Fanfiction Collection + EPub Links

Plot: A burglary happens at STAR Labs the day of the particle accelerator is supposed to open. A CSI and a Bioengineer come together to find out who is to blame, which leads to a most unexpected start to their adventure

Pairing: Barry x Caitlin

NOTE: A snowbarry centered fic, is currently ongoing (but haven't been update in a few weeks), includes (soul) bond, everything (well most things) goes their way + Killer Frost is dealt with better than the show did.

It was a bright and sunny morning when Caitlin Snow came into work. After her usual morning routine and drive through the city, she approached STAR Labs. To her surprise, the parking lot in front of the large structure was full of police cars and there were many cops on the scene. Parking her car in the reserved parking space as she had done ever since she came here from Coast City, the doctor got out and headed toward the large doors, which were the main entrance to the large building.

Approaching the scene, Caitlin saw two people with badges talking and a strange figure, which was on its knees on the ground examining something. She tried to make it out from afar, it seemed to be a man, but she could not be sure, so she went over to where the three people were discussing. She wanted to see more, but the scene was cordoned off with yellow tape and the police officers would not let her enter.

"Good morning, Dr. Snow" a voice came from within the multitude of cops, being partly hidden by the two people that had badges on their belts. She concluded in her mind that they were detectives that came to investigate.

"Good morning, Dr. Wells" she responded "What happened here? Why are the police at the lab so early in the morning?"

"We have had a break in last night. Someone managed to make off with the nanite power cell we were developing, the prototype of which was to be unveiled this week, after the particle accelerator opening. We have yet to determine if there was something else stolen, but I have Mr. Ramon on that as we speak, he is going through the inventory bit by bit, to determine if there is something else missing from that floor" he responded. "Mr. Ramon and I have been here since early this morning when I discovered the break in. For some reason our alarm system was disabled"

"Dr. Wells, why haven't you called me? I could have come and helped" she said with a bit of Ire in her voice.

"There was no need. We started immediately to account for anything that might have disappeared. The police was on the scene a few minutes later cutting off any outside interference so that the crime scene would be preserved for collection of evidence" He said quite calmly "Even now, the only way you`re getting in there is by wearing protective gear so that you don't contaminate the crime scene, which seems obvious, if we actually want to find anything useful"

"But still…" she wanted to say something, but wells cut her off.

"Enough about that, I made a judgement call so we can get this moving along as fast as we can. I do not want their investigation to hinder the opening of the particle accelerator. This is still a think tank and the things we develop here are highly sophisticated and in some cases very dangerous. Let's be thankful they didn't come with a military detachment, two SWAT teams, the bomb squad, the firefighters and state troopers. If that would have happened and the CCPD would have treated this as an attack and not just a simple robbery, then we would have had no chance of starting the accelerator today" He voiced. Somehow, Caitlin detected something in his voice, as if he was happy that this hadn't turned into a large shit show. He had planned this opening for a long time and having this happen right now would have been a real problem. In her mind she noted that Wells was acting strange, even more so than usual. The two detectives approached slowly "Gentlemen, this is Dr. Caitlin Snow. She is one of my employees here at STAR labs. Her main field of expertise is bio engineering, she has also done molecular biology, genetics and hematology"

"Detective Joe West" the taller black man spoke "and this is my partner Eddie Thawne" motioning toward the other man.

"Glad to meet the both of you" she replied gracefully "Do you know exactly what happened here?"

"We have an idea, last night one, maybe two suspects broke in the front doors and headed toward one of the labs "Joe stated bluntly

"Are you sure? Those doors are reinforced Titanium allow. They are at this point made from the strongest material found on this earth" she looked at the doors being split wide open as if they had been crushed "The sheer force it would require to break them is … impossible" she continues looking in disbelief at the pile of mangled steel and girders that were once the bunker doors at the main entrance.

"That is not something that we have an answer to at this time" Joe responded truthfully looking at his partner.

"Well, we do have something at least" The figure that was on the ground on its knees, and from what she had managed to see was searching the area for evidence, stood up and turned back toward the group, exiting the cordoned off area "I found these tire tracks. 12-inch base with an asymmetrical tread. The only car that has that exact tire is a Shelby GT 500. The super wide tire is made specifically to transfer the power to the ground while offering the maximum amount of traction. I have yet to determine if the man that broke through those" he pointed at the doors "is the one that had the car, or if he just did his job and his partner was waiting for him, but that will be assessed in time" He continued.

Caitlin found herself trapped in the man's green gaze. It was like somehow she had been paralyzed. She could not take his eyes of him, the goofy smile and the weird frizzy hair, which looked unkempt, but in reality was nothing of the sort. She kept her eyes peeled on the way he studied the crime scene and took pictures and sketches. The attention to every minute detail he scribbled and sketched was astonishing even for her. Being a scientist, attention to detail was nothing she was a stranger to, but nothing to this degree.

On the other side of this strange exchange, Barry found himself attentively examining the delicate features of the woman in front of him. Something he hadn't done since the time he used to dream about Iris.

