In Hell, the concept of time was nonexistent. To its inhabitants, a minute there could feel like either a second or an hour. For Vlad and Lisa, they had long lost track of their time in this sulphurous Tartarus. The couple was content nevertheless with being in each other's arms to face the unforgiving afterlife.

The time alone together, however, was soon interrupted by a relatively unusual sight. Or at least it felt like it was happening soon after their reunion. A roaring sound was first heard, snapping their eyes wide open and turning their heads to the source of the noise. An opening materialised before them, and from it emerged distorted voices and the chaotic image of a struggle.

Simultaneously, the couple stood up to further inspect the unfolding display. Vlad frowned as one of the voices sounded as though it was trying to beckon him to go through. Seeking to end this interference with his and Lisa's time, Vlad slowly reached out a hand when the opening abruptly closed. He quickly withdrew his hand, staring at the empty space in front of him and Lisa.

Odd happenings were not uncommon in the netherworld, but there was something about this one that particularly unsettled them both—as if it was not of this realm. After a moment of processing what occurred, they returned to back to their embrace as thunder rumbled in the distance.

Just as it seemed things were mostly back to normal, an opening appeared once again. This time though they were being pulled into it by a great force, still clutching each other tightly. Through the passage, Lisa became aware something was happening to them which Vlad confirmed, having detected the presence of human magic guiding them. Lisa yelled out as their souls emerged from another opening, intertwining and dancing around in the air.

Unbeknownst to them, they had been brought back to Earth as part of a nefarious scheme by an old associate of Vlad's who wanted to continue the mission of eradicating humanity. This associate was neither vampire nor human, but an elemental spirit known as Death who had masqueraded as an ancient English vampire named Varney within the vampire court.

Conducting the floating souls was a reluctant human alchemist, sending them into a faceless corpse that was a mix of male and female parts. Witnessing all of this in horror was their son Alucard and his companions, blocked from disrupting the ritual as they fervently tried breaking the barrier down.

With a shockwave, Vlad and Lisa were bound to the corpse, fulfilling the greatest achievement in alchemy that could ever be created: the rebis, a harmonious unity of opposing forces and the dualities of man and woman. And in this case especially, of vampire and human.

The rebis shook violently as Vlad and Lisa resisted their bonds, screaming as the sensation of living came back to them. Stumbling, the rebis got up and gripped its head while red lightning bounced in the room. The faces of Vlad and Lisa would break through the rebis' face at times, adding to the anguish of Alucard as he helplessly watched.

Vlad cried out to Lisa, unable to get themselves unbonded from the wretched creature. Lisa asked aloud if they were alive, as her vision gradually came back and began to recognise the room they were in.

Certainly, they were indeed in a place familiar to them, for it was Alucard's childhood room and the exact site Vlad was finished off in by Alucard himself.

Vlad and Lisa continued screaming as the rebis thrashed about, sending more shockwaves throughout the castle.

With a good crack of the whip by the Belmont, the barrier shattered into minute pieces. The alchemist embraced this opportunity to defy Death, bringing the portal close to the rebis. He ordered the Belmont to destroy it quickly. As fast as he could, the Belmont ran down the hallway to the rebis, encountering more shockwaves as he did. Tossing holy water and a cross blade, he split the rebis in half, freeing Vlad and Lisa's souls as they and the remnants of the rebis were sent back into the portal.

Lisa woke up suddenly, not long after, gasping as though she had a nightmare. She could feel her lungs expanding and the grass beneath her. Birds chirped nearby as Lisa shielded her eyes from the bright sun. Sitting upwards, she looked at the field around her. She realised she was no longer in Hell and in fact rather alive as her senses became overloaded.

And very much naked. But that was the least of her concerns.

Lisa staggered to her feet, desperately looking for Vlad. She spotted him a short distance away, running over as she called his name. Vlad was still lying down, eyes unopened. Lisa knelt at his side, shaking his body and asking him to wake up.

"Why did today of all days have to be sunny?" Vlad finally spoke, groaning as he sat up and faced Lisa with a smile. Lisa found herself laughing with relief until she was sobbing as Vlad wrapped his arms around her.

