Beauty & The Beast (Book 1)

13. Suspended

Vincent was shy, coming in behind Catherine into the cellar. He'd packed a few things into a backpack and it was slung over one shoulder. He was wary of being seen, his face was scarred, he was supposed to be dead. But like Catherine said, they were in hiding too.

"Sina? Mila?" Catherine calls to them. "It's Catherine. I brought a doctor to  see you," she says carefully, smiling so they will know it's okay. Vincent steps in further and the girls look scared.
"It's okay, he's here to help."

Vincent takes a deep breath inwardly, hiding his own fear, and walks closer.
"Uhm," he swallows. Catherine sits down beside Sina and Vincent takes his bag down. "I'm just gonna sit right here okay?" he speaks to Mila.
Sina looks scared for her sister. He could see she loves her very much.
He unzips his backpack and takes out a thermometer. Catherine watches him. "I need you to put this under your tongue," he says roughly.
He hasn't had patients in years. The girl shakes her head, and he inhales a bit to calm down. He may have to do damage control for his bedside manner. He gives her a smile, digging deep into who he used to be while he pretends to be that person still.
"It's okay, it's okay see?" He does a slight of hand magic trick, making it look like the thermometer disappears into his nose and laughs when she gives a giggle. Catherine also smiles.
"Yeah?" he nods. "It's okay."

Mila looks at her sister, who nods, before she opens her mouth and lets Vincent put the thermometer under her tongue. He looks at Catherine. "Stethoscope?"

"Yeah," she nods and digs in his bag for it, finding it just as Vincent tells Sina that Mila would have to lean forward. The girl helps her sister do as he asks.

"Okay, deep breaths, okay?" he was nervous, but he handled it. He listens to her breathing, Catherine and Sina watching and also hearing the labored breathing.
"Okay, thank you," he tells Sina, who helps her sister lay down again. "Let me take this," he says and removes the thermometer. He looks at it and sighs. "103," he tells Catherine. "We have to get a hold of JT," he searches his pocket and takes out a cellphone.

Catherine narrows her eyes and frowns. "You have a phone?"

He ignores her. "Hey," he says and she rolls her eyes, shaking her head. They've been passing notes and all this time he had a phone...
He interrupts whatever JT was saying to say, "Yeah I'm fine okay, look listen, you gotta pen? Okay, write this down before you react. I'm gonna need a nebulizer," he starts and lists all the medication he needed.

Catherine liked seeing him like this. He was in control and she felt proud of him. She smiles, forgetting the phone issue for a second and just watches.

***************

After parting ways with Vincent she went back to the precinct. Evan found her on her way to her desk. 

"There you are."

She turns. "Yeah, I just - "

"Don't tell me, went to the impound too?"

"Wait did you - ?" She frowns.

He shakes his head. "Turns out MEA is quite thorough, I've been kicked out of my own lab for the past eight hours so with no place else to go..."

"Did you look at Iris's car?" Cat asks.

"No, I went to the impound to check out last year's models," he quips.

She snorts. "Did you find anything?" she laughs.

"Some dandruff. Some dirt. And 13 different sets of partials."

"That's a lot of people in her car."

He shrugs. "Well, she worked at a high end club, she probably got valet service." He eyes Cat for a moment, her mind seeming to be all over the place. "But you know Iris confessed right?"