The Usual Disclaimer: I do not own Trigun, Meryl, Milly, Wolfwood, Rem, Knives, or Vash, as much as I wish I owned one particular character. . . .Oh, well. I can dream, can't I?

Glory

Chapter Seven: Rem Saverem

"From what I know, she was found, not born. This family found her in a field of flowers - and I'll bet you can guess which type," she added at Vash. "They adopted her, but kept just about everything a secret - with good reason. A little later she learned a lot about her powers, and tried to use them for everyday things, mainly focused on trying to keep the earth in good condition. It was hard for her to accept that the earth eventually had to be abandoned, but once they had all the humans ready to go, naturally she wanted to come with.

"Sometime before she thought that having a few extra of herself would help greatly, and it was like wishful thinking - once she thought it, she found herself pregnant. But she was on the ship before she could give birth. I still don't know how she hid it - I guess we just don't show. And again, I'm not sure how she did it, but she managed to give birth to you two and then make everyone else believe that you were found.

"She actually did a wonderful job of pulling it off. Everyone believed that you two were some sort of anomaly, born outside of a bulb - and twins, at that! She convinced them all that having you around could be nothing but good, given how well the other Plants worked with them. Plus this was a great opportunity to study an entirely new species, so to speak. In a way, we are an entirely new species, if you think about it.

"She tried to be a mother without making it obvious. She liked Knives mainly because he always seemed to be listening, whereas Vash here was so curious he would follow a caterpillar around, hoping to see it build a cocoon," Glory added with a laugh. "Nonetheless, she could feel that Knives was growing more and more. . .distrusting with every day," Glory tried, hoping to word it right. "She got more wishful thinking, this time wishing that there was another child on board, a little girl - or someone at least to show him how to care for someone so young and well, helpless.

"She wasn't expecting to get pregnant again, but it was a blessing in disguise, really. She could feel Steve getting more vicious towards Vash and Knives with each day, and knew something bad was starting to build up. Even when she plastered on a happy face and kept everything hidden, she was working on me, getting me developed faster and hoping to give birth before that 'bad thing' happened." Glory sighed.

"It worked, at least. I stayed quiet in her room, hiding from the camera, and she'd teach me everything she thought I should know whenever she got the chance. Shortly after she gave Vash his first hair cut, though, she felt something sort of. . .snap in Knives, and figured out that it was too late. It crushed her, but she sent me in one of those pods and made me promise to look after Vash."

Glory took a deep breath. "She might have chosen not to if she'd known that Knives was planning on killing everyone on the ship, and on every other one. Probably she was the most worried about me, about me dying in the crash and never being known by you two. But still, she couldn't let everybody die, even if it meant that she would. I know you two didn't see it, but before the ship exploded she ejected my pod, or something like that. I'm not entirely sure.

"When I woke up, I could hardly see, and couldn't remember what had happened or why I was lying on sand. It actually took me a few years to remember my promise, after I'd gotten to a ship and some bigger clothes. At first I couldn't find you, mainly because I couldn't find any sign that you two were even still alive. I'd nearly given up hope that you made it out alright - and then I saw something. It was a huge explosion, and not very far away. Not a minute later I heard you two for the first time - and you were fighting, arguing. I was terrified that one of you had killed the other when I heard that gunshot, but it was just Knives with a thigh wound. I would have stayed with him for a bit, but I'd promised to watch over Vash, so I had to follow you. It was dumb luck that Knives didn't feel me then, or see me run by.

"During the time between then and July, I found this," Glory said, gesturing her boomerang. "I practiced with it in my spare time, which was actually quite a bit at the time. And I had plenty of time afterwards, before you got back from the Flying Ship. Just about everything else you know."

With that said, Glory leaned back, letting them all know she was done. No one spoke for a minute, but there was a lot of thinking and shifting nervously.

"Did the humans treat you harshly?" Knives asked, finally. There wasn't concern in his voice, more like his point would be proven if she answered a certain way.

"Where there is intelligence, there will always be evil," Glory quoted. "Naturally, some people were intimated. And fear leads to a need to destroy what you fear, if it's possible. So yes, some humans were cruel. I suppose I was in certain cases, though. And you're hardly one to talk about who's been cruel," she added with narrowed eyes.

