A/N - Just a heads-up since she's the topic of much debate in this fandom: my personal headcanons about Kami feature heavily in this one.

~0~

"Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. Let the rain sing you a lullaby."

- Langston Hughes

~0~

Kamiko Albarn could sleep through the thunder no matter how loudly it rumbled, but the tiny, frightened cry underneath it woke her instantly: "Mama! Mama!"

The sound made her maternal instincts kick in hard, and she was throwing off her covers and darting down the hallway to her daughter's room within a moment of hearing it. She pushed open the door, asking into the darkness, "Maka? Sweetie, it's Mama. Are you okay?"

There was no answer, save for the whimpering coming from the slightly shaking lump of blankets piled at the foot of the bed. Kami quietly crossed the room and sat beside it, the mattress faintly creaking under her weight. "Maka?" she asked, reaching out to lay a hand on the pile. As soon as her fingers made contact, blankets flew everywhere as its occupant burst out, and Kami found herself with her arms full of frightened six-year-old. "Maka! Easy now, what's the matter, sweetie?" she soothed, holding her daughter closer to her.

"I-I don't like the storm!" the little girl cried, curling up in her mother's lap. "It's really scary!"

"Oh, Maka," Kami crooned. "Don't worry, it's not that bad - "

The word was barely out of her mouth before another enormous peal of thunder boomed, and Kami could have sworn she felt the house shudder. Maka cried out again and buried her face into her mother's shoulder. The more sardonic part of the meister's mind commented on the irony: Look at you, the storm witch with a daughter who's scared stiff of thunder and lightning, the same things you crave and adore. I wonder what she would think of you if she knew the truth?

Shut it, you, Kami told that voice firmly, and turned her full attention back to Maka. "All right, maybe it is that bad," Kami conceded, and started to stroke her hair. "But there's no need to be scared, I'm right here."

Maka was unconvinced. "Wh-where's Papa?"

"Papa's not home yet, baby," Kami told her. "He called and said his plane got delayed because of the storm, he won't be home until tomorrow."

"You said he'd be home when I woke up," Maka reminded her, tears welling up in her wide green eyes.

"I know, sweetie, I know. I didn't think you'd wake up this early...Or late..." What time is it, anyway? Kami glanced over at the glow in the dark clock on the nightstand. All right: three in the morning, I've got a terrified Maka on my hands, and Spirit's halfway across the damn country on Death Scythe business. No problem; I can handle this. "Do you think you can go back to sleep?" she asked, knowing the answer already.

Maka shook her head. "Uh-uh," she mumbled into Kami's shirt.

Yep, didn't think so. "Maybe Mama can help you with that? If you can get back to sleep, the storm won't bother you any more."

Realizing what Kami had in mind, Maka perked up, momentarily forgetting her fears. "Are you gonna sing the storm song? Sing the storm song!"

Kami laughed lightly at her daughter's sudden enthusiasm. "All right, you little cutie, if you really want me to! Here..." She took a breath, rested her daughter's head back against her shoulder, and started to sing. "Little child, be not afraid; the rain pounds harsh against the glass, like an unwanted stranger; there is no danger, I am here tonight..."

She remembered hearing this song somewhere or other while she was still pregnant, and instantly falling in love with it. Since then, it had become her go-to lullaby, and her daughter liked it as much as she did. Despite the fact that huge forks of lightning were still clearly visible raking the cobalt sky outside, Maka near-immediately relaxed in her mother's arms. Kami would be lying if she said it didn't make her absolutely melt inside. "Little child, be not afraid; though thunder explode and lightning flash, illuminates your tearstained face, I am here tonight...And someday you'll know, that nature is so; this same rain that draws you near me falls on rivers and land, and forests and sand; makes the beautiful world that you see, in the morning..."

Someday she may tell Maka the truth, release the Soul Protect she'd placed on her at the moment of birth and finally tell her about her true heritage. She'll have to, if she ends up not physically aging past her twenties or thirties, though Kami had no idea whether that would happen or not. Whether a half-breed took more after their mother or father, concerning abilities and aging and such, was generally a crapshoot in every case, from what she'd heard from other witches before she'd come to Shibusen. It was nothing short of amazing that she'd inherited and managed to pass on her father's meister capabilities at all.

