Disclaimer: Beauty and The Beast (2012), and all its characters belong to the CW and the show's creators. I am jut an avid fan who loves twisting the stories around.

Any reproduction of this story, in whole or in part, is strictly prohibited without the author's written consent.

NB:

Let me start on a serious note. The event depicted in Catherine's nightmare is based of of a real even that happened on July 13th 2008 near the village of Wanat in the Waygal district of Afghanistan. I had thought up this scenario before ever reading about that tragic day, but being someone who likes to be authentic, I came across the details during my research for this chapter. I cannot imagine what the true events must have been like, and I mean no offence to anyone by portraying my version of them. I have the utmost respect for those who put their lives on the line for their country.


Let My Soul Out

Chapter Two - Moving Forward

Catherine dragged herself into her apartment, the sun barely glowing beneath the horizon, as she dropped her keys on the bar in the kitchen and kicked off her shoes. She didn't even consider where they landed. Once they were off she continued on her course to her bedroom, shutting the door behind her and falling across the bed immediately. She had intended to change but the moment her body touched the softness of her mattress her eyes closed and sleep claimed her. She'd had an exhausting day, and seeing Vincent only made it more so.

If she could have wished for a peaceful night's sleep, she would have found that her wishes fell on deaf ears. Instead, she was haunted by memories of the past, of things she was trying to forget.

"Hey Chandler! You sure you know how to use that thing?" Vincent joked from his position between Lafferty and Ascalvo, causing the others to chuckle.

"Shut up Keller," she scoffed as she set the timer on the camera. "I'm just…about…done! There!" she ran across the short space, the dust flying from her footfalls as she turned and stooped in front of Vincent and the rest of her unit. "Say cheese!" She grinned at the camera.

"Cheese!" the eight soldiers cried in unison just as the camera flashed, forever capturing that moment in time.

"Switch!" she cried and the group hustled to get into new positions, barely making it before the camera snapped once more. They cried in protest but still managed to get themselves into some order before the next photo was captured. Catherine and Vincent were pressed shoulder-to-shoulder against each other as their fellow soldiers squeezed into various ridiculous poses. Vincent's arm was around her neck and hers around his, both of their hands making bunny ears behind the other's head.

"Switch!" she called again, this time she and Lafferty put their heads together and pouted provocatively at the camera – as the only two females in the unit and not to mention that they'd arrived together, they had formed a strong bond from the onset. The guys encircled them making body-builder poses.

"Switch!" There was a murmur amongst the men, and suddenly Catherine found herself hoisted into the air horizontally. "Hey!" she protested between laughter as three of the men held her up and the other three lifted Lafferty. The camera clicked to life again. A moment later, Catherine and the trio found themselves in the dirt, her head cradled in Vincent's lap as he tried to cushion her from the fall. Their CO had sent a barrel their way knocking the three men off their feet.

She was laughing so hard tears were forming in her eyes as she tried to sit up. Vincent was watching her with that strange look again. She'd seen it several times over the past months, and often wondered what he was thinking in those moments. He of course never told. She smiled at him. Their faces mere inches apart, and the camera snapped again, another memory for them both.

"Enough fun and games you chuckleheads." They hustled to their feet before their CO and waited for their orders. "Milverson, your unit's headed over to the Waygal district. You're headed to the Wanat village. They need some help getting that station functional and could use the man power. You'll be stationed at the base there for the next month and then you're State side ladies and gentlemen. At least until your next deployment. Got it? Get your asses moving then."

They packed up their gear, each face smiling, happy to hear they'd be going home, at least for a little while. They'd been a unit for the past three years, and had seen their share of skirmishes, and had been lucky enough to survive them all with minimal injuries. Catherine packed her duffel with her few things. Vincent was next to her doing the same.

"Looking forward to going home? "she said with a smile as she looked across at him.

"Yeah. It'll be nice to see my dad you know."

"And not just him," he looked at her a little puzzled. "Alex!" she said with a laugh. "It'll be nice to see her too I bet." She shoved her tank into the duffel not looking at him, the words somehow difficult to say, though she had no right to feel that way.

Vincent watched her and then laughed, a little uncomfortable, "Yeah. Of course. Alex." They both finished packing and several minutes later were on their way to their new post.

That night they arrived at the new outpost in the remote area of Afghanistan. There had been several difficulties in getting the area fortified as was required, but that's what they were there for, extra man power to ensure they were ready should they ever need to defend the post. They reported to their commanding officer and were given orders for that night. Their team was to man the observation post as the 'freshest' unit at the moment. They'd have duty for the next eight hours before they'd be relieved.

