Chapter Text
"It's a bird! It's a plane! Iiiiiiit's . . . SuperBaby!"
Jenna shrieked joyously as Cisco hefted her into the air over his head. She waved her arms and kicked her legs as he made zooming noises.
Joe looked on with the jaundiced eye of a man who'd raised one baby already. "She pukes on you, that's your fault," he said.
Cisco gave an exaggerated gasp. "She's not gonna puke on me!" But he brought her down again, propping her on his hip. "Are you? You wouldn't puke on your favorite Uncle Cisco, would you? Nuh-uh. Besitos!" he said, planting loud smooches on her fluffy curls. "Muchos besitos!" She squirmed and squealed again.
Caitlin smiled at them. "How are you doing?" she asked Cecile.
Cecile smiled too. "You know, I had Joanie when I was twenty-two," she said. "And I thought I was gonna die. In some ways, it's a lot easier this time around."
"Because you know what to expect?"
"That, and both Joe and I got parental leave, and we're not as worried about money as I was back then. We get to enjoy her a lot more than Ivan and I got to enjoy Joanie." She sighed and rubbed her eyes. "And then there are the times when I think I was out of my mind, having another baby at forty-five."
Joe added dryly, "Mostly those times are around three in the morning when Miss J won't stop screaming."
Iris made a face and Caitlin winced. Cecile laughed at them. "But it's good. Honestly."
"Hey, I meant to ask, did the city finally give in?" Cecile had gone back to work a few weeks before and had been doing battle with her office, trying to get a private, dedicated space to pump breast milk for Jenna.
"Yes! Amazing what an offhand mention of various lawsuits will do." Cecile smirked. "Got a room with a lock on it. I can pump in peace and get the hell back to work, and so can any other mothers in the office."
"I can't still believe the nerve of your bosses," Iris said. "Saying you should pump the milk for your baby in the bathroom."
"Girl, believe it. You'd think a DA's office would know better, but - " She spread her hands.
Caitlin asked, "Are you still having issues with blocked ducts?"
"No, that cleared right up with the cabbage leaves."
"Blocked - cabbage - what?" Barry said. "Do I want to know?"
Joe put his hand on Barry's shoulder. "No. Believe me. No. You'll find out soon enough."
Barry recoiled, and they all laughed. Barry's skittishness about the topic of pregnancy and babies had quickly become a Star Labs joke of choice.
Of course, meeting your full-grown daughter from the future - and figuring out how to fix her giant mistake - could mess with anybody's mind. Caitlin thought it might be a miracle if Iris and Barry had kids before Jenna was old enough to baby-sit them.
Iris laughed too, but she said, "Dad, stop. Not that soon."
Barry scowled playfully at all of them and kissed Iris's forehead. "Thanks. Nice to know someone has my back."
Caitlin looked across the cortex again, to where Cisco was prying his hair out of Jenna's questing fingers. He caught her eye and came over. "I see you eying this little dumpling," he said. "You want some baby time?"
"Iris?" Caitlin asked. "She's your sister."
"I'm good, I held her already," Iris said. "Go on."
Cisco shifted Jenna into Caitlin's arms. She braced the tiny feet on her own knees and steadied Jenna with one hand under her arm and the other against her diapered hip. "Hi," she crooned to the round little face. "Hello, darling girl. Did you have fun with Uncle Cisco?"
Jenna gave her a big, drooly, gummy smile and bounced a few times.
"Showing off?" Caitlin glanced at Cecile. "She's right on track with her core strength. She's holding herself up really well. All I'm doing is steadying her."
"That's what the pediatrician says. And she's a magpie. She'll grab for anything that catches - oh, there she goes."
Caitlin grunted as Jenna nabbed her pendant and tried to stuff it into her mouth. She tugged it out of baby fingers, wincing as the baby tugged and the chain ground against the back of her neck. "No, honey, that's not good to eat." She got it free. "Cisco, can you - "
"Yep," he said, and reached for the baby.
“No, the necklace.”
“Oh, okay.” He changed course and pulled the necklace off over her head. "Sorry," he added as it caught in her hair and she winced.
"It's all right. Better than Jenna chewing it."
"Wouldn't be the worst thing a baby of mine has put in her mouth," Joe said.
