The Child of Seras - by MindAsylum - Anime - http://www.hellsingfanfic.net/hellsingfanfic/The_Child

The Child of Seras

Chapter XIII

The morning was muggy, overcast, and cloudy. The light drizzle was just enough to get people to consider the subway rather than walking it, but not so much to where wearing a hood was optional. Most would shrug and go about the day, ignoring the habitually gloomy weather of London this time of year. But for Seras, the weather couldn’t be more perfect.

She might have felt a bit ambivalent about denying Jake half a days’ sleep if she wasn’t so dead set on giving him a chance to have a little fun. Not to mention getting him out of that damn mansion for at least a couple of hours. No matter how unaffected he tried to act, that he had to have been reeling from all this. If he was going to be able to handle working here, he needed a break from time to time, to be reminded that there was a world outside of ghouls and guns and vampires and night sky.

He was incredibly skeptical when Seras told him they could leave the grounds at certain hours. He kept wanting to ask Integra himself, but Seras was able to convince him that if he went into her office like Oliver Twist asking “please sir, I want some more,” he’d be likely to end up scrubbing toilets for a week just for wasting her time.

Even so, he kept looking around nervously as they walked along the wet sidewalk, as if he was afraid she might pop out of a trash can and shoot him an icy glare. To be fair, it did take some persuasion to allow this little outing. But his mental health was a very real concern, so if it kept him stable, and he was closely monitored, Integra would grant him at least some of the privileges she offered her other soldiers.

And if it wasn’t Integra he was worried about, it was the weather. It took a good amount of coaxing to get him outside earlier than 7:00pm. It was understandable; being told that sunlight could kill you, then having your master waking you at 2:00pm saying that she wanted to go out must have been a bit confusing. But it was cloudy outside, and the clothes she gave him would provide him enough protection to avoid getting anything but bad sunburn should the clouds decide to part.

On the subject of clothes, she was more than happy to get out of that uniform for a time, and she knew that despite his other anxieties, Jake was too. Ever since she’d matured as a vampire, sunlight hadn’t been a problem for her, so she dressed lightly but not revealing, as enough men stared at her as it was. She wore her white and pink striped shirt under by her grey vest, and her red beret made it easier to blend in. As for Jake, she dressed him in a grey hoodie, along with the jeans she’d found him in.

“Where are we going?” he asked, more like a helpful suggestion than a direct question.

Oddly enough, it was the first time in the twenty minutes they’d started walking that he’d asked that. Now that she thought about it, he wasn’t very prone to asking questions, but if he was, he probably couldn’t have made it as far as he had.

“You’ll see.” She said dreamily, a mischievous smirk on her face.

They descended down the stairs to the tube, making their way past the seemingly infinite number of passersby. These huge masses of people served as a reminder of who she was protecting, but at times she couldn’t help but think of them as red blood cells flowing through a major artery. And if they represented a body, then vampires must have been a virus. And if vampires were a virus, then was Hellsing the vaccine, using the same virus against itself?

She pushed such musings out of her mind for the moment and paid for the two tickets. Jake gave her a strange look, as if seeing her use money broke some sort of rule.

“Work for Integra long enough, she’ll throw you a few pounds here and there. It’s not much, but it’s good for a rainy day.”

It took a moment for the pun to register, and when it did, he laughed nervously, as though he wasn’t sure how to take it. Seras smiled to disguise the small twinge of guilt in her throat, and ushered him into the train. Her mistake might have cost him his first life, but she’d do all that she could to make it up in his second. Hopefully, today could be a small step toward that end, to show him that even if he’d been shanghaied into Hellsing’s endless war, he didn’t have to be consumed by it.

They stood side by side on the train, with Jake shifting nervously, and trying to make it look like it was the movement of the train. Seras had the distinct feeling he wasn’t very fond of crowds, and wondered what it must have taken to get someone like him in front of a crowd of two-hundred or so strangers to perform music without him bolting the scene like a rabbit from a stampede. Maybe it was because he was with people he trusted, who were right there on the stage with him. He was on a new stage now, with far more than rejection at stake, and Seras wasn’t going to leave him alone in the spotlight.

