My...7th SoulxMaka fic in a month. =*^_^= yes, I am an obsessed loser :3 It's not my best one but I just felt like writing the idea that popped into my head.

Disclaimer: If I owned Soul Eater...oh boy...but I don't...*sigh*

Partners

"Come on, Maka! This is the first time I think I've seen you trying to avoid a fight!"

"No!"

"Seriously, don't you understand? If we go in there and fight, we could take a witch's soul!" The boy urged.

"No, Soul. It's probably just another cat anyway." She countered.

"That was just a fluke! Come on, it won't be like that every time."

Maka was silent as she pondered his reasoning with a pout on her face.

The two partners were standing on the outskirts of a huge forest, enveloped with a thick fog that hardly allowed them to see a foot in front of their noses. The trees were all dead and twisted and there were no sounds coming from inside at all; dead silence.

And Soul wanted to go inside… why? Because a witch supposedly lived in there, which was probably true, but they still had not nearly finished collecting their 99 souls yet. Maka had thrown this fact at him, but she just did not want to go into those woods thanks to some foreboding chill that shot up her spine like a snake and made her heart pound so hard she knew Soul could hear it.

"Fine." Though her entire being was rejecting the idea by any means possible, her mouth spoke the one word that she had loathed long before it came out. "But we'll just take a quick look inside the woods, okay?" She added quickly as an ominous black bird cawed above their heads.

"Cool." Soul smirked and nodded his approval before transforming.

As Maka gripped the cold metal of her weapon, she was trembling so bad that it was all she could do not to drop Soul onto the pale gray ground. She breathed in deeply once before cautiously beginning to walk through the forest, every sense alert. Or at least, she thought so.

Her vision was almost completely useless in the fog, her hearing detected absolutely nothing except the soft crunch of her own feet, and once when a twig snapped, she gasped so hard her heart was nearly halfway up her throat.

She hated this. Usually she would have little or no problem with something like this. But there was something in the air warning her to stay away, like a miasma of poison stuffing the atmosphere until she was about to suffocate. Yet Soul seemed unfazed, and she wondered if it was because of her abilities as a Meister to sense and see other souls and wavelengths.

It was all too obvious to Soul that he had been a total jerk to his partner before. Only now, in the eerie silence did he realize how badly she was trembling, her breath coming in fast and shaky. Feeling remorse for forcing her into this whole ordeal, Soul spoke up. "Oi, Maka, this is fine. We can go back now." He offered.

"What? You scared now?" As much as she wanted to turn tail and flee, her stubbornness kept her moving forward, despite her impaired eyesight.

But before their squabbles could go any farther, Maka froze as she heard a loud cracking sound from somewhere up above. Holding her ground, she squinted through the mist to see a great black tree swaying and creaking until in snapped, falling toward her at a leisurely breakneck speed. Her eyes widened in terror before a shout from Soul forced her to move out of the way at the last instant. She rolled several feet away as bushes and thorns brutally assaulted her body. She had dropped her scythe when she had first struck the ground and now he transformed back into his human state and rushed over to where she lay, winded, on her side.

"Maka?" he shook her gently.

It took her several seconds to remember how to use her lungs before she finally opened her olive-green eyes and unsteadily pushed herself up. She looked up at his face, stained with a streak of blood where a thorn or bramble must have pierced him across his cheek. Looking down at herself, she found that she had a fair amount of blood seeping from all over her body.

"Come on, let's go." She murmured uneasily.

"Right."

"Transform back. It'll be easier to carry you and the faster we get out of here, the better."

"Right." He repeated morphing back.

Maka used the scythe for support as she stood before she found her balance. Then, praying they had gone in a straight line, she turned around and headed back through the thick fog. All was even more silent now than before the tree had fallen, which only made Maka quicken her limping pace even more.

Finally, after what seemed like several eternities, Maka stumbled blindly onto an open patch of grass, the first color she had seen in what felt like hours. She sighed with relief as she realized the fog had dissipated and she could see the familiar buildings of Shibusen up ahead. She halted for a moment to catch her breath before starting off again.

"Oi, I can walk on my own, you know." Soul spoke up for the first time in a while, and hearing his voice surprised her.

"No." She panted. "It'll still be easier this way." She decided, though the weight of her weapon seemed to slow her down more by the inch, like a deer being dragged down by a wolf. But she pushed onward until they reached the streets of Death City, where she gracefully collapsed, her pigtails pooling around her head so she resembled a wounded rabbit.

"My turn." Soul stated as he changed forms again. The cut on his cheek was stinging like a hive of wasps, but he lifted the girl into his arms and headed for home.

