this is such a long update, hang in there!

"So you're going out tonight?" Mira raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah, but…" Soul cleared his throat. "I, uh, don't want to talk about that."

"Again, Soul, if you want this to work-"

"I have to do the work, yeah," he grumbled. "I mean, there's something else."

"Oh?"

There was another anxious tremble in his throat, a force of air that didn't do a thing to stop the way it threatened to tighten and close on him. "I don't think I've ever said this out loud."

Mira didn't offer anything more than a gentle stare.

"But Maka told me to talk about it, so…"

Her eyebrow moved a speck, "Did you talk to her about it?"

A bitter laugh hit his lips, "Barely, but… I let her see it. I didn't think that would ever happen."

"See what?"

"My mom," Soul brought down to just barely above the sound of his own breathing. "It's nothin' new but… she's always hit me." For a shuddering second, he could feel those nails digging into the back of his neck again, the burn of bruised and beaten skin. "Don't remember anything different."

"So since you were younger?"

"Yeah," Soul croaked. "But it's the drinking. That's what it is because… well, Wes never got any of this, my older brother, but she didn't start drinking until-" The words shriveled on his tongue.

"When, Soul?"

His fist clenched before he started to rub the knuckles into the meat of his thigh. "Until she made the mistake of havin' me."

"Why do you call that a mistake?"

Another burning laugh wheezed from his throat, "Because I was. You think a ten-year difference is planned? Or how about bothering to have another kid after your first son is perfect. A fucking gem."

"Is that what she says to you?"

"Too many times to count," Soul muttered as he let his eyes drift over to the window. "Wes is a good son. Wes is successful. Wes - where the fuck is Wes?" he spat with vicious finality. "You wanna know? He's gone, cut her the fuck off because she raised her hand to him once. Because he was old enough, you know? He could get the fuck out because he had a choice but me-" Soul cut off with a huff of air.

"Don't cut yourself off," Mira encouraged with a roll of her wrist. "How long did you live with that?"

"'Til sophomore year," Soul gritted through a tight jaw. "I threatened Dad. Told him I wasn't going to keep my mouth shut unless he let me go live with my aunt, Cheryl."

"You never reported your mother?"

"No," he sighed. "What's the fucking point? I didn't want to hurt her - she was hurt enough - I just didn't want to live with that anymore."

"What do you mean, she was hurt?"

Soul shook his head, "Something's gotta be wrong with her, right? Drunk most of the day, hits me whenever she wants… she's broken but I'll don't fucking know what it is. But I… I used to think maybe it was somethin' my dad did. That's why he felt guilty enough to let me go. To turn the other way while she did all the shit she did."

"Cheryl was your mother's sister?"

"Yeah," he shrugged. "Total opposite of Mom. High-powered businesswoman - couldn't produce an emotion even if you were slaughtering kittens in front of her. So she left me alone. That was fine."

"You said you met Maka sophomore year."

Soul nodded slowly, letting his tongue flick over his lips to pave the way for the next set of words. "She was the first person I ever let near me." He brought cool eyes back to Mira, a sudden stoniness in his features that sent a chill down her spine. "I was the fuck-up, the useless son, and I didn't leave to fix all that. Cheryl's was a good place to curl up and die and that's what I expected but then… she showed up. She had every opportunity to leave - I was a piece of shit to her, teased her, didn't even learn how to show any kind of fucking softness until at least a year into us being together and that was already too fucking long."

"Why do you think she stayed?"

"The same reason she stays now," his voice hit a trembling note, those cold eyes suddenly darting to his hands to cover up the crumbling. "She feels sorry for me."

Mira offered a quick hum before she sucked in a long breath. "You said she saw it."

"Yeah," he muttered as his eyes searched over the scars on his knuckles. "She came with me to my mom's. I had her wait in the car but… Maka's Maka, so she charged in there when I took too long. Saw my mom with her hands on me and…" Soul brought a shaking hand to the base of his neck as if he could press away the fingers still there.

"What did she do, Soul?"

"Protected me," he whispered back breathlessly. "Took me home. Told me I couldn't go alone anymore. Kind of just… ordered me around like usual." A weak laugh followed as he continued to rub the ghostly wisps from his neck.

