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“It’s time,” Cisco said, knowing he’d have to let go, but he couldn’t even look.
His heart was pounding and his fingers were shaking so bad it was a wonder he hasn’t already lost grip. The wind around the both of them was wild and deafening, and Cisco only hoped she’d heard him, because there was no way he’d be able to say it again.
Her hold tightened, squeezing his fingers, cutting off his blood flow as his knuckles went white, and, yeah, Barry had told him about that erased timeline when he had two amputated hands, but, really, he’d make the choice in a second if it meant it somehow kept her alive.
He’d already had to do this once, years ago with his best friend. Had to shut him up in a death trap, and hear him scream in agony knowing he’d done that, that he’d put him there, that he’d killed Ronnie Raymond, not Dr. Wells or the blast or the radiation.
And then, later, no. Not death, a fate much worse.
He knew he couldn’t live with himself if he did it again. Not with her. Not Caitlin. He’d rather...
The chopper hit more turbulence, and they both braced against it, hearts in their throats.
They were alone. Nobody to help, to guarantee safety, everyone’s lives in their hands.
“You have to believe I can do it,” She’d told him back when they were buckled in, holding on for dear life, going over the plan.
“But what if I drop you?” he snapped back. “What if you slip?”
Her lip trembled, keeping her head upright, and stared straight ahead. “I won’t.”
“You don’t know that!”
“I won’t. The plan—“
The plan, the plan that damn plan that Barry had told them was the only way.
The only way.
“I don’t give a damn about the plan,” he had snarled, and Caitlin bristled in her seat. He remembered the sweat dripping down his back, and the stubborn way his jaw clenched, refusing to look to his right and see her go all steely.
“You don’t tell me what I’m not capable of!”
“This isn’t about you,"
he bit back.“Dammit, Caitlin. You’re the strongest, smartest, fiercest meta I know. You think I don’t know that? That I don’t understand how talented you are?”
He had turned, finally, and let himself drink her in, how her head was turned to the side, mouth dropped open with shock, a frown creasing lines over her face and all he wanted to do was reach forward and smooth them out. Kiss her lips and her skin and hold her in his arms to have for as long as she’d let him, and he’d pick eternity, but knew deep down she’d choose never.
“I’m the one whose compromised,” he said after the quiet, and his voice broke. He licked his lips and tasted the salt of his tears. “I can’t do this. I can’t—” he choked.
The unclick of the seatbelt was definitive, and Cisco drew a sharp breath in through his nose. Her legs wobbled as she stumbled across the side, jutting a hand out against the wall to steady herself, until she was bent down, knees sunken to the hard floor, hands on his knees, looking up imploring.
“Cisco,” she had said. “You have to. It’s too late now, Gideon is set to shut off in twelve minutes, and everyone else got hurt. There’s no one else. You’re going to lower me out the plane, and open a breach, 200 feet above Jitters.
I’ll fall into it, and come out fifty feet below, landing on my ice slide until I can manage deceleration. And then you’ll breach out and handle the helicopter crash by the river. We save Central City or we—”
And maybe it was the adrenaline rushing through his veins, or the altitude, hundreds of feet in the air, just above their city’s skyline. Or maybe it was the honesty in her beautiful eyes, the soft roundness of her face and the slight digging of her nails into his leather Vibe pants.
Or maybe it was because he was terrified, shaken to the core at the prospect of dying without ever letting her know, of him not saying the words for the first time, when he’s sober and awake and in front of her, for once. But it was none of those things, it was none and he knew it.
He lurched forward, grabbing her face with his hands and kissed her until he couldn’t anymore, too exhausted, too afraid, too overwhelmed with exactly how much effort this took every bone of his body to resist for every second of every day since that one time he walked into Star Labs, set down her coffee and received one of her dazzling, perfect smiles, realizing,
this thing, this unflappable thing thumping wildly in the corner of my chest for you, it’s love.
Her fingers were still digging hard into his pants, until one arm slid up his chest, slinking around his shoulders and pulling at the hair at the nape of his neck until she was panting against his mouth.
He remembered how she had reeled back on her heels, wiping her mouth, wide eyed, but curious. And maybe something else, like hope or peace, but Cisco was probably imagining those, just like he’d been imagining that he could carry on and ignore the fire burning he’d been fuelling
with silly fantasies and what ifs since the day after they met.
But that was then, both startled by the alarm beeping, telling them they had six minutes left, and something settled in his stomach like a horrifically violent flu.
Now, there was no time for unfinished conversations. Or interrupted inappropriate kissing.
They were free falling and the helicopter was going to crash, pilotless, aimlessly hurdling at an alarming speed into the river, and if he waits too long then they’d fall with it, crash into the freezing ocean and die, him, from cold, her, impact, and that wasn’t much better, was it? Except for the fact that they’d be together until the end then, and he wouldn’t spend his last moments in fear, because at least they were still clinging to each other, and maybe Cisco’s hand would brush the hair flapping in the wind to see her face, and he’d promise himself that would be enough, because it always had been, before.
But. No.
Caitlin rattled his hold on her, dangling out of the helicopter, her teeth gritted, eyes glowing in that eerie white that was scary and cold. And they always say that the eyes are the window to the soul, but Cisco knows hers, has felt hers just in the years of them existing in the same space for so long and he knows, he’s certain there’s no way her soul is nothing less than that comforting warmth of being wrapped up in a cozy blanket, being tucked into bed by the one you love.
“Cisco, let me go.”
The words should’ve been lost in the loud sound warping in his ears that the chopper was making but he heard them, and it wasn’t lost on him either that this was not the first time she’s said this to him.
But last time too, she had left him, and he hadn’t seen her again for some time after, so maybe that was why he screamed it, the frantic need pushing his only instincts as he forced himself to disobey all others. So he screamed that he loved her and he saw the way she smiled somehow, despite all this craziness, and so she must’ve heard him too when she squeezed him one last time before he loosened his grasp, her fingers slipping out of his, and Cisco let her fall limp.
He turned his head to the side, squeezing his eyes closed. Unable to look. Unable to see if she’d made it or if she missed and he was going to end up Gwen Stacey-ing the girl he loved.
But she said it. Let Me Go.
So he had.