A/N: First, I want to thank all of you. For reading, reviewing, favoriting and following, all of it. Thank you! Second, I just want to give you all a heads up. These first few chapters will mostly be back story. What they have been doing and all that. So, they will be shorter. The story won't really pick up until they reunite. Third, for those who have asked. They will reunite but not for a few more chapters.

Anyway, hope you enjoy!

Caitlin was now in her senior year of high school. She had made two close friends in Star City, Felicity and Oliver. She had made others through them including Laurel, Sara, Thea, and Diggle. Things were really different in Star City compared to Central City. Maybe it was because she was older, mostly it was because she didn't have her best friend with her.

Caitlin had kept in touch with her mother, calls every Sunday and video chats once a month. She still wrote letters to Nora. What started at least once a week turned to once every other week and now was once a month.

She had lost all touch with Barry.

A call every week became too hard to hear the pain of being away from each other so they would text instead. He had told her of Iris West and her enthusiastic personality. She told him about Felicity and her beyond impressive brain. But even text messages became too hard to keep up with and they fell through.

She never mentioned Oliver to Barry. And she didn't talk much about him to her friends in Star City. Only Felicity really knew of the bond they had when she had spent the night at Caitlin's house and had seen all the pictures of the two of them. Felicity had badgered her for information for an hour before she finally relented and told her about the man that stole her heart.

Caitlin had taken down the pictures after Felicity left the next day. She put them in a box under her bed and hasn't touched them since.

Things took a turn for the worse during the summer between her junior year and her senior year. Her father had fallen ill with multiple sclerosis. If leaving Barry hadn't broken Caitlin, then losing her father would turn her entire world upside down.

The illness hit him fast and within a few months he was hospitalized. Caitlin was only seventeen when she had to bury her father. Caitlin had shut down for a few weeks. She still focused on school and made it through with her flawless GPA, but emotionally she was a wreck. She lost her support, her father. After she had made the phone call to her mother she thought of Central City less and less. It was too hard. And Caitlin had a tendency to run when things got too hard. She faced a problem head on until it was too much, then she would run. So she ran away from the pain of her past, from Central City.

Oliver's mother, Moira, had grown very fond of Caitlin in all the time the three of them, (Oliver, Caitlin and Felicity) would spend time at the Queen mansion. Even Thea, her youngest had looked up to the brilliant Caitlin Snow. She had adopted Caitlin into the house. Legally she didn't adopt Caitlin but Moira treated her as if she were her own daughter.

At first it was a bit awkward for Oliver and Caitlin knowing their fling in the past but both quickly brushed it aside knowing they were better as friends, as family. Besides, Caitlin could see the way her two Star City friends couldn't keep their eyes off one another.

Carla Tannhauser was strict and focused but she loved just as fiercely as her daughter. And Barry Allen knew Caitlin loved with her whole heart. Carla was told about her ex-husband's death on a brief phone call with Caitlin the day of the funeral. Nora was surprised when she answered her door to find Carla crying her eyes. Carla was sobbing mumbling things about Arthur and illness and dead. It didn't take long for Nora to piece things together so she held her friend while she cried her eyes out.

"Shh… It's okay dear. It'll be okay." Nora whispered. Her thoughts were of Caitlin. She had wondered why she hadn't received a letter from her this month but had chalked it up to a busy schedule.

"Arthur's gone, Nora!" Carla cried, "Things will never be okay!"

Barry found out three day later.

"Mom, what happened?"

"Barry, Arthur passed away a little over a week ago." Nora replied gently.

"Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't anyone tell me?" Barry began pacing, "I should be there for her. I should be in Star City right now telling her everything was going to be okay. She needs me mom!"

"She's fine Barry. She is staying with her friend's family. She'll stay there through college and maybe she'll come home after?"

"She should come home now!" Barry collapsed against the stairs. "Why didn't she tell me?"

"I don't know, Barry. I don't know what that brilliant girl thinks sometimes."

