Hellsing Mum

When the woman turned around, her face twisted into a confused expression that literally read "What the hell Arthur?"

Her long, jet black hair swung over her shoulder completely with the force at which her body jerked to face him. It was comical, the juxtaposition between her face and body language; her body was drawn taut ready to attack if need be, but her face, it was not a pretty one for anyone to make. She wasn't threatened by him, her heart beat wasn't off kilter, her pupils displayed no significant change, she was more ready than scared. In the same instance she became alert, the woman relaxed and let out a tired sigh.

"You must be the family dog" she spoke with a thick and slightly raspy Indian accent.

Alucard barely gave a nod before advancing toward the crib in the far corner of the office. Integra looked happy to see him for once, well maybe less by him and more of his big red coat, a fascinating pop of color in the bleak cigar fragrant office. It hadn't changed much during Integra's reign, save for some new curtains and increased storage furniture to satiate his compulsive master. When it was Arthur's the office remained in a state of disarray, yet the man could easily find any document and located the smallest receipt with ease. Alucard always wondered how it returned to a clean and organized state, he never cared enough to pry, yet he could hear the patter of dainty feet upstairs, far too small to belong to Arthur's oxfords.

He turned his gaze downward to the small bare feet that stood planted beside his, she flexed her toes then leaned down to admire Integra as well. The infants face lit up as she focused on the Indian woman who made charming bird noises as her, her birth mother. Alucard had seen her before, it was a brief meeting, but he remembered the fluttering in the heart of the Hellsing man when he was in her presence. She walked so lightly that she was almost never heard by the limited human ear, and smelled of the bergamot found in earl grey and mahogany fragrance oil. People usually associated Indians with the smell of spices, her scent was teasingly spicy, yet woodsier.

Integra came up to grab Alucard's sleeve, the woman playfully pushed her down and laughed at the surprised giggle that came from the child. The stubborn willed child sat up once more, her soft blonde hair sticking up in all directions. Using his teeth, he pulled off one of his gloves and offered his hand to Integra once more, who accepted it by clumsily grabbing onto it. She then proceeded to chew at his fingers, his cold flesh was soothing to her irritated gums.

"You should know better than to allow a hungry beast access to such a small, easy meal" Alucard murmured.

The woman leaned onto the railing of the crib, "Ah, but who is the meal and who is the hungry beast" she reached down to ruffle Integra's spindly locks, then walked off to continue cleaning. "You wouldn't hurt her, are there people who would? Yes, but not you" she rolled her dark eyes and set a box of dusty files onto the desk followed by a pack of crisp new manila folders. "Aren't you supposed to be in time out?" she asked over her shoulder as she sorted the documents into fresh folders.

Alucard continued to observe his master, he felt nothing but obligation towards her, it made him uneasy that she could not vocalize her needs, to command him, to utilize him. Even at this state, she was not daunted by him, it has been thought that infants are effective judges of character, becoming distressed in the presence of miscreants. This child is either fearless or was probably dropped somewhere down the line, putting that judgment tool out of commission. Knowing Arthur…

"Seeing that she's bewitched you, can you pick her up for a bit, if you hold her long enough it puts her right to sleep" Jayshiri instructed. Integra did appear to be fighting sleep as she slumped forward while gnawing at Alucard's hand. Scooping her up as if she weighed nothing, Alucard went and sat on the leather couch near the window, allowing Integra to stand through his support and play with his coat.

"Now, what are you doing roaming about? Last time I asked 'the stupid one' about you, he nearly had four cows and a chicken" she sat at the desk spraying it with a dusting oil and buffing the surface with a cheese cloth.

"I seem to be skipping around all over the place, I haven't found a way to control it yet" he finally processed a full sentence.

