Heather Phillips was a really interesting character to do; Howard Phillips was said to be an okay character, that he and West had ZERO chemistry, and that the man himself was nothing without his trusty sidekick Dan Cain. I have mixed feelings. But I also believe with the reverse gender for him while keeping the same personality and the likes of the same character, I think Heather and Herbert make a fabulous pairing, because my boyfriend loves them. :D

Chapter Two

The New Doctor

Dr. Heather Phillips thought she'd be nervous on her first day of the job when she arrived at the Arkham State Penitentiary, but upon setting foot in the high-security prison – everything from the high ceilings and several levels of iron-grated staircases, as well as guards everywhere – she thought, Oh, my, the Warden must really be devoted on keeping these men locked up. I don't think that, with his establishments, any of the inmates would come onto me. But so many of them are rapists, and murderers/rapists.

Going to medical school hadn't been an easy ride for her no matter how hard she worked; her mentor and best friend had helped her through it all, but it hadn't been easy for him either, being all this time at the same place for her duration just to help her get through it all. He and his family had last month relocated to Boston before she graduated, returning only for her ceremony and acceptance of her scholarship and diploma. She didn't have any friends in school; her only friend from childhood had gone off to NYU to pursue a career in fashion. She never had a boyfriend because she thought it would distract her from her studies.

And her parents...she hadn't spoken to them since she left for college. After Emily died, they did blame her for her death, for not saving her, and it was so unfair. Dan Cain, whom she met that night, had been her first and only real friend since then, as well as his then-girlfriend Francesca, helping her through this process and telling her his story which she remembered him breaking down over, calling himself disgusting for even beginning this. Heather Phillips had been too young to understand then – she couldn't understand much of anything at that age – but more years and more research on this, and this topic of death she still questioned to this day...

Heather felt a little out of place, or maybe she was worried how Warden Brando would take the sight of her if they ever spoke. She wore her long blonde hair down, the curls shining and sans split ends, her jacket navy blue over a light blue blouse tucked into tight tan pants and black flats. She kept her jewelry to a minimum of her everyday style; her birthstone was the December topaz, so her necklace was a medallion form set with those beautiful water-colored stones that also matched her eyes. Around her right middle finger was a ring intricately detailed, double metal set with five shimmering diamonds. Maybe with the way I look, the Warden will see me as an outsider incapable of handling his prisoners. Well, I'll show him. She snorted as she stood before the gated entrance, waiting permission to be let in. While she did, she held her black bag close to her and looked around her new workplace that wasn't Miskatonic.

The men walking free from their cells while still under the watchful eyes of the guards all wore light blue jumpsuits and numbers on their left breast pockets, all of them ranging from ethnicity, not that she was racist or anything. Heather assumed they were left to roam free for awhile before being drilled back to their cells, and then her eyes caught the sight of one man in particular. The one she'd called the Warden and made a request to work with in the infirmary due to understaff reasons, but he couldn't know her real reasons at all. The one whom the police blamed and the law tried covering up the truth behind the Miskatonic Massacre.

Dr. Herbert West.

He didn't look like he changed much in the last thirteen years from the view she'd seen him in the police car that night Emily was killed by that "thing", or from the pictures and articles she still collected. His hair was dark as the night sky, the glasses still wide on his face which was sterner than she remembered, but he hardly showed the usual signs of age, such as lines and wrinkles. Dr. West looked young and old at the same time, but for how much longer? She couldn't help but think of how...attractive that was, because how often do you see someone looking good despite their older age?

He stopped where he was, looking in the direction an inmate had gone, whom Heather had seen...what, antagonizing him? What was this, the classic big guy picking on the guy with glasses stereotype? Well, it's prison, and that's what these guys do, roughen each other up. The guards just stand by and watch for their own amusement.

At the same time the doors finally opened for her, West had pulled out a pink paper from his shirt pocket and opened it, turning behind him to go for the iron door behind him, showing the paper to the guard there, who let him in with a nod. That must be the clinic, Heather thought as she started for it, her confidence rising, only to be stopped by a man in a tan and badged sergeant's garb. His tag read H. Moncho. He looked her up and down with an unreadable but not welcoming look. "Are you the new doctor?"

