Vash blinked bemusedly up at Meryl from the ground, clearly still a little confused as to what had just happened. Before she could apologize or offer Vash a hand back up, a large chunk of the crowd had broken off and come running to surround him. Within moments, two men had lifted Vash up onto their shoulders and everyone was shouting loudly, each trying to be heard first as they congratulated and thanked him.

His first expression of bewilderment as the crowd carried him off was priceless; Vash glanced once at Meryl with what she thought might have been a terrified sort of help me! look, but then he was all grins and even cheering along for himself as well.

Meryl didn't begrudge Vash the celebration; it was his victory. And her job to clean up the mess. She realized she was still a little shell-shocked from the whole ordeal and took a few deep breaths until her heart stopped racing. Then, knowing she could leave Milly in charge of the injured women, Meryl hurried across the square to where the giant lay, still groaning loudly enough to make the ground vibrate at a constant slight hum under her feet.

Just as the town seemed to have an unlimited supply of weaponry, they were similarly equipped to detain anyone they caught; by the time Meryl had reached the scene, Nebraska was in heavy handcuffs and leg irons. Meryl retrieved the man's monocle from where it lay, having rolled several yarz away, and then—not quite sure what to do with it—tucked it into the front pocket of his white lab coat. He glared at her.

Several yarz away, Nebraska's son seemed to be in shock at the injury Vash had inflicted, almost paralyzed by it, still gripping the stump of his arm tightly in his other massive hand. The town Chairman was standing frozen, gazing up at the giant with an incredulous expression.

"What the hell are we going to do about him though?" asked the Chairman, of no one in particular.

"Actually," said Henry, appearing breathlessly at Meryl's shoulder, "there are already people on the way to take care of them. Just a few minutes away, now."

"What?" Meryl said, turning wide eyes on Henry. It couldn't possibly be that easy. "Who?"

"Lawmen from the prison they broke out of, I think," Henry explained. "They were already tracking the Nebraskas here and called ahead by radio. Someone was still back at headquarters and told them that we've already captured the Nebraskas." He shared a quick glance with the Chairman and said, "Well... That they're captured, anyway."

It was only moments later that a veritable fleet of trucks and trailers and wagons of all shapes and sizes began streaming into the square from the main streets, dozens of them speeding towards where she and Henry and the Chairman were standing. The trucks in the lead peeled off to the sides and all the vehicles drove across the square to form a wide circle around the giant before each scraped to an abrupt halt in the dirt. The moment the trucks had stopped, men began pouring out the backs of the trailers, most of them heavily armed and pointing a weapon of some kind up at the giant.

Meryl was unnerved by the militaristic efficiency of the whole operation and was glad when it all finally came to a standstill. A burly man wearing large, dark sunglasses emerged from the truck nearest Meryl and strode purposefully toward her and Henry and the Chairman. As he approached, Meryl could see his black huge moustache bristling with each step. He stopped and stood before them with his feet spread shoulder-width apart, his hands clasped behind his back.

"Who's in charge here?" demanded the man, glaring down at them all from under bushy black eyebrows as unruly as his moustache.

"He is," Meryl said quickly, pointing toward where Henry stood at her left. Henry looked down at her in surprise, but on her right the Chairman seemed relieved to pass on the responsibility of dealing with these men. The man extended a hand to Henry.

"I'm the warden," said the man gruffly, shaking Henry's hand firmly when the other man took his. "Nebraskas' Penitentiary. Tell me what happened here," the warden continued. "Every detail."

Meryl's insides went cold.

Vash.

If they told the warden what had really happened, that Vash the Stampede had been responsible for the events here—even though it was for the good of the town, the whole planet, even—what would stop the warden from taking Vash, too? And she'd only just found him, they couldn't take him from her now.

Meryl tried desperately to convey her thoughts to Henry telepathically, thinking, please, please, please don't...

Again Henry and the Chairman shared the briefest of glances. Then Henry cleared his throat and pushed his glasses further up on his nose.

"We ganged up on them," Henry said, his voice even and sure. "The whole town. One man got off a lucky shot while the giant's fist was detached, it tore straight through all the machinery in his arm, incapacitated him. Nebraska was easy to capture after his son was down."

