Soul angrily taps his fingers on the wall, listening to the argument below.
"Darling let me-" Comes a deep male voice, frantic and pleading.
"No! No more of your damned explanations! I want the fucking prostitutes out my house and you can go with them if you love them so damn much!" Sobs a female voice, high and smooth and filled with pain. The Albarn family at it's finest, if it could really be called a family any more. Soul sighs and heads back up the stairs for Maka's room. He knew she could hear her parents, and he knew that he needed to be there. Soul raps twice on a pleasant, whitewashed door with the words 'Mariel Angeline Kingsley Albarn' spelled out in gold leaf a the top.
"Hey. Maka. You in here?"
"...Go away Soul..." Drifts a faint voice through the door. He takes that as his cue to slip inside. Maka's standing in the middle of the floor, her green silk pyjamas looking untidy and wrinkled. The usually brilliant green eyes are dull, and she's holding a sword. Though it seems to Soul that it's facing the wrong way.
"Whoa whoa whoa put that thing down!" Soul mutters anxiously, grabbing the weapon and shifting the point away from her chest. He tosses it to the floor with a clatter, and gently sits Maka down on the bed.
"I read it in a book. Japanese warriors would fall on their swords to die, to avoid returning home in failure." Maka explains through a sudden rush of silent tears.
"You and your books." Soul says, his voice rough and worried. The girl had been thinking about suicide. He didn't know how much more she could take. Between the scandal at school and the fighting at home, she had nowhere to turn to. All the money in the world couldn't buy her happiness.
"Soul, please go away..." Soul catches her in a rough, steadying embrace, and she leans into him a little. Mostly, he knew, she didn't want him to see her like this, didn't want him to worry about her. The idiot. Thinking about him before her, always. Soul knows he needs to say something, to get her back to her old self. If she could just take some time to breathe, she would come up with something. Maka always knew what to do. But lately, she had been too upset, to utterly overwhelmed by the two years of constant fighting to do anything but hide up here.
"Look Maka. I've been putting off saying this because it isn't really my place to tell you what to do." He clears his throat somewhat nervously. Should he even be saying this? Well, too late now. "But your parents are going to fall apart. That's the simple truth. You need to be able to face that, admit it, and move on. Their lives aren't your life. Figure out some way to deal, and start being your own person. The only thing you can't do is go down with them." He finishes awkwardly. It had sounded a fair amount better in his head. Shit. He had so just made it worse... But the girl on his shoulder, surprisingly, isn't crying. She's thoughtful, chewing ferociously on her bottom lip. Then she gives him a weak nod.
"Ok Soul. I'll try." Then she starts pushing him bodily to the door. "Shoo. Thinking time." And for once, when Soul leaves to his own room, her green eyes are shining like gemstones. Well hell. Maybe it was a better speech than he thought.
I-:O:-I
Soul slumps down on his simple cot and considers how his talk with Maka went. By this point, he's half thought those bright green eyes moments ago were his imagination. He thinks back to the first time he met her, all those years ago, if only to avoid thinking about what might have happened if he hadn't been there today.
(Interlude-Soul's Flashback)
"Mistress Albarn? Your father wants me to run some errands so I brought you a playmate. This is my son." Her bodyguard pushes a slender young boy with frizzy white hair towards her.
"Um... hi... my name is Sol." The boy says shyly. He's very nervous around the richly dressed young girl, even though she isn't any older than he is. Why was his dad even doing this anyway? They wouldn't have anything in common. He was a peasant, and she was a member of one of the richest families in all of England.
"Soul?" The girl asks, tilting her head in confusion.
"Sol." The boy repeats.
"Soul!" The girl says, skipping in a little twirling dance. "Your name is Soul, Soul, Soul! Now c'mon Soul. Papa got me a puppy. We should go see it!" And she races off, leaving Sol to trail along behind her.
"Mistress Albarn! Wait up!" He calls as he sprints along the path, chasing after the girl's swiftly retreating back. And unexpectedly, he finds her bright smile infectious. And those emerald green eyes...
