1 - Title is taken from The Elements of Lust from Songs of Love & Grammar. Ar is the chemical abbreviation for Argon, so the title reads "The Days Are Gone When I Would Shy" in full - chemistry puns seemed like the way to go for this story.

2 - This was originally prompted by chasingblue57 and has taken me almost two years to actually write, but thank you for inspiring all this, bb!

3 - The most special thanks go to my betas anisstaranise and nctaliaromanova. Anis listened to me rant, brainstormed countless of plot points and cheerleaded the entire time, and I couldn't be more grateful for her love and support. Melissa is one of the most perceptive and nitpicky (in a good way) betas I've ever had the pleasure of working with. Safe to say, without either of these ladies the story wouldn't be what it is now.

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THE DAYS AR WHEN I WOULD SHY—

A HIGH SCHOOL AU

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chapter one

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Papers rustle quietly in the room, the low buzz of the air conditioning a constant background noise. The overlarge portion of the student body idles outside enjoying the early afternoon sun, far away from the stifling confines of the school library. Barry Allen sits hunched over his AP Chemistry notes, neatly copying them to a new composition book—a red ruler to underline titles and subtitles, a mechanical pencil to draw diagrams and visual mock-ups of some of the experiments they did in class, different colored pencils to denote significant differences between the designs.

Besides being calm and quiet and hardly ever crowded, the library has a surprisingly extensive science section. The school owed this to one of its science teachers, Dr Harrison Wells, a former college professor who started teaching high school after a car accident put him in a wheelchair; the science community rumored he would be back at a prestigious college, but for the past three years Dr Wells had been intent on expanding the science department at several schools in the area, and seemed more than comfortable in his current position. He'd hate to see Dr Wells leave; ever since he started taking his classes he's been challenged to do better and his grades have improved. Even Miss Morgan, the biology teacher, had kicked it up a notch after Dr Wells' fine example.

"Hi, excuse me, did my reservation come in?" a voice sounds by the registration desk, a voice he's all too familiar with, and he looks up in time to see Caitlin Snow brush her hair back behind her ear.

He licks his lips, spreads his legs under the table, his right hand lowering down to an empty page.

"Snow?" Caitlin says, smiling down at the librarian, even though the woman in question is infamous for testing students' patience with her rudimentary computer skills. "Caitlin Snow?"

The grey-haired librarian peers down at the end of her nose, where half-moon bifocals are meant to enhance her eyesight; her eyes narrow at the computer screen nonetheless.

"You know what?" Caitlin says as politely as possible. "I'll go look for myself."

She casts another smile down at the librarian, Mrs. Bates, who merely raises an unimpressed eyebrow as another faceless student passes her desk. Caitlin disappears into the English literature section, no doubt searching for the book she reserved for a paper she's working on. He has his own finished and waiting to be printed at home, a psychoanalytical analysis of Edgar Allan Poe's William Wilson.

He flicks the end of his pen against his notebook a few times, chewing the inside of his cheek.

Caitlin Eleanor Snow can easily be considered the smartest girl at school, with a kind of beauty—prettiness, really—he imagines poets wrote sonnets about; long auburn hair, slim and tender curves, amazing legs, and that lovely quirk in the left corner of her mouth whenever she talks. She's so much more than that too; Caitlin has a passion for math and science, she's loving and caring towards her friends and has a kind word to spare for any strangers. When she's nervous she chews at her lips until they bleed and when she's calm she appears guarded, steeled, cold almost, yet she's anything but.

And he's noticed all of that about her because he's harbored a crush on her since freshman year, when Miss Morgan partnered them for a group assignment. They had to calculate the mass of the Earth, a simple enough equation once they had all the data, but the total sum of those few hours' work in this very library was his unequivocal conviction that he met his match in Caitlin Snow. The way her mouth moved around words like 'sidereal' and 'orbital period', how she talked with her hands and recited the Earth's gravitational constant by heart took him hook, line and sinker. Or rather; sine, cosine and tangent, though he thoroughly decided to leave the math puns out of their equation.

