[ When the connection breaks off, Vash is left with an afterimage of grief, like the double vision of a concussion. Knives hasn't died yet, but he remembers the loss. Wolfwood stopped breathing no more than thirty minutes ago, but he remembers the weight of his body as he lowered it into the ground. His head throbs with the effort of reconciling what has happened, and what is yet to come.
Is this what that hopeful future will cost? As much as he wants to fight against the idea, he knows, deep in his gut, that what the other had shared with him was the truth. This grief is to heavy to be anything but real, and if the grief is real, then so it the joy. He'll succeed. He'll win. The ships will be protected, plants and humans will speak to one another for the first time in centuries, the war will be over... and all it will cost is his brother's life and his own peace of mind. That screaming, flailing man in front of him... that's his future? That's the future that saves the world?
That's who he has to become?
Hands still raised in warding, he takes a tentative step toward the other Vash. He's always known – suspected, feared -- that the fight with Knives would kill him. Even since the ark, since he first saw just how much Knives had become, his only hope had been that he'd last long enough in the fight to find a way to reach his brother. And he'll succeed, won't he? This broken man is proof that he'll succeed.
Vash chokes back the last of the tears, his mask sliding somewhat awkwardly back into place.
If this is the cost, then he'll pay it. ]
It's all right.
[ Two lives, for millions? Of course he'll pay it. And if his hand is shaking when he holds it out to his double, well, there's nobody to see it but the two of them. ]
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Is this what that hopeful future will cost? As much as he wants to fight against the idea, he knows, deep in his gut, that what the other had shared with him was the truth. This grief is to heavy to be anything but real, and if the grief is real, then so it the joy. He'll succeed. He'll win. The ships will be protected, plants and humans will speak to one another for the first time in centuries, the war will be over... and all it will cost is his brother's life and his own peace of mind. That screaming, flailing man in front of him... that's his future? That's the future that saves the world?
That's who he has to become?
Hands still raised in warding, he takes a tentative step toward the other Vash. He's always known – suspected, feared -- that the fight with Knives would kill him. Even since the ark, since he first saw just how much Knives had become, his only hope had been that he'd last long enough in the fight to find a way to reach his brother. And he'll succeed, won't he? This broken man is proof that he'll succeed.
Vash chokes back the last of the tears, his mask sliding somewhat awkwardly back into place.
If this is the cost, then he'll pay it. ]
It's all right.
[ Two lives, for millions? Of course he'll pay it. And if his hand is shaking when he holds it out to his double, well, there's nobody to see it but the two of them. ]
It'll be all right.