The preferable outcome would be that she never had to tell Maka anything. She'd made the choice to renounce the witch world and swear herself completely to Shibusen long ago, and more recently had made the choice to let her daughter take her place in the purer, more righteous world without the burden of having a foot in both. She might be able to spare her that pain, at least, and let her face the world free of fear or indecision.

(And maybe, just maybe, there would come a day that Maka would be ready to know the truth, and accept her heritage as both meister and witch without hating herself for either side, as Kami was still learning to do. But she knew that that was a hope too slim to bother hanging on to.)

"Little child, be not afraid; the storm clouds mask your beloved moon, and its candlelight beams still keep pleasant dreams; and I am here tonight...Little child, be not afraid; the wind makes creatures of our trees, and the branches to hands; they're not real, understand, and I am here tonight..."

Kami wrapped her arms tighter around her daughter, who was now drifting quietly between wakefulness and sleep, her eyelids drooping. Logically, she knew she couldn't shield Maka from everything. Sooner than she would like, her already ambitious girl would be charging headlong into her own battles, making a name for herself beyond being only the daughter of a Death Scythe and legendary meister, probably becoming a legend in her own right (if her parents' own proud imaginings proved true). Soon she wouldn't need her mother's protective arms around her any longer, and the thought simultaneously pleased and saddened Kami. But while she was still able, she would take care of Maka as best she could. She would soothe her fears tonight, and teach her later on to muster up the courage to overcome them. That, to her, was the integral lesson that every person had to learn to successfully get through life, and that every meister or weapon had to learn to truly become a great warrior.

"And someday you'll know, that nature is so; this same rain that draws you near me falls on rivers and land, and forests and sand; makes the beautiful world that you see, in the morning..."

If nothing else, she could be absolutely certain that Maka would go on to have a better life than she had had. She already had a friend and borderline brother in Black Star, and an outgoing and friendly girl like her would have no trouble making other friends later on. Her mother loved her with all her heart, and her father (questionable fidelity aside) doted on her like she was the eighth wonder of the world. Her place in Shibusen, should she still wish to attend when she got older, was set as long as she was willing to work at it, and even then it would not be the half as much of the trial it had been for Kami. Maka would never feel the sort of confusion and loneliness that she had had as a young girl, feeling so out of place it sickened her, feeling as if she was horribly betraying those she loved most by even being near them, before they had all known what she really was. It still made her shudder to remember the constant stomach-sinking terror she had lived with, believing that no matter how hard she trained or how many pre-Kishin she slayed in Shinigami's service, the second she let her true nature slip she would be killed on the spot for being such an unnatural creature.

She ran her fingers through Maka's loose hair as her voice dropped lower and softer. "For you know...Once even I was a little child...And I was afraid..."

A small, contented smile curved her lips. That fear reached a peak after she'd accidentally outed herself (no matter how foolish it had been to do it and no matter what had happened afterward, she would never have regretted punching that bastard Stein with lightning for what he did to Spirit, no, not in a million years, especially since cutting a scar across that smug face had been so satisfying), and had had to confess before Shinigami-sama that she was, in fact, a witch with the abilities of a meister. The words had been even harder to force out with Spirit, Stein, Marie, Azusa, Sid, and Nygus watching. Prostrating herself before the god she served, pressing her forehead against the cold floor of the Death Room, praying for understanding and forgiveness but fully expecting a blade to cleave through her exposed neck at any second, she had been completely shocked when she had gotten exactly what she had longed for, from every single one of them. That fear had been nothing, compared to the overwhelming joy that had come then.

"But a gentle someone always came..."

Her friends' acceptance had been amazing enough to her. But until the day she died, Kami would never forget the pure fire in Spirit's eyes as he promised her that it didn't matter what she was: as her boyfriend and her new weapon, he would love her and protect her no matter what. And in the many missions they'd carried out in the years afterward, he'd saved her life just as often as she had saved his, so he had made good on his word there. That was the day, she had been able to tell in hindsight, that she had first realized how much her partner loved her, and how much she loved him. (Lately, she had noticed, he had started to slip back into his old flirtatious ways, like he had acted before they'd started dating. But surely she could head that off: after all, a man who had shown her that sort of loyalty wouldn't turn completely unfaithful for no good reason.)

