Author's Note: I do love me some Genesis; proof that you don't have to be handsome at all to sing well. Also, I couldn't bear to let myself post this without having Phil as the story art.
I'm sorry in advance.
Tick. Tick. Tick. Whirrrr…. Tick. Tick. Tick.
Sir Integra Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing felt a muscle in her eyebrow twitch in time with the pendulum of the clock on the wall. She had been sitting in the waiting room for nearly an hour now, and was beginning to grow impatient. She had already catalogued every aspect of the mundane room, from the rubber tree sitting in the corner to the number of squares in the tiled ceiling (thirty-three and a quarter, if she combined the half-panels along the walls). From behind the glass window, she could see the tip of the secretary's blonde bob as she typed away with pink-lacquered nails.
Muffling a huffy sigh, she peered up at the small television mounted on the opposite wall. Its color needed to be corrected; the newswoman's skin was a gaudy yellow-orange color. The woman was talking animatedly about what appeared to be stock prices, her hand waving in the air in time with her voice. But the television was muted, and without subtitles she spoke to no one. The woman stopped speaking and the camera panned away as it cut to a commercial of a bouncing bowl of jellied something, the caption proclaiming, "Mangia bene! Cioccolato e Mandorla sappori!"
"Are all Italians this slow, or just Papists?" she complained under her breath, shifting in the faux leather seat and cringing when it let out an earsplitting set of squeaks.
"Patience," Walter breathed next to her, his lips barely moving. He had one of the magazines from the chipped coffee table on his lap, the page opened to a picture of a woman standing next to a horse. It was all Greek to her, but he seemed to be able to read it, or enough of it that it kept his attention. "Knowing them, they're merely making you wait on purpose."
"And yet they're the ones that insisted I come and go through with this farce," she complained, watching the breeze from the air vent move the rubber tree's leaves. One of them was hitting the chair beside it with little scratching sounds, and it took Integra everything she had to keep from standing up and walking over to rip the leaf off and make it stop. "I can't believe Her Majesty actually agreed to it." Walter's eyes shifted from the page to her and he gave her a longsuffering sort of half-smile.
"It's a show of good faith," he replied, using the exact tone he'd used both on the plane and in the taxi to say the same to her earlier in the day. "To protest something as simple as a psychological test would be to arouse suspicion. I agree with Her Majesty on this," he added promptly, when she tried to argue again. "I think it's harmless, and it'll be over with soon enough." Integra shut her mouth and scowled at his reprimand. It was fine when she had been a little girl, but a grown woman didn't need someone telling her what was and wasn't 'harmless'.
"Read something," he suggested when she didn't respond, turning the page to gaze appreciatively at a tanned Italian model with a generous bust. Integra eyeballed the array of tabloids and magazines spread across the coffee table, but nothing aroused interest. The only other things to read were handheld bibles scattered around the room on end tables and in empty chairs, and she wasn't keen on opening one of those either. Finally she settled on a financial magazine, flipping through it idly to gaze upon stock images of smiling businesspeople in fitted suits and the newest Rolex fashion. It would have been much more interesting if she could have actually read the articles instead of just staring at the pictures.
The door to the office opened with the tinkling of a bell and a pair clomped through it, the carpet doing little to muffle their footsteps. The pair strode to the window and the man rapped on it briskly, his female partner stopping just behind him. Integra gazed at them curiously. They were dressed alike in olive green overalls and black PVC Wellingtons, tool belts slung low on their waists and adding a defined form to otherwise shapeless figures. The man wore thick workman's gloves, but the woman had hers poking out of a side pocket and was barehanded. Her frizzy black mane was pulled back from her face in a low ponytail and she was smacking gum as she crossed her arms and waited. The man had a sparse mustache and deep furrowed lines on his forehead, the veins of his neck sticking out above the round collar of his coveralls.
