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Regarding the story, I hope folks are enjoying the angsty twists and turns as Catherine confronts the confusing and disjointed memories of her past along with everything that has happened in her absence. I plan to update again soon. In the mean time, feedback is always appreciated.

Her old friend looked tired. Dark circles around her eyes reflected the sleepless night since glimpsing her old friend, returned from the dead. But then, Catherine reminded herself that she was also the wife of a burgeoning politician.

"So you and Joe," Catherine observed quietly, the coffee cup warm in her hands.

"He helped me plan your funeral," Jenny said blankly. "There wasn't anyone else, so…"

"Thank you."

Jenny shook her head, refusing to accept the offered thanks.

"...after that, we just sort of drifted together. Once it was all over, after Moreno and Elliot Burch were found dead, and we had some resolution with that Gabriel person dead…" Jenny shrugged. "He was the only one who understood, you know? And he listened when I had the dreams. Everyone else told me I was crazy."

"The dreams?" Catherine asked. But even as she said the words, she remembered that Jenny had always harbored a sixth sense and it manifested most strongly in her sleeping hours.

"They were awful, Cathy. For the longest time, it felt like you were trapped somewhere. I told Joe I was worried they had buried you alive. But he said that wasn't possible, that they had done an autopsy."

Jenny looked across the table at her, whole and hale and healthy.

"But I guess he was wrong about that too."

"Jenny…"

"No, I think it's time you answered some of my questions. Where have you been?"

Catherine almost chuckled.

"Here. I've been here."

Jenny seemed confused. "Working at a diner in Brooklyn? All this time?"

Catherine shrugged. "I don't know how I got here. I was moved to a nursing home a few blocks away for years. I was in a coma for a couple of years, and then one day… I woke up. I didn't remember anything. I went through physical therapy, relearned how to walk and talk and feed myself. The doctors thought the amnesia was a consequence of the brain damage, caused by whatever drug I took which caused the coma. I didn't even start to remember my past until a week ago."

Jenny nodded slowly. "You came to the town hall meeting," she prompted.

"I saw the notice in the paper. The picture of Joe looked familiar, so…"

Jenny focused her eyes on the table between them, her own cup of coffee sitting untouched as tendrils of steam disappeared into the air.

"How much do you remember now?"

Catherine shrugged one shoulder. "Bits and pieces. It's like someone took a mirror and shattered it, and I'm trying to pick up the shards from the floor without them cutting me."

At her description, Jenny looked up at her in surprise, eyebrows raised.

"It's so strange you said that. That's one of the other dreams I had. You were trapped behind a mirror, but the mirror was broken and you couldn't get out because there were pieces missing."

Nodding in acknowledgement, Catherine admitted, "That's how it felt. And for the most part, I don't think I even wanted to remember. It just seemed too… painful."

Saying the word aloud crystalized the feeling in Catherine's mind. Thus far, remembering had been painful. Not only had the process caused her physical agony, but the mental strength of accepting the sort of person she had been before pushed her to her absolute emotional limit.

Jenny nodded slightly, taking in the sight of her friend. After a moment, a strange expression swept over her face.

"So why did you start remembering after all this time?"

The question hit Catherine hard as something inside of her instinctively clenched tight. The secret - Vincent's secret - extended to all parts of her life, she realized suddenly. Jenny did not know him, had never met him. Neither had Joe. No one from her world knew him.

While the truth made sense to her, Catherine could feel with it an accompanying wave of loneliness. She had never been able to tell her oldest friend of the man she loved. And she knew that Jenny could be trusted. But keeping Vincent safe, keeping his family from harm, meant taking cautions far and above what she had ever taken before.

And Jenny had no idea Jake even existed.

"I met someone from my former life," she said with a smile.

The question only ignited further curiosity in her friend. "Who?"

"Just… an old acquaintance. But they recognized me and gently tried to help me find my memories."

Jenny nodded again, acceptance slowly taking hold of her. But she obviously still had questions.

