Chapter Text
The tears are held in, controlled. Trapped in her chest, waiting, patiently, throughout the day. They’re imprisoned, locked, kept in, tucked away. But once she opens the door to her apartment, that’s when it starts to leak and stain her pale cheeks.
It starts slowly, softly, and for a second she tries to hold it back, bite her tongue and take deep, shaky breaths trying her best to conceal and hide.
But no one’s here now, no one’s watching, there’s no one to be strong for. Her hands run down her head and she takes a few more shaky breaths. Her hands tremble, her breath quivers, her eyes blur, her head aches, her eyes hurt, her throat feels like it’s been invaded by a nervousness, a gripping tight cold palm wrapped around in the roots of her throat and she can feel it every time she breathes.
Her eyes dart over the room but it somehow always manages to rest and find its glance laying on the picture of her and Ronnie that’s sitting on the shelf near the couches. Her heart beats faster, her eyes blinking tears, her throat closing in even more, a feeling of despair blossoming from the innards of her hearts that makes its way to her mouth.
‘’Ronnie…’’ The name comes out softly, without urgency.
She found herself walking closer, each step difficult, each tingle of emotion and despair catching up to her as she feels it spread from her toes to her fingertips. Her hands touch the picture and she holds it gently. Without thought, she presses the picture against her chest as if it could heal the ever lasting pain in her heart.
But all there is emptiness. The tears finish dropping, planting wet specks on the floor, and she finally realizes the dull pain in her eyes. She notices the numbness start to crash in when she remembers reality, when the memories come back and plant images into her soft pained mind.
‘’Ronnie!’’ She yells, momentarily stepping back at the suddenness of her voice. A sense of urgency, a call for help, a signal of anguish and suffering.
She places the picture back on the shelf, turning her back, looking around. Her eyes close softly, and for a second, her mind transports her to another place. Still standing, her hand instinctively touches the soft exterior of the couch, as her breaths start to ooze out softly and slowly.
When she closes her eyes she can picture him. His bright eyes lighting up and his mouth forming to shape a smirk, his cheeks blushing as she kisses it, his hand touching hers. She’s next to him as he holds up a baby, who’s cooing at him and raising their little, soft hands trying to touch his face. Caitlin places her lips on the babies forehead before meeting her husbands lips and locking onto them as the joy explodes from her heart and her smile is unstoppable, planting on her face.
When her eyes open, the image in her mind is gone, taken away. For thoughts and imagination are only qualities of evanescence. Happiness, true happiness seems to be fading away, leaping from her, unattainable but forever running on its little legs and it doesn’t seem like she’s fast enough to catch it.
For a second the dullness in her head and the tiredness of her eyes start to fade away, she feels genuinely happy to be alive. For a moment, for a second, for half a second, how long was it? She looks up at the clock and 5 minutes have passed, but every minute felt like an eternity in her life.
That’s when the struggle hits. It’s always when she’s at home. When the thoughts pound her brain and engulf her into their negativity. The thoughts are restless, fleeting, constant, panicking, tiring. The fear of the future is overwhelming, always on her mind, always stressing, pressing onto her chest to the point where she feels like she can barely breathe, and the thoughts that she’d rather not be breathing encompass her mind. For she feels less like a body, but more of skin, blood, and flesh holding onto painful memories that’s about to succumb to the pain and give in.
‘’I’m done.’’ She mutters softly, but it’s not as if anyone can change what’s happened.
Except one person. The person that’s locked inside in the dungeon of her soul, imprisoned, and is spreading within her heart’s sadness, consumed with anger and darkness, just begging to come out. And every second the tears are blinking from her eyes, or her tongue is being bit to hold back the pain is every second the person locked inside is knocking on the door of her sanity.
Killer Frost.
But it is held back, contained. At least for another time. At least for this moment in time. It’s contained, pushed back, swimming in the inner waters of her heart and mind.
It’s the soft pain that hurts the most. The small needle that is barely felt but still carves in deeper and punctures the skin to the point that it bleeds, and by the time her heart bleeds, there’s no blood left in the veins of her emotions. That small needle in her heart was Barry Allen.
When she thought of him a feeling of soft, thin and delicate emotions was felt within her core. There was a longing pang in her chest, and it was like her heart softened to the point where it was melted, dripping, oozing, soft, vulnerable, and she was unable to pick the gooey mess of her soul back to the solid form it once was.