"I'm sorry; I guess we haven't been introduced. I'm Barry, Allen" he said extending a hand out to her and to Dr. Wells. They both shook it sternly. Caitlin made a confused face. The name triggered a memory of her helping a boy off the ground when she was younger. Someone she saw once after that when she was out shopping with her mother before moving back from Central City to Coast City after her father died. She thought about asking but decided she would look a bit weird doing that to a person that she had just met so she let it go.

"Harrison Wells" the man presented himself

"I`m a big fan of your work, Dr. Wells" Barry added with a large smile

"Caitlin Snow" the beautiful woman responded, a cold but courteous tone in her voice. Barry seemed to remember someone with that name from a very long time ago, but the image was wildly different, the girl he met back then had short hair, braces and large glasses. He decided to let it go for now. The woman in front of him looked nothing like the girl he remembered helping him off the sidewalk after some bullies had beaten him.

"He's the CSI responsible for collecting evidence in this case" Joe added "So what do you have, Barry?"

"Beside what I have already got from the ground, the thieves used some sort of directed concussive thermite like device on the door" he pointed at the scoring on the doors. "See here?" He asked "the metal looks like it has been baked, it's so brittle that you can break it off with your hand" he took off a piece of the blown off door crumpling it like a piece of paper.

"Mr. Allen, you do realize that the melting point of the alloy we use here is around…" Caitlin interjected but the man she was addressing cut her off.

"3500 degrees, yes I know. That is the standard melting point of the titanium iridium compressed alloy used in these doors, but it does not seem that all of it was melted… the part that's brittle looks like the cohesiveness of the atomic bonds of the material was altered giving it the brittle aspect. That is a suspicion however because I do not know something that would produce such an effect" he finished her sentence

"How do you know what kind of alloy is this? We've never made the formula public" Caitlin looked genuinely surprised

"Oh. That's easy, I knew it was some sort of titanium composite, but when I saw the piece I picked up was way heavier than it should be and then I realized it had to be something else in the alloy. The second densest element I know is Iridium, which is also used to further increase durability and strength of other materials when put in an alloy. The striations in the material clearly indicate it was compressed and layered to obtain the maximum amount of resistance. Put all that together and you can get the melting point out quite easily" Barry cheerfully explained his findings.

Caitlin was positively stunned. A simple CSI managed to find the components and the fabrication process of their strongest alloy in the span of a couple of minutes, by simply relying on his observation skills and knowledge of chemistry "Something tells me there's more to this guy than meets the eye. He's extremely smart to be able to come up with such a detailed analysis in such a short time, starting from a very small amount of data" She told herself, a faint smile dawning on her face.

"I do hope you will keep that to yourself, Mr. Allen" Dr. Wells interjected "The patent is still in the works and we do not want someone else to steal our technology or our fabrication methods"

"Not a problem, I was just stating what I found for the team, your secret composite and its fabrication cycle are safe with me" Barry responded.

"So you`re saying this explosive was custom made?" Joe looked at him strangely

"Yes Joe. The components required would be very hard to find, some of them can only be found in two places in the city. However, as I have stated before, I do not know what would cause the disruption of the atomic bonds. In addition, I would postulate that the person that made the explosive already knew the composition of the doors. Without that information, the device that was used could have simply fizzled and the heat that it put off could simply not have damaged the door at all" He handed Joe a notebook page with the elements he thought might be in the bomb's make up.

Caitlin took a glance at the page and she was surprised again. Barry had successfully written down all the combinations she could think of when creating something with that punching power, which were not few. She saw the places jotted down near the elements. STAR Labs, Mercury Labs, plus a few other companies that had headquarters in other cities and at the bottom of the page there was a note that had been circled "Inside job?" Caitlin found herself repeating those same words aloud.

"You mean … this could be an inside job?" she stated rather distraught by the green gaze of the CSI in front of her.

"Well it would make sense" Joe responded with his eyes on the paper "According to our CSI here, most of the chemicals can either be found here or at Mercury, if we limit ourselves to materials that are local. However, we will expand our investigation to the other sites that Barry has jotted down, at least find out if they have some components missing"

"This could be a problem," Harrison Wells interjected in the conversation "We need to keep this under wraps and double the security here at the labs. We need to make sure that the particle accelerator goes online without trouble" He thought to himself for a while then continued "Dr. Snow, as of now, you are our liaison with the CCPD. Give the detectives and Mr. Allen all the support you can. Until further notice, consider this a matter of extreme urgency"

"But Dr. Wells, I was to be here at the opening of the accelerator tonight" She responded with a bit of disappointment in her voice

"Caitlin, if we don't manage to find the thieves and since they breached our security once already, the accelerator might be attacked or worse. We need to make sure whoever did this is behind bars or at least identify them so they cannot be anywhere near STAR when we get the particle accelerator online. Having a security breach with an experiment so delicate in the works is not something that I find acceptable" Wells cut her off with a grave voice.

"I understand. I will try to provide as much help as I can. I hope that we can find out more when Mr. Allen sweeps the inside of the labs" Caitlin retorted realizing the danger the grand opening was in. While thinking about the probability of things going wrong, she could not manage to keep her eyes off the young CSI that seemed to be way smarter than he was letting on "What the hell are you doing, Caitlin?" She asked herself. She was a bit annoyed at the fact that because of this event she might miss the event that she had been preparing to be a part of ever since she came to STAR and of which she was a big part in helping build. The entire situation was a bit of a letdown for our dear doctor, at the realization that she might have to miss everything. However, her own feelings didn't matter, if that same event wouldn't happen or was met with something catastrophic because of an outside intrusion. Putting her feelings aside she decided to help o the best of her abilities, even if she wasn't to be there, at least Ronnie would be, so he could see his dream come to fruition along with the other slew of people that worked on the grand opening.

