Consciousness returned suddenly to Anna, the overwhelming terror and agony still fresh in her mind.

Her first instinct was to get away and hide, but after several seconds she realised she was unable to move and her fear jumped to a new high. Her entire body felt numb and the thought that he had left her paralysed was even more dreadful than being dead.

Her paralysis was not complete though, and she found the simple sensation of breathing reassuring, telling her that something still worked. But it felt strange at the same time, almost automatic in its regularity, and a little frightening that she had no control over it.

As the seconds turned into minutes, her terror that Julian could return at any moment to finish her off faded, to be replaced by a cold fear of being trapped in her paralysed body forever. Her eyes were closed and it was frightening not to be able to open them, reducing her senses to her hearing and the glow through her eyelids.

"Anna," said a familiar voice from close by. Relief flooded through her as she realized Guy was there; she knew he was her captor but she felt safer with him there to keep Julian away.

"I know you can hear me. Try not to worry; you'll be free in a few minutes." Anna felt him brush his hand over her cheek, the touch surprisingly tender, like he was touching a lover instead of his prisoner.

"The paralysis is just so you can't feel the pain, and it's only temporary until I can heal you. It's� been a while since I tried to heal someone�"

If Anna hadn't been panicking as she imagined what Julian had done to her, she would have heard the emotion with which he spoke. Sitting on a chair next to the bed, he stared at her face with eyes lost in the past, seeing a different girl lying on the bed with a blanket draped over her. He always remembered her from that morning; her face and the enthusiasm in it for the day ahead. If only they had known�

Guy shook his head, dispersing the dream and focusing on reality; Anna needed him, and this was something he could do. It would be hard with his injury, but it was his fault she was hurt and he was determined to heal her.

Standing up, he pulled back the sheet covering her, wincing at the bruises that began just below her swollen breasts and grew worse the lower he looked. He had managed to stop Julian before he had reached her pelvis but by then her legs were already broken. Guy found it hard to look at them, their slender beauty reduced to two pulverised masses of bruising. Julian had broken every bone like a child would break a stick, snapping it piece by piece until there was nothing big enough to break anymore.

Sitting himself down on the side of the bed, he felt his anger burn as he stripped off his shirt and placed his hands on her left thigh. Julian's acts of cruelty had to stop, and the only way to do it was to kill him. Guy no longer cared how powerful a weapon the man was or how much effort had gone into creating him; this time he had gone too far.

"I'm going to start now," he informed her, sounding more confident than he felt. It was going to take a lot of strength and experience to heal her, and he didn't have much of either.

Taking a deep breath, Guy focused inward and summoned the familiar warmth within. Immediately the injury across his belly began to throb painfully, and it was an effort for him to remain silent as he began to push his way into her leg. His anger increased as he felt the full extent of her injuries, and he promised himself that Julian would pay dearly.

"This will feel a little weird, so try not to worry."

If Anna had been able to move, she would have sat up and tried to stop him as the flesh under his hands began to first crawl and then physically ripple. Any doubts she had about the abilities of the Dominants vanished as with the most uncomfortable feeling the shattered segments of her femur began to repair themselves, bruised muscles working to push the larger parts together whilst the smaller fragments were rapidly dissolved for their raw materials.

Anna cried inwardly as the movement showed her just how injured she was; she could feel each individual piece now, and knew that unless Guy could do something, she would never walk again.

But he was doing something, slowly reassembling her leg like a giant jigsaw puzzle gone wrong. He would pause regularly to gather his strength, and she could hear by his breathing that it was taking a lot of effort.

And it really was hard work for him. Healing her was nothing like healing himself, because her body had to be pushed and pulled every step of the way; the more work to be done, the more the flesh tried to ignore directions, making healing more than minor injuries in a normal human exhausting for the Dominant. It was much easier if the patient was owned by the Dominant and knew how to help out, but Guy had to rely on willpower alone.

He was already weary by the time he lifted his hands from her now healed leg, but with a determined look on his weathered face, he moved to her right one and kept going. Helpless, Anna could only endure the feelings and wonder� why was he being so kind, and driving himself to the edge of exhaustion to help her?

