SERIES A/N: Thirty-one prompts to exercise my writing muscles. All Soul Eater, mostly my faves Spirit and Stein. Other characters will show up. Check my AO3 posting for the prompt list. Each story's notes will name its prompt.
STORY A/N: I do not like the name Kami aesthetically, but it seems so deeply rooted in fanon that I don't know what else to call her. So that's it for now... Or Kamiko because it can be a name or an affection, since the suffix -ko means child and it's often added to Japanese names... Also do like the translation of Kami to English, it's fitting given the context and some personal headcanons about her... Eh. Anyway.
Oh yeah, this is like...based on manga canon but can be applied to anime cuz we know nothing about this scenario in anime. But we do in the manga... No spoilers. Also, fanart for this piece on my Tumblr. Enjoy.
3. Love begets love
Hope
"...And she has ten toes, and ten tiny toenails... They're perfect. Oh! And her hair is the softest you've ever felt, I've never felt anything like it! Except her skin, and her eyelashes. Did I tell you about her eyes? I think they're going to turn out green. They're so perfect and pretty, my little Maka..."
Stein stared at the weapon as he all but pressed his face against the glass of the hospital nursery, looking in to where there were well over a dozen identical bassinets containing to Stein's eye identical babies but for the blue and pink blankets they were each wrapped in.
"Why isn't she with Kamiko?" Stein finally interrupted to ask, unfamiliar with this practice of displaying babies behind glass like specimens to be observed in a laboratory.
"So she can recover from the delivery. And so I could show you Maka as soon as possible," Spirit said, finally turning his bright eyes onto Stein. His breath had fogged the glass and Stein watched the spot rapidly vanish in the cool of the hospital air.
"To show me?" Stein said, genuinely surprised.
"They want to protect the newborns from germs, so they have the nursery to show them to visiting family."
'Family...?' Stein thought.
Spirit had finally gone silent, his nose nearly touching the glass again as he stared inside at one bassinet holding a pink-wrapped tiny bundle. Stein wasn't sure which one the weapon was staring at, but he wasn't going to ask.
The day had already been confusing enough, first with Spirit's frantic phone call not twenty minutes after returning from their assignment that Kamiko was in labor and that he needed him, Stein's genuine panic and confusion over the various implications of those words and the request that he meet them at the hospital, and then everything culminating in his holding Spirit's hair back as he vomited into a trash can in the hallway after witnessing the birth, his own hair still wet from the shower.
The eighteen-year-old new father had clearly recovered from the initial trauma and had been babbling for at least ten minutes straight after he'd come back out of the delivery room and the baby had been moved into the nursery. He had described every one of the newborn's features at least twice and proclaimed it perfect, and Stein simply took in this new and unique behavior from his former partner of five years. He had never seen anything like it, and it was something that at least deserved observation.
It was also an acceptable distraction for the moment over the fact that with this birth, any hope he had of reclaiming his weapon partner was well and truly lost. Nothing sealed two people together like a baby did, and he was honestly surprised that Spirit had asked for him to be there at all. Especially considering the animosity between he and Spirit's...wife.
The word turned his mouth to cotton even in thought, but he ignored his own feelings as he always did and refocused on the young man next to him whose excitement suddenly buoyed again.
"We can go in! Do you want to hold her?"
If Stein hadn't been partially wrapped up in the turmoil of his own emotions, he may have said yes simply due to the infectious joy in his former partner's eyes and voice.
"Some other time," was what he managed before Spirit whirled around and practically skipped through a door adjacent to the nursery, and Stein stared into the blank space left in the weapon's wake. The still, silent air seemed somehow to lack oxygen without Spirit's presence, and Stein knew from experience that his mind would quickly fill the void with static if he didn't seek distraction soon.
However, distraction was provided for him within moments as Spirit and a nurse, the former now wearing a mask and gloves, emerged from the side-room but within the nursery this time. Spirit's stride was quick, and he reached the bassinet before the nurse had closed the door behind them and was reaching down to pick up the pink bundle. The nurse said something that Stein ignored as Spirit hurried back to the glass where Stein was waiting, holding up his tiny prize so that the meister could see her face.
The baby was asleep, and swaddled up the way she was all that Stein could see were chubby cheeks, well-formed and startlingly familiar bone structure, and wisps of flaxen hair from beneath the pink cap the infant wore.
"Isn't she perfect? She's so beautiful!" Spirit said, his voice muffled but spilling over with excitement as Stein gazed down at what was the final nail in the coffin of his and his weapon's five years of partnership.
At that moment the infant's rosy lips parted, pressed together briefly. And then dark lashes lifted to reveal eyes exactly like Spirit's.
A choked sob drew Stein's attention upward, and he watched the hospital mask Spirit wore begin to stain with tears that streamed down the weapon's face as the nurse hovered nearby saying something that Stein filtered out almost entirely, seemingly scolding the very young father for his emotional display due to the potential contamination. But Spirit's happiness couldn't be contained, nor could Stein ignore it.
He looked down again into those dilated, teal eyes that seemed to be gazing back into his and forced himself to relax in order to really look at the baby. And of course, there cradled in Spirit's arms and held protectively between his hands, was a tiny soul. It was bright, fresh, and new... The little wavelength seemed to reach outward in every direction, searching blindly, but without fear as she remained safely under her father's protection.
Stein looked up from the tiny spark in the baby's chest to her eyes again that somehow seemed to see through him even though it was impossible for there to be a cognizant thought in her head.
"I, ah...don't tell Kami, but I... Would you... Stein I'd like you to be her godfather," Spirit said through his messy tears.
Stein looked up to the weapon's face.
"It's not actually a religious role or anything, just...just someone she can look up to, and count on... To help teach her. To be there for her," Spirit continued. His voice had leveled out and his eyes were unblinking as he stared down at Stein, the younger meister still shorter by a few inches even though he was fast catching up.
Spirit fell uncharacteristically silent, and Stein replayed the words in his mind over and over, unsure he'd heard them clearly.
'Someone she can look up to, and count on...'
For all those things...for his child, Spirit wanted him?
Stein looked with his soul's sight again at the tiny, pure wavelength in Spirit's arms and then beyond to the soul as familiar to him as his own. Spirit's wavelength was radiating joy and warmth greater than Stein had ever seen, and while most of it was due to his daughter, there was a good deal of it directed at him.
He hadn't dared to hope any longer for his own happiness...
"I...accept," he said, the words coming out almost as a question.
Relief flooded out across Spirit's wavelength, and Stein was perplexed. He knew he could get answers to all of his questions and that Spirit would give them. It would take but a breath to touch his wavelength to his former weapon's, meet him in the resonance that had been abandoned and had left his soul starving for months.
But he couldn't. Not with her nearby. She would know.
Stein could feel the other meister's soul now that he was looking properly, and even from another room in the hospital he could sense the massive tangle of her wavelength. He supposed it probably happened to many women after a trauma like giving birth. But then again he'd always found her wavelength to be erratic.
He let his vision of the souls in front of him fade as he looked down at the infant, unable to meet Spirit's eyes anymore. His chest had gone tight, and he was certain that to actually see the love in the weapon's eyes that he felt radiating out of his wavelength would be his undoing.
He had to stop being selfish and think of his friend.
"Thank you," Spirit said gratefully. "I'll...keep working on Kami, but..."
"You're right," Stein interrupted before Spirit could say something else to send his emotions spiraling even further out of control. "She's beautiful, Senpai."
Spirit blinked and looked down at his tiny daughter, who still seemed to stare at Stein. The young meister lifted a single finger toward the glass.
"Welcome to the world...Maka Albarn."