"Re—Renfield, wait!" It was hard to keep up with a charging madman, even down one straight hallway. It didn't help that Renfield leapt clean from his shoes, sliding to a stop and rearing back to kick down a single door with wild eyes. Alucard, he's there, he's—not Alucard?!

"Jesus!" Standing with one hand reaching for the doorknob, his brown hair frazzled at the edges but otherwise no worse for wear, was the Hellsing Organization's resident butler.

"Winston!" Fulton was unable to hold in his glee at seeing the man conscious. "You're alright!"

"I think," the butler gasped, handing falling from midair only to rise and clutch at his heart. "I'm getting too old for these sorts of surprises!"

"You wouldn't be surprised if you'd been in bed, resting, like I ordered." Renfield pursed his lips. "But I'm glad to see you're well enough to take charge of your own health again, human." Winston adjusted his cuffs and avoided eye contact, a barely-sheepish smile flitting across the corners of his mouth.

"Winston…." Fulton swallowed, taking a deep breath. "Are you out of your mind?!" The words he'd wanted to ask for what seemed like years, rather than hours, spilled out of him in a rush. "Taking on someone like Alucard when I wasn't there? When Seras wasn't there? It couldn't have waited? It couldn't have been avoided? I need you!" The minute the words were out, as childish and selfish as they sounded, he knew that they rang of honesty. Winston looked up, the corners of his eyes crinkling in sympathetic guilt. "I mean, the organization needs you here. Seras and I need you… erm…." He looked away, scratching the back of his head. Renfield grinned, one brow arching high above the round lenses of his spectacles.

"I apologize, Sir." Winston bowed, breaking the awkward tension with a formal, businesslike gesture. "I should have held my tongue and not added to the chaos. The damage to the house is my fault. Act accordingly; I deserve proper consequences." Fulton crossed his arms, drawing himself to full height and clearing his throat.

"Ah, uhm, yes! Yes, you do. And you'll get them in time, but so will Alucard. I won't have any of my men—er—" He looked around for Seras, only to remember that she wasn't there to silently prompt him. "—acting so childishly out of turn. It's a right load of tosh." That sounded more like Ms. Walsh than a proper leader, but again Seras wasn't around to mentally berate him for it and he was spared.

"Lovely reunion, brilliant chat-chat-chatting, but we should be getting on." Renfield held the door open, ushering Winston through before closing it with a soft snick. "You can come along if you're up to it, old boy, but the longer we let Kitten jump around the worse off everything's going to be."

"Kitten?" Winston looked headlong at Fulton, mouth thinning into a white line. "And who, may I ask, would that be?"

"Seras. She's cattish enough, right?" Fulton answered, not missing a blink and somehow managing to keep his face straight, even when Winston's cheeks blushed an angry pink-red. "Renfield's known her longer than you and I put together—let him call her as he likes." Winston opened his mouth, but one look from his employer had him closing it again with a frown. He took in a breath through his nose, choosing a more prudent source of conversation.

"And why, pray tell, will she be worse off? What's happening? I can't remember anything for having my head knocked around by that psychopath."

"Sociopath!" Renfield called jovially over his shoulder, already leading the way back down the hall. Fulton motioned for Winston to follow, staring at the shoes somehow back on the madman's feet. He tried to think of a way to explain that wouldn't have Winston charging nobly up the stairs for Seras, and consequentially being thrown down them again by a furious Alucard.

"Well… Alucard. And Seras. But mostly Alucard. With a bit of Seras." He shrugged his shoulders, making weighing motions with his hands. "Equal blame, sort of? But leaning more towards Alucard. Also, Renfield was thrown inside his own greenhouse and I had my wrist broken, but that's been taken care of." He shook back his sleeve and twisted his wrist to show its uninjured state.

"Sir?" Winston put a hand to his temple. "This may not be the best time, but I think we should start negotiating my early retirement."

"You're locked in contract for life," Fulton pointed out. Winston raised his eyes to the ceiling.

"Then perhaps I should send you a memo about my up and coming suicide."