"So you don't think you remember everything yet?" she asked.

Shaking her head, Catherine admitted, "No, it's still like an unfinished puzzle. Some parts are clear, but others are just blank holes and lots of jumbled bits of memory. I'm still trying to make everything fit."

"Why didn't you tell Joe all this when we were at the diner earlier?"

With a shrug of her shoulder, Catherine admitted, "I panicked."

When she did not elaborate, Jenny stared at her in consternation.

"That's it?" she demanded. "You panicked? That's not good enough. You have to tell him the truth. He's convinced that I'm crazy and that you're just some bizarre lookalike."

Taking a deep breath, Catherine said quietly, "Jenny, maybe it would be better if we didn't tell Joe."

Jenny blinked twice before responding.

"What do you mean, not tell Joe? I don't understand."

Catherine sighed deeply before focusing her attention on the coffee cup in her hands. The heat was gone, and with it the steam had disappeared. But the ceramic remained warm between her hands.

"Jenny… there's a reason I was in a coma. The doctors told me the dose of morphine in my system should have killed me. So either I had done it deliberately or… someone wanted me dead." Taking a deep breath, she went on, "And now I've been gone all this time. Twelve years. Everyone's life has moved on. You and Joe are married, and Joe's running for district attorney. It isn't fair for me to just… come back."

But her meaning did not seem to sink in as Jenny shook her head. "That doesn't make any sense. Of course you have to come back-"

"No, I don't. And maybe it really would be better if I just… disappeared."

"Cathy, no!"

Reaching across the table to take her friend's hand, Catherine implored, "I don't want to hurt anyone else, Jenny. Everyone's lives have moved on, including mine. I'm not the woman you used to know. I don't know who I am, but I'm not Catherine Chandler anymore."

For a long moment, her friend stared at her. She could see reflected there over a decade of new experiences, new connections and people and challenges. And whereas Catherine felt certain that the old Jenny would have folded under her friend's certainty, this woman in front of her had no intention of doing so.

"That's ridiculous," she said, her voice full of finality.

"Jenny-"

Interrupting her, Jenny insisted, "No, you need to talk to Joe. You don't understand, not what happened to you or how things were without you."

"I know everything I need to know," Catherine assured her. "I know…"

She paused, her mind having taken her to thoughts of Vincent. But then suddenly something Jenny had said before sharpened in her mind. Cold, uncomfortable chills went down her arms as an uncomfortable heat took residence at the back of her neck.

"Did you say that Elliot… died?"

She remembered the man now, a handsome figure of questionable morals and immense wealth. They had dated, briefly. He loved her. And she had let him do so, more than once capitalizing on his feelings for something she needed. But all along, she had loved Vincent instead.

Jenny nodded, almost apologetic.

Taking a deep breath as the guilt over yet another relationship swept over her, Catherine asked, "How did he die?"

"There was an explosion at the docks. They think he was looking into your murder and got too close."

Her shoulders slumped with dejection. "Except I was alive," Catherine noted soberly. "And he died for nothing."

Her heart clenched painfully. Elliot's death now rested firmly on her shoulders. It would burden her conscience forever, one more consequence of the life she lived before. Catherine again wondered at the type of seductress she had been in that past life to not only convince Vincent to fall in love with her but to inspire Elliot's loyalty even after her so-called death.

Closing her eyes, Catherine took in a deep breath and then let it out with a shutter. Tears threatened to flood her eyes and she rapidly blinked them away. The last thing she wanted was for her friend to feel the need to comfort her.

Jenny said nothing for a moment. She looked down at Catherine's hand still in hers and gently gave it a squeeze.

"I don't think you realize how many people were devastated by your 'death,' Cathy. You should have seen how many people came to your funeral. There were people there Joe and I had never met, had never even seen before."

Vincent's family, Catherine realized. They would have gone to mourn her in his stead, because he could not go into public.

