Dr. Lynn Sinclair's last patient, Mr. Eric Slingby, had just gone home and she had just changed into her contact lenses when there was a knock at her door. She was slightly irritated by this interruption, as she wasn't expecting another patient for at least another hour, but went to open the door anyway. Her intention of telling the visitor that they would have to come back later or schedule an appointment died on her lips as she saw who was standing on her doorstep.
Ronald Knox and her very own sister.
"Why in God's name are you two here, and why are you together?" she asked, confused.
"That's a very good question," Aria stated, looking distinctly unamused by the situation.
Lynn then turned to Ronald, her professional demeanor dropping. "Well? What the hell's going on, Ronald?"
The blonde smiled in a way all children do when they want to avoid trouble. "I have something important to tell you that regards your sister."
Lynn seemed to catch his drift and stepped aside. "Come in then. I don't have another patient for about an hour, so I can spare you some time."
The couple made their way into the house and followed Lynn into the sitting room.
Irritated at being there, Aria took the chair across from her sister, leaving Ronald to stand, leaning against his unearthly machine. Lynn dropped down into her chair and then got right down to business.
"So, what is it you have to tell me?"
Ronald stepped up, as though ready to recite a rehearsed tale. "I went to investigate that business with the Undertaker at the bloke's shop, and then had to save your sister, who had been hiding in one of the coffins, from one of those animated corpses the man had left behind. According to what she told me, she was looking into the man's disappearance because she used to work with him. I thought that you might want to talk with her, seeing as this pertains to your job."
Aria perked up at that statement. "How would Undertaker's disappearance pertain to your job, Lynn? You're a psychiatrist, not a detective. Speaking of which, what is this guy?" Here she jerked her thumb at Ronald who was standing slightly behind her to the left.
Lynn let out a sigh that told of how tired she was before answering. "Aria, you are not going to believe a word I say, but I'm going to tell you anyway."
This definitely got the pathologist's attention. "Go on," Aria encouraged, leaning back in her seat.
Lynn continued. "The reason Ronald was investigating the Undertaker and the reason that man's disappearance pertains to my job is because Mr. Knox and I both work for the same agency. This agency is interested in getting their hands on the Undertaker because he is a fugitive. That blasted mortician created corpses that were able to walk on their own all the while killing a multitude of humans. This is inexcusable behavior and is therefore supposed to be stopped. Do you see now why I didn't want you meddling with Undertaker's disappearance?"
Completely ignoring the question that had been put to her, Aria said, "But it wasn't only Undertaker's disappearance that you tried to dissuade me from investigating. You also attempted to keep me from looking into Madam Red's mysterious death. Obviously this nameless agency knows something about both incidents. Tell me, Lynn, what is this agency that you and Mr. Knox work for?"
Ronald shifted from one foot to the other, while Lynn's muscles tensed. Aria waited patiently for her sister to respond.
"Are you sure you want to know, Aria?"
The seriousness of her sister's question shocked the pathologist. "Yes, of course I do. Why else would I ask? It would be best for me to know the entire situation, if for no other reason than to keep myself from getting killed."
Lynn closed her eyes. She knew her sister was right. It had been very ambitious of her to attempt to keep her secret from Aria, but she had known it would never work in the long run. At any rate, the only thing keeping her conversion a secret had accomplished so far was a pair of damnably uncomfortable contact lenses and the near death of the woman sitting across from her.
Having made a decision, she opened her eyes. "Alright, Aria, I'll tell you everything, but I'm afraid you really won't believe a word of it."
"We'll deal with that after you tell me this 'unbelievable' story," Aria retorted, ready to listen.
"Aria, Ronald and I are grim reapers."
Aria said nothing. If she told her sister she was crazy now, she would never finish the story. Therefore, Aria simply nodded as a signal to continue.
Lynn's eyes widened fractionally. She had been expecting more of a reaction than that. Now she didn't know whether to be relieved or worried by Aria's seemingly calm acceptance. The psychiatrist was on the brink of asking Aria what she thought of this revelation, but decided against it. Stopping the story now to argue with her sister who seemed perfectly willing to listen to her would be folly. This being the case, she began to tell the rest.
