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Snowells Week 2023: Red + Year One (What If?):

Chapter Text

There were a lot of things that rushed through Caitlin's mind as her consciousness was effectively ejected from her body. Pain was the first. Not physically but memories of all the emotional pain she had endured over the years came back all at once. The death of her father, the rejection of her mother, the constant distance put between herself and Ronnie due to circumstances nobody on Earth could control, the loss of her bodily autonomy, and most importantly the recent loss of her sister. There were other painful moments that lingered in her mind but all of these things stung the most.

After the pain subsided slightly anger came next. She could hear them. Her friends. The vote. She bore no ill will to this new person in her body but she never wanted to be gone. This wasn't what she wanted.

“The last thing I said to Caitlin before I destroyed her lab was ‘I'm sorry’… truth is I wasn't.”

If she had a body she would have flinched at that confession. It confirmed a fear she had the second Barry destroyed all of her work. The friendship they once had was over. The last remnants of her old life were gone. She was all alone.

She heard them dance the night away and listened to them prepare for the future they so desperately wanted. She had given everything to this team. She stayed behind at Star Labs, letting her career dwindle, and had made sacrifices to benefit the team at her own expense, both physically and mentally. It had cost her her father, her husband, and her sister. She should have left when Cisco did. At least she wouldn't have to deal with the knowledge of how little they cared for her.

After what felt like a lifetime of a constant emotional rotation between grief, anger, and fear, she felt something. She thought she had imagined it, after all, she had no body, her consciousness was just floating in a void. But then she heard it. A crackle. A spark. Lightning.

It slowly started to circle the general area of where her consciousness was, constricting in certain ways but not causing harm. She felt an energy gathering around her and after a moment she realized that something was starting to take shape. The lightning was giving her form. Soon she had a body nearly identical to the one she had lost and shortly after the lightning all around her gently pulled her out of the void into someplace else. She could hear several familiar voices as she entered this new place but what alarmed her the most was the lightning that she could finally see. It was red.

There was a loud thump with subsequent screaming going on downstairs. In an instant he moved partway down the stairs, keeping himself hidden but close enough to hear what was going on. He had never had guests before.

Zoom appeared first, disoriented and pissed off.

Lovely, he thought sarcastically to himself as he heard Zoom start to shout about Allen only to be interrupted by Godspeed’s appearance. He rolled his eyes as Godspeed demanded to be brought back to his timeline. He could interrupt the two of them and their banter, tell them where they were, easing some of their confusion. But the question was, did he want to?

No.

“And clearly you have no idea who you're dealing with,” he heard Zoom say, “Otherwise you'd know how dangerous it is to threaten me."

“Like I care,” Godspeed spit out as he sized the other speedster up, “‘Cause you're about to bleed like everyone else I've slaughtered.”

Zoom chuckled at that, “You got a few screws loose. I like that.”

“You won't when I'm plucking those baby blues out of your corpse. Now, tell me why I'm here!”

“How the hell should I know?” Zoom snapped back, tired of being blamed for their current predicament, “Last thing I remember, the Flash had just sicced his Time Wraiths on me.”

It finally clicked into Godspeed's head, “So that coward is responsible for bringing us here?”

Grateful for the pissing contest to finally be over, he decided to make his appearance.

“I highly doubt it,” Eobard began, entering their line of sight with a flourish, “Welcome to the Negative Speed Force, fellas. First time?”

There was a bit of confusion between them on his identity, with Zoom confusing him for Harry Wells (an idea he scoffed at but begrudgingly understood the reasoning behind). Luckily for Zoom, Godspeed soon revealed his true identity as well as how he knew him, still angry that Eobard had tried to kill him.

“Any last words Thawne?”

A thrill went up his spine at the challenge but he thought it would be best to hold off on a physical fight for a few more moments. He could sense something else was coming so he decided to distract them for now.

“Never wear white after Labor Day,” not his best jab admittedly but knowing Godspeed it would piss him off regardless and it did. Happy with his small success he drew his attention to Zoom.

“And Zolomon,” he began with a chuckle, “Love your work. Although slightly derivative, don’t you think? Pretending to be the Flash’s ally, let’s see, whose playbook is that from?”

