Prayers For Rain (Undertaker x Original Female Character)

12: Love Is a Many Splintered Thing

(Content Warning: Mentions of suicide.)

Lucretia sat in the bathtub, looking down at her bare features, blank expression on her face. The massive cut and scrapes all over her legs, bruises on her knees, brought too much back.

While at the children's home, she suffered greatly from physical abuse from the owner of the orphanage. All of the children did, and some were smart enough to run away before they got kicked out once they were old enough. She hadn't felt like herself for over a decade. The attack from Jack the Ripper brought everything back, the feelings of complete and total helplessness. The feelings of having to accept what you were to receive, too crippled with fear to fight it. Whenever she had been beaten or touched, it was like she wasn't in her own body but watching from an outside view. At such a young age, she began to question if God was even real and if he was, why didn't he help her?

Nothing about her appearance could change how she felt about herself: dirty and unclean. She felt like discarded garbage, used so many times that she feared she'd break if she was used even once more. Her heart was glass, and had been shattered beyond recognition before she ever had a real chance.

Before she could realize what happened, she broke into sobs and buried her head between her knees to let it pass.

Lucretia knew what could ease her suffering, but did she have the guts to do it? There were so many times she considered killing herself and yet, she never did, not really seeing a true point in giving in to what controlled her in life.

Rest could not find her that night; she joined her closest friend in her bed but hardly any comfort came from it. Caroline was slightly surprised that Lucretia had chosen to sleep in her room tonight, but accepted the company nonetheless.

She stared out the window the entire night, silently hoping Grell would come back, finishing a job she was too scared to start. Too much of a coward to fight back, yet too much of a coward to kill herself.

Well, I guess I'm just a coward...She tucked herself further under the covers and waited for morning.

...

Getting to the Undertaker's was a whole ordeal, having to bring herself eight blocks to his door, all in hopes of being able to keep her job if she showed diligence to learn and good work ethic.

She crutched herself behind the curtain where he was working on a customer, an older woman who was now being dressed with the best of care from her mortician.

"Hi," she spoke meekly, hoping not to startle her boss.

"Dearie, what are you doing?!" he chuckled as to cover up his nervousness and came to her side very quickly.

"I came to work?" Lucretia answered his question as if he should've already known the answer.

"I told you that you need to stay home," he nagged.

"But I brought cookies! Just for you," she smiled and pulled a large tupperware container out of her bag and handed it to her boss. "And some soup. It's in a thermos in my bag."

"Thank you so much dearie," he ruffled her hair, "but I'm not going to let you work, so, come on, go lay down." Undertaker pointed to his back room.

"Oh, but I came all this way," she frowned. "I just thought you might need my help."

"Not while you're hurt," he began to escort her to his personal room in the back. "You need to rest. But thank you for the cookies."

At least I can keep an eye on her here, the stubborn girl. The Undertaker was upset Lucretia didn't do as he asked and rest at home, but he was grateful that he knew exactly where she was and how she was.

"Could I sit by you at the table at least? You're not gonna leave me here all by myself with no one to tell jokes to, are you?" she frowned, knowing he would let her sit with him.

"Alright," he chuckled and picked her up, taking her back out to where he was working and he set her down in an empty coffin.

"Hey these things are pretty comfortable, I think I get why you sleep in them like Dracula sometimes," she shifted around until she was comfortable. Her comment earned a laugh from her boss. He set her crutches beside her after setting her down.

"How did you sleep last night, my darling?" he asked as he returned to his 'customer', not even looking to her as he asked.

"Uh," she paused briefly, caught off guard by his concern for her outside of something work related. "I slept just fine, thank you. Did you actually sleep in your bed or just a coffin?" She lied. There was no point in telling her boss the uncomfortable, 'I didn't sleep a wink. I didn't feel safe...without you.'

He giggled at her question, "My bed," he answered. He swapped between performing the autopsy on the young man and writing his notes for the autopsy.

"The Phantomhive butler visited yesterday, I sent him your way after he saw me." Lucretia mentioned which piqued his interest. The Undertaker turned to her briefly and turned back to his work, silently ushering her to continue. "He wanted to invite the two of us to a dinner party at their estate," she continued in an uninteresting tone, "It's around a month away. I don't know if I have the affinity for Noble parties."

The Undertaker giggled at her lack of interest for attending the upper class events, "Why is that, dearie? Don't know how to act like the nobles?" He joked.

Lucretia rolled her eyes though he couldn't see it, "I guess that might be part of it. Hell, I don't care to know which is the salad fork and which is the dinner fork. I don't know to dance for something like that either," she giggled with her boss.

"Well maybe I'll show you how to dance when your leg is better," he smiled to himself.

"Yeah," she sighed as she pulled herself up, holding onto the counter for support. "Didn't know you knew how." Lucretia slowly made her way to his side, less than gracefully holding herself up on the steel table.

"Dearie, please go sit down," Undertaker let out a worrisome sigh and helped her keep her balance by putting his arm around her waist.

"Then please let me help?" she asked with an innocent smile. "If there's anything I can do without having to walk, I'll do it."

"My, my," he picked her up gently and set her down on the counter, standing ever so slightly in between her legs, "why do you have to be so difficult?" His nails grazed her chin as he was trying to get her attention.

"Difficult?" Lucretia asked with a gulp. "I-I just wanted to help," her face was flushing shades of pink at the feeling of his robes and the chain of his mourning locket brushed against the inside of her legs.

"I told you not to even come in today, didn't I?" he chuckled, and leaned closer to her, their faces getting closer by the second.

"Yes, I-I'm sorry, but I thought you might still need my help," she tried to defend herself. "I'm already here so."

"Tsk, tsk," he jokingly scolded, though she certainly didn't take it that way, "such a naughty apprentice, can't even listen to your boss." Maybe 'naughty' was the wrong word... Undertaker mulled over his thoughts as he looked into her big brown eyes. He picked her up again and set her back in the coffin she was in previously. "Write these autopsy reports for me. I can hardly see the blasted things." He tossed the clipboard over his shoulder without a care, but Lucretia fumbled to catch it.

"A-alright. Yes sir," Lucretia nodded, not really being able to process what had happened within the blink of an eye. Naughty?