Am I still over my Ace plot bunnies? No. Is this going to be another super-long story? No. As much as I love Ace, I have other fics to attend to. Don't worry, though. I'm still going to give this story my best shot. I don't know when the next chapter will be up, but expect it within 1-3 days.

Chapter 1 (Prologue, really, but who cares?)

He couldn't hear, couldn't think, couldn't move, couldn't think. He could feel, though only in his chest, where an inferno burned and blistered, melting his heart and making him want to scream even though he had no voice to break the terrible silence. There was nothing by darkness and a weight on his entire body and pain and agony and fire—

"You promised!"

A broken promise, an empty vow, nothing but worthless words said in ignorance.

"Don't kill me off so easily!"

What did words like that mean now?

"Was I a good father?"

Memories, broken and painful and jagged fragments of a life worth next to nothing in the end but—

"Of course you were!"

He couldn't forget, couldn't let go, couldn't give up so easily even after all he'd been through because—

"You promised!"

Words held meaning after all and even with flames tearing through him he was an older brother and a son before anything else and he couldn't let go of his dreams, his hopes, his life so easily—

"Because being alone is much worse than getting hurt!"

Not when there were still people out there waiting for him, family—a brother—that would be left alone in this world if he left and he couldn't do that, he wasn't that cruel, so even with the fire raging and his body burning and his mind scattering in a hundred thousand different directions he wasn't going to leave.

"And it'd be bad if I wasn't here?"

There were things he had to do, people he had to see, places he had to visit and letting his life end here simply wasn't an option, it couldn't be, he wouldn't let it be.

"You want me to live?"

A single frozen moment, a single question left hanging, a single life dangling just out of reach.

"Of course I do!"

He fought, kicked and punched and clawed and bit and screamed in defiance against the dark because he was rage and fire and light and he was going to live even if he had to burn everything to ashes to do it.

"No matter where we are or what we do, our bond will not be broken!"

And the darkness went up in flames.

A/N You go, Ace.

Please review.