Dumbass, not looking at my tag. Nevertheless, she put on a forced smile. "I am. Is that the way to the clinic?" She nodded past his shoulder.

"Warden wants to see you first."

He led her a long distance down the hallway and through an opened doorway where the light barely shone through barred windows, and another gated staircase leading down another level or two; this place was huge. Much bigger than Heather imagined. And from her little research on prisons, this was the...Death House she was heading with the sergeant to. "In the movies, they call this the Death House," she said awkwardly, slapping herself mentally for her stupidity, but she had to at least attempt some small talk. "But you guys wouldn't call it that, would you?"

Moncho stopped at the top of the stairs and turned to her. "Yes, Doctor, we call it the Death House."

They were now walking down the stairs where she saw half-squared areas and cells of prisoners in orange jumpsuits, different from those upstairs. "So all of these prisoners are condemned to death," she stated, receiving a nod of silence in return. He must not be one to engage in any small talk, she realized, so she said no more and he no more to her, until they came to a darkened, isolated room where she could hear voices.

"Don't talk until he talks to you first."

Heather nodded mutely, glaring back at him, already knowing he was one of those whom she wouldn't like while she was here. But the Warden?

Already, she could make out his voice as she began her walk through the small, dark hallway illuminated and ending with an opened hallway. "Seventy-three percent of the inmates here are sex criminals. As a woman, that should repulse you."

"Well, it's very disturbing to me as a person," another voice answered. Female! Heather realized, surprised. Is this a bad time, after all? "But as a reporter, it's a very interesting statistic."

"Good answer, Laura." Standing finally around the corner of the doorway but remaining hidden from view, Heather saw the Warden...right in front of the electrical chair for execution. Which all the men in the cells outside awaited for. It made her shiver. The Warden was in a plain tan suit not even lighting up this dreary place, his tie striped with dull, dark colors. His face and hair weren't even kempt; his hair was graying and in spiky quills from apparent lack of care, and his thick mustache the same, almost resembling her father's. He was walking on a cane that he seemed to be doing just fine without, needing it only for show. "Can I call you, Laura?" he asked politely.

"Certainly." The other person was a young, blonde woman of around Heather's age, her hair in a bun behind her head with loose, spiky strands falling out. She wore a white blouse and a knee-length brown skirt with wedged heels, holding a clipboard and notebook in hand as she took notes. She pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. "So, you don't believe in rehabilitation?"

The Warden laughed and walked behind the menacing electric chair. "Oh, don't be naïve, Laura. I believe in what works." He now stood before none other than the generator for the execution seat, placing a hand on the lever and running his palm smoothly in an almost loving gesture which chilled Heather's nerves. "Two thousand volts of raw power from a stand alone generator...this works. When a man sits in it – and I make every new prisoner sit in it – they submit to my power."

He'd been moving slowly, deliberately in front of...Laura, was it? He'd been moving slowly while tapping his cane two, three times in a single drop each time to the floor, keeping his eyes on her in a way that Heather was sure could be classified as perverted. She could see that Laura was getting uncomfortable, but instead she settled on saying, "Fascinating." It sounded like she was stumbling for a way to get herself out of here and fast. She must be a reporter or something if she's here at a place like this, asking him all these questions, carrying that notebook around.

And the way the Warden was looking at her... "Aw, you're just saying that." That drawl, oh God, Heather knew she had to do something now. She cleared her throat, stepping out from her hiding place and getting both their attentions. Warden Brando gave her an inquisitive glance and moved from Laura.

"Dr. Phillips, I presume?"

"Yes, sir. Heather Phillips." She smiled and extended her hand to greet his. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Warden Brando."

He looked her over the same way Moncho did. "Doctor, you graduated in the top five percent of your class. You could have had your pick of the jobs. What are you doing here?"

