Stein lay on the operating table, patiently waiting. There was an IV in his arm and lines drawn on his skin; a sheen of sweat covered his forehead and he was having trouble coping with the pain, but he was waiting because the woman above him was shaking badly.

"Marie, calm down. I know this is well outside your comfort zone, but I need you to," he said gently. The light flashed off the scalpel that she held in her hand and she was breathing quickly. "Marie, focus. Please. I need you to be focused and calm. There's no one else I can ask." Stein took a sharp breath in as a fresh wave of pain hit and he could see the fear in her eye when he opened his.

She reached over him then, and he could see the single tear that fell and landed on his chest as she pressed the button to start the IV drip. A few moments later relief flooded through his ravaged body as the pain began to recede with each drip of the IV. His mind grew fuzzy but he fought it, knowing that he needed to stay conscious as long as possible.

"Marie, make the incision," his voice slurred a few moments later.

"I'm sorry…" Marie said quietly, and even though the anesthetic was pumping through his veins he could feel the tip of the scalpel press down against his stomach and then pierce the flesh. He hissed even through the anesthetic, knowing full well that he should be asleep right now. Staying awake through an incision the size of the one that Marie had to make was not going to be fun.

"Marie…" he rasped out, "it has to be deeper." Another tear fell on his chest and slid towards the incision as he felt her press down harder, his flesh peeling apart behind the blade. The tear hit it and he gasped at the sting, surprised at how much pain it brought.

"The… the foreign body… use the hook…" Stein was rapidly losing his hold on the world; his jaw clenched against the pain, and was desperate to remain conscious.

He could feel the tremors running through Marie's soul as he felt the cold metal device slide into his abdominal cavity. They had gone over this, practiced it on a dummy. As Stein's hold on the world slipped away in a mass of pain and darkness he could only hope that she wouldn't hook and remove the wrong thing. With a shuddering sigh his eyes slid closed.

Stein opened his eyes again to darkness and a steady beep. He could still feel the IV in his right arm, and pressure against his left. Turning his head he found Marie asleep, her head lying on his left arm. Tears tracks were obvious and even in her sleep her breath hitched on occasion, as if she were crying in her dreams.

"Marie," Stein said quietly, knowing better than to move too much at this point. When she didn't stir he moved his arm a bit and she woke suddenly. A gold eye stared into green ones, and welled with tears.

"I thought I had killed you!" She wailed suddenly, her arms flinging around his neck.

Stein awkwardly brought his arm up and around her back, holding her even as he tensed, worried about pressure on his abdomen. "What would make you think that, Marie?"

"You stopped breathing. I didn't know what to do…" she sobbed into his neck. He could taste it then, the undeniably waxy taste of lipstick on his lips.

"You performed CPR?"

"I was so scared… with the cut I didn't know if I could do depressions on your chest…" she dissolved into tears.

"Marie, whatever you did, it was the right thing. I'm here, I'm alive." Stein rubbed slow circles in the woman's back. "You preserved what you removed?"

He felt her nod against his neck and he pushed her back and away from him a little bit. "Marie, you saw what you removed. You saw why I couldn't perform the surgery myself. You saved my life."

The tears hit his chest again, sliding down and to the freshly stitched incision as Marie tried desperately not to sob.

"I'm sorry I had to ask you to do that, but Nygus was gone. If I had waited…" his voice trailed off and he felt Marie shudder. He relaxed his arms, pulling her back against him, ignoring the twinge of pain that his abdomen gave him. "You saved me, Marie."

She just nodded and he felt the tears slowly stop. She placed a hand on his chest as she pushed away and hesitated, looking down at him where he was propped up in the bed. Before she could change her mind the death scythe leaned in and pushed her lips against his. Stein's eyes widened as she closed hers, her lips lingering against his, the feeling remaining even after she pulled away from him.

She turned and walked away, presumably to retrieve the preserved specimen and Stein took a deep breath. Marie returned a moment later with the jar; something moved inside the jar and Stein furrowed his brow.

"It was wriggling when I got it out…" she said. "I didn't know if you needed it alive or dead… so I kept it alive. I almost lost it; it tried to slither up the hook."

"You shouldn't have taken the risk, Marie…" Stein said, staring into the jar at the snake-like creature.

"I know, Franken… but you shouldn't have been the only one taking a risk." Tears choked her words and Stein looked at her.

"Marie, you don't have to put yourself at risk for me."

"I'm your weapon."

"That doesn't-"

She cut him off. "It's my duty to keep you safe, I'm the weapon. If that means putting myself at risk, that's what is going to happen. I've failed before, Franken, I'm not going to fail again!" She was obviously on a roll, and her voice rising and her next words slipped out before she could stop them. "I love you too much to let you get hurt!"

The blonde's hands flew over her mouth, her eye wide as realization of what she had just said rolled over her. Stein stared up at her, surprise easily readable in his expression.

"Marie-"

"I'm so sorry!" She fled from him then, out of the lab and into the night, tears falling.

