A/N: And the conclusion! Although now that I've finished it, I can safely say that this whole thing feels like the rough draft for a much better story... maybe it's a sign that I shouldn't be writing gen. :C

Reflections on a Peacemaker

IV. Acceptance

I was so helpless. All I could do was stand there, as immobile as a statue, as Rem kept the revolver trained on me. My gaze was drawn from her eyes towards the barrel, where I had a clear view down the open shaft: it seemed almost to be widening before my eyes, like a tunnel that I could walk through if I just thought to do it.

"You can't save everyone. Nor can you protect yourself without dirtying your own hands," Rem said, as if that explained everything. I kept staring, unable to move past the fact that not only was Rem Saverem back from the dead, she was handling a gun like she had been born with it – and pointing it at me. I thought I would scream for the unreality of it all. I'd often dreamed of meeting Rem again, but never like this.

"There will always be someone stronger," Rem said. "Someone faster. And..."

The slightest hint of menace crept into her voice.

"Sometimes, there will be someone that you cannot resist."

And suddenly she was just – there, the barrel of Knives's gun planted firmly below my chin as her arms wrapped around my shoulders, like she was giving me a hug from behind. It's not that she was really fast; she just literally zapped herself from Point A to Point B. I wouldn't see movement like that again until Dominique, over a century later. I gasped as she pushed the gun down further, against my neck; I found it impossible to swallow the bile that arose in my throat. At the same time, I could smell the perfume that I had retreated into so many times in my youth. My senses grew cloudy...

Suddenly my survival instincts kicked in, and I wrenched myself out of her grasp just as the revolver discharged.

"Rem, what are you doing?" I managed to choke out, putting distance between us as I did. I don't think I ever felt a worse fear than I did that day, except for maybe when Legato was threatening the girls. Rem just eyed me coolly and raised the revolver again.

"I'm going to kill you," she said, still in those sweet tones. "That is, unless you can accept the truth of my words, and take my life first."

"Take your life? Never! I'd never do that!"

Another shot rang out; I dodged, taking cover behind a makeshift rock formation.

"You said that no one has the right to take a life!" I said. "And I believed you. I still do!"

"I'm allowed to be wrong, you know," she returned, dark amusement curving her lips. Her right hand reached into the pocket of her jeans. My body grew even more tense with fear, until I realized that she was pulling out a cartridge of bullets. She blithely tossed it over to me.

"Load your gun," she said. "You're going to need it."

My hands shook as I picked up the case of bullets. This couldn't be happening. It had to be some kind of dream –

Rem suddenly flashed into existence before my eyes. She stood before me, laughing softly, the black Colt still hanging at her left side. Her dark eyes seemed to say, Go on, then.

I loaded the gun. My lips were moving soundlessly as the bullets slid home, and I realized that I was praying.

I expected Rem to take another shot at me, but instead she sort of – flashed forward – a few inches, and her free hand shot out and seized me around the neck. In the next moment, I found myself being thrust into the air. Rem held me up effortlessly, her body possessed with an impossible strength on top of everything else. I understood then that if I didn't act right that minute, my windpipe would be crushed.

"I have to say, Vash, red doesn't look good on you at all," she said.

That prompted me to take action. But instead of reaching for my gun, I swung both legs up through the air and attempted to kick at the arm that held me aloft. Rem, anticipating this movement, vanished in the instant before my kick could connect, leaving me tumbling to the floor like a sack of bricks. I felt a strong draft of air as she reappeared behind me, just as suddenly. Again she fired her gun at me – and again I dodged, nearly striking my head against the rock as I scrambled desperately to regain some semblance of footing.

The battle – inasmuch as you could call one person trying to escape another a "battle" – went on for some time, until Rem was finally down to her last bullet. She directed a knowing look at me then, and in a brief flash of precognition, I understood that her final shot would not miss. By that time, I did come to grasp what she was saying. There really were only two options here: to kill, or to be killed.

No longer having the strength to run, I stopped in my tracks and turned around to face her. My breathing was ragged and my chest was tight from exhaustion; but still, I managed to raise my gun and point it at her. She just stood there and smiled, daring me to kill her.

I could pull the trigger on Rem, and forever banish the spirit of her that had been dwelling in me all this time. Then there would be no difference between me and Knives. But I wouldn't do that. I couldn't do that. Not to anyone in this whole wide world, and certainly never to Rem. Even if she only existed in my mind.

The only thing left to do was to submit. To die.

