Complete Summary: It was naturally expected that the graduation of the majority of Spartoi was guaranteed to be an upheaval for Shibusen; what wasn't anticipated was the abrupt dissolution of Soul and Maka's previously unshakeable partnership. With Maka residing at the Gallows and Soul refusing to talk about what happened to cause the split, it seems nothing short of divine intervention will be able to forge a reconciliation. Fortunately for Soul and Maka, they do seem to know an awful lot of gods...

Author's Notes- Well, here it is. My contribution to Resbang 2k14. I initially had a much much longer, more involved, plot-y thing planned, but then I procrastinated and realized I wouldn't be able to finish it in the allotted time, so I went with my shorter backup plan, and this is the result. I'm not sure whether I'm really really proud of this or whether I should be really really ashamed of it, but either way, it's done and it's much too late to back out now, so here you are.

Fair warning, this is one of those fics that could very easily verge on "oh my god just talk to each other" territory, but I think I've found a tidy way of circumventing that? Possibly? Whatever, I'm just letting you know now, so that if you absolutely hate fics where the primary focus is on relationship angst between a couple of idiot teenagers, you can just... skip right past this one. That said, I want to assure you before we even start that there is a happy ending. You're gonna have to wade through a good 30K words of solid angst before we get there, though. So, y'know. Take heed or whatever.

I will post links to my artists' work for this story in my profile as soon as it becomes available, and now I'm gonna shut up and let you get on with the story.

Serotiny

/ˈsɛrəˌtaɪni/

noun
1. an ecological adaptation exhibited by some seed plants, in which seed release occurs in response to an environmental trigger, rather than spontaneously at seed maturation. The most common and best studied trigger is fire.

Outside of monsoon season, which was brief as it was, it didn't really rain in Death City. Ever. It was only the unspoken power Lord Death held over the cycle of life and what comes after that kept the great oaks of the training forest green in the middle of the shimmering Southwestern desert. Clouds were a distant rarity, and summer showers were a myth from the other side of the Sierra Nevada.

Generally, Maka Albarn preferred it this way. Her heritage might tie back to rainy Ireland and temperate Japan, but she was born and raised in the desert and she was not cut out for other climates. She'd tried the East Coast on for size and discovered very little to delight her in the rain or snow for more than a few minutes at a time. No, she was made for t-shirt winters and scorching summers that leave all but the hardiest desert-dwellers melting on the cobblestones.

Today, however, she thought she could stand for a little rain. August in Death City was one of her favorite times of year, but she would have happily exchanged today for March weather, if only because then she wouldn't have to see the damn sun. He was cackling today, as he did every day, and usually it didn't bother her, but this afternoon it felt like the sunshine was mocking her, in particular.

It hadn't been a great day to begin with. She'd spilled coffee on her blouse when she was halfway up the great stairs and didn't have enough time to run back to the house to change, so she'd stood through four hours of lecturing to sleepy and sweating NOT students- and another three with EAT kids who weren't quite enough years younger than she was to take her seriously despite her impressive reputation- with an enormous brown stain across the pretty cream silk. Then on her walk home she'd gone out of her way several blocks to stop by the grocery store specifically to pick up her favorite juice (Liz always conveniently forgot to buy it), only to discover that they were completely out, rendering the entire detour moot. She'd been craving the taste all day, but unless she wanted to walk another eight blocks out of her way, she was out of luck.

And, of course, like the shit-flavored icing on the turd cake that was her day, as she was leaving the store empty-handed, He walked in.

Maka preferred not to even think about the way they had scurried past each other, avoiding eye contact by appearing much too interested in their shoes and the window display and the nonexistent clouds overhead. It was too humiliating.

She'd woken up that morning feeling better than she had in a good two months (two months, one week, and four and a half days…,) and before she'd left the house, she'd dared to hope that maybe she was finally over the hump and things really would get better from here. Now she was plodding down the sidewalk with an anvil on her chest, praying for rain and feeling the sunlight mocking her for thinking she might be getting better.

She was so preoccupied with violently cursing at the sky that she didn't even realize that she had arrived back at the Gallows until she was standing on the front step. She stopped, took a deep breath, threw her shoulders back, pasted a smile on her face, and opened the door.

The Gallows wasn't the kind of house you'd expect a god to own, not that Kid had spent much time here since assuming the mantle of Lord Death. It was certainly large, but not nearly as large as Kid could afford, not by a long shot. The design of the house was a bizarre blend of Victorian architecture and Death City sensibilities. Fortunately, in the past seven years, Patti had taken great strides in reducing the overwhelming skull theme of the decor that had dominated the house prior to the Thompsons' arrival in the household. The interior design still suited the precise tastes of the young shinigami, but the house felt warmer and more welcoming to outsiders now.

The house and its inhabitants had certainly welcomed her with open arms when she showed up on the doorstep with a hastily-packed suitcase.

"Liz? Patti?" she called.

"In here!" a chipper voice called from the back of the house.

