Meryl was sitting at the small table provided in her room, her shaking fingers poised over the keys of the typewriter. But the paper in front of her was still blank, and she'd been sitting there for at least half an hour.
How to even begin?
She took another bite of the salmon sandwich she'd stolen from Vash and chewed thoughtfully before finally pounding out a single line of text:
Four months after receiving our assignment, Miss Thompson and I have finally made contact with our target, Vash the Stampede.
Then nothing.
Another bite.
Meryl glanced up from the page and stared for a moment at blank space, eyes glazed and unfocused into the middle-distance. She had absolutely no idea what to write; she could barely make sense of all this herself, so how the hell was she going to describe it to the company? At least she hadn't even bothered to mention the Idiot in her other reports... She wouldn't have to try explaining that mix-up.
A knock on her door was a welcome distraction and Meryl jumped up and hurried to let Milly in.
The younger woman anticipated Meryl's question and answered as she entered the room.
"Everyone is going to be alright—or at least, looked after," Milly told her. "Once those two young men got the field hospital set up properly, more townsfolk came forward for help. All the people who had been injured while everyone was trying to catch Mr. Vash—"
"And destroying the town in the process," huffed Meryl. That would have to go in the report.
"Yes, well," said Milly, "at least everything seems to be working out as best as possible now. Mr. Vash gave up the reward money for the Nebraskas, so the town can fix the plant, and the warden and his men have taken Nebraska and his son back to—"
"What—already?" interrupted Meryl, surprised.
"Mm-hmm," Milly confirmed, nodding. Then she looked pensive, as though she were searching for the right words. "They were very... efficient," she decided.
"But what about the injured?" Meryl demanded. "Is the medical wagon—"
"Oh, goodness no," Milly assured her. "The medic and his men stayed behind—not that the warden was happy about it—to make sure everyone is seen to."
"Good," said Meryl, finding even more respect for the man for standing up to the warden and wanting to clean up after all the mess the Nebraskas left behind.
"Well," Milly said, finally. "I'm going to write some letters home. It's been a big day!" She smiled happily.
"Do you want to use the typewriter?" Meryl asked, hopefully. Milly just laughed and patted Meryl on the head.
"Just write the report, Ma'am," said Milly.
Meryl slunk back to the desk and sat down with a heavy sigh. When she heard the door open again, Meryl turned before Milly could leave, asking, "Hey, do you want me to come by on my way to post this?" She pointed at the unfinished report. "I can pick up any letters you have finished and take them as well," she offered.
Milly hesitated for a moment; someone else might not have noticed, but Meryl at least knew Milly well enough to feel that something was off. But then Milly smiled brightly again and waved goodbye as she stepped out into the hall.
"Oh, it's alright, Ma'am! Don't worry about it," said Milly cheerfully, beginning to close the door behind her.
"It's no trouble," Meryl insisted, puzzled by Milly's reaction, "I don't mind—"
"I said it's alright!" said Milly, suddenly terse.
Meryl tensed in her seat. Milly had never snapped at her before—or at anybody, as far as Meryl could remember.
"I mean, I'm in no hurry," Milly said quickly, smiling broadly now as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened. "I'll just post them all together, in the morning."
"Ah—alright," Meryl agreed, nodding, trying to smile naturally. Milly waved again and left, closing the door behind her. The smile slid off Meryl's face and she still sat frozen in her seat. For an instant, she had recognized that same look on Milly's face that she had seen at the graveyard outside Orleans. That strange, fierce passion that Meryl didn't understand.
Unsettled, Meryl tried to put the whole exchange to the back of her mind and turned back to the typewriter. Unfortunately she still found herself more or less uninspired, so Meryl decided to finish off the last few bites of the salmon sandwich before actually putting fingers to keys again.
Several frustrating hours later, Meryl sat picking a stray fishbone out of her teeth with her thumbnail while she read over what had turned out to be a remarkably standard disaster report. The only real change from the usual was that she was finally able to say that she and Milly had actually found Vash the Stampede.
