Steps

Side Step: Encounters (Cisco POV)

Cisco cracked an eye open, trying his best to be discreet. A quick glance at Leah's face revealed that she was, in fact, asleep. Finally.

He slowly untangled his arm from around her and sat up. 4:42. Cisco mumbled a quiet curse to the clock as he removed himself from the bed, grabbed his glasses, and sleepily shuffled his way out into Leah's living room. He didn't dare turn on any lights in fear of waking her again, but the soft moonlight streaming through her balcony doors provided just enough light for him to see his way over to the couch with ease.

He threw himself down and let out a deep sigh, running a hand back through his hair as he heaved. He'd done it again. This had to be the 4th time this week that he'd had that vision. It always left him screaming. Always. Watching her fade slowly as he sat motionless in a pool of blood. Her blood. When would it end? Out of all the deaths he'd seen, hers had to be the worst...

His eyes slipped shut as he leaned back into the couch. God, everything was terrible. And Leah, being the sleepy angel that she could be, came to his rescue every single time. She'd try and calm him, cooing soft words, wiping the tears from his eyes, begging him to try and talk it out. But that was the one vision he couldn't express. How could you tell someone of their own graphic death, knowing that somewhere out there, it was real, and it had happened? How had Leah, his Leah, escaped it?

"Dios Mio..." Cisco gritted his teeth. This whole thing...thing whole other Earth thing, it was a pain in the ass. Getting little peeks into the life he lived somewhere else, it was crazy. Best of all, it wasn't spurred from something normal like his other visions, oh no. The photos, Arpa, they worked together to link him to other worlds. It was like he had a vastly growing network, connecting him to his other selves on infinite earths. He'd seen so many now. Each different—slightly unique in its' own way.

Breechers were normal at this point. There'd been quite a number that had popped out since the singularity. Most, he could vibe. It was never more than a few seconds, but he could see enough to direct Barry on what to do. Arpa though...she had been different.

She was, for the most part, the first sign that things were changing; the first sign that something wasn't right. That day she'd come charging into the lab, saving he and Caitlin from sudden death by lightning at the hand of Weather Wizard, that was the point of impact; the start of it all. It was like something in his head just switched on, then suddenly, boom, new vibes left and right. Everyday, every night, they never stopped anymore. Everything, caused by a single event.

Cisco recalled that day vividly. It had been a normal December day: chemical spill in the morning, bank heist at noon, followed by a heater fire around 2. While Barry was running back and forth between emergencies, he and Caitlin had been working on sorting out a set of anomalies that had popped up on the satellite feed from a few hours earlier. They'd planned to send Barry to scope it out later that night, but the source came to them instead.

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"I don't know Cait, there's some weird log times in here...1 am, 5 am...seriously, who in the world wakes up at 5 in the morning? That's like, inhumane..." Cisco took another swig of his coffee as he continued to sort through the S.T.A.R. satellite access logs. "And the origin isn't even in Central. Someone's accessing from Star City, and now...Alabama? What the hell?" He leaned in closer to the monitor.

"I'm sure it's nothing, Cisco. Doesn't Ray have access to the satellite to link his servers to his suit?" Caitlin turned her head to face him.

"Yea, but..." Cisco spun his chair and gestured at the monitor, "that's not Ray's code. He's not that neat, and not that..."