A/N: Hey guys. Is anybody reading this? If so, is anybody enjoying this? Do you guys hate this story? Just wondering. I'm going to finish the story, but reviews make it easier.

Walking through the desert was unpleasant enough by itself, but add to that a gunshot wound in the leg and another body and you're suddenly talking unbearable. But when you're running on adrenaline, fearful for the lives of those you care about, somehow it's easy to forget the pain.

And Vash was trying to think about anything besides pain when he lost his footing and tumbled down a sand dune. Milly was in front with the kid and Vash's bag, Meryl was in back keeping an eye out for any more attackers. She saw him fall down, his brother landing in the sand. She ran over to him. First she was full of pity, but somehow, that was swallowed by a sudden burst of anger.

"Why don't you let Milly carry him, Vash! You're injured!" she growled.

"No." This is my burden. He started to get up slowly.

The bullet must have hit an artery because he was losing blood quickly. She looked in horror at the place where he had fallen in the sand. Already there was a puddle of bloody mud. She sucked in a sudden breath, scared for him, but again her anger seemed to trump all other emotions.

"MR VASH THE STAMPEDE! YOU ARE NOT CARRYING HIM ONE STEP FURTHER!" She ran up the dune and shouted for Milly to come back.

Vash ground his teeth together and looked around. He didn't want any help, he shouldn't have even involved them, but arguing with Meryl was going to waste precious time that they didn't have. "FINE!" Meryl stopped in her tracks. She wasn't expecting a reaction like that. As Milly made her way back, he took his bag from her and continued walking.

Meryl looked at him as he trudged forward. A tinge of guilt suddenly nagged at her. She hadn't meant to get mad...but he could just be so stubborn! He didn't even look at her when he walked past. He's in a lot of pain... He must be mad because i wasn't able to cover him. Wolfwood never would have been so sloppy. Feeling like a total disappointment, Meryl took the little girl and helped Milly pick up Knives.

Despite his longer legs and his lighter load, the girls caught up with Vash in a matter of minutes. They were headed for shelter: a cave the little girl had been hiding in for the last few days. She said it was big enough for all of them to fit in, and it seemed like the only place they would be able to weather the approaching sandstorm.

"It's there!" the little girl shouted. "Just over that dune!"

Meryl groaned. More sand. That's all this planet was made of. The wind was whipping around and starting to sting her face.

They made their way inside the cave. It was almost pitch black. Milly laid Knives down by the mouth of the opening. The little girl nearly leapt out of Meryl's arms and ran towards Milly. Meryl tried not to let it hurt her feelings. Milly was just better with kids.

Vash pulled a flashlight out of his bag and turned it on. He shined it. Meryl and Milly gasped. This wasn't a cave...this was an old mine. And from the looks of it, it went far underground. There weren't any minerals except for quartz to be mined, and what was the point in mining quartz when you could just melt sand and get the same thing? No...something about this place triggered a memory in Vash. The metal that supported the mine was old, and it looked like it was pulled directly from one of the seeds ships. And there were pipes that ran along the walls. When he was younger, he remembered people trying to dig for water. This must have been one of those attempts. There must have been a settlement close to here. Whatever happened to it, the desert had long since swallowed it up.

Vash absentmindedly tossed Milly another flashlight. After a short trek, the mine split into two tunnels.

"Hey look!" he shouted with mock cheer. "A girls' side and a boys' side!" He picked up his brother and started walking down the tunnel to the left. He was getting tired, nothing was going as planned, and he was losing a lot of blood. He needed to stop and rest or else he was going to pass out. Then Milly would have to lug around two bodies, and it would probably piss Meryl off, too.

Meryl watched as he walked away. Milly was cooing to the little girl, who's name was apparently Lil. Considering the circumstances, Meryl hadn't even thought to ask. As Vash walked farther and farther away, uncertainty overtook her.

"Um, don't you think we should...stick together?" Meryl shouted.

Vash stopped and turned around, but before he could answer, Milly piped up. "Don't worry about it sempai! Exploring is fun! You can go with Vash, we don't mind!"

