The White Lullaby
"What you gave me was a time of happiness.
What you gave me was a gentle smile.
What you gave me was a past that won't come back.
What you didn't give me is a future together."
Chopin's Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2 in E-Flat Major rang familiarly to her ears.
No, it wasn't a dream.
She sat up groggily in her bed, glancing slightly at the digital clock blaring out the numbers 1:28 AM. Yet as she rubbed her half-lidded eyes and yawned tiredly, the consonant sounds continued marking its rhythm in her ears. The beat, the staccato, the symphony she heard was something she memorized with her ears closed. She had grown accustomed to the twinkling melody of her father's piano. He used to make her fall asleep with it.
No, it wasn't her imagination.
Her father was playing. In the middle of the night (or technically, day), where the stars were still shining, offering some small shed of light that the Black Moon cannot give anymore. Propping herself to stand up and follow the mesmerizing tune, she trudged along the small apartment. Her footsteps soft and careful, not wanting anyone to know she's awake. And listening to the lullaby she had spent half of her life listening.
Yet why?
Why did it sound so different? The combination of the monochromatic keys were the same. The measure was blindly, automatically followed. The notes and rests were displayed in an amazingly accurate euphony. Yet the question lies in her blonde head, why was Chopin's Nocturne ringing sadly in her ears? It can't be the same piece my father played as I sleep...It sounded so sad...so painful.
She was raised hearing the song happily sung by the piano. She lived her starting seven years of childhood full of light that her parents had given her. She radiated the optimistic aura around her, to make the others happy. Her mother may had gone two years ago but that's what kept her to continue living in a bright, cheerful way as if nothing had changed. Because her mother, had lived, just for her to grow up as who she is.
There's no way she's changing it.
She kept smiling, for the people around her. Especially after the blackest day of her life where the people she had loved witnessed as her mother was buried six feet under the ground. She was not under, right? They said her body maybe going down but her soul is flying upwards, towards the heavens where she would watch her from now on. She never disappeared, right? She's still here. Watching silently.
The girl hoped her smile reaches the darkest parts of the people she's living with. That's why she played, laughed and acted normally unlike other children transforming into a depressing kid with the news of their mother's passing. No, she wasn't like that. She stood bravely and strongly for everyone. To keep their smiles alight and floating because it was her mother's last wish.
"Keep them happy, for me?"
"I promise."
She strode her way to the small music room existing at the far end of the hall. The closer she got to her desired destination, the louder the music passed through her ears. So lonely, so sad, and so unhappy. Papa, don't play like that. The door was narrowly opened, a tiny gap appearing before her to audibly see the white-haired man sitting atop the bench in front of the grand piano. He was surrounded by darkness yet his hands skimmed and fingers tapped the left and right portions of the instrument nonstop.
Her hand was almost in contact with the rough door, ready to push it open. But a note sent her jitters and quietly made her sat in front of the room, dumbly listening to the lullaby she heard a million times in a whole different version. Probably, the saddest. Tears sprung out from her green-dazed eyes, falling helplessly through her fluffy cheeks.
Mama, I'm sorry. I cannot make Papa happy.
"What I gave you, was it days of tranquility?
What I gave you, was it fragments of tears?
What I gave you was memories of those days.
What I could not give you a time now with you."
When he pulled the stool beneath the obsidian musical apparatus, the sound of a scraping material of wood-to-wood somehow resonated with the sound of a clashing and shattering mug of chocolate on the brown floor. He winced as he realized that the memory will replay and he will be too powerless to stop it. And so, as soon as the epiphany crushed him down, he shook his head, hopefully brushing the incoming thoughts away.
His fingers furled under the lid and opened to reveal the monotonous black and white keys. He stared at it before he got the strength to sit down and glanced ever so slightly at the translucent window. Hoping to see...just a tiny fraction of her shadow or silhouette leaning in the windowsill, coaxing and observing him play.
But no, the reality hit him hard.
It's midnight, had my thoughts gone astray?
He started with a simple Clair De Lune, praying to Shinigami he will not wake the sleeping babe on the other end of the apartment. He had gone deeply into the night, just to play off his emotions. His real, sincere feelings. He couldn't break at the sight of his daughter frowning, smiling and cackling at him. She was far too torturous, like her mother, not letting him to be left alone in his devices.
