1,522 words. Ugh, it is so hard to try to keep Soul in particular in character. Hopefully I did at lease a semi-decent job... All characters belong to their respective owners.
Luck was not on the meister's side as he fished in his pockets, searching for his house key. Of course they locked the door, like any normal person. With all the commotion of the day, Michael had left his keys in the house. After the episode he and Karma had had, why would their parents ever think they would be returning late that same night? Out of options, Michael rang the doorbell. Not only had he been incredibly rude to his parents earlier, now he was waking them up late at night, coming home after running away like a child. He entertained the thought of apologizing to Karma and Tatsuya instead and staying there with them.
While he was deep in thought, Soul sleepily opened the door. "Michael?" He hadn't expected either of his children to come home that night, if at all. Sleep had evaded him no matter how much his body begged for it. "What are you doing here?"
Michael stuffed his hands in his pockets and shrugged his shoulders, a sheepish grin on his face. "Thought I'd come home? If I'm welcome, that is..."
Soul patted his son's back. "You're always welcome here." The two walked into the living room, the scythe taking a seat on his makeshift bed on the couch. "Your mom's not exactly happy with me..." he explained. "Sit down, we've got a lot to catch up on."
Michael took a seat next to his father. "I'm... really sorry for earlier... I was way outta line..."
"Hey, if I was in your shoes, I woulda done the same. Why do you think I was so surprised to see you back?"
"Yeah, I guess..." The meister rubbed the back of his head awkwardly. "So, you're back for good then...?"
Soul leaned his head against the back of the couch. "Well, if I'm even welcome. I've actually been in Death City for a while. Been too scared to face you guys after what I did... Your mom didn't take that too well. Kinda wished I could sleep next to her tonight though... It's been years..."
"Um, sorry, but the way the conversation is going is kinda uncomfortable," the meister admitted. "You haven't exactly been around, so you're still kinda like a stranger to me, and hey, that's my mom you're talking about."
His father laughed. "Yeah yeah, I gotcha. Sorry about that, kiddo." He ruffled his son's hair affectionately, a big toothy grin on his face.
Michael ran his hands through his hair, trying to fix the mess Soul had made. "Before I... had my little episode... you and Mom said something about me not knowing the whole story. What did you mean by that? I mean, I guess it makes sense that Karma wouldn't know everything, only being a kid and all when you left, but what has Mom been keeping from me all this time?"
Soul sighed. What should he tell Michael? The truth would only scare him. 'I was infected with Black Blood that made me crazy and may or may not be able to be passed down to my children' was obviously not the way to go. But the boy deserved to know the truth after being lied to all these years. Maybe he would just omit the part about the Black Blood... "Well... back when Maka and I were in school, we had a mission in Italy. And that's... where everything started to go wrong... See, we fought this kid, Crona, and -"
"Wait, Crona? Like Death's girlfriend, Crona?"
Soul blinked, confused. He really had been away for a long time. Even though he lived in Death City the last few years, he had not heard any news about his friends. "Lord Death is... dating that chick...?"
"Well, not Lord Death, but his son," Michael corrected.
That explained a few things. It made sense to the scythe. Death the Kid wasn't going to be a kid forever and would eventually take Lord Death's place. And it kinda made sense that a Grim Reaper, blessed with long longevity, have a relationship with someone else with long longevity, even if she was the daughter of a witch... "Okay then, yeah, we had to fight Death's girlfriend back when she was evil and trying to make her weapon into a Kishin. Nothing we did was working, and eventually your mom was rooted to the spot scared out of her mind. Woulda been killed if I hadn't stepped in and got sliced open like a fish. Sure, I saved Maka, but I... became infected... And it changed a lot of things... It affected the way we fought, but we learned how to work around it, even with it.
"So time went on. I guess you know the whole story about the Kishin, Ashura, so I won't go into that. Maka and I, well, we kinda fell for each other. And it seemed like my disease went away, wouldn't cause any more problems. So eventually we got married, the whole birds and bees stuff, you and your sister came along, blah blah blah you don't care about that part. So Karma was about five and you were about three, right? I found out that the disease came back... I didn't want to worry anyone, so I tried everything I could to either deal with it or get rid of it. Nothing worked... It... kinda made me crazy... I didn't mean to slap your mother, that was entirely an accident. She startled me, I reacted.
"But Karma... what I did to her was all the disease's fault... I was so afraid that I hurt all of you again... so I ran. Crappy plan, I know... Your mom ran after me and tried to convince me to come back. Said we could fight it together... I just couldn't put you all at risk..." He looked up at his son who looked back with watery eyes. "Hey now, don't cry on me. Cool guys don't cry," he tried to lighten the mood.
Michael wiped his eyes with the back of his arm. "I just don't get it. Why didn't Mom tell me? What was so horrible about that that she couldn't tell me?"
"Dunno. Probably like she said, so that you wouldn't think of me like Karma does... Not believe the story and think I just ran out on you guys." Soul ran a hand through his hair and sighed. "I came back because I think I have the disease under control now. I wanted to be a family again. I missed you guys so much. I'm an idiot for leaving in the first place... Maybe... maybe Karma has a right to hate me..."
"All of this happened because of a disease that you got protecting Mom. If you hadn't protected her that day, then she would probably have died and what family would you have then?" Michael smiled at his father. "Mom always told great stories about you. You were always my hero when I grew up. And even now you're my hero. Giving up your family to protect them? I'm not sure I could do that..."
Soul pulled his son into a tight embrace. "I'm so sorry I left you guys..." he whispered. "I'll be a better father from now on, promise." He pulled back and smiled at Michael.
He smiled back for a brief moment, but his smiled fell away into a serious look. "But wait... what kind of disease was it? How could you get a disease that makes you go crazy under control all on your own?"
The scythe cringed. Just like his mother, the boy was too smart for his own good. "Not sure. Not much research has been done on it. At this point, it's kinda just been mind over matter..." He wasn't lying, just omitting parts of the truth. He was only doing it to protect his son, he had to keep telling himself that. "It's late, Michael. You better get some sleep. Don't wake your mom, just surprise her when she wakes up tomorrow, got me?"
Michael nodded vigorously and ran partly up the stairs before stopping. He watched his father lean back in his seat with a sigh. It was strange to see him there, acting as if it had always been his home, that he'd never really left. The boy quietly crept up the remaining stairs and tiptoed past his mother's room. He peeked inside for a moment to see her clutching her pillow close to her chest. She mumbled the name "Soul" in her sleep. He was glad he came back. There was still hope for them yet. They could be a family. He just had to get Karma to listen. He had gone through many difficult ordeals in his life, but none held a candle to the idea of trying to get stubborn old Karma to listen to a word their father would say. But that could wait for the next day. He made his way to his room and almost instantly fell asleep once he hit his bed.