(The Flash) Frozen Flashpoint: Chapter 28 - Acceptance

Chapter 28 - Acceptance

Summary: S.T.A.R. Labs is tense. Marlize's discovery brings awful consequences. And what is DeVoe planning?!

Caitlin was in her lab working on analyzing ways to disable the enhancing drug that DeVoe would try to use.

Lyra was sitting next to her and looking through some data herself. Caitlin felt a little bad that her daughter was doing it just to spend some time with her.

The last couple of days were tense. There was an apprehensive atmosphere between everyone since her confrontation with Marlize DeVoe.

All of them thought it was a mistake, especially Harry who was angry at her for the amount of information she shared with Marlize, which probably DeVoe now knew as well.

Barry of course tried to ease her mind and calm everyone down, but even Cisco was doubtful anything good would come out of that conversation. Actually, he looked like he was getting ready for the worst news every day now.

And if Harry was right and Marlize did tell DeVoe everything, it won't take him long to get his hands on the rest of the information like who Lyra is, and that could cause a lot of trouble. If her daughter is hurt because she chose to trust the wrong person, Caitlin will never be able to forgive herself.

So Caitlin spent most of the past two days in her lab, working to distract herself. She was so focused on her work that she almost missed the notification coming from her phone.

Caitlin turned on the screen to see a number she didn't recognize and wasn't saved on her device. Opening the message warily, she saw it was a location. Before she could question it, her phone began ringing, drawing even Lyra's attention to it.

Caitlin frowned and answered the call on speakerphone so Lyra could hear it too and run to tell Barry if needed. Caitlin used her most professional voice to ask, "Hello?"

For a long moment, all Caitlin could hear was heavy breathing. She was about to hang up when a familiar voice called out, "Ca...Cai...Caitlin."

Caitlin's eyes were wide, and she asked quickly, "Marlize, is that you?"

Instead, the answer she got back was words spoken between heavy pants, "H...Help. C...Cl...Clifford... Poison."

Caitlin's heart skipped a beat. DeVoe poisoned his wife?! Lyra didn't mention anything about that!

Turning her head toward the future teen, she too seemed to be in shock. Quickly putting that aside, Caitlin pulled up the location again and was about to tell Lyra to get Barry so he could run over and save Marlize, but instead she was greeted by a blue and orange streak of lightning leaving the room.

Caitlin began pulling out her poisoning kit when Lyra in a flash of lightning returned with Marlize DeVoe in her arms.

The woman looked pale and cold, she was shaking, and there was blood dripping down her nose.

Caitlin pointed toward the bed in the corner of the room and said in a firm voice, "On the bed."

Lyra was quick to obey and laid the shaking woman on the bed. Caitlin was at her side within a moment and injected her with an agent that would stall the poison. She switched syringes to draw some of Marlize's blood for analysis.

She was just about to look into the microscope after letting the computer start its own analysis when another streak of lightning, this one orange, entered the room.

Barry stopped and looked at Caitlin frantically. "Cait, are you okay?"

Caitlin was confused for a moment until she finally noticed the alarms sounding around the lab. She had such tunnel vision to save Marlize that her mind completely blocked out the high-pitched sound of the alarm.

Barry's eyes scanned the room and froze when he noticed the woman on the bed. His head snapped toward Caitlin, and he asked, "What the hell is going on?"

Caitlin's computer pinged, causing her attention to immediately return to it while she answered Barry, "DeVoe poisoned her."

Barry gaped at her, while Caitlin kept reading the formulas on the screen. Caitlin relaxed slightly when she saw that the poison used on Marlize was a rather common one. DeVoe probably hoped that whoever found her would assume it was some common criminal that killed her. Which meant a common antidote would work as well.

Barry just kept standing there, shocked, so in her stressful mindset she snapped at him, "Either go turn the damn alarm off or help me with the antidote, don't just stand there!"

Barry was snapped out of his daze. He quickly pulled his phone out and a moment later the alarm was off, the only sounds now filling the room were the heavy breathing of Marlize and the vials Caitlin kept moving around.

Barry was at her side a moment later. He used his speed to scan the same information she had and began helping her.

A couple of minutes later, Marlize began to shake again, blood began flowing down from her nose in larger amounts than before.

Caitlin ran around her table making final preparations for the antidote to be administered. Lyra was forced to hold Marlize down to the bed so she wouldn't shake herself off of it.

Caitlin began to load a syringe with a vial of the antidote while screaming, "Barry, help Lyra hold her down. I need her arm pinned so I can inject the antidote."

Barry nodded and immediately went to follow her orders. He held down her left side as tightly as he could so Caitlin's injection went as smoothly as possible.

After the antidote was in her system, all three of them held their breath for what felt like forever before Marlize stopped shaking and the blood stopped pouring from her nose.

The dark-haired woman seemed to be asleep at the moment and Caitlin couldn't fault her, so she just let her be. She turned to Barry with a sheepish smile and said softly, "Sorry for snapping like that, it's just all the stress..."

Barry stopped her by pulling Caitlin into a tight hug and gently reassuring her, "It's okay, I get it. The last two days were tense for everyone, mostly for you. At least now we'll get some answers."

Caitlin turned her head without pulling from the hug, her eyes locking on the form of Marlize, and she found herself saying, "I guess so."

