Title: Lady

Synopsis: If it were up to Lotti, she would be long in her grave, having spent her life in pretty dresses dancing at balls with the man who she loved. Instead she lives by killing and stealing, and wishes she were dead. Glen/Lotti/Vincent.

Rating: T

A/N: I wanted to write something about Lotti; she doesn't get enough love. So, I wrote this. And it is creepy, and it makes me sad and my sister is learning to play 'Lacie' on the piano right now, which is sort of what inspired this.

Disclaimer: I don't own 'Pandora Hearts' because if I did, there would be a lot more panels of Elliot angstily playing the piano.

"And I have walked these streets so long, there ain't nothing right, there ain't nothing wrong."

-'Lady' by Regina Spektor

Had it been up to her, she would have remained in the past, hands unstained and standing at the side of her beloved Glen, enjoying life to the fullest and spending each day in perfect bliss.

Lotti had not known Lacie well. In fact, the few times that the two of them had met, she had outright forgotten about the girl. It was not until she heard from Jack about her master's secret love that she could even connect a name with the face. Before then, she had never cared. Before then, nobody had cared about that girl. That was why it hurt so badly; people remembered Lotti for her beauty, intelligence and charm, whereas none one remembered that girl. No one ever cared, except for Glen.

"What are you thinking about, my pet?" Vincent asks, putting an arm around her shoulder and pulling his head towards his chest. "What troubles cloud your mind." Why Vincent felt the need to spend his free time lazing about and bothering her, Lotti did not know. And yet, he did, and yet, she found no way to really repel his disgusting behavior.

"Nothing you need to know about," She says, pushing him away. "Let me be and go crawl back into the hole that you came from."

He nuzzles his face up to hers, his disgusting, cold nose rubbing against her cheek and she tries to pull away in disgust. "You know when you say things like that it hurts me here." He grabs her hand and slowly pulls it up to his chest, where his heart –if he has one- is. "Why is it that you feel so happy when you hurt me so, my dear?"

"Shut up," She says, pulling her hand away, and swatting him with her nails in the process. "And leave me alone!"

She remembers when Jack took in this boy and his obedient older brother. Those eyes frightened her then, and they frighten her now. When he was a child, those eyes had been cold and distant; those were the eyes that separated him from everyone else. Now he used those eyes to his advantage. A few stupid society women found them attractive, and he went with it. Those eyes brought him into the upper rings of society. What alienated him then brought him attention now. It was disgusting.

It was always strange to see someone grow up; she had known Lily as a baby and had seen that growth. From a screaming little ball of flesh, she had turned into something that could walk, and then someone who could talk and finally into the Lily that she knew. As children, she and Fang had played together countless times. They had grown up and she had watched. From a boy who liked to throw mud and pull her pigtails, Fang had become a man, able to stand up by himself and do what he must. Almost stranger than seeing Lily go, was see Fang become who he was. There was, however, a hole where Vincent was concerned.

The last time that she had seen him before the tragedy he was a little boy. His cruel eyes shining with a hatred of the world that Lotti had not seen at that age. She feared that her eyes now reflected his back during those happy times. But now Vincent was a suave young man, capable of seducing young woman and of lying and even killing without a thought. She was unable to see how this happened; she would have never guessed. That gap of years that she had missed seemed to be the most important. That cruel, little child smiled and hid himself behind his good looks.

"You know, Lotti, you grow more beautiful every day. It really is a shame that Glen never found you as attractive as that other woman-"

"You don't know anything about Glen!" She screams, pushing him off of her once and for all and knocks him onto the floor, landing on his back. She stands up and knocks the chair that she had been sitting on down to the ground, nearly hitting Vincent's face. She wishes that she hadn't missed. "You don't know anything about me, either! Just go die!" Her voice is louder now, and it seems to echo throughout the room its intensity multiplying with each reverberation.

Once she was not this crazy; once she had manners. Before the tragedy, she was a lady. Her daily activities were those of a lady's. She did, indeed, have a chain, but fighting was not part of her normal life. The fighting skills that she knew were 'just in case'. As she was taught them, none of the teachers she had ever thought that she would actually use them, let alone need them. And yet, she did. But she did not always need to know such skills. In the mornings she sipped tea with her mother and friends, laughing about the latest faux pas someone committed in their fashion. During her afternoons she would go for a walk around the estate with Glen, or Jack or whoever happened to be there at the time. Her evenings, however, were the best. She would dine upon the most luxurious food and dance at balls until her feet were sore and the morning sun came up in the sky. She would go to bed smiling and wake up the next day and live the dream again.

