A/N: Hello! After such a long wait, the second chapter is finally here!

Stein: She makes it sound like she was waiting for it to show up, instead of just being too lazy to write the damn thing.

Elderwolves: Oh, shut up! Why don't you try going to college, writing a new paper every day, and not getting sick of your keyboard?!

Undertaker: Ohhhh…. She's getting upset; cookie?

*holds out bone shaped cookie and snatches it back*

Undertaker: Hehee, not without disclaimer!

Elderwolves: Ugh… fine. I do not own Soul Eater or Black Butler… BUT I DO OWN THIS COOKIE!

*snatches cookie like a ninja*

Elderwolves: *munch munch* Anyway, this chapter is dedicated to Cece (who the story is created for) and Flamefox2 who is fun to talk to! You adamant fan you! :) Anyway, ON WITH THE STORY!

Oh, one final note: I AM BACK, BABY! *fistpumps*

Second Stitch

Undertaker kept giggling uncontrollably as he led William up the stairs to sit him in the living room of his apartment. Normally, all guests would be led to the funeral parlor downstairs, but William had been a good friend to him for centuries and so got special privileges. Undertaker's apartment was as unique as the man himself. It was the perfect blend of the modern Victorian style that was so in fashion these days and a madman's laboratory. Some rooms were decorated in only Victorian fashion, the décor in others being machine themed, and yet others were a pleasant mix of the two. The living room was Victorian themed, a light violet and gray color scheme, with a few clocks and gears scattered around to give it some flavor. He sat his guest down on his lovely couch and went to get them some tea. He even used the real tea cups this time instead of the beakers, not that they had been used at all that day. Seriously, when was someone going to die so that he could do some work?! Death knows he needed the distraction. Undertaker made pleasant conversation with William while he prepared the refreshments, although the obtainment of rare dissection tools might not seem pleasant to one of the two parties. He really needed to talk to him about what had happened, just thinking about it was enough to steal the air from his lungs, but one didn't simply jump headfirst into a subject like that. If all his years living in this country had taught him anything, it was that you had to be polite and exchange pleasantries first.

William would do this every so often, just show up out of the blue to check up on the Undertaker. Although his face gave nothing away, he could tell his friend worried about him. The man's thoughts went somewhere along the line of 'Somebody has to, and Grell can't do his own job right. If it were left up to that imbecil, we would soon come in to find Undertaker dead on the floor of his own morgue from exhaustion'. The concern his two friends showed to him meant more than words could say, but right now it was justified. No one understood why Undertaker hid the way he did better than William and Grell. And Lord Death, can't forget about him.

He brought a cart full of cake and the tea set (which had little skulls and bones on them, just the way he ordered them), which he placed on the table nearby and sat down in his favorite armchair across from where William was. He poured the tea and asked about how things were going back at headquarters, to which William responded with his woes of the newbies and Grell running off and practically molesting 'that damned filth' by which he definitely meant Sebastian. He heard that Grell's actions had been so severe during the Jack the Ripper incident that William had been forced to take away his Death Scythe. For this, Undertaker felt great sympathy for his red haired friend. He personally wouldn't be able to stand it, but what Grell had done warranted such extreme actions. It was only done as a drastic measure; you had to create a great deal of damage to the human world before they would contemplate separating a Reaper from his or her Death Scythe, and Grell had done more than enough damage. Not to mention that he had altered it, which was completely unheard of, even by Undertaker's very loose standards! Now that was crossing a line. Grell would eventually get it back, but even though he would not show it Undertaker knew that he was taking the loss very hard. But then, he and Markus had been on the verge of marriage before Markus went the same way as Mina. Sometimes Undertaker got it into his head that his red haired friend only liked Sebastian because he resembled Markus in some ways. It wouldn't surprise him at all if it turned out he was just trying to fill the gap that Markus left, more now than ever now that his Death Scythe had been confiscated. He growled a little under his breath. He didn't do much, but he would rather die a hundred times over than let his Death Scythe be taken from him; they'd have to pry it from his cold, dead, bloody hands. The thought was almost enough to make him forget his current circumstances. Almost.

