Author's Note: Welp, that wasn't two weeks! Life got away from me a little, as it tends to do sometimes. :) Thank you all for waiting, and I really hope you enjoy this one!


The curtain is black and white.

The curtain is black and white, the fabric gliding past Maka's hands as she reenters the bar. She slows her pace when she sees Liz and Patty facing away from her, staring at something in the corner of the room.

"...What'd I miss?" Maka asks warily.

"Oh! Uh." Liz jumps a little as she turns back around. "Not much." She looks to the side, drink to her lips.

"What do you mean, 'not much?!'" Patty counters, throwing her hands in the air. "So much! A couple of guys just got busted for not paying their tab!" Her eyes shine with an almost aggressive glee.

"What happened?" Maka asks.

"The bartender was like 'hey you!' and 'why I oughta-'" Patty punches a fist into an open hand, a sinister smile lighting up her face. "And now they're gonna pay."

Maka leans around her, eyeing the bar. From where she's sitting, she can only see one of the perpetrators - the guy with the star tattoo that they'd sat beside. The other is hidden behind the bartender's broad back - though she can see the arm of a leather jacket. Somehow, this heightens her irritation. Who wears a leather jacket in August in DC?

"I hate people like that," Maka grumbles, shaking her head in disappointment. "It's so irresponsible."

As if in response, Star Tattoo exclaims from the bar: "Dude, we just forgot. Honestly." Maka rolls her eyes.

"Maybe they really did forget," Liz adds with a shrug.

Maka looks up at her, surprised. "You're very… forgiving today," she says lightly, eyes narrowed.

Liz shrugs again in response, still avoiding Maka's gaze. But Maka is, as always, curious to her core, and when the bartender moves to go around the bar, she cranes her neck to get a better look as Leather Jacket starts to turn around, moving to step around the bar.

Just as he turns, another person moves to block her view and she makes a frustrated noise, trying to peer around a man with blonde hair, a million ear piercings, and some truly atrocious plaid pants.

"Ugh! Move," she grumbles, standing up on the little bar between her chair's legs for a more suitable vantage point.

Finally, from her perch on the chair, she can see him. And across the bar, as if in response, Leather Jacket's eyes flick upward - straight to hers. As their gazes meet, the most bizarre thought tickles the back of her brain.

His eyes... are not black and white.

The world tilts sideways, and the high-top chair that she's standing on, already unstable, tilts with it. She blinks frantically, but as she starts to topple forward, an instant presence at her sides rights the chair, steadying her.

"I'm fine," she says automatically as they pull her back down, but she's not sure that she is, disco lights leaving spots in her vision as her fingers dig into Liz and Patty's arms for support.

"What's wrong?" Patty asks urgently, eyes wide and... vibrant, shining a few inches from her face.

Maka's eyes dart around the room in a million directions, taking everything in. It's not a paradise at all: the neon signs burn, the disco lights scorch. Everything is heightened and so precise, from the scuffs in the floorboards to the circles of water stains on the tables. Above the bar, the twinkle lights seem to wink at her knowingly, as if they'd known this would happen, heralds of the moment where everything whirls itself into place.

"Maka," Liz says, tearing Maka's attention from slow-motion twirl of the room. "Talk to us. What's happening?"

Confusion and doubt rise up to meet her, nearly swallowing her up. What is happening? But instinct screams it at her; she knows what this is. She'd asked for it many times, after all.

"I think… I'm seeing color."

She looks up at Liz, whose expression is now frozen, brain piecing together what Maka has just told her.

"...You don't say," Liz finally says, but she's doing a bad job of masking her shock, eyes flitting back up to the bar as a strange expression crosses her face. It's this reaction, above everything else, that brings Maka back to reality, and she remembers, with startling clarity, why this has happened.

Maka rises back to her feet and starts to dig through her purse, fighting a sudden wave of nausea as the lights pass overhead, highlighting little punches of color in her bag: her lip gloss, her keychains, her sunglasses case. Finally, she finds what she's looking for and she slips out of Liz and Patty's grip, hard plastic clenched between her fingers as she marches up to the bar.

Her main priority is getting to the bar without getting sick, so she channels her all of her dizziness and doubt and confusion into one emotion - anger - and directs it towards one particular source.

