A/N: Sometimes a little bit of Tender Loving Care is needed :3

He had only been gone five minutes, muttering something about a civilian as he left her there in the market, but already people were running past with blood on them, screaming like women in labour. Maria couldn't for the life of her think what he must have done – and it must have been him because she was sure there was no one else on the planet who could cause such a ruckus in so little time – to have so many people in such a fluster.

Her curiosity was only increased further when he jumped off the building beside her, covered from head to toe in blood – some of which she could safely say was his own – gripped her upper arm and began towing her away down the street, swiping a cloak from an abandoned stall as he went. He didn't stop dragging her until they were standing in the street outside the assassin's bureau and luckily there was no one around.

"I won't be able to climb the ladder..." He said quietly – although from blood-loss or the need for discretion she couldn't tell – "You go up and find a change of clothes."

"For who?" She questioned, glancing dubiously at his cloak-hidden outfit and then down at her own blood-splattered front.

"Me." He replied, turning slowly to slump against the wall, his hand slipping from her elbow to clutch at his neck. Maria frowned at the action:

"Altair, have you hurt your neck?"

He gave her a weathered look, then gingerly removed his hand, tugging the collar of the cloak down to reveal an ugly stab-wound, ripped around the edges – most likely made with some blunt object - and leaking dark blood in a thin trail down the column of his throat. Despite herself, Maria gasped, bringing her hands up to replace Altair's and examine the hole. Even with her limited medical knowledge, it didn't take a genius to figure out that, had the wound been even a centimetre to the right, he would have been long dead by now. Did he even realise how lucky he was?

"We have to get you into the bureau." She said sternly, standing up and offering him a hand to help pull him to his feet.

"But I'm-"

"I'll hang onto you." She didn't give him any chance to complain, forcefully wrapping his fingers round the ladder rungs for him and giving him a boost upwards. He was indeed struggling, apparently the action of raising his arms above his head was proving difficult and their progress was painfully slow, but eventually he managed to get himself to the roof. Then came the tricky part; lowering him into the bureau.

"Ouch!"

"Oh stop being such a big baby." Maria chided softly, digging the needle back into Altair's neck, trying to ignore his sounds of pain as the thread pulled taught. Getting him to let her clean it had been alright, there wasn't all that much pain that water could bring, but the appearance of Turmeric actually had the assassin begging her not to follow Rafik's advice; they had to pin him down in the end. So relatively speaking, stitches were a doddle.

She had to admit, she wasn't all that impressed with his 'Assassination-skills' when the removal of his tunic revealed a whole plethora of other nicks, cuts and bruises and he even seemed to encourage her to bandage them up for him – obviously the poor little soldier was much too injured to bandage his middle himself. Just for that she made the wrappings extra tight, and if he was up in the middle of the night complaining about his lack of circulation, she wasn't going to help him at all.

"Are you done?"

"No."

Talk about impatient! Here she was trying her best to make sure he wouldn't end up with some really ugly scar or the stitches wouldn't come undone and un-do him and here he was chivvying her along! It was his own darn fault for getting himself into this mess.

She pushed the needle in again and felt his fingers close around her knee, tight. Apparently that one hurt and she couldn't blame him for wanting to hang onto something, but he didn't remove his hand once the needle was out either. She could feel his eyes watching her face – where previously they had been unfocused, staring up at the cloudless sky or just screwed shut entirely – and she was feeling slightly uncomfortable. Well, as uncomfortable as one can be when they're sewing up someone else's skin.

"I know I'm fun to look at," She whispered sweetly, her brown eyes flickering up to meet with his briefly, "But staring is impolite."

He chuckled lightly, but didn't look away, or remove his hand. "Where did you learn medicine?"

"I'm a woman," She reminded him, a hint of amusement showing in her voice, "It's imperative we know some medicine. What else would we do when our men were injured? Doctors are expensive in Europe."

"But I'm not your man." He said, the weight of his hand on her knee lifting slightly, but not gone completely.

"That's not the point." She blushed. Men – Altair in particular – could be so dumb sometimes, "I'm still the woman with the medical knowledge and you're still the idiot who got hurt."