"Posso auitarti?" the blonde secretary asked as she slid the glass aside, smiling at them with a slightly robotic expression. Her angled bob swung around her cheekbones as she stood up. The man spoke fast and quietly, gesturing to the woman and then pointing somewhere above their heads. The secretary replied in a clipped tone, her left eyebrow arching to disappear into her squared bangs, and the man shrugged in answer. "Ok," she sighed before picking up the phone and dialing with one pink-lacquered nail.
Integra watched the exchange before realizing that the woman was watching her just as closely. Their eyes met and they were at a standstill until the woman's deep brown ones slid away lazily. She spoke to her partner, and Integra would have ignored them if she hadn't caught the 'Hellsing' at the end, along with the rising inflection of a question. The man tried to subtly glance at her, eyes shifting as he raised a finger to his lips and barked something; even with the language barrier, she could understand an order to shut up, or at the very least to be more discreet. The woman snarled her nose before tossing her hair and taking a step back in order to better see the TV.
"Do you think that's…?" Walter looked back up from his magazine to eye the pair.
"Andrews, most likely." At the term, the woman's head whipped back around and she sized them both up before brandishing a very sarcastic smile and dipping her head in a nod. The man pursed his lips at her and shot them a quick look that seemed apologetic, as if he felt the need to atone for the other's attitude. "There you have it," he murmured, eyes back on the glossed pages. She continued to watch them intermittedly, trying to remember what her Vatican informants had told them about the other Special Operations.
Being XIII, Iscariot was only the tail-end of a highly detailed system of Ops Forces that revolved around a smoothly running religion. Andrews, she vaguely remembered, were machine-driven in nature. The tool belts only confirmed that thought. Mechanics, plumbers, motorists, machine workers: although she did remember a side note that they were also in charge of restoration. Perhaps painters and carvers fell under their umbrella as well?
Even so, why would Andrews know of her and her Organization? She was under the impression that only Iscariot dealt with her. Perhaps they were friends with some of the members of Section XIII? Or was she a permanent face on the 'Do Not Trust' list in some central office somewhere? She stared down at her lap and mused over this, missing the secretary opening the whitewashed door at the end of the room and allowing the twosome inside. She also missed the young woman that stepped out as the Andrews passed and was now observing her and her companion with a scrutinizing air.
"Miss Hellsing?" the woman announced after she'd gotten her fill. Integra looked up, startled at the newcomer, and came eye to eye with the most pastel woman she'd ever seen before. She was wearing a French cut suit in a light blue color, the skirt hem falling just above her knees and revealing light brown hose. A puffy white blouse peeked through the gap between the lapels, and on the right hand side she wore a silver pin in the shape of two intertwined feathers surrounding a cross. She had white gloves, white heels, and a blue pillbox hat that matched the suit perfectly, two white feather accents decorating the brim. . Her blonde pincurls hung neatly around her face, brushing her cheeks and reminding Integra of a picture she'd once seen of Sir Iron's wife, when the woman was about fifty years younger.
"Yes, I'm Sir Hellsing." she finally replied in the same voice, rising from her seat. Walter rose as well, putting his magazine on the coffee table where he'd found it. The woman smiled brightly at them, showing off two rows of perfectly squared teeth that gleamed against the pink of her lipstick. She sauntered over, perching gracefully on her heels and offering her gloved hand to them.
"Hello there, luvvie. I'm Miss Angela," she said, and Integra realized that she was a fellow Englishman as well. The astonishment of it threw her off guard and her hand was being shaken before she could even come up with a complaint about being made to wait so long. That, and the odd appearance…. She had been expecting a psychologist—or at least, someone who looked the part. This woman looked more like she was expecting to walk the runway later on that afternoon in some sort of 1950s era model shoot.
"Walter Dornez," the butler introduced himself with a polite bow. Miss Angela inclined her head as well, her smile widening more than one would think humanly possible.
