Disclaimer in previous chapter. Please see Author's Notes at the end.
Italics indicate telepathic communication. (I probably should have added that note ages ago.)
-x-
When next he opened them, Vash's eyes saw only white.
It wasn't the white of his dreams. It wasn't the white of destruction, of smoke, of stars. It wasn't the white of a Plant. It disappointed him, in a way. It was banal old ceiling white.
His ceiling.
His room.
And the feeling of his body, lying there in his bed, was inextricably alien.
In his left peripheral, there was motion, and he unthinkingly turned towards it.
"Yo," Knives greeted him, his voice deep and relaxed. He was relaxed; he was reclining in a chair by the bed, one foot propped up on the mattress. The armor Vash had been somehow expecting was absent; Knives was dressed in his work clothes, soft brown trousers and a red cotton shirt. His feet were uncharacteristically bare.
Vash didn't miss the symmetry. It had been him slouched in that chair. Ten months ago. Knives had been lying where he was lying now. The reversal of roles was complete.
It was over.
He reached out, tentatively, to touch his brother's mind, and he found nothing. It was like Knives wasn't even there.
. . . so how similar were these circumstances?
Knives' look became considering. "You think this is a figment of my imagination? No, brother. This is real." No more games.
Vash let his eyes drift back to center in their sockets, moving his focus point to the joint of the ceiling and the wall. It wasn't like the girls' house had been. Their ceiling had been choked with sand, the pores in the plaster would capture it unless you used a rubber-based paint or some kind of sealant, and of course those were expensive –
Only the best for their home.
Knives sucked in a deep breath, releasing it in a sigh touched with a tone of contentment. "It is a suitable domicile. Better, I think, than the last one the humans provided you." In his peripheral vision, he saw Knives rest his head back against the wall, apparently also considering the ceiling. "You do remember, don't you?"
Back in the tube, he'd been frantic. Things had been disjointed. Now that he was awake, really awake, his eidetic memory was quick to provide context. Fragments of countless nightmares. Nightmares in which he'd been defeated, over and over again. Helpless to prevent the slaughter of those he loved. Unable to save even one of them. Unwilling to use his Angel Arm.
Unable. If he had manifested, even in those nightmares, then he would have manifested in real life. And it was critical that he not, if Knives had sensed -
But clearly that time was long past. It seemed as though the games had already run their course.
Those weren't games.
Vash licked his bottom lip, somehow expecting it to be chapped. It wasn't. "What do you want me to say?"
"I don't want to hear that you're sorry," Knives snarled, his tone at odds with his projection of serenity. "I don't want to hear that they didn't know what they were doing. I want to hear you say that you know what they did to you."
Vash closed his eyes. He knew why his body felt so unfamiliar. He knew why she had touched the gaping wounds and filled them with light. He remembered what his body had looked like, floating in the tube.
Knives. Knives had put him in that tube.
"To save your life, idiot." The hard edge was still in his tone. "Haven't you noticed yet?"
It was meant to gall him, but Vash felt . . . nothing. Even without moving he knew how weak he was. Too weak to cough. If they had truly gotten him to manifest in the bulb, there was no telling how much energy they had drained. His memories, however perfect, got foggy around what he had guessed was his second day inside the bulb. After that, there were just impressions, except when she had been talking to him-
Comforting him. His cries had carried to her over the ship's network.
"Where is she?" Knives would never have left the other Plant on that ship. Not if they were already back in Eden.
"The humans had the foresight to uninstall her." The calm tone was back as if it had never left. "She's older than the others. Possibly from the same generation as our mother."
Vash felt his eyebrows furrow, and he opened his eyes again to see Knives was watching him closely. "So you are still in there," he murmured, as if to himself. "You have no memory of leaving the ship because you were in a coma."
The dreams.
A humorless chuckle, completely silent. No, Vash.
Vash stared at him, and Knives' look became very focused. "Say it. Tell me that you remember."
He swallowed, again surprised to find it so painless. "I . . . I was careless. They had some agents in a bar and staged a fight. One of them knew about Frank, bought a round-"
"They comprehended you were a free, humanoid, sentient Plant, capable of communication. They kidnapped you.