Eventually, tea was over and Undertaker rose to take away the cart when William caught site of the shaking in his normally steady hands. He calmly quirked an eyebrow at him and pushed his glasses up with his hand.

"Is there something the matter, Undertaker?"

He froze where he was, forced grin plastered on his face. He was still facing William, about to start pushing the cart when he had said something. When he didn't do anything more than stand there, William guessed that yes, something was very wrong. He motioned for Undertaker to return to his seat so that he could be comfortable while he grilled the knowledge he wanted out of him. The man was good at that, Undertaker had to admit.

It took around an hour to tell William what had occurred. He knew of his friend's aversion to company from Death City, and he knew of his fears, but until now the likelihood of any of it coming into being was slim to none. The closest interaction that Undertaker had with the Old World was himself, Grell, and maybe Sebastian (and that was because he was not human). There had been some worry at first, but the way Undertaker had cut himself off was so gradual and slow that hardly anyone noticed when he dropped off the map completely.

Undertaker had dropped the forced grin while he explained and had begun to sound more and more panicked the more he spoke. It got so bad that William forced him to stop when he noticed that he was in serious danger of hyperventilating. He was talking very fast with barely a breath to be spared the whole time. Clearly he was still in shock. Once he was calm enough to continue, Undertaker finished his tale and sat there shaking terribly with wide acid-green eyes staring fearfully below his silver bangs.

"William, you know what he's like! What do I do?!"

He watched as William rose from his perch on the couch and began pacing behind it, chin in hand.

"Given his insatiable curiosity, he will most definitely return."

Undertaker felt his stomach drop down to the basement.

"He will also most likely come back as soon as he is able, very probably tomorrow."

His world started spinning; in his panic riddled mind, he felt privileged to see it.

William stopped pacing after a while and turned to see his friend swaying dangerously in his seat. Undertaker snapped out of it as he approached. "I have an idea. You said he didn't seem to see your face?"

Undertaker nodded. "Good; now, here's what we're going to do: I have the day off tomorrow, I will come to the shop and pose as you at the front parlor. You will work in the back and stay out of sight. Professor Stein has never seen either of our faces, so if he comes in, I will pretend to be you. I may not be as good as you are when it comes to concealing my Reaper status, but I can pass as mortal for a short ti-" He was interrupted as his longtime friend glomped him around the middle, making the man stiff as a board and nearly causing poor William to fall.

"Thankyouthankyouthankyou THANK YOU~" He cried, voice muffled a little by Williams shirt.

Said man slowly relaxed enough to give the Undetaker a few awkward pats on the back, sighing. Well, no good deed went unpunished. But it was oddly endearing in the hermit he called a friend. The two spent the rest of the night ironing out the details of their plan, until long into the night. By the time Undertaker escorted William from his home (with a declined invitation to stay the night), he was plenty relaxed and in full trust of William's plan. After all, with all of the planning they just did, they were prepared for any disaster. Stein would come, meet William, conclude that there was nothing interesting in the shop, lose interest, and leave. Best part is, William had planned an entire set of conversations to bore the man into deciding never to come back! It was such a relief. He kept thinking of his gratitude to have such a clever friend as William. William's plans have never gone wrong once!

Right as William turned to leave, the man started a little and blinked at him. Then he said something that brought back a good deal of that anxiety.

"What happened to your hat?"

