Posted: 9-16-18 At 3:20 AM
(USA CST; GMT: -6:00)

A/N:

Right now, I'm waiting for the remains of a hurricane that hit several states here in the US, to make it to mine. I hope that anyone who might be reading this, who was in the path of hurricane Florence this last week, is doing ok and that you can get through the clean up ok.
As for this chapter... Not much to say.
There's no lemon in it. It might take me a day or so to post it to A3O. But I will eventually.

I'm not too thrilled with this chapter, it felt off to me. Not sure why. Anyway- if you think it has the same feel as the rest of the story, please let me know. If you don't think it does, let me know, please.
I usually slow down a few chapters from the end.
I usually have trouble figuring out how to end things.

In this chapter, the bold text is used to highlight words and to also show a dream.

Warning:

The murder of a MAJOR character (to this story) is shown.

Child birth is also mentioned.

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Chapter 16: Death and Rebirth.

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The months passed with little happening. Lizzie, Vepar and Mey-Rin stayed home with Ciel while the demons: Sebastian, Marchosias and Sitri tried to track down Labolas.
They did not hear from Lau, Gabriel or the Undertaker, much. Labolas was sill in hiding with the horde of demons under his control.
And he was also still killing young human women. Obviously trying to build his power back to what it had been before.
Vepar theorized that he must have been very seriously injured in the last confrontation in January.
Elizabeth realized that she was pregnant during this time, she was 2 months behind Mey-Rin in her progress with the pregnancy. Sebastian and the other 2 demons were gone more often than they were there.
This made Mey-Rin anxious, and she kept having accidents while trying to do her duty as a maid. Bard and Finny were taking over her guard duties, and she was eventually forced by Lizzie's staff to stop working around the manor (she was creating more work for them, and they did not have the patience that Sebastian had, apparently).

Neither Bard nor Finny would let her help them do ANYTHING.
So, she was also bored and lonely.
She spent time with Lizzie and Vepar. However, she felt inferior to the both of them. She didn't think she was as pretty as either of the blonde women.
She wasn't good at sewing, embroidery, flower arrangement or much of anything else that they did to pass the time.
The redhead wasn't even able to help Lizzie practice her fencing (but Vepar was!).
Mey-Rin threw knives and shot guns! She didn't twirl around with a deadly weapon flashing in her grasp.
She did TRY to help Ciel, as well. She wanted to at least try to replace Sebastian in tending to the young earl when he was in his study. However, he often got a headache and asked her to leave him be.
She was moody and depressed, as a result!

April- Mey-Rin: Around 7 months pregnant.

Sebastian quietly appeared in Mey-Rin's room.
He saw her sleeping in the bed.
She was wrapped in a blanket and curled around her VERY large belly. She had a thin sleep gown on. He gently touched her cheek, and sighed slightly when he felt the dried tears there.
Leaning close, he licked her cheek. He sat there, running his black tipped fingers through her slightly curly red locks. After a while, she whimpered slightly in her sleep and shifted.
When she did, he realized that she was mostly naked beneath the blanket (she wore a very thin, very short, shift that left nothing to the imagination. Despite the fact that it was April and usually not very warm out- she was quite hot when she slept, since becoming pregnant).
Despite how very pregnant she was, he felt his lower parts stiffen at the sight. But, before he could do anything about it, her eyes opened, and she blinked sleepily up at him with a smile.

"You're here..."

She said as she smiled a brilliant smile at him. He felt a twinge in his chest and he looked away.

"I needed to report to the young master."

He said as he caressed her belly lightly.
She shivered slightly at his gentle touch. She watched him, as he examined her belly, then rested his forehead against it. She blinked as he closed his eyes and everything in him stilled. He had a hand on top of her belly just under her breasts, and another under it, beside her pelvis.

"They seem to be fine."

He said as he pulled back a bit, then he looked at her. He was wondering about the mixed magical signals that he was sensing from within her belly. But he said nothing.
He knew she was already nervous after what happened the last time she was with child.

