The two women retreated into the shuttle bus as the airplane started up and the volume of the engines rose to a painful level. Seras and Yumiko sat across the aisle from each other, trying not to stare.

"So…umm…what's it like to be a nun?" Seras asked, hunting around for a topic of conversation.

"Well, technically, I'm a sister, not a nun. The terms are pretty much interchangeable these days, but canonically, a nun is cloistered, while a sister works out in the world. I couldn't get my work done behind walls surrounded by nobody but the devout. I sort of have to be out among the heathens to-" Stop rambling like this creature is someone you can have a conversation with, Yumie growled from the back of her mind.

This is the woman who nearly chopped off our head in London? Pip asked Seras.

The two – four – of them sat in uncomfortable silence while they watched the plane taxi and take off. When the driver slid back into his seat, Seras directed him to return them to the hospital in Birmingham.

Say something, chère, we have to work with her.

I tried that already. All it got me was a mini-lecture on Catholic history and a dirty look.

Let me do it, I'll be a good boy.

Yumiko came out of her internal dialogue when the vampire took a deep breath and leaned forward across the aisle. She tried not to shrink away from the focused look in the creature's red eye.

"So, Sister Takagi, who's this Yumie that you're supposed to tell Sir Integra about?"

Pip snickered at his soulmate when he heard her shocked exclamation, This is being a good boy? Asking her personal questions when the order obviously made her uncomfortable?

"I don't think I want to tell you, Draculina." Yumiko leaned as far away from Seras as she could get and wondered why the vampire had almost sounded as though her accent had shifted. English wasn't her first language, so it was hard for her to put her finger on what the difference was.

"I don't think what you want is important, Iscariot. Our duty is to protect Sir Integra and if you know something that would be significant to her safety, you have to tell us. Put yourself in our shoes, if you thought that little Seras Victoria had information that could mean life or death for your Father Anderson, wouldn't you insist that she tell you?"

Yumie didn't like the question or the reasoning. She urged Yumiko to tell the nosy girl to go to Hell, since that was where she'd inevitably end up anyway.

Yumiko hushed her sister and watched Seras while she thought. Something familiar was nagging at the edges of her mind – something about the way this girl talked and behaved. It was the pronouns. Why was the vampire referring to herself in the plural? And there was something else…

Seras and Pip watched the nun curiously. Things were happening on her face that seemed eerily familiar to the two of them.

Yumiko made her decision, "I'll tell you. If I don't tell you now, Sir Hellsing will probably tell you when she finds out anyway." She looked down at her lap, where her hands were busily trying to take her habit apart, one thread at a time. "Yumie is a valuable Iscariot weapon. She's a skilled swordswoman and a true warrior of Christ. She's a berserker who knows no fear in her pursuit of the heathen, the heretic and of monsters.

"She also lives inside of me." Yumiko flushed angrily when Seras let out a sudden bark of laughter. "It's not funny! You don't know what it's like to never be alone inside your own head; to be afraid of what you're capable of; you couldn't possibly understand!"

"Oh, have you got that one wrong, girly," Seras and Pip got out between chuckles.

•••

Flying wasn't uncomfortable. It was much louder than Walter remembered, but he knew that was just his enhanced senses and his lack of practice in living (existing, his mind corrected) with them. He couldn't think of a circumstance in which he'd be comfortable on an aircraft full of religious zealots and one vampire who would take no greater pleasure than in making them lose their collective minds and tempers.

Two rows of seats at the back of the plane had been removed to make room for the traveling vampires' coffins. Walter had persuaded Alucard to sit at the rear with the coffins. He wanted to be near Alucard even when he had to retreat to his coffin for the short trip over the Channel. Because they were so near the water, Walter had compromised for the first leg of the trip by sitting in his coffin with the lid open until he would have to lie down and close the top.

He'd been walking behind Alucard when they boarded, so he didn't see what passed between him and Sister Heinkel, but whatever it was caused her to reach for her weapons before the vampire passed on down the aisle, his familiar laugh turning all of the Iscariots' heads.

