A/N: Wow. So, I started writing this story in March of this year, and I've finished uploading it all by December, with some edits along the way :) That feels special, somehow.

The next morning, Ciel was awakened to the sound of people trying to pound down his bedroom door, and he pulled his covers up over his head, having no desire to move.

"I tell you, there's no reason why it shouldn't open," Finny's voice came muffled from the hall, during the ringing silence that fell after he had apparently stopped hitting the surface.

"What should we do now?" Mei-Rin asked. "If the flamethrower didn't work, it must be some awful strong magic."

"We gotta climb in the window," Bard replied grimly.

Ciel looked beside him, where Sebastian was opening his eyes with an annoyed sigh. "Will they never give me a moment's peace?" Sebastian asked the ceiling.

"You ought to answer them," Ciel replied.

Sebastian sat up. His trousers were wrinkled, something Sebastian fixed with a distracted wave of his hand, and his shirt and vest were lying somewhere on top of the covers. Ciel had a vague thought that that might have been his fault. The butler's coat, interestingly enough, was folded quite neatly on the chair.

In a few seconds, Sebastian had made himself presentable and was striding firmly to the door, opening it just a crack and speaking very fiercely. "What do you three think you're doing?"

"Mister Sebastian!" Ciel could almost picture the looks of incredulity on the servants' faces.

"We thought you'd disappeared."

"As you can very well see, I haven't." Sebastian said. "Now do the young master the favour of dispersing quietly, and allow me to wake him up; he is feeling much better this morning."

With a few mutters, the others wandered off, and Ciel lay back with a groan.

"There's no point in regrets, young master," Sebastian said. "You're up now, so you might as well get ready. I'm sure you will be hungry soon."

"Fine," Ciel said. He really did feel better, though, and strangely well-rested, though he did not think he had gotten very much sleep last night.

Sebastian looked for a suitable outfit from his wardrobe, and as he pulled Ciel's nightgown from his shoulders Ciel realized that the injuries he had recently acquired were gone: the cut on his wrist from the pen that Alois had stabbed him with, as well as the scratches he had gathered before that. "Hm," Ciel said. "You were quite thorough in this healing business."

"It was somewhat inexact," Sebastian admitted. "I wished to make certain of your wellness, and it seems that the effects were generally applied."

"What will you do now?" Ciel asked, as Sebastian buttoned his shirt. "Am I right in thinking you intend to stay in service to me? And if you do," he continued, "how will that work with you having to eat? I have no wish to deprive you any further."

"I can survive a little longer without food," Sebastian said blithely. But he continued more soberly after a moment. "I will have to make another contract eventually. Most do not last as long as ours…" he trailed off, looking down oddly at the eyepatch in his hand, before replacing it quietly on the bedside table.

"They've seen you without already," he explained. "And I'm sure you can pass it all off as a miracle."

"A miracle," Ciel said thoughtfully. "Yes, I suppose it was." He looked at Sebastian as he spoke.

Sebastian smiled thinly, but his eyes were dark.

"I don't think I apologized to you," Ciel said at last. "I meant to."

"Apologies are not necessary," Sebastian said smoothly. "It would be quite unwarranted."

"Nevertheless," Ciel said, remembering Sebastian's words to him, only a few days and so long ago. "It pleases me to give you one."

Sebastian chuckled a little, drily. "Indeed," he said, but some of the darkness had left his eyes.

As Sebastian slipped the stockings up Ciel's legs, Ciel continued, trying to think through the business of it. "Eventually…? Should I be looking to find a new butler within the year, or…?"

"The year?" Sebastian said, sounding almost scandalized. "Young master, if I say that I will stay, and then you continue to plan for my imminent departure, I don't know what I ought to assume."

"Then tell me what you mean," Ciel replied, patiently. "A little notice is all I ask, here."

Sebastian hesitated. "You understand," he said at last, "that I was always prepared to let this contract extend to whatever length it would. Even a human lifetime is nothing, in eternity. Why should I seek to cut down that time that is already too short?... that is, if you'll have me."

Ciel was so surprised by these words that he hardly noticed that last addition; but something about the nonchalance of Sebastian's tone called attention. "If I'll have you? Why wouldn't I have you?" he asked.

Sebastian made a noise in the back of his throat—it sounded almost amused, except for the palpable bitterness it carried. "I proved unequal to the task you set out for me," he explained. "I failed. Perhaps you wouldn't want such a demon at your command."

"You saved my life," Ciel said. Sebastian looked down, took Ciel's foot in his hand, and was suddenly very intent on sliding on the buckled shoes. Ciel changed his tack—he wasn't sure what to make of that yet himself. "I know I have expected perfection of you in the past," he said, slowly.

"And rightly so," Sebastian interjected.

"No," Ciel said. "It was wrong of me to do so; childish. It must be hard to realize, being so powerful… but there will always be instances where one makes a mistake; or where there was nothing more that could be done. How could I expect that phenomenon to be confined to humankind alone?"

"I really think," Sebastian said, in a somewhat wounded tone, but he did not continue.

"Do you disagree?" Ciel said. When Sebastian didn't answer, he added, "You did as much as was in your power to do, as did I. And that is the only thing we can expect of another."

