She notices him letting down his guard around her, the week or so that they stay at the mall. During the day, they find stupid games to play to kill the time.

On the second day, she finds a whole bunch of black sharpies and draws a giant chess board on the middle of the white floors in the food court. On the third day, she finds one item each corresponding to one chess piece, and sets out the game – which involves locating 16 ceramic pots for pawns, things like display cabinets for rooks, 2 dead potted plants for the king and – this she's most proud of – 2 small white dragon statues for horses.

Soul takes one look at her efforts and raises an eyebrow quizzically. "You do realise that playing this game is going to give us both a hernia dragging around the heavier pieces, right?"

She ignores him.

On day 4 she destroys him at chess.

"Nerd," he tells her.

"Idiot." She quips straight back. "Although, at least you knew the rules. Rematch tomorrow?"

"Maybe," he chuckles. "I think taking your bishop threw my back out…" he complains, grabbing it for dramatic effect.

She grins. "Maybe we can play checkers, instead."


On day 5, Soul decides he's stir-crazy and needs to get out. "Maka, I'm gonna go hunting today," he tells her. "Do you think you'll be okay?"

She makes a face. "Just because I freaked out once, doesn't mean it's going to happen again. Chill. Go hunt. Kill animals, I don't care. I'll find something to do to occupy myself, I promise."

He's gone for the better part of what she assumed is around ten hours, but who's counting? She's fine for the first few, any who. Hunting takes a long time, she gets it. What she doesn't understand is how he leaves with so few weapons- a concern that especially pops to mind when she finds that he's left his hunting gun behind, propped up against a broken glass window right at the entrance of the mall.

The more she thinks about it, the more it bugs her.

The next few hours, she spends flip-flopping between trusting him and not trusting.

There was something he was keeping from her, that much was for certain. But why, that was the question. Did he mean to cause her harm?

Humans didn't necessarily all become good once zombies entered the picture. In the first year after the virus hit, there were factions splitting all over town. People killing people, zombies killing people, people killing zombies.

It went on.

Even after most of the weak ones had been weeded out and only the survivalists and the lucky remained, there were still bad eggs. People so consumed by rage or sadness at having lost everything that they took things from others, too.

Soul didn't seem like that type. He didn't seem like any archetype, honestly. She was a classic survive-by-shutting-in trope, she knew that. Lonely and desperate but sensible, at least.

He wasn't going to live that kind of life, she could tell that much. He liked going out, moving from place to place, searching for other survivors; getting his small bursts of happiness from wherever they might come from.

She's aware that if she wanted to stay with him, she'd have to embrace that.


She hears the rumble of the Jeep engine come back into focus – it's surprising how much you can hear individual details when a town's hustle and bustle was completely still.

Some small part of her that had been tense for the past few hours relaxes; the part of her that didn't know what she'd done if he didn't come back, if she had to be alone again.

She packs up a meagre amount of possessions – a few clothes, the remaining scraps of non-perishable items in stock cupboards, those things. She knows how scarce they are, she knows that they have to move on soon.

He brings back some stuff for her arm. Some antiseptic, some bandages, some painkillers. Valium, most importantly.

She's not sure whether she should feel offended or not, so she sends a look his way.

He shrugs. "I'm not suggesting that you start taking it. It's just… it's something that's good to have if we're in an emergency."

She sends him a wry half-smile. "Thanks," she hesitates. "But I thought you were gonna leave me the first chance you got?"

Soul's eyes glaze over and he shrugs. "I want to make sure that you're okay first."

Her eyes turn to disappointment and she looks away. "Soul… I'm not okay. I was catatonic. I had a panic attack at the worst possible time to start having panic attacks. I was hallucinating, before you came along. I'd been cooped up in that house on my own for a year. A year."

She knew that she'd be forced to admit this at some point. She expects Soul to wave it off and shrug nonchalantly, like he always does.

"There… are other survivors. Maybe we can find some people, and then you won't be on your own."