It didn't start out as a crush—he fell in love with someone else in the same period of time—, but ever since he and Felicity broke up things had evolved. Or devolved, depending on one's perspective.

Caitlin emerges from the English lit section and something in his chest jumps, followed by the sinking yet exciteful flutter of what he's about to do.

"Hey, Cait," he calls, lifting out of his seat a few inches as he presses his elbows down on the table. "Do you think there'll be any questions about electromagnetic interaction on the AP Chem test?"

Caitlin halts to a stop at his table, taking the time to smile and breathe, "Barry," before she tilts her head, gazes off in the distance, and a cute frown knits her eyebrows together. He tries to pretend it doesn't stop him breathing, but who's he kidding?

"I don't know," Caitlin continues, gracefully sinking into another seat at the table, her voice low so Mrs. Bates has no reason to shush them. She leafs aimlessly through one of his notebooks. "We should probably cover all our bases. You know how Dr Wells gets when he thinks we didn't at least revise the material." Her eyes find his again. "Being his only hope and all."

"Yeah." He huffs a small laugh, surprised when Caitlin remains by his side. He wouldn't call them friends, per se, they're acquaintances at best, lab partners in Dr Wells' classes for two years now, mainly because they were some of the only sophomores to take his physics class last year. Whenever they successfully finished an experiment or ranked number 1 and 2 in the class, Dr Wells called them 'his only hope for the future.' A lot of that had to do with Caitlin's rather competitive nature.

Caitlin settles an elbow on the table, chin in the palm of her hand, and finds his eyes, her own big and twinkling and good God, when had this crush twisted him into such a mess? It started out innocent enough, quietly fascinated by Caitlin's inquiring mind, but lately he's been pining after a girl he can't have, the girl in all those teen movies that all the nerds never had a shot with. Except in so many wonderful ways Caitlin's as big a nerd as he is. Their shared love of science is the only reason he manages to get any words out at all.

"Would you—" he blurts, the words out before his brain has decided he should ask in the first place, "I mean, if you—want to, maybe we could—" His own eyebrows knit together in confusion, words like 'brain-to-mouth' filter swimming in front of his eyes; Iris would have a field day watching him carry on this conversation. "Study together?"

Caitlin's eyes set in an apology. "I promised Ronnie I'd go see him practice."

Of course; Ronnie Raymond, quarterback bane-of-his-existence, otherwise known as Caitlin's long-term boyfriend. He never quite understood how the two of them added up, or why they stayed together when their interests barely overlapped. Then again, he doesn't really have a leg to stand on in that one-way discussion.

"But tonight?"

His eyes find hers in .3 fractions of a second, heart stuttering hot flashes.

"I could—come over?" Caitlin asks carefully, eyebrows rising.

"Sure," he breathes, vividly imagining Caitlin in his house, —in his bedroom, sitting cross-legged on his bed hunched over her textbook, brushing her hair back behind her ear every few minutes—, until his mouth does that thing again where it fails to consider his brain. "I mean—you can." He nods, folding his arms together on top of the table. What even? "You should definitely—come over."

"Okay." Caitlin smiles wide. "See you then."

He awkwardly gets up halfway out of his chair as Caitlin takes her leave and sags back as soon as she's out of sight. This is getting ridiculous. He is a perfectly eloquent and smart guy; it should not be this difficult for him to talk to Caitlin. Yet his tongue's in knots every time she so much as walks into a room.

He nearly has a heart attack when two hands land on his shoulders.

"Way to go, Barr. You really showed her who's the man."

Iris drops into the chair next to him.

"I have no desire to show her who's the man." He rubs the back of his head and starts gathering his books, stacking them inside his backpack. "I can't help it, as soon as I try to form full sentences around her I turn into this—" He searches aimlessly for the right word, "—caveman."

"You Barr." Iris hits him in the shoulder. "She Caitlin."

"Shhhh," Mrs. Bates shushes, a crooked finger pointed at the 'silence in the library' sign.

