AUTHOR'S NOTE: Well, another AxI story written on a whim. It has some mild Dracula references. Ignore inconsistencies because this story was written purely to amuse myself and I thought I might amuse some AxI fans, too.

Shine

The night, or rather the morning, was hot and muggy. Though the first light was already beginning to seep through the heavy drapes, there was a surprising absence of the morning breeze that usually followed, leaving the office hot and damp. While it was true that England had seen worse summers, Integra Hellsing maintained that heavy loads of paperwork made the heat even more unbearable. It took a brave soul to contradict her, and in this unpleasant weather, few members of the organization felt particularly courageous.

Sweat had long begun to seep through her blouse, leaving a sticky feeling on her skin every time she leaned back in the leather chair. Her usual suit jacket had been abandoned, sitting in a wad by her feet; her shoes were kicked off. She even took off her gloves for comfort. Some had the theory that she might be cooler if she were to trade her pantsuit for a skirt. Again, no one had the courage to voice that opinion.

Laying her pen aside, Integra rubbed the ridge of her nose with two fingers. All the words in front of her were beginning to run together. Sighing, she opened the closest drawer to her right, fumbling with the top buttons of the sweaty blouse with her free hand. She unbuttoned three of them and lit a cigar. Her bare skin glistened as she smoked silently.

"You are wondering what you did to deserve this."

Integra took the cigar out of her mouth. "Excuse me?" she asked the shadow gathering at the far end of the room.

"Is that not what you are thinking, Master?"

"Not at all." She sneered. "I was actually thinking whether the resident vampire had finally learned his place."

Alucard made his way to her desk, soundless as usual. She could see the amusement in his bloody red eyes. Unfazed, she stared back at him and allowed a smoke ring to float toward him.

"Did you want something?"

"Only to see my Master at work," he said softly, and leaned against her desk. Something was missing. His hat namely, and sunglasses, leaving his chiseled features and fanged smile for all to see.

"If you're bored," Integra said in a tone that indicated he had already overstayed his welcome, "there are a series of FREAK attacks in the eastern regions that need to be investigated, and the police girl needs her training." She glanced at the window briefly. "Besides, it's past your bedtime."

For a moment he didn't move and she noticed that he was giving her a tilted, but blatant, glance. Perhaps it was supposed to be subtle, she mused. She wasn't surprised. After all, her shirt was open, he was male, and she wasn't wearing a bra. She made no move to cover herself. It had been a long time since she felt she had anything to hide or fear from Alucard. She waited a few more seconds.

"If you are finished lurking, I have work to do."

He chuckled and met her eyes. "You should sleep, Master. You work too hard."

"That is no business of yours."

Purposely ignoring the vampire, Integra gathered the papers in front of her and began to leaf through them again. A length of silence later, he was still there, red eyes lingering about her body. She resisted the urge to twitch with annoyance. He wasn't even looking at her chest anymore. Just… looking.

"Get out, Alucard."

"I can't."

"Why?"

"Because it's a very special day."

"What's so special about it?" she asked, not looking up and not caring, but aware that he had scooted a little closer.

A gloved hand slammed down on the pile of papers in her hand, pinning them to the table. Integra gasped in surprise, caught herself, and looked up. Alucard's cold breath was on her face. The sneer on his face indicated his pleasure in catching her off guard. "There are a lot of special things in this world," he whispered.

She frowned, a bubble of anger rising in her chest. "You have three seconds to explain yourself," she hissed.

He kissed her. It sent a chill all the way to the bottom of her feet. She couldn't move. Her eyes were open but she couldn't see as his tongue played in her mouth, against the inside of her lips. Every hair on her body seemed to stand.

Then, all too quickly, he was gone. Integra sat alone in the loud silence of the room. Slowly, numbly, she raised her fingertips to her lips, touching the spot where he had been just a second ago.

She wondered whether she should be angry.

break-

Seras Victoria sat listlessly in her room, disassembling and cleaning her beloved Harkonnen. Usually it was a task she rather enjoyed, allowing her to think as her hands went about the process, letting her mind wander. But today it was just another chore. As sweat rolled down her forehead, blurring her vision, she contemplated the possibility of taking a break to strip off her uniform, then decided against it, seeing how her master tended to materialize unannounced in times of boredom.

