Disclaimer: I don't own Captain, Seras, Walter, or Hellsing. Just borrowing.

Author's Note: Again exploring the possibility that Walter was turned into a werewolf. If you haven't read up to at least book seven, then don't read this fanfic, okay? There are some spoilers here, although I assure all of you that the character death here is my doing - none of these characters have died in the series (yet...).

Ragnarok

When Seras finds them, Walter's already dead, and the Captain is dying. Alucard hadn't had time to linger back to pay respects to his former comrade, to his friend, not with the Nazis still wreaking havoc on the city. Integra had not had the heart to stay; she was not ready to mourn yet, not when she needed to command her men to victory. They had both left quickly to the battle, both almost unaffected by the death. Seras knows that someday, they will feel the pain, someday they will remember and weep bitter tears at the loss.

So Seras stays behind instead with the corpse, watching over him like a sentinel. There is no one else around; the battle had cleared the area entirely. She can still hear the distant screams of battle, but the street she's on is still utterly abandoned. This had been the scene of the final stand of the wolves. There was little protecting the Major now that his wolves had been slain.

She looks down at the body laying beside her. The blood is cooling so quickly in the chilly night that she can see steam rising from the pavement. Walter is much different as a werewolf, but the face is still the same; an ageless face, harder, colder, but that may just be the expression of death. His eyes are still open; the clear grey almost seems ethereal in death, like the moon cloaked in fog.

The Captain is rasping heavily, and each drowning breath makes Seras' heart wrench more and more. The silver stake had impaled his lung, his spine, and he can't move his lower body. Unable to resist the temptation, Seras looks over at the werewolf. He is completely back to human form now, eyes glazed and unseeing. He's trying to move, to pull himself over, brows just minutely furrowed in concentration. His face is impassive, bereft of pain, but she can feel the agony radiating off of his body. Even in his moments of death, his façade does not crumble.

He's reaching out for Walter, she realizes in awe. The Captain's hand is searching for him, trying to feel out the other wolf. It seems so lonely to her, in many ways. Possibly the last two werewolves in existence, and they're dying together in the scorched remains of a fallen city. His struggle looks painful, and despite everything, despite the fact that he is a Nazi and her enemy, Seras wants to reach out and help him. But she stays carefully still. This is something she knows he would want to do on his own; his wolfen pride is glimmering in his eyes.

Walter had cared for this wolf, yet not out of simple brainwashed loyalty. She had seen it in his gaze, there was an unspoken depth to their relationship, a bond. They had protected each other, moved seamlessly together while in the heat of battle. There was a synchronicity between them; they were a pack. Small, but still a pack.

And a small part of Seras is glad that Walter didn't die feeling completely detached, disconnected from the world. She had seen him over the course of the war, seen the deep growing loyalty between the wolves. The weeks of battle had cemented the bond; she had never seen one without the other. Whether it was in the midst of battle, or they were just standing in the scenery, they were never apart.

The Captain pulls himself close; he's next to Walter now. His eyes are squinted, looking down at his dead companion. There's a flicker of emotion, so fast, so minute that Seras barely knows what it is. Pain, sorrow, loneliness, maybe even some kind of bittersweet longing. Maybe love, but Seras doesn't know if wolves really can love. If they can't, then it is certainly an emotion very close to love.

Seras sees the moment that the Captain simply gives up. The realization that Walter is gone washes over him, and his body simply tenses one last time, then relaxes completely as his soul departs. His eyes clear like twin moons between breaking clouds, the expression softening. His head is resting over Walter's silent heart, in a way that seems so canine, so utterly loyal that Seras feels like crying. The pain of death hits her again, a cycle of wishes and disappointments she has had to endure time and time again throughout the war. She wishes she could have known Walter better, even wishes she could have known him as a wolf, young, strong, and powerful.

As a wolf, Walter had been a true harbinger of death. She had feared him, respected him, as had Alucard and Integra. There was something beyond brainwashing that pushed him forward, that kept him going, and she knows now that it was loyalty to his pack. Walter had fought with cold ferocity, he had stalked them, chased them down with neither fear nor wrath, just determination.

And yet, he – Sköll – had not managed to devour the sun goddess in the end. Integra had plunged the silver stake deep into his stomach before he had been able, thus ending him. Perhaps this meant Ragnarok wasn't truly at hand, not yet. To Seras, the Nordic tales seem fitting, tales of vicious wars and the end of the world.

Seras reaches out, touching the still warm flesh of the darker wolf. She brushes his eyelids closed and strokes his oil black hair away from his face with a hesitant tenderness. She does not know how to honor him, never knew him well enough to understand what he would find fitting. But this is the best she can manage; make him look proper, unruffled. That seems like something Walter would want. So she straightens his clothes, replaces the monocle on his eye, and withdraws the silver stake from his stomach. She holds the bloodied weapon close to her. It is the weapon that killed Walter, and she does not want to take it with her, but silver is a rare commodity in the war, one that's needed in the battle. Weapons cannot be so easily discarded.

She then moves to do the same with the fairer wolf, somehow grateful for his close camaraderie to Walter. She doesn't pull him away from his place, laying with his head on his comrade's chest. She simply adjusts the coat, retrieves the silver, and closes his sightless eyes.

Like this, it almost seems like they're only sleeping.

There's blood on her fingers when she pulls away, and she cannot resist the temptation to lick it away from her flesh. Wolf blood tastes much different than human blood, a thicker, muskier substance that gives her an immediate, overwhelming sensation of strength and devotion.

She feels guilty for taking it, for experiencing a little of the wolfen allegiance that would never be hers, but it's an exchange for the blood she loses when she cries. She knows there is no time to cry, no time to mourn; her master needs her help. Yet, she cannot seem to part with their bodies. Alucard nor Integra are ready to mourn Walter, Seras understands that, and she will be patient. But, unlike them, she cannot simply force herself to disregard her bleeding heart.

She stays as long as she can, but she knows she cannot linger. The battle is still waiting, and there's someone she still needs to protect. The dead cannot take precedence over the living, she knows this, and she forces herself to climb to her feet.

'Goodbye, Walter,' she whispers, wiping away the bloody tears from her cheeks. 'I'll come find you when this is all over.'

She leaves the bodies, forcing the tears to subside, forcing herself to give a final farewell in her mind. She quietly vows to honor both of them; the Captain was hardly someone she cared for, just an enemy, but he was important to Walter. Something had drawn them together; fate, hatred, love. It didn't matter which it was. In Seras' mind, she will never be able to think of Walter without thinking of how deeply entwined his soul was with the other wolf's, or the way their mingled blood on her tongue seemed to taste like passion.