(A/N): This is the last in the Kissing is a Bad Idea series. If you haven't read the others, start with Two Steps Back, then One Step Forward, and then Change Your Partner. A good thing to know is that it diverges from canon around 1x08 because that's when I started writing them. Enjoy!

For the past twenty-four hours, ten words had been rattling around Cisco's skull.

Why do you automatically assume you'd just be a rebound?

Caitlin had asked him that last night, standing in an alley, half an hour after a dramatic hostage situation, five minutes after they'd nearly devoured each other whole, ten seconds after they'd agreed to sit down and talk this thing out on Monday morning, tomorrow morning, giving them both all of Sunday to think.

He'd thought by this time, he'd have it figured out. What he wanted to say, what would make sense to her, when they discussed this thing.

This. Thing.

That they were doing.

Not doing.

Three kisses. Once when she was drunk, the second when he was tired and emotionally wrung out, the third right after the whole hostage thing. All of them when guards were down, when it was so much harder to tell himself no.

The pattern wasn't hard to see.

And every single time, he'd called a halt to it. Him.

Why?

Because he didn't want to settle; he didn't want anything less than everything. He wanted to be Caitlin Snow's forever, not her right now. He knew that, very clearly, about himself.

He also knew that the Cisco Ramons of the world did not get to have forever with the Caitlin Snows, because it just didn't work like that.

Did it?

He couldn't take the four walls of his apartment for one more second, so he shrugged into his jacket, grabbed his phone, wallet, and keys, and walked out into the night.

He walked through his neighborhood, all apartments, and then into downtown, all lit up. It was Sunday night so it was quieter, but still busy, because that was why he lived near downtown. He liked the noise and the action and how you could get ice cream at ten o'clock at night.

He didn't get ice cream, or duck into the old-fashioned coin-op arcade that he was personally responsible for keeping in business, probably, or even stop to look at the movie posters at the funky movie house he liked. He just walked, trying to funnel all the churning confusion in his mind through his feet and siphon it away.

It wasn't working.

After a while, he looked around. It was quieter, darker. He was in front of Jitters. It was open for another hour. He could go in and have a coffee or something. Decaf, though, because he was going to have a hard enough time sleeping tonight as it was.

Instead, he crossed the street to the park, sitting down on the low wall that surrounded it, staring into the lit-up windows, trying to picture himself there with Caitlin in about ten hours. He tried to listen to the future and hear what he was going to say, so he'd maybe finally, finally know what he was going to do.

He rubbed his temples.

Then he pulled his phone and shot off a quick text, his fingers moving almost independently of his brain. u awake

A split second later, his phone buzzed in his hand. He almost dropped it.

Caitlin, the screen said, and she smiled out at him, a picture he'd taken a few months ago, before the first kiss. One of her rare smiles. Rare but getting more common now.

The phone buzzed again. He answered. "Hey."

"Hi," she said. "Yes. I'm awake."

"Me too," he said, feeling foolish but also, what else could he say? Too much. Too many words. They banged around in his skull like ping-pong balls.

"How was your day?" Her voice echoed a little, as if she were on speaker. He wondered if she was puttering around her place, fussing things into order the way she did when she was agitated.

"Full of thinking," he said honestly.

It was so much easier to be honest with her, right now, when he wasn't looking at her. Something wrong about that, he was pretty sure.

"Mine too," she said.

He found himself saying, "I - I know it's not tomorrow, but can we talk now? Please?"

"Like this?"

"Yeah." Maybe he didn't know what he was going to say, but he was so tired of thinking about it. And honestly, if he'd been stewing over anything else in the world, Caitlin would be who he would talk to about it. Sharing his confusion with her felt like the most natural thing.

"Yes," she said. "Actually, I was - I think that would be good."

Then they were both quiet. He bounced his heel against the stone wall, one, two, three, four.

"What did you mean?" she asked. "Last night. When you said you'd been that guy before."

Cisco gulped. He'd known she'd picked up on that. Of course she had. She'd looked like she'd just cracked a safe or something when that had slipped out. "Well," he said. "Well, I have. The rebound guy. I'm just that kind of person. The one you have fun with."

"When?"

"A few times," he said. "Diana in high school, and Jordan in college, and then later Mike, I think you even met him because we broke up about a month after I started at Star Labs. And a few others, I guess." He frowned to himself. Huh. That was actually kind of a lot now that he thought about it. "And you know, usually they were honest, and we were both okay with it. But I, um, sometimes I got in deeper than they did and it wasn't good. So. I'm being honest from the get-go, all right? I know I'm in deeper."

