A/N: I said in the last one that this story isn't in the standard continuum of my stories...slight clarification. The events of this story have no bearing on the future (AKA TBFG, etc.) but have the same history, so you could say it's an AU of my AU...

Integra sat in the car pondering her first move. She hadn't been shopping in years, and she had no clue where to start.

What does one get for an insufferable vampire servant, a faithful steward that had been like a father to her, a troublesome mercenary, and a timid vampress?

She rested her forehead against the steering wheel.

"Hell," she said again. "Bloody hell."

Alucard drifted through the manor, grinning as he sensed his master's discomfort.

"My, my, I never thought she'd go through this much trouble over such a simple holiday."

After all, he'd had her gift for years now.

Seras sat at her table, wrapping the gifts she had gotten. Integra's had been difficult, but she thought it would be something that she would truly appreciate. She had made two trips to the vendor, but it had been worth it.

Pip lounged against the wall, having helped with the last bit of wrapping. "So, Vicky, when are we going to give her ze gift?"

She sighed. "I told you, Pip. On Christmas Day."

He twirled the unlit cigarette between his fingers. "Are you sure you can hide eet till then? Eet is rather big."

She sighed again. She knew he was more interested in seeing what he had gotten, or in giving her his gift and seeing how she'd react to it. He was like a child that couldn't wait for morning.

"Tell you what, Pip," she said. "How about you and I get ready for that dinner now?"

He grinned.

Integra walked down the path in the shopping center, at a complete loss for ideas when she heard a pair of voices talking.

"No, she wouldn't respond like that, Mick. She'd be more assertive, more decisive."

"You want to do this, Lynn?"

"No."

She looked. A man with longish shaggy brown hair and a woman with glasses perched on the end of her nose were clustered about a laptop and a sketchpad respectively. On the paper was a surprisingly lifelike drawing of a woman with a long braid and a man with pensive eyes half hidden by his hair, along with a small sketch of her on the opposing page.

"That, is amazing," she said, amazed at the amount of detail the woman had drawn.She couldn't have been inthe girl's sight for more than a few moments.The two people looked up in surprise.

"Sorry," the woman said. "I try to sketch people out on the street now and again. It's good practice for forms."

Integra kept looking at the sketch, but was also looking at the two that had been bickering about it. They looked familiar, somehow.

"Excuse me, but do I know you?"

The two looked at each other. "Now that you mention it, you do look familiar," said the woman, flipping her dark hair behind her shoulders. "But this is the first time we've ever been to London."

"You look like you have a lot on your mind, miss," said the man. "Care to talk about it?"

Integra pondered for a moment, still mesmerized by the drawing. She sat down, and after a few moments began to explain her problem to the two people. She didn't know why, but she didn't feel out of place with telling them her problems, with letting her guard down.

The man sat with his head posted against his fist rather like the sculpture while the woman had been doodling on the paper again, glancing up from time to time.

"It seems to me you've forgotten the most important part of all this, Integra," he said.

"What's that, Mick?"

"Christmas gifts are a way of saying the things that we don't have words for sometimes. For example, when I came up for a loss of what to get the coloured pencil fiend here, I just wrote a short poem for her. Sometimes the giver is just as important as the gift."

He lowered his hand, looking at her in a way that reminded her of her father. "And sometimes, the best gifts can't be found in a store."

She nodded as insight struck her.

"Thank you, both of you." She stood and headed back for the parking lot, ideas spinning in her head.

Lynn looked up from her sketch pad. "You think she got the picture?"

Mick shrugged. "I hope so. I'd hate to have written this scene just for the gratuitous self-insertations."

Time passed, and soon they were all gathered about the tree. Seras tore open her gifts as though she were attacking ghouls, shredding the paper and opening the boxes like the five year old she felt like. There was something about Christmas that just made her feel young all over again.

She threw her arms around Pip's neck as she saw the pair of tickets in the small box. She had tried to get tickets herself the other day but they had been sold out.

Pip had surprised everyone with his thoughtfulness. For Walter he had managed to track down several sets of sidewinder missiles that were mountable to most helicopter models, thereby cutting down on the steward's workload as weapon's master. He had also to find a perfectly round crystal globe, the continents of the earth etched into it's surface, the tiny island of England being etched more so than the others, and had the emblem and prayer of Hellsing imposed on the interior. Integra had accepted the gift with an unusual warm smile. In fact, she had seemed unusually cheerful, smiling not in the confident way she did when releasing Alucard or Seras on FREAKS or when unleashing a clip of blessed silver rounds into a target. It was more motherly, more human.

Alucard had been out of character as well, having placed a few packages under the tree as well. He had a portrait of him and Walter during WWII made from one of the few surviving photos he had. Pip had received something a bit nostalgic from his point of view…the .50 pistol he had used until Walter had constructed the Joshua. It was heavier than the mercenary captain was used to but had more vampyric stopping power than the battered revolver the man carried. Seras had received a very large book, handwritten, the edges of which were smoke-blackened.

"It's the journal I had when I was a fledgling, Police Girl. It's one of the few books that Van Helsing didn't take with him and that survived the sack of my castle in theWar.Looking back over it, I thought you might have some use of it, since you still haven't grown into your powers fully," he had said.

He turned to Integra, holding out a package wrapped in simple brown butcher's paper. It looked old.

"And now for yours, Master," he said.

A/N: For kicks and giggles, I'm going to draw some of these gifts. Anyone want to see them when they're done?