Notes: Okay so ever since S2 premiere I really missed this ship so I started writing bits and pieces, like experimenting with Caitlin's character, playing up her social awkwardness and all, and before I knew it this au college!snowbarry thing was born... mehe. Title is from Nat King Cole's "Orange Colored Sky"

The first time Caitlin met Barry, she was wearing approximately one and a half pieces of clothing and was sprawled on the dank, muddy grass in a rather undignified position.

Suffice to say, if she had control over fate she definitely would not have chosen that moment to meet the love of her life. Not that she'd given it much thought, mind you. But she imagined it would've been vaguely romantic, like reaching for the same flask of preserved frog specimen at the same time, or at the very least casually meeting each other's eyes in class at the mention of recombinant DNA… But alas, she was not the master of her fate, and instead of her clean, academe-set romances, she had to deal with a romance that was 10% fluff and 90% mortification. She was sure that one pulling the strings must be some ancestor of Felicity's.

She digressed.

In any case, there she was, crouching under the bleachers, wearing jeans and a shirt with a huge tear from the hem to the underwire of her bra from having snagged it on a nail upon coming in. And it was one of her favourite DC shirts, too, one with the Flash facing off against Professor Zoom. With much grumbling—mostly permutations of curses and Felicity's name—she managed to tie it at her waist.

Afterwards she took a deep breath. Alright, I need a plan, she muttered. She was to locate a piece of paper attached to a GoPro camera. Since Felicity was careful with her tech, it wasn't likely that she would leave it on the floor. So either she taped it to the wall, or placed it inside a sturdy box.

Caitlin decided to go with walls first. She slowly backed up against one and placed her hands on it, groping the surface as she walked. It was pitch-black, and while she couldn't see anything, her fingers were running over strange bumps on the damp wall—probably week-old gum or condoms from couples who came here to make out, she thought, repulsed—and to make it worse, she was stepping on some very dubious substances. She groaned at the thought of having to clean her shoes when she got back to her room. But then again, she could make Felicity scrape them off from her shoes when it was her turn to give a dare… The thought made her feel slightly better. If she was feeling extra cruel, maybe she could make Felicity scrape it off with her bare hands—

Caitlin was not able to relish that thought for long, though, because she was startled by a crash coming from the tiny door leading out of the bleachers. Briefly she glimpsed a weak ray of afternoon sun that disappeared again when the door slammed close, and the next thing she knew something warm and hard had bludgeoned her down into the mud. She yelped upon landing awkwardly on her shoulder, and the warm, hard entity above her sprang away almost as quickly as it had collided into her.

"Crap! I'm sorry, are you hurt? Sorry, I didn't expect anyone to be here—wait, let me help you up—" In the dark, two warm hands touched hers, and on instinct she grasped them, allowing herself to be pulled to her feet.

"Uh, thanks," she muttered.

"No problem," the voice returned. "Um, sorry for crashing into you. Are you hurt?"

"No, I'm fine," she said, even as she gave her shoulder an discreet experimental roll to check if it was dislocated. It seemed intact, but it would leave a bruise in the morning. "Uh, you? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, I'm fine."

"Great."

"Yeah."

They both lapsed into an awkward silence. Caitlin shifted her weight to her left foot and tried to gather her thoughts.

First of all: Who in the world was this person? Sure, she was grateful that it wasn't a couple, but still... Maybe he was from a varsity, since this was their turf. And he seemed to have been running away from someone, judging from the force of their collision and the fact that he wasn't leaving yet after seeing that the place was already inhabited.

This further complicated her quest. She already badly wanted to go back to her room, first to take a bath (she was itchy from the grass, was covered in mud, and smelled like someone had just taken a huge dump on her), and then to plan her revenge on Felicity. But then if she walked away right now, that meant going back empty-handed, which meant another point for Felicity (currently the score was 14-15, in Felicity's favour). And Caitlin hated losing.

On the other hand, if she decided to complete the dare—she still had a little over half an hour, anyway—she needed to find that paper and camera… while in the presence of this person. So it was a choice between having a bath and conceding loss, and interacting with an unfamiliar human being. And as much as she hated losing, she didn't like the prospect of talking to someone, either. She had about as much patience with unfamiliar people as a cat and about as much social grace as a sack of potatoes.

While she weighed the pros and cons of each, the person cleared his throat beside her.

"Uh, my name is Barry, by the way. Um. Majoring in forensic science."

Well, then. It seemed she was forced to go for Operation: Interact with Unknown Specimen. Now she had to extract from him his purpose here to satisfy her curiosity and somehow use her feminine wiles to make him help her on her mission. Right, as if she had wiles. Even if she did, she doubted they were very feminine.

"Hello, Barry of forensic science," she said. "Caitlin of molecular biology."

