RhyDin Memorial Hospital February 2011...

"So, the fugitive returns," a tall, dark-haired man in a white coat and glasses remarked as he stepped into the examining room.

"Do I look like Harrison Ford to you?" Rhys replied, eying the man from his perch on the table, feeling more than a little bit nervous.

"More like Jensen Ackles."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Never mind. People get mistaken for celebrities all the time around here."

"At the hospital?" Rhys asked, arching a brow and watching the man carefully as he looked over his file.

"In Rhydin. Haven't you noticed that half the people here look like celebrities" It's in the water or something."

"Sorry, I haven't had time to notice."

"That's right. Too busy getting yourself beat up by....What was it again? Bears, wolves?"

"Demons actually, if you must know."

"That's not what it says in your file."

"Just between us."

"Demons, eh' Doesn't surprise me. Nothing much surprises me anymore, except maybe you."

"Me" Why me?"

"We mostly treat humans here, Rhys. Immortals, gods, demi-gods, demons, angels, vampires, even lycans....They don't really need our help. Run of the mill mortals are our specialty."

"So?" Rhys asked, not quite getting the doctor's point.

"So, I don't see many like you in here."

"Like me. I bleed like everyone else, Doc."

"Yes, but as I explained to your girlfriend..."

"She's not my girlfriend."

The doctor arched a brow, but continued. "As I explained to....Kellie....There's something different about your DNA. I've never seen anything like it before. I'd like to study it further."

"You mean you want to use me for your experiments."

The doctor smiled reassuringly and patted Rhys' arm. "I'm not Doctor Frankenstein. All I want are a couple of blood samples, son. That's all."

"I'm part angel," Rhys blurted out. "Don't ask me to explain it because I don't get it myself."

"Angel?" the doctor repeated, pushing his glasses up onto the bridge of his nose and flipping through Rhys' chart. "There's nothing here that indicates that. I don't see many angels. They don't come in here too often. They're usually of the self-healing sort."

"Yeah, well....That's what I've been told, and I've yet to heal myself."

"I see." The doctor seemed to consider that a moment before continuing. "Rhys, have you ever been bitten by a werewolf?"

The look of mingled surprise and distress on Rhys' face answered the question for him. "I was bitten once when I was a kid. Ten or eleven years old, I think. Why?"

"I've been doing some research on lycanthropy, with an emphasis on werewolves. It's a disease, which is passed through the blood stream via contamination with an infected host, not all that different from rabies really. There's no known cure. If you're lucky and quick and it doesn't kill you, belladonna sometimes works. It's rare that someone bitten by a werewolf doesn't become one."

"Look, Doc, I hunt this shit for a living. You're not telling me anything I don't know already. I have no idea why I didn't turn, so if you're looking for an explanation, you're asking the wrong guy."

"I think I have an explanation. Your blood is different, Rhys. You have an extra strand of DNA, and I'm seeing antibodies to lycanthropy. There's an unidentified isotope in your blood I've never seen before."

"Isotope?" Rhys shook his head in confusion. "What do you mean?"

"It's complicated and difficult to explain, but it has to do with your immune system. You are, essentially, immune to the disease of lycanthropy, and Rhys, this is where it gets interesting....There's a possibility I could use your blood to develop a cure."

"A cure to lycanthropy?" Rhys asked, doubtfully.

The doctor nodded and smiled.

Rhys chuckled, finding the whole idea absurd. "You're crazy, Doc."

"Maybe, but so were the Wright Brothers and Marie Curie and Christopher Columbus."

Rhys sobered and rubbed his side where his ribs were still aching. "What makes you think they want to be cured?"

The doctor shrugged. "Some will, some won't. It may take years of research, but nothing ventured, nothing gained. Can you imagine the implications of such a thing, Rhys?"

Rhys thought about it a moment. He knew there were be plenty of lycans who reveled in their lives and didn't want to be cured. He also knew there were probably various strains of the disease and that some would be harder to cure than others. He wasn't even sure if it was possible, but if it was, who was he to stop someone from trying" Who was he to deny people a cure if one was possible"

"What do you need from me?" he asked, already regretting the decision, but feeling he had no choice. The last thing he wanted was to become someone's science experiment.

"Give me a few blood samples, and I'll make sure those ribs are like new again."

"What is this, the Let's Make a Deal hospital of medicine?" Rhys replied, scowling. He couldn't deny that he was in pain. His side felt like it was on fire with every breath.

The doctor laughed. "Scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours."

Rhys squinted and leaned closer to read the man's name tag. "Okay, Doctor Galoushes..."

"It's Galasso," the doctor corrected.

"Whatever. But I still think you're crazy."

The man grinned, and Rhys thought he looked for a moment more like a mad scientist than a medical doctor. "Just a little pin prick, there'll be no more..."

Rhys rolled his eyes as the man quoted Pink Floyd and held up a hand to silence him. "Yeah, I've heard that before," he replied grimly, rolling up his sleeve. "Let's just get it over with, okay?"

"Be over before you know it," the doctor replied and went to work.

It was the sight of the needle that did it. The room started to spin, and before Rhys knew it, everything went black.

When he finally came to, as far as he knew, the doctor had his blood samples, and Rhys was free to go, his ribs as good as new, but he couldn't help the nagging feeling that he hadn't heard the last from the good doctor.