Disclaimer: Not mine, no money.

A/N: This was a BASTARD of a chapter to write and I hope that it goes down okay with you the reader.

Chapter 11

Jane had gotten the car to drop her off at her flat, where she sat for the better part of the morning going through the folder of documents that Walter had given her as she was leaving. Integra had made good on her threat to put Jane in charge of design and development, but she had gone one step further and added Wiggins' job to the mix as well. Now not only could she design a new gun, she could have it mass produced and put it into the hands of each and every Hellsing soldier. It was a dream job with a side order of logistical nightmares.

"For my sins indeed." she snorted.

There was also a short brief on what she should tell the rest of the factory heads regarding the now defunct Mr Wiggins, as well as an upgraded security clearance. It was this that she was looking forwards to using first, as it would give her access to full incident reports, not the sanitised versions that she usually got to see.

She picked up the phone and spent a while setting up a meeting with the rest of the factory heads for that afternoon, which would give her enough time to figure out what she was going to say to Joshua. She really didn't know how to tell him that she had taken his job and gotten him kicked out of munitions. His transfer orders where also in the folder, and it would fall to her to give them to him.

She grimaced and thought that with the sweet came the sour and she'd just better suck it up.

A knocking on her door shook her from her thoughts and she went to it and peered through the peephole.

"Shit!"

She opened the door to find a very relieved brother on her doorstep. Before she could say anything, he had stepped inside and was hugging her very tightly.

"I was worried! Are you okay? Are you in trouble? Did they hurt you? What's going on?"

Gasping for air, she jabbed him in the ribs, forcing him to let her go. She took as step back and looked up at him and said:

"I'm sorry you were worried. I'm okay. No, I'm not in trouble and no, they didn't hurt me."

"So what's that on your face then?"

"Nothing that I didn't bring on myself, and give back. Now leave off, I'm fine!"

Joshua heaved a sigh of relief and threw himself down on her settee and ran his hands through his hair. Deep shadows under his eyes testified to the sleepless night he had been through on her behalf and she felt another pang of guilt. Going into the kitchen, she called out:

"Let me make us a cuppa and I'll tell you everything. There's a lot of changes coming and I'd rather you heard them first."

In the recounting of the previous days events, she managed to neatly avoid the bruising on her jaw and the fate of Peter Wiggins, but there was one thing that that she couldn't avoid. Two cups of tea and half a packet of biscuits later, Jane finally managed to get around to the point of him being transferred. She handed him the dreaded envelope and watched him read the enclosed document. She kept her expression carefully neutral, not wanting to show fear – even to her twin.

He finished reading, folded the document back into its envelope and tossed it onto the table. Picking up his mug, he drank deeply and then slouched down on the sofa, his posture relaxed.

"That's the best news I've had all year." he said matter of factly.

Jane was startled. This was not the reaction she was expecting, and although she was glad he wasn't in a raging snit, she was worried that he was pretending to be glad so as to spare her feelings.

"Come again?"

"Jane, have you stopped to think about why I never really backed your campaign to get that gun checked?"

"Because you thought I was an endless worrywart?"

"You are a worrywart." he grinned, dodging the cushion that she hurled at his head. "But no, that's not the reason."

"Then why?"

"Because if you had gotten your way, I would have been responsible for re-designing that gun."

"And that's a problem how? Don't tell me you support that drivel of not having a vampire on the team?"

"No, that doesn't bother me. After all, dad told me about him when I was little so the thought of him around wasn't a really big thing for me."

"Dad told you about him?"

"A little bit, just enough to keep a little kid interested."

She was now very startled. She had assumed her father had met Alucard when he had first designed his gun, but she never knew that he had told Joshua about him. He'd certainly never told her.

"But why didn't he tell me?"

Josh snorted and said wryly,

"From what I heard, he's not the sort of thing that you tell little girls about."

She remembered her first encounter with him and her reaction to him and sniggered.

"No, he isn't."

"You've met him?"

"I have, and you've danced around my question long enough. Why would it have been a problem to re-design that gun?"

He ran his hand though his hair and then sighed again. He sat silent for a moment or two and when he finally spoke, his voice was so quiet, she had to lean closer to hear him.

"I wouldn't have been able to, because I can't design a gun."

She glared at him in utter astonishment and then snapped:

"Bollocks! You've been working there as long as I have. What have you been doing all this time then, playing with yourself?"

"No!" he protested, blushing at his sisters choice of words. "I can choose the best gun for the job from the range available, that I'm good at. But when it comes to the custom designing bit, well, they assumed that I could, being Dad's son and everything, and I never really told them different."

"You mean you flanneled your way into a position that you couldn't do!" she cried. "Josh, what if they had caught you out?"

"I never really thought that it would come to that! And if it had, well then there was alwa…." he trailed off and mumbled the rest.

"There was always what?" she asked coldly, very sure of what he was going to say.

"There was always you that I could ask." he admitted shamefacedly.

Jane put her head in her hands, not sure if she wanted to laugh, cry or mutilate her brother. She settled on rubbing her forehead hard, trying to dislodge the headache that had taken up residence since Josh had been talking, which she realised, he was still doing.

