Author's note: Greetings once more, my friends! Thank you very much for your wonderful reviews and patience… Well, guess what! I updated again lol. Okay, mind some language in this chapter. :)
Summary: This story takes place right after the movie, only Anna was not hurt by Van Helsing and furthermore is not dead lol. The basic idea is that we'll follow their journey to Rome with all of its events, and finally we'll get to learn something about who he really is. All the way, there will be an exploration of his relationship with her.
Warning: The story contains explicit sex scenes, so please don't read through if you are under legal age or otherwise feel uncomfortable with such stuff. To everyone else, enjoy yourselves! ;-p
Disclaimer: Yes, bla bla bla I don't own Van Helsing or anything related to the movie, I only own my own characters and plot bla bla bla etc…
A Journey Home, And A Journey Of Sentiments
Chapter 10
The rest of the day passed rather pleasantly for Gabriel, Anna and Carl. They enjoyed the family's company, and also Jolanka visited them in the afternoon. She was happy to have found her parents, elderly now but alive and well. The woman shared with the others her mixed feelings of joy and depression; she saw her parents again, but she remembered them a lot younger… But their feelings of overwhelming happiness to see their daughter again, their only daughter that they had long considered dead, prevailed over anything else. Jolanka stayed with her new friends for a few hours, and before she left she thanked her rescuers once more.
Anna suggested that they stay a couple of days more at the little Hungarian town, but her companions insisted on leaving as soon as possible, which meant the following morning. The brothers offered to prepare for them some things that they might need for their journey. Ilona gave Anna a small silver cross as a gift and wished her eternal happiness with the man she loved. Anna found the woman's move very touching and thought that it had been worth risking their lives for her.
The three travelers left the inn early in the morning. This town had given them an unexpected adventure to remember, feelings to hold dear, and new friends that would always open their door for them. After bidding farewell to the family, Gabriel, Anna and Carl mounted their horses and rode west.
They spent another night in Hungary, with no extraordinary events occurring this time. A couple of days later the travelers reached Serbia, but their stay in the first town they stopped at didn't last long; some people recognized Van Helsing and called the local authorities. This event resulted in the three friends grabbing their belongings in the middle of the night and galloping away and as far as possible from the little town.
Their riding brought them to the Dalmatian shores of the Adriatic Sea in a cold, windy and rainy night. Few of their provisions were left and they were exhausted. Soaking wet to the bone, they brought their horses to a much slower pace and rode quietly in the town heading for the harbor. None of them was in a mood to speak; they just kept riding, accompanied only by the sound of the rhythmic pace of their horses, each of them lost in their own thoughts.
The harbor was small and dirty. Drunken men were to be found randomly in the narrow streets, as well as prostitutes who obscenely demonstrated their goods to the men and invited them with filthy words to enjoy a night with them. Anna felt sick at the sight; Carl felt strangely as he was not quite used to such, the least to be said, improper behavior, while Gabriel simply ignored them all and kept riding.
Some time later they found the office of the harbor. It was a small building and it seemed that it would have certainly collapsed if the wind was but a little stronger. The three companions decided to knock on the door.
"Hey! Is anybody inside?", Gabriel called and knocked on the wooden door twice, but he received no answer.
"Does anybody hear me?", Anna shouted as loud as she could, trying to keep her voice audible despite the heavy rain and the wind.
"Well to me it seems that no one is there…", Carl concluded. "Why must we always be so unlucky?", he complained.
Right then a middle aged man appeared from the corner. He was holding an empty bottle and singing something incomprehensible, while he stumbled his way towards them.
"Hey! Hey, you there!", Gabriel yelled at the man, who stopped in his steps and looked at them. "Do you know where I can find the harbor officer?", he asked him.
"I don't think he's able to give you an answer…", Anna commented.
"Wh… What… The officer?", the man uttered in a drunken voice and a thick accent. "We were… We were drinking together… at the tavern…", he continued and pointed shakily towards the direction he came from. "Go tell him he still owes me…! Ah, a nice girl you got there…!", he shouted to Gabriel and pointed at Anna. Then he resumed his song and stumbling pace, totally ignoring the three people.
"What a pathetic loser", Anna said in disgust. "Now let's go find this officer, and let me guess that he's not going to be much different than this man…", she said and looked towards the drunkard that was slowly shrinking into the distance.
The three of them walked along the street and they soon found the tavern, which matched very well with the whole harbor scenery. It was small and ill-lit, and its few wooden tables and bar were occupied either by lonely men who were drinking silently or by small groups of men who were speaking and laughing loudly, often having whores seated in their laps. But when the three strangers entered the tavern all mouths were shut and all sets of eyes turned to the newcomers.
"Who is the officer of the harbor?", asked Gabriel, taking advantage of the sudden silence. He received no answer.
"Do you want to drink something, people?", the bartender asked them.
"No we don't. Now tell me, dammit, who among you is the officer?", Gabriel asked again angrily.
"What do you want him for? Who are you?", a man from the table in the corner asked.
"He will know when I find him", the hunter replied sharply.
"I am. Come over to my table…", the man invited them cautiously, and with that everybody seemed to forget the strangers' presence and everything returned to its former, loud and disturbing state.
Gabriel, Anna and Carl approached the lonely man and sat around the table. The officer eyed Anna thoroughly and she gave him a vicious look for his obscenity.
"So you're the officer, huh? Shouldn't you be at your post?", Gabriel started.
"I won't explain myself to you. Who are you and what the hell do you want?", he attacked them.
"Just a simple thing. When does the next ship sail off for Italy?", Gabriel asked him, trying to keep his temper.
"Why ask me?"
