"What are you talking about?" snapped Integra peevishly as she ran a hand through her hair.

"She wants to go on that." Alucard gestured towards the ride in front of them, enjoying her irritation.

"That looks like an offense to humanity. Tell her that I refuse."

Master and vampire were standing directly ahead of It's a Small World, Alucard looking mildly amused and nonchalant. Integra folded her arms stiffly and she was ramrod straight. The young families around them afforded the two a wide birth, so unlike most visits to the magical moneymaking machine of Disneyland that of the Hellsing organization's was almost bearable in terms of personal space.

Integra looked around for Seras Victoria, who had accompanied Walter on a monumental quest for a chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwich. Dusk was turning into twilight and why Walter wanted an ice cream instead of some normal food mystified her.

Alucard smiled wryly. "I could, but that still means she'll go. And you didn't say I couldn't."

"You want to go on it?"

He adjusted his trench coat. "No," he drew out slowly, peering at her from over his glasses. "But since we're here, master-"

She rolled her eyes. "Fine."

Walter and Seras came ambling up, many of the passing adults double taking at Walter's clothing. When they had walked past the Blue Bayou, people had assumed he was a waiter, and several of them had tried to make reservations for dinner. Later, when they passed through Fantasyland, a little girl came trotting shyly up to him and asked him for an autograph because she thought he was a character.

"This is most excellent, Sir Integra," Walter said primly, not a drop of ice cream dripping on his suit. Integra raised an eyebrow and hid a smile; the vision of Walter with a huge sugary treat in his hand was interesting. "I highly recommend them, even if the price is a bit ridiculous."

Seras looked like an eager puppy. "Can we? Are we?" She glanced from Alucard to Integra and back again, forgetting for the moment that she found Integra as intimidating as hell. Her red hair bounced along with the movements. Walter looked at the other three curiously. Integra smirked at Alucard and he grinned: he knew she wouldn't willingly say that they were going on It's a Small World unless he had a gun to her throat, which wouldn't happen anyway. She'd just calmly order him to lower it, completely unshaken.

"Come on, Police girl," Alucard said breezily. "You and Walter can have your own" he paused as he checked to see what the human passengers were loading into, "boat." He began walking towards the ride. Integra was the last to start after him, and he waited for her to catch up. She glared at him tiredly, a tiny smile playing at the edges of her mouth.

"Whose idea was it to come here?" she asked him.

"I don't remember. But," he added slyly, "It was probably yours, Miss Hellsing."

She shook her head resignedly as she took in Seras and Walter's enthusiasm. Alucard offered her his arm.

"I need a cigar."

"This is so cute," squealed Seras. She leaned back in the boat to watch the little animatronics dance and sing. Walter nodded.

"It does improve on one," he agreed. "And it was ingenious for its time, or so I've gathered."

Alucard and Integra came next. Alucard's mouth was taut and he was rapidly drumming his fingers on the side of the boat. The bright. Pink. Side of the boat. He pulled the brim of his red hat over his eyes and slumped back into the seat.

Integra was blinking rapidly, fighting to keep from ordering Alucard from taking out the speakers and the demonic singing international children. Vampires she could handle, ghouls she could handle, and Anderson she could definitely handle. But this? This was a new and almost perfect mode of torture. You couldn't leave until the ride was finished, and until then, you were trapped.

"This is not music," she said tightly.

Alucard grunted in reply, as if not moving and not speaking would make the nightmare all go away.

"I'm not listening to you ever again," she said.

"Do you anyway?" he mumbled. "Can I shoot something?" They listed for a moment to Walter and Seras's happy conversation, echoing in from ahead of them.

None of them had been checked for weapons or, for that matter, anything else at the park's entrance earlier in the evening as none of the humans performing the function had wanted to touch Alucard or any of his things with a ten-foot pole. All four of them had benefited from it: they all had their preferred weapons of choice. Integra sighed. It was tempting to see him do it.

"No," she said firmly. But if she had to listen to this song one more time, she was going to die. She stifled the urge to take out her own pistol and do the job herself.

Alucard picked up on it, though. "And if your façade ever cracked, this whole place would be decimated," he observed.

"Not true," she insisted.

"Please?" He still hadn't moved out of his slump, but she wasn't fooled because of the eagerness in his normally dry voice.

She stared at him before answering, wondering just what they would be getting into. "Yes."

He didn't move immediately. "Thank you, master," he replied, relieved.

"And if you're going to do it, I order you to do it quickly," she hinted.

"Gladly."

