Author's Note: Just so everyone knows, I do not, I repeat, I do not know anything about Knives' character or what he acts like since I have not seen the episode where Knives and Vash finally make confrontation. I apologize if he is OOC, but hey shit happens. And there's a whole section of italics in this story, and it represents a dream.

Disclaimer: I do not own Trigun

Warnings: Sadness and Death.

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~*The Love and Death of The Past*~

~*Chapter 4 – Heartache*~

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Vash sat in Meryl's living room, chewing on his bottom lip nervously. He could not stand to be under the watchful eye of her brother, sister, and mother at the same exact time. He never wanted to be the scrutiny of the three family members, who were now crowded around a very unconscious Meryl, shooting him dirty looks.

For one, it wasn't his fault. He did call the doctor as soon as he noticed her laying sprawled out on the bathroom floor in her own puddle of blood. But it wasn't his fault. She was the one who stretched her wound and then had to look at him like she did, causing him to get lost in the moment. Then she just had to faint from blood loss.

As soon as he did get a hold of a doctor, and secured the appointment her family members showed up to check up on her. She was fine, she had a towel placed carefully over her wound, resting needlessly on the couch, but then, those looks they gave him when they saw her. God damn it, it wasn't his fault he forgot to put her clothes back on her.

Thinking about the situation, it was all Meryl's fault, completely her fault that she decided to undress in front of him. It was all her fault. He would not take responsibility for it. And well it wasn't his fault she looked so ridiculously yummy without the upper portions of her clothes on either. But thinking about it, Vash realized that it was his fault that he didn't put some clothes back on her. But she just looked so good!

Vash turned away from the three adults and looked out a window. It did look bad on him though. He looked like a complete lecher, not to mention her wound was stretched and had reopened, plus she was unconscious. Things just weren't looking up for him today. All he wanted to do was to be able to visit Meryl, see if she would be all right, and then go about his business. But nooo. Why did life always have to be so cruel to him?

"Well Vash, now that we are here, I think that it is time for you to leave. We can take it from here." Kendra stated as she flipped her blonde hair over her shoulders. Kendra smiled sweetly at him, forcing it no less before turning back to her daughter. Eric still wore a disturbed glare plastered on his face. He just could not look at Vash. What little respect for him that he did have was completely thrown out the window when he arrived.

Kirei however was still shocked. She had never thought to see her sister practically nude, lying on her couch. She thought that Vash was a sweet loving man, but it turned out that he was nothing more than a lecher, a womanizer, a pervert. How was Meryl even able to stand him? Vash looked over towards the family and nodded solemnly. It was time that he did leave after all; Meryl was all stitched up, clothed, and resting ever so peacefully. What exactly did she need him here for?

'I guess that I should leave. It would make things much easier after all.' Vash stood up slowly. He wanted to explain what happened, God how he wanted to explain, but those looks, those looks of pure disgust and hatred that were imbedded in their faces told him not to even try. They did not want to hear what he had to say, besides they might have even thought of it as a lie, which was something he did not want to be deemed as either. He was already the first human disaster, and a lecher. He did not want to be deemed a liar either.

Nodding slowly Vash walked over towards the three people, grimacing as they all stood in front of Meryl, acting as a shield. Sadness seemed to fill Vash's turquoise eyes as he watched this display. He was just saying bye and they were acting like he was going to attack Meryl. 'God damn it all.' Vash thought as he stuck out his hand to Kendra.

The older woman looked at his outstretched hand and then took it gracefully, shaking it only momentarily. Pursing his lips Vash then shook Eric's hand, watching as Eric's dark brown eyes glared at him without contemplation. Kirei came next, but seemed to look at the blonde man as if he were some defiled creature. Vash sighed and grabbed her hand for a spilt second before turning on his heel and walking towards the door. He stopped momentarily only to say good-bye.

"Well, I guess I will see you guys around. Can you tell Meryl that I hope she gets better and not to open any more doors when she is partially naked?" He asked, sarcasm apparent in his voice. Vash laughed to himself as he noticed the looks of pure disgust upon their faces. 'At least they know how to control their tempers. Most people would be trying to kill me by now.' Vash sighed once more before walking out the door and closing it behind him.

