caitlin snow + jessica jones
no warnings | log, complete
Caitlin had woken up that morning with a mixture of relief, pleasure, and absolute and unavoidable sadness. She’d been sort of aware when Barry was kidnapped that it was going on, but being effectively ‘asleep’ while Killer Frost held the reigns meant she hadn’t experienced how it crushed her right down to her core until she’d woken up. But that hadn’t been the only punch to her gut that morning. Now apparently she had a dossier to look at? She had been confused about why Thea had picked her - it wasn’t like she was that sort of person. She didn’t work in intel. Caitlin wasn’t a good liar. She just wasn’t that type of person.
It wasn’t until she started thumbing through the file on her tablet until she came to the crushing realization of why Thea had picked her. It only took Caitlin a few moments to toss on an outfit and (pending a short look in the mirror and a bit of fiddling with her once-again-brown hair) make her way out of her apartment and start off towards the main Sadler Headquarters. Jessica wasn’t someone she’d guess was an early riser, but she also knew that Jessica did her job so she figured she might be able to catch her there even if it was early in the work day.
Normally she would have walked, since it was finally starting to get nice out again - but she wanted to get there as quickly as she could so a short cab ride later she found herself already in the elevator and headed towards Investigations. As soon as the elevator dinged she practically darted out of it and started making her way through the offices and cubicles until she found Jessica standing in the breakroom. “Thought I’d come and chat with you about the… paperwork.” She said, a clear bit of hesitance on her face as she looked at the other woman.
Paperwork and case files were a necessary evil in Jessica’s line of work. As boring as they could be to skim through, they often ended up providing the vital keys needed to solve a case or at the very least, point Jessica in the direction needed to solve the case. In this instance, neither was a viable explanation as to why Jessica Jones had a dossier about a certain person and their said abilities. Well, she knew it was technically a “no brainer” as to why she had it on her desk. She was supposed to be looking it over for any clues as to the person’s identity being known by those that really shouldn’t have the information.
Honestly? Jessica was just relieved when she opened the file, skimmed the documents, and came to the conclusion that it wasn’t about her within the first sentence. Back home, people with abilities were all the rage, but here? It was a best kept secret...at least from other, dangerous types of corporations. Or at least hella suspicious ones. Unfortunately, Jessica did know who this person was that the file referenced and that was a bad thing...in a way. It didn’t seem like they had a connection to the good doctor just yet. Regardless, Jessica found she needed a drink to deal with the fact that they had a file on the cold savior she’d heard so much about.
She was in the process of pouring the remnants of a whiskey bottle into her coffee when (surprise, surprise) Dr. Snow appeared at the door, looking somewhat frazzled and, Jessica noted, with brown hair again. Of course she wanted to chat about the paperwork. Jessica had no doubt she had a mountain of things to say on what that file contained. The PI held out the bottle towards the doctor instead of finishing pouring it into her coffee.
“I was wondering when you’d show up,” she replied, smirking slightly. “You’ll probably need a few sips of this more than I will.”
Caitlin wasn’t a prude by any means when it came to drinking - but she generally wasn’t the sort of person to drink at work. But right now? This wasn’t exactly normal and right now? Caitlin was having a bigger crises than she’d possibly ever had in her life - well, outside of losing Ronnie and the moments immediately after she sort of… came to during all of the Salivar things. But this was easily a close third. Top five minimally. And you know, normally she wouldn’t do this but… Caitlin gladly took the bottle from Jessica and deftly poured a little into the coffee that she held - taking a little swig before she handed it back. “If you tell anyone I was drinking this early, I’ll turn your closet into an icicle.” She joked - mostly joked. She was beginning to have a little control over her powers when she didn’t let Frost completely take over and their relationship was getting more symbiotic. It was good for both for them, she even had to sort of… thank Frost for… giving her time to just deal with Barry’s kidnapping in the background. That had almost been kind of her other half.
But right now, she was glad she held the reins. Frost didn’t need to be dealing with this, and she certainly didn’t need to be the one with any visibility right now.
“It doesn’t…” She took a sip of her whiskey laden coffee and grimaced softly - she wasn’t used to it. It wasn’t her style, but Caitlin was human enough to know that she was probably better with a little liquid courage right now. Everyone had their breaking point after all and it… might even help her keep Frost at bay. Something that she really did think was truly important. “...seem like they have any idea that Frost and Snow are the same person.” She noted, taking a few steps into Jessica’s space and leaning against the desk as she looked over at the other woman. “But they do seem to know it was her on Mars when she killed those guards.” Caitlin knew that there was no way to 100% separate her and Frost, she also knew it wasn’t like she was entirely blameless - but when it came to Frost’s ability to kill when necessary, Caitlin tended towards separating them out even more.
