EIGHT MONTHS LATER

The tapping sounds of the pipes interwove with Catherine's footsteps as she neared the Home Tunnels. Passing another sentry post, she waved a hand in greeting, although she was not able to see the sentry who was announcing her arrival with a short rapping on the pipes. She was late -- again -- and afraid that little Amy would be already in bed. Learning to cope with her new job at the district attorney's office left her little time for anything else, and in order to manage the almost insurmountable workload, she often worked overtime or took some of the cases home with her. Today, Joe Maxwell, her new boss, had dumped a particularly cumbersome stack of folders on her desk, and it bordered on a miracle that she'd escaped at all. She had missed Amy's bedtime rather often during the last few months, she thought ruefully and wondered once more if leaving her father's law firm had been the right thing to do. Whatever kind of difference she had hoped to make, neglecting her child was certainly too big a price to pay. By now little Amy was used to being put to bed by Vincent, or even Mary, since Catherine wasn't able to come Below every night, but she felt that there was something amiss when, at the end of a day, she couldn't feel the small arms around her neck and hear the eager voice babbling about the day's important events. Father was not particularly happy with her regular visits Below, because he feared for the safety of his world, but they had agreed on using as many different entrances as possible to keep the danger of discovery at a minimum. Even Father realized that the child needed Catherine, so they simply had to be as careful as possible.

As Catherine rounded the last bend before the nursery, the familiar sound of Vincent's voice reached her from inside. The little ones were still up and listening to a story. She paused at the entrance, not wanting to intrude upon the peaceful scene, and the sight of Vincent sitting in a big armchair, little Amy in his lap and about a dozen other children at his feet, even ones that were actually too big for the nursery, filled her eyes with tears of happiness. His shaggy head was bent over the book while a completely engrossed Amy played with strands of his hair.

"'Wasn't I Real before?' asked the little Rabbit.

'You were Real to the boy,' the Fairy said, 'because he loved you. Now you shall be Real to everyone.'

And she held the little Rabbit close in her arms and flew with him into the wood."

The Velveteen Rabbit, Catherine thought fondly and listened on about the Fairy taking the little Rabbit to the other rabbits in the wood, and the Rabbit's wonderment when he discovered that he had hind legs now, just as any normal rabbit, moved her in a strange way.

"But he never knew that it really was his own Bunny, come back to look at the child who had first helped him to be Real," Vincent finished the story and snapped the book shut.

"Amy love Wabbit," Amy commented, beaming up at Vincent as he rose and put her on the floor. He tousled her curly head affectionately.

"I think we all do," he replied and turned toward Catherine who stood in the entryway, watching. The older children rose and greeted her as they passed her on their way out. She returned their bright smiles and marveled once more at how wonderfully the people Below reared and guided the children.

In the meantime Amy ran over to her and threw her arms enthusiastically around her knees. Catherine scooped her up and hugged her tightly, inhaling deeply. How she had missed that unique baby smell.

"Wabbit weal," the child told her solemnly, pointing at the book Vincent was still holding in his hands.

"Yes, honey," Catherine confirmed, clearing her throat, "the Rabbit is Real now."

Nodding contentedly, Amy laid her head on Catherine's shoulder, a telltale sign that she was sleepy. Vincent was already tucking in the other two occupants of the nursery, and Catherine carried Amy over to her bed to put her down as well. When she was about to straighten again, Amy's arms came up to pull her down just a little longer. She kissed the child's furry nose and smooth forehead, knowing that she must not indulge in much more if the child was to fall asleep anytime soon. It was well past her bedtime anyway.

"Good night, darling," she whispered, grateful that Amy had adjusted so well.

When she finally left the nursery, Vincent was waiting for her outside. Companionably they walked down the corridor that led to his chamber. Every time Catherine entered his room she felt enchanted by its unique beauty. She would never forget her wonderment when she had seen it for the first time. It was so much like Vincent himself: warm and golden -- and full of secrets.

Vincent, holding out his hand in order to take her coat, startled her from her reverie. She handed it to him and watched as he draped it over the back of his huge reading chair. The way he moved never failed to remind her of his great strength, tempered by an incredible amount of control that made his movements appear smooth and graceful. The image of him sitting with the children, reading to them, leapt to her mind. His gentleness had been one of the first things that had captured her heart, and discovering that those gentle hands could just as well kill and destroy had made her regard Vincent with a new kind of respect and awe.

Deliberately resisting the pull of these thoughts, she remarked, "Amy was quite taken with the story."

"Yes," Vincent said, walking around to light a few more candles. "She understands more than she should at her age."

"What do you mean?"

"If memory serves me correctly, I was a little older than Amy is now when my own differentness began troubling me," he explained.

Slowly Catherine took the seat he was offering. "Is there anything we can do about it?"

