Disclaimer in previous chapter. Please see Author's Notes at the end.

NOTE: This is a two part chapter.

-x-

Knives lowered his chin, took a deep breath, and relaxed into a measured exhale.

Unfortunately, not every physical trick worked quite the same in one's mindscape.

Normally he would feel the additional oxygen almost immediately. It would clear his mind, calm his thoughts, and free him to focus on complex problems. Here, he technically wasn't actually breathing at all. If he had tried he would have only succeeded in losing whatever air was left in his lungs. He was standing in space, after all.

Secondly, and far more irritatingly, there wasn't much to focus on. The object under scrutiny was clearly solid, in that it was opaque and he could physically interact with it. It had countless facets, he could feel each one with his fingertips though he could see none of them. None of them reflected light, after all. It was like a large, hundred sided die of nothingness.

It was so heavy he couldn't lift it, yet it hovered weightless in the space in Vash's mind. The only way to see it was when it was blocking the light of the memories behind it. It was tethered to nothing, allowing one to manipulate any side to the top, but seemed fixed to a single three dimensional point in space.

It was the block.

Of that, he was certain. He could not penetrate it telepathically. He could not smash it, physically or telekinetically. He could not force it into a star or hurl it against anything he tried to manifest in Vash's mind. It was immune to light, to heat, to moisture, to cold. Even encasing it in ice had resulted in the ice no longer being reflective.

That was how Vash had managed to hide it. And that was how he was continuing to suppress his inner Gate. He had hidden it from himself.

And the combination to it, whatever it was, was something only Vash knew.

Knives glared at the universe around him. Countless memories. Tiny stars, flickering in all the light spectrums. He had checked many of the nearest, in the hopes that Vash would have left the key somewhere useful.

But of course his brother could never do anything the easy way.

The small blue star that flickered uncertainly. That was the first time Rem had cut his hair. She'd chosen Vash first because he was more delicate, it meant more to Vash than it did to him and Rem had known that.

Eighty degrees north of it was a larger orange star, that pulsed regularly. The first time she had come to Vash, when he awoke from the nightmare that had been finding their sister.

One hundred twelve degrees to the east. A green pinprick. The first time she had shown them the bridge.

She was everywhere. This universe of Vash's was soaked in her. Irrevocably contaminated.

Rem stared up at him, terror in her eyes, and in their reflection was a monster.

Knives turned away physically, rejecting the image with a single disgusted snort. Rem had never looked at him like that. It was just the spider. He knew that. She'd put on the skin of Rem as protection, foolishly believing he would not cast her aside as he had cast aside Rem.

It was the past, and it needed to stay there. Right now he needed to focus.

Knives rotated effortlessly on his own axis, searching the endless expanse for any other clue. It had to be here. It had to. Even his idiotic twin would never have created a mental block he could not deconstruct. Nothing in this universe was permanent. Nothing in this universe was untouchable.

She had proven that.

Despite himself, Knives cast a look back. His own mindscape was there, visible on the outskirts if he chose to look for it. Tiny particles of space dust gradually coalesced into twinkling bits of silicone and glass, gathered and solidified into the paved dirt that became the path to his mind. Vash floated through his own world and never had to touch down, but Knives would not let him be so carefree in his own mind.

There were no footprints on the path, though, perhaps because Vash didn't want to see them fade with the years. And there were no footprints to be seen on his own mind, not anymore. He had erased them all. Thick clouds of debris choked the wind, larger than before, they flew into his eyes and made them water. It was a reflection of damage.

The damage the spider had done.

The stones that had intertwined into his own mind's path - he knew what that silly road represented. A second bond. One he had not meant to forge. He had been open, had been inhibited, and the spider had taken what advantage she could.

He had a telepathic bond to a human.

Had being the operative word; he had smashed it, it was rubble now. Broken stones cast off into the ash and the sand and the dark. No longer could she prey upon his memories, no longer could she use his superior intellect to compensate for her lack. She would be dead within an hour, no longer a concern.

Rem had never looked at him like that.

