I updated and edited this ENTIRE story because it was still a little rough in places.

Based on the doujinshi Rendezvous Pitch Maneuver.

Be warned, the doujinshi is on a HENTAI site even though there's no sex in that one. It's in two parts on this website: http:/ www. fakku. net/manga. php?series=Soul+Eater so you can either go there and look for Rendezvous Pitch Maneuver 01 and then 02 or…

Part One: http:/ www. fakku. net/viewmanga. php?id=4588

Part Two: http:/ www. fakku. net/viewmanga. php?id=4595

ENJOY! (I posted this note at the end too, so you can feel free to read it then.)

SPOILER NOTE: Because I know a lot of people are just starting out watching or reading Soul Eater, I want to warn you that there are some spoilers throughout this little story and the doujinshi. So, those of you that really care might want to sit this one out. Those of you that don't, well READ ON!

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Together, Death the Kid, Patricia and Elizabeth Thompson, BlackStar, Tsubaki Nakatsukasa, Maka Albarn, and Soul Eater had managed to defeat the Kishin Asura. But hell, if anyone was honest, they had only beaten him because of Maka Albarn. Maka, Soul Eater's skinny feminine little partner, had turned her body into a weapon and fought Asura back. Even then, her weapon-blood hadn't defeated him. Her bravery and spirit had beaten him. It had been six weeks since that battle and the mess had been cleaned up by now. Everyone had healed nicely and was no worse for the wear save a few proudly-worn battle-scars.

Except Soul… he was completely unharmed, nothing but smooth flawless skin on his face and chest and back—everywhere. He hadn't been a part of the battle, locked either in his mind or in Maka's embrace the entire time. Because he was cool, he was completely honest with himself. He was a failure—a hopeless useless failure. Hell, Chrona had been of more help than him!

But that was six weeks ago…

Everyone was healed up nicely, even BlackStar though he had chased about the entire time he was supposed to be resting much to Tsubaki's horror. Even Maka, who had taken the brunt of the battle on her small fragile body, had finally taken off the last of her bandages. Everyone was healed, that is, except Soul… and he had been barely involved.

Something inside him was broken, cracked apart, stuck, trapped, damaged…

He couldn't transform into a weapon anymore.

…

It was Friday, blessed lovely Friday. Soul and Maka were resting in their apartment, tired from a long week of school and all the work they had to make up. Maka was stretched out on the couch, long creamy legs spread before her, with a thick book resting in her lap. Soul, being a little—nah, a lot—less studious, was reading glossy magazines at her feet. He was kneeling on the floor beside the couch, desperate to be close to her because he was so useless and didn't want her to cast him aside like something broken, even though that was all he was now.

"Hey, Maka?" he ventured in the comfortable silence that stretched between them.

"Hmm?" She didn't look up from her book, but he did. She was lovely before him, hair damp from a shower, ash-blonde tresses like silk around her face and falling down over her shoulders. There were dark circles beneath her eyes, but she had a right to be tired. She had been working so hard lately, trying to pick up the slack his inability to change into a scythe had created.

He leaned his head on the pillow her foot was resting on and gazed up into her face as he spoke, gauging her reaction. "You said this earlier, but what kind of feeling is love?" he asked her carefully. It seemed like a stupid question now that he had said it out loud.

For a moment, she was quiet, staring blankly at his face. "W-what? Don't talk about that stuff all of the sudden," she said finally.

Soul lifted his head from the pillow to peer at her. "But," he began. "There are so many different types of love. Don't get me wrong, I know it's sudden, but… you know, I…" His bit his lip, hesitating, and shook his head slightly. "It's different for me because I don't have the right family."

She hit him in the face with a pillow and slid her eyes back to her book. "Shut up, Soul," she said irritably.

He stared at her, unsure of what expression his face was making but feeling both put-out and hurt. She just brushed him off lately, telling him to be quiet. Was she angry because he was such a failure? He wasn't angry, though. He knew he deserved it.

"You know, Soul, you're the type that loves inconveniently," she said softly after a long moment, lifted her eyes from her book, and reclined on her hand.

