A/N: wow what is moderation in life, I'm just gonna...keep dropping weicca pieces...sorry y'all...jokes, I'm not sorry. Not even remotely close.

So! This fic is gonna be four chapters, updated weekly, hopefully around Sunday (and for my old followers, I actually mean every week this time, I have the chapters outlined) and hopefully not at some ungodly hour. Fair warning, this chapter is a little heavy on the violence but after this it's just...feels. I hope, anyway.

Disclaimer: I don't own Edens Zero, Mashima does. I just wanna get weicca going here, y'all. I also don't own the song 'And So It Goes' by Billy Joel, on which the title and chapter titles are based.

And every time I've held a rose

It seems I only felt the thorns
And so it goes, and so it goes
And so will you soon I suppose

Weisz knows she's in his room long before he feels her weight bear down on the left side of the bed, but he waits for her arm to sneak around his waist before he yawns in an exaggerated manner and rolls over, trapping her under half his body.

"You're late," he whines into her hair, which smells strongly of flowers. "Edens Bath again?"

Rebecca huffs against his shoulder, and he can't help but grin a little when he notices she's drowning in his oversized sweater. He'll probably wind up tripping over her clothes on his way to the bathroom in the morning, but it's a small price to pay to see her swathed in him.

"I'm trying to get my Ether Gear under as much control as I can before our mission tomorrow, and you know the baths help," she says. Weisz's smile slips a little above her head, mulling this over. Rebecca can look after herself, especially when paired with Happy Blaster, but he's intimately aware of the drawbacks of an immature Ether Gear. Less refined, less controlled, but overwhelmingly powerful in all the wrong ways. That last point bothers him the most.

"Show me," he says, allowing her to push him onto his back so her head is cushioned on his chest and one of her legs is splayed across his. Rebecca lifts her left hand up in the air and shakes the sweater sleeve down to her elbow, furrowing her brow. Weisz watches her fingers tremble and frowns. After a moment, light pink runes light up and run down the length of her arm, and she smiles up at him beatifically.

"Ta-dah!"

"What can you do with it again?" he asks idly, though he knows the answer already. He just needs her to keep talking so he can inspect the runes without her paying too much mind. They're half-formed in some places, entirely missing in others. There's a pink glow in the vicinity of his legs that confirms some of his earlier theories that this isn't some kind of isolated blaster Gear for her arms. Still, he recalls trying to upgrade machines back when his own runes were barely there; at one point, there was a room in his house devoted to machines that had been overloaded and short-circuited. He can only imagine how poorly this can go for somebody with combat-heavy Ether like Rebecca.

"You're doing the thing again," she deadpans, poking him in the side.

"What thing?"

"The thing where you zone out and start thinking science. What's on your mind?"

Weisz holds her left hand up with his right, activating his own Ether Gear. The blue and pink glows touch in some places, giving light to a hazy purple he's never quite seen before.

"What do you see?"

"Mine is pink, yours is blue, and colour theory makes it purple," Rebecca replies, a glint in her eye as she draws their arms closer. "Though this is really aesthetic. We could totally take a picture right now and upload it to my channel for my next remix video…"

"Focus, princess. What's different?"

She sighs irritably and looks closer. After a minute, she says, "Yours looks more complicated than mine. Which, ow, I'm turning off now. This is exhausting."

Weisz allows his arm to fall with hers over his heart. "It's not more complicated. Mine is fully formed and yours isn't. Once you get better at this, it won't hurt to have it activated for long periods of time." He pauses and wets his lips before adding, "Do me a favour? Don't use it tomorrow."

Rebecca straddles his waist and sits up, pinning him down and puffing her cheeks out like an angry cat. It would be almost cute if he wasn't so serious about this.

"Why not?" she demands. "Weisz, if it helps then-"

"It won't help," he interrupts, running his hands up the endless expanse of her thighs and rubbing circles into her hips when she tenses above him. The rush of guilt for insulting her abilities is assuaged only by the fact that he knows, probably better than most on this ship, just how volatile an unhoned Ether can be. It's for her safety, he assures himself, even if it sucks a bit right now.

