Fic: "The Thousandth and the First" (PG13 edit) (Snowells/ReverseSnow, The Flash) Ch 1 - 5

[ageless_aislynn]

This is the first half of the PG13 edit of my R-rated Eobard Thawne|Harrison Wells/Caitlin Snow 10 chaptered fic, "The Thousandth and the First." To read the original R-rated version, see AO3. ;)

I owe a thousand and one ;) thanks to the fantabulous Nalufever aka DancesWithSeatbelts for jumping down into the trenches with me for hours and helping me to figure out how to lower the rating on this as seamlessly as possible. Thank you SO MUCH! I could never have done this so quickly without you! (And now I know how to use Google docs! \o/ ;) ) *sincerest of hugs* ♥♥♥

Many thanks also to the amazing bas-math-girl for not even flinching and jumping directly into the middle of a fic she'd never read, in a fandom she doesn't know, and doing a brilliant edit on the trickiest chapter! You're a wonderful writer but an even more awesome friend. Thank you a ton for your help! *many hugs* ♥♥♥

Thanks last but not least to BrokenBookAddict and BenSolohasmyheart for being great cheerleaders and awesome friends and encouraging me on with not just this fic but in my writing in general! *hugs* ♥♥♥


Chapter 1

Since Ronnie's death, Caitlin kept the soulmark on the inside of her left wrist covered with a widow's band. It was common for people to not want to see the once-bright lines now turned black from the passing of their soulmate. People who'd known her from before might've always found it strange that she and Ronnie always kept their wrists covered, but probably just chalked it up to choosing to keep it a private thing between the two of them.

Cisco knew, of course, because he always knew everything, even when she didn't exactly intend for him to. So he was the only one who didn't look surprised when the plain black bracelet cuff caught on the corner of the desk in a freak moment of perfect physics and the clasp broke, sending it scattering in two pieces.

"Cait... Oh. Oh, you have a soulmark, how cool!" Barry said, deftly snagging one half of the thin metal cuff in mid-air while the other skidded across the floor. "I didn't know you and R-- Oh."

The last oh made it clear his brain had tardily caught up to his mouth.

"Um, yeah," she said. Covering the dark, delicate blue lines with her opposite hand was an automatic response. Dark soulmarks had never been activated, representing soulmates never found. Ronnie hadn't had a mark at all, though he had always followed her lead and kept his left wrist covered with something, so his lack of mark didn't contrast with her unactivated one.

She let her hair fall forward, shielding the illogical burn of her cheeks. There's nothing to be ashamed of, she thought, not for the first or even thousandth time. Just because we weren't each other's soulmates, it doesn't make what we had mean anything less.

But, though soulmarks were becoming more and more common, they still were highly romanticized. Living your life with a dark mark, never finding your soulmate, was considered a tragedy, no matter how happy your life had actually been. Ronnie had always emphatically said that he had found his soulmate because no glorified birthmark was going to tell him anything else.

"Cait, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to, you know." Barry gave a roll of one hand, a helpless gesture of both apology and dismay.

Her smile felt brittle and blindingly fake but it was the best she could manage as she grabbed a random folder off of her desk. "Of course. Don't worry about it. I have to go, I've got work to do."

"Oh, sure, of course," he said quickly and pressed the half of her bracelet into the palm of her hand, giving her fingers a brief squeeze.

She was almost out the door when Dr. Wells' voice stopped her.

"Dr. Snow? I believe this is yours?"

He was holding out the other part of the cuff where it had come to a stop near his motorized wheelchair. His expression was blank, the face he wore when emotions were too troubling for him to process.

Of course, she thought as she doubled back. How many times had she seen pictures of Harrison and Tess together, smiling, their identical triangular soulmarks blazing like green fire inside their wrists? Now Dr. Wells kept his left wrist covered by a black widower's band, just like she did.

Would it be harder to look at a blackened mark and know that your soulmate was dead? It would have to be.

"Thank you, Dr. Wells," she said quietly, taking the cuff from him. To her surprise, he briefly clasped her hand and gave a short nod. She expected something like that from Barry but it was practically a full-body hug coming from the reserved man.

"I can give you the name of someone who can fix it," he said.

She nodded in thanks but he was already turning his chair away.

***

"Caitlin, you're too close. You need to get out of there!"

Cisco's panicked cry buzzed in her ear, making her wince from the feedback. "I can't leave," she said through gritted teeth. "Somebody's got to set off the pulse if we want to stop this guy."

The van rocked as a sonic blast seemed to agree with her statement.

"Let Barry handle him. He's got this," Cisco insisted and his statement was punctuated by another thud to the van. She looked up to see the back of Barry sliding slowly down the windshield and then out of view. Beyond, the metahuman was just a dot at the end of the street. But a dot that was quickly growing larger by the moment.

"He's in range, I'm detonating the device," she said. "Tell... tell everyone I don't regret anything."

"Caitlin!"

Several sounds blurred into one: Cisco's voice, the slam of her hand striking the detonator button and a buzz of rushing air. Then the pulse blew and everything went dark.

Consciousness crept back, followed by a wave of sickness and a pounding in her head. Disorientated, she flailed for a moment before realizing she was curled on her side on a bed.

"Easy," a soft voice said, a warm hand brushing the hair back from her face.

She squinted, her vision swimming in and out of focus, and when she tried to ask what had happened, all that came out was a jumble of sounds.

"Don't be afraid, it's just a side effect from being caught in the edge of the blast. You'll be fine."

The voice sounded wrong somehow but she couldn't parse the reason. Her fingers curled helplessly into fists into a thick surface and she recognized the comforter on her bed. She was in her own room.

"Just rest," the voice urged and it must've seemed like a good idea because her mind let go and she slipped away once more.

***

By the time she woke and made her way back to S.T.A.R. Labs again, she felt like she had the mother of all hangovers but at least seemed to have her faculties back in better working order. She was met by Cisco with a tackle-hug, by Barry with an only slightly more restrained embrace and by Harrison with stony silence.

"Dr. Wells," she said when she couldn't stand his frosty stare any longer.

"That was stupid," he said, pronouncing each word distinctly as if wanting to make sure she couldn't possibly misunderstand. "And you're many things, Dr. Snow, but stupid shouldn't be one of them."

"Dr. Wells," Barry interjected. "That's a little harsh. Caitlin was just trying to--"

"Get herself killed? She almost did that quite efficiently." Harrison gave her another cold glance, then turned his wheelchair away.

Caitlin gaped, not quite expecting the strength of his reaction, but tried to recover, turning to her other friends. "Ah, thanks, Barry, for getting me out of there. I owe you."

