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 violence.
Season:  Late-third.  Directly after the episode, "Invictus."

Vincent:
"Invictus"

© 2000, Grace Macy

My son is home.

My son . . .  Somehow, throughout the past months of searching, dreaming, fearing . . . somehow I never imagined what it would be like to hold him, to watch him sleep.  To have him  home.  Perhaps I did not dare.  But now, sitting on my bed, watching him sleep in the cradle Father brought . . .

Oh Catherine, how very right you were: he is truly beautiful.  I see you when I look at him, your innocence and goodness in his eyes, your smile in his sweet tiny features.  I see you, and for all the grief that still holds my heart when I even think your name, I feel such joy.  I never dreamed I could feel such joy, and such fear, all wrapped into one moment, each moment.  My son, Catherine.  Our son.  He is here at last, safe Below . . . and the monster who took your life, my beloved Catherine, is dead.

I wonder now if you ever knew his name, but it does not matter.  I knew his name, as did Father, and Elliot, and Diana.  Perhaps so many knowing his name lessened the power of it.  Perhaps that is why he is dead now, and yet the blood is not on my hands.  Father told me that he gave your gun to Diana when he and the Helpers aided her in contacting Joe Maxwell.  Was it your hand then that guided hers?  Was it your spirit that stood beside her, or within her, when she pulled the trigger and ended that monster's life with a bullet originally loaded with  your hand?  Perhaps this was your vengeance, more truly than if I had torn out his throat as I so wanted to do.  A woman's death, avenged by a woman's hand.  A woman Gabriel never considered a threat, never even bothered to refer to by her name.

I know in my heart that must have been how he saw you as well: an object, a "mere" woman.  Perfect justice then that it was two "mere" women who led to his downfall.  Your courage and death led the hunters to his trail.  Diana's courage and determination brought her to his home and put the bullet in his heart.  But then, Diana is a hunter herself, perfectly named -- the goddess of the hunt, whose justice is always swift.  But this Diana's justice was far more fair than the ones of those myths.

Oh Catherine, you would have liked her.  Perhaps you already do.  Perhaps it has been you guiding her all along.  You who brought her to the cemetery that night of all nights, so that she could save my life.  You who whispered those words to her when I was at her loft, the repetition of our last vow, that so startled me.  You who guided her to the right room in that huge mansion, when even I would have been lost and far too late if I had not been able to sense Jacob's location as I had once been able to sense yours.

If all that is so, and some part of me knows without doubt that it is so, then perhaps it is also you who whispers now to my heart to release the anger I felt at Diana for taking your revenge out of my hands.  You always knew my heart, Catherine: perhaps you, and she, knew that to have Gabriel's blood on my hands would taint me far more than killing the doctor would have done.  Evil passes through to others . . . and perhaps, my love, I would not have the strength to fight Gabriel's evil as Diana can.

I write these next words so that that night will never be forgotten, so that Diana's place in our hearts for her actions will be forever secure, whatever comes in the future.  And also . . . to make it real.  It has been three days since that harrowing escape, two days during which I have been too involved in watching Jacob to ever even consider taking up my pen.  But now I have time, and peace, and I wish to set to paper the thoughts that have circled through my mind with never-ceasing clarity.

Gabriel told me she was dead.  He tossed the ring to me as if it no longer meant a thing, though it had been what led him to her.  And his voice when he spoke . . . perhaps the gloating itself should have told me that he was lying.  "I thought you might want this back, now that the woman is dead."

I remember that I felt . . . such pain.  Pain that my actions, my wishes, had led to the death of another innocent, as I had warned Diana that I feared they might.  Pain, and fury at myself, and . . . a hollowness.  As if somehow . . . somehow, because she had saved me once, had pieced together my life with you so clearly, Catherine, I halfway expected that she would come.  That she would save me, and Jacob, from this madman.  Somehow.  As I would have expected you to do.

