Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Chapter Twenty-Eight..."The most important thing is this: to sacrifice what you are now for what you can become tomorrow."―Shannon L. Alder

By the time that he approached his mate and master, Sebastian knew that Harry was gone. He was still gripping onto the platform, still protecting the child he had taken in with everything he had. Even in death, the once-wizard was beautiful. The most beautiful thing he had ever seen, ever would see. Bloodloss had robbed Harry of any color and left his skin pasty and pale. He looked as if he had gone through hell in the last few days. The butler acknowledged the fault for that lay entirely on his shoulders.

He had been foolish. He had been too focused on himself and his own feelings and this was the price of that avarice. This was the consequence of his pride, his sin.

The Sticking Charms failed when he pulled Harry's body and the little lord back onto solid ground. For a long time, Sebastian acknowledged nothing, said nothing. He could only stare down at the corpse of the wondrous, adoring creature that he had loved. Still loved. A black nailed hand touched the torn and blood soaked stomach as if in hope that he would feel some movement there, even the tiniest kick to somehow make the situation easier. There was nothing. None of the flutterings that he had spoken in loving whispers to only a week ago while his mate had watched, emerald eyes shining. Now those eyes were forever closed, eternally shut off from him.

He should have never left.

This was all his fault.

Harry should have never been alone. He should have never come to the fight. Ciel and the demon should have come to the bridge on their own. So many 'should have's resounded within his brain that it was impossible to separate himself from them. Sebastian was shocked to see that his hand wasn't shaking as it moved to cup the lifeless cheek. It seemed as though it should have been. Perhaps this was what shock felt like. He felt detached from everything, isolated, as if none of it was real. That it was all just a terrible, horrifying dream that he would wake from soon. He would turn over in bed to find Harry at his side, as it should be. He would hum a good morning to their child against the firm roundness of his belly and they would make love before waking Ciel for the day. Now they would be going back to the manor lonely.

"Sebastian...?" Ciel's voice was shaking, shivering with cold and horror in the night air.

The butler wasn't sure why it surprised him to see the boy's face wet with tears but somehow, the sight cut him deeply. This child, this arrogant, broken little human...Harry had loved him so much that he had given up his life for him. He had known when he had dove in to save Ciel that the chances of him not making it to see the boy walk away were high. His mate had seen to the boy's life after his own was over. Harry had not only made sure that Ciel would live on but that the butler would be around to continue protecting the Earl. Now the boy's revenge was achieved. Now Ash was dead...but so was Harry. So was their baby. Sebastian wanted to blame his young lord. He wanted to lay it all on the child's shoulders.

If Harry hadn't saved him.

If he hadn't demanded to come to Paris to see to Ciel's safety himself.

If he hadn't loved about the brat so much.

But he couldn't. Harry was an adult, his little master wasn't. The demon couldn't put the responsibility on the boy's shoulder's when even he couldn't get Harry to relent once he was stuck on an idea. All he could do now was see to his mate's wishes. He would care for the Phantomhive, turn him and see to his needs just as the wizard wanted. It was the least he could do. After all, Harry's blood was on his hands. Sebastian sighed, the grief weighing him down in ways that nothing in centuries had managed to.

"Come, young master."

Sebastian picked up the body of his mate and they slipped away into the night.

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~"I DON'T CARE!" Harry yelled at them, snatching up a lunascope and throwing it into the fireplace. "I'VE HAD ENOUGH, I'VE SEEN ENOUGH, I WANT OUT, I WANT IT TO END, I DON'T CARE ANYMORE!"
"You do care," said Dumbledore. He had not flinched or made a single move to stop Harry demolishing his office. His expression was calm, almost detached. "You care so much you feel as though you will bleed to death with the pain of it."J.K. Rowling,Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

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He had been playing on this jungle gym for to hours now if the time on his tiny, cracked watch was anything to go by. His bent green army men marched a stringent vigil across the highest post of the make-believe castle, watching for the coming enemy, i.e. anything looking even remotely Dursley-ish. They were across the street, his relatives, at some sort of posh wedding celebration. He hadn't been allowed to attend, much to the jealousy of his fat cousin who had spent the entire morning having his considerable girth squeezed into what Uncle Vernon called a 'monkey suit'. Harry didn't think they looked like monkey suits at all, really. They looked more like penguins to him but, at the age of seven, his Aunt was a firm believer in his supposed stupidity, so who was he to say? One of his army men took a tumble off of the side of the jungle gym and Harry let out a soft gasp of alarm, watching the toy fall to its imagined pretend doom. At least until a white gloved hand caught the tiny figure, practically plucking the thing from the air.

