One day William came home from work to find his entire house littered with what he was fairly certain was some sort of lace. All of it was in a similar state of tangled disrepair.

"I finally did it, Auntie Grell!" Came his son's voice from inside the living room. William cautiously walked in on the two, to find each of the room's inhabitants making something that looked similar to a lace doily. William wasn't an expert on such things. Claude caught his father's eye.

"Daddy! Look what Auntie Grell taught me how to do!" He held up a handkerchief-sized doily-thing that looked very similar to a spider's web. "It's for you." Claude said proudly.

William took it and smiled down at his son.

"It is wonderful, Claude." he said, putting it up on the mantel before the boy happily skipped out of the room.

"Want to put mine up there too, dearest?" Grell teased, holding up a larger piece that looked more like a flower. William rolled his eyes.

"Only you could trash my house teaching someone to knit."

"It's not knitting! It's latch-hook!"

"Any other projects you want to share with me?"

"I might have signed Claude up for tap dancing lessons..."

William just blinked.

"Beg pardon?"

"Tap dancing." Grell repeated.

"I see... Did he acquiesce to this?"

"He seemed rather excited, actually."

"Well alright then." William said.

Grell nearly fell over in shock. "You are not going to kill me? At least threaten me with bodily harm?"

"Not today, Sutcliff. As long as Claude is happy. But if you trash my house again, you will no longer be babysitting."

"Oh please. You know you love me."

...

"She's tiny." Claude said bluntly.

"You were that small too, when you were born." William told his son.

"Nuh-uh!"

"You were." Grell agreed. "You were so tiny I could hold you in one hand! (If William had let me...)"

"She is beautiful Alan." William said to the reaper whom was holding the little girl.

"Thank you, William." Alan smiled, looking down at the bundle he held in his arms. "Eric is so protective of her already I don't think she will ever get a boyfriend."

"She won't need a boyfriend until she is at least a hundred and fifty, anyway." Eric protested.

Alan just rolled his eyes.

"What is her name?" Grell asked, looking over the girl with interest. It was lost on no one that the first female reaper to be born in two decades was born by the first reaper to contract the Thorns of Death in nearly a century. It seemed Alan Humphries-Slingsby was full to the brim with genetic anomalies.

"Eliana." Alan said softly. "Eliana Slingsby."

"So..." Claude said. "You had a baby 'cause you love each other?"

Alan and Eric gave one another a look, while William tried to hide by taking a sip of his coffee. He did not really want to have a birds and bees conversation today.

"Yes. We did." Eric said simply. Claude frowned in thought and turned to his father.

"Then why haven't you and Auntie Grell had a baby?"

William had been prepared for anything. Questions about where babies came from, how it worked, whom his father was...

But not that.

He choked on his coffee and did not stop coughing for two minutes. Eric was on the ground, crying through his laughter and being admonished by Alan. Grell just looked shocked.

"What?" William asked when he could finally speak again.

"Well... You love each other, don't you?" Claude asked, looking more shy now that he saw everyone's reaction to his innocent question. "Auntie Grell always says that he loves you... And I know you love him..."

William's mouth was open, and didn't answer for a moment. Eventually he straightened, coughed and said,

"Not like that, Claude."

"Oh..." the boy said sadly. "I wanted a brother..."

Grell gave William a roguish grin. He was quite proficient in inviting others to bed without saying a word.

William just gave him an exasperated glare in return.

"We will talk about it later, alright Claude?"

"Fine," the young boy sighed.

Eric had yet to stop laughing.

...

"They had a child?" Ciel asked. "I remember them. That Eric fellow, he was the one responsible for the mass murders. And that Alan man... He died saving me."

"Yes." William sighed, pushing up his glasses. "It was a sad day for the dispatch. Their poor girl. She is no longer a child of course, but yet not quite an adult either. Just a few decades younger than Claude."

"I've never seen her." Sebastian noted.

"Of course you haven't. She is studying to be a record keeper at the Cinematic Library. Eric practically forbade her from field work, afraid that she would contract the Thorns too. It was quite lucky that dispatch work never appealed to her in the first place."

"So she was left alone?" Ciel asked, bringing the topic back around.

"Felling sympathetic for us reapers, little demon?" WIlliam asked. He didn't give Ciel time to do anything more than flush in indignation before answering his question. "She went to live with her uncle, Eric's brother, for a while. I believe she has now moved in with her boyfriend Ronald."

"That irritating Knox fellow?" Sebastian asked. "How improper for a young lady to live with her suitor."

"Knox? Who is Knox?" Ciel asked.

...

William and Grell ceased their conversation immediately as Claude ran into the room sobbing, diving into his father's arms.

"Claude! What is it?" William asked frantically.

