D does Dimensions Alternate

Chapter four: D makes some unwelcome discoveries, as do others.

James ended up with the job of showing D around Hellsing manor. James was a goose in two senses of the word. A well-meaning sort, he had joined the Geese when he was 19 after he’d been rejected from the army and knocked up his sweetheart, Lily. He thought he was joining an elite branch of the police-force that specialised in hostage situations. It took him four months to realise that they were the ones taking hostages and by then it was too late to leave. He needed as much money as he could get to provide for his now heavily pregnant girlfriend.

Unfortunately for him, just when Tulip was old enough for day-care and a week before his spouse was ready to go back to work, she discovered that she was again with child. They got married that time. It quickly became obvious that childcare for two was very expensive and it was easier for Lily to stay home, since her salary was less than his and she wanted to. James was stuck with being a mercenary until little Johnny turned three and went to preschool. He’d been counting down the days to this event when an evening without the kids and too much vodka ensured that Lily was again impregnated.

James had almost been at the point where he could convince himself that the work wasn’t too bad, really, and it did give him hours conducive to the challenges of raising children. Almost. He’d probably have made it if D had stopped glaring at him for a minute.

You see, it seemed D did not suffer fools gladly. James, for all his many positive attributes, had an aura of ineptitude that affected everything he touched. They had already seen the entrance hall four times as a result of James’ poor planning skills. They’d passed Seras’ room fifteen times, although he wasn’t sure how that had happened. After the third time D had gone very quiet, the kind of quiet that only comes before a horrible storm, and Alucard had showed up in front of her door glaring. The glaring had turned into hissing and then D had started snarling back. Eventually their Mexican standoff dissolved into a verbal brawl with Alucard pointing towards his servant’s door and D gesticulating wildly at him.

And then both of them turned their undivided attention towards James.

“I love my wife and children and if I died my insurance wouldn’t be enough to care for them and I’m sure that at least one of them would end up selling themselves on a street corner just to make rent.” He thought that someone should be aware of that.

“What?” The two men had identical, incredulous sneers.

“If I name my unborn child after you will you promise not to kill me?”


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So it came to pass that Alucard begrudgingly gave D a tour and James escaped with his life.

“I hate you, father.” D wasn’t particularly happy about it either.

“I’m contractually obliged not to loathe you but I’m pretty unhappy with you too Harold.”

“Don’t call me Harold.”

“It’s your name.” Alucard huffed petulantly, “I can’t believe you’re sniffing after a little girl.”

“Mum was just a year older than Seras when you started seeing her, she told me.”

“I was younger then, you must be five hundred years old by now.”

D stared at him for a moment, “What?”

“I came back here sometime during the sixteenth century and well after you were born; it’s now approaching the second millennium.”

“Father, it’s been… thousands of years since you disappeared.” D’s voice trailed away into nothing.

Alucard’s shoulders clenched and his mouth opened shortly, fangs bared for all to see. His gloved hands tightened into fists. D was more staid in appearance but his eyes kept darting around his father’s face. His left hand was wisely silent. Beneath his red glasses Alucard’s eyes drifted closed.

“What year is it?”

“Sometime in the twelfth century, we’re not absolutely sure when.”

Alucard turned towards his son. D flinched under his scrutiny. The now apparently younger vampire took his son by the chin and looked over his face carefully. The gesture seemed familiar to D and oddly comforting.

“I had hoped for better for you.”

D hadn’t been expecting his father to sound sad. He’d been expecting him to get angry at having his son be older. His unexpected brittleness was unnerving even as it was touching. Alucard’s hands slid into his pockets in a surprisingly human gesture.

“I was hoping that you’d age eventually, most damphires do after a dozen centuries or so.”

“Why?”

“Surely you know by now what this life is like.” Alucard paused, lips pursed for a moment, “You were never human though so I suppose you can’t feel the difference in your bones.”

“What do you mean?”

“The police girl chose, she knew what she was stepping into. Vampires of the frontier are born with others to share eternity with. I was hoping that if you had to be alone that it would at least be finite, that you could be a man and not a monster.”

“I’m not a monster.” D bristled at this casual defamation of his character, his earlier goodwill evaporating like ethanol.

“Like it or not that’s what we are.” Alucard pulled a hand away from his coat and pushed his glasses further up his nose. A piece of folded paper fell from his pocket.

Alucard moved towards a window, so D retrieved it in his stead. It had the word Victoria written across it in flowing copperplate.

“What’s this?”

Alucard turned and started slightly. He reached for the missive and D gave it back without conflict. Their conversation was leaving him drained, angry but surprisingly non-combative.

“This is for the police girl, but not yet.” D let it go.

“Is ‘Police girl’ a nickname or a title?”

“Both.”

D frowned, “Well you shouldn’t call her that, it upsets her.”

Then D turned away from his father, missing his look of exasperation. D felt defeated and unbeknownst to him Alucard too felt as though he had lost.


