I will 100% admit I am teasing you with the shortness of this chapter. I'm a mean author. I also definitely made myself cry while writing this. We're all kind of masochists.

Maka had been crying for at least an hour but she was much too busy replaying the fight over again in her head to actually notice the minutes tick away. She hadn't broken anything except for maybe her own heart, or perhaps the best connection in her life, or maybe even the only person in the entire world that made her feel complete. By the time the morning came around, her position and activity hadn't really changed, spurring Rin to finally enter Maka's makeshift room. "Darling?"

"Hi, Mama," she whispered with a sniffle to punctuate.

"I'm going to guess you spoke to him." Rin pulled the chair over from the desk since the tiny bed would put her almost on top of Maka.

"Mama, he just-" Maka cut herself off, her throat clamping shut as his voice came back to her. Her next sentence only came out as a breathless jumble, "He was so hurt."

Rin ran a soft hand over Maka's hair. "Darling, we talked about this. It's good for you to take some time apart. And you said it yourself, he wasn't calling. When you did talk, he sounded distant. I think the thing that really must have been hurt was probably his pride more than anything else."

"His pride?" Maka blinked up at her, lip quivering.

Rin rolled her shoulders casually, "Come on, darling, he was always so possessive. You were supposed to be his and now you're standing on your own. So all that lamenting on the other end was about him, not about you."

But when's the last time you've seen him prideful? You know better than anyone else- Maka tried to push the thoughts away, letting her mother's voice seep deeper than her own.

Marie had managed to coax Soul into allowing her to bandage his hand but other than that the visit was going nowhere, quickly. Even with that warm, motherly intent, nothing seemed to be sinking through what was swiftly becoming an exterior of pure stone. She couldn't help but be afraid of the way his eyes looked, the slow trickle away of sadness into bitter anger that she could feel washing off of him in waves.

Soul wasn't eating the grilled cheese Marie made for him, not because it didn't smell good and he certainly felt a fair amount of guilt at the fact that she'd gone so far as to prepare anything for him. He was tearing away little corners of the crisped bread as he listened to her breath. Another wave hit him, a sudden longing for Maka because he caught a glimpse of blond hair as Marie moved around the kitchen cleaning up and for a second his idiotic mind thought it could be her. She's never coming back. Stop dreaming. All that's over.

Marie heard the choking sound and turned from the sink in time to catch Soul attempting to hide the fresh wave of tears. That was oddly comforting to Marie since he'd oscillated back to sadness, a feeling she understood and fit the moment. "Soul…"

"Marie, just go," he mumbled. "Spirit wasted your time."

"I'm not wasting my time," she murmured softly as she dried her hands on the dishcloth. When she got close enough, she reached out her hand, running it over the stark white hair and smoothing it from his forehead. "And maybe you don't want to talk about it, but I do want to say something to you."

Soul imagined this was what it was like to be a child, to be soothed, and he felt more of the anger draining away. "What is it?"

Marie brushed her hand over his hair again as at least a temporary calm came over the boy's face. "When we were younger, younger than you are now, Stein and I dated for a short time. He broke it off fairly quickly for a lot of convoluted reasons that I don't need to get into, but I was heartbroken." She could see Soul ready to interject, to deny a comparison, so she repeated the motion and effectively cooled that impulse. "I loved Stein so much, but he made it very clear that it wasn't meant to be. Told me to my face."

"And worst, we had to go back to being friends. There was so much that I wanted to say to him that I couldn't because I needed to keep up the facade. So, I ended up writing him letters." Marie slowly pressed through his hair one last time before letting her hand fall to his, taking it away from picking at his food. "I never sent them to him. All I did was say all the things I needed to or wanted to say to him so that I didn't burst or lose what little I had left. I think you should try that, Soul, and if you're braver than me you can send them to her, but at least do that for yourself. Don't let these feelings settle in you since it won't do any good."

Soul let out a long, shaky sigh as his emotions flooded into a murky mess. "But you and Stein ended up together." A new sob started on the tail-end of that sentence.

