FOURTEEN: jeep tracks
"Vash'll be coming back shortly, and you can tell him how you feel then."
Meryl had never actually spoken up on the matter, and Milly hadn't really asked, but somehow the girl seemed to have a knack for saying the right thing at just the wrong time. Her friend gave her a stunned look and then turned away, turning bright red as she averted her eyes to the shadows of the corridor, where Vash had disappeared to.
Milly grabbed her injured arm twisting it to check the bandages. "You really shouldn't pick at it, Meryl."
"My arm's fine, Milly," she groused. She shivered. Her jacket was set aside so that her big friend could take care of her arm, and she wore only the tank top that she typically wore as an undershirt. On top of that, she was starting to get cold. "Really. Would you stop prodding over it?"
"Now now. I'm just doing what I think is best."
Meryl lowered her eyes. She sighed. "Milly, I can't tell Vash anything about how I feel," she whispered.
"Huh?"
"Come on! You know what it means to be what he is."
Milly gave her a look. "So?"
Meryl stared at her. "So?! Milly, don't you understand?" she sighed. "After all you've learned about the man, how can you possibly think anything could be so simple?"
"It's only as complicated as you make it, Meryl." She gentle stroked her fingers through Meryl's hair, knocking out the sand that had been gathered during the skirmish with the sentry drone. "You know you can tell Mr. Vash anything. He has a heart of gold and he respects you. Nobody else follows him into danger like you have. You've even fought for him. I don't know anyone who has done more for his cause."
Meryl closed her eyes, letting the big girl smooth her hair. "You're wrong, Milly. I can't tell him…and the point is…the point is…oh… Damnit, nothing could ever come of it, no matter how I feel about him."
"You care about him. What else matters?"
"He's a walking disaster, Milly!" Meryl snapped. She closed her eyes, forcing her anger down. "We're with him, aren't we? At this point, there's nothing more we can do for him. Anything I told him now would just complicate things. Besides, it's not like I love him or…"
Milly turned her eyes to her friend, curious at the startled look on her friend's face. "Meryl, are you okay?"
Love… The thought stopped there. She couldn't pinpoint the origins of the thought, only knew that somehow it bound her to Vash in a way that she couldn't define. Her heart began to race. The realization struck her like a jolt of electricity. Love. Why else would she cross this desolate world to a location where the towns were few and far between? Vash would come here because it was out of the way. She had come here after Vash, and for what? For love. She was in love with Vash. She blinked a moment and put her head in her hands. Of all the times to realize what the strange sensation was racing through her, body and soul. She dried her eyes with her thumb and stared at the ground.
"My God. I'm in love with him. I really am in love with him."
And Milly had been trying to tell her for a long time. They had to follow him because Meryl cared so much for him. True love bore bonds stronger than steel. It brought people together across time and space, and somehow it had brought Meryl here, to join Vash at this place, to help him to shoulder a terrible burden. And it was all worth it, thanks to love.
"I know! I've been trying to tell you!" Milly was grinning ear-to-ear. It made Meryl glow with embarrassment.
"Milly, stop that!" She clung to her arm, lowering her eyes. "Nothing can ever come of it. You know that. I can't tell him."
"Nonsense, Meryl. It's just like my big big sister always says: if you really care for somebody in your heart then it doesn't matter who that person is. If you don't tell him how you feel, you'll live to regret it." She grabbed Meryl's arm again, picking at the bandage. Meryl could see by the crimson specks in the wrap that it would have to be changed soon. "So stop being a fool. You fret too much over the stupid things and the important things will slip right through your fingers."
Meryl sighed and reached for her jacket. It was getting too cold in this place.
She could hear the determination in Milly's voice. She spoke like a woman with experience. Maybe she was, for she had held Wolfwood. Meryl had often wondered what that night had been like for the two of them. She was jealous that her friend had found pleasure amidst the suffering of the duty they had shouldered together.
"Maybe I am a fool. Maybe it's just the way I am." Meryl sighed. "Since you insist, I'll try to tell him."
Milly glared at her. "You had better tell him, Meryl, or I'll tell him for you. You don't know how hard it was for me when I lost Nicholas. We…uh…" The big girl blushed, fidgeting nervously with her coat. "We spent the night together they day he died. You might remember. But it hurts because I never had the chance to tell him I loved him before he left. 'Don't you leave this spot. I'll come back to find you, Milly.' That's what he said, so I didn't leave." The big girl sighed, tears welling up in her eyes. "You don't understand how much it hurts, but you will if you don't tell Vash how you feel."
She closed her eyes, and embraced Meryl into one of those giant, all-encompassing hugs that she shared every so often, feeling her soft hair against her cheek.
"I still cry for him, you know. In my sleep. My big sister says that you can tell a lot about a person by the way she dreams."
