Story: Eye of the Needle
Chapter 3: Warm Liquor and Cold Nights

Author: trickygrin

Disclaimer: Blah blah blah. Don't sue. All ideas spawned off of a need to get the ideas to fit the story displayed thus far.

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It probably would have been better simply to wait a week in preparation, although Vash was not sure what he would have done to prepare himself for this journey. His heart, ever since hearing the news that Meryl was waiting for him, had been racing nonstop, beating ever faster within his chest until at times he felt as if he would explode.

If Millie noticed the faint flush of his face or the tremor in his hands as they traveled, she was too polite to mention it, and he for his part tried to ignore that it was even present, let alone a deciding factor in his travel.

And so it was that they came to be traveling the road to December two weeks after the meeting in that cafe. Their thomases were laden down with supplies, as recent sandstorms had driven out the inhabitants of that area. Thus, they owned what they carried, with no chances of refitting themselves until the town of December itself, where Meryl waited.

He grew both nervous and excited just thinking about it. What was she doing? How was she doing? Did she still think about him?

No... that was stupid. He knew the answer--had CREATED the answer to that question. Chewing on his lip, he slapped his thomas' neck lightly, shaking some of the sand out of its thick coat. Beside him, Millie looked over, her questioning eyes nearly lost behind a pair of dark sunglasses. Overhead one of the suns was flaring, large arcs of flame leaping towards the horizon. He looked away, his fear of retinal damage overtaking the awe of such a sight.

Meryl.... I miss you...

Vash felt like laughing and crying all at once, the absurdity of his situation was that overpowering. Stifling the hyena cackle that was his trademark, much to Meryl's dismay when they were traveling together, Vash half-hiccuped before turning back in his saddle, facing the direction they were going. Face the future... Face the road... But most of all, face the fact that if Millie catches you giggling to yourself again, she's going to think you're insane.

Which, he guessed, he was. Much as he tried to remind himself that the reason he was going to Meryl was for Knives' benefits, it kept slipping into the background until he was only aware of the fact that she had summoned him. SHE had summoned him. She wanted him.

Stifling another grin, he wondered whether his opinion of this whole matter would be the same if Meryl herself had come to get him.

Something told him it would have been vastly different.

Something else inside him screamed at him to let go of his ridiculous expectations.

Something else ignored these warning signs and continued to hum happily, because SHE had summoned him.

------

Trying to wipe the sand from her face, Millie noticed that Vash was laughing to himself again. The man seemed to take every opportunity to turn around and begin laughing. Although she admitted it made him look more boyish, and therefore more like the man she had known before, it chilled her for some reason. Somehow, a dark knot in her stomach led her to believe that his newfound happiness was not at all healthy.

She knew it had to do with Meryl and Knives. Not only was Vash obviously still in love with her, or obsession as was likely, but late at night he'd taken to whispering their names in his sleep.

He was beginning to scare her. He had always seemed slightly unstable when he was hunting his brother, but now it seemed as if the fine line of his sanity was strung so tight that the slightest change thrummed up and down his being, filling him to excess.

The thought of what he might do when he got to Meryl was worrying her. Once he saw that she--that she still wanted to be with Knives, Millie didn't know what his reaction would be. Ordinarily she would have him crying, which was sad but harmless. However, the wild light in his eyes was enough to make her reconsider.

He wasn't the man she had known.

What had happened between him and Meryl? How had Meryl ended up with Knives?

She had to know.

But how to bring it up? That was the question.

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It was much later, as the fourth moon crested the northern horizon, that they finally settled down outside the village of Howitzer, and got ready for the evening. Vash had finally calmed down from the dizzy maddened state of earlier that day, but he was still faintly buzzing with an unnerving energy. It was this energy that he put to use, quickly setting up a lean-to in the twilight haze, and then using a few matches to light the portable stove they were carrying. Millie, meanwhile, spent her time struggling to unload the heavily packed thomases.

I wonder how many of these buckles are actually necessary, she glared at a particularly stubborn buckle. She grunted again, trying once more to loosen the sand-crusted metal bit.