While she was talking to Dr. Wells, Barry Allen scoured the crime scene for other clues, but for some reason his gaze kept going back to the beautiful c.h.e.s.tnut brown haired woman like she was magnetic. Her long locks framed her delicate features beautifully. The black pencil skirt showed off her slender legs and the dark blue coat she was wearing contrasted with her skin tone in a way he could have never thought possible. However, he looked and searched for evidence, his eyes kept going back to her. He almost missed a black chip of paint that was straying in one of the tire treads. He admonished himself "Barry Allen, don't screw this up because you aren't looking for evidence, but instead you`re looking at her". Her demeanor and way of talking was cold and professional, but that would be the case for a scientist, or for a person who has had a lot of disappointment in her life. He knew this well. For the time he had been fawning over Iris, some of his friends did indeed tell him that he began to get colder. Maybe that was the case for her as well; however, he rather guessed that this would probably be the only time when he would be working with her, unless STAR was hit again. Strangely enough, thinking about it, he had a shadow of a wish in his mind that the labs get pilfered a few more times, just so he could get to know the beautiful doctor better. He smiled, but it was forced. His ethics of work prevented him from actually wanting that, what he had thought right about now would be something that would have never even been an issue in his mind earlier on. The idea that more crimes should happen just so he could see her was nothing more of a joke, yet he thought about it with absolute seriousness. It was a strange occurrence to him. He had worked most of his a.d.u.l.t life to put people in prison and keeping stuff like this from happening and yet, here he was, wishing, quite seriously, that the Labs would get robbed again, just so he could see the beautiful woman and get a chance to work with her again. He admonished himself for even thinking something like that, although that idea stayed firm in his mind, somewhere in the deepest recesses like an itch that needed to be scratched and he could not do it. He didn't want this to be the first and last time he had contact with the woman in front of him. His outside search yielded nothing more and when he stood up he caught her looking at him intently and flashed her a gleeful smile.

"I'll be taking Mr. Allen the whole way to the lab that was broken into. Maybe there is more evidence somewhere" Caitlin told the group as she was preparing to go inside, trying to avoid as best she could the debris from the door. The two made sure to have protective gear so that they do not contaminate the scene. Barry usually would do that himself, but the building was so large that he welcomed the help.

"And we will start to track down the chemicals Barry gave us to see if we can come up with a lead" Joe added to that statement before him and Eddie started to walk back to the car.

"So Mr. Allen, did you find anything else out here?" Caitlin addressed the CSI what was black lighting the floor in search for minute traces of blood.

"Call me Barry, Mr. Allen … yeah ... that's my dad" he smirked

"All right, then you can call me Caitlin" she replied before he had a chance to continue

"I haven't really found anything else that might lead to our thieves. Can you walk me back to the lab that was broken into? I need to check along the way for material evidence. I hope that our thieves were not as careful as they seemed" the CSI asked her politely.

"My sentiments exactly. Come on" Caitlin motioned for Barry to follow her. The man did so without even thinking twice, it was as if her demeanor was almost commanding enough to tell him to do what she asked.

The Lab was a large circular building built on top the particle accelerator that was underneath. The building was designed with a new age in mind, cutting edge science implied as well from holograms to pin sized 360 degree cameras that could render the video they took in a circle around the viewer, something that was a first and had been developed here at the labs for a long while, just never released to the public.

The large halls that lead to different sections of the laboratory seemed to have been designed with containment in mind, Barry thought at first glance. All of them had blast doors at either end, some of them even having decontamination areas, which were required before entering the next section. He noticed the bands on the floor could light up if needed. "Must be for new people, this building is huge, wouldn't be a surprise if people can actually get lost in here" he thought to himself. The large windows that were on the side were letting the light go through, but Barry noticed that the color spectrum was a bit shifted. He attributed that to the fact that the glass could be either tinted or have filters in order to make the environment friendlier. He couldn't find at this point another reason for that to happen.

"How many days do you keep security footage before deleting it, Caitlin?" Barry asked while they were walking. He had an idea that might help him not spend the next two weeks combing every nook and cranny of the almost 150-meter corridor that lead to the lab that was broken into with every kind of light that he could think of. While they were walking, his mind was taking in the grandeur of the labs. The building looked huge form outside, but from the inside, the view was largely different, there were corridors and labs on either side, coupled with security doors to some areas and security checkpoints in others.

"We don't delete security footage here, Barry. All the video from the opening of STAR Labs was digitized and left in the master computer, which means we can access even stuff that is a few years old whenever we want" Caitlin replied with a small smile on her face. That action in itself was weird to her. She never smiled to anyone, fact that Cisco, her best friend at the time had noticed and was constantly annoying her about.

