Disclaimer: I do not own Trigun or any of the Characters therein. This story was written based on the TV Series shown on Adult Swim. It ignores the added scene that appears at the end of the last episode on the DVD where Vash brings Knives back into town, carried over his shoulder.
Please understand that this was started in response to the many post-series Trigun FanFics I have read that deal with Knives being already redeemed or dead. So this is my version of just how Knives was redeemed or killed. Won't say which, so you will just have to read the story to find out which it is.
Ormandria
"When the heart is broken and the soul in shreds and the spirit beaten down, there is very little left for the empty body to rebuild its life upon. The young woman, who wore her scars on the inside, took the plant from my hands. As she did so, she told me that we are like the plant. That we can heal and recover from such wounds. That such wounds can actually make us stronger. And that it is in this small feat that the true wonder of life is found."
– Vash the Stampede
Weather the Storm
Vash the Stampede walked slowly through the desert terrain with his brother's injured body firmly set upon his shoulder. He hadn't stopped walking since the moment he had picked Knives up off the ground the day before. He was resolute in his mission. He figured that if he could just get Knives to the nearest town and get his injuries tended to, he might just have a chance to prepare himself before Knives regained consciousness. Vash didn't know exactly what he would do once that happened. In fact, all Vash was sure of at this point was that he had to make sure there was no one, save Vash himself, anywhere near Knives when he did wake up. At least not unless Vash wanted anymore bloodshed. To say that Knives was a cold-blooded killer was an understatement of dynamic proportions. He had proven that fact over and over again since they were boys. When Knives first took the lives of Rem, and everyone else on the ship that had brought them to this desert planet with the twin suns, over one-hundred years ago.
Now Vash was determined to do whatever it took to "cure" his brother of these dark and horrifying habits before Knives destroyed anymore lives. Despite all that Knives had put him through, Vash still loved his brother enough to believe that he could redeem Knives of all the evil deeds he had committed in the past. All he needed was a where, and a how.
Vash paused in mid-step and stared straight ahead. The heat wavered along the horizon making it difficult for Vash to tell if what he thought he had just seen was truly there, or if it had been a trick of the mind. It took only a moment of waiting for Vash to realize that it was no mirage. Securing his grip on his brother, Vash broke into a run.
"WATER!" Vash cried as he unceremoniously dumped his brother's limp body onto the ground next to him. Sticking his head, mouth open and at the ready, under the spout, Vash started pumping the well handle furiously. The water that poured into his mouth and over his head nearly drowned out the soft, feminine clearing of a throat next to his ear.
Vash hurriedly sat up and started rubbing the back of his head where he had hit it on the pump. "Gee, I'm sorry ma'am. Is this well yours? I didn't mean to intrude. It's just that it's been so long since I've had a nice drink of water," he laughed nervously.
Vash looked up into the face of the young woman kneeling in front of him. She had her head cocked to one side and seemed to be studying him. After a moment, she shrugged her shoulders and replied.
"I guess its okay. But I'm pretty sure that you would find the water inside much better tasting. And your friend over there might actually be much more comfortable on a bed rather than on the ground." With that the woman lifted herself up using the shovel she had been holding in her right hand as leverage. "Follow me if you'd like."
Vash sat staring after her. It took an instant for her words to sink in. He quickly stood up and still laughing said, "Yes, I suppose that would be good. Thank you very much ma'am." He quickly picked Knives up and then looked back toward the woman as she headed into the house. This time his expression was much more serious.
'Something isn't right here,' Vash thought to himself as he followed her inside.
Vash had prepared himself for almost anything except what he actually saw when he entered the house. He nearly fell on the floor and just barely managed to keep a hold of Knives. The woman nodded at his sharp intake of breath.
"Yes," she said. "They are beautiful aren't they?"
The front door of the house opened into what would normally be the sitting room with a set of stairs along one wall. There was one large table in the center of the room along with some very comfortable looking chairs and some smaller end tables scattered around that had a few knick-knacks, pictures and lamps on them. But it was the walls that caught his attention. Every wall had multiple shelves on it. And every shelf had multiple plants on them. Plants of every possible kind that Vash could ever have imagined and more. He hadn't seen so many plants since New Arcadia. And even then, they were all outside.