"And that makes you think she felt sorry for you?"

His head pitched back slightly, the idea hitting him and taking him back. "I guess… no. She wasn't soft about it, she was angry." Soul's eyes narrowed as he brought them back to Mira. "She was pissed and you know what, if I had left her there, not dragged us out as soon as she saw it, I think she would have gone after my mom. Hell, she was ready with the 'if you ever touch your son like that again' line." Laughing came a little easier and he sucked in another breath, "I'm not glad she saw it but… that reaction was so Maka it made it all OK. She… you're right, it wasn't feeling sorry for me. It was taking care of me."

"Does that make you feel less afraid about telling her tonight?"

"Fuck no."

Soul let the words sit on the tip of his tongue, resting behind teeth that threatened to chatter as he joined Maka in the cold outside of the car. The right moment, the right placement seemed nowhere and he was floundering before they were even through the door, hands unsure of where to go, feet where to follow. The floor was awash with light, careful rippling waves of blues and greens that danced around their shoes. Maka was talking to the attendant, prying the specific rundown of expected behavior and the entirety of the experience since rules and order were what she seemed to crave, though Soul was sure disorder was what they usually lived in.

"The first room has fish!" she chirped back at him before exposing that whimsical grin, that full, child-like explosion of joy haloing her face.

He produced a roll of his eyes but really, deep down in that aching heart, he was begging for her to throw that look over his shoulder again, to look genuinely, deeply overjoyed rather than the muddled mess they'd lived in for the past year. That was what tonight was supposed to be, just one second of delirious enjoyment after the other until he could pry that phrase off his tongue. He tried to scribble over the if.

"So, if you touch them, they should explode into a million different flowers. Each room has a different theme," Maka parroted the guide over her shoulder to him. "This one's koi and lotus. So if you catch a fish-"

"When," Soul managed to laugh. "Can't imagine you not getting one. You're as excited as a little kid."

Maka force-fed him a frown, her eyebrows furrowing, "You're the one who wanted to come here."

"Not sayin' I hate it." For old time's sake, he rubbed his palm over the side of his coat before he reached for hers, praying the nervousness would dissipate with those fingers in his. "Just prefer to see you makin' a fool of yourself instead of me."

It was her turn to let her eyes move in exasperation, "Yeah, cool guy, leave it to me."

Soul chuckled, strengthened by the way her fingers dug in around his and created a bond that could never be broken, or at least that was the hope. Maka tugged him, trailing past another couple and into a more secluded corner, following the tail of an orange and white koi as it flicked across the floor. Her other hand reached, meeting the creature only to have it erupt into a cascade of color that left illusionary patches of light on her coat. A girlish giggle finished off the experience and stole the last bit of sense from him.

"See, just like a kid," he murmured.

"Tell me that wasn't beautiful," she shot as her face turned back to him. In the half-darkness, she was still littered in specks of pink and purple, so real that he could expect to pluck petals off her lapel.

"Yeah, it was," came easily from his lips, followed by that smirk to hide the rest of the words. Because you're beautiful, that's why, but why can't that be what I say? Why are these goddamn words always the last thing that wants to leave my mouth when you deserve it, Maka? You deserve-

"You're thinking about it too hard," Maka scolded. "Here!" She took their joined hands, pulling him over to another corner where she tossed him ahead, his elbow detonating another scaled body into a rain of stark white. "That one matched you," a cheerful little tease pursed her lips. "Practically couldn't see it with the white hair."

"There's another one," he nudged into her, chest pressing into her shoulder to take away her space and move her another step. There wasn't much chasing this one, the fish swimming right into the channel between them, their joined hands becoming the dam that urged another explosion of color, a sea of red and pink sparkling between them. As her eyes dipped to watch the display, Soul leaned, letting his forehead meet her hairline.

As with all things he wanted, the smoothness of it escaped him, her skull clunking to his as she stepped back to laugh and hold a hand to the barely-existent wound. "And I thought I was the klutz. Soul, I swear, sometimes you have two left feet."

