Open Mind For A Different View

Chapter 2: Couldn't Be Much More From the Heart

"I didn't just leave to go be with Jesse. It was to let you live your life, find someone who would be better for you than I ever could be. But I never stopped thinking about you, dreaming about you."

"I....I've been thinking of you too. Dreaming about your life before you came to Earth 1, of the time we spent together." She confessed. "Things you might be feeling over there - worrying about Jesse . . ."

He looked at her with intrigue. "I thought it was just me. I felt an all-consuming irritation with my mother - but she's been dead for decades by now. And even then, we'd always been close."

"I . . . my mother and I haven't ever gotten along. Even before dad... and recently I found out she knew, that he was still alive, that he'd turned into-- I never realized she was just trying to protect me from him. But it doesn't make her freezing me out hurt any less, hence the irritation." She'd thought she'd been going crazy or obsessed, imagining so many things about Harry. Unable to stop thinking about him or channeling the constant worry he carried about his speedster daughter's safety. Caitlin wondered if he'd started developing her habits or characteristics as she had of him. "Did the dark matter do that? I still don't...This is all just really strange." She stepped back, though she still held on to his hand.

"What in our lives isn't?" He mused, his thumb caressing hers. The touch grounded her, calmed her rapidly beating heart. "Let's think back to the night the satellite crashed."

"I was in here, actually, with Cecile and Joe, helping to deliver their baby," She nodded. "You..."

"I was a blubbering idiot, it's okay, you can say it," He smirked, but she could see through the humor deflection.

She just stared at him, shaking her head. "I was going to say you were lost in your mind, and it didn't really seem like you knew what was happening around you."

"Oh, I was aware, though unable to process or react," He confirmed. Her heart sunk at that, imagining him trapped in his own mind around them with no way to communicate. He pointed out in the hall with his other hand, "I was actually just outside the door over there when the crash hit. Watching you with Joe and Cecile."

She looked up at him in surprise, "I . . . didn't know you were there."

"I was out of sight, the other two didn't see me either," He shrugged. "I was wandering the halls and I saw you from the door and I just stopped. I was mesmerized watching you work, how gentle and caring you were with them. And with how Joe and Cecile looked at each other, the sad expression on your face watching their happiness. This retrospective came later, of course, given at the time my brain couldn't even process what it was I was watching." He rolled his eyes before they softened. "It wasn't until later as well that I realized I was thinking of Jesse in that moment. The day she was born, holding her in my arms for the first time. Seeing her little face look up at me. Losing my wife nearly broke me, but it was Jesse who gave me something to live for."

"You really did so well with her. Jesse's amazing, and it's because of you." Caitlin thought of losing Ronnie, and how she'd barely been in any kind of mental shape to take care of herself in her grief. There would have been no way she would have been able to care for a child in all that besides.

"And when I almost lost myself trying to get her back from Zoom, it was you that brought me back. Encouraging me to work with you and the team. It was you, Snow." His eyes brightened, his smile widening as he looked at her with such a renewed hope.

His certainty threw her off and she tensed. "Harry, I'm not sure..."

"Don't you see? Whether my brain recognized it or not, that was the moment I realized I was in love with you. That you meant something to me. Even if I couldn't do anything about it, or if you didn't feel the same. That what Joe and Cecile had, I wanted it with you and no one else."