They got off at 32nd, and took to the street again. They’d walked two blocks when Jake stopped suddenly. Seras turned and saw that he was looking at a homeless man, asleep, with a Styrofoam cup in his lap. He glanced back at Seras, and after a moment, she understood. She threw a few shillings in the cup and they walked on. Just as Jake was about to repeat his first and only question of the day, Seras pointed to an old, run-down building with a ticket booth in front.

“When’s the last time you’ve been to a picture, eh?”

He thought for a moment, as though she’d asked him. “I don’t really remember, probably a year ago. Maybe more.”

“Well, then you’re overdue.” She said with mock-disgust. “Which one looks good to you?”

He turned toward the ragged, tattered posters, hung across the entrance in tarnished frames. They were all older movies, and a few he probably had never even heard of. The poster of a zombie’s rotten, drooling maw was almost enough for him to reach for a pistol that wasn’t there. He looked up and saw the title of the 70s production “Dawn of the Dead” stretching across the top and cringed.

“’Little too close to home?”

His discomfort shattered, and for the first time that day, she’d gotten an honest laugh out of him. She hoped it wouldn’t be the last.

“Yeah, I guess so.” He said, scratching the back of his head. “I never thought I’d be saying that.”

“Imagine my reaction when I read ‘Interview With a Vampire.’”

They eventually decided on an old 1930s silent movie called “The Man Who Laughs.” It was about a man who’s face had been surgically fixed to have a constant, wide grin. The Alucard jokes died quickly as the movie went on, when the irony of the title was revealed in that no one could tell if the man was laughing or crying. Seras stole glances at him periodically, trying to get a sense of whether or not he was enjoying himself, and found that he was doing the same, though perhaps for different reasons.

For Seras, this was a place of some her most cherished memories. She and her father used to spend hours at a time here, watching the movies that he and his father used to enjoy together before the area was bombed by the Germans in World War II. This theatre prided itself on showing movies made at and before that time, making it a little-known historical landmark. She wanted to tell him these things, but while she sat here, in the very same seat as she had as a little girl, she couldn’t help but wonder; did Jake have any good times to revisit, anything at all to comfort him when he was alone? Or did he forget those as well, for fear they would bring about the cruel ones?

“That was a good one,” she said, as they walked out of the theatre. “What do you...think...” she trailed off as she realized that Jake wasn’t there.

He’d lagged behind as they’d left the theatre, looking to the ground with a very thoughtful, even serious expression on his face.
“Something wrong?”

He broke from his trance, and gave a disarming smile. “It’s nothing,” he said, but reconsidered, “It’s just...she was blind, so she had a chance to get to know him before she knew what he really looked like, right?”

He was thinking about the movie, that much was good, but his concern seemed out of place.

“Right.” She answered, trying to figure out where he was going with this.

“But what if she never had the chance? What if she knew truth from the start? Would she still have felt the same way?” He seemed lost in thought, but at a loss as to why it was important to him.

Seras swallowed hard and hoped he didn’t notice. Her mind went back to that fateful night when she’d discovered what Jake had been hiding from himself; when she’d run into him in the hallway and had the chance to do what she knew was the right thing. The chance she’d had every day since then, that she’d consistently failed to take for fear of the consequences.

“Well...I...” for a moment, Seras forgot just which question she was answering. Right now, all she wanted to do was set up a day that he’d actually want to remember. If she could create enough, maybe, just maybe, it could make the truth a little easier for both of them when the time came.

“I’m sorry,” he said, no doubt seeing that something was troubling her, “I had fun, I just think too much sometimes. I didn’t mean to be so serious.”

“Smashing!” Seras perked up, delighted at the change in tone, “because I haven’t even started with you yet!”

She pulled him farther down the street and pretended not to notice the momentary haze of red on his cheeks at her choice of words. She didn’t mean to tease him; it was just the best way she knew to get his guard down, and it seemed to be working.
The light drizzle faded as the sun set invisibly behind the clouds. The sky was painted in strokes of orange, pink, and green. It was obvious to Seras that Jake appreciated site, perhaps even more than she herself did. He didn’t smile, but his eyes were still, fixed on the twilight, lost in thought.

