Author's Note: I offered to write a Catherine/Joe two months ago (has it been that long?!) for thefrostedrose, but I'm just now finishing this. I think I began writing it later that week, but I couldn't figure out where I wanted to go or what I wanted to do with it, but somehow this was written. I'm still not entirely happy with it. I like the beginning and the middle is fine, but the end leaves it so unfinished. I usually like to write things like this with a concrete ending, usually with a death, which is seen in several of my other posts.

So, this might not be the complete post, but I just wanted to get this out there.

I hope that you readers enjoy.

Please leave a review, and tell me what you think and if I should give it a better ending.

Summary: But he's an idiot, and she's crazy, so in their own twisted way, they're absolutely perfect for each other.

Twisted

But he's an idiot, and she's crazy, so in their own twisted way they're absolutely perfect for each other.

They don't know when it starts.

When they meet, he's bitter and sexist and makes a few too many remarks suggesting she's too weak and naïve to share his work, to be his partner, and she's polite and nice and takes his comments in stride with a slight eye roll that's a little too knowing.

To be blunt, he was an ass, and she was naïve; and they were both too young.

In the big picture of things, their first meeting is unimportant.

They're partners, they realized when they've been paired together for the fourth time. He's bitter and she's annoyed, and they both say that no, they're not.

But they've each rescued each other more times than they've cared to count.

And if the other was in trouble, there was no question that they would run to the rescue without a second thought.

He's decided that he's a little bit in love with her when she tells him that she's met someone. In reality, he's just approaching thirty and has no one except her and Matthew, and he's scared.

But for a few seconds, he blinks and his chest pings in pain, but then his sight clears and the heartburn passes, and he realizes he's been fooling himself all along.

She's grows up before his eyes, and as he grows out of his bad boy persona, she grows into hers.

That Goode fellow that she always goes on about is sweet to her and kind, and truly he's happy for him.

But when they go out drinking and she kisses him, he doesn't pull away.

She starts taking these chances like she's trying to sabotage her happiness.

She does drink. And they do have an affair, but he's not her only other lover, he knows.

She's scared, he realizes, but so is he because the Circle is getting close, because they're wrapping their paws around him again, and he just can't escape.

She's always looked at him like she worships the ground that he walks on. She cares for him a little too much, but once upon a time he thought he was in love with her.

So, that's where the line lies between them, somewhere in between hate and friendship and partners and that l-word that he really shouldn't think of around her.

But, when the Circle does reach him, he reconsiders his life, his choices. He's about to step off the cliff, but then she looks up at him with those big, green eyes, and he carefully slides away from the edge.

Then, one day, she looks up at him with these dark green eyes that are narrowed with distrust, and he flinches.

She doesn't breathe a word, but he knows.

She knows his secret, and she hates him.

He doesn't sleep anymore; instead, he waits for the knock on his door, for the people to take him away.

But it never comes.

He's not partnered with her anymore.

The kisses stop.

She disappears.

She marries the Goode man, who he wasn't sure she ever loved.

He's fifty percent sure it's just to spite him, to twist that little knife in his gut.

He pushes himself and pushes himself, and his life almost ends right then.

But Matthew pushes him out of the way of the bullet.

He isn't grateful.

The Circle is chasing him down, hunting him. They're suffocating him, and he's about to give in just so he could get some air.

But that air wouldn't really be fresh, though.

That's when he hears.

She's pregnant, they say, but all he can hear is it's over.

He hates that child. He hates her. But most of all, he hates himself.

So, he steps off that cliff, takes that breath in smoggy air, and returns to the Circle.

It was inevitable, he thinks.

It wasn't her, he lies.

Get out, he whispers to himself in the mirror.

He washes the blood off his hands, but the stains never really disappear.

Run, he orders himself.

He looks into the mirror into a face that's unrecognizable and a pair of eyes so dark that they're hard to look at, and he throws his fist into it.

The mirror shatters, but he can still see those eyes staring into him, staring into his soul.

Those foreign eyes.

His eyes.

It's too late, he murmurs in return the truth that he had known all along.

A glass shatters by his head, but he doesn't flinch.

She throws another that hits on the other side of his head. He doesn't bother to move. If she had wished to hit him, she would have already.

She huffs and screams and shouts, and he thinks that he should care, that he should feel more than he does.

But her hair is too dark.

And her face is all wrong.

She pants and tears are streaming down her face, and he knows that he should feel more than the cold numbness that he does.

"I loved you." She whispers furiously, and he blinks because he didn't know. He should have, but he wasn't sure if Abby Cameron could love anyone besides herself.

He looks up, to whisper I'm sorry or other lies of the kind, but she's disappeared.

Better that way, he thinks.

It doesn't surprise him that she finds him on one dark and rainy night.

"My husband is dead." She spits at him, and her eyes flash dangerously.

He still flinches all those years later. But at the venom in her voice, he just frowns.

"Did you hear me?"

She storms up to him, a hurricane of wrath, and, though he's thought of her every day since she's walked out, he doesn't recognize her.

"They've killed him."

He nods. He had known.

"They will pay," she states, and he fears the determination that shines in her eyes. He was the murderer, not her.

"You will die."

She nods, her mouth forming into a tight smile. "That's the plan."

He flinches at her words. He wants to protect her, but it isn't his place.

It never was.

When she leaves, he wonders if she had recognized him, either.

"She's joined the Circle," Matthew is the first to breathe those words to him.

He just nods and ignores the feelings of dread in his stomach. He had known that it was inevitable.

"They're hunting her." Matthew's eyes bore into him. "We're hunting her."

He looks away.

"Have you helped her?"

He doesn't answer, because he hasn't, because he wants to, but he doesn't want to, and because he never will.

He stretches out his hand.

"Hello," he whispers, his voice thick, and he tries to remember the last time he had spoken to someone.

He rubs his other hand across his face and feels the beard that he had been too busy to shave. He thinks that he must look terrifying.

But the boy does not cower; he does not run away and hide. Instead, the boy takes a step towards him.

And he places his tiny hand into the much larger one without a hint of fear.

"I'm Zach."

The boy is about four years old with thick, black hair, and he doesn't look like her at all.

But all he can see is her face in the face of her son.

He smiles, finally.

"I'm Joe."