She never wanted to start her week like this, hunched over, bony elbows planted on her knees and ass steadily warming the frigid toilet seat. Hell, she never particularly wanted to start any day like this, but, well. She's here anyway, bare toes curling compulsively into the fuzzy rug she'd insisted on buying for the bathroom when they'd moved in, alternating between staring at the stick in her hands and staring at the cluster of holes in the drywall just to the left of the towel rod.

Soul had tried to install the new rod a month after they'd first moved in, citing the fact that the old one was too small and their towels weren't drying on it properly as justification for the new hardware. It'd taken him the whole afternoon and a substantial amount of cursing before he'd managed to get it installed correctly and evenly. She'd been wanting to fill in the holes for years now, as one of an increasing list of weekend projects, but hadn't ever gotten around to it.

On the counter, her phone alarm goes off-the tone she normally associates with waking up - and it throws her for a moment. Her toes are cramping, so she tries to relax them, tries breathing calmly, steadily as she turns the alarm off. She doesn't want to look. She has to look. There's no other recourse - it has to be done.

She looks down at the pregnancy test, heart lodged between her lungs and her throat.

It's a stupid thing to do, Maka knows this, but she's still pressing Josh - John - Jordan? - she's forgotten, exactly - into the hallway wall in the back of a bar she'd been taken to by Kim and Tsubaki and Liz. Tsubaki, who'd taken one look at the way Maka answered the door - sporting a ratty pair of Soul's sweatpants and a tank top that still had a few blood speckles on it from her mission two days ago - and clucked her tongue, gently shoving her way into the apartment. Maka was pretty sure she reeked, hair and clothes unwashed, too exhausted and depressed in a way that she couldn't put into words to bother with more than the very basics of hygiene since she'd gotten home, alone. Blair'd been gone for two weeks, and Soul for nearly as long on another solo assignment from Kid. She let Tsubaki bully her into a shower and clothes and the promise of a nice dinner out and away from her empty apartment.

The bar hadn't been in the game plan. What's-his-face hadn't been in the game plan either, but he was tall and strong, and Maka was tipsy enough that she'd been the one who suggested going to a different bar for drinks after dinner. Not that it had taken much convincing for Liz and Kim to enthusiastically herd their staggering group over to the girls' favorite bar. Jordan-Josh-John had been handsome and interested, and now he has his hands, warm and soft on her lower back, and she's worrying at his neck with her teeth, which he seems pretty into, if the erection pressed into her hip is anything to go by.

"You wanna take this somewhere else?" he asks her, breath tickling her neck and her ear, and he feels so good, she feels so good, and she can't remember the last time she felt like this - sexy and wanted and just good everything is good.

"Yeah," she says, smiling up at him, "I really do." He grins back and gives her ass a squeeze, and she laughs. She finds Liz on the way out and makes a lot of exaggerated hand gestures, to which Liz responds with several overblown winks and some enthusiastic waving of her own.

They make it back to his apartment, and the sex is-well, it's pretty great, not that Maka has a lot of experience to go by. She's fumbled around a few times, mostly half-hearted gropings and largely unsatisfying tumbles, but Maka doesn't get out a lot for reasons that she doesn't care to examine - she knows exactly what she'll find if she does, and she already spends enough time trying to convince herself that her partner is off limits. She doesn't need another reminder of her unrequited feelings.

But John-Jordan-Josh is attentive and thorough, and a lot of things that Maka vaguely considers writing down as like, some kind of positive customer service review. It's not hard to focus on the here and the now when she's still trembling around his fingers. Her mouth is wet against his when he pulls back and asks, "You wanna?"

"Condom?" she asks because she might be riding a pretty serious endorphin high, but she's not that out of it.

"Yeah, yes. Of course," he pants, fumbling for his dresser drawer as Maka tackles his jeans and a pair of tight boxer briefs. She slides the condom on once he finds it, and she can't pretend that it's not a little gratifying to see the way he shudders, eyes closed and panting as she touches him. He slides in, and it's a bit of a stretch, but it feels good, she feels wanted. She throws her head back, moaning, and lets herself get lost in the sensation.

There's not much of an afterglow-Jordan (she's almost 90% sure it's Jordan by now), disposes of a very messy condom, and Maka stares at the ceiling for a moment, still a little out of breath and aching just a touch.

"I should probably go," she says after a moment, levering herself off the bed.

"Bathroom's over there if you want," he says. "I'll call that cab for you?." She nods and heads for the en suite, gathering clothing as she goes. It probably ought to be a little awkward-most of her hook ups have been in some way before, but mostly it isn't, and she's grateful for that.

By the time she emerges, he's got a pair of sweats on. "I'd offer you some coffee, but I'm out. Can I get you anything-water?"

"That'd be good," she says with a smile.

When the cab arrives, he gives her a quick kiss, and she says that it was fun, and leaves with a bottle of water. She's still not totally sure of his name, and neither broached the subject of exchanging numbers or doing this again, and Maka is pretty satisfied with the whole endeavor. She texts Tsubaki and Liz when she gets home, and promptly passes out and doesn't think about how many hours left until Soul gets back. She just sleeps.

The only thing she can think of is that the condom must have broken or slipped, and neither of them noticed - did she put it on wrong? She can't remember. She hasn't been on birth control in years - she'd never found one that didn't wreck havoc on her hormones, and once she stopped taking the pill, she hadn't been having sex, so she just...never got around to getting an implant or IUD or anything. She stares at the pregnancy test in her hand and tamps down on the hysterical laughter that she can feel bubbling in her chest.

This is...not, it can't be happening, she thinks, unable to look away from what seems to be pretty damning evidence to the contrary. Hysterical laughter drains out of her body, along with all of her breath. She tries to suck in air and finds she can't. Her heart races and her head pounds and she knows her lungs are working but she can't breathe.

"Dude, did you fall asleep on the can?" Soul's voice floats through the door, steady and familiar over the hum of the vent fan. There's a hint of a whine there, but she knows from years of living together that that's more a function of the fact that it's still early in the morning and the idiot probably hasn't had his coffee yet. She almost wishes that she were alone, that she could process whatever this is with no witnesses, but she can't forget how much she hated the silence of the apartment when Soul was away for more than a day. He'd all but stopped going on longer missions now and staring at the test, she's reminded of just when his last lengthy trip was.

"I'll be out in a minute," she yells, shocked at how normal she sounds. She wishes she'd fallen asleep, that this could all be passed off as a dream.

"Okay, but I have to piss."

"Well hold it," she snaps back. Maka can just hear his grumbling, but he retreats, and she stares at the test again. How the hell is she supposed leave the bathroom like this? Can she sneak out? Should she just throw everything into the garbage and take it out? There's a miniscule window just above the tub - for a half a second, she seriously considers whether or not she can crawl out of it.

There's a knock on the door this time, and Maka startles. She's still holding the test, and she's about to yell at Soul to deal with when he mumbles through the door.

"Hey, seriously, you okay in there?"

Her eyes sting, but she stands shakily, legs and ass gone dumb from sitting so long. Her phone says it's been ten minutes since Soul last came by, and she doesn't even remember them.

"I - yeah." She's pretty sure whatever she is, it isn't okay. She staggers a little bit to the door and unlocks it.

He's right on the other side when she tugs the door open, and he jumps a little, startled. "Maka -" His eyes rake over her, as if checking for her for injuries, and she can tell the moment he catches sight of the test because his jaw drops and then slams shut with an audible click.

It feels like an eternity, standing there and waiting for Soul to say something, do something. She shouldn't have come out of the bathroom. She should have thrown the fucking test away until she could figure out what to do. He didn't need to know, and yet here she is, standing in front of him, waiting for something.

Judgment? Disgust? Fear? Disappointment? Rejection? She tells herself that it'll be okay. She always knew this day would come, that one day Soul would leave her just like her mother did. It's always been inevitable. She just didn't think that this would be the reason.

She's not expecting his careful grip on her arms, or for him to pull her into an awkward hug.

"Hey, hey. Shh. It's all right. You're all right," he murmurs, and her eyes burn. She thunks her head down onto his shoulder.

"Happy Monday," she says into his undershirt.

She's not sure how long they stand there together, she just knows that it's long enough that her feet kind of start to hurt. Eventually Soul shifts a little.

"Is it cool if I let go? I'm gonna call in sick for us and also I think your pee stick touched me and I'm not gonna lie, I'm a little grossed out."

She laughs wetly, but pulls back and lets him disentangle himself. Soul pats her on the back gently, if awkwardly, and she slips back into the bathroom. She drops the test in the trash can because it's not like keeping it is going to magically change the results, and she washes her hands. As an afterthought, she grabs a washcloth and lets the water heat up until it's somewhere between scalding and volcanic.

Slumping against the vanity, she wrings the cloth out and drapes it over her face, letting the heat seep into her pores and soothe her sore eyes. Soul finds her there - she can feel his presence, but she doesn't take off the washcloth. He flicks the vent fan off.

"I told Kid we both got food poisoning," he tells her, leaning against the door frame.

That startles a huff of laughter out of her, just enough to move the washcloth. She'd been puking pretty consistently every morning for about a week until she finally broke down and bought the pregnancy test. She'd spent the time between 5:17 and 6:32 this morning shifting between vicious puking and low-grade nausea before giving in and taking the test.

"That's definitely one way to look at it," she mumbles.

Soul lifts one edge of the washcloth. "You coming out of there?"

"No," she says, but the damage has been done already, and the cloth starts sliding off her face. "Fine. It was getting cold anyway." She straightens and hangs the washcloth over the lip of the sink.

She has no idea what Soul's face is doing, but they're standing in the bathroom staring at each other, arms crossed, and this is almost as ridiculous as the fact that she's apparently pregnant. She doesn't know how to have this conversation, but something has to break.

Soul's the one who finally makes the first move. "You wanna move this to the kitchen?" He stops, clears his throat. "Or, uh, do you need to stay here to vom?"

She sighs and pushes herself off the vanity. "If the pattern holds true, then I should be good for a while."

Maka abandons the bathroom for their kitchen, sits at their tiny table and waits for Soul to finish in the bathroom. When he comes back, he goes straight to the counter, pouring himself a cup of coffee. He gets out a second cup, then stops and glances over his shoulder.

"Cocoa?"

The look she gives him is almost pathetically grateful. "Please?"

She watches as he putters around the kitchen - fills the kettle up, puts it on, goes to dig out the cocoa from the back of the cabinet that has all of their tea - and she tries to think of something, anything to say.

"I'm sorry," is what finally comes out of her mouth.

Soul freezes. Slowly, he turns from the stove to look at her.

"What."

"I'm so - "

"No, I heard you, I just - " he blows out a frustrated puff of air. "What are you apologizing for, Maka? C'mon."

"This is so - I'm so stupid. How could I let this happen?" She's pregnant and single and pregnant, Jesus Christ she's so stupid.

"Hey, hey whoa now - " Soul says, like he's trying to calm a wild horse. "You're not stupid," he finally says, looking lost. The kettle whistles and he fixes the cocoa while she stares blankly at the table top. Soul plunks the mug in front of her face and takes a seat across from her with his coffee. "So uh. I'm not going to pretend this isn't out of my depth."

She keeps expecting him to ask what happened, to ask who the father is - to freak out, but instead he's so calm.

"You and me both," she says. The cocoa is the perfect temperature against her palms. She's trying to be calm, trying to be level-headed, but really, that's never been her strong point. Soul's always been the voice of reason between them, and she's afraid that she needs that now more than ever.

"What's step one?" he asks.

She exhales. "Doctor," she says finally. Just the idea terrifies her. Once she commits to the doctor, there's no going back, no pretending that this is just some kind of weird fever dream. On the one hand, it's possible the test was a false positive and maybe she really just has IBS or something. On the other - well, she'll know one way or the other.

"Okay. We can do that. Uh, I think." He blinks. "We do have insurance, don't we? I feel like that's a thing we're supposed to have."

She chuckles a little. "Yeah, we do." She fills out the paperwork for them both every November. She tries to avoid the doctor whenever possible - even with conventional insurance, she usually just goes to see Marie or Stein if she's really desperate. Maka can't imagine walking into an emergency room every time she gets a little scraped up fighting a pre-kishin.

Conversely, she can't imagine going to either of them with this.

"Do you want me to...make an appointment with someone?"

"No, I can do that." She takes a sip of her cocoa, then gives him a look. "Would you even know who to call?"

"I could probably figure it out," he mutters, looking uncomfortable. "I have the internet."

Her smile is small, but genuine. "You don't sound sure," she teases. He narrows his eyes and she adds, "Thanks though, seriously."

Soul shrugs. "It's nothing. We're partners, Maka. This is - " He clears his throat. "This is what partners do. Nothing changes that." She can still see the discomfort in the tightness around his eyes and the way his fingers drum against his mug, but his voice is steady and sure.

On impulse, she reaches out and grips his wrist; she wants to say something, say thank you maybe, but it just doesn't seem like enough.

"I'm not giving up caffeine, though," he says after a long moment. "Solidarity only goes so far."

"Fair."

The fastest she can get in to see the doctor is Wednesday and never has two and a half days dragged on for so long. She goes to Shibusen because there's no way that she's going to just sit on her ass on the couch waiting when she could be working. She isn't sure what will happen if they get assigned to fight a pre-kishin during that time, but she figures that she'll figure it out if it comes to that.

Privately, she kind of hopes they do get an assignment. It wouldn't be the first time that she's thrown herself into her work as an avoidance tactic, and it probably won't be the last, either. Soul might put up a fuss, but it's not like she knows for sure that she's pregnant. She's been on missions since her one-night-stand with (probably) Jordan, and nothing bad happened - what would be the odds that something bad happens now?

There's a dark little voice in the back of her mind that wonders if that would really be so bad. Things go wrong all the time in the course of a pregnancy; people miscarry - there's nothing wrong with that. She could go on with her life and not have to worry about what to do. She keeps her head down and throws herself into teaching her classes and tries not to think about it - just the idea of putting herself into a situation where she could miscarry makes her feel sick and guilty.

Maka's just not sure if the guilt is because she thinks it's wrong or because she doesn't.

She spends two and a half days doing her damnedest to act like nothing has changed, like she's the same person she was the week before. Technically, Maka is, which is a thought that twists around in her brain for a while. It's just that she didn't know she might be pregnant a week ago. Regardless, she does a decent enough job of it that none of their friends or coworkers seem to pick up that anything is out of the ordinary. Soul does his best, but his poker face has always been for shit. He over compensates by managing to be even more taciturn than usual with their students.

Wednesday morning is the first time in a while that Maka hasn't woken up with the need to immediately race for the toilet. She's got the first appointment of the morning with her ob-gyn. Soul had asked over dinner last night if she wanted him to be there, and she'd told him no. He hadn't pressed, and she hadn't offered.

It seems like that's starting to become a pattern with them.

The truth of the matter is that she thinks she'd like it if he could go with her. But she'd told Kid in no uncertain terms that she'd scheduled her lady-doctor visit, and the last thing she needed was for Kid to be wondering why she needed Soul to go with her to the gyno. His door's still shut by the time she's showered and dressed, and she tries to be quiet enough that she doesn't wake him. Since they're not going into work together, Maka fully expects Soul to sleep for as long as he possibly can before rolling out of bed and into Shibusen - probably grouchy as hell and skirting the outside bounds of professional.