Vash leaned against the door the thought of his promise to Meryl coming back to his mind. Was it right to promise her that? He needed to find Knives, once again. Although Knives did vow not to harm anyone else, he still seemed disconnected from the world, as though it were some infectious disease. Something he did not necessarily need. Biting his lower lip Vash descended the steps of the apartment building and stepped into the outside world.

He couldn't help but think that things were going to get a lot worse for him. Scratching his head Vash walked towards the pub. There would be nothing better than to rid himself of his depressing thoughts than a nice glass of Black Velvet.

~*~

Yuki sat at the head of a long table filled with her employees, and one special guest. That certain guest, Yuki could not keep her eyes off of. He was just too beautiful. His golden hair, his blue eyes, his perfect physique, everything about him seemed perfect. Except, his eyes seemed as though he were hiding something. The sad thing about this was Yuki still did not know his name. She had completely forgotten to ask him about it. No less, the images running through her mind about the handsome man left her completely incoherent.

She was not listening to the man previously speaking about their annual money intake, which was now estimated to be 100 billion double dollars as of last week. Yuki did not care whatsoever. She was too distracted by him. He just sat completely still, staring past the woman who sat adjacent of him at the white wall.

Yuki tilted her head to the side as she kept her green eyes plastered to him, trying to read his expression. He looked as though he were bored out of his mind. He stared, his blue eyes transfixed, a bemused smile spreading on his face, and yet he still seemed bored. Another man started to address Yuki on how much money they were spending on the equipment that they used to make their product, but she wasn't listening. Yuki's eyes narrowed slightly as she noticed the smile on his face grow wider.

'What the hell is he smiling about?' Yuki thought as she stared him down some more. Suddenly she jumped, noticing his eyes swivel over to her, and watch her with the same intensity that she was watching him, all the while his smile growing somewhat bigger. 'He's fucking laughing at me. That bastard.' Yuki thought as her spokesperson started calling out her name in order to get her attention.

"Miss Atsui?" He asked as she continued to glare at the newcomer with renewed interest. The man seemed to motion towards her spokesperson with his head, catching her somewhat off guard.

"YUKI!" The man yelled, causing her to jump.

"What the fuck?!" She yelled unintentionally. The people in the room seemed to wince at her sudden outbreak of anger. Yuki closed her green eyes slightly before taking a deep breath. She lifted her head up, pushing her dark hair over her shoulders before nodding at the man. "My apologies, now what were you saying?" She ascertained, her voice calm and filled with a false kindness. The brunette man nodded slowly before continuing on with his topic.

"It seems that people have been getting extremely worried about the number of loved ones that have gone missing. What should we do about this?"

"Absolutely nothing. Why do you ask?" Yuki asked finally able to get her attention off of the object of observation. She straightened up slightly as she kept her eyes on the brunette who was head of the production branch. He was short and round, with a thick mustache and very beady black eyes. His cheeks were rosy, and he had very full thick lips. His voice didn't match his outer exterior however, for he sounded very small and meek. Not to mention he was a complete coward. That had to be the only reason that Yuki had hired him in the first place.

"If they get any Insurance company on us we'll be torn apart. Their investigative branch will track their purchases easily, and then trace it back to us. What will we do? We just can't risk it." Yuki sat for a moment, contemplating their situation. She had ordered the disposal of a good number of clients that she had because she did not allow them to buy her product. Their financial background was one of the main reasons, and then their occupation was the second reason that she never did sell to them. Chewing her lower lip she thought about a course of action, coming to nothing. She sighed in frustration, she would simply leave it up to intelligence.

"It seems like your company has a lot of unneeded loose ends. The only reason that can happen is if there is an unfit leader running it." A voice spoke out of nowhere. Yuki turned her attention to the source of the voice and glared. Nobody was going to insult her like that. She stood up abruptly placing her hands against the cool glass surface of the table.

