A/N: Just a transitional chapter, not super exciting but necessary. I can't thank everyone enough for reading and reviewing. Much love to you all :3

The higher up you are, the harder you fall.

Ciel had heard that somewhere. He didn't know why it came to him now, but then, did he know anything? He wasn't even sure if he knew this was real. Everything from the time he left London to when he arrived home seemed to have been a dream. Maybe Sebastian would come striding from the kitchen with a platter of petit fours, having never made love to Ciel, having never called him by his given name for the first and last time in a congested train station.

Maybe Vincent would still be alive.

He didn't know how long it had been since his tearful mother told him his father had died at the hands of the cult. It felt like hours but perhaps it had only been minutes. The only thing that seemed real to him now was his pain. He sat in his bedroom window looking out over the grounds but seeing a busy London street, locked in the memory of the first day he met the Phantomhives. When Rachel entered the room he saw the orphanage nurse in her place.

"Ciel?" Rachel said.

He turned toward her. He halfway expected Larieta to be standing there instead, but his fantasies were just that. "What?"

"You should come downstairs and eat. It's been almost two days since you had anything."

Ciel stared at the glass of water on his bedstand that he had been nursing for...well, two days, he supposed. He hadn't realized it had been that long since he took dinner on the train. "I'm not hungry."

"Ciel, darling, please. I can't lose you too." She left the room but he heard her collapse in the hallway, sobbing. He knew this was hard for her too, probably harder than it was for him but there was a selfish part of him that could only focus on his own pain. Had he not earned that? Nearly everyone had abandoned him. William and the doctor were dead, his father was dead, and Sebastian took his virginity and disappeared. Goddamn demon. That one might hurt the most, for Sebastian had left of his own free will. At least he knew Vincent died protecting him.

"He died," he murmured to the empty room. "They all died because of me."

The sun was setting when he went downstairs to join his mother for dinner. Mey Rin pulled out his chair and did a poor job of concealing her sniffling and she passed the empty one at the head of the table. Rachel's eyes were red and puffy but she managed a smile. Ciel didn't think he could return it now or ever, but he reached across the table to take her hand. Tears returned to her eyes at this gesture and fell silently to her smiling lips. He admired her quiet strength. Showing her pain at a time like this was more than he could manage, but then, she was the widow of the Queen's watchdog.

Dinner was well seasoned but slightly overcooked. He had become a scathing critic in his time with...no. He couldn't think about him right now. His fork scraping the plate was the only sound for awhile, both mother and son immersed in their grief yet somehow comforted by sharing it. The only indication Rachel gave of the true extent of her suffering was the iron clad grip she had on Ciel's hand. He didn't think this was something Vincent would have mentioned, so he respectfully held his silence.

After their plates were cleared, Rachel said, "The mortician found a letter in Vincent's pocket addressed to you."

"Oh?" Ciel tried to ignore the sickness to his stomach at the thought of someone preparing his father's corpse.

He followed her into his father's office. It had gone untouched since Vincent last occupied it, the only difference being the envelope on the desk with Ciel's name scrawled across the front in loopy script. He examined the sealed envelope. The writing on the front was messier than what he had seen from his father in the past, so he could assume Vincent was in an emotional state when he addressed it to his son. Ciel picked up the letter opener and cut through the wax Phantomhive seal.

Rachel left him alone to read it. He stared at the folded parchment, unsure he was ready to see his father's last words. There was no one to which he could turn to for comfort; his mother needed his support more than he needed hers, and the only person who he would lean on had left him. He took a deep breath and unfolded the document. For the second time in his life he was reminded he could truly depend on no one except himself.

Unwilling to sit in Vincent's chair, he leaned on the desk and began to read.

My dearest Ciel,

I'm sorry I could not tell you goodbye in person. I would love to read you one last story but I'm afraid our time together has reached its end. Hopefully I can give you peace of mind with the assurance that the cult you were sold to will never harm you, or anyone else, again. With Sebastian's aid I have brought them to the most archaic form of justice. I entreat you not to think less of me for spilling their blood rather than turning them over to the yard but they hurt someone I love, and by that I cannot abide.

By the time you read this, both Sebastian and I will be gone. His contract to the Phantomhive house ends with my death. I hope he has taken good care of you in my absence, though I have little doubt of this. You are truly a remarkable young man to make that devilish fiend feel something...not that I approve of his inclinations toward you in the slightest.

I can think of no one else of whom I would be prouder to have as my successor. Stay strong, my son. You are head of house Phantomhive now. Inside this envelope is my most valued possession which now belongs to you.

Thank you for the beautiful experience you have given me, the incomparable honor of being my son. There is a rapping at my chamber door but I vow to love you, in this life and the next, forevermore.