"Rebecca, you're an amazing fighter, but without the supercharged water from the Baths to augment your Ether, you're basically shooting a .50 BMG through a hole meant for a nine mil," Weisz explains, softening his gaze as he watches it click with her. He's not gonna pretend he gets it because he really doesn't, though he can understand the self-destructive urge to keep up with her peers - she's the only one of the four without fully functional Ether, and he can imagine feeling a little left behind in the wake of the likes of Shiki and Homura.

"What if it's an emergency, hm?" she asks, her hair spilling over her shoulder like sunshine. "What if you're in danger?"

"Oh, princess," he laughs, surging up to capture her lips. "When am I ever in danger?"

"You remember how we first met? The whole thing with Sibir? Face it, Weisz, you're a walking danger magnet."

"I'm a walking chick magnet, thank you very much," he corrects between kisses to her jaw, moving closer to her lips. "But I think I've found a surface I'm liking staying stuck to for now…"

His hands slip under the sweater to grasp at petal-soft skin as he deepens the kiss, pulling her closer and lavishing her lips. It's different from their usual nighttime makeout routine. He finds himself more desperate to pry her mouth open and slip his tongue in, digging his fingers into her ribs in a way he knows, like a compass pointing North, will always get her to gasp, as if to assure himself she's still breathing. Rebecca cards her fingers through his hair and sighs contentedly, drawing his lower lip into her mouth.

"You keep doing this and we're not going to bed any time soon," she reminds him, kissing him once more lightly. "We need to be up early."

"For a quiche?" he jokes, lying them back and threading a hand through her hair. Rebecca snorts and gropes around for the blanket, covering them both. She'll wind up stealing all the sheets in the middle of the night anyway, so he makes sure not to tuck it in too close to him.

"Night, Weisz. Love you."

"Love you too, princess," he murmurs, toying with her hairclip as she nods off. It's one of those clips with a video camera in it for on the go recording, the kind a lot of B-Cubers use to livestream these days.

His arms are glowing blue again and he knows what he's about to do is horrifically invasive but something about tomorrow has him on edge and he needs some way to make sure she's okay when he's not around to see for himself. He'll take it off tomorrow night and she'll be none the wiser.

"Machina Maker: O2 saturation monitor. Heart rate. Blood pressure." Weisz closes his eyes in a silent apology. "Tracker."

Theoretically, breaking into guarded headquarters with a distraction to cover you should be easy. Theoretically.

On the surface, the plan is simple. Shiki, Homura, and Rebecca lay waste to the compound of rogue thieves while Weisz slips in and upgrades their system just enough that Hermit can take over from the ship and gather the information she needs. Then, he'll head up to the roof and snipe down the stragglers, after which point they'll all head back to Edens Zero and relax until some other pressing matter arises.

Of course, on the surface even quantum mechanics seem simple enough, and then once the equations and 'exceptions to the rule' for every rule come out swinging full force it's game over. In this case, 'game over' started somewhere between Shiki leaving the ship and five minutes ago, roughly corresponding to the time that explosions started sounding.

Weisz groans and powers up his Ether Gear, pulling up his own screens next to the ones in the room. This is going to give him the mother of all headaches, but he'll be out soon enough. He hopes, anyway.

"Whoo! Weisz, hurry up, you're missing all the fun!" Shiki's voice crackles over the comms. Not for the first time since this morning, he debates muting him.

"You seem to be having a time out there. I'll just keep sipping martinis and watch some classic pornos while I wait for you all to finish up," Weisz replies as he begins his first set of upgrades. The first thing on his list is upping the processing speed because not even in X442 was 1.5GHz on a setup this old remotely acceptable. His other hand brushes up against the CPU as he overrides the heat sink and increases the rate of cooling. Given how hard Hermit's gonna ride this thing, he might as well try and turn it into a liquid cooling unit while he's here.