Sitting down opposite her, he shook his head. "Not much, I'm afraid. As far as I can tell, the children are not teasing her. Yet she is very much aware of her differences. Maybe because my own appearance constantly reminds her of them."

She cast him a tentative glance. "Did other children tease you when you were little?"

"Of course, they did," he replied, "but not at this early age. The little ones are never left to themselves. There are always grown-ups around. By now, Mary will have taken her seat in the nursery to watch over the youngest until they are fast asleep. And then she, or whoever is on duty, will sleep in a cot nearby, so that it won't go unnoticed if one of the children awakens during the night. It was the same when I was a small child. Only when I grew old enough to play with the bigger boys, did the teasing and taunting begin."

Catherine shuddered at the thought of what lay ahead of her little baby. Even down here, in the relative safety of the Tunnels, that special child would not be spared. She raised her eyes to Vincent who'd endured all of it and still become the man he was. Gentle and compassionate, trusting and incredibly sensitive. She knew that Amy loved Vincent dearly and admired him to the point of adoration, so that should give her an advantage Vincent had never had. Amy would never be the only one of her kind. She had someone who was familiar with the troubles and sorrows she'd have to face, because he had been there, every step of the way.

Vincent's voice drew her from her thoughts. "When I was four or five, the Velveteen Rabbit proved quite disastrous to me." And at her questioning look he continued, "I was actually waiting for a Fairy who would make me look like all the other children, just as she had given hind legs to the Rabbit in the story. Every night I would pray that she hurry and make me Real. But she never came."

His simple words clenched around Catherine's heart like a fist. She remembered her own childhood prayers when her mother had been ill, and the disappointment and despair that followed when she had to let go of her hopes in the end.

"It was only much later," Vincent resumed, "that I realized I had not paid attention to the fact that there was a condition to becoming Real. It was not just the Fairy who granted the Rabbit's innermost wish. It was the love of the little boy which had made it possible. That was when I dropped my expectations." He fell silent, but Catherine heard the words he left unspoken as clearly as if he had voiced them. He had not been able to become Real because there was no one who could have loved someone like him with that special love which contained the magic of making you Real.

At that moment she wanted so badly to kneel down at his feet and lay her head in his lap, telling him that she loved him, and that no one could ever make him more Real than he already was. But she dared not. He always appeared so distant and reserved, except when he was with the children, and for an instant she envied them their freedom to touch him and be near him.

Suddenly she became aware of his intent gaze as if he was following every single one of her thoughts. A little embarrassed, she dropped her eyes, and when she lifted them again, he had pushed himself from the chair and was now standing with his back to her before the stained glass window, almost as if he were studying an imaginary landscape beyond the colorful panes.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly as she stepped behind him, but he didn't turn to face her.

"What for?" she asked softly, placing a comforting hand on his back.

Hanging his head, he shrugged. "Perhaps for talking to much," he offered quietly, stepping aside and around her as if to evade her touch. It hurt, and Catherine chided herself for having acted against her better knowledge. Since the time after she had been assaulted in the park and he had tried to comfort her, he had never touched her again, avoiding her touches as well. First she hadn't even noticed, for they spent very little time together, and hardly any of it alone. Also, she had been so engrossed in her new life, her new job, that her thoughts were somewhere else most of the time anyway. He had barely ever come to her balcony, since Amy didn't live with her anymore, and the few times he had appeared there, mostly when the child needed something, he had declined her invitation to enter the apartment. Only of late, now that her life had settled into some kind of routine again, had she become aware of how much she missed their quiet evenings together, their talks long into the night, his gentle guidance where the child was concerned, his quiet presence in her life. He was still there for her, helping her to cope with the void that surrendering the child to the World Below had caused in her life, but somehow there was a wall between them now, which hadn't been there before. That realization hurt so much that she felt tears well up in her eyes.

Instantly he was with her, lifting her hands and stroking her wrists with his thumbs. His gaze clung to hers with something akin to desperation, and involuntarily she lifted one shaking hand as if to touch him. He froze, and her heart sank, but then his large hand took hers in a gentle grasp, guiding it the remaining distance and pressing it softly against his heart.

"Catherine," he whispered hoarsely, "we should not do this."

"What?" she breathed, her heart suddenly pounding in her throat.

"Allow ourselves to fall in love," he replied, releasing her hands.

"Do we have a choice in this?" she asked with a trembling voice.

Slowly, wordlessly, he shook his tawny head. "I never meant to cause you any pain, Catherine. At first I was unable to believe that...your feelings for me...could have changed that way."

"And then?" she prompted carefully.

"Then you saw what I am capable of. What these," he brought up his hands, "can do."

"These hands," she said, "saved my life, and Amy's. "How could the fact that we owe you our lives prevent you from showing me your true feelings?"

