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02.
palimpsest
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His lips twisted.
"None, indeed."
Integra settled comfortably against the bricks of the manor, bending her legs to the side. The grass stirred.
The pale lips smoothed. "Count," he repeated. His smile became more pronounced. "You rarely call me by that."
Her own smile had become fixed, a shallow curve and nothing more, on her face as she stared and stared at the man—the Count—the monster, her monster—in front of her, whose coat was a mere few feet away from the hem of her nightgown. It was rippling in the breeze, waves of crimson threatening to drench her. Ah, but she had already done that herself, had she not? Her palm was resting listlessly on her lap, trickling red.
His eyes, just as red and glowing, glanced at the cut and back at hers. "You seem to have hurt yourself, my Master."
That voice. That voice which she had heard only in her darkest dreams for thirty years. Those words. My Master. Only he could say it with an undercurrent of something else. This was real. This was happening. In broad daylight, before her very eyes.
"A flesh wound," she sighed.
"Allow me to tend to it." He took a step forward. "And after I have closed it, perhaps you'll further allow me to partake in the details of your dream. For as you have said, there is no nightmare from which one does not wake; yet here you are, my Master, fettered still by whatever phantasm it was that besieged you."
She could have laughed. He was one to talk about being fettered by dreams.
"Oh? How then, will you unfetter me?" Integra asked mockingly. "Will you be vanquishing my phantasmagoria with your sheer presence? A demon to chase away my other demons?"
He simpered. "I only seek to attend to you to the best of my ability."
Then where were you ten years ago, twenty years ago? Where were you, when I needed you the most?
Her heart contracted. Her smile disappeared altogether. Suddenly she found his presence not liberating but suffocating. He stood there, unchanged, same as always, knowing nothing of what had occurred, knowing nothing of what was to come. He was the personification of her new reality, and the weight of it dragged her soul down to impossible depths. Integra inhaled until her lungs rattled. She shifted her gaze to the trees behind him as a dismissal. "You should be sleeping."
"How could I, with the Angel of Death and the nosy housekeeper making all that racket? It's unlike you to keep them worried."
"Make yourself useful and go tell them I'm perfectly fine."
"That'll work," he scoffed. "He's already half-convinced that I had a hand in whatever has gotten you into this state. He'll behead me as soon as I appear."
"Get yourself beheaded, then," Integra said, unmoved.
He tilted the head in question. His look was piercing. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you're displeased with me."
"Astute of you." Her sight, clearer now with glasses, was centered on the green foliage swaying in the wind. It was strange, having depth perception again. His form loomed in the peripheral vision she had lived so long without, a mass of red and black and white. All her remaining senses were acutely aware of him taking another step forward. The rustle of his coat. The chill of his aura. And, if she concentrated hard enough, the copper of his scent.
"I can't imagine why. Haven't I been a very good pet this past week?" He took yet another step.
Integra closed her eyes. "Go away."
"You don't mean that."
He was always so aggravating. Always so difficult. Her vampire. Her servant. Her Count.
Her Alucard.
And because he was Alucard, he was crouching before her in an instant, and white turned to red and summer turned to winter. Heavy fabric draped over her knees. His chill battered against her warmth. His pallor was inches from hers, forcing her to open her eyes and glare at him. He seemed instead fascinated by the traces of her tears.
"I've not seen you cry since you were twelve," he murmured.
"Back. Off."
Alucard leaned back, but only slightly. He regarded her with suspicion. "You're different this morning. Subtly. I can't quite place it. You look…" One of his gloved hands hovered near her left cheek. "...as if someone has done you a great wrong. Surely, that can't have been me?"
"I wouldn't be so sure," Integra said. "You have the ability to aggravate me even when you're doing nothing."
He barked out a raucous laugh. "Is that so, my Master! But even if that is so..." A finger landed tentatively on a dried tear. It was cold and it burned. "You will allow me a chance to make up for it, won't you? Integra."
Integra.
His voice. The way he spoke her name.
No, this is farewell, Integra.
Farewell, farewell, farewell. Integra, Integra, Integra.
It was involuntary. It was illogical. Yet she had to act. She had to reach out. She had to feel for herself, to let her touch burn him as his did her. With her unblemished hand she cupped his cheek.
He stiffened. He had not been anticipating this. His finger dropped and his eyes widened. They roamed wildly over her face, searching for the catch, but her touch was tender.
