Soul trudged back to the infirmary after class, carrying an unbelievably heavy bag, completely full of Maka's work and notes. He actually paid attention in class today, and he was exhausted. He had no idea how Ox and Maka managed to do this every day.

He had even stopped by the library to grab some books for Maka, so she could ready and study. It was the least he could do, after failing her miserably as a weapon. He pushed the doors open, and trudged over to Maka's bed. He set the books down on her bedside table, and handed her the notes from today along with her classwork.

Maka looked up at him incredulously, a grateful smile playing across her face. "Thank You." Soul nodded, dropping into the chair next to her. He slumped over on the bed and promptly started to snore. Maka let out a soft laugh. She looked through the notes he had taken for her.

'These are actually pretty good. If I didn't know his handwriting as well as I know my own, I would have thought he got Ox to take them for me. He must have actually paid attention in class today.'

Maka gingerly laid her hand atop of Soul's and gave it a light squeeze, being careful not to wake him. She turned her attention back to the notes and books, and they continued on like that for a while. But, after about twenty minutes, Maka realized She Had to Pee. Badly. She glanced around. The bathroom door was at the other end of the room, over by the curtained off bed.

She spared a glance at Soul, who was fast asleep and showed no sign of waking soon. She knew she wasn't supposed to move around on her own, but Soul looked so peaceful, and Maka couldn't bring herself to wake him.

Maka took a deep breath, and reached for the crutches by her bedside. She began making slow, awkward progress towards the bathroom. She was just passing the curtained bed and doing a mental victory dance when disaster struck. One of her crutches slipped and got caught in the curtains, sending the curtains and Maka crashing down, to reveal a seriously injured Justin Law.

"Hello, Maka-Chan" he said pleasantly.

Soul startled awake, searching the room frantically when he realized Maka was not in her bed where she belonged, and had most likely caused the loud crash that had awoken him. He rushed to her side once he located her. "You! Stupid! What were you thi-" Soul stopped once he caught sight of just who was laying in the other infirmary bed. He placed himself between Maka and Justin, his arm becoming a deadly scythe.

Justin merely clucked his tongue. "Come now, there's no need for that." Justin raised his wrists, which were chained to the bed. "Even if I wanted to fight you, I'm hardly in any shape to do so." Soul didn't move, or lower his arm. He stood there glaring at Justin like an over protective guard dog. Maka could almost swear Soul was actually Growling.

Stein rushed in to see what had caused all the noise. "Maka, are you alri-… Well then…" Stein took in the scene before him, his eyes going from the crutches to Maka to the two Death weapons. "Soul, please help Maka to the bathroom while I clean this mess up." Stein shot a glare at Maka. "and please, no more moronic excursions."

Soul finally lowered his arm and went to help Maka, but still kept himself firmly between her and the traitorous death weapon.

Stein shook his head as he righted the curtains. "Stubborn kids" he muttered.

pWhen Maka had finished and made her way back into bed, Stein was waiting for them. "I trust I don't have to tell you to keep your mouths shut?" They both shook their heads. "Good." Stein muttered. He started to turn to go back into the office when Maka stopped him.

"Sempai, why hasn't Justin been, you know…"

"Executed?"

Maka weakly nodded her head.

Stein let out a puff of air. He cast a glance towards the bed in the back. "After I subdued him and took him prisoner, and after everything was said and done, Kidd decided there had been enough death for one day. So, in exchange for information on the other kishin support bases and strongholds, we let him live."

Maka nodded. Secretly, she had always respected the death scythe, and was hurt when he had turned traitor. Justin had actually sat by her bedside a few times after she had been immobilized by Arachne. She had come to be quite fond of the guillotine.

Stein shot her a studying look, and then went back into his office. Maka had just gotten her breath back when the door burst open, and a distraught looking Tsugumi rushed in with Meme, Anya and Ao trailing behind.

"Maka-Sempai! Are you alright?!" The girl cried out, rushing to Maka's side.

