FOLLOWING FRANKENSTEIN

Chapter 9: Regeneration

Buffy's short heels clacked against the tiled floor of the hallway. She ran her hand through her hair again. She had left it down and it fell down to her waist now, though its chestnut waves were now streaked with shards of silver. She wished she had found time for a haircut… and maybe a new dress… before impulsively hopping on an airplane and crossing continents and oceans. She sighed. No amount of preparation would decrease her nervousness or increase her self-confidence for the upcoming reunion. She glanced down at the navy-blue collared dress she wore. She didn't think she could have found another dress. to compete with it. The color suited her and the cut flattered her, even now. After her hysterectomy, nothing she did seemed to make a difference and her hips resolutely refused to do anything but increase in girth. She could think about eating a chocolate bar and go up a dress size. She sighed. There was nothing for it. She may have only been alive 29 years but she had started out with the body of a teenager and now she had the body of a middle-aged woman.

Buffy glanced at the map on the wall by the elevator and made her way through a maze of corridors. The wing of offices at the National Human Genome Research Institute was imposing. It smelled like bleach and the florescent lights glared against the stark white walls. Some of the other occupants of the corridors were dressed in scrubs. Others wore suits. They seemed to all know where they were going and what they were about and no one seemed to pay her any mind. She wondered what they would have thought… or how hard they would have worked to bring her into one of their many laboratories… if they had known of her origins as a real live specimen of a cloned human.

Unconsciously, she bit on her bottom lip and then checked the decreasing numbers of the doors again. She was close, now, and she tried to rehearse what she meant to say again. She run through her introduction at least a thousand times already. From the moment her stunned brain processed that news report, all the way to her flat through her frenzied packing, the following hours spent on an airplane, and in the cacophonous chaos of the urban jungle of Bethesda, Maryland.

No matter how many times she practiced, she still didn't think it came out quite right and she knew she would bungle the whole thing, once she was in the same room with him again.

It's Anthony. You've never been this nervous around Anthony, she tried to reassure herself.

But that was before you realized you are in love with him and actually care what he thinks, she countered.

She checked the numbers scribbled on a scrap of paper one more time, even though she had already memorized them, and glanced up at the matching numbers on the blue plaque next to the door. They shone silver in the light of the hall. Underneath, a name plate clearly read: "Anthony Masen, PhD, MD. Senior Investigator. Medical Genetics and Genomic Medicine."

Between the slats of the open blinds, she could see the glare of a computer screen and row after row of bookshelves. Between the desk and a potted plant was a head of burnished bronze and grey and a white overcoat. A stack of computer printouts sat neatly arranged on the desk and a wall full of plaques and diplomas covered one wall. The only personal item in the rather impersonal space was a single photograph of a smiling woman holding a violin.

The woman Buffy had only met once. The woman Anthony credited as his inspiration for all his work and the reason he dug his world-changing research out of a closet and into the public eye.

Buffy knew she could not get this over with by remaining frozen in the hall and staring at the back of his head through a window. She needed to get this over with. She cleared her throat, threw her shoulders back, stood up taller, and knocked on the door.

"Come in," came his familiar voice. He took a sip of tea and glanced one more time at his computer screen before he turned around. He gently placed the mug back on his desk and he quickly masked his surprise under a placid expression. "Well, I can't say I was expecting to see you here today, of all people. Buffy, how are you?"

He motioned for a plush office chair across from him and she sat down stiffly. She refused his offer of refreshments and didn't once look away from him. He didn't look like she remembered him at all. Absent now was the smoothness and levity of youth. His hair had begun to recede at the corners of his forehead and the grooves around his eyes had deepened. Beneath his lab coat, his chest was even fuller and softer than she had seen last and he moved with the slow deliberation of a man who has carried the weight of the world for far more years than the mere two decades or two he had lived.

He was revolutionizing the world, or so the reports said. The relatively obscure British doctor who turned up at the doorstep of the Genetics Society one day with research that turned the society on its head and he swept away the Genetics Society Medal for that year and opened the door for positions both at the Genetics Society and then the NHGRI. His research in organ cloning and regeneration had the potential to extend the lives of the hundreds of thousands of people on waiting lists around the world. It was still in preliminary stages of experimentation, but the hope his efforts conjured landed him international recognition.

