Tar bubbles out of the patched street as Maka leaves the exam building, the summer smog of Las Vegas like a film of pure, hot gross settling over everything. She digs her phone out of her bag to call a cab for the airport, but someone says, "Psst."

Maka looks up and takes a step back, unprepared for a dark rental car parked by the curb and for her dad to be leaning up against it.

"Papa, what on earth."

"Soul told me." Not 'Evans,' not 'that punkass.' Spirit opens the passenger door for her and bows like she's royalty, which always makes her feel ridiculous but never quite enough to tell him to knock it off.

Maka hitches her bag higher on her shoulder and steps into the car. She's surprised Soul had even read the message she'd left on the fridge, much less considered doing anything with it. "To the airport?"

"I even got the jet," Spirit says, waiting for her to settle comfortably before shutting the door and walking around to get in behind the wheel.

At the risk of over-inflating his ego, she admits, "Thank you, this is...really sweet. How'd you manage the jet? Didn't Kid go ballistic about the fuel costs?"

"There's some benefits to being Death Scythe," he says happily, pulling out into the street. "How'd the test go?"

"Cakewalk."

"Attagirl."

She's not a little kid anymore, but praise from her father still feels nice after putting in over five hundred hours of training just to take a test today. Still, she can't help from asking, "So...Soul told you to come get me?"

"He might've passed along the information after training." After she fidgets in her seat for the entire duration of a stoplight, he indulges her. "He's doing well."

"Is he?"

Spirit scoffs. "I think he'll do fine. He's stronger than I was, then," he says with a sour twist of his mouth, and Maka wishes she had recorded it on her phone because Papa will probably never admit that again for the rest of his life. "He hates the politics, but I think he can handle it. You made a good deathscythe, babygirl."

She lets the nickname slide; all she can do is stare at her father in shock, which he notices in his peripheral.

"What, do I have a booger?"

"No, I'm just not sure this is really happening. You complimented Soul like four times and I'm thinking I'm trapped in an illusion or something."

Spirit laughs and pulls onto the interstate. "Times change eventually," he says, checking over his shoulder for traffic, and Maka sees a streak of silver hidden in the red of his hair. "I'm proud of you, you know? Not just for being a meister or making a deathscythe, and not just you, either."

A mixture of emotions twirl in her chest, and Maka pulls her feet up to the seat, wrapping her arms around her knees to settle in and listen.

He gestures to all the populous traffic before them, and says, "I know it's not all finished, but you kids helped this happen. You brought a peace I never thought I'd see. None of us did. When I'm retired, I dunno what I'll even do with myself.

"So I'm proud of you. Your mama and I, we never raised you thinking about a world like this - never tried to imagine it. We taught you how to survive hard, scary things, but nothing about growing up. And you've gone and figured it all out anyway. You give me hope for you kids. And maybe some for me too."

"Papa..."

When Spirit looks over, she can't hide her gross, tear-smeared face fast enough. He leans over and opens the glove compartment in front of her seat, revealing a stack of napkins. "Grab me one, too. I've been holding it back but if even you're doing it, I'm legally obligated to do it," he says with a loud sniffle.

She just takes the whole stack of them for good measure. The both of them bawl all the way to the rental car return like a couple of idiots, eating through the napkins in minutes. At the bottom of stack is a little envelope, which Maka holds up with a incoherent noise and a question mark.

Papa blows his nose before saying, "Oh right. That's your party invitation. Can you believe I've been Death Scythe for twenty years?"

"Mmhm," she says easily, dabbing her eyes as he parks the car. "Since I was born."

After staring at her for a wide-eyed moment, Spirit's eyes gloss over again.

"Nonononono we're out of napkins!"

She didn't attend the inauguration. He didn't think he would be enough reason for her to come, but he'd hoped that maybe, with her father also being part of the ceremony, that she might. He knows Spirit has been spending more time with her lately, now that he's been in the process of stepping down as Death Scythe for a couple months. But she didn't show up.

It actually makes him angry, to be perfectly honest. He's pissed at Maka on Spirit's behalf, which is the most peculiar feeling he's ever had in his life. He's grown to respect her old man, and it's a little disorienting.

With the ceremony over, the more outgoing people are taking the spotlight at Death's Gallows, Black*Star and Kilik causing cycles of laughter through the mingling crowd. Soul finds a moment to breathe in peace over by the one of the nearly-empty punch bowls. With a sigh, he ladles himself a cupful and is about to take a sip when Angela's head materializes, hovering over the cheese tray.

"Oh my ffff-art. What. Are you doing here?" he wheezes, putting the cup down on the table before he makes a mess all over his suit. "Isn't it a school night?"

