Disclaimer: I don't own Hellsing and I hate everything. No profit is being made from this story except the mild ego-stroking that comes from reviews. Amen.
Thank you to TeaRoses for beta work.
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It was like hell, Walter thought drowsily as he lay in the hospital wing... probably motionless, but he couldn't tell anymore. The heat, the consuming inferno in his head, was more than enough punishment for every sin he had ever committed.
He was just lucid enough to realize he was delirious; he couldn't tell if he was awake or dreaming anymore, and both things were so similar he didn't care. The days blurred into each other when one had no way of telling time, and he had no idea whether it had been ten minutes or ten years since the last time he woke. The blackness before his eyes was almost a constant--he had no strength to open his eyes most of the time, and when he could the light gave him such a splitting headache he had to close them again and beg, without words, for morphine. But there were... flashbacks, in between the nightmares.
Some were actually plausible, probably having occurred in his periods of wakefulness; moving his arm and finding an IV bag attached to it, hearing Integra speaking to him and being able only to groan in response, Alucard shouting at one of the doctors about some aspect of his treatment. But Seras Victoria's shy red eyes, her soft encouragement in his ear, her lips on his cheek most of all, these he had to dismiss as fantasies.
In the part of his mind that still responded, however vaguely, to reality, he felt the now-warm washcloth on his forehead replaced, the cool dampness easing his fever just enough to allow him to think more clearly. Despite this, he didn't wonder who was tending to him--he couldn't afford to waste mental energy on that. He simply lay still, not that he could have moved, and thought how good it felt.
A soft hand rested on his cheek briefly, stroking away the sweat and some of the barrier between himself and reality. For just a moment he saw her face, though he was not conscious of opening his eyes, and heard her soft voice-- "Hold on, Walter. For me."
There was a faint pressure, on his lips this time, and he tried to meet it just a little, something to prove he was still there. No sooner had he barely succeeded, however, than she was gone again, and everything was dark.