Trepidation

Warning: There's a ghost of an A-plot in here, but I gloss over it as much as possible. This is set following my stories "Distraction" (2x01) and "Irritation" (2x02), both of which were meant to be canon. Unlike this one, which is mere emotional wish-fulfillment written before I saw episode 2x03.

Maybe there is something to this whole "meant to be" thing that Catherine mentioned. I can't seem to stay away from her. Or maybe she can't stay away from me. Or, more likely, we can't avoid each other because we're hunting the same targets. Which almost explains why we're tied up back to back lying on the floor in a dark room.

At least the floor is clean. Mostly. From what I saw earlier, this is an office breakroom. The refrigerator isn't running, but then most of the offices in this building are empty. If she hadn't been here, I'd have gotten my job done and been long gone, but… she was. This is the first time I've been near her since that disaster on her rooftop.

Catherine starts to stir, behind me, and moans slightly. "Ohh, what did I have to drink last night?"

"Nothing," She goes very still when she hears my voice. "This isn't a hangover. You were drugged."

A few heartbeats pass, speeding up now that she's awake and aware. Then she starts trying to move.

"Don't bother; we're tied together at the wrists and the ankles. Sorry."

She stops moving and sighs. "Great. So who tied me up this time, since it seems like it wasn't you?"

I almost grin at that; she sounds disappointed. "The guys we were both after, apparently."

"So this isn't your group?" There's a bite in her voice now.

"You know I can't…" I pause, take a deep breath. I can't give details, but... "No, they're not mine."

"You answered a question?" One of her hands turns, inside the rope, coming almost palm to palm with one of mine.

"You already knew the answer." I turn my wrist, covering her palm and spreading my fingers slightly against hers in silent invitation, holding my breath.

Her fingers interlace with mine. "I guess so. So, um, why are we still here?"

"Because we're tied together." And holding hands. I don't even know why she'd want to, after what I did to her, but I'm so grateful that she's not shrinking from my touch.

She laughs. "Right, like ropes can hold you."

"They don't know … about me. I…" I can't go any further. It's starting to get frustrating, the way my conditioning won't let my mouth speak about certain subjects.

She reads between the lines. "So you're here on purpose, then. Can you break the ropes?"

"I can break the ropes," I explain as patiently as I can, smoothing my thumb across the back of her hand. "But they're wrapped around both our wrists. If I pull too hard on the outside ones, the inside ones will tighten, and could hurt you. I didn't dare try it while you were still out."

"Oh." Her tone sharpens. "So now you care about hurting me?"

"Catherine, I…" No point in trying to explain the tangled mess of thoughts swirling around in my head. "Yes."

She doesn't answer, and I feel compelled to go on, ever-so-gently squeezing her hand. "I am… so sorry. Were you… I didn't even check… are you okay?"

I feel her shrug a little. "Shocked. A little bruised." Her voice is thick with sorrow. "I think the biggest hit was my illusions. You've really changed."

"I'm sorry." I pause. "I promise you that will never happen again. The beast…I can usually control it, but I guess maybe strong emotions make it harder."

"You guess?"

"Until I met you, I didn't really have many emotions to speak of."

"Oh, Vincent," she whispers, squeezing my hand briefly.

"It's easier without them." I don't want to talk about that anymore. "Now that you're awake, let's try the ropes."

"Okay."

Working by feel, communicating with and without words, we shift our hands. Whenever I pull on the ropes, though, they tighten around her wrists, and I'm not confident that the rope will break before her wrists do. But as I'm learning to expect, she won't give up, and eventually we figure out how I can protect her - by breaking the inner ropes first. Freeing her before I free myself. A few minutes after that, we're standing looking at each other.

"Are you okay?"

She nods, and I look closely at her face. There are scratches on one cheek. My left hand reaches out towards her face. "What's this?"

Her heart rate changes and I think she might be blushing. "That's from the guy who snuck up behind me and covered my mouth and nose with chloroform. I don't know how he got so close; I was being careful."

"Those are claw marks," I tell her. "He was like me."

"I'm lucky he didn't break my neck, then," she says, brushing off her jeans.

My heart freezes, and my hand falls as the shame from hurting her rushes back. That's what she expects from someone like me.

She looks up, questioning the movement. "What?"