Just this once...Only this night.
How could he be sad and weary and tired in front of the child who gave his life another purpose and meaning? Two years ago, he would have lost it. He almost succumbed to the darkness, to the pain and to the torrent of feelings swirling inside him, crafting up a breezy storm. He almost killed himself, he almost died in the snow (Oh, part of him truly did) together with her. But emerald eyes were haunting him at every corner.
Their eyes...deep green to fathom how endless the grass in the meadow are.
Oh, he blamed everything in Maka. How too early she slept...And don't sleep in the snow, you idiot. And why did she have to leave a miniature version of herself, watching over him and reprimanding him only with her presence to keep on living? How could she leave him when she still doesn't know what their daughter is -Meister or Weapon? They were supposed to watch her grow, together. They were her parents and parents consist of one mother and one father.
Where was the mother now? She didn't live long enough to let their daughter reach adolescence, didn't wake long enough to cry as their daughter left their apartment to be with her new partner, didn't breathe long enough to walk her to the stage of Shibusen as she graduated with highest degrees like her. Didn't even wait long enough for her daughter to get married and have grandchildren.
She never let her hair turn gray and white like his before she left. He was planning to tease her that they both now have ashen hair when they become old and grandparents. And he would touch those wrinkled, crinkling skin of her with his aged-old callused, rough hands and kiss his dry lips to her thin skin. And yet, she did not give him permission for him to achieve those things he kept in store for them as they grew old together, the both of them.
Because she left too early. With her hair silky and shiny and not white, with her skin still soft and fluffy and not withering. She was buried deep underground with her body and flesh still too young to be ravished and eaten by decomposing organisms.
He couldn't forgive her for that. For going up to heaven so fast, just because she have wings in her Grigori soul doesn't mean she could fly away just like that. She was like a balloon from his fingers, easily slipping away with one careless, unnoticed action. He...let her go. He wished he could have been more selfish to keep her at his side but he trusted her words when she promised she will always be by his side.
"Maka, don't leave me. Please."
"Idiot, who said I'm leaving? I will scare anyone who tries to flirt with you which was like every time...so technically I'm always beside you."
"Please..Don't do this."
"You told me it's the soul that matters. So even when my body is gone, my soul will always be there."
Her hand that was caressing his cheek cascaded down to his shoulder and then to his heart.
The winds became harsher as her hand suddenly limped down from his chest to the hard, growing snow.
He's playing, striving for his notes, his lament to reach, to surpass the heavens and let her hear it. Time to time, his gazes shifted from the glistening keys to the window. Expecting her lithe form leaning against the wall, her wandering emerald orbs piercing through the glass and watching as something unfold in their front yard whether it be Blair and their daughter giggling or a lost stray bird searching for some ground. Her eyes may be directed and focused on another object but her ears are perked up and listening solely for his melody.
And he hopes. That even if it is totally uncalled for in the middle of the night, that she's awake above in her cushion of cotton clouds and heard his pleas. So that her ethereal angel wings will sprout from her flawless back and flew down to either join with him or picking him up to join the heavens with her. All he desired was a moment of everlasting tranquility and peace in his life. With her and their daughter.
Was his wish so hard that the gods cannot fulfill it for him? It was so simple. Just granting one fucking wish wouldn't hurt, right? After all, he had lived most of his life cowering under the darkness and madness. It's time for some light to be shed upon him, purifying him of his past. That moment did come, but it happened so fast that he could not believe it. Everything happened so fast, we're happy and the next thing I know, I'm lonely.
There was light...And then, again...there was dark.
Why were the gods too cruel only to let him borrow the light? They snatched her away from him too fast. Too hurried. Did the heavens need her too badly that she must go above without finishing her purpose as his dearest other half? Fuck it! I need her too. His vision blurred and the succeeding note came out as a fortissimo more than a mezzo piano as the music sheets instructed.
He never knew since when had his fingers started subconsciously playing the mellow Raindrop Prelude from Chopin instead finishing his squinting Clair De Lune. An image of his daughter's oh-so similar face to her mother flashed cutting through his trail of thoughts. He blinked the producing tears in the corner of his bloody red eyes away. For his daughter, he will not cry.