Now, she did not know half the time where she would spend the night. There were no parties or extravagant dinners anymore; instead there was blood and work and the faint hope in the back of her mind that Glen would return, but the stronger fear that all she did was for naught.

"I like a woman who-" Vincent begins, but his smile fades when a tear streams down Lotti's cheek. He did not ask for that; he did not want that. It wasn't that a woman's tears had any sort of negative effect on him at all; no, quite the opposite, most of the time, he rejoiced at making someone cry, making someone feel emotions because of him. Still, her tears were not what he wanted to see, for they were earnest, and there was nothing more horrible than an honest person with honest tears for real reasons. Tears from this girl were different from the sort of moaning that society girls had over their petty little problems with their beauxs. "Stop that now, there's no reason to do that." He says and he does not know why.

She wants to run, but there is nowhere to go. A few more tears fall silently, and the fact that no one will wipe them for her makes even more come.

Back then she had friends, she had a family, she had a life. Now, there was nothing for her sans a few other dislocated people of the past, this creep, the freak of nature that he was and the memories of what she left behind of what she could have had.

Seeing this boy on the ground, beneath her, is both sad and happy at the same time. Never had she attended a day of school, but she remembered master Glen's vocabulary. Melancholy, is what this emotion was called; melancholic was what she was feeling. She thinks that if she had done this deed, knocked this boy over, a hundred years ago, Jack would have come and murdered her. Good old Jack who would have sacrificed his life for those idiotic little boys and their idiotic little problems. Good old Jack who took everything away from her with one swipe of his sword. But Jack was dead; his soul shattered and unreachable except for those moments in that little Oz child. Now she could kill this little runt and all she'd have to do is answer to the Nightrays, who would probably even be secretly glad. There was no Jack to get in the way, anymore.

Still, she could not find it within herself to kill him. It would have been so easy, had she wanted to. There was a knife hidden in her bodice; all she had to do was grab it and stick into his throat and watch as the blood drained from his body. It would leave a red stain on the wooden floors; seeing that stain grow larger and the blood spread would have given her such satisfaction; it would be such rebellion against the things she hated. It would have been her own little revenge against Jack.

But there was so much blood on her hands already, and so much red clouded her vision each time she opened her eyes. She knew and he knew and wherever he was, Jack knew that she could not do it.

Despite everything she did and the decisions that she made, Lotti did have a conscious. The killing was worth it, and she knew that. Anything that she had to do to help master Glen was not something that she would regret. That had been her decision a hundred years ago, and she would stay true to that promise even now.

However, it was easier to kill with master Glen watching her over her shoulder, with that look of grim satisfaction on his face. Now each time that she took another person's life she had remember the terrifying realization that their soul would forever haunt her and when judgment day came, it would be her name on their lips during her moment of sentencing. Without Glen by her side, that fact was a little hard to take.

"It's raining," She says, holding her head up high. "I don't know what you're talking about, as usual, you moron." Her voice trembles, and she cannot ignore the wetness rolling down her cheeks, even though she tries. Still, she will not stand down and she will not let this beat her.

She has something that she needs to do, and until master Glen walks the earth once again, she will not stop. Her life has a meaning- a specialness- that no one else can understand. Even she has trouble comprehending it at times, but it is her special mission. "Of course it's raining, my pet. Of course." Vincent says, realizing that he likes to see her emotions just as much as his brother's; they never cease to be amusing. And those tears are now as amusing as anything he has ever seen.

"I'm leaving." She says, but she knows that there is really nowhere she can go. If she went for a walk, she would just have to return. If she took a train, a return ticket awaited her. There was nowhere she could run and nothing she could do. Until she took her last breath she would never leave this place. That was a choice she made a hundred years ago when she killed her first victim and gave her life, her soul, completely to a man who…

A man who did not love her.

She smiles at this horrid realization that she has known for years, and as soon as the fleeting grin is there, it is gone. "Have a nice trip." Vincent says, still on the ground, still smiling, his horrid eyes still glittering. "I hope to see you soon."

"You would say that." She says, leaving the room and letting the door shut behind her, that noise echoing behind her, leaving her legacy.

And she walks down the hallway.

And through the parlor.

And into the foyer.

And out the door.

And as she walks, she knows that she is who she is and what she is doing is her choice and that when she returns, it will only lead her to being one step closer to seeing master Glen once again.

And from the beginning, that was what she worked for. And until that happens, she'd keep on walking because without that hope; nothing would have been worth it.

Fin