I do not own Trigun / Vash or Rem: they belong to Mr. Yasuhiro Nightow.
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Vash
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Year 0158 month 5 day 25
"Will you tell me about Shyla?" Rem asked.
"Sure," he said, smiling. That topic was safe enough. He dreaded the hour when Rem would ask him about Knives. Or had someone already told her?
(Shyla, has anyone told Rem about... my brother?)
(Not yet.) The feel of Shyla's thoughts was gently apologetic. (We wanted her to recover more first. She's still weak, since regeneration can't do everything. Learning about Knives could be a shock. We didn't want that to hurt her recovery.)
(So she's going to ask me.) He couldn't quite keep the pain out of his feelings as he shared the thought.
(Yes, it's likely.) He could feel Shyla's sympathetic affection reaching out to him like a warm embrace. He responded in kind, and then turned his attention to Rem's question.
"Forty-three years ago, I walked through the desert toward the small town where Shyla and Naomi lived as mother and daughter. I'd miscalculated how much water I would need, and collapsed only a short distance outside of the town. They found me and nursed me back to health. They put me in a room across the hall from theirs, and treated me like a member of the family."
"Naomi and I probably sheltered Shyla more than we should have," he said, allowing his guilt over that to leak into his voice. He couldn't share feelings with her the way he could with Shyla. That meant the feeling needed to be expressed by a different method.
"When Naomi died, I brought Shyla here. Naomi had asked me to take her adopted daughter somewhere safe, if anything ever happened to her. There was no reason for Shyla to stay there alone. Here, she could learn things not available in that small town. She seems to have settled in well, and her tutors say she's taking to medical skills as if she were born to heal."
"Forty-three years ago?" Rem said, sounding a little confused. "She looks well under half that age. Has she been in cryo sleep?"
Vash chuckled. "No," he said. "And she's unlikely to look much older anytime soon, for the same reasons that I haven't aged much visibly. I'm surprised nobody told you. I can understand Shyla saying nothing. She always worries that it might make people uncomfortable, and believes that other things are more important. The other villagers are usually quick to mention that she's not an ordinary human, though."
"She's a Plant?" Rem looked and sounded mildly startled. "That hadn't occurred to me as a possibility, though I suppose it should have."
"In the last thirty years or so, if radio and newspaper reports can be believed," he said, "several independents like myself and Shyla have come into being. Most are female. In fact, I've only heard of one other male ever being found, and that might be only a rumor. At least, when I checked around that area there was no sign of a young male Plant."
He saw an expression flicker across Rem's face, and braced himself. Was she going to ask about Knives now? She had to wonder.
"How strange that they're nearly all female," she said after a pause. "I wonder why that may be." She frowned, and then shrugged.
"I don't know," he said. "Yet that appears to be what happens."
"As I recall," Rem said slowly, "you were always gentle and affectionate, like Shyla. Are most independent Plants the same?"
Vash laughed. "No, not at all," he said. "Independents come in as many different personalities as ordinary humans do. I just got lucky that I landed in a town where the independent Plant girl had such a sweet nature."
"How old was she, when you met her?" she asked.
"Shyla was four," he answered, "and very much like she is now, though slightly shorter."
"You seem to be close," Rem observed.
"I'm the only family she has, now," Vash said. "Her human mother, Naomi, was as wise as you are, but in different ways. She also was very kind, generous and loving. Shyla and I both needed that very badly at the time. But Naomi was old, and her body gave out before either of us was ready to let her go."
"I see," Rem said. "I'm sorry for your loss."
"Thanks," he said softly.
There was an uncomfortable silence, broken when Shyla opened the door to her room. "Your turn," she said cheerfully.
"Thanks," he said, trying not to sound relieved. He'd half expected Rem to ask about Knives any second, and he was glad that he did not need to face that challenge quite yet.
"You could have washed up in my room," Rem said, as if she'd only just realized it herself.
"I stowed my things in Shyla's room last evening," he said. "So it's easier for me to go in there. Thanks for the offer, though." He hugged Rem and kissed her cheek, then went into Shyla's room and pushed the door shut. He didn't push it that last little bit to latch it, though. It was an unspoken tradition of trust between himself and Shyla that he didn't wish to disrupt. He opened the window, feeling a need for some fresh air.
He sat on the bed, and, for a moment, he rested his face in his hands. He loved Rem so dearly! He knew it could hurt her, as much as it still hurt him, when she learned how Knives had lived.
There was a soft knock on the door. "It's Shyla." Her voice came through the door.
It was like her to respect his privacy, even when he was in her own room.
"Come in," he said.
She came in, quickly closing the door behind her. She sat on the bed beside him, to his right, and put her arm around his back and leaned her head on his shoulder. He felt her warm affection wrapping around him. He leaned his cheek against her head and closed his eyes, allowing her to comfort him.
(Would you like my memories of her, since she woke up?)
His eyes snapped open. He had shared memories with Shyla. Those memories were probably responsible for her recognizing Rem. It also made him a part of her, in a manner that no normal human could ever be. Now she was offering the same to him, an unexpected boon.
(Yes, please.)
(I've learned how to receive, but... you'll have to teach me how to give.)