An educated guess and the distinctive sounds of Looney Toons directed Maka in the direction of the entertainment room. Sure enough, she found Patti lying on her back with her legs hooked over the back of the couch, her head hanging over the seat to watch the television upside-down, and sipping what appeared to be a peach daiquiri through a straw. She was wearing a tanktop and shorts that were tiny even by her standards, and her face was bright red.

Dropping her leather messenger bag full of papers in need of grading into an armchair, Maka flopped bonelessly down onto the couch next to her roommate.

"How're things?" she asked.

"Hot," Patti replied, prompting Maka to wonder if the flush on her face was from all the blood rushing to her head or the temperature.

"Don't you have the AC on?"

Patti shook her head, eyes remaining fixed on the TV screen. "Nah. As long as I've still got a layer of clothes to take off, it doesn't make sense to waste the electricity."

Maka couldn't help smiling slightly. Frugal was not how most people would describe Patricia Thompson, but having spent upwards of two months under the same roof with her, Maka had learned a lot of things about Patti that most people probably didn't know. Her reckless overspending on luxuries when she had her hands on one of Kid's platinum cards was nicely balanced by her extreme penny-pinching on food and utilities. Both Thompson sisters had learned the lessons of poverty well, and despite their current good fortune were not likely to soon forget it.

On the screen, Elmer Fudd switched over to a commercial for laundry detergent, and Patti's eyes came unglued from the television at last. She turned her head to glance at Maka, and her big blue eyes widened. "Your shirt's all stained!"

"Uh-huh. Had a little mishap going up the steps this morning," Maka explained listlessly.

Patti frowned and twisted her neck up so that her head was something approaching vertical. "Why didn't you call me or Liz to bring you a new shirt?"

Maka's shoulders rolled in a defensive, uncomfortable shrug. "I didn't wanna bug you guys. This is the first day off you've had in weeks, and Liz had that coffee date with Kilik-"

"Yeah, at like two after his plane got in," Patti interjected. "And even if doing her hair did somehow take four hours, I wouldn't have minded coming by to bring you clean clothes."

"Look, Patti, it wouldn't have been worth it. I only have one clean shirt left, and it doesn't match this skirt at all."

Patti's eyes narrowed. "How can you only have one shirt left? You just did laundry last week."

Maka said nothing, but she didn't have to.

"Oh," the older girl said, and the single syllable spoke as loudly Maka's silence had. "You haven't gone back yet, have you. Not even for your stuff?"

Eyes cast down, Maka shook her head.

"Why not?" Patti sounded incredulous.

Maka sucked in a sharp breath through her nose and let it out slowly, willing the churning in her gut to go away. "I'm not ready yet."

"You're gonna have to be ready sometime, you know, whether you're actually ready or not."

"That doesn't even make sense."

Patti folded her arms across her chest. "Yeah it does," she said firmly.

"Can we not talk about this?" Maka asked, not even caring that there was a noticeable edge of desperation in her voice. She'd seen Him today and she wasn't prepared to handle another interrogation on top of that. Before Patti could respond, she pressed forward, "Anyway, what do you want for dinner? I was thinking about making some spaghetti, maybe."

You could always count on food to be an effective distraction for Patti. "Ooh, yeah!" she exclaimed. "And since Liz is too busy getting busy to come home to eat, we can put mushrooms in the sauce!"

Maka's lips twitched upwards from relief and amusement at Patti being… well… Patti. "Mushrooms it is, then," she agreed.

The rest of the week passed mercifully fast.

The heat index climbed even higher, and the record-setting temperatures were more effective than a tranquilizer on her students. Maka was positive that not more than five percent of her class actually heard- let alone absorbed- the content of her lectures, but she found she didn't care. She thought she might have cared before. As a hardworking, straight-A student, she'd always been extremely irritated by people who didn't care about school and didn't pay attention. Now, though, when she had a stack of papers to grade that might actually be taller than she was and the heat was even getting to her, Death Child extraordinaire, it just didn't seem worth the effort to be continually calling them back to attention. Whether they learned or not was their choice, and since most of her students were NOT anyway, it wasn't like they would be relying on Advanced Soul Theory to keep them alive on the battlefield- especially since hardly any of them had enough soul perception to make the class anything beyond purely theoretical to them anyway.

Besides, there was something about the sight of the tops of two dozen heads buried in their crossed arms and dozing that struck her as strangely endearing. She pointedly did not examine why.

As she packed up her bag on Friday, she pondered the rhythm her life had fallen into since the new semester started. Maka had never really envisioned herself as a teacher; at least, she'd never considered it as a possibility before she had at least a couple of decades of field experience under her belt. But now that she didn't have a weapon (she flinched at the thought) she was low on options; while she didn't think she was cut out to be a teacher, neither was Professor Stein, and he was by far the best teacher she'd ever had, even if his methods were… unconventional. Maka hoped she was even half as good.

Somehow, though, she didn't think she was.

Kid- Lord Death- had offered her the position a few days after she'd set up residence in the Gallows. Marie's semi-retirement now that she and Professor Stein were expecting a second child had forced a reshuffling of the staff before the summer term commenced, and they'd come up one staff member short in the soul theory department. Since her original post-graduation plan of going with Him to take up one of the vacant death weapon posts had fallen through rather spectacularly, she had been a natural choice to fill the void.

