Author's Note- Starting this chapter was really difficult, possibly because I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it but wasn't sure how to adequately follow up with last chapter, which is one of the few things I've ever written that I genuinely, completely loved. It almost made it a challenge to try and top it, and while I didn't succeed, let me just say this... nothing good can ever come of a chapter that shares a title with a Mumford & Sons song don't do it it will hurt you okay

4. Dust Bowl Dance

"I've been kicked off my land at the age of sixteen
And I have no idea where else my heart could have been
I placed all my trust at the foot of this hill
And now I am sure my heart can never be still"
-Mumford & Sons

The rest of the house was as tastefully ostentatious as the foyer. Maka had thought that, having spent so much time at the Gallows, she was ready for anything the Evanses could dish out, but she hadn't even met the rest of the family yet and she was already a little overwhelmed. It wasn't so much that it was really any more extravagant than Kid's home, truth be told. She thought it might just be the disorienting adjustment to realizing that this was where Soul had grown up. This showpiece of a house, all muted colors and expensive rugs draped across marble and hardwood to muffle passing footsteps, walls adorned with works of art she strongly suspected were originals... this was where her twisted, sarcastic weirdo of a weapon had come from.

She thought she might understand his comment about clashing with the décor now.

Soul guided her with sure steps through a series of rooms whose purpose Maka had a hard time discerning. She always had had a difficult time figuring out why anyone would need more rooms than they had a use for, and it was extremely obvious that the Evans home had a great deal more space than it had people to put in it.

Soul paused just shy of the doorway to what she assumed was the sitting room. He shot her a glance over his shoulder and briefly she thought he might speak. His expression was impassive, but there was something faintly like panic in his eyes for a moment. Then even his eyes shut down on her, and the link went quiet. Maka suspected he was deliberately closing her out. It wouldn't be the first time.

Soul took a deep, near-silent breath, then turned away from her and stepped through the doorway.

When Maka followed, she found her eyes immediately drawn to the woman perched on the window seat in the bay window that dominated the eastern wall of the room, eyes turned outward. This, she assumed, was Soul's mother.

She wasn't totally sure what she'd been expecting. Maybe some part of her had assumed that Soul took after his parents. A glance at the middle aged woman dispelled that notion immediately. But then, Maka had always known that her partner was something of a genetic anomaly. She didn't know why she was surprised to see that his mother didn't look a thing like him.

Although she was seated, it was obvious that Mrs. Evans was tall, slender but with broad shoulders. Her hair was a warm honeyed brown, streaked with gray about her temples. Her skin was a light olive tone. She was tidily dressed in a black pantsuit, with a string of pearls around her graceful neck.

Soul was standing stock still a few steps into the room, his feet just brushing the edge of the ornate black and gold rug that spread across most of the floor. After a moment of silently observing her, he cleared his throat loudly.

Although she had appeared lost in thought, she didn't startle at the sudden intrusion... at least, not until she turned her eyes fell on the two people standing just inside the doorway, her eyes widened and her hand flew to her chest, graceful fingers splayed across her clavicle in shock as she let out a soft blew a soft breath out through his nose.

"Hey, Mum," he said.

The woman rose to her feet and crossed the room in quick, measured steps. As Maka watched, she wondered whether natural grace was just something all mothers possessed, because from what she could remember of her own mama, Kami had moved with the same fluid ease.

Lynette Evans stopped in front of Soul, staring at him in open shock. She wasn't even an inch shorter than her son. "Soul?" she murmured. Her voice was low, rich and sweet, and she spoke with a posh accent. "Is that really you?"

He shrugged. "Figured I should come back, given the circumstances."

Her closed lips squirmed slightly, a visible but subtle effort at restraining some strong emotion. She reached out and laid her hands on his cheeks, tilting his face toward her so that she could study him intently with bright hazel eyes.

"You've grown up so much!" she said. "You were so little when you went off to school..."

Soul pulled back, slipping out of her grasp. "Yeah, I know."

"My lord, you're going to be twenty soon, aren't you?"

"Yep." Maka didn't know how Soul managed to be so completely expressionless and yet still somehow manage to convey such utter distaste for this whole situation. Or maybe it was just because, no matter how hard he tried to hide from her, she could still feel him humming discontentedly on the other end of the bond.