Soul smiles at the warm memory. His first meeting with Maka had been more than a decade ago. And their long friendship only made it more painful to see how the past two years had affected her. Sometimes, Soul wanted to kill her parents. Suddenly, unexpectedly, he hears a knock at his door. But when he opens it, the only thing waiting for him is a small, crisp sheet of fresh white paper, little letters in bright blue ink still wet on the page. He immediately recognizes Maka's tiny, impossibly neat script. It read:
Hey, Soul-
Meet me tomorrow night. My room. And be a little careful, ok? Don't let anyone know you're there. It'll be just like the times we used to sneak out and raid Mama's strawberry patch. Oh, and try and be there by midnight. If you don't you get left behind!
Soul stares at the note. What did she mean, he would get left behind?
I-:O:-I
"Couldn't you be a little louder? I don't think the people in the basement heard you!" Maka snaps. It's midnight, and a cold, chill wind is whipping through her open window. The girl herself is practically dressed in a warm, stylish cream colored sweater and a skirt, her riding pants underneath it.
"Sorry, sorry. You left the door locked though." She sighs.
"We're going out the window."
"Wait, what!"
"You heard me. I tied a rope. We'll be fine." Dubiously, Soul leans over to inspect this rope. It doesn't seem like he'll go plummeting three stories to his death, but you never know. "Ok, if you're so worried, I'll go first!" She growls, interrupting his contemplation of gravity.
"No. I'll do it." Hesitantly, Soul clambers onto the window ledge. Tightly clutching the rope in both hands he slowly lowers himself down, using the wall to steady himself. Thirty feet later his feet hit cobblestones. Like a ninja in a fluffy sweater, Maka bounds down the wall after him. "So where are we going?" He asks, holding her hand to lower her down.
"Oh, that's a surprise." She smiles brightly and bobs forward in a sort of funny half bow, peering up at him as they walk along towards one of the gates. Soul pulls up short.
"Guard ahead." He murmurs.
"Don't worry so much." The girl boldly strides out. "Hello, Jonathan!" She calls to the armored man.
"Mistress Albarn." Jonathan replies calmly, his eyes twinkling under his helmet. "Enjoy your night."
"We will!" Maka replies cheerily, dragging Soul behind her and out the gate.
"How the hell did you get him to let us out?" Soul demands once they're out on the streets, out of earshot.
"Simple. I told him we were going on a date."
"You what!"
"Oh calm down." But she seems almost nervous, shy. That wasn't like her. "It's not like we really are." Was that a note of sadness Soul heard? No. Of course not. That would be ridiculous. She was going to be rich and powerful. He wasn't going to get much better off than he was now, a pampered house servant.
"Are we near the docks?" Soul asks as they pad along the nearly empty streets. Even in London, hardly anyone was out after dark.
"Mhmm!"
"And what are we going to do there..."
"You really have trouble understanding surprises." Maka informs him, and he sighs. "Now boost me up." They've reached a tall fence, barbed wire decorating the top. On the wall is the seal of the Shibusen Navy.
"The hell!" Soul is suddenly not in the mood for this little outing. "We're breaking into one of your dads bases?" He can't believe her. Regardless of whether or not her dad was the Grand Admiral, trespassing here would get them shot.
"This is secret. There isn't hardly anyone here. I remembered it from when Papa gave me a tour."
"We're going to get fucking shot!" Soul swears as loudly as he dares. Maka turns to him, her face deadly serious.
"Soul. This is what I want. This is how I'm going to live my own life, get away from my parents mistakes. You can help me, or you can go home." And suddenly, it's as clear to Soul as it is to her. He couldn't leave her any more than he could tell her she was wrong. If she had a plan to get out, to make those eyes shine again, he was in.
"Deal." And he hefts her up to the top of the wall, then she pulls him up. They enter the compound, sticking to the shadows. Finally they arrive at a lone pier, extending into the air. At the end is an airship.
"This is what we're going to do, Soul."
"Steal an airship?" That's it. She's lost it.
"It's brand new, a design they're testing for small, fast crews. Top of the line You can fly an airship, right?"
"Um. Yes. Badly." He had finished flight school with barely passing marks a year ago.
"Then we are going to steal an airship."