"A pleasure," she simpered before turning back to the heiress. "I'm to be your evaluator," she explained, confirming Integra's suspicions. Something must have shown on her face, for the woman's mascaraed eyelashes fluttered and her pink lips rounded in an 'O'. "Of course you're confused to see me!" she exclaimed, one white hand cupping her cheek. "No one told you, did they?" Her expression morphed from joy to sympathy faster than Integra could blink. "Bishop Maxwell wanted a lower psychologist on the job, but the Pope was insistent that no one but the best would do. After all, we're both banking on the results, aren't we? Iscariot and Hellsing, I mean, naturally." The joy returned. "That's why I'm here!"
"A lesser psychologist?" Walter repeated in puzzlement. Miss Angela nodded, her pincurls flipping about her face.
"A regular psychoanalyst, I mean. Oh, come with me," she motioned, turning to point towards the whitewashed door. "I'll explain as I go." She opened it for them, ushering them into an unadorned hallway painted in light beige with matching tiled floor that would have hid dirt exceedingly well. "Down to the lift," she ordered, pointing their way again. "Anyway, I'm the head of my department, and His Holiness wanted you to be in the best hands while you're in Rome. None but the best would do," she said again, more firmly.
"And what are your credentials?" Integra asked, still eyeing the robin's egg blue of her dress and watching the feathers on her hat bounce in time with her stride. The Chicklet smile never faltered.
"Well, I have a Ph.D. in clinical psychology, but I also hold various degrees in social, cognitive, and quantitive psychology." She laughed. "I know what you're thinking, so I'll just tell you outright: I'm thirty-four, Miss Hellsing. More than enough time to gather degrees. I started when I was eighteen, you see." They stopped in front of the lift, but as she was pressing the button she opened a door to the right and revealed a plain breakroom of sorts. The smell of coffee and pastries drifted into the hallway. "I'll have to ask you to remain here, Mr. Dornez," she said politely to Walter.
"Whyever for?" Walter replied, eyebrows lifting.
"We take our evaluations here very seriously. We can't allow anything, or anyone, other than examiner and examinee past the lift in order to maintain an unbiased environment." She offered him a tighter, more tight-lipped smile. "We don't want the results to be skewed in any way, do we?" Her voice was chipper enough, but now it held a darker undercurrent that seemed almost like a threat. Walter caught onto it and glared at her, dark eyes staring into pale ones. "There's coffee and Danishes for your pleasure, and we have a variety of reading materials. It won't be very long," she assured him.
"It's alright, Walter," Integra spoke up. "I'll be back." The butler looked as if he meant to argue, but she saw him give in with a slump of the shoulders.
"If you insist," he addressed them both, turning and walking into the room. She smiled confidently at him, nodding once before climbing into the lift and letting the metal doors separate them. Miss Angela continued to beam at her as if nothing had happened.
"Now then, Miss Hellsing—"
"It's Sir Hellsing," Integra corrected, the sound echoing in the small space.
"Are you married?" The question caught her off guard and she answered without thinking.
"Of course not."
"Then until you are, I will address you as 'Miss'. Official titles are lost on me, I'm afraid." The lift ground to a halt and the door slid open, revealing a white tiled floor and beige hallway. Instead of doors, the rooms were sectioned off from the hallway by arches, so that Integra could see into them as they passed. It seemed, oddly enough, to be a medical ward. Men and women in dove-grey lab coats and scrubs convened in groups of twos and threes, sharing notes and speaking in low voices. They didn't glance upwards as the pair passed by.
"What is this?" she asked brusquely, wondering if she could make it back to the lift before they could catch her. I know that she said examinations, but this is not what I had in mind at all. "I thought I was here for a psychological evaluation."
"You are," Miss Angela retorted as she led her into a room at the end of the hallway. It was the size of a closet, holding only a chair and lab bench. "Take your coat off and roll up your sleeves," she ordered, pressing a button on the wall. It began to flash green, but after thirty seconds the flashing stopped and it remained lit.
"What is this?" she asked again, her tone demanding an answer. Miss Angela was unperturbed by the loud query.
