For an instant Meryl was weightless, just floating, with a whisper of a breeze in her hair.
Then her stomach was in her throat and she was falling.
Vash had both arms around her now and Meryl thrashed around in his grip, too angry even to remember fear as she twisted to face him. She had enough time to appreciate that, for once, he wasn't grinning like an Idiot. Then his hands were on her hips and Vash pulled her flat against his body so she was close enough to hear the words he had to almost shout over the sound of the air rushing around them.
"I'm sorry for this," he told her, and Meryl was alarmed to see the genuine regret in his expression. Vash seemed to hesitate for just a split-second, his clear green eyes watching her face from iches away with just the hint of something that might have been longing. Then his features settled into resignation and his hands tightened on Meryl's hips. "Catch!"
Vash shoved her away from him with what Meryl hoped was his full strength, because anything more might have snapped her spine. As it was, she was nearly folded in half as she flew backward, her breath forced out of her lungs in a grunted, oof.
Meryl's back struck something almost immediately, but whatever it was gave way behind her and made an oof noise of its own. For the second time in the span of a minute—if it had even been that—an arm wrapped around Meryl's waist and halted her momentum.
"Ooohh my goodness, oh my goodness..."
In the back of her mind Meryl could recognize Milly's shaky voice over her shoulder, but only barely. Most of her thought processes were overwhelmed with trying to understand everything that had happened, far too quickly for her to make any kind of sense: Vash's fingers digging into solid wood, the heat of his body pressed to hers, the look on his face just before he pushed her away.
But none of it really mattered because Vash was still falling. He was gone in a matter of moments, too far away for Meryl to see, but not too far for her to hear the impact when he hit the ground.
Meryl screamed, something high-pitched and wordless and cut short as Milly abruptly squeezed her around the middle and gave her a shake that made Meryl's teeth rattle.
"You can't help him if you fall, too," Milly said, sharply. Her voice was as close to angry as Milly seemed able, but Meryl could hear the underlying edge of fear. "Either hang on to me, or climb down above me so I can catch you if you fall," she ordered, and Meryl finally realized they were dangling precariously from the rope ladder that led down from the deck.
Of course they were; where else would Milly have been? Vash had timed his shove perfectly as they fell, aimed as accurately as any bullet he'd ever fired, and Milly had caught her.
And Vash had fallen.
"I'll climb," Meryl said, barely a whisper. Then, louder, "I'll climb, Milly, please..."
Milly waited to be certain Meryl had a solid grip on the worn wooden rungs before she began making her way down the ladder.
Meryl followed as quickly as Milly's pace would allow, focusing so intently on coordinating the shaking movements of her hands and feet that there was little else she could think about.
By Meryl's estimation it took hours to reach the bottom of the ladder. The moment Milly's feet touched the ground Meryl ducked out from under the younger woman's arm, tumbling down the last two yarz and landing harder in the sand than she meant to. All of Meryl's sore muscles screamed in chorus with Milly's frustrated, "Ma'am!"
There was a crowd gathering at the base of the steamer about ten yarz away and Meryl scrambled to her feet, moving toward the mass of steamer crewmen that were hurrying forward, obscuring her view. She could hear them all speaking in hushed voices as she approached.
Meryl wasn't sure if she really wanted to see what was waiting there, but her feet carried her forward anyway. She realized the crowd had converged on the pile of luggage that had fallen from the platform above. Something was clawing its way out of the pile and Meryl drew closer until the figure was recognizably Vash.
She hurried forward now, pushing her way through the people standing between them, catching glimpses of Vash as the crowd jostled around while she made her way toward him. He was groaning through gritted teeth and his face was twisted in an expression of extreme discomfort as he clambered slowly through the rest of the bags.
Vash looked up as Meryl arrived at the front of the crowd and at once all the pain in his face melted away, replaced by relief and delight and a smile bright enough to blind her.
For one moment Meryl was frozen, caught up in the way Vash seemed to be drinking in the sight of her. The next moment she was lunging forward, nearly flattening him as she seized his collar and shook him.
"Ow!" squealed Vash, falling backward under her assault, wincing bodily as they landed in the luggage pile again.
"You Idiot!" shouted Meryl, realizing her voice was strained against tears. "You could have killed us both!"
"But I didn't!" Vash protested, looking up at her in panic at this unexpected reaction.
