Sighing wearily, Catherine dragged another file from the endless pile upon her desk, toward her, and with a great deal of disinterest, tried to focus on the words in front of her. She sighed again as her eye caught the diminishing pile of folders and wished that the height of them against the few she had already tackled that day could be switched around. At this rate, she wouldn’t get through them by the end of the week, let alone by the end of the day.
Usually she would have ploughed through her work, tackling each case as it came with a relish that secured her the title of the DA’s best investigator, but not this week, or at least not this day. For this day, her mind was very much elsewhere governed by the way her body was feeling. For last night, Vincent had finally kissed her.
From across the office Joe watched Catherine work, if work could be the expression to use. Her mind was very much not on crime-fighting today, he smiled wryly; in fact five would get him ten that Radcliffe had had a very heavy night and was using the pile of folders on her desk as a shield behind which she could fall asleep.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Catherine was not tired. Well, not physically tired. Her body ached, true, but not from overexertion. In fact, if Joe could know the full extent of Catherine’s mind at that moment, he might well have turned beet red!
The folder before her forgotten, Catherine doodled on the pad at its side, her mind very much on a certain person and everything that had happened the night before.

There was nothing out of the ordinary to start with. She had met Vincent at the threshold and he had taken her to his chamber. They had stayed reading for a while and catching up on the few days they’d been apart, then had shared an early supper with Father before Vincent’s intent of returning her towards home. Their time together was always so limited, and Catherine knew that her desk was sagging beneath the weight of some hefty folders for her return on the morrow. Arm in arm and in near silence they walked slowly towards the threshold, each trying to delay the inevitable parting, when Catherine overheard the strains of some music coming from their special place beneath the bandstand. She stopped to listen and her heart hammered with joy as she heard the familiar voice of the singer Michael Bolton drifting down from above.
“I didn’t know he was in concert tonight, Vincent.” Catherine had cried with joy, “Have we time to listen to him for a while?”
Vincent wore no watch but he knew it was late, and he reminded her of this, that and the fact that she was tired and had a mountain of work waiting for her the next day.
“I know Vincent, but he’s a great singer. Let’s just listen for a while huh?”
Happy to have longer with her than he’d anticipated, Vincent led Catherine down the tunnel beneath the bandstand, and there they settled down together on the scattered cushions provided. Vincent’s knowledge of ‘pop’ singers was limited, but very soon he was caught up in the words this singer used for lyrics and could easily tell why they appealed to Catherine so much. In fact Vincent was able to apply many of the words to the relationship he and Catherine shared.
The relationship had changed from what it had been. At first when they had met they were friends, each caring for the other as such. Although Vincent had been aware of their empathic connection long before Catherine, and although that connection gave him many a sleepless night, he glorified in sharing this with her. To know her thoughts, her emotions, her joys and her sorrows, made him a part of Catherine without being a part of Catherine; that is, without needing to make any moves to deepen the relationship that they already had. The Bond, their connection served to tie them, and for Vincent that was enough.
And then had come the time when Catherine identified with the Bond, when she had been able to see into his heart, and had misconstrued some of his feelings with worldly knowledge of such things. From that, Catherine had turned their friendship into something else, something deeper, and lived in the hope that one day he would love her the way a man of the world Above would love her. It had taken a considerable length of time, and a great deal of tears before Vincent was finally able to convince Catherine that all they shared was a dream and he could not love her in the way that she so desired.
Now six years on from the night that he had found her, they were again just friends. Vincent liked it that way; it was safer, though of late his dreams seemed to have taken a dramatic turn. And whereas Catherine now gave no sign of wanting him sexually as once she may have done, Vincent found himself bombarded by those thoughts, with no idea of how to get rid of them, except to sever the relationship completely, which of course he was loathe to do.
He could not know of course that Catherine was very patiently waiting. Or that she had very remarkably clamped down on the intense feelings she had for him, praying daily that the first move would be made by him whenever he finally drew the conclusion that their dream could become reality. He allowed her to spend more time in his world now, spending long weekends and sometimes the odd week down in the tunnels. But Catherine was unable to spend the time solely in his company lest she gave her very carefully laid plans away. And so she would spend time with Father, or Rebecca or Jamie, or one of the other tunnel residents, fitting in with Vincent’s family, glad only to be close to the source of her true devotions rather than being Above. At least that way she would catch odd glimpses of him that would fire her blood, though she clamped down on the Bond at such times. Sometimes she felt that she should be nominated for an Oscar for her very clever acting, because Vincent appeared totally unaware of her emotions toward him. Emotions that had escalated to boiling point over the passing years and emotions if not tended to soon would very likely blow up in both their faces and cause a very traumatic situation.
Catherine wondered about that a lot. If and when she should let herself down, if and when she should give him an inkling of her deep love for him, she wondered how he would react to that. It could go either way. It could totally destroy all that they had or it could be the final testing point of their relationship.
Vincent, she knew, was happy with their steady friendship, but from time to time through his dreams she caught glimpses of other things. Things perhaps he was unaware of, and things from which he had no experience were clumsy but told her that his feelings toward her were shifting from the platonic to the passionate.
This filled Catherine with hope and joy, and fired her with fresh patience. All she had hoped for and yearned for would be realised if she allowed Vincent to recognise the need for himself and was there for him when he did

. Her thoughts very much wrapped up in the music they were listening to, Catherine could only dream that Vincent would absorb the lyrics to some of the most beautiful love songs she had listened to in a long time. Knowing Vincent, he would take the words to heart, and Catherine hoped that they had not missed one very special song from this singer that would not fail to stir Vincent or to make him react to them.
They listened for some time, heads drawn back, eyes closed absorbing the music, letting it fill their hearts, when Vincent became aware of a stillness in Catherine, as if she waited for—no, yearned for—something. For a split moment he became agitated, fearing that Catherine’s heart had altered towards him once again. But before he’d had a chance to explore along the fine planes of their Bond a fresh song began from Above, and from the smile deepening upon Catherine’s face, it was one she loved very much.
Vincent stilled himself to listen, wanting to share something that appealed to her so much, and was forever after glad that he did. Every word went straight as an arrow to his heart.