Disclaimer: Don't own Devil May Cry.

This is a gift fic for Devil Sunday, who was busy doing gift-fics for like five people and then I asked her to do one for me too in exchange for a request fic. I'm just hoping the manga doesn't contradict this. Oh well.

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She met him in her first year of college. She'd been so busy training for the cross-country meet that she'd missed a lot of history lectures. She got the notes from one of her friends, but soon discovered her friend was horrible at taking notes. So she went to go find the teacher's assistant.

He was a good sport about reading the notes and filling in the holes. She brought him coffee while he did it and they sat at an outdoor table of the student café. She'd thought he was cute, in a geeky sort of way.

What a geek. He was so enthusiastic about it. After he finished with the notes, he somehow ended up giving this monologue about the early church and the transition from an imperial culture to a theocratic one that made her nod politely and seriously wish to be elsewhere.

She'd made fun of him with her friends afterwards.

She ran into him again next semester. He was a teacher's assistant, TA for another intro lecture course, Introduction to Philosophy. This time, it was gymnastics that ate up her time. She saw him on the list, remembered his name from the Arkham Asylum in the Batman comics, and went looking for him even though he wasn't TAing her discussion section.

She had trouble grasping the concepts, like who said what about the nature of evil, so she dropped in a lot during his office hours. She began to notice he was sort of cute.

She asked what he was doing working in two different disciplines and he said his area of interest was historical concepts of evil. You had to have a specific area of study to get hired as a professor, he explained. They wanted experts, not generalists. So he was taking graduate courses in Philosophy, History and Theology and earning money by TAing in all of them.

She really had no idea what she wanted to major in. She scored high in every area of tests, so there wasn't one thing she was good at she could focus on. And most things were so easy for her she didn't really bother to study much. Sure, she'd gotten skipped a few grades, but that had been easy.

It didn't matter anyway. Her family was rich, they had a huge mansion in New York. She would marry somebody and that would be that. It wasn't like she would need to get a job.

Athletics now, athletics were different. She was stronger, faster, more agile than everyone at the college, but if she wanted to go to the Olympics she had to compete against the whole country.

She'd ended up inviting him to a few meets, and then next quarter she took a theology course. She had no idea what she wanted to major in, so she was just taking whatever caught her attention.

And him saying he would TA it got her attention. He made getting caught up so much easier, after all. Her dad said he'd cut her allowance if her GPA dropped below a 3.75. She was sick of hearing how he and her Doctor mother had never gotten below an A in their entire lives. Most people she knew were happy with a 2.5!

He was sort of cute, in a geeky way. Pale skin and brown hair, already starting to go a little bald. He looked like he had been born to be a professor, always carrying around a book.

Her friends started to tease her.

One day, she took off her sunglasses around him and he noticed what she referred to as the Eye. Red. Her mother had a freaky red eye too. It ran in the family. Her mother had explained it. One mutated blue eye gene, one brown eye gene. Incomplete dominance, it was called.

She called it creepy. The kids at her school before she had been put into tutoring until she was twelve had called it freakish.

He'd been fascinated by it. She'd looked for it, but he didn't seem creeped out by it at all. He was intrigued. Said he'd heard of that somewhere before, but he couldn't quite remember where.

She'd invited him home and her parents had been favorably impressed. Her mother told her they'd been worried she'd fall for some jock, but an aspiring Professor was a great catch.

They'd officially started dating after the class she was in that he was TAing was finished. Conflict of interest.

In the meantime, he found where he'd heard about her eyes. The legend of Sparda. She'd heard of it, of course, everyone did, but she hadn't heard this version. There were so many versions, after all.

This one said that the sacrificed priestess had been returned to life by a golden talisman, and the power of the seal had given her one demonic red eye as a token of her sacrifice. It had also given her power. Made her wiser and stronger, and with her her daughter's daughters.

Arkham, she always called him Arkham, had totally geeked out about that. He did his thesis on the legend of Sparda. Dug up all these old books and yes, her mother's family was from northern Italy. And the eyes had been there as long as anyone could remember.

They got married when he got the Assistant Professorship, and Mary was born when he got tenure. She was named Maria, which one version said the Priestess' name had been. Also because her middle name was Ann and the Virgin Mary's mother's name had been Anne. Her husband called her his holy woman. He was so sweet. He really believed she was a descendant of the Priestess. Really, she fit the legend, but it was just a legend.

They lived in her parents' house and he filled the library with ancient books. She loved it when he read her stories. Mary loved it too.

Until the day he was diagnosed with melanoma. She blamed herself, all those days they'd lounged in the sun while she studied or worked out…

All his hair fell out from the chemotherapy, he was woozy all the time from the medications and he was ashamed. She tried to reassure him, but he just got more and more withdrawn. Spending more time in the library, strange people coming by at all hours…

It was hard on Mary as well. Their daughter didn't understand he needed his space now.

She wished she could do more.

She'd do anything to make him healthy and happy again.