Stained

When he'd first heard the news, Soul had just arrived back at Shibusen from a solo mission. His muscles were screaming in protest with every movement, he was filthy, he hadn't slept for nearly forty-eight hours, and he was currently considering the implications of murdering the grumpy secretary in front of him.

"Let me get this straight," Soul deadpanned. "I've just spent the past week flying country to country killing a four man, crackpot team of mobsters only to come back and hear that I can't get my money for it?"

The chubby Death City missions secretary levelled him with an icy stare, noisily tapping the hard tips of her fake nails against the oak desk. "That's exactly what I'm telling you. If I can't find your sign up form, then I can't even prove you were assigned the mission, let alone pay you for it."

"Then I suggest you start looking because no way in hell am I losing a month's rent because of your dumb-shit mistake," he grated.

Her eyes narrowed into an angry death squint. "Look kid, I won't have some punk like you telling me how to do my job. I've been the chief secretary at Shibusen since before you were even born."

"And believe me, it shows," Soul hissed.

The woman gasped in outrage, hair flying loose from her bun like the ruffled feathers of an angry chicken. "Why you little - "

"Soul." Hearing his name, Soul turned away from the red faced secretary.

"Stein?" Confusion easily snuffed out his anger when he spotted the professor. Stein rarely appeared so...somber. "What's wrong?"

"A word, if you don't mind?"

Soul nodded, following after the doctor, though not before giving the sputtering, red faced secretary the finger.

"You know about the field mission Maka took, correct?" Stein asked once they were around the corner, away from prying eyes.

Soul nodded, hands on his hips. "Yeah, she went to supervise an extra curricular mission for one of the new meister-weapon teams." Frowning, Soul eyed the weary doctor, his chest tightening in trepidation as he scrutinized his expression. "Stein, what is this about?" he asked, uneasy.

"The weapon - he was killed."

His eyes haunted her, those tawny brown irises that had been at one moment so alive, then in the next completely devoid of all their former warmth. Before the final blow he'd looked to her, hoping, pleading. He was so utterly afraid and yet without thought, did what had been drilled into his mind from day one: he protected his meister.

Just like she was supposed to protect him, risk her life for him - for both of them.

Maka brought her legs to her chest, wrapping her arms tightly around them as she sat shaking within the bathtub. Everywhere she looked, she saw his blood. Every inch, every pore of her body was proof of her failure and no matter how hot the steaming bathwater, it did nothing to rid the red stains from her skin. She squeezed her eyes shut. They hurt from crying.

"Maka...?"

She had watched, frozen, as the young meister cried over the dead body of his partner and she'd thought of Soul. Maka new it was disgusting and selfish, but in that moment, in her mind, it was his form that lay still and lifeless on the ground. The blood soaked into the cold earth spilled from his veins.

"Maka, where are you?"

The acute pain that the thought had brought was almost unbearable.

"Maka!"

Maka pressed the heals of her palms into her eyes. Blood - everywhere. Pain. Hurt. Fear. Death. Heartache. Sadness.

"Maka? Maka, are you in here? Open the door!"

Failure...

"Fuck! Maka!"

Who could deal with it all?

"Maka!" Maka looked up at the bathroom door in time to see Soul burst through, chest heaving, eyes wide with fear. When he saw Maka curled into a tight ball at one end of the bathtub he sighed with palpable relief.

"Christ Maka, why the hell didn't you answer me? I thought you'd fucking - "

"It won't come off," she whispered, voice sore and scratchy.

Soul blinked at her in confusion. "What...? Maka - "

Quietly she lifted her hands out of the water to show him as tears began draining once more down her face. "The blood, it isn't coming off my hands."

He stared at her violently shivering frame before silently moving his gaze to her spotless fingers.

"Soul, it won't come off!" she cried.

Soul hesitated a moment, then wordlessly walked across the bathroom to kneel down in front of the off-white bathtub. He took both her hands in his and carefully examined the fingers she'd rubbed raw. He frowned as they quivered in his hold, pink from her constant washing.

Looking up into her olive, red rimmed eyes, Soul waited patiently as her crying eventually subsided into soft hiccups.

"They were so young..."

He rubbed her knuckles gently with his thumb. "I know."

"It was their f-first time out on the field."

"I know."

"I was supposed to protect them."

"I know."

"And he died..."

"I know..."

Maka turned to look in his eyes. "It never gets any easier, all the death - the killing."

Soul sighed and gently pulled her into his arms, feeling his shirt soak through as the hard tremors racking her frame made both their bodies quiver.

"...I know."

Please Review!

Sandman~

(Okay, when I wrote this, the secretary in the manga hadn't even been introduced yet! I like her! I do!)