I'm back! :) No, I didn't die. I just got very busy with life. After final exams I had to focus on finding a summer job, and after I found a summer job, I had to focus on training for it, and then I went to Yellowstone for two weeks. It adds up. XD Anyway, I'm working full-time now, but I just bought the newest (American-released) Black Butler manga, so I got excited and decided that I had to write a new chapter. Anyway, we've left Sebastian hanging for long enough, really. I think he's mad at me. :P

Anyway, on with the new chapter!

Lydia was surprised when Sebastian did not materialize to greet her as she exited the London-hired carriage on a rather overcast Tuesday afternoon. She could have used an arm to lean upon; her health as of late seemed to be going the way of the weather, darkening and dampening like storm clouds. Even so, Lydia had been firm with herself when deciding the she must head out today regardless. She didn't want for Ciel to get the wrong idea from a protracted absence, and imagine that she didn't want to see him anymore. That would be simply depressing.

In fact, there didn't seem to be much of anyone about the manor. All of the fancy carriages belonging to the guests were gone. Lydia made it around to the back of the manor on slightly wobbly legs and cracked open the door to the servants' entrance, peering cautiously inside. When nothing discouraging her entrance greeted her sight, the brown-haired girl slid back the door and quietly proceeded inside, treading softly toward the back hallway. They had ought to be aware that she was here, for Lydia had called Tanaka nearly four hours ago and relayed that she was coming. They were probably waiting for her in the entryway, but Lydia simply could not abide with using the front entrance, not after all this time. She would just circle around the manor….

The sound of crunching glass underfoot caused her to look down in puzzlement. Sure enough, there was an entire array of broken glass splayed out along the entrance to the back hallway. It was a good thing that she was wearing traveling boots, and not normal lady's shoes. As she tried to step daintily around the shards, Lydia raised her head and practically reeled backward in shock. Something had happened to the back hallway. The trail of broken glass continued across the entire carpet, so thick in some places that it looked like snow. Interspersed along with this was a different-colored material. Soil? It looked like it had been tracked in by heavy outdoor boots, similar to the kind she was wearing. What on earth had happened? The amount of dirt and glass here were not simply suggestive of a few careless housekeepers- more like a cataclysmic event, complete with…. Lydia raised her wide eyes up the wall and did a double take. Were those….burn marks? The deep, charred slashes had peeled away the wallpaper and split the wood, leaving it hanging in some places. What in the world could have happened so recently? She had just spoken with Tanaka not four hours ago, and everything had seemed fine! Had the manor been invaded? Was that why no one was around? And how could it have been, with Sebastian here? Lydia began to hurry through the dangerous maze of glass and burned wood, heading for the back row staircase. She needed to ascertain that the manor really was deserted before calling in outside help. Wherever Ciel and the rest were, she hoped that they were safe….

Once in the general hallways of the manor, Lydia became even more concerned. Every passage that she turned down was deserted, but every one contained a definite sign that something bad had occurred. Paintings had fallen down off the walls. Decorative vases were smashed. Cleaning supplies, cooking utensils, and gardening equipment had been left haphazardly all over the place, as if someone had just dropped them there and run away. Or perhaps they had been ransacked….? Hearing a clattering noise from one floor above her, Lydia hastily seized a fireplace poker from the side of the wall and crept up the stairway, hunching over, muffling her breathing with her hand. She decided that if she peered around the corner and saw someone she didn't know, she would run back out of the manor and call the police, then hide in the woods until they arrived. No burglars would find her out there.

"Aaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiieeeeeeeeee!"

The sound of a woman wailing forced Lydia to roughly push these careful plans aside. She leaped out into the hallway and found no one before her, but she screaming continued. Narrowing her gaze onto the third door in the opposite wall, the brown haired girl ran to its side, drew a wide-eyed, dizzying breath, then threw it open and forced her way inside, brandishing the fireplace poker in front of her, determined to fight whatever heinous villain she should find within.

The person screaming was the red-haired, excitable maid from before. She was waving her arms and hopping around, a pile of broken glass at her feet. Her entire aproned front was stained with a dark brown liquid, which was steaming as she whirled around, trying to pull it away from her body. Half-hidden in the corner, with a small hand covering his face, was Ciel, looking tired and exasperated. There did not seem to be any villains to apprehend…. The maid whirled around once more, and screamed her loudest yet as she saw Lydia with the fire poker. Ciel lifted his head out of his hand, and jumped badly. Lydia simply stood there in the doorway, her mouth open and her faced flushed, beginning to feel like someone was playing a trick on her.

