Grell felt, that after his lunch with Ronald, he would be able to do this; he would be able to get through this punishment relatively unscathed. His telling Ronald that he would be alright reinforced his resolve that everything would, in fact, be alright. He promised Ronald that he would try to eat regularly, and get plenty of sleep, though it did little to calm him.

Grell went into the next week with a great amount of confidence, determined that he would get through the week far better off than he had the last one. However, after the first day, he soon realized that there was no way that it would be any better than the last week. He had received case after case from Will, and each of them felt like such a chore. Then, right as his shift was ending, a fire had broke out at a shirtwaist factory in the factory district, causing nearly 300 deaths; all the Grim Reapers had been called into work, then, trying to maintain the deaths that had already been assigned and all the additional ones.

All the days that followed were just as busy. Grell didn't have time to complete paperwork, so he had to do it at his apartment after work hours, thus resulting in him loosing sleep and becoming even more exhausted.

And eating regular meals failed badly too; he simply just didn't have time.

When Sunday finally rolled around, he stumbled into his apartment, collapsing on the ground and didn't wake up until he had to go into work on Monday.

Ronald kidnapped him again that Monday, dragging him off to lunch where he yelled at Grell, saying that he cared about him, that they were friends, and how could Grell just give up on himself. Grell had tried to tell him that he had-in fact-tried, and that he hadn't given up. However, Ronald just continued getting worked up, until he was on his feet and yelling at Grell. Frustrated, Grell had yelled right back at him, telling Ronald that he could take care of himself, and that Ronald needed to back off.

Ronald had left then, looking quite angry and frustrated. But also that betrayed look, much like the look William had had on his face when Grell had visited him in his office that one night.

Grell wasn't sure what was wrong with himself. He didn't know why he always did this to people, why he always hurt them. He truly didn't mean to, he really didn't. He hated that this was all caused by him killing a few people that needed to die; they weren't important, they wouldn't have done anything of import with their lives! Grell could truly care less about the punishment; he just hated that this was driving everyone he cared about away.

He didn't know what to do, and he felt himself just falling apart. He couldn't keep up this flamboyant and cheerful facade anymore, and he just couldn't...he just couldn't carry on as he had in the past. He was too tired. He was too weak.

Monday night, he cut his hair. He didn't cry, or even really feel anything, as the long red strips fell to the floor. He also packed away his red coat and his red shoes, trading both in for more functional black clothing. And then he laid down and went to bed.

When he went into work the next day, hardly anybody seemed to notice the drastic change in his clothing. And nobody noticed the drastic change in his personality. Even when he went in to report to Will, the man waved him off, after giving him a large stack of paperwork.

The rest of the week he felt numb. He worked as hard as he could, doing all he could to finish up his work on time, so he could go home, eat, then go to bed. He turned into a puppet; he felt like someone else was pulling the strings, and he was just going along with their commands.

When he entered his apartment the Sunday after his third week of punishment, he just stood there, wondering if this was it—if this was all his life was going to be

A/N I know this chapter is all narrative, and is rather short, but I needed to have some time pass, and I always feel like doing time-skips is lazy. XP So here you are: A little connector-chapter. I'll probably update this again tomorrow anyway. XD

Thank you for all the support! You all are completely awesome!

Please review!