"Nothing. We shouldn't hang around here." I close my eyes, extending my senses, trying to get a feel for where we are relative to the office I need to visit.

"So," she says. "What was your mission tonight?"

It takes me a moment to remember it. That's a bad sign. "I needed to get close enough to find a file."

She cocks an eyebrow at me. "Find a file? Any file in particular?"

"Yes." I can't tell her that, and she needs to be getting out of here.

"Okay, then, how can I help?"

Why is she offering? "What were you here for?"

"I was only trying to do a little old fashioned surveillance. Apparently you have better intel than I do. So why did you let them overpower you?"

I choose my words carefully, repeating myself. "I needed to get close enough to find a file." I want to tell her more, but the words won't come.

She nods. "Right. So come on, let's go do it. Now that I'm inside I might as well have a look, and being with you is more fun than sneaking around on my own."

Now she wants to be with me? After what I did?

She smiles tentatively. "Look, I know I screwed things up for you before, but if I know what you're doing, I can help - or at least keep out of your way. And you don't want me running into a rogue super-soldier all by myself."

I'd prefer that she wasn't here at all, but since she is… It will be easier to protect her if she's with me. "Okay. Follow my lead." I pause, remembering. "Just be ready to run if I, you know, change. It would kill me if I hurt you again."

Her breath hitches as she studies me. "Okay."

I have to break the lock on the door, but once out in the hallway, we make our way quietly towards the target. It's probably a bad sign, but I can't help but notice that she's right; it's more fun to do this with her.

I find the office and we slip inside. She watches the hallway while I go to the computer and find what I need. It only takes a moment to transfer the file to my flash drive. I pocket the drive and remove all traces of my visit from the computer.

When I approach, Catherine glances at me. "Where to now?"

"Back the way we came. I want to make it look like we escaped straight from that room to outside."

"So they don't know you got the file. Okay, smart."

Our exit goes smoothly until we get jumped by a couple of guards just outside the doors. I changed, barely remembering to punch instead of slash. A beast-powered punch however, does the job just as well. First one, then the other goes down and stays down.

I whirl around to check on Catherine, but she's already dispatched the guy that jumped her. She's looking at me, watching me, and I remember that I'm still in beast form. The same beast that pushed her and sent her flying across a rooftop. I just stare at her, waiting for her to start running.

She looks all around and extends an hand towards me. "C'mon Vincent, let's go!"

She's not running. The thought barely has time to register, though; I can hear other guards approaching in the darkness.

She moves towards me, and I grab her and run. That's the fastest way out of here, after all. It's got nothing to do with wanting to hold her close. She just holds on until I get far enough away to stop running. I set her on her feet, transforming back to my human side, watching her warily. "You okay?"

"I'm fine," she affirms, breathlessly. "Thanks." She looks around, probably trying to figure out where we are. "Want to walk me home?"

At this hour of the night? Definitely. We start walking. A few steps along, I say, "I'm sorry if I scared you back there…"

She looks surprised. "You didn't do anything to scare me. And we didn't run into that other beast, which is good." She shakes her head. "Someone as strong as you, but without your concern or self-control…? That's scary."

That's what she meant? He's scary, but I'm not? That's encouraging, isn't it?

"I mean," she continues, "he was obviously told not to hurt me, but he still had his claws out." Her free hand reaches up to touch her scratches. "These are going to be fun to explain." She smiles ruefully. "Tess is going to assume you did it, and then kill me for wanting to be alone with you."

"You still wanted to be alone with me? Even after I…" My heart leaps while my brain tries to insist she didn't mean it.

"Okay, after the other night, I went to see Gabe and tell him you were too dangerous to be running around loose… but I've had some time to think since then." She looks me straight in the eye. "From what I've seen tonight, you have pretty good self-control. When there aren't strong emotions getting in the way. So." She pauses. "Do you still want to be alone with me?"

"Yes." That answer comes quickly, automatically. "But when I'm around you… I have strong emotions. Feelings I don't know how to handle. Up until I saw you last week, I thought I had it all figured out. Who I was, what my mission was… I figured I'd had some kind of life before signing up for this program, but I thought - I was told - that I'd chosen to forget. To be a better soldier." I can't quite resist reaching out to touch her hand with mine.

She accepts it and holds on as we keep walking. "Soldier? Or assassin?"

