A/N: So I had a plan, conceived of with the Triumvirate of Assholes (my sistahs from another misses and mistah ilarual and rebornfromash) and egged on by certain members of Reverb chat (YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE,) a wonderful, terrible plan to pull off the greatest fandom April Fools gag ever.

This plan involved Two of Us, a mock chapter/ending, and me out Fabing even Queen Fab herself (love you fabulousanima mwah!)

You all saw the announcement of a new chapter—that was part of the plan.

Turns out, I can't do it.

I cried writing it, others cried reading it, and I'm just not this cruel. It would have worked, you all would have been gutted—but whereas Fab wrote a glorious story that wrenches the gut in a way that is poignant and meaningful, this is just—beyond cruel to do just as a gag, so I'm not.

So here, have what I wrote, with the warning of HEAVY ANGST—PAIN ON PAIN—MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH IMMANENT. Also not particularly well edited—couldn't be arsed. It's set in the TOU universe just after chapter 8 and is nothing like canon to the fic. I repeat, THIS IS NOT CANON TO TOU.

And don't hurt me—in the end I did the right thing.

It was three am when he awoke, tossing and turning and miserable. Three am and he'd probably slept a total of ten minutes.

Soul couldn't sleep. The poison he'd hurled at her, vicious vitriol, how could he sleep when he'd hurt her?

It wasn't her fault he was hurt himself, wasn't her fault she was playing the game he'd asked her to play by the rules he'd set for them, wasn't her fault if she didn't share his feelings.

He'd been hurt and it had blinded him. He needed to make it right.

He got up from the couch, stiff, sore, exhausted in every way.

Sleep was clearly not his friend tonight, so maybe it was time to just bite the bullet and figure out what he was going to do. He glanced around and, being in this place, amidst his parents' things, it felt crowded, stifling.

He needed to think, needed to clear his head, but he couldn't, not here, not so steeped in his childhood. Here, he felt ten again, small and worthless, a distant second best. Here, he had acted like a child, had taken out his own failings on the one person who meant everything.

He was an ass. Such an ass.

He needed to get out of here, to feel like himself again if he was going to have a prayer of fixing this. With a sigh, he walked over to pick up his jeans, carelessly discarded onto the floor in his anger only hours before, and shucked them on. His jacket came next, then his shoes. He knew he probably looked like a drunk hobo, complete with bed head and morning breath, but couldn't be arsed to care. His helmet would cover the hair, and who would be close enough to notice that his mouth smelled like rotting ass anyway?

Grabbing his wallet and his keys, he locked the door softly behind him and walked to Etta. His bike had seen them through so much, had taken them into tragedy and triumph alike. It had been there when they pursued Blair, had been there in Italy when he'd nearly been cleft in twain, had driven them through countless missions, school days, even pleasure trips. He stroked the handlebar lovingly. Riding always helped clear his head, helped him to think. Soul picked up the helmet and eyed it for a minute then decided against it. Maka would be pissed if she knew—he could hear her lecturing him about safety even now—but he wanted to feel the wind, and what she didn't know couldn't hurt either of them.

Stowing the helmet, he mounted Etta and took off into the night.

As he took the roads that ran the shore, Soul only met with the occasional other car so late. The wind in his hair was soothing, if a bit brisk, the stars overhead beautiful and distant.

They reminded him of his meister in a way—so strong and beautiful and full of fire, yet completely untouchable.

Or at least she had been until yesterday.

Yesterday.

When he'd shared his first kiss with her.

When he'd wanted to share his all with her and thought she might want the same until she pushed him away.

She had faked it so well. So well.

When had she gotten so good at lying?

Only—only—she never had been. His meister had always worn her heart on her sleeve, was a notoriously terrible liar.

How had she played the game so well?

Then it hit him with the force of a hundred hundred cannons. What if—what if she hadn't?

What if it had been real for her, too, all along?

What if the reason it felt so real was because it was? If she had pushed him away out of fear not displeasure?

Fuck he was stupid. So stupid. They both were.

A thousand memories, signs that she might feel more than she said, rushed at him, and he knew it with a sudden clarity. He had to go back—beg her forgiveness—and tell her.

He had to tell Maka he loved her. It was the only way to fix this.

