THIS IS IT! YOU MADE IT TO THE END! Mostly because I do not have the stamina to write all of the in-between so I gave you an epilogue happy ending. I hope you don't hate me for it, but I have so many other SoMa fics that I'm running dry on ideas here and I've got writer's fatigue on this.
There were green, yellow, and red days. Color-coding so simple a toddler could follow it and Soul tried not to stare at it tacked to the fridge as he made his coffee every morning. It was starting to remind him of a chore chart as if he actually had something like that as a kid, but he at least knew the concept. These are words that would never come out of his mouth, and he knew the danger of even letting them come to the forefront of his mind, but, Death, maybe this was too much sex! The first month had been exciting, just high on the prospect itself, but by the second month, he was quickly realizing that what before had been an accident was now something closer to work.
As it drew closer to the end of month three, he was looking at a green day and withering, thinking about the intense training day, a Saturday punishment for the recent lazy behavior of his weapons class, that had to happen and contemplating how the hell he was going to still be able to move afterward. He had left her in bed, only soft grievances from her following him out the door but a calamity of complaints in his head. As the first set of grueling exercises started, a brisk five mile jog, Soul already started the lag behind, hoping to keep some semblance of energy. By the time the last exercise rolled around, Soul was struggling right along with the rest of them.
Getting back home to her consisted of dragging his feet, his breath barely back to him by the time he walked through the door. He was ecstatic to find her napping, albeit a little jealous, and kept his fingers crossed through his shower that she would remain asleep long enough for him to get clean, get in bed, and get to sleep right next to her. Maka would at least have enough mercy to let him sleep for an hour or two. That worked up until the moment his head hit the pillow, feeling her hand almost instantly clutching into his shirt. "Soul…"
"Your nap's not over." Soul attempted to pull her closer but she was already sitting up, her leg swinging over him to straddle his lap. "Maka, please…"
"I've been waiting for you to come home," she cooed before leaning forward, brushing her lips against his.
"I know," Soul groaned. "It's a green day, but-"
Maka pressed her finger to his lips, "I want to practice."
He let out another exhausted moan, "Maka, I just spent the whole day whipping those idiots into shape."
"Which means you're all warmed up for soul perception." She moved her hands to his chest, patting excitedly. "Let's try the whole floor."
Soul dejectedly put his hands over hers, letting out a withering sigh. "I just have to tell you who's home and then I'm free? I get a nap?"
"Sure," Maka nodded.
"OK," he huffed before closing his eyes, settling into syncing with her immediately. It didn't necessarily feel like the same old resonance, a little zap of her excited electricity lighting up his spine. He was too busy concentrating on getting the job done to really think about that sizzle. "Mrs. Leparz with that stupid dog."
"You see the dog?" Maka giggled.
"Sorta," he muttered back, still deeply focused on the task at hand, the dream of a nap pulling at him.
"Tina…" Soul's concentration faltered, gripping tighter at Maka's hands. "Wait, Tina can be home by herself? She's like ten."
"You can check on her later. Keep going," Maka urged.
"Joel and Kevin…" On the keys, Soul had circled back to him and Maka, seeing the two of them. Maka was her G as always, and he had settled into an F, but it was the F sharp that stopped him. It was hazy and as he stroked the key the sound was almost as weak as the image. "There's somebody else."
"I'm going to lend you a little focus," she cooed as he felt another buzz of energy.
The clarity offered only took his breath away. "It's a Grigori."
"One in fifty million," she whispered back. "A total miracle."
"Who is it?" Soul let the world slowly come back to him, seeing Maka still sitting on top of him but a glowing smile stretching her lips.
"See, I really was hoping you'd start seeing them the way I do, so you could see it settled just perfectly, right here." She took his hands, placing the open palms against her stomach. "It's right here. A perfect Soul and Maka mix. Angel wings with wicked hair," that sentence burst into a laugh from her mouth.
"That was the baby?" His hands searched under her shirt as if he'd suddenly be able to feel it too. "You mean, you are? You're pregnant? And all that fucking practice was so I could see it?"
Maka nodded slowly, letting loose his hands to move against her skin. "That day," she still had to gulp down the last twinge of pain with that memory, "The only good thing I remember from that day was the look on your face when you felt him, Jack, for the first time and I… I thought if you could see this one like I did, it would be even better."
Soul's hands moved from her stomach to her back, pulling her down on top of him. He couldn't stop himself from trailing kisses everywhere there was skin, trying to send some kind of message that his mouth couldn't possibly form. "I want to see it again," he murmured finally, just parting from her lips.
