Author's Note: So, yeah, this one was a little predictable, but there's only so many accidents where ice can save you, guys!
Speaking of which: IF YOU HAVE IDEAS FOR OTHER THINGS THAT CAITLIN CAN STOP WITH HER ICE POWERS PLEASE PM ME. I may not use it, but I will definitely take it into consideration.
Caitlin was walking out the door to get to STAR Labs when, lo and behold, she opened her door to reveal Julian. "Hey!" She cried, a little startled. "What's up?"
"Nothing really." He shifted from side to side. "I just figured, you saved me in that car crash: The least I could do was repay you by accompanying you to STAR Labs. Anyway, I pass your apartment on my way from mine, so I just figured I'd stop in." He paused, suddenly nervous. "Is that ok?"
"Of course!" Caitlin smiled, tucking her hair behind her ear. They blinked at each other, and Caitlin couldn't help her mind wandering at the mention of their escapade on the way to visit Team Arrow.
Barry had ended up rushing to the emergency room with a worried expression on his face. He had offered to take Caitlin to the Arrow Cave and then come get Julian later, but she had refused, not wanting to leave his side. He had needed a few stitches, but everyone on Team Arrow was totally cool with the delay, knowing what it was like to not have any control over a situation. And stitches. They knew stitches very well.
That wasn't what she was thinking about, however. Her mind was more occupied with what had happened while they were in the car. Julian had come so close to kissing her- or, at least, that's what Caitlin was thinking he was doing. For all she knew, he was just starting to pass out, and his head had dipped foreword a little, making it only look like he was about to kiss her.
See, that was her problem. She just wasn't sure of his intentions. She couldn't stand a refusal- if he turned her down, things would become unbearably awkward. More awkward them Team Flash could handle, at this rate.
"Caitlin?" Julian was staring at her, and she blinked.
"Uh... sorry. Were you saying something?"
Julian gave her a mildly concerned look. "Are you quite altright?"
"Yes, I'm fine." She shook him off, pushing foreword a little to leave the doorway of her apartment.
She was just turning to lock her door when a blaring alarm started up. Caitlin flinched in surprise, covering her eyes instinctively. Julian looked around, alarmed. "That's a fire alarm!" He said, unnecessarily.
"I noticed." Caitlin muttered, sending a teasing half-smile in his direction. "It's probably just someone's oven overheating or something. That happened to my friend in college one time- she was super embarrassed."
Julian shrugged. "Still, we should evacuate."
They began to make their way toward the nearest fire exit, quickly joined by other people on Caitlin's floor. Smoke began to filter through the smallest of cracks in the ceiling. Caitlin's neighbor, and elderly woman name Alicia, stared worriedly upwards. "Oh dear..." She murmured. "I really do hope it's just a false alarm like last time."
Julian led Caitlin to the staircase, holding open the door so everyone could file in. She waited with him, not wanting to get separated, and then joined him in their descent to the bottom floor.
They had reached halfway to the 2nd when the roof started caving in. People below them screamed, starting a mad rush toward the exit. Julian threw himself over Caitlin's body, taking the brunt of the dust and debris. Once everything had settled again, Caitlin straightened, forcing him to do the same.
"Something tells me that's not a false alarm." Caitlin whispered, staring upwards as orange flames started to crawl their way down the walls.
Julian grabbed her hand, gripping it tightly, and they started to race down the stairs. They had just reached the bottom floor when the building shook again. Caitlin heard a scream and turned.
Alicia was still making her way slowly down the steps, gripping tightly to the railing. She held her hands over her head, trying to deflect falling debris.
"Wait here." Julian told Caitlin, his voice raised over the sound of the trembling building. He began to race up the steps, ignoring Caitlin's called-after protests. "Julian!"
Once he reached Alicia, he grabbed one of her arms, increasing the pace of her descent. She hobbled down the last steps, and Julian passed her off to Caitlin, who helped her the rest out of the door.
Grabbing her hand again, Julian was about to pull Caitlin through the door when, once again, the building trembled. Caitlin screamed as rubbled rained down, bigger pieces of the roof slamming to the ground. They caved in multiple steps, and blocked the bottom half of the entrance.
They were trapped.
