Chapter 14 for you! Here it is. I hope you enjoy! Keep the baby's name suggestions coming... I really like getting feedback about names.


"Working? Last time I was here, you didn't have any work to do." Alucard phased through the door, a silver platter of lemon tarts balanced on one of his hands. The silver would have hurt him, had he not been wearing his gloves.

Integra sat at her new oaken desk, her head bent over a paper as she penned something with a determined look gleaming in her eyes. Did she always do work? It would seem so.

"You were only here five minutes ago, Alucard. I could have started working in those five minutes." Integra mumbled irritably

"Indeed. And so it would seem." Alucard teased with a wily grin, and a twinkle in his eyes, setting the tray of tarts on the corner of her desk. Integra had sent him to get tarts. It seems such a menial task to be done for a supreme ruler of the undead, but with no other work to be had, Alucard figured that keeping himself busy wasn't too bad of an endeavor… especially if it was to keep Integra happy.

Almost all had returned to normal at the Hellsing manner, albeit Integra's size. Alucard and Integra were fighting like an old married couple again, Alucard pelting her with his cheeky remarks, and Integra keeping him in line with the occasional tongue-lashing. Though what he had done to her had not been forgotten, and likely would never be, Integra did not want to dwell on it. She only wanted to be happy… or at least as happy as she had been before this whole ordeal. During the past month or so, Alucard had kept close to Integra. When he wasn't slumbering in his coffin, he was hovering around his master, keeping her company as she did work into the late hours of the night. At first it had been convenient… cute almost, to have Alucard shadowing her like an eager little puppy. It was useful to have him bring her things… more often than not, food. Walter was never up as late as she was, and so it was nice to have some one to fetch her things. But all the doting got annoying very quickly… he would help her down stairs, and open doors for her, and pull out her chair before she sat… honestly! She was pregnant, not infirm! She could do things for herself.

Alucard had been obediently following her around all this time for many a reason. Part of which, he wanted to compensate for all the time he had been without her. He had missed his master, plain and simple. The second of which, he wanted to prove to her that he could be, it his own way, kind. His sort of kindness was task oriented, doing works to make his master happy, even though as of late she seemed to grow ever more displeased with him.

"You may go now, Alucard."

Integra waved her hand irritably at him, as if dismissing him.

"Do I annoy you, Master?"

"I'm nine months pregnant, Alucard. We pregnant women are prone to hormone shifts. In three seconds, I may have the impulse to blow the brains out of your head."

Alucard chuckled, his cold, dead sounding laugh reverberating in the room. It was a chilling sound, but Integra didn't even prickle. Sometimes she seemed so… emotionless. Like nothing bothered her. Her impenetrable shell had been put back around her. She had built her icy cocoon around herself once more. This was not the weeping woman Alucard had witnessed almost nine months ago. She was Integra again, a maiden strong as steel and cold as ice.

"Why must you hover around me so? Leave me, at once."

"No."

Integra sighed wearily. "Fine. I have neither the intention nor the patience to argue with you. I'm busy."

Integra reached for a cookie, her arm stretching to the corner of her desk, as she grabbed a tart. Her elbow shifted the document she had been writing furiously on, and it slid off the desk and onto the floor.

"Bugger…" Integra mumbled irritably, standing up, to get the document that had fallen. Walking over to where it lay, she tried to crouch down to grab it. Her stomach was too big for her to bend over and get the paper. She squatted, bent, leaned, and reached, but try as she might, there was no comfortable way that she could reach the paper on the floor. Damn stomach. Integra growled in frustration, baring her teeth at the disobedient paper.

"Need help… Master?" Alucard teased, his eyes glittering in a feral way as he watched the humorous sight before him. Watching a heavily pregnant woman try to grab a piece of paper off of the floor was most amusing.

Integra scowled at Alucard, her cold eyes darting up to his face to meet him with their icy stare.

"Shut up, Asshole. I'm fine." She said as she completed another failed attempt to grab the paper.

Alucard, being the cocky nosferatu he was, walked up to his master, bent down with the ease and grace that only he possessed, and picked up the parchment in a teasing way. Instead of giving her the paper directly however, he eyed it for a moment curiously.

"What's this?" He asked coyly, red eyes flitting over the page.

