DISCLAIMER: Trigun and its characters belong to Yasuhiro Nightow.
Not so long after, their water started running low. Vash soldiered on, one foot in front of the other, but Meryl and Milly spoke in low tones about their situation.
"What will we do if we run out of water? Should we leave Mr. Vash to look for more?"
"We have enough left for the time being," Meryl replied. "You're bigger, so if it comes down to it, you can have some of mine. I'd like to put off splitting from him as long as we can. We'll start trying to save what we have, and if we don't come to someplace with water in the next couple days, then we'll go looking for water on our own."
"I'm sorry," Milly apologized. "I know you want to stay with him, it's just that –"
"It's ok, Milly. It's our job to follow him, but we can't do that if we die from thirst."
"I wasn't talking about the job."
Before Meryl could respond with a denial of whatever Milly was implying, a canteen landed in front of them; it was Vash's. They looked up, but there was no sign that he had thrown it. He kept moving.
"Thank you, Mr. Vash!" Milly called, scooping up the canteen. Smiled happily at the time this precious water bought them.
Meryl remained worried over Vash's silence. It was like him to share water, but not in this manner. Still, she held her tongue.
Another day of silence passed. Even Milly was less chipper than usual. She and Meryl watched the water carefully.
One more day, Meryl decided. One more, and then if Vash was not going to look for water with them, they would have to go themselves, while they still had any left.
She kept herself distracted from worrying about Vash by worrying about their water situation. Watched for signs that there was water nearby. Thought about how to approach seeking the precious liquid. Since leaving Promontory, they had set up some simple condensation traps each night and collected the water the following morning; however, while any extra water was welcome, the amount they were able to add this way was minimal.
It was comforting, though, to notice that Vash waited for them each morning while they collected the condensed dew. He wasn't lost to her yet.
To us, Meryl corrected herself. Even if she accepted that she felt – something for Vash the Stampede, he was still an assignment, first and foremost. Her concern for him was only in a professional capacity. Now get back to the water situation.
It wasn't encouraging. They passed by several animal skeletons.
"Is that good or bad, Meryl?" Milly queried, staying well away from the skeletons.
Meryl shrugged; thirst was starting to tug at her, but she didn't want to take a drink just yet. Worked her mouth for a moment to get the dryness out before replying. "It shows there's no water around. But there are animals, or were at some point. If we can find some live ones, or at least their tracks, there's an outside chance they could lead us to water. It's better than nothing."
Milly nodded in agreement. "Do you think Mr. Vash would be willing to look for water with us? I do like it better when he's around."
Meryl didn't mean to let it, but a sigh escaped her. "I don't know, Milly. Right now, I don't know anything about that man."
Her partner let it go at that, but did give her an encouraging pat on the shoulder.
That night, as the dew traps slowly collected moisture, Meryl looked at the stars. There was a certain constellation that she was well-acquainted with. Its actual name escaped her; she always thought of it as the December constellation, because it was over the city of December. For her, it always pointed the way home. Looking at that constellation now and its position in the sky, it was clear to her that home was a long way away.
When the suns rose, waking the two-plus-one trio with them, Meryl set her jaw and faced the fact that today was the day they might have to leave Vash. Ignored the sad feeling that brought to the edge of her mind.
Milly watched her partner hem and haw and put it off as long as possible, making several false starts. When the dual suns were overhead, however, she said to Meryl, "I don't want to leave him, either. But we need water."
"I know," Meryl said. "But stop implying I don't want to leave him. I've just been getting the words right in my head, is all. You know how crazy he makes life; things will be a lot saner without that donut-starved maniac!" Hmph'ed in punctuation.
Hot and tired as she was, Milly grinned and shook her head.
Meryl picked up her pace and caught up to Vash. Before she could actually broach the subject, though, he preempted her without even looking her way.
"I'll look with you."
That caught her off guard. "I know your hearing's good, but I didn't think you could hear us all the way back there."
"When the wind's right. It's the desert, sound carries. And you need water."
Her head cocked. "You make it sound like you don't."
"I might. I might not." It was said casually, but without any humor or smile. It made her reach another decision.
"What's bothering you?" she asked.
Her answer was silence.
"You can't keep it in forever."
More silence.
"Ok, fine, be that way!" See if Meryl ever tried to help again, if he was going to cop this attitude!
She was so busy being irked at him she didn't notice him stop. "Oof! What's the idea?"
He knelt down and pointed in the sand. "Tracks."
Meryl knelt down, too, though she had no idea how to read tracks. "Animal or human?"
"Thomas. Too heavy to be wild; these had riders. Might be water somewhere close."
Meryl called Milly to join them. Explained the tracks on the ground. "What do you think?"
"I think where there's people, there's water," Milly said. "I'm all for it." Smacked her lips in anticipation of water that didn't come from a canteen.
They followed Vash for a while, as he followed the tracks he saw. It felt good to Meryl, being a real trio again. Felt like things were a little closer to being back to normal.
That changed when Vash stopped. Knelt down and scooped up some sand, filtering it down through pinched thumb and forefinger. "Damn."
"What is it?" Meryl asked, coming up beside him.
"Blood." Dug through the sand some more, until he pulled something out.
Meryl recoiled at what was left of a human left hand, stripped partially to the bone by animal teeth. A simple wedding ring was on the third finger.
Taking several deep breaths to regain her composure, she said, "Well, if someone was out here and was killed by animals – at least those are indicators of water, right? People and animals wouldn't be around without water."
"Animals didn't kill whoever it was," Vash stated grimly. "This was sawed off."
"Maybe someone cut off their own hand for some reason?"
He shook his head. "You know what's more likely. Somebody was murdered out here. Whoever did it had a vested interest in making sure the body didn't get found." Let the hand fall back to the ground and stood up. "We should look for water somewhere else."
"Why?" Meryl challenged. "There's water close by, and all we know for sure is there's a hand that looks like it was cut off. There's no conclusive evidence of foul play, but very definite evidence that we need water, and you said you would go with us to get some. We should follow these tracks until we find water. Then we'll decide what to do from there."
"I said I'd look with you, not get you killed."
"Nothing will happen," Meryl said confidently. Need for water overrode the deep-down worry of what a sawed-off hand could mean. "And since when you are you afraid of trouble, anyway?" Marched off to tell Milly what they would be doing.
Vash saw again the terror on Monev's face. Felt the trigger just a few pounds of pressure away from being pulled. This man would die at his hands, and he would not give a damn.
If not for Rem, it would have played out that way.
"It's not trouble I'm afraid of," he murmured.