"So, how have you been feeling?" Nurse Medusa asks, using her stethoscope to check Maka's heart rate. The nurse is calm and professional as always, but there's something about her that sets Maka's nerves on edge.
She's probably just being paranoid.
Maka shifts uncomfortably at the sensation of the cold metal on her chest before answering. "I've been feeling much better!" Sure, she's still terrified about the black blood currently running through her veins, and she's still worried about her own unusual anger and irritability as well as Soul's strange behavior, but her side isn't hurting as much, at least. That counts for something, right?
"That's good to hear," the nurse replies. "Turn around," she instructs Maka, listening to her heart again for a minute. "Your vitals are sounding much better, although you still have a slight arrhythmia. Has anything else been bothering you?"
Thinking about her recent nightmares, Maka pauses for a moment before responding. She's been meaning to tell Soul about them, actually, but he's been so distant lately, she feels that he would just laugh at her. "There's this dream I've been having lately, almost every night since I got injured."
"A dream?" Medusa looks unusually curious, and Maka is suddenly uncomfortable. "Go on," the nurse encourages Maka, sensing her reluctance.
"In my dream, I'm in the apartment I share with Soul, except it looks a little different," she begins explaining. "There are more pictures of us and there are books everywhere, and in the corner there's a record player that we definitely don't own. The lights are on, but they seem much darker, somehow."
"In the dream, I'm sitting in one of the armchairs, and I'm wearing my normal school outfit. There's a strange creature in the room with me, a little demon, who wears a formal suit for some reason. His hands are really disproportional, and he's dancing to the music from the record player, saying something about swing. The record keeps skipping. He always says something about gaining power from breaking rules. After I talk to him, I always leave the room, even though I don't want to."
Maka pauses here, tensing, because the next part of the nightmare is always so horrible.
"Why don't you want to leave the room?" Medusa queries, her amber eyes boring into Maka's green ones.
Maka takes a deep, steadying breath. "When I leave the room, it's completely black, and I hear Soul. He sounds distressed. And then," Maka turns away, her voice rising in pitch. "I open my eyes and Soul is coming out of my side, the side with the scar. And then I wake up." She shudders.
Medusa asks to examine her back again, saying something about reoccurring dreams being common after trauma. Maka doesn't feel terribly reassured, though. "And I'm worried about Soul," she continues, playing with a few strands of her hair. "Ever since I got injured, he's been acting really distant. I think something's bothering him."
Soul makes his way over to the infirmary to check on Maka, completely irritated by Stein's vagueness. I'm lacking something, he repeats to himself. But what is it? And how is he supposed to get stronger if Stein won't tell him how?
He does a perfunctory knock on the door before opening it and walking in. He immediately regrets not waiting for an answer, as the first thing he sees is the scar on Maka's back. It starts in the middle of her lower back, curving up towards her right side. He can't see it from this angle, but he knows it continues its path around her front, stopping in the middle of her upper abdomen. He goes red and shuts the door immediately, expecting Maka to be angry and try to chop him with a book.
Deep down, though, he knows he's not just hiding from Maka's wrath. He can't bring himself to face her scar. Every time he sees it, the sight weighs heavily on his soul, a reminder that he wasn't good enough to protect Maka. The fact that she was so badly injured on his watch fills him with a horror beyond words. He is her weapon, which means that he is supposed to protect her with his life, not the other way around. Leave it to Maka to try to do things the opposite way.
Behind the closed door of the nurse's office, Maka just slumps, feeling morose. Hitting Soul with a book is the furthest thing from her mind. It shouldn't be possible to miss someone when they're in the same building as you, but Soul seems to be a stranger lately. She just wants her partner back, and she wants things to go back to the way they were before. Before they met the Demon Sword. Really, she just wants to wake up and find out that it was all a dream.
"I think you're right, Maka," Medusa comments. "Something does seems to be bothering him."
"He gets that way every time he sees it," Maka sighs and shuffles her feet. "My scar." The Demon Sword's blade had cut deep, and she knew she'd probably have that scar for the rest of her life.
"Well, I'm sure both of you will be fine," Medusa says in an attempt to reassure Maka. "I'll see you back here in a week, okay?"
Maka nods absently, lost in thought. She needs to figure out what's been bothering Soul. Their partnership is suffering, and she can't bear to lose him too.
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