She explained, in painful detail, all that had happened in Inepril from the moment she and Milly had arrived there. Meryl included a commendation about the prison's medic staying to look after the wounded of Inepril. As she had in Felnarl, Meryl changed Bernadelli's contact information from the true town official to someone much more worthy of the job, and privately she hoped Henry would eventually take over the Chairman's position in a more official capacity. The report ended with an account of the warden transporting the Nebraskas back to their specially-designed penitentiary, and requested that word be put out planet-wide that the bounty had already been claimed.
Meryl had taken one small liberty with the truth, however: in the end, she decided she would blame Vash for all the actual damage done to the town. In fact, none of it had been his doing (though she thought she could argue that he was the instigating factor), but Meryl knew that the town couldn't possibly afford to pay for all the repair work itself. All the money won by the Nebraskas' capture had gone to hiring an engineer to fix the plant. If the property damage was said to be Vash's doing—and if no one contradicted her—Bernadelli would have to pay the insurance the town so desperately needed.
As she folded the report into an envelope, Meryl did feel a twinge of guilt for further tarnishing Vash's name. But somehow, she didn't think he would mind all that much, if it meant sparing the town even more trouble...
Leaving her cloak where it lay sprawled across the small bed, Meryl closed and locked the door behind her, pocketing the key as she hurried down the stairs to the saloon. It was much more populated than she expected, and only then did she realize that both suns had set in the time it took her to write the report. Now a good chunk of the town was here celebrating the day's mixed victories, making loud toasts and ordering drinks from the two young waitresses ferrying glasses between bar and tables. Meryl decided she might try to talk Milly into coming down later for a celebratory drink of their own. Today had been quite a triumph for the two of them as well, hadn't it?
"Hey, s'that Insurance Girl!"
Meryl heard the words, but didn't have enough time to really process them before an arm shot out from nowhere and wrapped around her waist, halting her progress across the saloon to the open door.
"Let go!" Meryl ordered, as the arm pulled her around to face the bar. A group of men sat waiting for her, all looking more than a little tipsy. They regarded her curiously, and Meryl finally noticed that the arm still gripping her was clad in red.
"Tolj-ya," Vash slurred, to the man Meryl's right. "She's s'posed to follow me around everywhere. Right?" he added, prompting Meryl's confirmation by prodding her hard in the side with one gloved finger. "Right?"
Meryl had to use both hands to pry his arm from around her waist and the report she still carried was half-crumpled in the effort.
"Ooh," said Vash, suddenly. His eyes went wide with delight and he grabbed for the envelope, asking, "What's that? Is it about me?" Meryl pulled it out of his reach just in time, holding it as far behind her as her arm would stretch. Vash lunged forward for another attempt and in the resulting scuffle Meryl ended up accidentally-on-purpose punching him in the gut, making an escape while the other men laughed at Vash's sudden wheezing breaths.
Once she managed to make her way out of the saloon, Meryl was distressed to discover—after a twenty minute walk to the other side of town—that the post office had been one of the buildings destroyed during all the chaos of the last two days. She made a growling noise deep in her throat and tried to rub that familiar ache out of her forehead.
Meryl returned defeated to the saloon and made her way to the bar, at the opposite end from Vash, and caught the old woman bartender's attention. She held up the envelope, which now looked a little the worse for wear, and asked, "Is there any way you could include this in your mail the next time there's a pick-up?"
"No problem, hon," said the woman, reaching out to take the report. Meryl didn't release her grip right away and the old woman frowned.
"Whatever you do," Meryl told her, "do not let that man touch this envelope." She pointed toward Vash, who was already leaning out over the bar to watch the exchange between Meryl and the old woman interestedly.
"Hm," grunted the woman, sizing up Vash from where she stood. "You got it." She tucked the envelope down the front of her dress and Meryl snorted in her attempt to bite back a bark of laughter as Vash's face suddenly blanched. He leaned back into his chair and rejoined the conversation with the other men, looking disappointed.
"Ma'am! Ma'am, over here!"