And then I picked up that ring and I felt, for the first time, a resonance of someone other than you, Catherine, or of our son.  I felt her.  Or a dim echo of her.  But it was strong, and determined -- and  alive.  And somehow, I knew.   I knew that it was her . . . and that she was on her way.  I would have gloated myself, to Gabriel, but I feared what he would do out of anger that I knew him to be a liar.  So I bided my time, kept hold of my sanity, until I felt Jacob's danger and then . . .

I do not remember how I got to that bedroom.  I remember, vaguely, grabbing the bars of that cage until the generator short-circuited and the door came away in my hands.  The burns still hurt, but already they heal, as I have always healed.  I remember only that pain, for an instant, and then it was distant, far from me . . . as far as the blood and fear of the guards as I killed them to get to Jacob.  I have only impressions of breaking through the door of the room, seeing Gabriel standing over my son's crib, leaning down . . . impressions of rushing forward and slamming my hand, fingers curved, across his face as he turned.

I was aiming for the throat, that much I do know, that and the unreasoning fury as he tumbled back into the far wall and I advanced.  I could taste his blood in the air, and it called to me, in a way I have never felt before.  I stared down at him, watched him bleed as I had so wished to make him bleed, and began to advance, ready to strike the killing blow.  And then suddenly . . . I felt her before I heard her, Catherine.  But more . . . when she cried out my name . . . I heard an echo of  your voice,  your touch on my mind and my heart.  And I stopped.

Diana came through the door of the bedroom as if she knew what she would find -- as if she knew, as I had, that there was danger.  And she stopped me as I began to advance on Gabriel, not with meaningless platitudes on mercy to such a man, but with the simple words: "The child is crying."  As if she knew as well that that would be the only thing to reach me, the only thing to matter.  As you would have known, Catherine.  She sent me from the room with Jacob in my arms, urging me to hurry to the tunnels below, telling me that Father was waiting.

I hesitated, then did as she asked, not looking at Gabriel.  If I had looked at him again, seen the spite in his eyes as I smelled his blood, I would have lost all control.  So I left, cradling my precious son carefully in my arms, ignoring the pain that was beginning to return as adrenaline faded and my awareness of my body returned in full.  I do not know what he said to her -- that much of my memory has faded, for though I heard his voice I concentrated only on my child.  I reached the first landing of the stairs and then . . .

And then that sound.  The sound I have grown far too familiar with in the past few months.  A gunshot.  A single gunshot.  Impressions again, but this time as I would have felt through our bond.  Perhaps it was our bond, for I seemed to feel the brush of your soul on mine.  Rage.  Cold determination.  Satisfaction.  But in that instant, it was so strange, so completely unlike anything I ever expected to feel from anyone except Gabriel . . .  My heart stopped, Catherine, and I was suddenly filled with that same mix of rage and terror that had consumed me as I felt Jacob's distress.

I turned and ran back up the stairs, determined to make Gabriel pay if he had taken her life now, as he took Elliot's and yours.  I came to the corridor of the bedroom and saw her, still standing where she had been before.  And then I came closer, her name sounding with my voice but without the awareness of speech, and I saw her in full.  The gleam of the gun in her hand.  The smell of Gabriel's heart-blood in the air.  And her face . . .  It was cold, Catherine.  Cold and hard, but not like Gabriel's -- nothing about her could ever be like that monster.  But the expression on her face was unlike anything I had seen before.  For a moment, Catherine, I feared her.

And then her expression changed, became so incredibly weary . . . almost lost.  I approached and she turned, but she didn't look surprised.  I suppose she knew that the gunshot would draw me, but all she said was, "It's over, Vincent.  It's time to go home, now."

I remember those words so clearly, as I remember my response.  "What have you done?"

She stepped into the corridor, not trying to stop me as I advanced and looked inside the room.  Gabriel lay where my blow had sent him, but the blood came now from the hole in his chest.  I turned to face her, and felt fury instead of gratitude.  "Why?" I demanded.  "His life was  mine to take!  It was  my love he killed!  You had no right!"

I advanced on her, and she never even flinched.  That expression of weariness was too strong on her face, in her eyes.  "Catherine had the right, Vincent.  And this is Catherine's gun," she said simply, and then started to walk towards the stairs.

