I am hating influenza. But have this. I've mentioned in one of my fanfictions that somehow I couldn't make romance between Gray and Alice, so I've decided; I shall try. And when I finished this chapter, I can already see what will happen.

Leave me some reviews, please, nice beautiful awesome readers, will you? :) *kitty slash puppy eyes* *double cuteness*

And so it begins...

Yes, Milady
April 11th 2015
by Elise the Writing Desk, Characters by QuinRose

Gray was fifteen. Alice was twelve. Three years, and Alice couldn't believe how short she was, compared to her faithful servant. As far as she remembered, Gray was always so much taller, even when he was twelve. Sometimes she felt like she would never reach him—his eyes.

Alice puffed her cheeks, slightly sulking, but looked forward, where her mother's grave was. It's her birthday, but her mother was dead, so she didn't really understand what's the point.

"Mom is not alive," Alice said, mentally disliking her voice—when would her voice sound like her older sister's?—she crossed her arms. "But she still have birthdays?"

Gray gave a solemn smile and ruffled her head. Alice whined, since she didn't like that.

"Well, birthday is a day to celebrate the day when the one you love was born, right?"

"But you're born only once, not every year." Alice pointed out. "And she's not alive, she can't join her own celebration. Dad keeps telling me to do weird things." She sighed and accepted the bouquet of carnation from her butler, before setting it inside the vase on the grave.

She stared at the name for a while. "I mean, if he loves her to the point of asking me to do this every year, he can do it on his own just fine."

"He's busy, Milady."

"Don't give me that." Alice scoffed and pocketed her hands as they walked away from the grave, exiting the cemetery. "He's no god, have you not noticed how many people at his work worrying him, asking him to get some vacation? No, he's not, Gray. He will never stop working."

"He just lost someone he loved, Milady." Said Gray, offering a hand when they were going down the short staircase. Alice frowned at his gesture and stepped down without his help. Gray smiled again and followed her.

"Yes, he did, for the last five years. And now we're living in this hideout because he thinks the world outside is trying to kill me, when in reality, he just can't face his family. And yes, Gray, I am insensitive, I've had everyone telling me that." She slightly snapped when Gray was going to say something. She looked down with a pout. "Love is stupid."

They walked in the rocky path, and Gray wouldn't stop offering his hand whenever there was a puddle of mud. Alice would never take his hands. She might be just twelve years old, but mud puddles were fun, and she didn't need him to help all the time!

"Sherlock!" Alice exclaimed when she saw her Scottish-fold cat was climbing down a sycamore. The male cat rarely meowed, and it approached Alice, who bent down to take it into her arms. "Who's a good kitty?"

It took them two hours to finally return to their cottage. Some farmers greeted them, and she greeted back. Gray then bought something from the market, and Alice visited the flower shop to learn a bit more of floriography—language of flowers. They had been living in the country side after the death of the First Lady, and Alice had to learn as much as she could get in this almost isolated place. She was such a curious girl.

"I like blackrose!" Alice said when they finally was in the cottage. The place was too big for just the two of them. Alice often fell asleep in the armchair, reading. She observed the ingredients Gray bought. "Tonight we can have onion soup with fried seitan." Seitan was a meat-like wheat gluten. Alice had decided to become a vegetarian and it was quite tough, but seitan was quite the light house in her diet that only allowed her happiness from ice cream and cake.

"Why blackrose?" Gray asked, and when he was about to grab one of the potatoes, Alice snatched them from him with a scowl, and he pouted.

"Blackrose is a symbol of dark magic." She pointed out, and clapped her hands.

The potatoes were magically peeled. Gray flinched and was about to say something, but Alice had already flicking her fingers to get the pot fly onto the stove.

"Milady, you shouldn't—"

"—Which is, the reason why we're here, because I am a black rose! I am a dark witch!" she grinned to herself and left the stove so that the onion could chop itself into the boiling water. "And Gray, stay away from the kitchen, you know we had a deal."

Gray turned to her with a frown. "Milady, you're not supposed to use your power." He warned, and he knew it was useless. Alice showed how she wasn't listening by switching the TV channel. "Milady..." he called once again, and approached her chair.

