Sebastian, intuitive as always, has withheld milk from her afternoon tea. Ciel is relieved, as merely the sight of milk has made her nauseous as of late. But Sebastian has noticed, which means Sebastian has seen her illness, which means Sebastian knows. He has that annoying way about him; knowing much and revealing little. She frowns at the offerings on the tea tray before her.
"What seems to vex you, my Lady?" Sebastian asks, all honey and arsenic, "Is the tea not to your liking?"
"There is nothing wrong with the tea, and you know why."
Even after many years, the habit of giving direct orders still fails her at times when she feels vulnerable, when she remembers her training in etiquette, instructed to never ask direct questions, never make direct demands, only to gently, subtly suggest a need and assume that decent company will interpret properly.
Sebastian is skilled at the art of suggestion, but he isn't decent.
"You are unhappy with something else, my Lady?"
"I don't like the door open, Sebastian," She says, looking suspiciously at the gaping expanse of the hallway beyond her office doorway.
"All the other servants have retired to their quarters and your husband, Sir Ellis, has departed for the city and shall not return before tomorrow. Anything said here shall remain private, regardless of the door."
"Sebastian, close the door. That is an order." Her voice lowers when she says this, an aggressive hint to her already terse demeanor. Sebastian smiles and complies dutifully, as he always does.
"You know why I am troubled, don't you?"
"There is always a cacophony of stresses to torment my Lady Phantomhive,"
She sighs in exasperation. He still calls her by her maiden name when they are alone, and she often wonders why. She has never asked him, nor has she ever ordered him to stop, so he will continue to do so without explanation.
"Nothing escapes you, Sebastian. You must know of my body's current condition."
He offers that smile which drips of concealed omniscience.
"Oh, is that it? Yes, of course I have known, though I did not think it polite to comment."
"How long have you known?"
"For quite some time. There is a change to your scent, and you have not recently bled."
Of course, the only sort of comment he makes unbidden is one aimed to make her uncomfortable. She flushes and closes the book of accounting that she's had open and unwritten in for the past half hour.
"You needn't make such vulgar comments. I only require assistance in this matter. What am I to do now?"
"I suppose that the first step should be to see your physician. Commission Miss Hopkins to tailor a maternity corset and some flattering gowns, decorate a nursery, and, all things progressing smoothly, give birth."
"I've no intention to give birth."
Sebastian's eyebrows raise, in a cursory staged expression that belies no real surprise.
"Does your husband know of this intention, or lack thereof?"
"No, and he never shall."
"Pity. He seems quite determined to make parents of you both."
It seems an innocuous enough comment, but Ciel knows how innocuous Sebastian's observations never are. That Sebastian is so keenly aware of what transpires in her bedchambers doesn't surprise her, but the admission unsettles her all the same. She can indulge and even, sometimes, when she tries not to think about it, enjoy her husband's enthusiasm for consummating their union. It isn't easy; there are always shadows looming overhead, no matter how she squeezes her eyes shut- shadows of hell, of death itself. Her own dark demons are always there, eyes aglow from behind an everpresent army of all her ugly truths, and Ellis' charming laughter and tender kisses have never chased them away.
"Make it stop, Sebastian. You can do that, can't you?"
"Such a procedure would be quite safe to undergo through conventional means, would it not?"
Conventional means, of course, would mean surgery. It would mean making excuses. It would mean paying handsome sums to ensure that no rumors should escape.
It would mean commissioning a doctor to perform the procedures which drove her late aunt mad. Though she knows those circumstances were rare and exacting, the fear still haunts her; the images soaked in red; carnage left from a woman undone by too many motherhoods rejected. What would beloved aunt Angelina think of her now?
"There is no one I can trust to keep this secret. If you have a way of fixing this, then do it."
Sebastian kneels.
"Yes, my Lady," he says, "Please undress."
She glares at him.
"Will that be necessary?"
"You needn't remove your most intimate undergarments, however the heavy material in your corset may interfere with the strength of my senses." He looks up at her, "I shall avert my eyes if you wish."
It's that small, passive, 'If you wish' that she recognizes, no longer with annoyance but with a tired, long-suffering disdain. Sebastian's small games have only become more obvious over time as she has become used to him, more aware of every little insidious thread that he ties to her, no matter how she makes the efforts to pull at his threads in turn.
Moreover, she sees the futility in it- in all of it- in her continued charade of existence in pursuit of a revenge that she (no doubt under a planted suggestion) has begun to fear will never come to fruition. She's growing older, and she realizes, as she indignantly unbuttons her blouse, that as of her next birthday, she will have spent more of her life with Sebastian than without him. More years hunting satisfaction for the loss of innocence in the time 'before' than she ever had living in that innocence.
She sheds her corset, and says "That will not be necessary, Sebastian."
She made him swear, many years ago when she was young and unknowingly naive, that there should be no secrets between them. And perhaps the power of her command still stays, perhaps it never has, but she doesn't care. Sebastian's delight in discomforting her won't be satisfied today. Without a beat of hesitation she removes her chemise and stands before him, shamelessly bare, as naked as the day she was reborn in the empty expanses of hell the day their contract was sealed. He hasn't seen her so exposed since then, when she was a child, full of hatred and desperation. Now she stands, daring him to make a disobediently sly comment, but he hides behind his unwavering mask and does not react. Perhaps he sees that her pride has changed, aged, just as have her body and mind. She is no longer a petulant girl- she is a woman; wiser, and above all, weary. She has lived ten years too long and it shows, if not in her very-apparently fertile body, then in her eyes as she removes the final scrap of cloth that hides the seal of her contract. She is pining for a death that even after years will still not come. She is tired. She has no intention of leaving orphans in her wake.
Sebastian removes his glove, revealing the etching of their contract and reaching out to touch her, where beneath her navel and above her sex there is only the slightest hint of swelling. She feels her flesh recoil against her will at the contact, her belly pulling back on a quick exhale, and she takes a deep breath to relax as Sebastian touches her again, his gaze fixed as though staring right through her, mapping out her insides.
"Sebastian-" She interrupts him just as his eyes begin to glow with that familiar, threatening shade of rose, "If it-" She hesitates, "Don't tell me, but, if it... if there is a soul there, you may not have it for your own. Mine is the only soul you may eat, while our contract still stands."
"Of course, my Lady."
She doesn't close her eyes as it happens. It doesn't even hurt, and it is only a moment before he lifts his head towards her, his face once again looking perfectly human, and announces that the deed is done.
The next morning, when she awakens, she bleeds. All alone in her bed, she still hides her face and sighs deeply, muttering words she hasn't spoken in earnest since childhood.
"Oh, thank God."