(Chapter 2)
"You should've seen Evan. He was, like, ripping his clothes off, and I was all Meredith Grey, like, holding the bloody compress for him." Heather rambled on while she was trying to help her sister walk the hospital floor.
"Thanks for all the details," Catherine commented as she knew her sister when having a hangover; Heather tends to exaggerate things. Besides, she didn't want to envision her coworker like that, let alone Evan.
"Yeah," Heather said while admitting shamelessly.
"Wait." Catherine let out a groan while stopping for a moment as her shoulder started to hurt her. "Am I holding you up, or are you holding me up?" She tried to lean on her sister for support, but that didn't help much. Since she wasn't too fond of hospitals, Catherine figured this would be the perfect time to get her ass out of bed. And get some exercise by walking around the building with her sister's help.
"I am so sorry." Heather apologized while trying to keep her sister standing upright again.
"Or hung-over." Catherine remarked with a playful tone in her voice.
"Could-could I just run to the pharmacy really quickly?" Heather asked while she helped her sister lean against the wall.
"Of course."
"I'll be right back," Heather said in a hurry.
"You go. I'll just be right here. I'll be holding this wall up." Catherine joked while leaning against the wall, trying to keep herself upright the best she could and watched her sister leave.
Catherine hoped Vincent got her text message from earlier about not coming back. She still needed to know who her nurse was to him and why she was so bent out of shape about seeing him. She then let out another annoying groan as she spotted Vincent quickly stalking towards her. She was wondering what the hell was he doing at the hospital? He was wearing his gray sweat jacket and had the hood up covering part of his head. He gently grabbed her arm when he approached her, taken her into one of the storage supply closets with him and closed the door behind them. She criticized him. "Did you get my message? I told you it isn't safe to come back here."
"Okay, so what's going on?" Vincent asked while removing his hood and pressing his lips together. "Evan, trying to hunt down the vigilante again?" He assumed.
"More like my nurse. You might know her- Alex Salter." Catherine commented to him, looking up at him questionably. "Who is she?"
"Uh... we were just friends. We grew up together. Her, me, JT, my brothers, you know... and, uh, and later, we-we were pretty close." Vincent hesitated for a moment, trying to figure out how to tell her. "We were engaged once."
"Oh." Catherine mumbled; she wasn't sure how to respond. No wonder her nurse was so bent out of shape seeing him, She commented while she started to head for the door. "Well, that explains it."
"Explains what?" Vincent inquired as he blocked her from leaving and drew his brows together in a scowl.
"Why she was such a wreck," Catherine answered, backing away from him and felt uncomfortable by the fact that he belonged to somebody else.
"No... No, no, no." Vincent denied, shaking his head. He didn't want to face the fact that Alex had seen him earlier. "You're just misreading her."
"No, Vincent," Catherine replied as she backed away a little more and remarked. "I'm not misreading her."
"It's been over ten years." Vincent insisted, stepping closer to her and gently grabbed her by the arm to stop her from leaving again. He wanted to inform her. "She saw a ghost."
"I should go," Catherine announced in a rush as she pulled her arm away from him and tried to reach for the door again.
"Catherine, wait."
"Heather's going to be here any second," Catherine told Vincent while cutting him off and squeezed past his big frame to exit the storage room.
Vincent waited a couple of minutes, contemplating his next move. He could sense the uncomfortable feeling coming from Catherine when he mentioned Alex and him being close and being his fiancee. He still needed to see his ex and tell her that she needs to move on. He cracked open the door to the storage room and peeked out into the hall. He wanted to make sure it was clear before leaving to talk to her.
By nightfall, he quickly made his way outside the hospital without being detected this time. He waited for Alex in the shadows to get done with her shift. A few hours later he watched her enter her car and then made his move. He needed to tell her the reason he never came around to see her. He knew he had a good reason, Muirfield was after him and he wasn't the same man that she loved before. He was different and complicated.
"It's me." Vincent announced after he slid into the passenger seat of Alex's car without anyone seeing him and closed the door.
"Two soldiers came to your mom's house. They said you were dead."
"Alex... I was... I was a part of a Special Ops force. Okay, I... I had seen too much, and... I knew too much." Vincent began explaining to Alex the best way he knew how without giving too much away. Especially when it comes to Muirfield.
"I threw dirt on your casket, Vince." Alex wept as her lower lip trembled. "What could be so bad that I had to do that?"