"Do you want to be on your own?" she asks, pressing the subject.

"I don't," he pauses. "I just…"

"Don't want me around? You don't like me? Just admit it, Soul." She scowls. "I mean, it's ironic. The last two people stuck on the earth and you can't even stand to be around me. You'd rather be on your own than happy!"

His eyes turn wide as she flings accusations his way. "Maka, you're safe not around me, I swear. And we're not the only two people-"

"How can you say that? You're immune to the virus, you're clearly good at hunting and fighting, you clearly know your way round Colorado. How can you say I'm not safe here!"

"Because I'm the one who slashed your arm open, okay!" he admits, frustrated.

Maka blinks and processes this. "O-okay."

"I didn't realise that you were in the middle of the chaos and I went in just slashing like crazy." he corrects himself. "I was upset. I saw you and… I've felt bad about hurting you because of my own problems ever since."

She frowns at him and then a laugh escapes from her lips. "You know that I figured that out, right? I don't care. You didn't mean to do it, and you've been helping ever since. How could I blame you for that?"

He backs away and shakes his head, refusing this. In her head, Maka realises that he's more screwed up than she thought- maybe not as much as her, but he's got his neuroses.

She steps up close to him and places her forearms gingerly on his shoulders. "I don't blame you. I'm grateful. And I want us to stick together." She says softly.

He doesn't back away, but he doesn't look her in the eye either. "Wherever I go, people die. You're better off staying put or finding somebody else to hang out with."

"I like you."

He gives her a strange face and then his mouth contorts into a laugh. "God, you're persistent. Has anyone ever told you that?" he chuckles. "It's lucky I'm a fraction less stubborn than you."

They regard each other for a second and Maka smiles, sticking out a hand.

"That's a deal?"

"I didn't sign a contract…"

"We'll stay together, then."

He nods to her injured arm. "I've a feeling that this benefits you more than me, nerd."

She shakes her head. "I'm surprisingly resourceful, usually. Hence why I survived for so long. I'm not dead weight, I promise. And if I am ever dead weight… I'll leave you. That's another promise."

They carry on that way for something like half a week, but Maka knows what's coming, eventually. And it does come – exactly in the way that she expects.

He gets back from one of his random hunting trips with an uncharacteristic sense of urgency and tells her to quickly grab her stuff because they were leaving, now.

She hadn't put up much of a fight – she knew the consequences of getting too comfortable in any one given place. When they sensed that human, uninfected blood was hanging around – well, you were screwed.

Time to move on.

At least she'd have Soul by her side for a couple more weeks, or however long he fancied honouring their little deal.

She slings the backpack she's already packed over her shoulder and follows him as they quickly bustle their asses out of the mall and into his jeep. Not even sparing a single glance back to say goodbye, she gets ready to sprint as she hears Soul slamming open the deadbolt on the door.

"Quick to the car; follow me. They're waiting already."

He doesn't mince his words and she doesn't mince her steps.

"Get in the driver's – I need to start it up!" he yells now, and she quickly changes her direction towards the driver's seat as Soul sprints towards the engine.

There's more of them than she thought there would be – surrounding the building and walking faster; faster towards them in droves as their mad sprint to the car attracts attention.

Her nervous hands slip on the handle of the door and she swears under her breath, yanking harder and slamming the damn thing shut behind her after leaping into the seat.

Credit to him, Soul doesn't hesitate to hot-wire the thing. Maka hears the engine spark into gear and Soul scoots across the front bumper and slides neatly into the passenger seat beside her. Before he even shuts the door, he yells. "NOW!"

She slams her foot down on the accelerator with some gusto and tries hard not to smash into another car or a tree or something as the thing accelerates at a far quicker rate than her crappy old beater even managed to do.

"Shit, shit, shit," she swears over and over – for some reason, it helps her concentration.

"You're doing fine, keep going,"

"I'm going to crash it!" she wails as her steering becomes a little erratic. She's not used to driving at this speed, not when she's having to weave in and out of obstacles.

