The call came out of the blue, completely unexpected, and completely unwanted.

"Stein." The scientist answered automatically.

"Franken?"

Stein sat silent, his breathing the only indication that someone was on the other end of the phone.

"Franken, please. Listen to me. Franken?" The voice was old, and cracked under the strain of the emotion coursing through it. "Franken, damnit, answer me! I can hear you breathing!"

Marie's hand touched his shoulder and he jolted to life. "What the hell do you want?" Stein snarled out; she looked at him quizzically, thinking he may have been talking to her before realizing that he wasn't. He ignored her, focusing on the voice coming through the phone.

"I want your help, damnit!" Stein heard the unmistakable sound of a fist hitting wood. "She's dying!"

"Old people die." Stein's voice was cold, and there was a pause on the other end of the line as Marie's hand tightened slightly on his shoulder. He could feel her wavelength soothing his anger a little, but it wasn't enough. It would never be enough.

"She's not that old. She's your mother, damnit. You have to help her." His father's voice was almost pleading, but Stein could hear the edge in the old man's voice.

"No, I don't. You both can go to Hell, and the only thing I'll regret about it is not being able to dissect your rotting corpses." Pure hatred dripped from his voice and Marie took a step back as he slammed the phone down, her hand slipping from his shoulder.

He stood, towering over the death scythe. "Franken? Who was that? What was that all about?" Marie asked as he moved to walk past her, her hand grasping the trailing portion of his lab coat's sleeve.

He stopped and turned to face her, the light glinting off of his glasses and obscuring his eyes. "That, Marie, was my loving parents calling to wish me a happy birthday." Sarcasm dripped from his voice and Marie took another step back, her forehead furrowing.

"Franken… you've never spoken about them before. Shouldn't you be happy to finally hear from them?" The confusion was apparent on the woman's face.

Stein sighed and stepped to her. "My father called to beg for my help. My mother is dying. There's no reason to be happy about hearing from them." His hand rested briefly on her shoulder, almost as if to prove to her that he wasn't losing it, his touch light before it fell away.

"You have to help her, Franken!" Marie said as the man turned from her, her hand snaking out to catch his.

"Why? They would rather have seen me dead than even spare a moment for me." Stein turned to face her. "You seem to forget that not everyone had the same happy childhood that you did, Marie. Some had parents that hated them. For all that I may seem to be a monster, what of the people who raised me? What type of person would raise a child as twisted as I became?"

"Franken, you're not a monster. You're not twisted." Stein scoffed as he walked off.

"I'm damning my mother to death. How am I not?" The heavy metal doors swung shut behind him as he left the confines of the lab.


A thousand miles away an older version of Franken Stein cursed as he stared at the phone. The anger boiling in the man's veins clouded his vision and he threw the phone against the wall, the cheap plastic shattering at the impact, a dent left in the wall.

A weak cough pulled him out of his anger and hatred and he turned to see its source. "Fanny, go lay back down," the old man said, slipping his hand under his slightly younger wife's elbow.

"I can," her voice dissolved into coughs, "sleep when I'm dead, William."

The man's stomach turned, the conversation with his son replaying in his ears as he guided the 59 year old woman back to her bed.

"Did you find him, William? Is Franken going to be coming to help?" Fanny's voice was frail.

The lie was sour on the 63 year old's tongue. "No, Fanny. I didn't. It was another dead end."

"It's just as well, I suppose. Franken wouldn't help us even if you found him. Not after what we did."

"He was a monster, Fanny. But sometime your only recourse is to turn to the monster." William's tone was bitter, as if he had something stuck in his throat that was highly unpleasant. "I'll get your help, love. Don't worry. Not even our son would let his own mother die."

Green eyes met the old man's blue ones, and silver hair that had only lightened with age fell around the woman's face as she shook her head. "He hates us, William. And he has every right to." Her head fell back against the pillow as she coughed again.

"You did try to kill him."


A/N: I know that it isn't flushed out in the anime/manga (or if it was, I completely missed it somehow, which I doubt) but I don't see Stein having a good relationship with his parents if they are living. I also believe them to have become parents later in life- their late 20s/early 30s, hence their older ages. I plan on flushing this out, so no worries, it isn't a one-shot. Thank you for reading. I don't own Soul Eater.