"Don't cry when you know our daughter is here around the house, Soul. She's a bright child, if she saw you like this, she will crumple."
"M-Maka, how could I not when y-you're..."
"It's snowing. Hey, can we go out, Soul? Just the two of us."
"Sure. I'll prepare our coats."
He knew what was coming yet he pretended he never knew.
It was his Meister's last dying wishes he was attending to.
He never cried when the black coffin was brought down the soil. He never shed a single tear during the funeral. Because maybe he was drained of the fluids he let out during his wife's last moment. Maybe he wept too much that his dam of tears were at a critical level and empty, there were no more tears to fall from his eyes.
And maybe because his daughter, too, wasn't crying as she stared at the big black box where her mother's body was contained. It's ironic how the two of the closest of the deceased were the ones who weren't shedding any salty tears. Everyone around was mourning, silent and sorrowing for his wife (and now, he realized, he is a widower) and the child's mother.
He remembered the whispers of his daughter as he carried her to overlook the coffin as it descended lower and lower to the ground.
"Ne, Papa. That's only Mama's body right? Her soul is still with us, right?"
"Of course."
"After this, could you buy me M&Ms? Everything around here was black. I want colors."
She smiled, and it struck his heart. He could feel his own lips slightly grinning.
"Sure."
There's a reason to break down in front of everyone, but he wouldn't do it. Not with his daughter, smiling, around.
She's the reason why he decided not to break down.
But now as he let lose of himself in the piano, the music encompassing a surging feeling of sadness and loneliness, everyone who might have heard the cacophony he created will know how broken he is inside. Outside he may look tough, dispassionate, and strong but internally, he's a dissonant of instruments clashed together. He'd been hiding these feelings for too long. It's time to let it all go.
Because more of this, and he will not survive.
"Sweetie, my daughter. Just this night, forgive your father for crying." He uttered. The words dissipating into thin air. His hands clenched and placed themselves on another position. The beginning of Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2 ready to be pressed and played. The lullaby he used to make his daughter asleep when she had nightmares. It was Maka's second favorite piece from him. The first one being his composed music.
It was inevitable. For trying pitifully to erase all his fears and tears of the past. The memory...It will come back, eventually.
He shot a last look at the window. The stars shining reminding him of the parallelism of it with the raining snowflakes during that very cold day. The day where everything started. That winter afternoon two years ago. The winter that changed it all.
His mind went black and flashbacks protruded. Every detail clutching on his neurons and nerves. The scene around him revisions, the dark piano room having more resemblance to their lightly living room. The scent of warm chocolate wafted in a middle of a snowy day. The vibrant sound of the live charcoal in their hearth crackling as more of the fire ushered to emit more heat in the cold temperature surrounding them. The light footsteps of his wife coming to them as she carried their tray of hot drinks.
He, with his daughter, cuddling on the couch as they waited for her mother to deliver the treats she had promised.
Truly, an unforgettable imagery scorched and burned in his memory.
How could anyone forget a picturesque dream being relayed into a reality? Here he was, in a home, with his loving wife and daughter. The happiness he felt during that time was something he cannot put into words. An eternity passed in those mere seconds. The humid feeling in his chest, contrasting of the cool climate he was submerged in.
Everything was in perfect place, this was his personal version of symmetry that Kid was addicted to.
But when Maka had dropped her tray of food and drinks, it actually had signaled the inauguration of something far bigger than what he had prepared for. No surprising, vigilant witches and enemies they encountered had scared him to the bone like this.
"Seriously, Maka, it's alright. We'll buy new cups and-"
"I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to. It wasn't heavy and-"
"Maka."
It didn't help when his knee got punctured by one of the pointy shattered glasses scattered on the floor.
"Oh Shinigami-sama! Soul! I didn't mean to! I'm so sorry and I never wanted this to happen!"
"Maka, what are you talking about?"
"Soul...This wasn't an accident. I-I...I felt my hand slipped from the tray and I-"
"Calm down. Breathe. What are you saying?"
"The symptoms are taking its toll on me, Soul."
"Y-you don't mean.."
"..."
"It's too early, Maka, too early."