" Isabeau, Isolde, Keaira, Avariella, Bree, Jerica, Aceline." He read the list aloud curiously. "Names, Integra? Are these names for the baby? You are nine months pregnant, and only now you are beginning to consider what to christen your child? I never thought you were one to procrastinate."

Integra went back to her chair, sitting down in an indignant manner. "I have been considering them for many months… I just felt like writing down ones I liked." A frown laced her lips as she glared expectantly at her slave, waiting for her to return to her the paper. However, before he gave it back, he seized the pen from her desk, and in a flourish, scribbled another name on this list with a wily grin. Then he handed back the paper to Integra, a smirk on his lips as if he were proud of his accomplishment of suggesting a name.

Integra raised an eyebrow as she read the loopy black letters written in a practiced hand.

"Ricarda?" She questioned, almost doubtfully, a smile replacing the frown she wore two seconds earlier.

"It's a nice name, is it not?" He retorted, still grinning.

"Please… the only reason you suggested it is because it bears an uncanny resemblance to your own title, Alucard." She raised an eyebrow, waiting for him to justify his decision.

"I admit… we vampires are rather vain creatures. The name Ricarda is an effeminate distortion of Richard, which means noble ruler. I think it would suit a child sired by me very well."

"You forget that you are not the only one whose blood runs through her veins. I was thinking of Isolde. I thought I would dig into my Welsh roots a bit. What do you think?"

"She's your child… why consult me? You said I would have no part in her life."

Integra sighed, folding up the paper and slipping it in the top drawer of her desk. She leaned back in the stiff, under-stuffed chair, the wood digging into her shoulder blades.

"I said that out of bitterness Alucard. All ends have yet to be fore seen in this ordeal." Integra rubbed her temples. "You will go on as my family's protector. Your role as a father figure has yet to be determined. There are so many possible dangers if my child were to know you as her true biological father. You know I cannot decide something of this magnitude right now, Alucard. Why even suggest a name if you were under the belief you would not be part of the child's life, anyway. Answer me that."

Alucard sighed in a breathy way, a strange sound to be heard from a creature that needs no breath to sustain him. Out of mere habit did he breathe in to sigh.

"Because I wanted there to be part of me in my daughter. I should be allowed to be my child's father."

Integra frowned, her voice taking on an irritable, snappish chord. "Do not be selfish, Alucard. What you may desire may not be best for the organization. If there is one thing I have learned about vampires, they lust for power. I fear my daughter may be a keyhole for you to gain control over the organization. It would be best if she saw you as I do. As a servant. If she looked up to you as father, you would have a rule over her, and could control the organization vicariously through her. There is so much danger in this situation that I did not foresee. I was blind and desperate not to get married, so I acted rashly, and without calculation. Maybe it would have been better if you hadn't gotten me pregnant again."

She sighed, resting her head in her hands. There was so much stress… so much thought that had to go into this. Her child's future needed to be carefully planned. There was so much to accomplish, and so little time to lay out the blueprints for how the next many years as a mother would go. It was all too much. Motherhood was becoming more and more complicated when she really had to think about it.

"Don't say that, Integra." Alucards eyes grew sad for a moment.

"What?" She snapped back.

"A child is a blessing. Do not be so quick to think of tossing it away."

"And this is coming from a man who kills remorselessly? Honestly, Alucard, are you going daft?"

Alucard chuckled, his lips splitting into that eerie, inhumanly wide grin of his. His smile vaguely reminded her of the Cheshire cat from Alice in Wonderland, a book she had read as a young child. Alucard, the Cheshire cat. It suited him well.

"Integra, you know as well as I that I have been daft for a long time."

"I'll drink to that." Integra retorted playfully. "I'm going to bed, Alucard. Have a good evening."

Integra stood up from her chair, and walked to the door, where Alucard was already there, chivalrously holding it open for her. He reached out and stroked her hair as she passed through the doorway, feeling her soft, flaxen strands of blonde run across his gloved fingers.

"And to you as well, My master."


Okay... Hope you guys are happy. I wrote this really quickly as something to appease you guys.

Don't kill me if it isn't up to par. -braces herself for a multitude of flames-

I got a new suggestion I really liked. Ricarda. What do you think of it? So far Isolde is my winner... But I'm still open to suggestions! Keep em coming!

Cheers,

Kimi-Taco