CHAPTER IV

Stein thought while he made his way to Maka and Soul's. He thought about Maka's vitals, how average they were, how nothing was out of the ordinary, and the itching in the back of his brain from yesterday night as he filled in Maka's information.

Stein turned the screw in his head, the same familiar click filling his ears. He was forgetting something, but what? He hadn't been able to figure out what he'd spaced, and the itching hadn't ceased since. As he knocked on the brown door, he thought, Maybe I'm just overthinking it.

The door creaked open to reveal a flustered Soul, hair a mess and sweaty. "Glad you could make it," he greeted.

"Anytime," Stein returned. The scientist made his way inside and immediately felt a wave of insatiable heat. He set down his medical kit and set took his lab coat off. "Why's it so hot in your house?"

Soul walked over to Maka's pink door. "Maka says she's cold, so I have the heat turned on," the weapon explained. Stein followed him and Soul opened the door to the meister's room. Maka was laying on her bed sprawled and looking at the ceiling. The covers had been kicked to the end of the bed and were touching the floor, and beside Maka's bed was a metal bucket with a trash bag inside. Maka herself was wearing hardly anything, just a tank top that didn't go past her belly button and underwear.

Stein walked in, the scythe following suit. "I thought you said she was cold," Stein said turning to Soul, referring to Maka's skimpy attire.

"I did," Soul replied. "But Maka says she's too hot to wear anything more."

Chills and heat flashes, thought the doctor. Interesting.

Maka coughed behind them. It was course and raspy, Stein noticed, and sounded like it was emanating from her chest more than her throat. He angled himself and looked at the meister.

Maka's body moved with each cough, and phlegm seemed to spurt from her mouth like a geyser. Stein could see from his position the phlegm itself was green and yellow, indicating an infection. But what happened next completely pulled the rug out from under him.

Maka leaned over the side of the bed and vomited, nearly missing the bucket below her. She coughed in between retches, Soul rushing over to comfort her, rubbing her back. Stein watched for a full two minutes as Maka continued to regurgitate. Soul, surprisingly prepared, wiped Maka's mouth off with a hand towel, had Maka switch and spit some water, and gave Maka two pieces of spearmint gum. Maka nodded a thank you to Soul and Soul patted her back in response

Stein stepped in with his medical kit and kneeled next to Maka. "Maka, I'm going to need to do another exam on you like last time. Okay?" The meister nodded, and the scientist checked her temperature, which was higher than yesterday. Stein then pulled the stethoscope out of his bag and placed the nuds in his ears. He reached under maka shirt and placed the cold metal on her skin, listening to her heart rate. Ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum. It sounded faster than it had yesterday.

The doctor next took Maka's blood pressure. "Ow," Maka hissed, wincing as the machine tightened on her arm. Her blood pressure was one-forty over ninety. He wrote down the results, along with her heart beat analysis.

Stein sat on the bed next to Maka and placed the stethoscope diaphragm on Maka's back, instructing her when to take deep breaths and when to hold her breath and when to exhale and moving the diaphragm along her back.

This is what I forgot yesterday, he thought. I'd forgotten to check her breathing.

When her test was done, Stein removed the nubs from his ears and wrote down her breathing test results. It had sounded raspy, unclear.

"Soul," Stein said, alerting the weapon who'd been watching diligently. The doctor paused a few seconds to gaze at a red cut on Maka's knee, then continued: "Can I talk to you outside?" Soul nodded, and they left Maka in her room, tracing her finger along her thigh.

"So… what's wrong with her?" Soul asked, clearly concerned and nervous about her health analysis.

Stein turned the screw in his head, sounding off the signature click-click-click that everyone as the DWMA recognized. Stein didn't want to lie to a friend nor student, so he just came out and said what was needed to be said. "Her heart rate was quicker than average, her blood pressure was borderline stage one hypertension, and her lungs were raspy."

Soul swallowed. "So what do we do?" His voice was shaky, scared. Stein had been expecting it, but now that he was in the moment, he couldn't have wanted more to be somewhere else and to have Maka healthy again.

"The best option would be to take her to a local ER and get an MRI or PET scan." Stein sighed with guilt. "I'm sorry, but I'm not quite sure what this is anymore. It doesn't seem like influenza or a common cold, and if it were, the medicine you were giving her should've helped. Not make it worse."

Soul was taken back by what the doctor had just said. Maka didn't have the flu, it was something worse? No, he refused to believe it. Stein told him it was nothing. But… Stein had also just admitted he was wrong.

Soul held his confused frustration back. "Okay. So we take her to the ER, give her an MRI or whatever, and then what? She'll be all fine and dandy, or will she just get worse?"

"The MRI will tell you what's going on, and if not, they have other scans that can. From there, they'll choose a recovery method specified for Maka."

Soul couldn't take any more of this talk on Maka's medical condition. Stein had told him it was under control, and he'd lied, whether or not he'd meant to. He delayed what could've helped Maka feel better by tomorrow, but instead he was saying that they had the diagnosis and medicine all wrong. That it was making it worse.

Soul clenched and fists and his jaw tightened. "Get out of my house," he growled through gritted teeth, holding back the urge to kill this man where he stood.

Stein didn't say anything after that, just left with his lab coat and medical kit. As Soul made his way back to Maka, he found a paper on the nightstand with Maka's medical analysis Stein had written down with a note on the bottom. Soul crumpled it up and threw it across the room and left to take a shower.

Maka stared at the crumpled paper for a moment. Soul had been angry about it, but why? She slowly made her way over, crouched down on her tiled floor, and opened the paper and read it:

Temperature: 102.3 F°; hot flashes along with chills

Heart rate: faster than yesterday

Blood pressure: 140/90, almost stage 1 hypertension

Breathing: Raspy, elongated coughing fits accompanied by phlegm; color of phlegm suggests infection

Digestion: Vomiting fits (assumably bile) along with indigestion

Soul, I noticed a scrape on Maka's left knee. I would notify the doctors about it when you visit the ER.

Franken Stein