"Because you said you're the fucking harbor officer, that's why!", Gabriel snapped back furiously.
"I don't remember. Go look at the schedules," he replied dryly, apparently unaffected by Gabriel's attacking tone. "Hey! Goran! Get me one more of this!", he shouted to the bartender.
"Only when you pay for the one you're drinking now!", the bartender shouted back at the man.
"What do you mean go look at the schedules? Are you insane? Or have you drunk so much that there is nothing in your head but alcohol?", Anna attacked him in a very irritated tone.
"Sit back, lady. Here's the key. Go look for yourselves", the officer said and tossed her the keys. Then he got back to drinking, bothered that his glass had been emptied so soon and that the bartender wouldn't bring him another drink.
"That's not going to end like that! You're going to come with us!", Gabriel yelled at him and grabbed the man by his arm, pulling him to his feet.
"Fine, fine… Don't beat me", the officer tried to calm the hunter and freed himself from his grasp.
"I won't if you come to your senses!", Gabriel told him fumingly and the man finally complied with their request.
The four of them took the road to the office. The man managed to unlock the door after a few drunken attempts, and pushed it open. Then he lit a dusty oil lamp and pointed at the schedules.
"See? It wasn't hard to find!", he said ironically.
"Shut up!", Anna hissed at him and when he noticed the sword hanging from her belt he did shut up.
"Here it says that the first ship for Italy sails tomorrow at nine o'clock… Where are we going to spend the night, Van Helsing?", Carl wondered.
"V… Van Helsing?", the man asked in terror, the effect of the alcohol having disappeared at once.
"Yeah, Van Helsing. But I'm not going to kill you, don't worry. I've got more important things to care about", Gabriel joked on the man's fear. "And now tell me where we can find an inn", he continued.
"You're…What…? An inn? What? Ah… an inn, yes… Well there's one three streets from here… or is it four? No, no, it's three, three streets from here. And now I should be going, if you don't mind…", said the man, shaking from fear while cold sweat had appeared on his face.
"Not so fast", Gabriel grabbed him by his shoulder and stopped him. "You're not going to tell a soul about me or you won't like the consequences", he threatened him.
"No, no, I won't tell a soul! I swear! Now please let me go!", he begged the hunter.
Gabriel searched the man's face and gave him a cold, threatening look that froze the man's blood. He was such a coward; he would never speak a word about Van Helsing. So the hunter let go of him, and the man ran away as fast as he could.
"You scared the hell out of him, my love…", Anna commented, seeming strangely calm.
"Yeah… At least now I made sure he won't say anything about me to the authorities", he responded.
"Well, Van Helsing, you have just given truth to your wanted posters!", Carl scolded him.
"Yes indeed, thanks to our genius here who had so frivolously revealed my name!", he snapped.
"Oops, I'm sorry… Van Helsing, can we pass that up, please?"
"Whatever… We better go to the inn. Are you sure about the time the ship sails off?"
"Well, yes… The ship's name is Morning Star, by the way…"
Some time later the three companions found the inn. The receptionist was an old man who looked at them suspiciously, narrowing his already narrow eyes over his glasses.
"What are your names?", he demanded, and Gabriel hesitated for a moment.
"Valerious. Gabriel and Anna Valerious, and this is Father Carl. Are there any rooms for us?", Anna saved the game, but Gabriel and Carl gave her a strange look.
"Hmm…", the old man murmured and looked at them again. Then he unwillingly turned his hunched back to them and took out a key from a drawer. "Here. There's only one room with two single beds. It's upstairs. Suit yourselves. I guess you are only staying overnight…", he told them dryly and kept staring at them with an ugly frown on his face.
Carl nodded positively and took the key. Then the three of them went to the room they were given. It was small and not very clean, and the beds were narrow too.
"Why does everything seem so ghastly here…", Carl wondered. "It makes me think Transylvania was a better place…"
"Thank you, Carl!", Anna said in irritation.
"Oh, forgive me… It's just that fighting off lady vampires in the first minutes of my arrival to a town had never happened to me before… Well, maybe this place actually is better…", he comforted himself and Anna rolled her eyes in boredom.
They removed their dripping wet coats and sat on the beds, trying to rest a bit.
"I hope this frightful night will be over soon!", Anna wished.
"Yes me too… We need to be patient for a few hours", Gabriel responded and squeezed her hand gently so as to encourage her.
"It's freezing cold in here! The only good thing is that we are not getting any wetter…", Carl said and wrapped a blanket around himself.
"I could have never imagined that the first time I would get to the sea it would be like that… It's dreadful!", Anna complained.
"This is not the sea… This is just a dirty little town with unfriendly people. The sea itself is a beauty, you'll see", her lover comforted her and took her in his arms.
Anna closed her eyes, feeling much better in Gabriel's hug with soothing heat radiating from his body, and tried to sleep a bit. Carl managed to sleep a little too. Only Gabriel stayed awake all night long. He didn't mind not sleeping at all for a couple of days; apparently, he was more used to hostile conditions than his friends, and especially Carl. But the young friar was doing very well for his experience. In fact, Gabriel was amazed by both Anna and Carl's stamina and endurance. He had expected that for Anna, to an extent, since she had been a warrior all her life, but Carl was a surprise to him. It would seem that the clever friar had a hero hidden inside him.
Gabriel placed a soft kiss on Anna's forehead, who was now sleeping quietly in his hug. In the silence of the night, he focused all his senses to her light, rhythmical breathing, and it made him feel calmer. He let his fingers play with the beautiful curls of her hair, and as he breathed in her scent his mind traveled back to Transylvania and the night they shared their first kiss…