Dr. Shiba flipped through the pages of Miyu's chart for the third time. Occasionally, he offered a pensive hum from his throat before consulting his own notes in another file folder sitting on his desk. The click of his pen sounded as deafening as the crack of a gunshot when he pressed it so he could scribble a few words onto the pages of his notes.

Urie grew incredibly antsy, apprehension eating him up inside. He shifted on the uncomfortable metal stool waiting for the doctor to speak. Miyu had been in the hospital for a week already, having blood drawn and tests ran continuously, but no one was telling them anything. On the fourth day of her stay, Dr. Shiba had requested he come in to have his blood drawn. It wasn't time for his usual testing. Three days had passed since then, yet he had heard nothing from the doctor until today. And so far, he still had heard nothing about his or her results.

"Dr. Shiba, what's going on?" Urie inquired, impatience straining his voice and giving it a harder edge than he had intended.

"Hmph," the old doctor grunted. His sleepy eyes rimmed with dozens of wrinkles lifted from the page he was reading to meet Urie's direct gaze.

"Why hasn't Miyu been released? She says she feels fine, and no one has said she isn't fine. It's not time for my regularly scheduled Rc test. What's happening?" he demanded, his fingers curling into fists on his knees.

"We tested the substance in the balloon that was found on the scene at Miss Nakashima's apartment. It was blood laced with mutated Rc cells," he said, closing the folder in his hands. "We believe it was a bio-weapon meant to act like a virus, similar to catching the flu. These Rc cells attach to the existing normal Rc cells causing them to reproduce rapidly, increasing at an exponential rate, overtaking them, and invoking the change at a much faster rate. However, we believe this is only a prototype, and not quite complete. We're guessing she's their first experiment."

"Experiment?" Urie murmured. Biological weapon? A ghoul virus? Who would want to turn her into a ghoul?

"Your girlfriend is an unusual creature isn't she, Mr. Urie?" the doctor prodded gently.

"What do you mean?" He was genuinely confused. What had the old man found out by testing her blood?

"Until now, I've never had the reason or an opportunity to test her blood. I found some..." The old doctor paused, his shaggy mustache wiggling over his top lip. "I found some unusual anomalies. She's certainly not a ghoul, but she's not exactly human either. I can't determine exactly what she is," he stated as if talking to himself aloud.

What are you getting at old man?, Urie wanted to ask him but left the question unspoken. Arima had to be the one responsible for keeping her identity as a succubus a secret. He developed a new appreciation of the man beyond him being a top level investigator and phenomenal fighter.

"I can tell you she has no Rc cells." He waited as if to allow the shocking words to sink in. Staring at Urie, he appeared to be seeking a reaction to judge what to think about his findings.

Urie gritted his teeth, doing his best to remain emotionless, keeping his face placid. Staying impassive took every ounce of his self-control as his mind spun out of control, a firestorm of questions igniting and falling upon him like molten rain and burning his brain. No Rc cells? Was that due to her being a succubus? Or had something changed after the little ritual that had been meant to kill her?

"I did discover something even more interesting than that," Dr. Shiba continued. "There is an extra type of cell in her blood akin to a leukocyte. It acts like a white blood cell that attacks and destroys the Rc cells specifically."

"What?" Urie gasped not believing his ears. He blinked at the doctor, desperately trying to comprehend the information being spoon fed to him in small bits. Yet the content muddled his mind, confusing him, rendering the revelations nearly incomprehensible.

"We gave her an injection of Rc cells to see what would happen," Dr. Shiba announced as if it were completely natural, no more dangerous than giving her a shot of antibiotics.

"You did what?! You're using her as a lab rat?! Do you know what you could have done?!" he shouted angrily. He stood up quickly from his seat, pushing the stool away on its stationary metal feet which made a bone jarring scrape across the cement floor. "I'm taking her and leaving. How dare you do something so - "

"She's fine, Mr. Urie," the old man assured him, gesturing for him to sit back down. "It's you I'm worried about. Your Rc cell count has lowered. Nothing significant yet as you're still very much within your proper range. I'm suspicious that the mixing of your..." The doctor cleared his throat, opening the folder again to glance at the notes he had made. "I believe the mixing of your bodily fluids has caused the decrease. I must conduct more tests on you both."

