OK well this has been gone through fairly thoroughly by me now, and I think it's correctly edited. At least I hope so. Again, thank you very much for all the reviews, favourites and follows. I'm planning out where this story is going so the updates will be there, just slowish until I work out the direction I'm heading in. I would say bear with me but that never seems to end well when the person is a typical procrastinator and is distracted by shiney things.

I own nothing to do with Hellsing, just for the record but I think that's obvious.

Towards the End

Chapter One: A Letter of Apology to a Disgruntled Master

"My dear Integra,

"Truly, you cannot understand my I would do this? Why i would bother to drag back someone like that to your ruined home? Are we in the process of allowing those special to us dying in this wonderful blitz? It's true, my dear Integra, and you've seen it yourself. The Father is literally in pieces right now. Shall I say yet again I have your interests and welfare at the core of my black heart, along with my own? Sweet Master, that would wound me if I wasn't so ecstatic. Would your English sensibilities never forgive me? Perhaps if I show you my thoughts, then? I have quite a good memory as you know, Integra...

"Let me see then...we both remember the past weeks fairly clearly. The streets even now lie in ruins, glorious gold and crimson and aflame under the bombs and Millennium once soared over London's bleeding skies. All those Iscariots, aside from my beloved paladin, ran rampant. Where you excited or fearful, dear Master, as your enemies turned your very back garden into a scene of hell itself? You have never seen how truly wonderful a massacre can be, have you. No, you were safe, that's good, and this world would be so...dull without you. As for myself, I lay bleeding once again opposite Alexander Anderson. He assumed those were his last moments. Helena's Thorn could have done a lot to that amazing body, and if I hadn't saved his life – well I still may not succeed there.

"As our fight grew serious, I watched him plunge that wretched Nail into his heart. What a curious moment, the day still young in its black evening and I was finally given a fight worthy of my very immortality. I know what you won't ask, my Master, and yes that avenging angel was set to become to the most deadly of monsters – and that is never a word I use lightly. Those pale thorns enveloped him and the surrounding streets, and I couldn't stop it.

"Are friend or foe that different? Did I not save the greatest of foes to avoid grieving Anderson as the poorest of friends? You'd do the same my Master, and you can understand. You'll grant me my wish.

"I wouldn't allow the Judas Priest to die, I couldn't do it. Why would I, being what I am, allow someone so precious to slip from me as I have in the past? My equal, and not even a monster yet? He intended to use that Nail and die as a monster, but how could I let that happen? That blasted holy relic, was prided as the Vatican's most powerful and prized weapon. Yet it's beneath him to use it.

"'It's too late for this,' I had warned him. My lovely enemy looked back, the darkness around his shattering in the sad, beautiful way it tends to. I knew I wasn't that ecstatic however, if anything I was angry. Yes, I can get furious – when some religious freak gives such a hideous weapon to such a beautiful creature. Any other time, we would have fought and damaged each other. Now i just watched those pallid thorns bind him. If it wasn't so painful to think about, I guess this would be tragically ironic. 'If you destroyed me without using that thing, I'd have bee glad to be killed by you. But now...no; it's too late to think you have a chance against me."

"'An ye cannae defeat me..ye commith from the grund, ye heathen, and I'll send ye back tae it!' he had answered. The final light of those hideous thorns fell prey to the crimson eyes of my desperate and seeking shadows. I curse him, dear Master, for all that lost magnificence and for his wasting of a sport I enjoyed. All that gone, but was it his fault? The blame lies with those who gave the Nail to him.

"But no, Integra, I still smiled, for my mind was set on what I wanted. It was then epiphany struck, and it occurred to me I desired the mind and body encased in those vines. Those vines slowly destroying him as I tried vainly to exchange time with words. Thinking he, as a monster, would be enough to destroy someone like me – it's a mistake I'll make him pay for if I succeed in saving him. He had tried to strike me, still gambling his own life as I watched my hand lunge forward. In the next moment I knew what had happened; that Nail embedded in him had split in two, and as much I literally had my paladin's heart in my hand. And my arm was reached out and embedded in his chest.

"Dear Master, even if I would only ever admit this to you, doing such a thing to someone so precious to me was painful. Such a curious sensation...I have been killing for so long my preternatural mind barely remembers what it is to save someone. Those shadows wrapped him in my darkness as they brought him towards me, and he gasped for breath. What others would call horrific, I remain calling beautiful. If I might ask my Master for a favour, I would like to make the Vatican pay for this – but that goes without saying.

"Now, whatever I did there, I felt it would work and it's what my mind told me to do. You might not accept it, and even as logical as intelligent as you are, it might be hard to accept. I looked into his panicked eyes, and I couldn't tear myself away. My equal, someone so irritatingly fragile in that moment. Hadn't he meant to come here to send me to hell itself? It seems he got lost.

"All around me, those pale thorns were melting within the same shadows which refused to release him. My mind instructed me to hold together what little life still pulsed in that severely damaged, weakened body of his. Compared to that, any injuries and pain were nothing; I thought nothing of regenerating if it risked losing him. He was all that mattered, and whatever happens I'll pay anything for my choice. The thorns crumbled to ash, the blessed bayonets splintered into lethal fragments all around us. My grip within his chest continued to tighten then relax - the parody of a pulse and life itself.

"'Do you think you can send me to the ground then?' I whispered. A cold blue was tinged over his lips and I drew him to me. The surprise in my Iscariot's eyes was...hilarious actually. Even if I still had breath it would enough to just keep his lungs moving, a kiss was just for my fun. I grinned, my blood soaked glove framing his face. Oh, if he had any strength I'd be disembowelled there and then. '...This is what I think, Alexander Anderson. I think it's unthinkable for a monster to die to anything other than a human. Anything else is just food for the ground you planned on sending me to – and you can't kill me anymore..."