Maka smiled fondly at the young girl. "I'm okay Tsugumi-chan. Just a bit banged up is all. How do you like the E.A.T classes?" The girl immediately brightened up, and started prattling on about how much fun it was and how much she was learning.

Soul nodded to Ao, who blushed a bit and waved back. Maka looked between the two of them. "Have you two met?" she asked.

Soul nodded in confirmation. "We bumped into each other this morning." Ao blushed redder. Maka's head tilted to the side. She shot Soul a look. He minutely shook his head. Maka shot Soul another look that was more hostile in nature. Soul rolled his eyes and ignored her, while subtly pulling the books out of her reach.

Eventually, it got late and Nygus came in and shooed the younger girls out. She tried to kick Soul out, but stopped when the young death scythe gave her a particularly dangerous looking glare. Maka turned to Soul. "No." He told her plainly.

"But Soul! You need-"

"You just got hurt Maka! I'm not going to just….."

"Just what?" Soul looked away, working his jaw furiously.

Maka reached out and tugged on his jacket sleeve. "Just what Soul?" Soul shot her a small look.

"Replace you." He murmured. Maka fell back against the pillows, mixed emotions warring in her chest.

Maka realized in that moment, that she really, really didn't want Soul to replace her either. She wanted to keep him all to herself, now and forever. But he needed to keep working. Maka would not allow herself to get in the way of his dreams and ambitions. So, she swallowed her jealousy and put on a brave face.

"You won't be replacing me silly. I'm still right here. You need to keep training your abilities though. There's still a lot you need to learn from Papa and Stein, and you can't do that without a partner. Ao's a good person. I like her." Soul still wouldn't meet her eyes. She leaned over the rail of her bed, and tugged his face around. "Please, Soul. At least think about it." Agonized red eyes met green.

\Soul found that when she was this close, and with her eyes bearing down on his with such intensity, he could not say no. So he nodded, torn apart with guilt. If he had been more watchful, they wouldn't be in this situation in the first place.

Maka gave him a slow, pleased, sweet smile. She closed the distance between them, wrapping her arms around him and resting her head on his shoulder. Soul's breath hitched as he reached up to hug her back, caught off guard at how right it felt to hold her like this. He awkwardly patted her back until she pulled away and leaned back against the pillows.

He patted her hair and stood up. "I'm gonna go home and get some sleep. You should do the same." Maka nodded and sleepily waved goodbye. Soul left. Had he looked back, he would have seen the tears that were silently slipping down his meister's face.

Maka angrily wiped the tears from her cheeks. She felt so ashamed that she could be so jealous, so utterly selfish in wanting to keep Soul all to herself. She sniffled a little, and took a deep, resigned breath. It wasn't fair to Soul. At all. She was just going to have to suck it up and deal with it.

"Maka?" A small voice from the other side of the room called out. "Are you alright?"

"Why do you even care, Justin?" she asked, her voice full of betrayal and scorn. Justin remained quiet, and Maka figured he was going to take the smart route and leave her alone.

"Because we were friends once." came the small reply, just as Maka had nodded off. As it was, Maka was either too tired or too apathetic to hear.

Soul moodily slumped on the couch in their apartment. He was too worked up to fall asleep. He sighed, looking around the tiny apartment that he and Maka shared. When most of the kids at Shubishen talked of home, they talked of mothers, fathers, and pets even. Places far and wide. But for Soul, this place, this tiny, unremarkable apartment was home.

His family had been aristocratic, cold and unfeeling. His house had been a stately manor that came with high expectations, snobbery, and pristine behavior. He was never allowed to be himself, had been punished for even the smallest mistakes.

He had jumped at a chance to escape that life. That was all his weapon abilities had been to him. A one way ticket out of the Evans family, away from a place that could never truly be home. Then he met Maka, and suddenly, he had a goal that, for the first time in his life, he had been able to choose for himself. He came to value his weapon DNA as a part of who he was. He began to value himself. Because of Maka.