Meryl could feel his hands squeezing her waist but she wasn't sure if Vash was pushing her away or pulling her closer and honestly she was relieved when one of the steamer crew pulled her off him before she could just start crying. She pushed the crewman's hands away, snarling—he stepped back, eyes wide in alarm—and Meryl turned her back on Vash and stalked away.
Milly met her at the edge of the crowd and Meryl watched all the blood drain from the younger woman's face.
"Ma'am," she whispered.
"He's fine," Meryl told her, gruffly. Milly's expression was a mix of relief and confusion.
"But... you're—"
"He's fine," Meryl repeated, and she realized she was crying. She wiped furiously at her eyes with her sleeve—just the adrenaline—and didn't meet Milly's gaze as she walked stiffly past the younger woman. "I'm just tired, and I want to get the hell out of here. Where's the shuttle?"
Milly's hand fell on her shoulder, stopping Meryl short. "It's this way, Ma'am," said Milly, pointing back the way Meryl had come.
"Right. Of course it is," muttered Meryl. She turned and stalked back in the other direction and was surprised to see a gaggle of young women picking their bags out of the pile before gathering together near the shuttle. As she and Milly collected their own luggage and approached the group, Meryl recognized a pair of the women.
"Hey, new girls!" called Paige, waving as she spotted them. The group seemed to be made up entirely of stewardesses, all ones Meryl guessed she had probably met in the galley that first night. They were out of uniform, but their off-duty shirts were just as revealing, and their skirts might actually be shorter.
"Hello, Miss Paige, Miss Allie!" said Milly, brightly. She ducked her head at the rest of the stewardesses in greeting as well, and then looked around the group curiously. "Why are you all coming into town?"
"No passengers, no Johns," explained one of the younger stewardesses, shrugging.
Meryl froze. She hadn't considered that this conversation might come up again; maybe she should have expected it, eventually, but there wasn't anything to be done about it now.
"No Johns?" asked Milly, puzzled.
"Yeah, you know..." The girl made a circular, leading gesture with one hand.
When Milly still looked confused, the girl's eyes went wide. "Oh wow, you don't know."
A taller woman that Meryl definitely recognized, and whose name she thought she might have even learned—Jan? or Nan?—elbowed the girl hard in the ribs and stepped forward to speak over her squeaked, "Ow!"
"She means, with no passengers on board there's nothing for us to do," said the woman—maybe Pam?—"so we're going into town to try and pick up some odd jobs, make a little extra cash while the steamer gets fixed."
"Oh!" said Milly, smiling again. "That makes sense!"
Meryl watched all the stewardesses giving each other small smiles and sidelong looks and for a moment she was annoyed (with them and with herself, for keeping it a secret) that Milly ended up as the butt of a joke.
But they were all genuinely smiling and chatting comfortably and Meryl realized there was no joke at Milly's expense here: they all seemed to find her innocence endearing and were happy to play along to keep it that way. Meryl still wasn't sure if it was right, and maybe it was selfish of her to even think in these terms, but she was glad it turned out she wouldn't be having that conversation after all, at least not any time soon.
Easily the tallest (and almost certainly the strongest, Meryl knew) of their party, Milly offered to put everyone's luggage up on the storage rack atop the shuttle, much to the delight of the more diminutive stewardesses.
As Milly loaded their bags, Meryl heard a faint, familiar atonal whistling and glanced around, looking for the source. She followed the sound to the other side of the shuttle, toward the steamer, and found that Vash had collected his duffel (it had ended up squashed at the bottom of the pile) and was now walking off in the other direction, out into the open desert. She followed quickly after him and seized a handful of fabric at the back of his jacket, yanking backwards to halt his progress.
Vash stopped mid-stride and mid-whistle, looking back over his shoulder to grin down at her over the round yellow glasses perched low on his nose.
"Just testing you," he chirped, in a sing-song voice, as he pushed the glasses back into place. "Wondering if you were paying attention, that's all."
"Yeah, sure," said Meryl, sarcastically. "Get on the shuttle."
"Okay, okay!" Vash said, putting up both hands in surrender and laughing as Meryl steered him back toward the rest of the passengers by the back of his jacket. When they rounded the front of the shuttle, Vash stopped abruptly by the door and Meryl collided with his back, barely able catch her balance again as she staggered backward, scowling.
