Thank you readers and kind reviewers, and thank you for your patience. Grell comes to the end of his night's reaping.

I hope this isn't too anticlimactic - it ended up rather low key. I have a better sense of where this story fits into my view of Grell now, though. It's intended to come before the events of "An Inexpensive Soul" and, I hope, sheds some light on Grell's behaviour in that story (which is on-going). Much as I love Sebastian, it now seems to me that William is Grell's real destiny. There will be one more fic in this series, in which Grell discovers the truth about his mortal life. Chronologically, it will come between this and "An Inexpensive Soul", and will be posted as soon as I have time to write.

Madeline Fairchild – An Uncomplicated Soul

Grell stood by the wrought iron area gate outside the Fairchilds' smart terraced house in a quiet road just off Kensington High Street. The fog had lifted enough to allow Grell a view of hazy stars above the neatly tiled roofs of the terrace and the regular blocks of the chimneystacks. Grell checked his pocket watch, and contemplated the solid wooden door of the residence, reluctant to go in. The door was painted some dark colour, impossible to make out in the yellow gas light of the street lamps – navy blue, perhaps or olive green. The door furniture was simple, heavy-looking, polished brass. Tomorrow there would be an addition – a laurel funeral wreath, tied with black ribbon.

The houses were tall, imposing, ranked together to form a sturdy, respectable bulwark against any threat. An Englishman's home… Grell thought. But there had never been a castle strong enough to bar Death – not even for the space of a single breath.

Almost time – and still Grell made no move to cross the threshold. He had never felt such reluctance for his role. William would laugh at him, no doubt, and call him sentimental. "One soul is much like another," he'd say, "apart from those exceptionally rare cases when there's a reason to prorogue the reaping. Do the job and return to the office."

"Do the job, and return to the office," Grell murmured, aloud. Gripping the scissors resolutely, Grell passed through the door and into the hall, where a grandfather clock ticked loudly in the still night. The servants were asleep in their attic rooms, but Grell could hear a low voice, and the child's laboured breathing.

When he reached the nursery Grell paused, invisible in the doorway, surprised. There was a pile of presents beside the bed, beautifully wrapped and tied with ribbons, but surely it was too early for Christmas presents? Madeline Fairchild lay propped up on white pillows, an open box beside her on the wine-coloured counterpane. Despite her pallor, and the fact that Grell knew she had only minutes to live, the little girl was smiling. On a chair next to the bed sat her mother – the older face and the younger so alike that there could be no doubt about the relationship. The mother was smiling too – or trying to smile.

"No," she said softly, "It's not quite your birthday yet. But you can have this one early."

"Thank you!" Madeline whispered, her voice hoarse, and her breath rasping. She clutched a doll – a beautiful porcelain doll, with a painted face and real hair as long and golden as the child's own. Grell stared at the toy, something stirring in his memory. A doll – not like this one, but made of wood, with wide green glass eyes and a red silk dress. Grell was suddenly certain that the memory was a real one, from his mortal life; the first thing he'd remembered of that existence since becoming a Reaper.

"She's called – Daisy –" Madeline gasped. Grell started, thinking of Daisy Dean, whose own reaping would surely not be many years in coming.

Madeline's mother swallowed, and whispered, "That's a lovely name." Grell could see how tired she was after nights of dread and watching. Terror was not a sustainable state for a human soul, but it lurked close by, advancing and retreating with the fluctuations of the disease. Grell could tell that it was very near now.

Taking off his gloves, Grell moved silently to stand beside the bed. The mother shuddered, suddenly, as though she could somehow sense him. Someone walking over your grave, they called it, when mortals were touched by the presence of an invisible reaper. The phrase was appropriate enough.

As though she knew what was about to happen, Madeline's mother seized her daughter's hand, holding on as though she could keep the child alive with nothing more than the strength of her love. Even at this final moment, as he reached out to touch the little girl, Grell could see that the mother's hope was not quite gone – that remarkable human ability to believe in control where no control existed. Perhaps she thought that if only she had enough faith – enough hope – enough strength – then this thing would not happen to her – this thing that was happening all over London and throughout the country to mothers and fathers, rich and poor, vicious and virtuous alike.

Madeline's last breath was a sharp gasp in and then a long, sighing exhalation. Her mother sobbed, "No! Stay with me, please, stay, please, stay…"

Grell couldn't bear to look at her any longer. Quickly he cut the soul from the child's body, the cinematic record winding itself neatly around the scissors without any fuss. The tale of Madeline's life was a plotless story: a mother, a father, a beloved nurse-maid and a new, feared, governess, favourite toys, a pet canary, a certain garden in a neighbouring street where a broken wall allowed you to see into a wilderness of wild flowers when all the other walls were too high to peek over. Not quite six, and everything there was to tell had been told.

A time to weep, Grell thought, and yet he couldn't weep, even for this innocent child. There had been too many Madelines, over the years; there would be countless more.

Grell left the house empty, an echoing emptiness inside himself, perhaps in the place where a womb would have been, if he had been made female, as he knew he should have been.

You had her for almost six years, he thought, his mind on the grieving mother as he made his way back to the Shinigami offices. I'm sorry that was all, but at least it was something real – something entirely good. Grell understood, at that moment, that he would give anything – anything at all – to experience that kind of love and to hold his own child in his arms. I would give my soul, Grell thought, if I could be what I should have been.

Back at the office, the mood was even more sombre than it had been at the start of the evening. Grell took his collected cinematic records to the duty filing clerk, who, as he had expected, complained about the state of the first three.

"This is hardly helpful, Mr. Sutcliff," the young clerk at the desk admonished wearily. "One fragmented soul, one change of designation – a broken heart? Really! Hmm. And one mangled collection of fragments that will have to be cleaned and reordered. I already have most of my staff working overtime." He held up the short record of Madeline's life and scanned it with a cold, professional eye. "Oh well. I suppose you can't help the names on your list… At least this one's uncomplicated."

"Uncomplicated," Grell echoed. "Yes. Not – much of an epitaph."

"Oh, I don't know," rejoined the clerk. "I've heard worse."

Grell left him to his work, and wandered the corridors, reluctant to go home. Eventually he found himself outside William's office, without making a conscious decision to go in that direction. There was no sign of the severe manager, so Grell slumped, exhausted, on a chair in the corridor, trying not to dwell on his night's reaping, which, for once, had been truly grim. Instead he thought about Madeline's doll, and the memory it had sparked in him. Why should he remember a doll? Could it be that in his mortal life he had been female, and that some strange transformation had happened to him when he became a Reaper? He resolved to ask William whether such a thing might be possible – but not tonight. Not tonight. Tonight he would go home and sleep – but he found that he wanted to see a friendly face first. Or, if not exactly a friendly face, then at least a familiar one.

Grell fell into a doze, and started awake when the door of William's office opened and the manager emerged, looking as tired as Grell felt.

William stopped when he saw Grell, regarding him a little warily, probably expecting one of Grell's deliberately exaggerated and flirtatious greetings. When nothing happened he said, "Reaper Sutcilff? Are you finished for the night?"

"Yes," Grell replied. "I'm – just –" Grell found himself uncharacteristically lost for words.

"You should go home and get some rest," William told him, looking at him more carefully. "This epidemic is only beginning to take hold. We're going to be snowed under by Christmas."

Grell smiled, wanly. "Snowed under by Christmas," he repeated. "Ha. That's apt, anyway."

"Go home and sleep, Grell," William said. "Heaven knows I'm going to." Grell looked up, surprised, as William's hand rested on his shoulder, just for a moment, before he walked away.

The End

Thanks for reading.