Meryl woke up and rolled over to look at Vash in the sunlight. He'd been back for a week, but she was still finding it hard to believe. She woke him gently to let him know she was getting up. He still seemed to panic a little when he woke up and she wasn't with him, but he was getting over it. He was learning to trust her, and he was getting used to the idea that she wasn't going anywhere. She really couldn't wrap her mind around the fact that he had been alone for over a century. She would probably be nervous, too.

She sat up in bed and felt a strangely satisfying ache in her body which read as sure as any scribbled paper sign, "Vash T. S. was here." She stifled a laugh at the thought and got out of bed to start her morning routine. First was a shower. She accomplished that in no time. Then she had to get dressed and make breakfast. Millie had started going to the local cafe with Mr. Jim in the mornings. Meryl would have been nervous about the extra money spent, but Jim always paid, and it was really cute seeing Millie with him. Meryl was pretty sure there were feelings between them, but as always, Millie's outwardly innocent display deflected all inquiries about the nature of their relationship.

She walked down stairs and started frying some bacon. After that was done, she fried eggs in the leftover grease. At about the time the toast had finished toasting, she heard Vash padding down from their room. She turned around when she heard him take a seat at the table. As she put a plate of food down in front of him, he pulled her close and gave her a kiss. "Good morning, beautiful." He gave her a real smile, which wasn't so out of the ordinary anymore.

"Good morning," she replied with a smile. If only every morning could start like this.

After a leisurely breakfast, Vash went to take a shower and get dressed and Meryl went to take care of Knives. She thought it was funny that her morning routine was almost exactly the opposite of Vash's, but it was kind of nice. They were never fighting over the bathroom.

She gathered the medical supplies that were necessary to treat Knives and walked into his room. He was a fast healer, but the injuries he had sustained would leave some scars. She walked over to his bed timidly, trying to make sure he was still unconscious. As she changed the dressings on his wounds, Meryl thought about how Vash had been acting lately towards his brother. Sometimes she would find him standing at the doorway looking at him, his entire body tensed. Other times, she would see him sitting against the wall, as if he was looking at Knives through the closed door in front of him. She never saw him in the room.

As she finished changing the last dressing, she felt a strange sensation all over her body, then it felt like a huge and ragged clamp had fastened around her mind. She looked at Knives face and was shocked to see his eyes open. She started to panic, but managed to apply the mind blocking techniques Vash had been showing her. She saw the frustration on Knives face and jumped out of the way right before he managed to grab her arm. He winced at the pain in his arm. In no time, she pulled out her gun (Vash told her to always be armed, even if Knives seemed unconscious) and accidentally knocked over the tray of medical supplies. At the crashing sound, Vash walked in and took in the scene before him.

Vash calmly walked over and touched Meryl on the shoulder. "It's okay." Slowly, she backed out of the room, never once lowering her gun or taking her eyes off of Knives.

When she was outside of the room, Vash closed the door and looked hard at his brother. "So, you showed her how to block her mind...impressive for a spider." Knives sounded amused. "And her resemblance to that bitch is striking. That must be why you keep this pet of yours around." It was obvious Knives was trying to bait his brother.

Vash kept looking at Knives. As he thought about what Knives had just tried to pull on Meryl, his blood began to boil. With her out of the room, he felt his animosity towards his brother begin to rise unchecked.

He started unbuttoning his shirt. At first, Knives didn't know what he was doing, but suddenly as Vash let the fabric fall to the floor, he knew. Knives looked at the mangled body of his twin and his mouth dropped open. The scars were so much worse than the last time he had seen his brother. He looked over all the metal implants and the prosthetic arm. He looked over the grotesque gorges and the steel grid that replaced Vash's missing flesh. He tried to regain his composure, but he couldn't imagine the pain that had been inflicted on him to get such horrible scars.

Knives was seething with anger. "Look what those...insects...have done to you. You are so foolish to care about them."

