A/N: I very much appreciate everyone who has left their kind thoughts on this story so far. The water starts to get a bit rougher in this chapter, but I hope everyone will hold on for the ride. As always, feedback is wonderful.

Not hearing anything the woman might have called after her or the fact that all the eyes in the room which had been on the woman were now on her, Maggie raced out of the Moose Lodge common room back the way she had come. She did not stop when she hit the street. Instead, she began to run.

Her ankle began cramping after two blocks, but she continued to limp as quickly as she could towards home. Every once in a while, she cast a look behind her to see if she had been followed, but no one seemed to be coming after her.

After five blocks, her calf was done with her and she paused in the stoop of a closed shop to catch her breath and rest her unhappy muscles. Her left leg had never quite been up to snuff, not since she'd come out of the coma. Certain parts of her body were forever weakened - that leg, especially. But also her right hand. Sometimes, it would randomly give out and she'd drop whatever she was holding. For that reason, Maggie had learned to always deliver plates at the diner with only her left hand, using her right to steady as necessary.

Oh how she needed a cigarette. That was one thing her right-hand fingers could be counted on to hold.

But as she took a deep breath, Maggie tried to steady herself without the need for a nicotine fix.

Who was the woman she had seen?

Maggie tried to place a name to her but could not. Still, she recalled what Joe had said - Jenny. The woman's name was Jenny, and Maggie knew her. She knew her. In some ways, Maggie felt that knew Jenny better than she knew Joe, even though that seemed strange. Had she met her boss through her friend or her friend through her boss?

Either way, Jenny had obviously recognized her. If Maggie had not spooked like a deer at a gunshot, she might have gotten a few answers from the woman.

And yet… she wondered if it was right to do what she was doing. Should she be making herself known? After all, she had been dead for twelve years. What would it do to the people she had left behind if she suddenly came back to life now? What would she tell them? How could she possibly explain herself?

But deep within her, Maggie also felt a pulsing anger. Why hadn't they found her sooner? Why hadn't Vincent and Jake and Joe and Jenny ever found her? Sure, they supposedly thought she was dead, but that seemed a convenient excuse seeing as how she clearly was not dead.

After a few minutes, her leg seemed recovered enough for an uncomfortable limp home, and Maggie dragged her weary limbs in the direction of her apartment.

Unbeknownst to her, someone followed.

As she unlocked the door, Maggie knew that the first order of business should be to ice her calf. If she did so promptly, she might be able to arrest the swelling enough to make for a normal work day at the diner in the morning. If she did not, she might have to actually call out, something she only ever did when she had came down with the flu.

But rather than do what she knew she should, Maggie walked past her kitchen to the window off her small living room which led to the fire escape. There, she planted herself on the stoop next to her rose bush and lit a much-needed cigarette.

"What am I doing?" she asked the bush. "I keep acting like I'm ready to discover my former life, and I'm clearly not. I don't know how to be whatever I was before. I barely know how to be who I am now."

Another long drag and she felt more steady. The wisps of smoke which expelled from her lungs floated into the darkened sky, absorbed into the ether like so many souls poured out into the abyss. Maggie rarely thought about the afterlife, but she did wonder about where people's spirits originated. The concept of a soulmate should have been laughable to her, seeing as how she barely even knew how to hug another person. But she believed it nevertheless.

"Are you all right?"

The voice was near enough to startle her but not so close as to make her jump out of her skin. Still, Maggie did jump as she looked towards the source of the question.

A cloaked figure stood on the fire escape of the apartment below hers. Even if she did not recognize his voice, which she did, his dark and imposing figure identified him easily.

Vincent.

Maggie knew the old woman who lived in that apartment never ventured out and always had her curtains drawn. But still, she thought it must be a terrible risk for Vincent to take, climbing up the fire escape to her apartment.

He kept his hood drawn down so that she could not see his face. But for the first time, she glimpsed his clothing. Unsurprisingly, he dressed like Jake in a mismatch of comfortable, patched layers. Over top it all was the mantle of a heavy cloak, dark and also pieced together. Maggie noted a bit of leather fringe in places which swayed in the night breeze despite Vincent's stillness.

"I'm fine," she managed in answer to his question. "I just had a…" She sighed. "I was startled earlier."

"I worried when you did not…"

His voice fell away before completing the thought.

When she did not go to the park, Maggie thought to herself. She did not point out that he had not been to the park in several days, either. Nor did she ask how he knew where she lived.

"I went somewhere else," she confided, "in hopes of finding a clue to unlock more of my memories."