Meryl recognized Milly's voice over the sound of the crowd, but she hardly needed the vocal indicator to find her; Milly was standing at her full height, waving one long arm excitedly over her head. Meryl felt her usual small twinge of jealousy at the other woman's size.
You could probably see her from neighboring towns...
Navigating her way through the crowd was no easy feat; the saloon seemed packed to its full capacity by now, but Meryl could still see an empty seat at the table where Milly was waiting for her, surrounded by several young men—and some not so young.
"Thanks," Meryl told her when she reached them, hoisting herself up slightly onto the tall chair (her toes didn't quite reach the floor). "What are we having?" asked Meryl, glancing around to see that everyone had a drink. An empty glass appeared before her.
"Bourbon!" said Milly, happily. Meryl could tell from the flush of Milly's skin and the giddiness in her voice that the younger woman was already a few drinks ahead. Milly filled Meryl's glass and she accepted it gladly. Meryl was about to drink when someone bellowed a toast for the whole saloon to hear and join:
"To Vash the Stampede! For saving Inepril from the Nebraska Family!"
Dozens of voices shouted, "Vash the Stampede!" and Meryl caught a glimpse of Vash at the bar, looking overjoyed to be the center of attention.
Meryl leaned close to Milly and clinked her own glass against her partner's and whispered, "And to us, for finally finding him."
"To us, Ma'am," agreed Milly, beaming at her. They drank.
The men at their table continued buying them drinks throughout the evening, in exchange for hearing Milly's stories from all their previous run-ins with "Mr. Vash." At first, Meryl was happy to help tell tales on the Idiot, but then she found herself pondering again the whole Idiot/Vash dichotomy.
She spotted him at the bar again and Vash was all grins and laughter, saying who-knows-what to the crowd of men around him. Watching him like this, all Meryl could see was the Idiot. If she hadn't been in the square that afternoon, if the man in red hadn't told her he really was Vash the Stampede, Meryl would never have believed it. Not really. She had seen him be two different people too many times, and she was trying hard to merge the two into just Vash.
Milly patted her shoulder once or twice while she was meditating on it, and Meryl responded vaguely with a "Mm-hmm," without even knowing to what she was agreeing in one of the other woman's stories. Meryl was too busy watching Vash, or at least staring his direction as she sat tuning out everything around her, contemplating him, nursing the glass of bourbon she still held in one hand.
The man in red—he was Vash the Stampede. Meryl could understand that much. She had seen him do the impossible, perform feats that only such a skilled gunman could manage. But she was puzzled to find that the same, selfless man in red was actually Vash. She'd never have expected to find... Well, to find a good man. But that's what she saw, in the man in red. Not the monster Meryl had expected him to be.
But what about July?
Meryl stiffened in her seat to think of it. The third great city of Gunsmoke, destroyed in an instant. When she first received the Vash assignment, Meryl read every report she could get her hands on at Bernadelli. It was before her time, over 20 years ago; she'd barely been crawling when it happened, and she never even heard about the disaster until she was working on a steamer and there was a rumor the Humanoid Typhoon was on board somewhere.
July City had been decimated to rubble, destroying all the water mains and power generators, blocking the streets and destroying homes, forcing the city into chaos. Those who survived the initial blast—and everyone had survived, Meryl knew—fell to infighting, and the resulting marshal law ruined any hope of keeping the public in order. Over three-quarters of the inhabitants were dead by the time aid reached July a matter of days later.
And now Meryl was staring at the man who was said to have caused it.
She didn't believe it for a second. Whatever this man was, Meryl had never once seen anything like the Humanoid Typhoon in him.
Suddenly someone grabbed Meryl's shoulder, pulling her abruptly out of her reverie.
"What?" she said, startled, glancing up to see one of the saloon's waitresses looking exasperatedly down at her. "Sorry—what?"
"Girl, I been trying to tell you," said the waitress, pointing at a fresh glass of whiskey that Meryl didn't notice had been set down in front of her. "For you. From the guy at the bar you've been making eyes at all night."