Franken ran the soft, yet sturdy material of the hat between his hands as he walked down the streets of London. It was a shame that he had had to wait a whole day before finally returning to that place. He had only now just gotten off work; with Sid now set up at his lab, out of danger, and going through the preliminary treatment before reanimation Franken was now free to do as he pleased. What a surprise that such a grimy shop could hide such a wonderful soul as the one he had seen. He had seen quite a few things in his lifetime, given his profession and hobbies, but he truly had never seen a soul like that before. And it intrigued him. This time he was determined to see what it's vessel looked like. To be sure of it, he switched his knob to a completely different setting than his own so that it would not interfere this time. He still wasn't sure why the soul was shown to him, especially when it was set to his own personal soul wavelength, but he was just as determined to find that out as well. Of course, he wasn't complaining. Not at all.

He was wearing the same disguise as last time, and was going to go with the same story as well. Only this time, he would find that soul, return his hat with an apology, and offer to buy him dinner to show his appreciation for helping locate his school's 'study cadaver'. Even if he rejected the offer, it would still give Franken the chance to study him for a small while. If he needed to, he could also come up with small banter or make up some excuses to not leave. He was fully determined to learn as much as he could from this visit as he possibly could.

One of the biggest things he wanted to know was what exactly had happened the last time? One minute the soul was fine, and the next it was trembling all over with distress. And then it ran away before he could stop it! This worried him. Souls normally do not behave that way. And the sheer size of it! No mortal he had ever met had had a soul that big.

His thoughts came to a halt as he found himself beneath that very… unique sign. Franken read it again, 'Huh, this is a funeral home, so I suppose the one I'm looking for would be the undertaker of this place.' Oh, how right he was, although he wouldn't know it.

Without warning, Franken was overcome with so much excitement that he nearly crushed the hat in his hands. It was extremely rare for anything to get him really excited, even his experiments back home have only made him interested, but never excited. But as much as he was enjoying this new, novel feeling, it still wouldn't do to go in there and scare the soul off again. So he took a deep, calming breath and pushed open the door.

The bell above the door tinkled, alerting William that someone was here. Unlike the day before, apparently Undertaker had gotten his wish. William had had to deal with six distraught families and had been forced to help plan the beginnings of five funerals. How do six bodies equal five funerals? Well it would seem that Sanderson's mission to stop a lovers' suicide ended in a complete failure, and William made a mental note to have a nice long chat with the man once he got back to the office. All the business was making Undertaker happy, but William was bored out of his mind. Not that it showed; he made a point of being as polite as possible to his friend's clientele as he could. They didn't mind and were rather relieved not to have to deal with the supposed madman who ran the shop during their time of need. It didn't help relieve William of his boredom, but it was something to do.

Of all the people who had entered and exited that one door, not a single one of them was Stein. He allowed himself a single sigh. That was the whole reason he was here, and the man had the nerve to be late, not to mention that the work day was now almost over. Just as quickly, his face fell back into the expressionlessness he was known for as the person entered his friend's bizarre funeral home as the new guest came in.

It took everything he had not to gape as the man he had been on the lookout for all day simply waltzed through the door. There, as brazen as you like, was Professor Franken Stein of the DWMA. He could see the spell surrounding him, but much like Undertaker he could easily see past the glamour to Steins… less than normal appearance. Frankly, William couldn't understand for the life of him how anyone could stand to look so sloppy, especially when on the job. Without his realizing it, a small sneer had found its way onto his face. Stein looked around the shop, only sparing it a glance before his eyes fell on William behind the counter.

Of all the things he had been expecting… this was not it. Franken examined the man standing in front of him, and could find nothing that gave any indication that the precious soul he had seen laid inside the body in front of him. This man's appearance and stance simply screamed 'proper'. There wasn't a single hair out of place on his head, clothes groomed to perfection, and his glasses were polished to an unearthly shine. And frankly, he could have been a statue if it weren't for the small sneer that Franken saw slowly creep onto his face. His own gave nothing away as he strolled nonchalantly towards him. He was pretty certain that this was not who he was looking for, but he couldn't take the chance that it wasn't. After all, his many years of research has more than proven that a person's outside can completely disguise the characteristics of a soul when needed. And from the way the soul reacted last time, Franken would say he needed it.

