Chapter 4

Vincent's behavior since his memories have returned has Catherine worried. He hasn't returned to the houseboat, he has been splitting his time between her place and JT. She is glad he is reveling in having his memories back and she hates to bring it up, but there is still the matter of who kidnapped him. She needs to know who kidnapped him, what did they do to him and who turned him into a killing machine. She knows he has a handler and the search for answers starts with him.

She has been waiting for the opportunity to bring it up to him. That time is now. They are sitting out on the fire escape. Vincent likes to sit out here in the evenings. She is not sure if it's because of his memories of how things used to be or if he just likes fire escapes. She leans into him, enjoying the solid warmth of him. For the last few months, she has felt untethered to the world, the world without him in it. Now that he is back, really back. She wants to take on everyone who hurt him.

"Vincent?"

"Mmmmm" He pulls her closer, letting her know he heard her.

"I think we need to find your handler. Now that you know that they kidnapped you and changed you; you can't possibly still work for them."

"I know." He said it quietly, so quietly that she might have missed it. "I know, I have just been afraid."

"Afraid? Of what."

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Afraid of dragging everyone back into Murfield, or whoever took me. It seems so peaceful right now, I guess I was just trying to make it last as long as possible, you know?"

Catherine tilted her head in sympathy. Vincent was quick to acknowledge the problem.

"Look I know I need to find out who kidnapped me. They brainwashed me and took away my memories. But the work I have been doing, Catherine, you know the beasts I have taken out were bad. They killed innocent people and no criminal justice system could hold them accountable, but I could. How do I walk away from the fact that there are still beast out there? At least according to my handler."

Catherine appreciates the struggle taking place inside him. Vincent has always been driven to help people. In fact, that desire is what got him into this mess in the first place. She places a comforting hand on his back.

"I don't know, but I do know that you can't keep on hunting beasts, sooner or later, someone is going to find out about you. Not everything wrong in this world is your problem to fix."

Vincent hung his head.

"It sure feels like it."

"That is the guilt talking Vincent."

He lifted his head and squared his shoulders.

"You're right so what do we do about it?"

"What is the last thing you remember after you were taken?" She shudders as she speaks, the memory of that night, still haunts her. She too carries guilt, guilt over letting go of his hand, over injecting him with the vaccine and keeping him a beast.

Vincent is quiet a moment. He takes her hand, staring at it.

"I remember holding on to your hand as the net rose into the air. I remember the look on your face as I was pulled away. I kept that image in my head for a long time. At least until they tortured it out of me. I have no idea how long we flew or where they took me, but we landed before daylight, so it has to be within a 6 hour chopper ride. I remember the men in the chopper; a younger man and an older man. No names just faces. I will never forget those faces."

He pauses, his pulse is racing as he relives being ripped away from her. Catherine sensing his distress, calms him, by placing her hand on his face.

"Hey, you are safe now, Vincent and I promise they will not hurt you again."

Vincent smiles at her, she is ever ready to save him. It's only fair he supposes as he is always ready to save her as well.

"The place where I was held, was your basic detention center, plus laboratory. There were cells, and treatment rooms. I know there were other people being held there, I could hear them, but I never saw any of them. The man who tortured me, is the older man from the helicopter. He was in charge of programming me. Every day for months, they would inject me and talk at me. They used sleep deprivation and hunger to confuse me and break me down."

Looking at Catherine, his expression earnest.

"You have to believe me, I tried to hold onto your memory. I would talk to you sometimes and it felt so real, like you were really there. I must have talked out loud to myself because at one point they told me that they had you. If I didn't cooperate they would hurt you. I could hear a woman screaming and they would tell me all I had to do to make it stop was let go."

Vincent started shaking, he dropped his head, his voice broken.

"I could handle what they were doing to me, but hearing the screams and thinking what they were doing to you. I couldn't take it, it broke me, thinking that I was to blame for your pain. I stopped resisting and I never heard the screams again, I didn't care what happened to me, I just wanted you free."

Rage coursed through Catherine. Rage and guilt that someone used her to break Vincent that someone took the love he felt for her and turned it against him, used it to turn him into the very monster he had always been terrified he would become.