As Eobard gestured to himself he tried to hold back his amusement at the look on Zoom’s face.

“You mocking me?”

“Now you’re catching on, good Zoom,” he sarcastically replied, quite pleased he was successfully irritating him. Whatever was coming was going to show up soon and with the others thoroughly distracted any potential threat would easily get them first.

“I’m the fastest man alive!” Zoom barked back, a statement that Godspeed seemed disgusted at, a sentiment that he couldn’t help but agree with.

“No, you’re a strung-out, jumped-up Velocity 9 junkie. The fastest man alive…” he paused before winking at him with a click of his tongue, “You’re looking at him.”

“Oh please, I’m the one true god of speed,” Godspeed tried to argue.

In an instant, Savitar appeared. Oddly enough this didn’t stop the feeling of something coming. As much as he hated to admit it, Savitar was a significant threat so whatever was coming was sure to be worse. He steeled himself, readying his mind for whatever was on the way.

“No, I am! Before I bring this dimension to its knees, I demand to know who brought us here.”

“I did.”

They all turned to the new person who entered the room and much to his surprise it was his ancestor Eddie Thawne.

“What the hell?” he said in disbelief before he realized Zoom and Godspeed had no idea who Eddie was. To avoid wasting time on discussing his idiot of an ancestor he reluctantly decided to explain things just this once. “Boys, meet Eddie Thawne, the dumbest branch on my family tree.”

As it turned out Zoom did know a little bit about Eddie and seemed quite excited at the prospect of killing a cop but Eddie quickly shut that idea down. Eddie told the others the hard truth of their demise, a truth he already knew, unfortunately. The others were upset and he let his ancestor draw their attention while he stayed vigilant. Eddie wasn’t the presence he felt coming either.

“Turns out, none of you were powerful enough or fast enough to defeat the Flash. But together…” he slowly started to propose to the others while revealing the Cobalt-97 in his hand, “We can do what none of you could do on your own.”

“And tell me just how does a complete waste of a human being like yourself plan to defeat the Flash?” he questioned, unimpressed with the idea of working together with the others. If anyone was going to kill Barry Allen it was going to be him.

“Like this,” Eddie said as he took the Cobalt-97 and embraced its power. A suit materialized on himself and his voice deepened, similar to his own when he disguised his voice, “You want more speed? I’ll help you get it. Enough to kill the Flash. With my power and… with her.”

He gestured across from himself. Strings of negative speed force whirled in a circle and in an instant a woman appeared facing away from them. She seemed bewildered for a moment, watching the red lightning dissipate before finally turning around. Her eyes immediately met his, stilling when she saw him, and as Eobard looked at her he realized that this was the presence he had been anticipating. Of all the people who could have been brought into the negative speed force, he never imagined that Caitlin Snow would ever be one of them.

She looked younger, and for a second he almost thought she was from an older time period. There wasn’t an inch of blonde on her head, instead, her head was adorned with the natural brown he remembered when he first hired her. Her eyes were wide as she looked at him, and they lit up in recognition as she quickly took in the rest of the speedsters she had met over the years, apprehension coloring her features especially when she noticed Zoom. She quickly snapped her eyes back to him and looked like she wanted to say something to him, no doubt thinking he had caused this, but Eddie spoke before she could say anything.

“Huh,” Eddie responded, almost amused as he took her in, “Truth be told I thought it would be Linda Park or even Patty Spivot but this is a nice surprise.”

“What- Eddie?” She asked, her confusion growing as she finally took note of him. Seeing the smug expression on his face as well as hearing the change in his voice made her fear turn to dread and she took a few steps back. She was going to bolt.

“Don't… don't do that Caitlin. It's pointless to run away. Let's just all sit down and talk about this,” Eddie said as he forced a smile in an effort to placate her.

“I think I'm good where I am,” she retorted, some of the fear turning to anger when Eddie made the mistake of patronizing her, “And I can hear you just fine from here.”

Eddie sighed at this but put up his hands in mock surrender before continuing with his plan.

“As it turns out my… descendent… was on the right track when he made his Reverse Flashpoint,” Eddie started, gesturing quickly his way before continuing, “Having Iris by his side did make him faster because Iris is a lightning rod. Barry called her his lightning rod as a term of endearment but as it turns out… lightning rods are people that can cause a speedster to get faster… as well as a few other things. The women I mentioned earlier are also potential lightning rods but it looks like you're one too.”

