Can I ever tone down the angst? No. I'm sorry. Bring tissues. I might be going overboard, but I hope you still love it.

Maka had everything spread out on the coffee table, shuffling papers to create tenuous lines between facts and ideas. Giriko crossed with Arachne next to Mosquito aligned with a myriad of crimes around the city. There wasn't anything in particular, not just racketeering, or strange flow of funds, but murders were sewn in, some so gruesome that Maka had flipped the photos over even though she could still draw the details from her mind on those blank backs. She wanted to see that warehouse because part of her had been sure that it was a hub of activity, but Giriko had given her nothing to give her the rights to go there, to snoop around.

"Stuck?" Soul settled into the couch behind her, knees tapping at her shoulder as he leaned forward and let his head sneak next to hers.

"I need to get in there," Maka pointed to the grey building. "But so far there's no reason."

"Giriko was a bust." His nod was practically rubbing his cheek to hers and without really putting much thought into it Maka spanned the molecule of distance and let her cheek rest on his. Soul cleared his throat, humming into her skin. "You try Arachne, or is that Stein's catch?"

"I could interview her…" Maka sighed. "Not like Stein said 'no' or anything, just… she's smart, Soul. It would take a lot to trap her. A spider rarely gets stuck in its own web."

"You're smart," he murmured back.

Maka hummed happily, "Sure."

"You want to interview her, do it." His knee nudged into her shoulder and Maka released the gentle press of their cheeks to turn her head to catch his eyes.

Will you come with me? wanted to be the next question off of her lips but she waited in the pause, to see if he'd jump and disprove that nebulous promise he'd made in her office. He can't always protect me. I can't always ask him to protect me. "Maybe I'll ask her to stop by the office if she has time."

She watched his eyebrows wither and then grow, his glare making its way across the table. "You know, Maka…"

"What?"

"Her web," he murmured before reaching his arm around her and tapping at different pages, assortments of names. "Use her strings, Maka. Start small, right? Don't go for her if she's too smart for it but use all these little connections, the little people she uses and abuses along the way and band 'em together. You're good at doing the talkin', so get to them first."

"You sound like a beat cop again." Her soft laugh brought his eyes back to her face, a start to a smirk stretching across his lips. "Maybe you want to help?"

"Yeah," he nodded slowly. "If you'll let me."

"How about…" Maka let her eyes drift away even though it was like pulling a barb from beneath her nail to miss that smile. Her finger pressed into a section of the map in the right hand corner of the table. "You start around there, near the warehouse, see if you can't get a lay of the land and I'll take the underlings that might have something to do with the cabin?"

Soul's baritone buzz filled her ear. "Why's that cabin so interesting?"

Maka sighed, "I get the same feeling for Giriko as you do and I think that's his private spot." She didn't notice the shake until her hand hovered over one of the pictures, a terrifying monster that sometimes slunk into her dreams. "All the money, the shady business, all of it bothers me, but this…" her nail just tapped the blank back that covered so much woe. "Killing someone in cold blood is one thing but torturing them like this. Girls who-"

As her voice broke Soul pressed his hand over hers, flattening it against the back of the image. "Maybe you want to switch, then." It wasn't a question, a tinge of order but the softness in his fingers negated any spite.

"No," Maka shook her head firmly this time, flexing her hand under his. "That's where I need to be."

"Alright." Soul left his hand there for a breath before letting his fingers delicately sweep to her wrist, almost daring to slip to her arm before the buzz in his pocket brought his hand jutting back. He moved to take the stuttering rectangle from his pocket before letting it sit in his hand, the illuminated screen staring him down with the name he didn't want to see.

"Answer it," Maka murmured as she tilted the screen towards him.

His jaw tightened as he tapped the green button and put the phone to his ear. "Hey, Mom."

Soul barely heard it as words, just more of a painful buzz that set his teeth on edge. "Your father hasn't come back yet and I need someone to drive me."

"Why can't you just order a car?" Soul grumbled back as he leaned away from Maka, even his feet shuffling to get rid of the cage she was in.

"Why can't my son come and help his mother?"