Iris, who had heard enough baby-Iris stories in the past four months to last her a lifetime, turned quickly to Caitlin. "So, hey, how is your mom doing?"
"Really good," Caitlin said, bouncing a squawking Jenna to distract her from the loss of her toy. "I talked with her last night and she said the last scan showed no signs of cancer cells."
Cecile held up a hand. "Whoa, what? Did I miss something?"
"My mother was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in July," Caitlin explained, pressing a kiss to Jenna’s forehead and breathing in her sweet baby smell. "I took some time off last month to stay with her while she had surgery to remove them."
Jenna was still squeaking, a grumpy edge to it now. Cecile said, “She’s about to do that naptime fuss. I’ll take her.”
Reluctantly, Caitlin passed her the baby. Cecile eased Jenna against her chest and started gently twisting the chair from side to side. “But they got it all?" she asked Caitlin.
"Mmm. The surgery got most of it and the chemo seems to be taking care of the rest."
"Good," Cecile said. Her daughter had dropped her head onto her shoulder, blinking long, slow blinks. Her hands were fisted in Cecile’s shirt. "I can't imagine losing my mom at my age, much less yours."
"We haven't always gotten along, but I don't think I'm ready to lose her, either."
“Nobody’s ever ready to lose a parent,” Iris said, glancing at Barry. He gave her a little smile back, tinged with sadness.
Cecile eyed Caitlin beadily. “I realize who I'm talking to, but you know I have to ask: Have you gotten checked out lately?”
Caitlin watched Jenna fall asleep. "Don't worry, Cecile, I'm on it."
She was glad Cecile couldn't read minds anymore. That might lead to a big group discussion that she wasn't ready to have yet - at least, not until she talked to Cisco.
Cisco pulled open a small breach, tossed his goggles through, and immediately pulled open another one at the end of the table. The goggles flew out and clattered across the surface. He checked his computer, huffed, and picked the goggles up to throw them again.
The door creaked and Caitlin said, “Cisco? What are you doing?”
“Hey,” he said, catching the goggles as they flew out the second breach again. “Testing something.”
“Your breaching?”
“No,” he said, checking his computer again. “That’s fine. I’m testing my goggles.”
“For what?”
“So, you know how our comms hiccup when we go through a breach?”
“Yes,” she said, sitting off to one side. “Your bio-stats can go flat for up to ten seconds. I hate it.”
“Not a fan myself,” he said, swiveling his chair to face her. “So I’m trying to figure out what’s causing it.”
She tilted her head. “I always thought it was due to going through nil-space in between the in-breach and the out-breach. I mean, it’s technically nowhere, so the receiver can’t find the comms.”
He pointed at her. “You’d think so, right? And that’s why I’ve let it go on this long. But the reconnection takes longer than it should. I’m theorizing that it’s the ambient radiation of the breaches themselves, interfering.”
She pursed her lips. “Interesting. Any ideas about how to shield for that?”
“Working on it.” He glanced at the time. “You out of here?”
“Not exactly,” she said. “Actually, I was wondering if we could go to Jitters together.”
“Us?”
She nodded. “I have something I want to talk to you about."
"Are you buying?" he teased.
Normally, she would start bickering with him that she'd bought the last time, and he'd gotten a scone and a sandwich besides his coffee (true; in his defense he'd just come off a fight so he'd been starving), so really it was his turn. But she simply said, "I can."
He realized that she had her hands woven together, flexing and twisting her fingers like she only did when she was nervous. Nervous? About talking to him?
"Okay," he said after a moment. "Let me run one more trial and shut everything down?”
She nodded and hooked her heels on the stool's foot bar, waiting. He threw the goggles one last time, caught them as they came through, and glanced at his computer. Yeah, seven-point-five seconds. That was a long time in the heat of battle. He frowned at the screen, then saved the file and put the computer to sleep. He checked his various machines, put the goggles away on the mannequin with his Vibe suit, and hit the lights.
“Ready?” she asked, getting to her feet.
“Yep.” He opened up a breach and she hopped through, landing in a secluded alley about five minutes from Jitters, which Cisco used as a landing point every time he needed to get downtown in a hurry. Or just felt lazy. Which was often.
