The weapon's ruined body laid on the operating table. Charlotte sat in a corner, sobbing, her knees pulled up to her chest as everything hit her at once.

Rim had come after her. He had followed her to the lab. He had foolishly thought that he could save her.

The irony of it? He had damned both her and the professor by doing it.

Charlotte couldn't force herself to look at his body again- she had already vomited what little was in her stomach out. Stein was sitting with his head in his hands at his desk. Charlotte just pulled her knees tighter against her chest.

There were streaks of blood running down them. She could see the untended wounds that had caused them, but she didn't want to mention them. She didn't want Stein to touch her right now.

Not after what he had done to Rim.

No, that wasn't fair. After what they had done to Rim.

She would wear the scars from that night for the rest of her life.

However short that may be.

They had murdered her meister.

Suddenly Stein was at her side, and she raised a teary face to meet his concerned gaze.

"I'll figure something out, Charlotte. We'll make-"

"Rim is dead!"

Stein was silent. There was nothing that he could say to change that, and they both knew it. He looked over her shoulder at the body on the operating table and raised a bloodstained hand to the screw in his head, twisting it.

"Charlotte, I will figure this out."

She just shook her head and buried her face in her knees.

She didn't know how long she cried for. She was aware of Stein at her side a few times, his hand pulling at her arms, forcing her to let him stitch up the wounds. She just curled in on herself afterwards, memories flooding through her mind of all the times that Rim and she had spent time together.

She could remember now the look in his eyes when he'd looked at her, a look that she hadn't (wanted) been able to see. She wondered if he really did love her.

She'd never know now.

She collapsed on the couch, tears streaming down her face again. Stein was gone, and she didn't know where he had disappeared to.

Rim's body was gone too.

He'd promised to take care of it.

Charlotte wondered if he actually could. Rim wouldn't just disappear. How could they ever explain his absence?

Would another weapon ever partner with her?

She hoped not.

She didn't want to put anyone else in danger.

Maybe she could just stay here with the professor, living like hermits in his lab.

She giggled at the thought.

"Charlotte?"

The black haired meister's head jerked up.

Rim stood in front of her, a look of worry marring his features. He moved to the couch and knelt beside it, his hand reaching out to touch her forehead.

"Are you sick?"

Her hand reached out, brushing the purple stripes.

It had all been a hallucination?

Charlotte looked around the room. She sat in their living room, and Rim was alive and whole in front of her.

She smiled.

"I… I think I might be, Rim."

The boy left for a moment and came back a second later with a hypodermic. "The Professor gave this to me in case you got sick again."

Charlotte smiled as she sat upright, baring her arm for him. The needle slid into her forearm, just below the curve of her elbow. He depressed the plunger, and whatever was inside it injected into her bloodstream.

Then he was gone. It was her thumb on the plunger, and a burning sensation rushing through her veins.

Charlotte blinked.

It was becoming hard to breathe and the pain in her arm was spreading.

She stumbled to her feet, Stein's name on her lips.

Rim was the one who came through the door at a run. Charlotte jerked the needle from her arm, staggering, blood covering her fingertips.

Rim's body broke her fall, and he sat there, her head cushioned in his lap as he begged her to tell him what she had taken. Her hand reached up to brush against his face as she whispered apologies.

Tears streaked down Stein's face, trailing through the blood, as Charlotte died in his arms.

A/N: This follows directly after the chapter entitled "Guide" of TheAUWalker's The Mad Meisters. I asked for permission to continue that chapter and she gave it to me.

I don't own Soul Eater.