"You have come to know me well, dear Master, and perhaps you always will. It's rare I take the time to confide in you. My thoughts linger on the fact I have lived alone far too long, and killing for interesting causes I never cared for. I am wise – or maybe bitter – enough to know any who believe in immortality are fools. We both know as we walk from war to war, we pity our enemies who know nothing but destruction and a world of darkness. Alexander Anderson is above whatever he tragically did to himself. I tire of being alone, Integra, and I chose him for that.

"As he turned away I held him. As air choked his lungs I stilled his breathing with my lips, and I never released by grip. 'Is tha how ye became a vampire ten, so ya tears wadn't fall anymore? All A remember hearing is tha monsters hae thair tears dried forever, but then I look at ye now. If ye be teh monster, then ye be arrogant and laugh. Ye won, ye know…'

"That stinging in my eyes was interesting, and I hadn't expected it. In those life and war drenched streets, my blurred eyes fixed on that one amazing thing I still had, and he continued. 'Teel me, A awlways wanted tae know, how long are ye looking tae live this miserable, lonely existence o yers, Alucard?'

"'Hm, do you really think I'd prefer the miserable innermost circle of hell to this beautiful world?' I asked him. I could hear the Police Girl's steps finally approach me. I had been asking for her, louder over time as my dead blood became frantic. I leaned down to share another breath from my airless lungs, and whispered gently; 'I thought you'd know, Father, I'll live as long as the beautiful transform into hideous monsters. That will never change.'

"'A hear them, thay're calling me. The children…'

"'Let them wait, I'm talking to you,' I snarl, continuing my pressure on his heart. I knew it was almost time for him, part of him continued to decay. I pulled him to me, my free hand reaching out to grasp a bayonet fragment. How excruciating that burning pain was, and my healing would be slower from a blessed weapon. I drove the fragment into my other arm, his eyes widening and attempting to escape the flow of my blood dripping down into his chest. If I kept his decaying body soaked in my blood, it would help. I dropped that burning piece of metal, hanging onto him as I continued to wait for Seras – and bled my life into him.

"'Are Catholics that naive to think that monsters never cry then? But why would they, and would you mourn doing this to yourself? You just made one fatal error, allowing yourself to become this way. If we're the same and you don't wish to be neither man nor demon, then my blood will ensure I'll be the one to turn you into a monster. I would never allow anything else, and if I keep you in this world I'm the one stopping you ever dying.'

"'Ye'll burn in hell some day, Alucard, in bloody and lil pieces…' he gasped and weakly closed his eyes. The decimating flesh smelled a fair but, and my Master will know that usually such a thing would amuse me. But then that blood would make those parts of him not be lost.

"Smiling and my thumb lightly caressing his heart still, I watched as Seras Victoria finally approached me.'Police Girl, you're truly as slow as a human'.

"'M-master', she stammered, eyes red from blood as much as mine were. Seras scanned over the copious amounts of blood surrounding mine and the priest's huddled bodies. She knelt by my side as those shadows allowed her in, and knitted together when she was close. She looked horrified. 'Is… is the paladin dying, sir?'

"'I doubt it, and I'm usually good at these things,' I grinned. He was close to death however, and radiant when he was so close to being as I am. I will try and make him strong, and he will never be that weak again. Or maybe, if I get bored or he's unruly. I told her urgently; 'I need you to feed from him, and then give him your blood, Police Girl. Quickly!'

"It was a moment that was truly remarkable and I'll always remember, but I feared as he grew still in my arms. 'Dannae ye even look at me like tha, ya heathens. I can hear them, so ye lemme die…'

"Truly, why would he have thought what he wanted mattered in the least to me? Seras was fearful of my arm still in his chest; she's too young to understand love means little if you can't accept how hideous it can be. 'He will be mine, but he needs to feed from a female vampire – and it seems you're a woman after all. Obey me, servant, and do as you need so he's not made a ghoul. Then I'll give him however much blood he needs to make him strong as I am. It's very fortunate that Catholic priests are always virgins...'

"'Damn ye, filth, teh both o ya…'

"I smiled, and he was in no condition to resist me. I intend to curse him, I want him to regret doing what he did. I watched Seras reach down and I watched his dying eyes with my own, wanting to ignore that ugly weakness in him as her teeth sank into his pale throat. I laughed, my blood still congealing within the flesh and bone of his unwilling body. She pressed her bleeding wrist to his lips, and I held him so he couldn't move from it. Ah, those all too human instincts overcame his faith, and he gave in and drank from her. 'Yes, that's it, Father. Amen! Keep fighting, and become mine!'

"Our little Police Girl was disturbed by this, but she is young and hasn't seen such things. Around us those countless shadows and their eyes gathered, collecting in him to protect his body from further injury. It's the favour I want to ask, dear Master, that now I've returned I want you to grant me this wish. The war over London is over, and I will heal him in time.

"So yes, dear Integra, I sired another. I might have needed Seras's help in creating an equal, but she shall be at my side a long time. Immortality isn't forever, but it can be very boring with no equal and no opponent. Why not have that opponent belong to me? Allow me to keep him, allow me to seek my unholy wrath on whatever is left of those Catholics that gave him the Nail, and I'll never ask for anything else...

"Your ever faithful, somewhat still free spirited servant, Alucard..."