Meryl gazed to her friend, tears in her eyes as she nodded. She didn't truly understand her friend's pain, though she thought maybe she needed to. They had been together for so long, and there was nothing she could use to compare emotions.
"I miss him too, Milly," she whispered, embracing her big friend just as she was being embraced. For a moment, she thought that maybe she had found the strength to tell him everything on her mind.
The question would, how long would that strength remain?
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He slipped toward the geo-plant with a loving gaze in his eyes, watching with hope in his heart. To find one so full of life after all this time was utterly amazing. The concern he had was the amount of lives he felt within it. They were lives that couldn't possibly be supported by the plant. Life forms similar to himself and Knives. But how? He didn't even understand the intricacies of his own origins, throughout gestation within the geo-plant.
Scratching his chin, Vash drew a deep breath and touched his fingers to the glowing orb. "It's all right, my friend. I just need your help, that's all. I need to understand. Show me. Please."
He shut his eyes and felt the warmth of the plant flowing through him.
He felt nothing as he slid mentally through a pool of bright light, so intense that he thought he might be blind. Soon, yellow eyes appeared in the glow, and the intensity dwindled. The creature blinked, watching back at him, as patient as any beast he had ever seen. He gazed with wonder at the being, the plant itself.
He had figured out that this had been the type of creature responsible for his conception. How was beyond a mystery to him. But he could feel it within him, an odd energy tingling within his soul.
The being's eyes widened, fixing him with an intense stare. Vash's eyes flashed in return as a series of images rattled off in his brain.
Knives and himself playing as children in the rec. room on the Project SEEDS flagship. The rubble of downed starships strewn about the Gunsmoke landscape. A slender, feminine silhouette, and then a close-up of the woman, opening her piercing, emerald eyes as a hand stroked a long, blond braid that hung from her shoulder. Vash himself, wandering the desert as a gun-slinging vagabond. Images of the fight with Knives in an attempt to ward off certain death.
And a man in black, watching down on it all with a sinister smirk on his face. Standing with him, hundred of children, each looking to be about ten years of age, lined up like soldiers in a battalion…
Vash opened his eyes. Once again, he stood before the geo-plant, gazing up into the giant orb. Slowly, he took his hands from the plant, blinking. He couldn't find the strength to thank the being, though he saw one golden eye peering at him through the hazy glass.
"What the hell is going on?" he murmured to the plant. Of course, it had no answer for him, only the constant flood of dark, silent visions that filled his soul.
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Meryl thought for a moment before she turned to gaze upon her friend, staring into the shadows with unshed tears glistening in her soft, blue eyes. Neither had said a thing for some time now. The big girl had a crushing hold on her left hand, refusing to let go. Meryl had wanted to say something, anything, other than the promise that Milly desired, but she knew there would be no other way to get her hand back than to admit the truth swarming through her heart. She loved Vash.
You're gonna have to come clean, Meryl, she thought. If you really care, you're going to have to prove it, to yourself and to Milly. And to him. Quit pussyfooting around the situation and show some guts already.
"I'll tell him," she whispered. "I promise you, alright, Milly? Since it's so important to you."
With a sad smile, Milly met her eyes. "Don't do it because it's important to me. Do it because it's important to you."
Meryl blinked.
Milly smiled that golden smile and leaned back against the wall, closing her eyes. "It'll mean so much more to him though. Mr. Vash is still a big baby at heart. He worries so much about everything. He'll melt like butter if you just tell him how you feel."
Meryl frowned, gazing to the ground. Maybe you should make the decisions from now on, Milly. She remembered her words almost fondly. It was her own, private joke that she shared with no one, because when the time came, Milly did make the decisions, whether or not she truly understood. She gave the big girl's hand a gentle squeeze.
"Do you really think it would mean so much to him? I'm not even sure he'll understand what I'd be trying to tell him."
"Don't be silly, Meryl. We're talking about Vash, and he listens to everyone with an open heart." Milly grinned. "Don't think he doesn't care. In fact I think it would mean so much more coming from you."
Meryl gave her friend a look that spoke of assumed reality. "Caring about someone is a lot different then what we are talking about, Milly," she said, and sighed softly. She looked away, closing her eyes.
"Don't kid yourself."
"Huh?" Meryl looked back up to her friend.
Milly still had that big grin on her face. "I see it in your eyes, Meryl. You just don't trust yourself to say the right thing."
Meryl averted her eyes. "What I mean, Milly…" She paused. Her friend was exactly right, especially now. She didn't have a clue what she should be trying to tell her, but she knew she had to say something. "The truth is, maybe what I feel for Vash is a lot stronger then what he feels for me." She clasped her hands to her chest in front of her and then stood up slowly. "It just seems to me that if he really loved me, he would have come back for us after he defeated Knives. He didn't. I don't want to throw more fuel into a fire that should have died out a long time ago."
