TWENTY-EIGHT: pale moonlight
Vash woke in the dead of the night, staring at a ceiling of stone blackened by shadows. His breathing was even and his pain wasn't quite so great as it had been earlier that evening. He still had that awful ache in the pit of his stomach, but not from the woman's boot that had met his gut or the peirce of his impostor's bullet from his brother's private prison. It was a different pain, a different struggle. The source of this pain came from the girl next to him, who tossed and turned in a restless, nightmarish haze.
He wasn't about to share any of this with his friends. Meryl no doubt already knew. If she'd learned anything in her time with him, his greatest pains in life was the suffering of those people he came into contact with.
Wolfwood crossed his mind again. The vision from before still rattled him, but Wolfwood could never harm Meryl. Not only was he no longer in the world of the living, but he was also a man who cherished his friendships. Wolfwood had not fired on Vash when given a direct order. He would never steal away Meryl. Not like that. He wouldn't take her life.
But the concern for Meryl didn't fade. He still feared for her loss. He couldn't loose her. He refused. He closed his eyes to find rest, but sleep would not come.
It was going to be a long night.
He gazed to Meryl, resting between himself and Milly, and reached out to take her hand. He was a little surprised when she squeezed back. She was awake. "You should be resting," she whispered.
"Hard to sleep when I know the woman I love is having nightmares," he whispered. "You've been tossing and turning for more than an hour."
He forced himself to sit up next to her, not caring whether or not she scolded him. "Vash, please! You're wounds haven't fully healed yet." But her protests fell on deaf ears, and she fell silent, watching him as he stretching his wounded body. Icy, frightened eyes turned to her, staring at her, pleading for her to understand.
"I'm having trouble sleeping myself. I have for months, after I imprisoned Knives. I don't know exactly why, but it's been torturing me." He reached around her, wincing as his real arm, where he had been nicked up pretty badly, wrapped around her. He moaned in pain but did not relinquish her. "My only solace has been that the people I care for have been safe from Knives and the Gung-Ho Guns. Now that's all starting to change again."
He took her left hand into his prosthetic one, giving it a gentle squeeze as he gazed down to her.
"Vash, this past year when you…while you were gone, when nothing went wrong…it just seems like the fact you've been around us only causes more trouble for you."
"Bullshit," he said simply.
She averted her eyes. "I just knew something was bothering you, that's all."
"You think all this started just because you showed up to follow me around again?" Vash grunted. He shook his head in digust. "Meryl, even if you wanted to, you couldn't alter my problems. Whether you're at my side or not, you could never change my future. My fate belongs to no one. No one can change it but me."
"But I can't help but think I am somehow responsible."
"I didn't come back for you because I dreaded putting you in danger. I'm the one with the sixty billion double-dollar bounty on my head, remember?" He glanced to the cave's entrance. Stryker was gone; it was a little discouraging, because even he hadn't heard his duplicate leave. "It took me three months to find a suitable place to imprison Knives. That alone was dangerous enough. Then I returned to that old shuttle we discovered together a few years after Project SEEDS failed. My dreams hit me long before you came back into my life, Meryl, whether you choose to believe it or not."
He closed his prosthetic fist, allowing Meryl to see the awkward shift of the wrist against his thumb.
"This was broken in a gunbattle because I wasn't paying attention. A bounty hunter shot me from five feet away, and I never saw it coming." Vash's eyes were distant, though he stared directly into her own. "I was lucky enough to hear the shot and get my arm up. Believe me, having you with me encourages me to keep a better eye for any sign of potential danger."
Meryl didn't comment. She couldn't find the words to respond. At least not with anything that made any real sense in her mind, and if it made no sense to her, she refused to say it. She was cynical and realistic at the moment, and the truth the rattled around inside her skull was the only beacon to guide her through the haze of her fears.
"It's not that simple when it comes to this, Vash. All I can be is a distraction and certain death." She turned her eyes away and closed off her heart for a moment, trying to recapture her bearings. "I wonder how Milly was able to do it, how she was able to retain that one precious moment that still stays with her. Regrets, I suppose. I don't think I could live with a single moment."
"Don't do this to yourself, Meryl. Trust in your heart. You keep thinking with your head and that's the one thing holding you back." He smirked down at her. "That you're with me today proves that you can follow your heart on occasion."
He brushed her hair from her face, kissing her forehead. He lay against her for a time, eyes closed, listening to the sounds of the night—Milly's soft snoring and Meryl's heartbeat took a special place in his heart. They were with him, and maybe that's all that really mattered. Screw his troubles. Screw everything now that he had her here. His troubles, his aches and pains, all gone now that he had her at his side.
"I can't help but feel that I'll only get in the way."
He hardened at her insensitive words. "You think you're a distraction? Damnit Meryl, that pisses me off. Not very many things do, but that really pisses me off." Meryl twisted away from him, eyes wide at his harsh tone. He didn't let up; at that moment he felt betrayed by the girl in his arms, that she would think so little of him after all this time, and so little of herself. "I thought you knew me better than that."
He looked away, still angry.
