REVELATION
By Saiyana2
(I don't own Trigun although I'd love to! Authors note: This story happens between the time Vash left Meryl and Milly to when he finally regains his senses after killing Legato, it covers the ten day period that was skimmed over by Yasuhiro-sensi.)
As Meryl offered the man that had collapsed in front of her and Milly a drink from her canteen, he suddenly grabbed her wrist. Then leapt up and twisted her arm behind her back.
As she was whipped around she saw that Milly was surrounded as well by several men with guns pointed at her.
Their eyes were strange looking. Blank almost bestial with an unnamed anger glimmering in them, the girls were quickly bound by their silent captors then unceremoniously thrown onto their mounts and led to a distant pinnacle.
At the base they were pulled off and forced to climb a steep rocky path to the top. Bound they stumbled often during the ascent but their captors remained silent as if voiceless. As they got close to the top Meryl could hear two voices arguing, one calm and cool, the other slightly raised. Suddenly there was a shot and one voice cried out a bit then the calm one spoke again. The second voice protested anguishedly.
Hard as she strained she couldn't make out the words but she knew that anguished voice, as well as she knew her own, it was Vash.
A second shot cracked and Vash cried out again.
They reached the top where a crowd of men in front of them blocked their view of what was happening in the forefront. The two girls were roughly manhandled through the mob.
Meryl scanned the hilltop as she was thrust through and spotted Vash a short distance away. He was sprawled on the ground his gun raised and aimed at a man in a white coat.
She knew immediately that it had to be Legato, it had to be, he matched Vash's description perfectly. The mysterious man that Vash had told her about, the leader of the Gung Ho Guns. The man no one but Vash had ever seen. He towered over Vash menacingly even though he seemed to be weaponless. A strange mad calm looking smile on his face.
Suddenly Milly was thrown to the ground, distracted from the macabre tableau Meryl called out her friend's name worriedly. "Milly!"
Then she herself was thrown down beside the taller girl. The strangely silent men gathered around them menacingly blocking her view of Vash and Legato.
One of the mob surrounding them fired a shot into the ground between Milly and Meryl's head .
The dark haired insurance girl jerked a bit in startlement. She glared up at them defiantly and suddenly realized that the eyes that glared down at them weren't menacing. Instead they were dead and lifeless looking. As if there was nothing, no souls behind them.
That frightened her more than being shot at.
Vash's voice rose in anguished denial.
The men's hands began to grasp and pull at the two girls clothing.
Milly screamed. Meryl squealed when one of the men grabbed her blouse ripping it open.
Then the a loud shot rang out.
The men stopped and a dazed look appeared in their eyes. As if they were waking from a dream. Then they suddenly collapsed.
Meryl and Milly with the help of Meryl's hidden boot knife, managed to free themselves from their bonds. Once free the girls left their captors where they lay after assuring themselves that the men were still alive. The two girls approached Vash warily, know his volatility. He was standing stiff legged like a statue over Legato's body, his gun still pointing at the other man's blasted head. Tears streaming from his eyes.
Milly stared in shock, but Meryl walked forward, gently pushed down his arm then took the gun from Vash's hand.
It was obvious that Vash was in total shock. Until that moment Meryl had always harbored a niggling doubt that Vash had never killed.
But now she knew it was true.
Vash the Stampede, the dreaded humanoid typhoon, the only person designated as act of God, had never killed anyone before in his century long life.
She gathered the sobbing man in her arms and said, "Go get the thomas's Milly, we have to get him out of here."
Milly nodded silently and turned and ran back down the path. Meryl held Vash calming him until his violent racking sobs stopped, then she took his hand and led him away from the body, past the unconscious men and down to where Milly was waiting.
He was silent, moving like a little lost child.
Meryl and Milly managed to get him on a thomas and then began their journey. Meryl knew that they didn't dare stop at the local town so they took off over the desert. Traveling steadily taking turns holding Vash in the saddle. Stopping to camp only after darkness had fully fallen. Meryl began to tend Vash as Milly set up camp.
The small insurance girl bandaged him. And then settled him into his bedroll. Vash moved mechanically. Like a broken toy.
When the time came to eat, he refused. And that worried Meryl the most of all.
Thankfully, at least, he did drink when a cup was placed against his lips. But was almost completely silent.
But when he did speak it was one of two things, either the single word, "Rem" or the four word sentence, "I did a bad thing."
