Insert proper disclaimer about not owning Hellsing here.

There are days when he can no longer function. The Major seems to think that he's an automaton; that he can work for days on end without breaking. Not only that, he has to stop and tend to the paltry needs of the other soldiers—he is the only resident doctor on board, even though his title is hardly a medical one anymore, with all the degrees under his belt.

So, amidst the cries of help from the vampires, the many worries of the two women on board over this and that and what if and so on, being called to the Major's side at every other moment, and to top it all off the already-pressuring demands of his work—he's ready to explode.

On those days, he leaves work early. He tapes up the sign he made on a piece of notebook paper, with words large enough to read from down the hall, written in his own flowing script: Lassen sie mich allein. Legen notizen in mein mailbox. It's straightforward enough, and so the soldiers are just S.O.L. when they come to find the Doc.

He creeps to his room, if one can call it a room. It's really a closet, a bunk screwed into the wall, and enough standing room to turn in a circle. But he has made it his own, like all the others that are lucky (or powerful) enough to have a room to themselves. There are medical images and CAT Scans, MRI readings and statistical data pasted all over the walls. But in one corner, the one just above his bed, there are photographs, brown-washed with age. They are his prized possessions, the memories of his life before all of this.

But even that doesn't tempt him. No, what he wants is in the closet. He pushes his meager clothing aside—an extra coat, his pajamas, a fresh shirt for special occasions—and he finds the bag in the back, hanging neatly on the last clothes hanger against the wall.

He pulls the bag forward and unties it, pulling out the carefully wrapped object within. It's a dress; a gray dress that was all the style back in the late 1930s, but now it would be considered old-fashioned. The black buttons still gleam, and the fabric is still soft and worn and only moth-eaten in a few places. He caresses it like one would a lover, laying it ever so gently on the bed before undressing for the night.

He doesn't rush; he hangs up his coat, throws his dirty outfit through the laundry chute, and pulls out his new outfit to iron and hang for tomorrow. He then crawls into the bed, pulling the dress up and breathing in the dust on its surface. It's long lost the perfumed scent it had, but the fabric is familiar against his skin and he's lost in the sensation for countless moments.

Even without his glasses on, he can see the photos on the wall. He zeroes in on the image he loves most: the woman, her hair tied in a neat chignon, wearing the dress in his arms. The dress was brand new at the time, and her eyes sparkle with delight at being given such a rare treat in a time of war and rationing.

He breathes in the fabric again and he remembers the scent she used to wear, and suddenly she's with him in his mind. She lies with him, her hands wandering over his body as she whispers her love in his ears. He begins to shake, remembering every night that they shared a bed, those fifteen glorious years of marriage cut off too quickly.

"Evelyn, oh my Evelyn," he moans, and it becomes the chant that he's been saying for the past thirty years. Then the sorrow and loss and loneliness that has become his life hits him all at once and he's sobbing, crying out at the top of his lungs and muffling it the best he can in the dress and into his pillow, curling his knees up and trembling with the force of it all.

He knows that he can't bring her back, that even in all his lunacy he'd never dare turn her peaceful corpse into the experiment he has locked away in his office—the chip isn't supposed to that, it's not supposed to raise the dead so it doesn't do it good and proper. And he would have his beloved wife back good and proper, and not a ruined shell born of pain and misery.

He feels as though it would be less painful to rip his own heart out of his chest and watch it beat and break, because he's grown up all his life in the church and he knows in his soul that when he does die, he's not going to be reunited with his kind, good little mausi in Heaven.

No, he's going straight to the land of eternal torment, where he'll burn beside the Major and entire fucking Batallion in the lake of fire. He can't bring her back in this life, and he'll never see her in the next—the thought that he will never touch her or kiss her again, that he'll never hear her tinkling laugh or shiver at the sound of his name on her lips, is pure agony.

So he suffers in his anguish, beating the mattress and sobbing out the sheer unfairness of it all, and damning himself over and over again for ever thinking it would be alright to join up with the Major and his army. Because, even if he managed to escape now, what good would it do? He could live a pious life forevermore and still not extinguish all the evil acts he'd been coerced into doing the past thirty years.

And the Captain, in the next room over, hears it all since the only thing separating the two spaces is a sheet of very thin metal. He turns over and closes his eyes, preparing his body for sleep. He won't speak a word about it to anyone; he'll take the secret of the good Doctor's episodes of grief and distress with him to his grave.

There's not enough privacy to be had around the ship as it is, and after all, everyone who walked the metal platform has felt the same things. He knew the feeling of overwhelming loss and sadness, and as he went to bed, the only thing in his heart was sympathy for the man who— in all his brilliance— couldn't have the one thing his heart craved.

Afterword:

Q^Q (whispers* I'm a horrible person.)

This is actually the first in a series of oneshots I'm doing about all the L.B., which is why it's not considered "completed". I have no idea who I'm doing next, though I have ideas for nearly all of them.