A/n: Apologies for the long delay. Under these circumstances I should not be posting these chapters, since there is a high possibility that the nature of this final arc could change somewhat. An ending has been decided on by my colleague and I, but unfortunately it has been slow in its development, with many rewrites and alterations. So for now here is a hint of what might follow in Katherine and Alucard's story, and we'll see how it goes from here. Depending on the reaction, we may continue along this thread or alter it to suit the desires of both our faithful readers and ourselves. Once more please note that this should be considered as something of an incomplete idea, at least for now. I do hope that it will eventually become a more permanent fixture of the story. To end off, a very big thank you to every single reader, whether you leave a review or not. It has been a pleasure writing this story and seeing the good reception with which it was met. You have my most sincere, heart-felt thanks.
Katherine's old bedroom in the Hellsing manor was one of the few rooms not damaged during the Millennium attack. She had moved back in after everything was over, considering that her own apartment had burned to the ground in one of the many fires that had ravaged the city of London. A sense of nostalgia – a strangely human emotion for him – swept over Alucard when he found the room furnished in the same, simple fashion as when she had first been living there. Yet the dark, Victorian furniture was all there was to remind him that her presence had once filled this room. There were no clothes hanging in the wardrobe, no shoes carelessly kicked beneath the bed, no sketches and other work related items scattered over the desk by the window, no lingering trace of citrus-scented shampoo or her favourite jasmine-scented perfume. There was nothing left to remind him of her presence.
"She's dead, Alucard! The sooner you accept that, the better."
His human master's words echoed in his head, though her harsh voice seemed to have spoken out loud to him. Had he been human, he might have shed a tear at the news, but all he felt was a raw, gaping wound in his chest, right around where his heart should have been beating.
Out of all the scenarios he had imagined in response to his homecoming, his master yelling out that the woman he loved was dead had not been at the top of his list. For the past three decades, he had been fighting against every identity he had ever consumed. Absorbing his prey once he had killed them off made him stronger, and after the centuries of his undead life, he had consumed over three million identities; but when his little quirk turned against him during the Millennium battle, he found himself drawn into a battle for his own life. The battle had been long, bloody and draining, and at times he had been convinced he would never find his true identity; yet in the midst of all that confusion, there was one thing he had that none of the others had.
Katherine.
Right before his disappearance, she admitted that she loved him. It was the first time in centuries that Alucard had heard those words directed at him, and it was the only thing that kept him alive during his ordeal. It should have been no surprise then that his first thoughts upon returning to the Hellsing manor were of Katherine, driving him to find her as soon as possible. Every fibre of his being had ached at the thought of seeing her again, of touching her warm, soft skin, though he had known full well she would not be the same as when he had left. In human years, she would have aged quite a bit, but age had little effect on what Alucard saw. She would still be his beloved Katherine – vibrant and passionate.
Or so he had thought. His human master had been less than pleased by the fact that after thirty long years, Katherine was the first person he asked for. His fledgling Ceres had of course been able to sense his arrival, but she did not look pleased to see him. In fact, she looked worried.
"I must see Katherine." It was only out of respect to the contract he had with his master that he had come to her first instead of making straight for Katherine's old room. Integra Hellsing regarded her servant with a scowl that highlighted the new lines on her face.
"She is not here," Integra replied crisply, turning away from the vampire. The news came as a surprise to Alucard, but it was certainly possible that she had chosen not to live in the manor.
"Where is she then?" he asked, fully aware of his master's growing displeasure, but still anxious to find Katherine. There was something in the air that made him feel uncertain for some reason, and he hoped to find his once lover in the hopes that she would appease his growing sense of anxiety.
"She's dead, Alucard!" Integra snapped, her patience having worn thin by herservant's complete disregard for her authority over him.
The sobering news had struck Alucard with the force of a sledgehammer, and it was only thanks to hundreds of years of being out of touch with his humanity that Alucard was able to absorb Integra's statement with a calm exterior.
Sitting on the bed in Katherine's old room now, he had the sudden urge to take his rage out on the dusty furniture. Ceres appeared while he was having a silent debate in his head on the pros and cons of wrecking the room, breaking through his dark thoughts.
