Disclaimer: Trigun, its world, and it's characters... I don't own. All Trigun characters and Planet Gunsmoke are copyright Yasuhiro Nightow and other license holders. This fanfiction based on the anime cannon, but if you've read previous chapters, I'm sure you knew these things already.
Author's Note: So sorry about taking so long on getting this out. Lately, I have been concentrating heavily on my original works, thus neglecting my fanfiction. When I finally complete this, it might be my last fanfiction, but...maybe not. I do have an idea for a "Matrix" story I could write... However, my lack of gusto for fanfiction is not due to lack of ideas – it's due to my wishing to work on my originals. Who knows? Maybe by this time next year or a few years from now... I'll actually get my novel perfected and published. I do like to dream...
Thank you to Dead Legato. You know why.
JOURNEY OF REMEMBRANCE
Part IV
She traced her finger over the headline on the front page of the September 7th, AF 0024 issue of The Southern Cornelia Dispatch. The print stared back at her in bold, sans serif letters:
LONE GUNMAN FOILS ROBBERY
The smaller print read:
----- Citizens of Dos Angeles got quite a show Monday when a mysterious gunman foiled an attempted robbery on the First National SEEDS Reserve Bank of Dos Angeles.
The bank manager was reportedly uncooperative with the robbers, resulting in a hostage situation. The sheriff of Dos Angeles and his posse were in a standoff with the five young criminals for half an hour before a young man in a red coat came along.
"He was walking down the street, happy as could be, listening to a compact disc player," a witness reported, "To tell the truth, he looked like a total idiot, oblivious as to the dangerous situation going on. A'fore ya know it, he stumbles right into this standoff. He was just standing there, in between the posse and the bandits – took off his headphones and yelped like a cat who got its tail caught in Granny's rocker."
What happened next varies between several witnesses, but most reports have this strange young fellow negotiating with the robbers.
"Negotiations broke down," another witness stated. "One of the robbers held his pistol to the head of one of the hostages. He was about to shoot her when... all of a sudden, the gun flew right out of his hand! He shook his hand, screaming and cursing, waving blood everywhere... The weird guy in the red coat had in his hand a huge silver revolver – never seen a gun quite like it in my life. Anyway, that's when the fireworks began."
What ensued, according to witnesses, was a raging gunfight between the four remaining robbers and this man in the red jacket.
"The sheriff's posse didn't even get to fire off a shot!" a third eyewitness proclaimed. "Quicker than lightning, all the robbers were down. The most amazing thing about this whole ordeal... no one died."
The five young bandits were taken into police custody, all with minor injuries. No one else was hurt. When questioned, the young gunman who saved the day stated that he was "a hunter of peace." When asked his name, he stated simply "Vash." No surname was given.
The people of Dos Angeles have been left wondering if this "Vash" is the same as the mysterious vigilante who has been reported in other cities and towns around the Tri-Province area.
"The character matches the description," the sheriff reported, "and in each incident where a name was given, it was 'Vash.' I'm grateful to the young man for taking care of our situation, but I still think he's dangerous and needs to be taken in. Law enforcement should be left to the police, not to rouge individuals."
_ David Dastun, Southern Cornelia Dispatch ------
Rem took a pair of scissors and began to trim the article out of the paper. A box sat on the desk beside the newspaper, full of articles clipped from other periodicals. From diverse sources, all these articles had one thing in common.
"Another article?" a deep voice asked. Salem Greer came up behind Rem and planted a quick kiss on her cheek.
"Yeah," she told him. "It's... it's him... I know it's him. It just has to be. There was a daguerreotype with the article. The photo looks like... my little boy – an older version, of course, but it's just unmistakable."
Many years after the Fall, stories sprang up about a mysterious gunslinger in red. He always wore red. He was usually described as having blond hair in a spiked style; soft facial features, blue-green eyes, and went by the name of Vash. Described as generally kind-hearted and helpful, he was a vigilante that roved across the desert, who would show up in the cities and settle disputes. There were many reports of him saving people from criminals and dispelling feuds without bloodshed. It was also rumored that massive amounts of property damage came about as a result of his interference.
To some, this vigilante was a hero. To others, he was a menace. He'd gained many nicknames over the years: "The Red Bull," "Hurricane Vash," "Vash the Stampede," and some others.
