catalyst Catalyst
Part Two
By Taleya

He didn't know how long they lay there, the soft pulse of twin hearts, one strong and true, the other weak and stumbling their
only companions. The lights began to dim, the energy-conserving sensors built into the walls detecting no new movement, no
need for their illumination. Dark. Cold. Like that empty place that no longer sang in his mind, like that stone forming in his
heart. He tried to wrap himself closer around Vash, dipping into their shared link, determined to reach his brother in his pain,
to comfort him, determined not to let him

Shut up, he's not going to die, he can't die

alone

STOP IT!

Knives pushed deeper through the link, the familiar pathways so cold and empty to him now. He almost fancied he could hear
the ghostly echo of his own mental footsteps echoing through the silence in his mind. He involuntarily repressed a shiver. This
wasn't like the quiet solace they sought sometimes on this ship, this was different. Colder. Dead. This silence terrified him,
made him want to run in fear.

He felt a breath of a ghost of sensation. Too low to be certain, but he was anyway.

Vash…

He pursued it, not on feet, not here, on wings, following it through the darkness, deeper than they'd ever ventured before into
each other's souls, into the power of their own.

Vash…come back…!

The darkness swelled around him, solidified and he stopped dead in his search. He was sitting on the periphery of something,
so close, he could feel it. Like an invisible barrier, a line he shouldn't cross. A restraint, holding him back and grounding him.
He pulled back for a moment; probed at it, the inquisitive scientist in him taking over, examining it, body still rocking back and
forth, arms twined around his brother, mind elsewhere. They'd never encountered this before, neither him nor Vash.

"Knives?" A human touch brought him back to himself, surfacing unwillingly from the soft flight of the mind into the heavy
weight of the physical. Rem was awake now, sitting up, the lights obediently flaring back into life at her movement. She
blinked for a moment in their glare, then rose to her feet.

Knives gave her a bare glance, hunched around his brother, protecting him in the curve of his body.

"Knives…" her voice was almost a sigh. "You shouldn't be here…" She stroked his hair softly, offering him comfort. He
didn't shirk from the comfort, but he didn't release his grip on his brother either.

And she didn't push the issue.

She didn't offer him lies or false reassurances either, and for that he was oddly grateful. She understood best amongst all the
crew the odd dichotomy in what they were. She didn't feed him the lies and false hopes that would suffice the child she knew
he damn well wasn't. She spoke to him like the man he was. But still, she offered gentle comfort to the child he was at the
same time.

"I know sweetheart….I know…" she didn't explain what she knew, stroking his hair again and leaning against him in a clumsy
embrace. He could smell the soft scent of her shampoo as wisps of long hair draped over his face. Knives thought that maybe
he could understand a little why Vash loved her so much.

Reaching out, Rem clasped her hand over his, giving it a small squeeze, as if offering her strength. He acknowledged the
physical touch, then ignored it, dipping back into that deep black pool of the mind, probing delicately at the wall before him. It
was an enigma to him, as smooth and opaque as obsidian in this landscape of the intellect. At another time it would have
utterly fascinated him. Something to study, to explore. But now it was nothing but an obstacle, something to overcome,
something keeping him from his brother. He measured its strength, pacing the length of it. What was this? A mental
representation of Vash's coma?

More than once he tried to push through, halting again at that odd sensation, that fear buried deep in his psyche that babbled he
shouldn't pass it, shouldn't attempt to pass it, that beyond it was something he shouldn't ever be part of. An allegory then. A
limit to his powers.

Sudden fear. Did that mean Vash was beyond his reach?

No!

He settled himself down in this mental reality, pondering the wall before him with questioning, calculating eyes.

~~

Another touch brought him back to reality. Not the soft, almost soothing touch of Rem, but a loud, annoying voice. Mary.

"Rem! What are you still doing here?" her voice was startled as the door slid shut behind her, almost dropping the padd and
hypo in her hands in surprise. "It's nearly morning! Have you been here all night?" as if drawn by a magnet, her eyes locked on
Knives. "Rem, I said…"

"Don't worry." Rem's voice had a surprising bite of anger to it, Knives noted, drifting idly, split between puzzling out that
smooth wall and the ongoings in the physical world. "I didn't break your precious rules."

ahhh, so Vash's angel has horns after all…

" – Knives came here by himself." Pink tinged her features. "He snuck in when I fell asleep. " her hand returned to stroking his
hair. "I think he should stay. Mary, he needs to heal as much as Vash does and I really think that it might help – "

Alarms suddenly erupted through her words, cutting her off mid-breath. Startled, Knives was thrown completely back into the
physical world, clutching at Vash, craning his head as one by one the monitors crashed downwards.

Vash! NO!

Rem was almost crushing his hand on hers, tugging at him, unknowingly echoing his thoughts. "- VASH! No! Mary, please,
quickly, we have to – "

Another alarm went off, adding to the cacophony, the monitors over their heads howling a final mournful death song but Knives
didn't hear them, delving back into the realm of the mind, chasing after the wavering spark that was his brother as it was
swallowed by darkness, chasing it, reaching out desperately to wrap himself around it, to bring it back or let it take it with him
down the spiral to death, he didn't care which. Life without Vash was unthinkable. Without his brother, the other half of his
soul...death would be a mercy.

"Leave them Rem…" he could hear Mary's voice somewhere behind him, somewhere back in reality. "It doesn't matter….
I've been expecting this….it wouldn't be fair to…we can't…..not any more…" her voice was choked with tears. Defeat.
Resignation. Death

DENIAL

He dove recklessly forwards, smashing the barrier, feeling something snap in the back of his brain, dismissed, unimportant,
uncaring, desperately seeking out that tiny, almost non-existent flame of life, casting around in anguish and coming up with
nothing but handfuls of nothingness.

A voice howled in torment and he realised dimly it was him.

No no no no no nOO!!!! He was almost convulsing in the bed now, Vash's body clutched desperately to him in a grasp that
should have made the younger twin protest. "don't take him, please don't take don't take him…I'm sorry Vash, I'm sorry,
I'm sorry…" it rose higher, pitched in his child's voice but the desperate demanding growl of a man. "Don't take him, DON'T
YOU TAKE HIM, YOU CAN'T HAVE HIM!!!"

A spark bloomed in his mind, bursting into flame, a brilliant, painful fire that exploded along every nerve, searing his psyche. A
sudden rush of power, like a dam bursting and he didn't question it, used it, rode it, reaching deep into death

You

casting about in the endless blackness, the suffocating depths, his own body withering and dying without him and THERE!
THERE HE WAS, reaching out, wrapping his mind around his brother's, feeding him strength he could barely afford,
desperately cuddling that fragile flicker to his own, embracing it, feeling it nudge weakly in response

Can't

feeling hands pulling uselessly at him, the monitor screaming louder now, no longer one, but now two deaths, two lives slipping
away, female screams even louder…Rem, was that Rem? Why was she pulling at him, why was she pulling him back, he
couldn't leave he couldn't – not without Vash!

Have

and then he was returning, snapping back into his own body, pain screaming along every nerve ending as he fought his way
back to life

HIM!

and hauling Vash back with him.

But the pathway to reality crumbled around them even as he reached for it, and he didn't know if he had the strength to make
it…