"Carly, I've implemented one more rule of the house…not that we had any to begin with." Grave Robber and carefully put the last organ on ice.

"That being?" Carly mused and prepped for her first surgery, She had called Julian and set up an appointment that very day.

"When you come home, you are to go straight to the shower. All the hairs in my nose have been singed away." Grave Robber was used to the foulest of corpse smells but this amount of disinfectant was beginning to make him light headed.

"You got it chief. Do me a favor and turn on the vent?"

"How many surgeries do you have scheduled for today?" Grave Robber helped wipe down the gurney.

"Three. I'll be home at around eight and then come with you again tonight to round up some more clients." Carly said absent mindedly and pulled the sheets of the recovery beds in the adjacent room further down the beds. "You can go home, you know." Carly called out to him.

"Are you kicking me out?" Grave Robber laughed and loaded the zydrate gun he'd gotten a hold of for her.

"Of course not but I don't see a reason why you'd stay. You'll be bored out of your mind." Carly shrugged.

"Well you're gonna need help aren't you? You can't lift the stretcher all by yourself. And lets face it you can't take a looter down." Grave Robber chuckled before scrunching his nose as if it would prevent the chemical odor from assaulting his nose.

"You work with dead bodies Grave Robber."

"Indeed. A body is hard for a woman to lift all by yourself, alive or dead."

"You think so?" Carly sucked on her teeth and glared at him. At times his obliviousness befuddled her.

"I know so-" Grave Robbers retort was cut short when he felt his legs suddenly being kicked from beneath him. He recovered quickly and grabbed Carly's wrist pulling her to him and pulled her hands behind her back. "That wasn't nice."

"What you said wasn't nice." Carly snickered and kicked her leg up to quickly jab him in the shin enough to distract him, and the force from her foot was enough to make his leg buckle, sending them both to the ground. While Grave Robber was stronger, and had more brute force, Carly was quicker and more agile.

"You have yet to prove me wrong." Grave Robber's grin flew off of his face when Carly elbowed him in the ribs and sprung away from him with a back summersault with a sly smile on her face. Standing up, Grave Robber glared at her playfully and took a step toward her, making her flinch, but kept his distance. They stared at each other like two animals in battle for what seemed like an eternity. Without warning Grave Robber hurtled over the bed that separated them. Backing her up against the wall, Grave Robber pressed his body flush against her. But he stopped dead in his tracks when he felt the cold metal of a scalpel against the base of his neck. Grave Robber's eyes shifted down to her with intrigue and a smile that was returned before stepping back and knocking the scalpel out of her hand and pinned it above her head. His eyes widened however, when he felt another coldness against his chin. The unmistakable click of the gun he himself had given her, being cocked made him swallow the lump that suddenly formed in his throat.

"Care to retract your statement?" Carly smirked, feeling like she had just defeated an army. Proving Grave Robber wrong was a battle in itself, and she was certain that it hardly ever happened.

He had lost the physical battle, but knew that he could win her over with the charm that he was famous for. He continued to hold on tightly to her wrist and slowly leaned forward. Her finger tightened on the trigger ever so slightly before he whispered into her ear, "I owe you an apology Dr. Wallace, do you want me on my knee's?"

She shivered as Grave Robber ran a few fingers gently over her knee, and holstered her gun. "I respect you, Grave Robber. I'm not Amber." She let out shakily as he buried his nose into her hair.

"That's for sure. You know I'm only being a bastard because I want to see you safe." Grave Robber sighed and -much to his disappointment- retracted his nose from her locks and let go of her wrist to pull her into a tender embrace.

"I know…" Carly sighed and leaned her nose into the crook of his neck. She felt her body relax against his as she inhaled his scent. It was an intoxicating mix of soap, coffee and earth. Grave Robber's head snapped to their right as someone knocked on the door. "I'll get it." Carly looked through the peep hole before opening the door and greeting her first client, Julian.

"Good morning Dr. Wallace." Julian gave her a small smile and waved shyly to Grave Robber as he followed her into the operating room.

"Good morning Julian, do me a favor and make yourself comfortable on the table." Carly smiled and proceeded to insert a zydrate infused IV into Julian's shaking arm. The young man stared up at her fearfully. Whether it was fear from taking a leap of faith in her medical skills or the possibility of whole situation being a set up, she didn't know. "I know this must be incredibly frightening for you. But I promise, when you wake up you will be as good as new. It's a simple procedure, you just stepped into the game a little later. Okay?" Carly held Julian's free hand as he wiped away a few tears with his other.

"Okay." He squeezed her hand back in return.

"Okay Julian, I need you to lay back and relax before we start. Take a few deep breaths, then count back from ten." Carly checked his heart monitor and injected a straight shot of Zydrate laced with other local anesthetics to knock him out. Slowly Julian began to count. "Ten…nine…eight…seven…six..." She was caught off guard when she saw Grave Robber staring at her from the door.

"What?" Carly asked from behind her protective mask and finished scrubbing.

"Nothing...May I watch?" Grave Robber asked cautiously. He dealt with the dead but was always interested in learning the anatomy of both ends of his clientele.

"Sure. Just put on a mask, a protective coat and wash your hands." Carly motioned over to the supplies and drew a line down the center of her patients chest. Carly went took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a moment before dragging the blade above over Julian's flesh and making the first incision.

Grave Robber watched curiously as Carly''s hands wove around with grace, stitching and cutting Julian's new heart into place. It lay there motionless as the monotone beep rang out, telling them that for the moment he had joined the departed. To his surprise that moment made Grave Robber antsy. Julian lay there motionless and not breathing while Carly cut off the last stitch, and it seemed that every second she waited dragged out.

"This is the best part." Carly's eyes wide flickered up at Grave Robber's narrowed ones as she gently tapped at the new and motionless organ. "Come on…come on…" Carly murmured to herself and stared at the heart intently. For a moment Grave Robber was afraid the procedure was unsuccessful, until the heart turned pink and began to pump. "Atta boy, Julian." He could literally hear the smirk that the surgical mask was hiding.


With the final staple, Carly sighed and Grave Robber wheeled Julian into the recovery room to come out of the anesthetic.

"You hungry, doll?" Grave Robber asked from behind his newspaper.

"Actually yes. But we can grab a bite to eat once-"

"…Doctor…Dr. Wallace?" A tiny voice that seemed to belong to a mouse came from Julian's lps.

"Look who's awake." Carly at her patient.

"Did everything go okay?" The boy asked and gently touched the staples on his chest.

"Perfectly. Oh no don't touch those!" Carly exclaimed quietly.

"Sorry. So, when can I get going?" Julian asked nervously and sat up, assumingly feeling no pain what so ever. Both Carly and Grave Robber took a moment to marvel at the power of zydrate, how forty years ago any patient having gone through that kind of surgery would have taken months to fully recover and would be paralyzed in pain.

"Now as long as you're feeling alright. You have my number, please call me if there is anything wrong at all before I see you in two weeks. And if you need more zydrate you know where to find our friendly neighborhood Grave Robber." Carly graciously accepted her payment.

"Thank you Dr. Wallace." Julian caught her off guard when he embraced her in a tight hug.

"It was my pleasure, stay safe." Carly smiled, bid her first patient a goodbye and locked the door behind him. Her eyes fluttered shut with content and her shoulders sagged in satisfaction. Another life saved. Grave Robbers heavy, warm hands gently glided over her shoulders and rubbed over her tense muscles as he smiled proudly at her.

"I'm buyin' you pancakes."