"What are you—"
"Well," Vash interrupted her, and Meryl was shocked to hear something low and almost sultry in his voice. "Hello, ladies."
Meryl hurried forward to see Vash had spotted the group of stewardesses now sitting in the shade behind shuttle. They were all looking back at him, surprised, and when Vash pulled the yellow glasses away with a flourish, even Meryl was caught up in the vibrant green smolder of his gaze...
...but only for a second.
"Oh, for—stop it," Meryl ordered, shoving Vash sideways into the open door of the shuttle. She watched the smolder vanish into a look of surprise as he tumbled over and heard the painful yelp as he fell onto the low steps leading up from the door.
"Ow," Vash said, from the dark interior. His long legs still stuck out the door and the heels of his boots bounced on the sand, in time with his whining: "Owowowow!"
There were peals of laughter from the stewardesses and one chiding, "Ma'am," from Milly.
"Knock it off, you ham," said Meryl, and though she tried to sound annoyed she couldn't quite suppress a grin. "Take a seat, we'll be leaving soon."
"But I need to load my bag," Vash argued, scrambling to his feet. The absurdly low roof of the shuttle forced him to hunch forward to avoid hitting his head, and his normally bristly hair was knocked askew and flattened against the ceiling. He gestured to the duffel in his arms and peered hopefully over Meryl's shoulders, probably hoping to catch a glimpse of the stewardesses again.
"I'll do it," Meryl said, pulling the bag out of his grasp. She was surprised at the weight and realized she'd never be able to lift it high enough to stow it alongside the rest of the luggage. "Now, sit," she ordered.
Vash pouted impressively but did as he was told, and when Meryl stepped out of the shuttle again the women were all still grinning as they returned to their earlier conversations. Allie and Paige disengaged from the group and hurried to meet her, lowering their voices conspiratorially as she made a futile attempt to heave Vash's duffel up into the storage rack.
"That's the guy who fell, right?" asked Allie, gesturing at where Vash had last been standing. "He's with you?"
"Yeah," said Meryl, giving up on stowing the bag. She hesitated to elaborate on the extent of her dealings with Vash; she couldn't think of a simple enough explanation and didn't really feel like reciting the whole Bernadelli litany at the moment.
To Meryl's surprise, both women raised their eyebrows and each of them let out a low breath.
"Damn, girl!" said Paige, fanning herself with one hand.
Allie nodded in agreement, saying, "No wonder you weren't working the night shift!"
"What?" asked Meryl, momentarily confused. Then she understood their implication, and she felt her eyes widen in alarm as she spluttered, "N-no! That's not—he isn't—"
"Wait," said Paige, stiffening at Meryl's reaction. "He's not the guy who hit you, is he?" She looked suddenly murderous. "I don't care how gorgeous he is, I'll rip his arm off and shove it up his—"
"What? No, no no no, nothing like that," Meryl said in a rush, waving her hands placatingly. She briefly pictured Paige picking a fight with Vash; the girl was taller than Meryl but still at least six iches short of his height, and yet she wasn't sure if Vash would really know how to handle that much vindictive fury.
"He's fine," Meryl assured her. "He's just... he's my, um..." Her what, exactly?
For a short time, both women waited expectantly for an end to that sentence, but Meryl couldn't manage it and eventually Paige smirked at her.
"Yeah, okay, sure," she said. "Let us know when you figure it out." Meryl watched helplessly as they returned to the rest of the stewardesses, wishing she had an actual answer to offer and call out after them before they could draw any more of their own, no doubt embarrassing, conclusions.
Milly, who seemed to have noticed Meryl's struggle with Vash's duffel, appeared at her shoulder a moment later and lifted the bag easily to secure it with the rest.
"Thanks Milly," Meryl said, gratefully.
A tiny man in sunglasses, shorter even than Meryl, appeared at the door of the shuttle and shouted, "Anybody who wants a ride better get on while the gettin's good!" He pulled a faded yellow baseball cap from his back pocket, flattening out the folded bill and pulling it down over a mess of spiky black hair. He had a scruffy 5 o'clock shadow and looked about as exhausted as Meryl felt. "Let's go!"
The stewardesses stood, brushing sand off their skirts, and Meryl followed them onto the shuttle. She leapt off again at the last second, dragging Milly with her.
