Hey my lovely readers, even when you disagreed with me the last time, I was relieved to see glimpses of the Catherine I liked so much, in this 10th episode. My earlier problem was, that I couldn't believe that she was so devastated in episode 8, when she thought he was dead and than a day later she almost didn't seemed to care that she nearly killed him in episode 9. Or hid it just too well for me to see. I was too fast for me personally, acting so contrary within just 24 hours. But I found it highly interesting how different people saw those scenes. Now Catherine is back with me and finally kicks some ass again. As always thanks for your reviews and I hope you enjoy!

Vincent: I don't know, Tori. This whole public thing, I thought maybe it would help stop the lying but the truth is I'm lying about myself more than I ever have.

Vincent:

I didn't know how to describe how I felt after walking out that studio, maybe the best word was hollow. The first days after the press conference at the hospital had been so crazy, too many people suddenly wanted to meet me, interview me and even the freaking mayor had invited me into his office. And they all asked me the same questions over and over again and the more I told my carefully made up story, the more it felt like the dirty lie that it truly was. They had dressed me up, styled my hair and called me a hero in national TV, Tori had told me, there were even people who called for a medal of honour for me. For my heroic actions in the battle. How ridiculous. All of a sudden invitations to social events appeared in my mail box, send by total strangers, people were recognizing me on the streets and cameras flashed everywhere. For Tori, it felt almost normal given her history but I flinched and ducked at every sudden movement. She tried to help me, calm me but after all those years of trying to be invisible I had forgotten how to make small talk, how to react normal when people suddenly jumped in my way and talked to me on the streets. It felt like an alternate reality and in all my dreams I had never imagined this much attention. It felt wrong. They weren't talking to me, weren't interested in me. They all wanted a good story, or just get to know a war hero, something I couldn't be further from. I was like a trophy handed down. They asked me about my life and about my future plans and even women. And I had to smile and lie again and again which made me feel worse. It made me feel like an Impostor. How could I ever think that this would be a good idea? Sure, no one had an idea about the beast but being out in the open like this, so unprotected made me uneasy, almost paranoid.

And in the nights my thoughts went more and more around, running in circles while preventing me from finding sleep. I had felt so detached and restless, so lost these last weeks, searching for anything that could ground me. Anything where I could be me, were I didn't need to act and pretend. Where I was accepted. And somehow I had stumbled in this kind of relationship without realising it. With Tori. I knew it wasn't fair to her, because my Love belonged to Catherine, she still owned my heart. But the fear of being alone in this mess kept my mouth sealed shut. Tori didn't saw it or blankly ignored it, I had no idea which. We were like two desperate persons, with holes and wounds none of us knew how to mend, with nowhere to go and no one to talk to. So we stick together. There was was some kind of understanding between us. As the only two beast on the planet we thought it would be the right thing, rational. Deep down, I think we both knew that we used each other. She needed someone she could belong to, something that felt at least somehow like home. And I needed an anchor. So I wouldn't loose myself in all these lies. When the interest in me finally faded a bit, I turned my attention and time to this skeleton and that weird shackle. Searching through Books and Databases, studying it with J.T. as always on my side. Tori was interested at first but the whole process was beyond her. And she didn't understood much when J.T. and I talked about DNA samples and Age determinations. So most of the days she had stayed on the boat doing who knows what while I was at the gentlemen's club. Trying to find out something, any thing about how this skeleton was so valuable and what it could tell us about beasts.

When I got the message from my friend, Tori and I dropped anything. The club was left in chaos when we arrived, monitors laying busted on the ground and poor J.T. was pretty shaken. What he told me about the Skeleton, while holding the ice to his bruises, blew me away. This piece of Information changed everything. I had always thought the serum had been made, developed by Muirfield but as it seemed I wasn't a invention, I was just a reused freak of nature. They had been more like us, somewhere in time. Of a sudden, we had some kind of a genealogical tree. Had they all been so unhappy with their fate, like me, like us? Had they just extinct over decades or were these primeval beast been eradicated? To stop my mind from going nuts with all these new information, I tried to track these bastards down. To get some answers. I knew my reasons, but why would anybody else on this planet needing this shackle? What did they know that we didn't? So after arguing with Tori who strangely didn't really cared about all this questions, I followed the scent to a bar. Where I was confronted with a hard reality, something I wasn't ready for, probably never would. Her. No matter how much I told myself that it was over, that I had Tori and that neither of us cared about the other, I knew deep down that it was all a lie. My Lungs stopped breathing the second I saw Catherine. And when she kissed that guy my world stood still. And than went cold. A very pissed of Tori got me out of this stupor, out of watching her. Had she really already moved on while my heart was just held together by band aids? But what should I do? I had no right, I was the one running after another girl, who lived with me, slept in my bed. But then why did all my instincts scream at me to break this guys bones, all of them one by one for touching Catherine, for even looking at her. For taking what I had lost. Taking a deep breath I pushed these feelings down and turned around, because going far far away seemed like the best option for now.

J.T. : Wait, you tracked Cat?