"I wasn't always a grim reaper, obviously. I only became one a short time after Madam Red's death. You see, grim reapers do not kill people. They simply harvest the souls of the humans who are scheduled to die and send them where they are meant to go. The names of the humans scheduled for death are on the To-Die List, of which every reaper has a copy. If a human's name is not on this list, then they are not scheduled for death. Do you understand?"
Aria nodded.
"Good. Well, as I said, it was only a short time after the death of Madam Red. I was coming home from a late appointment at the home of an invalid client of mine. It was after dark, and I was traveling alone. I suppose I was asking to get accosted. The man that pulled me into the alley attempted to rob me, but I didn't have anything of value on my person. Unfortunately, I had already seen the cad's face since he wasn't wearing anything to hide it. Not wanting to be identified and sent to prison, the man decided to kill me then and there. Jack the Ripper had never been caught when committing his murders, so why should my assailant?
"Skipping the bloody details, he almost succeeded in his plan until he was suddenly thrown off of me. I was almost dead, to be sure, but I was cognizant enough to see that my savior was a tall man dressed in red. I then blacked out. Upon waking up, I was greeted by blinding white light. I thought I was in Heaven, but since my body hurt all over, I decided that either Heaven was not all that it was cracked up to be or that I had been brought to a hospital. It was, thank heavens (no pun intended) the latter.
"You see, my savior had been a grim reaper - one Grell Sutcliff - and since my name had not been on the To-Die List, he had taken it upon himself to save me. At the time I'm sure it was just a ploy to get back into reaper headquarters; he was on suspension, but over time we got... closer."
Aria noted this hesitation, but kept silent.
"Not being allowed to wander around headquarters, Grell stayed by my bedside as I healed. I couldn't be taken to a regular hospital, you see, since human medical techniques are not yet advanced enough to deal with the injuries I sustained. With Grell to talk to, however, the days went by fairly quickly. Before I knew it, I was well enough to go back to the mortal realm, but by that time Grell had become quite attached to me. He asked his supervisor, Mr. William T. Spears, if he could, and I quote, 'keep her'. What he was actually asking is whether I could stay on as a grim reaper myself. Mr. Spears was against the idea at first, but seeing that I already knew about grim reapers and that I kept Grell in line, he eventually relented.
"The grim reaper's English branch is notoriously understaffed, so Mr. Spears held some meetings with his associates who agreed that I would be worth the trouble if I could help to control Grell. They sent the appropriate forms to the Higher-ups (which is grim reaper for God), and eventually got permission. I was then fully converted to a grim reaper.
"Not much really changes. You see, typically, to become a grim reaper, one must commit suicide. Living out the rest of eternity collecting souls and being surrounded by death is the punishment for taking one's own life. With me, however, I did not have to die before becoming a reaper. God simply changed me into the immortal being. The only physical characteristic that changed was my eye color."
Before Aria could point out that her eyes were still brown, Lynn removed her colored contacts, showing off her luminous emerald eyes. Aria gaped in disbelief. At first, Lynn's story seemed completely outrageous, but now she was showing proof of her transformation. No medical procedure to date could change a person's eye color, and definitely not to that inhuman shade. She stayed quiet as she listened to the rest of Lynn's story, a little less skeptical now.
"You see, Aria, every grim reaper has the same kind of double irised green eyes. We don't really know why. Maybe it helps us with seeing a person's cinematic record? We simply don't know. Oh, that's right! I haven't told you what a cinematic record is. Well, when a person dies, their life flashes before their eyes. What they are seeing at this time is the entire record of their life: their cinematic record. When a reaper harvests a human's soul, they watch these cinematic records and send the human's soul where it is supposed to go. Really, it's like one of those newfangled motion pictures.
"Anyway, all reapers, except for deserters, have reaper spectacles. Grim reapers are all severely near-sighted, so these spectacles help us see our surroundings and a human's cinematic record. Needless to say, these spectacles are very important to reapers.
"So, overnight, I became one of these green-eyed, blind gods of death who was forced to constantly wear spectacles. Though I was a reaper now, my mortal family did not know this. Since I didn't commit suicide like the typical reaper, my family still believed I was alive. Because of this, I came back to the mortal realm and continued with my psychiatric practice, only now I catered to both mortals and reapers.
