A/N: Oh my! I do believe the last time I posted I said I'd try to have the next chapter (that being this chapter) up as soon as possible . . . and well, I admit it, I slacked. I would get finished homework and go to bed or work on any of my other fanfictions. So, sorry 'bout that, but hey, I posted now, doesn't that count?

I hope you like this long-awaited chapter. Oh, and thanks for reading as always!

Even though my comfort level had rose several bars concerning drinking due to my friends' selfless donations, I still felt a bit uneasy as I sat staring at the table, studying the grain in the wood. Yes, I acted strong when deciding that this is what I must do; yes, I acted strong when I cut Alucard off before he could respond to my accusations . . . but was I really strong?

I doubted it. I truly doubted it. Sitting there, confronting the blood that my friends gave so I could finally defeat this horrid "disease," I did not feel a thread of strength in my body. I felt too weak to even reach out my hand and grab a packet, though each only weighed a few measly ounces.

"Did you expend your audacity already?" Alucard asked sourly as he watched me from the opposite end of the table. He was slouching back in his chair, and his eyes told me he was still mad at me.

"I never owned any to expend," I sighed and leaned back in my own chair. Living with me was extremely difficult sometimes.

"I beg to differ. I don't believe you've ever had the gall to interrupt me before," he mentioned.

"Well, I guess I did waste my little storage of boldness, then," I muttered.

"That's quite a pity, because that blood will soon grow stale and lose its flavor." He reached out a hand toward the bag labeled PERRY, DANIKA. "I don't think your friends will be pleased, but I guess it would only be suiting for me to polish this little offering off, as you would rather see it virtually deteriorate."

I lurched toward the packet for dear life, nearly knocking over the table in the process. He held it weakly in his hands, but I snatched it away, regardless. "You most certainly will not!"

"If it means that much to you, why are you so afraid to use it?"

I vacillated between running away and talking. After a few more seconds and disagreeing with my gut instinct, I decided. "Well, this is a big step for me to have to take . . . and my legs aren't nearly as long as yours."

"Scarlett, I've already taken this 'step,' as you call it," he reminded me. "I'm far beyond the indecision you're experiencing for an absolutely inane reason."

"Exactly! And it was probably a lot easier for you."

"Yes, it was."

"Because you have longer legs," I tried helping him understand my previous statement with a smile and encouraging voice.

"No, because I have more common sense." He remained without a grin. "You shouldn't be acting like this. You explained to me that you've, in a sense, renounced your Lord and are now trying to prove you can take care of yourself. Needless to say, you aren't doing a very good job."

I exhaled. He was right.

I returned to my seat, clutching the packet and examining the thick, gooey substance inside. It would be like drinking a milkshake, I suppose, since blood is thicker than water . . . and without the dairy taste, of course. . . .

"Stop stalling," he ordered.

It's just like drinking a shake, Scarlett, I tried mentally coaching myself. No, it's like drinking a wine cooler! Not as inebriating, hopefully, but you get the point. Now just open your mouth and. . . .

"It's generally easier if you don't use the tubing . . . unless you want to hurt your jaw while attempting to suck any out," Alucard instructed me just as I was about to conquer my fear and drink—from the straw-like fixture, of course.

Minor setback. Just get on with it, I told myself one more time. I held the packet up to my lips and—

"Oh, and do have a bit of class when you bite into the plastic. The last thing anyone needs is to have you spill half of your dinner down the front of your shirt," he interjected, again.

Now, if he'd just stop INTERRUPTING ME. . . . I thought a bit resentfully. I waited a couple of seconds for good measure—just in case there was something he forgot to point out—and when he remained quiet, I lifted the packet to my mouth and bit into the side with my teeth.

The flavor itself isn't easily expressible, for I think only a person who has sampled it while being a vampire could ever really know exactly the way someone's blood tastes. Danika's was a mixture of overpoweringly sweet lemonade in its sugariness, a mild hint of red bell pepper in its tang, and a dash of cinnamon fused with lime that made my lips pucker in its aftertaste. Despite the odd concoction my description may have just conjured, her blood was actually one of my favorites to drink. It was neither too sweet nor too sour, and it was definitely something I never would have imagined.

"I'm guessing by how easily you've taken to Perry's," Alucard said suddenly, "that she's a virgin."

I remembered reading in the manga how Integra told Seras that a virgin's blood was the easiest to sit with, so I knew close to immediately what my master was talking about. However, I also hoped that Danika was a virgin before even considering drinking her blood; she and Ross hadn't been a couple for that long, and he was her first boyfriend.