There was another thing wrong here, though. Franken had taken the hat in his hands home the day before and, much to his bewilderment, he couldn't seem to put it down for very long before it was back in his hand. He had spent hours just looking the thing over, even forgoing grading his papers to looking it over. During this examination of the inside, he had come across a single, long, solid silver hair. This he had put into a petri dish, so as not to lose it. It was a valuable clue to that soul after all. But the man in front of him had hair as black as oil. And with the guys nicely pressed and ironed suit, he could hardly imagine him wearing the rather beat up hat in his hands.

When he realized how obsessed he was getting over a single soul in mortal London, he began to get pissed with himself. He was sitting there in his house fondling an old and dusty hat like it was the last thing he had in the world. It was sick. But then, he would remember what the soul had looked like, and stop caring. It wasn't like when you see a person's body and liked it, as a person can't help what they look like on the outside, but how a person's soul looks depends entirely on what they are like. The decisions they've made, the attitude they have, the way they think, whether they're kink or cruel; everything a person is shapes how their soul looks. If the soul is ugly, so too is the person. So forgive him if he can only seem to focus on how beautiful the soul was. And besides, he was Franken Roy Stein, when had he ever let a little unhealthy obsession get in his way? Wouldn't be the first time.

When he finally made it up to the counter, they stared at each other for a moment. William was trying to see any signs of recognition on the professor's face, and Franken was trying to see any signs of the soul living in the body before him. Because Franken didn't recognize him, he thought that his disguise was still working and so couldn't just turn his knob to look for the soul without looking strange. To a mortal, it would look like he was twisting the air next to his head; not the best way to get the soul to be at ease with him. When William saw no sign of recognition from the meister, he relaxed if only a little. Now for the hard part: getting Professor Stein to leave and never come back.

He gave a small, polite cough into his hand. "Yes, may I help you?" Franken gave a small grin, but it didn't go near his eyes. The voice was totally wrong, and this was not the soul he was looking for. "Yes, I was wondering if I could speak to the owner of this place." William nodded.

"That would be me."

Stein was confused for a moment, but didn't take long to recover.

"Does anyone else work here?"

"I'm afraid not."

"So, it's just you?"

"Yes."

He wasn't buying it, not a single word. The décor in the shop was an obvious reflection of someone who did their job with pride and enthusiasm, which were things sorely lacking in this man's countenance. Wrong voice, wrong appearance, wrong demeanor, everything was wrong here. And he was obviously lying when he said that he worked alone here, otherwise the soul he was looking for could never have given permission for Sid's body to be taken or had the authority to run into the other room to escape. But if he wanted to see him, he would need to call this man of his bluff.

"I think we both know very well that that's not true." William didn't react, but stood his ground.

"It is. If you have a problem, then I'm afraid you will have to deal with it. No one else works here. I am the shopkeeper, this is my store, and-" He continued with trying to convince Franken that he was indeed the person he had met the day before, with little success. Franken was a determined man, and he knew for a fact that for some reason this person was trying to pass himself off as that person. Perhaps something had happened to the owner of that soul? Franken didn't like that thought. Not at all. Maybe the soul himself had done this. The question was why. Why would that person do this? But the more he thought about it, the more it made sense. He must have frightened it yesterday, and maybe he was blacklisted in this shop? That would be a problem, and frankly it was starting to worry him. Was he that adamant about not seeing Franken again? Somehow, that thought hurt.

William saw things might possibly get ugly, and prayed that Undertaker would stay where he was.

Meanwhile, Undertaker was listening to everything from his place in the morgue. He rather thought he was going to have a heart attack at the moment. Right here, with his ear pressed against the door to hear everything and a small cluster of dead bodies waiting to be worked on sitting on the tables behind him. Well, what better place to have one than the morgue? But that is neither here nor there. The important thing is that, much to his horror, Stein had come back to his shop.

