Chapter 36

December City

Meryl walked through the rooms of her small flat with a clipboard, checking off items and boxes against the list.

"For such a tiny flat, you have an awful lot of stuff."

She glanced up from checking the number of a box to where her uncle stood in the kitchen deftly wrapping her crockery and glasses in sheets of newspaper.

She tried to smile. He was trying so hard for her sake. She could only respond with as much liveliness as she could summon. It was not fair to drag others into her well of dark misery.

"I mean, what are you going to do with all these?" He held up her collection of beer mats she had from various saloons and bars. She had not meant to collect so many, but on emptying her case at the end of the first tour of the Outer, she had been startled at the amount. Since then she had deliberately collected at least one from every town. He shuffled through them.

"Will's Saloon?" He turned it over. "There's another Will's Saloon out there?"

"There was." She said a little sadly. "Before half of the outlying towns around May City were destroyed."

"So I don't have to worry about competition." He said with a slightly forced joviality.

"You know what?" She said suddenly, realising that this move would be exactly what she needed: a clean break. "Throw them away."

He raised an eyebrow but deftly shuffled the beer mats into a pile and placed them in the box of things that were not going on the truck.

A knock sounded at the door and Meryl jumped. Damnation. She knew that knock. No, she was dreaming, he had gone off with Livio and Chronica. Why would he be back in December so soon? Why would he be back here at all? He had Calor to keep him company and what use was Fifth Moon to him now? They had virtually betrayed every plant that had trusted them? The knock came again. She stood frozen and her uncle glanced at her, puzzled, then pointed at the door.

"Don't you want to get that?"

No. She did not. Getting the door was letting in everything she had worked so hard to shut out. The last three weeks had been numbingly awful, but she knew in her heart she had made the right decision. She had systematically shut down the company and paid off the last of her employees with the sale of her flat. They had burned all the incriminating documents in a bonfire at the orphanage and had sent letters of explanation, apology and warning to all their correspondents. The two other black haired plants who had taken up residency at the orphanage had been oddly understanding, to the point where Meryl suspected that they had something up their sleeves. It was one thing she realised that ran true across their race, they didn't let things go easily.

.

She saw her uncle's frown become worried and his hand twitched to his pistol. No! She did not want that. The first step was like wading through thick sticky syrup, the next few steps she almost ran for the door. She rapidly undid the latches and pulled it open. Outside, to her stark disappointment, stood Livio.

"Hello?" He blinked at her. "Meryl? Is that you in those oversized overalls?"

She glanced down at the bulky old tracksuit and slippers she had been wearing while packing in the dusty flat. She felt the disappointment evaporate in a rush of fiery relief. Thank goodness, it had not been Vash, for him to see her like this!

"Yes!" She said snippily.

Livio grinned with a teasing light to his eyes, then leaned back out into the hall.

"Oi! This was the room!"

Meryl leaned out, unable to stop herself. Vash trotted up to the door, the red tails of his duster trailing behind him, he grinned at her. She noticed that his left shoulder of his coat had some neat stitches in it. She recognised Milly's handiwork. What had happened?

"We found it!" He grinned at her and Livio. "We must have knocked on at least eight doors!"

"You what?" Meryl caught an instant whiff of trouble.

"Milly only gave us the building number," Livio explained, "and I couldn't remember your address except that it had a one and a two in it somewhere, so we've been to room twelve on every floor until here."

"And room twenty one, and sometimes rooms one and two." Vash added helpfully.

"I'm on the fourth floor..." Meryl murmured.

Both men grinned as if this hadn't been a problem for them. Good thing she was leaving, as her neighbours would complain about it when they next saw her. The idiots!

"Come inside." She waved them in, anything to get them out of the passage.

She shut the door and debated how quickly she could change out of the awful clothes she wore, and wash the dust and grime off her face. Leaving Vash and Livio with her uncle was not something she particularly wanted to do. As a pair they were quite intimidating, Vash in his red coat and spikey black hair all on end, and Livio with his tattoos and his silvery grey hair which now grew in wild tufts around his head.