Barry's brows knitted together. "Uh, it wasn't me, Cait. I mean, I tried, don't get me wrong, but by the time I got into the van, you were gone. We had no idea what happened to you."

"You're a meta, aren't you?" Cisco said with undisguised glee, his voice going sing-song. "You're a meta who can transport. Because transporting would be an awesome superpower, girl! Give me, like, ten seconds and I'll give you a killer codename!"

Caitlin shook her head. "It wasn't me. Somebody grabbed me and the next thing I knew, I was in my room. I thought it had to be Barry because of the speed and the... Oh, of course, he was disguising his voice through vibration."

"Why would Barry disguise his voice?" Cisco asked, frowning.

"He wouldn't."

The three of them turned towards Harrison who had spoken without looking back at them.

"I know of only one other speedster in town, don't you?" he continued.

Barry straightened. "Why would the Reverse Flash get involved? Why would he save Caitlin?"

Harrison finally turned, leveling a direct, almost incriminating gaze straight at her. "Why, indeed?"

Even Cisco was left speechless at that.

***

Caitlin was exceedingly thankful that Dr. Wells seemed back to normal the next day and life returned to the Wait, who is this metahuman and what is his or her power and how do we stop them when they inevitably do something bad? normal that it had fallen into over the past few months.

Then one evening Caitlin entered her home and there was a moment when she knew. Her hand bypassed the light switch as she moved through the entryway and she quietly slid open the shallow drawer of her hall table, fingers groping with silent certainty then confounded at closing on nothing.

She abandoned the plan and turned, intending to head back for the front door, but then heard a distinctive whoosh. She'd been around Barry too long not to recognize the sound of a speedster in motion. But Barry's eyes certainly did not glow red in darkness.

A moment later, the light switched on, leaving her blinking in dismay at the man in the yellow suit standing at the other end of the hallway.

"Good evening, Caitlin," he said in his distorted voice. His features were a blur, concealed not only by his mask but by motion too quick for her eye to distinguish.

She ran for the door which was only a few steps behind her, knowing it was a futile gesture even before she crashed full-bore into his chest. Her hair whipped in a blinding riot from the speed of him passing her. Even still, she struck out hard, windmilling both arms in order to break his hold.

"Caitlin," he tsked indulgently. "That might work in your self-defense class but I'm--"

She stomped the insole of his foot and then kneed him squarely in the groin. Speedster healing or not, she'd yet to find any man who was completely immune to that combination. He let go, doubling over with a startled groan, and she dove back for the still-open drawer of her hallway table.

"I already took care of your taser," he said, his distorted voice sounding like it was coming through gritted teeth.

"But not my backup," she responded, ripping it free from its hiding spot and promptly firing it into him.

Even as the lightning crackled across his yellow suit, she dropped the weapon and darted into the kitchen.

"Caitlin," he said firmly, storming through the door in time for her to blast him with her fire extinguisher.

He coughed, choking out, "That's not cold enough to stop me."

"I know," she said and flipped the switch that activated the emergency super-cold spray that Cisco had installed for her as a precaution.

He made an incoherent noise and vanished back through the doorway in a shower of ice crystals. But unfortunately he returned back in the next blink, knocking the extinguisher from her hand. "I'm trying to not scare you!" he roared.

"You broke into my home. What part of that isn't supposed to scare me?" she fired back, turning in a last ditch effort and reaching for the knife block on the counter.

"No, no knives!" he snapped and grabbed her around the waist, pulling her back against his chest and pinning her arms to her sides.

Before she could bring her feet up and try to use the counter for leverage, he sped them to the middle of the living room, lifting her up so that her feet could only kick ineffectually against his shins.

"I'm not here to hurt you. Please, just calm down." He was clearly trying to sound reassuring instead of irritated.

"What do you want?" she growled out but let her ineffectual struggling stop until she was hanging in mid-air, pressed backwards against his chest.

"I wanted to see if you were all right," he said, gradually lowering her so her feet touched the floor again. "Do you have any idea what that blast would've done to you?"

He sounded annoyed, as if she had taken a foolish chance on a whim with no concept of the consequences.

His annoyance annoyed her. "What does it matter to you?"

He huffed in frustration and his grip loosened minutely. She couldn't help herself, she stomped his insole again and tried to yank free.

He immediately tightened his hold, cursing loudly in her ear. "Would you stop that? I can heal broken bones in my feet but that doesn't mean they don't hurt. Look, pull up my sleeve."

It was a weird enough request that she stopped struggling. "Why?"

"Just do it. Please." The last word was clearly an after-thought. He carefully adjusted his hold around her waist so his left arm was free. "Go on. Do it now."

She hesitated long enough that he repeated it again, but this time in a deeper timbre. The distortion made it a monster's voice. "Now, Caitlin."

It spooked her into putting her fingers onto his wrist but she could only make use of her left hand, her right arm still trapped helplessly beneath his. Even still, she found the nearly invisible seam between the sleeve and the gloves and gave it a tug.

"Caitlin," he warned.

"It's too tight," she said. "I can't pull it up like this."

He gave a wordless growl.

"Try it yourself," she invited.

He adjusted his hold, clearly expecting her to try something else as he pinned her back against him and gave his sleeve a tug. It didn't move.

"Okay, so I like snug tailoring," he muttered and gave a harder jerk that rolled the cuff back.

In the next breath, it was as if a bomb went off. Caitlin found herself down on her carpet, curled on her side, blinded by the pulsating glare of the mark on her left wrist, too bright to be hardly even dampened by the widow's band. She tried to cover it with her hand but it still shone through her fingers, the most beautiful sapphire blue she'd ever imagined.

The man in the yellow suit had also been knocked off of his feet. Sapphire blue blazed from his wrist, pulsing in time with her own mark.

"No," she muttered, then said it louder. "No, no, no. This isn't happening. You... you can't be..."

He chuckled a bit breathily, like he'd been punched in the gut. "If you had any idea how far I've traveled just to end up finding you here and now, in this place..."

A wave of longing swept over her. She felt touch-starved, like her skin itself was trying to pull towards him. That bare strip of arm showing where his sleeve was rolled back looked like an oasis after wandering lost for too many days in a searing desert.

"Caitlin," he said, his voice sounding wondrous, like he was seeing her for the first time.

"I've got an antidote," she gasped out, scrambling to her feet and staggering back towards the kitchen. "I can cure this."

She thought he might superspeed ahead to try and stop her but when she glanced back, he was still on the floor.

"You can... cure yourself of me?" he said, sounding surprisingly forlorn.

An overwhelming desire to comfort him made her stagger to a halt. Then she gritted her teeth and made herself keep going. You knew this might happen, she thought. That's why you were ready for this. You're ready for this.

But now that it had happened, she didn't feel ready at all.