Walter's greatest worry for the journey was the fact that Alexander Anderson had taken a seat directly next to the vampires. It was understandable that the Section XIII leader would want to stay close to what he would perceive as the greatest threats to his people, but Walter saw his proximity to Alucard as a disaster waiting to happen. Neither Alucard nor Anderson were the same creatures they'd been before London's destruction and Walter didn't know how either of them would behave when allowed to be near each other unsupervised.

Walter had just noticed an unpleasant itch starting all over his body when Alucard spoke, "You need to lie down and close your coffin lid now, Angel. We'll be over the water in moments." The vampire put action to words by bumping Walter's shoulder with the lid as Alucard closed it for him. Walter laid down in resignation and tried to remind himself that it was only for a brief time.

The itch intensified for a few minutes and then began to fade away. Walter distracted himself from the urge to scratch his skin off by listening carefully for any conversation between Alucard and Anderson. They were being blessedly silent and soon the itch was gone.

Alucard's rap on the lid signaled the end to his enforced confinement and he opened the top and got out with evident relief. He wasn't afraid of confined spaces and in fact, in recent days had found that his coffin was a very comforting refuge, but the circumstances of their trip made him too restless to sit in his coffin and wait for things to happen.

Anderson and Alucard watched the new vampire emerge from his cocoon. They had both restrained themselves to some meaningfully unfriendly eye contact while their babysitter was indisposed. Walter looked back and forth at the silent men to reassure himself that nothing had happened and then sat on his coffin lid where he could watch them for the rest of the flight.

Alucard was amused. The Angel certainly took his responsibilities seriously. Of course that was no surprise, but there was no small amount of irony in his position now. The Angel of Death was trying to keep a fight from breaking out. How times change. Walter Dornez in his youth would have been lighting the fires, not putting them out. Maybe the point he'd made on the hospital roof was true – Walter did not act like the man he'd been when he'd last worn that youthful face.

Anderson broke the silence first, clearing his throat before speaking, "We can't come in directly to Rome. The Nazis have damaged both the Ciampino and the Fiumicino airports. We'll be flying in to Perugia and picking up vehicles and armaments there. Unfortunately, Maxwell –"

"May he rest in pieces," cut in Alucard with an evil smirk.

Anderson scowled but continued, "-Maxwell took all of the helicopters to London, or I'd use those to ferry us in to Rome. If we travel fast, we can drive to Rome in an hour and a half or less. Communications have been sporadic over the past thirty-six hours, but I think we can expect things to be bad. The Nazis used a similar approach with Rome as they did with London. Unfortunately, many of the Vatican's warriors were somewhere they shouldn't have been, namely London."

"A similar approach, Father Anderson? You mean that they've wantonly and randomly attacked and destroyed the civilian population and priceless historical treasures?" clarified Walter.

"Aye, and ye know that." Anderson took his glasses off and rubbed his eyes before continuing. "What ye probably don't know is that they've had less success within Vatican City."

Alucard snorted derisively, "Don't give me some fairy story about holy ground, Judas Priest. You and I both know that the concept of holy ground is just a myth that lets some humans sleep better when the monsters prowl at night. I've killed on holy ground on more than one occasion."

Anderson's eyes lit with fury and Walter tensed, waiting to see what would come. He was surprised when the priest closed his eyes and muttered something under his breath that sounded like, "Forgive me."

The priest looked directly at Alucard and carefully enunciated, "Parts of the Vatican are truly holy ground. There are wards on some of the archives and sublevels of the city that keep out even humans in most instances. It requires special understanding to get through to some of those areas. Our mission is to protect those areas."

"Why would I want to protect some moldy Catholic secrets? And for that matter, why would you want to protect Catholic secrets, apostate?"

"Alucard, despite what ye think ye know about the state of my soul, I am still loyal to the Church."

"But would the Church still be loyal to you? Do you think they'd appreciate knowing what I know about you?" asked Alucard. Walter watched with interest, not knowing what secret the two dire enemies shared.

"So we both have secrets, vampire. They're even related secrets. All ye have left is yer pride, all I have left is my service." Anderson leaned over and his green eyes glared into the red of Alucard's. "Would ye like the world to know yer fall and how it relates to mine?"