Disclaimer: I do not own Hellsing nor do I own Alucard, Seras Victoria or the Hellsing Institute. I do own Aidan and Winter and all their friends so please, no poaching okay?
Dedication: To those who asked for a continuation, truly flattering for an original character
Note: The problem with crafting a one-shot per day lies in the occasions when the one-shots are longer than most normal CHAPTERS I spend a week on normally. That was...rough. Honestly, I'm still not completely happy with it. It kind of got away from me somewhere and I have to wonder if some of it wound up being filler... Whatever. I present it unto you in its full entirety and hope you enjoy it.
It kept me away from my brand new and ultra sexy television. .
Prompt: kHz
'never try and find fault in my logic'
'Touched' is what they called it. 'Driven mad by the fey' was another way. 'Disturbed' some would say in a tone of pleading understanding. 'Bat-shit crazy' was another, perhaps closer to the truth. There were hundreds of ways to refer to it, some bad, some kind. The world had found so many terms to refer to it through the years. She only had one.
Mother.
~x~
She remembered when she first saw him.
It was the first day of first grade and she had taken a seat in the back of the brightly decorated room.
"Observe everyone," her father would say. "You might be surprised by what you find out."
At the tender age of six, she was more than ready to listen to anything her only sane parent had to say. So, in silence, she watched the other kids come in and start to play with each other. She was new, a stranger to the group. Quiet and distant, they did not seek her out to join in their morning games.
It was okay, though. From her few minutes of watching, she could tell who the bullies and the princesses were. She could point out the quiet kids and the followers. And everything she saw, she remembered, who to seek out and who to avoid. Information like that was invaluable she understood in her childish way. She was fine with merely having it.
And then he walked in.
He was different from the other kids. When he stopped just inside the door, it wasn't to look for other kids he knew nor was it out of nervousness or fear. It was something else. There was something to his stillness that drew her absolute attention and she found herself shifting forward in her seat, waiting for him to do something.
The action must have drawn his attention, because, suddenly, he looked at her. Her breath caught in her throat. Quickly, she looked away, finding some other thing to look at at random, anything to not meet his fierce gaze. It was harsh and strange from the eyes of a child. It was a look that she had only before seen in the eyes of the adults.
She knew then that there was something different about him. Something that frightened her and made her want to avoid him and seek him out at the same time.
At the time, she decided only to watch.
~x~
"You are such an unnatural child. How did you manage to come from your father and I? He is a brilliant scientist and engineer and I graced the international stage. How could we have given birth to a sullen creature like you? It is simply amazing."
~x~
One day, something changed.
The year of school had turned over and when they filed in on the first day after summer, his attitude to the other kids had shifted. He was more friendly and played their games. In her quiet corner, alone with a book and a pad of paper, she didn't find it unusual. She had watched him, covertly, for a year, marking all that he did.
For a year, she watched him waste time during lessons so he was not the first one done. She saw him lack reaction when someone ruined his art projects or construction jobs. He merely started over again, working with precision to finish things as he saw fit. She saw him talk to people only when they talked to him, all sunshine and smiles until they walked away.
In the month before her seventh year, she understood that he was choosing his role. In the year before, he was trying to be unnoticed and unremarkable. This year he was being friendly and fun. It was all the same in the end and she didn't care how the others played.
And, then, one day towards the end of March, something shifted. Outwardly, he was just the same. Still sunshine and smiles, pranks and jokes. But, something about his shoulders was stiffer and his smile seemed more forced. He began to disappear directly after school on Fridays and came to school more tired on Mondays.
Slowly, other more noticeable changes started. He stopped letting his school work slip. It was a slow progress, but he went from being an unremarkable student to one of the best in the class before their eyes. When the boys of the class asked him about it, he would shrug it off and say something about his mom and the newest gaming system.
She never said anything and no one else seemed to see it all. It was his business, she figured, and she let it pass. The last months of class passed and she continued in her quiet way, watching the farce that went on around her. Her grades were perfect and her attention in class absolute. A social outcast, she was fine in her role.
She didn't bother making friends she couldn't bring home.
On the last day of class, she stayed behind alone. Her quiet offer to clean the room for the teacher was gladly accepted with the promise of a quick return. She stood alone in the room, the overhead lights off and the midday sun casting the space into dark shadow. Idly, she wondered how long she could waste time and stay in the room, away from the realities of home. Not above a few minutes probably. Even though the young teacher found her hard to cope with at best, she was still responsible enough to send her on her merry way.
