And the only solution was to stand and fight,
And my body was bruised and
I was set alight,
But you came over me like some holy rite,
And although I was burning,
You're the only light

Only if for a night – Florence + The Machine

Ileana stretched her body, slowly manipulating every limb and knuckle to its maximum potential. She sighed, groaned, and smiled at her lover, who ran his fingers over her naked flesh as he gazed up at the ceiling, clearly lost in a world of his own.

She had moved back into her old bedroom, opting to continue sleeping in a bed rather than a coffin, and had done so for the past week. However, most of her time had been spent in the great outdoors, and it was only then that she realized how much she enjoyed nature. She loved feeling the breeze, smelling the intricacies of flowers, and counting the stars in the dark sky from atop a nearby mountain pass. Dracula was with her sometimes, and other times she was permitted to have her space, circling the village lazily or hunting transients on mountain trails.

She made good on her promise to Verona, and managed to keep any sort of attitude or resentment toward her lover in check. In fact, Ileana thought they got along much better now than they had for several months, and it was all because she decided that she had to swallow her pride and let him think he had won. It wasn't particularly difficult to have a smooth functioning relationship with the man who she did, deep down, love, but whenever she had moments to herself, the charade gnawed at her. If she was with him, it ought to be because she truly loved him; for now, she was with him because he was going to give her a chance to explore her intellect in ways she had never done before… and she loved him. It wasn't the same deep love as before – that had never come back. No, her love was damaged now, wounded and scarred because of what he had done to her.

Regardless, it was easy to smile and pretend there was no damage, no repercussions for her months of solitude on his orders. Perhaps one day she would forgive him, and one day in an even further future they would forgive each other for the pain they've caused, but she knew it wouldn't be anytime soon. Besides, she knew he had more important things to think about. Dracula had banished her from the laboratory, and effectively made her unwelcome in her own castle, but she had watched some of his other servants haul old, broken pieces of medical equipment and factory gear in slowly over the course of her week of freedom. Nothing seemed all that functional, but she was sure her lover was relying on Igor to get them into working order.

The deformed man seemed to avoid her whenever possible, and that suited her just fine. However, for all his faults, he did spend an immeasurable amount of time in the laboratory, and when she was around to hear him work, she could tell he was keeping busy. He may not have had the ingenuity of her uncle, but she knew Dracula kept him around for the reason, and if she couldn't get her hands on any of the equipment, Igor was bound to fix them at his own pace.

She hadn't asked about the state of Marishka's children. In fact, she hadn't seen any of the brides since she was released, and Ileana assumed she wouldn't until the sting of Marishka's children's deaths eased off. It certainly didn't bother her to be kept out of the loop, but she did miss her time spent with Verona a little; they may be more similar than they had previously anticipated, and it would have been nice to have another ally in all this. However, she did entertain the possibility that Verona was simply pushing Ileana to make up with her lover so she wouldn't have to play messenger between then anymore. One day she might ask, but for now she simply enjoyed the memory of having a short-lived bond with a woman who normally loathed her.

However, most of that could be pushed out of her head whenever she wanted, because there was something more important for Ileana to think about. A cure for the affliction of being a werewolf is clearly a revolutionary feat, and she couldn't imagine something that could successfully change an age-old curse. If this 'friend' of Dracula's, who he had been fairly mum about ever since he announced her new assignment, was as brilliant as she assumed he was, Ileana couldn't understand how he would willingly give away such an important piece of himself. To her uncle, his Creation was going to be like his second child. He would have given his life for that Thing's survival, and when someone as dedicated to their craft perfects something so important, they aren't about to just give it away.

Ileana relaxed into her bed, a bed just a tad too small for two people, but adequate enough for its purpose. The sheets were scattered across the floor, along with her clothes, a sign of lovemaking. Ileana rolled onto her stomach, propping herself up on her elbows as she surveyed her love. She had read that men became weary after sex, sometimes going straight to sleep as soon as the act was finished. Now, they may never really tire to the point of sleep deprivation, but Ileana had always thought Dracula was the opposite of most men in this regard; he was alert, focused, and yet off in thought. Unless she dragged him back, he could sit there for hours, perfectly awake, and yet not really with her.

"My love," she prodded, spotting the shift in focus in his eye immediately. "What are you thinking about?"

"Everything," he sighed, his eyes still fixated on a point in the ceiling. "What are you thinking about?"

