Secrets

A few days passed, and Seras found that she was still thinking about Walter and his fantasy about her. As much as she regretted spying on him, discovering that he had sexual thoughts about her had caused her to become somewhat fascinated with him. She told herself that perhaps he had fantasies about many women, but she still found herself wanting to be closer to him and to know more about him. But it still seemed to her that there was no way to make something happen between them in reality. She was a vampire, and so much younger than he was. And they still didn\'t know each other well. Perhaps she was just another stimulating image to him. But even in the daydream he had been sweet and caring, just as he was to her in real life.

One evening when he came to replenish her blood supply, she looked up and asked, \"Walter, do you have a girlfriend?\"

Walter was surprised at the question. Why did she want to know? And what would he tell her? He hardly wanted to get into a discussion of this topic with her.

\"No, Miss Seras, I do not have a girlfriend. At my age I have other priorities. Do you need anything else?\"

\"Oh...\" she replied. \"But, you must have had girlfriends in the past. People are always telling me how handsome you were when you were young.\"

Realizing what she had said, she hastened to cover up her mistake. \"I mean, not that you\'re not very handsome now!\"

She cursed inwardly, knowing that she was making a hash of this. \"I do think he\'s handsome,\" she thought to herself, \"but now he\'ll never believe it.\"

Walter sat down in a chair. Surely she wasn\'t going to demand the whole story about his lack of a love life? Few people knew it. But if he had to, he would tell her. She was one of the few people who probably deserved to know. And if he didn\'t, she might go asking Alucard or Integral. It was better that she heard it from him.

\"I\'ve never had a real girlfriend, to speak of, Miss Seras,\" he said.

\"Oh. But you do... like women?\" She asked it in a questioning tone, though she was sure of the answer.

\"Yes, I do like women.\"

\"Then why have you never...\"

\"Miss Seras, how much do you know about the seal that binds you and Alucard to Hellsing?\"

\"Only a little. Integral gives some of her blood from time to time, and it makes certain we don\'t hurt anyone on our side, even if we need to feed.\"

\"Correct. The seal does contain some of the blood of a Hellsing, the head of the family, and it is renewed periodically. But there is more. The seal also requires virgin blood to make it work.\"

\"Oh, but Sir Integral...\" Seras trailed off. That was none of her business either.

Walter nodded. \"Yes, Sir Integral can use her own blood for the virgin blood. But obviously, her father and grandfather couldn\'t use their own blood.\"

\"Well, no, but there must have been someone...\"

\"Even within Hellsing, the workings of the seal are kept quite secret. They need to have someone they can trust, both to tell the truth about their virginity and to keep silent about what is going on.\"

The penny dropped, and Seras\'s eyes widened. \"So... you... but...\"

\"Sir Hellsing\'s grandfather asked me for blood for the seal when I was barely a teenager, and I didn\'t see any harm in giving it to him. I had no plans to lose my virginity at that age. But after I did it, he told me that if I lost my virginity before the next renewal it would break the seal and Alucard would be free. I\'m sure now that that wasn\'t true, though whether he believed it or he was lying to me I\'m not certain. But I still didn\'t mind, because I thought surely they would find someone else to give blood for future renewals, and then I could do what I liked. But they didn\'t; they kept asking me each time.\"

\"Surely you objected!\"

\"I objected quite strongly, but Hellsing was a very close-knit group in those days, and even I couldn\'t think of anyone else who could give blood to them. And I was still young. I thought I had forever to solve this problem.\"

Walter sighed a little at this point in his narrative. It did seem strange, when he looked back on it, that he had agreed to this. But at the time he was still reacting to the thrill of knowing that vampires were real and that he could kill them. Even to a young man, sex was pushed to the background.

\"And if you had simply gone out and had sex anyway?\" Seras asked.

\"At the time I had no doubt that the if I did that Alucard would immediately run rampant. Possibly killing even me, and who knows how many other people. It wasn\'t worth it. I was very loyal to Hellsing, in those days as now. And I had developed something of a religious bent, so not losing my virginity seemed like it would be the moral thing to do as well. So I simply kept going on with the renewals, thinking someday I would be freed and able to marry or... whatever else I might choose to do.\"

\"But Walter, you\'re seventy years old!\" said Seras in an almost reproachful tone.