"Are you sure, Rem?" Salem questioned, "You've been collecting these articles, listening to these stories, practically obsessing over this person... honey, what if it's not him? You've checked every survival record we could find..."
"I know," Rem whispered, "but I really believe that this man is my Vash. In all our years of searching... we've seen nothing of Vash or Knives, but these stories – He might be my boy, Salem. Maybe he's not, but I've got to know. I've got to find him."
"So, you are leaving?"
"I'm afraid so," Rem said with a heavy sigh. "I will ride to Dos Angeles and see if I can find him from there. It was the last town he was in. If I do not find him after three months, I will come back. If I find him and he is my little boy, I will still come back, hopefully with him. I regret that you cannot come with me..."
"The practice," Salem said. "Sedona needs me here, especially after the epidemic. The city council will not let me leave. Too many people are still recovering."
Salem Greer and Rem had been married for close to nineteen years now. They lived in their own little combined house and medical clinic off the main street of Sedona. Despite attempts to conceive, they remained childless. Their romance had a slow progress at first, but both were lonely souls surviving in this harsh land, and both cared for one another deeply. Rem had forgiven Salem for the time he killed to save her.
Sforzando and William Bluesummers still lived on the edge of town and raised thomases. Soprano married a pretty artist and had two children; a daughter named Desdemona and a son named Legato. Melody remained single and worked at the town's Plant. Rem, too, worked at the Plant, as she was one of the few people qualified to work with what was quickly becoming lost technology. She, however, for the time being, was allowed to come and go as she pleased. Her husband, due to a recent illness that had swept through the area, was legally bound as a doctor, by Sedona's town council, to stay in the town until such time as they saw fit to allow him liberty of movement. With all the dangers of this new world, many of the city and provincial governments became harsh in order to see to the survival of the majority of the public.
"I know that you have to do this," Salem sighed. "I will miss you, but I want your heart to be at peace. I know it will not be until you know for sure."
Rem rose from her seat and embraced her man. "Thank you...," she whispered. "Thank you for understanding. If... If it is him, my Vash.... we'll finally have a son. Perhaps, even, Knives is alive and Vash knows where he is."
________________________________________________
Rem saddled her thomas at sunrise. She outfitted her saddlebags with a plethora of supplies. Water was the most important, followed by food that would keep well on the trail – dried fruit, hard tack, and beef jerky. Before she began the three-day ride to Dos Angeles, she slipped something in her belt that she prayed she'd never have to use. Truly, she only carried it for Salem's sake: a Colt .45 pistol.
She adjusted her wide-brimmed hat and mounted. As she set off, she waved to those gathered to say goodbye. Salem was there, of course, standing on their front porch. The entire Bluesummers clan was there, too. Sforzando and William were there, with their hair of gray and wrinkled, sun burnt faces. Also there was Melody in her plain summer dress. Soprano waved to her, holding the hand of two-year-old Desdemona while his wife held a squirming, four-year old Legato on her hip.
Rem blinked back tears. She would be back as soon as she could be – perhaps with a new member of the family. If she did not find Vash after three months, she'd still come back. As she kicked Majestic, her thomas, into a trot, she glanced back one more time. The figures of her loved ones grew distant. Still, she could see Legato pulling his mother's hair.
Soprano's daughter and son were fine children and Rem had babysat for them often. Legato was a handful, though. He seemed to be perpetually hungry. Aside from that, he was a very intelligent boy and Rem wished that she and Salem could have a son like him.
The edges of Sedona disappeared over the sand dunes. This was the beginning of a long stretch of wilderness between Sedona and Dos Angeles. The sands stretched out gold and pale for countless miles, the horizon only broken by the occasional rock formation. The sky was stretched above like a cerulean blanket, as featureless as the desert.
Rem couldn't help but feel a sense of beauty from it all. It was a stark beauty, magnificent in its bleakness, with only simplicity to offer. This land was not what she had imagined Project SEEDS to lead to when she joined. She had known the probability that the planet humanity would colonize would be much unlike Earth, but the plan originally had been to work with the Plants to make whatever world they found to live on a green, kind place. Not enough of the original project had survived the Fall to make any significant portion of this planet into a temperate climate.