Knives growled in frustration, completing his rotation and glaring into the depthless black of the block. Curse that useless waste of time and carbon. He tried to quell his irritation with another breathing exercise, but it was as useless as the first, and he curbed the urge to summon a black hole to crush all of those stars into nothingness.

Vash probably wouldn't let him, and the only thing it would bring was a brief moment of spiteful satisfaction. He had to think longer term.

Taking Rem from Vash's memories would irretrievably change him. This universe would be a darker, colder place without those stars. Making Vash into someone else was never the point. Vash had to find that man and that truth on his own, or it was meaningless.

Vash, take care of Knives.

"Do not mock me, woman!" he snarled into the void.

A red star twinkled at him.

Knives slammed his fist down atop the mental block, achieving nothing but a few skinned knuckles and a few choice words before reining back his temper.

Vash was the reason for this. For his discontent. Of course he had found a human with latent telepathic abilities. Of course he had kept her close. She would have reminded him of their sisters, their brethren. She would have given him the comfort that he lacked due to shunning his own kind. Inane enough not to be a threat. Of course he would have grown fond of her.

"Damn you," he growled. "You childish fool."

Vash didn't respond. He was doubtlessly clutching his knees to his chest, hiding behind one of his memories.

One of his memories of her.

Rem had looked absolutely horrified.

"She's not Rem," he hissed, at Vash, at the void. "Rem is dead, brother, don't you get it!?"

He hadn't wasted a moment on her since the ship. Certainly he'd been willing to keep the façade of her memory alive, so long as Vash needed it, but his sentimental brother had clung to it. Weakened by these humans.

Knives scrubbed his hands through his hair in frustration. It was the past! Why was it intruding upon his concentration now?

She used to pass her palm over the short hairs on the top of his head. She had said that it tickled.

Knives forced his hands into fists, forced himself to breathe. What had the spider done? He hadn't bothered to recall these memories for a hundred years. She had done something. In that stumbling, blind, brainless unerring way that Vash always did. She had clawed and crawled and felt her way through his mind until she had found something to manipulate. To weaken him.

As if a few memories of a ghost could weaken him.

Vash was the important one. Vash was the only one worthy of what these fools called love, even if only barely. Not Rem. Not anyone else.

You are not capable of love. The old man radiated disgust. You want domination.

Cretin.

All this trouble. All this effort. As if he would do this for anyone else. Anything else.

Hadn't he said it on the pod? The planet was just for them. This was never going to end any other way. There was no other path for the humans to take. He wasn't wrong on this, just as he hadn't been with the spiders. He was right. He had been right.

And even accepting that, he had once again delayed the inevitable. He had allowed this ridiculous experiment to play itself out, with over a hundred years of history stretching past the horizon. He had kept his word, and it had led to this. There was nothing left for Vash to hold onto. Rem was dead. His pet humans would soon join her. They would all be dead. Just him and Vash and their sisters. Just Plants.

Eden.

And there was no room in Eden for flaws like Rem.

Even if one of those flaws had unintentionally given him the key to finding the mental block.

He crossed his arms and glowered at the darkness. Darker even than the space surrounding it. He thought of Vash's universe as a void, but the fact was, this block was encased in the real thing. It was outside of the realm of his telepathic powers. It was, in fact, probably a star. Perhaps the largest one. It was his Gate. And it was totally cut off.

It was the same color as the nothingness beneath his own mind's path. When he had torn away what the spider had constructed, he had seen rectangular blackness, a place totally devoid of all light. The same blackness he was staring at right now.

And staring at it wasn't getting him any further towards removing it. Or any closer to saving his worthless twin's life.

Knives withdrew, taking a deep breath and being vaguely relieved when he could actually feel it. His eyes opened to find that his brother's had not, which was not unexpected. The computer to his left was blinking steadily, dutifully recording Vash's vitals, and Wright was nowhere to be seen.

Of course. The old man.

As much as he might detest the concept, the old human was a genius. His combination of drug therapies, while unconventional, had correctly accounted for the Plantlike physiology they possessed. While he had intentionally removed the data related to his burn, the data he had left in the records showed what he had claimed – every attempt had been made to keep Vash alive.

And no other human alive had that breadth of knowledge. He had ensured that those that had assisted him had died long ago for their efforts.