There was darkness in her eyes that he couldn't say it. The soup was done and she flicked her finger to turn the stove off while teleporting the steaming soup into bowls on the dining table. This was the one Gray let her take care of; cooking. Since the point of them hiding was to reserve Alice's life, letting Gray cook would destroy everything.

Neither of them began to eat, Gray wouldn't eat if Alice didn't start. And the twelve years old was staring at the steam over her soup with lifeless eyes.

"Hey, Gray?" he straightened up again, prepared to hear her. "What's the point of my birth if I can't even live a normal life?"

"Milady, you can't say that—"

"This is so emo, but I really need to get it out, let's talk about this for a minute," Alice stood up with an angry look. "So fine, I was born this way, with magic—and okay, I am not the only one, but I am getting all this special treatment because apparently I am the Anti-Christ, and so even if Hogwarts exists, I won't be allowed to attend it—Heck, I won't even be getting a bloody letter from no owls because there's no way in hell, Professor Dumbledore will have the Anti-Christ running around his school, as if he's not busy enough with Voldemort."

Gray shut his mouth, knowing that she wasn't finished, she was just catching her breath.

"My dad won't see me. My sisters live away from me. I can't go to school. I don't have any real friends. I am a loser. I am forever alone, and I can't get out of that. This—this...this just—everything sucks!"

The windows crashed at her outburst, but that wasn't the first time this happened, so Gray sat still. Alice began to cry in her hands, practically wailing about how unfair it was. He sighed and gently stood up, taking a black plastic bag from the first-aid box and awkwardly set it on her laps.

"...And—And if I have to be an Anti-Christ, can't at least I was born a boy!?" Alice cried, ripping the pack of pad. "This is so frustrating. I hate period! Ugh...huhuhuh..." she cried and stood up, crying as she walked into the bathroom.

Gray let out a sigh. Well, he had to encounter this kind of thing at least once a month, so he tried to not take her too seriously. Alice was his whole life, his mission—to protect the witch, or fine, Anti-Christ. He knew that Alice was a strong, selfless girl, she was just getting emotional because of this adolescence process, that's all. Such little occasional outbursts wouldn't destroy his iron-determination.

Then his relief was thrown out of the window when the bathroom exploded as she yelled;

"THIS PAD HAS NO WINGS, DAMN IT GRAY"

~.X.~

Still sulking Alice was tucked into bed—though the way Gray pulled her blanket up her chin made her sulk even more. Gray frowned again, in that usual worry-wart way of his.

"Are you alright?"

Alice stared at him boredly and sighed.

"I am not a child, now." She turned in her bed, not wanting to look at him. It's not hormone, she was saying this sincerely. "I can take care of myself."

"You're just twelve."

"Don't be all smug just for the three years old advantage you demonic chef." Alice hissed at him. "You can't even boil water!"

Gray flinched at the painful truth and muttered an apology before excusing himself from her room and turning off the light. Alice gripped the edge of her bed tightly.

She didn't really understand why. Okay, so she's been alone. Her father wouldn't see her. People would kill her after knowing who she was. Her sisters living away from her, because she brought danger to anyone close. Now Gray, the only person who sticks with her—wouldn't trust her. She just felt so alone.

She wiped her tears. She wasn't the one who cried easily, but sometimes things were just too much. She couldn't imagine what kind of future would it be—she read the Bible, and she knew she would probably get killed. So why the wait? Why was she not allowed to kill herself?

'If you die, I will be sad.' She remembered Gray's words. It was a year ago, after they moved to this countryside. 'I want to protect you. I want to protect the most important daughter of Madam Ina.'

Sometimes it was infuriating to think how Gray wasn't even doing this for her, he was doing this for her mother.

She wiped her tears again. She mustn't let him see her cry.

"I'm fine." She said to herself, forcing a smile. "I'm fine..."

~.X.~

The last light was going out when the front door was suddenly opened. Gray's golden irises gleamed in the dark, having no difficulty to see the figure that intruded the cottage. He could recognize the person.

"Is there something wrong, Farmer Joe?" he asked, trying to keep his tone calm when the farmer turned on a flashlight.

