Author's note: Sorry about the crazy delay-- I was in France. Anyway, this is the midway point and I realize that it's very short, but as of now I've got three endings to the fic and can't decide which one I want to follow. ::sigh::
DESCENT
He didn't come to argue with her the next day—not once did he appear to interrupt her work, which effectively made her twice as distracted. He may not have manifested himself, but that didn't mean he wasn't present in some form. She could feel his eyes on her constantly, as she tried in desperation to bury herself in the leftover reports from the previous evening.
She had locked herself in the study, admitting no one but Walter and that was just so he could deliver her afternoon tea. She ran through an entire box of her favorite cigars, taking advantage of the fact that neither Jack nor the children were around to make her feel guilty about it. It was also a subtle dare to Alucard himself; each slow inhalation challenged him to show himself and voice his never-ending disapproval of the habit. But he didn't.
It was smart of him—irritatingly smart. He knew that she was faltering, so he backed off. Her choice would be hers alone, and he was making damn sure that she couldn't place the blame on him later. Bloody vampire. How was she supposed to win a strategy game with someone so much older than herself? She'd been counting on his senility for years, but obviously he wasn't so arrogant that he was beyond cunning.
Her eyes strayed to the burnt stub of cigar still smoking in her limp fingers. She added it to the collection she's started in her little glass ashtray that morning, lit another, and surveyed the room dispassionately. All right. Well, her feelings were muddled and contradictory, and she'd never paid them much heed to begin with. There wasn't a problem in the world that couldn't be thought through to a reasonable conclusion with common sense and a steady application of logic. So, all right then. Logic. What, logically, was making her even consider Alucard's offer, which she had staunchly refused for her entire life? What had changed? She had gotten older, true, which meant that she was nearer to death than she had been ten, twenty years ago. She had never considered herself especially afraid of dying—it was foolishness not to be afraid of death in her line of work. But she had been very aware of her mortality from a very young age, and old age was something she had never truly expected to reach. She doubted that she was any more afraid of being killed than she had been at 20.
No, something else. The twins? Not as hopeless as they seemed, nor—more importantly-- as hopeless as Alucard enjoyed pointing out. And even if they were, they would have to be married off someday, and Integral would be sure to pick someone suitable. Just as Jack's attitude of complete indifference made him perfectly willing to leave Hellsing alone, Integral could choose a man who would be able to run it and run it well for her one of her daughters.
The thought suddenly, inexplicably, made her ill. Was she truly so callous? At least she had chosen to marry the Lord of Camden—had anyone tried to make such a choice for her she would have rebelled with all the righteous anger she possessed. It would have been an insult to her pride and intelligence. And here she had been clinging to the idea of doing just that to her own children. Congratulations, her mind snapped viciously at her, You've become a hypocrite.
How many times in her 36 years of life had she longed to be free of Hellsing? She loved Hellsing, she was Hellsing, but she loathed the restrictions it placed on her—she couldn't afford to do anything but her duty. Her teenage years and her twenties had been viciously snatched from her young hands by the burden of saving England from an enemy that only existed in everyone else's nightmares. She'd toiled relentlessly to protect her queen and then had to work even harder to gain back any semblance of control and respect she'd once had when that same queen turned on her.
"For God and the Queen," she whispered, hearing the trembling in her voice and hating it. She'd pressed herself to her very limit and beyond for England, and when she couldn't stand any more, she'd prayed for a miracle. Empty, that phrase was to her now. In the end, God had abandoned her too.
It hit her quite suddenly why Alucard's offer tempted her so—he was her best and only friend. Even Walter, whom she loved with all her heart, remained loyal to her in part because she was her father's daughter. He was her confidante, a father, a sage, but not her friend. Alucard; she'd freed him from his servitude that day over ten years ago, knowing full well that he could conceivably turn on her and her organization and destroy everything she held dear. But he hadn't. And even more amazingly, he'd come back. He'd walked into her cell as if nothing between them had changed, and given her the same choice he'd always given her. The devil had proved himself more dependable than God.
It was the most singularly disturbing and clarifying thought she'd ever had. And the question was, what did she do with that knowledge now that she'd gained it? What exactly were her feelings for Alucard? Had they changed at all since her teenage years?
Somewhere in the back of her mind she knew they hadn't. As much as Seras Victoria had become a valuable asset to Hellsing, Integral could still not forgive Alucard for pulling the policewoman between them. The realization enraged her. Slamming the half-smoked cigar into the ashtray, she picked up the phone and dialed with more resolve than she'd felt for anything else in weeks.