A/N: This is very loosely based off Ray Bradbury's short story "All Summer in a Day" because reasons. It's much happier, though. Enjoy!
The sun never shined in the desert. She'd been told that's all it did once, long ago. But now there was nothing but rain. Days and nights and months and years of endless rain. The salt flats became a salt lake, the desert plants rotting and waterlogged.
All day, the meteorologists were abuzz on the radio. For the first time in seven years, the sun would finally make an appearance. They'd been promising for weeks, saying the atmospheric conditions were shifting, that the clouds would break and bright golden rays would pierce through, making the sand sparkle like diamond. Long-dormant flowers would spring open, gratefully soaking up the light and painting the world in a riot of color.
Tomorrow would be the day, and Maka could not tear herself away from the windows, not even to read. She was fourteen years old, and the sun had only shone twice in her life - once days after she was born, and once when she was seven. She'd missed it when that witch Medusa locked her away in the closet as punishment for being too headstrong and asking too many questions.
Medusa didn't teach there anymore. Not since the other teachers found out about Crona.
Maka spread her fingers wide over the cool glass, watching the heat of her skin condense and leave a perfect print of her hand in its wake. Sid would probably scold her for leaving a mark, but it was her night on cleaning crew, anyway, so what did it matter? What did anything matter but seeing the sun?
Out of nowhere, a hand bonked her on the side of the head before its owner threw his arm around her shoulders.
"Whatcha doin', bookworm?" Black Star said, wiping a grubby finger over her handprint. "Supper's in five minutes. You can't eat ennui, so come join me for dumplings instead."
Maka shrugged him off. "I regret teaching you that word. I just don't want to miss it. Not even a minute."
Black Star playfully punched her bicep a shade too hard. Control had never been his strong suit. "You're not gonna miss it. If I have to reach up there and wrestle the bastard into submission to make sure you get your day in the light, I'll do it. Just watch."
She raised an eyebrow at him. "You're going to fight the sun now?"
He flexed. "If I gotta. It's just a basic yellow star, and you know I'm the biggest star."
Shaking her head, she pulled herself away from the window and walked down the hall toward the sound of the dinner chimes. "You ever heard of Icarus?" she said.
"Nope," he said, falling into step beside her. "Sounds like a foot fungus."
"Keep an eye on your wings, is what I mean," she said.
"Yadda yadda something wings. Race you to the servers!" He took off through the cafeteria door, pelting toward the line with such speed that she was certain he'd -
A resounding crash reached her from the other side of the room and she cringed, not at all jealous of the reprimands Black Star would be dealing with for the next week. She should probably give everyone a solid few minutes to calm down before she attempted to get her nightly meal.
She scanned the room, waving to Tsugumi and Meme before she spotted a boy slouched at a table in the corner by himself. He stretched out along the bench, back up against the wall, scratching something in a notebook. With a small smile, she made her way over.
"Scoot up," she said, and Soul pulled up his feet, his eyes never leaving his notebook as he worried the cap of a pen between his teeth.
Maka sat in the now-vacant bench seat. "Composing again?"
"Uhn," Soul grunted at her.
She folded her hands and waited patiently. Trying to get him to talk when he was in the middle of a brain wave never resulted in quality conversation, and it made him grumpy. It'd taken her a few months to learn that.
Soul was a transfer. He'd been at another institute, before, and he didn't like to talk about it, so she stopped asking. Two years ago, he showed up at Shibusen, sullen and alone, and they'd taken him in. Most of the students had been there all their lives, like Maka and Black Star. Soul was a new face, and a new face meant new stories.
Maka glanced around the room, twitching her foot. At last, Soul took the cap from his mouth and set his notebook on the table.
"You'll wear a hole in the floor," he grumbled.
In answer, she gently kicked at him under the table and stuck out her tongue. "You finish your meal already?" she said.
"Yeah. I wondered if you'd even be able to eat tonight."
She lowered her voice and leaned in closer, their arms nearly touching. "Tell me again?"
He gave a low laugh. "You've heard it a million times. Nothing's changed."
"Please," she said, making her eyes do the thing that always weakened his resolve.
It worked, and he sighed. "It's like a coin in the sky, big and bright," he said. "The air goes blue, more blue than you can imagine, and the clouds are soft and white instead of heavy and gray. It's so quiet without the rain falling everywhere, at least until everyone comes outside. Your skin warms up like you're sitting by a fire, but it's different. Like your body's drinking it up until it can't hold any more."
Maka closed her eyes and breathed in deep, trying to imagine it. She asked everyone for stories of the sun, but no one made her picture it better than Soul could.
"What does it smell like?" she whispered.
"Sweet," he said. "And warm. Like those berries hydroponics grows sometimes, but stronger and more... real."