You . . . hurt me. Rem's eyes were wide with disbelief.

"You killed yourself," he growled aloud, before he could stop himself.

You lied to me.

"Giving up hope, are you? It's a bit early for that."

Knives let his eyes drift unblinkingly to the bent shape in the doorway.

"You lied to me."

-x-

Knives' head came up sharply, eyes piercing, and Doc took a moment to locate the next likely handhold. No matter how much it felt like he was going uphill, he knew the floor was quite level, and if he was anyone else he would have told himself to stay in bed for another several days.

However, he wasn't anyone else, and he knew he didn't have several days.

"You have an alternate power source," he elaborated, leaving the safety of the doorframe to lean heavily on a handy countertop. "I saw the equipment, my dear boy. You have a working bulb farm."

The Plant gave him a flat glare. "You are irritatingly meddlesome," he finally concluded. Doc gave him a wavy grin.

"Isn't that why you've chosen to keep me around?"

Knives' eyes flickered over him, taking stock, and Doc decided that taking a stool was the better part of valor. "I wish you had told me sooner," he continued blandly. "We could have avoided some unpleasantness."

The Plant looked supremely unimpressed. "Wright, remove that to the cells."

"Wouldn't you like to know why it's pertinent?"

"It isn't." Knives stood, moving from Vash's head to his preferred work console. He didn't sit, however, and his posture was much more tense than Doc remembered. Something had happened.

"What's wrong?" It was a little sharper than he intended. "Vash, is he-"

The weight of a hand, on the back of his neck.

"I've thought of something new," he blurted quickly, before the chemicals could cut him off. "Knives, we need to use the bulbs."

"Yes, yes of course." The Plant rounded on him, far more than just irritated. "Why is it that humans see a Plant and immediately think that it belongs in a bulb?"

Doc had the strong desire to keep his mouth shut, and he knew exactly where it was coming from. It was still hard to get any strength behind his voice, and the furious man bearing down on him was not helping. "Fron was able to heal you because your Gate was still functional."

Quick strides had brought the long-legged Knives within range, and Doc was bodily hauled from the young mutant's grasp by his collar. The shirt tore, but the sound was muffled somewhat by the crash of equipment clattering to the floor.

"We exposed Vash to energy and expected him to absorb it," Doc continued, as evenly as he could with his smarting back. He didn't have to be loud; Knives was only inches away. The Plant was clearly in a highly agitated state, and there was less clarity in his glare than Doc would have liked. "We assumed that the path for that energy flowing into cells was bi-directional. If it could flow out, it could flow in. That was incorrect."

Knives' lips curled, but his half-formed words died on his tongue. Good. Information was still sinking in, even with him in this state. "There's an extra structure in his cells – in yours too, I am certain. That organelle is what consumes and converts the energy produced by the Gate. And it's shut down." He took a moment to swallow the saliva gathering in his constricted throat. "It's not enough to make the needed energy available. The inroad to the cell is gone. You'll have to make a new path."

The Plant's eyes flashed with rage, a totally unexpected response to what Doc considered to be good news. The muscles on his jaw shifted, chewing on his words, and when they finally emerged, they were unnaturally calm and totally at odds with his expression.

"An astute observation. Particularly for one so old and frail. Tell me, did it come to you in a dream?"

There was too much adrenaline in his system to be any more surprised, but the fear the young mutant had left him with made it hard not to stutter. "Your Gung Ho Guns came for me in my dreams. Dreams have a habit of presenting reality through unexpected lenses."

Knives stared at him a moment, and then he began to laugh.

There was a disheartening lack of sanity in it.

The Plant continued to laugh, releasing him almost politely. He had been dragged up onto the counter and Doc decided to remain there, still experiencing the effects of his false fear and hating the idea that he was sitting on the counter like a child.

Something had happened. Something Knives did not like at all. Something that had shaken the focus that had been driving his relatively logical approach to his situation. There was no hope of predicting a Knives that was behaving like this. Even the young mutant was no longer visible, either having fled the room or unconsciously masking himself to so as to avoid giving offense.

This did not bode well for any of them.