"A little blood test, if you have to know," she said with a shake of her head, as though telling something to an unruly child instead of a woman only a few years her junior. "It's standard procedure for any new patient undergoing tests."
"Why do I need to have my blood drawn for something as simple as an exam?" Integra insisted, crossing her arms instead of obediently stripping down. Miss Angela stayed motionless by the button, her hands clasped behind her back.
"Because biochemistry makes up just as much of our minds as environment, Miss Hellsing. Think about it—all the things we used to discredit as lunacy or hysteria has, in recent times, been revealed as real mental disease. You can have as much counseling as you like, but nothing will help an unbalanced mind until we set the biochemistry straight. That's why we have medicines in conjunction with counseling, to make happy, healthy individuals."
"I can assure you that I am not mentally unbalanced," Integra spat. "Despite agreeing to take this test, I refuse to allow myself to be subjected to any sort of biochemical experimentation." To her surprise, the woman actually rolled her eyes and exhaled a little 'oh' of frustration.
"We aren't planning on experimenting on you, I can assure you," she countered in a clipped voice. "We merely take your blood to get a good standing on your current state of health. Sometimes we find things in the blood—hormones, a small infection, an increase or deficiency in vitamins—little things that make a difference when grading an evaluation. We have a saying here: It only takes a small thing to make a big change," she quoted. "Like I told your friend, we take our evaluations very seriously here."
"And if I refuse?"
"Well, you can either have come all this way for nothing and mar your character by refusing to do something you said you would, or…" Miss Angela tilted her head to the side, blonde curls falling over her shoulder. "There are men who are perfectly capable of holding you down. Are you frightened of needles, Miss Hellsing? Is that what this is about?"
"Of course not!"
"Then… please take off your coat." Her voice had gone eerily sinister. Integra scowled at her another moment, but shrugged off her suit jacket. What choice did she have, anyway? It was as Miss Angela said: if she refused, she'd have gone all this way for nothing. And there was the direct orders from the Queen looming over her head as well; it was her sworn duty as a knight to uphold Her Majesty's will. Miss Angela took the article of clothing and motioned for her to roll up her sleeve.
"Not too tightly," she cautioned, back to her bubbly self now that her orders had been carried through. "Take a seat there; I think I hear the technician coming now." Integra sat down in the tiny, uncomfortable chair and true to her word, a grey-clad technician came through the archway carrying a small box filled with supplies.
"Right arm," the man muttered as he sat down and pulled on a pair of gloves, clearly used to doing this. She held it out and was subjected to the fastest blood-drawing of her life, over before she was even aware that it was happening. He had already wrapped her hand in gauze and was scribbling something on the vials with a pen before nodding once to Miss Angela and leaving the room.
"Okay, you can put your things back on and we'll head on to the testing room!" she stated cheerfully, handing the coat back to Integra as soon as her sleeve was rolled back over the bandage. Back out the door and down the hall they went, back into the lift, and then up to the third floor. The entire ride, neither woman said a word. Miss Angela seemed ready to get down to business, and Integra was wondering what surprise would come next. Probably a vivisection of some sort, she thought grimly. I do wish that Walter could have come along after all. Despite being the butler and 'trash man' she found his presence calming, considering that he had practically raised her as a second father. At least she could take heart in the fact that he was in the building, and could theoretically rush to her side if she were in danger.
"Don't speak loudly," Miss Angela warned as the lift dinged and opened to reveal the third floor. It was much darker than the other two beneath it, both in color and lighting. The lights were dimmed, the walls painted slate, the carpeting cobalt. The doors were not white, nor arches, but instead steel and closed off from the world. It looked like the hallway of a psych ward, or perhaps a solitary confinement in a prison. Integra paused, but Miss Angela pushed her out onto the floor with another soft nudge to the shoulder and then stepped past her to lead the way.