The pained look on Leather Jacket's face becomes steadily more pronounced as she approaches.

"Hey." She taps the bartender on the shoulder and slaps her credit card on the bar, sliding it toward the till. "I'll pay for it."

She makes sure that all of them can hear the poison in her voice, and she fixes Leather Jacket with her most potent stare. The color of his eyes gives her a distinctly different kind of vertigo, but she won't look away.

"Dude. Nice!" says Star Tattoo, who is apparently immune to poison. "Thank-"

"Not doing it for you," she grits out as she turns to leave. Her head is pounding now, but she pauses long enough to throw one last glare at the pair of them, even though Leather Jacket's gaze is now directed at his shoes. "I'm doing it because good people pay their tabs. Bring money next time."

Without waiting for a response, Maka spins around and stomps out of the bar, because she's mad and sick and because someone who doesn't pay at bars can't be her soulmate.

Being outside is an immediate relief, but the onslaught of color from the bar is still too much, and she doesn't make it far. Crouching down where the sidewalk meets the parking lot, she sits on the curb and puts her head between her knees, squeezing her eyes shut at the slow churn of her gut.

Time passes - she's not sure how much - but eventually, the door opens once more, the boom of the bass building and fading behind her, and she senses their presence at her sides.

"Hi," she half-mutters, half-groans, cheeks still smashed between her knees.

"Hey," Patty says sympathetically, and when Maka blinks her eyes open, colorful cowboy boots appear in her periphery, framed by the crook of her knee. The nausea makes a resurgence, and she closes her eyes again.

"...Nothin' like a nice quiet night at the bar, huh?" Liz finally says.

"Yeah. Real relaxing," comes Maka's muffled reply.

"...You wanna leave?" Liz asks.

"No," Maka says to the asphalt. "Not yet."

She's dimly worried that Star Tattoo and Leather Jacket will emerge before she can regain her composure, but she has the feeling that she's probably scared Leather Jacket, at least, into sitting still for a while. The thought gives her a grim satisfaction, which does not mix well with queasiness, and she coughs slightly.

"Take yer time," Patty says, patting her gently on the back. "We don't have anywhere to be."

"...Kay," Maka says. She knows how pathetic she sounds, but she doesn't know how to process this at all.

Behind her eyelids, things look strange; there's something not-quite-grey about the streetlights, and it tints the darkness with new hues that confuse her.

She squeezes them tighter, listening instead to the hum of evening traffic, to the deafening chirps of the summer cicadas. Even though it's hot as Hades on this Friday evening, she finds that she's shaking, though when Patty reaches over and places her hand on Maka's back, the shivers eventually fade.

They sit in silence for awhile longer before Maka finally sits up, blinking against the lowlight.

On one hand, it's definitely better than inside; there's still that strange, muted color of the streetlights that she can't yet name, but there's also, she realizes, the familiar black and white speckle of the stars overhead.

Well, the sky isn't quite black-and-white. After looking at it so many times, she's hyper-aware of every difference between this night sky and the one she's come to know. And despite all of the tumult in her heart, there's something about those little changes in the sky that intrigues her.

Still. She can feel it - that familiar tightness in her chest that often comes with change. It's bittersweet, the realization that tonight, something in her life has been irrevocably altered.

And so, gaze trained on the sky, Maka focuses on the two colors she knows best. She wants to say goodbye to black-and-white before she leaves it behind for good.


He shouldn't have looked.

He knew she'd be looking, and he knew what would happen, and he knew what was at stake. And he did it anyway.

Sleep hasn't come easily the past couple of nights. Soul can't even blame the heat; it had stormed for the entire weekend, cooling his bedroom to a moderately liveable temperature. No, it's his conscience that keeps him awake, and as a result, Soul spends the weekend trying to quiet his mind, Weird Al keeping dutiful watch above him.

Why? Why did he look? He could've stared at the floor, could've hidden behind the bar. There were innumerable ways he could have made an ass out of himself to avoid being seen, and he'd chosen none of them. Looking cool is important, but it's not that important.

