Disclaimer: I hold not rights to Hellsing in an form. Those rights belong to...well, whoever they belong to but it sure as stars is not me. Darn. No profit for me. *pout*

A/N: Never written for Hellsing before and for any of you not used to my writing, I offer fair warning! I like to play. I like to take what's given in the anime and Manga and make it my own, give it my own twists and depths. I will try to remain true-ish to characters, but they will have my own spin. And they will develop. They are as I see them. Ah...they joy of finfic artistic license.

Summary: Late in the life of Abraham Van Hellsing one last, great battle arises. A serial look not only at the formation of the Hellsing Institute, but that of the strange and complex relationship between man and vampire and how it came to be...

ooOoo

Beyond the Bounds:

Bonds of Friendship

Light. Blinding, sharp, piercing. It flooded everywhere, leaving nowhere to hide. It stole peace and punctured the mind. Bright, so bright it was white, making everything fade around the edges, dissolving in the horrid, hungry light. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, no comfort, no peace, no softness, no coolness. Just light, searing, burning, hell of light…

Abraham shot up, a scream lodged in his throat. He rapidly blinked his eyes, not quite taking in the darkness that surrounded him. It seemed so surreal, so impossible after the blinding brightness. He was so disoriented it took him a few moments to realize that he was in his home, his bed, at night and not trapped in that hell of brightness.

He shuddered and dropped his face into his hands. Six months. For the past six months he had been having these horrid nightmares, these visions. Every time he drifted off, dropped his guard, closed his eyes in a moment of exhaustion it would start. He would see that terrible place. Sometimes there were others, terrible men doing terrible things. Sometimes there was screaming or an insane laughter that chilled the very soul. But no matter what was occurring there was always that terrible light. He didn't have to wonder what it meant, though…he knew.

Alucard, he sighed mentally, what are they doing to you my friend?

The old man sighed and heaved off his bed coverings. He didn't even bother to look at the clock as he pulled on his dressing gown and made his way out of his bedroom and towards his study. It didn't matter what time it was, he knew there would be no sleep following that. He felt bad enough for sleeping as it was. He should be doing something, anything. Unfortunately, he had no idea what that was. He had tried everything he knew, nothing had worked. All he had been able to determine was that it had been a mistake to return to Germany.

With a sigh and groan of one well beyond his prime, Abraham sunk into the leather chair behind his desk. Flicking on the desk lamp he stared with unseeing eyes at the assorted papers and books that covered the mahogany surface. Nothing, there was nothing of use in them. He knew this. For six months they had been searching, searching for answers, for a path, some trail they could follow. Their adversaries had left them none. Finally his eyes settled on the two silver framed pictures that rested in a place of honor on his desk. One was of a woman, young and beautiful. Even though the picture lacked color one could tell that her hair was dark and her skin was fair. A delicate, heart shaped face with fine bones that belied the strength of the woman, until one looked at her eyes. Even in the still, non-moving lifelessness of a photograph one could see the fire that burned in her eyes. There was a deep and resounding passion that could not be denied. She was strength personified, light in truest form, a majesty not even the heavens could deny. His love, his wife, his Anna.

"What would you think on me now, my love?" he asked the silence of the night as his fingers brushed the frame.

Anna had been of Romany decent, steeped in ancient knowledge and lore. She had been the first to introduce him to a world larger than he had known. A doctor, a man of science, he had previously shunned such heretical notions. But he couldn't deny her. He never could. Her clan called themselves the Umbră Vânător, the Shadow Hunters. They were dedicated to fighting the evils of the night, the monsters that preyed on the weak, the devils of the world. And he became one of them. He followed her, melding his science with her magic to stop the monsters…until…

His eyes drifted to the other frame. This one held many figures, all men. Himself, his three sons, his brother-in-law, and one other hidden mostly by shadows, all pictured standing in front of a house, his house. He remembered it being taken, right after they had returned to England, directly after stopping a coven of dark wizards who had been wreaking destruction in Venice with their dark and blood soaked arts. All of them were grinning ear to ear, even the figure in the shadows showed a flash of teeth. And it was to that last figure that the old doctor's eyes were drawn. He was tall, much taller than his fellows, dressed in a long coat that nearly hid his entire frame, and a large hat that shadowed the majority of his face. But one could see the glint of teeth and the reflection of the photographer's flash off a pair of glasses on his face that were really more for decoration than anything. The man stood behind the others, almost as if he were an interloper, as if he didn't quite belong, but he had one gloved hand resting with camaraderie on the shoulder of the man in front of him. Abraham himself.

What would you think, by dear, to know that I now hold as friend the one who killed you? Would you call me betrayer? Or would you see the wisdom, would you see the mercy? He pondered, his eyes not leaving the picture.

True, he had once hated his wife's killer, hated him with such a passion as could not be described. Such hatred that had felled empires and laid ruin to the world. He had hunted the vampire to the ends of the earth and beyond. But never, never had he been able to kill him, never been able to destroy him and find justice for his beloved wife. Even after he had bound the beast, sealed up his powers and chained his soul, Abraham Van Hellsing had hated the vampire he had renamed Alucard. Until…until one night everything had changed.

Abraham stopped at the gates of the small cemetery, his fist clenched at the sight before him. There, at his wife's grave, stood the vampire that had killed her, the one who not a month before he had bound and chained with magic to serve him. The doctor's teeth gritted as he saw his once enemy, now slave, brush a gloved hand over the headstone that marked his love's eternal resting place. How dare he, how dare that monster desecrate such a holy place. With determination Abraham strode forward, intent to punish the newly named beast for his audacity.

