A/N: Okay, this chapter was supposed to be twice as long, but I decided to break it in half

for length purposes. The next half will be posted soon.f

Also, THANKS EVERYONE WHO IS REVIEWING AND FAVORITING! I'm glad there are so many people who are still interested in the fandom! GO TRIGUN! :)

He had been conscious for several hours. It had to be some time in the early afternoon. Something was definitely not right. He was exhausted and there was a dull ache in his temple, but the details of last night remained hazy.

He knew he was alone, and this somehow left him feeling more unsettled than the alternative. There was no one here to wait on him. There was no one in the outer chasing after him. No one was calling for his demise. No one was aching to string him up and watch him die. There was no bounty on his head, regardless of the countless crimes he had committed. There were no restraints binding him, no locks holding him, no experiments or vivisections planned or taking place, there were no angry mobs or greedy scientists. There were no faithful, self-loathing servants wishing for him to deliver them from the tainted human existences which they led. No one asked anything of him. No one expected anything from him.

He was free.

He was free: completely, horribly, and terribly free. Despite everything he had done, despite his hand in deciding the fate of every single individual on the planet, he was virtually unknown to the population of Gunsmoke, and this thought left him feeling defeated and guilt-ridden. No, it wasn't that he had been cruel to the humans. He honestly did not see any problem with continuing to judge them on a mass scale, making exceptions only for certain individuals. And it wasn't that he had killed. Killing was necessary for self-preservation.

It was the fact that his brother, his twin, the person closest and dearest to him, the reason for everything he had ever done, was anything but free. He could only vaguely recall bits and pieces of what had happened the night before, but the experience of being around people who in turns trusted and abhorred his brother had been bizarre. And Vash had been living like this since July… Didn't Vash ever think about the possibility that his supposed friends could easily stab him in the back for the bounty on his head? How could he not think about it all the time?

He stopped himself. There was a crushing sadness lurking just behind his eyes and he was slightly terrified to delve into the sensation for fear of what he would find. If he'd thought about it, he might have been able to determine whether the emotion was originating from him or whether it was merely being broadcast through the recently reopened telepathic link by his sibling. He didn't think about it, though. Taking a page from Vash's book ("Coping with Things I'd Rather Not Face Right Now [Without Developing Full-Blown Amnesia]," working title, of course…), and feeling every bit the hypocrite, he tried very hard not to think about anything at all.

The knock on the door was quiet, but cut sharply through his meditation, and Knives quickly made for the door. He justified his eagerness at the prospect of company with the fact that he needed some distraction from his thoughts. Reflexively, a hum of claustrophobic apprehension swelled in him as he reached for the mechanism which controlled the entrance, but dissipated after he heard the control mechanism quietly whir to life.

He first noticed the clear blue eyes of the tall girl standing outside. She looked worried, as if she felt out of place. But after he didn't say anything, she began to look worried for him. She didn't look at him with hatred or with anger or with any of the other destructive expressions he imagined to see in the eyes of a human. She wasn't even looking at him with pity in her eyes. It was almost as if she were actually concerned for his wellbeing. This was something he found extraordinarily hard to believe. Yes, this was Vash's follower, and no, she had never betrayed his brother or done anything to hurt him personally, but Knives knew she was just here to watch over him in his brother's absence. The idea that she would come here and actually care…

Humans didn't care about anything but themselves.

Knives suddenly found he was overcome with anger towards her. The idea of snapping her neck and calmly returning to his room fleetingly crossed his mind, but it seemed more out of habitual thought processes than actual desires. Being so mad at her made very little sense to him, so instead of confronting her, or screaming irrational obscenities in her general direction, or resorting to physical violence, he turned around sharply, sat down in the living area, and closed his eyes. He rubbed his throbbing temples to try to soothe the pain in his head.

Had she said something? "…the medicine on the counter? I left it in case…" Had she been talking the entire time? By the time he looked up, she was standing in front of him and holding out a glass of water and two white pills. She still had that look of concern on her face.

He took the glass and the pills from her, quietly and gently, but he was still filled with contempt, both because she was there at all and because he found himself automatically trusting that she wasn't actually trying to poison him. "Don't you usually bother me earlier than this?" he hissed.

"I…" Milly looked down, a bit confused. Knives took the opportunity to swallow the pills along with a few gulps of water. She looked at him again. "I thought you would want to be alone," she finally said.

"Of course you did, human." Knives had meant to sound cold and in control, but his words came out full of tired resignation.

"I…can leave…" she offered.

He closed his eyes as he felt a tremor of fear and loneliness shake his heart. So that was it. Knives realized that somehow she had acquired some control over him. He didn't know when it started, but he actually did like the idea of someone caring about his wellbeing. But how could that be the case? She was a human, and she was intimately aware of the things he was responsible for. Her presence was somehow familiar, though, and he had to admit to himself that he liked it when she was around.

