Time crawled.

To make matters worse the engagement had somehow made a bubbly buffer between Spirit and Rin, keeping one from thorning in the other's side. Maka knew she should count her blessings, rejoice in the idea that for once she was not at all a mediator, but there was still Soul. His sleep hadn't gotten better after the first night and she had found him very much the same way the next morning, her father somehow included again. With a terrifying kind of joy she realized another tiny smidge of bonding must have happened because her father had dropped the 'kid' and 'boy' moniker for Soul. Small steps, Maka begged out into the universe.

That's why she had thought it would be no big deal to leave the two of them together in order to let her mother mimic Lizzie in that almost automatic desire to try on dresses. It had been normal, fine, ho-hum until stripping out of dress number four brought with it a steady buzz from her purse. She looked at the screen, saw Papa, and let the first ounce of panic rush into her veins. "Hello?"

"You better come home," Spirit sighed.

Maka let a weak groan break her lips. "Why? What happened?" came after she barely squashed a 'what did you do?' in her mind.

"His phone started buzzing. He went upstairs. It's been a half-hour and still not any movement."

"Did you hear him talking?" Maka could guarantee her father was nosey enough and could probably recite the whole conversation if there had been one. In the meantime, she was struggling to get her pants back on one-handed.

"Nope," Spirit popped the word off his lips.

"Well, maybe…" Maka started but cut it with a roll of her eyes. "We'll come back now. Thank you for calling."

"What's the problem?" Spirit snuck in quickly before he knew the line was about to go.

Maka froze, her lips working over the question for a second. "He gave his mother an ultimatum, Papa. She accepts me or he has absolutely nothing to do with her."

"Huh," there was a genuine twinkle of interest there. "Give up all that money for you?"

"Papa," Maka hissed.

Spirit chuckled, "Sorry. See ya soon."

The line beeped and Maka dropped her phone back into her bag. It was a few frantic twists to get back into her shirt and then her shoes. She was still toying with her heel in one of her sneakers when she rounded the corner out of the dressing room. "Mama, time to go."

"Darling, why?" Rin moaned out. "The boys are fine by themselves. Honestly, if you can't trust the man alone with your father for a few hours then-"

"It's an emergency," Maka snapped quickly. "Papa called."

Rin checked her phone as she stood to follow after Maka who was kicked up dust across the showroom floor. "He didn't call me."

Because would you answer? Maka squashed that first thought with a sigh. "Because it's a Soul problem, Mama. Dress shopping can definitely wait."

"A Soul problem?" It almost sounded sing-songy, playful as Rin caught up a few steps to rush besides her daughter. "Does he have a lot of those?"

"He has them just as often as I have a Maka problem," she chimed back. Her fingernails were pressing little crescents into her palms and the tension was leaving her fingers tingling.

"That doesn't seem like you." Again, the comment was supposed to sound innocuous but Maka knew the tone. "You know when couples get like that, feed off each other-"

"Mama." Even in all the rush, Maka dug her heels in, watching as her mother pivoted in surprise to face her. The moment came rushing back to her, the tension of another year of waiting for a phone call, the negotiating to get the time that she not only wanted but deserved. She always had to buy time. "I don't think you know me." And for the first time, even though it was just in her head, Maka admitted it: Especially since the Maka problem is usually because of you.

Air was a luxury. What Soul could get was thin and useless against the thundering of his heart. This is what dying feels like. The walls are coming from every angle and I'm going to be crushed until my fucking heart explodes. Worst yet, it was fixable. All of it was. Finality was in his grasp but everything was frozen.

There was the buzz. Her name on the screen. He'd come up here for quiet and Spirit let him go since all they had been doing together was staring at the same TV screen. It had still been vibrating when he closed the door behind him, but all he did was watch it go. Watch the screen blink out. Feel the secondary pulse a few minutes later of a voicemail. He didn't have the guts to check that it was from her but realistically, what was the other option?

But it was that damn thought experiment of Schrödinger's cat. It's not like he had taken quantum mechanics but for some reason, Kilik had gotten obsessed with it for a while and now the actual parallel to real-life was easy to see. At this moment, his mother was both alive and dead to him, that voicemail leaving her in a perpetual state of both. If he didn't listen he didn't lose her, but at the same time didn't have her either. The cat's alive and dead. But just knowing that the voicemail exists means that it's one or the other. Where's the line? Where's the limit? And why can't I goddamn do anything other than stare at this phone and gasp for air? His mind kept irrationally circling that drain.

In a last-ditch effort, Soul tried to press his forehead against the window, hoping that the glass would offer some kind of cool relief but all it succeeded in doing was sending a chill down his spine. At the very least it was a shock but soon followed by just the same immobility, his legs starting to feel stiff from the desperately tightened muscles.

