thanks to sausuge and Bouzouki Joe for your flattering reviews. And as always, more are always welcome!

sausuge: you asked why Frey is renting a room instead of just staying with Michael. You have to understand that Frey doesn't like relying on people, and that she's very stubborn, as seen when she refuses to let Michael help with her leg when she is shot and when she claims that she didn't need his help escaping the mob. Whether she's really that capable or not, she's confident in her own abilities and doesn't want to have to depend on anyone else. And then there's the fact that if she continued staying with them Michael would be permanently out of a bed. I hope that helps.

Bouzouki Joe: interesting theory. Actually, if this was the original version of the story, you'd be mostly right. Originally Frey was Vash and Meryl's daughter, but was separated from them as a child or something and ended up being reunited with them through Michael. But I changed it. I think this version is better and more surprising, though.

Disclaimer: I do not own Trigun or any of its characters.

LIVING MEMORIES

-A Trigun Story-

Chapter Five: Frey's Follower

"Ok men, you know what to do. Stay here and wait for my signal."

Five boys, ranging in age from three to eight, stood anxiously in the hall as the one that had spoken, Jacob, eased open the door they stood behind.

"There's our target," he whispered, "I'm going in."

The other five boys stood in almost absolute silence, watching as their leader crept across the hardwood floor, cleverly avoiding squeaky boards. He rose to a standing position, eyeing their target and making sure it was asleep. Then he held up one hand, three fingers extended. The boys held their breath.

Jacob's ring finger fell, leaving two fingers in the air. His middle finger fell as well, leaving one lone finger extended. Then, after a few more moments of silence, he gave a quick flick with his wrist.

"AAAAaaaah!"

The boys swarmed the room, attacking the figure sleeping at the table. Soon they had her on the ground, climbing and jumping on top of her.

"We got you Frey!"

The girl let out a feigned scream. "Oh no! You got me! Whatever shall I do?" She began to roll back and forth violently in an effort to get the boys off. "Help! Someone, please! Help!"

Carly burst into the room, having heard the scream. She smiled and rolled her eyes, turning to leave again.

"That girl."

The boys quickly scattered when Frey finally got free and attacked the nearest one by tickling him in the side. He squealed loudly. Laughing, Frey let him go, and he scampered off with his friends, no doubt to formulate another plot against her. Sighing, she stood up.

"Fell asleep here again, huh?"

Frey smiled sheepishly at Meryl's question.

"Yeah. I guess time just got away from me."

Meryl smiled. "Those kids sure love you."

Frey shrugged. "I guess. I don't really see why, though."

"It's simple. It's because somehow you know how to make them feel happy, like you can relate to them. It's almost as if you completely understand what they're going through."

Frey fell silent. She sensed the clear question in Meryl's voice, and her curiosity about her past. She decided to refrain from answering, however. Sensing her decision not to speak about it, Meryl backed off.

"You can come over for breakfast if you want," she said simply, then turned and made her descent to the first floor.

Holding her hands under the running sink, Frey cupped a small amount of water and splashed it in her face. She looked up at herself in the mirror.

Her hair was longer now. It fell just past her shoulders. She wore most of it down, pulling just the top half back into a ponytail. She sighed, realizing how much time must have passed since she met Michael. She had stopped keeping track a while ago. She had stopped counting her money, too. For all she knew, she might have plenty to get home. But after learning of the orphanage, and meeting the kids, and becoming better acquainted with the citizens of December, she had suddenly stopped caring so much about returning to September. The idea of going home, which she had hardly been able to wait for when she had first arrived, she now found strangely unsavory. Though she was reluctant to admit it, she had fallen in love with the town, or perhaps more the people in it.

She and Aidan had grown closer than she would have ever thought possible. The two were complete opposites in attitude, background, personalities, everything, but somehow the differences just brought them together as friends. For reasons unknown to Frey, Milly absolutely loved her, as well as Meryl and Vash, though Carly was still a bit skeptical of the influence she was having on her daughter. They had all shown nothing but complete hospitality, however, even when Frey had gone and gotten her own place to stay. Her fierce independence made it somewhat hard for her to accept their willingness to help, but she still found she appreciated the effort. And Michael, well, he was just Michael.

There was a short knock at her door.

"Come in."

Michael, Vash, and Aidan entered. "Ready to go?"

"Yep."

They were going back to the orphanage. This wasn't the first time Frey had fallen asleep and ended up staying the night there, but she didn't regret it. She loved spending as much time as possible with the children. She grudgingly admitted it to herself, but she knew Meryl was right. The reason she got on with the kids so much was mostly because she could relate.

