Stephen was the happiest he'd been in years. Being under house arrest hadn't fazed him much, as they'd simply set him up in another annex of the clinic with all the equipment he needed for his research, and pressed him to continue.

And while the Colonel had been firm in letting him know he'd crossed a line, he'd also been extremely pleased with the results, after they'd quarantined Mark for a week and run some further tests on him.

Mark had been less than pleased about that. But he'd dealt with it, because he really didn't have much of a choice. Stephen wasn't sure if they'd thought he was going to turn, or something worse was going to happen, but they'd actually put him in restraints in a hospital bed and posted a guard nearby for the first few days. Of course nothing happened. Just the Colonel being overcautious again.

Any time Stephen passed by or drew more blood, Mark just lay there glaring at him, refusing to speak, the anger radiating off of him in waves. Stephen had felt quite a bit of regret over that, though not as much as with Julie, who still hadn't forgiven him and had quite a mean punch herself as it turned out.

Trying to explain why he'd done what he'd done had been useless as he'd known it would be, so he just took what she had to yell, nodding as he stood in front of her, until the guards finally pulled her away.

And then he was left to his research, and a certain delight he'd been missing. Facing a challenging problem, determining the best approach, the trial and error of exploration, the excitement of discovery. Sliding back into that role felt like recovering a piece of himself long lost. He'd done some experiments more recently on the skeletons, in rehabilitation attempts, but the work hadn't been nearly as involved, as engrossing as this. Stephen was overjoyed.

It'd taken almost three weeks now, but he'd finally narrowed down the protein sequence involved in triggering the defensive cell rebuilding. The key was of course to produce this synthetically, outside of the blood samples he'd taken from Rowan, and Mark, whose blood now exhibited the same qualities as his son's, after his impromptu inoculation.

They hadn't let him inoculate anyone else in the same manner just yet, even though Mark had been released from his quarantine with no further side effects. Apparently his description of the experience had been enough to convince them further work needed to be done, that it would be good if there was any way to lessen the seizures, and the feeling of being burned alive in a fiery hell.

"What do they say?" Stephen said out loud suddenly, looking up from his slide to the corpse of the young man strapped to the metal table nearby. "No pain no gain?" Shaking his head, he smirked at the gaunt figure. "What a stupid phrase."

The corpse's head lifted slowly, in jerky steps, dull grey eyes peering at Stephen through messy bangs of white. As the dark lips pulled from its grey teeth, it rasped, the sound thin and vaporous, before its head fell back against the table. The eyes remained fixed on him.

"Not a fan either?" Stephen said with a smirk, swiveling in his seat to face the corpse more directly. "I've always found it ridiculous, how about you?"

The dead man seemed to struggle to raise his head, releasing an almost soft sigh, then fell back again.

Stephen stared back at it thoughtfully. "You're winding down aren't you." Getting to his feet, he walked over to the table. The corpse just watched him, its mouth working silently. Stephen sighed. Without a source of food, all dead eventually just stopped, and this kid was getting close to that point. They'd held off simply injecting him with Rowan's blood because he wanted to test the synthetic cure on a fully dead corpse. "I'm sorry this has taken so long. I promise I'll have it soon."

Without really thinking about it, he reached out and patted the young man's cold grey hand. The touch seemed to stir what little energy the corpse had left, and the boy struggled again, rotten teeth clacking sharply together as he strained against the restraints, his pale eyes swiveling to track Stephen's hand as the doctor pulled it sharply back.

"I still don't understand why you're so different from the others," Stephen said in an exasperated voice, "Every other corpse I've encountered has been docile. Aware, at least to some degree. They have been since the big change. So why are you so aggressive? So very corpse like?"

Seemingly exhausted from its fruitless struggle, the man fell back again and gave a strangled, keening moan. His eyes tracked Stephen with unblinking intensity.

"Is it because you were turned after the change?" Stephen asked, not expecting the corpse to reply but intensely curious. "Julie recognized you, she said you were human that morning. I can't find a bite anywhere on you though. Just this," He pointed to the stab wound under the left side of the man's rib cage, oozing a thick dark fluid, then moved to a series of dark scars on his forearm. "And these. This seems to be where the infection started, but they look like knife wounds to me."

In fact, it looked like the young man had been cutting himself. Stephen had seen similar wounds on a teenage girl who'd lost both of her parents in a horrible attack last year. She'd opened up to him eventually, telling him it made her feel better, because it took the feelings away... at least for a little while.

He stared down at the corpse, frowning. What had the boy been feeling that was so bad he'd do this to himself?

The grey eyes tracked his every move. Stephen could sense the need in them. He'd heard what it was like to be dead, from the stream of corpses that had filtered through the hospital in the first stages of rehabilitation. It wasn't really hunger that drove them to do what they did, at least, not a hunger of the stomach. It was more a desperate, inescapable need to fill some kind of void inside, left from being hollowed out by the disease. Even that was hard to explain from a physiological standpoint.

Stephen shook his head at the corpse. "I can't feed you I'm afraid. You just have to hang in there a little longer."

