Trigun Fan Fiction ❯ Children of the Pebble ❯ Kisses, Part Two ( Chapter 5 )

Children of the Pebble

By “Clinesterton Beademung”, with all of love.

 

Disclaimer: “Trigun” © its respective creators and owners. I do this for fun, not profit. So there.

 

Comments and criticism welcome.

 

Chapter Five - Kisses (Part Two)

---

Twenty minutes outside December, Meryl made the final turn toward the city. The miniature satellite receiver worked just fine, and the music, an afternoon bluegrass program, was loud and lively.

Meryl let her mind drift back with the dust in the car's wake. What Mrs. Thompson had said frightened her far less than what she'd left unsaid.

Not unsaid. Unspoken.

Milly was only letting me in, she'd said. Now she's shutting me out. After that had come words, clear as day though Meryl hadn't heard them with her ears, words that popped into her head as if she'd read them from a sign in front of Mrs. Thompson's face.

And you know why.

“It's nice,” Milly said.

Meryl turned down the receiver's volume.

“What did you say, Milly?”

“I said it's nice that you and Mom got along so well. I was really hoping you would.”

“Yeah,” Meryl said. “So was I.”

“Huh?”

“Nothing.”

The music gave way to a news report on the results of the Federal elections. Meryl listened, disappointed. Had she been out of the hospital in time she'd have voted for the other guy but the woman who'd won, yet another in a long line of “law and order” political types, didn't seem too bad. In her campaign the new chancellor-elect had promised to extend the influence of Federal law enforcement further south with the aim of destroying the last of the slaver gangs. Her proposed increase in Plant access fees would be spent on building up the Federal Cavalry and Marshal's Service. That could be good or bad for Father's business, depending on how generous the new government was with its contracts.

“Who owns this place up ahead?” Milly said.

“That's my grandparents' old farm,” Meryl said.

“Wow, really? Can we stop? I want to see it.”

“Milly, I don't think we have time—”

“Come on, Meryl, pretty please?”

“Oh, all right.” Meryl slowed, turned the car into the packed earth driveway in front of the barn.

“It's beautiful,” Milly said as she got out.

“It's not that much,” Meryl said, doing the same. “A house, a barn and forty hectacres.”

At the edge of the old alfalfa field across the highway Milly knelt and crumbled a chunk of dirt between her fingers.

“The erosion's pretty light,” she said. “With a little tender loving care, this land would produce an excellent crop.”

“How? No one's worked the land for fifteen years.”

“That's the idea, Meryl.” Milly stood up and brushed her hands together. “The trick to getting crops to grow here isn't water or fertilizer. It's getting the soil to accept something it's never known before. People take what they need from it, and what they take has to be replaced by the planet's own natural processes. That takes time.”

Milly spread her arms as if to embrace the horizon.

“We forget this world had its own ecology long before we ever got here. One day we'll understand its ways well enough to work with it, not against it. This field isn't dead, Meryl. It's being reborn.” Milly walked back to the car. “Let this soil lie fallow long enough and it'll grow anything.”

Surprised and touched, Meryl absorbed Milly's lecture. Milly really was much smarter than she or Vash had ever thought. Smart, and full of depth and feeling—

“Maybe you and Vash could plant it together when you get married,” Milly said.

—and insane ideas.

“What! What on earth are you talking about?”

“Well…that's what you're going to do, isn't it? You're going to go meet Mister Vash, talk him into coming here—”

“Milly…”

“And you're going to get married and move into this house and raise a family—”

“Milly, stop! I haven't even thought about moving into my grandparents' house, much less about getting married, even less than that about a family.”

“Oh,” Milly said. “Don't you think you'd better start?”

“Ugh. For heaven's sake…”

In the cool concrete canyons of midtown December Meryl found an open parking space in an all-day lot near the center of everything worth seeing and doing in this part of the city. Meryl gave the attendant a twenty.

“I'll need to do some shopping before dinner,” she said. “Did you bring some evening clothes with you? Something besides coveralls, I hope.” The restaurant Meryl had in mind for tonight would turn away anyone not appropriately attired.

