Of Honor and Duty - a Hellsing Fanfiction
Part One: Awakening
The first thing she became aware of was the searing pain. It was white hot, like fires licking, nipping greedily at her skin. She felt her breath catch as she tried to rise, to escape. She caught glimpses of worried faces, of hands restraining her, of machines blinking their colorful lights. She struggled in a panic driven haze. With an unfamiliar thread of desperation giving strength to her actions, she pushed and fought, with one thought strong on her mind.
They were burning her alive...
She felt her breathing quicken and looked blindly around her for anything. She was down, and she hurt, and...and...she can't move. She stared ahead of her, unseeing, and emitted a soundless scream of protest as a sharp prick of pain registered near her shoulder. She turned her head, quickly seeking the source, and felt a heavy weight of dread settle on her chest.
Tranquilizers.
She watched the liquid drain from the syringe, her futile struggles turning from sluggish to nonexistent. She felt herself drift away, away from the burning pain and from the relentless hands, away the intermittent throb in her head and the mechanical sounds of machines, away from the voices...
"We need to cool her down!"
"She's burning up."
"Doctor!"
".. losing her..."
"...stabilize her condition..."
And finally, just away.
She drifted into nothingess.
- - - - - - - - - -
Her eyes opened slowly, sluggishly. Her heavy lids rose reluctantly from disuse. She blinked as rays of sun penetrated through her half-open lids, almost blinding her with their brightness. She raised her hands to shield her from the intensity only to feel a small nagging pain in the back of her hand. Bringing her hand closely to her face, she observed the IV connection through blurred images.
What...what happened?
Slowly, painstakingly, she tried to push herself up a bed.
Her bed?
She cringed as she noticed the rustiness of her movement, the sheer physical effort it took to pull herself up to a sitting position. She felt her muscles protest and heard her own gasp of alarm as her arms collapsed beneath her and she found herself lying back down.
"You should not be over-exerting yourself at this time," said a constrained voice to her right.
She turned her head and saw a blurred image of a distinguished man standing by the doorway. His manner was stiff, his frame lanky, as he slowly approached her bed. He had an older face and even older looking eyes. She noticed his brow wrinkle in...annoyance? as he noticed the somewhat rumpled bed.
"I..." she started to speak. Her throat felt parched, her mouth dry. She licked her chapped lips and swallowed convulsively. "I..." she tried again. "Thirsty," she stated.
She watched the appearance of a slight smile on his face as he gazed down at her with an almost gentle quirk at the side of his mouth.
"Of course," he said, his warm eyes belying his formal stance.
As he made the move to leave and presumably fetch her a drink, she called, "Wait!" She looked at herself, her prone body, her heavy breathing. Again, wetting her lips, "I..." her voice rasped. Frustrated, she tried to arrange her jumbled thoughts. "I want to sit down," she whispered carefully, plaintively. She looked up at him expectantly.
This time he smiled. "Let me help you up," he said, just before she felt his arms wrap around her shoulders. Her fatigueness had her place her head against his slender frame and she inhaled the musky scent of aftershave and...something else. Something...
Familiar?
Something that nagged at her.
He braced her back against the headboard and carefully slipped her from his arms. She stared at him, his image almost blurred as he backs away.
"I'll be back with refreshments," he said, not unkindly.
She stared at him, knowing that there's something...something she's missing. She nodded her head slowly and watched as he disappeared through the doorway.
Taking a deep breath, she looked around and observed her surroundings. The images were blurry, distorted. She rubbed her eyes and felt the IV brush her arm. She looked at the back of her hand and followed the plastic tube's trail towards its source. It stood next to a night table where a pair of glasses rested. With deliberately slow movements, she reached for the pair and fitted them across her face.
Much better, she thought as she began to fully examine her surroundings. It was a simple room, elegantly furnished with antique furniture. She felt a slight breeze brush across her face and turned her head to see the open balcony door. She was about to attempt to get out of bed to look outside, when small tendrils of light-colored hair brushed her face. She touched the soft strands and looked at them closely.
She could feel the increase in her heartbeat as she stared at the unfamiliar color and, for the first time since she awoke, she looked down at herself. She noticed her pasty white skin, her short clipped nails, her silk pajamas. Nervously, she looked around again, biting her lip, searching for...something.
Something familiar.
Tamping down on the rising dread weighing heavily upon her, her keen eyes continued to take inventory of the room from the ornate full-length mirror, to the four poster bed she laid upon.
These aren't hers.
Her heartbeat slowed to a manageable rhythm at that thought. The sound of footsteps interrupted her reverie as she saw the man come back with a glass of water on top of a tray in his hands.
"I trust this suits you," he said softly as he lowered the trey and hands her the glass.
