"I hate Valentine's Day," Caitlin says before plopping a spoonful of ice-cream into her mouth, the coldness of it soothing her after the stressful night she had just entailed.

Next to her, Barry grunts in agreement as he reaches over, hand knocking into hers, for his own scoop of the dessert. "It's way too overrated."

"It is!" she insists, but her mind is still mulling over their double date disaster from earlier, wondering where it went wrong. "But it's just driving me crazy. The night started out so well!"

Caitlin was in her bedroom, putting the finishing touches on her outfit when she heard a trill of knocks. Knowing it could only be her date, James, she scurried to her door. "Hey," she greeted as she opened it.

"Hey," James greeted back, teeth pearly and dimples accentuated. His eyes looked her over modestly. "You look great, Cait," he told her as he then proceeded to hand her a bouquet of red roses from behind his back.

She smiled as she took the flowers, flattered by the compliment, but she couldn't help but wince, which her date noticed.

"Did I do something wrong? Do you not like roses?"

She shook her head. "No, no. I love the roses, they are beautiful..." she insisted, her hands fiddling with the petals of a particular rose, admiring it, "it's just...I don't really like it when people call me 'Cait'."

A mixture of surprise, but relief, flashed across the man's face. "Oh, sorry, I didn't know-"

"No, it's fine, it's just this thing-"

"I get it…no need to explain," he told her with an understanding grin before checking his watch. "We, uh, we ought to get going though, or else we'll be late."

"Let me just quickly put these flowers in water," she told him, her heels clicking through her apartment as she secured a vase and placed the roses in it. "We don't have to rush though," she said, walking back to her front door and grabbing her coat. "Barry is nearly always late," she said with a fond laugh.

"Right, Barry…" - James' flashed her a quick smile, before clearing his throat - "Well, I'm really looking forward to finally meeting him after hearing so much about him."

The doctor beamed. She too was glad that she was going to be introducing James to Barry, because that meant things were progressing with James. They've been on 5 dates so far and all of them were splendid - James had been nothing but wonderful - but they still hadn't made the steps to make anything serious or official. But maybe after tonight, if things went well, that would change.

"I really thought James liked me…" she laments.

"Hey," Barry starts softly, his shoulder bumping into hers. "Of course he liked you. What's there not to like?"

The doctor flashes him a grateful grin, but there is still a sadness haunting her eyes.

Barry sighs, noticing this. "I'm sorry. It's all my fault."

Caitlin's head jolts back in surprise. "What?" she asks unbelievably. "How do you figure that?"

"The guy obviously didn't like me. I mean, did you not see the way he shook my hand with an iron clasp?!"

Caitlin's eyebrows knit together. "But why wouldn't he like you?"

Barry shrugs. "I don't know…" -he pauses, seemingly searching the air for answers - "maybe because I was late?"

Caitlin and James had just been escorted to their table, and the young doctor couldn't help but marvel at how intricate everything was - from the paintings hanging along the walls to the huge chandelier hanging in the middle of the main seating area.

"This looks…"

"...romantic?" James finished, a proud grin on his face.

"I was going to say 'expensive', but, yes, it does look very romantic."

James pulled out her seat for her. "Well you deserve the best of the best," he told her, helping her push her chair in before he settled in the seat next to her. "And definitely better than that diner you were talking about before."

"Hey, don't knock Speedy's until you've tried it," she said, wagging her finger at James playfully. "Barry, Cisco and I absolutely love their food; it's honestly some of the best in all of Central City."

"As you've mentioned a couple times before," he quipped, his lips pursed together tightly as he opened his menu.

Just then the hostess came back, but this time with a perky, bright-eyed woman in tow. She looked to be about the same height as Caitlin, but she had long, flowing red hair that reminded her of the Little Mermaid. Her smile was just as luminous as her crystal blue eyes, nearly taking up her entire face as she greeted them.

"Hi, I'm Stacey, Barry's co-worker," she said with a wave. "And you must be Caitlin - Barry's told me so much about you!" she shared as she reached out to shake the doctor's hand.

"Of course he has," Caitlin heard James mutter besides her, but she ignored it for the time being to be polite to their guest.