"Twelve years have passed, Jenny," she said quietly. "Wouldn't it hurt everyone more to come back, to assume some life I don't even fully recall, and be someone other than the woman everyone remembers? It doesn't feel right."

But Jenny refused to take her 'no' for an answer.

"At least talk to Joe," she implored. "If for no other reason than to prove I'm not crazy."

With a snort, Catherine found herself agreeing.

"Alright, Jenny. But just Joe. No one else."

By evening, Catherine was utterly exhausted.

The emotional twists and turns of her day had left her both physically and emotionally wrung out, and her body felt ready to drop. But as Catherine entered her apartment, she did not find within it the usual feeling of respite from a demanding world.

The books on her living room bookcase did not feel like hers, although she recognized all the titles. Her couch, a worn but comfortable piece of furniture, did not seem right either. Everything felt out of place, like she had stepped into the apartment of a stranger rather than the abode she had lived in for a decade.

"What is happening to me?" she asked aloud as she entered the galley kitchen, intent upon making herself a cup of tea.

But even the kitchen, with its meager counter space and well-used microwave, did not seem as familiar to her as it should. Rather, her acquaintance with the place seemed like the recollection of a dream - ephemeral and transient.

When it was ready, she took her tea out to the fire escape. The view of the city, different as it was from her balcony overlooking Central Park, at least felt a little more real to her than the rest of the apartment. She sat there for a long time, trying not to remember but confronting old pieces of her life nevertheless.

But before she knew what was happening, exhaustion overtook her and she dropped off to sleep with her head leaned against the window frame.

She awoke some time later to a sound. A voice, perhaps?

As awareness returned to her in a rush, Catherine opened her eyes and immediately looked around with a start.

A few feet away, just at the edge of her fire escape, Vincent stood precariously, one foot poised to take him back down the metal steps and away from her. He kept his hood pulled up and his face in shadow, as though mere fabric could contain his differences and shield her from them.

Her voice spoke the words from memory without even consulting her conscious mind.

"I'll never not be surprised to see you standing there."

She did not stand up lest the movement startle him, and instead Catherine gazed at him from her seat on the edge of the window sill.

"I had to see you again."

He spoke the words low and deep, and the deep timber of his tone put her instantly at ease. Something about his voice seemed more familiar than anything else in her life, as though it had been her only companion in the most trying moments of her life.

"Catherine…"

He said her name like a plea, like a prayer, and she ached anew at the pain she could hear so keenly in his voice.

"You don't need to worry about me," she tried to assure him.

"How can I not?" he returned, sounding both sad and frightened. "How can I leave you alone while you struggle with these memories, with a life you have no wish to remember?"

She shivered as she felt something deep within. For a fraction of a second, she thought she could almost feel Vincent's emotions. But as soon as she could discern that the dark well of pain she sensed did not come from herself, it was gone once again.

"I do want to remember. Or I did," she said. "But I wasn't expecting to hate my past self so much."

His confusion became evident as he asked softly, "Hate yourself? Catherine, why should you ever feel so?"

The strength of his disbelief actually hurt her to see, and Catherine wrapped her arms around her middle, hoping the touch would keep the nausea at bay. But her very skin seemed to ache at the sound of his voice, and she pondered how she had ever entrapped so generous and kind of a person as Vincent into such a wholly unhealthy relationship with her.

"Because of what I did to you."

She forced out the statement by not looking at him, and even after her words fell between them, dull and lifeless, she could not meet his eyes.

"What you did to me…?"

He repeated her statement softly, lightly, as if cleansing her vicariously of her sins.

"Catherine, I don't understand."

Closing her eyes at his statement, she forced herself not to cry, not to do anything which would once again manipulate and tether him to her. He needed to remain free of the entanglements she offered in the guise of love. He needed kindness and tenderness, not whatever she had given him before.

"I know I hurt you," she said stiffly. "I don't remember it all, and perhaps that is a blessing. I can barely live with what I have remembered so far. But I know that I hurt you, over and over again. I know I made you believe…"

Her voice very nearly failed her, and Catherine struggled as she felt his words in her head once again.