He's re-lived it so many times that it's all burned into his brain: Black*Star's warning glance as they turned around. Sid (that's the bartender's name, he had soon learned) chuckling to himself over Maka's Act of Angry Kindness. Liz in the background, bringing her hand to her face to hide her shock-turned-smirk. And the thing he'd tried to forget the most: the thrill that had shot through him at seeing green eyes - her real eyes, in real life - a few feet away, even with the anger coursing through them.

Liz had texted him late that night, telling him what he already knew.

[[ you're an idiot. ]]
[[ like, truly. ]]
[[ whatever the highest level of dumbass is. that's you. ]]
[[ someone should give you a medal. ]]

He knows she won't send anything else - she won't jeopardize her friend's recruitment by sending something that might give him away - but the next time he sees her in person, he is 1000 percent screwed.

[[ yeah. I know ]]

His dreams are punctuated by disco lights and credit cards - as are, evidently, his waking thoughts. In the darkness of his room, he leans over and hangs awkwardly off of his bed, trying to reach his phone in his pants pocket but unwilling to fully commit to getting out of bed. When he finally fishes his phone out, he lets out a heavy sigh.

5:41 a.m. It's too early, but he's awake now, so he decides that it's as good a time as any to get up for work.

After two days of agonizing, he's ready to go back. He needs a distraction. And also, a darker, curious part of him wants to see what she'll be like with the new knowledge she's gained.

His jacket whips at his sides as he rides into work - because ultimately, looking cool is still very important.

The glow of his computer lights up an otherwise dark office when he pulls up Resonance in his cubicle. To his extreme surprise, there's already a message waiting for him.

[[ I just looked back at the Yahoo test. You have too much free time. ]]

He snorts, making a mental note to tell Black*Star about Maka's review of The Amazing Technicolor FBI Test. This also tells him that she's in good enough spirits to still be joking around, which is reassuring.

[[ you're one to talk. ]] he types back. [[ looking at old tests? nothing better to do? ]]

When the typing… pops up immediately, he freezes, heart speeding up in a way that it definitely shouldn't when one is simply interacting with your typical run-of-the-mill recruit. Being on the computer at the same time as her feels strangely personal. It's the closest he can get to her, and it is incredibly exhilarating.

[[ The ball's in your court. I'm ready for another one any time. ]]

In his mind's eye, he can picture her hunched over the laptop in the early morning darkness, green eyes burning behind the screen, challenging him. He wants to say something else; wants to talk to her. But this is an FBI-sanctioned program, so he stays on topic.

[[ stay tuned. ]]


Maka wakes up to rain again, and she hates it.

It's the icing on top of a weekend that she'd spent restless and agitated. She knows she should be happy - invigorated, even - by the new world she has to explore, everything she has to discover. She'd wanted color, hadn't she?

But it's all wrong. She'd asked for sunrises, and since Friday, she's gotten nothing but storms.

It's still dark when she pulls herself out of bed, but the patter of rain on the porch is loud enough to hear from the bedroom. Maka starts to make tea, but continues to eye her laptop, which sits precariously on the couch.

Since EAT is closed on the weekend, she'd spent her whole weekend on the computer. After Friday's events, she's still hesitant to reach out to Liz and Patty, even though they would probably make her feel better. She'd also hoped that her mysterious 'recruiters' might give her something to do, but evidently they'd been busy as well. They're a business, most likely, if they aren't contacting her on the weekend.

Going through her old tests had been a mostly useless endeavor... but it's clear that one of them must be able to see color, because this first test is a monstrosity. She informs them of this, and smiles for the first time in days at the quippy response she gets in return.

This is the person she's been able to figure out the least about; she knows that the one who types with Proper Punctuation is the leader, and the one who screams all the time is… well, that they scream. But this one is a total mystery.

[[ stay tuned ]] is not enough to satisfy her, so she continues the conversation:

[[ Can I get a timeline on that? When will the next one be? ]]

[[ she's impatient. ]] says her hacker friend, and she gets the feeling that they are teasing her. She doubles down, typing faster than before.

[[ It's been a long weekend, okay? I need a change of pace. ]]

[[ this is really your idea of fun? a test? ]]
[[ nerd. ]]

She lets out a little shocked gasp at this, and she's already finished typing before she realizes that a smile has spread its way across her face again.