His use of antiquated, nearly forgotten data from over a century and a half in the past defied understanding. When asked about it, he simply shrugged and said he didn't remember due to his bout of amnesia.

"To what do I owe the honor of this visit?" he said, his voice both warm and yet impassive and his expression carried the same contradiction.

"I saw the interview," she began. "I had to come."

"I see. So, you were not merely in the neighborhood and decided to stop by?"

"I didn't know. Any of it. I hadn't wanted to know. You… she… your fiancée. Anthony, I didn't know. I'm so sorry. I wish I had known sooner."

"Yes, well, others benefit from my tragedy, or so the interviewers like to say," he said, a hard edge in his voice that had never been there before. "She inspired me to make sure no one else had to face an end like she did. Not if I could help it."

"You are amazing," Buffy said, trying to force as much sincerity into her voice and her eyes as she could muster. "I am so proud of you."

His façade faltered and he gave a derisive snort. He pushed his chair slightly away from her but leaned forward on his desk. "Don't patronize me. Go ahead and tell me the truth. Scream at me. Shout and yell and pour out all your anger. I knew this day would come. I knew, someday, you would find out and you would come."

She felt her eyebrows furrow and she leaned towards him in a mirror of his posture. "What are you talking about? Why would I come to yell at you?"

"For following in our creator's footsteps. For publishing his research. For taking up where he left off. I knew the moment I opened those files that you would never forgive me if I did. Just know, you can't hurt me more than you already have. I can't feel more regret than I already carry."

Buffy gaped. "I came to tell you how sorry I am. About Riya. About everything. I am not here to yell at you."

He peered at her over his glasses, considering her with all the weight of a scholar, of a man who knows too much, has seen too much.

"Thank you," he answered, but by his tone, she doubted his sincerity.

Buffy waited for him to continue. He didn't and she shifted her weight back in the chair in her discomfort. The room felt as tense as a taut bow string and she didn't like it. She decided to be the one to let the arrow fly.

"So, he did contact you, then? All this brilliance wasn't truly your own?" She hesitantly asked, not completely sure she wanted to know the answer.

"A few years after arriving in London, Mr. Smith sought me out again. He presented me with a hand-written letter that had been written six years before. It was quite the extensive letter. In it, your Edward laid out an entire history of himself… and myself… though I suspect many parts of it were abridged since he presented a much rosier picture than the one you paint. He presented me with a lock box filled with all of his studies on organ duplication and each of his breakthrough studies on genomics. Then, he laid out a career path for me and informed me I would have everything I required to succeed. He also informed me that I would regret it, if I did not follow the path he laid out for me."

"He threatened you?" she asked with a startled gasp.

"It wasn't a threat so much as a promise. He was right. I would have regretted it if I had not listened. Buffy, the research he gave me… the foundation… he revolutionized modern medicine. The lives he will save! The leaps and bounds we have made based on his foundation… it's as earth-shaking as penicillin and the germ theory of disease!"

"Breakthroughs bought with blood. My blood," she whispered back, sadness coloring her tone.

"Yes. That is why I did not speak of it then or ever after. That is why I did not follow the path he set out for me, initially. I already felt a draw to medicine and planned to pursue a career in the field but I burned his letter and thought more about any of it. At least, I tried not to.

"What was I supposed to do? This incredible, completed research that would transform the world as we know it was dropped into my lap. It has the potential to save millions of lives each year and revolutionize medical care around the world. Yet, I know that this research was built by an unethical mad scientist who did all his tests on different versions on live human women… on exact replicas of you. If I refused to accept it, if I walked away because of where the research came from, then I have the lives of millions on my conscience. If I accepted it, if I claimed it as my own, I am validating my worst enemy and accepting the worst things ever done to the woman I love. There was no way for me to walk away from that unscathed- and no way you would ever accept me, if you knew."