They drugged you. They ripped your body apart, installed you into a Bulb, and they sucked some of the life out of you." His brother's calm was fading fast. "Then they tried to force you back into a humanoid so they could study you, before they euthanized you and dissected you. The humans took excellent notes." It sounded like he was chewing the words. "I want you to tell me that you remember."
Vash let his eyes drift close.
You know that I do.
"I want to hear you say it out loud."
"What's the point?" The unnatural exhaustion made his tone heavy. "You've already made up your mind. There's no way that you found and freed me and left those people alive."
A laugh, this one aloud. "Would it surprise you to know that I was not the one to kill them?"
His eyes flew open, and the mirth on his brother's face was real. Knives shook his head. "Your humans are responsible for that as well."
It was his second mention, both plural. His humans. Doc, if Doc had indeed really been there, but who-
Who else would have noticed he was gone.
"Unbeknownst to me, the woman put together a rescue party. They were immediately captured, of course."
The woman. Elizabeth.
Vash sat up – or tried to. His head came up, and the world gave a lurch in warning. Knives wouldn't, not Elizabeth, not when she was so important - "Where is she?!"
Knives' eyebrows twitched upwards. "With the twins, naturally. Though their affections have turned towards her bodyguard." Then his eyes clouded. "Wright took unauthorized liberties and has been reprimanded. I imagine Librett is more preoccupied with his brother than your pets. As am I."
For the first time, Vash felt emotion. It was immediate, and it chilled his stomach. Knives' eyes shifted from irritated to annoyed. You are afraid for them, Vash? Do you think I went back on my word?
Vash hauled himself up with extreme difficulty. His tendons and muscles shifted weirdly under his too-taut skin, and his nerves seemed hyper sensitive. He took a moment to rest against the headboard, not surprised to see that he, like his brother before, was naked on the bed, with a summer sheet pulled up to his waist.
He had offered his brother a compromise, ten months ago. But this was dictation, plain and simple.
Knives affected a look of offense. "Once again, dear brother, you have it wrong. I'm not here to tell you what's going to happen."
". . . then I will." Vash used his lone arm to push himself up slightly further, mentally eyeing the distance to his closet. To appear before Elizabeth as he was now – it would be worse than any nightmare Librett was putting her through. And the bodyguard – Sunjy, his mind provided. The swarthy little man that had helped train Elizabeth to-
Vash stopped that thought before it went any further. Sunjy was a good man, and he liked him. He would be able to protect her from the worst of the twins' gifts. It was no wonder they were more interested in him. They didn't seem the type to like women anyway – one of their characteristics Knives found intimately suitable.
"You're going to release Elizabeth, Sunjy, and Doc. They had nothing to do with this-"
"Oh?" Knives let his foot slip from the mattress. It made a dull thud on the tile floor. "Are you sure you can say that, before you've even spoken with them?"
Confused, Vash paused, and Knives did not give him the expected smile. "I think you should hear what they have to say. Even allowing that two of them are dead, your other pets still have their voices."
The floor lurched again.
It had to be a nightmare. It had to be.
"Only the same nightmare I've been living in since we saw our sister." It came from between clenched teeth. "I told you this would happen, Vash. I told you what they were. But you wouldn't listen. Your ears were stuffed with the tripe of her dreams, of her rationalizations. A century of nothing but reinforcement from your beloved humans, and still you won't listen!
"Well, it seems you're awake now." His voice switched seamlessly back to the unsettling calm. "Ask them what happened when you stopped being capable of remembering. Ask them what they did. Ask them what they saw. You ask them what happened, and if you will not listen to me you will listen to them."
Two dead. Doc, Elizabeth and Sunjy had arrived, and he'd seen Doc, so-
Are your ears still full of water? With thought, the stab of disgust was so much stronger. I told you she formed a party. Perhaps you should check your math once more.
But who besides Elizabeth would notice his absence? If it was long enough, the next in line would be –
The insurance girls.
Good guess.
They weren't permitted in Eden. On pain of death.
Two dead.
Vash cried out, throwing back the sheet with no thought but to find them – and unlike the nightmares, his legs were not strong enough. He tumbled to the floor, thankful that it was as close as it was, and as he tried to lever himself up once more, he found Knives standing at his feet, staring down at him with eyes as cold and dead as space. His expression could not have held more revulsion if he'd been looking at a human.