When Caitlin accepted the bottle of whiskey and added a little bit to her coffee before handing it back to Jessica, the other woman found herself mildly amused and surprised. No, she knew from the parties and Caitlin’s killer eggnog recipe that the woman was not a prude when it came drinking and alcohol she didn’t peg her as someone who drank before five and/or at work. Still, Jessica supposed having a file on you and your “significant” other would be quite stressful and that was probably putting it very lightly. As it was Jessica was grateful there was not a file about her...not like it would have stopped her from having a drink anyway. She was the definition of a high functioning alcoholic.
Jessica took the bottle back and finished it off in her own cup before tossing it in the trash. “Making it into an icicle might be an improvement actually,” Jessica countered, shrugging her shoulders and took a sip from her coffee cup. God, who could actually drink coffee without whiskey in it? Jessica wasn’t going to tell anyone about Caitlin having a drink before 5 and at work. She didn’t care enough really. It was amusing though and Jessica was enjoying the moment even if what led to it was not good.
“No. They don’t seem to know you two are literally one and the same person. Well, I mean physically sharing the same body. Your personalities are obvious different,” Jessica replied. “Which is good, but yeah, they know it was her on Mars and that is hella bad. It makes it harder for missions.” Which Jessica figured Caitlin was already aware of.
Caitlin just sort of watched as Jessica finished off the bottle - nothing would have phased her right now. And it wasn’t like she wasn’t used to it from Jessica, though from what she knew of Jessica’s life - even she could understand why the other woman drank. It wasn’t like it wasn’t tempting to numb herself up when she’d first started becoming a split individual. It had been. The fear, any strong emotion really, but mostly fear controlled her - stress, you know, the things they dealt with on a daily basis were all triggers for bringing out her more frosty side and it had… taken a lot to control that. And it had taken a lot to not just numb it away with medications or alcohol. She could have, she just hadn’t. Honestly, she considered herself lucky for that but a lot of it had come down to her need for control - something she harboured even now.
Though not so much control that she wasn’t relishing the little bit of calm (even if it was entirely psychological) that the splash of whiskey in her coffee was giving her.
Shaking her head she sighed in a clearly relieved way, “But they do know too much.” Caitlin admitted, quietly. “They know she’s killed. They know her powers revolve around the cold. They know she’s calculating.” Right now, the ‘good’ doctor was just thanking whatever powers that be that she didn’t share an entire wardrobe or hair colour with Frost. The blonde was very different than her own day to day look. “She won’t be happy to be cooped up over this.” The currently-brunette woman admitted as she let her eyes trail over to Jessica.
Having stumbled out of more than a few bars in Hell’s Kitchen, Jessica was far from self-conscious about her drinking habits. Oh, she was well aware (thank you very much Trish) that it was not the healthiest way to cope with things, particularly and most blatantly obvious her past, but she also didn’t particularly care either. Along with a slew of other “gifts”, Jessica’s body could handle a good majority of alcohol before things turned nasty. She supposed she should have at least thanked the good doctor for that one while he was still alive and kicking, but seeing as he was the one that helped to cause the drinking problem in the first place, it was more than a little pointless. There was so much cause and effect in Jessica’s life back home that she’d lost track of where all her bad choices ended and everyone else’s began.
She knew the woman across from her harbored much the same “cause and effect” sort of lifestyle. You couldn’t come from a place of “heroes and villains” and not end up living that way...well, partially anyway. It was clear Caitlin was not all too pleased with some of her choices and the report reflected the reasoning to a “T.” She might not have killed someone, but her other half did and those repercussions, choices, were going to affect Caitlin at some point...drastic hair color difference aside and they both knew it. Which was why she was worried and why Killer Frost might start to feel less like an ally and more like the enemy...especially if she, as Caitlin said, was not happy about being cooped up after her “murder fun.” Of course, Jessica had killed herself-she had no choice-but she had killed and she was far from the judgy sort given her track record, but none of this was going to be good from the refugees.
“Yes. They do,” Jessica replied simply. “Which is why she may have to be ‘cooped up’ as you say for a bit until we figure out just how to handle it. Maybe if she hadn’t killed, it would blow over faster, but she did kill and that makes her even more dangerous in their eyes. There is a good chance, unless something new and more dangerous comes along, they won’t let this go for a while.”