"Hello!" Vash smiled at her uncle then his face fell as he processed the room around him. "What's happening? Are you moving? Are you leaving December? W-why?"

"I'm not going far! Uncle Will's saloon is ten iles outside December!" She retorted, then clenched her jaw closed. She hated how he flustered her. Trying to regain her composure, Meryl scowled, he of all people should know why she was leaving.

"There's nothing for me here anymore. I must go home, sort out my life and maybe get a job somewhere." She wished she had not said the last bit. Vash gazed at her with guilt in his surprised expression. There was no hint of pity, for which she was grateful.

"Oh." Vash said and frowned at the rooms again. From where he stood he could see the entirety of the flat. Her tiny bedroom, the even tinier bathroom, the kitchen and living room in which they stood. "Well, um, we kind of already got you a steamer ticket. Calor and Milly said to tell you to meet them at Black Tomb Pass. "

Meryl gaped at him. She hadn't heard much past the 'we' and 'steamer ticket'.

"Ah." She said, running his words past her conscious mind once more. In a daze she turned to her uncle. "Can you take my stuff home? I can't pay you for the storage yet."

Her uncle gave an easy nod.

"That's okay; you're good with promissory notes. When is this steamer leaving?" He asked Vash curiously.

Vash hunted through the pockets in his coat and pulled out a ticket.

"Four pm, ah, June the twelfth."

"That's today!" Meryl exclaimed. "Uncle Will, what time is it?"

He drew out his fob watch and inspected it.

"Three."

"Aaah!" Meryl exclaimed. "I've got to go pack." She darted into her bedroom, then darted back into the lounge.

"Tell them to wait for us!"

She hurried into her room and closed the door, satisfied that that would send them on their way. She heard a murmur of voices then the outer door close. She found the box with her clothing in it and hastily scratched off the packaging tape and then pulled out what she needed, her trusty travelling leggings, skirt and blouse. Her cloak lay folded below them. She had not had her boots repaired, but they would last at least a few months.

She headed for the door and was about to open it to make a dash for the bathroom next door when she heard voices.

"So tell me, young man, what is Meryl's relationship with Vash, you seem to know him well."

Meryl almost sank to the ground in mortification. Livio had stayed behind, presumably to help. She hadn't mentioned Livio in her letters home, so of course her uncle would not know him. On second thoughts that was for the best. She put her ear to the door the better to hear the conversation. Livio surely did not know much.

"She's determined, bitc- ah ha ha - forthright and gives him such lectures!"

Meryl did sink to the ground then. Only her hand caught against the door kept her upright. It was Vash who had answered. Her uncle had mistaken Livio for Vash, when one considered his reputation and Livio's appearance; perhaps the mistake was not so difficult. Had her uncle seen nothing of the television program she had broadcast? She sighed, probably not, the only television in town was owned by Sweeny's Saloon, her uncle's archrival.

"But she is also kind, and sort of gets into places she shouldn't but it's good that she's there ya know?"

She heard her uncle laugh.

"That's the Meryl I know. So she lectures him does she? My late sister would do that to my son in law; it kept him on his toes." He chuckled to himself. "It's good that she's found a friend in him, the letters I got from her were always so short, but he filled the space to the point where she forgot to mention the names of the towns she had seen, or what she had done."

Meryl put her knuckles in her mouth. Had she done that? It had certainly not been a conscious thing. And what did her uncle think telling a stranger that?

"Hah! Really?" Vash laughed, a little too high pitched to be a comfortable laugh.

Meryl stood up. Time to break up the reminiscence party before her uncle recalled anything she had put in those letters. She could not remember in her panic, but she was sure it would sound stupid and damning. She opened the door.

"Uncle Will, do you know where I put the towels?"

Vash was standing beside her uncle helping him wrap her wine glasses in newspaper.

"You had the list Meryl, box twelve perhaps?"

She glanced at the list. He was right.

