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lost-technology · 1 year ago

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Survivor’s Guilt Ch. 1

Trigun fanfiction Trigun Stampede universe (with some Trigun Maximum elements) Rated T / PG-13 for graphic descriptions, canon-typical violence Gen, unless pairings come into it later Multichaptered, unknown stopping point, chapter 1. Main characters: Vash, Luida, Brad, Rem, Nai / Millions Knives and the horrible lingering memory of Tesla. Summary: The stars fell from the sky upon a lonely desert planet. The world was made of blood, sand and broken glass - and later on, gunsmoke. What could have been a paradise had become a violent world, one of hard-bitten, traumatized survivors...Including... the most unexpected. Rem Saverem survives the apocalypse. Also found here - Chapter 1 on AO3 Chapter 1: Restless Dreams (read below or link above)

Survivor’s Guilt Chapter 1: Restless Dreams She wore a halo of fire. The wind of the back-draft rattled the little shuttle as Ship 5 screamed its death-throes. The noise of breaking machinery, whipping fire and echoing human cries died off to noiseless space for a moment before heat enveloped the shuttle in a stifling cocoon and the turbulence of atmosphere-entry greeted the child and his brother. Burning flak greeted his vision from the windows and the sunset sky of where they were landing on this planet was blood red. The landing was none too gentle – a slam and skid into sand. Nai laughed the entire time. Half-melted sands and broken glass were all around him when the shuttle’s doors had cooled off enough to unlatch. The atmosphere was breathable. Ah, yes…This world was what Rem had called a “Goldilocks Zone” planet after a fairy tale about an obnoxious little girl and some bears she’d told them where the girl stole “just right” things from the bears, because it was in the “just right” zone to favor organic life (at least the only type that people from Earth had ever known of). It had been deemed as “barely habitable,” however, and only a prospect if the long-range scanner hadn’t picked up a world more favorable that successive decades or centuries of cold-sleep could keep settlers fresh for. Nai had decided that “any planet will do,” he’d supposed. It was not like he had human needs – or Vash’s needs. He danced and laughed in the flames, among cold-sleep tubes holding subjects mercifully not awake enough to realize they were burning alive. They would die before they felt anything, at least. There were procedures for bringing someone out of cold-sleep. Quick-thaw was catastrophic and killed instantly. Vash gaped in abject horror as he was certain that he saw a few men twitch in their caskets. He screamed when he saw a child – a little boy not much younger-looking than him and Nai – thrashing. ______________ Vash twitched and reached out, his fingers greeted by a thin sheet on a flat bed. Nai was not there, cuddled against him. (Vash required food, water and sleep. Nai required no “input” to remain healthy and rarely slept, but occasionally indulged in it to keep Vash company). “I was dreaming, Rem,” Vash mumbled, but as he blinked his eyes and suddenly became aware of his surroundings, he realized that she was not there, either. He got his bearings and tried to tell himself that, no, he had not seen anyone twitching or thrashing…when he’d seen… the actual source of his nightmare. The dead had died in silence and stillness. The universe, it seemed, still held small mercies. Vash sat up and repeated what had become his daily mantra, breathing deep. “I am on Ship 3. It is in the sand-sea left behind by an ancient ocean on a recently-charted, single-biome desert planet with no name.” He tried to remember the chart number and the system, but they’d been blown out of his head. There hadn’t been a single day he’d been here that he’d remembered it. He was pretty sure he’d hit his head upon the impact of his and Nai’s shuttle – either that or the sheer trauma he’d experienced recently kept him from remembering little details. “The ship’s crew activated their gravity-well before impact and most of the ship was left intact. Most of the crew and passengers survived. I was discovered in the desert and brought here. I am locked in a small cell because I am an independent Plant and they don’t know what to do with me.” He noted the temperature of the room. “It is stifling in here. I do not know where Nai is. I am alone.” Just as he assessed his situation, the recitation of where he was and what had happened was something he reminded himself of every day to keep himself aware of reality. It was tempting to think that he was dreaming. Patched-up wounds from the crash and subsequent wandering in the jagged metal and broken glass of ship-remains as well as the rocks of the desert asserted themselves when he was in a waking state – and so, pain helped, too. He was often in pain when he was asleep, but nothing was as keen as when he was