Chapter 11: Rhythms

I changed into a new pair of jeans and a clean shirt, one that didn't smell like I'd worn it for three days.

I paced the short hallway between my dad's room and my own, one hand on my hip while I chewed on the fingertips of the other. I couldn't hear my breathing over my heavy footfalls and thundering heart. I moved through muscle memory, my eyes not seeing where the hallway began and ended.

He was coming over to talk, that was it. I was in my own home, surrounded by the things that should be giving me strength, but I felt dizzy. My legs felt foreign, like I the body I inhabited was not my own. Scenario after scenario sped through my mind, too fast for me to remember what the previous one was before another took its place. Every possible wrong thing I could say, every way he could just waltz into my home and rip apart what few things in my life were still intact. I thought about it all, and it made me sick. In the end, I didn't know how anything would play out. I never did. No amount of foresight could confirm if anything I was doing what right. I would never know until something, something good or bad or downright painful happened.

I dropped my fingers from my lips, my mouth forming a slight, downturned line, my pace slowing.

The doorbell chimed, followed by quick, pounding raps at the door.

I jumped, taking a sharp breath in through my nose. Not looking up from the floor, I padded over to the door and unlocked it.

Donning a long, black woolen coat, Alucard looked like the grim reaper. The gold lenses of his round glasses bounced the sunlight into my eyes, making me squint up at him. I'd forgotten how tall he was. It'd only been a day since he kicked me out, but it was like seeing him for the first time all over again.

I didn't look at him for more than a few seconds. I didn't say a word as I backed away from the door, inviting him inside. My heart was beating so fast it made my fingertips tingle.

He followed through the doorway, his coat swishing around his calves. I left the foyer, heading to the kitchen. I heard the dull click of him locking the door behind him, and the scraping of wood on tile as he pulled a chair out at the table.

I placed my palms against the edge of the countertop, leaning all my weight onto my hands. I looked into the stainless steel sink, staring at the muddled colours of my reflection in the warped metal. I took a deep breath in and out, gathering myself before turning around to face him.

His glasses were on the table, his fingers drumming on the tabletop. I leaned against the counter, my arms still at my sides. It took me some time, but I eventually forced myself to approach the table and take the seat opposite to his.

The clock on the wall spoke for us, filling the space created by our lack of words with its soft ticking. It reminded me of how slowly the moment was passing, of how long it was lasting. With the clock rhythmically ticking on in the background, I realized that the only way to end this moment would be to make it begin.

"So…" I started, focusing on the wood grain of the table. "What—"

Alucard didn't waste any more time. "It's about your dad."

Inside, something sharp shot through my body. I felt it tingle down my spine, causing me to scrunch up my toes. I didn't move a muscle otherwise. My face remained still, though my eyes glossed over as my heartbeat grew louder than the ticking of the clock.

I didn't know what to expect by him coming over, but I knew I wasn't expecting any news relating to my dad. What business could Alucard have with him?

Hellsing.

I reminded myself of what I'd found out not too long ago. Alucard must have discovered the same connection on his own. I wondered, though, why he was looking into my father in the first place. Was it because of my father's connection to Anderson? Alucard might've believed that the reason Anderson showed up at his place was to go after me, to finish me off as the last of my father's living relatives. It would make sense. It would explain why he kicked me out. But, Anderson hadn't just gone after me and my father. He'd gotten my entire squad, which made me a loose end for two different groups.

With all of those thoughts consuming my energy, I didn't say anything in response to his statement, at least not out loud. I did respond; I just didn't want him to hear it just yet.

"He worked for Hellsing," Alucard tried after another moment or so of silence.

"I know," I voiced, the sound of my words soft, like if I was too loud, he'd hear more than what I'd chosen to say.

Alucard shifted in his seat, the chair creaking with his movement. "You—what?"

I got out of my chair, my eyes never making it to his face. I felt myself walk to my room, grab one of my father's files, and return to the kitchen. I dropped it onto the table as I dropped back into my chair.

When he didn't immediately reach for the file, I briefly glanced up at him.

He was looking at me. His face was calm, relaxed even, with none of his stress-induced lines visible. He extended a hand over the file, raising his brows in question.

I nodded, and he picked it up, leafing through its contents.

A few minutes passed of him reading and re-reading some of the file's documents. "Where did you get this?" He inquired, still focused on one of the file's pages.