She'd done her Nevada teacher's certification in a two-week crash course during the first half of July. It had somewhat surprised her that it would be necessary, but it shouldn't have. The DWMA transcended all physical and political boundaries, but the Academy was still required to adhere to state guidelines in order to be an accredited school, and since only 63% of students (counting the NOT class, which was after all 90% of the student body) continued to work for or within the organization after graduation, accreditation was absolutely necessary to ensure that the remaining 37% would be able to continue their education elsewhere or get a good job outside the DWMA. Of course, Maka was entirely unqualified to teach anything other than the kinds of courses EAT-tracked students took at the DWMA, but since she'd expected a career working for Lord Death since before she was toilet-trained, she didn't exactly mourn the loss of a potential future teaching long division to bored fifth-graders. She wanted to work at the Academy, and even if it wasn't in the role she'd been expecting to fill, it was better than nothing at all. And so she had gotten her certification.

Even for a world-champion studier, it had been a hellish couple of weeks, but Maka had welcomed it. She had been in desperate need of something to occupy her time and her thoughts, and completing a series of tests that most people did over the course of an entire school year in less than a fortnight had been exactly what she needed to keep her mind off of… stuff.

But once the whirlwind of getting her proper credentials had wound down, she had settled into a nice tidy routine and it was… well, she didn't want to say boring, exactly. Mostly because if she admitted it to herself then she'd have to deal with the consequences of the realization and she was absolutely determined to be content with her life. She had to be. She'd made her choices and she had to live with them.

What she needed, she decided, was a distraction.

Her phone was out of her pocket and in her hand in moments, and she was calling up a familiar number with something that almost felt like eagerness.

"Hey, Tsubaki…"

Rock-climbing at the DWMA's state of the art rec center was a significantly different experience from scaling some dime-a-dozen climbing wall at a YMCA in Reno, with the end result that even two seasoned warriors like Maka and Tsubaki returned home sore and with more than a couple unlikely bruises. All in all, though, Maka was thoroughly pleased with the afternoon's exercise.

"I'm glad we did this," she said to Tsubaki as they strolled down the street in the direction of the little flat the older girl shared with her meister. "I feel like with the teaching job, my endurance training has gotten all out of whack. It was nice to challenge myself a little."

Tsubaki nodded, a pleasant smile curling about her mouth. "Definitely. And it was a refreshing change not to have to keep up with Black*Star's pace."

Maka snorted. "As much respect as I have for Black*Star's work ethic, he pushes himself way too hard sometimes. One of these days he's gonna tear a ligament or something and put himself out of commission for months."

The other girl shrugged, one corner of her mouth quirked in a resigned half-smile. "I used to think so, too, but I've been waiting for it to happen for years and so far he's been just fine. He sets ridiculously high goals for himself, but he always meets them. It's one of the things I admire most about him."

"Yeah…" Maka stared down the street, a pensive look coming into her eyes. "You know, until pretty recently, I could never understand how you could work with him."

Tsubaki giggled. "Do you think that's because you looked at him too much like a sibling rather than as a fellow meister?"

Maka nodded violently. "Even though he's older than me, he's always sort of been my hyperactive little brother. If I'd been born a weapon, there's no way we'd ever have been able to work together. But you're way more patient than me, and you needed something different in…" She sucked in a breath suddenly, sharply; she hadn't realized where her thought was leading until she arrived, and she had no choice but to see it through. "...in a partner."

She hated the sympathetic look that came over Tsubaki's face as she stumbled over the end of her sentence. It was better than the outright pity she'd been getting from Liz and Patti and Kid and everybody else for more than two months now, but not by a whole lot.

Tsubaki opened her mouth, a tentative little motion that preceded her inhalation, as if she were still busy convincing herself she ought to say anything at all.

"Hey, we're already on your street!" Maka exclaimed a little too loudly. "Wow, it's been so long since I've been at your place, I didn't realize we were so close already."

"Yeah…" Tsubaki said, voice soft.

"Let's hurry. I'm dying for a glass of water."

If Tsubaki was still giving her those big sad eyes, Maka made a point not to notice in the slightest as she hurried on down the side street toward the door to Tsubaki and Black*Star's building.

The dark arm weapon and her meister had long since moved out of the little flat they had shared years ago. Shortly before graduation, they left their cramped one-bedroom in favor of a more spacious apartment in a much better part of town. Maka was still getting used to the new address, for all that the pair had lived there for months.

Then again, most of the time she'd spent with Tsubaki lately had been at the Gallows or out in the city. She hadn't wanted to hang around her friend's place too much, just in case…

When Tsubaki tried her key in the front door, she discovered it was already unlocked. "I guess Black*Star's home early." Looking concerned, she hurried to add, "If you'd rather not come in-"

"No, no," Maka interrupted. "It's your house, too. If Black*Star doesn't like the friends you bring over, he can go hide in his bedroom and play Mario Kart on that disgustingly expensive system he's got set up in there until I leave."