He raised an eyebrow and took his hand from her leg, lacing his fingers together with those of the other hand and resting them on his bare stomach. "I'm not an idiot." Evidently she'd hit a nerve.

The stitches finished, Maria brought her teeth to the thread, as close to the base as she could get it and bit. Altair flinched a bit as her lips brushed against his neck, and shut his eyes as she repeated the motion for the other end of the threat, biting it off at the end she'd started, her lips brushing his neck gently.

"Finished." Maria stated as she stood up, seemingly completely unaware of the proximity they had just shared. "Stay there and I'll go fetch some bandages."

Altair nodded and watched her go, resisting the urge to scrub at his tingling neck; Maria would murder him if he dislodged any of the stitches she had just painstakingly made. It wasn't his fault he was so accident prone, and he had no idea the guy was gonna drag him down with him when he went, the pitch-fork had also slipped his notice until the gut-wrenching pain had ripped through his body – and neck. Adrenaline had of course been surging through him so the rest of the 'guards' were not a problem, but he didn't stop to listen to the cowering civilian's snivelling 'thank you', that would have taken too long and he needed this high to get him back to Maria.

He had to admit, just having her near him, running alongside him as they sought to outrun the replacement 'guards' made him feel a little better. And her obvious distress at his injury had proven that she did care for him, even if it was only a little – which reminded him, he must collect his bet winnings from Rafik at some point. Her little bit of TLC would have had him sleeping like a baby if it hadn't been for the constant needle-ministration.

He rubbed his stomach while he waited for her to return and wrinkled his nose. He wouldn't say anything about it, since he wasn't really one to moan and complain, but these bandages were a bit tight, he was beginning to lose feeling in his legs.

The next morning the sunlight was blinding as it shone in through the roof of the bureau, and Maria raised a hand to shield her eyes, the long night threatening to have taken its toll on her. Altair had been asleep when she'd returned with the bandages and she'd spent a little while carefully wrapping around his wound – leaving the bandages with breathing room this time – taking her time so as not to wake him up. But the second she had rolled over to go to sleep, he had shot up like a scolded cat, disappearing somewhere in the darkness, only to produce retching noises moments later. Rafik had come outside to see what all the fuss was about, and then informed her it was a result of the Turmeric – Altair was known to have an allergy to it that Rafik had conveniently left out when he had told Maria of the spice's merits.

Maria had then spent most of the night bringing bowls of water back and forth between the fountain and the assassin, until at lat his stomach was empty and he broke out into a cold sweat. This was less than fun and even a little bit frightening as passing-out also seemed to be on the agenda for Altair's allergy stunt. One thing she would note about the Assassin's 'other side' was that he was a lot more talkative than usual – asking her what her name was, who he was, what the colour blue was like etc. Etc. These questions seemed a little out of the tombola until finally he popped the most outrageous question yet – "If I hurt myself enough times, and you had to fix me, would that make me your man?"

Maria could only compare his behaviour to that of a child, which was odd at best as the Assassin was perhaps the last person she would ever have expected to have such an idiotic side, but then again there was a lot she didn't know about this particular dark horse.

"I don't think that's a wise idea..." When did conversing with injured idiots high on Turmeric become one on the list of how to turn a person soft?

"But would it?"

"I'm not sure..."

"If I died because you wouldn't fix me?"

"Then I couldn't be there."

"So... You'll fix me every time I hurt myself, even if you're miles and miles away... Because I'm your man?"

"Something like that..."

Spending her entire night listening to the ramblings of a fever-stricken idiot spouting the most illogically-logical rubbish she'd ever heard, could only be trumped if when she awoke – courtesy of the morning light – said rambling idiot was still asleep, wrapped in the stolen cloak, snoring happily. Which of course he was.

She had no idea what possessed her to do what she did, perhaps it was her sleep addled brain attempting to help her out, or maybe it was her customary dislike for the man resurfacing after a night of tender treatment, but whichever it was, nothing that happened to her in the following 24 hours could ever bring her more satisfaction than booting Altair out of his roasty, toasty cloak and stealing it for herself, his grumbled insults and muttered curses sounding in her sleepy, befuddled ears.