Nothing's gonna harm you

Not while I'm around.
Nothing's gonna harm you, no sir

Not while I'm around.

Demons are prowling everywhere, nowadays,
I'll send 'em howling,
I don't care, I got ways.

Seras was having the nightmare again. The nightmare of the night that she met her master, met his master, was abruptly introduced to a world she believed only to exist in horror stories. The night she became a draculina.

That bogus priest, that vampire who had whispered into her ear that he would rape her, then turn her into a ghoul as he already had her fellow D-11 operatives. The horde of ghouls that followed her when she ran. The horrible feel of those cold, grasping hands in places she definitely didn't want him to touch. Didn't want anybody to touch.

Then came the next part of the nightmare. The part where he had come, and for a while she had been terrified for him, rather than herself. She struggled in the grip of the false priest, wanting to go and help the one being shot down by the grey, salivating monsters that had once been normal, mostly harmless people.

But he had risen from the pool of blood around him unaided, and she was still trapped. Even though she had seen the holes blow through him, she had breathed a sigh of relief that he had been alright. He would be returning to the people who cared about whether he came home or not. She had no such people, but she distinctly heard him say he was part of some organization, that meant superiors, subordinates, team-mates, maybe even friends. Seras' superiors had probably written her off as dead by now. She was the bottom of the pecking order at the station, and her team stood there in that field, rotting even as they stood on their feet with guns levelled at the stranger in red who had people to return to. She'd grown up in an orphanage, she had no friends.

The nightmare was cruel in that it made her re-live not only the experience, the terror, but also the melancholy she had felt drawing at her stomach with a not-entirely-gentle hand throughout the whole thing. If she died there, who would mourn her? Nobody.

Once again, she woke up to the feel of the giant bullet tearing through her bosom and the scream of the filthy vampire who had been using her as a shield.

No one's gonna hurt you,
No one's gonna dare.
Others can desert you,
Not to worry, whistle, I'll be there.

Demons'll charm you with a smile, for a while,
But in time...
Nothing can harm you
Not while I'm around...

It didn't help that he reminded her all the time. Always calling her 'Police Girl' like he did, rather than using her name. The title a constant reminder of who she had been before – the laws she was sworn to enforce, the morals she was expected to uphold, the ethics that had been drilled into her. So much of which didn't matter to him anyway. It was like when the guys in her squad had called her Kitten, rather than using the name she had come with. To them she was big eyed, big boobed, and weak.

But she wasn't. She'd grown up in an orphanage, with a lot of other orphans, all of them with their own reasons for being there, their own stories. Babies came in sometimes, but they rarely stayed a full day before being adopted. It was a known fact within orphanages: the older you got, the harder it would be to get adopted. The 'cute' factor wore off or something.

Seras was in the orphanage because her parents had been murdered. She stayed in the orphanage because prospective parents didn't want a child that, upon seeing her lifeless mother being raped, had rushed the fiend armed with a fork, shoving it so hard through his eye that she had hit brain tissue and killed him. Minors couldn't be convicted of murder, and anybody would be understanding of the child, but there was the tentative fear that she would grow up, and still be dangerous.

Well, it had come true now. Thanks to her unsociable habits, Seras had still been a virgin at twenty-seven and had been, heh, 'adopted' by the king of all Nosferatu as his 'dark child'.

Not to worry, not to worry
I may not be smart but I ain't dumb
I can do it, put me to it
Show me something I can overcome
Not to worry, Mum

So she was conflicted about the blood thing, and that in turn meant that she wasn't developing as a vampire at the proper rate as it was occasionally alluded to by her master. The constant reminder of her human life didn't help, and she wondered at her master, who could read her mind like an open book, had not realised that yet.

Unless he was doing it deliberately. That didn't make sense though, unless he wanted her to retain her humanity more than he let on. Possible – he had commented on how amusing humans could be – but unlikely, given his general disdain for the species at large, with just a very few exceptions (namely Walter and Integra), whom he treated with a more friendly contempt.

Finally giving up on escaping her tumbling thoughts and attempting to return to sleep, Seras got up from her coffin and headed to the packet of blood that she knew Walter had laid out for her on her table. Desperate to not think at all, Seras didn't try to pretend that it was tomato soup, or red wine or anything like that. Just sucking on the straw as she headed for her shower.