“How did you draw that conclusion?”

“I had a bit of sentient negative speed force look for the best potential lightning rod. Technically it can be anyone, as long as you have a connection with the speedster you’re linking yourself to, but it tends to be people who are constantly around speedster conflicts which you most definitely are. Out of everyone in the world, the negative speed force chose you. And with the way these guys have been acting you’re most likely the only fit for one of them.”

“One of them?”

“Well yes, you’ll need to choose one of these speedsters to link to. I can infuse you all with more speed, but I’ll be able to do even more as long as you’re linked to one of them,” he said as he turned away from her, choosing to continue his explanation while focused on his fellow speedsters, a very big mistake on his part, “I’ll let you choose and once you do we’ll all have the perfect amount of speed to defeat Barry once and for all. Now, who’s in?”

Eobard, who had never taken his eyes off Caitlin as Eddie laid out his plan, saw the fast shift on her face from fear to outright anger in all its splendid glory. There were very few times that Eobard ever saw Caitlin truly and thoroughly pissed, and from the way things were going, this was going to be one of those moments.

“No.”

“I’m sorry, what?” Eddie turned back to her, all eyes on her now.

“No. No, to everything you just said.”

“You can’t just-”

“If you want me to take you seriously then drop that ridiculous voice. Now,” she demanded. Eyebrows were raised at her tone and Eddie looked like he had been struck, clearly thrown off.

Eddie looked to the other speedsters, making a face that screamed ‘she can't be serious’, but was met with an unexpected reaction from Eobard, Zoom, and Savitar, much to his and Godspeed's confusion, as they all nodded their heads. They were all in agreement that doing what Caitlin wanted was in Eddie's best interest. A pissed-off Caitlin was an uncooperative Caitlin, a lesson each of them had all learned the hard way. If he was serious about this plan he needed to tread carefully. Slightly embarrassed he reluctantly went back to his original voice.

“Look, Barry took something from both of us. He took Iris from me and he took your chance to save your sister. You should want to get rid of him just as much as any of us.”

“By linking myself forever to people I hate?"

“I know you have a… negative history with most of them but it’s a small price to pay.”

“It's not a small price to pay. I would never willingly be in a relationship with any of them.”

“Well… technically you wouldn't have to be in a romantic relationship with them-”

“Technically or not I have no interest in any of them in any capacity-”

“You’re being unreasonable-”

“Unreasonable?”

Now you’ve done it, Eobard thought with a shake of his head.

“I am being very generous Caitlin. You were dead and I helped bring you back. None of your friends would have done that for you but I did. They didn’t even hold a funeral for you. They left you to rot.”

Caitlin’s face went blank at his words and for a second he could tell that Eddie thought he had silenced her protests but Eobard knew better. A blank expression was not an indicator of surrender. For Caitlin, it meant pure unbridled rage.

“Like Iris left you to rot?”

In an instant, Eddie sped in front of her, a feat that would have made most flinch but she made no reaction.

“I could kill you in an instant, Caitlin,” his hand started to extend outward, threatening to vibrate.

“Do it then,” she calmly responded, grabbing his arm and aiming it until it pointed directly above her heart, “See how all this ends. But something tells me my death will have a greater impact on the timeline than yours ever did.”

Eddie shook in rage at her words, his hand starting to vibrate. Caitlin stayed calm but did tilt her head, almost in a taunt. After a moment Eddie withdrew his hand, clenching it as he put it down.

“We’ll discuss this later,” he spat out before he ran off.

While the others looked at each other awkwardly, Eobard watched as Caitlin closed her eyes and took deep and even breaths. Once she was satisfied she made her way to the front door. She was going to leave. Unfortunately, he wasn’t the only one who noticed and Zoom took a step forward to stop her but he blocked him.

“Shouldn’t we-”

“No. Let her leave,” he simply stated. Staying here was only going to exacerbate this entire situation. She needed space.

Caitlin seemed surprised at the exchange but he could tell she was grateful. Without another word, she left out the front, the click of the door the only thing to be heard as she went.