Work Text:
“I just noticed you don't smile too much.”
Caitlin has no idea when it happened, but sometime in the time since Barry woke up from his coma, the smile that had been gone from her lips since Ronnie had disappeared, no since Ronnie had died (because being merged with professor Stein was basically the same as him dying), had started to appear again.
She didn’t feel better, not really, and she was not over Ronnie in any way. When she mourned him, she was also feeling the loss of all that came with it. Her future, the life she dreamt about having, the possibility of a family and her happiness. She was serious when she answered Barry that she didn’t have too much to smile about, she was emotionally scarred. So was Cisco and Dr. Wells for that matter, they just didn’t show it the same way.
When Barry woke up, something changed. Of course things were different than before when a boy struck by lightning woke up to superpowers, but it was more than just that. There was a dynamic shift in the lives of the three that was the S.T.A.R.-Labs team.
Caitlin had never met another person like Barry before. She herself isn’t a warm person. It’s not that she is unfriendly or cold, but she knows that she has a hardness in her, that it takes a lot for her to open up to people and let them in, but Barry, Barry is like sunshine. It fills her with wonder that a person who has lost so much can be so happy.
S.T.A.R. Labs used to be a place filled with people, happiness and anticipation but all that changed after the explosion. Caitlin closed herself off, rebuilt the walls around her and became solely focused on work, on wanting to somehow make up for all the hurt and loss the particle accelerator had caused the people of Central City.
Dr Wells lost the use of his legs and even though he still was a good boss, it seemed to her that he also mourned the loss of a life that could have been. He didn’t talk that much.
Cisco was still Cisco, Caitlin was sure that if the explosion hadn’t taken away his excitement for everything technical and generally positive outlook on life, nothing could. Still, the energy was definitely diminished compared to before, sometimes like it was forced.
For Caitlin, life as she knew it had changed when Ronnie came into her life and melted her walls, it changed again when the particle accelerator exploded. When Barry woke up, realized he had super speed and became The Flash, it wasn’t just Caitlins life that changed, it was her whole world.
In hindsight it seems like those nine months when Barry was in a coma, she had been in one too. They were just transport, biding their time until something bigger could start.
She isn’t sure when she started smiling again, but she knows why.
Barry is a force of nature; he brings the whole lab to life again. Suddenly they have a purpose, a way to repay the city for what they have done. Dr Wells is fascinated, he did create something good in all the destruction, and Cisco, Caitlin realizes just how subdued he has been when she sees his excitement over everything The Flash.
At first, Caitlin gets annoyed when Barry flashes away and all her papers go flying, after a while it simply makes her sigh a little and the corners of her lips unwillingly turn somewhat upwards.
The process is slow, so slow that she doesn’t really notice it. It’s the sheepish but at the same time apologetic look Barry has on his face when she has to patch him up after taking on a meta-human, or a regular human, that happens too. It’s the stupid nicknames Cisco keeps giving the meta-humans, the ones she secretly finds kind of funny but pretends to be annoyed at. It’s the little things that makes her feel a part of something bigger and the way they slowly turn into a kind of family. It is a bit broken but still functional, and it’s hers.
It’s not until somewhere around the time when they go out for drinks and Caitlin ends up singing Summer lovin’ with Barry before puking her guts out in the parking lot with him holding her hair before taking her home and sitting with her until she falls asleep that she realizes what it means that Barry somehow has wormed his way into all of their hearts and that she again has things in her life that makes her want to smile.
Soon after that night, they figure out what has happened to Ronnie and Professor Stein and then there is the awful, awful thing that happens in the fields outside of the city. Seeing Ronnie-that-isn’t-really-Ronnie and talking to him is strange. It hurts. Having him kissing her before Barry runs away with her is even harder than it was losing him the first time. This time she watches him die instead of just hearing him.
Losing Ronnie a second time hurts in a different way, and she thinks that maybe she should go back to not smiling again. Keeping walls up keeps the hurt away, that’s why she built them in the first place. Yes, she decides to rebuild them and to not let anyone or anything in because it just ends with her getting hurt. And really, if she is going to hide behind anything, cold walls is pretty fitting for someone named Caitlin Snow.
There is just one small problem, Barry is already inside her walls and no matter how she tries, she cannot shut him out. Caitlin realizes that while nothing can ever take away the love she feels for Ronnie, he is gone. But Barry is alive, he’s here and he will probably melt all her walls no matter how many she tries to build, because sunshine has a way of thawing ice and snow.