Disclaimer: I do not own Soul Eater, nor do I profit from this. I am simply writing this for fun.

"I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity."

- (Edgar Allan Poe)

He lay against the hard surface of his hotel room floor, staring up at the ceiling as he listened the ticking of his clock. He drowned out all other noise, and kept time with the ticking as he checked his pulse—when irregularity had finally gone down he felt calm and composed once more.

His head tilted slightly to examine the mess he'd made in his burst of anger. Above the broken vase and scattered flowers, water trickled down the wall like quiet teardrops. Behind him was the overturned nightstand, and the accompanying lamp. He must remember to leave a tip for the maids, it seemed like the reasonable thing to do since he had given them an extra set of tasks.

He sat up with a grunt and turned to stare at the door that connected to Marie's room. He could see that she had settled as well, but that did not ease his troubles.

Denial. Depression. Bargaining. Anger. Acceptance. Grief was a monster with five faces, and it was eating away at Marie's wounded soul. Her depression was getting them nowhere, and they had already outlived their stay in Lyon in his opinion. She had made herself an island within her own hotel room and she wanted to be left there until she wilted away from her own despair. He was torn by his desire to tend to her, and his irritation over her giving in so easily.

He was constantly under the threat of his underlying madness rupturing from his subconscious, and wreaking havoc in his reality. He had done his absolute best to subdue the flaring up of his fury and violent tendencies, but it haunted him in the evenings. It was easier to deal with the closer he was to Marie, but she didn't want to be near anyone and her gloomy state certainly clogged the calming process. He had tried desperately to be the strong one for her sake, but the madness was always clawing at him—like the consistent tick of his clock. With every day, he woke up and told himself that she would be better that day, that he would have some reprieve for himself—and every day he was devastated when she refused to reconcile with her depression and participate in life.

Everyone healed emotional wounds at a different pace, he was aware of that fact, but Stein could not afford to allow Marie to linger in her depression any longer. If she would not allow him to coax her with encouraging words, then he would have to utilize force, even if it meant she would hate him for it. There was no other option. He was practiced in the art of withstanding the contempt of others, even if it was from his Marie, he would be able to shoulder her resentment.

He stood and approached the door, opening without knocking and subsequently slamming it behind him. She woke with a fright and tilted her chin up to spy him, and she almost began sobbing again. He twisted the screw in his head thrice, before he brusquely approached her side of the bed. She turned to face away from him, he responded by grabbing her shoulders and pulled her back, but not with roughness. She squirmed in his grasp as though his mere touch burned her, and a mournful moan escaped her lips, "Stein, stop, please."

"Marie, look at me." He said quietly, when she refused, he shouted and shook her, "Look. At. Me."

"What do you want?" The words burst from her chest as she looked up at him. He stared down at her passively, and he saw a spark of anger in the depths of her glassy eyes.

"You can't stay here any longer." He started, his voice controlled and dispassionate, but his hands trembled as he held her, "This depression is a burden on the both of us, and I can't allow you to jeopardize the mission any longer—we've wasted enough time already."

"The mission?" She retorted, obviously incensed by his words. She shifted up into a sitting position, but his grip on her shoulders remained firm. "We have no leads Stein! We don't have anywhere to go!"

"We don't have leads because you've been absorbing all of our time with your moping." He shot back evenly, the vacant look on his face never once expressing a thread of the anxiety he was feeling. She was appalled by what he'd said, given her only response being a slack-jawed stare. He took that as an opportunity to continue, but his words grew increasingly sharp until he was speaking in a scathing voice, "I need you to stop being useless and unavailable, Marie. I need you to help me. Aren't you angry? Don't you want to find Joe's killer? Or do you just want to perish from that broken heart, and join him in an early grave?" He had been too harsh, and he regretted the words the instant they slid from his tongue. He took a deep breath and reminded himself, This is what I wanted, her rage and blame.

He felt her fist against his jaw, before he heard her anguished, incoherent scream. The raw strength of her punch forced him off of her, as he fell onto his backside. He sat up slowly and rested his elbows on his bent knees—his hands made no move to touch the tender side of his face. She removed herself from the cocoon of blankets and approached him with renewed fury, "How dare you! H-How dare you say that to me! I expect a lot of things from you Franken Stein, but never that!"

The tip of his tongue tentatively touched the outer rim of his gums, he tasted blood. He laughed a cruel sound directed at her, "Good, I want you to get angry Marie. Angrier still." He paused before adding in a tone that was borderline hostile, "At least then you'll be productive. I can't work with your depression, but anger, that's something that will give you drive. You'll find the rewards much more gratifying than crying yourself to sleep." He shielded his face from the barrage of punches, but ever few whacks elicited a grunt of pain. And then she began to cry. Eventually the pummeling of her fists got weaker and weaker, until she collapsed in front of him in a heap of sobs.

They sat there for a time, until she had no moisture left in her body to expel through that singular eye. She sniffed and hiccupped, her body shaking with the effort to control her upset breathing. He observed her silently, noticing the exact instant her cyclical spiral of depression was disrupted, and there was life in that formerly glassy eye. She stared at the ground for a long time, and he reached over to hold her hand.

"Marie…I'm sorry I upset you." It was difficult for him to mask his elation over having her almost back to normal; he could feel her wavelength stabilizing and it instantly soothed his own soul. He mashed down the urge to smile, feeling it would be inappropriate to blatantly express joy after having a fight.