But when he was just outside the familiar building, his vision was suddenly gone as he fell forward and hit the ground, leaving both partners bleeding and unconscious just 10 feet from home.

"Maka-chan! Soul-kun! Someone please wake up! Nya!" Blair fretted, looking from one person to the other.

The cat had discovered her friends lying on the pavement on her way home from a fish market and had frightfully turned back into a witch and carried them inside. Unsure of where to lay them down once inside, Blair was extremely disappointed to find that the couch in the living room did not open up to be a bed, so she wound up putting them both on Soul's bed.

From the second she laid eyes on them, Blair had known right away that they had been bewitched, for she could sense the murderous aura floating around them. She was just starting to tend to their wounds when Maka's eyes cracked open. "Maka-chan!" Blair squealed, rushing over to her. "Are you okay, nya?"

Maka blinked. "What happened?" She rasped.

"Maka-chan and Soul-kun were hurt by a witch." Blair explained. "Blair found you both outside in the street."

"My body's…numb?" Maka could not quite make sense of the feeling that crawled under her skin like insects.

"Maka-chan and Soul-kun were poisoned." Blair told her. "It got into your blood."

"The thorns…" Maka realized. "How's Soul? He had a cut on his face." Panic surged inside of her as she managed to glance at the white-haired boy beside her.

"Blair was just going to treat you. With her own powers, Blair can extract the poison, but it has to be fast."

"Help Soul first." Maka ordered in a tone that had no room for arguments.

"R-Right." Quickly, Blair rushed to the other side of the bed where Soul lay, his forehead covered in sweat and his eyes squeezed tightly shut. Blair touched the cut on his cheek with her index finger, and murmured something to herself, her eyes closed in a form of serious concentration Maka had never witnessed from her before.

The Meister held her breath as Blair moved her hand away from Soul's face, and a black trail of mist followed as she began extracting the poison from his body. He was grasping the bed sheets tightly and with some effort, Maka finally managed to move her hand and lay it on top of his his eyes were still closed, he was still conscious and could feel all the pain as the poison left his body. But he could also feel a soft, warm hand reach his, a silent comfort that Maka was still breathing beside him.

When the mist of black clouds at Blair's fingers was about as long as a snake, almost all of the poison having been extracted, the pain grew worse for Soul and he howled in agony. Unable to bear seeing him like that, Maka sat up quickly, tears brimming her eyes.

"Soul!"

"Maka-chan, no! The poison's not gone yet!"

But Blair's warning came an instant too late. The black, serpent-shaped clouds pulled away from Blair's fingers, and flowed into the air around Maka, slowly entering her body through her injuries. Gasping as an intense pain shot throughout her system, Maka crashed back down onto the bed and thrashed like a fish out of water.

"NO!" Blair's screech almost spilt Soul's ears in two as her regained consciousness and opened his crimson eyes. His head was still throbbing like mad but what worried him the most was that the calming, warm hand that had been resting atop his own had just violently been ripped away.

He sat up as quickly as his fuzzy vision would allow him and stared down in shock at his partner. A black miasma clouded around her, her body was stiff, and her mouth was agape in a silent scream of agony.

"Maka!"

"Soul-kun! Don't touch her!" Blair's warning came on time this time, and Soul pulled back his outstretched hand. The purple-haired cat-woman raced to Maka's side of the bed, insane focus in her eyes. Soul knew that this must be bad if it could make Blair anxious enough to concentrate. "Soul-kun, can you move okay?" She asked quickly.

"Y-Yeah." He nodded, stealing another glance at his partner. Her skin was paling and her chest heaved for air. Alarm shot through him as he remembered the sharp, intense pain from his own ordeal only moments before. But she's got double the amount.

"You're going to have to help me." The fierce determination in Blair's tone snapped him back into reality; his partner was dying two feet away from him and he could not even touch her! "I'll start extracting the poison from her," Blair went on. "But it'll take longer and it'll be very difficult with so much in a single person. Once it's flowing steadily into my hand, the poison won't be able to go anywhere else so it will be alright for you to touch her…" here she hesitated and lowered her gaze. "I'll need you to hold her down." She finished in a murmur.

Soul's eyes widened. "Is it really gonna be that bad?" He asked in dismay.

Blair nodded solemnly.

"We need to hurry." Swiftly, she recited the same, mumbled incantation as before, and placed her hand above Maka's chest.

Nothing happened.

Maka just kept squirming and wheezing painfully. Blair looked up sharply, her yellow eyes wide with horror. "No…" She whispered. "We can't be too late…"

Anger and fear flashed across Soul's expression."What?!" he growled.