Reprieve barely came when her warm arms wrapped around his waist, her delicate fingers climbing up to his chest. "Breath, Soul. I think you might be turning a little blue." He groaned but there still wasn't much to refill his lungs with and his knees started to buckle from the tension. Maka guided him down, having to pull him back so his back rested on her chest. Her legs were folded underneath her, a recipe for disaster as the pins and needles would start any second but there was not even a second's concern for that. "Hey, Soul, come on."

With another small intake of air, he lit up his phone screen again, angling it for her to see.

"Oh," Maka let the heartache warble through her voice. "Do you want me to listen to it?"

"I want," his voice cracked and broke away as he shook his head.

Maka sighed as her hands traveled over his chest, finding tried and true places to caress, to rub, to bring warmth. She waited and prayed this was all just enough to resuscitate him. It took time but his breathing came back, his fingers relaxing from the phone and letting it drop to the floor instead of his death grip. He turned in her arms, letting her get her legs into a position that wasn't pinching her nerve. Those ruby eyes were telling her every last thing as he stared at her face. "I wish she'd give you the kind of love you deserve, Soul," Maka murmured as she cleared the hair from his face.

"I don't know," he muttered. "Maybe she's trying to and I'm just too chicken-shit to listen."

"Schrödinger's cat."

Soul sucked in enough air to snort out a laugh. "How do you know about that?"

"It's a famous thought experiment. Everybody knows it." The roll to her eyes was refreshing, at least not a moment of pity or pain.

He was able to return the favor, letting his fingers press a curl of hair behind her ear. "I'm sorry if I ruined your shopping."

"I'm not," Maka shook her head firmly as she let her mind reminisce over the tightness in her mother's face after her comment. That had kept its strength through the entire ride home but Maka wasn't necessarily sure she even gave a damn. "And, honestly, I know you love me in a nice dress, Soul, but I'm not sure. All of them make me look like a cupcake."

"Not going to the right places." Soul trailed a finger from her ear down her jaw. "Maybe something vintage."

Maka hummed out thoughtfully. "How did you know you ruined shopping?"

"Spirit yelled at me through the door," Soul snorted out a laugh. "Called me a drama queen."

She rolled her eyes, "Sometimes, that man-"

"No big deal," he caressed her cheek again. "Maybe I deserved it a little."

"No," Maka pressed, "but you do have to listen to the message, Soul."

"I know," he sighed. "It's probably going to be…" Leaving that unfinished, he lifted the phone and clicked on the voicemail icon. His finger hovered over the next click, the play button antagonizing him. Maka pressed his finger down.

Catherine's voice was not the same. There weren't any hard-pressed orders there, just a soft, tired hum. "I know you're busy, Soul, but please call me when you have a moment."

"Not an actual decision," Soul sighed out.

"I think if she was going to say no, wouldn't it have been easy enough to just do it then?" Maka offered softly as she ran her fingers through his hair again.

His eyes searched hers before the words trembled off his tongue. "Why do you… I just… don't you hate her, Maka?"

"No," Maka shrugged off the idea as easily as a shawl. "I hate her behavior. Same with my parents. I don't hate them, I just hate what they do. You can love someone and hate how they behave, Soul. That's why it's hurting you so much right now. I know you love her because you just do love your parents, but, and this is especially true when you get older, you can definitely learn to dislike what they choose to do."

His hand dug in, clenching into her to send a message of love rather than the harsh words he knew were on his lips, "Then why don't you ever give your parents the same shit?"

Maka sighed swiftly and patted his hand. "Because I'm not half as strong as you."

"That's bullshit," he muttered.

"No," Maka piggy-backed quickly, "or at least I don't think so. I can barely get the strength to tell them they hurt me in the first place. Though, I kind of did with Mama today."

Maybe Maka didn't mean to, but she easily flicked the switch in his brain. Soul was pressing down at the rest, air coming back because he needed it for her. "What did she do?"

Maka gave a sharp shake of her head. "Just something stupid and very her. And I did it really to protect you, or us, I guess. It's easier than when it's just for me. Which is what I'm worried about with this. You gave your mother this choice because of me."

"It's an us, not a you," Soul corrected. "I mean, I do a lot of things for you, because of you, but…" He fidgeted the phone in his fingers. "This was a long time coming. OK, I'm going to call."

Maka pressed a tender kiss to his lips first, letting it linger in hopes of sucking away at least a modicum of the pain. "I love you."