What a coincidence, I thought. As much as Vincent tried to stay away from her, like magnets they always ended up near each other, wanting to reconnect. Mistakenly tracking Cat would just be the next sign from his subconscious that he had chosen wrong. He obviously seemed to be pretty agitated about it. Just from seeing her. Not that it was a surprise for me, because no matter how hard both of them pretended to be over each other they maybe would never be. And if his mind was as possessed by her as I suspected, maybe he tracked something that remembered him of her, felt her in danger. But the way he played with his cup expressed without words that there was more. When he finally told me about the kissing part it explained so much. Why this threw him so far out of track. In this strange Triangle were so many messed up feelings. I wasn't a expert but even I saw how Tori was falling for Vincent while he was still madly in love with Cat, no matter how much he tried to conceal it. So one of them would definitely get hurt. And Cat? Was understandable disappointed, betrayed and had build a fortress around her heart, with barbed wire on top. Now they all danced around each other, both of them desperately masking the pain of loosing the other while Tori tried to find her place in between. I told Vincent my suggestions about Tori, how she hoped for him to turn to her but he didn't really got the hint. Was he so blind that he didn't saw her feelings or did he purposely overlooked it? I believed, she had not really a chance but he needed take this seriously, acknowledging what he was doing with her, to her. That he used her as an crutch for his own broken heart. Maybe he had really no clue about women...

And to get out of this Hell he felt he was in, I knew Vincent had to come clear with himself. Let all this chaos go and concentrate on himself. On his History. Accept himself fully, with the beast and all. I had watched the old Vincent's struggles for years, back when he had despised the creature within him, when he wanted nothing more than to be normal, human. And I also had observed the new Vincent, who was way more merged with his beast side, willing to embrace it to a point where he had almost lost himself in it. Neither of the extremities would make my Friend happy in the long run. I wanted so much to help Vincent but i knew that this wasn't my fight. I couldn't bring Vincent the balance he needed, no one could that had to come from him alone. And maybe then, if the circumstances were more than perfect and the stars in a mysteriously good alignment Catherine would open her Fortress and her heart for him again. Only then. But Vincent was not there yet. Not even close. So I kept my thoughts to myself and tried to be there for him when he stumbled through this mess. Hoping he would someday realize he had to love himself before anyone else could.

Catherine: Same thing I'm doing here, working on a case. So don't blow my cover.

Vincent: I see. Si that's why you had your tongue down some guy's throat.

Catherine: What, you jealous?

Catherine:

I couldn't believe it. I had done everything I could to get some space. Had cleared my apartment of every memory, had thrown myself into work only to be pulled back into this beast mess, which also meant Vincent mess. Did I needed to leave the state to get some air? I had almost begged for this undercover job, not only because it would get me occupied but I could forget myself for a bit. Be someone else without all this drama. Wear a pretty dress and hunt some bad guys felt way better than crying my heart out every night in my bed. Not that I would ever let anyone know that. I did my best to feel confident and strong. I needed to get myself back, that woman who had a life which didn't centred around a man. Around Vincent. Seeing him with her on every damn newspaper didn't really helped but it steeled my sake. Somewhere over the last year I had become someone I didn't like, someone who I didn't recognized. I had lost my own personality, my live over Vincent. Without realising it. So working would hopefully get me back to myself, helping me clearing my head, I thought. Until I stood in this bar, wearing my best bad ass clothes and attitude while frozen in spot at his View. He would blow my cover without knowing it, I saw it in his eyes, in his movement towards me and so I had to react. It was maybe the most effective move but also the meanest thing I could do. With my eyes closed, my lips on this strangers I could feel Vincent's look on me, burning a hole in me. When I opened them again he was gone. Despite how we ended, I felt bad. Dangerously on the edge of my own sea of misery I went to the bar and ordered tequila. Three of them and they all quickly went down my throat. I needed to concentrate. Get back on the case. So after almost drowning in the cold Hudson and infiltrating an Russian embassy like some spy, I wanted to punch something when Vincent appeared in front of me. Keeping myself busy with pouring glasses I tried to find out why he was here. Why, oh damn was he here?

He didn't fool me, as always his eyes couldn't hide his hurt over the kiss, no matter what he said. And he was as determined as me to get this gem. Believed it was his. So we threatened each other until I delivered the ultimate low blow of shooting him again. He left with no word and as much as I told myself to look away, my eyes followed his every move. Watched as he flirted with that beautiful woman while I gritted my teeth so much it hurt. He punished me for the kiss, I was sure. Letting me feel the same way that he did yesterday. Angrily I made my way after him, disturbing him just in the right moment. Seeing him with Patrick, his hand around his throat was like a deja vu. The same posture, the same raging anger. He admitted killing Shorty without any sign of remorse and I would not let him take another life. And while we stared at each other, with none of us retreating I felt like I was looking at a stranger. Who was this man who murdered without even caring. I lowered my gun because something in him, in his eyes scared me beyond words. Some flicker that showed me he would desperately do anything to get this gem. Even killing someone in front of me. And to be honest, I couldn't shoot him again, it was a burden that I knew I couldn't bear. So to save Patrick's life and my sanity I let Vincent disappear and with him the gem.

To explain that to Dana was harder than I thought. She was furious, overly pressuring and so the feeling of her keeping something from me grew stranger and stronger. Not a game I wanted to play so I almost left. When she finally shared her presumptions with me I was terrified how close to the truth she really was. And when she gave me the folder with the old articles, it opened a secret door to a history I could never had imagine. Could that all be so much more? Could it be faith? What immediately brought a big, new question up. Did I wanted to get involved with that? With all that Beast stuff, the skeletons and the gems? But after reading all of it over night I knew my answer was yes, under the condition that I could draw a line. A line between me and a particular Beast. So I would be unaffected from any outcome. The decision made, I came to work the next day and jumped into the cold water. I accepted something that was offered to me openly for a long time now. Gabe's Affection. And maybe with him, an almost normal guy I could become something, someone strong enough to find the truth without loosing myself again.