"So nice to meet you, Stacey. I hope this isn't too awkward for you, you know, double dating on Valentine's Day with your date's best friend," she tried to joke. "Barry was just really nervous about tonight, since this is his first date since the divorce and all, and I thought this would make it easier for him."

"Completely understand."

"If you don't me asking," James started, butting in, "where is Barry?"

Before anyone could answer, Barry came running up to their table, his tie swung over his shoulder and his hair a wind-blown mess. "I - I'm so sorry I'm late," he let out, swallowing, his hands shaking as he tried to fix his hair. "I - um, there was a little emergency I had to attend to," he said, his eyes finding Caitlin's and she knew immediately that it had been a Flash related emergency.

"Downfalls of working at the CCPD, I guess," Caitlin spoke up, providing Barry with an excuse, "But Stacey would understand that, right?" she continued, looking over at the other woman expectantly and was happy to see that Stacey didn't look annoyed or put off.

"Of course."

Caitlin then got up from her seat to greet her friend, giving him a hug.

"Thank you," he whispered, and the sensation of his breath hitting the shell of her ear sent a chill down her spine despite the warmth that engulfed her from his hold.

"No problem," she whispered back, their eyes catching each other's conspiratorially, like friends who had double lives tend to do, as they separated.

And as they parted from their embrace, Barry's eyes flitted downward, catching sight of her dress for the first time. "Oh, wow…" he let out breathily, his eyes soaking in the maroonish color of her dress. "You - you look amazing."

Caitlin found herself blushing from not only the compliment but from the unexpected attention from the speedster too. Just those few words made the butterflies in her stomach swirl and migrate to her heart, and she truly felt every bit of amazing as he claimed.

"You look pretty dapper yourself, Mr. Allen," she said, reaching over to fix his tie while admiring the deep red dress-shirt he was wearing that she couldn't help but notice matched her dress perfectly.

They then heard someone clear their throat behind them, startling the friends. Caitlin was quick to realize it had been Stacey, who undoubtedly was feeling a little left out.

"Um, annnnd Stacey looks pretty amazing too, right, Barry?" Caitlin brought up, turning to the other woman, showing her off as her free arm elbowed her friend in the side.

Barry's eyes widened, a realization of his own passing his face. "Right, yeah," he let out awkwardly, chuckling nervously as he faced his date. "Stacey, hi, you look great," he told her.

And for the first time since Caitlin met her, Stacey's smile faltered, causing Caitlin to frown, wondering why the young woman reacted in such a way. "Thanks," Stacey said meekly, her fingers fretting over the menu.

"And I'm James," a voice boomed behind Caitlin, nearly causing her to jump. Her date stood up to extend his hand to Barry. "Nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you too," the speedster said as they shook hands, her friend's smile looking strained as they shook. "Oh, w-owww, you - you're a strong guy," the speedster said with an uncomfortable laugh as the hand-shake ended, but Caitlin didn't miss Barry flexing his hand and mouthing an 'ow' as he took his seat.

"You're right, I don't think James liked you at all. Not even before he met you," Caitlin surmises, shaking her head at the memory and at her lack of awareness at the time. "I'm sorry."

Barry waves it off as he plops another spoonful of ice-cream into his mouth. "It's fine. I think we're even, anyway, since I don't think Stacey was too fond of you either."

The doctor's eyes widened. "She wasn't?" she asks, aghast. "But - but, why? I thought we got off on the right foot!"

"Well…" he starts, his head bobbing side to side as if trying to find the right words, "I don't think she liked how...intimate…we were," he hesitantly says.

Her eyebrows kissed her hairline, her cheeks heating up as her mind concocts certain thoughts that she knew definitely didn't happen. "Intimate?"

Barry becomes visibly flustered. "You - you know, when you were fixing my tie and, especially, when you offered me some of your food..." he stiflingly admits.

Their food had just arrived, and everyone's dish looked fresh and delicious. Caitlin had gotten a pasta dish, Penne alla Vodka, while everyone else had gotten a meat of some sort, like Barry who had gone traditional with his chicken parmesan dish.