"I am so sorry that they hurt you Vincent. And that they used me to do it. No wonder you were suspicious of me when you first met me again. You may not have remembered me, but I bet subconsciously you felt I was a danger to you. Clearly your handler wanted you to think so."

Vincent shook his head.

"That is not why I was suspicious of you. I could feel you, from that very first moment, you touched a part of me that I didn't want to acknowledge existed anymore. You terrified me, because you made me want to quit hunting. I couldn't focus, you were constantly invading my thoughts. I dreamed about you at night and day dreamed about you during the day. You certainly are dangerous…..not to me, but to my handler. You brought me back."

Catherine smiled and kissed him gently.

"I am so glad. How do we go about finding your handler? Could you do a sketch of him?

"Yeah, I remember his face very clearly."

Vincent met with a police sketch artist and when he was done, he brought the sketch to JT to see if he could do anything with it. Catherine looked at the sketch and felt a twinge of recognition. He felt familiar to her.

Vincent and Catherine made good on their plan to have her friends over to dinner to apologize for her hasty exit at the reunion. After an amazing dinner while sitting around the fireplace enjoying their wine. Catherine and Vincent make a startling discovery.

"Catherine I scooped up a bunch of old photographs from the reunion. I didn't think you got a chance to see them all."

Catherine looked through the photos. She smiled at most of the memories. Back when life was simple. She had wanted to be a lawyer, like her Dad…..Well like Thomas. She still didn't know who her real Dad was. Another question that needed to be answered.

Vincent was looking over her shoulder. Smiling, looking at a much younger Catherine. The girl she was before her Mom's death. Now he suddenly realized why Catherine had kept the picture of him from Alex's apartment. They really were different people before the weight of their tragedies, you could see it; in the carefree smile she had. He glanced over to the mantle, where his photo was framed. It was important to remember who they had been before all the bad stuff happened.

"We need to frame one of these photos of you."

Catherine shuffled through them.

"Here is one from Graduation day."

They both looked at the photo. Catherine inhales sharply and Vincent goes absolutely still beside her. Catherine looks at Vincent and can tell he is holding back. He is positively vibrating with suppressed emotion. Thinking quickly she stands and asks Vincent to accompany her to the bedroom.

"Vincent, I think there are some more photos in the bedroom, but they are high up, can you help me get them."

"Ah sure." He shakes it off and walks back to the bedroom.

Catherine excuses herself and makes her way back to the bedroom. Vincent is breathing heavily, his veins standing out. Fists clenched. His eyes are closed, but she knows if he opened them, they would be glowing.

"Vincent, just breathe, you are here with me, just be here right now in the moment with me. Whatever is going on with you, we will handle it."

Vincent calms down, and can sense Catherine's racing heartbeat. He is not the only one upset by the photo.

"I am sorry, it's just that….the man in the photo at your graduation…..he is the man from the helicopter."

Catherine takes a step back, the shock of what he is saying combined with her own deduction staggers her.

"Vincent, that man is an FBI agent. His name is Bob Reynolds. I met him at my father's…at Thomas's memorial, the same night I found you. He went out of his way to meet me, he told me that my Father was proud but always worried about me."

Catherine realizes who he is and the words rush out.

"I thought it was an oddly personal thing to say, at the time, but shook it off. Now it seems like he was talking about himself. Vincent I think Agent Reynolds is my real Father. Why else would he be at my high school graduation!"

They stare at each other. Unable to process what this means.

"Hey Cat, it's getting late, we are going to take off."

Her friends yell down the hallway. Clearly her attempt at subtle didn't work. She leaves Vincent and runs down the hallway.

"I am sorry…but I promise we will do this again soon."

Beth gives Cat a hug.

"No problem, if I had a man like that waiting in the bedroom for me, I would be impatient for my friends to leave too."

Cat laughed. That is what they thought? She wanted them gone so she could jump Vincent's bones. It was so absurd and off base, that Catherine laughed harder than she should have. At their questionable looks, she quickly recovered.

"Thanks for being so understanding, you guys are great. Let's not wait 10 years before we see each other again."

She closed the door behind them, leaning her head against the door she exhaled loudly.

"Now what?"

She asked herself quietly. But when your boyfriend is a beast with super hearing, nothing goes unnoticed.

"Now we find him, so I can kill him."