She fished out a towel and walked to the bathroom.

"Oh, and don't pack the bottom cupboard. Uncle Will, you choose three of the best for yourself and Vash you can have the rest."

She caught her uncle's startled expression in the mirror as she closed the bathroom door. However it was Vash's face that was a picture. His guilty blush and very cheesy grin, and above all, the way he caught her eye in the mirror. He knew she had been listening, and had played into it. She shut the door and put her ear against it.

"You're Vash the Stampede?"

"Ah, ha ha." Vash laughed then suddenly sobered up. "Um, ah, yes I am?"

Meryl almost laughed. Her uncle must have given him the old hairy eyeball, her rendition of it was nothing on her uncle's.

"What are your intentions with my niece?"

"Whaaa?" Vash exclaimed. "Ah, er. What's in the bottom cupboard. Ow!"

"Answer the question!"

Meryl leaned against the door, smothering her giggles in the towel.

"My intentions are wholly honourable, Mister Stryfe!"

"I am Will Jackson, Stryfe was the name of my late brother in law." Her uncle spoke with an antagonistic edge to his voice. Perhaps she had thrown Vash to the wolves. "What would an outlaw know about honour?"

"Er, if you put it like that..." Vash murmured, as if he was thinking about it.

Meryl rolled her eyes. He was so easy to derail.

"Where's that ticket? Are you travelling in separate berths?"

"Y-yes? Milly Thomson, Calor Saxonville and Meryl will be in one, I'm working as a caravan guard. I'm sort of good at that."

"Hmmm." He grumbled. "Just make sure that you bring her back to me with a smile on her face. I never want to see the dead look she had in her eyes until you and that other fellow rocked up. Understood?"

"Yes sir!" Vash said happily.

Meryl then realised there was a long silence, and that the conspicuous absence of the sound of shower water would surely be noticed. She reached over to the taps when she heard Vash give an exclamation.

"Oh wow! Old July Bourbon! Meryl sure knows her drink!"

"I should hope so!" Her uncle grouched. "She grew up in my bar, and I'll take that, thank you. And, no, yes that one, and that. The rest is yours."

She heard her uncle laugh.

"Your coat needs more pocket's Vash. Get a box and package them in paper, enjoy them on the steamer trip." He paused. "Meryl, it's quarter past! I'll have to unpack the truck and drive you to the steamer station if you take any longer in that shower!"

Meryl jumped. Damn, her uncle was sharp; she had forgotten that about him.

.

She emerged from the bathroom dressed in her work clothes. Vash was taping closed a large box. Her uncle had labelled it 'Miss Stryfe, Beauty Products'. She raised an eyebrow at him. It was an old joke, that everyone was beautiful after downing a bottle; she was unimpressed that he would use it on her. Vash smiled when he noticed her reading it.

"So that no one filches my supply on the steamer."

His guileless expression caught at her heart. Either he was too good hearted to take the first meaning or he genuinely did not know, and he had been around too many bars not to know. She turned away as he neatly wound another reason to love him around her heart. She caught her uncle's expression then, he was staring at the back of Vash's head with bemused puzzlement that everyone got on meeting Vash for the first time.

"It's half past. If you walk fast, you'll make the steamer with five minutes to spare." Her uncle informed her.

"I've got to get my bag!" Meryl fled into her room and her uncle followed her.

She flung all she would need into her pink travel case while listing instructions as to who to give her flat keys to, where to drop off the boxes that weren't headed for home and various letters and other logistics involved with emptying the flat. When she emerged, Vash was gone, as were at least eight boxes. He walked in again, lifted another two large ones and headed out again. She stared.

"He's an odd one." Her uncle murmured. "But there is a genuine love there, well chosen."

"What? Uncle!" Meryl hissed. "Nothing is happening. Nothing!"

Her uncle raised an eyebrow and Meryl knew she had said the wrong thing. If her uncle saw Vash now he would be in for the 'you break her heart, I break your legs' lecture, or worse the 'you play with her, I hang you within an inch of your life' lecture both of which he had delivered to her past male acquaintances much to Meryl's mortification. She darted out of the door with her bag.

