Author's Note: This story was born while I was reading the Seventh volume of Trigun Maximum manga "Happy Days". I wanted to write a story about Vash and Knives on the SEEDS Starship, but, while most of these stories turn out light and fluffy, mine will be a darkfic AU, a mixture of both Anime-verse and Manga-verse.

Summary: When humans voyaged among the stars, a young child was broken, when he discovered the crew's darkest sins and committed a sin of his own. What drove him to despair and will there be any hope of redemption for him?

Pairings: Vash/Rem

Rating: T. May go up to R in later chapters.

Warnings: A very dark piece. There will be some light-hearted moments, but the beginning and the ending are dark and somewhat disturbing. Not for lovers of fluff and light, easy to digest pieces.

Frozen Steel

Part One – Black Hole

Stardate 2166 A.D. Project SEEDS Starship, Unknown System

Am I blind? Deaf? Mute? Unable to feel any sensation anymore? Am I completely cut off from the world?

I do not know. I just don't know anymore.

Everything that surrounds me is of little importance now and I can no longer see anything properly . . . as if I were a star, my light making the matter around me fade from visibility.

Or, perhaps, I am a black hole, dark and ravenous, swallowing all in my range, distorting the fabric of time and space itself, absorbing the light around me and snuffing it out of existence. Permanently.

And still, maybe I am neither. Maybe I am just what others see – a lost, frightened, broken boy, lying huddled like a wild animal, on the cold, steel floor, with tears in his eyes and blood on his bitten lip. A boy screaming silently for a helping hand and a shoulder to cry on, a boy begging for release, a boy fighting for his life, as the black hole pulls him even closer to the brink, where the world itself is unmade.

But I am wrong once again, for they, the humans, do not see me as a child in need of help. No, I can clearly sense it in their voices, when they speak, in their eyes, when they look and in their bodies, when they stand. They do not feel any pity or compassion towards me, in these moments. No, all I can sense from them is a jumble of mixed, dark emotions, overflowing from their minds – fear, hate, disgust and loathing.

And everything is directed solely towards me. I know this, even though none of them speaks openly to me anymore. Are they afraid to stand in my presence after . . . the incident? Perhaps.

They do not tell me of their hate and disgust, but I can see it clearly nonetheless. I never knew before, but they are like open books to my inner eyes. I am free to look inside of them and see everything. Even the things that they would want to hide from another sentient being.

Still, most of the time, I try to block my newly-awakened perception, burying it deep down, within my mind and crushing it under the weight of leaden guilt. Why do I do this? Two reasons, in the end – because she told me that the human mind is an inviolable territory and because that which I sometimes see in the recesses of their psyches deeply frightens me.

So, all I can do is sit here, in the darkness, like a wild animal, with my back resting against the cold, metal bulkhead, a tattered blanket wrapped around me, remnants of untouched meals littering the floor and the blood of my split lip clotting on my chin. And, as I sit and silently fight for my failing sanity, freefalling into the depths of that black hole, I allow them to feel all the hate, anger and revulsion that they can muster. And I silently allow these dark emotions to wash over me, making me bite even harder on my torn lip.

Because, at the end of it all, I deserve nothing less for . . . the sin that I have committed.

"Boy? Boy, can you hear me?"

Rowan frowned, as no answer came from behind the closed door. That in itself was not a new fact, as the room's single occupant had kept himself in almost complete seclusion from the rest of the crew, for over two weeks. However, even homicidal Plantlings needed to eat and the crewman was trying for over an hour to receive access into the locked module.

So far, all tactics had not produced any result at all.

"I hear your brother woke up from his sleep" Rowan tried, knowing of the strong bond that linked the twins together.

"No, he has not" a muffled voice spoke from within. "I he had been awoken, I would have felt his consciousness seeking me out."

The man sighed, lines of exasperation creasing his brow, as he placed the plate on the floor, next to the still closed door.

"I'll just leave the food here, then" he said, raising himself from the ground and starting to walk away. "You should start soon if you don't want to endanger your life."

No answer came from behind him and Rowan could not help the small, inner wish, that the being would starve itself to death and relieve them of its presence.

However, he did not receive the respite to finish his thought, as another crewmember, dressed from head to toe in a red-on-white bodysuit appeared from an adjacent corridor, walking toward him in a fast, brisk pace.

"Conrad" Rowan greeted the other man stiffly, his dark eyes narrowing slightly behind the lenses of his glasses. "What brings you into the Habitation Module? I thought you had been assigned duty in the Engineering Bay."

"I swapped places with Belinda" the taller man answered. "I'll take her shift tonight" Conrad added, at Rowan's frown. "For now, someone around here needs my assistance."

"Surely you do not mean . . ." Rowan spoke slowly, jerking his chin toward the hall's end.

