Hello there again! This is chapter six. Not much to say... but enjoy! It is a rather short one, but bear with me, here.


Integra sat in a stiff backed wooden chair, trying to work. Every time she looked down at her documents, her mind wandered. First it would start thinking about marriage, and then about all the gifts she had received, and then about the sword, and then to having children… her train of thought flitted to and fro like a butterfly that floats from leaf to leaf… though her thoughts were not nearly as light hearted as the air travel of a butterfly may be.

There was too much going on, and it was bothering her to the point of distraction. It was terrible. She puffed feverishly on her cigar, trying to find comfort in the sensation of tobacco smoke in her lungs. Glancing over to the corner of her new desk, she looked at the photograph that stood there, recently framed. A chortle rumbled in her throat, soft and languid like the purr of a cat. Walter had captured a particularly good shot of Alucard scrubbing out a urinal with a toothbrush. His honor as a supreme vampire had been severely imputed there… Blast it! Her mind was wandering again. There was no chance she would get her work done at this rate.

Forfeiting all attempts to concentrate on the documents at hand, she shoved them into the drawer of her desk. She put her head into her gloved hand and rubbed her temples, as if a sudden pressure headache had overtaken her. A sigh and a puff of gray smoke left her slightly parted lips. This was all too much. She was used to a heavy burden, but this new yoke on her shoulders was not a light one.

Alucard appeared through the inky shadows that lurked in the corner of the room. Integra sat slumped at the chair at her desk, looking tired and woebegone, her shoulders heavy, and her head in her hands. She looked so small at this moment, as if for a brief while her thoughts had shrunken into themselves, making her seem almost withered, like a wilted rose.

"Master… Are you well this evening?"

It was a phrase that would have seemed particularly courteous on anyone's lips except his own. His sardonic smirk accompanied the greeting, a red flag that his remark was made in jest. Of course she wasn't alright. She looked disheveled, and a little broken. Strong , steely Integra, looking upset, even if it was mildly so. A normal person would have already snapped beneath the immense pressure she faced daily… especially though the trying years of war with Millennium. But she was beginning to bend… even steel gives way to time and pressure.

Integra, immediately aware of his presence, snapped to attention, lifting her head, and placing one hand in her lap in a poised manner, the other hand moving to her lips to remove the cigar that was clamped between them.

"Alucard… you have made yourself scarce these past few days."

It was an enigmatic sort of greeting. She could have meant any number of things, or absolutely nothing by it.

"Yet here I am."

A grin passed over his lips, a chuckle reverberating in his throat as his eyes ran over the pile of notes and flowers that were by the fireplace.

"Those are from suitors, aren't they. It's a shame they so readily wasted their time and money trying to impress you. You aren't one for gifts."

His red eyes glittered, and his smile flashed.

"I did receive one present that I don't intend to use as kindling. It's over there, resting on my armchair."

Integra cocked her head in the direction of the sword in it's case, which had taken it's residency in the armchair for now until she could get a new set of hooks fixed onto her wall on which to display it. Alucard already knew what the long, black case contained, but just to make a show of it, he walked over, and undid the buckles that held the rectangular box shut.

"A sword."

He said flatly, eyeing the present he already knew every inch of.

"You have amazing powers of observation, Alucard. I expect nothing less from a vampire of your caliber."

Her voice was sarcastic, and a little perturbed sounding, but for the most part, cold. Emotionless. She didn't feel like picking a fight with Alucard today. She just wanted to be alone to contemplate the inevitable marriage to some person.

"Do you know who gave this to you?"

Integra took a long drag on her cigar, emitting another cloud of burnt smelling air from her lungs.

"No."

"Then you will be loathe to hear that I know the person who gave this to you… and I do not intend to tell."

His voice was instilled with a gloating tone, almost as if he were a child taunting her by blowing raspberries and yelling 'Nya Na Nya na boo-boo!'.

"Oh dear me. I may as well go cry in a corner because Alucard will not reveal to me the name of my suitor. You have inflicted a deep wound on me… I may as well die."

Her voice was thoroughly sarcastic, her tone almost as sharp and prickly as her demeanor.

