A/N: Here it is! Sorry it took a little longer, Memorial Day weekend plus Colossalcon weekend equaled delays. Hope you all enjoy the conclusion and thanks so much for all the reviews and feedback along the way :)
It was several moments before stars stopped appearing in his line of vision and Soul had regained enough consciousness to get up from the floor. Maka still had not said a word, which gave her weapon a little time to prepare himself mentally and physically for the explosion that was certain to come.
"You told Black Star…we had sex?" Maka repeated very slowly—and very tensely.
"In the bathtub, yes," Soul said, and Maka seriously looked like she was about to vomit. "He was pressing me about it 'cause—I guess he thought we were moving too slow, and—"
"You told…Black Star…we had sex in the bathtub?" Maka finally shouted. "God Soul, why didn't you just get on the PA and announce it to the entire school?"
"Maka—Maka, listen," Soul pleaded as she started to stalk away from him, and he jogged to keep up. "To be fair, we never really cleared up our sexual relations when we were setting this whole thing up."
"You asked me 'What about having sex?'" Maka stated bluntly, still not looking at him, "and I said 'What do you think?'"
"I…assumed that meant it was okay," Soul said tentatively, and Maka roared with frustration.
"I thought that was pretty clear that no, I am not cool with casual sex!" Maka yelled loud enough for a few standbys to hear, and Soul shushed her hastily and pulled her into an empty classroom. "And I honestly thought you were cool enough to respect that I felt that way."
"I didn't—I—you—you never said anything to me about it!" Soul spluttered, his volume finally reaching Maka's as he pushed the door to the room shut.
"Soul, do I honestly look or act like the type of girl who sleeps with guys on a whim?" Maka asked in a low, trembling voice. If it were possible for Soul to feel any worse than he already did, it was at that moment.
"No Maka, you don't," he answered. "And if it makes you feel better, I'm not like that either. Black Star made a jab at me and I said it to get him off my back. But that's not an excuse, and nothing about it was cool. I'm sorry Maka…can you forgive me?"
"No Soul, I can't," Maka responded, and Soul felt like a shard of glass had pierced his heart. "I—I have a reputation to keep up! And a two-star meister who has sex with her Death Scythe in the bathtub is not gonna look good on any permanent record!"
"I'll tell them I lied—which is the truth, I did lie," Soul said softly, moving closer to her as she fretted. "I'll fix this, your reputation's going to be fine."
"It's not just that, Soul, it's—" Maka opened her mouth and closed it several times before squeezing her eyes shut and throwing her head back in frustration, groaning out loud. "Forget it, I'm done with this."
"Done with what?"
"Pretending to be your girlfriend, I can't do this anymore," Maka said sadly. "I had a feeling it would escalate to this point and at least one of us was going to get hurt."
"Maka, I swear I didn't mean to hurt you," Soul whispered, reaching up to brush a strand of hair from her eyes affectionately, but she shook her head.
"I know you didn't," Maka said quietly. "I just think we need to stop before it gets any worse. We've been lying to our friends for almost a month, and I feel terrible about it. We've…we've been lying to eachother, Soul."
"Maka…" Soul paused for a moment, then took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Fixating his gaze on her, he took a few steps even closer and brought his hand up to her face, letting it rest on her cheek.
"S-Soul?" Maka inquired timidly. "There's no one around, you—you don't have to—"
"Maka," he repeated, and his meister fell silent. "If there's one thing I haven't done to you these past three weeks, it's lie."
"You've been making everyone believe that I'm your girlfriend," Maka explained. "You've been going on dates with me, holding me, kissing me, telling me how much you care for me—" The answer swooped down and claimed her before Soul even smiled and nodded. "Oh my God, Soul…you…you really—"
Her stammering lips were cut off suddenly by the soft, warm lips of her devoted weapon, pressing her body close to his for only a few moments. He let her go and she stumbled backwards, grabbing the wall for support.