Dazed, Urie dropped down onto the seat he had abandoned earlier. She had decreased his Rc cells, keeping them from rising to dangerous like they had been doing? Could it be true? That would explain why food tasted good again, and why he no longer had the urge to literally devour her to sate his ghoulish hunger. That would also be evidence this transformation inside of her was a recent development.

Dammit! That can't be! He clenched and unclenched his fists, wanting to hit something to release the rage building inside of him.

"Who knows about this?" Urie questioned the man who seemed completely unconcerned about the situation.

"Myself, you, and Kishou Arima," the doctor answered.

Of course Kishou Arima knows, he thought to himself bitterly.

"I'm counting on your confidentiality in this matter considering not only the sensitivity of this information but your relationship with Miss Nakashima. The possible applications should anyone find out about this anomaly in her blood frightens me. Her blood could be used as a vaccine of sorts to kill ghouls," he stated matter of factly showing no emotion whatsoever. "There's one more thing I must tell in light of your personal involvement. I'm assuming your relationship is quite serious."

Allowing him a moment to process this shocking information without giving him more would be nice, but the doctor was not allowing for that. Urie shook his head, attempting to understand the present question posed to him.

"What does that have to do with anything?" he inquired, giving up on his muddled mind figuring out exactly what the good doctor was getting at.

"Do you plan on getting married? Having children?"

Well, one of those is a done deal. The other? Although not today, definitely one day, Urie thought to himself.

"Why?" Urie questioned the overly inquisitive doctor.

"Because, Mr. Urie, she could kill you should your Rc level get too low. Furthermore, if she gets pregnant, those cells of hers would see the baby as an invading disease it must get rid of. Something that needs to be contained and destroyed. In the other words, her own body will kill the baby because it mistakes the fetus as a threat," he explained as simply as possible.

"No. That can't be," he muttered. "Is there anything that can be done? I mean, I'm not sure about the future, but can she be given something to allow her to carry a child?"

"A drug to suppress her immune system could in theory work, preventing her body from attacking the baby as a foreign invader, however, that would carry serious risk of leaving her and the fetus open to other more common diseases. A simple cold could kill her."

"Does she know about any of this?" Urie asked.

"No. I haven't told her yet."

"Why did you tell me first?"

"You are my first priority as a Quinx Squad member. In light of your relationship with Miss Nakashima, I felt it my duty to make you aware of the entire situation before something happened."

"You didn't feel like it was your duty to tell her first considering this is more about her than me?" he growled. When the doctor stared at him in silence, blinking stupidly, he changed his line of inquiry. "You just found this out about her. Is all of this definite, or are there still variables? Things could change with more research, right?" he asked, hope springing forth inside of him to push away the despair. He didn't want anymore bad news right now. She certainly didn't need it either. "You could find a cure, a vaccine...something? Perhaps it's just a temporary mutation of her own cells."

"Possibly. I will conduct more experiments. Besides, those cells she produces could come in handy in regulating Rc cells. It's not necessarily a bad thing," Dr. Shiba said, scrawling more notes into the file on his desk. "Depending in whose hands the information rests."

Are your hands the best hands, Doc? Urie pondered silently. You would be hailed as a genius making a scientific breakthrough, but in the wrong hands the knowledge could prove to be deadly for thousands of ghouls. And what about Miyu? What about me? What about the child we want to have? Dammit!

"I'm going to see her," Urie announced, standing up to leave.

"Come back tomorrow so I can take another blood sample," the doctor called after him. "For your safety, I will have to monitor you closely. Her too for that matter."

"When can she leave?"

"I'm not sure. More testing must be done."

"Yeah, sure Doc. Whatever it takes."

~\..'../~

A soft tapping sounded on the door to her room. Assuming it was a nurse coming for another vial of blood or to check her vitals for the thousandth time, Miyu bid them to come in. She actually felt relieved when Arima's white head poked around the door.

"Wow, you haven't looked at me like that in a long time," he remarked, giving her a grin which looked so out of place on his typically stoic face.

"Oh yeah? How is that?" she returned, a blush heating her cheeks as she fluffed the pillows behind her back to avoid looking at him.

"Happy." He was still standing at the door.

"Go ahead, come in," she told him, folding the sheet and straightening the edge along her chest before tucking it under her arms. "Maybe you can tell me something about what's going on. Why won't the let me go home?"

"I haven't a clue," he replied, sitting in the chair beside her bed. "I'll tell you what I do know. You're not going to like it."

"Oh," she sighed in disappointment.

