It wasn't until later, when the lights and TV were off, and they were both in bed, that Maka became keenly aware that she was in bed, with a man she only just met that day. They remained on polar opposite sides of the bed facing each other. Soul's face looked eerie with only the blueish light flashing from the bedside alarm clock to light up his strange features.
"Hey Maka?," Soul said quietly.
"Hmmm?"
"I just want to say, thanks for not running away screaming in the desert and you know, thanks for waiting 'til I woke up. This is all too fucked up to have to deal with it alone. And also, I think we're going to be stuck pretty close like this for a little while so we don't have to be weird about it or anything... I- I won't try to…uh… jump you in bed...or-or anywhere."
She snickered before responding, "Thanks for that… I think this is going to be ...quite challenging in a lot of ways. So I'm glad you're here too."
She could faintly see Soul's smile in response. It was a little frightening to see his pointy teeth in the dim light, but then again, she didn't mind it. When he ate it was like a normal person so the teeth probably didn't mean anything.
In the quiet dimness Maka began to contemplate life as it was. In another life she was almost married, was estranged from her father, and somehow squeezed into stupidly tight, black jeans that were not well suited for deserts. What if she never learned more about herself, or what if she learns more than she wants and it hurts to find out what she's missing? What if there is no reason for her being inexplicably preserved and saved for a future she had no knowledge of? That was probably the most disconcerting, that all this was for naught. She had begun to worry herself into an uncomfortably dark place mentally when Soul quietly interrupted her reverie again.
"Maka?" It was almost a whisper.
"Yeah?" She whispered back.
"I'm kinda...scared," he said, even more quietly than before.
She hesitated a moment before responding, "Me too."
She was surprised when Soul reached across to gently grasp her hand. She was more surprised when she gripped his hand in response. They stayed like that, just quietly holding hands in the small dark hotel room. Sooner, rather than later they were overcome by the exhaustion of the day and they fell asleep.
Soul woke up the next morning surprised to find himself wrapped around a pretty blonde girl. He contemplated how that happened, and was deciding how best to untangle himself from her when the memories of the prior day came rushing back. He raised his head to look at the time on the clock, it flashed 4:30 a.m. and he groaned internally. He lay back down and closed his eyes trying to go back to sleep. He thought about what his life must have been like before and remembered something he had learned about himself yesterday. It was when he was finally alone, locked in the bathroom to wash off the dirt and exhaustion of the day. When he pulled off his sweaty clothes he found rows of neat scars all over his body. Thin white lines in almost parallel columns lined his forearms and hips. Some seemed fresher than others but the majority were quite faded, no longer raised but just pale lines trying to remind him of a past he knew nothing about. He had run his hands across them all and gasped slightly when two on his left wrist still hurt to touch. They looked quite recent, like they could've been done yesterday, and he wondered how his body had completely stopped moving in time for 40 years. He had tried to ignore the slight pain he felt in his wrist from scrubbing the cuts clean by humming a melody in his mind. The same tune started playing in his head again sending him into that hazey before sleep headspace. Soon he forgot about his shower discoveries and his mind wandered back where he was. It was right before falling asleep that he realized that, holding Maka felt nice and in a way familiar, but he recognized somehow that being close to someone and falling asleep with the warmth of another was fairly novel to him, even in the past.
Several hours later he woke up. This time alone in the bed. He stretched out and rolled into the middle of the bed before he groggily rubbed his eyes and checked the time. The blue digital numbers flashed 10:23 a.m. at him. He sighed and sat up. He considered getting ready or even moving at all for a few minutes when he heard Maka enter the room from the front door.
"Okay so, I went out and scoped the neighbourhood while you were sleeping in and-"
Soul cut her off, "If you think 10:30 is 'sleeping in' we will not get along lady."
He smirked in response to her dangerous glare.
"Aaaanyways, I went and pawned that ring and I found a cheap shitty boutique that sells cheap shitty clothing. I tried my best to find stuff you'd like... But the options were pretty minimal," she tossed him a bag of clothing. He dumped it out on the bed and poked through it. Amongst the loose clothing was a small plastic package. He grabbed the package, "100% Cotton Boxer Briefs," he read, "How...thoughtful of you."