Because no matter what I thought or said, it wouldn't work. I would never be able to save everyone, not like this. It was a contradiction. All of my training... it had been for nothing.

Feeling tears of resignation coming on, I lowered the gun. I let my arm fall limply to my side and closed my eyes.

Knives was right. People and plants... spiders... and butterflies...

I waited for the end.

No! You can't give up! Never, ever give up!

My eyes flew open. This voice did not belong to Rem, or Knives, or Sensei, but myself. At the same time, as if I'd uttered a secret password, the cylinder in my gun grew hot to the touch, turned poker-red in my hand. My own body seemed to stretch out to touch all points of reality at once, as a multitude of channels suddenly opened up inside of me; and a river of energy began rushing from my gun into these channels.

I had no idea what was happening, but in the split-second between hope and despair, I sided with hope. I committed myself to just going with it – for the first time in my life, showing some trust in myself and my abilities.

My own determination of will had overpowered my decision to die, and I knew then: I was not going to give up. Not now, not ever. Slowly I began to stand up straight, trying to speak under the influence of that great power.

"I... will stop you..."

"I'm sorry, I didn't hear that," Rem said pleasantly.

"I said..." My voice was stronger now. "I said I'll stop you. And I won't have to kill you to do it."

"But that just isn't possible, Vash. You are wrong."

"No! I'm not wrong, Rem! You weren't wrong!" I felt the exchange of energy – impossible to describe in words – flowing between the Colt and myself. I clutched it to my chest, screaming, the tears flowing freely from my eyes, down my cheeks. Before I knew it, the following words poured out of my mouth like hot oil: "I'm going to stop you! And I'll do it with this! Because he made it for me! He made it for me and it's mine!"

Rem nodded. "That's a good answer," she said. "But it's not good enough." And then, without another word, she aimed the black revolver at my chest and pulled the trigger.

Of course, I was fast, too: as fast as a bullet, which is why I was able to see what happened next. In the same instant that the bullet was fired, the appearance of my gun changed. It seemed to have –

Wings? Are those wings? My fevered brain struggled to comprehend. A bulbous, organic mass had sprung from my forearm, spreading like a patch of weeds that had experienced accelerated growth; and it now covered the cylinder of my gun, ending in a pair of smooth, solid-looking wings. Unlike the fleshy stuff on my arm, they looked like they had been carved from pure marble. The very next moment, I felt the pain of a glancing blow – the wings had deflected the bullet meant for my heart – and I heard a soft oof in front of me.

I blinked, and the wings – and growth – had vanished. Maybe they were never there to begin with. That's when I saw Rem kneeling on the floor, clutching her shoulder. It was bleeding.

"Rem!" And everything went out of my mind then. The gun slipped out of my fingers and I raced over to her side, dropping to my knees before her. I gently guided her body to the floor, keeping her top half elevated so that I could see the wound better. She didn't resist. She was just like the old Rem now, the Rem that I'd grown up knowing and loving. There was no ill intent in those soft brown eyes.

"Vash, bring me your gun," she said, her voice weak, her breathing labored. I felt the wash of her blood on my wrist, and now I could barely see her for the tears that filled my eyes.

"Rem, you're hurt. I have to – "

"Yes," she agreed, interrupting me with a smile. "But I'm alive. Now please. Your gun."

Wordlessly, I lowered the rest of her body onto the floor, then went back to retrieve the Colt. It came off the floor easily enough. Whatever power had been in the gun before, it was now gone: a fleeting memory. I brought it to Rem, and she placed her hands on it.

"You understand, don't you? This gun is part of you now. It's as much a part of you as I am."

"But I don't understand," I wailed. "How can you both be part of me?"

"You understood the moment you claimed it for yourself," she replied, unconcerned by my tears. "When you told me that it was yours. There is nothing more for you to learn."

Her body gave a deep shudder then, and to my horror, she began to fade before my eyes. I leaned over her body helplessly and wrapped my fingers around her wrist, as though doing so would keep her tethered to this world.

"Rem... please..." My voice trailed off into indistinct murmurs.

"This gun is the means by which you will bring peace to this suffering planet. Vash... I wish you luck..."

She reached out with one transparent hand and stroked my cheek. Even though she was rapidly disappearing, I could still feel its softness. And then she was... gone.