The last time she’s been happy was when Ronnie kissed her on her wedding day. That memory was now slowly blurring and fading over time as much as she tried to keep it alive. Sometimes she’d sneak out during lunch breaks at Star Labs and go outside to the place where they married. She’d stand in the same place, close her eyes, and reenact the scene in her head. For a split moment, everything could’ve been felt, everything felt real and incredibly happy. But opening her eyes only relieved the pain of reality, and Caitlin noticed that she does it too much.
Cisco would usually see her out, where his face would turn into a soft expression of love, where his eyes became softer, and his lips tightened as he would walk over, knowing full well what was happening inside of her. He hugged her, and she felt his warm embrace as she grasped onto Cisco’s shoulders, and as much as she loved him, it was difficult for her to accept his love, because even if it meant everything for her, it sometimes felt like it was never going to be enough to end the suffering that pierced her veins and throbbed in her head.
What happened with Jay especially made life worse for her. For his toxic words still ruminate in her head and haunt her on a daily basis. Even if the feeling has lessened and became better especially with therapy, she still has visions of him being in front of her and grabbing her throat choking her to the point of powerlessness. What was sickening was the attachment she felt looming in her soul to him, despite his toxicness, she was almost addicted to him as a coping method for losing Ronnie and he became a coping method even when she was imprisoned in her prison. A sign of possible Stockholm Syndrome that she had to deal with as well, fighting the feelings of intense fears, the nightmares of Jay’s blue lightning zooming her away and her being powerless to stop him, but also the disgust at herself for still feeling those initial feelings of love she felt for him despite her knowledge of what he truly was. She felt truly manipulated and it’s a feeling of guilt in herself that she lives with.
She never had her father around during her teen years, so she hadn’t ever have a sense of stability from home, a sense of protection and love that was warmly given on a steady basis from either parent and being in school around strangers in a strange, cruel world made her feel trapped and afraid. Now her fear extended to what was inside her.
The overcoming fear of her future as Killer Frost hangs over her head on a daily basis, the realization that every day she is a step closer to her inevitable future as a monster, and her inevitable collapse, and each day the darkness within her jolted a bit more, and each day she felt like she was living her last day. Every occasional smile, every hug from Cisco, every shot of whiskey, every moment H.R made a funny joke, every moment she’d see Barry…It could be her last.
And that’s where things got complicated for her, where things got complicated and confusing, for her feelings for Barry were always there. Subtle, quiet, shy, but burning within with a passion that set the forest in her heart on fire and the abstract smoke from her heart was so strong that it makes her eyes runny just by thinking of him.
Caitlin didn’t know whether her feelings for Barry were real or just a result of the trauma, to the point where she projected idealized feelings of attachment and protection towards Barry. Perhaps she wanted him to protect her, to hold her in the middle of the night when she woke up from nightmares of losing Ronnie and Jay kidnapping her, maybe she wanted him to place his moist warm lips onto her forehead and promise to keep her safe all the time. Maybe she wanted him to hold her hand and help her fight the battle within, the battle between the demons in her brain and her heart.
But it seemed that reality comes to settle in and crush all her hope. It was a difficult emotion, the feelings of utter selfishness, that she wanted to be the woman who was about to be killed by the hands of Savitar. Yet even if both their fates were intertwined, one with death and one with death inside that causes a surrendering to evil, Iris and Caitlin never were close and never could be close. There always a weird intersection between them, where the conversations would always stale and things would feel awkward, so Caitlin avoids Iris whenever she sees her sitting alone drinking coffee.
But maybe it’s Caitlin’s love for Barry that caused her to avoid Iris. The guilt of the whole situation, the suppressed feelings of infatuation for Barry, and the knowledge that she was in love with someone who was in love with Iris since the early age of 11.
Nothing was going to compare to Iris for Barry, and Caitlin knew that. That’s why whenever she saw them together, she was very supportive to both of them, trying to be as pure and of the light as she can be. But just because she was mature and compassionate in dealing with her hidden feelings, the underlying feelings of jealousy would always cut loose when she was alone and the thoughts that were suppressed would pounce on her in the middle of the night or when she was taking a shower.
She was jealous and that was part of the anger that drove Killer Frost and made her stronger within her. Even if Killer Frost was suppressed it was only getting stronger inside her, secretly, concealed, deeply hidden within, the secret getting stronger with every passing day. She wanted Barry to look at her the way he looked at Iris with deep passion, eyes that smoldered and looked into Iris’ eyes and went straight to her heart, trapping his pupils in the admiration of her smile. His cheeks would redden like an apple and spread across, like a painting that’s being softly painted to project the beauty of its beholder. Those red paintings on his cheek were never seen when he looked at her, and the smile that plasters over his face with no effort when he looked at Iris was never the same when he looked at her.
