It wasn't exactly that she felt nervous. She'd always wondered what it would be like to watch Stein teach the moment she'd found out he was teaching at the Academy. He'd always been so quiet when he was younger that it would be a nice change of pace to see him actually interacting with students. She brought along a notepad to take whatever notes she felt she might need for later reference, whether they were on the class or Stein himself. But stepping into the vast classroom, scanning over the rows of students she could feel her palms growing clammy. Stein was seated at his desk sifting through papers she could only assume were for the class, not even bothering to look up in her direction. She didn't take it too personally, she'd spent years being ignored by him that it didn't even phase her anymore. Taking a deep breath she glanced over the students spotting Crona and Maka seated next to each other near one of the tops rows and figured it would be the perfect spot for her.

"Hello Maka, Crona. Would you mind if I took this seat?" Jennette said with a soft smile pointing to the empty space next to Crona.

Crona's eyes went wide, glancing between her and the seat before he nodded deftly and she slid in next to him.

"Good morning, Doctor. What brings you to our class?" Maka asked with a bright smile, she seemed awfully happy so early in the morning.

"Are you here for me?" Crona gulped.

"I'm sorry Crona, I'm just here to sit in on the class and take notes. Don't worry."

"Take notes? On Professor Stein?" Maka asked more quietly than before which she was thankful for.

"No, I'm here to take notes on the class Maka. The subject at hand, not any person in particular."

The realization that seemed to dawn on both Crona and Maka at the same time made her cheeks flush red from embarrassment. There she was, a graduated student of the Academy, taking classes over again because she had been too preoccupied with other things to keep herself in shape so to speak.

"You mean…you're here to take the class, Doctor?" Crona asked, the shock in his voice a little more than obvious.

"I'm afraid so. Now don't let me distract you, class is starting."

She pointed down to the front of the class where Stein was approaching the black board, chalk and notes in hand.

"Good morning class, today we will doing a basic review of the things you have learned so far this year," he demanding, tapping his chalk against the board when he was finished writing.

She could hear the entire class groan in protest and sank down in her seat knowing that the review was really for her, not them. At the very least Stein hadn't pulled her down to the front of the room to embarrass her in front of the entire class yet. Yet being the operative word…and embarrassment aside she sat diligently taking notes on every word that he said. It did give her more of an opportunity to see what he was like with the students and she was pleasantly surprised that he actually seemed at ease teaching. It was actually the most at ease that she had ever seen him. At first glance she had assumed that he wasn't fit for teaching and now she wasn't exactly sure anymore. She should have known that this was something he was suited perfectly for. Watching Stein teach was definitely worth the humiliation of having to repeat classes.

"All right, we're currently working on learning how to do serial soul resonance, but I think we'll take a break from that today to accommodate our new student," Stein sighed pulling a cigarette from his coat, nodding at Jennette who waved sheepishly at the group before her.

"Hello," she muttered.

"Isn't she the crazy Doctor? Why is she here?" one of the boys shouted, frowning at her as if she were some kind of obstacle.

"Black*Star, don't be rude!" Maka snapped shaking her fist at the blue haired boy.

"Now, now Black*Star, this actually has something to do with you, so pay attention," Stein insisted, flicking his lighter open to light the cigarette in his mouth.

Apparently this group of students were taking extra time after school to learn as much as they possibly could about serial soul resonance. Jennette could remember when they had learned about it in her later years at the Academy and it wasn't an easy thing to do.

"What do you mean this has to do with me?" Black*Star asked turning to peer at Stein. "I'm not crazy, why would she have anything to do with me?"

"You're missing the point. This has nothing to do with her profession. I never thought I'd hear myself say this, but Jennette has a lot to learn from your Black*Star," Stein muttered looking over at her with a tired look on his face. It was probably just her imagination, but he looked more pale than normal.

"Ha! That's an understatement! Everyone has a lot to learn from me, I'm the greatest person here!"

"Indeed, come at me with your soul wavelength Black*Star. I need her to see how it's done."

"What? That's a waste, you're just going to negate it again."

"That's the point, so that no one gets hurt."

There was a slight undertone of disappointment to that statement that she tried to ignore. Instead she decided to actually focus on the loud mouthed student, watching with tight eyes as he charged full speed at Stein. As much as she tried to tell herself that there was no way this child could hurt Stein the second that his hands collided with Stein's chest causing him to stagger, she felt a hiccup in her heart rate.

"Black*Star Big Wave!" the boy shouted.