"What are you doing?" Lydia inquired in astonishment, just as the maid squeaked, "Excuse me, but what are you doing?" They all stared at each other a moment longer. Then Lydia dropped the fire poker to the floor and advanced a few steps into the room, taking careful inventory of the scene. "Am I to assume that- that everyone is quite….safe?"

"Lydia….?" Ciel intoned, coming forward slowly from behind a bedpost. The brown-haired girl could now see that they were inside a very grand bedroom, decorated with dark wallpaper and curtains, and crowned by a lavish four-poster bed whose head rested against the main wall. Everything was tidy and pristine, except for the heap of sodden glass now in the middle of the floor. For a moment her brother met her eyes, and then looked down at the floor once again. "Safe? Yes, we're all quite safe, why wouldn't we be? What has happened?"

"What d'you mean 'what's happened?' Have you been outside this room at all?" Lydia gestured wildly toward the doorway. "'What's happened' is what I want to know! I thought that maybe you'd been attacked by robbers and chased away, or something else! I was terribly frightened!"

The small boy looked utterly confused for a moment. As he gazed out the door, comprehension settled slowly across his features, and he laid his head back in his hand.

"Where on earth is Sebastian? There's no way he would ever allow this sort of thing to happen to the manor!"

"Wait, please…." Ciel murmured, holding up his hands to stop his sister. "….I should explain. Meirin, go and…." He looked like he had been about to say 'Go and get us some tea,' but then his eye settled upon the broken mess on the floor, and he turned away. "Go and….inform….Bard and Finnian that we have a guest, and they are to keep to the servants' quarters and not touch anything. Make sure to make it clear that they are not to touch anything."

The red-haired Meirin had been staring in astonishment at the blue-eyed stranger who had burst so boldly into the young master's bedroom, and spoken to him in such familiar terms. Upon these orders, however, she bowed her head and tripped back lightly out the door. "Y-yes, I will. Right away! Please be careful of the glass, young master!" With another wildly curious look in Lydia's direction, she stumbled out the door and swung it closed behind her.

"Please sit."

Lydia glanced over at Ciel, who had taken a seat upon his bed and was staring at his hands. She sat down carefully next to him, leaving a foot of obligatory space between them. Her head was still reeling, and she suddenly felt weaker without the rush of adrenaline to drive her forward. Her shoulders sagged limply. "Ciel, what has happened to the manor? It looks as if it's been pillaged!"

The boy frowned and drew his own shoulders together. "That is simply….the clumsiness of the servants. The new help that I hired after father's death….they mean well, but they are rather quite accident-prone." He put his hands down on either side of his torso and gripped the bed's edges tightly. "I apologize for everything you saw. If I had known you were coming, I would have definitely prepared a more presentable reception."

The bridge of Lydia's nose crinkled as she frowned in confusion. "Wait, how is it that you weren't aware I was coming? I spoke with Tanaka on the phone almost four hours ago, and he said that he would relay the message to you directly."

Ciel's visible eye widened a little as he continued to stare straight ahead. "Did you….? Ah, but of course you wouldn't know. Tanaka has become….rather forgetful, as they say, with the onset of his advancing years. He has been a good and faithful servant to our family, so I keep him around the manor and only give him light, simple tasks to perform. However, he is not one who should be trusted to relay messages anymore. I think he has been napping in the library all afternoon."

"Aaaaah." Lydia murmured, thinking that there was much that had changed around the manor. She wished that Ciel would look at her. He seemed to be holding his emotions back like a concrete dam, determined that there would be no repeats of Saturday's breach. Despite wanting to uphold his pride, she couldn't keep the gentle concern out of her voice as she continued. "Ciel, I have to ask- and please don't take this as though I'm questioning your decisions in the manor, because I know that such is none of my affair- but why did you hire these new people in the first place, if they mean well but cannot actually perform any useful services?"

The boy tilted his lip pensively. "….It seemed like the best course of action," he replied. "I don't really need any other competent servants, since I have Sebastian. However, I do need people who are honest but naïve, oblivious enough to work here for any length of time without becoming suspicious about the true nature of our butler. Besides, they are very loyal, and they all have their own….talents."