She looked at him not as a young girl who had woken up from a deathly dream, but as an old woman who had been reunited with her long lost lover, though they had never been lovers in the strictest sense of the word. Yet there had been glances. Nuances. And very fleetingly, touches, those nothings that seemed to promise everything. They had all, despite his cold flesh, carried heat—heat she could not afford, for she was the Iron Maiden and iron melts when heated. So she had kept her distance, he had kept his distance, until it was too late, until the distance had stretched into an irreconcilable expanse of time and space.
I had been prepared to never see you again.
She had said goodbye to him, when she had ventured down the stairwell to the sealed door. You were too late, Count. You won't be able to see me. When you return it will be me that's a slab of concrete on the ground. Be good to Seras, she's a better person than any of us. Goodbye. Goodbye.
Yet here I am. And here you are.
"You're," Integra whispered, "here."
Alucard smiled quizzically, even helplessly. "You don't sound disappointed."
"You—" She sighed. "You're so infuriating. You're insufferable. You've made me—" She stopped.
"Made you what?" he urged.
She swept her small fingers against his skin once, twice.
"You're always the same. You never change."
"Of course," he replied, somewhat hoarsely. "I am that kind of monster."
At last Integra smiled, and it was a smile the vampire had never before witnessed on her face nor directed toward him. It was the smile of an old soul, who had battled through the fires of life, to find him on the other side. She looked as if she had wanted to see him there, and surely, surely, he was mistaken. What a curious expression to wear, my young Master!
In a moment, however, it was gone. She retracted her hand. He was bereft.
Integra stood, dusted down her dress, and brushed past him. "Let's go inside."
Alucard remained frozen in place. Her tender touch had branded him, her sweet scent was bedeviling him. It was Hellsing blood, and more than that, it was her blood.
At length he rose and turned to her.
"You have not told me, Integra, about your nightmare."
She was facing the sun. She was silent for a while. Then she answered, almost inaudibly.
"It doesn't matter now. It's in the past."
And it was spoken with weariness and resignation and a tinge of bitterness.
He had been drawn to all Hellsings, yet none had enthralled him so effortlessly as Integra, whom he had been attuned to ever since she had settled her warm little body next to his corpse. "You won't mind me here, will you?" she had asked. No, my lady, I will not. Give me your blood, and I shall be your knight forever.
But the girl standing in the light, resplendent in her stained gown—like petals on snow, delicious—was both familiar and foreign. There was something. Something he could not name. Something she was not telling. It was troubling and a bit tantalizing. Had she not barred him from traversing through her mind, he would have done so already, at the risk of incurring her wrath. What was it that she was hiding?
I do enjoy a challenge, Integra.
"What of your wound? Will you not let me tend to it? I'd hate to have it fester," he suggested silkily.
She sniffed and inclined her head toward him with a critical eye. "You mean, you're craving a treat."
"You know me well," Alucard said, with an unnecessary bow. His avaricious red orbs leered at her behind a curtain of midnight hair. "I crave the life you shed. I crave you, as a loyal hound who craves nothing but the beckoning hand of his dear Master."
Integra laughed.
When she did, he knew it was imperative that he discover what she was hiding.
For Integra, as resilient and used to his advances as she was, was only an inexperienced teenager, and part of the enjoyment of beguiling her was glimpsing the delightful diffusion of color across her lovely dark skin, and hearing her bluster. Yet here she was, laughing off his words.
The eyes behind the curtain of hair sharpened. What are you not telling, my coquette?
She quietened. "What blandishments," she remarked.
Integra had missed this. She had missed his shamelessness, his outrageous comments, his puerile attempts to rile her up...she had missed him. She had missed everything about him. She would no longer deny that now. She had waited for him, she had—
You love him, said the voice that sounded like Seras. You admitted it.
Hush.
She flexed her wounded hand and fresh blood pooled in her palm. She raised it up to his face and watched his nostrils flare, his fangs elongate, his tongue protrude. As he closed in, she moved her arm lower, and lower, and lower, until he had to get down on one knee for his mouth to be aligned with the offering. He grinned at her actions.
"May I be bold and inquire if this indicates that you have forgiven me for my nonexistent transgression, my Master?" Alucard rasped.
Nonexistent.
"Yes," she said simply.
It was nonexistent.
For—
"Then I shall be thorough," he said, and latched his lips onto her wound in a bastardization of a kiss.
—it was in the past. She had deemed it the past.
If this is my second chance...
She would not let it become the future.
So softly that even with his vampiric hearing he thought he had imagined it, Integra whispered, "Don't be. Alucard."
He sucked. He licked. He laved.
Her blood was as sweet as expected.
But how curious.
He thought he could taste bitterness.