Milly shifted in her place at his side. Vash clenched his teeth, expecting her to wake, but she only snored louder. Closing his eyes, he lay a hand on her shoulder, demanding her attention. "Don't ever think that of yourself," he whispered harshly. "Damnit Meryl, you've gotta have faith."
Meryl closed her eyes, but she didn't say anything.
"Without faith, what's the point?"
She felt the coldness of his anger in more than his voice. It was in his posture and the grip on her shoulder. It was in the way he turned from her and shut her out, even if only for a moment of his life. Here was a feeling Meryl didn't care to experience, but she wasn't sure how she could make amends for it when she couldn't take it back, and she wouldn't anyway because she knew in her heart that it was honest and true. Her views were lay out in the open, baring her soul to the devil himself. She felt scolded and small and insignificant and she wasn't sure what to think.
She stirred uneasily, gazing to the shadows straight ahead of her, confused and hurt when she wasn't all to sure that was what she was supposed to be feeling. Once again, the overwhelming guilt wrapped around her. Had she made the wrong decision again? "I didn't mean…"
Vash looked to her, and she felt his eyes piercing her soul, catching the lie in her throat before she could even speak it. She hesitated. If she hadn't meant what she'd said, why had she said it at all? How can you know where the lie ended and truth began if you weren't at all sure what you were trying to say in the first place?
She closed her eyes against the brief pain that coursed through her and pushed herself to a standing position, brushing off her slacks as if nothing was wrong. But by the look in her violet eyes as she flashed him one last gaze was enough to say that something was deeply wrong with the situation and she was suddenly at a loss for words, something that rarely happened to Meryl Stryfe.
Raked by her own emotions, she appeared ready to speak, but at the last moment changed her mind, instead heading for the mouth of the cave. "Meryl?" She ignored him and slipped out into the soft glow of the pale moonlight.
Stryker couldn't let her go far, so he followed her out into the night, watching her with evident concern. Once she crossed the threshold of what he considered safe, he took a few long, silent strides until he was there, at her side. "You can't go that way," he whispered. His hand came up and wrapped gently around her arm, just above the elbow. "Please, Meryl. I don't know exactly what you plan to do, but you can't go out there on your own. Don't forget what Vash said."
I know exactly what Vash said, she thought, but she knew that Sean didn't mean the same thing she did.
"There are others out there, watching us, just itching for a chance to hurt him. If you go now, you make yourself the target. You hurt him."
She felt her heart sink deeper into her chest at his words. Her eyes trailed the ground at her feet, refusing to meet his gaze. She wasn't trying to flee Vash. She was trying to protect him. Now, Stryker accused her of something far worse. Was she really turning herself into artillery meant to riddle Vash with pain? Her heart ached at the very thought.
"It's none of my business what's going on between you two and I won't follow you, but I do ask that you hear me out."
She finally let her eyes meet his. She refused to let him think any less of her as a person, but what kind of person could she possibly be if she couldn't look her friends in the face. "Go on," she said, her voice scarcely a whisper.
"Trust in him," Stryker said gently.
She felt her heart spill from her and shatter against the ground like a vase knocked from a table. She knew her face was pale. Trust. It was an occuring theme in her heart, and she had begun to realize that she hadn't placed her trust in him. Not truly. Damnit Meryl, you gotta have faith, he had said. Meryl started to wonder if she had ever had faith. It sure must not seem like it to Vash.
"It's Vash we're talking about," Stryker continued. "The man who can get out of the most impossible situations imaginable. At least, that's what they say."
As she risked a glance behind her shoulder to the cave, and found she couldn't find the strength to look away. Meryl's heart sank. She realized suddenly that it really was Vash they were talking about, and that he hadn't followed her. That could mean one of two things: that he had given up on her and decided not to follow, which Meryl didn't think was very likely, or he had tried and failed because of his injuries. She knew that it was Vash, and that either was possible.
The thought that he had not come after her had never crossed her mind. She realized then just what she had done to him by doubting him and herself. She understood the pain she had caused him when she had simply left without a single word or even a parting glance, what she was still doing by standing out here now.
Way to go, Meryl. Lift him up and shoot him right back down.
All the same, it hurt her to no avail that he had been pained at her honesty, the one good trait she had been sure she possessed, along with a fiery temper that had gotten her quite a few titles along the way, but it was more of a cover for all the flaws she had hoped no one would ever see behind that calm, collected exterior. One of them was her fear for Vash, not only because of the others that were bent on pulling the trigger, but also for the pain she herself could cause without even trying. She finally managed to pull her gaze back to Stryker, having heard every word he spoke like a second voice in the far out reaches of her mind.
"I'm not running away from him, Sean. I just needed…" She stopped herself. What was it she needed? She'd run from the cave so quickly she hadn't even remembered her cape, her only means of protection save for the single derringer hidden within her boot. She doubted that was enough to fight off a single assailant, let alone a hoard of her father's men. Suddenly she felt a chill in the crisp night air, but she wasn't sure if she shivered from the cold or from the determined look in those twin emerald pools gazing to her. "No excuses," she said finally. "I forgot my place, that's all. Thank you, Sean…for stopping me." She leaned forward and rewarded him with a kiss on the cheek. He smiled.