He retired as a Death Scythe months ago when they heard the news. Their last mission against a betraying Witch who disagrees continuously about the treaty between Humans and Witches was a success. A few scars and injuries there but it was nothing major. So when Dr. Stein, seriously called him from his office while Maka was sleeping in the Dispensary, he thought it was nothing out of the ordinary.
He didn't expect it would be a news that will turn-tables for their small family.
He sat at the chair as Franken Stein gave him the blood test results from his Meister that he took while he tended her wounds. He told him he decided to take a test on her body just to see if there was any complications that might appeared from their last adventure. And to his dismay, he found a substance ravaging along her veins, destroying her cells.
All in all, Maka Albarn-Evans was subjected under a life-threatening condition.
"Is there any way?"
"She's on Stage Two. On the level of coming to Stage Three."
"Why was it so fast? We didn't even notice anything!"
"It's a silent disease, Soul. It spreads quickly and the symptoms were nonexistent until the sickness were far too dangerous and out of control. Nobody will know the patient's sick until she had gone to Stage Four. To top of that, the more energy she discards when in battle, the faster it spreads."
"What does she need? If she needs a Heart, I'll gladly give mine. Because she owns it in the first place. Tell me, what does she need in order to survive? I'll give everything!"
"I'm sorry, Soul. I managed to lengthen her due but the only way for that cancer of hers to die is when the host dies."
"W-What can I do? I can't sit here doing nothing knowing her life's about to be taken away!"
"I suggest you retire momentarily as a Death Scythe and that she stopped going on missions. The more she moves, the deadlier her state would be."
"So what? Everything ends here? I can't even do anything as her Weapon. Don't make me feel useless!"
"Six months, Soul. You two have a child, yes? Spend it with her."
Maka took the news sprightly well. She showed her enthusiastic, wonderful smile and assured him that nothing will happen. For a moment, he was dumbstruck and idiotically believed that they're Soul and Maka, strongest of Shibusen teams, and nothing will overcome them. That this, was only a small problem they could kick right off the curb.
Along with their daughter, they left Death City to live her contemporary days in solitude and enjoyment. With a few requests to Kid and some teasing about a second honeymoon from the Thompsons, they ordered a suburban house in the middle of practically nowhere. But Maka was elated with that, as long as she had to spend her last days along with her daughter and Weapon/husband, she's contented to the brim.
Needless to say, their daughter was thrilled and delighted. She took it as something like a 'vacation' with both her Mother and Father. Soul will honestly admit, they weren't the best parents. Work have been thriving upon their schedules and the child was left under the care of their long-life house cat, Blair. But whenever they have a chance to be with her, they invested her mind with the most exuberant memories they could give.
Their child was blindly covered up with the reality that was dawning upon her mother. Everyone understood why Maka and Soul had to leave Shibusen. The rumors, like her disease, threaded fast along the hallways of the Academy. With Stein being the resident doctor, of course, the news would be given away to their friends and comrades like a flier.
Spirit came to their house and cried a river of tears in his daughter's foot. But Maka acting in alarm and surprise, Maka-chopped him then brought him to their Dining Room also telling Soul to deliver Spirit's granddaughter to her room because this topic that Spirit Albarn was sprawling unconsciously from his mouth was a case they haven't told their daughter. Yet.
After putting his daughter to sleep, sponsored by his Scythe Piano and Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2, he went out of the room to join his father-in-law's conversation regarding his daughter's cancer. They bid him to be silent, just for his grandchild because their daughter knows nothing of this and they plan to keep it that way. Then, they also disseminated their idea of staying outside Death City.
His heart felt lead as he stepped foot on the sustain pedal. Why were there no tears? It was like the afternoon Maka was buried. No tears. Only a heavy heart drowning him to his limits. Why am I not crying? Come on, dammit! Cry! I was there a while ago. Thinking of this, he came upon a conclusion that maybe he was heartless and his smiles were only a facade for his lonely daughter.
He chuckled, absolutely, pathetically losing himself.
He concluded that maybe when he screamed bloody murder in that pile of snow, Maka's crisp-frozen lifeless body in his arms, he was emotionless. That the tears and howls he sent out to the breezy winter air was nothing but a deplorable, feeble act he placed upon himself. Maybe even that was the reason why he did not blubber miserably in the cemetery during her funeral.