"You're so close even I have a hard time telling the difference," Knives spat. "Look at you. JUST LOOK AT YOURSELF!"
Stunned, all Vash could do was stare up at him, and Knives' lips twisted. "You won't? I can't really blame you, I can hardly force myself." His brother dragged that icy topaz up and down his body so openly and so critically that Vash shifted self-consciously. "You've spent so much time hiding that body of yours that you've forgotten what you even are," Knives hissed, but it seemed as if to himself. "You disgust me."
Vash used his arm to prop himself on his right hip, curling his legs a little and telling himself it was in preparation to stand.
But it wasn't. He knew he couldn't, not yet. This exhaustion . . . there was an urgent need, a craving, yet he felt neither hunger nor thirst. There was very little pain. "What . . . what's wrong with me?"
"I have been asking myself that for over a hundred years," Knives growled. "You are correct that the symmetry of this little spectacle only goes so far. I didn't inflict those wounds on you. And you were kind enough to leave my Gate intact. The spiders couldn't be bothered."
. . . his Gate? But that didn't make sense; they'd wanted him to produce power-
"You fool." It was barely above a whisper. "Are you truly so stupid?"
Knives crouched at his feet, leveling their gazes somewhat. Vash could not help tensing, unsure whether Knives was going to bodily haul him to his feet. But his brother didn't touch him. "You are afraid of me." He said it slowly, as if it was nonsensical. "After everything that they did to you, you are on the floor in a pitiful attempt to rescue them, and you are afraid of me."
Vash tried to force a steady breathing pattern, denying the tickle at the bottom of his lungs, the exertion of falling. "Knives-"
His brother held up a hand, cutting him off. Now that he was so close, Vash was surprised to see lines of weariness around his brother's otherwise unmarred eyes, and – pain? The icy topaz disappeared for a moment as Knives pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Teaching you gives me a headache, Vash," he muttered, mimicking back Vash's own words. "Your Gate is inactive." Knives gave him a moment to process that. "You suppressed it in an effort to prevent what you must have known was the inevitable conclusion to this one last experiment. It did you no good. You were artificially kept in a transitional state for an extended period of time, and your Gate never recovered. Not even I can force it. Our sisters are giving their energy to keep you alive. Without them, you will die."
His Gate. The source of the energy that powered his Arm. How often he had wished that it was gone. That he had never had it. Yet this boundless exhaustion . . . and enslaving his own sisters, that was the price?
Vash felt his eyes widen. Without the Gate, his telepathy, his speed, his agility, his lifespan – everything that made him what he was – it was gone. He was nothing more than a leech on their sisters, relying on their strength for his survival.
He was as good as human.
"What are you going to do?" It was almost a whisper.
Knives pretended to give that consideration. "I would have thought that was obvious, Vash. You were the one who said it, remember? There's only one way out of this circle."
. . . was he saying that he was going to let him die? Or kill him outright and chalk it up to mercy?
Knives bared his teeth. "I tire of that accusation, Vash. Did I not abide by our agreement? Did I not risk my life to save yours? Do you think I would have done what I have done for anyone else on this desolate rock? DO YOU?!"
Vash refused to flinch. "No," he answered quietly. "I know you wouldn't have. I'm sor-"
"DO NOT SAY YOU'RE SORRY!" Knives was suddenly back on his feet. "I am sick and tired of hearing how sorry you are! Don't be sorry, Vash! For once in your miserable life, think about yourself!"
Vash stared up at him. "Why?" He kept his tone straight and quiet, and he spoke what he knew Knives could already read in his thoughts. "I am not what matters to me, Knives."
"Oh really." He could sense the seething anger in his brother even without his telepathy. "Then why are you afraid of dying, Vash? Why does the thought of being reduced to human scare you to death."
Vash looked him in the eye. "Because Rem told me to take care of you."
"Don't you dare parrot her back to me, Vash. Don't you dare."
"Because what matters to me is what you hate the most." He wasn't able to suppress the sudden realization that Knives might actually be jealous, and his brother's nostrils flared. "Because you will do as you want, and you want to hurt the things I care about. If I . . . if I can't stand toe to toe with you, Knives, then how can I be your brother?"