"I know that this is going to be hard to understand, okay? But you have to believe me. I promised the funeral was..." Vincent hesitated to try to recollect his thoughts on how to say it. "it was to protect you and everyone I cared about. Alex, my enemies, they are still out there watching."
"You could've come to me."
"No, no, it was far too dangerous and still is. You would've been caught in the crossfire. These people are dangerous, and they want me dead." Vincent told her as he saw her look at him confused.
"This... whole secret life... what do you do?
"It's not much of a life." He mumbled. Which was the truth after hiding out for ten years. Not able to go out and get a job. Even taking a girl out on a date was out of the question. Luckily, thanks to JT he had a place to live.
"Who else knows?" Alex asked him, but didn't get any response back and this worried her. So she decided to change the subject and find out more about the detective. "Fine. What about the detective? Who is she? And don't say no one."
"She's just a..." Vincent hesitated for a second thinking about how important Catherine was to him. He cared deeply about and started having feelings for her. He loved her, ever since that day he saved her in the woods. And then almost losing her the day before it only increased more. She was more than just a friend to him.
"So, she's a handler then?" Alex assumed as she butted in to his thoughts.
"No, she's a cop." Vincent corrected her. "A close friend."
"A close friend?" Alex looked at him in disbelief.
"Yeah." Vincent insisted and then added. "She looks out for me."
"I was like that once." Alex said while pressing her lips together. Not believing that the detective was just a close friend. That she must be a handler or something.
"And I appreciate that. I really did, but you should've just given up on me."
"I loved you." Alex confessed as he eyes filled with tears again.
"Alex, when I saw you today in the hospital-" Vincent was about to tell her that he was surprised to see her there.
"You mean, when you ran away." Alex interrupted him.
"I have... played this moment over and over in my head for years. Okay? I'm-I'm-I'm so sorry." Vincent apologized, he hated seeing her cry because of him.
"I can't do this." Alex shook her head and pressed her lips together again.
"Alex, I wanted to contact you every day. Okay? Believe me. Every day, but... it was easier to imagine that you had some perfect husband, and three perfect kids somewhere." Vincent mentioned, wishing she did so he wouldn't have to sit here trying to explain things to her. He needed to move on with Catherine, but he had to take care of this first.
"I wanted that in my life, once. We both did. But I just..." Alex paused again as her eyes filled with more tears.
"Couldn't move on." Vincent finished for her.
Alex leaned over and started caressing his cheek, loving with hope in her eyes and asked. "Am I going to see you again?"
"I don't think it'll be a good idea, Alex." Vincent said, quickly pulling back from her touch. He didn't get the same overwhelming feeling as when Catherine first touched him. The pounding of the excitement of his heart and that rush of heat through his body to his groin. "I already put you and me both in jeopardy just by being here."
"Vince..."
"No, Alex you need to move on, okay." Vincent grumbled as he was about to exit her car.
"I can't Vince." Alex pleaded with him while placing her hand on his arm. "I'm still in love with you".
"I'm sorry. I can't uh, do this Alex it's for your own safety." Vincent apologized to her again while exiting the car and left for the warehouse.
"Hey, look what I got you," Tess said as she entered the hospital room carrying a bunch of balloons and a teddy bear.
"Awe, a stuffed bear." Catherine smiled at her partner humorously. Even if she felt a little ridiculous by Tess bringing her a teddy bear, it was the thought that counts, right? "Wait. No Red Vines?"
Tess let out a sigh, she was so worried about her best friend she forgot to pick up the most important thing. "What? You just got out of surgery after just getting shot and almost dying." Tess apologized. "I'm sorry."
"There is no way we could've known what would happen to me." Catherine said placing a hand on her friend's arm. "You have to let it go, okay?"
"Okay." Tess watched her partner's attention go back to the computer screen and joked. "What's on the laptop- porn?"
"No..." Catherine answered while reaching for her laptop. She tried to put it on her lap, but her shoulder started bothering her.
Tess let out a groan as she reached the laptop before her partner did. She hated seeing her best friend struggling like that. She took a seat on the bed beside, telling her. "My turn to pry."
"Okay."
"Well, a little Facebook stalking." Tess teased while taking the laptop from her and placed it on her lap instead. She looked at what her friend typed up on the computer.
"Alex Salter," Catherine told her.
"And he's..." Tess assumed, she was talking about a guy with a name like that.
"She's my nurse. I don't know, a little detective thing." Catherine replied while trying to come up with a believable excuse as to why she was snooping in the first place.
