(Disclaimer: Hellsing is, quite obviously, not mine. All places and people from Hellsing belong to its creator. This is merely one person's interpretation of them with an OC added into the mix.

A/N: Don't worry, the characters from that universe will show up. The writer just has to take things at her own pace. Also, the title isn't final; it's a working title. The writer had to call it something, after all. Feel free to review if you are so moved.)

I dreamed of the graves again. There's always a pair of them, well worn with age and barely legible. Both are covered seamlessly with grass, even to the point that little patches of wildflowers had grown on them. I can smell the dirt, and beneath it I can somehow see and smell the bones, stripped of their flesh centuries ago. Then one set of bones disappears and there is a sense of loss and longing. I wish I knew what it meant.

Aileen sighed as she looked at her reflection in the glass. It looked as faded as she felt while she leaned against the bus window. She was on an intercity route from her small town to a bigger city. Soon she would be boarding a plane to England.

Aileen had wanted to go to Europe since she was little. There was a charm to the old world that didn't seem to exist in North America. Still, it had been a rather dim desire for the most part, just something that came up when asked what she would do if she had a lot of money to spend. Travel was just one of those answers people gave. And the British Isles wouldn't be too hot. Or too dangerous, so she thought.

But then recently that desire had flared up into something that was hard to escape. It just seemed to pop into her mind the moment she wasn't focused on her day to day tasks. School was over for good; she had graduated and, in theory, should be planning the rest of her life. Somehow she couldn't focus on any idea other than getting to England. Yet, she had no clue what she would do when she got there.

Under the advice of a psychologist, she finally bought a ticket and just decided to go. Whatever scrambled her neurological pathways wouldn't be resolved until she just met the desire face on and confronted it. She had a theory that they were somehow connected with the dreams of the graves, but she couldn't think why. Maybe she would find them in England; the graves seemed old enough to find in a cemetery there. Yet, they were always alone.

Eventually the bus stopped. Aileen got out, collected her luggage and proceeded into the airport. Her hands clutched her ticket nervously; she had never left the country before. If she didn't feel so pressed into doing this, she likely wouldn't have gotten up the courage to go...especially alone.

Somehow she managed to get herself onto the plane and into her seat without too much trouble. The fact that she didn't have an attack of nerves helped. Again she found herself against a window; though this time she would be going up instead of simply over. As she looked at her reflection, she felt like she was looking at a stranger. Surely it must just be a trick of the light. Her eyes simply were not that dark, neither was her hair. Blinking a few times, the anomalies faded away.

Aileen slept for most of the journey. Again she saw the graves, but this time her point of view zoomed outwards. The countryside she saw didn't seem familiar. She had seen images of England before, but the mountains she saw in the distance didn't seem to fit with what she knew of English geography. Perhaps she had been wrong. Maybe the dreams had nothing to do with her desire to visit England. But, if not, why was her mind so torn between these two ideas?

When the plane landed in London, and she disembarked, her mind was too full with the noise and bustle of the airport to really worry too much about graves and mountains. After collecting her luggage again, she caught a taxi to the hotel she had pre booked. She wasn't well off, so it was a small and unobtrusive place. However, it was a clean place to sleep, and that was all that she required.

The next day she busied herself with looking up local graveyards. It seemed as good a place as any to start looking. She wasn't sure what she had expected once she got to England, but if she had expected answers right away, she would have been disappointed. The only thing different is that she felt like she was supposed to be there. But it was not a feeling of comfort; rather it seemed as though she was waiting for a purpose.

Using the internet as a source of information, she compiled a list of possible cemeteries in the London area. By the condition of the graves in her dreams, she assumed it must be in a fairly old graveyard. The oldest on her list was a place called Bunhill Fields, which had been in use between the late seventh century and the mid nineteenth century. While she found a couple of names that she remembered from her education, most notably the author of the often quoted poem, 'The Tyger', she didn't see anything that resembled the graves she was looking for.

The whole first day of touring graveyards turned up nothing. Graves were plenty, and old graves were not in short supply. However, none of them quite matched the image she had seen in her dreams. She was certain that if she found them she would know it right away. Still, she wasn't quite discouraged; not yet, though sometimes she doubted her own sanity. Eventually she ran out of graveyards in London. Frustrated, she returned to her hotel room and finally fell asleep.