The eight of them sat together talking about their plans for when they'd be back home. Lafferty was reluctant to make plans until she was safely on the chopper on her way home, but she was looking forward to seeing her boyfriend. Milverson and Ascalvo were both making plans to do as much as they could with their families. Milverson had gotten married the year before and the entire unit attended. His wife Alice, was expecting their first child. Ascalvo was a married man with three children between the ages of four and eight. The last time they'd been home they had attended a barbecue for his youngest daughter, Emmanuella's birthday. Catherine listened with just a twinge of jealousy. She was the only one in the unit who didn't have someone to go home to. Sure she had her father and Heather, but things were tense between her and her dad. He hadn't wanted her to enlist and the tension still lingered because of her decision.

She understood her father's worries. He'd lost the love of his life, and Catherine lost her mother in the World Trade Center. He didn't want to lose his eldest daughter too. However, it wasn't his choice. It was hers.

It was 4:20 in the morning when it began. Catherine stepped away from her post to take a better look at the skyline. Something was bothering her but she wasn't sure what. A moment later Vincent walked up beside her, his hands jammed into his pockets.

"Hey. What're you doing?" he asked as he looked out with her.

"Just looking. The sky is so clear out here." She sighed deeply, holding her gun against her chest.

"Yeah it is." Vincent agreed as he adjusted his weapon at his side, his finger beside the trigger. They were always on alert, even in these moments when there seemed to be peace in the middle of the war.

She could feel him watching her and turned to look at him. They looked at each other, hazel meeting hazel. She felt something, the same thing she felt whenever they looked at each other. The thing she couldn't admit. He had a fiancée back home, and they were in the middle of a desert fighting a war. Nothing about the situation was right. Besides, they were friends, family in this sandy fire-trap She wouldn't let that feeling contaminate what they already had. They'd become closer in the past two years, the two New Yorkers in the unit. They talked about home, the things they missed and what they'd be doing if they weren't where they were now. Those nights when they had night watch together, they got to know each other better than they knew the other members of their unit.

She smiled at him, and then suddenly the peace was shattered by the sound of machine gun fire followed by rocket-propelled grenades and mortars. The base lost its' mortar and stockpile of ammunition in the first attack, as they detonated from the blast. Then the observation post was under fire. She heard the sound and then there was flash and everything went black. She didn't know how long she was out, but when she finally came to Vincent was lying motionless beside her as was the rest of her team. Her ears rung and she shook her head to try to clear them and get her bearings.

"Vincent!" she said as she shook him into consciousness. He turned over immediately, his every cell on hyper-alert. They crawled back to their post, finding Wade Gentry on the way. He'd been blown from his position manning the machine gun during the initial blast. "Wade?" she shook him, but the blank stare and blood soaking his clothes told her all she needed to know. He was dead. They moved forward, constantly under fire, the sound of mortars in their ears.

They finally reached the rest of the unit, Lafferty and the others were stunned or injured, but Duchovny was gone, his body laid hanging over the side of their wall of sandbags, riddled with bullets.

"What are we looking at?" Lafferty questioned as she ducked beside Catherine.

"I don't know. I can't tell, but there're a lot of them." Her face grimaced as another grenade blast ripped through the camp. The two women took several breaths and with grunts of equal determination they both raised their automatic weapons and fired, giving Vincent time to tend to the others.

"I'm out!" Lafferty cried several minutes later as she ducked down once more. Vincent kicked Dillon's gun towards her, their fellow soldier was in no position to fight, he was bleeding out from a leg wound caused by the grenade blast. Vincent did his best to make a tourniquet for him before he moved on to Milverson.

"Shit!" the senior officer cried as Vincent inspected his arm. He was bleeding pretty badly, and his arm was useless. Vincent looked at him with consternation that he tried to hide. If Milverson didn't get proper help soon, he wouldn't be with them much longer.

"Take it easy," Vincent urged.

"Give me my gun," he demanded.

"You're in no position…"

"Give me my gun! Sons-a-bitches kill two of my men and I'm just going to sit here and bleed?" he looked Vincent dead in the eye. "Give me my gun."

Vincent ducked another round of fire while simultaneously shoving Milverson's gun into his hands. "I'm right behind you," he urged as he assisted his unit leader up and heard as his weapon began to fire. As the only one in the unit with medical training, having been a doctor before he enlisted, it was Vincent's duty to check on the injured before he got into the fighting himself. He moved on to next broken body.

Catherine fired until her arms were throbbing with the effort and her gun was empty. She ducked to reload. She glanced at Vincent as he aided Ascalvo.

"We need a man on the machine gun," Milverson ordered.

"I'm on it!" she responded without hesitation as she clawed her way through the dirt to Gentry's former post. She loaded the gun and put it back in place, it having been knocked over during the blast. She slapped it one time and then opened on the direction the assault was coming from. She didn't look around, she just kept firing, the adrenaline burning through her veins. She couldn't think. She just did as she was trained to do.

