Perhaps, One Day, in the Future

Disclaimer: Castlevania belongs to konami not me. I am making £0.00 out of this fic; it is written purely because I have a burning need to create. Although I would like to own Alucard . . . then he'd be mine.

Rating: PG-13

Part: one of three

Setting: Post the animated series

Authoress note: Adrian receives a letter.

Italics = thoughts and flashbacks

Chapter One

It's funny the things that can disrupt your life.

Night creatures tearing apart your village night after night are, and certainly should be, considered a major disruption. The stupidity, cruelty or madness of those in charge, bands of marauding vampires plaguing the local area, both understandably major disruptors.

But it was the little things that stumped Adrian.

How could something as small and fragile as a thin piece of paper be just as disruptive to his life as night creatures, vampires, and mad priests?

Possibly, it had something to do with the fact the paper smelled painfully familiar under the smell of bird. The handwriting on the paper was also one he knew achingly well.

"Are you coming?" Greta's voice wafted into the bedroom from the hallway. "You'd better hurry if you don't want Belmont kicking the door in."

Adrian tried to answer, but his mouth and throat were both dry. He coughed once and called back.

"Just a mo... Moment."

"I can hear him complaining from the kitchen, so on your own head be it if you dilly dally."

Adrian shook his head, the mundane terrors of his everyday life helping to squash down the icy dread swelling in his gut like an ulcer.

"You make a man breakfast one time." He said to himself. "Last time I do anything nice for him."

"What was that?" Greta stuck her head around the door and smirked at him.

"Nothing, just talking to myself." He hid the letter behind his back. "I'll just be a moment."

"Alright, but don't say I didn't warn you." Greta disappeared down the hall towards the small kitchen. As her footsteps got a safe distance away, Adrian brought the thin paper back to his face.

It was an envelope. A little battered and torn at one corner, smelling of bird feathers and faintly of perfume. On the envelope was his name, in the imperfect chicken scratch writing of doctors everywhere.

His mother's handwriting.

The letter was from his mother, or someone posing as her.

The last he'd seen either of his parents was the night death had arrived in the castle. Saint Germain had pulled the souls of his mother and father both out of Hell and placed them into… Adrian supposed he could call it a body. San Germán had called it a Rebis, a pretty enough word for something Adrian could barely fathom.

He didn't remember a great deal about what had happened in that room, but he still woke sometimes, sweating and hearing the echoes of his parents' screams.

"Lisa, I can't stop it!"

"Are we alive?"

It made his head light to even think of it now. The panic in his mother's voice, the fear in his father's. His father had always been unshakable. To hear such fear in his voice had shaken Adrian to his very core.

"You alright, you look pale, well paler than usual?" Greta pulled him out of his daze. He hadn't even heard her come back. She pushed him gently, making him fall back onto the bed. Her hand went to his forehead.

"I'm fine." The world was still off kilter. Black spots loomed in and out of existence in his vision.

"You're clammy." Greta was reaching down to untie his boots. "If you've got a fever, that means you're sick."

"I'm not sick." Adrian gently pulled her hands away from his laces. "Honestly, I'm fine… I just-"

"What the fuck is that?"

Adrian turned to see the mail delivery system his 'mother' had used to send him the letter. The bird was enormous, dark, feathered, and unashamedly supernatural. It had lingered after he had taken the letter from its leg, probably waiting to be fed. Adrian was used to Nachtkrapp. His father had used them often when Adrian had been a boy, to send messages to various correspondents.

"It's a bird."

"That's not a bird." She glared at him. "It's big enough to carry off children." Adrian made a mental note not to tell Greta that Nachkrapp were known for doing just that.

"A gigantic bird." He smiled at her expression. "It's fine. It just wants some breakfast and it'll go back to where it came from."

"Why is it in the bedroom?" Greta still watched the overly enormous bird, but she was visibly calming down. Adrian swallowed the lump in his throat at her trust in him.

"He brought me a message." He reached for the envelope, dropped when Greta had pushed him back. Greta frowned hard at him and he dropped his eyes from her gaze. Both hands holding the envelope, he held it out to her. She took it carefully.

"Is this what's upset you?"

"The handwriting." He nodded. "It's my mothers." Greta said nothing for a long moment.

"But your mother died. The entirety of Wallachia knows your mother is dead."

Adrian closed his eyes, his head falling forwards. His mother was dead, both his parents were dead. This was undeniable, even the last encounter with them, the Belmont… Trevor had saved them from becoming the Rebis. The spell had failed. They had lost several rooms to the explosion. When the dust had cleared after the battle, there had been no sign that his parents had done anything other than return to Hell.

But part of him thought that maybe… after all, Trevor had come back. Saint Germaine hadn't known he was serving death, had been visibly horrified by it, had tried to make amends. It was by Saint Germaine's hand that Trevor had not been killed. The infinite corridor had been opened.

Perhaps for more than just Trevor.

"Adrian." The bed dipped next to him as Greta sat. "Have you opened this?" Adrian shook his head.

"I…" he stopped, unable to voice the conflicting thoughts.

"Would you like me to?" His head snapped up to look at her. She took his hand.

"I will not pretend I understand the relationship you had with your parents at the end. I know it's not your favourite subject. But I've listened enough to gather that before your mother died, things were good. Maybe better than good. You seem to have had a more pleasant childhood than most."

