AN: Um, yeah. So, Hellsing. Who else loves this relationship to death? I mean, really?

This is a little OOC, and I was going to fix that - I was - but it would probably have ruined the whole thing anyway. So, I left it as it. I hope you can still enjoy it regardless of my "laziness" - or my "artistic-ness" *coughcough*. Yeah. Something like that.

Gentle Promises

Integra curled on the hardwood floor, shivering and crying softly. Her father was dead - dead - and she had murdered her uncle. Her family was dying. She still had Walter and the friends of her father's whom she trusted. What few friends she had made over the years now seemed insignificant. They were dots of ink in the vast world she had just been thrust into. And now she was master to a slave vampire. A Count vampire - the Count. It made her skin crawl and her chest ache. And now, a week after the events in that dungeon, she still broke down in bouts of pain and fear and weakness. The world she had grown up in was gone. She now had to fight and struggle and lean against the support of an undead lunatic who was the only show of power she had.

Normally, she would hold this pain in, take it in, smother it in her outward pride and confidence, but right now - right now with that thing probably watching her and listening to her and hearing the blood pumping in her body - it was just too much.

She held her fists to her chest - her aching, pained chest. Her fingers could feel the pounding of her heart. She sobbed quietly until the night waned into the late hours and she slipped into a dreamless sleep.

The next thing young Integra knew, she was being lifted in long, gentle, cold arms. She knew immediately who it was. And despite knowing that - despite being painfully aware of not knowing what the hell he was doing - her fingers loosely gripped his extravagantly red jacket, and she realized that she was still crying.

She was carried up a long flight of stairs. The footsteps were soft, but Integra found that was grateful for any sound at all. It was comforting. Her head leaned against the curve of his chest. No heartbeat. No sound coming from the body which held her. She started weeping again, grieving. "So sad," she whispered through her tears, now staining his shirt. "What a poor heart."

Not heartless. No, it was there. It had just stopped working.

And then she was being gently laid on her bed - she knew it was hers because it still held the lingering scent of honey from her spilt tea the week before when her nerves had been so shattered by her father's coming death that she had completely dropped the cup. Her small hands fisted in Alucard's shirt when the arms that held her began to move from under her body. She opened her eyes to stare up at him in the dark. She found a soft expression, one that was barely there at all. She frowned. "You're going to kill me someday, aren't you?" she asked brokenly.

Alucard's black eyebrows pulled down over his glowing eyes. "Are you afraid?" he tested.

"Yes," Integra admitted. "I don't want a broken heart."

Alucard smiled, his fingers pressing lightly into her skin. "I'd fix it."

"I know," she said.

Fin.