Through Dangerous Times

Bonding

The trio were sat at one of the dining tables in the space station, eating some pre-packaged food, which wasn't the best meal they could ask for but was still good enough. They had now been on the QAN for around two days now, the temporary fix so far running successfully, no major problems being encountered. They had managed to keep the life support steady, running well enough to supply them for a few weeks or so. Despite this, there were still many fixes to be completed, as the station wasn't entirely safe, as expected considering the damage that had been done.

"So, guys, today we have quite a bit of work to do, some simple repairs around the station. I'm going to go to the command ring, contact Earth and try and get some tips on how to repair the whole inevitable death thing," Cisco stated, finishing his meal and standing up, before continuing.

"The things that need repairing are mostly in the third segment, in fact, I shall come with you two to locate the broken parts, then leave you to it. From what I have seen in the control centre, the gravity and life support should be our top priority."

"Yeah, we got it," Barry said, standing up, having finished his food, Caitlin soon following.

"So it will just be me and Barry doing the repairs?" she asked Cisco.

"Yes, as I said I shall be contacting Earth and finding out an overall fix to our situation."

"Okay," Caitlin said, sounding somewhat plain as she did.

"Is that a problem?" Barry asked out of curiosity, sounding slightly worried.

"No, no that's fine," she replied, heading to the elevator, both Barry and Cisco following after her.

They zipped through the connecting tubes in the elevator, emerging in the third section.

"So, here we are," Cisco said, completing a retinal scan to enter the room faced in front of them. 

The door opened, revealing a giant area, filled with different machines, generators, etcetera. The entire first segment was dedicated to these, basically, the things that ran the ship. This room was full of smaller compartments, each one dedicated to a certain specific task.

The trio headed to the nearest compartment, looking at the digital screen labelling the function of that specific machine. On this one, it read 'Elevator Control'. They moved to the next, checking a couple more, reading the labels 'Communications' and 'Laser Array'.

"Well, these are not the parts we are looking for," Cisco said with a large smile on his face, enjoying the reaction that Barry gave him, being him turning around and looking Cisco in the eye as he did back on the ship as if to say 'really?'.

"Guys, come on, we need to focus, there may be some serious problems here," Caitlin said, sounding quite serious and worried about what may happen.

"Hey, what's the harm in a little fun, after all, it is a way to get through the fact that we are all in probable danger," Barry replied back.

"Shut up, you scruffy-looking nerfherder," she replied, however by the tone of her voice it was fairly obvious that she enjoyed saying that a bit too much.

"Well, I'll leave you two to it, simply locate what looks broken and fix it, shouldn't be too hard," he said, before leaving himself, whistling the theme to Star Wars as he did so. 

"So, where do we start?" Barry asked, hoping that this time she wouldn't make fun of him.

"Well, how about we just go row by row, it should be fairly obvious when we find something that is broken."

"Okay, good plan," he replied, feeling somewhat scared that she would lash out at him again, but decided to not focus on that and simply focus on the present time, looking around for any broken devices.

"Hey, this one over here," she shouted, Barry walking over to her and looking at the display on the module, reading the label.

'Simulated Gravity. ERROR: Minor Malfunctions may cause minor lapses.'

"Well, that's our problem. To fix it we will have to disable the module, which will turn off the gravity whilst we work, so we will have to do this floating."

"Okay," Barry replied, pulling the switch down causing the modules lights to shut down, before the pair knew it they slowly floated above the ground, all gravity being disabled.

"Umm, guys, was that meant to happen?" Cisco said through the COMMS, sounding slightly worried.

"Yeah, it should be back to normal soon," Caitlin said back before shutting off the mic.

Both Barry and Caitlin moved inside the compartment to work on the problem, both knowing what they were doing, however, it proved to be more difficult with the lack of gravity.

"So, Caitlin, what was your life like before you became an astronaut?" Barry asked, trying to start some conversation.

"Well, I worked as a Bio-Chemist before this, at a place called STAR Labs, I also studied to be a medical doctor. It was quite a simple life, not particularly much happened. I was doing all of this in the 3 years my parents spent on Mars. After my dad came back, without my mum, he was shortly after diagnosed with cancer, so I quit my job to care for him. Not long after he passed away as well, I came to NASA to train as an astronaut, they accepted me and well, here I am. How about you?"

"Well, when I was younger my mum took me to an observatory, as I had always wanted to become an astronaut, and she told me that one day I would be up there, in the stars. When I was 11 she was killed, and well, I continued to follow my dreams and here I am. Before this, I spent a little bit of time working as a CSI in the Central City Police Department."

"Well, it seems we have both suffered through our hard times, huh," Caitlin replied, sounding slightly down.

"Are you okay?" Barry asked, noticing the way she sounded.

"Not particularly, but I'm holding up," she replied.

"What's wrong?"

"I just, I guess I just get somewhat insecure when I talk about my past. I used to think very lowly of myself, however, I think that has improved a bit now. I know I tend to act very serious and often stressed, it's just because of memories of my parents, as much as I love being up here, it does still remind me of them."

"Caitlin, I'm so sorry for bringing it up, I didn't mean to hurt you, I'm sorry."

"No, it's not your fault," she said, looking away from him as she said so.

As they said this, Barry pulled away from the circuit he was working on.

"It should work now, let's test it out."

They both floated through the doorway, hovering in front of the switch as Caitlin pulled it down, both of them falling to the floor.

"Okay, could you have given me some warning about that before you activated it?" Cisco again said through the  COMMS.

"Sorry," Barry said, standing up and offering his hand to help Caitlin up, which she took.

"Well, that is one repair done, according to Cisco we have 4 more to go," Barry said, looking at Caitlin.

"Okay, that's good. Sorry for being such a mess just now."

"It's okay, it's perfectly understandable," Barry assured her, placing his hand on her shoulder.

"Well, onto the next one," she said, both of them picking up their tools and heading towards the next module.

"Sorry if I wasn't much help back then, I will make sure not to bring it up again," Barry said, still worrying about it all.

"Trust me, it is okay, you were actually somewhat helpful,"

"Well, thanks," he replied with a smile.

"Doesn't mean that you aren't a scruffy-looking nerfherder though," she laughed, causing him to laugh to himself slightly.