"I can do this," she heard him whisper, the strain audible in his voice.

Her frustration began to grow rapidly as the minutes added up, finding her paralysis harder to bear than the sensation of her bones shifting. Unable to get her questions answered, she lay in silence and waited.

It seemed like forever before Guy took his hands away and leant back to rest against the wall behind him, shaking visibly. He seemed to have aged another ten years, but he was smiling broadly as he gazed at Anna's bare legs, bruised but whole again. Even as tired as he was, he felt more alive than he had felt in years.

"Just give� me a minute� to recover," he panted, whilst Anna screamed silently in frustration.

"It's going to hurt when I take the device off your neck," he warned her. "I don't have the strength to heal the bruising."

Anna tensed mentally as he reached down underneath her head, his fingers brushing something hard stuck to her skin.

''Ready?"

"No!" she cried out in her head, but he couldn't hear her. And like a freight train, her body, bruised and abused, returned to her.

Her eyes opened and she made an injured whimper, remaining otherwise perfectly still. Pain shot through her chest with each sharp intake of air, hurt as they were from Julian's hold on her. The swollen mounds of her breasts still ached, but it was the pain in her legs that took her breath away.

"Oh," she gasped, tears filling her eyes. She would not cry; she refused to cry. "P� put it back on."

"No," he said wearily, closing his hand around the small mind control device.

"Please� it hurts!" She was trying her hardest not to sob, as even breathing sent pain through her bruised ribs.

"It's too soon after taking it off," Guy told her sadly, distressed by her pain. Already he could feel the bond between them growing, and his red eyes watched as the black marking formed above her belly-button.

"Please!" she screamed, lifting her head to plead with her eyes. When he shook his head she began to cry brokenly, tears streaming down her cheeks as the pain grew too much for her to bear.

"Please� help me�"

"I�" he choked. He could sense her pain and fear growing with every moment, and it brought back memories. They were so alike, that it was like seeing it happen all over again� watching her die and being unable to help.

With a shudder he leant forward and then much to Anna's dismay gently lay himself down so his chest was pressed against her own.

"I cannot help you any other way," he said firmly, silencing her protests. She was so soft, he thought, but he resisted the temptation to touch the gentle curves of her sex, despite how much his body desired it.

"Hurry up," Anna whispered pitifully. She could feel the pain fading, but having him pressed against her aching breasts was almost too high a price.

Suddenly Guy went limp, his head dropping to rest on her shoulder. Anna forgot her shame long enough to look worried, but he seemed to be merely sleeping.

"Hello?" she whispered, not knowing how to react. Why was he helping her so much? She didn't understand; he was her captor, and yet he looked at her so strangely� as if he was in love.

"If I wasn't so good at self-control, I'll have you squirming on my hand," he whispered, eyes still closed. Anna started blushing, recalling what he said about feeding on sex.

"Should I be glad you are?" she asked softly, and immediately kicked herself mentally for it. She was supposed to hate him, and yet she found herself wondering if he was okay, and wanting to help him.

"Don't worry, you're not going crazy," he reassured her, opening his eyes and smiling. "It'll take some getting used to, though."

Anna raised her head and was about to protest that she didn't know what he meant, when he rolled off to lie beside her, and she saw the marking on her belly.

She stared at it for several seconds, and then with a heavy sigh her head returned to the pillow. She didn't know what it meant, but she had a fair idea.

"I don't want to know," she muttered, too tired to worry.

Guy was asleep again, his body pressed against hers and an almost happy smile on his face. Anna looked closely at him, interested that he seemed younger whilst asleep and trying to guess his age. He still looked much older than she was, but she thought he was in his early thirties now instead of old enough to be her father.

Closing her eyes tiredly, she wondered how she had ended up here, high above another world in bed with the man who kidnapped her. Still weak from the drugs and the aching of her body, sleep came quickly.



"Sleep well?" asked Guy, watching as Anna's eyes fluttered open. Seeing him lying so close to her, she wanted to be angry and say something smart in reply.