She blinked in surprise that he had asked the question back in return. Lips pursed, she lowered her head down to rest on her arms, "You said you'd tell me about my assignment… It's been a week already."

"Eager, are we?"

"Interested," she insisted, crawling toward him to plant a kiss on his arm. "Curious… Excited. You can't keep me guessing forever. Who is this mysterious friend?"

"I have friends around the world, Ileana," Dracula explained, bringing an arm down so that he could fiddle with her hair. "That's what happens when you live for so long… You make connections."

"I think that's only smart," she agreed.

"My friend is a man named Henry Stark," her lover told her, curling a long strand of dark hair around his finger, giving a little tug as though to ensure she was listening. "He's an American-"

"You know Americans?" Ileana said quickly, more out of disbelief than anything. They all seemed too isolated here in Romania, and when her lover told her that he had friends around the world, she assumed his world consisted mostly of this general region, with perhaps limited contacts in the Far East and England.

"Focus on the bigger picture, my love," he chided lightly, making her frown. "He's quite brilliant, and works for the American government to develop better weapons for their endlessly pointless wars against almost everyone in the New World. They have a gun there that fires automatic rounds… Did you know that? Well, Stark was heavily involved in its design."

"He sounds quite clever," Ileana decided, "but I hardly see where the science comes in with the werewolf draught."

"Ahh, you see," he said, tapping her nose as though she were a child. "It was his father that had a higher interest in the medical field… He was quite known for crusading for better operating room standards, and is a renowned doctor for brain maladies overseas. I sought him out almost forty years ago when I became privy to some of his…less savoury research. Vivisection, reanimation… He always believed there was a physical cause to every sickness, even if the opinion was unpopular."

"What happened to him?"

"The same thing that happens to all humans," Dracula mused. "He's quite old now… No longer practicing or conducting research. I believe his mind is not his own anymore… His son went into weapons because there is more money behind it. Humans need such trivial things."

She quirked an eyebrow; somehow Dracula owned several castles, so clearly money was important to vampires too.

"Now, I remained in touch with the family," Dracula continued. "Mostly out of curiosity… I've kept myself connected in one way or another with many scientific minds in the community. Your uncle was not my first choice… Stark's father had promising research, but he turned me down. He didn't want to cross the ocean to work, and no amount of money could persuade him otherwise.

Ileana ignored the usual reaction to snap at him whenever her uncle was mentioned, and instead tried to make his story straight in her mind, "So his father was the one involved in the science research, and this… Henry Stark develops weapons. So where-"

"Does this werewolf cure come from?" Dracula inquired, smiling a little. "I was lucky enough that Stark had a keen interest in the supernatural, and he, among several others, is privy to our kind. We are maddeningly terrifying to him, but also quite fascinating. His father worked with an American group of researchers who mimicked the animal vaccines that were started in France… Some twenty years ago I planted a small seed in his mind. He was also aware of the supernatural, but insisted on studying it as an illness. That man… He was more than happy to begin researching ways to cure a werewolf. He has tomes of information on lycanthropy and its origins. I asked him one day what the world would be like if we could cure it. What if we could cure werewolves?"

"But, why would you want to do that?" Ileana inquired, breaking his story's flow to satisfy her own curiosity. She could understand the humanitarian reasons one might wish to rid a man of the werewolf's disease, but she was fairly sure that thought barely crossed her lover's mind.

"I can control many things, Ileana," Dracula told her, "but some wolves are stubborn. I usually kill them, but wouldn't it be better to have a method to turn them back? It would be so much easier to break them again as humans, turn them, and have truly faithful dogs."

"Surely everything can be broken," she insisted, her tone flat. She wasn't particularly impressed with his reasons for wanting to explore sure an academic pursuit: power.

"Some things are more stubborn than others," he told her softly, "and I don't always have the patience to take my time with them."

"Right," she said quickly, hoping to redirect the conversation elsewhere. She placed her head on his bare chest, a hand resting nearby. "Continue with the Starks… I'm sorry I interrupted."

"Hmm," he grunted, "the Starks… Yes, well, Henry grew up in his father's shadows, and he developed his own taste for innovation. However, I knew he would take on some of his father's secret interests, and one of them included the vaccination for a werewolf cure. There have been several werewolf sightings in America, some in England… There they have no one to control them, and they run rampant until some human gets lucky enough to kill them."

