Catherine was sitting on the bed in the guest chamber she had been using during her stay below, when she heard footsteps on the corridor outside. She was surprised to see Vincent emerging from the entryway. He had never come to her before. She rose and crossed the room to meet him. His eyes were serious but calm.

"What is it?" she asked, unable to keep the apprehension she suddenly felt from her voice.

"The council has decided it is safe now to let you return to your own world, Catherine. In fact, they've known that ever since you...saved my life, but..."

"But?" she prompted gently. "But Father felt you might want to stay for a while in order to understand what had happened and to come to terms with unresolved things within yourself."

Catherine shook her head. "Is that what he said?" Vincent nodded his head.

"Basically, yes." She smiled. "And for a moment I thought it was what you read in my palms."

His features sobered, but he held his gaze locked to hers. "I had no right to do that," he murmured. "A person's palm is a very private thing."

Catherine stepped up to him and took his hands in hers, turning them so that she could look at his palms. A tremor went through him as she traced the mounds and valleys with her index fingers and when she looked up a deep frown was creasing his brow.

"Now we're even," she said with a smile. His eyes softened and he relaxed as she released his hands from her clasp. They stood staring at each other for a long breathless moment before she broke the silence.

"Will you guide me above, Vincent?"

He flinched almost imperceptibly and she wondered if she had imagined the regret that flitted across his face at an unguarded moment. "Of course," he replied huskily, but he didn't move.

Finally she retrieved her jacket from the bed and looked up at him expectantly. The thought of leaving this place, the people who had become her friends, and him, were suddenly unbearable.

As if he had read her thoughts, he reached for her hand and squeezed it gently. "You have friends in this world now, Catherine. You have a place you can come to whenever you wish. You can be a helper like so many people above who know about our world and are willing to support it as best they can."

"I would like that," she said, wishing she knew something else to say in order to delay her departure just a little bit longer. He looked at her silently, thoughtfully, for a moment and then released her to reach inside the pocket of his cloak. He held out his hand and slowly opened his palm. A sparkling crystal caught her eye.

"How beautiful," she gasped.

"It's a Herkimer Quartz," he explained. "It can only be found in the State of New York. It doesn't grow in clusters like other quartz crystals do, but within liquids. That's how it is able to develop two points." And indeed the crystal had two perfectly formed ends. She gazed at it, thinking, 'It had to grow apart from others to become this perfect' and she couldn't help but compare the gem to Vincent.

"What are you thinking?" Vincent inquired.

She hesitated for a second before replying, "That the crystal reminds me of you." Vincent's fingers closed reflexively around the crystal as if he wanted to shield his soul from prying eyes. Catherine's heart ached with the realization that he wasn't used to seeing himself compared to anything beautiful.

"And I bet it has a rainbow inside," she whispered.

He gave her a look of surprise but then shook his head. "Not this one."

"I'm certain that it has," she insisted. "I can feel it."

He opened his palm again and handed her the little gem.

"Please see for yourself," he said. Cautiously, reverently, Catherine took the crystal and twisted it between her fingers. It sparkled beautifully in the candlelight, but no matter how she tried, there was no rainbow to be seen.

Vincent regarded her silently, his head tilted to one side questioningly. "You can't be sure there isn't any before you've seen it in the sunlight," she countered and immediately bit her tongue as she saw a shadow passing over his features.

"Why is it that you know so much about crystals?" he asked before she could say anything to apologize. At first Catherine thought she detected an ironic undertone in his voice, but as he turned his eyes on her, she could see he was completely serious.

"What I know about them," she replied without breaking eye contact, "comes from my love of them."

She raised her hand in order to return the crystal to him, but he cupped his palm around her fingers and closed them gently. "Please keep it," he rasped. "And take it up into the sunlight for me." Her heart went wide with the enormity of the gesture.

"I will get your rainbow for you," she promised. There was a strange intensity in his eyes as he regarded her solemnly. The pain from moments before was gone and she was relieved to glimpse a spark of serenity there.

"We'd better go now," he said, extending his hand to her. "The others are waiting in the study to say their good byes."

Catherine took his hand and as they turned to leave, she was overcome by a feeling of peace and confidence. This was not a farewell; it was a beginning.

The late afternoon sun cast long shadows across the park as Catherine made her way down to the drainage pipe that served as an access to the tunnel world. She would have to wait a little while longer before she could enter, because there were still too many people around for her to slip in unnoticed, but she didn't like the thought of coming here after dusk had set in. The park was not a safe place at that hour.

She sat down on a bench from where she could survey the area and wait for the right moment to make her way below. When no more passersby were to be seen, she rose from the bench and slowly walked towards the opening. She looked around cautiously; making sure no one could see her before she actually entered the culvert.

It was quite dark in here already, but she walked on valiantly, knowing it wasn't far to the steel door separating the underground world from her own. She was just about to raise her hand in order to pull the opening lever when she heard footsteps behind her. Before she had time to turn and react in any way, she felt herself being grabbed by a pair of huge hands and the next thing she knew she was lying on the floor, looking into the face of a stranger who grinned down at her viciously. Catherine tried to get up, but he gave her a forceful kick and straddled her, pinning her to the ground with his weight.

