SNOWBARRY: Sometimes Runs, Sometimes Can't

Chapter 9 - Cold Truth

"This is odd. No... this is more than odd. It's Freaky," Cisco announced the moment Barry walked through the doors.

Barry slowed, eyebrow raised. "What's wrong with you, Cisco?" He half expected another wild tech experiment gone wrong.

"You need to see this. There's a new bizarre vid gone viral in Central City." Cisco spun his monitor toward Barry, playing leaked CCTV footage from the hospital waiting room.

On screen, a man sat fidgeting in his chair. Nothing unusual... until everyone around him suddenly began acting strangely, blurting things out, arguing, laughing nervously. There was no visible trigger. Then snap. The recording cuts off.

"What the hell...?" Barry froze. Cisco's face told him they were thinking the same thing.

"Caitlin," they both shouted across the hall.

It took less than a minute for Caitlin to appear, her trademark 'I smell trouble' expression in place. "Okay, what's the panic?"

"We've got a potential new meta match," Cisco said in a rush. "Joe also called just before Barry got here. This guy's in the hospital right now."

Caitlin leaned in to study the footage, then straightened. "I'd need to pull his medical records".

"You're not going alone," Barry cut in. "I'm coming with you. I'll fill you in on the way."

She didn't argue as he scooped her up with a grin on his face, holding her close as they blurred out of the lab.

Cisco sighed, windblown hair sticking up. "Yeah, okay... I'll just... wait here."

***

"That's why we have cars, Barry, and fill me in on what exactly? I saw the footage," Caitlin teased, fixing her hair after the ride.

"This is faster," Barry said, smirking, " and ...busted."

By the time they got their visitor's passes, interviewed the staff, and reached the patient's room, she was convinced it was meta-related, but something didn't add up.

Kevin Carter. The said patient was cooperative, responsive, and had no memory of the incident. He interacted with Caitlin just fine; the nurse who came in to freshen up the room didn't startle him either. Once she opened the window, he seemed settled, enjoying the brisk, fresh breeze that came through.

So she took detailed notes and documented everything. 

Deep in thought, she left the room and was about to ask the nurse for the blood test results when they were ready.

"Any progress?" Barry asked when she reappeared in the hall.

"This is odd. He remembers everything,  but what happened in the footage. We'll need to run more tests, and I need to see...need to get to his blood results."

"You're sure he's not faking?"

"No," Caitlin said, a spark of thought in her eyes. "There's something else, I'm going to figure it out."

Raised voices echoed from down the hall as she approached the registry corner. The nurses she'd just walked past were suddenly arguing, no, screaming, fighting, or more like confessing things. Blunt, embarrassing truths spilling out unfiltered.

"What's wrong with them?" Barry mouthed across the hall to her...as they both realised. 

Before she could decide to move, he'd already scooped her, assessed the hall, the room she'd just left.

The patient had the same blurred stare in his eyes. The same as the one on the footage this morning,  and his eyes, as if shifting, changing colours the more he concentrated and poured, whatever it was.... 

"It's him, he's the one causing this," she whispered, as Barry shut the door to the patient's room from the inside.

He didn't seem to recognise the place or himself anymore. "Mr. Carter," Barry called, as he approached the bed again.

"Kevin, can you hear me?" Barry continued as Kevin jumped, lashing, thrashing, screaming, and lunging for Barry. 

No, for the window. He'd tried to escape.

In the blink of an eye, Barry locked the window and pinned the patient's wrists before he could catch a breath.

 "Don't even think about it," Barry hissed, shoving him back into the hospital bed. 

The room felt warmer. Kevin stopped resisting. 

What was this? Something to do with the frequency, the eyes? Could it affect the rest of the people on the premises? Why weren't they affected? So many questions..

Outside, the noises stopped, and the nurses caught mid-confession, looking confused. 

"Thank God," Caitlin exhaled as he looked at her through the glass door of Room 9. 

"Are you okay?" he asked as she nodded in confirmation.

***

Iris stepped up to the console. "Cisco, hey, is Barry here? I need to talk to him."

"Hey, Iris, eh...no. He's at the hospital. With Caitlin."

"With Caitlin? Is everything okay?" her tone edged.

"Yeah, she just asked him to tag along," Cisco stammered.

"Okay, then. Can I wait for him here? I need to talk to him". 

He nodded, but then remembered that she didn't exactly know what was happening here. 

So he'd come up with something tech-y and complicated as an excuse and suggested they'd be a while chasing that, so maybe she should call Barry instead.  

She nodded as she left the building.

***

"So let me get this straight," a nurse said slowly. 

"This guy tells the truth... or makes people spill their deepest secrets, doing what exactly?"

"Well, we're working on a theory," Barry confirmed.

"It's a stage of schizophrenia with early signs of meta-abilities," Caitlin added, "which makes him unstable, unpredictable under certain triggers. We need to study what those are, and we can't risk him wandering around unsupervised. So we're transferring him to another facility."

Barry's expression turned grim as the nurse was about to protest, so he said, "If this got out of hand, it could cause complete chaos. We don't want that, do we?" trying to convince the nurse that there are safer places to treat him.

"Exactly. He looks harmless, but his powers could cause more damage than good."

Caitlin stated lightly, but inside, she couldn't help but think what-if.

What if it were her spilling all of her secrets? All of her wishes.

She shut that thought down before Barry could read her face.