Lydia nodded, wondering what was going to happen once they got this out of the way. "Well, you've known them for much longer than I have, so I'll take your word for it, Ciel. However, I cannot ignore the manor. It isn't-"

"We have enough money here to replace anything that is broken. However, if there is anything which you feel particularly sentimentally attached to, you may have it." Ciel informed her flatly.

Lydia blinked. "I was going to say, it isn't safe for you to be living here among broken glass and unsteady furnishings. I'm going to have to do something about this mess, even if I have to clean it up myself. But on that note-" She turned back to Ciel, and was very surprised to see that the small boy was peering up at her from underneath his flaxen bangs, his face a mask of repression. "On that note….where is Sebastian? It seems nigh impossible that he would be all right with leaving the manor in this state. He has his aesthetics, after all."

Ciel raised a hand to the side of his head, massaging it gently as though it hurt. "Sebastian is….not here at the moment," he told her softly. These words struck an ominous, sudden chord within Lydia. They reminded her of something someone had said in the past. Her chest pulsed in and out. I will not panic or be angry, she promised herself silently. Just how angry had Ciel been with the demon after what had happened on her last visit?

"Ciel. Where is Sebastian?"

Ciel sighed, pressing his hand harder into his head. "I had to punish him," he declared firmly, straightening his body up out of its bent-over position. "Ever since you returned, that demon has been acting up, forgetting his place, causing trouble, and disrespecting both of us. I had to remind him who his masters are."

"Oh no, Ciel. Oh no." The brown-haired girl's small hand gripped the bedcovers convulsively. "You didn't put him down in the cellar?"

"I don't understand why you're so concerned." Ciel countered, a hint of defensive aggression rising up in his voice. "It's not as if it's going to kill him. He can't be killed, after all. He'll recover quickly after I release him. But he is a demon, and this is the only way to get through to h- where are you going?"

Lydia had stood up on shaky legs, and paused for a moment to get her bearings. "I'm going to bring him up out of the cellar and end his punishment. Stay here- I'll be right back."

"Now wait just a minute!" the young boy exclaimed indignantly, rising to his feet as well. "If you do that, you'll negate the whole purpose of the punishment! That demon is never going to learn to respect you properly as his master if you run around saving him all the time. He'll think you're weak-willed, and that he can use you. Therefore, it is in your best interests to let this carry on. I was only going to keep him down there for another day or so, anyway…."

He trailed off as the older girl shook her head rather alarmingly at his justifications. Once again, he had no idea what to do about having his authority so blatantly contradicted. If it had been anyone else, he would have cleared the offender out of his way swiftly and painfully, and then continued on his path. But this was his sister, and the young boy possessed too many guilty memories of everything that had been done in the past to 'clear' Lydia out of his way. It had succeeded, yes, but had it been in the best interests of anyone? And now she was back, standing undeniably in front of him like an iron roadblock, and he knew that she hated him, and he would not be weak, but even so…even so….

Ciel shook his flaxen head doggedly, as if trying to clear his ears of water. His forehead flamed upon this sudden movement, and he was genuinely appalled when he found himself forced to sit back down for dizziness- another weakness that he should not be revealing. Gathering up his resolve, he looked directly into his sister's eyes, tinted with concern, and protested evenly, "The Phantomhive residence is my domain. I have been head of it since my father died. I have always decided what goes on here, and you- you have only recently returned, and you just said that you didn't want to question my decisions in this manor, so…."

He trailed off as Lydia sat down beside him again, the fabric of her dress ruffling in a gentle, deliberate way. He had thought that he would hurt her with saying this, but upon seeing her face as she wore it now, he thought she almost seemed satisfied. She leaned forward slightly, and her hair swept out from behind her back to dangle all around her calm face. "No, Ciel," she told him softly. "You were right. The manor is yours, and the company is yours, and the fortune is yours, and the other servants are yours. They are yours because they have nothing to do with me. But Sebastian is mine as well as yours, and therefore, I cannot let you do this to him. And even more so…." Ciel had been so occupied with staring at her face that he did not notice at first when Lydia placed a hand against his aching temple. The tall young girl had a look in her eyes, crystallized and preserved like blue amber, that suddenly reminded him beautifully and terribly of his mother. "….I cannot let you do this to yourself, little brother."

"Do this….?" Ciel trailed off, and then flinched away from the warm hand with a jolt of realization. The hand's owner was already on her feet again.