"Says the man who cannot stand at all." The disgust was back. "Tell me, Vash, has your selflessness brought you to your goals? I understand that might be hard to see from the floor."
His goals. Love and peace.
But those were her goals. Ten months ago he had told himself that he still loved her, but he had to walk his own path. His own path had been compromise. He had moved forward with a plan to stop the humans' most grave atrocities and free his sisters.
And if not for Knives, he would have died before reaching those goals. They might still be out of reach, maybe forever. But it wasn't Knives' fault that he had been captured. He had even known they existed, he knew about the ship, knew the maintenance bay that was manufacturing those robots had been turned on by some process, by some person.
He had known there was a Plant there. He had left her, because at the time he could offer her no better.
He had overlooked the threat, had missed the theatrics because he wanted to. He needed to. He needed the compromise to work to save what was important to him.
Life was important to him. Preserving life was a goal.
So why is your life so worthless to you?
Vash closed his eyes. "Knives, please, for just a moment, can I have some privacy?"
"You'll have all the privacy you want once this conversation is over."
He opened his eyes again, though his ears told him Knives was stalking towards his closet. "What do you mean?"
"When we're finished here, you will go talk to your humans." Knives' back was to him, and he opened Vash's closet, surveying his available clothing. "I'll summon you for treatments, of course, but the next time we speak, I will have your answer."
His answer.
On the compromise.
"I can answer you right now." Vash's eyes fell to his knees, which looked even knobbier than usual, the muscles somehow smaller yet more pronounced. His ankles were ridiculously skinny, how could he expect such limbs to hold him up? "I will never agree that killing them is right."
"No kidding," Knives retorted, selecting a shirt and tossing it at the bed. "You no longer have a defensible position on our deal. But that isn't the question, is it."
Vash gave him a perplexed look, and a pair of pants landed on his legs.
"The only answer I need from you is the one I have asked you for over a hundred years. Do you choose them, or me?"
Vash stared at the pants a moment, blankly. Then he took a preparatory breath.
"Don't," Knives hissed. "Don't speak. You need time to think, don't you? You say that I killed them before I gave them a chance, but now you have proof. Proof you cannot refute. Proof you cannot ignore. They knew what you were, Vash. They knew of your efforts to protect humanity. Did any of your pleading help? When you begged them for your life, did it make a difference? Did it?"
And suddenly, he was pinned on his back. The surgical lights were blinding. Every beat of his heart brought more adrenaline, more pain. And time was running out.
"-please." He dropped his head back onto the table, lest she think he was trying to break the restraints. "Please don't do this."
The woman was older, perhaps fifty or so, and her eyes were invisible behind round spectacles. "Sam, confirmation that all Plant utterances are being recorded?"
The only other technician actually present in the room was at his feet, juggling a corded drill and staring at his bound legs, unable to decide where to even start. Her eyes, when he could catch them, were sympathetic and full of wonder, but she wouldn't look at him with the doctor in the room.
And so she was the one he had to convince. She was in charge, if he could just-
There was a click, and the intercom crackled. "Confirmed, Dr. Shrew."
"Excellent." She tapped her handheld, and the box above his head made a series of ratcheting ticks. He immediately felt that same, breathtaking drowsiness, and he fought it, biting down hard on his tongue. Even the taste of blood was removed, like an impression. He couldn't fight this, not much longer.
"Listen to me! Please! I'm not a threat to you or the ship, I'm not going to hurt you-"
"It will be unconscious shortly. Continue, Candice."
The bedroom came back with the same jarring subtlety, and Vash found himself lying on his back, panting from exertion. Knives was still by the closet, calmly watching him, as if waiting for him to add another bid to their friendly game of cards.
"This isn't a game, Vash," he repeated, his tone deadly. "When next we speak, you will tell me if you have chosen them or me. No matter your choice, I won't make you watch. I won't make you listen. As damaged as you are now, you may not even sense it. I want to make sure your choice is not contaminated by your fear of the consequences. Your heart is all you have left, Vash, and since it's the only part of you that you're interested in preserving, you'll have to use that."
He watched, silently, as Knives crossed back over to him, standing over him once again. "You'll need another treatment if you intend to get anything useful done. Put on your clothes, brother, and we'll go down to the lab. I tire of looking at you."