The door clattered open and she glanced over her shoulder from where she stood at the sun-bright windows. He stood there, as he did everyday, canvassing the room before entering and she knew the exact moment he realized her presence. She waited, as she always did, for him to change his face and assume the cheerful shape he always had in front of the class, but it didn't happen.
Instead, he stared at her for a moment, nothing but calculation on his face, before turning to the path to his desk and retrieving a small item from the floor beside it. He straightened again and gave her one more solid look before leaving the room without another word.
Why he didn't pretend, she did not understand. Nor did she feel as if he had acted as if her presence was negligible and to be ignored as the rest of the class usually did. Invisible and to be passed over with the eyes like so much air. Though she could not decipher its meaning, the look he'd given her had been drowning in his own personal code.
For the first time, she wondered if he considered her in the same way she considered him.
~x~
"Your grades are good, I suppose, but you still haven't brought home a single friend? Are you as dismissive of people at school as you are at home? Does it take so much to get you to smile when you are with children your own age? No wonder you don't have any friends."
~x~
She watched him walk away, whistling in a tune that echoed with dismissal and wondered how he could do it.
"Superman doesn't lie all the time."
Surprised at the sound of her own voice, she blinked and turned to sit in the spot he had abandoned. He had discovered it a few weeks into their third year and she had seen him sitting there with various pads of paper and odd devices for months before she finally intruded into the spot.
The year had been different than before. Unabashedly allowing himself to fall into the category of 'smart kid,' he had spent less time with the bullies and jokers of the class. Sometime during the first month of school, she had looked up to find him sitting next to her, quietly working out math problems far different from the ones they had been assigned. At her sudden attention, he looked up, gave a quick shrug, and went back to his work.
It could have been attributed to her general disinterest or her own nonentity status in the class, but his casual way of occasionally choosing to sit next to her did not cause much comment. Even at an age where everyone began silently pairing up boys and girls, they were left alone.
After all, who would start liking the freak?
She never asked him what it was all about, choosing, rather, to ignore his antics in favor of her own works. Besides, at closer quarters, she could observe him more closely. His actions were so much clearer when quiet and subtle.
At that point, she had realized a dream to go into writing. For all her intellectual abilities, her brain sought out words instead of numbers, paint instead of physical activities and music instead of science. Still, all of those required an understanding of people and the observation continued.
"People, in the end, will always reveal something to you that they didn't mean to, poppet," her father remarked one day. "It is those things they don't mean to show others that shows who they really are inside."
And what he wasn't showing was screaming. His ability to morph into the perfect child for every situation remained unchanged. Instead, the hardness around his eyes and the tendency to more and more cede from the games to work on something serious when he thought no one was watching told her volumes.
She wondered, for the hundredth time, what had changed in the year before, that had made his focus shift so much. Gone from being a game he played, the time he spent in school seemed like a trial best played easily. He gave people what they wanted until they went away. His lies were legion.
Except to her.
Sarcasm aside, she realized that he never pretended with her. He never gave her a smile born only from the role he played. He never told her any of his newest reasons for the things he did. He barely even spoke to her, choosing to use the language of a passing glance as his method of communication.
For some reason, she was different.
And it was for that reason that she finally disturbed him in his haven of peace and spoke words not quite truth. She knew he was keeping secrets, knew that there was something outside of his weekday hours that consumed everything he was as a person. She still couldn't guess why.
And he refused to tell her.
But, one day, she'd make him.
~x~
"You shouldn't waste time with those scribblings of yours. The only thing that makes money in this world is science and true genius. If you want to write something, write a journal. Maybe it'll show you how wooden your character is."
~x~
"You are scaring the children, oh mighty violent one."
"Aidan, you are a child. So, unless you are talking about yourself, shut up."
"I refuse to refer to myself in such lowering terms," he commented idly as he surveyed the quietly whispering class. "Besides, its true."
"How am I scaring them?"
"First, you are wearing your clothes in a more fashionable way as is your hair."
"It's a new school year. My mother made me do it," she commented offhandedly as she continued to work on her math problems during their luncheon hour.
"Second, you are suddenly talking to your fellow classmates more."
"Again, blame my mother.
"Should I blame your mother for not carrying the one right there?"
