Author's Notes: And now, for Walter's true feelings. (Fixed some basic grammar mistakes. Enjoy.)
Disclaimer: If you sue me, you'll have to sue everyone on this website. Good fucking luck.
Walter just barely crossed the threshold when he received a message from Herr Major, demanding that he come to his office at once to receive his next assignment. He snapped it off with frustration. The fatass couldn't bother to tell him while he was still out in the field? He really had to wait till he got home?
While it would have been more efficient to head straight out, as he was standing right next to the door, Walter instead hurried upstairs to Seras' room. He had been worrying about her all day, and had been frantic to get back to her ever since she lied about the window being open. It simply wasn't like Seras, and he naturally feared the worst.
It seemed for a moment as though his fears were confirmed when he burst into her room and she was not there. Then he noticed her coffin was closed. He lifted the lid and found her dead in her nightware. They were not the blue plaid pajamas he was used to. Rather, a tight red nightie that hugged her every curve, with a short skirt that exposed her smooth, supple, pale thighs. Her long black wig removed that her short, messy, blonde hair stuck out in all its glory. Her large, childlike eyes closed in sleep. Her beautiful face was still as death.
He wanted to brush the backs of his fingers against her cheek.
"Seras, are you awake?"
A fraction of his concern and… feelings toward her had crept into his voice, and it was a fraction too much. He suspected that she was not truly asleep, or that she had not slept as long as she pretended, and yet he did not think he could fully hide his… regard for her at present, and so decided to leave her be. There wouldn't be enough time for questions anyway.
Across town, Walter entered the Major's office in a foul mood.
The fatass's insufferable lieutenants were there. How perfect.
Walter carelessly slammed the medical box onto the Major's desk, not even caring if either of them scratched.
Mockery in three… two…
"Well, who ordered pizza?" Jan shouted, "I could sure go for a SLICE!"
"Hmph, never too depressed for a dramatic entrance," Luke smirked.
How predictably droll.
"You wanted to see me?"
"Why, yes, now that you haf mentioned it…" The Major smirked, the light reflecting off his glasses. "I haf your new assignment…"
"Hot off the meat truck!" Jan cried.
"Jan, that was tame for you," Luke said.
"Fuck, you're right: Hot off the burning dick."
"That's more like it."
"Is there a reason why you couldn't phone me this target?" Walter asked.
"Why, yes, now that you haf asked…" the Major smirked, ever coy with his information. Walter often wanted to smack the smirk off his smug face. "This is a job of special importance… it is involving a MillenniCo employee. A singer we all know…"
"The has-been leader of Hellsing!" Rip cried.
"A traitor to MillenniCo!" Jan said.
"You would know all about traitors, wouldn't you, Walter?"
"You are more qualified than anyone to take care of her!"
"Tonight is her last show!"
"I can't afford a scandal here!"
"I will set an example here."
"Take her down!" they all said.
Walter's stomach lurched with despair like that which he had not known for 17 years.
"But her eyes…" he said, thinking of how much hatred, contempt, and betrayal they held.
"Are MillenniCo's!" the Major interrupted, smirking. "I know this may seem hard…"
"Integra was my master," Walter interrupted him.
"Yes, und you sold her out!" Rip squealed.
"You gave her life in exchange for Seras'!"
"'Chutpah' is killing one's parents and then crying mercy for being an orphan," Luke smirked.
"I am well aware," Walter said, but his voice cracked.
Integra was once a woman of such passion, fire, drive, command and authority that the very King of Vampires voluntarily made her his master. She was a woman of such an iron will that she successfully lead the organization that had protected England for nearly a century, starting when she was a child. And, though it had taken decades of ceaseless torture and despair, Millennium had broken her will.
Walter turned to go, but Jan pushed him back.
"You break my fucking heart!" Jan shouted.
"You can… reunite them!" Luke said.
"They won't go to the same place," Walter sneered, and flicked Luke's hand off his shoulder like it was dandruff.
"You can put her out of her misery!" Rip piped up.
"She's such a washed-up old hag that it's probably for the best."
"She'll probably pull up her hair to make the job easier."
"I will not do this job," Walter said firmly, and walked away.
"Is that the best you've got, boy?"
Walter froze. It was the first time anyone had called him boy in half a century. The same night when…
"Must I remind you who started this?" Herr Major asked.
"You don't need to remind me who started this," Walter said calmly.
He remembered being a cocky, 14-year-old boy standing atop the fatass's dinner table.
"Need I remind you who started this conquer?" the Major said.
"You need not remind me who started this conquer."
He remembered the looks of shock and horror from everyone he knew, within Hellsing and Iscariot, when they saw their wrinkled, benign butler standing before them; young, cruel and nonchalant.
"Need I remind you who turned the tide of battle?"
