A/N: I read chapter 112 and Marie was one of my favorite characters so I needed to vent like big time. So some sad Eater! I'm so sorry. Pleasedon'tkillmelikehowtheKishinkilledMarie whoops. Enjoy!

Stein wasn't too popular amongst others.

Maybe it was the dissections, maybe it was his lack of interest in things that he felt didn't suit him, maybe it was that he had only gotten close to a few people - none of which was really on purpose.

He didn't mind for the longest time though. He just continued his work, and he didn't try to over analyze his feelings about anything. Stein barely allowed himself to feel anyways. Most of his decisions were affected by logic and common knowledge, not emotion.

At times though, he slipped.

He had allowed a trust to form between him and Lord Death, that was for sure. The Shinigami was his boss after all, and somewhat of a good friend. He had allowed for himself to become familiar with Spirit, to rely on him sometimes and fight with his old weapon partner. He had allowed to Spirit to become his best friend, though he would never open up to voicing the words out loud with his reasoning.

Things only got worse when Marie came back into town. The golden haired woman asked if she could stay with him, and he put out his usual shrug why not showcase. His tone didn't change, he was still Stein after all.

However, he started to change.

Marie came into the house and fixed things up. His dull home and laboratory became much more lively for better or for worse. She had started making sure he ate and got sleep, she started helping him. There were not so great times sure, and Stein still struggled with madness and stress, not all of which was brought on by the Kishin being a teacher and all. However, she was always there to hold his hand and gently squeeze or hug him softly. She was always there to remind him of life. As much as he hated to admit, Marie did bring out the best in him.

He feared at times, silently and always late at night after Marie had gone asleep, that he wouldn't be able to protect her, and not just from the Kishin. He worried he wouldn't be able to keep her safe from himself too. It was stupid and unhealthy to worry about his weapon partner like that; she was a Death Sytche and quite a tough one at that. He was more than positive she could take care of herself. Yet he still found himself worrying and he didn't know why.

Stein didn't consider the four letter word he sometimes heard his students throw around like a baseball. He didn't know much of it, and he didn't count on knowing so much either.

He still found himself fighting fiercely for her though, carrying her when her feet were tired and sore, letting her wrap her arms around his neck in even the most casual manner. More often than not, his arms would find themselves wrapped around her waist too.

Stein got to know her better than anyone else he had ever encountered. He learned so much about her through her wavelength yes, but there where times when they'd sit on the couch, his head tossed back, exhausted after a mission, and they would simply talk as she ran her fingers through his hair. She asked so many times if he needed a haircut at the barber shop, but when he finally did get a trim he asked her to be the one to cut it. When she was done he noticed his hair was a bit uneven, but he still turned to her and gave her his thanks.

They learned about each other's bodies too. Through training, Marie would study how Stein moved sometimes, learning his body language. Stein also took into account Marie's whenever she sparred with him or anyone else. There were other, should he say, moments where they got the chance to learn of each other's bodies, but Stein didn't allow himself the opportunity to think much of it outside of the moments. He left it to be just stress relief, and kept it at that instead of marring his friendship with Marie.

When Spirit made the joke about a honeymoon between them, and Marie dismissed it, Stein smirked somewhat. It actually didn't sound too bad of an idea, maybe it was actually a good ... No it wasn't. He couldn't think like that, he didn't have the pleasure of doing so. He took to dismissing it like Marie did for what it simply was, a joke. Spirit was just being Spirit again.

Everything that led up to the day of the Kishin's final battle had made Stein more anxious. He knew anxiety wasn't a good thing to feel, not something he should be approving of, not a good emotion, but he couldn't help it. Marie had told everything would be alright. Spirit worried about him and his sanity. Stein had assured everybody he was alright. And for a while they had been kicking ass.

Until the moon turned dark as Maka gave the final blow, and he could no longer see the people he was trying to keep his eyes trained on. He could hear cries from the others, but not the group that had just been enveloped in darkness. Not the group containing Spirit, Nygus, Sid, and ... Marie.

He looked to the source of the cries, and watched with gritted as Maka thrashed in Black*Star and Kid's grip. As the strong young women who once claim she didn't even have a father after Spirit cheated on her mother, screamed out to him her love. For her forgiveness for neglecting him. In that moment Maka became the little girl she was when he first met her. The one without a Death Sytche, just a regular old sytche partner. The one who had still not quite been battle hardened. Even with Soul, Black*Star, Kid, Tsubaki, Liz, Patti, him ... Maka was going to be alone in the world now. She was going to be the last Albarn to live in Death City. His best friend was dead. Her father was dead. Black*Star's last family members, Sid and Nygus, were dead too. They were all gone.