Chapter 2

Caitlin staggered into the kitchen, grasping almost blindly for the small, temperature-controlled refrigerator where she kept the vial that would make these terrible feelings go away.

She had just set it on the counter and was pulling a syringe from the nearby drawer when she knew he was standing behind her.

Anticipating a superspeeded motion to break the vial, she actually flinched when all he did was speak.

"Why did you create an antidote to your soulmark?" His distorted voice managed to sound surprisingly mild. "You had no way to know about me until tonight."

She turned, finding him in the doorway several feet away. "I was married to a man who didn't have a soulmark," she said. "I loved him and we were happy. I could've run into some stranger on the street and lost everything. I didn't want my choice to be superseded by..."

"Fate?" he suggested when she paused.

"A chemical reaction," she said.

"But now that you're alone, why keep the antidote?" At the sharp look she gave him, he spread his hands slightly. "There's no sign that anybody else lives here and you're not wearing a ring. It's not a hard conclusion to draw."

She automatically rubbed her bare finger. It had taken a long time to get to the point where she could take her ring off. Right now, it just felt like a betrayal.

"My husband died," she said tightly. "I kept the antidote because... I don't know why. I just did."

He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Okay."

"Okay?" she repeated, unsure.

"Okay, I understand your reasoning. I'm assuming it will cause my mark to go black at the same time?"

She blinked. "Um, yes, I would think so. It should react as if... my mark has been canceled out." As if I'd died.The antidote wouldn't erase the soulmarks, it would simply give them both the mark of dead soulmates.

He nodded. "All right, then. Proceed."

Slowly picking up the syringe, she couldn't help but wait for him to make a move to stop her, despite his words. "Why are you for this?"

He scoffed. "Do you think I want to be in love with a hero? This is a terrible development when it comes to my criminal career."

"That makes sense, I suppose," she murmured, her eyebrows bobbing slightly as she turned back to the counter. Her fingers closed around the vial and the motion brought her gaze back to her glowing soulmark as it glared accusingly at her. Sweat broke out along her forehead and a deep sense of dread filled her chest.

"Do you need help?" he asked as she wavered. "Or is it something else?"

"This will work on an active soulmark," she said as if she were lecturing to the syringe and vial in her hands. "It doesn't matter how long it's been active. For a few minutes. Or, or for a... night."

What are you doing? The voice of logic spoke sternly in her head but the light from the soulmark caused the volume to lower considerably.

I'm a scientist, she rebutted shakily. Isn't it a waste to not explore this before I permanently shut it down?

In a blink, he was directly behind her, close enough that she could feel the heat his vibration generated. He put a hand on the counter next to hers, the one holding the vial, but didn't make a single point of physical contact, though both of their marks glowed brighter from their close proximity.

"Are we curious about what it's like between soulmates, Dr. Snow?" he said and the pitch of his distorted voice dropped along her spine in a phantom caress. "Because I admit that I am."

"Curiosity is the foundation of good science," she said, then winced mentally at the fact she was basically asking the Reverse Flash to bed her for science. He chuckled.

"One night, then?" he asked softly. "You take the antidote tomorrow and we go our separate ways?"

"Yes," she said and put away the vial and syringe with shaking hands. "I have a condition, though."

"What's that?" He still was shadowing her without touching. The hair along the nape of her neck stood up, lightning charging beneath her skin.

"I don't want to know who you are." Her voice was breathless but the words were resolute.

That surprised him into drawing back slightly. "I'd think you'd be happy to take that little tidbit back to your team," he said a little too nonchalantly.

"If I find out your identity some other way, then it's fair game. But not like this. Not because of the soulmark. It's not right."

"What's your proposition, then? Leave the mask and suit on? Because I have to tell you... the suit has provisions for that."

That made her just look at him and, even though the distortion, his grin was evident.

Does he have a sense of humor? she wondered, startled. He was perilously close to feeling like an actual human being -- well, technically, a metahuman being. Someone who was complex and complicated, not just the man in the yellow suit or the meta who killed Nora Allen. The idea that he was a person was a bit daunting.

"Just simply turning off the light should suffice," she said, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. The next thing she knew, she had been moved from the kitchen and was standing next to her bed.

"How about something like this?" he asked from across the room and she blinked against the sudden darkness. Then he turned on the light in the bathroom and pulled the door mostly closed, allowing the barest sliver of illumination in. It was enough to see silhouettes but not details.

"That works," she said and put her hands up to the first button on her shirt.

"There's something I'd like to request as well."

Her fingers paused. "What?"

"I want you to say my name. My real name. You'll know when." He gave a slight, sour chuckle. "Don't worry. It won't violate your condition. You won't recognize it."

It would've been a little hypocritical to ask something so drastic of him and not allow him to ask something relatively minor in return. "All right. What is it?"

"Eobard."

She canted her head slightly. "That's an interesting name."

"Glad you think so."

In a whoosh, he was a step in front of her. His nearness made her dizzy, made her heart pound and the breath catch in her throat. The need to touch him was urgent, suffocating. She reached out blindly to place her palms against his chest and the next thing she knew, they were kissing in a frenzy. She let her fingers sink into his hair -- longer than she expected, a bit of curl, no, she didn't want to note details, nothing that might make him recognizable in the cold light of day. She wanted him faceless, unknown, not somebody she could picture cursing as he stubbed his toe or blowing on a too-hot cup of coffee or scrolling through his phone while he stood in some endless line. She didn't want him to be real like that.

He had no such restraints. It was like he needed to chart her every line and curve as if trying to sear every detail into his mind.

Her palms stroked down his back -- he was fit and lean, a runner's physique, no doubt, maybe thinner than he looked in the bulk of the suit but still surprisingly muscular -- no, stop.

She determinedly turned off her mind and let herself be swept away in the moment. In this moment. With him.

***

Later, she started to curl into his arms and rest her head on his chest, but quickly turned the other way as soon as she realized it. He made a noise that was almost-but-not-quite a sigh.

The longer the silence stretched, the more wretched she felt. The sheer rudeness of her action nagged at her until she finally inched backwards just a bit. Then a bit more. And again until her back touched his arm in a mute peace offering.

He waited a few beats before finally asking, "Can I stay the night?"

She blinked, not having expected that. "Okay," she agreed and with that he turned and spooned gently around her.

His arm draped over her side, his hand resting lightly against her stomach. She automatically threaded her fingers through his and this time didn’t pull away when her brain tardily caught up with her actions.

"Okay," he echoed.

She gradually relaxed towards sleep until a thought jolted her back awake. "Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot about saying your name."

"Say it now," he suggested softly.

"Eobard."

He made a wordless noise of contentment. "No apology needed. This is exactly the right time."