Here, let me try. Vash came up from behind her, the meal already set to cooking in the pot on the stove. I have experience with these things. He grinned loosely, which made him look decades younger. Millie blinked at him. When she thought about his smile, it almost seemed worth it, to take him to Meryl. She couldn't imagine how long it'd been since he'd last been so happy. If happy was the right word for it.

Sighing slightly, she stepped to the side, allowing him the chance to fiddle with the obnoxious buckle.

One click. Snap. Suddenly the saddle fell to the ground, with her scrabbling after it. She failed, and it ended up a tangle of legs and leather on the sandy desert floor, with Vash looking very surprised.

He rubbed the back of his head slightly and shook his head at her. I guess I haven't lost my touch.

Millie grunted, shoving the saddle off of her stomach and onto a relatively bare stretch of ground. Glaring at him, she pouted slightly, You did that on purpose.

Vash was startled... Millie was pouting? What? But after a moment her face split into a wide grin, and she opened one of the saddlebags to reveal an amber bottle of who-knew-what, which she drew out slowly. Just kidding. I'm sure that however long you had that--suit thingy, made you very good with buckles. Much better than I could ever hope to be. She smiled at him and he gawked slightly, his previously manic mood forgotten by Millie's seemingly un-Millie-like jokes.

Wanna split this? We're going to get into town tomorrow night, and I think that Meryl won't let any drinking happen... if she's still the same way I remember her. Her smile, if possible, widened even more, highly reminiscent of Millie before Wolfwood--before...

He bit back that memory. Life was painful enough without bringing the past back into it. He smiled faintly. Whatever had been holding him back at first, and then pushing him forward secondly had disappeared, and he could feel the tired muscles stretching into something much more natural.

For a moment, it didn't matter where he was going or what he was going to do when he got there. He was in the moment, here with Millie, and he wanted to enjoy it while it lasted. he finished his thoughts, which had trailed into silence as she watched. I think that a few drinks will do both of us some good.

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Much later, as both of them sat around the stove warming their hands over the dying flames of the gas-powered fire while enjoying the pleasant warmth in the pits of their stomachs, Millie reviewed over the evening. All in all, it had been rather nice, with both of them giggling over Vash's various light adventures over the years--she had rather enjoyed the story of him being chased for 5 iles by a wild thomas that he'd been feeding candy--and talking about the various subjects that interested them. To her surprise, she had found him extraordinarily knowledgable about the stars and the stories behind them. He told her of the constellations as viewed from their home planet, and how they had hearkened back to the first beginnings of civilization. Starting with a few pointer stars, he had shown her a few obscure constellations, telling how they had come to be. Round and round the sky they went, circling the moons and laughing at the absurdity surrounding the stories being told. He had finished off his lesson' with the two most famous stories, as he pointed out the Gunslinger with his silver gun, who always was chasing the Maiden of the Desert with her winking tresses of pure starlight.

They have been chasing each other since before we even arrived here, he ended solemnly, And they will continue to chase each other long after we are gone.

she hiccuped slightly and covered her mouth, embarrassed. But what if he decides she's not worth it? She turned her head to the side and watched him as he stared unblinkingly at the stars. What if?

There was a long pause, and for a moment she thought she had offended him. Why had she asked that question?

Oh, she's worth it. He sighed slowly, then turned his eyes towards her, But the question is, is he? This said, Vash sat up slowly and stared at the horizon, towards December. The more I think about it, the more I think that the reason he cannot reach her is because he was never meant to.

There was another awkward pause in which she attempted to sit up, and failed.

He silenced her with a hand wave. Don't worry. I'm trying not to. I think... I think I'll just... Another pause. ...just go to bed. I think I'm tired.



This time he turned towards her, and the look he gave her was so sad that she almost broke in two just meeting his eyes.

Millie almost asked, then paused. It wasn't her right to ask. It wasn't her right or her manner to press someone into speaking of something that they'd rather not, but in this case, she almost felt as if not knowing what she was walking into could be potentially explosive. And looking at his face right now wasn't helping. She sighed and made up her mind.

