After her shower, Maka confined herself to her room so she didn't have to watch Soul gather the last of his things and move his bags to the doorway. She needed to get a grip. She needed to stay composed so she could support his decision like a best friend and partner would.
Really, it didn't matter how badly she wanted him to stay or how twisted it made her feel to watch him go. They crossed every line last night, and even then he still wanted to leave. The event that had been both her making and her undoing was to him 'the perfect way to say goodbye.' If that was all Soul wanted to make of it, then that was all it was.
Maka finally emerged from her room when Soul's cab to the airport arrived. He smiled at her to hide the hurt in his soul, and she did the same.
"Maka, last night…" In their embrace, Soul's hand rubbed small circles between her shoulder blades. "I'm never gonna forget it."
She nodded and buried her face into his chest. They swayed in the doorway together, intertwined. In his arms, Maka felt the most peace and stillness she had ever since Soul agreed to replace Marie.
After they broke apart, the impetuous to keep Soul here and to stop this horrid thing she started overwhelmed the meister. "Soul…" she said in the most minute voice she could muster.
Her weapon partner had long attuned his ears to pick up on even a wisp of her voice, and he immediately turned around in the doorway. "What is it?"
Her words caught in her mouth. Soul was giving her that look, the one where his eyes burned like flaming coals and she just knew he would do whatever it was she asked of him. Hell, she could probably get on one knee and propose to him and he would still drop all of his bags, cancel all of his flights, change all of his plans to do as she asked. All she had to so was to take the first step, make the first move.
But that would be manipulative and unfair. Taking advantage of Soul's loyalty to satisfy her need for intimacy was something Maka would never ever do. "I lost my train of thought," Maka said. He nodded, obviously a little disappointed.
"Are you sure you don't want to see me off at the airport?" Soul offered with a tinge of hope.
Maka shook her head. "This is hard enough as it is."
They embraced one final time before Soul swung the strap of his duffle bag over his shoulder and started down the hallway. Maka watched him in the doorway until he disappeared down the stairwell, and closed their—her—apartment door.
She was curled up in her bed smelling the pillow case that smelled of him when she heard a knock. Hoping her eyes weren't too puffy or bloodshot, Maka ambled out of her room to answer it. Liz and Patty Thompson stood solemnly on the other side of the doorway with a bag of chips and Twix Minis.
They told her that Kid was currently absorbed in some important Lord Death business, and Black Star was moping in his apartment while Tsubaki fed him comfort food. While Maka knew that Soul and Black Star had a special, brotherly bond, she could not help but resent the ninja's over-the-top grief. He may have lost a bro, but he did not lose his other half.
Even thinking about the reality of Soul being gone chilled her. The apartment felt so empty without her weapon's wavelength buzzing in the next room.
The events from the night before tumbled out of her mouth. Maka had always envisioned that the day she told her friends about her first sexual experience would be a day of cheering and celebration, but Patty just handed Maka the whole bag Twix Minis and muttered, "What a dick."
"His flight hasn't taken off yet, right?" Liz said after Patty popped open some barbecue chips.
"No, he has a while. Security is tight these days and he wanted a cushion," Maka answered. Her voice was devoid of inflection or emotion. Better to keep it in than to spill it all out.
"Maybe, this is good," Patty suggested uncertainly. Maka gave her friend a blatantly skeptical look. There was truly no silver lining here. "You've never looked at anybody else because you were always hung up on Soul. Maybe now that he's gone, you can finally move on. Meet new people."
"She's right," Liz said with a nod. "This is your chance to get over him."
Maka stared forward, entranced by nothing at all. "But I don't want to get over him," she said. Maka began to smile as the truth finally revealed itself to her in its full, stubborn form. "I want to be with him!"
The sisters exchanged matching grins. "Hell yeah! You go tell him!"
After spending almost all day lying around and feeling sorry for herself, Maka was invigorated. She snatched her long black coat out of the closet and shoved her feet into her shoes. There was no time at all to waste. As the three sped through the door, Patty grabbed the half-eaten bag of chips on her way out.
"Don't worry about a cab," Liz said while they ran down the stairs. She held up a pair of fancy car keys. "We're taking the Jag."