"Don't start," Vash said, before Knives could reply. Another few moments of relative peace ensued, and then Vash grinned and stood up. He gestured for Glory to get up and said, "I've been wanting to hug you for a while now." Glory grinned right back and wrapped her arms around Vash's middle, and even giggled.

They stepped back after a moment and Glory spoke next. "Yeah, well, I've been waiting to do this for a few decades!" she exclaimed, reaching up to ruffle his hair and laugh madly.

Vash, Meryl and Milly all laughed as Knives glared up at Glory, but it took just a moment for Vash to retaliate and spin Glory and then grab her, holding her back against his chest while successfully pinning her arms against her own chest.

"You're sickening," Knives said, darkly.

Everyone turned a glare on him, and Glory sneered. "No wonder you're sour. You never even tried to play around with Vash, did you? Your loss," she added, looking uninterested as she looked away. Hiding a smirk, she leaned forward and spun, throwing Vash over her shoulder, who let go of her and landed with a thud on his back. Before he could get up Glory was sitting beside him, her right leg folded on his chest and arms crossed.

"Hey!" was all Vash said, and then pouted. "That's not fair."

"Prove it," Glory returned. She generally only said that when she was smug in victory, believing that she won and the defeated one couldn't get up again.

But Vash got up again, and took their roughhousing all over the room, while Milly watched and laughed, Meryl winced as things got knocked down, and Knives looked on with a glare and jealousy hidden in his eyes.

It lasted maybe another five minutes with dozens of pins in between before Meryl called a halt to Vash and Glory's game. Shaking on a truce, they let it end and then had a ten-minute debate on who won this time. Let's give you a peek. . .

"So what if you're faster?" Glory said. "I've had more fighting experience."

"Speed wins," Vash argued. "And I got you in better pins."

"And I got out of all of them; what's that say?"

"That I have a lot of mercy."

"Liar."

"I don't lie."

"Prove it."

"I swear on God's nightshirt."

Glory laughed hysterically. "You're so funny, and I bet you know that. But I won."

"Did not."

"Did too."

"You did not."

"Oh, I so did!"

"No, sorry, but you lost."

"I won, jackass."

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me."

Meryl called a halt to their 'debate' as well. She recruited Vash in helping her shop - or rather, carry the stuff back - and had Milly help her with lunch. Glory waved off the food, saying she had more than enough money to feed herself for a day. But somehow, Vash talked her into eating just about everything he put in front of her, including: four sandwiches, two bags of chips, three glasses of lemonade and four sugary snacks. Being used to stuffing herself rotten on occasion, Glory had no problem - but warned Vash that she wouldn't be able to eat dinner or all of tomorrow. Sure, she could, but it would throw off her timing.

She left for a bit after lunch, helping to clean up the broken shards of glass that once was the home of a Plant she was particularly fond of. About an hour after she left Vash took Knives for a walk, if you could call it that. He stopped by the ruined plant along the way and helped out Glory for a short while, until Glory warned him that Knives was getting impatient. However, Vash refused to leave until Glory agreed to come with, too. Something about wanting to spend some time with his family alone.

He took the walk up to a certain mountain, one Glory recognized from several points over her life. It greatly resembled the ingrained path where Legato had died, but it dropped at the edge - directly into a large chasm that was perhaps four hundred feet wide and at least fifty feet long. It was anybody's guess how deep it was; no one had dared to go down there, afraid that it was bottomless and they would fall. Glory had gone down there once, and only a one hundred, seventy-eight feet before she got bored with it.

It was nearly sunset, and the sky was changing colors as the bottom sun began drifting below the horizon. Glory and Vash there for a while before Glory sat down beside Knives, and Vash followed suit on his other side. A few more minutes of silence stretched out before Glory reached up and took Knives' hand, trying to convey that she felt family was more important than just about anything, and hoping he got the right message.

And, amazingly, Knives cracked a smile, relaxing more in his wheelchair and looking out over the chasm to where the sand disappeared. Glory chanced a look over at Vash, who looked shocked that she got Knives to be nice for once, and a little jealous of it. But isn't that what little sisters do? Help hold their family together? If she could get Knives to soften even the tiniest bit, then there was a large chance that he'd take more to Vash's type of thinking.