Things had been fairly calm since Frey, Michael, and Vash's encounter with the men on Frey's first day in December, giving her no reason to suspect Vash's true identity. She still found herself wondering occasionally, however, about the mens' claims that Vash was the Stampede. Experience in the past few weeks had told her that Vash was really just a fun-loving, foolish donut fanatic. Who would suspect someone like that to be the humanoid typhoon?

The four of them exited Frey's apartment and began to make their way down the street, towards the orphanage.

"Hey you!" Frey, along with Vash, Michael, and Aidan, stopped and turned at the sound of a voice behind them. A tall, skinny man, dressed completely in black, stood behind them. His huge cowboy hat cast a shadow over his eyes, and long, filthy brown hair protruded from under it.

"You're Vash the Stampede, aren't ya?"

Frey glanced up at Vash, who looked more annoyed than scared. Even as the man drew his gun, Vash just stood there, watching him curiously.

Quick as a flash, the man cocked his gun and fired, his bullet making a straight path at Vash's head. Vash easily dodged it, making Frey raise an eyebrow. "Well that wasn't very nice," Vash said, frowning in feigned seriousness. The man snorted.

"Well fine then." He shifted the aim of his gun so it was pointing at Aidan, who stood a few feet away from Vash. He fired. Aidan screamed, squeezing her eyes shut as the ball of lead sped towards her. When she opened them again, she was on the ground, with Michael crouching next to her. She sighed in relief.

The man began to mutter under his breath, highly perturbed by their refusal to succumb to death. He lifted the gun again to fire.

"That's enough." The man raised an eyebrow. Vash hardly sounded serious.

"Do you really think I'm him?" Vash asked, smiling. "After all, he hasn't been heard from for nearly twenty years."

"I've been hunting him for much longer."

"That's sounds like a pretty wasted life. How about you just forget all of this, and go back home to your family?"

"Not until I see you dead."

"But what makes you so sure I'm him?"

"I've seen you before. I'd recognize you anywhere. Now stop with your petty distractions and prepare to die."

"I'm sorry sir, but I can't do that."

The man's eyes narrowed in anger. "Shut up!" he cried, raising his gun so it was pointing at Vash's head again.

Vash didn't move. His soft smile remained on his face. "Please sir, don't do this."

"I said close your mouth!" he shouted. He shifted his sights to Frey, who stood several feet away from all of them, too far to be saved at a moment's notice in case he fired.

"Just give yourself up now and the girl lives."

Frey's eyes narrowed, but she stood still. "Coward."

Vash's smile disappeared.

"Leave now," he said, addressing Aidan, Michael, and Frey. Michael and Frey glanced at each other and nodded, silently agreeing to stay put. Aidan slowly backed up, but also remained.

"Look guys," Vash said, "this guy isn't just some pushover. Your parents would never forgive me if anything happened to you." He was still ignored, and Frey noticed that even in the seriousness of the situation he hardly seemed worried. He was probably just trying to be responsible for a change, and prove to Carly that he wasn't a horrible influence on her daughter.

"Don't worry Vash, I'll take care of him," Michael said, drawing his pistol. But Vash shook his head.

"No, he came for me. And that's what he's going to get."

He began to lift his left arm. Michael's eyes widened.

"No Vash, you can't-"

He was too late. As Vash held his arm out in front of him, his thumb seemingly dislodged itself from the rest of his hand, leaving a gaping hole between it and his four other fingers. Frey took in a sharp breath, but that was the only reaction she had time for before a forest green machine gun had extended from the hole and settled into its position above Vash's forearm. Even faster than the gun had appeared, Vash fired it, hitting the man dressed in black in his shooting arm.

The man Vash had shot clutched at his arm before noticing that it had barely been grazed by the bullet. Laughing and assuming Vash just had bad aim, the man lifted his gun again and smirked, considering his next move.

Frey barely caught another movement out of the corner of her eye. Still, it was there, and her attention was momentarily drawn from Vash's formerly concealed weapon. Behind the man preparing to kill them all, another one was hiding in a dark alley. Frey could tell he was much younger than the man dressed in black in front of them, even though she could barely see him. At first he seemed unarmed, but then Frey noticed a quick silver glint in the dim light. With a start she realized that the man in black was merely serving as a diversion. She looked quickly up at Vash, but his eyes were focused on the man in black. He hadn't noticed the other, who was drawing close to becoming his assassin. She almost warned Vash, but the man in black was about to fire. He raised his gun and cocked it, and following his motions, the man in the alley raised his own weapon. The man in black was pointing his gun at Aidan again, who stood alone since Michael had moved to help Vash. He would fire, and while Vash was busy protecting Aidan one more time the hidden man would deal his deadly blow.

