When Soul pulls into her driveway the next day, she's instantly amused.

"Nice… ride," Maka says as Soul rolls down the window, and the smug expression he'd been wearing instantly turns wary.

"... What's that face?" he says as he slides out of an old, black, fancy BMW. Once he's fully out of the car, she catches a glimpse of the interior - a deep red that looks like it has never been sat in.

She rearranges her face into what she hopes is something resembling careful innocence. "Don't worry about it. It's just… not what I expected."

Kicking at dirt appears to be a hobby of his. "It wasn't expensive, okay?"

She laughs. "Oh, no. It's not that." She walks up to his door and holds her hand out for the keys. "I'll… tell you soon. Promise. You'll think it's funny."

He doesn't want to drop the subject or the keys, she can tell - or maybe he's just hesitant to give up control of his black-and-red baby. She watches the keys dangle from his fist, little white lines etching themselves into his knuckles.

"Getting cold feet?" she asks. It's a challenge, and apparently he responds well to challenges, because he drops his keys into her hand like a hot potato and stalks to the other side of the car.

Her confidence fades as soon as she gets into the driver's seat, but Maka subscribes to the life philosophy of Fake It 'Til You Make It, and will not be deterred.

"Just let me try it out before you tell me anything, okay?" she asks, and Soul quirks an inquisitive eyebrow at her, but says nothing.

She surveys the dashboard, the key in her hand, and the three pedals at her feet, the plastic on them worn heavy with time. Next, she examines the stick shift, with a thumbprint stain worn away in the painted metal. It's a stark contrast to the perfect, immaculate red leather interior that surrounds them. It makes the car seem more... loved, somehow. Lived in. More like a car that's seen things, and less like a car that belongs in a museum.

"...Forget where the key goes?" he asks. When she looks up to glare at him, he pulls back on the snark a little. "I'm kidding. You okay?"

"Yep," she says, but the question frazzles her enough that she turns the ignition fast, the car revving to life. When she looks at him out of the corner of her eye, he's staring resolutely ahead, but she can feel his smirk.

"Don't say anything," she says again, and this time he obeys, giving her only one noncommittal shrug.

She tests out all three pedals without putting anything into gear, alternating her feet between them as she tries to feel out what it feels like to switch between the accelerator and the clutch. She's sure that he's watching her out of the corner of his eye, because as soon as she stops and looks at him, his eyes fly forward again.

"Okay," she says. "I'm ready. Give me a pep talk, coach."

He seems to relax at this, though it's only now that she realizes he was tense in the first place. When he turns his gaze on her, she's not nervous anymore, only attentive, prepared to start the beginnings of her tutelage.

"Kay," he says. He makes a show out of putting his feet up on the dash and fixing her with a lazy smile. "First. What do you know? About stick, I mean."

"Plenty," she says. In theory. But that's the problem, isn't it? She's all theory and no practice. It's one thing to put your skills to the test in your head; it's quite another when you have to put that knowledge to use.

"Alright," he says, humoring her. He is, at least, giving her the benefit of the doubt, which is appreciated. "Can you give me a summary? I feel like you're good at summaries."

Fake it 'til you make it. "Hm. Okay. Hit accelerator. Uh. Hit clutch." she says, pointing to the pedal on the left and looking up at him. "Hit them together, I guess. Let up on clutch until you feel the gear change. Drive car. Repeat."

His eyes are laughing. "That's… true, I guess."

Faking it is exhausting, and it makes her prickly. "If you're so smart, why don't you just tell me? You don't have to lord it over me." She crosses her arms and lets out a huff, hair from her pigtails spilling onto her shoulders.

He's grinning now, and it looks stupid. "Nah. I think this is one of those things you learn by doing it. So maybe we should just go for it."

"...Yeah." She shoots him a strained grin. "All right."

He watches her for another minute, but whatever evaluation he's currently making of the situation, of her, sitting in his driver's seat with lead in her bones, he keeps it to himself.

"All right. Seat belt, cool kid," she says, and he lets out a dramatic sigh and puts it on - even though she knows he'd already been reaching for it.

"...Okay, driving ace," he says, taking his feet down off the dash. "Let's see if you're a stick shift prodigy."

Maka is decidedly not a stick shift prodigy.

"Holy shit!" Soul yelps as they come to another screeching halt in the middle of a back road, surrounded by trees and driveways leading down to cabins in the wilderness - but not surrounded, thankfully, by any unwitting pedestrians or motorists.

"Stop grabbing the bar," Maka mutters, slamming her foot onto the clutch once more in order to get the car to budge.

