A/N: Maka only gets a brief cameo...sorry.

This chapter is normal length, next one is long, then we get a neat little epilogue to wrap things up.

Part 8

Telling Maka about her father had gone surprisingly well, which confused Stein. He had presented the topic as a lesson, feeling too much guilt to not explain that it was his weakness that caused the failure. But some details he withheld, as speaking too personally about it would be inappropriate to both a little girl and to his student.

Still, he had brought her to the dispensary and given her the truth as she deserved. He told Naigus to inform Spirit later about how his often-estranged daughter had gasped and run to his bedside, calling his name futilely and repeatedly. It was a weak smile that found its way to his lips when Maka simply sat at the side of the bed, holding Spirit's hand for time undetermined as the heart monitor continued its slow, steady rhythm.

What Stein didn't understand was why Maka didn't seem angry with him. He had not minced words when he explained that his own doubts had been the ultimate reason for defeat, and that the weapon's life-threatening injuries were the consequence. She had listened and taken in every word, but her only concern was for her father.

Perhaps anger and loathing for him would come later, after Spirit recovered. Especially when she saw her father's own.

After that, Stein didn't return to the academy. His classes entrusted to Sid, he had instructed Naigus on how to meet Spirit's basic care needs should his healing progress without incident. If something did go wrong, he would attend to it of course. But if his knowledge and skill were not required... He knew Spirit wouldn't want to see him anyway.

He wasn't sure if Death wanted him to find an answer to the question he'd posed to him, or simply recover enough from the incident to resume his assigned duties. Physically, he had recovered quickly. But as for his mental state...

He was sitting in his office in the dark, leaning back in his chair. He spun it slowly around to face the coat rack by the door—the one small object of homeliness in the room which he'd brought up from the academy basement the day he'd told Maka. Hanging upon it was the dusty, blood-soaked coat he'd been wearing on the day of the fight, and he was certain that seeing it upon entering the lab each day was why the nightmares hadn't stopped.

He didn't mind.

If he could keep fresh the memory of his former partner being mutilated, his blood soaking the sand and his soul growing weak, then perhaps the next time he was called into battle he would be able to maintain focus on his purpose. He was Death's elite meister and an instructor of young meisters and weapons. Nothing else. And if he concentrated on that, then he wouldn't ever again run the risk of making mistakes like the one that had nearly cost Spirit his life.

What could have happened also kept him up at nights before horror-filled sleeps finally claimed him. It had been like nothing he had experienced in their five years of partnership, and nothing he had experienced since.

As meister and weapon they had had very few defeats, even from the beginning. Spirit had brought experience to their assigned pairing, and he had brought...whatever it is that he was. He knew now that the partnership he had treated so cavalierly had been the best years of his life, and back then it had been easy to blame his choices on the threat of madness. But after over ten years of isolation and living in the freedom he had so desperately sought, he knew better.

How ironic for Spirit to have helped him overcome madness only for him to then fall prey to youthful arrogance, which he had used as a veil to deny his guilt. There was no way of knowing if he could have prevented the loss of his weapon, if he had responded differently to the accusations brought against him back then. All he did know for certain was that he regretted what he had done.

Unfortunately, he didn't know if he wouldn't do it all over again.

Stein spun back around in the chair to face the computer screen, the room's only light source, and reached up to twist the screw in his head. During the surgery he had eventually been able to compartmentalize the fact he was trying to save the life of his former weapon partner. He felt the most at home inside of a body after all. But it hadn't stopped him from noticing the old scars.

Spirit had claimed they all had faded, but only perhaps if one wasn't looking. As he had stitched up one deep wound after the other, he had noticed where the spikes had sliced through the old, delicate scars from his own intrusions years ago. Some however remained unmarred and he had stared at the thin, pale lines on the skin that were the permanent evidence of his betrayal.

It had been his greatest experiment. The resonance he and Spirit had already achieved was like nothing before seen in the DWMA, and he knew, he knew they hadn't reached their full potential, and he was certain he had a way to get them there. Perhaps if he had told the truth at the time, things would have ended differently. But there had been too many complications, and too many voices against him—one in particular that had started coming between he and his weapon even before he was forced to begin hiding his plans.

Stein put that thought away and kept turning the screw. He may have been able to ignore distractions to a point during the surgery, but now they all came at him like a swarm. Seeing the horror of the wounds inflicted upon Spirit by their former classmate had been sickening, and knowing there would be new, jagged and ugly scars intermixed with the ones his careful procedures had resulted in... It felt wrong. It felt like a violation.

Which, he realized, is what Spirit must have felt like back then.

Memories he didn't want to recall were flooding his mind and he refused to give them presence. He never wanted to relive those conversations and days of anguish again, but even the faintest flicker of their recollection hammered home what he knew more than anything else was true.

Everything was his fault. Everything. If he hadn't allowed himself to think past his purpose, he wouldn't have failed in the fight. If he had just listened to his weapon, they would have come out unscathed.

He had never been weak in holding Spirit before, but he had been too preoccupied at the time to realize what was really going on. He was the cause of the disparity in their resonance, a victim once again to the lures of a different world that he knew in his soul was mere fantasy. His own fears and doubts had been the reason their wavelengths weren't in sync. Even after all of his prior mistakes, after everything that had happened in the past...Spirit had been willing to bring their souls together to fight. And that trust had again cost him.

Turning the screw wasn't helping. Stein grit his teeth and contemplated the array of scalpels on his desk as he absently kept up the futile twisting, driving electric pain to his every extremity until his head was white-hot with pain. It was better than he deserved.

Spirit would hate that he had touched him again, even to save his life. It would probably be the final severing of whatever remained of a long-lost resonance that had been his greatest peace in life. If only he had known...

But, who was he kidding? Whatever had given him the idea that it could be reclaimed, that there was even hope of reconciliation, he had once again shattered with his selfishness. It had been more than ten years. It was time he let go of any dream of getting that life back and be grateful he'd had it at all, and for what he still had. He did have everything he'd outwardly claimed to have wanted. He'd been given a purpose. He had his freedom. And he still had his soul.

He just hadn't ever counted on wanting a friend, too.

When had he started caring again?

When had he ever stopped?

He knew the answer to Lord Death's question, now.

He released the screw and hit both fists against the desk as stood abruptly, his chair rolling away behind him. He needed to dissect something, and not one of the frogs in his freezer.

"I can't care..." he muttered haltingly through clenched teeth.

The chair abruptly stopped rolling.

"Care about what?"

Stein spun around to see Spirit a few steps inside the door, his hand on the back of the chair.