Note: I do not own Trigun / Vash "the Stampede" or Luida of Seeds: they belong to the incomparable Mr. Yasuhiro Nightow.

.

.

"Broken Memories" is dedicated to:

Everyone who has survived nightmare-inducing circumstances,

And their friends who care enough to provide a safe place when they need one.

.

.

"Broken Memories"

.

Chapter 5: A New Day

.

Date: Unknown
Location: Seeds Village

Vash struggled to crawl, as the unfeeling sands slipped about beneath his hands and knees, and then out from under his forearms and knees. He had to get far enough away from that town to be unnoticed by any of its citizens when daylight arrived. He was so tired... his arms wobbled, and he fell flat on his face.

He threw his arms wide, embracing the sands and feeling strangely as if he were embracing the whole planet and all the innocent people on it, like Meredith and little Meg. The coolness of the night, and the fading heat from the sands, was a welcome relief. Perhaps he should rest, while he could. The next day would come soon enough. He half-crawled, half-dragged himself between two largish dunes, where he should be in the shade after the suns rose.

He finally allowed unconsciousness to claim him.

He awoke as a few brilliant rays from the first sun to peek over the horizon shone into his eyes. He immediately closed his eyes again. During the space of about two heartbeats, he took a quick inventory of his surroundings while his eyes remained tightly shut.

He could feel the heat of the sun as it shone full upon his face. He felt a cool breeze caressing his face and ruffling his hair. He felt the warmth of fabric over and around his body. The bed, and the pillow he was hugging, both felt a little unusual.

Bed? Yes, it had to be. The manner in which it yielded against his body was different from the sands anywhere on the desert. Even stranger, his legs below his knees were dangling over the side of it. Something was tickling against his bare feet.

He could smell grass and sand powder, suggesting he was either in or else very near to Seeds Village. There must be a window open, for him to smell both scents so strongly. He also smelled lilacs, which made no sense. There was also a scent of youth and...

Wait a minute! That's a heartbeat and breathing... this wasn't a pillow! Someone else was lying in the same bed!

He pulled away, stood, and flung the intruder off his bed. He reflexively reached for his revolver. Neither his pistol nor its holster were in their usual places on his right thigh. He turned his face away from the rising suns, just enough to be reasonably certain that he wouldn't be blinded by them. As he opened his eyes, still moving from a combination of adrenaline and reflex, he worked his left arm in the manner that caused the gun concealed in the prosthetic to emerge. He held the trigger-guard, and looked toward the person who'd just been flung onto the ground.

He blinked a few times, as his eyes and mind adjusted to the sights which met his eyes.

A girl, probably in her early to middle teens, was sitting on the ground looking up at him with wide-eyed surprise.

"Vash?" she said uncertainly, "Do you still not recognize me?"

She didn't move physically, but emotionally she reached out to him with affection.

In so doing, she seemed like a Plant. He reciprocated with roughly the equivalent of a gentle mental pat on the head. It was the best he could manage at the moment, because her offer of affection had taken him so much by surprise.

As she suggested, he did not recognize her. He could not reciprocate equally. Oh, he cared for her as a person, as he did with everyone. However, the amount of affection she shared exceeded what he felt for casual acquaintances. He felt heat in his cheeks as he put away his arm-gun.

Whoever this child was, she was clearly no threat to him.

"I'm sorry," he said.

As she sat there looking up at him, resting her hands behind her with her legs acutely bent in front of her, he noticed that the soft fabric of her pajama pants had slid up her legs to her hips. One side of her pajama top was in danger of slipping off its shoulder. The kid was slender without being scrawny, and her feminine curves were coming in nicely. There was something graceful about the shape of her body, quite unlike the lankiness of his. Her legs, and even her bare feet, were also showing signs of taking on aesthetically appealing shapes.

Why was he noticing her body in such detail? That wasn't how he usually thought about people...

He felt a little dizzy. He shook his head, to clear it, and glanced down at himself.

He saw his sleeveless top and lightweight pajama bottoms. A quilt, which had probably covered both of them while they slept, lay in a crumpled heap on the grass by his feet.

He saw strands of black hair on his shoulder, and felt his stomach lurch. How much of his hair had gone black? He looked toward her again, wondering what she knew or understood about his hair.

Perhaps he was in a dream that came because he was dying.

The girl continued sitting on the grass in front of him, looking as if she were stunned. Tears began to well up in her pale grey-green eyes. He could feel that she was hurting emotionally, as she looked up at him with those wounded eyes.

"I'm sorry," he repeated, more gently.

He caught the edge of the hammock, and then sat on it. He rested his elbows on his knees and his forehead on his palms. He closed his eyes, and began to search his mind for any pertinent memories.

Slowly, the events of the prior night began to return to his mind. He must have been mistaken... the girl, and being at Seeds village, those things must be what were current and real. The memories that had felt so recent, both last night and this morning, must be only memories.

She seemed familiar. Was that sense of familiarity only from last night, or was he even slightly beginning to recall knowing her?

