A/N: I promise these won't all be so fraught-I took this where the song took me. "#1 Crush" is by Garbage. It's a pretty damned cool song that features in a pretty damned cool movie. This takes place after the end of the manga, and thus contains spoilers, fair warning.

#1 Crush:

Violate all the love that I'm missing

Throw away all the pain that I'm living

You will believe in me

And I can never be ignored.

When it came right down to it, this was all her father's fault. Or maybe her father and her mother's fault if she were being completely fair. Their partnership, their disastrous marriage, his cheating, her abandonment. It had formed her, shaped her idea of life and relationships. If not for them, on so many levels if not for them, she could never have ended up here and now and so damned confused about what she was supposed to do. About what she even wanted to do.

Her mother the scythe meister, her father the death scythe. All she had wanted was to show she was better than that cheating asshole, to show that his tainted blood couldn't hold her back. That's why she had ended up with Soul as a partner in the first place. She had initially wanted a female partner because she knew men were pigs, but even more than that, she had wanted a scythe because her mama was a scythe meister and her papa was a scythe and, damn it, she was going to do better. Soul had been the only scythe in their class, so he had been her first choice by default. His being a boy, his dark piano, his odd looks, his caustic ways, his strange mask of self-confidence that she would later discover hid a deeply ingrained sense of inferiority-these things could not have frightened her away, driven as she was. If anything, she saw it as a greater challenge, to make this strange boy into a death scythe better than her worthless papa, and she welcomed that challenge.

How silly she had been, looking only to her parents, measuring her existence, her worth, only by their actions. There was more to life, so much more, she knew that now. Yet, without that obsession, would she have chosen Soul to be her partner that day? Would she be here now, with him, facing this fear? Facing it head on, like an onrushing tide, like a freight train with no breaks? No. No. Would it have been better that way? For him? For her? For them both? There was too much good there, too much between them for her to say yes. Far too much. Trust, loyalty, friendship, feelings. Too many good times, too many bad, too much they had seen and been through together, always together. She tried to imagine her life with another weapon. She couldn't. Even the thought of it felt like betrayal and left a bad taste in her mouth. And yet, she could not face this. Even with Soul she didn't know how to face this. She wanted to laugh at how much that reminded her of Crona, but the thought of her lost friend made her heart ache. Loss. She has seen so much loss.

She wanted to run away. To flee. To hide. Perhaps she was her mother's daughter. Isn't what she had always fought so hard to be? Isn't that why she had become a scythe meister to begin with? And of course, that had led her here. Now. Utterly frozen in fear.

But no-no-she wasn't Kami Albarn, she was Maka Albarn and Maka Albarn did not run from her fears, she faced them.

Soul kept his eyes on her, her hand held firmly in his. He knew what she would be thinking, how hard this would be for her to face, she could see it in those startlingly red eyes, feel it along the edge of his soul reaching out for hers. She felt his fear and his care and his hope and that other thing she was afraid to name, afraid to acknowledge, yet had felt and known for so long without being willing to see it for what it was because that would that mean they really were barreling down the same road her parents had travelled and she couldn't face such an end, especially not with Soul. The very hint of that, of that end, that pain, rent her heart to pieces.

Yet she knew she had to face this. He had finally dared to speak the obvious, to make it beyond ignoring, to drag it into the bright light of day where it must thrive or die. Which would it be? What did she even want it to be? If it died here and now they would never be the same, never be Soul and Maka again. Yet to let it live was to face future pain, worse pain perhaps. Why had he done this to her, to them? Why had he forced this? Couldn't he have left well enough alone, have let their strange, awkward, comfortable equilibrium stand?

And yet, part of her understood it, because in spite of it all, she felt it too, that longing, that need. Yes, she needed to face this.

She lifted her eyes to meet his, her gaze steady.

"What did you say?" She saw annoyance flash across his face and he blew out a loud breath, his free hand raking through his hair in frustration, before schooling his features back to neutrality with visible effort.

"I said I love you, Maka. And that I'd like us to try dating, if you'll let us. It would be cool. We're already cool together, right?"

She sighed.

"That's what I thought you said." What did she want? Did she want this? She loved him, of course she loved him even if she never, never wanted to see it, to admit it. To deny this now that it had seen the light of his acknowledgement would destroy them. But she was afraid, so afraid, that he would become like Spirit. That whatever he felt for her would cease to be enough, that eventually, he would betray her and that would hurt, hurt far worse than if she ended it now, before it began.

And yet, wasn't it already too late? Wasn't her heart long since his? She would hurt, either way she would hurt, but was it fair to him, to them, to never give them a chance?

No, no. She couldn't hurt him with a lie, even if it sealed her fate, even if it meant pain and pain and pain in some not so distant future. And he wasn't Spirit. He had never so much as dated another girl, even though they weren't together, even though he got countless requests every week. Other girls fell all over themselves for him, and yet he had never shown the slightest interest. All for her, because of her. Had Spirit ever been like him? Somehow she didn't think so and it gave her the tiniest glimmer of hope. Maybe this could work. Maybe.

So she nodded, slowly, deliberately.

"Alright." It was quiet, almost inaudible.

"Cool."

For him, who knew her better than anyone, better even than she knew herself sometimes, it was enough, and as she saw that sharky grin spread over his face and felt his hand squeeze hers she thought maybe it really would be okay. Hadn't they faced worse than this together? She was Maka Albarn, Three Star Meister, he was Soul Eater Evans, Last Death Scythe. They had defeated the demon sword together, faced the black blood together, slain the witch Arachne together, even faced and helped to contain the kishin Asura together. Always together.

She felt herself lean in to hug him almost involuntarily, drawn to him, ever drawn to him, and as she felt his arms around her, as she circled her arms around him, she somehow knew they could face this, too. They could face this strange, terrible, wonderful thing called love. They could face it, and her demons, as they had faced kishin beyond counting, and win because they were Maka and Soul, Soul and Maka, and because they were together.