“I do wear girl clothes on occasion,” Milly said.

“Good, then you won't mind helping me shop.”

The Lachesis Boutique, two blocks west of her father's office, was her first stop. The sales clerk offered them refreshments, including all the ice water they could drink free. Milly asked for tea and made suggestions while Meryl flipped through the hangers on the formal wear rack.

“What about this one, Meryl?” Milly said, pointing with her pinky at what looked to Meryl like the empty skin of a yellow-feathered bird.

“I'm looking for a dinner dress, Milly, not a Halloween costume.” No self-respecting woman would be caught dead in a rag like that. “I'm looking for—something like this.” Meryl lifted the dress from the metal rail and held it up.

“That's just like what you're wearing now, only black,” Milly said. “How boring.”

“Boring is dignified. Boring is elegant.”

“Boring is bad, Meryl, bad. Wait till you see the dress I brought.”

A frisson of dread passed through Meryl as she headed for the dressing rooms. Though she cared nothing for the opinions of others and would go anywhere with Milly no matter how she were dressed, Milly's taste in formal wear was a mystery. Perhaps it was better that way.

When she emerged from the room Milly was waiting for her.

“At least if your outside is boring, you should wear something like this under it,” Milly said.

In her absence Milly had discovered the lingerie section. Between Milly's raised hands, suspended on a waistband no wider than a needle, Milly held a triangle of silk the color of the December Fire Brigade's water pump engine.

“Milly, put those back.”

“They're only panties, Meryl.”

“More like barely there. Why don't you look at shoes or something?”

“Look, Meryl. Your boyfriend would love this.”

“For heaven's sake, hold it lower, people outside can see it.”

“See what?”

“That—that—”

“Chemise?”

“I know what it is!”

“You're embarrassed. That's so cute.”

“I am not!”

“Which, embarrassed or cute?”

Over Milly's protests and needling, Meryl purchased her little black dress. Outside the boutique she suggested having their outfits dry-cleaned. Milly agreed, and after they surrendered their evening clothes to the capable and professional hands of Deng's One-Hour Dry Cleaning and Dim Sum to Go, Milly offered an idea.

“Can we go to a bookstore next?” Milly tucked her laundry ticket into her pocket. “I've been away so long I'm behind on my comic book collection.”

“You collect comic books?”

“You bet. I have every issue of Tales of the Wasteland except number one, every issue of Dilbert's Double-Dime Stories, every issue of Space Cowboy—”

“Okay, I get it. What does your mother think of you spending all your hard earned money on stuff like that?”

“Oh, she doesn't mind, as long as I keep up with my chores. Besides, she's a humongous fan of Old Earth, New Earth.”

At the Whaddya Read bookstore, over the top of a hardcover book of poetry she thought Mother might like, Meryl watched her former junior agent flip through the glossy, garish comics in the magazine section.

It's as if she doesn't remember any of it, Meryl thought. Mourning was a long journey, perhaps lifelong, and Milly was acting as if she'd never taken those first terrible steps in that abandoned house in Tonim. Grieving for her own grandparents had taken months and after all these years Meryl still suffered pangs of loss. Years after the funeral on Grandma's birthday Meryl would find Father in the garage, bent over his workbench, his face in his hands. Those were the times she'd felt closest to him—

“Do you always read upside down?”

“What?” Milly's face was half a feel in front of hers.

“Your book,” Milly said, grabbing it from Meryl's hands and turning it over. “It's upside down. Do you always read upside down?”

“No, smarty-pants, I certainly don't.” Meryl followed the big girl to the front counter and waited for the clerk to ring up her purchase. Once Milly's pile of comic books were paid for and bagged, Meryl tapped her shoulder.

“Wait outside for me, Milly,” she said. When the bell rang and the door shut on its slow spring, Meryl went to the back of the store, beyond a pair of swinging doors under a sign that said ADULTS ONLY, and made another selection. She left the store with her second purchase wrapped in brown paper.

