Alter Egos

What Might Have Been

Description: For but a moment, Caitlin allows her mind to drift to what might have been. Set post-season 5.

Nobody asked for angst but here we are. All aboard the pain train. Woot Woot!

...

The apartment was quiet, deafeningly so. Caitlin Snow was used to the quiet, she often found peace in it. But not today, today it was suffocating. It wasn't just quiet anymore, it was empty, much like her life seemed to be these days. In the span of a month, Caitlin had watched those who were closest to her slowly filter out of her life.

First, it was her dad, she had gained him, only to lose him for the second time in her life. Her mother followed suit. Caitlin had thought that the whole experience had brought the two of them closer together, but after a while, she stopped returning her calls.

Cisco came next, more or less. Though, Caitlin had to remind herself that she hadn't lost him. He just had a life outside S.T.A.R. Labs and metahumans now. He had another job, a girlfriend, and a chance at normality. Caitlin didn't want to ruin it for him, didn't want to pull him back into a life he had seemed so eager to be free from.

It had been almost three weeks to the day since Nora had vanished. Some days it felt like she took Barry and Iris with her. Iris stopped showing up at the lab after week one, and Barry began to keep his distance not long after. He still came when there was a meta, of course, but after the job was done he would be gone just as quickly. Sherloque had left too, and it seemed even Ralph's life had pulled him in a different direction.

Most days, it was just her at the lab, and most evenings it was just her alone in her apartment. Solitude seemed to be her new background music. She still had Killer Frost, of course, but even she had been uncharacteristically quiet lately.

Caitlin drew in a deep breath and closed the book she had been trying to focus on for the past twenty minutes. She had been attempting to distract herself from it all, but some days it was harder than others. Some days all she could focus on was the absence. Other days, her thoughts ran rampant and it was all she could do to keep the crushing grief at bay.

Caitlin stood up from where she had been seated and set her book down, picking up her phone instead. After that, she plopped down on the couch and folded her legs beneath her, her fingers beginning to scroll through her contacts. She needed to talk to someone, she needed a voice to fill the silence.

Caitlin scrolled up and down for several minutes, but never once hit the call button. In the end, she found herself simply staring blankly at her phone screen, unsure of where she stood with any of the people that had once meant so much to her. After a moment, her eyes came back into focus and a certain name caught her eye.

Barry Allen.

Caitlin considered it for a moment, her finger hovering over the contact. However, she quickly dismissed the thought; he had his own grief and problems to deal with, he didn't need hers as well. Caitlin was about to close her phone when something halted her.

"Call him," an ice-cold voice echoed through her mind.

"No," Caitlin only shook her head. "I'm sure he's busy."

"You and I both know that's just an excuse," she answered. "Just call him. You always feel better after you talk to him. We both do."

Caitlin stared at the name for a few moments more, weighing her options.

"Do it, or I'll do it for us," Frost prompted, almost playfully.

"Fine, fine," Caitlin muttered, slamming her finger down on the call button before she lost her nerve.