"Your apartment is still the scene of an active investigation. Arrangements have been made for you and Urie to move into the Chateau. At least temporarily," he added quickly.

"The Chateau?" she queried. She seemed to remember Urie mentioning that place. Wasn't it the name of the home where he lived before moving in with her?

"That's the house where he and his team lived together," he informed her as if he had read her mind.

"Are you sure that's wise?" she questioned him. "The memories of Shirazu might be a problem. Urie still blames himself for his death you know."

"I know," Arima sighed woefully. "That young man still blames himself for his father's death. It doesn't seem to matter to him he was a mere child and could have done nothing to stop it. Urie is a conscientious young man. He doesn't take responsibility for others lightly."

"I know," she murmured, recalling how he had nearly killed himself in his attempt to protect her from Eliza, her murderous step-mother. "What about Haise? That could be a problem as well. Things have changed with him. He has changed."

"Well, the whole team is having to adjust to that fact. Urie returning to the Chateau to be with his team, and you being there as well, might help make the emotional transition a little easier for everyone. Including Haise."

"Somehow I doubt that my presence will ease their pain," she mumbled, fearing she would only cause them more emotional distress. "Let's be honest. Haise isn't Haise anymore, and he's the only person they knew him to be. But he no longer exists. He never did exist actually," she added acidly, glaring at her partner in crime on that point. "He was just an illusion we created that has hurt so many people, especially Kaneki."

"They don't know that with the exception of Urie and Kaneki himself."

"Is that supposed to help me feel less guilty?"

"You're too much like your boyfriend," he grunted.

My husband! Everything within her wanted to correct him, to inform him of their new relationship status. However, they had agreed to keep it a secret for now to protect each other.

"You hold onto your guilt, whether it's deserved or not, like a weird security blanket of sorts, torturing yourself and wallowing in your pain. I never considered you a masochist," he joked, unknowingly hitting too close to a sore mark.

"Yeah, well, we all have our dirty little secrets," she retorted, momentarily holding his gaze with an accusatory look.

Arima visibly flinched, an unusual reaction for the unflappable man. That reaction caused worry to blossom inside of her.

"Maybe this is exactly what all of you need," Arima said. "You and those kids can become a family. Urie had just started to understand what it meant to have a family. It's been so long since you've had one I'm sure you've forgotten."

Miyu doubted he purposely meant to hurt her feelings considering the fact he had no idea what had just happened to her with her family. Nevertheless, despite her valiant effort to hold them back, tears broke free from her tear ducts and wet her cheeks.

"Miyu? I'm sorry," he apologized, reaching for her hand. "I didn't mean to - "

"I would hope you're not intentionally that cruel," she sniffed, pulling her hand away before her could hold it.

"Not to you," he returned in a low voice, almost a whisper.

"Hmph," she snorted skeptically. "Well, that would certainly be a change from the recent past."

Arima stood up, sitting on the bed beside her. Taking her hand in his, not allowing her to pull away, he wiped away her tears with the corner of the sheet pulled up to her chest.

"Listen, I know now is not the time for this, but I'm not sure how much time I have left."

"Please don't be saying what I think you're saying," she begged, the tears flowing faster. "Don't do this to me, not now, you selfish prick."

"I'm sorry," he apologized a second time, giving her a platonic kiss of friendship on the forehead.

Miyu started to tremble in fear. Not only was he being excessively apologetic which was scary in itself, he was leading up to something that sounded suspiciously like a farewell, most likely coming with a request she would not want to fulfill.

"When my end comes, I want you to be there. I want you to give me a good send off. Do you know what I mean?" he asked, combing his fingers through her tangled waves.

"Kishou, don't ask me to do that, please. You can't," she pleaded with him.

"You won't be the one to kill me. I'm not asking you to do that," he assured her, taking her quaking body into his arms. "I want you to be with me in the end. As a friend, I need you to take it all away... the pain and suffering I've endured all my life, being what I am. You understand that don't you?"

"More than you know," she sniffed.

"Free me and allow me to feel something before I die. I've always admired your strength. Both physical and emotional. I actually envied you on the latter," he confessed with a bitter chuckle. "But I want you to have more physical strength so you can stand beside Urie, protect him and yourself, so that neither of you die."

"Why are you doing this?" she whispered, unable to speak louder due to the powerful emotions choking her.