"You have martinis?" Shiki exclaims.

"He's being sarcastic, Shiki. Eyes up here, motherfucker!" Rebecca snarls on her end. Despite the shrill feedback of her guns going off, Weisz grins. Even hearing her in action is doing things to his insides that would give doctors cause for alarm. If she's this pissed, her arms are probably doing that thing where the muscles tense and pull her shirt tighter over her boobs, God above if that isn't a sight he'd be glad to make his last…

"Knock 'em dead, princess," Weisz says, eyes flicking over to his screen. Her vitals are displayed in tiny letters just above the section listing what changes he needs to make immediately. They're holding pretty steady, if not catastrophically high because of the battle, but that's to be expected. She's somewhere near the south side of the building; he makes a mental note to figure out how to get there fastest from here once he's done with this.

He has a gut feeling something is going to happen, and his gut's never been wrong before.

For the first time in a long time, he prays it is.

Rebecca wishes this was one of those fights where she could record everything because so far she's made six perfect shots she knows would've drawn in killer views had she been able to.

Life and Witch aren't fair, so she settles for aiming Happy once more and knocking out another two thieves, hunching over to catch her breath. She blames her Ether Gear use from last night for how drained she feels this early on. Her arms are shaking - soon she'll be unable to hold Happy up, so she needs to finish this quickly because her hand-to-hand is not as up to par as she'd like it to be, although she does have a butterfly knife tucked between her breasts, just in case.

Speaking of breasts, the freak in front of her is cruising for a bruising if he looks down her shirt one more goddamn time. They're a damn good set of boobs, but he is not on the short list of people approved to give them more than a cursory glance, dammit.

"You have martinis?" Shiki yells. One time. They'd given Shiki a martini one time and it's like he's developed a sixth sense for any mention of the drink. Though, to be entirely fair to her best friend, a martini and some vlogs sounds positively divine right about now.

"He's being sarcastic, Shiki," Rebecca says, snarling when the freak leers at the rip in her top. "Eyes up here, motherfucker!"

The freak launches himself behind a slab of concrete one of Shiki's gravity switches had upended earlier just as one of her Ether bullets grazes his ear. Her heart pounding in her ears, Rebecca crouches down behind a chunk of debris and braces her forearms on it, wheezing. Shit. The world is starting to go sideways and with it her aim.

You can always use your Ether Gear, her subconscious chimes in, dangling the promise of quick victory over her head like mistletoe. Rebecca closes her eyes and allows herself to slip a little. It would be so easy to one-shot everyone here with her Ether Gear and be done it with so she can go home and rest. Even if it drains her to her core, all she'll need is a little sleep and a dip in Edens Bath and she'll be as good as new.

"Knock 'em dead, princess," Weisz's rough voice breaks through the seductive haze her Ether's cast over her, just in time for her to drop to her stomach to avoid the rocks hurled at her head. Gravel shreds her forearms and knees to ribbons as she crawls to a larger rock to hide behind. No Ether Gear. She promised.

"Is that Weisz Steiner?" The freak calls. Rebecca immediately stills, trying her best to slow her breaths so it's not so obvious where she is. How the hell does he know Weisz? He was a thief on Norma before this but her Weisz is from fifty years ago, well before this dude's time. Unless he knows Professor Weisz and is under the impression that's who's on the other line.

"Yeah, so what?" she calls back, glancing down at Happy Blaster. Her Ether is running critically low. She tries to hoist the guns up and winces as her elbows lock up and throb in protest. Shit. Shitshitshit. Happy. She can't let anything happen to Happy. Not again.

Her hands feel comically weightless once the Blasters turn back to Happy, though her elbows still audibly pop when she tries to flex them.

"Rebecca? What are you-?"

"Go to Shiki or Weisz," she says hurriedly, "Or the ship. Happy, go now."

"Oi, Becca, what-?"