She heard it whistle, and looked up in time to see a mortar headed straight for her. She responded, immediately diving out of the machine gun pit and tumbling across the dirt as the spot where she'd been standing exploded into light and then went dark.

She was dazed, breathing in dirt from the ground, where she lay.

"Chandler? Chandler? Catherine!" Vincent called to her.

"I'm okay!" she panted as she forced herself up and crawled beside Ascalvo, who had his gun in his hand and was covering her retreat.

Vincent rushed over to her, "Talk to me Chandler," he looked into her eyes searching for any signs of concussion.

"I'm good. Just give me a gun." He shoved an MP5 into her hands and they both opened fire on their attackers.

The fighting was intense and it seemed as if it would never cease. Catherine positioned herself beside Lafferty, who was still giving all she had thirty minutes into the battle. They'd move to the far end of the observation post in an effort to better gauge from whence the greatest threat was coming. Vincent, Ascalvo and Milverson continued their fire fight on the other side. Dillon remained still but the shallow rise and fall of his breath and the occasional groan let them know he was still with them.

The two women stood beside each other, unified in their fight and in the willingness to survive the onslaught around them. It came with no warning, just a suddenly explosion, as a grenade detonated near Lafferty, sending both woman hurtling through the air. She remembered the impact of her back against the hard, dry earth, and then everything was darkness.

She wasn't sure how long she was out, but as she struggled to come out of the abyss she could feel a weight lay on her chest crushing her. She started awake at the sound of another blast, it was then she discovered what the weight was.

"Sabrina?" Catherine cried, barely able to speak as the woman's lifeless body lay on top of her. She wanted to help her friend, her hands trembled with the desire, but there was nothing she could do. Tears fell as she tried and failed to remove her friend's body. She tried to brush the dirt from her eyes, her hands coming away covered in blood, some of which was dripping from the tip of her friend's nose. She just lay there not sure if she was hurt, her entire body feeling numb. She felt as if she was in a tunnel, her hearing hollow, everything seeming distant. She vaguely remembered her friend's body being removed from her own and Vincent's face appearing over her. She couldn't keep her eyes open so she accepted the darkness and whatever comfort it had to give.

When she woke again she was propped up against the sandbags beside Vincent, who was firing one of the MP7s. She coughed. Her lungs hurt, and Vincent slid down beside her. "You with me Chandler?"

She looked at him, moving her arms trying to gauge if she was hurt. "You're fine. The blood isn't yours." His words did little to assure her, as Catherine looked over to where the mangled body of her friend lay motionless. She wanted to cry, out of fear and out of rage.

"Catherine!" Vincent's voice permeated her fog. "They've been trying to get some guys up here to get out the wounded and the dead," he said looking over at Ascalvo whose head hung down against his chest, which wasn't moving with the signs of breath. Catherine blinked. No! Not him too.

"How's Dillon?" she asked panting. It was then she noticed the blood running down Vincent's right cheek. "What happened?"

He looked at her and guessed what she was referring to. He put his hand to his face before she could. "It's nothing. A bullet just grazed me. As for Dillon, he lost consciousness about ten minutes ago. You've been out for fifteen or so. I dragged you back under cover." He looked around. "We're running low on ammo. We've got Ascalvo's Colt and Milverson's MP5, but they're both out. All I have is what I got here." Vincent explained as he tried to catch his breath.

"My MP7," she looked at him. "It's full. And I got extra ammo in my pack for the Colt and the MP5. We just need to get to it." Both looked to where her pack had landed during the blast. It was far beyond cover making getting it risky.

Vincent looked at her as if trying to decide something. "I'm good," she assured. "I'm good."

"I'll cover you." The emotion that filled his eyes as he spoke was beyond anything she'd ever seen. "I got your back."

"I know you do," she panted. She felt that feeling stir in her stomach and looked way. This wasn't the time. "On three?" she stated, turning back to him. He nodded his agreement.

She braced herself.

"One…two...three!" She pushed off of the dirt, the adrenaline masking the pain that the grenade blast had caused, as she tore towards her pack with the sound of Vincent firing behind her. She had just grabbed the strap, skidding in the dirt as she tried to turn around and get back. Suddenly, she saw Vincent coming towards her, knocking her to the ground as machine gun fire perforated the air. She felt the impact as he lay on top of her, three thuds, and then Vincent didn't move.

No! No! No! She thought as she lay there. This wasn't going to happen. She shoved with all of her might, rolling Vincent onto his back, blood already staining the earth.