Tsubaki still looked hesitant, but pushed the door open and stepped inside.

"Black*Star, we're home!" she called out as Maka followed her over the threshold.

"Sweet, I'm starving!" her meister returned cheerfully, accompanied by the sounds of several simulated roars. "You were gone for ages, I've been playing Skyrim for, like, four days!"

At Maka's baffled look, Tsubaki laughed. "He means in the game. Boy, you really are a videogame virgin, aren't you?"

"I play pinball on my phone sometimes," Maka said, ducking her head as a bright flush spread across her face.

Before Tsubaki could make the cheeky comeback that Maka could just feel was on the tip of her tongue, Black*Star emerged from his bedroom, shirt in hand and his trademark sun-bright grin on his face. "Hey, 'Baki, I was thinking-"

He stepped fully into the hallway and spotted Maka. The instant he saw her, the smile dropped from his lips and his relaxed posture grew rigid. He dropped the t-shirt from his grip and crossed his arms defensively across his chest.

"Uh, I was thinking," he resumed, refusing to look at Maka and not even attempting to resume the bright note that had been plain in his voice moments before, "that you and I could have a nice dinner, just the two of us."

Tsubaki let out a shrill giggle, squirming under the tension that had suddenly lowered the temperature in the apartment a good twenty degrees. "Black*Star, that's what we always do! I thought, since Maka came by, we could-"

"Maka? Who's Maka?" Black*Star interrupted. "I don't think I know any Maka."

"Black*Star-"

"It's a real shame your friend didn't stick around. I'd like to have met her. I'm sure if I did she would be a really great girl, not the kind of person who goes around ripping peoples' hearts out of their chest or anything." At last he turned and gave a pointed glare in Maka's direction.

"Black*Star!" Tsubaki exclaimed, looking furious.

Maka shook her head. "I get the picture, Black*Star. I know where I'm not welcome."

When she'd said earlier that, essentially, Black*Star could just suck it up and deal with her invading his home for a couple hours, she'd meant it. But it was one thing to say that when she was outside in the neutral territory of the street. Maintaining that same resolve while face to face with the rare but terrible anger of the usually happy warrior was a different story. She just… didn't have the energy to deal with this. A hasty retreat was easier than sitting here in the unpleasant atmosphere of a house where she was an unwanted guest for the next couple of hours.

She seemed to be getting good at hasty retreats these days…

Tsubaki was looking at her imploringly, apologies shining in her eyes, so Maka dredged up a smile.

"It's okay, Tsubaki. We can hang out another time, okay?"

The tall girl gave a shell-shocked nod.

There seemed to be nothing left to say, so Maka turned and walked right back out the door, head held high.

She made it as far as the alley behind their building before the facade crumbled. She collapsed back against the brick wall, grateful for the shadow cast by the apartment complex that hid her from the cackling sun. Her whole body was trembling and her knees were so shaky she was sure it was only the support of the wall keeping her upright. She felt her eyes stinging and closed them, felt her lip quivering and bit down hard. She dragged in several long, harsh breaths through her nose as she willed away the lump in her throat.

After a few moments, the shaking stopped and her rigid muscles relaxed. Maka took an easier breath and let it out, long and slow. Eyes still closed, she dropped her head back against the brick wall of the building for a moment.

"I'm fine," she sighed.

It had been several years since Black*Star surpassed his weapon partner in height, and he now stood quite a few inches over her; when Tsubaki rounded on him after the door closed behind Maka, however, Black*Star suddenly felt shrimpy and thirteen all over again. Tsubaki lost her temper even more rarely than he did, but when her ire was raised, it was terrifying.

Fortunately for Black*Star, he was not easily frightened, or the sight of his partner seething in front of him would quite possibly have sent him running. Her skin had taken on a metallic shimmer and her eyes were sparking as she glared at him, hands planted furiously on her hips.

"What in Death's name was that?" she hissed. "Black*Star, you idiot!"

He tucked his hands into his armpits and stood his ground. "No more than she deserves."

Tsubaki's glare deepened impossibly. "You don't know that."

"Yes I do."

"No, you don't," she insisted, in the fiercest tone she possessed and one which he had never imagined he would hear turned on him. She softened only marginally as she continued: "None of us do. Maka's refusing to even discuss what happened, so unless Soul's told you anything- he hasn't, has he?"

Black*Star rolled his eyes at his weapon's suspicious glare. "No, he's not really the type to talk about his problems."

"There, then," Tsubaki said in that same steely tone. "We don't know what happened, so it's not our business to judge either of them. For all we know, Soul is the one who hurt Maka, so don't leap to conclusions without knowing all the facts!"

Black*Star snorted. He'd received plenty of lectures from his weapon over the years, but this was one topic he would not be swayed on. Tsubaki's heart was in the right place, but frankly she was the one who didn't have all the facts! She didn't know what Soul had been thinking about before graduation three months ago, before everything went to shit for him and Maka. He didn't know if the things Soul had told him— strictly between bros, of course— had anything to do with the falling out between the scythe and his meister, but whether it did or not was irrelevant. Soul couldn't be responsible for this; with the way he felt about Maka, there was no way he would just turn around and kick her out of the apartment. Just no way.