Aside from the initial stagger Stein didn't flinch in the slightest in response to the massive soul wavelength blast they boy emitted, it was actually quite impressive that such a young student had such a large wavelength and could harness it properly. It made her feel even more useless than before.

"You see Jennette? If Black*Star is able to do this kind of thing, it should be no problem for someone who has previously graduated the Academy. How proficient were you with it at that time?" Stein asked, watching Black*Star sulk away from him.

"I could project it very well, it use to come in handy on tests days. You mean to tell me that you really never noticed?"

He simply shrugged moving closer to her slowly, she didn't think that he had really been ignoring her that much. Or maybe it was just that he didn't care to notice anyone that he wasn't interested in dissecting.

"At any rate, let's give it another go shall we? The rest of you can go and work on your serial resonance now while I try to get Jennette squared away," he said waving his hand for the students to go on by themselves.

Maka gave her a hopeful look before she followed her partner and the other teammates farther out onto the grounds to work on their resonance. Faced with being along with Stein, trying to get her soul wavelength to work again wasn't exactly something that she was looking forward to given the fact that she had nearly sat on him the last time. But she stepped forward despite her fears, laying her hands on his chest praying that she could make it work. He was absolutely right, if a student was capable of it, it should have been no problem for her.

"How many days has it been since you started going through his classes?" Spirit asked dropping himself into one of her chairs in front of her desk.

"Five days? I've lost count," she groaned dropping her head on the desk with a loud thud.

"And you haven't made any progress? Not even a little bit?"

"I think I managed to shock Crona in yesterdays session but he just mistook it as me trying to poke him. Ragnarok is still trying to convince him that I'm trying to brainwash him. So I think that's a no, Spirit."

"Maybe you're overworked. You spend all morning in classes, then have a session with Crona which can't be very relaxing, then you spend after school working with Stein one on one…"

"Then I go home and work on it even more. I'm working on a very limited time frame here Spirit. There was never even a guarantee that it was going to work in fist place and now that I can't even project anymore, he's running out of time. If all I'm doing is sacrificing some sleep to help him, I don't mind."

"Yeah, but what if your lack of sleep is contributing to the fact that you haven't made any progress. I think you should go home and get some real rest."

She nodded lightly, her forehead scraping over her desk as she moved her head. Hearing Spirit stand up, she sat up slowly, barely able to see over her nameplate to peer at him. She expected to see him frowning at her, but he was smiling.

"You can do this Jen. We all know you're working really hard to help him. Don't burn yourself out over it. Even though he may never say it, the fact that you're here for him means something," he chuckled giving her a thumbs up before he left her office.

She loved how Spirit could keep reassuring her even though things didn't look so great for their friend. It was more than obvious that he was becoming more and more irritable and while he never said anything to her, she could tell that he was starting to get frustrated with her. Taking a deep breath she collected her note pad and started off for Stein's afternoon class. As usual things were pretty lively before the bell rang, all of the students up out of their seats talking to one another about missions and new skills they were hoping to master. She practically had to pull herself up to her seat next to Crona, nearly collapsing onto the bench out of sheer exhaustion. She knew that Spirit was right, she needed rest if she hoped to get anywhere with her training. By the time Stein finally rolled into the classroom right after the bell she could hardly keep her eyes open, leaning on her hand staring blankly down at the black board like a zombie. Stein thankfully didn't seem too focused on her, going on and on about their serial resonance training and how they all needed to work on it if they ever hoped to even stand a chance against the enemies to come. It was between that point and something about a spider organization that she dozed off. At first she was only halfway aware of his smooth voice before it stopped all together and then the sound of chalk against the black board was all she could hear. If he was busy writing on the black board there was no way that he could notice she was napping. Then came the whispering. At first it was scattered, she was sure that it was just the usual students trying to sneak in a conversation until finally it was prominent enough for it to be more than just random students.

"Why is he tolerating this? Shouldn't he be keeping them focused?"

"Doctor! Doctor Reins, wake up."

Maka's voice was a hushed whisper next to her ear but she waved her hand at the sound as if to shoo away a fly. If this was the only sleep that she got all day she didn't want it to be disturbed so she could focus more on the one on one session with Stein later.

"Doctor Reins, I think something is really wrong with the Professor!" Maka hissed causing her eyes to snap open.

