Changing the Future

Summary: The aftermath of the battle with Savitar changes everything and opens up a whole new possible future for Barry.(A little AU future fic)

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

It's when she is trying to solve a scientific problem. That is when Barry sees the Caitlin Snow he remembers.

Before she became Killer Frost.

She had it under control...mostly now. They had managed to pull her back from Savitar's malign influence. Had even rejoined the team. It wasn't always easy. She was not one, any longer, to hold back her cold, cutting opinions. In truth Barry reckons she always held them but never expressed them. Her transformation deleted that filter. You just had to learn to live with it.

If you couldn't...well it drove Julian away in the end. That and the fact it looked pretty much impossible they would ever get the Caitlin Snow he cared for back. Every attempt to change her back had failed miserably. Worse still she had not appreciated the attempts and Julian ended up the main focus of her ire. So yeah, you can see why he went off back home to England.

Being back on the team meant she had to be the scientist now and again. It was no longer her passion by any means. She did not dedicate her life to it as she did previously but when she slipped back into scientist mode that is when Barry saw the old Caitlin. All her little quirks as she concentrated on a problem. The slight wrinkle on her brow, the biting of her lower lip...it was there as if nothing had ever happened to her.

But of course you couldn't be deceived for long. The white hair, pale skin, blue eyes and lips made sure of that.

"Something troubling you, Flash?" she queries in those distorted tones, having caught him staring.

Barry sighs. "Barry. You use to call me Barry," he reminds her.

Her head turns and she looks at him, almost puzzled as if what he is suggesting is wrong. "I use to call you a lot of things. I use to be a lot of things," she says...and if Barry is not mistaken they're is a hint of sadness and regret in there. She turns back to her work.

"Caitlin," he speaks her name softly.

"Don't call me that," she hisses.

"It's your name. What else am I suppose to call you?"

"Killer Frost," she replies.

"You're not a killer."

She laughs...mockingly. "Oh but I am, Flash," she says, fixing her cold blue eyes upon him. "For one I killed Caitlin Snow cold dead."

"You'll never get me to believe that."

"Even if I stab you in the leg...again?"

Barry winces. Twice had been quite enough...and being a doctor she knew stabbing him in the same place hurt more because scar tissue was more sensitive. "If you were a killer Caitlin, you've had plenty of chances to kill me. You never took one," he points out to her.

"Perhaps I enjoy the game we play more," she retorts in explanation.

"Then why are you here? Back on the team instead of out there being the villain, huh?" Barry pushes her to explain. Something she has never really done. She's never given a full, proper explanation of why she rejoined the team.

"I may have agreed to help you, Flash but I am not on the team," she insists.

"Barry. Why won't you call me Barry?" he asks, almost exasperated.

"I have work to do," she says, turning back to it.

Barry has had enough. He storms over, grabs her arm and spins her round to face him.

"Let me go!" she hisses, the ambient temperature dropping several degrees. "Or..."

"Or what? You'll freeze me? Drain my body of its heat? Leave me an ice cold frozen corpse?"

"I can do it."

"I know you can but you won't."

"And why is that?"

"Because, like I said to you once before; under all that ice you're still Caitlin."

"You're delusional."

"I get it. You're mad at me. You have every right to be. I know I screwed up...in ways I can never atone for."

"Mad? Why would I be mad? It was you who turned me into this. I'm thankful!" she claims.

"You're a terrible liar, Cait."

"If I've told you once I've told you a thousand times; I hate that name Barry Allen!"

"Ah ha! You called me Barry!" he says triumphantly.

"Slip of the tongue."

"Terrible. Liar."

"Shouldn't you be trying to get back together with Iris by now instead of interrupting my work?" she asks as she shrugs her arm free of his grip.

Yeah, after Savitar...he and Iris...he loved her. He did. Still does but Savitar shifted something permanently between them. Savitar changed everything...in ways even the self-proclaimed 'God of Speed' didn't foresee. Iris saw what he could become...and didn't like it so she left. How can he blame her? He still wakes up in cold sweats, thinking he might turn into that one day. That...mad man with a God complex. Now he truly understands why Caitlin was freaking out when she started to change...and how he wishes he had done more to help her. Probably why he now spends so much time around her.

So, yeah, Iris is gone. Moved to another city. It hurts but he's coping...and no, he doesn't blame her. Not in the least. Though he does have a frown of puzzlement at Caitlin's words. "Why are you bringing up Iris?" he wonders. He hadn't mentioned her. Not once.

"Aren't you guys suppose to be destined to be together or something sickeningly Disney like that?" she reflects, you can hear the distaste in her voice...and something else Barry can't quite name.