"I got her," he shouted and her breath caught in her throat as she heard the footfall of another man running towards them. When a second face appeared above her, Catherine's heart stopped beating, because it became dreadfully obvious that there was no way out of this horrible situation. She tried to scream, but a cruel hand clamped down on her mouth, making it nearly impossible to breathe. Suddenly she felt a pair of groping hands on her breasts and she closed her eyes tightly to shut out the terror and humiliation she felt. She squirmed and kicked but couldn't really move. There seemed to be no way of freeing herself from the iron grip around her body.

Suddenly there was the screeching sound of metal against stone and a roar reverberated off the concrete walls of the tunnel. Catherine felt the weight retreat and some air return to her deprived lungs. "Vincent," she gasped as another roar filled the air and a dark figure appeared in her line of vision, lifting one of her attackers from the ground and throwing him forcefully against the wall.

Catherine watched as the lifeless body slumped to the ground and when she looked up again she saw the other man had pulled a huge knife to defend himself against the creature advancing on him. Catherine hardly recognized Vincent as the man she had come to love and trust so much. His teeth were bared and she realized she hadn't noticed before that they were actually fangs. A menacing growl was emanating from him and Catherine felt the hairs on the nape of her neck stand on end as she watched him flexing his fingers like claws before he tore through the body of her attacker again and again. When finally the man was lying motionless on the ground, all Catherine felt was a surge of gratitude towards her rescuer.

She scrambled to her feet, careful not to touch the body as she stepped over it in order to get to Vincent who was standing with his back to her, his shoulders heaving with exertion. She lifted her hand to touch his arm, but he shrank away.

"Vincent," she said imploringly, but he refused to look at her. His pain and shame about what had happened was a palpable thing between them. She took a step in retreat to give him space. "Thank you for saving my life," she murmured, suddenly shy in the face of the enormity of what he had done for her. He didn't acknowledge her words; he just bent and picked up a piece of stone to tap out a message over the pipes.

"Please go below," he demanded, his voice hardly recognizable after the immense strain those roars must have placed on his vocal cords. "Father is expecting you. He will attend to your injuries."

Catherine shook her head. "What about you?" she asked, despair in her voice. "Won't you come with me? You may be injured, too."

He heaved a shuddering sigh. "I...have to take care of....," his voice fell away as he indicated the bodies with a gesture of his hand. Catherine stood frozen to the spot, her emotions in turmoil as to what to do, how to get through to his tormented soul. Suddenly he spun around, looking at her for the first time.

There was something in his eyes she hadn't seen there before. Something untamed and dangerous, a distant wildness she could never hope to reach. She saw a plea there, too, a plea to be left alone so he could do what needed to be done. She thought her heart was breaking but she slowly lowered her gaze and walked by him into the dimly lit corridor beyond the steel door. 

Vincent was hardly aware of his surroundings as he walked back to his chamber. The bath in the pool below the falls had cleaned his body, but not his soul. He felt tainted and lost, an outcast of both the world above and the community below. For the hundredth time he was assailed by the question how anybody could stand living close to him when they all knew what he was capable of. With a moan of anguish he stopped in his tracks and braced himself against the rough wall of the passageway.

The worst thing was that now Catherine knew, too. She, who miraculously had never been afraid of him, had looked at him with terror in her eyes. She had tried to hide it - for his sake - and the thought might have warmed him if not for the cold despair around his heart.

What Catherine didn't know was that he could feel what she felt. Her terror and fear had ripped through him as if they were his own. She could no longer deny there were things about him, which set him apart from humankind. How could he blame her for the repulsion she had felt? He had allowed his control to slip and as always his resolve to fight like a man had been forgotten the moment rage had set in. Inhuman rage that turned his fingers into lethal claws and made him expose his canine teeth like a rabid animal. With a sigh he pushed himself from the wall and resumed walking.

His chamber looked strange to him when he entered. He gazed around the room dazedly, as if none of the things in there were his. The desk, the books, the things he had collected - everything looked as if it belonged to somebody else. Somebody human, he thought with a twinge of bitterness.

Slowly he crossed the room and froze when he caught sight of something on his writing table that hadn't been there when he'd left. There was a photograph half-tucked under his journal. Vincent flung the towel he was carrying across the backrest of his chair and picked up the picture, lifting it to his eyes. It showed a crystal, the Herkimer quartz he had given to Catherine the day she left after her first stay below. The crystal in the picture lay on a green leaf bathed in sunlight, and among the sparkling facets Vincent saw the whole spectrum of colors of a beautiful, clear rainbow. He stood there for a long time, staring at the photograph unbelievingly, heedless of the tears running down his face.