"Think whatever you want," he muttered.

"No, Black*Star, I'm not letting this go! You were horribly rude to Maka just now— no, not just rude, you were plain mean, and that's not okay!"

Tsubaki was so furious he thought she might actually start crying, and Black*Star began to panic, because he might be on a godly level, but he was not equipped to handle crying girls and especially not a crying Tsubaki.

"Look, Tsu, I—"

"No, you look," she interrupted sharply. "I understand that you're worried about Soul. We're all worried about Soul, and he's your best friend, so of course you're going to want to take his side, but Black*Star, we don't even know if there are sides to take." Her tone turned pleading. "It's okay to be concerned, but you can't just lash out at Maka like that. This has been really hard for her, too, and you're practically a brother to her. She's lost her partner and now with you turning on her… I can't imagine how she must be feeling."

Black*Star snorted again. "Yeah, I'm sure she's real cut up," he muttered. From what he'd seen of Maka these last couple of months, she hadn't exactly seemed to be suffering for her supposed "loss." Certainly nothing like the hell that Soul had been through.

From the set of Tsubaki's jaw as she glared him down, however, she wasn't going to be brought around to see things his way just yet. A bushin knew when to pick his battles; Black*Star uncrossed his arms and held his hands up in surrender.

"Just stop bugging me about this," he said with a soft sigh. "I promise I won't be such a dick to Maka. You can't make me forgive her, but I'll… I'll be polite, okay?"

Tsubaki was obviously far from satisfied, but she seemed willing to accept such a compromise. Her fists unclenched and she dropped her arms to her sides, shoulders slumping tiredly.

His heart went out to her at the sight. Tsubaki hated confrontation of any kind, so much so that he sometimes wondered how she could be such a fierce warrior, until he recalled that her urge to defend and protect others outweighed her loathing of conflict. Standing up to him like this had clearly taken a lot out of her.

"You're wrong about one thing," he said quietly.

She looked up, her sparkling pacific eyes a little bloodshot from tears she had refused to shed.

"Soul's not my best friend. You are." He pulled her into a tight hug. She wrapped her arms around his waist and buried her face in his chest.

Soul was studying the way shadows were moving across the living room ceiling. The sky was cloudless, but the Joshua tree outside the window was swaying in the hot wind, causing a pattern of dark spikes to shoot across the ceiling erratically. It was a nice complement to the old Stravinsky recording that was playing on the stereo. Well, maybe "nice" wasn't quite the word, but the music and his mood and the shadows matched, anyway.

The pounding on the apartment door had been going on for a few minutes now. Soul had deduced that it was unlikely to be Black*Star knocking, because the bushin would have given up at least a minute and a half ago and come 'round through the window instead. Liz would be shouting, Kilik would have gotten the hint and left by now, Kid was too busy to waste his time stopping by to chat, even with The Last Death Scythe, and Patti… well, if it was Patti, god help him once she got in. And she would get in.

He was just contemplating the possibility that he had forgotten to pay the rent and it was the building super coming to collect, when an ominous cracking sound from the entryway alerted him to the fact that whoever was at the door had found an alternative way inside after all. Soul vaulted over the back of the sofa with a lanky sort of grace born from long limbs and almost a decade spent chasing around a natural gymnast; he skidded into the hall just in time to see the long black blade that had been thrust through the now-splintered door transform back into a human hand. The hand slid back the deadbolt and withdrew, and a moment later the door swung open to reveal Spirit Albarn.

He looked, in Soul's opinion, much more annoyed than a man who had just broken forcibly into someone else's home had any right to be.

"What the hell?" Soul sputtered. "What did—? Why—? You just—! I should call the cops!"

"No, what you should do is show up for work," Spirit replied, casually plucking a splinter out from under his fingernail. "I'm aware that you're not currently on active duty, but you still have an obligation to report to the Death Room when Lord Death summons you."

Soul rolled his shoulders nervously as the other scythe stepped across the threshold. Pretending to ignore him, Soul shut the door. It was a fairly useless gesture, given that the latch now barely worked, let alone the lock, but it made him feel somewhat more secure to keep the apartment closed, and it also gave him an excuse not to meet Spirit's eyes.

He felt uncomfortable with the knowledge that he had blown off a few meetings. He hadn't really been feeling up to work lately, especially not desk work, and the guilt that came with skiving off meetings had amplified his disinclination to show his face anywhere near the DWMA headquarters.

"Look, old man," he said peevishly, turning back to face the intruder in the apartment at last, "I know I overslept on a couple of chats with Kid, but—"

"Six," Spirit interjected, his sapphire eyes narrowed. "And that's just in the last month. Two of those were meetings that had been rescheduled specifically so that you could be there."

"Yeah, well, still not really a good enough reason for breaking and entering," Soul snapped back.

"I suggest you consider the door payback for breaking my little girl's heart," Spirit suggested nastily. Pleased with this hit, the older man strode past Soul in the direction of the living room.

