Spoiler Warning:

'Goodbye to a Butler and his Boy' is a oneshot relating to (but is after) my story 'The Butler and The Doctor' – set after the end of Kuroshitsuji 2 and after the Doctor Who episode 'The End of Time'. If you have not seen BOTH of these (or further) then you shouldn't read this because it contains SPOILERS for both series. If you have watched these, or do not care about spoilers, read on. If not, go no further.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

This one-shot won't make much sense if you haven't read my previous Doctor Who-Kuroshitsuji crossover story, so... go and read it if you haven't.

So, without further ado, here is the story:

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Goodbye to a Butler and His Boy

The Doctor was saying his goodbyes – meeting past friends, acquaintances and allies for the last time with his current face, telling them how he wished he could have spent more time as part of their brilliant lives.

He could feel the radiation he'd absorbed running through his blood, every cell slowly fading from life. The Doctor could sense his regeneration itching to begin, urging him to let it take over and renew him.

But he didn't want to die. He didn't want to regenerate and become someone new, losing everything about himself that he defined as the Doctor... besides the title and the TARDIS. They always remained, a constant thing through his life that would define his existence more effectively than his features or personality or companions because those things were so prone to change.

The Doctor flicked a switch in his TARDIS, dwelling on the fact that 'the Doctor' wouldn't be him for much longer. He turned a dial and the display showed the year 1900. There was someone there he had yet to say goodbye to - someone who had saved his life on multiple occasions and had helped to save the world too. The Doctor had never really thanked him for that.

The TARDIS landed gently. The Doctor wasn't in the mood for adrenaline – it would hasten his regeneration – and his trusty TARDIS seemed to understand that. Opening the door, the Doctor noted the familiar landscape and with a pang remembered the first time he was here. Running across the lawn with his wonderful Rose Tyler, he yelled that the TARDIS was open. It was a bitter-sweet memory. He walked up the steps with a pair of heavy hearts and knocked on the thickset wooden door.

It was opened by a butler with black hair and mahogany eyes, his eyebrows raised high in surprise.

"Good day, Sebastian." The Doctor said simply. "May I come in?"

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Sebastian stared, wide-eyed and disbelieving, at the Doctor. He looked the same. The same as the day he left them more than a decade ago. Sebastian might have almost believed that no time had passed between then and now, apart from the change in his eyes. The Doctor's gaze was deep and haunted, filled with an unmentionable sadness that made him seem extremely tired.

Sebastian breathed in, and was shocked yet again. The Doctor smelled of death. Not other's deaths, which had stained his soul so much previously, but his own. His body was dying rapidly, giving him a few days of life left, tops.

The butler stepped aside silently, allowing passage but unable to say a word to the man.
The Doctor smiled thinly as he stepped inside. "Thank you, Sebastian."

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The manor was cold and gloomy, even though it was a bright and warm summer day outside. The place was immaculate, from what the Doctor could see in the dim light, apart from the paintings. They were torn to shreds, as if someone (or something) had ripped them in a fit of rage.

The Doctor dismissed the thought, not out of irrelevance but out of apathy, and turned to the butler. "May I see Ciel?" He asked as politely as he could manage.
Sebastian nodded, and began to lead the way silently. The Doctor was almost surprised that the demon butler was not trying to antagonise him, but keeping himself from regeneration for so many days was taking its toll on his emotional capacity.

They soon stood outside Ciel's study, and the Doctor remembered with clarity the last time he was in there, pacing, full of life and energy, believing nothing could touch him. He had almost believed that he'd have his Rose forever, and he could walk on air as long as she loved him. And he remembered the Master, who was behind the Drashig plot of 1889, then the Year that Never Was, and then again... trying to bring about the end of time.

Sebastian knocked lightly on the door before swinging it open, breaking the Doctor out of his memories. The Doctor's eyes focused on a boy of no more than fourteen years who was leaning back in his worn leather chair, his legs crossed on the desk. His one visible eye was a red. The Doctor's hearts plummeted as he took it all in. He had been expecting a young man in his twenties, not this... child? No, he was no child. He wasn't even human. This would make what he wanted to say so much harder.

"I wanted to see you both again." The Doctor said, fighting the impulse to jump straight through the study window to escape the two demons. "I've come to say goodbye."
The demon-child wore a somewhat puzzled expression. "You said goodbye last time you left. Why would you come back just to say it again?" Ciel's eye searched the area behind him and Sebastian briefly. "I don't see Miss Rose Tyler. Where is she?"

There was a brief moment of silence as a chill radiated out from the Time Lord. The look on his face was a broken one, full of loss and pain and mourning.

"She's gone." The Doctor said softly, somehow conveying the agony he'd experienced in those two quiet syllables. "And the reason I came back was because I'm dying. I wanted to say my farewells while I can." The Doctor's expression grew empty again. "And I had to thank you both. You saved my life a long time ago, and I couldn't die without saying it to you."

Sebastian shrugged. He hadn't exactly had a choice when he took that bullet for the Doctor, so he couldn't exactly take credit for it. Ciel tilted his head upwards, as if he couldn't be bothered to nod properly, and smiled slightly, looking as imperious and regal as he could in the boyish body.

"I'll be going then." The Doctor said evenly. "I won't ever see you again. Not ever."
He turned and walked out of the room, pausing briefly in the doorframe.

"Goodbye, Ciel Phantomhive and Sebastian Michaelis. I'll see myself out."

And then he was gone, the sound of the TARDIS disappearing floated through the open study window shortly after.

Both demons, in their separate minds, thought that it was a waste for such a soul to go un-tasted. The idea that those so many years of flavours would be lost to death was almost a... sin. However, neither could summon the will to stop him.

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Back in his TARDIS, the Doctor sighed heavily. At least that was done. One of the most painful goodbyes was over. He hadn't expected Ciel to be... what he had become – looking no older, but much less child-like. Perhaps if he'd known Ciel's fate he would have avoided saying goodbye to him. He sighed again, changed some settings to his currently random flight path, and looked up at the TARDIS ceiling.

"Now, who else must I say goodbye to?" The Doctor said aloud, feeling his life running out by the second.

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END

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