"I'm not leaving you," Happy snaps back stubbornly. For a second, she has to remind herself not to choke him out. Why doesn't he get it? Why can't he see that she's trying to help him? Rebecca exhales shakily and rubs her hands over her heated face. Focus. Focus.

"Happy, please. Just. Go. I don't have enough Ether to keep the Blasters going and I'm not using yours. If you stay here you'll be hurt. You have to stay safe. Go to Shiki or Weisz. Go."

"You have to promise you'll be come back," Happy presses, staring up at her with eyes so full of raw emotion it gives her pause. She can't lie to him. She won't lie to him. But she needs him gone now, and he'll stay stuck to her side like a burr if he thinks she won't find her way home. Swallowing thickly, Rebecca smiles down at her oldest friend in the world and nods.

"Of course. I'll be back before you know it, okay? Now go."

"Rebecca, what the fuck is going on? Hey! Fuck. Shiki! Homura! One of you two go-"

"Don't, I got this." Rebecca yanks the comms out and tosses it to the side. She's alone-alone now, not a soul to keep her company even in her head and though the thought terrifies her, a wave of steady calm rushes through her veins. Alone. Nobody here to be hurt but her. Her hands slips between her breasts to retrieve the butterfly knife, which she flips open experimentally. Homura'd only given her the briefest of tutorials on how to use it, and she hopes she remembers enough to thank her for it later on.

"Weisz Steiner...he screwed shit up real bad for my predecessor, you know?" Ah. So it is Professor Weisz he's thinking of. Amusement bubbles up within her despite the gravity of it all - chick magnet her ass. Weisz Steiner is a danger magnet no matter if he's a 72 year old saint, or a 22 year old sinner.

"Sucks to be him, but what's that got to do with me?"

"'Princess' he called you. You his lil' sugar baby or something?"

Okay, now she's mad. Sugar baby? Her? Weisz can barely afford to buy takeout most days because he'd grown so used to stealing to supplant his income that the notion of a biweekly allowance from Witch has him ten kinds of confused and perpetually broke. As if he could afford her. Not that she's a sugar baby. The B-Cubers who are may have the nicest makeup palettes but Rebecca has her fucking dignity thank you very much.

"Or something," she grits out, peering over the rock to give him a once over. He's favouring his right side so she needs to strike there and fast. She's small enough that she could slip in and catch him in the ribs, or maybe the shoulder. She's also small enough that he could crush her with his monster-truck sized hands, she thinks nervously. Breathe. Breathe. If she can't breathe the world will go topsy turvy and then she'll really be in trouble.

"Old bastard. I don't like smackin' around my elders, see. Wasn't raised in a barn or anything like that. You, though…" Rebecca's eyes widen as he hones in on her hiding spot, smiling thinly. Her heart drops when he aims his gun at the rock and says, "You, though, I don't have a problem roughing up."

The heat of the explosion hits her before the rubble does. It's so fucking hot she can barely feel the shrapnel embedding itself in her skin. Her ears are ringing and ringing and it fucking hurts everywhere. Rebecca scrambles up and swings the knife wildly for cover as she tries to find her balance in the chaos. Homura once told her that a novice with a knife could be the most dangerous person in the room. She hopes to fucking god she was right.

The freak grabs her swinging arm and yanks her close enough to punch her under the ribs. Her eyes pop painfully, and for a second her lungs are seizing in three different zones out of tandem. Shitfuckshit.

"You abandoned your guns for a knife. Not much going on up top in you, huh?" He laughs, cocking his arm back once more. "But from what I hear, that's how he likes 'em."

The knife falls from the hand in his grip to her other, and it's so slick with sweat it nearly slips through her fingers, but she has enough of a grip that one deft jerk later, the knife is thrust through the layers of fat covering his side. He howls and drops her hand, grasping for the knife with thick, grubby fingers just as she grabs the bite handle and yanks so hard the blade flips back, digging into her skin as she falls back onto the ground.

