DISCLAIMER: I don't own Trigun
Author; This is not the last chapter, I am sorry for the confusion. What I meant by surprise ending was that I plan on taking the story in yet another direction.
Almost a year later
Knives sat by Renee on the bus. Her warm body was curled against his shoulder. Her chest rose and fell softly as she slept. She had fully undone him. 130 years of hate melted away the day he realized how much he loved her. Vash had teased him for marrying her the day after she woke, but he didn't need anymore time to decide. It disgusted him how he had thought of her when he first met her.
He traced her full rosebud lips with his thumb while he caressed her cheek. Less than two years ago, such affection was useless, even disgusting to him. Acts of affection were foreign and unnecessary expressions of a weak and tenuous emotion he had no need of. Now he couldn't do it enough. Every day he wanted to touch her more and more, and profess a few thousand times more that he loved her. This was not a weak emotion, it was something that started strong and got stronger every day.
He touched her silky hair and frowned at how much of it had turned white. She had insisted that they travel and rejuvenate as many plants as her body would tolerate. This topic had been the start and end of their only arguments. In the end, he could not argue with the necessity of it, or the fact that she was they only one who could do it.
He doubted she would last out another year. It seemed so unfair that he should find someone who so completely healed his soul only to loose her so quickly. He pulled her tightly against him, she was not gone yet. He could not let his time with her be marred by these thoughts. There would be time to mourn after she was gone.
He was grateful he had not had to face any of his past followers yet. Again, there would be time to face them after he had his time with her. He kept tabs on them in the back of his mind. Many of them had killed themselves off in gunfights. That, he wasn't proud of. He had contaminated their minds with his hate. He was responsible for each one. He was responsible for many things he wished he could take back now.
About a week ago, after another healing had left her weak and half conscious, she had turned to him with glazed over eyes. Her hair began to rise as though caught in some unnatural electric current. She fell into his arms and said, "They are calling me. I have to go home. I have to return to the sisters."
He knew the ship of which she spoke. It was in an unusual and unwelcoming rock formation, so it had remained undiscovered by the humans. He was surprised she had been able to reach it at the tender age of ten. He could only attribute that to her indomitable spiritual strength.
They left on the next bus, before she had a chance to recover. They were headed to a town that was surprisingly close to the ship. It would be a bare ten iles from there. Too bad much of it was up such jagged slopes. He wondered why they wanted her. Wasn't she doing exactly what they wanted her too? They shouldn't need healing yet, they had no humans to provide for.
She shifted and whimpered slightly. He hugged her slightly and slid his hand down around her waist. That's when he felt it. Something very faint and primitive. It was a life that wasn't quite life yet, the smallest hint of a sentient soul. He didn't know why, but he began to weep. He wondered if she knew that she was pregnant.
How could she survive a pregnancy or delivery in her constantly weakening condition? He brushed the tears from his eyes and wondered about the baby. If she didn't survive, would it? Would it be more plant or another mutant human? Would he raise the child only to loose her to the same powers that robbed him of its mother? He closed his eyes and breathed in her clean scent. How could he be in such unbearable pain and be so happy at the same time?
Maybe his sisters knew already. Maybe they knew of a way to save his new family. It was too much to be hoping for, but it was the only hope he had at the moment. A man falling off a cliff would grasp the stem of a flower even though he knew it would not keep him from falling.