Police girl.

She sighed, setting down the various parts on her bed. "Yes, Master?"

What exactly do you think you're doing?

"I'm cleaning my gun, Master," Seras replied, carefully ignoring the solidifying shape emerging from the opposite wall. No mater how many times she saw it, her master's materialization still made her skin crawl. "You and Walter are always telling me to take care of my equipment."

"Perhaps," said Alucard, now standing fully formed before her, "but it's a beautiful day out. You should be doing something more productive."

"Productive?"

"The mercenaries need some practice before their guns rust." He snapped his fingers. "Get to it."

"Wait, master!"

"Yes?"

"I, um…" Seras stammered.

"Spit it out, police girl."

"It's bright out."

"And?"

"And I'm a vampire."

Alucard stopped and for a moment Seras stared at her master's unmoving back, wondering whether he had really forgotten that fact or was just playing with her.

"Indoor range then," he said after a moment. "Get to it. Or maybe you'd rather scrape my last meal off the dungeon floor."

"Y-Yes, sir!" Hurriedly, Seras began to assemble her weapon, all the while thinking Alucard would scold her for been so slow, not noticing that he was already lost in thought before she was even half way finished.

break-

To Walter's surprise, Integra was not asleep on her desk when he entered her office just before noon. Too often had he walked in on her, overexerted and pale. Having felt like a father to the young woman for so many years, the sight broke his heart every time.

But this time, she wasn't at the desk. Perplexed, Walter followed the shadow on the floor to Integra's silhouette against the bright daylight. The drapes were drawn and she was standing by the window, gazing out into the city. Nothing about her showed that she was aware of his presence as he approached her desk. The papers strewn about was a sign that she had indeed stayed awake all night again.

"Miss Integra?"

She turned to him with dazed eyes. He could see the exhaustion in her face and muddled hair, but there was an odd alertness in her that he couldn't quite pinpoint. Instead of pondering it, he cleared his throat and pointed at his own collar.

Integra looked down, and her cheeks turned a soft shade of pink as she quickly fumbled with the top buttons of her blouse. "I'm sorry, Walter," she stuttered, "I'm just…"

He raised a hand to silence her. "No worries, ma'am," he said. "The weather tends to get to the best of us. I am merely informing you that lunch is ready whenever you wish to take it."

"Thank you, Walter," Integra said tiredly. Then, to Walter's immense surprise, she smiled. It was such a rare occurrence that he briefly thought of informing the troops.

Hastily, he collected himself, bowed, and turned to leave when a thought struck him. He turned back.

"If it's not out of line, m' lady," he said politely, "you seem to have something on your mind." Integra blinked, then looked away. "Is it too much to share with an old butler?"

For a moment he didn't think she was going to answer. Just as he was about to leave again, Integra spoke.

"What do you think of vampires?"

The question was both surprising and completely unsurprisingly. Walter rolled it around in his head, found it, along with Integra's serious expression, amusing, and answered, "they're complex creatures."

"That's an overly simple answer, isn't it?"

Walter chuckled. "Perhaps," he replied. "Vampires are complex in that they have the characteristics of both beasts and humans. They fight to survive like animals, which makes them vicious, but they also cannot lose their human emotions and thought process. This makes them extremely unpredictable."

"So you're saying unpredictability is in their nature."

"Yes, or at least making unpredictable choices."

"Would they make choices unpredictable to themselves?"

"I beg your pardon?"

Integra was looking out the window again. "You say they have animal instincts, which is, of course, true. But they are not completely animals. In fact, they were all humans once, meaning the animal part of them is actually foreign. Is it possible that vampires could fall prey to their own instincts, unable to control momentary acts?"

Several thoughts went through Walter's head. He smiled. "No, Miss Integra," he said. "It's very unlikely. Vampires are very intelligent beings. Some may even say they're more intelligent than humans on average. The choices they make are more often than not theirs and theirs alone." He winked, though unseen by her. "This is even more so in vampires of higher level."

Silence followed as Integra hung her head in thought. Walter stood by her patiently, smiling to himself.