"It's called the oh shit bar for a reason!" Soul exclaims, his voice half an octave higher than its normal baritone. "And would you take it easy-"

"It's not actually called the oh shit bar," she retorts over the sound of the shaking car as it desperately attempts to get itself back into first gear.

"Well I'm certainly understanding where people get the name from," he shoots back, both hands curled around the bar above his window like he's wielding a bazooka - only in this case, he has no ammo, as he's equipped only with a pointed tone and ample regrets.

"I didn't ask for your opinion," she says, and with another slam of her foot, the car kickstarts into first gear, rolling along the road with a slow, miserable amble. "And anyway, that bar is called a grab-handle-"

"Oh my god," he says, hitting his head against the headrest. "I did not and will never ask for a history of the oh shit bar. Please." He pauses to catch his breath. "Anyway, like I was saying. Take it easy. You don't have to pretend that you're kicking someone's skull in when you're pressing the clutch."

"Well, maybe next time, don't teach people to drive stick for the first time in one of your prized possessions," she says, knuckles white on the shifter as she tries to time their leap into second gear. "You should have brought along a crappier car."

"Maybe you should be a little more open to suggestions so you don't wreck one of my prized possessions," he grumbles.

She lets the car drift to a slow, angry stop on the side of the road before she puts it in park, sending him a glare poised to penetrate his soul.

"I am open to suggestions," she says, her voice a deadly, angry flat.

"You absolutely are not," he counters, and his own glare is equally potent.

"I am plenty open-minded," she says, "unless it's some guy with this put-on, fake-cool persona who sits here and derides my driving."

He's clearly over this conversation, rolling his eyes as he faces the road again. They sit there for a moment, seething at each other, staring at the road ahead.

"If you're done with these lessons after twenty minutes, fine," Soul spits, breaking the silence. "Some things take practice, you know. Not that you'd know anything about that."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?!"

"It means that you're a perfectionist," he says. "I can tell. And if you don't get something right away, you just give up, because what's the point?"

"That's… not true," she says, but there's a stone sinking in her stomach.

"No?" he says. "You got straight As in school without really trying, right? Made friends easily your whole life?"

She's glass. Transparent as a lens, and he's seeing straight through her. It is not comfortable, not at all, but it does cool her temper, because she's not... unreasonable when it comes to things like this. Well, maybe she is, but there are few things as humbling as clearly spoken truth, and it leaves her feeling a bit sheepish.

"Good at sports without trying, too," she confirms, and he lets out a breath. She can almost see his defensive walls coming back down. He tilts his head to the side, considering her.

"...Stick sucks," he finally says. "It's hard. Nobody gets it on the first try."

"Yeah," she says, leaning back against the headrest. "I'm... not afraid to work hard. I just get frustrated when it doesn't come easily, you know?"

"... Yeah," he says. "I get it. Anyway. Take it from someone who doesn't pick up anything easily. You'll get it. You just gotta… how did you say it? Put on a fake cool persona until you do." He sends her a little wounded look, and she starts to laugh.

"I'm… sorry," she says, dropping the laughter so he can hear her sincerity. "Truce?" She holds out her hand and after a moment he takes it, the tension in the car thinning out until it dissipates altogether.

"Okay," he says, facing front again. "Let's... call it a day today, yeah?"

For the rest of the ride, Maka keeps a hold on her frustrations, and Soul doesn't grab the oh shit bar once.

As they drive down the dirt road to Nana's house, Maka says, "Thanks… for today."

"No problem," he says dryly. "It was… fun?"

"Mmm. Sure. Fun," she echoes, adding a smile. She pauses, casting a glance at the house. "Would you... wanna come in? Nana's probably put some tea on by now."

"That's okay," he says, pulling out and checking his phone. "I actually need to get back home. There's an event tonight that I have to be there for."

"You've got a lot of those, huh?" Maka asks. "Wes mentioned that one the other night, too."

He shrugs. "Comes with the territory."

"What do you do at these events?" she asks. She won't press too much, but she does want to know what goes on.

He's silent for a minute, and she isn't sure if he's going to answer at all before he says, "I don't do much. S'lots of stuffy rich people."

"You're not one for schmoozing?" she asks, and he meets her eye with a disdainful sort of amusement.

"My brother's a better schmoozer than I could ever be," he says. "I'm just the… accompaniment."

She's not sure what that means, either, but at this point, they're pulling (or, more accurately, moving forward at various speeds, punctuated by lurching stops) back into the driveway. He jumps out of the car when they come to a stop, and she decides to attribute this behavior to the fact that he is running late and not to the fact that he is eager to be out of the passenger's seat when she is the one driving.