And yet, despite that, every small moment and memory spent with Barry, possibly with deluded and idealized emotions, felt just as powerful as Ronnie felt to her, and never to the toxic addictiveness that she felt towards Jay. For however small it be, just by looking at his pale skin and his brown hair and his goofy, quirky smile spreading on his face made her giddy inside her and it was hard to suppress her laughs that she felt whenever she saw him. A tiny moment where he’d crack a joke at her or a tiny moment where he would ask her if she was doing alright were moments that made her life feel worthwhile, where she felt a connection, a sense of stability, a sense of peace, and there was deep power in that peace.
She still remembers it well. Being surrounded by her anger, and her darker emotions that consumed her to the point where she smiled at the brokenness of her pain and almost found an identity in the dark depressiveness that she held within. Her anger and her sensitive hurt emotions would cascade in an avalanche that completely covered the innocence of her humble and soft nature, this avalanche was of vengeance, a need, a desire, an utmost priority to spread the pain that was given her.
That was when Killer Frost had first really taken control of her, where she was numbed and consumed by the anger within her that was always usually kept in, tucked in, hidden, concealed and not allowed to be deeply felt. Suppression only made the anger worse, and it only made things more difficult even if suppression felt like the most logical to do.
When she was consumed by that, it was Barry who saved her. Feeling his warm hand grab her cold, icy hand and place the icicle next to his heart. For that’s when she felt all the love inside her start to come about and take over her.
She loved him. Even if it was an idealized, deluded love brought from her feelings of trauma and need for attachment, protection. She still loved him. And when the sounds of cracking came from the icicle breaking onto the floor, she couldn’t stop but hug him, grab his shoulders, feel his warm breaths on her skin as he’d stroke her back.
‘’You’re gonna be okay, Cait.’’ Barry said gently, and every time he called her Cait, her heart would start to ooze again but it was bittersweet. For with love comes joy but with love comes pain, so the pain caught put to her as if they were racing. Her love for him was only met by the bitter soft needle that was Barry Allen.
She could only hold onto the small moments they had together while Iris, on the other hand, got to have every second of him, kissing him, touching him, feeling him within her. Caitlin couldn’t help but feel that if her soul photographed every second with Barry and captured it into the memory book of her heart, perhaps then if she was in Iris’ place she would appreciate Barry even more, every kiss would be appreciated, every word of love would be felt and would be beautiful.
She liked to imagine his hand caressing her back with his soft electric finger tips that would pierce from her back with excitement and rush to her heart. His lips would move softly onto her body as the built up tension would be released from all the soft, sensitive parts of her skin. To feel him within her, connecting within her, piercing in her veins and existing inside her heart and her mind.
The jealousy that Iris had this but she didn’t was starting to consume her, and the desperate feelings of trying to be respectful and polite was coursing within her, but the anger was also surging when she was alone and it was difficult to suppress them. The thoughts of Barry grabbing Iris and placing his hand on her waists as he kissed her bothered Caitlin because she could almost hear the smack of his lips within Iris and Iris releasing a breath of pleasure and those imagined sounds would make Caitlin tremble, her hands would shake and her breath would be unsteady, rapid, fast, scared, anxious.
She glanced at the mirror, and her pupils, usually brown as hot chocolate were now white, icy cold, the reflection of water frozen over time and reflecting the sun’s light. Killer Frost was resurfacing within her brain, and it felt like there was no way out.
Thinking of Ronnie’s death, thinking of Jay’s abuse, thinking of Barry and Iris made Caitlin feel like it was time to let in the darkness, to not keep it shut out, to let it come within to destroy her, because she was already destroyed within her love for Barry and destroyed from the pressing, haunting memories of her past. The anger is surfacing, like water that’s slowly reaching higher pressures, boiling inside her, and shaking every bone and vein in her body. It’s rattling in the depths of her heart.
‘’Please, Barry, just love me…I’ll give anything for you to love me.’’ Caitlin muttered in her breath, softly, with pained words that escape her mouth, all the while consuming her. ‘’I just want to be okay. I just want to be happy.’’
Her eyes remained pale white, with the glazed ice in her pupils remaining still and seeming to not be evanascent, but instead constant and steady. It was consuming her, and it seemed like the way out would need to be decided soon.
