So here I am. Finally. It took a while cuz I really had no idea what to do. Everyone was clamoring for me to update, and it put me in such a state of confusion and semi-murderous anxiety that I chewed a soda bottle cap into oblivion. (Yes, I bite things. This has been a problem ever since I first saw Hellsing).

That is, until one reviewer (a godsend, thank you thank you thank you thank you Candide Avede ) gave me mucho lovely suggestions, which started the wheels of creativity turning in my brain.

Heh.

But I haven't come up with anything definite yet. So this is like a filler chapter. Shhhh. No groans. Filler chapters build character.

................

Chapter 4

Integra was agitated. Ever since she had woken up an unfamiliar string of words had been running through her brain. Three cups of tea, two cigars, and a lunch break had not served to get it out of her head, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't think about anything else.

When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see

She had narrowed it down to Shakespeare, probably a sonnet. She recalled having had to memorize a sonnet for school at one point, but that had been over ten years ago. It did not make sense that a sonnet had decided to return with a vengeance after thirteen years of lurking peacefully deep within her mind.

For all the day they view things unrespected

The worst part was that she only remembered parts of it. And the fact that her mind stopped reciting it in the middle and then went back to the beginning annoyed her to no end. With a frustrated sigh she repeatedly hit her head lightly on the top of her desk, but stopped suddenly when a familiar and unwanted voice reached her ears.

"I trust my lady Hellsing had sweet dreams last night?" Alucard purred in a lazy tone.

But when I sleep, in dreams, they look on thee

Integra raised her head slowly from the desk and glared at him, the events of the previous night coming back to her even as she attempted to shove them away. "What were you thinking last night, Alucard?!" she asked in a deceptively calm voice, glaring at him. He wasn't wearing his hat, so that his hair was loose, and his glasses were gone, so that he stared directly back at her with his dark red eyes.

And darkly bright, are bright in dark directed

Alucard contemplated her for a moment then grinned slyly. "Why were you banging your head against the desk?"

Integra stared him openly, caught off guard, and then gritted her teeth. "If you will not answer my question then I will not answer yours," she replied, but thought the words sounded childish even as she spoke them.

Alucard raised his eyebrows. "If you will act childish, then I will leave."

Integra winced and looked away. At any other time she would have asked him to leave, then, but for some reason—something—inside her wanted him to stay. And explain him self. "I was trying to remember the rest of a sonnet that was irking me," she murmured quickly, about to continue by asking him her question again.

"A sonnet?" Alucard inquired swiftly, cutting Integra off before she could even start. "My master is preoccupied with a sonnet?" There was a faint hint of disbelief in his tone.

Integra closed her eyes momentarily to calm down, and thought. "I don't know why," she said slowly, "I just am. But I don't remember the rest of it."

Alucard moved closer to her desk. "Say it for me," he commanded.

Integra stiffened at his directness, but complied, thinking that there would be no harm in it. "When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see," she began, tapping her finger nervously against the side of her desk, "for all the day they view things unrespected. But when I sleep, in dreams, that look on thee, and, darkly bright are bright in dark directed."

She paused. What came next? She took a shaky breath, and began again. "Then thou whose shadow shadows doth make bright, how would thy shadow's form form happy show, to the clear day with thy much clearer light." Integra paused, surprised. She remembered all of it now. "When to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so!/ How would, I say, mine eyes be blessed made/ by looking on thee in the living day/ when in dead night thy fair imperfect shade/ through heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay?/ All days are nights to see til I see thee/ and nights, bright days, when dreams do show me thee."

Integra opened her eyes, which she had evidently closed at some point, and started. Alucard was nowhere to be seen. Just as she was about to let out a sigh of relief, his voice spoke in her ear. "That was excellent, Miss Hellsing," he murmured.

"Alucard," Integra began warningly, before he interrupted her smoothly. "Coincidently, I have a sonnet for you." Integra's eyes widened. What?

As he began talking Integra struggled to ignore the fact that they were in uncomfortably close proximity to one another. Not only that, but she could not see him, or predict his movements, and if he attempted anything like he had the night before...

With a start her mind focused on what he was saying, a strange feeling building up inside her.

"Being your slave, what should I do but tend upon the hours and times of your desire? I have no precious time at all to spend, nor services to do till you require," Alucard murmured. "Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you, nor think the bitterness of absence sour, when you have bid your servant once adieu."

He paused and licked his lips. "Nor dare I question with my jealous thought, where you may be, or your affairs suppose, but, like a sad slave, stay and think of nought, save, where you are how happy you make those: so true a fool is love, that in your will, though you do anything, he thinks no ill."

Integra sat in her chair, still, and didn't move even when Alucard wrapped his arms around her shoulder and pressed his lips against her neck. There was a tight knot in her stomach that didn't go away even after he disappeared; that only tightened when she broke down and cried.

........

Holy Hell. Did that make ANY sense at all? I dumped Shakespeare, of all things, into my fanfic.

Oh by the way, thanks, Will, for the sonnets, they're cool. And by cool I mean this chapter has a 70 chance of being deleted, depending on whether or not anyone got the point.

Actually, im not sure it has a point. Whatever.

At any rate, my idea was that they would kinda show their feelings to each other through the Shakespeare sonnets, and other Deep crap like that.

Ah well. At least they ended up kind of making up, right?

Maybe next chapter they'll make out.

Again, sorry for this chapter. I still can't believe I put in Shakespeare....

I weep.