DISCLAIMER: I don't own Trigun

Author: Here is the final chapter. Enjoy and review!

Renee's point of View

I remember floating. When I tried to use the last of my strength it was like I had opened a flood gate. Before that, when I used my powers, it felt like I was spooning off a helping of water from a well. It was a well whose depth was unknown. When I healed Knives and my child I expected the well to suddenly come up dry. Instead, I found myself immersed in a power so vast and infinite that it swallowed me whole. Then there was darkness.

As I drifted in that void of nothingness I felt the power grow listless and hungry. It needed to feed on something. I wasn't enough. Horrible pain suddenly shot through me. I felt something stab me, and dig into the flesh of my stomach roughly. I became all too aware of my daughter. She was panicked, and afraid. She was being hurt. I called out to the power, and I reached out to it. Instead of being some thing I borrowed from, it became my own.

I commanded it to attack and devour my child's attacker. I ordered it to fill its hunger with their very essence. I felt four more stabbing pains along my arm, and then a rush of supreme energy. The purest form of power filled me. My infinite sea of power somehow got even larger.

My eyes flung open, but I could not move the rest of me. I saw Knives crying and laughing. Simultaneously I felt the power pulse. It told me it had a purpose, it must be allowed to complete itself. I thrust an image of my friends and family into it and ordered that these people should not be hurt. It welcomed the images into it, and honored my love for them.

I felt the power tighten into a ball. It was an incredible pressure, like someone trying to force an ile long spring into a ten foot box. The pain was tremendous, and just as I was going to cry out in utter agony, it exploded. The power took on a life of its own. I felt myself falling, but I could no longer see past the blinding light around me. In a matter of seconds the light cleared again.

All around me was new life, and green plants I had never dreamed to see. I saw Knives laying on the ground, and Vash and Meryl hovering over him. I almost wept for joy, but then I felt a blanket of silk weaving around me. It was swallowing me, trapping me in it. Before I could call out for help the darkness took me again.

Yet, here I am again. I was sure I had died, twice. I had felt the very instant my heart stopped both times. Now I feel it beating again, and I am aware that I am trapped in some sort of shell. The power is still around me, shifting and changing me. It is preparing me for something. Where is my daughter? I do not feel her within me. Where is my daughter? Let me out!

Knives watched the other's sleeping peacefully. To include his lovely daughter. She had learned to absorb her golden butterfly wings much like he could absorb and recreate his angel arms. She looked to be the size of a four-year-old now. It had been months since she hatched.

Knives looked over at what he was now sure was Renee's cocoon. Why hadn't it hatched yet? Was there something wrong? He got up and walked over to it. He placed his hands on it and laid his ear on it, hoping to hear some kind of stirring. Nothing.

He sat back from it and sighed. Each day that passed he worried a little more. What if she never came out? He could wait a hundred years to see her again, but what if that day never came?

Tha-Thump, Tha-Thump, Tha-THump.

It was the sound of a pulsing heart. Knives looked up and saw a pulsating silver glow towards the center of the cocoon. It accompanied the beating sound in perfect time. The sound grew louder and the light got stronger. Vash was the first one to wake from the sound. He shook Meryl and Knive's daughter, and pointed toward the cocoon. They all watched in stunned silence.

Soon the cocoon was emitting bright silver light. Then the light concentrated along a seem and split the cocoon in half. Knives crawled backwards away from it, to give it room. The cocoon stood half-opened like a cradle, and shriveled silver wings peeked up over its rim. The wings expanded and dried in a matter of seconds, and their fuzzy protective coating flaked off. The cocoon split and fell away, shriveling down to nothing, and there she lay. She laid there on her stomach, blanketed with long white hair down to her ankles. Her massive silver wings pumped up and down slowly, and then began to quiver. As they quivered a sparkling silver dust coated her, and she began to stir.

Slowly, she opened her beautiful sliver eyes. As she stood, her wings absorbed into her. The dust sparkled as it fell from her hair. Where it landed forests of flowers and insects suddenly emerged. She turned to Knives, who stood awe-struck by her metamorphosis. Those sparkling silver eyes were Renee's without a doubt but the rest of her he barely recognized. As hard as it was for him to image, her shape had become even more beautiful and womanly. She as unreal. She was a creature of fantasy.

Vash Blushed bright red when he realized he was staring at beautiful naked woman in front of his girlfriend. He tried to play it off with an act of shivery. He untied the dust cloak he'd been wearing since abandoning his red trench coat at the site of his last fight with Knives. He smiled sheepishly at Meryl who was already fuming, and he quickly made his way over to Renee, wrapping her in it. Then he quickly rushed back to Meryl and kept his back to Renee. Meryl glared at him. She wasn't buying it. He had stared for too long. Vash whimpered slightly, knowing he would get an ear full later.