"Guess I just needed a shove in the right direction," Soul said softly. Maka wasn't staring at him, however, but rather at a point over his shoulder. Soul turned slowly and saw Kid, Liz, and Patti all peering at them through the window on the door of the classroom. Liz hastily shoved the others away once Soul spotted them and the trio rushed out of sight. "Shit!"
"Soul," Maka began, gathering up her books and heading for the door. "You—you just go fix everything with Black Star and I'll meet you back home."
"Maka—" He made to grab for her hand and she jerked away.
"I said I'll meet you back home!" she cried out, and Soul noticed her hands were trembling. "Please, just leave me alone!" She pushed past him and wrenched open the door, dashing out into the nearly deserted hallway.
"Fuck it all!" Soul burst out, kicking the door frame so hard some paint chipped off. What were you thinking, Evans…what the fuck were you thinking?
"Hey Soul," Blair purred as Soul entered the apartment a few hours later. "What were you doing at school so late?"
"Had some things to take care of," Soul grumbled, jerking down the sleeves of his jacket to hide the bruises he got. Forcefully demanding Black Star that he keep his yap shut about something that didn't even happen was probably not the best approach, as Soul quickly found out. The two had ended up in a tussle that Tsubaki managed to break up before anyone got too damaged—but on the bright side Soul had gotten the shadow weapon's word that Black Star would forget everything Soul had said about sex in the bathtub with Maka. He still had a couple of battle scars left over, but the more important wound he needed to address was the one this entire ordeal had left on his meister. "Where's Maka?"
"In her room, she hasn't come out since she got home," Blair said, jerking her head towards the door as she stood in front of the mirror primping herself for her shift at Chupa Cabra's, "Must have a lot of homework."
"No, she's pissed at me," Soul exhaled hard through his nose and leaned his back against the wall in frustration. "This whole 'pretending to be a couple' thing's put us on edge."
"Oh, well look on the bright side," Blair said soothingly. "The news has died down and now everything between you guys can go back to the way it was!"
"Yep, it sure can," Soul said with forced enthusiasm, pushing himself away from the wall and heading for the kitchen. Blair, noticing the false zeal in his tone, followed him into the kitchen where she found him staring aimlessly at the inside of the fridge, his hand on the door handle.
"Soul…is something the matter?" Blair asked quietly.
"I kissed her today," Soul said in an emotionless tone.
"You've been kissing her for three weeks, silly," Blair giggled.
"No, I mean I really kissed her," Soul explained with more vigor, turning to stare at Blair's softly astonished expression. "And I liked it. I…I loved it so much, I wanted to do it again—but she flipped out and took off on me before I could explain myself."
"Oh God, Soul, you love her," Blair breathed, smiling with her hands clasped over her chest. "I knew it—I just knew it from the moment I moved in with you two it was going to happen sooner or later!"
"I don't know about this love crap, Blair, I—I don't know what being in love with someone feels like," Soul mumbled honestly, staring down at his shoes while blushing slightly. "All I know is that…I want Maka to be happy. I want her to smile and laugh and be the best person she can possibly be, no matter what it takes for her to feel that way. If she wanted me to leave and never come back in order for that to happen, I'd do it in a heartbeat. It would hurt…it would hurt me so bad…but I'd still do it for her."
Blair's smile grew wider as she shook her head, "You know, most people in real relationships never get that. They never understand that for once, they have to put someone else's happiness before their own, and I have been with and dumped so many guys who just—didn't care. They were selfish pigs who didn't give a crap about what happened to me, just as long as I made them happy. You and Maka, you're—you're not even in a relationship like that, and you're already so far ahead of people who are. I watch the two of you all the time and not only do you trust and believe so strongly in eachother, but—but you would sacrifice anything and everything for eachother. Sure you guys fight a lot, who doesn't? And sure, you might hurt eachother along the way, but it will only help you grow stronger. And it doesn't take away from what's already there." She blinked rapidly and sniffled, "Oh great, now I'm tearing up…and I gotta go to work, too."
"Here," Soul offered, handing her a tissue from the box on the counter "Can't knock 'em dead with your mascara running."