fully aware and actually put weight on a leg or wandered over to a wall. He’d started carving markings into it, counting days to keep his reality-record. He did not know how much longer he’d be doing this. One of the guards had already slipped a tray of breakfast through his door. It sat there and got cold. He was getting skinner and felt fairly weak. Vash’s stomach asserted its existence, along with his wounds. It didn’t matter. He was not going to give them the satisfaction of simply keeping himself sleek for slaughter… This was a dark line of thinking… like that of Nai. There was a small, annoyingly persistent part of him that thought that maybe Nai was right. Vash expected that Brad or one of the guards was going to drag him out of this cell any day now to pronounce “a needless drain of resources” or “a mercy” or “a need for scientific study” and shoot him in the back of the head with a SEEDS service-revolver. That… was if he was lucky. A certain stark image he was desperate to forget kept swirling in his mind. It was good for putting him off his breakfast. If he kept on this way, there’d definitely be less of him to flay and study. Maybe he’d even be well and fully dead. Vash knew that this thread of thought would have made Rem cry, but she wasn’t here. She’d been haloed in flames, determined to avert disaster – and she had wanted him and Nai to survive. “Let’s just do it already!” – Brad’s voice, arguing outside his cell. “He is a clear and present danger to us all! He doesn’t even produce anything! The little brat isn’t even bothering to eat what we feed him…just a waste!” “He is a child, Brad!” – Luida’s voice. “I can’t believe you! Not only the greatest scientific discovery in our lifetimes – “ (Vash cringed at that), but, “he speaks, he feels! He is a person!” “He’s a glorified cow!” Brad huffed. “And a defective one, at that! You know what the old cattle farms would do with bull-calves they couldn’t use…” “Why are you so afraid?” “You know as well as I do how much potential energy is stored in Plants. There’s this one just walking around… You see a kid; I see a walking nuclear bomb. Diffuse, dismantle before it causes a problem, is what I say.” “You looked into his eyes, Brad, same as me. You cannot tell me that you didn’t see a soul there.” “I’m afraid I didn’t see anything at all - Nothin’ but trouble. Not that it matters…if somethin’s a danger, I don’t care if it feels and thinks and talks. We’ve got a ship full of people and even more to take care of – actual human beings -our kind.” Vash tried to go back to bed. He wound up curled on his cot listening to tangents about rouge AI and the history of slave-revolts and the fear of the oppressed by their oppressors that kept certain bigotries alive for centuries until the remaining people of Earth had no choice but to work together to attempt to become a multi-planet species to scrap for survival. Luida was pulling for him, but maybe, he thought, she should just let Brad end it already. Brad was… afraid. Vash didn’t think his hatred toward him was born from malice so much as it was terror – and Brad was right to be afraid of him. He had given Nai the ship’s codes that he’d hacked into. He’d thought it was for a prank – just another one of their ultimately harmless episodes of the ongoing prank war with Rem. Nai…had used them….he was at fault – and the stars fell from the sky, wormwood…Chernobyl… Hundreds of thousands were dead and the number was rising. Every day Ship 3’s search parties combed the wreckage of nearby ships and discovered the injured and those dying of exposure, clinging to life. People were brought in to the hospital here. Lights and sirens sounded at least once a day when a search had returned, it’s human findings trickling in from the carriers. The population of Ship 3 was growing slowly, but not everyone made it. Most of those coming in died on the operating tables or a few days later in bed – too drained, too wounded. There were two demolished ships within range of search and rescue. One of them was Ship 5. Luida had told Vash yesterday that she was sorry. They had found no sign of Rem either alive, or any part of her body, uniform or other identifiers. There were records from parts of the ship’s computer that were recovered that testified that Rem had held her post to the end and was, indeed, the one who relayed the signal to alert the other crews on the other ships of impending disaster. She reversed thrust, ensuring that even some of Ship 5 had survived. The survival of Ship 3 was credited to her as well as well as the fact that ANY of the human-colony-carriers had time to respond and avert worse damage. Luida thought it strange that the glitch that had caused this hadn’t affected Plant-only carriers. Vash could not tell her the truth, ever. He could stand the fear of him in Brad’s eyes. He would not be able to withstand the same fear in hers. After all, Luida’s delicate features, her dark hair (albeit short) and her kind eyes reminded