Trigun Fan Fiction ❯ What If ❯ The Grave ( Chapter 11 )

Vash had intended to leave as early as possible, but Meryl protested. She insisted that he see the town's doctor one last time before they could leave. The gunman reluctantly agreed and, while Meryl went to retrieve the doctor, a stunned Millie watched Vash go through his exercise routine.

Without breaking a sweat, the tall blonde man leapt around room, practicing a form of martial arts called karate. Rem had taught him about this form of fighting, saying that it had once been popular on ancient Earth, before Project SEEDS was ever conceived.

Millie watched him with her eyes open wide, rarely blinking. When Meryl came back with the doctor, she acted indifferent; she had been watching him do his exercises for quite a while, now, and was used to it. The doctor, on the other hand, was astonished to see Vash up and moving.

After performing his examination, the doctor could only shake his head in disbelief. "I don't understand it," he confessed. "Two days ago, you had a serious concussion. It should have taken you several weeks to get over that, but here you are as if nothing happened."

Vash pulled a shirt over his head and ran his hands through his hair. "It travels in my family, Doc," he said with a smile. "Me and my brother both heal fast. Thank you for your concern, but, as you can see, there's nothing to be worried about." He turned the doc around and pushed him towards the door. "We're leaving town, or I would say see you later. Good luck in life."

"But-but-but this is unprecedented!" the doctor protested as Vash politely pushed him through the door. "Completely-"

The rest of what he was going to say was cut off when Vash closed the door. He turned back to Meryl and Millie.

"How did you heal so fast this time?" Meryl asked, turning to pack up her traveling clothes.

Vash pulled his coat off of it's peg and laid it out on the bed next to his body armor. "I've always healed this fast," he said, sounding slightly miffed as if she hadn't noticed.

Meryl shook her head. "For two weeks after fighting Legato, you were recovering. Don't even try to convince me that that was a fluke."

The Humanoid Typhoon barked a short laugh. "Most of that was spiritual weariness," he admitted. "After the first couple of days, the gunshot wounds had healed. All that was left was my emotional exhaustion."

"That's what I thought, Mr. Vash," Millie blurted enthusiastically. "I mean, you were always looking so tired, and you just didn't have any energy."

Vash pulled his red coat on over the body armor, then started digging in his travel pack for one of his many spare sets of sunglasses. Once he found one, he packed in the little bit of clothing he carried, and then started helping Meryl.

Millie took her bags and left to rent a car for the short trip back to SEEDS City. Meryl took the opportunity to ask Vash a question that had been nagging her.

"Who is Steve?"

Her lover's back stiffened suddenly as he was picking up his two pistols, then relaxed. "Where did you hear that name?" he asked, sounding disinterested.

Meryl turned to look at him. "You had a nightmare two nights ago," she answered. "You were telling him to stop hurting you. You kept begging him to stop over and over."

"Steve . . ." He trailed off, thinking. "Steve was a crew member on the control ship that led the fleet that brought everyone here. He was one of the five crew members."

"What did he do to you?"

Vash sighed. "Steve thought of me and Knives as being monsters because of how fast we grew after we were--"

"Born?"

"--Created. When I think about it, three of the five crew members thought of us like that, except for Joey and Rem. Steve just didn't try to hide it. Just the opposite. He showed me and Knives just what he thought of us."

"He beat you." Meryl's tone made it obvious she wasn't asking.

"Often," Vash confirmed. "He would get drunk and then seek me out. Me, barely a year old, and he would beat me until he either ran out of energy or passed out."

Meryl looked shocked. "This man would beat a one year old child?"

Vash snorted. "When Knives and I were one year old, we were four feet tall, and had a higher IQ than the average plant engineer. One of the advantages of being a freeborn plant: we aged fast until we looked about twenty-one, then it stopped. As long as I don't overextend my energy, I could live for three or four hundred more years."

"And this Steve resented you for that? Because you would live so long?"

"That might be part of it," he answered her. "But I think it was because he knew about plants, how they generated energy. He knew what they were, and didn't want to believe that they could be equal to him. Now that I think about it, Steve always did have an inferiority complex."

Meryl was about to ask more questions when Millie popped her head in the door. "Mission status is green," the tall woman said. She smiled. "We have a car rental and, if we leave in the next ten minutes, will be able to get tickets on a sand steamer bound for LH tonight. So hurry up!"

Her head disappeared, and Vash stared at the door. "Oh, well," he said, grabbing his travel pack and Meryl's suitcase. "Lets get going."

It took four days of travel, three on a sand steamer and one in a car, before they made it to their destination. About 250 miles from the city of LH in the opposite direction from the town where Vash had recuperated after his fight with Legato was a small ghost town.

When they arrived, Vash was driving and both Meryl and Millie were sleeping. When the tall gunman pressed the brakes and stopped just outside of town, both women were awakened.

Millie took one look out the window and started crying. Meryl threw Vash a glare and hurried out of the car. She ran around the vehicle, pulling open Millie's door and tugging the tall woman out into the open and into her embrace.

"You could have woken us up a little earlier," Meryl snapped.

Vash gave her a sad look and nodded in acknowledgement. Without replying, he pushed his glasses up his nose and spun around on his heel.

"It's okay, Millie," Meryl murmured into her friend's shoulder, holding her head against her own shoulder. "Cry it all out. It's okay to grieve." She kept telling her friend little sayings as she glared at Vash, who was turning a corner a hundred yards away.

Millie cried non stop for several minutes, being comforted in her best friend's embrace. Abruptly, her grieving was interrupted.

Twin gunshots rang out over the deserted town. Millie jerked her head up and looked down the street where Vash had gone, tears still streaming down her face. Meryl let go of the taller woman and grabbed two Derringers from the liner of her cape before she started running. She skidded around the corner where she had seen Vash turn and kept going; ahead, she could see the steeple of the church, and she knew that was where Vash had gone.

Belatedly, she noticed Millie carrying her stun gun as they ran through the church's front door and across the foyer. When they entered the main room, they could see Vash standing at the head pew, blocking their view of the wall and floor ahead of them. The two women dashed up the aisle, noticing that the blonde man had both of his pistols drawn and pointed at the wall ahead of him. As she ducked under his left arm, Meryl's attention was immediately drawn to the floor in front of them where Vash said he had buried Wolfwood. It was obvious when Millie saw it because she started wailing once again. Meryl simply stared blankly.

The grave was empty.

The petite, dark haired woman stared for several minutes at the hole in the ground, oblivious to Millie's shrieks of grief. Finally, she tore her eyes off of the desecration and looked up to Vash's face. Vash, she noticed, was still staring at the wall with both of his pistols raised. Meryl forced herself to follow his line of sight.

Written on the wall was a single word. Written in blood. On either side were the two bullet holes from the shots Vash had fired. When she read the word, it sent a shiver up her spine. The first shiver was followed by a second, then a third, and a fourth. Her mouth was hanging open in astonishment and dread. Almost inaudible under Millie's weeping, she heard Vash read the single word out loud. The sound of it made her knees feel weak.

"Knives."