“Forget something?” Milly said.

“Oh, you know, I remembered that my father wanted the latest issue of Scientific Earthling, so I was just picking up a copy. You know, just to be nice.”

“Oh. I just figured that you wanted something from that back room and were too embarrassed to buy it in front of me.”

“Milly Alice,” Meryl said, “I most vehemently resent your quite unfounded implication that I would stoop so low as to indulge in such vile—”

“So you did go back there, didn't you?”

“I did nothing of the sort. I am not that kind of woman.”

“What did you get? Come on, lemme see.”

Meryl hugged the bag to her chest. “A magazine and a book of poetry, that's all.”

“If that's all it is, you won't mind me looking at it, will you?”

“I most certainly will mind.”

“Then you can't prove it, can you?”

“I have nothing to prove, so just—”

“Meryl's a pervert, Meryl's a pervert…”

“I am NOT!”

Back at the car, Meryl opened the trunk. She let Milly put in her books first, slammed the trunk closed an instant after she threw in hers.

“Want to go see a movie?” Milly said.

“Sure,” Meryl said. “We have time to kill before dinner.”

“Great. I get to pick which one.”

“Now just a minute…”

“If you don't let me pick I'll tell your mother what you bought.”

Meryl ground her teeth, weighing the pros and cons of the matter. Particularly the cons.

“Fine,” she said. “You can pick the movie, but not because you're blackmailing me or anything, because there's nothing to blackmail me for, you understand?”

The Midtown Magic Picture Emporium was three blocks north. The one sun days were slipping into the past, and though the full rage of the twin stars that both granted and destroyed life had not yet been brought to bear, the afternoon was warm enough and their exertions great enough that the theater was a welcome oasis of almost frigid air. A red-coated usher escorted them to their seats.

The lights went down and Meryl spent most of the preview reel lamenting the price of their refreshments. The root beer she'd ordered was pricey enough, but for what she'd paid for Milly's popcorn the theater manager should let them take their seats with them when they left.

When they emerged from the theater evening vermillion slanted through the city. Meryl checked the Federal Building clock. Their table would be ready in an hour and it was time to collect their evening clothes and freshen up. Meryl hoped Milly's taste in clothing and food was better than her taste in movies. Her friend spun and capered on the sidewalk in front of her, waving an imaginary sword of light.

“Milly, people are staring,” Meryl said.

“If you strike me down I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!”

“Would you please at least stop making those silly noises?”

“No, Luke, I am your father!”

“For heaven's sake—”

“Come on, Meryl. When's the last time you had more fun at the movies?”

“Several occasions come to mind.” Meryl liked movies as much as anyone, but what they'd seen made no sense, as though it were three or four randomly chosen films cut up and spliced together. “Why didn't we see that documentary instead?”

“Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid? Saw that in history class. Strike me down with your hatred, and your journey to the dark side will be complete!”

“I can't take you anywhere, can I?”

“I hope you're still taking me to dinner, because I'm starved.”

“As long as I never have to see A New Empire Strikes the Jedi again, I'll feed you as much as you want.”

“Spoilsport.”

“Freak.”

“Look who's talking.”

“Stop that!”

After collecting their clothes from Deng's Meryl led Milly to a public bath close to the restaurant. The dress Meryl had chosen, plain black with a high collar and long sleeves, was a little tighter than she wanted, but that was all right. Chasing the world's most fearsome outlaw across half the planet's surface had kept her figure slim. A touch of eye shadow, a bit of blush, a shot or two of perfume and her pair of lucky earrings later, Meryl was ready. She left the fifty-cecent towel fee on the drowsing proprietor's counter and waited outside.

When Milly emerged from the bath, only one word came to Meryl's mind.

“Beautiful,” Meryl said, awed by the depth and degree of the transformation Milly had wrought on herself.