-x-
Dear Thompson Family,
I know you were expecting another issue of the Millie Monthly. And I know that the envelope isn't as full as it usually is, and I'm sure you noticed the handwriting. This is Meryl Stryfe, Millie's partner at Bernardelli.
I'm also guessing you already know what comes next.
Millie Thompson, my best friend for the last three years and almost six months, left us yesterday afternoon. She died saving the world. I can't tell you everything, not yet, but as soon as I can I will come and visit, and explain everything. You know she was working with me on a very important project, insuring the conversion of Plant bulbs to solar and eventually fusion reactor technology. I know that she even sent you a solar panel, and it sounded like it installed fine and it's been a real help.
Our solar plants, they've been the same. They've been able to produce water and other necessities for all the cites that have been converted. And I think she's been telling you about the Plants, probably by name. She's – she was - very fond of them. We saw each one extracted and transported to a safe location, to live out the rest of their lives in comfort.
Something happened that threatened all of that – the new solar plants, the living Plants – every living thing on Gunsmoke. Millie did something amazing, something no one else could have done, and she saved all of us.
Millie always said, "Don't hold back in matters of the heart." I want to make sure you understand the depth of love that she had for each of you. She talked about you as if you were always with us, she judged everything like you were there to watch her decision. She did everything she could, each and every day, to make sure that you were proud of her. And she knew that you were.
So I want you to know that the decisions she made the last few days were all very difficult. She weighed each one, and she did what she knew was right, no matter how hard it was. I miss her terribly, and I cannot image how difficult this must be to read. But I want you to know that when I give you the whole story, you will be so very proud of your daughter.
I wanted you to have this photograph. It was taken in a crashed ship we found, I'm sure Millie told you about it. It was the first time we met Nicholas D. Wolfwood. He's the priest in the blue suit, second one from the left. That's Vash, to the right of Wolfwood, and then me. Things were always crazy when we were assigned to Vash the Stampede, but I never saw Millie smile more often or more brightly than when Wolfwood was traveling with us.
I got to see that smile on her face a great deal in the past three and a half years. She was happy, and she helped so many people. Her last hours were spent peacefully in a very beautiful place, and she wasn't in any pain. We were all with her and she knew she wasn't alone. One of the last things she said to me – well, ordered, you know Millie – was to let her family know what had happened, otherwise she was afraid you would worry.
I am terribly sorry that I had to do it in this manner. I'll send word as soon as I am able that I'm on my way. In the meantime, I hope this photograph gives you some peace. I will always remember her this way.
With heartfelt sympathy,
Meryl Stryfe
Meryl set down the pen, relaxing against the wall to ease her aching back. Handwriting was bad enough, but she hadn't written anything on the floor since she was eight and supervising her father from the porch while trying to do arithmetic homework. She didn't remember it feeling this draining.
Of course, she would have preferred advanced trigonometry to the letter she'd just written.
The ink looked especially glossy, just like it did when Millie would write to Vash, so she left it to dry undisturbed, and reached into her breast pocket, removing the envelope. It seemed like she'd asked Private Asouard for it a lifetime ago. It was remarkably uncreased despite everything that had happened, and she painstakingly rolled out the curves, until the glossy cardstock was believably straight.
Millie's teeth were startlingly white on her face. The camera had caught her in the middle of laughing at something Wolfwood or the broomhead had said. The priest himself had been captured with something like an actual smile on his face, rather than that insufferable smirk, and Vash was open-mouthed and laughing like a lunatic. She was looking up at him, to her right, and somehow the irritation that laugh always caused hadn't hit yet, because her own expression-
She couldn't remember what they'd said.
"But it was funny," she murmured aloud. "For once."
Laughing. Happy. Honestly happy. So few times, when they could let loose. That hadn't even been one of them. They hadn't even known someone was watching.
Terry had been there, he'd said. Out of cold sleep. Watching them. He could have moved even then. They could have been captured even then.
Of course, they hadn't known what Vash was, back then.
There were heavy footfalls, like someone dashing into the kitchen, and then a perfect silence. Meryl strained her ears, glancing quickly at the doorway. Elizabeth would call out if it was their jailor. Maybe Aaron had finally recovered enough to stand-
She heard a muffled rustling.
