Unfinished Fragments

By DarkAngel

Disclaimer: I don't own Soul Eater. It belongs to Atsushi Ohkubo, it does. I'm just borrowing his characters for a spot of fluffy fun.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Death Scythe had known it might come to this. No matter how he had struggled, or how he had tried to make excuses in his mind, he'd had the feeling things might end up like this.

The words were still reverberating in his head, the echoes of the declaration bouncing from one corner of his brain to another.

"I'm going to ask Maka to marry me."

The younger scythe stood there before him, hands in his pockets, looking far too calm for Spirit's liking. He'd grown over the years so that he was now the same height as Spirit. His red eyes looked straight at him, unwavering. Though he looked relaxed with his shoulders slumped and his weight leaning against the countertop, Death Scythe knew the boy was determined. Whether he said yes or no, he was still going to lose his little girl.

He remembered when Maka and Soul had started dating. Well, not exactly. He'd walked in on them – entirely by accident. Ugh, it wasn't as though he'd wanted to see that. He'd heard Maka's voice and had been intending to say hello. He hadn't expected to see them trading spit and Soul's hand creeping up her skirt.

When he'd come to, Maka had been putting a wet towel on his head, her eyebrows furrowed in concern.

"Ah, Papa! You're awake."

It took several seconds for the chain of events leading to his collapse to catch up with him. Then he bolted up, unheeding of the towel that plopped wetly on his trousers, and grabbed Maka by the shoulders.

"Maka! My darling, are you all right?!" He looked her over carefully, searching for who knows what. Hickeys? Bruises? Blood? He nearly fainted again at that last thought. Surely they wouldn't have gotten that far??

"I'm all right." Maka picked up the towel he'd dropped, wringing it out once before she opened her mouth. "So, I guess you know."

Spirit nodded mutely. Maka took a deep breath. "I'm sorry you had to see that."

He wasn't sure why exactly she was apologizing about that, but he nodded again anyway. He tried to speak, but his throat wouldn't cooperate. He wet his lips, tried again.

"Maka…" His voice was a croaky whisper. Great. Just great. He was supposed to be her dad, not a desiccated frog. "How long…?"

"About a month." She sat down. "Look, Papa…"

"H-Have you…" He made a vague gesture, though it was obvious, judging by the furrow that appeared in Maka's brow, she had no clue what he was getting at. Gulping through the rock that had suddenly appeared in his throat, he made another brave stab at it. "Are the two of you sleeping together?" There. He hadn't stuttered this time. Not much, anyway.

Maka flushed. The way she dropped her gaze told Death Scythe all he needed to know.

"Maka, you're 15! You're far too young to be doing things like this and –" He suddenly remembered the other factor in this equation. "Where is that bastard? I'll kill him! I'll -!!"

"Papa!"Maka's voice cracked like a whip. He cringed belatedly when he realized she was brandishing a book over his head. Where did she pull those things out from, anyway?

"It's none of your business what I do with Soul." Her voice was low, humming with an edge that could probably cut through titanium. It was certainly doing a good job of cutting through flesh and bone, Spirit thought as a sharp pain blossomed in his chest. She was sounding more like her mother with each passing day.

"It is my business," he said. He straightened up and his voice grew stern. "Maka, what if you become pregnant –"

"Then Soul and I will accept that responsibility." Maka's voice was uncompromising. "Again, not that it's any of your business, but I'm on birth control."

He supposed he ought to have known. Maka would be careful, but that still didn't comfort him. It wasn't just that his daughter was having sex with the demon scythe that bothered him. He didn't want his little girl getting hurt. Who knew better than him what men and their hormones would do in the heat of the moment? He tried to convey this to Maka, but he didn't get far. There was a thump from the other room, and Soul came in. If Spirit didn't know better, he'd have suspected the boy had been listening from the other room, and it had probably been Maka who had told him to stay there, knowing what her father's reaction was likely to be.

Soul's eyes were hard, uncompromising. He opened his mouth, giving Spirit a glimpse of sharp white teeth. "Look here, Death Scythe. I'm not you. I'm not looking for fun. I've got everything I want right here." He wrapped one arm possessively around Maka's shoulders. His other free hand had jabbed a finger at Death Scythe. "I'm not so stupid that I'll let a good thing go when it's right in front of me."

Any retort Spirit could have made died on his lips. Because he could see the boy's eyes. Dead serious and determined. Soul had protected Maka from danger countless times as her weapon. Now he was protecting her as the person he loved.

There had been nothing he could do. For the next three years he watched their relationship flower and grow, the bond between them growing stronger with each passing year. True to his word, the white-haired scythe stayed faithful to Maka: he hadn't even looked at another woman, something Spirit was jealous of. He wasn't lying when he said he loved Maka and her mother the best, but he knew himself well enough to know that his heart wasn't an exclusive thing. What was it the boy had that he didn't?

And the boy was holding a ring for him to see, glinting in its velvet case. It was engraved with something Spirit couldn't make out, and he looked askance at Soul.

"It's custom designed. I hope she'll like it."

Spirit took the box from the younger man's outstretched hand. The metal was silver or platinum: he wasn't sure which. The engravings he'd seen, on closer inspection, appeared to be wings which stretched out from the diamond set in the centre. Soul reached out and took the ring out of its box. He turned it over.

The tips of the wings were curled around a circular shape. It looked like a little face with eyes and jagged teeth. Spirit blinked.

"It's me," Soul explained. "And Maka. What our souls look like, according to Professor Stein."

Now that he thought about it, that twisted smile with the jagged teeth did look like Soul. And that meant the winged diamond was –

"Maka," he murmured. An angel's wings. That was his precious baby, through and through.

And then he bristled. "Wait. Stein knew before I did?!"

---

The door to their apartment opened with a click. Maka looked up from her book and smiled at Soul. "Welcome home, she said."

Soul grinned, making his way to the couch. He leaned down and kissed her. Mm. Coffee cake. He looked around and sure enough there was a covered plate on the dining table. "You made cake."

Maka nodded. "Would you like some?" She got up from the couch to cut him a slice. Soul took up the spot she'd vacated, stretching his legs over the edge of the sofa.

"Hey Maka," he called.

"Hm?" She finished cutting and slid a slice onto a new plate.

"Your dad should be the first to know when we have kids."

Death Scythe's reaction to the ring – or rather, finding out he'd been uninformed – had been unnerving. He'd never seen anyone cackle, scream, sob, twitch, convulse and foam at the mouth in the space of a blink.

"Huh?" Maka's face flushed, and she shot him a confused look.

"Just trust me on this. I don't think Death Scythe wants to be institutionalized before his first grandkid is born."

Maka never did find out what he meant by that. But she did remember to tell her Papa when the time came. After all, Soul was right. It wouldn't have done her child any favours, making regular visits to the asylum.

She couldn't even begin to imagine how glad Death Scythe was for that.

Author's Notes: So this is something that's been lying around on my computer for months. I debated on whether or not I should put it up, but well, here it is. I still think it's a pointless piece, but eh. I do have a buttload of other pieces kind of like this – unfinished, broken snippets of things, if anyone's interested. That's what this fic set is going to be composed from. XP