She had to ask. She had to know if she was to help either of her friends. Knives wasn't a friend, but he was Meryl's and Vash's friend....although that was debatable right now.

she wasn't sure she could finish this question. Wh-what happened...between you and Meryl? The rest of the question came out in a rush, a torrent of words that after she had said them, she instantly wished she could call them back. She didn't want to know, didn't want to hurt him, didn't want...

Surprisingly, his expression didn't change. There was a faint slackness around his jaw, one that extended to his eyes. But he didn't speak at first. Instead he simply met her eyes face on.

After a few minutes, he finally spoke. Do you really want to know? His voice was raw with emotion and he punctuated the question with a half bark of a laugh. Not waiting for her answer, or perhaps feeling that she did indeed have a right to know, he continued on. After a few seconds of speaking, it seemed obvious that he had needed someone to listen to his story and that this might do him some good. It was with this realization that she moved closer, sitting forward with her arms curled around her knees, and listened.

It really is quite simple, he began, It all started when I came back with Knives.

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I had come back to town where you two were, and Knives was still unconscious. I could feel his thoughts bubbling forth from his dreams, they were extremely powerful even when he was not controlling them. Or perhaps it was because he wasn't channelling them that it was so powerful. I don't know. He never said.

I had not had experiencing protecting my mind. Plenty of experience protecting my body from bullets and battle, but none of my training was dedicated towards my extra' skills. Knives had extended his training towards both aspects of his fighting, and thus was dangerous even asleep. But he didn't seem to be directing his dreams towards humans, as I would have initially expected. Instead he was channelling his powers towards the town's plant and myself. These dreams, highly subversive in nature, were incredibly--seductive in their displays of power and destruction.

They called for me to kill the humans.

And I couldn't protect myself. The plant angel had no need of protecting herself, as she could simply hibernate until he left town. She was not worried about her own part in this, but she worried about me. Giving me a few rudimentary bits of advice, she told me to leave the area until Knives was conscious. Or, as she put it--until our brother could keep his dream-walking within his own sphere once more.

I had to. I knew it, but I didn't like it.

So it was that right after you left town to tell your parents that you were alright and to check up on Nicholas' orphanage, I left town to escape Knives. Meryl assured me that although the task of caring for Knives was distasteful, it was one that she would do willingly as a favor to me. And although I hated the thought of being separated from her after all of the troubles we'd been through, I left her with him because I knew she was the only person on this planet who would have any reason whatsoever to do it. And she would do it willingly and well too. I trusted her.

I traveled the globe for a few months, staying within a range that I could reach town within a day or two by some mode of transport or another if I felt him awaken. Day after day I waited, and he didn't change. Week after week I traveled, and still he dreamed. Eventually I felt myself slipping into the person I had been before I met you two. I grew a little bitter, bitter that Knives was interfering with my life even after I had finished dealing with him. Every time I felt the bitterness come on, I turned to Rem's philosophy to remove it. I had saved Knives, hadn't I? She would be proud.

That kept me going for the first month or so. But he was still not awake, and eventually I started to grow bitter towards Rem for giving me such a useless philosophy that had worked to ruin me at every major turn in my life. It seems that after a century of waiting for love, I had grown impatient once I knew it was waiting for me.

Something within me began to change for the worse. At month two I had allowed my nerves to degrade to the point where negligence on my part had a small caravan of people killed. At month four I was a walking wreck, always traveling, barely eating.

By month seven, I had almost washed my hands of Rem entirely. I was surviving from moment to moment, living in the desert lands outside of town. My life consisted of simply working just enough to buy food and in the remaining time dreaming of Meryl and constantly searching for a sign that he had awakened.

Still his dreams wandered. But they seemed of a different flavor than they had been months before. They were more peaceful, and were largely memories of life on the ship. Violent pulses were very few and far between, but my fear of what I knew he could make me do kept me from town, no matter how much I wished to be there. With her. With Meryl.