For several, agonizingly long seconds, the room was quiet, the atmosphere of tension and suspense slowly dying down as the reality of it all hit them.

But suddenly, the black clouds slowly began to rise from his Meister's body, as though attracted to Blair's fingers by a magnet of some sort.

Relief flooded Blair's face but then she winced at the amount and strength of the poison as it began flowing into her palm. She had intended the process to be gradual and calm, so she could disintegrate the poison bit by bit, but something was wrong.

Seconds later, the entire cloud of deadly, black mist came rushing out of Maka's body all at once. Extracting the poison slowly would have been less painful to the bewitched one, but this was indefinitely unbearable.

Maka screamed.

Blair cursed in her mind, but now that the process had begun this way, they needed to end it as fast as possible, lest the poison in Maka's bloodstream ate away at her from the inside out.

Barely conscious, Maka clenched her teeth hard, trying to hold back another scream. Her body felt like it was being torn in two, as though her very soul were being peeled away from her. Her bones shuddered as her body arched from excruciating agony as bolts of explosive lightning shocked her enough to make her heart stop altogether.

"Soul-kun! Now!" Blair cried out, flinching as Maka wailed. I'm sorry, Maka-chan.

"Right!" Soul leaned down from where he sat beside the girl and pinned Maka's shoulders to the bed. She struggled beneath him, not knowing if she should attempt to scream or breathe. Soul felt each of her heartbeats like they were his own as he continued to keep her still as Blair tried to drain the last of the dark aura from her. But Maka was starting to get tired, the pain was so intense that it was dull, and her lungs were too strained to function properly. Soul instantly realized her lack of breath. "Blair! She can't breathe!" He called out.

"I know! I'm trying!" Blair could almost feel the last of the miasma as it slipped from Maka's veins into the air around them.

The second the poison had left her, Maka's tense shoulders and arched back relaxed and went limp. She fell back onto the bed and was perfectly still.

Soul stared down at her, his arms trembling slightly as he realized the tight grip he had on her shoulders which he slowly slackened. Then his head snapped up to look at Blair who was mumbling something to herself again, trying to hold back the dark clouds as they tried to lunge at her like some wild beast. With the final word of the spell and a flick of her wrist, Blair purified the black clouds, turning them to clear dust before they dissipated into the atmosphere. She was left panting for a moment, and Soul stared at her with a new admiration he never knew he could have for a cat.

"Blair…" He trailed off.

She lifted her head and gave him a feline smile. He blinked and gave a small smile back before returning his attention to the quiet girl underneath him. Slowly, he removed his hands from her shoulders and sat back down on the bed beside her.

Only then did he realize with horror that it was too quiet.

"She's not breathing."

His voice was hollow as he spoke the words.

Blair's smile fell like a leaf in Autumn as she slowly crept nearer to the bed, the look in her eyes resembling a loyal dog that had just been struck by its master.

"Soul-kun, wait-"

"Maka's dead." He cut Blair off with a dull voice.

"Now, Soul-kun, don't jump to-" Blair tried reasoning with him but he would not listen.

"Maka…" he gathered her body in his arms and looked down at her, feeling stinging liquid gather around his eyes.

"Soul-kun," Blair tried again to interject and make him listen to her. "This is…hard to explain but…" she fumbled for words to help her and sighed. "In order to save her, I had to stop her heart momentarily while I extracted the poison. It…it should've started beating again by now…" she was at a complete loss. "B-But if I hadn't done it, she would have died anyway!" Blair's eyes were brimming with tears and she bit her lip, bowing her head. Then she snapped her head up again. "Unless…unless there's some way to wake her up. I just…don't know what we could do. But it would need to be fast…" She let her voice fail at the end, hopelessly hoping that there was something they could do.

"Something to wake her up…" Soul mumbled to himself, trying desperately to think and hold back his tears simultaneously. He raked his brain for something, any quick method he could use right then and there.

Then, he faintly recalled something, but he was not sure where it was from, some old book or story he had heard somewhere before? Or if someone had told it to him, perhaps even Maka herself? Whatever. He growled in his mind. As long as it works.

Soul hugged Maka to him, letting a few tears drip down onto the bed. Then he pulled away and looked down at her. Her eyes were closed, mouth slightly open; if it was not for her unnaturally pale skin, she would have looked as though she were sleeping.

Slowly, Soul leaned down and kissed her gently.

Blair blinked as she peeked up through her bangs, the tiniest smile crossed her lips.

Finally. She thought.