The nightmare was over.

Lisa had finished drying her eyes when a random traveller passed by and stopped, gawking at the sight of Vlad and Lisa as though they were Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Nobody moved or spoke for a few moments, further amplifying the awkwardness of the situation.

"Could you help us by any chance?" Lisa asked sheepishly, covering her chest and crossing her legs. Vlad followed her example.

The traveller tilted his head in confusion, not understanding the language Lisa was speaking.

Lisa's thoughts scrambled as she tried to figure out another way to ask for help. "Saxon?" she squeaked.

That elicited a response from the traveller, who nodded. Lisa repeated the question in her native tongue of Transylvanian Saxon and told him how they were robbed by highwaymen. Regrettably, the traveller had no clothes or coin to provide except what was on his person, but he directed them to the nearest village.

Wishing the two luck, the traveller went on his way down the path. The nearest village was still a good twenty miles from where Vlad and Lisa were and with no coinage meant drastic measures had to be taken.

They walked along the path using the nearby brush as cover for their nudity. As Vlad and Lisa went on, they came upon a camp that was bathing in a river. Lisa grappled with whether to steal some clothes for her and Vlad or carry on with the chance someone might come by and be able to provide them with clothing. Deciding the latter was unlikely to happen, she and Vlad bolted to the laid-out clothes and snatched what fitted them best before retreating into the brush to put them on.

The two emerged a little dishevelled but fully clothed. Vlad's new attire, however, seemed to make him look a bit too much like a wealthy merchant. Lisa remedied this by tossing a cloak over him while she donned one herself. They made it halfway to the village when the sun started setting, forcing them to find refuge in the wilderness to avoid an actual ambush by highwaymen.

Thankfully, the night was not too cool as it was late spring and when daybreak approached, Vlad and Lisa resumed their travel to the village. They arrived in the course of the midafternoon, as hunger began taking its toll on Lisa. It was a feeling she had practically forgotten after having resided in the netherworld for some time.

From the corner of her eyes, Lisa spotted the villager headman getting testy with a fellow villager. Discovering a window of opportunity to alleviate the pangs in her stomach, Lisa moved closer and closer to the headman until she bumped into him, sputtering an apology before moving on. When they were far enough, Lisa revealed a pouch of florentinus coins she picked off the headman, astounding Vlad as she smirked at her catch. There was enough coinage within for food and lodgings tonight.

They dined at the nearby tavern when a thunderstorm started outside with no signs of stopping. Pulling up the hoods of their cloaks, Vlad and Lisa slipped away in the darkness to find an inn. Sprinting through the stone-cobbled streets, they gave pause under the arch of a building as Lisa saw an inn, pointing to it. They took off once more, and when they reached the entryway, Vlad opened the door for Lisa as they stepped in. While removing their hoods and holding hands, Lisa gave their names to the innkeeper.

After hanging their soaking cloaks in the room, Lisa lit a fire and some lamps in an effort to warm up as Vlad rubbed his face dry with a towel. She sat down on the bed and took off her boots, patting the spot next to her to get Vlad to sit. He did so, taking the hand Lisa offered.

"So," she began.

"So," Vlad responded.

Lisa talked humorously about how Vlad needed to get used to being called Vlad again instead of Dracula as he had gone on for so long. Vlad agreed but knew Lisa was tiptoeing around the issue of what she genuinely wanted to talk about.

Lisa gazed sadly at their intertwined hands. When she had died, Vlad was unable to be there due to the travels she sent him on. And when he died, he came to find her in Hell despite having fallen deep into a dark path of vengeance for her. It pained Vlad to hear this, thinking there was nothing else he could do after dying. He tightly gripped Lisa's hand with both of his.

Going back to a lighter tone, Lisa had assumed Vlad had other options, like shouting at Satan until he would admit the seat was being kept warm for Vlad. When she first encountered Satan after arriving in Hell, he warned her Vlad would need to know his place if he was to ever join and try to challenge him.