Anthony leaned back in his chair with his hand pinching the bridge of his nose. He closed his eyes and sighed. When he opened his eyes again, they carried all the weight of the decisions that had been forced upon him. He opened his hands before her, as if weighing two apples in his palms.

"Can't you see what an impossible situation I was in? At the time we were not exactly on speaking terms. You already hated me simply for how I walk and the expressions on my face that remind you of him. Still, I held back because I didn't want to disappoint you."

"I'm so sorry, Tony," Buffy said. "You are right. Back then, back before, I would have yelled at for continuing his research. Not now though. I think I understand better."

"Understand what?"

"You. Me. Everything. Nothing. It's hard to explain."

"I am glad to know I am not the only one whose changed."

"Life seems to have that effect... eventually. Anthony, what happened to Riya?" She prodded, her voice soft.

He clasped his hands together before him and leaned forward on his desk again. "Well, you've seen the interview."

"When?" Buffy asked. "When I met her, I thought your wedding was supposed to be the next day, yet you still called her your fiancée."

"It was that night," Anthony said, his eyes falling from hers. "Hardly three hours after you met her."

"Oh." Buffy gasped and covered her mouth with her hand.

"She was packing, putting the last of her things together at her parents' house in order to bring them over to my flat. She climbed a ladder to reach the top shelf of her closet. It fell. Her head hit the hardwood floor first. The pressure on her brain was too much and she was comatose within seconds.

"I met her at the hospital. I could only sit beside her on the bed and listen to the rise and fall of her breaths as the machine forced the rest of her organs to keep working. She was already gone, but somebody else needed what was left of her so they could keep on living, too. I stayed until they took her away. Now her heart, quite literally, belongs to someone else."

"I'm so sorry. She seemed like a lovely person," Buffy said.

"She was."

"How did you meet her? I always wondered..."

He sighed and looked at her. "I was in a bad place, after…"

"After I broke your heart," Buffy supplied ruefully.

"Yes. There's no way to sugarcoat it. I spiraled into depression for quite awhile and the only thing that kept me afloat was music. I could get lost in the emotion, the sound, the soul of it all and just listen. For a little while, I could be freed and just be. I didn't care what genre of music it was. Well, with my work and school schedule, I didn't have that much free time and even less free money, so I didn't always get to attend the finest performances, but I took whatever I could get. I went to every concert I could find and make time for.

"Riya was something of a child prodigy on the violin. She was absolutely incredible. I had seen her perform in the symphony a few times, but had barely noticed her. Then, I came across a flyer for a charity concert where she was given the chance for a solo performance, along with some other musicians. It was a small, intimate setting and the audience was given ample time to socialize with the musicians after the performance. There, in that hall, she came onto that little stage in a gold dress, her hair falling down her back, and she looked like the sun incarnate.

"Then, she began to play and it was the most beautiful sound I had ever heard and I cried like a baby through most of it. Let's just say, I followed her around like a smitten schoolboy the rest of the night. She tolerated me but wouldn't have given me a second thought if we hadn't crossed paths a few weeks later at another concert. Somehow, I managed to convince her to go out with me once. Then, I managed to convince her to go out with me again. I couldn't figure out how I did it, but I didn't want to question my good fortune and figured I would keep asking her out until she turned me down. She never did.

"She was the epitome of grace and kindness. I have never met someone who radiated such patience. I could spend hours lost in her music and I felt myself healing a bit from all that I had lost, all I had struggled with. I knew we could be happy. I knew I could love her. It was a different sort of love than I'd experienced before, but reciprocated and beautiful and exactly what I needed. Or, so I thought."

"Then she was gone…," Buffy mused.

"No. Then you showed up. Five minutes with you was enough to undo all the progress I'd made. You left that night and I was gutted. Riya was everything I wanted, everything I needed, better than I could have ever deserved. Yet, one inconsequential shared moment with you made me want to throw it all out the window to beg you to come back to me.

