Heh, should've known.

Basically, after I jumped off, instead of taking an everlong dirt nap like I planned.

It turns out, after all my doubting that there really is a God.

And also, it turns out, that kids who suicide don't get immediate access to heaven.

I had a choice.

Either, go directly to hell, or, become a guardian angel for the people I've hurt..

I would spend 3 months in purgatory, and once that was done, I would watch over them for the rest of their lives, (with VIP access to their inner thoughts and feelings, acting like a conscience in a way) help them in their personal struggles, and when the time would come, I would take their souls, and guide them to wherever they belonged.

I really did think it through...

If I went to hell, I could be given a cliffhanger, a sort of closure where I could imagine that Feliciano and Antonio were happy, and everything really was better with me gone.

But of course, I'd be stuck in a place of eternal damnation.

However, if I became a guardian angel, I would see the damage, and I was scared of what I'd find.

Would everybody be miserable?

Or would they just go on with their lives?

...I honestly didn't know which was worse...

..But.

I needed to know.

If I ever wanted to give up, and just go to hell, all I had to do, was say the word "Justified."

Well, it wasn't too bad of a deal

The second "yes" came out of my mouth, I was whipped away to purgatory.

I really, don't actually remember much...

Just that it was dark, I was alone, and I couldn't feel my body...

..Then one day I'm suddenly whipped away and I'm back at home, standing under the 6th building's balcony, wearing the pajamas I died in, with an unbreakable urge to go check on my grandpa.

It turns out, he had drank himself into a stupor.

Now that I was gone...

...Grandpa was an alcoholic, the show choir had been disbanded, Matthew was cutting again, Gilbert was on the verge of suicide, Feliciano cried himself to sleep every night, refused to talk to a depressed Rodrich, and Antonio walked around without a purpose in life, visiting my grave every day..

I had gotten my revenge..

Everybody really was miserable...

But..

I-I never wanted something as bad as this..

Every night Feli cried, I would try my best to wipe away the tears, and I cried with him.

I would try to rip the bottle away from Grandpa, and yell at him for being so self centered.

I'd try and wrap my arms around Antonio while he stood kneeling at my grave, and mutter how it wasn't his fault, and how I'd love him for all eternity.

I would try to count all of Rodrich's bills, and talk to him as tears rushed down his face at every day he spent all alone in his house.

All I could do was try...

...Because... I was dead...

And they couldn't see me...

I felt like shouting "Justified" so many times. So many times the first syllable rolled off my lips, but..

It wasn't until...

It wasn't until.. I saw their side, that I realized how selfish and petty I was.

Show Choir was pretty much made up of group of friends who had been together since 2nd grade, and had no idea how to include somebody new in their clique. Not to mention, I took the spot of the leader of their group (some kid called Ivan) in the schedule, they were kinda lost without him, and they thought I had done it on purpose.

Grandpa tried to push me to improve, because he knew he wouldn't be around for much longer, and he was scared he would die before I had made anything of myself.

I was always right about Gilbert, except he had it even worse, he didn't have an unsupporting Grandfather. He didn't have anything but a crotchety old woman who ran the orphanage he had been taken to at 3 years old. His brother had been adopted when they were younger, and school was the only time they saw each other. He also suffered from horrific sunburns, and bad eyesight, which would make him go blind about 30 years later.

Rodrich was filled with dreams, and married his high school sweetheart, while planning on becoming a musician. He paid for a degree using student loans. And ended up becoming nothing but a music tutor at Sam Ash. His wife left him for another man when she decided the bills were too high. And Feliciano was the only ray of sunlight left in his world, but he decided to be a better man and hand him over to somebody who could afford to take care of him properly.

Everybody I blamed...

They weren't evil like I thought they were...

They were people.

And they were suffering, like I was..

When I realized that, I grew up...

..And I started to care about them...

So I helped them.