"Sir Integra wishes to speak to you."
"First tell me what happened to her. Were you there when it happened?"
Ceres' impassive expression broke down at the memory; she had always struggled to embrace the devil-may-care nature of the vampire, clinging to her human emotions. Alucard had once thought it was pathetic and weak, but meeting Katherine had changed all that, and the guilt he now saw on Ceres' face almost made him howl in despair.
"Yes, I was. We were on a mission, fairly standard stuff. I went ahead while Katherine and a few others brought up the rear. We were dealing with a young vampire who had been causing havoc in a town up north. I was too busy fighting to notice something was wrong, but just as I was disposing of the vamp, a report came through that Katherine had disappeared."
Alucard felt his shoulders tense, and he urged Ceres to continue. "Did you look for her?" Ceres nodded sombrely.
"I was able to locate her scent, but. . ." She faded off, lowering her face so that her eyes were hidden in shadow.
"Ceres." He addressed her in a low voice, but his tone clearly indicated that he expected her to obey him by continuing.
"There was another scent, one I didn't recognize. It was vampire."
The news that Katherine's abductor had been vampire brought Alucard's worst fears to mind. As if she were following his thought pattern, which was not unlikely considering their master-subordinate bond, Ceres interrupted his reverie once more. "We haven't found trace of her since then, and Sir Integra had us search for over two weeks. It seems unlikely that she survived the encounter."
"How long ago was this?" Alucard managed to ask, despite the intense rage that rumbled inside of him like lava in a volcano, threatening to erupt at any second.
"About a year after you disappeared."
Twenty-nine years. She had been gone for twenty-nine years, and he had not known.
Without a word, Alucard rose smoothly from the bed and moved to answer the summons of his master. Ceres followed in his shadow, passing through the walls just as he did. She had improved since he had last seen her.
Integra was waiting for him with more patience now than he had thought she had. Age had altered her character too, though not as much as her appearance. The stress of the job had taken its toll on her general state. The worry lines around her eyes and on her forehead were more prominent, Alucard noticed, now that he was paying slightly more attention. He was glad for the distraction, unable to comprehend what exactly he was feeling. The great vampire Alucard had always been amused by the way humans allowed their emotions to rule over them, yet now here he stood, suffering from the very emotions he had once mocked. There was more he wanted to know concerning Katherine and the events leading up to her inevitable death, but he kept his questions to himself, unwilling to venture further into this territory that caused him unimaginable pain. Also, the look in his master's eyes clearly stated she would not linger on the subject any longer, at least not now.
"My master," he greeted, succeeding in being more respectful this time around. He even went so far as to kneel, lowering his head in a sign of submission.
"You remember your place now, Vampire?"
"Yes master."
"Good. I will not have you distracted by Katherine's unfortunate fate. She is gone, and you of all people should know how futile it is to mourn over the dead. Katherine's life ended, as with all humans. I expect you to be performing at your best from now on."
"Of course. I understand."
And he really did understand. That did not mean he agreed. When Integra dismissed the two vampires for the night, Ceres followed her master down to his dungeon quarters, hoping to speak to him. It was obvious that Alucard would not be able to brush aside Katherine's death the way he normally did, and Ceres wanted to understand why.
"Master, I have never seen you so torn up over the death of a human. Forgive me for saying so, but I don't understand how you of all people could feel so strongly about a human. You've always mocked humans for their weakness, and encouraged me to discard all my old ties to humanity."
Alucard sat down in his favourite chair and folded his hands in his lap, regarding his fledgling – his child – with an impassive expression. He noticed how even now, after thirty long years, she still squirmed under his gaze. She was still very much submissive to him, and would be until he released her. Alucard had presumed he would have had this conversation with her a lot earlier, but his troubles with identity had come along so unexpectedly that he had never had a chance to explain vampire lore to her. Still, it was probably better that they have this conversation now, after Ceres had spent just over thirty years as a vampire. She would understand things better now.
"Have you ever been in love, Ceres?" The mere fact that he had called her by her name gave her pale cheeks a tint of pleasure, but she quickly shook her head.
