(A/N: Now things will start to REALLY get hairy. Please Read & Review.)

Stars Hollow

"Wow," said Lorelai, laying her head on David's chest. The two basked in the post-orgasmic haze that followed intense lovemaking.

"I've been celibate for quite some time," said David, "My father always told me, 'David, if you can't get a girl to do it for you, you do without.'"

"You must've been without for a long time," said Lorelai, running her finger along his chin.

"Years," said David, staring at the ceiling.

Lorelai's cellphone began to play the theme from "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." That meant Rory. With great effort, she untangled herself from David and went over to her dresser to grab it.

Rory?

Mom, it's horrible!

What happened?

Dean's gone, there was a red monster in the parking lot, and Jess went to the hospital!

Babe, you're gonna have to slow down. You're not making sense.

Dean went to his locker to get something, and he never came back. I went looking for him, but when I got to his locker there was a huge hole in the wall, Jess was lying nearby with a huge cut on his head, and I saw this huge . . . thing with red skin running through the parking lot into the woods!

I'm gonna come and get you, okay? Just stay right there.

Lorelai hung up and hurriedly put on her clothes.

"Lorelai, what's wrong?" asked David, getting out of bed.

"Something happened at Rory's school," said Lorelai, "she's freaking out and Dean's missing."

David hurried into his own clothes and followed her to her jeep.

Hartford

Meanwhile, Richard and Emily were driving home after wrapping things up at the party.

"The sheer nerve of that security guard," grumbled Richard, "Claiming that his team was only full-alert. If they were on full-alert, the guests wouldn't have been robbed!"

"It's unconscionable," agreed Emily, "What, do they hire hobos off the street and ignore real applicants?"

Richard grunted again and said, "Wouldn't surprise me one little bit. I swear, when I get off the phone with our lawyer – "

"RICHARD, LOOK OUT!"

Emily's scream forced Richard to look back at the road, and he realized they were about to run smack-dab into a giant red man. Richard turned the wheel hard, managing to avoid the creature, but causing their car to flip over, landing them upside down on the side of the road.

"Emily, are you all right?" asked Richard, frantically trying to push away his air-bag.

"I'm fine," said Emily, "but my door is stuck."

"What in the world was that thing?" asked Richard.

"I don't know," said Emily, "but it's coming this way!"

Emily was right. The red beast, with its glowing eyes, slowly stalked over to the car. Emily began to scream in fright, but stopped when the creature just flipped the car over. It then pulled off Emily's door with no more effort than she'd have used to tear a piece of paper.

"Thank you," said Emily, hesitantly. The creature didn't respond, just stared at her, as if it was trying to recognize her.

"Can you speak?" said Richard, putting his arm around Emily.

The red monster just growled slightly, and then began to sway. A faint reddish glow appeared around its face, and it began to . . . change.

"My god," said Richard, observing the metamorphosis.

"Dean?" asked Emily, looking at the boy standing before her.

"Uuhhh," groaned Dean, rubbing his head, "Mr. and Mrs. Gilmore? What am I doing here?" Dean suddenly fell forward, unconscious. Richard rushed up and caught him.

"What do we do?" he asked Emily.

"Call Lorelai," said Emily.

The Gilmore house wasn't far from the crash, so Richard and Emily were able to carry Dean the whole way. They laid him on a couch and sent the maid away for the night.

Within minutes, Lorelai, David, and Rory were there.

"It was unbelievable!" said Emily in the other room, "He was this tall, muscular, half-naked monster! Did I mention that he was RED?"

"Only about 17 times, Mom," said Lorelai.

"How can you make jokes at a time like this?!" said Richard.

"Can we please focus on the issue?" said Rory, "What happened to him?"

"I happened," said David quietly.

"What?" said Lorelai.

"This my fault," said David.

"What do you mean, Benson?" said Richard.

"My name isn't David Benson," said David, swallowing hard, "It's David Banner."

David spent the next few minutes telling them everything. How he became the Hulk, how he'd spent the last 30 years on the run, and how Dean must've been mutated by the gamma knife.

"So why is Dean red?" asked Rory.

David just shrugged and said, "It's possible that simultaneous exposure to both the gamma knife and my maser caused him even further mutation. I also analyzed his blood, and his gamma ray sensitivity was even greater than mine."