“You like?” Milly spun on one toe of her high-heeled shoes. The sandworm silk of her dress, revealing in all the right if suggestive places, shone like blue gunmetal under the newly lit lamplight. Her diamond stud earrings sparkled. The tall girl struck a pose, showing a flirty hint of leg through the side vent that went up, in Meryl's opinion, a half-ich too high.

“I like. Milly, you look terrific.” Meryl crossed her arms. “You look better than I do. I hate you.”

“Now, Meryl, don't hate me because I'm beautiful.”

“I hate you because you're dragging your butt.” Meryl handed Milly her half-coat and wrapped her own stole over her shoulders. “Come on, we're going to be late.”

The Gilded Cage, the most exclusive and expensive restaurant in December, occupied the entire roof of the city's second tallest building. The handsome young elevator operator gave Milly a full up and down look. Meryl got a polite nod.

Hmph, she hmphed. Maybe she should've dressed more like Milly.

At the top a dignified waiter in an immaculate suit stood behind a podium. Meryl gave him her name and his face brightened.

“Ah, yes of course, Miss Stryfe,” he said, plucking two menus from a stack. “Please follow me.” The waiter led them through the restaurant, past small tables for two and large round tables for families, all surrounded by people speaking and eating in genteel quiet. The sky was darkening, and everywhere uniformed servers moved among the diners, lighting the candles that populated each table and the ornate candelabras on the walls.

On the raised veranda near the outdoor observation lounge a simple square table bore a RESERVED sign on its perfect white tablecloth. Their waiter removed the sign and they were seated.

“Gosh,” Milly said, wide eyed at the hemispherical glass ceiling and the polished brass frame that held it. “When I said someplace expensive, I didn't think of this place. How did you get a reservation?”

“A few years ago,” Meryl said, “my father was offered a contract by the owner of the restaurant to improve the kitchen appliances and electrical system. He agreed, but instead of money he asked only for a standing reservation at the best table in the whole place. Now my father entertains clients here.”

Milly nodded and looked at her menu. “There are no prices on anything, Meryl.”

“If you have to ask, you can't afford it. Order anything and everything you like. My treat.”

Meryl selected a wine, first course and main course that appealed to her, a mixture of sweet and spicy dishes. Milly ordered a more eclectic spread, surprising Meryl with her comfort and ease in pronouncing the names of the more exotic foods.

The waiter poured Meryl's wine, while another left a silver tea service on a cart near Milly's right hand.

“You're abstaining tonight?” Meryl said.

“One of us has to stay sober,” Milly said.

“Milly, don't deny yourself on my account.” Meryl had planned on having to lead a tall, heavy, inebriated woman back to the car and to her house. She wasn't thrilled at the prospect, but she'd had practice.

“Not at all, Meryl. This is a special night. You shouldn't have to hold my head over the curb and watch me throw up. Remember that time in Inepril, after you-know-who's party?”

Meryl nodded, queasy at the recollection.

“Tonight is just as much for you as it is for me,” Milly said. “Thank you for inviting me here.”

Happiness rolled off the ex-junior agent in waves and swells, gratifying Meryl and leaving her pleased in its wake. Perhaps Milly knew best after all, and this was a night to forget pain and sorrow.

Before and during the first course the conversation turned to small talk about politics, the price of water, and the future beyond the benevolent auspices of the Bernardelli Insurance Society. Surrounded by quiet voices and attentive ears, Vash was never mentioned, by unspoken agreement.

For her main course Meryl had ordered a delicious if challenging meal requiring something other than the normal utensils. She picked up the chopsticks and settled them in her right hand. A few bites later Meryl spotted a delectable piece of glazed pork and switched hands to get a better angle on it.

“I've always wondered how you do that,” Milly said.

“Do what?”

“Switch hands like that. I can't even use a knife and fork without concentrating.”

“I'm ambidextrous,” Meryl said, and to Meryl's increasing surprise, Milly's face was coloring.

“Really, Meryl? I guess I never knew that about you.”

“What are you talking about, Milly? You just said you've always wondered how—”

“I mean, all this time we were working together, I never thought…” Milly had her hands in her lap. A shy smile played on her lips. “Can everyone like you use both hands?”