Caitlin clenched her eyes together as if closing them would get rid of the pain, but the reality was that with the darkness the shades of her eyelids provided her only gave worse pain, worse darkness. For when her eyes are closed, that’s where pain remains.
That’s when the cupboard that she knows so well is opened, with the small blade lying on the top of the couple of backup birthday cards she’s placed there. Her hands shake a bit when she touches the black handle of the small knife, and places it in front of her, with feelings of sadness and uncertainty coming over her.
It was selfish that was for sure. Cisco would probably burst into tears if he knew, and Barry would definitely disapprove, but the pain would overwhelm Caitlin, and it was her only way of releasing all the feelings that she kept pent up. For the blade gave her control in her life that was uncontrollable. She couldn’t control that Ronnie die and was sacrificed, she couldn’t control that they didn’t have the memories they planned to have. She couldn’t control that Jay manipulated her and turned her into a monster giving her constant paranoia and fear that she had to deal with every day. She couldn’t control that the darkness and anger would come over her and she’d turn into the person that she feared, the angry vengeful woman with pale white hair flowing and a warm gentle heart turned course and cold.
She couldn’t control who Barry loved and she couldn’t control the obvious fact that Barry and Iris were…Were always meant to be. Iris deserved Barry, it was only Caitlin’s longing for Barry that made her angry at Iris, and she wasn’t angry at Iris for being Iris, her own feelings of self hatred and pain clouded her feelings over Iris. And she would always be sweet and polite towards Iris and she felt a need to punish herself. To punish herself for being a monster inside, for being Killer Frost, to punish herself for strongly being in love with Barry whose love was for a woman whom she had nothing but anger towards. Iris didn’t deserve her anger and that’s why Caitlin desperately craved punishment, to also punish her feelings of jealousy.
Despite being a doctor, she found her understanding of the body even more acute and perceptive when she pressed the blade against her arm. And she was soft when she pressed it against her skin, she wasn’t much for instant pain, she liked the subtle, burning feel that came over with time. Her icy eyes looked on as her skin would slowly swell and each mark of the cut would become darker with each press of the knife. The stinging, burning rush was nothing to the feelings of hell that she felt pierce within her. 30 minutes go by of consistent presses of the knife against swelling, pale skin, turning the mark darker, and for sure leaving a scar.
Her eyes still white and icey, the internal struggle settling in, but the heat from the wound and the euphoria of the after effects made her calm and relaxed. She felt steady again. The red wound on her arm wasn’t bleeding but it was quite obviously cut, but the lines slowly were visibly having been the words, all in capital letters: HELP ME.
The healing powers of her meta human counterpart helped in healing the wound quickly so her smooth pale skin was normal and she didn’t have to deal with the constant need to wear sleeves to cover her arms, which would probably get someone suspicious had they paid enough attention.
But despite Killer Frost being in control long enough to heal her wounds, the relief and steadiness from the pain allowed Caitlin to feel that the suppressed emotions were now controlled and dealt with, it allowed Caitlin to feel that she’s expressed her pent up deeper emotional pain, and that feeling of emotional expression from the knife gives her enough mental stability that her eyes flicker back to brown, in control, stable, very different from the controlling coldness of her icy glossed eyes.
She feels relaxed now, slightly numb, but a sense of peace and fake perceived joy come within her. What a toxic, horrible, unhealthy cycle that led to the deluded feelings of being okay, but it’s the emotional pain that led her to this state. The mind agonizing pain of loneliness and suppressed emotions that led her to the cruelty that she put herself through in a desperate need for control, an addiction that came as her problem solver.
As a doctor, she knew about the mental affects of her unhealthy and depressive behavior. But no matter how much she knew she was destroying herself day by day, inside and physically, it was not enough to stop her from letting herself drown in the sea and ocean of pain as the waves would wash up her dead soul on the shore.
‘’I just want the pain to stop…’’ She muttered softly, as she walked over to her bed, collapsing onto the sheets and sliding into the warmth of her pillow.
Her body sprawled as she lets her eyes slowly close and try to think of nothing. Just nothing. Or at the very least have thoughts of relaxation, the thoughts of a tv show running in her head, playing out episodes of Friends and imagining the canned laughter or a book that she read on doing surgery/medicine combinations, anything to paint over the thoughts of her impending and crushing emotions.
She felt her body slowly numb as she drifted to sleep, but there were words escaping her half awake mind and her pained soul. ‘’I just want the pain to stop…’’