Instead she blushed and looked away, wishing she could disappear underneath the sheet covering them both and not think about how she had just spent the last few hours naked and curled up next to her captor. Her dreams of him were still fresh in her mind, and her cheeks burned with shame as she remembered how the dream her had reacted as his fingers explored her body� touching places that sent fire up her spine.

"No pain anymore?" he asked, the concern in his voice adding to Anna's confusion.

"No� no pain," she mumbled in reply.

"Your breasts still hurt though," he stated.

"Yeah, thanks to you," she told him, but she couldn't put any anger into the words, and it made him smile to see distress flicker across her features.

"Your feelings will return to normal after a few days," he reassured her.

"Why are you doing this?" she asked in a defeated whisper.

"Doing what?" he returned after a moment, sounding guarded.

"Helping me� in the beginning you were so� cold, and now you're worried about me. Why?" She lifted her gaze to his face, and looked into his eyes. "Who do you see when you look at me?"

Immediately he sat up and went silent, his expression unreadable. She could tell he hadn't expected she would notice, and it had really been a stab in the dark for her, but now that she knew, she intended to pursue it.

"If I'm just a� a substitute for some ex-girlfriend," she said hotly, feeling some of her anger returning. "�I should at least know who she is!"

"Helen," he whispered hollowly. "Her name was Helen."

Anna blinked, anger replaced by surprise that he had actually answered her.

"She was a normal, human girl like you, so full of life and love. She wanted to see everything, to explore and get something named after her; it was her dream�"

He sounded happy to be talking, but there was an underlying tone that kept Anna quiet� he only spoke in past-tense.

"She had a fiery temper, and yet was so gentle once you knew her� she used to curl up next to me and tell me about the wonderful places we would find together�"

"She sounds lovely," Anna said softly when he trailed off.

"She was," Guy replied, his expression becoming sad as he stared at the wall.

"What� what happened to her?" she asked hesitantly, pushing herself up on her pillow so she could see him better. His red eyes closed, and he seemed so struggle with himself.

"I've never told anyone that before," he whispered after a long pause.

"Can you tell me?" No matter how hard she tried to remind herself that he was her captor, she couldn't help the sympathy she felt for him. She could feel his pain like it was her own, but she knew nothing of the bond between them, and the feelings confused her.

"We� were scouting out an unexplored system, about a day from home. We picked up some� features on the surface of an otherwise dead planet; I thought we should wait for the rest of our team, but Helen� she wanted to be the first to claim it, and I couldn't deny her that dream."

"What did you find?" prompted Anna when he fell silent.

"Something we were not meant to find," he breathed.

Anna sat up a little straighter, expecting him to continue sharing his story.

"You can't stop there!" she protested indignantly when he said nothing. It was obviously hard for him to tell her, but the way he said it just made her want to scream for more.

"I'm not finished," he replied, sounding slightly annoyed.

"Sorry," she mumbled automatically, and then stiffened as she realised she had just apologised to him. Guy smiled, but it was short lived, and his gaze quickly returned to the wall.

"It was a building� a facility of some kind, mostly hidden underground. It was only by chance that we picked it up."

Anna looked a little disappointed with this revelation, but she kept quiet as he continued.

"It had been abandoned a long time ago and the exterior showed it, but we managed to get inside without losing the atmosphere. We had no idea who made it, what language everything was written in, or why they left it there, and it was so exciting. There was so much to explore, so many things to look at�"

Guy paused and took a deep breath, his expression pained. Anna had visions of his long-lost love dying in an accident or something she could imagine happening in an abandoned base, but the reality was much more chilling.

"I was so stupid; I should have noticed the green lighting� nobody can live under that. The architecture� the writing� it was all wrong, but because the air was breathable we thought it was made by humans�" He shook his head sadly.

"We must have set off an alarm or something, because they came not long after. There was only one� but it was more than enough. I� I've never felt fear like that before� I couldn't move� and Helen� she wanted to know why� she couldn't feel it."