"R-Ron-Ronald k-killed my friend!" The boy sobbed. William gave Grell a confused look at Grell, who shrugged.

Ronald Knox was a young boy born two years after Claude, though their slowed growth kept them in the same age group. He lived not far away, and it had only taken one chance encounter between the boys for them to become friends. This was the third time or so that they had a play-date together.

"Your friend?" William asked, just as Ronald himself came into the room. Tears were streaking down his young face too, and he was cradling a dead spider somewhat reverently in both of his small hands.

"I-I'm sorry..." Ronald whispered. "I thought it was just a bug... I didn't know it was your pet..."

"Circe wasn't my pet! She was my friend!" Claude yelled before crying harder. "And you killed her, you killed her..."

He buried his face in his father's shoulder and continued to sob.

"Grell, why don't you take Ronald home?" William suggested, before speaking to the boy in question. "It's alright, Ronald. You didn't know. You can talk to Claude once he has calmed down a bit, yes?"

The silently crying boy nodded and placed the spider down before allowing Grell to escort him away.

"Come on, Claude." William said once they were alone. "Lets go bury your friend, then shall we?"

Claude did not stop sniffling as he and his father went to the backyard and began to dig a small hole for the arachnid. William was finishing the makeshift grave when he heard Claude thanking someone behind him. He whipped around to see the Undertaker handing his son a matchbox-sized coffin and a decorative rock that could act as a headstone.

"How did you even know-!" William began, unnerved by how the Undertaker seemed to know almost everything that happened in their life as soon as it happened.

"Doesn't matter." The Undertaker cut him off. "I believe we are here for the most important day of this spider's life."

William refrained from yelling and allowed his son to peacefully bury his pet. By the time they were finished covering the spider with earth, the creepy shinigami had vanished.

Silent tears continued to stream down Claude's face, and William gently picked up his son.

"Come. I need to show you something."

"This is the Grim Reaper Library." William told his son. "This is where all of the Cinematic Records are kept that we gather from the dying."

"It's big." Claude sniffed through his tears, looking up at the shining silver building. "Why are we here, d-daddy?"

"I'll show you."

He carried his son inside, to the section of the library that was set aside just for children. No real records were kept here, but it was used to teach the young reapers about death, particularly when they come across it for the first time.

The books kept here were ordinary notebooks, each filled with children's records of the deaths that they came across. Not only would it prepare them for later life, but sought to teach their children to be accepting of death. William had made his very first record here when his childhood pet cat had died.

On the table was the most recent of the notebooks, only a little more than halfway filled, and opened to the nearest blank page.

William sat himself and Claude before it and picked up a pen.

"Help me write her record." William prodded his son. "First tell me her name, then some of the things she did while she was alive."

Claude looked surprised at first, but nodded.

"Her name was Circe Spears. She was a really nice spider, and kept my room free of bugs. She made pretty webs, and would sometimes tell me stories and sing strange songs to help me get to sleep."

William dutifully wrote down everything his son said, hoping to heaven and hell that it was his son's imagination that the spider could speak.

But now was not the time to worry about that. Today, his son needed him.

"There." William said when he was finished writing. "Now Circe can be remembered forever, and her soul can go on to the next plain of existence."

Claude gave his father a watery smile and hugged him tightly.

"Thank you daddy."

"You are welcome son."

They sat there for a long time in silence, just taking comfort in one another's arms.

"How do you do it?" Claude asked after a moment.

"Do what?"

"Reap. I get sad when my spider dies. How do you not get sad when people die?"

"Humans are not made like us. They die much more quickly than we do. It is just how they are."

"But how do you not get sad?" Claude pressed.

"We have to turn ourselves off to it. Everything dies, and our job is just a job. Do you remember Mister Alan?"

Claude nodded.

"He's sick because he became too attached, too sympathetic. He felt bad for the humans so much, that he became ill with a disease known as the Thorns of Death. That is what happens to us if we do not separate our jobs from our feelings."

Claude's eyes widened. He didn't want to scare his son, but nor did he want his baby boy to die just because of his large heart.

"We must turn hesitation into resolve," William explained, "Our passion into composure, and human life into records. That is the mark of a true reaper."

...

"I have heard that before." Sebastian cut in, causing William to raise an eyebrow at him. "I mean to say, Claude used to repeat it often, with several variations of the words. The last thing he ever said was something very similar."

"It does not surprise me." William said, steadfastly ignoring the mention of his son's last words. He did not want to hear them coming from the demon's mouth. "Claude turned it into a mantra of sorts. His compassion never lessened, not even when he started his training. I was worried that it would cause him to fail his exams, or worse. But he never gave in, and merely repeated my own words over and over to harden his resolve."