Sorry for the horrendous wait… Many apologies. But my mission trip that I went on was fabulous, and we did a lot of good stuff. Dominica is seriously the most beautiful place in the entire world… It's like, a tropical paradise! I miss it… D': Anyway… on to the story. :D It's short, but it's an update.

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Seras Victoria could count the worst days she'd ever had on one hand. Number two was when she realized she was a damned creature able to live only on human blood. Number one was when her world was thrust into chaos, when her Master killed his own master.

Today was worse. And also better. Paradoxical. She frowned, her forehead creasing deeply. Bloody vampires!!

It began as normal as the day –night- after the death of the Hellsing leader could begin. Seras woke shortly after sundown, found out that Integra was dead, and that the funereal was set for later the next day. She of course, was expected to attend, and she wasn't looking forward to it. Not only would she have to be up in the middle of the day, she'd have to wear twenty layers of clothes to avoid burning up. And the stares! She hated that.

But she had business to attend to. And so attend to it she did. She got things in order around the mansion, made sure clean clothes were sent to the morgue for Integra to be buried in, comforted Walter in a rare moment of vulnerability.

By day break, she was exhausted, and yet she could only sleep a few hours before she was expected to get up and go to a funereal. She crawled into her coffin, and it seemed only minutes later that Walter was there, waking her, with a full outfit all ready for her to wear.

She barely made it through the hours the funereal lasted, then she fell back into her coffin with relief.

And all too soon, her body woke up as the sun went down. Groggy, but knowing that work needed to be done, she rose, brushed her teeth, and dressed quickly. Pale cerulean eyes roaming over the stone walls, she almost ran into the wall instead of turning a corner, and found herself face to face with Walter. He looked as surprised as she felt.

"Oh, Miss Victoria. I was just coming to wake you."

She looked down. "Oh, thank you Walter. How are you today?" The question was asked with some caution, for she remembered his tears from the day before. He closed his eyes swiftly, and swallowed. She shyly rested a hand on his shoulder, almost missing his next words in the rustle of fabric.

"I just…" the whisper came. "I just can't believe that Alucard would do that. He is a monster, yes, but he is not without a sense of loyalty. I can't believe that he would kill her. And then, not allowing anyone to see the body. I just…. There's something not right, and I feel like the knights are covering something up."

"Walter… What do you mean? What would they have to gain?"

He slouched against the wall, a tribute to his mental exhaustion. "I don't know. She was scheduled to be executed anyway. Perhaps they wanted to bring Hellsing down with her, cast a smear on the good name by showing what her servants would do, could do, if not properly contained."

Seras bit her lip in consternation. If Hellsing were brought down, she would have nowhere to go, would be hunted down simply because she was a vampire, even if she had no urge to drink human blood.

"Hopefully," He said as he walked back towards the main halls. "Our fears will not be realized. I'll be going through records in the library if you need me."

"Ok." Her voice suddenly felt small in the echoing dungeons of the manor. Shivering, she trotted up the stairs to Integra's office. Someone needed to go through her desk and figure out what do with her notes on vampires, and her private ideas of what the different factions of the government were up to. Seras wasn't looking forward to it, but it had to be done.

Of course, she didn't expect Integra to be leaning back in her desk chair, feet placed firmly on a pile of official looking papers, cigar in her mouth, and her blue—no, her crimson eyes glowing in the dim radiance of twilight. So, she blinked once, backed out of the room, took a deep breath, and ordered herself to stop hallucinating.

She strode back into the room. Integra was still there.

"You're supposed to be dead." Seras said flatly.

Integra smirked. She stood, and seemed to melt into the shadows only to reappear feet from where Seras stood. "I'm not as dead as some would like to think."

Another voice echoed into the room. Her master's.

"And certainly you aren't as alive as others would wish, Integra." Shadows coiled up around Integra's feet, grew into a new form. Alucard smiled suddenly, scarlet eyes dancing with mischief.

"M-master!" Seras shivered. As soon as he had appeared, there had been a unbelievable pressure in the room, one that would not go away. Her ears felt like they needed to pop, her eyes like they were being squeezed. It took her a moment but she finally realized that the power came from Alucard.