"Thanks Soul, you're the sweetest," Blair meowed, dabbing at her lids gently before sniffing loudly and grabbing her purse. "I'll be back late, so you guys don't wait up."
"Don't worry, we won't," Soul sighed, for some reason feeling more exhausted now than he did after he'd finished pummeling Black Star.
"And Soul?" Blair added, poking her head back into the room. "That was a really lovely and honest thing you said…I'm sure there's someone else in this apartment who'd love to hear it, too."
Once Blair had left, Soul flopped down on the couch with ten million thoughts still milling about his brain—and a bedroom door that still refused to open. A few hours passed as Soul helped himself to a frozen dinner and a quart of ice cream while flicking the channels, but still Maka never came out. Even if she did, what the hell was he going to say? "Sorry I kissed you"? He wasn't sorry he kissed her; if there were any moment in his life that he would ever want to relive, it would be that kiss. The fact that it wasn't part of their act, the fact that it was real, sincere and genuine, that was what was so incredible about it. And the best part of all was he had meant it.
So what the hell am I doing sitting here just thinking about it? Soul thought, flicking off the TV as he heard a low rumble of thunder outside. Taking the initiative, he went around and shut all the windows so the approaching thunderstorm wouldn't dampen anything inside the apartment. It was 10:30 now, and Soul was pretty sure Maka was asleep when he approached her door. He tried the handle and found it was still locked, no light coming from beneath her bedroom door.
"Maka?" he said softly through the door. "You asleep?" No response. "Well on second thought, I think it's better if you are asleep. I um, I straightened out everything with Black Star. And I'm really sorry about the sex thing—again." He took a deep breath, dropping his voice to an even softer tone, barely above a whisper. "Maka, I wanna—explain about that kiss. The one you freaked out over. I wasn't just doing it as part of our act. I wasn't just doing it 'cause Kid and Liz were watching and I wanted to make them jealous. I've been holding back that kiss for a long time, I've—I've been holding back a lot of things from you for a long time. And if you were awake, you'd probably run away from me again right about now."
He half expected the door to open and Maka to sprint out of it towards the door to the hallway, but it remained closed. Now positive that Maka was sleeping, Soul went on a bit more loudly, "You know all that crap they say, that when you kiss the person you love for the first time you see fireworks and your heart goes crazy and you know that they're the one? Well I didn't see any fireworks, Maka, but—but I felt something. It was your soul, Maka. I could completely sense it once my lips touched yours. It was scared at first, it was trembling as I reached out to it, but right before I pulled away it reached back out for me. It wasn't so forceful, like when we resonate in combat, it was…natural. It was real and open and warm and I didn't want that feeling to go away." He touched the door gently with his hand, as if he could reach her somehow that way, leaning his head against it with his eyes closed. "I love your soul, Maka—I love how it fills me up when I connect with you, even though it's so small. I love how even in the very beginning, I've always felt safe when you wielded me as your demon scythe, and I still do. I love how you slaughtered every expectation I had about you when we moved in together and became partners—how kind and funny and compassionate you are, how you don't take crap from people like Black Star and how focused you are in achieving what you want. And as much as I hate to admit it, you've totally rubbed off on me. I actually studied for that test because I knew how important it would be to you if I did well." He swallowed hard as thunder and flashes of lightning began to fill the night. "I don't want to fail you, Maka. I don't want you to fall because of some stupid thing I do or say, and I want to be someone that you can always trust—no matter how you feel about other men. I…I don't want this whole charade to tear us apart. Blair said we can go back to the way things were now, but…I don't want to go back to the way things were." There was a tremor in his voice now, and Soul knew he needed to stop before he showed way more emotion than he wanted to. "Anyways, sorry I bugged you with all that crap. Goodnight, Maka."