[[ Do you talk to everyone like this? You aren't very professional, are you? ]]

[[ not the first time i've heard that this week, believe it or not. ]]

She decides that of all three Stooges, this one might be her favorite.

[[ anyway. your super fun test is coming. never fear. ]]

It's melodramatic, but she types it anyway:

[[ I'm not afraid of anything. ]]

The typing… notification does not return, and she reads back over the conversation twice before closing the message. Part of her wishes that she could read it again.

Trying to distract herself some more, she heads back to her room, gets out her phone and sends Liz a text.

[[ See you at work today? ]]

The response is almost immediate:

[[ we're extending our weekend. come get ice cream. ]]

[[ But it's raining. ]]

[[ so? there is no bad weather for ice cream. ]]

Ultimately, she just wants to get out of this house, so if Liz and Patty want ice cream, she'll get ice cream.

Much like Death Brew, the ice cream place is a whirl of color, though the overall tonality of this place is vastly different - all soft pinks and yellows instead of the harsh neons of the bar.

Another one of Maka's weekend projects had been the slow, arduous process of memorizing colors. Despite her uncertainties with the whole situation, she had always been a diligent student, and she'd gotten a decent grasp of most colors within a few hours. There had been a surprising number of resources online for new seers of color, and she'd made use of anything she could get her cursor on to master her newest ability.

The very first color that she'd learned was red. An obvious enough choice, considering it's the first color of the rainbow and is prominently displayed on a variety of traffic signs.

That's not why Maka remembers it, though.

"Hey hey, stranger!" Patty says from behind the counter, hidden by flower petals and ice cream cones. "What're ya hungry for?"

"This place is perfect for you," Maka says with a laugh, shaking her head.

"Right?" Liz says, wrinkling her nose. "It's too happy in here."

"You should see it-" Maka begins, and snaps her mouth shut. In color is what she was about to say, but it feels rude to say it, like she's bragging, or holding it over their heads. Liz already knows, though, judging by the grin that splits her face.

"In color, yeah, yeah." She's dismissive, but her tone is warm. "No, thanks. This ice cream is really good, and I'd rather not toss my cookies like someone almost did on Friday-"

"Hey!" Maka laughs, playfully indignant. "I'm fine now!"

"Ma'am, I'm going to need your word that you are in tip-top physical condition before I offer you this sample," Patty says, very serious.

Maka smiles, crossing her heart. "I haven't been nauseous in seventy-two hours," she assures her. "And no cookies were tossed."

"Excellent," Patty says. "Now what'll you be samplin' today?"

Liz holds her hand up to her face and says, in a stage whisper, "She's only supposed to give you one flavor, but she says that's un-American."

Patty holds up a handful of spoons with a conspiratorial grin.

Maka knows that they're trying extra hard to make her feel better, but it's working. So she samples everything that isn't chocolate, and ultimately settles for a scoop of butter pecan.

"... So how's it goin'?" Liz finally asks her when they've settled at a table, Patty joining them in between customers.

"It's… fine," Maka says. "It's just a lot to take in, you know?"

Liz nods. "Do you feel any different? Awakened to life's greatest mysteries?"

"Absolutely," Maka says mock-seriously. "When you see color, your third eye just opens right up." She sighs. "No, I feel the same, mostly. A little confused and overwhelmed, but a little curious, too."

"Curious, huh?" Liz says.

"Yeah." Maka takes a bite of her ice cream. "Color is pretty cool."

"And how about the reason you can see color, hmm?" Patty says from behind the counter, wiggling her eyebrows. Liz shoots her a warning glance, but she ignores it. "Curious about that too?"

Yes. "... I don't really know," Maka says. "A little?" More than a little. "But… I'm still mad. And I'm not sure how I'm supposed to feel. I don't feel 'completed' or anything. I don't even know him."

Another nod from Liz. "You're waaay too self-sufficient for all of that 'he completes me' stuff anyway."

"Besides, you're supposed to feel complemented, not complete!" Patty says as she balances a spoon on her nose.

"And he's definitely not a 'prince charming' sort of person," Liz says.

"You say that like you know him," Maka says with a laugh.

"Well," Liz says. "Don't freak out. But that's because... I do."