Amazed, Meryl tried to appear as though this story wasn't news to her. When the warden turned to look up at the giant, Meryl glanced surreptitiously sideways as Henry. He didn't meet her eye, but he did seem to give her just the hint of a nod.

Thank you...

"Hm," grunted the warden. He faced Henry again and said, "Thanks, we'll take it from here." He cupped large hands around his mouth and barked orders to his men, his deep voice echoing loudly, bouncing off the stone walls of the buildings around them. "Alright, let's get to work, people!"

The square around Meryl was suddenly a whirlwind of activity. All the men had shouldered their rifles or holstered their pistols and sprung into action of some kind or another. Nearly a dozen men were already hauling the giant's massive fist from the rubble of the building where it still lay, and another three were coiling the heavy cable that connected fist to elbow.

A new vehicle had arrived nearby and Meryl recognized the white canvas and red cross of a medical wagon. It had pulled up alongside the giant's prone form and several men—wearing white lab coats, rather than the others' law enforcement uniforms—began piling out the back. Meryl watched as they began constructing what she assumed to be a sort of field hospital. It was only a small series of tables and equipment set up in the shade of the wagon, but the white-coated men certainly seemed to know what they were doing.

Meryl made her way toward the medics and spotted the man in charge immediately. He was more world-weary than his younger counterparts and had a much less excited air than the rest. Meryl could tell this was hardly his first experience in the field and he seemed to be annoyed by the others' enthusiasm. He was also clearly more concerned with the giant than he was with the injured of the town. Meryl glanced toward where Milly was tending to the women who'd been hurt in the saloon's collapse—alone. Frowning slightly in disapproval, Meryl decided to remind the man he had obligations to care for all the injured, not just the prisoners.

"Sir?" Meryl said, trying to catch the head medic's attention. He was still unpacking small containers of instruments and tools and either didn't hear her or didn't want to. She spoke a little more forcefully. "Excuse me, sir?"

"What is it?" he snapped, glancing up with a scowl. Meryl matched his scowl, ready to butt heads if necessary, but the man blinked in surprise. "Oh, sorry, Miss," said the medic, looking truly apologetic. "Can I help you?" Meryl immediately dropped her own angry front.

"There are townspeople here, injured during the fighting," she explained. "Some are in dire need of help."

"Where?" demanded the medic, glancing around. "I wasn't told—it's that damn warden!" he hissed. "He only cares about getting these idiots back to the prison."

"They're over there," Meryl said, pointing across the square. "That's my partner there, caring for them. She's a dab hand at patching up, but we don't have the resources for dealing with trauma."

"I'll see to that," said the medic, and he snapped his fingers angrily at two of the young men still setting up equipment nearby. "Johnson!"

"Jenkins, sir," said one.

"Don't argue with me!" snapped the head medic. "Start taking those tables down, move across to where those women are, they need medical attention more than this great lump." He nodded sideways at the giant.

"But we've just finished putting them up—"

"Now!"

Both young men jumped and began hurriedly gathering the equipment again, forcing tools haphazardly back into their cases.

"Thank you," Meryl told the head medic.

"Of course," said the medic. He returned to setting up his own work station and Meryl's attention wandered to the rest of the commotion in the square. The giant's fist had been retrieved and men were busy trying to lash the forearm in place, holding the two metal fittings together where fist met elbow. Meryl watched men hauling oddly-shaped crates and heavy equipment from the trailers, gathering them in the center of the square, and she turned curiously to the head medic again.

"Do you know how they plan to transport them?" she asked. Meryl hadn't been involved in the logistics work following the capture, last go around, so she didn't know what to expect. The medic seemed pleased enough to explain what he could.

"We'll sedate them," he told her, "before we try moving them." He held up a hypodermic needle, filling it with a clear blue liquid from a small glass vial.

"You're kidding, right?" asked Meryl, staring at the needle. It wasn't enough to take down Milly.