They walked the rest of the way, Cisco filling up the space between them with chatter about nothing.
She was very quiet. She'd been pretty quiet for the past month, ever since getting back from her stay with her mom. Yeesh. Caitlin still had a rocky relationship with her mom, but you talk about scares right there. But Dr. T was doing okay. Wasn’t that what she’d said earlier today?
Was Caitlin doing okay?
She got in line to order the drinks and he claimed a table. When she came back, he waited for her to speak. But she just played with her bracelet, twisting her fingers in it until the tips turned purple, and then letting go.
Their names got called and she jumped up to grab their drinks. When she came back, he took his macchiato from her and set it down, waiting until she'd settled down with her latte.
"So," he said, and she looked up. He looked her in the eyes. "Spill. What's going on?"
She took a breath and let it out. "You know today, when we were talking about my mom, and Cecile said I should get checked out?”
“Hey,” he said. “You know she doesn’t really think you’re going to neglect your health, right? She’s just momming you. She’s got all sorts of extra mom energy right now. It’s slopping over onto everyone.”
“No, I know,” she said. “And I actually kind of like it when she moms me. I didn't say it today, but I already got checked out. Before I left to stay with my mother, in fact. And my doctor called me back a couple of days after I got back.”
His stomach went rigid. He dropped his spoon with a clink. "Jesus, Caitlin, do you have - "
"No! I'm fine. She did a full exam, and found no evidence of cancer. But given my family history - I never told you, but my grandmother had ovarian cancer, and we think my great-grandmother died of it, although according to my mother, nobody would ever say definitively what she had. I mean, she died in 1945, so, you know, people didn't really talk about cancer, and cancers of the reproductive system were particularly - "
He put his hand over hers. "Hey. Focus. What did your doctor say?"
She breathed. "Anyway," she said. "Anyway, I discussed this family history with her, and she recommends that I get my ovaries removed before I turn thirty-five."
"Whoa."
"Yes. Maybe also my fallopian tubes.”
"That's a pretty big step for just-in-case, isn't it?"
"My family history triples my chances of developing ovarian cancer at some point in my lifetime."
And she'd been exposed to the particle accelerator explosion, and they were still finding all the little bombs that had left behind. What if one of them was a heightened risk of cancer? Especially cancers you were already genetically predisposed to. It made his mama's harping to get a screening for lung cancer a little more reasonable. “But, wait,” he said as something occurred to him. “I know you haven’t been able to access Frost since DeVoe, but if you did, wouldn't your accelerated healing factor just, like, take care of it?” Might lend some urgency to their ongoing Frost-retrieval project.
But she shook her head. “The thing about cancer is that it's not an invading pathogen. It's the body's own cells, not working the way they should. So Frost’s hyper metabolism might kill them, but it could just as easily - ”
“Go to their side,” he finished, picturing a hyper-metabolized tumor, growing at the same pace that Caitlin healed up when she let her frost powers out. “Oh, that could be ugly.”
“It really could. You can see it's not a theory I'm eager to try out on myself.”
He cringed at the thought. "So you gonna do it, then? Get those bad ovaries taken out?"
She nodded firmly. "One thing I've learned is that it's best to do something about the bomb before it explodes."
"Good plan," he said, taking a sip of his coffee.
“I’ve got a couple of years, though. I’ve got time.” She fiddled with her spoon. “S-so. I want to have a baby.”
It was a good thing he'd swallowed, because otherwise he might have done the classic spit-take and gotten coffee all over her silky blouse. “You?”
“Why are you shocked by that?”
“I never thought of you as a kid person.” But he thought of her cuddling Jenna today and wondered if he’d just never noticed.
“I know I'm not exactly the motherly type, but I always wanted kids. Just not before I did everything else I wanted to do. I’ve seen too many women have to choose between their pursuit of science and having children. My early thirties was always the plan. I thought I’d be established enough in my career by then to start a family.” Her face saddened. “But you know. Life happened.”
“Yeah. It has a way of doing that.” They were quiet together before he stirred. “So. What’s the plan? I know you have one. You gonna go to the sperm bank or something?
“I really think I’d rather have a known donor. Which. Um." She started twisting her fingers again. "Is what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Wait. What?”
