Disclaimer: I do not own Trigun and this fic has been nagging my brain for sometime now so please be nice! The timeline? Ten months after the final fight.
She walked into the saloon with her head bopping to the music of the headphones she swiped. She giggled to herself a bit as she ignored the stares she was getting. She sat at the bar and the bartender handed her a glass of water. She thanked him and went back to bopping her head to the music. If she knew him he'd probably be sitting in the house plotting on the easiest way to kill either her and her friend… or at least pretending to plot on the easiest way to kill them. She trusted him to not do anything especially if he cared for his brother at all. She sat a little bit longer while contemplating her predicament. Meryl was off running around trying to remember a past that makes her abnormal… but some things that have been going on for the past two days has brought the memories rushing back sooner and well, she remembered it all… and she just knew Meryl was going to blow her top when she finally got every last detail.
"Bye, now!" Millie stood leaving the saloon and trudged back to the home she had left. She entered the home and saw him sitting in the corner of the room trying to glare holes into the walls. She looked at him for a moment before turning up the music louder then went into Vash's room to take care of Meryl.
"…" Knives looked at the door that swung shut. She… She had been acting very differently since she had looked at that picture of Rem… almost as if she had been kicking herself.
She pouted looking out of the window. Vash had insisted that she should rest and take a break since they had been traveling and she hadn't properly rested since the city they had been in chased them out of it. Of course that made everything perfectly okay for him to go out and get some food while the people in this city knew who he truly was and their trust for him was very little.
"You shouldn't worry about him… he has a way of getting out of trouble should it follow him." Lina said.
"Of course he has a way of doing so. What amazes me is that he does it without killing anybody." Meryl said.
"He's always been one to get things done with as little damage as possible."
"Tell me something I don't know…"
"His body has scars all over it…"
"I know that too, and one of his arms isn't real and he has a twin brother."
"He does?"
"Oh yeah he does…" Meryl said watching the sun set. "Alright I say it's been at least five hours since he left and I'm bored! Is there any place I can go to hang out?"
"I suppose there's always the saloon. They won't serve us any alcohol but we can go and sit in on a game of cards or something…" Lina said thoughtfully.
"Let's do it then!!" Meryl stood up and removed the doctor's jacket she still wore and underneath that had been the outfit she wore to the last bar she went into. Lina looked at her funny. "Are we going on not?"
"Grandma! I'm going to show Meryl around the city we should be back shortly!" Lina called to the older woman and they took off. As they walked down the street Meryl bopped to her own music as Lina gave her a funny look.
"Oh come on girl you mean to tell me you've never actually just danced because you felt like it. You know to the music in your own head?" Meryl asked laughing at the face directed towards her.
"No… People will think you're a lunatic if you do that?"
"Exactly the reaction I want to stir. You've got to loosen up girl! Have fun, do things you normally wouldn't only to shake things up a bit and start trouble!" Meryl yelled walking down the street. Suddenly some drunken fellow was thrown out of the bar. Lina and Meryl looked at the man as he uttered some obscene words. He then looked at the two females before a stupid smirk crossed his face with an ugly orange and green tie hung from around his head.
"Ladies! What brings you here?" He sighed
"You know… you shouldn't really drink, Vash." Meryl stood there with her hands on her hips taping her foot. He sat up and laid back down on the ground. "He's so going to be sick when he decides to come to…"
"I don't think with our combined strength we can carry him back…" Lina pointed out only to find the doors to the saloon swing open.
"Oh come on you mean to tell me a cute girl like me can't walk into a saloon where a really party's going on?" She asked getting several odd stares form the men and women who were sitting around playing cards and drinking as much booze as possible for the evening. "Hmm…" She thought and went up the man who plays the piano and she requested a song.
"What is she doing?" Lina asked looking through the saloon doors unaware that a drunken Vash was mildly paying attention. Lina could only giggle when the female started to perform for the group gaining more and more odd stares before a few people began to appreciate her music. It was an old song… really old.
"So… On the first night a pebble falls to earth from somewhere." The worlds left her lips so easily… She had known that song from when she was very young… "So… On the second night the pebble's children hold hands and sketch a waltz. Sound life."
"That song…Rem." Vash behind Lina began to cry his eyes out making Lina give him a funny look. His tears only seemed to pick up as the song continued. When the song ended several people began making requests for other songs.
*~*~*
"I can't believe you did that!!!" Lina giggled looking over her shoulder at the couple of men Meryl had convinced to help her carry Vash back to the house since he eventually just passed out completely.
"Yeah well, it just happens sometimes. I get an urge to do something and I usually do. Unfortunately it's a trait that goes away with age."
"Well don't ever lose that pretty voice of yours young lady." One of the guys carrying Vash said. Lina opened the door to the house.
"I'll try not to…" She said stepping aside so the men could set Vash down on the couch where he stayed.
"Hey, Meryl…" Lina stopped the girl before she disappeared into the guest bedroom. "That first song you sang? What was it?"
"I don't know the name of it… why?"
"Well, Vash started to… never mind." She said making Meryl shrug. She went into her room and continued to hum that song. After wrapping the doctor's coat around her again and she set her many derringers under her pillow she glanced at her reflection. She looked at her face and too felt the need to cry with the memory of the song playing faintly in her mind as she drifted to sleep.
"Leave her alone! She's just a child!" A woman's voice yelled.
"Don't you get it?!?! She's going to die! My pride and joy is going to die! I won't let her."
"But she's fourteen… the doctors said…"
"They said she'll suffer severe trauma… and chances of her pulling through is very slim."
"But don't test it on her!"
"Just leave! I'll do it alone then." He said ignoring the tearful plea that was sent her way.
"I'll help… but do you really think it's wise?"
"Listen to me… I've worked this out completely! It will work…Don't you trust me?!" He said as his phone rang. He muttered a few choice words and answered it.
"Meryl, honey… I don't know the complete details my dear but don't worry. All I know is that when this over with you'll be better physically but what it'll do mentally I don't know."
"Dinner is ready Knives!" Millie called out and only got silence back as her answer. She giggled thinking he was probably still pouting in his room.
He managed to eat her pudding which only made her stun gun him again out of anger. Only then she realized she must've hurt him since he was groaning in pain. She took him down off the wall and saw that she had managed to bruise him. She kept apologize fifty times a minute as she placed ice on the bruise she gave him while wondering where her temper came from, especially seeing how it wasn't like her.
He then said something that offended her; so she hit him… well tried to and he easily evaded her blows. She continued to get mad with him and she had continued to yell at him and backed him up to the couch and they both slipped. She landed on him making him groan in pain once more, but this time is wasn't in his torso that got hurt… more like the 'family jewels' was introduced with his knee..
"Knives?" She asked hearing a door slam shut. She then heard footsteps come into the kitchen while she finished the final preparations. "Glad you decided to come…" Her voice was as chipper as always. "I hope you washed you hands!" She said and stood straight when she felt a presence behind her. It didn't feel right, not like the mildly cold presence of knives but cold as ice feeling. "Knives?" She turned around and a few feet behind her had been some one she'd never seen before. His hair was the same honey as hers and his eyes the same blue but they were a lot colder.
"Astral Projection 2, I presume?" He asked as her body began to tremble. Without warning the guy's hand reached out and wrapped itself around her throat cutting off her breathing passage. Her hand frantically seemed to search for the knife she had just been using but she only managed to knock it to the floor as well as anything else she had been cutting up.