If he had misread things—if he was wrong—if he hoped too much—he knew they could get past it, that she would understand his hurt. But in his heart, he believed he was right. In his soul, he believed she loved him too, and hoped that he wasn't setting himself up for heartbreak.

Only one way to find out.

He made the next turn to head back, a wide grin he couldn't control quirking on his lips, his heart racing, soaring unbidden.

The sudden bright lights were unexpected—the screech and squeal and shock of pain.

And then there was nothing.

She didn't know how long she'd been standing there, feeling absolutely hollow. There was still an echo of him in her soul, a void, an empty space where he had always belonged, one he would never again fill.

She was the last to go, the absolute last. The others had long since drifted off, his family, their school friends, making their ways to cars and limos, making their ways to what little solace they might find in a buffet spread and shared memories.

In truth, Maka didn't know how to leave. Leaving meant that they would lower the shiny mahogany beside her, that they would cover it in earth. Leaving was the final piece in admitting that he was truly gone, and she wasn't sure she could. It hurt too much, far far too much. Maybe if she stood here forever she could stop time—could change fate—could make it so his body wasn't laying cold in that casket, too broken to allow it to be open. Maybe if she stood here long enough, she could will back time, force it to her wishes, stop him from leaving that night while she lay so utterly alone in the bed they had shared just the night before. Maybe if she stood here long enough, she would have the chance to tell him how much she loved him, needed him, could beg him to come back, please, please, she would do anything, everything, would gladly take his place if it meant he was still here in this world.

Now, she never would. He would never know how much he'd meant to her. He had died the night they fought, had taken off on his bike in the middle of the night only to meet with a truck driven by a man so drunk they found him passed out down the road. He'd slammed into the bike from a side street and kept going, leaving the Last Death Scythe to bleed out alone on the pavement with only her anger to warm him mixt with his own, and that reality was shattering her soul into a thousand thousand pieces.

It began to rain, softly, a spring shower, and she fell to her knees, a bitter laugh on her lips. They thought she was his widow—Wes had insisted she keep up her role, so she had. She thought it's what he would have wanted; no one knew him better, loved him better. Who else would mourn him so? Even those people who knew the truth—her father and their friends—all went along with it, their partnership so strong no one could deny her place as the one who had lost the most. And yet, she was a phantom wife—had tasted his lips only in pretense, had known only the shadow of his touch. Her laughter bubbled louder, hysterical, at the cruelty of it all, the irony.

With the cool rain on her cheek, she turned her face to the merciless sky and for the first time let her tears flow free, let them flow along with the life giving water into this place of death.

She would not leave. She would never leave him. How could she ever leave him?

The hand on her shoulder was unexpected, but she didn't move, just closed her eyes and sighed. It was warm, but it could not comfort.

"Maka—we need to go." His voice was deep and rich, so achingly like the voice she would never hear again and yet nothing like it at all, that it shattered her soul anew. How many times could she break before there was nothing left?

"I can't," she whispered. "I can't leave him. I can't."

"You have to. He wouldn't want this—you know he wouldn't. He'd never forgive either of us if I let you get sick out here. So please?"

"No," she shook her head vehemently but refused to look at Soul's brother, refused to see the warped reflection of her weapon she would find. "I won't leave him alone."

Wes said nothing for a time, simply kept his hand heavy on her shoulder. He grieved, he hurt, she could feel it all radiating from his soul, but deep as his pain ran, it couldn't compare to hers and even he knew it. He had lost his brother—she had lost her soul mate.

Eventually, his voice broke the silence as he spoke over the soft sound of the rain that soaked them both.

"He loved you, you know."

"Yeah," she sighed. "I know. I love him, too."

"I think he knew. Deep down, he must have."

Maka just shook her head. It had taken his death to see the truth, to put the pieces together—they had both been so blind.

Too late—too late, and he'd never known the truth.

Too late—too late, and now he never would.

She wouldn't leave. No amount of coaxing could make her leave. Wes finally had to get others—her father, Black Star, and Kid chief among them—to help force her away, to drag her screaming her grief from his graveside. It had been no easy task.

In the end, Stein had to tranquilize her, and Maka missed the gathering, the wedding that had become a funeral.