A/N: It's been nearly two years since I last updated, but I am resurrecting this story from the grave because plot-bunnies hit me out of nowhere. Inspiration is fickle like that, I guess. Anyway, enjoy.

CHAPTER THREE:

Uncanny Valley

Abigail did not sleep well that night, if she slept at all. Every time she closed her eyes she saw the walls sprayed with blood and gore, heard the ghost of Integra's gunfire echoing in her skull. The sound of a gunshot had been the last thing her father had ever heard. Integra had been the one to pull the trigger. Her mother had told her the story. The thought sent wave after wave of chills down her spine. Not even the thick blankets of the luxurious bed she had been deposited in could warm her.

But despite her restlessness, Abigail could not bring herself to get out of bed when morning finally came. She was drained from all the events of the past two days. She squeezed her eyes tight against the glare of sun streaming through the window. If she tried very, very hard she could pretend she was in her own bedroom back in Chelsea. Posters of her favorite musicians taped to the walls, watching over her like friendly sentinels. She could almost smell her mother's cooking: sizzling bacon, the sweet smell of pancakes fresh off the skillet. She allowed herself a small smile, before someone rapped rather loudly at the door. She sat up with a start, then relaxed when she remembered she had locked the door before falling asleep.

"Miss Wilson," Walter's muffled voice came from behind the door. "I do not wish to disturb you, but I brought you some breakfast. Thought you might be famished after last night's… ordeal."

Abigail's stomach growled as if in agreement. She cursed her body for betraying her. Nevertheless, she remained silent. She was not ready to face any of these people. She was not keen to find out what new manner of trauma they had in store for her today. She froze when after a few moments, she heard Walter jiggle the handle, then exhale sharply.

"Miss Wilson," his tone was all polite indulgence. "It will do you no good to let yourself waste away. It is midafternoon. I know you must be awake. Don't be foolish. Open the door."

Abigail had no intention of doing any such thing. Instead, she wondered how good her chances were of using her blanket to scale down the side of the mansion and make a break for it. Three stories up, be damned.

She heard Walter sigh followed by a metallic clicking. The next moment the door swung open. Abigail scrambled to her knees, the sheets tangling around her legs. Walter carried a tray of steaming hot food in one hand. In the other, he dangled a ring of keys and gave her a challenging look.

"My dear, I have been the custodian of this mansion for the better part of my life. You think I don't know how to get into every nook and cranny, if need be?"

"Thought it was worth a shot," she replied lamely.

"And what a valiant effort it was," he said in that humorous voice of his. "But Integra specifically requested that you be fed and I am loathed to disappoint her." There was a wicked glint in his eye and suddenly Abigail remembered the killing machine he had turned into the night before. Cold, merciless. He had enjoyed every second of it. Her heart hammered, her tongue heavy as lead.

"I- I don't think I'm hungry." Her stomach growled again, this time in whiny protest.

Walter quirked an eyebrow. "Indeed." He set the tray down beside her on the bedside table. "You can relax, Miss Wilson. I'm not here to hurt you." He noted the mistrustful way she eyed the food. "Or poison you for that matter. You're under Sir Integra's protection, no one here will dare lay a finger on you."

"I don't want your protection," Abigail replied. "I want to go home."

"I'm afraid you and Integra have a great deal to discuss before that can be arranged." Abigail slumped, crestfallen. Walter had to admit he pitied the girl. She did not ask for any of this. She simply had the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now her fate rested in whatever decision Integra made. If Sir Hellsing decided Abigail was more trouble than she was worth and better off dead, Walter would have to abide by that decision. But he wouldn't think of such ghastly thoughts now. "Let's have a look at those stitches, shall we?"

Reluctantly, Abigail lifted her top just enough to reveal the healing wounds on her abdomen. She tried not to flinch when his hands touched her skin. "Are you a doctor?" She asked, so that she wouldn't have to think about what she had seen those hands do the previous night.

"My dear, I am a great many things but a doctor is not one of them." Satisfied with the progress, Walter motioned her to lower her shirt. "Though I certainly know my way around a first aid kit. War will teach you a thing or two about tending to injuries."