"Please," the young woman's voice brought Vash out of his state of shock. "There is a bedroom upstairs. We can put your friend in there and tend to his wounds."
Vash nodded numbly.
"Yes...alright," he said. Vash was trying to get a grip on the situation but was finding it very difficult, all things considered. The woman didn't look to be more than twenty-years-old, yet the two trees outside were nearly full-grown and had to be at least fifty-years-old. And some of the plants he had seen in the main sitting room, he hadn't seen since his day's back on the ship with Rem. Then there was the matter of this woman's sudden appearance by his side at the well.
'I didn't even know she was there until she cleared her throat,' the thought pushed its way to the forefront of his mind. 'How could I have missed her standing there?'
The stairs opened up onto a long hallway with a total of five doors in it. Two on each side of the hallway and the fifth at the very end. The woman led Vash through the nearest door on the right. It was a small bedroom furnished very simply with a small bed pressed against the opposite wall and a large dresser pressed against the wall next to the door. A small table and two chairs rested beneath the only window in the room. The curtains on the window were already pulled back so that sunlight spilled across the table into the otherwise empty room.
"You lay him down on the bed, and I'll get some bandages and salve."
Vash laid Knives on the bed and started to undress him. He than removed the temporary bandages that he had put on Knives. It was the first time that Vash had inspected any of the wounds since he initially bandaged them. The wound on his brother's chest was an ugly wound. Much worse than Vash had realized. He felt bad about that. He felt even worse about the fact that he hadn't even thought about looking at it before now. It was an angry red and seemed to be blistering under the skin. It didn't surprise Vash though. Knives had once mentioned something to Vash about the scars carved into Vash's body and his inability to regenerate them. Knives had been thoroughly disgusted with what he took as just another piece of proof to Vash's weaknesses. Vash took this to mean that Knives had long ago figured out how to heal any wounds even more quickly than he, himself, and without the scars. So it was only natural that any wound that would put Knives down would be a fairly bad wound indeed. And the wound in Knives chest definitely fit the bill.
"That doesn't look so good," said the young woman, who was suddenly behind Vash. This time though, Vash managed not to look surprised.
She knelt down and examined the wound. "Hmm. Gunshot blasts. We should get the bullets out before it becomes even more infected than it is. Your friend is already starting to run a fever."
"Brother," Vash absent-mindedly corrected her.
She looked over at Vash. "Go to the kitchen. It's right past the sitting room. Get a bowl and fill it with warm water. When you're done with that, grab a knife from the top drawer next to the sink and a towel from the bottom drawer. Bring them all up."
Vash nodded and went down to do as he had been instructed. It had not even occurred to Vash, until he entered the kitchen, that he shouldn't do as she told him. The fact that he was finding himself following her every command without even thinking about it unnerved him even more than the fact that he couldn't sense her until she was already on top of him. Vash had no doubt that if, for some reason, she decided to sneak up behind him and slit his throat she could do so before he even blinked. But at the same time, Vash felt that there was something strangely familiar about her. He quickly filled the bowl with water and grabbed the knife and towel and headed back upstairs.
The woman had already lit a small candle over which she was heating a small pair of tweezers. She had pulled the table over next to the bed and was currently sitting in on of the chairs while she did this. Vash set the bowl of water on the table beside her and then sat in the other chair, still holding the knife and towel in his hands. He said nothing, having chosen to just watch instead.
She was an extremely pretty young woman, he thought to himself. She had soft brown hair that went down to her mid back and was held in a very loose ponytail behind her. Only her bangs were not held back from her face, being just long enough to end right above her bright green eyes. She had come up to Vash's shoulder when they had both been standing up.
Now, she seemed totally oblivious to the world around her as she worked to remove the bullets from Knives chest, arms and legs with the tweezers. Vash was amazed by the steadiness of her hands and her careful concern not to make the wound worse. When she finally removed all the bullets, she used the knife to cut a small hole into some of the dead skin around the wound on his chest that had started to collect puss. After draining as much of the puss as possible she used the towel and water to clean the wound, put some salve on it and bandaged it back up. When she finished she just sat and looked Knives over to see if there was anything she had missed. Satisfied that there wasn't she leaned back in her chair.
"He should be okay for now. I'll make some medicine for his fever in case it gets any worse. Just so you know though, he'll probably sleep for a few days at least. You have some wounds yourself, that should probably be looked at," she paused, "Vash the Stampede."
