Content warning for later chapter. Heed mature content warnings. Once you read it, you cannot un-read it.

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Young Integra, a week shy of fourteen, climbed the grand staircase of the Hellsing manor slowly. Very slowly. Her knap-sack dragged behind her, a stack of folders clutched to her chest. It was four A.M. and as unproductive as the Round Table meeting had been, she still needed to…

Integra missed a step.

She fumbled and fell forward. She couldn't reach out to break her fall. She dropped her folder and her papers scattered, but she caught herself on the banister moments before landing face-first onto a step. Her glasses slipped from her nose. Pat-pat-pat. They tumbled down the stairs.

She grunted grumpily.

She gathered her papers and put them in an unorganized pile and continued climbing the stairs. She would return for the glasses, wherever they landed, when her arms were no longer full. She made her way to her father's old abode; her new office.

The moment she closed the door, the office was blanketed in darkness. She cursed herself, remembering the desk lamp was all the way across the room. Blindly, she reached out and walked forward, seeking it.

She stopped suddenly in the middle of the darkened room, seeing the barest glint of light reflecting off…something that didn't belong.

Only three people resided in the twenty-thousand square foot mansion. Whenever something was out of place, she could count on her meticulous butler to not be the culprit. And unless she remembered touching something on her own accord, only one other person could be the cause.

She waited, patiently.

Click.

Alucard was waiting for her, leaning casually against her desk and looking out the window. Sheets of rain cast hazy, melting shadows across the dimly lit room. "You've been gone for too long."

P-pat pat pat p-pat pat went the rain.

Waiting on her desk were her glasses, neatly folded.

Integra tossed her coat onto an arm chair and approached him, adjusting her cravat, smoothing her hand down her legs and making sure her skirt wasn't bunched around the holster and firearm snugly attached to her left thigh. She said nothing to the vampire. She was neither pleased nor irritated to see him. She was too tired to have opinions. However, his powerful and familiar body brought with it a sense of security that offset his unavoidable vulgarity and disrespect.

She eyed the glasses and took them without thanking him.

She thought to herself, her father and grandfather must have mistreated him pretty severely for him to automatically retrieve her glasses. It was so obvious to her that he hated her, hated her family, reviled his unnatural "place" as a servant. She had been his master for little less than a year, but she had come to know and accept this. When he moved, she could see his undead familiars swarming in his shadows and hair angrily, the way muscles ripple under taut skin. When he spoke, what little he spoke, his lips pulled back and revealed gleaming rows of fangs. Not just in the elongated canines, but even his incisors were irregular and pointed. His whole being radiated power. And she was so small.

Sometimes, she wanted to kill him. Snuff him out, while he slumbered in that coffin.

For her own safety. For the safety of everyone else. She wasn't surprised anymore that her father had the vampire locked away. If her soldiers were more capable, she would put Alucard right back where she found him. But she understood the human toll of the previous imprisonment. He had not gone willingly, and she knew he would not return willingly, for all his dramatic claims of being her servant.

And yet, if she found herself intimidated, she could only imagine how everyone else felt. As long as she could endure him, she was protected from all other enemies.

But Alucard was the most dangerous foe of all.

When he smiled only slightly, when his lips didn't part to reveal those fangs, he had a handsome smile. He had a handsome face. And he was very tall, which was pleasing to a girl. And she had grown fond of the way his unkempt hair fell into his eyes. And his voice was rich and deep.

He had purposely molded himself into something that she found attractive. He had done the same thing with her father–only then, he had been a lithe, young girl. She had seen the faded photographs. And yet, his mouth was full of horrible teeth. Yes, he was the most dangerous foe.

"The sun will rise soon," Alucard commented. "It's nearly time for me to retire to my own resting place."

Integra waved him off. His concern was false. Everything about him was false, even the unease in his voice. Alucard went on: "The old men know your days are packed with tutors and soldiers. They arrange these late night meetings to wear you down, hoping that you'll appoint someone else to act as Director. Before long, you may, if you do not sleep."

She walked past his melted-shadow form mechanically and took seat behind her desk. "If I leave this until tomorrow, I'll just stay awake all night. Thinking about it."

Alucard was quiet for a moment. Then he said, "I can help you sleep."

The girl snorted.

He continued, "Your father had chronic bouts of insomnia before the war. While your grandfather was still alive, sickly and deteriorating, he took command and had many sleepless nights, until I offered my powers to him to keep him asleep."

"Your powers?" Integra raised her eyebrow as she sorted her papers. "You mean hypnotize him? Put him in a trance?"

"I mean I helped him fall asleep. Nothing more insidious than that."

Integra glared bitterly at the vampire. "The same powers your kind use to lull my kind into a false sense of security, moments before the end. I think you'll understand that I must decline to use your powers…recreationally."

Alucard was expressionless. "The only ones who become addicted to me are those that abuse me."

Integra blinked. "What?"

"All things in moderation, my master."

"I still don't understand what you mean. Are you being vulgar again?"

"Your ancestor Abraham locked me in burning, silver chains and whipped me," Alucard said without emotion. "He stuffed Eucharists in my mouth and gagged me. He stripped me naked and left me in the sunlight for hours just to see what would happen." His head cocked slightly, his hair falling out of his eyes. "He was reluctant to surrender me to your father when the time came to step down. And I was reluctant to leave him."

Integra said nothing. She was stunned by the admission.

Alucard's eyes were dead and cold. "You humans are dangerous foes."

Integra continued to stare unbelieving at the vampire. "Why?"

His head cocked. His eyes gleamed, full of dangerous curiosity. "I don't know why I wish to please you Hellsings so." He reached his hand out to her.

She stared blankly at his offered hand.

"Please, master," the vampire implored. "Let us sleep."

"Soon," she assured him. "Go to bed. I will go sleep soon."

The creature withdrew his hand and sank into the darkness. "I'll be waiting," he said in farewell.

To be continued…