"You fought in the war?"

Walter paused, eyes misting slightly with memory. "The second world war, to be precise."

Abigail frowned. "But then, you couldn't have been any more than a child."

"All men go to war as children, no matter the age. Though they may not realize it at the time."

She opened her mouth to speak but he raised a quietening hand. "Those are stories for another time." If there is another time. "I'm afraid Sir Integra is anxious to talk to you."

Abigail hadn't been the only sleepless one in the mansion. Integra hadn't yet the luxury of even removing her shoes, for God's sake. After the hopeless disaster that was last night, too much needed taking care of. Rest was something she could not afford. After the dust had settled, she'd struggled to find a diplomatic way to shoo the Knights onto their respective helicopters and out of her god damned mansion. But they had insisted on splitting hairs over who was to blame for the debacle, how it could have been prevented, and what damages should be paid to make up for the hassle. Petty politics. When they finally ran out of hot air to puff up their chests with, the deflated knights finally deigned to leave her in peace. Because, ultimately, it was decided that Integra would shoulder the entire responsibility. Because why ever fucking not?

Now near 48 hours without sleep, she was still wired. There was so much to do. Repairs needed to be scheduled, security had to be reconsidered, and the families of the deceased had to be notified. The men she had killed. Though she knew they had been mercy killings, guilt like an iron ball dropped in the pit of her stomach, weighing her down. Ice Queen, they called her. Merciless, cold. She was proud of her reputation because it had earned her the fear and respect needed to blaze a trail within her male-dominated sphere. The Roundtable no longer looked at her like a petulant school girl, playing at being a grown-up. In her line of work, sometimes she had to be cruel to be taken seriously. But Integra did not fancy herself a murderer. And last night felt too much like cold-blood for her comfort. They were ghouls, yes, too far gone to be saved. But it was only because of her failure to keep her own walls secure that they were condemned in the first place. So in one way or another, she had doomed them. The men who trusted her to make decisions that would keep them safe.

The pen she was writing with snapped in her hands. She hadn't realized how hard she was pressing down. Ink spilled in tiny black rivulets across the letter she was writing. She clenched her jaw. Those bastard savages. How dare they come into her house, make threats on her life? Whoever this Phoenix was, they would rue the day they were imbecilic enough to cross Integra Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing.

"Well, aren't we a little tense," came that familiar disembodied baritone rumble.

Integra closed eyes and silently fumed. "I am nowhere near being in the mood, Alucard."

His voice was a whisper against her ear. She could almost feel his smile. "But that's what makes it oh-so much fun."

She lashed out, but hit nothing but air. The room was totally empty. "Show yourself, servant," she snarled. "Or get out. I am entirely too busy to play games."

A moment later Alucard materialized in front of her desk. That toothy grin stretching for miles. "You really should get some sleep, Master. You get cranky when you're tired."

Integra eased herself back into her chair and set to work cleaning the inky mess on her desk. She heaved a sigh. "And when I ask you for advice, perhaps I will take up your suggestions. To what do I owe the pleasure, Alucard?"

"Just wanted to compliment you on a fine night's work."

"I will put a bullet in your head, vampire."

He crossed his arms, "I am not mocking you. Not many would have the honor, or the balls, to do what you did."

She stilled. "So you heard."

"I saw."

Regarding him coolly, she said, "how long were you there, hiding in the shadows?"

"Long enough."

"And you didn't think to intervene?"

Alucard shrugged dismissively. "You didn't give the order." She glowered at him. His grin grew impossibly wider. "And I would never miss the chance to watch you take a life. Or a dozen."

With an angry cry, she grabbed her gun from the desk and fired three shots straight through his chest. It was futile, just as she knew it would be. The holes stitched themselves back together within moments. His chuckle was a dark ripple she felt in her bones. Her shoulders shook with furious, ragged breath, and she cursed herself for letting him get to her. He loved taunting her in moments like these. He had a sick fascination with her killing-well, anything. As a girl even killing a spider would elicit the strangest questions from him. He always wanted to know why she did it. How it made her feel. Was it fear? Hatred? Disgust? She saw that same wicked spark of curiosity in his eyes now. In this case, she had a respectable answer to those questions. Duty. Duty was the "why" of it. But how she felt?

