author's notes: Written for Snowbarry Week 2019, artist prompt, day 6: au. Caitlin is the Chemist.

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Lost In A Simple Game

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He wakes to the clatter of plates and mugs in the kitchen, the familiar bubbling of a coffee maker and the hiss of liquid hitting the heated bottom of a frying pan.

Barry sits up as his body thrummed with memories of last night, the invite, their flirtation at the bar, and how he'd given into her after months of chase.

Caitlin's black dress lay in a small heap on the floor, right where he peeled it off her, kissed the back of her neck...

Groaning, he draws a hand over his face.

What had he been thinking?

In the kitchen, Caitlin starts humming an off-beat tune.

He eyes her bedroom carefully.

Forget about thinking— whatever possessed him last night it got him into her apartment, which is a lot further than the police had thus far gotten. Without a judge willing to grant him a search warrant there wasn't much he could do but collect and analyze all the evidence but now that he's inside... digging around her things may be morally objectionable after sleeping with her but he can't pass up this opportunity. Nothing he finds will be admissible in court but maybe it could lead him to something a little more actionable.

All he needed was a breadcrumb.

Barry snatched his boxers off the bedroom floor and put them on, before easing open the first drawer he found.

Underwear.

Stockings.

Scarves in the one beneath that. He pushed the garments around gently, feeling for any hidden trinkets underneath them, but comes up empty. Even the bottom drawer, filled to the brim with shoe boxes, all turn out to be storage for pictures— Caitlin as a young girl, her parents, even pictures of her wedding day. A ring box holds three rings; her engagement ring, her late husband's wedding ring, and hers.

Where had Ronnie fit into all of this?

Still woefully empty-handed, Barry makes his way across the living room, toward the small home office tucked into one of its corners. He didn't think she'd be foolish enough to keep any damning evidence in plain sight, but maybe her computer—

"Didn't anyone ever teach you it's rude to snoop?" Caitlin's voice rings behind him.

His heart about jumps out of his chest. Busted.

"You're the one who let in a CSI," he says and turns in the same breath, greeted by a picture perfect tableau— or, it would be, did he not suspect Caitlin of being one of the greatest criminal masterminds this city had ever seen.

Still, he'd been alone long enough to want something like this, the perfect picture of a woman not long out of bed, sleep still caught around her eyes, long lazy curls spilling over her shoulders, dressed in nothing but a thin robe.

In her hand, Caitlin held a cup of steaming hot coffee.

She walked over slowly, the mug between them as she asked, "Is that all last night was to you?" with large pleading eyes. "A foot in the door?"

Barry licks his lips.

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14 hours earlier

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"Snow," he calls when he catches her sat at the bar of the high-end little hole in the wall downtown, adjacent Central City's most rich and famous, all perfect targets for her next big heist. Room bathed in glitter and rose gold, its bright black walls enveloped him in something quiet and intimate, where two people could have a normal conversation yet not be overheard.

He'd found her here before.

She'd probably argue she'd let herself be found because if he were really that good he'd have tied her to any number of heists already, and maybe she'd be right. Tonight, maybe she hoped to be found. She'd left him enough clues. Too many, experience taught him.

When she turns to him, her earrings tinkling like small chimes, a fond smile curls around her lips, as if she's truly happy to see him and her invitation meant a whole lot more than her usual 'my turn' return signal— his chest warmed at the sight of it.

Barry blinks and catches himself. He shouldn't think of her that way.

Her black dress, cut out deep in the front, its length elongating her bare legs, left little to the imagination, and he'd let that, too, wander several times before. Caitlin Snow was by no means an unattractive woman, but she was a criminal, so that placed her squarely in the forbidden column.

He couldn't let his mind wander nor let his heart warm to her when his sole preoccupation for the past six months had been analyzing and reanalyzing the scenes of her crimes.

He was the first to connect the heists, the first to find the signature plastic snowflake she left at each scene— and when Joe found footage of her surveilling each scene a few days before, well, it wasn't a difficult conclusion to make.

Unfortunately, despite his best efforts, he had no physical evidence tying her to the robberies; each of them were meticulously executed, leaving no prints, no hairs, no fibres. If he didn't know better he'd think a ghost committed all the crimes.

Even still, he became convinced there were robberies where she didn't leave any signature.

As far as motive was concerned, he couldn't say.

She spent her days working at the free clinic her late husband built from the ground up, helping those in need, healing those she could.

What reason could she have to turn to a life of crime?

"CSI Allen," Caitlin says, all too happy to see her bespoke CSI. She'd laid out all the right breadcrumbs, after all— caught on a few security feeds in the diamond district, seen talking to a few pawnshop owners. Enough to convince him she was looking for her next target.

Sometimes she worried his interest in her waned, however unfounded those worries might be. He'd never stop chasing her. Of that she was certain.

But he had his own worries that preoccupied his mind.

Once, many months ago, she'd snuck into his lab— rather, she'd broken into it, rappelled from the skylight down into the inner sanctum of Barry Allen. She enjoyed being among his things. His low-rent apartment left little to no clue as to who he was as a man, but at the CCPD lab she'd learned a lot.