"Well, it seems you have me at a bit of a disadvantage," Vash said as he took another sip hot cider. She had given it to him after she had finished tending to his wounds, which were not nearly as bad as his brother's. Although she had not been able to totally conceal her surprise at all of the scars covering his body. As a result he had felt obligated to give some minor explanation into the events. His version of minor being that his brother and he had gotten in a small scuffle in the desert and things got "kinda outta hand. Ha ha."
"I'm sorry. My name is Eleesa. And this is my home," she replied. "And you and your brother are welcome to stay here as long as you need to."
Vash cleared his throat. "Thank you. But I really think that I should take him and get going."
"Why? So he can die in the desert heat? I thought you wanted to save him?"
Vash's fist pounded down on the table. "It's not like that!" he yelled.
Eleesa jerked back in surprise and stared at Vash in shock. He was so angry he was shaking and she didn't know how to react. She hadn't meant to make him angry. 'No,' she thought to herself as she watched him. 'He's not angry. He's…. He's crying.'
"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to upset you."
As suddenly as the crying had started, it stopped. It was replaced by the same nervous laughter that he'd had out in the garden.
"No," he said with a wide grin on his face. "I'm the one who should be sorry. Here you are being all hospitable and I go and ruin a perfectly good afternoon. Really. Ha ha. Huh?"
Eleesa looked at Vash with a hard heavy stare. She wasn't going to let him off the hook that easily. Vash sighed and returned to a more serious demeanor.
"Really. I am sorry about that. It is very important that you not be near my brother when he wakes up. He's a very dangerous man."
"And what about you? Vash the Stampede. The Humanoid Typhoon. You're supposed to be a very dangerous man as well, aren't you? You bring disaster with you at all times. Yet, somehow, no one seems to have ever died until recently. And even then, there seems to be a new influx of people insisting that you couldn't possibly be to blame for those deaths. And now here you are in the middle of the desert trying to save the life of a man that, by the looks of your wounds, tried to kill you, if I'm not mistaken."
For the first time since they had met Eleesa smiled. It was a sad smile. An old and tired smile of someone who knows what comes at the end of a very long life and is no longer afraid of it, but instead is ready to welcome it like an old friend. Again, for just an instance, Vash found himself thinking that there was something very familiar about her. But before he could ask, she continued.
"Don't you think, that maybe, just once, you should allow someone else to carry the world on their shoulders?" She laid her hand on his shoulder. "You know Vash, not all of us are in need of protection."
"I don't think you understand the seriousness of the situation in front of you," he replied, bowing his head. "My brother is a cold-blooded killer, with no conscience, no remorse." Vash started turning the now empty cup around in his hands as he continued in a trembling voice.
"He wasn't always like this. Once he was a kind and caring person. But somewhere along the line, something in him just…broke. I spent most of my life running from the knowledge of what my brother had become. Running from my brother. Until, finally, I had no place left to run. He was killing the people around me. So I did the only thing I could. I decided to hunt him down. But now, I'm going to save him," he paused.
"Even if it kills me, I'm going to save him." Vash looked up at Eleesa with a fierce look in his eyes. "Do you see now? You're in danger as long as you're anywhere near him."
Eleesa walked out of the room briefly and came back in carry a large potted plant that she placed on the table in front of him.
"Do you know what these are?" Eleesa asked as she took a seat opposite of Vash.
Vash suddenly felt very confused. He had absolutely no idea how this conversation had gone from trying to convince her of the danger his brother posed to a lesson on plants. 'The woman must be a complete loon,' he thought to himself.
"Yes," he said slowly. "They're flowers." Vash said as he picked them up off the table to get a closer look.
"They're called Poinsettias," she said. "I've had these flowers for a long time Vash. Every year they bloom and then after a few months they die. And then I have to wait until the next year for them to bloom again." She studied Vash for a moment to see if he understood what she was getting at.
"And what's that got to do with my brother and me?" he asked, still not able to follow the flow of this sudden change in conversation.