"I tried to keep my secret for as long as possible because I was pretty sure you and the rest of the family would think I was crazy if I told you. When you started talking to me about looking into the death of Madam Red and Undertaker's disappearance, however, I knew that I wouldn't be able to keep it for long, at least not from you."
Lynn stopped and shook her head. "You are looking into very dangerous things, Aria, as you now know. Undertaker is being hunted by the Grim Reaper Association because he is a deserter who managed to find a way to cheat death. A deserter is a reaper who left the association without actually retiring. By running away, they don't live out their sentence of continuous work for taking their own lives. Undertaker is one of these deserters, and now he has brought attention upon himself by interfering with the lives of humans. That is why he has disappeared.
"As for Madam Red, she was killed by a reaper who happened to be her partner in crime in the most notorious series of murders London has ever seen."
Aria froze. "You don't mean to tell me that Madam Red, with the help of a reaper, was Jack the Ripper, do you?"
Lynn nodded. "I am afraid so. This reaper was my savior, Grell Sutcliff. His many crimes during this incident was what got him put on suspension. Grim reapers live long lives, and Grell had never been completely stable. It was only a matter of time before he cracked. However, punishing a grim reaper is different than punishing a human. You can't sentence them to life in prison, as they will simply live forever, and killing Grell would have made the Association dangerously understaffed. If they become too understaffed, they will fail to collect all of the souls of the humans on the To-Die List, leaving them to be devoured by demons."
"Demons? They are a part of this too?" Aria asked, looking a little overwhelmed.
Lynn shrugged. "Sadly, yes. You know one, I believe. Sebastian Michaelis, butler to the Phantomhive household."
The blood drained from Aria's face. Was her sister seriously telling her that one of her closest friends was a demon? Then again, his eyes were red...
"Honestly..." Aria muttered.
Ronald, who had been absently looking around the office, suddenly snapped to attention at the word. When he realized that Aria had been the one to say it, he calmed down a bit.
"I swear," he exclaimed, "you scared the life out of me! I thought you were Mr. Spears for a second."
Lynn laughed. "You'd be surprised how much they have in common."
Aria rolled her eyes. "If we could stay on point, children," she sighed, resting her chin on her knuckles. "Unlike reaper lore, demons I know a little bit more about. Am I supposed to believe that Sebastian is a demon butler serving Ciel due to some sort of contract?"
"Right you are," Ronald confirmed, resting his arm on the top of Aria's chair. "And when the kid's wish is granted, Sebastian darling gets to swallow his soul. Just another imbalance in the ledgers that will have to be fixed."
"Sebastian darling?" Aria asked. "Is there something you want to share with the class, Ronald?"
"Nah, it's not me. Sutcliff calls him that."
"Ah. So Sutcliff likes attractive demon butlers?"
"And our supervisor, Mr. Spears. He also thinks Undertaker's a looker," Ronald explained.
Aria chuckled. "My, you all have your hands full with him."
Lynn slumped in her seat. "You have no idea."
Returning to the matter at hand, Aria became serious once more and stated, "Seeing as all this is clearly out of my purview and very unlikely to affect my well being, I shall put your mind at rest and leave the matter to you. As I saw today, I am hardly prepared to deal with the work of grim reapers. Although, if the corpses in my morgue begin to wake up during an autopsy, I'll make sure to whack them in the head."
Ronald laughed. "You do that, though the people you work with may think you crazy."
"They already find me eccentric," Aria mused, rising from her seat. "Well, I cannot claim to be at ease with all I've learned tonight, but I'm happy that you've finally confided in me. Now you can stop wearing those glass contacts. I've heard they're ghastly uncomfortable."
"You heard right," Lynn said, getting up to see Aria out. "Thank you for understanding. Now I don't have to worry so much about you getting into trouble."
"Strange," Aria thought aloud. "When we were children it was I who had to worry about you."
Lynn laughed. "True. Have a nice night, Aria."
"You too, Lynn."
As the door was closed behind her, Aria sighed, watching the tendrils of her breath spiral away in the late evening air. With a head of things to think about and a whole night to do so, she called a cab and rode back to her own residence. This was to be a long night of contemplation.
Hey everybody! This chapter was mostly a necessary backstory for how Lynn became a grim reaper. The next chapter is where the exciting stuff begins. Stay tuned!