Believing she was naught but a dream, he'd fallen asleep yesternight with his head on her shoulder and his arm around her. He must have gotten a nose-full of her pheromones. That would explain his mild dizziness, his disorientation, and also his unusual inclination to notice her body. As those pheromones cleared, so would his mind.

Perhaps if he weren't so weary, the memories he needed would not be eluding his grasp so effectively.

"How long have I been here, at Seeds?" he asked.

"You arrived yesterday evening," she said softly.

"I can't remember," he admitted.

"I've asked for one of your older friends to come," she said. "Maybe you'll remember her, and she can help you to remember more."

His head snapped up and he looked at her closely. "How?"

"I'm a Plant, too, Vash," she said softly, while nervously pulling her pajama pantslegs over her knees. She shifted her position to a more ladylike pose, but remained sitting on the ground. "I used my mind. Lumia is half-Plant, and she was just waking up when I asked. She is bringing her mother here."

"I... see," he said. "Is her mother the Plant or the human?"

"She's human," the girl said.

The girl might be nearer to 40 than 14, if she was a Plant. If he recalled correctly, that was roughly how his own body had matured.

He again closed his eyes and rested his forehead on his palms.

He willed himself to relax, focusing on one muscle at a time, until he had at least overcome his excess physical tension. Shortly thereafter, he heard footsteps approaching.

He raised his head, and saw an aging woman walking toward him. She leaned on a cane as she walked. She was accompanied by a young woman who appeared to be only slightly older than a girl herself. The two approaching women were followed by two tall, burly individuals who appeared both well armed and, from the manner in which they moved, reasonably capable of hand-to-hand combat if a need should arise.

The young woman reached out to him with affection, as the younger-appearing girl had done. He reciprocated to this one as he had to the other, too perplexed to do more. This made her fair complexion go pale. She hurried to kneel by the side of her friend, who still sat on the grass. Both young women were blonde, though the newcomer's hair was a deeper shade of gold than that of the first.

The older woman walked more slowly, until she was standing beside the girls.

"Vash," she said gently, "I'm told that your memory is trapped at some point in the past. May I ask what year you think it should be, based upon your most recent memories?"

"By the local calendar, it should be star year 64," he said, "or roughly 2511 by Earth's last known calendar."

She looked sad. "That was before my time," she said, "though perhaps you might recall my parents or my uncle."

She gave him their names and began to describe them. As he looked at her in the early morning light, he could see the family resemblance.

Then he recalled her mother, pregnant and excited about the coming family member. He thought about it a bit more, and recalled hugging a weeping three-year-old girl. He also remembered her kinsman sadly saying that her mother had died from complications arising during a premature childbirth, in spite of all that the Seeds doctors could do. The newborn boy had also died. He recalled a small tear-stained face, looking up at him, her eyes pleading for answers. He looked at the aging woman standing in front of him, saw the shape of her face and eyes, and thought she might be the same person.

"Luida?" he said softly.

"Yes," she said, smiling in an encouraging manner, "I am Luida."

"If you don't mind my asking," Vash began, a little hesitantly, "how..."

"I am currently sixty-nine years old," she said in a matter-of-fact tone. She must have anticipated his question.

"Sixty-nine?" he repeated, surprised. He quickly turned it into a moderately complimentary joke. "But you don't look a day over fifty-three!"

Luida smiled with genuine humor. "And you, my friend," she said fondly, "don't look a day older than the pictures from when you were 102. However, you're nearer to completing your second century than your first."

"And the actual date is...?" he asked softly

"It's the Star Year 155, sixth month, second day," she said, "or about 2602 by the last known Earth calendar. We suspect they may have quarantined us."

That meant 91 years had passed since his last clear and complete memory.

"I'm sorry," he said ... again. "Most of it still isn't coming back to me. I can't even recall whom you married. Does your daughter resemble you or her father?"

"That depends upon whom you ask," Luida said, smiling.

"Don't worry, Vash," said the girl he'd met last night, and with whom he'd shared the hammock. "If a bad memory replays as a nightmare, and you forget everything after, it's only temporary. If you're extremely tired, like you were when you arrived yesterday, it may take a few hours. But you will remember everything again."

"She's Shyla," Luida said helpfully, "and my eldest daughter, here, is Lumia. My other daughter is Larissa. My youngest is not an early-riser, so she's still asleep at home."

"Nice to meet all of you... again," he said, nodding at each politely although still feeling bewildered. He looked toward Luida again. "Why would we be quarantined by Earth?"

"Knives," Luida said gently. "Although you defeated him, he caused some trouble first."

"I defeated Knives?" Vash said, feeling even more confused. "Did he survive, too?"

"Nobody knows," she said softly. "After that battle, you spent two decades in hiding. Most of that time, you were with Shyla and her human mother. Since then, during the last twenty years, you've been out searching for Knives. As far as I know, you hadn't found any sign of him. Yet."

Luida slowly approached him. When she was near, she gently took the ends of some of his shoulder-length hair into her hand. "If your brother still lives," she said softly, "his hair is also black. I know this because you told me."