And with that, the only two points of light diverged in opposite directions. Meryl hesitated for a moment before choosing the path to the left. Someone has to keep an eye on him, she thought to herself. I mean, it is my job afterall.

As she approached the light, she heard a series of rapid clicks. When she got closer, she saw that Vash had the pen out and was pushing the top of the pen up and down quickly. He was sitting down with his back against one of the walls. His eyes were closed. He looked worn out. His brother was propped up against the other wall.

Meryl stood there for a moment, but when her presence wasn't acknowledged, she spoke up. "Vash, what are you doing?"

He opened his heavy lids. "It's Morse code. I'm trying to send a message to Doc on the SEEDS ship."

Meryl could picture it in her head. "SOS SOS SOS MAN'S DESTRUCTION IS HERE STOP PLEASE BRING TWO BOXES OF SEDATIVES SOME ADAMANTIUM RESTRAINTS AND A CASE OF WILD TURKEY STOP LOVE AND PEACE STOP" Who in their right mind would answer a distress call like that?

After a while, the clicking stopped and Meryl looked over at Vash. "How will they get to us in time?"

"They have some airships. They don't like to use them unless it's necessary." He cracked open an eye and looked at her with a smirk. "And considering the situation, I think it's necessary."

For some reason, Meryl took that last comment as a personal attack. He'd basically told her, in so many words, that he'd expected her to be his backup, and she couldn't even do that right. Now what good was she to him? She was just the nag that always followed her around. If she'd been paying attention, maybe they would have seen the slavers and they would have been able to make the trip as planned. She wanted to say she was sorry. She wanted to say those three little words. The air was in her lungs, ready for confession, but something stopped it before it could get out and turned it into:

"Let me take a look at that wound."

"Come on, Meryl. I'm fine." His voice was gravelly with fatigue. He didn't even bother opening his eyes.

Well, no point in backing down now. "I'm serious! You're badly injured!"

He took a deep breath and tried to stave off his frustration. He looked at her. "Believe me, it's fine."

"Vash, it's going to get infected!" she shouted. "Let me look at it NOW!" She stomped her foot on the ground.

Then a funny thing happened (and it's funny only in that hindsight kind of way). Before either of them knew what was happening, there was a loud noise and the ground beneath them gave way.

That's the last thing Meryl could remember when she regained consciousness. She saw Vash's worried face over her as he lifted heavy chunks of rock off of her. Her head ached and when she moved her right foot, there was an excruciating pain in her lower leg.

"Don't move, ok Meryl?" He looked so worried.

"Ummhmmm," she mumbled. She felt dazed. She slowly realized that they must have fallen through the floor. She didn't know how far they had fallen. It could have been three floors, it could have been ten.

Vash turned around and yelled upward. "She's ok Milly. I want you and Lil to stay close to the entrance. It's not safe here."

She heard Milly's reply, but she didn't pay much attention. Her head was buzzing with pain. Vash touched her arms, checking for injuries. He felt around her ribs and tummy. When she didn't react, he went down to her legs and touched them lightly, stopping when he heard her whimper. He fished a knife out of his bag and cut her tights up to the knee so he could get a better look at the injury. Her shin was bruised and swollen. It was probably broken. He picked her up gently and carried her over towards the light. Her head hurt and she didn't want to move, but she didn't put up a fight.

Vash looked around him. He needed something to splint her leg with. There was some metal in the debris that looked like it would do the job. He got some rope out of his bag and approached Meryl. "This might hurt, but it'll only hurt for a little while, ok?" She nodded dumbly.

He took an old shirt and wrapped it around her leg. Then he took the long pieces of metal and arranged them on either side of her lower leg. He tied the strips on with the rope. Meryl winced, but she could handle it. She wasn't saying much and it was starting to worry him.

"Meryl, can you hear me?"

"Mmmhmmm." Her eyes were closed. She felt warmth on her cheeks.

"Look at me."

She opened her eyes slowly to see Vash staring intently at her. He was looking deeply into her eyes and was cupping her face in both his hands. He gently pulled her closer into the light, closer to his face. Her eyes snapped open.