He remembered it like it had happened only yesterday. He knew every last detail, from their dusty footprints on the floor to the raw fear pounding through his heart as it approached.

"It� ignored me, like I wasn't even there� and by the time she realised it wasn't friendly, it was too late�" He paused again, trying to control the shaking of his voice.

"It� left her on the ground, and watched� I was so scared, I� went to her. She was hurting so much, and I couldn't help her� their attacks don't heal, and it knew it� it wanted me to fail. I tried to fight it off but it was so fast� it took her, and�"

Guy trailed off, unable to say it. She hadn't made a sound, but he had felt her pain and his own injuries had paled into insignificance.

"I don't remember much after that," he said eventually, his voice steadier. "The doctors said I would be dead within days, but I'm still fighting it. I can't heal it� I can't even cut it out� but I can slow it spreading�" He raised his hands from his lap to clutch his belly, the metal harness doing what it could to help his slowly failing body.

Anna stared at him in silence, her mind blank. She didn't know what to think of his story. Normally she would have laughed at the strangeness of it, and said that he'd watched too many sci-fi movies and started to believe it. But his emotions were too raw, and the pain she felt from him too real, that she couldn't help believe him, and it scared her.

"How touching," Julian said sarcastically from the door way, his face twisted with spite.

"Get out, Julian," Guy said in a dead flat tone, his eyes staring down at the bed beneath him.

"No," Julian replied simply, and instead walked casually into the small room. "I don't think I will."

"Julian�" Guy looked up, real anger in his voice.

"You did a nice job on the girl," Julian said conversationally, merely smiling at the hate being focused on him. "It's a pity you're so� weak, now." Guy made a choking sound as the force of Julian's twisted mind grabbed him around the throat and began to lift, dragging him up the wall.

"She was mine, how dare you interrupt my fun," Julian raged at the top of his voice, any trace of his earlier smile gone.

"I should�" He broke off with a gasp and doubled over as Anna's bare heel lodged itself firmly between his legs.

"Fuck you," she spat, pulling her leg back under the cover of the sheet. "Leave us alone!"

"I should have� killed you first," Julian hissed, straightening up slowly. His grip on Guy loosened, causing him to fall back down onto the bed. "You little bitch!" With one hand he lashed out and slapped her across the face.

"Leave her� alone," Guy gasped, hands held protectively around his throat. He had never seen Julian like this before, and he began to worry that he would be unable to kill him.

"J2!" Julian froze as Guy spoke, his hand raised to deliver another blow to Anna. The young girl was fighting back tears as she stared at her attacker, the hand-mark turning bright red on her cheek.

"Get out," Guy commanded.

Julian shuddered visibly, sweat breaking out across his forehead as insanity struggled against the conditioning that compelled him to obey. It took only a second, and then with a dull thud his fist impacted with Anna's breastbone, knocking the breath from her.

"No," Julian said flatly, staring as Anna coughed painfully on the bed.

And then with a dull boom, the station shook.

"They're here," Julian breathed, and then looked up and grinned crazily. "Sounds like you really pissed them off." When Guy didn't reply, he abruptly became angry again.

"You're not going to get your revenge, old man," Julian snarled. "I would kill you now, but it will be much more fun�" Leaning out over the bed, Julian punched the medical harness around Guy's waist as hard as he could. "�letting it do it for me."

The blood draining from his face, Guy looked down at the bent front of the harness, pale blue liquid pouring from ruptured tubes to run wasted down onto the bed. The harness had absorbed most of the impact, and its fragile contents were now broken beyond repair.

"Watch your Master die," Julian hissed at Anna. "You'll join him when they get here." Turning his back on them, he walked out.

"We have to move," Guy said quietly, trying to stop the leaking from the harness with his hands. "They will kill everyone here."

"Why?" asked Anna, quivering visibly under the sheet now that Julian had left. "Why are they here?"

"Because� I betrayed them," Guy told her, climbing off the bed and leaving a trail of liquid behind him. "Move it� forget the sheet!"

