Hm... I don't think I still have to give a spoiler warning, because I guess everybody knows yet...

This ficlet was betaed by seras kelia. If you accidentally find some mistake, they're my fault, not hers (and you can adopt them, if you wish ;-) ).

To H.D. - I still miss you.

Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me. All characters etc. of Hellsing belong to K. Hirano, Pioneer, YKO (and to those I might have forgotten). I didn't write this for profit, so don't sue me.

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Walk away

Once again, I walk over the cemetery, once again in the rain. There they are, the fresh graves, some of them only marked by a simple slab. I'm terrified of how similar the situation is to the one that took place after the Valentine brothers' attack... No. Today, it's totally different. From the corner of my eye, I can see the grey, unadorned stone with my name carved on it. The grave is empty, and there's nobody who comes here to remember me. It's only there to calm the authorities' bad conscience: Seras Victoria, missing in action. For the first time, I don't care. I pass it by, and it doesn't touch me any more. Seras Victoria is dead. Finally. His tombstone is made of white marble – totally inappropriate. I can nearly hear his hoarse voice, hear him make a dirty joke about innocence and the colour white... I can nearly feel his breath on my skin, and then...

”Seras. Drink my blood.” “No... I will get you out of here... You've got to hold on...” His breath is shallow, and I can hear an alarming rattle in his chest. „They're all dead... Jim... Malcolm... Pierre...“ He knows better than me that the torn remains of his comrades are scattered all around us. „I'm... gonna die, too... All this blood... My abdominal artery must be hurt... and my lungs...“

“I'll get you out of here...” His hand, cold as ice on my skin. I want to scream, want to tell him that he's wrong... But I can smell it. The odour of approaching death surrounds him like a cloud – and he knows. “You've lost your eyes... Take... my blood. Then you can... regenerate...“ Before I can reply, he sits up and pulls me towards him. I taste his blood in my mouth, taste death...

“Pip... I...” Until this moment I didn't know that one can cry without eyes. He strokes my hair and coughs painfully. “Shhh, chérie. I know...” Gently, he directs me to his jugular vein. “Drink.” For a moment, I feel his raging, already weakening pulse at my lips – then I bite him.

Still, I am reminded of the coppery taste. It should be familiar to me after all those blood bags, but... Like Pip was someone special, his blood was special, too. His carefree, nearly reckless essence was in it. And a part of him is now in me. It's all that I have of him, after all. Alucard laughed at me as I took Pip's Mint Royale-T-shirt with me and placed it in my coffin. It smells of him, but soon, this comforting fact will only be a memory, too.

When I close my eyes, I can see him. Not as overwhelming as Alucard, but... His smile, his marked face, his long, fair hair. How many times I imaginedthat I strangled him with his own braid! Especially when he called me a freak once again. Or when he sung that horrible song about the temperature of Eskimos' private parts. Or as he lured me into my coffin and then nailed up the lid. Or...

With my fingertips, I follow the outlines of the flying wild goose carved in the marble. A small ornament that says so much about him.

“Why did you become a mercenary ?” Sighing, Pip leans back and twists a strand of hair around his index finger. Because he wears his hair in a braid most of the times, it is bleached irregularly. Together with his eye patch, this gives him something of a wild appearance. You can see that he spent a lot of time outside of civilization. “Why not ? You can make lots of money doing this.” “Right. Because of this, you and your men have debts .” He shakes his head, laughing. “I can go wherever the wind leads me.” Fascinated, I watch his slender, sensitive hands as he lights another cigarette. “No rest for the wicked.”

How right he was ! “No peace for the damned.” I hope, he's in a better place now. A place where he doesn't feel pain anymore and where he sees his comrades again. Somewhere else, where he is loved...

Walter told me that he called Pip's father to inform him of his son's death. Monsieur Bernadotte's comment was a single sentence: “Bury him and send me the bill.“ Then he hung up the phone. Well, Sir Integra paid the funeral expenses. So much for the idea of „family“...

My wish for Pip is that he doesn't have to be afraid, wherever he might be now. Because I know that he was afraid. No, Captain Pip Bernadotte wasn't a coward. Always in the front line during battles, until the bitter end. But even he had those cold, lonely moments, when he lay awake at night and asked himself where all this would lead him to. He was afraid to lose his friends. Afraid of being alone. Afraid of being old and unable to fight one day. Time and again, I listened to the whisper of his thoughts and wished I could take him in my arms. But unlike him, I am a coward, and so, I just stood in front of his door night by night, until the dawn.
My wet clothes stick to my body, but I only notice it incidentally. When did I get down on my knees? I don't know, I only know, that what is buried here isn't just a French mercenary but the last part of me that has been human, too. I realized that when I laid his bloodied, battered hat on his coffin. He lost it during the fight with Joleen...

The dark soil is humid; I take some of it in my hand. Ashes to ashes... The world fades away into a red veil, and I lay my forehead to the tombstone. I even can't cry like a human being any more – it is blood that runs down my face and mixes with the rain.

“Police girl.” Once again, Alucard appears behind me, seemingly from out of nowhere, and once again I hate him for that. “Seras.” I don't want him to call me that. Not any more. “It is time to grow up.”
Benumbed, I wipe my eyes and look up. There, between the rows of the graves, something is moving... Even through the red mist that blurs my sight I recognize him: the broad shoulders, the narrow hips, the long, braided hair and the impossible hat... As if he felt my glance, he stops but doesn't turn to me. Nearly indolently, he raises a hand before he walks on and melts into the rain and the mist. “Pip...”
Paralyzed within, I allow Alucard to help me to my feet and lead me away from Pip's grave. Time to grow up... I won't come here again. Whatever made up Pip is gone now. He has gone to a place that I can never reach. No, I will live forever, if I'm not caught by some lunatic vampire hunter. And even then, my soul is lost...

Alucard stops and looks at me. Exceptionally I can't see mockery in his red eyes. “Forgive me, Seras.” Then he is vanished, as abruptly as he appeared. Confused, I stay behind; the sun rises beyond the graves.