One opening. She had one opening and it needs to work. It needs to because he's mad and has two feet on her and she won't be able to pull that off again if she tried. Rebecca shifts to the side, gagging on nothing as her breathing grows shallower. If his earlier hit caught one of her lower ribs there's a chance it's broken and pressing into her lungs. Before she can press and check, he's launching himself at her with the grace of an enraged bull and if her lung wasn't fucked before it is now that she's rolled over to avoid the hit. Her left side feels like there's a slab of concrete sitting on it and her right side is seizing up to compensate but no matter how hard it tries there's not enough air.

"I wonder how we can make this a statement," he muses, advancing on her as her vision starts tunneling. No, no, no, no, no. Focus. Focus. Shit, what does she focus on? She has a knife but he has a fucking gun in his belt and Rebecca's a sharpshooter first and foremost - you never bring a knife to a gunfight. Fuck. Fuck.

A knife is better than nothing and he's still favouring his right side, more so now that he's bleeding from there. She can get it again but it needs to be precise. Fourth and fifth ribs. Shit, how does she find the fourth and fifth ribs this far away? The tang of copper on her tongue is so bitter she can't even swallow it back; she coughs and coughs and coughs until her head starts spinning, and she coughs some more for good measure because it keeps coming.

He stomps on her arm and something snaps. First, there's nothing but radiating, icy numbness that goes from her arm to her chest and stays there. Then, it's on fire. Her throat can barely cope with her screams and it's tearing itself to let it all out. He bears down harder, twisting his boot to dig her bones into the dirt. She can barely see his face through her tears but he looks like he's smiling at her and every strangled wail only makes it wider.

"You're loud. Does he like that?" He asks, "Or maybe I'm the first. I haven't heard him on your comms in a bit. Is he still there?"

The comms. The fucking comms. Weisz can hear everything. Or maybe he can't. Maybe they got destroyed in the blast earlier. Her teammates will worry and they'll come for her and be hurt too but god she wants them here so bad, just so the hurting stops. But if they're here then they'll be hurt and Rebecca refuses to let that happen. Even when her chest works against her and her bones are crushed, it'll be over her dead body that the freak has a chance to get to them.

That split second where she realizes it's all her, that nobody is coming, ignites a flame within that burns hotter than her arm, and it's strong enough that she latch-drops the butterfly knife and stabs it right under his kneecap. Panicked and wilder than the man above her, she jerks it around, shredding through everything she can get to - ligaments and bone and bursae, fat and skin, his life or hers. He falls back and she lets go of the knife to hold her shattered arm to her chest, pushing herself onto her good side to ease her way up. He's not down permanently, not by a long shot, but one of his legs being out of commission gives her enough time to get to Edens Zero and run.

Everything is so hazy and she doesn't know what to blame it on. Tears still slip down her dusty cheeks and the blood loss is making her so woozy she's stumbling over rocks and fallen equipment. The corners of her vision are starting to go black; Edens Zero is so far. She's not gonna make it but she has to try. Rebecca goddamn Bluegarden will go down as a fighter in her tribute video if nothing else.

"Hey! Bitch! You're gonna fuckin' pay for that!"

In that moment, three things happen: there's a booming gunshot, followed by a louder one, and Rebecca's on the ground before she can figure out if it was an echo or not.

The machine beeps, and Weisz is ten seconds away from activating his Ether Gear and shutting it up for good. From where she stands making notes on Rebecca's chart, Ivry glares at him until the blue glow recedes, and even then she waits for his arms to cross over his chest before looking at the heart rate monitor and nodding.

"Her vitals are holding steady," Ivry says.

"Her vitals would be steady if she was dead, too, Ivry."

He doesn't bother dodging the pencil she whips at his head.

"Take that tone with me one more time and I'll have you manually fixing my MRI the next time I see you," Ivry warns. The threat bounces off of him easily, mostly because he's not paying attention to her anymore. That stupid machine is beeping and he swears it's louder than before - it's making his skin itch.

"I was thinking a cute sadist like you would have something kinkier in mind," he shoots back, humourless, "Maybe tie me up and whip me."