"To dry all my tears, trade sweet sleep the fears, and to give a kiss goodnight..."

The time from that day on had been the best of her life. She and Spirit were married, with the most perfect, precious child they could have hoped for. Her weapon was a Death Scythe, and the hunt in which they had claimed that hundredth soul she would always remember with fierce, bitter pride. (She could never think of that witch as her mother; only a monster that deserved a hundred times worse than anything Kami could have given her). All of her friends had willingly and earnestly sworn to keep her secret safe, and were closer to her now than ever. Azusa, though an ocean away now, still dutifully kept in touch with them with video and phone calls, at least once a week. Marie still adored her (choosing to ignore the enmity between her and Stein, save for the times she and Spirit had to pull the two squabbling meisters apart), and had delightedly thrown herself into her role as Maka's godmother. Sid and Nygus had unexpectedly become parents as well, and barely a day went by when at least two of the four of them didn't talk to or see each other once, relating their latest stories of parenting ups and downs. Shinigami had told her directly that the revelation of her true heritage would not make him doubt her loyalty to him, and that he placed his complete trust in her regardless of it.

And in another stroke of pure good luck, she was still able to have a connection to the witch side of her blood. Though Kami detested the witch world as a whole, there was no reason she could not be proud of the unique and wonderful power it granted her, or keep friends from the small decent part of it. She had known Medusa since before she had ever come to Death City, and she had been ecstatic to be reunited with her after so long, and to find out that she wanted to better understand meisters and weapons by working this close beside them. Apparently years of trying to convince her that coexistence between their kinds was possible had paid off in the end. Of course she would keep her old friend's true identity as a witch a secret ("I know they've accepted you for who you are, Kami-chan, but I'm still a little leery about it. Old habits die hard, you know. You understand if I want to let them know on my own time, don't you? I knew you would."), but still, it was good to have someone who could fully understand both sides of her.

Despite often being called such, Kami had learned long ago that to be perfect was an impossibility, and to strive for that was to chase a shadow. But there had been a time when she had truly believed that even happiness and contentment were beyond her reach. Now, she had more of it than she had ever dared to hope for, and that was more than enough for her.

"Well, now I am grown, and these years have shown; rain's a part of how life goes, but it's dark and it's late, so I'll hold you and wait, 'til your frightened eyes do close..."

Before moving on to the final verses, she paused, glancing down to see that Maka had fallen sound asleep in her arms, while her mother had been reminiscing. "Works every time," she whispered to herself, and laid a soft kiss on the top of her daughter's head. "Good night, sweetheart."

Gently, so as not to wake her back up again, Kami laid Maka back down and pulled her blankets back over her, tucking them in snugly around her tiny form. Mission accomplished, she thought happily as she turned and walked out of the room. The storm was passing over quickly, she noted, and the roar of the thunder was growing fainted and more distant. The only noise in the room was the steady pattering of the rain on the roof and windows, and that was undeniably soothing. She could be fairly certain that her daughter would sleep peacefully for the rest of the night.

Naturally, thinking that she and Maka were the only two people in the house, Kami had expected to open the door and walk into an empty hallway, not to step out and collide with her husband. "Oh!" she yelped, stumbling back. "Spirit?!"

"Sorry - did I scare you?" Spirit apologized, trying his best to keep back a small smile at the look on his wife's face. "My plane's delay wasn't as bad as we thought - I would have called you, but my phone died."

Kami, her surprise short-lived, lightly and playfully cuffed his shoulder. "You jerk, don't scare me like that! I almost punched you in the face!" she scolded, trying not to laugh.

"Yeah, sorry. I was going to come in a few minutes ago, but I think you had everything under control, so I just stayed out here and listened. Hey..." He let a bright, winning smile curve his lips. "Did I ever tell you that you've got the most beautiful singing voice anyone ever heard?"

Kami smiled. "You might have, once or twice. Come on," she said, continuing past him down the hall towards their bedroom, gesturing for him to follow. "It's past three in the morning and we really should be getting some sleep."

"Right behind you, my lovely wife!"

~0~

Seven years later...

The driving rain that battered the roof of the Winnebago had made it so Kami couldn't see two feet in front of her, but luckily the wooded area she and her new partner were currently passing through allowed her to pull over and park for the night.

