Chapter 20 – Though This Be Madness

By default, Tess was the only one available that knew the Chandler family well, so Joe assigned her the unpleasant task of informing them about the latest attempt on Catherine's life. He also insisted that she get Heather out of the apartment that she and Cat shared. If whoever was behind this latest attack came looking for Catherine or something she had in her possession, he didn't want the little sister getting caught in the cross-fire.

Tess knocked and waited. She could hear movement inside the apartment and knew that Heather was clumsily making her way to the door. When it swung open she immediately discerned the reason for the delay. She had caught Heather napping. Poor girl was probably exhausted from all the emotional upheaval of the last 2 days.

"Oh, hey Tess," she said with a yawn, turning to walk back into the apartment. "Come on in." Tess followed her inside, closing the door behind her. "What brings you by?" Heather asked her. Tess watched as Heather collapsed onto the sofa and pulled the blanket back over herself.

"Well actually, Joe sent me by to help you get some things together and take you to your dad's place for a few days." There. Direct and to the point.

Heather chuckled. "What on earth for? I want to stay here so I'm closer to the hospital. I'm going to go and see Cat in a little bit once I rest up." She frowned. "You'd think I was the one that got shot the way I'm dragging around here…"

"Heather, listen to me. Something's happened, and we don't think it's safe for you to stay here right now. Especially alone."

Heather sat up, a look of terror on her face. "What happened?" Her question was a barely audible squeak. Tess' look softened with compassion, and she got up and crossed the room to sit next to Heather.

"There's no easy way to say this, so I'm just going to tell it to you straight." She reached out and grabbed Heather's hand in support. "Someone tried to kill Cat again today. We don't know who though."

"Oh my GOD!" Heather broke down sobbing and Tess wrapped her arms around her and just held her, stroking her back to try and comfort her. "Why is this happening to Cat? She'd never hurt anyone! Well, except maybe that awful Sabrina lady but only because she started it!" Tess was glad she was holding Heather so that her own look of worry wasn't visible to the girl. She'd been wondering the very same thing. After a minute or so, Heather's cries had been reduced to a couple of hiccups, and she slowly pulled herself from Tess' embrace. "So that's why you want me to go to Dad's, isn't it? You think whoever this psycho is might show up here?"

"He probably won't," Tess told her with more conviction than she felt. "But we all care far too much for you to leave you here alone and take that kind of chance."

"I want to go see Cat before we go to Dad's," Heather told her.

"Hey, we're taking good care of her, and she's… heavily sedated. She won't even know you're there." Tess winced inside. Looks like she was joining the rank and file of the NYPD Liars Club. Well, technically she hadn't lied, she told herself. She just put a less frightening spin on the situation. "Besides, Cat would want me to make sure you're safe above all else."

Heather gave Tess a watery smile. "Okay, if you think it's best. You guys have always been so good to me." She launched herself at Tess and gave her a big hug, before jumping up and running to her room. "I'll just grab a few things and I'll be ready!" she called over her shoulder. Tess just shook her head with a chuckle. Heather was resilient. She'd be okay. She wasn't quite as sure how Mr. Chandler was going to take the news.

Vincent had been silently pacing back and forth on the rooftop, trying to keep himself relatively calmed down while he waited for Alex to take her dinner break. Shortly before 6 he saw her go in and check on Catherine, who had been moved back to the ICU. It was almost completely dark out, so he was able to see clearly inside her room. If Alex had been facing just a little more to the left, he could have read Catherine's chart over her shoulder. As it was, he relaxed a little when Alex's expression seemed reasonably neutral as she checked the monitors – apparently there was no cause for immediate alarm.

He waited several minutes after she left the room before dialing her number, giving her time to get to somewhere private so she could talk. He wasn't the least surprised when she answered on the first ring.

"Ok, where are you?" she asked with no polite greeting.

Vincent sighed. "I'm close by," he told her. "Look, I want to apologize for earlier. I was kind of… rude to you. I know you have lots of question-"

"You're damned right I do! What the hell is going on?" He heard the snick of a door opening and closing behind her. His tension escalated.

"Alex – you're still inside the hospital aren't you? Please, you have to stay inside and in the line of sight of people. Trust me on this, it isn't safe for you to be alone right now."

Hearing the urgency in his voice, Alex quickly turned around and went back inside the building. "Vince, what is going on?!" she demanded in a hoarse whisper. "And I'm back in the building, so relax."

"Listen to me. The men that kidnapped you the other morning? They are here. Do you understand? They are sitting outside the hospital and they are watching everything that's going on." He heard her gasp. "You can't act differently – you have to just do your job and pretend everything is fine."

"Are these men responsible for what happened to Detective Chandler?" He could hear a slight edge of hysteria starting to creep into her voice.

Vincent thought back to the man he'd seen leaving the van earlier. He was almost 100% certain he was the one that had gone into Catherine's room before she went unconscious. "Yes, I'm pretty certain they are," he answered. He had to fight the urge to tell her too much.

"Well I think you owe me an explanation then," she told him, and he could hear the determined side of her kicking in and chasing away some of the hysteria. Funny, how after all these years, he could still read her like a book.

"What about?" he hedged.

"I think you know perfectly well what about. Catherine Chandler told me she didn't know you, but that's obviously a lie. I'm not stupid, Vince. The men that tried to get to you by kidnapping me wouldn't try to kill a perfect stranger to force you to come out of hiding. They'd go after someone who was –" She swallowed hard.

"Alex? You ok?"

"They'd go after someone who was important to you, right? So who exactly is she? No more lies. I want you to tell me the truth!"