I ducked down my head a little to hide my flushed face. I guess Alucard sensed my discomfort, for he added, "That means, if she remains chaste, you'll be able to turn her if she was to teeter on life and death."

"No," I said quickly. "I would never condemn her to this . . . unless she absolutely desired it, and wasn't scared off after a warning of how terrible this can get."

I looked down to the packet in my hand and was about to take another sip before I saw it was empty. I suddenly felt rapacious in my desire for more blood. I really was starving, and if Alucard touched another one of my packets, I was bound to start freaking out.

To prevent such an embarrassing display of raw deprivation, I grabbed the second bag in the box. This time it was labeled RAMIREZ, DESDEMONA. Hopefully, Dez's blood would be as easy to handle as Danika's, I thought.

Fortunately, Desdemona's blood was actually sweeter than Danika's: it was more of an Arnold Palmer, as it tasted like both sweetened iced tea and lemonade, and there wasn't any taste of bell pepper or anything with a mild zing. The saccharine part of a human's blood (which usually is very faint) was overpowering. I wouldn't have been surprised if I developed an instant cavity.

In fact, the most unsettling blood I forced myself into drinking was that of Adrina's. It was like the most intense vodka, which went down my throat anything but smoothly. Or, to be more exact, it was like a mix of vodka, whiskey, and any other spirits that you might think of that are so horribly disgusting to the untrained tongue. Just one gulp—a very large gulp—of her blood was enough to make me gag.

I pushed back from the table ferociously and put my head between my knees, my throat stinging like mad. My coughs were rough like sandpaper and so loud that my ears began to ring.

"I take it Moretti's blood isn't the most appetizing?" I could barely hear Alucard over my wheezing.

I coughed a bit before answering, "Not unless you like shredded throats."

I could hear the grin in his voice as he said, "Actually, I do, and I'm a bit surprised you don't."

I lifted my head from between my knees, although I was a bit dizzy and felt a bit lethargic. I pushed the not even half-empty packet toward Alucard. "I'm sorry, but drinking that is like eating gravel."

Needless to say, Alucard finished it off in a few swallows. I must have stared for a good minute in awe before he said, "Just as I suspected. She lost her 'purity' a few years ago . . . and had Scotch earlier this morning. It's no wonder you were disgusted."

"You can really tell all of that just by drinking a little of her blood?"

"Of course." He waited a moment before continuing, contemplating something. "Then again, I've been 'studying' this type of thing for a very long time."

His eyes traveled to the last packet in the cardboard box, then to me. "Well?"

I shrugged. "I don't know . . . it seems like I drank a bit fast."

"Of course you did: you were starving yourself for an insane amount of time."

"I know, but . . . when I get done this last packet. . . ." I faltered, ". . . well, I know I'm still going to want blood."

"Such is the reason why we have so much here, my dear," Alucard smiled as he motioned his hand to the buckets resting on the table next to my box.

"I told you before I don't like medical blood," I sighed.

His smile faded. "What the hell do you call the 'beverages' you just consumed?"

"I know they're medical blood, but . . . they're also my friends' blood. That makes it different."

"It's extracted, packaged, and prepared the same way as any blood you'd receive from Hellsing's hospital wing," he sneered. "The only difference is the doctors didn't run extensive tests on your friends before they donated . . . and I assure you, all blood you'll ever drink here that runs through the normal procedure is processed before served. We vampires are treated with respect.

"So if you wish to get technical," he smirked, "you're taking more of a risk drinking your friends' blood than you would be this 'medical blood' over here."

"Maybe I like taking risks," I retorted, running out of smart comments.

"If you liked taking risks, you wouldn't be whining to me about your fear of drinking unknown blood. You would have snatched up several packets by now and would be on your way to your room, exhausted."

I narrowed my eyes and pushed back from the table. "Going to my room sounds like a very good idea." I snatched up Berke's packet and headed for the dungeon door. "Goodbye, Alucard."

Surprisingly, I wasn't followed to my room, and he never showed up in my room after I left him. Despite the fact that I left the dungeon on my own, I was actually troubled he didn't decide to drop in on me or at least ask me to stay with him. I shoved the blood packet into a pocket of a coat hanging in my wardrobe for safekeeping and crashed onto my bed miserably. When my vision fogged up a little, I hid my face under my pillow.

At that time, I didn't care that I was going to stain the sheets with my messy, maroon tears or that I was acting like—I admit it—a brat. I was just angry . . . and in spite of how I treated Alucard, I was angry with myself.