Maka pauses with a spoon halfway to her mouth. "Wait. You do?"

"Yeah, we uh… used to work together," Liz says. "Still do, sometimes, on little projects." Her eyes flick up to Maka's, apologetic. "I would've told you sooner, but I thought you had enough to deal with. Didn't wanna overwhelm you."

Maka nods. She knows this is one of the 'jobs' that Liz doesn't like to talk about, and she files that away for later.

"So uh. If you really are curious, and you aren't sure about him, I could help… educate you, if you want."

Maka leans back, considering. She's been tamping it down since Friday, the confusion over her first experience with color taking precedence over curiosity. But now, faced with a fountain of information, she can sense her desire to learn, to know, slowly rekindle, and a flood of questions breaks forth.

"Is he smart?"

Liz tries very hard not to smile at this question, and mostly succeeds. "He likes to think he is," she says, rolling her eyes. "And then sometimes he does the dumbest things you can imagine."

Maka nods. "Is he funny?"

"...In his own way, yeah," Liz says. "He's got a… unique sense of humor. It's his brand."

"Does he take his job seriously?" Maka asks. "Like, does he work hard?"

"Hmm." Liz taps her chin with the spoon. "He does?" It's more of a question than a statement. "I think he wants to do a good job - but then he'll go and do something so damn unprofessional-"

"What is with all of these unprofessional people lately?" Maka exclaims.

"Professionalism is very important," Patty says, now balancing a stack of ice cream cups on her nose. Liz and Maka share a knowing glance.

"Okay, two more," Maka says, putting her spoon down into her finished cup and setting it on the table. "... Is he kind?"

Liz pauses, carefully considering this one. "Is he kind," she repeats. "That's a good question. Not like you, I don't think. He doesn't have the same… save-the-world open-heartedness, if you know what I mean."

Maka pinks, a little touched at this analysis of her character.

"But," Liz adds. "I think he'd lend a hand in a pinch."

"Sorta reminds me of you, sis!" Patty says, sliding into the chair between them.

"Excuse me, I am not kind," Liz says, faux-affronted, though she hooks an arm around Patty's shoulders as she says it. "I print out flyers that threaten people in expensive red ink- oh hey, Maka, can you check on those tomorrow?"

"Sure thing," Maka says with a smile.

"Okay, you said you had one more!" Patty cheers, because she is great at scooping ice cream and eavesdropping.

"Yeah," Maka says, shuffling in her seat. She's embarrassed about this one, because it showcases the depth of her curiosity.

"Could… you tell me his name?"

Liz goes still, and the smile she'd been fighting before returns with a vengeance, lighting up her eyes.

"... Sorry. Can't help with that one," Liz says, though she doesn't sound at all apologetic. "If you wanna know that, you'll have to ask him yourself."


Soul had spent all week trying to come up with a test. The pressure is mounting to create something more difficult, the heat is back and it's messing with his head, and the more he thinks, the less progress he seems to make. The Kid has been caught up with drama elsewhere in the bureau, and Black*Star's been the opposite of helpful, only offering suggestions involving credit cards and bar tabs.

He's out of options, so when he drags himself into Megami on Thursday night, he decides to get some outside help again.

"The usual?" Tsubaki asks after his routine five minutes of pretending to inspect the menu.

"... Yeah," he says, handing the menu over. "Actually," he adds as she turns to go. "You got any sake?"

She thumbs the menus in her hand. "Long week?"

"Really long week."

She nods. "I'll bring you the big one."

"How much-" he starts to say, but she's already walking away.

"On the house," she says with a wave of her hand.

"... Thanks," he mutters, and though she can't hear him, he has the feeling she can sense the sentiment.

When she returns, she taps her finger against the paper he's been scribbling on. "Another test?"

He's glad that she's the one to bring it up. "Yeah." He looks down at all of his crossed-out plans with a sense of vague despair.

"Need some help?"

"Yes. Please. I'm dying."

She drops into the seat across from him, tapping her chin thoughtfully. "I'm still not sure what this is all about, but… last time you used sushi, yes?" Soul nods, pencil attentively poised over a new sheet of paper. "Did you get what you needed from that test? What else do you need to know?"