"What?" Meryl said again, glancing involuntarily toward where Vash sat before glancing up at the waitress again, wide-eyed. "No," she said, hurriedly, "it's not like that! I'm just—"
"Uh-huh," interrupted the waitress, giving Meryl a wry smirk. "Of course not."
"But it's not!" Meryl tried to argue, "It's my job..." But the waitress had already disappeared before Meryl could explain herself properly. She looked helplessly back up at the bar and felt a little shock to see Vash looking back at her. With those clear green other eyes of the man in red. Then he raised his own glass to her, flashed her a huge grin, and winked.
Meryl immediately stared down into the glass of whiskey still sitting on the table, half-covering her face with one hand while trying to rub out the furious ache in her forehead. She tried to tell herself the flush she felt on her cheeks was from the alcohol and not from embarrassment. Or from anything else.
She spent the rest of the evening very purposefully not looking anywhere near the bar, and started paying more attention to Milly's anecdotes about Vash. With each drink the men bought her, Meryl began adding her own details as she remembered them and Milly looked delighted every time she spoke up.
Eventually Meryl had everyone at the table laughing themselves to tears at her retelling of the story of when Vash tried to impress Marianne, the undercover marshal. She did her best to recreate one of the ridiculous poses she remembered Vash striking, and accidentally bumped Milly's arm.
Milly's glass fell off the table into her lap, spilling bourbon everywhere, but the younger woman didn't seem to have noticed. Meryl realized (with some guilt at her own neglect) that Milly had passed out where she sat, sometime while Meryl wasn't paying attention. Glancing around now, Meryl saw that the saloon was beginning to empty. The other men at their table were looking around too, seemingly just as surprised to see the crowd thinning out.
"I had better get her up to bed," Meryl told her audience, and they all nodded blearily in agreement before heading for the bar to settle their bill. Milly had slumped over and her mouth was slightly open, letting out the quietest of snores. Meryl gave a little smile and shook her head—then immediately wished she hadn't. She was already dizzy from all the drink, and now she started to wonder if she could even get Milly up the stairs without them both falling back down again in a drunken stupor.
"Milly," she whispered, gently shaking the younger woman's shoulder. Milly just grunted slightly, licking dry lips, and turned her face away. "Milly," Meryl said again, louder, "you have to get up now, I'll put you to bed."
"Ma—ma—ma'aaaaahhhm?" yawned Milly, finally sitting up and looking vaguely in the general area of Meryl's face.
"Come on, time for bed," said Meryl, trying to coax the younger woman up to her feet. Milly looked around the room, apparently surprised to find it nearly empty.
Milly managed to climb the stairs more or less by herself. Meryl walked behind her and braced her once when she swayed backward slightly. Meryl was relieved the taller woman didn't ever truly lose her balance; Meryl would have ended up squashed beneath her at the foot of the stairs.
She walked Milly to her room and settled her into bed. The younger woman fell asleep almost immediately, and Meryl pulled off her shoes and covered her with the thin blanket lying folded at the foot of the bed. Meryl locked the door from the inside and shut it behind her, smiling to hear Milly's gentle snoring through door.
When she arrived at her own door, Meryl was dismayed to find she had lost the key. She realized it must have fallen out of her pocket at some time earlier in the evening. With a sinking feeling, Meryl silently prayed it was just downstairs in the saloon, rather than somewhere between here and the ruins of the post office.
Frustrated, Meryl made her way back down the three long flights of stairs, tripping once and gripping the banister tightly to right herself. The lights had been extinguished at the ground floor and Meryl relied on the dim hall light at the second floor landing above her, moving carefully among chairs and tables as her eyes adjusted to the near-dark.
To her great relief, Meryl found her key still resting on the chair where she had been sitting earlier. She sighed, and then froze as she heard the clinking of glass, then the sound of a bottle rolling across the floor. Meryl glanced around the room, trying to figure out where the sound had come from, and heard a long, low groan from near the bar.