He smiled both physically and mentally. (I'm willing.)
He felt her dual smile, and they shifted positions to face each other. They touched foreheads, which always seemed to make mental sharing easier. He lowered his mental barriers enough to make an access for her consciousness to come into his mind.
She entered as gently as always. Her soul-form was very bright, with a pale turquoise blue tint. The soul-form of a Plant showed only the Plant. There was nothing else, such as clothing or hair ribbons. Her long, unbound hair moved softly as if in an ethereal breeze.
He reflexively held his hands in front of his masculine anatomy, even though he had never yet seen her gaze stray from his face. He thought about looking down at his own soul-form, to learn what she would see if she looked that direction. This wasn't the first time he'd experienced that curiosity about himself. However, as always before, he could not bring himself to look away from her.
She had all the brightness and beauty of untarnished innocence. Seeing her, like this, was so refreshing – it was too great a blessing to ignore. Her presence was almost like a balm on his wounded soul. He drank in the sight of her face and eyes, the way she tilted her head, and even the way that wisps of her hair floated around her face.
He never looked below her shoulders, except to make sure that she was not harmed when she absorbed his memories. Thus far, that had never been a problem.
She knelt and held her hands wide. (I am ready. Take whatever you want, and welcome. We should try to be quick, so that Rem doesn't worry and interrupt.)
All of her barriers were down, he realized with surprise. Suddenly, he wanted to share her whole life – not just the recent months with Rem. A strange impulse, that. He wondered where it came from. As he began to suppress it, he realized from her thoughts that she'd felt his impulsive wish, also.
(If you want all, feel free.)
Such trust! He felt unworthy of it, from being far too familiar with his own weaknesses and shortcomings. Yet the fact that she granted him such trust made him determined to measure up to the task.
He vowed inwardly that he would never betray her trust, no matter what it cost him.
(It ... might be quicker to share all, instead of trying to separate out only the most recent memories.) He admitted. (However, it might feel uncomfortable.)
(I can think of nothing that must be hidden from you. Please, go ahead. You're welcome.)
(Thank you.) He helped her through the process of duplicating and packaging all of her memories to share with him. Then she extended the package to him, and he accepted.
He held the package of her memories against himself, or more precisely, against his soul-form. He let everything she had given him soak in, until it became a part of him.
(I hope you'll not be too disappointed in me, when you learn all my flaws.)
(Since you can be patient with my flaws and forgive them, I believe I can do the same for yours,) he thought to her fondly. Her flaws were likely to be far less grave than his own!
(You're always so kind to me! Thank you.)
(When one receives kindness, it becomes easy to give it where it was given.)
He felt her blush, both mentally and physically. (I would linger, but I don't want Rem worrying. And you'll want the doughnuts I promised.) With those thoughts, she stood and backed out of the doorway he'd opened to allow her into his mind.
Her withdrawal was as gentle and respectful as always.
He paid attention to her mind, as he returned his own mental barriers to their usual place. Yes, she had raised her own mental barriers again. Good. However, she shouldn't be so completely unprotected as she had been when she entered his mind... if another Plant wanted to communicate with her that way, she'd be vulnerable to harm.
He'd have to teach her about that, soon.
(Thank you again, Shyla.)
She smiled in both body and mind, and again wrapped him in her affection as she left the room.
He began to look into the memories she had given him. He would process them a little at a time. He began rummaging through his bag and picking clothes for the day, preparing to wash up before breakfast. As he tended those mundane chores, he also began looking through her recent memories.
He reached back to her memories of the woman in the cryo sleep cylinder, just a little before her awakening, and smiled. Shyla had hoped the unrecognizable burn victim was someone who knew Rem, and could talk with him about her.
She wanted to help the person for their own sake. However, her secret hope that the person from the time of his childhood would bring him some joy had sustained her through many of the long, tedious hours of regenerating the patient's body.
That was so like Shyla, to think of someone else before thinking of herself. It was probably one of the reasons that she was growing into such a fine healer.
He took his chosen clothing into the bathroom, and continued processing as he undressed and washed. For the moment, he skipped over days and hours that did not include Rem. He would return to those later, if it seemed appropriate and not like prying.
Suddenly he stopped cold. He reached the point where Shyla had a nightmare caused by his own memories that he'd shared with her. They were memories about the aftermath of his discovery of Tessla. That nightmare came just before she finished healing Rem, so it had been connected to memories of Rem.
Shyla had never told him about having nightmares rooted in his memories. Her memories made it plain that the one to waken her that day was far from the first. He would have to talk with her about that. He continued moving forward through her memories, relaxing as the focus returned to Rem's healing.
He finished washing himself efficiently, and dried off. With one towel wrapped around his waist and hips, and another around his damp hair, he sat on Shyla's bed and continued processing her memories. Seeing himself through her eyes, feeling her deep and unconditional affection for him... it was like a gentle rain on his parched soul.
Her most recent memories showed her growing affection for Rem, and her eagerness to restore his mother to him. She wanted this simply because she knew it would make him happy, and because she cared so much for him.
He lay backward onto the bed, closed his eyes, and drank it all in.