What was I so afraid of? Hadn't I learned by now? I'd been living with this sickness for over a month now, and my mentality hadn't changed a bit. I was living in a dream, a dream that would never become reality. Still, just like I've always done, I imagined myself bringing the dream to life. For some reason, I thought I had just as much power over my life as, say, God.

I didn't deserve to be here, I thought, or to have such a relationship with Alucard as I did. There were plenty of girls I knew back home that would swoon if that close to him, despite how ruthless a vampire he is. Lo and behold, I am allowed to visit his chambers whenever I want and actually kissed him once. What the hell did I have to complain about?

Oh, boo-hoo, I had to drink a bit of blood to stay healthy. That's like complaining about eating vegetables when you're a child or not wanting to swallow your daily vitamin supplement because of the aftertaste. It's immature and selfish.

I remained on my bed for a while, hungry but too upset to eat.

When I settled down slightly, I pushed myself off the bed and into the bathroom. I took a long, hot shower to get rid of the grimy feeling I seemed to acquire after crying for a good amount of time—especially when those tears are blood. When I was done, I decided to face myself.

After drying off my body, putting on a robe, and flipping my hair up into a towel, I stepped in front of the full-length mirror I'd purchased recently and had placed to the far end of the bathroom. I hadn't used the mirror yet . . . in fact, ever since my operation, I hadn't the guts to stare in the mirror. I hadn't even put on makeup in a while, other than lip gloss, which I can put on with my eyes closed.

Now was the time to look. If I wanted to stop acting like a baby and grow up, I had to do this: face my fears.

I started by just looking at my frame. I'd lost weight, I saw, and it showed. I was able to tie my robe frighteningly tightly, and my arms were lankier than I remembered. My cheekbones were beginning to show, and my eyes and head looked larger than normal. I looked a little better than a stick-figure.

I stepped closer to the mirror to get a better view of my face. My eyes were rimmed with bright red from the salt of tears (even as a vampire), my lips stuck out like neon lights against the pale color of my skin, and I had bruised, purplish rings under my eyes. There was a bit-more-than-fine scar lining the left side of my forehead that cut into my hairline, just above my temple. My eyes, I suddenly saw, were bloodshot.

As if that was not demoralizing enough, I knew I was not done. There were things I hadn't seen since I left the hospital wing . . . things that would make me realize for sure that there's no going back from where I stood.

I started by rolling up the flimsy sleeves of my robe. Slowly, I revealed (without the aid of my mirror) the scars I bore from the skin graphs. My wrists looked like a skin-colored patchwork quilt, with differently pigmented squares of skin. None of the flesh on my wrists matched the flesh on my arms . . . which was to be expected, I suppose. I had cadaver skins on me, and none of the donors were of relation to me. In fact, I didn't know where any of the flesh came from, except for the generalization of corpses.

My stomach had begun to fall toward my knees, but I held in the sore nausea at the mess I'd become until I was done . . . and I was far from being finished.

Next were my ankles. I had to watch my figure in the mirror this time, so I continually twirled as I tried to examine every angle of my scars. They were the same as my wrists: some patches were tan, some were pale, some were grey, others were almost bluish. The thick veins that actually stuck out over my ankle bones were gone, or "redirected" as the doctors said. Still, I didn't feel these were my ankles I was looking at . . . although I knew deep down they were. I felt tears swelling at my core.

This is the last one, I told myself, I guess as some form of reassurance. I don't know why I lied to myself—I knew this was going to be the most painful.

I stepped forth toward the mirror, willing against the weakness in my knees. Gradually, as if to soften the shock, I tugged at the part of my robe covering my chest.

Then, I saw it.

It was staring back at me, with its invisible, mocking, piercing beady eyes. I could feel the irises drilling into me as I read the inscription: Vatican, Iscariot Section XIII. I could feel my skin melting again under that vicious silver cross, burning into my flesh for all of eternity the name of my enemy.

The cross was an evil, unnatural indentation of my breast. It was ugly and pale, with the gross, pinkish tint of a scar. It stripped me not of just skin, but of beauty. How could I be beautiful if I had a cicatrice from my clavicle to my nipple? How could that possibly be attractive?

I took off the towel from my hair and threw it at the mirror, and it covered my image for a few seconds before falling limply at my feet. I didn't want to punch the glass, since I knew that would just result in a bleeding, shredded hand and expensive shards of a broken mirror. So I just sank to the floor and hid my face behind my hair, which was still damp and stringy.

I sat there, on the blue-and-white linoleum, for what felt like a long time, just crying. Tiny droplets of maroon began to spackle the floor. They eventually formed great puddles surrounding me like a moat of blood, engulfing me in the lack of self-worth.

