"Your story and Integra's will intersect again."

Alucard stood and Walter dropped his hands from Seras' neck with one last gentle stroke across her nape. The two men exchanged places; Walter once again took the chair sitting across from Seras and Alucard stood behind her.

Seras watched the two men with clear perplexity. This little dance of theirs was confusing her when she was already more than confused enough.

"Why do you two keep doing that?" Neither man answered her question.

Alucard brushed his fingers across the back of her neck as Walter had done, but dropped his hands to the back of her seat afterward. Seras found herself unaccountably disappointed by that. She hadn't realized how starved for touch she was until Walter had reminded her.

She backed up on that thought and looked at the two men and their behavior in a different light, glancing over her shoulder at Alucard and then back at Walter. When was the last time either of them had felt a friendly touch?

Walter smiled at her and nodded slightly. His smile broadened when Seras jumped at the feel of Alucard's fingers on the back of her neck again. This time he didn't stop with a light stroke across her skin, but began to smooth at the knots of tension Walter hadn't worked out of her neck.

Seras had to suppress a gasp. Walter had been skillful, but Alucard… Walter chuckled and relaxed back in the chair.

"You'll never think of a massage the same way again after receiving one from someone who can read your thoughts," he said. "That's why I went first. Alucard is a tough act to follow." Seras missed the brief leer Alucard gave him, but she saw Walter's eyes almost twinkle in response to something.

"You two planned this?" She sat bolt upright, but Alucard's fingers pushed that tension out of her body just as easily as he'd been loosening the knots in her neck.

"In a manner of speaking," Walter answered comfortably. "We did discuss how best to explain the events of the battle to you."

"What does this have to do with explaining the battle to me?" As hard as she tried to be indignant, Seras found she just couldn't put much force behind it.

Alucard's fingers stilled on her neck. "If we left you to sit alone here in your chair, would you be happier?"

Seras opened her mouth to say yes, she'd be much happier if the two of them would stop touching her and just sit down and tell her the rest of the story, then closed her mouth with a snap. No, she honestly wouldn't feel better. She'd felt very alone for what felt like a very long time, and she'd be lying to herself if she tried to say that she didn't like having someone touch her again.

Apparently that was sufficient response for Alucard. His fingers traced the tension in her neck perfectly, leaving Seras incapable of argument. She relaxed once more and her eyes slid closed.

Alucard resumed the recitation. "While you played with the catboy, Integra was in Millennium's hands. She was much the worse for wear for her trip through that in between space. Remember, she could not regenerate the damage done by leaving random molecules of herself behind the way you could. Compared to Integra, you got off lightly."


"Ah, Miss Hellsing, how good of you to join us."

Integra struggled to push herself up off the floor where Schrödinger had dropped her. Every part of her body ached and a red haze blurred her vision. She didn't know it, but her eyes were an almost solid red from blood from burst capillaries. Bruises bloomed over her body where she had been wounded from the inside by her moments InBetween.

"I would have Butler bring you something refreshing, but my servant is fulfilling his more important mission." Major Montana Max waved casually down at the battlefield where Walter and Alucard were moving through the opening steps of their engagement. The damage both were causing opened a circle that widened around them, creating something of an arena for the two combatants. Integra was still gasping for breath on the floor and missed the scene the Major was pointing out.

"A pity. He made excellent coffee."

Max snapped his fingers and a tall, gaunt man in a bloodstained lab coat and an absurd costume that left his midriff bare stepped forward. "Yes, my Führer?"

"Doc, Miss Hellsing needs your attention. She is unwell." The pudgy man beamed down at Integra where she had managed to push herself up on all fours. She was so weakened by the effort that she merely knelt there, gasping and trying to ignore the taste of her own blood in her mouth. "I'm certain that you can help her with her weakness."

Doc nodded curtly and crossed the small observation platform to pick up Integra. He cursed and stepped back when she sat up on her knees and drew her sword. He watched the kneeling woman carefully, observing the way her upper body swayed despite her best efforts to remain still, and accurately judged that her reflexes were impaired.

Integra could only register Doc's motion as a blur. One moment she was sitting up, with great effort holding her sword ready, and the next moment, her hand was screaming in pain and her sword had gone clattering off of the observation platform to land in front of a surprised soldier at his instrument console.

"It would be a matter of moments to splint your fingers," Doc muttered to her as he pulled her up off of the floor and held her virtually dangling while she tried to force her legs to hold her up. "But that will be unnecessary. You will heal quickly enough soon."


Even Alucard's fingers couldn't get Seras to relax listening to this part of the story. While this was happening to Integra, Seras had been up in Big Ben with Schrödinger. She should have been by Integra's side. She should have gotten away from the catboy and flown back to the zeppelin to rescue Integra.

All three of us carry some blame for Integra's death. Seras jumped and looked up at Alucard when his voice sounded in her head. She wanted to shout at him for doing that when he was right next to her, touching her even, but what he had said had been almost consoling.

Who are you and what have you done with my Master? crossed her mind, but she tried to keep the thought to herself.

"If it puts your mind at ease at all, I am still a monster."

Walter snorted derisively at Alucard's comment. "Even monsters have down time and if ever you were going to be sated, now would be the time," he said.

"I am sated for bloodshed, for now." Alucard's tone carried an unspoken "but…"

"But there are other things for which you are not sated," Walter finished for him.

"It is ever the way of our kind – always a hunger for something – for blood, for violence, for sex, even for touch. Don't you think so, Seras?" Alucard's fingers moved up her neck and brushed along the lower edge of her jaw.

