Everything he witnessed made his mind scream for some kind of denial of reality.

Knives had NOT killed all of them.

He had NOT failed her again.

This was NOT happening.

A sheared rafter fell upon a corpse he had once called a friend. Every horrible nightmare he had ever had was coming true. Knives approached him slowly and Vash leveled his gun in his brother's direction. His hand was shaking. Vash saw the look in his twin's eyes and he knew what it meant: kill or be killed. His hand shook as he fingered the trigger. His brother taunted him with his eyes.

'You're a coward. You've always been one. Just one little bullet in my head and all your friends would still be alive. You're too weak. You wanted to be one of them. Now I'll kill you like I killed them.'

Now Vash couldn't tell if the voice was his brother's or his own. He'd been so stupid. He actually thought Knives could change... But Vash had only succeeded in causing more death, more pain, and at this moment, he didn't care about being a coward. He didn't care about surviving. He didn't care about stopping Knives anymore for one reason: there was no oneleft to protect.

Knives was radiating hatred towards him. He knew Knives was just rubbing it in. Knives was finally going to get his way. He knew Vash wasn't going to shoot, but he was giving him the opportunity to do it anyway just to demonstrate how weak his twin really was.

After Knives had heard Vash's gun rattle and his jaw tense in indecision long enough, he decided this was the end. Vash was a traitor to their race. He now was the epitome of everything Knives hated. Vash was superior! He should have been a god to these weak animals, but instead he chose to fraternize. It was disgusting. He made excuses for their hypocracy, their lack of character, their existence. He loved their kind. Too much.

He was disgusting.

He'd waited long enough. It was time for Knives to realize his Eden, with or without his brother.

Vash didn't even know what hit him. One moment, he was praying to whoever would listen, and the next, he didn't feel anything. He was surrounded by a cool blackness and he felt nothing. Bit by bit, however, his body came back to him. He was lying on the ground and he felt like he was buried beneath a ton of bricks. It wasn't fatigue. It was a strange heaviness that pinned him to the ground. He felt nothing physically restricting him, but he couldn't move just the same.

Panic rose in his heart. He wasn't dead. He was being controlled, wasn't he. His brother had always been stronger at mind control. Knives was going to keep him locked away forever in his sick idea of Eden and torture him until...

...until...

Oh god...it really could be forever.

"Knock it off, Spikey." A cool presence in the room made himself known.

Vash tried to look around, but the weight was too much. That sounded just like Wolfwood. Was Knives really that good at this kind of thing?

He heard footsteps approaching and a presence above him. He heard the drag on a cigarette, smelled the smoke, and felt the exhale on his face. "Come on now, if you don't lighten up, you'll never be able to leave. And if you can't leave, I can't leave, and I don't know about you, but I've got quite a few things I'd like to be doing besides babysitting your sorry butt."

This couldn't be a joke. This was really Wolfwood. His old friend's sarcasm did wonders to alleviate the panic, but he was now overcome with an intense feeling of regret. It knocked the wind out of him. He wasn't just talking to a figment of his imagination...he was really dead this time. He'd finally lost. He'd failed. He'd let everyone down. Lighten up...like it was that easy. Vash was suddenly in so much emotional anguish that hedidn't even know if he could speak.

"Where...are we?" he mumbled dumbly, not really caring.

"Glad you asked, Spikey." He felt a hand on his forehead, cool to the touch. A rough finger suddenly pulled one of his eyelids open. Vision confirmed what his ears and nose had been telling him: it was Wolfwood, alright. He looked exactly the same. "Pay attention, because I would like to say this only once. This is Purgatory."

Vash suddenly found the strength to open both eyes on his own.

"Wha...wha..." Speechless. He was caught between anguish and disbelief. He'd suffered so much, and now death couldn't even provide him some respite.

Wolfwood chuckled. "Yeah, I know how you feel. I had the same reaction as well. But, there's good news, pal. You know that old line from the good book: 'Whatever you hold true on Earth, I'll hold true in heaven?' Well, thankfully the big guy wasn't really taking orders from us."

Vash let his friend's words sink in. "Then...why am I here?"

Wolfwood turned and stretched his legs out and mimicked his poor friend's position. "Short answer?"