"How the hell does your master computer has that much storage to keep all the video from the last 3 years alone with all the high tech cameras around?" Barry looked stupefied at her reply

"We just do, maybe Cisco can tell you about that when and if you get the clearance for it" the doctor replied

"Who's Cisco?" Barry asked shortly thereafter

"That would be me, Francisco Ramon, mechanical engineering genius, sometimes master hacker and all around nice guy" Barry saw a figure coming toward them "Call me Cisco, if I hear Francisco out of you, I'm going to disintegrate you"

Cisco Ramon was shorter than Barry was, with long wavy hair to his shoulders and a large smile that seemed to brighten up the space they were in when he entered it. The impression Barry had was of immediate comfort with him in the room, also he noticed Caitlin relaxed even though they were investigating a robbery. He concluded by his observations that the two must have been good friends.

"Hi, I'm Barry Allen. Just call me Barry. Can you pull up the security footage of the lab for last night?"

"Yeah, sure man, what time frame and which footage?" the joyful man asked immediately.

"From 2 AM to 4 AM. Everything that you can give me from the corridor that leaves this lab all the way to the entrance" The CSI voiced. In a normal case, those times would, in almost all cases, yield nothing; the city was almost inert between 12 and 3 AM, so anything would be simply not there. He hoped this would not be the case here, since Caitlin told him that they do not delete security footage. Nonetheless, Barry was prepared in case nothing showed up, seeing it in many other instances. Cisco started to pull up the requested footage on his tablet while Barry started his analysis of the lab.

Everything was surprisingly tidy. Nothing else had been touched except the containment unit where the power cell had been kept. The containment unit itself had no burn marks, no scorching, no sign of damage and it looked like it was actually opened with the appropriate code. This smelled more and more of an inside job as the evidence suggested.

"Hey Barry, could you come over here for a minute?" Caitlin chimed into the conversation

"Yeah, what's up?" he walked toward her casually

"I'm pretty sure these chemicals have no place in this lab" she pointed to three flasks of different colors that were on the second table in the room very near to the empty storage device.

As he looked to the glass containers, he saw something falling from the neck of the flask into the liquid inside as Caitlin picked it up. It was a trap. He recognized the small piece of material in the clear ball that was about to make contact with the water. It was sodium, quite a big piece for a small flask.

"Trap. Watch out!" He yelled as he took the flask out of Caitlin's hand and threw it outside the lab into the corridor where it would be nowhere near any sort of chemicals that could produce a larger explosion. Without thinking, he grabbed Caitlin and shielded her with his body putting his hands around her. After a few seconds a large thud could be hear and the door to the lab was full with small glass shards.

"What the hell just happened?!" Cisco yelled covering himself with his tablet

"It was a trap, left by whoever robbed this place" he stated coldly "Water with sodium. It produces a small explosion not really harmful, but those glass shards …"

"Could have done enough damage. Thanks, Barry" Caitlin continued his sentence, feeling a bit uncomfortable with him covering her, but not saying anything because she realized that he only wanted to protect her. She got out of his embrace and went to examine the other flasks that were on the table "This trap was well designed" She took the second flask and saw that it was pressurized with a clear white powder in it with yellow bevels. "This is phosphorous. If that flask would have exploded and had broken the seal on this one while providing the heat of an explosion …"

"It would have magnified it enough to create an event that would probably have killed whoever is in this room. And you are welcome, Caitlin" Barry continued.

"Very good, Barry. I see you know your chemistry" She smiled at him, which hid a little bit of admiration.

"There must be some sort of evidence in this room. That trap was designed to burn this room, thus cleaning it of any sort of traces left behind. Also providing enough genetic material from the people that were close enough to the blast to make finding other samples of DNA completely pointless" Barry voiced his thoughts without thinking.

He took out his black light and started scanning every little flask every little corner of the room. Caitlin watched him do his work, the meticulousness and the borderline amazing attention to detail was something she was starting to like in the young CSI. For some people going over evidence was … boring, and they would finish excessively fast not really finding anything, but that was definitely not his way of doing things.

"Eureka" Barry smiled, making Caitlin chuckle. He was holding a flask in his hand that has a bright blue spot on the side, probably not visible under normal light. He started to swab it and put it in an evidence envelope as he put it in his back Cisco called out to them

"Hey, I got that footage you wanted" showing him the tablet.

They went outside and started watching the security videos. One man appeared on the footage that obviously knew his way around the lab. After the door was destroyed they went straight to the lab containing the power cell and opened it with the code for the day.

"Caitlin, Cisco, who has that code on a normal day at STAR?" Barry asked

"The code is changed daily at 8 AM right before the employees come back to work" Cisco started to explain "In order for them to get the new code they have to go the back of the lab and provide retinal and handprint ID. At that time the new code will be sent to their respective workstations and they are the only persons that can work with it for the day"

Looking at the footage inside the lab they found out with stupor that nobody had worked in that lab the day before, therefore it was impossible to know the code since nobody else had actually used it.

"So…" Barry shrugged and rubbed his head "Nobody was here yesterday. Who else receives or has access to these codes?"

"Only four people. Me, Caitlin, Dr. Wells and our security chief, Martin Thatch" replied Cisco with a coldness about him.