"Quick, the typewriter!" she said, pointing up at her suitcase in the storage rack. "I can write the report on the ride back, and send it in from Inepril." Milly dutifully retrieved the case and Meryl pulled out the typewriter so the younger woman could put the (now significantly lighter) suitcase back in place. Meryl hefted the typewriter in her arms and carried it haphazardly up the steps and into the shuttle.
Vash was waiting in the last seat in the back and Meryl made her way down the aisle to meet him, hauling the typewriter awkwardly behind her until she could drop it into the seat directly in front of him. Milly sat opposite her, smiling brightly, and Meryl knelt on her seat to grin down at Vash.
"I thought you'd be up there, asking someone to sit in your lap," Meryl noted, hooking a thumb over her shoulder toward the stewardesses settling in at the front.
"No thanks," said Vash, crossing his arms in a huff. "I'm injured enough, I don't need another beating from you."
Milly laughed, but Meryl wasn't sure she could accurately read the humor in his reaction and she turned to sit down again, feeling suddenly uncomfortable. Whatever had happened between them on the steamer, in those quiet moments they had shared in her room or up on the viewing deck, Vash seemed to be back to playing the Idiot. Maybe that was for the best. It was more predictable, anyway.
When the driver finally climbed aboard again and asked if all the passengers were accounted for, receiving an enthusiastic affirmative from the stewardesses (and three thumbs-up from the back), he sat behind the wheel and the shuttle lurched forward across the sand.
For a long time, Meryl just sat and stared out the window. She was finally, really and truly, done with sand steamers. She had made peace with her past, and with the people she had left there or lost there, and now she could let go properly. Move on.
Meryl suddenly thought of the knowing look on Clark's face when he had told her to do just that, when his gaze had clearly been on Vash standing behind her. She wasn't sure what he had been getting at, and she wasn't sure she wanted to know.
Up at the front of the shuttle, the stewardesses' conversations died out as night fell and the first sun slipped under the horizon. Meryl knew its twin would inexorably follow in another ten minutes at most, and sighed. She couldn't put off the report any longer; soon she wouldn't even be able to see the typewriter keys anymore.
Carefully, quietly, slowly, Meryl drew the heavy contraption into her lap. Settling it across her thighs, she realized the weight of it would probably make her legs go numb before she could even finish the report. Meryl took a hesitant glance around the shuttle and pressed one typewriter key in an experimental click. No one seemed to notice, or at least no one shushed her.
Another few tentative click-click-clicks and Meryl was pretty sure she wasn't going to rouse anyone with the noise. Milly was snoring in the seat across the aisle, and she had slept through a hundred reports already; the stewardesses at the front of the shuttle were evidently tired enough to join Milly's oblivious slumber.
"What are you doing?"
The query came quietly but it startled Meryl all the same. The typewriter nearly fell out of her lap but it was steadied at the last moment by a long arm reaching over her shoulder to catch it.
Vash was kneeling on the seat behind her, leaning forward to rest his elbows on the back of her seat as he smiled faintly, genuinely, down at her. Not the Idiot anymore, apparently.
"Did I wake you?" Meryl asked, turning (as best she could, under the weight of the typewriter) to face him.
"Oh, no," Vash assured her, shaking his head. "It hurts too much to sleep." Before Meryl could comment on that, he asked again, "What are you doing?"
"Writing a report," she told him. "For the company," Meryl clarified, when Vash looked momentarily confused. "I have to tell them everything that happened."
Confusion turned to something pained, something strangely close to betrayal.
"That's your job?" asked Vash. "You write down what happens, and say it's my fault?"
"What? No!" Meryl said, shocked. "You think I just—no, I write down what happens so people know it's not your fault, Vash."
From his disappointed expression, Meryl could tell Vash wasn't mollified by her explanation. When he sat back down again and disappeared from her view, his eyes were downcast and Meryl felt inexplicably guilty.
Okay, maybe her guilt wasn't so inexplicable; the last two reports she had written did blame Vash for the outcome. The innkeeper's claim had been valid because Vash had been involved, even if it was really all Elizabeth's fault. And before that Meryl had... bent the truth a little, where the incident with the Nebraskas had been concerned.
She had been certain Vash wouldn't mind the (slight) further tarnishing of his reputation if it meant the city would have enough money to repair all the damages, but now doubt crept into the pit of her stomach and her fingers tensed over the typewriter keys.