By now I was beginning to hate my brother for not awakening. It was irrational, but in the end, it was all I could do, as helpless as I was. She was the only thing I had, and once more, he had taken everything from me. And this time, he hadn't even really worked for it. All he had to do was simply not regain consciousness.

It all seemed like an evil plot to me.

About nine months after walking out of town to wait, I felt his thoughts contract to a pinpoint within the city limits. A sandstorm was raging outside and had been for about four days now, but it didn't matter to me. He was awake again and his thoughts were once more shielded.

I raced back into town, my heart racing ahead of me on the dusty trail. I was so happy and in love that the nine months seemed to have made my love all the sweeter. I almost was able to forget that they had occurred, although my physcal condition was obvious at a glance. I couldn't wait to scoop her up in my arms and kiss her and whisper my love to her....

When I got back into town, I found that the situation had changed. Knives had been awake for seven months, but he didn't remember anything from before. He knew me on sight, there is certain knowledge that cannot be erased, but all else was gone. He had no memories of the betrayals that had formed his hatred of humans. He did not remember his various quests to rid the planet of them. He did not remember the pains he had caused me, nor did he remember the Gung-ho Guns.

It was exactly like I had been after July.

And Meryl? Meryl....had spent seven months wondering where I was. Wondering if I was going to return. Wondering if I had forgotten my promises, or died... or something. Anything to explain where I was and what I had done, anything that told explicitly why I wasn't there with her.

After a point she had given up on me. One can only die a certain amount of times before one stays dead. I had reached my quota by month four.

She buried me in the city graveyard, and even by the point I reached town, she still visited once a week to put flowers by my grave.

In the meantime, she was left with Knives, a burden that suddenly was much more aggravating than it had been previously. She hated and feared him. Her loathing towards him was equal to to pain he had caused to her people and to myself. She hated him for so many reasons, it was almost impossible to number them.

But she had promised to care for him. For me.

She suffered through it for a few months. She snapped at him when he asked her what had happened, and how he had come to be with her. She screamed at him when he claimed amnesia. She cried when he tried to comfort her, which was how all of their interactions ended.

One day she woke up with a question on her mind. Why did she hate him so? He was a decent person, one who tried endlessly to please her, but was unable to because of her first impressions of him. Because she had not looked twice at him.

She had made that mistake with someone else too. And once she had given him a second look, she had been startled to discover that she was in love.

With endless apologies to everyone who had suffered, me especially, she gave Knives a second chance.

Now, you must realize that my brother is quite charming usually. He always had a way with people. He was never false with them, never gave them hope where it wasn't warranted, as that wasn't his style. He simply was able to make them love him without even trying. Thus he was able to charm her quite easily, and it was off of this that they based their working relationship. She worked during the day and he took care of domestic chores while he healed.

But he wasn't able to go much further with her than simply friendship. It was this that fascinated him, this steel that defined Meryl. She was not, and never would be, one of his followers. She was...different.

He found himself drawn to her like no one else he could imagine. She....completed him, I guess. Completed him as she completed me. We were twins, I guess it wasn't too terribly absurd for us to be attracted to the same type of woman.

She, for her part, might have fallen for him willingly had it not been for her past. He had done too much to simply be forgiven within a simple few month's time. She liked him, but her memories haunted her.

Meanwhile, he was relearning his powers from the plant angel, who had re-emerged from hibernation after he had awakened. She taught him everything from how to heal himself to how to speak to the angels. Finally, she began to teach him how to shield his thoughts. All the while she assured him that it was the pride of the plants to shelter the humans from the harsh reality of the planet.

Meryl was finding Knives to be much like I had been in my most idealistic of days. Much like I had been, only more... mature. This maturity attracted her. It was what had been holding her back from opening up to me.

And then, I came back into town. I came into a web far more complicated than I had left, and found that I had little to no place within it.

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And then...then....she fell for him just as he fell for her. There was nothing I could do about it. It was just about over by the time I reached town. Vash's voice was quiet as he finished his tale.

