Just as the last sun was setting, shining a brilliant red haze at the horizon, there was a knock on the door to the room Meryl and Milly shared. Delia and Karen stood in the hall, smiling. Milly invited them in, but Meryl frowned.

"How did you know we were staying here?" Meryl asked the girls, quizzically.

"There's only one inn," Delia said, smirking. "The town is too small for even a sheriff, remember? We don't get a lot of tourist traffic."

"But the room—" Meryl began.

"There was only one key missing downstairs," Karen told her. Meryl looked back and forth between the two of them; these girls were clever, and they knew it. Briefly Meryl thought of the Idiot and wondered where he was staying, then, if not here. Had he left town already? Oh, to have him out of the way...

"Any news of Vash the Stampede?" Delia asked them immediately, jumping across the room to land cross-legged on Milly's bed, bouncing slightly on the old bedsprings and grinning up at her. Karen joined her sister, though she sat more carefully and arranged her skirt to keep it from rumpling, Meryl noticed.

"I don't know why you're still so interested," Meryl said, half-sighing. "You know we're not bounty hunters."

"No," said Karen. "But you are interesting, regardless."

"Why?" Milly asked, looking puzzled.

"You're women, traveling alone, looking for the Humanoid Typhoon," Karen ticked off observations on her fingers. "And you just seemed nice."

Milly beamed at her.

"Holy cow, are those real?" Delia asked, suddenly, wide eyes staring past Meryl. She leapt across to Meryl's desk, where her cloak was draped over the chair, its derringers in full view. Delia's long, delicate fingers trailed down one Thomas-hide strip, touching each of the five pistols. The girl turned to look at Meryl in new awe. Then she drew a derringer from its holster and turned it over in her hands.

Meryl's first instinct was to order the girl to drop the pistol. She tried to soften the comment from a bark to a request before it even left her mouth, but Delia seemed to know what she was thinking and gave Meryl a little half-smirk. "Mine's a Colt Peacemaker," she said. "I think I can handle a little sawed-off pistol."

"It's called a derringer," Meryl corrected, though she grinned inwardly at the girl's impertinence. She reminded Meryl of herself at that age. Some.

"Whatever it's called, it's tiny," said Delia.

"Give it here," Meryl said, smiling despite herself. She had just cleaned and loaded all her pistols in preparation for patrolling the streets that evening and now she gave Delia a quick explanation of how the derringer worked. And then, at the query, why she carried fifty of them. "Two shots in each, then drop and draw again; I can get ten shots off in the time a man can empty his revolver, and then he has to reload."

"Wow," said Delia, raising her eyebrows, clearly impressed. "Well, thanks for showing me, Ms. Stryfe."

"Oh god, it's Meryl," Meryl said quickly, holstering the derringer again. "Just Meryl." Hearing a seventeen-year-old call her "Ms." made her feel much too old for her meager twenty-two years.

"And call me Milly!" said Milly, brightly.

"Then, thanks, Meryl," Delia finished, smiling broadly.

Meryl gave a quick, sad glance at Milly. The younger woman still wouldn't call Meryl by her name. Meryl had stopped trying to convince—persuade, beg—her partner to drop the honorific and was becoming resigned to the fact she might never be anything but "Ma'am."

Karen seemed to be looking Milly over and frowned. "Do you have derringers, Milly?" she asked.

"Oh, no," said Milly. "I carry a stun-gun." She pointed to where the massive weapon sat propped against the closet.

"My goodness," said Karen, eyes wide.

"I envy you both," Delia said suddenly, sitting heavily on Milly's bed again. When both Meryl and Milly looked at her curiously, she explained, "You're free to go about as you please, you're independent, you're—" here she waved at Meryl's cloak and Milly's stun-gun "—heavily armed." The girl grimaced. "And I'm stuck here, in the middle of nowhere, with no future.

"I know I'm meant for more than just this stupid small town," Delia finished, frustrated. "There has to be more than this, I don't belong here."

"I know how that feels," said Meryl, gently.

She knew exactly how that felt.

But Delia was looking at her skeptically. "You?" She glanced at Meryl's cloak again.

"Where do you think I came from?" Meryl asked. She shrugged. "I had to make my way out of nowhere, same as you." Out of the corner of her eye she saw Milly's head jerk slightly toward her, but when Meryl turned Milly was smiling at Karen, though it looked slightly forced.

Meryl's attention was drawn the window. Night had fallen completely by now and all was dark outside, save the light from the two moons rising overhead. Milly caught Meryl looking and glanced to the window briefly herself. Delia noticed.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"Well, with no sheriff, Milly and I plan to go patrolling tonight, to keep an eye on things," Meryl said. "I hate to cut such a good conversation short, but..." She trailed off.