I stared after her for a moment, not certain what to feel, how to react, even what to think.  She stopped and looked at me, and said again, "There isn't much time.  Father's waiting."

Our eyes met and we stood frozen for a moment more.  Then I forced myself to follow her, to release the rage that threatened to overcome me again.  We reached the sub-basement quickly, but not without incident.  There were still a few guards, but they seemed more concerned with escaping the oncoming police than with confronting us.  Or perhaps they saw the coldness in Diana's eyes, and the fury in mine, and decided that it was not worth it.

The tunnel Diana had used to enter the mansion was little more than a large pipe, and for a moment we wondered if I would fit.  There was no choice.  But as I backed into the pipe, holding Jacob carefully as I began to inch backwards, she made no move to follow.  I stopped and spoke her name in question.  She shook her head.  "I'm not coming.  Go," she told me.  "The police will be here soon."

I stared at her, uncomprehending.  Diana had killed, but to protect me, to protect Jacob, to protect dozens of people she had never met.  And she had killed to avenge you, Catherine.  "Are you sure?" I asked her.  "There is just as much danger. . ."

I was asking her, silently, to allow  us to save  her this time.  For I knew that even with what Gabriel had done, the police might not think her innocent of murder.  But I also knew that Diana's soul balked at not taking responsibility for her actions in the world Above.

"I can't," she told me.  Her mind was made up even before we came down to this sub-basement.  I could see it, feel it in her . . . and I felt no true surprise.  Perhaps I had grown to know her as well, in those brief, intense encounters.  Perhaps she simply reminded me still, strongly, of you and your own beliefs.  "I can't run from this.  Besides, somebody's got to wipe any tapes Gabriel might have made.  I figure I've got five more minutes before Maxwell's people get through what's left of Gabriel's security.  That's time enough."

She gave me that half-smile she seems to limit herself to, and finally, emotion returned to her expression.  I do not even know what to name what I saw in her eyes.  I only know that suddenly I understood how frightened she herself was -- not so much by what she had endured as by the ease of what she had done.

She killed him in what would be termed "cold blood," Catherine, and she did it . . . she did it for someone she had never met, and for someone to whom she had no real tie.  For you, Catherine, and for me.  I was in awe of the power of her mind before, but now I felt myself in awe of the power of her heart.  I could not find the words to say anything more, however, than "Thank you."  Diana only smiled and shook her head.  "I will contact you," I promised.

She waited while I cleared the entrance of the pipe, and then she stood and turned back towards the house.  I said a silent prayer for her safety, then headed for the tunnels, for Father and safety, and freedom.  It was not until many hours later, as Father led me back Below, that I learned how Diana had come to find Gabriel's lair.

Father told me everything, all he had done and all he had learned from Joe Maxwell, including how Diana was taken by Gabriel -- and how she had been determined to somehow rescue me.  He seemed as awed by her commitment to us as I had been before.  He trusted her, I could see that clearly.  And with reason, for she had risked her life to aid us.

Tomorrow night, I will go to her and invite her Below, to the Naming Ceremony.  I will show her the world that is now open to her as a safe-haven, should she need it.  She is a part of our world now, Catherine, though she had certainly never planned on it, any more than you did.  And now that she  is a part of our world . . . I have to wonder if somehow that is not also a sign of your intervention.  For as much as she has aided us, as much as I now admit I needed her help, my beloved Catherine, I think . . . I think perhaps she needs us just as much as you once did.

There is such an emptiness, a loneliness, inside her, Catherine.  I can see it now, sense it, as I never had time to before.  I do not know what it might have been, but something hurt her terribly, something from which she is still healing.  I think now that this is why she does what she does, why her mind creates such vivid pictures of other people's souls and of the darkness in the world: she is searching for her own path and light.

Perhaps, now that Jacob is safe Below and Gabriel is no more, perhaps, my love . . . you will guide her to find that light with us, as you found your own, as you helped me to find mine again.  Perhaps we -- I -- can give her back at least a portion of the peace she has given us.  And perhaps tomorrow night, by bringing Diana here Below to Jacob's Naming Ceremony, by showing her that she is truly one of us . . . it will be a beginning for us all.