"Yeah."

"This is the weigh station of life, and you're too heavy."

Vash tried to look over at his friend to deliver an incredulous stare, but he found he just couldn't manage to move.

Wolfwood could sense the disbelief from experience. "Yeah, that's what I mean." He heard another drag being taken through Wolfwood's cigarette. "With all this guilt, you'll never get into heaven." He sat back up so that Vash could see him. "Look, Spikey. You're still carrying a heavy load. You're carrying all the sins of the past, and what's more, you're carrying all your regret as well." Wolfwood tried to level with him. "You're here, so somebody had to think you deserved it." Wolfwood sighed and stood up. "And now we're going to be stuck here until you think you deserve it, too." Wolfwood stomped out his cigarette and promptly lit another one. "So get on it, already! I don't want to waste forever in here with you!"

After some time (because when you've got forever, who's counting?), they both emerged, Wolfwood happy to be stretching his legs and Vash feeling like a 2 year old again.

"Watch out," Wolfwood warned. "These clouds can be tricky at first."

Vash stepped onto the giant moonwalk that was heaven and strained to see. It was white for as far as he could see. Considering how dark it was in the place he had been, this was nearly blinding. He bounced around a while until he felt comfortable and followed Wolfwood in further. After a good walk, Wolfwood stopped. He turned to his friend.

"Okay, Spikey. Take a deep breath."

Vash gave him a goofy grin and complied, not really sure what was going to happen next, but faithful that it wasn't going to be bad. He'd had time to see his life from a different perspective. There were still things he would have changed if he'd had the chance, but that was okay. He felt ready.

But he wasn't.

In front of him, there was a break in the never-ending clouds and a green field, the likes of which he'd never seen before, opened up before him. He looked at Wolfwood in disbelief. He was going to break down. This wasn't for him. He didn't deser...

"NO NO NO! You're sinking!" Wolfwood grabbed him by his shoulders and pulled him back up to stand on top of the clouds. "Would you knock it off already!" He smacked his forehead out of frustration. "Don't tell me we wasted all that time in there and you learned nothing!"

Vash got a hold of himself. Wolfwood was right. This was good. He was in the right place.

Still, he followed as Wolfwood led the way. "Hey Everybody! We're back!"

Vash could hardly believe his eyes. The further he walked, the more people he saw...people from his memory...people he never thought he'd see again. It stirred up a lot of emotions, but he didn't let the regret overcome him. He greeted everyone with hugs and happiness. This was something he never thought he'd feel. He saw Wolfwood chuckle and then make a bee-line to a tall girl he recognized. After a while, Vash made his way towards the same direction, hoping to find a shorter girl in the same area. Milly saw him first and gave him a crushing hug. If dead people had to use internal organs, Vash would have been in trouble. And as he caught his breath, he saw he was right. Meryl was there as well. They didn't say much as they looked at each other for a while. He saw her mouth open to say something, but she never got to. Instead, he scooped her up in his arms and held her close.

"I'm glad you made it," she said quietly.

"Me, too," he said back. He was feeling lighter now than he ever had before.

Just then he felt a presence behind him. He put Meryl down and turned around slowly. It was a woman with long dark hair and brown eyes, much shorter than he remembered, but there was no mistaking it. Vash went to her and stopped before her.

"Rem." That was all he could say as he gently put his arms around her shoulder and pulled her into an embrace. I thought about you every day. You changed my life. Thank you for everything you did. He couldn't say any of that. This was a moment he'd feared for so long.

He suddenly felt a weight.

But it wasn't him...it was a weight in his arms. He pulled himself away from her to see she was crying. She was sinking.

"Rem? What's wrong?" He pulled her up so that she was once again standing on the ground.

She took a sigh. "My poor, poor Vash. I asked too much of you." She wiped some tears off her face. "I never knew what caused the crash...I didn't know... I burdened you so much." She'd stopped crying altogether. "You were just a child...and I didn't know... Can you forgive me?"

Vash smiled warmly at her, kissed her on the forehead, and pulled her close to him again. "There's nothing to forgive."

Vash had reached sublime happiness on a different plane of existence, while another soul toasted a double sunset with a glass of red wine.

To each his own.