Christmas in the Summer

An: I do not own the Flash.

A reviewer asked me to include Snowbarry in some of my Arrow stories and I agreed to attempt it. I thought I would have been able to get it in this year but that didn't happen. So to make up for the missing Snowbarry I wrote this for my reviewer. Merry Christmas!

Summary: Barry contemplates the last few years of his life and tries to determine where everything went drastically wrong. Caitlin takes it upon herself to get Barry out of his slump. Snowbarry, based sometime in the future.

Barry sat in the park he used to come to when he was in High School. It was in this park where he ran science experiments and pretended he was a CSI taking dirt samples and fingerprints off of old soda bottles. He took his samples and fingerprints back to the school's chemistry lab for analysis. He knew that the coke bottles he found discarded in the bush which hemmed the running path belonged to the same litter bug. He knew one person threw their water bottle in the north bin on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and the south bin on Tuesdays and Thursdays. There was a person that liked coffee Monday to Thursday but on Friday he/she would splurge on one of the fancy coffee offerings at Jitters. He had a diary where he kept his results and he named every set of fingerprints that he found. If he had known Cisco back then he's sure, there would have been long debates over the name for each set of prints.

The purpose of collecting and studying the fingerprints was to become the best CSI ever. He was determined to solve his mother's murder and prove his father was innocent. It left a bitter taste in his mouth to know that his life had been a manipulation for him to become the Flash. Even worse knowing it was a manipulation that he could never undo even though he had to the power to run back in time. It made him wonder what the original time line was like. Eobard Thawne had run back in time to kill his mother. Had he been happy before that happened? Eobard had said that he was destined to become the Flash. Was his mother proud of what he had become? Did he make all of these same mistakes in that timeline?

Despite it being summer, the park was cool at night. Joe never allowed him to come at nights because parks were the ideal place for junkies to meet with their dealers. As the Flash, he had cleaned all of that up. There wasn't a junkie or dealer in sight. In fact, the rim of the park was lit with a special solar lights that had been developed by STAR Labs. The paths were lit with softer lighting powered by the battery that Curtis had developed. Barry had them installed to ensure the park could be used safely at night. Because of that, he wasn't alone in the park. There were a few couples that strolled through holding hands. It brought his mind to another topic, Iris.

He spent a lot of time in this park while Iris was out with friends or on dates during the day. Joe had an issue with letting his only teenage daughter out at nights with guys. Barry had spent most of his life pinning away for Iris. He had been the weird geek in school who was Iris's foster brother. He was fairly sure he would have been bullied a lot more if it weren't for his connection to Iris. She was a force to be reckoned with. She had meant so much to him and because of him her light had faded from this world.

"If you thought brooding looked good on you then you're wrong. Leave that look solely for Oliver Queen," a familiar voice quipped to him.

He turned around to find Caitlin standing a few feet from him with her hands tucked into her jeans. It was rare to see her in just a tank top and jeans.

"Caitlin," he said surprised to see her in the park with him.

"Mind if I have a seat?" she asked pointing to the empty seat next to him on the bend he occupied.

"It's dangerous to be around me," Barry responded.

She arched her eyebrow at him, "I'm Killer Frost on practically every other Earth and you think it's dangerous to be around you!"

"You are not a killer Caitlin; we've been through that discussion numerous times," Barry reminded her.

"But she's there Barry. Just under the surface. Even with the tech that Cisco worked up for me to be able to use my powers without it changing me, Killer Frost is still there. Nobody thought any of us were capable of bad things but look what happened with Cisco," Caitlin pointed out boldly.

Barry winced at the mention of Cisco. It was yet another example of one of his mistakes, "What happened with Cisco was my fault. I changed the time line. I made it happen," Barry insisted.

"But how can you be so sure of that?" Caitlin asked fiercely,"On Earth 2 both Cisco and Dante were evil. You can't be sure that Flashpoint didn't accelerate things that were already going to happen? Just because when you left to change the timeline I hadn't exhibited any signs of being Killer Frost, doesn't mean it wasn't going to happen. Cisco came into his powers slowly, even with the change in the timeline. I happened to come into mine slower than Cisco. Who knows, Joe might get super vision or something eventually," Caitlin said with a little laugh to break the tension. When Barry didn't respond she sighed loudly, "My point Barry, is Dante might have been destined to die that summer that you ran back in time so you didn't really change anything," Caitlin insisted.

"You're coming up with scenarios to ease my guilt," Barry said bitterly. "I don't deserve that."

"And you're coming up with ones to increase it because you believe it's all your fault," Caitlin fired back.

"It is my fault Caitlin. I saw Savitar kill Iris. I tried to stop it but I couldn't. He warned me that someone would betray us and someone would end up with a faith worse than death. I'm the hero. It was my job to stop it. Instead of focusing on finding a way to stop it, I heeded Jay's advice to enjoy the present. Now I have all these memories of Iris and I in our apartment and as precious as those memories are to me, I hate that I think it was a mistake. I hate that I think I should have given up that time and focused on Savitar instead," Barry admitted. "And then I made so many mistakes with Cisco. I pushed him over the edge. I can't even let myself think about what Wally is going through right now," Barry said with agony. He dropped his head into his hands and screamed into them.

Caitlin placed her hand on Barry's shoulder. "Barry you can't make the right decision 100% of the time. If you did you would be a God and even with your connection to the Speed Force you know you're not," she reminded him. She started to rub slow circles on his back. Over the last few months she had discovered that this soothed him a bit.

He lifted his head out of his hands and stared at her with a morbid expression, "Isn't the Hero always supposed to be right?" Barry said cynically.

"No. Heroes make mistakes too. What makes them a Hero is how they pick themselves up and make things right," Caitlin responded.

"I don't even know where to begin to do that. Sometimes I would wish to go back to last Christmas when we moved into together but then I think no we had Savitar hanging over our heads, then I go back to the Christmas before that but there was something else wrong then too and I keep going back straight to the Christmas before my mother's death. I know her death is a tent pole in time that can't be changed so then where did I make that first mistake that caused the rest?" Barry asked his eyes filled with water.

"Oh Barry," Caitlin said drawing him into a hug.

"I don't know if I can keep doing this anymore," Barry said barely above a whisper. He was clinging to her for life.

"You can Barry because you are the Flash and you give people hope. You will find a way through your grief," she pulled away from him and told him to open his eyes.

He opened his eyes to find the park covered in snow. The light from the park lights made it seem like the snow was glowing. It looked just like the Christmas Eve he walked through the park with Iris.

"This is our Christmas Barry," Caitlin said linking her hands through his. "We've both lost so many people over the years but this is our Christmas. We pick ourselves up and we move on. Central City needs us to be strong. We didn't fight so hard just to watch everything fall apart. We keep on fighting."

Barry looked her in the eyes but as he was about to retort she placed her index finger against his lips to silence him.

"Just accept it Barry," she said softly. Her eyes implored him to let go of his grief and be the light she knew he could be again.

He wasn't sure about her request but she was his last friend left and he couldn't disappoint her. He nodded. He would try for her.

She smiled her first real smile in months. "Gideon says there are some metahumans causing a racket four blocks from here. Let's go remind them that this city is protected by The Flash and Snow Angel."

Barry wrapped his arms around her and within a second they were back in the lab. She changed quickly into her outfit and they were back on the streets fighting Metas for the sake of the City again.

An: Thanks for reading. Does anyone else think that they threw the stone where Savitar wanted them to throw it? I mean if he's stuck in the speed force and you throw the stone into the speed force then aren't you giving it to Savitar. I mean he has an eternity to find it.