At least with the steamer debacle Vash was completely, solidly, and in all ways undeniably not at fault. Meryl tried to make her way quickly through the report (her legs were already falling asleep), but she realized she didn't actually know the whole story.
"Vash?"
Meryl called his name quietly over her shoulder, but for a long time Vash didn't answer. When he finally spoke, his voice was flat.
"What."
"What happened to Neon, after the steamer stopped?"
There was another long silence, and Meryl was beginning to worry Vash was just going to ignore her. She hated being forced to have this conversation without being able to see his face.
"You know he stopped the steamer."
"Yes."
"I let him call in that favor."
Meryl considered this. Fair enough.
"Did he take anything?"
Vash gave an exasperated sigh, clearly tinged with annoyance, and Meryl could imagine the scowl on his face.
"I don't care," Meryl snapped, "but somebody does. I have to include that information."
"Then yes."
She decided not to ask, 'how much', certain that it would only annoy Vash further, and finished her report:
Brilliant Dynamites Neon escaped with an unknown quantity of currency and passengers' personal property.
That would have to be good enough. Pins and needles were beginning to stab at her feet and Meryl yanked the page from the typewriter (relieved not to rip the paper in the process). She heaved the damnable thing off her lap and it accidentally toppled over the edge of the seat onto the floor of the shuttle with a crash!
Meryl froze, but there was no reaction from the other passengers.
Vash didn't even bother to ask if she was alright.
She used both feet to shove the typewriter beneath the seat in front of her and settled tiredly into the worn upholstery at her back. Meryl leaned against the window again and closed her eyes, and it felt like only moments later that the shuttle driver was barking at them all to wake up.
Sleepy stewardesses were stretching and yawning and Meryl could hear Vash stirring behind her, but Milly was still sprawled across her seat, snoring. Meryl smiled and let her sleep. It took a few minutes' struggle to get the typewriter out from under the seat again so she could find an envelope to stuff the report into, and she decided to leave the stupid thing loose on the floor in case they chose to disembark here in Inepril.
By the time Meryl finally got to the front of the shuttle, all the stewardesses had climbed down the stairs and were collecting their luggage from the rack, some already starting to make their way into town. Meryl approached the driver, tapping him on the shoulder until he turned to face her.
Strangely, the man was still wearing sunglasses despite the dark, and what had earlier been a 5 o'clock shadow seemed to have lengthened somehow into an unattractive 48-hour scraggle.
"Where are you headed next?" Meryl asked him.
"May City," the driver replied, tiredly. He lifted the sunglasses long enough to rub at bloodshot eyes, and Meryl realized with some alarm that the man had been either drunk or hungover for the entire drive from the steamer. "If there are enough people, I'll probably just leave tonight so I can make another trip here and back before the contest."
Still somewhat apprehensive about his obvious intoxication, Meryl glanced to the back of the bus. Vash gave her a sleepy shrug.
"We'll stay on, then," said Meryl, grimacing. "I need to run an errand, first, though."
"Sure," said the driver. He gestured back at Vash and Milly. "They can stay, I'll go look for fares. Which is $$30 apiece, by the way," he added. Meryl nodded.
"Of course." It wasn't an unreasonable price, and even if she might have normally tried to haggle it down, she couldn't be bothered now. "I'll have it for you when I get back." For a moment the driver looked skeptical, but Meryl gestured back at Vash. "You can keep him as collateral."
"Hey!"
She shushed him ("You'll wake Milly!") and made sure the report in its envelope was tucked safely in her cloak before climbing down the steps of the shuttle with the driver close on her heels.
Meryl didn't have any money, of course, that's why she and Milly decided to take work on that stupid steamer in the first place, but she had dealt with situations like this in the past. She made her way back to the inn where they had stayed previously, taking whatever streets were still navigable after all the damage from the town's reckless battle with the Nebraskas.
The driver had followed her and she heard him trip over something in the dark and swear profusely as he fell. Meryl looked back to see he had staggered to his feet and finally removed his sunglasses, rubbing his eyes again as he squinted after her.
Soon there was plenty of light and noise spilling out from the inn's saloon as they approached, and Meryl glanced up curiously at a heavy canvas spread across the face of the building. She realized with a jolt that it was covering the gaping hole of Vash's destroyed room. She shivered momentarily at that memory and hurried to enter the saloon.
