Just another woman.
The words echo furiously loud in Grell's mind once she returns from the Dispatch, death scythe confiscated and clothing covered in blood. She isn't sure if the blood is her own, Sebastian's or Angelina's, but she doesn't make any attempt to wash it off. Instead, she shuts the door quietly behind her, wincing as the lock clicks, and then slides down against the door, body trembling. The scent of Angelina's perfume still lingers, and she can smell it even over the stench of the blood and sweat on her clothes. Suddenly, the coat feels too small, and Grell struggles out of it, gasping. She lifts the coat to her nose, breathing in the scent of the perfume and feels lost.
It's a cold night when Grell comes across Angelina in a dark London alleyway. It's a moment that she hasn't forgotten, and like most moments in her life, there's blood spilt on the ground and splattered on clothing. She hangs off the steeple of a church, and calls out to her. Angelina's face is twisted in anger, an emotion she's come to know as a side effect of grief, and she drops her knife when she hears Grell's voice. It's a strange way to form companionship, alone at the scene of a murder, but theirs is a strange relationship and neither can imagine it starting any differently.
Grell has trouble imagining it ending much differently than it did either. Whether she'd killed her or not, it would have ended with Angelina dead and her alive. Such was the fate of any relationship between a mortal being and an immortal one. But they'd seemed so perfect when they were together. Two redheads with blood on their hands, grief-stricken women unable to have children, disenchanted with the world.
Now though, slumped against her door in the entrance of her house, clutching Angelina's coat to her chest while choking back sobs, Grell feels the distinct bitterness of being lonely that had been temporarily stalled by their relationship and wonders if she should regret it. She doesn't necessarily regret killing Angelina, because if she hadn't Sebastian would have, and Grell doesn't feel as if that offers Angelina the dignity she deserved. It gives their relationship a sort of symmetry, meeting through murder and ending with murder. She's old, older than any human, and she's lost a great many human lovers throughout the years and reaped all of them, but she's never felt this empty after their deaths before.
She staggers into the kitchen, slouching over the counter with a bottle of overpriced wine and smirks to herself, almost laughing at how pitiful she's being right now. Grell's always been outspoken and loud, flirtatious, her obnoxious nature making sure others notice her, validate that she exists. But Angelina had been different, they'd been so similar, they knew each other's pain.
Angelina was a noblewoman, in the public eye, always at parties. It would be shameful if they knew about Grell. Two women as lovers was a scandalous notion, yet another example of the two playing with fire. She was flirtatious too, always fluttering her eyelashes at men and making bold statements. This ignited a jealously in the equally flirtatious Grell that would gradually bubble over until the nights when the two would drink in Angelina's quarters, inhibitions loosened with each sip until their hands and mouths frantically began to claim the other's body. Angelina needed the alcohol whenever they touched each other in such a manner, ashamed of her desires for women. Grell suspected that was why she asked her to masquerade as her butler instead of a ladies maid, as it made things easier for her, but she didn't ask. She'd had enough struggles with her own identity to understand.
There was a lot left unspoken between the two. Each with their own words and thoughts that they never told each other, both suspecting the other knew. It's not all sad though, in fact, despite both being filled with a sort of sadness that never truly left, they were happy together. Grell remembers lazy morning smiles and soft caresses, she remembers nights up late, talking and joking - laughing. It all seems rather far away now, and it feels like an eternity since Angelina's blood splattered over her, chest torn open by her own lover. It'd been easy to not think about in the moment, to throw on a grin and flirt with Sebastian. Fighting and killing were what Grell was good at, something she was the best at. In the silence of her kitchen, alone with her thoughts, Angelina's death feels a lot harder to come to terms with.
She'll get over it, she always does. It's a cruel awakening though. Grell has never understood the unwillingness of humans to kill their own kind. She supposes that it stems from the fact that their mortality is so fragile, so fleeting. They only exist for a short time and they feel an inescapable need to make it matter. She supposes they feel cruel snatching this away from others. Living forever as an embodiment of death gives you a different relationship with it. Death becomes more symbolic than frightening, a finale to close the curtains on your last act.
It had been a sunny day, when they first kissed. Surprisingly picturesque, for such a tragic pair, and they were both slightly hazy from the sun, relaxing in the gardens of Angelina's mansion. Grell remembers the fluttering in her stomach and the way they kissed with no true urgency, happy to just exist in the other's company. It's a memory Grell remembers fondly, although she forces a bitter laugh at it now, which just depresses her even further because it ends up as a sob. After they kissed Angelina had smiled at her so prettily that she felt a little stunned.
Funny, Grell thinks, that she was taken aback by a smile but not by death. She takes another gulp of wine and curses when some of it spills on the counter. She wipes it up half-heartedly and hiccups, pretending to herself that it's from the wine and not from crying.
She's done this before, cried over lovers and friends, thought about how humans are so fleeting and inevitably painful. So yes, Angelina may just be another woman, another lover, but that doesn't make her any less missed. She's moments in Grell's life, she's kisses and laughter and nights spent hugging each other and crying.
She's gone.