"I wandered late that night, after you left. I didn't know what to do. Riya and I could truly have been happy together. I realized, though, that if there was even the smallest chance that someday you would say yes, and I wasn't free when you did, then I'd never forgive myself. I realized I'd rather live the bachelor life forever and have the chance of being with you than marry the perfect woman and miss out on the one I have always been in love with. I decided, then and there, that I would do the worst thing in my life and I would call off the wedding. I knew it would break Riya's heart and it wouldn't get me an inch closer to you and I would only succeed in making myself miserable, but I couldn't rationalize going through with the wedding, after that.

"Only to get that call, a few short hours later. There I was, contemplating breaking off our engagement while she was in the process of dying. How can I ever forgive myself for that?

"To make it worse, her family blamed me. They didn't like me much to begin with. When she died, they said it was karma – that I had done something in a past life which I was now paying for in this life and that I had cursed her. Well, they couldn't have chosen a more apt insult, even if they'd known my history. For a long time, I believed them."

"It wasn't your fault though!" Buffy protested.

"Buffy, I had the technology at my fingertips which could have saved Riya's life -and I had buried it all in a vault to try to win the favor of a woman who would never love me. As I sat with her in the hospital, each breath she took was like a knife to my gut.

"What if I had not sat on the research I had been given? What if I had not behaved as a coward but faced it and opened that Pandora's Box? Would she have survived? Would we have finally developed the technology to heal such injuries and help the brain itself regenerate after such trauma? Then, there was that list of over five hundred patients waiting for hearts in the U.K, let alone the rest of the world,… how many of those people on the list would die before someone like her ever turned up? Their lives depended on someone else's death… but they didn't have to."

"Tony, it's you I need to apologize to," she said. She reached out and took his hand in hers. It was warm, but dry from too frequent washings and gloves. She gave it a gentle squeeze and took a deep breath to begin again. "I'm so sorry for everything I put you through. I was a mess for a long time and I needed to sort myself out. I'm sorry you got stuck with me and as the undeserving scapegoat of my mountainous issues.

"I'm sorry for hurting you, for making you feel like crap, for not appreciating you like I should have. I never deserved you and I know that now. I've known if for awhile, but I thought I was too late. I thought, well, until I saw that interview, I thought I had lost my chance and I've regretted it. Well, yeah, kinda. I wasn't in the place, back then to know I'd regret it. I was messed up, but you know that. Now, well, I've done a lot of work, thought a lot, cried a lot, screamed and thrown things a lot. I murdered a few vampires in video games and incinerated a few hundred photographs of Edward and now, well, I'm better. Well, better than I was. At least I feel like I am. And I, well, if there was ever going to be a time for me to apologize, it seemed like now was good."

"You had reason, Buffy. No one should have had to survive the conditions you did. What Edward Masen did in the name of 'scientific discovery' is untenable. Yet, it's been done. We can't change the past. I wanted to make sure all those other women didn't die in vain. At least their deaths have helped others live. I think that's important and gives them a chance at another life, at having meaning. It was my way of making it up to Riya."

She shrugged. "Maybe, but you shouldn't have borne the brunt of my anger. You didn't do anything to deserve it."

Anthony grew even more impossibly solemn and his green eyes glimmered with a long-suppressed guilt. "Didn't I?"

She tried to shake her head but he stopped her.

"Buffy, you were right. You were right about me all along. I'm everything you despise…," he began and he pulled his hand away from hers so he could hold it up between them to stop her from interrupting him. "One day, one kiss, one year, one lifetime with you would never be enough. I would never, ever be satisfied. When I opened up those files for the first time, I saw what they could do. Then, I understood your Edward more than I ever had before. I understood his obsession, his single-minded desire. I've tried to do everything you've asked of me yet I've failed because the one thing you want from me is the one thing I can't do. I can't stop loving you. You are my life. My love. My everything.

"If I had immortality before me, I could never be satisfied without you sharing it with me. I know how far I would go to try to keep you with me and I realized I have more in common with our creator than I like to admit. Recognizing the truth of that potential for darkness in me, the only thing I could do was to let you go and let you live the normal human life you deserve.

