Julie stared at R's wound, horrified. It looked... fresh. It looked like he'd just been bitten. What the hell? It's still oozing that dead crap!

She looked up from the wound at Stephen, "Why does it look like that? Why hasn't it healed?"

Stephen shrugged, "I don't know. I really don't. It's like the infection hasn't left him yet."

His words made her skin flush in fear. Still infected? But he's alive? They'd beaten it, he was...

R's leg jerked suddenly, and they all jumped. She'd thought he'd done that on purpose, and grinned his way, but the smile fell from her face.

He was pressed back against the bed, his whole body taut, his face twisted in fear. Eyes wide open, he stared beyond them all.

"R?" she said, and grasped his hand, squeezing it gently. The last time she'd done that he'd snapped out of whatever he'd fallen into. His palms were sweaty, and the monitor besides the bed started a rapid beeping.

R closed his eyes, shaking his head frantically against the pillow, and squeezed her hand hard.

"What the hell," Dan muttered and ran over the monitor, checking R's wrist at the same time. "His heart's going nuts. Something's got him really worked up."

R roared and lunged forward, swinging his fist directly into Dan's face. The impact was shockingly loud in the large room and the doctor dropped like a stone.

"Jesus!" Stephen cried, and rushed to Dan's side as he slid bonelessly from the bed to the floor.

"R! R! You have to wake up!" Julie screamed, shaking his arm. It had no effect. "Stephen, what do we do?!"

"I don't know!" he yelled back, pulling Dan clear of the bed. The doctor was still out. "You're the key - wake him up!"

Julie looked back at R. His face was twisted in terror, and suddenly he screamed, his whole body arcing off the bed.

"Holy shit! R! WAKE UP!" she cried, staring into his eyes, holding his face, desperate to connect to him, to bring him back. It was tearing her up inside to see him like this - she'd never seen him so scared, in so much pain!

He grunted, and his leg jerked again. She glanced down at it and her face fell in horror.

The wound. The infection. It was growing. As she watched, the skin around the wound paled. Thin blue lines branched from the bite, and threaded up his leg, drawing the life from the limb, leaving behind the bloodless grey flesh of a corpse.

"Oh god, no nonono! R! NO!" she screamed back at him, tears streaming from her eyes. This couldn't be happening! "Help!" she cried over her shoulder, trying to bring Stephen. They had to stop this!

R gasped, and his chest heaved as if he was fighting for breath. His face twisted in such rage that Julie flinched back from him, was he going to lash out again? What was he fighting? What was happening?

"S-screw you..." he snarled, staring not at her, but through her, and suddenly she knew. He was facing off against something in there, something that was controlling the infection. Something trying to pull him back from life.

"No! R, you have to fight it! Please!" she sobbed at him, cradling his face. Why wasn't he breathing? He wasn't breathing! She looked at his chest, and gasped as the skin paled, traced by those horrific lines.

His whole body jerked again and his eyes opened wide. At that moment the monitor beside the bed gave two quick stuttered beeps, then started a continuous tone.

"NO! R! You have to fight! BREATHE!" she shook him violently, and he blinked, and suddenly he was there again, staring up at her, truly seeing her, his lips opening as if to speak.

But he couldn't speak. He wasn't breathing. His heart had stopped. The grey death was creeping up his neck, those freakish veins leading the way.

"R, breathe, breathe, you have to fight this..." she pleaded with him, her eyes blurring with tears.

He stared into her eyes, his brow dipping in anguish for a moment as his body stilled, and then...

He was gone.

Julie blinked, stunned. No. No, this wasn't... He... he couldn't...

"NO!" she screamed at him, shaking him, "No! You WAKE UP!" She searched his face desperately. His eyes were empty, lifeless.

As she watched, his skin sallowed, the healthy flush draining to grey. His lips darkened and cracked, drawing back from his teeth. Finally, the skin around his eyes sank in, dark with bruising, and his beautiful blue eyes, those eyes she'd fallen into, drained of color till only a dull grey remained.

He was dead again. How? They'd been laughing together just a few moments ago... why...

She had to save him. She had to bring him back. She could do it, she'd done it before. As the tears fell from her eyes, trailing down her jaw, Julie pulled closer to his face. She was going to kiss him. She was going to kiss him and he was going to wake up and come back.

Those dead, empty eyes swiveled sharply and locked onto hers.

Her breath caught in her throat, and skin crawling, she remembered the first time they'd been this close. After she'd stabbed him and he'd crouched down before her and struggled to say her name. She'd look into those same eyes, but she'd felt him in there, felt this curious, yearning soul looking out from within that dead body.

Whatever was looking at her now, wasn't R. The eyes were empty and cold and focused with predatory intent on her.

The skin at the back of her neck prickled. Get the hell away from him!

She jerked backwards, trying to get some distance between herself and the thing that was not R, but the corpse's arm snaked out and a cold hand latched onto her forearm. With a startled cry, she tried to wrench herself free, but his grip only tightened.

The corpse that wore R's face turned towards her, opened its mouth and gave a strangled rasp.

Oh god. "R... you have to be in there. Please, please fight this and come back to me."

"Julie, I'm sorry. I think he's too far gone." It was Stephen, somewhere behind her to the left.

"No," she cried, then whimpered as R's grip tightened again.