But he stopped, surprised and confused as the vampire pulled a single red rose from the confines of his long coat, knelt down and placed it on the grave. His brow furrowed at the almost tender way it was placed, head bowed respectfully as he once more placed his hand on the stone marker.

"May your soul find rest," the deep voice whispered through the night, barely reaching the doctor-turned-hunter's ears. "Rest now, brave warrior. Your battle is over, your sword sheathed. May you find the peace your soul deserves within the gentle embrace of the stars."

For a few moments no sound but the whispers of night stirred the cemetery. Abraham stood, confused, as he watched the somber form kneel beside the grave of one of his own victims.

"She was no victim, Abraham," the deep voice spoke again, this time no longer a whisper, though his form did not stir, nor his eyes move from the carving of the headstone as he responded to the unvoiced thought. The doctor jumped, still unused to how his new servant would pluck such thoughts from his mind. "Victims are hapless, helpless creatures who are consumed by death with no more struggle than a field mouse snatched up by a stooping owl. No, she was no victim."

"Do you always honor your fallen enemies thus?"

The vampire's head turned slightly and Abraham could see a glint of red in the dark as the creature observed him from the corner of his eyes. "My enemies? No. But she was never my enemy."

The doctor's fist clenched again. "You killed her."

"Yes," came the calm reply. "She was my opponent and I killed her. Such things happen in battle. She and her comrades came to my home, weapons bared and my death on her lips…was I to simply stand there and die like a dog? I am no such creature."

"You try to justify it?" he growled. "You killed her, you murdered her, you…"

"I gave her the death she wished for!" the vampire bellowed, whirling around in a cloud of red leather and fury, obviously incensed by his jailer's accusations.

"How dare you…" Abraham started, ready to utter the words that would leave the creature writhing on the ground in front of him like the dog he claimed not to be.

"How dare I? How dare you!" he growled back, his fangs glinting in the moonlight. "You show surprise that I would honor her grave, when you do such dishonor to her memory!"

"I do not! I loved her!"

"Then love her still. Mourn her. Cry out to the moon and the sun and the stars. Punish me for living while she died if you will, but do not make her a victim!" Abraham took a step back at the vehemence in the ancient creature's voice. "Your wife was a warrior, not some meek, pathetic thing. She entered my home intent to do battle, and battle I gave her. And she fought, oh how she fought. With a heart of honor and fierceness of will I have so rarely seen these days, she fought. She was a true warrior, one of the best I have seen in an age. But no warrior goes into battle without knowing they may die, Abraham. No warrior is truly satisfied unless they fight an opponent worthy of their skill. And no warrior wishes for more than to die in such battle, to die a death of honor against an opponent worthy of it. I gave her that, that beautiful death. A death without regrets, a death with honor. She fought to the very end, with fire and verve and when she fell it was with the knowledge that she had done her best and with the determination to never give in. That is why I honor her, Abraham Van Hellsing. I suggest you do the same. Do not tarnish her memory or her honor by making her anything less than what she was."

And with a swirl of shadow he was gone, leaving a stunned man in his wake, staring at the single red rose on the grave of a warrior.

And how right he had been. There were still times it chaffed to think that Alucard could have understood his wife more than he had. It had been true, his Anna was a warrior. She had fought with a complete dedication to her people's cause, their mission. And in the end, it was not so much Alucard that had killed her, but that very dedication.

He had been away at the time, a medical conference in Geneva, when Anna and her hunters had decided to go against the vampire. They had taken the battle to him, to his home. They had fought and they had died. Cut down to a man, the vampire's victory had been total. But in the end, Abraham found that he could no longer truly blame Alucard for his wife's death. Because he was right, it was the death she had sought. She had joined the battle, he had defended himself, they had died. No longer could he hate the vampire.

Abraham sighed, running his hand over his face as though to clear the memories of times long past, a past that still sometimes haunted him in these still hours of the night. He had not sought to become the vampire's friend, nor have that friendship returned, and yet it had happened. That night had been the turning point, the moment things between them begun to change, the moment Abraham Van Hellsing begun to change. For that was the truth of it, he had changed. What was more, he had changed because of Alucard. The vampire held within him a wealth of knowledge and a truly unique perspective. Once his hatred for the man had dimmed Abraham had begun to see this, begun to learn. Not that Alucard's lessons were ever easy. He truly believed that experience was the best teacher and that knowledge not earned and fought for was knowledge unappreciated and thus not truly learned. It could be absolutely frustrating and at times nearly fatal. And somehow, through the trials faced, the lessons learned, the battles fought together respect had formed. Then somewhere, along the way, true bonds of friendship and camaraderie had been forged.

The old hunter's eyes narrowed. Bonds. He was wrong, the bonds between he and the vampire were not merely those of friendship and camaraderie, no, they went much deeper than that. Bonds of blood and magic lay between them, ones deep and complex. Ones that no one save himself and Alucard truly understood...ones Alucard understood even better than he did himself. Ones only those who share them can ever hope to understand.

Since he had been taken Abraham had tried to use those bonds to call him back, but they were blocked. There were few things that could do such a thing. And yet…and yet Alucard had been able to reach him, through his dreams. He had been passing it off as the vampire's innate mental abilities, or maybe even a side effect of the magic used to bind him all those years ago, but perhaps…Yes, there lay the path.

Rising in a swirl of energy not felt in years Abraham turned to his shelves, a new purpose and resolve filling the space despair had but moments ago. He had been searching, hunting for his friend, hunting for those that took him, but he had been following the wrong trail. As the lessons he had learned, his hard won knowledge swirled through his mind the old hunter's jaw set and his eyes blazed.

I am coming, my friend. I am coming.