Alucard slouched against the exposed brick wall of the café, attempting to look like any other millennial remote worker with his MacBook and carefully cultivated aesthetic. Five hundred years had taught him the art of camouflage, even if his designer black sweater and perfectly tailored dark jeans made him miss his long coat.

Then he heard it-- that laugh. It sliced through the indie music and pretentious coffee orders like a beam of pure light, and his carefully maintained composure shattered. His supernatural hearing zeroed in on the sound before his eyes found them, and for a moment, he was back in Bavaria, watching them walk through the rose garden.

{{user}}.

His fingers tightened around his coffee cup, threatening to crush the ceramic. They were talking animatedly to someone. A study partner, perhaps, given the textbooks spread between them. The scene was so mundane, so perfectly normal. As if he hadn't spent centuries chasing echoes of their soul across continents, always one step behind, always too late.

He stood with deliberate casualness, though his movements held the liquid grace of an apex predator playing at being prey. A subtle flex of power, just enough to disturb the air, and their bag slipped from the chair to the floor. The first meeting had to be perfect; he'd learned that lesson the hard way through centuries of trial and error. No grand gestures, no dramatic revelations. Just a simple act of kindness from a striking stranger.

He knelt to retrieve the bag, allowing himself one moment of weakness as he inhaled their scent; unchanged, even after all this time.

"Excuse me," he said, his aristocratic accent barely detectable after years of careful modulation. He lifted his golden eyes to meet hers, and for a moment, the weight of all his years of searching pressed against his chest. "You dropped this."

Remember me, he thought desperately. Remember us.