She sat upright so quickly that Crona actually flinched away from her, her eyes instantly searching for Stein. She was afraid that she would find him towering over some poor student with a scalpel grinning madly. But there he stood at the black board, his back to the class still writing away. But what he was writing was the problem. She remembered the scribbles from the notes in his lab, eyes and little spider like creatures in multi colored chalk covering half of the normal notes he had already put up on the board before she'd fallen asleep. She was on her feet before she realized it working her way down to the front of the class. The closer she got to him the more she could hear the unintelligible mumbles he was making, he wasn't even aware of where he was or what he was doing.

"All right class, I need for everyone to take your notes with you to the library and study over serial soul resonance there. If you feel it would benefit you more, feel free to take your practices to the school grounds," she said loudly turning back to face the class. At first they all stared at her as if they didn't understand what she was saying. "Now!"

Shouting seemed to get them motivated, all of the students rushing to pack away their books and stampeding out of the classroom shooting concerned looks in Stein's direction. Maka and Soul hesitated at the door as if they really didn't want to leave her alone but she nodded at them ensuring them that she would be fine. Once they were alone she turned back to Stein who was still scribbling away on the black board, small words she could make out along the lines of dissect and rules.

"Stein?" she mumbled taking a small step toward him.

He didn't answer her, she hadn't really expected him to. The closer she got to him, the more she wished she had told Maka to go and find Spirit, but she was sure that they wouldn't have made it back in time. She had to snap him out of it herself before something dangerous happened.

"Franken, please, look at me…" she sobbed stepping closer still.

He stopped writing suddenly, his head turning toward her so quickly that she jerked to a stop beside him, her hand outstretched toward his preparing to stop him from writing. At first glance he seemed perfectly fine, frowning at her with those blank jade eyes.

"What is it? Shouldn't you be in your seat?" he asked, his voice still as calm as it had been when the class started.

"All of the students are gone, Stein. I sent them away."

She gestured to the empty seats his frown growing more pronounced as he realized he was teaching to an empty class.

"You don't have the authority to do that, Jennette. We have to work on this immediately or they will be defenseless," he demanded looking back at her.

"Stein, look at your board…"

She could see the irritation on his face, but he turned to glance up at the black board none the less, the chalk in his hand falling to the ground, shattering with a small tick. It was as if he was just realizing what he'd been doing. The shock was actually painful for her to watch as he stumbled back into his desk, leaning against it for support. She didn't know what to say, she had no words that could comfort him as she watched him running his hands through his hair.

"We really have to get that wavelength of yours working. I'm not sure how much longer I can keep this up. How much longer I can stay teaching," he choked, his hands covering his face.

"I'm trying Stein, I just-"

"Well you're not trying hard enough!" he snapped causing her to flinch back from him.

Nearly the second it was out of his mouth he was already staring up at her with a regretful look. She knew that it wasn't him talking, it was the madness, the frustration of being powerless to stop what was happening to him. She felt it too. But it didn't stop it from hurting.

"I-I didn't mean that, Jennette," he whispered glancing down at the floor unable to look her in the eye.

"I know that you don't, Franken. I'll get it, I'll work harder. You need to stop worrying, it's only putting more stress on you. I'll borrow Spirit from now on and use him for practice. There's no sense in you wasting time with me when you should be resting."

She turned to the board, grabbing the nearest eraser to remove the scribbles after she gave them a once over. None of it seemed to have a reason or rhythm to it. Complete chaos. That was all the Kishin was capable of. The door to the classroom burst open just as she was erasing the last eye, Spirit stumbling into the room out of breath. Of course she should have known Maka would go to find her father…

"Jen, Stein…is everything all right?" he panted.

"It's fine Spirit. I have it under control," she insisted, plastering on a fake smile that made her feel very much how Stein looked.

It took longer than she liked for her and Stein at assure Spirit that everything was fine. She had to stand with him on the steps of the Academy waving at Stein who was heading home for the evening. They had all agreed they needed more sleep before they continued with her training. Every step that he took away from her was harder to watch than the one before. She was losing him too quickly.

"Jen, what really happened in there?" Spirit asked turning to gaze at her, knowing there was more to it than she was saying.

When she turned to look up at him she couldn't stop the tears that welled up in her eyes from rolling down her cheeks, erupting into a fit of sobs, grasping his arms as tightly as she could. All of the frustration and worthlessness that she had felt over the past week finally boiling over.

"I'm useless Spirit! Coming back here hasn't helped him at all, I can't do this," she wailed clinging to him as he wrapped his arms around her.

She expected him to encourage her again, to tell her that it was going to be all right even though she didn't feel that it really would be. But he just stood there with her on the steps, listening quietly as she cried, the only comfort he could offer her was a shoulder to cry on. They were running out of options.