By the time Meryl had arrived, the room was packed to capacity—probably past it—with steamer passengers that were stuck in town until the steamer was repaired or until they got lucky enough to find a seat on a shuttle.
All of the stewardesses were already there, laughing and mingling with their short skirts and coy smiles and rather liberal views on appropriate physical contact. Meryl noticed the two local—hm—professionals she had run into, once, as they came out of Vash's room. They were standing at the base of the stairs leading up to the rooms above the saloon, scowling at all the young, pretty, new faces circulating through the room.
The shuttle driver appeared in the door behind Meryl and she moved quickly out of the way as the man stumbled, wincing and squinting against the bright light of the building's interior. He pulled the sunglasses down over his eyes again and Meryl grimaced, still uncomfortable at the thought of letting him continue to drive for her and Milly and Vash. Especially given how late it already was, and how he seemed to be planning to drive through the night.
Well, at least it was flat sand and nothing to run into or drive off of between here and May City. As long as he didn't get lost...
"Meryl!"
At the sound of her name, Meryl turned toward the bar. It was so crowded with people trying to order drinks, leaving no room for anyone to actually sit, that it took a moment to spot who had hailed her. Allie waved from the far end of the room, beckoning Meryl over.
It took some maneuvering for Meryl to make her way to meet the other woman, and by the time she reached the end of the bar Allie was loading more than half a dozen drinks onto a small tray as quickly as the man behind the bar could fill them.
Further along the bar, the woman who owned the inn was keeping pace, filling orders for other tables in the saloon.
"Hi!" Allie greeted Meryl brightly. "We were wondering when you three would get here."
"It's just me," Meryl told her. "I'm only here to drop off—"
"Hey," Allie interrupted, snapping her fingers twice to catch the barman's attention again. "One more for my friend here," she added, pointing down at Meryl.
Meryl turned to the barman, seeing his annoyed expression, and tried to wave him off with an, "Oh, no, I—" but the man had already produced another shot glass and filled it before she could finish her objection. Allie added the shot glass to her tray and took Meryl's hand, leading her away from the bar.
Meryl let Allie pull her along without any fuss, finding herself too tired to argue. The younger woman wove expertly through the crowd, drinks tray held safely overhead, and came to a halt in front of the table where she, Paige, and another girl whose name Meryl couldn't hope to remember were working on some potential clients.
At a second glance, Meryl decided there was no "potential" about it. These girls had them on the line, easy. This town was going to treat them well, and Meryl was glad for it. It wasn't the easiest way to make a living, but in a profession of feast or famine, this week was going to be a chance to tide them over for quite awhile.
"Alright gentlemen," Allie said, when she and Meryl arrived. She began to pass out the drinks, bending low over the table to reach those on the opposite side (and to give an excellent view down her shirt, Meryl was certain). Allie stood again and slung her arm casually around Meryl's neck, pulling her in close to her side. "This is our girl, Meryl, she came over to join us for a drink."
"Say hello, boys—but don't get any ideas," Paige added, from where she sat across the table. "She's got a tall-dark-and-gorgeous waiting for her at home." She winked at Meryl, smiling wickedly.
Meryl gaped at her. "No I don't," she insisted.
"Shush," said Allie, grinning. She pressed the last shot glass into Meryl's hand before raising her own in a toast. "Cheers!"
Everyone at the table mirrored her action and Meryl followed suit automatically, but when she brought the glass to her lips the sharp smell of the alcohol came with a sudden flashback to the last time she'd had a drink.
Pinned, trapped, screaming, breathless, dizzy, scared—
Meryl gasped and the shot glass slipped from her fingers. It fell to the floor, striking the toe of her boot and tumbling away without shattering on the warped wooden planks under the table. Whiskey splashed over Allie's high-heeled, pointy-toed shoes and she leapt away in surprise as she finished her own drink.
"Whoops!" said Allie, laughing. "How much have you already had?" She turned and her smile vanished as she saw the look on Meryl's face. "Meryl, are you alright?"
"What?" asked Meryl, still shaken by the memory. She looked up at Allie and managed a wan smile. "Yeah, I'm fine. Sorry," she added, kneeling to reach under to table and collect the fallen shot glass. "Butterfingers."