"All right, driving ace," he says, walking around the front of the car as she steps out. "Nice… job today." She grimaces. "Nah, I mean it," he adds, giving her a tiny smile. "I told you. It's not easy. You working tomorrow?"

"Yeah, I'll see you there," she says with a wave. "Maybe we can drive right after?"

"Yeah," he says with a little shrug. "I guess."

In the early summer sunset, she watches the headlights on his car disappear down the road. For all of its low points, there's… something about today that already has her looking forward to the next lesson.

The music is playing, the guests are mingling, the night is alive with laughter and chatter, and Soul is miserable.

It's only the beginning of the summer, and this is the fourth time he's had to sit at this piano for an entire evening, hands drifting mindlessly along the keys. There's nothing surprising about it; it's not like he hasn't spent the past ten summers of his life doing the exact same thing, creating background noise for the sorts of people who fear silence.

All around him, southern Maine's richest and most influential talk business deals and sales pitches, peppered with the occasional personal story that nobody actually wants to listen to. This, at least, is somewhat comforting for him; every time his parents had spun an anecdote about he or Wes's accomplishments, it had been met with polite interest and nothing more, and there's something liberating about not being cared about by people that he doesn't even know.

He continues to think thoughts like these as he moves into the next song, nobody noticing the changes in the rhythm, the time signature. Even between this summer and the last, his attitude towards these evenings has worsened; he wants nothing more than to get away from here, and he moves into wishful thinking about hopping onto the bike again, or into the car. The wind is a much better accompaniment than meaningless chatter.

At one point, someone comes over to leave him a 5-dollar bill, which he used to find super cool, when he was a kid, but now every tip only leaves him more jaded, thinking of how they think so highly of themselves, throwing money around and patting themselves on the back for doting on the poor piano player when it's just drops in the bucket for them-

"I like this one," comes a voice from behind him, and his hands almost falter on the keys. "Did father pick this one out, too?"

Soul lets out a little sigh, eyes sliding back towards Wes's white hair. "Nope. This one's mine. He doesn't really get to set my song list anymore."

"Wow," Wes says, leaning up against the piano. "No more Rhapsody in Blue, then? No more Moonlight Sonata.? You're finally free. Congratulations."

Soul laughs, but it comes out more bitter than he intended. "If I were really free, I wouldn't be here right now. How's the night looking?"

"Oh, fine," Wes says, waving a hand. "I believe they've gotten most of their business discussion out of the way, so they're just letting things simmer until they go in for the kill."

"... Sounds like them," Soul says as he reaches up to turn a page. "Are they... gonna come check in?"

"Perhaps," Wes says. "Though I think they're trying to avoid any… hiccups in the schedule." Out of the corner of his eye, Soul can see him grinning.

"Hiccups?" Soul says. "They think I'll cause a hiccup?"

"I mean," Wes says innocently. "I think we all just know that leaving you alone and letting you play is probably the best way to ensure a successful evening."

"And you decided to go against the grain tonight, did you?" Soul says, rolling his eyes.

"I just can't help but keep my little brother company," Wes replies, taking a sip of his drink. "Anyway. I'm coming to let you know that I can take over, whenever you stop, and if you wanted to slip out the back…"

Gratitude rushes over him, but he has appearances to keep up, so he merely grunts. "Okay. Thanks. I'll play one more."

"Sure," he says, flitting away to grab his violin.

And sure enough, he finds the back door unlocked, and it's easy to slip down the back walkway, find his bike, and drive off into the night.

He finds himself by the lighthouse again. He's not sure what it is that draws him here. Maybe it's the easily predictable light, spinning in a circle, or the sound of the water. He thinks about what it might be like, to be the keeper of a lighthouse. Solitary, perhaps, but also peaceful, maybe. It's magnetic, the notion of just listening to the ocean all day, with nobody to ask you questions, nobody to make you feel obligated to do something.

He kicks at the rocks on the pavement, feeling grateful for Wes's liberation tactics, but also a little guilty for leaving him behind. At the very least, he never seems to mind being their parents' lapdog.

But Soul is growing out of it. He can feel it in his bones every day, the need to escape this social function, business-pressure life, and again, a guilt surrounding Wes's role in this hammers away at his resolve.

Of all of the people in his life who listen to respond, Wes had always just listened. And it feels like a betrayal, trying to abandon a life in which his brother plays such a big part.