Knives stared at his now covered bride and she stared back. It was like all at once they had become strangers and didn't know what to say to break the ice. Meryl and Vash, though facing each other, said nothing. They waited for a reaction, any at all. Renee and Knive's daughter also seemed mindful of the tension. She cowered behind Meryl's cape.

Renee took a cautious step forward. Her foot shook where it stood as though the ground would give way beneath her. Knives stepped forward also, just as sheepishly. They both took a less cautious step, then another. Then all at once they were running, and they flung themselves into each other's arms.

"Oh, god," Knives cried as he bathed her face in kisses, "I thought I had lost you forever!"

"Oh, Knives," Renee sighed as she return his treasured kisses, "I thought it was all over for us."

They carried on like that until a stern "AHEM!" was coughed out by Meryl. Knives and Renee blushed wildly and looked at Meryl who was motioning behind her cape. Large silver eyes peeked around it at her two parents. Renee gasped and asked, "Is that?"

"Yes," Knives said, "She's been waiting for you. I named her Angelica. I hope you don't mind that I named her without you."

Renee fell to her knees and outstretched her arms. Tears soaked her cheeks and she trembled as she said, "Come to me, Angelica. Come to mommy."

Angelica squealed and took off at a full sprint to Renee's waiting arms. Renee held her tightly and cried into her soft blond hair. When she was composed enough she asked, "But how? I don't remember giving birth."

"I don't know," Knives said as he knelt with his family, "And I don't care. The point is that I have you. I have the both of you back."

Knives hugged both of them against him. The family didn't notice Meryl and Vash slipping away from them. Vash lead Meryl by the hand and whispered, "That is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen, besides you."

"Their togetherness," Meryl snorted, "Or Renee's naked body."

Vash blushed fiercely and said, "Them together like that. All that warmth and love. That's what a family is supposed to be. It's beautiful."

Meryl nodded and let him get off the subject of staring at Renee. What did it really matter anyway? As long as he came home to her. Vash pulled Meryl up onto a rocky outcropping far away from the sight of Knives and his family.

"I could feel a great power shedding off Renee. They still have a great deal of work to do rebuilding this world. That's if Renee can get all of us out of this crater," Vash said.

"Yeah," Meryl agreed, "Creating life inside this crater is one thing. There's an entire world out there that needs her attention. It will probably take years to get it done."

"Hundreds maybe," Vash said, "Do you think Angelica will be able to help when she gets older?"

"Without a doubt," Meryl said, "I saw her creating a bush yesterday. I don't think she wants anyone to know she can do it yet."

"Why?" Vash asked

"None of us can," Meryl answered, "It must have made her feel strange to have powers that she didn't see us with. Now that Renee is here, maybe she will be more comfortable."

"Yeah, you're right," Vash nodded.

They sat leaned against each other, and took in the beauty of the crater. Vash looked down and Meryl and smiled. He shifted uneasily where he sat and said, "You know that night we had to leave to find Knives and Renee?"

"Yes," Meryl said, "You were trying to tell me something when you got that feeling."

"Yeah," Vash said choking on the lump in his throat.

Vash thumbed a box in his pants pocket. He summed up his courage as he said, "It's like this. That night I had meant to ask you something important."

"Yes," Meryl said absently, "What was it, Vash?"

"Well," Vash said softly, "We've been together a long time, and, uh, well, you know... When people love each other, and they want to be around each other... No, no, wait. What I mean is-"

"Would you just spit it out?" Meryl growled.

Vash blinked at her and looked a little wounded. This was not the romantic moment he had planned at all. He took his hand of the box and tried to think of something stupid to ask her and avoid rejection for one more day. Meryl turned to him and smiled as she said, "You know the answer is yes anyway. It really is annoying that you would beat around the bush for so long."

Vash jumped with surprise and pulled out the box. He thumbed it in front of her and said, "Will you marry me?"

Meryl opened the box, put the ring on and moved it back and forth under the light. She delighted in his agonized expression. How many times had he made her wait on him? This was justice. She tapped her lip and said, "Hummmm, I don't know. Let me think about it."

"Hey!" Vash whined, "That's not fair! You said you'd say yes!"

Meryl laughed and pushed him back against the rock. She kissed him passionately and whispered against his lips, "You're such an idiot. Of course I'll marry you."

Vash smiled against her lips. Knives was his brother again, Knives had Renee and Angelica, and Vash had Meryl. Life was finally the way it was supposed to be.

END

Author: Awwww, the end. It's been fun. Now go review!