Caught in a Snowstorm (And I Don't Want to Be Free)

A/N: In case you didn't read my story 'Making Things Right,' all you need to know is that this takes place after an AU where Barry and Nora ran back to the Singularity and saved Ronnie. They brought him to the present. This picks up almost immediately after that, with Caitlin talking with Ronnie.

I was so hopeful for a new scene with Ronnie in the hundredth episode, and since then I've been on a Snowstorm kick again. Feedback is appreciated. Enjoy!

She looked up when she felt Ronnie's hand move over hers.

"You're studying those test results pretty hard. You're sure everything's fine?"

Caitlin set the tablet down and sat down next to him. "Positive. I ran every test I could think of, but Barry bringing you through time doesn't seem to have affected you at all."

"Other than saving my life."

"Other than that," she corrected, looking at the floor.

His hand touched hers again, but this time he left it there. It was warm. She had remembered how warm Ronnie was, of course, but feeling it so powerfully from a simple handhold… she realized she'd forgotten just how that warmth felt.

"I missed a lot," Ronnie said. "I'm sorry."

"Why are you sorry?" she demanded. "You didn't do anything wrong. You saved everyone."

"I didn't make it back to you."

His blue eyes were steady as she met them. Grief threatened at her control again, as she remembered those moments after the Singularity; Barry's regretful expression had almost destroyed her as she realized she'd lost Ronnie. She pushed the grief away now, chastising herself. Yes, she'd lost him, but he hadn't died. She'd lost him to time. Ronnie had disappeared back then. Thanks to Barry and Nora, he hadn't actually died. Maybe it had been that way all along, she thought hopefully. It made it slightly easier to adjust to the fact that he was here now, thinking that he'd never really died. Just disappeared in time for a while.

"You're here now," she said, curling her hand around his. It took a lot for her to feel warm these days. Holding his hand, she felt like she was holding her hands by a hearth fire.

"Your hands are still cold," he said with upturned lips. It was something he'd commented on when they first met. He had no idea how accurate the statement was. He grabbed up her hands and pulled them closer to him, enclosing them between his own. He brought them to his lips and blew on them to warm them. "Better?" he asked.

Heart beating unevenly, Caitlin nodded. The warmth from his breath faded too quickly, but his hand was still holding one of hers. That warmth was steady. "I think I have an idea of how to catch you up," she said.

"Lots of bedtime stories?"

There was a suggestive turn to his voice that she didn't quite register before responding.

"A more direct method, actually."

"I still get a bedtime story, though, right?" She registered his tone this time. That and the raised eyebrow he gave her.

She nodded again, smiling. She wouldn't be going home alone tonight. She hadn't thought of it before this moment. Hadn't let herself think beyond those stupid tests she'd used to give herself time to process, really.

"I've been waiting to see that smile," he said.

"Let me get the neural inhibitor, and then we can go." Removing her hand from his was her first reminder of what cold felt like. Not true cold, but the absence of warmth, anyway. It was amazing how fast her body had grown accustomed to his warmth again. She retrieved both pieces of the neural inhibitor and went back to the med-bay. Ronnie was pulling a S.T.A.R. Labs shirt on as she walked in, and walked to her side immediately.

He followed her into the cortex, where the others were gathered around the computers.

"We were just gonna see if you wanted anything," Cisco said, looking between her and Ronnie.

"We're gonna go home."

"Home?" Ralph asked. "Are you sure you should -?"

"Go on," Iris said over him. "We can manage without you for the rest of the day."

Caitlin saw from Iris's determined expression that the woman completely understood. She would explain it to the others, if they couldn't see it. Caitlin dipped her head in thanks, and put her hand on Ronnie's arm to say 'let's go.'

They were quiet as they got into her car and drove to her apartment. Caitlin glanced at Ronnie as discreetly as possible a few times, trying to gauge his reaction to all of this. It had to be setting in that the team as he had known it was gone. Talking with her in the lab was one thing. It was familiar. Seeing everyone in the cortex, with several people Ronnie didn't know very well being integral members of the team, had to have made it real to Ronnie.

She didn't want to rush him. "Whenever you're ready, we can start playing catch up," she said as she placed the neural inhibitor on her coffee table.

He was looking around her apartment. "You haven't changed anything."