How could Maka love a wretched being like him?
A Weapon who wasn't able to protect his Meister from the hands of Death.
A Husband who cannot even join with his Wife.
A Person who was damaged, inside-and-out.
"Maka, are you sure about this? It's snowing hard and-"
"Of course, I am, silly. Since when had you judged your Meister's decisions?"
"It's not that. Stein said you shouldn't be exce-"
"Mama? Papa? Where are you going?"
"Only for a walk. Stay here, okay?"
He hopelessly distinguished his wife giving a feathery kiss on top of their daughter's forehead, whispering something in her ears. Their pinkies intertwined. Maka's last farewell to her own daughter. Because even he felt, that once they got out of the house, Maka won't be able to return in this tiny home they flourished her final memories with.
How in Shinigami-sama's name did this woman come to love him?
A Partner who cannot provide their future, together.
A Lover who did not shed a single tear for his love one.
A Boy who was beyond helpless in everybody's eyes.
"Soul?"
"Hm?"
"I Love You."
"I love you too."
"I love you. I love you. I love you so much."
Her green teary eyes gazed at him.
"Hold me, please."
He obeyed. Because she was his Meister. And he must follow her instructions.
"Maka, don't die yet. I have a lot of things to tell you. Don't close your eyes!"
"Okay, I won't. But do you know you're so warm that I can't help but fall asleep?"
"Maka please!"
"It's dark, I can't see anything. But your fingers on my face, I feel them. They're so warm, it's like they're fire."
Her hand that was on his cheek was frozen cold.
"Maka, don't leave me. Please."
...
Everything became transient,
His voice, his life
Erase all of them
Until all is...
White
...
And so, he screeched and yelled and wailed throughout the entire room. His fingers pounding the marble keys so hard that one thought it might be mangled inward. The piano was him, sturdy and rock physically, but a collapsing, disintegrating mess internally, emotionally and psychologically. The next events in his treasure of memories plunged him down to the abyss of darkness. He was lost, so lost he couldn't do anything.
He couldn't even cry for her sake! All he wanted to do was to lay and laugh together in the white snow beside her and let the sinking ice bury them together. Taking the two of them at the same time towards the afterlife. But he couldn't. He felt so stupid, so worthless for being her Weapon and so so meaningless. She was the purpose of his existence, and where was the presence he had been acquired for?
He refrained playing. The song running to an abrupt end. The black and white keys slipping away from the tips of his fingers.
"I don't want to play a sad song." He murmured, ruby irises gawking at the ceiling, praying for a miracle that she will appear with her pure snow wings and lift him away from the Hell he was living.
One arm turned to steel of black and red.
"If I'll be alone in a world, without you..."
The blade was positioned on his wrist.
"Just take me away with you."
"Oh my beloved, may you rest in peace.
Continue to sleep in this endless wedge.
What you gave me,
what I gave you,
from now and forever,
I won't forget them.
I won't forget your voice..."
"PAPA!"
And her clamor plowed through the murkiness her Father was drowning in. The wooden door was widely opened, relinquishing them the rays of light transmitted from the fluorescent lights she turned on as she made her path here. She sprinted her slim legs with an amusing speed to reach his fractured Father, on verge of accompanying her Mother underground.
She bawled at him, for the first time, bewailing at him. Begging and hugging her Father to do not leave her. Because he was the only person left in her world and she can never afford losing him like how he lost her Mother. Her minuscule hands interlacing, wrapping his waist like a belt. Her fatty cheeks leaned on his spine and she kept crying and pleading him not to go.
"Papa, please don't do this. Please don't leave me!"
His Scythe morphed to flesh and his gaze on the plafond ended. His silver head hung lowly, twisting his body to meet the miniature version of his wife that he and Maka procreated. His daughter, in front of him, wept. And how could he ignore the desperate sight of his child's emerald eyes on him? How it so much strikingly resembled the scrutinized look his partner had accorded him the day she left the world?
Those green-grassy eyes were distressing. Always punishing him in one way or another.
He ridiculed himself with how her wails and shouts resonated like his when he implored Maka on the snow.
"You're so selfish. Just like your Mother."