"Before I order your death, tell me, what is your name?" Yuki asked, holding in her anger for a slight moment. She would not let his crude comment get to her. She would ride it out, she was strong, and she did not care. She would be the grown up person in this situation, but that did not mean that she couldn't at least order his death, did it? The man stood up as well, running his fingers through his short blonde hair.

"Knives, not that it matters if you are going to kill me. But do tell me, why would you order the death of someone that you admire so openly?" A grin flashed across his features as her eyes narrowed dangerously. He knew that she was watching him earlier, and he just sat there and allowed it to happen. Now he was making a complete fool out of her in front of her peers. She would not allow it; her pride would not let her allow it. 'He will die'. Forget ordering him to die, she would kill him herself.

Moving quickly she pulled her gun from its holster that was hidden under her business jacket. She pulled the safety back quickly and pointed the gun at Knives. She placed her finger on the trigger, ready to shoot. She would not allow him to make a mockery of her. The sun glistened of the black metal of the gun, blinding some of the executives of the board. Others too had pulled out their guns, to use only for protection. Yuki however was surprised. Knives wasn't the only one at the end of a gun, she was as well.

Smiling she sweetly she eased up slightly, before motioning for her guards to come and take Knives away. They grabbed the man roughly, pulling his gun away from him and tossing it at Yuki who caught it easily. Her eyebrow rose in question as the gun felt incredibly light. She wanted to examine it, but something else caught her attention. She looked up quickly, frowning in dismay, as it was Knives. The guards were trying to remove him, but he wouldn't budge. 'What in the hell?' Yuki thought, as she stayed completely motionless.

"It seems that Meryl gets to live a little longer then. What a pity." Knives commented as he pushed the guards away from him. He turned around quickly, striding out of the room with great ease. Yuki glared at his retreating back and dropped the gun on the glass table, smiling wickedly as it cracked. She could not believe that she was so blind as to forget about why Knives was there in the first place. It did not matter though. Since Knives was being so discrete about his information, she would go looking for Meryl herself. It would only be a matter of time before intelligence tracked her down anyways.

Sitting down in her chair she leaned back, folding her hands in front of her. All of the people in the room watched Yuki with mild interest before looking back towards the large man who still seemed to have a startled expression on his face. Yuki glanced at him, motioning to him with her head to continue, and he did so obediently.

"I think that the best way to be able to keep this problem from surfacing is to just eliminate the entire family. It's the most adequate way in my eyes."

"That's enough Stevens. People have friends; they will be sure to report that they are missing. Collins." Yuki looked towards a tall, somewhat muscular man, who sat next to her. She trusted this man the most out of every single person within her corporation. He looked at her, his hazel eyes searching her cold, blank expression before nodding to show that he had heard her. Yuki looked towards a spot at the wall, thinking of her newest task.

"I want your intelligence team to do a search on a woman named Meryl Stryfe. Tell me everything you find out about her. That is all. This meeting is dismissed." She stated as stood up. She grabbed her gun, stuck it back into its holster, and then smoothed out her black business suit. Yuki stopped suddenly before turning to pick up Knives' gun. Slowly she pulled the clip out and frowned. It was empty. She walked towards the door, Knives' gun in her hand, her black pumps clicking against the marble floor.

She placed her hand on the silver door handle, before turning around quickly, and throwing his gun at the glass table with all her might. Everyone scattered as the gun connected with it, shattering it at contact. Yuki let out a long breath of satisfaction as she looked at some of the bloodied faces of her workers.

"Miranda, buy me a new table. Everyone else get back to work." Yuki said to her accountant who managed to go unharmed by the shattered table. The blonde woman nodded as she watched Yuki walk out of meeting room, slamming the glass doors behind her. The glass cracked, spider-webbing slowly. Miranda frowned slowly and turned towards Collins slowly.

"How in the hell do you fuck that bitch?" She asked, her arms folding over her neat black business suit. Collins smiled as he walked over towards the splintering glass door and shrugged his shoulders.

"Just comes naturally. Oh and Miranda dear, I think that we will need a new door as well." He stated before he exited the room to start on his new assignment. He walked down the hall, the name Yuki had given him running through his mind.