The most difficult part of dealing with having such a split personality was exactly what Jessica would have guessed at. Caitlin was a doctor - she had two PhDs and her MD - everything about her, everything she’d done in her life had been to help people and she kept running into a new situation and another new situation and another new situation where it came back to bite her. First it was losing Ronnie because of their work. Then it had been Barry changing the timelines - okay, they couldn’t guarantee that she never would have developed these powers (like she had on Earth 2) without that, but it had been another blow. Getting Ronnie back, losing him again. Finding a new Firestorm for Dr. Stein. Everytime Caitlin took a step forward, she felt like she’d taken a step back and it left her perplexed. Sometimes she wondered if she’d done something to earn this. She wasn’t even back in her own timeline and apparently her alter ego had gone and made a name for them - even if was seemingly behind doors - already. The doctor didn’t know how to fix this and it left her with a little perplexed look on her face as she quietly sipped at her spiked coffee.
“I’m more concerned about Barry if they managed to figure this much out about me.” It was no secret Barry had been taken - and in Caitlin’s mind the fact that Bobbi (who had some sort of super soldier thing going on) and Barry (who, of course, had his speed) both managed to be powered and that they were able to figure this much out about her out without even having studied her… well it didn’t make her very comfortable. In fact, it worried her quite a bit.
Sipping at her coffee, she held it in both hands and looked over at Jessica, “I don’t have that level of control over it.” She admitted, clearly with a fair bit of reluctance. “My relationship with Frost is… I know she’s brash, but she’s protective of me.” Caitlin admitted, she really didn’t know how else to put it, “I can keep her back, but once emotions come into play - especially fear or anger… bets are sort of off. I know that might sound weird, she’s not exactly a personality that seems like she’d want to protect anyone. But its as much self-preservation for her as it is protecting me.” Pursing her lips, Caitlin went silent for a moment, “She really could take complete control if she wanted - sometimes I don’t actually understand why she hasn’t tried again.” The again just sort of slipped out. After all, the last time she’d seen Barry before here in New York had been when she’d walked away from Wells funeral and everything that had lead up to that…
Jessica never thought she ever took a step forward. It was always a side step, a step backward, or a long pause of nothing at all. She tended to like the latter; when that happened, nothing changed, no one was hurt, and life went out as normally as it possibly could given her circumstances. She’d take a long pause of absolute shit over having to save the world or fight her mother or any other part of her shitty past that came back to bite her in the ass. At least here, the past part couldn’t technically happen unless Trish showed up or Kilgrave. It was one of the things she liked about being here: her past could remain dead. Well, as dead as possible until someone came up with a file on her and her abilities. She hoped to God that never happened.
Allen. Right. Jessica hadn’t forgotten about him, but being as they were stuck as to how to actually get him back? Nothing had been done about it. Jessica didn’t know him well; she sensed he was someone with a genuine desire to be a hero, to do good, and like the rest of them, maybe screwed up one or two times along the way. He was fast; he was supposedly the fastest man alive. And they had him and yes, like Caitlin, she could only think what they could possibly be doing to him and what they may have found out given how well they’d figured out Killer Frost without having their claws in her at all. “You might as well accept that they may know a lot about Barry at this point. They may be running a shit ton of tests on him and God knows what else,” Jessica replied bluntly. She knew she should try to be more gentle with Dr. Snow considering Barry was her friend, but Jessica’s nature was always throny at best, no matter what the situation.
Jessica took another sip from her whiskey-laced coffee as Caitlin explained the exact nature of her relationship with her frosty other half. It was a classic split personality with a twist of crazy metahuman for a bit flavor. “Maybe it’s because of self-preservation. She knows if she takes over, it could be the end of both of you. Letting you have control sometimes keeps you both protected because they don’t know about Dr. Snow. They only know you. But I don’t know how much we will be able to count on that in the long run.”
Caitlin knew that Barry’s disappearance had been… lackluster in its coverage. Bobbi’s had been too - she got it, she understood it. She knew that freaking everyone out would do nothing but cause problems. They didn’t want to scare people, their whole goal was giving them a new home - how could you do that if you were telling people about kidnappings and wars? You couldn’t. It just didn’t work that way. Barry had… well, she’d learned a lot about being the ‘hero’ from Barry over the years. From the stumbling to the good things to the bad things to the triumphs. She had learned a lot about the world because of Barry and she’d always have to thank him for that - even in the bad moments.
It was ironic that this was one of those bad moments. That Barry’s friendship had actually prepared her for his kidnapping.
“We can’t.” The doctor answered simply. She knew that it didn’t matter what else went on here, it didn’t matter if she tried to fight it. This was a temporary win - she knew that. It was reality. “I imagine Thea put me on this because she was hoping I might have some idea of how to help, but…. me and Frost aren’t there yet.” It was the honest truth, a little whiskey in her coffee or not - it was simply true that, even though she wanted to help. There was nothing to help here. They didn’t know it was her simply because of luck. That was it.