In another fandom I’m in, we call a story like this a "missing scene" – that is, filling in the blanks of an episode that we always wondered about but were not allowed to see. This one is based on "A Happy Life."

Forever

Valerie

Catherine stared at the closed door, the barred gate in front of it, at the finality of it. Vincent had sent her away!

For long moments, she could not breathe or think, only that one sentence played over and over in her mind. Vincent had sent her away!

He’d said their dream had only been a dream, it would never come true, there was no point in fooling themselves. And told her to return to her life Above as if this place and these people – and HE – had never existed.

He might as well have asked her to cut out her own heart.

She knew him well enough to see the pain in his eyes as he said these things. It hurt him no less to say them than it did for her to hear them but, as always, he placed her welfare above his own. He truly believed this was best and he was willing to suffer for her sake.

He also truly believed she’d be better off without him. Yes, she’d struggled with the anniversary of her mother’s death, and questioned her choices in life, and didn’t know if she could continue like this. But she’d come to him for help and … there it was again … he’d sent her away!

A sudden steely resolve formed in Catherine’s heart. Oh, yeah? We’ll just see.

For now, she would let him think he’d won. She would go away. She would visit Nancy and she would be a fun guest. For a while, she’d stay away, clear her head, come to terms with reality. Vincent was right about one thing – a dream was just a dream. What they both needed was to wake up, look this situation in the eye, and decide what was next.

Catherine lifted her chin, turned, and walked away.

And behind that locked door, Vincent was slumped on the dirt floor with tears in his eyes and a sharp pain in his heart. He was too wrapped up in his own misery to fully read her emotions through the bond, so all he knew was that she had decided to walk away. He felt her go, felt the connection recede with distance, and allowed it to recede. He would not pursue her even in this way. He would cut off contact as much as he was able – and he knew, too well, that no matter how he tried some contact would remain – so that she could go back to that life he believed she was meant for.

Nancy, God bless her, was more than pleased for her to come early and stay late. She had a spare room all ready for her, and she told Catherine she could stay just as long as she liked. Westport was quiet, residential, no trace of the bustling city life to distract her, and Catherine could get her sea legs again there.

As Catherine got into the taxi, she felt as if the weight of the world had lifted from her shoulders. This was the right thing to do. As her father often said, the right thing wasn’t always the easy thing, but when you were doing the right thing, you knew it and your conscience knew it.

The train was half empty at this hour. Most of the commuters had long since headed home. Catherine took a window seat even though the light in the train showed her only her reflection in the window. She hadn’t really looked at herself for days. Even while preparing for the piano recital, she’d only looked enough to be sure her hair was combed and her makeup wasn’t smeared. Good heavens, she’d lost weight and the sleepless nights had made dark circles around her eyes and she looked, well, awful.

Nancy will fix all that, she thought with a fond smile. She’ll treat me like one of her kids and feed me good food and make me go to bed early.

Nancy was a born mother. She’d always mothered the girls in their group of friends, listened to their troubles, nagged them about dating the wrong boys, and when she gave up her dreams of a career as a photojournalist and had settled down to raise a family, most of the other girls had shaken their heads that she was throwing away her career. Only Catherine and Jenny had seen that this had been her destiny all along.

She’d nagged Catherine more than once about the men in her life, Catherine reflected. She’d seen that Stephen was wrong for her from the beginning. She’d told her Tom Gunther wasn’t "worthy" of her. And in the necessary silence surrounding Catherine’s relationship with Vincent, Nancy had nonetheless detected that something was up, even during their phone calls, and had told her, "I don’t know exactly what’s going on, Cathy, but something is. I can tell it worries you and it’s complicated and sometimes you wonder if it’s worth it. If my opinion means anything, I can see the difference in you, and it is worth it."

Maybe there would be an opportunity to talk to Nancy this weekend. She’d have to be very careful what she told her, of course, but maybe Nancy could help her sort through this thing.

After the party.

Buddy was, as promised, there and attentive. He confessed he’d always had "a thing" for Catherine but she was his sister’s friend and when you’re a teenager, dating your sister’s friend is just too complicated.

Catherine smiled, she kidded with "the girls" – they would always be the "girls," even when they all had grandchildren – and listened to everyone’s troubles. She even found herself basking in Buddy’s attention, though it made her feel vaguely guilty.