Iris rolls her eyes but follows him obediently out the door, the short skirt of her cheerleading outfit playfully swaying. He never quite understood why the uniforms had to be so short and form fitting; surely a looser fabric would improve maneuverability, but he'd be lying if he said he hadn't enjoyed watching Felicity wear one of these their first Halloween together. Felicity had opined every single other outfit she might've chosen would've been sexualized as well, but had still used it to her advantage later in the evening when they found they had her house to themselves.

"Hey, Iris!" a voice booms down the hallway, one too vividly reminiscent of bruises down his arms and black eyes, running for his life but never quite fast enough. He turns to see the football team's middle linebacker, Tony Woodward, make his way over, his eyes devouring Iris' body. "Your boyfriend let you out of the house like that?"

Tony was proof that stereotypes in high school truly did exist beyond the vestiges of a movie screen.

Heat rises at the back of his neck, the sort only guys like Tony managed to elicit, and he would absolutely defend his best friend's honor if it weren't for Iris promptly flipping Tony off. One could always count on Iris to have the perfect reply in situations like these.

Iris took care of herself without help from anyone, and if that also happened to mean he didn't get shoved into any lockers, well, self-preservation proved one of his biological imperatives. Raised by a cop dad after her mother left, Iris West not only had the smarts, the beauty and the spunk to make it big one day, she had a mean left hook Tony would loath to be on the receiving end of. Thankfully Tony's smart enough to retreat before any bodily harm can be done.

"For the record," Iris says, digging around her locker. "Tony's a prime example of a real caveman. You can talk to girls just fine, Barry. Maybe it's time you started seeing Caitlin like one."

"Excuse me?"

Iris sighs and faces him. "You've put her on this pedestal next to all the other impossible things you think you'll never reach. But you can, Barr. You're smart, you're dedicated, and you're one of the nice guys. Contrary to popular belief, they don't finish last."

Iris closes her locker as if to close this argument; she's said what she needed to say and, of course, everything she says is one hundred percent the God's honest truth. He rather loves that about her.

"One day some lucky girl is going to see you for the amazing guy I know you are."

He nods, though Iris' words don't sink in quite as staunchly as her conviction. "Yeah."

In the grander scheme of things Iris isn't wrong. He lacks that proverbial brain-to-mouth filter but he never got tongue-tied around Iris or any other girl who simply asked him a question. But wasn't the whole reason he could talk to Felicity about the real stuff the fact that she got as flustered and tongue-tied as he did sometimes? and once they both realized that the tongue-tied-ness sort of disappeared?

Maybe he should get to know Caitlin better, find some way to spend time with her outside of class. Like tonight. When she's coming over. Oh God.

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"Good luck tonight, kid," Iris says, as soon as she carefully parks in front of his house. They both learned to drive together, but since Iris was the one with the car she drove them to and from school, a matter of getting more practice. How she ever managed to pass her exam without being able to properly parallel park is one of the great mysteries of this world.

"See ya."

He climbs out of the red Fiat 500, one Iris has lovingly nicknamed 'Berry', his long limbs as grateful as ever for freedom, and waves Iris off. They've been friends for most of their lives, and yet he doubts he'll ever completely know Iris West. She's a girl of many talents and surprises, with a mischievous side about her that went beyond teen rebellion; it was a part of her, and one day it'll either get her in trouble, or get her opportunities less daring people might not.

Pushing through the front door, Krypto runs over tail wagging, and he kneels down to give the golden retriever his full attention. At least Krypto's happy to see him; he never complains, even after he tried to dress him in a cape that one Halloween when he was seven, or after giving him such a nerdy name, or even after he accidentally forgets to put his food out in time. Krypto's always there.

"Everything okay, honey?"

He meets his mother's loving eyes at the sound of her voice, any pessimism instantly gone. "Yeah." He smiles, standing again, and decides that feeling sorry for himself won't get him anywhere. So what if Caitlin has a boyfriend with shoulders twice as broad as his, that Ronnie could probably squash him like a trash compactor with his bare hands, or that he has a crush on the one girl he can't have. There are worse things, like war and famine, drought or homelessness; compared to the rest of the world his problems are kind of insignificant. Being Caitlin's friend isn't the worst possible prospect.

