Chapter 29: Fear of Failure; A Muted Meister?
Over the next few days we trek through almost every inch of the park searching for odd phenomena that might indicate that there has been some kind of enchantment, temporal rift, or curse placed on an area, but we encounter nothing of the sort and nothing with any strong imprint of evil about it. We find nothing. No more demons. No Falconer. No crazy half-bird people.
I'm rolling with this, but Maka is suffering. She is casting her Soul Detection ability all her waking hours and it's draining her energy and her humor. It's now day five of the trip and I've run out of chocolate to give her. That's never a good sign.
Two days ago, she apologized for not being more affectionate and I told her that it wasn't a big deal, because it isn't. We're on assignment and when we've got a job to do that comes first. No big whoop, after all it's not like either of us is used to make-out sessions while we go soul hunting and while it was super nice, I wasn't upset to have things revert back to our old habits. As long as at the end of this mission we do a little 'celebrating' I'm happy.
Then yesterday, I didn't even get a good morning kiss or a good night kiss and she barely talked to me. She's in one of those moods she gets into where her meister responsibilities trump her sanity which means I'm going to have to step in to try to get her to realize that she's working herself too hard.
This morning, we've been hiking for three hours and the entire time she has been at least five paces ahead of me. Were it not for her Soul Detection I'm confident I could have vanished and she wouldn't have noticed. I see a large fallen log right by the path that shows evidence of being used as a seat by other trekkers and I figure that now is a good time to work on my meister's…issues.
"Maka, how bout you come sit down?" I open my arms wide indicating that she is welcome to join me on the log. She glances my way, but turns away and continues mumbling to herself. I try again. "Maka, you need a break." The murmurs get louder but I still can't make out what she's saying. Now it's my turn to grumble. I stand up and walk over to her and gently put a hand on her shoulder.
"Maka, I think-"
She whirls around, her eyes blazing with fury. "Why can't I figure this out, Soul?"
I shrug. I'm not entirely sure what she's meant to be figuring out.
"And why doesn't it bother you?" she asks me.
I offer no explanation as I don't know what she's talking about and I'm confident that even if I did know what she was talking about whatever I would say would be met by anger. It's not like this is the first time I've seen her like this and I suspect that this workaholic, obsessiveness is something a lot of meisters succumb to at one point in their career or another, but I've never seen her this bad.
I try smiling at her. "Maka, you know how sometimes I get really frustrated with our homework and you tell me to walk away from it for a little bit-"
"This is totally different, Soul! And don't you even hint that I need to calm down."
"Ok! Ok! You just seem a little tense…" I try a different approach. "You want a massage or something?" I wiggle my long, agile piano-player fingers.
She glares at me. "That will not help! I need to figure this out!"
I sigh. "Sorry, I was trying to help. There's no reason for you to jump down my throat-"
"Well, unlike you I'm working!"
Oh, this is bullshit. I tell her so and she doesn't like it.
"I don't treat you like shit when I'm having a bad day!" I shout at her.
"I'm not having a bad day-"
"Well, this certainly doesn't seem like a good one to me!"
"I'm working. It's what we meisters do!"
Oh, she did not just say that! "Excuse me, Miss Full-of-Yourself, but for your information I have done all the navigation on this trip, prepared almost all the meals, and-"
"Oh, do I need to start doing that stuff, too? Am I not doing enough?"
Enough with the nice, understanding approach; I should have known that wouldn't work. Maka isn't one to respond to subtlety. I march up to her and stick my face right up in hers.
"Maka, I am your partner and I am telling you that you are out of control. You need to listen to me." I shout right into her face while staring into those gorgeous green eyes of hers desperately hoping that somewhere in that ginormous brain of hers my words will reach a synapse that is still willing to listen to me. She is quiet and I think I may be getting through. "Maka, you're shutting me out and what's worse is you're insulting me. You need to knock it off."
Maka continues to glare at me, but doesn't say anything and then I see two streams of tears rapidly glide down her face, one from each eye.
"Oh, for Shinigami's sake! Maka!" I wrap my arms around her but she doesn't return the hug. All she does is stand there sobbing silently while I try to bring her in for a snuggle. It's not an easy thing to do. She's stiff as a board and strong; it's as though I'm embracing a pillar that I suddenly feel the need to get up close and personal with. It's very awkward and more than a little ironic considering how cozy we were with one another a few short days ago. "Maka," I bend over and look skyward toward her face. "Do you think maybe you could talk to me?"