'Meryl Stryfe.'

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Gunshots could be heard all around her, deafening her to an extreme. She had her head buried into the crook of her knees, waiting for her mother to return. Tears were streaming from her eyes as she stayed in her hiding place under the kitchen sink. Her mom had hidden her there, that way she would not be able to be hurt by the people who had broken into her house.

She pulled her knees closer to her chest as she heard her mother shouting, as more gunshots followed. She promised her mother that she would be quiet, but she wanted to cry out. She was just so frightened. Every time she inhaled chemicals entered her air passage, poisoning her lungs. She needed to get out. She choked back on more tears as she wiped her eyes and her nose with the sleeve of her black blouse. She wanted to get out.

She could hear her mother screaming again, but this time, she was screaming in agony. The girl covered her ears, blocking out as much sounds as she could, not wanting to hear her mothers agonizing screams.

"Mommy, stop it mommy. Don't make me hurt like this mommy." The little girl cried as her mothers screams persisted. She needed to get out; she needed to see what was wrong with her mother. "But I promised mommy, I promised mommy. I can't leave my spot. Stop it Mommy!" She cried loudly as her mothers screams grew louder. It only took the child a moment to realize that her mother was crying out her name. The child took in deep ragged breaths as she dropped her hands to her side and pushed open the cabinet door.

She crawled along the floor, hiding behind the walls as people walked passed, completely oblivious as the young 10 year old girl crawled passed them, broken glass indenting itself into the palm of her hands. The girl stopped quickly as she made it into her ransacked living room, hiding behind the couch. She stayed there; aware of the fact that she would not be seen by anyone because of the angle the couch was towards the wall.

 She could hear her mothers sobbing, and she wished that she would be able to reach her hand out and touch her. She wanted to comfort her crying mother, but she knew she could not touch her. These people would hurt her along with her mother. She knew that her mother would be sad if she had gotten hurt.

"Where is your child?" A man asked her mother. The child touched the back of her couch, pretending that she was touching her mother. How she wished to be in her mother's arms right now. How she wished to hear her mother's heart beating in that single moment.

"I don't know!" The woman lied. Suddenly a gun went off. The woman shrieked in pain, causing the child to cover her ears quickly and sob loudly.

"Mommy!" She yelled. Suddenly she was picked up from off the ground and thrown against the floor. The child look up bewildered, shrieking in fear as she looked up the barrel of a gun. She was suddenly scooped up again, and pulled into the safety of her mother's arms. The child looked at her mother, her gray eyes wide with fear.

"It's ok Angel. Don't worry, they wont hurt you." She stated holding her daughter against her gunshot wounds. The child wasn't stupid though. She could feel a warm liquid soaking threw her black shirt, but she only pulled closer to her mother's body.

"Mommy, you're bleeding." The little girl sobbed loudly as she buried herself into her mother's chest, grasping her mothers white dress tightly within her fists.

"It's ok Angel. It's going to be all right." And with that, the woman pushed her child off of her, throwing her to the ground, and then lunged at her attackers. The child looked up from her spot at the ground, her eyes growing wide with horror as she watched her mother's white dress billow behind her, stained with blood.

Gunshots fired through the air, hitting her mother. The little girl knew what she had to do, but she didn't want to leave her mother. She heard her mother's cries as her body hit the floor and her attackers continued to shoot at her. The child quickly crawled out of the room and outside. The people who had attacked them were too preoccupied with killing her mother to even notice the child leave.

The girl hid behind a large shed next to her small house. She sat there, tears streaming down her small face, her gray eyes barely recognizable. She watched the people dressed in black suits exit her house and then what seemed to be the leader of the group talk to all of them.

"Search out here and find the brat. Yuki said she wanted her dead too. Move out." The girl's eyes widened. A group of two headed over towards the shed immediately, and she began to crawl away as quickly as possible, hiding as well as she could behind the shrubbery. She scaled the side of the house, landing under her open bedroom window. She jumped up quickly, climbing in it and the running towards the living room. She had not been seen by anyone.