Vincent told you to find someone else to love.

I can’t love anyone else!

You can flirt!

And raise Buddy’s hopes for nothing!

But she allowed herself a few "what if" daydreams. What if she had married someone like Buddy – or what if she married now? There was plenty of time; she was only 30. Time for a home, a family, babies …

Except that in her dreams, her babies looked like Vincent. Her babies were his babies, she was his wife. His.

He sent you away.

Vincent was always telling her he couldn’t give her what a man who lived Above could give her. For a moment, she got a little angry. Who said she needed a man to give her anything? She was a modern woman. She had a career, financial security. She didn’t need a man to give her things.

She wanted his heart.

So there was another "what if" dream. What if she never married? What if she had her career and these stolen moments with Vincent and … none of the rest?

Nancy said almost exactly the same thing that night, when Catherine awoke from her nightmare and they finally had that long talk Catherine had hoped for. Nancy listened quietly, holding her hand, while she told her about Vincent, perhaps more than she should have told her, but she didn’t give away the secret of the Tunnels. It helped so much to talk it out with someone who loved her – the therapist had helped her break the barrier, but he had no stake in her happiness. Nancy did, and that hour with Nancy helped more than all the hours she’d spent with the therapist.

And at the end of it, she knew what she had to do. Again, there was that feeling. This is right. It might not be easy, but it was the right thing to do.

"I have to go home."

"Now?" Nancy was astonished. "It’s four a.m.! There isn’t a train until 5."

"Can I borrow your car?"

Vincent had spent the past three days so deep in a funk that Father was alarmed, but Vincent refused to tell him anything. Instead, he wandered off alone, as he often did when troubled, and didn’t even return to the home tunnels for meals most of the time.

He found himself going to places that were special to him and Catherine. The concert chamber under the park. The falls. The whispering gallery. He thought he heard her voice once there, but couldn’t find a spot to stand where it was clear, and then it was gone. They didn’t know how the gallery worked and it might have been a voice that spoke years ago, for all he knew. But after that, he avoided that spot. It was too painful.

He spent one whole night at her basement threshold, though he knew she wasn’t in her apartment. She wasn’t even in the city. Wherever she was, he could get a faint sense of her laughter, of the comfort one feels among old friends, with a wistful pain beneath the mirth that echoed the pain in his own soul.

Then he realized he was spying on her, in a way, and he resolutely shut off the contact except for the low thrum that was always there, that he could not shut off no matter how he tried. It hurt, but it gave him some comfort, too, because he could tell she was safe and well, if not happy.

The fourth night, he was sitting by the falls when he suddenly felt an arrow of adrenaline shoot through him. Catherine … she was coming home … to him. Her love and joy filled his heart so completely that before he had formed conscious thought, he was on his feet and running. He knew without thinking about it where she would be.

 

She could see Vincent waiting for her from a long way off. She had been afraid he wouldn’t be, after their last conversation, but she really should have known better. She was so anxious to get to him that she careened into him full speed, and he rocked a little, but she didn’t bowl him over.

"Forgive me for doubting!" she said breathlessly. "Our love is worth everything."

"Everything?"

She buried her face in his cloak and gradually, caught her breath from the long run. He held her so tightly she could hear his heart beating even through the layers of clothing and she held him just as tightly.

Finally, he pulled back a little. "You should come Below with me," he said softly. "It’s very late."

"Or very early," she said, smiling up at him.

He smiled back. "Or very early. At any rate, William will be up soon and starting breakfast. Will you come? We have much to discuss."

They didn’t hurry through the tunnels, walking easily hand in hand and mostly in silence. Both were tired from the past days and sleepless nights, and content just to be near one another.

As Vincent had said, William was up and working on breakfast when they arrived in the dining chamber. He was surprised to see them, but put them to work when they offered to help, and Catherine mixed biscuits while Vincent broke eggs.

"I hope you’ll forgive an old friend’s nosiness," William remarked about half an hour into the work, "but you know everyone knows everything down here. I thought Catherine was, well, gone."

"I was," she answered, though he’d addressed Vincent, "and I’ve come back."

Vincent exchanged a look with William, who smiled widely and nodded. "Good," William said. "Vincent’s been unbearable while you were gone."

Catherine was both touched and amused, because Vincent dropped his eyes to his work and flushed a deep red. William gave her a wink and went back to his work.