He doesn't want to go back to that house. But for now, he must. And so, despite the energy dragging him away, he fights the current and returns to the estate, where he will endure another night of bitter sleep.

-ɸ-

During the next driving lesson, it rains, and Soul has the feeling that it's making them both a little wistful. New England summer rain is mostly chilly and damp, and it seeps into the bones, weighing down your soul a little more than a normal summer day would.

Maka is much more quiet than she was last time, and he's discovering that in this state, she is almost impossible to read. He's also on his best behavior - trying not to make her feel gross about driving like she did last time. And in the quiet of the car, he is forced to admit that he finds himself… curious. Wanting to know about her. But he isn't really much better when it comes to that sort of stuff. For all of her fierce independence, he's just a closed book - and he can already tell, by lesson two, that they both totally refuse to be vulnerable.

Of course, there are the inevitable moments where the car comes to a screeching halt and they are both forced to confront a few things: her insecurity about getting things right the first time, and his unwillingness to sympathize about things being hard sometimes. And on top of this, their mutual lack of patience. He drives her crazy, she drives him crazy, and there's a part of him that makes him wonder why he ever agreed to do this in the first place.

But it's only a small part. Underneath all of that, he's still curious. He may as well find out more about the person who's going to be endangering his car for the next few weeks, right?

"So… what do you do the rest of the year, anyway?" he asks her. "When you're not hanging out with your grandma and taking years off my life?"

Maka's mouth quirks up. "School," she says simply. "I'm going into senior year at Brown."

"Brown, huh?" he says with a low whistle. "Coulda told me before. That explains the perfectionism."

"And you?" she says. "Who are you bothering with your sass the rest of the year?"

He laughs. This is okay. He can talk about this. "Well… Wes can never escape it," Soul says. "We're both... at music school in New York."

"What do you play?" she says with a little smile.

"...Piano, for school," he says. "But other stuff, too." He looks out the window with his head balanced on his fist.

"...Do you like it?" she asks, after a few seconds of silence. "School, I mean."

"It's school," he says with a little shrug. "So I'm... not great at it. But at least Wes is there."

"... What about piano?" she hedges. "Is that your major?"

He nods again, but then goes quiet, choosing his words carefully. "I… don't compete anymore. Now I'm just the accompaniment."

"Compete?"

"Yeah." He pulls out his phone and starts to scroll to give himself something to do. "I used to do tons of competitions and stuff when I was a kid."

"Not your idea, obviously," she says with a little smile.

"Obviously," he agrees. "But now I just do it for the grades… well, no, I don't care about grades. Honestly, I do it cause…" He stops abruptly. It's too much. Too personal.

"... Cause?" she says.

"Nah." He shakes his head, gazing out the window again. "Don't worry about it."

He wants to be able to open up, in theory. But he's not sure how much she wants to know, and he's even less sure how much he's willing to share.

At Skully's, Maka's training continues. Waitressing is easier to pick up than stick shift, she is finding, partially because she has so many different sources of information at her disposal. Liz is the bar master, Patty has all kinds of tips for keeping one's energy up, and Tsubaki is the queen of diffusing customer problems.

It's nice, and it's really starting to feel like a little family. Although, as she is forced to remember on one particular evening after work... every family has its kooks.

"And where do you think you two are going?" Blake saunters up behind her and Soul as they walk down the porch stairs, looking very pleased with himself.

"Uh, home?" Soul says, turning around on the stairs to stare up at Blake's cheeky grin that is currently peeking over the side of the patio.

"Ohhh no no no," Blake says. "We've got plans, buckaroo."

"The three of us have plans?" Soul asks, genuinely confused.

"All of us!" Blake shouts, punching the air. "Yes, you too, Nerdlinger." He points at Maka before she can protest. "No books tonight! Only drinks!"

"Uh, hard pass," Maka says. "We all drove here, remember?"

"Did you?" Blake says innocently, and they both lean over the railing to see that Soul's car is MIA.

"... I had your brother swing by earlier and pick up the ole Benzarooni," Blake says. "Dug the keys out of your bag and handed 'em over. He seemed very eager to take it off your hands, actually. Oh, and here-" He picks up Soul's guitar case, which had been stored in his trunk, and thrusts it into his arms. "We're gonna need this."

"This is… so many invasions of privacy," Soul says, but he turns around and leans against the railing with a sort of resigned acceptance.

"Uh, yeah, cause you never hang out," Blake says. "The only person who's more of a wet blanket than you is Nerdbrain, and-"

"Oh my god, fine," Maka says. "You're making me need a drink." She brushes past them both to squeeze back into the bar, the foghorn covering up any sounds of Blake's excited whooping.