Slowly, calmly, and with his voice full of malice, Vash spoke. "Knives, don't start. You caused me to get all these scars. These desperate people on this planet only hunted me because they needed the money. You...you hunted me to prove some delusion. I can forgive the people who went after me because they thought they had no other choice. You, brother, always knew you could stop. And no physical injury ever hurt as much as your betrayal of me, of Rem, of the entire human race." Vash watched as his words sank into his brother's mind. "Your false belief that you were superior has caused me this pain. You caused the deaths of so many...of so many I loved."

Knives couldn't believe the words that were coming out of his dopey brother, and he couldn't keep his cool. "But Vash! I only did it for you. I did it to save you from the spiders!"

Vash noticed Knives' composure slipping. He must have still been very weak. "I didn't have a problem until you decided to blow up July." Vash picked his shirt up and started to get dressed again. "I can't forget all the people you've taken away from me. I can never forget the loved ones I have lost because of you." Pictures of dead friends flickered in his mind like an old film reel.

With Vash fully clothed once again, Knives got ahold of himself. Anger grew in his heart. "You are such a coward. You come in here all high and mighty, yet you couldn't even kill me when you had the chance."

Vash's next words shocked him more than anything Vash had ever said before. "Just because I didn't kill you doesn't mean I don't want you dead." Who was this man standing in front of Knives? Vash saw his brother's face react to the statement. "Don't look so stunned, Knives. We are brothers, afterall. You really think I'm a fool, don't you?" Vash's face twisted in anguish. "Our last fight wasn't the first opportunity to kill you that I passed up." Knives' eyes flashed with horror. What was Vash talking about?

"You don't know about the time I almost bashed your skull in while you slept right after you crashed us into this planet. You've never realized that it was the ideals of "that bitch," as you so eloquently refer to her, that kept me from killing you that night. You're just like every human on this planet. Even you owe Rem for your life, several times over."

There was no point in hiding it anymore. Knives didn't know the man who was standing over his bed. What happened to the idiot who spouted mantras about love and peace?

Vash caught his brother's frantic thoughts. "You're the idiot. Don't you know I can't have peace when you keep killing all the people I love." Knives was slowly shaking his head back and forth. Vash looked deep into his brohter's eyes. "Do not force my hand, brother. I don't want to kill you, but if you have to die for me to protect those I love, I won't hesitate to pull the trigger."

Vash left his mind wide open. Knives sifted through his thoughts and knew for a fact that Vash was not bluffing. Knives had tried to turn his brother into a killer, and it seemed as though he had succeeded, but he was threatening to kill a member of the wrong species. Reaching for anything to convince his brother against this, Knives appealed to the memory of the woman he had grown to hate. "What happened to the promise you made to Rem?"

Vash leaned over the bed. He seemed bigger than normal. "You were right about me, Knives. I am naive. I believe you can change. I am giving you a final chance to come around. It is true that Rem would have abhored me talking about killing my own flesh and blood, but what would she say if she knew I had allowed you to terrorize everyone on this planet because of your ridiculous delusions of grandeur?" He trailed off, thinking of Rem. "I don't want to make a sacrifice to save everyone. I know all it would take was for you to change your mind. However, I can't let you terrorize the humans anymore. If I have to make a sacrifice, it will be your life. No more innocents will die by your hand." He looked at his brother, who was still in shock. "Do not doubt my words. I am the only one who can stop you, and if you want to drive me to commit murder again, it will be the last thing you ever do."

Knives was flabbergasted. Vash looked out the window, his face full of weariness. After a while, he looked at the floor and saw all the medical supplies at his feet. He bent down and placed all the items back on the tray. Slowly and heavily, he began to speak. "You're still injured. If you're not nice to Meryl, then you don't get any medical care. I know you think you're superior, but right now, you're depending on humans to get better, so try to be a little more gracious."

Vash stood and walked out of the room, leaving Knives to contemplate his twins words alone.

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yes, i hope that wasn't repugnant. review and whatnot!