Prologue

He hadn't meant to do it.

If he hadn't been so damn depressed, he would have found it disturbing how easily his hand slipped. How so simple it was to accidentally turn a tiny cut into a deep one - he barely noticed. Yeah, it hurt more, but that was the point, wasn't it? He hadn't noticed how much he was bleeding or the knocking at the door until Wes came in and saw how quickly he was losing blood.

That was the first time he nearly died, and it should have startled him how apathetic he was, but it didn't. He didn't care much about anything. He hadn't picked up his iPod in nearly a year, the piano was played mechanically - only the songs his parents demanded him to play, and his grades had gone from average to pathetic.

He wasn't really fussed as the paramedics hurried him to the hospital. What was the point? He hadn't meant to, but this was what he wanted, so why couldn't they leave him in peace?

His parents never even visited, but Wes did.

Always Wes, always perfect, brilliant Wes. Caring, kind, considerate, talented Wes. Even denied of the peace of death, he couldn't bring himself to feel anything but affection for his brother. That was the only thing he could feel as he lay on the hospital bed.

"Never do that again," Wes said. He had never seen such a grave and pale look on his brother's normally tan and handsome face. "I want you to promise me that you will never try to kill or hurt yourself again."

Soul met his gaze for a few long moments before he couldn't take his brother's expression any longer and looked away. "I promise..." he forced out.

"Thanks," Wes came over, sat on the edge of the bed, and looped an arm around his little brother's shoulders.

Soul tried not to think of a loophole for his promise.

The Halloween party had turned nasty around eleven thirty. Apparently the most popular girl at school had caught her boyfriend engaged in a drunken lip-lock with her best friend and started a catfight that ended as a drunken brawl between over a dozen teenage boys and girls, and Soul regretfully put his drink down, only slightly tipsy, and let himself out.

He'd hardly gotten a few blocks away before a police car came zooming past in the direction he'd just left. Soul hoped everyone was too drunk to remember that he'd been there, because Wes would be furious. He'd already decided that though getting drunk might've been worth the guilt from lying to him, it wasn't worth seeing the betrayed look on his face.

And now he wasn't even drunk. Wonderful. Obviously life hated him - that was fine; he hated life back.

He contemplated the cars zooming down the high way. No more calls from his parents demanding that he improve his grades and stop shaming the family name, no more griping from the piano teacher he kept avoiding, no more of this damn exhaustion. It was dark, nobody would even know he'd done it on purpose ...

The guilt from lying to Wes came back and Soul returned his eyes to the road with a sigh. He'd promised ... And his promises to Wes still mattered, even if nothing else did.

He was three blocks from his house. He rounded the corner and found himself staring directly into a pair of pitch-black eyes.

It looked like it had once been a man. At first glance he would have thought as much, but there was something odd about how he was moving, how he was standing, how he grinned. He seemed stretched, warped, mutated. He had a hungry look in his face as he took in Soul and raised a hand, wielding a long, wicked-looking knife, but that wasn't what caught his attention.

'Claws... he has claws...' Soul realized dimly, mind fogged by the alcohol, a second before it hit him that the man was about to kill him. Well, that solved his problem ... being killed by a monster wasn't trying to kill himself, now was it?

"GET DOWN!"

Female, young, American, and urgent. He was tackled to the ground, the rough concrete scraping at his side as he slid. The girl scrambled up after a moment, "Run!" she yelled, not even looking at him. She pulled a knife out of her boot and started towards the man-monster-thing. She was petite, and the man was tall ... it really didn't look like much of a fight.

Soul just sat up. He'd lost his chance, couldn't the girl see that he wanted this? Slowly, he got to his feet, about to open his mouth and tell her as much, when the girl managed to drive her knife into her opponent's heart. There was an inhuman scream of pain and it fell to the ground, dead.

"Are you okay?" the girl panted, obviously breathless from the fight and clutching at her ribs. "Why didn't you run?"

"Wanted it to kill me," Soul said plainly. The girl stared at him with shocked bright green eyes.

"Wanted? But ..." she paused for a moment, catching the smell of something off him. "Alcohol ..." she murmured under her breath, and shook her head. "Why would you want to die?"

"It doesn't matter. Can't do it now. Thanks a lot," he said sarcastically.

"I-I ..."

The girl fell to the ground, hunched over, still clutching her ribs. Something red was trickling through her fingers. Had been trickling in a steady rush down her clothes. He had been too distracted to notice it before ... A puddle of blood was growing around her.

His head cleared. This wasn't the time to be wallowing in self-pity. Any other person would've been grateful for being saved, and this girl was hurt because she'd tried to help a stranger. He scrambled for his phone and called an ambulance.