"We could come with you," Karen offered.

"Er," said Meryl, startled. "No, no, that's not a good—"

"Why not?" Delia asked, enthusiastically. "We know the town inside-out, we could help."

"Ma'am," Milly began, and Meryl knew from the light tone of her voice that the woman was about to suggest they take the girls up on their offer. Meryl widened her eyes slightly and jerked up her chin a fraction of an ich, warningly. "...is right, girls," Milly finished, smoothly, turning mid-sentence to speak specifically to Karen and Delia. "This is our job, we can't have you risking yourselves."

"God!" cried Delia, standing and starting to pace back and forth, looking frustrated. "Heaven forbid we do something interesting, we might break a nail! We're no good for anything but sitting around looking pretty, is that all we're ever going to hear?" Meryl was surprised—are these girls actually told that?—but suddenly Delia stopped in front of Meryl and addressed her directly. "I thought maybe you wouldn't be so damn stodgy, but it turns out you're no better than Daddy!"

Meryl was strangely stung by this, and smothered the minor hurt with fierce annoyance and opened her mouth to snap a retort. It didn't matter, however, because Karen turned to fix her sister with a severe frown.

"That's not fair, Delia," she said, and her voice was stern, more authoritative than Meryl had heard before. "You can't expect Meryl to suddenly champion all your dreams of independence. She got herself out of her own situation, and you shouldn't resent her for it."

Both Meryl and Milly stared at Karen in amazement. Delia herself looked cowed.

Then Karen sighed.

"But at least you can get impassioned about it," she said, looking down at her hands in her lap. Her fingers clasped each other tightly. "You know you're meant for something else, but I'm afraid maybe I am supposed to be here."

Delia sat heavily next to her sister and pulled her into a fierce hug. "Well, I wouldn't go anywhere without you, dummy." Karen smiled gratefully and Meryl watched and wished, maybe for the first time, that she'd had siblings. This moment would be worth it.

"Well," said Meryl, and she had to clear her throat—not crying, certainly—before she could speak again. "You two should probably be heading home, shouldn't you?" Meryl looked to Karen, who might have just proven herself the more mature of the pair. The girls gave Meryl identical pouts, lower lips jutting out under wide, doe eyes, but they didn't have anything on Milly's kicked-puppy look and Meryl found herself delightfully immune. "Nice try, girls," she said, smiling wryly. "But you're welcome to come back and have lunch with us tomorrow, how about that?"

Karen brightened immediately, but Delia still looked gloomy.

"Are you sure you don't want us to come with you tonight?" the older girl asked hopefully, one more time. "We'd be good to have—"

"Goodnight, girls," Milly and Meryl said in unison, though kindly, each trying to hold back a smile as they caught the other's eye. The girls stood, Delia more reluctantly, and Karen beamed.

"See you for lunch, then!" said Karen, pulling Delia away by the elbow, leading her out the door and closing it behind them.

"They're sweet," Milly said, smiling as the girls' footsteps faded down the hall.

"They certainly are," agreed Meryl, though she sighed. "Delia seems a little reckless, though, I worry..." She stood and pulled her cloak from the chair, wrapping it around her shoulders. Milly searched through her bags and pulled out two flashlights, handing one to Meryl.

"She has Karen to look out for her," Milly said, hefting her stun-gun into its sling. "They compliment each other well. The younger, level-headed one to help calm and balance the older, occasionally hot-headed one."

"I suppose," Meryl said, "but how do you know they—" She stopped abruptly as these words sunk in, but when she turned around the younger, level-headed woman was too busy arranging the folds of her cloak to meet her eye.

Within minutes they were down on the street outside the saloon and Meryl could smell the alcohol wafting out on the faint night breeze. Light spilled from the windows to cast square yellow patches on the packed dirt of the street which fragmented over Meryl's feet as she and Milly walked past.

"Flashlights," Meryl said, once they were far enough from the saloon that nothing further illuminated their path. All the storefronts were dark and empty, each coming briefly into sharp relief as the beam from one of their flashlights swept across it. They made their way through the main streets and on toward the more residential areas without meeting anything out of the ordinary.

"Ma'am, may I ask you a question?" Milly asked abruptly, some time later.

"Of course," said Meryl absently. Her attention was still entirely on the flashlight she held, sweeping across the back of an alley on her left.

"Why are you doing this?"