Caitlin took a bite of her food and instantly closed her eyes as she let out a satisfied moan.

"That good?"

She opened her eyes to find the speedster eyeing her amusingly, a smirk tugging at the edge of his lips, making her blush as she realized just how foolish she must have sounded.

"It is," she insisted with a small laugh. "Here, try it," she said, stabbing a few of the noodles on to the fork's prongs before extending the utensil to her friend.

Barry's smirk twitched, his eyes watching her with mirth as he leaned forward to take a bite. "Mmm," he sounded as he pulled away. "That is really good! So creamy and full of flavor."

"I know, right?" Caitlin said, laughing away, until she noticed their dates looking at them in disbelief. She cleared her throat. "Do either of you want to try some of it?" she meekly offered to James and Stacey, but they both declined, jaws locked as they chewed on their own food.

"But...that's - that's just how we are! I do stuff like that all of the time!"

"I know that, but I don't think she appreciated it," he points out.

She sighs. "I don't think James appreciated it either," she admits as she slouches in her seat, swirling her spoon around the ice-cream container. "And maybe...maybe it's best that we stop being so...intimate."

"No," Barry immediately says with a firm shake of his head. He's looking at her like she just told him to give up his speed. "That's how we are - that's what we do. I don't want to change that."

The doctor bites down on her lower lip, suppressing a smile from creeping up on her face. Internally, she is relieved, because she wouldn't want to change their closeness for anything. She turns to Barry to find him already looking at her, a little pitter-patter dances along her heart. "I don't want to change that either."

Her words cause a content smile to manifest across Barry's face. "Good," he says, crinkles forming along the sides of his eyes. "Um, because, you know, the right person shouldn't care about how close we are."

"Right, exactly," Caitlin agrees before her eyes suddenly blow wide. "Oh my god," she then says in the next breath, a daunting realization overcoming her.

'What?"

"Our dates were jealous...of us!"

"Noooo," Barry is quick to dismiss, but after taking a moment to reflect, he looks repentant. "We - we weren't paying much attention to our dates, were we?" he deducts sheepishly.

He looks over at Caitlin to confirm his conclusion and the doctor can only bury her face in her hands in shame. "We weren't, and I feel awful."

"Me too," he says with a sigh. "Stacey is a nice girl. She didn't deserve to be ignored. I feel like such an asshole."

"You're not," Caitlin tells him resolutely, laying another affectionate hand on his arm. "This was your first date after the divorce. You were nervous. And maybe because I was there, you sought me out more because you knew me and are comfortable with me. In turn, I was too worried about you to pay attention to James."

Caitlin observes Barry's Adam's apple bobbing in his throat. "Right, yeah...that's probably it."

The doctor frowns at his odd behavior but decides not to bring it up; if it's something he wants to share, she knows he'll tell her eventually. "I'm sorry for inadvertently messing up with your date though. I thought I was helping, but I guess I just doomed it from the start."

"It is what it is," he says as he shrugs. "Not that Stacey's not a great person - because she is - but...I just didn't feel that spark, you know? I couldn't imagine sitting with her for an hour, just talking about everything and nothing. And to be quite honest, I want someone I can dork out with over science stuff, and she's not like that, as you saw at dinner. It's the little things like that that matter to me. So it's probably best that things ended where they did."

Caitlin nodded thoughtfully at that. "Yeah, it's probably best that things with James ended where they did too - before things got too serious."

Barry chuckles. "You're telling me! You could've gotten serious with a guy who didn't even like one of your best friends," he explains, and she cringes. "Plus," Barry starts again, "James couldn't even laugh at my awesome science pun tonight, and is that the type of guy you really want to be with? A guy who hates puns?!"

The doctor looks at her friend in amusing disbelief before shaking her head. "No. No, it's not the kind of guy I want to be with," she answers, her voice soft and tender as she gazed at her friend. She now saw that James was all wrong for her, especially in the little ways. She sighs as an epiphany starts niggling it's way through her brain. "And I think even James knew that too."

"So...James…" Barry started uneasily. "What do you do for a living?"

"I'm a physicist," he boredly declared, barely paying Barry any attention as he cut into his food, taking a bite. "I work at CCU."