Looking into the mirror for the first time in ages, I realized how dramatically I had changed since not just my life before England, but since my arrival at Hellsing's headquarters. I had gone from a composed, fun-loving, rather normal teenager to a cross of mortal and undead to my final state: a weeping, confused, lonesome child of the night who did not deserve such a title. I didn't deserve to be called a vampire—vampires were strong, after all, and they did not act like humans when concerning their emotions.

But there I was. I had already consumed of a reasonable amount of blood to be considered truly "reborn," and yet I was the same Scarlett Vera Cross I'd been since the start.

Why hadn't my friends abandoned me . . . no, why did they change their minds? Why was Berke so sweet to someone who looked to be in slightly better shape than a skeleton? And how did Alucard, my former Master, gaze at me and tell me that I'm "irresistible"?

I truly was baffled.

"Why do you think I told you to drink?" I heard a voice saying to me. "It was painful to look at you, knowing that you had no idea. . . ."

I didn't part the hair from my eyes or lift my head for a better view. I knew who it was, and while I was sort of relieved to have him talking to me, I didn't want to speak to him in my current condition. He didn't need to know how piteous I really was.

"Scarlett," he said, "you don't have to be ashamed of what you are. For once, don't apologize for something you can't control."

"Please leave," I practically pleaded. "Don't look at me."

I heard his footsteps drawing close to me, but I was too worn out to move. Quickly, I found myself gulped up by his shadow.

"Let me help you up." I saw his hand through the strands of hair covering my face.

". . . Please," was all I could say. "Please don't."

I saw him crouch before me and kneel on one knee. He outstretched a hand and parted my hair, which made me flinch back, as if that would help conceal me. Still, he succeeded in touching the side of my face.

"Scarlett, you may be frustrating," he began, but then suddenly added, "but I've got all the time in the world, and I've had it for many centuries. I won't give up on you."

I bit my lip so I wouldn't cry. It started to bleed a little, but I didn't care: I could hardly feel it.

"I usually don't enjoy dealing with the emotional aspects of women," Alucard sighed. "However, I can see that you've neglected this side of you for quite some time. You tend to store your feelings in fear of the consequences. The way you're biting your lip right now gives it away."

He tilted my chin up so I looked at him. "In other words, you need this terribly."

I diverted my eyes, but I caught a glimpse of him scanning the floor. I was sure the pools of blood stole his attention when he mentioned, "Now honestly, you need to move away from this mess."

We moved from my bathroom to my bedroom. I sat down on my bed while Alucard pulled up a chair in front of me. He stared at me for a second before starting.

"I've thought over your options at this point." He stopped for a minute, perhaps for dramatic effect. "You are very limited, but I have a few ideas."

I nodded my head, to which he replied, "Have you finished off Mitchells . . . his blood, that is?"

I shook my head that time, and whispered that it was in my coat pocket.

"Well, when you do finish his donation—and I'm hoping that will be sometime tonight—you may finally become a true vampire.

"As you may have realized," he spoke slowly, "you certainly haven't undergone that rite just yet."

I sighed and told him that I supposed that was the case. He didn't seem to be paying much attention to my words, however, for he continued nearly immediately:

"If you still do not experience some sort of change after that consumption, however, you have two alternatives: accept the medical blood and drink of that until you mature, or find a donor who is willing to sacrifice as much blood as needed.

"As you probably are considering the second alternative right now, let me inform you that another vampire would be your safest bet. You won't be persecuted for murdering the innocent, if in fact you need that much blood. Nonetheless, you will need enough strength at the time to force yourself onto that vampire. At your current state, even a mediocre undead would cause quite a struggle."

I stared at my feet as I listened to Alucard, not wanting to understand what he was saying. I was going to need more blood, I just knew it . . . and I was going to hurt someone in order to get it.

"Don't consider it harming another person. It's essential to the food chain that something dies in order to feed a superior race if needed," he answered my thoughts. "Unless you're a vegetarian or vegan . . . and you don't have that choice."

"I don't know," I exhaled. "Who knows when I'll get the chance to take down a vampire that I can actually defeat, and then have time to feed afterward?"

He was quiet for a bit before adding softly, "Well, there is one other way."

I looked up.

"You can drink my blood."

I was almost embarrassed to look at him then. Hadn't he done enough for me already?

I did drink Berke's blood later that night, and it wasn't enough.

I found myself staring at Alucard's bare, outstretched throat. I was acting ever-so-carefully, mindful of every move should I make a mistake. The moonlight lit up his pale skin in my eyes, and I was just about fearful to approach him. I placed my hand at the back of his neck uneasily and began to lean in.

That was about as personal as things could get.