Conrad's only response was a curt nod.

"No use in trying" the shorter man explained, the exasperation and tiredness returning into his voice. "He's a lost cause. We should have listened to Steve and launched him out the airlock, into space."

"I cannot believe that I am hearing such words from one of the brightest minds in this entire project. Are you ready and willing to lower yourself to Steve's level of thinking? You disappoint me, Rowan."

The other man's dark-skinned cheeks flushed with embarrassment and self-righteous anger.

"It's no longer about what Steve thinks!" he retorted, on a scathing tone. "Don't you see it Conrad? We all feel the same, more or less. What he . . . it did . . . is unforgivable! Most wish that it would just curl up and die, in that room!"

"Are you quite done making a fool of yourself?"

That simple question, posed on a quiet, almost reserved tone, immediately caused Rowan to stop from his tirade, angry words still hanging from his thin lips. His dark eyes widened considerably behind the glasses and he could only gaze silently at his colleague.

"Rem would be disappointed in you all, if she could still hear now. Don't you know the values that she lived by? Would she want us to remember her memory with anger and hate?"

Rowan listened on, standing frozen-still.

"Would she have wanted us to hate that poor, misguided soul in there?" Conrad went on, his voice having fallen to almost a whisper. "Tell me, would she?"

"If it hadn't been for him, Rem would have been alive!" Rowan half-screamed, half-chocked, as his stoic façade crumbled to bits and sour tears welled up behind the thick lenses. "She . . . she was taking care of him and he killed her! That little bastard took her life and he feels no remorse for what he did!"

"Is that so?" Conrad silently asked, one of his eyebrows rising in doubt, as his mind noted that Rowan had started to call the Plant child he once more, instead of it. Perhaps there was still a little bit of hope left. "If he doesn't feel any remorse at all, then why is he torturing himself like that, willing his own death closer and closer? That is not the typical behavior of a guiltless man."

"He deserves no less . . ." Rowan breathed out, struggling to regain control of his currently unresponsive body, which was currently being shook by uncontrolled little spasms.

"And we have the moral authority to decide what he does and does not deserve? No. Not even Rem has that kind of authority, even though she's lost everything in this."

Rowan tensed slightly, as a large, flat hand was placed on his left shoulder.

"Whatever happens with this Project" Conrad went on, his voice softening somewhat, "we must not forget that we are the seeds of a new humanity. It is our duty to cleanse ourselves from past sins and to make sure that we do not repeat the mistakes of our forefathers. Would holding on to hatred and fear help us? Would Rem have wanted to see us falling in the same patterns as before?"

"No . . . she wouldn't have."

Sighing, Conrad took his arm off Rowan's shoulder.

"She . . . would have lived, if it hadn't been for the boy" Rowan repeated weakly, as if the discussion had leached all the energy from his body.

"I do not doubt that. But, it is our duty, as humans, to try and understand him, at least."

Lowering his head, either in unwilling submission or grudging acceptance, Rowan walked past Conrad, his feet shuffling loudly against the steel deck, as he rounded the corner and disappeared from sight.

William Conrad sighed once more, as he walked onward. He was convinced that the news of his defense of the Plantling would spread like wildfire among the members of the crew and that their reactions could prove to be harsh. However, he also found that he did not care. Out of the backup crew, he had been the first to come into contact with the two boys and speak with them. He had seen the wonder in their eyes, at gazing at an unfamiliar man, the slight hesitation in their voices, when thy feared his opinion of them and the honest tears in their eyes, when he had accepted them unconditionally, just as Rem Saverem had.

That single, first encounter, among the apple trees in the Recreation Room was enough to convince him that the young Plant Angel lying behind the locked steel door was no cold-blooded murderer, as the others made him out to be.

Still, it was a long way to reconcile his small belief with the real situation and the crewman was well aware of that fact. Walking on, his booted feet striking the floor in a steady rhythm, he finally reached the sturdy, locked door, at the far end of the long, winding hallway. Raising his hand, he rapped three times against the steel, waiting for a response.

"Go away" a voice rough from un-use croaked from within. Conrad smiled slightly to himself. At least his presence had been acknowledged and he hadn't been made to shout like a fool at the door, for hours on end, like the others. One small point in the struggle earned.

"I am William Conrad" he spoke through the barrier, separating him from the one that he wished to see. "Do you remember me? We met in the Recreation Room, shortly after the Yellow Alert. You and your brother were quite enthusiastic about my presence . . ."

"I said go away!"

Conrad cringed slightly, at the vehemence in the other's voice. He didn't know that the boy still had enough strength to shout like that, but it was not so surprising, seeing as he was not conversing with an ordinary human being.

"Kid, I just want to talk to you. Rowan left you some re-hydrated noodle soup out here and it would be a shame to let it go to waste. Why don't you open the door, so I can give it to you and we can also talk a little?"