She was still thinking about that when she drifted off.

Chapter 3

"You okay, Cait?"

Barry's concerned voice came to her as she rubbed her temples wearily.

"Yeah," she said, squinting up at him and attempting a smile. "Just have a killer headache."

"Why don't you go on home?" he said kindly. "I mean, we already have Slow Shock safely stowed away so--"

"A lot of alliteration going on there," Cisco piped up while scowling over the glittering silver orbs on his desk. "Why can I not figure out how these stupidly simple things work?"

"I'm okay," Caitlin told Barry, trying to look a little less pained. "I can help with the--"

"Go home."

Harrison Wells' voice cut curtly through her words. She turned as he passed behind her in his motorized chair without pausing to glance her way.

"Really, Dr. Wells, I'm fine," she said to his back.

"I mean, honestly, it looks like he's got two paperclips stuck together with gum in here or something," Cisco continued on muttering. "Yet somehow he can even freeze Barry in place for thirty seconds with 'em? Ugh, Slow Shock's balls can suck my… Wait, that's coming out wrong. You know what I mean."

"Probably something you ate disagreed with you," Harrison said in an unsympathetic tone.

She blinked. For a moment, she could've sworn he said something she took disagreed with her.

Barry gave the older man a quizzical look at his especially sharp manner but put a gentle hand on Caitlin's shoulder. "We'll call if there's something we need, promise."

"Mr. Allen, a moment of your time?" Harrison said brusquely and turned his chair so harshly that something within it groaned. He exited the room, practically leaving smoke in his wake.

Barry leaned closer with a humorously exaggerated yikes expression, murmuring, "Seriously, Cait, just get out while you can. Hopefully everybody will feel better tomorrow."

More than a little stung by Dr. Wells' unexpected coldness, she found herself nodding. "All right, then," she said. "I'll go home and rest."

***

The sound of a speedster phasing through a solid surface brought Caitlin jolting awake on her couch.

"I've had the most awful headache all day," the man in the yellow suit said conversationally in his distorted voice.

"What?" she said, still a bit groggy.

"A headache," he repeated. "Which is odd for me. Speedster healing and all of that. I thought it was probably a side-effect from the soulmark terminating. So imagine my surprise when…"

He rolled his cuff back and the soulmark blazed to life at his wrist. Brilliant blue flared beneath the band at her wrist as well and it was like she suddenly remembered how to breathe. Air filled her lungs in a rush and the last persistent thump of her headache vanished.

She sat up, stunned at how much better she felt in a matter of seconds. "Why would we get headaches from our soulmarks?"

"Not from them," he corrected. "From being separated so soon after they were activated. There's a reason why they call the days after soulmates meet a 'honeymoon.' Apparently, there's a consequence from going against the mark's pull when it's so new."

He was suddenly kneeling in front of her, slipping the widow's band from her wrist. "Did the antidote fail?" he asked, stripping off his gloves in a blur of motion before cradling her forearm and tracing a wide circle around her mark with the tip of his index finger.

She shivered at the unexpected sensation and he made a pleased noise. His finger continued to move, tightening the concentric circles with each feathery pass, coming close to but never quite touching the delicate blue lines.

He paused, tilting his head at her inquiringly and she realized he'd asked a question.

"The antidote didn't fail," she said and gasped as he bracketed the soulmark with his thumb as well, rubbing back and forth, back and forth, back and forth but never quite touching the sapphire blue lines.

Energy shimmered like a heat wave beneath her skin, blossoming from her wrist, up her arm, then all over her body. He leaned down and blew across the soulmark, as if fogging a mirror, and that made her whole body convulse. Since the skin of her soulmark had never had any different sensitivity than that around it, it was a revelation.

"So, then…?" he murmured. "What happened?"

"I didn't…take it," she said breathlessly and reached out to grip his shoulder as he breathed across the soulmark again, needing something to ground herself.

"Why not?"

She opened her mouth a few times but no words came. She had stood there that morning, staring at the small refrigerator that held the antidote, unable to open the door and remove the vial. Logically, she knew she should. Even he had said she should. One night, that was all she needed, right?

But she couldn't open the door.

She shook her head, not able to explain it to him now anymore than she'd been able to explain it to herself earlier.

He adjusted the way he was holding her arm, so that when he leaned down again, it turned his face away from her. She realized why when the soft noise of vibration ceased, indicating he'd stopped concealing his identity.

He kissed the soulmark itself, a brief, chaste brush of lips that brought her arching up from the couch with a spluttered nonsense word. He chuckled.

"Do you think…?" Shyness inexplicably tangled her tongue.

"What?" he prompted.

"Do you think your soulmark reacts the same as mine?" She looked down to where his arm was casually resting across her thighs, the mark on his inner wrist kept from making direct skin contact by the fabric of her comfortable leggings.

He turned his arm so that the mark showed, gleaming sapphire blue. "Want to find out?"

"Yes," she said and it surprised her how much she meant it.

"Still don't want to know?" He gestured at his concealed face.

"Not yet," she said softly and he nodded.

Standing in a smooth motion, he picked her up bridal style and carried her towards the darkened bedroom. He didn't use his speed; he walked as if he had all of the time in the world. Maybe he just liked having her in his arms. Either way, she curled comfortably against his chest and enjoyed the ride.

***

Humming under her breath, Caitlin approached her front door, key in hand. It had been a good day, with only one meta trying to pull a series of very inept bank robberies. It had been almost… cute. Everybody else had taken the rest of the day off but she, still feeling guilty for missing a day's work from the unexpected soulmark-induced headache, had opted to stay and catch up on a few things. Working alone at S.T.A.R. Labs had felt odd at first but, when all was said and done, she'd felt quite virtuous for having resisted the call to take another early day.

As she opened the door, two distinct smells struck her: something tasty, like lasagna, immediately overpowered by the scent of char and smoke. She hurried into her kitchen and found a disaster of blackened pots and pans in the sink, all smoldering with unidentifiable remains burned into them. Her fire extinguisher sat on the floor, clearly having been recently used, and all of the windows were open.

"I can explain," Eobard said from behind her.

She turned and he gestured as if about to make a profound point.

"I… can't cook. At all. Clearly."

Despite the mess, a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. She'd never imagined that the man in the yellow suit could look quite so flummoxed.

"I'll replace everything, obviously," he went on. "And I'll take care of the mess."

Her hair blew into her eyes from superspeeded motion and when she was able to see again, her kitchen was tidy and sparkling clean.

He exhaled heavily. "However, that leaves the question of dinner."

She pulled her phone from her purse. "How do you feel about pizza?"

"Right now, quite good," he admitted. She was learning to read his blurred features enough now to detect gratitude that she hadn't mocked him for his rather spectacular culinary failure.