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Barry sat next to Caitlin with Lyra sitting on her other side, all of them were in Caitlin's lab waiting for Marlize to wake up.

As time passed, Caitlin's worries kept growing. Maybe she told DeVoe everything Caitlin had said to her and DeVoe decided he had no more use for his wife, so he chose to kill her. And if that was the case, what could Caitlin do to fix her mistake?

Her depressing thoughts were cut when Frost's voice spoke to her from the back of her mind, 'Cait, be reasonable, this doesn't make any sense. If this brains guy was so smart, he would have used her to spy on us instead. That's what we should look out for.'

Frost was right. Caitlin couldn't allow any state the woman would be in to shadow her judgment. If there was even the smallest chance that the woman was sent here as a spy, they would have to lock her up as long as they had the chance to deny any resources to DeVoe.

Her thoughts came to a halt when a sound from the bed in front of them snapped all her attention to the woman on it.

Marlize opened her eyes and looked around for a moment, only relaxing after a long moment of staring around the room.

When her eyes cleared and she saw Caitlin walking toward her, she immediately started crying while trying to speak between sobs, "Yo...You are right. C...Cli...Clifford is a mo...monster."

Caitlin ran to comfort the distraught woman. "Hey, it's okay. You're away from him. Just calm down and tell us what happened."

While Caitlin felt sympathy for the woman and wanted to help her, she kept her eyes open to look out for any signs all of this was some kind of an act to make them lower their guard around the woman.

When Marlize finally calmed down, she looked down in shame. "I looked into what you said, and you were right. My husband intends to just destroy everything before using his mind to recreate evolution in his own image. And still, in some ways after what you said, I find it more merciful than the original plan."

Caitlin could understand that there was something sickening about the thought that everyone stays alive only to not even recognize the people they love most and die in suffering not long after.

Caitlin nodded slowly and asked as gently as she could, "Is this why he poisoned you?"

Marlize began to shake again while shaking her head slowly. Caitlin had to tighten her hold on Marlize's arm to bring her back to the present.

The dark-haired woman looked at Caitlin with tearful eyes. "He felt I went out of his control because I refused to follow his last order. He became paranoid, afraid that I would betray him. He said he'd rather I be dead than opposing him."

Caitlin was shocked. She knew that man was a monster, but she thought he would at least treat his own wife with some degree of care if not respect. Apparently, she was wrong. After a deep breath, Caitlin asked, "So he just decided to poison you and did it in the span of one day?"

If anything, Marlize looked even more troubled by that question, but she did answer after a few calming breaths. "No. He was already planning it. Apparently, he calculated that once I learned the true scope of his plans, I would betray him. In the original plan, one of the bus metas he meant for you to create would have had the ability to create some kind of love potion with his tears. He would have used it to keep me meek and loyal to him. When that option went away, he prepared a few plans to kill me."

Caitlin looked appalled and scared herself—a love potion could be really damn dangerous in the wrong hands. She took a second to imagine someone like that creepy meta DeVoe employed getting his hands on it and her skin began to crawl.

Nonetheless, Caitlin looked deep into Marlize's eyes and could see only honesty and fear in them. That was the moment Caitlin chose to believe Marlize was here to help and to escape what was already becoming an abusive relationship.

Caitlin gave her a soft smile and said reassuringly, "Well, we're lucky he went with the poison; it gave us a chance to save you."

Marlize nodded before slumping in the bed, all the tension leaving her body in a flow as she said in a grateful tone without raising her eyes to meet theirs, "Thank you. I know I didn't give any reason to trust me, and from what you knew you would have rather let me die..."

Caitlin was surprised when Barry was the one to cut Marlize off. "Nothing like that. We're heroes; we're not going to let someone die when we can help. And we're not going to blame you for helping someone you love while he was lying to you."

Marlize blinked twice at him, as if she saw him for the first time, before replying with a small smile on her face, "Thank you, Mr. Allen. It is very kind of you."

Barry shook his head with a smile and said in his usual chipper tone, "You can call me Barry. My fiancée seemed to consider you a friend; I would like to do the same."

Marlize's eyes widened and she looked at Caitlin who just chuckled and responded while shrugging, "What can I say? It was friendship at first sight."

Cheesy? Yes. But it made the other woman laugh.

There was a moment of comfortable silence before Marlize spoke again in a hesitant voice, "Is your offer to join STAR Labs still on the table?"

Caitlin glanced at Barry who nodded with a smile on his face. Caitlin smiled too and offered Marlize her hand. "Welcome to the team. There aren't many of us, but the ones who are here are unique."

Marlize smiled widely and replied, "I'm sure we all are."

Caitlin noticed that Lyra stayed quiet and out of sight for the entire time and made a note to herself to talk with the future teen at the first chance she had.

Barry smiled and turned to leave the room before saying, "Well, me and Cisco were working on guarding the binding agent with Carla, so I need to go back there."

Marlize jumped from her bed and screamed, "No!"

Barry spun in his place to look at Marlize with wide eyes, but before he could even ask, Marlize spoke in a hurry, "Clifford knew you would focus on that, so he is planning to attack and take over Central City with his meta-army instead and get the agent for the formula once the city is under his control."

Caitlin frowned and said the obvious, "He can't survive much longer without the drug."

Marlize nodded with a pale face, and what she said next made both Caitlin and Barry freeze in terror: "That is why he plans to attack this Sunday evening."