Instead, Vlad had his first moment of clarity since Lisa's death the second he died, only thinking he needed to find her and explain his actions. Lisa noted he seemed remarkably calm about everything while he pointed out that she seemed slightly angry.

Their new circumstances made no sense to Lisa, frustrating her, and she asked Vlad if he had any theories as to why they were alive again. Wondering why Lisa thought of this, she threw a hand up, saying he was a man and men always have theories about everything. Vlad knew no more than she did about their resurrection, only that they woke up in a field naked yesterday.

He leaned away from her to remove his boots while Lisa expressed her guilt for having to steal the clothes. Vlad reminded her about the smile she had after pickpocketing the headman of the village this afternoon. Lisa dismissed it by saying he was a pig while also desiring to have them rectify with the camp they stole the clothes from tomorrow. Vlad reassured her they would as they tucked their legs onto the bed and held hands again.

But what were they to do afterwards?

Lisa acknowledged they could not return to the castle. Their son needed to come to terms with their passings and forge his way into the world without them. Perhaps one day they would, but not yet. Vlad's mind flickered to his final moments of seeing Alucard freeze in horror after having staked him to save humanity.

Vlad then had a thought. Not a theory, just a thought. He laid down on the bed as he suggested they travel to a beautiful coastal fishing village in England by the name of Whitby. It was said the sun barely shone there with an abbey and about twenty homes. There were views of the sea and fish too.

Lisa tried to conceal her amusement at the idea. How could she not resist, having done fishing for trade to make her journey to meet Vlad so he could teach her science all those years ago? She lay down beside Vlad as he leaned on her shoulder.

Vlad was not going to get better at gaining a tolerance for humans and sharing his knowledge without Lisa. And she was never going to be better at understanding different viewpoints and beliefs without him.

She turned to Vlad. "We have a second chance."

"And a brand-new future," he said, smiling.

They drifted off to sleep clasping hands together with their bodies forming an outline of a heart. The lamps slowly went out, casting darkness in the room except for the soft glow of the fire in the corner while the rain pattered on the large window above them.

The next day, Vlad and Lisa sought out the camp they stole clothes from two days ago as promised. It took them some time to find it given it was travelling as well, but they eventually did. The camp had moved to a location five miles south of the village and understood the plight they were facing after Lisa retold the tale of the highwaymen's thievery. To the surprise of the couple, the camp wanted no compensation of any sort except to stay the night in their encampment as the sun was due to set in a few hours.

After they had parted ways with the camp the day after, Vlad and Lisa made their way west for many weeks, taking up various errands in exchange for lodgings and food as they headed for the Pale of Calais. While on their way to the English territory, Vlad began teaching Lisa the language of English to help her assimilate better once they arrived in Whitby. He was a polyglot as much as a polymath and once they had gone beyond where neither Saxon nor Wallachian were commonly spoken, Vlad took up Lisa's role of speaking on their behalf.

"After me, say: 'How are you doing today?'" he instructed her as they walked under the canopy of some trees from the hot summer sun, speaking English excellently with no trace of an accent whatsoever.

"How are you doing today?" Lisa repeated, frowning as her Saxon accent made its usual slight presence in her speech. She had always been aware she carried an accent whenever she spoke Wallachian, but Lisa had hoped it would not be the case given that English resembled more like Transylvanian Saxon than Wallachian.

Vlad chuckled. "Very good. Don't be too hard on yourself. To speak that well in such a short time is no easy feat, and I'm sure the villagers there will respect you greatly for that," he reassured Lisa in Saxon before smirking. "Plus, I think it's rather charming."

Feeling rather touched by Vlad's sudden words of encouragement in her native tongue, she leaned into him, breathily laughing as she sighed contently. "That's because you like it. It's why it was one of the first things you brought up when you were trying to get to know me all those years ago, isn't it?" Lisa teased back in Wallachian.

"You didn't know what to talk about, so I merely gave you a starting point and it worked," he countered.

"You're ridiculous."

Lisa stood on her toes to peck Vlad on the cheek, yelping as he swept her off her feet and spun the both of them before gently placing Lisa back down. "Let's not go any further with this. I'd rather we have our own place first than do this right now in the bushes," she panted.