Carefully, she clasped both hands around the icy glass and led it to her lips. The cold trickle of liquid swirled around her mouth and she felt herself cough as she tried to swallow.
"Not too fast," he admonished her, as he tapped her back.
She nodded and gave him back the glass. She felt his fixed gaze rest upon her and she looked at him questioningly.
"Yes?" she prodded.
"I just wanted to say," he began, "that it is good to have you back, Sir Integra."
She blinked at him.
Integra?
She continued to look at him in confusion, her thoughts whirling around her mind, and plain for anyone to see. A sharp pain starting from the back of her eyes going all the way through her head made itself felt as she struggled to say something...anything that makes some sort of sense. There was something she was missing. Right there...at the tip of her tongue. Something fleeting, almost lost, almost intangible. She needed to...remember. That's it. Remember.
But...remember what?.
"Who..." she started, looking up at the man with a thinly veiled sense of alarm, "who are you?"
- - - - - - - - - -
Walter looked closely at his young charge, searching for signs of self-awareness in the ice blue eyes that stared back at him.
"Sir Integra," he began cautiously. He noticed her agitated movements at the sound of her name.
Are you hurt? he wanted to ask. In pain?
"Are you...well?" he questioned instead.
Because I will take care of you, he thought. I won't fail this time.
She looked up at him, warring expressions of frustration and....panic? crossing her features. He leaned down closer to her after placing the trey of water onto the night stand. His hand squeezed her shoulder gently as he prodded one more time, "Sir Integra."
He felt her wince away from his touch and he pulled his hand back, away from the bandages that covered the juncture between her neck and the rest of her body. He braced himself against the familiar sense of shame that washed over him in spades whenever he noticed her injuries. He had to focus. There was no time for self-recriminations. Those must be dealt with in his own time.
He was startled when both her hands reached out to clasp his tightly. She pulled him even closer, or at least tried as much as her dwindling strength would let her.
"Who. Are. You." she repeated with more intensity, her eyes meeting his stare.
And for one almost supremely inappropriate second, he wanted to laugh at the fates and the cards that they have dealt him. Just when he thought things could only get better, the Almighty plays a joke, a twist on all the hapless mortals.
"Sir Integra," he proceeded slowly, "My name is Walter and I am your...steward."
He watched as she tried to process and accept what he had just told her. If her wrinkled brows were any indication, her confusion was still present.
"You have known me all your life," he continued.
He saw the restless and shaky movements of her hands. "That is," she murmured, her head bowed, "impossible." She looked up to gauge his reaction. "I don't know you," she stated.
Quickly trying to digest what she said, he thought back on all her injuries and vaguely wondered if she had suffered a blow to the head that they did not know about. And just as quickly, he discarded the notion. Their physicians were very thorough. No sooner had that thought been discarded, the implications of her words started to sink in.
He lifted her face with his fingers and looked at her eyes for the sure knowledge and easy confidence that often glittered in their depths.
Nothing.
Not empty exactly. The keen intelligence and inherent stubbornness remained; but the self-possession, the usual drive and thirst for justice were missing. In their place was the wary and defensive stance often associated with the a fight-or-flight response.
"Sir Integra," he said her name again, hoping against hope to jostle some response from her, "do you...know who you are?"
"Of course," she replied immediately. "I am..." She paused, biting her lip. "I am," she attempted the second time, "I am..."
He watched as she struggled for that elusive information. He waited. Minutes passed.
"You are Sir Integra Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing," he said quietly, "and you are the leader of the Hellsing Organization."
- - - - - - - - - -
She shook her head in an absent denial. "I can't...seem to remember," she said, as if talking to herself.
The Hellsing Organization.
The man, Walter, he had to be lying. If she was...this person, she would know. Wouldn't she? Something should click, should fit...like a puzzle. Instead, his name and her supposed name incited no flash of recognition, no sense of deja vu. But then, neither could she recall anything else for that matter. All there is was an abyss.
She needed to think. SHE NEEDED TO THINK. There has to be an explanation.
She looked back at Walter. Can she trust him? Dare she trust him? More importantly, did she have any choice? She looked down at her self, once again made aware of her unaccustomed weakness. She was...vulnerable--a position, she was sure, she should have never allowed herself to be in. Her heart started to race again at all the possibilities.
She needed to plan. To gather information herself. Information she can trust. First hand knowledge.
Right now, however, she had to wait and tamp down on her impatience. She was weak, an invalid, if her bandages were any indication. She had no choice.
"What happened?" she asked steadily, consciously evening her breath as well has her voice. "What happened to me?"
- - - - - - - - - -
Walter observed the inner struggle of conflicting responses in her face. And, with a remote voice, he told her in detail the events of the past two weeks.
To be continued.