"Just got a new door," she muttered, thinking of Amunet's carved message from the year before. "Do you want something to drink?"

"Will it be easier to believe everything?"

She smiled sympathetically. "Might make it harder."

"I'll pass then."

She took a seat next to him on the couch, noticing that he was looking at the neural inhibitor. She picked it up and put the receiver on his forehead. He tensed slightly. "It'll connect you to me," she explained as she put the main interface on her own forehead.

She felt Frost stir, and tried to keep her from speaking. They definitely weren't there yet.

She wanted him to see how the neural inhibitor worked, so she started with something familiar: their wedding. Stein marrying them outside S.T.A.R. Labs. Joe, Barry, Iris, Eddie, and Cisco witnessing. Ronnie sliding a ring onto her finger, and herself sliding one onto his before their first kiss as husband and wife.

The change in his expression told her it was working. The apprehension behind his eyes gave way to something more positive, his mouth parting slightly. When she'd finished remembering it, he focused on her again with a slight upward curve to his mouth. "That's incredible."

"I'm going to give you the overview," she told him. "It's going to seem like a lot of information, because it is. Once you have the general understanding, we can fill in the specifics with time. Are you ready?"

He dipped his head, and she thought of the months right after the Singularity.

From there, she spent several hours showing him select moments from the past four years. At certain times, she became so caught up in the memories herself that she wasn't really aware of Ronnie, still looking in her direction. At other times, she couldn't forget, and focused on his expression with acute attention. His expression never changed much beyond a crinkling of his eyes and a hard set to his jaw. There were a few breaks from the flow of memories, so he could ask questions.

The first was when she showed Zoom kidnapping her. She hadn't planned on sharing that yet, but started remembering it before she could stop herself. As soon as she did Ronnie tensed, his fist clenching on his leg.

"I'll kill him."

"He's already dead."

His eyes were burning, his nostrils flared. "Good. I'll make sure nothing like that happens to you again."

As she told him about defeating Zoom, the anger faded from his eyes and was replaced with a dark satisfaction. It didn't bother her though. She'd felt the same thing.

The second break was not long after, when she brought up Frost. To explain why she sided with Savitar, she had to explain about her powers, as much as she wanted to save that discussion for another day.

"I have powers," she remembered telling the team. "The cold kind."

"Powers?" Ronnie asked. "From the particle accelerator?"

"From an experiment my dad did, when I was little," she said. "I still don't know everything, but somehow they were suppressed. After we beat Zoom, they started emerging, and I started losing control."

"What do you mean, losing control?"

She bit her lip. "Killer Frost started taking over."

She could see him trying to make sense of it, and sighed. "I know more about her now than I did then. Let me show you."

So she took him through her journey with her powers. She could feel Frost trying to pitch in, but kept a wall between them, and Frost stopped with a huff. Caitlin let Ronnie experience her first time giving into Frost's impulses, and the period of time when Frost overwhelmed her and allied with Savitar. When she told him about her fight with Cisco, she felt Ronnie move closer to her, so their legs were brushing against each other. She took him through her time working for Amunet, and moved more quickly through the growth in her relationship with Frost (to show him she was still in the picture), and went back into detail to describe fighting The Thinker.

She spent the most time showing him memories of the past year, so he would understand why Barry and Nora had even gone to the past.

By the time she'd given him specifics of Cicada, he'd moved his hand so it rested on her leg, as if both bracing himself and reassuring her at the same time. She gently reached up and removed the receiver from his forehead, and the main interface from her own, before turning herself to fully face him.

"You guys never get a break for long, huh?"

"It doesn't seem like it." She searched his face for signs of mental strain. She'd just given him an overview of multiple years, after all, in a few hours. But he seemed fine. She had to remember how resilient Ronnie had always been. He was the one who'd taught her how to roll with the punches, in even the minimal way she had when Barry first developed his powers. Ronnie was excellent at adapting to situations. "You're okay?" she asked anyway, just to be sure.

"As okay as I can be. It still seems like a weird dream, but I know it's the truth."

That was a healthy response, she thought. Frost started trying to comment, and once more Caitlin pushed her back. She would talk with her tomorrow. She still had to introduce Ronnie and Frost to each other, but she was done catching him up for the night. He was adapting to being here really well. Now, she wanted to start letting herself adapt to him being here. Which meant not overthinking.