Mrs. Evans' keen eyes turned away from Soul for the moment and settled on Maka, who abruptly experienced a profound certainty that she was being weighed, evaluated, and judged. She resisted the urge to fidget, and wished she could tell whether she had been found wanting.

"Well, aren't you going to introduce your friend, Soul?" she prompted with a pointed glance back at him.

Soul edged a few inches closer to Maka. "Right- Maka, this is my mother, Lynette Evans." The older woman pursed her lips slightly, one eyebrow raised at Soul's order of introduction. "Mum, this is my meister."

"Scythe technician Maka Albarn," Maka spoke up, extending a hand politely.

Mrs. Evans dredged up a smile stained with grief, but genuine, and took her offered hand. Maka took note that her grip was gentle, almost delicate, but still firm. Those searching eyes were still studying her, and Maka had to actively work to keep her returned stare from being actively challenging. Her partner was visibly uncomfortable and it was putting her on the defensive instinctively, but Soul's mother seemed like a nice enough person. She didn't want to offend her.

"It's lovely to meet you, Miss Albarn."

"Likewise," Maka replied. "I'm just sorry it has to be under circumstances like this."

The older woman's eyes went distant and sad, and she nodded.

Soul cleared his throat. "Uh, anyway... we'll be in town until after the funeral. Which is... when, exactly?"

She stared at her younger- now only- son with the strangest look on her face. It was some combination of wonder, hurt, and cold anger that Maka couldn't for the life of her understand. She surveyed Soul for a moment with conflicted eyes before saying stiffly, "We're organizing two ceremonies. The open memorial is on Thursday. Your brother had many admirers and fans, and we thought it would be fitting to allow the public to mourn him as well. The funeral itself will be for family and close friends only, and it is scheduled for a week from yesterday, since Saturday is the earliest your grandmother could realistically be here."

"So Gran is flying in?" Soul asked, and Maka saw the tiniest bit of tension leave his posture.

"Of course. But she had some business to take care of with the company that couldn't be put off, so we've been doing what we can to accommodate her schedule."

"Good. It's... good... that she's gonna be able to make it," Soul said with a jerky little nod. "We'll just get out of your hair then." He made to edge out of the room.

Lynette blinked confusedly. "Get out of my hair? And go where?"

"Maka and I need to get set up in a hotel and-"

"What? A hotel? In this town?" She made a disgusted face. "Goodness, no! No son of mine's going to be staying at a Best Western. You'll stay here, of course. Heaven knows we've enough room for you both!"

"Seriously, Mum, it's f-"

"No," she overrode, "I won't hear of it. Your old room simply needs fresh sheets put on your bed, and Miss Albarn will certainly be more comfortable in one of the guest bedrooms than she would in some dingy chain motel room."

Maka wondered if Soul's mother had any idea just how hard he was struggling not to roll his eyes.

Apparently deciding the matter was settled, Mrs. Evans said, "Excellent. Now that's settled, then. Give Andrea your keys, Soul, and she'll get your things from the car."

The guest room was on the third floor of the house. It had a large double casement window that looked out over the garden, and was softly lit by a pair of tasteful wall-hung lamps on either side of the canopy bed. The queen-sized canopy bed, Maka mentally amended. Who the hell had a queen-sized bed in the guest room? And this wasn't even the largest or nicest guest room in the house, either. Maka had chosen it because it was right next door to Soul's childhood bedroom.

Soul had insisted on carrying his own bags up, and his mother had insisted on showing Maka personally to her room. Maka had set about unpacking her suitcase to prevent her clothes from becoming any more wrinkled than they absolutely had to be the instant Mrs. Evans had made up her mind that she was "all settled in" and left her alone.

Maka mechanically unfolded a small collection of nice blouses and hung them in the freestanding wardrobe that rested against the south wall of the room, thinking hard. She had known since yesterday morning that her partner had come from a privileged and wealthy family, but it was one thing to read Wikipedia biographies of the musical powerhouses that were the members of the Evans family and quite another to meet his mother and see the literal mansion he had grown up in. If she had to describe the sensation, she supposed "culture shock" might be appropriate.

The sound of a throat being cleared made her look up from her task. Soul was standing in the doorway, looking slightly lost. His posture had been unusually straight the whole time they had been speaking with his mother, and he appeared to be trying to make up for it now. His shoulders were hunched more than was typical even for him, hands stuffed deep into the pockets of his khakis.