As they continued to watch, they could see the man broke a flask by accident while putting his hand to lean on one of the tables. That led to a wound on his hand, since the shards of glass were red. Calmly enough, he scooped them in his hand and put them in his pocket, with a coldness to him. That instantly led Barry to believe that the man was more than likely a professional thief or just he didn't care. As he walked out from the room, he made a mistake while carrying the cell, which looked rather heavy, as it not was a reduced size model, but only a prototype. He had leaned against the wall for a split second with his hurt hand, trying to regain his balance while carrying the large object.

"Cisco, can you pinpoint that exact section of the wall from the footage?" Barry asked pointing at the spot on the wall that was on the video

"Yeah" he responded. As they walked back toward the entrance, Cisco was looking up to see the placement of the cameras as he stopped looking at a piece of wall "This is the section you want" Barry sprayed some chemical on the wall and started to scan with his black light revealing a half hazy handprint and 3 blue spots.

"Wonderful, now I have blood samples and hopefully even sweat samples to analyze. As bad as this looks we might have caught a break guys" Barry threw the two a thousand watt smile.

"Hey Barry, come take a look at this" Cisco waved him over. They could see on the tape that it had some sort of static on it for exactly 2 seconds when the man went in and when the man went out.

"Does that happen often on your cameras?" the CSI asked

"No, that's the problem, it never happens. These cameras are state of the art and EM shielded. Maybe a nuclear explosion might manage to create an EMP strong enough for them to have this level of static" Cisco scratched his head.

"What about military hardware? You do know there are EMP warheads that can produce the level of interference that a nuclear bomb can without actually having an atomic blast" Barry replied

"Yes, I do know that, but we also have sensors that would have detected something of that size. Even if it was enough to completely shut down our system, the logs would be there and for last night, there was no such type of event" the engineer showed him the logs for the last day, which held nothing of the sort.

"Yeah, besides, why would the military EMP the labs, that makes no sense whatsoever. At least not from my point of view" Barry stated thinking about a reason as to why that would happen, but coming up with nothing.

"You know Barry, we can help you analyze those samples" Caitlin offered, somehow hoping in the back of her mind that she would see the CSI more around the lab "STAR labs has quite a comprehensive genetics department"

"To which he has no access to, Caitlin" Cisco broke her line of thought

"I would gladly take your offer. Sadly, if I don't do the samples myself, then they will probably not be admitted in court, unless STAR has a contract with the NCPD I don't know about" Barry added

"Oh" Caitlin realized "Then I guess you should run them back at your lab" Somehow she sounded disappointed, Cisco noticed that immediately

"Yes. Thank you for the help, I would ask you send me that footage, I'm guessing that's classified as well" the CSI replied

"You would guess right, most of the stuff here is not classified as it would be from the government, but it does fall into the fact that they are company secrets so … you understand. But if we can help you with anything that is not … we will gladly do so" Cisco acknowledged and gave Barry a smile

"Actually, when I said I would ask, it didn't mean like I would ask. You need to send me the footage anyway, even if I have to talk to Dr. Wells to give me clearance. Getting all the evidence could be key in seeing what actually happened" Barry smiled "Just trying to be polite"

"Oh, that makes sense. Is there anything that might be considered as evidence which would might need?" Cisco jumped to help as best he could, fact that actually made Barry smile.

"I need the records of the department in which this lab is. Inventory, who worked here, potential suspects that need interviewed. That should be all. Of course, since it is evidence in an active investigation there is no problem about security" Barry explained to the short engineer.

"I'll clear it with Dr. Wells and have those to you at the precinct as soon as I can pull them from the servers" the engineer replied immediately

"All right, thank you for the help, can one of you call me a cab? I need to go back to the CCPD to process this evidence"

"I can drive you" Caitlin offered, which was totally out of character for her, she enjoyed driving by herself and enjoying her time alone "I had no idea how time has flown, it's almost noon. I need to go get lunch anyway"

"I wouldn't want to impose on you, Caitlin. I can always walk to the precinct, but since this is rather urgent a cab would be good" Barry started to excuse himself thinking he could get out of spending the 10 minutes that would have taken them to reach their destination with the beautiful woman alone in her car. He was an awkward kid when it came to discussions and other sort of socialization. He would be comfortable only with people who were his friends.

"Its fine, Barry. Come on" as she started walking toward the parking lot. He followed her slowly, entrenched in thought, while scribbling stuff in his notebook, which grabbed Caitlin's attention as she glanced back at him while she walked.

Cisco just sat there looking at the two. Something told him he and Barry Allen would become great friends in the eventuality that he had to work with him again. They took the car and drove through the city in less than 30 minutes being in the parking lot next to CC Jitters. The two got out of her car. Caitlin was curious about what Barry had written in his notebook. Curious enough to do something she wouldn't otherwise consider doing. Her demeanor was always cold and calculated and she wasn't someone who would give into a temptation the likes of which Barry Allen was, except for now.

"Barry, want to get some coffee? I have some things I want to ask you regarding this break in. If you aren't too busy or in a hurry that is" She managed to speak, while locking the car. He was taken aback by the invitation and everything he thought at that moment told him to decline except … he didn't, replying almost instantly

"Sure, but I just managed to gather evidence. I don't know if there's that much to discuss. In addition, there is something I have to mention. You are part of the people that work there, that makes you either a witness or a suspect. Talking to you would be considered a gross breach of protocol. However, if you just invited me to coffee, I'm sure you won't try to ask questions about the case? Right?" Barry gave her a smile and winked. She didn't know it could be so much of an issue for him.