He appears to reassess the situation as the hoard of infected zombies seem to be gaining on them somehow. "I'll steer, just keep your foot on the gas!" he leans over and she surrenders the steering wheel to him.

He's clearly a more experienced driver, or maybe he just wasn't panicking as much as she was, because he manages to successfully manoeuvre them at least out of the parking lot and onto the road, only clipping one wing mirror in the process.

"Don't take your foot off the gas until I say."

She eyes the flashing fuel light with a little nervous swallow. She wonders if it was the wrong time to point out; or if he already knew and was just putting it to one side and hoping for the best.

It appears to be the latter because he reads her mind.

"It only started flashing a second before I got here. Should have twenty minutes left of fuel at this speed. Keep going."

Her heart flutters a little less quickly as this information sinks in and she feels relief. Taking a quick look in the rear-view mirror, she sees the crowd of zombies managing to tail them is quickly deteriorating.

"We're losing them, Soul," she says tensely.

"Keep going."

"I will," she grimaces. "I can steer now," she mentions – they're on a flat road.

"Okay." He leans back and surrenders the steering back to her, running a hand through his white hair. "Jeez. I'm gonna go grey."

She doesn't point that he's already kind of grey, and instead keeps her eyes locked on the road without a word.

"That was way too hairy for me. We need to be more careful. We should've left that place a few days before we did."

Maka bites her lip.

"But they couldn't have got in?"

"They're smarter than you think. They could have waited us out, waited until we were starving and there were thousands of them." Soul shakes his head vehemently. "You were lucky that never happened to you, staying on your own before."

She swallows and thinks hard about this titbit of information. "Maybe that's what happened, though. The night that I… that night that you saved my life." She muses. "Maybe they were waiting for me."

Soul shrugs as if it couldn't possibly matter and folds his arms.

They drive in silence for another few minutes and then Soul sighs. "Okay. I think we've fully lost 'em now."

Maka nods and bites her lip, easing her foot off from the accelerator hesitantly. The truck slows down by a fraction of a margin and so does her racing heartbeat. "We're still going to need to-"

"I know, I know…" he groans. "Ugh… okay, we'll keep going until we find another vehicle. There should be something we can drive in coming up soon."

They seem to pass by ten minutes of relatively empty country roads and Maka can feel Soul start to worry beside her. Strangely, she feels a sense of calm.

It's almost like – he's so chill, that usually, she feels obliged to do all the worrying for the both of them. But now that he was, quite righteously, freaking out, it was like her chance to do some rational, logical, calm thinking.

Although perhaps in this situation, panicking was the rational option.

"Godammit, what the hell is wrong with this backwater-ass town," he growls after a few more minutes of car-less road. "Shit. Keep going."

Maka feels the truck start to slow and she moves her foot further down on the gas pedal. It doesn't help. Her eyes flicker up to the empty, dirt road and then to her companion, whose currently cradling his face in his hands.

"Soul," she says warningly.

"DAMMIT!" he barks suddenly, making her jump.

The truck pulls to a stop and Maka looks at him for a second.

"Um…"

"Grab your shit and quickly. We're walking this."

"B-but-"

"What other option do we have, Maka?"

She flinches at the frankly aggressive use of her name. "We could wait in the car for a bit…" she suggests meekly, knowing that he's not going to go for it.

"I'm not sitting around waiting to be dinner in a can," he snarls and swings his car door open with his backpack on his back. He doesn't forget to grab his hot-wiring gear from the engine before they head off onto the road on foot, she notes.

Ever hopeful, she thinks wryly.

She can't blame him for this situation. If anything, this is her fault. She's the one who wanted him to keep still and stay in one place – she knew what she was signing up to when she asked to travel around with him.

It was to be a life of close shaves and dirt roads.

They trudge side-by-side in silence for the most part, with Maka making the odd comment about something they pass to which Soul would make some placating noise and then they'd lapse back into silence again.

She feels oddly cheery despite dire straits, and comments as such.