"Oh, this one is for Nebraska," explained the man, seeing Meryl's expression. He turned, looking for something, and then snapped his fingers again in annoyance to catch the attention of the nearest of his men. The head medic handed off the needle and the other man walked hurriedly away to where the defeated scientist stood shackled. Then the head medic went back to the wagon and leaned inside, his torso disappearing between the heavy leather flaps that served protect the vehicle's contents from the sun, and pulled something else from its depths.

"This one is for his son," he said, turning back to Meryl.

"Holy shit," said Meryl, taking an alarmed step backward. "What the hell is that?"

"Tranquilizer for oversize Thomas," said the head medic, hefting the gigantic needle in both hands. The body of the needle casing was so large Meryl couldn't have fit one of her small hands all the way around it.

"Uh," said Meryl. "Wow. Well." She glanced from the tranquilizer to the giant, still unsure of the proportions involved. "Do you think it's enough...?" The end of her sentence trailed off feebly.

"We have two," he assured her, hooking a thumb back toward the wagon.

"Ah," said Meryl, and she decided to leave it at that. The medic went back to his work and Meryl decided she should get to hers. She still hesitated slightly to leave the scene, watching the warden and his men handling the situation without her. This was usually her job, and it felt strange to not be involved in the thick of it.

All that was left for Meryl was to write the report.

She sighed resignedly.

Turning toward Milly (and now two white-coated medics), Meryl began jogging toward her partner—and almost immediately tripped over something. Catching her balance again, Meryl looked back to see that she'd trodden on Sandy's worn stuffed rabbit, laying forgotten again during all the uproar surrounding the showdown between Vash and the Nebraskas. Meryl bent to pick up the rabbit and tried to brush off some of the dirt. It was already dusty enough that she didn't seem to have damaged or dirtied it any further and she took it with her across the square.

Meryl could tell Milly was pleased with her new support staff, smiling brightly at the medics who had come to her aid as she helped them suss out the severity of each woman's injuries. Sandy was sitting quietly next to her mother, who lay still now. The girl had her lips pressed tightly together and seemed like she was trying not to cry as she looked down at her mother.

Sandy glanced up at Meryl's approach, spotted the rabbit Meryl carried, and leapt to her feet. She snatched the stuffed animal from Meryl's hands and hugged it tightly to her chest. Then, quite unexpectedly, Sandy stepped forward to seize Meryl around the middle again, even more fiercely than she had earlier when they were both facing down the giant. Meryl wasn't sure what to do and looked awkwardly toward Milly for help, but the younger woman was busy and Meryl couldn't catch her eye. She settled for patting Sandy's head and shoulders gently.

"Thank you," mumbled Sandy, into Meryl's stomach.

"You're welcome," Meryl replied quietly, still feeling awkward. The girl released her and returned to sit at her mother's side, now clutching the stuffed rabbit tightly, her lips still pressed in a thin line. Meryl approached Milly and the younger woman turned to face her.

"Hello, Ma'am," Milly greeted her.

"How is everything over here?" Meryl asked.

"These young men are being very helpful!" said Milly, beaming, gesturing at the two men the head medic had sent over earlier. "Could you...?" She motioned to the bandage she had been wrapping around a woman's hand, asking wordlessly for someone to finish the job while she pulled Meryl aside. Both medics tripped over each other, trying to get there first. Meryl couldn't help thinking they looked like a couple of puppies, following Milly around, eager to impress.

"Are they going to be alright?" Meryl asked Milly, keeping her voice low. She didn't want Sandy to hear anything, in case the answer was no.

"They'll all live, certainly," Milly said quietly. "Sandy's mother is fine," she added, noticing Meryl's glance toward the girl. "She's just resting. But another woman, there, might lose a leg... It was damaged pretty badly, crushed under debris." Meryl pressed her lips together as tightly as Sandy's. "We're doing all we can," Milly continued, "and these two have the skills for the more serious injuries. I think I'll stay and do what I can to help."

"Alright," Meryl said. She had already known Milly would say this. "I'll go get the Thomas and find us somewhere to stay tonight." Milly nodded, and returned to her work.