He thought he could taste grief.
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She was young, she was healthy. Her eyes were intact, her heart was whole. She had her family back. She should be happy.
She was not happy. She was lost. She was a lie.
She had wanted to see her vampire again, but not this way.
She had wanted to see her butler again, but not this way.
She had wanted to greet them as an old woman, who had done everything the world had asked of her. They would have met in some picturesque manifestation of heaven, and she would have let her butler know she had forgiven him, and she would have closed her eyes, and she would have gone to sleep, perhaps in the arms of her Romanian prince. Wake me up when Seras and Pip come, and the five of us will have tea together.
A fairy tale.
The kingdom of heaven appeared to slip further and further from her reach the more and more blood drenched her gloves. The people she loved were either vampire or traitor (or both) and she would not be surprised if that was reason enough for her to be disqualified. Some evenings, she would indulge in a bottle of whiskey and declare, "Bollocks, I'll just make my own kingdom of heaven. Or should that be queendom of heaven? Fuck if I care," and wax heretic (she could almost feel the spirit of Alexander Anderson breathing down her neck) until Seras gently pried the glass out of her hand and ushered her to bed.
Oh. Alexander Anderson must be alive, too.
Bollocks.
The crown of her head brushed her companion's elbow.
When she was still growing, she had been annoyed by their height differences. He was simply too tall, which made conversation awkward, since she required to meet people's eyes when she talked to them. "Shrink or lower yourself, whichever you prefer," she had ordered. "It's ridiculous having to crane my neck and stand on tiptoe when talking to you."
"Very well," he had said, and he had knelt for her. And when he peeked at her through his messy locks with his crooked smile, her heart had beat a little quicker.
Integra wondered, as her healed palm tingled pleasantly, as they walked side by side to the front doors, to the inevitable confrontation, if she would ever get used to this feeling of displacement. Her vampire companion was not helping matters. His silence, his ignorance, the air between them, all seemed to be voids she had no choice but to fill once more, evidence that her lifework had become a palimpsest. If she filled these gaps anew, would she recognize herself in the end?
Thirty years she had lived without him, thrice the time she had known him. The morning he left her, she aged centuries in the span of a few hours. She had never felt older than when she returned to her ravaged house, trudged through the corridors that were splattered red—again—recovered the bodies of her men—again—their heads, their limbs—how many flowers would she need this time?—until Seras had begged her please, please, Master Integra, you have to stop, you need to rest.
Rest? I've lost all rights to a rest. I won't ever be able to rest again.
And just when she thought she finally could, this.
Her arm grazed the sleeve of his coat.
Isn't it funny, Count? How alike we have become.
We both yearn for an end.
Integra stared out to the grounds. Her mind was racing, churning out possibilities upon possibilities. What she knew could not repeat itself. She could not risk the same war and the same losses. As long as she was back in this world, she would do everything in her power to prevent it.
And where would that leave her?
She snorted. And here I thought, self-reflection is a sign of senility.
She missed the strange look Alucard sent her.
They were nearing the doors when something caught her attention. Something white.
Daisies. There were daisies in the grass. Integra stopped automatically.
Daisies are Seras' favorite...
To her horror, she felt her eyes sting. For heaven's sake, did this body of hers have no inhibitions whatsoever?
"Master?"
She blinked and quickly redirected her attention. She moved along. "The weather is nice," she said lamely.
"You would think so," Alucard muttered. He had conjured his tinted spectacles and was peering at her behind them. "Must you pick a sunny day to run out in a fright?"
"I did not 'run out in a fright,' as you put it, but I'll be sure to pick a thunderstorm next time," Integra groused. Despite her tone, she was grateful for his complaint. Yes, this was what she needed. Inane chatter, a semblance of normalcy, and how pitiful it was that what she considered normal was walking in daylight with a petulant vampire?
But for her it was normal. Painfully.
"There is beauty in a storm, don't you agree? The cacophony of light and sound, the fury of wind and water, nature's very own brand of monstrosity, my Master." He smiled with all his teeth. "A perfect breeding ground for the likes of me."
"Perfect for you, who revels in the justifiable chaos it brings," she agreed.
He preened.
They had arrived. Integra turned to the grand double doors.
"But not all storms are of nature."
Alucard hummed. "You say that as though you're expecting a storm behind this door."