Before the order arrived, she discovered that he'd already set an elegant table with her finest tableware and with a tall set of candles in gold holders adorned with red lightning bolts. The latter of which were decisively not hers. A plethora of tiny, metallic red and gold leaves were strewn elegantly on the tabletop as well.

"I can put this all back," he offered, sounding slightly embarrassed.

"No, leave it," she said. "There's no law against mixing pizza with fine dining, is there?"

"Well, if there is, it turns out that I'm a lawbreaker," he returned with a flourish of one hand.

So they had their first official sit-down meal together in that unconventional fashion. Considering they seemed to be tentatively forming an unconventional relationship, Caitlin thought it was fairly fitting.

Initially, she thought she would have to release him from her request to conceal his identity but he proved quite able to match the vibration of his mouth with that of his hand and he ate as if it were no issue at all.

I'm going to have to eventually come to grips with knowing who he is, she thought and, in that vein, impulsively asked, "Where are you from?"

She felt him raise an eyebrow at that. But all he said was, "The future."

"Yes and…?" she prompted but he merely took another bite of pizza.

While she tried to figure out if she'd somehow deeply offended him, he finally said, "You can't have it both ways, Caitlin. If you want to know about me, then know about me. That includes my face and my voice. You may have figured out by now that I'm rather all-or-nothing."

She thought about it, then finally said, "That's fair. So, what are we going to talk about?"

"You could tell me about your day," he offered.

"We caught a meta bank robber and…" she started, then trailed off.

Wait, how much should I tell him? How much does he know about how we operate, our procedures, where we take the metas after we capture them?

"You don't want to give away your team's secrets," he said. "I understand. So, no shop talk. Did you see the game this weekend?"

A crease appeared between her brows. "Which one?"

"Any of them."

"You're a sports fan?" She tried to imagine him lounging in front of the television, eating nachos and cheering on his favorites, all while wearing his yellow suit.

"Not really. I'm mainly interested in track and field."

As soon as she realized the joke, she hid a smile behind her slice of pizza. "Is that so?"

"Did you play sports when you were young or did you mainly stick to intellectual pursuits?"

"We can talk about me but not you?"

"I can see your face."

Her mouth twisted briefly in a touché expression. "I actually did like to run track. I certainly wasn't in your league, though."

"Maybe I could take you for a run? Let you see what it's like to truly go fast."

She caught herself a split second before she opened her mouth to say it. Distortion briefly shivered over his entire body.

"Ah, but you've been carried by a speedster before, haven't you? Him." He put what remained of his piece of pizza down onto the plate with great precision before resting his hands on the table. The silverware buzzed as vibration rattled through the wood and she had to make a grab for the nearest lit candle, catching it before it tipped over.

"I'm faster."

The way he said it, it wasn't a simple declaration. It was edged in something sharp, something fanatical, and it made the hair stand up at the nape of her neck. For the first time in a while, she remembered that she was casually eating pizza with the man who had killed Barry's mom.

"Does it matter who's faster?" she asked softly.

"It matters!" He was on his feet in an instant, pacing back and forth a few times at normal speed and then he was gone in a blast that blew out the candles and flipped over both of their plates. Tiny red and gold leaves rained around her in a brief, glittery storm.

She sat there, stunned, for a long moment, then eventually got up and cleared the table. For the entire rest of the night, she expected him to come back.
He didn't.

Chapter 4

Caitlin was about to pull the blanket up over herself and start a much-needed movie marathon when there came a knock at her door.

After a glance through the peephole, she opened it to Eobard in his suit, his eyes glowing red and motion blurring his face.

"May I come in?" he asked.

She stepped to the side to allow him to enter.

He continued down the hall and then stopped in the middle of her living room, making a gesture as if to run his hand through his hair before remembering he had the suit on. There was something familiar about the motion and she immediately forced herself to dismiss it.

"I'm…difficult," he said. "Last night didn't go to plan and I… Well, as I said, I'm difficult."

She crossed her arms and just studied him. The longer she stayed silent, the more he seemed to be fighting the urge to scuff the toe of his boot against her carpet.

"I'm trying to say that I'm sorry," he finally burst out.

"Well, then, go ahead," she invited.

He took a deep breath, exhaling noisily, either annoyed that she was making him spell it out or just annoyed that he'd put himself in the position to need to. "I'm sorry I messed up dinner--"

"Nope," she interrupted.

"I'm sorry that I'm difficult--"

"Closer," she said, inclining her head.

"I'm sorry I got mad and stomped out like a toddler, all right?"

"There we go. Was that so hard?"

"Yes, it actually was," he huffed. "Now, am I forgiven?"

"Are we talking in general or just for last night?"

He briefly tipped his head back, as if calling on a supernatural well of patience. "Just last night. I'm pretty sure the amount of forgiveness I'd need to cover my entire life doesn't exist in that sort of quantity."

"Okay, then," she said. "I'll forgive you for stomping out of here like a toddler and staining my favorite tablecloth."

He tilted his head curiously at that and she explained, "The plates flipped over."

"I'll replace it."

She waved him off. "It's fine. It gives it character."

He looked around the room in another slightly awkward way. "Were you about to watch a movie?"

"Lord of the Rings, the Extended Editions."

"Shouldn't you start with The Hobbit trilogy, chronologically?"

"I'd need the entire weekend to watch them all," she said.

"I don't know that I would've expected you to like Lord of the Rings," he mused.

"Cisco was appalled that I hadn't seen the first trilogy. I ended up loving them so much I got my own box set."

"Don't tell me, let me guess: favorite character is… Legolas?"

She shook her head.

"Frodo? Are you a Hobbit fangirl?"

She gave him a cheeky grin. "I love Frodo but no, not my favorite character."

"Aragorn, then? People do so love a scruffy hero."

"Getting warmer."

He shifted into a thoughtful stance and again, that chord of familiarity went off in her mind. She quickly turned away and fussed with the blanket on the couch.

"You know, these movies practically have a cast of thousands. You could probably watch the three of them before I could finish naming all the characters."

"Boromir," she said and went into the kitchen.

"Really?" he said skeptically as he followed her.

"Yes, really." She pulled down a large bowl from the cupboard and started making a double batch of popcorn.

"Boromir tried to take the Ring from Frodo, among other things. Doesn't that make him a bad guy?"

"Tried to, but didn't," she pointed out. "He made mistakes but, in the end, he owned up to them. He did what he could to make amends and he died defending the friends he'd come to care about."

"Ah," he said like an important piece of the puzzle had just clicked into place. "You like a nice redemption story. I hate to tell you that things like that don't happen in real life. Bad guys usually stay bad. Some people aren't meant to be redeemed."

