Eleanora had never thought that she would ever say it in her lifetime, but: it was good to go back to work.

Phantomhive was so familiar. The work was so consistent. And best of all, there was no wedding to prepare for. No strange in-laws always hounding her. She was (relatively) free.

Naturally the work was hard and the young Master could get a bit…demanding at times, but work forced one to think about work and sensible, practical things, and at night, she was almost always too tired to really worry about anything else except tomorrow's schedule and sleep. The butler and she rarely crossed paths; they each had their own individual jobs to do, and that suited Eleanora just fine. She would have been perfectly happy to never see the demon ever again.

Sebastian was also calming down. Being a butler was so predictable at times. It was soothing. He barely saw Eleanora, let alone talk to her, and even then, their conversations were always short and to-the-point. No messy, useless, human emotions to interfere. Life was as good as it could get.

But…

Sebastian was a demon. He had natural demonic instincts, which he had always been good at suppressing. The instincts frequently urged him to do things—things like ripping off an adversary's head, or going to a fancy restaurant and eating as much rich food as he wanted, or throwing certain young Masters off of certain manors' rooftops. But he had always stifled them, only unleashing them when necessary. Being a gentleman—and a butler to boot—demanded it. Over time, he had gotten to the point where the instincts would only rise up in the direst of circumstances; other than that, they remained quiet within him.

But now they were rising up again, and he couldn't understand why. He wasn't in any danger. His prey wasn't in any danger. He was in a perfectly fine mood…There was no reason for them to flare up like this, and so suddenly and constantly.

But the worst part about the instincts was that they were always about Eleanora.

One day, he was in the kitchen, preparing the young Master's dinner. Eleanora was sitting at the table, mending clothes. Everything was perfectly normal. She was humming softly to herself. Sebastian was listening with half an ear and spent most of the time consulting and re-consulting the recipe.

And then the instincts blazed up.

"What are you doing?" they whispered.

"Cooking," he answered back.

"That's what you're doing now," they replied, "but what about afterwards?"

"Then I'll give the food to the young Master."

"But what about when the contract has expired and there is no more young Master? What will you do then?"

"That won't happen in a while."

"Humans are so delicate, so fragile. The little brat could die tomorrow. And then what will you do?"

"Then I'll go back home."

"And what about the lady?"

"Who?" Sebastian asked, even though he knew perfectly well who he was thinking about.

"Eleanora," the instincts breathed tantalizingly. "Your wife—Eleanora Michaelis."

"What about her?"

"What will you do with her when the contract's over?"

"I'll…find her a nice job up here. Maybe I'll buy her a nice house. Send her money every month or so. Support her from a distance and all that."

"Could you live like that? You know how long a demon lives…Can you really live a life like that?"

"Of…course. I mean, I've done it before."

"Look at her," he hissed to himself. "Just look at her, you clod."

He looked at her. He couldn't stop himself.

There she was, mending one of his tailcoats, frowning at a rather difficult hole and trailing off in her humming as she looked for ways to fix it.

"What do you see?" he asked himself.

"I see a maid."

"You see a woman. You see your wife."

"So? That doesn't mean anything…"

"It means everything, you twit. This isn't like your other contracts—you don't live with her for a while and then you eat her soul and move on. This is for life. This is forever."

"I hate those types of contracts. I hate it when I don't get anything in return for my troubles."

"You're even stupider than I thought. Your father was right—you inherited his looks and absolutely none of his brains. Look at her again—look at her closely."

Sebastian gave her another look, a deeper look.

"You see?" the instincts whispered. "You're getting everything out of his contract…She's yours forever…And you're hers' forever…Nothing keeping you away from each other, nothing able to break you two apart…"

Sebastian realized something, something so shocking and profound that it shut up his instincts (for the time being, anyway). He strode over to Eleanora, who had accidentally pricked herself with the needle and now had her finger in her mouth.

"Wah i eh?" she asked as he approached.

"Eleanora…" he said and knelt down next to her. He picked up her skirt and looked deep into her eyes…"There's a hole in this dress."

"Really?" she said, taking her finger out of her mouth and examining her maid uniform. The skirt was riddled with holes. "Well, fancy that."

"It's useless to repair it," Sebastian sighed and looked at the whole outfit, which had been stitched back together so many times already that it resembled a resurrected uniform-corpse. "We'll have to get you a new one."

"Why? I have others," she said, going back to the tailcoat.

"Do they all look like that?"

She hesitated.

"…No."

Sebastian sighed and rose up.

"I'll tell the young Master that we need to order a new uniform for you."

"But why waste money? It's a fine dress."

It was several sizes too big on her and made in a style so unfashionable that even he could tell that it was several years out of date.

"You look as if you're wearing a sack."

She frowned at this. Sebastian suddenly got the urge to say that he didn't mean it.

"But…if I don't wear this, what else would I wear?"

"Another uniform? One that wouldn't disgrace the Phantomhive name?"

"I can't afford another uniform."

"The young Master will pay for it. He pays for the rest of the servants' clothing, so why not yours?"

"But I couldn't ask him to…"

"You won't have to ask him," Sebastian said. "I'm going to ask him for you."

"Wait—"

But he had already left.

Eleanora swore and tossed the tailcoat aside. She no longer wanted to mend it.

What is wrong with men? They always want to interfere with the stupidest of trifles and always stayed out of the important things. It was just a silly dress after all. So what if it had gotten a little old?

She frowned at the skirt and smoothed it out over her knees. As she did so, it tore.

So maybe it was a bit older than most uniforms. That didn't mean that it had to be replaced.

She swore again and stood up. The damned butler's food was burning. But he'll get his. Someday, very, very soon, he would get his.