"Ahh, it seems you've lost a foot soldier, little one." Came a low, cultured voice from below.

The child peeked over the edge inconspicuously and was vaguely surprised but what he saw there. A man stood at the bottom of the play structure, leaning against one of the brightly colored support posts there and looking at his escaped toy with amusement. He was a dark man with rusty colored eyes and black hair that Uncle Vernon would have called 'poncy and undignified', the sort of hair he said that 'benders' always wore, whatever that meant. The stranger wore a well fitting suit that put the tuxedos that his Uncle and cousin were wearing to shame.

"I'm sorry, sir. I didn't mean to drop him on you."

Th man handed the toy up to him with a polite smile, his fingers lingering on Harry's own when the boy accepted the figurine gratefully.

"I am here to save the day, it would seem. Are you here all alone, child?" Harry pulled himself to the edge of the raised walkway, swinging his legs over the side so he could get a better view of the interesting stranger that had deigned to talk to him, the freak, of all people.

"No, sir. My relatives are at the wedding across the street. Are you from there too?"

"Ah, no. Not today."

Harry hummed in thought, his emerald eyes gazing soulfully down at the man in thought. There was something strange about him that the seven year old simply couldn't put his finger on. Something contrary. If he were to put this man beside his relatives, he knew that he would be able to distinguish no telling difference between them besides their outward appearance but there was just this strangeness to the gentleman that he could pinpoint.

"Are you a businessman then? My Uncles wears suits to do business even though he hates them. Do you do business too?" After all, businesses and weddings were the only thing that his childlike mind could comprehend ever needing such fancy clothing for. He had no comprehension of anything more than the grumblings of his Uncle and Aunt at his age.

"I do many things actually. Most recently I was a body guard. My work there has been concluded now though so currently, I suppose you could say that I am a chef of sorts. I am in the business of meal preparation." The stranger explained, his smile turning dark and humorous at the explanation though Harry couldn't imagine why making food would be funny. He chalked it up to just one more adult oddity and moved on, his hungry stomach cringing at the thought of food and how delicious anything made by someone so classy had to be. For a moment, the boy imagined the man in the middle of a restaurant like the one his relatives had been forced to take him along to when Uncle Vernon had been celebrating his new job at Grunnings. The fantastic imagery only made him feel hungrier.

"Like a full English?" He queried curiously, mouth watery at the thought of grilled tomatoes and potatoes. They were his favorite part of the whole dish spread. The odd chef only gave a strange smirk at his question. Maybe he really liked English food?

"You could say that. I'm working on the perfect meal right now, actually. A meal so good and so delicious that once it is prepared, I won't even want to it. Because surely nothing will ever be so delectable again. What do you think about that, little one?"

Harry hummed, tilting his head to the side curiously. He took a moment to actually ponder over the words. They were peculiar. The adults he was around daily never spoke that way. The sound of his relatives approaching broke him out of his reverie abruptly.

"I guess, good luck with that, then, sir." He replied simply, collecting up his few sparse toys quickly.

His reply was a short chuckle and for a moment, Harry could have sworn that the man's rusty eyes glowed red in the light. No impossible, he thought to himself. Eyes didn't do that.

"Indeed. Well, I will take me leave of you now, I think. Goodbye, Harry."

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~"The worst type of crying wasn't the kind everyone could see-the wailing on street corners, the tearing at clothes. No, the worst kind happened when your soul wept and no matter what you did, there was no way to comfort it. A section withered and became a scar on the part of your soul that survived. For people like me and Echo, our souls contained more scar tissue than life."Katie McGarry,Pushing the Limits

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The small boat slid through the water like blade through butter: smooth and seamless. Silently. Harry had been laid out in the vessel, hands folded over his pregnant belly and the child within that he had so adored. Looking at the peacefully resting face, it was easy to imagine that he was just sleeping. That any moment now Harry would wake up and grin and it would all be over. But Ciel knew that there would be no waking up from this.