Once before, he had asked her what love was like and Maka had been quiet for a long while before finally telling him: "Love is like the sun, Soul. It's warm and heats you up from the inside out and you can't live without it." Then, she had kissed his cheek and gone to bed. He wanted her to kiss him again, to make him feel like he wasn't a useless weapon, but she didn't.

She only said, "I'm your meister and I had a good if not dysfunctional home life before this, but even I can't explain it. I don't really even understand it myself." Then, she put her nose back in her book and ignored him studiously.

Soul studied her face as she read, watching her pretty green eyes dart across the words on the page. Her ash-blonde tresses were feathering against her cheeks like phantom fingers, caressing her. She was wearing one of her old white blouses, tattered and threadbare in the shoulders, and a pair of black short shorts that exposed every inch of her long creamy legs. She looked so beautiful, so strong, and so perfect even with the hairline scar beneath her eye from the fight with Kishin Asura.

"Hey," Soul whispered. He wanted her to kiss him, but he wasn't above taking the roundabout and uncool way. "Let me kiss you."

Flat-out and without even looking at him, she snapped, "No."

"Come on," he pleaded.

"No."

"Let me kiss you."

"No!"

Maka threw the pillow in Soul's face again, but it proved to be a slight downfall because he just kept pressing forward on her. She put her foot on his head, kicking at him, but the pillow only cushioned the blows. Beneath her bare ankle, his face was soft and strange. He looked like a troubled child, crimson eyes lit with some far-off light. He gripped the pillow and his fingers looked milk-pale translucent and fragile. She wanted to chop him like she usually would, but suddenly her heart was racing and she didn't want to hurt him, not when he was already feeling so down and useless.

"Why?" he asked her. "Let's kiss—"

"NO!"

Soul was crouched at the foot of the couch and he crept slowly up over her body like an animal on the hunt or a hunter shrinking from his prey. She couldn't decide which. Soul had looked so strange and hurt lately. Finally, he was straddling her middle, knees on either side of her narrow body, and he had pinned her wrists beside her head. The heat of his body was seeping into her and the scent of his skin surrounded her, flooding her mind. His eyes were like sad dark rubies, more blood-colored than usual. His eyes looked… injured…

"Get off me, stupid!" Maka snapped. She couldn't hurt him, not now.

"It's fine to do it sometimes," Soul whispered.

"What's wrong with you?" Maka demanded, staring up into her partner's sad strange face and into his strange wounded eyes. "Get off me already!"

"Come on. Why not?" Soul asked. He was holding her wrist gingerly in his warm soft hand. Maka's hands were the rough ones, from handling him all the time when he was heavy and dangerous and actually a weapon, but his were soft and tender.

Maka put her free hand over her eyes, hiding her face form him, and was quiet for a long moment. "Because… it'll feel good…"

"If it feels good, then it is good," he said as if it was the simplest thing in the world. The scant weight of his body was resting on her thighs and he was hot and soft against her.

"It's not good!" Maka protested. "Because everything we know will stop being good."

Soul's face was unspeakably sad, staring down at her with those blood-colored eyes of his. For eternity, he was quiet and she felt his fingers quaking around her wrist like the feathers of a small broken bird. This wasn't the Soul she was so used to.

"I feel like I'll forget a lot of things," she murmured because she felt a desperate need to break the silence stretching between them where there had never been silence before.

"Maka," Soul whispered and she looked up to meet his crimson eyes. "You're good at what you do." He held her rough strong hand in his own, stroking her knuckles gently with the pad of his thumb. His fingers almost seemed smaller than hers, overpowered by the strength of hers.

"Don't be stupid," she snapped and tried to pull her hand away.

Soul only tightened his grip. "I'm not being stupid," he protested. His eyes lit with that strange almost desperate expression again as he stared down into her eyes. If only she knew how beautiful she looked beneath him, pale tresses spread like silk on the couch. "You use me well, Maka," he murmured and she felt his breath kiss her face.

She put her fingers over her face. "Seriously, Soul, what's with you lately?"

