Disclaimer: I do not own Trigun, or any of its characters, and I do not own any characters that any of my characters may resemble in name, description, or behavior.

Chapter 5: Interlude

In one of the hallways in Sky City, there was sobbing coming from two rooms. In one, Millie was crying loudly, albeit happily at Wolfwood's resurrection. Nick, himself, was sitting on one side of the bed, hugging Millie, who was sitting next to him, leaning over to be nearly in his lap, crying on his shirt.

Across the hall, on the other hand, Alex and Vash were standing respectfully over an open casket. Within that casket, was the blood and chemical stained body of Aesculapius. Both onlookers were allowing tears to flow freely from their eyes, but neither was making any noise whatsoever. Finally, after a few minutes, the two of them hoisted the casket, and carried out of the room.

Wolfwood and Millie heard Alex and Vash leave the room, and went out to join them. Finally, a few rooms later, they picked up Meryl, and the five of them walked along to the open grave, which had been occupied by Wolfwood until two days previous.

Once there, they put the coffin into the open grave, now marked by a white wooden cross, and Wolfwood started the funeral services.

One week later, everyone entered the car, and started to drive back to June, to catch the next stand steamer back to November.

As if on cue, the car broke down when they were exactly halfway between Sky City and June.

"What's going on, Vash? Why aren't we moving?" Meryl shouted, obviously shaken and irritated.

"I don't know. Something broke. I'll see what it is," Vash responded, equally shaken and irritated.

"Maybe I should take a look too. I've always been better at these kinds of things than you," Wolfwood added, much calmer.

Several hours pass, and no conclusion is reached as to what's wrong with the car.

Millie looks up from the hood of the car, and sees that Alex's bike is gone, and sees a line from the back of the car, leading eastward. "Hey, I think that you should look up. Alex's gone."

Wolfwood's initial response was "This is great, just great. How did you know that you could trust him in the first place? In fact, who is he anyway?"

Vash then said, "His name is Alex, and we met him just before we left for the anniversary of your death. If it weren't for him, you wouldn't be alive again now!"

Wolfwood's response was, "How am I alive again?"

"Alex's friend, Aesculapius, gave you some medicine, I'm not sure what, but it brought you back from the dead. If Alex wasn't with us, Aesculapius would never have come with us, and you would not be alive again!"

"How did you know that you could trust him, needle-noggin? What it seems to me is that a coincidence allowed me to come back, Alex really didn't do anything!"

"He hasn't given me a reason to distrust him!"

"I didn't give you any reason to distrust me, but until the end, I was working for Knives!"

That moment, Alex rode back, and everybody quieted. Alex spoke up, "Hey guys, there's a town over that way," he pointed east, "only about 2 mi—iles, and it seems to be populated. There is a chance that there is someone who could repair the car there. Oh, and sorry about disappearing on you, while you were in deep discussion about what's wrong with the car, I decided that it would be a good idea to get help, and I didn't think that interrupting your intense work would have been advisable."