On the other side of the door, Maka slid down to her knees clutching a pillow tightly against her chest as she listened to Soul walk away. The only other sounds now were the thunder rumbling outside, the rain pattering against the window, and her own heart pounding in her ears. She had been both terrified and aching for this to happen—that someday Soul would open up to her, showing her his true feelings and emotions no matter how uncool they were for him to admit to. The fact that a large part of that was due to her coming into his life, the fact that she had truly had such an impact on him was almost too much for her to bear. Keeping her face buried in the pillow so Soul couldn't hear her, Maka allowed her tears to soak the linen sheet while gulping back several racking sobs.
Soul…I'm sorry…She raised her head, letting a few tears roll down her cheeks as her breath hitched. If I had known for sure that…you really felt that way, I wouldn't have—Without another thought, she flung her pillow back on the bed and jumped up from the floor. Praying Soul hadn't gone to bed yet, she slowly opened her door and tiptoed out into the hallway. Rounding the corner to the living area, she found him sitting on the sofa with his back to her, watching the storm rage outside their window. Approaching him slowly from behind, Maka shyly clasped her hands behind her back.
"I love your soul, too."
Soul nearly had a heart attack as he jumped and whirled around to find his meister standing there in her slightly revealing summer pajamas, her silky blonde hair loose. A flash of lightning lit up her face, and Soul could see the glistening tear streaks on her cheeks. "How much did you hear?"
"A-all of it," Maka choked out, furiously brushing away the tears that had decided to make another appearance at seeing Soul gazing back at her. To her surprise, he held out his hand for her and smiled.
"You wanna watch the storm with me?"
Maka shrugged, accepting his hand by lacing her fingers through his as she sat down at the other end of the couch. She wasn't sure why she and Soul enjoyed watching storms together; she guessed it was a nice change watching them instead of fighting Kishin eggs in them, which they had done on various occasions. Tonight, however, it felt different. It almost felt as if the storm stood for something—the wild ride they had gone through these past three weeks, ultimately feeling cold and lost and wondering if things would ever settle down again. And for some odd reason, Maka had an inkling that this storm wasn't going to end until she herself felt settled. "Soul, I'm sorry I yelled at you about the sex thing."
"You had every right to," Soul answered, strengthening his hold on her hand a bit more, "It wasn't cool."
"No Soul, there's a reason I reacted that way," Maka shook her head.
"Because you're a prissy, conservative bookworm?" Soul suggested teasingly.
Maka didn't laugh, only stared down at their joined hands. "It's something I've never told anyone before…it's kind of hard for me."
"You're…you're not a virgin?"
"Yes I'm a virgin, Soul!" Maka yelled out, sucking in a deep breath and letting it out slowly.
"Sorry! I just—I don't know, I thought you meant you've been raped or something," Soul said seriously.
"No, I haven't been raped," Maka answered. "I was an accident."
"An—an accident, what?"
"I was a—shock. To my parents," Maka answered slowly. "They got together when they were sixteen because they were partners and they felt like they had to, I doubt they even really loved eachother like that. From what Mama told me, it sounds like it was just an excuse for them to sleep around whenever. Papa especially never treated sex like a special connection between a man and a woman—or five or six women," she added bitterly through clenched teeth. "He would come home drunk, begging for Mama's forgiveness with make-up sex, and after a while they stopped using protection. I bet the only reason Papa even married her was because he wanted to prove that he was loyal—that he wouldn't abandon her because he'd accidently gotten her pregnant. So there you go, that's how I came into this world—in a drunken teenaged haze between two people who didn't know better."
"That why you always feel like you gotta prove something all the time?" Soul asked after a slight pause.
Maka thought this over for a few moments, then nodded tightly, "Yeah, I guess so. I want to prove to myself more than anything that I'm better than that. That's why I—wanna get straight A's and—be the best demon scythe meister I can possibly be, and—when I do have sex for the first time, I want it to be with someone that I love and care for and can completely trust."
"You already are better than that, Maka," Soul said softly, turning towards her. "You don't need to prove anything to anyone, even yourself." His other arm came up and wrapped gently around her waist, pulling her closer. "And I'm glad you feel the same way I do—about sex."