She looked up at him where he sat grinning and pointing to one of her problems. With a frown, she looked over the problem before muttering quietly and fixing the small error that had led the entire line of problems to be wrong.
"And third, you have suddenly started talking to me of all people."
"You started it," she scoffed under her breath.
"Actually, if I remember correctly, you are the one who kicked me in the shin in the last couple months of school last year. You even stalk me after school."
With a sigh, she looked up. Somewhere between the end of term last year and the beginning of term this year, he had realized her game. When he discovered that her detective abilities were better than his ability to find serviceable hiding spots, he'd begun to purposefully strike up conversations with her in class.
"I never bothered you in class like you do to me. I let you play your game with our classmates. You should let me play mine."
He smiled ironically, plucking the pencil from her hand and erasing her numbers before rewriting them more legibly, clarifying that one 9 was actually a 4. Picking on her about her homework had become a new hobby.
"You don't play a game with them though. You avoid them."
She shrugged, retrieving her pencil with a tired sigh. "You avoid them, too. I am just quieter about it."
"Sometimes, I wonder. And when, silent sylph, do you expect to start avoiding me and letting me be after school?"
Her hand paused in its writing before working again.
"When I have better things to do."
~x~
"I understand from your teacher that you are finally beginning to get along with your classmates. Perhaps you aren't such an unnatural child. You should make sure you don't say anything to upset them. They won't be too loyal to you."
~x~
"You suck."
"Actually, in point of fact, vicious vixen, my team just won."
"Which is why you suck."
"I can't help it if we are bett- Ow!"
"Instigating a game of girls versus boys Jeopardy when the guys out number the girls more than two to one is unfair, Aidan, and you know it!"
"I would have thought you could carry the team. Ow! Stop hitting me!"
"Stop being mean."
~x~
"A whole additional year goes by and still you didn't get a single invite to go out with girls from your class or bring any of them home. You don't even hang out with the boys which would be something. You should probably start focusing on your grades. You need to keep them up if you are going to get anywhere in life. Your social skills are obviously not going to help you."
~x~
"Maureen! Thank you so much for helping me out on the last test! I would have failed it without your help."
"It's nothing Mary-Kathleen. Queen of Textbooks here hardly did anything."
The two girls looked over to where he sat tracing out designs onto grafting paper. Used to the torment, she merely sighed.
"Aidan, can you not bud in on our conversation?"
"Tit-for-tat, my friend. You leave me in peace afterschool and I'll leave you alone during."
"Anyway, Maureen, I wanted to know if you wanted to join us," the blonde girl asked, slight hesitation in her voice as she eyed the handsome boy a moment before turning to her quarry.
"Join where?"
"If it is the mutant research laboratory, she's already well known there."
"Um, we are going to go down to the sea. A bunch of girls from the class, I mean. We haven't ever really hung out much but I thought you might want to come."
"How sweet."
"I would love to come, actually." She smiled, genuine happiness at the invitation undulled by his sarcasm.
"That's great!My mother is taking us all. All she asks is that she has a chance to talk to your mother in person and make sure it is all okay."
"Oh," she replied, trying to make sure her face remained in its happy expression. "I'll ask her. Is your phone number in the directory? I can get her to call your mother if she says yes."
The spritely blonde nodded happily, unaware in the change of her budding friend. "I'll let mom know." With a happy wave, she left the emptied classroom, already pulling out her phone to make the call.
Looking down at her paper, she suddenly lost the desire to work and began to pack up her belongings. When she finished, she found him looking at her calculatingly.
"Not going to call her and ask right now?"
She shrugged lightly. "I can ask her when I get home." Shouldering her bag, she turned to leave the room without farewell, as was protocol.
"And you are off home in a rush to find out what she says."
Pausing at the door, she smiled at him wryly. "I already know."
~x~
"Almost twelve years old and you've still never made a friend. I guess it can't be helped. You are hardly friendly at home or at church. Keep on studying. I expect perfect grades since you have no friends to distract you."
~x~
"You know, I hear in other countries, they rank students on major tests and display it for the entire school to see."
"I'm glad to know that you pay attention in social studies, Aidan."
"It's for the entire grade too."
"Are you going to be annoyingly distracting through my entire lunch session? Because, really, I'd like to get my math done."
"I was just wondering. Does that mean you would be doom to always be in second place? Ow! Stop that!"
"As smart as you keep saying you are, you are still an idiot."