"What-? I mean, what happened? You were dead, I was at the funereal!" Integra smiled once again and Seras was struck by how similar the two were. Not exactly in a physical way, but in the way they each held themselves, in their manner of ruthlessness they shared. And now, with Integra a… a vampire, they could have easily passed off as…

"As a Count and his Countess. Right, Police Girl?" Alucard looked at Integra with half lidded eyes, and let his hand, graceful and pale in the darkening light, brush her cheek, then down her neck.

And suddenly Seras realized why the room felt pressurized. Alucard's gloves, with their binding circles, were gone. He was unbound! Seras swallowed with a dim growing panic. Alucard was so powerful, and without his binding, who knew what he would and could do? Who knew what Integra herself would do, given her already ruthless personality, coupled with the new vampiric strength of mind and body? Seras took an unwitting step back, eyes flicking from her Master to Integra.

"Don't worry Seras. I'm here strictly on business. Fetch Walter and we can get straight to it." Integra's voice held a sliver of kindness in it, putting Seras at ease. Well, as much ease as was possible in this situation.

"But-"

"That is an order from the leader of Hellsing. I can still terminate you."

Seras knew that Integra meant that she would fire her, but with Integra's eyes glowing crimson behind her waterfall of blonde hair, and her lips stretched thin over the teeth that were much sharper than they had been a day before, Seras didn't feel a need to argue with her.

She left the room quickly, with a single awed glance over her shoulder.

The door closed, and with a soft sigh Integra leaned against Alucard's chest, her arm slipping over one of his shoulders, the other wrapping around his waist. Chin lifted, she met his lips for a second before simply settling against him.

Alucard commented on it, his voice a soft rumble in the darkness. "You're very relaxed, Integra." He felt the tremor go through her body, a quick ripple of tenseness that almost could have been a flinch.

"I have nothing I need to prove to you now."

"Prove to me?" He let his head fall to the side, and gently grasped her chin, moving her face to see her eyes. He thought ephemerally that her blonde hair really accented the deep red of her eyes, and that is was quite enchanting, Then she was talking and no thought passed through his mind but what she was saying.

"I was a mere slip of a girl when I took over Hellsing, enchanted by tales of knights in shining armor, come to rescue the fair maiden. I learned quickly that I needed to be my own knight in order to survive. I was young and inexperienced, but I didn't want anyone to think that I couldn't handle the job, or that I was a pushover. And there you were." She broke out of his hold easily and pressed her lips to his throat. The urge to bite down rose, but she pushed it away.

"There you were, strong, unbreakable, every inch of you Draculine, the way my father had always told the tale. Not only experienced in, but entranced by the power plays I was new to. I didn't want you to see me only as a child, but as an equal."

He interrupted with a teasing smile. "Did you have a crush on me?" His hand brushed hers.

She snorted, but wound her fingers through his. "No. I was intimated by you, superhuman creature that you are, so I sought out to model myself after you, to make myself unbreakable, strong as iron. That way, I would be able to order you with ease, and if I could be that way to you, the rest of the human race would be a snap."

"I see." He lowered his eyes for a second, but then met hers again. "I never thought of you as a child."

Integra allowed herself a smirk of satisfaction. Alucard laughed, Adam's apple bobbing. She eyed it, distracted momentarily as her eyes traced from it down his jugular to his clavicle. Alucard could almost taste her thoughts, as strong as they were. A proper newborn's thoughts of blood, the overpowering need to drink. Everything Seras should have been but wasn't. His eyes slid closed as he stretched his chin towards the ceiling.

"Go ahead, Countess." He hummed in appreciation as her fangs scraped his skin, pierced through, and she began to drain his blood. The sounds of her suckling filled his ears; he could have laughed outright at their switch in roles. He now the one with the power, her subservient to him, and yet, more equal than they had ever been. His arms wrapped around her, pressing her closer as she stood on her tiptoes to get at a better angle.

It was this embrace that Walter, poked and prodded by a panicked Seras, walked into. And also the reason he promptly fainted.