A/N: ALRIGHT. Here's the deal. An update. That's the deal. I hope you enjoy…

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Chapter 4: Past

"This flood (this flood, this flood)

Is slowly rising up (swallowing the ground) beneath my feet

Tell me how anyone thinks (under these conditions)"

-Jack's Mannequin, "Dark Blue"

She was getting more annoyed the longer she stood outside his door. She knocked again, a sharp pain going through her knuckles as she rapped harder. Typical. Maka shifted her weight. Fine, well, if he wanted to be inhospitable, she wasn't going to press him. It was his problem, not hers.

The door creaked open. A small child and a blond woman with a kind face were the culprits of the disturbance, entering the apartment. The blond woman led her charge to the kitchen, where a woman with gray hair and green eyes stood over a stove, wooden spoon in her hand. Around her, everything was spotless, clean enough to pass a white glove test. The blond woman still wore the servants' uniform, though she propelled the little girl in front of her.

"We're back." The servant said quietly, brown eyes looking on the elder woman.

The young mother smiled at the woman. "Thank you for watching her."

The other woman nodded. Her childish features defined whom she worked best with as a trait. "It was nothing, Ms. Albarn. If you need me again, you know where to drop her off. She's nothing but good." The babysitter curtsied out of habit and excused herself, apartment door clicking behind her.

"Mama?" Wide green eyes looked up at the woman, an air of dignity and love surrounding her. The woman's arms wrapped around the small child as she knelt to pick up her child and prop her against her hip. Soon, the girl pressed against her mother's side. She snuggled inside the woman's grasp. "I made a friend," she reported.

The woman's face was soft as she turned back to stirring the soup on the stove, child still in one arm. "Did you?" The small girl nodded, "Does this new friend have a name?"

A bright smile lit the girl's face. "Soul!" She leaned back away from her mother. "He didn't know how to play hide-and-seek! So I taught him like Papa and I play." She giggled and hugged her mother, arms barely reaching halfway. She missed the look of pained sadness that flickered across her mother's face in the embrace at the mention of her husband.

"I bet he was happy to learn from such a sweet girl, huh?" She adjusted the girl on her side.

The girl smiled at the compliment, resting her head on her mama's shoulder. "I met another boy too. His name was Wes, but he wasn't very nice." She said it in a dismissive tone, as if unkindness was something she shouldn't worry herself with as a problem. She'd been nice, and that was what she was taught to be. After all, she was a little lady, as her papa always told her.

Her mother, however, paused at the name. "You met two boys called Wes and Soul, Maka?" The child nodded, proud of herself for meeting two people so soon.

She squirmed a little and her mother obligingly set her down. The silvery-haired girl walked over and crawled on top of a chair, legs swinging off the end. "Mmhmm. But I only played with Soul. Wes was busy."

Dirty dishes went into the washing water, and her mother scrubbed them. "That's very nice, sweetie." She glanced back to check on her daughter. The child knew well enough to stay where she was, and was watching, from a distance, her mother clean the dishes. "You know, Soul's family owns all this. Everything inside the fences, and then some." Her child's eyes widened, having no concept of the distance between the fences enclosing the Evans estate. To her, it was an endless yard, bound only by her imagination and the old English-style gardens that occasionally dotted its landscape.

The woman glanced out the window, then at the clock, "Your papa should be home soon."

Finally, she let it be, having knocked more than a few times. She decided she would have to catch him in class. She left the temporary dorm area, shoes padding against the tiles. She sniffed in distaste. Maka passed by the dorms. She barely noticed some of the doors were still open. She could hear her classmates studying or in incredibly useless activities, the latter having been accomplished by Ox and Havar.

She reached her room, only marked by two spots for names. The first was hers, Maka Albarn; the second was unused. She shoved her key into the lock and opened the door, shutting it behind her. Her shoes were off and placed by the door in their proper place. In front of her, the apartment was almost shimmering with cleanliness. It was impossible to study in a dirty environment anyway. Though her book-bag slid of her shoulder onto the table as she prepared to study on her kitchen table, her mind was elsewhere, down the hall, still in front of a door labeled Assigned.

She was irritated he hadn't answered her, insulted and hurt perhaps. It was just a male thing, she concluded as she slid out the chair. It was their duty to ignore women except when it suited their needs. Maka sat rather harshly on the chair and yanked out her books. The bookworm couldn't help but notice that the top book was one on the Dreamscape. She shuffled the books around to put it on the bottom and out of her mind. It would be impossible to study if she was continually worried about a nightmare.

Still, it was impossible for her to study. Between a clock that seemed louder than usual and a mind that refused to accept the knowledge she intended to instill in it, her responses to the assigned questions were lacking. The ticking of the simple clock on the wall was breaking her concentration. When she finally began to fall into her rhythm of answering questions, yelling and quick footsteps outside her door shattered the carefully built walls. Maka shook her head and tried to study.

Again, it seemed fate was conspiring against her. There was a knock on her door. She rolled her eyes and stood, walking over to her door. The lock flipped open with a click and she pulled it open. On the other side, she met the eyes of a classmate whom she happened to sit with at lunch: Kim.