She looked him full on, breathing in and trying to take him in with that breath. Maybe fully recognizing that he was here to stay physically would help her accept it mentally, and let her stop worrying.

Everything about him was familiar, though it had been years since she'd seen him. He was her first love; she knew every inch of him almost as well as she knew herself. The swell of his chest. The curvature of his arms. The defined edges of his jaw. The softness of the hair at the top of his head, that always stuck up slightly by the end of the day, as it did now. The steady, expressive quality of his eyes…

His blue eyes were locked on her with an intensity that made her forget everything else. Instinct took over. Her worries slipped away as she leaned forward, wrapping her arms around his neck and bringing her lips to his. The warmth from where his hands pressed against her back was frigid compared to the heat blazing through her as he started kissing her.

It was everything she remembered it to be, and also so much more.

"Cait," he breathed, his voice full of love and warmth as his forehead touched hers.

She didn't want to stop, but she wasn't really in control of herself. At his voice a wave of emotion made her crumple forward, so her face was buried in his collar.

She realized she was shaking and gripped him a little tighter, one hand caught up in his hair, the other bunching the thin material of his shirt between his shoulder blades. She wanted to kiss him, to just be with him, but it seemed her body had other ideas as her breathing became shallower.

"What's wrong?" he asked, his voice still low but now layered with concern.

"I just – I can't believe -…" she took an even breath with difficulty. "You're really here."

He tightened his arms around her, enclosing her in the heat only he provided and making gentle, soothing murmurs against her ear. She should be the one taking care of him, but in that moment, she needed to let him be the strong one. She'd been trying to hold it together since seeing him; trying to hold it together like she always did in front of others. But this was Ronnie. She couldn't pretend with him for long.

"It's alright, Cait," he said, warm and low and completely understanding. "I'm not going anywhere. I'm right here. We're both okay."

He was holding her so close, so gently. Her tears dried and she touched his cheek with one hand, trying to let him know she was okay as she recovered her breath. He loosened his arms around her enough for her to lean back, so she could see his face. "I missed you so much," she told him.

"If I were in your situation, I'd feel the same way." He brushed his knuckles over her cheekbone, wiping away a tear track. "I'm sorry you had to go through all that alone."

His hand lingered, brushing a piece of her hair back, and she locked eyes with him. There was a slight flush to his cheeks, but the primary thing she noticed was the devotion in his gaze. She hoped he could see the same in hers, but just in case he couldn't… "I love you, Ronnie Raymond."

"I love you too."

This time when she leaned in closer to him, the kiss was slower and gentler. She took his hand, pulling him towards the bedroom. She motioned for him to sit on the bed and turned to her dresser, picking up one of the picture frames there.

"Is that -?"

"Right after you proposed. Cisco got a picture on his phone," Caitlin said with a light smile. The shot was blurred, but the image of she and Ronnie laughing was clear enough. That was the day they got engaged, before the particle accelerator was finished being built. They'd gotten back from the Hudson Falls and told Cisco and Dr. Wells right away. She couldn't remember what they'd been laughing about, but it was one of her favorite pictures of Ronnie.

She turned the frame over, untying the pouch taped to the back and tipping it over in her palm. The ring Ronnie had given her sparkled there. She'd worn it for a short while after the Singularity, and then decided it was too painful. So she'd taped it behind the picture, where it would be safe and close. She held it out for him to hold as she placed the photograph back in its spot, and then turned to take it back.

He wouldn't let her, though, and took hold of her hand when she reached for it. "Let me," he said. He slid the ring onto her finger and looked up at her, seeming ready to say something.

She didn't let him, sitting on the edge of the bed and embracing him. Her hands pressed against his chest, and he pulled her flat on the bed with him, smiling against her lips as they fell back against the mattress in a storm of fire.

He brought her hand up and kissed it near the wedding ring. "Is it safe to treat this like our wedding night?" he asked, his lips forming the words against her knuckles.

"Why do you think I got out the ring?"

He laughed and pulled her closer in a rush, and as the kiss deepened, Caitlin was thinking of Ronnie and absolutely nothing else.

She looked forward to being able to do that a lot more.