Vash of Rem – enough that he wondered, sometimes, if she might actually be a relative of some fashion, a cousin, perhaps. If so, Luida gave no indication of this. _________________ Night came like a cloak. Even within the bowels of a spaceship with no window to the world of nature outside, Vash knew the hours. Everything dimmed beyond his window into the interior of the ship as unnecessary lights and machines were turned off for the sleep-curfew. The only light source in his room went off, plunging the room into near total blackness. A bluish-gray haze shone through the window like the static of a distant television. It was a cold light that Vash did not like. It felt like noise, even in the silence. Only a few of the crew held night-time working hours. Most of the crew and all of the settler-class had Lights Out strictly at 10 pm. Of course, Ship 3 operated on Earth-time, just as the ships had in space. A time-system had not yet been devised to match that of the planet they were on. From what Vash could hear of discussions beyond his door, this planet was very close to Earth in terms of both rotation and orbit around its binary host-stars in terms of time-cycles. It was not exact. There was already some debate as to whether the people should re-work a calendar and their measurement for the length of a day or keep on with “Earth-time” because it was what everyone was accustomed to. It had been another day of shock, accepting a grim reality, not-eating and overhearing arguments about his personhood, welfare and general existence. Luida had not even come to talk with him today, as she usually did. There were days when she was busy or otherwise restricted. Today had been a terrible day. Vash had gotten settled on his cot and had just begun to fall into drowsiness at around 11 pm. That’s when the light through his window shone red in alternating flashes and a loud siren blared. He heard gurneys clattering past in the hallway. Incoming wounded. The last set had happened five days ago and none of those brought in had survived. As time and exposure worsened initial injuries, fewer and fewer survivors were even found by the search parties and of those that came to Ship 3’s hospital, a vanishingly small number continued to survive. This was on him… all of these slowly-dying. Vash hugged his knees as best as he was able in his tethered shackles and tried to ignore the siren. It stopped after several minutes. It was close to midnight before drowsiness began taking him again. Exhaustion took him into a realm without any remembered dreams. ______________ Someone was shaking his shoulder. He was being bounced around fairly violently on his bed before he snorted and blinked his eyes open. The day-lights were up in the ship and Luida was staring down at him. “Huh? What?” Vash mumbled. “I’m sorry to wake you up so rudely,” she announced. Brad leaned on the frame of the open door, his arms crossed. He gave a “Hmmph.” “Is there something wrong?” Vash asked, seeing how pale Luida’s face was. Sweat lay in beads on her forehead at her hairline. “You need to get up and come with me,” she said gently. “I mean, I’ll let you go to the toilet first, if you need it, or take a drink of water, but this is urgent. There is someone you should see.” “Someone..?” Vash questioned. A shock ran through his bones. Had they found Nai? Was Nai asking about him? Was he hurt? Was Nai imprisoned like he was? Had Nai killed anyone else? Any of the Ship 3 people? What were they going to do, knowing there were two of them now? What would they do knowing that he’d lied about thinking his twin was dead? He stood up. “I don’t need anything,” he answered. Vash was eager and also afraid. What was he going to say staring into those cold eyes again? Luida took him by the left wrist, just above the shackle and led him down the wall. Brad followed closely behind, watching them carefully. They turned down more hallways, headed toward the hospital wing of the ship. “ICU?” Vash read on one of the signs as they entered the warren. “You should brace yourself,” Luida said, her tone soft. “And keep very quiet no matter what you see. We have many patients in need of rest. She needs it, as well.” “She?” Luida brought Vash into a room filled with all of the beeping machines, computer-equipment, suspended bags and tubes and medical-Plant connection equipment of a hospital room with patient hovering between life and death. He felt every organ in him clench and the color and warmth drain from every inch of his skin. A woman lay in the bed. Her right arm was bandaged, down to the hand and the individual fingers. Blooms of red seeped through the dressing. The right side of her face from her cheek and her eye were bandaged and the hair on that side of her head and been burned off. What remained on her left side was scraggly and midnight-black. Equipment-lines snaked beneath the sheet covering her up to her mid-chest and, by the shape of its drape, her right leg ended at the knee.

