Author notes: REPOST of first chapter. Edited the writing and cut down on some aspects of the crossoverness - I'd definitely recommend reading this one again. Second chapter soon to follow...and I have several scenes written for the third. Senior year is busy, though.
(Just to be clear, this is the period after Alucard's released and before Walter gets back - which, according to me, is the day of Arthur's funeral. So it goes right between my Ties of Blood and The Funeral. You can check the latter out for spoilers to this, ha - oh, that also means this is also a crossover with Harry Potter. But not too much, I promise.)
Out of the Dungeon
Chapter One
Integra came to consciousness feeling stiff. She lay on her back without moving or opening her eyes, trying to remember what had happened to feel like this. She could feel the edges of a large gap in her memory…. Cautiously, she opened her eyes, blinking to take in the light from the windows.
Something unfamiliar – she didn't consider whether she saw or felt it – to the side of her room, and her head snapped toward it.
There, sitting quite naturally in her chair, legs crossed at the knees – a vampire unmistakable, his large hat and old-fashioned clothes bizarre against the décor of the rest of her room. A vampire – strangely not nearly as sinister as he should have been, sitting so still and watching her behind those tinted glasses, but dressed so absurdly for the situation. Integra's breath caught in her throat, and for a moment she could not move at all.
That moment was all it took for her to realize what she was seeing was real, and then she sat up as fast as she could. But before anything else could be said or done, what had begun as a vague suspicion of pain before reared up and through her so quickly and violently she nearly vomited. Instead she let out a short gasp and clapped one hand over her mouth, throwing the other out to keep herself from falling back; all the time, her eyes never left the vampire in her chair.
He stood up smoothly – as though it were perfectly natural for him to be there – and started towards her, but even with the terrible awareness that she was completely devoid of weapons, Integra gasped fiercely, "Stay where you are."
He froze in obliging obedience, though she could still see his eyes fixed upon her. A pause stretched as both were motionless, she concentrating on breathing and not being sick. She could, distantly – nothing more important than those red eyes through the lenses – identify the primary sources of pain: all along her back and, centered in a different way, her left shoulder.
The silence, filled only with her rasping breath, broke at last by the vampire inquiring in a most solicitous tone, "Is there anything I can get you, master?"
Master –
The word rang through her, and suddenly she was crouched on a hard stone floor, the blond blood-splattered vampire kneeling to her side, the feel of his iron arm beneath hers, and her maimed uncle, altered nearly beyond all recognition, staring wild-eyed in front of her.
Her left shoulder spiked with pain again, almost as though a second bullet had hit it. Integra clapped her hand to her mouth again to keep from being sick; and this time, she doubled over to her knees, for the first time breaking her gaze on the vampire.
Unseen by her, a satisfied smile spread across Alucard's face.
A long moment passed while Integra made no move to raise her head. He inquired again, "Master?" though it sounded as though he were only relishing the sound of the word. Finally, Integra raised her head, her face now sickly pale, and as she looked at Alucard the sharp alertness was gone from her eyes, replaced by a blank, almost detached curiosity.
"Master," said Alucard for a third time, watching her closely, "would you like –"
"No." The response was automatic, but she was gathering herself together now that she had recollected all the facts (Father's dead. I killed my uncle and last relative the night before, and unleashed this vampire into the house. Walter's still an ocean away) and had to act on them. Moving slowly and carefully, she pushed back the rest of her covers and prepared to set her feet on the floor and stand up. She would clean up (realizing now she had barely washed her hands and face last night, hadn't even changed her clothes before dropping into bed), change, get breakfast, and call to bring Walter back immediately to help her. That was what she had to focus on.
Before she even lowered her feet to the carpet, however, she looked back up at Alucard. "I need to clean up – go somewhere else in the house."
He eyed her with what might have been a slightly injured expression before turning to depart through the wall.
Integra let out an involuntary sigh, her tense shoulders slumping. Carefully, she slid off her bed, made sure she had her balance, and took tiny, almost waddling steps to the bathroom. Every step reinforced the impression that her entire body had been beaten, and the mirror only reinforced how much of a mess she was. Her normally tan skin looked chalky, and her hair still had some grime and…oh, surely that wasn't blood (whose?) streaked in it. Sitting on the toilet seat, she gingerly undid the buttons she had done up mechanically the night before, though pushing her shirt off her shoulders and down her arms was another problem. Dr. Trevellian had said her shoulder might ache in the morning, hadn't he – not be practically immobile. She paused to take a couple of the pills from the bottle left on her counter before working to finish the job.
