The scalpel was in Oliver's hand. It glinted dully, the harsh florescent lighting of the basement casting little slivers of light against the cement walls.

Marilyn watched with a kind of numb horror as he approached his captive – our, her mind insisted quietly, our captive – his body moving like a lean jungle cat on the prowl, so powerful, so dangerous.

She was weeping, their captive, Lana who had been so tough and fearless inside the asylum. Tears escaped the corners of her eyes and fell unheeded to the chocolate tangle of her hair. Her full lips quivered endlessly.

To her credit, she had yet to beg. Marilyn herself had begged when she woke for the first time in this terrible place but she supposed it wasn't the reporter's first time, now was it? Lana had probably done all the begging she thought necessary however many months ago she had been here – before her escape, before Marilyn's abduction, and then her own capture proving that begging was quite useless indeed when it came to the doctor.

Oliver paused at the edge of Lana's bed, his tongue running over his teeth in a quick nervous gesture. The gesture was nervous, yes, but Marilyn could see he was far from that; Thredson was in his element, butcher's apron and all, the little metal scalpel in his fingers like a conductor's baton. He was prepared to start a terrible symphony.

The previous night, the doctor had held her and told her in soothing, patient tones what to expect. He explained that they fought at first, they always did, they screamed and cried and begged for mercy no matter how unafraid they pretended to be. Once the blade met flesh all bets were off. There would be blood, a lot of it. They would scream more than ever and then they wouldn't scream anymore. Shock would take over and it would be blessedly quiet and he could finish his work and she could watch until she couldn't.

It had all made so much sense then, cradled in his strong arms and surrounded by the dark exotic scent of his aftershave; the words washed over her like warm water and she just nodded in agreement. Yes, they would abduct Lana together. Yes, they would do what he should've done long ago. Yes, they would take care of her.

But now it was wrong, all wrong, her head pounded sickly and her heart was in her throat, this was no longer hypothetical, it was real, it was happening, this woman was going to die and it didn't matter that Marilyn wasn't holding the scalpel because it was all her fault…

Our captive, her mind said again, and suddenly she was in motion.

"Oliver," Marilyn murmured, moving towards the bed where he had the glinting little blade poised above Lana's collarbone.

The doctor ignored her. She could see a terrible look on his face, one of intense determination and triumph. There was also something else there, something somehow intimate, and it made her heart hurt in a way that she had no time to deal with at this particular moment.

"Baby," she said instead, and he turned.

She was beside him now; Marilyn placed one hand over the doctor's, her fingers playing tenderly along the spaces between his.

"Maybe," she continued, fixing her gaze on his face, "we wait."

Lana's lips went on trembling.

"Wait?" Oliver echoed, his dark brows knitting together in an expression of both impatience and confusion.

Now two sets of brown eyes were on her as the reporter realized what was happening. Marilyn licked her lips and forced them into a seductive smile.

"We have her. She's ours now." She trailed her free hand along the leather restraints that bound Lana to the bed. Marilyn paused, looked back to Oliver, and inched her fingers towards his scalpel. "Why let it go to waste? She's not going anywhere."

"She's escaped before," the doctor said, and his voice was that of a little boy whose toy has been taken from him. Good, it was good, she could handle him when he was like this. It was when he was angry he was out of her control.

Marilyn allowed her hand to close around his and slowly take the scalpel into her palm. He let her take it from him and this was good too.

"I'll never let that happen," she murmured. "I'm here now. Things are different now. Right?"

Oliver nodded his head almost imperceptibly and watched, fascinated, as she took the edge of the blade and began drawing it very lightly down Lana's bare forearm. The reporter winced, expecting a cut, but Marilyn didn't break the skin; the scalpel merely trailed along Lana's soft pale flesh, leaving goosebumps in its wake.

"She hurt me," he said in a low voice that was still somehow childish, his attention still on the blade. "She can't be trusted."

With her free hand, Marilyn stroked the scattered little scars that peppered his left cheekbone. The doctor leaned into her touch and closed his eyes.