He snorts. "I'm glad someone is. Might as well have a good last day on the earth, huh?" he asks, then makes a face. "Sorry. Guess misery loves company."

"S'ok."

He sighs and rubs his forehead a little, stressed. "How is your arm?" he asks, looking at her bandages.

"A lot better, actually. I think I can probably take the bandage off soon."

"Yeah, well. Leave it on as long as you can. The last thing you want is an infection."

"Lot of those going around."

Soul snorts at her flippant comment and makes the first genuinely amused smile she's seen in about a week. "You've got a point, there."

There are about three trudges of quiet before Maka starts a conversation and Soul groans inwardly. Well, perhaps a little of it was extraneous, too.

"So, uh. Tell me about what happened to you after the… the infection. Who were you with? What did you get up to? Where did you go?"

He scowls and kicks a rock along the road. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Well, make something up, then. I won't exactly know the truth and besides: I don't care. I'm bored, and we might die soon. Just humor me, for God's sake."

He grimaces and sighs. "Fine, fine," he makes a faraway face. "I was in… Nevada. I... was based there, for work. The desert."

Maka frowns. "An army base in the middle of the Nevada desert?"

"Somethin' like that," he mumbles. "Most of us were okay, for a little while. I had these friends, I hung out with them for a while."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah… one of 'em was this quiet Japanese girl. Tsu, and Star. Star was… probably my best friend, although he was one of those guys that you would probably hate."

She frowns. "Why?"

Soul shrugs and smiles a little, but it's faded. "I guess he's just obnoxious. Loves himself too damn much. You… you're more down to earth, I think."

"Loves? Present? He's alive?" she wonders.

"I have no reason to think otherwise." Soul shrugs. "There was a bunch of us hanging together, for a short while after the first outbreak. From the academy."

"You were at military academy?"

"I was… I was sort of training a bunch of new recruits. It's… hard to explain." He bites his lip. "Look, you wanted the whole story. I'll try to tell it, but… it's going to sound a little hard to believe."

"Go ahead," she nods permissively, shooting him an encouraging smile.

"I… was fairly high up in the ranks, I guess you could say. So were these guys I was with, at the time."

"B-but you're only my age?"

"It… it didn't really work like that, in the branch I was in. It was more about skill than experience. There were more senior people than me, but… well, you don't need to know about that. Anyway, I found out, about the military's role. In… spreading this virus."

Maka blinks, taken aback. "What do you mean, their role?"

"I mean exactly what I said. The military – the government – whatever. The reason for the virus even existing is our department's fault. It was never supposed to get so out-of-control, but the virus got into the wrong hands, I guess." He scratches his head. "After everything went sideways, I was travelling with a bunch of those guys, from the academy. It was fine, for a bit. But then… people started dying. People started getting infected. It was a shitshow – well, you know how it went. You were there," he sighs. "I started asking questions, things that I really should have asked quite a while before. I found out… some shady stuff, that I didn't need to know. About how this crap all got started."

"Jesus, Soul." She breathes. "Is this really true?"

He shrugs. "You don't have to believe it. Like you said, we'll probably die soon." He props up a half-smile on his face. "Anyway, soon after that, I didn't really want to hang out with those guys anymore. It wasn't their fault, I guess. But… I was the only one who seemed to care. I wanted to go and kill the guy who formed the virus in his lab, in the first place."

Maka's eyes widen.

"And…?"

"I found him." Soul rubs his forehead. "I couldn't… I couldn't do it. After that, I couldn't be around anything that reminded of him, or the academy."

"So, you've been on your own since then?"

"Not exactly."

"Oh yeah?"

"A bunch of us split off together, kind of misfits. Another group from the academy. This was Star and Tsu, and a few others. I was… kind of in charge, I guess. I had a feeling that they all thought that I was kind of weird, which is probably true." He suddenly looks sombre and stares at the sky for a second, shielding his eyes from the sun. Maka realises that he's stopped in his tracks and she does so too, itching to find out more about his story.