She made a wordless, neutral sound and poured the popcorn into the bowl once it was ready. "Butter?"

"Am I being invited to the marathon? You're aware that it'll take all day, right?"

"Yes and yes, I am. So, butter?"

"What am I, a heathen? Of course, butter."

***

Somewhere around the second hour -- and after another bowl of popcorn with the idea of making nachos beginning to circle through her mind -- it finally occurred to Caitlin to ask, "Is it uncomfortable to wear the suit this long?"

He had his legs stretched out, looking a mile long and crossed at the ankle, and had draped his arm around her as soon as she'd allowed herself to lean against him. "Oh, I'd never make myself a suit I couldn't wear all day," he said in a mock-haughty tone. "I'd be the laughing stock of all of the local villains."

The corner of her mouth twitched but the bit of guilt still tugged at her. "What about the--?" She gestured to indicate the way he was blurring his face and distorting his voice.

He shrugged the shoulder she wasn't pressed against. "Just have to remember to keep doing it."

That didn't feel fair but she wasn't ready to stop clinging to his anonymity. "Well," she said, adjusting so that she was tucked into his chest. "No need to do it when you don't have to, right?"

His chin came to rest on top of her head, all vibration ceasing. "And if I forget?" he whispered.

"Then I'll deal with it," she said as confidently as she could and snuggled in a little more as the Fellowship prepared to enter the Mines of Moria.

***

"Wow, somebody's in a good mood today," Cisco said as Caitlin came into the lab.

"What makes you say that?" she asked.

"You're practically all glowy," he said, wiggling his fingers at her in a vague, circular motion, then his expression went wide-eyed. "Oh man, you had a date over the weekend, didn't you? You had a good date. Like, a really good date! Who is he? Who? Whoooo?"

"Are you doing your best owl impersonations today, Mr. Ramon?" Harrison said imperiously as his motorized chair came through the door behind them both.

"Because I have to inform you, it needs a lot of work. And speaking of work, weren't you going to attempt to decode those information packets from -- what did you call her? 'Ms. Future.' I was under the impression that that was important enough for you to take a moment from bothering Dr. Snow."

Cisco mouthed, Later, at her and followed Dr. Wells from the room. She managed to turn a sigh of relief to a tiny exhale. Normally, she would've been happy to fill her friend in on at least a few of the more PG-13 details of the date -- which had stretched to fill the entire weekend, as it had turned out. But she couldn't help but feel a growing amount of discomfort at the sheer magnitude of what she was hiding from both Cisco and Barry.

And how could I tell them? How could I tell Barry? I can't look at him and say, "Yes, I know he killed your mother but he's my soulmate.”

It was such a shame since, other than that one small detail of Eobard being, you know, a black-hearted villain, he possessed so many qualities that she otherwise looked for in a potential partner: highly intelligent, quick witted, extremely observant. He did have a temper and an unfortunate penchant to turn into an unreasonable three year old when something set that temper off but he also could unexpectedly show great patience and understanding.

She knew he would've preferred to not have to keep concealing his identity from her but he did so because she'd asked him to. At any point during the weekend when she'd told him to relax his constant vigil, he could have "accidentally" let her see his face or hear his real voice. But he didn't.

It was frighteningly easy to see them sharing a life together, if only he'd been a man without a vendetta against one of her best friends. If only he hadn't committed terrible crimes in the name of some unspoken revenge or madness or whatever it was that drove him. He didn't like to talk about it and after the incident the night of their pizza date, she hadn't tried to steer the conversation back to his grudge against Barry. If only he wasn't the Reverse Flash, the man in the yellow suit, Nora Allan's killer.

If only, if only, if only.

Her fingers restlessly rubbed across the widow's band as she thought of the soulmark concealed beneath it. If her friends would've discovered that it was now activated, she knew they would've been thrilled for her. They would've wanted to meet him, naturally.

For a moment, she tried to imagine it: Eobard in regular clothes, unmasked, nothing to mark him as Barry's speedster nemesis. But could she see him keeping his cool when Barry held out his hand? Could she imagine him shaking it like they were meeting for the first time, like there was no grudge on Eobard's side? Like he didn't hate him?

There was a seductive pull to the idea of her friends and her soulmate able to exist happily alongside each other. She shook her head. It was a nice daydream but that's all it could ever be.

An alarm went off, interrupting her errant thoughts. "Hey, guys," she called, "we have meta activity."

Time to go to work, she mused, ready to get her mind on a different subject.

***

Caitlin's breath rasped loudly in her throat, one hand pressed to her mouth as she tried to contain her sobs as she stumbled to a stop at her front door. Her keys slipped from her numb fingers and landed with a jingle that sounded much heavier than it should have.

Before she bent to retrieve them, there was a distinctive whoosh and Eobard had her keys in hand and was unlocking her door.

"Come on," he said gently, ushering her inside.

She stood still for a long moment in the entryway as he moved around her, locking the door, putting her keys back in her purse, putting her purse on the table in the hall where she usually tossed it. Then he guided her to the couch in the living room and urged her to sit.

"Are you hurt?" he asked, stripping off his gloves so he could better examine her face, tilting it gently to and fro in the light.

"No," she finally said. "Not… not like that."

"What happened?" he asked softly, sitting beside her.

"The meta," she said numbly. "He could throw kinetic blasts. Any motion, he could turn into stronger and stronger explosions. Barry couldn't approach him without making him that much more powerful. But we figured out that if Barry ran at him the moment after he detonated a blast, he had time to get the neutralizing cuffs on him before he could power up again."

The breakthrough had made everything seem so simple. But the meta had taken the fight to the bridge, limiting Barry's access. Even still, given that he could make an approach by water, if necessary, it seemed straightforward.

"I gave the signal after the meta threw the next blast," she said, wiping her face, not even aware of when the tears had started to fall. "I couldn't… It looked clear. I don't know where they came from. A blind spot. I didn't realize…"

She grabbed both of his hands as if they were a lifeline.

"There was a school bus," she choked out. "It came out of nowhere and made it part of the way onto the bridge. The meta still managed to throw another blast before Barry cuffed him and the bus… He tried. He went after it in a split second but the explosion hit it first. He pulled them all out but… Oh."

She had to pause, gasping for breath like she'd been punched in the stomach. "Three of them were killed in the blast. They were fourteen years old, Eobard. Fourteen and I got them killed."

"No," he immediately countered. "That wasn't your fault. The meta--"

"I was in charge of the timing," she interrupted. "I should've seen the bus. I should have kept them safe somehow."

