Kana: It feels nice to finish up a story. Considering the fact that I've been writing shit fanfiction since I was thirteen, I've only finished around four multi-chapter stories, two of them complete shit and two of them Hellsing, its still a nice feeling.

Disclaimer: I don't own Hellsing, which is obviously a documentary about the sporadic lifestyles of vampire Nazis. Narrated by James Earl Jones, baby.

I think that Stephen King's 'Dreamcatcher' would have been more adequately named 'Revenge of the Ass Weasels'.

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Making Lemonade

Epilogue: Drinking It

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I still had a little Alucard in me. Times like these only prove that point even more, when I was surrounded by people and very hungry.

This day was a momentous occasion. It was the first time in two years that London airports, train stations, and bus depots had started accepting 'outsiders', or people who had not been in London during the invasion – or 'one last ditch attempt at takeover by a dying organization; a very human organization, very human' as the government liked to call it. How they had kept the secret of vampires from leaking out I will never know.

Since leaving the Hellsing organization two weeks ago, I had begun to notice more and more Alucard-like traits seeping into my personality. It wasn't as if I had started hating humanity – in fact I think Alucard liked people. Which was why when I started finding amusement in a human's obsessive need for personal hygiene, something I had once been known for, I knew it was because of him.

Somehow, Alucard had gotten into my head.

Or, at least a part of him. I don't know what it was; perhaps I was just settling down into vampirism in a way Seras had not. My body was edging closer into an emotional hibernation, where I would find amusement in swirl patterns on napkins and newspaper bylines. Soon I could go deep into madness and come out laughing…

But it's best not to dwell on that.

I saw a waiter looking over at me and squint his eyes, so I put a bit of sugar in the tea I had ordered. While stirring it I smiled at him sweetly, mentally telling him to look the hell away from the disturbed-looking girl in the cream jumper with a droopy right eye. I usually wore sunglasses to cover that eye up, because it made me look like I was about to sneeze, but wearing sunglasses in an airport terminal was more suspicious than having a wonky eye.

The waiter (who was way too snooty for a guy who worked in a place that sold hot drinks and finger foods) turned away with sweat glistening on his upper lip.

Once his attention was diverted, I sighed into my cup. The steam warmed my cold face and hands, but it didn't tempt me. My throat ached in tune with the beating of the neck veins of those around me, but I hadn't been able to sneak a blood bag into the airport, and even if I had I wouldn't have been able to drink it. There were too many people around, their intentions the same as mine; they were waiting for loved ones that had either been out of the city when the Nazis came, or had survived and left soon after.

I wondered if this was good for Claire. Planes had stopped flying over London for months after the attack to avoid having their passengers see the giant swastika burned into it, and even with all the effort that the public put into building areas so that the symbol faded away, you could still see it if you knew what to look for. And everyone in the world knew what to look for – the entire world knew that London had been branded with fire and blood. Bringing a little girl into the city after only two years…

The city was still in poor shape, but it was growing rapidly. Two months after the attack most of the corpses had been cleared away, and another few weeks after that the buildings were cleaned and the streets were washed from Alucard's last meal. I knew this because Hellsing had been volunteering with the city since the beginning. My hands still smelled like bleach.

Two years and London still looked a little hollow. Its population had gone from seven million and change to a little over three million, and those people had been lucky or on the outskirts of London. The schools were open again though, and Susan wanted Claire to come back home as if their stay in America had just been one long vacation.

I smiled a little when I thought of volunteering with Hellsing. Seras was almost fully in tune with her new abilities, which didn't really seem new after such a long time. She was currently practicing changing her clothing, using Alucard's bright red coat as a base. Apparently vibrant colors were more difficult. Leave it to Alucard to pick the brightest color imaginable (aside from pink) to show off.

Sir Hellsing was doing a little better. During the first few days after the attack, she was still calling for Alucard when she was particularly annoyed. When he didn't come we let her remember on her own, neither I nor Seras having the courage to tell her that Alucard was dead and his remains were merely a cube of cement with his seal on it. When she did remember she seemed to sink within herself, but recovered quickly.

I had felt a little bad leaving the organization after so long, but even Sir Hellsing said I needed to get out of London for a while. It was doing things to me. So I was going to spend some time with Timothy out in the country with relatives, until their apartment was up and running again and I felt less like a frog enclosing itself in frozen mud for the winter. After that I would attempt to settle down in an apartment that didn't ask questions when you slept in a crate of grave dirt.

"We'll make sure that you're welcome in the organization from now on," Sir Hellsing had said, blowing smoke in my face while she did so.

Translation: When you come back – and you will come back - we won't shoot at you.

It kind of gave me a warm fuzzy feeling inside my stomach.

A cheery mechanical voice spoke over the dull roar of the terminal. "Flight five-ninty-five arriving from Bridgeport, Connecticut…" yadda yadda.

That was mine. I dumped my lukewarm tea into a nearby trash bin and pushed passed some people loitering near it, making a beeline for terminal eighteen. My blood felt thin and light, and bird wings fluttered in my stomach. Oh, I couldn't wait to see Timothy and Susan and –

"Auntie Birdie!" Something small and warm thudded into my legs, like a pale pink cannonball. "Auntie, we saw you on the television! Twice!"

Oh god, she had grown. She was now in her late toddler years and she had lost her lisp, and instead of wearing frilly egg blue dresses she was wearing pink overalls, and she smelled like blood. I dug my heel into my other foot to distract myself while I hugged and kissed her. It felt good to be with her again, even though I had lost my birdie habits and had gained new ones – like walking around with bare feet (though not here) and smelling dirt because it reminded me of my crate.

Timothy and Susan came up to me carrying two fewer bags than they had left with. For some reason this stuck in my mind, though it was a useless detail. But no matter, as I was soon enveloped in a thousand hugs and a thousand greetings.

"It's great to see you guys," I whispered happily, feeling my smile grow so wide that it made my nose crinkle. I was soaking up their heat and loving how they kept hugging me even when they felt my cold skin.

"We tried to get in last year, but no one was flying in." Timothy buried his nose in my shoulder, and I was happy to see that his hair had lost some of its grey.

"Willow, you have to tell us what happened," Susan chirped. Her face lost some of its enthusiasm when she saw my eye. "Oh my…"

I beamed. "You're not gonna believe it."

I walked out of the terminal holding my niece's hand and thinking of taking them to visit Sir Hellsing.

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Okay, so I lost the end of this epilogue, which I had actually been satisfied with, when I had to re-upload everything to save my pagebreaks. I might come back someday and rewrite it, but for now this will have to do ;A;