"I think I shall always love you," Elizabeth smiled. "I will love you when it rains, I will love you through all weather, tempestuous or cold."

"Come Lizzy," Ciel feigned exasperation even as his eyes were soft with rare and tender emotion. "She can hardly you hear you now, being a week old."

"Yes," his wife agreed, gently adjusting the soft cashmere tucked under their daughter's chin, "but I can't help it, Ciel. I love her so much my heart might burst."

"Impossible." His voice was fond. "You have enough love to fill the cosmos."

"And she has stolen her way into the very centre of my universe." Her voice was sweet and dreamy, like lilacs drifting through soft lake water. "Nine months and she's finally here," the child continued sleeping, oblivious to her mother's words and the gaze of her father. "Don't you think she's grown? She moves and sighs and her cheeks are so rosy—oh I do believe she's capable of recognizing faces now. Just yesterday she smiled so prettily when Finny entered the room. I do believe our little Léa has formed her first attachment!"

Ciel grimaced. "I suppose there are worse characters for her to choose from." His fingers card through his wife's golden curls. They've been left loose and unbound since Léa's birth and Ciel is strangely addicted to the way they feel between his fingers—like warm silk the color of spring gold. "Don't you think we've observed enough for one afternoon? At this rate she'll be getting engaged at fifteen to escape our overbearing eyes."

Elizabeth's hand gently traced over Léa's soft pink mouth, over her plump soft cheeks, and finally to the shell pink of her little fingernails. "I can't help it." She sighed dreamily. "I've succumbed to maternal love," Elizabeth gave a dramatic swoon, carefully collapsing beside their sleeping daughter. The vanilla silk of her dressing gown looked more like an angel's robes as she rolled onto her side, lying as the great Cleopatra did, head propped against one hand as the other fussed over Léa's nightgown.

She glanced up, a mischievous glint in her eye. "My lord," she gestured, "if you would?"

Ciel gave her a dubious look. "It's 4 in the afternoon Elizabeth."

"You don't have to sleep—just lie down awhile."

"I have meetings—"

"You can spare fifteen minutes, Ciel."

"Says who?" He arched a brow.

"I don't know. Venus? Juno? Father Time himself?" Outside the June sky was a perfect pale blue, not a cloud in sight. The early summer breeze was soft and carried with it the scent of daisies and nursery tea. White chiffon curtains fluttered like dancing nymphs against the half-open window and before him, Elizabeth smiled again. "Please Ciel? Won't you lay down for just a few moments?"

He contemplated, seriously debating the merits of giving into his wife's demands or turning his heel and doing what he should have done twenty minutes ago. With a long-suffering sigh, the earl relented to his countess' demands and moved to lie beside their fragile, sweet daughter with her pale gold hair and rose-milk skin.

"She's so small," Ciel murmured involuntarily, Léa between him and Lizzy.

"It's strange to think we were once this way too."

Ciel remained quiet, unable to articulate the words choking his throat.

Even after all this time, even after so much death, Elizabeth has remained as strong and gentle as she was aboard the Campania. She has grown in the way of cultured elegance, has softened her voice and evolved in maturity and decision. Yet underneath the title she long claimed as her own there is a girl who once chased purple butterflies beneath the summer sun.

"I hope she's happy." Elizabeth continued, voice breathy and earnest. "I hope she'll always have a reason to smile." He meets her eyes, that vivid emerald green. "I know I always have."

Elizabeth has always worn her heart on her sleeve, has always made it so easy to read her every mood and thought. It almost tears Ciel in two when he realizes that Lizzy's love for him has not diminished over the years. He will die soon (he knows this, expects this, is comforted by this) but that strange, screeching voice deep inside him—the one that clings onto his humanity with bare, bloodied hands—greedily latches onto Lizzy's words, jealously holding them hostage because she loves him.

She still loves him.

Here, in this enclave of pearl silk and white sunshine, with his wife and daughter and distant hope stretching before him, Ciel gifts the best part of his soul to a girl whose lips are flower kisses and a daughter who is his final benediction.

Notes:

- Title comes from the Aretha Franklin song of the same name.

- Venus: Roman counterpart to Aphrodite, Greek goddess of love.

- Juno: Roman counterpart to Hera, Greek goddess of women, marriage, family, and childbirth.

A/N: I've gone insane from the lack of Lizzy in the manga. Yana please. I'm slowly going nuts.