At the other end of town, Meryl retrieved their Thomas with little incident—though they had been asleep, and sleeping Thomas were the worst; Meryl had never managed to wake one without getting bitten. This time, at least, she got off light with just a quick snap at her elbow that didn't quite hold long enough to really hurt her.

She led the Thomas to the nearest inn, which was actually a combination saloon and lodging, with rooms to rent upstairs. Meryl tried to get a room with two beds for her and Milly to share, but the round old woman at the bar told her there were only singles available. Apparently the larger rooms at the north end of the building had been half-destroyed during the hunt for Vash. Meryl gritted her teeth and paid for two rooms, and then made several trips to drag both her own and Milly's luggage up to their fourth-story accommodations.

Out of breath, Meryl shucked her cloak onto her bed and came back downstairs for the last time to lead the Thomas around to the stables at the back of the building. She found an empty stall at the far end of the stables, large enough to fit both Thomas, and hurriedly removed their saddles and hung the gear on the wall, retreating as quickly as possible.

Unreasonably pleased with herself for avoiding any more bites, Meryl returned to the saloon and was surprised to find Vash sitting there at a table across from Henry and the Chairman. Vash had a large glass of water in one hand and a half-eaten sandwich in the other, and he was grinning broadly.

"It'd just be a nuisance to a drifter like me," Vash was saying.

"Are you sure?" asked the Chairman, leaning forward. "I mean, we did try to kill you..."

Meryl approached the bar, where the old woman seemed to be assembling another large pile of sandwiches. With a sudden pang of hunger, Meryl realized they were salmon.

"What's going on?" she asked the woman, quietly.

The woman didn't look up from her work, but she jerked her chin toward the table. "He gave up the reward money for capturing the Nebraskas."

"Really?" asked Meryl, eyebrows raised. She wasn't surprised by this, really... She just wouldn't have thought of it.

"It's going to pay for someone to fix the plant," continued the old woman. "They say there's already an engineer on the way here."

Henry and the Chairman were getting to their feet now, each reaching out to shake one of Vash's gloved hands. They left the saloon together, talking excitedly, and Meryl swept toward their vacated seats in two long strides.

"Let's talk," she said, pulling out the chair across from Vash and sitting down where Henry had been just moments before. Vash looked surprised, half a salmon sandwich stuffed in his mouth.

"Tmphk?" he asked.

"You knew who I am, what I'm doing," Meryl said. Vash swallowed the sandwich with a loud gulp. "Why didn't you tell me you were Vash the Stampede?" Meryl pressed.

"You never asked," said Vash, shrugging. He flashed a cheeky, Idiot grin at her and Meryl wanted to leap across the table and wring his neck. "Besides," he went on, "would you have believed me?" He waved at the woman at the bar, beaming at her and asking brightly if he could have another plate of sandwiches.

Meryl glanced away irritably, but just as before, during the showdown with Nebraska, she began thinking of all the moments she had seen the Idiot suddenly become that other man. The man in red who had so often intervened, saved her life, stood up to bandits and kidnappers and psychotic monsters and walked away unscathed just to disappear into the Idiot again.

But that man in red, and his piercing green eyes...

"Maybe," Meryl whispered. She looked up in alarm at the sudden choking cough from across the table and Vash was wide-eyed and staring back at her in shock.

"Wh—what?" he spluttered, still coughing up bits of the sandwich he seemed to have inhaled. Meryl recoiled as a whole crust of bread bounced across the table toward her and she bumped into the returning barkeep, who nearly lost the tray of sandwiches she carried in one hand.

"Oh, sorry," Meryl apologized to the old woman, glancing around. When she turned back to Vash, the grin was plastered on his face again as though nothing had happened.

"Th'nks!" he told the woman enthusiastically, stuffing another sandwich into his mouth in just two massive bites.

Meryl watched him chewing and tried to decide what to say; what did they need to talk about? Everything had changed for her, very abruptly, and she needed to approach this man differently than she had in the past.

"I don't, by the way," Vash said, suddenly, after he had swallowed the next sandwich whole.

"Don't what?" asked Meryl bemusedly, taken by surprise in the middle of her musings.

