(The Flash) Frozen Flashpoint: Chapter 4 – Dropping Temperature

Chapter 4 – Dropping Temperature

Caitlin woke up and glanced at the clock on her nightstand. The red digits glowed 6:00 AM.

She usually woke up around five, rarely allowing herself an extra hour of sleep as it took away time from her morning exercise routine, which she was very proud of. But needs must; she could allow herself to miss a day.

She stood up from her bed and began stretching her muscles. Just because she didn’t have time for the entire routine didn’t mean she couldn’t find five minutes to do some stretches and keep her muscles from stiffening during her day at work.

Normally, Caitlin would mentally complain about the wasted time, even if she really needed that sleep, but as she put on her robe and exited the room into the living room, she couldn’t help but smile to herself when she saw the lump on her couch.

Barry was sprawled across her couch, face down, his right leg touching the floor, his left arm resting on the back of the couch, and the blanket she had given him last night discarded on the floor a few steps away.

Even asleep, Barry was being goofy. Barry Allen. Her boyfriend.

She had wanted to hear those combined words for a long time. She had taken care of him for nine months. During the worst nine months of her life, Barry had been a calming constant, and it was hard not to get attached even then.

But when he woke up with that cute, confused look on his face only to turn to a goofy smile once he noticed the lightning, she knew she was attracted to him.

Barry had asked her during their first days working together why she was so cold and never smiling. She didn’t answer then, apart from giving him some random facts. The truth was that she felt like she was betraying Ronnie by being attracted to Barry, so she preferred to push everything away and be cold instead.

But even she couldn’t hold it for long. Slowly, even without meaning to, he warmed his way into her heart.

The bar during their stakeout was the first time she admitted to herself the depth of her feelings for Barry, but when he made no move, she assumed he was still stuck on Iris.

From there, the next two years were a blur of emotional roller coasters for her. Ronnie alive. Only to die again. Barry pushing them all away. Barry coming to her a few months later with Wells’s final will. Getting the entire team back. And she didn’t even want to think about the whole Jay/Zoom fiasco.

But last night, she was ready to get yelled at for her betrayal or another heartbreak hearing Barry whine over his failure to get Iris to date him.

Instead, she got a confession of his feelings for her! And her heart did break when she heard how much emotional pain he was in and what it caused him to think about doing.

She shook her head. Now was not the time to think about it; now she needed to focus on helping him heal.

Deciding to let him sleep a little longer while she took a shower, Caitlin quietly went toward her bathroom.

The water was warm and nice, very good for her skin and muscles. She turned her face toward the water stream, closing her eyes to avoid the dreadful fate of soap in the eyes.

All of a sudden, she felt the water get colder, extremely colder. She reached her hand to turn the water off so she could open her eyes.

When she did, she noticed a thin layer of frost coating all the walls. Caitlin tried to take a calming breath but noticed she could see her breath, which wasn’t a good sign.

Caitlin ran to the mirror above the sink. The glass too was covered in frost.

What was going on? She didn’t feel that cold. Sure, it was colder than a minute ago, but not enough to warrant so much frost.

Caitlin used her palm to clean some of the frost off the mirror’s surface. What she saw almost caused her to faint.

Her skin was much paler, her lips were a cold blue, and she even had a few strands of white hair coming out of her head.

Caitlin’s mind immediately flashed back to a conversation with Cisco a few months ago after all of them returned from Earth-2. She remembered how he described Killer Frost: “Looks just like you but with all her hair white, blue lips, even bluer eyes, and much paler.”

But what caused her breath to start increasing was when the voice of Cisco inside her mind added, “She was cold, and not just her power; all her personality. She killed people with a cruel smile on her face.”

Caitlin could see her pupils were blown wide open in the mirror, her chest rising and falling at a much faster rate than ever before. Before she could think about that, she grabbed a pair of scissors and cut down the white strands almost at the root.

Without even thinking about it, her body moved. She wrapped herself in her bathrobe and ran into her room, slamming the door and locking it.

She slid down to the floor, her back leaning on the door. Her breathing grew even heavier, her mind beginning to swim, and in the back of it, she realized she was having a panic attack.

The first thing to break through was the sound of knocking on the door, though she felt the vibration more than heard it. What she did hear was a voice calling, “Cait?”

It took Caitlin far too long to recognize Barry’s voice. She tried to answer, but her throat wouldn’t cooperate. All it would do was take repeated gulps of air to stop her from fainting.

“Cait?! Are you okay?” Barry’s voice came again, more urgent than before.

Caitlin closed her eyes and took a calming breath. She focused on Barry’s voice calling to her once again, “Caitlin! If you don’t open this door in a minute, I’m phasing inside!”

Caitlin put her palm on the marbled floor and focused on the texture, then her underhand felt the wood texture of the door before she focused on the smell of the shampoo still coming off her hair.

With another deep breath, Caitlin responded as calmly as she could to Barry, “I’m sorry, Bare. I’ll be out in a couple of minutes.”

There was a small pause before Barry responded, still very worried, “You sure, Cait? Maybe I should come in to check on you.”

“Thanks, Bare, but I promise I’ll be out soon,” Caitlin replied, much calmer than before.

She heard Barry’s footsteps returning to the living room and took another calming breath.

Now she needed to calm her breathing so she wouldn’t be flustered in front of Barry. She took a deep breath for four seconds through her nose and let that breath out through her mouth for eight seconds. She repeated the process a dozen times until her breath returned to normal.