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Seras was even more embarrassed than usual. This took effort on the part of her team mates but they all agreed it was worth it to see her blush. Seras herself wasn’t even sure why she spent so much time hanging out with them after training exercises. Perhaps she had been hoping that as time passed she’d be promoted from her position as mascot. It seemed that no matter where she was or what state she was in, the police force or the army, alive or dead, that she was just too pathetic to be taken seriously. If Seras had higher self-esteem she’d have realised that the Geese liked teasing her because she was younger than them (even if she was immortal) and because that was the only way that they could indicate fondness without sacrificing manliness.

“Seras likes D-eee, Seras likes D-eee!”

“Shut up, you guys!”

Of course, their behaviour could also be considered immature, classroom behaviour akin to dipping girls’ pigtails in ink. Pip was one of the few that knew what hazing was, he just didn’t care. Everyone knew that all the pointy teeth in the world couldn’t make the police girl a threat to them. She was their girl-next-door/sex symbol/soft target and most of them were absolutely in love with her. They were just lucky that they hadn’t said anything to truly hurt her feelings yet.

“Hey, we didn’t know you were a lesbian!”

“Steady on, mate.”

“Fellas, he’s Master’s son. I’m not about to do anything with him.”

“Would you do anything if he wasn’t?”

“I, uh…”

“He sure does look like Alucard.”

“Pff, if Alucard was a woman.”

A hush descended.

“Don’t talk about Master like that, that’s not on.”

Somebody coughed.

“So apparently most of you are spell-bound by the thought of Alucard if ‘e was a woman.” Pip leered, “Interesting.”

The silence was broken by cries and the thumps of several water-bottles being thrown at Pip’s head. All of them missed.

“Seras, you ‘ave been very nice to this new boy; how come you are never so nice to me, eh?”

“That’s not it at all! Harry’s very courteous to me and I want him to feel welcome. I think it’s nice he’s getting to see his Dad again after so long,” Seras’ voice cracked almost imperceptibly, almost, “I’m happy for him and Master.”

The Geese had an interesting reputation, mainly propagated by themselves, but they deserved it. They didn’t start working for Hellsing until they had a list of and information on everyone that worked there. They added Seras the minute they found out about her. Everybody but James knew that her parents had died horribly (they’d elected not to tell him because he wouldn’t have reacted well to stories of families being massacred during the night). They also confirmed that she and all her friends within the police force were dead. Knowing this they all realised that they should have left the issue well enough alone. Not entirely alone, mind, that would be suspicious, just alone enough.

Seras’ father had been a good cop and that actually counted for something in the Geese. She’d clearly spent most of her life emulating him. The mood sufficiently broken, Seras took her leave and missed the disappointed and sheepish faces of that the men were making. As she walked from the barracks to the manor, dragging her feet, she heard jogging coming from behind her. Soon she was shoulder to shoulder with her commander, who was loping casually besides her as though he’d always been there.

“We’re just joshing, Seras.”

She smiled and nodded but her shoulders remained slumped.

“Hey, Seras, close your eyes.”

This time she blushed and brought a hand up to guard her mouth. “No, I’m not falling for that trick. That only works when you catch me off guard.” It had been effective no less than seven times while on missions and at least twice during training manoeuvres.

“Seras Victoria, close your eyes.” He switched into his combat voice and Seras’ feet snapped together as quickly as her eyelids, even though she managed to keep her hand over her lips.

She felt an arm wrap around her and a chin rest itself on top of her head.

“Chin up, Seras, I’m proud of you.”

She leant into him slightly and smiled. Then she blushed profusely and walked back to her room as quickly as propriety would allow. Pip watched her go and laughed to himself. He didn’t laugh at her though, he never did that.


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Walter was perturbed. It took a lot to perturb the old man; usually he had to be facing vampiric Nazis with two broken hands and armed with only a guitar string before he even broke a sweat. Today was different however because he had noticed something that nobody else had. He always worried when he made an unwelcome discovery. Nobody liked a Cassandra. It didn’t help that what he had seen made their new guest a potential threat.

The thing about Alucard was that he was a bastard. The thing about Seras was that she loved her master. She loved him so much that she’d run after whenever he went off half cocked. If he jumped into a pool of holy water with Alexander Anderson, she’d be diving after him with spare clips of ammo and a knife between her teeth. Alucard did something cool and self-destructive, Seras tried to help him as much as she could. She was no shrinking violet.

So he had not believed his eyes when she hadn’t dived after him when he’d fought D. They had both been in far more serious scrapes and she had intervened in ones that were less serious. It had seemed as though something was holding her back. She had looked almost dazed. If she took a step forward, D would look at her and every time she’d reluctantly step back. If the fight had gone on for more than a few minutes she’d have eaten her own lip.

What he did not know was that D’s left hand had noticed as well and he was far less careful with how he used the information.


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Well, I hope you all like. R&R, I like the input and it influences what I write.