"I told you," Meryl said, distracted. She had spotted a shadow moving across the beam of light, but relaxed once she recognized the form ("Nyao!"). "This town has no sheriff, and with all these rumors about Vash flying around, I want to keep an eye on things." She glanced back to Milly.

"No, no—I mean, yes," the younger woman said, shaking and then nodding her head in a manner that made Meryl dizzy just to watch. "I know why we're patrolling. I mean, why are you doing this." Milly waved her arms vaguely as a more all-encompassing gesture. "This job."

"Oh," said Meryl. She didn't quite know how to answer, but Milly went on.

"From what you said to the girls, it seems like..." The younger woman hesitated. "Like you had bigger plans."

"Oh," Meryl said again, still not sure what to say.

"You're smart, responsible," Milly continued, and Meryl found herself oddly pleased to hear that her partner thought so well of her. "You're quick and accurate with a pistol, it seems like you could do whatever you want." Milly looked around again, somewhat skeptically. "Is this what you want?" Her eyes also looked cautiously anxious.

Meryl wondered if the younger woman might be hurt if she said otherwise. Certainly of all this she enjoyed Milly's company—friendship, if you could call it that—but to be honest, this wasn't what Meryl had originally had in mind.

She considered what she wanted to (or should) tell Milly about herself. The subject had largely been taboo between the two women, after an incident wherein Milly had asked Meryl about the oldest derringer in the cloak. The younger woman had been watching Meryl reassemble her cloak after having it cleaned, and Milly picked up the tarnished derringer, trying to shine it with her sleeve, asking why Meryl didn't just throw out such an ancient pistol and replace it with a better one.

Meryl had shouted at her and snatched the derringer out of Milly's hands so forcefully that her fingernails had scratched the younger woman's palms. It was Meryl's first experience with Milly's kicked-puppy face, and even now she thought her cheeks might be burning red with shame at the memory. Milly had just closed her hands in her lap, pressed her lips together tightly, and looked down at the floor. She didn't cry, or at least she hadn't let Meryl see it, but her voice quavered a little when she spoke up to ask Meryl's forgiveness for speaking out of turn.

"Oh, no, Milly," Meryl had said, desperately, her heart leaping up into her throat. "God, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean... I just..." But she hadn't come up with a good enough apology then, and Milly never asked her anything again, ever, until this moment.

"Ma'am?"

Meryl returned her attention to Milly, here, now.

"I'm sorry," she apologized for her distraction (and privately, for that incident in the past). "I..." Meryl began. "Well, actually—your family are farmers, aren't they, Milly?" Meryl side-stepped the question with her own.

"Yes, Ma'am," Milly affirmed with a nod. "I'm the first to leave the family business. After a time, I mean. I grew up working the fields with my brothers and sisters, but then I decided to try something different."

Meryl wasn't sure if Milly was more proud of this or troubled by it. The younger woman's demeanor was always so positive, the expression she wore now could be either. Suddenly Meryl wished she could read her partner as well as she thought Milly could read her.

"It's hard work," Meryl went on. "Farming. Isn't it? Good hard labor."

"Oh, yes Ma'am!" Milly was nodding emphatically, but her expression now was somewhat puzzled. She clearly wasn't sure where Meryl was going with this train of thought.

"I could have liked that, I think," said Meryl. "Steady work like that."

"Well, not always steady," Milly put in. "I mean, there's never enough water. Every harvest is different, every year there's some new trouble—"

"Oh," said Meryl, shaking her head. "I don't mean—I meant, honestly, solid work, two feet on the ground, in just one place. Steady."

Milly looked utterly perplexed now, and Meryl sighed.

"I worked... steamers, for awhile," she explained. "Working everywhere and not belonging anywhere. And now this. It'd be nice to belong somewhere."

"You worked on a sand-steamer, Ma'am?" Milly asked. She looked surprised. Meryl guessed she must be wondering what her work had entailed.

"Mm," said Meryl, non-committal. "Before all this." She waved a hand the same vague way Milly had, taking in her cloak as well.

"How did—" Milly began to speak but cut short, looking away as she swept her own flashlight across the alley floor. "Sorry, I'm pestering."

Meryl was tempted to let the conversation end there. She was already feeling a little awkward. As a rule, she didn't like to talk about herself. And to be honest, she'd never really had anyone to ask it of her.

"I wanted to go into law enforcement," she blurted, feeling as surprised at herself as Milly looked. "After a single unpleasant experience with bounty hunting. Then I wanted a badge."

