THE RIGHT THING

She knew the butler saw the bags under her eyes the moment he walked into her office. When he set the tray laden with tea and silverware on her desk, however, Walter said nothing. She waited a few seconds. He cleared his throat. She knew it was coming.

“Might I inquire what time you retired last night, Miss Hellsing?”

She eyed the tea. “No, you may not,” she replied, unsure of how serious she was.

“Integra.”

He was speaking to her like she was ten years old again. She hated it. “Two o’clock,” she muttered, flipping through the pages in her hand and making a feeble attempt at comprehending the text printed on them. “Could you bring me some coffee, Walter?”

The butler arched his brow. They both knew she hated coffee.

“Just one cup, and I’ll be fine.” He opened his mouth, but closed it when she gave him a worn look. “Please.”

Walter swallowed his words as if they were the size of tennis balls and turned on his heels. Integra didn’t watch him leave. She had trouble keeping her head raised as it was. Two o’clock. She chuckled to herself. It was a lie. The sun from the window behind her washed over her back, its warmth luring her closer to that fine line between tired and utter exhaustion. But she kept her head up, added two cubes of sugar to a cup of tea, and downed it.

She hadn’t slept a wink last night. Or the night before. Or the night before that. She knew she ought to try, but sleep eluded her as she laid in bed, and over and over again she found herself back in her office, staring at the stack of papers on her desk, waiting for her signature. The showers helped the first day, less so the second. Now, they were utterly useless. She must look a frightful mess, she knew; hair disheveled, circles around her eyes, and normally flawless skin weighted down with lines and blemishes.

And yet, she couldn’t sleep.

Walter brought her coffee. She waited for him to leave again before downing the entire cup like it was the elixir of life, wincing at its bitter taste. As she waited for the caffeine to kick in, Integra gazed down at the increasingly blurring letters again.

They had asked her to make a choice, those old men. Those blasted old men who never turned down a chance to make her life difficult, to prove that she was as incompetent as they furiously denied they were. Make a choice they said, there wasn’t enough funding. She had to cut something. Rubbing her face furiously, she cursed them, the horse they rode on, their every known ancestor, and the rod up their rear ends.

Make a choice. Cut weapons research, so the troops could go out with inferior arms to the fields. Or, cut compensation for the families of the fallen, and cheapen the values of the lives lost.

She was willing to bet both her thumbs that there wasn’t a problem with funding. There was always plenty of funding when they needed to give a bonus to their “specialty staff”, known in layman’s terms as “mistresses”. But to bring up such things would be low and vulgar, and she refused to lower herself to such tactics. And so, her morals allowed them to back her into a corner. Again.

Her arms dropped heavily onto her desk, making the papers jump at their impact. Integra raised her eyes to the portrait on her office wall. Her father looked back.

“What would you do?”

oOo

The first two taps sounded like a dream.

Alucard turned in his sleep. Then the tapping came again. Two light knocks directly above and he opened his eyes just long enough to wonder if he was imagining it. When silence fell over him, he started to close them, only to be awakened one more time.

Only two people dared to waked him mid-day, and when Walter wanted something from him, he was rarely so polite, a remnant of his unruly boyhood days, perhaps. When the butler wished to wake him, he usually accomplished it with a swift kick to the side of Alucard’s meticulously kept coffin.

Another tap. He reached up and pushed the coffin lid aside. A pair of sapphire-blue eyes greeted him. He sat up to face his master.

For a long time Integra said nothing. She was sitting on the floor, her arms folded over the edge of the coffin. One look at her told him her senses were less than prime. Her eyes seemed to focus on nothing, hair hung like dried hay over her face, and her fingers tapped against each other soundlessly as she lost herself in thought.

“Master,” he said. She glanced at him, as if just realizing he was there. “May I be of assistance?”

She looked at him, then at the coffin. “Move over.”

He was certain he heard wrong. “Master?”

Instead of answering, she pushed herself upward against the coffin, and lifted her legs inside. There was barely enough room inside for the two of them, and though he wasn’t about to protest, Alucard found it rather odd that she didn’t seem to mind that their legs were all but tangled in each other’s. She laid down, pulling him to do the same, and pillowed her head on his arm. They faced each other, the tips of their noses less than an inch apart. This, too, she didn’t seem to mind, or even notice. He dearly hoped that, whatever it was that had her dazed, its effect was strong enough to keep her from noticing certain physical effects this was having on him.

“Integra,” he said carefully, “please give me some sign that you are still sound of mind.”

She blinked. Her blue pupils vanishing and reappearing in the dark dungeon. “I’m trying to think,” she said.

“What about?”

“What to do.”

He knew what she was referring to. The Convention was pressuring her about the budget again. “And you thought a change of scenery might help you think?”

She shook her head, her skin brushing lightly against his sleeve. “I started to think,” she said, “then I started to ask questions. What should I do? What’s the right thing to do? What would my father do? I didn’t know the answers to the first two questions, but for that last one, I thought I should ask someone who knew him longer than I did.”

“Why did you not ask Walter?”

“I did. He said I shouldn’t worry about what my father did and follow my own path. It wasn’t helpful.” She yawned. Her breath smelled like tea leaves, sugar, and coffee beans. “I was hoping you had a better answer. Or any answer. Tell me, Alucard, what would my father have done?”

Alucard hesitated. It was rather hard to think with her pressed against him like this, but he gave it his best shot. While his mind struggled to think of the best answer, the rest of him couldn’t help but wonder what he could get away with at this moment.

“Anything he wants,” he said at last.

“What kind of answer is that?”

He shrugged. “It’s the right one. Your father would have done whatever he wanted. He would’ve bullied and wiled his way to get what he wanted. In all the years I served him, I don’t think he’d ever bent to anyone’s will.”

“But I can’t be that way,” she said, then, surprising him, “can I?”

It was as if she was asking for his permission. He could smell exhaustion on her, a dry, musty, dusty scent, like a weathered statue about to fall apart.

“Sure,” he said. “You’ve done it before. You make it look easy, just like he did.”

She laughed. “Is that right? I wish it was truly that simple.”

He shifted slightly closer to her. “Tell me, Integra, and don’t bothering lying. How long has it been since you slept?”

“Two days.”

“Integra.”

“Three.”

“And why? Because you worry about doing something the way your father did it. That’s what this is about, isn’t it? I can already tell. You want to make sure you make the same decision your father would, and yet you’re comprehensive to make it outright, so you so come down here seeking my permission.”

“I’m not that transparent, am I?”

“No, but I have good eyes.” Her eyelids fluttered and he took the chance to slip his free hand over her waist. “Why do you need my permission, master? You don’t need anyone to tell you what to do.”

“Sometimes,” she replied slowly, “it would be nice to be told that someone thinks I’m doing the right thing, instead of having to fight for it and second-guess myself every step of the way.”

Alucard smiled. “To me, master, every decision you make is the right one.”

She said nothing for a very long time. Then, slowly, she turned to laid on her other side, maneuvering her curves the best she could in the small space. At first he thought he’d said something wrong, but she laid her head on his arm again.

“I’m going to regret this when I wake up,” he heard her mutter sleepily.

“I could carry you to your room, master.”

“Just keep your hands to yourself, or I’ll skin you slowly,” she replied, but said nothing when he held her gently around the waist and pulled her close.