She smiles at the mental image, familiar fondness welling up in her chest. She pushes it down out of reflex. There's no sense going down that path, especially not now.

"Yo, I made you eggs if you're hungry."

Maka startles and stifles a yelp. Soul stares at her from the stove, one eyebrow raised, spatula in hand and apron on. It could be the picture of a model husband from housekeeping magazine, and she tells herself that her pulse is racing because she wasn't expecting him to be awake, much less cooking.

"I also made you some more cocoa."

Maka wonders if this is going to be a Thing now, wonders what it might mean, wonders if she ought to ask or just let it ride. Still, she's hungry now, and he did cook.

"Thanks, Soul," she says. He points to the table, and she lets herself be bossed into the chair with the steaming mug of cocoa; Soul sets down a plate full of scrambled eggs in front of her, and they look fluffy and delicious. Maka narrows her eyes. "Where are yours?"

He flushes, eyes darting to the stove. "I, uh, already ate," he dodges.

"You burned them, didn't you?"

"I don't have to answer that question; you have no proof."

Maka rolls her eyes and takes a bite. They're really, shockingly good, and she makes it through about half the plate before it's as though her body completely flips a switch on her. She catches a whiff of the egg smell again, her stomach roils and clenches up, and she shoves herself away from the table, frantically dashing for the bathroom. She just barely makes before she has to throw up violently.

She tries not to look at the bowl after she's done, tries not to fixate on the way the eggs had smelled or the sensation of them coming back up. Even still, she's not sure when or if she's going to be able to eat eggs again.

"You gonna be okay?" Soul lingers in the doorway, shifting from foot to foot.

"Mmrghgle," she says, flushing the toilet, staring at it with a certain kind of horrified fascination. He hands her a damp paper towel that he must have brought with him from the kitchen.

"That bad, huh? So you're saying I shouldn't try cooking again."

That gets her to laugh a little. She spits and rinses her mouth out, uses the paper towel to try and get the feeling of bile and egg off of her mouth. It mostly works.

"Maybe just not eggs."

"I'll try to keep that in mind. You want me to make you some toast or something?"

Maka glances down at her watch and groans. "No, I'd better just go ahead and go. Thanks, though. I'm sorry."

Soul narrows his eyes. "Well, I'm sorry I made you puke-food."

"I'm sorry I didn't know eggs were going to be puke-food," she counters, glaring back at him.

"Yeah, but I'm sorry that - uh, I - "

"You got nothing, Eater," she challenges.

"Shit. Not cool, Maka."

She grins at this put out look on his face. "I win again," she declares. "But really, I gotta go."

Maka's been seeing her ob-gyn since just before her mother left for exotic pre-kishin hunting climes unknown, and she appreciates the consistency. Still, she's not sure that she wants to have the conversation she's going to have to have with someone who's known her since she was thirteen.

She really doesn't want to have it naked except for the flimsy paper gown the nurse had given her. She tried to wrap it all the way around her hips, but her ass is still sticking to the paper-covered exam table. Maka smooths the gown across her stomach, trying to see if anything's changed. The door opens, and she quickly drops her hands.

"Maka - I wasn't expecting you for another six months at least. Is there something the matter?" Dr. O'Keeffe is all business as usual, but the concern in her voice is real.

Maka takes a deep breath and exhales shakily. "I don't know," she says. "I think I might be pregnant."

Dr. O'Keeffe blinks once, twice. "I - alright, then. Have you already taken a home pregnancy test?"

"Yeah," she mutters.

"I take that it was positive?"

"Yeah."

Dr. O'Keeffe jots something down in Maka's chart. "You do realize that home tests are something like 97% effective these days, right? I can go ahead and do another test to make sure, but if you got a positive, the odds are pretty good."

"I just...I really need to be sure."

"Of course. Do you recall the last time you had your period?"

Maka's been racking her brain since she first took the test to try and remember. "Uh. I think maybe February? March? It's not too unusual for me to miss a period here and there."

"Mm. I recall. And you took the test when?"

"...Monday morning."

"I take it you've been experiencing some symptoms, then? Was it morning sickness?"

"I threw up scrambled eggs today," Maka grouses. "I love scrambled eggs."

Dr. O'Keeffe pats her gently on the shoulder. "Yeah, that's never fun. I spent the entirety of my first trimester being nauseated by the smell of ginger, which is about the only thing you can take to settle your stomach." Maka winces. "We have a couple of options. Since you've already had one positive result, I'm going to have you take another urine test."

"Isn't there like...a blood test or something?"

"There is. It will be more accurate, but it could be another 2-3 days before we're able to get the results back. With the urine test, we can confirm a yes or no, and then I can go ahead and perform a sonogram to determine how far along you might be."

Maka swallows. "I, yeah. Sure. That will be fine."

For the second time in less than a week, Maka finds herself waiting on the results of her piss. When Dr. O'Keeffe comes back into the examination room, Maka feels her throat tighten. Suddenly, she wishes that she had let Soul come with her.

"We have a positive," Dr. O'Keeffe says as soon as the door shuts. Maka appreciates that she doesn't preface it with a congratulations. "Considering the morning sickness, I would place you around eight or nine weeks, but of course the next step is going to be a sonogram so we can confirm that." She pauses, looking at Maka's face. "Are you alright? I know this is...a lot."

"I just - " her throat feels dry and she tries to clear it. "I wasn't expecting this."

"I know. That's alright; the sonogram can help us determine what your options are at this stage."

She swallows again. "Okay. Let's do this."

Dr. O'Keeffe smiles wryly. "I'm going to need to you drink some more water first."

When she gets home from the doctor's office, she's got a file folder full of information with a grainy ultrasound picture paper clipped to the inside. She looked at it once in the doctor's office, let Dr. O'Keeffe point out which weird grainy bits were part of the fetus and which weren't. Even still, she's not sure if she looked at it again that she'd be able to tell the difference. It's a fetus, and it's inside her, and Maka can't even tell what part is the head.

Soul's waiting for her when she gets home, which she wasn't expecting. He should have still been at work, she'd asked him to go to work so it wouldn't look weird that they were both out. She ought to be mad, but instead all she feels is an intense wave of relief seeing his stupid motorcycle taking up an entire parking space. He takes one look at her face and shuts and locks the door behind her.

"Baby?" he asks.

"Baby," she says. Even saying it feels wrong. "Fetus?" She's not quite numb, but she's getting there fast.

"Ok, fetus. Are you okay?"

For the first time since she got home, she really looks at Soul. He looks like he hasn't been sleeping, and she wonders why she didn't notice this morning. Except, she'd been so wrapped up in herself that of course she hadn't been pay attention. Selfish.

"Yeah, no. I'm healthy," she says. Except for the parasite growing in me. He doesn't press her for more right now, and she's beginning to think that that may be her favorite thing about her Weapon.

"Alright. Are you hungry?"

It's well past lunch now, and she still hasn't managed to eat today. "Yeah, I think so." She wants to ask why he's here, what excuse he made, but she wants to just...enjoy his presence more.

Soul grins. "Eggs, right?"

That's enough to get her to smile. "Ha ha, jackass. Let's hold off on the eggs for right now." Maka sets the folder on the coffee table and follows Soul into the kitchen, ready to focus on anything that isn't her doctor's visit.

Logically, she knows that she can't just ignore this forever, but she thinks she's earned a few hours of Not Thinking. Soul tries to shove her out of the kitchen, but she won't let him, instead insisting that if he's going to make grilled cheese, the least she can do is make a salad so they can pretend to be healthy adults.

Soul rolls his eyes. "Whatever, it's just us. You don't have to impress anyone."

"Just for that I'm going to cut the carrots up into those little matchsticks."

Soul snorts. "No you aren't - you don't have the patience." He finishes slicing up what's left of the huge block of cheddar. "All right. You got all that extra shit you like to ruin your sandwich with?"

She rolls her eyes and ducks into the fridge to get the mayo and dill relish out. "It doesn't ruin the sandwich," she says. "I'm enhancing the flavors."

"You can't enhance the flavors on a grilled cheese. It's a perfect food."

"There's always room for improvement, Soul," Maka insists, slathering her bread in a thin layer of mayo. Cheese goes next, followed by relish and the other slice of bread.

"Not on a grilled cheese," he insists, wrinkling his nose at her sandwich. But he throws it on the griddle all the same. "Your relish better not leak onto my sandwich."

"Don't be such a baby," she says without thinking. She freezes, can feel her breathing start to pick up. Soul sets down the spatula, and she can feel the way his soul wavelength ripples with unease, but he keeps his expression even.

"Hey now," he swallows, rests his hand on her shoulder and tugs her in. "I'm sorry I called your gross sandwich names," he says. Maka hiccups a laugh and wipes damp eyes on his shoulder. She hadn't even realized she'd started crying.

"Sorry," she mumbles.

"I'm sorry you like relish on your grilled cheese, too," Soul says, squeezing his arm around her shoulder just a little tighter. She does laugh outright at that. Maka's not sure how he keeps knowing just what she needs to stay remotely sane, but she's so, so grateful. She hugs him tight.

"You don't like it because you've never tried it."

"I've never tried it because I know how nasty it is." He looks over at the stove. "I need to flip those," he adds. Maka pulls away and doesn't think she's imaging the regretful look on his face. She turns back to the abandoned salad and start chopping the carrots into pennies. It was stupid to think that she could just ignore everything, but at least the sense of normalcy is something she can relax into.

"Caesar or vinaigrette?" she asks, poking her head back into the fridge.

"Caesar."

Maka rolls her eyes and pulls both bottles out, along with a soda. She hesitates a moment before grabbing a ginger ale stuck way in the back of the fridge for herself. Plates and silverware are next, and she sets them on the table too. For a moment, she considers doing what they usually do and just eating in the living room. Instead, she finishes setting up the their tiny kitchen table.

Soul doesn't say anything about the change in routine, just slides their sandwiches straight from the pan onto their plates, then places the pan back on one of the unused burners. Maka heaps salad on both of their plates, then drizzles her vinaigrette overtop. Soul drenches his in caesar and it's so normal that it almost hurts. She pushes the thought away and takes a bite of her grilled cheese, half afraid of another repeat of this morning.

Instead, she's hit with realization of just how hungry she is, and she lets out an appreciative noise.

"To your satisfaction, then?" Soul asks, eyebrow raised and cheeks a little flushed. Her mouth is full of sandwich, but she nods.

"It's really good. Thanks for cooking again, Soul," she says once she swallows.

He shrugs. "It's not like it's hard. I don't mind."

They eat the rest of their meal in relative silence and comfort, and Maka goes back for another giant helping of salad, this time with Soul's caesar all over it. Soul goes to put his dishes in the sink, finished before Maka's done with her second salad.

"Hey no, I've got that," she says around a mouthful of lettuce and radish. "You cooked, let me clean."

"We both cooked," Soul counters, reaching for the sponge.

"Making a salad barely counts, and you had to cook and clean this morning." It's important for her to do the dishes. "Let me do this," she mumbles. She needs the normalcy, needs to feel like she's not being coddled or managed, even if she kind of is. Soul nods.

"Alright." He leaves his dishes in the sink, but doesn't leave the kitchen, instead puttering around and putting up all of various ingredients from lunch. Once she's done stuffing her face, Maka starts working on the dishes and lets Soul put the remainder of the salad in some tupperware.

Washing the dishes has never been her favorite chore, but there's something soothing about the sound of the faucet, the hot water pouring over her hands, the repetitive gestures. Scrub, rinse, drying rack. Repeat.

"Do you have to go back to work?" she asks, breaking the silence. Soul freezes at the fridge, an apple halfway to his mouth.

"Uh. I told them I had a migraine, so. Not really?" He looks like he's 16 again and expecting some kind of retribution for playing hooky. She's irritated that he didn't do as she asked, but she can't deny the relief she felt coming home to another person - to him.

"Thanks," she says instead. She was supposed to go in after her visit, had been anticipating needing to throw herself into work to deal with - everything.

"Anytime." He's leaning against the counter, posture casual, but it's easy for her to read the sincerity written there. She smiles at him, pulls out her phone, and texts Kid that she'll be in tomorrow.

"You wanna watch a movie?" she asks, drying her hands on the dishcloth.

"Die Hard marathon?"

"Well, it's not Christmas, but yeah. I'll allow it."

Soul grins at her. "Don't lie, you love it."

She curls up on the couch like she has a thousand other times while Soul puts in the first Die Hard movie. He tosses the remote onto the coffee table, and she watches as it lands directly on top of her medical file. A moment later, Soul flops down on the other side of the couch, stretching out until his toes are brushing her thighs, and she retaliates by tucking her cold toes underneath his butt.

Soul is warm and familiar, and Maka lets herself be lulled by the familiarity, ignores the remote and the file it's sitting on, and settles down to enjoy her favorite movies.

On Thursday morning, she doesn't wake up nauseated, which leaves her cautiously optimistic - but she's been fooled before. She showers, puts on her bra and underwear, dries her hair and puts it up into a bun. She takes a moment before pulling on her skirt to look in the mirror. She doesn't look that much different - not all all like what she thought someone who was 9 weeks pregnant would like. Then again, her only real reference is Marie's pregnancy, so what does she know.

Maka turns sideways and studies her profile and - oh. It's not terribly noticeable - not much more than a regrettably huge Thanksgiving dinner, but there's definitely something there. She smoothes a hand down her stomach and over her baby bump. It's alien to think of, so she focuses instead on the way her skin feels tighter, how it feels when she presses down - hard but so different from her abs. She pulls back quickly, as if stung, and finishes getting dressed.

She sticks with toast this morning, tries not to remember the way the eggs had smelled lest even the memory turn her stomach. She even gets a little daring and slathers some butter on it. She's got a second round in the toaster and is contemplating making a cup of cocoa when Soul stumbles into the kitchen, looking much less awake than he had yesterday.

"Food?" he mumbles, and Maka can't help her smile as she plates his toast.

"Nothing fancy, I'm afraid," she says.

"Don't care," Soul replies, making grabby hands at the butter. He's about halfway through his first slice when he narrows his eyes. "Did you make coffee?"

"Yeah? Of course I did." For the first time in a while, she's not sure what to make of the expression on Soul's face.

"Thanks," he says eventually. "You make cocoa too?"

She shifts a little. "Not yet." Soul munches on his toast while he pours his coffee and starts the kettle boiling. "You don't have to -" she starts, but stops when he gives her a look. "Thanks."

Soul shrugs, "It's fine."

They finish their breakfast in companionable silence, Soul eventually pulling down two travel mugs and pouring the rest of the coffee into his. He makes another cup of cocoa for Maka's, and adds a splash of coffee to top it off.

"That much should be fine," he mumbles. "It'll look weird if you don't have it," he adds a little defiantly, and Maka hadn't even thought about that. Aside from the past couple of days, she can't remember the last time she didn't bring coffee into work. They always joke that it's because Stein makes the coffee in the teacher's breakroom and neither of them want to chance Stein's concoctions, but mostly it's because they're both coffee snobs and Shibusen tends to believe that the gargantuan tubs of Costco Maxwell House are acceptable.