Man. Doing this over the phone was dragging all kinds of stuff out of him. He wasn't sure he could have said that to her face.

"How?" she demanded.

"How? How do I know my own feelings?" He was pissed off all of a sudden. "Because I'm a fucking adult, okay, even if I do own Star Wars sheets."

"Don't swear at me," she said. "How do you know I'm not in just as deep?"

He pulled his phone away from his ear and blinked at it. He put it back up. "I - because. Ronnie."

"Ronnie's dead."

"I know." His voice cracked.

"He's dead, and I'm here, and I'm a fucking adult too, and I know my own feelings. You think this is an impulse for me? You think I haven't thought about this?"

"I - uh - I think that losing the man you were going to marry isn't something you just get over."

"Right," she said. "Right. I'm doing whatever I need to do to grieve, and you totally support that, except not with you. Isn't that what you said?"

"Uh, yeah," he said quietly.

"Falling in love with you is not my goddamned therapy."

He almost fell off the wall.

Love?

He hadn't said it, and neither had she, up until now. They'd said feelings, and danced around it, and - love?

He realized he'd been silent too long, and said, "Caitlin?"

Boop-boop, his phone said in his ear, the sound of a call ending. He swore and dialed her back. Of all the times for a call to drop -

Hopefully the call had just dropped.

Hopefully she hadn't just hung up in complete frustration.

Bzzzz, in his ear, her phone ringing. One ring, two -

The sound of a car's screeching tires made him look up. It was her little blue car, sliding expertly into a parallel-parking space like something out of The Fast and the Furious. She'd learned to drive in New York City, and it showed.

When she jumped out, he ended the call and stood up. "How'd you know where to find me?"

She shook her head. "I didn't," she called over the distance between them. "I was driving to your place. I'm lucky I saw you at all."

He looked around - the park, dim and quiet behind him, and himself, in dark colors. With Jitters on the other side of the road, pouring out light, he practically disappeared. "Yeah, no kidding."

She hugged herself, leaning back against her car. Even at this distance, in the half-light, her eyes were wide.

He went to her. Stopped a few feet away, wishing she had missed him and that they were still talking on the phone and he couldn't see her face.

Love, he thought, and it was a knot in his throat, blocking all his words.

She looked down and fussed with her coat, biting her lip. She crossed her arms, and something slid out of her hand and hit the ground with a clank. Automatically, he crouched to pick it up. Her keys.

He held them a moment, studying them.

The night of their first kiss, he'd picked them up after she'd thrown them at him and stomped out. Then, the keychain had been her engagement picture in a frame. But she'd traded it out at some point. Now it was a butterfly, with orange and black enamel wings.

He said quietly, "That's new."

She met his eyes. "It's been there for about a month now."

"What did you do with the other one?"

"I put it away. Somewhere safe, with all my other good memories."

He handed them back to her and she put them in her pocket.

"I know he's gone," he said. "I know that so well. I just - I - " His voice trembled. "I was there when he was here, and I saw how much you loved him."

"Why does that mean I can't love you?"

Cisco swallowed. The only answer - because how can I possibly be as good as him, in any way - refused to come out.

"You know, I always thought," she said, "that I was just one of those people who didn't get to fall in love. I wanted to. I dated people, I enjoyed sex, but I never felt anything. Not really. Not until Ronnie. Then I thought, 'Oh, he's the one I've been waiting for. My one chance.'" She took a trembling breath. "And when he died, I thought, 'Well, that's it. That's all you get, Caitlin Snow, is that one person. That one person you're capable of loving.'"

"That's bullshit," he said roughly. "You love people. Your parents, and your friends - you love people."

"I know," she said. "And Ronnie isn't the only person in the world that I'm capable of loving romantically. I know that now because of you. And it frustrates me beyond reason that you seem to think you don't deserve it somehow."

"That's not what I'm saying." Because of you, she'd just said. And she had said love, on the phone, a few minutes ago. He felt like the ground had been swept out from under him, like all the things he knew so well were just brittle stilts holding him up, and they were starting to crack.

"What are you afraid of?" she asked.

It welled up in his chest like a hot bubble that burst and spilled out. "That I won't be enough for you. Because I've never been enough for anybody. That I'll give you everything I've got and I still won't be able to make you happy."