A tiny croak of a laugh left him as that twittering, fluttering fright was back in his chest. Yeah, when I'm trying to get close, when I'm trying to do the right thing my whole fucking life is two left feet. He wanted to groan in misery but he tramped it down, for once saving himself from another famous Maka misunderstanding since any display of his pain could be read as displeasure for the moment.

The next room was a smattering of tables with blank, white clothes billowing slightly in soft breezes blown at ankle height. Maka led him to one, depositing him at one side of the table. "Stay there." That amazing joy was still quivering in her voice and for a second he let it untangle at least a corner of the way he was feeling. "OK, put your fingers down in three, two, one…" Over the surface tangled ivy and other greenery, spanning from her fingertips to his.

Soul watched it and then turned raised eyebrows to her. "What happens if I let go?"

"Go ahead," she smiled.

He lifted his fingers, the forestry ebbing away and soaking into the white of the top. "So it takes two touches?"

"A connection," she murmured again with a smile.

Different table tops offered different flora, clusters of chrysanthemums, dribbles of daisies to litter between their hands. They passed over each one, Maka never seeming to tire of the exchange of color. Soul was muddling through, missing the warmth of her fingers but at least finding specks of bliss in each encounter with a new hue.

"Forget-me-nots!" Her voice blossomed along with the blue across the table.

"You would know, wouldn't you," he muttered with a chuckle.

"They're my favorite," she murmured, "so don't lift your hand just yet."

"Then let's make more." Soul slid his fingers lazily across the top in a zigzag pattern, trailing more of the five-petaled starbursts across the blank slate between them. "I didn't know that."

"Well, we've had plenty of conversations but I'm not all that surprised 'favorite flowers' hasn't been one of them," she laughed softly. "And as if you know everything else about me."

Soul shrugged wistfully, "Maybe I don't. Not like you know my favorite flower."

Maka scoffed, "OK, spill. Favorite flower."

"Lilac."

Maka narrowed her eyes.

"Seriously," he chuckled. "Lilac."

"Why?" Her eyebrows were unfurling, her body leaning across the table.

"Used to be a tree at my grandma's." Soul gave one more curl of his finger, just two more blossoms left to fill the space. "Smell would drift in from the windows in the summer. It was nice."

"When was the last time you were there?"

That brought him pause, a glance of his eyes away from the green and out into the darkness. "When I was a kid. She died - I guess I was ten."

"You guess?" it wasn't a scoff, just a soft push.

"Sorry," another weak roll of his shoulders punctuated that. "A lot of that time kinda fuzzes together. My memories… kinda only started getting real after I came to Cheryl's." The forget-me-nots faded as she moved to his side, her hand no longer creating blossoms but instead gripping into his. "Don't make that face," he muttered.

"What face?" Maka blinked up at him, her lips making a thin line.

"The one like you're sorry about it," he murmured. "Nothin' to be sorry about, Maka."

"I can be sorry if I want," she prodded back. "Even after Cheryl's I know your life hasn't been easy, especially with your mom and-"

"You don't get to be sorry." His hand was slipping out of hers, moving up instead to cup at her cheek, to shock the displeasure out of her eyes. "All that stuff that you helped to create, all those memories with us and Star and all those other idiots, that's what I have instead so you don't get to be sorry, got it?"

That little curl of a pout came to her lip. "You can't order me around."

He snorted a laugh, "Sure I can."

Maka wiped his hand off her cheek, only to display the red underneath as she turned away from him. "You think you can," she tried to mutter back but her voice was strained, making him sneak up on her heels.

"You let me order you on this one," he murmured, lips tilting right next to her ear. "And next room, you get one order. Fair trade: I tell you anything you want to know."

"Anything?" Maka raised her eyebrows as she tilted her head so their lips were almost touching, the movement of his face into a smirk bringing an exhale across her lips.

"Whatever you want to know." That felt like more than enough as if he might as well have said the words and the reward of the smile on her face was what he wished he'd get as the end result.

"Fair trade," she whispered and her cheeks glowed. Her face was lost in the options and Soul watched a myriad of words start and settle on her tongue as they meandered around the room.

