This is going to be my webpage for Trigun. I will have pictures and stories in here relating to Vash and Meryl. To their love.

(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 Yashuhiro-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 settle 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 one of two time 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, “I know Meryl but you can show him.”

Meryl blinked and stared and 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 presences 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 after is recurring nightmare. But instead of simply trembling there after his night terror, he seemed to rouse looking at her with glazed half conscious eyes, his arms slipped around her and he buried his face against her neck, snuggling close.

Meryl’s body reacted instinctively to his embrace, before she could stop herself she responded and brushed her lips against his forehead. Without thought her longing for him took over and she kissed him deeply. He responded, his hands gripping her hungrily. His lips drank hers thirstily, she responded with equal passion. Then when the kiss broke whispered softly “Oh Vash.”

Vash nightmare receded, his dream changed. Rem instead moving away for him as before transformed, replaced by another, a slighter figure with a fringe of dark hair. Stormy gray eyes looked into his as arms slipped around him and holding him gently. Rem’s voice altered too, into a slightly sharper tone, but still as familiar to him as his foster mother’s was. “Oh Vash.”

He murmured her name querulously, “Meryl?”

“Yes Vash.“ She answers cupping his cheek with her hand then reaching up to softly stroke back his hair.

“Meryl?” Vash cannot believe she is in his arms, this has to be yet another dream.

Is Legato manipulating his mind again?

He blinks trying to break the spell but the vision remains before him, the sensation of holding her in his arms remains.

But this time he didn’t care anymore. Dream, fantasy or telepathically induced nightmare it didn’t matter.

All that mattered was that he could feel Meryl’s soft hand on his face. Her fingers running through his hair, the way he always imagined. He hesitantly reaches up to touch the dreamt of silkiness of her dark locks..

Vash blinks and his eyes fasten onto her face but his eyes are still glazed his pupils still dilated as if he is caught in a dream. His hand reaches up to run his fingers through her strands.

“I did a bad thing.” sobbed Vash to his dream love. The woman he wanted more than anything the vision of loveliness he dared not touch. “How can anyone forgive me?”

The dream in his arms answered him softly, “I can. You did what you had to do.” And then she proved it by kissing him.

He clung to her, swearing that he could feel her in his arms, even smell the flowery soap, ink and paper scent that always surrounded her. Even as he told himself that it couldn’t be real.

Vash knew this had to be just another fantasy. Another of his endless dreams of Meryl.

Legato had finally found his weakness. But his love for her was far beyond the point of denial, the longing for her fragile delicate beauty gripping his soul to the core.

Spellbound in his dream he held her close. And as in all his campfire fantasies of her, she responded to his kisses.

He had wanted to do this, dreamed of it over an over, ever since she had stood beside him on the sand steamer facing down Neon. And then after when she scolded him like a mother thomas for fighting with such serious wounds. Her courage and feistiness had captured his heart against his will.

If this was one of Legato’s torments then let it go on. He would take control of it and have this dream of happiness with her here at least.

Meryl responded to his kisses as his arms tightened around her, pulling her to him. His lips captured hers bruising them. Meryl never stopped to think, he needed her, it was all that mattered. And if it could bring Vash back to her so be it.

She molded herself to him without a moments hesitation.

Vash felt her softness against him, reveling in it, he was finally possessing his forbidden fantasy. It didn’t matter any longer whether it was dream or telepathic torment induced by Legato. All that mattered is that it felt real, she felt real. And Vash only prayed that the illusion would last forever. He held her gently afraid she would vanish from his arms. Finally relaxing finally freed from the prison of his own tortured mind.

Meryl sighed softly in his arms as Vash relaxed against her and he fell into a far more natural sleep than he had been having than last few nights. She extracted herself from his embrace smoothing his hair with her hand knowing that she would no longer need share his bed. She moved to the couch in the adjoining room and slept there the rest of the night.

Then next morning Vash was fully awake startling her as she brought his food. His eyes were aware again but he was still subdued and strangely distant.

Meryl wondered if he remembered anything of the night before. The thought of what had happened between them made her color with embarrassment.

After a few stuttering words she left him his food, retreating hastily closing the door and leaning against. Her face as red as his coat.

Vash woke to the sound of the door opening, he sat up and looked at Meryl as she enters carrying a tray with sorrow filled eyes, his crime weighing heavily on his spirit.

And Meryl looked the same as before.

So that was to be part of the price he paid for the murder of Legato. In his last moments the telepath must have pressed that last vision on him as he had died to torment and punish Vash with the taste of something he would never have.

At the end, he had almost thought it WAS real, but it had been just a dream and nothing more. Meryl had not been in his arms the night before.

But then she started stuttering and blushed. Puzzling him with her flustered seeming actions. She babbled some inanities then quickly gave him the tray and suddenly retreated. Closing the door behind her.

That was it then, even she wouldn’t forgive him of the murder. Vash was doomed to be alone again, his fragile dream of happiness shattered in the sound and smoke of that single shot. Vash finally broke down sobbing.

But then he stopped, for there tangled around his finger, was a single short black hair.

The 60 billion$$ man began to think.