He didn't come back the next night.

Integra sighed. She didn't know why she wanted him back. He would simply hint again at turning her into an undead, hint that maybe he might love her. But she knew he couldn't love her. He wouldn't ever be the loving kind boyfriend/knight she had thought him to be, when her father told her that her savoir was in the dungeons. Instead of a knight, she had gotten a demon.

A very protective, infuriatingly loyal, demon. Over the years he had, much like her visions of a knight, kept her safe. And now the monster offered freedom as the Knights kept her trapped. She couldn't have ever dreamed that it would come to this.

"You know what I want, Integra. Think about it." His words echoed in her mind.

"Alright, Integra. Think."

She had to treat this like it was a puzzle, one about a girl in her situation, not as it was herself, because if she thought of it as herself… it would drive her insane.

The girl was ensnared for a wrongdoing she didn't commit, and she was infuriated about this.

The girl had a very handsome undead wanting her to join him for forever.

But the girl didn't know how enthralled this undead was. He could tire of her in a few years.

And she would be as alone as she was now. As she had been most of her life.

The girl trusted the undead implicitly though, and even thought of betrayal hurt her, just like when…

When she had thought Alucard dead. Screw thinking in the third person. She had only ever felt that much pain when her father died, and when she had thought Incognito had killed Alucard. The panic had set in and she had screamed at her servant, wanting any sign that he could possibly be alive. Bloody hell. She was attached to the damned creature.

And he was attached to her. It wasn't love. Respect, maybe, but not love. Admiration. She was brave and strong, and she pushed her instincts away in favor of icy control. It attracted him, that she was strong, that she didn't give in to his first offers and teases. That she rebuffed. That she refused.

That she didn't play his games.

That she killed as she needed; though he was the one that committed the acts, she pulled the trigger. Hers was the will that drove him.

He respected her and that was that. Maybe viewed her as a comrade in arms. He would never love.

She sighed again, wondering why that so bothered her. A small voice in the back of her taunted her.

You've grown attached to him. You try to view him as a man. He's only a monster though, and deep down, you know he only strives for power. That's what just breaks your heart, isn't it? That you're starting to love him, but that he could never love you back. It's the sorrow of being a vampire, one such as him.

She gritted her teeth. Her eyes were growing hot and clouded, but she pushed back the tears. She refused to cry. Not here, not now. She simply had to weigh the pros and cons.

Pros, she would be immortal, powerful, able to rule with an iron fist, and could avenge her honor stolen by the knights.

Cons, she would no longer be human, and therefore could not carry on the Hellsing name.

But if she was forever alive, she could make sure that Hellsing never was corrupted by anyone like her uncle. The company would always stay pure.

But being run by a member of the species it set out to kill would be somewhat of a mood depressant for her troops. "Yes, we kill vampires, except when we don't." She couldn't afford to pick and choose. Either all vampires had to be eliminated or none.

And if all vampires were eliminated, Alucard would, eventually, have to be killed as well. Her heart clenched. That was not something she thought she could handle. The creature had always protected her and… to kill him in return or nothing but service, it was dishonorable. It had nothing to do with personal feeling; it was simply not how the Hellsing family operated.

Never mind that she would have refused to compromise with any other undead.

She ran a hand through her hair. This circular thinking of honor and duty was only giving her a headache. It seemed a conundrum. She could not give in to Alucard, because it would go against her duty, but it would go against her duty to him if she ended up killing him.

"What duty to him? Integra…. You are not making sense." She sighed to herself. Now the stress was affecting her; she was talking to her self.

"I suppose that I mean that I feel I have a duty to him, because he has protected me, even though he was forced to. What would happen if I were to take the seals off? He would attack, as any creature like him would. He is above all a monster."

Then, quieter. "But I would love him, if he could be a man."

But she had no illusions about it; it was not a lovey-dovey take a walk in the park and eat each other's ice cream. Eugh. She could never stand that. It was perhaps love born out of respect. He was a strong, intelligent being, as was she, and they were drawn together because they both had strength born from pain.

Would being with him for eternity really be that bad? He strove to make her strong, independent, intelligent, and he called her on her mistakes. He was infuriating, but the best conversationalist she had aside from Walter.

And she was thinking in circles again.

She slumped into her cot. The stone wall was cool against her arm, like his flesh. She pulled her arms into herself at that thought, hugged around her middle. Some decision had been reached, whether she had realized or not, and as she closed her eyes to sleep, she whispered softly in the dark of the cell.

"I would love him, if he were a man, or if I were a monster."

……………

Alucard, leaning against the wall in his own dungeon, heard her thoughts and smiled.

"Oh, Integra."