Heather gulped under the pressure of the question and was surprised when she half-lied smoothly, not wishing to give away her real reason why she was here. Dr. West holds the key to resurrecting the dead; Emily died, and I...I want her alive again if possible. I don't know much about this stuff, but I know he can help me, and maybe we can defeat death together. "Well, I'm interested in institutional medicine."

He looked surprised. "Really?"

"Well, yeah."

"Hi!" The other woman, Laura, walked up to her and offered her hand. For the first time, Heather detected an accent. She was a foreigner, maybe English. "I'm Laura Olney. I'm with the Arkham Record. And anything you say to me can and will be misquoted or taken out of context."

Heather smiled at her then, for real this time, because this woman she felt more at ease with than with the Warden, her new employer. She hadn't spoken to very many reporters, and Francesca Danelli-Cain was a journalist. "Well, in that case, let me just say...hi."

"Hi," Laura answered back, laughing with her, both forgetting about the Warden until his cane slapped the side of Heather's medical bag, glaring down at it, his faux politeness forgotten.

"We have a fully equipped medical facility here," he said coldly.

She had to be careful to not offend him and probably lose her job so soon; she certainly didn't come a long way for nothing. "Yeah, I'm sure you do, sir, but these are mine."

"Do all doctors have such a personal relationship with their...tools?" Laura's question was meant to be teasing; to Brando, it seemed like a misunderstood, inappropriate one, and Heather suddenly felt in an awkward position, so she cleared her throat once more to get his attention. He didn't like it when she did that.

"Doctor..." He changed the subject. "...you made a request to have a particular inmate working with you in the infirmary."

"I believe we're understaffed, and he does have a medical background." And the secret of life and death.

The look he was giving her seemed like he didn't believe her, that he suspected more under the surface, and she inwardly trembled. But then he said, "Keep an eye on him." Heather frowned at him, her brows furrowed.

"Sir?" she questioned.

"He thinks he's smarter than everyone else, but he's not." How dare he say such a thing; a man like Herbert West, convicted of first degree murder and experimentation on human body parts "for his own amusement" had more of an IQ than any man she could ever think of. But Dan, her mentor and best friend, who testified against him...

"It's an attitude which can infect others."

Heather raised an eyebrow. "Infect?" Did he change on her again because he didn't like talking about a certain topic? She was starting to think she'd dislike him more than Sergeant Moncho out there.

"An idea can be like a disease. If you're treating a patient and you discover a minor anomaly, do you ignore it? No, Doctor, no. You have to cut it out."

She remembered Laura asking him if he didn't believe in rehabilitation, so now Heather was starting to think the answer was yes. No matter him saying "what works"; he was sick as it was. Already she was thinking maybe this was a bad idea after all...no, don't think that. Don't think back to what Dan told you. "Some growths are benign," Heather tried to plea, keeping calm, but the Warden was so much better and standing his superior ground.

"Not in these walls."

Damn, he's so sure of himself. I don't think he's as smart as he appears. I think maybe he failed at life that he has to be the main bully over others, that he takes his sick pleasure by dishing out punishments to amuse himself more than the guards he orders...

"Excuse me, sir!" Moncho stood there behind them. "There's a situation."

He brought her out to the courtyard where the other inmates were gathering in a crowd, parting when someone shouted, "It's the doctor!" Heather held the front of her jacket closed as she ran with her bag in one hand and then dropped beside the man who lay on the ground, writhing. Heart attack, she realized as she kneeled over him, only for him to grab her by the forearms and pull her closer so she smelled his rotten breath and flinched at his equally rotten teeth. He was old, though not elder, bald with the side of his head heavily bruised.

"Forgive me, Mother, for I have sinned. Hear my confession." His voice was whining like a wet dog, drowned out by a squeak belonging to a rat. Heather tried her best to remain calm as she tried to get him situated.

"Just calm down."

The man wasn't listening to her, rambling suddenly like a random delusional; whatever his reasons for being in here, she didn't know, but based on his "confession": "The blood, the flesh...the beating heart." Deranged laughter followed. "I had to eat it...I had to eat it." He was a cannibal; a cannibal who...found God? Why else would he –?

