Always Running

Key to Forgetting

Caitlin stays silent. She'd been checking the news every day to see if it mentioned anything about the Flash, and she saw nothing. Cisco had told her that Barry was isolating himself, but surely, he was still being the Flash. If he was, he was being discreet about it to the public. Either way, she hadn't seen any mention of him getting the key to the city, so Joe must've told Iris.

"You should go." Iris interrupts her thoughts.

"Um, yeah maybe. Could be interesting." Caitlin says, trying not to sound too interested.

"The whole police force will be there. I'm sure Barry will go. He can't go radio silent forever." Iris says, trying to encourage her.

"Yeah. I might. I'll call Cisco and see what he thinks. See where Barry's head is at."

"Barry or no Barry," Iris starts. "It'd give you a good excuse to go back to Central City for a day. See how you feel."

"Iris," Caitlin scolds. She hears Iris pause. "Can you stop doing a better job of convincing me to go than I am of convincing myself not to?"

Iris lets out a laugh. "No. You're going. End of story." She says in a playful tone. "It'll be good for you." She says more seriously.

"Fine." Caitlin sighs. "I'll think about it."

"That's all I'm asking. Anyway, get pictures please! You know Cisco and my dad suck at taking pictures."

"I will." Caitlin laughs. "If I go." She adds.

"If you go." Iris repeats. "Well, I gotta get to work, but I just wanted to fill you in. Talk to you later!"

"Later." Caitlin says, hanging up.

Her and Iris had been talking a lot since they both moved. Iris called either four or five times a week or left two weeks in between each call. It depended on her schedule. Caitlin rarely called her first, but she had a couple of times. Cisco called her every day. He loved his new job at CCPD and was excited to give an overly detailed account of his day to Caitlin every evening. Barry apparently all but kicked him out of S.T.A.R. Labs. He had been working solo for the last few months. Cisco has been helping out the new CCPD Anti-Meta-Human Task Force as their tech consultant and scientific advisor. Caitlin had even consulted over the phone on a few things when Cisco needed her help.

She tried to keep up with what was going on, but her life had gotten a little busy over the last few months. She was finally able to start on some research projects she'd been thinking about for the last year but was unable to do because of everything going on, so she kind of overloaded herself the minute she got the go-ahead on all of the projects.

Wally wasn't her intern, which is good because he doesn't listen to her anyway, but he was in her office more than anyone else's. She was the youngest one there other than the other college interns and he said they were immature and annoyed him, so he hung out with her. They got along pretty well. He annoyed her the same way Cisco did, which meant she welcomed it. She bossed him around but had a lot of stories to tell that excited him and she was there to listen and talk when he wanted to talk about school or his interests.

She liked her life in Blue Valley, but she'll admit, she still feels like she's just on a temporary leave from home. Some uneventful sabbatical. Part of her hopes Barry will call, but another part of her knows if he does, she'll come running home. But would that be so bad?

********************

"You have to come today!" Cisco exclaims to Barry who is sitting behind his desk processing some evidence from today's crime scene where they found a murdered man named Al Rothstein. "Who turns down the key to the city?"