Ashamed.

"Invigorated," he purred, planting his hands on the desk and leering down at her. She stood at her full height and met his gaze unflinchingly. "You feel invigorated. You're on a high and you feel like you could run a marathon. That's why you haven't slept. You're not ashamed, Integra. You're afraid."

The look in her eyes would have sent any ordinary person to an early grave, but Alucard's infuriating smile never faltered. Before she could threaten to trap him back in the basement, a knock came at the door. She closed her eyes and exhaled sharply through her nose.

I had nearly forgotten. In all the commotion, she had barely spared Abigail Wilson a second thought since sending for her early this morning. One more monkey wrench thrown into the fray. She would have to reprioritize. After all, Abigail was still a link in this whole Phoenix fiasco and, not to mention, her long lost cousin. Integra had questions for the girl.

She gave Alucard a warning look which promised she would deal with him later. "Come in, Walter."

Abigail could not help but feel she was being marched to the gallows. She was about to face to the woman who had killed her father. Fear and anger roiled together in her stomach and she felt utterly helpless which only frustrated her further. She could not hope to outrun Walter. Even if she could, she doubted she would find her way out of the mansion before being dragged back. She had no choice but to do this.

Then three loud explosions, which sounded suspiciously like gunshots, echoed from the direction they were heading in. Abigail shot a dubious look at Walter.

"Ah-nothing to worry about, my dear," he waved a dismissive hand. But from the furrow in his brow even Abigail could tell even he was flummoxed. When they finally arrived at a giant oak door, he gave her his most assuring grin. "Er- perhaps I should go in first, yes? Stand back a couple paces, there's a good girl." Then he knocked at the door.

"Come in, Walter," a cold female voice sounded from within. Walter carefully opened the door.

"Sir, I brought you Miss Wilson as you requested," then he noticed Alucard's proximity to Integra and the three bullet holes riddling the walls. The room was buzzing with intensity. "Oh my, I do hope we are not interrupting something."

Abigail had never seen Alucard before, but she could tell right away there was something off about him. The uncanny valley of his face elicited revulsion and awe in the same manner of the vampires she had previously encountered. Unlike the sweet-faced girl she met the night before, this one seemed a much closer representation to the textbook vampire. His eyes found hers instantly and her heart stopped. In the red swirls of his irises she saw death. Quickly, she dropped her gaze to the floor.

Integra sat back down in her desk, creating distance between herself and Alucard. "Not at all," she replied flatly. She gestured for them to come closer. When Abigail came into the room, Integra chanced a glance at Alucard to gauge his reaction. His lips were twisted in a dangerous curve that she didn't like. Perhaps this was why he had bothered to come torment Integra. So he would just happen to be in the room for this particular meeting. She would have preferred him not to be here to complicate things further, but it couldn't be helped now.

She turned her attention to Abigail. The girl was pale with fright, though she tried hard to hide it behind a sad excuse for a poker face. Her deep set brown eyes were much too large for deception. Chestnut hair was still mussed from sleep and she wore the night clothes they had borrowed from Seras. They were almost comically too big for her. The twigs of her shoulders and clavicle jutted out from beneath the fabric and to Integra she looked insultingly fragile. No doubt her vampire longed to snap her in half. And as memory of her uncle flashed in her mind, for a moment Integra was tempted to let him.

A few moments of suspended silence as the two scrutinized each other. Surprisingly, Abigail spoke first. "Are you going to kill me like you killed my father?" From beside her, Walter visibly stiffened.

Cutting right to the chase, then.

Integra steepled her fingers and called upon God to grant her patience. "I have a feeling you have been grossly misinformed about that particular incident."

"So, you didn't kill him?

