Narrator's POV

Once Grimsby's body was drained of its valuable Sirius blood, Undertaker got the gallons of tainted blood and had the machine pump it back into the corpse.

That way, no one would wonder why the body was bloodless.

Especially since they would be standing it so it looked like poor Mr. Keane had a tumble down the stairs and broke his neck.

What a terrible tragedy to befall a hotel on its first day open to the public.

***

While Ann staged the corpse and broke its neck, Undertaker took the twelve vials of blood and put it into an ice chest.

He kept two of said vials with him and went upstairs, putting them into the machine that would fill up the twins' veins.

Opening one of the bags in his luggage —a medical bag— he pulled out a tiny bottle of a health supplement to make up for the day they spent in bed and opened the cap.

Pressing the vial against Astre's lips, he trickled a bit into his sleeping mouth.

Once he was certain the boy had drunken it —by watching his small Adam's apple bob—, he then pressed the vial to Ciel's lips.

Ciel swallowed the tonic and groaned a bit, beginning to wake up, he rubbed his right hand against his eye and grabbed Undertaker's hand with the other, "Is it morning already?"

"No, not yet." Undertaker replied, placing his hand over his grandson's sapphire blue eyes, "Sleep a little while longer. It is still too early for you two to wake up."

He kept his hand over Ciel's eyes until he could hear the boy's gentle snores.

Pressing a kiss to Ciel's forehead, he did the same to Astre before walking out of the room to let them sleep.

***

If Undertaker had to list the top five worst days of his life, today would be number four.

The worst day of his life had been the day his beloved Claudia died, followed by the day his son and daughter-in-law died, followed by when he had found the twins' cooling corpses in that patch of poppies.

Number five on that list would be the day he watched Claudia marry Cedric —his own suicide did not even make the top five list.

Whenever he closed his eyes, he could still recall every moment of his final evening with Claudia.

~Flashback~

It was the evening of July 13, 1866, and the thirty-six year old countess was laid in bed.

She was struck with cholera, but Claudia had remained strong and had been fighting the disease off for nearly four months.

Sitting in a nearby chair, Undertaker watched his beloved read a novel —"Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus" by Mary Shelly.

"Adrian." Claudia softly called out

The reaper looked up, his green and yellow ringed eyes meeting her sapphire ones.

"Yes?" He asked

"Lay with me tonight." She requested

That surprised him, she always had him leave to the guest quarters —even on the nights they were intimate she always sent him away after— before her lady's maid could arrive and find them in the morning.

But, he did not question the request and happily agreed.

Adrian was not worried about catching cholera, reapers were already undead after all.

So, he undressed down to his button-up and slacks and got under the covers with her.

Claudia rolled over to face him, "When I get better, we should go on holiday together as a family."

Undertaker smiled and nodded, "Of course, where should we go?"

"I want to see your village, see where you grew up." She replied

"That place does not exist anymore, it burned to the ground centuries ago." Undertaker denied

"Oh. Well you said the Brits loaned you out to the French for awhile, show the children and I around Paris." Claudia asked

The white haired man gave a small chuckle, "Gladly, I will even show you where I reaped Marie Antoinette at the Place de la Concorde."

She gave a weak laugh in reply, "She was only a year older than I am when she was executed."

"And you will be much older than her soon." He added, "Get some rest, we can plan our trip tomorrow."

Claudia nodded, laying her head on his chest, "I want to plan it in the garden tomorrow, I cannot stand to be trapped in this room another day."

Undertaker ran is long black-tipped nails through her navy blue hair, "Some fresh air will do you good. Sleep well."

"And you too, my darling." Claudia yawned, looking up and kissing him, "I love you, Adrian."

"And I love you, Claudia." He agreed

"Yo-You will always look after Vincent and Frances, right, keep them out of harm's way?" Claudia asked out of seemingly nowhere

Adrian nodded, "Of course I will, nothing matters more to me than our family. But right now is time for sleep."

And they did just that, falling asleep together in bed for the first time...and the last time.

In the morning, Undertaker woke up and began to leave, but before he did so he pressed a kiss to his beloved Claudia's head.

His eyes widened as his lips pressed against ice cold flesh.

***

As the sun's first rays stubbornly made their way past the curtains, Astre Phantomhive yawned.

Sitting up in bed, he began to stretch.

Yesterday had been a very long day and he did not remember the majority of it and he was certain Ciel would agree to that.

Turning to face said twin, he found the older boy still asleep.

"Wake up, skylight." Astre nudged

Ciel yawned, "Morning, starshine."

"Do you remember anything of yesterday?" The younger twin asked

The older twin shook his head as he sat up, "Not really, just glimpses. I think we passed out a lot."

Getting out of bed, they began to search for their grandfather for answers...