"I will come to lunch in half an hour," she said at last. Without another word, Walter bowed and left the room.

break-

Seras scrubbed the floor of the damp dungeon on her hands and knees. After enduring the searing heat, grumbling men, and Captain Bernadette's repeated questions of why she didn't take off her shirt if she was so hot, she had finally given in and consented to cleaning the dungeons instead. Normally cleaning around the mansion was the duty of human servants, but her master had told her that no innocent human should be subject to the dungeons. The smell of blood was much too overwhelming.

A young prisoner had been kept in the room a few days ago, a spy. Seras remembered him clearly. He was about twenty-five, with dark hair and hard eyes. It was speculated that he was not an official member of any FREAK-related organization, but was trying to gain favor from one or two. Perhaps, sympathizing with his age, he was at first interrogated by human soldiers, but to no avail. At last, her patience wearing thin, Integra had ordered Alucard to the scene.

For nearly an entire day the vampire did not emerge from the dungeons, and when he did at last, the body left behind was mutilated beyond recognition. Seras knew more than anyone else that her master obtained information by draining blood directly from the victim's brain, meaning that it was likely no words had exchanged between the two at all during that day. He was merely having his fun.

Wincing slightly at the memory of the mangled body, Seras wondered whether her master had played with the young man, frightening him to the point that he began to tear at himself. She dipped the rag in her hand into the metal bucket containing warm, soapy water, and rubbed at the stains on the floor. At least the smell didn't bother her, she mused. In fact, it was rather stimulating on her vampiric senses. In fact…

She shook herself hard. There was no way that she was going to admit it was almost appetizing.

It was almost over. Just one more time around. Seras dropped the washcloth into the bucket, sat up, and stretched, surveying her work. Not too bad, considering the only occupants of the room are temporary anyway.

Again on her hands and knees, she hummed, feeling a bit more relaxed, and began to pick up the last tidbits remaining on the floor—bits of bone, scraps of dried blood, a piece of paper.

She paused.

The paper was carefully folded, its edges meticulous pressed. At first Seras guess that it came from the dead man, or perhaps the dead man before it, but there was no trace of blood on its surface, meaning it had been dropped after the latest killing had concluded. She held it to her nose and sniffed. It was very old, a few decades at least, most likely double that. It was very clean. Gingerly, she began to open it.

"Seras."

Her head snapped up. Integra stood at the dungeon's door, a cigar in one hand. She wasn't sure whether it was her imagination but the Lady looked a bit disheveled.

"Yes, Miss Integra?"

"What are you doing down here?"

Seras hurried to her feet, standing at attention. "I'm cleaning the floor, ma'am."

A silver of a smile appeared on the corner of Integra's lip. "Did Alucard tell you to do it?"

"Yes, ma'am. Master told me to do it."

"He was joking."

She blinked. "What do you mean?"

"He wasn't serious. This room is kept bloody for a reason." Integra took a drag from her cigar. "It makes interrogations easier."

Suddenly feeling very small and silly, Seras shifted uneasily from one foot to the other and sorted out the thoughts in her head. Just as she came to the conclusion that scrubbing the dungeons was still better than putting up with the sleazy mercenaries, Integra spoke again.

"What's that in your hand?"

She looked down at the piece of paper. "I found this, ma'am," she replied, offering it to Integra. "I think it may have come from one of the men who did interrogations down here." A pause. "Or it might be Master's."

For a moment she didn't think Integra would take it, but after studying it for a moment, she did. "All right," she said, "I'll see to it that he gets it." Turning, she began to walk away. "Since you're at it, the wine cellar could use a good cleaning."

break-

Integra sat alone in her office. A meeting was proceeding somewhere without her, a gathering of several members of the Round Table. Her presence had been requested, but not demanded. Usually, she liked to make her presence known amongst those pompous, arrogant men, but today it was secondary. Let them settle their own affairs for once, she told herself, and lit another cigar.

A thin, dark vapor lingered in the air. He was near but not approaching her, perhaps watching or listening. Integra mused at the vampire's seeming timidity, and chose to ignore it.