She smiles, her lips and teeth stained pink from the punch. "It's summer vacation, silly. I came with Kim and Jack."

Soul is at a loss; he'd entirely forgotten the concept of summer vacation. Maybe this is adulthood. "Well. I guess try not to give anyone else a heart attack, Tiny."

"Fiiine," she says, a cube of cheese floating in her invisible hand and popping into her mouth. "Wanna see somethin' cool?"

Putting his hands in his pockets, he says, "Well yeah, duh."

Angela fully materializes, kneeling on the snack table dressed in something very purple, frilly, and covered in glitter. And from wrist to elbow is a neon green cast.

"I broke my arm!"

"I see that," says Soul, nodding. "Impressive. I'm surprised Kim didn't just heal it."

"Yep. Stein says, um." She has to take a mental break for more cheese. "Stein says a meister's gotta heal the normal way, or you get all reckless like Black*Star. That's when they gotta send you to the mountains, with no wi-fi."

Soul covers up a surprised laugh by coughing into his fist. "That's really...good advice."

"I mean. Like. I wanna do mountain training like Star, but I don't like no wi-fi," she says, serious as Death.

Turning around so he can sit on the edge of the table and not be towering over her so much, Soul asks, "So you started meister training, huh?"

Angela warily smells an unknown food (it's cauliflower), scrunches up her face in accosted horror, and puts the floret back on the tray. "Mhm, yeah. Kim is really cool. Anyway so hey, what troubles you, Grasshopper?"

Soul blinks. "Me? I'm troubled?"

The girl nods, diverting her attention from the cheese and giving him all one-hundred percent of it. "You are very troubled. You make the same kindsa noises Maka makes sometimes. Like you're lonely."

"I'm-" He scratches the side of his head only to belatedly realize his hair is still gelled back like a pompous corporate weasel for all the photos. "I guess you're right."

Angela adjusts her legs under her and folds her hands in her lap, as attentive as Tsubaki with any meaningful conversation but with the added bonus of a florescent green worm of an arm.

Soul opens his mouth, then shuts it. He wonders why lying to himself is second-nature, yet he's physically unable to lie to a little girl. "I'm not feeling great, because Maka didn't come tonight," he says. "I miss her. I think we might not be friends, anymore."

He watches her eyes go wide as she absorbs these truths, and his throat gets a little tight. She asks, "Really?" and he has to look away for a couple seconds before he nods. But then Angela's face crinkles up with her concern. "But, that doesn't make any sense, are you for sure?"

"Well. No, I guess I'm not sure-sure."

"Right? 'Cause I don't think Maka would ever wanna stop being your friend. I really like her."

Man, if this kid gets him choked up right now, everyone in Death City is going to find out. "I like her too."

Angela looks around the room with a big frown. "She really didn't come?"

"Yeah."

"That's not right," she says with utter conviction, her hand smacking her knee. "She's always worrying 'cause of you training to be like Death Scythe! I think you should - I mean, um, can't you go talk to her?"

Soul sucks in a deep breath and lets it with a sigh. Offering her a half-smile, he says, "Guess I should, huh?"

She nods her head half a dozen times. "Oh! I think I maybe know where she is," she says.

"...Do you."

Holding up the green worm of her arm, she displays Maka's signature in sharpie on the wrist of her cast. "Yep."

"You really do work here," someone says behind her, and Maka nearly drops an entire jar of oil.

She whirls around, clutching the thing to her chest and finding Soul standing in the doorway of the infirmary.

"You scared me," she says with a huff. She'd been packing up for the night, and he'd been the very last person she'd expected to appear.

The corner of his mouth picks up. "My bad."

"What're you doing here? Are you hurt? I'm, uh, I'm not really the nurse, but-"

Soul holds up a hand, cautiously stepping into the room. "It's fine, I promise. Heard you might be here so I came to say hi?"

Out of habit, Maka reaches for his wavelength, but it's still tucked safely away from her, even though he's sought her out on purpose. She's not sure what that means at all. "Hi. I meant to tell you I got a job but we just kept missing... each, um." She trails off, unable to look away from his head. "Wow. N-nice hair."

His shoulders inch up as he looks askance. "Thanks, I hate it."

"Oh good," she says, turning around to hide the way her mouth is screwing up around a smile, because he reminds her so much of how he'd looked at thirteen. She puts the jar back on her little cart of massage supplies in the corner of the room. "It doesn't suit you at all."

Soul groans like the last of his self esteem has given up the ghost. "I know, I had a... thing to go to earlier."