\"By the time Integral\'s father had taken over the organization, I was a great deal more concerned. But he also insisted I keep using my blood for the seal, and I complied. I had nowhere else to go, you see. There isn\'t much of a demand for killing the undead with wires outside this organization, and my weapons skills are mostly useful for making guns that humans can\'t handle.\"

\"What if you had just refused to renew the seal?\"

\"If they couldn\'t find someone, which was possible, the seal would be broken. By then I\'d been Alucard\'s comrade for years, and I was fairly certain he wouldn\'t kill me. But I could put everyone else in danger by losing my virginity or refusing to renew the seal, even when he was locked in the basement. Alucard has had some resentment toward the Hellsing family, obviously,\" said Walter.

\"Well I imagine you do too!\" said Seras indignantly.

\"I have some. But the Hellsings were very good to me in other ways, giving me a home and allowing me to be a Royal Protestant Knight. And when I grew older and slower I was allowed to stay on as a butler, and do research and weapons work. I felt a duty to stay here, to protect them from their enemies and to protect all of England from vampires.\"

He said to himself that she must think him a very foolish man not to have insisted on being free. But it had seemed like the only possibility at the time.

\"And you never even dated?\" asked Seras in a disbelieving tone.

\"I did occasionally. And I\'ve kissed various women. But I never took things too far, because no one was certain where the line of virginity was drawn.\"

\"What they did to you was horrible!\"

\"In some ways I suppose it was, \" he replied. \"But in my private time I\'m a rather quiet and retiring person. I read, and I watch old movies, and try not to dwell too much on being alone.\"

\"But now Sir Integral could use her own blood, couldn\'t she?\"

\"She could, and she does. When she looked at the records and found out what her father and grandfather had done she was very angry on my behalf, and told me there was no truth to the idea that the seal could be broken by me between renewals. And at the next renewal she gave her own blood.\"

\"But why didn\'t you... find someone to be with... then?\" asked Seras hesitantly.

\"I was an old man by then, and it just didn\'t seem worth it. I didn\'t want to start a relationship, and as for something... casual, there were new diseases about and I needed to be careful. It\'s too late for me. I don\'t think about sex very much.\"

\"But you have fantasies,\" Seras blurted out. \"I know, because you had one about me.\"

She covered her mouth. How stupid could she be? He would be furious now, and it was all her fault.

He did look at her angrily for a moment, but then he shrugged. \"Mind-reading. I\'m surprised I didn\'t detect it. And I\'m also surprised you did it, but I suppose it should be me apologizing to you, for the content of my daydream.\"

\"So that was the only one you had about me?\" she asked.

\"No.\" he answered honestly. \"And I\'m sure that disturbs you. But believe me, I have no intention of trying to act out my fantasies with you in reality. You can trust me to behave respectfully at all times.\"

\"I do trust you. But I didn\'t find your fantasy disturbing.\"

\"You didn\'t?\" he asked.

\"No, in fact, I found it arousing,\" said Seras.

She smiled at him. Then she gathered her nerve for her next statement.

\"I wouldn\'t mind if you did want to... well, I wouldn\'t mind.\"

Walter was stunned. It was impossible, that someone would consider him in that way after all these years. And even if she really were attracted to him, she was so young. A young vampire, though he didn\'t dwell on that. He closed his eyes for a moment.

\"This is an extremely tempting situation. But honestly, Miss Seras, it would be wrong for any number of reasons. My age, your age, our positions at Hellsing... it\'s completely impossible. What if Sir Integra were to find out?\"

\"Well I would hope she\'d be happy for you, after what her family did to you,\" said Seras.

\"You know better than that,\" said Walter gently. \"There would be trouble. With Alucard too, possibly, since you\'re like a child to him in some ways. If things were very different... well, they aren\'t, so there\'s no use discussing it I\'m extremely sorry, Miss Seras.\"

Seras looked sad as he turned and left the room, and he felt highly disturbed. She wasn\'t the first woman he had turned down, but she was the only one to make an offer he was free to accept. He did feel sorry, for both of them.