Milly frowned up to her friend and lowered her gaze. "All right. I won't push you anymore Meryl. But how are you ever gonna know if you never ask?"
"I know what you're asking me, Meryl. And I understand. Thank you, Milly, and I will tell him. Someday." She sighed and shrugged. "But I think we have bigger problems at the moment."
"There are no bigger problems then matters of the heart."
Vash wasn't even paying attention as he strode into the room, deep in thought. He was so silent, he even surprised the girls. He mumbled quietly to himself as he came to Milly's side and flopped onto the ground, rubbing his right hand with the fake of his prosthetic arm, lost in thought.
Meryl could hear the last of what he said. "Who did this? It's not a normal process. There're way to many to be normal."
She sighed. "Vash? Did you find what you were looking for?"
He turned his attention up to her, as though noticing for the first time his friends were with him. He offered a small smile, quickly replaced with a sigh and a shrug. "I don't know," he admitted. "I honestly don't know."
Meryl nodded and gazed to the ground. She realized at that moment that her jacket was still open. Trembling fingers went up and started to fumble with the buttons. Her eyes, relieved for the reprieve, simply watched her fingers work.
Vash watched her them as well. Slowly, he wet his lips. "Those things in the geo-plant. There's no doubt about it. They're the same type of being that I am." He closed his eyes. Milly's hand touched his, a wordless assurance that brought a smile to his face. "I'm grateful to have you girls with me. I never could ask you to come with me, but I knew you'd follow me anyway, and that couldn't make me happier."
"Vash, we didn't follow you a year ago, and we lost you because of it," Milly announced. "I think I speak for the both of us when I say we won't let you out of our sights again. Every time you do, you disappear and go off to get yourself into trouble."
Meryl had to grin. "I think you're stuck with us."
He smiled. "Guess so."
She hugged herself, peering silently about the corridor. It was dark, and quiet. It made the cold seep into her jacket, saturating her with its chill. She hated this situation. Why was it always like this? She had retained every memory from the past few year, and even some from before. There were some that she would rather forget, but none more than the lonely feeling she got whenever she was apart from her friends. It amplified the cold. She closed her eyes and realized that there were good memories, as well. Some she would cherish forever, so long as she lived, reminders that her future belonged to her, and whoever she chose to share it with.
"Vash, is there anything else we need to do here?"
He looked to her. "I think we're done," he whispered. "I'd like to take a look around before we head off. I don't really know if I care to leave, though. We can't go back to Black Rock, and there isn't a decent shelter for at least another five hundred iles."
He gazed about, considering the world around him with a frown.
"Besides, I don't think it's wise to just leave a place like this alone. I mean, there's going to be another hundred or so like me here very soon."
"Well, let's at least go outside and make sure that no one is around before we decide to set up. Besides, I could use some fresh air." She glanced to Milly, giving her a little smile, though by the look on her friend's face, she could tell that her own worries were apparent. "Then we can do something about dinner."
Milly smiled. "You two go on ahead. I'll have a look around for the kitchen."
"Milly, I don't think that's such a great idea…"
"No, go ahead," Vash said. "We're alone here. You'll be okay. If you can find the kitchen, we'll be all set. The rations on a ship like this can last eons."
Meryl gave him a look. "Rations?"
"Trust me. It's not as bad as it sounds."
He hopped to his feet and headed back out the way he had come. Meryl gave Milly a shaky smile and followed him down the dark corridor. His eyes moved about the world around him. Sometimes Meryl thought it looked as though he wasn't paying attention, but for all the time they'd been together, she knew better. The thing was, Vash saw and heard everything.
She sighed, her eyes continually moving from the floor to the man who walked several paces in front of her. She worried about him, and knew that he worried about her. He worried about everyone. She glanced to the room containing the geo-plant as they passed. An odd feeling came over her, sending shivers up her spine. She shook her head and continued on after him.
As they approached the hole in the doorway that he'd created with his hidden machine-gun, Meryl cast a worried glance behind her. She felt guilty about leaving Milly behind. The girl hadn't even tried to stay with them, and the last thing that she wanted to be left alone with this man. She wanted to be by her friend.
Suddenly, Meryl also realized just why she was alone with him. Milly had quite skillfully gotten rid of the two of them to give her the opportunity to speak her piece to him. That little devil, Meryl thought, shaking her head. She looked again to the man as he slipped out into the cave. She went out just after him. Breathing in the heat of the desert air, letting it wrap around her. It was still here, as they were covered on all sides by the walls of the cave.
It was warm, yet at the same time, it refreshed her. Eventually the reason for this walk came up in her mind, and taking a deep breath, she spoke. "Vash…I have a question to ask, and something to tell you."
"Hmm?" He knelt to the ground, slowly gliding his fingers over the sand.
