There'll be some slight OOC moments, but I'll try not to make them too bad. We all know how love can make a person completely insane ;) Plus, several years might have managed to make Soul a little more mature.
As one, the group shifted aside, giving an unobstructed view of the room behind them. I blinked again.
"Maka? You already graduated?"
She nodded her ashy blonde head even as she flung those tiny, slender arms around my broad shoulders and buried her face in my chest.
"Yeah, I did! I'm here to stay," she sighed happily against my throat. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up as her breath whispered over my skin.
Finally my brain caught up with my surroundings and I wrapped my arms as tightly around her tiny waist as I could without crushing her and lifted her into the air with an exultant laugh.
"You're home!"
"Yeah…Yeah, I'm home," she replied softly.
I set her back on her own two feet, and gave her a thorough once-over. Maka was a couple of inches taller, putting her somewhere around five-six, and her dusky hair now reached halfway down her ribcage. Finally she had filled out, and had a modest but solidly there hourglass figure. Her face, as I'd noticed on Skype, had lost its childish roundness and was all sharp planes and angles. Her eyes were the same, though. Exceptionally wide and bright, electric green. She reached out, and her tiny fingers brushed the side of my face.
"You need to shave, Scruffy," she giggled when she felt my five o'clock shadow.
"Those three—" I pointed to Kidd and the sisters, "—pulled me out of the flat before I could. They made me think there was some kind of horrible thing waiting for me at Tsubaki's. I thought someone had died or something—that's how somber Liz looked!"
Maka grinned at the others and, almost absent mindedly, took my hand. I nearly jerked my hand away in surprise. Not that she'd taken it—we used to hold hands all the time in high school, and we always got teased for it, but who cared?—but that something completely unfamiliar happened. I felt something like a spark of electricity from the point where we touched, heat spreading from the point of contact. What was that?
If Maka noticed anything, or felt something similar, she didn't let on. She just grinned and laughed and caught up with everyone, never letting go of my hand. I found myself smiling, really smiling, for the first time since I was last with her. Yeah, I'd smirk and chuckle on occasion, but somehow, inexplicably, Maka was the only one who could bring out a real sincere grin.
After several hours of telling each other what had been going on in their lives, Soul finally managed to pull Maka away from the group and outside with some warm goodbyes. He slung an arm across her shoulders, leading her to the bike, but she ducked away from him with a dry smile.
"I have a car I need to drive home, Soul," she said, digging a set of keys from her jeans pocket. "It's got my bags and stuff in it."
I rolled my eyes.
"Whatever, but when we get back, you're coming on a ride with me. We'll see if you're as good of a bike passenger as I remember."
She laughed and turned to her shiny silver Volvo, which was parked on the side of the road. How had I missed that? I guess I really hadn't been paying much attention in my panicked state.
"See ya at home, Soul," she laughed, sliding easily into the small 2006 car.
Maka beat him home, but he got there soon enough to help her with his things.
"So, Soul," Maka grunted as she hefted a particularly heavy bag out of her trunk. "How's Crona? You've told me about everyone except him. Is he still doing alright?"
I paused in hauling one of her bags out of the backseat.
"Crona…He's…he's in the Sanitarium in the next town over. Under lockdown; people think he's totally crazy."
She frowned, and sighed.
"He always was strange. Timid. I didn't think he was mad though."
I shrugged.
"He'd been going on about all this weird stuff. Saying his blood was black, and talking to himself as though he had several personalities. He argued with himself a lot. I think he might be Schizophrenic. He also started hurting himself."
She sighed again.
"Oh well. Maybe someone will be able to help him. He was always very nice to me."
"Yeah," I mumbled noncommittally.
In truth, hearing Maka reminiscing about Crona of all people kind of set my teeth on edge, but hell if I knew why. I jerked her bag out of the car and shut the door, maybe with more force than was strictly necessary. She looked over at me, a slight frown creasing her brow at the sound of the door slamming. I made an apologetic gesture, and started pulling the suitcase up the stairs to our landing. She closed her trunk, locked the car, and followed me.
I heard her sharp intake of breath when she walked in. I hadn't changed anything since she'd left three years ago. This was her first summer back, and I was sure seeing the entryway, the living room, the kitchen, all the exact same probably brought back some nostalgia. Glancing over my shoulder, I actually dropped her bag in surprise. Her eyes were shining, her teeth tugging at her lower lip.
"Maka?" I said in alarm. "What's wrong?"
She shook her head.
"Nothing. It's just…"
Without warning, she flung herself at me, her arms wrapping tightly around my neck. Even her slender legs wrapped around my waist. My hands slid around her in a cautious return of the spontaneous embrace.
"Maka?" I said gently when her shoulders trembled. "What's wrong, Maka? You're crying."
She shook her head again, her face pressed against my throat.
"I missed it," she mumbled. "I missed you. All of you. Sometimes…sometimes I couldn't sleep because I was so homesick. It was weird not waking up to your exceptionally loud voice in the mornings."
I slid on of my hands into her hair, massaging her scalp tenderly. Where this gesture came from, I had no damn idea, but it seemed to soothe her a little, so I kept it up. I rested my chin on the top of her head.
"Yeah…it was odd without you here to yell at me when I didn't finish the laundry, too," I chuckled.
She took a shuddering breath.
"The nightmares were the worst, Soul," she mumbled. "I didn't even have a roommate to talk to about them. I had no one to wake up to. It was horrible."
I took a deep breath, and carefully disentangled myself from her limbs, setting her feet back on the thick carpet.
"Do you regret going?" I asked her seriously.
She shook her head immediately.
"No, not at all. But obviously there were things that were missing."
I smiled softly, and gave her chin an affectionate chuck.
"You're home now, though. You've got all of us back. And if you ever need anything, obviously you already know I'm right next door to your room."
She gave a watery smile and nodded, picking her suitcase up and rolling it past me into her room. I shot a bemused look after her, then shook my head and hauled her second bag after her. Her first bag was already open, and she was moving from it to the closet and back again with her clothes. All the dust had magically disappeared, as if it was in fact scared of her, and I hefted the black suitcase onto the faded yellow comforter beside the other one.
"Need any help?" I asked.
"Nope," she answered. "I'm good."
"Alright, then I'll be in the kitchen," I waved over my shoulder, already in the hall.
Thank Death she's back, I thought to myself, pulling down a pack of ramen from a cabinet. I was going to lose it completely if I didn't see her soon, then I'd be right there with Crona.
I shook my head as I dug out a couple of eggs, different seasonings, and vegetables from various places in the room. Finally, after three extremely long damn years, and after only having Skype to assure myself that she hadn't forgotten about me, my best friend was home at last.