"You're in serious danger girl, I have to do something."

"No, please... just..." she could do this, she knew she could. She focused on R's dead eyes. "It's Julie, R, it's me. I know you're in there. I know you are."

R's face remained expressionless, and he leaned towards her, slowly sitting up.

"He wouldn't feel anything Julie, it would be quick," Stephen said softly, and he appeared then, behind R's bed. He'd grabbed one of the long scalpels from the tray by R's bed, and was holding it out in his hand.

"Don't you freaking touch him," she growled. "Don't you dare!"

R groaned at her, and drew her arm closer. Fear gripped her as she saw his nostrils flaring. He's smelling me, like any dead would. Dear god R, where are you?

"The experiment failed Julie, I'm so sorry."

With that, Stephen shot the scalpel forward, behind R, aiming the deadly tip at the base of his skull.

"R!" she screamed, but the corpse had already turned, and lashed out at Stephen, catching him against the side of the face, driving his head down hard against one of the machines. The man crumpled without a sound and fell lifelessly beneath the bed.

Oh god! "R! R, you have to stop! Please!" she cried, as he turned back to her, trying to twist off the bed. Something stopped him, and he looked down at the tubes that snaked under the sheet. No longer pulsing with red blood, the tubes were black, choked with infection.

He closed a grey hand around the tubes and wrenched them out, sending a spray of dark fluid across the white sheets. Reaching up, he did the same thing with the shunt at his neck, tearing free the long thin needles embedded there, leaving a jagged gash.

Then he stood, the sheet falling from him, new wounds at his neck and thigh oozing that horrible dark fluid. His head hung low as he looked back to her, his pale grey eyes fixing on her own through the dark strands of his hair, and gave a low gurgled moan.

Julie's heart thundered in her chest. "R. You have to remember who you were," she said, her voice as even as she could make it though she felt like screaming. "Remember us, R. Remember m-NO!"

He'd dived towards her face suddenly, his jaws snapping the air as she jerked away, desperately trying to pull herself free. His grip remained absolute, and he wrenched her arm back, staggering in towards her with the momentum.

As his face closed in, Julie reached out and rested her hand against the cold skin of his cheek, crying as she made a last desperate attempt to reach the man she loved. She couldn't give up on him. Wouldn't. Even if it meant she'd die here. They had to fight this, and he needed her help.

At her touch, he stilled, and the grey eyes turned towards her hand.

"Look at me, R," she whispered, and stroked her thumb along his cheekbone.

Those empty eyes turned back to her, and there was the tiniest flicker of confusion across his brow.

Her heart lit up with hope. He was in there! She could do this! She searched his eyes desperately and cradled his jaw. "Please come back to me R. I love you."

The air vanished from her lungs as something happened to R's face. Something dark took hold of him, something that pulled the skin taut across his skull, something that hollowed out the sockets of his eyes, leaving nothing but two black pits.

The horrific face above her twisted, exposing blackened teeth, and it spoke. The sound was like the earth splitting open. "You can't... have... him. Mine... They are all... mine..."

Julie screamed, absolutely terrified by the thing before her, and lashed out, punching it in the side of the head, kicking against it to get free. That wasn't R, whatever it was, it wasn't R!

A grey hand snaked out and closed around her neck, and the thing lifted her clear off the floor. She kicked wildly at him, and grabbed his arm, desperate for some leverage to pull herself free, but his grip tightened and she found herself gasping for breath.

Then they were moving, as he took jerky strides forward and suddenly slammed her forcefully into a wall. Stars swam across her vision and her head exploded in pain. The room seemed to blink out for a moment, and she realized she was running out of fight, she had to do something fast, or this goddamn thing would win. It was going to kill her, get R killed, and keep taking over the freaking world.

No. Stuffing the pain down, she gripped R's wrist, pushing back against the wall to ease his grip on her throat and glared into those empty eye sockets as the creature's face came in for the kill.

If he couldn't remember her, if this thing was blocking R from remembering her, maybe she could reach him with someone else.

"Remember your mom, R?" she said, struggling to gather breath, "Remember her laugh? She had the best laugh. Remember what you used to do?" Something warm and salty ran down into her mouth as she spoke.

R froze.

The voice of rending stone came again from his throat. "Stop..."

"She loved you R, do you remember how much she loved you? You'd crack jokes and she'd laugh, and it was wonderful. You remember that, I know you do." Tears spilled from her eyes, because she knew this was true, just knew it. She released his wrist and reached again to his cheek, stroking the dry twisted skin.

"S..stop..." the thing in R said again, but it's voice was breaking apart, and she could feel his skin changing under her touch.

"No," she growled at it, her heart growing bold, "You're done. This world has no use for you anymore. Time to crawl back to wherever the hell you came from."

The thing snarled, even as R's skin started to fill out, and she could almost see his eyes deep in the dark holes. The grip against her throat tightened, cutting off her air.

Screw this. She sought R's eyes in the midst of those bottomless black pools, and her heart swelled with everything she had ever felt for him, for her dad, her mom, for Perry, for anyone who had ever been important to her. Love, pure and powerful, filled every cell of her body and she imagined reaching down to him with it, striping away the darkness and pulling him free.

"I love you R," she gasped out.

And then she smiled, because she knew everything was going to be okay.

R was looking out at her again.