How to not be attracted to your recruit slash soulmate is the first thing he thinks of, and it is something he would love to know, but that's not a path he's willing to tread this evening.

"I keep thinking about weaknesses," he says instead. I know a lot about what she can do, and there doesn't seem to be a lot she can't do. But there must be something."

"Hmm," she says. "But why focus on what's weak?"

He chuckles. "You sound like her. 'What's the point of tiptoeing around?'"

"Sometimes the best defense is a good offense," Tsubaki says automatically.

"God, I've heard that before," Soul groans, laying his head on his arms.

She laughs. "It's a staple expression around my house."

They fall into silence, and he swishes the sake around in its glass. What if he could give her a chance to put that strategy to use? He sets the glass down on the counter, and the thud that it makes reminds him of knocking on a door. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.

With the third thunk, it clicks.

"Dude," he says, looking up at Tsubaki. "I've got something."

In response, Tsubaki clinks her sake glass against his before downing the rest of her drink in celebration, and it reminds him of someone.

"The two of you would be friends, I think," he says as he takes another sip, now whipping his pencil across the paper.

"She sounds smart," Tsubaki says, "so I'll take that as a compliment."

"...She is," is his reply, and he hopes it sounds more like an affirmation than a swoon.


"You want my approval to what?" The Kid repeats calmly, though Soul can sense his confusion.

"Attack her," Soul says again. The Kid raises an eyebrow, and Soul realizes where the disconnect is. "Not physically, oh my god. With malware, dude."

"We're in the FBI," The Kid says lightly. "Sometimes these are necessary distinctions."

Soul doesn't want to think about the other projects that The Kid has been involved in that would require such a distinction.

"Anyway," The Kid says. "What's your rationale?"

Soul is prepared for this, so he launches into his speech. "Okay. We've only seen her on the offensive," he says. "Every test we've given her has been about figuring something out. I want her to keep us out."

"Are you sure-" He pauses, looking thoughtful. "Hmm. Never mind."

"... What?" Soul asks.

"No, no," The Kid says quickly. "It's a good idea. Go ahead and start, if you have something in mind."

"Uh," Soul says. "Okay?" He hasn't even explained everything, but The Kid is already walking back to the break room, and he's eager to have something to send her, so he ignores the niggling, questioning side of his brain and gets to it.

By the end of the day, he's got the full test ready.

"Another productive burst, I see," The Kid says dryly as he leans over the computer.

Soul has several motivations, but he only discloses one: "Job security is important to me," he drawls.

"And my job security is important to him," Black*Star says approvingly, popping his thumb over the cubicle wall. Soul rolls his eyes.

"...Fair enough," The Kid says. "How do you feel about staying late to send it tonight?"

"I uh…" Soul sighs, and Black*Star's snicker across the cubicle does nothing to improve his feelings about the matter.

"I really wish I could," Soul says, "but I have somewhere else I need to be."


If Soul doesn't manage to recruit anyone this summer, maybe he can accept an alternative career in bussing tables.

Despite their drinks being paid for on that fateful evening, Sid had insisted that the two of them work off their crimes by being in his gainful employ for the next couple of weeks. He's not actually getting paid for this, which is fourteen kinds of illegal - though Sid had reminded him that, hey, in case you'd forgotten, not paying your tab is also illegal.

As his snickering at work had indicated, Black*Star isn't here tonight; he's been serving out his sentence much more gradually than Soul, thanks to his impressive arsenal of avoidance tactics and poorly crafted excuses. Soul, on the other hand, has accepted his fate, particularly because every second his hands are busy is a second he can't spend stewing.

He's still torturing himself, though. He eyes the drawer to the cash register at Death Brew, because Maka's card is still there, hidden beneath the twenty-dollar bills. When she'd exacted revenge on him by paying his tab, she'd left her card behind.

Who does that, by the way? He's still confused and sort of enraptured by that. Who exacts revenge by paying for someone's drinks? He adds 'kills people with kindness' to his ever-growing list of Maka's attributes.

He takes another glass and dries it, reaching up to stack it on the shelf. It's not so bad working here, anyway. It's still pretty early on Friday, so the bar isn't too busy just yet, and although things will definitely pick up in the evening, it's quite calm now, almost boring.