He sighed. "Look, me and Catherine? It's… complicated." He tried to choose his words carefully, but his head was swimming with worry and doubt and this low level rage that was just simmering, waiting to boil over.

"Complicated how?" she pressed him. "Is she your friend? You lover? Vince, is she why you never came home to me? Why you let me think you were dead?"

"No!" he protested. "Look I told you why I didn't come home, alright? It wasn't safe for you to be in my life! And if you didn't believe me then, after being kidnapped and then seeing what these people will do right under your nose to one of your patients doesn't convince you that I'm telling the truth about that, I don't know what else to say to convince you."

Alex felt liked she'd been slapped. She got that he was worried about her and this Catherine, but to insult her as if she wasn't providing adequate care to her patients! "You don't have to be nasty, you know. I guess you really have changed. Before you left for Afghanistan you never would have insulted me like that."

"Look, I'm sorry, okay? But you just don't get it. These people, they're playing for keeps. And they don't care who is collateral damage along the way. And for the record? The old Alex never would have insulted me by insinuating I was a liar. So I guess that makes us even, right?"

Rubbing her forehead against the onslaught of a massive headache she said, "I don't want to sit and argue with you about who's changed more and who is more wrong here. I just want answers. Who is Detective Chandler to you?"

This was his moment of truth. He just hoped that she had the strength to hear it. "Like I said, it's complicated. And really, it is. My ties to Catherine go back to my time in Afghanistan-"

"She was there?"

"No, but her mom was. It's a really long story, but her mom was working on that… classified project I was part of. Those people around me that I told you died because they knew too much? Her mom was one of them, okay? I was just a few minutes too late to save her from being killed, but Catherine was with her when it happened, and I managed to get there in time to save her." His voice was hoarse, raw with emotion, remembering vividly every detail of that fateful night. "She was just a kid, you know? Barely 19, and her mom was gunned down in cold blood in front of her. Something like that… it changes a person. Anyway, I was worried that they might come back for Catherine, so I kinda watched over her from the shadows for a lot of years, just to make sure she was ok. Her mom… was always good to me. I felt I owed that much to her, after failing to be there when she needed me."

"I still don't see why you feel responsible for what happened," she said in a much quieter voice filled with emotion. "I mean, I know you always took your responsibility to humanity very seriously, but this? This is way above reasonable duty, Vince. Why should you have to risk your whole life trying to save all these people? And what makes you even think you can?"

"Because it's like I told you the other morning. I'm the one they're really after. They killed Dr. C trying to get to me, and to shut her up about what she knew. And that's why I'm so worried about you and about Catherine. Because they know now that they can use either or both of you as bait to draw me out."

"So.. her mom was a doctor? What kind of project was it Vince?"

"Alex, don't. It doesn't matter, okay? What matters is keeping both of you safe until I can figure out a way to end this madness. I don't know. Maybe I just need to turn myself in. Then they can leave you both alone." His moment of truth for telling her all of what Catherine meant to him had come and gone. It was something he'd have to save for another day.

"NO! That's not an option, do you hear me? I'm sure they think Catherine and I already know too much anyway. Without you around, they'd have no reason to keep us alive either." Vincent smiled. There was the Alex he remembered. Strong. Sharp. And maybe a little too fearless for her own good. He'd do well to keep that last part in mind. "Vince?" Her timid voice was back. "How did you know about Catherine this afternoon? That she was in trouble? That she'd been poisoned?"

"Like I said, I'm close by," he evaded. "I've gotten good at hiding over the years. I've been watching over Catherine – over both of you- since she's been in the hospital. Which, actually, is what I need to talk to you about. You're going off duty at 11… I want to be able to stay with Catherine through the night to make sure no more 'unfortunate accidents' occur. I was thinking you could take me in to her room and tell her guard that since you're going off duty you wanted to post a resident you trust in the room to monitor her care and make sure any procedures are legitimate."

"Vincent no! Isn't that dangerous? Exposing yourself like that? Isn't that what those men want?"

Vincent chuckled. "Yeah, it's exactly what they want. But what they don't know is that I've been watching them too and I know where they are. I can avoid being seen by going in an entrance on the other side of the hospital and working my way through to meet you somewhere away from all those damned windows in the lobby. And once I'm inside her room, I should be reasonably safe with an armed guard outside the door. It's not like they're going to storm the hospital with bombs and rifles. Stealth is their trademark. Remember, they're trying to fly under the radar too, and clean up the mess they made in Afghanistan. They don't want to be seen any more than I do."

"I'm trusting you, Vince, to not turn the ICU into a warzone."

"Believe me, that's not what I want either. I promise to try and keep things quiet. So does this mean you'll help me? Get me into her room for the night?"

Alex thought he sounded a little too eager to be spending the night keeping vigil over her patient, but she wasn't going to deny that it was a really good idea to have someone in the room that could keep an eye on things from a medical standpoint. Someone she could trust. "There's a service entrance on the back side of the building we're in, midway down the building. If you can get to it safely, that would be probably the easiest place to bring you in unnoticed. Can you meet me there at 10?"

"Not a problem. Grab me a lab coat if you could, too, so I look less conspicuous. And a mask."

"Ok, sure. And Vince?"

"Yeah Alex?"

"Be careful, okay? We may not be together now, but I still don't want to have to bury you again." He could hear the quiver in her voice, and he felt yet another pang of regret that she had ended up becoming involved in all of this, after he'd tried so hard to keep her safe.

"I will," he said, gentling her with his voice. "I promise."