Always Running

Stay With Me

"Barry!"

***
Linda walks into S.T.A.R. labs the next morning with Caitlin. The two met for coffee at Jitters to run through the plan one more time. Caitlin made sure Linda was still okay with doing it and wasn't having second thoughts now that she'd slept on it.

When they get to the cortex, Cisco, Joe, and Harry are standing around the control desk. Linda points at Harry.

"Doppelganger?"

"Yep." Caitlin answers.

She looks around the room and takes a deep breath. "What now?"

"Now we train." Linda turns to see the Flash standing at the entrance to the cortex just behind her.

"Wow." She breathes out. "You're...you're the Flash."

He chuckles. "If we're gonna do this, I need to trust you completely. And you need to trust me." He looks to Joe who nods. He turns back to Linda.

Barry peels off his cowl, revealing his identity to Linda who gasps, leaving her mouth open.

"You...you're," she stutters. She straightens up. "How were you still late for our dates?"

Joe snorts out a laugh in the back of the room. Barry smiles at Linda. "You ready?"

She grins back. "Ready."

Caitlin leads Linda to the guest quarters where Dr. Light's suit and Cisco's new star shooter gloves are. Linda gets dressed and the two head down to the room Cisco has set up for training. They walk in to see a bunch of life-size cardboard cut outs.

Caitlin walks up to one of her, sunglasses on and scarf around her neck holding a Pedialyte.

"Of all the times you could've take a picture of me. It had to be this?" She glares at Cisco.

"That was the day you looked the scariest." He defends.

Linda laughs. Cisco walks up and shows her how to use the gloves. Caitlin walks to stand on the control platform with Joe and Harry.

"This is gonna work right?" Joe asks hesitantly.

"Nope." Caitlin says at the same time Harry replies, "yes". They turn to look at each other.

"That's reassuring." Joe mumbles.

Linda starts practicing with the gloves, aiming off in a clear corner. The first blast causes her to fall back, forcing Cisco to catch her. Caitlin sighs and rubs her temple. Harry stares intensely at them. Linda tries again and, though she stays on her feet this time, misses the corner by about twenty feet.

Caitlin sighs. "Oh, this is gonna be great." 

***

"Stay with me."

***

"There's no way in hell this is gonna work." Caitlin sighs, slumping down in a seat at the control desk.

"Well maybe if she didn't scream every time her gloves went off." Harry agreed.

"Or keep shooting all of my cutouts." Cisco adds in, slumping down in a chair next to Caitlin.

"That was a rough start, but we'll go again after lunch and it'll be great. She'll be great." Barry says optimistically.

The other three turn to look at him skeptically as he walks back out to get lunch with Joe.

"We need to make sure those darts are ready." Caitlin says, turning to Harry and Cisco who both nod in agreement. "We can't afford for anything else to go wrong."