There were deserts on Earth like this, but Rem hadn't been to any of them. She grew up in a city, and that was in what was once a wooded area. Despite steel, concrete, and pollution, there was green grass here and there, in the parks, and trees growing in people's yards and along streets. Rem missed trees – a lot. Still, she loved this land. It was open, clean, and free. It was pure, wild nature, unexploited, uncorrupted.
Majestic plodded along, shuffling the sands with his large feet. Rem looked at the sky, remembering. She still felt to blame, after all these years. She still could not recall all that had happened. So many people in Sedona, and most of all, Salem, had long assured her that she did all that was humanly possible to save the fleet – and that it was probable that everyone now living on this planet was living because of her actions. She felt caught between being a savior and a failure, and she did not know which she truly was.
She made camp by night and was serenaded to sleep by the desert's wild night sounds. Native rodent-like creatures scuffed the sand. Coyotes howled their piercing, eerie songs. Coyotes and dogs had immigrated with the humans. They were among the few Earth animals that survived well in this new world.
Rem dreamed that night of people in her life long lost. She dreamed of Vash and Knives. She dreamed of Joey, of Mary, of Rowan and of Steve. She dreamed of the family she had left behind back on Earth. She dreamed of an apparition of Alex, her first love, long dead. In the dream, he was happy that she had moved on with her life, and urged her to go north... she awakened to hot thomas breath in her face and Majestic licking her nose.
_____________________________________
Dos Angeles was a small city, but it was at least twice the size of Sedona. After gleaning what information she could from the newspaper office, Rem went to the bars. She carried the week's article about the foiled robbery attempt, and pointed out the photograph, asking about the man in it, and where he went.
"Strange fellow," the bartender said. "He left last Wednesday – headed due north in an old jeep. Liked Wild Turkey and donuts, he did. Can't tell you much more about him. Oh, miss? I can't give you a pint of whiskey unless you show me an I.D."
"Huh?" Rem questioned. "Oh, I'm a lot older than I look."
"They all say that."
Rem dug her City of Sedona Confirmed Survivor Resident Card out of her jeans pocket, giving the bartender a sly smile. He looked at the photograph on the card, then back to her, and looked at it again.
"This says you should be 47. You don't look it."
"Uh, yeah, I get that a lot," Rem said, taking her whiskey. "Technically, I am over a hundred."
Rem still held the appearance of being in her mid-twenties, despite her years of life. Some even took her to be a teenager. The many years she'd spent in Coldsleep had, of course, suspended her aging while she was in it. There were after effects when she was awake, too, a slight slow-down in aging. Still, she knew that something was odd about her, ever since the Fall. Everyone she knew of the first generation colonists – those that, like her, had been subjected to Coldsleep – aged fairly normally. The Coldsleep after effects only lasted for a few years. Children that had been in Coldsleep grew up. Men and women grew wrinkled and gray-haired. She had not a wrinkle on her face, and her hair – all of it - was still the same raven color it had been when she was only 20. Neither Salem or any other physician had an explanation for her apparently youthful condition.
She stepped outside and put her bottle of whiskey in a saddlebag. Rem was not a drinker. She had not bought the whiskey for the purpose of getting sloshed. It was for medical purposes, for sterilization and for a painkiller, should she or her thomas have an accident and need it. The last time she'd been drunk was at Soprano's wedding reception. According to those who remembered it, she was going on and on about love and peace and about how the meaning of the universe could be found in bagels or something like that. She remembered trying to sit in a chair and falling on her fanny, but that was about it. She didn't want to ever act that weirdly ever again, if she could help it.
She was broken out of her thoughts by screaming. A woman ran out into the street, chased by a burly, hairy-armed man.
"Please!" the girl cried, "Please, stop! You don't understand!"
"You filthy whore!" the man bellowed. He smacked the woman across the face. "How dare you? How dare you!"
"Lover's spat again," a passerby sighed. He addressed the man in the dusty street. "Dorian, calm down!" he cried.
Dorian bore down on the woman again, slowly stalking towards her. "You don't understand, Billy, I caught her this time! I caught her with Fergus! Kissin' all over 'im, him with his arms all over her... unbuttonin' her shirt. Never again, you hear me, Eliza? Never again!"
The man drew a gun from his belt, and pointed it at the woman he addressed as Eliza. "Never again, you hear me? The place for sluts is Hell!"
