The pair entered the restaurant, one man with a face, white, as if he had seen a ghost, and the second with a face as black as a storm cloud. Vash's nearly enjoyable experience with the radiant suns now was clouded over by anger and confusion.

Fuck... Vash's inner turmoil had returned to him like a shot in the back, and it was all because of the man he now stood beside. Why the fuck is he here?

"I- I..." The man was stammering. Vash pretended not pay him any attention, despite the obvious fact the man was attempting to address him. "Vash?"

He heaved a loud breath and answered heavily, "What?"

"I didn't expect to find you here."

Vash did not answer. His fists began to clench tightly at his sides. The inner furnace, his heart, he supposed, began to bubble with not only extreme annoyance but also mauling anger and shredding sadness.

An internally emotionally unstable Vash and his companion, whose complexion looked like that of a member of the undead, strode over to the service counter.

"Table for two," Vash said dryly.

"Right this way!" Said a young, bouncy waitress, who was far too peppy for Vash's liking. She led them to a corner table, Vash and the man walking slowly behind her. It wasn't so much as the man was slow... perhaps fearful suited his presence more effectively. He seemed to cower at the sight of Vash.

When the pair reached the table, they sat down at opposite ends. The waitress, bubbly and blonde handed them each a menu and began spouting specials the restaurant served on the particular day.

"No... no thanks." Vash shook his head and rolled his eyes. "Just, go..." He waved her off with a subtle hand motion. "We'll choose from the menus, thanks."

The waitress' mouth and eyebrows dipped into a frown for a split second, before perking back up into a strained grin. "No problem," She forced, and walked away.

"So--"

"So--"

The two men stared at each other. They sat in the corner of "Xing's Café" without a single word exchanged for several minutes.

Vash took a white napkin into his hands and began to fiddle with it uncomfortably.

The man across from him smiled weakly for a moment, but let his face return to the expressionless appearance it almost always took. "I didn't think I would run into you around here. It's... been only a month, but..." His voice trailed off.

"But it seems like - like forever, right? Almost like it didn't happen, huh? Guess what?" Vash muttered back. "It did happen, and I'll have to live with that fact forever."

The man began to speak, but cut himself off. Instead, he said, "How have you been doing?" As he posed this question, the man with the deep green eyes reached a cleanly scrubbed hand towards the salt shaker that sat on the table to his left. He seized it between his thumb and middle finger and held it in front of him. He rocked it back and forth between his fingers.

Vash stopped fidgeting and looked up as his tablemate. A dark look flooded over his face. "Take a guess," he spat.

His tablemate frowned. "That's no way to talk to a friend, Vash. I thought we were friends!"

A look of incredulity wiped away the ocean. "Friends? Friends, Jacob?" Vash's mouth curled in disgust. "You... you made me lose her! I'd never call you a friend! You're a coward!! You're a fucking coward! You stood there! JUST STOOD THERE!" Vash bounded out of his chair and slammed his fists on the table. "You watched her DIE and you DARE TO CALL YOURSELF A FRIEND?"

Several people sitting around them gasped at the sudden shouts and the strong language.

Jacob stared back at him with wide eyes. "I--I-- " he stammered, gripping the salt shaker in his palm tightly. "It's not my fault! I couldn't do anything! I was helpless!"

"Jacob? You were standing right there! You could have reached out and touched her, you were so close... and what did you do? What the FUCK did you do, Jacob?" Vash's wild blonde hair flew as he moved. He had not bothered to do anything with it in weeks.

Across the table, Jacob's grip loosened on the shaker and stared at it while it sat in his palm. "I didn't do anything..." he said, "I couldn't..."

"Fuck you, you couldn't!" Vash stared at him, "You were just standing there..."

"It's not my fault, Vash." Jacob could not raise his eyes to meet Vash's.

Vash's breath began to shorten as two tiny beads of tears escaped from his eyes. "But you didn't do anything to help..."

"I was afraid, Vash..." he breathed. Jacob bolted himself to his seat, watching Vash with huge green eyes.

"You were afraid? Damn it, Jacob! You were afraid? You have never been afraid," he spat, "Until you see eyes of the person you loved with all your heart, roll up into their head."

"Vash. Please," His voice had quieted to a near whisper.

Vash sat back down in his chair. "Do you know what the last thing she saw before she died was?"

Jacob remained silent.

"It was her love getting shot and tossed around like a child's toy. It was her love being crushed underneath a boulder."

"It's not my fault... It's not your fault either. Knives is the only person to blame here. There was nothing you could do." He said quietly.

"No- of course I couldn't. But you could have..." Vash said. Over the last few minutes, his voice had lowered and he was now staring at Jacob with tired eyes. "You don't know what it feels like to be trapped, helpless."

Jacob opened his mouth to reply, but nothing came out. He tried to talk, but all he could do was emit a short, defeated sigh. He placed the saltshaker back on the table and finally looked Vash in the eyes. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry about this. About Meryl, about Knives. About me. There's no other way I can say this, other than 'I'm sorry.' It's not enough for you, I know, but it's all I can do. It's all I can say."