When Meryl stood again, she caught Paige's eye across the table and from the half-curious, half-sad expression that briefly touched the other woman's face, Meryl wondered how accurately Paige had read her reaction. She might not have known all the details of Meryl's experience, but she seemed to recognize the result.
"Sorry to run off," Meryl said, to the group at large, and this time her smile was probably a little more convincing. "But I have to get back to my—"
"Tall-dark-and-gorgeous, we know," Paige interrupted, rolling her eyes. The rest of the table laughed, but Paige's gaze met Meryl's in silent understanding and Meryl nodded her thanks for the easy exit.
By the time she returned to the bar it seemed that the initial tide of drink orders following the appearance of the stewardesses had waned, leaving the disgruntled barman and the woman innkeeper with at least a brief respite (before those drinks were consumed and in need of refilling, anyway).
The innkeeper saw Meryl approaching and moved down the bar to meet her, eyebrows raised.
"Didn't expect to see you again," grumbled the woman. "What do you want?"
"I have another letter to mail, whenever the post office is back in order," Meryl told her, setting the dropped shot glass on the bar. The innkeeper moved to refill it from the bottle she held but Meryl slammed her hand down over the rim of the glass so hard it would probably leave a circular bruise on her palm.
"Oookay," said the woman, looking at her curiously.
Meryl hurriedly drew the report envelope from inside her cloak and held it up. "I need to activate one of the clauses in your insurance policy."
"Oh really," the innkeeper drawled, skepticism clear in both her tone and her expression as she leaned heavily on the bar.
"My partner and I trying to find passage to our next assignment, and we need fare."
The woman gave a gruff bark of laughter. "I'm not paying for anything!"
"In fact, you are," Meryl said, wearily. "Clause 128, sub article 6 states that you will, within reason, give financial aid to any Bernadelli agents who ask it, with the understanding that you will be reimbursed in full, with interest, following receipt of a signed affidavit from both the policy holder and the agent requesting said financial aid."
The woman scowled so fiercely Meryl might have recoiled, if she'd had the energy to spare.
"We can look at your policy again," said Meryl, sighing heavily. "If you want me to point it out to you."
"Fine," the woman snapped. "Fine. How much do you want?" She moved away to retrieve a rusty old cashbox from under the bar. Meryl sketched out a number on the back of her report, enough to pay for her and Milly, and Vash, and signed her name under it. The woman handed over the money and scrawled a signature next to Meryl's, so furiously that the pen nearly ripped through the paper.
"Thank you, Ma'am." Meryl sealed the envelope and passed it on gladly, knowing at least that the woman now had a vested interest in the letter ever reaching its destination.
Meryl shoved the money into the pocket of her tunic and felt slightly guilty about taking advantage of 128/6. But only slightly. The only reason she didn't use it every time it was available was because Milly frowned upon it.
In fact, if Milly knew Meryl was doing it now there would almost certainly be a disapproving frown waiting for her back on the shuttle. Thankfully, by the look of things when Meryl had seen her last, it was unlikely Milly would even be conscious any time soon.
When Meryl reached the outskirts of town again she was surprised to see a large crowd milling around the shuttle. As she drew closer she could hear shouting—shit, maybe Milly will be awake—and saw the driver taking fistfuls of double-dollars from people, apparently at random.
"Hey, what's going on?" Meryl asked a squat little man at the back of the crowd as she approached the shuttle. She had to raise her voice and ask again to be heard, and the man was now jumping up and down, frantically waving his wallet over his head in an attempt to catch the driver's attention.
"This guy says he can get us out of town, tonight," said the man. He suddenly scowled at her, saying, "Now, back off, I was here first." Meryl raised both her hands and her eyebrows, and circled the rest of the crowd.
Some people were already loading their luggage into the storage rack, having evidently secured a seat for themselves, and Meryl watched a mother and her two young daughters struggling to push a heavy suitcase above their heads. She hurried to help, as much as she was able, and though Meryl wasn't sure her efforts had actually been of much use, the woman still smiled at her gratefully once the case was secured.
Other passengers were trying to push them out of the way and the woman ushered her daughters quickly onto the shuttle. Meryl tried to follow them but the driver suddenly threw out his arm, catching her across the chest.
"Sorry lady, full up," he told her, his attention having never left the stack of double-dollars in his other hand. He began counting the money again as soon as he withdrew the arm blocking Meryl's path.