"Sometimes people lie," Marie sighed, unsure if giving him hope was simply making wings of wax for him. "They push away because they think they're saving you from hurting or from getting hurt themselves. Sometimes it takes growth, time…" She could see she wasn't giving him anything, though, especially as is eyes filled with tears.

"Marie, she's never coming back to me," he barely warbled the words out before collapsing his head on the table as his shoulders trembled through another round of sobs. Even Marie couldn't hold the pieces of him together.

Really, time had lost all meaning. Soul was watching the light change on the side of the building from his window. It wasn't pitch black anymore but a soft grey and he could assume that it was closer to early morning now. How long had he laid there and replayed those words again? 'You don't need me because it's not like we were in love or something.' It was a week later and that was the only voice, the only phrase in his mind.

There was never a time when he didn't need her and how she could assume any differently was impossible. Every moment was with her and if it wasn't there was a good reason for it. These were all things he should have argued, should have laid out like facts but instead, he had let that rage take him. On that thought he got up from the bed and sluggishly walked over to his desk, searching through the mess for a blank sheet of paper. All he had was blank music sheets and he didn't dare go into her room to steal paper from her desk. Instead, in the spaces between the lines, he started to write something that was less a letter and more a list.

The things I should have said:

While you were gone, I slept, ate, worked, and waited for you.

I missed just having you in the apartment.

I missed you waking me up, even too early.

I missed you so badly that talking over the phone killed me because I couldn't see your smile.

A month was already too long.

A year would be unbearable.

I said it was you and me because that's all I've ever wanted.

Because I love you. Here he strained his pen into the word, bolding it into the page.

I am falling apart without you.

I'll go back to phone calls, I'll wait, I'll promise you anything, just as long as you tell me we're in love.

Maka had tried to keep busy but no matter how occupied her hands were there was no reprieve from the thoughts especially as the light slipped from the windows and she was trapped in a bed that didn't bring much sleep.

I miss his crooked smile.

I miss hearing his footsteps.

I miss the gruff quality of his voice when he first wakes up.

I miss the way his hand felt in mine when he'd let me take it.

But Mama said…

The house was quiet but her footsteps were even more so, shuffling softly against the carpet as she moved down the hall and into the kitchen. She took the phone off the receiver, listening to the buzz of the line as if it would make the decision for her. Her trembling fingers touched the numbers one after another that she knew by heart.

The calls at 3 AM started a week after Soul sent his letter, or rather his list. It was only a day or two after Marie bought him a new phone that he'd stared at and willed to ring more than once. In the meantime he wrote more letters, filling the time he would usually torture himself with his thoughts by scribbling across the page.

But at night it would ring, on and on until he picked up. When he did, there would be silence except for maybe a stray breath, a clue that this wasn't some crossed wire. Both sides would sit through the crackle of the line, hisses from the distance the only conversation. The other side would always hang up first after lingering for at least fifteen minutes.

Soul tried to keep himself from hoping it was her, but each time the phone rang he wanted to whisper her name into the receiver. He wanted to ask about his letter, ask about her, ask if she'd just set him free from this constant feeling of loss.

It was almost two weeks after he sent his letter that Soul told himself that this call would be different. Maka had to have gotten the letter by now. For some reason, he'd still sent the second one a few days after and had the third stamped and ready to go on his desk as he waited for the ring of the phone. Like clockwork, the trill broke through his thoughts and he rushed for the phone and clutched at the receiver, pressing it to his ear.

It was the same absence, barely a breath, and he filled it with a whisper, "Maka?"

That breath became a shuddering sob.

"Please," he begged, but the rest of the words stuck behind his teeth. Are you alright? Did you get my letter? Can you please, please…

The reply was a warble of sound saturated with tears, "I'm sorry."

That was not an answer to any of his questions and he felt his heart lurch. "Me, too," he murmured weakly. And the silence ate up the rest of the time on the line, Soul waiting for his answers and feeling his heart harden as none of them came.