Dropping his gaze, he swayed slightly, and she could feel his tension carry over into her own body. Suddenly his head came up again. "Look at me," he challenged. "How could I ever allow myself..." With a helpless shrug he fell silent.

She could not stand to see him suffer so any longer. Stepping closer, she encircled his waist with her arms and leaned her forehead against his heaving chest. "If you had a choice," she whispered, "would you choose not to love me? Or for me not to love you?"

"Oh, Catherine," he moaned against her ear while his hands came up to rest on her back, their pressure slowly increasing as he returned the embrace. "My heart has been dreaming of this; of you accepting my feelings. I just cannot...must not..." His voice failed and he buried his face in the curve of her neck. Involuntarily her arms tightened around him as she sought for words to soothe his turmoil.

"Through all these months, since I discovered that I was in love with you," she finally began, her forehead still against his chest, "I was wondering if you felt the same for me. You never gave any indication, so I settled for the precious friendship that we had." She raised her head to look up into his face. "Sometimes I thought I glimpsed more than that in your eyes, but it may have been just wishful thinking on my part. Was it?" He merely shook his head, a wistful smile on his lips. So she went on, "Then I guess you were just as insecure as I was. Come to think of it, I didn't give too many indications either. I guess I was just trying to be unobtrusive. If you had known, though..."

"I knew," he interrupted her.

"Then why did you hold back?" she asked incredulously.

Slowly, carefully, he released her from his embrace, and she felt suddenly cold without his arms around her. In a low voice he answered, "I don't know where I come from, Catherine. I don't even know what I am. And I don't know how far I could take our relationship without..."

"Yes?" she coaxed gently when his voice trailed off.

"...without overstepping boundaries, limits that must never be crossed."

She was just about to contradict, but he added softly, "By me."

His apparently calm acceptance of those limits that he'd obviously set for himself momentarily stunned her into silence. While her heart wanted to break, her mind worked frantically in its attempt to comprehend.

"Vincent," she began, but a voice from the entryway interrupted her.

"Vincent? Catherine?"

"Please, Jamie, come in," Vincent replied, releasing Catherine with an apologetic glance. He stepped back and turned to face his visitor.

"Hi," the girl said shyly. "I hope I'm not disturbing you. Father sent me to ask if you'd like to have a cup of tea with him. He wants to talk with both of you."

Vincent's voice was a little more raspy than usual as he replied, "Thank you, Jamie. Please tell Father that we will be with him shortly." With a nod the girl turned and left.

Catherine was not pleased that their crucial conversation had been interrupted. There were so many things Vincent and she had yet to discuss and she was afraid that the moment might be irrevocably lost. She could see the same regret reflected in Vincent's eyes, but she couldn't help noticing that there seemed to be some measure of relief at the same time, too. Filing the fleeting impression away, she took her coat from Vincent's hands and followed him to Father's study.

*

Descending the narrow entry staircase, Catherine looked around expectantly and was surprised to see that one of the boys was still with Father, although it was long past the children's bedtime. He sat in a big chair, cradling a mug between his palms and dangling his legs.

"Ah, Vincent, Catherine, there you are," Father greeted them cheerfully. "I'm glad you are still here, Catherine. I thought you may like to hear what Kipper told me this evening."

The boy fidgeted in his chair, obviously a little uncomfortable with the unexpected attention, but enjoying it nonetheless.

When they all were seated around the table, Father turned to look at Kipper. "Will you please repeat for Catherine and Vincent what you told me earlier? You know it may be of some importance especially to Catherine."

Shyly the boy studied the mug in his hands before he put it back on the table and began, "You know it could be just a story Ted made up."

"That's all right, Kipper," Father reassured him. "Now, please tell us."

"Well, I played with Sammy yesterday. He is Eli's grandson and we play together from time to time. Another boy, Ted, was playing with us that afternoon. I don't know him well. He's kind of strange. Always told weird stories so as to scare us." With a wave of his hand, Kipper dismissed that attempt as a futile one, and Catherine smiled inwardly at the typical boyish behaviour. She knew that the children were allowed to play up top regularly, preferably under the watchful eyes of trusted helpers, in order for them to get as much fresh air as possible. A fact that she found particularly troublesome with regard to Amy. But now was not the time for pursuing that thought, and she returned her attention to the Kipper's story.

"Ted told us a lot of strange stuff. We just laughed at him. But then he said that his grandma would always tell his big sister that she's going to have a cat-baby, too."

"Ted's sister is pregnant and their grandmother is quite upset because the girl isn't married," Father interjected to explain further. "Now, please go on, Kipper."

"Ted keeps teasing his sister, and I think that's mean of him, but his grandma says she knows a woman who had a cat-baby, because she's been bad. Ted's grandma saw the baby and she says that the woman threw it away."