"I really defeated Knives?" Vash said, very softly. He looked up at Luida's face, scarcely daring to believe what she'd said... scarcely daring to hope it might be true.

"Yes, Vash," she said gently. "You defeated him. It nearly cost your life, and, for several months, we feared it had. We're very grateful..." her voice broke, and she paused briefly to regain some of her composure before finishing her sentence with, "very grateful that you are still alive."

Everyone was silent long enough for the pause to begin feeling awkward.

"Maybe we should go to Shyla's and eat some breakfast," Lumia suggested. "At least, I usually think better with a full stomach than with an empty one."

"That sounds like a good idea to me," Luida said, looking fondly toward her daughter. Then she turned her face back toward Vash. "What do you think? Shyla probably has doughnut dough rising, ready to fry..."

"Doughnuts?" he said, surprised.

These unfamiliar and half-familiar people knew about his fondness for doughnuts. They even wished to make some for him and even share them with him.

"Doughnuts always sound like a good idea," he said, smiling.

"Let's do that, then," Luida said.

They returned to Shyla's house, and he was able to see fully by daylight what had only been dimly visible in the light of a lesser moon. The place was small, but comfortable. The narrow band of stained glass windows running parallel with the ceiling, on most walls, helped to make the small dwelling feel light and airy. This was mildly impressive, since it only had external windows on one wall.

Vash ate slowly, listening to the conversations surrounding him but not participating. He didn't want to embarrass them, or himself, by saying things that proved he still didn't remember.

In time, the tasty but awkward meal ended.

Luida, and her daughters and bodyguards, helped to clean up and wash the dishes after breakfast. They refused to permit either Vash or Shyla to participate in cleaning up. Then everyone bid each other farewell, and everyone except Shyla left.

"I usually do some exercises in the morning," Vash said hesitantly.

"I know," Shyla said fondly. "You taught them to me, too. Go ahead. I'll exercise in my room, wash up, and then do some mending. Whenever you're ready to do something else, just let me know. Mending is endless... it can always wait."

She smiled bashfully and then went to her room.

He returned to the room where he'd awakened, his only truly recent memory. He drove himself through his exercise routine, working harder at it than usual. It helped to clear his mind some, but not enough.

He stood by the still-open window, and stared out past the walled yard to where the ship hovered over the sand powder ocean. Memories were beginning to return, but too slowly and with too many gaps for his comfort.

The most vivid remained the ones from 91 years ago. At least he recalled how he had remained resting between those two dunes for a few days, living off the water and rations in his bag. He'd needed to change his bandages regularly. He stayed there until his injuries stopped making blood soak through the bandages. Then he had slowly and carefully walked to the other town. He chose to circle it from a distance, and go into it from a different direction. He had not wanted to advertise that he'd come from Tonim.

He went into the restroom and scrubbed himself clean. After that, he changed and flopped on the bed.

Shyla ... the girl's name still felt unfamiliar. She said that if he was weary, it might take a few hours for his memories to return. He could feel weariness enfolding him, weighing him down. The food, exercise and washing hadn't cured it enough.

The combination of summer heat and exhaustion must have been enough like how he'd felt after leaving Tonim to trigger those memories.

He lay quietly on the bed he'd abandoned the prior night, and closed his eyes.

By focusing on the idea of Luida, he remembered her as a girl of approximately fourteen. She was following him as he was leaving Seeds. Knives had caused trouble, killing 40 of Seeds' people. He was leaving to do something about that, to protect those peaceful villagers who had no other effective defense against his brother.

Others had already spoken their farewells, on the desert-side platform belonging to the cable-car-ferry. Most of the others were returning to Seeds Village, with as many in each gondola as could comfortably fit.

Young Luida, however, had followed him out into the desert. She continued following him, for some distance. He'd been concerned that he might have to turn back, to return her to Seeds. However, just before he would have turned around, she had stopped. The wind had carried the scents of her lonely longing, and of her affectionate concern for him, across the sands to his nostrils.

He had detected both of those emotional scents from Luida, again, this morning.

Thinking further, he recalled being in an infirmary. At that time, his body ached from exhaustion and injuries. Luida, as a youthful adult, was telling him that something wasn't his fault, and he shouldn't say such things. She reminded him that he was like family to everyone at Seeds.

There had been a surplus of warmth in her eyes, which he'd seen again this morning.

That, too, seemed more like a dream than not. The idea that anyone could care so much about him seemed unreal. It was not something he'd seen in anyone's eyes since Rem.

Luida, her daughters, and Shyla were all very fond of him, he realized as he slowly began to remember more. It was almost an embarrassment of riches.

He was relieved and thankful that this life to which he'd awakened was not a dream, even if it seemed like one. It was better than he had ever dared to imagine or hope might come to him. He had friends, including a free-walking Plant friend... even if she was still a child. She wouldn't die as soon as a human would. He could enjoy her friendship for centuries, instead of only decades.

He smiled and closed his eyes, unafraid of any cruel memories which might plague him.

He wasn't alone, not anymore.