Rem reacted. It was a foolish thing to do, but she had to do something, and could think of nothing else at the time. She ran out into the road and pushed Eliza aside. She found herself, in the dusty, sun-drenched street, standing in front of a very angry man with a magnum. She held her hands out to him.
"Please, sir..." she quavered, "Think about what you are doing. There is no need for this!"
The man stared at her, his handgun twitching. His face was red, and his eyes bulged with rage. "She's a whore!" he screamed. "She promised herself to me forever, and she's betrayed me! Don't interfere with me when I'm dealin' with my property!"
"Property?" Rem said, a scowl crossing her brow. "Property? Since when is any human being anyone else's property?"
"Outta my way!"
"Not if you are going to shoot her! Whatever it is, sir, it's not worth taking someone's life over."
"I'll decide that! Get out of my way!"
Eliza cowered behind Billy on the porch of the bar. Rem walked slowly backwards, keeping herself ever in front of Dorian. She'd forgotten about the .45 in her belt. She wouldn't have actually used it, anyway, had she remembered it. Before she knew anything else, Rem found herself on the ground, the street dust swirling about her, and she heard screaming.
"Dorian! You freak!" Billy shouted, "Look what you've done! Look what you've done! She had nothing to do with this!"
"She was... in my way..." Dorian said, his hands shaking. He dropped the pistol. Two deputies grabbed him by the arms. Rem saw the faces of two more men, and the faces of Billy and Eliza above her. She was completely confused. Billy leaned over her. "You're gonna be alright," he said, his face pale, "Don't move...we'll get you some doctors."
"Huh?" Rem questioned, her thrumming heart finally slowing – then, she knew. The pain hit in a massive wave. She suddenly felt like the whole lower half of her body was being torn apart. She screamed in her agony, and then fell into a fuzzy, rather pleasant feeling...
_______________________________________________
"Dammed Bernardelli Insurance forms! Why do they have to make them so difficult to fill out?"
Rem heard an unfamiliar male voice. She felt tired, though, she knew that she was waking up. "Salem?" she asked. "Salem, is that you?"
"She's awake, doctor," the male voice said again.
"Good," a female voice answered. "Glad to see you finally awake. You'll be groggy for a while, but you're going to be just fine."
"Salem?" Rem called again, reaching out. A gentle hand held her back.
"Lay back, sweetheart. Do you remember anything that happened?"
"What?" Rem asked, opening her eyes to see a dark-eyed woman in a white medical coat. "Where am I?"
"Dos Angeles General Hospital," the woman answered. "You've been.... unconscious... for two weeks. You lost a lot of blood. We were worried that you'd never wake up."
"What happened?" Rem whispered.
"You were shot," the lady doctor answered frankly.
Rem then recalled the standoff. She looked at the ceiling. "How bad am I hurt?" she asked, afraid of the answer.
"Well..." the doctor sighed, shaking her head, "I do hate to give bad news... You will live. The bullet missed all your vital organs. You won't be disabled in any way except..."
"Except what?"
"It tore apart your uterus." The doctor pointed to a spot on her own stomach. "The bullet entered about here. We got it out safely, but... I'm very sorry. I'm afraid... if you were ever planning on having children..."
Rem looked at the doctor in shock. Her thoughts then turned to something else. "Does my husband know that I've been hurt? Has he been contacted?"
"We've not contacted anyone related to you, Mrs. Greer. We have-"
Rem lurched upward in her bed, until hit by a dull pain in her abdomen and overwhelming dizziness. She fell back down into her pillow. "Contact him immediately! He lives in Sedona-"
The doctor cut her off. "More bad news, I'm afraid. We haven't been able to contact him.... because... I'm sorry, Mrs. Greer, I'm so dreadfully sorry. Sedona... no longer exists. A vicious criminal gang raided it. These bandits.... who ride modified caravan vehicles... they had great destructive weapons... bombs... And Sedona was such a small city..."
"You're kidding, aren't you?" Rem said in a strained, shocked voice. "Please..."
"I'm sorry... everyone in the town that wasn't killed scattered." The doctor looked down at her, eyelids heavy. "I hate giving people bad news."
_________________________________
To Be Continued!! Turn to the Next!!
S.E. Nordwall, 2003.
Endnote: I know, it seems like this fic is a series of "inventive and cruel ways to torture Rem!". I really don't mean it that way, it's just the way the flow of the story is going. Things will get better for the poor lady, I promise.