"Bounty hunting...? Ma'am!" Milly looked like she was reeling from the sudden overload of information, having gone for so long with so little. Her mouth opened and closed a few times before she managed, "Why didn't you? You could be sheriff somewhere, or a Marshal like Miss Marianne."

Meryl's thoughts turned to the woman they had met a few weeks earlier, the young Marshal, that badge gleaming on her chest. But Meryl didn't look like Marianne.

"I'm five feet and change, on top of being female," she said, looking away. "Nobody's going to take that seriously."

For a moment there was silence as they walked on.

"Is that why you were so upset earlier?" Milly asked, quietly. "In the Mayor's office?"

"Mm," said Meryl, non-committal as before. She pressed her lips tightly together.

A door swung open next to them and light spilled out into their path. There was a bellow of rage from inside the building and someone came flying out, hurled bodily through the door.

Meryl stepped back out of the way just in time to watch the man soar across her path, narrowly avoiding a collision. She stared in surprise at the man as he collapsed in a heap, groaning loudly. Another shout from behind her made Meryl turn, and though she managed to recognize the man flying suddenly toward her she wasn't able to move out of the way quickly enough. They met in a jarring impact as he unintentionally tackled her to the ground and forced all breath from her lungs.

Meryl landed flat on her back, and the Idiot landed with his face planted squarely between her breasts.

There was a brief moment of complete stillness and silence before the Idiot let out an appreciative, if muffled, "Oooh!"

Meryl growled so low in her throat the Idiot could probably feel it from his current position. He managed to extricate himself from her cleavage and look up to her face.

"Oh, hello!" he said, smiling lop-sidedly up at her. He appeared to be having difficulty focusing his eyes properly. "It's you!"

"Yes," said Meryl, through bared teeth.

The Idiot belched loudly and foul breath washed over Meryl's face. She wrinkled her nose and coughed (making his pointed chin bounce painfully against her sternum); he had been at the cheapest rotgut available, by the smell of it.

"What were you doing down here on the ground?" asked the Idiot, looking puzzled.

"I wasn't!" Meryl snapped. She pushed her palm against his face, forcing him sideways. "Get off me!" He rolled off her chest, giggling, and flopped onto his back on the ground. She scrambled to her feet, torn between kicking him in the kidneys or just stomping repeatedly on his chest.

"On your feet, brother," said the other man, standing again and stepping between Meryl and her potential victim. He bent down and helped pull the Idiot up with an arm around his shoulders.

"What are you two doing out so late?" the Idiot asked Milly, leaning heavily on his similarly drunk friend as Meryl retrieved the flashlight that had bounced out of her hand during the accidental-tackling.

"We're on night patrol, Mr. Vash!" Milly volunteered.

"Night patrol?" The Idiot looked bemused. Then he beamed at her. "That's wonderful! Aren't they wonderful?" he asked, turning to the other man.

"Here's to wonderful women!" shouted the man, raising his fist in the air in salute. He and the Idiot dissolved into more giggles and wandered off into the dark. Meryl let them go. She congratulated herself on not inflicting bodily harm on either of them. Beside her, Milly laughed softly.

"Looks like they're having fun," she commented.

"Hardly," said Meryl, watching the men veer suddenly off course and steady themselves on the side of a building for a moment. Their laughter carried back to her, echoing off the walls of the alley. "People only drown themselves in alcohol if they have something to forget."

Meryl glanced back to her partner and the look on Milly's face told her that the significance of this statement was not lost on the younger woman.

Meryl swallowed hard and looked away.

"Well," sighed Milly. "Shall we keep on?" There was a note in her voice that clearly intimated that she hoped the answer to this question would be no.

"Things seem pretty calm," Meryl admitted. She was tired... "Let's do just one more quick sweep."

For the next twenty minutes they kept their flashlight beams low to the ground, avoiding people's windows, and canvassed the town again. There was only one residence with the lights still on by the time they were returning to the inn and Meryl glanced in quickly when she saw movement in the window.

It was the Idiot and the other drunkard. The second man had passed out by now, and the Idiot was pulling a blanket up over his sleeping form in a gesture Meryl thought oddly compassionate.

She found herself with the opportunity to consider him when he wasn't acting the part of the fool, living up to the moniker she'd dubbed him. The man in red turned from the bed and picked up a child's battered old doll that was sitting on the table, regarding it with an expression Meryl couldn't read, the face normally split in silly grins now muted and thoughtful.

Then he rushed to the window iches from where she stood and bent over the sill, retching.

Meryl danced back out of the way as vomit splattered across the ground where her feet had been just seconds ago.

Ugh. She made a face.

"I've seen enough," she told Milly. "Let's get some sleep."