Maka felt the heat of a blush rise into her cheeks as she found herself in this close proximity with her weapon, yet still she felt a warm sense of safety and contentment nonetheless. "Soul…I'm almost sixteen, you're seventeen. I don't want us to get together because we feel like we have to—because we're partners, and especially not because everyone thinks we should. I want it to be because we…we really feel that way about eachother and…we want to take that next step."
Soul thought it over for a moment, watching the thunder and lightning die down, replaced with a steady lurid rain. "So you wanna know how I really feel then?"
"Yes," Maka answered. "I wanna know that we can do this."
Soul shrugged. "I love you."
Maka blinked, "That's it? No thinking it over or—?"
"I don't need to think it over," Soul said. "It's a fact. I—I love you. As my best friend, and possibly even more than that. And I think we know that between the two of us, we can do whatever the hell we want to. Just…waiting for my meister to give me the go-ahead."
Maka smiled fondly back at him, stroking her fingers through his soft white hair. "I…I love you, too."
"Do you wanna take this a little slower this time around?" Soul asked, backing out of her personal space a bit.
Maka nodded, "Let's start over."
"Maka, will you be my girlfriend?" Soul inquired with an air of mock formality, kissing the back of her hand with a flourish.
"On one condition: don't ever call me 'pumpkin' again," Maka rolled her eyes with a sigh.
"Deal," Soul grinned as the both of them leaned in for their first real lingering kiss…
One of the last things Maka ever expected to happen all of a sudden was falling asleep in Soul's arms. But it was inevitable that this was what had occurred when she awoke Saturday morning, realized she was on the living room couch, leaning against Soul's chest while her still snoozing weapon snored with his head leaned back. The absolute last thing Maka expected was to smell eggs cooking and hear bacon sizzling in the kitchen. She knew perfectly well that the only two cooks in this apartment were sitting on that very couch, for Blair was a champion food burner. So who could possibly be…?
"Soul," Maka whispered, shaking his shoulder gently, "Soul, wake up."
"Mmm…" Soul stirred, yawning widely and wiping a trail of drool from the corner of his mouth, "Where am I?"
"We're in the living room," Maka replied, sitting up from his chest. "I…think we fell asleep here last night."
"Oh yeah, now I remember," Soul said with a small smile. "I kissed you, right?"
"Yeah Soul, you did," Maka smiled as she remembered the wonderful sensation of his lips on hers, their souls in complete resonance with eachother as they synced in perfect harmony—she had never felt anything like that in her life. But now wasn't the time to be thinking about that with a mysterious person in their kitchen. "Uh—Soul, do you smell that?"
"Yeah, smells great," Soul sighed, stretching his arms high over his head. "Whatcha making, bacon?"
"I'm not making it, Soul—someone's in the kitchen," Maka's voice dropped to an intense whisper and Soul's face suddenly hardened.
"Hang on, I'll go check," he said, shifting his arm into scythe mode and getting up carefully from the couch just as the door to the kitchen swung open.
"Oh good, you're both awake!" came a cheerful voice just as Tsubaki came into view, carrying a plate of eggs, toast, and bacon. "Let me know if you want anything else."
"Tsubaki, what are you doing here?" Maka cried out, jumping up from the couch and straightening out her pajamas twisted around her body.
"Blair let us in," Tsubaki answered, just as Kid and the girls entered carrying paper plates and plastic silverware to the coffee table. "Black Star, you got the orange juice?"
"Yep, comin' right up!" came an unpleasantly loud call as Black Star sailed into view, slopping orange juice over the sides of eight glasses on a tray. "So…why are we all here again?"
"Oddly enough, that's what we'd like to know," Soul asked in dry sarcasm, his jaw still hanging open.
"We're merely celebrating that two of our best friends are happy together," Kid answered, putting the glasses into equal rows of four. "Shall we have a toast?"
"Great idea!" came a final chipper voice as Blair shifted from cat to human form, raising her glass of orange juice. "To Soul and Maka!"
"Soul and—!"