Maka felt cold and breathless, like she was drowning in a pond formed from melted icicles.

It was darker than a moonless midnight and she instantly began to panic. She tried to suck in air, but she got nothing. It was as though her mouth was stuffed with cotton and her throat was parched, lungs frozen.

Then, in a flash, warmth shot through her body like a bolt of lightning, awaking all of her senses. The next second, her olive-green eyes flew open so fast that, had she been standing, she probably would have fallen from dizziness. She saw someone leaning over her, felt tears streaming down her cheeks, some her own and others not. Soul?! What was going on? Her heart was pounding louder than a stampede of horses and her lungs were frozen over with flames.

And then suddenly, she realized the warmth that had spread throughout her body had originated from her lips. Finally, Soul pulled away and Maka gulped in the biggest breath she had ever inhaled.

"Maka!" his voice was laced with relief and just too many other emotions to name at the moment. She stared up into his eyes, panting wildly, but olive locked with crimson and neither could look away no matter what.

"Soul!" she gasped, a tired smile breaking out across her face.

Soul was so caught up in the moment that he leaned down and kissed her again, still gentle but with a bit more gusto. Maka made a short yelping sound before he cut her off, covering her mouth with his. This time, she let her eyelids fall and kissed back with what little strength she could muster. They seemed to want to test how long they could stay like that and hold their breaths, but a certain cat had other plans in mind.

"Maka-chaaan! Blair is so sorry! Blair should have warned you sooner!" She cried.

Rushing forward, she threw herself onto the bed, and flung her arms around the couple, mid-kiss. Soul's and Maka's eyes widened in surprise as the extra weight came down on them, causing Soul to collapse on top of his Meister. "Oops! Blair's sorry!" Quickly she reverted back to her usual cat-self. Soul groaned and Maka coughed as he pushed himself up off of her. The purple cat purred and rolled off of Soul and landed on the blankets.

"S-Sorry 'bout that." Soul's face was tinted slightly pink as he stared down at Maka. He wanted to tell her just how relieved he was, but he figured that she already kind of figured that out already. So he just went with, "I'm glad you're okay, Maka."

Her only response was to smile back up at him.

"W-What?" he asked, sitting down next to her.

"You kissed me." She breathed.

Soul blinked. "Y-Yeah…?"

Maka giggled. They held each other's gazes for a moment longer before they heard a small mewing noise as Blair's jaws gaped and she yawned.

"Blair's so sleepy. It's dark out." She observed. "Night-night, nya!" she meowed before curling into a ball and tucking her nose under her tail. Soul just realized that she was right, and he was relieved to hear the cat talking in her peculiar style again instead of the uptight, manner she had used earlier that evening.

Feeling the dizziness drape over themselves like a sheet of snow, Soul and Maka yawned in unison. Soul lay down beside her and found nothing better to do than to stare into her eyes, reflecting her smile, breathing her scent.

"Thanks for saving me, Soul." She murmured, coyly shifting closer to him.

"Don't thank me." He flipped, over grabbed Blair by her scruff and rolled back over again to face his partner once more. "It was Blair who got rid of that poison." He declared, dropping the cat between them both.

"Mreow?" Blinking open one eye, the cat turned over onto her back.

"Thanks so much, Blair." Maka patted the cat's head gratefully. "But you saved me too, Soul." She blushed and looked into his irises, sparkling in the growing darkness.

"Well, you saved me first, remember?"

"Well, of course!" She muttered. "We're partners. And Blair too." She added.

The cat twitched her whiskers.

"Yeah." he agreed, moving closer to her.

Blair squeezed out from between the two and let them have their moment, curling up again on the pillow above their heads.

Soul hugged Maka tightly, slowly wrapping his arms around her and pulling her closer before kissing her once again. It lasted an eternity this time, and Maka felt as though even if she never breathed again, if she died like this, she would never ask for anything more.

When they eventually pulled apart, she nestled closer, pressing against him comfortably and he rested his chin on top of her head, listening to her soft breathing.

"Good night, Soul."

"Good night, Maka."

"Good night, nya!"

The moon set slowly that night, as though letting the three friends relax and get a peaceful night's sleep together, wrapped up in each other's warmth and presence.

After all, they were Partners.

A/N: Fin! Meh, not my best work :( Sorry if it was too rushed at the end, I wrote this like, really late at night ^^;; Don't kill/flame meh plzkaythnx!

This is the first time I've had them kiss!! I actually only intended it to be once, but the second one just kinda snuck in there and then I thought 'Third time's the charm, so what the hell?' and there we have it. XD well no one's complaining right? 3

Please, please review!!