DISCLAIMER: Trigun and its characters belong to Yasuhiro Nightow.

Meryl slept best of all in a comfortable bed, secure in the knowledge that danger did not lurk directly outside the door. Sleep was very enjoyable in that scenario.

She slept very lightly when trailing after Vash, subconscious tuned in to the balance of the environment around her and aware of any disturbances in that balance.

Most of the time, in the towns they passed through, her sleep rhythm was somewhere between the two extremes. However, after being up so late last night with the inability to sleep, when sleep had come to her, she had surrendered to it fully.

Now, with dawn well past, sunlight beamed in through the window at just the right angle to be directly in Meryl's eye. Slowly, her brain registered the light against her closed eyes.

She grunted in annoyance and turned over. Reached for – what? Something that wasn't there, obviously, but should be. Patted for whatever it was, then grunted again and gave up the search. Whatever it was could wait; she insisted to herself that she was still asleep.

Her insistence did not last long – what the hell was she sleeping on, a pile of pebbles? This didn't feel at all like sleeping in the desert sand usually did.

Oh. They came into a town last night. A town with really lousy mattresses. It started coming back to her.

Rolled over groggily, hand going up as sunlight once again hit her in the eyes. Still fuzzy with sleep, she blinked rapidly to clear them. Looked around for Milly.

That was odd. Milly had insisted on taking the floor (which might, in fact, have been the better sleeping surface), so where was she? Shouldn't Meryl's partner be asleep right between the bed and the window?

Wait a minute – their room hadn't had the window there. Whose room was this?

There was a very familiar red duster hanging from the coat hook on the door, and Meryl suddenly knew exactly whose room this was.

Oh, dear God…

Her groggy brain shifted into overdrive with the implications of her realization of where she was. She had come in here last night to talk with Vash, and then…What? What had happened then? Had something happened? Had that jerk put the moves on her? Had he done anything to shame her honor?

A deep blush rapidly colored her cheeks – good God, had she done anything to shame her honor?

The door opening interrupted her frantic mental autopsy of last night. She grabbed the sheets, yanking them up to her neck in an attempt to preserve whatever modesty she might have left.

"Howdy, sleepyhead." Dressed in fresh clothes and gloves, hair up in its usual style, Vash looked ready to start the day. The clean scent of soap drifted over to Meryl – ah, he looked and smelled good. She nearly let down her guard.

Nearly. But default settings are virtually impossible to overcome in a pre-awake state.

"Get out of here, you pervert!" she commanded, holding the sheets around her like a shield against – well, whatever might be going through his head.

Vash's grin was infuriating as he leaned against the door jamb and pointed out, "It's my room."

Meryl's blush deepened, if such a thing were possible. "Just go away!"

Instead of heeding her order, he asked a question. "What exactly do you think happened last night?"

"I don't know what happened last night, but I wouldn't put anything past you, you jerk!" Flustered at having woken in his room – his bed, for crying out loud! – she was responding out of pure defensiveness; and for Meryl Stryfe, the best defense was to go on the attack.

Vash took it in stride. Hands up in a gesture of truce, he approached and sat on the foot of the bed. She watched him warily.

"You'll notice you're wearing your PJ's," he stated. Lowered his hands and relaxed pleasantly, but kept them in plain sight. He couldn't fault her being jumpy, waking up in someone else's room. If he woke up in a woman's bed and didn't automatically remember how he got there, he might find himself a little worried over what might or might not have happened, too. His worries would have less to do with sex and more to do with somebody intending to kill him, but the principle was the same.

"So?!"

"So you seriously think we did whatever you think we did in whatever positions you think we did it in for however long you think we did it, and still were sensible enough about it to be quiet enough not to wake anyone else up and then put our clothes back on before climbing back in bed together and going to sleep?"

"Well…"

"Would you like to hear what actually happened? I promise, you can even keep holding that sheet over your PJ's." Chuckled as she looked at the sheet in embarrassment, realizing it didn't cover anything her pajamas didn't already cover.

Meryl let the sheet fall, fighting to let her rationality prevail over her embarrassment at this entire situation.

"All right, what do you have to say?" she asked, attempting to sound in charge of this mess. She felt much more secure when she was in charge.

"Much as I hate to disappoint you," Vash said with a grin, "we just talked. Neither one of us could sleep, so you came in here, and we talked until we fell asleep. I'm sure you'll remember that once you actually start waking up."

Ok, he left out certain details. His pain was his and his alone, for him to work through; there was no need to drag her into it, not with his true biology and Knives and everything in his past and all the other things that opening up to Meryl all at once would pile on her.

If his vision of a life with her was to become reality, that reality had to be built very slowly, in increments they each could handle.

"Talked?" she asked warily. "We just talked? You promise that's all that happened?"