Fortunately, she hadn't put back on any type of undershirt, and her skirt was much easier to shake off. Once naked, she moved to the side of her bathtub as she turned on the faucet for warm water. She didn't feel like taking a soak, nor standing up in the tub for any length of time, so she just picked up her washcloth and soap to do as best a job as she could sitting on the edge of the tub. She tried to wash around the bandages on her shoulder, figuring she would go to Dr. Trevellian later to see about getting them changed.
Remembering her hair, she knelt inside the tub to lower her head under the faucet. It was even more awkward to rub shampoo into it one-handed (her wounded shoulder definitely didn't like moving that way), and by the time she had gotten the last of the suds out and wrung her hair as best she could to pull it over her right shoulder, she felt exhausted again, nearly to the point of trembling. She told herself she would feel better once she was dressed and had some breakfast – she had to reach Walter, at least, then she just had to wait until he arrived and sorted everything out.
She leaned against the bathroom counter as she toweled herself off, until a glimpse of her back in the mirror made her stop entirely as she sucked in breath. Dark bruises patterned from high between her shoulder blades to the lowest part of her back and down her right side as well. But of course, she thought, I fell down the stairs. Very hard, rough stone stairs.
As she stared at the bruises, a distant part of her took in how lucky it was she hadn't hit the back of her head on the edges of those stairs – it could have easily concussed her, or worse. What are you talking about, you're lucky you weren't shot in the head, the sharp answer came. You're lucky you didn't bleed to death down there. You could have – your body could still be down there right now, Richard would have probably thought it a fine place to leave you hidden…. You would have died, he would have shot you again in a second and you couldn't move as you lay on the floor of that cell – you couldn't move, you didn't have anything left there, not a thing to fight back or protect yourself with – if it had just been you, you would have died –
Integra leaned more heavily on her bathroom counter, clutching the towel convulsively around her. It was true; the knowledge of her helplessness last night gripped her, the certainty of her death if it hadn't been…if it hadn't been for the intervention of Alucard. A vampire. Who called her "master" and watched her sleep and didn't seem particularly interested in harming her, though God knew why. And here she was now after her father's death, alone in the house and completely indebted to a vampire.
Not "indebted" – her mind rebelled against that word; after all, it was the vampire who called her master. She had to find out why, make sure it wasn't a temporary condition. But first, Walter.
But dressing was yet another ordeal. She had reached the stage where some type of supportive garment for her chest was not only more comfortable, but necessary; however, this morning bras did seem completely impossible, as even straining to make her left arm reach around to clasp it was enough to leave her gasping with tears in her eyes. At last, she struggled on an undershirt instead.
Alucard was waiting for her in the kitchen. Integra paused in the doorway when she saw him, though he immediately stood up and offered her his chair. A gentlemanly vampire – well, it certainly fit his dress style, though she still would have refused the chair if the walk downstairs hadn't been uncommonly strenuous. As she sat down guardedly, he began whisking about the kitchen, poking in cabinets and examining utensils. Integra stared.
"What would it please you to have for breakfast, master?"
Integra opened her mouth, though nothing came out. Surely he wasn't serious – She tried again, and came out rather weakly with, "You cook?"
"Of course, master. Twenty years is nothing to the time I did cook. It is only a question of what is available, and what you would prefer."
He glanced at her questioningly when she didn't answer, and both feeling curious and not knowing what else to say, she told him, "There should be a bin of oats in the cupboard for porridge."
Nonplussed, she watched as he moved about with a pot and the oats, sniffing in her fridge before extracting butter and then milk when he asked her what she would like to drink in the meantime. The kitchen had been renovated just a few years ago, but any confrontations with new technology did not appear to daunt him. Integra only had to give him a few tips with the stove before he seemed perfectly at ease with it.
As he shook a measured amount of oats into the boiling water, an important question belatedly occurred to her. "Did – have you seen anyone?"