"Why are you wearing such... Sleepwear?"

He asked (though he thought he knew the answer). She blushed.

"I was hot and very uncomfortable... But, I felt a bit too defenseless with only this on, so I rolled up in the blanket..."

She said softly. He looked at her face then, and she looked back, She couldn't tell what he was thinking. She hadn't seen him in nearly 2 months, by now.

"Vepar told me that we shouldn't have sex..."

He started. That was when her eyes darted to his pants. She saw the bulge. She smiled as she looked back at him.

"No, we shouldn't. I don't want to risk losing these babies if you-"

He leaned in and captured her lips in a deep kiss. When they parted, he smiled slightly.

"- There are things we can do, other than intercourse..."

At that, he gently pushed her flat onto her back as he kissed her again.

A while later, Mey-Rin was snuggled close to him, as he lay beside her and pulled her into his arms. She rested with her head on the right side of his chest, their legs tangled together.

"You'll be gone in the morning, before I wake up, won't you?"

He kissed her hair.

"Yes, I'm still-"

"I know..."

She said as she bit her lip. Silence filled the room. She knew what he and the others were doing was important. She knew they needed to find and kill her father.

"Just... Be careful, Seb-"

"My real name..."

He reminded. She blushed, hiding her face in his chest with her hair covering her eyes.

"- Jadon. Please, be careful. I... I don't want our babies to lose their father..."

He didn't say anything.
He just tightened his arms around her.

Several more months passed, Mey-Rin only saw Sebastian 2 more times between April and June 18th.

June 17th:

She went into labor between the hours of 10:15 pm and 7am of the following morning, she was in labor. She had one baby girl, just before midnight, and another baby girl around 3 am on the 18th.
Then at 7:45 am she surprised all of them by giving birth to a third baby.
The 3rd child was a boy.

Mey-Rin very nearly died that night.

By the time the last baby was born: she had been in labor for nearly 10 hours.
She had lost a lot of blood in all of that time, and spent most of those hours in intense pain. This left the redhead dangerously weak when it was finally over.
Barely conscious, the woman did not even realize that she had given birth to a surprise third baby.

Sebastian had been there for 2 of the births.
Vepar had gotten in contact with her own lover and had him track the butler down.
The first baby had just been born when Sebastian finally arrived.
After the births, Mey-Rin was bedridden for close to 3 weeks.
Her body having trouble recovering from the event. Sebastian left the naming up to her, while he went to continue searching for Labolas, though he kept coming to check in on her periodically (though, most of those times he actually did not see her).

Ciel was pushing him hard to do SOMETHING about Labolas.
In turn, Ciel was being nagged CONSTANTLY by the queen about finding the new serial killer in London.

2 months later: on Aug. 4th

Lizzie gave birth to her baby by Ciel: a little girl- the baby was born in the mid morning on the 4th.
After that, things were fairly quiet for the Phantomhive estate. Ciel kept getting info about more dead women in London.
But no matter what he and the demons did, no one could find Labolas.

Mey-Rin named her babies: Celeste, Selene & Jadon. Lizzie and Ciel named their daughter: Rachael- after his mother.
Around that time, Paula realized that she was expecting a baby as well. She and Bard had, had a quiet wedding a few months before. She would be having her baby in February, most likely.
Time passed, summer: turning into fall. Ciel was summoned to the palace to see Queen Victoria several times since the first request to deal with the murders came in January. The Queen was NOT happy to see that he had made little-to no progress in finding the murderer.

October came, it was now 2 months since Lizzie had her baby, and 4 months since Mey-Rin had her's. As October started, the murders suddenly stopped.
Uneasy about that: the demons returned to the Phantomhive manor. They worried about what Labolas was up to. Fearing he might have gained all of his powers back, now, and what he might do with them.

They still went out searching, but one of the male demons stayed at the manor with Vepar and the others all the time.