"You will not be so thrilled, I should think, when you find out who it is."

"It isn't Maxwell, is it?"

He grinned in a teasing way.

"No… Not that Vatican swine."

He shut the case to the sword, and when Integra offered no further verbal chase on the subject, he did not pursue the matter any longer with her.

"The Queen is forcing you to marry?"

Though he stated this last remark in the form of a question, it was not that he needed to be informed. Both He and Integra knew he was stating knowledge he had already acquired.

"They have given me a month."

Her voice grew rather grim. Grim and cold, like a January wind, and just as desolate. She turned to look at Alucard, who still lingered by the chair, his eyes darting to meet hers in that eerie unblinking gaze of his.

"What would you have me do, Alucard?"

"Why consult me on these things, Integra? As you remind me daily, I am but a servant."

Though Integra was being perfectly serious with Alucard, he hadn't given up on his wily demeanor this evening. He wasn't going to make anything easy for his master. A frown formed at the corners of Integra's mouth, her expression growing evermore displeased.

"I ask you in all earnest, Alucard. Give me the respect I disserve, and answer me properly."

"I would have you bear a child, to appease the Queen."

"And what of marriage?"

"I would not see you married. You are too wild a woman belong on the arm of any living man."

She sighed softly.

"And how would you have me do this? Bear a child out of matrimony… I have already considered being artificially inseminated, but it is a foolish option. I would not know the father of my child, and as such, I would not be assured of the character my child would possibly possess. The father would need to be of noble, untainted blood… blood that would not cower before the position that their child would have as leader of Hellsing."

"Why not have someone you know be the donor?"

He was slowly going to weave his way around, beating around the bush until he felt like revealing his motives for directing his conversation towards this subject.

"I don't know anyone who I would want to be the sire of my child. All the knights are out of the question… brainless, pigheaded parasites, the lot of them. And Walter…"

She smiled at the mention of her faithful, dutiful butler.

"…Is probably too old."

"I could do it."

She stared at him blankly, stunned he had even suggested it. Did he truly mean what had just come from his lips? Integra stared at him, her eyes widening for a moment, trying to catch the joke that lay hidden somewhere, or so she thought. His features, however, were all honesty. She laughed, not a laugh of wild, mirthful abandon, but a controlled, calculating sort of chuckle.

"You say you want me to be more serious… and then laugh at me when I actually mean what I say. Sir Integra, you make a mockery of me daily."

"You are serious then?"

The grin on her lips still lingered, lips that were curled around a cigar that was clamped between her teeth.

"Entirely. Just think of it. Our heir would be glorious. It would rule with a power unmatched by any of its predecessors… our child could take over England… nay, the earth! An heir produced by the two of us would be of the highest breeding. It would be marvelous, Integra! Marvelous!"

His red eyes gleamed, and his lips curved in a smile at his revelry, his expression alit with some mad sort of delight. Integra noted the eager flame in his eyes with peculiar interest.

"You are willing to demean yourself this much to produce a child?"

"Master, if being the one to sire your heir means I have to whack off into a cup so you can take the semen to a lab, than so be it. Besides, I would hardly call being the one chosen to carry on the Hellsing bloodline a degrading task… Scrubbing bathrooms on the other hand…"

Integra inwardly cringed at the mental image he had just instilled into her mind. But her face remained stoic. How could he even be sure that he would be able to sire a child? After all, he was dead. Integra sighed, and leaned back into her stiff chair.

"Leave me… I am tired."

Alucard smirked that insidious smirk of his without saying another word, choosing not to press the matter further. Integra stood up to leave her study and prepare herself for bed. She would need some rest.

Alucard wandered down to the shooting range, a smug little smile on his face. She hadn't said yes… but then again, she hadn't said no. And with his powers of telepathy, he had seen her mind.

She was considering his offer.


Chapter six done!

I am sorry if characters seem OOC at points. This can be merited to nothing but my poorly developed skills at writing fan fictions. Please, I beseech all ye kind souls for forgiveness!

-Grovel Grovel Grovel-

Cheers!

- Kimi-Taco