Perhaps it was naive of him to believe that somehow this skeleton of a girl would make a miraculous recovery in the motel room of a small town in rural Vermont, but nevertheless he'd expected something more than what really happened. Lydia never had understood where Brennan had gotten his optimism, considering his background, but she pitied him for it constantly, and warned him against its dangers.

So yeah, he was naive and wholly unready for a reality check.

Despite cranking the heater up on the dash of Rebecca's car, and finding his own cheeks flushed and warm, the grey-ish pallor to the girl's skin refused to brighten up. Her skin was cool, smooth, slack. He sat with her in the back, her head in his lap, her unwashed hair splayed out around her head, falling limply where it could. They had layered her in blankets too numerous to count, but Brennan wasn't sure it would be enough.

There was a strange rattle to her breathing, and if nothing else, Brennan knew to be wary of it. At least she was still breathing. Half an hour into the drive he realized that he hadn't removed his fingers from the pulse points in her wrist and her neck. He was reminded with a moment of shock how easily he had fallen into this routine, had immediately taken up the responsibility of caring for her.

Like everything else about this, whatever this was, it was endlessly strange. Surreal.

And the battle hadn't ended with bringing her core temperature up, enduring stifling heat and stuffy air in the car and the eventual motel room- the next problem was hydration. Luckily, Rebecca knew what she was doing, and had procured IV bags of saline and something else that she efficiently set up without a moment's hesitation.

Brennan had sat back, having finally let go of the young girl, and stared. He couldn't even begin to wrap his head around what he'd gotten himself into. When Rebecca stood back, and mirrored Brennan in his breathless stunned vigil, he blinked and spoke.

"I think," he said. "You owe me that explanation now."

At first, he wasn't sure that she had heard. After all, she showed no sign of recognizing his presence in the room. But eventually she took a seat on the edge of the wooden desk in the corner of the room and crossed her arms over her chest, her soft eyes still carefully placed on the girl tucked carefully into the double bed.

"It's a long story," she said.

"The way I see it," he replied. "We've got all the time in the world."

She smiled, though it didn't reach her eyes, and sighed. "I guess we do."

Brennan waited patiently, studiously keeping his gaze on the doctor, and not the sickeningly weak girl in the room. His growing sense of helplessness wasn't going to make any of this any better.

"Humor me," he prompted.

"Her name," Rebecca said, lifting her eyes. "Her name is Stephanie Armstrong."

***

At first, it wasn't so bad. They didn't treat her any better than an animal used for testing, leaving her trapped, alone, unsure, but they didn't treat her any worse, either. All things considered, their measured wariness was the least of what Stephanie could have expected.

Quickly, a routine was established, and Stephanie clung onto it like a lifeline. It grounded her. When the lights turned on, it was morning, though Stephanie didn't know exactly what time that was. When they finally flicked off, the sun had set and the workers disappeared from her space, ceasing to exist within her walls of control.

There were no windows.

It was the one thing that Stephanie regretted. Funny, though, wasn't it? That in this world that Stephanie had stepped in to, she was grateful for the things she had, though she should have been free to have them anyway. All things considered, it was a small price to pay for what she had caused.

There were much worse fates she could have fallen prey to.

The first few days she spent tucked in a corner, her heart beating against her ribs and her head very slowly letting go of the idea of splitting in half. During those days, they woke her every hour, no doubt checking to see if she was still alive. Checking to see if she'd suffered any side effects after having her skull cracked against a banister by a murderer.

They allowed her space, respected her boundaries. They didn't breach the door that separated her and the shapeless, faceless world beyond. Somewhere between being thrown, kicking and screaming, into this new reality and the first time that someone set foot into her world- white, quiet- Stephanie had let go.

When she woke, the front of the room was transparent.

It was a window, in its own right, but only yielded more white walls. Stephanie's heart jack hammered in her chest, and from her finally stretched out position on the small, metal-framed bed, she brought her knees to her chest. A small noise of fright broke the confines of her throat and she clamped a hand over her mouth.

A woman, her brown hair catching the fluorescent lighting so that it seemed almost a copper tint of red, noticed her first. Stephanie couldn't help but stare as she approached the glass separating them. Pulling up a metal chair, she sat down and just stared back.

Stephanie's shaking hand fell away from her face, but she couldn't form any words. Was this a joke? This pale-skinned, hazel-eyed woman couldn't have even been more than twenty-five, if Stephanie squinted. She definitely didn't fit the profile of the ruthless scientists Stephanie had conjured up in her mind.

"How's your head?" The woman asked.

Stephanie could detect sincere compassion in that voice. Yet, how was that possible? Bitterness bit out the words before Stephanie could stop them.

