Stein sat staring in the window to Marie's cell. The woman was sitting on her bed, her back to the corner. Her eyes were wide and darted around the room. He had been watching her for hours now, listening to her outbursts, hearing her scream for him. She didn't call him by name, but he knew that the screams were for him nonetheless.

Spirit stood beside him at this point in time, the other man's hand resting gently on Stein's shoulder. "You need to get some rest and eat, Stein."

The scientist didn't respond, he just sat staring at Marie. He could see the fractures in her soul, chinks that he had never noticed before. Spirit's hand tightened on Stein's shoulder.

"That's not a request, Stein. I'll have you escorted if I have to." Spirit's voice was firm.

"What have I done?" Stein's voice was broken and quiet and Spirit looked down. "Is this how she feels when I fall to the madness? Is this what I have put her through each time we've had to fight and I've slipped? What have I done?"

There were no tears in the man's eyes; there was no emotion on his face, yet Spirit could sense the turmoil raging in the man's soul. Stein shrugged off Spirit's hand and moved to the window.

Marie could see him now for the first time since they had been captured. In an instant she had darted off the bed and her hands were pushed against the glass. Giggles leaked around the edges of the door, her eyes alight and bright. Her grin stretched nearly ear to ear and Stein winced at the stitches that he could see on her neck. Fractured memories, snapshots of sanity, flooded over the man and he shuddered as he half-remembered other stitches on her pale flesh.

Suddenly Marie's face fell and her voice was pitiful, tugging at Stein's fragile sanity, threatening to devour it and pull him back down with her into the swirling depths of madness that they had both been happily treading in. The giggles were mercifully missing for the time being.

"Save me…" There were tears in her eye as she leaned her forehead against the glass, misery etched over her features.

For a brief moment Stein thought that she had regained some of her sanity, and then her head jerked up and she was cackling at the two people, her voice having lost its pitiful tone and was now high pitched and sing-songy.

"They're going to eat me if you don't, they'll tear me to shreds and feed my heart to their dogs! They'll take away what I am now! You have to save me!" Laughter leaked through the cracks in the doors again and Stein's hands clenched into fists, his body trembling violently.

"Stein, leave." Spirit's voice was firm and to accentuate his point he stepped between Stein and the window, pushing the other man backwards. The eyes that flicked down towards Spirit weren't completely sane.

Marie's voice screamed out for help again and her leaking laughter was echoed by Stein's own. Marie's soul was desperately reaching for his, and like the drowning man he was, his instinctively grabbed for it.

Spirit tackled him, knocking the taller man off balance and backwards, out of sight of the woman cackling inside the room. Stein's fist came up and Spirit grabbed it, using momentum to carry them both down the hallway and away from Marie.

Stein's eyes were wild as they collapsed on the floor. The noise brought guards who pulled both men to their feet; Stein was panting and tense as the guards held him, his eyes darting from side to side. Spirit just brushed them off and stood almost glaring at Stein.

"Get him out of here. Keep him away from Marie. Don't let either of them see each other, if he gives you problems, put him in a cell." The death scythe's voice was cold as Stein stared wide eyed over the man's shoulder.

He didn't hear the orders Spirit gave though, as the guards bodily moved him away from her, her laughing screams echoing through the corridors of his mind.

Once Stein was out of sight around the corner Spirit slammed his fist into the wall, fighting the tears that were threatening to fall. 'Damnit, what in Death's name are we going to do?' Spirit wondered miserably.

Stein sat in the cell they had left him in, himself again. His face was in his hands, his elbows propped against his knees. He wasn't crying; he wasn't sure what he was doing.

Worrying?

Yes, that sounded right, he decided. He was worrying about Marie, and about what had almost happened.

'I could have killed Senpai then. I felt it. I could feel Marie's soul grasping for mine, and I couldn't reject it." Stein shook his head, as he sat upright and turned the screw in his head, trying to banish the last of her hysterical laughing screams from his mind. "What have I done to Marie?"

The door opened and he looked up at Spirit.

"Senpai, I'm sorry." Stein said quickly. "I… I don't know what happened."

"I know, Stein. We're going to have to keep the two of you separated. Shinigami-sama himself has declared that. He thinks that if he can keep you two apart, it'll break any residual resonance and let Marie come back to herself sooner rather than later." Spirit said, leaning against the now closed door.

Stein nodded. He could still feel Marie in the distance. "I should leave. Go back to the Lab. Put distance between us."

The words carried a double meaning and both men knew it. Both were well aware of Marie's feelings for Stein- feelings that Stein had shared his doubts with Spirit that he would be able to return, claiming that he couldn't understand love.

Spirit just sighed. "You're right, Stein. It's not going to be easy."

The scientist looked at the death scythe. "It's for her own good… I'm… I'm damaged."

Spirit gave a sad smile. "She's a woman; they think we all are, and she's still going to try to fix whatever she sees. You're going to have to be careful, Stein, once she's herself again."

Stein stood and nodded. "I'll make sure that this doesn't happen again, Senpai," he moved to the door and Spirit opened it. Stein brushed past him without another word and walked away from Marie and towards the Lab he called home.

She sat in the cell, her feet dangling over the side of the bed as she sobbed. She could feel him leaving her alone here. He had stayed the whole time she had been here, had always been close by. Now he was leaving, and she was terrified that they would kill her, that they would eat her up.

She needed him to save her, and he was walking away from her. He was leaving her. He wasn't going to come back. He was going to abandon her.

She screamed.

Stein heard her from where he was, the sound reverberating through his very soul. The sound was primal and sent shudders through his body; every fiber of his being wanted to run back to her, to stop whatever it was that was causing the woman so much pain. It was an instinctive reaction, but Stein wasn't a man of instinct. He was a man of science.

He walked on as the woman behind him kept on screaming.

She grew hoarse long after he had disappeared and she could no longer feel him. She had continued screaming long after that. Her sobs now were ragged and broken, the woman collapsed onto the floor. Spirit looked in the window, and the woman looked up at him, hatred in her eyes.

In a voice that sent chills down Spirit's spine she hissed, "I'm going to tell him that you're the one that took me away from him and he'll give me your heart on a silver platter."

Spirit slid the covering over the window and finally let the tears fall down his face for what had happened to two of his best friends. He walked off hoping that Marie would be able to cobble her sanity back together.

A/N: What can you do for someone who has snapped when they were the person that everyone had thought would be immune to the Madness? Also, have you caught onto my little trick with their Madness? It's nothing big, just wondering if anyone has caught what I am doing :)

I don't own Soul Eater.