He reached under his coat for his handgun.

"Save some of them for me," she muttered.

"Naturally. This will make a fun shooting range."

"This isn't scary. I'm scary," Alucard said flatly. He looked around the séance room in the Haunted Mansion. "Are humans really afraid of things like this?"

"Obviously not all humans are," Integra said crisply. Alucard's sharp teeth flashed through the dark in a grin, glowing because of the black lights.

"I forgot myself," he said. She knew he hadn't; he was teasing her. She was cramped in one corner and starting to lose feeling in her legs. And Seras had wanted the four of them to cramp into one car.

"Come on," Alucard drawled. "It would have been fun. You and Walter could have gotten real cozy." Integra perched her glasses back on the edge of her nose, thinking more along the lines that Walter was probably taking notes on the décor and not trying to cop a feel on Seras- or maybe he was. She could never tell.

Alucard snorted when they got through the hallway with the knocking doors and opening coffins, and entered the huge room full of wining and dining 'ghosts.'

"What now?"

"Nothing- it's just, if any of these people saw a real ghost, they'd probably die of a coronary," he said dismissively, waving a hand at the other cars ahead and behind them. "This isn't scary," he repeated.

Integra bit her lip, and suddenly had a novel idea. She took out her pistol and expertly aimed it at him, neither caring nor checking for any security cameras: there hadn't been any on It's a Small World, and after the workers had heard the sounds of gunfire, then saw who they had originated from, she and Alucard had been able to just walk right off the ride when it ended.

She assumed that had they been less intimidating and, well, normal, they would have been pressed with criminal charges. He had; after all, both snuck weapons into the park and used them to shoot sound equipment and whatever else caught his fancy. But there had been no injuries, which was a rarity in his repertoire.

"Scared now, monster?"

"That heightens the fear factor, I'd have to say, especially at such close quarters," he admitted coolly, looking down the softly glinting silver barrel at Integra. She smiled cheerfully and returned the pistol, twisting a little in her limited space.

"Good. Stop insulting my species."

"Temper, temper."

"Oh, I'm not angry," she rejoined. "If I were, I would have used it."

"Yes, but that was sexy."

Seras was paler than normal and her skin was tinged slightly with green. "I think I'm going to be sick."

Alucard looked over his shoulder at her as she staggered. "Are you joking? I fucking loved that. And you were the one who wanted to go on everything."

"Sometimes it can come back and bite me in the ass, alright!"

"Like those boys back there wanted to do, I'm sure," Alucard deadpanned, referring to three college age men who had been not-so-secretly stalking Seras until Alucard had turned around and barred his teeth at them. She flushed under the green and scowled at him.

"Get a grip on yourselves," Integra sighed. Alucard grimaced at her sheepishly.

Walter chuckled. "Sir Integra was commenting on the curtains," he offered.

Integra shrugged. "They were nice." She stopped a second to look up at the looming Hollywood Tower of Terror appraisingly. "I'm not going to go on it again, so I'm glad Walter was there to ask where they had gotten the fabric for the curtains in the lobby. Although, we probably won't be able to find it in England."

Seras zipped up her army drabs jacket and shuddered. "I'm going to go sit on that bench over there."

"I'm getting back in line," Alucard said suddenly. He nudged Walter. "Hold my gun for me? It almost flew out last time."

Walter bowed and wordlessly took it from the vampire, not caring that he was attracting stares. Some self-conscious looking boy exclaimed, "Awesome. What store did you buy that in?"

Alucard managed not to look too bored. "It's too much for you to handle, kid."

He shouldered past the throng of people coming from the opposite direction and got in at the tail end of the queue, coat flaring behind him. Walter eyed the sign that gave waiting times. Coughing slightly to get Integra's attention, he adjusted his monocle and read the time to himself. The gun-happy boy realized no one was going to talk to him, so his face fell and he walked away.

"It'll be about another hour for him to get on," Walter commented, setting Alucard's gun down next to Seras. "Shall we eat something and allow Seras to rest?"

Integra shook her head. "No," she said, "Look. People are already moving to let him pass to the front." It was true. The line, comprised of mostly teenagers, was shifting in very visible turns and Alucard could walk freely through the front doors and into the hotel 'lobby' without any difficulty.

"How can he like it that much?" moaned Seras, stretching out on her bench. Integra smothered impatience- Seras was a vampire, a new vampire, but she was such a weakling sometimes. She couldn't understand how Alucard could tolerate her all of the time.