And Marie.

Marie Mijolnir.

The golden haired woman with the iron fist, and the wavelength that kept him safe and warm.

She was the best part of him. And she was ... Dead. Gone, never to hug him again. She had told him everything would be ok, and he wanted to scream at her now that everything so wasn't ok, but he couldn't. His words would fall on deaf ears.

Stein groaned, and he bite his lip to where he could taste blood, but he didn't care. The kids were retreating, pulling away Maka from it all. A part of him told them to not them see him like this, but he didn't care. All he saw was red, not the darkness enveloping them. He felt his cheek become wet, and he regretfully knew why.

He let the kids come and drag him off to as he screamed profanities at the fallen Kishin. He wished he could kill the thing over and over again for what he did to Marie. For taking her away. Without her, he wasn't Stein. He was a monster with stitches across his body and madness echoing his thoughts. They killed her, and they killed the best part of him right with her. And he wouldn't be able to get that back no matter what.

12 years later

Almost everything had changed.

Kid was the new Shinigami. Liz and Patti had become his righthand women, helping him out with events, kids, Shinigami and school things. They were still a team, but there a bit more between the three now. Kid was determined on keeping them safe after learning about his father's passing. He determined to keep his own child safe too. The Kishin had caused his father to be taken away, but he wasn't going to let it take away his whole family. Liz helped him make sure of that.

Black*Star and Tsubaki had taken up Sid and Nygus' roles. The assassin thought it was the best thing he could do to honor their memories, and Tsubaki was glad to help. It made it a bit easier to keep track of which of their kids were messing around in class anyways. For the most part it was their eldest, but from time to time they caught their middle child pulling shit too.

Maka and Soul had become the most well known weapon and meister pair (much to Black*Star's despair) in all of the world. Soul was now officially the main Death Sytche, but Maka still wielded him most of the time. They were teachers at the school too, and two of the more popular ones at that. They did most of the demonstrations, and helped assign most of the students to missions. When it came to their own daughter though they were a bit picky, so Black*Star had took it upon himself to choose her missions.

The young weapon had been waddling down the halls of the school since she learned to walk, and she had been crawling down them before that too.

Melody Evans had been paired with a boy meister, something Soul wasn't too pleased about at first. He trusted the boy though, and if he ever did something to his little girl, he could easily kick his ass in exchange (that was if Melody didn't kick it first).

Maka wasn't alone in the world. She was an Evans now, and she had a family with not just Soul and Melody, but their friends too. Maka had been the last Albarn to walk the streets of Death City, but she wouldn't be the last Evans to do so. And she was fine with that. Her daughter was going to grow up into an amazing Death Sytche, she could tell.

Yet, the school was still erie.

There was still a sense of depression amongst the classrooms and teachers, and everyone knew why. Stein had not given up teaching.

He had taken up his old spot in the classroom, trying his best to fill in his time so he didn't push himself over the edge and go mad. At night, he slept in the cells, all smelling like rotten bodies considering the dissections taken place in them. For punishments, students had to go to the cells and clean them up, all of them always returning nauseated and traumatized.

Kid would have to order him to go clean up or shave for the sake of the student's nostrils, and Stein would just shrug in response before splashing water over himself.

His hair had grown long, to the point where when it go too much of a nuisance to take of he would just pull it up in a ponytail and burn it off. Marie was the only one he let cut his hair.

At night he dreamed about her, dreamed she'd back tan skin and all like she had been gone on a trip, and she'd scold him for living in such a runt before hugging him tightly. She'd cut his hair the right way, and put color back into his dull life. She would warm his cold and broken heart, and she'd do it with her smile before her wavelength.

He'd wake up and know it was a dream each morning.

Stein knew now that he loved his friends. He loved them, and their annoying, weird tendencies. And he was in love with Marie.

He went through a few of her things when he returned to an empty home and found she had loved him too. He was her first love when they were young, and he was her love up until her death. Stein hated himself for it.

She loved him, and he loved her, yet he kept that from both of them. He was selfish and cowardly and stupid. And now, he was alone. The kids he had grown to appreciate and care about had their own kids. He was just an old, bitter man, and he was all alone. That was the one thing since the Kishin's final battle that hadn't changed. He would always be alone.

Stein can't even bring himself to contemplate if he really did see another soul with Marie's or not. If her body was being shared. He rather not know.

It'd just make things more painful.