Here comes one of the most epic finales of all time. :D The fight between Herbert and "Dan" has so much more meaning in my opinion, because it's all over the love of Meg, whereas the original between Francesca and the Bride wasn't exactly explained fully, or so my boyfriend and I believe. Anyways, enjoy!

Chapter Twenty

The Ultimate Rejection

The look on her face was pure shock, shock mingled with undaunted confusion. She was still under the spell of that thing he created. That thing called a man, assembled with different parts of other men he and this woman before him failed to save. She did NOT belong to him; she was Herbert's and Herbert's alone. She had been his the moment he'd walked through Dan Cain's door and after the massacre. She was his everything, and he had wanted her to marry him since long before he realized it.

But the spell that "Dan" had placed on her was yet to be broken. "Megan, snap out of it!" he repeated with much more force. She gave no response, only continued to stare up at him, face showing no signs of knowing how to respond. That wretch behind them clearly did his work on her. And all of it from my own hands...I realize the mistake I made in trying to remake a human. Humanity and the whole earth rely only on the slow process of evolution and evolution only. It's out of my hands. I should have listened to her.

Herbert decided that another kiss would try one last effort to get Meg to come to her senses. He pulled her closer, wrapping his arms around her, and kissing her deeply for all to see.

He realized he'd made a major mistake when it was too late.

The roar from "Dan" forced him to back away from her, but not fast enough to evade the immediate grasp by his hair, jerking his neck to the side enough to bare his neck and leave it vulnerable to what came next. Herbert screamed to the high heavens as his creation's teeth sank in deep into the tender flesh of his neck, piercing the muscles and causing a blood flow down and staining the pristine white of his shirt collar. The pain was incredible; Herbert had witnessed "Dan's" strength on Hill and his army of freaks, on their way here still to join those other two outside still trying to get in, so being hauled back and into a brick wall, right next to the cauldron filled with his precious gallons of re-agent, which did little to prevent "Dan" from getting to him again. The brute's lips were drawn back into a feral snarl as he lunged forth and grabbed the cauldron with both hands, throwing it over so it toppled, spilling out the flood of serum throughout the floor.

The slippery substance across the floor forced "Dan" over the very table from which he had been made and awoken, hands once more holding Herbert as they rolled over together, finding their stands on a drier section of the floor unoccupied by re-agent. Herbert knew he didn't stand a chance, that "Dan" was far more superior and likely to win the battle, but now that he found his newest rival – for the heart of Meg – with his back against the power generator of the lab, he took this to his advantage. Grabbing a random metal tool he found somewhere, Herbert shoved "Dan" against the collection of power sources and jabbed the tool somewhere behind to produce the electrical effect. "Dan" screamed as his body convulsed with the surge and splash of power through his body. Herbert watched with a satisfied smile that he had gained the upper hand, but it faded as quickly as it came when the other one regained himself and recaptured Herbert in his sight, and his rage returned with a vengeance, tripled. Snarling, he flew over and grasped Herbert by the throat.

Herbert choked and cried out at the same time, due to the pain of "Dan's" nails digging into the area where he'd bitten him on the neck; he didn't tear the whole flesh and muscle off, but enough to leave a scar for life afterward. He found himself lifted and thrown into the air, crashing into the coffin Francesca helped him move in front of the door. The poker used by either the fatso or his "poor" wife was halfway down the door; time was running out, and he was about to be killed by his own creation. Who, right now, advanced on him once more, towering in slow motion, knowing there was no escape for his prey now but no need to rush the savory finale.

"Meg, help!" Herbert called out to her. "Help me, please!" She stood by Francesca; he heard her urge Meg to save him, "he's going to kill him!" For once, he thanked the Italian woman for needing to save his life.

And then, at long last, she had come to his rescue. Meg stormed over, skirt and hair flying out as she grabbed "Dan's" arm and forced him around to face her. "Daniel!" she screamed at him. "Leave him alone, you MONSTER! This is the father of my child!" With that, she raised her palm and struck him HARD across the face.