She opened her eyes and turned her head. He'd sat up and leaned in closer to her while her eyes were closed, so they were only inches apart. Soul swallowed and looked down, and she couldn't be sure, but she thought she felt a little of that warmth he'd described.
Black Star plunked down in the seat across from them and dropped a plate in front of her with a clatter. Both she and Soul startled so badly they nearly toppled over backward.
"Damn it, Star," she spat at him.
Her honorary brother was already stuffing his face full of dumplings, but that didn't stop him from shifting his food to one cheek and garbling at her. "I brought you your dinner. You're welcome."
With a huff, she begrudgingly tucked in to her food. Soul and Black Star chatted and joked back and forth for most of the meal while she occasionally joined in when she wasn't eating. Soul's leg rested against hers under the table and she didn't think to move it.
After dinner, Black Star took off to meet Tsubaki for sparring practice while she and Soul did their chores, cleaning dishes and washing windows. She paused before wiping away the handprint she'd left earlier, staring out into the inky, rain-streaked night as if the sun might pop on like a light bulb.
"Tomorrow," Soul said softly.
"I know," she said. "I know."
He walked her to the dormitories and they paused outside the room she shared with Tsubaki. Sensing her nerves, Soul reached out and took her hand. It had become such a natural thing for them to do in the two years since he'd come that they barely noticed it anymore. They didn't have to ask what the other was thinking. They just knew.
"I'll come wake you at dawn," he said. "Promise."
She laughed, the sound high and tittering like a bird. "You never wake up at dawn. You barely wake up at noon."
"I will tomorrow," he said. "Okay?"
"Yeah. Okay."
He gave her hand a squeeze before letting go and slouching off to his own room. As Maka gathered her night things and ventured down the hall to the bathroom, she wondered if she'd be able to sleep at all.
Hours or seconds later, she woke with a start. None of the lights were on, and she heard Tsubaki's deep breathing nearby. The thinnest strip of gray-green beneath her door told her the day was coming soon. A knock sounded, a touch insistent, and she realized that's what had woken her.
In a flash, she rolled out of bed and whipped open the door. True to his word, Soul stood there, and he let out a snorting laugh and grinned when he saw her.
"Did you go to sleep fully clothed?" he asked.
"Of course I did," she said, breathless, as she craned her neck around him to check the windows, which were still depressingly dark gray. "If you think I'm wasting a second of sunshine, you're wrong."
"I figured," he said, holding up a toothbrush and a bottle of water for her, which she gratefully accepted. She brushed as they walked, her eyes continually darting to the windows.
The students gathered in the entry hall slowly over the next hour, their voices going from a gentle hum to a dull roar. Teachers strode among them, handing out precious sunscreen and lecturing everyone on its use, reminding them that their skin would be highly sensitive and burns could be dangerous. Maka thought it smelled like chemical-soaked bananas, but she didn't care.
As the morning stretched on, the chatter turned nervous.
"What if they predicted the wrong day?" Kilik whispered nearby.
"What if it doesn't come at all?" Harvar whispered back.
Maka's stomach twisted into knots as she pushed all such thoughts away. It would come. It had to come. She'd waited so long.
Soul put a hand on her shoulder and she gripped it.
Then, so imperceptibly that no one noticed at first, the voices began to die away. Perhaps it was the slightest change in the light, or a shift in the air. The hall went completely still, and Maka realized for the first time what this was: silence. True silence. As if all her life she'd been surrounded by static, and now the static disappeared.
The windows began to glow, and she held her breath.
The headmaster and her Papa threw the front doors open wide, and the students moved as a single body, filtering out the doors in wonder. The grayness of the morning shredded away, the clouds breaking up above their heads as they all turned skyward and saw, some for the very first time, strips of the purest blue.
Soul had been right. The world stood so still.
Then the last cloud burned away, and the sun spilled over the ground like liquid gold, sparking off the waterlogged sand and rushing toward them in the space of a heartbeat.
When it hit her skin, Maka gasped. No heat lamp, no fire, no blanket or touch could recreate this warmth. Her hair stood on end, her soul opening wide to drink in sundrops until it burst with joy.
From somewhere to her right, a bellowing whoop tore open the crowd's stupor and Black Star leapt eight stairs in a single bound. He hit the ground running, making for a field where the leaves and flowers were already unfurling into colors so bright it almost hurt to look at them.
In an instant, the crowd broke apart, laughter and howls shattering the quiet to a thousand pieces. Bodies moved like water all around them, parting like they were a rock in the middle of a river.
Then she and Soul were the only two people left standing at the entrance, eyes wide in wonder. In a true show of strength, Maka looked away from the light of life and straight into Soul's eyes. They glinted back at her.
"Ready for your day in the sun?" he said.
She nodded. It was all she could do.
And they walked, hand in hand, down the steps and into the light.