"We have to let her go, Soul."

"No."

"But she's worthless! A waste of space! We can't just keep something that's passed it's time, that makes no sense."

"I said no."

Maka Evans sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. Her husband, Soul Eater Evans was stubborn; he always had been and she unfortunately knew that he always would be. About this particular subject though, there seemed to be no way around it.

Tightening the ash-blond messy bun on the back of her head, Maka stepped forward and plopped herself on the piano bench next to the subject of their argument. "Give me one good reason?" she dared, glaring her challenge through the depth of her forest-green eyes.

Soul stood tight lipped. His red eyes looked tired and bored. The snow white hair on his head was smoothed, though the style had not much changed through their fifteen and a half years as husband and wife, since there school days as weapon and meister at Shibusen.

He flicked a ruby glance to his wife, sighing dismally with annoyance and certainty. The sigh itself set Maka on edge, for it was done in such a stubborn matter, any mule in the world would hardly brace competition. And yet Soul looked as if he could not possibly have any means to care less.

"Sigh? That's your reason?" Maka mused sarcastically. She hit the instrument beside her, "Damn it, Soul, it's just a piano!" she shouted.

Soul looked shocked for a moment, angry the next, his blood-red orbs boiling. The intensity of anger mixed in with the still present nonchalant-ness almost made Maka hot; she always did like to love him when he was angry. It made the experience exciting and a bit more sensual. And at the same time… those eyes made her want to smack him.

"Just a piano…" He chuckled darkly, "Just a piano!" Soul flung his arms in outrage as he stamped into the living-room. "How could you say that, Maka? After all the years she's been with us, now she's "just a piano" to you?"

"Soul, you make no sense. It's an instrument; a musical instrument that is crowding our home! We can't even use it anymore! It's just that fucking old!"

He melted at that. For what it was worth, the words were true; Soul's baby had gone way past her warranty. Whenever he pressed her keys, she made strangled, morbid sounds that made one's ear ache. But it still hurt to hear his wife say it. The way she spat the notion is his face was like a hot branding iron to his chest.

Maka suddenly felt terrible; she knew how attached he was to the piano. She had bought it for him when they had decided to look for a bigger place. "She's perfect," he had said when they had first brought it back with them, sliding his hands over the black polished surface. He had given her a wide toothy grin and soon, music floated through the walls of their condominium. That was when they both knew that this very place in which they were living, had properly earned the name "home".

The meister's spine straightened, prepared to take any verbal blow her weapon had to throw at her. At most times, she would dread these arguments, though she never paid much attention; he never meant the things he would say anyhow.

Soul lowered his head, his eyes darkening and his face dropping into a sorrowful frown. He walked over to his baby, sliding his hand over the chipped and worn surface, like he had so many years ago.

His wife ached to touch him. She really hadn't meant to be so nasty; she was only trying to bring him to light on a situation that simply had to be dealt with. Even so, she kept perfectly still, watching him longingly as he mused silently in his head.

"Too many reasons…" he whispered. Maka wasn't so sure whether it was to her-self or the piano.

"What?" she asked blinking with curiosity.

"Too many reasons." He said again, lifting his eyes to hers. "Too many reasons, why we can't get rid of her," he spoke so fiercely it shook her, and he gave a slight cross of a grimace and a smile as he continued to stroke the paint. "She holds all of our memories, Maka. You could list that up as one of them." He chuckled.

Maka couldn't find the humor in any of this yet continued to closely eye her husband, arching a brow at the odd display of emotions he was sporting. "I'm not following you," she said weakly, though it didn't get passed Soul's ears.

He sighed, taking a seat by Maka's feet. He laid his head on her thigh, exhausted.

Maka, smiled a bit. She knew that the action wasn't particularly a loving one but either way, she couldn't help but play with his hair and humming the smile in her voice when he grabbed her other hand. "Maka, babe, I mean it," He whined, pressing his lips to her fingers, "I mean think about it. Our first night together was spent on this piano…"

She nodded, remembering that special night between the two of them. Had she not been thirty-three, and married to this man for over fifteen years, she would have blushed furiously and perhaps bashfully scold him for bringing it up.

Soul pinched the skin of her calf hoping to get a more complex answer out of her than the simple gesture. Yet the only result he got was a laugh and yet another nod. In this case he decided to take a different approach, biting the junction of her calf to her thigh. "Ow! Okay, okay, I remember," she said.