"No, that is the last thing on my mind. I just wanted to take a nice guy that seemed to need a coffee out for one. Nothing about the case you`re working on" she played his game, because she wanted to know more and she knew that he had at least an idea of what was going on, but if anyone asked, this would have just been a simple coffee between friends. He was brilliant, from what she had initially seen, to not to be completely in the dark. At least she thought he was, an opinion based on just a few pieces of evidence could have always been misleading.

CC Jitters was housed in a medium sized enclosure, with a large counter at one end, where people would come to order their coffee. On each side of the teller's spot there were large glass cases with different sorts of sweets, from donuts to muffins and even slices of cake, the other side holding different types of sandwiches and pastry. The place in itself was large enough to house at least two dozen people with tables all around. Above the cashier and the counter that held the sweets there was a large sign that held the special for the day along with all the other types of products you would get there.

The two sat down at a table in the back and ordered coffees. Barry picked that place for the simple reason that it could not be seen from the outside, that particular corner being shielded by a wall that had no windows. Caitlin ordered some food as well since she was on her lunch break while Barry pulled out his notebook. They started to talk in whispers, Caitlin making sure that if possible, they looked like two people enjoying coffee, not someone who would be talking about crimes.

"So? What do you think about our break in?" the doctor asked him

"It's strange. This should totally be an inside job, if I consider the evidence that I found till now, but something tells me it's not" Barry whispered

"Why would you say that, it's obvious that the security chief did it" Caitlin responded without flinching.

"Only him, huh?" He smirked at her

"Hey, I didn't do it. I was working at the lab in a totally different wing yesterday, and I was all night at home … alone" She was kind of bitter about that because she should have spent the afternoon with her brother watching Netflix, but Ronnie decided to ditch her so he could help Dr. Wells with the particle accelerator trials.

"That ... Doesn't really provide you with an alibi, Dr. Snow" Barry stated.

"Yeah, being alone doesn't really provide me with an alibi, you`re right. Forget I mentioned anything" she agreed.

"But to be fair, I doubt you or Cisco are the culprits" he completed as he gave her a wide smile

"Why, Mr. Allen, how dare you judge a book by its cover? I could be some master criminal who just poses as a mild mannered doctor" she laughed

"Not judging, I saw the look on your face when you came in this morning. You were worried. When Dr. Wells explained how urgent was for you to help me, you instantly agreed, despite the resistance of potentially having to miss the particle accelerator opening. I noticed a large hint of annoyance at that, considering this whole thing could lead you to miss the particle accelerator opening, yet you jumped on board wanting to make sure that it does happen, even at the cost of not being present. That in itself made it obvious to me that you put passion in your work and you would not let anyone jeopardize it" he continued "You are a professional by your demeanor, which furthermore lessens my suspicions. Someone with that degree of professional courtesy and who shows such passion for their work, could not turn to rob the place they are employed at. Nonetheless, I will follow the trail the evidence leads me down, whichever that might be and to whoever it might lead to, including you, the sweet, mild mannered, Dr. Snow" he chuckled

Caitlin was left looking at him with her mouth open. In less than a few hours, the smartass CSI had managed to pin her right to everything he said. It was obvious he was a very good judge of character. Even though she did nothing to confirm or deny his claims, she did pick up on the fact that he had called her sweet, a slight blush appearing on her cheeks. It was very uncharacteristic of her to react like this to anyone, she noted to herself that it had been quite a lot of time since someone managed to make her blush by giving her a compliment.

"Cisco loves his job way too much to be the leak. He's just like you. Less professional side, more playful, but still passionate about his work. So that leaves your security chief … or Dr. Wells" Barry finished

"Dr. Wells?" Caitlin said surprised adjusting a strand of hair without realizing it "That's not possible. He would not put STAR in peril. The particle accelerator is his life, why would he do such a thing when it would severely hamper his life's work?" She asked surprised that Barry would even consider him.

"Sometimes people do stupid things, for love … or for personal gain. You would be surprised how many people have a price in this world" Barry trailed off thinking about it

"Why Barry Allen, I didn't know you were a romantic also such a cynic" she laughed, a beautiful smile on her face, one which brought Barry out of his thoughts.

"Oh I didn't mean it like that, just that people do stupid things. So if you`re so sure about Dr. Wells, let's go with your gut. What can you tell me about Martin Thatch?" He took a sip of his coffee and opened back his notebook

"Not that much I'm afraid. We haven't been that properly introduced. I know Dr. Wells trusts him and he's very good at what he does, but he has only need here for the last two months. Our last security chief had an accident and died so we needed a replacement" she replied without thinking too much telling Barry that she had nothing to hide

"Wait, two months ago you said? Did he die in a car accident while skidding off a cliff?" Barry asked.

"Yes that's the one" she said while eating the food the waiter had brought while they were talking.

