Unexpected Turns

Cold

"I really think I should go and see her."

"Maka, she won't even be awake yet."

"It's 6:30, of course she will."

Soul just shook his head. Maka had barley gotten any sleep last night, she'd been too busy panicking about Amara. Soul had to agree that this was a worrying development. They'd discussed the fact that Amara may inherit weapon blood with her and she seemed to understand. But when he thought back, they never asked her how she felt about that. She was always so calm and quiet, they'd just assumed she'd be fine with whatever came along.

But now that he really thought about it, Amara was the opposite of him and Maka. They were always ready for a fight, and they were good at it. They were strong, even bull-headed and ready for anything. Amara was like her mother, Ana. She had a very calming nature about her. Always kind and sweet, and never wanted to hurt a fly, never mind transform into a weapon to kill Kishin. Soul's head snapped up at the thought.

"Of course," Soul whipped around to find Maka bouncing Masen on her hip. She looked up at him with a frown.

"What?"

"Amara doesn't want to be weapon." He exclaimed. He ignored Maka's 'Oh, how could you tell,' and continued.

"She's just so gentle. She's exactly like Ana was. There isn't an aggressive, mean bone in her body. She's nice to everyone. Everyone. She – she's caring, forgiving, really hard to even get a reaction out of – "

"Do you have a point?" Maka interrupted. Soul laughed.

"Who does that sound exactly like? Who do we know who is unusually kind, tolerant and just plain nice, but is also a weapon?" Maka blinked stupidly for a moment before her expression finally mirrored her boyfriends.

"Tsubaki!" She exclaimed. Soul nodded.

"If anyone could help her with this, it's Tsu."

"Of course!" Maka slapped her forehead. "Why didn't we think about that last night? If we had just called Tsubaki she would have come over to help her!"

"Too late for that now, but," Soul smiled wide. "I'm sure it will help Amara today. Anyways, I should go get her up for school." Maka grinned as he passed and cooed at her baby.

"You hear that? Your sister is going to be just fine. I'm sure she didn't mean to shout at you pretty boy. She was just a little frigh-"

"Maka,"

Maka spun around at the sound of Soul's voice to find him stood at the bottom of the stairs, his crimson eyes wide with panic.

"Amara's gone."

The words didn't sink in. Make just blinked and passed Masen to Soul wordlessly and ran up the stairs. She came into her daughters room in a flurry to find her bed neatly made. She ran her hand over the covers. Cold. She hadn't been in here all night.

She hadn't been in here all night.

Maka ran to the window to pull open the curtains, nearly tearing them from the railing. The rain plummeted down relentlessly and the thunder groaned on. Amara was out there. Her baby girl was out there in that weather and had been all night.

"Maka," She whipped around to find Soul in the doorway, Masen balanced carefully on his hip while his other hand clutched his phone so hard his knuckles were turning white.

"What is it?" Maka mouthed, no sound even leaving her mouth. She snatched the phone from his frozen form and glared at the screen.

"Amara's classes has been cancelled," he told her before she had even read anything. Her eyes quickly scanned the message.

She dropped the phone.

"The weather... Danger to life? What? This storm?" Soul nodded, his jaw taut.

"It's meant to keep getting worse throughout the day. Wind speeds are going up, the temperature is going down and the rain..."

Maka couldn't listen to another word. Soul picked his phone up and dialled a number as Maka sprinted from the room.

"Yeah, Kid," she could hear him saying faintly. "I need you to send Spirit here to watch over Masen. Amara's ran away... Yes, in this weather... Yes, I know about the warnings – Look, I don't have time to give you the full story, just get Spirit over here ASAP, I need to find my daughter." He threw the phone onto the couch as he made his way into the living room and took in his girlfriends distressed form.

Maka was a mix between pure fear, sadness and anger. She was grabbing their coats, sorting out plenty of bottles for Masen, talking on the phone and trying so hard not to break down into tears all at the same time.

"We'll meet you at the park as soon as I've finished these bottles. Have you called Kid and the girls to help? Good, I want as many people out looking for her as possible... Star's already left? Fine, just make sure you know where he's looking so we can cover more ground... Yeah. Yeah, thanks Tsu." Maka placed her phone down and finished the last of the bottles when she felt Soul's hand on her shoulder. She whipped around to snap at him, but then she saw his face.

He was broken. His eyes were wide and bloodshot. His hand left her shoulder to wordlessly clutch her hand like it was a lifeline. Maka didn't say a word as wrapped her arms around him.

"Every kid will run away from home once in their life." She muttered against his neck. She fought a wince as his arms wrapped around her so tight she could barely breathe.

"Not in a storm like this," he muttered, his voice broken and low. "Maka... What if she – "

"Don't," Maka pulled away to look him dead in the eye. "She will be fine. We just need to find her and bring her home. The longer she's out there..."

Soul didn't let her say another word. He kissed her quickly and nodded. Maka blinked all her tears away as she turned around to glare at the floor. She couldn't fall apart right now. She needed to be strong. She needed to find her daughter.

Meanwhile, Amara was stumbling as she fought the hard winds and rain. Her eyes were wide and scared. She wanted to go back home hours ago, as she already regretted her decision then, but she had gotten lost in the desert. She didn't want to leave home, she was just upset. She wanted her Mama and Papa. She wanted to say sorry to her little brother for yelling at him.

The wind was getting so loud she couldn't hear her own voice screaming for her parents. The rain was getting heavier and the air colder. Amara cried softly as she tried to make her tiny legs move forward so she could just find some kind of shelter.

"Ah!"

The ground swallowed her up. There were a few ditches within the desert but she'd managed to avoid the ones she spotted. It would be her luck that the one she fell into was the deepest one she'd seen. Her fingers clutched the side of the ditch as she fell. She released a loud scream when a flash of agony exploded in one of her fingers. She hit the ground hard. There was a loud jolt in her head, then everything went black.

Soul and Maka were finally leaving the house after Spirit had got there. Maka took her boyfriend's hand one last time to give him one last look of determination.

"She will be fine, Soul."

Soul didn't reply for a moment, unable to ignore the chilling sense of dread gnawing it's way into his stomach. He set his jaw and nodded, trying to give Maka the same look of reassurance she'd given him. But for some reason he just couldn't. He couldn't shake the feeling that there was something was very, very,

Wrong.