He watched her sleep. There was a vulnerability about her when she slept that she would never show while awake.

He should sleep, too. He had been through as much hell as she, but he could not. Instead, he lay propped on an elbow and contemplated the woman who had slain him as surely as if she had cut off his head and cut out his heart.

Alexander Anderson was dead to his comrades, dead to his church, dead to the family he had in the orphanage. All he had in this world were his unswerving faith in God, his knives and the woman beside him. And he did not truly have her. No one owned Integral Hellsing. No one possessed her. One could only have from her what she chose to give at any particular moment.

What she had given him hours before in a rush of hands and skin and soft moans and demands was an affirmation to both of them that they were alive – a human need to deny death in the most human, most living way possible.

London may have fallen, Iscariot may have fallen, Anderson himself had fallen, but Integra had stood through it all. And when they had staggered their way back to the mansion, it was not Integra who wept in Anderson's arms for all that had been lost; it was Anderson who fell into her warm embrace, hot tears streaming down his face for the dead children he'd seen in the streets and for the dead child who had grown into the monster whose head he'd cradled on his lap.

It felt natural to both of them that their embrace would bring tender kisses; that the tender kisses would lead to caresses, that the caresses would lead to undressing and that undressing would lead to…

He leaned up on his elbow and looked behind her at the scatter of bloodied and torn clothes they had left on the floor and draped across some of the furniture. His eyes were drawn to a deep patch of shadow in the corner. The patch of shadow grew red eyes that watched him. He could feel the hatred and jealousy that radiated from Alucard – now Dracula again. He grinned and slipped out of the bed.

One last time, beast? he asked Dracula as he pulled on his trousers and boots and walked toward the door, leaving Integra sleeping.

Indeed, Judas Priest, one last dance before I send you to Hell, responded his old enemy.


Standard disclaimer applies. I write for my own amusement and not for money, nor do I make any claims of ownership to Hellsing characters. They belong to Kohta Hirano and whatever corporate entity has licensed the Hellsing portion of his soul.