"Hey Caitlin. So, you hang out here a lot?"

Ah, an attempt at a joke. He must be an agreeable person. It wouldn't be difficult to enlist his help, then.

"I could ask the same of you."

"Well, you know. Not really."

"Yeah, me neither."

"So… Why are you here?"

"You state your reason. I got here first."

He chuckled. "Alright. But don't tell anyone."

Caitlin knitted her brow. "What? Why not?"

"Because… I don't want everyone to know?"

"Well. That's problematic. I mean, if you can tell a complete stranger something that you wouldn't want everyone to know, and 'everyone' includes strangers, then what you want to keep secret can be told to everyone, which means that what your isn't a secret at all."

"Geez. What I was trying to say is that I felt like I could trust you."

"Based on what?"

"Your voice. And the fact that you're here, which means you're also hiding."

"I'm not hiding. But evidently you are."

"Wait, what? What're you doing here, then? You're not high, are you?"

Caitlin snorted. "Unfortunately not. Who're you hiding from?"

"Hey, tell me what you're doing here."

"You answer first. You were going to disclose everything to me, anyway."

"Fine, fine. No need to be so bossy."

"I am not bossy. I was merely restating your intentions."

He muttered something that wasn't meant to be addressed to her, but Caitlin heard it anyway. "Who's Linda?"

"What?"

"You muttered something like, 'Geez, she's worse than Linda'."

"Oh, you heard that? Sorry." He sounded sheepish.

"For what? I can't be offended by an allusion I can't comprehend."

"Good point. Well, Linda's my ex. And she's the manager of the track team. She was hounding me today for an interview with Central Times that I kept telling her I didn't want to do."

"Ah. So to avoid her, you hide here."

"Pretty much."

"I don't see how you made the comparison between me and Linda."

"Well, you're both bossy."

"What? But you've only known me for five minutes."

"Hey, first impressions last."

"Hm. So your first impression of her was that she was bossy? And despite that you were together?"

"To be honest, I can't remember. We were both drunk when… stuff happened."

Caitlin wrinkled her nose. Romantic activities of any sort—hand-holding, hugging, kissing, intercourse—always made her highly uncomfortable; she couldn't understand why swapping saliva with someone or having something inserted inside of you could be pleasurable. So she avoided places where she could see couples—i.e. parties—like the plague. The last time she went to one on Felicity's urging, she caught Oliver and her friend making out, and never in her life had she wished so feverishly for blindness.

"Spare me the details," she said. "Don't worry, your flight from your ex does not interest me sufficiently to merit the effort of telling other people." And anyway, her first objective in speaking to him—obtaining his reason for being here—was accomplished.

"How very nice of you."

She dismissed the sarcasm. "Will you be staying here for long?"

"Maybe for just another ten minutes. And hey, you haven't told me yet why you're here."

"I am now. It's a complicated arrangement, so I'll simplify it. I need your help in looking for something that my friend hid here." Caitlin briefly explained the competition to him, the object, and the time limit.

"You guys are crazy," he said incredulously. "But hey, sounds like a good way to spend my ten minutes."

"Does that mean you'll help?"

"Yeah, sure."

Caitlin grinned. "Lovely."

In the next two minutes, Caitlin tried to coax him into using the flashlight on his phone (she and Felicity had a rule of no personal gadgets during a mission, especially because Felicity was prone to cheating) so they could see the surroundings. But her companion protested by saying that he was keeping it off so that Linda couldn't reach him. Caitlin sighed in exasperation. "You have serious communication issues with your ex."

"Well, yeah, that's why she's my ex." She could hear the duh in his voice.

"How about you turn on your phone in airplane mode?"

"Are you sure she can't reach me?"

"Of course not. Don't be silly," she scoffed.

"Oh, now I'm silly? I'm not the one groping around in the mud for some treasure hunt."

"It's not a treasure hunt. It's a competition."

"It's a child's game."

"It is not."

"You're taking it way too seriously. Your friend's only getting a point, right?"

"You're in the track team, aren't you? You of all people should know how much a point means."

"Yeah, but in the context of legitimate competitions. Sometimes you just have to know when to give up. I mean, it's obvious that you're friend's just giving you a hard time, and she's having a field day out of your misery."

Caitlin gasped. "How do you even win races with that attitude?"

"A race is a different from this—"

"No, it's not," Caitlin said petulantly. "This means as much to me as a race means to you. I'm sorry that not everyone subscribes to your idea of 'legitimate' competition."

"Are you mad? Hey, don't be mad." His tone shifted to teasing. "I wasn't insulting you or anything, it's just that, you know, this whole thing is so surreal. Making a friend under the bleachers who happens to be on some treasure hunt."

"It's a competition! And since when were we friends?"