Millie didn't know what to say. Everything he had said up until his rather abrupt ending had sounded true, had rung true. The last part was true as well, she felt, but it felt as if he was leaving out everything. Which he had to be, if she thought about it. Unfortunately her mind was tired, and she couldn't focus on where he might be lying, if anywhere, and she felt that she had more than pushed him to his limits, and asking any more of him was unfair.

Vash looked at her and she gazed back, her head nodding slightly as she swayed. She still hadn't worked off the alcohol they had drunk, and it showed slightly in the way the night zephyrs affected her.

Are you happy knowing the truth now? Does it make you glad to know exactly what went wrong back then? He stared at her challengingly, also swaying slightly against a spangled background of stars and moons. She tried to focus on his question, rather than the entertaining notion that the angel opposite her had about as low an alcohol tolerance as she did. Despite her best efforts, a small smile crept through, which he noticed.

What's so funny? he growled slightly, his face wreathed in shadows.

Millie paused for a moment before answering. she stated simply. You know something? A small hiccup broke her swing, and she tried to recover momentum, That wasn't the truth and you know it. A deep breath and then her finale. Don't start yelling at me unless you yourself are willing to open up and be honest for once.

With this out, her momentum was lost and she suddenly felt the weight of the hours and miles she had been up for. This, combined with the alcohol warming her belly made her too tired to continue. Giving him one final look over, she flopped back on the cold ground and was asleep before her head hit her sleeping roll.

Vash continued to look at her, his eyes unreadable in the pre-dawn gloom. You're right, he finally whispered, but only her soft snores broke the silence. Looking away, he wiped away a few stray tears before laughing softly to himself. But then, that's you're trademark isn't it? You're always scarily on target. Even more so than you know. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Millie shiver in her sleep.

Carefully, he wrapped his blanket over her, tucking in the edges under her, a scant protection against the desert insects and animals that might take shelter beneath the warmth of her body. She sighed once and curled up around the folds of the blanket, her breath a soft breeze against his cheek as he tucked it under her shoulder.

He stopped moving, enjoying briefly the almost-intimate contact, before becoming embarrassed with himself. What was he doing?

he muttered, mostly to himself. Standing up, he pulled his coat on and put out the fire on the stove. Then, he curled up in his sleeping roll, his eyes fixed on the horizon. On December.

Something in him was changing, and something in him had never changed. This he knew.

He also knew that if he didn't want to ruin himself forever, he would have to think about what tomorrow would bring.

Vash the Stampede would not be getting any sleep tonight.

Behind him, Millie Thompson stirred slightly in her sleep, her brow furrowed with worry. Within her dreams a red-clad individual crept, stalking her every thought until she could think no more. With a start, her eyes snapped open, upon the back of her traveling companion. Vash? Her mind foggily reminded her of what she had learned. Vash... He seemed to be sleeping.

What could be done about him? Tomorrow would be difficult enough, but with the information of what she actually knew versus what she had not been informed of, it would be ten times more so. She hugged herself, shivering despite the fact that she was not cold. So many problems, so little time to try to solve them. Hopefully his talking had lightened his heart...

Despite her obvious weariness, she could not sleep. Fear kept her awake, fear for her friends, fear for herself...

What was happening to her? She'd never thought about fear so much before....

Something inside her was changing....

Millie Thompson watched Vash and the sky, thinking as she lay. She, also, would not be getting any sleep tonight.

Overhead, the moons danced towards dawn.

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Author's note: Yeah well, and by once every sleep cycle I actually meant, whenever I sneak to my dad's comp (since I'm at home now) and write one when he's not watching. Heh heh heh...uh... yeah. Thanks for the support my peoples, and hope it's paying off. (If not, well then, um...stop reading.) I have my issues with this chapter, but I've discovered that I have issues with every chapter, so I don't think I'll spill these ones on you, my delightful readers. Suffice to say that I'm don't think my flashback was up to par, but it was either that or miss the Korean cartoon my dad was watching (I wrote the rest of this during a viewing of Thundercats). Yeah, well. So that's that.

Next Chapter: They get to down and Meryl enters the picture. Wonder what she thinks?