::Chibi Trigun cast all wearing cute lil Santa hats::

Legato: Oh god now there's a mental image for you...

Sunny: This is the thanks I get for kidnapping you and bringing you home?

Midvally: ::holds up sprig of mistletoe:: You bet sweet cheeks.

We don't own Trigun...or Christmas! ^_^

We're hyper today....

Unmarked--Chapter Six

            Legato Bluesummers leaned backwards and felt the cool clay of the roof beneath his back. In his mind's eye, he could see Dominique sneaking in to the house beneath him.

            He bit his tongue harder so he could concentrate on what she was doing and not be blinded by the Demon's Eye.

            Midvally was sitting on the edge of the rooftop, and he put Sylvia to his lips and played a slow but slightly jovial jazz tune.

§§§§§§§§

            I sat up suddenly. Someone else had to be in this room, and I swore I heard one of the twins crying.

            I slipped out of bed and walked over to the cradle. Daniel was sitting up and playing with the stuffed cat that Milly had made some months before.

            "Hey there, kiddo," I said softly, hoisting my son up into the air. Oddly, he did not giggle or shriek as he usually would when I did this. I attributed it to his being tired. The twins were usually sleeping through the night now.

            'Enjoy it while it lasts, Chapel,'

            I almost dropped Daniel upon hearing the voice inside my head. It wasn't Knives, and it surely wasn't my own conscience.

            Placing the now sleeping boy back in the cradle, I walked over to my cross and hoisted it on my back, making sure not to wake the twins or Milly.

            'Going to kill me, are you? Try your luck,'

            "Where are you?" I hissed.

            'Come and find me. It shouldn't be too hard for a bounty hunter of your caliber,'

            I gave up that life. I gave it up for Milly, for Vash, even for that bitch Meryl. I was just a priest now, even though I must have been iles away from December and therefore the orphanage.

            However, what had been ingrained in my soul was still there. I couldn't go back on ten years of my life. I knew how to find someone when I had nothing of them. Hell, that's how I found and killed Leonof. It was how I found Vash again after the incident at Augusta.

            I could find him.

            'Don't be so sure,'

            "Where are you?" I had temporarily forgotten the situation and screamed.

            Within seconds, both twins had awakened and started to cry, and the light in the room had been flicked on. Milly picked up our daughter and started to hush the screaming child, and Meryl soon hurried over to console Daniel.

            Vash stood in the doorway and stared at me. I must have been a sight, standing in the middle of the room with only a pair of trousers on and my hand on one of the straps on my cross.

            "Wolfwood," he said softly. "What's going on?"

            I shook my head and pushed past him, out of the room, out of the house.

********

            Vash found me sitting on the steps of the church again.

            "Didn't you feel it?" I asked suddenly. "For a second, it felt as though there was someone else in the house, besides us.

            "The last time I felt it that strongly was when he came."

            I didn't need to elaborate who 'he' was. Vash understood that I meant Chapel, when my former mentor came to kill me.

            "Something felt wrong. Something had been changed,"

            Vash shook his head. "Everyone was there. No one else was in the house, and no one was on the roof."

            I looked up at him. "You looked on the roof,"

            "It was my first guess. I thought I'd seen someone there a few weeks ago, the day you told me about the woman who vanished in front of the church,"

            Vash paused for a second, seeming to be deep in thought.

            "The woman, did she have a patch on one eye?"

            I racked my brain and finally shrugged. I never saw her face.

            "Why?"

            Vash shuddered. "I know she's dead, but I can't help but wonder,"

            "Wonder what?"

            He stood and picked up my cross. "If there's another Gung-Ho Gun still wandering around out there,"

********

ten years later

            "Daddy, can I have another piggy-back ride?"

            I looked down at the little pixie standing before me. Rebekah, at ten, was thin as a rail, and had wispy black hair that constantly hung in her light blue eyes. The black cat that frequently hung around our home wove in and out of her legs.

            I turned around, stooped, and she climbed on my back. Her twiggy arms looped themselves around my neck and she shrieked with laughter as I raised her into the air.

            In the corner of the room, Daniel looked up, his typical aloof air about him.

            "You're gonna look just like your daddy when you grow up," Milly announced, buttoning Daniel's shirt. "You're already tall and thin just like him,"

            Rebekah twirled around in a circle, showing off her new dress. "I'm gonna marry Daddy when I grow up," she announced, in the light-hearted voice that all children under the age of six seemed to posess.

            I smiled at the memory as I carried my daughter out of the room. It had been six years ago, but it was just so precious.

            Milly and I had moved out of the house that we'd shared with Vash, Meryl, and Knives when the twins were three and Milly had become pregnant again, realizing that we were going to need more room than the small house would provide.

            Now, we were just a few short blocks away, closer to the church, which I'd started holding services in once a month.

