AN: This is set 20 years from the their current manga timeline. Minor spoilers. Thanks to vampkitty for her suggestions/corrections.
Disclaimer: I do not own Hellsing.
Everyone was gone now. All of them, everyone she cared for. Now it was just her…and him. Although she had always known this day would come, she never dreamt it would hurt so much.The people she cared for in her life were dead: Pip, Walter, Alexander Anderson, and now…Integral Hellsing. Of course there was still Alucard, her former Master. Seras laughed at that thought -he barely realized she existed. If he was all that she had left, Seras Victoria thought she might as well have been the only left in the world.
Her funeral had been an event – one fit for a Queen. It was as it should have been, for Integral had been had been very much a Queen. During the war with Millenium, she had more power then the real Queen Elizabeth.of England. Integral Hellsing had commanded an army and a monster to defeat her enemies. They had all perished but she had survived. Of course the masses in England never knew how much they owed to her and Hellsing. Most were not aware who she was. The government denied that vampires even existed. Instead they told ridiculous lies to explain the war. Terrorists were blamed for all of the death and destruction. Seras supposed it was somewhat true. Millenium had created a short reign of terror in London. Most of the public, because they did notwant to know the truth, believed it. Of course all of those who really mattered in the world – knew who she was, what she did, and the extent of her power. Important world leaders and politicians from all over the world came to her funeral to pay their respects. Seras and Alucard were the only ones left at the cemetery. They stood by her freshly dug grave to bid their final farewell to Integral Hellsing. It was a scene that Seras had seen one too many times over the years.
She had lost Pip first...although his soul had remained in her body for several years. Seras had drank his blood and taken his soul. Or his soul had taken her body; she wasn't sure which. Eventually Seras had to let him go. She hated to lose him, could not stand letting him go, but Seras had to make him leave. His soul deserved a chance to go on away from this violent and crazy world. He still visited her dreams after his soul left her but those visits had stopped decades ago. Her body and soul ached to see him, feel his touch, and hear his stupid jokes. Oh how she envied Integral Hellsing right now.
Walter had been the next person to die and his death was almost as hard to deal with as Pip's. She had been the one who killed him. After the war with Millenium, Walter was captured and held in a dungeon cell. Those bastards had turned him into a monster under their control. After awhile, the butler had convinced everyone that the locks on his mind had been removed. And maybe they had. Perhaps whatever Millenium had done to him had changed who he was. It had taken years for Integral to trust him, before she gave him his freedom. Seras had been the one to find him staring at Integral as she slept. She often wondered if Alucard had known but left it for her to handle as some sort of sick test. It certainly had been one of the hardest things she had done. She watched in horror as Walter lowered his mouth to Integral's neck – either to kill her or turn her into a ghoul. Seras had shot him in the head – the only thing she could do to stop him in time. She had held him in her arms as he died – it wasn't until those moments right before death that he had returned to himself.
Father Anderson's death had been the easiest for her. They were never particularly close although they developed an odd sort of a friendship. He had been a nice enough fellow to her but it had been Integral that he had cared for. The former priest had come to work for her after the war, after he had betrayed Iscariot. Seras had her suspicions that the two were more then just boss and employee. She used to giggle at the noises that would come out of her office during meetings. Once she had heard moaning when Anderson, Integral, and Alucard were in there alone. Just thinking of it after all this time made the vampire blush.
She remembered the day that he died. It had been an Iscariot agent who had pulled the trigger. Integral always blamed in on Wolfe Heinkel and her partner Yumi. When they finally sent someone after him, his regeneration abilities had all but worn off. The drugs that gave him his ability to regenerate had become hard to find over the years. And one day he finally had run out. Iscariot must have known because it was then that they came. A few days after his death, the bodies of Yumi and Heinkel had been found in a hotel room and there had been a huge scandal. The police found their bodies bloody and fully unclothed. The two nuns had been in a very compromising position in the hotel bed. Seras always wondered what had really happened to them and who had killed them. So much death; so much pain - Seras was just so damn sick of it.
i And now you're gone Integral. /i After Alexander had died, Seras and Integral had become close friends – as close as one could be to Integral Hellsing. The Hellsing didn't reveal her feelings to anyone very often. The two often went on walks in the evening, just after dusk, on the Hellsing grounds and talked about so many things: Alucard, Walter, their childhoods, or just how their day had been. Seras smiled as she remembered the first time Integral invited her to her bedroom. That certainly changed things between the two of them. Seras wasn't sure exactly what they had been. Their encounters didn't occur often enough for them to be lovers. No, Seras thought, they had been more like friends…friends with benefits. Those nights they had beenBeing together had brought the twothat way had added a special intimacy to their friendship – which made losing her now hurt so damn much more painful.