"I am sure my dear brother would agree with you," he chortled. And then the laughter evaporated, leaving chilled air in its place. "His dreams of late have been the same."

It was hard to steady his diaphragm. "We're both in pain."

Get him thinking about Vash again. Get him focused on the cure.

"You don't know what pain is," he hissed, then his head snapped back as if fending off an insect. "What you experience is nothing compared to what you put him through!"

Doc wasn't sure how to respond to that. He had tried to treat Vash's pain, or was Knives referring to keeping Vash alive?

Knives had straightened, head up and eyes narrow, and he took a sharp breath through his nose. "He is hopelessly contaminated! Weakened! He cannot see his true potential for the lies –" Knives cut himself off, turning away sharply, and then he shouted in frustration. "DAMN YOU!" he roared, and an unseen hand hurled the nearest autoclave across the lab, where it shattered against the wall so violently Doc had to raise his good arm to shield himself from shrapnel.

He wasn't untouched, and neither was Knives. The Plant glanced at his own arm, his right arm, where a small tear in his bodysuit exposed tanned flesh. Only for a moment; in the next instant it was red again, as red as the material around it.

"It will stop hurting," the Plant muttered to himself. "If you stop fighting." Knives turned further to his right, eyes focused on something Doc couldn't see. "If you stop fighting . . ."

Knives spun on his heels, ignoring him utterly and his long strides made quick work of his distance to his console. Multiple screens came to life, and Doc didn't dare leave his perch on the countertop, content to watch from nearly the other end of the lab. He hadn't been wrong – he knew he hadn't, but somehow the affirmation was reassuring – when several screens showed bulb angles and, more importantly, capacity. The two idle bulbs were in fact currently occupied, and Knives bowed his head a moment, closing his eyes.

Though he touched no key, the bulbs' output began to increase.

Vash had never displayed that kind of telepathic control with any Plant. He knew that Vash had the ability to contact his sisters, he had the footage of Vash's attempt to save the Plant that was destroyed during the attack on his ship, but Vash had had eye contact, had been inches away. Knives had no direct contact with these bulbs, not even line of sight, and the response had only taken seconds.

It wasn't the first time he had asked one of his sisters to work for him.

Knives straightened abruptly, sending his stool spinning away, and headed unerringly for the counter Doc was sitting on. For a moment he thought he would be tossed aside like the autoclave, but Knives moved past him with only an irritated glance. "Make yourself useful," he snapped, and then he had disappeared into the second lab.

Doc obediently shimmied off the counter, almost falling when his knees gave. Useful . . . to try his experiment. Of course.

That meant getting to the other side of this lab, and working with the repurposed diagnostic equipment. He needed to get a view of Vash's cells, and figure out where to build that new road.

And there was nothing but empty space between his counter and that wall.

The young man appeared quite suddenly, directly by his side, gripping his upper right stump – but not painfully. Doc looked up at him, still surprised and trembling from the adrenaline, but there was no finger against his bared skin. It was meant as support.

"Thank you," he managed, in as dignified a tone as he could muster, and the two crossed the room a bit more rapidly than he would have liked. He understood the reason for their hurrying when Knives reappeared, a moment later, with the man-sized rehabilitation tube. It followed him like a puppy as he crossed back into the main lab, and Doc took his seat at the console and brought it up.

Luckily for him, it was easy to find the wireless connection to the equipment Knives was activating, and when everything was queued he turned to receive his next instructions.

The tube contained a thin polymer slab that fully extended, like those found in a mortuary, and it was upon this bed that Knives was carefully arranging his brother. Though he had seen some of it before, Doc was shocked at how much of Vash's muscle mass had disappeared. Back on the New Kennedy, with his Gate unstable and his misguided attempts to heal himself, he had deconstructed part of his body to build that scar tissue. But seeing him completely exposed once again only brought home how much weight he had lost, and what damage was continuing while he fought for his life.

Knives did not seem overly troubled by his brother's appearance, but of course he had had days to study the injuries wrought. Perhaps that was what had led to the comments of not understanding his pain. The only human sensation he could find to compare it to was 'hunger' and that was, as Knives said, likely insignificant in comparison.

