Chapter 40

"Is there something I can help you with, doctor?" said Meggie, her voice harm. He had never heard her speak this way before, it startled him as his eyes watched her enter the room going to the throne with an empty likeness next to it. The longer he looked at her the more he began to realize that he didn't know who she was anymore. The Meggie he had known had changed and the doctor knew without question who she reminded him of. Her husband, the thought unsettled him more then he cared to admit as he looked at her longer, never giving her an answer.

"Doctor?" said Meggie, her voice still stern, but with a hinge of curiosity; she had never seen him look at her in just this way and she wouldn't deny it was unsettling.

"You've changed, Meggie" whispered the doctor finally looking into her eyes to find that she looked right back, those eyes were judging her that she knew, and she hated it the longer they did, especially as that judgement seemed to imprint upon her soul.

"You've saved my prisoner, now, what brings you here?" snapped Meggie her voice harsher as it rose to tower over the room. Meggie thought he might leave her without an answer, but when his look became that of a menace, she felt some wall inside her go up. He started to come towards her, his steps so sure that it was quite unexpected, but Meggie didn't let herself falter. She remained right where she was as he came all the closer until he was right there. That was when she looked into his eyes feeling a chill that she didn't recognize.

Meggie had expected him to retain some sort of composure as was his usual way, but it was as if the doctor she had known disappeared only to be replaced with someone she didn't. Before Meggie could move to stop him, the doctor grabbed her with a strength that she felt to the deepest place within her bones, and she couldn't look away from him. As fear etched within her, she didn't let him see it, but faced him as her husband might have. As she did, Meggie felt the way she had when Mo had tried to kill her; as if this might be the last few breathes of her life and each one was rare and precious.

"What have you become? I found that man nearly dead and never would I have imagined that someone such as you could manage such a thing, Meggie. You were tainted by that man you call a husband, but I never imagined how much until now" exclaimed the doctor, holding her by the arms with all his strength as he spoke in a shrill gasping voice. He could see her shock.

"It took all my medical knowledge to save that man, Meggie, what has happened to you to make you as you appear to me now?" exclaimed the doctor, shaking her with every word now.

"Take your hands off me" snapped Meggie, that fear still in her bones, but the woman Capricorn had made her held fast as she sought to be free from him.

Meggie couldn't stop thinking of Capricorn. Of the way he had protected her and yet, Meggie knew now it was time to protect herself. To stand as his queen and that was why any fear seemed to hide beneath the scorn, she felt for him in that moment. Because nothing had changed. She was still the queen, abate one waiting for her king to return, but nonetheless, she was that still while he was her servant. Meggie kept those thoughts alive within herself as she attempted to wrench herself free from this man. That's what made her reach up to slap him across the face.

"You do not lay your hands on me" snapped Meggie stalking toward him now.

"You have forgotten your place, doctor" whispered Meggie, her anger flaring as he moved to grab her once more only to have her hands plant themselves firm against his chest knocking him hard back against the wall. Something wild was in his eyes, hers too, but it was different. The doctor felt it but found he could only ignore it as Meggie seemed to come back to him each time with a fierce blow. Meggie didn't notice the fire in his eyes though as she kept him cornered, it wasn't until her hand was around his throat in a feeble attempt to keep him in place that something about the doctor seemed to change entirely.

"You serve a purpose, doctor, you might want to remember that" whispered Meggie, brandishing a knife. He didn't know where she got it, but it ignited some deeper, darker instinct within him. For so long he had kept it dormant, but some other baser instinct awakened this one. The doctor could feel it and the longer it rose the more useless he was to stop it. He seemed to close his eyes in that moment as he faded as the man within him slipped free only to lock him in the cage, he'd been in all these years. As he did, the last thought the doctor had was maybe this was the only way he would survive this, and then with a flicker of black subconsciousness, he was gone. For where he didn't care if he lived or died, the monster within him would. As that darkness fell within him, he heard the sinister laugh of Hyde as if left his throat, and he saw the confused shock written upon Meggie's face. Meggie didn't know what to do then as she stared up into eyes that were no longer those of the doctor she had known. These eyes scared her. This was a different type of fear, one she could not hide, and somehow this man knew it as she took her first step back.

All Meggie knew was as the doctor started to laugh, he managed to get the knife from her though she didn't know how.

"I can not a weakling like my maker, woman" growled the man immediately throwing her to the ground leaving her to lay there as he completed his transformation. He became hairier, shorter even, and if Meggie hadn't of screamed, she was afraid of what would have happened next. There was a flurry of movement as Meggie tried to understand what was happening. In the back of her mind, she knew, but she couldn't recall exactly what she knew.

"My lady, are you alright?" called a guard as he helped her to her feet, but Meggie couldn't hear the words as she stood once more, her body still shocked over it all as they dragged the doctor, now fully transformed from the room. The man kept asking, but she never did give him an answer. She barely registered shooing him away as everything seemed to go deadly silent. She couldn't hear anything or feel it and when she came back to herself, Meggie found she was sitting in her throne, but she couldn't remember how she got there. The guard returned to her after only a moment and Meggie looked at him unsure what was expected of her now.

