TW: mentions of child abuse, various weapons, blood and gun violence in this chapter!
The job offer was exactly what she had expected but she was still shocked. "Who wants me to what?!"
"The Queen wants you to meet with her. She's become quite fascinated with your work and she might have a case she would like for you to look into and possibly assist another associate with," explained Phipps as Grey chuckled about Y/N's reaction. They had continued to walk on Y/N's patrol so she didn't miss anyone who needed saving.
"The, the Queen," Y/N repeated, "She wants to meet with me?" Y/N still couldn't believe what she was hearing. She knew her story spread but she didn't know it spread as far as the hands of the queen of England! This was exactly what she wanted! But something was off... she was getting the recognition she wanted, and from a queen no less! "But that means..." Y/N trailed off.
"Means what? Most people would jump on an opportunity like this, so what's stopping you?" Charles Grey pried at her, "You'd finally start getting paid for the good you're doing, and you could get out of that dank, little pub."
Y/N was silent. She was trying to come up with an answer that would satisfy how she was feeling, and after a few minutes of thinking, she finally came up with one. "But that means I would have to leave all of this behind, all these people that I've saved... I'd have to leave them behind, and I can't do that." Y/N had worked so hard here and her whole concept hadn't been to get paid for her work. Rather, it had been about doing the right thing for free because she was a good person.
Grey gagged, "Ugh, that was almost disgustingly sweet, even for my tastes, and I had three desserts!"
"Maybe it was, but if I wasn't motivated by something so nastily sweet you wouldn't have come looking for me, would you?" Y/N knew she was right. Sure it was cheesy but it was partially true. "I just can't leave all that I've worked for behind like that. It's irresponsible and negligent to leave behind what I started doing all this for."
"Your strong sense of responsibility and moral obligation are exactly what the perfect butler should strive for, giving Her Majesty more of a reason to desire to meet with you," stated Phipps.
"Yeah, well I'm not a butler and I said 'no'. But that doesn't really mean much, now does it?" Y/N really wanted to take the job for the queen, but she had also come to adore the local lower class in which she had spent almost a month protecting. They were good, honest people who enjoyed and were thankful for all she had done for them.
"Well it sure would be a shame if your face and name were released as the Lion's true identity and you were arrested for more than thirty counts of assault-" Y/N stopped Charles Grey before he could go on.
"Okay, okay I get it! Enough metaphorically twisting my arm, I get it!"
"So you'll meet the queen?"
"Do I have a choice?"
"You're a woman in London," Grey laughed, "is that even a question?" Y/N sighed as she trudged on.
"No, I suppose not."
Warning: mentions of child abuse, various weapons, blood and gun violence in the following paragraphs
It had been a rough next few days. Phipps and Grey had begun trailing her, asking her how long she was going to keep the Queen waiting for a meeting. Over and over again, did Y/N told them she didn't have any proper attire or the manners to meet the queen face to face and she should just send her a letter. Every time she suggested the letter, which was every time they spoke, Grey or Phipps shut her down and insisted on a face to face meeting between the Lion and her future employer. Y/N was quite huffy about it, and had found it distracting as she tried to focus on her patrol. Nothing big had happened thus far, only a few drunks and some asshole teens trying to rob a clothing store, but Y/N was still hung up over the Queen and her invitation. She must've been really interested to send her prized butlers to hire her. Y/N knew from the Emerald Witch arc that the Queen wouldn't mind Y/N being a woman. "But I also know I can't trust the Queen, she doesn't tell just one person everything and she is definitely unhinged," Y/N thought as she fiddled with the safety of her gun. It was at that moment when a small kid flew out of a building, throwing the door open with such force it that banged against the building's wall and sounded as loud as a gunshot. Y/N flipped the safety off her gun, aimed it right behind the kid and shouted at the kid to get behind her. Not far behind the child raged a middle aged man with a bat and the stench of cigar smoke. The kid screamed and ran behind Y/N before collapsing behind her, tears flowing from her eyes as she cried and whimpered from behind Y/N's legs. "Back off, buddy," Y/N warned the man, her gun didn't shake and her gaze stayed strong. The man just screamed something awful and waved the bat around like a feral animal.
"That little brat stole my wages!" Shouted the ugly man as he waved around the bat. The girl just sobbed louder and clung to Y/N's legs.
