Although Lovers Be Lost

Author's Note: This is the love story of Vincent and Catherine. It also includes several other characters as well as their storylines. This story will be submitted in several parts and is based off the T.V. show "Beauty and the Beast", yet the "history" has been changed somewhat to suit the purposes of this story. Not all the parts of this story will contain erotic sex scenes as there is a plot. First and foremost, this story is a romance/drama, not a sex story.

Also, I'd like to note that I do not own "Beauty and the Beast" or the characters and I will NOT be receiving any payment whatsoever for writing this story. It is intended for entertainment purposes only.

~*~Introduction~*~

Vincent : This is where the wealthy and the powerful rule. It is her world... a world apart from mine. Her name... is Catherine. From the moment I saw her, she captured my heart with her beauty, her warmth, and her courage. I knew then, as I know now, she would change my life... forever.

Catherine: He comes from a secret place, far below the city streets, hiding his face from strangers, safe from hate and harm. He brought me there to save my life... and now, wherever I go, he is with me, in spirit. For we have a bond stronger than friendship or love. And although we cannot be together, we will never, ever be apart.

(April 12, 1987 ~ New York City)

Catherine Chandler was celebrating. One year ago tonight, she had been cruelly slashed across the face with a knife and left for dead in Central Park. The three men who attacked her had mistaken her for someone else, a woman named Carol who had gotten mixed up in some shady, criminal business. Catherine had tried to tell them she wasn't Carol and that they had nabbed the wrong woman, but they wouldn't listen - instead they took a ten inch, razor-sharp blade and had carved several ziggzagging wouunds across her cheeks and forehead. Then they carelessly tossed her out of a speeding van, hoping she would lie there and bleed to death in the deserted park.

But Catherine didn't die. She didn't bleed to death. Instead she was discovered by Vincent, a man who could only enter her wold by cover of darkness because of his appearance. Vincent had gathered her up in his arms, taking her to his home, a world far below Central Park and New York City where Catherine made her home. Vincent and the man he called Father nursed Catherine's wounds. It was Father who stitched Catherine's face for he had been a doctor in the world Above. She awakened in Vincent's bed, weak and frightened, yet unable to see him because of the bandages. He spoke to her gently, reading to her from worn, leather book, his voice soothing and beautiful, and to Catherine the sound of his incredible voice could only belong to that of an equally handsome man.

But when the bandages came away, Catherine discovered Vincent's true appearance, and for a moment she reacted violently, appalled by his giant claws, his gleaming, pointed teeth, and the lion-like fur which covered his nearly seven-foot frame. It was the heartrending pain that crossed his face, that shadow of sadness in his all too human-like blue eyes that ripped fiercely into Cathy's heart and left her sobbing. She wept with regret for having shunned him because of his unusual face. She had known in her heart that he was the one who saved her and had treated her with the greatest of care, yet still she had lashed out at him cruelly for being what he was, what he had never chosen to be. Bitter sorrow tore at her soul when she remembered throwing a sharp metal reflector at his head, causing him to bleed. How could she have been so viscious to the one who had protected and healed her, to the one who had saved her life?

Since then she had long ago apologized, but yet when she recalled how she had first reacted when first seeing his face, it still brought her shame. Now, to her, there was no other face as beautiful as Vincent's, for she had came to love him one year ago when he had risked his hidden world and his own life just to save hers. It was that love story she would celebrate this night, it being the one year anniversary of his finding her in the park.

He had given her the greatest gift of all, her life, and had shown her strength and courage within that she hadn't even known she possessed. It was that strength and courage that kept her sane in a world apart from Vincent's, for he could not enter her world and deep down they both knew that she did not belong in his...