A young boy stood by the tall, arched window of the upper gallery. His small palm, pale and slightly damp from a lingering trace of fever, rested against the cold, carved mahogany corner of the casing. His blue eyes, unblinking and heavy with the forced quietude of the chronic invalid, gazed downward at the manor’s serene surroundings.

In the meticulously tended labyrinth of the garden below, his brother, Ciel, who shared his precise complexion, his features, the very slope of his shoulders, yet possessed a vitality that felt like an entirely different language, was playing cheerfully upon the damp grass. Ciel was chasing after their cousin, Elizabeth, whose golden hair gleamed like spun sugar in the midday light, her high-pitched laughter drifting up through the leaded glass like the distant chiming of small bells. Nearby, their mother, Rachel Phantomhive, watched over them from a wicker garden chair, a warm, soft shawl draped over her shoulders, her pale lips parted in a gentle smile while their father, Vincent, occasionally stepped away from his tea to join in their robust, running games, his dark coat tails snapping in the breeze. 

In sharp, melancholy contrast to Sirius’s life, the atmosphere below was one of unrestricted motion and vitality. It was only recently that Sirius’s illness, that cruel, tightening constriction within his chest that made every breath feel like drawing liquid lead through a needle, had worsened to such an alarming degree that his parents and the family physicians had begun to speak in those low, terrible whispers that children are never meant to hear. Thus, with a gentle, suffocating kindness, they had imprisoned him within the opulent, carpeted walls of the manor house, leaving him to look down at his own family as though they were figures in a painted diorama. He was a spectator to his own childhood.

He did not hear her approach. He had grown so accustomed to the heavy, deliberate footsteps of the butler or the rustle of the nurse’s stiff skirts that the silence of the gallery had become a sort of second skin. Yet, a sudden, subtle shift in the light beside him announced her arrival. Elizabeth’s younger sister, who, though a Midford by blood, bore no structural resemblance to her family in feature, voice, or the grace of her movements, walked up to his side. Her soft leather slippers made no sound against the thick pile of the green runner. 

She did not speak at first, simply leaning her small forearms against the polished windowsill beside him as her dreamy, kind gaze drifted down to the sunlit lawn where the shadows of the cedar trees were stretching across the grass. For a long minute, the only sound between them was the faint, rhythmic wheeze in Sirius’s chest and the distant caw of a crow over the stables.

"You've been watching them a long while," she mused at last. Her eyes did not look at him, keeping instead on the figures below.

His breath caught slightly in his throat, a small, involuntary hitch that he quickly tried to swallow lest she think he was about to have another fit. Even at this tender age, Sirius had always perceived the girl beside him as entirely ethereal, an angel stepped directly from the pages of the illuminated medieval texts he devoured during his long hours of confinement. Her soft-spoken manner and steady appearance only heightened the impression of her sanctity.

When her mesmerizing hues finally turned to meet his, a gentle smile played upon her lips. The sharp morning sunlight refracted through the glass behind her, catching the tiny, loose strands of her hair until she appeared to him to be the single brightest star in an otherwise darkened sky.

"Are you feeling any better today, Sirius?" she asked, her tone as soothing as the south wind through the pines.

Sirius nodded quickly, his fingers tightening slightly against the mahogany molding. He found himself unable to tear his eyes away from the curve of her cheek. "Yes. Thank you. Much better. The camphor steam helped my chest before dawn, and the nurse permitted me to leave my bed, provided I did not venture near the stairs."

"The stairs are very cold today," she agreed softly, her gaze returning to the window. Down on the lawn, Elizabeth had paused her running to wave frantically up at the second-floor gallery, her small white handkerchief fluttering. Beside her, Ciel looked up and smiled, his face bright.

Sirius looked from his brother's bright face back to the girl beside him. A small, protective curiosity began to stir in his mind.

"What are you doing inside?" he asked, his voice dropping. "Don't you want to run with them? Edward and Ciel are setting up the croquet hoops by the hedge. Elizabeth said yesterday that you were to be on her team."

Y/N turned her face back toward him, her expression entirely devoid of the restless energy that governed her sister. 

"I did not care for croquet today. The grass is still far too damp, and Elizabeth always shouts so when she misses a hoop." She paused, her small hand reaching out to touch the velvet sleeve of his coat. "Besides, I wanted to check up on you. I brought something from the library, but I thought you might prefer a distraction first."

The nod of his head was faint, though a radiating warmth had begun to bloom beneath his ribs, far more effective than any of the bitter, dark tonics the doctor poured into his silver cup. His lingering mood was not lost on her, and she did not let go of his arm; instead, her small fingers slid down to his wrist, her touch was light but insistently pulling him away from the bright glare of the window. The confusion he felt caused his brows to furrow slightly, yet he followed her without a word of resistance, his tentative steps matching hers. 

"Where are we going?" he queried guilelessly, his voice barely above a whisper as they passed the tall grandfather clock. "If the housekeeper catches us roaming near the kitchens, she will tell Mother."

She offered no immediate answer, only a mischievous look over her shoulder that made his heart skip a beat. "The housekeeper is currently in the stillroom with the linen count. And you might want to hear what my mother and father have been talking about recently in the library when they thought the door was securely shut."