When she enters the bar, Liz already has a blueberry beer ready, and Maka reaches over and downs half of it in one gulp.

"I'd tell you to take it easy, but I've already had three," Liz says, clinking a glass against Maka's and sipping at a blueberry beer of her own.

"Does Kid's dad pay for these little shindigs?" Maka asks, leaning against the bar.

"He's got a… contingency fund for things like this," Liz says with a small wink. "He knows how to have a good time."

"That he do!" Blake says as he makes his way into the room. "And we get his son as our trusty DD!"

Kid looks generally unimpressed at this, which is sort of how he always looks, so Maka's unsure what his feelings are about playing Designated Driver this evening.

"You have assured me that we won't be needing a DD tonight," Kid says dimly, "so I'm not sure what role you could possibly want me to play."

"Oh, my dear boy," Blake says, producing a pint of beer seemingly out of thin air and setting it onto the bar. "My sweet summer child. I said that you wouldn't need to drive a car."

There's an elaboration lurking behind that statement, but whenever Blake is concocting something, Maka has learned that willful ignorance is the best policy.

"Oh! We gotta go down to the beach tonight!" Patty exclaims, brandishing a full-on fifth of vodka in her hand. "The weather's great, it's cold, and there's no fire restrictions this early in the summer!"

"Patty loves to burn stuff," Liz explains to Maka, who grins.

"I just love bonfires and friendship, okay?!" she says, and Liz pulls an arm around her shoulders.

"Yeah, okay. Me too, Pat."

"It's already dark enough," Tsubaki says. "Shouldn't we close up here, before we go down?"

Blake's way ahead of her, already pulling the kitchen window down with a rather disconcerting creak.

"This place wasn't built to be your punching bag," Kid mutters, fingers coming up to rub his temples in perfectly coordinated circles.

"This place is new, isn't it?" Maka says, looking around.

"It's… new to this location, perhaps, yes," Kid says, which sounds like he's dodging the question, but it's such a simple one that she can't fathom why he would dodge it in the first place. "Why?"

"It just… feels old, for some reason," she says after thinking for a moment, trying to grab ahold of what the feeling is in this place. "Kinda… magical, almost?"

"It's the magic of friendship," Patty says very seriously, and Blake grins, giving her a thumbs-up.

"... Maybe so," Maka says. She's unable to put the feeling into words, but she feels like the magic of Skully's is… similar to the magic of the whole town.

As they make their way down to the beach, she turns around to look at the restaurant, set up on its stilts, warm incandescents reflecting in the harbor, and it's only then that she realizes where that strange nostalgia that she can't place is coming from.

It… kind of feels like when she steps into Nana's house.

Thanks to Patty's fire starting skills, the flames are up and roaring within minutes.

"Ooohhh," Patty says, reaching her hands out to feel the heat with a contented sigh. "This is the best."

"Patty's a fan of any time she can wear shorts... especially when it's too cold to wear shorts," Liz explains, and Maka laughs.

"I hate pants, too!" Maka exclaims, which makes Patty reach out and gives her a high five.

"How can you hate pants?" Liz says, patting her jeans sympathetically, as if to comfort them. "They're multifunctional. They're comfortable. They make my ass look great."

"Team pants," Soul agrees. "Though I do not know what my ass looks like in-"

"Ohhh, like hell you don't," Liz says. "This coming from someone who does a full on inspection of yourself in the kitchen mirror when you're on breaks-"

"Liz, please," Blake says, and Soul throws him a grateful glance right before he adds, "Clearly it's not about the ass. If anything, it's to hide those chicken legs."

"...Why am I here?" Soul mutters to the stars overhead, and Maka starts to laugh at this, a choking, wheezing laugh that makes her stomach ache by the time she can draw a full breath. It's contagious, and everyone else joins in, Tsubaki leaning over onto Patty's shoulder to support herself in the wake of actual gasping laughter.

It's one of those laughs that's rare, and totally unbridled; the kind of laugh that you only let slip with people you really care about, eyes alive and streaming with tears, burning in the light of the fire.

When she looks up, Soul, despite being the butt of the joke, is no longer looking defeated but almost… intrigued. When their eyes meet, she's suddenly very aware that he'd been watching her laugh like that, and it makes her demure, mouth thinning out as she looks away, her eyes downcast.

The moment passes, but once the conversation picks back up, her eyes flick back over to where he's sitting. There's something in her brain that... asks a question, presents a possibility, but for the moment, she pushes it back.

