AN:

Hey everyone, hope your liking it so far, y'all have it a little more than i expected, anyways give me some reviews even you dont like, i wanna know what you guys think, please?

okay pre-warning this next part might often some people as it deals with some rather nasty stuff, and has some sorta corse lanague too. but anways just a pre warning to everyone

enjoy

Adeila


Chapter 12:

Eliana sighed as she sat next to Vash as he drove, her right arm resting to the car door while the left laid across her leg, fingers tapping a rhythm in time to the engine noise. Vash sat stoically opposite her, His glasses hiding any from of expression on an otherwise blank face. She sighed a little and flex her arm, immediately feeling the still store, new muscle, built by the months of training, tense and cause a dull ache to run up the arm. She looked across at Vash who looked straight ahead.

"I can't believe it's been almost six months, the time's just flown past." She remarked. The incident with Knives had been put to rest two weeks after it had happened, and all three of them had seemed to resolve the matter to the past, she for the most part had spent her time reading and doing exercise in her bedroom, avoiding both Vash and Knives, however after that had things had begun to return to normal, with her training with Knives again. And adjusted her own pair of sunglasses, these had a more traditional design to Vash's.

"Yeah."

"So how come you wanted to go see my Mom."

"Well actually that's just a lil' side trip, its Bernadelli I need to go see actually."

"Whys that?"

"Make sure I'm still dead." He smirked a little.

"Oh." The conversation drifted into silence for a long while, the vast expanse of desert offering much in the way of convocation relating to their surroundings. and the fact that they both lived way out in the boonies and there was no formal news network so to speak, meant that news was pretty much off the cards for discussion too. It was a good few hours before either spoke up, around the time the adult sun reached midday point. Vash informed Eliana that there was a town pretty close by where they'd be stopping for water and lunch. About twenty minutes they came to the town which was a fair size, but no ware near big enough to be classed as a city.

Vash pulled the car to a stop on what appeared to be the main street of the town and both he and Eliana got out. She took off her glasses and looked around. The town was nothing out of the ordinary, it looked like your average town high street, a barber shop, several saloons and the odd convenience store, as well as a cafe at the far end of the street. Vash walked around the car, he nodded toward the building with a sign reading 'restaurant eat here' hanging down from a pole above the door.

"Eat there?"

"Sure. Why not?" Vash led the way down the street, they stepped in and out of the people walking down in. It appeared to be relatively busy for the time of day. As most people were avoiding the midday sun. As they entered the crowed restaurant a few heads rose to see the newcomers. Vash sat down a chair his back facing the bar and the rest of the room, while Eliana took a seat on a bench was attached the far wall. From her position she could see most of the room, there were a series of tables, set out in several rows of four, there was small stage at the far end of the room, on it an attractive young girl, who looked barley into her teens was singing, to a gramophone record. Next to the stage was a door marked Kitchen and then an unmarked door. To the left of these was a small bar. A bored looking middle aged man stood at the bar, leaning on his palm. He wasn't getting much custom and it was pretty obvious that most of the customers, who were for the most part male, had come to see the girl. As most of them were watching her like hawks.

"What do you want?" Vash asked. Interrupting her train of thought.

"Err, what are you having?"

"Probably Chicken Dijon, it looks the like one of the few edible things on the menu." He flicked through quickly glancing down the pages.

"Yeah, do they have anything not so meaty?" She gave a nervous smile.

"Lets see, beef and vegetable stew?"

"That'll do."

"Waitress!" He called out to the young girl, who was cleaning up table, this place, not being to up market had no uniform of sorts, so she just wore jeans, a black flannel shirt and an apron. She put down the plates and walking to their table took a small note pad from the pocket on her apron.

"Yes sir?"

"I'll have the Chicken Dijon, and she'll have the Beef and Vegetable stew."

"Very good sir, anything to drink?"

"Yes, I'll take a beer, Ellie?"

"A glass of water, thank you."

"Is that all? Any dessert."

"Yes, that's all thanks."

"It should be ready soon." She left and headed for the kitchen. Pushing the door open she shouted something into it and then returned to collecting plates. On the stage the girl paused as the song ended. She looked over the audience and smiled as some of them threw change into a beret placed upside on the front of the stage, she stopped and looked at Eliana and Vash and smiled brightly. Eliana smiled back weekly. Then shifted around in her seat, the worn leather creaking a little.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"What's up?"

"Just thinking about Mom a little."

"Really, what about her?"

"I'm trying to think of a time when we together that we both enjoyed ourselves."

"Ah, that's nice."

"Not really, I can't think of one."

"Oh." They stayed quite for at least ten minutes after that, till the waitress brought their food out. They began eating in silence. Till about half way through eating her meal she spoke up.

"It's not just me Y'know. She doesn't like me either." Vash looked up at her from across the table, his eyes still hidden behind his glasses. He raised an eyebrow

"Well, there was this one time, when I was five or something, she took me to a lunch meeting with her friend Karen, and she and this Karen sat down and Mom didn't even get a chair for me. So I just sat on the floor. While they eat, that's all I did, she didn't even acknowledge me at all! So anyway when Karen gets up, She looks down to pick up her bag, and gives a little shriek and says. 'Mer, some little urchin is stealing from you bag.' Cuz I was playing it. And Mom looks down and says 'Oh that's just my daughter Ellie." Vash paused eating for a minute, swallowed his mouthful and looked at her.

"I'm sure your mother loved you."