"Cisco," she said. "Will you be my sperm donor?"
"Me?"
She nodded.
"You want a baby, and you want me to help."
"Basically," she said. "Yes.”
“Why me?”
“You’re smart,” she said. “You’re good-looking. And you’re kind and funny and - well, you’re the best man I know. I’d be beyond lucky to have a baby as wonderful as you are.”
He felt himself flush, and looked down into his coffee. "That's a big ask, Caitlin. That's. Shit. That's a gargantuan ask."
"I know. I've been thinking it over for a month. I do understand if you don't want to do it.”
“Look, I’m not saying no,” he said. “I just - I don’t know. Can you give me some time to think about it?”
“Oh! Yes. Of course. All the time you need.”
“Not all the time,” he said. “I mean, you’ve got a ticking clock. That’s the whole point.”
“It’s not ticking that loud yet,” she said. “Just let me know. Whenever.”
“Okay,” he said. “Yeah. I will.”
They sat in awkward silence for a few moments. Cisco drank his coffee, the words I want to have a baby thudding in his brain.
He looked up and Caitlin gave her tightest, most dredged-up smile. "So,” she said, voice bright almost to the point of shrill. “Let’s talk about something else.”
“Yes,” he said. “Please.”
“You had a date last night, right? How did that go?”
Wow. She'd just gotten done asking to borrow a cup of jizz, and she wanted to hear about his love life?
Actually, he did kind of want to tell her. “Not great.”
“Uh-oh, what happened?”
“Okay,” he said. “Okay, so you’ve read my profile, right? I think I’m very clear. Crazy job, just out of a relationship, not really up for serious, right? Just want to have some fun, go on some dates, have some sex. ”
“Very clear,” Caitlin said. She’d edited it.
“So I’m at the coffee shop, talking with Brian, and I shit you not, he busts out with, ‘well, I intend to get married before I’m thirty.’”
She frowned. “Well, that’s not - how old is he?”
“Twenty-eight,” Cisco said grimly.
“Oh,” Caitlin said, eyes going wide.
“So, yeah, I took my coffee to go.”
She scrunched her face. “I’m sorry.”
He sighed. “You know, I was ready to go the distance with Cynthia. I was all in. Maybe I should be open to something more serious.”
“But that was with her,” she said gently. “And you’re still healing from that breakup. A casual relationship for fun and companionship and, yes, sex is a perfectly reasonable thing to want right now.”
He smiled at her. “I’m actually thinking about dropping by 19 this week.”
He almost bit his tongue. He hadn’t meant to let that slip. But he hadn’t told anyone yet, and he’d been talking to Caitlin a lot about his complicated breakup feelings.
She put her mug down on the saucer, very slowly. “To see Cynthia?”
He nodded. “You think that’s a good idea?”
“Depends on what it’s for. Are you - I mean. Do you want to try again with her?”
He thought that over. “No,” he said slowly. “No. I don’t. I mean, the reasons we broke up haven’t gone away. But I miss talking to her. You know? One of the nice things about being with her was, I got a perspective on my own powers. I didn’t feel so alone.”
"I know," she said. "You really liked that."
“I really did.” He slurped coffee. “And, anyway, I have a question for her.”
Caitlin looked up, eyes wide.
“No!” he said. “Not your thing. I promise. This -” He waved between them. “Stays between us.”
“It doesn’t have to,” Caitlin said, but her eyes were still wide. “I mean, I’ve been talking to Iris about it. It’s a big decision. You should be able to talk to someone you trust.”
“Thanks,” he said. “But it might be a little weird to talk to my ex-girlfriend about the possibility of being your sperm donor. So, I’ll skip that. My question for her is multiverse related. Pretty much a breachers-only question.”
“Okay,” she said. “Well, I think you should go, then. Maybe it’ll help to see her. To work out how you really feel.”
“Maybe it will. Maybe I can finally have that rebound.”
“Well, you know one thing,” she said. “It’s very unlikely that your rebound will be a homicidal megalomaniac from another dimension.”
He held out his fist for her bump. “Long, loud word on that.”
Cisco offered to breach her home, but she waved it off. “It’s a nice evening,” she said. “And it's barely a block. I’d like to walk.”
