A/N: A fic for Valentine's day! Ciel/Lizzy, obviously. I'm sure it's going to get lost among all the SebaCiel fanfics, but oh, well. People will see it... I hope. I'm posting this in honor of Valentine's day.
Title: Together Forever
Author: liketolaugh
Rating: K
Pairings: Ciel/Elizabeth
Genre: Romance
Warnings: None... except for maybe unpopular!pairing.
Summary: The boy's sparkling blue eyes lit up in a smile as he looked at her. "Hi, my name is Ciel, Ciel Phantomhive. What's yours?" She smiled at him shyly. "Elizabeth Midford. But call me Lizzy."
Disclaimer: Sadly, Black Butler is not mine.
The carriage rumbled down the road steadily. Beside Elizabeth, her father was staring straight ahead, looking unusually serious. Elizabeth looked up at him, puzzled. "Papa?"
Her father looked down at her, the slight frown leaving his face in favor of a smile. "Yes, Elizabeth?"
"Is something wrong?"
"No, Lizzy, nothing at all."
Lizzy wished she could tell when her father was lying.
Then the man suddenly jumped. "Oh, we're here!" he exclaimed.
Lizzy looked up and her eyes widened as she took in the huge manor looming over them. "Wow," she breathed.
They exited the carriage and she held her brother's hand as they walked up the path to the house. Her father knocked on the door and it was quickly opened by a man with grey hair and glasses, looking neat and orderly, Elizabeth couldn't help noticing. "Welcome, Lord and Lady Midford," he greeted them. "Please, do come in."
Her mother nodded sharply and was the first to step in, and before long the man had shown them into the sitting room. Elizabeth looked around, wide-eyed, and then noticed the family clustered in the center. A blonde-haired woman was fiddling with a cute blue-eyed boy's hair, looking flustered. Beside the boy, a man with black hair and hazel eyes was talking to him, and the boy was nodding along. They must be the Phantomhives, Lizzy concluded.
"Frances," the woman, who must be Lady Rachel Phantomhive, greeted suddenly, giving Ciel's hair a despondent look before straightening to greet them with a flustered smile. "Early as usual, I see."
"Of course," her mother replied.
Meanwhile, Lord Vincent Phantomhive had finished talking to Ciel and also straightened, significantly less flustered-looking than Rachel, and the boy had turned to look at the Midfords.
His wide blue eyes took only moments to meet hers and he darted toward her immediately. The boy's sparkling blue eyes lit up in a smile as he looked at her. "Hi, my name is Ciel, Ciel Phantomhive. What's yours?"
She smiled at him shyly. "Elizabeth Midford. But call me Lizzy."
"OK, Lizzy!" Ciel grinned. He held out his hand. "Come with me! I have a lot of things I could show you."
Without a second thought, Elizabeth released her brother's hand and took Ciel's instead. Unnoticed by either of them, Edward glared at Ciel angrily. Neither of them said another word as Ciel led Elizabeth out of the room, both of them running excitedly and ignoring the interested and annoyed (*cough*EDWARD*cough*) stares.
After a moment, Vincent found his voice again. "Well, that went unexpectedly well."
Alexis let out a slightly breathless laugh. "It did, didn't it!"
Edward crossed his arms and Frances shot him a scolding look.
Ciel and Elizabeth giggled and laughed together as they ducked down yet another secret passageway that Ciel showed her.
"What's your favorite color?" asked Elizabeth.
"Blue," Ciel replied instantly, grinning. "What's yours?"
"Pink!" Elizabeth said, smiling. "It's so bright and cheerful and cute!"
Ciel frowned and shrugged. "I suppose," he allowed. "What's your favorite animal?"
Elizabeth thought about it for a moment. Finally, she admitted in a whisper, as if divulging a secret wrongdoing, "I like mice. I think they're adorable, but no one else seems to agree."
Ciel grinned. "I thought all girls hated mice," he commented, then added, "I like dogs, though. They're really loyal and won't ever betray you."
Lizzy nodded earnestly in agreement. "Yeah... They won't, will they? Well... What about place?"
Ciel paused for a moment, and Lizzy stopped, too. "You won't tell anyone?" he asked anxiously.
Elizabeth smiled at him. "Not a soul," she promised.
He leaned forward to whisper in her ear, even though there was no one else around. "I like to go into a place in the gardens. It's a little grove with a really tall tree in the middle, and then I like to climb the highest tree. Especially if I don't want anyone to find me."