She was thin – much thinner than when he’d last seen her. She looked very small, like that day on their ship after he’d gotten her into a medical-bed, himself… after having stabbed her. Vash’s rage at being denied his momentary suicidal-impulse and his fear of their kind had ultimately been pitiful in terms of not driving the paring-knife hard-in enough to cause immediately fatal damage. The blade had not hit any major organs, although it had come dangerously close and she had bled a lot. An interrupted suicide-attempt and utterly borked and half-hearted attempted murder were not what Vash wanted to be thinking about right now, but the came to his mind unbidden. How could they not when the image he was looking at reminded him of what he’d seen then?

She was worse off now, much, much worse.

“R…Rem?” he said, voice cracking. He approached the bed, reaching out.

“Careful!” Luida warned.

Brad was watching this from a stiff stance in the doorway, arms crossed firmly in front of his chest. “So, this is that lady from the pictures?” he asked. He then spoke low, and cautiously, a sudden reverence seeping in. “Is she the one who saved all our butts? Is she…the Hero of SEEDS?”

“Rem!” Vash cried, tears and globs of snot running freely down his face. “I’m so sorry! You’re… you’re alive? You’re still alive?”

Vash reached out and brushed her left cheek very lightly. He took her hand, mindful of the IV in the back of it. Luida pulled a chair from against the wall and pushed it under him so he could sit down. Vash curled in on himself, sobbing next to the bed.

“It would seem so,” Luida confirmed for Brad. “He recognizes her.”

“She doesn’t look long for this world,” Brad whispered. In spite of his suspicions about the “Plant-brat,” he hoped that he had not heard him. Brad still feared Vash, but this was a moment in time in which the young one had shifted from the status of “walking potential nuclear bomb” to “overwhelmed child.”

Perhaps it was the touch on her hand, the gentle and rhythmic rubbing that Vash was doing with his thumb on the back of it, clear of her IV and over her knuckles… Rem’s nose twitched. Her left eye slivered open as she turned her face. One of the machines registered a sharp BEEP! to her change in status.

“Vash?” she whispered, her voice hoarse and full of smoke.

Vash shot upright in his chair. “Rem! Rem, it’s me! You’re alive! You… you didn’t die! You’re here! I thought you were..! Oh, Rem, I, I, I, I…”

“Slow…down…” she breathed out. “Deep breaths…sweetheart…”

Taking care of him – even in the state she was in. Vash immediately calmed, to Luida’s wonderment. He took a deep breath and snucked up some snot. He carelessly tried to wipe what he couldn’t take care of on a wrist, bringing up his shackle and tether into Rem’s view.

Machines sprung to life in a loud cacophony as Rem suddenly tried to wriggle herself upright in bed. Vash jumped back in alarm and two nurses and one of the doctors rushed in.

“Why is he in shackles?” Rem demanded. Her voice was a rasp and she struggled to make it loud enough to be well-heard. Her un-bandaged eye held fury. “Get him out of those right now!”

She shivered and clawed at the edge of her bed as the nurses held her by the shoulders, the equipment screamed and the lines on the monitors jumped. “You can’t get up right now!” one of the demanded.

“She’s gonna kill herself!”

“Easy! Easy!”

Vash backed up into Luida, his eyes “like a deer caught in headlights” (from stories of old Earth and some of its few remaining majestic wild animals, the last time the world was known).

The doctor quickly unhooked the drip to Rem’s saline-IV and plunged a clear fluid from a syringe into the tube. She suddenly arched her back and looked skyward, the eyelids of her uncovered eye fluttering. The nurses guided her gently back into bed. “V…Vaaaaasssshu…” she slurred before the sedation took full-effect and she fell into a nearly instant sleep, her mouth parted, her hair left in a graceless mess.

Vash felt Luida’s arms around him, gently hugging him from behind.

Brad and a pair of guards that were waiting outside took Vash back to his cell.

The door shut loudly. The sound of the lock was extra metallic, sharp and cold.