"I will write!" She called and ran after Vash. She almost galloped down the stairs and caught up with him on the last flight down. She walked the last flight inelegantly gasping for breath as they entered the lobby. He set the boxes down on the stack in the lobby.

"Let's go!" She waved him after her.

He picked up his box, hiked it on the shoulder and followed her, a little alarmed at the pace she set.

"We still have time," he caught up with her, "and look we can see the steamer at the end of the street."

At the end of the street and across debris and buildings, they could see the steamer in the distance. It was blowing its whistle and letting off steam.

"I think we should hurry!" Meryl pressed.

Vash picked up an easy lope beside her. Meryl glanced back after two hundred yarz and saw her uncle standing at the door of her apartment block. She gave him a tiny wave. He raised his hand then pointed to Vash and made a very slight wriggle of his finger as if lecturing her like a child. Meryl suddenly felt like a child then, and put her bag down.

"A moment!" She said to Vash then ran back up the road. She gave her uncle a hug. The last time she had seen him had been six years ago. "Thank you."

He wrapped his hairy arms around her and gave her a bear hug as he used to do when she was a child.

"That's my Meryl." He released her and fluffed her hair. "And tell that tall scrawny outlaw to take some meat with his liquor; he's too skinny and dreamy for my liking."

Meryl smiled.

"I thought you didn't like him."

"I know the stories that follow him. Of course I don't like him, but that doesn't mean there isn't a drinking stool in the bar for him."

Meryl blushed.

"Get going!" Her uncle said gruffly.

Meryl walked back to where Vash was waiting. He rested his prosthetic hand on the tall handle of her pink bag. However, what caught at her heart was the gentle smile on his face, as if he had seen their interaction and not only approved but delighted in it. She self-consciously took her bag, between her uncle fighting tears, and Vash's heartbreaking delight at acts of love; she knew she was close to crying herself. She took a deep breath, but they would be tears of happiness. Her life had a purpose, and that steamer ticket had given her a new future. What was that phrase Vash always used? 'Your ticket to the future is always blank.' Meryl smiled and amended it in the privacy of her own mind. So long as the name Vash was scrawled on the ticket, she would take the ride.

.

Vash went off to join the convoy when they reached the steamer. Meryl made it to the end of a very short queue of passengers waiting to board. She heard a whistle she recognised and glanced up. Milly was leaning over the railing above her waving. She waved back as Abe, Livio, Calor and Chronica leaned over to see who Milly was whistling at.

The excitement hummed around her as she finally bordered the steamer. She headed to her cabin in second class, and Milly emerged out of the crowds around her and hugged her in the middle of the passage.

"Miss Meryl! I'm so glad you came! Livio told us all you were packing your flat to go back to your uncle's place!"

Meryl disentangled herself as people pushed around them and muttered about them finding a better place for impromptu romance.

Meryl smiled as Milly led her through the press of people to their cabin.

"I wasn't going to go without telling you, but this was the only weekend my uncle could get the truck. I wasn't leaving December just yet."

"Oh." Milly sounded relieved. "It's just that Mister Livio said, er, um, never mind."

They squeezed into the door and Milly closed it behind them. There were four beds, narrow cots bunked up against the walls.

"I thought you'd like the upper bunk." Milly said.

Meryl smiled. It was good having a friend who remembered her little preferences.

"So what did Livio say?" Meryl asked.

Milly frowned at her feet and folded her hands together in discomfort.

"He said you were leaving. He said you didn't look happy to see him at all. And even less happy to see Vash. What really happened Miss Meryl? Did you really fall in a Tomas trough? Or did you and Vash have a really bad fight?"

Meryl gazed up at her friend.