Ivry sighs, a gravity about her that he's not sure even Shiki can muster. He hates it, that pity in her eyes. How can she look at him like that when Rebecca's right there, lost in a world he can't retrieve her from?

"Kid, you've managed to fool everybody on this ship but me with that aloof attitude of yours. It's okay to be upset or worried about all this. She was in real bad shape-"

"You don't think I know that?" Weisz snaps, gripping his biceps so tightly they're in danger of breaking. He hopes they do, just so he can share a bit of Rebecca's pain. "I was the one who got there just in fucking time to drag her back here. I thought she was dead."

The Starshine doesn't bother pretending he was the only one. There was so much blood - from her head, her arm, her mouth. He didn't even know it was possible to lose so much and still be breathing - but then again, he hadn't been sure she was breathing then, either. In the time between Ivry closing off the hospital bay to deal with Rebecca, Witch had dragged him to the showers and sat outside as he scrubbed himself raw trying to get the blood off. His battle gear better be burning somewhere. If it isn't, he'll set fire to it himself and try and warm himself on the flames because ever since that day he's been so fucking cold.

"So get mad. Get sad. Hell, cry a little if you have to, but don't get pissy with others." Ivry makes another note in the chart and hangs it at the foot of her bed, pausing to squeeze his shoulder on her way out. "She's alive, Weisz. That's all that matters, yeah?"

"Yeah."

"'S what I thought. Now go change, you've been wearing that sweater for the past two days and it fuckin' stinks."

Two days, then. Rebecca's not opened her eyes in two fucking days.

The machine beeps. Her heart rate is cruising at 90. O2 saturation at 96%. Blood pressure 120/84. Normal. Healthy. Not like then.

No, when Rebecca's heart rate hit one-hundred and fucking thirty-seven, Weisz's heart stopped. He'd stared at the screen as the world froze over until her blood pressure hit 100/80 and then he was running. He didn't even bother to check and see if Hermit was able to patch through because fuck the mission, fuck everything that wasn't Rebecca. He could hear them through the comms. Faintly, of course, because she'd thrown the stupid thing away, but Weisz has fucking Machina Maker, did she think he couldn't upgrade all their comms at once through his?

By the time he made it to the roof on the south side, Rebecca was screaming and the bastard was asking if he liked it when she did that. He's still not sure how he found the will to keep the comms intact. He can still hear it ringing in his head. But, really, what sticks with him the most is that by the time he upgraded his assault rifle to a sniper and braced it on his forearm, the bastard had a gun aimed at her turned back and his finger was squeezing the trigger but it didn't fucking matter because, down there, he shot, too.

Through the scope, Weisz saw it all.

Her head snapped to the side and he couldn't jump to the ground fast enough to get to her. There was so much fucking blood on her face and the chunks of rock near her looked like bits of brain and his fingers were shaking so much there was no pulse or breaths and he didn't even think to use the the monitors he'd equipped on her because his arms were full of her.

The screaming won't stop and every time he closes his eyes, the bullet is breaking through her skull.

Shower. He needs to shower and get this sheen of cold sweat off of him.

When he returns, Homura is by Rebecca's bed, face as impassively as ever.

"She did well with the knife I gave her," Homura says once Weisz takes up his vigil again. "For someone with no experience, I mean. She would've been better off with Happy but her Ether was low. Odd. We were in Edens Bath the night before."

His heart catches. Ether depletion. From when he'd made her activate it in bed that night. Fuck, everything about this just comes back to him. If he hadn't - if he'd just told her to rely on Happy - she wouldn't be like this. She'd be okay.

"Shiki told me not to tell you this, but we heard everything on the comms, too. He said it would make you upset. You knew the person who did this to her?"

"No," Weisz manages to get out from the thick, painful clog in his throat. "No, the me from this timeline is who he meant. He must've heard some audio of us from back then."