"Then call Wes," came muttering back with all the weakness and none of the hatred he wanted to place there. Nothing came back from her, just the standard period of silence before he crumbled. "OK, fine." He hung up before any self-righteous tone could twitter back and smashed the phone into the couch cushion. As he pressed forward, ready to catapult out of the couch, her hand came to his knee, freezing any other movement. "I have to go."

"I know," but her hand clenched tighter into the fabric of his jeans as her voice barely reached higher than a whisper, "seeing her hurts you, Soul."

"Sure," he answered back quickly. His hand fell on top of hers again but this time to scrape hers away, to try to throw away the connection.

It was futile, Maka's hand quickly snapping to his wrist instead and forcing him still, forcing his eyes back to hers just in time to see the iron there. "I want to come with you."

The words barely registered, his spine stiffening as a choking grunt came from his throat.

"Don't tell me no," she followed the order with another, tightening the hold on him.

"Where's the please?" he whispered back breathlessly.

"Please," she amended quickly but there wasn't a smile to follow, just the crinkle of her forehead.

"Maka, that stuff…" Is what I can't let you see. It's a side of me that's dark, ugly, and I barely keep it locked up so if you see it, if you look at me there, what-

Maka turned quickly, on bended knee with a pleading voice that sent a crinkle of static to his stomach. "Let me protect you."

When did he not cave to her? Bend to her will? Soul could probably count the times on one hand and this moment was not adding to it, Maka staring steadily in the passenger seat as he drove. There was a middle ground, Soul forcing her to give him time to call his mother again, convince her that she'd just let him run whatever errand as if he didn't know what it was, and then return to her. Lessen the trips and exposure. Lessen the time and the chances of Maka seeing the real truth in it. Who am I kidding, she already knows.

It was obvious by the stop, the bag that he came back with clinked as the bottles nestled together uncomfortably. Each turn of the car brought the shameful sound again, one that had buried itself into his bones and made them ache. He couldn't even draw up the strength to look her in the face, especially as her hand so gently and without hesitation sat on top of his on the gear shift. Even with the final lurching stop, that cacophonous wind chime coming from the backseat burning his ears, he never attempted another look at her.

"Stay here," he muttered but her hand refused to move.

"Are you sure?"

He gave a sharp nod instead of a word and she allowed his hand to slip away. Soul rocked from the seat as he opened the door, stopping only to open the back and slip out the package. There was a risk in it, but as he reached the door Soul took it, letting his glance come over his shoulder to meet hers through the windshield. Don't look.

The door creaked, the same old tap of his shoes against the marble floor echoing in the hauntingly empty foyer. "Soul, is that you?" The creaking voice only added to the ghostly chill up his spine but he still turned his feet for the kitchen, following its flow. "It's only polite to answer."

"Who else would it be?" he murmured as he eased the package onto the countertop. When he lifted his head the vision was always the same, the mahogany eyes that were rimmed red, the puff to her cheeks that should be a girlish pink but were more a swollen red, her white-blond hair barely smoothed into place.

"If you didn't want to come…" She was waving her hand dismissively while the other already started digging through her cache. "Soul, I thought I asked-"

"Mom," he tried to cut her off, his hand coming to the top of the bag to slide it out of her grasp. "You have to slow down. It's less because-"

"I didn't ask for your opinion," she spat as she slapped away his hand. "I asked you to do one thing for me, Soul Evans."

"Mom, please," he started but it fizzled from his lips as she started to arrange the bottles on the granite. His fingers spread on the cool stone, trying to convince his heart to adopt the same chill.

"How are you feeling?" She bypassed his beg entirely as she opened one of the bottles to add more to the glass next to her that wasn't even half empty.

"Fine," he murmured. "Mom, I - I can't stay. I have somewhere-"

"For work?" She eyed him up and down. "You're not dressed for it."

"No, not work, just…" Maka. She's in the car. She's waiting, and I'm already halfway to losing it, and if she sees that, sees me-

"Then you can stay," his mother added firmly. "You're probably not even back at work, are you? That ridiculous forced leave that they had you take. Anyone can see you're fine."