"Willa!" Winston ducked, looking around quickly, but Fulton pointed to the wall. They were cutting through the portrait gallery again, this time looking for a 'side door' that Renfield insisted would take them to Seras. Scanning the walls again, Fulton had narrowed in on a picture he hadn't seen the first go-through.

"Is it?" Winston squinted at the daguerreotype, mouth pursed. "By George, it is!" The same face, the same dark hair, cute lips, enchanting features; it was all there, but the wild look was gone from her eyes, the twist of malice from her sweet mouth. Fulton stared at it even after Winston moved on to keep up with Renfield.

"You must be Wilhelmina, mustn't you?" Just like with Seras, he ran the pads of his fingers carefully over the porcelain face behind the glass. "What happened to you? What changed you?" The woman didn't answer, her eyes staring beyond Fulton's face as she smiled eternally at something—someone—he would never see.

"Honestly, say words like a proper man!" There was a loud roar that shook the pictures on the wall, nearly knocking Fulton off his feet. He looked around, realized how far behind he was, and sprinted along the hall to the open door that was virtually impossible to distinguish from the paneling to either side of it, save a framed photograph of a door stuck squarely in its middle. Of course it would be, wouldn't it? he thought, and then, God help me if I'm starting to see the method to the madness.

The door let to a series of steeper stairs, like a servant's staircase, and he was forced to duck and pick up his feet simultaneously while running as fast as he could towards the landing.

He arrived at the top to see an attic of sorts, maze-like in its jumble of old furniture, boxes, and sheet-covered somethings. It reminded him a little too much of the attic he found Seras in, a chill creeping down his spine that had nothing to do with the shadows climbing the walls or the tall man in the center of the room, holding Renfield off the floor by his suspenders.

Renfield, on his part, seemed unaffected by the manhandling and was more concerned with picking a piece of lint off Alucard's sleeve, his eyes large and innocent.

"I tell you, I have no clue where she is! Women, eh? Running off here and there, spending money, hiding in old houses, leaving nary a note in their wake except bills of sale. Ha-ha! Quite a… hmm, not funny?" He tilted his head, chin pressed against his collarbone as he looked the vampire over. "She's not going out of the house, I'm almost certain of that. Laugh a little, lighten up!" He tugged slightly at the hands, if only to stop them stretching out the fabric of his suspenders.

"Alucard? Alucard!" Fulton put on his 'brave face', hands held out placatingly as he stepped towards the infuriated man. Alucard turned his head and sneered, eyes discs of blood-red light in the dim glow of the room. "Listen to me; we can talk this over. Just put Renfield down." He spoke slowly and concisely, as though Alucard had a loaded gun.

"Now is not the time for talking, my master." He was breathless with violent glee.

"It is if you want Seras." Instantly Renfield was dropped, landing on his rear with a slightly surprised expression, glasses going crooked.

"You know where she is." His voice went flat in a millisecond. Fulton gulped, lying through his teeth.

"Of course." She's in the house; that's not a lie, is it? "But she told me that she only wants to talk. She won't even stay in the same room as you if you keep making a scene."

"That sounds like her." Alucard's sadistic expression didn't change, but his hair fell a centimeter or two, the shadows retreating further back to their proper corners. "She never did want to fight like a proper vampire." Fulton held up a finger, wagging it sternly.

"I'll take you to her, but you have to promise not to punish her, or—or strike her, or do anything to her other than talk. And you have to listen to what she has to say." He saw the anger creeping back into the corners of Alucard's mouth. "Otherwise, no deal. I won't have you going to spare when you've no right to." He stood straight while the narrowed red gaze looked him over shrewdly, trying to ignore the sweat dripping down his neck.

"Take me to her." Renfield grinned, clambering to his feet with a jaunty whistle as he brushed past Fulton and made for the stairs.

"Alright. Take a breath, and follow me. Oh!" he said quickly, when Alucard began to follow. "No touching Winston. At all. Don't even look in his direction if you get the urge to kill him, or I'll make you think being locked up in a box for decades was a friendly holiday." It was a weak threat and the leer he got in answer made him groan inwardly, but when they descended Alucard passed by the butler as though he wasn't there. Fulton breathed a quiet sigh, shaking his head firmly when Winston glared after the vampire.