When Oct. 31st arrived, Lizzie insisted on throwing Mey-Rin a birthday party.
Ciel refused to allow his bride to have a Halloween party, but for the birthday party, he relented. Mey-Rin had said that she did not want one... After all:
Her birthday was mostly full of bad memories. And Sebastian wasn't there that night.
But the young countess insisted.

After the party, Mey-Rin thanked her friends and retired to her rooms.
She had been moved out of the servant's quarters into a cottage that was connected to the back of the manor (Bard and Finny had built it for them).
Here, she and Sebastian and their triplets could have privacy.

She had just finished changing and feeding the 3 babies, and was sitting in her bedroom looking at a book that Paula had lent her. That was when she suddenly started getting a bad feeling. It was, unfortunately: a VERY familiar feeling.

She was being watched by a demon.
Likely her father.

Looking around, she frowned.
Finny and Bard were both on guard duty tonight. She grabbed a knife, and slid it into the sash of her nightdress.
Then she grabbed her two guns and went outside the cottage, standing on her porch, with her supernatural eye sight, she easily saw Bard walking the grounds far off in the distance.
The moon was high in the sky, and full- affording her a lot of light to see by. Not that she needed much light, that was.

The night air; with its crisp feeling was calming her rattled nerves a bit... She looked around, and, after assuring herself that nothing seemed to be wrong, she turned to go back into her home.
And found herself face to face with an unknown female demoness.
The demoness smiled coldly and stabbed Mey-Rin in the stomach.
She gasped from the pain, her hands dropping her twin guns and going to the dagger in her stomach. But, before she could do more than that, she felt someone grab her from behind.
This person grasped her hair in a painful grip and jerked her head back. She winced from the pain as the dagger in her stomach twisted and then was pulled out.
Mey-Rin met her father's eyes, he was the one who had her by the hair. She felt cold steel against her throat.

"Goodbye, Daughter."

Labolas said against her ear, then he slit her throat deeply as she struggled and cried out! Her cry was cut short by the blade biting deeply into her flesh, turning into a watery wheeze as blood filled her air way and bubbled up her throat and out of her lips!
Then he was gone.
The knife and dagger were gone.
The strange demoness was gone.
Mey-Rin tried in vain to force air into her lungs, but none came! All she had was the metallic taste of blood and the feeling of drowning on that blood, as she collapsed to her knees while a hand went to claw at the gaping wound in her pale throat.
The former assassin felt tears sting her eyes as she collapsed to the floor of the porch. She was bleeding from her stomach and her throat. She had tried to grab the porch railing as she collapsed, but she missed and landed hard on her stomach and face. Mey-Rin heard Vepar and Bard's voices as she found her vision going spotty and then dark and finally: she knew no more.

'Sebastian!'

7 minutes before:

Around the time that Mey-Rin was caring for her babies that night, Vepar and Sitri: who was staying there while Marchosias and Sebastian were in London following leads about Labolas- started to sense demonic powers that were not supposed to be there.
They split up, each was following the faint, unfamiliar, energy signal.
Vepar was out on the estate beside the greenhouse when there was a surge of the unknown energy.
As well as the very familiar energy signal of Labolas! It was coming from Mey-Rin's home! She rushed over there.
But got there in time to see Labolas and the unknown owner of the other energy, as the two of them vanished, and Mey-Rin collapsed in a pool of her own blood. Bard had seen Vepar appear suddenly, and was there in no time.

They both got to Mey-Rin at the same time. Bard turned her onto her back, she was gasping in pain (despite seeming unconscious), gurgling blood was collecting in her mouth and over flowing, as well as trailing from an eye and her nose.
It all trailed down her face to mingle with her now, nearly waist long red hair. She was fading fast. Vepar shoved Bard away and grabbed Mey-Rin.
Despite the blood, she sealed her mouth over the redhead's mouth (to Bard's confused shock) and after a few moments, she had pulled Mey-Rin's fading soul from her body.
Afterwards, she had Bard check on Celeste, Jadon and Selena.
When the confused Sitri finally arrived, Vepar sent him to find Sebastian. Within the hour, he arrived, and Vepar transferred Mey-Rin's soul to him. Since he was the demon she had contracted with, he technically needed to be the one to take it.