"Oh, so another person of science. That's cool," the speedster spoke up, pushing his own food around on his plate. "You working on anything exciting?"

"I'm actually writing a book on anti-gravity," he shared.

"Well that's something - very interesting! I'm sure that is one book that is going to be hard to put down."

A silence hung in the air for a moment before Caitlin snorted, her chest heaving with quaint giggles. It caused Barry to perk up and smile despite the frown James was sending his way.

"Funny," the other man deadpanned, his eyes cutting up at him like a razor.

"What is anti-gravity?" Stacey asked, inserting herself into the conversation. "Is that just another name for zero gravity."

The speedster's eyes lit up. "Anti-gravity is a hypothetical gravitational force exerted by negative mass - in other words, a repulsive gravitational force."

"It would be like getting this table to violate Newtonian physics by floating," Caitlin supplied, her hands gesturing wildly as they did when she got excited. "Whereas with zero gravity…"

"-it's a condition of pure weightlessness, as experienced in space, due to absence of any net gravity in any direction," Barry finished, and the two friends looked at each proudly.

"Oh…" Stacey let out, her eyes ping-ponging between Barry and Caitlin, a glazed look evident on her face. "Right."

"Maybe if you saw an example," he said before turning to Caitlin. "Cait, do you remember that video Cisco sent us with that Thor-looking hammer? I think it would help Stacey get the concept."

The doctor instantly felt James' attention on her, as if he was waiting for her to say or do something in particular. But when she didn't do whatever he was waiting for her to do, James hastily stood up from his seat, throwing his napkin on the table. "Unbelievable," he grumbled before stalking away from the table.

Caitlin was at a loss for words as she watched him leave. She quickly looked at Barry and Stacey, who are both looking at her alarmingly, before she too got up from the table and followed her date.

"James!" she tried to holler politely as she scurried after him.

His shoulders went tense at her voice, but luckily he stopped. "What?" he asked as he turned around.

Caitlin looked at him dumbstruck. "Where are you going? You can't just walk out on dinner like that; it's rude."

"I'm rude?!" he yelled incredulously before an empty laugh shook through him. "That's rich."

The doctor frowned, not liking this side of James. "What is wrong with you? Why are you acting like this all of a sudden?"

"He called you 'Cait!' And that was the final straw I could take!"

"So what if he did...?" she started, but soon realized that she rebuked James for calling her just that earlier in the night. "Oh," she let out when she realized. "Listen, James, I normally don't like being calling me 'Cait,' but with Barry…"

"He can because he's special, right?" he said, and she's never heard the word 'special' be used with so much venom behind it. "Caitlin," he began tiredly, "Why are you dating me, when it's him," James said, pointing to Barry, "that you clearly want to be on the date with?"

She shook her head. "That's not true-" she started to say but stopped as she saw the resolution in his eyes and knew she was not going to be able to convince him otherwise.

Shaking herself out of the memory, she looks at Barry. Really looks at him. He's currently scraping the sides of the ice-cream container, humming to himself as he enjoys the treat. He looks up, catching her eyes, and sends a brilliant smile her way that shows off a bit of dried chocolate near the corner of his mouth. He looks ridiculous, but she's never found herself more endeared. And it's then she knows - James was right.

"What?" he asks amusingly around the spoon when he notices that she's still looking at him.

She shakes her head, the revelation settling in her bones. "Nothing," she tries to pass off, but Barry levels her with a knowing look. "It's nothing," she insists, "just that... you're a mess, Mr. Allen," she says, reaching out to wipe the ice cream off his face, but her hand lingers, the coarseness of his five o'clock shadow suddenly enthralling.

Barry closes his eyes at the touch, even leaning into it. "That's why I like you around, Dr. Snow," he tells her, his hand rising to lay on top of hers. "You keep me in check."

She smiles in an attempt to hide how flustered she's feeling. She's so very close to him, so much that she can literally see the different hues of green that make up his eyes and count all the freckles that are littered across his face. "Yeah, well, I think if you have me around on any more of your dates, you'll be single for life," she tries to joke, her thumb caressing his cheek absentmindedly.