The blow stunned "Dan" altogether, but it also made him shove her back, this woman he had tried to take away from Herbert, who he would kill anyone for if they tried to get in the way. Meg had the look of heartbreak on her face, at the fact that he'd tried to kill his own creator and...the father of their child.

Herbert's world stopped only to begin spinning in a faster circumference when the revelation dawned on him: She – she's – we're going to have a BABY?! How could she keep this from me? He was stunned to his core, but he had no time to speak to her about this. He was more than happy she finally pulled through, however. "Forget it, Meg," Herbert told her, rising and wincing as he pressed his hand to the bite on his neck, blood hot and sticky on his fingers. "He's just an assembly of dead tissue."

~o~

The heavy weight of despair overtook all reason and sanity. Thunder lolled outside, heard clearly through the strong brick walls of the underground laboratory where she stood with her injured baby father, who at the present was tended to now by Francesca, who applied a rag she'd found lying around to his neck wound. The sound of one of nature's elements – and suitable enough to let her know that God was angry, angry at the monstrosity that stood before her – as she found herself slowly regaining all rational thought to the reality before her.

Previously, Meg allowed herself to be enveloped in the strong arms of Dan, trying her hardest to ignore Francesca's rants that this wasn't the Dan she knew before that horrible night and focus on letting herself become one with what Herbert had made just for her. After all this time, she would have thanked him and welcomed his breakthrough which had so utterly repulsed her in the beginning. She had begun to find herself letting go of the grief she had lived with for so long, to welcome DAN back into her life, and then they would have shown him to the world, making it better unlike what happened in Mary Shelley's novel, call it the revolution of mankind...

But no. Now she had just witnessed that Dan had tried to kill him. He tried to kill Herbert West, the man who put him together and brought him to life...he tried to kill MY Herbert, the father of my child... And now she knew that she did not want this type of being. Like Frankenstein's monster, they had created a man they could not control. Herbert had unleashed the beast on him when he kissed her and proclaimed his love for her. The Dan she knew would never try to kill another man just to win her heart.

Meg couldn't believe it; he loved her. Herbert finally told her those three simple words after all this time. She didn't know how to react, nor did she know what to say, because why hadn't she realized it before? She knew she cared about him, but to love...now that the man whom she had grown to realize was more than the emotionless, intellect machine had confessed his feelings for her, she began to truly feel that spark which she had been fighting so hard for again. And it wasn't for this...catastrophe which she could no longer take sight of.

His limbs were proportioned properly, but he stood unnaturally tall for any other human male living and breathing; despite his physically beautiful features – from bottom to top – the barely concealed sections of muscles and blood vessels allowed some blood to streak and shine the perfect regions of his body and made it difficult to conceal the fact that the many parts of him were once separate. It was nothing like her own body structure or the others' in the room.

And there was blood on his mouth, dribbling down and staining his chin. Herbert's blood. But the look on his face did the most work; it ALMOST made her change her opinion of him. Almost.

His handsome face – the face of a certain terminally ill man whom she lost earlier that day, who bore a striking resemblance to the one whose heart she loved – was of rejection and despair. "You...you made me..." he choked out, his body wracking and threatening to collapse.

"I made you!" Herbert shouted from where he now stood with Francesca. They were at the cabinet where he kept the medical supplies for Meg and himself, retrieving some gauze and bandages to stop the bleeding of his fragile neck.

What had she done; what had she gotten herself INTO? It had all been a mistake, as she'd seen from the beginning. Francesca had been trying to tell her all along, this wasn't Dan. Yes, he really DID die that night. All that had been left of him was his heart, given away after his corpse was cremated along with her father's. And I had it in me to think that his spirit would live through this one, through the heart...but there is none of him in this creature. Not one trace of my Daniel.

She couldn't look at him anymore. Meg turned away from him, to press herself against the bricked pillar there, only to hear HIS voice pleading with her. "Don't...turn away...Meg..."