They had about 50 minutes to make it to Soul's terminal, but considering traffic and the long lines at security, they needed to buy some time. The Jag, provided courtesy of Death the Kid for Liz's 18th birthday, packed enough power to get them to the airport in record time. They just needed to call and make sure Soul would stay put until they arrived. Once they were already speeding down the highway, Maka realized that in her rush she had forgotten her cell at home. Not missing a beat, Patty whipped out her phone and tapped in Soul's number while Liz stomped on the accelerator and turned down the radio.
He answered on the first ring. When Patty tried to hand the phone over to Maka, she shook her head in a panic. She didn't know what she was going to say or how to say it. Earlier she had swore that she would not appeal to his loyalty to keep him with her because that would be selfish and wrong. She had to appeal to his love, assuming there was any she could appeal to, and that was something that couldn't happen over the phone.
Patty spoke to him herself. "Soul, hi," the younger demon pistol said. "It's just me, all by myself. Where are you?" After a beat of silence Patty's eyes went wide. "On the airplane? Wow, I must have really mixed up your departure time." She shot Maka a pointed glance. "Listen...you shouldn't be on that plane. There's something wrong with it, and you're gonna crash and die if you take off." Now it was Maka and Liz's turn to look horrified and shocked. "Well, it's your funeral. And Maka's, I guess. Do you believe people can die of grief and anguish? Anyways, I'll skype you when-if you get there. Bye!"
Before Patty hung up, Maka could hear Soul yelling into the phone. How lost in love was she if even the sound of his voice over the phone made her feel more at home? "Patty, what the hell was that?" Liz snapped. "You think that is really gonna ground the plane?"
"I planted the seed, sister," Patty said. "The doubt will do its own work."
When they arrived, the airport was in turmoil. Several flights were deplaned due to rumors of sabotage. Many passengers just refused to fly out of the airport altogether, and they had packed outside the front doors so they could hail cabs and book hotels.
The commotion in and around the airport allowed the three girls to sneak their way around the
"Soul!" Maka called. Not hearing her, Soul handed his boarding pass to the flight attendant and started down the tight hallway, out of sight. Even after their miraculous stalling, she may already be too late. A TSA agent gently put his hand on her shoulder, and Maka violently shrugged it off. "Excuse me, I have someone to talk to!"
"M'am, you can't go back there without a boarding pass."
It was Liz who finally shrugged passed security and screamed at the top of her lungs, "SOUL!"
A figure with a shock of white hair reemerged from the gate, and Maka didn't need to see past the TSA agent to know that it was her partner. Starved for his touch, her wavelength leapt across the room to meet his, and they immediately intertwined. Airport security forgotten, Maka was pulled towards Soul, who in turn approached her with an expression of bafflement and awe.
"Maka?" He said her name like a man seeing the light for the first time. Blinking he quickly added, "Liz and Patty too? What are you guys doing here?"
The Thompson sisters had restrained the TSA agent, and Patty wrestled her free hand out of the agent's armpit to give Maka a thumbs up. "It's all you!"
"What?" Soul asked, worried. "What's going on? I made them check out the plane, it should be working just fine."
They locked eyes, and Maka's face immediately heated up. Oh Death, this was much more difficult than she imagined it would be. "The thing is...don't go."
"What?" Their soul wavelengths coiled tightly together. Whether it was her clinging to him with all her might or him clinging to her, Maka couldn't tell. What she could sense was the waves of confusion rolling off her former weapon.
"Please stay with me," she said thickly. Maka was aware that she sounded a little desperate and a lot heartsick, but she had already screwed up this confession once. Subtlety was never her ally, and it was time that she embraced her bluntness and just told him what she had meant to say for many years. "I love you. And I know you love me too. I know I shouldn't have waited until now, and I know it's selfish of me to come after you, but...just please don't leave." Her wavelength was absolutely wretched with emotion.
Soul did not appear to be breathing at all when a voice called over the intercom for the last passengers to board his flight. He looked over his shoulder, and when he looked back at Maka, his face was bloodless. "I can't do this right now," he said, almost in a daze. "I-they are all waiting for me, everyone is expecting me, I have to go."
Reluctant yet forceful, Soul's wavelength ripped itself away from Maka. The sensation of losing contact with him was so abrupt that it seared up her ribcage. "Soul, no! Don't, please-"
"I'm sorry," Soul repeated before turning on his heel and walking briskly towards the gate and down the gangway.