"Oh please, don't make me do this . . ."

Almost in slow motion, the man fired his gun. The bullet sped toward Aidan, who stood frozen, petrified, once again. Vash immediately fired, knocking the other man's bullet off course. Then he turned in the direction of the alley, preparing to catch the knife he knew was speeding toward him, thrown by the man hidden there that he had noticed before the other man had even shown up.

He saw the silver blade speeding toward him rapidly, his super-human senses easily predicting how long it would take to reach him, which would probably be less than a second. Just before it came within range of being caught by him, however, the knife suddenly froze in mid-air, as if stopped by an invisible wall.

"What the-"

The man with the gun froze, not understanding what had happened. The hovering knife suddenly dropped to the ground, and the gunman dropped his gun in shock. He turned to run, shaking his head in disbelief, but he hadn't taken two steps before he collapsed to the ground.

"I . . . I can't move," he said in a pained voice, though there was no one there to help or pity him.

"What's going on?" Aidan whispered, her eyes wide with unmistakable terror. "Michael? Frey? . . . Frey?"

All three looked at Frey, whose eyes were fixed on the man on the ground. Her eyebrows were furrowed in concentration, and she appeared as if she hadn't heard her name.

Michael took a hesitant step toward her. "Uh, Frey?"

What are you waiting for? Go get the man in the alley before he gets away!

Michael jumped back, looking frantically around him. "What the-?" The voice had come from somewhere around him. It almost seemed like it had reverberated from inside his head. It had been familiar, sounding almost like . . .

"Frey!" It was Vash. "Y-you're psychic!" Frey smiled slightly, though her attention remained focused on the man. What gave me away?

Michael's mind flashed back to the day he had awoken under Frey's care on the sandsteamer.

"Who's Vash?"

"I, I didn't say anything."

"Oh, uh, yeah, never mind, I don't know what I'm talking about."

"But . . ." he trailed off, realizing exactly what this meant. When she had been thrown out of the bar and gotten chased by that mob, when the man on the steamer had tried to kick them off, when the drunk man had held a knife to her throat, she could have stopped any of them at any moment. She had never needed any help at all. She really could have handled it all by herself if she had chosen. Vash really wasn't the only one with something to hide.

Vash picked up the knife that had stopped right in front of him, realizing that its halt had been Frey's doing as well. Then he looked up and into the alley. The man that had thrown it was gone. Realizing the same thing, Frey released the control her mind had on the other man, who quickly rose and scurried away like a frightened animal. There was no point in keeping him there anymore.

She walked over to Vash and looked down at the knife he held in his hand. Immediately she froze. She knew who that knife belonged to.

"Frey, Frey, Frey," a voice somewhere above them suddenly said, "I leave you alone for just a little while and look at what kind of trouble you get yourself into." A figure appeared on the rooftop of the building nearest them. Frey just stared as the young man jumped off the roof and landed next to her.

His smirk was his most defining feature. It stood out above all else, an arrogant, haughty smile that revealed clearly enough his attitude. He wore a simple outfit of battered brown pants and a white T-shirt. His hair was short, reminding Vash of how Knives' hair had looked when the two of them were still with Rem. This young man's, however, was a sandy color, matched with olive green eyes.

"Alec . . ." Frey whispered, half in disbelief, half in disgust. Michael glanced at the knife still in Vash's hand, realizing suddenly that this was the same man that had attempted to kill Vash. He looked back up in confusion, but Frey and the young man she had addressed as "Alec" weren't where they had been standing a moment before. The two of them were about a block away, the man running and hauling Frey after him with a tight grip on her wrist.

"Frey!" Michael cried.

"Alec," Frey gasped, "what do you think you're doing!"

"Taking you home," he answered, flashing her a bright smile. She stopped running, pulling him to a halt with her.

"I don't want to go!"

"Frey!" he muttered, "come on! We have to get out of here! You don't know who that was!"

"Who, Vash?"

"Yeah, Vash the Stampede."

"What?" Frey didn't protest as Alec began to drag her after him again. "Don't tell me you believe that too!"

"It's true."