Neither of them had spoken since the journey began. The young Earl didn't even know where they were but he was loathe to break his demonic butler from his silent grief. He had never seen Sebastian so...torn up. Then again, they both were. Ciel just didn't understand. Any of it!

"Why...Why did he do this?" The Earl whispered, almost to himself. Everyone who ever cared about him died. He was like some sort of death omen, "If he had just saved himself, he would still be..." He couldn't even bring himself to say it. It was too horrible to think about, that Harry would never be coming back. He would never take meals with them again and now that his contract was over...Well, he wouldn't be sad to lose his soul now. Anything was better than going back to the manor to have to stare at the empty, unused nursery that Harry ha put so much effort and love into. It would never be used now. Going back to see all of his things there was just more than the boy could bear.

"Because he loved you, young master. Loved you as his own son." Sebastian's words trailed off, bitter to the taste. Harry had loved Ciel as his son. And because of that love, their child and his mate were dead.

"Where are we going?"

"It is our way to lay our kind to rest on the Island of Death. The place is a sanctuary for demons, a space between our realm and yours." In the water below, scenes began to play. Memories of Harry's life both as a wizard and a demon.

Lying with Sebastian in bed, thinking of ridiculous baby names to amuse themselves as both rubbed soothing circles on his sloping belly.

The first glimpse of a mighty, mystical castle as he crested over a lake in a boat that moved all on its own.

Watching Ciel as he slept, committing to memory every cherished breath.

The look of resignation and tragic adoration in crimson eyes before a flash of green light stole the life from them and the Dark Lord that he had loved crumbled to the ground at his feet. Horror and regret filling him up like a cup.

The taste of his first soul on his tongue beneath the watchful gaze of his hated sire.

A large meaty hand shoving him into a tiny cupboard when he was only a tender four years old. Shouts of hate screaming at him through a small grate on the door.

"His Cinematic Record? And these small dark ones?" Ciel asked, gesturing to a few blacked out visions in the water interspersed with Harry's own vivid memories.

They were few and far between but the dark scenes emitted emotion and sound; the familiar sound of Sebastian and Harry's voices. Sometimes it was one, sometimes both, but more often than not the voices were filled with warmth.

Ciel could hear the creaking cry of the wood as the demon's hands practically spasmed on the oar with his sorrow.

"Those are the baby's Cimematic Record."

The little lord's throat closed up with the sudden and unavoidable urge to cry. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair that so many terrible people crawled like maggots over the surface of the earth, caused so much hurt and heartache, but Harry...Harry wouldn't have the happy ending that he deserved so much. All he had ever done was care about people. Love had gotten him into this mess. It had damned him twice now: once when he offered up his very soul to save Tom and now, when he died to save him.

Oh, God. Tom.

Eventually the man would be back to see Harry and the baby and there would be no one. No one to tell him what had happened. Ciel would be dead, long digested away inside of Sebastian. The demon himself would be off living elsewhere by then and the wizard-turned-demon would have no one left to tell the man he had so devoted himself to what had become of him. It was sad. Tom had just found Harry again. He had spent thirty years searching, believing that his love was still out there somewhere, and when he returned, he would find only an empty ruin of a house, his beloved dead. Somehow, it was the knowledge that Tom would never know that bothered him the most. Ciel knew all too well what that felt like. The not knowing was by far worst than having the knowledge but being unable to change it. He liked the Dark Lord. It didn't feel right that he would always be stuck wondering. His eyes found the locket and ring around the deceased demon's neck and all he could do was mourn.

The bottom of the boat scraped along the shore like a nail on sandpaper. Up ahead was a barren waste of an island filled with rocky crags, mountains and a deep, despairing mist. It was as good as any place to meet the end of his life, he supposed, just as the man who had cared for him was interred here as well. At least in death, they could be close together. Sebastian picked up the cool, pale beauty and was making their way to a nearby stone seat when the unthinkable happened.

A figure stepped forth from the mist, the shadows of several others at his back. Black robes trailed the ground with a soft sigh of fabric and strands of white hair were snatched up by the wind in some eerie waltz. Undertaker's grin was wider than should be humanly possible, yet the strange Reaper managed it nonetheless.

"Hello, little Earl."