She turned and started walking back to the cave where their friends waited. Sean crossed his arms and watched her leave. She knew he was right, knew that she had doubted herself and in the crossroads, she had doubted him. She paused outside the cave's entrance, staring forward at something she had not experienced much in her life: when she could admit she was wrong and push aside her pride to do what was right. She knew it was past time that she grew up and faced the world with the knowledge that even she could be wrong on occasion, as much as it hurt to admit it.
She shook her head and stepped into the cave, her eyes more attuned for the dark light. She saw him from where he lay on the ground. Her heart sank when she realized that he hadn't moved. He hadn't come after her. His eyes met hers, and for a time neither spoke. For a moment, only the sound of the wind pestering the sand disturbed her thoughts. "I don't blame you for not following me," she whispered.
"There's nothing to blame," Vash replied, never taking his eyes from her.
"You know me. I can carry a grudge."
"If you have to know, I didn't follow you because I knew you'd come back."
She snorted. "That's pretty damn arrogant, Vash."
"Not at all. I didn't follow you because I had faith you would come back. I had faith in you, Meryl."
With a shake of her head, Meryl realized that he had just taught her a valuable lesson, one that she would have to remember. Her heart started to race her mind, pounding furiously in her ears, and all at once, she fell in love with him all over again. She moved to his side and slid to her knees next to him. He watched her, never taking his eyes from her as she took his right hand and held it near her heart. "I'm sorry," she whispered. She ran her fingers daintily along his scarred torso, as if trying to absorb the pain of his tortured soul. He opened his mouth to respond, but she touched his lips softly with her fingertips. "Don't speak…not yet. There's something I have to say first."
He nodded, letting a deep breath fill his lungs.
"I made a mistake tonight. I underestimated your heart. I still meant every word that I said, but that doesn't mean I don't trust you. My head is screaming at me that this is all the biggest mistake that has ever been made in the long, sad history of mistakes, but then again, if there ever was a soul that could turn a mistake into an advantage, it was Vash the Stampede." He gazed to her, reaching out to touch her cheek. She blocked his hand, taking it delicately in her own. "I'm sorry I hurt you, and I'll try to remember my place. We're in this together. I failed to realize…" She sighed heavily. "I want you to know I won't leave you, Vash. No matter what, I'll never leave you."
Her voice faded and she took the man into her loving embrace gently crushing his head to her chest so that he could hear the violent pounding of her heart inside her and the soft breaths that escaped her lungs and caught in her throat. Gentle tears slowly slid from her cheeks, falling into his golden hair like sweet drops of rain that they never saw in such places. She rested her chin upon his head as she stared off into some place in the distance. No sleep would find her this night. She had more important things to do.
Violet eyes stared off, catching briefly in the soft rays of the Fifth Moon; she held onto him as if nothing could pull them apart. Nothing held that much power, no gun could demand that much respect. If she was to die she would die beside this man. Not before, not after. She refused to let go of the ending they deserved and that thought rekindled the fire of her mind and heart and caused a small smile to play on her lips.
"I love you. No matter who you are."
"I love you too, Meryl," he murmured hoarsely, his voice muffled by the fabric of her blouse. He didn't make a move to embrace her. Tears poured from his face, and that was enough to send his love overflowing, spilling onto her as her tears fell onto him.
Nearby, Milly shifted, yet she didn't wake.
He heard Stryker as well, rustling outside, just out of view. He prayed Meryl understood that she wasn't solely responsible for the pain they all shared, that he shared every bit of the blame and that he wouldn't have it any other way. He didn't speak. It would have been to difficult through his tears. He preferred to rest against her and listen to the pounding of her heart, the soft breaths that filled her lungs, the gentle exhales that shunned the darkness encompassing her soul, forcing it to return to the nothingness where it belonged.
She held him; her embraced left him feeling more human than ever before. He was vulnerable.
You're such a baby, Vash.
He remembered the phrase fondly, but for the first time in his life he truly believed Rem's words to be true. He understood them as never before. Maybe that's the way it's supposed to be, Rem. Maybe it's my strongest connection to humanity.
"Meryl," he whispered, shattering the silence between them. The name encompassed him in its strength, showering him with hope. He breathed in the scent of her, letting her love fill his soul.
If you keep your vision clear, you will see the future. What happens in our future is our responsibility.
For the briefest of moments, Vash felt the haze of the present fade, and there he saw his future. He saw Meryl standing there in the shadow of Rem Saverem, as he had on that day just over a year ago, the day before he slipped away from them. He felt their two hearts inside him, pounding as one right along with his own. He knew where Meryl found her strength—that was something he had determined long ago—and he was able to draw his own from her.
I will continue to believe in you, Rem, he thought, remembering his revelation as he stood over Knives after the battle that had ended their struggles. But from now on, I'll look to my own words for guidance. He smiled at the thought. Maybe Meryl was an angel, sent from the heavens by Rem herself to guide him along the right path.
It didn't matter. All that mattered was that this angel was no more or less human than himself. In this moment, her body was pressed against his own, her tears drizzling in his hair. In this moment, they were entirely human.