DISCLAIMER: Trigun and its characters belong to Yasuhiro the Stampede was already well aware of the woman standing next to him. He had not addressed her yet out of respect, letting her speak to him or not as she chose.

Vash the Stampede was already well aware of the woman standing next to him. He had not addressed her yet out of respect, letting her speak to him or not as she chose.

"Vash?"

"What's up?"

Meryl Stryfe's head was down, voice quiet. "I was wondering…if…well, maybe…" Then her head snapped up firmly as she cast aside indecision, the same look in her eyes as when she charged into chaos, her voice now strong and steady. "Would you like to go out with me?"

Vash saw the paths open up. The different possibilities if he said yes. Whether to violence or time, he would lose her. He had kept away from precisely such a thing as this for all his life, not just because of the threat of Knives, but because he wasn't sure he was up to the challenge of loving someone just to lose them.

He was focusing on the end, though. His eyes caught hers, and looking into them he saw the middle.

The places they would go together. The dates they would go on. Cooking together. Moonlight picnics. Breakfast in bed. Target shooting competitions, teasing each other about this or that shot or their choice of ammunition or their chosen weapons. Long conversations about nothing in particular. Arguments about the budget and groceries and what books to read to each other. Fights over nothing, just for the ensuing make-ups.

Vash on one knee. Meryl in a white dress.

A life together.

The end would come, somehow, some way. He was going to lose her.

But damn it, he realized, not before he loved her with all his heart and soul.

"Hell yes I would, Meryl."