The old man had a dagger in his hand.

"You are keeping the Anti-Christ...You know that she's a sign of Apocalypse." He said in a grim voice. "You should've opened your eyes, Ringmarc. You have the chance to save this world, don't let it go to waste."

Gray silently dragged the kitchen knife on the dining table.

"This has nothing to do with this foolish world." He muttered. "And protecting her is not a waste. She's the only reason why I keep living."

"Hmph," Farmer Joe grunted and stepped back, waving his hand outside the door. Soon, torches were lit, surrounding the cottage. "Then we'll just get you out of the way, son."

Gray didn't really like reasoning, so he beheaded Farmer Joe before he could move, and locked the door, just to buy time. He tried to ignore the crashing windows as he got into his lady's room and swept her into his arms.

"They figured it out, we need to leave, Milady." He said, and she didn't take long to be alert.

"Gray, hold on tight—"

"No, you can't use magic, they'll—"

"Rot in hell, servant of demons!" furious cries were heard from outside, and the roof was on fire—but what stopped Gray was the bullet that unexpectedly went through his head from the window of her room.

It felt like the world had slowed down on her. The bullet took time to burst out of Gray's head, creating a gruesome hole that could be seen vividly if only it wasn't so dark. The furious mass sounded like they were playing a broken song cassette over and over, slowly. And the shooter who was standing outside of her window took approximately five seconds.

He gritted his teeth, probably because he shot the wrong person. He reloaded his gun and aimed it to Alice.

Only that Alice had grabbed on Gray tight and they disappeared right before the burning roof fell.

~.X.~

Sherlock was waiting on top of the hill behind the burning and crowded cottage. Gray's body was floating behind Alice as they headed to the forest. The cat was leading the way, as if knowing what was about to happen.

The cat stopped before one of an old willow by the marsh. Alice glanced to slowly set Gray onto the ground, and went to examine the hollow in the tree. There, she found the music box.

When she opened it, the music Lavender's Blue started playing.

'...When you are King, dilly dilly, I shall be Queen.' Her mother sang.

'No, really, how is that possible?' Alice asked. She was five. 'I don't care if mum's heart say so.'

'It's called a dream, Alice. It's something you wish for. If you keep believing that it will come true, then it will.'

Alice scoffed at the memory. First of all, she gave up on having any dream come true, long ago. Secondly, what's there to dream of when your fate was decided in the Bible? She would ultimately die and be killed. She would somehow become the villain, even if she didn't ask for it.

"You can't die now, Gray." Alice said to the dead body as she conjured some symbols on the ground, and Sherlock sat in the middle of it.

Alice thought that, since she was going to die anyway, she didn't want to rush it. Besides, she tried. She tried to poison herself, shot herself, stab herself—all the crazy things that had made Gray freaking out like crazy. And yet, she didn't die. She's protected. Gray knew this, and there's no need for him to follow her around, protecting her, because she won't die until the destined time.

But he still wanted to protect her.

"And you better stick with your end of the bargain, stupid." Alice cut her wrist to drop blood on the symbols. She stared at Sherlock as Sherlock looked up at her with gleaming eyes.

Soon, the symbols were on fire, and it engulfed the cat, growing bigger and vanished, revealing a man with green eyes.

"Do you want to get straight into business or we can have some tea first?" the man offered with a charming smile, as if nothing sad or scary just happened, or as if diminishing the fact that he was a cat a second ago.

"Revive Gray." Alice answered.

"You know how expensive that costs, Alice." The demon said with a cat-like smirk. "And you know I can't take your life since you're an Anti-Christ, so as you can see, this business is not working."

Alice let out a sigh, glancing over her shoulder to see the dead body of her servant. Her annoying, illogical servant who couldn't just leave her alone for no reason. And yet, she didn't know why she was doing this business with the demon. She looked up at the tall man, almost taller than Gray.

But screw it all.

"Then the Apocalypse would have to be done in a year." Alice said, and her sentence nourished the demon's smile. "Now give my stupid butler his life back."

After all, Alice thought to herself, thirteen years already seemed too long to stay alive in this hellish life of hers.