She stirs the little bit of coffee into her cocoa. "It's like the world's crappiest mocha," she says. "Thanks."

Soul chokes on a laugh. "Yeah, well. I try."

When they leave the apartment, she doesn't even glance at the file on the coffee table. There's a moment of tension when they get to Soul's bike and he hesitates.

"Maka -"

She finishes tucking their mugs into the left saddlebag and glares up at him. "What?"

"Are you sure you want to ride -"

"Of course I am. Why wouldn't I?"

His lips thin, but he climbs onto the bike and doesn't say anything else. She wonders just how much longer he'll keep letting stuff go - he's always been the one to push her, and while she's grateful that he hasn't been, she knows it can't last for much longer.

As it turns out, the answer is Friday night. The file is lurking under an increasingly large stack of the week's mail, mostly junk that Maka hasn't gotten to dividing up and throwing away just yet. Maka's sprawled out on the couch, feet propped up on the mail. She feels exhausted in a way that she knows can't be solely physical, and all she wants to do is eat something and go to bed.

She kind of wants sushi, and says so absently. She's not really feeling up to going out, but they could always order in.

"I don't think you're supposed to have sushi."

She feels rather than sees Soul move, and when she looks up, he's standing above her, arms crossed. She wants to argue, to be petulant and demand why not, but she knows the answer to that as well as he does.

"Are we having this conversation now?" she asks.

"It's been almost a week; I think we need to," Soul says, voice gentle.

"I know." She curls up, knees pressed to her chest. It's getting harder to do. "I don't want to," she whispers.

Soul sits down next to her on the couch. "That's ok. It still needs to happen."

For a moment, she hates his calm, knowing tone, wants nothing more than to lash out at him. She exhales, tries to shove that feeling down, away. Just because she doesn't want to deal with this doesn't mean that she can't. Soul's just being a good friend and a good partner, and she shouldn't be mad at him for that.

"Okay," she says, and hates how fucking small her voice sounds to her ears.

"How far along are you, do you know?"

"About 9 weeks," Maka says, letting her head hit the back of the couch. She keeps her eyes closed and tries to focus on Soul's voice.

"Did the doctor give you a timeline?"

"For what? For getting an abortion?" She opens her eyes and turns her head to look at him. It's weirdly reassuring to see him looking so uncomfortable. "Yeah, I've got until about fourteen weeks to decide," she says. Five, closer to four weeks to make a decision that's going to affect her for the rest of her life. The enormity of it crashes down on her again. "Maybe a little longer, but I - I want to decide sooner rather than later." She doesn't mention that Dr. O'Keeffe had gone ahead and given her prenatal vitamins for just in case.

"Okay. A timeline's good." He rests a hand on her knee. "What - can I do anything to help?" It's easy to press her knee into his touch, warm and familiar.

"I don't know," she whispers. "I don't know what I'm doing, Soul."

"That's alright." He squeezes her knee and gives her a smile. "It's not like this is the first time we've gone into something without a plan, yeah?"

She's not sure if it's the "we" or the complete reassurance in his voice, but she can feel the tears starting to prickle behind her eyeballs again. Maka presses the heels of her palms into her eye sockets and concentrates on breathing. "This isn't the same thing," she says.

"Well, no one's trying to kill us, so yeah. That's fair, but the principle is the same."

It's weird to think of her...pregnancy like a battle they're about to enter, but then again, it's not any weirder than any other part of this week. She chuckles wetly. "Okay, sure." It's easy to say and harder to do, though. Her brain keeps coming up empty past keep or don't. It should be easy is the thing. She ought to get the abortion. At 27 she still feels like an adult in name only, and she fights pre-kishin as a matter of her normal life. She was stupid and irresponsible and she's not ready to have a child; she'd never make it as a single parent.

"Do you really think that," Soul's voice cuts through her thoughts, and Maka's heart catches in her throat because she's been saying all of the things swimming in her head and -

"Fuck."

"Hey, hey. C'mon now. You're not stupid and irresponsible, you know that."

"I should have been on birth control or gotten an IUD like Tsubaki did or - "

"Okay, one - even I knew how much the pill fucked you up." She has to smile a little bit for that because living with her for the year that she'd tried it could not have been anymore fun for Soul than it was for her. "Two, please don't tell me what kind of birth control our friends are on; I'm not sure my fragile dude-brain can handle that knowledge."

"Pattie's got a nuvaring," she says.

Soul wrinkles his nose. "Cruel. She's like my little sister."

"Deal with it, nerd."

Soul sighs, but gives her a familiar grin. "I do. Gladly," he adds seriously. He shakes her knee gently and tugs a little. Maka gives in and stretches her legs out across Soul's lap. "For real though, you're one of the most responsible people I know. Even when you're running head first into danger. Do I need to like, quote birth control and condom statistics at you? Like how no preventative measure is 100% effective?"

"Oh my god, have you been reading up on this?" she teases. Soul flushes a little, and looks away, and Maka's breath catches. "You have? Really?"

"The Planned Parenthood website is really informative," he mutters. "I told you I could use the internet."

Maka's heart is definitely doing something really weird in her chest, and she lightly taps the side of his thigh with her foot. "Hey. Thank you."

"For what?"

"For all of this." This encompasses so much more than she'd thought was possible - from eggs and cocoa to birth control statistics, to just sitting here on the couch, trying so hard to help her.

"You're gonna have to stop doing that," he says. "You don't need to. I told you before that I've got you. We're partners."

She doesn't tell him that this is so far past what partners are supposed to do for one another - she wants to, but there's still that little voice in the back of her head that says if she does, that he'll finally realize it and leave. So she keeps quiet and lets herself have this.

She doesn't put a voice to the knowledge that if this had happened with Soul - well, her decision wouldn't be nearly as hard.

"Look, I'm -" he starts, stops, voice breaking through her thoughts, "I can't tell you what to do, and I wouldn't, you know that. I'm here with you no matter what. But if you're worried that you're going to be alone or that you'll be a bad mother -" he sighs. "I don't know what to tell you other than that's just - that's dumb."

"How is that dumb? I'm not prepared to be someone's mother, Soul."

"I dunno, I think you've got the mom-vibe down pretty perfectly."

"Mother-henning Black*Star into not jumping off the roof of Shibusen at every given opportunity isn't the same as taking care of an infant."

Soul's face scrunches up like he's thinking about it. "I dunno, seems pretty close to me. Infant's less mobile." He smiles. "Probably won't talk back as much."

She rolls her eyes, but can feel a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. "No, an infant can't talk at all, just screams. How'm I supposed to know what's wrong?"

"Humans have been managing it for uh, a while now. Hell, even your dad managed, and I think you turned out alright."

"Alright enough to get knocked up accidentally."

"Maka -"

"I know you're just trying to help, Soul. I'm not trying to be a dick; I just - this is just so much." They're both quiet for a long moment.

"Did you want kids?" He asks into the silence.

She wishes he hadn't asked because she can't lie to him, not really. Even if she could, she doesn't want to. "I've thought about it. It was always a 'one day' kind of thing, though." She closes her eyes; she can't look at him, not for this. "I always thought it'd be with someone I was in love with, someone who'd be my partner." She tells herself she's imagining the way Soul's wavelength spikes. "I never - it wasn't supposed to be like this."

"You've got a partner," Soul says eventually.

"That's different," Maka forces the words out of a mouth that tastes like iron.

"It doesn't have to be. Not in the ways that it really counts." There's a vice squeezing her ribs, that's the only possible reason for her chest to feel the way it does. She hears Soul's words, but it's almost from a distance. "If you decide to have an abortion, I'm still your partner. If you decide to keep the pregnancy, I'm still your partner, Maka." Those are definitely tears streaming down her cheeks. "We've been through so much together. We'll get through this too."

She nods, but doesn't trust her voice to make words without cracking or completely losing any semblance of calm. Soul just lets her sit there, idly rubbing her knee. The last bit of sun keeps catching strands of his hair, and Maka lets herself drift.

"Can we order pizza for dinner?" she asks eventually.

"The usual?"

"Please."

"Yeah, we can do that," Soul says squeezing her knee again. "Lemme go grab my phone and I'll call it in."

She swings her legs off his lap and watches as Soul gets up and stretches. He grabs his phone off the kitchen counter and hits the speed dial for Death City Pizza & Wings. She doesn't have to tell him what she wants because he knows already. She doesn't even have to ask for him to throw in an order of the cheesy sticks. Idly, she wonders if this is what love is. It's a question she's wrestled with over the years, and she hates that it's still as pertinent now as it was when she was sixteen.

Maka wonders if it's easy for Soul to just make statements like that. Of course he can say that he'll be there for her. If she told him that she loved him, would he still feel the same? She wants to believe. Soul was right - they had been through so much together. He has to know how she feels after all these years, after all the times they've resonated. Which is fine because if he knows and hasn't said anything -

She can live with him not loving her back. She's long since resigned herself to that. She's just not sure she could handle it if he left.

"Order's in," Soul calls from the kitchen. "Black*Star texted and wanted to see if we wanted to go to a movie. I told him to fuck off."

Maka chuckles a little at that. "Thanks." She's still not sure what she wants to do, but she feels less hopeless, less like her chest is collapsing in on itself. It's enough for tonight.

She pukes again Saturday, though she makes it until almost noon before it happens.

"I thought it was supposed to be morning sickness," Soul comments, handing her a damp paper towel. She wipes her mouth and tries to ignore the way her stomach cramps up again. "It's 12:03."

"I guess you'll have to petition someone to start calling it morning and afternoon sickness," she mutters from the toilet bowl.

"I think it could really revolutionize the whole pregnancy thing. Morning sickness seems pretty misleading if it can happen at any time."

Maka spits into the bowl once more to try and get rid of the last taste of bile and Cheerios, then flushes the toilet and tosses the paper towel. Soul hands her a warm washcloth next. "I'm pretty sure if they called it that, no one would get pregnant again."

"Fair point."

"I mean, if I'd known, that definitely would have been make or break for me." It's a joke, and it surprises her almost as much as it seems to surprise Soul. He gives her a little smile, and her face doesn't feel like it's cracking when she smiles back.

"At least it wasn't the pizza."

"I feel like I ought to buy stock in saltines and ginger ale," she mutters.

Soul pats her back. "I'm sure we could get Marie to let us use her Costco membership."

"Ha ha. Cause that's a conversation I want to have."

"We can tell her it's for Blair," he suggests, and Maka snorts loudly.

"Where is she, anyway? I haven't seen her since before -" Her thoughts are never far from her pregnancy, no matter much she'd rather be thinking about anything else. She wonders if her life is going to be forever divided into "before" and "after."

Soul shrugs. "I don't know. She hasn't come slinking around that I've seen. Unless she's been like, sneaking in. I'm sure she'll be back soon."

It's been more than a decade since the thought of seeing Blair sent prickles of unease through Maka, but that feeling is back now. For as much grief as she's given them throughout the years, Blair's been a staunch friend - more than that though, she's shockingly perceptive, and Maka knows that when she comes back, there will be no hiding this from her. She's not sure how much longer she can keep it from the rest of their friends - Maka knows she's running on borrowed time and sheer stubbornness, and there's only so long she can dodge movie nights and group dinners and awkward questions like "why don't you want a glass of wine?"

"So, uh, I guess you don't want lunch?" Soul asks, cutting through her thoughts.

She blanches a little. "Yeah, I'm gonna give it some more time." Soul glances between her and the kitchen, and she nudges his shoulder. "You should eat if you're hungry. Unless you're like...making fish or something, I don't think my stomach's gonna revolt again."

"You threw up Cheerios," he points out, reasonably skeptical.

And that's fair, so she just shrugs. "I got a good feeling about this."

She makes it through Soul's lunch without incident, through dinner and breakfast the next morning, even. Maka's definitely going to count that as a win. She's six episodes into X-Files season 4 rewatch number ten when Soul turns the TV off.

"I was watching that."

"Cool story, bro. You don't even like this episode."

Maka frowns. "You don't know that. I happen to really like the witchcraft calendar plot point."

"You only watch it because you're too lazy to skip it after 'The Field Where I Died'," he insists, holding a hand out. Maka grumbles, but takes it and lets Soul pull her off the couch.

"What the big deal? I was enjoying my lazy Sunday."

"We had a lazy Saturday too, and we need groceries and frankly, you need to get out of the apartment."

She gives him a flinty glare, but shuffles back to her bedroom and strips out of her pajama pants and into a pair of jeans. They're a little snug, but she can still button them for now so she does and she throws on a t-shirt that's seen better days and a ball cap over hair that probably should have been washed yesterday.

Soul hands her her a pair of slip-ons at the door, grocery list in hand. Maka grabs the reusable bags off the hook and they step out into the sun. The sun feels good on her skin and she smiles reflexively, even if she has to squint because she forgot sunglasses. Soul nudges her arm just a little bit, and she can just make out his "told you so" grin, so she shoves him back.

That good feeling lasts about 5 minutes before the fact that it's July sets in, and she kind of wants to crawl back into the air conditioning. Just because she grew up in the desert doesn't mean she enjoys the weather all the time. It's a short walk to the grocery store, which is good because the last thing she needs right now is to have some sort of fetus-related heatstroke. The cool rush of air as they walk into the grocery is a welcome relief, and Maka sighs in pleasure.

Grocery shopping feels almost completely normal. They get nearly the same thing every week or so, and their circuit around the store is ingrained enough that Soul always bitches whenever they go to a different store because he gets turned around.

She grabs the eggs and milk, leaving Soul to palpate the veggies, and almost runs straight into Marie, who is eyeballing the cream cheese selection like it's personally offended her.

"Oh, Maka! I didn't see you there, sorry!"

Maka smiles and hopes that it doesn't look too forced. "You're fine! Don't worry about it!"

"How have you been? I haven't seen you around lately."

"Oh you know how it is with teaching and I uh, got a bit of food poisoning. It's been a rough couple of weeks."

Marie looks sympathetic. "I know exactly how you feel. At least Soul's been home to help, though, right? I don't recall him being on any of the mission rosters lately."

"Ah, yeah. He's been able to hang around here since May for the most part." She wishes he'd come back from that particular mission a little sooner. If he had, Maka wonders if she might not be in the predicament she's in now.

"Oh, that's great!" She's got an odd look on her face. "I've got to finish up - I don't want to leave Ada and Franken to their own devices for too long, but you should stop by for tea sometime soon." She reaches out, and her hand claps Maka's shoulder before she can shift away.

She's not sure what to do with the array of emotions flickering across Marie's face. They move too quick for Maka to read, and years of living with Stein have pretty much perfected her soul-shielding.

"Maybe we should have that tea sooner, rather than later. Like. Tomorrow afternoon, after your last class?"

"I think Soul and I are supposed to be doing some training exercises -"

Marie's expression is as serious as Maka's ever seen it. "Tea tomorrow, Maka. I'll see you at 4:30."

She disappears down the cereal aisle with a final look over her shoulder. Any relief Maka may have felt getting out of the house is pretty much shot, now.

"Maybe it won't be so bad," Soul says after they've gotten back to the apartment.