"What are we doing?" Winston whispered, falling into step behind Fulton.

"Finding Seras, but we already know where she is." Fulton winked before cupping his hands around his mouth, calling out in a random direction. "Seras!? Seras, come out! It's okay now, your orders have changed!" Winston caught on quickly enough.

"Miss Seras! Master Fulton wishes to see you!" he called in the other direction, copying his employer's stance. "Mutt—er, Baskerville!" he whistled sharply. "Here, boy!"

"Alle, alle, auch sind frei!" Renfield sang, turning in a slow circle with keen eyes darting every direction.

"Alle, alle—what?" Fulton sighed, wondering for the umpteenth time about the eccentric man's sanity.

"Ollie, ollie, oxen-free!" Winston crowed in his ear, picking up the term.

"No, I'm sure I'm the one pronouncing it properly," Renfield advised, moving towards the kitchen. Alucard crossed his arms, looking down his nose at his master. Renfield stopped beside him, let out a string of German in a perfect accent, and ducked with a laugh when Alucard swiped for him, nails thick and black like claws.

"Don't aggravate him." They all turned to see Seras leaning against the open door, her tight mouth and weary eyes the only signs of her exhaustion. She eyed Alucard sharply before dismissing him with a flick of the head, turning to Fulton instead. "Master, your hand?" Fulton showed her its full movement. "Good. Thank you, Renfield."

"I live to serve, mademoiselle." Renfield bowed. Fulton rolled his eyes, feeling Seras prodding his mind for entry. He let her in, showing her the events of the proceeding hours: his frantic planning, the greenhouse, Renfield's burning medicaments, the portrait gallery, the attic, Fulton's lie to Alucard, the offer to talk.

"Well? Are you up for talking?" she asked, not missing a beat. "Or do you feel the need to stomp about the attic some more, Master?"

"Watch that tongue of yours before I cut it out," Alucard growled. Fulton made to speak, but at the same time he realized that it lacked the heat of Alucard's real threats.

"Try it and see if I don't bite your fingers off." Seras turned, pointing back up the stairs. "Come on." Fulton watched them go, wondering at such an odd, dysfunctional relationship.

"Like a married couple," Renfield sighed, ignoring the pointed look thrown his way by Winston.

"Rigor Mortis."

"Really Muddy."

"Righteous Monster."

"Rumpelstiltskin me all you like." Renfield threw his hands in the air. "But you won't get the answer out of me."

"R.M. has to stand for something." Fulton stirred a spoonful of honey into his tea before taking a sip, the warm liquid soothing his frayed nerves. He and Winston had been invited to sit at the kitschy kitchen table, Renfield supplying his 'guests' with tea while they awaited Seras and Alucard. Three whole hours had passed, but they'd passed peacefully, without roaring, or shaking, or anything that suggested a fight going on overhead. And so they were contented to wait.

Finally, Seras came through the archway with Alucard behind, both of them dressed and looking as normal as ever, as though nothing had happened. Alucard stopped before Fulton's chair, bowing onto one knee with a leer.

"Master, I truly regret my earlier actions," he said with a smirk, his dancing eyes telling Fulton more than he needed to know. He looked over Alucard's head at Seras, who shrugged. That's the best you'll get. You ought to know he's not repentant.

But are you alright with that? He thought Seras might look perturbed, or even saddened, but she just looked… tired.

What does it matter to me? I wasn't going to die, anyway.

Back to your usual bitter self, I see. He sighed, looking down at Alucard before letting his true frustration and anger shine through for a brief moment.

"You are in no position to laugh at me, vampire." He was surprised by the low, dark tone of his own voice. "I'm not amused."

"Of course not." Alucard stood, pulling his tinted glasses from one pocket and twirling them between his long fingers. "Not many Hellsings are, after dealing with someone like me."

"I'm considering your punishment, but don't think you'll get off scot-free just because I haven't settled on a proper consequence." He bowed mockingly again, this time from the shoulders. Renfield hid a smile behind his hand. Seras looked away. "As a little precursor, I'd like you to formally apologize to my butler—if for no other fact than that he is my butler." Alucard's mouth settled into a thin line. "Winston?"

