"Hey Soul?" Maka said hesitantly.

We were sitting on the couch in the living room, watching—or pretending to watch, in my case—some weird chick flick called Mama Mia. Maka was curled up against the arm of the couch, and I was sprawled across pretty much the whole thing, my head resting in her lap.

"Mm?" I said distractedly.

"Is something bothering you?" she asked softly. "You seem pretty quiet lately."

I shrugged. "No, not really."

"You can talk to me if something's wrong, you know that, don't you?"

"Yeah, I know, but nothing's wrong."

She gave a nearly inaudible sigh, but didn't push the subject any further. Thank Death, too, because that was not something I wanted to get into with my best friend. She'd just say I was being stupid and then hit me with a book and knock me out cold for a few hours.

She was right, though. Of course she was; she was observant, top-student Maka Albarn. She was rarely wrong. That night with that stupid, chatter box of a witch was still running through my mind, setting my teeth on edge. Virtually useless… Even Maka's joking comments seemed to be getting to me. …that's all you're good for… They were right. I was totally useless if I couldn't transform, or if my meister was out of the game. I would never be able to protect Maka if something like that happened again, and there wouldn't always be a Death Scythe on their way to save the day. One day our luck would run out, and I might have to watch Maka get hurt, or worse, because of my blundering ineptitude, as Azusa would say.

I needed to work that out on my own.

…

"Leave me alone Maka!" I snapped, slamming my bedroom door in her face.

She was pestering me about being too quiet again, asking me what was going on. I told her to drop it, but did she? Oh, no, not Maka. Not stupid, stubborn, overbearing Maka. I flung myself onto my bed, the frame creaking at the sudden weight.

"Soul!" she called through the door. I pulled a pillow over my head, but I could still hear her. "Come on! I know something's wrong! You haven't been yourself for weeks; please, just talk to me."

Her voice cracked, and I stilled. Removing the pillow from my head, I could make out quiet, choked breaths. Was Maka crying? What the hell? The Maka I knew didn't cry; she was too cool for that. But there was no mistaking those soft sobs that were sliding through the cracks in my door.

"Ah, hell," I groaned. Cool guys didn't make girls cry. Especially if that girl was their partner; their partner who never cried, ever.

I swung my feet back onto my floor, but even as I did, I heard the sobs quiet and her footsteps retreating down the hall. Her own bedroom door slammed shut.

I swore emphatically. "Great, now I've just pissed her off. Good going, Soul Eater, only you could make a girl cry and piss her off all in the space of two minutes. There'll be a book with your name on it waiting for you to go talk to her."

Still, with another loud, self-suffering sigh, I rose to my feet and opened my door, slouching out into the hall, trying to step as lightly as possible to keep from making any noise. Still, I was at her door and, before I could knock, she called through it.

"I know you're there, Soul, and no, you can't come in."

"How come?" I demanded. "You were all eager for me to talk five seconds ago."

She snorted loudly, in a very unladylike manner. My parents would skin me alive for even talking to her; they'd say she was totally without manners.

"You can't come in because I'm changing, idiot," she answered.

I felt my face heat up and pinched my nose against the sudden tickle that always preceded the inevitable nosebleed. At least Blair wasn't home to make it worse. I waited in silence in the hall until, without warning, her door swung open, and she stepped out.

"Did you just grow three inches?" I asked, then I blinked and realized what I was seeing. Maka was wearing a short skirt that hung low on her hips and a halter top that left several inches of her stomach bare. Also she wore knee-high black stiletto boots. That explained her height.

"Where the hell are you going dressed like that?" I said, blinking to make sure that I wasn't hallucinating. Maka raised an eyebrow. Her eyes were lightly lined with charcoal-colored eyeliner and her lashes were coated in black mascara, making her eyes look bigger and brighter.

"Liz invited me clubbing this weekend, and since you just seem to want to skulk around and mope, I figured I'd take her up on her offer. I need a drink anyway."

"Since when do you drink?" I asked, surprised.

"Since I needed something to distract me from the fact that my partner thought I was unreliable," she said coolly, brushing past me to go the bathroom.

My jaw may have hit the floor. I'm not really sure. I just stared at her as she pulled her hair out of her pigtails and started curling it.

"I—what?" was all I could manage.

"You heard me, Soul Eater," she answered, looking back at me in the mirror.

"Unreliable? I've never thought you were unreliable, Maka!" I exclaimed. "Never!"

She huffed. "Then why won't you tell me what's bothering you?"

"Because nothing is!"

She set down her curling iron and turned to face me. I suppressed a bout of rash laughter. Only one side of her hair was curled, and it looked hella funny. The expression on her face was not funny, though.

"I'm not stupid, Soul. Whenever we fight, our souls sync, and when we Resonate, our minds do too. I can tell something's wrong. But you clearly don't trust me enough to tell me, so I'll drop it." She turned back to the mirror and picked up the curling iron, moving to finish the other side.

Dammit, I should've known that! Of course she would've sensed those damn conflicting thoughts running around in my head. Of course she would've sensed the insecurity in my wavelength. Wow, was I stupid, or what?

"You're right," I said at last. Her eyebrows rose almost to her hairline, and I hurried to add "You're right that something's been bothering me."

I followed her into the bathroom and leaned on the counter.

"Remember when we were fighting that shark-witch?"

She nodded, eyes fixed on me. I don't think she realized that the curling iron was still in her hair, or that it was smoking.

"Well, she said something that kind of struck a nerve. She talked about how useless weapons were if they couldn't transform. How even if we were stuck in our human forms, we couldn't do anything. And before that, back when we first met Giriko, you were immobilized by Arachne's threads. All I could do was sit there with you and hold you. I couldn't help Justin. I was useless. And I realized she was right. Because I'm a weapon, I'm not trained to fight on my own. And if something happens to you, we're screwed, because we won't always have another Death Scythe around to save our asses. We rely way too much on just you in a fight. If you can't wield me, or if I can't transform, then I'm no use. I can't protect you if something like that happens again."

Maka dropped her curling iron and swore loudly when it fell from her singed hair and bumped her ear. I smirked.

"Soul," she said, staring at me. "You are not useless! If it weren't for you, I wouldn't be able to do anything either!"

I snorted.

"Yeah, right. You can adjust your soul wavelength to match almost anyone's; all you need is to have another weapon nearby. No one else can match my wavelength, though."

"Soul! I would never use another weapon!" she shouted indignantly. "You're my weapon, and I'd never be able to fight with another one anyway."

"That doesn't change the fact that I'm almost useless," I insisted. She scowled.

"Soul Eater, you are most definitely not useless, and if you want to take some combat classes with me to prove that to yourself, then fine!"

I blinked.

"Um…"

"That's what you wanted, wasn't it?" she demanded. "To learn how to fight?"

"Well, yeah, but your classes are, like, really intense."

"Man up, Soul," she said, the hint of a smile playing around the corners of her lips.

"Make me," I retorted, realizing too late how stupid that was.

With a full-out grin Maka raised a book high over her head—where the hell had it come from?—and brought it crashing down over mine. I was thrust none-too-gently into a painful half-awareness where I could hear, and only hear.

"Idiot," Maka sighed, kneeling down and brushing some of my hair out of my face. "You're a total moron, aren't you?"

Sometimes. Yeah, sometimes I was a complete moron.