And I knew then that these hands were not meant to give love.

"...I made you believe you were unworthy of love. And I nearly killed you."

A flash of memory brought back his face as he willed himself to die rather than strike at her, and Catherine visibly shuddered.

"And I…"

The last was the worst by far. She could barely force out the admission, and when she did, it came as the merest shadow of a whisper.

"And I raped you."

For a very long time, Vincent said nothing. Instead, he simply stared at her with his soulful, enigmatic blue eyes.

Catherine waited for his judgment, for his questions or his condemnations. But he simply did not speak. The city pressed in around them, making her feel small and pitiful while he stood strong and beautiful. A thread from deep within her tugged, pulling her to his side. But she resisted in, intent upon allowing him to absorb and reflect on her confession without confusing matters with physical touch.

Touch.

With a shudder, she remembered his arms around her, a feeling of safety and love stronger than she had ever felt before. He enveloped her gently with his warmth, always conscious that he might harm her with his need, even though he had never once done so. He had never caused her even a moment of physical pain, and Catherine did not need to sort through the misplaced memories to confirm that it was true.

When Vincent finally spoke, it startled her.

"You have never harmed me."

She shook her head even before he could say more, and he stopped and waited until she looked up at him. Tears had begun to well up in her eyes, and her entire body shook with repressed emotion.

"Tell me," he begged, dropping to sit on the top step of the fire escape such that he was eye level with her. "Tell me of whatever memory you have of harming me?"

Blinking rapidly to clear her eyes, Catherine sighed.

"I don't remember exactly what I said to you. But I did something… I said something, and you told me-" Her voice cracked painfully but she pushed through it. "You told me that your hands were not meant to give love."

Vincent looked away then, and she took his movement as confirmation. But seconds later, he contradicted her.

"You did nothing to make me say that, Catherine. On the night I said those words, I had shared with you an experience from my youth. There was a woman - a girl - and she pulled away from me when I reached for her. I hurt her… with these hands. When I told you the story of what happened between her and I so many years ago, that was when I made that statement."

He paused, allowing her to digest his words before he went on.

"You did nothing to inspire those feelings in me, Catherine. Instead, you… you took my hands in yours. You kissed them and said they belonged to you." He sighed deeply. "Catherine, you never hurt me, not then and not ever."

While she could tell that he believed what he said, her internalized recriminations could not be cut loose so quickly. Instead, she focused on the other memories, the clearer ones which could not be so ambiguous in their interpretation.

She sighed before stating, "There was a moment when… we were in a cave. I came to you despite the warnings of others. You were in a horrible state, and I knew… somehow, it had to do with me. I did something to you to push you over the edge. And when I tried to approach you, you would have lashed out. Except, you stopped yourself."

She looked up at him as she finished. "You willed your body to die, Vincent, rather than strike me."

But he did not look away at her words. Instead, he simply nodded.

"Then you don't deny it?" she pressed.

"That I would have rather died than hurt you?" he clarified. "No, I do not deny it. But you were not to blame for my state, my illness."

"No, I did something," she insisted, shaking her head. "I remember feeling so horribly guilty as I approached you. I remember feeling that even if you did cause me physical harm, I would have deserved it."

"Catherine, no…"

He drew in a sharp breath before edging closer to her, moving in a slow crouch until he sat on his knees only a few feet away from her. When she thought he might reach for her hand, he simply looked without touching and she shivered at the intensity of longing in his gaze.

"You nursed me for three days in your apartment," Vincent stated quietly, his voice a dull rumble. "Do you remember that?"

Catherine searched her mind but could find no such recollection. "No."

"I broke the doors of your balcony. I destroyed many of your possessions in my fevered state."

Still, she could not remember.

"None of that mattered to you. Instead, you focused yourself entirely on my well being. You held me. You fed me broth and read to me. Even when I lashed out in anger and pain, you showed no fear of me. You soothed me with your voice and your touch."

