AN: I decided to write something hella depressing after 1x12, in which Catherine must deal with the prospect of living in a world without Vincent in it. I must say that the characters, minus the whole Beast deal, have been dealing with their respective situations realistically and with maturity. This is an alternative ending to 'Cold Turkey'.
As the shots rang through the chill of the night air, singing and twisting past their targets into trees and the frozen soil, Catherine and Vincent became separated. Try as he might to shield her from his enemies, she was having none of his 'knight in shining armor' shit today. Catherine seemed to have this perverse, indefatigable zeal for danger. Her senses were as sharp as a butcher's knife, her reflexes as fluid as before her injury.
The Muirfield men did not attack like soldiers, and instead were scattered about rather than fighting as a singular, cohesive unit. This did not make their bullets any less deadly, their training any less viable, nor their conviction any less than absolute. Their fear of the Beast was nearly tangible as it reared and thrashed like a caged lion. The Beast tore through them as if they were twigs trapped in the howling forces of a maelstrom, seemingly unstoppable.
It took all of thirty seconds for the men to realize that the Beast did in fact have a weakness: Catherine Chandler. It was if she were a planet and he the satellite, pulled by a gravitational force. He sheltered her from the rainstorm of bullets behind a felled tree before she roughly shoved him away from her, as he was throwing off her aim.
She moved from her position as their fire faltered from reloading, but they were simply faking the need to reload. The Muirfield men were nothing if not calculating. They resumed their onslaught, fingers squeezing triggers faster than Catherine's instincts to dive to the ground. Not a bullet touched her, for she was knocked out of the paths of the men's aim.
Catherine screamed in pain anyway. It was the Beast whose body was pummeled, ripped through, and torn. He didn't even howl or give a yell, as if he had resigned himself to die in place of her months beforehand. He sustained nine gunshots throughout his body before crumpling into a defeated heap on the ground beside her. His blood was splattered on her face, a sort of mockery of tribal face paint. The Muirfield people were silent for a moment before Catherine had risen from her position next to her dying beloved.
You see, Catherine's Beast did not have claws or super-strength or heightened senses. Her face did not transform into a ghoulish, gruesome mask as Vincent's did. Catherine's Beast was of no intelligent design, rather an embodiment of the pain and the rage she had pent up inside her, like a dormant, angry volcano ready to blow. Catherine was more terrifying than Vincent could ever dream to be: eyes cold with frigid anger, her beloved's blood dripping down her face, and her gun at the ready.
It took her about forty-five seconds to kill the Muirfield men, her face twisted into a snarl as she snapped the neck of the last man. Catherine returned to Vincent, sinking to her knees by him as his chest rose in stuttered, shallow breaths. His handsome, scarred face grimaced in pain as his strength ebbed from his limbs.
"Catherine," he slurred through the blood dribbling from his mouth. She clutched at him, grabbing his hand and holding it tightly as she stroked his hair from his face. Here lay a broken man, once so large and imposing now lying in a blood soaked hovel, seizing occasionally when another wave of pain wracked his frame.
"Shh, Vincent, you don't need to talk," she soothed. Tears fell helplessly as she surveyed the five bullet holes in his torso, the other four imbedded in his legs.
"Is the am-ambulance coming?" Vincent asked, his voice cracking under the weight of the pain which was smothering.
"Of course it is. It's on the way," She lied through her tears. No ambulance would ever get out here fast enough to save him. Not that he could have been saved anyway. His eyes were blank, unseeing, as he let out a cry of pain, resembling a sob. Tears of pain trickled down his face to join the pool of blood soaking the soil beneath him.
Catherine tried kissing away his tears, murmuring, "I love you," each time her lips touched his cheeks. She couldn't stop his pain from enveloping him, his pleas for it to end shattering her heart. She kissed his lips, feeling his twisted grimace of pain against her mouth. He returned what he could, his senses dull to anything other than the fires cackling and consuming him.
"I l-love you," he hiccupped, the fight inside of him draining out through his exit wounds.
"I love you so much, Vincent. I'll never forget you, okay? Never," Catherine said as the life drained from him. He didn't seem to hear her anymore, his eyes glazing over. She repeated it over and over, and began shaking him. Vincent's eyes saw nothing, his heart no longer singing the song of life to spread through his limbs.
Vincent Keller was dead. "Oh God," Catherine screamed, holding his limp form against his chest. "Oh God please no." She wailed, unabashed. There was nothing but the trees to hear her mourn her knight in shining armor. The leaves stirred a little, but life itself continued on without Vincent Keller. She buried her face in the hollow of his neck in a mockery of an embrace and cried until…
She awoke to the sound of her own cries tearing themselves from her throat, lying warm and safe in her own bed.