OK I get that many people might not be seeing this because of the M rating. It's too late to change that now, but I'll keep that under advisement for the future. Still, it would be great if more of the folks reading this could let me know what they think. Only about half the number who read the first chapter continued on with it. Just wondering what folks aren't liking.

BTW - If you like AU stories that are rated M, you must check this one out if you haven't already: s/8820984/1/Truth-or-Dare She's doing an awesome job with it.

Chapter Eight – How Noble in Reason

JT woke up disoriented in the pre-dawn hours, sensing something was wrong. He lay still for a moment, trying to discern what had woken him. Vincent. He hadn't heard him come home, but there was no escaping the relentless pacing going on overhead. He'd heard his friend walk the floor before, usually waiting for dark so he could go see Catherine. But this was different. It wasn't just impatience that JT heard in his steps. It was… agitation. He was pretty certain nothing had happened to Cat, or Vincent would have surely woken him.

With a sigh, he threw the covers back and crawled out of bed. He was tempted to grumble about being woken up, but the problem with having Vincent for a roommate was that he could even hear when you mumbled under your breath about him. So JT just bit his lip and climbed the stairs into the loft where Vincent kept residence. "Dude, what's got you so wound up?" he blurted out on a yawn. Vincent didn't even pause in his pacing. "Is it Cat? Did something happen to her?"

"Wha- oh uh, no," Vincent answered, still trudging back and forth across the floor. JT was starting to lose patience, so he crossed the room and parked himself right in Vincent's path, bringing him to a screeching halt. "Well if it isn't Catherine, what's all the pacing about? I've never seen you this agitated unless you were… you know…hulked out."

"JT, we have a problem. And I don't mean a minor inconvenience. I mean a full-blown-this-could-get-ugly kind of problem. Want a beer?"

JT dropped into a nearby chair. "No, I think you better give it to me sober. Sounds like I might need to be in control of my faculties for this one."

"Yeah, you're probably right." Vincent threaded his fingers through the hair on the back of his head. How the hell were they going to deal with this one? It was like their worst nightmare come true. "I saw Alex today."

"You what?! You mean, like… from a distance walking down the street while you were running on a rooftop kind of 'saw' her or…?" Vincent took a deep breath. "No, more like I was walking out of the hospital and she apparently works there now and saw me and screamed my name across the lobby as I ducked and ran. That kind of 'saw'."

"Oh crap. You're right. This is a monumental problem. How the hell did you let someone see you? You're always so careful…" Vincent looked a little sheepish and flustered. "Oh let me guess. Cat woke up and got you all a-twitter, am I right? And suddenly you took leave of your senses. Stop me any time if I'm drifting off base here…"

"Uh, no, that about covers it," Vincent confessed. He sat on the end of the bed and flopped backwards, staring at the ceiling. "What are we gonna do, JT? We can't just leave her out there knowing what she knows and ignore it. But nothing I come up with makes any sense. I mean to ignore it, knowing Alex she'll hire a private investigator or something to try and track me. If I tell her the truth, who knows what she'll do? I mean, besides slap me and tell me to go to hell, once she realizes she grieved for a guy who wasn't really dead."

"Uhh… point of contention. What's this 'we' business? Seems to me YOU got yourself into this mess. I don't see how I should have to be saving your sorry ass for plain, old-fashioned stupidity. Psycho monster stuff I signed on for, not high school drama. You're on your own with this one pal." JT got up to leave, stopping at the top of the stairs. "For what it's worth? You're right. You can't ignore it. But the less she knows the better. Tell her partial truth – it's too dangerous for her to be with you, blah blah that's why no one can know you're alive, or you won't be. And neither will she if anyone finds out she knows."

"I don't know, JT. I mean, I was going to marry this woman. I feel like I owe her more than some lame brush off. It was one thing to let her think I was dead, but now that she knows I'm not? How can I just leave that wound open and bleeding and walk away like I don't care?"

"Do you? Care, that is? Do you still have feelings for her, Vincent?"

"Of course I do. I was engaged to her. She didn't do anything to deserve what happened. I was the one that let my anger control me and ship me off to Afghanistan while she stayed at home waiting for me to get it out of my system so I could come back, settle down, get married, have a family…" Vincent threw his arm over his eyes. "I royally screwed up her life. And I was willing to let sleeping dogs lie, y'know? Ten years… she grieved, she got over me and moved on with her life,I would assume." Momentarily, he thought of Catherine and how not having closure kept her from moving on after her mother's death. Dammit. What if Alex had been holding on to her grief all these years? He never stopped to consider the possibility before.

JT was starting to get a bad feeling about the way the conversation was going. "So.. what? Are you going to go find her and say, 'Honey – I'm home! Oh sorry I had amnesia all these years until I saw your face. Let's hook up and get married'? And I mean dude – what about Catherine? Are you just going to cut her out of your life? Or do you have some crazy idea the two of them are gonna become BFFs?" JT looked thoughtful. "Of course, they're both pretty hot. It could open some interesting possibilities…"

"JT!" Vincent shot him a dirty look. "That's hardly what's going through my mind."

"Isn't it? Because I wouldn't know any more. You're completely in lala land lately. I used to think I knew you. We had an understanding of where the boundaries were. Or at least I thought we did. But I have no clue what you're thinking these days. So why don't you tell me?"

"I don't really know myself," Vincent admitted with a sigh. "What I do know is that I've moved on with my life. Besides the obvious, I'm not the same man Alex fell in love with 12 years ago. I doubt she's the same either. But I don't want to be the cause of any more pain for her. I owe it to her to try and spare her that. As for Catherine…you know how I feel about her. She's…everything. What I feel – what I felt – for Alex isn't even in the same league. But that doesn't make me a heartless bastard, you know? I still want to try and make things right with Alex so she can let this go."

"Well then, I guess you have your answer. Talk to her. Tell her lies or half-truths or something. Just make sure she never wants to breathe your name into the universe again. Oh and one more thing – leave my name out of it. If she finds out I've been hiding you all these years after I watched her fall to pieces at your funeral? I'll be a dead man for sure."

Vincent smiled, remembering Alex's fiery temper that matched her red hair. "That you would," he agreed with a chuckle. "I'll be sure she doesn't know you have any idea I'm alive."