"Who the hell are you?"

The woman blinked, with those ridiculous lashes that made her look like the human version of Bambi.

"Rebecca," she said.

Stephanie found that she couldn't reach the words to respond to that. Right then, she realized one of the reasons Caroline had hated her. Those plain as day answers blunt and to the point made conversation infuriating, impossible to tolerate. Too bad it had taken her this long to realize it. By avoiding conflict, she had created it- or at least helped it along to some degree.

"What's your name?" Rebecca asked.

It wasn't the most complicated question Stephanie had ever been asked, but she had been struck dumb by the humanity of the conversation. "What?" Stephanie snarled. "You here to make friends with me? Make me want to be your lab rat?"

Rebecca pursed her lips, the only burst of color in the bare rooms. "That's a bit harsh."

"Is it?" Stephanie shot back. "Forgive me for my unfair judgment, then."

"You're displacing your anger on to me. It's understandable considering the situation."

The anger coiled in Stephanie's stomach released as she stared blankly at the girl in the lab coat sitting on the other side of the glass. "They've sent you to psychoanalyze me?"

"Technically, yes."

"But?" she asked. "You want to be my friend, you have my best interests at heart?"

"No, I'm just curious."

"My name," she growled, harnessing her anger into her words. "My name is Stephanie Armstrong."

***

At some point in the night, after briefly dozing off, Brennan awoke to silence. It wasn't much of a change, to be honest, but only meant that the heater had switched off automatically. The television was still on, muted pictures gliding across the screen. Instinctively, his eyes roamed through the shadow cast figures in the room to light on the slack face of Stephanie Armstrong.

He wasn't sure if it was a trick of the light, but her cheeks looked flushed with blood. Climbing out of bed and careful not to disturb Rebecca, he felt Stephanie's forehead with the back of her hand. He'd expected warmth, but not this awful heat radiating off of her.

"Oh come on," he whispered.

Now that he was listening harder, the rattle was still there, hitching in her chest like she was struggling to breathe in the free air in the room.

"Where's the thermometer?" he asked himself as he stumbled around, keeping his heart rate controlled through deep breaths.

Having found it, he removed the cap and placed it inside her mouth, holding it there until it beeped. The digital numbers there were nowhere near as encouraging as they should have been.

"Rebecca," he said, having dropped all pretenses of calm and quiet.

She was up in a moment, snatching the thermometer from him and shaking her head. "Run the bath with cold water," she said.

Brennan did as he was told, no questions asked. He was undoubtedly awake now, if he hadn't been before. The cold tile under his feet sent a shock through him, though the cool air and cold water would do the ailing werewolf far more good than it would him. Before the tub was even half full, Rebecca had called him and he returned to the main room.

"Help me get her up," Rebecca commanded.

She had already sat her up, having removed the IV snaking into her veins. Brennan slipped his arms around Stephanie's shoulders over the other side and hooked her legs over his other bicep. The girl seemed to weigh next to nothing, but that could have just been the adrenaline pulsing through his body.

Still clothed in white scrubs, Brennan lowered her into the cold water, making sure as much of her was submerged as possible with the exception of her head, carefully held above the surface. On the edge of the bathtub, thermometer and watch in hand, they spent the rest of the night watching and hoping for the fever to break, at best, and lower, at the very least.

Under the harsh fluorescent lighting of the bathroom, Brennan sighed, blinking fatigue out of his eyes as he kept a hold of Stephanie's head.

"So," he began.

Rebecca looked up from where she had reinserted the IV broad-spectrum antibiotics she had produced out of the back of her car. "I suspected that she had bacterial pneumonia," she interrupted. "It wouldn't be difficult to catch, in that kind of cold, with an immune system that weak."

Brennan nodded. "She gonna be okay?"

Rebecca shrugged, the bags under her eyes evident, the slump in her shoulders defined. "I hope so," she muttered.

"Any change so far?"

"Nope."

Brennan looked around the small bathroom, crammed full of three people it had never been meant to hold. "Where'd you get all this stuff, anyway?"

Rebecca pressed her fingers into Stephanie's left wrist, counting mentally the beats that passed under her fingertips. "The Facility was stocked with it. Had to be. Secluded like that, anyone could get sick and we had to be able to deal with that."

It made a whole lot of mundane sense, but that wasn't really what Brennan wanted to make sense of. This strange accessibility to a makeshift clinic wasn't what bothered him, if anything he was grateful for its presence. "What did you guys do in there, anyway? What was the point?"

Rebecca pursed her lips, refusing to look up. "Research, mostly."

