Standard disclaimers apply. Timeframe is shortly before the Fifth Moon incident. NOTE: "Yarz" is the Trigun term for distance. Equivalent to either "yards" or "miles". Enjoy.
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Meryl couldn't sleep.
It was 3:30 in the morning, the house was completely silent, and Meryl. Couldn't. Sleep. She'd been tossing and turning all night until Milly had sleepily told her to either go for a walk or to lay still, because even if she couldn't, other people were trying to SLEEP. So she got up and went for a short walk in the cool Gunsmoke night.
At least, that's what she intended on doing.
In actuality, she never made it past the door next to hers and Milly's. As she was tip-toeing past, a rustle and an indistinctly murmured name prompted her to look inside. There she saw a sleeping now-quiet Vash, clad in his striped pajamas, curled up around a pillow. The light of one of the many moons of the planet filtered through the sheer curtains of the room to softly illumine his face, with those now-closed startlingly green eyes and straw-colored hair. Meryl walked into the room, taking care to move quietly as to not awaken him, and pulled up a chair next to his bedside. He looked like an angel, sleeping as he did, but if you looked closely, you could see that no true angel would ever have the same look of permanent sadness and determination that his face carried even in sleep. In his loose pajamas, you could see some of the scars that were normally hidden by his high- necked coat- scars from wounds this fallen angel had sustained in the name of his belief of "Love and Peace". Meryl sat down on the chair, watching him sleep.
Has it really been only two years since I first met him? It feels like it's been a lifetime. At first it was just a job...Find the infamous Vash the Stampede and control any damage he might cause. But then...it turned into this. I'm not even quite sure what "this" is. Following you from town to town, watching you deal with the people whom you love, but who know nothing of your "Love and Peace". You fool...this belief of yours is going to get you killed one of these days. She smiled sadly at that thought. People were just too twisted and complex to allow something as simple and beautiful as "Love and Peace" to remain existing. Ironic, that the most caring, sweet man she'd ever known would be feared as "The Human Typhoon" and as a "Human Act of God". "Poor baby..." she softly whispered as she reached out a hand to stroke his now-floppy hair. After a moment's hesitation not an inch from his head, she began to caress the hair of the sleeping man.
I haven't exactly been the easiest traveling companion now, have I? Over all those yarz...I've always been yelling at you for being a goofball. But you've always been the most competent one out of all of us, even after Wolfwood joined us. I never thought I'd be here, you know. I took the insurance job for money to send back to my family. My mother and father aren't exactly well off, you know. No, you wouldn't. I never talk about my family...unlike Milly and her mile-long letters. Another wry smile graced her normally unsmiling lips as she continued her silent one-sided conversation. Come to think of it, you don't talk about your family either. Actually, you don't talk about yourself much at all. You're too busy trying to make us laugh, or to rile me to talk. I've been with you for two years and I don't know anything about you except that you're the sweetest, silliest, most caring, most honorable man I've ever met. And I love you. Her eyes flew open as wide as they could go after partially drifting shut during her interior monologue. Did she just say that she loved him? For years, her job had been the first and only priority in her life. Had this doughnut-loving, broomheaded gunman somehow usurped that place?
"Rem....." Vash murmured. Meryl's eyes popped open even wider, if that was possible, in shock. Had he been awake? No, he was calling for Rem, after all. Then he grabbed hold of her arm and pulled her toward him, cradling her arm much like he had been holding his pillow a few minutes ago. "Rem..." he began again, "I'm sorry, Rem....I'm sorry....," he continued to whisper as tears began to gather in his closed eyes and leak down his face. Oh Vash, she thought, heart aching for his sorrow, You've gone through so much, more than I can even imagine. You always laugh and goof off so much; it's hard to believe you've got so much sadness inside. She reached with her free hand to find a tissue to wipe his tears with, and finding none, gently touched his eyes to rid them of the tears. You've got such long lashes, she mused, absentmindedly letting her finger fall to the small birthmark on his cheek. They say that those with a mole near their eye will be sure to live a life of sadness. That's been true for you, hasn't it? After a moment's pause, she continued. I think I would like to try to take some of your sadness from you, if I could. Her deep blue eyes looked closely at his closed green ones when she felt him take hold of her other arm, holding her against the side of his bed, but they were shut tight, with a light expression of pain written across his face. With a sigh, she arranged herself into a slightly more comfortable position sitting on the floor, instead of on her knees and returned to thinking.
She'd been by his side for the last two years, pestering him for most of that, but even so, two years of observing him had made her gradually care for her generous, silly-acting assignment, despite her firm resolve to never allow business and personal matters to interfere with each other. Even so, she realized as she thought back, that didn't stop her from missing him on those rare circumstances when he was away from his entourage of "Insurance Girls", and even getting jealous when he flirted with other girls. The recent events with Monev the Gale and Dominique the Cyclops had shown her his deep-buried melancholy, which only served to strengthen her need to protect this amazingly competent, yet naïve-seeming and sensitive man. She looked up at the now-vulnerable man lying on the bed a few inches above her and indulged in a few moments' appreciation of how the moonlight lit his face. The green eyes that, when open, could be alternately brimming with a waterfall of tears or sparkling with mischief, and sometimes shining with compassion. The blond hair that now fell onto the pillows under his head instead of in the spiky mass it was usually in, the angular face with its defined but not too sharp planes, the lips that would curve into a smile that warmed her heart as much as his grin would infuriate her. The hands and arms now enclosing hers, each marked with a lacework of scars- mementos from battles for an ideal of peace. She realized, the more she thought about it, that she did love him. That no matter how dangerous things got, she would always be by his side, and he would always be in her mind. She knew dangerous things were coming- that some had already come, but she was now determined to be with him through it all. He had shouldered enough burdens, gone through enough pains and sorrows. It was her turn to take some of them for him. And she'd be there to take them and to protect him, not only as Insurance Girl, but as the woman who loved him. During this time, she had noticed that his arms' grip had slackened enough to allow her to slip her arms out from under them, and as she stood up, she did so. Armed with her newfound knowledge and the bravery that comes from love and a sleeping beloved, she bent down and kissed him ever-so-softly, still careful not to wake him. As she stood, she whispered in his ear "I love you, my angel" and carefully crept out the door and into her own room, where she quickly fell fast asleep, the feel of the sweetest kiss of her life still lingering on her lips.