Author's Notes- Aaaaand then we have a Phantom of the Opera AU, because Soul could not be more Phantom-esque if he tried.
Phantom
She is not like Elizabeth. She never has been. She is not gentle and strong and ephemerally beautiful like her older friend… but she is fearless, and so as the opera house burns above her, she plunges down into the dark far beneath.
She isn't entirely sure why. Whether it is to catch the Opera Ghost- who she knows is nothing more than a man better than anyone (except perhaps her papa)- and drag him back by his snowy white hair to face justice for his crimes, or because there is some strange longing in her to understand this strange, tormented creature, she isn't sure. It is probably a little mix of both, but when she finds him, sees him broken and ready to die of loneliness because the one person he ever tried to reach out to didn't know how to handle him… well, what else can she do?
They do not get along. He is prone to fits of moping, she is stubborn and uncompromising and refuses to let him waste away; she provokes his temper easily and he has a way of getting under her skin. And yet, they understand each other in some strange way. It shouldn't be possible. A ballet rat who only longed to be the best, to have the spotlight, to have everyone acknowledge that she was just as good as her mother once was, only to be outshone by her lovely friend, and a twisted, angry musical genius who has known little of love or human kindness… somehow they fit together perfectly. It probably helps that she is not frightened by his face, by the bone-white hair and scarlet eyes and fearsome teeth that had Elizabeth crying "monster!" and "demon!"
She does not return to the sunlit world of the streets of Paris, not at first, and she never goes back to the opera house. She is able to contact Black*Star, to send a message to her father to let him know she is alive and well, but the theatre is in ruins anyway and somehow, helping Soul seems more important.
Eventually, she spirits him away to Austria. It seems appropriate that they take refuge in Vienna, birthplace of composers and temple of musical learning. Eventually he goes out in public, though only in her company and he insists on a wig to conceal his hair and a hat to throw shadows across his eyes to dim their vibrant color. He speaks very little, so as not to reveal his teeth, and as a result his speech is curt and almost rude. She takes to acting as his spokesperson when they go out.
She is eventually able to coax him into playing for her, and his music breaks her heart. It is wild and strange and unlike any composer she has ever heard, it has strains of darkness and discord running through it, yet it is beautiful, and it touches her in a way nothing has before. She heard his music once, when they performed his opera, but the difference between hearing his music performed and hearing him perform his music is infinite.
He is a strange blend of arrogance and insecurity, and it makes Maka sad. What must his life have been like before this? A child abandoned for his strange appearance, an orphaned genius treated as a sideshow freak for years before an unlikely encounter with her father brought him to the labyrinth beneath the opera house… it must have been so lonely. It breaks her heart, for Soul is such a gentle creature. Whatever madness took him over in his pursuit of Elizabeth, whatever insanity held sway and drove him to such violence, it is not his true nature and she learns to see this in time. Soul is sarcastic and prickly and not always nice, but he is unfailingly kind and he has a sensitive nature she would never have anticipated just from the rumors that flew through the ballet dormitories about the bloodthirsty Phantom.
Somewhere along the way, she finds that she loves him. It is soft and simple, but it doesn't terrify her as it should because he is safe to love. He won't return her love, so she is free to care about him in whatever way she chooses and know there will be no consequences. It doesn't matter that sometimes he looks at her with such gentle affection in his eyes. It doesn't matter that he touches her so easily now, spontaneous hugs and a friendly ruffle of her hair now and again. It can't mean anything, because his heart belongs yet to Elizabeth.
Except, she discovers one day, two years after the fire in the opera house, perhaps she is wrong, because he kisses her. He kisses her and whispers to her that she has saved him, that she has taught him to love, and that this love must be true because although it is its own kind of madness, it is not the violent insanity that took him over once. He does not grab at her as he once did Elizabeth, desperately reaching out and pleading for her to understand him. He simply waits, his declaration made, and prepares himself for her judgement.
Maka's only response is to return his kiss, soft and kind, to tell him that she hears him, that he does not have to be alone anymore.