When the dust settled, once again Julian's first priority was Caitlin. He scrambled to his knees, crawling to her side. "I ok." She told him before he could ask.
He noticed blood on her side, and, before she could protested, had pulled up the bottom of her shirt. She covered his trembling hands with her own. "It's ok. It's just a graze."
Julian let her shirt fall reluctantly, helping her climb to her feet. He winced as he put weight on his leg, and Caitlin saw that it was bleeding, too. "Just a graze." He told her, repeating her phrase from before. She gave him an unamused look. "I'm serious!"
Once they were both steady on their feet, they looked around their surroundings. "How are we going to get out of here?" Julian asked. Both their exits, the door and the stairs, were blocked. There was no way out, except through a small gap near the top of the door.
Caitlin shook her head in dulled amazement. "Spending time with you certainly makes my life more interesting, Julian Albert."
He blinked at her. "Oi! I didn't cause this."
"I was kidding." She rolled her eyes, patting him lightly on the shoulder. "It just happens that every time something bad happens, we happen to be together."
"Well, that's a good thing." Julian said, his eyes teasing. "Because that means that you can just keep saving my neck."
Caitlin bit back a smile, unnaturally pleased to be seen as his hero, instead of the other way around.
Once again, they found their eyes locked together. Caitlin certainly wasn't planning on looking away. She wanted to see what Julian was going to do. Had he really wanted to kiss her before?
It seemed that she wasn't allowed to find out just yet. Before Julian could move anywhere, the building shook for the forth time. Caitlin glanced around desperately, looking for cover, but this shaking didn't seem to be as back as the others before it.
Julian reached out of her hand, and she quickly let him take it. "Caitlin." He said seriously. "I cannot believe I'm asking you to do this again... but we could really use your ice powers right about now."
She stared at him, "What good are they going to do? No. Until there's a real reason to use my powers, I won't do it. If you get trapped in here with Killer Frost... who knows what could happen, Julian!"
He rubbed his hand through his hair, causing it to stick on end. "If you freeze the stone blocking the door, we might be able to break it down more easily." She raised her eyebrows. He shrugged. "It's better then doing nothing!"
"Julian, firefighters are trained to get people out of burning buildings." She took a calm seat on the floor, clasping her hands and placing them delicately in her lap. "All we've got to do is sit tight and wait for them to rescue us!"
"Hey, shouldn't you call Barry?" Julian asked, reluctantly sitting down beside her. "I bet he could help us."
Caitlin frowned. How had she not thought of that already? "It's worth a shot." She reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone. Then she paused. "I don't want to press the panic button. So do I call him or text him?"
Julian stared at her. "You're really considering that? Caitlin, we are in a burning building where roof could fall and crush us any second. I think you should call."
"That's all I was looking for." Caitlin shrugged, and pressed Barry's contact. Her phone rang... and rang... and rang...
"Hi, you have reached Barry Allen. I'm probably out doing something or just don't want to talk right now, so please leave a message when you hear the beep! Thanks, have a great rest of your day."
Caitlin grinned at the sincerely Barry message, and waited for the beep. "Uh, hi, Barry. It's Caitlin. I don't know where you are right now, but Julian and I are kind of stuck in my apartment building, and it's on fire. We could really use some help. Thanks. Bye."
"It's slightly unnerving to hear you handling life-and-death situations like they are normal ones." Julian commented.
Smiling, Caitlin slipped her phone back in her pocket and got comfortable on the floor. "Well, that's because they are." Julian gave her a look, and she looked right back. "Come on, Julian. I work with the Flash. I've been kidnapped at least 3 times. I have an evil other-personality inside of me and I'm working on fighting the god of Speed. This is actually pretty anti-climactic, compared to everything else."
He only shook his head, leaned back against a particularly large piece of ceiling. "So, what now? We just... sit?" His eyes pleaded with her again. "You sure you don't want to try-"
"No." Caitlin send firmly. "And that's my final answer. My mother told me that the more I use my powers, the harder it'll be to reverse them."
Julian frowned. "So... you still want your powers gone?"
"Of course!" Caitlin sent him an incredulous glance. "I mean, Julian, this necklace is pretty and all, but not every outfit I own goes with this color."
