Disclaimers:  Beauty and the Beast concept and characters are property of . . . um, whoever it is, which is not me.  Original story herein, however,  is mine so please let me know before posting it anywhere.
Rating:  PG-14 for language.
Season:  Late-third.  The night of the end of "Invictus."
Author's Note:  I swore I wasn't going to write this, but Joe kept giving me that Look of his.  Yeah, that one.  Dammit.

Joe Maxwell:
"Invictus"

© 2000, Grace Macy

November 15, 1989

She was waiting for us when we got there.  I still don't know how, even though she told us about the sewer, but she got to him first.  I don't think I want to know how.  But thank God we got the green light from the Commissioner -- this way she's covered on more than one end.

Diana Bennett.  Shit.  She did it.  She got the sonofabitch.  And I'm gonna burn this entry as soon as I finish writing it, but I had to get this out of my system.  Cathy said that writing in a journal helps, so I started trying -- and she was right, but this one is incriminating as hell, and not just for me.

Diana . . .  First, let me cover all my catharsis bases here.  I don't know whether to scream at her, slam the door in her face, or kiss her.  And not just now: pretty much every time we talk.  Even Cathy never got that reaction from me, no matter how secretive or stubborn she was being.  And she was that way a lot.  But Cathy always seemed so . . . clear, no matter how weird things got.  She was so easy to understand -- maybe not her secrets, but her motivations, her thought patterns, the way she felt about things.  But Bennett?  Bennett is a complete and total mystery.  Or as a friend told me once: a mystery inside an enigma, gift-wrapped by a secret.  That's Bennett alright.

She got him.  I still can't believe she got him.

And she KNEW.  That's what really gets me, really confuses me.  She knew.  Everything.  She knew Birch was innocent of Moreno's murder.  She knew Gabriel was out there even before we had a name or a clue.  She knew . . . she knew I was in love with Cathy.  Even I didn't know that, not really.  But Diana knew.  She just won't tell me everything she knows.  She won't even tell me what happened the night Gabriel's guys grabbed her.

We found a window pane removed in her apartment, blood on a wall in the alley, a taxi-cab crashed into some cars with its tire blown out and the driver dead -- just like the witness to Cathy's kidnapping -- and the folks at the diner I was supposed to pick her up at.  What I would give to know what the hell happened that night.  At least I know she gave them a hell of a run for their money.  But I still got there too late.  I told her that, told her I was sorry, while we were looking for a payphone to contact Greg Hughes, in the museum.  She just shook her head and said they'd have killed me.  But I still remember the sound of her voice on the phone at midnight, the fact that she called  me for help.   "I'm in a lot of trouble.  Could you just come get me?  Could ya hurry?"

She'd sounded scared.  She didn't even sound scared in the Museum, when she told me the basics of what happened, and she looked like she was about ready to drop from exhaustion.  I've never heard or seen her scared, never even imagined it was possible.  And I've seen her file.  I know it's possible.  I never told her that I checked her out, when I was pissed at her for dropping Cathy's case.  I thought I'd use it on her, find something I could use on her, and then I saw that report, and those pictures . . . and I couldn't even make myself tell her I'd seen it.  I just kept seeing Cathy,  her report,  her pictures . . . and I kept seeing Diana's report and pictures too, while they were looking for her the past day and a half.

Jesus, how the hell did she survive that?  How did she survive that and continue with her life, choose the life she did?  Confronting that kind of evil everyday?  Or is that why she does it, because she can't let it go either?  It's not like Cathy -- Cathy was an investigator, but she was also a lawyer.  Bennett . . . Bennett gets inside these bastard's heads.  She sees through their eyes, and sees every detail of what they did like that sonofabitch who did those things to her.  I don't know.  Maybe it's okay because she doesn't know these perps like she knew that SOB.  Maybe it makes a difference.  And maybe that's why I was out of bed and in my car in about ten minutes flat.  Didn't even bother with clothes, just put my coat over my pajamas and ran.  And maybe that's why I was willing to do anything to help her later . . .

I still remember the feeling, pulling up in front of that diner almost at the same time as the police cars.  This sick, empty feeling at the pit of my stomach telling me that Diana was dead and it was my fault.  That I failed her, just like I failed Cathy.  And then the next day, "Jacob Wells" walks into my office while I'm shouting at Greg Hughes, and tells me that not only is she alive and safe, but she's got a way to find the man who killed Cathy.  I almost laughed.  I mean, how typical is it of Bennett that with people kidnapping her, or trying to kill her, with her having to disappear to stay alive -- she's still working on the fucking case!!  And this after she gives me shit for a week and a half, insisting she's  off the case.  I repeat: I do not understand that woman.  But I like her, and I respect her, and after Gabriel's mansion . . . I'm never going to question her instincts again.

Gabriel.  Bursting into that mansion, finding only a handful of guards outside because they apparently decided to cut and run, and inside . . . inside, three guards dead.  Two of them with claw-marks like Moreno and all those other cases that Diana insisted had no connection.  She's protecting someone, Vincent, I know she is -- but I figure if she's right about Gabriel, then I'll let it go.  If she's right about Gabriel, then she's right about Vincent protecting Cathy the past two years, and if that's true then I guess I owe him.