Stein lay in the bed that Marie had moved him to for a long time before carefully standing. The incision in his stomach prevented him from going out looking for the woman and he sighed as he walked cautiously from the lab to the kitchen, the IV trailing behind him. He had to sit heavily on one of the kitchen chairs, a hand pressed against the incision as pain welled up. He lost track of how long he sat there.

Marie's hand on his shoulder pulled him back to himself and he looked up at her. She didn't say anything, just slipped his arm over her shoulder and helped him back to the bed they had sat up. After making sure he was comfortable she picked up the bag beside her and left the room; his Soul Perception showed her to be in the kitchen. A few moments later the smell of whatever she was cooking wafted through the doors that she had left open.

Stein lay staring up at the stitched ceiling until she returned; a bowl of fresh broth in her hands. She pulled his patch-worked chair over to the bed and balanced the bowl on her knee as she spread a small towel across his chest.

"Marie-"

"Be quiet. You're supposed to be resting." Marie said and Stein just stared at her as she held out the spoonful of broth. "Eat."

Ignoring the pain from the incision Stein pushed himself to a more upright position and caught her wrist, the warm broth splashing onto the towel she had used as a bib for him.

"Marie, listen-"

"If you're not hungry, you need to sleep," she said as she turned her head from him and he could see the tears welling in her eye. "I'll go so you can."

He let her pull her wrist from his hand and walk off, the bowl of broth left beside him on the chair. Slipping back to a more comfortable position Stein sighed, wondering why what she had said would cause such a rift.

Marie sat on the edge of her bed, her head hung as she cried. 'How could I have said that?!' She thought miserably. Time slipped by as she berated herself for the slipup, knowing full well that it had been a mistake. No matter what she felt for him, it was Stein, there was no way he could ever, would ever, return the feeling. He might try, considering it an experiment, but it was doomed in the end. Allowing the sorrow to wash over her, Marie curled up on her bed and cried herself to sleep.

She woke the next morning to the unmistakable feeling of someone sharing her bed. Long arms were wrapped loosely around her waist, and her head was lying on the person's shoulder. Marie opened her eye to Stein's sleeping face, and involuntarily looked down.

The man lay on his side, his forehead resting against her and his back arched away from her so that her stomach and his weren't touching. He was shirtless, just gauze wrapped around his stomach, covering the incision mark.

'The incision I made…' Silent sobs wracked her body and his grip on her body tightened, though he didn't wake. She slipped backwards, intent on leaving her bed and him, a million thoughts rushing through her mind, most of them enough to bring a blush to her cheeks.

He woke as she pulled away from him. His eyes met hers, and he tightened his arms around her. "Marie, listen to me for a minute."

"You need to rest and get your strength back, Franken," she said, not wanting to talk to him, still far too embarrassed; her eye slipped closed, and her voice sounded pathetic even to her.

He just pulled her closer to him, until their noses were nearly touching. "Marie, listen to me."

Her gold eye met his green ones, and she choked back a sob. His hand came up and brushed away the tear from her cheek.

"You don't have to be so tore up. I know the last few days have been rough. What I don't know is why you're trying so hard to avoid me." Stein looked at her expectantly and she just closed her eye.

'Pretend that the conversation isn't going on. Enjoy him holding me. It's the last time it is ever going to happen.' Marie thought miserably to herself. His voice interrupted her train of thought.

"If it's because you said that you love me, I don't understand why you're so upset about voicing it aloud." Her eye flew open, and Stein realized that he had hit the nail on the head. "Why does it upset you so? Is it so horrible?"

She pulled herself from his grasp and sat on the side of the bed. "It is!" She heard the familiar clicking of his screw as the man slowly sat up. "Why do I have to be in love with you?" Tears fell down her face. "You've admitted that you don't understand it, that you can't feel it- that you're incapable of it! So why did I have to fall in love with the one person who can't return it?!"

He started to speak and she cut him off. "Don't. Just don't, Franken. I'm not going to be some experiment. I'm not going to let you hurt me when you can't find the answer with your science."

His voice was quiet and small. "I have feelings, Marie. Just because I don't understand them doesn't mean that I don't have them."

She looked over her shoulder at him, and the sight of blood through the gauze made her turn. "Franken, you're bleeding."

"I know. A stitch popped. I'll fix it later." His hand reached out to her. "Marie, I know that you haven't had the best of luck with romance. Look at it as a fresh slate. I know nothing of it, so you could teach me the correct way."

Marie stared at his hand as if it was Medusa's snake that she had removed from his stomach, freeing him at last from her poison. "You're…"

"Asking for a chance." Stein finished for her. "You've been here no matter what; I know I'm not the sanest person, but even I know that I shouldn't give you up."

She just stared at him, disbelief on her face.

"I believe given time I could finally say I love you to you and know what it truly means, Marie. You're the only person I believe I ever could."

Tears slid down her face. Ignoring the pain from the incision, ignoring the blood that was trickling through the gauze, Stein sat forward and cupped her cheek with his hand. Their positions from earlier reversed, he kissed her.

A/N: It scrabbled at my head, demanding to be explored. It started as a oneshot, then morphed to the last chapter of a fic I'm working on, before sliding back into a oneshot. I hope you enjoyed.