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There was a huge kerfuffle in Reaper HQ, all due to a rather unexpected new arrival. Everyone who was there knew that if you took your own life you had to be punished by having to collect the souls of the dead; but this was taking it a little far.
A four year old boy cowered in the corner of the common room.
The reaper who had collected him hadn’t known what to do, he couldn’t bring himself to leave him alone in the room where you normally woke to the life of reaping, so he had brought the child hear to ask for advice. When the child had woken he had screamed and backed away from all the people, muttering things like “stay away” and “it didn’t work” and generally confusing the unfortunate Reapers stuck in the room with him.
Then Grell and Elizabeth arrived.
The only two girls in collections had been given a rather large job, a terrorist attack with too many dead for one reaper to handle. Elizabeth had been on investigation and Grell had joined her to help with collection, all in all it went perfectly.
Elizabeth was rather confused at the commotion going on in the normally quiet room, more so when Grell suddenly disappeared from her side to reappear in the middle of it. She watched with the rest of the collection reapers in amazement as Grell handled the situation.
‘There, there, shush. It’s okay, no one is going to hurt you are do anything you don’t want us to. Just calm down, I’ll look after you.’ Grell kept murmuring softly, soothing the poor boy as he cowered away from everyone. ‘Come hear Sweetie, it’s alright.’ Grell held her arms open and the boy looked at her, confused. After a while she reached for the terrified child and gently wrapped him in her arms. The boy looked terrified for a while, but slowly relaxed and buried his head in her shoulder.
‘Do you want to tell me what happened?’ Grell asked softly. The boy shook his head.
‘Can’t, she’ll be mad at me.’
‘She won’t get mad at you, I promise. She can’t get mad about something she doesn’t know about can she? It’ll be our little secrete, so why don’t you tell?’ the boy sniffled.
‘She won’t know I told? They won’t tell?’ he whispered, looking at the watching crowed.
‘They’re my friends; they won’t tell if I ask them not to.’
Finally the boy nodded.
‘she says I do bad things, that I have to punished, that it’s my fault she doesn’t have enough to eat. I try to be good, I do, but I all ways mess up. And then she punishes me and it hurts.
‘The dog died, and the man said it was okay ’cause it was going somewhere where it didn’t hurt. I didn’t want to hurt any more so I thought I could go with it, but … but … it didn’t work!’ the child suddenly wailed, bursting into tears. ‘The dogs not here so it didn’t work! She’ll find me! Don’t let her take me back. Please, please don’t let her take me back!’
‘Hush, it’s okay, she can’t get you. Shhh, no one can hurt you here.’ Grell cradled the child in her arms and started rocking. Talking in the same calm and quiet voice, so different from normal, she continued. ‘Sweetie, it’s alright, it did work. You went somewhere else; you came here. No one can hurt you now. I’ll look after you; I’ll make sure she can’t find you. No one will send you back.’ Grell continued to murmur until the boy eventually stopped crying and fell asleep.
She stood up, boy still in her arms, and addressed the crowd that hadn’t moved. ‘Does anyone here know his name?’
‘He doesn’t have one.’ the reaper that collected the boy said, looking sad. Grell shook her head.
‘Well, that won’t do. I’ll just have to name him myself then. William!’ she called and started to walk out of the room, Elizabeth following behind.
William was just coming in to see why no one was working.
‘William! There you are, I’m adopting him.’ Grell said with a no-nonsense voice. The whole crowed looked at her.
‘Sutcliff, you can’t adopt him. He’s a reaper, he won’t age, and more importantly you have no idea how to look after children.’
‘I don’t care; I’ve decided I’m adopting him. It’s not like you can get him to work, for god’s sake he’s four! He needs someone to look after him and you boys are hopeless!’
‘Sutcliff, you can’t take him on collections. He can’t work but you have to. Give him to one of the ladies in personnel to look after.’
‘No. He’s mine, I want him. I’ll get one of the personnel ladies to look after him while I’m busy, but he’s mine and I’m adopting him whether you like it or not.’
William sighed. He’d been going out with Grell for several years now; he knew that when she got like this there was no arguing with her.
He also knew how badly she had wanted children.
Slowly he nodded and resigned himself to the knowledge that his girlfriend was about to become a mother. Now the only question was would he be stubborn enough to make her do it alone. Well that really wasn’t a question, he knew he wasn’t.
‘Fine I’ll get the paper work, both sets.’ He muttered to everyone’s confusion.
‘Both sets?’ Grell asked as he started to walk out the door.
‘Yes, I can’t have my girlfriend adopting a child without me. Besides, if the boy needs a mother he needs a father. I was going to ask you to marry me anyway, now I guess I’ll just have to do it ahead of schedule.’ And for the first time in any Reapers memory William smiled.
The boy, who would later be called John, woke up to his new mother squealing in delight.