He leaned back again, a satisfied smile on his face, eyes sparkling with mischief as he added conspiratorially, "No one ever looks up."
She beamed at him happily. "Wow..." Then she remembered that she hadn't said hers yet. "I like the flower beds underneath trees," she confessed. "Especially when there are a lot of trees around it." It made it seem like there was no one else around, only her, and when it was only her, she never had to hide anything, because what could she hide from herself?
They grinned at each other, and at the same time, they started to run toward the gardens, occasionally bumping into each other playfully. It wasn't long before the pair reached the grove, Ciel leading the way.
"Where's your tree?" Lizzy asked Ciel.
Ciel pointed. "It's over there!" Then he smiled. "It's got lots of other trees around it and a flower bed at the base," he added, grinning.
She beamed at him. "We can be in our favorite places at the same time and still talk to each other!" she exclaimed, delighted.
Ciel nodded and they entered the grove. Lizzy was thrilled.
"It's so cute!" she exclaimed, looking around the small, enclosed space.
Ciel nodded, grinning. "It's my favorite place in the whole world!" he told her proudly. Then he pointed at a medium-sized flowerbed just at the base of his tree, dropping his voice slightly. "I take care of that all by myself, since I asked the gardener not to come here. He doesn't even know about it," he told her. "No one does."
Suddenly, he yelped as Lizzy hugged him tightly. "Thank you so much for showing it to me," she whispered in his ear. He regained control of himself and hugged her back, smiling. Her large, green eyes sparkled at him happily, making him smile even wider.
She eventually let go and Ciel looked up. "Normally, I climb all the way to the top," he commented absently. "But when you're here, we can still talk as long as I stay a little lower." He smiled at her. She smiled back.
He started to climb up the tree, stopping at a low-hanging branch that hung right above the flowerbed, where Lizzy had settled among the flowers. Lizzy looked up at the him, smiling, and then her eyes widened. She pointed. "A bird!" she exclaimed.
Ciel's eyes widened and he twisted around on the branch, easily keeping his balance, just in time to see the bird flutter up and into the cloudless sky. "Wow," he whispered. He looked down at Elizabeth again, eyes shining. "It's amazing, isn't it?" he commented dreamily. "Birds are so free. Nothing keeps them bound to the earth."
"Nothing at all," Elizabeth agreed. "No one expects them to do anything but to fly as far, and as fast, and as high as they want to."
"They don't have any responsibilities either," Ciel noted wistfully, half-hanging off his branch now.
"Our parents have lots of responsibilities," Lizzy agreed, gaze fixed on a particularly beautiful flower as it shook in the slight breeze. "But Mama does a lot of Papa's." She giggled.
"Your mama scares me," Ciel confessed. "She's a really strong woman."
His eyes, now fixed on the sky, didn't see Lizzy's sudden crestfallen expression.
"She is," Lizzy agreed. Then she gasped. "I hear someone!" she whispered urgently.
Ciel's eyes widened and he hurried to climb back down the tree. "The gardener is coming!" he exclaimed. "He still goes around here and he might here us and come in here!" He looked distressed at the thought of having his 'secret place' discovered. "And I can't tell where he's coming from!"
Lizzy grabbed his hand quickly and led Ciel away. Ciel looked slightly startled, but quickly decided to trust her to lead him away from the gardener. Her better hearing allowed her to locate the gardener's direction, and lead them the opposite way and back into the house without being caught.
"That was brilliant, Lizzy!" Ciel smiled at her. "I know he promised never to go in there, and I know he wasn't lying, but I think if he heard us, he might."
"I wish I knew when someone was lying," Lizzy said wistfully.
Ciel's eyes widened in surprise. "You don't know?" he exclaimed. She shook her head and he quickly led her into a room. "Then I'll teach you!"
In the sitting room, Frances checked the time and frowned. "We ought to be returning home soon," she stated firmly, leaving no room for argument. Edward nodded in firm agreement; his little sister had already spent way too much time with that boy who took her away from him!
"But Elizabeth and Ciel have not yet returned," commented Rachel.
The two women looked at each other for a moment, and then, in unison, they turned to their husbands. "Find them!"
Hastily, Vincent and Alexis got up and hurried out of the room.
"Where could they be?" Alexis asked Vincent.
"How should I know?" complained Vincent.
"It's your mansion!"
"She's your daughter!"
"He's your son!"
