Ghost in the Machine (Undertaker x Female Reader)

Chapter Four.

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It was a whisper of touch and the faint aroma of Darjeeling that finally woke me. I gradually drifted away from the blackness, orienting to the gray light filtering in through the bedroom window. I shifted under the bedclothes, squinting to make out the edge of the building behind the shop from where I lay, until a soft voice forced me to shift my attention to the edge of the bed.

"Goodness, there you are." The man—the Undertaker—sat on the bed's edge, balancing a steaming teacup on its saucer. The back of his free hand passed over my eye, moving to stroke along my cheekbone once again. He set the teacup down on the bedside table and gently pulled me to a sitting position. "You were out a good two days. Come now and drink this; we must get your strength back."

I blinked, still somewhat trapped in the fog of awakening. Dutifully, I sipped at the tea he handed me while he smoothed his hand over my hair. Two days? There was no doubt I'd be in the grips of a furious case of bedhead by now. My incredulity over anything else had gone with the events of late.

Papa.

The memory clamped onto my heart like a vise. I paused, holding the teacup between trembling palms halfway to my mouth, tears stinging my eyes and flowing over my cheeks before wetting the linen in my lap. I nearly dropped the cup, covering my mouth with one hand in a bid to force my sobs back to their source, but my efforts couldn't stop them from fighting their way out. They carried my breath and my silence out in the violence of air expelled from lungs desperate to be rid of such heavy sorrow.

"Ah..." He had taken the cup and set it down before gathering me up against him. He said nothing, only wrapped myself and my memory tightly in his arms, as he pressed his lips to my crown.

When my mother passed, there had been so many words from others that passed—within society—as tidings of support. They filled the silence with emptiness. I wondered at this paradox in the years after, and even now, when silent company and simple touch finally proved to be what could add a stitch or two at a time to the tear in my heart. After noticing I had taken my customary handful of his silver hair for security, I reflected that his were the actions of someone who recognized the needs created by grief.

But wasn't this a given for an undertaker? Grief was his stock-in-trade.

My sobs had dissolved away in favor of this quiet introspection before I noticed that while he sat here with me, completely dressed save for his hat and overcoat, I remained in the men's cotton nightshirt he had lent me. I stiffened and sat up away from him, pulling the bedclothes up to my chin and crimson with embarrassment. I recalled that he had seen everything before when assisting me and would be, as someone working with corpses, familiar with such sights, but with renewed strength and the light of day my painfully-Victorian sensibilities were roaring back to life. He laughed brightly, easily reading my thoughts.

"Not to worry, my dear; I have something for you."

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Boxes lay strewn about the room, their lids haphazardly tipped off or to the side. Miles of fabrics and trims, made up into a small, neat wardrobe of items. I sat in the middle of it all, blanketed in a day dress of softest dove gray. I touched the cord trim and silken buttons of its bodice, reverently.

"I knew you wouldn't want what I found you in, so it was no matter to bring those things to a dressmaker for sizing." The Undertaker sipped from his own teacup, delighting at my pleasure. "I told them I was purchasing myself a trousseau, hahaha!"

I snorted. It must have been something—he had asked for everything I would need. In the wreckage of the room were two dresses, a white, square-neck apron, a black hat styled with blue and teal roses, handkerchiefs, black kid gloves, black leather boots with low heels, and a small, beaded drawstring handbag. To my chagrin, he had also acquired petticoats, a bustle cushion, corset, sets of chemises, camisoles, and drawers, altogether forming a mountain of white cotton and satin ribbon trim. Black wool stockings with garters and a woolen shawl rounded out the collection. It must have cost him a fortune.