She sighed. "Nothing, Vash. And yet everything. Every year I have to tend to this plant to make sure it grows. I have to tend to all of my plants. I dare not lose even one for fear that it will never grow back. And that takes work. The grass outside and the trees? Those take even more work. And sometimes, just sometimes, I want to give up. I get tired and don't want to do it anymore. I keep on because I know it's the right thing to do. And because it's all I have left in my life. The only thing that still has meaning for me. People are the same way. Sometimes they die inside. But if you can get to them in time, sometimes, just sometimes, you can bring them back to life."
Vash looked up from the flowers to her.
Her head was cocked again, but this time the smile didn't seem so sad. She reached over and grasped his hands in hers. "Wounds heal Vash. But scars can remain forever. You wear yours on the outside. Wear them proudly. They are the scars of a man with a good heart. A man who helps people. Wear them proudly. But your brother…," she looked toward the stairs briefly, before looking back at Vash. "You say that somewhere along the line he broke. People don't just 'break' Vash. Something has to cause that break. That fracture of the mind, spirit and soul. Your brother is a wounded man, just like you. But from what you have told me it seems that the worst of his wounds are on the inside and they need healing too. Those are the wounds that leave the deepest scars. The scars can be minimized, but to do that they first need to be reopened. Can you do that Vash? Can you reopen your brother's wounds to save him? Can you be ruthless enough to force your brother to face the demons of his past?"
Vash looked back at the flowers without answering. He didn't know what to say at this point. For that matter, he wasn't even sure how he should feel, so staring at the flowers in front of him seemed the only acceptable response to this line of inquiry.
"Think of it this way," she continued as she stood, facing the entryway to the sitting room. "Your brother is in a dark pit that only he can get himself out off. Believe me, I know. I know, because I was once in that same pit myself. Getting out of it is hard, but it can be done. He can come back from this healed and stronger then ever. That's where you find the true wonders of life, Vash. It's when you can die inside, and then be reborn again, better than ever."
Eleesa gently took the plant from Vash's hands. "Stay here … for the night at least. There's another bedroom across from the one your brother is in. There are clean linens in the dresser that you can use." She held the back of her hand to her mouth as she yawned. "Goodnight, Vash." She turned and left the room.
Vash sat there listening to her put the plant away and go upstairs. He kept going over everything she had said. It made sense, but how much sense…. He stood up and walked over to the door, opening it to stare up at the stars outside.
"Is this your doing Rem?" he said to the air. "Are you trying to tell me something? Are you? Did you send me an angel? Someone to guide me? Someone to help me finally heal Knives?" Vash continued staring at the stars. Finally he looked down to his hands. The hands he hoped to use to redeem his brother.
Vash had seen a lot of things this past year that couldn't be explained. But this one had him totally baffled. There was something about Eleesa that offset Vash from the very beginning. Something that he couldn't quite put his finger on. He wanted answers. He needed answers. And there was only one way he would be able to get those answers. Nodding to himself and his final decision, Vash quietly walked back into the house, shutting the door behind him.
White-hot pain throbbed behind his temple causing Knives eyes to water so badly that his vision was blurred. But just as quickly as it started, the pain stopped, giving way to a dull ache. He tried moving, but couldn't. He blinked rapidly to dry his eyes so that he could at least look around the room. But it was no use. His head wouldn't even move. It took him only a few moments to realize why.
There was a strap that led from the bed, over his forehead and down to the other side of the bed, holding his upper head flat to the mattress. Likewise, there was a chin strap that, together with the strap on his forehead, kept his whole head immobile. In fact, his body was strapped to the bed at the shoulders, chest, waist, thighs, calves and ankles. There was absolutely no way he was going to move.
So the only thing Knives could see was the brightly lit white ceiling above him. But he knew that someone else was there. There was something just beyond his peripheral vision. He wasn't quite sure what it was. It felt human, but not quite human. Somehow beyond normal humanity. Like him and Vash, but again, not quite like him and Vash. He also distinctly felt that whatever 'it' was, it was also female. And it was doing something totally unthinkable to him. It had its hands in his head. As if it was just pushing his brains around looking for something. He could feel it moving around in there. It was hard for him to breath, and although Knives would be hard-pressed to admit it later, he was starting to panic.
Knives lay unmoving in his bed. A slight sheen of perspiration dotted his forehead and his eyes twitched slightly in his heavy slumber. His clothes lay draped over a chair sitting by the window.
Eleesa stood the middle of the room staring at the unconscious man before her. Her face a total mask to any emotions. She stood there for a long time, watching, waiting, concentrating.