She could hear voices as they walked, muffled by the doors. Sometimes there was a solo tone, sometimes groups or even entire crowds hidden somewhere behind the doors. Was it some sort of lecture hall? What lay behind the doors? Integra was pondering the mysteries of the voices she couldn't see faces for when they finally stopped before a door just like the rest. Miss Angela pulled a key from the inside pocket of her suit coat and unlocked it, revealing inky blackness. She stepped confidently into this, leaving Integra in the hallway. Curiosity piqued, Integra followed despite her better judgement, wondering what the room would bring.
"Tell me about your family life. What were your parents like?"
"My mother died when I was born." Her predetermined method for this evaluation was to answer whatever questions they threw at her with as little detail as possible. After all, it might have been her duty to obey the Queen, but that didn't mean she had to be entirely forthcoming. She could see, during times like these, why Alucard strove so hard to find loopholes in her orders. It even made her sympathize with him, almost. Almost. The room was empty, save for a single table and two chairs. Granted, the chair she'd been placed in was comfortable and the room was neither too hot nor too cold, but she still felt on edge.
Perhaps it was her evaluator sitting directly across from her, the pale eyes searching her features and the pen in her hand constantly writing, even when Integra hadn't said anything. And, curse her, her notes were in shorthand; Integra couldn't read them. If Walter had been allowed up here, he could have told her what the psychologist was writing about her. She was writing quite a bit, her loops and scrawls already stretching across half a page with only two questions spoken. Perhaps she was writing about her attitude, her way of sitting, her stress levels and tells? She schooled her face into a neutral expression, trying to be a blank slate that showed no internal struggle or thought.
And your father? What is he like?"
"He's dead." She continued to stare down at the notes, refusing to look the woman in the eyes. I am Iron. I am Stone. I am Expressionless, Emotionless. There is nothing vulnerable about me, nothing wrong with me.
"Oh? And when did he pass? Recently?"
"No, when I was twelve. About fifteen years ago." Miss Angela nodded, her hand ceaselessly moving along the page.
"It must have been hard, losing your only parent at such a young age."
"Perhaps."
"Perhaps?" Miss Angela repeated with a hint of amusement. "Do you not remember whether or not it was hard?"
"I was sad, if that's what you mean. As for it being hard in any way… I think that word means different things for different people." No susceptibility. Even the loss of a family member doesn't stop me from my duties. Are you writing that down too, Papist? There was a thoughtful hum, and the sound of scribbling.
"Was the death sudden? An accident, a heart attack?"
"He died of disease. He was bedridden for a long time." Another pause.
"What disease?" Integra was silent. "Cancer?" she prompted.
"…Tuberculosis." Miss Angela stayed quiet long enough that she looked up from the paper to meet the older woman's eyes. They stared at each other for a long time before Miss Angela lifted the pen to her lips, tapping softly. Pink plumped against the golden edge of the pen. They looked drier, more chapped. Maybe it was time for new coat; Integra wasn't good with cosmetics, so she didn't know.
"Tuberculosis," she repeated in a slow tone, her gaze searching Integra's face. She knew what the psychologist was looking for; it was the same look everyone gave her when they first heard of her father's death and the autopsy results. The look that asked and surmised and knew, all at the same time. It was always just easier to get it out in the open.
"He had AIDS." No matter how many times she told people, it always sounded as though she was blurting it out instead of just calmly speaking. Why was there such a stigma? Her father had told her himself, in words that she could understand at a younger age, what had happened to get the disease. He hadn't seemed ashamed, only pragmatic. The older she became, the more she learned, and the more she realized exactly what had happened: the consequences of sleeping with multiple people with no hint of protection and no idea what might be in store. Of living in the moment. It had taken her a long time to come to terms with the fact that before she'd known him, her father had been anything but settled.
"Ah." She waited for the inevitable. "And do you—"
"No." Years of tests, hidden in the guise of routine physicals, had saved her father that grief. Neither he nor her mother had passed anything to her.
"Your mother?"