"Stay here, and try to rest. I'm going to go retrieve Sebastian and bring him someplace where he can rest as well. We'll talk more extensively after I've done this."

Ciel had a million more objections, but he could not manage to force any out of his throat and onto his tongue before his sister had sidestepped the pile of glass and swept swiftly out the door in a wave of brown and green. He listened to her footsteps resounding away down the corridor, and then allowed his head to fall back into his hands with a low half-moan. First it was clumsy servants and a disobedient demon, and now this….! He would admit, only to himself, that he had been candidly miserable when he had thought that Lydia would not return. Now that she had, he was blatantly confused. What had she meant, and what was he doing to himself? What was he doing besides asserting his authority over his own property? And what was the meaning of that painfully familiar expression on her face?

The young heir growled to himself and stood back up, ignoring Lydia's mandate to rest as he strode to the doorway and peered out into the hall. He truly hated being confused. It felt like a loss of control, like a failure on his behalf. Lack of understanding was, he knew, a weakness which could be exploited by a predator such as the one that was currently locked in the cellar. Ciel's uncovered eye narrowed as he thought of Sebastian, and how the dark creature always looked at him with such resentful eyes. What was it about that stupid demon that Lydia thought was even worth trying to help? He was evil through and through. He would do the same as Ciel if he were the master in this contract. And anyway, it wasn't as if he wasn't already sentenced to an eternity of suffering and anguish. Why should his master feel at all disinclined to extend that eternity a little?

/

Lydia waited until her echoing footsteps were out of earshot of her brother, not wanting to alarm him unduly. Then she ran down the stairs and toward the cellar, creating with her heavy boots a cacophony of sound which rumbled under the wooden floorboards like approaching thunder, frightening even herself as she descended lower and lower down.

Lydia ran down the stairs at top speed, pausing only once to lean against the banister because she felt dizzy. She pushed herself off and continued, dashing through the messy servants' quarters to the backroom which would lead her to the cellar. The cellar was composed of many rooms, but if memory served her correctly, she thought she knew which one Sebastian would be in…. Seizing a candle and matchstick from the supply on the shelf, Lydia threw open the heavy hatch that had concealed the stairstep-ladder, and plunged into the darkness. At the bottom, she fumbled around for a moment with the matches, almost lighting her left-handed lady's glove on fire in her hurry. The brown-haired girl ignited the candle and discarded her gloves to the side impatiently, hurrying over to the vault-like door which began the series of cellar-rooms, fervently hoping that they hadn't installed locks since the last time she'd been down here. The door opened graciously to her touch, and Lydia proceeded to wind her way through the myriad of things which filled the room, casting her light around continuously in case she'd been mistaken about which room Sebastian was in. She kept this up for several more rooms until she reached one which was painted black and lacked any doorknob at all. Shoving it open and breathing in the strong scent of mildew, she cast her light around quickly, her candle forming crazy shadows on the walls and shelves. She mistook her quarry for a pile of black cloth the first time around, but then she stepped closer, recoiled in an involuntary spasm of shock, and rushed over to his side, laying her candle down upon the ground nearby. He didn't move when she shook his shoulder and called his name, but Lydia knew that he was not asleep or unconscious. Slowly, gently, she braced herself against him, tucking her bandaged arm over his chest and pulling him up into a kneeling position. His body lolled about helplessly and he immediately fell onto her, nearly knocking them down. Muttering distractedly to herself, Lydia managed to stand up behind him and hook her arms underneath his shoulderblades, which allowed her to begin the strenuous process of dragging him across the room toward the wall.

