Chapter Twelve
Three days.
Soul Eater was upset to the point that he knew it was impossible to talk to Kidd about what had happened. He must have been boiling over with anger at his very seams because Tsubaki and Black Star didn't even attempt to comfort the situation. Black Star himself looked disturbed as Kidd recounted the events leading up to the previous fight.
Soul Eater struggled to listen to his words as well while he leaned against the hospital's hallway. Tsubaki couldn't swear to it, but she was pretty sure she could see a slight sway in Soul's figure, almost as if he had been rocking back and forth.
His deep red eyes focused on the tiled floor because he knew if he looked at the man before him he would do something they would both regret later. This was different than a childish, jealous skirmish between them. This man led his partner down a suicide trench and had no remorse for it whatsoever. And for what? To kill a witch?
"Soul Eater, you should go home and get some rest, you look rough. I'll stay with Maka tonight." Spirit interrupted Kidd's explanation, clearly he had been sick of hearing it as well. "Soul?" He waved his hand in front of him cautiously.
"Yeah, I'm here."
"Good, go on home."
He crossed his arms and pushed himself from the wall, "Yeah."
"You don't have to stay with Maka tonight, Spirit. I will stay with her." Kidd had offered in a demanding manner. "Besides, it was our mission, we should go over what went wrong." Soul tightened his fists at his sides.
"Like hell you will."
"Soul…" Tsubaki breathed out and Black Star silenced her with a look that said he stood with Soul on the matter.
"You stay as far away from her as possible without leaving this city."
"Soul Eater all of this was an accident, why are you so hostile?" Kidd furrowed his brows.
"It was no accident; this was a recon mission. Now let's all assume you know what recon means for a brief moment. You led a weaponless meister into a death pit, for what? What was so important that you could not come back and properly report everything you had seen and officially completed you mission? Because YOUR missions had NOT been to launch an all-out assault on a brothel full of witches, if it were your company wouldn't have been a WEAPONLESS meister."
Spirit had felt the room heat up the instant Soul opened his mouth. "Why did you choose to attack instead of requesting back up, Kidd?" Spirit added.
"I know full well what my mission was and I executed the proper actions to eradicate those witches from existence. These things happen all the time, hell there are a lot of people not as lucky as Maka. Many die-"
"And she was going to! She still might die in this hospital, in there in that bed!" Soul took a threatening step toward Kidd. "You led a suicide mission for yourself and left her to die in a burning building."
"She told me to leave! I was in no position to argue!"
"You didn't want to argue because she was doing exactly what you wanted!"
Spirit had been taken aback by the hint of accusation in Soul's voice. "Soul I agree what he did was cowardice but let's be clear here, you're not possibly thinking this was orchestrated on purpose to ...kill... Maka, are you?"
Spirit received no direct answer. He was only privileged enough to witness the deepest foreshadowing he'd ever heard.
"You stay away from her. If anything happens to her-, if my meister dies in that hospital room I will personally drag you straight to hell."
He'd sat at her bedside for the first few hours that day, and when the evening rolled around he had found himself slid in beside her. She just turned and laid on him as natural as possible.
Three days she had been in the hospital, in critical condition obviously. Those were three days that Soul didn't sleep. He didn't even leave the hospital to snack. Spirit and Stein would bring him a generous snack on their breaks because they felt awful for the boy. Spirit spent the time he could talking to Soul and waiting for his pale, still daughter to wake up.
Soul Eater Evans had been a sight to behold. Spirit had brought him a change of clothes so he didn't smell entirely bad, but no change of clothes could save the bags under his eyes. While Maka slept he had been awake the entire time counting her breaths and listening to her pulse. He was paler than ever and the dark rings surrounding his eyes gave his iris's more vibrant colors.
"Has the doctor been in today?"
"Not yet."
There was a brief pause between the two before Spirit cleared his throat.
"You…" After contemplating silently, he found that he was unable to form a coherent sentence befitting his general question. Soul Eater just arched a brow at him. "I?"
"I…"
"What?" Soul Eater looked even more confused at Spirit, "Just come out with it."
"You were the one, this whole time."
"Excuse me?"
"I realize there are things that I cannot protect my daughter from so please don't think of me as a fool for trying so hard. But, I've been thinking about her protection since the day she was born and…well I always thought I would have a plan to protect her from…" He sighed after not being able to make enough sense to uphold a conversation.
"I get what you're saying."
"You do?"
"Yeah, it's not foolish. You're a dad, it's sort of what you do."
"I want to protect her from everything, but I ended up hurting her the most."
"That may be partially true, but some things can't really be helped. We have to go through stuff in life to get to where we need to be. We may not realize it but things that affect us also have an effect on our loved ones, and all the people around us. We help shape them too, into who they are. You shaped your daughter into who she is now. She's strong and … I guess you kind of taught her how to do that, you and your wife. I mean, if that makes sense..." Soul quickly recounted what he was saying and decided it had been a tad bit uncool coming from him.
Spirit didn't seem annoyed at his words, if anything he looked surprised. After a few moments he stood and headed for the door. "You want anything? I'm going out for some grub."
"Milkshake me."
"Gotcha."
When Maka woke there had been no big crowd surrounding her like they did in movies. No sobbing friends begging for her to open her eyes, just a dim hospital room. She could see out the window it was night time and the dim light was coming from a bedside lamp. She looked up at the figure attached to her side, the one she had been laying on for what seemed like an eternity and he just smiled down at her. She smiled up at him and he almost melted beneath her.
"Hey cool cat, whatcha' got there?" She sleepily referred to the pieces of music paper in his hands.
"Nothin' really." He placed the paper on the small stand beside them and wrapped an arm around her being, gently.
"Guess I took a hard hit this time?"
He nodded down at her with a more serious look on his face.
"And judging by that look... I almost died, didn't I?" Her voice had been weak and shook from the strain of her forcing herself to speak.
He nodded again and ran a hand through her hair before smiling. "Glad you're awake, Maka."
"How did you know I would wake up."
"I mean; it would've been pretty uncool of you not to."
She gave a soft laugh and pressed the call button to notify her nurse she was awake. "Now, let's go home."