"Under his bed," I replied, focusing my gaze onto his hands, loosely holding onto the file.

He made a quiet grunt in response, turning the page. "Were there more?"

"A bunch."

He didn't grunt this time.

Another few minutes of reading elapsed, the room now filled with the sound of paper shuffling along with the clock's unending song.

"So how much do you know?" he asked, placing the file back into the table. As his hands fell away from view, I found myself looking into his eyes.

There was a lot I knew, and so I told him. The words spilled out like water over the brim of an over-filled glass. I told him about the contents of the other files, about what my dad had discovered on the Iscariot and on Anderson.

When I finished, Alucard looked away. His fingers once again drummed against the table, though his pace was more fastidious, more erratic.

"There's more," he revealed, turning his head away from me.

I stared at him, my eyes going wide. My lips, previously fused together in an attempt to keep myself together, unstuck from each other. I learned forward, my fingers gripping the edge of the table. "What?"

His eyes darted between mine and a point off to his right. "I looked up your name in Hellsing's database and I found his employee record." He paused, pulling his lower lips between his teeth. "There's more than what you know in there."

"So tell me," I breathed.

He shook his head, still gnawing on his lip. "I can't." His head dipped down, his hair obscuring his eyes. "It's not my place."

I felt my body falling back into the chair. I blinked, processing his words.

I suspected there was more my father had been keeping from me, but now that I was so close to learning what it was, I felt like I didn't want to know anymore. I wanted my ignorance, my perfect image of the man who raised me.

"Then whose place is it?" I asked, my voice softer that I would've liked it to be, "My fathers?" My tone was as biting as the sensation I felt at the back of my throat.

I didn't mean to snap at him, at least not then. I didn't want to make him angry. While I did want to preserve the memory I had of the man my father was, I was also just so tired of all the secrets and lies. I wanted the truth, answers, and now Alucard was here with what I wanted. He was dangling it all in front of me, yet refusing to let me touch it.

Alucard's fingers slowed, his drumming eventually coming to a stop. Neither of us said anything for a few moments.

"What about your mother?" I heard him ask.

I cocked my head in confusion. I hadn't been expecting him to ask about my mother. "What about her?"

"How did she die?"

Something else inside me cracked, my face falling as I made sense of his question. "What?"

"How did she die?" He repeated.

I bit my lip as my body rolled forward in my chair, the palm of my hand catching my forehead as I leaned on the tabletop. How could he ask something like that, especially right now of all times? What did my mom have to do with anything? Why remind me of the two people who, out of everyone I'd lost, I wanted back the most?

"I-I don't know, my dad never told me," I stuttered, my voice muffled by the tightness in my throat and the fingers holding my face up.

"You're sure? You don't know anything?"

I shook my head, closing my eyes as wave after wave of confusion and loss fell over me. "No, no…" Why was he doing this to me? Was it payback? For what? What did I do?

I heard him shift in the chair. "He never said anything at all?"

I wheezed as a frustrated cry escaped lips. Why wouldn't he just let it go? "No! I mean he said something about an accident once—"

"An accident," Alucard repeated.

My face was hot and sticky beneath my clammy palm. My tears mixed with my sweat. I wanted to melt away into the moisture, to dissolve into something that wouldn't feel anything at all. I was tired of feeling.

"Seras—"

"What?" I snapped. "I don't know how she died! He never really talked about her, okay?"

He exhaled slowly, rubbing his jaw as he looked somewhere off to his left.

The clock's song continued, unchanging through this new silence.

"Listen," Alucard started, after a few moments of nothingness. "I want to tell you everything I know, but this shit isn't something that I can just spit out, and judging by how you're acting, you can't handle it right now anyway."

"I can't handle it?" I countered as I coughed up a tired laugh, "In the past few days I've handled so much, I think I can take whatever it is you don't want to tell me."

"Kid—"

"Stop calling me that, I'm not a child," I interjected, dropping my hand from my face. I faced him as I leaned back into my chair.

I saw him set his jaw. "Then stop acting like one."

With that he got up, picking up his glasses as he rose.

"So that's it?" I demanded, "You're just going to walk in here, give me absolutely nothing useful, and then leave? That's it?"