But Vash was deep in a coma, one he had self initiated. Perhaps it gave him some buffer.

With the touch of a button, Vash slid into the tube, and it began to fill with a transparent, slightly green liquid. There was no breathing apparatus that Doc could see, but Knives did not make any motion to correct that as the liquid rose to a level that covered Vash's face. Once the tube was completely filled, it rotated ninety degrees, so that Vash was floating comfortably upright.

Behind Doc, his console beeped to indicate the equipment was ready.

He turned back to the screens, evaluating the offered options. This was quite clearly the equipment that Knives had used during his treatment of himself, from wounds acquired in July. It would have allowed him to reassemble his lost mass cell by cell, and it was doubtlessly fed by a bulb.

Fron. And Knives had said he had a record of the resonance of the energy used to do it.

But in this case, they didn't want to rebuild cells. They wanted to inject that energy directly into the organelle that could convert it. They needed a grid of his cells, and some type of algorithm to ensure that each cell was treated.

Doc hesitated. "Knives . . . I do not know what Vash will experience during this test."

Nothing about forcing an organelle to accept energy after it had been starved of it sounded like it was going to be comfortable. Once the organelles were open again, they might be able to use the previous technique of soaking Vash in the correct energy to keep him alive, but the initial dose was very likely going to be interpreted by his body as damage.

"It will be agony." Knives' voice was curiously devoid of emotion. "But nothing worse than he has already put himself through."

There wasn't much to say to that, so Doc turned back to his console and completed a high resolution scan, building the grid. A small screen appeared in the bottom right-hand corner of his, with lines of code zipping by, and though the text was small and Doc's eyes were not what they used to be, he could tell it was the treatment program. Knives was creating it faster than he could even read it.

Almost as fast as Millie Thompson had been writing hers.

Doc nearly swore. Once again, they had managed to chase the young woman from his mind. This technology could be used to repair her brain. Knives was right, the memories would be gone, but her life would be spared. The Plants Knives had asked for help were putting out more than enough energy for this experiment, and it was being stored in auxiliary batteries. It would be enough.

Perhaps asking permission was not the correct tactic. Perhaps he should ask forgiveness instead. This treatment of Vash would not take long, they would see immediate results or immediate failure. Knives would remove Vash from the tube for the time being either way, and if they still lived he could use Miss Thompson's friends to carry her.

Doc remained silent, and waited patiently for his grid to complete.

A brief flash from the small screen, and then it closed. A new menu option appeared at the top left, and Doc selected it. It was a surprisingly simple routine. It was a series of direct exposures to a specific frequency of Plant energy, designed to arc directly through his body. Each one was carefully metered to ensure that collectively, every cell in his body would be pierced.

It would instantly kill any human. Doc could see that immediately. And Vash, without an active Gate, was very nearly human.

Rather than directly question him, Doc rotated on the stool, and was immediately glad of his hesitation. Knives was standing beside the tube, both of his hands and his forehead resting on the glass. Outside of the hair and the bodysuit, it was the spitting image of Vash, pleading with the Plant inside the bulb. Not a muscle moved but his eyelids; they slid open, his eyes unseeing. Then his adam's apple bobbed.

"You may begin."

-x-

"Not so tight, Knives!"

Vash peered around Rem's thigh. They were all walking hand in hand down the corridor, Rem's warm and sure in his. She had Knives by the hand as well, and his brother's expression was one of worry and doubt.

Vash immediately felt less confident. If Knives was scared, then he probably should be too . . .

"Not you too, Vash," Rem chided, and then pulled them both off to the side, only a few steps away from the door. The door that led to a place they had never been.

The door that led to the rest of the crew.

Rem knelt between them, dragging their hands forward so that they were both standing in front of her, still holding on tight. "What's the matter with you two?" she asked, her voice kind. "I thought you wanted to see the cold sleep chamber."

Vash hesitated, and beside him, his brother fidgeted.

Rem's smile grew wider. "Don't tell me you two are afraid."

"There's nothing to be afraid of," Knives declared, but his voice was small. "Cold sleep tubes don't hurt. The crew inside of them is asleep."