I'm sick, Mom, he wanted to murmur back. So sick, so poisoned, and I feel it every time I look at you, and maybe the doctor's gonna start helping but right now, this minute, I feel so sick. "I'm leaving," barely eked from his lips and he turned, taking a few aching steps toward the door. Talon-like nails clamped into the back of his neck, jutting his head forward and down and his eyes to the floor. "Mom," squealed from his throat, a voice that was nothing like the man he was now but too much like a fifteen-year-old, like every time she put her hands on him.

"Why can't you just listen to anything I tell you to do?" She shook him again and Soul did nothing, limply letting her move him towards her. "I am your mother, I am-"

"Get your hands off of him!"

Every last bit of muscle seized, his heart giving one last lurching beat before all of him crumbled. No, no, no, no, came as a million shouts in his head.

"Who the hell are you?"

Soul felt the hand fall on top of his mothers, prying it away while the other grasped at the front of his shirt, bringing him towards her. "We haven't met before, Mrs. Evans, but I'm Maka Albarn, and if you ever touch your son like that again-"

"Who the hell is this woman?"

"We're leaving," he managed to groan out as he took stumbling steps into Maka, pressing her into the hallway.

"Soul-"

"We're fucking leaving!" It should have been a barking command but it was more of a desperate, feral bray that wasn't even for her ears, just for him to drown out the horrific chorus as his mind sang out every last thing Maka had seen.

"Soul Evans!" his mother's wounded voice was echoing but the clamor of the front door cut it short.

He was frantically fumbling with the keys in his hands when suddenly hers were over them, calmly cradling the wreck of his fingers. "Let me drive." Without anything else, she stole them from him, opened the driver's side, and disappeared into the car.

Soul desperately drew in breath, the air feeling thin and useless as he let frantic eyes peel back towards the house. The door was still slammed shut but he imagined his mother clattering through it, those perfectly manicured fingers coming back for his throat. He barely swallowed it all away as he shakily moved to the passenger side, slipping inside and closing the door behind him just in time for that vision to come true, for his mother to catapult out on the doorstep. "Just go," he murmured, eyes locked on those vicious ones glaring through the windshield.

The car skidded away, Maka taking the order seriously as she rushed down the driveway and into the road. Soul leaned forward, digging his elbows into his knees as he hid his face in his hands. There was no hope, not an ounce of it in his heart, that there was a way to explain this, to make it not exist in the world they lived in as he'd been trying to do since they met. Aching fingers pressed into his skin, leaving painful pinpricks at his hairline as they drifted into his hair to tug at the white strands brutally. He wanted to scream, to let the tears stream down his face, but instead, the regular old chill washed over him, drying his ducts and stealing any hope of words from his mouth.

That mask was clinging to his face and making him swallow back the pain, shelving it again and making his mind start to arrange how he'd excuse this to her, how the best way to hide the truth in his own words would be without actually lying to her. Maka somehow let him have his silence, even as she parked the car in the parking deck, even as they walked across the street to the apartment complex, up to the elevator, and to the front door. She broke it with a hand on his arm, a soft voice resounding in the silence of the hallway. "Soul…"

All of it bitterly rose back up into his throat as he wrenched his arm away, steady footsteps bringing him to his bedroom where he could slam the door. He knew she wasn't far behind but he still clicked the lock, watching as the knob jiggled.

"Soul, let me in."

He couldn't reply, the bile choking him as he watched the knob continue to shudder.

"I knew about the drinking," her voice was clear and strong through the door as if the boundary didn't matter.

Soul pressed his hand to the wood, wishing it would suddenly become sturdy enough to block any more.

"You told me, remember?" The door creaked as she leaned her weight into it. "Once, you let it slip when I asked you about coming to live with your Aunt Cheryl."

He tightened his jaw, the burn of a tear getting away from him drifting down one cheek.

"So let me the hell in," her voice cracked, "you can't hide it from me anymore."

"I can't," he murmured. I can't let you see me like this. I can't let you see this. I'm not Soul right now, I'm, I'm, what the fuck am I?

"You can," she forced back, the crack of her fist echoing through to his side. "Because something's happening to you, I know that, and I… you're making me feel like you're leaving and you promised."