#trigun #trigun maximum #trigun stampede #trigun fanfiction #vash the stampede #vash #rem saverem #luida leitner #brad (trigun stampede)#project SEEDS #ship 3 #millions knives

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lost-technology · 1 year ago

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Survivor’s Guilt Ch. 2

Trigun fanfiction Trigun Stampede universe (with some Trigun Maximum elements) Rated T / PG-13 for graphic descriptions, canon-typical violence Gen, unless pairings come into it later Multichaptered, unknown stopping point, chapter 1. Main characters: Vash, Luida, Brad, Rem, Nai / Millions Knives and the horrible lingering memory of Tesla. Summary: The stars fell from the sky upon a lonely desert planet. The world was made of blood, sand and broken glass - and later on, gunsmoke. What could have been a paradise had become a violent world, one of hard-bitten, traumatized survivors…Including… the most unexpected. Rem Saverem survives the apocalypse. Also found here - Chapter 2 on AO3 Chapter 1 Chapter 2 - Useful Things

Survivor’s Guilt Chapter 2: Useful Things There was a breakthrough with Vash – he had begun eating again. He still was not eating enough, but he had started picking at his food. With everything that was going on, he did not “feel” like eating, but, at the very least, he was no longer intent on starving himself to death. Rem was in Ship 3’s hospital and she needed him. If they would let him see her… “Luida?” he asked as she was standing outside of his cell door. “She’s still hanging in there,” Luida responded with a soft voice. “The medical staff say that she’s quite the fighter. She hasn’t been awake very much, but when she has been, she’s been asking after you.” “I need to see her!” Vash insisted. “Why won’t you let me see her?!” “I’m sorry, Vash,” Luida said, “The doctors have deemed your presence ‘potentially upsetting’ after the incident. “Rem is in a delicate state.” “You don’t understand!” Vash whined, “You’re probably upsetting her more by keeping us apart!” “I’ve been trying, Vash,” Luida sighed. “But it’s not up to me. Most people on the ship are still worried about…what you are.” Vash sat down on his cot, sullen. “I haven’t broken any of the rules here, at least I don’t think I have.” There was silence between them for several moments – the boy inside the cell and the woman outside of the door. “Vash, I think you should know this...” Vash’s blood ran cold at the specific tone of her voice. It was one of those “bad news” tones. He allowed her to continue. “Rem is in bad shape. It is a miracle that she’s survived all this time – that she escaped the crash alive at all, let alone all that time spent under ship-rubble. We think she was cushioned in an air-pocket in the Command Room upon atmosphere-entry. From what she could tell us, she lived off a muddy puddle from a broken hydroplant pipe and crawled into the shade. Her right leg was mangled – broken in several places. There was no choice but to amputate. Her right eye was damaged, too. She’ll never regain sight in it. There was damage to several internal organs. She is doing very well for the condition we found her in, but… Vash… she might not make it.” “I have to see her!” “I’m doing all I can, Vash. We will keep you updated.”