Just as he starts wishing for something else to occupy his busy mind, he wheels around to fetch another glass and finds himself face-to-face with a blonde-haired, green-eyed killer whose weapon of choice is kindness.

"Um," she says, fingers like a vice on the handbag on her shoulder as her eyes dart to the floor. "Hi."

This isn't happening. Is it? He can feel his face heat up as he turns to face her. Well shit, if it is, he'd better say something.

"...Hi," he says, and god, it comes out so lame, and so unsure, and definitely not how a cool, leather jacket-clad bartender should be saying things. She's still standing there, watching him, and the clink of the glass as he places it back on the counter is deafening.

"Uh," he says after a few beats of silence. "Can I get you a drink?"

"Um." Her knuckles are white around the handbag. "No," she says. "... Thank you," she adds, which tempers the sting a little. "I'm… just here to pick up my card."

He nods, understanding, and turns silently to grab it from the register.

"...I already cancelled it," she explains, to fill the silence, or because she feels like she needs to explain, maybe.

"Yeah. That's smart," he says as he puts it down on the counter. She looks at him for a moment, tilting her head sideways.

"... Was that sarcasm?" she says slowly. Any awkwardness she'd displayed seconds ago has vanished, replaced by that steely glare that has haunted his dreams since last week.

Why does she terrify him? And more importantly, why does he like it?

"Nope," he says, because he won't let himself be intimidated (visibly, anyway). "S'actually smart." He slides the card down the bar towards her. She grabs it and puts it back into her wallet, but instead of immediately leaving like he expects her to do, she gets up and walks over to stand right in front of him.

"You're sure?" she says, crossing her arms.

"...Most things I say sound sarcastic," he shrugs. "So that's probably it." She seems to accept this, because suddenly the arms are uncrossed and she's sitting down, her index fingers coming up to make a temple in front of her.

"Okay," she says, watching him carefully. "Then... I think I'll take that drink."

He fights a smile. "Just your drink?" he asks. "Or will you be paying for the whole bar tonight?"

"I see what you mean about the sarcasm," she drawls as she digs out a different card and slaps it on the table.

"I'm kidding," he says, pushing the card back towards her. When she reaches down to grab it, their fingers brush. "Uh," he adds, determinedly not looking down at his hands. "I owe you. Okay?"

She nods, and he thinks that she might be trying to hide a smile too. "Okay. A cider?"

"Sure." He turns from her to grab a glass and starts to fill it from the tap. "We really did forget, by the way," he adds to fill the silence, or because he feels like he needs to explain, maybe. "We had the money."

She looks him over once as she sips the cider, the tiniest smile finally crossing her face.

"I think I believe you. ...But I still have some questions for you."


Maka falls into her bed at midnight with a yawn, scratching behind Blair's ears and reeling a little from the past few hours of conversation. Or, okay. Of grilling. Because that's what she'd done, really.

He'd been a good sport. But she needs to know things - and it had been fun to see him get prickly about some of the questions.

Soul, she thinks. Short for Solomon. It's a strange name. Memorable.

Legs squished against the wall because Blair has decided to take up the entire bed with her summer stretching, Maka opens up her laptop out of habit to check in on her recruiter friends. The chat had been dead all week long, and she's starting to wonder if they've dropped her, or found a better person to torment via pop-ups.

Speaking of pop-ups, she thinks as her screen comes to life - her antivirus has quarantined something.

Pulling up the program, Maka taps absently against the mousepad and inspects the file, and when she sees where it's from, she grins.

"Oh," she says, suddenly wide awake. "You're here? I thought you'd died."

[[ one super fun test, coming right up. ]] the chat says, and she lets out one little laugh before her entire screen freezes, and her eyes widen.

"No," she says in disbelief, wiggling the cursor. It doesn't move. Her stomach drops as she watches her cursor start to move around on its own, clicking on icons without her assistance. "Damnit-"

Even though it's midnight, she knows who to call.

"Liz," she says urgently into the receiver. "Can you come over? Yes, right now. I need to borrow your laptop."


Hehehe: There's a lot more coming! Feel free to drop me a line if you're enjoying! Thank you so much for reading. :)