She sighed and sat down on the bottom bunk. The steamer sounded the departure whistles and they lurched slightly as it went into motion, the humming rumble of the movement vibrating through the entire cabin. Milly sank down beside her and watched her worriedly. Perhaps the clean break was not so much of an avoidance and pretence that the past had never happened, but a chance to face up to the truth. A part of that meant she couldn't keep her friend out of the loop any longer.

"Kind of the opposite." Meryl muttered. "We discussed some issues between us and I hugged him and he hugged me and now things are very awkward."

"But you don't act awkward!" Milly said, surprised.

Meryl smiled bleakly.

"That's the problem; we've acted around each other so long we can't remember how to be our natural selves. Or even if what we think we're acting is our natural self."

"So you do like him, or do I need to give him a few reminders to back off with my stun gun?"

Meryl opened her mouth to talk, but an odd cough caught at her. She blinked up at Milly.

"I don't know any more." She said tiredly, and then breathed out as the steamer let off another long whistle blast and jerkily increased speed again, signalling they were out of the city limits.

Meryl smiled then.

"But I do know this. I'm tired of hiding, and hinting and wishing things were this way or that. I will say how I think, and act what I feel."

"So you do like him!" Milly smiled happily.

Meryl watched her friends hopeful face and felt a pang in her heart.

"I don't know." She murmured. "Most of the time I want to pound him for being so, so, well, Vash! And then when he isn't around I feel all anxious inside, worrying about him and if he is hurt again. Then when I do see him again, he does something very silly and all I want to do is to pound him. Then he is helpful and kind, and then so soppy I want to smack him over the head and tell him to grow up. And I can't seem to say a nice thing to him."

Milly smile broadened.

"That statement qualifies this as love." Milly declared.

"What? I might like him, but I certainly don't love him!" Meryl grouched.

"Not so." Milly raised a finger. "My big big sister said she never met a man she wanted to murder until after she got married. She was talking about her husband whom she loves to pieces. Passion brings out the worst and the best in us."

"Passion!" Meryl exclaimed. "Never! Ugh. No."

Milly laughed then.

"Fine, say it like that and deny it again."

Meryl blinked.

"Again? When did I deny it the first time?"

Milly rested her feet on the edge of the bunk, put her elbow on her knee and propped her chin in her hand.

"Um." Milly thought for a moment. "There was the incident where you got all jealous of him peeking at Miss Maryanne..."

"Jealous? No!"

"...and then Miss Elizabeth..."

"That floozie? She called him SPOT!"

"...and when you defended him from Brilliant Dynamites Neon on the steamer..."

"That was just doing our job Milly!"

"... and then when we discovered what he looked like without his coat on and you still decided to follow him."

"It was our job."

"Yes, Miss Meryl." Milly said with a smile. "Only you spent that time staring so avidly at his chest and blushing that I'm surprised he didn't notice."

"I did not!"

"Or more recently, covering his coat in muddy hand prints as you hugged him."

"I did– er –okay, I did do that."

Meryl clenched her hands together so that her knuckles went white.

"Milly." She said in a small voice. "What happens if he doesn't love me?"

She was glad Milly hugged her then, as she had the chance to blink away the stupid tears that had leaked out unbidden. She was not going to pieces over him. It was not how one survived, by allowing ones emotions and secrets out. She tucked her face against her friend and hugged her back. Suddenly what she faced now was scarier than facing down any of the weird deadly enemies Vash seemed to attract. She blinked and shifted her head so she could stare unseeingly at the wall opposite. She was astounded at how terrified she was. And it was not only about love and the fear of heartbreak, but everything really. All her life, all she had done was to build walls to protect herself. She closed her eyes, feeling ill. It had been necessary as a small skinny girl in a dangerous world; she had had to learn to protect herself. Emotional distance and a sharp tongue had been her last line of defence between her inner self and the outside world.

