Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton really DO have great chemistry even though their characters fight (From Beyond, Castle Freak, The Evil Clergyman, AND the first Re-Animator). And when you first see them meet for the first time, you'd think that they would actually get along. XD I sure did the first time I saw the movie until it got to poor Rufus in the fridge. And I think you could tell there was a slight case of attraction when their eyes first meet after Meg invites him in. ;)

Chapter Three

Replenish and Renewal

Her eyes were blazing blue orbs of fire that sent his own body aflame. He was more than ready to just smack her face if it weren't the fact he considered it too precious to be ruined. Herbert remembered the moment he laid his eyes on her when he set foot on the threshold of Dan's home, looking his girlfriend over, she reminded him so much of someone he'd lost long ago, as much as it both swept him off his feet and yet frightened him at the same time...

Sweep me off my feet? Juvenile. But there was no denying he found Meg Halsey appealing, but because she made clear her evident dislike of him, he found no reason to want to pursue anything beyond the boundaries with her. Yet he couldn't continue where he was without her now that Dan was gone.

"Meg, please." Why was he begging her? She barely knew him, he barely knew her – what did her personal history matter anyway when his own was his own business? – but maybe she would have to do anyway. Perhaps she might not be as empty-headed as I think she is. "Don't shove me aside."

Her face was softening, eyes clouds of puzzling emotion as she fought with herself internally. Herbert drew back and smiled slightly. Her boyfriend had been easy to get on his side, but she was going to be quite the fight. The man she loved had been taken by one of Hill's zombies; his brain wasn't stupid to think otherwise, because how else would it have happened? "Dan was killed by one of those things," she spoke, leaning back against her seat. "I tried to save him, because a small part of me thought he would at least be near what Daddy was, knowing me right away...but he didn't even recognize me. I had to kill him." She choked up, struggling to keep the flood in. Herbert had never been a man to let his heart get the best of him, but with his first true friend and partner gone and the woman said partner loved detailing his demise, now his heart was softening around the edges.

In spite of himself, Herbert reached out and took Megan's hand in his own. Her skin was silken to the touch, warm like his own, clenching tightly. She looked at him with an unreadable expression, saying nothing. "Do you really think you can prove me wrong?"

Herbert raised an eyebrow. "I've broken the limitation of brain death. I don't think I can't do anything else. Dr. Hill was...technically a success; he could communicate whilst his head and body were separated." He was enjoying talking about this until she interrupted him.

"Please, I don't want to know about that. Not tonight; I've had enough as it is. I just want to go home and go to sleep."

"Stay the night with me." He wanted to hit himself, but being at Daniel's house when the main owner was no longer there would mean he was now alone. He didn't want to be alone and he knew she didn't either. "Just for the night."

~o~

Girl, don't agree to this! But he was right. She didn't want to be alone tonight after losing two men in her life. Meg wasn't sure if she could take being alone; she'd never been alone in her life, and now would be no exception. "Okay," she said finally, "but at least let me head back to my house first. I need to have my front door repaired, and I need to clean up." The blood was dried on her by now, and if someone broke into her house when she wasn't there...

"The police will go there," Herbert stated. "It's best if you stayed at Dan's place for now. You can wash up there."

But it's the house I was born in! His tone, however, booked no room for debate, so she held her tongue. "So I suppose it's too late to call a repairman and explain what happened before I ask for a fix," Meg said sarcastically, turning to start the engine back up; she'd had it off so the gas wasn't wasted.

West pursed his lips. "And they would believe that your dead father broke it down and took you to the –" He trailed off when a pained look flashed across his face, and he immediately brought his hand up to the back of his head. "Oh, damn it. No, don't do this to me; please, not now," he muttered, sounding fearful and irritated at the same time. Meg stared at him, puzzled to her core. What happened back there other than getting strangled near to death by a living intestine?

"Herbert?" She'd gotten used to saying his last name that to use his first – his Christian name, as her father would put it in the old-fashioned way – was very strange...but it was also quite intangible. A feeling she was unable to define, but her immediate concern overshadowed it. "Herbert, what happened to you?"

He leaned back against the seat. "I-I need my..." He feebly turned around and began to reach for the black bag which held that venomous green stuff that tried to bring Dan back and failed. Meg's jaw dropped when the realization hit her like a thunderbolt.

"You're actually going to drug yourself with that stuff? You bastard, what the hell are you thinking?!" I'm surprised he's even alive!

His eyes widened as the pain in his body seemed to become greater, now visibly trembling. "No, it's not that one. I have a milder version I u-use to keep my mind sharp, so I don't have to sleep at night." His teeth were gritting themselves together now. "Meg, please! I NEED IT!"

She shook her head and reached behind her to grab the bag. Son of a bitch, this isn't for a living, healthy person. Might as well kill you this way myself. Her moral side overtook and reminded her this was still a human being, she was still a surgical student, and she never took a life ever. "How much do you need?" she asked, prepping the needle.