Catherine stood on her terrace, looking down at the night-darkened Central Park. She struggled to come to a decision whether or not to answer the message Jenny had left on the answering machine. Jenny was a close friend, but Catherine hadn't seen her in ages and she wasn't sure if she was up to chatting leisurely when so much had happened in her life that she mustn't talk about. For example where she had been four months ago during those ten days she was missing, or why she had broken up with Tom Gunther. Or why she had left her father's law firm in order to join the district attorney's office. But most of all Catherine dreaded the question why she was hardly seeing her old friends anymore.

Her life had changed too drastically for others not to notice. Anyone who knew her fairly well would have questions - questions Catherine wasn't allowed to answer. It wasn't even that she went below too often. It was just that something within her had changed; her way of looking at things wasn't the same anymore.

How could she tell anybody that she was drawn to a community of people who lived below ground in a fragile world of tunnels and chambers? A world that depended on the support of people like her who were willing to make personal sacrifices in the name of friendship and love.

How could anyone understand that shopping and idle conversation at parties had lost their appeal? And all because of a man who was full of contradictions, who added more questions to her life than answers. Catherine tilted back her head and inhaled deeply.

It was a warm summer evening and she wondered if Vincent was roaming the park tonight, as she knew he loved doing. She closed her eyes, trying to imagine him wandering through the night. Darkness was his friend, that much she had learned. She hadn't seen him very often after what had happened at the park entrance a couple of weeks ago.

Once she had gone below while he was still teaching his evening class and she had stood there, listening to the gentle ebb and flow of his voice as he read to the children. He was an amazing man. In addition to teaching the children, his regular sentry duty, and the constantly required repair work he was assigned to, Vincent was also busy exploring and mapping the tunnels in order to find new space to live in for the ever-growing community.

Catherine couldn't help but wonder if Vincent might be avoiding her. The fact that she had been witness to a side of him he fought so hard to suppress had changed something between them. The closeness developing between them had been shaken and she had to watch helplessly as he kept withdrawing from her more and more. It stung. It hurt more than she would have thought possible. There wasn't much she could do about it. Every time she went below she hoped he would be there, talking with her as he had before. His joy at seeing her had been a palpable thing, a precious gift she'd savored above everything else. Catherine sighed at the memory.

Even when he wasn't there, going below was like visiting with friends, comforting and relaxing. After she had been attacked at the park entrance, Vincent had seen to it that an old access below her apartment building was reopened so that she could visit in relative safety. The last few times, though, Vincent had been unavailable, and it confused her to find she missed him so much. Maybe I should talk to him, she mused. Maybe we can sort this out.

She knew he must have seen the fear in her eyes when he came to her rescue, and she could only hope he didn't think it had been he she was afraid of. Surely he must have been aware of her relief and gratitude as well. She knew she had thanked him with words, but the state he'd been in made it impossible to tell whether or not her words had reached him. Catherine closed her eyes, trying to conjure up the image of his face as he looked at her calmly, understandingly, but the picture she got of him was an expression so filled with anguish that her heart constricted in her chest.

She couldn't even begin to imagine what his life was like, how he dealt with being outside what others considered as normal. She had no idea what forces drove him on and tormented him at the same time. Despite his extended family deep down inside he must feel very lonely. Her heart went out to him and she wished she could be there for him, just holding his hand, assuring him that she loved him just the way he was. But he probably wouldn't believe her. He didn't want her to see him as he was. As things were he didn't want her to see him at all. Catherine wiped a tear from her cheek as she returned into her living room and settled down with the phone, dialing Jenny's number.

Vincent watched the dust motes dancing in the blue light that fell in from the basement of Catherine's apartment building. He hadn't seen her in quite a while, although she had come below several times. It was late and she was asleep now, but only a little while ago he had sensed her confusion and sadness. Heaving a ragged sigh, he leaned against the wall and closed his eyes for a moment. He knew he shouldn't be here, he shouldn't permit himself feelings like that.

Catherine was a helper who was kind enough to accept him as he was, who still regarded him as a friend in spite of what she had seen. He knew he should be content with that, but he wasn't. There was something about the way she felt for him that made him restless, gave him thoughts that were poison in his blood. Try as he may, he couldn't figure out how she could be repulsed by him and drawn to him at the same time.

Obviously this was exactly the ambiguity she was suffering under, and knowing he was the reason for her turmoil was unbearable. However there was nothing he could do about it. Vincent sighed as he imagined her asleep in her bed. So far he had resisted the temptation to go to her terrace and see how she lived.

He had to remind himself that it was none of his business. For the hundredth time Vincent asked himself who he was fooling. He was standing here under the basement of her building, thinking of her, imagining her as she was lying in her bed. He'd better not ask what Catherine would think if she knew about it. Standing here like this certainly wasn't much better than actually sneaking up onto her terrace and peering through her window. Vincent pushed from the wall and straightened. There were many things Catherine must never know. Things that would only frighten her.

The entire spectrum of his feelings for her was one of them. His inner connection to her that enabled him to feel what she felt was another. Turning his back on the light from above, Vincent paused for a moment, praying that there was a way to maintain enough distance between them to keep her safe without hurting her too much. Vincent's heart was heavy as he slowly made his way toward the waiting mouth of the tunnel.