"If you say so," Vlad grinned, kissing the crown of her head.

When they eventually set foot in the port of Calais after being on the road for so long, a panicked thought crossed Lisa's mind.

"Can you... cross?"

Vlad stared ahead at the channel, watching the waves lap the shore. The question beckoned a grim memory from the time when Lisa was dead, and he was wreaking his vengeance mindlessly on humanity for it. Hector, Isaac, Godbrand, and Carmilla debated about something like that while they were plotting on whether to attack a city on the Danube River. With the possible exception of the human forgemasters, Vlad was nearly certain the vampire generals he summoned were dead including Godbrand and Carmilla as a consequence of the war.

He stepped onto the dock in front of them, only stopping when he approached the end and turned to Lisa in fake surprise. "I think I might live to see yet another day."

Lisa scoffed at his dramatics, with a shake of her head. "You... I ought to try pushing you off and see if that's really true!"

The smile on Vlad's face only widened as she came up to him on the dock. They looked at one another for a moment before Lisa herself broke into a smile, causing them both to laugh. "Come, we're going to miss our boat," she guided him, eager to try her English on some passersby for directions.

The journey they undertook by boat brought them across the Strait of Dover, the narrowest part of the English Channel and towards the white chalk cliffs of the eponymous English port, leaving the continent behind. Back on land, Vlad and Lisa travelled north, going through the large capital of London. Lisa could not believe with her eyes the size and energy of the city, having originally come from the little village of Lupu. The cities of Sibiu and Târgoviște were also nothing compared to this. As fascinating as the capital was, it was simply too much for anyone searching for a simpler time to start over in. In the preceding days, they continued up in England, passing numerous towns and villages, and moors until they ultimately arrived in Whitby.

Twenty homes were dotted along the river that flowed into the sea with the abbey overlooking the village on a cliff. It was exactly how Vlad described it back at the inn: remote but picturesque.

Fortunately for the two, there was a place for them not far off from the centre of the village. While it was a little dilapidated from being abandoned and exposed to the elements, the hut still had furnishings and could keep them dry from the weather. When they settled in for the night after an exhausting day of cleaning and repairs, Vlad and Lisa talked of what they would do to support themselves and the village.

"If I'm to be a fisherman, what will you be?" Vlad asked with genuine curiosity as they listened to the distant roar of the North Sea from the comfort of their bed.

"The fisherman's wife, of course! I mend your nets, prepare whatever you catch and hear tattles from the women here," Lisa mirthfully said.

"And you're alright with the fact that you're no longer able to practice medicine like before?" he reflected.

Lisa nodded slowly as she carefully considered her words. "I know I had always wanted to help better my village with medicine proven by science, and I'm very grateful for what you've taught me, but…" she sighed before continuing.

"I want to take a step back and look at myself. I've come to realise I was being quick to dismiss other beliefs because of how they would always seem illogical to me. I wasn't thinking why they could be so important or how I was coming off whenever I expressed my own."

Vlad closed his eyes. "I understand. A lot has happened since—"

He felt Lisa shift closer until their noses were almost touching. "I want to understand you better as well," she beamed at him.

Vlad's eyes opened again, taking in the light blue eyes staring at him before making an amused sound. "I think you already understand me quite well."

Lisa brought her hands up to touch his pointed and elongated ears, blinking rapidly as her voice gradually started to quiver. "Yes, but I also no longer want to make myself try to understand you with all these rationalisations I do. I just want to accept you for what you are. The magic you do! Everything! It's all a part of this world and the universe!"

"Lisa…" Vlad choked. He put their foreheads together as a loud, hearty laugh burst forth from within him. There were no words Vlad could use to describe the depth of the feelings he felt at this moment except for how he finally understood how humanity had been able to survive for as long as it had.

They took it further that night as Lisa had said they would when they had their own place to call home again—their love and connection still as strong as it was when they wedded nearly twenty years ago if not more.