"The set up reminded him of somewhere he used to live," she mused, "Before he ended up being chained to my family, that is. That and I think he might like the adrenaline rush of freefalling, but that's just a guess."

Integra was soaking wet, her blonde hair dripping into her sopping navy blue suit. "I'm not in the front this time." She looked drowned.

"There's a first," Alucard called to her, not having ridden the ride and being entirely dry, and smug because of it.

Walter, who had been behind Integra in the Splash Mountain log, was nearly as wet. Both of them, however, were just as collected as they normally were. Alucard stood near the photo stand with Seras and was laughing at their group picture. "Your hair looks horrible," he informed his master glibly. She smiled serenely.

"So would yours, had you gone on," she said. "Walter wants to go again- sure you don't want to come?"

Alucard was still laughing, as he shook his head no. Integra traded a dark look with Walter. "Alucard-"

"-I'm ordered to," he finished. "Police girl, want to tag along?"

Seras was working her way through a huge caramel, walnut, and white chocolate covered apple and said thickly, "No. Go ahead."

She had recovered magnificently from Tower of Terror after riding the Dumbo ride with Alucard, who was somehow enchanted by the idea of a flying baby elephant.

When the three loaded onto their log, they were combined with a single rider. Surprised that anyone wanted to join their group, Integra half turned to see whom Walter had been paired off with in the back.

An all too familiar Scottish accent rang in her ears as she adjusted to the sight of a face topped with cropped light hair and home to hard green eyes and a jagged scar.

"Heathens! We meet again in this hellhole of filth and corruption."

Alexander Anderson rode in the very back of their log, behind a slightly incensed Walter. She felt Alucard twist behind her to face Anderson and just barely caught his maniacal grin before he turned around.

"Still serving that Protestant sow, I see," Anderson called arrogantly, over Walter's head. Integra glared at him, but remained silent.

"Bastard," Alucard breathed with a frightening chuckle.

Seras cocked her head confusedly when she found the picture with Alucard, Sir Integra, and Walter in it. Someone was sitting in the far back of the log. Walter's head was ducked and she could barely make out his ponytail, Integra's face was propped up on one arm, glasses glinting from the flash of the camera- and Alucard had apparently shot the nose off of the man in the back. His gun was still in his hands and smoking a little. She gasped when she looked closer and recognized Anderson as the fourth person. No wonder Alucard looked so complacent even though he had restrained himself.

She said to the nervous looking woman in the booth, "I'd like that one, please."

"You never said not to shoot him," Alucard said stubbornly, "Master."

Integra was outwardly annoyed that he had shot Anderson in the face, in fact she was annoyed because of the ruckus involved and because he had done it in front of the camera, but inwardly she was actually amused.

"You did only say not to do decimate him," Walter reminded Integra apologetically. She incredulously stomped her foot as they went to rejoin Seras. "And he didn't."

"That's not the point."

Anderson, not wanting to start a very public confrontation with Alucard after regenerating his nose, had run off somewhere. Her personal theory was that he had gone off to the Teacups.

"Do you not understand that we are surrounded by humans? Humans who have no idea of any of the things we face daily?"

The vampire looked far too content with himself; she had to be angrier. Not that it would matter, because he would know that she wasn't truly angry. Telepathy was often a problem during times like these.

"I didn't even injure him. You know my aim is perfect. If I wanted to kill him, he would be dead."

"So shooting his nose off is only a small rebuke?" she asked dryly. "Please, it's not as though I like the man, but is a little decorum too much to ask? So he insults me. How many people do you think insult me when you aren't there?"

"Notice how no one does when he is there, though," Walter pointed out.

"It's all about decorum with you," Alucard said easily, and Walter turned a laugh into a cough. "Have some fun. Live a little." His face abruptly and inexplicably lit up.

Integra asked him warily, her barrage interrupted, "What?"

"Let me buy you dinner, Master," he said innocently, "As an apology." Walter looked at Integra mischievously, still only coming across as politely amused. She opened her mouth for a no but it came out far differently than she intended.

"Fine. And I hope by dinner you don't just mean from the ice cream stands."

Walter found himself walking with an amazingly nervous vampire as Integra and Seras browsed one of the shops in New Orleans Square, an estate jewelry shop full of antique necklaces, rings, and loads of things most Disneyland patrons sadly couldn't afford.

"You got the reservations, right?"

"Of course I did," Walter said placidly.

"For eight tonight?" Alucard wheedled. Walter had never heard him wheedle. Alucard did not wheedle.