Soul wanted to be surprised by the slow walk, Maka making in no way forced steps to the next room, since this was so utterly not her. Maka jumped. Maka sprung into everything without a second thought. Maka would have just asked him the first question in her head but suddenly she was thoughtful, eyes searching the room just as much as her mind for words. "What's this one?" he murmured to her as they finally walked through the archway, the room bathed in dark green light.

"It blossoms when you walk by…" As if on cue the wall burst into color, following them in a column as they walked side by side, his hand still desperately clutching to hers.

"Wonder how they do it," Soul muttered as his eyes trailed the yellows and golds.

"You would," Maka offered him a teasing smile and nudged into his shoulder. They headed for the corner, a corona of red flowers bubbling over Maka's head as she turned to him. "So I can ask you anything?"

"That's what I said." Soul's heart started to tremble, knocking against his ribs in a pathetic rhythm.

"Soul…" She took a step closer, her fingers toying gently at the zipper of his jacket. "What's… what's your favorite memory?"

"It's a tie," he murmured, "but I don't think you're going to like one of 'em."

Her lip trembled before she worked her teeth in to slow the movement. "Tell me the one I won't like first."

He let out a low sigh, "When I woke up in the hospital."

"Soul," she groaned.

"I told you that you weren't gonna like it," he griped back, his hand suddenly coming to her elbow, pulling her a jittering step forward, "but it's the truth. Couldn't be happier that you were alive, fine, and that I made it, too."

She echoed him with a sharp exhale, her eyes drifting down to his hand clutching her arm. "And what's the other one?"

Soul pulled her a breath closer, forcing her eyes back to his. "The first night in the apartment. I couldn't sleep and I know you didn't hear me, I wasn't up and moving around, but you came right in my room, didn't even knock, and told me to scoot over. Already had your pillow and everything. Grabbed my arm like it was old news and just… not the first time we slept next to each other, that wasn't the big deal, just that you… you knew what I needed. Knew I wasn't OK before I even did, and you bypassed every last argument I had and just did it. Those are… those are the kind of moments that remind me why we… are what we are, Maka. You see me. You always have and when I feel that way, those are the best moments."

Her lips parted, a shaky breath leaking uselessly without hopes to be refilled.

His hand moved from her elbow to slide across the small of her back, pulling her to him as he dipped his head so his lips met hers. Light as a feather, the tenderest brush between the two of them just to make room for the whisper that he wanted only her to hear. "I want to take you home and tonight… I don't care what else happens, Maka, but I want to feel like that again. I… just want you to stay with me tonight, please."

"Where else would I go?" came with a trembling laugh from her lips.

A chuckle that made his chest ache rattled between his ribs, "There's always Spirit's couch." She choked out another laugh but he caught it, pressing his lips to hers as his force brought them back another step, a burst of purple splashing behind Maka as she moved, jutting him back to reality enough to see the tears in her eyes. "Can I take you home?"

"Please," she murmured.

Even though every last bit of him wanted to rush, Soul took a moment to wrap his arms around her, pulling Maka's head right under his chin and letting her tears soak into his jacket. He knew a last little bit of him was stalling, the idea that he could so easily whisper it in her ear right now not leaving his mind. But I want to be alone, I want it to be quiet, where it's just me and you, and I can say it until I'm blue in the face because I think once I let it go, I won't be able to stop it, that it'll be some wave that I can't block, a dam that once it's broke floods everything.

"You're buzzing," Maka murmured against his chest.

Yeah, my heart's a fucking base drum at the moment, Maka, thanks for noticing- but the next hum brought him back to reality and his hand slipped into his pocket to expose the illuminating screen. "Fuck," he muttered before hitting the green button. "Detective Evans."

"Hey, Soul," Patty chirped.

"Problem?"

"Wow, what a way with words," Patty cooed. "Look, someone's here for you."

Soul huffed, "Take a name, number, and I'll get 'em tomorrow. I'm busy."

"See, that's what I offered but they're kind of not taking no for an answer," Patty paused to flutter through papers. "He said he'll only talk to you, only now."

"Look, I don't care-"

"His name is Giriko?"

A grating grunt hit Soul's teeth. "He's there? Wants to talk?"

