By The Grace Of God

{6: Improvement Is Always Welcomed}

{Alexander}

It's been a month into this whole ordeal, and slowly, I've coaxed Tina out of her shell, and sure enough, she's even willing to let me hold her sometimes. I don't know what goes through her head, but she does have her own cautions with letting me close. She won't let me touch her neck, legs, or wrist, and I think that's just a fear response to all the abuse that the true king dealt with. She'll even sleep with one leg poised ready to kick someone should they bother her in her sleep. I've taken to run on a nocturnal schedule, more so than I did before, and I know to get up a whole hour before Tina so I can be ready to help her with her ordeal. Today marks the one month marker, and she looks to be in her second one by human standards. I asked why she stayed in this form, and she explained it was the only one able to carry it to term, to shift would be to cause a forced abortion, which we both agreed was a bad idea. I made her breakfast, and brought it down to the dungeon room Tina called home. She was partially awake, given how much our daughter was kicking. 

I gently knocked on the throne next to the coffin, knowing to even touch the item led to me getting an ass chewing. 

" Good morning, beautiful. I made you breakfast." 

The lid slid off, and she sat up, the black velvet blanket slipping down to her waist, showing her bare skin. She's taken to sleeping nude because apparently she gets hot flashes, and it helps negate that. I was shocked the first time, but now, a month into this, I'm immune to it, handing her the red silk robe I kept on the throne so I could have her decent.

" Thank you for the robe, and food. What did you make?"

" Chocolate chip waffles with some of that special reduction and a glass of AB positive."

" Oh, yum! That actually sounds wonderful. I didn't know you could cook, to be honest." 

" Who do you think has been making all your meals? Walter has been busy ordering baby equipment for me to set up and helping Integra on a pet project I put on her, which brings me to my invasive question of the day. Do you like being here at Hellsing?" 

She took a bite of food, chewed it, chased it with a swallow, before responding. This has been routine as of late. I'll ask one invasive question, one small poke at the scabs and scars she has, and stop there if she says she doesn't want to. 

" This is amazing, and to answer your question, Alexander, no, I don't. I hate this house, and everything attached to it. It was in this very cell I was experimented on imprisoned, forced into a bloodless hibernation, and even worse magics best left to the horribly imaginative. If I could leave, I would, but best leave dreaming of such fantasies to the creative types." 

" How would you feel if Integra handed the reigns, so to speak, to someone else? Have someone else be in charge of those seals?"

" Well, to be honest, it wouldn't be that hard to break the seals and remove the magic that was forced into me. It would take Hellsing blood to undo it and to set me truly free, to be the king I really am. But that's all a pipe dream." 

" What if I told you I had pretty much ordered Integra to do such a thing?"

Her fork dropped to her plate, and her eyes went wide, and for the first time ever, I saw what hope looked like in those perfect sunset eyes, and it almost made me wanna cry because I knew what it meant to see that, to see the hope sit in eyes that hadn't held it in so damn long. 

" You don't mean that. Integra wouldn't ever crack like that." 

" I gave her the ultimate ultimatum. Set you free and into my custody, or I show her just how fucking crazy my Scottish catholic ass can get. She kept thinking I'd get physical, but I don't need to for it to hit her where it hurts."

Tina looked ready to cry, joy, gratefulness, hope, admiration, all of it was beaming off her, but so was doubt. 

" You don't mean this. This is a filthy trick." 

" No, I'm dead serious, Regina mea. I cornered her purely on rites." 

" What do you mean by that?" 

" I am in the eyes of the Queen, God, and in the eyes of the catholic and protestant church your husband till death do us part. We are married, even if it is under simplistic vampire terms, and therefore, I have more right to have say than Integra does. By being your spouse, in royalty terms, I believe that if you are King regent, that makes me, on your words I might add, Grand Prince Consort, which is a higher office than Dame or Knight, and by technicality, I am your Mate, given the history of the term. I've been doing all the hard work in helping you through all this pregnancy and I have been fighting hand to hand with you so much over the years, I know things about you she has zero fucking clue about. I have put literal blood, sweat, tears, and emotion into our relationship, while all she's done is gain you as a hereditary gift, so to speak. She cares about the weapon you could be, while I care about the person you are under all this. I care about the man you are at your core, while she doesn't. I got her cornered and so, she has until the end of term to find a way to set you free, and once you are well enough from such an ordeal, she is to free you, and place you into my custody permanently."

Tina was speechless, but I could feel the emotion pass through us. There was bond we had no one else ever could try to replicate, and that bond just got stronger. 

" Why would you do this for me? I'm a monster-" 

" No, you're not, and I never want to hear you deprecate yourself like that again! You are a soul who made mistakes and made a choice out of self preservation. Walter and I talk a lot, he's kinda been my biggest advocate behind the scenes to help me with your care, and he explained a bit of your story to me. You were forced into this. You had no real choice. Sadly, there is no way to reverse vampirism, but, without it, who knows, we might not have been in this predicament. I might not have met you in the woods all those years ago." 

I gingerly held her head, and she actually leaned into it, making my heart break a bit. She was accepting me even more. 

" Alucard, I love you. I meant what I said in the library, and my point still stands. I've loved you for far longer than you can imagine, and I'll continue to do so." 

" Alexander, I've never known devotion like this, let alone this kind of love. I don't know how to show it back." 

" And that's ok, I'll wait for you, I'll wait for you to say those words back, and for you to mean them." 

" I want you to know my true story, my full story. In the library, there is a black tome sitting on a shelf opposite to the door. Make sure the library is locked and the doors are closed. Go to that tome, and pull, it's a secret latch to a private part of the manor not even Walter knows about, and Master definitely doesn't know about it. It should open a small door to a stony stairwell. It takes you to Abraham's private office, where he did all his research on me and my kind. You'll find a trunk with a dragon seal branded into the top of the wood. That's where my journals and my full story is. You might need to brush up on your Latin, but it's all there. I have to warn you, it's not pretty, or nice, and it might even make you sick, but it is my truth. You will learn my name in those pages. Please, don't let my story, or my name and it's legacy, scare you." 

I knew what those last words really meant. " I'm not one who you can scare off. I love you, scars and all. I'll go when Integra goes to bed tonight and when I know Walter is busy. I'll be down there for a good while, so if anyone asks where I am, I'll need you to cover for me." 

" I'll just tell them you went on one of your more personal errands and that it's going to take a while."

" You know, you giving me this information, it very well could be seen as traitorous." 

" Let it be. If it means the downfall of Hellsing and all it means as a fucking family legacy, I'll see to it's ruin by the hands of my equal, my Mate, my paladin." 

I kissed her, and for the first time, it wasn't hollow or sexual, but full of passion and devotion, love and admiration. I don't have to hear it, I just need to feel it, and thats good enough for me.