"A thing? Oh, Papa did mention some kinda thing tonight. We're supposed to go have dinner afterward," she says, closing curtains and straightening the rest of her work area for the next day. "I'm surprised you went. I guess it's over?"

When she turns back around, Soul is watching her with an expression she has never once seen before, and she can't get a read on him at all. He slowly tilts his chin down, looking up at her with an unnerving kind of precision.

He says, "Why's that a surprise?"

Maka shrugs a shoulder, still trying to figure out what that face means. "I mean, you always hated that kinda thing before."

Soul looks away with a sort-of laugh through the nose. "Yeah, you're not wrong," he says. He's a stranger to her again- an unknown man with a clip in his tie, further away from her than an acquaintance- and it makes her want to reach out and touch him because they can't seem to connect any other way.

"Listen, Soul-"

"Babygirl, you ready to go?" says Spirit, poking his head around the door. When he sees her and Soul standing a painfully awkward distance from each other, he says, "Oh. Well, since you're here, I may as well tell you: you looked better with the octopus hair, kid."

Rolling his eyes so hard that the red completely disappears, Soul waves a lazy hand and makes his way back to the door. "Yeah, yeah, have a good time. Later."

"Papa..." Maka sternly says as she grabs her bag from the peg on the wall. She'll have to find another time to talk to Soul and figure out what's changed between them.

She flips the lights for the infirmary and shuts the door behind her. While turning her key in the lock, Spirit calls out to Soul with a strangely serious, "Hey, congrats."

Looking over her shoulder, Maka watches Soul pause, his back turned to them. "Thanks," he says quietly before making his way down the hall.

Her heart twists anxiously beneath her ribs. "Papa," she says after Soul turns the corner, "did he get an award or something tonight?"

Spirit pauses, giving her a considering glance that does nothing for the bad feeling she's picking up on. He offers her his elbow, which she cautiously wraps her arm through.

"Sweetheart, I don't want to sound disapproving, but I was surprised you didn't come tonight."

She brings up her free hand, chewing on a thumbnail. "I know you said it was the anniversary for being Death Scythe, but I guess I didn't think it would be that big of a party? I'm sorry, Papa. But, what does Soul have to do with it?"

This is enough to make Spirit pause mid-stride, and he quickly looks down at her face with concern. "...Maka, the party wasn't for me."

Maka's gut begins its descent to the basement mazes of Shibusen. "What do you mean it wasn't for you," she flatlines.

"Do you still have that invitation?"

Her blood is roaring in her ears as she releases Spirits elbow to mechanically paw through her purse for the little envelope that had migrated to the bottom in the past five days. It's difficult to open with her fingers shaking so damn much, so filled with terror at what she fears she'll find.

It's not an invitation to Spirit's 20th anniversary party. That part had been tacked on like an afterthought to Soul Evans replacing him as Death Scythe. Maka covers her mouth and makes an alarmed little yelp.

Spirit pulls the invitation away and puts a hand at her back, urging her down the hall after Soul. She breaks into a run, and the next few minutes she isn't fully aware of anything other than her burning lungs and that look on Soul's face, because he'd realized she had no idea what she'd missed, and instead of calling her out on it, he'd simply let it slide and disappeared out of sight.

From the very start, she'd been angry for being left out of all his Death Scythe training, because they'd done everything together until now, had achieved and survived and lost and cried and lived, and yet Maka had missed the most important thing that's ever happened in his career. She can't think of any way to make it up to him but if she doesn't catch him right now she's convinced there'd be no salvaging their relationship at all.

Maka makes it outside Shibusen, taking massive leaps down the front steps to see Soul's bike come into view. He's starting the engine with that familiar rumble she's missed so much, and there's no way he'll be able to hear her over it, but she flies down the steps and still roars, "SOUL EATER EVANS!"

For just a fraction of a second, she thinks she feels his soul react to hers. He looks up in time to see her land at the bottom of the stairs and run headlong for him. She's wheezing and crying and yelling all at once when she reaches him, clutching at his shoulder to stay upright.

"I'm so sorry! I'm so, so sorry, I didn't realize-"

Soul cuts the engine, twisting on the bike to hold her up with both arms. "I know you didn't Maka, it's okay."

"It's not okay!" she shouts in his shocked face, crying all over herself. "Congratulations! You worked so hard! You shouldn't h-have been there alone! I'm proud of you! I should've been beside you!" She presses her face into his shoulder and wails out, "I don't wanna be anywhere but right beside you, Soul! Do you hear me?!"

"I hear you," he says, voice thick in his throat. His wavelength is still too far for her to reach, but his arms come around her shoulders and tug her tightly into his chest. "I want that, too."