A/N – Although you may have noticed I started another fic, "If Ever I Would Leave You," I also felt the need to transcribe Catherine's journaling here, also. As she did in the very beginning of the show, she once more picks up her pen and starts writing letters—first to her Mom, then to Vincent—in the journal that Tori brought her. This will be an update after each new episode. I guess we'll see how well I do with two threads at once, now, lol…

Do Not Go Gentle
from "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" by Dylan Thomas

Make your life count…

Chapter 1

Hi Mom,

It's me. I know. Long time no write. I'm so sorry. I've been caught up in my own world for too long. But I need you now, more than ever. So much has happened this year, I don't even know where to begin.

Tonight I shot the man I love.

I didn't want to. I did everything I could think of to stop it from happening. But it did. And I'd do it again in a heartbeat. Because I love him.

You don't know how much I wish we could still talk like we used to! I have so many questions about what happened in the past, about who I am and who you were. Even though I've pieced a lot of it together, there is still so much I don't know—about you, about my father, Bob Reynolds. About Vincent—the man I've been in a love relationship with for the last year and a half but whom I've barely begun to understand—not to mention the circumstances that brought the two of us together.

I suppose much of that doesn't matter now. Everything has changed. Because I shot the man I love.

I sat and looked at my hands for a long while wondering how I could have pulled the trigger. Then I asked myself, 'how could I not?' He should have understood! He should have fought for us. It hurts so badly, sometimes I can't even breathe!

Oh Mom, I've needed you so much! What do I do now? How do I go on? I'm comforted, in a small way, by the fact that you knew him—the man I'd one day fall in love with, the man my heart still beats for. But I wish I could hear your voice. What would you tell me? Is it okay to feel like this? Because it's awful, awful, awful.

I keep telling everyone I'm done, I'm over 'us,' I'm so ready to move ahead. But I'll admit here, in this secret place, that the only part I'm truly done with is the hurtful way we've treated each other in the last months. What could I have done differently that we wouldn't find ourselves on the opposite ends of a gun barrel?

Dealing with his circumstances took over my life to such a degree that I stopped knowing who I was anymore. I stopped being just me and became us. That wasn't healthy and I know it. At the time, it seemed like the only thing to do—was all I could do. But in the end it didn't help me and it didn't help him.

Mom, why does loving someone hurt so much? I know you loved Thomas. Was there a moment in time when you also loved my father? I want to think you did—that he was worth saving, too. I guess I'll never know for sure. It's difficult to think about at this point. And he is as lost to me as Vincent is right now.

I'm starting to forget how I felt before everything went wrong. We were so in love. It was 'us against the world,' and I would have done anything, gone anywhere for him. Then he was taken, and when I finally found him again, his first words to me were, 'who are you?' I can't tell you how much that hurt. Well, you know me. I tamped it all down. I explained it away and buried my hurt and disappointment and concentrated on the task at hand—at saving him again. And that's where I went wrong.

The problem for me was that I knew so much of it wasn't his fault. He was a good guy, a sweet guy who, in his pain of losing his brothers, just wanted to make a difference—wanted to right a wrong. He told me you wanted to protect your daughters. Whatever my father's reasons were, I'm not sure. But we all made mistakes along the line. And this is the result.

At one point, Vincent and I had seemed to get beyond that—and then they took him, and with him his memories and his basic humanity. Because he stopped being the guy I loved so much. It breaks my heart. I hope he's still there, deep inside. I really do. I want to believe that will all my heart. But I can't keep putting my life on hold or at risk while he tries to figure it out. And I no longer know the end result.

So I'm moving on. Maybe someday he'll return to me; maybe not. At this point I don't even know if I truly want that. But for his sake, I hope the man I fell so deeply in love with will find his way to the surface again. And live.

Please say a prayer for him up there, would you? And for me. We really need it…

-Catherine