His eyes fall to the wrench in his mom's hand.

"Your dad forgot to fix the garbage disposal."

"Again?"

His mom shakes her head and turns into the kitchen. "Most brilliant man I've ever met," she calls over her shoulder, but with a few large steps he falls in line behind her. "But one of these days he's going to forget his own head."

He smiles fondly, secretly in love with the way his parents talk about each other. Despite being a doctor and a fairly organized person, his dad's forgetful, and if it weren't for the meticulous to-do lists, post-it reminders and the diligent work of his secretary, he would lose his way home. His mom, on the other hand, while having a memory like a steel trap, has the bad habit of arriving everywhere in the nick of time. She's constantly in a rush, a trait she unfortunately passed on to him. Unlike his mom, however, he had a knack for being late.

"Need a hand?" he asks, the cupboards underneath the sink wide open and emptied of cleaning products.

"Only if your homework is done," his mom cautions, but one pointed look from him tells her all she needs to know. She hands over the wrench without further comment.

The next hour and a half he helps his mom with chores usually left to his dad, but it keeps his mind off tonight, when he's supposed to be forming coherent sentences around Caitlin; he can't for the life of him figure out how he's going to do that. Maybe he could let her do all the talking, or maybe he can keep their conversation limited to electromagnetic fields and a quick pop quiz. How will he ever be her friend if he doesn't learn to talk to her like a normal human being?

You've put her on this pedestal next to all the other impossible things you think you'll never reach, Iris' words ring in his ears, a reminder of why exactly she's his best friend—she has the most singular way of seeing the world; she's happy and breezy, but not to the point where she neglects her friends and family. Unlike a lot of people their age, himself included, Iris knew exactly what she wanted, and exactly how she was going to get it: hard work, gumption, and a smile for everyone. Unlike him Iris rarely second-guessed herself.

Maybe it's time he stopped doing that too.

"Cait's coming over to study tonight"—he drops the news while he and his dad are setting the table, having already told his mom—"If that's okay."

"Keeping your enemies close, huh?" His dad's playful eyes narrow on his face. "Smart move."

He laughs, tempted to make a quip about how all is fair in love and war, but thinks the better of it; his parents more than likely know about his crush given how often he talks about Caitlin, and he doesn't need to give his dad any more ammunition—he might encourage him to get the girl, or something.

They have a quiet dinner and talk about their days; his mom about her charities, his dad about his patients, him about his schoolwork, despite his AP classes being far beyond anything his parents would understand. But he loves that they try and show an interest in his life.

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After that, time seems to slow down; the dials of the clock fight for every single second, in rhythm with the beats of his heart against his ribcage. Caitlin might be on her way—will she walk? will she drive?—she'll be in his house, in one of the most personal spaces to him and it's... well, to be honest, it's a lot to take in.

Should he introduce her to his parents? Should he expect his parents to drop in on them for a chat? How do study dates work again? He checks his watch for the ninth time in five minutes when his mom calls, "Barr!" and once he's eagerly sprinted towards the hallway he finds his mom holding up the phone for him, whispering, "It's Caitlin."

His chest deflates a little, fearing the worst. She's supposed to be here already. "Caitlin?"

"Hey, Barry," Caitlin's voice comes hesitant. "I hate to do this last minute, but my dad had to rush to work and I have to watch Charlie."

He sighs out of earshot of the phone's receiver. That's just his luck.

Maybe it's time he starts facing the facts and accept he'll never find an in with Caitlin Snow.

"Could you maybe come over?"

His heart drops to his stomach. Come over? To her house? Where she sleeps, and showers, and—

"Yeah." He nods vehemently. "Of course. I can be there in twenty minutes?"

"Okay, great."

He hangs up the phone and gulps a few calming breaths. Okay. Go over to Caitlin's house. Right now.

After about two full minutes he gets his legs working and rushes up the stairs, quickly grabbing his things together—notebooks, textbooks, a pencil—, rushes back down the stairs, and shouts a quick, "GottaheadtoCaitswontbelate!"