Even if I couldn't take away the bottle, I could remind Grandpa that Feli was still in front of him, and to take care of him for me. I felt all the well concealed sadness in his heart, from my death, the death of my parents, and his own death looming over him. I made him look at the present, to stop mourning over the past, and to stop worrying about the future.

As Gilbert held the knife to his neck, I was so tempted to let him do it, and let him face this wretched fate. But I swallowed my pride, held the knife back, and showed him everybody who loved him.

When Matthew's cutting landed him in emergency care, I nudged Gilbert, -the recently reformed cutter-, to go visit him. Turns out the two of them got along great, and they inspired each other to look at life with optimism. Not to mention, after he got out of the hospital, I decided to get Matt noticed in tiny ways, like getting the highest score on a math test, or washing the dishes, until I didn't have to help him be recognizable, and he started to do it all on his own.

I couldn't stand Rodrich being so upset, so I brightened his days, helped him see the happiness in life all around him, and I led him to his true love, who turned out to be a fiery spanish lawyer named Maria. Later, when I peaked into one of their dates, I found out she was Antonio's mom, and her husband had left her when Antonio was a baby.

Antonio..He was so upset, but I got Gilbert to help him, and all his other friends followed suit. He also became even more passionate about his guitar, and about his sketching, and worked on them even harder. Soon, he was almost as happy as he used to be..But..For the rest of the year, he would sit at the empty table us two used to sit at, and eat his lunch alone. Every day, I made it a point to sit across from him, and talk to him about anything and everything, stopping only to put my hand on top of his and smile. Even though I tried to lead him into so many relationships throughout his life, they never clicked, and he stayed single.

Feliciano was walking around with guilt and pain in his heart, so I hugged him tight every night, and whispered in his ear how much I loved him, and how all I ever wanted was for him to be happy and loved and protected. I helped suck out all the negativity from him, and dug deep inside him to find the love he needed to forgive Grandpa and Rodrich.

Every time I helped the people I hurt.

It made me hurt less.

I felt happy whenever I saw Antonio smile, and I felt pride when Rodrich finally got the balls to ask Maria out. I cried tears of sadness when Gilbert woke up one morning and saw nothing but black, and I cried tears of happiness when Feliciano graduated college near the top of his class.

Over time, they put other things at the front of their mind, and even though they still loved and cared about me, my tombstone got less and less visits, Feliciano forgot the sound of my voice, Antonio forgot the exact shade of hazel my eyes were, and that was okay.

That meant they were moving on.

And that I was doing a good job.

I'm happy and excited, and I feel so much better then I ever did when I was alive.

I was always so caught up in my own problems, and I never helped anybody else with theirs.

Now I can feel their pain, and I realize I wasn't the only one in the world who hurt, but I was one of the few people who could help.

Of course, they've all lived their lives of happiness, but I still have one more job to do.

Grandpa's soul was the first one I needed to collect.

It was about fifteen years after my suicide, and he died peacefully in his sleep.

His soul was calmly floating above his body, so I scooped it up, went outside, and let it flutter up to heaven.

Gilbert died at 66, his was the soul that fought the hardest, because it was scared. It stayed besides me for a while, and with a bit of coaxing, I convinced it to go up.

Then there was Rodrich, dying of heart complications at 75, his soul didn't really want to go, but it came without a fight, and with a little push, it hovered upwards.

At 79 the next person was Matthew, who died of a heart attack after going through a car crash with his daughter (thankfully, she was alright) His soul had doubts, but it went up faster then Gilbert's did.

After Matthew...It was Feliciano...He died in his sleep too..I gently cradled his soul, and even though I was positive he'd go to heaven, I still watched it fly up and away from where I could protect it.

Finally...

Now there's only one left..

Antonio..

After school, he moved to his Grandfather's inherited tomato farm in Spain. He worked on the farm by day, and sketched at night. Staying by that schedule until he was 102 years old (I have no idea how he lived that long. Maybe the tomatoes?)

