"You can only disgrace the dead so much."

-Ciel Phantomhive

3:45 AM.

A silent, still morning before the sun was even considering to rise. A car pulled into the underground parking lot, selecting a very specific spot marked out by a number. Footsteps, good leather soled shoes clacked over the tarmac surface to the elevator. A beep as a security card was swiped through a scanner. A hiss as the doors open, a low hum as they close and a moment before the elevator began to ascend.

Everything was as it always had been. Every morning for the last two years and almost six whole months, it had become a routine. The ride up the elevator to the sixth floor to the private sector of the closed care medical wing was always the same. A nurse named Joy would get on the elevator with him at the second floor, usually wheeling a trolley of assorted bottles of medication. She'd get off on the fourth floor. On the third floor they would be joined by two more nurses on their rounds, and they too would disembark alongside Joy. The following two floors would be a silent, lonely trip upwards til the doors would, once again, hiss open.

The moment he was out and into the corridor, something was different. It wasn't quite the disinfectant smell that coated the walls, nor was it the casual chatter at the nurses station. Something refused to sit right in his chest, and striding down the hallways til he reached the far end, the last ward on the left hand side with the window that looked out over the city of London, that feeling refused to settle.

The first thing he noticed was the overhead ceiling light was on. The next thing he noticed, was the heart monitor was switched off. The CPAP was unplugged and set aside. All documents and treatment sheets had been taken away. The privacy curtain was bunched up in a corner, pushed away hurriedly. He saw all of these things first. And then he saw the biggest difference.

The hospital bed was empty.

Clean, fresh sheets had already replaced the previous ones, the pillows plumped and not a single crease or indication of use was anywhere to be seen.

He stood there, numbly, staring at the space where his most precious charge and patient had once been in residence. He didn't even hear the nurse at the door.

"O-Oh...Doctor Michaelis..."

She was at his side, pushing a piece of paper into his hands. He didn't even realize he'd grasped it til she had turned and left. His gazed dropped to the paper.

A death certificate. Signed at one thirty this morning.

They hadn't even notified him.

-:-

The funeral was a huge affair. Family and close relatives, friends of the deceased. The mortician at the cemetery had given him a funny look as he'd approached the rest of the mob surrounding the casket in the glaring spring sunshine, but then again, he told himself the mortician probably looked at everyone funny. Kooky bastard.

The service was a morbid drag of two hours. Speeches given by the child's parents, tearful and pained. Several of the child's friends even stood at the head of the coffin to speak, speaking bravely through their tears in shaky tones. A woman he recognized from the London Metro Hospital with startling red hair even came up to speak – she had been the child's aunt. Of course.

Someone had nudged him, asked him if he knew the child.

He didn't know what to say.

By the time the final farewells came, he was just about ready to head back for his car. However he felt as though it would seem as if he were running, with his tail between his legs – especially if the child's parents were to see him. He suspected the child's mother had spotted him, but he couldn't tell for sure. He stood out in the crowd like a sore thumb – dark hair on near alabaster pale skin, too tall to stand comfortably amidst those of a more average height.

Eyes rimmed by darkness from so many sleepless nights since that dreadful morning.

He made his way up to the closed casket slowly, mindful of every step and keeping his eyes low. He looked over all the gifts and keepsakes that had been left to be buried with the departed – cards, flowers, photographs, even a few toys and school yard items – a signed baseball, a paper origami chatterbox. Gifts to see the child through to the afterlife.

What did he possibly have to give?

His hands closed over the pendant at his neck, the cold metal brisk against the warmth of his hand. Looping the silver chain up and over his head, he laid the chain and pendant on the casket alongside the other things, the brilliant blue and silver pentagram winking back up at him in the sunlight.

"I'm sorry."

Feeling the tightness welling up within his chest, he turned away.

-:-

There were dozens of messages piling up on his answering machine. Many of them from work. Some from clients. A lot of them were from the medical team he'd brought together a few months previously. All of them demanding to know if he was all right, if he was going to come back to work, what was going on...

There had been many knocks at his door, but every single one he had ignored. The door was locked and he'd even closed the mail slot. Now there were envelopes being slipped under the door, piling up and spreading over the floor.

God, it had only been two weeks. Why did everybody care so much?

He knew that soon enough, he was going to have to go out an get more food. The cats were beginning to run out of dry food and the milk had gone off the other day – they had enjoyed the extra treat but it had only lasted so long. His neighbour down the hall had been kind enough to leave him several home cooked meals in Tupperware outside his door but it had been hard to eat, let alone thank the old lady for her efforts. After a couple of untouched meals, they had stopped coming. At least she left him alone.

When he looked at himself in the mirror, he saw a face he no longer recognized. Between the stubbly growth on his jawline and the darkening bags under his eyes, he'd be the winner of any Halloween contest for sure. His shirts were starting to look a little baggy – one of them he'd taken to sleeping in had a couple of holes wearing through the hemline. Soon they would be too big to ignore.

He almost had the energy to consider fighting back when they finally came for him. They busted open the door and hauled him away – he only kicked up a fuss for the show, if he went quietly, they wouldn't tranquilize him. So imagine his relief, then, when he felt the sting of the needle at the base of his neck. Sleep finally claimed him, and he let himself go ever so willingly.

-:-

Consciousness had been a pain in the arse. He woke like an old television set – first came sound, then the picture. Blurry at first, his head spinning and his stomach doing back flips. The light was too bright, but closing his eyes to it had been of no use. The voices in his ears were persistent. Calling his name. Saying it over and over.

"Doctor Michaelis. We have a job for you."

The new facility was a strange, silent place. He didn't think it could get much quieter than it's deathly still halls, everyone speaking in hushed tones. The windows showed the outside world to be farmland, part of a plantation facility, and several large, long sheds with electric fenced yards. He shivered when he considered what could possibly be kept in those sheds.

The other doctors appeared one at a time, each as confused and disorientated as the last; he recognized many of them – all doctors he had had contact with in the Karnstein Children's Hospital before, some of them privately contracted to the closed care medical wing like him. A young woman with brown hair and gentle brown eyes had approached him – he had met her once before in a staff meeting. Paula, he seemed to recall. She had asked him if he knew what was happening, why were they all crowded into this...this space all together without any instruction or direction? The room was spacious, the walls lined with chairs and a coffee table in the middle piled with books. A waiting room.

Finally, once there was thirteen doctors all gathered together in this room, they were addressed. A man in white spoke to them of grand plans, a master plan and how they were all going to play their part. This was their lives now.

There was no going back.

They were lined up along one wall as more people came in – people brandishing what looked like a portable furnace and a branding iron. The man in white had called it persuasion, that no matter what they did, where they went, they were forever now marked and could always be found. The people had left quickly after they had come, leaving three first aid kits in their wake for the doctors to patch themselves up with.

Soon they were divided up into wards – each ward had it's own security card scanner and within each ward were four people – three of them were assigned as a medical team to each doctor, one doctor per ward, and the last occupant...

He had dropped all the paperwork he had been carrying. The searing pain on his left side almost became no more than a tingle for a fraction of a second. The last occupant lay in a hospital cot, hooked up to an oxygen machine and heart monitor, drip-fed by a catheter in his elbow. Around the child's neck, there was a silver and blue pentagram pendant.

Sebastian Michaelis said nothing as he crossed the tiles to the child's bedside. He dropped to his knees, clasping the unconscious child's slim hand in his own.

It was as if something in his chest began to beat once more.