It was all over so fast, Maka's heart didn't seem to know it was broken, not yet. She covered her mouth in shock and stood stock still as the Thompson sisters enveloped her in their sisterly embrace.
The car ride home was quiet. Liz and Patty weren't strangers to upheaval or abandonment, so they knew well to leave Maka alone while she stared out the car window.
If Maka's apartment felt empty before, it was downright desolate when she returned. There was no point in holding out for her weapon now. Her Deathscythe, her Soul Eater, had finally and blatantly rejected her. She confessed what she intended to confess, and in the end Soul responded the exact way she expected him too. It was time to put her daydreams and fantasies to bed for good, no matter how hard it would be.
She thought about their last night together and fury inflamed her chest and throat. What an asshole. What a fucking, thoughtless, exploitive asshole. How dare he give her a taste of a fantasy come true and then take it away from her.
Intent upon unleashing her anger upon her Soul-scented pillow, Maka stomped back into her room. Her phone was beeping on her bed. She picked it up, but instead of finding a dozen consolatory messages from her friends, her phone held a single voice mail. Her thumb hovered over the 'Delete' button for a moment before pressing 'Play.'
"Maka." Soul's voice sounded really thick and uncertain. "I just saw you, in the airport. Five minutes ago. Just wanted to say I was sorry, again. I-argh, fuck-I didn't mean to be such a jerk. Everyone was looking at me and waiting for me, and I panicked. Needed to get out of there. I didn't know what to do. I thought this was what you wanted."
She covered mouth to stifle a gasp. Soul's voice became grainy and tight as he started to ramble. "It's always been your dream to make a weapon that surpassed your dad, but even though I'm a deathscythe I'm not there yet, not good enough. This was the next thing I had to do, the next step. Plus you're going to college and I'm not, and-God it's so selfish-I didn't want to watch while you met new people and started...and yeah, obviously I love you too."
There was a small intake of breath on the recording, and then an amused snort. "That's so much easier to say out loud when you aren't looking at me," Soul remarked. "I love you. I. Love. You. I love you. Holy shit, I gotta see you. I need to tell you in person. I need to-shiiiiiiit."
There were some audible bumps and groans. Soul was clearly on the move. "Excuse me," Maka heard Soul say with authority. At this point, her weapon had completely forgotten about his cell phone or the still-recording voicemail. "I need to get back to Death City, it's urgent."
"Sir, please sit down," a smooth feminine voice responded. "The plane is in taxi and all passengers must-"
"Please, I can't sit down. I really need to get off this plane."
"We have your luggage-"
"I'll get them back eventually, just let me off the motherfucking plane!"
"Sir, I'm warning you-"
"No lady, I'm warning you-"
The recording ended with an abrupt dial tone.
Maka stood stock still for a moment, mouth agape, before yelling into the phone. "What?!" She was very close to crushing it in her pale hand. "What happened? Did he do it? Did he get off the plane?"
"I got off the plane."
She whirled around to find Soul standing in her bedroom doorway, panting from exertion. While listening to his candid voicemail, Maka was too distracted to sense her weapon's approach. Judging by his windswept hair and flushed cheeks, he must have rushed up all four flights of stairs to catch her.
Their wavelengths leapt together first, and their bodies followed close behind. Maka moved with both grace and speed as threw her arms around him and jumped onto the tips of her toes. Their mouths met in a flurry of hot, needy kisses, and Soul wrapped his arms around her torso and scooped her off the floor. With her feet dangling off the ground, her heart bursting, and her senses overwhelmed with all that was Soul, the heavy weight that had plagued her for so many weeks had finally lifted.
After she made sure he was good and well kissed, Maka wiggled out of his grasp and punched him on the arm. Hard. "What is wrong with you? Why didn't you mention you loved me earlier? There were plenty of opportunities last night, you dumbass. How the hell was that supposed to be a goodbye?"
"I really thought it was a goodbye!" Soul growled, rubbing his sore bicep. "You were yelling at me back at Kid's about goodbyes, and then you were kissing me, and I thought 'Gee, maybe these two events are related.' You never said you loved me last night either, Miss Mixed Signals."
"I should send your ass right back to Oceania."
Maka did no such thing.