"Hey," she said, offering up a small smile.

His lips twitched and he seemed to take that as an invitation over the threshold, because he immediately came in and flopped heavily down on her bed as if all his bones had spontaneously dissolved. "So..."

"Your mom is English," she said, because that was what was most prominent in her thoughts at the moment. She had been going back through her memories of their earliest days of partnership, and realized that in the early days she could now place the source of the very slight accent Soul had spoken with years ago. It had been faint enough that she'd never quite been able to tell if she was imagining it or not, let alone been able to place it. That was one mystery solved, anyway.

Soul squirmed a little to get more comfortable on the mattress. "Whole family is. I was born in Salcombe, in Devon."

"Really?"

He shrugged. "Don't really remember it. When I was seven or eight months old, my parents packed up and moved us here. Wes was like ten then, and he'd just got into this really prestigious prep school program over here in the States. I've only been back to the UK a couple times since then. Mostly for missions with you, and a couple times before we met to visit family and stuff."

"Oh." How had she never known any of this? She finished hanging the last of her clothes, then moved to join him on the bed, lying sideways across the mattress so that they were eye-to-eye. "Your mom seems nice," she observed.

"Yeah, she's okay," he said. "She's a lot more laid-back than my dad, at least, but..."

"But your relationship's still complicated, huh?"

Soul snorted, and nodded. "Who don't I have a complicated relationship with?" he muttered.

She nudged his shoulder. "We're not complicated," she reminded him.

And it was true. Their relationship might be full of complex feelings and many different layers of affection interspersed with more than a small dash of annoyance and frustration, but when it came down to it, they were simple. Maybe they hadn't always been so straightforward, but the longer they were together, the easier it had gotten. The pieces had fallen into place, and m hadn't gotten around to confessing out loud, but they both knew how things were. They loved each other in every sense of the word. They were partners and best friends and there was that overwhelming element of romantic love that had crept in along the way. Maka supposed that there was even a dash of familial love in there somewhere; not like a brother-sister thing, not in a million years, but... Soul was family to her. Sometimes, when she was feeling especially sentimental and fond of him, she thought about the way that they had come together, just a couple of kids who couldn't rely on their blood relatives, and formed a strange little family of just the two of them, and it made something warm in her chest.

No, she and Soul were complex, but they weren't complicated. In fact, she was willing to bet that their partnership was the one truly uncomplicated thing in their lives. Soul was the one person she knew she could trust unconditionally with anything and everything, and he knew (she hoped he knew!) that he could rely on her, too. Anything he needed, she had his back one hundred percent.

Her verbal affirmation of this didn't seem to reassure him any, though. Maybe he didn't quite take her meaning, she didn't know. His only response to her statement was just to nod and close his eyes, a frown creasing his mouth.

Maka stared at him as they lapsed into taut but comfortable silence for a minute or two. Even sprawled out on the bed with his legs dangling awkwardly off the side and his eyes closed, he still seemed tense. Every time she had noticed this over the course of the day, it was a surprise all over again. Soul was very good at relaxing (or at least giving a very good appearance of being relaxed), so seeing him all wound up like this was strange.

"I feel like I'm seeing this whole other side of you," she observed.

He opened his eyes and turned his head to look at her, expression searching. "I haven't changed any."

She shook her head. "No, I know. I just... meeting your mom and finding out all this stuff about you... it fills in some missing pieces, you know? Some stuff about you makes more sense now."

He tilted his head a little more toward her. "What do you mean?"

She shrugged. "Well, you used to have an accent, for one thing. Now I know where that came from."

"I did? Really?"

"Just a little bit. And all this time I thought you were just lazy by nature, but really it's just that you grew up... like this." She made a sweeping gesture, implying the entire Evans silver spoon lifestyle.

Soul made a sour face. "I'm not some spoiled rich kid, Maka."

"I know that. I'm teasing you, genius," she said.

"Oh."

She raised her eyebrows. "You really are out of it, aren't you?"

"Yeah... I..."

Maka scooted closer, so that their faces were only a few inches apart with their cheeks resting on the coverlet and their sides pressed close together. "I know," she said, softer than before. "I know."

Soul made a painful expression that Maka thought was supposed to be a smile.