She doesn't respond because she doesn't believe such optimism right now deserves a response. Maka roams around the kitchen, putting groceries away and trying to think about something to make for dinner. She kind of wants chicken and pasta, but only if they have the wide noodles, which she's not sure they have and she doesn't want to go back out for them.

"I'm serious, though." He pulls out the box of angel hair she was looking for and hands it over. "It might be a good thing to talk to someone we know who's been pregnant before. Of anyone, Marie's probably got the best idea of what you can expect."

Maka goes cold and she can't tell how much of it can be blamed on pregnancy hormones versus the normal jumble of feelings she gets when she thinks about her mother. Soul hisses quietly under his breath and curls his arm around her shoulders.

"Hey, c'mon. You know I didn't mean anything -"

She doesn't shrug him off, but she must flinch because Soul drops his arm like he's been burned. "I know," she says. Still, it's hard to tamp down on the visceral reaction - it's an old wound that never fully heals. The fact of the matter is that Soul's right and no amount of wishing will change that.

Maka loves her students, loves being able to teach them skills that will keep them alive (and maybe even some grammar along the way), but today she finds them completely exhausting. It takes every ounce of willpower she has not to abuse the teacher voice just to get a little bit of calm. Half the time, she's convinced that it's just something about Monday that's gotten all of her students fired up. The other half of the time, she worries that it's just in her head, that's she's being overly sensitive to the noise and rambunctiousness and that this is normal and she's the one who can't function.

She copes by assigning group work and by drinking more than a few cups of rooibos that had shown up in their kitchen cabinets after their grocery trip yesterday. It's a little bit of a disaster, but she powers through until her last class is over. She contemplates spending a little extra time straightening up the chairs - they look extra scattered today, but she's interrupted by a knock on her door frame and the familiar aura of Soul.

"You ready to go?"

"Are you delivering me to Marie's?" she asks, eyebrows up.

"Well, it's like 105 out, so if you want to walk, that's fine. But I thought you'd rather get there and not like, die of heat stroke in the process."

"Tempting," she mutters.

Soul huffs a little laugh. "Come on, nerdling."

She'd hated Soul's bike when he first got it - it smacked of the ridiculous cool dude vibes he was always trying to project, and she'd rolled her eyes and stamped her foot, and had maybe been a little bit of a brat about it. Although she had gotten in a few really good subtle digs at his manhood.

All that changed after the first time Soul came home with a second pair of goggles and a helmet, and said, "Let's mosey."

She still feels a little thrill every time she gets on the back of the bike, feels the rumble of the engine and the wind whipping against her face - cathartic in a way that only flying has ever replicated. Sometimes, she considers learning to ride herself, but she likes that it's a Thing that she and Soul do together.

They pull up to the lab far too soon for her preference, but Soul's right - it's better than heatstroke. And Maka is self-aware enough to know that sometimes she needs the push. She can't guarantee that she wouldn't have just wandered over to Deathbucks instead of Marie's.

Soul cuts the bike and kicks down the stand. "You want me to stay?" he asks, pushing up his goggles. Maka's still perched behind him, the bare skin of her knees tight against his hips. She squeezes once, and Soul grunts a little, giving her an unamused look.

She slings her leg over the seat and hops down. Helmet and goggles go on the back of the bike, and she gives Soul a smile. "I'll call when I'm done," she says because if he can keep offering to be by her side, the least she can do is try to be brave.

He nods once. "Just, call me if you need me, okay?"

Maka nods and turns to go inside. She doesn't hear the bike start back up until Marie's opened the door, and it makes her heart feel a little lighter.

Marie's hand is warm on Maka's elbow as she leads her into the - house? Maka's never really sure what to call the lab. It's more of a home now than it was the first time she came here - young, scared, but so, so determined. Marie's presence has changed it in a hundred subtle and not-so subtle ways. Maka's pretty positive that Stein wasn't the one who decided to bring in bathroom mats or the valence hanging over the window in the kitchen. It's an eclectic mix of styles and influence, but for all that it's weird, it's very much Stein and Marie.

And for nine years now - Stein, Marie, and Ada. Maka looks around, but doesn't see either Stein or their daughter - just scattered toys and beakers and she's not a hundred percent on what belongs to whom.

"I thought it might be better having this conversation privately," Marie says, essentially depositing Maka into a chair at the kitchen table.

"Thanks," she mutters. Marie plunks a mug of something herbal in front her, then sits down with her own mug. For a long moment, they just eyeball each other.

"So," Marie starts.

Maka nods once, eyes darting down to her mug.

"Is -"

Her head shoots up, face on fire. "No." She snaps it, can't even feel bad about it when Marie recoils a little.

"Okay. How did this -" she stops, smiles a little crookedly at Maka's expression. "That's a stupid question, isn't it? How far along?"

"9 weeks? Ish. Maybe 10."

Marie nods like that means something more to her than it does to Maka. She shifts a little, and Maka knows that Weapons don't have the same kind of Soul Perception that Meisters tend to. Still, she wonders if Marie somehow managed to pick something up from Stein over the years. "How about I'm here, and you can tell me or ask me anything you want?"

It's hard not to think about Soul's optimism from yesterday. Marie isn't yelling at her, isn't admonishing her for her choice...or lack of. She's just the same steady, comforting Marie-presence that she's always been.

She lasts a good five minutes before the words start. She tells Marie more than she's told anyone else about her one-night stand - if she doesn't mention what drove her into the arms of a stranger, well. She thinks that Marie might pick up on it anyway. It's easier to talk about the uncertainty and fear her pregnancy has resulted in.

"I'm so confused," she finally says. "I - I should get an abortion." She swallows, throat dry. "Our lives are so dangerous, and, and -" Maka cuts herself off.

"And?"

"It's not the right time. I'm not ready to be a parent, much less a single parent."

"I never really thought about having children with Franken," Marie says. "It's kind of funny, actually. Before I got reassigned here, I would have leapt at the chance to settle down, get married, start a family. Once we found each other again - once I realized how good it was to have a partner like him, I found that I wasn't even thinking about it past that kind of hazy 'someday,' you know?"

"What changed?"

Marie blushes faintly. "Would you believe it was an accident? We were just blowing off some steam - everything was so tense…I must have forgotten my birth control. I'm still not sure what happened, really." She laughs a little, rolls her eyes. "Hell, Stein might just have the most stubborn sperm on the planet."

Maka can't help but laugh a little at that. She swirls her tea around a little in the mug. If she concentrates, she can feel the life within her. She remembers that moment when she'd first felt the flicker of Ada's soul. She hadn't thought about it too much then - to her, Marie had always been an adult - even at her flakiest, she was solid, could take charge, was imbued with the kind of responsibility that Maka had once associated with her mother. In retrospect, she'd been about Maka's age now. And that was...that was strange to consider past the abstract.

"Why?" she asks, finally.

Marie doesn't ask for clarification. She rocks back in her chair a little, a move so unconsciously reminiscent of one Maka's seen Stein do for years that she has to hide her smile in her mug. "I thought about it a lot," Marie says. "Franken and I talked about it - neither of us were ready. We thought as much then and," she laughs, "I'm not sure we're ready now, really. I don't think you can ever really be prepared for being a parent." Her expression darkens. "It wasn't - it was a bad time, Maka."

"I was there," she says, and it's not so much admonishment as an acknowledgement.

"Yeah." Marie's voice is soft. "I thought about an abortion. I thought about after, that if we could just make it through Asura, through the madness, then I'd think about having a kid then. Except - what if Franken hadn't made it? What if I didn't die, but I got hurt so badly I couldn't have kids anymore?"

"Those are all...those are good reasons to not have a baby," Maka murmurs.

"Yeah, they are...they were. That was kind of it, though. There's always going to be another 'what if,' another fear - could get taken down by a pre-kishin, or Asura, or a rogue Weapon or a witch. Or I could get in a car wreck or fall down the stairs." She shrugs. "I told Franken that I wanted to go for it. And if he didn't want to help, I didn't care. I was still going to do it. It seemed worth the risk."

Maka's jaw drops a little. She'd always sort of assumed that Marie and Stein had been a done deal when they were fighting Asura and his band of merry jackasses. "But he stayed with you." It's not really a question.

"He did. We decided we wanted to give it a go - and it worked for us and our situation, but even if it hadn't, I wouldn't have regretted anything."

She digests Marie's words, lets them roll around in her brain. "I don't want to do this alone," Maka whispers. She doesn't know if she has the same confidence that Marie did - that she does.

Marie leans forward, chair legs thunking against the linoleum. "Oh, honey." Her hands wrap around Maka's. "In what universe do you think you'd ever do this alone?"

Maka chokes down her response, the fear that tangles with her heart that Soul wouldn't possibly stay, not in their tiny apartment, not with a baby on the way that isn't his with a cranky Meister who's just going to get crankier. Not with an infant, loud and needy.

"Maka -" Marie takes a deep breath. "Regardless of...anything else, you have friends, family - we'll support you however you chose. You won't ever be alone as long as we're here."

Maka lets Marie squeeze her hands, tea slowly growing colder.

When Soul picks her up later, he hands her her gear, but he doesn't press her about her conversation. She lets her head rest against his shoulder blades on the drive back to their apartment and tries to sort through the twisted mess of her emotions. Sometimes, it feels like that's all she does these days.

The next few weeks pass for Maka in a strange haze - everything seems different, but she knows that it's just her that's changed. She does her best to avoid Kid and Stein - she doesn't think the fetus can be sensed just yet, but she doesn't want to take that chance. She teaches her classes and grades her students, does combat lessons with Soul, and even takes on a very low-level mission shadowing one of the Weapon-Meister pairs on their very first mission.

The pre-kishin is nothing, really - perfect for a first mission and the kind of monster that Maka hasn't considered a personal threat for well more than a decade now. Still, she remains vigilant because she's nothing if not a professional. Soul sticks a little closer than he might normally, and she tries not to be secretly pleased with his overprotectiveness when normally she knows it would annoy her. Their kids struggle a little - but they're the kind of missteps that Maka remembers making herself at that age. A wide swing, skirting a little too closely to the edge of a building - but they both recover admirably, and Soul's hand on her shoulder as Bridgette eats her very first corrupted soul is warm and solid.

"They grow up so fast," he murmurs with a toothy grin, and her chest aches.

As the days pass, she finds herself thinking about Marie's words periodically - usually when she's trying to concentrate on literally anything else, which is fucking annoying. She knows there's no "good time" to have a baby, that no matter how much planning you do, there's always going to be something that comes up.

Unwed mother at twenty-seven is an obstacle she's finding hard to overcome, though.

Still. The bump on her abdomen starts to get bigger, and sometimes she catches Soul looking at her, at it, when he thinks she's not looking- his expression goes a little soft, unguarded, and she doesn't know what to do with that. And even if she's got a little more time medically, she can't keep this hidden for much longer - at the very least, Liz is going to start giving her shit for adding sweatpants to her wardrobe.

They're sitting on the couch post dinner one night, TV on, even though neither of them have been paying any attention. She exhales. "Hey Soul?"

He looks up from the trade paperback he's been "reading" for the past ten minutes. She doesn't remember seeing him turn the page more than twice. She's caught him staring at her at least four times. "Mm?" His noise is non-committal, but his attention is all on her.

"What if -" she swallows, looks at the ceiling with a studied casualness. "What if I wanted to keep it?" She tries to keep her voice level, but it just sounds small. He sucks in a breath, and it feels like all of the air in the room goes too.

"Okay."

"Okay?"

Soul nods. "Okay." He sets down his comic and shifts over next to her. "Look, I don't know what you and Marie discussed during lady-bonding-time, but I told you before that I'd be here for you, didn't I?"

Maka rolls her eyes a little. "Yeah."

"And have I ever lied to you?"

"Well, there was that -"

Soul blushes a little, and cuts her off. "- About anything that actually mattered?"

"No," she concedes.

"Alright then."

"Just like that?"

"What else is there?" He sets his hand, palm up, on his leg. She glances over at him, green eyes bright, and carefully places her hand in his. She fights down the ridiculous urge to resonate with him, caught between wanting the emotional comfort and terrified of the raw honesty it could bring.

She exhales shakily, and Soul squeezes her hand. "This might really suck," she says.

Soul shrugs. "So what? We've done lots of things together that sucked. But they've all been worth it, yeah?"

"Wow, that was the cheesiest thing I have ever heard come out of your mouth," Maka says, shoving at him a little. He rolls with it, but doesn't let go of her hand and she doesn't deny it.

They sit together quietly for a long while, Maka slowly relaxing into her Weapon's warmth as he picks his book back up. She grabs the remote, realizing that the television's been showing some kind of reality tv, and switches it over to Jeopardy.

They're halfway through Double Jeopardy when Soul pokes her leg. She glances over. "Well," he says with a little grin. "At least you beat your dad's record. By like, a lot."

She punches him in the thigh, hard, but she's laughing as she does, so maybe that's all right, then. For the first time since this whole ordeal started, she lets herself feel excited, hopeful.

She feels different after she makes her decision. She wants to say that it's like a weight's been lifted off her shoulders, but it hasn't really. Maybe the burden is a little more evenly distributed, but it's still there. It seems more manageable now, though.

"It's cause we've got a plan," Soul tells her when she mentions it.

"What plan?" If she starts thinking about all of the things she actually needs to plan right now, she's going to have a coronary.

"Have a baby?"

"That is - that is not a plan."

"Oh, come on, that's at least part of a plan."

"It's the start of a plan. Maybe. If you squint and have low standards."

"Well, it's more like the end of a plan, but that's more than we had before, so don't knock it. We just have to work out the next step. Then the next. One step at a time."

It isn't lost on her that he keeps saying "we." She wants to say something about it, but she doesn't. It's reassuring until she thinks about losing it. So, she doesn't. She's got Soul for now, and that's what matters. They sit down at the tiny table in kitchen together, and Maka goes so far as to get out a pen and one of her notebooks, because if they're going to go this far, then by god, she's going to make sure it's in writing.

Soul rolls his eyes. "Oh my god, you're such a dork. Where did you find a notebook?"

"You're the one who wanted to make a plan," she says, slipping into her chair. "Also, not all of us immediately threw out all of our school supplies once we graduated."

"Whatever, nerd. What's first up? Doctor again?"

Maka flips open her notebook. "Ugh, probably." She makes a note. "I guess I should tell Kid at least."

"Just Kid? You don't want to tell the rest of our friends?"

"I -" she hesitates. She knows that she's being ridiculous. It's not like she's going to be able to hide being knocked up. "I don't want to...tell them."

Soul gives her a flat look. "So, what you're just going to wait until they notice you trying to smuggle a basketball under your sweater vest?"

"I do not wear a sweater vest. Anymore."

"That's not a no, Maka."

She huffs. "Yeah, all right," she mutters

"We can get everyone together at once, if you want," he says. And that will probably be the best option, but she can't help the anxiety bubbling in her chest because she knows what that will look like, and the last thing she wants to do is have to say again and again 'no, it isn't like that.'

On Friday, they invite everyone over for dinner. Soul orders a shitload of pizza and Maka's got the latest couple of episodes of Brooklyn 99 queued up in case they need a quick out from feelings or coping. There's also a 12 pack of beer and a bottle of wine in the fridge. Soul had raised an eyebrow at that.

