Neo: Well here is my next story and I have no idea what to call it!

Schuldig: Yeah, and Aya is so out of character, he's concerned about someone other than himself or his sister.

Neo: *sweatdrop* Yeah, he is. But it goes with the story very well, I think.

Schuldig: Anyway, Neo does not own Weiss Kreuz although she wishes she did. Now on with the story!

Aya was making breakfast while Omi and Ken were preparing the shop to be opened. Youji was curled up on the couch like a cat and no amount of yelling on Aya's part could move him so he had to give up.

"Come on everyone. Breakfast is ready." Omi and Ken ran

into the kitchen at Aya's call, having no wish for him to drag them in there. Aya watched the door but Youji did not join them. "Where is Youji? Is that lazy bum still asleep?"

Omi turned to look at Aya with a extremely worried expression, "I don't think Youji-kun is feeling very well today. He hasn't moved at all from the couch all morning." Omi watched as Aya headed for the door.

"So he's still on the living room couch?" At Omi's nod, Aya walked out the door and toward the living room. Youji was lying on the couch and looking half asleep. He had stretched out and Aya silently agreed with Omi, he looked awful.

Aya sat down on the floor by the blonde assassin and shook him slightly, "Youji? Are you feeling alright?"

Youji stirred and looked over at Aya with a dull look in his eyes before answering, "No, I feel like shit, but you don't ever seem to care so I didn't say anything. You wouldn't have believed me anyway."

Aya sighed, "Youji, I don't like anyone slacking off and you do that a lot, but if you are really sick, I'm not going to make you work. You'd get all the costumers sick too and we wouldn't have anyone to buy flowers."

Youji glanced over at him almost sadly, "See, you don't care about any of us, just selling your flowers. Anyway, I'm fine, just a little tired is all."

Aya shook his head and placed a hand on the blonde's forehead, "You may think you're just tired but you feel warm to me. I'm going to take your temperature. Ken! Get in here!"

Ken ran into the room several seconds later followed closely by Omi, "What do you need Aya? Is Youji going to be okay? Does he need help?"

Aya merely glanced at Ken before answering, "Youji will be fine and he does not need help right now. I need you to go and get the thermometer from the bathroom, he feels like he has a slight fever." Ken nodded and ran off.

Omi walked around the couch to stand behind it and began running his fingers through Youji's hair. "Youji-kun, are you feeling alright?"

Youji smiled weakly up at the younger assassin, "I'm fine, Aya's just being a bigger mother hen than you are. He doesn't want the buyers to get sick if I do have something." Omi nodded and Ken ran back into the room waving the thermometer.

Aya grabbed hold of it before it could go flying out of Ken's hand and turned to Youji, "I'm going to take your temperature now and you're going to be good and let me, understand?" Youji nodded and Aya shoved the thermometer into his mouth and waited for it to beep.

Aya watched Youji careful and began to set down the rules, "If you temperature is above 100 then you are going to bed, got it?" Youji didn't have time to answer as the thermometer went off. Aya took it and studied the numbers. "Your temperature is 100.2." Before he could say anything else, Omi butted in.

"You are going to bed right now! Don't you dare try to argue, just do it!" Youji took one look at Omi and attempted to get up so he leave. Aya stood on one side of him and half carried half led Youji up stair and dumped him into bed. "You hungry?"

Youji glanced up at the stoic red head, "No, although why you're trying to be nice now is beyond me. You've already said that you just care about selling flowers."

Aya glared at him coldly, "Baka, that's not the only thing I care about." Youji looked at him with an expression on his face that spoke of slight hope. It vanished when Aya continued though, "I also care that Weiss is not broken. We can't lose a member or we can't take missions."

Omi popped up in the doorway, "Aya-kun! Leave Youji-kun be! He needs to rest! And Youji-kun, you will eat something later. Aya might only care about missions but the rest of us want you alive." With that, Omi left with Aya to let the blonde sleep.

Later that day, Omi was making some light soup for Youji to eat. When he took it to Youji's room, Omi found the older assassin sweating and shaking violently. He put a hand on the blonde's forehead and frowned before going to get the others. "Aya-kun, Ken-kun! I think Youji-kun is getting worst!"

Aya got up and took off his apron as he walked toward the stairs. "Ken, Omi. Close up the shop and get up here as soon as you can, and bring the thermometer." Aya entered Youji's room and placed a hand on his forehead like Omi had. Youji felt hot and he was having noticeable problems breathing.

Ken and Omi came into the room and Ken handed over the thermometer. Aya shook Youji awake and stuffed the thermometer into his mouth and settled down to wait. When it went off, Aya retrieved it and once more studied the numbers.

Ken walked over to Youji and felt his forehead for himself since Aya seemed to not want to tell them what his temperature was. His eyes widened in shock, "Damn, he's really burning up isn't he?"

Aya glance over at the other two assassins, "His fever is getting worst. This morning it was 100.2 and now it's 103.7. We should try to stop the fever from rising any more. Despite what he thinks, I have no wish for him to die and he will at this rate."

Omi also looked at their sick teammate, "His breathing seems really bad too, doesn't it?" They all watched Youji's chest rise and fall in a shallow and irregular pattern as he struggled to breathe right. The air rasped in his chest and he winced with every breath he drew.

