I hope you all like this! This is my first ever Soul Eater fanfiction. I've been trying to come up with a good Hurt/Comfort for Soul Eater and I couldn't think of anything until I started writing something completely different that got edited into this. Review and tell me what you think.

Oh yeah, special thanks to Pop Evil for writing Monster You Made, which inspired the original version of this story.

Soul's POV

I walked down the street on my way home from my daily afternoon walk through the back streets of Death City. Home. It was one of those places you loved and hated, one of those places that you wished you could leave but the nagging voice in the back of your head told you that you had to stay and you knew that it was right.

I opened the door to the apartment and called out, "I'm home!" and the maid appeared around the corner. I gave her today's pay and she left, bowing as she walked out the door.

I walked over to her alter and picked up her picture. I sat down on the couch and told her about my day, like I always did. They always said, "It'll get better." But it had been 6 months and I still broke down in tears randomly at the mention of her name. It still made my heart ache to look at her picture. It didn't get better. That was a lie, I was sure of it now.

I ate a small, early dinner – it was only 4:00 – and got started on my homework. I didn't see the point of going to school anymore, but Lord Death insisted. By the time I had finished it all, it was 6:30. Shit. I thought. I had completely forgotten about Kid, Liz and Patty. They were supposed to come over and study for the test tomorrow. I stood to start straitening up a bit since I hadn't bothered to do much cleaning lately. One thing me and Kid have in common, I thought sarcastically, Is that neither of us should be in school. I almost laughed at this, but I didn't. Shame, too, because it would have been my first real laugh in a while.

I'd just put the last dirty plate in the dishwasher when the doorbell rang. I went to answer the door, but when I opened it, it was her face staring out at me. My eyes flew open in shock, the impossibility of the situation not hitting me until she opened her mouth and Kid's voice came out of it. "Soul?" I blinked, and when I opened my eyes, Kid was standing in front of me with Liz and Patty behind him. Patty was sucking on a lollipop. Liz and Kid's faces showed a mixture of confusion and amusement.

"You forgot we were coming, didn't you?" Liz asked, shaking her head. "Really, Soul, you've gotten so forgetful ever since—"she stopped, looking guilty and uncomfortable. I smiled at her, trying to pretend it didn't affect me as much as it really did, that the all-too-familiar ache wasn't back, and smiled at her. Relieved, she smiled back.

"So, shall we start studying? We don't have to long, remember. We'll have to leave in a few hours." Kid said as he stepped inside and took off his shoes. I closed the door behind them and led the way to the kitchen.

"Yeah. Want some tea?" I asked as he began to unload his bag. "I think I have some coffee left too."

"Tea, thank you." Kid replied absent-mindedly, searching his bag for a pen.

"Me too!" shouted Patty, over exuberant as always.

"Could I have some coffee?" Liz practically had to shout over all the noise her sister was making. She shot her an annoyed glance.

I went to the kitchen to grab the drinks. I opened the cabinet and saw her favorite mug, the one she always insisted of drinking out of. I found the last few bags of her favorite tea on the top shelf, the ones I knew I should get rid of, but couldn't bring myself to do. Everything here reminded me of her. That's why I hated it. Everything here reminded me of her. That's why I loved it.

I finished making the drinks and came back out. We studied in silence, every once in a while asking a question like, "Where was such and such passage again?" or "I lost my note from whatever class for this day. Can I borrow yours?" It kind of defeated the whole purpose of studying in a group, but we had always studied like this. But this was the first time we had studied together since It happened. The air was tense. Kid hadn't been here at all since, and I could tell he was a little uneasy, not sure how to act. I had to be honest, I felt a bit like that too.

About an hour later, we were starting to get tired. I had a headache and I could tell Liz did too, the way she kept rubbing her temples, so we decided to take a break. Conversation was stilted and awkward, all of us trying not to be the first person to bring her up but knowing that one of us was going to have to eventually. We knew there was no getting around it, but no one wanted to go first.

"Do you ever think about her? Maka, I mean. Do you ever think that maybe you could have done something?" Kid asked quietly. His fists were clenched and shaking a bit. He must have felt like there was something he could have done to prevent It, him being a Grim Reaper and all. I stared longingly at her picture on the altar, just across the room, her smiling face so bright and happy.

"Every day." I answered. After a moment, I asked, "Do you know how it happened?" Kid shook his head.

"The accident? No, no one told me. I wasn't allowed to see the autopsy reports or read the file or even attend his trial. I guess Father thought it would be too emotional."

"Yeah, car accident. A drunk driver. And he got off." It was my turn to clench my fists, not able to control the shaking. " 'One stupid mistake.' He said. 'I won't do it again, I promise.' Well, his one stupid mistake took her away. The bastard." Liz put a comforting hand on my shoulder. Patty looked down at her hands, not really sure how to react. Suddenly, a thought occurred to me. I can't believe I never told them. I thought incredulously. How could I forget to tell them something so important?

"I never told you about him, did I?" I asked, the question making perfect sense to me but confusing the others. They looked at me quizzically.

"What do you mean, you never told us about him? The man driving the other car?" Liz asked. I shook my head and stood up, a little excited. I excused myself and ran off. No one had known about him; maybe that's why I forgot. When I found out, part of me just assumed they knew, too.