"Without his lawyer, he says," Patty added.

"Fuck me," Soul muttered.

"No, thank you."

Soul grimaced. "I'll be right there. Set him up in a room with a fucking view." He pulled the phone from his ear and jabbed it mercilessly with his thumb before pocketing it. Her fingers were still digging into the sides of his coat and Soul didn't make a move to let her go. "I'm not canceling, but…"

"You have to go," Maka finished with a sigh.

"Yeah, I'll, uh, drop you off at home, OK?"

"Soul," those fingers sunk deeper, her head still hidden against his chest. "Will you… when you get home, I mean, will you… just come and wake me up, alright?"

"Might be late," he muttered.

"I know, but I mean it."

"Got it." He tried to take a step back but her grip tightened, making the fabric catch and creak. "I said I will."

"I know, just one more minute," the minuscule murmur came from underneath his neck.

He sighed but let a hand run across the edge of her hair, the strands tickling his skin. I'll come home. I'll wake you up with a kiss and when you look at me, I'll tell you. I swear. When you see me again, I'll tell you.

"Dropped off."

"Going in alone."

"Wait 30 and then go in."

"Do it right."

Soul's gut never trembled like this, well, at least not in front of a perp. If he was considering that promise he'd made to himself again, the one where 'I love you' had to come from his mouth in the next twenty-four hours it definitely would, should, and did, but normally that behavior was reserved for a Maka moment. Except as he walked into that interview room, saw Giriko lounging in the chair with a smirk reflecting back in the window he was looking through, the entirety of his guts was liquid again, bringing back memories of waking up in the hospital bed. "It'd be nice if you didn't pick my night off," Soul grumbled.

"I'm a busy man," Giriko shrugged.

"Fine, busy man, then tell me what you want to tell me." Soul didn't bother to sit, just leaned against the wall next to the door, propping his foot up at an angle.

It was that same spew, that talking without talking that Giriko had fed to Maka those weeks ago. Soul listened with about as much interest as a lecture on Twilight, his eyes lazily following the motion of Giriko's snapping teeth rather than the words.

"Look, are you going to tell me something interesting?" Soul finally hedged in.

"Could ask you something," Giriko grinned. His phone buzzed on the table but he flattened a grizzly paw over it, covering the illuminated screen completely.

"Don't think I have anything to tell you."

"What does she taste like?"

Soul swallowed as his jaw clicked tightly.

"Because girls like her," Giriko raised his eyebrows, ready to divulge the secrets of the world, "the real stuck up ones-"

Soul cut in, voice low and full of gravel, "Mr. Saw, if you don't have something to tell me-"

"- they're stale. Don't live for a second so all of them waste away." Giriko's grin stretched ear to ear, the words slicing through the air in between them. "Bet that's what she tastes like, right? But you like that, don't you? You probably don't give a shit as long as she's using those high-heeled shoes to walk all over you."

Soul's hand started for the door, clenching into the knob.

"Does she make a lot of noise when you fuck her?"

"This interview is over," he growled as he opened the door.

"I'll need to know," Giriko chimed.

His feet squealed to a halt as his head snapped over his shoulder. "What the fuck did you just say?"

"If she's too noisy," he shrugged back, that grin turning lopsided as his teeth glittered through. "Might need to know."

He fought with the words in his throat and his head, his fingers shaking on the knob.

"Come on, Sergeant, ask me why. Ask me why I want to know if that little girl you're fucking is loud or not."

A shuddering breath pulled between his teeth but nothing else.

"If you don't want to know, walk out that door. Go home. Maybe she'll be there for you to ask her what she thinks - because you two live together, don't you?"

There it was, the icy lake water drifting in his stomach again, that stabbing pain like his entrails had slipped out of that silvery scar again. He knows we live together.

"She's home by herself right now, isn't she?"

She is. The panic sizzled to every extremity, every nerve alive and screaming along with the chaos in his head. A breath barely made it into his lungs but Soul forced it. Don't. He's playing you. Don't.

"Nice try, shithead," Giriko cackled. "That stiff-upper-lip's lookin' pretty good, but you're trembling. So get going, Sergeant, go see if your girl's home."