"So they make decisions for themselves," she said to herself, and chuckled. "Damn you, Walter."

Evening was creeping up on her. A few minutes ago it occurred to her that she never did go to lunch, or dinner for that matter. Sighing, she leaned back in the chair, watching the slow, tenacious movement of dusk lights on the floor. The red sun reminded her of older days, when she used to watch sunsets with her father, the color of blood on his deathbed, and the times that followed.

An unfamiliar sensation flooded her senses as the image of red reds came to mind. Integra closed her eyes. Had he stayed, she knew, she would have given him a piece of her mind, and an unpleasant one at that. She would have shouted obscenities to his face, perhaps even thrown whatever laid within reach. He would have apologized, back away, and left her to fume in her own self-righteousness for the remainder of the day.

Perhaps that was why he left when he did, leaving her to ponder instead.

How intelligent you are, Sir Vampire.

She could not forgive herself at this point, because she could feel his lips on hers once again, massaging them tenderly. She had felt his fangs, cold and hard, and his long tongue playing against the roof of her mouth. Her body shuddered but her heart pounded with heat, a hot center in the stream of chills that ran down her skin.

Why?

She could have accepted impulse. Men and vampires alike have impulses, granted that often times vampires were smarter than men. Had he lost control in a moment's notice, amongst the heat and her exposed breast, she could have accepted it and moved beyond it. But she had ruled that theory out, partly due to Alucard's repeated statements of pride in his own control, and partly because she had already known what Walter told her—vampires made choices.

So he chose to do what he did because it was, as he put it, "a special day". Integra could not begin to guess what was special about this day, especially since he had not made another appearance since the incident.

The question was still "why?".

She took a drag from the cigar. It wasn't as if she had never ventured a guess before. There had been times when she wondered that perhaps the looks he gave her weren't just look, that the words he said were more than words, and maybe when Seras said her master was much too sullen in her absence, it was not an exaggeration.

Integra opened her eyes. Night had fallen, shrouding the room in darkness. She put the cigar out and simply sat there as the seconds ticked past. It was strange that she couldn't let it go. Maybe it was the heat, or exhaustion, or boredom with the daily mundane.

Or perhaps it was becoming harder and harder to deny her own feelings.

Blinking back the sleep in her eyes, Integra rose from her seat. It had been nearly forty hours since she last slept. If she were to keep up her work, rest was essential. Everything could wait until tomorrow.

The rustling of paper made her pause. She reached into her pocket and felt the note that Seras had handed her earlier. One more thing couldn't hurt. She opened it.

break-

Alucard sat on the roof of the Hellsing manor, admiring the stars. It was a clear night, and heat never bothered him as much as it did humans or lesser vampires. The moon was bright and nearly full. He had seen it so many times now.

One hundred years, Mina. That's how long I spent thinking about you.

break-

Dear Mina,

I hope with the sincerest of hearts that you are well. Has married life begin to take its toll upon you, as it has so many others? You may think me malicious, or perhaps even evil for the events that trespassed between us. I do not blame you, but nor can I blame myself. For you see, Mina, my intentions, particularly those regarding you, are of the purest.

You may call me the dead Count, but what makes one alive? To live is to feel pain, and that, my dear is what you brought upon me. Physical pain, those of knives and swords, are nothing compared to watching one's dearest love love another. You may wonder why I pursue you so, why I choose to haunt you with my ghastly form amongst all other beautiful women on this earth. It is because you gave me that pain, that feeling of a beating heart, pierced by the arrow of the cruel Cupid.

No matter how hard you try to deny it, Mina, I am a part of you. My blood flows in your veins and you will spend lonely nights dreaming of me, as I will of you. You will lay at your husband's side, pondering what is missing from your heart, that was once mine and mine alone. To be a bride is a woman's ultimate joy. It makes her the eternal duty of a man, one who will hold her, provide for her, and worship the ground she walk on. To a man, then, to find a bride is to find a second God. The God above has forsaken me, and now you have, too.

I was once told that I myself never loved. Until you, I have found no reason to refute that theory. I will never claim that I understand love, for I do not. But if love is the agony of pleasure, the will to forever linger upon another in spite of the torture it brings, the dreams and fantasies that bring naught but distress and yet one still goes back to them, like a heinous drug, then yes, I love you. I love you the same way any man would love any woman, perhaps more.