"Love you," he murmured back before tapping his mother's name. Again, the suffocating stress of the unknown hit him, the fact that she could not pick up, that they could play phone-tag for days on end and he could live in that perpetual state. The terror only gripped him for a minute before the click of the connected line. "Hey, Mom, returning your call." How he managed to say that all in a steady line he had no idea and his strength felt zapped until Maka's hand brushed over the back of his neck.

"Thank you for calling back so quickly," Catherine was swift on the return but still subdued.

"It's no problem," Soul let out a trembling sigh. "I've been thinking about you a lot since we left."

"Thinking about all the horrible things I've done?" she offered flatly.

A hand was starting to constrict around his heart. Everything felt tenuous and one wrong word from him could tip some secret scale. "It's not that," his voice shook out in a pleading whisper. "Mom, I don't want to argue about the past."

"Tell me," her voice was still lifeless and unreadable, "Did I ever do anything right for you, Soul?"

"Mom…" Soul was stammering, his fingers clenching tightly around the phone. "Of course, Mom, just… I think it stopped when Wes went away. I think everything went wrong when Wes started going away for school."

There was nothing but soft static until a shaking breath came from Catherine. "You got quiet then."

"Yeah," Soul urged and that tenuous grip on her didn't feel so frayed. "And I stopped asking or talking about what I wanted, so I think you just tried to pick up the slack by deciding what I needed for me, but that never worked. It can't work like that, Mom. I need you to listen to what I have to say now, not deciding my things for yourself."

There was another intermission, another few breaths. "Tell me why you chose her."

Soul looked to Maka's face for inspiration, seeing the tentative smile there as his eyes danced over her features. "Because she never quits. Whether it's my stuff or her stuff, she doesn't want to give up until it's over and settled. Maybe she comes off a little headstrong," he nudged her cheek and got a smirk in return, "but it's because she's dedicated. If you let her, Mom, she'll do the same for you. She has for Lizzie, has for Wes. She wants us to be a family."

"A family…" there was a long sigh. "And you want that with her?"

"Yeah, of course," he laughed softly. "Kind of why I proposed. Wife and then… a family, eventually."

Maka added a snort of a laugh and mouthed, "Baby-crazy."

Soul rolled his eyes, trying to decide whether or not to mouth 'I said eventually' or just a straight 'no' when his mother murmured something so lightly that he had to strain against the phone. "What was that, Mom? I couldn't hear you."

"I want to try," Catherine murmured again barely at the threshold.

"You…" A delicate elation started to bloom in his chest. "You mean it?"

"I don't want to lose my son," came resolutely across the line.

The laugh from his mouth was sharp and breathless, words that he thought would only be part of his daydreams and not anywhere close to a reality he would ever live in. "Thanks, Mom," he whispered in true awe of the moment.

There was a forceful intake of breath on the other end before Catherine let out gently, "Is Maka there?"

"Yeah," Soul offered hesitantly as his eyes flicked to Maka's face.

"May I speak with her?"

"Give me a second." Soul very purposefully brought the phone down, hitting the mute button because he knew the disbelief that was going to pointedly drip off of each word. "My mom wants to talk to you."

Maka blinked, "Like in a good way?"

"She wants to try," his voice trembled back in reply.

"Good." Maka placed a swift peck on his lips before she stole the phone from his bewildered fingers. She hit the mute button again and moved it to her ear. "Hi, Catherine. How was Christmas?"

There was a second of disoriented silence before she latched on. "It was nice. Wes and Lizzie stayed for half the day before they left for her parents." There was another tentative pause but before Maka could fill it Catherine continued, "And how are your parents?"

"Both are fine. They're excited about the engagement," Maka tried to deliver that without gloating, just simple information on a mutual topic. Without prompting, Soul's words came back to her, the idea that she'd never give up, and the next words just flowed from her mouth. "I went dress shopping with my mom but I didn't like anything, really. I even went shopping just on a whim with Lizzie and I have to say it was the same thing. Maybe… maybe there's someplace you could show me. I'm trying not to worry that I'll never find anything," she let a weak laugh close it, especially as Soul's fingers tightened around her free hand.

"I think that might be nice," came out slow and pronounced but not stinking of an ulterior meaning.

"The next time we come and visit then," Maka was able to say that with more breath in her lungs, the anticipation not killing her. "I assume it won't be that long from now."

Catherine's reply was quick this time, "No, I hope not."

"Good, well, I'll give you back to Soul-"

"Maka, wait."

It felt like a race to hand the phone back, to keep that moment just the way it was but now Maka feared a stumble coming her way. "Yes?"

"I hope that… if Soul wants us as a family, then I hope we can do that."

Maka took a moment to look into the scarlet eyes across from her, to feel the familiar way the pads of his fingers massaged into her hand. "I think we can, Catherine."