"If that's all right with you," she said, watching him nervously.
Vash frowned. "Strange. But who else would know?" She closed her eyes. He wasn't paying attention to her right now. It troubled her a little. She felt the walls of her existence closing thoroughly around her. She was grateful to be at his side, along with Milly—they were her two best friends on this entire, miserable planet. She thought back to the day Legato had threatened their lives.
Next to her, Vash shook his head, trying to understand.
Meryl swallowed. She'd been watching him since they'd come out, and now she wondered why he was inspecting the sand. Was there something there that she could not see, something she was missing? She looked up, caught his gaze. He shook his head and touched the ground again.
"What is it? Vash…is something wrong?"
"Jeep tires," he muttered.
Meryl frowned. "What?"
"Somebody's been here. Recently. I don't know how they got in here before—the cave was sealed." He glanced to her. "But they were here. These are jeep tracks. Old model, too." He ran his fingers over the sand. She lowered to investigate. Sure enough, she could see the faded pattern of car tires imprinted in the sand. "The kind people used almost a hundred years ago."
She gave him a look.
He sighed. "We should try to figure out who they were and how they got here."
"Whoever was here must have been the ones who activated the sentry," Meryl murmured.
"Probably." He glanced to her. "Who knows how long ago they were here. These tracks are going away. I'm not sure where they came in from. There must be a hidden tunnel around here somewhere."
He stood and looked at her. She stared back, lost in her thoughts, wondering if her moment to speak with him of more personal matters had passed. He seemed distracted. Meryl averted her eyes. "I…uh…think we're going to be all right for the moment," she said. "It's pretty quiet now."
He nodded. "I think so."
"So what next?"
He shrugged, turning to gaze to the break overhead. Only a little blue could be seen of the sky from here. The rest of the outside was hidden beyond the shadowy corners of this strange cavernous shelter.
Meryl stared quietly at her feet, lost in thought. In her mind she was replaying the gentle warning that Milly had shared with her. Her tender journey with the one she loved on a single night of passion. How deeply she cared for Wolfwood, and how he had shown his love for her. However, it was the way the journey ended that would forever haunt Milly's soul: that she was unable to tell him how deeply she loved him in return. Meryl tried to imagine a life without Vash in it. It would be a lot calmer, a lot less worrisome, definitely a lot less interesting, but…
Meryl knew one thing for certain. She didn't want a life without Vash.
She had experienced that for over a year. It left her heart pounding to realize that she had been searching for him for that precise reason. Tucking a long strand of shiny, black hair behind her ear, she focused her intense, violet gaze on him.
He watched back, frowning intently.
Finally, she reached out and took his hand. She knew that if she wanted his full attention, there would have to be that connection, that contact that would tell him that she needed him, that he was hers to command, at least for this moment. Seeing his eyes on her nearly made her turn away, but Meryl knew how important this moment was, not only to her friend back inside, and for this man standing before her, but for her own fragile heart.
She breathed deeply. "Vash, I have something I need to tell you. It's important."
He nodded. "I'm here."
She withdrew her had and took a step away, turning her back to him to stare off at nothing in particular. She waited, but she didn't hear him turn away or so much as breathe. Well, at least she knew she had his attention. "I realized something today, while you were off doing whatever it was you did. I realized how much you meant to me."
She waited. He didn't move, didn't speak.
She stared at her feet again, searching for the right words. Of course, they never came to her whenever she most needed them.
"What I'm trying to say, Vash, is…" For God's sake, Meryl, just say it. "I love you." The instant those three words slid from her lips, she felt refreshed. She closed her eyes, breathing in as the heavy weight was finally lifted from her shoulders. Damn, it was great to be alive. "I love you," she said again.
She turned to him, lifting her gaze to meet his.
"I love you, Vash," she murmured, staring deeply into those beautiful, emerald eyes. He watched back, eyes wide. "I have since before you disappeared a year ago. I think it's why I needed to find you so desperately." She wrapped her arms around herself, averting her eyes. Suddenly, she felt so small, trapped here in his presence. "I can't believe it took me so long to figure in out…but, I guess…I guess I didn't want something to happen and lose the chance to tell you how I feel."
He stared at her as if his heart had stopped, taking in every word with wide eyes, so tense it looked as thought he would fall apart if she so much as touched him. She didn't know exactly what was in his heart at the moment, but she suspected that in some form, it was her and her alone. He looked lost, as if he had been blindsided by a bus.
Meryl had to shake her head, looking away. At least that's how I would feel, if I were in his shoes.
She suspected that he had known for some time that she had grown to care for him. That was painstakingly obvious, in everything she had done since relocating him after his first disappearance, following the Fifth Moon incident.
She could see him struggling, gazing down to her.
"It's okay, Vash. I'm here for you."
For as long as you allow…