Now, everywhere he looked, he saw him and Maka. That was home. Home, for him, was the comfortable familiarity between them as she poured over books on the couch next to him while he channel surfed. It was late nights when the music drove him to the piano that Maka had scrimped and saved for months to buy him, her watching him play with dark and unreadable eyes from the doorway.

Home was the darkness of nightmares that drove Maka to climb under the covers of Soul's bed, shivering with fear. It was in the way he would never admit it out loud, but her being so close at night helped him to sleep easier as well. Home was their friendship, their partnership, the bond between them that came from years of risking life and limb together. The way they communicated in looks, small gestures. And now, because he had screwed up royally, he stood to lose all of that.

Soul let out a bellow. He kicked his school bag in a fit of rage, and all of those hated partner requests spilled out. Soul seized them, ripping all of them up, throwing them in the trash without reading a single one. He didn't want another partner, suspected he couldn't even WORK with anyone who wasn't Maka. Not after this. He sighed, and slumped dejectedly down onto his piano seat.

He turned around and began to play, trying to let the familiarity of the keys soothe the broken ache in his chest. But the entire time he was keenly aware there was no slender figure watching him from the doorway tonight. There might never be again.

The next day went basically the same. Soul came to school early to visit Maka in the infirmary. They chatted a little, but there was an obvious tension between the two of them. Neither of them were really sure how to bridge up the growing gap. Maka chided him for getting so little sleep, but it was half-hearted at best. She had woken up constantly during the night, choking and gasping from nightmares that had been suffocating. She didn't remember it in the morning, but each time a gentle voice from the other side of the room had quietly sung to soothe her back to sleep.

"Is there anything you want me to get from the library for you?" Soul asked.

Maka critically eyed the stack of books next to her. She turned to Soul. "There was a book I wanted to read. It's called Nightshade, by Andrea Creamer. Tsubaki said it's really good. Do you think you could check to see if the library has it?"

Soul nodded. The morning bell rang, and he got up to go to class. Maka grabbed his wrist. Soul turned, half smirk stretched across his features, expecting her to request yet another book.

"Did you think about asking Ao-Chan to partner with you?" The smirk immediately fell off his face, replaced by an unsettled frown.

"Please Soul; she's really sweet, if a little shy. You both really need partners. At least try to work with her." Soul sighed, looking away so she wouldn't see the war waging in his mind. He finally glanced back at her.

"I'll see how it goes." He grumbled at last. Maka faked an encouraging smile, and Soul left. Maka waited a few moments after he had left. She then picked up a book and hurled it at the door he had just walked out of, narrowly missing Tezca Tlipoca as he came in.

"Oh!" Maka squeaked out, "I'm so sorry Tezca-Sempai! I didn't know you were coming in!"

The masked man laughed and waved away her concern. "It's all-right Maka-chan! Good arm, by the way. I sure am glad that book missed!" He patted her head as he made his way past her, towards the bed in the back. Before he reached the curtains, he took off his bear mask and tucked it under his arm. Maka let out a gasp. He turned towards her and winked a dark black, almond shaped eye.

Tezca didn't look anything like Maka had expected. He had tanned skin, and a slightly hooked, rather large nose. His facial features were broad and bold. His course hair was black and straight, kept in a traditional Aztec style, with a slight fringe on his forehead, the rest hanging down towards the nape of his neck. He was completely clean shaven. Maka knew girls who spent hours shaving all the hair off their body who would die of envy if they saw how little facial hair Tezca had.

Tezca threw her a lop-sided grin and vanished behind the curtain. Maka strained her ears to hear what Justin and Tezca could possibly be talking about, but gave up when she realized all she could hear were muffled human-noises. Maka picked up a book, intending to study for next month's course work. She then realized with a pang that she would likely no-longer be allowed to study at Shubishen, now that she could no longer perform her duties as a meister.

Tears welled in her eyes for the third time in two days. She angrily scrubbed at her eyes. She hadn't been this much of a crybaby since she was thirteen.