He didn't see the red orb that rose from the corpse, nor the girl pocketing it before she succumbed to blood loss and passed out.

Chapter One - The Hospital

Wes met him at the hospital waiting area. Most of the alcohol had left his system by then, but Wes could still tell. He could still smell the alcohol on him. As predicted, Wes's handsome face fell, "You were drinking."

" ... "

"You said there wouldn't be alcohol at the party."

"I'm sorry that I drank."

"You're not."

"... I'm sorry that I lied to you," Soul amended

"That's something, at least," Wes sat down and gave him a one-armed hug. "So, what happened?"

"Didn't they tell you?"

"I want to hear it from you."

Soul told him, leaving out the part about the man looking like a monster. The police hadn't seen anything strange about him, so Soul assumed it had to do with the alcohol.

Wes leaned back against the chair when he was finished. "I told the hospital I'm going to pay for her medical bills," he informed him. "Least I can do, since she saved your life."

Soul decided not to mention the fact that he'd gotten mad at her for it. "So she's gonna be okay?"

"Sounds like it. They found her passport and called her parents, but they're overseas ..." Wes sighed.

"That sucks."

"Mmm ... You're coming back here tomorrow during visiting hours," Wes told him suddenly.

"I am?"

"Yes," Wes said firmly. "To thank her for nearly dying to save you."

" ... Right."

Wes took him to his car, "You're grounded, by the way."

"Great ..."

Wes took him to the hospital first thing in the morning. They stopped at the gift shop and Wes helped him find some nice white flowers. Wes filled him in on the girl who'd saved him as they were there. American girl who had transferred to a school there in England in order to learn a wider variety of things. One of those teenagers who were so smart that they could easily still have college degrees. Most students hated them. Soul probably would've too, but he didn't really care.

Finally, he found himself standing outside the hospital room labelled 204. He knocked once, and entered.

The girl looked shocked when Soul entered and placed the flowers on her end table.

"Hi," Soul said vaguely.

"Hi?"

Soul cleared his throat, "Umm ... Right. So. Thanks for saving my life."

"You said you didn't want me to."

"Yeah, well ..." he said awkwardly. "It was still nice of you."

'Nice of you', right, as if it was just a simple favour. Bloody selfless, more like. A bit stupid, maybe. Very stupid. And then he'd gone and yelled at her. He did feel bad about that.

She didn't answer, instead just watching him. He had been too disoriented to really notice it last night, but she had rather pretty, piercing green eyes, the kind that seemed to see everything. He suddenly had the irrational urge to stay and talk to her. He mentally shook his head to clear the urge away.

After a moment, she spoke, "Since I appear to have saved someone who didn't want to be saved, may I ask why you don't want to live?" He noticed that she had a subtle hint to her accent unlike any of the Americans he'd met. Softer vowels, a lilt to her L's and R's.

Soul shrugged, "My parents don't give a shit about me? I come from a family of musical geniuses and my playing doesn't conform to their standards? I'm a talentless sod who doesn't give a crap?"

"You shouldn't think that way."

"Well, I do!" he snapped, "And it's not your business!" And with that, he turned on his heel and left her with a vaguely hurt expression on her face. Guilt welled up again and he pushed it down, marching down the stairs moodily to find Wes waiting for him.

"Well?"

"Gave her the flowers, thanked her," he grumbled. Wes sighed and put a hand on his shoulder, steering him back out towards the car.

As he was opening the car door, something drew his gaze up to the second floor for a moment before he shook his head and climbed into the passenger seat.

Oddly, he felt like he was being watched ...

A/N: This is not the first time I've written this. I was at about forty pages before my USB key decided to die and I lost all of it. So this is the rewritten version... of maybe the twelfth time I've tried to write this story and failed because I start having self-esteem issues... So I decided if I didn't post it RIGHT NOW then I might never actually get around to it. Maybe the 13th time is the charm?

Regardless, as you may have noticed, this is an Alternate Universe, much closer to our own, except that somewhere in the deserts of Nevada there is a hidden city full of the paranormal. In a way, it's something of a 'What-if'. What if, long ago, humans became afraid of meisters and weapons and in order to protect the balance of the world they were forced to operate in secret? What if Soul didn't find out he was a weapon and slowly became overwhelmed by his parent's expectations, and dozens of meisters or weapons were forced to operate solo because there just weren't enough with compatible wavelengths to go around?

That's this, basically.

Oh that and I've seen far to many "Maka is the ordinary A+ student who meets mysterious Soul!" and my initial idea was just a reversal of that.