Never Mine

The cold wind whipped my around my face, while Maka wrapped her arms more tightly around me. Even after three years of dating, she still wasn't used to flying around on my skateboard. I leaned my head back, resting it on hers, just relishing in the thought of being near her. The moment was bittersweet, of course, but she didn't know that.

We were headed to my garden- the garden, to be exact. It was perfectly symmetrical, as was to be expected, with semi-circles of flower-covered bushes ringing the central fountain, growing steadily taller as they branched out from the center. The fountain was pure onyx, fitted with an innumerable amount of gems, making it glisten a thousand different colors at once. Its design mirrored that of the surrounding garden, with its large stone pillars encircling the center, allowing water to cascade down the sides in a glorious harmony of sorts. But, what was truly magnificent about the garden was not its beauty, although it certainly had plenty of that. It was the exact spot my father had proposed to my mother so many years ago.

I had taken Maka here only once before, as it had grown to become a some-what sacred place. That was exactly three years ago today...

FLASHBACK

I placed my hands on her thin shoulders. "Maka, this garden is special to me. Do you understand?"

She nodded.

"You are the first person that I have ever brought here, and you'll most likely be the last. This garden is only to be visited on special occasions, you see. I myself have only been here a total of four times, the last time being when we defeated the Kishin Asura almost five years ago."

"I understand, Kid," she whispered, looking around like she was afraid she might disturb the peace that penetrated the very air. "But, why did you bring me here?"

I sat her down on the edge of the fountain, taking her hands in mine. "Maka, I brought you here because...I wanted to ask you to be my girlfriend. (1)"

Then she started to laugh. And cry. At the same time. I jumped back, afraid I had done something wrong, possibly ruined our friendship forever. "Maka, if I offended you, I didn't mean..."

She jumped up and wrapped her arms around my neck, effectively cutting me off. She placed a gentle kiss on my cheek, and then stepped back quickly to wipe the tears out of her eyes. She laughed again, softer this time.

"It's just that I thought you'd never ask."

END FLASHBACK

Then I told her that the next time we came to this garden, unless we battled another Kishin, it would probably be for me to either break up with her, or to propose. I wondered if she remembered me telling her that.

We soon landed in the garden, and I stepped off, lending her a hand to follow me. I turned away, nervous about what I was going to say, trying to figure out how to word it, so that she knew that when I said it, it was absolutely true.

"Kid," she said, her voice filled with an emotion I couldn't quite place, some sort of mix between extreme nervousness and a sort of awe-filled wonder.

When I didn't respond, she spun me around and kissed me passionately, winding her arms around my neck. I couldn't have escaped if I wanted to. I placed my hands on her waist and responded as I always did- with equal passion. But, just before the kiss was about to become unbearably good, I pulled back. There was no use making this any harder than it had to be. She looked at me questioningly; I was never the first one to pull away.

I sat down, resting my back against the fountain and put my head in my hands. Maka kneeled down in front of me, gently prying my fingers away from my face.

"Kid, what's wrong?" she asked.

"I don't know how to do this," I whispered, shaking my head back and forth, slowly. I was barely maintaining my composure as it was, the tears already threatening to break forth. She held my hands, settling in next to me.

"It's okay. I remember. You don't have to say anything."

I lifted my head slightly. She remembered? Of course she remembered, this was Maka we're talking about. Maybe this didn't have to be so hard after all. She already understood.

She rested her head on my shoulder, nestling her body closer to mine. "You know, I always pictured us having a winter wedding. Everything blanketed in white, looking perfect. Of course, winter is only a few months away, so it'll be a bit of a rush. But, I think we can make it work."

Oh... she remembered, alright. Only, she had jumped to the wrong conclusion. I guess it makes sense; it wasn't like we were fighting or anything. What reason would I have to break up with her here?

"Maka..." I began.

She turned her head towards mine, her sparkling green eyes latching on to my gold ones. I couldn't resist. I leaned in, kissing her with everything I had, trying to make her little moment of happiness last as long as it possibly could. Because I knew, that this time, when the kiss ended, she would probably never want to kiss me again.

The kiss deepened and my mind started to run wild. Maybe there was another way. We could stay together, figure something out. I just loved her so much; she was my perfect other half. The one person that could balance me in a way that nobody else ever could.

But I wasn't going to take her life away, to force her to choose forever with me. I wouldn't make her go through the pain of watching her friends and family die, while she stayed as young as ever. I needed to end this now, while she still had a chance to move on- to have a family, to be happy without me. Before we were both in too deep to ever pull away.

For the second time that day, I was the one to break away first.

I tried to begin again, "Maka."

But she kissed me, again. I almost couldn't bear to pull away a third time. I stood up and turned away. I needed to get away from her, from the temptation. I couldn't think straight.

"This needs to stop. We need to stop," I whispered.

She stood up, confused, and walked around to face me. She waited so long that I thought she hadn't heard me. I was about to repeat myself, when she said-

"What needs to stop?"

I closed my eyes; I just couldn't stand to look at her anymore. She would look at me with those eyes, those deep, beautiful emerald eyes, and I would cave. I would give in to whatever she wanted. I wasn't strong enough to resist.