And Glory wanted nothing more than to be a happy family. She didn't mind it if Knives didn't become a complete 'Vash' - hell, it was better that there was just one of Vash - and really, she wasn't a complete Vash either, much as she looked up to him or remained loyal to him.

Sometime ago she woke up one morning with a strong realization - if she were ever to find a mate or husband, he would probably be a lot like Vash, with a goofy sense of humor, an oddball obsession, fit body type and amazing fighting skills when necessary. She just hoped he wouldn't be such a facial contortionist.

Biting back a laugh, Glory looked back over the horizon and thought about everything, everything that had happened since she woke up that morning over a century ago. A lot had happened, indeed. At times she still gazed back over her life with wonder; how had she hidden from Vash and Knives all these years? How was it that she didn't just go running up to them and hug the life out of them? Was her control that developed? And now that she was here, how had she ever lived without being like this, just like this?

The questions were rhetorical. She had to do all those things; she had no choice. It was business before pleasure, honor before life. She had a promise to keep, and now that she's kept it, she no longer had to hide, hold back or look back. She had her brothers here, although one was a homicidal maniac who wanted to kill all humans, and they other kept preaching about how no one should ever die. Yin and yang.

"You two really do belong together," she said aloud. "You're perfect opposites."

"I'm working on that," Vash laughed.

"This is all I've wanted," Knives said, nodding towards the sunset, now that the bottom sun was out of sight. "Us, alone and unthreatened."

"Including me?" Glory asked, softly.

Knives looked at her. "Now that I know of you, yes." He shot a glare at Vash. "Even my pain of a brother."

"You started this," Vash pointed out.

"Don't start again," Glory said, quoting Vash from earlier.

"Just like this," Knives went on. "Is this so bad?"

Glory didn't know how to respond to that.

"Your intentions were good," Vash said, obviously having no problems coming up with a comeback. "But that's still no excuse."

"Plus," Glory added, "you have to admire the humans. After everything they've been through, they're still living. On a planet that couldn't hold life; after destroying their original planet; through harsh days and cold nights. . . They obviously don't want to die out."

"Let's stop talking about the humans," Knives interrupted, aggravated at the line of speaking that was turned against him.

Was it so bad to think that humans deserved to die? They've done everything wrong, but as Glory said, they're still living. One in three of them have bad intentions, even evil ones, which is what made it so easy to find twelve gung ho guns. Steve had probably been the worst, and it was true that after Steve attacked him that it was what made him come up with a permanent opinion of the humans. Granted, it was a bad one, and he'd been rash to try and destroy them all so quickly, with so little planning. And he was sorry that Rem, their mother, had died trying to save them all. He hadn't wished her death, at the time saying it was because Vash seemed fond of her.

He regretted Rem's death, even before now, before he learned that she was their mother. He regretted that he had caused the fall of events that had eventually made her stay on that ship and reverse the thrusters of all the ships. He knew now how she'd been able to do it, and what she'd said as she shut the door and sent he and Vash into space - it was somewhat ironic. "Vash, take care of Knives." And then to Glory, weeks before: "Take care of Vash."

The youngest to watch the middle child; the middle child to watch the eldest. So who was the eldest supposed to watch? Both of them?

It was possible, at least. Knives thought of this as he glanced at Glory and Vash in turn. He couldn't teach Vash anymore, or even try to change his views, which were so deep set in him. But Glory. . . Glory was new to him. He never thought of the possibility of another plant like himself, and even less that it would be female, and then related to him. . . But he could do it. If Glory watched Vash and protected him, and Vash did the same for himself, then he could watch them both and make sure no harm befell either of them.

If that's what Rem wished, then he could do it. Her three children could watch each other and teach each other, and be - heaven forbid - civilized to one another.

But these humans still had the first place on his Death Wish List.

~*~

DL here saying goodbye and good night! I hope you enjoyed the story thus far! Hmm. . .I might even end it here. Whadaya think? End here, or add more chapters? I think I made it through my point. It seems safe to end it here.

~DL~