"I'm going to let you in on a little secret" Barry whispered coming closer to her something she felt completely comfortable about, strangely enough, considering that the time he tried to shield her she did not. She shrugged it off and listened "I was on that case, that crash was no accident. The police are keeping it concealed because we have a lead. The break lines were cut and he couldn't stop. Not so much an accident as a planned sabotage which would inevitably lead to the man's death"

"Wait, are you serious?" She looked at him "yes, of course you`re serious, why would you not be "

"Yes, just please keep that to yourself I would not rather be fired for giving away info on an ongoing case to someone that has no relation to the CCPD" Barry commented realizing he said a bit too much

"Don't worry, Mr. Allen. Your info is safe with me" She gave him an assuring smile "That means those two cases might be related, is that what you`re telling me?"

"I don't have the whole picture, Caitlin, but I would appear like someone took out your former security chief to get Thatch into STAR labs. As to who that might be … I have no idea. Of course, like in any supposition the two cases being connected, it could simply be coincidence as well. I'm pretty much in the dark right now, which is why I need to go analyze this evidence" Barry replied nonchalantly. Caitlin seemed affected by what he had just said. It was dawning on her that this might have been indeed an inside job. Her thoughts started to show on her face as Barry noticed this.

"Hey, Caitlin. Don't worry. Me, Joe and Eddie will find out what happened. We'll get that power cell back and make sure nothing happens to the grand opening of the accelerator" He assured her with a smile

"I hope you`re right" said Caitlin finishing her food and her drink "He seems pretty sure that he can help, and I think he can or won't stop trying until he does" she thought to herself.

Barry finished his coffee as well as they were chatting and as they were getting up to leave he asked for the tab. Without any of them realizing he paid for everything and they left Jitters continuing to talk about the case, until they reached her car.

"All right, this is it. Thanks for the ride, Caitlin, I'm going to be legging it from here to the station. I need the downtime to think" Barry spoke.

"Are you sure?" she asked "It`s no trouble at all for me to take you to the station then double back to go to STAR"

"Yes, that's perfectly fine. I need to get in and start the genetics work on these samples. With a bit of luck, we'll know who got your power cell by the end of the day "and he threw her one of those winning smiles, like nothing had been going wrong

"All right. In case you need a second opinion, here is my number. You know where to find me" the scientist replied getting into her car while Barry took out his kit from the back.

"Thank you, if I have any questions I'll call, I'm just a CSI, not a specialist in genetics and molecular biology like someone I know" The CSI gave her a smirk

"No, just a really cute intelligent smartass" she mumbled

"What was that?" Barry asked "I couldn't make out the last sentence there"

"Nothing. Good day, Barry. I need to get back to STAR for the particle accelerator opening tonight. Have a good day" she replied smiling at him

"Same to you Caitlin. Good luck on that, I wanted to come and see it, but it seems that I will be quite busy" he retorted

Barry left the parking lot and started to move faster toward the station. Something was stirring in his brain that he just couldn't put his finger on. Something was not adding up, but what stood out of the few things was the way the theft was conducted, almost no evidence inside and the messy door explosion.

"Why make such a mess when it's clear they had inside help from someone. Why make it such a public and noticeable event by blowing down the door, rather than just sneak in grab it and leave?" he asked himself while he walked. Something was off. Another thing that he actually was surprised about was how Caitlin acted toward him, he was so tired to deal with Doctors, some of them that he had met during his work would be some of the worst high and mighty assholes that he had ever had the disp.l.e.a.s.u.r.e of meeting. It was they were like above him and acted like it simply because of their education. With her, it was different and that made him like her even more.

He reached the station and got up to the lab starting to disconnect from the world through work, putting everything in test tubes. Prepared solutions for the DNA test and while the genetic sequencer was running, he decided to review the evidence from the theft.

After a while, the DNA sequencer blurted out results, which took him for a ride. Also his normal analysis of the cells in the blood under a microscope brought out something really interesting they had empty parts to them, almost like there were supposed to be something in them at that point but there wasn't.

"What the hell is this?" he jumped when he saw something, which completely left him stunned. There were irregularities in the genetic sequence, kind of like it had been modified from a normal human to something unrecognizable. The modifications looked random and not engineered, but the sequence was still something that started immediately to puzzle him. He decided to run a carbon dating on the cells just to be able to know more precisely when they were split, being thankful the new carbon dating worked on stuff less than 500 years, but what he saw was … impossible. Barry picked up the phone and dialed the number that Caitlin gave him. A sweet voice answered.

"Yes? Who is this?"

"Hey, Caitlin, it's Barry. Can you … come down to the precinct, I have something that will blow your mind" he looked at the display of the carbon dating which read "– 8".

"Barry, can we leave this for another time, the particle accelerator is about to be activated. I really need to be here for this after all the work me and my brother have put into this" she responded

"Trust me. This is something you definitely want to see. The evidence is … useless considering what I found" the answer came to strengthen what he had said.

"Wait, what did you say? The evidence is useless? Did you mess up, Barry Allen?" she replied coyly.

"Caitlin, if I messed up then this must be the most sequential mistake ever. I ran the tests 3 times and they yielded the same results" He said with urgency in his voice.

"All right. This better be good or else I'm going to be really mad for missing the particle accelerator opening" She spoke

"It's safe to say this has never happened … anywhere in the world in the world of forensics … until now" The voice coming out of his mouth had a much graver tone than he thought.

