Always Running

The Past that Haunts Us

Just minutes pass before Stein, Joe, Barry, Cisco, and Caitlin are all in the cortex discussing how to find Patty.

"We can't go after her until we know how you're gonna stop Slick." Joe says, staring at Barry who is pacing.

"We gotta find her first." Cisco says while him and Stein work away on the computers to find Patty.

Caitlin has been silent. A snide comment begging to come out, but she's doing her best to hold back. Barry's determination to not accept Jay's help. Barry's lack of trust in the team. His general piss-poor attitude that he's given them all day that she still can't explain. That's why this happened. If he would've just listened.

"Barry." Cisco reluctantly breaths out. "We have someone here who can tell us what to do."

"We can figure out what to do. We've done it with every case before and we don't need his help now."

"But he has the answers now. Why not take them?" Cisco argues, trying not to sound too argumentative, but annoyance clear in his voice.

"Since when do we just trust the first answer to come up? We're scientists. We test, we prove, but nobody here wants to do any of that except me."

"We also make theories." Caitlin finally steps in, doing her best to keep her voice calm and steady. "And right now, we have one. A damn good one that answers all of our questions. That guy in there that you seem so hellbent on hating gave us that theory. We're all trying to test it. Now do your part and let us."

"You didn't want to trust him at first either." Barry snaps back.

"I still don't! But you're just being stubborn." Caitlin finally snaps, her voice no longer calm, but not quite yelling.

"So are you."

"But my stubbornness isn't costing lives!"

Barry's eyes go wide. He walks away, pacing, and running his hand aggressively through his hair. Caitlin walks up to him and grabs his hand from his hair, holding it softly in hers. She looks up at him, her eyes soft.

"He reminds you of Wells." She says lightly, almost in a whisper.

"I trusted that man for months." His voice is calmer. His eyes are closed now. He sounds almost ashamed, and the crease between his eyebrows confirms that.

"I trusted him for years."

"A lot of people are dead because we trusted him." Barry's voice is raising. The anger from their experience with Wells coming back to him.

"And a whole lot more would be dead if we hadn't." Caitlin argues.

"You're defending him?" Barry accuses, stepping back from her.

She quickly drops her hands to her sides. "No. I'm defending us. Our judgement. We made a judgement call that what he was saying was worth listening to. And now you're letting your pride get in the way of that." Caitlin says sternly, but not loud. Her face hardens and she turns to look past Barry as she walks closer to him, about to walk past. Her voice is low and menacing. "Don't you dare ever accuse me of defending him."

Barry looks at her.

She turns to looks at him, now standing beside him, facing the opposite direction. "I'm not asking you to trust him. I'm asking you to trust us." She motions to Cisco. "Do you?"

He takes a deep breath but doesn't break eye contact. He can't look past the fire in her eyes that reminds him entirely too much of someone else. "No."

Caitlin's eyes quickly change from pissed to distraught. An outside viewer might think she was just punched in the gut, and in some ways, she felt like she had. She looks down, her eyes unfocused, and walks out of the cortex.