Vash's eyes had dulled into dreary, grey masses. He stared into Jacob's and said, "Do you think that I could forgive you?" His head drooped to the right.

"I don't know." He replied, "One would hope so."

Vash sighed. "I don't even know. I've changed inside, Jacob. Forgiveness is something I've found hard to give during this last month of my life. I don't even know if I can anymore. I've changed so much from what I used to be that I am honestly terrified to look in the mirror. I don't want to see what I've become or will become." Vash blinked and looked at Jacob. "To be quite honest with you, there's not much keeping me from standing up and shooting you in the head." The words of that statement poured from his mouth in a decrescendo.

Jacob's eyes widened as a tiny gasp escaped his mouth. He slid back from the table in his chair. "Vash..."

"I wouldn't dare, though," he said in an offhand tone, "Not only do I not have a gun here, but this room is filled with good, innocent, hardworking people- save us, of course- and I would rather not take the chance of hurting a single one of them."

Jacob began to tremble as he looked into Vash's face. He spoke so casually of murder, it frightened him. "Killing me would make you no better than Knives."

Vash glared at him. "I'm not going to kill you, Jacob."

"You just-you just said you would!"

"No, I didn't," he said bluntly. "I said there wasn't much keeping me from it."

Jacob shifted his weight in the chair. Vash was a dangerous man, and Jacob knew it. He was probably the most dangerous man on the planet, actually. The thought of death by his hand frightened him more than anything. This was for two reasons: one, because he had heard the stories of Vash's past and two, because the Vash he thought he knew would never stoop that low. Generally speaking, of course. A man can always make exceptions. This was also true of Vash.

A story Jacob once heard told of a red-caped fiend whose merciless and soulless killing was matched by no man. This man's name was Gash, or at least it was in most retellings of the events - others had no name for this monster. Gash, he had been told, because he would leave a massive slash from the victim's naval to their throat. The murders had been particularly gruesome and disturbing, but what really perturbed people, was the fact that there was a bullet hole between the eyes. To the people, this meant either that a) 'Gash' had gutted them alive, then shot the victim to put it out of its misery, or b) that he gutted the victim after he took their life.

Needless to say, people preferred to believe it was the latter. Well, at least, they wanted to. They wanted to, yes, but no one did. The bizarre acts of murder were just too sickening to have been done by someone who wanted to end a life as painlessly as possible.

It just didn't make sense.

And then the murders stopped. All in all, there had been 13 lives taken by the maniac known as 'Gash'. No one really knew what happened to him. He just disappeared, and that was all. There were many people who believed that it was Vash the Stampede acting under an alias, a very stupid and uncreative alias.

Surely, Jacob thought as he sat uncomfortably under the low stare of Vash, there is no truth to the story. And surely, even if it were true, there is no way this red-coated outlaw could be the same as a red-caped fiend. Surely. Even if their names are the same, if not for one letter. Surely.

"You're too quiet," Vash grumbled. "What are you thinking about?"

"Nothing," Jacob replied nervously. Jacob's heart began to race as Vash's question sank into him. He remembered a second story that he had been told long ago.

"Nothing at all... I see."

Someone had told him, once, about a tall, blond man. This man was a very special man, in that he was said to have 'psychic powers,' - said to be not of this world. One day, this tall, blond man came across a town whose Plant had been acting up for several days. No one knew why. This tall blond man stood in the center of the town, raised his right hand to the sky and cried out, "It shall be the last day. In the hours of next, might the great tower shatter, a white light will engulf you. If you wish salvation, flee!"

His bizarre words disturbed the people of the town. Many people ran away, fearing death. Others stayed in their homes, foolishly thinking that their houses might be of some protection. Most, however, lived their lives as usual, believing that the man was insane. The tall, blond man smiled at the children and walked toward the Plant.

Seconds later, an explosion of white light came from the Plant and tore over the landscape, killing hundreds.

The tension between Vash and Jacob at this time was excruciating. Jacob couldn't look up from the table knowing that, certainly, Vash fixed his stare upon him. Jacob fidgeted under his eye until he collected enough courage to look up. With a short glance, he found Vash's eyes surveying the room, and not on him. He breathed a small sigh of relief.

The sound of a soft voiced man broke the silence. "Excuse me... Sirs?"

Vash whipped his neck around to face the man. He was a man in black with a white cloth draped over his forearm; he was a waiter. "Yes?" he said.

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave," said the waiter in a nervous tone.

Vash stood up and faced the waiter, who Vash stood several inches above. "Is that so?"

The waiter nodded, staring up at Vash.

"We haven't even gotten to order!" he said, "I expect that we have nothing to pay... am I right?" Vash glared down at him.

"Yes, that's correct. Now, if you'll follow me..."

Vash motioned for Jacob to stand and the pair followed the waiter to the front foyer of the café. Jacob remained silent as they were marched out of the establishment.