"Sir, put the bat down or I will fire. Let's handle this like reasonable adults without weapons," Y/N tried to reason with the man but he just started stomping over to Y/N and the kid. "Sir, this is your last chance to back the fuck up before I fire!"
BANG
The man fell backwards and the little girl screamed. A small stream of smoke wafted out of the barrel of Y/N's pistol. His body hit the concrete with a 'thud' and Y/N stood in shock of what she had just done. She had just shot a man right in the chest. Not in the foot like she normally did, but square in the middle of his chest. The girl sobbed louder and gripped Y/N's pant leg like it was all she could hold onto to stay alive. Y/N just stood frozen for a few more moments before she fully realized what she had just done. She felt like throwing up. Rather than lose her dinner all over the sidewalk Y/N stumbled over to where the man fell and bent down over him. Blood was pooling under him and some was dripping out of the wound onto the pavement. "Oh my God," Y/N whispered, "Oh God oh God oh God!" She never wanted to actually kill anyone: getting shot in the foot usually wasn't lethal and so far no one had died but she just shot this man in the chest! Y/N frantically looked up around herself to find that no other people aside from the man, herself and the wailing kid were around. Where they had just come from appeared to be the only place where people could shack up. Everything else was a shop. Y/N's mind raced: ambulances weren't a thing yet and this man would die without any medical help. She had no car or taxi to get him to a hospital and taking him back to her universe would be insanity. Y/N kept racking her mind for a solution to her problem: where around her could she find someone who had the medical knowledge and tools to stop a man from bleeding out from a bullet wound?
Y/N felt stupid for not thinking of them immediately. She had thought of this type of problem and its solution on the first patrol she had done. She chalked it off to shock and hysteria as she hefted the man up on one of her shoulders. "I really hope he doesn't mind late night guests."
It only took her ten minutes to haul the man over in front of the store. She placed his bleeding body down on the sidewalk before she banged on the door, "Please open up," Y/N begged under her breath. There was silence, she was about to knock again before she heard his blood-chilling laugh from behind the door. Slowly the door creaked open and the moonlight reflected off his smile and white hair.
"I'm afraid I don't work with the live ones," chuckled the Undertaker, "Once he loses his kick, come back and I'll help you out." He went to close the door but Y/N stuck her foot between it and the frame before it closed.
"Please," she whispered, "I need your help." He could've crushed her foot in the door if he slammed it hard enough but he stopped to consider the gains, the pros and cons of helping her played over in his mind. He finished considering lending her a hand before giving her his signature smirk and opened the door a little more.
"You know I don't work for free, I need some... incentive, for helping you deal with a living man you shot," he chuckled. Y/N sighed. She knew what he wanted. Before he could elaborate and lose them more time Y/N began talking, still using her fake voice.
"Jokes about Death aren't funny," Y/N sighed, "Unless executed properly." The Undertaker toppled over in laughter, clutching his sides he let the door swing wider open so Y/N and the man could shuffle in.
In the back of the Parlor, there was a door that led to a hospital-like room where the Undertaker told her to leave the man. He went inside the room and ushered Y/N out so he could operate on the man. The Undertaker warned Y/N he hadn't ever done something like this on a live victim so it wouldn't be perfect. Y/N sat on one of the coffins in his parlor trying to calm her nerves when she remembered a pretty important detail she had forgotten about: the little girl! "Oh shit!" Y/N ran out the door to go look for the little girl. She didn't have to search far though: the girl was waiting on the stairs to the building she had run out of. "There you are," Y/N gasped, relieved that the girl was okay. The young girl ran to her from across the street and gripped her around the waist, burying her face in her shirt. "What happened, sweetie?"
"He's my uncle," she sobbed, "when my auntie leaves for work he smokes and gets angry. I went to get some money to go buy dinner for me and my auntie when he started screamin' at me!" The girl continued to sob into Y/N's clothes as she guided her inside the parlor and closed the door behind her. Y/N was able to seat the girl down on a coffin's lid and got her a handkerchief that Alice had lent her. Once she had calmed down and gotten control of her breathing, Y/N continued to ask her questions about what had happened. Apparently after his wife left, the man would smoke and drink. He would get violent, but he snapped when his niece tried to get some money and tried to kill her.