“Okay,” he said cheerfully. “See you tomorrow?”
“Mhm,” she said, and started off down the street. When she turned the corner, she pulled out her phone and texted Iris.
I asked him
The answer came almost right away. Well????
He asked for some time to think it over
Which makes sense
Right. It’s a big decision. It’s totally fair to ask for some time
Are you freaking out?
No.
Her phone rang, and when she answered it, Iris said in her ear, “Are you freaking out?”
“A little,” she admitted. “What if he says no?”
Iris's voice was calm and matter-of-fact in her ear. “Then you find somebody else.”
“I don’t want anybody else,” she said.
She could almost see Iris raising her brows at the other end of the phone line.
“I mean,” she said. “I really have my heart set on having a known donor, and it’s not like my social circle is all that large.”
“I get that, but you know, it's not like the sperm bank would hand you a random cup and point you at the door. They've got more menu options than a Starbucks. You can order yourself exactly the kind of DNA you want.”
“It would feel so weird having a stranger’s baby,” she said.
“It wouldn’t be a stranger’s baby,” Iris said. “It would be yours.”
“Yeah, I guess that’s true.” She glanced up at the crosswalk light before her building. “But still.”
“I know, I know. You’re probably only going to get the one. You should be able to do as close to ideal as you can.”
Which meant Cisco. “What if he’s weirded out?” She let herself in the side entrance and paused at her mailbox. Nothing but a catalog. She dropped it in the trash.
“Have you looked at our lives lately? Asking for a sperm donation isn’t exactly a clear winner in the weirdness sweepstakes. Wait - “ Her voice sounded further away, as if she’d moved the phone away from her mouth. “Babe, 4th and Main. Okay, I’m back.”
She was running the comms for Barry while he patrolled. “Is it busy out there?” Caitlin asked, getting on the elevator.
“Please, it’s a Tuesday night. I’m keeping an eye on the scanner, taking notes for a story, talking to you, and watching Scandal on Cisco’s monitor.”
Caitlin pictured Cisco’s face if he found that out and giggled. “Which season?”
“One. Starting all over again.”
She opened her own front door and locked it behind her, kicking her shoes off and setting her purse and keys on the shelf just inside her foyer. “Well, I’m about to start dinner, so unless you like the sound of me eating in your ear, I’ll let you go.”
“Gross. Thanks. Have a good night.”
“You too.”
“Hey, Caitlin.”
“Hmm?”
“Don’t freak out, okay? Things will work out one way or another. Even if he doesn’t want to be your known donor, Cisco will still be Uncle Cisco and he’ll be amazing.”
“He will, won’t he?”
“He will. See you tomorrow.”
“See you tomorrow,” Caitlin echoed, and ended the call.
She rummaged in her freezer, pulling out a frozen meal that she stuck in the microwave. Every time she got a full day off, she promised herself she was going to cook a set of healthy meals to last until her next day off. She really needed to start eating better, in preparation for getting pregnant. But so far, it hadn't happened.
She left the microwave humming away to itself and went to her bedroom to change. On the way back, she paused in the door of her second bedroom. It was the smaller one and currently held a sofa that folded out into a bed, some neatly organized bookshelves, and her desk with its somewhat dusty computer. Home office/guest room was the use she’d intended for it when she’d moved in. But that had been then, and this was now.
Her therapist had told her to envision her desired outcome, which sounded a little The Secret to Caitlin. But then, she'd just asked a man who could jump between dimensions to be her sperm donor, so what did she know.
She shut her eyes and pictured the room, repainted. Mint green, maybe, or yellow. Sheer curtains at the window, to soften the afternoon light. A crib in the corner, a changing table. A rocking chair, a bookshelf.
And a baby, snuggled trustingly against her chest, staring up at her with big dark eyes from under a cap of black curls.
She could almost feel the soft weight in her arms.
The microwave dinged and her eyes flew open. There was no nursery, no curtains, no soft-colored walls. No baby. Just her desk and the sofa and the bookshelves.
She let out her breath. Of course there wasn’t. Before any of that happened, Cisco had to give her an answer, and she had to proceed from there.
Please let him say yes, she thought. Please.