Sebastian maintained his composure as he collected his lover's cooling body, then vanished with her in his arms. He took her to the demon realm. Once there, he took her body and soul to the leader ang king of the fallen angels and human-born demons- the former Archangel: Lucifer.
Lucifer agreed to help Sebastian.
The demon put the dead woman's body into a sleep chamber within Lucifer's palace, closing it tightly after her damaged body was inside of it. Then her soul was sealed in a jar, and Sebastian was sent to his home in this realm.

Only then, when he was in his home and alone. It was only then, that he allow himself to experience his human emotions full force.
He started crying bitterly, as he collapsed to his knees in the entryway of his home.
He screamed out his anger and sadness as he sobbed. Mourning the death if his lover.
The mother of his children.

Camio arrived a few days later to tell Sebastian that his father, Lucifer, was accelerating the amount of time it took to heal Mey-Rin's body and change her into a demon.
After that, Sebastian was left alone to grieve for her loss.
Now that he had his human memories an associated emotions: he hated being a demon!
Like most of the demons who still had their memories and emotions (Of which there were not many) and those who were fallen angels, who still held some goodness inside of them.
He mourned the loss of her humanity and the birth of a new demon.
He had no idea if she would still be the woman he loved, when she woke up once more.

November 27th- a month later:

"This is how you aim-"

Mey-Rin was 14 again. She smiled as Logan stood behind her, he had his arms around her as he showed her how to aim.
He hadn't wanted to teach her how to use a gun. However, there had been some robberies in their apartment building recently.
For the infatuated young teen, it was Heaven to have his arms around her.

"- Mey-Rin, have you been listening-?"

She blinked at the words that were just spoken softly into her ear.

"I am."

"Really...? Then, what did I just say?"

"Uh..."

He laughed softly behind her.
He moved away from her, as he laughed while ruffling her hair affectionately.

"Let's leave it at that for today."

He said as she sighed. She was blushing from being caught spacing out. She heard her name called, and turned towards him- and found only darkness.
Blinking, she realized the darkness was all around her.
She turned around and she found herself in a garden. It was beautiful.
The surrounding architecture looked as if it was from somewhere in the middle east or maybe the Mediterranean?

"Allonia!"

Somehow, she knew that was her name- turning, she saw a young man. He was handsome. And, her heart ached. He was so dear to her! She heard herself speaking, but had no control over the words:

"Jadon!"

'Wait- J... Jadon? That's the name that Sebastian-'

"- I thought you were going to be late! I was ready to go home. If I stay much later, I will be in trouble!"

She heard herself saying. He smiled at her and they hugged.

"Sorry. My friend Sitri, and I were talking and the time got away from me."

He said and then they kissed.
The next thing she knew she was surrounded by that darkness again.
But, before she had time to register what had happened, she had flashes of a remembered pain and screaming.
Her own voice screaming!
Mey-Rin knelt in the darkness and covered her ears with her hands.
She blinked, seeing a man suddenly coming at her, she didn't know him. But he was dressed in the style from the middle-east.
As Jadon had been.
Then the man was beating her and tearing her clothes off of her! She shut her eyes as the screaming and pain went on.

Finally, all was silent again.
Then, peace filled her body and mind.
Mey-Rin felt like she was floating. She didn't want to wake up! She was so comfortable. However, a scent tickled her nose.
She knew this scent. Having smelled it before.
She shifted in her sleep slightly as she fought against waking up.

"Mey-Rin..."

She opened her eyes then, blinking up at her lover, realizing that she had her head in his lap. She smiled and reached up, resting a hand against his tired face. Wait... "tired face"? When had she ever seen Sebastian look so tired and worn out?

"You're home..."

She heard herself say.
Her own voice sounded raw and painful. She tried to clear her throat. That's when she realized something odd about her fingernails as they rested against his cheek:
They were black.