-V

Ciel sunk to the floor. His eye burned but he seemed not to be able to cry. He crushed the letter to his chest, gasping with dry sobs. Vincent had known he was going to die taking down the cult. He had willingly gone to his death out of love for his son. Sebastian's presence had somehow been entwined with Vincent's life, his servitude forged by more than an employment contract, it would seem. Ciel reached up to the desk and pulled the envelope down. Nestled in the bottom was something hard wrapped in the finest black velvet.

He opened it to find his father's – no, his – ring. It was too large for his finger and fell straight down to his knuckle. He closed his eye and leaned back against the desk, feeling tiny and alone. With this ring came a legacy, with a company for pity's sake. He pointed his finger down and listened to the ring clatter against the floor.

"I didn't ask for this," he told the office petulantly. At the room's expectant silence, he stood up and threw the letter opener against the wall. What did it matter, anyway? This was his office now, he could do anything he wanted with it. "I just wanted a damn family!" He cleared the desk with his walking stick, which briefly obscured his vision with papers flying into the air. He hurled a paperweight into the window. It didn't matter if it cracked, everything in this godforsaken house was broken. Their family was broken.

"You smell even more foul than usual. What were you doing up there?"

"More of a 'who' than a 'what,' actually."

Claude pushed a stack of chips to the center of the stone table. That wasn't his real name but bugger if it wasn't easier to pronounce than his given one. He was still transitioning from his last human form, leaving him in the grotesque state of a human body with far too many legs. Sebastian really had to find someone else to play cards with.

"I've never understood carnal attraction to humans."

Sebastian drew a card. "I'm sure there's plenty you don't understand."

Claude opened his mouth to retort but was silenced by his own grimace as his human arms and legs began to sprout fine, black hairs. He narrowed all four of his eyes at Sebastian's laughter. By the time he met Sebastian's bet he had six pairs of them, all red and blinking in tandem.

Sebastian leaned back against his wings. Usually returning to Hell after a satisfying meal was enjoyable. His true form was released from its human confines, he could play this dreadful card game with this far more insufferable demon to pass the time, the routine was pleasant in its familiarity if nothing else. None of these things had been true since his return. He had been pained to see his human form, the one Ciel cared for, disappearing. It was such a shallow, human thing to feel that he had terrorized the whole fourth circle in frustration.

"Your mind, what little you possess of one, is truly somewhere else," Claude remarked as he raked chips toward himself, now sporting all eight of his eyes on a mostly human face.

"Hm...indeed."

He stood up and walked to the edge of the great black cliff they were sitting on. He didn't know when they had stopped hating each other enough to have weekly poker games, but he supposed it was better than the alternative. Claude spent his first decade in Hell snapping off the heels of Sebastian's boots. Sebastian stared down into the fire and smoke. Above the sound of the roaring flames, he heard screams.

A tingling in his hand drew his attention from the sight below. He raised his clawed hand and stared at it for a long while, sure that he was mistaken in what he saw. Claude had come up beside him and raised what remained of his eyebrows.

"What did you get yourself into?"

"I don't think I know. My contract is completed, I consumed his soul."

In spite of this, the all but nonexistent mark on the back of his hand was darkening. His contract seal was coming back.

Ciel was left alone for a long time to rage. By the time someone knocked on the door, he had dissolved into manic laughter. Through his cackling he told his visitor to come in. Mey Rin stood timidly in the doorway, and though her eyes were obscured by her thick glasses he knew she was staring at the wrecked state of the room. She lowered herself into a shaky bow.

"I came to see if you would like some tea, m'lord."

He folded his hands on the desk from his seat in Vincent's chair. His laughter died away behind an immediate wall of composure. This abrupt change seemed to make her even more nervous, which was alright. She needed to treat him with the same reverence as she did Vincent, as he was head of the house now. He stroked the thumb that now held his ring. "No. Leave me."

He hadn't been able to stomach tea since Paris. It brought back too many had come to associate the steamy aroma of tea with Sebastian, and he couldn't inhale it without recalling long nights and soft kisses that gave voice to their unspoken twisted his ring as he stared down at the letter from his father. Alone once more, he allowed himself a final moment to submerge himself in his grief.

"I'm not ready to be you," he said.

The letter offered him neither comfort nor guidance. It had given all the enlightenment it could. After all, it was merely a piece of paper, not some otherwordly bond that connected him to his father. It was just an echo of his voice. He folded it and tucked it into his breast pocket.

He turned to stare out the window. In its reflection he saw the weariness in his eye and quickly corrected it. He no longer had the luxury of such childish things as self pity. Since reading his father's letter, he had been wrapping his mind around his new responsibilities, his anger at Vincent for leaving him, but as he met his eye in the clear glass he believed that process may have reached its end. He could no longer afford to be an orphan grieving for the second father to abandon him, or the boy who fell in love with a demon and missed him terribly. Those things only had a place in his past now.

"I am not that child any longer," he intoned to his reflection. "I am Ciel...Earl Phantomhive."