Chapter 4

Emma and Andrew once again sat in a restaurant across the room from their other pair of friends who were laughing at something one of them said.

"Ok even I think it's sad I can bribe you with food." Andrew said glancing across the table at the blonde who was currently devouring a slice of chocolate cake.

"Shuddup" Emma said with a mouth full of cake. Swallowing she stated "I still think this is creepy."

"Whatever" Andrew mumbled turning back towards Robin and Regina.

"Anyway, after this will you have enough data?" Emma questioned

"Maybe"

"Maybe! Andrew!" Emma yelped, "If you're arrested for stalking cops, I'm not helping you. Especially from the wrath of detective hard-ass."

"Eh… She's not that bad."

"I would watch your mouth chemistry boy."

"Man."

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Andrew and Emma walked 'oh, so casually' through the clinic doors and walked behind the desk. Andrew grabbed one of the disposable lab coats and put it on to 'blend in'. Emma flat out refused one. So two people stood awkwardly in the hospital free clinic. One was a man in a flimsy lab coat, and one was an angry looking woman in a red leather jacket. Totally inconspicuous.

"So, why didn't you just use your own lab coat?" Emma mumbled.

"It's uh... at the dry cleaners..." Andrew said sheepishly.

"What'd you spill on it?" Emma asked. Andrew looked.

"How did you-"

"You're Andrew." Andrew huffed. "So? What? You spill pizza sauce on your lab coat and now you're disguise is a crappy paper coat?"

"No! It wasn't food! Catherine's the messy eater not me. It was just some potassium nitrate..." Andrew finished. Emma raised her eyebrow.

"Hm.."

"Oh, it's part of the job." Andrew snapped. "I cleaned the chemicals but it left a stain. Besides, at least I have a disguise. I thought stakeouts were your thing."

"Yes, they are. This is not a stakeout. This is a farce." Andrew spluttered.

"Farce! Look the doctors just took their blood! And Cath and Steve's are already in the hospital." Andrew said triumphantly.

"Just one question." Emma asked.

"Hm?"

"How do you plan to get that blood now?" Andrew's eyes widened.

"Crap."

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Emma walked through the hospital doors, fairly certain she was about to do something against the law. She walked up to a doctor standing at a desk writing in a patient's chart. His name was Max Bergman and he was a long time friend of Emma's and Andrew's.

He turned around when he saw Emma coming towards him. "Em." He said in greeting.

"Precious cupcake." She replied. Yes. He is Max the precious cupcake. Max rolled his eyes at the nickname and pulled a tray full of bags containing blood towards him. The labels on the bag read; "Locksley, Robin" "Mills, Regina" "McGarrett, Steve" and "Rollins, Catherine". That last one is surprising. Emma never thought Catherine would willing give her blood without proper beforehand research. The always careful Admiral's daughter.

"You're amazing." Emma said taking the blood samples. "But, err... isn't this like, illegal?"

"Normally, yes." Max said. "But I actually got permission, you just need to sign these forms."

"Oh!" Emma's eyebrows shot up to her hairline. "How'd you swing that?"

"Well, I just mentioned Andrew's name.." Max trailed off. Emma nodded.

"Got it." She said. Andrew is very highly regarded in the scientific community, especially this hospital. One of the victim's from Andrew and Emma's last case had a brother. The brother is currently the Chief of Surgery at this hospital. He was very grateful that Andrew caught his brother's murderer.

Emma signed the papers and gave them back to Max. "Cool." He said.

"Uh, isn't donated blood directed to a specific charity?" Emma asked.

"Yes but there was a 'no preference' choice." Max said. "Your friends both checked that box, although I could say the nurses tried to talk them into that one."

"Ah," Emma said. "Yes, they are donating to the charity of Emma's sanity. It's cause is to keep Emma out of jail so she doesn't have to illegally obtain this blood for her crazy best friend."

"That's quite a mouthful." Max chuckled.

"Yup!" Emma called as she walked out the doors. "Thanks Max, you're a cupcake." Max smiled and shook his head, turning back to his work.

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Emma walked into Andrew's lab and tossed the blood at him. Ok, not tossed, but in the same manner.

"How did you not plan out a way to get the blood?!"

"Well… I don't plan." Andrew stated.

"What? How do you not plan?" Emma yelped.

"I just don't!" Andrew snapped.

"Geez, you're just damn lucky I've got connections."

"I believe the hospital knows me."

"But I know precious cupcake." Emma said triumphantly.

"Fine you can take like... 12% credit."

"How generous."