"I don't want to talk. And I don't want to eat either."

"Come now. A growing boy such as yourself needs all of the nutrients that he can get. The others have been telling me that you have been starving yourself for the past two weeks. Such a thing will not do."

"I don't care anymore."

"I believe you do" Conrad contradicted him, even as his sharp mind analyzed different alternatives to finish the argument and convince the boy to allow him inside. "And she would have believed the same as well."

If he had possessed a finer sense of hearing, Conrad would have surely heard the sharp, hissed intake of breath, from behind the door.

"Don't!" the boy ordered, his voice low and dangerous. "Don't you dare talk about her, human!"

"And why shouldn't I?" Conrad pressed on, a part of him well-aware that he was threading on thin ice and that the risk was great. "She was my friend as well. And I had known her for far longer than you, boy."

The only sound that he could hear from inside was a harsh, irregular breathing.

"I weep for her passing, but, at the same time, I wish to honor he final wish – to take care of you and your brother."

"I don't need you!"

The words had been nearly spat out, hissed through clenched teeth.

"You do, kid. You just don't know how much yet. Why don't you just open this damn door, so that we may speak face to face and I may show you how wrong you truly are?"

For a few moments, only cold, oppressive silence covered the darkened hall, until the sudden whirring of a complex lock broke through the stillness. Conrad stood straighter, bracing himself for what was to come. He doubted the Freeborn had much energy left within, but when it came to his kind, surprises could appear at any time. Knowing that the half meter barrier of steel would soon be gone from between them, Conrad felt a rush of excitement and apprehension. He was aware that his life was (potentially) in danger, but, if his theory about the Plantling was correct, then he had almost nothing to fear.

Finally, the massive door finished rolling to the side, only to reveal a dark room, obscured by a looming shadow. Conrad took several steps forward, pulling a mouthful of air into his lungs – only to almost collapse into a fit on uncontrolled sneezing and coughing just a few seconds later.

Slamming a palm over his nose, the tall man righted himself once more, his eyes watering and his throat burning. The smell that had hit him when he had breathed in was almost indescribable. A heavy stench permeated the darkened room's atmosphere, making the air inside almost impossible to breathe. At first, the man was not sure what caused the smell, but as his eyes slowly adjusted with the murky surroundings, he could clearly see that the small floor was littered with food, in various stages of putrefaction. The other element of the stench was caused by an un-emptied pail, lying in the far corner, covered in feces and other remnant biological matter.

In these moments, Conrad was both angry with himself, for not bringing a breath mask and relieved that the Starships were free of pests such as rats, flies or maggots. He did not wish to think what would have become of this room, had the case been otherwise. The small place was already a pestilential danger.

After his squinted eyes became completely adjusted with the surrounding darkness, he could discern, through the scattered debris, a small huddle, lying in a corner, almost completely obscured from his sight.

"How can you sit like this?" Conrad asked, his voice sounding muffled due to the palm that still covered his nose. "This smell is enough to kill an ox!"

"A what?"

The crewman watched as a small head of ruffled, tangled blonde hair rose from within the dark mound. His uneasiness grew slightly, as he could clearly feel a sharp, unseen gaze upon him.

"An ox. Earth mammal, of the Bovine family, most well known for the two horns on the top of its head and its resilience as a beast of burden."

Conrad could almost smile, as he felt the child's entire attention focused upon himself – or, more accurately, upon the piece of information that he was imparting.

"Getting back to my initial question" he coughed slightly, "what is with this mess?"

"I just don't feel like eating" came the boy's answer, as he once again started to sink in to the dark folds that surrounded him.

"Then what do you feel like doing, exactly?"

Once more, silence slowly descended for a few minutes. Conrad crossed both of his hands over his chest, in a gesture of both frustration and determination. He had gotten this far and he was would not let the boy escape his grasp.

"I don't want to feel anymore" finally came the ground-out answer. "I just want to sit in the dark."

"Do you wish to give up and die?"

A split-second of hesitation. "Yes."

"Why?"

Conrad slowly shifted his weight from one foot to another, as his knee joints cracked loudly, from the lack of movement. He contemplated the idea of leaning against the wall, but the dark sludge lining it – probably mold mixed with rust – made him reconsider.

"Because this place is full of your kind!"

Now, the anger and hate in the boy's voice had been all too clear.

"It has always been like this" Conrad spoke, on a low, calm tone. "You can't change it."

The dark mound stirred, as the messy head appeared once more. The crewman's muscles tensed, as he could see a single eye, half-covered with dirty, unkempt hair, glaring balefully at him.

"I asked her" the Plant's voice rasped, sounding hollow and unnatural to Conrad's ears. "I asked her to take my life, but she would not listen!"

