Collateral Damage (snowbarry)

The Discovery

Caitlin has been sitting in the secret silver room for three hours. She is sitting against the back wall, her knees to her chest, her head in her knees. She stopped crying a little bit ago. Now she was just trying to get her breathing to a normal pace, but wasn't having much luck. Every time she lifted her head, she saw the room and her breath caught and threatened to choke her again. She buried her head again. She was hyperventilating and she could feel herself getting less and less clear over the last half hour. Her head hurt, and she felt weak. She knew she was close to passing out and she needed to get out of the room in case Wells came in, but she couldn't move her body.

After another half hour, she brings herself to crawl to her knees, and push herself to her feet. She doesn't look around the room again for fear of it actually killing her this time. She walks out, looks at the wall panel to commit it to memory, and runs away.

She keeps running. She runs when she gets outside and past her car. She runs past the road that turns into downtown. She runs past the turn off to her street, ignoring the feeling of a knife in each of her lungs. She keeps running until she gets outside of a small house on a street just outside of downtown. She stops in the yard and sees two men stepping out of the car in the driveway. One of them was running toward her yelling her name. She felt her knees hit the ground. Everything was foggy. "Bar." She chokes out through strangled breaths. "I'm...I'm so sor." And she falls, being caught just before her head hits the ground.

She wakes up and sees the sunlight shining on the blanket wrapped around her. She blinks rapidly and suddenly feels the ache in her head. She rolls to try to sit up at the edge of the bed, struggling through the pain in every part of her body.

The room is familiar. It's Barry's. She looks and sees Barry sitting in a chair next to the bed, leaning over on his hand, drooling. She lets out a soft chuckle at this. Barry snorts and sits up, wiping his mouth of drool and widening his eyes at Caitlin.

"Cait." He whispers, dropping to his knees by the bed. "Are you okay?"

She gives him a weak nod. The feeling she has in her throat tells her that her voice is barely going to work.

"What happened?" He asks, sitting next to her at the edge of the bed.

She shakes her head, looking down in her lap. She takes her phone out of her pocket and her and Barry both see the missed texts and phone calls from Barry, Cisco, and Joe. She looks up at him in confusion.

"Later." He says, looking back down at the phone.

She looks back down and sends a text to Cisco.

Don't go in to work today. Meet me in the cortex at 1am.

She hits send and Barry looks at her confused. "1am. I'll show you then." Her voice is shaky and very dry.

Barry narrows his eyes at her in concern. He walks her downstairs and makes her some hot tea that she sips with shaky hands. He just keeps watching her, worry clear in his eyes. He decides not to tell her what they found out last night until she's better. She needs to get out whatever she's holding in first.

When she's done with her tea, she asks Barry to run her back to the labs so she can get her car. When he runs off, she decides to go inside. She sees Wells sitting at a desk in the cortex. She takes a deep breath and walks in.

He turns around, hearing her walk in.

"Morning Caity." He says. She walks past him to her lab.

"Morning." Her voice is stills scratchy.

"Are you feeling alright?" He asks.

"Not great." She says, walking into her lab and grabbing the file she left on her desk last night, and a few other things to make it less suspicious. She walks back out. "Do you mind if I work from home today? Cisco had some ideas for new ways of finding metas that I thought I'd expand on while he's out of town."