Trigun Fan Fiction ❯ What If ❯ Recovery ( Chapter 10 )

Millie and Meryl lay stunned on the ground, the air knocked out of them from the force of their landing. Behind them, fires burned along the walls of several buildings and across the ground of the street, their light shining through a sheen of dust and smoke.

Meryl rolled onto her back and sat up. "Vash!" she wheezed, unable to regain her breath. Her eyes worked to penetrate the cloud of dust in search of her lover.

Fifteen feet ahead of her, barely twenty or twenty five feet away from the center of the explosion, Vash was pushing himself to his hands and knees. When he finally managed to stand, he stumbled forward.

Blood was streaming from a series of minor cuts across his chest, side, and back. The left side of his face was covered in the red liquid oozing out of a gash in his forehead along the hairline.

The two women struggled to their feet from where Vash had thrown them when the bomb exploded. Meryl tore the arm off of her blouse and stood on her tip toes to press it against the spurting blood. Millie had to support the gunman as the trio stumbled back to the inn through another crowd. Whispers where abundant even at that late hour as nearly a hundred people saw Vash's scarred and blood covered body. He didn't say a single word as they walked; he just moved along in a daze, similar to the one affecting Millie but somehow deeper.

Vash's two female friends helped support him as they walked up the four flights of stairs to where their rooms were. In Vash and Meryl's room, he was pushed down on the bed. Meryl pulled the pistols out of his waistband and sent her mother to get the town doctor. Millie went back to her room and dug bandages out of her suitcase and tried not to think about Wolfwood.

Meryl wiped the blood away from as many of his little cuts as she could using a towel and water. Vash simply stared up at the ceiling, ignoring her attempts to talk to him. Finally, moments before the doctor came in and after Millie and Meryl had bandaged him up, he closed his eyes and fell into a deep sleep.

The doctor performed as in depth of an inspection as he could since Vash refused to wake up. When he finished, he turned to Meryl and broke the silence.

"As far as I can tell," he told her, "he suffered a rather serious concussion as well as the obvious cuts and bruises. I recommend that he rest. For a normal person, I would say at least a week off of his feet. However, he doesn't seem to be a normal man, so I don't know how long in his case. Keep him hydrated, but other than that I would say to leave him alone. He'll wake up when he is ready."

The petite, dark haired woman thanked him and saw him out the door. Outside in the hall, Meryl's parents were anxious to talk to her, but a distraught Meryl told them to go back to bed. Inside her room, she and Millie spread their bedrolls on the floor near the bed, and resigned themselves to taking shifts watching over Vash.

When morning came without further incident, they both felt somewhat relieved. The only times they left the room was to get water for Vash, or to get something to eat. At all times, one of the two women was with the Humanoid Typhoon as he slept.

Meryl tried to avoid her parents, but they refused to be pushed away. Whenever they had the chance, they were asking if this type of thing happened often, or how Vash had gotten all of those scars.

At the end of the first full day Vash was unconscious, Meryl was sitting on the bed and cradling Vash's head in her lap.

"How long do you think he'll be like this, Meryl?" Millie asked her friend. She was sitting on the floor across the room and slowly spooning some pudding into her mouth.

Meryl looked up at her. "I don't know, Millie," she replied, stroking her hand across the blonde gunman's forehead. "Remember, when he was hurt badly in his fight with Legato, he was out of it for ten days."

"But what will we do if Chapel--I mean Mr. Wolfwood comes back?" Millie sniffed back the tears caused by the mention of her love's name.

The smaller woman gave her friend a sure smile. "You know we can take care of ourselves, Millie," she told her. She put as much confidence as she could into her voice, but had to look away lest she read the doubt in her eyes. "Don't forget how many times we've saved Vash's life."

Millie licked the last of the pudding off of her spoon and stood up. "I suppose you're right, Meryl. Well, I'm going to make a run for some more pudding. Why don't you go ahead and get ready for bed? I'll take the first watch."

The door closed quietly before Meryl could manage a thank you. She carefully slid out from under Vash, then stripped out of her pants and blouse. After donning her nightshirt, she turned out all of the lights in the room save one, so that Millie could see when she came back. As carefully as she could, she slipped under the blanket and up next to Vash. With her head laying on his shoulder, she lightly slid her hand across his chest, tracing the varied scars and noticing that his muscles were taught, as though they were all flexing. She wondered about that for a moment, then remembered that after he had been hurt fighting Legato, his muscles had done the same thing.

Gently, she snuggled herself up against him, laying on her side and draping her arm across his waist. He seemed to relax in her embrace, and she gripped him tighter. After a few minutes, he started to mumble something. Meryl strained to hear him.

"No, Steve, please don't. Stop hitting me. I'm sorry. No, stop. I'm not a monster! Please stop, you're hurting me!" he whispered the words so quietly that she almost wasn't sure that she heard him correctly.

She gently touched his face. "It's okay, Vash," she whispered, trying to comfort him. "No one's going to hurt you. No one's hitting you. You've never been a monster. It's all okay," she finished, stretching to lightly kiss him on the lips. He mumbled a few more words, then fell asleep.

A quarter of an hour later, Millie came back with her pudding. When she saw Meryl lying on the bed, she tried to shut the door as quietly as she could. She tiptoed across the room and over to her cushion. Sitting on the floor and leaning with her back against the wall, she draped her stun gun across her lap.

This man may be Nicholas Wolfwood, she thought, gritting her teeth in determination. But whoever he may or may not be, this is my family. And my big little sister always said that nothing is more important than family.

She pulled her spoon out of her pocket and withdrew a container of chocolate pudding out of the grocery bag. When she saw Meryl stir on the bed, she said, "Good night, Meryl."

"Good night, Millie," came the whispered response. "Wake me up in four hours, will you?

"Okay," Millie lied. Sleep all night, Meryl. I'll sleep tomorrow. Whether he's Wolfwood, or Chapel, we wont let him take Vash. Softly, she whispered, "Sleep tight."

For the second night, there was no disturbance. When Meryl woke with a start, realizing she had slept all night, the first thing she did was lay into Millie for not waking her up. Millie accepted the verbal abuse with a smile and, for the first time, Meryl understood why Vash was always asking himself if he was getting through to her. Everything Meryl said seemed to go in one ear and out the other. In the end, Meryl apologized and thanked her friend for letting her sleep.

After Meryl had eaten breakfast and Millie laid down to take a nap, the petite woman got out their supply of bandages, intending to change whichever of Vash's bandages needed changing. She pulled off the first bandage, and then several more quickly, in disbelief. The skin underneath, rather than being scabbed or bruised, was pink and new. Swiftly, she tore the rest of the bandages off of his body, all of which revealed the same thing.

She ran over and woke Millie up to show her but, when the two women turned back, Vash was sitting up in the bed.

"What time is it?" he demanded, his voice somehow strong and clear.

Meryl gaped at him for a moment before she could answer. "It's about eight in the morning."

Vash laid back down. "Get together everything you will need for a long trip," he ordered, closing his eyes again. "We leave tomorrow morning."