Closing his eyes, he leaned back into his chair. "Do whatever you want," he said flatly, determined not to give up another inch of ground to this human.

He couldn't see her, but he could feel her looking at him. Maybe she was waiting for him to say something. He didn't. "Okay," she started, "well, if you need anything, I'll be on Deck 5 with Lil." He heard her move towards the door. "And the Doc has been working in the engine room." She waited a moment more before activating the door. "Okay, see you later, Mr. Knives..."

When he heard the door close, he opened his eyes. He was alone in the SEEDS unit, surrounded by people, and his brother was hundreds of iles away. What the hell was he doing here?

Meryl was in the lower decks of the sandsteamer. The nightly banquet held in the Grand Hall for the first class passengers had been underway for about two hours now. Everybody who was anybody was either mingling at the dinner or wasting money at the casino. As she made her descent into the ship, she noticed that most of the second class passengers were holed up in their rooms that amounted to little more than glorified closets.

She made her way to the lower decks, pulling her suitcase behind her. These levels were completely devoid of the festive atmosphere found up above. The lighting was dim and the air was stale. Third and fourth class passengers littered the walkways, leaning on the walls and each other in order to find some kind of comfort. Before she began walking down the lower hall, she grabbed a rough burlap blanket off the top of a stack of the musty things and wrapped it around her body, hiding her face and covering her clothes. This was the only amenity the sandsteamers afforded their lower class patrons, and she didn't want to draw any unneeded attention to herself through her appearance.

A man in fashionable clothing approached from down the hall, cradling his right fist tenderly with his other hand. He took no notice of her as he passed her by, but she easily could tell by his appearance that he did not belong among the third and fourth class passengers. She noticed that the knuckles of his right hand appeared to be bleeding. She set her jaw and kept moving forward.

Vash really owed her this time. She had dealt with entirely too much sexual harassment during this ordeal. And considering she was trying to blend in, her temper and, dare she say, standards of decorum, had nearly blown her cover several times. She had to tolerate a junior engine technician's delusions of grandeur to get close to some schematics of the ship. She hadn't realized how complicated the plans would be, but luckily for her, the man liked to talk. A lot. And the more questions she asked, the more information she got.

The only problem with playing dumb was that it was a lot harder than it looked. She had to keep in mind that leading questions were fine, but focused questions, like, say, "So, if the ventilation shaft dead-ends at this point on the lower deck, how do the engineers make sure the hull doesn't overheat? The overflow must be directed to an upper or lower level, right?" or, "Are blasts from the furnace constantly flowing through this duct or are there times when it is not used?" would result in a raised eyebrow from the technician. The only way to smooth over situations like that were to ask again about what it was that he did and fawn over how hard and important his job must be. It was almost like she wasn't supposed to express interest in the subject, but still find what he was saying fascinating just because he was saying it…

'Flattery, Meryl,' she had to cynically reminded herself. 'Just stick with the flattery."

That situation had proven a bit tricky to get out of. Thinking the lady before him to be a very young debutante who could possibly be his golden ticket to a higher rank, the young man was far too interested in pursuing Meryl. He insisted that he walk her back to her room.

"There are dangerous men on this steamer, you know…downstairs is where they keep 'em," he had whispered conspiratorially in an obvious attempt at scaring her. "I hear they even have the Devil's Helper himself aboard this ship tonight. But," he paused dramatically, "you never know what could happen with that. He might escape… Better to play it safe, don't you think?"

She laughed a little to her self when she recalled that line. Playing it safe was the last thing on Meryl's mind. And as for the Stampede escaping? She was the one intending to get him out! What would her mother think?

Anyway, he had been called back to work as Meryl's patience began to vanish. She looked into his eyes, her voice full of feigned regret, and promised to meet him after his shift was over in the steamer's saloon.

She sighed at the memory, relieved that the young man wouldn't even be through with his shift for another hour and a half. That meant that no one on the entire steamer would be interested in finding her at the moment. By the way her suitcase was rolling, she could tell the path she was taking was steadily sloping downward. From what she remembered of the schematics, she was slowly approaching the furnaces and the plant bulb deep within the center of the ship. According to her paramour, this was the most secluded and secure section of the ship.

She approached a corner, but just as she was about to round it, three federal officers turned down the hall. All four of them stopped. The officers looked at her suspiciously.

"What are you doing down here, miss?" one of the men asked.

Meryl nerves ignited with anxiety, but she managed to finally stutter out a sentence. "R-r-r-r-…I'm looking for the restroom! You wouldn't happen to know where the ladies room is, would you?"

The men did not relax. "You're going the wrong way, miss." One of them pointed her in the "right" direction.

