(This has New Blood character spoilers! Read at your own risk!

Call this a Second Opinion/New Blood crossover, if you will, but I'll be damned if I don't write it. :D

PreseatheKitsune inspired this. It's totally partially her fault. -points- XD

Ahh, I was going to say something but I forgot. Oh well!

Let's begin.

Markus, Val, Derek, Angie © Nintendo

Masa's © the owner

GUILT, Stigma © Nintendo)

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Caught Unaware

Chapter One- Research

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Markus Vaughn had to admit, he had never thought that he'd be working with the greatest doctor of the twenty-first century...

But who was he to complain about his good luck? It wasn't like he and Val could operate when their assistant was on vacation... Now, he had the opportunity that many doctors would kill to have...

"No-- not like that. You have to lift it straight up, or the membrane will multiply... we don't need that to happen."

"Alright then..."

Carefully, Markus lifted the Triti thorn away from the membrane, placing it in a glass dish, performing this action under the scrutinizing eye of Dr. Derek Stiles.

"Perfect," Derek smiled, his glasses beginning to slide off his nose. He quickly pushed them back on before adding, "Now you can remove the rest of the membrane-- but don't drop it."

Cautiously, the younger surgeon began pulling apart the triangular pieces of the membrane...

"...there we go. I don't see anymore of... you said it was called Triti?"

"Yes-- I don't see any more membrane either, and the Chiral reaction is negative," Derek agreed, a smile creeping onto his face. "Angie... we've collected another Triti sample from this lab rat, if you need it."

"Yes-- thank you, Derek..."

Angie Thompson quickly approached her husband, taking the glass plate that Derek held out to her, the thorns and membranes resting on the plate. The blonde woman carefully carried the dish over to the table that she and Valerie Blaylock had accosted for setting up their research experiments.

"Okay, Valerie-- just like I showed you, alright?"

Val nodded, taking her forceps and carefully lifting a dark green membrane, gently placing it into a petri dish, resting the triangular object on the gel. With great care and precision, the dark-haired woman then took the thorns, inserting them into the gel at each of the three corners of the Triti segment.

"Good," Angie smiled as the membrane flickered briefly, quickly placing the lid over the dish before the membrane could multiply. "We have all the samples we need for today, too... looks like we're done here."

"Just in time, too-- our shift ends in two minutes," Derek added, glancing at the clock. "Let's get out of here before someone asks us to do 'just one more thing,' as they always do..."

"Oh, I have an idea-- we don't have to be in until noon tomorrow, so why don't we go to that sushi bar on Fifth Street and Clark Avenue?" Angie suggested. "It's a nice way to get out and do something outside the lab..."

"Last time we went out for dinner with someone, we... we got kidnapped," Val recalled, glancing at Markus with her dark brown eyes. Markus chuckled briefly, running a hand through his dark hair.

"Well, that's true, but this time, I actually have an idea where that is-- you're talking about Masa's, right?" he asked in his low voice.

"Yeah, that's the one," Derek nodded. "What do you say? Our treat... to repay you for agreeing to help us with our research."

Val had never known Markus to pass up the opportunity for free food...

"Well, it sounds like a plan, then."

She smiled briefly...

She still had yet to see him refuse.

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"Hey, Dr. Stiles, is it alright if I ask you a question?"

"Well, sure-- if you stop calling me Dr. Stiles outside of the hospital. Derek will be just fine."

Valerie chuckled briefly, masking her slight embarrassment as the waiter walked off with the four doctors' orders.

"Right, sorry... well, I was just wondering... why is GUILT research still being done? I thought that it was technically a dead disease... was my assumption wrong?" she asked, her brown eyes wide with curiosity.

"In a way, yes, it is dead... but at the same time, it's not," Derek replied, carefully choosing his words.

"...it is and isn't?" Markus' normally aloof smile was replaced by a confused frown. "How can it be both?"

"...concerning its presence in the world, GUILT is an inactive disease," Angie began to explain. "However, everyone-- you, me, the president, Europeans, Africans, everyone-- has a gene that would allow the pathogen that forms GUILT to thrive. The variations of the gene and pathogen determine the type and severity of the GUILT... we need to do research to figure out how to nullify the pathogen's effects..."

"...so that's why it was so deadly, huh?" Val muttered as their waiter returned with their beverages. "It could affect everyone..."

"And the only way to get immunity is to be infected," Derek nodded solemnly as he sipped his diet Coke. "And you both know that the only cure is surgery..."

"...hey, speaking of cures... why choose to do your research here?" Markus queried as he took his martini from the Vietnamese waiter. "I can understand wanting a bigger area to work at-- Caduceus Japan isn't very big, is it? But, why not Caduceus Europe... actually, why are you doing the research, Derek? What if you get infected?"

Derek couldn't help it...

Markus and Val stared confusedly as the nearsighted surgeon began chuckling, eliciting an exasperated sigh from his blonde wife.

"Well, because of something that happened at Caduceus Europe, I've been both able to do research without worry and informed to never go back, except in case of an emergency."

"Wow, what happened? It must have been serious..." Val asked, her inquisitive nature demanding answers.

"We were there for a GUILT conference about ten years ago, and Director Miller requested that I operate on someone with the Tetarti strain of GUILT," the older surgeon began, fixing his glasses. "But it was an exceptionally infectious strain; immediately after the procedure, I collapsed, having become infected with both Kyriaki and Paraskevi."

"Paraskevi... that's the one that can kill instantaneously, isn't it?"

"It's understandable that our director was less than pleased when Director Miller refused to admit that Europe carried part of the blame for the incident," Angie nodded. "After a similar affair happened the next year, Director Kasal pretty much cut off as many ties with Europe as he could..."

"Sounds a bit like Professor Wilkens, doesn't it?" Markus chuckled, shooting Val a glance as he took a drink from his martini.

"You know, now that you mention it, that sounds like something he would do, doesn't it?" Val agreed, smiling...

"Excuse me-- who ordered the Masa Roll?"

Derek, Angie, Markus and Val looked up to see their waiter holding a white plate with sushi on it in one hand, and a tray with three other plates in the other.

Conversation was quickly abandoned in favor of food.

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Markus collapsed onto his sofa several hours later, making yet another empty promise to himself not to volunteer to eat Val's leftovers.

Sighing, he decided that he would listen to his growling stomach and the rest of his tired body-- tonight, the living room would be graced with his company.

The brunette surgeon tiredly rearranged the two small pillows on the sofa until they were under his head.

The last thought to sluggishly cross Markus' mind was how much he wished he had a blanket with him before he drifted off to sleep.

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(End chapter one.

And so it begins... mwah ha ha ha!

No Japanese restaurants in America are owned by Japanese people anymore. What is this.

Please review!)