"He can't be," she argued, though Alec didn't respond. He came to an abrupt halt, then peeked around the corner of a building to make sure no one was there. When he had confirmed that the coast was clear, he ran across the street to a car which was parked in some shadows.

"Get in the car."

"No! I can't believe you just tried to kill Vash! He's not the Stampede, Alec! I've been living here in December with him, so I can guarantee that!"

"Then why is he such a good gunman?"

"Lots of people can shoot guns, Alec."

"Frey, he shot that other guy's bullet out of the air. He didn't even have a gun, it was his arm! He's not normal! Now get in the car."

Frey just stared at him, frowning defiantly. "I'm not normal, Alec."

Alec rolled his eyes. "Frey, that guy I was with has been searching for Vash the Stampede for years, decades even. He saw the destruction of July and Augusta. He knows what he's doing, and there was no doubt in his mind that the man you were with was Vash the Stampede. Now please, just get in the car."

"If he's such a professional then why was I able to defeat him so easily?"

"Don't pull that, Frey. With your powers, a guy like that was no match for you, and you know it."

Still seeing her hesitance, Alec continued. "Look, do you even know that guy's last name? Do you know anything about him, other than the fact that his name is Vash?"

"I-" she stopped, realizing that he was right. Beyond his personality, she knew nothing about him.

"It doesn't matter. I'm not going with you." Alec sighed, disgusted with her stubbornness.

"I didn't want to have to do this Frey, but-" he turned so she couldn't see what he was doing, then pulled something out of his jacket. Before she could react, she felt a damp cloth placed over her face.

"Alec! What are you . . . dooooing . . ." she trailed off as unconsciousness took her. Satisfied, Alec lifted her lifeless body into the passenger seat of the car and climbed into the driver's side.

"Frey, no!" It was that boy that had been with her. He, the Stampede, and the redhead had just spotted him from across the street. Quickly Alec started the car and sped off, leaving the three coughing in a cloud of dirt and sand behind him.

"Frey . . ." Michael whispered, watching the car retreat. Vash placed a hand on his shoulder.

"I'm sorry, Michael."

"Well, can't we do something? We have to go after her, we have to-"

"Michael, if she didn't want to go, she would have stopped him," Vash answered, apparently not having seen how Alec had forced her to comply.

"What are you saying?"

Vash shrugged. "I just don't think he was really kidnapping her or anything."

"She wouldn't have just left."

"Do you really know that? Sure, she's been here for awhile, but you don't really know her."

Kicking the dirt angrily, Michael turned in the direction they had come from and stalked off.

"Michael-"

Vash placed a hand on Aidan's shoulder, silencing her. "Just let him go."

"Meryl, can I ask you something?"

Meryl looked up from her desk. Vash's face looked disturbed, a trait uncommon to it. She stood and walked over to their couch, sitting down and motioning for him to do the same.

"What's wrong?"

"Frey's gone."

"What?"

"She left with some guy that showed up on the way to the orphanage," he answered, leaving out the fact that the 'guy' had tried to kill him and potentially kidnapped her.

"Oh," she said, her face falling, "how's Michael?"

Vash just sighed, clearly saying, you know the answer to that question.

"That's not all that's bothering you, is it?"

Vash smiled dryly. "Is it that easy to tell?"

"It's me, Vash."

"Oh, right."

"So what is it?"

"Um . . . well, on the way back from the restaurant, a different man showed up. He was after me."

Meryl's face showed obvious concern at the thought of Vash being in danger, but she knew that couldn't have been what was bothering him. He had gotten used to that years ago, and even if it didn't happen very often anymore, it wouldn't be something he'd complain about.

"Well?"

"Frey stopped him."

"Frey?" Meryl asked incredulously. "How?"

"Well, that's kind of why I didn't discourage her from going, or encourage Michael to go after her. It really concerned me-"

"Vash, tell me what happened."

"She has . . . powers."

"What kind of powers?"

"Mind powers . . . just like Legato's."

Meryl froze. That name hadn't passed Vash's lips in years. "Are you saying . . ."

"I don't know, Meryl. I hope it's just a coincidence, but part of me keeps saying that can't be true."

Meryl laid her head on Vash's shoulder and sighed. "Oh Vash, I'm sure it's fine. Legato's been dead for nineteen years, after all."

"There's something else."

Meryl sat up, sensing the wariness in his voice. "Yes?"

"I don't know how to explain it, but . . . when she smiles, when she's really calm, she . . . she looks just like . . ."

"Like who?"

Vash swallowed hard. "Like Rem."