Chapter Three: Awake

Hey all, this chapter is up in a more timely manner. I promise if I don't reply to you it isn't because I'm ignoring you, I'm just too flustered to respond. Lots of nice comments from y'all and they make me soft.

"-considerate…"

The word fell out of Maka's mouth in a whisper, picked up only by her father who had been sitting in the chair next to her bed. Spirit perked up, trying to understand what he had heard.

"Maka, sweetie." He kept his voice quiet despite how excited he had felt to see her start to stir to life. Stein had updated him an hour ago that she was safe and stable but he hadn't told him that she was still asleep. It made sense, that she would be, but his hopes had gotten a little ahead of him.

"Are you awake?" He asked, shifting his weight so that he was sitting on the edge of his chair. Maka's eyebrows scrunched in slightly with the question. She had heard his voice but hadn't heard what he asked- the beeping of her heart monitor distracting her from her sleepy thoughts. It was steady- she could count between the beeps. One...two...one...two… She cracked open her eyes and cringed, her face turning to the side so she would no longer be looking up at the bright light. The fact there was light at all was confusing to her but she couldn't place why.

Why had she expected it to be dark when she opened her eyes?

"There you are, gave your Papa quite the scare," Spirit spoke again as he rested his hand on the side of his daughter's head. "Don't worry about moving around too much. You need to rest as much as you can."

Right- she had been injured. In her haze, she had somehow forgotten that detail. Though, as she started to wake up more, things began to click into place. She was on some sort of pain medication but even through that, she could feel pain in her chest. Maybe the medication was wearing off or maybe the pain was still just that great. With great effort, she moved her left arm and grimaced. The dull pain she had felt in her chest spiked with the movement. It was a good thing that she wasn't left-handed, recovery would be miserable.

"Papa…" She mumbled again, a little louder this time.

"Hm?" Spirit leaned in to hear her. "Yes?"

"Get your hand off my face, you smell bad."

Maka's eyes opened a little wider and she watched her father through blurry vision. Through it all she could still make out his dejected frown...but he removed his hand nonetheless. Something he usually wouldn't have done. She felt a pit form in her stomach. The damage must have been worse than she thought- he would usually try to whine and explain the importance of father-daughter bonding. The more her vision cleared up, the more she noticed how tired he looked.

"...Sorry." The apology left her lips before she could even process it, but, she was in fact, sorry. She should have known better. When those souls disappeared from the cathedral, she should have turned her tail and grabbed someone with more experience. Reported back to her headmaster or a professor. She put her life and she...she put Soul's in danger.

She turned her head back up and tried to lift it, to look around the room. Soul wasn't in there...she hoped he was alive and well. Tears stung her eyes. She had been so stupid back there. It was no wonder they had to start all over on their soul collecting. Both of them were so inexperienced still- too inexperienced to know when to get back up. No, she was too inexperienced to know. Soul hadn't wanted to be there, to begin with. He came with her too..to keep her safe and she willingly put him in danger.

What kind of meister did that to their weapon partner? They were supposed to be a team- just because she was the technician didn't mean that she could just take charge blindly. That swordsman had managed to hurt Soul in his scythe form. She had never seen that before- just who was that? How were they able to do something so horrifying? Where were they now? She wanted to ask her father if he knew but when she turned her head in his direction she decided against it. She must have been lost in her thoughts for a while if he had fallen asleep in his chair the way he had.

Maybe he hadn't slept? No, that's stupid. He probably was just bored. There wasn't anything for him to do in the infirmary except talk to her and he had backed off when she had asked. That part was still odd to her.

She didn't get much chance to dwell on it further, her thoughts interrupted by a timid knock at the door.

"Come in," She called out hoarsely.

Soul's foot tapped impatiently on the tiled floor outside the infirmary. Spirit had been in there an awfully long time. Around an hour? Maybe a little over. Soul didn't have his phone on him to check. He left it with the rest of his belongings in his locker. He hadn't wanted to go home yet. He couldn't. Not until he knew what was going on.

"Soul?"

Someone called to him from down the hallway. Her voice was soft and a little apprehensive. Like she was expecting him to react harshly.

Tsubaki.

She was one of the few weapons that he knew were on the more timid side. It seemed to be fairly common among weapons to be a bit more rambunctious but she had always been a fairly peaceful person in his eyes. Maybe that's what kept BlackStar from getting into more trouble than he already did. Speaking of, he didn't hear the aforementioned star's voice. While Soul felt a little horrible about it, he was glad he wasn't here. He didn't think he could handle his personality with the way he was feeling right now.