"Perhaps you should go over and lead them," Ileana muttered, but she fell silent when he gave her a sharp pinch.

"Stark sent me a letter a month ago informing me he has come up with what he thinks will be an appropriate start to a vaccine," he carried on. "He doesn't believe it is perfect, but he thinks it will be a good point to start from, and is willing to hand it over to me for a small fortune, which I have sent him already."

Apparently money wasn't much of an issue, particularly if he was willing to hand it out before he even knew if this Stark fellow had a success on his hands.

"Henry is in England for the end of the summer," Dracula told her, "and I'd like for you to go collect the recipe for me."

Ileana stilled for a moment, and then looked up at him, "I'm sorry?"

Her lover grinned at her, and then leaned up to give her a quick peck on the lips, "I am sending you to England to meet with Stark. You'll be making the cure, and I'd like you both to put your heads together so we can have as much success as possible."

"I… I don't understand," Ileana stammered. "Will someone come with me?"

"No, no, I think you will go by yourself," her lover explained as she sat up. "You've learned your lesson. You've learned to be loyal, Ileana, and I trust you will return to me because you know the consequences if you don't."

She couldn't believe what she was hearing; one week after she was freed and already he was sending her away to England, of all places, to fetch the beginnings of her next assignment. He must have had enough faith in the remnants of her punishment to let her go alone.

"I… I don't really know what to say," she told him, her feelings a strange mix of excitement, nerves, fear, and anticipation all in that very moment. "I suppose… Thank you!"

He chuckled as she leaned to kiss him, her hands cupping his face as she lavished him with attention. It was really the only way she could express her gratitude without weeping.

"There is," he mumbled against her lips, "one thing you must give him in return."

Her eyebrows shot up, and he pushed some hair out of her face, "Stark would like to take a vial of vampire's blood for his collection. You will let him collect what he needs."

She frowned, "But… we don't really… bleed-"

"Feed before you see him, and when he sticks his transfusion tubes in, he will get something," Dracula explained, rolling his eyes a little and brushing it off with a wave of his hand, "even if it is only a bit of human blood."

She nodded, her muscles twitching as her eyes darted around her room; she wanted to start packing right this second and be on her way.

"You will leave tomorrow evening," Dracula told her as he gripped her neck, forcing her attention back to him. "I've already mapped out a route for you to fly that should take you a week to reach England if you travel by night and stop only when necessary. No departures into Rome or Paris, my love."

"That barely crossed my mind," she admitted with a shrug. "I want to do this. I… Thank you. I don't know how to… properly…"

It was difficult to form proper sentences amidst all her excitement. She could barely think straight with this opportunity looming ahead of her in the very near future, let alone get intelligent, coherent sentences out.

"You can thank me," he insisted, "for the rest of tonight, and until you leave tomorrow evening…"

Ileana giggled as he dragged her down into another kiss, and then rolled her over, flesh on flesh, to extract her thanks for the remainder of their time together.

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Another update? Within two weeks? WHAT IS THIS MADNESS? So yesss. I'm kind of in the mood for this story lately, and it got the creative juices going.

Now, before anyone asks about this 'Stark' character – yes, it is a (fictional) relation of Tony Stark, aka Iron Man from the Marvels universe. Hai. I like comics other than Batman. I have always liked crossing the Van Helsing universe with others ones. I did so years ago with a VH/Harry Potter crossover, but I'm veering away from it and into other interests. Therefore, we've got a little Stark action happening. Don't know who he is? Not a big deal. We won't see heavy crossover or intense canon things in this story, as I'm still a Marvel noob.

I originally thought that Van Helsing's storyline took place around 1900, only to discover today that it's 1887. Therefore, I've tried to make all the 'advances' reflect that. I like trying to be accurate with history and whatnot, though I won't go hardcore because there is WAY. TOO. MUCH. out there to know about what's happening in the world. Big events (wars and such) will be referenced.

I am also a little skeptical about this move that Dracula's pulling on Ileana… I basically see it as another way to manipulate her, and she's at the level of one of his brides when he sends them out to do errands. Not sure how I feel about it at the moment.

I'm looking forward to updates. This might just be around the time a certain Doctor Jekyll has caught the attention of the Knights of the Holy Order. Will we see Van Helsing in London during Ileana's trip? We'll see…

Thank you, as always, for the lovely reviews and support!