It was different now.
The snow, at least.
It no longer froze her body, the winter wind didn't sting her uncovered skin. That was the strange part. She'd always looked forward to it. When she was a little girl, she'd run in it, play in it. After the death of her parents, when she'd gone to the orphanage, she'd pummel the other children with snowballs, the ones that bothered her. Mostly the boys, for the girls didn't stay out in the snow. They usually made their prissy little snow angels, then ran back inside, warming up by the fire with their hot cocoa.
She played like a boy. Out in the freezing cold, bundled up from head to toe, building forts and chucking snowballs.
Then adulthood came. Most people didn't think about snow then, at least not in a good way. It was always shovels, plows, roads, getting to work, whatever. It really didn't matter what the issue was, it was just that... Just that it wasn't fun anymore. Yes... It was more work, on the police force.... but at the same time, it made her feel alive. When the days were bad, when she felt somewhat depressed, the snow made her feel alive.... it made her feel like a kid again. It made everything perfect.
More alive than ever....Though she didn't feel alive now, she felt nothing. She saw the flakes fall from the beautiful gray sky, she saw them land on the top of her glove, felt them on her bare skin, but it wasn't the same. It couldn't be the same...
Because she wasn't alive. She wasn't alive, and despite the warm atmosphere at the Hellsing Org. that night she came home, nothing would change this.... Or would it?
Only 24 years of age. Twenty Four. Strange number. So long, yet so short... So short lived.
It had only been ten years since the end of childhood and innocence.
It had been even longer since the last Christmas she spent with her father. Snuggled up in the library, sipping a hot cup of chocolate, reading A Christmas Carol together, watching the snow pile up outside. They had done that plenty, but never on Christmas eve... Never sitting up into the late hours, then finally ushered to bed to await Father Christmas. He was never home on Christmas, or Christmas eve. Never, but for that one time.
The rest of the season was time spent with Walter, while her father was away. Christmas was time spent hanging garlands, stringing lights, laughing. Popcorn and candy-canes on the tree... And it was always a large tree, in the main hall. So big, and all alight. Magical, the kind of magic she wanted to believe in.
It was innocence. The Christmas season was innocence. And innocence ended with Alucard. Christmas ended.
But in a way, it was everyday. Everyday was Christmas, at least when it came to the long night in the library that she remembered when she was little. There were the long nights they spent in the same library, just talking. He gave it back. Hardly in the same form, but he gave it back.
He gave her more.
They were vague, those memories of childhood... for he had none. Long before his fourteenth year he'd been spending his time beside Hellsing's 'pet'. Of course it was hard to pinpoint a specific time to call 'childhood' when so much of the past had been splattered in blood. Still, the blood was beautiful on the pure white snow.
'She' was always pretty out in the snow, though it made his stomach churn to admit that. He knew if Alucard himself were to hear that, he's never let him forget. Ever. He'd humiliate him with that fact for the rest of his existence.
But it was different when he was younger, back when 'she' was just a little girl dressed in white, the only pigment being those eyes, piercing the night. A deep red. Even when 'she' killed, he couldn't see her as the monster he saw in Alucard today. But perhaps that was just his naive younger self talking.
That was the only way he could ever think of Alucard as a 'friend' ...to think of him as the 'child' he grew up with. The 'child' who chucked snowballs at his head when he wasn't looking, then gave an innocent look when he spun around trying to catch her.
That stupid vampire.
Then Integra came, all those years later. Integra, all alone. Her mother dead, her Father preoccupied.
He always gave Integra the Christmas that he remembered, not the commercialized one. Granted, his was commercialized aswell, but his vision of Christmas seemed.... almost truer then todays, if only made that way by bias. Nostalgia. It was a scent, a flavor, a way of living. An atmosphere that stirred memories, and made memories.
The Christmas he remembered as a child, even if it was a Christmas during war... It still seemed more right.... And why wouldn't you do the right thing, given the chance?
It made him feel old, that was the last thing he wanted to admit he was.
Then Seras came. And suddenly, that place was home again. For that one year, that place was really, truly alive.
Delving into his memories of childhood... Being part of Integra's childhood.... Helping the former police girl decorate the tree in the hall...
Winter. Christmas.
...That was the only season when he could forget what he did in Warsaw. Forget, and be truly happy.
Then there was that last Christmas... Years later, as people slowly started forgetting the horrors of war, and remembering the way things used to be. The way things should be.
The last Christmas that the few remaining celebrated together.
The last Christmas before The Hellsing mansion closed its doors for the last time.
That one... That one was the most blessed.
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Merry Christmaaaasssss guyssssssss. Sorreh, Suni no write Hellsing for long time, eh? Well, my other work is on haitus until I finish a Godchild fic.
I'm sorry this fanfic turned out depressing, I hope it was a smile-y kind of depressing, though. xD;;
Sorreeehhhh.