A dark, tanned hand landed on her shoulder, giving it a light squeeze. "It'll all work out, Maka-Chan. Don't worry." Tezca told her. His kind face looked down at her with a smile.

Maka just shook her head. "I can't take classes here anymore. I'll have to go to a regular school…"

Tezca tilted his head a little bit. "I highly doubt that, Maka-chan. You're far too smart and valuable to the DWMA for them to just let you go. Besides, you hardly need the classes anymore. In fact, you're so smart, I'm sure you could probably teach them!" Maka smiled a little bit at the praise. She looked at the mask still tucked under Tezca's arm.

"Tezca-sempai, if you don't mind me asking, why do you always wear that mask?"

Tezca looked a little startled, as if no one had ever thought to ask him such a question (in fact, no one ever had asked, presuming it was just part of the Aztec culture.)

Tezca blushed slightly, running a hand up his nose. "Well, Maka-chan, you see, when I was younger, everyone teased me about my nose. Most Aztecs have big, hooked, and prominent noses. I'm no exception. They called me all sorts of names. So, I started wearing masks. Eventually, they sorta grew on me. Besides, now no one can recognize me!"

Maka held back a startled laugh. "You know, if anything they make you even more recognizable. And for the record, Tezca-sempai, I've seen noses much worse than yours. As far as noses go, yours isn't half bad." Tezca looked slightly heartened.

"Thank-you, Maka-chan. You may have a point. It seems no matter what mask I put on, people still recognize me. Besides, I can't talk to certain people with them on." He cast a fond, besotted look over his shoulder, to the curtained off bed.

"You really care for him, don't you?" Maka asked Tezca. Tezca nodded.

"He's not really a bad person, Maka-chan. He's just hurt, confused and lonely. He's only been trying to fill in the holes the only way he thought he could." Tezca threw another look back towards Justin. Maka recognized that look. It was the one Tsubaki gave Black*Star when he was being loud and narcissistic, the look Maka often directed towards Soul when he wasn't watching.

It was a look that spoke of fondness, and complete, utter devotion. Maka felt herself soften towards Justin, just a little. If Tezca-sempai loved him, he couldn't really be that bad, could he? Tezca smiled at Maka before going. He rested a hand on her hair.

"Don't worry much about the future, Maka-chan. Things will work themselves out. You just focus on getting better."

"Hai." Tezca, for all his vanity, really wasn't a bad person Maka decided. After that, every time Maka saw him, he wasn't wearing the bear-mask.

Soul was heading back to the infirmary when he ran into Ao in the halls once again. At least this time, there were no bodily collisions. Ao smiled a little and waved. She was about to walk on when Soul called her name.

"Hey, Ao… Can I speak to you for a moment?" His voice must have been completely full of dread, because Ao stopped immediately, concern and a touch of fear pouring from her features.

"What is it Soul-Sempai?"

Soul sighed, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand. "Do you have a partner yet?"

Ao eyed him, shaking her head. Soul sighed again. There went his excuse. He was hoping she would have found someone at the meet and greet the other day. "Then, would you maybe, please meet me at the practice field in an hour? I'll get Stein to supervise."

"Maka's not coming back, is she?"

Soul winced and shook his head. Ao sighed.

"Weellllll. It'll sure be a hassle, but I suppose I could work with you." Ao gave him a slightly teasing smirk.

Soul let out a slightly incredulous laugh. "I thought Maka said you were shy!" Ao gave him a cheeky smile.

"That's what they all think."

Soul just shook his head. "Thanks." Soul said quietly. Ao gave him a sympathetic smile.

"It's the least I can do. I know I'm not her, but I'll do my best."

Soul gave her a small, pained smile, and left to go to the infirmary.

Soul entered the room, and casually pulled Black*Star off Maka. Apparently, he was trying to sign her face again, despite the fact that this time, she could actually fight back. Kidd was once again organizing everything, while the three female weapons sat besides Maka, trying to help her clean stray black marks off her face.