"No, master." He began to stir the oats.
She frowned, wondering. Come to think of it, she hadn't seen anything of the staff yesterday, either. Mrs. Bryson, the housekeeper, had seemed to have made it her mission to keep her in sight since Father died, and Integra had had to seek out more and more unlikely and forgotten rooms and alcoves to get some privacy. She wondered if Richard had done something to them – or perhaps merely dismissed them.
"Well," she said finally, "if you do see them – or if anyone enters the house – don't show yourself, just come and tell me at once."
"As you wish, master."
And now seemed a good time to ask more key questions. "Why do you call me that?"
"Because you are my master."
"But why?"
He stopped stirring to turn his head and regard her. She saw his fangs again as he grinned. "I serve all Hellsings. Your ancestor bound me to your line." Leaving the stove, he approached her and extended his hand, palm down and fingers slightly curled.
For an absurd moment, Integra thought he was offering his hand for her to kiss; then she realized he was showing her the symbols patterned on the back of his glove. Intrigued, she leaned forward. It was definitely very complex; she had never seen anything like the outermost writing before in her life and she doubted she would ever cover in Ancient Runes. But there were English words too, running in a circle – HELLSING at the top, and she turned her head to read the rest: Hell's gate arrested….
Hesitantly, she raised her hand to touch the glove. Alucard was very still. Her hand hovered above the fabric for a few moments, and when her fingertips finally made contact with the black imprint, she felt a sort of magical spark – a not exactly unpleasant sensation – jump from it to her skin. Yes, he was telling the truth; he had a bind to the Hellsings.
She drew her thumb over the star in the middle, searching for lingering traces of the connection. Then her eyes flickered up to his face, and his expression, though she couldn't identify it, made her quickly withdraw her hand. "Don't let it burn," she said, looking to the stove.
He returned and began stirring again. Watching him, Integra took a drink from her glass before speaking again. "Why were you locked up?"
His black hair – certainly shorter than last night, but still shaggy – hid his eyes, and his tone was unfathomable as he replied, "I would tell you to ask your father about that."
It was not at all like a knife stabbing her; more like it had been turned around and the blunt handle used instead, at the same dull spot that never stopped, and she thought would never stop, hurting. She answered mechanically. "He's dead. He died four days ago."
"I know when any Hellsing is born or dies." Now he looked at her, his gaze piercing, but she met it without shame. Her father just died, how did he think she felt?
"Arthur Hellsing," he said softly, returning to the stove. "What happened for him to leave his only daughter with that rotten maggot from last night?"
She didn't want to talk about this with him, and she really didn't want to talk about how her father had made such a mistake. "He was sick."
There was a quiet click of the burner being turned off. "Is Walter still around?"
Startled by his consideration in changing the subject, she looked back to see him pouring porridge into a bowl. "Yes. I mean – not right now, he's in South America investigating something Father was looking into recently…. But he'll be back soon. I'm going to call him after I finish this."
At her direction, Alucard fetched a bag of raisins out of the pantry and sprinkled them into her bowl before slipping a spoon in and extending it to her formally with both hands. Integra looked at it for a moment – those same hands she had seen last night massacre bodies as though it was all they knew – and then mutely took it from him.
She hadn't realized how starving she was until she took her first bite, but then she had eaten nothing yesterday and very little before then; it was only thanks to her deeply ingrained manners that she kept her composure now. Alucard watched her in silence, refilling her bowl and glass as needed, and Integra was far too focused on the food to be bothered by him. At last she leaned back (gently, against the wooden back of her chair), and he set her bowl and glass in the sink, then turned again attentively to her.
She raised her eyebrows at him. "Aren't you going to finish the job?"
"Don't you have servants?"
Oh, so that's how he was: only eager to serve her in the most direct way. She restrained a sigh, and got up to go to the sink. "Well, I don't know where they are at the moment, and I'm not going to leave dirty dishes in the sink." She half expected the vampire to move to stop her and do the washing himself, but he stood by and watched her, unmoving. Keeping her attention more on him than the task at hand, Integra cleaned the dishes quickly and set them on the other side. She dried her hands on a nearby towel, still eyeing him askance, and finally turned to lead the way out of the kitchen. Breakfast was over, and it was time to find some answers.