Hours pass, but she's not counting the minutes, especially not when Soul reaches behind himself to grab the large case that Blake had thrust upon him, revealing an acoustic guitar, polished wood glinting in the firelight.

He starts to pick at the strings, and as she looks around the faces illuminated by the fire, something in Maka's heart stirs. There's an affection here, a celebration of each of these new friendships she's just beginning to forge. The errant chord-plucking evolves into a soft sort of song that she doesn't recognize, guitar notes trickling in through the conversations.

"You should play something," Maka says from across the fire, and Soul looks up at her, surprised.

"Yeah! Play us a thing!" Blake exclaims, and with the tiniest smile, Soul obliges.

It's another song she doesn't recognize, something sweet and soft and perfect for a night on the beach, and she realizes, all of a sudden, that he's playing accompaniment.

At the end of the first song, Blake's already hooting and hollering before the final chord.

"Do ya take requests?" Patty asks, and Soul levels her with a stare.

"Not Wonderwall," he deadpans.

"Aw, man!" she shouts to a chorus of laughter, but he ends up playing it anyway, and everybody sings along, the ocean waves serving as harmony in the background.

It's proving to be a less wild night than she'd anticipated, with everyone content to listen to the music after several taxing hours at work. Even Blake has toned it down, content to bounce along to the music.

When the next song ends, they break off into little side-conversations, and Maka turns her sights to Soul again, who is looking at the fire with a contemplative expression on his face, eyes alight in the flames.

"Nice song," she says, turning to face the flames as well. "Who knew you were so good at waiting on people and playing music?"

"He's a jack of all trades," Blake says, clapping him on the back.

"And a master of none," Soul mutters.

"A master of some," Maka corrects him. "I know you're good at guitar-" She can't tell if he pinks at this, but the way he stares at his shoes suggests that maybe he does. "And piano, too, right?"

"...Yeah," he says, looking like he'd rather end this conversation.

She decides to bring it to a swift end, only saying, "Guess that makes the parents happy, right?"

"Mmm. I'd say they prefer violin, actually," he says, and his gaze is suddenly very far away, and she wants to ask, wants to understand the darker bits reflecting in his eyes.

But if learning stick has taught her anything so far, it's that some things take time. So she lets her question float away on the waves, and waits.

-ɸ-

Maka should have known that Blake's good behavior would only last so long.

"Heeeey, so, friends," Blake says slyly, leaning in towards the fire so that no one can avoid the mischievous grin that's spreading across his face like a rash. "Would you like to take this party elsewhere?"

"... Where elsewhere?" As always, Liz's bullshit radar is completely functional, with a full battery.

"Ohhhh I just thought we could… go for a little trip, with our delightful DD fully prepared to chauffeur us around," Blake says. Kid has already accepted his fate, and is actually standing up, much to everyone's horror.

"Alright, please give him time to emotionally prepare himself," Liz says. "What are you concocting? What are you making him drive? A hot air balloon? A limousine?"

"Elizabeth," Blake admonishes. "You're thinking too big. I'm just trying to introduce some of our out-of-state friends to a normal, run of the mill… New England pastime. No biggity."

Liz, Patty, and Soul are looking equally guilty, and Maka's sure her face doesn't look that different. If only they'd been born in New England.

"We brought this upon you," Patty says, looking up at Tsubaki, "and for that I am sorry."

"It's all right," Tsubaki says. "I bet it'll be fun!"

"I can always count on you, Tsu!" he says, and when he holds his fist out for a bump, she returns it with a giggle.

They make their way across the sand,

"Right this way, comrades," Blake says, walking them back up the beach to a small pier.

"Wait…" Soul says, eyes widening with recognition. "This is the yacht club."

Blake doesn't answer - he only cackles, which is a million times worse - and he leads them all down the pier after telling them to be quiet.

"That's rich, coming from him," Soul mutters, and Maka stifles a laugh. Under their feet, the planks creak like they'll give way any moment.

"You do realize that this is absolutely trespassing, right?" Kid says.

"Aw, c'mon, our DD is allowed to visit his whale watching boat on a paltry Saturday evening," Blake says, picking a pair of keys out of his pocket and tossing them Kid's way.

"How does he keep doing that?" Soul says. Maka pats her pocket to verify that her own keys are still there, and finds them there, but given Blake's track record, she's not positive that they'll be there the next time she checks.

"You have a whale watching boat?" Liz hisses. Kid has the decency to look ever so slightly abashed.