Soul remained rooted to the spot as the bottom dropped out of his stomach exactly as it had every time anyone mentioned Maka in the last few months. He'd been doing so well, too, he'd gone almost an hour without thinking about her. But now her father, of all people, had to come bursting into his apartment and forced him to think about her. And, in typical Spirit fashion, his heart was in the right place, but his facts were all wrong.

"News flash, Pops," he bit out, "Your darling baby schmoopie-kins isn't exactly innocent here. I get that you've gotten used to blaming me for shit, and old habits die hard and all that crap, but this time I'm not the one who screwed up."

Spirit eyed him with mulish skepticism clear in his expression, but ultimately, he sighed and plopped down on the couch, waving a hand to indicate that Soul should take a seat on the loveseat— as if it were his house and Soul was the guest! Nevertheless, he wasn't really inclined to keep standing around, so he took the indicated seat.

"Nice music choice," Spirit remarked. "What is that?"

"The Firebird. Stravinsky," Soul grunted.

"That's the one that caused a riot in the theatre when it was first performed, right?"

Wondering where exactly this unlikely thread of conversation was headed, Soul shook his head. "Nah. Right composer, wrong ballet. That was The Rite of Spring."

"You know a lot about music, don't you?"

Soul shrugged.

"C'mon, kid, don't pull your stonewall crap with me. Even if I hadn't heard you play for myself, Maka's talked my ear off about you enough times that I know just what kind of talent you've got."

Soul attempted— quite successfully, in his opinion— to hide the sick, shattering feeling this particular statement caused in his gut. He did not want to hear about how Maka used to speak well of him, before she threw him away like trash.

As long as Spirit didn't look at his hands, which he was pretty sure were visibly shaking, he could continue to make like he was perfectly calm and unruffled by whatever the hell this was.

"Yeah? What's your point?" he asked.

"The point is that you could be living a very different life right now. I've looked at your files; I know what kind of family you come from. And even if your father wasn't who he is, you've got what it takes to be a big name in the music industry, and despite whatever issue it is you have with that idea, you clearly know it. You don't have to be with the DWMA like so many of the weapons who come here do. You chose to be here." He had been staring intensely at the coffee table, but with this last statement he looked up and fixed his clear eyes with just as much intensity onto Soul's face.

Soul tucked his hands under his thighs.

"What I'm getting at is that you had all the options in the world available to you in ways that almost nobody does, let alone weapons, but you wanted this life. You can't keep putting off career decisions forever just because your circumstances have changed."

His stomach clenched as he finally realized why he was experiencing this extremely unorthodox home invasion. "Ah. You're here about me taking up one of the old death weapon's posts."

Spirit nodded. "Lord Death has been very patient with you. It's a big decision and you're very young, and we all get that. But we've been short-handed ever since we lost Justin and Tezca, and with Marie semi-retired now… well, Azusa can't keep taking on responsibilities for Oceania as well as her duties in Japan indefinitely. The DWMA needs a death weapon willing to relocate to one of the vacancies soon, and if you're not willing to take the job, we're going to have to start investigating other options."

Soul cast a blank eye in the older man's direction. He couldn't help but take note of the fact that that Spirit, at least, wasn't wrapping him up in cotton like a black blood-powered landmine that would go off if someone so much as breathed wrong in his direction. No matter how much he appreciated Spirit's rejection of tact, however, the subject matter was not at all to his liking, and there was a serious wrench in the works the older scythe was ignoring...

"Look, death scythe or not, I'm not a self-wielding weapon. I can't take a post like that without a meister." He was very impressed that his voice stayed steady the whole way through that statement.

"So choose a meister!" Spirit exclaimed, sounding exasperated. "You're the Last Death Scythe, for Death's sake! You've got your pick of any unpartnered meister on the planet, and a fair number of the partnered ones, too."

This was just too much. He dropped the mildly annoyed neutrality he'd been attempting to present to the other death scythe and fixed Spirit with a vicious glare. "No."

Spirit's eyes softened, and Soul hated it.

"Look, kid, I get it. I really do. It's hard to let go. But Maka's a lot like her mother, and these Watanabe girls… well, once you've hurt them badly enough that they leave, they just don't come back. It doesn't matter how long you wait."

"That's rich, coming from you," Soul snapped. "Did you even wait for Maka's mom's car to get out of the driveway before you started looking for your next booty call?"

Spirit winced, then glared at him. "I'm not here to discuss my marriage," he hissed. "I'm here because you need to decide what you're going to do soon, and you can't wait on Maka to come back and decide for you."

"Get the fuck out," Soul said. "You've officially overstayed your welcome. Not that you were welcome to begin with, but whatever."

The older weapon left with no complaint, but Soul was now in such a foul mood that he felt no compunctions shouting after him, "And you're paying to fix my door, asshole!"

Once he had fastened the barely-functional deadbolt, he swayed across the room and into the kitchen, thinking feverishly that maybe eating something would help him get his shit together. He had just gotten the fridge open and was reaching for a little white container of pork fried rice when his eyes caught on The Note.