"I don't know. My father never said." She assumed so, but assuming was never a good practice. And the woman didn't need to know that; she was already delving into thoughts and memories that Integra really didn't like being dredged from the bottom of her mind. Damn evaluations… it's for the Queen. It's your duty. Just suck it up and take it like a woman.
"I see." Scribble, scribble, scribble. "I suppose that you must have been very close to him, your father. After all, he was the only parent you had."
"I loved him, if that's what you're asking." Miss Angela tilted her head, peering past Integra's bangs.
"Of course you would love him. He's your father," she replied patiently. "What made you use the term?"
"What?" Scribble, scribble, smile. Miss Angela was becoming a one-horse pony very quickly. Something about that smile… how could it both rile her and yet make her want to talk? Probably because if she talked more, they'd be done faster and the smile would go away.
"I mean that it should be obvious that you loved your father. I'm sure you spent a great deal of time with him, and as any good father would he encouraged you and took pride in your accomplishments. I'm sure he was affectionate—"
"No." The word was out of her mouth before she could stop herself. She'd said it more forcefully than she'd meant to, the sound severe. Miss Angela tilted her head in silent query. "He wasn't an affectionate man." A smile, two blinks, no scribble.
"And you aren't affectionate either." Who was she, to append the end of her sentences like that? When Integra didn't answer, the scribbling resumed full-force. She felt like a lab rat, caught beneath a scientist's gaze; she hated it. Half of her wanted to stand up and leave right now, take the lift back downstairs and drag Walter back to the airport. The other half was torn between finishing because it was her duty, and finishing because she didn't want to hear it from the other Knights if she didn't, duty be damned to hell. Miss Angela turned to a fresh page, almost without ceasing the movement of her writing hand.
"Again," she said suddenly, not wanting to be called out and made to have some sort of untrue, antisocial complex, "I think that word means different things for different people." It at least stopped the flow of ink on paper, as the pen went up to tap the pink lips once more.
"Certainly, Miss Hellsing, you have people that you love." The question-disguised-as-a-statement caught her off-guard. She thought about this. Were there people in her life that she loved? Who would even qualify? Walter, perhaps, and the Cook, both of whom raised her alongside her father. Their faces were as familiar to her as any, and they featured in all of her earliest memories. And the Penwoods, her godparents, who were absent before her father's death at his behest and stepped in to be the voices of reason when he was gone. Sir Penwood was like a well-meaning uncle, better than her own uncle ever had been, giving her money towards new equipment and studies and calling to wish her happy birthday. His wife, the woman who'd taught her about fashion (not that she cared), society (not that she left the house much), and doted on her in a way that, quite frankly, made her uncomfortable.
But did she love them? She didn't feel half of what she'd felt for her father for them. Granted, she cared about them and if they were suddenly gone, she would be very despondent. But love? What was love? The instinctive feelings that she'd had towards her father had been all she ever knew of it. And his love, in return, was quiet pride. She couldn't even recall him ever telling her that he loved her. She'd always just known, the same way she'd known that breathing was good and pain was bad.
Walter and Cook, she knew, loved her in their own ways. Cook stuffed food into her and worried about her health when she didn't eat. Walter watched over her and suffered silently through her stressful times. Sir Penwood was fonder of her than the other Knights to the point that his preference was obviously skewed, and his wife often referred to her as the daughter she'd never had. But was that the sort of love that Miss Angela was talking about? She wasn't sure.
"I—I don't—"
"You don't know?" Miss Angela finished, and there was a hint of doubt in her words. "There's not even one person that you're sure you love?"
"I'm fond of many people," she refuted, trying to salvage both the question and her own hesitance. Miss Angela waited for her to continue, and then an odd, indefinable emotion flickered across her face as she slowly wrote something, no longer scribbling. She seemed to be lost in thought, and Integra felt her cheeks begin to burn. Miss Angela paused, looked at her other hand, considered, wrote something more, considered again, and tapped her nail against the table.
"Did you ever find your childhood lacking, compared to others?"
"No, never."
She didn't really want to admit that there had never been anyone else to compare it to.