~x~
"You are old enough that you should be thinking about boys and them about you. Don't tell me you still don't have any guys who are after you? You are very pretty. I hope that bad personality of yours hasn't driven them off."
~x~
"Please, tell me what you did to Patrick. He went from being all puppy eyed over you to avoiding you like the plague."
"I don't see why you should care."
"It is interest, malicious maker of man mince meat. I want to see what you did that made him so effectively go away. Did you start beating him like you do with me?"
"No, you have that special pleasure."
"I'm honored, I'm sure. Spill or I'll erase all your algebra homework."
"I hate you. Fine. I flicked him off when he asked me to the dance."
"That is precious. My cousin couldn't have done better! Thirteen and you are already an enemy of man."
"So glad I can amuse you, as always, Aidan. Meanwhile, since I fessed up, help me with this one."
"Fair enough."
~x~
"Your math grades are remaining excellent but your science classes have started faltering. I don't want to have to keep telling you that your grades will probably be your only success in life. And don't pawn off your composition marks on me. Math and science is what truly matters in this age."
~x~
"Apparently, you girls think I am quite fetching. Which, in and of itself, is a hilarious idea since I have been almost nothing but an ass to them since we were six."
"Because what you need is more things to flatter your ego."
"Are you among their number then, disdainful demoiselle?"
"A very firm no. The only thing I want from you is help with my science homework at lunch."
"And we've graduated from math. How endearing."
"I'm too tired to hit you. Either be helpful or I'll stay an hour after school."
"A sound threat indeed. Help it is."
~x~
"I'm not sure I believe this talk of you doing afterschool projects and studying. I think you are being a rebellious child. They told me one day it would come. I should have expected it sooner with you the way you are. For the moment, I'll let you continue, but the moment I find out what you are really doing or the moment your grades dropped, I'm going to give you thirty minutes to be home or face punishment."
~x~
"Even with my entirely brilliant mind, I cannot grasp the female brain at times."
"Your humility is astounding."
"Answer me this, then oh master of the female mind, how is it that I can systematically single out a series of different girls and give them my full attention and flirtation and yet they always turn to me in the end and tell me that they know I'm really in love with you."
"Really? They all said that?"
"Well, not really. They just said that they knew I wasn't serious."
"Damn. That would have been hilarious."
"But they do always look your general direction when they say this."
"What can I say, Aidan, girls really aren't as stupid as you seem to think. Well, most of them. And they look at me because you voluntarily have been sitting with me at lunch for the past few years."
"Yes because you allow me to do my work."
"Explaining yourself, Aidan? I'm shocked."
"I'd give you one of those routine hits of yours but I don't believe in hitting women."
"Which is why women, in reality, are smarter."
"Shut up and give me your science homework already. I'm bored."
"Stop sulking. You didn't want to date any of them anyway."
"True, but entirely beside the point."
~x~
"I understand that some of your classmates are taking university level classes already. I suppose you would complain that you can't do that level class for science in math. I'm not sure what to do with you anymore. All you want to do is scribble in that notebook of yours and draw those foolish pictures. My only consolation is that one of the university heads complimented you at your last piano recital so maybe that wasn't a total waste."
~x~
"One day, you'll get the hint that I don't want you to come here after school."
"One day."
"I really would like some peace and quite for once."
"Because I am horrifically noisy."
"How about some alone time?"
"Don't you get that at home?"
"Don't you?"
"Fine. I'll leave."
"Finally."
~x~
"Have you been cutting back on your study sessions? You have been getting home earlier and earlier everyday. Don't tell me you are daring to slack off so close to your graduating year. I won't put up with it."
~x~
"Your cousin seemed very nice."
"Nice is not the word I would apply to her."
"Is that where you go on the weekends and during summer? To see her family?"
"Wouldn't you like to know."
"Are you ever going to tell me what you do when you leave here?"
"I see no reason for you to know since it completely doesn't concern you."
"Indulge me."
"When you tell me what you do when you aren't here, I'll tell you what I do."
"…I'll see you tomorrow then."
"Unfortunately."
~x~
"What did you tell your father? What did you say about me? What did you do?"
~x~
"Because, some days, I need to create something instead of destroying it."