"Ah." Homura nods. It's quiet for a while then, long enough that he can force the heaviness in his throat down to join the one in his chest. He won't break down. He's Weisz Steiner, dammit, and he does not cry. Why should he cry? It won't change anything. Rebecca will still be unconscious, and he'll still stay up the whole night because every time he tries to sleep she's dead in his arms before the hour's over. Everything keeps replaying in his head over and over again, and he's breaking it down like it's some stupid system he can fix. Everything is a mistake on his part - the upgrades could have been done faster if he hadn't been so obsessed with making it run smoother for convenience; he could've equipped the Ether in the area to pump up faster so she had enough energy to shoot him; he could have gotten there sooner.

Ultimately, that's all it boils down to for him - he could have gotten there sooner.

"Perhaps we should look into advancing her Ether Gear if this is to be a recurring event," Homura says. Weisz's neck cracks audibly as he looks up at her, equal parts indignant and horrified at her suggestion.

"What?"

"Do you not wish for her Ether to-?"

"Not that. What do you mean recurring?"

"I shouldn't say this, but you have made yourself quite the target. I imagine now that your relationship with Rebecca is public knowledge, your enemies will use this to their advantage," Homura explains, shrugging her shoulders delicately. "Although, I suppose this is a one-time affair. You do not seem the type to allow for these things to happen more than once."

"Yeah, you're right," Weisz says, sinking into his chair, head spinning. "This won't happen again."

"Good. I like Rebecca. I look forward to seeing her well." Homura bows shortly to the both of them, leaving the room so silently he has to crane his neck back to make sure she's gone before exhaling shakily.

Homura's right. Weisz knows fifty years back he had a lot of enemies, and he can't imagine he hit a magic break at some point shortly after that transformed him into the saintly Professor, so he has to assume there are more he's not even aware about, nevermind the new ones he's sure to find with Edens Zero. Rebecca can fight, yes, but that's not the fucking point anymore. If these enemies, whoever they are, find out that Weisz has one weak spot, they'll exploit it until it shatters and Rebecca's already broken too much because of him.

For once, Weisz has to be selfless. He wants her more than anything he's ever coveted before, but if her being by his side means her being hurt, then he can't do it anymore. He has to let her go.

The air leaves his lungs in one go at the thought. He's grown complacent. It shouldn't be this hard to let go. He's done it before, he reasons between little choked gasps for air and the sudden urge to ball up and cry, he's done it so many times with treasures he can't afford to hold onto. There's always something better out there, he used to tell himself, something bigger and worth more. But this is Rebecca. She's not money or machines or an artifact he can sell to the highest bidder. Rebecca's not replaceable. She's not someone he can live without.

His head throbs behind his eyes. He can barely think, but he knows, despite the haze, that that's just it - he has to learn to live without her because he can't live without her.

This was too close for anyone's comfort, and he'd sooner die watching her safely from the sidelines than ever put her in this position again.

Weisz holds onto the mattress as he stands up. He doesn't trust his jello-like knees to keep him from collapsing. Rebecca looks peaceful in spite of the heavy gauze around her head and the nasal cannula blowing cold oxygen into her lungs. Cold. Of course, she's probably cold. She always steals their blankets at night and the hospital bay sheets are so thin. He slips off his heavy sweater and lays it on top of her, tucking the sleeves under her arms and pulling the hood up enough that it covers her neck.

What does he say now? Goodbye? He'll still see her when she wakes up, but it feels like something is gone for good now and he needs to. He doesn't want to, of course, because goodbyes are forever, so he leans down and kisses her, feather-light, brushing his knuckles over her cheek again and again.

"Love you, Rebecca," he murmurs. "I'm sorry. For everything."

A/N: So the whole 'quiche' thing is based off that one text post like 'do you want a quickie' 'a WHAT' 'you know the egg thing' 'QUICHE. YOU MEAN QUICHE'. So Weisz is asking for a morning quickie. Does he get one? Only I know.

Also, if anyone guesses the respiratory physiology joke nested in here, I will cry.

See you next Sunday/Monday!

Please review!

-Eien