"What did she tell you?" Conrad asked, silently ticking off another small point won. He could breach the subject of Rem, without fearing that the boy would lose control.

"She . . . she told me that I give up too easily. That I'm throwing my life away."

For just a moment, the crewman was almost sure that he had seen the faint glimmer of a tear, in the burning intensity of the eye.

"She was right, kid. You are wasting your life."

And, without warning, the man suddenly leapt forward. His calloused fingers tightened on the rough, dirty material of the blanket that the boy had tangled himself in and yanked hard, pulling the fabric away. The sight that met his eyes almost made him gasp: the child that had been so plump, so beautiful and so bursting with energy just two months ago had vanished almost completely. In its place, stood a weak, frail-looking being. What had once been a blue coverall was now merely a piece of shredded material, wrapped haphazardly around him, meant to barely cover his modesty. Conrad could easily count the ribs, under the pale skin and, as his gaze rose, he saw a drawn, almost gaunt face, framed by shaggy hair that had once been beautiful, but now seemed completely white and discolored in the gloom. Dark circles had formed under the eyes, giving the impression that the boy was actually an old man, withered by pain and sorrow.

Only the eyes themselves had kept some remnant life, but their color was also dulled and the emotions that swirled inside them were almost impossible to put into words.

Even as he watched, the child's face twisted into a mask of anger, as his hands shot out for the ragged blanket, pulling it roughly toward him, as if wishing to build another barrier between himself and the other man.

"Don't touch me!"

Conrad involuntarily flinched at the venom in the boy's voice. He watched as the Plantling struggled to twist the material around him once more. However, the lack of food for almost two weeks had dramatically weakened his body and, after several unsuccessful attempts, he gave up, nearly collapsing against the metal bulkhead.

"Stop being so stubborn" Conrad chided him, while inside, he was nearly bristling with anger. Just what had started this entire disaster? What had caused the previously sweet and caring boy to turn into a feral creature, all of a sudden? Why had he turned on Rem? Why had he started to hate humans? And why was he so desperately trying to kill himself through starvation?

Try as he might, Conrad's mind kept drawing blanks to most of these questions. Reigning in his curiosity and anger, the crewman kneeled next to the child, pointedly ignoring the crunch of a petrified piece of food under his knee. Quietly, he picked up the still warm bowl of noodle soup and extended it to the exhausted Plant.

"Please, drink up. Just a few mouthfuls. It would ease my worry. And hers as well."

Two glowing eyes cracked open at the same time, but now their gaze did not seem to be openly hostile any more. They regarded the man with a strange mixture of curiosity, lack of understanding and weariness.

"If you drink this, I promise to leave you alone."

Right on cue, as if all of this was a silly fairy tale and Conrad had just spoken the elusive magic words, the boy's small hands tightly latched onto the bowl, as he swiftly brought it to his lips. One mouthful quickly became two and in no time, the child was drinking heartily, even as half the soup trickled down his chin, to pool at his feet. With one last gulp, the boy let the bowl fall to the ground, with a loud clatter.

This time, Conrad did smile. It was no longer an ironic smirk, but a real smile, expressing the joy that he felt inside. He had managed to get they boy to eat something and, even though he knew full-well that a single flower never brought spring on its own, he was certain that recovery was a possibility. With dedicated care, he was certain that he could bring the boy back from the cold, dark place in which he now found himself.

"I'm in a black hole."

Conrad nearly jumped out of his skin, as he heard the boy's voice, speaking on a monotonous tone.

"That's what you were thinking" he went on, as if oblivious to the man's surprise. "Where I find myself . . . I'm falling. It's cold. And dark. I'm scared. Rem . . . Rem, where are you?"

The man listened with rapt attention, as the boy's tone changed, switching from dull and lifeless to fearful and vulnerable.

"You promised that you would be by my side, Rem. You lied! I'm all alone and you aren't here. I'm scared Rem! Please, tell me what to do!"

The last part had come out as a near hysterical cry, as the child's small fists impacted violently with the hard floor and his face twisted in pain. Unable to stand idly by any longer, Conrad opened his arms and swept the Plantling in a tight embrace. At first, the small, painfully thin body in his arms tensed, only to relax completely in the next second. The blonde head landed on the man's shoulder and he could feel sour tears wetting his suit. The boy's arms had tightened around his shoulders, squeezing with surprising strength, making the crewman bite back a grunt of pain.

"Calm down, kid. It's all right. I'm here. We're all here."

He was not sure that the quivering body in his arms heard him, but he kept on talking, as if soothing a child that had just woken up from a horrific nightmare.

The boy, for his part, kept whispering the same words over and over, in an obsessive, broken litany:

"I'm sorry, Rem! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Forgive me, Rem! Please forgive me!"