"Ok?"

"Well, one day. One of the girls with us… Kim. She died. She got killed, by a group of assholes who were going around shooting and raiding other survivors." He says, tonelessly. "It was my fault."

"What happened?"

"I thought the coast was clear. I thought we were safe. I was wrong. She died."

Maka falls silent.

"They didn't so much kick me out as I left voluntarily. I couldn't be around anyone. I'm… not a leader. I'm not someone who people should trust to keep them alive. I failed Kim. I failed Ox, her boyfriend. I failed."

Maka swallows a thick ball of emotion that wells in her throat at hearing him talk so candidly. "It's okay, Soul," she offers, a little hoarsely. "You… you made a mistake."

He stares up at the sun for a few more seconds, and then stares at Maka. "You don't get it. This…this, is why you can't be around me for long. You're better off on your own, trust me. I can't protect anybody. If I had done something sooner… I could have saved everybody." He laments. "If I hadn't been so stupid and arrogant, and wrapped up in my own stupid nonsense, I could have saved Kim, and everybody else."

Maka puts a hand on his arm, which he yanks away.

"No, don't. You don't want to stay with me. If… if you get hurt, and it's my fault- I don't know what…" his throat is too thick with emotion and he has to clear it before continuing his train of thought. "I don't know what I'd do if that happened to me again."

"None of what happened is your fault, Soul. And even if it is… I still want to stay with you," she smiles encouragingly at him.

"Maka…" he starts, a low voice.

"No; listen. I don't need protecting. I can survive on my own. I survived up to this point without any help, that much should be obvious to you. No, what I need is someone to keep me sane, keep me from going crazy. I just want company. I don't need any sort of protection. If I die, I die. And that's on me, not you."

They share what Maka presumes to be a meaningful look (although with Soul one could never be too sure) and as a jolt of electricity runs through her spine, she realises that she's got one hell of a crush on the boy.

It comes as a little bit of a surprise. The boy wasn't exactly Prince Charming. He's surly. Uncommunicable. Stubborn. Mysterious. And Maka hadn't exactly trusted anything with a Y chromosome since before the apocalypse.

Why change that?

Well… he was handsome enough, for starters, she thinks wryly. Smart. Laissez-faire. Charmingly laconic. (Is that just 'uncommunicable' rebranded, she wonders?) He had saved her life a few times over now. And to top it off… he was the only other person left alive.

Did that count for anything?

"What is it?" he asks, looking a little uncomfortable. She's ejected from her thoughts suddenly, realising that she's probably been staring at him for a little too long without speech.

"Have you ever had a girlfriend?" she asks out of nowhere; too clunky of a segue to be remotely suave, which is what's she's aiming for.

He frowns and shrugs. "At school and at the academy I had… a lot of… well, you wouldn't call them girlfriends. Girls."

"You had a lot of girls?" she wrinkles up her nose.

He laughs. "Ah. Well, that came out bad. But to be honest, yeah."

There's a silence while they both process this.

"Anything serious?" Maka pushes further.

"I guess a few of them lasted a little longer than others. Nothing, really. After all this happened… I guess I ended up with Blair for a little while."

For some reason, that name really resonates with Maka, and she can't figure out why.

"Who was Blair? What was she like?"

Soul makes a face. "Annoying, for the most part. Not my type at all, it was more of a relationship of convenience. When I split off from the group neither of us took it too hard, I don't think."

"Not your type?" Maka wonders briefly if she would ever fit his 'type'. She doubts it.

He snorts. "You know. Gorgeous, but a little air headed. Not much going on up there, if you know what I mean," he trails off, and as she waits for more, he scratches his head. "Okay, okay. Let's see… she was a bit of a trickster, I guess. That was fun, sometimes. Sometimes it was really irritating. What else… she was a huge flirt, that much is true. She did it with anyone, sometimes without even meaning to, and she could have boys charmed in a matter of seconds. It was… a useful skill, on occasion."

Maka grins. "Gorgeous girl with a fun side? But she's not your type?"

