"Maka, have you seen this?" her best friend, Kinsey, calls from down the hall. She zips up her jacket as she plays with the keys in the front door. "Come here, seriously you have to look at this."

Maybe it's the urgency in her friend's tone, but Maka's hands pause on the doorknob and she goes back, through her narrow hallway and to where Kinsey perches on the side of the couch, watching the television, holding a hot cup of coffee in both hands.

The television blares; crackling intermittently.

"You called me back here to see the news?"

"Just… look. It's getting even worse."

Maka sighs and perches down on one of their armchairs as the anchor woman continues her spiel.

"…Death toll is predicted to be as high as the thousands as the virus, previously thought to be contained in Denver, appears to have spread throughout the country. Reports are showing cases as far as Mexico and Canada today. A predicted thirty-eight states now appear to be at risk, despite the containment of Denver and evacuation of neighbouring states…"

"Whoa," Kinsey says, her jaw slackening as the news reels off footage of containment facilities, piles of bodies, and the same clip of one of the infected gnawing on a dead person's arm that had been making the rounds on the news and internet for weeks, now.

"Scientists have yet been unable to identify the virus, and so far no major discoveries have been made regarding the cure." The newswoman continues in a somber tone. "Reports from outside the US indicate that the pandemic may have spread globally, with several similar cases having been reported in China and one in Indonesia – however, the virus is still thought to have originated in the Midwest."

Maka and Kinsey share a grim look.

"What are they advising?" Maka asks, already knowing the answer.

"Stay inside." Kinsey doesn't tear her eyes away from the television set to answer.

"How can we stay inside? We ran out of food yesterday."

Kinsey shakes her head, eyes blurring and spilling over. "I called my mom, my dad. Nether of them are picking up their phones."

Maka puts a sympathetic hand on Kinsey's arm. "It'll be okay, Kinsey. They'll be okay. They're probably just… out, or something."

"They're doctors, Maka!" she yells suddenly, dropping her mug onto the floor with a crash as it cracks in two; splinters flying up to practically eye level. Both girls flinch, but neither of them make a move to clean up the rapidly pooling brown liquid. "They're doctors in Nevada. They're dead. Or they're… they're one of them. I can just feel it."

"We can't waste anymore time, Kinsey. We have to go outside at some point."

"I don't want to die!" she wails.

"We're going to die if we sit inside and starve!" Maka counter-argues. "You can stay in here. I'm going out to find us some food."

"No! No! Don't leave me inside here!" Kinsey jumps up frantically. "Where are you even going?"

Maka swallows. "I'm going to find some weapons. Kinsey." She says, her tone serious as she looks straight at her friends eyes. "We are going to survive this. Okay?"

"Maka, please!"


"Maka!" a gruff voice calls her to light.

She's not sure when her daydream turned into an actual dream but she suddenly comes to her senses, gasping for air and realising that she was having a strange nightmare/flashback hybrid. She wipes a sheen of cold sweat from her brow and sits up to discover that Soul is now at her bedside.

He looks a little concerned.

"Uh, Maka?"

"What are you doing here? I was asleep…"

"You were yelling. I woke up to check on you."

"You woke me up," she grumbles, still groggy. "I had a bit of a nightmare. Sorry, I'm not usually a loud sleeper. Must be something about being in a house again."

Soul gestures to the bed next to her, and sits down when she nods, giving him permission. "It's alright. What were you dreaming about?"

Maka gulps in some of the cold air. "Just… just about the first few weeks of the virus spreading. I was living in my college house with a couple of friends. My best friend Kinsey and I were… watching the news."

"In your dream?"

"I think it really happened. It's hard to say if I'm misremembering it, though. I think we were watching the news, and they were evacuating Utah and New Mexico, or something." She leans back, head hitting the pillow with a defeated 'whump'. "Who knows. It doesn't matter now."

Soul doesn't ask for permission to lie next to her. "It's okay if you have nightmares. I'd say it's probably normal, given the circumstances."

"Nothing about this is normal."

"It's the new normal."

She sighs and brushes a little dust off the side of the sheet. "I just can't wait to get to Nevada and get back to civilisation, again."

Soul nods. "Just… be careful what you wish for. It's easy to spend so long alone that you forget how to be with other people."

"I know what I want, Soul." She scowls.