“Everyone like me? What the—oh. Oh, God…”

“I sure admire you, just coming out and telling me like my middle big sister Eleanor did. But she's right handed, come to think of it.”

“Milly…”

“Hoo Boy, is your boyfriend going to be surprised—”

“Milly! For the last time, I am not—like that—that way, I never was and I never will be. Furthermore I am not a pervert, I never was and I never will be, so get your sick little mind out of the—”

One of the things Meryl had noted about this establishment on her few previous visits here was its acoustical qualities. Any voice above a whisper was reflected and dispersed by the curved roof to every corner of the restaurant. Meryl found it strange on a night like this, when every table was occupied, that the Gilded Cage could be silent. Or maybe, the angry and shocked diners staring at her told her with their eyes, it wasn't strange at all.

“Sorry,” Meryl whispered, waving apology to the other guests. “Sorry about that.”

“Ignore those people,” Milly said. “Some folks have trouble with anyone who's too different from themselves.”

“Milly. Will. You. Please.”

“Gosh, Meryl, you're turning purple.”

For dessert Meryl chose a banana sundae, smaller than she liked but made with the finest, freshest ingredients, giving the dish the gustatory qualities of a rare delicacy. Between bites Meryl caught Milly stealing furtive glances at her between mouthfuls of mille-fuille.

Meryl impaled her with an angry stare: Stop that.

Milly narrowed her eyes and stuck out her tongue: Make me.

After dessert Meryl ordered a local sherry and suggested to Milly they go outside to the observation lounge. She set her glass on the concrete edge and pulled her stole around her shoulders. Milly thrust her arms into her half-coat.

“Chilly this evening,” Meryl said, regretting her decision to go without stockings.

“Sure is,” Milly said. Meryl's desire to speak—and Milly's perverse desire to tease her—gave way to a companionable silence.

December, first of the Seven Cities, spread like puddled gold downward into the shipfall scar and outward into the wasteland. From this high perch the boundary between civilization and desolation, except for a stray nugget of light here and there, appeared as hard and clear as a line on a map. Beyond that boundary, regular cavalry patrols circled the city, ever alert for the first hint of a threat to the brilliance. Within the light the officers constabulary walked their beats in ceaseless vigil, directing the lost and protecting the innocent.

Some, like the new chancellor and her party, wanted to extend the comfort and safety of the cities as far into the wild as possible, to bring Promethean fire to the cruel and savage world onto which their ancestors had fallen—and to the far more cruel and far more savage world their descendants had made on its surface. Others, such as the noble men and women of the Federal Cavalry and law enforcement, were content merely to keep the line as clear and defined as possible and sometimes surrender their lives in the pursuit of that contentment. Still others lived to blur the line for their own profit, seeking legitimacy in the light, abandoning integrity in the dark. Against them, and against all others, stood those who didn't know or care that the line existed at all.

In the boardrooms at Bernardelli the work was all about the bottom line. For her, it was about protecting the property of innocent people. Tragic, to spend a lifetime building a house or a business or a farm only to have it all swept away by random, violent acts of God or man. Insurance could only compensate for what was destroyed. Meryl had found honor in protecting what was created, and if by their actions she, Milly, Vash, and poor Mr. Wolfwood had allowed even the tiniest creep of civilized life into the moral moonscape of the wasteland, all the pain and loss they'd endured would mean something. And if they hadn't, it might still mean something.

Yet in doing battle with a monster, Meryl had risked becoming a monster. Standing on the precipice of disaster, staring into the moonless abyss, Meryl had seen only herself, staring back.

“I don't hate you,” Milly said.

Startled, Meryl looked at her friend. “What did you say?”

“I said I don't hate you.” Milly pulled her half-coat over her breast and crossed her arms. “I've tried not to think about it. I haven't even wanted to think about it. But now I know. It wasn't your fault.”

“Gosh, Milly,” Meryl said, forcing a smile. “I sure admire you, just coming out and telling me like that.”