"Baby," she murmured, briefly looking away from him to make eye contact with Lana, "you're a good doctor. You can fix her. And I can help."

Oliver opened his eyes again. They shone with that emotion she couldn't name – a strange cocktail of desire, bloodlust, and what she had grown to fear might be insanity.

"You'll help?" he repeated.

Marilyn nodded. She glanced at Lana again, trying to pass along some secret message that everything was going to be okay (and god only knew it wouldn't, of course it wouldn't, but at least it was better) when Oliver seized her face in his hands and pulled her into a quick, hard kiss.

She molded into his touch once again, feeling that familiar flame ignite between her legs. Marilyn let the scalpel fall from her fingers and wrapped her arms around the doctor's neck. He tugged her closer to him; the part of him she'd grown to know so well pressed against her thigh.

When Oliver broke the kiss he was breathing heavily. That look was still in his eyes.

"I'll let you do it," he murmured, and went on when she didn't say anything. "The drugs. We'll need to keep her sedated. Like I did when – you remember." Oliver moved away from her to a darker corner of the basement where he kept some of his supplies, the ones she had no interest in inspecting further.

And she did remember. He wheeled out the IV stand with the familiar bag of clonodine that hung half-empty from its hook.

"Here," Oliver said softly, showing her the needle at the end of the IV tube. "This goes right…" The doctor handed Marilyn the needle and tapped the tip of one finger at the crease of Lana's arm where purplish-blue veins stood out like faded road maps. "…there."

Lana began to cry again, louder now.

Marilyn nodded obediently and Thredson smiled, an eager smile of a little boy beginning his favorite game. He checked the dosage on the IV.

"Just make sure it's in a vein and then turn this—" He was still breathing heavily, she noticed, as he mimed adjusting the drug's dosage. "—an inch to the right. Two, if she struggles too much."

"Yes, Oliver," she said. His smile widened. She wasn't sure she liked the look of that smile.

"Please don't," Lana said, her cracked voice echoing in the basement for the first time.

Oliver ignored her. He lifted his hand to Marilyn's face and stroked her cheek tenderly.

"When she's sedated," he whispered, dark eyes burning, "come to me in the bedroom."

Marilyn nodded again. She felt the warmth spreading through her at his touch and felt a brief pang of shame for what he'd turned her into, what she'd become at his hands; that night on the living room floor where she had come again and again, whimpering and gasping, was always near the front of her mind whether she wanted to acknowledge it or not. She'd begun to crave him and that frightened her nearly as much as the sight of him holding the scalpel over Lana's prone body.

The doctor turned and ascended the steps, throwing a glance over his shoulder before disappearing upstairs. Lana watched him leave, then locked her gaze on Marilyn.

"I don't know what the fuck you're doing," she hissed, tears still wet on her cheeks, "but you'd better let me go right now."

Marilyn waited to hear the soft click of the door shutting at the top of the stairs. It never came. She cursed under her breath, then leaned close to Lana's face, the needle still pinched between her forefingers.

"Shut up," she whispered harshly into the other woman's ear. "Shut up, he didn't close the door, he can hear us, you idiot."

Marilyn waited a moment to be sure Lana wasn't going to disobey her, then pulled back and spoke in a gentler tone.

"Listen. I'm sorry I brought you here. I—"

"Sorry?" Lana echoed in disbelief. All her old fight had suddenly surged back once the doctor left the basement. "You're sorry? That doesn't do anything for me now, you stupid little girl—"

"Hey, you can be as angry at me as you want, but you're the one strapped to the bed, not me." Marilyn felt the familiar distaste return for the lady reporter, the same way she'd felt in the cold halls of the asylum when she had been so superior in her red dress and heels while Lana stood there in a baggy lunatic's gown. And now? Was she really still above Lana when the harsh florescent lighting shone down on both of them in this godforsaken basement?

Yes. Yes, because she was holding the needle and Lana was strapped to the bed.