"Ah" she nodded, "I don't understand what you mean at all, but I'll humor you red man" she sat down the spray bottle and looked at Alucard who now sat with a dozing Integra. "Do you need to eat? I stumbled into the wrong freezer recently, found gallons and gallons of blood" She sat a candle on the table and lit it with a match from her skirt pocket. Normally she'd wear a simple solid colored dupatta on her head that matched a long skirt or salwar bottoms. Today she donned a black skirt with dusty hand prints on the sides, and a plain white t-shirt, her hair loose and hung down to the base of her spine. She didn't wait for him to answer, she left and returned with a cooler full of blood bags and sat them next to him. "Let me just take this for a second" she plucked Integra from his arms and reclaimed her seat at the desk.

"It's complicated to explain, I am the same vampire in the dungeon, but I reside from a future where Hellsing is ran by your daughter"

Jayshiri smiled, "Ah OK then" she shrugged, "How did you get here?"

"Due to a recent addition, I have become uncontrollably omnipotent"

"What on earth does that mean?" she mumbled sounding rather sleepy herself

"I am everywhere and yet nowhere"

"Oh….then stop doing that" she spoke slowly

"You don't seem to comprehend the severity of the situation'

She scoffed, getting up to set a sleeping Integra in her crib, "Sure-sure, you're just not trying hard enough.

He gave her an annoyed look but let her continue.

"You are a man who made himself a creature of the night, and you can't hold your breath long enough to stop your silly little hiccups? My daughter is alone somewhere, aren't you supposed to be there to protect her?" she sat back in the chair and stretched, earning a much needed pop in her back. "Coddle her now, it won't matter when she's in danger, this time has passed….apparently. You can do many magnificent things but this is hard? Uncontrollable? Incomprehensible? Bah, you are being lazy" she waved a dismissive hand at the vampire.

"And go ahead and eat...or drink those before you disappear again or whatever you said" she nodded at the cooler sitting undisturbed next to him.

Integra may not remember her earlier encounters with her mother, but she sure inherited her authoritative nature from her. Most people, normal people, would've found Alucards appearance alarming, but this lively creature spit venom in the form of concentrated dominance. He might as well drink now, unlike your ordinary garden variety bloodsucker, he could live for a long time without blood, but it's always good to keep blood in his system.

She eased into the desk chair as Alucard began to feed, "I don't want to know about the future, so spare me that speech" her voice was now more even. "I have to return home to India in three years, I'm married to another man….his family thinks that I am sick and sought treatment overseas" she scratched her nose. "My family sent me here to get an education, some job experience" she paused to sit cross legged in the chair. "My father is a farmer, and my mother who is actually very sick, makes the most charming textiles, she made all of my clothes from sari's to dress shirts for college" Jayshiri let out a nostalgic chuckle. "You should see my husband, my ball and chain, he is a little over 40 years old….I never cared enough to follow up, he isn't ugly, but has a pair of feet that look like two freshly uprooted yams" the disgust was evident in her tone. "He doesn't like me that much, I am smarter than him and he doesn't like that, he only married me because I am young...because he could."

"I bumped into Arthur during an exchange student meet up, he wasn't a student, or an exchange student, or a teacher….just some blonde idiot drunk in the middle of the day who found his way into the building and fell into a snack table, such a stupid man."

If he was capable of free expression, he would sympathize with the woman. Arthur was a master tactician, highly resourceful, intimidating his enemies not with a steely exterior or an authoritative presence, but by his intellect. It was scary, he retained information like a sponge, and even when the odds were stacked against him, he'd have full confidence even when the probability of success ranged in the single digits. His former master took the bottle as his muse, it lowered his inhibitions and presented him with a sort of Zen like clarity, it was the vinegar to the dust caked windows of reality. However, he also lacked self-control and basic judgment skills that humans seem to possess as far back as infancy. One minute he was issuing brilliantly formulated plans and orders, covering every base imaginable...and other times he was so toasted off his ass that he'd get into a fist fight with a provocative looking lighting fixture. This was typically followed by him sobbing over how lonely he was or him gargling a colorful renditions of Christmas music.

