Title: For in the moment, even angels have dreams

Author: Xara-Vodka and Donuts

Censor: PG

Spoilers: Almost all of Episode 23. My version of things.

Description: Vash's stream of conscience before he goes to sleep on the eve of the events of Episode 23. Angst ridden thought fic

Dedication: For Medea Dracena. I was thinking about what we were talking about in the car about anime women…I told you they get in the way of the Yaoi!

Tierra Lancer, since I owe so much to her.

A/N: I was on DrWorm's site when I was 'possessed' by some sort of spirit, and when I came to, this was written. Well, not really, but something there gave me the idea and this sort of spilled out. Enjoy. Love, Xara

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For in the moment, even angels have dreams

I lie awake. Nothing new there, but I fitfully dream about too many things, too many plot lines and too many broken thoughts. The complete fullness of my brain at these small times at night is giving me this fitful sleepless existence.

I try the one thing that helps me sleep. Meditation. Perhaps focusing on one thought, one idea, will clear my mind and let me sleep. Something current, something emotionally charged, something that can take my mind, stir it up and eliminate all other thoughts, like a virus attacking a major organ, replacing the former DNA with its own, letting everything come together in a moment of unity.

Is that a virus?

Either way, I close my eyes again, and think of the one thought that has plagued me for years. My love for him.

How do I love him? It certainly wasn't an elegant love, rather one sided, rather material. I thought too much, or maybe not enough, for it wasn't until I lost him that I realised that I needed him. Oh, the old old truth, you never love so much as when the object of your affections cannot return them. You never realise love till it's gone. Only fools fall in love. Again, I have played the fool.

Hours after his death, I could not believe it. I refused to believe it. I didn't believe it when I saw his red, bloody footsteps in the course sand, when some little voice in my head alerted me that there was something wrong.

Even when I finally entered the church, I had hopes that death wasn't going to greet me.

You never appreciate love till it's gone. So many loved him, unlike myself where no one truly feels for me. I watched the silhouettes at his window last night...the tall brunette kissing the man I love, feeling the muted passion waft from the window to where I sat, an unwitting voyeur to an act of desperation, the one act that made my life crumble into dust in my hands and blow away, joining the hopes and dreams of so many as part of the desert, the vast expanse of nothingness that seems to have replaced my person, so much that I wish to crumble.

I heard her talking, laughing almost as he kissed her again, with the lips that haunt my dreams now, I watched her resolve unravel, watched her give into him. Watched her laugh. That laughter sounded so out of her character that it startled me.

Now, I can hear her in the same room. Crying like a banshee, screaming. She thinks he didn't love her. I hope he didn't. How can't I live for his memory if it's tainted with the love for someone else?

I can feel sleep over taking me, the emotion is making my mind shut down, anything to escape the horror and the pain of that night. His death seems paltry compared to the prolonged agony I experience though my love.

Yesterday, he promised another his heart.

Today, His heart stopped beating.

Tomorrow, my heart will beat for him.