Lana's hard brown eyes stared her down.

"Why did you bring me here?" she asked, tired, and it seemed the fight had drained from her again, at least momentarily.

Marilyn opened her mouth, then shut it again. She had no answer. Instead, she began searching the soft fold of Lana's arm for the vein Oliver had spoken of.

"No, don't stick me with that, don't—" Lana began thrashing, and Marilyn ignored her until she saw the quicksilver glint in the reporter's hand.

The scalpel. She'd dropped the scalpel when Oliver pulled her into his kiss. She couldn't be this careless, she reminded herself irritably.

Marilyn seized Lana's wrist; it was easy, she had no leverage due to the leather cuffs and despite the iron grip she had around the little blade, Marilyn worked it from her grasp in a matter of moments.

"This kind of bullshit," she said firmly, brandishing the scalpel almost too close to Lana's pale face, "is completely unacceptable. I'm trying to help you here, you bitch."

"You're just like him," Lana spat, her teeth bared. "You're going to act like you're my fucking savior but you're just a monster with a kind face. I've been down this road before, little girl, nothing can surprise me now. So don't try to pretend like you're my friend. I know you're not."

All at once Marilyn felt like she couldn't listen to the reporter speak for another moment. She leaned close to the place where Lana's elbow folded and traced the skin there with the tip of her finger, seeking a pale blue vein to stick the needle in.

Lana suddenly began to weep again, a soft broken sound that made Marilyn's bones ache.

"Please, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it, don't put that in, please, please, I can't do it again, please please please—" Her words dissolved into desperate little sobs; Marilyn noted the hitching of her chest, the jerky fruitless movements of her arms against the leather cuffs. This wasn't an act, Lana was having a panic attack.

The asylum? Had they drugged her there? Or had Oliver drugged her before? No, the doctor had explained to Marilyn how happy he was with his new idea of keeping her sedated the first night in the basement, so it could only be some form of treatment at Briarcliff she was afraid of. Marilyn had heard tales of shock treatment but who knew what really went on up there and what was just rumor.

"Hey, hey, it's all right," Marilyn whispered, trying to get her to shut up so she could go to Oliver and forget the woman in their basement. The vein shifted beneath her pale skin, disappearing and reappearing in maddening succession. "It's not bad, trust me, I've done it before. It calms you down, you go to sleep."

Lana kept crying, her eyes clenched shut, muscles rigid. There was no way she would find the vein with her like this.

Marilyn used her free hand to smooth the sweat-soaked hair back from Lana's face. She heard herself making soothing hushing noises as she did so, stroking the terrified reporter's hair like her own mother used to do when she had nightmares.

"Shhh, hey, shhh," she murmured, adjusting the tone of her voice to sound comforting rather than impatient. "It's all right, I promise. It's okay. You'll just go to sleep for a while. Nothing will happen to you, I promise, okay?" Lana's sobs began to slow, but only a little; Marilyn paused, then on a wild impulse pressed her lips to the other woman's clammy forehead. Her mother had used to do that, too.

Something about the contact seemed to calm Lana. She opened her red-rimmed eyes and stared at Marilyn, her chest hitching less now.

Marilyn smiled and, gently, slid the needle into Lana's waiting vein.

The reporter winced but didn't struggle. Marilyn turned to the IV stand and adjusted it just as Oliver had shown her. Immediately, Lana's body relaxed; her eyes clouded over and she began to slump back against the bed, her breath coming in slow heavy rushes.

"See?" Marilyn murmured, still stroking her hair. "It's okay, just like a nap. You need some sleep. Right?"

Lana nodded dopily. She was on her way out.

"You're all right," Marilyn assured her, straightening from the bed and turning for the stairs. "After all, you still have your skin."

She had one foot on the first step when she heard Lana say, voice thick with medication,

"For how long?"

Marilyn paused.

"That's a question you'll learn not to ask," she answered softly, and hit the light as she left the basement, leaving Lana to her troubled sleep.