"What? Just because I can't drink doesn't mean that I'm not going to be a good host."

"You know what happens when we give Black*Star beer."

"Tsubaki will make him leave," Maka says, but she's a little doubtful. Soul makes a disbelieving noise and puts out a stack of paper plates and paper towels next to the sleeve of cups, just in time for the first knock on the door.

"Come in," he yells, and Liz and Pattie burst through the door, Kid not far behind them.

"Yoooo," Pattie calls. "I grabbed a 2-liter!"

"Thanks - just go ahead and set it on the counter." Soul points to the spot.

"We also brought cookies," Kid adds.

"You guys really didn't have to -" Maka starts. Liz wraps an arm around her shoulders and tugs her in. For a half a second, she's afraid she's about to be given a noogie.

Liz refrains. "Aw, c'mon. It's no trouble - you guys are hosting, it's the least we could do."

"Pretty much literally," Pattie adds, abandoning her soda in favor of the bottle of wine in the fridge. "You wanna go ahead and crack into this?"

"Go for it," Maka says. "You know where the good glasses are." She ducks out of the kitchen and into the bathroom before Pattie can ask her if she wants any. She pees, washes her hands, then wets a washcloth and buries her face in it for good measure. She just needs to breathe for a moment, then she'll go back out there. She's got the washcloth hanging back in the stall to dry, and she's really going out there when there's a knock on the door.

"Yeah?"

"Maka -"

It's so stupidly reminiscent of that morning that she can't help but bark out a laugh as she cracks open the door. Soul's on the other side, lips quirked in a barely-there smile, like he's thinking the same thing. "I'm here," she says, stepping out of the bathroom and into Soul's space. For a second he doesn't move, just lets her crowd up against him. He grabs her hand - a quick squeeze - and the contact soothes her frazzled nerves. He steps a beat later, lets his hand drop, but that moment was all she needed.

The living room and kitchen have been thoroughly invaded by their friends, pizza boxes have migrated from the kitchen table to the counters and the coffee table, and there are magic-markered Solo cups scattered around. It looks more like half a night's kegger than a Friday night dinner, but Maka smiles regardless and pours herself a cup full of ginger ale.

"I was gone for like, 5 minutes and you guys have already wrecked up the place," she shouts. Tsubaki and Black*Star had arrived while she'd been in the bathroom, and Tsu arrows in on her location with a grin and slings an arm around her shoulders.

"You know we can't make these heathens behave," she mutters, gesturing at Black*Star and Pattie with one of the actual wine glasses. Pattie, Maka notes, had just poured her wine in one of the Solo cups.

"Black*Star's fine," Maka protests, raising her voice. "It's that Kid guy you have to worry about. You know how much he likes to party."

Maka mostly manages a straight face until Kid's unimpressed, "Ha ha ha."

Tsubaki releases her and takes up her perch on one end of the couch, resting her glass on the arm just in time for Black*Star to jostle her as he plops down next to her. Completely unphased, she starts in on her pizza.

"What're we watching?" Liz asks from the other end of the couch.

"Soul's got Brooklyn 99 ready to go," Maka says, claiming the love seat with her ginger ale and peering at the different pizza boxes.

"Yep," he agrees, hitting the button. She's looking for the bacon, mushroom, and green pepper pizza when Soul shoves a plate under her nose. She grabs it as he settles on the love seat next to her. It's got at least 3 pieces of her pizza on it, and her guts twist. It's easy to blame it on hunger.

She eats and lets the flow of conversation and situational comedy wash over her; she'll let everyone get some food in them before she drops the whole...pregnancy bomb on them. They're mostly finished, and Soul gives her a look, but the next episode of B99 is a really good one, and she doesn't want anyone to miss out on it.

"I will turn the TV off," Soul murmurs in her ear. She scowls at him, but she doesn't argue. As the credits fade out, Maka clears her throat.

"Hey so, uh." Heads swing her way - most of the people she considers her dearest friends are in this room, and she still can't work out if that's terrifying or reassuring. "Happy Friday thanks for coming over also I'm pregnant."

It goes about as well as she had expected it to - a long, stunned silence where all she can hear is the quiet cold-open of the next episode, followed immediately by four other voices all rising at once in a cacophony of disbelief.

Kid is the only one not saying anything. His head is cocked to the side, and Maka can almost feel him examining her soul. She clenches her teeth and fists - it's the only thing that keeps her from flinching away from his gaze, from the noise. Soul's thigh nudges gently against hers, and his voice cuts through every other sound.

"Guys, shut the fuck up - the show's coming back on."

"Pause the fucking show," Liz cuts in. "You're seriously just gonna fucking drop that on us? What the hell, guys?" She's beaming as she says berates them, and Maka doesn't need any kind of soul perception to know that Liz isn't the only one in the group assuming that they are making the announcement and not Maka. Tsubaki's mouth narrows to a thin line as her eyes dart between Soul and Maka.

"Liz," Tsubaki says, meeting Maka's eyes. She isn't sure what the other woman sees there, but Liz's mouth clicks shut at Tsubaki's tone. There's a beat of awkward silence and for a moment, Maka imagines just...letting it happen, letting everyone assume that they're together that they're happy that the baby is theirs.

Soul shifts next to her, opening his mouth, and she doesn't wait to hear what he's going to say - whether it's to deny or confirm - she's not sure which would be worse, so she lays a hand on his knee and interjects, "I wasn't sure - this wasn't exactly planned for me, but." She sucks in a breath, "I'm happy. It's going to be hard being a single mother, but I'm looking forward to the challenge."

Soul tenses next to her, but his expression doesn't change, and she thinks that maybe she imagined that flash of disappointment from him. She doesn't imagine the ripple of uncertainty rolling through the rest of the room, but she keeps her smile on her face, and rides that fine line of half-truth.

"Shit," Black*Star says eloquently, and before she can respond he's flinging himself across the room and onto the loveseat and he manages to land most of his weight on Soul, if her weapon's cursing is any indication. Black*Star's arms wrap around her shoulders and he squeezes her as carefully as he ever has. "You're gonna be a good mom, Maka," he says, just low enough that she's not sure even Soul heard him. Louder, he adds, "You suckas never gonna see as good an uncle as me!"

It breaks any remaining tension lingering in the room - Soul not so gently knees Black*Star off the loveseat, and he just rolls with it, literally - back to his feet and snagging another piece of pizza. Pattie's obviously got questions, but she doesn't say anything immediately, and that seems to be the MO for the rest of the night. Every now and again, someone will ask Maka a question - when's the baby due, do you know the sex - small things that she can answer without too much trouble, without feeling like she's being rushed or judged or really anything that she was afraid of.

Kid taps her once on the shoulder as he walks by and says, "We'll talk about work on Monday." Maka nods, and that's that. Next to her, Soul knocks his knee against hers in a clear I told you so. She wrinkles her nose at him, but she's smiling and for the first time in weeks, Maka feels relaxed.

They've gotten two more episodes in when the door burst open and Blair saunters in.

"Oh, pizza! What'd I miss?"

Telling their friends both changes everything and changes nothing. Maka feels less on edge, knowing that she doesn't have to hide her slowly growing baby bump from the people she cares about most. She has her meeting with Kid, and Soul, stuck in his official capacity as Lord Death's Deathscythe, makes every funny face in his repertoire at her. Kid graciously pretends not to notice while he puts her on teaching-only duty and they work out what her maternity leave is going to look like.

She tries not to think about it, but it's less avoidance now and more that it's just weird.

Having Blair back in the apartment is weird too. She's the first one who has been completely, unabashedly excited about the baby. She's taken to calling Maka's abdomen "little kitten," and it's easy for her enthusiasm to rub off on everyone else. For the first time since she found out she was pregnant, Maka's really starting to feel like she can do this, like it's going to be okay.

She admits as much to Soul in a moment of pure hormonal weakness, and he does say, "I told you so," this time, but he's rubbing her feet so she doesn't kick him. She doesn't have the willpower to tell him that her feet aren't really swollen yet because it feels fantastic and also he's been looking up articles about pregnancy almost constantly and it's the kind of sweet that she tries not to read too much into.

What's becoming swiftly apparent is not okay is their apartment. Two bedrooms and one bathroom has never been the most ideal arrangement, but it's worked for more than a decade. It's not going to work for much longer, though.

"We should probably start looking for another place," Soul says during their lunch hour. Between the pregnancy constipation and having to pee every five minutes, at the very least they need a second bathroom.

"You read my mind," she says. She's starting to feel a little guilty about monopolizing the only toilet.

"I uh, maybe went ahead and pulled some listings?"

Maka blinks in surprise, a slow smile spreading across her face. "Really? That's great, Soul, thanks."

He nudges his coleslaw around a little. "Yeah no, it's no problem." He looks unsure, and she can't figure out what would put that look on his face - it's not like she's going to object to continuing to live with him. "We could start after work?"

"Sure, that's sounds good." She pokes at the small swell of her abdomen. "Moving sooner rather than later is probably not a bad idea."

He follows with a gentle poke of his own, "Yeah, probably not."

Soul's nervousness doesn't abate as the day closes and they head towards their first appointment; in fact it spikes as they pull up to the first place. She's not expecting to be met by a real estate agent who smiles and greets them like they're actual-factual adults.

"Hi there! I'm Michelle - you must be the Evanses; it's so nice to meet you."

Soul flushes bright red, and Maka feels her stomach sink. She opens her mouth because she can't - but Soul beats her to it.

"Soul Evans, and Maka Albarn, actually," he corrects quickly, extending his hand. Michelle takes it and smiles, completely unphased.

"Of course, my mistake," Michelle says brightly. She turns to Maka next, and Maka shakes her hand, numb.

She wonders how you can feel hot and cold at the same time. "Nice to meet you," she says, and her voice feels miles away from her body. She breathes slowly, carefully, as Michelle leads them inside an apartment building that's much newer than their current one. She focuses on her breathing, on the details of the apartment - three bedrooms, three bathrooms, a nice large kitchen and a balcony, hardwood floors and a freight elevator. Michelle elaborates on all of the amenities with the carefully modulated enthusiasm of someone in customer service, and it all sounds really amazing except every other sentence, all Maka can hear is "Evanses."

"Ultimately, we're looking at $1700 per month, plus $350 in condo fees."

Maka inhales sharply and for the first time since the tour started, she catches Soul's eye. He looks a little panicked, like he hadn't quite expected that particular pricetag.

"You mentioned on the phone that you had some stuff available in our price range? This is a bit much," he says.

Michelle smiles brightly. "Oh, of course!"

They see four more condos Michelle has lined up, and by the end of the experience, Maka is tired and hangry and her brain feels like it's stuck in a hamster wheel. She should be glad that Soul corrected Michelle's assumption - she had been going to do it herself, but it's the swiftness that sticks to her ribs, how he practically tripped over himself to make sure there was no mistake that they weren't married. Soul keeps looking at her, quick, tentative glances like he's going to say something, but he stops himself every time.

They're both quiet on the drive home, even through a stop for take-out. She wishes that he would say something, wishes that she had words that didn't feel like acid in her mouth. She hates this feeling - hates that she feels rejected by an action that she would have taken herself, hates that she can rationalize it but she can't make it go away.

Their apartment feels claustrophobic after the units they'd toured earlier, but Maka's struck by the way it feels so strongly like home, even with the awkward silence stretching between them.

Soul drops the take-out onto the coffee table while Maka grabs forks and napkins. They don't bother with plates, just swap out half of Soul's pork-fried rice for Maka's ginger chicken before digging in.

She's finished her portion of pork-fried rice when Soul clears his throat.

"Look, I'm really sorry about earlier," he starts.

Maka's chest tightens. "Don't be it's...of course she'd assume."

"She shouldn't have. It was rude."

"Can't we just stay here," she blurts out before he can say anything else, before the bile building in her chest can pour out of her mouth.

"I want to," he says. "It'd be a lot cheaper, that's for sure." He pokes at his rice, glances at her face, and she knows that she can't avoid whatever it is he's trying to get out. "I didn't want to make you uncomfortable."

"What?" She drops a piece of chicken.

"I didn't know Michelle would assume - I just. I didn't want - I don't care, but you seem to, and I know that you're intent on doing this, so I didn't want to overstep my bounds and I'm sorry."

It'd be funny if he didn't sound so tentative, and she hates that she's made him feel like he has to tiptoe around her, hates that she's become someone who can make him feel like that. He's being so amazing and considerate and all she can think about is herself. Fuck.

She sets her take-out on the table and shifts so she's facing Soul. This is the least she can do. "Soul, it's not -" He meets her eyes so earnestly, and she can screw up her courage to just...say this. "I didn't mind." She exhales carefully. "It didn't bother me." She's not admitting anything and yet her heart races like she's confessing her deepest secret - "You said it yourself, we're partners, right?" It's not close to everything that she wants to say, but it's the best she can do right now.

He doesn't say anything immediately, just searches her face for something. She doesn't realize she's holding her breath until she has to exhale. Soul smiles then, a little soft and a lot crooked. "You know I always just kind of figured you were the type to wanna keep your last name."

Maka laughs, startled. It's not what she wants, but it feels like they might both be on the same page, and something that feels a little like hope claws through the fear in her chest. "I dunno," she says, going back to her chicken. "I could probably be convinced."

They keep looking for new places as first August ticks by and drips into September, though Michelle doesn't last beyond their first outing. Soul doesn't say anything, just shrugs a little, and Maka doesn't bring it up again.

Maka's pregnancy progresses apace, and so far the best thing she can say about it is that her skin's fantastic and she doesn't have to deal with morning sickness anymore. She's firmly in her second trimester and starting to run out of pants that she can fit in and seriously starts to contemplate the advantages of wearing naught but leggings and yoga pants. They look at place after place with no luck, and eventually, she's going to have to face the fact that she's putting a lot of stuff on hold in the hopes that they'll find something soon - torn between not wanting to move a bunch of baby stuff plus the crap they already have and being too pregnant to move herself, much less an apartment.

She's also putting off the other major thing stressing her out. Sundays she has her weekly call with Spirit - it's the best way she's found to manage his need to be involved in her business, and Maka's more than willing to sacrifice an hour or two every Sunday morning if it means that Spirit doesn't call her daily in his retired boredom. She'd kind of hoped that him moving to Vegas would have been enough to occupy him, but it'd been a futile hope.

Every Sunday since she'd found out about her pregnancy, she's settled down on the couch and watched Soul give her significant looks as her phone rings. He usually leaves after a couple of minutes of judgy staring, but no matter how many times she starts to say the words, she can't force them out of her throat.

She's not sure what she looks like after these conversations, but whatever it is on her face, Soul never says anything about it, just goes back to whatever he'd been doing before she'd called. Talking to her father is...it isn't bad, but it can be exhausting in a way that's hard to explain, and she's heard the kind of conversations Soul has with his mother, so she knows he gets it.

This Sunday, she's going to tell him, she swears. She's psyched herself up, it's going to happen.