"You know," Brennan mused. "It wouldn't kill you to have a conversation, nothing's changing right now."

"Yeah, I know that," she growled. "But I don't have to explain myself to you."

At that, Brennan felt his whole body tense. "Oh yeah? Considering the position we're in, I figure you owe me a little explanation to fill the awkward silence of listening to a girl fight for her life."

"Fine," she bit out, taking a moment to still herself and explain. "It really was just research. An opportunity to be at the forefront of something big. The possibilities were endless..."

***

It started out harmless enough. Boring, even. It was just analysis, mapping. Endless blood tests, measurements, days and days of being alone while they practically salivated over her x-rays, cat scans, MRIs, searched with a vengeance for key differences in the anatomical structure of humans and werewolf. She heard one of the doctors talking about an undertaking similar to the Human Genome Project in another facility.

Another one, she'd thought. With more captives moving through this separate existence.

For a time, the thought was almost comforting.

It took a long time for this phase to end, for her body to be completely catalogued in its humanoid entirety. And during the shift, they watched, detached, every full moon as she twisted and contorted, in agony as the moon's rays were not present on her skin, tearing her apart until she settled into her new form and lost control entirely, pacing restlessly for the rest of the night.

They fed her, they allowed her basic things, but they kept their distance, and she never saw another of her kind, though she knew there had to be more than just her. She had resisted and railed against them, using strength and wit and spite to fuel her, but they didn't react much. The only one who took any interest in her personality was Rebecca Powell, and she was as clinically detached as the rest of them, only doing her job.

And then came the endurance, speed, strength, intelligence tests, and Stephanie had been able to fool herself into thinking that she was fine. She'd felt so much better being able to run, to do something other than sit in her cell or be studied. The fatigue she felt in her muscles after days and days of this was only a bonus. She felt rested and well.

And after that phase was over, reality hit hard.

Pain tolerance tests, immune responses, ability to cope with hunger, without sleep, without water.

There were spaces of time where they'd let her have a break and rest before starting the next test, a period long enough for her to recover and assimilate. And then it would start all over again.

Each time, she was no longer sure she knew anything beyond the Facility. She stopped trying to remember what had once been important to her. There wasn't any way out. That knowledge alone was what broke her.

***

"We're down to 102.1 from 104.3," Rebecca announced, waving the thermometer in the air.

Brennan started, sitting up. His back ached, his muscles were cramped. His wrist smarted violently from holding the weight of his head as he dozed off sitting on the side of the bathtub. "How long has it been?" he asked.

"Two, three hours," she said. "Now help me get her out, this water's gotten a little warm anyway."

Brennan rolled his neck and yawned, standing and bracing himself before he hooked his arms under her armpits and lifted her upright out of the water. Rivulets of lukewarm water slid off of her and back into the tub as it drained. They dried her off, Brennan careful to keep his eyes averted as Rebecca took off her drenched clothes and got her dressed in some second hand clothes from the store down the road.

Once she was dry and clothed, they settled her back into bed. Brennan was surprised to see that her flesh was swelling, the onslaught of fluids intravenously entering her body collecting rapidly.

"That's to be expected," Rebecca said. "But her body will absorb it soon enough."

Brennan nodded and thanked whoever was out there for lowering the temperature of her awful fever, and for letting her get this far under the amateur care of Rebecca Powell and Brennan Hartley.

The sun was nowhere near gracing the earth's land, as it was only 2am. It felt like it had been a lifetime.

"It's your turn," Rebecca said, taking a seat on the edge of the other bed in the room.

"My turn to what?" He asked, blinking tiredly.

"Tell me something awful," she said. "I've had to tell you."

Brennan grinned ruefully, scratching behind his ear uncertainly. "Something awful?"

Something in Rebecca's exhausted eyes softened, taking the spite out of her poorly aimed words. She gestured vaguely to his bare arms where he'd taken off his flannel shirt to prevent it from getting soaked. It took him a second to realize what she was looking at, and then it came to him all at once.

"Oh," he said.

"You don't have to."

It was a reaction he expected, but not from this outspoken woman who had not thought of how he would react to any of her brash words so far. Then again, the scars tended to make everyone nervous, skittish. They were scary, had once been terrifying to Brennan himself, the puckered scars dragged lengthways up his forearms, his wrists.

He shrugged. "That was a long time ago," he settled on eventually. "But you should get some sleep, I don't know how long we'll be able to catch any rest."

She stared at him for a moment more, then nodded and flopped down on her side, settling quickly. It looked like she had already fallen asleep, but Brennan knew better. He laid down himself and tried to surrender to sleep.

But since she had mentioned it, he could swear the scars were tingling, reminding him of their presence.