"You looking for that damned idiot who just took off?" a soldier asked.

"N-no!" Meryl insisted, but the man looked skeptical.

"Sure…" he said sarcastically as he looked her over. "You clean up too nice. This isn't the deck you're assigned to, is it young lady?" His voice changed to a bit of a paternal tone.

Meryl was unsure of what to say. "No, it isn't," she finally decided on.

The soldier smiled to himself, satisfied that he had sussed out her lie. Then his face took on a grave expression. "Well, when you see your friend again…tell him it's no wonder he broke his hand and it ain't nobody's fault but his own. Trying to punch like that…You'd think he'd never been in a fight in his whole life!" The soldier shook his head. "If he wants to get his daddy to try to press charges, tell him to go for it."

It took Meryl a moment, but she remembered the man she had passed, the one holding his bloody hand. The soldier had obviously linked the two of them together.

"I…I will tell him!" Meryl said a little more nervously than she meant to. "Okay, goodnight!" she said quickly as she walked towards the restroom. The men waited for a moment, but she kept going straight and the men didn't stop her. Eventually they passed by.

Once she was inside the empty restroom, she looked for a stall with a vent over it. Locating one, she rolled her suitcase inside and promptly got to work. If she was right, this vent was connected to all the other vents on the deck. The plan was to stow the suitcase in the ceiling so that they could swing back around for it once she had located Vash. She lifted her skirt and unstrapped the multi-tool she had secured to her thigh. She had gotten it from the guys yesterday at the slaver complex. She located and pulled out a screw driver.

Meryl stood on the toilet, but she wasn't nearly tall enough to reach to the ceiling. Quickly, she rethought her plan and pulled out Vash's black bag and began stuffing as many of her belongings as she could inside it. She put her beloved suitcase on top of the toilet. If she stood on her toes, she could just barely reach the screws of the vent. She unscrewed one side and the panel swung down. She climbed off of her suitcase and picked up the black bag. She nearly fell over a few times, but she managed to stuff the thing inside the vent. Then she screwed the panel back into place and climbed down.

Now she turned her attention to the pink suitcase. She gave it a once-over, looking for any identifying tags or name plates on the bag. Satisfied that it didn't have anything directly linking it to one Meryl Stryfe, she found a dark corner and stashed it, most likely never to see it again.

Now, Meryl was not a sentimental woman, but she did feel a little sadness at parting with this bag.

Recounting all the places she'd been and the way she could perfectly clip on her typewriter (which was no longer in existence, either) on top of it, she made her way out of the restroom and toward her destination.

When she got to the makeshift "dungeon," she saw a lone federal soldier keeping watch. He was leaning against the wall, out of boredom, tiredness, or both. When he saw her approaching, however, he straightened up very quickly. "Miss, can I help you?"

It was now time for the act. "Is he here?"

The soldier looked a little taken aback. "Who do you mean, miss?"

"The Devil's Helper, the Humanoid Typhoon, the murderer of every single human in July," Meryl stated flatly. She couldn't help but feel her chin quiver uncontrollably, though. It was terrible speaking about Vash in these terms.

The soldier picked up on the chin quiver and quickly misinterpreted. "Miss, I can't let you…he's too dangerous."

Bingo. "This man. I have to see him. I have to look into the eyes of the man who killed both of my parents!" she ended on a shout. "I just want five minutes. I just want to see the eyes of such a killer." Meryl was actually shaking at this point, out of anticipation or something else, she didn't know.

"I…I'm sorry miss. I can't let you. It's too dangerous. The man is unpredictable, even if he is injured and chained up. I am sorry."

Meryl was slightly horrified at this point. She was so close, and she didn't know if she could incapacitate this man with the tools at her disposal. However, all was not lost. She would just have to go back to the restroom and climb through the vents herself, trying to find the cell they were keeping Vash in. She pushed the thought out of her mind, though, as she fished her hardware purchase out of a small pocket in her dress. "Can you do me a favor, sir?"

The man gulped. "I can try."

She handed the two small objects to the man. "If it happens that this man is put to the death he deserves, and that death is by firing squad, could you please use these?"

The man looked down and saw two rifle shells, both of them engraved with names: John and Lillian.

"He," Meryl started, but was surprised to find she was crying in earnest. "He killed my parents. If I can't see him, then please do your best."

The soldier was at a complete loss. Holding these two bullets, beautifully engraved, and watching the young woman in front of him cry, his emotions beat out his better judgment. He looked around, then he picked up his keys and began to unlock the door.

"You've got five minutes. The other soldiers will be back soon with a medic, so don't waste any time."

As she pushed the door open, Meryl sighed with relief and tried not to let the smile she was feeling show on her face…

More to come...