Spirit's abnormally cheerful when he picks up the phone, and she's going to do it when he says, "I'm going to be back in town on Wednesday, isn't that great? I thought we could go out for milkshakes like we used to do when you were a little girl, maybe get a little shopping in?" She must make some noise because Spirit stops. "Maka, honey? You ok? It sounds like you choked."

"Ah, no, I'm fine Papa, I promise. Just swallowed some water wrong." She knows they continue to talk, knows that they have a conversation where she responds to what her father is saying, but she can't remember a word.

"So I'll see you Wednesday - don't worry, I already talked to Kid and he's fine with you taking the day -"

"Papa."

"What, he owes me. Anyway, I gotta go, they're about to open the slot machine brunch buffet! Love you, see you soon, baby."

Maka suspects she knows exactly why Kid agreed to let her have the day off, and it has very little to do with her father's self-proclaimed war-hero status and everything to do with her condition.

"This is all you, isn't it?" she accuses, gently poking her rounded abdomen. Her stomach is still pretty easy to hide under a tunic top, even if she can tell the bump is there. Soul finds her there on the couch, prodding her bump. He raises an eyebrow and she shrugs. "It feels weird," she declares. "I don't know what I expected, but the skin is all taut." She tugs her shirt up a little and smoothes a hand over it. "I think I thought it was going to be a little squishier." Maka looks up at him, and the look on his face is - "Wanna feel it?" she asks on impulse and watches as he swallows.

She's not expecting him drop to his knees by the couch, but he does, and when he reaches his hand out, she twists a little to meet his touch. It's stupid - it's not like Soul doesn't touch her normally. He touches her all the time, a fact she loves but will never in a million years admit to anyone, least of all herself. But this time, her skin hums against the rough pads of his fingertips. It's almost like resonating, she thinks a little hysterically, and she almost pulls away, but she can't look away from the awed expression on Soul's face.

She wonders if he can feel it too, the strange thrumming between them, of if he's just...happy. She's still getting used to the idea that this can be a Good Thing. Her guts feel strange and for a brief moment, she panics because the last thing she needs to do is fart right now.

Soul's looks up at her, eyes wide and jaw hanging open. "Maka I think it just kicked." She sucks in a breath and gently rests her hand next to Soul's and waits. She has to breathe eventually, but she keeps each breath shallow, like that's somehow going to make it easier for her to feel her baby moving, and sure enough, she feels that peculiar sensation again.

Maka meets Soul's gaze again, and she has to wonder if she looks as completely awestruck as he does.

While she enjoys the fact that she's not feeling the need to constantly nap like she had during the first trimester, second trimester pregnancy brain is really kicking in now, which is what she blames when Wednesday rolls around and she realizes that she's supposed to have an appointment with Dr. O'Keeffe.

She can't reschedule the appointment - she's supposed to get a bunch of tests done to make sure there's nothing going on genetically with the baby and she's not going to put it off. Soul's making his lunch for the day when she realizes her mistake, thunking her head into her hands.

"Why don't you just...make him go with you?" he suggests. His tone is that careful kind of neutral that Maka knows means this isn't' the first time he's thought of this. "I can't go, so it might be nice if he could."

She makes a face. "I think that would...I don't think I can deal with that." It's easy to imagine Spirit's over-the-top dramatics, and she's not sure that she can subject other people to that. She pulls out her phone, already composing a text in her head.

Soul rolls a shoulder as he finishes putting his sandwich together. "Fair enough." He zips up the top of his lunch box, and frowns a little. "I'm sorry I can't make it with you to this one."

She pushes back from the table, text sent, and takes her mug over to the sink. "It's all right. They're just doing some tests - pretty routine. You heading out?" she asks.

"Yeah. Time to mold some impressionable minds." He grins, extra toothy, and Maka laughs.

"I bet. Make sure you tell Kid that he's a fucker and he's dead to me for siding with my dad."

"Of course. I'll see you this afternoon?" He stops by her elbow, and she tilts her head back to look at him.

"Yeah; I'll try to ditch Papa, but -" she gestures at her bump. "Who knows."

"Whatever's fine. I don't mind annoying him until he leaves if you want."

"You're the best," she grins up at him.

"I know." He smiles back, and it would be so easy to kiss him right now.

"Have a good day," she says instead.

He licks his lips and squeezes her shoulder. She lets herself lean into his touch, cheek resting briefly on his knuckles. "You too," Soul says, voice a little soft. He's gone a moment later, and Maka has to focus on getting ready or she's going to be late for her appointment.

When she arrives at their rendezvous point, she's armed with her baggiest tunic top, most comfortable pair of yoga pants, and an aching arm. Her most recent sonogram is tucked carefully into her bag. Dr. O'Keeffe said they should be able to tell the sex by now, but the little sucker was all twisted up and not cooperative for the camera. In a way, Maka's glad. She already feels weird enough showing her father the most recent sonogram before Soul sees it.

She shakes her head because that's...that's stupid and she knows it with her brain. They're partners but she still has to remind herself that they don't have any claim on each other past that. There's no reason that Soul should be the first person to see her sonograms.

Spirit's waiting for her in the parking lot of Death City Diner, just as he's done countless times over the years. He looks the same as always, but she thinks the silver at his temples is a little more noticeable these days, the laugh lines framing his eyes and mouth are just a little deeper. He lights up when he sees her, and she's suddenly struck by how fiercely glad that he's here.

It's habit to step into his arms, to let him hug her long and hard, and it takes a second to remember to hold herself just a little apart.

"Hi, Papa," she says, pulling away to look at him. His smile dims just a little, but he just gives her another quick squeeze.

"Hi, sweetheart. You ready for some Papa-Maka bonding time?"

She smiles as they head into the diner. "Yeah, I could kill for an oreo milkshake right about now."

"Perfect," Spirit says.

Before he can grab them a table, she interjects, "You know it's such a nice day - let's get shakes to go. Maybe we can hit the park?"

Spirit agrees readily enough, but he keeps sending her glances and she can't tell if he's suspicious or worried - she can't read him at all, which is very irritating. It's not a long walk to the park in question, and it's not like she was lying - for September, it's a pretty nice day. The heat has abated a little, and there's just enough of a breeze to cool things down without churning up a lot of dust.

There's a tiny pond they circle around, sipping their milkshakes and enjoying the weather. Spirit has no trouble filling up the silence with tales of his Vegas exploits - weird casino patrons and his favorite buffets to visit and the family of Torontonians who'd just moved down and were now inhabiting the townhouse next to his. She lets his voice wash over her, a hundred little pieces of his new life. She'd always kind of wondered how retirement would suit Spirit - for as lackadaisical as he could be, he's always been active, always been doing something. She's glad that he's enjoying himself, that he doesn't seem to be bored.

She's so caught in her own head that she misses Spirit stopping, and bumps into his arm abruptly, nearly dropping her shake.

"So, are you going to tell me what's going on?" Spirit asks finally. His tone is conversational enough, but there's an undercurrent of steel worry there, like he's finally made up his mind to be suspicious and worried.

Maka considers playing dumb for a moment, but she's self-aware enough these days to recognize the stalling tactic for what it is. Instead, she makes her way over to a nearby bench and sits, Spirit trailing after her. She sets her shake down and pulls out the sonogram, handing it over. She's not quite brave enough to watch Spirit's face as he takes it, eyes darting across the picture frantically, so she stares at the pair of ducks gently paddling around the water.

"Ma - Maka." She closes her eyes at the way his voice cracks, tries to breathe. He places the sonogram on the bench between them and reaches across to pull her in for a hug. She opens her eyes to the vibrant Hawaiian print of Spirit's shirt. Tentatively, she hugs back. He pulls back first this time, and Maka's not surprised to see that his eyes are more than a little damp.

"Are you happy?" he asks quietly. It's not the question she expected from him, but it's one that she's heard echoing around in skull for weeks now. She's thought about it a lot, thought about and worried about the changes this is already bringing to her life -

"I...yeah. I think so," she says, voice low to match his. "It's...weird? But I'm happy." She feels a little more confident every time she says it.

Spirit smiles, a little tender and a little sad. "I can't believe it...my baby girl is going to have a baby."

Maka rolls her eyes, but it's mostly to hide the fact that she's feeling a little damp around the eyes as well. "Papa, please."

"I'm just saying." He tugs her back in for another hug. "So where's Soul? Too scared to face me, huh?"

Maka swallows and looks away. "Yeah, he's...not. He's not the father."

Given a list of shit she'd hoped never to have to do in her life, discussing her sex life with her father is right near the top of the list. By the time she gets home (blessedly Spirit-less), she's physically and emotionally exhausted in a way that she hasn't felt in weeks.

Soul's already making dinner when she gets in and the sight of him in the kitchen, humming under his breath and tapping the taco spoon against the pan, has her heart lodged firmly in her throat. Sometimes she's terrified of the depth of her feelings for Soul, bubbling up in her chest until she has to choke them back or risk spilling everything in a terrible, messy flood of words.

He turns as she tosses down her bag, and gives her the kind of smile he's been giving her for years and that's almost it. She can feel the words on the tip of her tongue, but she bites them back.

"Hey. How'd it go?"

"I -" she slumps a little against the wall, and she can see Soul start to move before he stops, and as much as she wants the comfort, she loves that he knows her well enough to give her her space, too. "I've got a new sonogram, if you want to see it?"

"That well, huh? Also, of course I want to see it." He makes a grabby hand. "You're gonna have to bring it here, though. We're in critical taco meat mode."

That's enough to make her smile, and she pushes off the wall, grabbing the sonogram out of her bag as she goes. Spirit had tried to make a bid to keep it, but she'd promised to email him a copy instead.

"It smells really good," she says, peeking at the meat.

"Of course it does." She holds up the sonogram while he stirs, and pretends like she's not studying his face.

"You wanna switch?" she asks after a minute of him staring intently at her baby.

"Yeah, sure." Soul hands her the spoon and takes the sonogram over to the sink, where the light's a little brighter. "How the fuck do people read these things, anyway?"

"Years of practice and a terminal degree," she offers, tasting the meat. It tastes as good as it smells, and she makes a noise in the back of her throat.

"We've been staring at these for like...literal months, Maka. I mean, I can see the head? And I think that's a foot, maybe…"

"Hand, actually," Maka says.

Soul glares at her, but she can see the tug of a smile. "You cheated, though. I know Dr. O'Keeffe told you what was what."

She shrugs and doesn't pretend to not be smug. "Maybe I'm just better at it." He looks mortally offended at this, and Maka has to laugh. She turns off the burner and moves the taco meat over. "Actually apparently kitten was just determined to be in a really weird position."

"Have you felt it moving again?"

"Nothing for sure. Dr. O'Keeffe said it could have been movement, but it also could have been gas, soooo." Soul snickers, and Maka punches his arm. "Anyway...supposedly, they should be able to tell the sex by now."

Soul blinks. "What? Did you - " He looks at the sonogram again.

She can feel her face heat up. "I, uh. No. I told her I wanted to wait, um. I… thoughtyoumightwannagowithme," she blurts out.

"Of course I want to." His response is immediate, and some of the tension she hadn't realized she'd been holding slides from her shoulders.

She smiles at him, probably a little stupidly. "Good, that would be...nice."

"Yeah, cool." He's grinning back just as stupidly, and fuck, she's so stupidly in love with him. "Taco time?"

"Ugh, yes, please. I'm starving." It's not what she wants to say, not really. But she is hungry, and it will have to do for now.

There are a lot of things about pregnancy that Maka hadn't been expecting. She'd certainly never assumed she knew everything about pregnancy - even once she'd started researching it. There was so much conflicting and incomplete information that she usually just saves up her questions for her appointments with Dr. O'Keeffe, or asks Marie if it's something she doesn't want to wait for. This though...Maka's always had a pretty healthy sex drive - it's nothing compared to Tsubaki's or Liz's, but it's always been what she would consider normal for her.

Suddenly, it is not fine.

In a way, it feels like she's going through puberty all over again. She wonders if this is going to last the rest of her pregnancy, but if there's one thing she's not going to discuss with Marie, it's her sex life. Or the lack thereof. She's constantly on edge, and she doesn't think that her vibrator has ever gotten this much consistent use. She's a little concerned that if this keeps up, she's eventually going to be too pregnant to get herself off, and she's not sure how she'll survive.

It's embarrassing is what it is. It'd be one thing if she'd like...see something sexy and get aroused. Instead, one time she'd been on the back of the motorcycle and had nearly gotten off on the rumble of the motor. She'd finally given up on jeans entirely when she'd sat down at a restaurant and the seam had brushed up against her just so. She'd spent the entire time staring at Black*Star and Tsubaki and trying not to squirm in her seat.

As usual, the worst and best part is Soul. Maka can't remember a time when she wasn't at least a little attracted to her Weapon, and it's only gotten more pronounced over the years. The irony that her unrequited attraction to Soul is what got her in this mess isn't lost on her.

He's not leading her on - he's never done that. The problem is just that he's Soul. That he makes her cocoa in the mornings now that she can't have her coffee, the way he hands her the IKEA catalog first or makes sure that she's taking her vitamins, the fact that he does the dishes when she cooks without asking. Maka's never liked being waited on - she hates being made to feel like she can't do something, like she's not capable, but Soul always manages to be so thoughtlessly solicitous that it's never been about what she can't do. She'd asked him about it once, and he'd just shrugged a shoulder. "Why wouldn't I do it? Should I not?" -and that had pretty much been the end of it.

It's a thousand little things about him that she's fallen in love with over the years, and it makes it all the worse when he tugs her feet up onto his lap to rub them absently. His hands are warm and a little calloused and they feel amazing against her aching arches, and in the fourth month of her pregnancy it's like every touch goes straight to her vagina. Getting a foot rub has always been nice, but not like this, and it's weird to be turned on in conjunction with her feet, but it feels so damn good she just wants to press into the feeling, to climb into Soul's lap and ride him until she's finally satisfied.

"Are you alright? Your face is really red," Soul asks her once, and she can feel the heat spread from her cheeks to her neck and chest and she has to smile through it.

"Yeah, just warm," she laughs a little, stilted and awkward in her ears. It's not a lie, but she's certainly not going to clarify that the heat is pooled between her legs, that he's the root cause or what she'd like him to do about it.

She resigns herself to buying batteries in bulk.

Her next appointment is scheduled right at 20 weeks, and it's surreal to think that she's halfway through her pregnancy, that she's going to find out if she's having a girl or a boy, that Black*Star has insisted on throwing her a baby shower as soon as she knows the sex. He'd called dibs as, "his Uncle rights." Maka still doesn't think that's actually a thing, but she's willing to let it slide. She's not sure how she feels about a baby shower. She's only ever been to Marie's, and that was...well. It was an experience, to say the least.

Liz and Tsubaki keep sending her Pinterest links to all these different shower ideas, and some of them are so blatantly ridiculous that all she can do is text back, "NO" as quickly as possible. She can never tell if they're fucking with her or not, and she's half afraid to attend her own party.

The day of, Soul eyeballs her stomach and proclaims that they're taking the car instead of the bike. She considers putting up a fuss - she's still not that big, but one look at Soul's face takes all the wind out of her sails. As a compromise, she makes him roll all the windows in the ancient Mercedes down to take advantage of the nice October weather.