"I took him to my dorm, fed him some rice and stew I made last night, let him crash on the couch….my roommates covered him in blankets….one would come by and drape it over him then another would come and adjust it, then another would just throw another over him" her voice bubbled with hushed laughter. "He woke up and threw up on my shoes...but he didn't have a hangover so that was good."

"He smelled awful, so I made him take a shower, he tried to get loud with me, but I kept hitting him until he did what I said", Alucard nearly chuckled at the short woman.

"He said that he could use a receptionist to help him with all of the work he had to do" she paused to play with her hair.

"What was your response?" Alucard asked.

"I told him to go to hell, I had school and that he was a silly drunk...he thought it was funny so I beat him over the head with a newspaper" she flexed her toes and shifted in the seat to get more comfortable. "My roommates washed, dried and pressed his clothes and we gossiped about Arthur in Hindi so that he wouldn't understand us. I didn't see him for 3 months after that, then he started throwing stuff at my dorm room window. He broke it once, but we would always sneak down and get him, fix him up and send him on his way"

She looked down at her lap and played with her fingers, a small gold band with a diamond in the center glittered in the moonlight pouring through the window. "One day he drank too much, he threw up blood, so we hid him for a week and I went to work for him, it was counted as a work study during holiday breaks, my roommates would come and visit, they never liked the curtains, I didn't either...but he refused to change them, so they'd always tease him about it"

"Every night before I left to go back to school he would come into my room, smelling of brandy, he would lay his head in my lap and try to talk to me while I slept, sometimes he'd cry, begging me not to leave, promising me things. To send my family whatever they needed, to move them into the estate"

"You refused?" Alucard humored.

"Of course, I had school, he would have to suck it up and wait until I came back and that was that" she dismissed. "I came back though, I did my four years and stayed with him" her face dropped. "It was a horrible decision, he got me pregnant, I felt so rotten, but he stopped drinking because the smell made me throw up"

"He wouldn't leave me alone either, he made his associates hold their meetings at the manner, just in case anything happened"

Alucard was halfway through the cooler contents, feeling a bit better than he did before.

"I told him to keep our relationship a secret, I was still a married woman and I did not fit into his world well enough to be known as his girlfriend. That being said, I need a favor from you"

He looked up at her, their eyes met, she began to braid her hair to still her fidgeting hands. "Integra will be one in two months and when she is three I will return home to settle my business, but….I have come to realize that I may not return"

She remained silent for a while and finished braiding her hair before she spoke "They burn women in my country, not all the time, but some do. When a man dies his wife is expected to join him in death not to long afterward. Sometimes it is done because the man or his family does not like the woman. She may have brought shame to their family somehow or...just couldn't pay her dowry in completion"

Integra began to stir in her crib before going still again, Jayshiri eyed her sleeping daughter. She looked like Arthur, but her skin was tan, not as dark as her own, but enough to identify Integra as an individual of mixed origin.

"I paid my dowry, but I will have to ask his permission to leave again, or play sick enough to be sent back….I digress, Alucard, do not tell my daughter about this conversation, whether I make it back or not"

She waited for him to nod in agreement before continuing, "I need you to get back to her, and keep her safe, a simple enough request for you I am sure"

"If you believe that there may be a chance that your daughter will be without her mother, why not change that by altering the future?"

Jayshiri gave him an honest smile, "It would keep me from doing my dharma" her soft manicured hands rubbed at the expensive wood of Arthur's desk. "I must go the route meant for me, no matter what the consequences, am I responsible for my actions and my life". The young mother didn't care whether she lived or died, yes Integra would have to be without her, but Jayshiri knew better than to mess with the natural order of things. To upset the flow of the cosmos by not completing her birthright was unthinkable; she promised that she would return home, she would not abandon her responsibility to her family.

"Integra will be fine with Arthur until I return, he can't get enough of her as it is, he totes her into meetings and leaves early if she gets fussy, he breathes for his little princess" she laughed with a warm smile painted onto her soft features. "I must contemplate to the point of fear, we all die eventually, we all experience hardships, unless I am instructed to do otherwise, I will go home to my family, and return when able"

She stood and sat next to Alucard on the couch, "You ever have kids red man?" she drew her legs near her to sit cross legged.