Meg flinched as she felt that hand on her shoulder, resting there only a moment before closing over her shoulder and turning her around to face him. It happened so slowly and so fast at the same time; his arms held her close, simply holding and caressing her small back at the same time, the action loving and tender but also begging and desiring for her to return the affections. The heavy cloud of the dark spell that she had been under not too long ago began to overtake her again. "Don't you want me?" "Dan" asked in a small voice, like a child. He leaned in closer, his lips almost touching hers once again.

Ah, the soft, warm feel of his lips...but then the SMELL. That horrid stench of rotting flesh emitted from him. Meg felt her stomach lurch. "No," she said, lifting her palms and pressing them to his chest, pushing hard enough to send him backward. "I don't want your body."

He just stood there, unsure of what to do. The only visible emotion was the heartbreak on his face that would not leave after her rejection of him. Then he threw his head back and wailed, "Then what do you WAAAAAAAANT?!"

His voice echoed and bounced off the walls of the lab. A voice of ultimate rejection. And then he did the most dramatic, most disgusting, most horrifying thing that any other man or woman would collapse from and might never awake from again. He grasped onto the gaping side of his exposed chest muscle region with his left hand while he used his other to slip past the sternum and metallic bracing, gritting his teeth all the while – the action done not only in front of her, but also in front of Herbert and Francesca – and eventually pulled out Dan's heart, still attached to veins, arteries, and other cords necessary...and held it out for her. A literal take on the old saying "take my heart".

"Is this what you want?!"

Meg stared first at his agonized face, then at the organ, the sound of its da-lub rhythm coming at a desperate pace. Then she looked back up at him and shook her head. "That's not your heart you're giving me. That heart belonged to another I loved long ago – his name was Dan. But you're not him." The flash of lightning and another crack of thunder followed the dramatic pause that increased the heavy weight of her own heart.

"Dan's dead."

~o~

The screams of the man who had attacked and tried to kill him gave acute and added horror to Herbert for the first time in a long time, even the ghastly spin of a dance as "Dan" whirled about with Daniel Cain's heart still in his hand, screaming of a broken heart and rejected by the woman he had grown attached to but who did not return the favor, instead choosing the living man over him. It was natural that such a sound should give such a feeling, and that was exactly what Herbert was experiencing for the first time.

The door was being smashed down now, and it was time to go. Herbert knew only one other way out, and it was the hole in the wall on the other end of the lab that led into the Averill's crypt. "Come on, let's go!" he yelled as he ran over to the table and grabbed the bag in which he'd finished stuffing his notes and spared re-agent, hurrying over to the metal secured door over the bricked hole, shoving it aside with his limited strength. Looking over his shoulder, he saw that "Dan" had attempted to retaliate by grabbing Meg by the throat in an effort to kill the woman he'd pined for as an act of vengeance for breaking his heart. How mature; if she couldn't have HIM, she'd have no one, his inner self sneered.

Luckily, "Dan's" strength didn't last, for his hand that didn't hold his heart which latched around Meg's throat came loose, muscles and tissue detaching from the wrist which it had been secured. Laughing crazily, "Dan" crawled atop the table of his birth, legs drawn up beneath him, his left arm that lost its hand following suit. He's falling to pieces, LITERALLY. "Make a note of it, Meg!" Herbert yelled over the screams that ensued, as the head was next, still connected to the spinal cord which detached itself from the back of the body. "Tissue rejection!"

He didn't want to waste any more time; he turned back and began to remove the bricks more at a time so he could get his lover and their friend out of here and perhaps get away from Arkham, go somewhere else where they could continue and raise their child someplace safe. He had a feeling they would make it work...but at the same time, he wanted to straighten Meg out so she would finally know the depth of his commitment to her.

He remembered the process of creating "Dan" all too well enough than to look back and see what fell apart next. He could only imagine that the head and spinal cord finished their job, the torso following and splitting in half due to the heart being ripped out by its own hand...and finally the lower abdomen and groin area ultimately splitting in half so that "Dan" was nothing but the state he had begun: an assembly of separate parts of all the men who would never get another chance at life.