Dr. O'Keeffe doesn't give Soul a second glance when she walks in, just shakes both of their hands and gets to business.

"You ready for some sex talk?" she asks with a grin. Soul almost chokes on his tongue, and Maka barks out a laugh at the unexpected joke. It's enough to make her relax back against the incline of the exam chair as Dr. O'Keeffe slathers her rounded belly with gel. It's cold, it's always cold, and yet she flinches every time. "Looks like we're cooperating a little better this time," Dr. O'Keeffe says, staring at the monitor. "You did want to know the sex, right?"

"Ah, yeah," Maka says. She and Soul are both staring intently at the screen, and the doctor smiles.

"Well, currently, we've got two arms, two legs, all the right fingers and toes...and a vagina. Congratulations - it's a girl!"

Maka exhales shakily. Judging by the furrow between his eyebrows, Soul's still struggling to decipher the picture on his own. She can see the moment the words sink in, his face going slack, lips parted.

"Your face is going to freeze that way," she murmurs to him. Her heart feels like it's stuttering in her chest, and she has to do something to break the silence.

He turns wide eyes to her face, and oh. That's not any better. "A little girl, huh?" A smile spreads slowly across his face. Her chest feels tight, rabbiting between joy and hopelessness. She smiles back, and wonders how she's going to survive the rest of this pregnancy, much less anything afterwards.

She sends a group text once they're out of the office. Partially because she's excited, and partially because she not-so-secretly enjoys ruining Black*Star's fun.

U jerk, he texts back. Its supsd to be a surprose!

Amidst the congratulations, she makes sure to send him at least six middle finger emojis. It's weirdly satisfying.

They're about halfway home when she catches sight of a "For Rent" sign. It's the first time she's seen it, but she remembers the house - it's cute - small, but it's on a decently sized lot, and on a whim, she whips out her phone and types in the number. Soul shoots her a look, and she gestures back and mumbles, "House." The line is ringing, and she's resigned herself to leaving a message when the call finally goes through.

"Hello?"

It sounds like her grandma on the other end, and reflexively, she smiles. "Hi! My name is Maka Albarn; I'm calling because I saw the 'For Rent' sign on your house on Optio Circle?"

"Oh, yes. Wow, I just put that up this morning!"

She chuckles a little self-consciously. "Ah, yeah, sorry! My partner and I just saw it as we were driving past - what are the details?"

"It's two bedrooms, two bathrooms...oh, about 1100 square feet - I just had the kitchen redone, and it's just got the sweetest little yard with it."

"What are you asking for rent?" she asks, trying not to hope too much.

"Well, I'm asking $900, but that does include water."

Maka tries to contain her excitement. It's not what she'd wanted for bedrooms, but for that price and the extra space, she definitely wants to take a look. "We'd love to set up an appointment, if you have the time," she says.

"Oh, of course, that would be lovely! When are you available - I'm actually here now cleaning up a few things, but I know that's short notice -"

"Ah, no, actually. We can drop by now, if you'd like. We're not far away at all. We can be there in a few minutes if that works for you?" She gestures frantically at Soul to turn around.

"Oh, perfect! I will see you when you get here, then! Goodbye, dear."

Maka hangs up, beaming. Soul shoots her a quick look. "Good?"

"I remain cautiously optimistic," she confirms. "It's a little smaller than what we were looking for, but the square footage is good and the price is...really good."

The lady meets them at the front door looks pretty much exactly like she'd pictured in her head - short, a little round, and which a shock of snow-white hair. She introduces herself as Renee Whitfield, and she's finally moving out to California to be with her son and his family.

"I'm sad to leave this place, but I haven't been able to sell it yet, so I figured I'd put it up for rent. Jerry keeps telling me if I don't move out there soon, he's going to rent my suite to a tech company looking for office space." She chuckles a little. "He'd probably do it, too."

The house is...pretty much perfect. Both bedrooms are spacious, the bathrooms are functional and the kitchen is gorgeous. It's obviously been well-loved and cared for, and it's easy for Maka to imagine a future here, to imagine her daughter in the yard, Soul curled up on the couch or hunting through the cabinets. Soul looks just as smitten as she does, and when she catches his eye, she knows they're going to make a bid for this one.

"So uh," Soul starts. "What do you need from us to rent this place?"

Renee looks startled, but pleased. "Oh, well. I don't - this is the first time I've done this. I was thinking a deposit of the first month's rent and I had Jerry send me a rental agreement he thought would work. I know a lot of people do a background check, but you're with Shibusen, aren't you?"

"Ah, yeah," Maka admits.

"Oh that's just lovely, then. I'm sure that we can go ahead and get an agreement together and if you can just get me the deposit, you'll be good to go!"

It's laughably easy considering how long they've been searching for a new place, and when they leave, they have a contract signed and Renee's contact information. Maka's promised to get a check in the mail to her tomorrow morning, and she's feeling a little shell shocked that they actually have a place that they can both afford and that they both like.

She can feel Soul's excitement, a feedback loop mirroring her own, and without thinking about it, she reaches out across the center console. Soul's hand is already there, palm up and waiting for hers.

"It's a shame about the bedrooms," she says, already playing mental tetris with where their furniture is going to go. "I'd love to just have a nursery."

"You know that master's big enough for a king," Soul says noncommittally. "We could always just share." He grins, and she knows he's joking. It's too close to what she wants for her to laugh, but she can smile and squeeze his hand and pretend.

She sends the check off the next morning, and just like that, they've got a moving date. They have to tell Blair, which Maka dreads. Not because she thinks that Blair will be upset, but rather because she can't quite picture a life where she's not expecting Blair to drop in for dinner randomly, or to find her napping on Maka's bed in the afternoons or stinking up the bathroom with a hundred weird bath spells.

"Oh, honey! I'm so excited for you!" Blair's exuberance is welcome, but a little suffocating as Maka finds herself caught in Blair's embrace. She doesn't fit there quite as well as she used to; her breasts are starting to get larger along with her belly, and Blair laughs a little at Maka's pained expression. "Pretty soon we're just going to bounce off of each other." She gently paps the top of Maka's left tit, and Maka's feeling sentimental enough that she only half-heartedly swats at Blair's hand.

Maka knows that this move doesn't necessarily have to change that, but it still feels like the end of an era. It must show on her face because Blair moves in to hug her again, a little slower and a little more carefully. "Come on now, you know it's not like much is going to change, right? I'm still going to make sure you two are eating right and being good, and I'm going to have to spoil my little kitten, of course."

"You've never made sure we ate properly," Maka mutters into Blair's shoulder. "Not even when we actually were kids."

"Details, details. You can't get rid of me that easy and you know it."

Blair helps them pack, too - obtaining a truly staggering number of liquor boxes - and Maka's extra glad that she hasn't started collecting baby stuff yet. They've already got enough in the way of books, Soul's record collection, and clothes that she's long since forgotten without adding baby clothes and toys and the hundred other things that every mommyblog out there seems to think that she needs for her child.

By the time they're actually ready to go, she's nearly six months pregnant, and she's been living in the same place for nearly half her life - been living with Soul for half of her life and now she's pregnant and approaching 28 and still living with Soul. She feels like she did when she was fourteen and dreaming about living in her own place like an adult - she's excited, sure, but she hadn't really known what to expect out of her new life. She's older and arguably wiser now, but sometimes the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Black *Star sends out invitations to the baby shower the week after they move, and though Tsubaki's handwriting is on the envelopes, he is very clearly the one who did the bulk of designing the invites.

"Is it weird to get an invite to your own shower?" Maka asks Soul, waving it around.

He shrugs a little, unpacking all the junk they've been keeping in the coffee table drawer since the beginning of time. "I mean, kind of? But not any weirder than the fact that he decided to put a flying horse with flames coming out of it's hooves on the front of it."

"Pegasus."

Soul rolls his eyes and gently tosses her the remote he'd found in the junk drawer. "How can it be a Pegasus if it has a unicorn horn, too?"

She flips on the TV and begins the process of reprogramming it. "Fine, pegacorn? Unipeg? It just seems odd."

"Black*Star," Soul counters.

"Point," she concedes. "Pizza or Thai for dinner? I'll call it in." The kitchen is still in a state, and she keeps telling herself that she'll tackle it tomorrow, but it's also been a week since she started saying that and she thinks maybe the stress from moving is bringing back some of her first trimester exhaustion.

"Mmm, Thai. Also, I think we still have pizza in the fridge."

"Dibs on that for lunch tomorrow," She says, pulling her feet up onto the couch and stretching out. She puts in the order and lets herself drift for a little bit. She really does need to start putting at least the dishes up in the kitchen. She can probably do that much. She's going to have to set up her bedroom with the baby in mind, and she's trying to figure out where she can put her bed *and* a crib, even a small one. The den is large enough to handle both her desk and Soul's, and she can probably make sure that they split the bookcases between the den and the living room, so that might work.

She's kind of drifting in and out, vaguely daydreaming about what it would be like to set up a nursery if space and money weren't a factor, when she feels Soul leaning over her. His hand is gentle in her hair, fingers carefully detangling strands. She probably ought to open her eyes, but it feels so nice and relaxing and she thinks a little selfishly that she deserves this moment. She shifts, pressing her scalp into his touch. Soul stops for a moment, then huffs out a breath that might be a sigh or might be a laugh, and continues his impromptu scalp massage. This might actually be what heaven feels like, she thinks.

Dimly, she hears the sound of a car pulling into their driveway, and Soul does sigh this time, breath ruffling the fine hairs framing her face. She finally cracks open her eyes just in time to feel Soul's lips press gently against her forehead. He pulls away, catching her gaze. She can't possibly be imagining the tenderness in his eyes, and she's amazed that he can't seem to hear her heart because it feels like it's about to fly out of her chest.

"I think dinner's here," he says, getting up just in time for the knock on the door.

She's slow to sit up, and Soul's already paid the delivery guy and liberated a couple of paper plates and napkins by the time she's upright. He brings her dinner and she's sure it's delicious, but she barely tastes it, still tangled up in the emotions Soul provokes in her.

By the time they go to bed, she's unbearably turned on, even as she tries to fight it. She wishes that she'd dragged him back to the couch, that she'd leaned up and kissed him, that she'd touched him - learning the way his body is put together by touch the same way she knows it by sight. She wishes he'd done more than kiss her forehead, that his lips had graced her aching breasts, that she could have pushed him down, down - it's easy to come, thinking about all the ways she wants Soul, about how she wants him to want her. It doesn't feel like much of a relief, though.

She squirms on her mattress, overheated and damp. They haven't even gotten the bed frames set up yet and the idea of Soul's new king-sized mattress taunts her. It isn't the first time she's thought about getting and going into Soul's room, about crawling into bed with him. More and more, she thinks that he wouldn't mind, that he might want it almost as much as she does. She needs so much more from him than a quick fuck to satisfy her pregnancy hormones, though, and she doesn't think that she's ever going to be able to take that chance.

She makes it two more nights before she says "fuck it" and shows up in his doorway, hands full of pillows and her toothbrush hanging out of her mouth. Soul pops his head out of the bathroom door, and raises an eyebrow as she hurls her pillows towards the bed.

Maka silently dares him to say anything, but he just grins around his own toothbrush and goes back into the bathroom. He's opened up the toothpaste for her and is spitting into the sink when she gets there, but he still doesn't say anything.

By the time she's finished with her nighttime routine, he's already climbed into bed. Her pillows are arranged neatly, and the covers are turned back invitingly. It's definitely, 100% the hormones that make her want to cry a little. The sheets are still fresh and crisp, and it's easy to imagine how they'll slowly become rumpled and softer.

"You gonna read for a bit?" Soul asks.

"I - no. Not tonight," she says softly. This should be awkward, she thinks.

"Cool." He flicks off the lamp next to his side of the bed and slithers under the covers a little further. On autopilot, she does the same and shifts around until she's got the pillows just where she wants them.

"I miss sleeping on my back," she finally confesses in the dark.

Soul snorts a little. "Maybe we can get you one of those body pillow things," he murmurs.

"Maybe so." The dark makes her bold, and she scoots back until she can feel him, a warm presence along her back.

A moment later, she feels his breath ghost across the back of her neck as he shifts, closing the remaining gap between them. His hand rests gently on her hip, fingers just long enough to brush her belly, and this...she can have this.

"See?" he whispers so softly she almost misses it. "Told you this would work."

It could be her imagination, or the hormones, but Soul's acting strangely. She's acting kind of weird herself, though, so it isn't like she has any room to judge - it isn't the first time she's masturbated to thoughts of her partner, but this is the first time she's felt so fucked up and guilty over it.

She channels her guilt into getting the kitchen unpacked and put away, and she takes a particular kind of enjoyment in having enough room for their cheap, ancient dishes and all of the random beer mugs they've collected over the years. She sets aside an area in one of the cabinets for the bottles and other baby accessories she's going to need before much longer. With as much room as the kitchen has, she even considers splurging and getting a crockpot or a rice cooker.

Soul's on and off the phone more than she ever seen before - he hates making calls more than anyone she knows, but he's practically been glued to the damn thing since they got the shower invite. Maka assumes it's something to do with that, but he leaves the room every time he makes a call or answers, and no matter how much she wheedles their friends for information, no one will admit to talking to Soul. She tries asking him, but he just gives her an anemic smile and says that he'll tell her about it when the time is right.

It irritates her, and she throws herself harder into unpacking - clothes and books and both bathrooms. The only thing she doesn't really get to is her bedroom. The mattress is at least up, but it's still in disarray otherwise.

"It's the nesting instinct," Marie tells her over lunch on Sunday. Maka sips angrily at her Diet Cherry Coke.

"It's bullshit," she mutters.

"Nesting...instinct?" Pattie looks equal parts intrigued and concerned. "Please tell me you aren't like...gathering twigs and shit."

Maka rolls her eyes, but Marie laughs. "It's kind of like that, though. Not twigs, but that primal urge to hunker down and make a place a home, to get ready for your child."

That hits a little too close to the quick, and Maka shivers a little. "I'm just trying to get everything ready so I don't have to mess with it later. You know how much I hate having all those boxes just lying around. And we can't find anything."

"You can't find anything because when you moved, you just threw everything not books into random boxes," Tsubaki points out, waving her fry at Maka.

"That was mostly Blair's fault."

"Mmhm. Whatever you have to tell yourself."

Maka rolls her eyes and tosses an onion ring at her. Tsubaki catches it and eats it smugly.

"So what other bizarro pregnancy shit can you tell us about?" Liz chimes in. She looks equally fascinated and horrified, and Maka isn't sure if she's addressing Marie or her, but it doesn't seem to matter.

"Oh, geez. All of it? Like, all of it is weird. No one ever tells you about the possibility of getting hemorrhoids, or how when you give birth you're going to pee yourself."

"Oh, gross." Liz looks a little green.

"But you know, there are good parts too," Marie hurries to add. "Like, oh man. Pregnancy sex." She gets a dreamy look on her face, and Maka can feel her cheeks heat as Tsubaki and Liz both shoot her sly looks.

"Oh grooooss." It's Pattie's turn to look green. "Stein's like a father to me, I can't know this."

Marie's smile is deceptively sweet. "Hot, athletic pregnancy sex. I was ready to go so often, I thought I broke him a couple of times."

