Disclaimer: I don't own Soul Eater.

The fourteenth!

"a beat, a rest"

None of this makes sense; the two of you standing there, staring at each other the way you are, like this is the end of the world and one little movement would bring you both crashing down, falling from grace. Her feet are set and steady, but her eyes are not as you look back with your own, knowing that they'll show her that you're drowning in your own vulnerability, too.

This stalemate will not pass. It's your fault, in a way, in the same way that she is to blame. You should have seen this coming; it was, always had been, inevitable that you would be stuck here, neither of you refusing to move or speak and risk ruining this before you had even gotten started.

You're pretty sure she's thinking the same things that you are, scared of the same things you are. Fear of failure is one. Fear of success is another. Everything is full of contradicting terms and misdemeanors that aren't exactly helping your situation. This, now, is the part the movies always skip, right after every thought, every freaking emotion you've ever felt toward each other has been thrown out into the open.

You want this part to be over. You want something to move you, but you're stuck in this gray area where there is no clear path for you to follow. What are you supposed to say next?

She doesn't know either. That's the one thing between you two that is painfully obvious right now. Everything else isn't.

You don't even remember how this whole thing started. All you can recall is there being a fight – some random, unprecedented fight – and all of a sudden you were saying the things you swore never to say aloud. And the craziest thing was that she was shooting those kind of things right back, like she couldn't take it anymore, like everything she'd locked inside had finally burst free of its chains.

And now – what else was there to do? You can't go back to what you used to be, not now, maybe not ever, but how are you supposed to move forward, or even fall backwards into nothing?

Just as you are about to give into the urge to run out that closed door and the one you've just metaphorically opened, her astounding, miraculous courage sparks up and she says, voicing the very question neither of you want to think about, "What do we do now?"

You don't break her unsure gaze as you shake your head. "I don't know," you say. There's a long, unbearable pause. "But I...I don't regret saying...what I said."

Your heart pounds as she replies, "I don't either."

"Then," you begin, stepping towards her. Her head tilts up and her hair falls out of her face and you're hit again with that inhuman feeling you get whenever she's within arm's reach. "What's left?"

She raises a hand and presses it against your heart, her fingertips caging in its pounding rhythm. "I don't want to lose you."

You don't say that you thought you lost her when you said all those things, that you had ruined everything you both had ever worked to built with five words. You don't tell her that you don't know how to be with her like you want to, because yeah, no one else has made your heart beat and head spin like she has. But what you do say is, "I am nothing without you."

Red stains her cheeks, and your smile doesn't reach your lips, instead stopping and dying in your eyes. After a beat, she asks, heartbreakingly soft, "Will we fall apart?"

There is no "what if." There is no hypothetical, no maybe or maybe not, no way for you to say that you just have to take the chance. It's yes or no, it's will we or won't we, and the scared way she asks it makes you think of every other love story gone wrong and every moment you ever argued with her. The answer is clear in your head, though, no matter how much you try to unseat it, and after all these years, you know it will never change.

So you say simply, "No."

Her mouth falls open just a little, her lips parting. "Soul."

"I want to be your last first kiss," you say, leaning just a little bit closer. That's another thing you thought you'd never get a chance to tell her. It's sad, in its own way, how much you need her, how much you want her to never leave, to always stay. Your eyes flick down to her lips and you can smell her shampoo. "I don't want you to be with anyone else...I don't want to live my life trying to fight this – you – any longer."

She looks at you and you try to keep your head out of the clouds, keep your heart under control, but that's been so impossible lately that you all but give up. "I want you to be," she says. "I just...I'm scared."

There it is. After all these years and every last drop of blood you spilled and drew and all the monsters from hell you've stared down together, nothing much scares her anymore. But this, this – the beginning, the downfall of this, of everything – is what she fears. It strikes you like a blow to the chest.

"I'll never hurt you," you say after a long pause. "I'll always be here if you want me...If you want me to love—"

Her hand comes up to cover your mouth lightly, stopping you before falling away. "I want you to," she tells you, and that's all she needs to say. Questions litter the air, like you and I? and forever? but the silence crushes them with a wave of its hand. You dip your head down, your mouth only an inch from hers, but you stop. Trembling, she waits in anticipation, knowing you stopped for a reason.

"Maka."

"Yeah?"

"This needs to be done right," you whisper. "We need to do this right."

"I don't know how," she says. There's nervous fear in her voice amidst the peppermint taste of her breath, her beauty. "We don't know how."

"But?" you ask, breathless, anxious, your crimson eyes lingering on her eyelids. There's so much hidden behind her closed eyes, like memories of conversations that you so purposely started to get her attention, to get her to look at you, to get her to open her heart – not her soul, she's been there, you've done that – to you, just for a little while. And now, when everything has come to its ultimate end, its ultimate beginning, her soul falls against yours, into yours. It's amazing, nothing you've ever felt before, like she's giving you a little bit of herself for you to keep.

After a shared breath, she opens her eyes and looks at you and you can't stop yourself; your lips meet in a fragile promise. At the feeling you get and the way your head spins at this simple little touch, you want to slam your bare fists against every clock, tear of the hands of time and stay in this moment forever, because you want to stay in this moment for the rest of your life. But, instead, you get the next best thing – the incredible way she responds to you and gently kisses you back.

You close your eyes, inhaling all of her, because now you have nothing left to hide.

The theme for this one was "Standing Still."

Because I love your thoughts,