"But you understand what happens? When a human male and female 'fall in love', as they call it, they tend to form an exclusive bond that will last for as long as their fickle natures allow it."
Ceres nodded to show she understood. Alucard laced his fingers together and leaned back in his chair, tilting his head backwards. "It's the same for our kind, except when we mate, it is forever."
"I don't understand," Ceres said after a moment of hesitation. Alucard lowered his face until his eyes met with hers before continuing.
"I know I reprimanded you for clinging to your humanity for so long, but I do understand why you did it. When you've been around for as long as I have, you recognize that everything that once made you human slips away as the years go by. That is why we are so attracted to humans; they are alive, they feel, they are still in touch with their souls. Humans call it finding your soul mate, but for us the term is a little more literal. It doesn't happen often, but every couple of centuries or so, a vampire may come across his true soul carrier."
"Soul carrier?"
Alucard nodded solemnly. "Someone who has the ability to awaken that part of our decaying souls that can experience. . . certain attachments," he explained, cringing slightly near the end of his sentence. Ceres regarded him with a puzzled expression for a few seconds before it dawned on her.
"You mean love?"
"It doesn't matter what you call it," Alucard asserted with an impatient wave of his hand. "The point is, for creatures such as us, these humans become the holders of the last remnants of what we once were, a part of our souls as it were, and it will remain with them forever, regardless of their fate."
Ceres mused over this new information for a few moments; Alucard could see the cogs of her mind rotating with the insight.
"Must this person be human?" she finally asked. Alucard shrugged.
"Not necessarily. If they were very young vampires, it would be the same. The reason that humans are the most likely candidates is because, as I already said, they are still in touch with their own souls."
"And what makes a person eligible?"
Alucard grinned in amusement, leaning forward slightly as though he were about to convey a secret. "That, Police girl, is the big mystery. You cannot choose; it just happens."
"And Katherine was your soul carrier then?"
Alucard's grin faded as quickly as it had come, and with a barely audible sigh he clasped his hands in his lap. "One of them, yes." Ceres' eyes widened.
"You can have more than one?"
"Well yes, we live a long time remember. You must understand, Police girl, vampires are not like ordinary humans. We don't conform to the same rules of fate or destiny – or whatever you choose to believe in – as they do. It is believed that we each have one true soul carrier, but often that person has not even been born yet, and the chance is always there that you will not be around when that happens. In the meantime there are others, though the attachment is not as strong. I have had women before Katherine, but it never lasts long."
"What do you mean?" Ceres asked cautiously, sensing something unspoken and sinister in his words.
"They all met the same fate as Katherine – they died. Humans don't last very long when they are around vampires."
"You never thought about changing them, like you did with me?"
Alucard was silent for some time before he answered, his eyes staring off into the space over her shoulder.
"It doesn't matter now, does it?"
Ceres left after that, recognizing the look on her Master's face that suggested he would not speak on the matter anymore. Once Alucard was alone, he lapsed back into a brooding state of mind, in which he reflected not only on Katherine's fate, but also his past. Ceres' question had reminded him of the times he had believed he had found his true match, only to have her die due to her relation with the great vampire Alucard. He had, of course, changed a few women before, but things always fell apart once they turned. Ceres had been the first after many long years to be brought over by his hand, but with Katherine, there was no compulsion to turn her. The idea of ending her life, of taking away the very spark that had first drawn him to her, bothered him more than the idea of allowing her to live out her human life. It became clear to him early on in their dysfunctional relationship that he could not pass on the curse of his existence to her, even if it meant losing her forever.
As for the other thought that plagued him – the question of whether or not Katherine was his true soul carrier, he could not be sure. Certainly, he had felt differently about her than the previous girls, though to even admit to himself that he felt anything at all had been an uphill battle. One thing he did recognize was the manner in which the news of her death affected him. Somehow it cut deeper than it had before, but then, it had been centuries since he had last been with a human woman, and his memory of what it had felt like to lose her was foggy.
Perhaps he was over exaggerating his bond with Katherine, perhaps not.
Either way, he could never know.