"Alucard," he began, "If I hadn't I would be inside the Blue Bayou pretending to be the maitre'd to get you a table." He actually felt that that wouldn't have been such a bad idea.

They paused at a waterfront bench that overlooked Tom Sawyer's Island. Alucard leaned against the fence behind it as Walter sat down, and he smiled at Walter from under the brim of his hat. "That apology excuse worked out really well. I was trying to think of a way to work it in without being too obvious. It almost beats out getting to shoot Anderson."

Integra nonchalantly swirled her mint julep, looking intently out over the water at the boats of riders passing the Blue Bayou's porch. "It's quite a good idea," she murmured.

"Dinner?" asked Alucard hopefully.

She shot him a blank look. "No, this restaurant."

Truthfully she did think dinner had been a good idea, but some things were better left unsaid when you had control of the thing that in turn had command over your heartstrings. At least she felt more comfortable appearing like she didn't care about anyone, and it made a lot of things easier, except for situations like this.

"Oh."

And, she admitted to herself, she relished any opportunity to make Alucard squirm, because he had a massive ego and rarely could be made to squirm.

After a few minutes she relented. "Dinner is quite a good idea, too," she grumbled reluctantly. "But we couldn't just walk in here and expect seating. When'd you make the reservations?" She rested her chin on folded hands and shrewdly looked across the candlelit table at Alucard.

He narrowed his eyes at her and casually tucked some of his jet hair behind his ear. The trademark hat hung on the back of his chair; his glasses were tucked in a pocket.

"You couldn't just let it go. You remember this morning when Walter got dragged in here because someone thought he was a waiter?"

"I thought so."

Alucard nodded. "Exactly."

She smiled faintly and sipped her julep, the alcohol warming her throat as she swallowed. More to be doing something, she suspected, he took a drink of some water.

"It is pretty romantic here," she breathed ironically. "Candlelight, darkness…"

Suggestively she ran her fingers along the chain of her cross, the part of it that lay on her exposed neck. Which, to a vampire, was akin to flaunting cleavage with a low cut blouse. It was evil of her but she couldn't resist: it served Alucard right. They could not afford getting into a relationship.

Far from what Integra expected, he spluttered on his water and looked at her helplessly. Between coughs, he choked out, "Master?"

She sat back, still smirking, and laughed- since when did Alucard become flustered?

Seras scanned the people eating at Blue Bayou as her and Walter's boat began drift by. Grinning swiftly, she found Alucard and Integra sitting almost at the water's edge. "Walter, are you ready? You do remember the words to that stupid song, right? I know we just learned it today, but still."

"Yo… ho?" he looked massively pleased with himself as he beamed at her. "I like this ride very much."

"No," she said impatiently, "the other one!"

"Oh," he said, "of course I do."

"Good!"

She leaned forward and tapped the shoulders of the kids in front of them. The boat was full of field-tripping middle schoolers, all of which she hoped to be counted upon to cause a commotion. She and Walter were the only adults.

A girl turned around and stared at her disinterestedly. Seras wasn't discouraged in the slightest.

"Excuse me, but do you know the words to that love song from that movie with the mermaid?"

The girl rolled her eyes at Seras. "Who doesn't? You mean 'Kiss the Girl,' don't you?"

Seras nodded vigorously. "That's the one. Can you get all of your friends to sing it when we pass by" she pointed at Alucard and Integra's table, "those two? Really loudly?"

She shrugged. "I guess. Friends of yours?"

"Bosses, more like," Seras replied cheerfully.

"I don't see why you just won't do it."

"Because I won't."

"It isn't as though I haven't offered you my blood before," Alucard protested. "What, are you saving yourself for that other special vampire in your life?"

Integra was about to reply when a loud chorus of "Kiss the Girl" sounded in from somewhere on the water. Aghast, she followed the progress of the boat it seemed to be emanating from. Sure enough, Seras and Walter lounged in the last row of a boat filled with children bellowing the song at the Blue Bayou. Seras was singing less eagerly than Walter, which was unnerving. And how tone deaf were those kids?

Other diners looked confused and then amused when the boat finally rounded a corner and disappeared to a final, adamant "KISS THE GIRL!" Normal chatter resumed, slowly returning to its customary pitch. Alucard stabbed the steak he wouldn't be eating with his knife, then sat back and broodingly fingered the outline of his gun, completely silent behind a curtain of hair.

"You should control your fledgling, Alucard," Integra said, unruffled, polishing off her drink.

"Yes, Master."

If she didn't know better, she would have sworn he was pouting.