She wondered why. Why hadn't Integral ordered Alucard to turn her into a vampire? Why hadn't Alucard ever asked her? She thought it was probably because they were both so bloody stubborn. Integral couldn't bring herself to ask for something that was so against her family's history. And Alucard wanted her to be the one to ask so he could be sure it was really her choice. Seras knew Integral was better off dying now. Her duty had caused her so much pain over the years. She deserved a chance to rest.
Crimson tears fell onto her black dress and pale skin. She didn't care – nothing mattered anymore. Everyone was dead and gone. Seras would have given anything to join them. She was filled with sorrow and regret. Seras wished she had made a different choice on that night in Cheddars – when Alucard had given her the choice of life or death. i If only I had chosen death…I would be in heaven now with mum and pop. I never would have experienced so much pain. Living forever is not all it is cracked up to be. /i Yes, she wished that death had been her choice.
"That can be arranged, Seras. But, have you forgotten what you are? You won't be seeing any of them in the afterlife. Not where you're going - except maybe for Walter." Alucard chuckled at his poor attempt of humor.
Seras looked up her former Master, the one who had made her. A single tear of blood had fallen on his pale skin. i So, she thought, Alucard still has some human emotions. She wondered if he ever felt regret. "Alucard, do you ever regret living forever - all those that you know dying before you?"
"Don't be ridiculous, Seras Victoria. Regret is such a stupid human emotion. Longing for what we lost or never had. We live forever because that is the way it is. Immortality is part of our power. Leaving others behind is inevitable." Alucard said in a condescending tone of voice, as if it was the most obvious fact in the world.
"Oh." Seras commented. She hated when Alucard was cryptic.
"Well, sometimes I think about them. Wonder what it would have been like…"
"Them?" She asked.
"Integral. Mina." He replied with no emotion in his voice. He looked up at the moon and grinned. Tonight was such a perfect night.
"So have you decided, Seras?" He asked.
"Decided?" She looked up at him not sure what he was talking about.
"You are not bound to me anymore. I am not bound to Hellsing. They're probably be coming for us in a few days. The Queens men - they won't give up until we are both dead. I'm going back home – to Romania. There is nothing left for me here. I suppose I should take you along…unless you wanted to stay here." Alucard waited for her reaction.
"Romania? I don't know. I haven't thought about leaving. But, I suppose…there's no reason for me to stay in England either. But - Romania?" Seras didn't like the idea of leaving London. The only time she had left the country was when they went to South America.
Alucard chuckled at her reaction. "It's a beautiful country, much prettier then England. My castle is in the mountains." Alucard got a faraway look in his eyes. He was brought back to a memory of Integral when she was just 14 years old. She had asked him about his castle, his kingdom. He had told her about all the torture and bloodshed that took place within its walls. Nothing he said shocked her and she pestered him to tell her more stories of war, torture, and death. He chuckled at the thought. Integral had said that she wanted to see the castle when she was an adult. When he asked her why, Integral replied that she wanted to see the place where his power had been born.
After a minute, Alucard looked at her – sure of what her answer was. "Be ready by dusk tomorrow. The plane will leave as soon as it is dark." Alucard started to walk away not pausing to wait for his former fledgling. He knew that she would follow.
Seras ran to catch up to Alucard. Suddenly she didn't feel quite so alone in the world. She did have him. He wasn't Integral, Pip, or Walter but he was all she had left. He was not now and never would be her friend or lover. No, Alucard was more like a father, one that she had always been afraid of. She hoped that having a dysfunctional father was better then being all alone in the world.