It takes him fifteen minutes to get to Caitlin's house. He runs despite his uncoordinated long legs, his lungs burning taking in the cool summer air, his calves aching, but he never once thinks to slow down.

The small Craftsman comes into view in the distance, matching the other Craftsman houses with its dark oak beams and well-maintained front lawn, a nondescript car in the driveway. The house, not much bigger than his, has a few steps leading up to the porch, the front porch concealed underneath an extension of the roof, tapered square columns supporting it.

He takes a few moments to gather his wits and force fresh air deep into his lungs, before he rings the doorbell. What's he doing here? What does he do once Caitlin opens the door? Just—wing it?

The lock snaps open from the inside, and soon his vision fills with a fresh-faced Caitlin Snow, the soft crinkles around her eyes betraying how happy she is to see him.

His heart picks up a beat; he can hardly believe this is actually happening. "Hi."

Caitlin's eyes tick down his chest. "You walked?"

"Ran," he lets out and rubs the back of his neck. "Yeah."

"Come on in," Caitlin says, and he pushes past her in the doorway, over the threshold of the Snow residence. He half expects some epic soundtrack to start to mark this momentous occasion, but to his surprise it's much like walking into any other house.

There are a few more rooms than his, given her family's bigger; there's a staircase leading to the first floor to his right, a dining room beyond it, a large living room to his left. Down the end of the hallway he sees a doorway that leads into the kitchen. It's all extremely—homey, and he's not sure what else he expected.

Caitlin, too, looks different, dressed in a black dress with an uneven hem, a slouchy cardigan thrown over her shoulders, big slippers on her feet, her outfit devoid the bright colors she wears at school. But no less beautiful. It's embarrassing to realize, something Iris knew was coming, but Caitlin is any other girl, like he's any other boy. So why wouldn't he be able to talk to her?

"Charlie," Caitlin calls.

He makes a half turn towards the living room, where Caitlin's little brother sits cross-legged on the rug, a book open in his lap; the dark color of his shirt makes him near impossible to distinguish from the rest of the room. He's seen Caitlin with her brother at the mall a few times; coming out of a toy store, or having ice cream together, holding hands going from one place to the other—he must be about five or six by now.

"This is Barry. My lab partner at school. Can you say 'hi'?"

"Hi," the boy says, without looking up from his book.

Caitlin turns to him, palms of her hands rubbing together, a small grimace pulling her mouth to one side. "He's shy." She shrugs in the sparse space she claims, and behind the words he hears a whole world of hurt no one ever talks about. It hasn't been easy on Caitlin. He can't imagine losing what she has.

"What are you reading there, bud?" he asks, taking a chance when he closes the distance between him and the boy, crouching down next to him, eyes raking over the pages; he recognizes the comic easily. "The Flash, huh? You read Rebirth yet?"

Charlie shakes his head.

"I'll bring it over sometime."

Charlie's eyes snap up at him so fast he sees double, and he's granted a smile; a small victory. He can't imagine what it must've been like for a boy as young as Charlie, losing a mom, left only with his dad and older sister. The few times he saw them out and about together the Snows seemed like a tightknit family; at the park playing hide and seek, out to dinner together. They were always smiling, always having the time of their lives without knowing how much or how little time they had left. This was long before girls held any interest for him. Long before this massive crush.

"Why does it not surprise me you're into comic books?" Caitlin crosses her arms over her chest as he stands again.

He looks at her, but she closes her eyes, and for a second or two he's lost. Does Caitlin imagine things about him? Does she know him well enough to not be surprised by certain aspects of his personality?

"I'm sorry," she stammers. "I wasn't implying that was a bad thing."

He smiles slowly. "More of a little brother thing to you?"

"Yeah," Caitlin breathes. "Shall we?"

He follows her across the hallway into the dining room, where her books lie in a pile on one corner of the table, a few bowls of chips in a neat line off to one side.

"I got some snacks out too. Least I could do after I changed our plans."