"Sebastian," she panted, "you can hear me, right? Everything's going to be all right. I'm going to help you. Here-" she propped him up against the wall, head still hanging down and concealing his face. Breathing hard, Lydia cupped a hand underneath his chin and lifted his head- and then dropped it again in another mini-spasm of shock. His eyes were the only things that were moving, and they were so huge and unnaturally red that they looked like something out of a horror story. Digging her hands into the ground, the young girl held still for several moments while she forcibly suppressed her basic flight instinct. Then she lifted his head again, murmuring, "It's all right now, calm down, I'm going to help you…." as softly as she possibly could. There was a black cloth tied over the lower half of his face, and she quickly set to work prying it off, thinking that she must be careful when choosing the exact moment to release the power that kept him from moving. Sebastian did not look as though he was entirely in his right mind at the moment. As Lydia had learned in the past, a creature with monstrous strength and in mortal pain could cause a great deal of damage to everything around himself, whether he consciously intended to or not. This thought was driven from her mind as the cloth fell away from the demon's face, and Lydia swallowed what felt like both a scream and a groan. Over his pale lips was fixed a purely black crucifix, sharp and shining as though it had been carved from obsidian. There was no natural means to hold it there, and though it left no marks on his skin, Lydia could sense that it was driving Sebastian mad with pain. She set about trying to pry it off him, muttering distractedly again. When her left hand failed to remove it, she shifted her body and switched to her right, bandages digging into the cross as she carefully tried to separate stone from skin. It was like pulling powerful magnets apart, but eventually the cross gave out and Lydia tumbled backward in surprise. Placing the dangerous artifact far away from the demon, Lydia crawled back over to him and looked into his eyes. "There, is that better? Are you okay now? I'm going to release you in a minute, just- here- oh, bother…."

She had tried to lift one of his hands, and discovered a crucifix embedded into the palm there as well. His other hand was similarly scarred. Someone would have had to deliberately hold his hands while they pressed the figures down into the flesh, would have had to watch his face contort and eyes widen as the burning set in…. Ciel, how could you have done this? For the first time, Lydia fully realized that her brother's heart harbored a pool of true malice, deep-seated and dangerous, which almost made her feel afraid of him. Carefully, she lifted the crucifixes off Sebastian's hands and rubbed his palms with her unbandaged fingers, hoping the light from her skin would help to heal any damage that had been done. He was watching her with his impossibly red eyes.

Finally she sighed and lowered her arms, looking him in the face again. "I'm going to let you go now, Sebastian, but please be careful not to crush me, all right?" Placing both hands on his limp shoulders, the young girl mentally willed her power to override that of her little brother. Set him free, set him free, set him free…. She knew it had worked when she felt his body spasm harshly, jerking him back into mobility. The next moment, she felt the demon latch onto her dress with his claws, and thought for a moment that he really was going to injure her after all. Her heart gave a last minute leap within her chest. Sebastian raked his hands savagely down her back, and something was tearing, but she realized after a moment that it was not her skin. Long strips of fabric fluttered down around her like confetti, and his powerful arms were encircling her, squeezing her now-bare shoulders with his clawed hands as if she were a ledge he was hanging onto for dear life. Fortunately, Lydia still had her under-slip on to preserve the most important part of her modesty, but the back of her dress all the way down to her waist was completely gone. The cold air of the cellar pricked her skin, and Lydia found herself inadvertently pressing into the body of the taller demon for the sake of warmth. With any other man, a situation like this would have mortified her to the extreme, and she would have gained redress by slapping the teeth out of the mouth of anyone who dared to touch her like this. But for Sebastian, she knew, there was nothing sexual about it. This was about pure need. He was using her spirit as a giant painkiller, and her body as a foothold to help him crawl out of the abyss of blind pain to which he'd been condemned. He had always used her thus. Carefully, Lydia brought her hands up to his lips, and he buried his face down in her shoulder, holding her tighter to him, and she knew that he would not be letting go for awhile. Her candle guttered in the corner, and for a moment Lydia thought that it might go out. The cellar was completely silent. Sebastian made no sound, and he did not breathe. She knew that he did not need to, but even so it made the scene feel rather eerie, as if he wasn't entirely with her.

Just when Lydia could sense Sebastian's heavy body beginning to relax against her, there came a sudden, violent crashing from just outside the door. Still locked tightly in the demon's hold, Lydia managed to turn her head enough that she could see another light approaching from within the adjacent room. She had barely had time to register this before Ciel Phantomhive appeared in the doorway, holding a flaming torch and shoving another pile of clutter out of his way. His eyes fell upon the two of them, and in the flickering light of his torch, his face became sinister and dark. "What are you doing?" he boomed out, the echoes of his voice resonating all around them like swarming bats. "Lech! Let go of her!"

Much to Lydia's surprise, Sebastian did let go, but he did not move back obediently. He was looking at Ciel in a way that she could honestly say she had only ever seen him look at his father before him. Right before her candle was extinguished in a burst of air, Lydia realized what was going to happen and pushed herself to her feet, screaming "Stop!" but Sebastian was much faster. The candle went out, the torch was dropped, and Sebastian, who was turning dark like the shadows, lunged directly at Ciel. The boy only had time to take one small step back in surprise.