Blinking, she brought both of her hands before her eyes, and she frowned.
Both hands sported black nails.
And they looked sharper than she normally allowed.
She looked at her lover questioningly.

"You are a demoness..."

Sebastian said solemnly. She just blinked up at him.

"W-what?"

"You were dying. W-we... No, I-I had to claim your soul, in order to keep you from slipping away from us. So, you are now... A demon..."

The word "dying" kept playing over and over in her mind.
Confusion showed on her face.
Then she remembered what happened that night.
Mey-Rin remembered the pain of the dagger being shoved into her abdomen. And the pain of the knife as it cut through her throat. Her red eyes widened.

"W-What happened to the babies?!"

"Lady Elizabeth is caring for them... They are safe."

"Where are we?"

She asked, looking around as she tried to sit up. But she was suddenly overcome with extreme nausea, she rolled off of his lap and the sofa, onto the floor at his feet being violently ill.

"-Don't move so fast,"

Said the demon as he used his powers to clean her and the floor up, once her stomach was finished revolting. She gasped for breath, pain shooting all over her body.
Sebastian pulled her into his arms as she moaned from the pain. Despite his gentle touch and soft voice, she felt an odd distance between him and herself.
A distance that hadn't been there after she found out he was a demon.

"Lord Lucifer accelerated the time it takes to transform you into a demon..."

He said quietly. She looked up at him as he went on.

"- So, you are not exactly stable."

She leaned against his chest.

"I'm tired..."

"Rest some more..."

She nodded and let herself fall asleep as he scooped her into his arms.
She saw more dreams like the ones she had just awoke from. Some were good, some were bad. And they alternated between scenes from her life as Mey-Rin and as Alonia.
Confusing her quite a bit. Finally, she became somewhat numb to it all... Just watching it all play out (as if she was at a theater watching a play performed)- She had wanted to ask Sebastian about her earlier dreams, but she felt so weak and tired when she had spoken to him. Then she had fallen asleep again.

He sat there, watching her sleep, there was a slowly fading mark where her throat had been slit. He hoped it would be gone completely when she next awoke.
He considered praying for things to end ok for all of them. But, the demon within him was annoyed by that. He felt as if he had 2 personalities within him now: his human self- the young man called: Jadon and the centuries old demon called: Mephistopheles... Who was also called: Sebastian.
He felt a distance between himself and Mey-Rin, the same distance she had sensed. It was mostly his fault:
He was stuck in the demonic realm, he had to hide his human side from the majority of the other demons.

Protect his lover as she recovered and be himself, showing her affection while hiding that side from prying eyes... Not to mention that he had almost no idea what was happening in the human and heavenly realms, all of that made him nervous.
That was creating the awkward feeling she had sensed.

After Mey-Rin passed away and was taken by her lover: Ciel had the triplets moved into the mansion, he was going to higher a wet-nurse for them, but, after consulting Vepar and the other demons still there, they decided that it would be dangerous for them, as well as for any outsider who was brought in.
Lizzie and the pregnant Paula were both able to care for the babies, since they were a new and an expecting mother.
Lizzie took the baby boy from the triplets and fed him along with Rachael. Paula took both of the baby girls and after Lizzie showed her how to nurse a baby, she took care of feeding the 2 baby girls.
Ciel was worried about Lebolas, he asked Sitri to bring other demons, trustworthy ones over to this side, to help guard.

After a bit, Sitri brought Furfur and Stolas back into the human realm, since both could look like regular animals- Furfur: a stag and Stolas: a screech owl. He considered bringing Camio, since he could take the form of a raven, but Camio refused (though he would not say why).
Both of the demons who answered Sitri's summons moved into Sebastian & Mey-Rin's attached house, and stayed there during the day, then they went out into the surrounding forest to survey the estate grounds from a short distance, using the trees as cover. They would remain in the human realm to help, indefinitely. They'd need to feed all these demons, souls, to maintain their powers... That was Ciel's main concern.

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To Be Continued...

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Disclaimer: don't own anything from the Black Butler series. At all.