"Know who you are, and what you're doing."

"You don't—what?" Meryl couldn't make sense of this... She'd introduced herself every time she'd seen him! Admittedly, she was trying to introduce herself to someone else each time, not Vash; but he was always there, usually only iches away.

Vash just shrugged.

"I only know you've been following me around for months," he said, washing down another sandwich with huge gulp of water.

"I have not!" Meryl retorted, angrily. "You've just been everywhere I end up!"

Vash snorted into his glass and started coughing again. Meryl ignored this.

"I've just been looking for Vash the Stampede!" she hissed.

"And you found him," said Vash with a grin, once he'd stopped coughing.

"Yes," Meryl said, icily. "Just this afternoon." He just laughed at her.

"Okay, so you found me," said Vash. He leaned back in his chair, lacing his fingers behind his head as he stretched. "Now what?" he asked. "Sixty billion goes a long way." Then he raised his eyebrows. "Or is it thirty? Split with the big girl..."

"What?" demanded Meryl, once she'd worked out what he meant. "I'm not a bounty hunter!" She found herself surprisingly stung by this accusation.

"I didn't think so," said Vash, half-shrugging again. "Not really." He looked contemplatively down at the two remaining sandwiches for a moment, and when he spoke again his voice was that quiet, even tone she knew from her interactions with the man in red. "Not from everything I've seen of you."

Meryl wasn't sure how to interpret this. Thankfully Vash looked up a moment later, grinning again as he bit into yet another sandwich.

"But then," he went on, mouth full, "I can't figure out what you are doing."

"I work for an insurance company—Bernadelli Insurance," Meryl explained. Vash looked puzzled and Meryl almost scowled at him. "They're the people who shill out the money when you cause trouble," she said flatly.

"It's not like I do it on purpose!" Vash retorted.

"But it happens!" said Meryl. "Every time you show up, something explodes!"

Vash folded his arms across his chest defensively. "Not always," he muttered.

"Look," Meryl said, more seriously, leaning forward toward Vash with her elbows on the table. "It's my job—mine and my partner's—to keep you under surveillance, stop you from causing damage to people or property. As little as possible, anyway," she added. Not like they'd had a lot of luck in that area so far...

"So, in other words," Vash said, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth now, "you are following me around."

Meryl opened her mouth to reply but almost immediately closed it again, unable to come up with a counterargument.

"Well, yes," she conceded. Tentatively she added, "Is that... um..." Meryl floundered a little. "...okay?" she finished, lamely.

Meryl felt ridiculous for asking. It's not like Vash had any say in the matter; it was her job, whether he liked it or not. But she'd much rather he liked it, she had decided. It would certainly make things easier for her if Vash wasn't actively trying to lose her in his travels. If they could strike up a good working relationship, or at least agree to stay out of each other's way where possible...

"I could think of worse things," Vash said finally, and Meryl actually smiled. "Well, not many," he added, "but I guess—"

"Oh! You—!" Meryl let out a harsh angry breath and stood quickly, frowning at Vash. Annoyed and wanting to spite him, Meryl snatched the last sandwich from the plate and took it with her as she stormed away toward the stairs at the other end of the saloon.

"Hey, wait," said Vash, quickly grabbing a fistful of fabric at the back of Meryl's tunic as she passed by him, pulling her stumbling backwards. She turned and slapped his arm away with her free hand and glared at him fiercely.

"What!" she snapped, ready and willing to actually fight over the sandwich.

"I still don't know your name," Vash said, softly. Both his query and his voice took Meryl by surprise, and then he was looking up at her with those clear green eyes that inexplicably gave her goosebumps and made her breathing a little more difficult. She tried to shake off the feeling, or at least to appear unaffected by the change in his demeanor.

"Meryl," she replied, glad her voice came out as evenly as it did. "Meryl Stryfe."

Vash smiled now—a small, genuine smile that complemented those eyes and seemed to amplify that strange feeling in her chest—and said, "That's a good name."

Unnerved and embarrassed by the way he was looking at her, Meryl turned away and hurried up the stairs to write the most important report of her life.