"It's… a side business," Kid says. When everyone looks at him, dumbfounded, he adds, as if this would somehow help the situation: "Father loves orcas."

"And what, pray tell, is the name of this whale watching business?" Liz asks, equally curious and indignant, like she's been kept in the dark on a money-making opportunity - which, incidentally, she absolutely has.

"Eternal Rest Whale Watching," he says.

"Eternal Rest? Are you killing the whales?!" Liz exclaims, which earns her a chorus of hushes.

"It's meant to be relaxing," Kid says. "You're resting while whale watching. And I suppose the name comes from orcas, too. They're a predatory species." When everyone stares at him again, he can't think of anything else to say, so he reminds them: "Father's fond of black and white."

It must run in the family, she muses as she considers his work uniform, as well as the black-on-black ensemble he's chosen to wear this evening: a black t-shirt with a symmetrical design on its front, white lines bursting from a central point like a wave.

"Aaaanyway," Blake says, once they're all huddled in front of the boat. "Welcome to a New England staple. New Yorkers, southwesterner," he says, nodding at the four of them. "Consider this your initiation. Whale watching is the only way to truly assimilate into Nor'easter culture, and it's very important that you put on the badge."

"Aren't they sleeping, though?" Maka says. Blake smiles at her knowingly, shaking his head.

"Not at sunrise."

"At sunrise?" Soul says with a groan, and Tsubaki's enthusiasm from before is waning, Maka can tell, as she slumps against the side of the boat a little.

"That is like, three hours from now," Liz says. "And isn't it super dangerous to drive a boat at night?"

"I'm used to it," Kid says with a small shrug. "Father liked to go for night drives, and I'd practice. Besides, I have impeccable night vision."

"Of course you do," Soul mumbles.

The boat makes its way out into the night, sending white ripples out into the black beyond of the ocean. They're all settled in, equipped with blankets against the cooling spray of the sea.

"Aren't orcas super rare in the Atlantic, though?" Maka asks Kid after a few minutes of silence.

She thinks she sees him nod in the darkness. "They are. I'd be surprised if we saw them. We'll probably see humpbacks, as they have breeding grounds around here."

"But you guys keep the focus on orcas, huh?" she says.

"Yes," Kid says. "I think… I think father enjoys that seeing them is a bit special. A rare event. That way, when people see it, they appreciate it more."

Maka ponders this, sitting down in between Liz and Soul. It's a nice sentiment, she decides, that rare things are often beautiful things.

In terms of marine life, they don't run into anything except a few patches of seaweed that Liz finds more horrifying than she probably should ("I don't like when it touches my feet, okay?"), as well as one sea cucumber that's managed to hook itself into the back of the boat with a surprising degree of tenacity. Patty, overjoyed, plucks it off and tosses it into the water with a flourish, while Liz is looking a little green behind her.

For much of the trip, the boat ride is also less chaotic than anticipated... until it isn't.

"Hey!" Blake jumps up, pointing at something out in the water. "Did you guys see that?!"

"How can you see anything out here?" Soul gripes. The sky is still pitch-black, but nonetheless, everyone is shaken out of their reveries and get up to look, accompanied by some disgruntled muttering. With everyone on one side, the boat tips sideways slightly.

Kid, seemingly unfazed by this, stops the boat and moves to the other side, attempting to balance his weight against six other people of somewhat similar stature. It is not successful, especially when Blake leans out of the boat to continue to peer into the blackness.

"No!" he crows, pointing. "I definitely see something over there! It's moving!"

Like a cockatiel to a shiny object, Blake is captivated, sights set on his goal. As such, he chooses this moment to wind up, pulling his arms back to jump into the water-

"Are you crazy?!" Soul says, lunging for him, and Patty grabs him as well, though she doesn't seem to find the situation as dire as Soul does, as she's laughing hysterically. "You think jumping in the water is gonna help us see a whale?!"

"I'm pretty sure I already saw a whale!" Blake yells. "I wanna get out there and hang out. Wanna come with?"

Without waiting for an answer, he leaps off the side of the boat, and into the freezing water, tugging Soul and Patty in with him and making a beeline for whatever he'd seen. The two of them come up sputtering and laughing, respectively, though both of them loudly declare how freezing cold the water is while Blake swims away, cackling in excitement.

"I did nothing to deserve this," Soul laments as he and Patty are pulled back in, boat lurching to the side again as everyone puts in a hand to drag them back into the boat.

"You were caught up in Blake's master plan," Liz says solemnly, tossing them both towels. "There was no hope once you interfered."