_______________________ Vash did not know what time it was and was fuzzy on the day when the trill shot through his head. The lights were dim, like nighttime or early morning and he was in a fitful sleep. He heard the screaming, but it was not a human scream. It was in his mind, piercing his brain. A sense of terror curled around his bones. It was his sister – not the one that lived large in his darkest memories, lost in the name of “science” and cut apart – but one living and nearby. He could feel the presence of every Plant on Ship 3, just as he had on Ship 5. It wasn’t like being in the presence of Nai, or of Rem, or of Luida or Brad. It was a gentler, less direct presence, a low hum, a sense of warmth. It was something quiet, perhaps akin – regarding an equivalent feeling for a human – to having a quiet pet in the room, a sweet but silent cat resting on one’s bed when one is reading or having some flora in a pot nearby – the sense of being around something you cannot converse directly with, but the sense of having a living being near, all the same. Only, right now, Vash felt the distinct voice of one sister, and she was anything but a silent presence. Sirens were sounding in the ship and the lights went red. Vash could hear the clatter of boots on metal in the corridors outside, people running down the hallways, alerted to danger. Immediately, he was up and banging on the door, desperate to alert his guards. “HELP!” he cried. “It’s dying! The Plant is dying! Can’t you hear it? Help! Let me out!” Maybe if he could get the attention of people – someone, anyone – they would be able to help the Plant. As it was, the Plant warbled and spoke into his mind, calling out for fellow sisters and calling out for him. Something had gone wrong in her systems. The temperature-regulation was off. She’d been running against the hot air of this planet for weeks and the strain had caused hairline cracks in her energy-gate. She was calling for him. If Plants spoke like humans, Vash might tell you that she was calling him “Little One,” but they did not speak like humans, so her terrified trill was more like singing. The agony-song was like the scream of a Banshee. A small sense of relief flooded him when he saw Luida’s face beyond his cell. He continued to throw himself against the door. “Please! I need to see the Plant! It’s dying! Just let me see it!” Brad and a guard were shaking their heads. Luida pressed the lock on his cell, releasing it. “If Rem trusts him, so do I!” she said. She bent down to him and unlatched his handcuffs. He took off in a dead run toward the main Plant Room. The scene was red as the light of the sovereign Plant bathed the room. It had uncurled, revealing a delicate, vaguely human form with long, thin appendages and wings like flower petals. If one was sharp-eyed, one might spy feathers along the tendrils. The strange angel glowed with markings all over its body resembling circuitry or something altogether more ancient – lines drawn into cliff-faces or poured with sand for some long-forgotten ancient ritual. Vash, seemingly transfixed by the sight, stepped close to the bulb that the Plant was housed in. He laid his forehead upon the glass as well as the palms of his hands. The main crew of Ship 3 looked on. Vash would not have been able to tell them what he was doing because even he did not know. The Plant responded in kind to him, resting its palms on the interior of the glass to match his. Vash spoke aloud, soft words, assuring it / her that he was there. This was what the humans heard. The rest of the communication was silent, instant – mind to mind, brain to brain. It came in something like a song in a language all their own. It came in direct emotions and sensations. Vash felt physical pain rush into him, shooting through his bones, but he ignored it, captured it and stuffed it down. He willed it to subside, taking it through himself and dissipating it through his skin into the atmosphere. He felt fear and frustration with the heat. The people here were running the temperature-regulation system too hard. There was a fundamental incompatibility with aspects of the planet, itself – temperature ranges between the heat of the day and the chill of the night, the general dryness and native resonances. The Plants were close to the edge of a breaking-point and this one had reached it. Toomuchtoomuchtoomuch was communicated, Solar radiation against… need slow rest hurt. WanttobeagoodPlant…want to be good, fearfearfear… I will tell them was communicated back. I know their temperature tolerance parameters. We can make it work. You are good. You’re the best. Please don’t be afraid. I am here. There is nothing to be afraid of. Your brother is here. The Plant’s pain went from a sharp agony into a dull ache and then vanished altogether. Vash felt his bones ease and felt her gain peace of mind. Her systems stabilized and her light became a healthy blue. After several minutes, she curled back in on herself, shielding herself with her petal-wings. Vash sensed that everyone was staring at him. When he looked, he saw people’s gazes going back and forth between him and the Plant-container. They had just witnessed a miracle. ___________________________________ Later, in his cell, he had eaten the entirety of his lunch. He felt incredibly hungry all of a sudden. Vash did not know if this was because of the energy he’d expended communicating with the Plant or if having had the communication and being able to help her had eased his heart enough to bring his appetite back – for at least a little while. Luida and Brad had surprises for him, it turned out. The shackles came off. The holding-cell was abandoned. Vash was shown to a proper room – one of his own! Brad begrudgingly admitted that he’d help convince the rest of the crew aboard the ship that he did not need to be in holding any longer, that he was now, more or less, a “trustworthy subject” and should be treated as any other resident of Ship 3. (A guard was to be posted outside his door