“I'm serious. I still don't understand why Nicholas had to do what he did, and the harder I look for an answer the less clear my sight becomes. All I know now is that he did what he could, and that's enough.” Milly looked at her. “It has to be, doesn't it?”

“What on earth are you talking about?” Meryl allowed a suggestion of anger to rise in her voice. “Are you implying that he could've done more?”

“No. Yes. Heck, I don't know.” Milly threw up her hands. “There I go again, trying to wrap my mind around everything that's happened, and I can't do it.”

“Then let me help you, Milly. Vash has saved more lives than you can possibly know. That's enough for me. Hell, it's more than enough, it's everything. Sometimes we have to settle for being alive and grateful for what we haven't lost. You haven't lost your family. You haven't lost your home.” Meryl touched Milly's arm. “And you haven't lost your friends.”

Milly accepted her words with a subtle tilt of the head that built to a full nod.

“Talk about switching places,” Milly said. “I thought I was supposed to give the pep talks.”

“Sorry. You seemed to need it.”

“We should go,” Milly said. “It's getting late and I don't want Mom and Dad to worry.”

In midtown December the real parties were just getting started, and Meryl and Milly, back on street level, wove through the growing evening crowds. After a bejeweled matron's plump elbow came within an ich of loosening her front teeth, Meryl sought out the only island of stability amidst the streaming crowd and slipped her hands around Milly's arm. A passing city constable touched his nightstick to his hat and bade them good evening, then spun his weapon and badge of authority on its lanyard out and back into his hand with a juggler's skill.

Past Third Street, the throng thinned out. During the day this could be a friendly and hospitable part of town. Independent manufacturers and artists would show their wares in an ongoing street fair, and one didn't notice the signs of increasing age and decay in these, among the eldest of December's buildings. But when the suns went down, a different class of merchant plied its trade here.

Young women and young men—some little more than children, to Meryl's dismay—were staking out their claims on the sidewalk, garish and immodest flesh and blood billboards advertising the oldest and most desired product since the beginning of time.

Meryl had no wish to pass judgment. Their particular avocation was legal almost everywhere, and where it wasn't legal it was tolerated, to the considerable enrichment of the local lawmen and politicians. But last week two young ladies of the evening had been found dead—bloody, messy dead—in an alley only a few blocks from here. Selling oneself had its own price.

Meryl squeezed Milly's arm and pulled her forward, trying to ignore the shouted propositions and murmured consummations.

“Are you okay to drive?” Milly said when they made it to the car.

“I didn't have that much to drink,” Meryl said, stumbling over a seam in the parking lot concrete that may or may not have been there.

“But you're smaller than me, so alcohol affects you more.”

“Now look who's talking. You don't see me puking my guts out, do you?”

“No, but I've seen you after a few drinks, and you look just like that now.”

“Says you.” But—Milly was right, of course. No sense in ending a fun evening with a fiery, violent death. She drew the keys from her purse and tossed them into Milly's hands. Milly squeezed herself behind the wheel. Meryl flopped into the passenger's seat and draped her stole over her bare legs.

“Not as roomy as the Vashmobile, is it?” Milly said.

“No, but it's faster, more fun to drive and it doesn't complain.”

“Should I put the top up?”

“You'd have to fold yourself in half to drive.”

“It won't be very warm.”

“I'll be fine.”

“No, you won't.” Milly took off her coat.

“Milly, please, you don't have to—”

“I don't mind the cold, Meryl. It'll keep me alert on the way home.”

Meryl held still while Milly draped the garment around her shoulders. She pulled the sleeves over her chest.

“Thank you,” she said, feeling warmer than the half-coat could account for.

“You're welcome.” Milly started the car. “Meryllium Falcon, ready to launch!”

“Milly, get us out of here!”

---

Author's Afterword

Next: Kisses, Part Three - Meryl and Vash have a meeting of the minds. Meryl and Milly—well, they get to know each other better. I can't explain it, you'll just have to read it for yourself.