Said new partner had passed out on the couch hours ago, his soft, steady breathing drowned out by the noise of rain on metal. It had been pure chance that she had met him in Athens, having happened to be hunting the same witch that he was, and what a lucky meeting it had been! She could not ask for a more valuable ally than Karasu: as the adoptive son and former familiar of a witch, he had been gifted with transformation magic and her own powerful shadow magic, and though he looked not a year over twenty-five, he had over nine centuries of experience with both battle and the witch world that proved infinitely useful and made her own hundred and fifty years look pitiful by comparison. Though he had accepted her offer of traveling the world with her to assist her on her missions, and had gradually begun to trust the woman he called his new mistress, he had yet to give her more than a passing hint about his past. He spoke highly of his mother, who had impressed upon her son how essential it was that a witch never abuse their power for the sake of pointlessly harming others, which had led to his killing witches that deviated from this rule just as skillfully as a Death Scythe and their weapon would, and to his meeting Kami.

But other than that, nothing. She looked at the faded red burn scars, hidden as often and as much as possible by Karasu's long hair and clothes, that twisted her familiar's face and body ("From my three sweet sisters," was all he had said when she asked, curt and bitter, spitting the last word like a curse, "once they decided I was no longer useful to them."), and part of her thought that she would be better off not knowing. But another, more sensitive part thought that perhaps the more the two of them knew about each other, the better off both of them would be. Perhaps it had been lack of communication that had, at least partially, caused her marriage to fall apart. Maybe it would have been possible to figure out the reasons behind Spirit's philandering and terrible self-control, and she could have stepped in to fix it before things had a chance to get so -

Kami sighed, slumping back in the driver's seat and trying to put a stop to that train of thought. She was reaching, she knew, and any thoughts that floated into her mind about what they could have done differently would do her no good. Maybe they could have gotten their relationship back on track, and maybe they could have tried harder to prevent doubts of her humanity from taking root as they had been beginning to (all things considered, it had been a good thing that she left before any of those started getting out of hand). But it was too late for any of that now, and even with all her power she was helpless to change that. Pining for the life that she had once enjoyed and would never recover was useless. It was fine for Medusa, who quite reasonably cared nothing for her family and who was under no suspicions at all, but the older witch had agreed with Kami that if she had stayed, it would only have brought trouble. Someone like her didn't belong anywhere near Death City, where she was a danger to those she held most dear. She was of much more use to everyone as she was now, traveling the world to undertake the most top-secret and dangerous missions that Shinigami-sama could throw at her.

But even so, she couldn't help missing her old life terribly, and finding ways to try and reconnect to it in spite of herself. Karasu's shadow magic allowed him to create tangible objects out of the dark substance, which she could use in place of a demon weapon and never have to take the risk of releasing her Soul Protect, and she would ask her familiar every time to make her a long black scythe with a cross-like handle. She could learn to wield a different weapon, yes, but even if she couldn't wield her weapon anymore, she couldn't resist the comfort and familiarity of one that at least felt like Spirit did. As a husband, he was the worst, and she would not wish him on any other woman, but as a friend and weapon partner? He had been the best she could have asked for, and she wasn't quite strong enough to give all of that up yet.

Thinking of how she'd had to leave Spirit behind was painful enough. But to think of Maka...Well, no offense to him, but that hurt far more.

Her precious daughter...Divorcing Spirit she had fully understood and supported, but there was no way she could understand why her mother was so set on leaving Death City for good, no matter how many times she falsely assured Kami that she did. Her heart twisted to remember the barely veiled hurt and confusion in the eight-year-old's eyes the last time she'd seen her, and for one moment she had wanted to break down and confess everything about what they were and why she really had to leave.

But no. What was she supposed to have said? Okay, so I've actually been lying to you about us being human since the day you were born. You know those creatures that literally everyone in this city and most of the rest of the world hates and wants dead? Yes, I'm really one of them, and so are you, and if I don't leave I run the risk of exposing us and getting us both hated and ostracized too. Have fun coping with that, sweetie - bye now! No. To dump all of that on such a young girl at an already painful time like that would only hurt her more, and Kami would not do that to her daughter. Not only would she be better off living outside of her mother's shadow, Maka would be safer if she was as blissfully ignorant of her heritage as everyone else, and if her trouble-magnet mother was far away from her. Everyone was probably better off without her around.