"Sir?"

"I think it's only fair that, since you're to share the blame, you should be made to apologize as well." He nodded towards Alucard. "What do you have to say?"

"Quite a bit," he answered contritely. "But I suppose… as my master commands." He gave a curt dip in Alucard's direction. "Some things that were said shouldn't have been said." He cleared his throat. "No matter how they were meant."

"A man of my age shouldn't act so rashly," Alucard said in answer, with another sidelong leer towards Seras, who scowled. Fulton nodded, sticking his hands in his pockets.

"True, true. Oh, and Alucard?" The vampire looked up with a cold sneer, only to jerk back as in one smooth movement, Fulton pulled a handgun from his pocket and shot his servant point-blank in the forehead. Renfield sputtered, choking on his tea; Seras stepped to the side, nostrils flaring at the gore splattered along her left boot.

"Sorry," Fulton said blandly. "Just wanted to make sure he had some brains in there after all."

Five a.m. Five a.m. Five a.m. Five-oh-one.

Fulton stared at the ceiling, his eyes unable to close. Whatever junk Renfield had given him, it left him refreshed. Too refreshed. What does a bloke have to do to get some decent sleep around here? He thought of asking Seras to… hypnotize him, or something, but passed it off after only a moment's hesitation. He didn't to bother her, considering the things she'd already went through this evening.

"Shower," he muttered, throwing back the sheets and climbing to his feet. "A shower and perhaps an early start to the day." He dragged his socked feet across the room, earning himself a static shock on the door to the bathroom. He turned the faucet as hot as he could stand, steam pouring from the stall as he stripped out of his nightclothes.

Why me? Why was I born into this sort of family? Why couldn't I have been a Smith, or a Jones, or a Tanner? Someone of little value in higher vampire society? He lathered his hair, tipping his head back and sputtering when the water went up his nose, shampoo burning the back of his throat. My luck, I suppose.

He wasn't any sleepier, even with the warm water's embrace. At the risk of another static shock, he dragged himself all the way to his office, where the work of the past few months was scattered across every available surface of his desk. Sitting down in his father's old chair, he placed both feet firmly on the ground, a touch of nostalgia gracing him. He'd once been too small to do that, back when he'd first met Seras. Probably should have stayed in the attic, that one. She'd brought him a lot of trouble… but also a lot of excitement. Adventure. Family. Without Seras, he would have never met Winston, or even Renfield. Hell, he would have probably died by his cousin's hand.

Maybe my family name is worth it, just for meeting her. He quickly quieted the thought before she could hear and scold him for the sentiment, absentmindedly brushing aside some of the folders. They teetered on the edge of the desk before falling, papers and snippets sliding everywhere as the two manila sides spilled their contents.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," he grumbled, still in 'Seras' mode, as he pulled himself back to his feet. "Of all the things." He kicked at an old post-war document, growled when it fluttered even further out of reach, and then bent onto one knee to begin picking up the pieces. Now he had to sort them back into their proper folders as well. Just my luck, indeed. He honed in on wallet sized photographs, knowing they were of the old Vatican workers, most of who died in the Zeppelin Incident. Those would be easiest to sort.

He picked up person after person, stopping here and there to admire different features: a woman's vibrant red curls, another's drawn face, a man's sparse mustache, another smiling where all others frowned. He found the last one vertically against a wall, the wind blowing it facedown. Picking it up and turning it over, he found the man Seras had seemed to know, the scruffy one with the large scar. She hadn't said that she'd known him, but he remembered her wrinkled nose, her burning eyes in the light of the April moon.

He turned the picture to the back, where in small black typeface—just like every other photograph in his hand—there was a small set of figures. Date, time, a code that meant little to him, and at the very end a name.

"Alexander Anderson." He hummed under his breath, turning the photo back around to face him. "Well, back in the folder you go." But he hesitated, something in the back of his mind nagging him in a way he couldn't place. He stared longer at the picture. Something about the stoic man in the image seemed so familiar, as if he'd seen him before. But aside from a passing glance to the photograph itself… he'd never seen anyone quite so marred in his life.