But then he stopped breathing and moving altogether. Heather panicked; first day on the job and she had her first patient she had to tend to right away without delay. "Get the drop cloth!" she shouted to one of the guards. "Let's get him to the infirmary!"

~o~

Being in the infirmary was his sanctuary from every other place in the prison. But Herbert had been here all this time waiting for the new doctor to arrive with Nurse Vanessa Bell, the little Spanish-accented bimbo of this place, and his patience was wearing thin. She should be here by now, but Brando must be keeping her busy with interrogation. He allowed the ghost of a smile to grace his lips. I pity her if she crumbles under the pressure, but then again I hope she makes it through...

Just then his patience paid off when he turned at the sound of the doors opening. In swarmed Moncho, two of his men, Nurse Vanessa...and a young woman carrying a body in a blanket over to the operating table, the new doctor shouting at the nurse to set the IV. The guards stood by and watched with bored but still alert expressions. Vanessa set up the IV, but slowly. "Hurry up!"

"Yes, Doctor."

Herbert stiffened but still took a couple slow steps forward. He dismissed the idea of a woman working beside him right away because sex didn't matter with any profession for him; all he was concerned with was whether they could do it or not. Looking at her closely, she tore off her jacket and jumped onto the table beside the body of the old man – Moses. Should have guessed the flesh-craving parasite would have a heart attack eventually. But the cannibalistic serial killer was of little concern to him; Dr. Phillips had an air of determination as she pumped his chest with CPR as the nurse struggled to get the IV ready and faced another order from the "new girl". "Get me some amiodarone."

"What?" Vanessa looked up with wide eyes. Herbert rolled his eyes. Little fool, doesn't know what helps life-threatening heart rhythms.

Phillips gave her a look of sheer disbelief that she didn't know what she was talking about. "Amiodarone," she repeated, softer but still audible and calm.

"W-we don't have any a-amiodarone."

"What do you mean, you 'don't have it'?"

"It didn't come in."

"Well, what do you have then?" The nurse struggled to answer, obviously not sure how to answer since she was only to do as she was told, not be such a brain of her own will. "What do you got? Come on, Nurse!" Phillips shouted.

West decided he'd had enough of this. "Try Sotalol. It has a similar effect." Keeps the heart beating at a normal pace, regulates blood flow through the arteries and veins.

The nurse looked back and forth between Dr. Phillips and him, unable to make her mind up. "Go get it!" Phillips ordered, and then she ran into the other room to prepare a syringe. While they waited, Herbert found a little more time to analyze his new "coworker". Her long blonde hair spiraled over one shoulder, her skin a pale ivory, and her eyes were a blue that reminded him of a certain "heart donor" who he disliked the moment he first walked into Daniel Cain's home. She was breathing heavily when she continued to pound into Moses' chest; Herbert had a feeling he'd seen her somewhere but couldn't figure out where or when. And she had the tremendous amount of dedication he'd seen in one person before.

"Come on, Nurse!" Phillips shouted, getting Vanessa back into the room, but she struggled to get the needle into the catheter.

"I can't get it in..." she protested weakly, and the young doctor lost it then. She turned her attention to Herbert and surprised him right away.

"Doctor! Could you help her, please?"

He wondered how she knew he was a doctor, not that it mattered now. He moved towards the nurse and startled her when he offered his hand out to her and took the syringe and tube into his hand, inserting the needle. Dr. Phillips was suddenly barking to Moncho and his men, making him smile to himself. So she's not as...naïve as I thought. "Nurse, get these guys out of the way. Get these men outside."

"Come on; everybody out! Come on, out!" Vanessa ushered them out like they were dogs that she owned, and Herbert wanted to laugh.

"And stay out there with them!" Phillips was charging the paddles when she made the command.