"Soldier. I can't tell you anything else."

"Why not?"

"Because…" The words clog in my throat. I want to tell her, I do, but the words just won't come out. "I…"

She holds up her free hand. "Never mind. I'm sorry. I know I shouldn't ask."

I can't help smiling. "Okay, I know I don't know you very well, but that… giving up… just doesn't seem like you."

It takes a moment before she replies. "I still want to know. But I can tell that talking about it is difficult for you, and I don't want to push. Sometimes I push too much, push people away." She laughs a little bitterly. "I want to ride to the rescue, to save you like you've saved me… but whatever this is that you're doing, you're not trying to escape it. I don't get that, but I need to respect it, trust you to do the right thing."

"You want to save me?" What a strange thought. My earlier worries come back to me, that she's just putting up with me in order to get to … him. But she's trusting me on this, now. "This isn't all about getting your old boyfriend back?"

"Oh, I'd love to get him back," she says sadly, looking down and away from me, "but I don't think I'm going to."

"So, then…" I look down at our linked hands. I hardly know what I'm trying to say. "If I never get those memories back. Then what?"

She raises her eyes to meet mine. Really seeing me, I think. "Then we could make new ones. If you wanted to."

Part of me really badly wants to. Which reminds me… "I'm sorry what I said about only having one night."

"No, I get it." She squeezes my hand in hers. "That's all you can remember. It's just hard for me to keep that in mind."

"I didn't want it to be a one-night stand," I hear myself blurt out. I can't believe I just said that.

She smiles, slowly. "Good to know."

"I don't know what else it can be, though. Your friends don't want you near me. And I shouldn't do this; to have any personal connections, really."

"Yeah. And I'm not going to be able to hide from them. It was easier, last year. Tess didn't know about you, and JT, well, he came around."

"Came around?" I have to confess I'm curious about the guy who's supposedly my best friend.

"He thought I was going to get you into trouble." She slows down, sighing sadly. "I guess he was right."

I look at her, enjoying the view. "Maybe. But I'm sure it was worth it. And you know, we're probably going to keep running into each other. Maybe we could work together?"

She shakes her head. "They don't trust you at all and I doubt they'd trust me."

"Okay, but maybe you could say you were going undercover? To learn things about me?"

That makes her laugh. "What, pretend to be your girlfriend?"

"No. More like, pretend to them…" I take a quick breath and finish the scary thought. "that you're only pretending to be my girlfriend."

There's a moment of terrifying silence before she finally speaks. "I thought you said we weren't boyfriend and girlfriend."

I shrug, glancing sideways. "That was when I thought you were being crazy possessive." A burst of noise from ahead draws my attention – two people walking out of an all-night diner. "Hey, do your friends know where you are right now?"

The change in subject seems to surprise her, but she answers readily enough. "No, why do you ask?"

"Because I don't have to report in until tomorrow, so … if you want … we could maybe grab a late dinner? Without anyone else knowing?"

Her smile lights up her face. "Without pretending? As I recall, you promised me a sandwich that we didn't get around to, so yeah, that sounds great."

I tug on her hand to bring her to a halt before we reach the pool of light from the restaurant window. She stops, looking up at me curiously. Even after what I did to her, she doesn't show the smallest trace of fear. She's incredible. "Catherine, I can't make any promises. But whatever this is, between us… I so want to explore it. Spend time with you. Get to know you."

She smiles, pushing her hair back from her face. "You know what? I want to get to know you, too. Spend time with you." She shrugs a little, then glances up at me. "Memories or no memories, you're still you, in so many ways. But I like some of the changes, too."

"So…" I need to be sure I'm reading this right. "Boyfriend and girlfriend?"

She moves closer to me. "Yes, please."

That makes me feel… I don't know how to describe it. I don't have much practice with emotions. But I like it. A lot. I lean down to kiss her gently, and she returns the kiss, wrapping her arms aound my neck and playing with my hair. Her scent, her taste, her heartbeat, they surround me, and I never want to leave. This is home.

But I promised her food, and I can tell that she's hungry, so I gently pull back. "Would you go out to dinner with me, Catherine? For the first time?"

She beams. "Yes."

As we walk into the brightly-lit diner, I can't help but think that she might be right. Maybe we are meant to be.

The End