AN: Okay so first off I'd like to say that I'm relatively new to this fandom. Hell I'm only on episode 18 of season 1 right now, but I've fallen in love with this show so I decided to write a story for it. The second thing I'd like to say is that this story is completely AU, so it won't follow the story line of the show.

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Chapter One: Painful meetings

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The snow crunched beneath my black leather combat boots as I moved through the park. I wrapped my black leather jacket around my chest. The thing didn't provide much warmth seeing as it ended right above my belly button, but hey I love the thing. I was currently doing my nightly rounds through the park. I'd been in New York for the past week, and I'd found that people usually get mugged regularly here in the park. So I've been doing patrols trying to protect people as best as I could. I shivered slightly as the snow fell from the sky and landed on the ground around me and in my long blond hair. Maybe I wasn't properly dressed for a night like this; long leather pants, black long sleeved shirt, half black leather jacket, black leather combat boots. Yeah maybe not the best outfit to wear out in the middle of the night while it's snowing, but hey it's what I wear on these patrols. It helps me to blend into the night.

Suddenly I heard a shout and I glanced over in the direction it came from. A line of trees was blocking my sight, so I quietly moved towards the trees. When I peered around the trees I could see a girl dressed in what looked to be street clothes standing by a tunnel opening. There was a man standing next to her, gripping her arm tightly, a knife in one hand. I hissed, and let my claws and fangs extend. I silently moved behind the man.

"Let her go," I hissed. The man turned to look at me, and he smirked.

"Why don't you mind your own business hm? Me and the girl here were just having a conversation," The man slurred, yanking on the girls arm. The girl whimpered, and tried to push the man off her arm but he wouldn't let go.

"I said let her go," I growled, barring my fangs at him. His face went pale and he was so shocked he let go of the girl who just stared at me in surprise. The girl stared at my fangs and the claws on my hands. I stepped into the light of the moon more letting him and the girl see my cat like nose and eyes, and the cat like ears.

"Bloody hell," The man muttered, taking a step back. He bumped into the girl who also took a step back.

"Go get out of here," I ordered, looking down at the girl. She nodded her head and disappeared into the tunnel. Why the hell would she go down there that has to be a dead end? I shrugged my shoulders and turned back to the man. I'll check on her when I've dealt with this guy.

"Stay away from me," He shouted, waving the knife at me. I smirked and kicked the knife out of his hand. He started shaking and I smiled.

"Don't ever let me catch you messing with anyone in this park ever again, or next time you won't be able to walk out of here on your own," I stated, getting in his face.

Suddenly I felt pain run through my side and abdomen. I glanced down to see a small knife sticking out of my side, and blood pouring out of the wound. I glanced at where his other knife lay on the ground then back at him. Damn didn't expect him to have more than one knife on him. He was smirking at me and I hissed, barring my fangs at him. I swiped my claws across his face, leaving three deep gashes across his face. He screamed in pain, and backed away clutching his face. I kicked him in the gut then punched him in the throat.

"LEAVE! Now before I kill you," I hissed, raising my fists ready to punch him again.

He ran off leaving me standing in the snowy entrance of a tunnel. Pain raced up and down my side and I glanced down to see that the knife had twisted and moved around in my side when I'd kicked the man. I grabbed the knife and pulled it out of my side, and blood started pouring out even faster. Shit. I did a quick examination of the wound; the knife had just missed my leather jacket and had entered just between two ribs from what it looked like. I put my hands over the wound and applied pressure trying to stop the bleeding. I shivered as the cold reached me again, and the pain in my side was getting worse.

My fingers were starting to feel numb, and they were drenched in blood. I tried to take a deep calming breath but when I did pain shot through me and I fell to my knees, gasping for air. My vision was getting fuzzy and I could faintly hear the sound of voices. I glanced up and noticed two figures moving towards me, one was the girl I'd saved, and the other was a tall man. The two started running towards me coming out of the tunnel. They bent down next to me and the man glanced over me. I couldn't see his face because it was hidden within a cloak.

"See I told you, just like you," The girl exclaimed, bending down next to me.

I frowned, not sure what she meant, but I winced as pain radiated through me. My vision was starting to turn black, and just before I passed out I caught a glimpse of the mans face, and suddenly the girls exclamation made sense. His golden hair framed his face like a mane, and he had a distinct lion like appearance to his face, and I could just barely see the tip of sharp pointy teeth. Well looks like I'm not alone...