She didn't call out for him again, nor did he look up to make sure it was her and not someone else. He felt uncool, sitting there moping in the hallway but his meister took up the bulk of his thoughts. She wouldn't have been back there if he was better. No wonder he hadn't made Death Scythe a few weeks back. He should have had enough sense to check that the soul they were after was a witch, instead, they ended up with Blair. Ended up losing their progress. Maka had been so stressed about it. He had been too, but, with how much she was stressing over it he didn't want to make it any worse.

He could hear someone come to a stop beside him and slide down the wall. His eyes left his shoes long enough to look at the person beside him. It was Tsubaki alright. He could tell by the star sewn into the side of her boots. The patches looked homemade. Maybe she had made them? There was no way BlackStar had.

They sat there in relative silence for a while, before she spoke again.

"I overheard." She kept her approach slow, to give him the time to interject and tell her to go away if he needed to. She had always seemed to want to avoid conflict where she could. "I can't imagine how you're feeling right now."

He nodded slowly, to acknowledge what she had said. Soul...didn't want to sit through this sort of thing. Not right now. Not when things were so uncertain.

"You're a good weapon," Tsubaki continued, her head tilting to watch the younger weapon besides her. "And a good friend. You'll both pull through this. I know you will." She pat his arm softly and pushed herself into a standing position.

"Professor Stein asked me to deliver Maka's work to her so that she'd have something to do when she recovered enough." She took a few steps towards the infirmary door. "I think that means it's safe for us to go in, don't you?"

He brought his head up off of his knees. Professor Stein had asked her? Then, that meant she was stable. Soul watched as Tsubaki knocked on the door to the infirmary, noticing for the first time since she had gotten there, the small book bag slung over her shoulder.

A small part of him was upset that Stein hadn't contacted him instead- he had been sitting outside the door for hours now and he knew the professor was aware of it. Spirit was too but… perhaps he was upset with him. Spirit had every reason to be upset with him.

There was a brief silence after Tsubaki knocked, but when he strained his ears, he could hear someone on the other side call out for her to enter. He pushed himself up off the floor and shuffled behind Tsubaki. She had waited to open the door until he was behind her. Probably to help respect Maka's privacy- so that the door wouldn't be open nearly that long while they entered.

He kept his eyes on the floor as they entered, using the beige of Tsubaki's dress to keep him on course as much as possible.

"Tsubaki," Maka's voice sounded a bit strained. He frowned. If even talking was too much on her, she needed to rest. "It's nice to see you. H-how was remedial lessons?"

Tsubaki offered the blonde a smile. "They were fine. Though, I suppose we'll be sent out for another one here soon. We didn't exactly do all that well this time. Next time for sure." She carefully removed the book bag from over her shoulder and placed it on the small side table next to Maka's bed. "This is what's planned for class this week. While he wants you to rest, the professor seemed to imply that he didn't want you going stir-crazy."

Usually, Maka would jump at the chance to do her schoolwork but with how she felt right now, she wanted nothing more than to sink into bed and wait for the next round of painkillers.

"Thanks for bringing it."

Maka's gaze turned in Soul's direction. He seemed okay. There was some bandaging sticking out from underneath his shirt collar, but otherwise, he looked okay. Relief washed over her. At least her actions hadn't landed him in the same condition that she was in.

"I don't want to see you doing any of it for at least a few days." Soul finally spoke. "Just take the time to heal up properly, okay? It'd be uncool if you scored yourself a longer recovery time because you did things too fast. I'll pick up the slack."

Maka fought back a frown. The slack? Maybe he had seen her as a lousy meister after all. She studied him a little longer. There were bags under his eyes- just like there had been with her father. Hadn't he slept yet? From what she understood, she was out for quite some time and even though his injuries weren't as severe, they should have been enough reason for the weapon to take the time to rest.

"...Right. I'll do that." She shrunk down a little into the thin blanket she had been given.

A tense silence filled the air for a few minutes, as the three people in the room who remained awake struggled for something to talk about.

"You know, I think it's about time that both of you ate something." Tsubaki was the one to break the silence. "I'll go find Professor Stein and ask him what you can eat right now."

She took a few steps in the direction of the door.

"Soul, I'll grab you something from the cafeteria, alright?"

The boy nodded slowly, avoiding eye contact. "Thanks." He mumbled.

With a hesitant pause, Tsubaki quietly opened the door and slipped out of the room, leaving the pair and sleeping death scythe to themselves. Then, as if to rip the metaphorical band-aid off, both opened their mouths to speak.

"I'm sorry."