            I took Rebekah into the kitchen, where Milly was making dinner, and Ruth, our third child, was placing plates on the table. David, who was just two, (the last one, I swear) was balanced on my wife's hip while she stirred a pot of steaming noodles.

            Rebekah let go of my neck and I slowly let her down to the floor.

            "Mommy!" she said, running over to Milly and giving her a hug. "Uncle Vash came home today."

            Vash had been making occasional journies out to other town and cities as a plant technician, and on his last trip had gone out to December.

            "And guess what!" Rebekah said as Milly handed her little brother off to her. "He brought back a little boy with him from the orphanage out there. Auntie Meryl was so surprised!"

            I looked at Milly over our children's heads and raised an eyebrow. A few years ago, Meryl and Vash had brought back a brother and sister from December, when they had gone for what they called "their own reasons". I had a feeling this pertained to Meryl showing up at Bernardelli headquarters to prove that she and Milly were still alive, not blown to bits by Vash the Stampede, who hadn't done anything catastrophic since he'd been dragged around town by a truck.

            I knew this meant Vash would be coming any moment now to invite us over for dinner.

            "Wolfwood?"

            Predictable.

            "Hey, Chapel, where you hiding?"

            I rolled my eyes and walked out to the living room, where Vash and Knives, who was still using crutches, despite his prosthetic right leg and the left one healing entirely, were standing.

            Daniel looked up at Knives and smiled slightly. The only time I ever saw him smile aside from this was when he saw a couple about my age sitting in the shadows beneath the plant. It had unnerved me greatly.

            He'd been a secretive child, and his mother's affirmations that he looked just like me seemed to aggravate him to no end. I didn't understand him at all, but I knew that some children were just like that. There had been a few in the orphanage, and he also reminded me of that boy, Neil.

            "Why's he here?" I asked Vash.

            He narrowed his aqua eyes at me. "Wolfwood, he's my brother."

            "You don't trust him alone with Chad and Amy," I translated, naming the children he and Meryl had adopted. Chad, the elder of the two, was eleven, a bit older than the twins, and Amy was seven, and Ruth's best friend.

            "I hope Milly wasn't planning anything too spectacular for dinner," Vash said, ignoring my comment while Knives stared at me maliciously. "Because Meryl and I thought we'd invite your family over,"

            Milly appeared at the doorway to the kitchen. "Why, thank you Vash-san," she said sweetly. "That sounds like it would be wonderful,"

            "Besides," Vash said, whispering to me, "I have to speak to you."

********

            Knives, as usual, was hiding in his room. But no one noticed that he was absent.

            Milly and Meryl were talking about something as Meryl was typing something, and the children were all playing together. Well, except Daniel, who was holed up in a corner reading something.

            Vash and I moved out to the porch.

            "I'm almost positive I heard Knives talking to someone the other day," Vash said, staring up at the fifth moon. "And I swear, it sounded just like Legato. I've also been noticing evidence of dust storms around town, which, as you know, is his preferred mode of travel,"

            "How's he managing that?" I asked snippily. "You killed him over eleven years ago,"

            Vash sighed. "I'm starting to think that he survived the shot,"

            "No one survives a gunshot to the head. It's physically impossible."

            "I can't help but wonder,"

            "Vash, he's dead,"

            Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Daniel duck below the windowsill. "Excuse me, but I have to go and speak to my son," I said, heading back inside.

            I sat down next to Daniel, who instantly shirked away from my presence.

            "I just want to look at something." I said quietly, pushing a few locks of hair away from his right ear.

            The little cross birthmark had vanished.

            It's very true that it had just faded with time, but I was curious.

            "Rebekah," I said, waving her over. She pranced over to me. "Can I just see your left elbow?"

            She looked at me quizzically as she pushed her shirt sleeve up past her elbow. Sure enough, the little heart birthmark was still there.

            I nodded. "Thank you, sweetheart,"

            She smiled and scurried back to her mother's side, taking Erick, the boy Vash had just brought home into her lap.

            How strange...

            "I'm going home," Daniel said, standing up.

            I stood up after him.

            "I can find the way. I'm not a baby," he said without turning around. I followed him to the porch and watched until he reached the porch of our house.

§§§§§§§§

            Daniel Wolfwood sat on the railing of the porch of his house, shielding his eyes from the dust that swirled up. He nodded at the three people before him.

            "Have you found it?" the blue-haired man asked. Daniel merely shook his head.

            "It's too well hidden. I'm starting to think it's at the plant,"

            The woman shook her head. "I would have found it by now."

            "Knives said the spiders and his brother know where it is," the black-haired man grabbed Daniel. "You will find out where it is. We need it."

            Daniel just nodded. "I'll find it, Father, don't worry."

            The black-haired man smiled, loosening grip. "In time, I'll have reason to be proud of you. Then you can come back to us,"

            Daniel smiled.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Uh....okay....weird....

--Sunny

This is my uber-holiday present to all me fans! Hope you enjoyed! ^_^