So, I guess I'm going to be one of those people who works on more than one story at once now.
The idea for this story popped into my head a few days ago and just wouldn't go away until I started to write it. It's very different to Hazard, but don't let the introduction put you off, it's really not as off the wall as it seems. I urge you to stick with it, because it will probably make a lot more sense to you at the end of the next chapter if it doesn't immediately.
Disclaimer: I do not own Glee or any of its characters. All rights go to their respective owners.
Some things are just meant to be together, no matter how much you try to force them apart...
Catcher wasn't meant to get involved in mortal lives. His job as a Chronicler was to document the lives of the people he watched. That's it. No meddling and no getting involved, no getting close to the mortals. Those were the rules… but Catcher never really liked rules.
It started off with an interest. She'd caught his eye in the vague way that sometimes people do, so he'd watched her with a kind of detached interest, checking in on her every now and again with growing frequency until one day he found that he was unable to stop watching her. He made up huge portions of other mortals chronicles just so he could watch Her for longer, see what She did, who She spoke to, what She said. She was so quietly unobserved by her peers that Catcher started to feel a connection with her. He saw her when others didn't. He knew how talented and beautiful She was, how much she could really do if she were given the opportunity. He knew Her better than anyone else. She was his.
But then he had turned up, like a dark cloud on the horizon. Catcher had disliked him from the first, although he hadn't known why. He wasn't one of Catcher's Observed, he'd come from some other Chronicler's quota, and would remain their issue, but Catcher did not like the way the newcomer looked at Her. He did not like it at all, and then, one day as if from nowhere, it started. Catcher could see it happening although he was powerless to stop it, and it killed him to note down every shared glance, every touch of the fingers, every handhold and hug. Catcher had clenched his flaming Seraphim feather quill so tightly when he'd documented their first kiss that he'd put it out. He'd thrown things about the room when he'd had to notate their first date and he was in such a foul mood for the week after they'd slept together for the first time that absolutely everyone had avoided him, even the Putti, winged toddler-type creatures who were sweet little things and were generally nice to everyone. They'd scattered out of his way with haste whenever they'd seen him coming that week. The space around where he worked became like a wasteland, no one wanted to set foot there and risk Catcher's rage. And rage he did.
When he proposed, however, Catcher was oddly subdued, the seeds of a plan had begun to germinate in his brain and had put down such firm roots by the time that the wedding came around that Catcher appeared eerily calm. He glided around the silvery halls with a strange half smile on his face as he mentally went over his plan over and over again. The more he thought about it, the more Catcher liked it. He was going to get what he wanted, for once, he was going to make things the way they should be.
Shortly after he proposed, Catcher started… borrowing things. He'd borrow a little discarded skill from here, or a talent from there, and in doing so Catcher very slowly began to gather to himself all the tools he would need to take him out of the picture. He couldn't kill, and he didn't want to, but he could manipulate. Catcher could always go back in time, it was a necessary skill for a Chronicler who needed to double check facts and events, but for the first time he could change things. Not huge things - not at the beginning - but sometimes small changes were all that were necessary.
All he needed to do was make sure that She never met him. Catcher flipped through Her chronicle and peered at the pages. The moment he had descended on Her chronicle was burned into his brain, but he needed to go back further than that. He would have to work in his chronicle if he wanted to save Her for himself.
Catcher never bothered to dwell on what he was doing. It was not a Chronicler's job to dwell, only to document. That was why it didn't occur to him that She might actually love him. It was why Catcher did not stop to consider that as a Chronicler he himself would never be able to be with her, a mortal. Catcher thought of nothing but his plan.
No Chronicler could watch everyone at once, Catcher knew this from his own experience. So he waited until his Chronicler was busy with another mortal and stole into his chambers, quickly locating and… borrowing…thechronicle that documented the life of his unknowing enemy. When he got it back to his own work chamber Catcher pored over the chronicle, noting the points of the newcomer's life that were weak, points where he could potentially stop his path like a dam and re=divert his attentions away from Her. Catcher didn't particularly want him to have a terrible life, he didn't really care about him to be honest. He just didn't want him to have Her.
Time passes differently for those who have no end, but it was some time before Catcher made his first change to the chronicle. He was still a Chronicler by nature, and he did not make changes lightly, not without first weighing up the potential consequences. Small actions could have large future repercussions. So it was not without much trepidation that Catcher held his quill above Sam Evans' chronicle… and erased his move to Lima.
Then he carefully put the chronicle back where he'd found it. Vowing to check back in a sufficient amount of time to ensure that the chronicles had amended themselves to his satisfaction, Catcher slipped back to his own domain, his step already all the lighter for having finally relieved himself of the thorn in his side that was Sam Evans. Soon, Mercedes Jones would belong to only him again, Catcher reflected, exactly as She should.