Integra smiled at him. The sun had irritated him badly, for he had conjured his fedora as well. She had almost forgotten how silly he looked in it. Its shadow was obscuring his eyes, and so lifting her heels, she nudged the brim upward and gazed into them solemnly through the glasses. It occurred to her how dissimilar they were from Seras' eyes. In hers she had seen his vicariously, but now she realized that, whereas the Draculina's had always managed to retain a softness, his simmered raw, cauldrons of destruction and discord and violent, virulent hunger.
She had seen those eyes weep.
"Why, my Servant," she said, and the word was nostalgic in her mouth. "I thought you knew. My entire life is a storm."
"Why, my Master," he said, and he said it with such ease. "A grand statement to come from a human whose length of time on this plane is a decade and a paltry handful of years."
Her lips twitched. If only you knew.
"And you're a shining example of how age is a reliable measurement of maturity."
"My Master with her acerbic tongue," Alucard chuckled. "I wonder, in a few years, will it not be cultured with something else?"
Integra tutted and jerked his hat down. "Irredeemable wretch."
His insidious laughter peppered the air. She listened.
I've missed you.
Her smile turned wan.
I've missed you, and I resent you for it.
Integra reached for the door handle. Her fingers curled on the metal, and she took a fortifying breath.
She was startled when he snatched her hand. She immediately swiveled around to rebuke him, to stifle at the expression on his face.
"Integra," he said. "You may very well call me a child, but I hope you don't take me as a fool." Alucard had removed his glasses, and was fixing her with crimson irises that burned brightly with the intent to pry her darkest secrets out of her soul. "What are you hiding, Miss Hellsing? Why are you acting differently today?"
"Am I? I wasn't aware I had a standard," Integra drawled. "Unhand me."
His grip loosened in inverse proportion to his gaze. "I may not be able to read your mind under your orders, yet the connection between Master and Servant is insuperable. I know when things are not what they seem."
Could have fooled me.
Integra wrenched her hand free and grabbed his face. Her nails dug into his cheeks. "That precious connection of yours certainly didn't help when—"
Farewell.
Her visage contorted. For an instant it became the image of grief, to be replaced with an impassive mask. So he had not imagined the taste. Silly girl, did she truly think that would work on him? He was the master of disguise.
"When?"
"Nothing," she said.
"Nothing!" he spat. "Integra." He pressed forward regardless of the nails that were making angry crescents on his flesh. "You forgave me my transgression, which I'm starting to believe must be existent after all," Alucard growled, "but you are still bitter about it."
She did not know whether to slap him or kiss him.
That was when the door opened.
"Integra!" Miriam shrieked, so overcome with relief that she hugged her without noticing the compromising position she had found the girl and the vampire in. "My goodness, child! Where have you been? We've been worried sick!"
Integra patted the woman's back to make her let her go. She would have apologized, had she not heard another voice.
"Integra!"
There were rapid footsteps coming down the stairs. Before she turned to them, Integra remembered a day in her previous life—the tenth anniversary of the war. She tended to spend the anniversaries quietly, avoiding the public functions all the other knights would be attending, opting instead to wander about the manor in her mourning garb. She would visit the memorial at the back of headquarters that listed the names of the Wild Geese. Seras would already be there, of course. She would be tracing their captain's name even as the man himself murmured soothingly in her ear.
The tenth anniversary was no different, except that Seras had been more inquisitive than usual. "Master Integra, have you visited Walter?"
She had sunk to the ground next to her. "No."
"This year, too?" Seras had looked at her with sad red eyes. "Haven't you forgiven him yet?"
"I have forgiven him a long time ago," Integra had replied.
"Then why? I don't understand."
She had blown her cigar smoke out of her mouth and watched it curl into the sky as opaque and transient as the people in her life.
"It's easier to forgive a ghost."
Sounds were garbled around her. She was conscious simultaneously of Alucard staring at her with fading crescents on his cheeks, of Miriam fussing over her and shoving her lightly, to the direction of the traitor whom she had loved as a parent.
She preferred that ghosts remain ghosts and memories remain memories. It was easier that way. It was easier to forgive a kind face in the past that could not speak, than to confront it in the present and being able to listen to all that it uttered and wondering, wondering, how much of it was truth and how much of it was lies? Walter, Walter, will you tell me this time?
We're all liars here, a voice that sounded like her old self said.
She was young and healthy and whole and she felt older than she had in the morning after the war, older than yesterday, older still than the wrinkled face before her that was filled with such concern and affection.
"Hello, Walter," Integra said, and she honestly could not help the tears that followed.
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NOTES
This chapter was published on July 27, 2016.
It has been updated for grammar, formatting, and word choice on January 28, 2021.
The original end note for this chapter can be found in the link in my profile.