The weight of it made her crumple. He pulled her to him, stroking her hair as she cried helplessly. She clung to the front of his yellow suit, feeling like daggers of ice were tearing their way out of her. There were mistakes and there were mistakes. Errors that you couldn't come back from, couldn't learn to live with, that were like razors embedded into your soul, that nothing -- not time, not distance, not all the words in the world -- could ever heal.

Eventually the storm of tears relented even as the pain went on. "Marcia Anders, Alicia Bennington, Charlie Rooker," she murmured. "That was their names. Marcia just won first place in her school's science fair. Alicia and her older sister Daisy were starting a charity to help the homeless. Charlie was a classical pianist."

"Caitlin," he admonished gently. "Torturing yourself won't do any good. It wasn't your fault."

"How do you live with it?" She sat up suddenly, desperate to find the answer. "You've killed people on purpose and you just… go on. How?"

"You don't want to be like me," he said and for a moment, the distortion in his voice wavered. "I go on because I don't have a heart. You do. You care. That's your strength and your weakness."

Her expression began to fall again and he pulled her to him, threading his fingers through her hair.

"Marcia Anders, Alicia Bennington, Charlie Rooker," she repeated under her breath, as though if she said the names a thousand times, it would somehow alter their fate.

For a long moment, he didn't speak, then he sighed with a definite finality. "Do you want me to change it?"

"What?" she asked, startled into breaking the mantra of names. "Change it?"

"There's a risk, you have to know. Changing the past can have vast, odd and far-reaching consequences. The effects ripple, like a stone tossed into a lake, and you don't always get the outcome you're expecting."

She went motionless. "I didn't think you could time travel anymore. I thought that's why you're still here, why you didn't go back to your own time."

"It requires a lot of energy," he admitted. "I don't have enough yet for something large but to move back earlier, on the same day? Yeah, I can do it. I will, if you want. And if you understand the risk."

She wrapped her arms around him, probably clinging too tightly in retrospect. But in the moment, all she could think of was, He can undo it. He can save them.

"Please," she said. "Please get them back."

"Close your eyes."

She didn't understand until she felt the subtle vibration cease. She shut her eyes and let him lean her back far enough to kiss her. There was a bit of desperation in it and when he released her, worry took up residence in her chest.

"Will you be all right?" she asked, opening her eyes when the vibration sound resumed.

"I'll be fine," he said. "I won't aim to return too close to when I'm leaving so I won't cross my own timeline. Don't be alarmed if I'm gone for a few hours from your perspective."

She nodded, a few nervous bobs of her head. "Be careful."

A familiar smirk spread across his blurred features. "Evil time traveler here," he said in his best arrogant tone. "People need to be careful of me, don't you know?"

He vanished from her arms in a burst of superspeed.

She patted her hair back down and exhaled heavily, wondering how long it would take for the world to change around her.

How do I know that he'll even time travel? she thought. He could tell me he went back and wasn't able to save them. How would I know?

But the idea of distrust felt wrong. He would do it if he could. She didn't know why she believed that, she just did. Now, all she could do was wait.

Chapter 5

Three hours passed. Caitlin had nearly gone stir-crazy barely an hour into it, so she'd hurried out to Big Belly Burger and bought a dozen cheeseburgers and fries, figuring he'd need them to refuel his speedster metabolism.

She bought one for herself and ate it in order to pass more of the time. But even the normally delicious burger sat like a rock in her stomach and it was all she could do to not stare at the clock in her living room as if she could make it go faster. Every fifteen minutes, she checked her phone to see if the story about the bus crash had changed. It hadn't. Three fatalities were still confirmed: Marcia Anders, Alicia Bennington and Charlie Rooker.

Almost four hours after Eobard had left, she heard a noise at the front door and leapt up to open it without even looking. He almost fell in on her.

She managed to steady him before he went to the floor. "To the couch?" she asked, slinging his arm over her shoulder and grasping him around the waist.

"Bedroom," he said hoarsely. "Need to sleep."

He was still attempting to disguise his face and voice but the distortion came in fits and spurts, like a radio station tuning in and out.

"Don't worry about that right now," she said. "Save your strength."

In that precarious manner, she got him to the bedroom and helped him to the bed. While she went to turn on the bathroom light and adjust the door as had become their norm, she heard the soft sound of his suit ejecting. She'd never seen how it worked but it hadn't taken long to figure out that there was some sort of quick-removal mechanism. Where it went to was also a mystery, one he hadn't yet chosen to explain.

It didn't matter right now. Though she was desperate to pepper him with questions, she held her tongue, tucking him in under the covers.

Before she moved away, he caught her hand. His soulmark, now uncovered, shone in soft blue pulses. "Stay?" he mumbled.

"Of course," she said and took the time to change out of her clothes into the nearest nightgown. It was soft, faded and comfortable, nothing seductive, but she doubted he cared very much about that at the moment.

He put his arm out in mute request as she crawled in next to him. As soon as she rested her head against his chest and heard the frantic drum of his heart, she instinctively made a concerned noise.

"I'm fine," he whispered. Every word seemed difficult for him to get past his lips. "Better soon."

"Just rest," she said. "I'm here if you need anything."

As his heartbeat eventually slowed to normal, she was able to drift off as well.

***

Waking sometime later in the night, she gently disentangled herself from his arms and moved quietly to the bathroom. He made an indecipherable noise but otherwise didn't wake.

After taking care of her most pressing business, she went into the kitchen, grabbing her phone along the way to search quickly for the news of the bus accident.

There was only a mention that the Flash had once again protected the city against a meta's threat.

He wasn't the only one, she thought proudly, a cool wave of relief washing through her.

She checked the three students' names separately, just for a final reassurance: Marcia Anders was still the first place winner at her school's science fair. Charlie Rooker had a bright future as a classical pianist. And… Daisy Bennington had started a charity to help the homeless.

"Daisy, 16, an only child, said she was inspired to create her charity after writing an essay…"

"No, what happened to Alicia?" she murmured, her brows drawing together in distress.

While she tried different search combinations, she heard Eobard get up and go into the bathroom, then eventually come into the kitchen. He'd donned the yellow suit and was once more concealing his face and voice.

"I'm going to grab something to eat--" he began but she wordlessly opened the fridge with one hand to show him the Big Belly Burgers stacked neatly inside while she kept scrolling her phone with the other.

"You're a star," he said with genuine gratitude, gathering them up to reheat.

Only once he'd sat at the table -- and after mutely offering her a burger to which she just distractedly shook her head -- did he make the obvious comment. "So, what is it that's changed in the timeline?"

"Alicia Bennington doesn't seem to exist." The words exploded out as if she'd held them back as long as she could. "I don't understand. How could saving her life write her out of existence?"

