As snitchykun predicted you're getting some fluffy sweetness here, but I always have to temper it with doom. You'll eventually get a happy ending, I swear.

Soul had gone over to the cottage with every intention to at least try to make a space for them. He wasn't even necessarily focused on the romantic aspect but the reality: there were six people other than them in the house and even with the four bedrooms it had the potential to feel tight. As he was walking up the stairs he even contemplated setting up the second bedroom just to give her the opportunity to sleep away from him if so she chose. The idea itself tore into his heart, but he also knew the reality: she could hate the plan and, in turn, need her own space and time to think. That's where he had started, clearing the clutter and setting sheets on the dilapidated mattress. This, he assumed, would be his bed tonight, already shelving Black Star's idea as he continued to have the pre-discussion with her in his head.

But it's her choice, she has a choice, and regardless of what that is, I'm- there was no possible thought that could perforate the emotional wave that suddenly hit him as he walked into the main bedroom. Everything was already set, sheets on the bed with his-and-her nightstands hugging each side. It wasn't just the bed but the rest of the room, all the boxes disappeared to give the rest of the furniture its space. On top of the dressers were the least cheesy of the knickknacks Nana had left behind and pictures. Where the hell she had found the pictures, and found frames that fit them, was beyond him. A desperate ache was settling in his chest as he stumbled towards the bed, sitting on the edge. His hands weakly grasped the photo from the nightstand, his eyes meeting his own from twenty years ago.

The grin on his face was impossibly wide, toothy even though one or two were missing at that point, and without a hint of apprehension or hurt. Nana was there, holding him tightly on her lap as she kissed at his temple. He couldn't possibly tell you when or where this was but in an instant, he could feel it all again, the deeply necessary moments of joy that came with each time she opened their door. As if his mind was recreating the past, he heard the front door. Instead of that hearty, raspy voice that he remembered so well, it was Maka's lighter, melodic tone that desperately started at the bottom of the stairs. "No, no, no," looped on repeat.

Soul lifted his head just as she got to the doorway. "Maka…"

"Oh, no," Maka warbled as she sunk a hand into her hair.

"Did you…?" He honestly didn't even know where to start and his eyes fell back down to the image. "Just where did you…?"

"She had plenty of them," her smile saturated through the words. "So many pictures of you and her tucked away in boxes. I may have unframed a few photos of your distant family, but I saved them. Just thought these would remind you."

"Remind me of what?" Soul barely eked the words out of his lips.

"That you're loveable." Maka laughed softly as she made her way to the bed and slid next to him. "And it was supposed to be a surprise but you had to go snooping."

A trembling sigh left his lips as he carefully deposited the picture back on the nightstand. "Not snooping, came to do kind of the same thing but for you." He brought shaking hands to her face, touching her cheeks and moving over skin as gently as possible. "How are you, really? It's been a lot, I know and I… tell me what I can do."

She sighed sweetly as calloused fingers caressed spots that sent a tingle down her spine. "What you're doing now works. And I'm worried, a little sad, but trying to stay hopeful. How are you?"

"Scared as hell," his laugh was tight with agony. "But I want to be hopeful, too."

Maka nodded, easing another sigh of relief from her mouth as his hands didn't stop. One was drifting through her hair, brushing strands this way and that as fingertips massaged into her scalp. The other was at her cheek, then her neck, drifting to her shoulder and up and down her arm. Both felt constantly on the move but it was all welcome motion that blossomed pockets of calm in her skin.

"I'm sorry I ruined the surprise," Soul mumbled.

She giggled, "I should have expected it, really. But what were you going to do? Tell me."

"I thought if I…" a frustrated sigh broke his lips because tears were threatening to press from his eyes. He tried to convince himself this wasn't the time but his heart didn't seem to want to listen, letting one or two loose. "If this could look like a home, you'd stay. Because it's not the fight I'm afraid of, it's the aftermath. It's the you and me after because I don't know how to…" He stole a hand away from her to motion helplessly, to sigh and then throw that hand through his hair. "Do I even know how to be normal? Be your boyfriend, if that's what you even end up wanting, and not play this stupid game of pull and push like I always do."

"You have never been normal," she laughed softly and while he cringed it was short-lived as it was now time for her hands to do the work. Maka first cleared the tears from his face, touched again by the idea that this was the Soul that people rarely got to see, and moved to smooth the front of his shirt to feel his heartbeat under her fingers. "And I don't expect you to be. It's good that you know that's your pattern and that gives me hope that you'll break it. You told me once you were working on things. That's still true, right?"