When the sun rises, I will sleep, Mina, and dream of you in my dark casket, dream of you until I see your face on that of each living woman who crosses my path. There are none and never will be another whose radiance can match yours. I wish in my dead heart that when you wake, at the same time I slumber, you could spare a kind thought for me.

Yours, with respect,

Vlad Dracula

August 11, 1900

Integra dropped the note onto her desk, and drove a letter opener through it.

break-

He was sitting on her bed when she entered the room, less hat, trench coat, and a few guns. They exchanged a brief look. She broke it, walked to the dresser, and began to remove her jacket. He stood, moved toward her silently, and stopped just a hair's distance behind her. He raised one hand toward her shoulder.

"Get out."

His hand stopped in midair and withdrew. For a moment neither of them talked as he studied her reflection in the mirror. He smiled, then bowed.

"I beg your pardon, Master."

Integra listened to the footsteps of her servant. "Stop."

He did, and turned. "Yes, Master?"

She faced him, her expression cold as stone. "What do you see when you look at me?"

Alucard chuckled. "A vision of divine beauty."

The corner of her eye twitched. "Answer truthfully, Alucard. Do you see her face when you look at me?"

"Whose?"

She tossed the note at his feet. "Hers. This woman that you wrote this letter to over a century ago, today. What exactly do you take me for? Am I a toy to you? A released for when you think of her? Or do you put her face on me, pretending that she is still with you, after all these years?"

Even though she never raised her voice, he could sense her anger as he studied the note at his feet. Finally, he bent, picked it up, met her eyes.

"Might I ask how you came about this, master?"

"The police girl found it in the dungeons."

Alucard held the note. Then, to Integra's surprise, he tore it in half down the middle. The two pieces fell from his hands to the floor. He looked at her again, this time hard and serious.

"Let me tell you about Mina, master," he said, and gestured toward the bed, signaling her to sit. She did, eyes never wandering. "Mina was a woman of strength and words. I was drawn to her even before I laid eyes on her, from her fiancé's diary. It is a long and tedious story that I do not intend to bore you with. But I fell for her, perhaps because she presented such a challenge. In the end, it was she who helped seal my fate, with the aid of none other than Dr. Van Hellsing.

"Instead of haunting her like monsters should, she became a thing that haunted me. For a hundred years I could not escape her shadow. That letter was written after Van Hellsing had me under his servitude. I wrote it, but as you can see, did not send it to her, for she would likely have destroyed it without opening it.

"But one day ten years ago, I did not thinking about her."

Integra raised an eyebrow as Alucard took a seat next to her, but did not move away.

"Do you remember what took place today, ten years ago, Integra? It was another hot summer."

"No."

"You're lying, Master. I can see it in your eyes. Though you try to deny the significance of that day, I know you remember. It was the same day a little girl held a gun for the first time and took her first kill. She was a woman from that day forward. But for me, it held other meanings.

"I fell under the power of another, one with such spirit and power that she ground the thoughts of Mina to dust. Years passed but I never felt quite right around her, be it right or wrong. All I knew, was that she was so alive." He leaned close to her, placing one hand next to her. "And she guided me, step by step, to something new. And I realized what Mina had become."

"What's that?" Integra whispered, her voice was hoarse.

"A memory. Mina had become just an idea long ago. I spent exactly one hundred years thinking about her, and then I simply didn't. I was searching for that one beam of sunshine in my dark world, to shine on my life, this one that has been burning out for centuries upon centuries. You look through me, Integra, the same way light pierces glass. I had to pretend for so long, that I do not admire your beauty every time you walk by, that your fragrance does not haunt me in the hall of this mansion, that thoughts of you do not send pleasurable chills through my veins." He touched her cheek, then her chin. "Today is special because it marks so many beginning and endings. I don't know how you feel about me, and I don't expect anything. But you shine one me, Integra, like the sun that I have not seen in so long."

"Alucard, I…"

He shushed her with one finger. "You should sleep, Master. You work too hard."