A/N: HA! And you thought I was dead! Actually, I'm really sorry about the horrendously long wait, but hopefully it will be worth it. Between visiting my family, semester finals, work, three-hour band practices every night, and state debate, I don't really know when I fit this in. Also, this would have been out LAST week, but I managed to get myself grounded off the computer. . . so, please forgive me for my absence! Also, rest assured that chapter four is well on it's way and *should* be done soon. Ja ne!


Ashley: *looks to muses bound and gagged in the corner* Oh yeah and those two weren't much help either.

Mel and Emmo: Mmmpff!!!


Standard Disclaimer: If I owned Hellsing, then bad things would happen. The end.


*****

No Life Waltz: Session 3_


Seras floated in a sea of nothing, an expanse of non-existence that seemed to stretch on forever as far as she could see. There was no light at all, but her surroundings were not dark either. There were no physical distinctions or rifts in the endlessness itself. Part of her knew that she lay more in a feeling than a place as she relaxed among the planes of oblivion.

She couldn't feel her body, but for some reason, her stat of non-being failed to bother her at all. For the first time in over half of a century, she felt at peace. Seras recognized the plane of nothing as that where she spent her final moments as a human when she was dead. These were the degrees of her own soul that she resided in before Alucard gave her second life as her blood seeped from her all-too-willing body.

"So, this is what death is like?" she thought, as she lacked the ability to speak, having no physical form, "Does that mean that I'm really dead, free from the unlife?"

She doubted that this was the case, as she didn't feel technically dead, per say, and there was nothing that she knew of the could have gotten past Alucard and managed to kill her in her sleep. She mentally sighed, not wanting to mull over the possibility of her final death and her sudden appearance in the limbo of her mind. Instead, she simply extended her consciousness, letting it flow, like water, out into the void around her, trying to get a feel for the world she now inhabited.

There was nothing as far as she could sense in all directions. It was nearly unnerving to be in a place where nothing existed.

Suddenly, it was as if she was reliving her first moments in the unlife. She could feel her master's presence beside her, as her memories washed over her mind. His deep voice had cajoled her out of her slumber, pulling her back into the world of the living as a monster. "Come back," his whisper echoed around her, filling the nothing with its empty promises, "you're mine now. Come back." Seras wasn't sure where present and past met as she began to slip away from the calm of oblivion and back into the harshness of the world.

Seras opened her eyes to find herself staring at the dark ebony wood of her coffin's lid. As real as her dream had been, she had expected to be looking into the laughing eyes of her master. "Vampires don't dream," she reminded herself, trying to regain her bearings after such an odd experience. "Then, just what the hell was that?"

She lay still a few moments before resigning herself to get out of bed, so to speak. With an exaggerated sigh, she pushed the lid open and starred up at the plain white of her ceiling before sitting up. The whole world seemed to spin around her before finally finding its axis again and settling down into the familiar setting of her tidy room.

Climbing out of her coffin with a practiced ease, she leaned heavily again the wall, trying to wake her numb senses. The rough carpet itched at her feet and her hair tickled against her pale cheek, reminding her that she was indeed alive and that she had another night to go through. Dragging her body to her closet like a small child not wanting to go to school, she flung the doors open and flipped the light on. Squinting into the small cubby, she grabbed her favorite black jeans with silver clasps running up the right leg and a dark red T-shirt the color of blood. Pulling her undergarments from her dresser, she trudged tiredly towards the bathroom for a shower.

As Seras stepped into the bath, she let the warm water was over her, soothing her frayed nerves in an expert fashion. Nothing went farther to both calming her and waking her up than a warm shower on a dreary night like this night. 'Last night,' she thought to herself, 'everything was normal and I was perfectly content.'

'But were you really?' a darker part of her whispered, betrayed her own doubts in herself. She thought back to every night alone as she cried herself to sleep. 'Is that what it means to be content.'

"At least then I didn't have anyone else to worry about," she mused aloud, rinsing her conditioner from her hair slowly, enjoying the feeling of her fingers working through her hair. "It was me alone, and that's all that I needed. Now he shows up to bugger things up all over again!"

Suddenly, there was a harsh rapping from the other side of the door. "What?!" she yelled, partly in order to be heard over the running water and partly out of irritation. She heard the door open and cold air rushed in to meet her sensitive skin, sending goose bumps down her exposed flesh. "Close the door!" she ordered, her voice holding a barely controlled anger.