"All right, I'm going to talk to Dr. Wells, then I'll be on my way" she replied then ended the call.

After talking to Dr. Wells and explaining the urgency of her being at the station because Barry might have found something very important, he reluctantly decided to let her go and called Ronnie in, which had the day off, to assist as she got in her car and drove to the precinct.

"What could he have found that was so important?" She asked herself remembering his voice and how panicked it sounded. He did say the evidence found was useless, "could he have botched the samples? " No, that couldn't be it, he seemed to be very good at what he does.

Caitlin had no idea what he could have found. In the meantime, she reached the precinct with lingering thoughts and being anxious to see what Barry might have found that was so important to drag her from the opening of the Particle Accelerator. Seeing Joe inside, she went straight to him

"Hello, Detective West"

"Hello, Dr. Snow, what brings you here?" the detective greeted her

"Can you tell me how to get to Barry's lab? He called me and said there is something bioengineering related he would like my opinion on" she lied, but if the news was so bad as Barry told her, it would have been best to not raise many questions from the detectives.

"Sure, go up those stairs; make a right then another right, then a left. You should be in a hallway with the lab door on the left" he explained

"Thank you" She went up the stairs and followed the instructions to reach a large sliding metal door that was open. It was a large lab, full of shelves of chemicals on either side, large windows and a large sky light. Everything was pretty much in order as Caitlin found Barry at his workbench preparing samples of DNA.

"Hey, Barry" She spoke softly

"Hey, Caitlin. I have something here you won't believe. Tell me, what you know about carbon dating?" the man asked her a simple question

"It's supposed to be able to determine the age of something? And considering it measures the life of carbon isotopes since their inception the number of that said analysis cannot be negative" she replied being quite sure of her words.

"Are you sure it cannot be negative?" Barry asked her seriously

"Yes I'm sure, it measured the time carbon atoms since they have been created to the time they are in the cell or item that you are dating" she replied with conviction

"Then tell me, why does this read -8?" Barry asked with a panicked face.

She froze at the number that was on the display of the machine. She couldn't believe what she was reading, in the event of a total blunder the lowest number that it could yield was 0, meaning the sample was unstable, bad or contaminated. A negative number was indeed something that should have not shown up under any circ.u.mstances.

"Barry, how … what …" Caitlin could barely talk looking at the result "How many times did you run the test on those cells?"

"Three" he answered "I can prepare more material but with the evidence we have it can only be for 3 more slides. You are welcome to try it yourself, if you think I screwed up"

"I think I will. No offense to your CSI skills, but this is … impossible" the doctor replied putting her bag on a table and getting out of the coat she was wearing. She put on some gloves and went to work.

"None taken, this is something I haven't seen before in my life. That is the reason I called you, if you find the same thing that means I'm not crazy" he sat down in a chair waiting for the completion of her analysis.

"Well, there is folie à deux, you know" She gave him a faint smile and started doing her own analysis. After a few more rounds of tests and confirming the validity of Barry's dating she sat down looking completely baffled at the tests that … somehow had a negative number for a result.

"This is impossible, do you know what this means … means that these cells are …" and before she had a chance to finish her sentence, he completed it

"… from the future"

They were both looking at one another with disbelief in their eyes, when she checked his clock. It was 40 minutes past the time the particle accelerator activation and nothing had happened, no singularity, no earthquakes, nothing that those people in the scientific community thought that might happen. However, her thoughts were interrupted by a flash of light appeared as she turned her head and saw a massive column of energy go straight up into the sky from inside the particle accelerator at STAR. Barry's lab had a direct view of the building. She felt a push and went straight into Barry who was trying to close the skylight.

He saw the bright light of the particle accelerator exploding and all of a sudden all the chemicals in the lab started flowing up Like there was no gravity or maybe a magnetic field strong enough that it was bending gravity locally. He rushed to close the sky light as the pouring rain menaced to come through into the lab. She noted that the rain started coming down almost instantly, something that led her to think that the explosion was affecting weather as well.

He was looking up trying to drag the chain that closed the metal shutters on the skylight and then the corner of his eye caught a flash of red lightning pushing Caitlin into him. The young CSI felt the burning pain of electrocution go through him, like fire was going through his veins, but not in just a second, the moment he was struck seemed like an hour with all the heat and the energy that was going through him. He noted to himself through all the pain that it seemed like the world was standing still, or maybe he was dying. He didn't know, he just wanted it to be over and done with.

The lightning had struck both of them as they touched, Caitlin being pushed into Barry, by the unknown lightning trail. She tried to stabilize herself as she lost her footing, her hand grabbed the first thing that it could hang on to. His hand, the hand that was on the chain of the skylight shutters. They both flew in different directions, onto different shelves. The lab was a mess, chemicals were everywhere, some of them floated into the air for a small period of time before crashing down onto the floor, as a small flash of orange lightning could be seen coursing through Barry's skin. On the other side of the lab, Caitlin Snow was inert on the floor of the indoor freezer that the lab had for handling dangerous chemicals that needed cold instead of normal storage conditions. On her skin there was a streak of lightning that was coursing through her, much like Barry, instead her lightning was blue and as it travelled up her face the chemicals around it instantly froze or created small clouds of fog that were going off her body.