Eyes now acclimatized to the dim moonslight falling through the windows, Meryl made her way toward the bar and nearly tripped over someone laying sprawled across the floor on his stomach. She knelt hurriedly at the man's side and gently rolled him onto his back.
"Oh, it would be you," Meryl muttered, exasperated.
"Hello!" said Vash, happily. His eyes seemed to struggle to focus properly on her face, and he burst into a fit of giggles. Meryl sighed.
"Come on," she said, hauling Vash up into a sitting position. "Let's get you upstairs." She threw one of his long arms over her shoulder and tried to pull him up with her as she stood.
God, he's heavy...
"Come on, up-up-up," Meryl urged, straining to at least muscle him up off his ass, if not to his feet.
Eventually Vash did manage to stand, at which point her shoulder couldn't remotely reach his. Meryl waited to see if he could walk straight, and when he couldn't, she gripped him sideways around the chest and tried to keep him upright.
"Have you got a room here?" Meryl asked, realizing she might not actually have anywhere to take him, now she'd managed to get him to his feet.
"Mm-hmm," Vash affirmed. Then he giggled again. "Right by yours."
"Oh, great," muttered Meryl. She wondered suddenly how he would know where she was staying—but then decided she would rather just get there and sleep than bother thinking about it.
"Alright, here we go," she said, more to herself than to Vash, and together they stumbled toward the stairs. She was pretty impressed; even while somewhat drunk herself, she could keep Vash on a fairly straight course.
"So you've always thought I might be Vash," he mumbled abruptly, surprising her.
"I've always thought you were an Idiot," corrected Meryl automatically.
"Yeah, but not always," Vash persisted, swaying to one side until Meryl caught him. "Not all the time."
"Well," said Meryl as the reached the bottom of the staircase. It struck her how strange it was that they might be having such a conversation with both of them drunk, trying to make their way up—oh god, three flights—the stairs. She sighed heavily. "I suppose not."
Meryl stepped onto the first stair, which put her at a height from which she could actually pull Vash's arm over her shoulder again.
"Most of the time," she grunted, muscling her left shoulder into his armpit, "you run around like some—" she wrapped her arm around his back and pulled him up one step, "—unbelievably stupid—" he followed her another step, "—idiotic moron—" another step, "—in my way, and underfoot, and shrieking at the top of your lungs."
Vash seemed to be nodding absently at her words, staring down to pay attention to his feet, and Meryl just shook her head in disbelief. They made slow but steady progress, his other hand occasionally steadying himself on the opposite wall when he lost his balance to the side. Meryl finally planted one foot at the second floor landing at the top of the stairs, with Vash just one step behind.
"But then," she panted, fatigued from hauling nearly half his weight, "all of a sudden you'll turn into someone—"
Vash's foot slipped down off the landing and he dropped abruptly onto the previous stair. Still a step ahead and gripping him tightly, Meryl was pulled backward and adrenaline suddenly pumped through her drunken haze as she had visions of them both falling to their deaths at the bottom of the staircase.
Meryl turned toward him as he fell, one arm still trapped behind his back, and it wrenched her hand from the banister. She didn't have time to think anything—any last words?—before Vash lunged sideways for the banister with the arm still over her shoulder. He pulled himself up, dragging Meryl with him, but she wasn't able to catch her feet under her at the top of the stairs. Their legs tangled together and both were too drunk to get themselves sorted out again soon enough to keep from toppling over.
Meryl fell hard on her back onto the worn carpet of the second floor landing, knocking the wind clean out of her lungs. Vash followed, though he caught himself jarringly on his elbows, managing not to crush Meryl under him.
"Are you alright?" he asked, worriedly. His eyes had come into focus and they met hers in a gaze so intense it nearly knocked her sober. Meryl just nodded, eyes wide.
"Someone else," she finished, breathless. She recognized those green eyes from countless other instances where the Idiot had suddenly turned into the man in red and looked at her like this, making her heart pound double-time, raising goosebumps all over her skin. There had been those brief moments between them, in the past, that Meryl couldn't understand or ignore—but this?