Alucard quickly shut the door as he stepped into the steamy room She glared at his presence through the shower curtain, hoping that his vampiric powers didn't give him x-ray vision or some other oddity that she had yet to discover. Grasping the edge of the curtain, she ripped it open and stuck her head out to chastize him for daring to disturb her sanctuary of sorts. "What the hell do you think you're doing in here?!" she practically shouted, "can't you see that I'm showing?!"

She should have expected the grin, but that didn't stop her from wanting to kill him for it. She scowled at him as he sat down on the closed toilet seat lid and smiled as if this was the most amusing situation that he had ever been in. "I was hoping to use the shower when you were done," he replied evenly as he glanced over the contents around her sink. "I think I need to but a new toothbrush soon," he added offhandedly, his eyes resting upon the aforementioned item.

Seras gritted her teeth in a vain attempt to control her anger. Any sane person could clearly see that she was absolutely seething with rage and probably would have run from the room screaming had they been there. However, Alucard just continued looking around in a disinterested sort of fashion, his hands clasped over his crossed legs in an attempt to keep his lank form in check in the small area. 'Remember, Seras,' she thought to herself, trying to keep from jumping out of the bath and killing him then and there, 'you can't kill your master because then you won't be able to become a true midian.'

"I said that you could spend the day," she growled, throwing the curtain closed again and fiercely turning the water off, almost ripping the faucets from the wall in her rage, "not take over my house!"

She sighed stuck her hand out of the curtain, the cool air tingling her damp skin. She made an impatient grasping motion. "Hand me my towel." Seras waited for the familiar rough cotton to meet her hand before jerking it into the shower as if she had been burned.

Drying herself off as quickly as possible, not wanting to be in the same room as the elder vampire longer than she had to be. As she wrapped the towel around her lithe form, she noted that the small piece of cloth seemed shorter than she remembered it being. She flung the curtain back to reveal a very amused looking Alucard now sitting stock still and smiling like the cat that got the canary. "S'all yours," she muttered darkly as she reached past him to gather her pile of clothes from the sink, which proved to be rather difficult with one hand grasping to towel desperately in order to keep it from slipping off.

With her clothing finally in her free arm, she stormed out of the bathroom as quickly as she could. She could hear his deep chuckle then the sound of running water. "And don't use my loofah!" she yelled through the closed door as an afterthought, knowing full well that he could hear her. "Ungrateful bastard," she murmured, not caring if he caught her comment. Sighing, Seras made her way, dripping, back to her room where she might find something that resembled privacy.


*****


Heavy shadows streaked across the bustling sidewalks and laced through the night air and busy streets like a living thing. The darkness proved a stark contrast to the bright neon bar lights and lamps, mirroring the two worlds that collided in the heavy night air, unbeknownst to most of its unwilling occupants. The shadows played the perfect mate to Seras's current somber mood, onset by her master's earlier antics.

A cacophony of noise that hummed with human activity and ado, reaching her sensitive ears from her vantage high above it all. The sounds of people making their was through the crowded streets was almost unbearable as a steady buzz of life that played to the night's chorus. Walking, pushing, scraping, laughing, talking, eating, flirting, fucking, dancing, all combined and swelled in volume into a crescendo of sound that smothered her delicate senses like a wave crashing upon the shore.

Seras looked down on it all, the mass of human suffrage at her feet. They looked like insects, each clamoring and pushing, tearing and clawing to escape above the others of their throng. All in blissful unawareness of the FREAKS and demons that walked among them the collective, cleverly disguised as one of them. These creatures went unnoticed through them, stalking ans swaying through the heard, like a wolf in sheep's clothing.

She shook her head at the thought, reminding herself that she was once just as human as the barflies and club-goers that she now viewed as prospective meals."Do you ever wonder," she began, seemingly speaking to thin air, "what all of them are thinking? What have they experienced in their lives so far that makes each of them the person they are and brought them to this particular point in existence?"

At first, she didn't expect him to answer, so she was mildly surprised when Alucard appeared out of the cool night air. He mimicked her with his legs crossed up to his chest and his arms and chin resting on his bent knees. "Couldn't the same questions apply to any creature, human or otherwise?"

She sighed, realizing that she had been speaking as if the questions only applied to human experience. "Of course they do. All things are effected by cognition. The longer you live, the more you experience. I suppose that's why, after a while, it becomes so easy for an immortal to see themself as a being completely different from the human they once were."

"Do you still see yourself as human, Seras?" Alucard seemed generally interested. "I mean, you've obviously had to overcome your feeding-from-humans complex."