He shrugs. "I like more serious girls."

Her heart flutters for a second but she cools it, tells herself she's being stupid.

"What about you?" he turns the tables back onto her, sick of talking about himself. "Any boyfriends? Or girlfriends, I don't discriminate." He raises his hands up placidly.

"Neither to report. A few of the guys I travelled with before took an interest in me but… again, not so much my type."

"And what is that?" he asks, more boldly than she had managed when it was her turn for that question.

"Ngh," she replies, muffling the noise with her lips. "I'm not sure, I guess. I just know they weren't it. Alistair was alright, I suppose. He was a little too… what's the word? Happy-go-lucky. His head was in la-la-land. I guess I want- or wanted- to be with someone who was more of a realist. Rational thinking. All that crap."

"Right." He replies. He has something else to say, she can tell from his facial expression but at that exact moment, his eyes go wide and he starts sprinting towards the horizon.

"Soul!" she exclaims and follow his eyeline. She spies it too; a motorbike parked up ahead; and she also breaks into a sprint, after him.

They both run wildly towards it, together, both slightly hysterical. It's a little overkill but, well. That motorbike may just have saved their lives.

Soul grins as they approach it. "Can you believe it? I thought we were goners. I kind of wish I hadn't told you all that stuff about my life, now…"

"You didn't even tell me that much!" she grumbles, nodding to the bicycle. "Just… check it's working before you get too happy," she replies, warningly.

"Sure, sure… buzzkill," He shoots her a look so that she knows he's only joking.

He tampers with the wiring and after a few tense minutes, she hears the thing rumble into action to both of their immense relief. "Yes!" he exclaims, running a hand through his hair. "Right, Maka. What do you say we get the hell off this road?" he jumps up and swings his leg round the thing, smoothly enough that she can believe that he's done it a lot of times before.

"Sounds grand." She hops on the back behind him, a little uncertain of her balance at first.

"Have you ever been on the back of one of these?" he asks her, and she bites her lip and answers 'no'. "Okay, don't worry. I used to drive them all the time. You gotta hold onto my waist and stay still, don't wiggle around too much. If we turn, lean the same way I lean. That's about it, okay?"

She nods, excited, and before she knows it, the dusty wind is whipping through their hair – carefree, like they hadn't just been talking about how doomed they were just twenty minutes ago.

"WOOOOO!" she yells out loud, adrenaline coursing through her blood.

He chuckles. "You alright?"

"Yeah!"

They veer through maybe fifteen more minutes of leafy suburban backroads, and eventually they pass what appears to be a sleepy residential of a city's abandoned suburbia.

"Fort… collins," Maka reads from a dusty old sign that still exists from when borders, and town names, really mattered. "It's an army base."

"We could see if they have any weapons."

"And get a better mode of transport…" she suggests.

He makes a petulant face. "No fair, I wanna stay riding this thing."

She rolls her eyes at his stubbornness but decides not to question him. As the two of them take in the scenery around them, he shudders. "I don't like being in a city."

Maka nods as her eyes trace the skyline. In Colorado, all the cities were interspersed by beautiful mountain views; peaks and valleys and trees and lush greenery. Of course, the ghostly emptiness of a city like this juxtaposed horribly with the leftover of what had been a bustling economy in its own right.

For her, it just accentuates the loss of life; of society.

She says as such, and Soul sends a strange glance her way. "Alright, Edgar Allen Poe."

"Well, what did you mean when you said that you don't like cities?" she asks, irritated. She can't believe that the gloomiest person she's ever has the nerve to call her that. She stops short of telling him matter-of-factly that the comparison isn't apt at all.

"I just mean that in a big city, there's lots of places for the infected to hide. Lots of… nooks and crannies. Coupled with a denser population of things that want to kill you." He comments, staring up at the large houses that seem to getting more and more saturated and they speed towards the centre.

Maka shudders and clutches Soul's jacket a little tighter.

"We'll be in and out, promise."