"You still talk to her in your letters. She still calls Carla on Sundays. Why did she cut me off? We were supposed to be friends; best friends." Barry hand covered his face as he cried at the loss of both his best friend and the companion ship he had with Arthur.

"I don't have the answers, sweetheart." Nora sat down on the steps with him holding him in her arms, "You just have to be patient, Barry. Be patient and be brave, my beautiful boy."

Barry clung to every word his mother said as he cried. "She will come back to us someday."

Barry had spent the next two weeks periodically visiting Carla's house. He claimed he was checking on Carla, but Nora knew he was really fishing for any information on Caitlin. How she was. What she was doing. How she was grieving. He wanted to know. He needed to know, it was driving him crazy.

He never received any news.

Nobody did. Caitlin had stop writing to Nora. She had stopped calling her mother. She had silenced any communication between them, any of them. She had stopped all communication to Central City. And that's what hurt Barry the most. He couldn't be there to help her through this difficult time.

Because she wouldn't let him.

Central City University had come with a lot of changes for Barry. He had begun to official date Iris and through her had met Eddie Thawne. Barry and Eddie had a strained relationship at first but pushed it aside for sake of Iris. Her and Eddie were best friends. And Barry knew what it was like having a best friend like that.

He had met Cisco Ramon in one of his science courses. The two had become instant friends. Cisco almost always had candy stashed away in his CCU hoodie that he always wore over graphic T-shirts. The two talked movies and had a very similar interest in Star Wars. He and Cisco still argue over "who shot first". Cisco had a brilliant mind on him as well. He was studying to be a Mechanical Engineer. While Barry had decided to do something with all the science Caitlin had shoved into his brain and went for a Biology degree. Maybe become a teacher or something, he wasn't too sure.

Barry had always found science interesting. It's one thing that drew him to Caitlin, their common love for it. When she had left, it was the only thing that made him feel close to her. He had fallen in love with everything about science. It fascinated him.

It killed Barry that he couldn't be there for Caitlin when she lost her father. He had mourned him for her. He knew she was close with her father, that's why she left with him. Arthur Snow was kind and funny. He played the strict, overprotective father whenever Caitlin was concerned, but Barry knew he approved of him.

He couldn't even count how many times he picked up the phone to call her. Backing out every time. Iris had comforted him with her arms as he cried but it didn't help much. Because it wasn't her arms. He wasn't comforting her. And it hurt him so very much.

Caitlin's graduation was on the horizon and she was excited to finally get out there and start college. She felt like she had the world at her disposal. Her mother had come to visit for the ceremony. Carla had stayed a week. Carla and Moira had gotten along surprisingly well. Caitlin and Felicity had taken so many pictures that day her cheeks hurt from smiling. Oliver had picked her up and swung her around in congratulations. She was happy but couldn't help but feel something was missing.

On the second day, her mother was in town she had taken her mother to the cemetary where her father was buried. They had shed tears and had finally found a common ground between them. The two had grown closer while apart. But Caitlin refused to come back to Central City. She had a life here in Star City and it was a good one.

She refused to ask for any information about Barry. But in the end, she didn't need to.

"CCU Biology Degree. You rubbed off on him Caity." Her mother said while pouring a glass of wine back at the Queen mansion. "Don't worry. He is okay."

Caitlin gave her a nod and a slight smile before the conversation about Barry was dropped for good.

Oliver had asked Felicity out on the day of graduation. She had stuttered a reply and had to ask Caitlin three times what she said as an answer. Caitlin was happy for the two of her friends. She knew of Oliver's infatuation with Felicity from the moment they met. And Caitlin had to stop Felicity from drooling every time Oliver walked into the room. Even with Caitlin and Oliver's brief history back at the end of junior year; while at the time Felicity had been with Ray Palmer. Oliver had finally found the courage to ask her out.

Despite the painful past two years, Caitlin was finally ready to start a new life in college.