"Hey, no, I understand." He sits down as directed at the head of the table, Caitlin at the corner to his left, and he's surprised by how easy this is. He's still breathing, though excitement has set his hairs on end, but there's no need for this to be weird or awkward. They're here to study; he's good at that. "My dad gets called out in the middle of the night all the time."

"He's an MD, right?"

He nods. Caitlin's dad worked as a paramedic for Central City General.

"Any ambitions to follow in his footsteps?"

"If it were up to him, definitely." He grins. "I'm not sure yet. Going into research seems pretty interesting too."

"You should talk to Dr Wells." Caitlin raises an eyebrow, as if all the wisdom of the world has been bestowed on her and she's quite content to share her knowledge—she's not a know-it-all or a showoff, but this girl knows she has a brain. "He really helped me narrow things down."

"I will. Thanks."

Caitlin smiles and pulls her books closer, opening them to the appropriate chapters, and folds her hands together on top. "So, any part of the test you're worried about? You said something about electromagnetic interaction?"

"And here I thought we'd be aligning forces."

"We are." Caitlin giggles. "I'm just keeping you on your toes."

This idea in his dad's mind that he and Caitlin are somehow enemies sprouted from Caitlin's competitive streak. Dr Wells often had to calm her down with a composed, "It's not a competition, Miss Snow," whenever she got overzealous about an experiment or a test or she finished her extra credit assignments ahead of time; though he followed that up with a proud fatherly smile. If Dr Wells had managed to get him more excited over math and science by simply affirming that his passions were worth pursuing, then Caitlin definitely activated his own competitiveness. She likes to win. A lot.

For the past two years she's beaten him in point-grade average in everything but English Literature; he wasn't top of the class, but he consistently got higher grades than she did, and he noticed that small ounce of frustration every time they got back an essay, and she asked him about his grade, and he (almost embarrassedly) had to tell her he scored higher than she did. And he'd probably be smug about it if her frustration weren't so damn adorable. There were a lot of things to fall in love with in Caitlin Snow.

In truth, neither of them needed help studying for this particular test; they both knew to expect the best from each other.

Caitlin's phone vibrates a 5° angle to the left on the table; she promptly commands her phone to ignore the text.

"It's Ronnie." She shrugs. "He's been trying to get me to come to this party."

"I don't want to keep you from anything," he blurts out, foolishly proud that her time with him takes precedence over her time with Ronnie.

"You're not." Caitlin smiles softly. "You're keeping me focused. Besides, I wouldn't want to lose first place because I decided to go to a party rather than revise."

"Is that a challenge, Snow?"

His eyes narrow, .2 seconds before he realizes what came out of his mouth and he goes full caveman again.

"I mean, Caitlin, Cait, god—"

"I like that." Caitlin laughs, bouncing in her chair. "I should get used to people calling me Dr Snow."

And right there in that moment he loses all control of his respiratory system. His problem isn't talking to Caitlin, his problem is that he assigns value to each and every single one of their interactions and somehow constructs his sentences around the things he thinks Caitlin wants to hear. But as time has proven, as this conversation proves right now, he doesn't know Caitlin well enough to make those kinds of assumptions. She likes the way he talks.

Caitlin chews at her lower lip. "Why don't we make it a bet?"

His eyebrows rise. "A bet?"

"If I get higher grades you have to come to Ronnie's party on Friday. You could bring Iris."

His eyes flicker down to the table, from his pencil to his notes and back again. He's pretty sure he's setting himself up for something; there's no way he's going to magically score higher than Caitlin on this test. "And if I win?"

Caitlin purses her lips, leaving him no room whatsoever to breathe. "Make your case."

At the sound of those three words his brain short circuits. In only a few seconds' span he thinks up about three million things he could bet for, all discounted because they either make him sound like the jerk of the century, or a complete loser: let me kiss you? leave Ronnie? suffer through more study dates? do my English Lit homework for two weeks? be my girlfriend?

His mouth thankfully decides on, "Can I think about it?"

"Sure."