"Oh, I put a bullet straight through that sorry son of a bitch's lying, traitorous face." Integra smirked as Abigail's face twisted in rage. Calmly, Integra opened the top desk drawer and removed her silver box of cigars. She took her time choosing one and stuck it between her teeth. "Is that what you want to hear, girl?" Beside her, Alucard looked positively ecstatic.

"You're a monster," a hoarse whisper was all Abigail could muster through her anger. "Do you have any idea what his death did to my mother? What it to me? He was a good man!" She shouted.

A stifled cackle began in Alucard's throat. It was quiet at first and then steadily grew in volume, lips wrung in a half-crazed leer. Finally, he threw his head back in laughter that shook his entire body. Abigail's blood ran cold at that laugh. They all waited several long moments before he calmed down enough to say, "Your father was a piece of scum too vile for even the crows to pick at. Trust me, my master did the world a favor—yourself included—by removing him from this earth. You should be thanking her."

This creature terrified Abigail, but her anger outweighed her fear. "Don't insult me. I know what really happened." Her tongue was sandpaper in her mouth. She swallowed hard. "Arthur hated my father. On his death bed, Arthur instructed his daughter to kill my father." She leveled her gaze at Integra, who stared back impassively. "Because he couldn't stand the thought of his brother succeeding him. What kind of monster does that to his own brother? What kind of child does that to her own uncle?"

An awkward silence hung over the room for several moments before it was interrupted by the click of Integra's lighter. She held the flame to the cigar, inhaled deeply, and blew think curls of smoke into the air. "Like I said, grossly misinformed. I am afraid it was quite the other way around. My father left the organization to me. I can show you his original will if you would like. Your father was driven mad with jealousy and greed. No sooner was my father pronounced dead did your uncle conspire to have me killed."

"Liar."

Integra ignored her. "He hunted me down. Chased me in my own home and I ran for my life. Yes, I shot him, but only because he would have shot me first."

"No," Abigail breathed.

"Yes. So really, the question you should be asking yourself is what kind of man does something like that to an innocent child? His own niece, no less?"

"No," Abigail repeated, shaking her head. "I don't accept that. I can't believe that."

Integra took another drag from her cigar. "That is the beauty of truth. Whether you believe it or not is inconsequential." This conversation was wearing her thin, but they had other issues still to discuss. "But let's turn our attention from the tedium of family matters, shall we? I want to talk about what happened to you the other night."

Abigail shifted uncomfortably. "What do you want to know?"

"Everything." The smallest detail could make a huge difference. "Describe the attack, start from the beginning."

Taking a deep breath, Abigail told the tale. Her voice cracked when she described how the foul mouths of the ghouls had closed around Ryan's throat. How his terrified scream had filled the forest. The echoing laughter of the vampire inside her head as she ran to rescue her girls only to find them vanished from their tents. The scuffle in the convenience store. The hot pain of the blade tip tearing at her stomach.

"The vampire," Integra interrupted her, heedless of the sweat that had broken out on Abigail's brow. "Describe him. What was he like?"

Abigail considered it for a moment. "He was…like him." She nodded to Alucard, purposefully avoiding his eyes. "I mean they look nothing alike. He was shorter, stockier. Ruddy brown hair. Horrible amber eyes. But he had the same…aura." Like they had been spun from the same thread. Two sides of one coin. It was difficult to describe, the elusive feeling she had. She was new to the idea of vampires, but it had been obvious to her that the one she had seen last night—Jan Valentine- had been of a…lesser ilk. Not just because he was crude and lascivious. He looked and felt different, more like the girl—Seras. The biggest difference was in their skin. Jan and Seras, although their skin was hard and pale, couldn't hold a candle to the flawless, immovable alabaster of the vampire who had attacked her two nights ago. The one who stood before her now had flesh that was nearly identical. Not to mention the sheer power she felt radiating from him. She remembered feeling something similar from her attacker.

"A vampire's flesh is but one insight to their age," Alucard drawled. Abigail's eyes narrowed. "The gift of mind reading is another," he continued with a smirk. Abigail looked uncomfortable. "The vampire you saw sounds like he could very well be ancient." My master is more powerful than you are. That is what Luke Valentine had told him. Could it be true?

