Disclaimer: Not mine. Sadly. Please don't sue me because I have nothing of value... Except two little boys, and they'd probably drive anybody else stark raving crazy.

A/N: DEATHFIC! Ok. You've been warned. One shot, drabble. While I love reading long stories that eventually have happy endings, I can't seem to write one (and I've tried!). As this is my first story (and unbeta'd), please be gentle but honest with your review.

Heaven and Hell

I've died so many times. After each death, there was less and less of my soul. Yet, I still live. I tried to be a good man. I don't know what I did that God would punish me by making part of me die over and over and still let me live. Why couldn't he just take me? Why did he have to take those that I Ioved? First He took Sarah and Adam. It was at that point that my life shattered. I thought that I had put the pieces back together when we formed the seven. I was unaware that that their deaths would take parts of my soul as well.

After cheating death so many times, the crows finally came for Josiah. His was the first death of our seven. He caught pneumonia after rescuing some children from drowning. He may have beaten it had he not just recovered from a nasty cold. As the oldest of us, we said that it was expected. God called him home. But still, a part of my soul died with him.

Nathan was next. He had ridden out to visit Rain who was too unsure of white people to come to town and was headed back when he stopped to help a wounded woman, seeming to be abandoned in a wagon. Her husband took exception to a black man touching a white woman when he came back and shot Nathan in the back. Ezra took Nathan's death the hardest out of all of us. I think he knew then that he was sick.

Ezra died a year after Nathan. We had noticed that he was coughing more and more. He pulled away from us as well. It wasn't until Vin cornered him one night after a violent coughing fit that we knew what was going on. The red stained handkerchief was all Vin needed to see to know that Ezra had consumption. If Nathan had still been alive, he may have been able to halt the disease, or at least slow it. Instead we had to watch Ezra slowly waste away. Still, he wouldn't give in until he knew that dying did not mean that he was running out on us.

After Ezra died, the remaining four of us couldn't decide if we should pull close together or drift apart for good. The memories of those we lost both comforted and tormented me as well as the others. Then came the death blow. Vin and JD died within hours of each other, having been bitten by the same coyote that was attacking some of the settlers of Four Corners. It was so hard to watch those under our "protection" die of hydrophobia. Loosing Vin and JD was more than I could bear. Suddenly, it didn't seem worth it and now I have given in to the call of the bottle. Only my oldest friend and I remain here. Both of us needing saving; neither one of us able to save the other this time.

Finally the drinking caught up with him. He got so drunk one day that when he tried to walk home, he passed out and fell down in the middle of the street just as a couple of young kids were racing their horses through town. After surviving so many shoot outs and other trials, Chris died just from being drunk and having bad luck. One of the horses' hooves landed squarely on his neck, breaking it and killing him instantly.

Now I'm alone. The last of the seven. I'll probably live forever because heaven won't take me and I'm already in hell. When you've died as many deaths as I have and lost as much as my soul as I have, you come to learn that these partings are all we know of heaven… And all we need of hell.

The End

A/N 2: I tried to use realistic terminology to the time period to maintain the feel of the story. I also love Emily Dickinson and this story was partially influenced by one of her poems. And if I caught you by surprise, yay! That's what I was trying to do.