Maka had been awake for hours by the time Soul shuffled out of bed. She hadn't been sleeping well, and for very good reason. Nightmares of the Black Room had plagued her thoughts and kept her from receiving her full requirement of sleep. It showed in the bags under her eyes and the sharp quip the resonated in her voice. Now she had become even more upset because Soul hadn't seemed to notice her despair for sleep or that it was entirely his fault.

Not knowing of the storm that was brewing within Maka's mind, Soul found solace in the late morning. He was normally awoken –quite irritably – by the chirping of birds or Maka making a ruckus in the kitchen. Today was different; there was something lurking in the air that gave him an uneasy feeling, but not one great enough for him to tiptoe past his now irritable meister pouting in the kitchen. He didn't even see the beast waiting to pounce upon him, let alone did he prepare for it.

"Soul! I've been awake for hours and you've been sleeping all morning! I'm always up cooking and cleaning for you and I'm done with it! Do it yourself from now on!" The anger in her voice sent a shiver down Soul's spine as she threw the dishtowel she had been mangling in her hands at his face. Black rings underneath her eyes shown bright against her pale skin, a delicate blue underneath the flawless white.

"M-Maka! What brought this on? I just wake up and you're out here throwing things at me already! What did I do to deserve this?"

"Deserve? DESERVE?! I'll tell you Soul Eater! Do you even notice everything that I do for you?! Do you notice all the hard work I put into your dinners? The extra time I put into training with you so you can be a deathscythe? And don't even get me started on saving your butt with all the schoolwork you barely try to do! So yes, Soul, tell me again how you don't deserve it!" Maka had fallen into hysterics by this point, looking for more things to throw at her weapons infuriating face.

"Okayyy Maka, we're just going to take a nice little breather before you go into dragon mode and destroy everything again." He had slunk closer to her with his hands raised in surrender, hoping that she hadn't passed the point where he would be able to calm her down. His hands searched for hers; he wrapped his fingers around her wrists in an attempt to dull the ferocity she carried, but at his touch her anger only flared. She broke the hold he had on her easily and pushed him away before rounding her fury back on him. Soul had only stoked her fire from a dull flame to a blazing fire.

"Dragon mode? So that's what you call it! I should've known! The stupid things you come up with!" Maka turned on her heel, searching again for something to throw at her weapon, but having no such luck. Resentment of leaving her novel on her bedside table fled through her mind. An exasperated groan left her mouth as she realized that there was nothing to hurt him with near her. "You know what Soul? I don't want to see you today. Just get out! You don't appreciate me and the things I do so, leave! I need a day without your smug smile hanging around."

In a tantrum fit for a toddler Maka fled the kitchen, storming her way to her bedroom where she very gracefully slammed the door. The noise reverberated through the apartment, an echo of fiery anger that Maka would hold on to for hours – at the very least. Soul resigned, knowing that she wanted him gone so she could fume without yelling at him more. He hadn't taken any of her words to heart, but they still hung in the air. They hadn't meant anything, but he had to make sure that they weren't allowed to linger in her mind. Maka wouldn't be allowed to think that way about him. Grabbing his jacket, he set out on a mission to ease his troubled meister.

Maka heard Soul leave and, with the poise of a child much younger than herself, she flopped onto the floor in a mess of emotions. Regret was already doubling her over. She hated showing her feelings, which was why she normally stuffed them all deep inside. But, that was also why they normally came out in fits of rage that had no predisposed meaning. Hoping that Soul wouldn't stay away too long, Maka settled herself in for a day of homework and worrying about the awkward apology she would have to make to her partner when he returned.

Late at night Maka stretched, finding that her muscles were tense from hunching over her work. With surprise she noticed that the whole day had passed, and then it dawned on her that Soul had never returned. It had been hours; surely he didn't think that she wanted him to stay away for this long. They had been in fights like this before; he should know that she only needed a couple hours alone. Her mind dove into thoughts of what could've happened to make him take this long. Anxiety of highly unlikely situations only made her head spin, each new imagining only becoming more and more ridiculous in concept.

She readied herself for bed, hoping that he would show up soon. By the time she was crawling her exhausted body into her covers he still hadn't shown up. Her sleep deprivation was kicking in as she tried to stay awake. Maka propped herself up against her window, peering outside in hopes that Soul's motorcycle would be found in the distance. Laden eyelids twitched as Maka tried to force them open; she didn't want Soul to come home and find her in another fitful slumber. But try as she might, she slowly fell into sleep filled with demons and fears.

A sound awoke Maka from her pitiful sleep, a curse word in the dark of the night. Something a bumbling idiot would say when tripping over her stack of books that he hadn't seen. She was relieved that he wasn't physically hurt, but knew there were other things to take care of now. Groggily, Maka sat up, searching for words to say to fix the atrocities she had screamed at Soul before he had left.

"Soul I…"

"Shhh, Maka it's late. You need to get back to sleep." He was fumbling with something by her window that she couldn't quite make out in the dark. When the thing hung by itself Soul turned toward her, his face surrounded by shadows. His fingers reached out to her face and brushed her hair out of her sleep-burdened eyes. "Sleep well. I'll see you in the morning. Goodnight."

Soul left the room without waiting for a response from her, but she hardly had the energy to lie back down before sleep overtook her body.

Maka awoke many hours later, much later than she had slept in weeks. For the first time in longer than she could remember she wasn't tired – her eyes weren't drooping with sleep, her body didn't feel like a rock – and it was the most glorious feeling she'd had lately. Memories of the previous night slipped into her mind as she rolled over towards her window. Her eyes landed on the thing that Soul had hung from her window above her head.

Oh. A dream catcher.

Her eyes skirted the beads and intricate weaving of the thread, the feathers that dangled from the knots in flashes of colors surrounding the circle. All the materials were natural; Maka could tell hands that weren't used to creating had painstakingly chosen them. She discerned that her Soul Eater's hands had made it. His soul wavelength was tied within the curvature of the threads, his very existence woven within this little package of protection from nightmares. She reached up and brushed her fingers upon the feathers, watching with joy as they floated through her fingertips in an airy dance. A smile spread across her face.

He had noticed.