Gently, he asked, "And did you succeed?"

She huffed. "No. I am once again more replete with questions than with answers. And I fear I do not have the strength to keep seeking out the knowledge to pry the memories from my mind."

For a long moment, she simply let her comment hang in the air like the smoke from her cigarette. Finally, Vincent spoke, his voice traveling up to her like the wisdom of some fairy prince.

"You have the strength, Maggie. I may not know the woman you are now, in this incarnation of your life. But I know your heart beats with the same depth of conviction it ever did. In that, you are unchanged."

He finished with a sigh, and she ached to hear more of the depth of love in his voice.

"I don't feel strong." Her lips trembled as she said the words, and with an unsteady hand she put out her cigarette. "I feel scared. And too mired in that fear to find my way through."

"You cannot have courage without fear, Maggie," he told her. "And even today, you have mustered the strength to face your fears."

He spoke of her visit to see Joe Maxwell, although she had no idea how he could know such a thing.

"I ran away."

For once, she was grateful that he hid his face so she did not have to endure what would likely be pity in his eyes.

She went on, "Someone saw me. A woman recognized me. And I ran away."

Maggie was not sure what she expected him to say. But he still surprised her.

"I would have done the same." Before she could respond he added, "After all, what greater risk do we take than allowing others to see us as we truly are?"

His comment seemed full of import, and Maggie suddenly knew he spoke of himself as well as her.

"Please close your eyes," he said in barely more a whisper.

Maggie complied without hesitation, and her heart began a more rapid beat as she heard his soft footballs climb the fire escape up to her floor. The air seemed suddenly charged as anticipation filled her. Around them, the sounds of the city pressed tightly, sirens and car horns and-

"Please do not be afraid. You may open your eyes."

Without pausing to wonder what she would see, Maggie did open her eyes.

For a very long time, she simply drank him in, the way a parched man wandering in the desert might partake of that first look at an oasis.

His form and figure were powerful and masculine, his long, straw-colored hair falling down to frame his face in soft, unkempt waves. But his face was not that of a normal man. In direct contradiction to his velvety soft voice, his face looked like that of an animal. A fine, downy fur covered high cheek bones and a strong jaw. His upper lip held a feline cleft.

Except his eyes - his eyes were entirely human.

Maggie knew that she should have been horror struck. Something buried deep in her memory cried out at the sight of him. But an even deeper reaction overtook her.

He was here.

A strong feeling of love and longing crashed over her like a tidal wave, almost drowning her in its intensity. And her body moved with some muscle memory long suppressed by her mind. She approached him with shy, tentative steps, and when he did not flee, she reached out for him.

He flinched just as she would have touched him, before she could throw herself into his waiting arms. And Maggie froze, just a few inches away.

"Do you remember me?" he asked, his voice deeper and more husky even than usual. As his lips formed the words, she glimpsed sharp canines in his mouth, like the teeth of a large cat.

"I remember…" Maggie paused, searching for the words, for the answer. "I remember the thought of you, the way I felt when you would come to me. It was… an incredible feeling, like the first glimpse of all the presents under the tree on Christmas morning. Or when candlelight pushes back the darkness."

He regarded her, his gaze soft as she continued to take him in. But then her eyes traveled the length of him and she glimpsed his hands.

His hands…

"He didn't have hands. Just claws."

"I knew then - these hands were not meant to give love."

A confusing array of images played in her mind's eye, each one more terrifying than the one before it. She saw Vincent kill with deadly precision. He used those animalistic claws to tear apart men's flesh, as efficiently as any lion has ever taken down a gazelle in the Serengeti. Her ears reminded her of the screams of dying men, of doomed souls crying out in fear and one last expression of agony as Vincent snuffed out their life.

And worse still, as awful as such memories felt as they collided within her unsuspecting mind, Maggie knew - she knew - that every single person he killed had been for her. His hands were only ever stained with blood for her sake, to save her from some unremembered peril.

He did not kill on a whim or with random disregard for the lives of others. He only killed to protect her. And in so doing, she remembered that she had slowly driven him mad.

One last image filled her mind, and she saw him charging at her, his clawed hand upraised as if to strike. And then his eyes saw her, recognized her, and in them she saw his will to live simply snuff out.

To an outsider, she was staring at a monster. But Maggie knew in an instant that she was actually the monster.

She staggered back from him at this realization, at the unfailing certainty which suddenly shrouded her conscious mind. She was the reason he had killed so many. She was the reason he had nearly gone mad, had almost self-destructed under the weight of his guilt and pain.

