"What, never?"

"That what he said!" Spirit said, draining his glass of wine. "I charge in to defend my little baby girl's honor-"

"More wine?" Lisa offered from the other side of him, holding out the bottle.

"Why, thank you," Spirit replied, holding out his glass for a refill. "So, anyways, I charge in to defend my little girl's honor, and he tells me that I'm being crazy, and that he's never so much as kissed a girl before! Much less all the terrible things I know he was up to," he added with a shudder.

Blair cuddled up to him even more. "So, was he telling the truth?" she asked, concerned.

"Of course not," Spirit said with a shrug, "but Maka broke in that that point and kicked me out of the house, so he never got to say any more."

Blair pouted a little. "Never even been kissed..." she murmured. "That sounds so...depressing."

Then she got an idea.

Maka had just wanted to study. A quiet day, a warm house, and the works of Charles Dickens. Perhaps a bit of light music, if she made good progress. She didn't think that that was so much to ask for.

Instead, she found herself bent over the tub, getting hit with the shower spray, trying to pry a naked catwoman off of her partner, who was feebly trying to both fend her off and cover himself at the same time and not fully succeeding in either task.

Finally, Maka succeeded in wrestling Blair out of the shower and away from Soul. Admitting defeat, Blair reverted to her cat form, allowing Maka to hold her aloft by the collar.

"You just can't give us a break, can you?" Maka asked sourly.

Blair stuck out her tongue, and Maka pitched her out into the hallway.

"What did you do to set her off this time?" Maka demanded, wheeling on Soul.

"Nothing!" he insisted, hiding behind the shower curtain. "That cat's crazy! She just barged in and started attacking me!"

Maka rolled her eyes. "Attacking," she said, making quote marks with her fingers. "Right. Whatever. Ugh, I don't care what you two do, just do it quietly!"

She held up her arms, grimacing at them. Her entire upper body was soaking wet, with her shirt clinging uncomfortably to her body, and her hair plastered to her face, dripping water down her skin and onto the floor. "Stupid cat. Now I have to get changed."

Then she stomped out, slamming the door behind her, leaving Soul to soak in his own confusion.

The next few days were among the most stressful in Soul's life.

Blair was lying in wait everywhere he turned. He went to get a bowl out of the cupboard, and she was waiting in there to pounce out onto him. He tried to get his homework done, and she appeared under the desk. When he had to go to the bathroom, he spent a full twenty minutes searching every nook and cranny to make sure that he really was alone. She tackled him the instant he opened the door again.

She even went so far as to smuggle herself into his bag so that she could pop out and molest him in class. She had always been...forward, but now she had moved past that into downright predatory behavior, and Soul couldn't get her to stop.

After he woke up in the middle of the night from a particularly bad and cat-infested nightmare, he went out and bought five seperate sets of deadbolt locks and installed them all on his bedroom door. He was going to have at least one Blair-free room in the house, and this was going to be it.

Despite his extra security measures, he found sleep more difficult than ever that night, and at three in the morning was still wide-awake, staring at the locks anxiously. Had he forgotten to close them? Could she get through somehow? These thoughts and others like them turned in his head, over and over.

"This is the least cool thing of all time," he said unhappily.

"It is pretty cold," a sugary-sweet voice said from his left.

Soul froze. He forced himself to slowly, slowly, look over to the left. He knew exactly what he was going to see, and he was hoping that maybe, maybe, if he just ignored it, it would go away...

He leaped out of the bed with a panicked yell as Blair pounced, narrowly dodging her grasp. She looked up at him from the bed, on all fours, grinning wickedly.

"How the hell did you get in here?!" he demanded as he pressed into the wall as much as possible, trying to keep as much distance between them as possible. "There's like five locks on that door!"

"I'm a cat, silly," Blair said, settling lower with a very feline movement. "Locked doors can't keep me out!"

Soul dove out of the way again as she leaped at him, narrowly dodging again. He ran for the door, but all those locks he had installed for his own protection were suddenly working against him as he was forced to fumble in the dark with all five, while Blair approached slowly, at her leisure.

"Come on, come on you stupid lock!" he shouted as he fussed with a particularly tricky one. "Open up!"

