Cat’s blood ran cold and she could feel the color visibly drain from her face as the words rang through her head. The dean? He was alive?! Here?!? Oh god! She looked around herself frantically, ready to throw her body away from the table and flee from the room. She scanned the walls for the door that would allow her to leave the room quickest and easiest, but as her panicked brain scrambled, she suddenly couldn’t remember which of the doors she had entered in the first place.

She opened her mouth to protest, argue, beg for some sort of absolution, but all that came out were short, terrified, squeaky noises and she visibly jumped as the woman sitting to her left placed a heavy hand on top of hers. Not to hold her in place, but to…comfort her?

”Catherine,” the redhead continued, not unkindly, “we have all been molested at the hand of the dean. We understand your fear and panic in hearing that he is currently here with us, but we assure you. He is completely harmless to you in his current state. He will be completely harmless to you for the remainder of your days at St. Mary’s and beyond.”

”Where…where is he?” Cat asked, anxiously looking around the table. Clearly he wasn’t in the room with all of them - but just how deep did this seminar go in the first place? Was he jailed in a dungeon cell as she had seen months ago in the depths of the tunnels? Did he have his own perfect tunnel replica of his study above on the main campus? Was he just hanging out in another conference room like the one they were in right now??

“Over the past few months, the dean has been directly involved in the studies that he has always been so passionate about. It was a little touch and go at first, the St. Mary’s scholars responsible for his capture had to enlist some help from the faculty and graduate students at St. Joseph’s to fully engage him in meaningful research. That is when I stepped in to oversee the proceedings,” the redhead explained as if she was describing any other academic program at the college. “I’m Dr. McDonald, head of biology and genetics at St. Joseph’s.”

”He’s…teaching down here?” Cat asked, confused.

At this, Dr. McDonald laughed, “Oh. No. Definitely not. That man couldn’t teach biology if his life depended on it. Certainly not now.”

Confused even further, Cat once again scanned the faces at the table - all were emotionless and impassive other than an Indian woman to the right of Dr. McDonald with the slightest smirk on her face.

“He speaks of you often, Catherine,” she explained, “he seems to think of you as some sort of…savior, perhaps? He clearly had an exceptionally soft spot for you. I want to be clear that we have not called you here today to implicate you in any sort of wrongdoings or misdeeds. The dean… he seems to think that you can absolve him of his behavior, perhaps. We think this is a delusion brought about by his current situation. I wasn’t particularly keen on involving you in all of this - you’ve been through enough as it is, I’m sure. However, due to the rather, er, incessant requests… Ultimately, we decided to allow you to have the final say in his fate with our research. If you agree, the consortium at this table is prepared to enroll you in an exclusive scholarship program that will provide for the remainder of your education at St. Mary’s.”

Cat swallowed hard. That sounded incredibly sinister. She wasn’t particularly keen herself in getting involved in studies similar to those that the dean had carried out on her and her fellow scholars. On the other hand…an exclusive scholarship providing for the remainder of her education would - presumably - free her from the pursestrings of her parents. And now she was exceptionally curious about the dean’s current state of being. Where was he? What were these women doing to him in the tunnels where he, himself, had tormented so many young women?

“If you’re amenable to it, we’d like to take you in to see him once and for all. For yourself. We absolutely MUST warn you, this is not for the faint of heart and it will not be pretty. What you see is something that is likely to stick with you for the rest of your life and for this reason, we completely understand if you decline our invitation and choose to leave and go back to your dormitory.”

“What have you done to him?” Cat asked.

“Only what he did to all of his students over the years,” Dr. McDonald answered matter of factly.

Cat felt her stomach flip and her face flush. Oh god, that could mean anything! What the dean did to his students over the years?! What didn’t the dean do to his students over the years?! She’d only seen the barest fraction of sordid scenes from the extensive tunnels that she was now deep within…

“The faculty at this table with you are currently in the midst of a bit of a gridlock over how to best utilize the former dean as we move ahead into the next academic year. Personally, I think he is a fascinating study in biology and DNA - and his brother has already consented to his participation in that same study, should we choose to pursue it. However, Dr. Brown thinks he would be a prime specimen for the developing stem cell research cohort that she hopes to start next winter. Dr. Shepherd on the other hand is eager to enlist him in some groundbreaking research with in vitro fertilization and selective genetics.”

“And you want me to decide?” Cat squeaked.

“Not decide per se, but provide your input and opinion as you see fit. If you would choose to do so.”

Cat opened her mouth to speak just as the most bizarre noise she could recall hearing in recent memory sounded through the room where she sat with the other women. All the women at the table exchanged glances that Cat couldn’t quite place and Dr. McDonald turned to her once more.

“That would be him,” she said with a slight smile. THAT noise had been the dean?! It sounded like a strangled animal, but worse… “We need your decision, Catherine. Do you wish to see him or not?”

Cat felt sick, but she was desperately curious as well. The warning that what she was about to see might stick with her the rest of her life was a sobering and terrifying thought… But if seeing him could somehow help her to overcome the pain and trauma that she had experienced from him over the past year…

“Yeah, ok, I will.”