The SWAT team swarms inside the mansion, and I'm right behind them with Greg Hughes, gun out and looking for something, anything . . .  It's not SOP for a DA to go along on a mission like this, but damned if I was going to be left behind.  Greg stays with me, figures he'll cover me, I guess.  SWAT team everywhere, people shouting, and then suddenly I see her at the top of those stairs.  Still in that too-big coat, hair in a pony-tail, framing her face, looking too pale. . .  Too pale.  That was what got me, when I saw her and I started running up those stairs without even thinking about it.  She was way too pale, even paler than when I saw her in the museum this morning.  I know that kind of pale: it comes from shock.

She looked at me like she was almost looking right through me.  I almost didn't hear her when she said, "In the nursery."

Greg heard her, though, and he went past us into the corridor.  I stared at her.  Nursery.  Cathy's baby.  That's the only thing I could think.  Diana said softly, "It's okay.  The baby's safe.  He's home now.  But we can't tell anyone, Joe.  For Cathy."

Greg found the room and went in, then came out half a second later and called my name before I could answer Diana's request.  I went, one hand on Diana's arm to bring her along so I could keep an eye on her.  Greg passed me as we went, and I had no idea why.  He went back to the stairs as I went to the door . . . door looked like something -- or someone -- smashed right through it.  I went further in and looked to the right, towards the closet and the smell of blood.

A man.  Thin, wearing a tailored suit.  Gashes across his cheek and a single bullet wound to his chest.  Gabriel.  It had to be.  I looked at Diana and asked, "What happened?"

She just looked at me and answered softly, "I shot him."

I stared at her, then looked back at the body.  There was no weapon in his hand.  She shot him.  Diana raised her hand and offered something to me.  A gun.  I knew that gun.  Not standard police issue, like the one Diana would have.  This was a handgun, snub-nosed revolver, shiny and new.  I knew that gun.  Diana confirmed it, said softly, "It was Cathy Chandler's."

I didn't ask where she got it.  It wasn't in Cathy's effects at her apartment.  She shot him.  With Cathy's gun.  I didn't know what to say, just heard myself say her name.  And Diana just . . . looked at me.  She looked so damned tired.  I've never seen her look so tired, even when she was working on that kidnapping case when I first met her.

Greg Hughes came back in the room, walked right past us, and knelt by the body.  I didn't know what he was doing until I saw the gun in his hand.  Also not police issue.  One of the guard's guns.  I looked at him, then looked at Gabriel's body, and Cathy's gun in my hand.  And I knew what I had to do.  What we had to do.  I knew what Cathy wanted us to do.  It wasn't even a choice, really -- it was just . . . clear.  Perfectly and completely clear.

Greg nodded and looked at Diana, but I was the one who spoke.  I was committing myself to this and if anyone ever found out, it was my responsibility.  "He had a gun," I told Diana.  She was staring at Greg, then at me.  This tiny little frown on her face, like she couldn't quite understand.  I touched her arm with my other hand and looked into her eyes, willing her to get it, to not argue.  I repeated it, firmly.  "He had a gun."

Diana stared at me.  She opened her mouth, said my name, then looked at Greg.  Hughes stood up and walked towards us.  Greg told her quietly, conversationally, just like he would say it later in his report, "You got here after someone slashed Gabriel's face and took Cathy's baby.  Maybe the father, this mystery guy, Vincent."

I picked up where he left off, quickly 'cause I could hear SWAT guys coming up the stairs.  "You don't know what happened.  You don't know where the baby is.  You got here and he pulled a gun on you.  You shot him in self-defense, before he could fire a shot."

"It was a righteous shoot," Greg told her.  Then he walked out of the room to get the SWAT guys.

Diana stared after him, then looked at me again.  She was silent for a long moment, and I swear if she had argued, I probably would have smacked her.  But she just looked at me and said nothing.  She just nodded.  I nodded back at her, then turned away.  I couldn't take seeing the tears that came into her eyes.  She knew what we were doing.  She knew she wasn't alone.  I told myself that and tried not to think of anything else.

I walked away and she followed me, letting the SWAT guys come and take care of things while I got her to the ambulance we had waiting just in case.  It was over.  And she needed something warm and sweet to get her out of the shock I could still see her in.

There were video-cameras everywhere, and we found the control room with all the monitors and tapes.  But the tapes had been erased.  Every single one of them.  My head keeps wanting to tell me it wasn't Gabriel who wiped those tapes, but I won't listen.  It's over.  Diana made things right for Cathy, and we made things right for Diana.  That's what counts.  That's what will always count.

*         *        *

Joe Maxwell set down his pen and regarded the sheets of paper on the desk in front of him.  His spirit felt lighter now than it had for days, maybe even months.  Putting the events, the truth, on paper had lifted a burden from his shoulders.  Not all of it, but enough.

"It's over," he repeated quietly, and smiled.  It wasn't much of a smile, but it was genuine.  He could almost feel Cathy smiling at him as well, almost feel her light kiss of approval and thanks on his cheek.  He hadn't been able to protect her, but he was protecting her lover and her child, and the woman who had saved them both.

"You would have liked her, Cathy," he murmured.  "You would have liked her a lot.  Thanks for watching out for her."

He took up the sheets of paper in one hand, and a Bic lighter in the other.  He triggered the flame and moved the lighter slowly along two of the edges of the paper, igniting the sheets evenly.  As the flames caught and moved surely across the pages, he let the paper drop into the empty tin waste-bucket.

"Maybe someday, Cathy," he murmured, "when things settle down more, you'll let Diana tell me about Vincent and your son.  I'd sure like to know if he has your eyes."

He smiled softly as he watched the destruction that turned his confession into the safety of ash.

It was over.