She stared back at him, at the destroyed look in his eyes and every decision she had made to simply walk away crumbled in that stare. Every hardened idea she had about leaving everything she knew behind and starting somewhere new where these people could never hurt her again vanished in an instant. She blinked and he looked away, down at his created machine of antiquity. She followed his gaze before looking to one side and catching sight of a foreign object she hadn't noticed before. Picking it up, she turned it over in her hand and sighed.
"My mother is psychotic," she said suddenly, breaking the silence. "I mean actually crazy," she clarified when he frowned in confusion.
"How?"
"They aren't sure really," she replied with a shrug. The grooves of the small item in her hand felt strange under her fingers as she flipped it over yet again. "They say it is something close to multiple-personality disorder. No one really knows, really."
"Is that…."
Her fingers grazed over the holes in the middle, fine teeth lining the sides of the crafted circles. Inspiration struck and she reached over to his new device and hit one of the buttons labeled "eject".
"She only gets bad around me. Never around my father or any of our other family. They can only hypothesize why. Something to do with the pregnancy ruining her career perhaps. Whatever the reason, it doesn't really matter now."
As she spoke, she inspected both the device and the item in her hand. After a moment, she fit it into the door and pushed it closed. Curious, she pushed the button labeled "play" and smiled when a garbled conversation from a century past began to sound from the created radio.
"What did she do, Maureen?"
She looked up, startled at the rare use of her name. The blue of his eyes was fathomless and she could only meet them for a moment before looking back to the wheels of the cassette as they wound round and round.
"It was never anything she did, really. It was things she said. They were…unkind." She sighed, pushing the stop button and ending the garble. "Honestly, they were horrible. I hated going home."
"What about your father?"
"He never knew. How could I rat out my own mother? Especially when I knew it wasn't who she really was."
"How long ago did it start?"
She shrugged, still unable to look at him. "Before I met you."
He sighed, deep and heavy. "That explains a lot. I'd been wondering but you always seemed…."
Finally she looked at him and smiled sadly that his wry grin had fallen into a look of guilt and self-recrimination.
"It isn't anyone's fault really. Perhaps mine for not saying anything."
"I'm still not sure what brought all this up. I'm still not sure why tell me of all people. I mean, really, I'm a bastard."
She laughed, the happy sound echoing off the empty walls. He stared at her, confused and she shook her head slightly. Once more, she diverted her attention to the newly created radio, pressing the button for rewind.
"You always treated me different."
"I think we've established that you see through my bullshit."
"You infuriated me and frustrated me and made me think of every way in the book to bring you down a peg and back to the realm of us mortals."
"I'm beginning to question your psychosis if this is your reasoning."
"You distracted me. You gave me something to look forward to when I was at home, something to concentrate on." She sighed, looking up to him again. "You kept me from turning into someone like her, I think."
"Well, that's…surprising."
"I love you, Aidan."
The screwdriver he had been turning over in his hand fell to the floor in a loud clatter. He stared at her, for once silenced, his eyes wide and jaw slack.
"You told me once, almost a year ago, that you would let me into your life when I let you into mine. I've done that. I don't think you are obligated to return that but I do think you should know that…if you tell me to leave one more time, I will."
He jerked slightly at her bold declaration and she straightened her back, determination filling her once more.
"We will be leaving for university soon. It's time for me to focus on being happy. It's time for new beginnings." She looked down at the radio he had spent years building with a sad smile before looking back to meet his eyes.
"So, either create something new with me…or tell me to go forever."
He stared at her, wordless, for a long time. Every emotion she could imagine filtered through his depthless blue eyes as he looked at her and the minutes were agonizing as she waited for him to make a decision that would affect the rest of her life.
Finally, he let out a sigh, bowing his head down until it nearly touched the table. When he raised it again, a small smile painted his features different and he reached over to push the small button with a red circle over it.
"You see, angel of my adoration, there is a place called the Hellsing Institute. It does some pretty interesting things…."
AN: A familiar phrase by now I'm sure, but there will actually be a continuation to this (another one right?) I had at least one request about how Maureen finally gets into the Hellsing act etc. That and these two chapters have been such DOWNERS that I wanted to give them some humor and love. Hard to remember that Aidan was usually the comic relief.
If things go right, I MAY have a bonus chapter for tomorrow (unassociated with what I had planned) since I will be trapped at work for long dull hours. If not, I still anticipate producing the Seras pregnacy chapter for Monday.
And, while I am not satisfied with it, I hope this held up to most expectations. If not, sorry?
Til next time!