After the meal, during which the couple was subjected to many stares and whispers, though no one else was bold enough to question them as William had, Vincent offered Catherine his hand and they left the noisy dining area to find a place where they could talk.

They ended up at the concert chamber, where the morning sun poured through the grating and they could hear the sounds of dogs barking and children laughing above them in the park, but they would not be overheard or seen if they stayed in the shadows. Few came near the band shell during the day.

Catherine sank onto the stack of pillows with a contented sigh. Vincent lowered himself beside her, and they were silent for a few moments, until he broke it with, "While you were away … where did you go?"

"To visit an old and very dear friend," Catherine answered. "Nancy. I’ve told you about her."

He nodded. "She lives in Connecticut. She has … two children?"

"Yes." Catherine was silent, a little smile playing across her face. "They’re great kids, too, Vincent. I spent all of Saturday playing with them and they wore me out. I don’t know how Nancy does it every day."

"It’s different when they’re your own."

"I suppose," Catherine said. "Saturday night she had a party and most of our college crowd was there, except a few who have moved away. It was nice, seeing everyone."

"I could feel your enjoyment of their company," Vincent said. "Then I realized I should not intrude."

"Vincent!" Catherine took his hands in hers. "You are never intruding when you seek me through the bond. Never."

He smiled and gently squeezed her hand. "At that moment, you’ll recall, I thought we had parted forever."

She flushed. "Did you feel that a man there was flirting with me? The brother of an old friend."

Vincent’s heart took a painful leap. "No," he said after a moment. "I did not."

"That’s because I wasn’t flirting back," Catherine said. "I couldn’t. I was never so uninterested in flirting back in my life. That’s the evening I realized … " She lifted her eyes to his. "There will never be anyone but you."

He opened his mouth and she forestalled him with a finger to his lips.

"Don’t say it again. No, you cannot give me things, Vincent. I don’t want things. Frankly, and you know this, though we don’t discuss it, I can buy whatever I want. I don’t make a lot of money, but I have my mother’s trust fund and I get a quarterly check that alone would see to my needs and many of my wants. In fact," she flushed a bit deeper pink, "I probably don’t have to work at all, really."

"But your work is part of you," he said.

She nodded. "Yes, it’s important to me. I don’t want to be," and she smiled a little, "a ‘lady who lunches.’"

He chuckled. Though he had not heard the term before, the image was plain enough.

"I won’t deny it is difficult, and painful, to be apart from you so much. To know that we may never have anything but what we have now, but Vincent," she added earnestly, "if that’s the way it must be, then it must also be enough."

He wanted to protest, but she had asked him not to, and he could see and feel how deeply she believed what she said.

"The children you fear I may never have," she said, determined to talk it out no matter how uncomfortable, "are already here Below. Think of all the children here who need someone to love them, the children who may still be alone Above, waiting for someone to bring them here where they’ll be loved. There are enough children to lavish love upon, always."

He nodded. He had often thought so himself, which is why he taught the children and spent so much time with them. He had believed that was his only door to expressing his own need to be someone’s father figure, and had not considered it an option for Catherine.

"You know Father couldn’t love you more if you had been born to him," she said. "Giving birth is not necessary to be a parent."

"No," he agreed.

"And my heart could not be any more yours if we lived together," she said.

"Nor could mine belong any more completely to you," he said quietly, realizing the truth of that even more acutely.

"I know you have made up your mind never to ask me to commit myself to you, but Vincent, it’s too late. I already have. I think I knew when I left here the first time that my heart was forever yours."

"Mine was certainly forever yours by then," he said, admitting it to himself for the first time aloud.

"I didn’t realize it, perhaps," she said. "I’m a slow learner," she added with a chuckle, "but I know it now. We’ll still have doubts, both of us. There will be times when it will seem easier to walk away, rather than struggle with the difficulties. But everyone goes through that, Vincent. Nancy told me she and her husband have had their rough periods. She has questioned her choice to give up her dreams of a career and stay home to raise her babies, and she’s struggled mightily with it. I can tell you of countless other friends who have had theirs, friends who live ‘normal’ lives Above, who don’t face a fraction of the obstacles we do. It’s not going to be easy, but it is worth it."

He nodded and did something he never pictured himself actually doing. He kissed her gently. "It’s worth everything."