"That's right," Rem agreed, and then she raised her hand a little and shook it, as if she wanted it back. Knives did not release it.

"So why do you look so worried?"

Vash stared at her knee, which had a funny flat place when she was crouched down in front of them like this. He looked down at his own knee, visible beneath his sky blue shorts, but it was much smaller and knobbier and pointier than hers.

There was a musical laugh, and it made Vash feel suddenly ashamed. "Don't make fun of us!" he whined. "It's just –"

"What if they know we're there?" Knives' voice was positively tiny.

"Oh." Rem's voice was thoughtful, and Vash glanced back up at her. She looked very serious, and was nodding. "I see."

When she didn't say anything else, he exchanged a quick look with his brother. Knives was clinging to Rem's hand so hard his knuckles were white.

What if the crew didn't like them.

They knew Steve didn't. But Joey, Mary, and Rowan seemed to like them. There were a lot of people in cold sleep, and a lot of ships. So if one in five crew members didn't like them . . . that was thousands of people.

Thousands of people who might say what Steve said. That if he had his way, they would be locked in cold sleep tubes until they rotted.

Knives had told him last night that wasn't true. They'd looked in the database, and learned all about cold sleep tubes. They were powered by the ship, and they put people in total stasis. Their cells weren't functioning at a very high level, so they were fine for decades or even a hundred years.

Rem would never let them do it anyway. Vash gripped her hand tighter.

"You know, I go and talk to them all the time," Rem confided seriously. "They already know all about you."

Beside him, he heard his brother gasp.

"I tell them everything," Rem continued earnestly. "I tell them about all the things that happen during the day, like how Mary accidentally flooded the galley-"

Vash couldn't help a nervous giggle at the memory. She had looked so surprised, and there was water everywhere –

"-and how you almost turned off the auxiliary navigation system trying to figure out how the telemetry worked," she continued, and shook Knives' hand in her own, "and how you –" and then she wiggled his, "-went five whole nights without having an accident!"

"Reeeeem!" That was really embarrassing!

She laughed, her eyes like tiny smiles on her face. "But they're happy for you both! They think it's really neat that you two are growing up so fast!"

"But they can't hear you, Rem." Knives sounded puzzled. "They're not awake. We read it in the database."

"Mm-hmm," she agreed. "But you can still hear things when you're not awake."

Vash looked up. "That's right!" He turned to his brother. "Remember when Rem was singing to us during naps, and you were dreaming, and in your dream the buffalo was singing?"

Knives didn't look convinced. "That's because of the state of sleep my brain was in," he protested, but without heat. "Their brainwaves indicate they're much deeper than that."

"Just because they're sleeping more deeply doesn't mean they can't hear," Rem insisted. "When we find a new planet and wake them all up, I bet you many of them will remember what I've told them. Won't that be fun to find out?"

"Like an experiment?" Knives was warming up to the idea slightly.

"Like an experiment," Rem confirmed. "So you don't need to be afraid."

Knives hesitated, then slowly nodded. His knuckles were still white.

"You don't have to hold on so hard," Vash whispered to his brother. "Rem's not going to let go."

"I know." It was a little defensive, but then Knives looked away. He hadn't relaxed.

Vash bit his lip, and then held up Rem's hand in front of his brother. "See? Like this." And he forced himself to relax his grip, just a little. Even though he didn't really want to either. He had to hang on tight, because what if the cold sleep people didn't like them? But, Rem would still be holding onto him. He could hold her hand without crushing her fingers. It wasn't like she was going to slip away and leave them.

It was okay to relax . . . just a little.

Knives looked uncertain, but then he too, slowly relaxed his fingers. Just a little. He still had a good grip, but Rem smiled, apparently relieved they weren't squashing her fingers anymore.

"Okay! Are you ready?" she asked them brightly.

The brothers looked at one another, then nodded, and she straightened, leading them towards the door. And as much as he wanted to tighten up again, Vash forced his fingers to relax. Just a little.

The door at the end of the corridor opened, and brilliant blue light shot out, straight at his forehead. He grabbed for Rem's hand, but it was gone. There was nothing but the light.

And pain.

-x-

Author's Notes: Please see next chapter.