An: much longer than the last chapter, Lizzy had a lot more to say than good bye

Elizabeth clutched the note to her chest like a life line. In some ways, that was what it was as she began to lose her bearings in the stormy ocean her life had become, this one letter became the buoy to keep her head afloat.

Her Ciel, her darling Ciel, wanted to talk to her about the wedding. She was not as stupid as people took her for, she had good instincts and they were screaming at her that something was not right.

The carriage rattled around her and she thought back to the first time she had made this journey after the fire and funerals. When she had heard that Ciel was alive she had left for the ruins of his mansion at top speed, much as she was doing now.

As children they had been together always, and they had known they would be together always, for now and forever, till death do us part. She had known what marriage meant from a young age, long before Ciel, and she had race towards it arms outstretched, heedless of the path she tread.

And then he had died.

Well she had thought he had, though no body was found that was Ciel's size, the state of his parents had led to the belief that the bones were burnt to ashes so small they would never be found, after all half of his parents never had been.

She remembered that day well, arriving with everyone else to celebrate his tenth birthday, seeing the horror on their faces that made her own reality worse. Her father had had to restrain her to keep her from following Ciel into the flames.

She thought about the month that followed. In the letter that was clutched to her chest she had read that Ciel would finally tell her about what had happened, about the month in which he was missing. She already had a relatively good idea as to what that was, absolute hell.

It had been hell for her as well.

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'You want to call the wedding off?' Elizabeth stared at the only boy she would ever love with complete horror. Even if she had expected something similar hearing the words in his voice coming from his mouth was all her worst nightmares come to life.

'Sebastian has seen to it that you will get ownership of all my possessions. You won't have to worry about a new marriage unless you want to. It's already been organised.' His calm expression drove daggers through her heart, the idea that the matter was already settled.

'Wait a minute Ciel, why would whether we are married or not matter if you are giving me everything anyway? And either way I only get your possessions after you die, unless you're planning to live on the street?' That look, that look when she said 'die,' if her heart had been stabbed before it was shattering now.

'No, no it can't be, tell me I'm mistaken Ciel, tell me.'

'I cannot, I will not lie to you.' The look in his eyes as he ripped her life to shreds, the calm blue like an undisturbed sky, so peaceful compared with the turmoil he had wreaked on her existence.

'So you want to call off the wedding? To let me go and tell me that I get everything anyway so don't worry? I don't want the mansion Ciel, I want you! I don't care if you're dying I still love you!' her heart was breaking, tearing, shredding to pieces. With each second she thought surely, surely there was nothing left to be shattered, and with each second a new level of pain proved her wrong.

'Elizabeth, I won't live to see the wedding. I don't have a couple of months, I have days. Even you cannot organise something within that time.' How was he still so calm?

'Why? Why only tell me now that we don't have time?'

'Because I thought I had time, I didn't realise how fast it was going until it was already too late.'

They stared at each other across his desk, the silence eating away at their hearts though both hid it well.

'Tell me Ciel.'

'Tell you what?'

'Tell me everything.'

'That's a little too broad.'

'Tell me everything you have been hiding since the fire. Tell me about the month you were missing, tell me about your work for the queen, tell me why you're dying, tell me every secret you have ever hidden from me and the truth to every lie you've told me.' Her voice was calm, she had no idea how she was so steady. She had been mistaken, his eyes were not the sky, they were the ocean, the ocean that was pulling her under and drowning her.

'That will take a long time, and time is not something I have a lot of.'

'Then use what is left to help me understand. In your letter you said you loved me, if that was true then do this for me.' The quiet possibly only lasted for a few seconds, but those seconds where ones in which she could not breathe.

'I do love you,' Ciel looked out the window and sighed. 'Alright, I will tell you everything as a parting gift.'

The tears began to pour down her face in a torrent at those words; they blurred her vision and obscured his pain that shone out to her in her grief. His arms wrapped around her but the relief they brought was small and fragile, the knowledge that he was alive was drowned out by the knowledge that soon he would not be.

Standing like that he told her the story, the truth and every other thing she wanted to know. Whispering in her ear he gave her the information, the key for her to move on.

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The tears did not stop the entire trip home, she did not eat dinner and she cried herself to sleep. She felt numb in the back lash from the emotional storm of the afternoon. Vaguely she was aware of her brother threatening Ciel, of her parents trying to calm him or agreeing to help him alternately.

She did not care.

She loved him, she could not have him, and soon he would be gone from her life forever. She would not even see him when she died, there would be no reunion in heaven as so many people wished for and had the possibility of receiving.

She hated Sebastian for what he had done, but at the same time she was grateful.

She hated for him taking Ciel from her, hated him for claiming her love in a way she never could. She hated him for taking advantage of a boy that had no other option, for twisting her wonderful love into something she barely recognized.

She was grateful to him for giving her a second chance, for giving her those few extra years with the ghost she loved. She was grateful that he had spared her Ciel more pain than he had already endured, that he had given to him the things she never could.

She hated Sebastian, but was also grateful. She loved Ciel, but at the moment she hated him. She could no longer keep track of her emotions.

She heard her parents' leave for Ciel's, no, her mansion. She wondered if he would still be alive when they arrived.

She looked at the thing she had clutched in her hand since she had fled crying form the house. It was Ciel's family ring, proof that she was to gain all his property and the only reminder she would have of him.

She slept with the ring clutched in her the morning she threaded it onto a chain that she would forever wear around her neck.

He would be her Ciel, he would remain her love and child hood friend, his memory would be with her always.

And she would move on with her life.

'Till death do us part.'

It had not been said in a church, but it had come to pass. Death had had it's way, now they must move on, the living and the dead, never to join again but to always remain connected.

She would use the strength he had given her to make him proud, so he would not worry, so he could rest in peace.