DISCLAIMER: Trigun and its characters belong to Yasuhiro Nightow.

It was already starting by the time Vash reached the top of the stairs and ducked out of Meryl's sight, making a break for his room. He was shaking almost too hard to get the damn door open, barely managed to get it locked behind him. His legs gave out before he could make it to the bed, tumbling to the floor with the grace of a sack of goods as the attack of what Barkeep had dubbed the "killer's shakes" hit full force.

There was no control over his own body as it shook with violent tremors, muscles contracting spastically of their own volition. Heart jackhammered; felt like he had acid pumping through him in place of blood; it was impossible to get enough air in his lungs. Sweat formed from the effort his traitorous body was exerting, a dark red flush covering him as strained blood vessels pressed against his skin.

And there was no Barkeep around this time with magic pills to ease it.

Vash suffered through the attack, not knowing how much time passed, until it ended on its own. Afterward – now soaked with sweat, throat sore from gasping and almost choking for air, heartbeat and pulse erratic and skipping from exertion – he curled up in a fetal position, eyes clenched shut, trying in vain to shield himself from the things he couldn't get away from.

"…good enough to kill them all…like the Stampede…"

He relived that horrible night with Monev the Gale, feeling again the urge to kill this man, the utter conviction that the world would be better off without Monev in it. And again, Legato's face replacing Monev's. Again, Kurtz's face in place of Monev's, that graveyard laugh echoing through Vash's head. Each time there was the unassailable conviction that this man had to die, and the swirling anger, that raging need to avenge the fallen, that battered the belief that killing was never right, dictating that taking one life was better than allowing a conscienceless monster to take hundreds more.

And once more he saw his prosthetic gun pressed against Monev, only the face belonged to Knives. And as with the others, the conviction was there. It was necessary to kill Knives, for the sake of the entire human race. It was right to kill Knives. Because if he didn't take his brother's life, Knives would take everyone's lives.

Vash pulled the trigger on his brother.

Everything went to black. All that was left was the repeating echo of Rem's voice: "Vash, take care of Knives!"

He experienced once more the Fall, her final directive toward him. "Vash, take care of Knives!"

Experienced Knives' brutality in their time together on Gunsmoke. "Vash, take care of Knives!"

Experienced the loss of his left arm. "Vash, take care of Knives!"

Experienced wandering the ruins of July, unable to remember what exactly had happened but knowing he was somehow responsible. Knives had done something, forced him to do it somehow, but the responsibility fell to him, just as it always did where Knives was concerned. "Vash, take care of Knives!"

And now the war was inching closer with every passing day – hell, every passing second. The war with his own brother, where – for the good of everyone, every soul with its own open ticket to the future despite its owner's past – he would have to end it once and for all. Vash would have to put Knives down.

Except… "Vash, take care of Knives!"

Always, her last directive. Her last request. Her last plea to him, that he take care of his brother.

To save everyone, Vash would have to lose Rem forever.

Other memories came at him, a ceaseless onslaught. He remembered every person he had ever failed to save. Relived their loss. Relived every time he was too late, or too far away, or just not good enough. Sometimes being as good as he was with a gun just didn't get the job done.

"There's too many people, Vash! We can't evac them all!"

"I'm sorry, Vash, he's gone. We couldn't even do anything to ease his pain. If you'd just gotten here a minute sooner…"

"You were never going to talk me out of it, Vash, not after what he did. Some people need killing."

Overlaid on top of everything, like a translucent hologram, was the image of his gun sights centered right between Meryl's eyes as she slumbered. He saw that, even as he re-lived every mistake he had ever made, helpless to change the outcome. Too far out on the sharp end, he had come disturbingly close, just a trigger pull away, to taking the life of someone he…cared for. To taking a life, period.

So this was what Hell was like.

Vash bore it all, the only action he was capable of taking being to clamp his jaw shut so the sounds he made wouldn't be so loud as to summon others, especially not Meryl. The one thing he remained consciously aware of in Hell was that he could not, must not, drag anyone else into his problems, especially not Meryl. Milly, though she would be reluctant, would respect any requests to keep her distance; Meryl would charge directly into the mire until she was irreversibly involved. Then she would either wind up killed…or worse yet, she would see what he looked like in his plant form.

Neither her death nor the horror he imagined would be in her eyes at the sight of his plant form was an acceptable possibility. And persistent as she was, if he allowed her to stay around, she was going to keep plowing ahead until one of them occurred. Or the third possibility – that she would be a chink in his armor, a button someone else could push. That had already happened with Pierre; if it could happen once, it could happen again.

He had to distance himself from Meryl and the pipe dream of a happy life; from Milly; even from Doc and Jessica and the rest. Isolation was his only viable option.

Underneath – with him through the convulsive shakes, through the memories – was that same feeling he couldn't pinpoint, the continuous tug of something he was certain he knew but just couldn't recognize right now, like looking at an object through a kaleidoscope.

Light penetrated through his eyelids. Gradually, like waking from a coma, Vash realized he had survived his trip through Hell.

Small comfort, because he knew that until his inner storm subsided, there would be more trips.

His eyes had been squeezed shut for so long, he had to work to open them. The sunlight hurt, and he rolled over away from it to shield himself until his eyesight acclimated.

Mouth was so dry it was stuck shut. Throat felt like it was made of wood, and the air made of fire, it hurt so bad to breathe. Head hurt. Muscles hurt. Everything hurt, including his soul.

Still had to get up, no matter how much he was hurting.

Because if he wanted to take the out O'Brien had offered to avoid violence...if he wanted Meryl and everyone else safe...if he wanted no one else hurt because of him...if he wanted to continue hearing Rem...

...then it was time to leave.