He listened as the conversation went from casual, to accusatory, to almost violent. Undertaker was surprised to hear a hint of what he would almost call bitterness in Steins voice. Undertaker couldn't understand it, and yet things were only escalating out there. He really wasn't sure how much he could bear before he went storming in there to protect his home, and his hands started twisting up his favorite embalming apron. Even though they had had a whole plan to go on, it sounded like Stein just wasn't buying it.

Now they were starting to argue. He was trying really hard not to make a sound, but if there was one thing the Undertaker knew it was that an angry meister and angry Reaper (especially together) was a destructive combination. He felt sweat beginning to form on his forehead from resisting the urge check on his shop. It didn't help that he was watching one of William's normally fool-proof strategies going up in flames right before his eyes. A mantra kept running in his head, and he tried desperately to cling to it for sanity.

He couldn't go out there.

He had to stay quiet!

He had to stay hidden!

He MUST NOT be seen!

He had to-

BANG!

Suddenly, all noise stopped.

William looked to the newcomer, and couldn't believe what he was seeing. There, standing in the doorway, face as red as his hair and with a deadly facial expression, was Grell. And in his hand he held one of the spare Death Scythes (1). This could not get any worse.

It didn't look like Grell even realized William or Franken were there, he was so blind with rage. He swung his head back and forth like a bull, searching for the man that wasn't there. When he didn't immediately see him, his eyes nearly slitted with deadly intent.

"WHERE IS HE? WHERE IS HE?!" The berserker man roared out, "When I find that bastard, it will be YEARS before Sebby finds him OR that damned trinket!"

Undetaker gulped in fear and cautiously glanced over to one of his worktables. There, sitting very innocently, was a rather ornate cookie jar decorated in funeral paintings from Japan. Sebastian had given it to him as a token of gratitude from his master after providing a very essential clue to help solve a particularly difficult case. And burying the body of the culprit after in an unmarked grave. It was given to him after little Lord Ciel had noticed his increased need to much on his bone cookies. He supposed it could be seen as a gift from one working man to another by an outsider… and that is what he was afraid of.

Unfortunately for him, Grell heard his gulp and homed in on it like a wolf. With a shriek, Grell tore through the shop, passed William and Franken, around the bookcase, and straight into the morgue. Before he could lift a hand to defend himself against his frenzied friend, he was dragged right out of the morgue and into the shop's main body. Out into the open.

Grell began shaking him furiously with one hand while holding the Scythe against his throat with the other.

"How dare you! Sebby NEVER gets me anything, but he gets YOU presents! I ought to rip you face off, you little! What? He likes you more than me, isn't that right?! ISN'T THAT RIGHT?! Well, let's see how he likes you with no skin on your- hey! Wait-! WILLIAM!?"

William, realizing all of what was happening could be seen from the shop's bay windows, especially the Scythe, was quick to action, grabbed Grell, and hauled him off of Undertaker. He opened a portal to the office and called a brief and sincere apology over his shoulder as he dragged Grell through, soon disappearing.

The dust began to settle and Undertaker began to get his breath back from his strangling. Once he calmed down, he stood and patted himself off. In his shock, he vaguely remembered he had work to do in the back and slowly turned to go back into the morgue… Only to lock eyes with an equally shocked Franken Stein. He could only stare wide-eyed at the man. Undertaker felt his heart drop into his basement, he couldn't breathe all over again, and he felt like he was going to be sick. He was now alone with Franken Stein, and there was nowhere to run, and nowhere to hide this time. They stood, frozen, just staring at each other for Death knows how long. Now, it was quite obvious he was not human; but one thought just kept running through his mind: He had been seen.

Elderwolves: *faceplants on desktop* Sooooo….. tired…..

Stein & Undertaker: *pokes with stick*

Stein: No reaction….

Underatker: Pity, she was so young. I will make her beautiful~

Elderwolves: *groan* Eh… shadup… m'not dead yet…

Stein: Well, you know the drill. Read and review. *lights cigarette*