"So, I threw myself into my work. It's all I had left. Apparently, it's the reason I'm alive, or so our creator has orchestrated. So, rather than fight against the inevitable, I surrendered. Here I am – healing other people's hearts rather than my own and making sure the deaths of your companions leads to the extended lives of people they never even knew would exist. "

At that, Buffy snorted a chuckle. "As if I have ever been normal. Or human." At Anthony's raised eyebrow, she continued. "Tony, I grew women to feed them to a vampire. You may have potential for darkness, but I have real, true darkness in my past. I didn't have to do what I did. I could have rescued Badiyah her first night instead of waiting till it was too late. I could have sent Decoy in my place. I could have stopped production of clones and let myself be his last meal or burned it all down around me to keep Edward from tormenting anyone else, but I didn't.

"I congratulated myself on being so brave and compassionate when it was all a lie. I am a selfish being. Little better than Edward, in truth, and entirely consumed with my own survival and my own desires. I kept you around to meet my needs for companionship and belonging and adoration but refused to give you anything back in return. I refused to be vulnerable or to need you in return. That's exactly what Edward used to do. I created my own little bunker, my own temple for the worship of Buffy, with everything according to my whims. I've had to learn to break down all those walls, face the darkness I am capable of and choose a different life for myself. Yet, I will never be normal… and I will certainly never be completely 'human.'"

"Yes, well, we have that in common," he said.

He fell silent then and stared down at the pile of papers on his desk though a muscle twitched in his jaw, like it always did when he was nervous. She lifted up his chin so she could look into those earnest, green eyes. They were a pale sea green today, speckled with a darker shade of turquoise around the irises. Lines grooved around the edges and no purple shades hung beneath. His face was smooth-shaven now and his finger-length hair was smoothed out of his face. The lean lines of youth were now filled out with the weight of sedentary days in his lab. If she had met him now, without knowing what he had looked like before, she would hardly have recognized him as the same man that had showed up on her doorstep so many years ago. He was as unlike Edward Masen now as she was unlike Isabella Swan. They were simply Anthony and Buffy now. Nothing more, nothing less.

It was like seeing him for the first time with layers of the past coloring her vision stripped away.

She remembered his first days with her – learning to talk and live a human life – his eager enthusiasm, his innocent delight in pleasing her, his undisguised growing affection… and she remembered his later days, his attempts to court her and win her favor and prove himself a man.

She loved him. Not because he was like Edward, but because of how very unlike Edward he had become. She loved him because he was Anthony and that was enough.

"Buffy, I'll be honest. I don't think I can survive another heartbreak. They say time heals some wounds. Maybe it does. Just, not mine. Here you are, like lemon juice in an open wound, reminding me that I never really will get over you and move on and you are just going to watch me bleed out all over again."

"It's not like that."

"Tell me, then, Buffy, what is it like?"

"I lied," she blurted out. "About not caring for you. It wasn't true. I have always been in love with you. I was just too scared to admit it and so I pushed you away. It made you miserable. It made me miserable, but until I dealt with my fear, I couldn't overcome it. I'm just sorry I couldn't figure it out before all this and I'm sorry I didn't fess up earlier."

He considered her carefully over his clasped hands. "I appreciate your frankness and your apologies, more than I can say. But I can't dance around with you again, Buffy. We've gone through too much and I can't repeat the past. Either I marry you tomorrow or I never see you again. I can't handle anything else."

"I understand," she answered, placing her hand on his clasped ones.

"I'm sorry Buffy. It's my weakness, not yours."

She chuckled. "Do I need to get down on one knee?"

"You… Buffy, what are you saying?"

"I'm saying I accept your conditions. I don't want to waste any more time, either. Let's get married tomorrow. We can do it today, if you are free. I don't care. I would have married you five years ago, if I'd known you were free. Why wait?"

The smile that broke across his face could have rivalled the sun. "What are we waiting for? Let's go now!"

"Fine! But I have one condition…"

"What?"

"Can we get dinner on the way? I'm starved."

"Of course! I know a place you'll love," he said and he pulled her into his arms to place a kiss first on her forehead and then on her lips. "Nice dress, by the way. It suits you," he said. Then he leaned in to kiss her one more time before pulling her out the door.

Author's Notes: Well, all we have left is a brief epilogue and there we have it.