He still hadn't taken it down. Why did he keep forgetting to do that?

It was scribbled on a standard index card and tacked to the fridge under a magnet shaped like a hedgehog. Maka's script wasn't as precise as usual, as if she'd dashed off the message in a great hurry— not that he'd needed her handwriting to tell him that. He knew for a fact that she'd packed her shit and left between the time that he'd stormed out of the apartment and the time he'd returned less than two hours later. Her message— Don't come after me. We obviously don't want the same things, so it's better if we don't see each other. You can have the apartment.— only served to confirm that he'd been a colossal fool to think that maybe...

Soul threw the refrigerator door violently shut, and he was pretty sure he heard something inside shatter, but he didn't care. Knees even more jellylike than before, he wobbled over to the living room and flopped face down on the sofa. He closed his eyes and breathed against the black despair pounding in time to his pulse, and The Note was forgotten until tomorrow.

"Hey, Maka, got a minute?"

Maka froze with her foot on the first riser of the stairs to the third floor, inwardly cursing her luck. After her confrontation with Black*Star she was in no condition to be social, and she'd been hoping to creep upstairs without encountering anyone. But of course Liz just had to be sitting in the second floor parlor that opened onto the stairwell, because why should the universe give her a break for once?

"Uh, sure," she said hesitantly, turning around and pasting a bland smile on her face as she abandoned the landing and joined Liz. "What's up?"

Liz patted the seat next to her invitingly, and Maka sighed, but sat down. Once she had sunk what felt like several feet into a cushy leather deathtrap, the older girl turned to face her, tucking her legs up underneath her on the couch.

"We're worried about you," she said without preamble.

Oh no. It was time for that talk at last. They'd left her alone about it since the first week after she'd moved in at the Gallows, but she'd known that sooner or later it was going to come up again. She'd hoped she could buy a little more time than this to regain her equilibrium, and she definitely hadn't wanted to have this conversation while reeling from yet another encounter with Black*Star's partisanship. Maybe she could head this off at the pass and put it off a little longer…

"I can't imagine why, I'm fine—"

"Patti told me you haven't gone back to your apartment since the night you came here," Liz interrupted. "You've been living out of a suitcase for going on three months because you can't bring yourself to face Soul. And see?" she cried in a desperate sort of triumph, pointing one beautifully manicured finger at Maka, "You flinch when anybody so much as says his name. You're not fine, Maka."

Maka couldn't decide whether she wanted to get out of this aggressively over-squashy couch so that she could just get the hell away from Liz's too-knowing eyes or whether she just wanted to sink into it and disappear. "Can we not talk about this right now?" she asked rather desperately.

Liz shook her head, waves of wheat-bronze hair sweeping across her shoulders as she moved. "Nope. We've been not talking about it for weeks. This has to be said, and I think you know it. You've never been the kind of person to run away from a problem, but now you're hiding out with us— not that we don't love having you, but you are hiding— and we're all really worried."

"I'm not… that bad, am I?"

"Like, you've been putting on a decent happy face for everybody, but it's pretty obvious that you're not really okay.

Maka sighed and leaned back into the couch, sinking another few inches into the cushion as she did so. "It's just… hard, you know?"

Liz crossed her arms. "No. I don't know, because you won't say a word about what actually happened between you two, and Soul's not talking to anybody either. You two had the most incredible resonance anyone's ever seen, but all of a sudden you're just… not partners anymore? Maka, what happened with you guys?" Her usually sardonic eyes were wide and full of genuine concern.

A part of Maka actually wanted to open up to Liz, like maybe things would feel more settled if she talked it over with someone else… but no, she knew better. She knew what people thought about the two of them. Even their friends had thought it for years; she'd spent enough time insisting that no, we're not like that to know just what everyone suspected.

If she tried to explain that awful night to Liz, she knew exactly what the other girl would think, what she would say, and it wouldn't be helpful. It would only make her feel worse, and Maka already walked around with a large enough knot in her gut.

Avoiding Liz's eye, she got to her feet, not able to stand the feeling of being sucked into the cushion any longer. "Look, Sou— he messed with my feelings in a really uncool way, and I couldn't stay with him after that, okay? That's all you need to know. Things got unpleasant, so I got out."

"What do you mean?" Liz asked, visibly confused. "Why would he—"

"It wasn't a healthy situation anymore, okay?" Maka interrupted, not wanting to hear Liz finish the thought, because she knew how that sentence ended and it was the same damn question she'd been asking herself for the last two and a half months: why? She wasn't any closer to an answer than she had been the night she'd fled their apartment. She couldn't understand, so how could she possibly explain to Liz why Soul had… why he had…

She couldn't even think about it. She didn't want to think about it.

"If that's all, I'm still all gross and sweaty from rock climbing, so I should probably go take a shower."

Ignoring Liz's protests that she hadn't really explained anything, Maka made her escape.