Chalking it up to a wayward memory of Seras's—those things happened, sometimes—he looked up from the photograph to see another, this one hanging in its proper place on the wall. It was him and Seras, all those years ago when he was a whiny brat of a kid and she… well, she was herself. He looked at it fondly, until something clicked. And clicked, and clicked, a gear whirring with no chain to stop it, mindless energy in his brain. The manila folder fell from his loose fingers, Vatican heads once again spilling in every direction as his focus shifted from the picture itself to the glass, to his reflection in the glass, his father's long nose, his mother's slender brow… and sitting beneath it, two very striking, very green eyes.

The picture crumpled in his hand.

He doubted. Thought. Doubted some more. Paced his office. Walked into the hall, stared in a mirror, then down at the wrinkled slip of embossed paper. He held the photograph up to his glasses, squinting. He shook his head. He went back to the photograph on the wall, held the headshot up there as well. Paled. Doubted again, and decided to ask the one person who might know, bother-be-damned.

"Seras, come here." He felt the hair on his neck raise as her shadows flared into the room from the hallway. She stepped in, already dressed for bedtime. It wasn't the first time he'd seen her without the suit, but it was certainly a shock every time he looked at the plain, normal looking pajamas.

"Yes?" she sighed, clearly annoyed at being called upstairs after the sun had peeked over the heads of the fir trees in the forest. He stood across the desk from her, and then smoothed the photograph out so that it faced her, tapping it with the pad of his finger.

"My eyes, Seras. He has my eyes." She stared down at it, and for a long moment he was afraid she didn't understand his meaning. Then, when her head remained bowed, he took a chance. "Why didn't you tell me?" She looked up, all genuine bafflement.

"It's not my place to say." They squared off, and then she shifted her gaze to the quiet world outside the windows. "She never said. I assumed, but I wasn't—I wouldn't have asked her. I knew her too well to dishonor her that way."

"Is this why Alucard hates me?" He had skimmed over the vampire's numerous scuffles with Vatican agents, and now recalled an 'Anderson' being thrown in more than once. Seras looked surprised, but shook her head.

"No, I don't think so," she answered honestly. "Alucard respected Father Anderson." Her usage of his proper title didn't pass his notice. Looks like he wasn't the only one to have respect, whether you liked him or not. "I think he guessed too, but… if he ever thought it as less than worthy, he never said anything." She scratched at her chin. "You'll have to ask him yourself."

"I'll pass." He looked down at the photograph. "Celibacy," he muttered.

"The world was on fire." He looked back up at her, remembering the blazing mural on Renfield's ceiling. "I don't think vows matter much at the end of days."

"Wouldn't they matter then, more than ever?" Seras blinked at him before sighing.

"When I was your age, I would have said the same thing. But the older I get, the more I just… I just don't know." She crossed her arms. "Her son had your eyes, too. And I would bet that most Hellsings since then have. It was bred in."

"Well. So Alucard lost to a priest." He sat down, feeling something funny about the whole idea and wondering if he was heading down the road to hysterics.

"Alucard didn't feel that way for her." Seras sat as well, picking at her gloves. "Or at least, I don't think he felt that way for her. I certainly don't feel that way for you."

"I should hope not!"

"Did she have feelings for him? Vampires can't—well—"

"Do you have feelings for me?"

"Lord, no!" They were silent. "Renfield—everyone really—says I look like her son. Enoch, right?"

"Yes. And you do, strikingly so." She tilted her head. "If I believed in reincarnation, I'd say you were about as close as it can be. The eyes, the hair, the build… you're nothing like him mentally, though. You're different." She said it as though it were a good thing, so he took it as a compliment.

"Did… did he care for her?"

"How would I know?" Seras shifted her weight to her other foot, expression falling flat. "Stop trying to get some romance out of this. Things just happen, sometimes." He stared at her silently, green eyes and red. She sighed. "He respected her. That probably meant more to her than anything else they might have felt."

"From what I hear, it was hard not to respect her."

"Yes. She was—" Seras's brow furrowed and smoothed as she thought. "She was a very commendable woman."

"You miss her."

"I do." She gave a little chuckle that lacked its usual sharp cruelness.

"You never forget your first Hellsing."