Catherine looked up at this so-called beast with eyes very much her own. "What do you mean?"
He couldn’t bear to look in her eyes just now, so he concentrated on the small scar beside her ear. "Sometimes, I just know," he said. "Tonight, I felt your dream. I felt your fear, and I had to come." Vincent wanted to run. He wanted to drop her hand, but she held on so tightly that it was impossible to break her grasp.
Catherine smiled. He felt her smile. "I understand," she said. "Sometimes, I feel your presence so strongly that I turn around and expect you to in the room with me." She paused. "I’m always so disappointed when you’re not."
"Really?"
"Really."
Vincent did look into her eyes then. They were so kind and deep and beautiful. She was such a small woman and yet she looked at him without fear. He held no illusions about himself; he knew what he was and what people — even Catherine — thought of him. "I don’t only feel your terror," he told her. "I also feel your happiness as well. It’s warm, like sunlight."
Catherine moved closer to Vincent. He did not move away from her. "Did you see my dream?" she asked.
"No," Vincent replied, somewhat sadly.
"I dreamed that my life was back to the way it was before," she said.
"Before?"
"Before you."
"I don’t understand," Vincent said.
Catherine took his hand in both of hers. "You really don’t, do you?" she asked.
He shook his head.
"Vincent, you are my dreamer and my dream," she said, quietly. "I’m not the person I was before. And I could not live like that again."
Vincent looked out over her head, beyond the city lights and deep into the night sky itself. "Your nightmare was about life without me?" he asked. "How can that be?"
"It just is, Vincent," Catherine replied. He could hear the smile in her voice. "It just is."
And for a brief moment, he saw himself through her eyes. He didn’t recognize himself. For the first time in his life, Vincent saw a man…