"Ouch. After all this time with you in the dark, I think we should be something... more."

"Are you flirting with me?"

"What? No, I was teasing you."

"Please don't do that again."

He chuckled. "Lighten up, Caitlin."

He said her name. Caitlin scrunched her brow at the strange stirrings in her stomach, beginning the moment he teased her, intensifying up until this point that he said her name in such a smooth, low baritone. This was why she hated interacting with new people—everything was just so damn confusing, and she hated being confused. She had to redirect the conversation immediately. "If you turn on your flashlight, I'll consider being your friend."

He laughed. "Geez, fine. Airplane mode it is."

There was a brief shuffling noise in front of her, and in a few moments, blue light from his phone's tiny screen illuminated part of his face: first his dark brows and eyes, and a tuft of spiky brown hair; and then gradually, as her eyes adjusted, she was able to discern a facial structure that—she grudgingly admitted—wasn't entirely unpleasant to look at. Somehow she hadn't expected him to look so... down-to-earth, and so familiar.

"Hey, can I ask you something?" he said. The corner of his lips quirked up into a smirk. It was so strange now that the voice she had been speaking to belonged to a pair of lips, and the lips belonged to a face.

"What?"

"Can I see your face? I still don't know what you look like."

"What?" Caitlin repeated. Blood rushed to her cheeks as she felt suddenly, irrationally shy. The request seemed intimate, as if allowing him to see her face was equivalent to stripping naked. "Um. F-Fine. Just warn me when you're going to—hey!"

A beam of light hit her eyes, and she shut them tight in reflex; before her, Barry laughed an apology. "Sorry, I'll adjust the intensity. There."

She slowly opened her eyes again, and she saw him regarding her under the meagre light, his expression a mixture of amusement and... was that surprise? She couldn't tell. And she had the brief, inexplicable desire to know what he was thinking at that moment. Would his first impression of her still be bossy? She bit her lip.

"Your staring is making me uncomfortable."

"Yeah?" he grinned, looking positively wolfish, like he was up to something. "Well, I didn't expect... Never mind. Nice shirt, by the way."

Caitlin gasped, remembering that she tore her shirt awhile ago, and quite a bit of skin on her side was exposed. She quickly wrapped her arms around herself.

"For the record, I was referring to the graphic design, not the style."

"Sure," she muttered. "Anyway, we're looking for a box—"

"Is that it?"

"What? Where?"

Her companion bent to pluck something from the crevice behind her. Sure enough, it was a small cardboard box with a piece of white paper taped over it.

"Wow, that was quick."

"Yeah, well, that's kind of my specialty."

"How modest of you."

"Surely I don't deserve the sarcasm," he said teasingly, moving the box out of hear reach. Caitlin glared at him. "I'm helping you out here, if I must remind you."

"Give me the box."

"What do you say?" he drawled, as if speaking to a child. Caitlin was beginning to dislike him very, very much.

"Please."

"And?"

"For god's sake—just give it to me!"

She attempted to swipe at it again with one hand, the other still keeping the flap of her torn shirt closed, but he sidestepped her easily. Ugh, these jocks, Caitlin grumbled. All cocky bastards, the lot of them.

"Aaaand?"

"You're... amazing? Stupendous? God's gift to women? Ugh, just"—Caitlin attempted another swipe at it—"give—it—to—me."

"I was hoping for a thank you, but... that will suffice," he said.

Caitlin finally grabbed the box and glared at him. She then turned her attention to the white slip of paper. On it was a series of three images: an igloo, a nose, and a shadow with a question mark. "What is this supposed to mean?"

"Permission to look?" he said. Caitlin angled it towards him, and he stepped closer towards her. "Is this normally how her messages go?"

"Only sometimes."

"How do you usually interpret them? Decode the message, and then do what's written on it?"

"Yes. Her picture-messages typically follow a verb-noun formulation."

"Hm. Well, this question-marked shadow definitely means someone you don't know."

"I agree. How about... sticking ice in someone's nose?"

"Nah, I don't think so. Why use an igloo when ice cubes would've been more appropriate?"

"Good point."

They lapsed into thoughtful silence.

A few heartbeats later, he let out a very smug and self-satisfied "Mmmm." Caitlin rolled her eyes. Bastard. He evidently wanted to be indulged. "Well, what is it?"

He was grinning. "I know what means."

"I gather that much from your expression."

"It's 'eskimo-kiss a stranger'."

"Eskimo kiss? Does that involve actual physical contact?"

"No, it's telepathic."

Caitlin blinked at him. "So it does involve physical contact."

"Yeah, duh. It's when two people rub their noses together? Come on, everyone tried it at least once in elementary."

"Ugh. There's no way I'm doing that."

"What? Are you giving up? How do you win treasure hunts with an attitude like that?" he teased.