He leaned down towards her, eyes feathering closed. He was going to kiss her and she had already told him 'no' repeatedly. With a yell, she grabbed her book from where hit had fallen to the floor and decked him smoothly. Then, she wrestled her way out from underneath his writhing body and stalked to the threshold of the hall that led to their rooms.

"Be good and get better already," she said cruelly and then vanished into the dimness.

Soul was alone.

Maka hadn't even hit him that hard, he realized as he rubbed his head. She was being so gentle with him, as if he was about to break, but then again he was already broken. Why was she even keeping him around anymore, a useless weapon?

Soul thought about the fight with the Kishin Asura, about the blow he had taken for her and then collapsed uselessly in agony. He had only been half-conscious, listening as Maka's body became the ultimate weapon, even stronger than he was with the blades coming out of every part of her body rather than just her arm like he did. Maybe she was even stronger than her Death Scythe father like that. It was then that he'd lost his understanding of why he was even alive. She didn't need him. She was a weapon in her own right. And since then, he hadn't been able to turn into a weapon himself, not even his arm. But Maka had been training day and night to learn to control her weapon-blood and use it all the time, not just when she was unconscious.

He really was useless to her. She didn't need him for anything anymore, if she had ever needed him to begin with.

…

Maka tossed and turned in her empty bed. Since the fight, Soul had been sleeping with her, but only to wake her up when she had nightmares or vice versa. She had been having nightmares of the kishin's fingers tearing into her body, of her precious friends' fallen brutalized bodies, of Soul taking those blows for her and falling… Maka hadn't had a nightmare in a while, but Soul's small cries woke her almost every night now. He was in worse condition than she was, than anyone was.

She buried her face in her pillow and sighed heavily, inhaling the mixed scent of her skin and Soul's body.

She was getting to the point where she thought she might break in half—the weapon-half and the human-half, weapon and meister in one body but so much different from Chrona and Ragnarok. She got her meister-blood from her powerful mother and her weapon-blood from her strong but stupid father. At least she had her mother's brains… She just felt so alone. There was no one else in the world like her and she was alone.

Soul's soft footsteps padded into the room, lifted the covers beside her, and slid in. Suddenly angry, she sat up and shouted at him to go to his own room, but he was silent, ignoring her so studiously that she wondered if he might have fallen asleep the moment his head hit the pillow. He didn't sleep well at night anymore and neither did she. They were both exhausted.

Finally, Soul whispered in the darkness of Maka's bedroom, "I'm… really useless to you, huh?"

Maka's anger revived even though it didn't belong—so he had been awake! But she was still a compassionate individual and pushed her anger down when she heard the pain in his voice. "Don't say that about yourself," she said though angrily. She flopped down on her own pillows beside him, crossing her arms over her chest tightly. She wanted to cuddle up against him, soak up the heat of his body, but she didn't allow herself that. It was wrong, it was a tease to him, and she shouldn't hurt him.

"I don't understand why you're carrying around a busted weapon," Soul whispered and Maka looked at his thin fingers wrapped around the thick blankets. His back was a fortress of bone, impenetrable unless she wanted to break her way into him with the weapon inside her body. "I'm useless to you. What good is a weapon that can't transform?"

Maka sighed irritably and rubbed her face with her rough hands. "As usual, there you go blurting out crazy things."

"My meister?"

She cracked open her eyes. "Yeah?"

"My piano teacher was like you too…" Soul whispered though she wasn't sure what he meant by that. Though they often talked about his piano and sometimes his family, she didn't know anything about his piano teacher.

Maka allowed her tired eyes to slide closed again as Soul recounted the story of how they had met, speaking softly as if through a dream. His voice seeped into her dreams and her mind was full of the beautiful images of him at that glossy black and ivory piano in that handsome pinstriped suit. His hands had been so pale then, but still soft and lovely, dancing over the keys and playing that twisted yet beautiful melody just for her—it was her song. Maka felt in that moment that Soul was hers and hers alone. But, she wondered, thinking of how Soul had wanted to kiss her earlier and she had denied him, if she had ever considered herself Soul's…

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Questions, comments, concerns?