AN: I subscribe to the theory that Marie was pregnant during the battle on the moon – after all, Maka hugs her after returning and senses something off in her wavelength. So here's something based on that.

expectant

They are mobilising for war.

So it isn't the best time for this sort of conversation – it's inappropriate, because the big yellow moon they're about to desecrate is watching them reproachfully, dangling above on Asura's thread. He's been there too long, Marie thinks, as she stands on the balcony and stares up into space. He's seen quite enough from his comfortable den, so it's high time the Academy took back its sky.

She isn't sure how long Franken's been standing beside her for, when she finally catches the first scent of smoke. It's a wonder she still gets taken aback upon finding him suddenly there, watching her with a cigarette wedged between his lips. By now, she really should know better: he moves like a cat but he's built like one of Patty's giraffes, which does make her worry, more reasonably-sized woman that she is, about what the hell this little one inside her will look like.

Franken is infuriatingly calm, if the way he makes the cigarette squirm is any indication. Flicking excess ash away is apparently not worth his time, mouth tipping it this way and that while he peers down at her over the rim of his spectacles – like he's expecting her to say something.

Everyone's expecting a lot of things, these days.

"What?" is all she manages, gaze fixed firmly on the leering moon. She doesn't find his response of a grunt particularly helpful, so she reaches up without looking at him to swat vaguely in the direction of his smug, stupid face.

His fingers wrap around her wrist, holding it there, but on some level she'd been expecting them to. He's acting like he has a refreshed right to touch her, but she supposes she did let him do quite a lot of touching before... A moment of weakness.

"I wanted to see how you're feeling." He guides her hand as he speaks, lowering it to rest upon the balcony; she can't tell if he leaves his own hand resting atop hers on purpose or due to inattention. "Better than I expected, but you'll only get a chill if you stay out here. Then you won't be much good to anyone, if you're still set on fighting."

"Give me a break. It's not every day someone else tells me I'm pregnant."

"You've been pregnant before?"

Marie straightens up, briskly. Regarding the man beside her with the glare usually reserved for unruly students, she opens her mouth to call him something vulgar – she can blame it on hormones, now, because none of his insufferable science can prove otherwise.

He interrupts her, but not with words. His mouth quirks upwards at the corner, the slightest hint of a smile, and she catches the sight before he can hide it behind his free hand while adjusting his cigarette.

She makes a grand show of huffing, turning her attention back to the heavens. "You shouldn't tease me, you know."

"Oh?"

"It's bad for the baby."

"You're only a few weeks along, Marie."

He speaks calmly, as he usually does, but his gaze is unrelenting enough to be unsettling. It's never a good sign when he's like this; she's well aware that he's contemplating every grind of bone beneath muscle he'd rather force his fingers through – but Marie is so rarely on the receiving end.

Still, she knows him. Stein is not in the business of hurting her when he has his head on straight. She's felt his soul and learnt his nature, so she's almost impressed with herself that she managed to wait this long before having sex with him.

No. No, that's not quite right. It was always going to be different with him.

"I don't want to discuss it," she murmurs. After sliding her hand neatly away from his, she hugs herself instead, deciding she'd much rather be staring at the floor so she doesn't have to play their usual round of Guess the Expression. "Not yet. I know you're all proud of yourself for doing this to me – but I'm not your new project, if that's what you're thinking."

"Of course you're not," he says, stiffening, smoke seeping just-so from his lips. "You're Marie, and I know everything there is to know about you."

"Do you, now?"

"Yes." He sniffs, once, with amusement. "The child will be my project."

It's nothing more than a flippant comment; it's just the sort of thing he says, be it for attention or because he's testing the reaction he'll get. And usually, Marie wouldn't rise to it, wouldn't give him the satisfaction... but now, this time, something tugs inside her chest and she's glaring at him before she can stop herself, swinging briskly round on the spot to press a finger indignantly against his chest.

What she can reach of it, anyway. He might be an infuriating giraffe-man, but she is a pulveriser.

"If you're seriously thinking I'll let you get away with that, Franken, I can tell you now it's not happening. It won't be anything more than our baby."

"Our?" he repeats, arching a brow. She can't tell if he's genuinely interested or simply teasing her again, but he doesn't hesitate before adding, "So you intend to keep it?"

Marie pauses. Her fingertip nudges uselessly into the fabric of his shirt, meek little prods while it hits her she hadn't even been considering the notion of not going through with this. After a withering sigh leaves her throat of its own accord, she flattens her palm against him instead, soothed by the warmth she can feel from his skin. He's cut himself to pieces a thousand times, stitching everything back together again in some imitation of what he was before – but he's stillwarm.

"Do... you want me to keep it?"

Stein is still observing her when she tips her head back, so their eyes meet as she waits for a response. She isn't going to back down. She isn't breathing either, granted, but that's a comparatively small side-effect when she should currently be having the most spectacular nervous breakdown in recorded history.

Pregnant and fighting. It's the sort of bad reality show Spirit pretends not to follow religiously – ah. She'll leave telling Spirit about this baby up to Franken, she thinks... if he doesn't object to the mere notion of offspring, that is. He deconstructs whatever he can and gleefully deals in death; creating life, even accidentally, must be alien to him.