"I don't need to promise, because a shower and breakfast should clear your head; but yes, I promise, we just talked." And then he woke up and went downstairs and had a quasi-seizure and came back up and professed a fantasy of a quiet life with her – but yeah, aside from that, they just talked.

Part of Meryl was still defensive; however, she had enough of her wits coming online to note the sincerity in his voice, the fact that for all his seeming lechery she had never known him to actually cross any lines, and that staying entrenched in her defensiveness would accomplish nothing. Despite her embarrassment at finding herself in someone else's bed, she could either prolong this and further her embarrassment, or she could take the dignified approach and prepare to be presentable to the world. The latter option was clearly the practical one.

"I'll opt to believe you when you say we just talked – but God help you if I remember differently! Now would you get out of here so I can get my day started already?"

A twinkle in his eyes, Vash stood and bowed with a flourish. "Yes, mistress." Closed the door behind him as he left.

"Hey!" Meryl called after him, noticing something odd.

The door opened again. "You summoned?"

She brushed aside her annoyance at the amused tolerance in his voice. "Aren't you going to wear your red coat?"

Vash glanced at it, the twinkle in his eyes dimming. It reminded him too much of…things he didn't want to be reminded of right now. "I thought I'd see how I felt without it for a bit."

"And you're not wearing your gun."

The twinkle completely disappeared, his expression retreating into a guarded blank. "Might be best if I didn't for a while."

The door closed before Meryl could respond.

Meryl blinked rapidly. Not putting on the red duster she had come to identify with him. Leaving his gun off. What was going on with Vash the Stampede?

He had been off ever since the incident with Monev the Gale, his façade of what passed for normalcy with him slowly crumbling with time. It traced back to that monster Monev, who had killed for the sole purpose of prodding Vash to fight him.

That couldn't have anything to do with it, could it? All of those deaths were clearly on Monev. They weren't Vash's fault. He hadn't pulled the trigger, and he hadn't provoked the battle. It was clear that he bore none of the blame.

On the other hand, if anybody would blame himself for failing to prevent casualties, it would probably be Vash the Stampede.

Was that why he was so…unlike himself as of late? Because he felt responsible?

"I never killed anybody."

The first fragment of their talk last night came back as her feet hit the floor and she rose from the bed. It hit her that for a man who walked the path he did, a path set upon a very fine line, not killing was as essential as – well, as rules and standards were to someone who was not inherently good but chose to act good. It was what kept him from falling off that fine line into the abyss below.

Hmm…this would bear some more thinking on. Right now, however, the more pressing problem was how she was going to explain to Milly where she had been all night.

Meryl walked quietly down the hall to her room. Mind racing with explanations, she opened the door to face the inevitable…

Oh, thank God – Milly was not here! Sighing in relief, Meryl gathered some fresh clothing – what she had worn into town yesterday was dusty and sweaty from the desert and she had no intention of wearing it ever again without a proper cleaning – and her shower kit and headed off to the small bathroom at the end of the hall. Noticed a little piece of paper stuck in the door. Head cocked, she took it out and read it –

Turned shower off at 8:32.

Puzzled over the note for a few seconds, then remembered this was a town without a plant. That meant it didn't have as ready a water supply as those towns built around plants – which, admittedly, weren't exactly overflowing, but did usually have enough water to get by without being overly strict in their rules. December, for example – while being a civilized place and as such having more than a few rules to stay civilized – managed to have laundry services and water on tap and citizens who were rarely dehydrated.

A town without a plant to rely on might have to resort to some water rationing measures that December did not. Such as shutoff mechanisms in the shower – X amount of water flow in Y amount of time, any beyond that and the water would cut off for Z amount of time, after which it would reset. She had never really studied plumbing and didn't know what went into such a mechanism or how water could be monitored, but choosing not to rely on a plant did not make people idiots. If anything, not relying on a plant would take hardy, self-reliant stock that would have to be at least as smart as some of the more capable citizens of any plant town, if not smarter. It took a lot of ingenuity and intelligence to be able to make the things one could usually rely on a plant for.

It was a little past nine o'clock now. Maybe the cycle had reset by now and she could get a decent shower – which probably meant enough to get wet, lather up, and rinse off. Still, even a shower that her coworker Karen would probably snort at in derision was better than scrubbing yourself clean with fine sand. Meryl should know, having experienced the unpleasantness of doing so; it worked well enough, but it felt a little too abrasive and there were limits to what you could clean with it. Water and soap were much more preferable.

Sure enough, there was a notice in the bathroom about water restrictions. No bathtub, either, but it was not surprising that cheap rooms in a saloon would merit only a small showering space. At least the door had a lock on it.