"There has to be some way to help him," said Lorelai.

"The ISO-36," said David, "it cures gamma poisoning. It's the most plausible cure I've encountered in years."

"But the serum's been taken back to the original laboratory by now," said Emily.

"Not all of it," said David, smiling slightly. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a green vial of ISO-36.

Hours Earlier

David took a steadying breath. He was not ready for this. For God's sake, he thought to himself, the worst crime I've committed in 30 years is vagrancy!

But he knew what had to be done. Steeling himself, he walked down the alley, waiting to be noticed.

"Hey, old man," said a voice from the shadows, "Whatcho' doin' in our territory?"

"I have a proposition for you young men," said David, "something that could make you a great deal of money."

"We're listenin'," said another voice.

"I just need you to show up at Hartford University tonight, raise as much Hell as you can, and get out. I'm willing to pay you 25,000 dollars to do this."

"You got yourself a deal," said the head thug, shaking David's hand.

"Where did you get 25,000 dollars in cash?" asked Lorelai.

"I have a friend who works for the IRS," said David, "He skims money off the tops of extremely large bank accounts and deposits the funds in an Austrian bank. I can access this money anywhere in the world at any time, no questions asked."

"Will this stuff cure Dean?" asked Rory, holding the vial.

"I'm almost certain," said David, "Its unstable molecular structure requires that it be treated with the subject's DNA and injected. The bonding process takes less than a day. Admittedly, it wasn't designed for cases like Dean's and mine, but there's no reason why it CAN'T work. And if it does, we'll both be cured."

"It's nice to hear some good news this week," said a voice from behind them. Everyone turned to see Dean, wearing only ragged jeans, standing in the doorway.

"Dean!" said Rory, rushing over to hug him.

"I'll take him home," said David, removing his jacket and putting it around Dean's shoulders, "We need to talk."

Minutes later, David and Dean were driving back toward Stars Hollow in Lorelai's jeep.

"So," said Dean after a quarter of an hour's silence, "it is always like that? Does it always feel like liquid fire is coursing through your body, like your skin is so tight you just want to scratch it off, like somebody dumped a liter of acid into your brain?"

David nodded. "I wish I could tell you that it gets easier over time," said David, "But it's always painful. Once, I was given a massive overdose of morphine sulfide, and it didn't dull the pain at all when I changed."

"How do you do it, David?" asked Dean, voice cracking, "How do you LIVE, knowing that you've got a monster inside you and you can't do anything to stop it when it starts coming out?"

"It isn't easy," said David, "It's been almost 32 years since I've truly been able to call any place 'home,' and almost 28 since I've seen any of my family. My sister is dying in a nursing home in Nebraska, and my goddaughter is somewhere in Canada. That is the extent of my living family. The worst part is knowing that it's all my fault."

Tears had begun to stream down David's face. "My first wife, Laura, died in a car crash. I couldn't summon the strength to save her. I turned myself into the Hulk hoping to gain such strength. Years later, I had that strength, and I still failed to save my second wife, Carolyn."

"But the ISO-36 will help us, right?" said Dean, "It'll cure us of the . . . monsters."

"I believe so," said David, wiping his eyes, "but for me, it's not so easy. You have a life, a family, and friends waiting for you. I have no one and nothing. The closest thing to a friend I've had for the last three decades is a reporter who wants to hunt me down and put me in a cage."

"But you have a place," said Dean, "You can stay here, in Stars Hollow. You can have a new life."

"Not much," said David bitterly, "The only reason I still look 36 is because of the Hulk's healing power. Without, I'll begin to age rapidly, and I could be dead anywhere between six months and five years."

Woodbury

"Dead ends," said McGee, wheeling into the hotel room, "nobody's seen anyone that looks even remotely like John Doe or the Hulk."

Logan was about to reply, but his cellphone started ringing. "It's one of my news contacts in Stars Hollow," he said, answering it.

It was a short call, but when Logan hung up, he was considerably paler than when he'd began.

"Huntzburger, what's wrong?" said McGee.

"An enormous creature just trashed the local high school," said Logan.

"We're going to Stars Hollow," said Jack, turning around and wheeling out.

(A/N: Wish me luck, for tomorrow is my first day of college. Please Review.)

TO BE CONTINUED.