"Damn."

After Vash's brief fight with the two bounty hunters in LH, Meryl had driven them away for about eight hours before they made their first stop. There had been no buildings or people around, but the three of them had decided that it would be okay to get dressed at that point. All three of them had had clothes in the car. The Humanoid Typhoon had been silent the whole trip. Not angry, or depressed; he was just withdrawn. Both Meryl and Millie had been unable to draw him into conversation. All he did was stare out the window at nothing.

Vash's curse caught the attention of both women. "What's wrong?" Meryl asked as they turned towards him. All they could see of him was his armored backside and legs sticking out of the vehicle's trunk.

The gunman pulled himself out of the trunk and threw a disgusted look at her through his sunglasses. Meryl snorted. His travel pack had been destroyed along with his jacket in the fire at the hotel, yet he still seemed to have stashes of sunglasses heaven knew where.

"The only clothes I have are the ones you bought for me," he told her sourly. Millie sat down to quietly contemplate the sand dunes. Meryl hurried over to Vash to look at the clothes he held in his hands.

"It's okay, Mr. Vash," Millie told him over his shoulder. "You really do look good in them."

"And they'll help disguise you," Meryl added, standing on her tip toes and giving him a quick kiss. She gave him a mischievous look. "Do you need help changing?"

The redness of his blush made the yellow of his hair and sunglasses stand out all the more. He didn't bother answering her, he just stomped off and over a dune.

Meryl fidgeted with her cloak for a moment, then walked over to her friend. "Are you okay Millie?" she asked. "You've been so quiet."

"I just . . . I just have to believe he's in their somewhere, Meryl," the tall, brown haired woman said, her voice barely above a whisper.

Instantly, Meryl knew who she was referring to. "I don't know, Millie," she replied. "He's tried to kill us several times. Wolfwood would never have done that."

Millie nodded woodenly, and then was silent. Knowing that she wouldn't get any more talk out of her, Meryl made tracks over to where Vash was changing. She stared at his bare back for a moment, watching his muscles move underneath his skin.

"Aren't you going to react?" she demanded.

He stiffened. "What do you mean?" he asked as he started to strip the body armor off of his legs.

"A couple of hours ago, you killed two men," she reminded him, "which brings your grand total up to four now. Shouldn't you be showing some kind of emotions?"

Vash turned back to her, now fully naked except for his sunglasses. "What do you want?" he asked caustically. "For me to start balling my head off?"

Meryl snorted. "That's how you've reacted to better situations in the past."

The gunman turned back around and pulled some underwear and an undershirt out of the stack of clothes. "Things change. I've changed."

The short, dark haired woman didn't reply. She just waited for him to continue. "When the second person you kill is your own brother, it burns you out. Quickly. Or you turn psychotic."

She frowned at him. "But it isn't as though you've had enough time to get over anything."

Vash finished pulling his undershirt over his head and stooped to pick up a pair of slacks. "How long was I gone, when I left to find my brother?"

Her eyes narrowed. "About two weeks," she replied in a cautious tone.

The Humanoid Typhoon nodded and buttoned his pants. "It only a day and a half to get to where Knives was. I had the rest of that time to myself, to think."

Meryl walked over to the pile of body armor and clothes and picked his shirt up off of the sand. She gave it a quick shake to remove the sand, then handed it to him. "But why didn't he stink if he'd been dead for nearly two weeks?" Her hand jerked up to cover her mouth when she realized what she had just said.

"He never will," Vash's face remained stony as he pulled the shirt over his head. He ran his hands through his hair to stand it back up. "That's part of being a Plant. After a Plant dies, their body remains intact and undamaged until they can't generate any more energy.

"That's something that the old Plant engineers learned was a side effect of the genetic manipulation: if a Plant started out as a living creature, then energy would be generated until the Plant was drained. Knives' body wont start to rot for a good many years," he finished.

Meryl couldn't think of any reply, so she turned and walked back to the car to think.

A couple of moments later, Vash returned, dressed in a deep maroon shirt, black slacks, and wearing his two pistols in shoulder holsters. Meryl tugged on the collar of his shirt, and kissed him one more time before they all piled back in the car and took off.

It wasn't for another week, when they arrived at a town with a sand steamer station, that Meryl was able to find time alone with Vash. And then, only because of the increased security that he paid the captain to place around their rooms. In the middle of the night on their fourth night on the steamer, Meryl brought up the subject of their engagement.

"I don't know when we can get married," he replied to answer her question. "I'm not sure anymore if we should."

Lying next to him, she ran her hand across his chest and tilted her head to look up at him. "What is that supposed to mean?"

Vash tilted his head to meet her eyes. "It means that for as long as I live, this is my life. Bounty hunters are always going to be following me. Everyone that touches me dies, or will at least always be in serious danger. I still don't want to kill if I don't have to, and I'm starting to think that can be best accomplished if I'm alone."

Meryl listened to him calmly, then stretched up and kissed his chin when he finished talking. "Listen to me, Vash," she told him. "Think about it: have you been in more trouble or less trouble since you've met Millie and me?"

"Overall, less," he answered. "But it has been a little worse than usual."

"So, I stay," she told him in a tone that would brook no discussion. "And listen well: I don't care where we get married, when we get married, or if we get married. What matters is that we're together. And we'll always be together."