"Ditch the social media crap and get on the NYPD database," Tess suggested as she pulled up the database up on the screen and started typing in the information.
"That's a little bit deeper than I wanted to dig," Catherine commented while watching Tess do 'her' thing. She just wanted to know about Alex's relationship with Vincent and why she was so important to Vincent.
"I got a hit," Tess said with enthusiasm like she was impressed with herself and continued. "She doesn't have a record, but she filed six police reports in three months. She complained of someone following her, checking her emails, wiretapping, and breaking. But there are no signs of forced entry."
"Are there any leads?" Catherine wondered, hoping it wasn't Murfield that was stalking her.
"Well, it's Precinct 86," Tess remarked. She had heard some of the complaints from some customers about how they handle some of their cases. "Those stooges haven't even looked into it yet. The only thing they did was take notes."
"Paranoid and delusional." Tess continued to read out loud as she saw the result of the report that was filed and added. "That's pretty big words for those guys. But, then again, your nurse does sound a little 51 50."
Catherine needed to get a hold of Vincent and warn him about someone stalking his fiancée that might be involved with Muirfield. She thought about what would be the easiest way to get her partner to leave without raising any suspicion. So she decided to fake a yawn, hoping it would work.
Tess saw her friend give out a yawn and decided it was her cue to leave. "Okay, why don't I let you rest. I'll check this out for you and call you when I find something." Tess offered with a smile as she stood up from the bed.
"Sure. Thanks, Tess." Catherine replied as she gave her a grateful smile and then said their goodbyes to each other. She reached for the phone that was beside her on the table and dialed Vincent's number. Hopefully, she can get a hold of him and let him know about Alex's stalker.
"Seriously." Catherine sighed as she left the phone ring a few times before it went to voicemail. She left a brief message letting Vincent know that she was about to leave the hospital and head over to Alex's to check on her.
Where the hell is he? And what was so important that he couldn't answer his phone? Just like when he wasn't answering his phone after she left her father's wedding. She quickly decided to dial JT's number, hoping to get a hold of him that way.
"Cat?" JT questioned her, sounding surprised and worried as to why she was calling him and not Vincent. He was just about to come up to Sarah's cubicle when she called him.
"JT, I think that Alex is being watched," Catherine told him straight forward.
"What?"
"Yeah, she reported that some faceless person was following her. They tapped her phone, broke into her apartment." She continued.
"Well, It wasn't Vincent. He never went to see her; he always said it was too painful." JT remarked.
"Well, does it sound like someone else we know?" Catherine hinted in a low voice, she looked around to make sure no one was listening and continued. "Walks around without a face...taps into electronics without being detected. JT, what if this is Muirfield?"
"Oh, God," JT grumbled as he looked up at the ceiling and let out a heavy sigh. He couldn't believe this was happening now.
"Put Vincent on the phone. I need to warn him." Catherine requested.
"I can't."
"Why?" Catherine questioned, she couldn't believe this was happening. All those times Vincent was there in a heartbeat if she needed him.
"Because I-I'm not at the warehouse right now," JT explained.
"Great, and he's not picking up his phone either." Catherine sighed and then hastily hung the phone up on JT. She placed it on the table next to her bed and started to detach the IV from her arm, getting herself up out of bed with a painful groan. She knew it was a bad idea to leave the hospital in her condition, but she was concerned about Alex. What if the guy comes back to go after her? She also had to keep Muirfield from finding out about Vincent. She gathered her clothes that her sister brought from home and then started getting changed in the bathroom.
Alex parked her car and went across the street; she was so excited to see Vincent again and relieved that he was alive. Maybe this time they can finally be together and live the life they once dreamed about. She wasn't sure about Detective Chandler, though, and it seemed she was more than just a 'special friend' to Vincent. He still loved her, didn't he? He had to since they knew each other since childhood. She still was in love with him, that's why she kept all those letters and mementos. She was coming up to her apartment building when a guy with a knife came up behind her. She gasped as she felt someone grabbing her from behind and then heard a man's voice speculating. "I saw you with your little soldier boyfriend. That was him, right?" before feeling the blade of the knife against her throat, he threatened. "I bet he's gonna miss you. I've been thinking about this for a long time."
To be continued...
Author's Note: Thanks for the reviews, I know it's been a while, but as all writers know that real-life call sometimes and I've been working around on how to continue with this story from the original idea that I had. Don't worry I will continue it.