"She sure has a funny way of showing it." Again silence fell and they resumed eating, the girls signing echoing in the background as they eat, it was an old song, the record crackled as it played in the background and then faded out. The girl behind the microphone meekly said 'thank you' and then left the stage, sat down at the bar. The wide grin that had been on her face while she had been singing had gone and she looked thoroughly dejected from then on. It was maybe five minutes later that a man from a nearby table got up and walked to the bar, he leaned on the bar and with a smirk spoke to the bar man and handed him a wad of bills and pointed to the girl the barman nodded and returned the smirk. He approached the girl and spoke to her, rather loudly, but his words were drowned into the background by the chatter in the bar. However the jist of what had been saying became painfully clear when he pointed to the man and money he still held in his hand. The girl got up and walked to the man. He smiled and caressed her cheek. The grabbing her roughly he led the girl out of the bar at a fast pace.

"That sick... Bastard. That's not right! I'm gonna go after them, pay double what he's paying, she wont have to do anything then!" Eliana blurted out, making half the bar look at her.

"It won't matter, he'll be back tomorrow and with your money too." Vash looked down rather dejectedly at what was left of his meal. She stood up, gripping the edge of the table with both hands she looked down at him.

"Fine! if you not gonna help, then well... Fuck you!" She stormed out, pushing the swing doors so far open they hit the wall or the return swing. Vash groaned and got tossed a twenty double dollar bill on the table and followed her.

Outside Eliana raced after the man her hand instinctively went to her belt and the derringer there, she slid it out and spun it into a firing position. She lost sight of them as they rounded a corner heading into the back alleys.

'Okay Ellie girl, just remember what Knives taught you." She thought to herself. Before heading into the alleys she stepped close to wall, and ran along it derringer aimed low at the ground, ready to throw up at fire at a moments notice. She rounded the corner and threw her gun up, however the alley was vacant but from the end of the alley the sounds of a struggle could be heard. She followed the same procedure keeping close the wall, gun low. As she neared the corner she heard the girl whimper

"Please, don't." There was the sound of skin hitting skin. Hard. Followed by a sharp cry.

"Shut up, I went an' paid for you, I'm gonna get my moneys worth." That was all she needed to hear. She stepped around the corner gun raised.

"Freeze! Tough her again and I'll blow your head of." The man slowly raised both hands in the air and she looked down quickly at the girl who was laying slumped against the wall, holding her face from being slapped, a trickle of blood running from the corner of her lip. Her dress had been ripped a little around the shoulders, and one side hung down loose making the whole dress lopsided, her jacket discarded on the floor. Both had a look of shock on their face. The girl at someone helping her and the man that this girl was pointing a gun at him. Eliana looked the man over and saw the telltale bulge of a gun in his pocket.

"Okay, this is how its gonna work, your gonna slowly take that gun out of your pocket" She indicated which one by a nod of her head. "Then drop it on the floor, and slowly walk away and forget you ever saw either of us." She demanded.

"Fine." The man growled, he reached down and grasped the gun, as he drew it out there was a quick smile and then two shots sounded in rapid succession. Eliana stared at the smoking barrel of his gun in an almost euphoric trance for a few seconds before the pain ripped through her like a tidal wave and she fell to the ground. As she feel she called out 'Help me' in a desperate cry of pain. The man laughed as he walked over to her, as she clutched her right shoulder. She could feel the slick, wet feeling of blood pouring from the wound under her hand. Her gun lay in her right hand, but no matter how hard she tried it wouldn't move, the arm just lay limp. The man smirked.

"I paid for her, Ya' think I'd have a problem killin' ya'." She gritted her teeth. Unable to cry out again. He moved to aim the gun at her head when a pair of slender hands wrapped around his arm, pulling it back.

"Please, stop! She doesn't need to die." The girl begged. "Please! I'll do anything, just don't kill her."

"Anything?"

"Yes Anything! Just please don't kill her." The girl cried out, the man turned back to Eliana and saw a tall man blonde haired man, with black streaks in his hair, wearing sunglasses and holding a large sliver gun, and wearing a rather dark look on his face.

"You shouldn't have shot her."

"Why?" Vash answered with a gunshot, the man let out a loud cry as his knee caved as the bullet passed through his knee cap, he fell to the floor, blood pouring from the wound as Vash ran past and brought the butt of his gun down on the mans head knocking him unconscious. He squatted down by Eliana and looked her over, the blood had now poured out and was staining the sand.

"Shit." He whispered. The girl looked down at them both.

"Is she gonna be okay?" Vash didn't answer, lifting her up a little, he propped Eliana against his knee, he reached into his pocked and pulled out his wallet, taking several one hundred double dollar bills out he passed them to the girl.

"Take this, get on a bus to December go to the Wolfwood orphanage in the town close by and see Millie Thompson, tell her Alex sent you."

"But...But"

"Hurry go! Before some else comes." She nodded and ran as fast as she could away from the scene, while he scooped Ellie up into his arms. She whimpered in pain as he caught her shoulder. She was a mess her eyes were shut tight, her lip bleeding from a cut where she'd been biting it. and blood covering most of her upper right side.

"It hurts."

He stroked her hair with his free hand, it came away wet and covered in blood

"Oh shit, not good." He muttered again, then more loudly" I know, honey, I know. We're gonna get you to a doctor okay." She didn't answer.

"Fuck! Ellie, c'mon say awake!" He shouted breaking into a run out of the alley and towards the town square. And where he hoped there was a doctor's surgery.