If there was clarity in his mind he'd see the ploy but with the painful fuzz, all he could feel was the fear, the threat to the promise that was so core to him. He flicked the lock on the door, groaning as the knob almost instantly turned. His back moved with it, putting that between her and him, obscuring the face that his mask had slipped from.

Warm fingers touched his back, a soft voice drifting by his shoulder. "Before the accident, you had cut her out, didn't you?"

Soul's head bobbed weakly in the affirmative.

"Why did you go back?"

"She saw me at the hospital," he murmured. "They called her, but she was too drunk when it happened so… it was while you were gone."

Her forehead connected with his spine, a delicate press as a long breath fluttered against his shirt. "I didn't leave you for very long."

A laugh barely bubbled from his throat, "She didn't stay for very long."

"So you've been seeing her since the accident?"

"Just the times I told you."

Maka's fingers slid down to his sides and around him, pulling his back to her chest tightly. "She is not going to touch you like that again."

His eyes popped wide especially as she fastened herself closer to him.

"I can't stop you from seeing her," it wasn't a sweet murmur against his back but a slowly increasing order. "It's not my place but no one not anyone is allowed to do that to you, do you hear me?"

"Maka," he wheezed out her name, half the pressure on his diaphragm and the other just the surprise. She's angry. Not at me, not at what I am or what I was doing, but at her. She's angry for me like I should be but can't.

"And I know you won't, you can't tell me now," her voice was quaking with rage just as much as her arms around him. "But I want to know how many times that's happened. I want to know if that's what you had to go through because I - Soul, I can't stand it. I can't stand the idea that someone would-"

"OK," he murmured. "It's OK, Maka."

"No, it's not!" she burst out against his back and he could feel the moisture start to leach into his shirt.

Soul took in the first real breath since they'd left, filling his aching chest with much-needed air and the start of the slow return of his senses. The fear was ebbing away, especially as her fingers showed no inclination for stopping their determined cling to him. "Yeah, you're right, it's not, but… I get what you're saying, OK?"

"Which means you're not going to see her alone."

He let out a long, low sigh, "Because you're coming along like a little guard dog, like today?"

"Yes."

"How'd I get myself into this?" he muttered to the room but found his hands slowly coming to her arms, not to pry them away but to steal more warmth from her skin.

"By being an idiot and not asking for help in the first place," she murmured. "And you better be bringing this up to the doctor."

That bought him pause, another slow breath as he tried to flick his head over his shoulder to catch a glance at her. "Wasn't high on my list."

"It should be," she grumbled back. "The attack, then this. I don't see what else there is to talk about."

You, he wanted to let out with a trembling laugh. I talk about you because you know what? The accident, my mom, my job, none of it matters at the end of the day, especially if I have this. "Don't worry, I'm not wasting my time if that's what you think."

"I didn't say that," she sighed as one of her hands climbed to his chest, taking up space over his heart. "Soul, I'm sorry."

"For what?"

There was a pause, her feet shuffling behind him as her fingers tapped a note against the beating in his chest. "Maybe I was wrong."

"'Bout what?"

"The doctor," came a murmur so small it was almost lost and he couldn't help but let a laugh tremble from his mouth. "What are you laughing about?"

"You admitting you're wrong, that's new." He felt her trying to get away so he grasped at her hand, keeping it right over the steadying beat of his heart. "I was… I was afraid you thought it was me keepin' things from you. But it's… the doctor is me trying to figure out how to say the things to you. You know I've always been shit with words, so… you understand it now?"

"Yes," she nodded into his back. "So, I'm sorry. I get it now and… I'm glad you're going."

Why his fingers moved so automatically he couldn't tell you, and even though the motion was completely alien to him it came smoothly all the same. He plucked her hand from his chest and brought it upwards, letting those delicate fingers drift over his cheek until he brought it to his lips. Brushing a kiss across her knuckles was an entirely new sensation and it made her breath catch behind him. Soul wished he could see her face, know what those eyes were speaking to him the moment he pressed her hand there. All he could do was bring the hand back to his chest, let her feel the way that had kicked his heart up to a gallop in his chest.