[That avoidance has never escaped Alucard's notice. He's never forced contact until now, because Trevor's recovery? The only thing that mattered. Still the only thing that matters. This is the final step in it. God willing, this is the last time the game ever gets played.]

I gambled everything.

[It's so easy to say, isn't it? In that moment, he didn't know. He couldn't have known.]

I knew so very easily that the fight was the simple part. I knew that there were two people I love that needed two very different things, both key to survival. A moment to gather wits, and food. For the first, it was instinct. For the second, I knew that if I did this, I might make the problem worse. After all, the blood in those veins had enough of Walter in them to potentially compound the problem.

[That was something none of them truly acknowledge, was it? That somewhere, somewhere deep in there, was something far worse than Dracula. Removed only by two generations. Tempered by love and loss. Sitting and sewing a wedding dress.]

I knew the other solution too. The thing that I hate more than anything else, the thing that could compromise my own ability to ensure anyone's survival. I gambled again, and felt every memory stir.

For that gamble, I get to joke about arms instead.