"But he didn't tell you his name?" Integra asked pointedly. Abigail shook her head. "Did he say anything else?" The girl bit her lip and looked away. "What else did he say?" She repeated more loudly.

The fire that came into her eyes told the story of a girl who had grown up fatherless. Abigail put all the chagrin and resentment she felt towards Integra into that look. "He said, 'tell that Hellsing bitch I'm coming for her.'"

"I see," Integra snuffed out her cigar with a twist of her wrist. The threat might have referred to last night's attack. But then again, it might have not. She would have to tread a little more cautiously. Regardless, if there was no more intel to be gathered from the incident, she had no further use for the girl. "Then that's that."

"You didn't answer my first question."

Integra quirked a brow. "Walter, would you be so kind as to escort Miss Wilson back to her home in Chelsea? I think she's suffered enough."

Abigail was shocked and, rather stupidly, asked, "just like that?"

Integra released an exasperated sigh. "Just like that," she acquiesced. "Despite what you may think, I do not delight in the murder of innocents. I am not a heathen."

Abigail couldn't think of anything to say as Walter gestured for her to follow him out the door. Just as she turned to leave, however, she heard Integra call after her. "But I think it goes without saying that as far as your mother and anyone else is concerned, these last few days never happened. You are not to breathe a word of this place and what we do here to another living soul. I take the secrecy of my organization very seriously." Abigail could imagine the smile on Integra's lips. "And you don't want to give Alucard here anymore reasons to skin you alive."

The baritone chuckle of the vampire followed her out of the room and it was all she could do not to run full speed down the hall.

Abigail sat in the back of the car while Walter drove. They had given her another set of Seras' clothes. A casual yellow dress this time. It was three sizes two big, giving it the overall effect of a strategically cut blanket. She was thankful the simple black flats fit snugly on her feet so that at least hadn't needed to waddle awkwardly out the front doors of Hellsing.

They rode in silence for most the trip, which suited Abigail just fine. When they pulled into town, she was content to look out the window and appreciate how normal everything was. People sitting in front of cafés having a latte with a friend, children clutching at their mothers' skirts as they were pulled from one store to another. One man eating a donut, walking his dog. All these people were blissfully unaware of the danger that threatened them in the shadows. And they would never have any idea. The thought disturbed her, but she was also insanely envious. How could she go back to her old life knowing what she did now? It wasn't fair she had to carry the burden of this secret. She wondered if her mother had known the truth about Hellsing all these years and never told her.

Finally, they pulled in front of her house. It looked so much more polite and unassuming than she remembered it being before leaving for the camping trip nearly a week ago. She stared at it for several moments, studying the details, unable to bring herself to move.

Eventually Walter spoke, "something wrong, Miss Wilson?"

She kept her eyes trained on her house. "You know I used to think Hellsing was a parliamentary law firm?" She gave a humorless laugh. "My mother told me Hellsing advised the crown behind the scenes. Very secret, very dangerous. She said my father had been this big-time lawyer next in line to take over the practice right after my uncle. A law firm! Can you believe that?" Finally, she looked at Walter—eyes big and imploring, lost.

"I am sure your mother wanted nothing but the best for you," Walter replied. They were the only words of encouragement he could offer. Maybe Richard had fed his wife those lies and the woman was never the wiser. Or perhaps she knew the truth and wanted desperately to save her daughter from the knowledge. For the sake of Hellsing's security, Walter hoped it was former. Either way, Abigail would never find out. Not unless she was wanted to break her promise of confidentially to Integra with unseemly consequences.

"So what- I just get of out the car and never look back? I just move on?" The questions sounded as if she were asking Walter how specifically she was supposed to do these things.

"I suppose that's about the size of it," his face was grim.

"I guess this is good bye, then. I wish I could say it's been a pleasure." She took a steadying breath, pushed open the door, and did not look back.

"Likewise," he murmured after her retreating form. Enjoy the rest of your life, Abigail Hellsing.

A/N: Kinda short, not a lot of action. I promise the next chapter will make up for it.