"Because, like you said, I'm a selfish prick. After I'm gone, I still want to be a part of your life," he said, smiling through the tears that gathered across his lower eyelid. "A part of you."

"Damn you, Kishou Arima," she sobbed, pressing her forehead into his shoulder to hide her face.

"Now, I'm sure Urie will be coming to see you soon," he said, dropping his arms from around her. "Should he see me like this, I'd have a lot of explaining to do."

Moving from the bed quite quickly, he went to the nearby sink. Turning on the faucet, Arima dampened a washcloth then handed it to her.

"Fix your face, find your smile, be brave like you always have been," he told her, a single tear on each side overrunning his brimming eyelids to zigzag down his cheeks.

"You're such an asshole," she laughed through her tears, covering her face with the cool, wet cloth.

Before either of them could utter another word, Urie stepped into the room without knocking since the door had been left ajar. He fastened his eyes onto Arima with an evident warning glare before shifting his attention to Miyu. The expression in his eyes softened to a questioning look, requesting an explanation before he jumped to conclusions.

~\..'../~

"Is everything okay in here?" he asked, pinning his gaze to his new wife who appeared to have been crying. What the hell has Arima said now to make her cry?, he wondered. "Miyu? Are you all right?"

"Arima was just leaving," she proclaimed without looking at the man.

"Yes," Arima agreed, moving away from her bed to the door. Before exiting, he stopped to speak to Urie directly. "I was just telling Miyu that arrangements have been made for the two of you to move into the Chateau since her apartment is still an active crime scene."

"Are charges going to be pressed against her?" Urie inquired. The Chateau? Was she being put under some type of house arrest?

"Of course not," Arima replied, waving off the very idea with a flick of his hand. "It was an obvious case of self-defense. However, we're still searching for any possible clues to the identity of those men. Their affiliation is obvious."

"Yes, it is," Urie returned.

The men who attacked her were members of The Clowns, the group who still had yet to reveal the purpose for any of their attacks. Their goals remained a mystery as they continued assaulting ghouls and humans alike. However, the attack on Miyu was definitely premeditated with the purpose of using her as a lab rat for testing their biological weapon. Unfortunately, drawing that conclusion raised more questions than giving any answers.

Urie did not address the issue of moving back to the Chateau. Perhaps Arima had gotten the idea of moving them there after speaking to Dr. Shiba. Living there would make it easier for her whereabouts and activities to be monitored. At least she could leave this damn hospital.

Maybe the idea of living there was what upset her. In actuality, she did not seem upset enough to have been told she carried an anti-Rc cell. It also appeared the helpful suggestion of living at the Chateau was more of a benevolent command issued by an old friend. If she was against the idea, he believed she had good reasons but it was becoming evident there was really nothing they could do.

"I'll be going," Arima announced, heading to the door. "Men are moving your things to the Chateau as we speak. Hopefully you two can go to your new home together."

Neither one of them said anything until Arima closed the door behind himself. Arima's last words confirmed his suspicions about their moving being an order.

"Are you okay with this?" Urie asked her.

"It doesn't sound like we have choice. Besides, I'll go wherever you go. Who knows? It may be good for all of us. I'm sure your team is hurting for their own reasons right now." Changing the subject quickly, she inquired, "What did the doctor say? Are you all right?"

"Oh, yeah. My Rc cell count has lowered a bit but is still well within the normal range for me. He said there's nothing to worry about," Urie told her, carefully choosing the information he wanted to share.

"That's good. Did he say anything about letting me get out of here?" She accepted his kiss when he leaned toward her.

"Nothing definite. Tomorrow maybe," he lied.

Sitting down on the side of the bed, he stroked her cheek with his fingertips but avoided making eye contact with her. He hated lying to her. However, if staying in the hospital for a few more days meant finding a 'cure' for this antibody she possesses, he wanted her to stay.

"So, we're moving back to the Chateau," he said switching back to their first topic of conversation. "Good thing you already know the rest of the team so it won't be quite so awkward."

"Yeah. Hopefully it will be a good thing for all of us. But I'm just not sure," she sighed, lowering her chin to her chest.

"Hey," he murmured, taking her chin between his thumb and forefinger. He pulled her face up so he could see her eyes. This time, his eyes sought to hold hers. "As long as we're together, I don't care where we are."

Miyu smiled, leaning forward. She pressed her mouth squarely to his for a firm but brief kiss. "You're right. As long as we're together, we can handle anything."