He turned around, placing his hands on the back of the chair. "I'm done trying to convince you that I'm not the bad guy here. I've been trying to do my job and keep you safe, but you don't seem to want that."

"Keep me safe," I repeated, "Like how safe I was when Anderson broke into your house?"

His head dipped down, his hair briefly obscuring his face before he ran one of his hands through it, pulling I back. He didn't say anything. I spoke instead.

"I don't want you to protect me," I told him. "All my father ever did was protect people, and look where that led him. Let me take care of myself."

"And you think I wanted to protect you? That I want to babysit a bratty excuse for a police officer?" Alucard countered. "I didn't ask for this, but this is my problem now, and I don't have a choice in what happens from here anymore."

I brought my eyes to his, blinking in slight shock.

"I'm going to do what I was planning to do, before Anderson, before you were this much of a mess to deal with," he continued, though he took a step back, towards the front door, while gesturing vaguely in my direction. "Not that you were much better before," he muttered before raising his voice. "I'm going to train you to fit in at Hellsing so you can find what you want, on your own."

I focused on the file in front of me, trying to slow my thoughts, trying to ignore the trickle of rage seeping into my gut. My words were spilling out faster than my brain was able to process them. "What if Anderson comes back?"

"Anderson's not your problem," he told me, "He's another one of mine, so don't even think about him."

"Okay," I heard myself whisper, after some time. "Okay."

Alucard exhaled sharply. "I'll be back tomorrow. Bring your stuff. "

And then he was gone, and I was alone again, though I knew it wasn't going to last.

My body and mind felt completely isolated from one another. The choices I'd made just now, the words my lips had chosen to speak didn't feel like my own, but I didn't regret them. I felt hollow, like I was shrinking within myself, retreating farther and farther away from this reality, from any fears or doubts that I was looking for.

He was upset, and I didn't blame him. Like I didn't ask for him to be there the night my father died, he didn't ask for us to be there. None of this was supposed to happen, and as a result, we both suffered.

I crossed my arms, suddenly becoming very aware of the chair I was sitting on. He didn't have to be such an asshole with the way he said things, though, angry or not.

I exhaled, dropping my arms and shaking them by my sides, like it would dislodge all of the uncertainty from my body.

I wasn't entirely certain of what I'd agreed to, but whatever is going to happen will happen, and I guess I'll just have to deal with the fallout as it comes.

Alucard

Driving home, he didn't pay much attention to anything. Drivers honked their horns at him, he took a wrong turn, and he had the radio on to some trashy pop station that he didn't know existed. He didn't notice any of it. He was elsewhere, his mind never lingering on one thought for more than a few seconds.

He made it to his home eventually, dropping himself back into the couch Integra had dragged him off of not too long ago.

The police girl's words had been cycling through his head since he left her place. She'd been as whiney as ever, as immature as he'd expected. He'd been prepared for every possible kind of bullshit she could spring on him.

Keep me safe? Like how safe I was when Anderson broke into your house?

His dragged the fingers of both of his hands through his hair. That particular statement had caught him off-guard.

He figured she'd be pissed about him showing up so soon after kicking her out. He would've been just as pissed if someone pulled that shit on him. He knew the questioning about her mom was something he probably could've stayed away from, but he was hoping that if she did know something, anything that was similar to what he'd seen in her father's file, he could have told her everything she wanted right then and there. He didn't want to spring a whole load of new information on her, not when she didn't trust him at all.

And why would she? Why would she trust a deadbeat who could only fail to do what he said he would, over and over again?

She was right. How could he keep her safe this time when he clearly couldn't before? Nothing had changed, except that she had even less faith in him and what he was trying to accomplish than before.

He admitted he was harsh on her, but he was sick and tired of babysitting instead of preparing a potential employee. None of this was part of his job description, but he was doing it anyway. Why? Because it was the only way he could think of to clean up the remains of the mess he made in their lives.

He exhaled as he lounged back into the couch.

He, more than anything, just wanted it all to stop. He wanted peace.

Not just for the police girl, but for him as well. Anderson was a loose end in both her life and his. The sooner Anderson was put away, the sooner he would be out of the police girl's life, and he had a feeling that at least for her, it couldn't come soon enough.

Author's Note: RIP I didn't update in April... Exams are rough, y'all. Anyway I'll try and update sooner to compensate. Thank you for your patience and thank you for reading. See you next time!

-Shan