I promise this to her from now on: whole people to save, no more monsters or tinkering with parts like toys. If we ever get out of here, I'll return to the real work, just to make her happy.

However, chances of that were suddenly slim to none now, for as soon as he revealed their exit, the figure of his nemesis, Dr. Carl Hill, stood before him, in front of the crypt itself, laughing grandly. "We're back, West. And now we're going to have some fun!"

Herbert found himself once more ensnared by Leslie Chapham. "You're going into custody now, you stupid biped!" he growled into his ear, before shoving him into the catacombs, only to be swarmed and surrounded by the freaks from the old Hill house and others like them. None of these things, minus the Chaphams who swarmed in afterward, dragging in a screaming Francesca and a fighting Meg – his heart swelled with pride but was quickly overshadowed by the danger of his rejects that overshadowed him.

"Get off of me!" Herbert growled, trying to shove one of the fractionally human things off him. Hill's manic laughter could be heard over the chaos, and over the ghoulish icy wind of the crypt that had somehow found its way in, blending with the putrescent smell of the bowels of the tomb.

He found himself held prisoner against the gigantic coffin, a prisoner of war; he was the captured, corrupt leader by his own people. Ironic to compare to historical events. He managed to see that Meg had managed to bring in the machete from Peru, and was using it to chop down anything in her path, starting with Elizabeth Chapham, who was strangling Francesca with the poker she'd used to get herself and her husband into their short-lived sanctuary. The old lady took the blow deep into the chest, missing Francesca's head by several inches but enough to make Elizabeth let her go, stumbling back and collapsing against the wall. Dead. Her husband came after Meg from behind, grabbing her by the arm and trying to take the weapon from her, but he didn't stand a chance against Francesca, who had it in her to bash his head into the wall with all her might, just for her friend.

Debris was falling overhead. The crypt was going to collapse on them all. And Hill wasn't planning to let them all go; he wanted it all to end here, on this night. Himself, the tomb legions, Francesca, Meg, and the unborn baby...and Herbert himself. This was NOT how it was all supposed to end.

He looked up to the towering form of his enemy, who leered down at him like the dictator over the unfortunate souls around him on election day. "Are we having fun...yet?" He cackled.

"You're having fun!" Meg yelled, coming up behind him, ripping her long skirt in the process so it was now short at the knees. "But now I'll have my turn!" Hearing her voice, Hill spun around and caught her wrist, whirling them both around so that he pinned her on top of the coffin. She squirmed beneath him, the long blade on the verge of slipping through her fingers from the amount of pressure his hand gave her wrist. Herbert knew he had to do something, so he summoned his willpower to roar like a wild beast and throw off the latest monster holding him down.

"Get off of me, REJECT!" he bellowed, before charging up and grabbing the man off the woman he loved and toppling down the small hill of earth, wrestling until he found himself having the upper hand, and Hill was the one looking up at him.

"You won't beat me now," Hill sneered. "It's over, West. You'll never get out of here alive."

No, YOU won't make it out of here alive! It ends here for you... Before he could say those words, he felt his shoulder yanked back and away from his prize. Meg now stood over Hill with the machete still in her hand. "You started this, and I'll finish it!" she shouted, and without another word, she brought the blade down and sliced clean through the neck, severing the head for a second time. Hill's last screams were heard by his minions as they stopped their attack on the survivors and turned in horror onto their fallen leader as he was beheaded for a second time...this time by the woman whom his desires were placed on. Blood spurted from the stump and splattered over the very dress he had placed her in for this night that was supposed to be for their wedding, staining the soft ivory into a vivid red too perfect to be real blood.

Herbert stared first at the work that had been his own what felt like an eternity ago. Meg killed Hill...she found it in her to do it herself, and he imagined she loved it as much as he had done so himself once before. But now this time Hill would stay dead.

She gave the face contorted with plain and visible fear a spat as she reached and yanked off the ring he gave her, throwing it at the decapitated corpse before cracking her neck to ease the tension. "Til death do us part was right," she said, turning her face to him with a slight smile. Herbert returned it lopsided.