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Compe—"

"Competition, I know, I know. I was kidding. So you're not doing it?"

"No."

"Even if I volunteer myself for the role of stranger?"

"What? Why?"

He shrugged. "Why not? I've helped you this far."

Caitlin glanced at the time on his phone. Fifteen minutes before time's up. She chewed on her bottom lip.

"What's the big deal, anyway? It's pretty easy to do."

"For you, maybe. But I'm squeamish with physical contact."

"Even with your parents?"

"My parents were not physically affectionate."

"Oooh, how Freudian. Maybe that's why you don't like it."

"Stop psychoanalyzing me," she grumbled. "I just don't prefer it, that's all."

"Well, we touched awhile ago, remember? When I crashed into you and helped you up?"

"That was unavoidable. This one, however, is under my control."

"Mmmm," he said. "Fascinating. You're literally the only person I know who's like this."

She rolled her eyes. "Go to the biology department. It's not as uncommon as you think."

"Wow. Have you ever had a boyfriend?" he said, and quickly amended, "Or girlfriend. You know. Just saying."

She stared at him. "Is that a rhetorical question?"

He laughed. Caitlin noticed how the edges of his eyes crinkled when he did, and that his irises were not exactly brown, but an earthy green. She started feeling strange again. "Yeah, I guess not. You know, maybe you're just reinforcing the dislike by trying so hard to avoid. I mean, nothing bad's gonna happen to you, and what's a little discomfort compared to a point, right?"

"I can't believe you're trying to convince me."

"Well, surprisingly, I'm having a lot of fun doing this."

Caitlin looked away from him. Stupid pretty eyes, she grumbled. It was really messing up her thought process. But then, he did have a point. Her initial vehement dislike to the idea was beginning to wane, and it was probably because she never even entertained the idea of physical contact this long; she was so used to shoving it away the instant she thought of it, or shoving a person away the instant his or her skin touched hers. But then—and she was alarmed at this realization—she wasn't entirely averse to rubbing noses with him. She felt squeamish at the thought, but it didn't repel her as it should. It felt like the same kind of tolerance she had with Felicity or Cisco when they tried to hug her... Strange, because she only knew this guy for about twenty minutes, while she had known her two other friends since high school.

"Penny for your thoughts?"

Caitlin looked at him, and quickly avoided his eyes. "Okay."

"Okay?"

"Okay as in, I'll rub noses with you."

"Seriously? Wow, so I have the honor of being your first nose-rub."

"It's a dubious honor." She picked at the tape securing the lid of the box, and pulled the camera out. "It has to be recorded, though. But I assure you it'll be strictly confidential."

He looked amused. "Yeah, I don't mind."

She bit her lip. "I know you're doing me a favor, but can I set the conditions for this?"

"I am your slave," he said with a small bow.

"Okay. First, I have to initiate. And second, please don't touch me."

He folded one arm behind him, while the other held up his phone. "I swear I won't."

"Okay."

"I'm ready when you are."

Caitlin switched the camera on and took a deep breath. "Okay. I'm ready. Oh, can you close your eyes, too?"

He humored her and closed his eyes, but she could still see the laugh lines around them. She sighed. Well, here goes nothing.

She pressed the record button and stepped close enough to feel the heat from his body, but not so close that she touched his torso; she made sure to leave a handspan between them. But then there was the problem of reaching his nose—he was a lot taller than she expected, and even on her tiptoes she would have trouble reaching it. Frustrated, she said, "Can you tilt your head down a bit? You're too tall."

"Sure," he said just as he did, so that she felt his breath on her face. He smelled like peppermint and aftershave. Caitlin felt increasingly uncomfortable with the proximity. Just get this over with. Just—she screwed her eyes shut and balled her fist and in one quick motion touched the tip of her nose with hers, and afterwards she pulled away so fast that she almost tripped and fell.

"Well? Wasn't as bad as you thought, right?"

Caitlin felt her cheeks burning. Even an arm's length from him, the smell of peppermint and aftershave lingered, and his eyes were twinkling, and she was suddenly self-conscious that she smelled and looked like shit. "Regardless, it won't happen again. But... thank you."

"No problem. Will I be seeing you around?"

"Perhaps only in other small, dark spaces."

"Was that an invitation?"

"What? No. It's synonymous to 'never again.'"

He grinned. "I'm up for the challenge."

Up for the challenge? Meaning he wanted to see her after this? Caitlin felt strange again. "Anyway, I really have to run. Bye."

"Bye. Good luck with winning—"

By the time he said it, Caitlin was already halfway out the door, sprinting towards her dorms, and trying to convince herself that the beating of her heart was due to the exertion of running and not something as silly and ludicrous and maddeningly mundane as a crush.