Soul's teeth are already chattering, and Maka takes the towel from him, wrapping it around his head and drying off his hair. He looks up at her after a moment, still looking like a sad, wet dog, but it dawns on her that... he can do this himself, can't he?

Again she demures, letting go of the towel and sitting down on the side of the boat. Soul tugs the towel around himself, likely distracted by his freezing temperature, but beside him, Maka can feel her face burning.

She must be radiating heat, because once Soul also sits down, he scoots next to her, closes his eyes and shivers some more, his need for warmth apparently more important than any embarrassment he might be harboring.

Or maybe… she's the only one that's embarrassed. But for the moment, she won't think about it, content to sit shoulder-to-shoulder with her quiet, prickly driving instructor, who's currently the victim of some terrible Blake-driven luck.

A few meters away, Blake solemnly announces that his "whale" was, in fact, just a lobster buoy.

-ɸ-

As dawn begins to break, Blake elects to keep everyone awake with conversation instead of with near-death experiences.

"Did you know I can speak whale?" Blake asks, leaning contentedly against the seat at the front of the boat.

"... Yeah, okay, Dory," Maka says, leaning back too, looking around Soul's head to gaze at the soft blue that's beginning to come over the horizon.

"Nah, Disney broke that down totally differently," he says. "You can talk to any animal with human words. Watch."

He fixes his gaze to a group of seagulls sequestered on a rock, awaiting their breakfast.

"Hey, seagulls!" he shouts, and their heads snap to attention, looking at him with almost comical syncrosity. "See?"

"That's just because you made a noise," Soul says, who is still sitting squished up against Maka, though he is now curled in on himself, with three blankets on top of him, hood and towel covering his hair as he leans back against the side of the boat. Patty is in a similar state, laying on Liz's lap and cocooned in several blankets.

"Is that how you speak to the captain of our exhibition?!" Blake says, who has absolutely no blankets to his name. "We're like real pirates tonight, after all!"

"This pirate is ready for bed," Liz says. "And I'm not the only one." She tucks an arm around already-snoozing Patty, and Tsubaki's eyes are heavy as well, drifting off every few minutes.

"How you doin, first mate?" Blake says, clapping Kid on the back as they head back to the port.

"Why is he the first mate?" Maka asks, indignant. "He's the one driving, he should be captain-"

"Maka, please understand," Kid says. "Your indignance on my behalf is appreciated, but I'm not emotionally involved in this conversation. If being captain brings him a small sliver of joy, I truly do not mind."

"Spoken like a true first mate!" Blake exclaims, and as he says it, to his right, there's the tiniest blip in the water where something has disturbed it.

"Oh my gosh," Maka says, pointing, but by the time everyone looks up, it's gone. "I swear I saw-"

"Wait for it," Kid says, a small smile pulling at his face. "We'll definitely see another one."

And sure enough, within a few minutes, there are little pops of water moving around them. They appear at different distances, and at different intervals, but there's a little whale dance happening in their vicinity, groups moving around for their morning breakfast. At one point, they see one come up close enough to breathe, a jet of water coming out through its blowhole.

It's exciting, and worth staying up for, watching the gray bodies of the whales breach the pink horizon, and despite all of the chaos of the evening, they head back to shore surprisingly calm and content.

When they do finally pull back in, it's nevertheless to the immense relief of everyone involved - even Blake looks a little more green than usual after a few hours on the sea.

"Who needs a ride home? I assume you'll all be needing one?" Kid says, sounding tired but resigned. Together, everyone raises a tentative hand.

They pack into his SUV, and though Maka is exhausted, she still notes that this car is a complete extension of his personality - sleek, black, and not a hair out of place. He brings them home one by one, everyone waving wearily as they slink in through their front doors. When Maka gets dropped off in the driveway, the lights in the house are on, and Nana's standing at the window, her mouth in a thin line, and realization hits Maka like a freight train.

Crap. She didn't tell Nana.

Guilt fills her up, twisting at her gut. She'd totally forgotten to call.

Maka feebly waves to Kid and Soul, the last two on the drop-off list, and reenters the house.

"... Hey, Nana," she says, and Nana says nothing for a moment, sipping at her coffee.

"I'm sorry for being out so late," she says, and Nana shakes her head.

"Get some sleep, doll," Nana says, looking wearier than usual as she overlooks the garden. "We'll talk about it in the morning."

Maka hangs her head a little, and while she knows that their conversation may not be the nicest, sleep is what she - and Nana, who had probably been up all night, waiting for her - probably needs the most.