Soul shook his head and tossed the requested book on Maka's lap. It hadn't been in the school library, so Soul had skipped lunch in favor of going out and buying a copy for Maka. He also handed over more notes from today. He was rewarded with another surprised but grateful smile. Maka's expression shifted, imploring, asking a silent question. He nodded and looked away.

Maka felt her heart break. He had asked Ao. He now had a partner. He was done with her now. She put on a brave face, and went back to chatting with Liz, Patti and Tsubaki. She watched Soul out of the corner of her eyes. Tsubaki gave her a puzzled look, but didn't say anything.

"So?" Liz asked. "When are you coming back?" The room fell silent, everyone except Soul, who had gone to talk to Stein, staring at her expectantly. Maka stared down at the blankets. She didn't want to tell everyone she wouldn't be back, but at the same time, she couldn't bring herself to lie to her friends either.

She was saved from answering by Stein, who had come into the room behind Soul.

"She won't be. Her Achilles tendon was almost completely severed. We couldn't heal it completely. In fact, I'm about to head out with Soul and his new partner to their first training session." The whole group stared between the two of them.

Maka weakly waved goodbye to Soul. "Have fun!" she called. Soul nodded and headed off towards the training field with Stein.

Tsubaki grasped Maka's hand, tears shining in her ocean blue eyes. "Oh honey! I'm so sorry!"

Maka just shrugged. "Stuff happens. It's fine, really. I'll be okay." They just stared at her incredulously, sorrow and pity mixing in their gazes.

The awkward tension was broken up by the slamming, and subsequent almost breaking of the infirmary door and wall, by Spirit running into the room. "MAKAAAAA! MAKA PAPA'S HERE!" Spirit flung himself onto his daughter's form.

Maka rolled her eyes and patted her weeping father's back. "I'm FINE, Papa. Get OFF please." Spirit stayed where he was, wailing about his poor, poor baby being hurt, and that "nasty weapon" that didn't take proper care of her.

"MAKA CHOP!" When Spirit didn't comply, Maka used the opportunity to break in her new copy of Nightshade by slamming it into Spirit's cranium. Soul would have been horrified to see the book he just bought her turned into a weapon of mass destruction so soon. The others just rolled their eyes.

Kidd just picked up Spirit, and motioned to the others. "Come on guys, we should let Maka get some rest." Maka waved, shot a glare at her semi-conscious father, and turned to her now slightly bloody copy of Nightshade.

"I'm sorry to hear about you and Soul." Justin called from behind his curtain. "You two were a formidable team. You deserve better."

Maka bit back a stinging reply, thinking of what Tezca said earlier.

"Thanks, Justin-Sempai." Justin made a slight humming noise. Maka went back to her book. She wondered how Soul and Ao would get along. She hoped things went well. She turned back to her book, but found she couldn't quite focus. She blamed the moisture in her eyes on straining to read the tiny text.

Ao and Soul both dripped with seat from running drills over and over under Stein's instruction.

"Again! This time, actually TRY to synch your wavelengths!"

Soul transformed and landed in Ao's waiting hands. He felt the familiar thrum of soul resonance. It wasn't quite right though. There was something, off, like trying to pair with Black*Star or Kidd. At least Ao could actually wield him without burning her hands, which was surely a good sign.

Her wavelength wasn't unpleasant either. It was smooth and gentle. The only problem, really, was that it wasn't Maka's. She wasn't a bad meister either. She was strong and skilled, courtesy of working with the scythe part of Tsugumi's halberd form. They ran through the drill again. This time they actually managed to hit the wooden dummy in the field, slicing it into sharp, jagged pieces.

Stein eyed their work critically. This was the first time they had successfully cut up the target in three hours. He sighed. "Not bad. A few more sessions and maybe you can take on a very low leveled mission. Now, do it again! Five more times! SUCSESSFULLY!" Stein bellowed.

Both Ao and Soul looked at each other and groaned. They were going to be here for another hour. Soul took a deep breath, transforming once again to repeat the tedious process.