"You need not remind me who turned the tide of battle."
Years of leaking information to Millennium, crippling Hellsing's defenses, wiping out Hellsing's forces, wiping out the population of London, helping to wipe out Alucard… only to wipe out Seras with him.
"That dark fateful night, when you turned on all those in your life!" the Major cried.
The looks of shock and hatred from Integra… horror and disbelief from Seras…
"It's too painful," the Major smirked.
Walter grimaced and turned away from him, trying to repress the memories.
"Alucard was past saving…"
Alucard was past defeating…"
The look of Alucard fading with the rising sun, as his many thousands of eyes slowly closed.
"Und Seras was slipping
"Seras was slipping…"
The unbridled look of terror on Seras' face as she became increasingly transparent, her body filling with countless closing eyes...
"She needed sure help, while I needed skilled hands, so I fixed things…"
The image of Seras' dried up corpse sprawled on his lap. The image of the Captain, Doktor and Major looking down on him with guns. They would destroy her body so she could never come back, unless Walter swore fealty to them.
"We made an agreement…"
"I will honor that agreement…"
The look of her dried up corpse being tied and placed in a stone sarcophagus, just as Alucard's dried up corpse had been placed in the concrete basement of the Hellsing mansion, long ago. The image of the contract he signed in blood. The new set of gloves and wires placed on the desk. The look of his new adult hands; fixed in the Dok's patch-up surgery.
And then Seras was awakened after decades of slumber by a common grave robber. The look of this shriveled old lady, screaming and writhing in her own blood and zydrate, turning translucent as dozens of eyes closed around her. The lizard grin of the Doktor, holding a vile of pills right next to a pile of fail safes to place in Walter's body.
Presently, the Major grabbed Walter's shoulders and said, "You'll do as you're told…"
"… So Seras never knows," Walter concluded.
Millennium stood ready to accept Seras into their fold, and Walter willingly went under the knife to keep them from her. She was as innocent as a newborn lamb and needed to be kept hidden from the wolves. She remained as sweet and friendly as ever, and grew to adore him with unbridled affection. He grew to love the light in her eyes, the sweetness of her smile, and the soft cool touch of her hand on his.
"About your sins of old," the Major said.
He remembered how Integra screamed and spat and cursed his name for years on end. He remained strung up by his own wires for years, forced to listen to every sick and creative way that Jan though to torture and violate her body; to every disgusting experiment the Doktor thought to practice on her flesh when Mina's bones had long run dry; to every soul-crushing speech the Major made her listen to as they made the world burn within her earshot.
"Or my current reaper life," Walter said.
Integra had glared such hate at him when she had eyes to see. 'Angel of Death? Nay, you are a demon from hell. 'Angel.' What a farce. You are a traitor, assassin, murderer, and monster.' 'Butcher, villain, demon. Nothing more.' 'The deepest circle of Hell is reserved for traitors and mutineers. I only pray those you are sent there soon.'
"Don't deny your reaper life," the Major said.
If he did, Millennium would collect Seras in an instant. It was too late for Integra, who was long violated in every sense of the word since they stripped her life, her eyes, her virginity, her dignity, her integrity… Nay, it was too late for her. It was not too late for Seras though. Seras could still be saved…
Slowly, Walter put on his gloves.
"My Lady, I am so sorry. I know you cannot forgive me for this…"
The Major and lieutenants laughed.
"Not the Night Reaper with the hungry scythes!" the Major exclaimed as they shoved him into a giant meat locker with repossessed human bodies strung up in chains. "Now, here ist Mein Doktor's prognosis: will they live?"
"Doubtful," the Doktor smirked, the light shining on his optometrist glasses.
"Nein, nein, nein!" Rip cried, strutting into the freezer. "Think of it this way… you are, eh… Street Physician, carving flesh sculptures!"
"Yes, he'll paint their blood like a Rembrandt!" Luke smirked.
To Jan's confused look, he said, "What? You don't get that?!"
"Better start praying when you see him coming!" the Major grinned, reclining in his remote-controlled sofa. He clicked a button, and a large object covered in a thick sheet rolled forward, just in front of Walter. Jan stepped beside the objects.
"'Cause tonight it's curtains!" he exclaimed, ripping the sheet off.
A young man with tan skin, long blond hair and blue eyes was tied to a wheel chair; a defaulter to practice on.
"You're the Night Reaper!" they all exclaimed.
"Remember what you are..." they all chanted.
"I remember..." Walter said mournfully.
He was a traitor, barely worth the bullet it would take to deal his punishment.
"Remember what you did to your master," several genterns sang as they strolled in with the surgical cart.
"Remember who you are..." they all chanted.
"I remember…" Water said calmly.
"Remember what you did to her!" the taunting genterns all exclaimed.