Seras had closed her eyes again and had been unconsciously leaning into Alucard's fingers, savoring the sensations that tingled in her skin where his fingertips brushed; when he asked his question, at first she failed to register it as directed at her. She startled slightly and opened her eyes. "It does seem like it's always some new thing."

"Live long enough and few things are new any longer. It's just the same endless cycles of wants."

Seras wanted to look up and see Alucard's face after that statement, but his stroking digits along her jawline kept her facing forward, looking toward Walter, who was regarding both her and Alucard with unfeigned interest. She tried a small smile. She was alive, Walter was alive after a fashion, and Alucard was still Alucard. She hadn't lost everything; in fact, she'd probably lost less than most people in and around London.


Integra gritted her teeth and through sheer force of will and stubbornness made herself stand. It seemed clear from her demeanor that she would be dead and damned before she'd cry out from the pain in her teleportation-traumatized body and broken fingers. Doc continued to keep a grip on her arms, but an observer would not guess just how much of her weight Millennium's mad scientist was taking with his hold.

"Tch, the human condition," the Major said with a false expression of concern. "See how it weakens you? With your servant's power within your grasp, why did you choose to maintain this feeble condition?"

The contempt in the look Integra gave the Major was searing. Her response matched the look, "I am human because I will not sell out humankind to protect it." She coughed and tried not to gag on the blood in her mouth.

Max leaned forward in his chair and looked disappointed, "That is the only reason you have? How dull and selfish." He looked up at Doc. "Take her down to see the First. I think it's time for the final act in our drama to begin."

Doc's fingers clamped down harder in Integra's arms at the order. He looked ready to question his commander, but Max cut him off, "She has waited long enough, Doktor. Let her wake this time. Let her use this one to fuel her rise. I have faith in your work to keep her from destroying us all."


Walter's face had gone still while Alucard continued the story. It ached for him to know that he had failed Integra so profoundly – that he was the reason Alucard did not get to her in time to save her. If Alucard had not been distracted fighting him, he would have known sooner about Integra's capture.

Seras watched Walter's face close down while Alucard told Integra's part of the story. His smile had faded away quickly and she was surprised to realize that he was looking a good deal older. The change this time had come subtly, but the face she was looking at now had more lines and a higher forehead and much more closely resembled that of the man she'd known since joining Hellsing.

Impulsively, she reached across the gap between the two chairs and caught one of Walter's hands between hers. Both Seras and Walter stiffened when she made the contact. With Alucard's hands still on the skin of her neck and Walter's hand held in hers, it was like closing a circuit and opening up an unfamiliar line of communication. Seras pulled away from both men and stood up abruptly.

"What was that?" she asked, backing away. She glared at them when Walter glanced at Alucard and neither answered her.

"Tell me! What just happened?"

Alucard gave Walter a shuttered glance before asking, "Why are you asking us? You were there. You felt it. Don't try to lie to us or to yourself."

"I felt…" Seras floundered for a description.

"What we feel," finished Walter simply.

When Seras looked more closely at him, she could see that he was as shaken as she was. Somehow that made her feel better.

"Yes, I guess so," she said while she rubbed her hands along her arms to try to dispel the chill she felt. "I felt…" Again she searched for words. She didn't understand the things she had felt from Walter and Alucard. There had been no words, just emotions, jumbled and complicated just like hers often were, but alien and invasive as well. It had been difficult to find her own feelings under the wave of their emotions that had hit her when she took Walter's hand.

From Walter had come a tumult of feelings, with grief being one of the stronger emotions, but far from the only one. Alucard's had been more a maelstrom than a simple tumult; its pervasive flavor was of hunger. Seras could only imagine that it was a taste of the hunger Alucard had mentioned before – the one that was never satisfied, ever demanding. She'd felt vampiric hunger before, but Alucard's was different, deeper, hungrier, if that was possible.

One thing was certain, neither man was thinking only of the story being recounted, and picking those emotions out of the welter she'd just experienced made her look at both men with something akin to panic. Seras was frightened to realize that both Alucard and Walter held feelings for her that were… well… intimate. She was more frightened knowing that both of them had to know the same of her now.

It was much easier to keep a sense of decency when everyone could pretend they didn't know that Person A was lusting after Person B. Now Seras found herself in a situation where not only did she know how Walter and Alucard felt toward each other, which would have been enough to make her blush on its own, she also knew how the two of them felt toward her. And how was she going to make any good arguments when both Alucard and Walter would know she wasn't purely snow white in her feelings about them?

"You did that on purpose," she accused, glaring at Alucard in an attempt to cover up her confusion and fear.

"I did not," Alucard answered calmly. "I was unaware that would happen."

"What was it? Why did that happen? It didn't happen when I was just sitting in the chair letting one of you rub my neck."

"My educated guess is that it is related to what happened later in our story." Alucard pointed to the empty chair in front of him. "The empathy seemed to be related to all three of us being in contact. There's no reason why you can't sit down and let me continue."

The story? The massage? Seras supposed he meant both, and hesitated; if she sat down and let Alucard touch her again, was she giving him permission to act more intimately? And Walter? Her hand rose and clutched at her shirt over her heart, which was racing. Funny, she'd always assumed vampires wouldn't have to worry about silly things like that. After she became a vampire, she'd realized that a creature that existed for blood would have to have a way for blood to make its way around the body.

And she was letting her mind wander away from the real issue because it made her terribly uncomfortable. Seras forced her attention back to the crux of the matter at hand – how was she going to behave with these two now that one of the cats was out of the bag?