He's silent, his gaze longingly searching hers, his pupils dilating larger the longer he looks. "Then maybe…"

"Maybe what?" she whispers.

"Then maybe you should be the one dating me instead..." he answers just as quietly, and her thumb stills and her breath hitches. "You - you know, if that's something you'd want," he skittishly adds, giving her a sheepish grin.

Caitlin bites down on her lips before a smile overtakes her face. "Are you a carbon sample?" she asks, and by the deep indent his brows take, she knows she's thrown him for a loop. "Because I want to date you," she finishes.

It takes him a moment, but when it clicks he lets out a relieved laugh. "Science pun," he acknowledges, his face flushed red with embarrassment. "Good one."

"My kind of guy likes science puns. And he's funny and sweet and selfless. Maybe even has super speed..."

"Your kind of guy sounds pretty specific…" he teases, but his eyes are so alit with happiness that it ebbs into every crevice of her being.

"I'm a woman with specific tastes," she says back, her nose brushes against his, his breath hot against her face.

He heartily chuckles as he rests his head against hers gingerly, the proximity causing them to both close their eyes and soak in the moment. "I hate that it's too late to take you out on a proper Valentine's date," he tells her lamentably.

Caitlin leans back, watching him for a moment before a smile tugs at her lips. "I may have an idea…"

.

"I had no idea that we had a planetarium," Barry says in wonderment as he takes in the room with the dome ceiling. "It's like every year a new room just pops itself into existence in this place."

The doctor giggles, rolling her eyes. "Well, it's always been here," she says as she makes her way over to the control panel nearby.

Meanwhile, Barry unfolds a blanket they had retrieved from the guest quarters, laying it down in the center of the room. And just as the speedster settles down on the blanket, the projector turns on, illuminating the dome with the view of thousands of stars twinkling down at them. "Wow…"

"You like?" she asks, walking over to where he's sitting, slipping out of her heels.

"Definitely," he answers, his eyes still curiously looking over the whole dome. "Though couldn't we have just gone to roof and looked at the stars up there?" he amusingly asks.

"It's too cold outside," she explains as she carefully lowers herself to the ground - luckily her dress is of a soft and flexible material that she doesn't have to worry about embarrassingly ripping it. "Not to mention, the light pollution doesn't let you see half of these stars."

"True," Barry concedes. "But now I don't have an excuse to wrap you in my arms."

She snorts. "You mean like this?" she says before maneuvering herself in between his legs and laying back against his chest.

The doctor can feel him smile as he nuzzles his head against hers, his arms wrapping around her with a secure squeeze. "Yeah, exactly like this," her murmurs in her hair and a burn of affection courses through her, like it did every other time she's been in his arms, and she wants to slap herself silly for not realizing sooner what it all meant.

The pair spend the next several minutes pointing out specific stars and constellations, all the while talking and laughing about nonsense in between. A comfortable silence then falls upon them as they continue to gaze at the sky, committing to memory how they are right now, her flushed up against him, happy.

"I'm sorry if this 'date' is lame," Caitlin speaks up, breaking the silence.

"It's not," he assures her swiftly, and she knows he's being truthful by the conviction in his voice. "But for Valentine's Day next year, we should definitely go to Speedys."

"You're already thinking a year from now, huh?" she teases, though the thought of it makes her heart flip. "How do you even know we'll still be together?" she asks, her tone is still light and playful, but inside she does wonder. Can this be something long-term, or even permanent?

His hold around her strengthens. "I believe," he tells her simply, plopping a kiss to the back of her head that seemingly melts all her doubts and worries into oblivion, at least for now.

"Alright then," Caitlin proclaims, turning around in his arms to face him, "It's a date."

His face brightens, his smile so broad and eyes so fond with out-bursting affection. "It's a date," he confirms happily, before their faces gravitate to each other, their lips meeting smilingly, and it makes Caitlin believe that this - them - is love, and she's pretty sure it's the everlasting kind.

AN: I'm a little over a week late with this, but I hope you all still enjoy it. Please let me know what are your thoughts, I love hearing from you! :)