She put on her clothes quickly so as not to worry Barry more than she already had and opened the door. On her way to the living room, she could already smell the scent of coffee and eggs, so with an educated guess, she immediately went to the kitchen.

Barry stood there, already dressed for work and clearly just finishing setting the table for both of them. Caitlin blinked in surprise.

When Barry noticed her, he gave her his usual smile, but she could see the worry he tried to hold back. “I made breakfast. Oh, and coffee,” Barry said casually.

Caitlin sat down and took a sip of her coffee. She couldn’t stop the smile that spread on her face when she realized Barry had prepared it her favorite way. She aimed the smile at him and said, “You shouldn’t have, Bare.”

Barry sat across from her with his own smile and replied lightly, “What kind of boyfriend would I be if I didn’t take care of you?” Then his smile slipped, and he asked more seriously, “Are you okay? I was getting dressed when I suddenly saw you run to your room and slam the door. I was worried.”

Caitlin had prepared an explanation. She didn’t want Barry to know the truth, so she was ready with a possible reason. She mustered her best awkward smile and said, “I’m not used to having someone in the apartment. I forgot to take clothes with me to the shower. Sorry, Bare, but we’re not there yet.”

She saw the twitch in the corner of Barry’s lips and giggled. “Thanks for your concern, sweetheart.” After saying that, she leaned forward and kissed him on the lips.

Barry kept scanning her with his eyes, and for a moment, Caitlin was sure he was going to push the matter, but instead, he gave her his goofy smile and went back to eating his breakfast while they had small talk.

When they were clearing the table, Barry snapped his fingers and asked, “I’m not sure what my status with Joe is after last night. Is there any chance your invite to stay here extends to tonight as well?”

Caitlin froze. It wasn’t that she didn’t want Barry to stay with her; she really liked the idea, actually. But the idea that her powers would suddenly activate again was too real, and she didn’t want Barry to see it.

Barry seemed to notice her hesitation and immediately added, “Of course, if you’re not comfortable with it, I can totally find somewhere else to crash, like Cisco’s or—”

Caitlin couldn’t have her boyfriend jumping places all week long. So with a sincere smile, she cut him off, “No. Of course you can stay here for as long as you need, Bare.”

Barry tried to ease the small tension in the room by asking with wide eyes, “Any chance I’m joining you in bed tonight?”

Caitlin bit the inside of her cheek to stop the giggle trying to escape, instead mock glaring at him and answering, “Nice try, mister, but you can have either the couch or the floor if you prefer.”

Barry let out a fake exhausted sigh and muttered, “Oh man.”

Then he looked back up at her with a wide smile and said, “Anyway, I need to be at the station in about fifteen minutes. Want me to drop you off at STAR Labs?”

Caitlin shot him back a smile of her own and nodded.

Ten minutes later, Caitlin was stepping into the elevator of the labs, a small blush on her cheeks after the kiss she had just shared with Barry before he ran off.

She was never used to public displays of affection. Ronnie always agreed with her on the matter, but Barry seemed insistent on advertising their status to everyone. Something she would have to get used to eventually.

Caitlin was standing in her lab and looking through some formulas she had been working on for the past week. She was trying to create a metagene repressor.

She would have used one of the metacuffs she and Cisco created a long time ago, but Barry would notice that in no time, and she would have to explain it, which she desperately tried to avoid.

For the past week, Joe had been on a case out of town and Iris had been staying at the house, so Barry had been sleeping on her couch all week. Honestly, if not for the fear of her rising power, she would have allowed him in the bed by now.

She was afraid of what Barry would say if he found out about the powers trying to awaken in her. What if he tried to lock her up because he was afraid she could become like Killer Frost? Or even worse, break up with her because he thought she was already a killer in the making?

In the back of her mind, she knew Barry would never do either, but she felt she deserved it after what she and the others had done after Zoom killed his father. She couldn’t help but act according to all her insecurities. After all, it had taken her such a long time to get to this place in her life. A place where she had everything she could wish for. A great friend she could call family and the boyfriend she dreamed about for the past two years.

She allowed the simulation on her screen to run while she looked at the security screen, seeing the video from the camera at the speed lab that Cisco had finished building earlier that month.

For the past week, Barry had been training Jesse very intensely, but she couldn’t argue with the results. Jesse now had basic control of her speed, like how to use it at the right times and how to stop.

That proved Barry was a good teacher. He himself had taken a week just to learn how to stop, but thanks to Barry, Jesse was already at a level where she almost mastered phasing, and according to the video she was watching now, it seemed today was the day she finally managed to get a complete handle on it.

A beeping sound from under her nose drew her attention back to the screen she was working on, but suddenly she felt two gusts of wind. As fast as she could, she pushed the button to turn the screen off.

Barry was standing in front of her with a smile. Despite her nerves, Caitlin smiled back and asked, “How was your training, guys?”

Jesse rushed to stand next to Barry and began chattering excitedly, “It was awesome! Thanks to Barry, I finally managed to get a handle on phasing.”

Barry, on the other hand, had a confused look on his face as he stared between the blank screen Caitlin was just looking at and her before asking in a suspicious voice, “What are you working on?”

Caitlin finally understood the expression ‘saved by the bell.’

She was struggling to think of an answer, and Barry was clearly getting more and more suspicious of her. He was about to speak, but before he could, the meta-alarm bells began to sound across the entire cortex, and the big screen lit up with a red light, distracting everyone for now.