His instruments were meticulously placed into their proper containers, acetone stored far away from the hydrogen peroxide and each bottle labelled clearly. Every flat surface, from the desk to the lab tables was kept clean, as well as the Erlenmeyer flasks and beakers. He'd jerry-rigged the centrifuge a few times, if the traces of duct tape were any indication, but she blamed that on CCPD's shrinking budgets. It seemed Barry Allen got by just fine on his own, and he took great pride in his work.

She'd thought to leave him a present, a snowglobe she made herself, depicting her first heist— until she found the evidence board hidden behind the map of Central City. Newspaper clippings detailed the night of his mother's death, when an armed intruder allegedly broke in, and his father's trial, convicting him of her murder.

The snowglobe remained in her possession.

Barry was one of the good guys, a do-gooder, and she wouldn't do him the discourtesy of thinking she'd contaminated any of the other evidence stored in his lab.

That didn't mean she'd be among those he caught.

She may worry, she may even care, but that didn't mean she'd change her stripes.

Caitlin points at her smoking white cocktail. "Get my friend one of these too, won't you, Clint?"

"I'll have a beer," Barry says, sliding onto a barstool next to her.

Clint, the bartender, eyes him, before he looks to Caitlin again.

"He'll have one of these." She nods, nose wrinkling. "It's called a Frostbite. I think you'll like it."

Barry huffs a laugh, head shaking.

How had it come to this?

Not too long ago he'd sat opposite her in an interrogation room, which she'd entered of her own accord, without an arrest warrant, without any evidence stacked up against her, and accused her of stealing 5 million dollars in art, jewellery and cash money.

She'd looked him dead in the eyes and rather than deny it, she said prove it.

She took pride in her crimes, greater pride still in getting away with them. The press even assigned her a nickname, the Chemist, after some rookie let them in on the specifics of the case— the atomized lorazepam and acid bomb all pointed to someone with a background in advanced chemical engineering.

A profile that happened to fit Miss Snow to a tee.

Barry digs around his jacket pocket and unearths an evidence bag, laying it down on top of the bar.

In it was a single plastic snowflake, one of five he'd found so far, completely untraceable. A lot of hobby shops sold them in bulk, especially around Christmas, and these snowflakes weren't as unique as their real-life counterparts.

Which Caitlin knew all too well.

Caitlin's eyes narrow. "Are you supposed to remove those from evidence lockup?"

The answer to her question, of course, was no, he couldn't remove any evidence from CCPD without the proper chain of custody documents, but then she'd turned his head a few times over. Her prove it had set beneath his skin not unlike a viral infection, spreading from the point of entry to each of his extremities until all he could think and see and feel and smell was Caitlin Snow, the Chemist.

Time and time again she slipped through his fingers.

"I know it's you, Snow."

"I'm still waiting on you to prove that," Caitlin says, coyly adding, "Allen" with a surreptitious smile wrapped around her lips, so different from her earlier smile it hits him with a bad case of whiplash.

Did she want him here so she could toy with him?

He licks over his teeth, anger drawing him closer. "Are we going to keep doing this?"

"Pretend we're not who we say we are?"

His rampant thoughts grind to a sudden halt. We? he thinks, who we are?

"Pretend"—Caitlin stands, their drinks untouched, and leans in so close that for one second he thinks she means to kiss him—"you don't like chasing me," she whispers, and takes a few steps back.

This is who they are, who they've become, for better or worse. The hunter and the prey, but this prey isn't helpless, and she likes to be chased, she likes to be challenged— his chest warms and his heart rate rises. Barry licks his lips, wholly unaware he's stood up too and he's started to inch closer to her.

It's not so much that he enjoys chasing her, it's that his inability to catch her has left a particular burning ache. He's considered the best at what he does, but if he is she's surely the best at what she does.

Whatever that may be.

They hold the same degree in chemical engineering but chose to use it for such varying purposes. Why had she decided to steal? Why was it she insisted on teasing him?

Caitlin wanders toward the exit of the bar, and he follows, like a puppet on a string.

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"Is that all last night was to you?" Caitlin asked, "A foot in the door?" with eyes so big and pleading he'd almost miss the sincerity shining through in them. Despite the myriad of games between them he's gotten to know her as a kind and gentle soul, with a mischievous streak for sure, but that didn't take away the fact that she was flesh and blood like him.

She must get lonely too.

Barry licks his lips.

Last night had not been lonely— he'd caught up to her outside of the bar and let her kiss him, and he'd been so inundated with thoughts of her alone he gave in; first a kiss, then a touch, then an embrace that led them back to her apartment.

"No," he admits, though his heart stutters around the confession; it's been a long time since he's felt close to anyone but he feared the allure of her was her unattainability, the impossibility of a relationship. If anyone at the precinct ever found out about this after trying to convince them of her guilt for so long they'd never take him seriously again.

Because he still didn't question her guilt.

What had possessed him then, falling for her so willingly?

"Okay," Caitlin says softly, and, reaching up on her toes, pushes a soft kiss to his lips.

Maybe he recognized something of himself in her, a longing for connection after others were lost for good, a keen intellect that matched his own.

"Breakfast?" she asks, playful twinkle returned to her eyes.

Barry smiles and steals another kiss, locking their fates together once again, two people surrendered to a game of cat-and-mouse that might never end.

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fin

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