain, because pain is all they have left of the ones they've lost."

"Part of remembering," she mused. "Somehow, paradoxically, they're physically present again if you feel the pain of their absence. So sometimes you want that pain. Memories are sharper when you're in pain."

"Yeah. That's true."

He gave her a look she couldn't place, and then he turned back to the horizon and smiled.

"We're totally blood buddies."

She wrinkled her brow. "What does that even mean?"

"Doesn't have to mean anything," he said, grinning now. "It simply is. Hey, come on. Don't shoot it down. It amuses you."

"It does. Sounds awfully morbid though."

"Really? I think it's kind of cute. It could be a band name."

"Doesn't sound like a chart-topping name to me."

"What! I'm offended. Charts are not topped by name alone, but by talent and hard work."

"Unfortunately we have neither."

"Pfff. We totally do. You're hard work, and I'm talent."

"You, talent?"

"Yuh. Excuse me, I have a quote pretty sexy baritone unquote, if I may say so myself."

"You're not saying so yourself, which is why you're quoting someone in the first place. Who, exactly, are you quoting?"

"…Anonymous."

"Which is basically code for nobody."

"You wound me."

"I'm always wounding you, being the quote cactus with some non-prickly parts unquote."

He grinned. "You are so into my metaphors."

"I am not."

"You so are. We've already been through this. You have that half-smile on again."

She pressed her lips together to vanish the half-smile and looked away. "Stop that."

"Stop what?"

"Observing me. Being a noticer. Whatever it is you're doing."

"Why?" he said, crouching so that he could peer up at her. "Does it embarrass you? Hey, Caitlin, please look at me."

"I clearly don't want to, so don't ask."

"I can't not notice," he confessed, his tone subdued. "But if it makes you uncomfortable, I won't point it out anymore. I swear." He gently placed a finger under her chin. "Please look at me?"

Her face was burning. She couldn't look at him now—she would give too much away. She was already giving too much away with her discomfort. "Let's go back. It's almost dark."

"Hey," he said, tugging on her hand, "are you mad?"

"No."

"Can you smile to indicate you're not mad?"

"I don't smile on command."

"How about on a request?"

She lifted her bag onto her shoulder.

"On plea? In supplication?"

"In supplication? Really?"

He beamed. "So the magic word is supplication."

She let go of his hand to adjust the strap on her shoulder, but caught herself when she had nearly reached for it again. "You're insufferable."

"Not insufferable, just incredibly persistent," he said, taking his bag and slinging it over his shoulder with ease. "Need help?"

"No."

"I'm not offering because I'm making fun of you or anything. I mean, your backpack is made of brick, and it's getting dark, and it's not exactly easy to go downhill, and I have more experience, so…"

"Still no."

"Caitlin."

"Barry."

"Now who's being insufferable?"

"Not insufferable, just incredibly determined," she returned.

"Touché. I see you're learning from the best."

"More like beating him at his own game."

They went on like this on their way down the slope, and halfway through, after what seemed like the nth time that Caitlin had slipped on something, they decided to compromise—she would carry her own bag, but she had to accept his help if the terrain was steep or rocky. He stayed close to her, keeping a hand on the small of her back or on the crook of her arm, and from time to time he would take hold of her hand—nonchalantly, as if the gesture didn't mean anything, or it meant too much for either of them to remark on aloud.

Caitlin didn't comment, but she let him do it.

When they finally reached flat ground without any casualties, he assumed an appropriate distance from her and walked her to the dorms. He thanked her for the day and started walk away, but then, as if he'd forgotten something, he quickly looked back to flash her one last broad, silly smile. It was so utterly charming that she gave him a full smile back, too.

Caitlin watched his retreating figure from her dorm window. Her mind was buzzing again, but she couldn't pay attention to any train of thought. Instead she curled her hand into a loose fist, trying to keep the lingering warmth of his hand in the small hollow of her palm.