They had come to a local park to relax, and perhaps to talk, but Jake was being very quiet, much as he had been in the theatre, though without the concentration that had concerned her. She thought it best to let him enjoy the peace.

He looked down from the sunset, at the pair of children who didn’t let the wet sand stand in the way of building their castle.
“My sister, Ceil, used to take me to places like this.” He said, his voice was somewhere between nostalgia and sadness. “She told me that the twilight was beautiful because it was the time when darkness and light came together.”

A mild, peculiar shock went through Seras, then dissipated. He had never talked about family before. In fact, he’d always become guarded, anxious, even a little afraid when she’d brought up the subject in the gym those many weeks ago. Knowing what she did, and what he didn’t, it was a little startling for him to bring up the subject so suddenly, so sincerely.
Had he really grown to trust her that much?

“I never understood what she meant by that; but whenever she said it, she’d always be looking at me, not at the sky.”

He trailed off for a moment, and Seras kept silent, sure that she’d dig herself into a hole if she said anything. He turned his head to her, his expression gone from bittersweet to thoughtful.

“I’m sorry if I sound rude, but come to think of it, I really don’t know a lot about you, except that you used to be a cop.”

“Well, there’s really not much to tell.” She said, suddenly feeling she had to keep her own past a secret as well as his.
Jake wasn’t convinced. “You weren’t always a cop, right? I mean, you had to have started somewhere.”

Seras still balked internally, but his curiosity wasn’t going away, and in all fairness, for all she knew about him, he at least deserved to know a bit about her. She took a deep breath and began.

“I was born in 1981, here in London, in December. My father was a cop, and even though Mum was good to me too, I guess I always was Daddy’s little girl.”

Seras scanned Jake’s face, looking for any discomfort at the mention of the word “father.” She didn’t see any, but perhaps it was because of his completely undivided attention that it didn’t conjure anything. With no red flags in sight, she continued.
“No matter how hectic his work would get, he would always find time for me. He and I used to watch crime dramas together, even when I was too young to understand them. He would always point out all the little things the Tele people were doing wrong, like he was training me for the day I would join the force. I didn’t need much of a push, though. Daddy was a local hero, and whenever he came home from work, hung his hat, and tucked away his badge, I thought to myself: ‘that’s what I want to be.’”

Seras realized that her gaze had slowly drifted from Jake back the pastel sky, and readjusted, thinking she might look rude if she wasn’t looking at him. But Jake wasn’t confused, put off, or even engaged. In fact, in his warm smile was something she’d never really seen in him, but always wanted to.

He was happy.

Seras had seen him smile when she comforted him, heard him laugh here and there at one of Mick’s jokes, but never that rare, honest, subtle elation that she was witnessing now. And all she did was talk about herself.

“I’ll bet was really proud when you joined the force.”

“He...would have been.” She said with sheepishly.

Two explosions. A cruel voice gloating “How’d you like that!? Fucking copper!”

“I’m sorry,” he said regretfully, breaking her out of her momentary trance, “I didn’t mean to—“

“No,” she cut him off, “That was long ago. It doesn’t bother me anymore. He...died in the line of duty when I was seven.”

It wasn’t the whole truth, but he didn’t need to know the specifics. Maybe later, when he’d gotten past his own problems, she would tell him. But not now, and certainly not today.

“What about your mother?” he suggested hopefully.

“She’s...gone too. Cancer.”

Ok, so maybe that was a complete lie. But “killed and then raped” wouldn’t have been the best way to liven the mood. This had been shaping up to be a good day for him, and she wasn’t about to ruin that with her own baggage. Regardless, Jake seemed to be bearing it for her anyhow.

“I was lucky.” She said, before Jake could express any further condolences. “A lot of children grow up alone all their lives. I...had a good childhood, however long it lasted.”

He paused a moment , out of either respect or hesitation. “So when did you join the force?”

“I was barely 18; so young compared to the others they called me ‘Kitten.’”

“It must have drove you crazy.”

“At first...but somehow, in the four years I was on the force, it grew on me.”

“Four years?” he said, confused. “That’s not very long. What happened?”

Oh God. Seras groaned internally. Crawl out of one hole, and you dig yourself another.