How long I knelt there weeping and waiting and hoping she would come back, I can't say. I felt at once liberated and agonized, empowered and destitute. It was the most bittersweet catharsis I had ever tasted. Eventually I passed out there on the tiled floor, only to awaken in the ship's emergency ward a day later. Sensei asked what in the world could have possessed me to bring real bullets into a simulated environment. I didn't know what to say, so I just told him the truth.

He stared at me, confusion knotting his brow. (He was kind enough not to mention the obvious fact that Rem was dead.) "But Vash, Knives's revolver has not moved from its spot for over a month now. What's more, the evidence shows that all the bullets we found lying around the VR field were fired from your gun."

He nodded at my right arm. "And the bullet that you say glanced off your arm and struck Rem... I believe it is the other way around. It struck the wall in front of you and ricocheted into your arm."

I looked over at my arm for the first time, unbelieving. There was a small scar on the forearm.

"It wasn't too much work to remove," he told me. "I don't know if you're aware of this, but your powers of regeneration are incredible. Your own body was already pushing out the bullet before we got to it. But I'm afraid that scar will be there to stay."

"That's all right," I said, continuing to gaze at what would be the first of many, many battle scars. "It's... perfectly all right."

The official story, of course, was that I'd had an hallucination, born of a lack of food and sleep. But for a long, long time – at least, right up until I took Legato's life – I believed that Rem really had been there that day, trying to teach me that no matter what weapon I chose to wield, I could always avoid killing others. There would always be another way out of a bad situation, if I just looked for one hard enough – and if I trusted in my gun.

Of course, I know better now. Rem had never been about tough love, and that was about the toughest love I'd ever encountered in my life. There's always been this twisted-up thing inside of me, something that wants to punish me and leave me feeling lower than dirt... something that Steve had planted in me very early on, and Knives had only encouraged to bloom. I believe that that was what was really at work that day. And perhaps it was the only way for my tortured mind to reconcile the disparate halves of myself: the gunslinger and the pacifist.

As for the rest of it – well, I suppose I still believe it, up to a point. At the very least, it's the belief that sustained me for the next hundred years. And it enabled me to realize this:

I was ready to go to the surface.

When I left Sky City a week later, I found Sensei waiting to escort me down the transport elevator. He held out a pair of tinted sunglasses to me. "To protect from the suns." I nodded and put them on, satisfied that they complemented the red duster that I had once again chosen to wear. I kept one hand on the holster that held the silver Colt, while the black one rested in my traveling bag. All of the friends I'd made I had already bid farewell. Who knew when I'd see them again, really. All I knew was that I would miss them desperately.

I have a long memory. It's rough.

We didn't say anything as the elevator started up, descending smoothly through the choppy winds that attempted to assault it. We just looked out at the twin suns blazing in the sky: a sight that neither of us had seen in over six weeks.

Then, finally: "I'm proud of you, Vash."

I responded by picking the little man up and hugging him.

"I'm sorry, Sensei. And thank you."

He chuckled. "You know, it's all right if you want to call me Doc. Everybody does."

"Okay," I said, hugging him tighter. "Thanks, Doc."

You can imagine, after everything you've heard so far, that I would finally lighten up about gun use. You'd be right and wrong, actually. I often think back to what Sensei said, about the fact that guns are a reality that can't be reversed. (Hell, the planet is called Gunsmoke.) The most that we can do about them now is to treat them with the respect that they deserve, and – should the need arise – use them to protect ourselves and our loved ones. That was something Frank Marlon practiced throughout his life, and although he paid a terrible price for it, I still believe in what he did.

Still, it's funny that that was the biggest of my concerns all those years ago. These days, knowing what my body is capable of, I have to contend with the way scarier fact that (with the aid of the very weapon that I finally learned to accept as my own) I am a gun. But each day, somehow, it gets a little easier to bear.

Because I know now that I'm more than that. And I have others – friends – who believe that too. The girls believe it, and so did he, when he was alive. And it's what I'm trying to make Knives see now – even as he pushes me away, even when he lies in his bed and stares straight out the window at nothing when I come into his room, bearing food and advice.

If you're creative enough, and you have the will, you can turn just about anything to a new purpose. Perhaps biology did intend for us to destroy while our sisters provided healing and sustenance – much as the man who forges metal into a new weapon intends for his creation to take life – but that isn't the whole story. With our power, we can stop people from hurting each other. We can protect the weak and the innocent. We can ensure that our future is a happy one, brought to bear on the shoulders of those who have proven themselves moral and responsible.

We can, I believe, be peacemakers.

THE END