"Maybe tomorrow," she laughed softly. "It kind of tires me out. I told you to keep practicing."
"Everyday." He dug his hands into her hair, pressing her forehead to his. "Thank you."
Maka pecked at his lips before letting a contented sigh rush from her lips. "It was a team effort."
EPILOGUE (I apologize for being lazy)
"You are a monster if you think I'm waking her up again."
Soul's voice may have woken her up, but Maka kept her eyes closed, putting great mental effort into keeping that glowing smile from breaking across her face.
"Shh." While the hush was as soothing as Soul could manage the little squawking cry punctuated it anyway. "Give her another hour, buddy, come on." Another cry, closer to a grumble finished that sentence. It was then that she felt the bed move as his weight rested on it, his voice even softer to her. "Maka, he's making that face."
What was becoming her favorite sight in the world greeted her as she opened her eyes: Soul sitting next to her on the bed, their son fussing in his arms, tiny hands outstretched and waving for attention. "Hungry? Again?"
"Takes after you," he laughed. "Checked everything else, I swear."
Maka raised an eyebrow, "Diaper, burps, everything?"
"He's a bottomless pit." Soul waited while she readjusted, listening to her move since his eyes couldn't stop focusing back on the face of their boy, the not so little but definitely still most perfect thing on the planet: a Grigori soul, a whopping nine and a half pounds at birth, with dark blond wisps of hair and dark eyes that Soul just knew would lighten each day until they were scarlet. While panic and worry was still a primary focus of Soul's thoughts, he did know one thing: their boy was strong, he would make it no matter what.
"Earth to Soul," Maka cooed with her arms outstretched.
Soul laughed sharply before easing the baby into her arms, "Yeah, sorry." As soon as he was safely deposited, Soul rearranged the pillows next to her, letting him sit shoulder to shoulder to watch Maka's strangest new talent.
"Don't you want to sleep?" Maka offered the idea half because she knew Soul desperately needed it but also because watching her breastfeed was still not entirely a comfortable act yet.
"Later," he planted a kiss on her shoulder before letting his eyes fall back to the boy in her arms.
It didn't matter that she was watching him, studying the way his eyes glassed over, his smile threatened to stretch into goofy territory, and his fingers played with the little toes that were kicking next to her arm. "I think I'm jealous," she murmured.
"Huh?" He snapped out of his rose-colored trance, blinking at her. "Jealous?"
"The way you look at him," she laughed softly. "I'm jealous of it. Definitely."
"I look at you that way." He kissed her shoulder again, letting a contented sigh linger on her skin.
"Definitely not," Maka shook her head slowly. "It's super moony, way more in love than I've ever seen you before." And maybe she had started off joking, but that last sentence settled it: she was jealous. Maybe it wasn't the divisive type, but it was a lingering thought.
Soul 'hmphed' as his eyes climbed from her collarbone to the muscle of her neck to her cheeks to her eyes, finally narrowing when they reached there. He'd always mooned over her. There wasn't a day, an hour, a minute from the moment that their hands met that he wasn't done-for when it came to Maka Albarn. He tossed those thoughts through his brain a few more times, arranging his words carefully as always. "I look at him that way because of you."
A tiny curl of a smile started on her lips. "So it's my fault?"
"No," he let it grumble out like a growl before turning back to the best soothing voice he could offer. "I look at him and it's you and me, probably more you than me in the long run with the blond and his soul being just like yours. It's something we did together, but it's something that you did the heavy lifting in creating. You sacrificed a lot for him, so when I look at him, I see all the things you did for me and for him along the way. So I look at him like that because he reminds me that I love you more than anything."
Maka let out a laugh that still urged one or two tears from her eyes. "That was a good answer," she barely managed between a shuddering breath.
"Cool guy line, as always," he chuckled before tilting his head back down to look at his son. "Don't take that as I don't love you, buddy, but Maka, your mom's special, OK?" Soul waited for some kind of affirmative, taking the swift kick to his hand as enough.
"He's going to start thinking his name is buddy," Maka sighed. "You were very serious about Victor."
"Because he's beaten a lot to get here, it makes sense," Soul turned his eyes back to her. "And he's going to be a strong meister, just like his mom."
"That's what you're betting on?" Maka grinned. "What if he's a demon weapon? More demon weapon blood on my side than meister. Albarn clan, after all."
"Doesn't matter," Soul sighed sweetly, watching his Victor's foot flex as he ran a finger down the heel. "He's going to be the best."