"He can't hurt you anymore, okay sweetie?" Y/N assured her, using her real voice. She had ditched her cloak and scarf after she got the girl inside. The little girl began crying again and Y/N wrapped her arms around the girl and tried to comfort her, rubbing her back and trying to get her to stop wailing. Y/N knew the Undertaker would be done with the girl's uncle soon. She also knew he put together the pieces behind her identity a long time ago. He had been doing her a favor, not saying anything to the public, but Y/N also knew not most people realized that the Undertaker did more than put people underground. She held the girl for a few more minutes before the Undertaker joined them in the parlor. He just stood against a coffin and laughed to himself. Y/N didn't want to explain herself to him but she felt like it would be wrong to keep hiding from her friend. "I knew what you sold aside from coffins, and I know who you sell it to I didn't want to be his next case," Y/N could feel her own tears threaten to spill over, "I just wanted to help-" Y/N felt the Undertaker's sleeve wipe her tears as they spilled out of her eyes.
"I know, dearie, I had planned on treating you like another source of information but once we got to talking, I saw your potential," he explained as he sat down next to her.
"Potential?" Y/n sniffled.
"As a source of entertainment," the Undertaker laughed, "Maybe as a friend." Y/N wasn't sure she was supposed to hear the last bit. She put a hand on his arm and gave him a kind smile. The little girl had fallen asleep in her arms.
"Well, friends don't let each other kill angry drunks on a typical basis. I knew I could count on you if my joke was good enough and I had enough credit already. We had some good times in those window booths. I'd never really laughed with someone like that before." Y/N stroked the little girl's hair, "What do we do with her?"
"Well I can't have a kid runnin' around in me parlor."
"And Alice has enough on her plate with the Pub and Christopher. I can't take in a kid but maybe if we get the aunt far away she can take her and they can have a good life." Y/N wanted to take the little girl far away from London as fast as she could but where would they go? It wasn't like either her or the aunt was loaded.
"I know some people who can help them out," assured the Undertaker, "And I've seen my fair share of men killed from carriage accidents. When this poor lad makes his way to a hospital no one will think twice to look for or even think of finding a bullet wound."
"Thank you so much," Y/N breathed a sigh of relief, "How exactly are we going to get him to a hospital though?"
"Well I can't leave the parlor for too long but if you can take him in the morning down the street to the police station and say you found him lying on the side of the road, probably hit by a carriage, they'll take him off our hands."
"Sounds good," Y/N sighed before turning her attention back onto the child, "I should probably take her back to her house. If she's missing along with her uncle, the aunt might freak out and cause a panic."
"I'll take her back," offered the Undertaker, "Only one of us is covered in blood." Y/N looked down at her clothes to find red blood stains seeped into the fabric. Y/n let out an aggravated sigh and rolled her head back, Alice wouldn't be all that happy about the stains. The Undertaker chucked before offering her some extra clothing he kept in the back for guests who weren't fortunate. She could change in the back while he took the little girl home.
Y/N had changed into a nice pair of pants and a dress shirt, both black. As she looked at herself in the mirror she noticed how much she looked like a living corpse, the adventure of the night written in her eyes. The Undertaker told Y/n he had placed the uncle in a basement he had the entrance to hidden behind the counter, and so he couldn't escape the Undertaker had flooded his system with a drug to keep him asleep. When the Undertaker got back without the kid he told Y/N that he had arranged for her and her aunt to leave as soon as daylight poured into the street. "Well I should get back to the pub, Alice is going to be worried."
"Actually, I don't think you should be going out at this hour. You can stay in the parlor tonight if you'd like," was he offering her a chance to stay in his parlor?
"That would be amazing! Thank you!" Y/N was getting a chance to have a sleepover with the Undertaker. She would've been crazy to refuse his offer! The Undertaker was amused with her enthusiasm; not many people would be that excited to spend the night in an Undertaker's parlor sleeping in a coffin.
"Well with Jack the Ripper closing on three victims, I can't let a lady such as yourself wander down the street now can I?" Y/N about choked on air. She had forgotten all about Jack the Ripper! She knew that sounded stupid considering she had been contacted by the Queen's personal butlers about the case, but after shooting a man, she found herself to be only able to think of that or nothing at all. "This was also delivered to me. Strangely enough it appears to be addressed to you." The Undertaker pulled out a letter from the inside of his long, black sleeve. Y/N recognized the wax seal on it almost instantly and took it from his hand. She tore it open and began to read it's contents. When she finished she looked up to the Undertaker with a new kind of excitement.
"Looks like I just got a promotion."
"From the Queen herself."