"I'm already on," said Meryl, exasperated. The driver glanced up, surprised.
"Oh, yeah," he said, nodding as he recognized her. "Right." Meryl had just pulled the innkeeper's lent money out of her pocket when the man added, "$$100 apiece."
Meryl's fist clenched around the faded bills as she hissed, "What? That's more than three times what you asked!"
"Yeah, and this place is full of steamer passengers who want to get the hell out of town!" the driver told her, gesturing at the crowd of people who hadn't made the cut and were returning, defeated, to the town behind them. "Turns out they'll pay through the nose to do it." He shrugged, saying, "Supply and demand."
"But my partner is already back there!" Meryl argued, pointing at the rear of the shuttle. "So is my..." She hesitated. Her what, exactly?
"Oh, yeah! Guess you better pay for them, too."
"What?"
A gloved hand fell on the driver's shoulder and he turned to look back into the dim light of the shuttle behind him.
"It's okay," said Vash, bent low in the cramped space. "This should cover the rest of it." He dropped a massive handful of crumpled bills and change into the startled driver's grasp. The majority of the coins fell between the man's fingers and rolled in every direction across the shuttle floor.
The driver made a panicked noise and Vash held his now-empty hand out to Meryl. Baffled, she took it and let Vash pull her up into the shuttle, pausing momentarily to step over the driver as he scrambled around on hands and knees to collect their fare.
Meryl could see Vash's grin, even in the near-dark interior of the shuttle. He turned, still holding her hand in his, and led her to the seats in the back that they had occupied earlier. Vash's seat had been taken by the mother and two daughters and it was clear that someone had tried to wake Milly, or at least to prop her up into a sitting position to make room, with absolutely no success on either front.
Vash dropped into Meryl's seat and pulled her down next to him.
"Where did you get that money?" Meryl asked, curiously.
"I took it from your tip jar, back on the steamer."
"You stole our tips?" yelped Meryl.
"Hush," Vash told her, as people around them grumbled at her outburst. "I liberated it, when you forgot it."
"Hmph," grumped Meryl, kicking the typewriter back under the seat in front of her. She scowled, but decided not to argue further. Especially because there was no way there had been over $$200 in their tip jar. Eventually she'd find out where Vash got the money, and figure out a way to pay him back.
Up at the front of the shuttle, the driver seemed to have finished collecting all of Vash's fallen coins and he coaxed the engine into life again. Meryl was pressed back into the seat for a moment as the shuttle leapt forward, but the rest of the acceleration went smoothly and they were up to speed after just a few moments.
"Come on," Vash murmured, crossing his arms over his chest and closing his eyes as he settled back into the seat next to her. "It's a day and a half to May City, try to get some sleep."
Meryl tried to match his pose, but Vash was tall enough that he could rest his head on top of the seat back. She couldn't rest her head on anything, and each time she came close to actually falling asleep her head would fall forward and jar her awake again. Hunching her shoulders awkwardly, Meryl was finally able to prop her head with her chin up slightly in hopes that she couldn't nod forward again.
This time when Meryl was startled awake it was because she had slid sideways into Vash. Before she could sit upright again Vash lifted his arm, letting it fall gently over her shoulders so she could lean against his side. Meryl was surprised, but tired enough not to look a gift Thomas in the mouth. She didn't even thank him, in case Vash had just done it automatically in his sleep and might push her away if he woke.
But her head could still fall forward and she woke with a grunt at the pain in her neck as she nodded off again. Meryl caught her balance with one hand on Vash's knee and she froze as he stirred next to her.
"Sorry," she whispered, quickly pulling her hand away. "I didn't mean—"
The rest of Meryl's apology was lost to a quiet noise of surprise. Vash's free arm reached across her body and his hand hooked over her knees, drawing her halfway into his lap. The arm around Meryl's shoulders slipped down to her waist and Vash pulled her in close until her shoulder met his chest.
"Sleep," he whispered, settling back into the seat again.
Hesitantly, Meryl let her head come to rest snugly in his collar and was immediately certain that if she closed her eyes now she would fall asleep there in Vash's arms before the end of her next breath.
She didn't know if this was something she should really allow. It was too familiar, and entirely unprofessional—this was her job, not... not... whatever the hell this might be.
But she was so tired and it was so comfortable, and she was so tired...
The last thing Meryl remembered was Vash sighing into her hair.