In another world he would of been a better man, a different man.
In another world he would have realized his feelings for her before he fucked it up so badly, back before he took everything too far and became the monster that haunted her dreams.
Back before the blood of his first kill stained his hands. Back before he screwed (sometimes quite literally) Seattle's elite into paying him 25k a month just to survive. Before he killed Lowell, before he tried to kill Major.
Maybe out there, there's a world in which love at first (or second) sight existed. A world in which after walking into the morgue that first day, he emerged a changed man. Fueled only by the possibilities that resided behind those big blue eyes.
Maybe there was even a world where they met before his whole world turned south, before he became a dealing addict, desperate for power and recognition. A world where a sweet, but no-nonsense med student bandaged the wounds around his heart, and showed him what it was like to live in the light.
He didn't know why he was haunted by it, by these infinite possibilities that existed in infinite worlds outside their own. He relished being bad, he lived for it. He never wanted to change. Why would he? He had power and money, and people who shuddered at his name. He had everything he had ever wanted, and he had built his walls up so high that he thought no one could ever touch him again.
Until she had shown up, crashing through his life like a hurricane, leaving cracks in his foundation in her wake.
He didn't know if he could change, and even if he could would it make any difference?
He needed to know if, in every possible universe, she looked at him the same. With that same cold distain and indifference in her eyes. Did her lips always purse into that same grimace? Did she always flinch away at his touch?
Or was there a world where he lit a fire in her, not out of hatred but out of love? A world in which her smile dazzled his life, and she laughed at his terrible jokes. Where her fingers entwined with his own, and her lips were always soft against his.
Because even if out of all the possible realities, there was at least one in which Beauty came to love the Beast, then maybe, just maybe, that would be enough.