She tried the water. Good, it was working. Undressed and stepped in, yelping as she discovered there was no hot water. Suddenly a short, minimalist shower was far more desirable compared to the notion of a full-length one under water of this degree. Cold water helped beat the heat if you were ready for it, but what she had wanted was hot water to work out some of the stiffness produced by crappy beds and desert travel.

A sigh escaped as she muttered, "Suck it up, buttercup. Water's water."

As Meryl went through the motions of hygiene, her thoughts drifted back to Vash. Had she overreacted? Would it have been so bad if something had happened?

She snorted – of course it would have! There were ways a lady behaved; and if she was not always ladylike in temper, Meryl at least knew that a lady should always be respected in the morning.

It would be a lot easier to stay firm in that stance, if only Vash were that idiotic lech he tried to pass himself off as. If only he were that pervert she had sworn was trying to peep on that federal agent Marianne, instead of the hero that put himself between other people and danger, spouting his idealistic notions about getting along in love and peace. If only he were the deadly bastard of an outlaw she had been assigned to track down in the first place.

If only she hadn't seen in his eyes that he would never take advantage of her. That whatever happened, he would always respect her in the morning.

Vash the damned Stampede – things would be so much easier if he weren't such an infuriatingly good man underneath all his donut-scarfing idiocy. Amazingly skilled and competent. Willing to pay the price for his virtue of not killing. A smile that was captivating when it showed in those sea-green eyes that held oh so many emotions at once.

Something definitely should have happened last night, and Meryl knew exactly what that something was…

Yelped again as she turned the spray back on, the cold water washing away lather and fantasy. She left it on a half-minute longer than she needed to, punishment for letting her mind wander like a schoolgirl with a crush. What was next, would she be doodling hearts with VxM inside them?

Punishment over, she turned off the water and stepped out, toweling off and wrapping the towel around her. Made extra sure to keep her mind on track as she brushed her teeth and dressed.

No matter how much Vash might bring deliciously impure thoughts into her head, sex alone was not love.

Maybe – and it was a big maybe – they could have something together. But it would have to last a lot longer than one night. She wanted a real love, a real relationship, not a real roll in the hay that ended with her cowboy riding away to his next fling.

There were things she didn't know about him, and things he didn't know about her. And there was always her profession – she had worked beyond hard to get to where she was in her life, and it simply was not ethical for her to allow herself to become involved with Vash while she worked for Bernardelli.

It seemed like the smart choice was just to leave it alone. There were so many ways this could blow up on both of them, so many doubts. One of the first things she had learned in her career – whenever there is doubt, there is no doubt. Play it safe.

Yet Meryl was drawn to Vash in a way that overwhelmed her reasoning. It kept coming back to that one question: was she in love with him? And she kept insisting the answer was no.

But…

All right, look. If they were to have anything together, it had to be built very slowly, in increments they each could handle. That much was true, she knew. So there was plenty of time to sort this out. No hurry. She could just take it easy and wait for the right moment for them to talk. He might even be the one to initiate it, who could say?

Maybe she loved him. Maybe he loved her. The answers would come in due time. She headed downstairs, now ready to look at him without her emotions tied in a knot.

Not surprisingly for this time of day, Vash and Milly were the only ones there, playing some kind of game. As she approached, Vash blurted, "First chess and now go! Is there any game you're not good at?"

Milly lauighed and scratched the back of her head, apparently trying to think. "Um…card games? I don't think I'm very good at poker. Do you have any money to bet?"

"Don't you believe it," Meryl inserted, pulling up a chair. "If there's a game any of her brothers played, Milly's good at it." Looked at her partner. "Or do you not remember the time you beat the sabacc champion of December?"

Milly laughed good-naturedly at Meryl's heads-up. "It's not my fault my family played a lot of card games.. But since Mr. Vash probably won't play with me now – will you buy some pudding for me – um, us?" she asked the blond man.

"Kind of early in the day, don't you think?" Vash asked her.

Milly was aghast at such a notion. "It's never too early for pudding!"

Meryl had long since learned how to deal with this. "We've discussed this before, Milly. You get your pudding after the meal. Right now, you need a good start to the day."

Her partner conceded the point. "You're right, Meryl. People don't live on pudding alone – although it would be fun to try. By the way, did you wake up early? You were gone when I woke up."

Meryl fought to keep color out of her cheeks. "I – ah – that is – so, Vash, where's the bartender?"

"Likely asleep. If he works at night, he probably sleeps in the day, at least some of it." Vash looked back and forth between the two of them. "Now, other than me, who's ready to eat?"

Milly must have been, because she was heading for the door almost before he finished the question. As Vash and Meryl hurried to catch up, they accidentally brushed hands.

The slight touch brought a slight smile to him. His heart was beating evenly. He was steady everywhere, not a twitch to be felt. Wasn't anywhere but in the moment with Meryl.

The certainty came that as long as she was in his life, he would be ok.