Just Smile!
"Hey, come on, else you'll be late t' git yer food, Smile!" a brunette said, freckles dotting her face. Her lips were parted in a wide grin as she grabbed the wrist of a young boy trailing behind her.
"S-slow down! Freckles, I said slow down!" the boy said, struggling to keep up.
"Sorry, mate, bu' we gotta hurry if we 'ave any time lef' t' git the food!" Freckles said over her shoulder, laughing. She only released her companion when she rushed in to get the food.
Just like last time, she had a platter piled high with her meal, while Smile was left with a few rolls.
"'Ere, I don' need as much as you do, Smile," the older girl said, cutting her pile in half, giving it to the gray-haired boy. "Eat up!"
Smile watched as his friend ate her food, as if without a care in the world.
That night, Freckles leaned over the edge of her bunk, looking at Smile.
"I got a bi' more o' th' Funtom sweets, t'day. Brother Joker le' me int' town, an' I bought some. Wan' the caramel one, Smile?"
He gave a nod, and the brunette handed the sweet to him, moving back up to her bunk with cat-like grace.
"'M performin' t'night, an' I jus' wanted you t' know tha' I'll be back a bit late," she added, sitting cross-legged on her bed. She watched as the gray-haired boy moved to look up at her.
"Good luck," he told her before moving back.
When Freckles was certain that he had fallen asleep, she slipped down to the ground and shed her clothes, putting on an elaborate white dress with roses.
She had turned from Freckles to Doll, first tier member of the Noah's Ark Circus.
The night sky was supposed to be littered with stars. Instead, smoke hid the glowing sky, polluting it as the manor burned.
"Father! Joker!" Doll cried, rushing towards the flaming building, falling to her knees before she could reach it. "NO!"
Behind her stood Ciel Phantomhive, the one who pretended to be a boy named Smile, the one who she began to trust and love. Beside him was his ever faithful demon butler, Sebastian.
"They had it coming to them. Recreating that damned night, turning children's bones into something to resemble prosthetic limbs. And the man you call "father" wanted nothing more than to look good, and didn't care that children perished.
What about you, Doll? What do you believe? Was your father justified into doing this so he could be accepted by people like me? Were you fine with him using Joker to capture children and worry their families? Or did you not care, ignoring everything that went around you unless you were asked to assist?
What do you believe, Doll?"
The older girl whipped her head around to face the one who had toyed with her feelings, her scarred face seeming to glow against the flames. Her good eye narrowed as she glared at the young Earl, her teeth clenched as she growled deep within her throat.
"I WON'T FORGIVE YOU!" Doll cried, rising to her feet and rushing at the boy with a knife in her hand.
"Sebastian."
She never saw him move his lips to utter that one name, never could have known that her end was coming.
She fell to her knees, tears streaming down her face as blood soaked her shirt, sticking it to her skin, dripping onto the dirt and her pants. She felt as if the ground was grasping onto her boots, and the cord of her cloak felt like it was suffocating her.
The butler, the one Doll knew as Black but the Earl knew as Sebastian, stepped away from her, his entire right arm covered in blood.
Her blood.
Knowing that if she looked down she'd regret what she saw, Doll figured that there was a hole in her chest, one that would never close.
"I believe tha' folk 'ave th' righ' t' do wha' they need t' do, jus' t' make themselves, 'appy. . ." Doll spat out, blood pooling in her mouth. "Even at th' cost of someone else's 'appiness, differen' folk do wha' they can t' be 'appy. . . An' some are 'appy givin' away their 'appiness. . ."
The blood was seeping from her mouth, and the girl knew she had barely any time left. She kept her gaze trained on her killer and her former friend, watching them walk away.
"Oi. . ."
Ciel looked back at her, a single eyebrow raised in wonder at how she had yet died.
Dolls smiled a bloody smile, as her arms, now bloody as well, were moved out to her sides, as if open for a hug.
"Smile, Smile. . ." she said in a haunting voice, before her gaze finally lowered and her arms fell to her sides, limp.
"Goodbye. . . Freckles. . ." Ciel murmured to the corpse.
He didn't know how much time had passed. A few weeks, maybe two months? All he knew is that he had gone back a few days after Doll's death to collect her body and bring it to Undertaker so a coffin would be made.
A white-wood, stained coffin that was decorated with rose designs along the sides that shined when hit by the light. Upon the lid, several roses and thorns were carved into the wood, as if keeping the secret of who was truly laid to rest.
The young Earl made sure that Doll was buried in her performance outfit with a white rose laid upon her chest. He made sure that she was cleaned of any traces of blood, and that her injured eye was hidden by her hair.
When he had looked at her the day of the funeral, Lizzy by his side, Ciel could have sworn that his old friend was smiling.
Now though, as he lays yet another white rose upon Doll's gravestone, he wonders what would have happened if she had never shown up at the baron's house, if she had never died.
Where would she go? How long would she survive? Would he take her in like he took Snake in, make her one of his workers? Perhaps he would, if it meant keeping her alive. Maybe she would have become friends with Lizzy.
As Ciel Phantomhive turned and began to make his way out of the cemetery, he could have sworn he heard a chillingly familiar voice follow him out.
"Just smile, Smile!"
I only own this silly idea.