"I'm sorry I hit you." She said numbly, without looking up at him. He wondered if simply looking at his face would stimulate her ire more, after all he had said those terrible things. His nerves twitched with a dormant instinct, and he slowly stroked her inflamed knuckles with the pad of his thumb—she indulged the contact only for a moment, before she recoiled from him. "I…I am sorry for the way I've been acting. But I'm better now, and I think that we can move forward with the investigation."

"Glad to hear it." His thumb ran along the tips of his fingers, where the warmth of her hand lingered, "I'm going to go ask around town…someone has to know where this guy went after this city." His eyes traveled down her body and he added in an abrupt tone, "You've lost weight…I'll grab you something to eat while I'm out."

"Bring me some wine too, would you please?"

Marie swished the dark liquid around the obnoxiously large goblet, and Stein wondered if she was reconsidering. He had been reluctant to bring her alcohol, especially since she had just barely emerged from her depression, but she had been rather insistent. She seemed to make a decision, as she gulped down half her glass at an alarmingly fast rate. His fingers twitched and he felt the urge to smoke, but he had refused to purchase cigarettes. He cleared his throat and preceded to make conversation as a means of distraction, "Do you want to hear what I found out?"

"Of course." She replied, before popping a cracker topped with cheese into her mouth and washing it down with another sip of wine.

"I met up with a witch that lives in the area." He slumped down in his seat, glancing out the window of her room. "She's a young witch, with little power. It was easy to get her to talk."

Marie placed the glass down, he felt her gaze on him for the first time since their fight, "What did you do, Stein?"

His eyes met Marie's. He remembered the look of fear in the witch's eyes as he'd grabbed her by the throat and threatened to cut her into ribbons, her horror had been palpable, it had stirred his blood and the panic in her voice was the sweetest thing he ever heard. However, his response to Marie was detached and vague, "Nothing any other agent of the DWMA wouldn't." He felt the sting of her disbelief, but persisted with his findings nonetheless, "She couldn't give me a name, but she said he hid in a cabin in the wilderness. The cabin is apparently located along the Rhine, near Switzerland, I believe. Not far from here."

Marie grew quiet again. She sipped from her goblet every now and then, until she drained it of its contents. Once the glass was empty, she poured herself another and he made a face of worry. She spoke finally, as she considered the new glass of swirling red liquid, "I guess that's where we're headed next."

"It sounds like a good lead, to me." He conceded, "He might even still be hiding out there. Are you prepared for that?"

"Of course I am." She replied, too quickly to sound confident.

"Are you prepared for the possibility that he isn't?" She said nothing, and drank more wine.

They sat in silence as she consumed the rest of the food that he'd brought for her, and she polished off almost three-quarters of the bottle of wine. Her speech was slurred and uninhibited as she spoke again, "Thank you for the wine, I feel very…much better."

"Do you really?" He asked with all seriousness, although he should have known by now that inebriated people only responded to serious subjects of conversation with painful sincerity and compassion. Marie frowned and reached across the table to touch the side of his face, where she had punched him earlier.

"Oh, Stein." She exhaled tiredly, "You've been keeping that madness at bay for my sake, haven't you?" He remained still and said nothing, "You poor darling." He had been called many things in his lifetime, but darling wasn't one of them.

"Marie…"

"Shush." Her finger pressed lightly against his parted lips, and he was effectively silenced. "I'm really, very, horribly sorry for being a burden. I just…he was the one, Stein. And now he's gone." Her voice cracked, but she did not cry, "I'm not going to weep anymore. I promise. We're going to do this thing. You and me. Together. And I'm going to look after you, even if it's the last thing I do. I promised him, you're my responsibility." Her hand clutched her chest, as though she was soothing some persistent ache.

"Marie there's no need for you to apologize anymore." He replied quietly, before adding an afterthought, "You're just as much my responsibility, as I am yours."

"Okay…good." She nodded her head, but he wondered if she truly comprehended their conversation, or if she would even remember it come morning. She stood from her chair, wobbled, and fell back into her seat. She stared at her feet stubbornly, before making a seemingly innocent inquiry, "Will you help me to bed?"

He rose without saying a word, and picked her up by the elbow, she responded by leaning into him with a sigh. His heart contracted in his chest, but he did not know why. His conscience whispered, You don't love her. You don't know how to love.

The journey to her bed was a clumsy one, what with her hanging off of him and stumbling every step. But they made it, and he set her down on her back with great care. When he moved to step away from her, she roughly grabbed the collar of his shirt and pulled him down to her level—unexpectedly, her lips crashed into his. His normally over-active mind completely emptied of thoughts. He held his hands suspended in the air, completely unaware of how he ought to react in this situation—Marie was kissing him. He jerked away from her suddenly, and stared down at her with utter confusion. She released her hold on his shirt and a single tear leaked out of her eye. She turned her face to hide it from him, her hand wiping the tear away as quickly as it had appeared, and she whispered, more so to herself than him, "I shouldn't have done that."

"You won't remember it, come morning." He reassured her in the calmest tone he could manage, before exiting her room for the security of his own. He closed his eyes and willed himself to forget.

A/N: Okay, so this is the second saved chapter I have. I don't know when I'll be able to update this again, but hopefully anyone still reading this enjoys! Thanks!