Yet somehow, inexplicably, his face was drawing nearer to hers. His nose touched hers and they shared a breath that reeked of whiskey. Meryl closed her eyes and felt his lips brush across hers in a touch so feather-light she thought she might have just imagined it. When she opened her eyes again, crystal-clear green ones flashed down at her.
For a moment they lay there in silence, sharing breath, each perhaps waiting for the other to act.
Then Meryl surprised them both, surging up to press her lips intently against his.
She felt Vash suck in a quick, startled breath through his nose, but he immediately let it out again in a fervent groan and opened his mouth to hers, letting his weight fall from one elbow and pressing her down to the floor. He tasted like smoky whiskey and something sweet…
This can't really be happening.
Still half in disbelief at her own actions, Meryl pulled one of her arms from beneath Vash and slid her hand up the back of his neck, her fingers making deep furrows in his bristly hair as she pulled his mouth even more tightly to hers.
Kissing her just as deeply as she could pull him in, Vash slipped one hand up under Meryl's tunic and blouse and the worn leather of his glove was soft on the skin over her ribs. She broke the kiss in surprise and inhaled a shuddering breath, making her arch up into his touch almost involuntarily. Her body was rapidly overheating, and she knew she couldn't blame just the alcohol anymore.
She could feel Vash moving his hand down the side of her body, his palm burning hot against her even through the leather glove and her heavy tunic and leggings. His hand squeezed her thigh and caught the crook of her knee, pulling her leg up over his hip to let him settle even more heavily over her. Meryl gripped his shoulders and gasped to feel him hard and hot against her and he swallowed her quiet moan, claiming her mouth again as he pressed himself down into her.
"Hey," Vash whispered suddenly, speaking quite clearly despite the fact Meryl still felt his mouth pressed hot and forcefully to hers. "Hey," he said again, his hand on her shoulder beginning to shake her gently. "Hey, wake up."
An instant later Meryl was sitting up with a jerk that made pain flare in her head. Disoriented, she glanced around quickly and found herself sitting again in the corner of the emptying saloon. Milly was face-down on the table beside her, and Vash stood at her shoulder, looking entirely drunk and exhausted. Meryl stared up at him and felt her breath coming too quickly, felt her cheeks burn hotly as images from the dream flashed through her mind, vivid and clear.
For a terrifying moment she thought he somehow knew, his eyes flashing that same something that had made her heart race and spread goosebumps all over her body. But he blinked and it was gone.
"Milly," Meryl said, suddenly, glad of the excuse to look away and turn her attention to her partner. "Milly, wake up."
"Ma—ma—ma'aaaaahhhm?" yawned Milly, sitting up and stretching her arms above her head.
In a scene eerily identical to the one in her dream, Meryl managed to lead Milly up all three flights of stairs without incident, following along in a fairly steady stream of guests (mostly townsfolk whose homes had been destroyed, Meryl found) making their way up to their rooms. She put Milly to bed, locked the door, and made her way down the hall to her own room.
Meryl tripped over a bump in the worn carpet, and would have fallen if someone hadn't caught her elbow, steadying her on her feet.
"Thanks," breathed Meryl. She turned to see Vash and gasped, leaping away from his touch as though he'd burned her.
Vash just looked perplexed, frowning dazedly down at her.
Meryl jammed her key in the lock so quickly that it stuck for a moment before she could shove the door open with her shoulder and escape from the hall into her room without even looking at Vash again. Then she leaned against the door behind her, breathing harder than such a small, meaningless interaction should warrant.
After a few minutes, Meryl heard Vash fumbling with his own key in the lock of the room next to hers. His door swung open on hinges desperately in need of an oiling, and closed again a moment later. Then Meryl recognized the sound of a heavy weight falling on squeaky mattress springs and heard a sigh loud enough to carry through the wall. She let her head fall back against the door and closed her eyes, breathing out in a long sigh of her own.
Meryl would have stayed up all night to avoid another dream. Thankfully, exhaustion and alcohol soon forced her into a dreamless sleep.