"My lady, what happened? What should we do with him?" said the guard, repeating himself as Meggie watched the place where it had happened. Since Capricorn had been gone, the doctor was easily the most trusted person to her within the castle, and now as she replayed it all, Meggie felt betrayed even as that feeling mixed with one of pure foolishness. The signs had all been there. In the way, he never let her call him anything, but doctor. In the way he always seemed to be fighting something deep within his own tortured thoughts. It all came to her suddenly, the realization that he was not just any doctor, but one whose story she had read so many times. Whose doppelganger chilled her every time she did. It all fell into place and as it did, Meggie couldn't remember feeling more alone then she did in that moment as that knowledge sunk somewhere within her. The answer that until now had been lost in the haze of her mind.

"He's Jekyll and Hyde" said Meggie, seeing when she did that the guard before her didn't understand, but she didn't feel the energy within herself to explain. He must have sensed this because he didn't say anything in response. He stood there, waiting, but when Meggie shooed him away again, he didn't say anything still. It wasn't until he reached the doorway that he turned needing an answer to that final question that she had left unanswered. Meggie stared in consternation truly unsure what to do. The words came to her suddenly and she didn't even realize them until she was saying them. Yet, as she did, Meggie tried to use her queen's voice as the man stared at her as she stared right back.

"Chain him in the dungeon. Use our strongest chains, just make sure he can't escape whatever the cost" exclaimed Meggie ushering the man forward. Her orders were carried out immediately and as they were Meggie ran from the throne room alone.

"Capricorn, I wish you were here to guide me" thought Meggie as she ran feeling the same kind of lost restlessness she'd felt when he was gone that first day a new fear heavy in her heart now. Because her guards didn't feel like enough protection. Meggie was surrounded by her enemies, at least, that's what it felt like, and that's why she felt the need to protect herself. As Meggie ran, she didn't know where she was going at first. Her first thought was the torture room, but it didn't have what she needed. It was filled with worthy weapons, but not the ones she needed now. Because a knife hadn't done her any good today. It had nearly been turned against her.

"Your blades will not do today, my love" thought Meggie as she entered the armory taking the keys from the master of arms with bated breath and unlocking the case where more suitable weapons gleamed in particular two small hand guns she had only seen once until now.

Capricorn always kept them for his personal use, she'd never seen him use them, mostly because he preferred a blade, but now, Meggie felt like she needed them. She took them to her bedroom and there she put one by her bedside, the other just beneath her pillow. Next, she went to her closet, and on the top shelf, she removed a box. It hadn't been moved since Capricorn had given it to her, but now was the time. They were sharp, but petite throwing knives. She remembered the moment he gave them to her perfectly. He had taken her hand in his and hold the knife in both of theirs, he had showed her exactly how to throw it, and at the time, it had been their first sensual dance. They had made love after that, but the entire moment before had been one of the bravest of her life. Looking at those knives now Meggie felt like he had been preparing her for this moment.

Capricorn had whispered that they were for her protection. That though he would always be there to protect her that he wanted her to have this as her security and in that moment, Meggie felt it as she ran her fingers over those blades. It was like he was seeing this moment somehow because now she was without him. She was at her most vulnerable and these felt like her closest link to her husband in that moment. Until now, she had never had a use for them, but with Capricorn gone, she felt the need. Using the garter, she had saved from their wedding, Meggie strapped two knives to her thigh then a third she put up her sleeve. That day, she put the rest throughout the castle, where she could reach them if she had the need. After all, she reasoned, if Capricorn was away, she had to protect herself, and prove once more who she was.

"I am the queen…I will prove myself to be such" whispered Meggie as she placed the last knife in its hiding place.

That night, Meggie didn't check her journal for a message from her husband, and she didn't want to write to him either. She needed the silence that her room provided and as she laid in their bed alone, she wondered what was going to happen now. It felt like at any moment someone could walk through the door to bring her world to an end and most of all, Meggie felt helpless to stop it. She couldn't close her eyes even as she couldn't keep them open. After a while, she found herself laying on her side looking at the journal as it sat by her bed, and she didn't know what to say. Eventually Capricorn and her would come together again whether it be through their written words or the potions magic, but Meggie didn't know what she would say when the time came. She felt this continuous chill and Meggie found it wouldn't leave her even when she did fall asleep. Her thoughts didn't stop there though. Even in sleep, she kept seeing the transformation as it had happened before her eyes, and Meggie shook inside. She had caused the doctor to be turned into the worst parts of himself. That was what scared her most of all. She had never known who the doctor truly was. He had never given her a name, only said to call him doctor, and now she knew why. He somehow knew she would be afraid if she knew who he was.

Dr. Henry Jekyll, the only character in a book that had ever scared her though she'd never known why. Now, that man and the monster known as Hyde that dwelled inside him were locked in her dungeon. She wondered if they would stay there until Capricorn was with her again.