They went downstairs at last, and Sebastian departed to oversee whatever Bard was doing with the breakfast. It felt odd, to Ciel, to sit so blatantly with his eye uncovered, though the sight had returned to it and it no longer bore any mark. He could hear the servants whispering to each other in the hall. I don't want to know whatever it is they've found to gossip about now, Ciel thought. But a moment later that was pushed out of his head as both Elizabeth and Soma burst their way into the room.

"...Damn," Ciel said.

"Cieeeeeeeel!" The combined voices of his fianceé and the prince were shrill and excited, as both took the opportunity to bowl him over with impromptu hugs, almost knocking him out of his chair.

"I was so worried," Lizzy cried, while Some berated him about having had the gall to fall ill.

"Yes, sorry, I'm fine now so you can get off me," Ciel said. But it was only when Sebastian entered with the food that they finally stopped hanging off him to go to their places at the table. Neither would let up about wanting to know what had happened, so Ciel told what he thought was a fairly believable story about his kidnapping, with added drama by Sebastian's occasional interjection.

Ciel didn't get another moment alone for hours after that, and was trying very hard to keep from yelling in the presence of a lady, when Agni, who seemed to notice Ciel's fragile nerves, dragged Soma off to do who-knows-what.

"You look a bit pale," Lizzy admitted, when most of the noise had vanished, and they both sat awkwardly in the parlor, side by side on the pale chintz settee. "I keep forgetting you just got better and might not want so much excitement."

"Indeed," Ciel said, although he didn't add that he could not actually think of any time when he had looked forward to the amount of excitement that came when both hyperactive acquaintances were in the same room.

"But," Lizzy continued, looking at her hands and biting her lip, "I was wondering… did you really tell us all the details of what happened? It doesn't quite seem to add up, you know."

Ciel opened his mouth to assure her that all the details were indeed as he had described, when Finny's voice, travelling loudly through one of those sudden hushes that sometimes falls, said, "But what about the fact that Sebastian is a demon?"

"Quiet!" came Mei-Rin's even louder shriek. "Someone'll hear, there are guest in the manor!"

Lizzy looked over at the open doorway in surprise. "Um… that was odd," she said, when the servants had dashed away.

"Very," Ciel said. "I couldn't tell you what goes on in their heads sometimes."

Lizzy gave him a small smile. "Yes," she agreed. "And… if you'd ever like to tell me what really happened," she said, taking a sudden breath as though steeling her resolve, "you know I would believe you? And I wouldn't mind. Whatever it was."

It seemed an insult to keep denying it now, so Ciel only replied carefully, "thank you, Lizzy. If I ever don't tell you anything… you know it is only because some things aren't fit to be spoken of."

"And some things fester, until they are spoken," Lizzy returned solemnly. "I had… a long occasion to think, this past year. And I know some secrets must remain secrets, but I don't think it's wise, to keep more than necessary. They wear on one, rather."

"You're right," Ciel said, at last. Wasn't that how this had all started? With the secrets Sebastian had kept from him and his own suspicions leading them both into a trap? For the first time, he regarded Lizzy with some surprise, thinking that some time during the past year she had grown up, and he, stuck with only an emptiness in his memories and a missing span of time, had not noticed.

"If you really wish to know, then," Ciel said, "I will tell you something. Not all."

"All right," Lizzy replied.

Where should he even begin? There were so many secrets he had kept from her. "That time I went missing," he said, "I never told anyone of this. I'm sure you may have suspected. But… I was kidnapped, by the kind of people who have no interest in ransom, no regard for human life, and who want to do with children... only terrible things." He trailed off, quiet for a long moment. "Sebastian rescued me from there. For a very long time, I could not bear to part from him. But we have been discussing, recently, the prospect that he may at some point move onto other employment."

"Not Sebastian!" Lizzy gasped. "But, he seems so loyal to you…"

"Loyal?" Ciel asked. What a ridiculous notion, he thought. Lizzy wasn't to know that he was a demon; and demons could know nothing of loyalty. Hunger drove their every action.

Except that recent events had proved that wrong, on some count. Ciel was still not sure which one.

"Maybe," he said. He thought again of those words of Sebastian's, when he'd said that he would stay… perhaps even until his eventual death, be that a span of years away. Had that always been a fair trade for the demon? And could it really be, still, when he would get nothing out of it any more? Or would he? Something had driven Sebastian to keep the contract, so he had said that morning of Grell's intervention. Something beyond the soul's becoming his; though he could not say, then, what that was. And there was the fact that Sebastian had saved his life. He didn't know what to make of it; but Lizzy was watching him expectantly, as though waiting for him to say something. "Perhaps you're right, after all," he said at last. It was as much of an explanation as any.

Lizzy laughed. "Of course I am, silly," she said; she flounced closer to him; the uncaring impropriety of it made him cough to hide the redness of the blush that overtook his face. Her legs were close enough to his own that her feet, kicking out, tangled with his own shoes; and she leaned against him, closing her eyes. He reached out, hesitantly, and curled one arm around her shoulder. She is still here, too, he thought; the suddenness of it overwhelmed him. They are all still here—and so am I.

And then—though he no longer had a mark that told him unerringly when Sebastian was near—he found himself looking toward the door, and was not surprised at all to find his butler standing there upon the threshold, holding a tray with afternoon tea. He met that familiar gaze with his own, and puzzled over the expression he found there; the enigmatic curl of his smile, and the amused, soft sparkle in his shining eyes.

I don't understand, he thought. And yet… I'm glad.

.

.

.