He's lived a happy life, smiling and making friends.

I've made sure of it.

But now...

He has to die...

Luckily, he's going to die in his sleep..

But of course, first I have to wait for him to go to sleep...

I watched as he slowly crawled into bed, his brown hair gray with age, and his hands full of wrinkles and sun spots.

But he still had that bright cheery smile that easily convinced me he could live 30 more years if he wanted to.

He turned on the lamp, grabbed the sketch book off his night stand and flipped to a new page.

I crawled from the foot of the bed, to right beside him, so I could watch him sketch like I always did.

He started with circles...

Then he started outlining, and I stared at his face.

He had gleaming eyes that looked at the paper with such love, and I couldn't help but wonder what was in that beautiful mind of his.

...

What would happen after all of this..?

I know they've all gone to heaven, but..

What about me?

Did I do enough?

Sure I helped out everybody I had hurt, but that only even started because I felt guilty, and because I helped, they're all in heaven waiting for me...

I just...I want to be with them, and I want to say that I'm sorry for being such a selfish bastard..

I'm snapped out of my thoughts by a tiny sniffle, and I can feel the sadness seeping into Antonio.

With one glance at the paper, I know why.

It's me.

I'm the reason he's crying.

Every detail is down to a tee, and suddenly, I don't think Antonio's forgotten about me as much as I thought he did.

He turns to a new page, and starts sketching flowers until he yawns. Then he places the sketch book aside, flicks the switch off, and lies down.

This is it.

Minutes seem like hours as I watch him slowly drift off to sleep.

And suddenly, he stops breathing, and his soul slowly floats out of him.

I take it with tentative hands, and start pushing it up.

But it resists.

It wriggles and squirms and pushes down, refusing to go up.

Even Gilbert didn't put up this big of a fight, and he died 15 years too early because of skin cancer!

I slackened my grip, and let it float down.

Then it nuzzled my face and hovered next to my cheek.

Gilbert hadn't had been as nice, but I knew all it needed was some persuasion.

"Come on Toni, what're you waiting for?"

I lifted a hand up to push it up a bit, and suddenly, I realize that I'm disappearing.

Oh...

I become less and less heavy, and all the worrying I've been feeling drifts away.

Floating up, I watched as Antonio's soul joined me, and suddenly it melded and shifted into back into Antonio.

He wrapped his arms around me and softly whispered

"I'm not going to leave without you Lovino."

Feelings of joy rushed all around my body, and tears fell down my face, and I realize that I once I saved the people I loved, I had saved myself.

With the faces of Feliciano, and Mom, and Dad, and Grandpa, and Antonio, and Matthew, and Gilbert, and Rodrich in the front of my head, I smile.

After being separated for so long...

I'll get to see them again.

It doesn't matter if they know that I've been protecting them for such a long time, even if I have to meet them all over again in heaven.

I guess...

Real heroes don't want the credit.

OH GOD YOU ALL HATE ME DON'T YOU? A lot of you, actually wanted them to suffer, which I'm going to be honest, scared me a bit, because no matter what they've done wrong, nobody really deserves to suffer. I know this ending is stupid and cliché, but...I really wanted it to end like this, it just...Before, the last note was supposed to be the end, and it felt unfinished, then I did the apologies, and still it felt unfinished, but when I wrote this (gonna be honest, this was the only chapter I cried while writing)...It felt done. Like, I could move on with this story and go back to all my other ones. It was probably because of all the undeveloped characters, I have to say, of course my favorite character has always been Lovino, who went through his own development of but...Some of these characters (like Rodrich and Grandpa) started as clichés, and they opened up, and I made them real characters, and I have to say, my favorite part of writing has always been characters, because you learn to sympathize. Anyway, I hope you guys liked it, and I guess, if you want to do me one last favor, help me get 100 reviews? Also, although none of them are quite like this, check out my other fics?