Author's Note: OMG! I've updated! Thanks for being patient. I'm going to try and put up at least two chapters a month, till its done, or at least one. And I already have a sequel planned in my head. If the story goes where I want it. And yes, this chapter could have been longer, but be happy that you've gotten something. Hehe, just teasing you. Now off I go to try and write a chapter for my other story whose fans are angry at me.

Ashriel and I walked together for the most part in silence. Even Legendary Gunman wasn't sure what to say to the mysterious man. I knew that there was more to him, but what? I couldn't put my finger on it.

"What's on your mind Vash?" Ashriel asked. "You've been thinking for a while, and I left you undisturbed." He looked over and smiled at me. "Now I want to know now, if you don't mind."

I laughed nervously and rubbed the back of my head. "Oh, nothing really. I was just wondering what your line of work is."

Ashriel looked away and smiled. "Should have guessed that you would have asked that. He laughed. "Well, Vash the Stampede, don't take this the wrong way, but my job is death."

My eyes nearly popped out of my head. "WAAAAHHH!!!! You kill people!"

Again he laughed calmly as if it was nothing. "No. I don't kill people. I deal with what happens to them afterwards." He waved his hand. "Killing them, so to speak, is my boss' job."

"But killing is wrong!" I cried.

Ashriel looked over at me and then laughed. "Haha! Its good to see that you still follow what Rem taught you."

I stopped dead in my tracks. Rem. "How do you know…"

Ashriel looked up at the sky. "Oh, I met her. Still see her every now and then."

"How old are you?" I asked. Was he a Plant like me and I didn't know. Could he have been on a ship and I not know it?

"Older than you, that's for sure," Ashriel said. "Let's just say I was there when the everyone hightailed it from Earth, and before that too."

I did not get this man. "So, are, uh, you a Plant?"

"Nope."

"You're some kind of immortal thingy though, right?"

"Yup."

"So…what kind of immortal thingy are you?"

"An Angel of Death kind of immortal thingy."

I raised an eyebrow. "You're an Angel of Death?"

Ashriel nodded. "Yes, sir. My boss, besides the Big Guy, is the angel Gabriel. He handles the deaths, I handle the souls, which is how I met your Rem and Nicholas."

I started blindly at him. "You're joking, right?"

"Sorry, can't say that I am. I don't lie either. 'Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor' or basically don't lie. I believe that's what the stone tablets read when Moses brought them down. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's what they said."

This guy wasn't for real. He couldn't be. "Where are you're wings?" I challenged him.

"Don't have wings."

"Then you're not really an angel. Angels have wings."

He shook his head. "No. Angel's don't have wings, seraphims have wings, but not angels." He knocked on my forehead. "Hello! Get it straight. Sheez."

I groaned. "I'm not going to die, am I? Is that why you brought me out here? Is Gabriel going to come, kill me, and you take my soul?"

His face was blank. Then he started to laugh. "You're funny, Vash the Stampede, one funny guy. No, you still have many years of life ahead of you. Many, many years."

I gave him a halfhearted smile and we continued to walk.

"So, what's Wolfwood doing back here?" It was the real question I had wanted to know the answer to since Andrew had come home with his father's sunglasses.

"He's a indentured guardian angel, to put it simply." I must have looked confused because he continued. "Nicholas was given the option of torment, or the chance to help those that were like him: good guys but that had strayed. He refused at first saying if he couldn't help himself while he was alive, how could he help those that still lived and breathed? I told him he could do it, I knew he could do it. So I bribed him. I said that if he did this he could visit Milly and his son. Thus how we are all here now."

"Things didn't go exactly as planned, though. Did they?" I said, knowing there was more.

Ashriel sighed and shook his head. "He thought – we thought he'd actually get more time, but he and I were kept busy boys. Today had only been the second time he had seen Andrew. Then Milly saw him. Would have scared him half to death if he were already dead. I feel sorry for the guy, but it's out of my hands."

A thought came to then. "Does Wolfwood get a 'reward' for being this indentured guardian angel?"

He looked at me and smiled. "I knew you'd pick up on that, Vash." What he was going to say next looked like it really please Ashriel. "Indeed he does. He has three options, I think. One is to become an official angel. Second is to go to Paradise, and were not just talking heaven. Its actually quite complicated to explain."

"What's the last one?"

Ashriel grinned. "To pick up where he left off."

"To be reborn?" I asked. My mind was already searching for someone to have baby Nicholas D. Wolfwood.

Ashriel shook his head. "Not to be reborn, but to be, uh, made whole again. You saw Nicholas, right? Well, if given the third reward he'd come back as that."

Like an idiot that I am, I kept walking. My brain felt numb as I mulled this over: to have Wolfwood back, alive. I'd have my best friend. Meryl would have her sympathizer about me. Milly would have him back. The four of us, back together again.

Andrew would finally have his father.

"Does he get to choose?" I asked, knowing what Wolfwood would choose.

Ashriel's grin faded. "It not up to him, or me. Not even Gabriel. It up to Him, the Father, to decide."

Oh. Phooey.

At that moment, my stomach chose to make itself known. I gave a nervous laugh. "Sorry. Andrew was supposed to bring me donuts home. Never did get them." Aw, my donuts!

The angel laughed. "Donuts, huh? Never really thought of you as a donut man. I'd thought you be more of a beef jerky man actually."

Beef jerky? "No. I love donuts more than anything. Besides Meryl and my kids that is." I sighed thinking about, sweet, sweet donuts. "They were my first loves."

He raised an eyebrow. "Nicholas was right when he referred to you as Needle-noggin, wasn't he?"

I pretended to look offended. "Needle-noggin? I prefer Broomstick Head. That's what my wife calls me anyway."

He rolled his eyes. "I didn't need to know what she called you during foreplay."