It was raining when Soul woke from his nap. BlackStar had left a few hours ago and Maka still wasn't home so the apartment was quiet. Soul checked his phone hoping for something from his partner, but there was nothing. He went to the bathroom and splashed cool water on his face then paused in front of the mirror.

"Maka I-" He blushed then started again. "Maka, I need to tell you something." Soul shifted the weight on his feet and rubbed his neck. "Maka, can we talk?"

Whatever, it's useless.

Dissatisfied, he gave up and went back to the living room. Gray light filtered in through the windows, adding to his already dampened mood.

"Where are you, Maka?" he wondered aloud as he moved to the glass doors facing the street. Soul stepped onto the balcony, shielded from the rain by the canopy overhang and looked out over the city. The air was cold and the rain was colder, courtesy of the season. He looked down and saw a crumpled figure on the sidewalk, a girl holding her head in her hands.

"Maka!"

Soul flew out the door and down the stairs, shouldering through the double glass doors of their apartment building and onto the street. Maka was hunched on the wet concrete, shuddering.

"Maka, what the hell are you doing?" he demanded, shaking her shoulders.

Her eyes were glazed over, focused on something far away. Soul scooped her up and she reflexively clutched his shirt, shivering uncontrollably. She was coughing and sputtering out incoherent thoughts. Every so often, Soul could make out his name but the rest was too muffled to understand. Her wavelength was all over the place and her skin was frigid.

"Shit, you're freezing."

Soul slammed their door shut with a heel kick and carried his convulsing meister into the bathroom. He flicked on the shower as he kicked off his shoes then stepped with her into the warm water, clothes and all. As the downpour from the faucet slicked his hair to his face, Soul shifted to settle Maka between his legs.

After a few minutes, her tremors calmed then finally stopped altogether. Soul whispered her name as he lazily traced his thumb over her warming knuckles. His shoulders relaxed and he rested his head against the tile wall as he felt her responding, her soul reaching out for his.

"I'm here, Maka."

Maka came to life as the steam tickled her nose and her spasming muscles relaxed into their natural positions. She was very aware of Soul's hand on her own and felt an unfamiliar kind of warmth in her cheeks before aligning herself to look into his face.

His body stiffened and his wavelength turned hyperactive as Soul felt her awareness. He hadn't really thought this plan through to conclusion. They were sitting together in the shower. Correction, he was holding her in the shower. He was also holding her hand. Soul prepared himself for the Maka Chop of his lifetime; he could feel her eyes on him. But it didn't come. He slid one eye open and saw her looking up at him. She was smiling.

"Soul...what are we doing?" Her eyes were red and puffy, and except for the small grin lifting her cheeks, she looked completely spent. Soul's heart wrenched when he wondered how long she'd been crying alone. He found himself leaning in ever so slightly as the urge to kiss her blindsided him. Here, in this moment, it was all he could think about, all he wanted. He imagined her eyelids fluttering closed, felt her eyelashes tickle his nose. He trailed her face with his eyes, lingering on every spot his lips wanted to follow.

Stop it.

"Well it's not like I'm just gonna let you freeze to death in the rain." he offered a little more gruffly than he intended to.

She nodded and shifted backwards, compensating for the distance he'd taken from her. "I'm gonna go put on some dry clothes."

Please don't.

"Yeah."

Maka lifted herself out of her partner's lap and wrapped a towel around her soaked frame. Soul listened to her plod across the hardwood floor and into her room as regret wracked his brain.

You should have kissed her. Coward.

He answered himself with a grunted "shut up" then turned off the shower and made the dripping walk to his own room.

The pizza they'd ordered for dinner was done and gone and Soul was slouched deep in the couch. His thumbs danced on the game controller as he slayed virtual zombies. Maka was silently reading, flipping a page with her index finger every now and again. The customary empty space between them was painfully present as Soul went over in his mind all the times Maka had been so careful to keep them from touching. They had sat on the couch like this a thousand times, Soul sprawled on the left and Maka with her feet tucked up underneath her, leaning on the right armrest. She was a professional at personal space. He hated it; all the times he'd felt her get unusually close, hoping for an accidental finger brush or shoulder bump, only to have her stop just short and correct course. Yeah sure, every now and then she'd give his arm a punch or (much more frequently) assault his head with a closed book. But if they weren't training or fighting she kept her distance. Always. Even now, with him leaving so soon, she was making no move to get any closer.

Soul became angry at the last thought. He gritted his teeth and squeezed the controller tight enough to illicit a pitiful groan from the plastic. His wavelength became very tight, shallow, and his partner's wavelength noticed.

Maka looked up from her reading and set the book down with a sigh. She set to collecting the empty pizza boxes and soda cans.

Soul glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. "What're you doin'?"

"Picking up. Someone's gotta do it. Death knows it's not gonna be you." Maka tried to keep the tone in her voice light hearted, but failed miserably.

"Maka, where were you all day?"

Shit.

He hadn't really meant to ask, but the words tumbled out and clanked on the floor before his mind could reign them in.

Maka rinsed her hands in the sink then pushed her hair out of her face. "It doesn't matter."

Soul sat up. "It does."

"No, it doesn't. Nothing came of it anyway." Soul was too focused on getting an answer to notice the exhaustion in her voice.

"Yes it does!" Soul stood and moved toward her. "I'm leaving in three days, Maka! Three days. I may never come back, I may never see you again. You've been avoiding me since we found out and I don't know whatever the hell tonight was all about, so yeah, I think it does fucking matter where you were all day!"

He regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth. Maka's eyes were lined with tears threatening to fall. She pursed her lips and swiveled her head to the floor, unable to look at her weapon.

"I know you're leaving, Soul. I know you're leaving and I know that you could die out there." She met his eyes with her own, unflinching. "I know that when you finally come home, you'll be different. I know that I'm losing you forever, and I can't change that."

"Maka-" She recoiled as he reached out for her. An ache took hold in Soul's chest as he stood unable, or unwilling, to close the distance between them.

"I spent all day in the Academy library. I read every book they had on Death Weapons, trying to find some loophole, or amendment or exception to the rule. There was nothing. So I went to Lord Death himself, and I asked him not to take you. He said you were too strong of a weapon to lose, and a Death Weapon that he can't use is pointless. Then he assured me you'd come home again someday. My father said the same thing. But they don't understand that the you I have right now won't come back. I won't know you, not the way I do now. You're leaving, just like everyone does, and there is nothing I can do about it. I'm just...helpless."

Maka straightened the hem of her shirt and took a steadying breath. She said more than she'd meant to. She hated showing weakness, especially to her partner. But she was tired, too tired to monitor herself as closely as she usually did.

It wasn't like he didn't know already. Soul wasn't stupid; besides that, they had a powerful soul resonance. There were plenty of times when he'd come to her side in the middle of the night to wake her screaming from nightmares. Some of those times, she'd been too sleepy or too frightened to separate her feelings for him back into their little box. Of course he felt it, and she felt his soul push in return, but he never said anything. He didn't need to. It was in the way he'd tease her about studying so much or the way he'd smile at her with a mouth full of scrambled eggs; it was in the way he'd move his body with hers in the gym, and always let her shower first. Everything Soul did came from the love he held for her and she despised herself for being too much of a coward to claim it.

The terrible irony was that she'd always done that to keep herself from getting hurt. Romance was nothing but a distraction, and she'd learned the hard way that relationships rarely lasted. Maka hadn't meant to ever love Soul the way she did now. She thought that by keeping it secret and separate, it would never have the power to hurt her. She was wrong. All of the self-control, all of the distance, all of the denial did nothing to keep her heart from breaking now. He was her best friend as much as he was her weapon, and she'd spent the last ten years of her life as a half of their whole.

"I'm sorry." Soul ran a hand through his hair and cleared his throat.

"I just...I'm...scared." He gave a weak chuckle. "That's not very cool to say, is it?"

"I know. I can feel it. That's why…" Maka weekly trailed off and gestured to the window with her hand.

Soul didn't know if it was the pain in her face or his own weariness but before he could stop himself he stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her. Maka leaned into his chest and he felt her relax into the embrace. Her head rested on his shoulder and he could feel her breath on his neck. Electricity shot down his spine and back up again, out to his fingers, toes.

She was so warm. It was unreal. Maka looped her arms around his waist and Soul cursed himself for waiting so long just to hold her, really hold her. He traced his fingers up and down her back as they swayed in place.

There were so many things he wanted to say. Words fought for space in his head while he tried to think of a coherent thought, anything he could put together in some sort of sentence. But he couldn't risk losing this moment. So he said nothing.

Instead, he reached out with his soul. At first, it seemed like Maka couldn't feel him, her wavelength was slow and loose, with rolling peaks and valleys. Her breathing was deep and steady, almost as if she was sleeping.

So he pushed a little more. Not fully, and not with everything he had to give, just enough to show her how much he needed this closeness. How much he needed her.

Her wavelength stayed the same and that's when Soul realized she was doing it purposely. Maka was totally open to him.

The need to be even closer to her overpowered him and he tucked his fingers under the hem of her shirt before continuing to trace his fingertips across her skin.

Soul's breath caught in his throat when Maka trembled at his touch. He hesitated, frightened that he'd crossed a line too far. A small sigh escaped her parted lips as she returned the gesture, lifting his shirt with her own curious hands, flattening her palms on his lower back.

His fingertips trailed fire across her skin and Maka melted into Soul like she'd never done, completely letting herself go.

She smiled as he freely wandered around the recesses of her soul. He took his time, relishing every corner, every crevice of the person he loved. Some of the places he knew well: her strength and her tenacity. Some of them he'd only seen a few times, like her sorrow and her regret. Soul stopped short when he came to an area that he'd never been. He'd seen it before, but only from afar. It was normally dark and Maka went to great lengths to keep it that way. But right now, there was light, and Soul could see the box that she'd kept hidden for so long. He swallowed thickly before moving towards it.

Soul felt Maka's resistance stir deep within her before she shifted her weight back onto her heels, creating some distance between them. The cold air assaulted his skin where her hands had just been and he stilled his own to desperately pull her closer again. But this time she resisted. He allowed his hands to fall to his side and just like that, it was all gone.

"I'm sorry, Soul. I just-I can't." Maka turned away from him and went for her room.

Soul followed after her. "Maka, wait, I need to tell you something. I-"

She spun around to cut him off.

"Don't. Please don't ruin everything right before you walk out of my life. I'm losing my partner, my weapon and my best friend. I can't lose a lover I never had. I can't."

Soul stepped back and waited for her words to dissolve between them. Pain thumped in his chest. He could never tell her how he felt. He'd waited too long and now she didn't want it. He sighed and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms.

"Alright, but don't go shutting yourself away. Let's just be...us. Okay?"

Maka nodded. "Okay."