“Well, I guess you could say I died.”

Jake’s eyes widened a little. “You mean...that’s when you...”

“My unit and I were investigating what we thought was a riot in Cheddar village,” she began, unsure if telling him this was the best idea. He and Alucard had enough bad blood already, but damn it, she’d lied to him enough for one day. The least she owed him was a little honesty.

Jake waited, his attention completely undivided, like a grammar school kid during story time, for her to continue.”

“It turns out the ‘rioters’ could eat bullets for breakfast and their ‘instigator’ was a priest from the local church. My unit was wiped out in less than a minute, and I ran away.”

“You sound like you regret it.”

“Sometimes,” she admitted, “but if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have ran into...wait, I’m getting ahead of myself.”

She paused, collecting herself, and continued. “The vampire chased me down. It could have killed me at any time, really; I guess he just thought I’d taste better with adrenaline.” She gave a weak laugh, but her jest was lost on Jake, who listened with an almost eerie seriousness.

“That’s when Alucard showed up. The vampire thought he could use me as a human shield, but Alucard would have none of it. To kill the vampire, he...”

Jake tensed. He wasn’t going to like this, but she was too far in to quit now.

“He shot through you, didn’t he?” he said, but his eyes were elsewhere.

“...yes, he did.”

His face twisted into a scowl. “And I’ll bet he didn’t bother giving you the option until you were bleeding to death on the floor. Am I right?”

“Yes.”

His voice held no distinct malice, but there was a focused, calculative edge to it that didn’t fit him at all.

“The way I see, he may as well have taken you hostage himself. People like him see something they want, and they’ll do anything to get it, no matter who gets hurt in the process.”

He spoke with a sense of authority that made it difficult for Seras to mount any defense for her former Master (not that he would have cared), but she tried nonetheless.

“That might be true, but if he hadn’t shown up when he did, I wouldn’t be here talking to you, would I?”

“And if he’d decided to do his job and save your life, rather than take it for himself, you’d still be on the force, still human, like you wanted.”

Seras sighed. “Jake, please listen to me. Whatever happened then is between me and Alucard, alright? There’s no need for you to get all twisted up over something that happened over a decade ago. I’ve moved on. Besides, how I was turned really has nothing to do with the issues we have now.”

“I think I know what does.”

“You...do?”

“Because you haven’t changed.”

He was looking back at her again, but like he had before.

“I’m not sure I follow.”

“You’re strong, Seras, and you have a heart. I always wondered were those two things must’ve come from. Alucard told me once that we can’t be human by the nature of what we are, that we’re all destined to become animals. But when you started talking about your father, the way your eyes lit up...I don’t really know why, but it made me believe him even less than I did before. You had the same look in the theatre, like it was something special to you. I haven’t been a vampire long, Seras, but I can tell already that it can be a struggle sometimes. But you remember who you are, where you came from, and what’s important to you, and that makes you strong. I think Alucard knows that deep down, you still have what he lost, and he resents you for it, because he can’t drag you down with him.”

Who was this person she was talking to? It couldn’t have been the same boy she had to coax out the door, who quailed under Integra’s slightest glance.

“ I think,” he finished, with a graceful finality more suggestive of a poet than someone his age, “that if your dad could see you now, he’d be just proud to be your father, as I am to be your fledgling.”

Seras opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out. To say that she was flattered would be an understatement: no one had ever said anything even remotely as gracious as what he’d said so simply. All the more striking was the calm certainty of his words, the complete absence of doubt. He usually didn’t sound very sure of anything, but at this moment he spoke as if he had known her his whole life, and was only stating what he knew to be true. She didn’t even tell him the whole truth, yet even from the lies he could discern something so intimate.

With his awkward, naive nature, and seeming inability to stand up for himself, even though she didn’t want to believe it, she could at least conceive of a monster hiding behind it. Repressed anger always disguises itself as fear and nervousness. But this person in front of her wasn’t any of those things. This boy in front of her was a perceptive, thoughtful, even confident, backed with a very subtle, almost imperceptible strength. Suddenly, Ceil’s earlier words came together, like two puzzle pieces.

{continued....}

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