Her eyes widen like saucers and she felt his fleshy, balmy hand in contact with her flocculent cheeks. She reached out her fingers, gingerly grazing her Father's cheek, wiping away the first tears she had witnessed flowed out from him. He veered himself near to her touch and she kissed his nose, tasting the bittersweet savory.
"Don't play my lullaby in such a sad way! It's supposed to be happy, right? Remember the times you and Mama walked me to park? Then we bought ice cream with M&Ms because you wanted to try it out! Do you know how much I liked M&Ms starting that day? That day was so nice I almost cried when you two left again for the next day. Because I feel lonely thinking how you two could quickly disappear from my eyes. Don't disappear like Mama, Papa...Don't leave me all alone." She invoked him and he was paralyzed, disenfranchised and incapable not to heed her request because dammit, this was his daughter pleading. And he's too powerless to deny her.
"I'm sorry, sweetcheeks, I let myself be carried by my emotions and almost left you. I won't do it again." He whispered as he hoisted her petite frame up so that she could be sitting at his lap and hugged her with all his might. Like the way he held her Mother when she was dying. Never to let go of and not relenting for anyone to take her away from his grasp.
"Pinky promise?" She queried, offering him her pinky. He connected it with his.
"Promise."
He wouldn't let go of her.
She was the reason why he had stayed down.
The reason that Maka left for him.
As the silence engulfed both of them, the little girl apprehended that her Father never cried in front of her, but now, he is. She couldn't help but cry, too. This was her Father, Soul Eater Evans, Last Death Scythe, completely vulnerable under her fingers. It was the same feeling when the person you look up so much was seen at his/her weakest and most pathetic state.
But that was what pushed her to this envisage: She will make him happy again. Not just because her Mother had told her to make him blithe and gleeful but also with the resolve that she cannot bear seeing him all lackadaisical and impuissant before her. She will definitely be the cause of his new, profound laughter and smiles these coming days. She swears this vow both to her Mother and Shinigami-sama who took her Mother away.
"Papa?"
"Hmm?"
"Could you play the piano, for me?" She gently asked and broke the hug to look at him with her big, round eyes. He grinned and nodded at her before putting her to the excess space in the bench he was sitting at. He placed his fingers on top of the keys and was astonished as his daughter placed her fingers atop his, maneuvering it and positioning it to a certain set of keys.
"That White Lullaby of yours again?"
"Play it happier this time!"
"Of course."
Chopin's Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2 in E-Flat Major rang familiarly to her ears.
"Because right here and now,
you're here.
I will always ...
love you."
Author's Note:
First off, I do not own Chopin's Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2, Clair De Lune, Raindrop Prelude. They were all classical piano pieces. Nor did I own Len and Rin Kagamine's Endless Wedge, Soundless Voice and Proof of Life. I also do not have a factory of M&Ms nor could I create a badass Manga like Soul Eater.
Done with the Disclaimers. Phew.
Onto details. Well, I made sure their daughter was unnamed till the end and I know it's annoying because all I could refer to the child was daughter, child, little girl or granddaughter in Spirit's case. Then people will be asking: Why don't I have a name for the child if it was hard keeping her up unnamed? Simple answer: I cannot make up a name for their daughter. It simply felt wrong. And yes, the girl was addicted to M&Ms.
I have this headcanon that Soul was a prodigy in piano. Hence, the classical music. Because to those piano classical freaks like me, if you have heard the pieces I mentioned, it wasn't easy as taking a cookie from a child. Plus, it may be needless to say, but his daughter is also a prodigy in piano which was also my own headcanon for this short story.
I was thinking of a SoMa tragedy, something that was depressing and around 'bucket lists','last moments' and 'piano' then I heard Endless Wedge. BAM! A great medium for my fic! I planned the snippets of their past (you know, the conversation in Italics) at first as something large, which means I prepared the scenes of this fic placed chronologically. I didn't think of going for an En Medias Res with this one. But it happened.
Now for the lack of reaction between the other people around Soul Eater. Some may be complaining that why was that only Spirit's reaction or why did their friends take this lightly? Why was there NO REACTION? Because I'm focusing around Soul. And his daughter, so I don't have time for the others' reactions. It's another story if I put their reactions in here.
Rate and Review guys! Here, tissues if you cried because I did!
-Mizz-Incezt