A struggle.
She was on her feet in a flash, photograph forgotten on the floor, and she sprinted on tiptoe to the doorway they had dubbed the kitchen, flattening against the wall before daring to peer around the corner. She could see the blanket on the floor, and feet-like mounds that she assumed were Aaron's. Someone was out of breath, and another person was breathing unsteadily, as if –
As if they were injured.
Meryl edged out further, trying to get a bead on the invisible 'door.' There were shadows on the wall, then she caught sight of something white, and then –
Then she froze, hardly daring to breathe.
It seemed like the engineer was in the same boat. Or maybe she couldn't. She was wrapped up tight in Vash's arm, he had plastered her to himself like he thought she was going to be sucked out an airlock. His left arm was a dangling, empty sleeve, and he had his face pressed against the side of her head. He was the one panting, he had been running, and his hair was now too long to stand up properly, wilting halfway down his temples.
He didn't say anything. He just clung to her.
Meryl stared at them, disbelievingly, and it was Carter who broke the silence. "You're still alive," he croaked from the floor, somehow managing to sound sarcastic and relieved at the same time. "Good on you, Eriks. Can we go now?"
Vash choked, or maybe it was a laugh, and opened his eyes. Though she didn't budge, didn't make a sound, he seemed to flinch, and those viridian eyes of his were suddenly locked on hers.
They stared at one another for a beat. Then another.
Then Vash let out a cry of disbelief, and suddenly Meryl found herself crushed against him.
For a split second, she froze once again. His chest was heaving against her cheek, which he had pressed to him, he almost had her in a headlock. She could hear his heartbeat, racing beneath her ear. The inside of his forearm was crushed against her neck, and she could feel the sweat on his skin.
He was alive.
Vash was alive.
He released her as abruptly as he must have released Elizabeth, she hadn't even had time to pick up her arms. They were at her sides, heavy as lead, when he backed off. His gaze was already beyond her, to the hallway. "Doc? And Millie?"
"Doc's sleeping," Elizabeth said, her voice subdued. "He's not in great shape, but I think he'll make it."
He was halfway through the door when he realized that he hadn't been answered, not fully, and he looked straight over Meryl's head, to the engineer. "And Millie?"
In the silence, she could hear that he wasn't catching his breath.
Meryl pressed her lips together. "She's under the big tree."
His gaze lowered, but he didn't look her straight in the eye. It was like he only needed to see her peripherally, still focusing on Elizabeth. Still expecting the answer to come from her.
Elizabeth said nothing.
Vash caught the doorframe for support. "Who else was here?" It had hardly any sound behind it.
"No one," Elizabeth replied. "I – we – lost Sunjy. Back on the ship. We were the only ones that –" She didn't finish.
And then Meryl found she couldn't look at him directly, either. Not when he was wearing that face.
She'd seen enough of that expression to last a lifetime in the weeks after Legato Bluesummers.
None of them said anything else. Vash pushed himself off the doorframe gracelessly, shuffling back across the kitchen and unerringly to the hidden door. Meryl watched the wall slip back into place.
Elizabeth turned away, her hand going to her mouth, and Meryl turned woodenly and walked back to the room they were calling the women's sleeping quarters. Her letter was long dry, and Meryl carefully used the photograph as a ruler, folding the strange, thick paper around it so that it would all fit into the envelope.
Even through the field that served as window glass, she could hear the moment he found Millie.
Once the envelope was folded, Meryl found her hand was shaking too hard to address it, and she carefully set the pen down, drew up her knees, and covered her ears.
-x-
Author's Notes: I heard from the feedback that you guys weren't too happy with major introspection, and frankly, we've already gone through it thanks to Knives. In light of that, I thought it best if we kept the thoughts to a minimum for the sake of flow.
I toyed with the end a bit (and spent an HOUR trying to figure out what year it was on Gunsmoke before I decided the information simply wasn't available, but thank you Inkydoo for guessing with me!) and I know that we might have expected a more relieved or happy response from the girls, but they've been through a lot, and they both know that even though Vash is walking and talking, their ordeal is far from over. It may seem a little OOC, but I'll address it next chapter, as well as what's happened to Librett and Wright, and why Meryl has paper.