It took two hours of poking around the manor before, finally, Vincent opened the door of yet another random room that was never used.
"Ciel!" he exclaimed, relieved.
Ciel half-turned around, still listening to Lizzy speak, and gave him a puzzled look. "Daddy?"
"It's time for Elizabeth to go home now," Alexis explained.
Elizabeth's eyes widened and filled with tears. "No!" she wailed. "No, no, no!" Ciel twisted again to look at her with wide eyes. "No, no, NO!" He frowned; she was so upset...
Ciel pressed a finger to her lips, making her stop speaking abruptly, and then seized her hand, beginning to run toward a wall. Vincent jerked and lunged forward, but was too late to stop Ciel from pushing on one of the books on the shelf, opening a secret passage, and leading Lizzy through it at a run. He grimaced, knowing that Ciel knew the manor just as well as he did.
"No!" Alexis yelled. Both he and Vincent followed after them.
Before long, the passageway ended and they were following the two children down a regular hallway. Before long, however, Ciel led Lizzy into another room, leading her down another hidden passage, which again, soon ended. This time, Ciel spent quite a while leading them down one hall after another, never running into a room.
"Should we not be splitting up?" Alexis yelled to Vincent as they began to lose ground, barely managing to keep the two children in sight.
"Ciel is using the hidden passages!" Vincent yelled back. "You don't know the hidden passages!"
They lost sight of the couple as Ciel brought them both into a room. Vincent and Alexis charged in after them, and Alexis gaped, seeing no trace of them. "Where did they go?" he demanded.
Vincent ignored him, dashing over to a section of wall and pressing on it. Ciel would have had to lift Elizabeth up to reach it, or more accurately, to have her reach it. The passageway was revealed and the pair ran down it, but the damage was done, and Ciel and Elizabeth had pulled far ahead.
It was an hour later that Vincent finally had an idea and sent Alexis down a hidden shortcut, putting him in a position to cut the two children off in an upcoming, empty stretch of hall. Vincent and Alexis had finally managed to draw close to them, and when the pair came upon the sight of Alexis rounding the corner right in front of them, they squealed and turned. In unison, both fathers bent down and swept the two protesting children up, panting heavily.
An unexpectedly girlish squeak led Vincent to look down into wide, green eyes, peeking up at him from behind blonde locks.
Vincent chuckled sheepishly and looked up at Alexis, who was staring down at Ciel in shock, and who was in return giving him a slightly bemused look. Alexis slowly looked up at him, spotted his sheepish smile, and, at the same time, the two men began to laugh.
They were still laughing when they returned to the sitting room, each child returned to their father's arms, pouting.
"What took so long?" Frances and Rachel demanded in unison.
Abruptly, the two men stopped laughing to groan, and the two children stopped pouting, instead grinning at each other and giggling.
"Well, never mind that," Frances sighed irritably, looking up at the dark sky. "It's far past time for us to leave."
Both Ciel and Lizzy let out a slight whine at that. At the same time, they looked up at their fathers with pleading eyes. "She/I can come back soon, right?"
Vincent and Alexis glanced at each other, then at their children, the word 'no' on the tips of their tongues.
"Of course."
Both beamed at them and then at each other.
"See you soon, Ciel!" Lizzy beamed, unable to escape her father's grasp in order to hug him.
"Very soon," Ciel promised her, smiling. Alexis grimaced at the thought and began to carry Elizabeth out, Edward still glaring daggers at Ciel, who remained oblivious. "Bye, Lizzy!" he called.
"Bye, Ciel!" she replied.
And they waved at each other until Lizzy was long out of sight, long after the sun was gone.
That turned out pretty well, I think. I learned that the word 'Wow' dates back to 1513, so I am allowed to use it. There may be a few slight inconsistencies with canon, but since when have I conformed fully to canon anyway? And since I wrote it in a bunch of different places at a bunch of different times - today, for example, I forgot my notebook at home - I had to piece it together like a jigsaw puzzle. -.- Please let me know if it shows, so that I won't do it again. And also let me know if you think I made them too close too quickly. On the other hand, I finally gotten manga volumes 4 and 10-12! Yay! Please review!
Also, ohmygod. I write mostly fluff and cuteness. WHAT AM I DOING IN THIS FANDOM?! O.o
And finally, I'm going to do some shameless self-advertising, because I stupidly updated the story at five in the morning. I added an extra chapter to 'Love and Devotion', making it a twoshot. M'kay?