Either statement brought a fresh flood of tears from the shattered gunman.
Seeing Vash in such straits made Meryl finally admit the truth to herself.
Seeing him so torn apart and helpless, ripped away the last of her self denial.
She wanted him back the way he had been.
The stupid, funny, infuriating, ingenious, idiotic broomheaded jerk that looked at every pretty woman but her. The man that smiled all the time even if it was painful. The whiney clown that let the children he wrestled with bully and beat him up. The gentle blond man with the sorrowful crystalline aqua green eyes that could make a woman swoon or curse. The pacifist dead eye gunman that never shot to kill. Vash the Stampede, the man she.., the man she..
Tears started in Meryl's eyes as she finally realizes the truth within her own heart, a truth that Milly's eyes had seen so much sooner. The truth that till this moment Meryl fought against admitting, had denied to herself vehemently every time he looked at a pretty girl.
She was in love with him, it didn't matter who he was or what he was. Human, plant, or whatever.
She loved Vash the Stampede. The man that sat there like a lost child staring blankly.
She sat down by the fire close to him, looking at him her own eyes bright with tears, Milly came over and put her arm around Meryl. "Don't worry I'm sure Mr. Vash will snap out of it, Meryl."
Meryl continued staring at Vash. "Oh god Milly I hope so. It's like he's locked up inside himself," She gulped, suddenly breaking down totally and sobbed into her hands, "I don't want to lose him, I want him back. I want Vash. Oh Milly how can you stand it?" She looks at Milly with streaming eyes.
Milly's own are moist with her own sadness. "I just remember how he'd react and it makes me smile through the tears. But don't worry Vash will be fine he's very strong he just needs time," she smiles knowingly at Meryl, "and to know that someone loves him."
"B-but he can't hear me and even if he could.., I-I couldn't tell him, I just couldn't!"
Milly slips an arm around her smaller friend's waist, "I know Meryl but you can show him."
Meryl blinked and stared at Milly, the tall girl just smiled and pushed Meryl towards Vash. Then she got up and moved Meryl's bed roll next to the unaware gunman.
So that night Meryl began her vigil of love and that was how the rest of their journey progressed.
Vash seemingly never reacted to anything. As they traveled he would stare unblinkingly into the distance lost in a world inside himself, just as Meryl said.
The events of Legato's death occurring over and over, inside his mind, as he tried to discover why he had failed to find another answer. Each time he failed he would start to cry again, voicing his heart wrenching words.
During the day Meryl rode behind him holding him in the saddle. Her presence seemed to comfort him on those occasions..
At night she lay beside him watching over him. When his nightmares occurred he would begin to flail about wildly. It was then that she would wrap her arms around him and rock him gently like a small child. Her touch calmed him and then he would cling to her until his grief and sadness subsided.
And so it went worrisome days in the saddle and restless nights. Meryl watching over him and Milly watching Meryl.
Four days later, the small insurance girl was starting to get haggard with lack of sleep herself, when they finally reached a small town. Luckily Milly was able to secure them a place to stay, a small house that had been abandoned by it's original owners.
The townsfolk welcomed the two girls and their silent, obviously badly off, injured companion. Luckily Milly quickly got work as a digger for a well project so the town doctor tended Vash's wounds on credit.
For the first two days Meryl stayed with Vash and rested, recuperating herself then when her strength returned she too got a job. Working as a waitress and accountant at the local bar/restaurant, only leaving for her job after Milly got off work in the evening.
Neither girl was willing to leave Vash alone. Every night when she came home Meryl would sleep in the bed beside him, so if Vash began to have his nightmare, she would be there to comfort him. On the fourth night he seemed to rouse a bit as she cuddled him in her arms. Instead of simply trembling there after his night terror his arms slipped around her and he buried his face against her chest, snuggling close.
Meryl's body reacted instinctively to his embrace, before she could stop herself she responded and kissed him deeply. Then realized what had happened she colored to the roots of her hair and resolved from then on that she would sleep in the chair beside him.
Then next morning he woke fully startling her as she brought his food. His eyes were aware again but Vash was subdued and strangely distant.
Meryl wondered if he remembered the night before. The thought of his embrace made her color with embarrassment. After a few stuttering words she left him his food and retreated hastily closing the door and leaning against. Her face as red as his coat.
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