Author's Note: I had a dream set in the Hellsing anime universe that came out as a rather coherent story, so I wrote it up. It is told from the point of view of an original character, and it is not a romance. I am such a rebel. ;-)

Also, I am not familiar with the manga, hence why this takes place in the anime universe, in some mid-series neverwhen.

Rarity: Part I

I was always under the impression that it only takes a couple of sentences to get to know me. I'm Ivy Crouse, and I'm a private investigator. I share a small house with two cats, a lot of books, a couple of gaming consoles, and an iMac, and I like it that way. The end. Pretty simple, huh?

Okay, so maybe it's not quite so simple, but that's usually enough to put off whomever I'm talking to. Provided I let them get that far to begin with. I'll talk endlessly with anyone who wants to talk, just not usually about myself.

I figure that I can exist this way – successfully keeping myself to myself – because I have plenty of time to think, so I don't just let whatever I'm thinking spill out of my mouth when I'm talking to someone. It takes practice, but the more I consider this sort of thing, the easier it is. And there are long stretches of time in which I have nothing to do but sit, stare, and think. Like right now.

This is the most exciting part of being a PI: I have a guy to follow, at his wife's request, and I'm sitting in my car across the street from the grubby little one-story house that he went in to six hours ago. Yay.

At least he had the courtesy to go into the house with some skinny little strumpet who is definitely not his wife. And I got pictures. My client might not be happy about what he seems to be doing, but she'll be happy to know.

It's times like these that I wish I had a partner or something. Someone to go get me some coffee. And a donut. One of those chocolate ones with chocolate icing and sprinkles from the bakery that the little old Asian ladies run over in the Village…

It is in the midst of my donut reverie that the door of the house opens. I snap to attention, sinking down in my seat as though I'm just sleeping in my car, in case he should glance in this direction.

He doesn't glance in my direction, or in any direction. He heads purposefully out to his car, starts it up, and drives away. And he is alone.

It's six in the morning, dawn fast approaching. Okay, so his mistress is crashing for the day, or it's her place (though she didn't look the type to go for dirty grey aluminum siding). I'll see if I can't find out tomorrow. Today. Whatever. I hate pulling all-nighters like this, but I seem to end up doing it a lot…

I start up my car and follow him at a decent distance, but he just goes home. His wife told me that he'd always been very light-sensitive, and so had always worked the night shift… some night shift.

Finally, I go catch the morning ferry back to the Village, pick up that magical donut, drop the film off to be developed at the one-hour place, and go home to sleep.

When I meet with her for a late lunch in the City, I show my client the pictures, and she goes to pieces. She sobs about how she'd met him in a bar and how she'd trusted him for three years, and generally goes on blubbering their entire history until I put an arm around her and make comforting noises. It works, but then, she didn't strike me as too bright to begin with. Ah well. She tells me to find out the mistress' name, so that she can list her in the divorce paperwork.

A couple of hours in the appropriate offices yields that the dirty grey house is in the name of one Koit Finerson Flanders, which is a horrid anagram for Frank Ed Fioli-Sternson, the guy's full name. I guess you can't help a horrid anagram with a name like that, but still… How unimaginative. There's a saying about not trusting people with two last names, so a name composed of three last names is definitely suspect, right?

And he's owned the house for, oh, three years. That's going to make the soon-to-be-ex-wife feel good.

No luck finding the mistress' name there. However, some nosing about does turn up that Koit Finerson Flanders owns not just that house, but a rather nice car as well. I wonder where he's hiding it. Possibly in that little house's garage, though it would look a bit out of place in that neighborhood.

I decide to go hang about by the house again. Hopefully I'll see her again in the vicinity, and then I can follow her to her home, if she even has a separate place.

So in the late afternoon, I sit in my car across the street from the dirty grey house, and I wait. I brought some reading material this time. I'm going through Bram Stoker's Dracula for about the fourth time. Since I've read it before, I don't get so engrossed that I don't pay attention.

And it's just great stakeout material, particularly for this case. Every cheating guy thinks he's Dracula: he can have any woman he wants, and as many as he wants, and once he's done with them, he can just ignore 'em. At worst they'll just hang around being pretty scenery and hoping that he'll pay attention to them.

Dracula is such a dork.

Unfortunately, I only get to read for about an hour before it's too dark out for me to see. I'm just out of range of the street light, and it wouldn't do to draw attention to myself by turning on the car's interior light. So I soon just sit in the dark, staring at the house and thinking.

And I sit.

And sit.

One AM rolls around, and I'm still sitting, and the house is quiet. I think I've totally missed them. Curses, foiled again.

Not long after that, Fioli-Sternson/Flanders drives up. He enters the house, apparently oblivious to his surroundings again.

He doesn't leave until around six in the morning again.

When he leaves, I wait a bit, then start up the car and leave as well. I tail him, but as expected, he just goes home. Nothing special going on here.

I turn on the radio as I drive past his house and through the suburbs, and then through the City to get to the ferry. I live in the Village (okay, it's half the size of the City at this point, but everyone still calls it the Village), on the opposite side of the Loch, in a small house my great-grandmum left for my family. That means that I take the ferry a lot. It's the quickest way.

The morning radio report warns of bad traffic, but it's on the far side of the City. After going on about it for a bit, they go on to some other news, world first, and then local. The big local story is that the seventeen-year-old daughter of one of the City's councilmen disappeared from a club the night before last. Why couldn't I be out finding her?

Oh, yeah. Because I'm not on the police force. Because I'm a bit of an immigrant here.

No, I'm not bitter that I'd have to go through school again to get the job that I'd originally been after, just because I went to school in the wrong country. Not bitter in the slightest.

I stop by the bakery that the little Asian ladies run on the way home. It's open seven AM to midnight, and the same five women do all the baking, and there's always at least one of them behind the counter. I have no idea what their names are and I can still barely decipher their accents, but they know who I am, which is a bit embarrassing. They know what I want the minute I walk in, no matter which one of them is running things at the moment. And they always have one of those wonderful chocolate donuts with chocolate icing and sprinkles waiting for me. I don't know how they do it. I'm pretty sure that it involves some very tasty black magic, but that is not a bad thing.

I'm in no hurry this morning, so I sit at one of the three little tables to enjoy my donut and latte. I stare out the window at the wet pavement with the morning sun making it sparkle and turning its puddles to gold. The area's pretty much covered in concrete now, but it can still be a nice place. Especially with the right donut to make the world look pleasant.

I can hear the little black and white television on the counter prattling on about the local news, and as I turn my gaze away from the window, I catch the words "daughter" and "missing". I'm thinking, I've already heard this, but the image on the screen catches my eye.

I drop my donut.

Apparently, Fioli-Sternson's mistress' name is Jenny MacDougall.

Disclaimer:

Hellsing, the series, concepts and characters, are the property, copyright and trademark of Pioneer Animation/Geneon (see http/hellsing. No ownership or claim on said property, copyright or trademark is made or implied by the use in this work. This work constitutes a personal comment on the aforesaid properties pursuant to doctrines of fair use and fair comment. This work is non-commercial, not for sale or profit, and may not be sold or reproduced for commercial purposes.