"What?"

"I said that I'm glad that you know the truth at last, because it helps take away the pressure."

"What pressure?"

"When we finished school and enlisted, Dad took me aside and told me a story about how in every generation of our family, the elder Smith had made a weapon for Hellsing that was special, exceptional even. He had made that pistol. Granddad made a handgun for Sir Arthur and our great granddad made a sword and dagger set. So he told me that it would be my duty this time around. And I tried Jane, I swear that I tried but I failed. I understand a gun, I know how it works but I just don't have that knack that Dad had, that you have."

By this time, his voice was thick with emotion and remorse. She understood exactly what he meant by pressure, their father had been very good at making sure that they understood what their family stood for and where their loyalties lay. But she had never suspected that her brother had been carrying that dreadful burden on his shoulders.

Anger at their father started pulsing in her chest and she ground her teeth as she remembered the night before she had left to go to basic training. Their argument had caused the neighbors to call the police.

She knew that her father had never really approved of her joining the military. He had urged her to get a post somewhere in Hellsing's administration department, and she had very colourfully told him where to put that idea. The conversation had gone swiftly downhill from there. They had patched it up shortly afterwards, and they had spent many a pleasant night in his workshop, pouring over sketches and comparing ideas. With those pleasant memories, her anger faded and was replaced by a sense of irony so deep it was painful. Her father had given the job to the wrong twin.

"All this trouble for the sake of three minutes." she muttered, shaking her head.

"I know." he said mournfully, "Why couldn't you have been your pushy self and come out first?"

She gave him an obscene gesture, to which he retaliated by throwing back the cushion she had thrown at him earlier. This signaled the start of a wrestling match that ended in a torn cushion cover, two broken cups and the rest of the biscuits being stomped into crumbs.

"There, feel better now?" panted Josh as he sat back on the settee. He was well aware of his sisters need to vent her temper in a physical way and a good romp was usually the safest thing. That or a few rounds of hand to hand combat when she was really pissed off.

"Yeah yeah." she groused, trying to push hair out of her face and climb off the floor at the same time.

She went into the kitchen and came back with a dustpan and brush which she thrust at Josh. He took it without protest and began to sweep up the debris. She stepped over to the mirror to wrestle with the unruly beast that was her hair.

"So now that we've gotten all of that over with," said Josh from the carpet. "Tell me, what she's like?"

"Who?"

"Sir Integra. You know, the head of Hellsing, the woman who's name is only mentioned in dark rooms and capital letters."

She rolled her eyes and then thought about the question.

Setting aside her mistaken thought that she was about to be shot, she had sensed a similarity between her and Sir Integra. Both of them had been taught from an early age where their loyalties should lie and both of them had had duty and honour drummed into them until it was a part of their very being.

She had no illusions that should she have come out on the wrong side of the Wiggins incident, Joshua would be picking out her casket. Sir Integra, she felt, had a spine on her and that was the way she liked it. She liked knowing where she stood with someone, it made it a little easier when she invariably put her foot in her mouth.

"She's taller than I thought." she called to Josh, as she finished pinning her hair back in place.

"Clot!" he snorted as he dumped out the dustpan. "So don't tell me then, I already know that you like her."

And he was right. All their lives, the twins had been able to sense each others feelings. Nothing remotely like the bond reported in the tabloid papers and pseudo science reports, but a bond all the same. Something unique to the two of them. That's why she didn't elaborate – he already knew the important stuff.

"And what about the other guy? Alucard?"

When no reply, obscene or otherwise was forthcoming, Josh stopped cleaning up and took a good look at his sister. She was standing at the bookshelf, with one of her old sketchbooks in her hands. He recognised the book – she had carted it around with her for the better part of her late teens, while she was working with their dad.

"So you finally get to build it." he said simply, stepping to her side.

"I do."

They both looked down at the rough drawings of a large black pistol. She had been drawing it for as long as she had been interested in guns, which in her case was a very long time. It had changed as her knowledge expanded but the essence had always stayed the same. Her dad had told her that it couldn't be made – no one could ever wield it.

"Damn thing has been haunting me for years." she said softly.

Abruptly she snapped the book closed, took it to her desk and put it on the pile with the rest of the papers that she was taking with her.

"I have a meeting with the Head of Departments." she said briskly, "But if you stick around, maybe we can go get some dinner later?"

Joshua nodded, not fooled by her sudden businesslike attitude. She always turned brusque if something touched a nerve.

"Dad should have known which one of us to give that job to." she said softly, shoving paperwork into a satchel while keeping her eyes averted. "I'm sorry that it had to come to this."

He shrugged, his heart lighter than it had been in ages. It hadn't come about the way he wanted, but he knew that at last, he and his sister were exactly where they needed to be.

"Hey, at least I go into the troops with my old rank." he grinned.

She already had the door open, but stopped and turned back to him.

"Well perhaps the good sergeant would be kind enough to vacuum the floor while I'm gone?"

"Get out of here you idiot."

Ripping off a sharp salute, she stepped through the door and was gone.