Their footsteps echoed softly as they walked down the wide corridor of the west wing. The walls were adorned with immense, ornate family portraits, generations of Phantomhives whose painted eyes seemed to track the two children as they passed beneath the heavy, tarnished gilded frames. She led him down the back stairwell, where the stone steps grew cooler, until they reached the heavy oak door of the kitchens, where she waited after giving a firm knock. 

The door swung back with a groan to reveal a young kitchen maid, her white apron pristine, though her face was flushed from the heat of the great roasting ranges. 

"Good afternoon, Miss Midford," the maid said, dropping into a quick, practiced curtsy. "How may I assist you? Lady Midford is not expected in the parlor for another hour."

Concealing his presence, Y/N held Sirius’s hand steady behind the fold of her skirt and grinned at the woman with an innocent, disarming sweetness.

"We should like a bit of sweet, if you please, as ordered by my aunt Rachel," she requested. "She said the fresh almond cakes would do quite well for the afternoon."

Sirius hid his face against the stone molding of the doorframe, his small heart hammering violently against his ribs as he listened to her tell the lie with such magnificent composure. The maid nodded without a second thought, hurried back into the depths of the pantry, and returned moments later with a small porcelain platter bearing two golden-brown almond cakes and a cluster of sugared plums.

Y/N accepted the prize with a polite thank-you, and the very moment the heavy oak door clicked shut, she turned to Sirius. For a long moment, they simply stood in the dim, stone corridor, looking at the platter between them, before both of them broke into identical grins.

They carried their spoils out through the glass doors of the conservatory, where the air was thick with the scent of damp earth and blooming ferns, and ventured out into a secluded corner of the grounds. There, beneath the shade of an old stone bench nestled deep within a riot of late-blooming summer flowers, they finally sat. The crimson and violet petals dazzled in the midday heat, and the heavy, drowsy hum of the bees among the lavender seemed to wall them off from the rest of the estate.

For several minutes, they dined in a friendly silence. The only sound was the faint, rhythmic chirping of the thrushes in the hedgerows. Sirius observed her with an immense fascination as she ate, her small hands holding the pastry neatly. He took a sugar plum from the edge of the plate, and as he did, his fingers briefly brushed against hers and a sudden, strange little shudder ran straight through his small frame, leaving his skin tingling.

He waited until she had wiped the last stray crumbs of sugar from her fingertips before he leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees, his blue eyes fixed entirely upon her face. The unhurried peace of the garden had given him the courage to speak.

"What is it, then," he asked, his tone curious and completely innocent, "that you heard your parents discussing in the library? You looked so serious when you came to the window."

Every time she was near like this, an emotion he could not quite categorize filled his chest, a sudden, fierce desire to be stronger, to be healthy, to be the sort of boy who could run through the rosebushes and protect her, rather than the boy who had to be looked after, especially by her on her every visits.

Her cheeks flushed a delicate pink under the midday sun. She leaned closer across the stone bench, her voice dropping into a secretive, breathless whisper that made the space between them feel incredibly small.

"Did you know," she began, "that Mother and Father have promised me to you? I heard them speaking with Uncle Vincent over the port. They said that when we are grown, I am to be your fiancée."

Sirius’s eyes widened in utter surprise. The silver-edged platter nearly slipped from his knees onto the grass. "Truly? To me? Are you certain they did not mean Ciel? Ciel is... Ciel is the one who will have the earldom."

She shook her head firmly and joyfully, a shy smile gracing her lips as she reached out to touch his knee. "No. Father specifically said your name. He said Sirius has the gentler soul, and that Ciel would be far too busy with the city to notice the flowers. I am glad, you know. It means we shall never have to say goodbye when the carriages come at the end of the summer. We can spend every day playing, and when the winter storms come, we can have sleepovers endlessly in the great east wing by the fire."

Her comments caused a vast sensation of warmth to rise within his chest. The thought of an endless future spent entirely beside her, shielded from the terrifying expectations of the peerage by the simple geography of her presence, delighted him until his small chest felt as though it might burst with happiness. He reached out, his small fingers closing around hers, and for the first time in his life, the future did not look like a series of closed windows and bitter medicines.

The gentle rustle of the summer foliage blended with their shared laughter as it reverberated across the private yard. The world beyond their small, sun-drenched cocoon vanished entirely, leaving only the two of them on a stone bench in the center of the world.

For a single, beautiful moment in time, everything appeared perfect; the future was bright, golden, and full of promise.

But fate had other plans.

A month later, the fire arrived. An act of monstrous, unspeakable cruelty occurred at Phantomhive Manor, one that shattered their peaceful world, scattered the ashes of the family to the wind, and changed the trajectory of their lives forever.

Sirius Phantomhive was publicly declared dead alongside his parents, his very name erased from the registry of the living. Ciel was believed to be the lone, miraculous survivor of the tragedy; leaving the practical, childhood engagement between the sickly second son and the illegitimate daughter of Midford utterly broken, a forgotten relic of a life that had been burned to the ground.