"V...Vash?"

He kept looking at her. "Shhhh."

Was he going to kiss her? She began to lower her eyelids, and that's when it happened:

Vash pulled open her lower eyelids with his thumbs.

Her eyes popped open as her eyebrow began to twitch dangerously. "...Vash...What are you doing?"

He backed off. He put his hands up innocently. "I was checking to see if you had a concussion. You weren't saying much."

She pushed him off of her and spun around, only to be greeted by ice-cold blue eyes staring at her.

Knives is awake.

Scream.

Scream.

SCREAM!

She couldn't make a sound. She tried to move, sliding her good leg frantically on the ground, moving backwards. She ended up backing into Vash. He looked down and saw the terror in her face. He followed her line of sight to his brother. He saw Knives' eyes slightly opened and he knew instantly what she was thinking. Fortunately, what she was thinking was wrong.

"Meryl...it's ok. He's still unconscious. I just gave him some more sedatives." He didn't bother to tell her that they only had a few doses left, what with the gun fighting and the exploding and the falling...

She backed up to the wall next to him and pulled his prosthetic arm around her. "This arm has a gun in it, right?"

"Yeah...but right now...it's aimed at me..."

"Shut up."

He could feel her shaking up against him. He tightened his arm around her a little bit. "It's going to be ok." He looked around. "Hey, want to see a trick?"

Meryl exhaled slowly, trying to calm down. "Um, ok."

Vash closed his eyes and breathed in deeply. When he opened his eyes, he looked intently at his bag as if to will it towards him. He reached his hand out, and...

and...

Nothing.

"Damn," he laughed, "it never works when someone's watching." Meryl scoffed at him as he leaned over and grabbed the bag the good ol' fashioned way. He pulled out his flask. He took a swig and offered it to Meryl. "You look like you need a drink." She cocked an eyebrow. "Come on, it won't hurt."

She seemed to remember a cautionary after-school special that started with this kind of dialogue. Still, she was rattled. Maybe a quick drink would help calm her nerves. She took the flask and took a swig. Her throat burned and her cheeks felt hot. Even she knew she was a lightweight.

She handed the flask back to Vash and he took another drink. Then he poured a little bit on his wound, he could feel the bullet already working itself out of his leg. He winced.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"You were the one worried about it getting infected." He offered her the flask again, but she waved it away. With a shrug he took another swig and then screwed the cap back on and tossed it into the bag.

They sat like that for a while, his arm around her, she looking at his brother. They didn't say much. Then the tongue-loosening effects of the alcohol finally took hold.

"How can you be so calm?" she asked thoughtfully.

"I don't know, but it wouldn't do any good to freak out now, would it?"

"How very pragmatic of you."

She took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. As she leaned up against him, she thought how simple the old days were, when she didn't even believe that Vash was "the Stampede." Now she was stuck underground in a sinkhole with a broken leg and the one being who wanted to bring about the destruction of mankind...and actually had the ability to do it. This could be it, she thought. This could be the last chance I have to tell him.

"Vash?" Her voice was unsure.

"Mmmhmmm?" He seemed to be dozing, but she always wondered if he really actually slept.

"I...I've got something to tell you." Should she just blurt it out? "It's something that I've wanted to tell you for a while now, and I never had the chance before, and I just...I need to tell you, because..."

"Hmm?" He opened an eye and looked down at her.

"Because this might be the last chance I get." She took a deep breath. "Vash, I--"

He put his other hand over her mouth, suddenly completely awake. "STOP." She looked at him questioningly, frightened. "Meryl, I'm not going to sit here and listen to your final words." He took his hand away from her mouth. "We're going to get out of this, ok?"

She shook her head, afraid to speak. There were already tears gathering in her eyes.

"What's wrong?"

"I'm just..." Might as well be honest. "I'm just...scared! I'm TERRIFIED!" The tears started falling. She leaned into him. He was a little surprised, but quickly pulled her in a little tighter.

"It's gonna be ok. I won't let Knives hurt you. We're going to get through this."