"I'm also suppose to be destined to become Savitar. Something I would rather avoid."

"Yeah. He did have a bit of an ego on him," she will confess that even she found him rather too full of himself.

"Then why did you agree to work with him?"

She shrugs. "He offered to help me."

"I offered to help you."

"You wanted to turn me back into Caitlin Snow. To 'cure me' because apparently this me is hideous to you or something. That's not the same thing at all," she argues, her anger sharp and clear.

"You're not hideous to me Caitlin. Not ever," he insists. "I was afraid of losing you. Doubly so after I saw what I could become. You're too good a person for me to just stand by and see it all destroyed like my future self allowed it to be inside him when he became Savitar. I'm sorry for not seeing what was happening to you...or trying to understand because you're right. All I thought about was turning you back instead of helping you the way I should have. I should have accepted that it was still you...only with some...changes and helped you in any way I could. I should have made more time for you. I should have been a far better friend...but even I can't undo it. All I can try to do is move forward and hope that somewhere inside you is still the potential for you to forgive me."

"Well I haven't killed you yet," she points out.

Barry grins...and he sees it. For a brief second there is Caitlin's real, genuine smile. For a brief second there is some warmth in her otherwise icy blue eyes. "Can I ask you something?"

"If you must," she accepts with a roll of her eyes.

"What was it about him, really that made you join him?" he asks in reference to Savitar.

"His face."

"Huh?"

"I figured if you, of all people, could become Savitar then he knew how to help me...help end my pain."

"I really was a terrible friend wasn't I," Barry says morosely. If she thinks his evil future self is the only help she could go to then he must have failed badly.

"Not exceptionally, no. You just made some mistakes."

"If I didn't know better I would think you're trying to make me feel better."

"That hardly seems likely now, does it."

"I guess not. Cait?"

She makes a sigh of annoyance. "I do have work to do Barry."

Hey, 2nd time with Barry. "I just want you to know that this you..." he gestures at her appearance, "I accept it now. I promise they'll be no more so called cure attempts...unless it's what you want."

Caitlin stares at him intently, trying to read him and decides he's being genuine. "Thank you," she says softly.

Barry nods...and is about to leave when he impulsively wants to give her a reassuring peck on the cheek. He moves to do so but somehow he messes it up and his lips brush against hers. It's a curious sensation, his warmth contrasting with her coolness. It's almost like a jolt of electricity. They hover there, lips millimetres apart.

"You should be careful, Flash. My kisses are deadly," she warns him...yet with a playfulness and huskiness in her voice.

"Yet one might feel it could be worth the risk," he finds himself saying. It's not hard to understand why on one level. Caitlin was never hideous in any way. She was rather beautiful. In a way even more so now. She had an extra ethereal beauty about her.

"Oh it would definitely be worth the risk," she promises him, leaning as if she is about to kiss him properly this time.

So close Barry can feel her leeching his heat away. Not enough to freeze him. Strangely just enough to be really tantalizing, to desire to know what it would be like to kiss her. Then suddenly it is over. She pulls away and Barry is left standing there, stunned...and turned on. Caitlin is looking at him with smiling lips and a sparkle in her eyes. "Wha-huh?"

"I still have work to do," she states in her cold manner. "And you look like you need a cold shower," she quips.

"Seriously? You're making cold quips?" he asks incredulously.

"At least I can justify doing so...unlike Cisco. Now scoot..." she waves him off. "If we want to stop this metahuman I need to finish."

"Ah ok...wait we?" he queries the plural. After all she said she wasn't on the team.

"Well I can hardly standby and let some 3rd rater kill you when it's my job now can I?" she says in sultry tones.

"No. I guess not," Barry says, unable to stop a rather silly grin forming on his face. "You'll let me..."

"Know when I have something? Yes, yes. Now stop bothering me Barry," she tells him off.

Third time she's called him by his name. He's going to keep count just to annoy her you know. Also, just so you know, he's going to get that damn kiss. Taking his life into his own hands? Definitely but he also has just started to realise that he has hanged around her so much lately that his feelings are changing...and he remembers when he was in the Speed Force, trying to rescue Wally, they told him if he didn't like the future; change it.

The future where he goes mad and calls himself a God and Caitlin becomes a heartless criminal, one of his deadliest foes, locked away for the rest of her life...yeah that needs to be changed. In once sense, the fact she is back with them he has already shifted the future...he hoped anyway.

And, as he has one last lingering look at his friend before he departs, he considers the possibilities that have just opened up and Barry can honestly say that change is good.

The End.

Author's Note: What can I say I'm a big Snowbarry/Flashfrost fan. Since it will almost certainly never been done on the show all I can do is write it. Hope you like.