"I'm always going to try, but that doesn't mean-"

"Trying is what's important to me," there was a hard snap to her voice, not dismissive but poignant. "But you're telling me that what happens with us is scarier than dying, seriously?"

"Of course," he urged back. "Death is just an end. It's over and there's nothing to do but I've already tried to be without you and it just sucks. It's awful. Even just this," he patted her hand over his heart, taking a second to press it into his shirt. "I need it. I don't know how to function without it anymore."

Maka's smile blossomed along with a blush on her cheeks. "That's… hey, kiss me, OK?"

No order ever sounded better and he was quick to jump to please her, lips eagerly obeying. There was no lead from her, letting him linger as long as it took to let at least an ounce of that fear drift away. One hand was still clutched into her hair as he barely pulled away. "I don't know if this is what you wanted, but, Maka, I love you."

Her sigh caught and warbled through her throat. "It is. I love you, too, Soul. Please don't tell me I have to hit you over the head with it."

He pulled away just enough for those dazzling jade eyes to open and make his heart tremble against his ribs. "Nah, I hear you."

Maka's fingers played in his shirt, a smile wavering on her lips. "But I think the naked on top of you part is going to have to wait again."

"I wasn't-" Soul stuttered out, "I mean, not that I… but now, I-" All of it was fuzz in his mouth and his head especially as that tiny treasured memory of her skin against his flooded back.

"We have a birthday party to get to," she patted her hands one more time against his chest before standing. "I'm sure they're struggling to keep Shelley from finding out, so let's not keep them waiting."

"But, Maka…" His hands were still just falling away from her and he let one grasp helplessly into her shirt.

"What is it?" Her smile grew as she looked down on him, the embarrassed confusion still plastered across his face.

"You… you want to? With me?"

A laugh tumbled from her mouth, "Who else?" The giggles only increased as he huffed and stuttered over that. It forced her to lean down again, gripping his cheeks and tilting his lips up to meet hers. That seemed to at least clear the confusion from his eyes but his mouth remained gaping. "Sometimes you're such a dummy. Do you think it was just you feeling it this whole time? You were the only one stealing glances? Enjoying touches a little too much?"

"Maka…" Soul knew he shouldn't be as bewildered as he was since that was only proving her right. I am a dummy. With no words that fit he grabbed at her hips instead to pull her back to him, finding that there was no need for force as her knees straddled him.

"Loving isn't the only thing either of us was doing." She ran a hand through his hair as she grinned, a bit of bashful color bursting on her cheeks. "Tell me the truth and no stuttering: you want me, too, don't you, Soul?"

"Yes, but…" he sighed heavily as his arms drifted from her hips to her back. Soul pulled her close, letting the next whisper come out across her skin as he pressed his face right above her breasts. "Is it OK to want right now?"

Maka toyed through his hair, trying to bring her breath back to her as the heat from his cheek burned into her. "Why wouldn't it be?"

"Guess my head just wants to come up with excuses," he murmured. "Like, what if, next week…"

"That's next week," she interrupted his thought. "Is there something in the way right now, this minute, other than that surprise party that we really need to get going to?"

"No," the admission was tangled in ecstasy and worry. He lifted his head, tilting just as she did so their eyes could meet. Like always he was searching for admonishment, disappointment, regret, any of those emotions that would make sense to that dark side of his mind that was constantly trying to tear down the beauty he literally had in his hands.

None of it was there, just that sweet smile on her face as she dipped for a temptingly short kiss. "Then party, come back here and talk about the plan and whatever happens after is what should happen."

If there was anything that could alleviate the terror of a murder plot it was an eight-year-old's surprise birthday. Or, at least for the group at the farmhouse, it could.

Delight was an understatement as Shelley gushed over the re-creation of the tea party that she and Soul had shared the year before. Maybe it was better since this time she had even more of an audience, strange new friends like Kilik and Kim, but also the steady regulars in her life like her mother, father, brothers (because there was no other label for Soul). Where Maka fit she still wasn't sure since she was neither new nor established and Shelley still kept her at a length because of the threat to her position in Soul's heart. She may be young but she wasn't stupid: the way Soul looked at Maka was often the way she saw Daddy look at Mom.

But Soul still doted on her, so did everyone else, completely leaving Shelley unaware of any of the darkness that skittered at the edge of her world. No one would let her know that something like war was on the way, that they were celebrating birth on the cusp of death.