"Vincent!" she screamed his name, but he simply groaned her name in pain. She grabbed whatever she could for leverage as she dragged him towards cover, he did what he could to push with his feet but he was already weak. When she finally reached cover and propped him against the sandbags that moment's ago had been her resting place, she tried to ascertain how badly he was hurt. She leaned him forward against her arm as she looked at his back. She could see three bullet wounds and he'd become so still.

"No!" she cried as she looked around her, the faces of her fallen comrades surrounding her, some staring and the others with their eyes closed. This couldn't be happening. Three years together. This couldn't be happening.

The last thing she remembered was the sound of successive blasts as she held Vincent's head against her body, shielding him as best she could, and then…

Catherine bolted up in her bed, her clothing and sheets drenched in sweat. She could barely breathe. She looked at the clock; she'd been asleep for just over an hour. She looked around her dark room trying to separate the memory from where she was now. "You're fine Chandler. You're home."

She stood, yanking the wet sheets from the bed and tossing them on the floor, her clothes followed moments later as she walked into the bathroom. She sat in the tub, the water from the shower beating against her head as she hugged her knees into her chest. She was okay, but there was no way she was going back to sleep.

Vincent stood outside of the precinct with two cups of coffee in his hands. He had called earlier to find out when Catherine was expected in, the sergeant advising him she was scheduled to be in at eleven, so at five minutes to the hour he stood sentinel waiting for her. He'd had a good night's sleep once he'd gotten home. It was the first night in literally years that he hadn't been plagued by the memories of that night – the night when six out of his team of eight perished in the desert. He was sure that seeing her was the reason for that...Catherine.

He leaned against the wall, his foot propped up behind him as he waited for her. A moment later, there she was, stalking towards the precinct in dark sunglasses and her head down. She looked tired from where he stood and he wondered if she'd had a problem sleeping.

She walked straight to the door, bypassing him entirely, until he announced himself. "Catherine!" She looked around muddled.

"Vincent? What are you doing here?" she asked, turning on her heels and taking the two steps down to be on the same level as he was. She didn't remove her sunglasses.

"I got you this," he stretched out his hand offering one of the cups. She looked at him curiously from behind her sunglasses but took the proffered beverage. She recognised the cups immediately.

"Charlotte's Diner?" she asked in surprise.

"Yeah. I remembered you said you like their coffee. You said it was the best deli coffee in the city," he said with a small smile. She smiled back. How did he remember that? She'd told him about it during one of those quiet nights patrolling. It must have been six year ago. She looked at him in disbelief.

She put the cup to her mouth and sipped it, the rich brew warming her insides and the shock of caffeine perking her senses. "Thanks for this. I needed it," she said with a quick rise and fall of her left eyebrow. They stood together in uncomfortable silence for several moments before Vincent finally spoke up, clearing his throat before doing so.

"Look Catherine, I know it's been a long time, but think you could meet me at O'Toole's later?" he saw the look of shock and panic flash across her face and he was quick to ease her distress. "I just wanna talk. You're…you're the only person who can understand," he confessed.

She looked at him and nodded silently.

"Ten o'clock?" he suggested.

"Ten sounds fine. I'll meet you there."

Vincent smiled, a small wave of relief flooding through him at her agreement. "I'll see you later then," he stated as she walked backwards and finally turned to leave. Catherine watched him go until he turned the corner out of sight, then she turned and entered the precinct.

Thirteen hours later Vincent sat at the bar in O'Toole's with Catherine nowhere in sight. She was two hours late, and Catherine was never late. Sure she might have been caught up in a case, but something told him that wasn't it. She wasn't coming. She'd lied.

"Hey! Give me a bourbon. Make it a double," Vincent stated as he raised two fingers. The bartender brought the glass and as quickly as it came Vincent had swallowed it down. He hissed as the alcohol burned his oesophagus. "Hey! Another!"

He stared at the dark liquid that slid into place before him, and in his mind he saw hazel eyes and dark hair. He wrapped his hand around the glass and tossed his head back drinking greedily. "Another!"


Author's Note:

On a lighter note. My muse is on fire and I'm going to exploit it while it's hot.

Thanks to each and every one of you who has decided to follow and review this fic. It's all greatly appreciated.

Here is the song for this chapter: watch?v=g2UDf-APve0 – Heart on a Mission by Zach Berkman (I can't stop listening to it)

This song really fit for both Vincent and Catherine during the writing of this chapter. Vincent is hopeful, while Catherine is facing that she hasn't returned to the normal she had convinced herself she had.

Remember youtube is your friend. Also check it out for a one minute clip of next week's episode Cold Turkey. Thanks to Nina2988 for sharing it with me. Awesome!

Looking forward to reading your reviews.

See you guys next chapter!