He spoke so reverently, Catherine wondered if this memory existed at all or if he had imagined it as a way of alleviating her past actions and hoisting her memory onto an untouchable pedestal.

Vincent went on, "When I left you, I traveled below. I knew I could not be around others, so I went deep beneath the earth. That is where you followed me. It must have been a terrifying prospect, to try to confront me as I was - in the grip of violent madness."

Studying his face, she saw the shame there. That madness had cost him much, she knew. He blamed himself for the cascade of events which followed.

"And you allowed yourself to die rather than harm me," Catherine deduced.

He nodded, and she looked away.

"I don't think you remember what happened next," she said.

Her statement startled him and he looked up. "You stayed with me until the others came to help."

Again, she shook her head. "No, before that. Something else happened... between us."

Realization seemed to dawn, and he averted his gaze.

"Yes," he admitted. "I do not remember. But you told me later what happened. You said that we loved."

The innocent way Vincent spoke about those moments grated on her, like sandpaper against her skin, and Catherine wondered if she should correct him with the truth. After all, what right did she have to come back from the dead and destroy his memories, to destroy the love he held for a woman she no longer was? If he knew the truth, it would not only cast his love into turbulent doubt but also poison the conception of his child.

At the same time, he deserved to know the truth. She suspected that in the twelve years since her 'death', he had never loved another. He deserved the chance at a future with someone else. But to do that, he must know that their pure and sanctimonious relationship had been anything but.

"I remember…" she began. "I remember that your heart stopped. I called out to you but you said nothing. I tried to breathe for you, to restart your heart. But you were still, unresponsive. Finally, I…"

The gravity of what she was about to say hung on her, and she very nearly could not complete her recollection of the memory. But finally, she pushed through it, willing the strength into existence.

"...I forced you. You were in no state to say yes or no. I'm not even sure if you understood what was happening. I kissed you, but you didn't kiss me back. I don't know what I was trying to do, but-"

"You were trying to save my life," Vincent interrupted her.

New tears had appeared at the edges of her eyes, and she rubbed at them angrily. He still did not understand.

"No matter what my motives, the result is still the same. I kissed you and your heart began to beat again. But slowly, Vincent, so slowly and you were still unconscious. So I ran my hands against your skin, and I felt you physically respond. Each touch was more and more intimate, a desperate ploy to bring you back to me. I took off our clothes - enough, at least - and I could tell you were responding to my touches, to how I kissed you. But still, you were not moving. Your breath was erratic, uncertain…"

She paused and tried to hide her anguish, but Vincent said nothing.

"You were in no state to tell me to stop. By then, you were barely conscious. But I still went on. I used your body against you, in a way I knew you would have never allowed…"

She paused for a handful of seconds before completing her recounting of the memory.

"And I forced you."

Somehow, she could not repeat the word which would drive home her point, the criminal charge which had haunted her dreams and waking thoughts since the memory returned to her. But she knew he understood it and the gravity of what she had done.

"Catherine…"

"I think you woke up just before the end. But you didn't react, didn't speak. I wasn't even sure you knew what was happening until you held onto me… It was just for a moment, and I convinced myself that because you did not stop me, did not push me away, that it was okay. But then… I never told you," she went on. "When you had no memory of what happened afterwards, I never told you. You had no idea that happened, did you? Not until you found me and I told you we had a child."

Slowly, Vincent shook his head. He still had no recollection of those moments in that deep, dark chamber. Having lost many such memories herself, Catherine sympathized with the frustration of not remembering. But this was one memory which she could at least give him back, as unwelcome as it might be.

"We had never been together before that, had we?" she pressed.

Again, Vincent shook his head.

"So our first time… our only time… I forced you when you were too weak and ill to know what was happening. When you could not stop me."

"Catherine, please."

The pain in his voice moved through her like a knife, sharp and hot, and she managed one last dull whisper.

"I'm so sorry."

TBC