She bit her lip, nodding. Her chin tried to tremble. "That - I know that feeling. You have no idea how well I know that feeling. But I make me happy, Cisco. Me. And part of that is making sure you're in my life. You're a huge part of my happiness. You are so necessary to it. So how does it make sense for us to not even try?"

He shook his head miserably. It didn't, but -

She could talk all she wanted about things that made sense, but it didn't make any difference to the monster of fear that lived deep down inside him, telling him he'd always been the second choice, the also-ran, the one that people settled for.

Because of you.

Love.

"You know what I'm afraid of?" she said. "That I'll miss out on you. My second chance, and I'll never get to take it. I could lose you anytime, Cisco. Anytime."

"You won't," he said.

"No, I could," she insisted. "This life we're living now, it's not safe. I mean, we're safer than Barry, for sure, but this city - " She waved her hand. "It's weird and it's getting weirder. Any day, I could lose you, and if that ever happens, I want to know that I had everything with you that I could get."

"What if nothing ever happens to either one of us? What if you're stuck with me forever?" The word tasted like chocolate on his tongue. Forever.

"Then I'm lucky beyond all reason."

Silence fell again. He breathed in and out, thinking, You idiot. This woman is here and she used the word love, about you, and why can't you just take yes for answer?

She said in a level voice, "What can I say to convince you that we should do this?"

He met her eyes. "I don't think there's anything you can say that'll make me not afraid."

She closed her eyes, shook her head, and started to turn away.

Her loose hair slid over the side of her face, and he remembered a moment during all the drama last night, when she'd used the curtain of her hair to disguise mouthing the words, What do you need?

And wasn't that what basically she'd said just now? What do you need?

Everything shifted sideways, and for the first time in months, maybe years (maybe ever) Cisco Ramon knew exactly what he needed.

He grabbed her elbow. "But you know what? I was scared last night, too. In the club. I was scared out of my mind."

She opened her eyes again.

"But you were there. We looked at each other and the minute I met your eyes, I knew that we were going to get out of this okay because you were right there with me, all the way."

She'd called him her second chance. To love, to be loved.

Not her second choice.

Her second chance.

"You're here," he said. "I'm afraid, but you're here. So I - I wanna try."

She caught her breath. A cautious, hopeful smile pulled at the edges of her mouth. "Try - ?"

"This," he confirmed. "Us. As long as you're with me."

"All the way," she told him, her hand coming up to curl into his jacket. "Just as scared. I promise."

He pulled her close. He could feel her shaking.

He said it, finally, the thing that had been living inside him for so long he didn't even know when it had hatched. "I love you."

She sniffed. "I love you." She reached up and held his face in her hands, glaring into his eyes, just as fierce as he'd ever seen her. "And something else: you're enough. You are. If you ever weren't enough for somebody, that's their problem, not yours. You're enough for me."

He rested his forehead against hers. "Keep saying that. One day I might not be afraid anymore."

"I'll say it every time you ask. Every time I say I love you, that's what I mean. You're enough."

Cisco turned his face into her hair. It was amazing how much steadier the ground underfoot was, when you had somebody to hold onto.

The city went to sleep around them. Stores rolled down their gates. The stoplights blinked over empty blacktop. Across the street, Jitters dimmed its lights and kicked out the last of the caffeine hounds. The fountain at the entrance to the park shut off.

"You cold?" he asked her.

"I don't want to go home," she said, burrowing into his arms. "I feel like I'll wake up. You know?"

Yeah, he did. He wrapped his jacket around her. "What if I come with you?"

She lifted her head to study his face. "That would be a good idea."

He smiled at her, and then because he hadn't yet, leaned in to kiss her.

Her hands tightened in his shirt, under his jacket, and she kissed him back. Her lips were chilled from the night air, and tasted like the honey-flavored chapstick she liked. Her mouth was warm and sweet.

Every time before, he had doven headfirst into the kiss, anxious, greedy, thinking, I have to take this while I can get it, before my good sense kicks in - it had been kissing with only the most impulsive, thoughtless part of him.

But he took his time, knowing every part of him was in it now. Everything. Heart, brain, soul, and yeah, libido. But, everything, because this wasn't just an impulse and it was totally, absolutely, not a mistake. This was the first of many. Hundreds. Thousands.

When they pulled apart long enough to breathe, she panted, "That was a good idea, too."

He said, "We're gonna be doing that again."

She smiled at him, and he knew that was the first of thousands, too. Thousands and thousands of smiles that Caitlin Snow would smile just for him. Not rare. Anything but rare. "Oh, yes, we are."

FINIS