Blair purred at him as she stalked closer. It was a disquieting sound, when produced by human-shaped vocal chords. "Come on, Soul," she said seductively, "What's the big deal? I'm not going to hurt you...well," she added as she thought of it, "not unless you want me to."

Soul gave up on the lock, and just started pounding on the door. "Maka!" he shouted. "Help! Get me out of here! Maka!"

"Oh, shut up!"

With a mighty crack Maka kicked the door in from outside, ripping the deadbolts clean out of the wall. The door hit Soul in the face as it swung open, knocking him to the floor.

"You," Maka said as she strode into the room, pointing at Blair. "You and I are going to have a woman-to-cat talk."

As she dragged Blair away, Soul collapsed on the floor in relief, not even noticing the blood leaking from his forehead.

"...what, that's it?"

"Yep!" Blair said, rolling over on Maka's bed. She appeared to be ignoring Maka in a very cat-like manner, but since she was responding and keeping up her end of the conversation, Maka couldn't very well call her out on it. It was just extremely irritating.

"And you care about this...why?" Maka asked, incredulous.

"Because it's so sad, don't you think? Already on his way to adulthood and never once known love...or, well, a good pair of lips. Same difference, really."

"You are the most infuriating - will you stop that?" she said, grabbing Blair's shoulder to keep her from rolling over again.

"I think the better question is why you care," Blair teased, propping her elbows and looking up at Maka with her chin in her hands

"I don't."

"Then why do you keep getting in the way?"

"Because you keep making a lot of noise and annoying me."

"Oh? You're not jealous at all?"

Maka flushed. From anger, naturally. "Of course not."

"Then you won't mind if I keep trying, as long as I'm quiet," Blair said with a grin.

"Right."

Blair got up from the bed, and gave her a catty little smile. "Good to know. Good night!" she added as she walked out the door.

The next morning was hell. Both Soul and Maka were showing the effects of their interrupted sleep, and even Soul's attempts at fending Blair off were more feeble than usual. Maka did her best to ignore it, focusing on the finishing up this last chapter of Dickens before school.

To Blair's credit, she was being quieter than before...technically. the very first thing she'd done when accosting Soul was to stick her hand over his mouth, muffling his cries for help.

Maka's shell of isolation was forcibly shattered when Soul and Blair's struggles sent them slamming into the table, overturning Maka's glass of orange juice. She just barely managed to snatch her precious book out of its path before it spilled onto the table and floor.

That was it. That was the last straw. She'd tolerated Blair's shenanigans this long, but now something more important than herself was at stake. Their tomfoolery was putting literature at risk. She knew that she would have to put an end to this.

Maka put down the book in a safe area, and stomped around the table, fuming. "Soul, you idiot!" she shouted as she fumed up to them. She brushed Blair aside with an exasperated shove, and then grabbed Soul by his shirt, hoisting him halfway to his feet and, before he had time to protest, kissing him.

It wasn't the most romantic kiss. The mood was sort of ruined by the muffled noises of surprise Soul was making against her mouth. Still, she held it for several heartbeats, leaning in deeply, because she wanted to make sure that Blair couldn't say that it didn't count.

"There," Maka asked Blair, releasing Soul's collar and wiping her mouth on her sleeve; he collapsed back into his chair, slightly dazed. "Happy now?"

Blair pouted, and then poofed back into her cat form. "Joy-killer," she said as she walked out of the room hautily.

Soul looked from the one to the other, and then back again, with the bewildered expression of a man recently brained with a two-by-four. "What...what the hell just happened?" he asked.

"I solved your problem for you," Maka said as she sat back down and nonchalantly cracked open A Tale of Two Cities.

"Uh...thanks?" Soul said, still not entirely certain what had happened. His gaze fell on the orange juice spill, and he seized the first excuse to get out of the room. "I'll go get a rag."

Maka turned a page. "You go do that," she said to his fleeing form.

She waited until he was out of the room. And then she waited a few minutes more, just to be sure that he wouldn't return suddenly. And then she set her book down into her lap, and grinned euphorically, from ear to ear.

By the time he returned, cloth in hand, the smile was gone, and the only emotion Maka had on display was her keen love for fine literature. She kept the feeling tucked away for later. After all, what Soul didn't know--or see her admit--wouldn't hurt him.