Without having to look at Vincent, Catherine felt him flinch inwardly and she fought to swallow the lump that was suddenly forming in her throat.

"Ted says that his sister will keep the cat-baby, and when he's big he'll scare all the kids in the neighborhood, and stuff like that." He paused and cast Vincent a quick glance, aware that his story must hurt his big friend's feelings.

ButVincent asked quietly, "Do you know if Ted knows the woman his grandmother was referring to?"

Kipper shrugged. "I'm not sure, but I don't think so. Ted is a boaster. He'd have suggested we go there and see the woman if he'd known her. But maybe his grandma does. Maybe she really saw the baby. I don't know."

"Thank you, Kipper," Vincent said, reclining in his chair and steepling his fingers as he tried to digest what they had just been told.

"Kipper, you may go now," Father said. "It's time for you to go to bed. Thank you for staying up to tell us your story."

To Catherine the boy didn't look as if staying up had been too big a sacrifice, but he accepted Father's thanks graciously. "You're welcome," he smiled and was gone.

Three pairs of eyes followed his departing form pensively.

"I have to find that woman," Catherine broke the silence.

"No," Vincent said, looking at her imploringly. "Catherine, you cannot go there and ask questions, neither as an attorney nor privately. Either way it may draw attention to Amy, and we do not know if there isn't somebody out there who knows enough already to pose a threat to her." His breath caught in his chest as he added, "And to you."

"Vincent is right," Father assented. "I don't like the thought, but Kipper is probably the only one who can pursue this without raising suspicion. So, I'm afraid our hands are tied here."

Catherine knew that both men were right. They would simply have to be patient and wait. One look at Vincent's face told her the turmoil he was in. How he must ache to learn more about Amy's origins, and yet the first thing he did was weigh the possibilities against the dangers they might present, while she would have simply rushed on without thinking.

"Vincent, will you please walk me back?" she asked, suddenly needing to be alone with him, if only for a few moments.

Rising from his chair, Vincent extended his hand to her. "I won't be long, Father," he said, leading her from the chamber.

They walked in silence for a long while. As much as Catherine would have loved to talk with him, to recapture the intimacy that had been blossoming between them before Jamie had intruded, she didn't know how to start, how to break the silence he wore around him like a second cloak. He was still holding her hand in a gentle clasp, and this she found strangely reassuring.

"Which entrance did you use tonight?" he asked all of a sudden.

"The park entrance," she answered. "Why?"

"Perhaps it would be better to use only basement entrances for a while. You can't be followed there quite as easily."

"What makes you worry so?" she asked, coming to a halt and looking up at his face.

Uncertainly, he shook his head. "I don't know," he murmured. "It's just that our talk tonight reminded me of how fragile our world is."

Catherine swallowed hard before putting her next question. "Do you think it would be better if I stayed away for awhile?"

Inhaling deeply, he gathered her in his arms and his breath was warm on the crown of her head as he answered, "No, Catherine. That would not be a solution. There is no life without risks, and the risks we take out of love are the ones that deepen and enhance our lives in ways..." His voice trailed off as one of his large hands found its way under her hair, softly rubbing the nape of her neck. Although she knew that this was an involuntary gesture, one he was not fully aware of at the moment, it filled her with a warmth beyond words. She dared not move for fear of making him self-conscious about this open display of tenderness.

Finally his hand fell away and they resumed walking, not speaking for the rest of the way. When they reached the threshold below the basement of her building, they stopped and stood facing each other silently. At last, she turned and walked toward the ladder, but paused once more, unable to simply leave him like this. He was standing there in the shadows, one hand braced against the rough brick wall, the intensity in his gaze all but breaking her heart. She longed to go back and hold him, kiss him, convince him of the rightness of their love, but she knew this was not the time. So she simply said, "Some risks are worth everything, Vincent." Caressing his face with her eyes, she added softly, "Everything."

*

Long after she'd been gone, Vincent was still standing at the foot of the ladder, staring up into the shaft of blue light that had swallowed Catherine's slim figure as she'd returned into her own world. So much had happened today that his head swam with things he could barely grasp. By openly speaking about her feelings, Catherine had committed herself to him in a way he would never have thought possible. He didn't want to think about all the complications their feelings for one another implied. For once he just wanted to savor what made him so utterly, deliriously happy. He didn't even want to think about what Kipper had told them; not tonight. Tonight he would empty his mind from all thoughts that might fence in his heart in its joyous dance. He would be quiet, oh, so quiet, lest he awaken the voices in his mind that would speak to him of dark foreboding, of insurmountable barriers, and of countless impossibilities.

Vincent wouldn't listen to these voices. Not tonight. His gait was light and full of energy as he made his way back to the silence of his chamber.

PRAYER