Anna whimpered, but with a final tug the sheet came free and she was able to slide off the bed with it covering her nudity. The open front gave flashes of her bare legs as she stumbled after Guy, small patches of bruising still visible on her pale skin.

By the time Anna caught up to him, Guy was bending over his desk and stabbing urgently at the keys set into the top. She felt exhausted by the trip across the room, but after her encounter with Julian she was just glad to be alive.

"Let's go," Guy said suddenly, abandoning the controls. Grabbing Anna by the arm, he pulled her after him as he ran for the door. His urgency scared her, and she could do little but hold the sheet and run.

"Where are we going?" she panted as he stopped in the corridor outside.

"You're going to get out of here," he told her, and started off down the corridor to the left.

"Wait� what about you?!" she called after him, hurrying to keep up.

"I don't have much time left," he said grimly, and as if to illustrate the point he stumbled as the feeling in one leg briefly disappeared.

"But� you can't�" Anna trailed off, realising she actually cared whether he lived or died.

The station groaned again as another dull boom was heard below them.

"They're breaking in," Guy explained, halting before one of the doors. After a second it slid open, revealing the plain, square lift beyond.

"Why are they here?" Anna asked again once they were inside. The doors slid quietly shut and they began to move downwards.

"I had to get close to them," Guy said, sounding pained now. He leant up against the wall and put a hand on his belly, and then his legs gave way and he slumped to the ground.

"Are y� you�?" Anna stammered, crouching down in front of him and looking worried.

"I'm fine," he lied. Anna could feel how much it was hurting him now, and she knew he wasn't.

"I had to, to learn how to beat them," he continued, the numbness slowly spreading upwards from his legs. "I traded with them� I� I gave people to them, so they would trust me�"

Anna yelped as the lift came to an abrupt stop, and a second later they were plunged into darkness. The door hissed part-way open and stopped, revealing that they had stopped about a metre above the floor of the corridor beyond.

Guy winced as pain shot through his stomach. It was progressing quicker than he had expected, and he knew he would not be able to take her any further.

"I did some terrible things�" he said sadly.

"This isn't the time for last minute confessions," Anna snapped, putting her arm around him and trying to haul him to his feet.

"You need to go down two more floors," Guy told her, pushing her away from him. "Find the room with the tanks in it, I freed the rest of the girls and they'll need help. Some people will come for you, go with them."

"But�" Anna stared at him, unwilling to just leave him behind.

"Anna, go!" he ordered. "They will be here soon!"

He watched as she crawled over to the partly open doors and paused.

"Guy�" she whispered, turning to look back at him.

He smiled. It was the first time she had said his name.

"Go!"

Tears streaming down her face, Anna slipped through the door and without looking back, she ran.



Laughing softly to himself, Guy watched her run into the twilight. The white sheet she still carried shone briefly in the dim emergency lights shining down from the roof, and then she was gone.

He wondered whether she would hate him, once the initial effects of the bond between them faded. Perhaps the Resistance was right, he thought sadly. Perhaps ensuring their survival was pointless if you lose your humanity in the process.

He believed everything he had done was for the best, and yet her rejection made him feel terrible. All the people who had died because of him� the failed experiments� all the people he had sent away, their fates unknown� Julies' mother�.

He thought about Julie, remembering the face he had seen in the photo's Moira had. She had merely been a way to get Seth involved, but he had never expected him to succeed so well. She was a total unknown, and he hated not knowing things.

He smiled in the darkness, the cold spreading through his chest. The liquids in the harness had long since stopped leaking, and the infection was spreading rapidly now, consuming him from the inside. There was no point wondering anymore, but he still wished he could know more about the violet-eyed girl. How strong was she? Was she able to resist them? Would her children be hybrids too?

He would never know. He hoped he was right, and the Resistance came in time. His belly no longer hurt now, and he had lost feeling in his hands. He didn't want to be alone. He wished Anna would come back, but there was nothing but silence from beyond the doors.

He had known her for such a short period, and yet for the first time in so long, he had been happy.

He was still smiling as the darkness took him one last time.