He superspeed-ate two of the burgers before answering. "I diverted the bus. It had been in a blind spot for you, there's no way you could've known it was there. Just bad timing. The Flash didn't seem to have any problem playing the hero. No casualties. But… like I told you. Time travel has consequences that can ripple backwards."

She sat down next to him at the table, her numb fingers letting her phone clatter to the tabletop.

"I'm sorry, Caitlin," he said softly.

She took a deep breath, trying to pull herself together. "No, you still did good," she said resolutely, reaching over and squeezing his nearest hand. "You saved two kids. That's something to be proud of."

He studied her for a moment. "Don't let the soulmark blind you. I didn't do this out of altruism. I'm no hero. I would've been fine leaving them dead."

That stung unexpectedly and she drew her hand back. "Then why did you do it?"

"I discovered there's one thing in the world that I just can't endure."

She waited silently.

For a moment, the distortion wavered but never to the point that it revealed his face. "I can't bear to see you in pain," he said then calmly continued eating.

***

By the time both Barry and Cisco had asked her twice if she was all right, Caitlin had concluded that she would've made a terrible spy. But hearing her friends joking and laughing, with absolutely no memory of the way the mission on the bridge yesterday had originally gone devastatingly astray left her feeling rattled.

"The old memories will be gone for everyone else," Eobard had told her over breakfast. "They didn't change for you because you're closer to the nexus of the event that changed them. They may fade in a few hours and you'll only have the new memories. Or you may be one of those people who'll keep both. Usually that's only time travelers but it can happen to others as well."

So far, the earlier memories seemed to have no intention of leaving. In a way, she was glad. Right now, she and Eobard were the only people in the world who knew Alicia Bennington had been erased. At least, Caitlin could honor her loss by remembering her, for whatever that was worth.

Eobard had offered a final warning in lieu of a farewell before he'd left. "Despite what I said, this was a one-time deal. If a boat of nuns goes down or a plane of kittens crash, then that's sad but that's the way it is. I have to conserve my energy for a larger jump, I can't keep bleeding it off for smaller ones. Are we clear?"

"Crystal," she'd said, struggling not to have hurt feelings over his admonishing tone. Marcia Anders and Charlie Rooker were alive today when they hadn't been yesterday. Better to have lost one than all three.

Alicia, she thought regretfully but noticed her friends watching her curiously again. I've got to get them thinking about something else before I blurt out the entire mess.

"Any progress on decrypting Ms. Future's information packets?" she asked Cisco as a last resort.

"Actually," he said, spinning his chair around completely in a circle, "I think I may have cracked the algorithm. Now it's just waiting to see what data gets generated."

"Great," she said, expecting him to go on in more detail about his pet project, but instead he gave her another calculating look.

Dr. Wells ended up coming to her rescue by calling both of the other men to help him with a project, giving her some much needed breathing room.

A few hours later, she found herself creeping towards the break room -- there was really no dignified way to term it other than that -- hoping that she wouldn't run into one of her friends. She'd just made it in the door when she realized she wasn't alone: Dr. Wells was already there, staring contemplatively into his half-empty cup of coffee.

"Dr. Snow," he said in greeting without looking up.

She almost apologized for interrupting, then remembered that this wasn't his personal break room. "Hi. How are you?"

He gave a noncommittal sound and she murmured under her breath, "Yeah, I get that," before she could stop herself. Since he typically wasn't fond of sarcastic responses, she expected some sort of reprimanding look but he merely took a sip from his mug. From anybody else, she would've sworn they'd done that to hide a smile.

As she pulled a mug down from the cabinet, she said, "I wish I could turn this into that new cinnamon caramel concoction they've come up with at Jitters. I know it's more dessert than coffee but it's certainly delicious."

Am I making small talk? I'm trying to make small talk and I'm failing miserably, she thought.

She honestly didn't expect a reply but he said, "You should go, then. There's nothing going here right now. Go have your 'dessert concoction.'"

She turned with a questioning look and he gave a go on waggle of his fingers. "What about you? Would you want to--?"

"No," he said and, to her surprise, he tossed back the rest of his coffee in one gulp. "I have a call to make."

He turned his chair and was halfway out the door when he paused, not quite looking back over his shoulder at her. "But… thank you anyway."

It was only after he was gone that she realized he'd inexplicably taken the empty mug with him.

In the end, she decided against leaving, worried that she'd lose the nerve to come back. I'm not going to be scared of being at S.T.A.R. Labs or doing my job or being around my friends, she thought firmly.

Thankfully, though, the rest of the day was uneventful. I'm glad not every day has to be Thwart A Meta day, she mused, gathering up her things. She hadn't seen Barry or Cisco in hours but she felt much more secure in her ability to pretend there was nothing different about today than any other.

However, she wasn't averse to making a quick getaway.

"Hey, Cait," Barry called as she got to the door and she gave a slightly guilty start as she turned to find both he and Cisco approaching. "You sure you're doing all right? You seem…"

"Spooked," Cisco concluded. "Wait, you're not literally seeing ghosts or anything, right? Because that would be a pretty great meta ability. Give me a second and I'll come up with a totally cool codename!"

She gave a crooked smile at his teasing tone. "Sorry to disappoint. No ghosts or other meta abilities. I was just a little distracted today."

"You're not having man trouble, are you? Is your fellow not treating you right? Because I've got a couple of options I can think of for that…" Cisco's eyes glinted in surprising seriousness as he gazed off in thought.

She forced a -- decidedly fake -- laugh. "What makes you think I have a fellow just because I had one date?"

Cisco leveled that same gaze at her and the sheer, raw intelligence behind it made her want to squirm like a bug pinned to a board. "Really?" he said flatly. "Like you think I'm new here and don't know you? You're absolutely seeing somebody and you have been for a while. I just don't get why you don't want us to know about him."

"I mean, clearly you wanted your privacy," Barry interjected into the sudden awkward silence. "But… come on, Cait, you know we're your friends. If you're happy, then we're happy. That's all we care about."

A thousand scenarios ran through her head in a heartbeat: did she confirm and risk them pressing to meet her fellow or did she cling to denial and raise their suspicions even higher?

I want to give them what honesty I can, even if it's just a little bit. Even if I have to wrap it in a lie if they get too close.

"I am happy," she said. "It's just complicated."

Cisco definitely had an opinion about her word choice but Barry gave him a very unsubtle elbow to the ribs.

"Like we said, we're happy if you're happy," Barry repeated, staring sternly at the other man.

"Fine," Cisco muttered. "But if you run off and elope or something before I get to throw you a killer bachelorette party, I'm really going to have my feelings hurt. Just remember that, hm?"

She laughed for real this time. "I promise," she said and this time when she left, she was smiling. Sweating a little bit, but smiling.