for some time yet, because some members of the ship were still a bit jumpy). He was even given a job – that of a Plant-counselor. There was something that only he could do: “Speak” with the Plants directly and communicate their needs. Luida said that she’d never seen a record of a Healing Plant before – at least not one that was so direct. Medical Plants did provide life-support for humans, in terms of running machines, but there was no record in all of History of a Plant that could heal other Plants. And along came Vash. Shortly after the “miracle,” Vash received another invigorating shot of good news: He was now allowed to visit Rem. She was stable enough to be given Visiting Hours. Luida tried to pass the previous lack thereof not being over what Vash was, but that she had been denied any long visits from anyone but the doctors due to her condition, but he suspected that was a lie to try to make him feel better. He remembered that “potentially upsetting” remark. Apparently, Rem Saverem had been re-categorized from “critical condition” to “survivor” and her recovery at such a quick pace was nothing short of amazing. It had only been a matter of weeks going from death’s door to talking everybody’s ears off with questions about the collective situation of the planet’s survivors and of the ship. She wanted to do work and no one would let her. “Now, Vash,” Luida said, holding him back from running directly to the room, “She’s going to live, but she’s still not well. She still looks… pretty shocking and she needs a lot of quiet. She’s probably going to make some pained sounds now and again, and that’s normal. She is getting better, but it’s going to take a while.” ______________________________________ Vash stood with Luida in the doorframe of the hospital room as they watched a pair of staff ease Rem back into her bed – the back of which was angled up for a semi-sitting position – after an apparent muscle-stretch and exercise-session. A pair of crutches were left at the bed’s foot. As she was shuffled back into a position that was decently comfortable and had her monitors and IVs hooked up, she turned to her visitors. She looked to Vash and his free hands and gave Luida a knowing smile before turning a single-eyed glare to the last member of the medical staff to exit the room’s other door. “I am glad to see that all of you have finally decided to listen to reason,” she said bluntly. She turned and gave out an effortless “Hey, Vash,” with a soft smile. Vash stood, shocked for a moment, tears at the edges of his eyes before he thundered to the bed with his arms out and wrapped them around her midsection. She returned the embrace, careful with her various tubes and wires. “Hey! Hey!” she said to him, “No need to cry. I’m here. Are they treating you better?” Luida was quick with a handkerchief to help Vash dry his face when he finally came up for air. The last thing that Rem needed was globs of snot on the front of her hospital gown. Vash had managed to just hold it all in. His loud honk into the handkerchief was none too polite, though. “Yeah, yeah,” he said, nodding slightly and looking down. “Luida and Brad just gave me my own room. They still wanna watch me…” Luida leaned on a chair. “Remember when the lights flickered and everything went red the other day?” “Plant-failure, yes,” Rem answered. “I was awake enough to go through my files,” She motioned to some sealed pads on the tray next to her bed, “but you did not require them as the Plant stabilized.” Luida grinned and slapped her hands down on Vash’s shoulders. “We have this one to thank! I don’t know how, but he somehow knew exactly what to do when we were all at a loss! He… somehow… he ‘talked’ to the Plant and healed it! He has a gift!” “See?” Rem said cheekily, nodding to Vash. “I told you that you and Nai were like angels. And look! You wanted some powers; it looks like you’ve found them? How does it feel?” “Not…like anything,” Vash said forlornly, “Not really.” He swung his feet from where he sat on the bedside chair he’d taken to sitting on. “It just needed help and I was almost too late.” “Being that it was the main life-support Plant… you saved us all,” Luida assured him. “You should be proud.” She shot a look at Rem. “It looks like being a hero runs in the family.” Rem looked down and balled up her top sheet in her half-bandaged hands. “Let’s… talk about something else,” she said. “Vash… They…they told me that you were… the only one like yourself that they brought in.” Her face paled. “Do you know what happened to Nai? You can tell me,” she whispered, “…even if it’s bad…” She closed her one good eye and braced herself. “I don’t know,” Vash said solemnly. Don’tellhereverythingnotnownotever “We got separated… after our shuttle crashed. I wandered around and passed out… I woke up here.” “Oh, sweetie…” Rem gasped. “We’ll find him. Don’t you worry. Nai is resilient.” Vash silently nodded. Vash suddenly started choke-crying. “I… I’m so, so sorry!” he struggled out. “You’re hurt! You’re hurt, Rem, you’re hurt!” “Don’t worry about me,” she assured, her voice tender. She thereafter brightened up. “Check out the eyepatch they gave me. And they’re going to fit me for a prosthetic leg. They have an expert aboard this ship, it was Brad, I think? He already showed me the model he’s working on. I’m like a pirate! Like those old stories you always liked. Eyepatch, peg-leg…all I need is a parrot! Argh, matey!” Vash remained stone-faced, looking down. Rem reached over and parted some stray hair away from his eye. “The joke didn’t land? Suppose I need to work on my routine, huh?” “Maybe…” “We’ve been through a lot. You must have been so scared, Vash, all this time. Do you realize how brave you are?” A small tear edged at the bottom of her eye. “My perfect, brave boy. Whatever wounds we’ve got, whatever has happened, what matters is that we’re alive. We still have our blank tickets.” Vash looked up with a small smile. “That’s my brave boy.”

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