Then he turned from the corpse and returned to his work.

It wasn't until two days later, three weeks since being arrested, that he finally had a positive result from his serum on the corpse fluid he'd drawn from the young man. It was slower to work than Rowan's blood, and it took much more of the solution to 'cure' the sample, but it worked, and that was what mattered. All that mattered.

Stephen had his cure. Sitting back with a satisfied sigh, he looked up at the corpse.

The boy had been very still. While sometimes not unusual for a corpse, it was worrying as Stephen moved, made a noise, talked to the young man, and walked up to him. Only his eyes moved now, and Stephen knew if he didn't start the cure today, that they'd lose him, irrevocably.

Gently, he grasped the boy's hand. At his touch, the grey eyes turned slowly towards him, and the boy's mouth opened, but he didn't make any sound or move.

"I'm here, son," Stephen said quietly, "Not long now."

Something happened then, something he had not expected. The boy's brow twitched inward, as the faintest flicker of confusion crossed there.

Stephen blinked, and stared at the boy. Emotion? Had he finally connected with the young man? He frowned thoughtfully, watching as the boy stilled again, fixing him with an endless stare.

Was it because he'd called him son?

Crap. He'd been careless. The cure needed to be tested on a full corpse, not one in rehabilitation. He couldn't afford this. Obviously there had been too much contact between them.

Just as he was about to pull away, the corpse's cold fingers closed over his own and held on tight.

"Shit," Stephen said, quickly trying to extricate himself, but the corpse had him fast. "Let go."

The pale eyes fell to their hands, and that brief flicker of emotion returned, before the young man looked back up at him searchingly.

Stephen sighed.

"Son," he said quietly. "Please let go of me."

The cold fingers released him.

Stephen smiled. "Thank you."

Well, it was done now, he'd connected with the boy. They'd still test the serum on him of course, but they'd missed an excellent window of opportunity.

Reaching up, Stephen squeezed the young man's shoulder. "I know it's got to be strange for you son, but we'll-"

In one oddly fluid moment, the corpse struck out and bit him.

Stephen jerked back, stunned, and stared at the arc of black teeth marks over his thumb. The corpse had broken through the skin.

"Fuck!" he yelled, already feeling a strange numbing chill at the site. As he watched, thin black lines radiated from the wound, circling the finger, and a moment later he couldn't feel the digit at all.

Stupid, stupid idiot! He'd thought the kid was too far gone to do something like this, otherwise he never would have gone near the kid's head. Cursing non-stop, Stephen quickly moved to his makeshift lab, fumbling through his samples. The chill was spreading quickly through his hand, stealing sensation and making him clumsy. He could literally see the fingers turning grey as he watched.

"What the hell... not supposed to be this quick..." He needed to get the serum now, or he was going to be too far gone to help either of them. As the numbness claimed his hand and swiftly spread past his wrist, a wave of nausea hit him, flooding his mouth bitterly.

"Shit," he whispered, pressing his hand against his mouth to stop from vomiting. This was insane, he'd never seen infection spread this fast before, what the hell was going on? It was almost like the effect of Rowan's blood... but in reverse. The thought stirred another - could this man have been a factor in Rowan's immunity?

What the hell was he doing?! Stop hypothesizing, start moving! Shaking his head, he grabbed the only sample of serum he'd been able to generate. There was barely enough to fill a 3 cc syringe, certainly not the 10 ccs he'd determined they'd need for the cure to work.

The infection claimed his arm, and tendrils of ice wormed their way across his chest and up his neck. Nausea gripped him again, and he doubled over, his hand clenching the desk as he spat the horrible taste from his mouth.

Minutes. He had fucking MINUTES.

Rowan's blood, or Mark's blood, either would work, and he'd get a chance to test the effect post-infection but pre-turn. The problem was, he wasn't sure if he had time to get the samples from the fridge and prepare a syringe.

He had to get the guard's help, immediately. Stephen turned towards the door and was seized by sudden violent tremors that brought him to his knees. With a groan, he clenched his teeth against them, and struggled to rise on legs that were growing cold and clumsy. His chest muscles were freezing up, and it was harder now to draw a breath.

"help," he tried to yell, but the sound was strangled as icy fingers threaded around his throat and wormed their way up his scalp. Stephen's eyes widened. It had to be just seconds now, he needed to get to the door...

With a final agonized push he pulled himself up and stumbled to the doorway, falling hard against it. Looking out the small window he saw no-one. The guard wasn't there.

"Oh... god..." he whispered, then his legs were taken from him and he fell back, sliding down the doorframe to the floor. Another tremor rocked him violently, and he sagged back against the wall, staring at the corpse in the bed.

The young man was thrashing against his restraints, and Stephen idly wondered if the connection he'd started had given the corpse the energy it needed to free itself.

Stephen released a last hitched breath, and gave a last strangled gurgle, black fluid bubbling from his mouth, before his heart clenched in his frozen chest and grew still.

As the darkness rose up to meet him, Stephen greeted it with complete fascination.