"I was fortunate." He swallowed the lump in his throat. "Things were good before she died."

"Why don't you talk about it?" Greta squeezed his hand. "I'd love to hear about them."

"Difficult to tell warm fuzzy stories about them when one of them tried to genocide the entire human race."

"I thought that might be it." Greta smiled and leaned on his shoulder. "Well, leave all the genocide bits out."

"You really want to hear stories from my childhood?" Adrian tried to look down at her, difficult when all he could see was the top of her head.

"Of course."

He was surprised. Greta often surprised him.

"I suppose I could tell some stories. I could tell you about the time mother tried to cook and set the kitchen aflame, or the time father moved the castle and ended up in the sea."

"The sea?" Greta sounded like she did not believe him.

"Only a little," Adrian laughed. "He overshot the beach by a mile and a half. The flooding was… well, it was disgusting, actually. Do you know how many foul things live in the ocean?"

"I do not know."

"Well, it's a lot."

"Why did he miss? The beach, I mean? How did the castle end up in the ocean? Was he drunk?"

"Oh," Adrian felt his face heat a little. "It might have been my fault. I was young, and I was playing. He'd let me come into the room where the mechanism was housed to show me how to move into the castle. But I was only six, and I was overly excited. I nearly fell from the suspended walkway and he went to grab me and the castle lurched forward a bit."

"I've said before that this place is pretty dangerous. Your walkway to railing ratio is very poor. I imagine your father was angry with you?"

"No." Adrian smiled; Greta raised an eyebrow. "He really wasn't. He took me to the lower floors; the ocean was in the entranceway up to the first floor. He kept trying to show me the different fish and types of seaweed. He could name almost everything."

"Impressive."

"He was a polymath." Alucard shrugged. "Six-year-old me didn't care what each kind of seaweed was called. I was far more interested in picking it up and throwing it at him."

"Now that must have made him mad."

"No." Adrian shook his head. "It became a game until mother joined forces with me and we ganged up on him until he called time out. Eventually he moved the castle back to the beach, and we had to deal with the rather revolting smell. We tore up the carpet in the end, but it still took weeks to get rid of the smell."

"See," Great said after a moment. "That wasn't so hard, and that was a delightful story."

"Thank you. I feel a little better."

"You're not so pale anymore, and the clamminess has gone." She looked at the letter. "Do you want to open this?"

"Yes."

"You realise it might all be a trick? I mean, how could your mother be writing to you?" Greta looked behind her at the bird that was settled down on the windowsill, patiently waiting for its reward. "Though that bird looks like it could have come from anywhere."

"I know." Adrian said. "I know it could easily be a trap, but I don't want it to be."

"I know you don't."

"Trevor came back." He stared hard at the envelope.

"He did." Greta said and let go of his hand. She squeezed his arm instead.

"I guess we won't know if I don't open it." His hands were shaking.

The sound of tearing paper was loud in the room.

The envelope fell to the ground.

My dearest Adrian

I promised myself I would not write to you yet. We both did. You've been through so much and we wanted to let you live peacefully.

We were going to wait, but the waiting has become unbearable after as little as a year. It feels wrong to hide from you. Hurtful and deceitful and that was never our intention.

I'm sorry, my love.

I suppose an explanation is in order. Except we don't really have one. We were both dead. Upon that we can agree, though it feels strange to admit it. Then something happened. Your father thinks that human magic was involved. I am lost on the topic, having no basis for comparison. But we woke up together in a muddy field, as naked as the day we were born.

We were able to learn that well over a year had passed since I died. Your father won't talk to me about the time when I was dead, and he was not. Though I am not a fool, I knew who he was when I married him and I cannot imagine that his reaction to my death was a peaceful one.

But I won't dwell on that now. It's for another time, another conversation.

But I will say that he seems ashamed and I suspect his willingness to give you space to live your life as you choose is in part because of that shame.

We've left Europe, on that your father was most enthusiastic. We're in England, of all places. Your father convinced me to come here because there are fish. How could I refuse?

It's grey and damp and slightly cold. Your father loves it. He's got a tiny boat from somewhere and looks utterly ridiculous sitting in it.

I understand that this will be a lot to take in, so I will end my letter here. I will write again soon.

I want you to know that I love you more than I could love anything else, more than I ever thought myself capable of loving.

With love always,

Mother

P.S: Your father insists I write something to prove to you I am truly myself and not some con artist. Honestly, your father has the strangest thoughts sometimes.

You have a scar at the top of your right leg where you fell in the village church because I was not watching you closely. Your father wanted to call you Vlad after his father, but I wanted you to be your own person, so put my foot down. When you were three years old, you had a small soft wolf toy you took everywhere and called Mr Whiskers and when you were six, your father put the castle into the sea and blamed you. I think that should probably do it.

Eternal love

Mother

"I didn't think you could scar?" Greta said after Adrian folded the letter up and put it in a drawer.

"Holy objects can mark me." Adrian had to swallow several times before he could speak. "Apparently, church steps are holy."

"Are you alright?"

"I think so." Adrian took a deep breath to get the tightness in his chest to loosen.

"The wolf toy was sweet."

"It was still in my bedroom… though I doubt it's there now."

"The room isn't there now."

"Exactly."

"I think we should probably go to breakfast before Trevor throws a tantrum."

"I think so too." Greta squeezed his hand tightly and he gripped hers back.

End Chapter One

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