"I'm serious, Maka!" He cried, rising from the floor to sit beside her on the bench. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders as he kissed her cheek and pulled her close. "Our children were conceived on this baby!"

"Hmm… I think that was just Avril. Kenshi, I'm pretty sure was at your brother's mansion—"

"That's beside the point," Soul growled. "I used to play for the four of us every other night. Remember that? You'd lay on the floor with the kids, surrounded by blankets and listen to the music until they fell asleep." His tone was somber, fond with memory. "We'd all sleep out here together if it came to that."

Maka smiled sadly. She did remember and she missed it, perhaps just as much as her husband. But ever since her babies had grown up, they hadn't wanted to spend as much time with their parents as they used to. The youngest, their son Kenshi was only nine, but the boy was just entirely too smart for his own good, taking after his mother in that sense. And the eldest, their daughter Avril May was too busy with her teenaged happenings and things of the sort, also partaking in her training rounds at Shibusen in hopes of becoming a Death Scythe like her father someday.

"This piano… This is where I taught Avi how play." Soul whispered. Maka had always told him that his feeling of slow detachment from his baby girl was normal for most fathers when their daughters started to reach puberty, but it didn't affect Soul Eater any painlessly.

"And right there," he pointed to the small dent in the side of the instrument, "That's where Kenshi bumped his head. I snatched him up so fast his head would have been spinning if it hadn't been already, and got him to Stein. You were so upset; crying and everything. You acted like he was dying when all he got was a few stitches." Soul mused, rubbing her arm.

The blond laughed, "As I remember, I wasn't the only one crying then."

"I wasn't crying! I was panicking. Completely different things, you know."

Maka rolled her eyes, "Sure, sure." She said. And right then Soul look at her again, red eyes sincere and pleading.

"I wrote our song on this piano." He said softly, brushing a piece if her hair out of her face. She captured his hand and squeezed it, sighing as the melody floated through her head; light and carefree while dark and mysterious… just like he was. "Maka, what I'm trying to say here is it's not that I can't let her go, it's just that I'm not one hundred percent sure if I am physically or emotionally able to."

His wife gave him a half-grin, "I believe in you," she said reassuringly.

He groaned, turning back to the old piano. "She just… she just needs a tune is all. Maybe if I could—"

"Soul," Maka patted his leg. "She's gone, Tiger."

The weapon held his breath for a moment, and let it go with a heavy surrendering sigh. "I'll have the guys come help me move 'er tomorrow." He said, rising from the bench to go to the telephone. Black*Star and Kidd would be good friends about it he was sure.

She smiled and watched him disappear into the kitchen.

Maka Evans looked up at the wall above the fire-place, admiring the photos hung there; one of Avril, possibly eight years old chewing on a candy-cane around Christmas time, another of Soul holding Kenshi as a newborn on his first day home. There was one of Maka, possibly six months pregnant with Avril, kissing Soul on the cheek as he admired her stomach, and then the one that hung in the center, of all four of them as a happy family; Maka holding up a wobbly seven-month-old Kenshi, encouraging him to smile, and Soul carrying a six-year-old Avril May on his arm, smiling widely in his signature toothy-grin.

Though, it was not the tenderness of the moments captured in the pictures she was looking at. It was the sleek black piano that stood prominently in the back-round of each photograph; a silent friend through all their years as a family together. But as they say: as an old day passes, a new day arrives…

Xxx Dedicated to the people in this world who recognize the important things in their life and are afraid to let them go xxX

A/N: It was something I thought about and I just had to write it before it slipped my mind. I loved it SOOO much! But in doing so, I have accidentally given you a peak into my S.E. Faniverse! GASP! YOU WERE NOT SUPPOSED TO KNOW!~~~~ But that was the main reason why I didn't give a description of my fan babies, Avril May and Kenji. And if you're like my friend you'll probably ask why "Avril May" is so American Sounding. If it helps you understand more in Wapanese speaking shiz, type in the name Avril at Google Translator and TADAN there you have it.

And in otherwise speaking I'm pretty sure a piano last for more than 15 years… but whatever, let's just say it was a crappy one then :/ and "Cesura" in musical terms means complete separation. Again, I thought it just sounded right.

Thanks so much for reading! I hope you liked it :)