Youji began coughing quite suddenly and Aya moved over to help as he gasped for breath between the hard coughs. Aya noted with alarm that Youji's temperature was already higher than it had been a few minutes before, "Omi, call 911. Youji isn't going to make it if he doesn't get help fast. Tell them that he's not breathing correctly and that his temperature is 103 and rising." Omi nodded and left Aya and Ken with Youji as he ran downstairs.

When Omi got to the phone, he did as he was told and dialed the emergency number and began to tell them what he had been told, "Hello? My friend is really ill, he's not breathing well and his temperature is 103 and still rising. He was also coughing really hard just a little while ago." The hospital promised to send an ambulance right then to go and help them.

Omi ran back upstairs to Youji's bedroom and was shocked when he got there. Youji had already stopped breathing once and although they got him to breathe again, he still wasn't doing well. His pulse was also very faint and his fever was still going up.

In about ten minutes the ambulance got there and began loading Youji into the back. Once inside, Youji stopped breathing once again. It was even more serious this though because when Youji's breathing stopped this time, so did his heart. The doctors began immediately and tried to revive his with electric shocks. It didn't work.

The doctors tried again three more times and after four failed attempts everyone was ready to give up except Omi, "Please, try one more time! He wouldn't die that easily on us! I know he wouldn't!" He begged till they gave in.

The doctors set up the machine for one more try and readied themselves, "Clear!" One of them shouted as the jolt of electricity raced through Youji's prone body and everyone held their breath as another doctor checked for a pulse. Their hopes were shattered as the doctor pulled away and shook his head sadly.

Omi burst into tears and jumped off the ambulance and ran back toward the shop. Aya and Ken ran after him with the hope that they could comfort him a little. A female doctor named Alex ran a hand down Youji's face and stiffened. She reached down and grabbed the blonde's wrist, "Wait!" The others turned to look at her, "I have a pulse! Slow and erratic, but there! Someone get me some oxygen, we could lose this at any time! And someone tell his friends!"

As one doctor ran off toward the other Weiss members, Alex shoved a plastic oxygen mask over Youji's mouth and nose to keep him breathing. Another doctor rubbed the sick blonde's chest to simulate breathing and to keep his heart beating.

The doctor chosen to give Aya, Ken, and Omi the news, tracked them down in the back of the shop. Omi glared at the man through his tears, "What do you want? Can't you leave us alone to mourn in peace?"

The doctor smiled soothingly at the three and spoke to them gently, "I don't want to get your hopes up, but your friend does seem to have a pulse. We need to take him to the hospital right away if he is to make it." With that said the doctor left and the ambulance pulled away.

Omi stared after it, tears still running down his face, but a slight look of hope was in his eyes as he looked at his two remaining teammates, "Well, what are we just standing here for? Let's follow them and then we can see how Youji-kun is doing!" Ken and Aya agreed and they all hopped in the car and drove after the ambulance.

In the ambulance, the doctors were fighting as hard as they could to keep the pulse they had worked so hard for. Not a single person there was going to let their patient die without their consent. Alex still kept the oxygen mask over Youji's face and they had begun giving him injections to keep the blonde going.

Once at the hospital, Youji was taken to the E.R. so they could find out what was wrong with him. Some doctors thought it was a bad case of pneumonia, but Alex, who was Weiss' personal doctor, didn't think so. The other members of Weiss waited impatiently in the waiting room.

Omi was pacing nervously some three or four hours after they had arrived, when Alex came out to speak with them. "Well? What's wrong with him? Is it very bad? Is he going to be alright?" Aya put a hand on Omi's shoulder to silence him as Alex glanced at her notes of Youji's condition.

"I'm going to be very blunt with you, and even though you might not like it, you like it less if I weren't. Your friend is very ill. His temperature is currently 108 and still rising, although it's not as fast as it was. His lungs are also filled with fluid which was why he couldn't breathe. He doesn't have pneumonia, but I can't tell you anything else. I'm sorry."

Omi looked up at her sadly, "Can we go and see him? We can do that can't we?" Alex looked like she was about to say no and Aya seemed to about to say the same thing, so Omi took drastic measures, he turned to Alex and gave her the sad puppy dog eyes that only he could pull off.

Alex felt her resolve weakening as Omi's lower lip trembled and his eyes began tearing up, "Alright, you can see Youji. Follow me and don't wander off whatever you do. This way." Alex led them down several hallways and up a couple of staircases into the critical care unit of the hospital. She stopped at a door and opened it, waving them in.

The three went into the room and Ken gasped, Youji was hooked up to so many machines it wasn't even funny. Some machines measured his vital signs and he also had a mask over his face that was hooked up to yet another machine, "What's that mask over his face for? It looks really uncomfortable."

Alex looked at the three grimly, "I'm sure that mask isn't very comfortable but it's all that's keeping him alive right now. He can't breathe well on his own so we hook him up to this machine, called a respirator, and it gives him pure oxygen and takes stress off his lungs. See?"

Aya looked over at the doctor, "Can't you do something about the fluid in his lungs? Or at least the fever? He won't survive if this goes on for very much longer. If there's anything you can do, please tell us.

"Well, there is one thing we could do." They all looked at Alex expectantly, "We could drain his lungs but we would have to wait for a few days before we can do that." See the looks on their faces, she elaborated, "Youji's body can't handle that because we would have to do surgery. We're giving him medication for the fever and if it goes down soon, we'll do the operation."

Neo: Cliffy!! Don't kill me please!

Schuldig: Just review and we'll all be happy and continue!