I walked into the bedroom and picked up a baby boy, small for his 6 months, out of a bassinet. He had my white, spiky hair that refused to be controlled, but Maka's bright green eyes and olive toned skin. The sleeping baby buried his head in my chest but didn't wake up. I carried him into the kitchen to meet Kid, Liz and Patty. I wondered as I walked, would they be as shocked as I had been, as Maka would have been? Or had they guessed, even though she couldn't, and just hadn't said anything? When I came back in, they all stood suddenly. Kid's eyes went wide – so he hadn't known. Liz and Patty didn't seem to put two and two together; all they saw was an adorable baby boy in my arms. They both came rushing over.

"Can I hold him? Pretty please?" she cooed, her arms held out. I nodded and handed him to her, watching as she rocked him back and forth just as I had imagined time and again she would have done if she was still here.

"He's adorable." Patty exclaimed, jumping up and down in excitement, peering over her sister's shoulder.

"What's his name?" Liz asked.

"Ryoma." I murmured, thinking about how She always said that if she had a boy, it would be named Ryoma and a girl would be Akito.

"That's still a boy's name." I would point out, but she only would shrug and smile.

"Well, I like it as a girl's name better." She would always parry with.

Kid hadn't moved until, seemingly rooted to the spot with shock, trying to absorb it all. He walked over slowly and stared down at Ryoma, surprisingly still sleeping despite all of Patty's noise. He looked up at me, a question in his eyes that I knew he already knew the answer to.

"May I?" he asked, gesturing to the Ryoma. I nodded. I was shocked and amused that the girls still hadn't figured it out at this point, not really able to move past the fact that he existed in the first plac and hadn't stopped to think about where it had come from. Realizing that nobody else was going to raise the subject, Kid said, "He's hers, isn't he?" He said this as a statement, not a question. It took the girls a second to process this, but when they had Liz's smile vanished and Patty stopped jumping and singing. They looked from me to Ryoma and back in shock.

"She didn't know. Neither of us did." I answered simply, my own voice surprising me. Up until now, my voice had sounded dull and blank, void of all emotion. But now it sounded warm and soft, full of the love I felt for my son and Her.

"How could she not know?" Liz asked, not able to wrap her head around the concept. "How do you get pregnant and not figure it out?"

"It does happen." Kid cut it before I could make the snide comment I felt rising in my throat. "Insignificant weight gain, lack of morning sickness, no cravings, the such. Of course, when this happens, it could mean that there's something wrong with the baby. Ryoma seems to be perfectly healthy, though." He looked up from him to me, either not noticing or ignoring the looks that we were all giving him, looks that clearly said, 'How the hell do you know all this?' and asking, "Did the paramedics find him when they got on scene?" I nodded. He looked back down at Ryoma and slowly rocked him back and forth absent-mindedly. "It's lucky they got there when they did, or he might not have made it." I watched Kid hand a still-sleeping Ryoma to Patty too hold. He was right, of course, and I was grateful to have him every second of the day. He was all I had left of my Maka, and he reminded me of her so much I had even started to cry the first time I saw him, much to my embarrassment.

Patty hadn't said anything this entire time. Ryoma, who had finally woken up, was staring up at her with interest, no protesting at all to being held in a stranger's arms. She rocked him back and forth, her brow furrowed in thought, a rare thing for Patty. I may be witnessing the first time Patty's ever thought. I thought, only half joking. She finally spoke, voicing what everyone had already figured out, but that was Patty for you.

"He's yours, isn't he Soul?" she asked. I smiled, really smiled at that. I felt some of my old self come back in my sarcastic reply.

"No, Patty, he got that messy white hair from Kid over here. Yes, he's mine." I said, rolling my eyes. Liz laughed and Kid turned about 7 different shades of red. Patty had to think about that before she grinned at the joke.

After his face had returned to an almost normal color, Kid asked, "Did anyone else know?" I shook my head, feeling a little guilty.

"This is probably going to sound like a load of bull crap, but honestly, I forgot. I forgot that no one else knew about him. I was still trying to wrap my head around it myself, plus I had school and bills and Maka's funeral – " I choked on the word funeral. " – and I had to take care of a newborn – "

"We get it." Liz interrupted. Kid nodded.

"I was only asking; I didn't mean to seem upset about it." Liz gave me a reassuring smile and Patty handed Ryoma back to me, who smiled at the familiar face. I held and bounced him in one arm, much to his delight, and tried to make a bottle and dish out baby food with the other, a task I wasn't quite skilled at yet. After a few extra minutes, though, I managed to get all his food and set a now squalling Ryoma down in his highchair. Liz and Patty helped feed him while we took turns quizzing each other, and this went on for about another hour and a half until Kid looked up at the clock and winced, standing and hurriedly throwing everything back into his backpack.

"Shit. We have to be home in about 5 minutes." Kid almost shouted. Liz and Patty got off the floor reluctantly from playing with Ryoma to help pack. I tried to help by sorting through the notes and finding out who's was who's, but I couldn't tell my writing from there's and eventually just scraped them into a pile and handed them all over. I walked them over to the door, but right as they were about to leave, Kid stopped and said, "Liz, Patty, you two go ahead. I'll be right there." Liz gave him a questioning glance. I couldn't see what Kid did, but suddenly she raised an eyebrow and glanced at me before letting Patty pull her away. Kid turned to face me.

"Soul, you should already know this, but I'm going to say it anyway; you've been trying to handle everything, all this pain on your own. You don't have to. Your friends are here to help bear the pain with you. That's what friends are for." He gave a meaningful glance and then walked away. I stood in shock for a moment. I shook my head and went to pick up a now squalling Ryoma, upset at having lost his audience. Of course, I knew Kid was right. I really shouldn't try to bear it all on my own shoulders; it wasn't healthy. But it would be unfair to make them deal with my pain.

…Right?