She listened to the rolling thunder in the distance, watched as the rain ran in thick rivulets down the windshield and turned the world outside it into a haze of wet gray, and remembered what she used to do on nights like this. Maka was thirteen now, so certainly she had outgrown her fear of storms by now. Still, she didn't think she would object to being held by her mother anyway - Death knew Kami longed for the feeling of her daughter in her arms once more. She knew better than to hope too much, but could not shake the thought that maybe one day both of them would be able to be close again, without fear or doubt. Caught up in the memory and fantasy, she started to sing softly, so as not to wake her sleeping familiar.

"And I hope that you'll know, that nature is so; this same rain that draws you near me falls on rivers and land, and forests and sand; makes the beautiful world that you see, in the morning..."

~0~

At times like this, Maka could hardly believe that she'd had a terror of storms as a little girl. She wasn't a little girl any longer, and she could understand why Mama had always loved them so much: now, the rumbling thunder was nothing but mildly pleasant background noise to her, the lightning that streaked the night sky was a thing of fleeting beauty, and the pattering of the rain against the apartment window was as soothing a sound as she could have asked for. It was the only sound in the apartment, empty save for her since Soul had been dragged out by an overly-excitable Black Star for "guys' night," as she reclined on the couch with a new book that she'd bought just this afternoon and was already halfway through. Wonderfully peaceful as it was, the only thing troubling Maka was the memories it inevitably dredged up, of a warm, protective embrace and a sweet voice and loving green eyes. Back then, it had been so easy to take them for granted. Now, she had no guarantee she would ever experience any of that again.

Though she didn't like to, she had to admit to herself that part of the reason she pushed herself so hard to be the best at everything was for her mother's sake. At times she would catch herself thinking that if she could only hit this next milestone - if she passed the test to become an EAT student, if she stayed at the top of the class, if she could manage to turn Soul into a Death Scythe - then maybe, just maybe, Mama would hear about it and be so proud of her daughter's accomplishment that she'd have to come back and congratulate her. But that was completely unrealistic. She knew full well that the older meister was even busier now than she had been back when she'd still lived in Death City. "Shinigami-sama has very important missions that he can only entrust to me," she'd told Maka the day she left, laying her hands on her shoulders and kneeling down to look her in the eyes as she did. "And it's my responsibility as a meister to carry them all out." No way would Mama have time to spare for her now, no matter what she did.

(And although they were few and far between, there were some times when some bitter, insecure, fearful part of her mind suggested that perhaps Mama didn't want to spare a day for her anymore even if she could, that she had always intended to simply leave Death City and everyone in it behind, unwanted and forgotten, that the regular postcards were just leading her on like a carrot on a string and making her think that she still had a place in her mother's heart. But she pushed such thoughts out of her mind the instant they came. Mama wasn't that kind of person. Mama would never do that to her. Mama loved her dearly - how many times had she said so herself? She had to keep believing that.)

Well, now she wasn't going to be able to concentrate on her book. Sighing, Maka marked her page, laid it down on the table, and twisted around to look out the window. It was improbable, she knew, but she wondered if it was raining wherever her mother was right now. She wondered if she thought the same things as she did whenever it stormed, or if those memories weren't quite as important to her as they were to Maka. Maybe Mama acted the same way at times like this, getting caught up in reminiscence and left with a bittersweet feeling. Maybe Mama thought of the old, familiar song too, when she felt lonely and missed her family.

"Everything's fine in the morning..."

Her favorite lines of the song were the last three, the ones she was almost never able to stay awake to hear her mother sing, but they sounded weak somehow in her voice. Yet another thing Mama could always do better than she could.

"The rain'll be gone in the morning..."

An unexpected lump in her throat made her voice catch before the last line could get out. She didn't want to sing it anyway, she thought, swallowing hard. It wasn't true anymore, and who knew if it would ever be true again?

But you'll still be here in the morning.

~0~

EDIT: I almost forgot to mention, the song is "Lullaby for a Stormy Night" by Vienna Teng. VERY pretty song, definitely worth a listen.