“Is the brain still in tact?”

“Yes father,” the boy murmured quietly, laying a hand across the body bag. “She was only buried this afternoon. Same careless undertakers and morticians...They left in all of the organs.”

Seth's tired eyes surveyed the woman's body in the thin light, “Blix, please go to bed for the night. You are tiring yourself out too much.”

The boy looked at him, face unreadable. He was a thin, pale boy with messy black hair almost always slouched over half of his face and hazel eyes. “I am fine.”

The ringmaster pulled his surgical mask down briefly so he could sigh, “It bothers me enough that you are out, grave robbing. Such a young boy shouldn't be exposed to such dark matters.”

Blix looked down at the body laying on the table besides the woman in the body bag, “...I do it for mother...”

The older man stepped around the table and put a hand on Blix's crown, “Blix?”

“Do you think...do you think she'll like me when we meet,” he asked, voice choked with excitement. “I do hope so...mother must be so kind...”

“Cyreina was a wonderful woman,” Seth told him, feeling a pang in his heart as he spoke her name.

His eyes met the boy's in the dark, both ringed with weeks without sleep. “Has the IV drip dispelled any of the crap that was in her system last time we had her walking around?”

Blix turned his eyes to the notebook clutched in his left hand. “A few more hours should get rid of it...” he murmured quietly, voice sad.

Seth returned the look, thinking back to a few weeks ago. The trees were just than starting to turn golden as he and his young associate had led her out to the woods.

This was there twentieth attempt to get Cyreina walking around like a living person once more. At first, it had been glorious to see her standing from the forest floor after Blix had gently set her down. Slowly, she had risen, her bones rustling and popping.

The sun danced on her raven haired locks; he had come so close to kissing her lips again, no matter how cold they were.

Her knees were locked together, but she was standing. Alive! A few tentative steps came while Seth and Blix had looked on in overwhelmed joy. She had smiled, her eyes still nothing but golden smears of paint.

But as Seth dared to take a breath, her mouth opened in a small, silent cry. Her knees buckled, making her topple roughly down into the moist earth.

Her chest had split open once more, he had seen as he ran to her. The wound always seemed to open no matter how many stitches he wove, no matter how much of his skin he tore away to patch it and especially no matter how many tears of blood he shed.

A shiver passed through him as he thought of that day. So much had gotten into her veins from that gaping wound where the bullet had struck.

“Father...?”

“Hm?”

“Will mother ever be ok,” the boy asked innocently, his darkly ringed eyes looking to Seth as though a rare smile might come if his father could just say the right words.

“With time...I am certain we can accomplish new life for her,” Seth answered, pleased that he could make the boy shed a smile. “Now, off to bed.”

Blix hesitated, looking to the body once more. “...Alright...Goodnight Father. May I say goodnight to mother?”

Seth nodded, running a hand through his long, red locks. Damn...I need a hair cut, he thought to himself, noting his hair was almost to the small of his back at this point.

“Night mother,” Blix murmured, kissing her cold forehead lovingly before leaving.

Another smile came to Seth's face, but it was very brief as he turned back and looked down at Cy. “I'm sorry sweetling...I know I say it too much but...”

He collapsed against the surgical table, unable to hold himself anymore. He had lost too much blood. Seth breathed quietly against her breast for a long moment, feeling the pain soften slowly.

“I swear I will bring breath to your lips once more, Cyreina Alexander,” he whispered ferociously, grabbing the blood stained scalpel in the metal bin.

Her eyes turned to him as he stood. She stared at him with the same blank look she had given him since her death as he stroked her hair tenderly.

“We're so close...,” he promised, cupping her face, “So...so close...”

He slit his arm, from the wrist up the joint. The pain made him scream as his head slammed down, trying to stifle the pain as more of his immortal blood poured out.

“Still not enough...” he murmured to himself, standing shakily as Cy watched him. “I swear...I swear to you, I'll reach my limit of redemption!”

It was such a small chance...but it was his last option. Earlier in the year he had heard a rumor that if one suffered enough, the angel of insanity would appear to them and give them something they requested.

Seth stared down at his arms, counting the scars. “197,” he said out loud, frowning warily, “It's not enough...”

Cy made a small gurgling noise, reaching up towards the light swinging above her.

He spun around and caught her hand, slowly lowering it back down. “Please save your strength, sweetling...”

The sad look she gave him sent a horrible pain through his head. He grasped at his temples as his body began to shudder violently. “I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry...”

He laced his fingers with hers, eyes shut as his mind drifted off in the darkness. Their rings slid together and sparkled in unison in the light of that dim Hell.