"Yes, very much so." Emma rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, yeah whatever. So how do we do this, we just analyze the blood and…?"

"Yes and then we can figure out the bsofhdf fekjdksn... BAH! When I find out who keeps turning the temperature up to 78o I swear I will kick their ass." Andrew said angrily. He marched over to the thermostat and harshly pushed the down button.

"Ok, forget the thermostat for like two minutes. How are we supposed to analyze the blood?"

"Well we put it in the GC MAS SPEC."

"The huh?"

"The Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometer."

"Still no help."

"Gas chromatography mass spectrometry is a technique, consisting of a gas chromatograph and a mass spectrometer." Andrew went into his 'professional chemist' mode. "This is where complex mixtures of chemicals can be separated, then identified and quantified. With blood it separates out the different chemicals within the blood and then tells us how much of each chemical there is."

"Okay, separating and identifying..." Emma looked confused.

"Yes, well the machine using things like polarity to separate different particles. You know how a positive side of a magnet won't bond with another positive side of a magnet. That's basically polarity. The positively charged particles are drawn to negatively charged ones and repelled from others that are positively charged."

"Right, like how the Earth has different polarities." Emma commented.

"Exactly." Andrew said. "Then once it has them all separate, it can identify which chemicals make up that blood. So we can search for the chemicals that show signs of the stages of love. Especially since these samples were taken relatively close to the times of their dates. What were the chemicals again?"

Emma shuffled through the papers spread out on the table. Grabbing a couple she read them out loud. "Stage one or two?"

"Two."

"Okay, the prominent chemicals during the second stage of falling in love are part of the neurotransmitters, monoamines. Dopamine, norepinephrine (adrenaline), and serotonin." Emma recited from the paper in her hand. Andrew scribbled down those chemicals on a notepad.

"Okay, so when we get the lab results we can look to see if these chemicals are more prominent than usual and confirm this research." Andrew said setting up the GC MAS SPEC.

"So then all we have to do is fill the little beaker things with blood, put them in the GC MAS whatever and let the machine do all the work?"

"To put it in layman's terms."

"Well that's good enough for me."

"Okay, when this finishes we'll check for spikes in dopamine, norepinephrine (adrenaline), and serotonin." Emma nodded

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Emma was sitting at Andrew's work space when the GC MAS SPEC made a sudden dinging noise, causeing her to jump out of her seat.

"Holy hell!" Emma shouted, gasping for air and grasping at her heart.

"Well that's an oxymoron if I've ever heard one." Andrew said helping his friend catch her balance. Said friend swatted at his hands. "That was Mr. MAS SPEC, it's done analyzing the blood."

"So I can go home now!"

"Not just yet." Andrew said pulling up the analysis on his computer. "Whoa"

"What" Emma said groggily.

"There are definite spikes in the dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin levels, in all of the samples."

"Sooo… Thats a good thing, right?"

"Yep."

"What are these other smaller spikes on some of the samples."

"What sma… Oh! It looks like two of the samples have some spikes of oxytocin and vasopressin. Hm, I guess there are appearances of some of the chemicals from the third stage." Andrew said.

"Awe! Does that mean their relationships are going to last forever?" Emma squeed. Andrew frowned at her.

"How do you mean?" He asked, puzzled.

"Didn't you the third stage was attachment. Like, when the couple was ready to settle?" She asked, scrunching up her nose.

"Yes, the third stage is attachment, but this doesn't mean their relationship is going to work out. It just means they're still falling in love. Even if they do end up settling, you never know if it's really going to work out." Andrew said writing on his notepad. He walked over to the fume hood to get the pen he left there earlier, but stopped. He picked up the pipette and stared at it.

"A bird crapped on this." He kept staring at it. "How did a bird crap on this? This is not okay." He said shoving his head inside the fume hood and staring up the air vent.

"It's just a little bird crap chill."

"NO! I will not 'chill'" he said using air quotes, "This was a perfectly good pipette but now it needs to be thrown away"

"Okay, Okay." Emma said defensively "On the other hand what is your conclusion?"

"That after roughly 10 months of being together the second stage chemicals are highly present and even the third stage chemicals are slightly apparent in some cases."

"Great so we're done!" Emma exclaimed

"No."

"No! What do you mean no!"

"We have to write a lab report."

"Oh no. No no no. Not we. You. You have to write a lab report, I have to go home and sleep." Emma said as she turned to walk out the door.

"Wait"

"What" Emma slightly growled

"I need a ride home." Andrew said, smiling innocently.