"Two CCs," he answered, voice quivering now. Sucking it out in two seconds, she saw that his bruised skin was now beginning to sweat. "H-h-hurry, please." Herbert reached out with a quivering hand, having shrugged off his coat and rolled up his sleeve then, baring the elbow of his inner arm for her to take and stick the needle into the main vein. His skin was warm to the touch, having touched her hand moments ago. He was so warm, thought he'd be as cold as the dead. The tingles that shot through her hand seared with the speed of a forest fire. She wanted more of his touch, and – she stopped there and made a disgusted expression, shaking her head.

Then a sound tearing from Herbert's lips – "Ahhhh!" – and him throwing his head backward got her to shift further back in the driver's seat. She was shocked to think that she actually enjoyed the noises he was making; they sent a wave up her spine and lit her nerves afire. He's turned on by this; can he be that much more disgusting? Who DOES this?! "Oooohhhh, yesssss," Herbert moaned and hissed at once, exhaling deeply and fixing his eyes on her. "You seem to take it much better than Dan."

Meg gaped at him. "Dan knew about you taking this trash?"

"Of course he did. Saw me one time, the night your father was taken in. It should be obvious enough that he wasn't too excited about it." He smiled wryly.

She rolled her eyes and shook her head, turning her attention back to the wheel and starting the engine, more than ready to get them both out of here before a cop car spotted them, saw the states they were in, and take them in for questioning. Not that nobody knew I was there already. Witnessing Herbert take a small dose of a weakened version of his solution brought up the question: "Did it keep you from...dying, or something?"

"You could say that. Would it be so hard to understand after everything you saw happen?"

Megan shook her head. "I guess not."

~o~

Meg didn't say much of anything else to him for the rest of the drive back to Dan's house, now his house. But now Herbert was considering a change of location, mainly because the sole owner was gone and he couldn't deal with it on his own. Independent and dependent both ran in his blood; he could handle living on his own, but at the same time with his work, he just couldn't take it. There was one place he was thinking of, but with Meg's fragile state in the present and the police coming by eventually for questioning, he'd have to wait.

Meg, however, might as well depend on him, too. He knew from the start that she'd been spoiled by her daddy since birth; she might be excelling in classes and also working in the ER, but she wasn't nearly the same as her boyfriend had been. She was respected because she was the dean's daughter and fit amongst a crowd. Once her closest friends noticed how much more time she spent with him, the outcast, they would end up abandoning her, too. Herbert never had friends in his life for obvious reasons, but Daniel Cain had been the first ever who took him seriously with his work. But now he's gone, and now I have no choice but to confide in his vixen of a girlfriend.

She brought the car into the driveway and got out first. Following suit, Herbert noticed how the shirt from Dan appeared beyond repair, exposed more than he'd wanted to see. But he'd seen her in the morgue when Hill was violating her. It made him sick, but he couldn't deny that Meg had a...rather exquisite body when he did his best to hide it – everything from those voluptuous, full breasts to her smooth, flat stomach, trimmed waist, and toned legs...

Now the shirt had drifted to the left, exposing her left breast and much of her side to him, partially the dark beginning of the base of her thighs. These things interested him very little. But she's quite lovely... He shook his head of those thoughts of his dead assistant's girlfriend. "Meg," he finally spoke when they stopped at the door. She paused in unlocking the door but didn't look up. "If you are my assistant, I promise nothing will happen to you. I lost Daniel, and I can't let the same thing happen to you, either."

She stared at him from the corner of her eyes, still not saying a word. Instead, she finished unlocking the door and went in first. Ladies first, he thought with his face twitching in amusement and trailed after her. She dropped his bag of notes and re-agent to the floor and ignored him, walking down the hall for the bathroom. "I'm going to shower," she announced, and that was all he heard of her then. But he didn't hear the door close, so he assumed she didn't care since she knew he'd seen her naked before.

You'd think she'd lash out and hide her embarrassment. I would have. Indeed, because his body wasn't anyone else's concern. It seemed they both had one thing in common that he knew of. Both were self-conscious about themselves. And then hearing the shower running, he realized he could use one himself, and it couldn't wait. Herbert gingerly leaned down and picked up his bag so he could store the re-agent safely away, walking down to the basement and stopped at the bottom, seeing the gooey mess on the floor when he decapitated Hill. But now you're dead, your body an indescribable mess and your head crushed to bits.

He mopped up the mess the best he could and leave no traces, making sure to lock up behind him; he silently thanked Dan for having a lock inside and out. He just hoped the police wouldn't turn their attention to the basement. Who cared about basements anyway? Moving into his room, Herbert shrugged off his long coat and began to strip out of his clothes. He was risking his self-consciousness and dignity, but at the same time, he hoped Megan wouldn't freak out since she had no complaints on her part.

A slight burn in his body – in that part where the intestine did its work – made him remember IT once more. Herbert held his breath and his head high. A small part of him also wanted to tell Meg, yet he also feared rejection. No matter how hard he thought of how to tell her, how much he wanted to.

Rape is an absolutely traumatizing thing for any person to endure; I've never been through that in my life so far, but I know it is NEVER pretty. But to actually think the great Herbert West would go through something like this was interesting but also equally hard to explore, because would it prevent him from being with the woman he'll eventually mate with - or would it serve as his eventual "awakening"?