So it was more or less his fault, that nothing was ever prepared.
Vash was an anomaly of nature; an inhuman typhoon, swept in from the desert's darkening sky to land in a dust-cloud at his doorstep, dragged in lanky-armed by whatever children were playing outside and happened to find him. He never looked a day older, of course; his hair was black as literal death, but that was all that had changed. To the children's eyes, anyway, to the little girl that had played tea party with him years ago, now a wide-eyed thing of fifteen, who gawked at his agelessness and complimented his genes. But Livio saw, Livio understood; the line-less marks of aging engraved in his eyes when they would first reunite, the smile that only continued to grow falser century by century.
So it must be hell, he concluded. Though the stampede wouldn't own up to that, and only smiled around greedy bites of salmon sandwiches when told he looked 'older'.
Livio, in fact, did look older. There were hairs in his beard now the color of chalk rather than sand, and lines around his eyes that didn't leave when the laughter had faded. Scrawny children that he'd stayed up nights with as babies were learning to read, losing teeth and gaining new ones, a nickel a pop. The world was moving on, and it was carrying him with it, and Vash, he realized, was being left behind.
"So what about Jasmine?"
He had the nerve to ask one winter night, when it was only the two of them alone in the underground schoolroom, hiding from the chill wind with mugs of black coffee.
"What about her?" He'd grumbled back, mouth still warm on the rim of his cup, drinking in the steam and the bitter, bitter smell.
Vash raised an eyebrow from where he was hunched across from him, buried in the folds of his coat, and blew creamy froth from his cup.
"She's in December, studying to be a doctor." Livio replied, low. "Setting up hospitals, caring for refugees. Doing a lot of good."
"She's a good girl."
He swallowed scalding coffee in place of a reply, while the figure across from him slowly sipped his own, eyes staring past him into some memory Livio couldn't see, some projected future he wasn't yet attune to.
"So what about that insurance girl?" He parried with, and the question sank into the silence between them, and Livio clawed at it with desperate hands, wishing almost immediately to take it back. Wolfwood could get away with things like that; but somehow, Livio found he could not. Vash only smiled at him; pained and wordless, and he decided not to try and ask again.
The next morning he was gone. Old Melanie was livid, as usual, fussing around the kitchen as the children squealed happily to each other over the things he had left them; ugly little toys he picked up from God knew where on his travels; the kids would break them, forget them, after awhile.
He'd bring new ones.
It was months before anyone saw him again; and then it was only for an evening. Jasmine had just returned to them, a full-fledged doctor now; and Livio's stubble had grown in almost fully white, and so he took the hint, and over a bottle of whiskey and a night at Nicholas' grave he forced up the courage to ask her.
They were married a week before he came back in town, looking tired and limping a little, but all smiles nonetheless.
"I have to be in LR town by tomorrow," He tells them, hands on each of their shoulders, and he saves his real one for Jasmine, because he's a gentleman that way, "For the unveiling of the new plant. It's a festival, and I hear they have free food." He adds the last part with the hint of a wink in Jasmine's direction, and she only laughs at him, at this strange man she knows almost nothing about.
The next time he comes, it's cold. The planet's in a bloody uproar, and it's all over the airwaves; cold wind, clouds; the atmosphere is slowly changing in response to the stronger plants, the applied science of care, of give and take that humanity is just learning. Which is all well and good, but Livio has kids to bundle up now and extra blankets to find, and a pregnant wife who's never the right temperature. This time when he comes he looks a little better; his coat is new, and his duffel is stuffed with cheap stupid things in excess for the kids. The previously bedded orphanage is filled with their screams of excitement and laughter before Livio even knows he's there, but eventually they end up out on the terrace, alone, and the coffee has cream in it this time, but other that Livio can look at him and pretend a year hasn't passed, the world hasn't changed and he isn't going to be a father.
"Why did you decide to come back?" He says through the silence, and hopes he understands the question.
Vash only shrugs, eyes locked onto the starry expanse of blackness stretching around them. "Did you know that it's Christmas?"
Livio raises an eyebrow, closes his hands around the mug to drink up the warmth. Chapel had spoken of Christmas, and that is the only reason he knows what it is. He isn't particularly attracted to the idea of dwelling on anything Chapel had to say.
"They're bringing it back, in some of the bigger cities." He goes on, "I'm sure it's not the same, they just have legends and books go on...but it's nice. You should go see it sometime."
"Sure." Says Livio, and starts to understand, an inkling.
Vash is quiet, staring at the stars. Why he would want to do that, when he sees them all the time, doesn't really make sense. But it does. Somehow, this place, this dusty falling-all-the-hell-to-part refuge is a blip on the neverending orbit of his travel. And Livio, for whatever he's manged to mean since Wolfwood, for whatever his inkling of understanding is worth, is the most reason anyone like him can have to return.
And return he will, one year slowly dripping into the next, finding him unchanged.
So its more or less Livio's fault if, when he does, the place is packed, and since all he can really offer is a warm bed, he'll move himself to the lumpy excuse of a couch for a night or so.
Because this is all they have to offer each other, really; a warm bed, a promise of return, and an inkling of bittersweet understanding in between the rolling lines of life.
And somehow, it's enough.