"Wait, Blair stop!" Maka called out, halting everyone's voices at once, their glasses aloft. Stealing a quick glance with Soul, who nodded slightly, Maka took a deep breath. "Guys, we have something to tell you—it's about these past few weeks. You see, up until last night…"
"You'd been pretending to be in love," Kid finished.
"It was a dumb idea that we—" Maka stopped and whipped her head around to stare at Kid's sly smile, identical with everyone else's in the room. "You…you knew?"
"You all knew we were faking it the whole time?" Soul shouted.
"Well, all of us except—"
"They were faking it the whole time?"
"—Black Star," Tsubaki finished, "He can't keep a secret to save his life, so we had to leave him out."
"How dare you? I am Black Star, the greatest of all gods—!"
"When did you find out?" Maka asked timidly as Tsubaki slapped a hand over her noisy meister's mouth.
"My Lord Death, it was so obvious," Kid chuckled.
"You guys might kick ass at collecting souls," Liz shook her head, "but you two have got to be the worst actors in history." Patti added by laughing maniacally, while Soul and Maka hung their heads dejectedly.
"It's a long story," Tsubaki began, "but it started about a month ago. I got an anonymous bet for Black Star's wages with a plan written on a piece of paper: If you two were convinced to pretend to be a couple, and eventually became a couple in spite of this, the bet would go to the nameless gambler. Late last night, I got a call that the plan had gone off perfectly, and the better turned out to be none other than—"
"Blair," Soul and Maka snarled together, their eyes snaking over to the kitchen doorway, where the sly cat stood with a grin.
"Yay!" Blair squealed. "I win, I win!"
"Oh dear, Father's not going to be very pleased about that," Kid hid a smile behind his hand as Black Star begrudgingly handed over her wages.
"So she set us up this entire time," Soul grumbled, slouching on the couch with his arms crossed tightly in front of him.
"Uh…Soul?" Blair asked slowly.
"What the hell do you want, you damn cat?" Soul exploded as Maka shushed him calmly.
"I always knew you guys cared about eachother, so I thought if I asked you to do this it would give you two a shove in the right direction," Blair explained, Soul's expression softening as he heard the words he'd spoken the day before echoed back to him. "I wasn't doing it for the money."
"Neither were any of us," Liz said with a grin. "But…we are really sorry it looked like we did."
"It's alright," Maka whispered. "I got something a lot more valuable out of this anyway."
Linking hands with Soul again, they finished their breakfast with everyone else and made plans for a night downtown that evening before their guests left early in the afternoon. After cleaning up the living room, Blair yawned saying she needed a nap—when in reality she just wanted to give Soul and Maka some more alone time. Maka went to her room to change into a light summer dress and met Soul back on the couch, where he was flicking the channels again in a bored fashion. Once she sat down, Soul muted the commercial before leaning over and kissing her deeply again.
"Mmm…what was that for?" Maka asked with a smile.
"I know I said I wasn't gonna buy you anything as your boyfriend," Soul began. "But I felt really bad last night, so I stopped by the bookstore after I beat the shit out of Black Star." He handed her a gift wrapped package, which Maka tore into eagerly. Her smile widened—it was the concluding novel of her favorite mystery series.
"Soul, thank you so much!" she exclaimed, hugging him tight around the neck. "Ugh, the last one ended on such a cliffhanger, I have to know what happens next!"
"I'll leave you to it then—just don't forget about our plans tonight."
"I won't," Maka promised, curling up on the couch with the book in her lap while Soul turned off the TV and headed into his room to fiddle with his guitar for a few hours.
This was who they were: Maka had her books and Soul had his music, no matter how much he tried to hide it. It was the differences between them that made them compatible, stronger, creating that unspoken bond between them. As much as their closest friends had meant well, this was something that they could never understand—something that Soul and Maka themselves could hardly put into words. Things would go much slower this time, their bond would be tested in these new uncharted waters, and ultimately it would be months and months before they were ready to have that special night—and not in a bathtub.
Soul belonged to Maka, and Maka belonged to Soul. It was that simple—and there was no price that could be placed on that.
A/N: Please review on the way out :)