Adjusting quickly to their new lifestyle, Vlad and Lisa were kept busy with their roles as the seasons went by. Vlad came home one evening after a long day of fishing with an uneasy look on his face. It was a look Lisa knew all too well when he was contemplating having to make a decision that concerned them both.

She stopped curing the fish she was working on and flocked to Vlad, tucking loose strands of his hair behind an ear. "Tell me what you're thinking of," Lisa spoke softly.

Vlad gently clasped the hand going through his hair, letting out the deep breath he had been holding onto all day. "There's to be an expedition to some herring shoals soon. It'll last about a month, but I would be in the company of the men from here. I want to try to live again as a man if you're ok with this."

Lisa felt the apprehension creep on her, the fear she would once again be executed the moment Vlad was gone and how the progress they had made up to this point would also come down again. She had always been fearless prior to her death, never afraid to stand up for herself and her beliefs. To never take life for granted.

Now Lisa was afraid. Paralysed, even. But she managed to find a spark of courage still left within her to ask a question.

"I wouldn't be the only woman whose husband will be leaving for this, will I?"

"Not at all," Vlad assured her.

Lisa exhaled with a semblance of relief. "Well then I'm glad you thought of doing this on your own accord, but you're not afraid that something could happen to me again while you're out there?"

Vlad delicately cupped her face, his clawed thumbs lightly tracing over her cheeks. "My dearest Lisa, the villagers and the abbey have been nothing but kind to us since we arrived. It's nothing at all like Lupu Village. I feel I can trust them to look out for you while I'm away."

"I'll miss you," Lisa whispered.

"And so will I."

They were on the docks soon after, giving well wishes and kisses to each other before Vlad was due to embark on the expedition. Before boarding, Lisa lectured him teasingly, wagging a finger. "Be on your best behaviour now. I know these fishermen can get quite rough at times, but you shouldn't let them get to you," she tugged on his coat to straighten it out. "They're still good people for having been so welcoming to us like you said so yourself."

Vlad took this opportunity to gift Lisa a perfectly preserved fossil of an ammonite he had found some time ago while walking home. Known to the local fishermen as serpent stones, they were said to possess healing powers.

"To help with the heartache I've caused you," he stated simply.

The receipt of the relic in her hands made Lisa want to crumble but she stayed strong, kissing Vlad passionately as the time came for him to board. When the ship could no longer be seen, Lisa turned to see the other fishermen's wives were still here seeing off the ship as well, feeling her heart swell from the solidarity of the moment.

Long before either one of them knew it, the expedition came to its eventual end with Vlad once again anxious to return home. Back on the docks, he looked through the sea of people, weaving in and out of the crowd to find Lisa.

As it thinned out, Vlad saw a fair-haired head in the distance and rushed towards it, relief flooding his senses. Getting closer, the fair-haired took notice and ran to him as well.

Flinging herself into Vlad's arms, Lisa let out a cry of joy while he lifted her and twirled them both.

It was the reunion they had always envisioned they would have had all those years ago back in Lupu.

Once Lisa was on her feet again, she took Vlad's hand as they walked alongside each other on the nearby beach to home. The expedition had been very successful, leaving the couple with more fish than they needed but with the potential to sell for a lot of coinage.

They obviously could not sell it here in Whitby as it was a fishing village so where then could they sell it?

"I've heard of a place south of here that's a half day's worth of travel by foot. They're holding a fair soon that attracts people from as far as the Turkish Empire. We could try there," Lisa said.

"I believe I've heard someone sing a song about that fair. It was about the impossible labours a man must do for his love who lives there and the ones she must do for him as well," Vlad recalled, grinning.

"I've heard it too. I think those labours would be too easy for a man like you. It should go something like this," Lisa challenged playfully.

She began to sing the ballad in her way with a clear, warm voice as Vlad joined her with his verses in a rumbling baritone. The tasks they sang of quickly dissolved into whimsical nonsense that no human could ever dare to complete.

The day was unusually beautiful; with cloudless skies, the sea spray sparkling in the sun and the faint cry of gulls, to name a few.

A sea fret then started to roll in before Vlad and Lisa Țepeș, disappearing as they did into the thick mist.