"Yes"

"I'm guessing you had a wife as well?"

"A very long time ago yes"

"Did you have any siblings?"

"Back then it was a given to have siblings"

Jayshiri leaned over, her elbows sat on her thighs, "And of course you remember your first master"

"Abraham"

"That baby in the crib, could die randomly from any number of issues, someone could drop her wrong and she could hemorrhage violently"

Alucard began to stir glancing over at the crib, Integra was asleep and safe but he began to feel antsy, uneasy, as if he should get up and check.

"That baby in the crib is your child, you will protect her from harm and care for her when she needs you, she is your wife, you need her in your life to complete your existence to make you whole she is your equal and you make her your top priority. She is your brother, tied to you by blood, you are to remain loyal to her, but let her know when she is wrong or reckless. More importantly, that infant is your master, you may coddle her like your child, or admire her like one does a wife, or scold her like a little brother, yet she has the ability to break you down if she feels the need. Abraham is not dead just because he lies among the dirt, he is in that girl who can barely stand on her chubby little legs by herself, and has the power to have your head underneath her small fragile toes"

"What is your point in all this?" Alucard murmured in a disinterested tone.

Her hand shot forward to grab his face and twisted it to face hers, they sat nose to nose and her dark eyes bore into the vacant space where his soul used to lie.

"I want you to think real hard, hold your breath until your hiccups stop, and you get back to my daughter. Understood"

Alucard was then pulled into an embrace by the smaller individual. "You protect her you hear me and you take care of yourself red man"

The vampire sat still, reluctant to relax into the hug, she gave his back a couple pats and he closed his eyes. He had no idea how to control this power placed upon him by his familiar. It had been a while since he enjoyed any form of human contact, when Integra was still young she would stumble down into his room and knock on his coffin, asking him to come watch her until the sun came up. She wasn't afraid of the dark or the threat of murderers, she didn't want to be alone in her own mind, and she needed something to focus on. The sounds of the television and radio only proved to further her anxiety, she couldn't be in tight spaces, nor could she stand the state of complete silence. It was then that Alucard taught himself how to draw breath again, as if he were living, and Integra would fall asleep to the sound of his fidgets and subtle respiration. He would close his eyes and in turn listen to her breathing in return, it put him at peace. He would often wake to the feel of soft blonde hair under his fingers, as Integra had crawled into his lap sometime during the night, he'd put her back to bed. She missed her father, and took refuge in a monster, like a rabbit scurrying into the jaws of an eager fox. After she turned 13 she stopped, she would sleep alone, bearing the silence in stride, developing a hatred of codependence. These moments did not make him feel human, but they did make him contemplate the thought of feeling, his eternal duty to the Hellsing family faded into a semblance of equality, a genuine trust.

He placed his hands on her shoulders, applying no pressure, just sitting them there, he could never return contact appropriately. The other body grew stiff, and trembled a bit, the shift in demeanor caused Alucard to open his eyes. Integra stood in front of him, looking no older or younger, her face mirrored her mother's bewildered expression when he materialized into the room. She slowly blinked, the blonde examined the hallway to assure no one else was there before throwing her arms around the tall figure. "If a word of this ever leaves your undead mouth, you'll find yourself in the middle of the Atlantic…...understood"

Taking a step back she smoothed out her close before walking off, Alucard followed after her.

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><p>AN: It's been a while since I put something up on this site. For those of you wondering I plan on releasing the newest chapter to "Rebrith" very soon (probably after posting this). I was always aggravated how little is known about Integra's parents, especially her mother. Hopefully I didn't totally botch any references to Indian culture in this story, and hope this was an interesting read. I plan on doing more Hellsing related things in the future!

Leave a review and let me know what I screwed up and what you liked.


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Hellsing, Humor, Hurt-Comfort