She sighed, and the girl looked genuinely regretful, "I'm sorry to bother you, Maka." She admitted. Then their eyes met, "But I remembered that you knew the new kid-"

"I don't want to know," Was her quick reply. Kim's hurt look made her relinquish her initially harsh comment. "Come on in and tell me." She opened the door wider and allowed Kim to pass.

The girl glanced around, "You know, I've been in school with you forever and I can't remember being in your apartments?" The response she received had to do with a shutting door. She turned around, "Why are you still in your uniform?"

"I've been studying." Maka lied. Well, it was mostly true… "And I took a nap." She smoothed the plaid skirt carefully, well aware of the annoying wrinkles.

Kim nodded. She was dressed in a green miniskirt and white long-sleeve shirt. "You were?" She frowned, "Well, see, Jacqueline was walking to the mailboxes downstairs to get our mail…" Her eyes rose to meet the other's. "And she passed through the temporary dorms." Where is this going, Kim? "The new kid's door was open and Jacqueline looked in since she was curious, right?" Maka shifted, "And, um…"

Did he… Was he…?

"Dr. Stein and Miss Mjolnir were in his room." Maka's eyes widened. "Um, we don't know much more than that… But I'm kind of reminded of, um, what happened with…" She dropped her eyes.

Maka grabbed Kim's hand, "Thank you for telling me. I've got somewhere to be. Tell me when you get more information!" It might be incredibly inconsiderate, but she had to get out. She shoved her feet into her shoes, and Kim jumped outside the frame between the hall and the apartment.

The door was quickly locked and the girl dashed off down the hall, towards the temporary dorms. Kim blinked and Jacqueline's head poked out of their room. The black-haired girl looked at her meister. "Did she even listen?"

Kim smiled, "Yep."

"Good."

===*===*===

Maka skidded to a stop as she reached Soul's door. It was closed again. She frowned and knocked on the door. This time, it opened. On the other side was a tired-looking boy. He yawned and shoved a free hand in his uniform's pocket. "Hey." Another yawn. His eyes looked were the usual: brilliantly red and incredibly apathetic.

The girl frowned and looked past him, expecting to see a blond-haired woman with a patch over one eye and silver-haired teacher. She sniffed. Of course those two girls would trick her like this. It was why she would rather just be alone, she decided. It was much simpler, and books didn't play pranks. "I thought…"

His eyebrow rose. "That's nothing new that I need to know."

Her eyes narrowed at the boy. "Jacqueline told Kim that Dr. Stein and Miss Mjolnir were in your dorm-room."

Soul glanced over his shoulder. "I don't see an old man and Mjolnir. Do you?"

Maka's irritation seemed to roll off her, met by an uninspired, unmotivated boy. "Well?" She couldn't help but sneak a peek. There was, to her, no evidence the incident according to Kim had ever happened at all. She bit her lip and glanced down the hall. "May I come in?"

Soul leaned against the hinge of the door and opened it the rest of the way, "Be my guest." The girl couldn't ignore the fact that the dorm was already dirty, despite boxes half-opened stack atop one another. He'd only been in the room and had managed to mess it up. "Don't mind the clutter or whatever. Just moving in, you know the deal." He shut the door behind her as she walked past.

Both hands were shoved into his pockets as he leaned up against the door. Maka turned around to look at him. He seemed oddly ill at ease, almost as if he'd seen this sort of thing coming. "Why is your window open?" Soul shrugged. He walked through his mess of clutter over to the window opposite the door, in what functioned as a TV room. He slid it shut. "What did Jacqueline see, Soul?"

His red eyes met hers. "Who's that again?"

She sighed. "Did you go to sleep?" His clothes were slightly wrinkled, but, given the state of his room, she was inclined to think the only reason his clothes had been neat this morning was that it'd been given to him as such.

"And what does that have to do with anything?" He asked, turning around to face her again. He seemed perfectly content to stand amongst the clutter. She preferred to stay near the door where the chaos of the moving-in ceremony was at a minimum. Who knew if he'd even cleaned the floors before dumping his stuff everywhere.

Her green eyes met his. "You were in a dream I had."

Soul looked at her impassively; his eyes half-lidded. "What a compliment." He seemed to have something else to say, to her, but stopped midway through the sentence.

She blinked at him. Well, this was not going quite as planned. "It's not!" She clenched her fists. "Don't you understand?! Anything?! When I say 'I dreamed' you're supposed to comment about that! Or help out! Why can't you be useful?!" She wished she could have bitten back the last part, but all she could do was watch as the words struck him.

His whole body spelled anger, far more reaching than she could've ever thought. "You want useful, Maka? Go study your ass off for schooling that'll never matter to anyone. Go read books and forget the real world. Drown yourself in words. I don't care." He walked to the single bedroom, which was linked by a thin door. It slammed shut. Maka took a step forward, hand raising as if she could tell him what she wanted through the gesture, but Soul was through the door, and quite clearly not talking to anyone.

Maka spun on her heel, regulation shoes barely making a sound as she passed the coat hanger by the door. Tears prickled at the corner of eyes. As she walked by and out the door, she couldn't quite shake the faint smell of smoke that clung to the cloth.

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A/N: _ I guess school starting back up means I have more time to write fanfiction?

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Next Chapter:

"I don't wanna sleep,

I don't wanna dream,

'Cause my dreams don't comfort me

The way you make me feel."

-Skillet, "Comatose"