They dive into their books. They divide all the material in different sections and review their notes, summarize and make flashcards, after which they quiz each other. Caitlin's quick on her feet and asks questions the material doesn't require, which makes him think Caitlin's done additional research in the library; that must be why she always has a leg up on him. Not this time though, she's allowing him a peek into her study methods and train of thought, and he's left to wonder exactly why. Caitlin doesn't owe him her time or her attention; they've only ever been lab partners, not friends.

They pause after an hour so Caitlin can get Charlie to bed; the boy runs over and halts outside the living room, waving at him. Caitlin smiles at him, then down at her little brother as she takes his hand to walk him up the stairs. No matter how their bet turns out, he accomplished something tonight. He got a little closer to a person he admires, proved he wasn't entirely incapable of charming a girl without hitting her over the head with a wooden club. That kind of blunt force trauma is more Tony's style.

He takes in some of the rest of the house from his vantage point—the shoes by the door as neatly organized as the snack bowls, and he's reminded of the habits he inherited from his parents; he wonders if Caitlin got that from her mom or her dad, if not a little of both. There are a lot of pictures, too, of Charlie, of Caitlin, of the entire family on holiday at the beach, a younger Caitlin with pigtails and a flower crown made of daisies in her hair. A lot of pictures of Caitlin's mom. He never met Caroline Snow, but he wishes he had. He bets she was one hell of a woman.

"There. He went down without a fuss." Caitlin joins him in the living room again. "You have a way with him."

He shrugs. "I just happen to speak nerd, that's all."

"Careful." Caitlin pokes at his arm. "That's my baby brother you're talking about."

They spend another hour and a half diligently studying, Caitlin explaining the finer points of galvanic cell anatomy and he helps by reminding her of all the experiments they did in class; Caitlin has detailed notes on everything, but his visual aids get them through the material more efficiently.

"My eyes hurt," Caitlin admits at long last, when all the words on the pages have long since started blurring into gibberish.

"My brain hurts."

Caitlin leans back in her chair. "You know the brain is the one organ in the human body that can't actually feel pain."

He chuckles. "I do know that."

That's his Caitlin, always claiming the last word.

"I think we should call it a night."

He nods and stifles a yawn, quietly collecting his stuff while Caitlin carries the snack bowls back to the kitchen. It must be hard, he thinks idly, being the only woman in the house now, taking care of Charlie when her dad's at work, taking care of her dad to some extent too, he suspects, and still keep up her grades. He doubts Caitlin Snow will ever cease to amaze him.

She shows him the way out, and they both linger in the doorway, the sky outside dark save for the stars dotted in its canvas.

Caitlin settles against the doorframe, her eyes glazing over. "Thank you for this, Barry."

"I didn't do anything."

"I'm serious." She smiles, her tiredness showing around the corners of her eyes. "If it weren't for you I would've had to study alone, or go to a party I didn't want to go to." She wrinkles her nose. "It was one of Tony's. He's a brute."

He nods, shifting from one leg to the other. Hesitation welds him in place; he wants to ask her about Charlie and her dad and Ronnie, about how they all factor into her life, about how she's feeling juggling so many different things, about why she'd chosen today of all the days littered between them to notice him and give him a chance. About whether or not he has a shot with her. But those are questions for another time, another day, perhaps some of them best kept to himself.

He says, "A real caveman."

"As good a word as any." Caitlin laughs, before she leans her head against the doorframe, making him aware of how tired their study session has left him too. "Goodnight, Barry."

He smiles softly, retreating onto the porch. "Night, Cait."

The door closes, and he stares at it until the light behind it dims, the sounds of late evening bearing down on him ever so slowly. "Sweet dreams," he whispers, hiding a smile as he picks at his lips. All in all, today went a whole lot different than he thought it would; if it weren't for Caitlin saying yes he would've studied alone, taken Krypto out for a walk, maybe watched some television with his mom and dad.

Now he spent an entire night with a girl he has a crush on, and he'll more than likely be attending her boyfriend's party on Friday. Just in case though, he should get thinking about his part of the bet.

He walks home alone, and though tired, there's a trip in his step that wasn't there before.

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tbc

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