"Knives," she whispered to the darkened room.
Across the hall, pale light from the stars outside filtered into the room through the half opened curtains. Vash snorted once and unconsciously rolled over to get more comfortable. He then buried his head a little deeper into his pillow and continued to sleep.
The next morning Vash awoke to the smell of bacon and eggs. He quickly dressed himself and hurried done the stairs so fast that the dishes in the table continued spinning for quite some seconds after he had sat down. Eleesa looked at him in amazement as she scooped up two eggs and some bacon onto a plate and slid it in front of him.
"And I thought I was fast," she laughed.
"Nothing…is faster…" Vash said between bites. "Than a…hungry man…on a…mission." Vash gulped down his drink equally as fast and nearly choked on it.
"So," Eleesa started as Vash finished hacking and coughing. "Have you decided whether or not you're going to stay?"
Vash looked at Eleesa and nodded. "Actually miss, I have," he said, suddenly serious once again. "I thought about it all night and decided to take you up on your offer."
Eleesa turned and smiled a wide welcome grin at Vash.
"That's good. I think that you'll find that things won't be so bad here," she said in an upbeat voice. "Oh, and I checked on your brother this morning. His fever is back down to normal and I re-bandaged his wounds. He should be up in a day or two."
Vash stood up. "That sounds terrific. If you don't mind, though, I'd kind of like to go check on him myself."
"Well of course. He is your brother after all," she said as she went back to cleaning the kitchen with a smile on her face.
Vash went up to check on Knives and was relieved to see that he had more color in his face and seemed to be breathing easier than yesterday. He took a quick look at all the bandages and, finally satisfied that Eleesa had done a good job, he walked back downstairs and into what he was now thinking of as the plant room.
He was taking his time, looking at all the different variety of plants that Eleesa seemed to have growing in the room, when Eleesa walked in drying her hands on a towel.
"Purple Irises," she said, startling Vash out of his reverie.
Vash blushed in embarrassment at being caught off guard yet again by this woman.
"Um, I'm sorry?" he looked around quickly.
Eleesa nodded at the flowers he had just been looking at. "Those flowers. They're Purple Irises."
"Oh, right," Vash laughed. "They're very pretty."
"Yes they are. And those over there," she pointed to some flowers on another shelf. "Those are…."
"Red Geraniums," Vash finished for her.
"Yes," Eleesa said. "I'm impressed. Most people wouldn't know a flower from a weed around here."
"Well, you see," Vash scratched the back of his head as he continued on nervously. "I had a friend who loved red flowers and these were her favorites."
"Ah." Eleesa put down the towel and walked up to Vash. "Do you know the names of any of the others," she asked looking around at the plants.
The smile dropped from Vash's face. "Not really. Can you tell me?"
"Certainly," Eleesa responded as she started pointing out flowers.
The next few hours were spent with Eleesa showing Vash each plant and then giving him a detailed report of everything she knew of that particular plant. Which, Vash had to admit, was impressively long. In fact, Eleesa had just finished showing Vash one of her personal favorites, a miniature rosebush that grew red with yellow colored roses, when suddenly something else caught his attention.
"What's this?" he asked as he picked up a framed picture from the shelf nearby. The picture on it was very old and was a group of people, all adults in that appeared to be in their twenties, sitting on a blanket, nestled on what appeared to be soft grass. There were some trees in the picture and off to the side and behind them was a huge amount of water.
Eleesa looked past Vash's shoulder at the picture.
"That? Oh," she sighed as if remembering something wonderful. "That's a picture of me and some of my friends from a long time ago."
"But," Vash suddenly envisioned his many picnics with Rem in the Rec Room on the ship.
"So, this is what earth looked like Rem?"
"Yes, Vash. This is what it looked like. And someday soon, when we find a new home, you can see all of this for real."
"Will there be flowers there Rem?"
"I hope so. Lots of flowers. Lots of red flowers."
"It looks like what Rem described," Vash continued, now more to himself than to Eleesa. "It looks like Earth."
Eleesa just laughed slightly and replied, "That's because it is Earth, silly."
The intact of breath, coupled with a look of complete shock were the only reply as the framed picture slipped out of Vash's hands onto the floor. The glass in the frame shattered on contact and pieces flew everywhere.