The moment was short-lived. There was a rumble above them. Looking up, Herbert saw the roof of the tomb begin to crack. Now was not the time for fighting these things off any longer; their survival depended on it. "Let's go!" he yelled, grabbing Meg's arm and leading her away to where the alternate escape was, to the surface. He was grateful Francesca heard him and followed. Machete now in hand, he chopped down any others in his path as he led his lover and their Italian friend up the stairs and out of the crypt just as soon as the rubble ultimately collapsed behind them, like an ancient sacred place falling into pieces just as the heroes of the epic tale escaped unscathed.

They collapsed onto the grass, gasping for air. Precious air including the aftermath smell of rain and grass – Herbert never thought he'd admit it, but he loved the purest scent of oxygen compared to the stifle of closed areas and rotting flesh filling his nostrils. He found himself falling forward, his face hitting the grass, smelling lush, clean earth instead of the putrid underground from which he and his companions escaped.

Speaking of which, he rolled over onto his side to see Francesca sitting up on her knees and gasping for air after fighting for her life beneath the earth. And that left Meg laying beside him so they were facing each other.

Even though her face was covered with dirt, her long, fair hair caked in it – sweetly compared to any light-haired fairytale princess – and the dress from Dr. Hill torn and painted with blood, she was still beautiful. So beautiful that he wanted to just claim her right here, but that would have to wait since he knew they all had had enough for one night. And he wasn't sure if he wanted her that way now that he'd just found out she was carrying his child – a secret kept from him that wounded him worse than ever. She was looking at him as though expecting him to say something, but Herbert had no idea what to say exactly.

And then her voice broke the silence.

"Why didn't you tell me you loved me before?"

He always knew that was coming. Herbert adverted his eyes to the earthy space between them, unable to look at her as he confessed. "I didn't think you would ever understand," he stated coldly. "I've always loved you, always been there for you after everything that's happened." His eyes hurt, his head hurt. His very being was crumbling as he gave it all away, feeling the eyes of Francesca on them. But all he could acknowledge was her. "But you were always so...embittered towards me and focused on Daniel only, as well as the other one who gave you this –" He reached over and grabbed her hand which still had the bedazzled band. "– and I couldn't live with knowing you didn't love me back. Because every time I look at you –" He broke off, letting her hand go, stifling sobs and partly failing. He sat up and turned his back to her. He held his face in his hands. "Every time I look at you, I saw how you were considering choosing him over me, and how you were unable to let Dan go."

~o~

Meg felt her jaw drop. From the corner of her eyes, she saw her friend watching on with a shocked expression, amazed at how such an unemotional person like Herbert West could look so destroyed as he unleashed his emotions in front of them for the first time. But Francesca was the least of her worries at the present.

I love you, Herbert. I am in love with you. I just...didn't know how to give it any thought, because I felt it wasn't right, and I wasn't sure if YOU would return it. That was what she wanted to tell him. She wanted to take him into her arms the way she did the night he told her about his mother, hold him, and tell him those words. He'd deprived himself of the love that had always existed between them despite many arguments and challenges; the hot passion that had blossomed between them was stronger than ever, but now he was more broken than ever.

And now he was telling her that her attention on two other men had ruined it all for them, that he could take it no more.

"You always talked about leaving me," Herbert went on, his voice taking a much more bitter tone. "You always did, but I couldn't let you leave. You were the first woman in my life I actually thought I could count on. You were the first companion I ever had. Well," he added, "Dan was before it was us." He shook his head. "When I found his heart, I thought the only thing to keep you from abandoning me was bringing him back to you." He turned his face to her then, but it was partially lowered so she wouldn't see his eyes. "I thought putting him together would bring us closer, and it did. But deep down, you still wanted to get away from me and everything we did."

Meg wasn't going to lie to him. "I did, especially with what you did to Angel, with Francesca in the house." She looked at her then, seeing her lips tighten at the memory.

