SNOWBARRY: Sometimes Runs, Sometimes Can't

Chapter 17 - Three Months Later

Three months later, Central City felt colder. 

Not just because of the weather. Barry had run through enough winters to know better, but because Caitlin was gone, and he'd done nothing to stop her. Nothing to fight for her. 

He had given her a promise, and the first chance he got, he let it slip away. The weight of that ate at him, hollowed him more than he realised. The words he never said, the way she carried on as if none of it mattered. It had left him quieter and emptier these days.

She was off in Europe, part of a prestigious genetic engineering program.

Barry told himself he was proud of her, that this was what she wanted, that she was better off far from the chaos that trailed him. And that it was only one more month until she'd return.
But the truth ate at him in quiet moments: he hadn't fought for her. He'd let her slip away.

***
Flashback

The suitcase by Caitlin's side looked too small to carry so much weight. Barry stood in the doorway of her place, shoulders hunched, fingers flexing at his sides like he could still think of something, anything,  that would make her stay.

"Caitlin, do you really have to go?"

"I do," she cut in gently, smoothing the edge of her coat with steady hands that betrayed none of the tremor in her chest. "This program...it's everything I've worked for. You know that."

He nodded too quickly. "Of course. I just... I thought maybe..." His words tangled. He'd run a thousand miles in the time it took to say nothing at all.

She inhaled slowly, gathering herself. "Barry, listen. We tried. You and me. We tried to figure out if there was something more, and it didn't work." She forced a tiny smile. Professional. Practiced. "And that's okay. We're adults. We don't have to ruin our friendship or our work at S.T.A.R. Labs by pretending it was more than it was."

Her voice was steady. Her words sounded rehearsed, logical, and final. But her eyes-her eyes told a different story. They softened when they lingered on him, and for the briefest flicker, her facade almost cracked.

Barry didn't see it. He was too lost in his own storm of guilt and longing, too wrapped in the echo of every moment he hadn't said what he should have. He only heard the words. And they gutted him.

"Right," he said, nodding hard, as though agreement could make the ache go away. "Right. You're...you're absolutely right."

Caitlin's throat tightened. She turned toward the door before he could see too much. "Take care of yourself, Barry."

"See you soon," he said softly, watching as she walked away, the finality of her footsteps echoing louder than any villain's threat.

And just like that, she was gone.

***

And so, three months later, the Scarlet Speedster grew sharper. Colder. 

Criminals whispered that the Flash wasn't as by-the-book as he used to be, and they weren't wrong. Barry still saved lives, but hesitation was gone from his strikes. Every fight carried a little more fury.

Meanwhile, beneath the surface of S.T.A.R. Labs, Joe and Cisco had discovered a truth they could no longer ignore. The Time Vault, that secret chamber. The suit. Wells' recordings. Barry had felt something inside him break further at that realisation.

Wells wasn't ...who he said he was. The man who had built them up, guided them, and fathered their mission, he was a fraud. So now they waited for the right moment to strike, all while Wells himself followed along with his plan.