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Images passed through my mind and I couldn't tell which were memories and which were things from real life. Images from my childhood raced by like they were in fast-forward. Playing on the jungle gym in the park with my bestfriend, baking cookies with my mom, going to school, playing with my dad. Then came images of the fire, beams and walls falling all around me, screams from another room, the crackling of fire burning through the floor, pain from a burn to the arm, the last time I ever saw my family. Images kept flashing by moving even faster, some mixed in with images of a large cave like room which seemed very faint in my mind as if I'd just glanced it for a second before being pulled into darkness.

I saw a face in my dreams, one I'd wished to never see again. The man had a large scar across his right eye and over his nose, a square jaw, creased forehead, mud brown eyes, and a receding hair line. I saw smashed beer bottles, and destroyed furniture. Images of the man mingled with images of the fire, and I felt pain run through my side, making it harder for me to breath. Different voices reached my ears, some familiar, some strange to me. The sound my fathers voice, a dog barking, my second grade math teacher, a baby crying, my foster father shouting curses, a voice telling me everything was going to be okay. I couldn't pull one from the other, they all mingled together. The image of the cave like room reached by blurred vision once more for only a second before I was back in the fire.

Two memories mingled together, me lying on the floor of bedroom, the walls around me burning brightly, glass cracking from the heat. And I could see my foster father standing at the back of the room, firing burning in his eyes as he drank a bottle of beer. I felt heat reach me, burning me from the inside out. I screamed in pain and tried to squirm away from what ever was causing the burning but it just followed me. I could feel hands grab hold of me, and a blurred face entered my line of sight, but it looked to have lion like features. A deep soothing voice reached my ears.

"Your wound is infected, we are doing our best to bring the fever down but you must stay still or else you'll rip open the stitches in your side," The voice stated.

I stared at the face before me not sure whether or not he was the one who'd just spoken. Suddenly I was plunged back into darkness, back into my memories. Back into the confusion. I couldn't tell what was happening everything was going by to fast, memories, things happening around me when I was awake for only seconds at a time. A uniform, a badge pinned to my chest. Running, chasing after someone, someone bad. Shouting at him to stop. The sound of a gun shot rang through my head, thinking I was going to die before I had a chance to prove myself. The image of a cat, an Egyptian Mau, standing before me, staring at me expectantly.

Everything mingled together, making my head spin. Then suddenly everything stopped. I was plunged into complete darkness, no images, no sounds. I felt light and completely untethered, as if I could float away. As if I was floating away. I felt a tingling sensation run through me, and then a tugging sensation, as if someone was trying to pull me back towards the ground. I felt myself slam down hard enough to knock my breath away, and my eyes flew open...

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My eyes opened, and I shot up. Which turned out to be a bad idea based on the pain in my side. I looked down at my side to see that I was wearing a baggy brown sweater instead of my black long sleeve shirt. Memories of what happened in the park flooded my mind and I pulled the sweater up to look at my side. There was a bandage over my side, and I slowly peeled it off. The wound was stitched up and looked as if it had been healing for a while. How long was I out? I put the bandage back over the wound, and let the sweater fall back down. I glanced around the room trying to get a sense of were I might be. I frowned at the room, which seemed to be almost like a cave. I remember this image from my dreams. I was lying on a bed against the back wall, and there were books piled all over the room. I noticed and entrance with a set of stairs leading out. Suddenly a shadow emerged in the doorway, and then a figure in a cloak walked into the room. I hissed, and jumped into a defensive stance, wincing as my side protested the action.

"It's all right, I'm not going to hurt you," The man in the cloak stated. I recognize that voice, that's one of the voices from my dream. Wait is he the man I saw in the park right before I passed out? It's the same cloak, same boats.

"How... how long was I asleep?" I asked.

"A week. Your injury became infected, you had a fever, it finally broke yesterday," The man answered. I sat back down on the bed, uncoiling my muscles, and frowned. A week, that meant for a week the park had gone unprotected. Damn! The man sat down next to me and I got a good look at his face, and he was defiantly the man I saw in the park right before I passed out.

"The girl the one I saved from that man, is she all right?" I asked.

He nodded his head. I sighed, well that's one good thing. I glanced around the room again for a second and caught my reflection in a mirror hanging on the wall. My blond hair was messy and tangled, and there were dark circles under my eyes, but I could see cat like pupils staring back at me, and sharp canine teeth poking out from my mouth, and a cat like nose.

"I thought I was the only one," The man stated. I nodded my head.

"Me to, I'm Katrina by the way," I muttered, glancing over at him.

"Vincent," He supplied...