The nightmare always made her sweat, and she hated feeling sticky.

Being close and being clever
Ain't like being true
I don't need to,
I would never hide a thing from you,
Like some...

Her waking scream had echoed throughout the lower levels, and Alucard was not particularly amused to be woken while it was still daylight. Nevertheless, he would go and see what had so disturbed his innocent little fledgling. If he was going to be awake at this time, he might as well annoy the cause.

One flight of stairs up, and turn left down one hall, second door on the right. He didn't bother to knock, simply walking through the wall worked for him. He paused to see the coffin lid open and the bucked that should have held a pack of blood empty, the room devoid of the Police Girl. The sound of falling water caught his ear, and he walked to the door of the adjoining bathroom.

There she was, braced against the wall as water pounded her flesh and ... she was drinking her blood! How wonderfully delightful, that she was finally beginning to give in to her nature. He would not scold her today, not for waking him while it was light out, and he couldn't scold her for not drinking. Just for how pleased he was, if she messed up in her mission today he would correct gently rather than sneer at her weakness. Just this once...

Casually taking in her naked back under the steaming stream, Alucard was jolted out of his pleasurable musings by the question of why? Why had his Police Girl screamed, and why was she drinking her blood like this? Whispering his mind against the edges of hers in such a way that she wouldn't notice, Alucard was put out that, while she still had shockingly weak mental shields, he could make out no thought, as if she were not thinking at all.

The direct approach then.

"Police Girl?" he called, announcing his presence.

He saw the blood pack fall from her lips, and her fist pound against the wall. Leaning forward against the tiles, she seemed to start to sob, the hand that wasn't holding her up against the side of the shower over her face as her whole frame shook. She was like that for a few seconds before she took a deep breath and straightened, not turning around.

"Yes Master? Is something the matter?" she asked. "Does Sir Integra require me for something?"

"I woke up to your screaming," Alucard stated, wondering that she asked him if something was the matter, when she was so clearly distressed herself.

"I apologise, Master. I had a nightmare."

His resolution to not scold the blonde wavered and a scowl made it's way onto her face. He did not mind so much that she didn't turn to speak to him, she was preserving what modesty was left to her in the situation after all, and he approved. However, "You should be the cause of nightmares for humans, Police Girl, not falling prey to them yourself."

No one's gonna hurt you, no one's gonna dare
Others can desert you,
Not to worry, whistle, I'll be there!

It was that name again. She couldn't drink the blood when she was reminded of all the ethics and morals that had been drilled into her in D-11. She couldn't cry and wail when she was reminded of the way they had called her Kitten, and she had tried to prove them all wrong. She couldn't face her Master, but she had to answer him.

"Your pardon please, Master. I have very little control over what unpleasant memories plague my sleep. Perhaps I shall enquire towards having my room sound-proofed so that I do not disturb your rest again," she said, quietly, head bowed slightly.

"Memories are very different to nightmares, Police Girl," Alucard said, more sympathetic to her being troubled by her past. He knew what that was like, had endured through much the same himself often enough. With a curt instruction to finish up, he closed the door and sat down at the table in her room.

When Seras emerged, her blonde hair was still wet, she was wearing red-and-white striped pyjama pants and a pink tank-top, and she was carrying the blood bag, three-quarters empty.

"Sit with me," Alucard instructed.

She only had one chair in her room though, and would not, could not, be so bold as to take his lap. The chill of the stone floor welcomed her when she knelt beside him, head bowed, hands fisting on the flannel over her knees.

Touching a gloved hand to her chin, Alucard drew her head up so that she was forced to face him.

"Memories will always haunt us," he said gently, more gently than he had spoken to her since he had turned her. "It is rare that there is a true Nosferatu who is not without some horror in their past. I am your master, tell me what troubles you."

Blood tears welled in her blue eyes, and ran gently down her face before Seras buried her face against Alucard's thigh and, beginning with her nightmare, told him everything.

Demons'll charm you with a smile, for a while
But in time...
Nothing can harm you
Not while I'm around...

The End