He laughed, but sent her a more serious look. "If you could learn to control your powers, you wouldn't need then necklace. I could help you. And Cisco could find a way that, if things get out of control, to stop your powers from getting out of hand-"
"No, Julian." Caitlin repeated, cutting him off. "I'm sorry, but it's just too dangerous."
Silence fell between them, broken only by sporadic groans as fire slowly ate away at the building. Caitlin tilted her head back, sharing the stone section that Julian was leaning on. "I really hope the fire doesn't get to my floor." She murmured. "All my stuff's in there."
Reaching over, Julian squeezed her hand sympathetically. "We'll figure something out."
After a half and hour, still no one had come. Caitlin had curled into a ball, resting her chin on her knees, and Julian was lying back with his eyes closed. Smoke was now visible all around them, coming from the steadily creeping flames that were moving down the wall.
Caitlin couched, trying to breathe through her sleeve to filter out as much fumes as she could. She got slowly to her feet, choking on the smoke, and made her way slowly over to the door.
"Julian, I think we could fit." She called. There was no response, and fear shot through her, sending her running back to his side. "Julian? Julian!"
She fell to her knees, shaking his shoulder roughly. He groaned, and opened his eyes. "What- what? Sorry, I must have fallen asleep or something."
Caitlin bit her lip, her eyes slipping unconsciously to his blood-soaked leg. "Ok, I do it."
His muddled mind took a second to register. "You'll do... you're going to take off your necklace?"
"No one's coming." Caitlin responded hopelessly. "Barry still hasn't picked up, and soon, we're not going to be able to breathe in here." She reached around her neck, grasping the two ends of the chain and, for the second time in a week, pulling it off.
After handing the necklace to Julian, Caitlin hurried back over to the door. Julian stumbled to his feet, following her. "Just try and turn the stone to ice. Then we can find something and break it until there's enough of a hole to go through."
Caitlin rested her hands on the debris, focusing hard, and immediately, the stones began to get icy cold under her hands. She pushed harder, willing the ice to got to it's very core. Frozen solid. She could do that.
After a little bit, Julian rested his hand on her shoulder. "You did it, Caitlin." He whispered. "You can stop now."
She took a deep breath, finding it harder, this time, to take the necklace from him and drape around her neck. So Julian did it for her, completely trusting that she wouldn't hurt him, and hooked the necklace for her. "There we go." He whispered, one hand still resting on her back. "I knew you could do it."
Caitlin nodded, shaky, and looked around for something to break the barrier.
They ended up just using other rocks, and picked away at the ice until the hole at the top of the exit was big enough. Then they squeezed through, tumbling out to the other side. There were gasps from all around, and Caitlin blinked at the bright sky.
Julian groaned beside her, sounding like he was trying to cough up a lung. She reached over blindly and squeezed his hand again. "Looks like your plan worked."
His face popped into view, grey with soot but smiling. "Of course it did! My brilliant ideas are why I'm on Team Flash, but I can have them outside defeating metas."
Caitlin giggled, and got to her hands and knees. A paramedic rush over to them, followed by a fire fighter and... Iris? She grinned in relief when she saw them. "Guys! Thank goodness you're ok. I was getting close to breaking down the door myself if these oafs weren't going to do it."
Julian laughed outright at the look on the fire fighters face. The man handed him an oxygen mask anyway, then passed one to Caitlin. "Thanks."
"Why are you here?" Caitlin asked in confusion. If anyone on Team Flash had come to greet them when they got out, she had expected it to be Cisco, or Barry. Not Iris.
"I'm am still a reporter, a fact which everyone seems to forget." Iris reminded her with a teasing smile. "Now, I'll take your statements after that overeager nurse looks at you."
She strode away, sending her I'm totally supposed to be here reporter smile over to everyone who attempted to stop her. Caitlin shook her head in amusement, allowing the paramedic to check out her injuries.
Draping and arm over her shoulder, Julian smiled down on top of her head. He was about to speak when a familiar rush of speed-air had them both looking up.
Caitlin rolled her eyes, but couldn't fight her laugh. "Wonderful timing, Flash."
Author's Note: Gosh, I never know how to end these things. That is the thing I'm worst at, probably, is the ending.