"I remember!" Walter shouted aggressively.
The genterns got out the new wires and passed it to the lieutenants, who passed them to Walter.
"See your wires," the Major said.
"See 'em glide!" Rip cooed.
"See 'em slice!" Jan smirked.
"Now there is your Night Reaper," Luke said to the tied up man.
The man tied to the wheel chair screamed into his gag and tried to struggle free.
"Hope you have my money!" the Major smirked from his recliner, swirling a glass of champagne.
"Or it's 'Bon Voyagee!'"
"He'll wipe your ass like dishes!" Jan screeched.
"Am-pu-ta-tion!" they all exclaimed, and they continued to taunt Walter as he slowly looked up.
"Remember who you are..." they chanted, over and over again.
Eventually, Walter looked straight, his eyes skyward.
"I remember…" he murmured, "Every dying whisper…"
"Assassin!" "Murderer!" "Traitor!" Butcher!" "Monster!"
"Every desperate murmur..."
"Why in God's name don't you just hang yourself?! Do everyone in existence a favor!"
"I remember when I gaze upon her…"
"Why don't you just die?!" she had screamed, her eyes filled with blood, her bone-thin wrist hand-cuffed to the metal pipe in the dirty boiler room. The only way to remove it would be to use the silver saw beside her, but she would not give Millennium the satisfaction. And so she was gnawed on by ghouls, and groped by lonely soldiers.
"She looks just like you..."
Sallow, wrinkled, starved, and dressed in naught but dirty, tattered rags; gang-raped by Jan's ghouls.
"I remember!" he shouted suddenly, as though to drive away the memories with his words, "I remember!"
His countenance changed almost immediately. All the emotions drained away like water from the land for a tidal wave, and he was left void of feeling.
"I remember every victim with acute precision..." he said with deathly calm, and flexed his fingers.
"I remember every time I hold you, my loyal companions..." he said to the wires, and they flicked out.
"Because a traitor values nothing more than what he lacks!" Walter cried out, and the wires flew forward.
The man tied to the chair burst in a fountain of blood as his limbs flew off piece by piece.
"Because the sociopathic give no anesthetic!" Walter shouted, and flung the wires forward again and again, tearing and ripping and tearing and ripping away.
"Ninety days delinquent gets your Reaper treatment!
I'm the hidden horror on your street corner!
Make your momma mourn you!
"I'm the Night Reaper!"
The Major laughed maniacally.
Walter paused, and looked upon the river of blood that flowed under his feet.
"I remember..."
Years ago, Seras alone did not believe his treachery was by his own volition.
"Walter!" she had cried, "What on earth did they…?!"
"'What did they'?" he had said at the time. "I wascaptured, was turned into a vampire, was brainwashed, and sadly, am being forced to fight against my former employer. Or if I answered thusly… would it satisfy you, Seras?"
He had scorned her at the time. Seras truly believed that he was a good man that did not turn of his own will? She was a sweet girl who saw the best in people, no matter the darkest of times. He had thought her foolish at the time, but now… After everything that had happened… After all they had been through…
"I won't ask 'What happened?' or 'Why?'" Integra had said at the time, "You have now become my enemy. Hellsing's enemy! Britain's enemy! And there is no going back! You must be defeated! You must be destroyed!"
He had thought there was no going back, either. Once a traitor, always a traitor. Once he had turned on them, they would never let him back in. Might as well go all out. Might as well lose himself in the role he had chosen for himself, as much as he could. It was all he was. All he could ever be. All he would ever be.
And yet…
Seras had cried, "Walter…! Sir!"
She had then squirmed under his empty glare, but persisted in saying what she wanted anyway.
"… Um…" she fumbled, "th-this might be an odd thing to say, but… well…!"
She straightened up, and said earnestly, "Thank you for everything, until now! Take care!"
Walter was surprised to hear it from her, at the time. Everyone reviled his name, and she alone forgave him; remembered him for all of the good he had done in her life, until that point, and he had known her for far less time than any of the others… If he had met her sooner… if he had known people like her…
Her words sunk through his cold exterior, and melted his heart.
"You too," he had murmured.
For her sake, he would try to be a fraction of the man she believed him to be. He would make the choice to do better this time, however small it may be. He would refuse Millennium, as she had believed he had refused them long ago. He would afford his master the last shred of dignity he could offer; the last scrap of loyalty he could muster. He had taken so much from her, but he would not take her life. He would not snuff out her light.
Walter dropped his wires, and walked away.
"Walter?!" the Major shouted, aghast.
"I will not do this job," he said out loud, "Find someone else."
The Major was scandalized. He had always been able to manipulate Walter into doing whatever he wanted.
"No one walks away from me! Walter!"
He slammed the door behind him.