She tried to push at the barriers she had erected, but they remained, steady and unyielding. It would take more than her wishing them down for her to overcome them. She snuggled up into Milly's hug as she felt the tears slip down her face, hot and damning. So far only two people had reached into her inner world in such a gentle manner so as to allow her to cry, Milly and one broom headed idiot. Yet, these tears she cried for herself, knowing that she could try as hard as she liked, but some things needed the assistance of others to overcome. The terror that ate at her until she mastered it, hinted at that. She would have to learn to trust, and perhaps accept the consequences of betrayal. She clenched her fists and withdrew into herself, and Milly released her as she curled into a ball.

"Get some rest Miss Meryl." Milly said. "I'm going up to find out where the others are."

Meryl hardly heard her.

Milly fairly flew down the passage, weaving through the people in the passages. She found Abe, Calor, Livio and Chronica on the upper deck, watching the desert pass.

"Where is Mister Vash?" She asked.

Abe raised an eyebrow.

"We haven't seen him Milly girl." He said, and bit his lip on the question 'what has he done now?' Milly had too fiery an expression on her face.

"Wasn't he working as a guard or something?" Livio asked.

Milly glanced back at the convoy behind them and clenched her fist.

"When are we stopping tonight?"

"We're not. We're driving right through until we reach Black Tomb Pass." Calor explained. "Milly, what's wrong? Why do you need to find Vash?"

"He made Miss Meryl cry, again!" Milly snapped, furiously. "I'm going to get some pudding, if anyone sees Mister Vash tell him I want to see him immediately!"

"That's not going to give him any incentive to find you." Abe said, but too late. Milly strode away as swiftly as she had arrived. He then glanced around. "Chronica and Calor, we'd better split up. People are beginning to notice us. The odd combination of black hair and blond just screams 'plants', don't you think?"

"We're headed for the saloon." Livio said and he and Chronica walked off.

"What's the balance?" Calor asked Abe.

"So far, eighty on Yes and ten on No."

"Here's another ten for the Yes." Calor handed him a ten double dollar bill and stepped away then paused. "Who sponsored the No?"

"Vash did. He overheard us, and wanted to know what we were betting and I lied to his face."

Calor grinned. "A bet? What does he think this money is for?"

"He thinks it's a bet to see if Livio will cut his hair again."

"Abe, that was so lame."

"He took it, and I was under pressure, it was all I could come up with at the time. It was also all I could say without laughing in his face."

Calor dug in her pocket and took out another ten.

"That's another for the Yes."

"Wow, you really want a Yes." Abe said taking it.

"It will make my life a whole lot less complicated, thank you very much." She said and walked off.

Abe pocketed the money and went to stand at the aft railing, watching over the steamer convoy. He could see Vash seated on one of the last tanks, watching their wake through the sand. He turned away before Vash could sense his gaze, no need to stir things up just yet.

The next morning Meryl met with Abe and Calor and paid them out as she had the others. That took the last of her money. Abe thumbed the wad of notes she had handed him.

"So this is all that is left of Fifth Moon?" He murmured.

"There is no more Fifth Moon." Meryl stated. "It does not exist. I deregistered it at the City Hall."

"Yet, there are plants out there needing our help." Calor murmured, mimicking Abe's gesture.

Meryl sighed, they were reacting in exactly the same way the plants back at the orphanage had done.

"Teres destroyed us." She said in a shaky voice as she stood. "Please don't make this harder than it is."

She wanted to leave them with a polite business like smile, but it was all she could do to walk out of the steamers dining room without crying. She walked to the upper deck and went to stand at the aft railing to watch the caravan that trailed in their wake. She buried her face in her arms and felt the wind tug at her heavy cloak. It was reassuring to feel all the derringers against her. The cloak always reminded her of her purpose, she was out in the world defending … what? She raised her head and glared out at the desert. They had a lead on the twins; she was there to defend them. Until that crisis was over, she could not afford to fall apart. Her eye caught a flash of red and she saw Vash standing atop a following truck with two other men. They were watching the rear of the caravan, and he was watching the steamer. She felt shock shudder through her. She could hardly make out his features, but knew that he had far keener gaze than most. She turned away and hurried inside, ugh, he had seen her. Why was she always at her worst when she was around him?