I kept my eyes closed, so I wouldn't have to see the disappointment fill her eyes. I was despicable. Deplorable. Trashy, useless garbage that didn't deserve even one more minute of being her boyfriend. The disappointment would be justified, to be sure. But, that didn't mean I wanted to see it.

"Maka, I'm breaking up with you."

She didn't respond. I snapped my eyes open, staring straight at her, so she could understand the truth in my words. So she could understand that it was always going to end like this. Grim Reapers don't get happy endings.

I repeated myself, rushing the words, shoving them out of my mouth as fast as I could, before I lost my last bit of resolve, "I'm breaking up with you."

She blinked. Then her eyes grew wide, huge, like in those Japanese cartoons we would sometimes watch together on Saturday mornings. Her mouth opened into a little 'o' of surprise. Still, she didn't say anything.

So, I began to ramble, like I always did when I was nervous. "Don't you see there's no future for us? Grim Reapers aren't supposed to marry. What sane person would force someone they love to watch all of their friends and family die while they continued to live on? Immortality always comes at a price, and its never worth it. Not if you have a choice."

She whispered something I didn't quite catch.

"What?" I asked her.

She screamed at me, "No!" The tears started to stream down her face. "I...I won't let you. W..we..we can figure something out. Your parents..."

I cut her off. "My parents were a mistake. They were wrong. My mom thought she would be able to handle it, but even true love doesn't cover up the pain sometimes. She couldn't stand it. She killed herself. (2) She lasted ten, twenty, even thirty years, but eventually..." I trailed off. "I won't let that happen to you. You need to get out now, while you still can." I grabbed her shoulders, shaking her a little, "You can start over, have a family with some else who can make you happy."

But Maka, of course, as stubborn as ever, wouldn't let it go. "But Kid, what about the next Grim Reaper? You need an heir, don't you? How do you expect to get one without a wife?"

"That's true. I will need an heir, eventually. But, I suppose I'll just resort back to the way it was before my father decided to screw with the system. Somewhere, in the future, a child will be born destined to take my place. I will find him, train him. That's the way it always was, the way it is supposed to be. (3)"

She glared at me indignantly, "So, you'll just take some kid away from his family? You'll thrust immortality on him? He doesn't even get a choice?"

I screamed back at her, losing my temper. "You think I chose this? You think if there was any way out of it, I wouldn't take it in a heartbeat? This is the way it has to be."

She crossed her arms angrily, just glaring at me.

I tried a different approach. "Maka, don't you see I just don't...love you anymore."

I sighed, cringing. It wasn't true, not in the slightest. But she needed to move on, the quicker the better. It was the only way.

"Bullshit." She saw through me in half a second. I could never get away with any crap around her; it was just one of the many things I loved about her. But that wasn't really helping me right now.

"Kiss me."

I just started at her. "What?"

"Kiss me."

"Maka...don't..."

She smashed her lips against mine, pressing herself up against me. We toppled over into a soft bed of grass, while she continued to push the kiss, trying to force me to change my mind. (4) But it was already made up.

She leaned over me, her ponytails brushing my face, tickling my neck. I rolled us over, so now I was the dominate one. I grabbed her wrists, pinning them against the ground, my knees straddling her waist, effectively trapping her. I pulled my mouth away from hers. She struggled to get up, but I wouldn't let her. She looked at me with something akin to fear in her eyes.

"Don't," I snarled agian, "We're over."

The tears welled up in her eyes. She tried to get up again, and this time I let her.

"I thought you were different," her voice broke. The look in her eyes broke my heart into a million pieces, and it would never be fully repaired again.

For all my talk of loving her, of wanting to protect her, it came down to nothing. I was nothing. Worse then nothing, if I could inflict this kind of pain on her, my Maka. To think that she could believe that there would ever be a time when I would not love her. I was despicable.

The ride home was silent. She put her hands on my shoulders to keep her balance, but other than that, she tried to stay as far away from me as possible. When we touched down, she hopped off without a word and walked away without so much as a backwards glance.

Oh how I wanted to run after her. To chase her, to turn her around and kiss her. To just hold her in my arms one more time. To ask her to marry me. But I couldn't, and now I never would.

I don't really know where she went that night. To Soul, I would imagine. She had still hung out with him much more than I would have liked to admit. It worked out for the best, I suppose, because now she had someone to go to when she needed them. And he would be waiting, willing to accept her with open arms. The would fall in love...have a family...grow old together...die. The way it should be. He could give her the life, the love, that I would never have been able to.

She was always Soul's anyway. Never mine, not really.

A/N: Ahhh, this was really hard to write. It just gets me so depressed.

1) I just love how formal Kid is. I could totally see him making a big deal of asking Maka to be his girlfriend. It's actually kinda sweet.

2) Okay, this is how I imagine the immortality thing works. They can live forever, UNLESS, they come to bodily harm. And yes, suicide would count as bodily harm.

3) I have no idea if this is how Grim Reapers are chosen. I just wrote it that way...

4) Ok. This part was REALLY hard to finish. I actually started writing the scence and having Kid cave and end up asking Maka to marry him... buts that not what needed to happen. So I rewrote it... :'(

Please R&R! It means a lot!