Vanessa looked shocked again. "But Doctor –"

"Just stay out there with them!" And feisty, Herbert added in his mind, lips pursed tightly. Already he was admiring this in her despite bad experiences with other women in the past. But that also meant he met his match. "Clear!" She shocked Moses' body, but no response save for the usual flop of the aftermath. Herbert knew it long before the procedure was attempted: Moses was already dead.

"You're wasting your time," he told the doctor, dropping the empty syringe beside the cannibal's corpse.

She looked at him briefly, but she didn't give up, as he knew she wouldn't. "Clear!" A second time, still nothing. "COME ON!" she shouted in frustration. "CLEAR!" Third time should have been the charm, but no. Herbert looked her on, allowing a half-smile to show to himself but not to her.

"He was dead before you brought him in here."

She put the charges back where they were not long before she slammed her palm flat on the side of the table. "GODDAMN IT!" My, she has quite the temper. But this isn't her merely losing her temper. Looking more closely, this was absolute despair at failing to save a life. Heather Phillips actually cared about saving a life no matter who it was, and that was a weakness. This was a psychopath she'd lost, and Moses had it mercifully done since he was serving a sentence no different than he.

Phillips' voice was softer now, slow with her breathing, but he still heard her. "He was my patient."

"For five minutes," Herbert stated plainly, tilting his head to the side. "So you're the new doctor?" He didn't need to receive an answer now with her state of being; she was working to get herself back under control. He remembered this all too well in Cain, so the more he thought about it, the more he began to think that...hold, he couldn't go there until he had absolute proof. Only a hunch, but safe to say that Cain had to have instilled his teachings into her. Thinking that and gritting his teeth together, he reached into his breast pocket and pulled out the paper, laying it across Moses' chest for her eyes. "What is the meaning of this?" he demanded.

Phillips looked up at him then, her labored breaths lessening, and her sapphire orbs were filled with a fire that burned higher than before...but he also detected an honest truth. The only sound in the room was the beeping of the flat lined EKG machine before she finally spoke.

"Dr. Herbert West. I know all about you."

Herbert narrowed his eyes at her. "Oh, really?"

"I know what you did," she continued, voice nearly devoid of breath now and slightly rushed. "They tried to cover it all up...your experiments..."

He turned his attention down to the floor. Of course she'd be one of those sheep to believe everything she heard and read without seeing for herself, and his experiments had been labeled as "life-like animation", called a hoax like the fools in Switzerland when Dr. Gruber died. "Don't believe everything you hear."

"I didn't hear it, Doctor," Phillips returned, though not offended. "I saw it."

He slowly raised his head back to her, hidden surprise swelling in him. She saw me, he repeated in his head. She saw me, but how? He was about to ask when she was there before him. "That night they arrested you...I was that kid."

Herbert's memory clicked back to the night of everything he'd lost: the trust of Cain, all his years of hard work, and finally apprehended by authorities...not long after seeing a blonde-haired young girl watching him get shoved into the back of the car, and his only surviving syringe of re-agent at her feet. And now, thirteen years later, here was the new doctor, Heather Phillips, standing in front of him over a heart-attack victim, having requested that Herbert assist her...and she was that girl all those years ago. He studied her more then, seeing that she'd become a...remarkable creature, not that those things mattered to him, but her soft hair had grown past her shoulders in waves, but her face narrowed from the soft roundness of youth; matured, dedicated, and passionate.

She held up one finger as though to silently tell him to wait one second before turning around to sort through her bag for something. While he watched her back, Herbert remembered that night once more. One of his freaks had escaped the crypt somehow and broke into one of the neighboring houses near the cemetery, killing a teenage girl in the process, which added to his list of "murders"; that girl had been the sister of the young one who saw him taken away to the fate waiting for him in prison. So what is Dr. Phillips here for then, hm? Revenge for the death of her dear sister?

She turned around once again, and that assumption died right away. In her hand was a familiar needle filled with a green serum he had not seen in over a decade: my re-agent.

Now we're getting deeper. :) There isn't enough "Beyond" fics out there besides two or three that I know of, so here you all go.