"I'm sure you do. I'm just saying… from experience." He stares at a corner of the room. "And… you should know that they're weapons, most of them. My friends in Nevada."

Maka blinks and processes this. "Okay."

"Okay? You were so angry at me earlier when I-"

"That was stupid. I was… stupid. You've saved my life more times than you've endangered it, and I was stupid for being scared," she says calmly. "I want to see."

He strokes his white stubbly beard for a second and locks eyes with her. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah. I want to see you transform, fully. Or… as fully as you want to. It's like… if I see it now, I won't be shocked when I see it later. Like ripping off a band-aid, or something."

He nods and stands up, a little tense. "You're not going to freak out?"

"I'll try, I promise." She smiles, coaxing him out.

He reaches out his arm so it's perpendicular to his body, and sudden flashes of curved white light distort her view for long enough that when they disappear, in place of his arm is a long, falcate blade emerging from his shoulder joint to the tip, which is a little longer than his extended arm would be.

She stands up too, runs a fingers along the metal and breathes sharply inwards. "Wow."

"This is nothing. I have friends that can turn into bombs, or swords."

"Soul, this is amazing." She pricks her finger on the tip and gasps a little, recoiling.

"Yeah, it's sharp," he chuckles.

"Can you move it?"

"Enough to slash open a zombie's face," he drawls. "I can turn any part of my body in isolation. Or I can transform fully into a scythe, but for that to work, I need someone to be operating it."

She switches her gaze to his face, making him self-conscious for a second.

"Are… you scared?" he asks.

She shakes her head, and with another white burst of weaving magical light, the blade disappears, and Soul's arm comes back into the realm of the living.

"I understand if you are," he tells her, his voice falling so it's barely above a whisper.

"I'm not. You're not scary."

"What, not even my shark teeth? Red eyes? Hair?"

"No," Maka tells him. "I never thought you looked scary. But then… I imagine that my view of scary has probably warped some since the virus broke out."

"Hmph." He shrugs. "You'd be the first."

"Wow, they really are super red, aren't they?" she says, staring deeply into his crimson irises. "Have they gotten redder?"

"It's probably the light…" he replies, still keenly aware that she's staring intently at him. "Yours are olive," He tells her factually.

"Olive?" she frowns, sceptical.

"I like olives! The green kind, anyway…"

Yet another tentative silence crops up between the two of them, but it's not awkward, or heavy. Not for the first time, it enters Soul's mind that Maka was quite attractive, at least for someone who hadn't had a bath in a matter of weeks.

It's not an entirely unwelcome thought, and before he has the sense to stop himself, his arms find themselves wrapping round her waist, pulling her even closer than she was before.

Her hands respond in kind by moving upwards to cradle his face, thumbs brushing past his rough stubble, not breaking her intensive gaze at his eyes.

"Maka…" His words are a kind of warning as his eyes flit to her lips for a split second.

Then, as quickly as they'd come together, they break apart.

"W-what was that?" she asks, her voice quivering with anticipation.

He bites his lip, looking away quickly as the tension in the air between them diffuses into nothingness. "My bad."

"No… it's fine. I just… I wasn't expecting that."

They regard each other for a couple of seconds and then Soul's inscrutable expression breaks into a relaxed and easy smile. "Let's forget about it, hey? You should get some rest. I'll be on lookout?"

"Let's both just rest, come on," she yawns, her brain fuzzing as she pulls on his arm in an attempt to drag him down onto the bed. "What's the worst that's going to happen?"

There's a question that didn't bear thinking about.


Maka sleeps fitfully, occasionally waking up to the sound of something moving or rustling outside. Each time she does, she's pleasantly greeted by the cute sound of Soul's gentle snoring and the rise and fall of his chest.

"At least you're getting some sleep," she whispers to his unconscious ear.

She chalks her temporary insomnia down to nerves about this new city they're in; how everything in her life has changed in the last month or so.

And then there was, of course, the very uncool fact that he had fallen asleep right next to her.

That also made her nervous.

It makes her nervous because earlier, she'd have sworn that he'd been about to kiss her.

How stupid, she thinks. Getting attached, now that was a terrible idea. And, God forbid - what if what of them got feelings?

Maka's not stupid; she knows that Soul's not the type of guy who gets feelings for a girl he just met. Hell, she's only got scant evidence that he's even capable of feelings, for all his machismo and 'silent cool guy' act.

Still, he looks so young when he's asleep.