The little girl stopped dead in her tracks as she saw her mother lying in a crumpled heap on the floor, her angelic white gown drenched in blood. She crawled over to her mom and placed her hands against her back, smiling with joy as she felt her mother breathing gently.

"So this is where you were hiding." A voice said. The girl looked up quickly fear in her eyes as she stared at another barrel of a gun. She backed up quickly, climbing up onto the couch and curling into a fetal position. She heard the man laughing at her fear and she turned and faced him, tears streaming down her red puffy face. As she turned, her hand touched something cold. She immediately looked down and saw that it was a gun. She picked it up quickly, aiming it at the man, and pulled the trigger.

Time stood still for the young 10-year-old girl, as the bullet whizzed through the air, hitting the man directly in the forehead. She watched as the man's blood splattered, his forehead opening, and then watched his body fall to the ground in a lifeless heap. The girl looked at the gun, as she held it steadily in her hand. It was a small derringer. She remembered her mother using these before when someone tried to hurt her. Her mother usually kept them hidden under her dresses. The girl quickly crawled off the couch and walked towards the window, crouching down underneath it so that she could hear the people outside.

"It seems as though she was found, lets go report to Yuki." The man said as she heard everyone file into three cars. She peeked out the window, sighing in satisfaction as the cars drove off, leaving her all alone. Quickly she crawled over to her mother and turned her body over, to stare into the gray eyes of the dark haired woman.

"My Angel." The woman said as she placed a bloody hand against the child's cheek. The girl burst out into tears and held her mother's bloody hand to her face, not wanting to let it go.

"I-I-I k-k-killed someone mommy! I'm sorry!" She yelled as she cried even louder. The mother sshhhed her daughter and then stroked her face with her bloody thumb.

"I love you Angel." The mother coughed loudly, causing blood to pour out of her mouth, and fly all over the little girls face. The child did not care though. She only wanted her mother to be all right.

"I just want you to know," another cough interrupted her, as more blood spilled from her mouth and from her wounds," that you will always be my little angel." Tears poured from her mother's eyes as she said these last words. Her hand slid from her daughters face to her daughter's hand and squeezed it tightly, before falling completely slack. The child's gray eyes widened as she watched her moms hand drop from her very own, and hit the blood soaked floor.

She didn't cry however. She had no more tears to cry. The girl looked at her mother, clad in her white, blood soaked dress, and then over to one of her mother murderers, the assassin that was dressed in nothing but black. The little girl looked down at her own clothes and shook her head. She was in nothing but black as well. Disgust filled her entire body, but then sorrow overtook the feeling of disgust that had welled up inside of her. The little girl clenched her fists tightly and drew her knees up to her chest, hugging them tightly.

"No mommy, I'm not an angel. Real Angels wear white, even if it is soaked in blood." And the little girl just sat there, her mother's dead body in front of her. The little girl stared at the floor, her own clothes soaking up the blood that was lost from her mother's body. The little girl felt helpless, and then slowly, silent tears flowed from her eyes. She just sat there waiting, waiting for the police to come, waiting to be taken away from her past, and into her future.

~*~

Her gray eyes opened quickly, and her breathing had increased. Sweat dripped off the ends of her short hair, and it was sliding off of her face quickly, dousing the pillow that her head rested against. She closed her eyes tightly as silent tears flowed from her eyes, the horror still replaying within her mind.

'No, please no. Mommy.'

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Author's Note: I plead temporary insanity for the beginning of this chapter. The writing of this chapter took a lot out of me AND damn, that last part was hard to write. Tis sad I know. I'm sorry, but now you know of Meryl's past. I needed a way to get it into the story, and what better way to do it than have Meryl dream about it. Probably not as scarring as Kirei's past is, but hey would you want to tell people about how you watched your mother die? Would you want to tell people of how you killed someone when you were only 10 years old? Oh and by the way Meryl hitting that guy in the forehead was only a fluke. Anyways, tell me what you think and REVIEW!

~*Neko-Sama*~