Three months ago…

It was only the beginning of June, but Death Valley was boiling. It wasn't as hot as it would get in July or August, but the temperatures were already miserable for anyone unaccustomed to the weather in this part of the world. Exams for the spring term had just finished. For most of the students of the DWMA, it was the start of a six-week break before the summer trimester started in August; for the seniors who would be graduating next week, after their finals had been graded, it was the start of the rest of their lives. Whether they were NOT students setting out for universities or a civilian job or EAT specialists who had finally earned their second- or third-star ranking and were preparing to join the legions of graduates around the globe in the eternal fight against evil and the things that went bump in the night, there was a sense of anticipation laying heavy on them all.

It was making Maka's partner behave oddly, and she was determined to find out what was wrong.

On Friday, after the end of their final exam as DWMA students, they had met up with a group of their friends in one of Death City's public parks for a celebratory picnic (an idea which Maka thought was sweet and Black*Star thought was nauseating). Soul had been quiet— well, quieter than usual— and once he had devoured his portion of their collection of sandwiches and fruit salad, he dozed off in the shade. Their little party continued on around him for another hour or so, but gradually their friends began to pack up their things and head for home until only Soul and Maka were left beneath the shadow of a tall oak tree.

As she waved goodbye to Kim and Jacqueline, she scooted closer to where he lay, propped against the tree trunk.

"I know you're faking," she said quietly.

One lazy red eye cracked open to peer up at her. "How'd you guess?"

She smiled. "Years of experience. We've been partners for… Death, more than eight years now, and we've lived together for most of that time. You really think I haven't figured out that you snore like a chainsaw when you sleep on your back?"

"I do not."

"Do too."

"How would you even know that, anyway?"

Maka rolled her eyes. "Our apartment has ridiculously thin walls and your bedroom is right next to mine. Also, you're always falling asleep on the couch like an idiot."

He chuckled quietly.

"Seriously, Soul, what's up with you? Why'd you pretend to be asleep? To avoid our friends?"

She just caught the tiny sigh he let out as he brought one arm up to rest beneath his head and opened his other eye. "What gives you a dumb idea like that?"

"Because you've been weird for weeks," she said, and though her tone was gentle, she was also insistent.

It wasn't just his sleeping patterns she'd learned over the years, and though her partner was still about as easy to read as a brick wall, she'd gotten pretty good at translating the many dialects of Soul Eater Stonewalling. She also knew just how to talk to him to get him to crack and actually own up to what was going on in his head; press too hard and he'd clam up, but if you didn't insist on the issue at all he'd just wait out your curiosity. Maka was pretty sure her tactics wouldn't work if anyone else tried them, because it was mostly Soul's soft spot for his meister that got him to open up sooner or later, but that was probably a good thing. The day some other girl started to decode the secret language of Soul Evans was the day she would start to lose him.

"Seriously, Soul, what's on your mind?"

Another nearly-inaudible sigh. "We're graduating next week."

Now that he'd made a start, Maka fell silent. If she waited for him, gave him the chance to choose his words carefully, he'd spit it out eventually.

"Marie's pregnant again, did you know?"

She nodded. "I think I knew even before Professor Stein did, this time."

"She's talking about retiring, officially giving up her post in Oceania."

Maka thought she saw where this was going, but she kept her mouth shut, letting him finish the thought on his own.

"Kid wants me to take one of the empty death weapon posts. Maybe not Marie's, but there are other vacancies."

"I figured he probably would," Maka said softly.

Soul turned his face away from her, staring out across the grass. "Things're changing all of a sudden," he said quietly.

"I know."

"And you… you've never lived anywhere but Death City. I mean, we travel a lot, but this has always been your home. Would you even want to leave? Permanently, I mean?"

And there it was. He hadn't said so in so many words, but she could read between the lines well enough. Their lives were about to undergo a major upheaval, and he was scared of losing his best friend and partner in the process.

"I'll probably miss Death City," she said carefully, "but I never planned on living here for my entire life."

Unsaid, she knew, was the implication that his worries were groundless. She loved him, and though they had never talked about it— not directly, at least— she knew he understood that she didn't care that the feeling wasn't mutual.

She'd learned to live with the fact that her romantic feelings weren't shared by her partner a long time ago. For a time, not long after she'd made Soul a death scythe, she'd held out hope that maybe the spark between them wasn't all on her end. She'd tried her best to coax that spark into a flame, and at first she'd thought that maybe it wasn't working because he was too focused on fighting Asura and the madness. But even after Asura was defeated and his black blood subdued… Well, there were only so many sledgehammer-sized hints a girl could drop before she started to get the picture. Either Soul was the densest creature known to man— and given how good he was at picking up on other peoples' subtle cues, she knew better than to hang irrational hope on so fragile a hook— or he was ignoring her blatant attempts at flirting for the sake of their friendship.

It was a painful reality, sure, but it didn't change their partnership. She was his meister, and she would be until the day he told her otherwise. She'd have thought he knew that much by now.

Then again, Soul always had had a hard time accepting how much other people cared for him.

Wordlessly, she reached over and buried her fingers in Soul's thick hair, stroking his scalp soothingly. Though he didn't look at her, she saw the corner of his lips tilt upward in a small smile.