What Brings Us Together (A Ralph Dibny/ The Flash Fan-Fiction)

Chapter Forty-Five: I Don't Like It When You Read My Mind

"Cecile's a telepath?" Harry repeated once we relayed the message to him. "Well, that's way more important than getting Allen out of Prison! Not!"

"Sick burn, Hare." Ralph said, holding out a fist to him.

"Please don't encourage him." Caitlin replied. I put a hand on Ralph's arm, pushing it down.

"As a former prisoner, I can tell you-"

"No, that was gorilla prison." Cisco corrected.

"Gorilla prison is worse. They throw their scat at you." Ralph opened his mouth to ask me a question, but I waved it off.

"Long story."

" I can tell you that Allen is sitting in his cell suffering while this guy, DeVoe, continues his plan unabated."

"Harry, Cecile filed an appeal last week." Iris assured him.

"We have no new evidence, so that doesn't matter."

"We have satellites on the DeVoes."

"And they haven't made a move in weeks, so that doesn't matter."

"Well Barry's in Gen Pop, so worst case, he can always phase out, or I can breach him out."

"And then he'd be a fugitive, Ramon, and also why do we not have eyes on him in there?!"

"Hey, it's a pain trying to get into an analog camera from here, no matter how hard I hack."

"Hack, harder. And it would help a ton if these two would stop their own personal rendition of 'Romeo and Juliet' long enough to actually contribute to getting Barry out." 

"Yeah, because going around the room yelling at everyone is really helping." I shot back. He opened his mouth to start again, but I got there first, "Ralph and I are keeping up with the superhero work so that you and the rest of the team can focus mostly on Barry, and we are working just as hard as everyone else on this team, and everyone else is working just as hard as you, so why don't you just freaking chill out!" He closed his mouth again. "We are at a roadblock, and that sucks, but at the moment there isn't anything we can do about that, so Barry is just going to have to hang on."

"I can't even imagine what he's going through." Iris said after a while.

~~~

After our meeting, I went to get coffee. There was a crime scene, but today was my day off, so luckily I didn't have to go on. I went without Ralph because I, quite frankly, needed to get my thoughts in order before I talked to him about whatever the heck happened this morning.

"Laura!" I looked up to see Cecile coming towards me.

"Hey, Cecile." She smiled, sitting down across from me.

"I've been meaning to talk to you...about what I heard this morning. With Ralph? What's going on?" I shook my head.

"It's really nothing Cecile-'

"You asked him to move in with you?!" She asked. I cringed.

"Ok, guess we're talking about this whether I wanted to or not." She cringed.

"Sorry." I shrugged. "But you asked him to move in with you? Laura, that's huge."

"Yeah, it is. And I was so excited, and I ran over every possible scenario in my head and then I asked and he acted like he wasn't even a little bit interested."

"Well what did he say?" She asked.

"He said that I should think it over, make sure I was sure that was what I wanted. It's like he didn't want to say no, so he was just hoping I would change my mind." I paused, a realization coming to mind.

"No." Cecile said. 

"What?"

"I literally know what you're thinking, Laura. Harry is not right about your contribution, and you shouldn't just forget about your relationship problems because Barry is in prison. He has a whole team of gifted people, including yours truly, working on getting him out." I shook my head.

"But what if he is right? I mean, everyone else is back at STAR Labs surveying the satellites, working on the cameras, looking for evidence, and I'm sitting her pouting because..." I trailed off.

"Because you're worried that Ralph doesn't love you as much as he says he does." I sighed.

"I don't like it when you read my mind." I told her.

"Sorry. I can't help it." I pinched the bridge of my nose. "You should talk to him, because I know for a fact that that is not true."

"How do you know that?" I questioned, tugging at my hair.

"Because, Laura! It doesn't take a mind reader to see that that boy is crazy about you." She reasoned. "The way he looks at you? Especially when you're not looking, it's like you're the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. And something you have to understand Laura, is that sometimes people do weird things. And at first, it may seem like they do those things because they don't love you, but...in my experience, most of the time it means that they love you so much that they don't know what to do. But you're never going to know unless you ask him." My phone buzzed and I saw that it was a text from Ralph.

Joe needs you back at the lab. He's got word from Allen, something he wants us to do. 

I looked up at Cecile again.

"Talk to him." She said. I sighed, nodding.

On my way. 

~~~

"So Barry asked you, to ask us, to get this guy out of prison?" Caitlin questioned, gesturing to the rather intimidating dude whose picture was displayed on the monitor.

"Barry has gotten close to this guy who says he's innocent. It was a case of mistaken identity." Joe explained.

"Well, from what I could find out on CCPN's archives, Big Sir's case does sound a bit suspect. Fifteen years ago he was found guilty of shooting a guard, but there was no apparent motive."

"Only one eyewitness?" Harry questioned.

"Studies have indicated that line-up composition, verbal and non-verbal cues, can all lead to unintended false ID's." I said.

"It's hot when you talk smart." Ralph whispered in my ear. I just looked at him and he furrowed his eyebrows at my lack of response to his joke. "Look, this is all fantastic, but...we're not really gonna do this."

"Yeah, I mean, we've already got a lot on our plate just trying to free one innocent man." Cisco pointed out.

"We all want Barry to be free, but I don't know that there's much else we can do right now."

"Not to mention the fact that Barry has asked one thing of us since being charged, and it doesn't even pertain to him." I added."Based on that fact alone, we have to take this case."

"It's unsettling how convincing you can be sometimes." Cisco told me.

"I got a plate match on the Chavelle," Joe told us, referring to the possibly-metahuman case he was working, "It's registered to a perp who has multiple breaking and entering priors: Sylbert Rundine."

"That is such an unfortunate name." I said.

"He must go by something for short." Caitlin threw in.

"Syl," Ralph theorized, "Sylbie. Bertie."

"What do we want to do about this case?" harry asked.

"Well, my dad, Cisco, Ralph and Laura are gonna question Rundine and I'm gonna call Cecile and see if she can pull up the case file on Big Sir."

"You won't even have to say it." Joe told her, pointing to his head. 

"Bertie? Were you for real with that?" Cisco asked on our way out the door.

"Yeah, bet you five bucks it's Bertie."

"You're on." Ralph lightly elbowed me and again, I didn't respond.

"Ok, what is wrong?" He asked quietly.

"Nothing. We'll talk about it later." I replied, shoving my hands in my pockets and walking ahead of him.