What had she done to him?

Tears filled her eyes as she thought about that last moment, as he had willed his own heart to stop rather than harm her. She could not contain the gasp which left her lips.

Seeing only her reaction, Vincent quickly turned away from her as he raised the hood of his cloak back up to hide his face.

"I'm sorry-" he began to say, clearly having interpreted her response as a reaction to seeing his full form.

Savagely, Maggie pushed away her raging river of emotions to focus on him. She would not let him believe for one moment…!

"Vincent, you didn't frighten me. Please don't turn away."

Undeterred, he went on, "I should not have come here tonight."

"I'm glad you did," she insisted. "And I'm glad you let me see you. I remember so much more now…"

This last earned her his attention again as he moved ever so slightly to look at her out from under the shadow of his hood. However, his gaze still seemed wary.

"But what do you remember?"

From his tone, she knew he suspected that she remembered exactly as she did - the dozens of times he had unleashed predatory violence in her presence, his hands filling the air with the coppery smell of death.

"I remember… that I owe you my life. Many times over."

At the cost of your spirt, she did not add, the weight of guilt pressing on her firmly.

And it suddenly occurred to her why her memories had stayed locked away so firmly. In believing her dead, she had spared him more pain. For all these years, he had mourned their love. But he had been free of her fear and needs, free to follow the life of a teacher and a poet rather than maiming and killing in her name.

And he died, she remembered achingly. She had not only caused his madness, but she had led him to his death. The illness he had spoken of, the one resulting in the loss of their bond, was because of her. Because of all the times he had killed others to rescue her.

"You owe me nothing, Maggie."

He spoke with such conviction that she felt an almost physical weight on her chest.

"You really believe that, don't you?" she asked in disbelief.

He turned to her fully at the question.

She went on, "You really think that she, that I... was worth everything I put you through?"

His eyes betrayed confusion, and her heart ached at that sight. Had her former self truly brainwashed this man into this blind worship of her? Had she convinced him that because of his appearance, he could only earn her love and devotion through acts of violence?

Maggie wept hot tears at the thought.

"My God, Vincent. All this time you loved me so much despite what I did to you."

"What you did-?" he began to ask in confusion.

"Everything I put you through."

He shook his head, the conflict within him building at her insistence. And Maggie knew he would argue, would insist on some purity of her actions which absolved her of blame. She could do no wrong in his eyes, Maggie realized, the woman who had birthed his son, whose death he had carried as one more unhealed wound on his precious soul. Nothing she could say would convince him of the reality she suddenly understood so clearly.

She was the ugly one, an evil-filled monster who deserved to be banished from society. Not Vincent. For so many years, she had struggled to hide from that knowledge, that realization of her true nature. But now it occurred to her in full force.

She had almost been the death of him. How many times? How many knives had stabbed him, bullets ripped through his flesh, as he put himself between her and harm? And worse, what agonies had he visited on his own psyche because of her?

These hands were not meant to give love.

She could hear his voice clearly in her mind, the memory stinging with its intensity. He had meant it.

Maggie closed her eyes at the remembered pain in his voice. Had she really convinced him he had no ability to love because of what his hands had done, what he had done to save her?

"I wish Jake had never found me," she whispered aloud. "I should have stayed dead rather than visit all this pain upon you again."

She swallowed hard, wishing she could make him understand: the woman he had known and loved had abused him horribly. She had used him for her own selfish ends and then somehow made him believe he was unworthy of her because of it. Only now, looking back at the shards of memories from her old life, could she truly understand the truth.

"Vincent, you are the most beautiful person I have ever met," she uttered, pushing away her tears impatiently, "and I am sorry for ever letting you believe otherwise. I cannot imagine the plague I was on your life before. The memories I have remembered give me an idea, and I wish I could erase them from you as well-"

Vincent shook his head. "No, you don't understand-"

"But I never deserved you. Or your love. I never deserved your sacrifices and your pain." She closed her eyes against a growing physical pain in her head, the force of it hitting her like a migraine. "Please go, Vincent. Forget you found me. Forget you ever knew me."

She stepped away from him until her back was at her apartment window. Absently, she crawled back inside. As she turned to close the window, she caught sight of him staring at her, his hand outstretched as if to reach for her.

His voice sounded very far away as he called out to her. The muscle in her calf suddenly seized, causing her to fall. But her mind had already abandoned her, seeking unconsciousness rather than endure another moment of facing the evil persona she had led in her former life.

"Catherine!"

The name followed her into a deep well full of darkness.

TBC