Pattie whimpers and glares in equal parts, and Maka hopes against hope that she can finish lunch without being grilled about her non-existent sexlife. She can see the cogs turning in Liz's brain, and she braces herself.

"So what about actually having a baby?" Tsubaki asks quickly, and Marie is completely derailed and onto her new subject. Maka gets the feeling she didn't get much of a chance to talk about this stuff when she was pregnant, and she regrets that she wasn't there for Marie more. It had never occurred to her that the older woman might have been hungry for this kind of companionship. She gently knocks Tsubaki's foot under the table in thanks - for the topic change, for just being there, she's not sure which. Tsubaki sends her that sly, knowing smile again and Maka's so incredibly grateful for how supportive her friends have been.

The baby shower's on a Saturday as October's starting to slide towards November. Kid's offered up the mansion for the festivities, and Maka isn't sure what possessed him because Black*Star has taken over decorating as enthusiastically as he'd taken over the shower invites, and Maka will be surprised if Kid ever gets all of the glitter out.

If Maka were a more suspicious person, she'd think that his offer to plan the shower was as much to prank Kid as it was to fulfill his self-appointed uncle duties. She thinks she catches sight of a small balloon full of glittery dick confetti hiding in Kid's overcoat, but Soul's hand is warm on the small of her back and she lets him steer her clear. Ignorance remains bliss.

Everyone's brought a dish, and there's a pile of wrapped packages growing in the corner of the den that is, frankly, intimidating. Still, it feels more like one of the hundreds of house parties they've had over the years than a baby shower, and she relaxes into the familiar setting and the feeling of being surrounded by so many people she cares about.

"I actually had a bunch of really great games that we were going to play to try and predict the sex of baby Albarn," Black*Star announces to the room, "but someone had to go and spoil the surprise with a group text like an asshole, so instead you're going to have to cope with beer and cider and special punch to celebrate!" He turns to Maka and gives her a salute. "I even got you some of the fancy non-alcoholic shit, Guest of Honor."

Maka laughs, a little delighted and a little embarrassed. Next to her, Soul still looks a little nervous, but he's smiling and she'll take that for now. She hasn't quite reached the point where it's really difficult to move, but Black*Star's made it clear that she has one of Kid's gargantuan easy chairs all to herself, and Soul has clearly appointed himself her attendant for the duration, always within a easy arm's length, and it's easy to give in and cheerfully boss him around.

On his third drink run, he just brings back the little cooler of non-alcoholic ciders reserved for her and a cup full of the punch for himself. She twists open the cap on her cider and puts it carefully on the arm of her chair - she's got a neat little line of them that she's going to start throwing at unsuspecting guests soon. Soul sips at his drink and she can't quite figure out the look on his face.

"How's it?" she asks, swigging her own drink.

"Boozy," he confirms, looking at her suspiciously.

"I'm not going to have any, obviously," she says. "What's in it?"

Soul's face does the thing again. "I, uh. I think it's Hunch Punch?"

"You think?"

"I'd rather not know the details. Black*Star says he got the recipe off of Pinterest, but uh…" He pulls out his phone and perches on the other arm of the chair. "He meant well," he says, and shows her the picture he took of the punch carafe.

It's ballerina pink, with little booties next to it and a cute little sign that says "Baby Girl!" The idea is super cute, but the execution - "Oh, no," Maka whispers, caught between horror and laughter. "Soylent baby."

"Yeeeeeeeah." He takes another sip. "It is good, at least."

"At least there's that," she concedes. Ox walks by with Jackie, and Maka takes careful aim and pops him right on the bald spot with the first bottlecap. She leans into the warmth of Soul's thigh and looks up at him. "Quick, look invested. I need plausible deniability."

Soul rolls his eyes, but leans down a little. "You are such a brat. He looks super confused, though, good job."

Maka grins up at him, and it's fascinating watching the way his eyes go impossibly warm. "Thanks. I think my aim is getting better."

"You're the worst," he says fondly.

"You like it," she chirps back.

"I do. Make sure you try and hit Black*Star next."

Their friends drift by to say hi and to chat in ones and twos, and it's easy to let their easy affection wash over her. Soul hasn't left his perch on the chair arm except to bring her a plate of food and snacks, and she feels a little drunk on all of the attention. She's glad for the chair and Black*Star's foresight because it means she can be social, but her feet and her back are getting a much needed rest at the same.

Eventually, Black*Star calls everyone together for gifts, and she's still trying to get the ringing out of her ears when the first bag get handed to her. It's a onesie with a little piano on it, and it's so small and perfect. She can feel herself start to tear up. Black*Star and Tsubaki hand her gift after gift - clothes and bottles and books with notes to her daughter inscribed on the inside - Marie and Stein bring her a bunch of Ada's old stuff, and she does cry at that because it's so stupidly thoughtful.

She doesn't know how they're going to get all of this stuff home, doesn't know what to do with the little giraffe or the...snuggapuppy or the boppy or the ridiculous landslide of diapers and wipes and nipple cream. Kim hands over a diaper bag that's nicer than her purse with a grin and a hug. The floor is littered with paper and bags and all of their friends laughing and joking and Harvar is trying to convince Jackie that they need to test out the monitors like they're walkie talkies and she's so fucking overwhelmed that she doesn't know what to do with herself.

Soul nudges her just a little with his thigh, and she looks up at him, eyes still a little damp. "Your dad sent this," he says quietly, and hands her an envelope. She barely notices the receipt for the car seat and stroller, her eyes landing immediately on words Spirit had scrawled.

My dearest Maka -

Sorry I couldn't make it for the party; but remember that I'm always just a phone call away. Or a text. I'm so proud of you, Maka. Thank you for being my daughter - I can't wait to see what an awesome mom you'll be.

She would be proud of you too, I know it.

Love,

Papa

Soul's hand is careful and warm on the back of her neck, and she leans into it, feeling completely wrung out. Carefully, she tucks the receipts back into the card. The card goes back into the envelope, and she hands it back to Soul knowing that he'll put it somewhere safe. She doesn't know how such a small thing can leave her feeling so completely drained, but there's still party left, and it's to celebrate her child, and so she plasters on her smile again.

It's late when they finally leave, car loaded down and with Kid's promise that they'll bring the rest of the stuff over in the next few days. The drive home is quiet and she wants to sleep, wants to recharge her energy. She wants to have never read that note from her father because it's throwing her completely off-kilter and she doesn't think she's got the wherewithal to deal with it right now. Or maybe ever.

It's hard not to focus on his words. She would be proud of you - Maka wants to believe that. Her whole life it feels like that's all she's ever wanted from her mom. Instead what she's been left with is the dregs, the memories of her mother's smile always a little cool, a little distant. Would she have been proud of Maka for being an unwed mother, or would she have been disappointed to see her own mistakes repeated?

It takes her a moment to notice when the car stops. She's still used to the longer drive back to the apartment, and by the time she's refocused, Soul's already got her door open and a hand extended.

"I'm not that fat yet," she mutters, taking his hand. He tugs, and sometimes she forgets how strong he actually is. It's easy to remember when they were both the same height and, she suspects, probably the same weight, too.

He sidles neatly around her comment. "We can unload the car tomorrow. I'm too tired to mess with this shit tonight." She can see right through him, but appreciates the thought.

"Yeah, that sounds good."

"Cocoa and bed?" His hand is back at the base of her spine, and she knows it's a gesture he's done a thousand times without thinking, but it feels like everything to her right now.

She gets the door, kicking off her shoes as soon as she's inside, and Soul moves past her towards the kitchen to start the kettle boiling. "Maybe we should get one of those electric thingies," he says absently. "With all the settings?"

"Like for tea and stuff?" Maka wiggles her toes and stretches out a little. "That might not be a bad idea. I was thinking about a crock pot or rice cooker now that we've got the space for it." She waddles over to the couch and curls up in her favorite spot.

"Oh, rice cooker! I like that." When he comes back into the living room, he's got two mugs, and he takes his end of the couch. "I can't believe I've become the kind of person who gets excited about rice cookers," he mutters, looking disgusted with himself. He sets his mug down before handing Maka's to her, handle first.

"I can't figure out if this is what being an adult is, or if it's just getting old."

"I kind of always thought they were the same thing," Soul admits.

She thinks of her father in a Vegas townhouse, living it up at Sunday casino brunches - of her mother gone and effectively vanished, and shakes her head. "I'm not so sure anymore." They sit there quietly, Soul alternating between sipping his cocoa and massaging her feet. She can feel herself losing the last bit of tension she's been carrying around since her father's card, and she blames that for how long it takes her to realize that's Soul isn't relaxed at all. He's actually starting to fidget a little, and it's enough for her to sit up a bit and set her mug down.

"You ok?" she asks after a moment of studying his face. He startles, and then that small, nervous smile he's been carting around for the last week or so is back.

"Yeah, I think so."

"You...think so?"

Soul takes a deep breath and exhales, twisting so he's facing her on the couch. "Yeah. I - so I've been talking with Renee," he says, like it's a confession. He looks so nervous, so serious about something that should be innocuous, and she feels her anxiety creep back in.

"So?"

"She'd mentioned before that she wanted to sell the house, and, well. I told her that I wasn't interested in renting it. I - I told her that I want to buy the house," he blurts, then snaps his jaw shut and stares at her.

It feels like someone dumped a bucket of ice water over her head. They hadn't talked about this - it hadn't even come up in passing, and her mind is racing through scenarios.

"I've gotten the paperwork drawn up already, and it's going to be even cheaper than renting," he continues. "It's a really good investment? Wes is always telling me that I should buy land, and think of the future -"

This, she thinks, is it. This is the moment that she always knew was going to happen. She knows that she ought to calm down, to try and think about this rationally, but all she can see is Soul settling down - settling into this place and making it his own. Honestly, she ought to be glad. It's better that this happens now, before she has her baby - it's too late for her, but if this means that her daughter won't have a chance to get attached, then that's...that's for the best. It's not going to be long before he's not going to want her around anyway, much less an infant or toddler.

"Okay, I...understand," she hears herself say. "Should I start paying you rent, then?"

"What?" He jerks back. "No, that's ridiculous, Maka, why -"

"Are you sure? I don't want to owe you anything."

"Debts? I mean, I figured we'd both be contributing to the mortgage, but -"

"Are you sure that's wise? What happens when you need me to leave?" He looks at her, confusion plain on his face, and she hardens her resolve.

"Why would I need you to leave? Maka, what's wrong?"

"Nothing," she says, and it's obvious he believes that as much as she does. "Look, you're going to find someone someday, and I don't want there to be any debts between us when that happens." His eyes widen, and she thinks he might finally be getting it. "I can go ahead and go, if you want - that might be easier."

"You don't have to go," he says softly, like he's trying to soothe a small animal. "That isn't what I meant."

"It's really ok," Maka insists. Her eyes feel dry and raw. She thought when they had this conversation, she would be crying more. She was so stupid to make this move. She should have stayed at the apartment herself, or looked for her own place. She's just dragging this out - hell, she's been dragging this out since the start, and this is Soul's way of telling her that she needs to stop.

"Maka, what the - where is this coming from? It's not -" He's still talking quietly, and for a second all it makes her want to do is lash out. She's not some fragile creature. She can do this on her own, had always known that that was how it would end up. She doesn't need him - she's been willfully misreading the signs for years, knows how easy it is to mistake affection and familiarity for love.

"Maka!" Soul's panicked voice cuts through her increasingly frantic spiral of thoughts. He looks terrified, and she doesn't know what to do with that - he's not the one who should be scared here. "Maka, please, stop whatever you're thinking for a second."

"I -" she stops, voice caught in her throat. She doesn't want to do this alone is the thing. She's never wanted that, even if she expects it. She wants Soul, needs him to help balance her, to anchor her.

She has to say it, needs to say it now before she can't anymore. She needs to be brave this one last time.

"Please don't leave me," she whispers.

He looks like she just struck him. "You're scaring me," he says. "I'm not...I'm not going to fucking kick you out or, or get tired of you - what did I do to make you think that? I would never -" He scrubs a hand through his hair, as wild around the eyes as she feels. "I want this to be our home, Maka," he says.

For a long time, they just stare at each other. She's completely gutted - her adrenaline has burned through her system and left her empty. Soul looks just as wrecked, and she thinks dimly that she did that - that's on her.

"Maka -" he inches closer to where she's curled in around her belly. "I don't - I'm not going to find anyone else, Jesus Christ. I haven't been with anyone else in…" he laughs, a little strangled. "God, it's been more than a year." He puts a hand on her knee, and slowly, she uncurls.

"I'm sorry," she starts.

"Don't be -"

"No, Soul. I've - it's not just this." She sucks in a breath. "I love you. I've loved you for years, fuck." Her laugh is just as strained as his. "I didn't want this, didn't want you to feel obligated to me or sorry for me, or like you had to stick around."

His laugh this time is full. "We've been partners for fourteen fucking years and neither of us have been able to move on." He tugs on her bangs like he has a thousand other times. "That's not…that means something. It's always been you, Maka," he says. "Don't try and convince me otherwise."

She lets him tug her into his arms and she buries her face in the collar of his button-down. It doesn't feel any different now than it used to; she's surrounded, comforted. Loved, just as she's always been.

"I wanted her to be yours." It's her final confession, flaying the last of her heart open. Soul's arms tighten around her, and she can feel the press of his lips against her hair, brushing against her ear.

"She already is." Maka closes her eyes against the hot prickle of tears. "In every way that fucking matters."

As the new year rolls around, Maka no longer walks, she waddles. Her back hurts, her feet hurt, her chest aches constantly and she's never missed being part of the Itty Bitty Titty Committee as much as she does now. She can't sleep on her back, can't sleep on her stomach, can barely sleep curled around the pregnancy pillow Soul got her when he claimed their daughter was kicking him so hard in the night that he was getting bruises.

She's been having Braxton-Hicks contractions off and on for weeks, so when she goes into labor on the 31st, she thinks her body is just fucking with her again until a real contraction hits while she's getting ready for Liz's New Year's party.

"Soul?"

He pops his head out of the closet, shirt buttoned halfway. "Mm?"

"You should maybe get the bag. I'm going to cancel on Liz."

"Uh, what?" He blinks and notices the look on her face. "Oh, shit. Yeah, okay. Okay. I got this. Are you -"

"I'm good. It's time for this sucker to head on out."

Soul rolls his eyes and kisses her quickly. "I'm going to tell her you said that in like, ten years."

"You do that. I'll tell her how you used to try and balance shit on her when she was in the womb." He mostly ignores her on his way to grab the emergency go bag, just waves a hand at her as she tries to find her cell phone.

She thinks it would be nice to have her baby on New Year's Day, once she's in the hospital and they're playing the waiting game. Instead, it's a long ass boring day of waiting and contractions. At 11:58pm, Erin Suzanne Albarn shrieks her displeasure with everyone and everything in her presence and it's terrible and perfect and Maka's never been happier than when Soul hands her their daughter for the first time.

"First picture for the new family?" the nurse asks, and Soul nods, handing her his phone. She's sweaty and disgusting and covered in fluids, and when Soul shows her the picture, it's perfect.