Seras glared at him. "Obviously," she replied sarcastically, as angry edge to the word. She turned her attention back to the bust streets bellow, the lights reflecting off the lenses of her glasses. "However, sometimes," she sighed and buried her chin into the crook of her crossed arms, "sometimes I still feel human. . .or at least wish I was."

"Why?" he asked. She was surprised that his voice held no hint of malice or sarcasm, just complete sincerity. "Why would you want to go back to being a weak creature?"

She looked at him for the first time with a sense of familiarity, not glaring at him, but rather with a sense of wonderment and disbelief. "Have you really been immortal so long as to have to ask? Why would I want a normal life? Why would I want to ability to grow old and live again? Why would I want a family, someone who loves me and children who need me? Yeah, why would I want those things in exchange for the curse of immortality?" She sighed and tilted her head so that she could look at him. "Don't you ever want your human life back?"

His face became impassive and stoic, one of his many traits that annoyed her to no end. "You know nothing of my former life," he muttered darkly, casting his gaze down to the humans on the street bellow, "and whether I want that life back of not is no longer an option. The sooner you learn that, the easier it will be for you, Seras. Human life is nothing but a lost dream for us, so why can't you let it go?" His voice sounded bitter, as if he was reprimanding her for something she didn't understand.

Seras felt anger building inside of her again, something that only Alucard could achieve in such a short amount of time. "Of course I know nothing of your past life! You never tell me anything! You never tell anyone anything! You block everyone out and push them away! So, excuse me if I don't sympathize with you, oh master! If anything, it only makes me despise you more!" She looked away angerly, trying to fight back the tears that threatened to weaken her resolve. "As for my humanity, who I am is not changed by what I am."

"You could have fooled me," Alucard growled, turning towards her and meeting her angry glare, rage boiling under his poor attempts at remaining calm. "Because the girl known as Seras Victoria is nothing like the vampire! Did you enjoy drinking that filthy lawyers blood, Seras?" he leaned towards her, his red eyes boring into her, "Did you savor his life as it filled you? And what of your first kill, Seras? Did your senses sing with the blood of some innocent human? Did you feel any regret or remorse for what you've become THEN?!" A look of satisfaction crossed his features as he sat back and awaited her inevitable explosion.

However, she didn't explode. Seras felt nothing as she stared at him emotionlessly, her expression completely void of any sign of anger. She looked down, her bangs shielding her crimson eyes from his scrutinizing gaze. "The only thing that I regret," she replied evenly, her voice so quite that he could barley hear her over the murmur of the city, "is selfishly choosing to live instead of accepting my death in that little church in Cheddar so long ago."

Alucard grinned. "If that is truly the way you feel," there was a click and Seras found herself staring down the gleaming barrel of the Jackal, "then I can end it all for you now. Take away the very gift that I bestowed upon your retched life."

Seras' expression didn't falter as she met his manic grin from the end of the black gun. "I didn't feel any remorse when I drank that vile man's blood for the first time." Her voice was stoic as his smile widened. "My veins sang with his blood, tainted as it was. As he screamed for life, I only laughed at his death and I reveled in my power." She reached up and slowly pushed the gun down, leaning forward towards her master, her voice barely above a whisper, "And do you know who my first kill was? Do you have any idea who's blood satiated my hunger for the first time?" She was so close, she could feel what minimal heat the his body radiated, causing her to shiver involuntarily. "Judas himself provided my first meal. He put up quite a struggle, though, the Paliden, Alexander Anderson."

She could see her master's eyes widen in surprise out of her side glance as she leaned back onto her heels, smirking. "It's almost a shame," Alucard's grin returned, "that you got to kill the man that I wanted so badly to fill with silver."

She nodded as if sympathizing with him as she lay back onto the cool gravel of the rooftop, staring up into the endless expanse of the night sky. "It seemed like a good idea at the time," she replied nonchalantly, acting as though she had such intense, and rather bipolar, conversations every night.

"I would assume so," he agreed, "I wish I could have been there to see you destroy him, though I would expect any less from my kin."

"You should have been there!" she said indignantly, like a child throwing a tantrum. "I was sitting there in the church, hoping that perhaps God might listen to the prayers of a lost midian. It was late and dark, candles from the mass still flickering with a somber light. Part of me knew it was wrong to be there, but I had no where else. . ." she sighed, her memories rushing back from the depths in which she had buried them so long ago. "And then, he was there. . ."

*****


Emmo (who has escaped from his bonds): *in a hypnotic voice* You will review. . .You will review. . .