"I can't do it!" she shouts and a wave of panic comes over me, because I'm not sure I want to know what she means. I release her and take a step back to give her a little space.
"Can't do what…exactly?" I ask, my voice trembling like a coward.
Here it is; the moment I've feared, the moment when she says that we tried it and it doesn't work for us to be partners and lovers and we need to do something different moving forward. I feel sick, and I had thought things were going great until this…I'm an idiot.
"Soul, I can't find Falconer!" She admits with a tone of finality like she has sentenced someone to imminent execution.
"Falconer?" I wave my arms around wildly. "This is all about Falconer?!"
She nods, still crying. "What did you think? That I was breaking up with you or something?"
I stand there in stunned silence.
"You didn't…?" Her eyes meet mine and I look away quickly, unwilling to let her read my emotions. "Soul, how could you think that?" She grabs me and hugs me, suddenly no longer unwelcoming of my touch.
A single tear rolls from my eye onto her shoulder, but I'm hoping she doesn't notice. I don't want her to know how insecure I am and how scared I am of being without her love. I quickly put on my 'cool' face and say, "Gee. I don't know, Maka. You've completely shut me out the last couple days. You keep mumbling to yourself, not sharing anything with me. You barely look at me, let alone kiss me or something. And then you start with this stupid I'm –the-meister-so-my-job-is-the-hardest crap. What was I supposed to think?"
"Soul, I'm sorry. I really am. I've been under a lot of strain."
"And I know that and I'm trying to be understanding, but when I say you need to take a break, you need to take a break. I'm not trying to lure you into bed or something. I'm trying to take care of you as your partner…and as your boyfriend. I love you, Maka. I don't like seeing you like this." She buries her face in my chest.
"I'm really sorry."
"It's ok. Just don't pull that crap about me not pulling my weight because you know I do. I just don't get the most glamorous jobs sometimes."
"I'm sorry."
"Quit saying you're sorry. It's fine. You just need a rest."
"It's just so frustrating that I can't figure out where Falconer is hiding."
I shrug. "Maybe he's not here. Maybe Lord Death's intel sucks. This is the man who hired a witch to be the school nurse at his witch hunting school and never caught on."
She sighs. "But…"
"No, buts. I'm going to tell him that unless they have gotten some more info that confirms we're in the right place we're taking the next train home."
"I don't want to fail."
"This isn't our failure. It's the people who sent us here and remember everything we do is the two of us doing it together. Even if we did screw up, it was 'us' screwing up not 'you'. That's one of the reasons meisters and weapons work as teams. Now, please, come sit down."
Holding her hand, I walk back to the log and we both sit down. She snuggles up to me, but I can tell she's still not relaxed.
"Is there something else you want to talk about? Something else bothering you?" I ask her while slipping a piece of her hair behind her ear.
"There's something about those demons that's weird."
"Well, maybe that's all the more reason for us to return to DC. We can have everybody take a look at that demon soul we captured. Maybe they can help us to pinpoint what's off about it."
"Oh, Soul, you're so smart."
Oh, Death, she's crying again! When was the last time she got all weepy like this…could it be here time of the month? Or is all this Soul Detection frying her brain? I wish I had more chocolate…
"Look, I'm gonna talk to Lord Death right now and tell him we're coming home."
I pull a small mirror out of the front pocket of my backpack and huff my hot breath onto it to fog it up, write the numbers that enact whatever kind of enchantment makes this bit of magic work and butta boom butta bing!
"Well, hello, Soul! I wasn't expecting to hear from you for another few hours. Something wrong?"
"No, nothing serious, Lord Death, but I'm requesting that Maka and I head home. We've found no evidence that Falconer's headquarters is here in the redwoods and Maka's exhausted. She's been Soul Detecting for days and-"
Maka swats me to indicate I don't have her permission to elaborate on her mental state. I groan and continue, "Yeah, anyway, I wanted to let you know my intention, with your blessing, is to head back home today."
"Well…I'm sorry to hear that your efforts have been fruitless, but I just received news that we have a confirmed sighting of Falconer in Oregon. I'd like you to go there."
"Confirmed?" A part of me wants to tell him to shove it.
Maka skooches her face in so that Lord Death can see her, too, and says, "We'd love to."
I sigh. Great. Now we're going to Oregon…