"Sorry...I-I figured they'd be important. I guessed with the sizes. Uhm yeah but there's other stuff too," Maka said. Soul noticed she stammered a little and was bright red in the face. He grinned at her noting how uncomfortable she was.
"Just look at the rest and we can take back whatever doesn't fit," she grumbled at him.
"Cool thanks," he said as he started looking through the rest. There was a pair of black sweat pants, a pair of dark jeans, a pair of athletic pants, the kind with the white stripes up the side, and a few light t-shirts. He picked up to admire one of the t-shirts. It was black with dark red sleeves and a small dark red pocket in the chest. He had to hand it to her, the things she picked were pretty dead on, he usually only wore black. He saw that she had also grabbed a light long sleeve hoodie. It was dark grey and pretty unremarkable, but really soft on the inside. "This must've set you back a fair bit Maka, you didn't have to do this. You should've saved your ring," he said feeling a little guilty.
"Naw, seriously I have no attachment to that ring. Besides, none of that cost more than five dollars, except for the jeans."
"Cool, so what did you get yourself," he said nodding at the two bags she was still clutching.
"Well I got myself some clothes too, and a few supplies in case we need them...when we're out in the desert."
"Oh right. We have to meet the crazy scientist guy at some point."
"Well first we have to give him a sign where we landed. Then he tells us where to go and what to do. But I don't know which landing sight we go to, mine, or yours. And I don't think we'll be able to locate the precise spots anyways."
"That sounds pretty hopeless..." Soul said.
"Not entirely. I asked around a bit when I was shopping, and this man has made a few appearances in the news. Being weird, shouting about people falling from the sky in pairs. So I'm thinking we find some place to read every newspaper since before we got here, and maybe search online."
"Where the hell could we do that," he responded skeptically.
A dreamy look came across her face as she responded, "A library," she practically sighed when she said it.
"That's new," Soul said with a knowing smirk.
"What?" She snapped.
"You, Miss Maka, are a huge nerd."
She flung her arm around and launched her bag of clothing into his face.
"Oof," he grunted as his head snapped back from the impact.
"Serves you right,' she mumbled as she walked back over to the bed to gather her clothing. "I'm going to shower, and get dressed in clean fresh clothes on and maybe be rid of this awful B.O. for good.
She huffed off to the bathroom and Soul was left to wait for his chance to get ready.
"Oh, make sure you keep the toothbrush you got from the hotel. Even at the crappy boutique those things were overpriced," Maka called back as she closed the bathroom door behind her.
Alone in the bathroom Maka finally took a moment to look at her self. Last night she was tired and confused and didn't take much in, today however, she tried to take stock of what she knew.
One, she had long ash blonde hair that she apparently liked to keep in pigtails. Two, she had green eyes, and lightly freckled fair skin.
Three, she fell to earth from outer space, but had existed for some twenty something years in the past first.
Four, she had a shark toothed companion whom she found from the desert.
And five, she was almost married but then left her fiancée after he cheated, and apparently her father sucked too.
So basically she had no one to count on but herself, and a stranger, oh and apparently she likes books, judging by the warm and fuzzy feeling she got at the idea of finding a library.
She sighed heartily before she ditched her reflection to jump in the shower. Moments later she emerged feeling even cleaner than before, knowing that she didn't have to put the same clothes back on this time.
She pulled on plain grey yoga pants, opting for something a little more pleasant in the heat than jeans, and the new plain white, v-neck t-shirt she bought.
She used her fingers to comb out her hair and stared for a minute, wondering if she should honour her old self by putting her hair back into twin pigtails, or going for the easy bun from before. She settled on something in between and pulled it all into one high ponytail.
"Here we go," Maka said before leaving the bathroom to see how far along Soul was in getting ready. Admittedly, she was not surprised when she found him as he was when she left for the bathroom in the first place. "What are you doing lazy bones. We should get out of here for check out so we don't pay for another day."
"You're not the only one that wants to be clean when they finally put fresh clothes on," he said gruffly before getting out of the bed. He grabbed some of the clothes from the pile of new stuff before shuffling off to the bathroom grumbling the whole time.
Maka smirked as she heard snatches of his grumbling. "…mornings…stupid…no late checkout…" The door slammed shut behind him as Maka started going around the room to organize and pack their meager belongings. She hummed tunelessly to herself as she split the supplies she bought amongst her, and Soul's backpacks.