Not that he's giving anything away. She scours the gleam in his gaze for any sign that it might be more than his base curiosity, a task that engrosses her. She hardly notices when he begins leaning down, slowly, approaching her with a degree of hesitancy that doesn't fully suit him – but she definitely notices when he takes her chin between thumb and forefinger, lips mechanically covering hers.

He tastes like his imported cigarettes. Which is a revolting prospect in its own right, but it's not the flavour that leaves Marie paralysed. They haven't done anything so intimate together since that night, the cause of this current problem when they had enough problems to begin with, so she's not sure how to react now he's handing himself over to her again.

She loved him before, that's the thing; she doesn't now, but she knows she could love him again. Yet Stein – no, Stein washed his hands of love, declared himself above it, or incapable of it, which is why Marie hardly thinks herself unreasonable to be bewildered by how gentle he'd been when inside her, unsettling quiet but with his nose nestled in her hair. It's not like he didn't know a baby was a potential inconvenient by-product, either: some scientist he'd be if he didn't.

So she pushes him away. Rather, it's a quick jab to his ribs with her knee, something she won't be flexible enough for soon – and she only lowers her leg once he's taken a step back, mouth pressed against his labcoat sleeve while she seethes affrontedly before him.

"What the hell was that, Franken?"

He doesn't reply. Not immediately. He draws himself to full height, arm raising in unison, before he feels satisfied enough to begin tightening the damn freaky bolt he put through his head. It hasn't always been there, exactly, and she carries flickering memories of him from when it wasn't, but the realisation their child won't be born with one already in place almost feels strange.

"A kiss," he says.

It takes Marie an embarrassingly long time to realise he's answering her question, lost as she is in imagining their hypothetical spawn.

"Yeah. I'm aware it was that." She swallows, arms folding to support clenching fists. It would be tempting to strike him but she's better than that, finishing, "I meant – why."

"You wanted one," he replies flatly, hand stalling. "You usually only look at me like that when you want me to kiss you."

"Like you'd know," she's quick to insist. She points wildly into the air as her voice convincingly raises pitch. "Before... that night happened, we've only kissed at office parties – and at least those were stupid drunken mistakes. How am I supposed to explain this to people?"

Stein simply smiles, a barely noticeable display. He doesn't need to say it for her to know he's seen that face on her in a range of situations that didn't involve cheap booze.

The only difference now is, he's apparently deigning to take the hint.

"I think I would like to keep it," he murmurs, "but it's your decision, Marie. I only worry you won't be able to join this campaign if you're carrying a child – however weak their wavelength currently is."

Weak.

Or tiny. A ball of cells that will, God help it, one day resemble the both of them, though right now, Marie isn't so attached to it: she's simply marvelling at the idea of what it might become, if she lets it.

She moves forward, no longer in favour of the space between them, but she doesn't try to kiss him and he's too tall for that anyway – instead, she rests her forehead against him, clutching at his coat in the process. Though he lets her, he's immobile long enough to make it a pleasant surprise when he finally swings his arms around her, a clumsy approximation of a hug he makes no attempt to rectify.

But she likes it all the same. The messy essence of the man who let her into his home and kept her there longer than necessary. It's a cold night and he's still warm, so for once she isn't bothered by the ridge of stitching she can feel beneath his shirt. She wishes he wouldn't keep prising open old wounds – but that's precisely what she's gone and done, for all the good it brought her. She's delved into a love left behind and now she's pregnant, which isn't quite the comfort she'd been looking for when she'd crept into his bed.

Still, Franken hadn't exactly seemed panicked, be it when she'd woken him with kisses or while informing her earlier of the faint new soul within her. He'd barely reacted at all.

Her head shifts, cheek pressed to him instead. "I'm tougher than you think."

"Ha! I know precisely what you're capable of."

"So you'll know I can put myself through this and come out with an intact little person at the end of it."

Stein emits a noise like a snort, placing a hand atop her head as he insists, "Then we'll need to formulate some sort of strategy. Limiting contact with vulnerable areas seems like the most sensible option."

"Or I could worry about that tomorrow." Marie looks up at him in such a way that she doesn't dislodge his hand, kitten-movements until she's able to direct a sly smile in his direction. "Worry about everything tomorrow. I want an evening where I don't have to worry, and I guess you've forgotten what they feel like too, haven't you?"

Stein pauses – then grins, a twisted exhibition beneath gleefully widened eyes. It's almost impressive, how quickly he can flutter between melancholy and menace, but she isn't buying it: she hasn't for years.

"I've been told by many that an evening with me is plenty to worry about."

"Well, then." She shuts her eyes, and the hand on her head trails reverently along her temple, Franken tracing her cheek, her jaw, while she relaxes within his hold. "If that's the case, I'll give you this evening to prove all those people wrong."

He won't, undoubtedly. The difference between her and the unnerved hoards is the fact she can accept every part of him, always has done: he has nothing to prove to her when she's seen it all already. She feels slightly less uncertain – or at least, willing to temporarily pretend that she won't be succumbing to the horrors of giving birth if Asura doesn't get her first – and for now, with Stein stroking her hair in smug silence, Marie feels oddly hopeful.

More than she can remember being for far too long.

The moon overhead can spy as much as it wants, Marie decides, because no more words need to be said here tonight.

-x-