"Chapham stuck his nose where he shouldn't," Herbert said hotly, turning to her then, partly to Francesca. "He attacked me, so he deserved it. And the mongrel was but an unfortunate accident."

Francesca exploded. "Angel was NOT an accident!"

"And I tried to give him back to you!" Herbert shouted back to her. "I tried to save his life, all for you, you ungrateful wench!" She said nothing to him then, just clenched her jaw and glared at him. Herbert returned his focus to Meg, gaze softened, but the pain was still there. His voice cracked then. "I didn't think you would understand how much I loved you, knowing the only man you ever loved was...him."

Her blood ran ice-cold. "Herbert..."

"I gave you so much I had, but what did you give me in return? Nothing but choosing other men over me whom you end up losing in the end. You chose them over the one who stayed by your side, nursed you to health all this time," he spat. "It was I who was always there for you. I was there when Dan died that night, and I most certainly was there for you today when the other Daniel gave in to his disease, helped you try to save him." He stood and left her there with Francesca, both women staring after him. He made his way through the cemetery, and Meg had the terrifying idea that he was leaving the site to turn himself in after everything.

"Please, don't go to the cops!" she cried out, realizing her mistake too late when he stopped, whipping his body around and staring at her, his infamous blank glare returned.

"I'm not stupid to go to them. I'm going to the lab and cleaning the mess up myself. I don't expect you to join me; I can do this myself if that's what you want. You never enjoyed yourself as my assistant any better than Dan did. You never see eye-to-eye with me. You can remain here for now, but I'm giving you the opportunity to go away from here if you still want to, bring the baby up somewhere safe from here." His eyes hardened more than before. "Which I also can't believe you would hide from me until now. This baby is the start of the life you always wanted, which I don't believe I can give you ever."

Meg felt her body give way and fall into Francesca's expecting arms. He watched her for a few more moments before leaving her alone to release her cries in her friend's embrace. Francesca's soft coos and massaging her back didn't calm her as much as the other woman wanted her to feel. Herbert's cold, cruel words still rang in her ears: "I gave you so much of what I have, and what did you give me in return? Nothing but choosing other men over me whom you end up losing in the end. You chose them over the one who stayed by your side, nursed you to health all this time."

I know what I gave him, she thought brokenly. I gave my assistance but not the affection he really wanted. He saved my life from the plague and Peru, I was there for him when he finally told me about his mother and Dr. Gruber...all he wanted was a companion, someone who boosted his ego and genius, and made him feel like he was special. But now he sees me no better than anyone else who downgraded him. He might be the most intelligent, brilliant man I've ever known, but his emotional IQ is no different than an adolescent. I'm having his baby and didn't tell him sooner, which makes it worse.

This was the ultimate rejection, no different than when she rejected "Dan's" love and sided with Herbert, now that she knew how it felt.

"I'm so sorry," she sobbed to Francesca, who shushed her softly, but she wouldn't stop. "I didn't give him the love he wanted from me, and it's worse than ever. Because I didn't move on from Dan. And because I kept the baby a secret from him."

"I've had my share of bad relationships," Francesca said softly. "But not like this. That doesn't mean I don't know how you're feeling." She pulled back to look Meg in the eyes. "But I believe this is worth fighting for."

Meg didn't have to ask for further assistance; she knew exactly what her friend was trying to tell her to do. She loved Herbert more than anything. Now her decision had been made. She would NEVER leave him, not for a thousand years. She would not let him slip away as he had done the same to her. She would go to him and fix this once and for all, screw him for not wanting to see her now.

References from parts four and six of the original "Herbert West - Re-Animator" story. :) Plus here's a shout-out to Meg for going "Resident Evil" on Hill's ass. XD

Uh-oh, the lovers are in trouble now. Now that Herbert's finally gotten his love for Meg, the mother of his child, out of his chest, he's more broken than ever, and now what will Meg do to patch it up? He's so fragile and easily offended, and I know what that's like. That was hard to write both emotionally and literally because I wanted it believable.