Trigun Fan Fiction ❯ Under the Five Moons ❯ All's Said and Done ( Epilogue )

I neither own Trigun, nor the characters.

***

Three weeks later

One of Lelia Harker's hobbies was photography. She often wandered around town on her off hours with a camera, snapping photographs of anything that struck her fancy. As the family shutterbug, she drove them up the wall insisting that they take a photo documenting every occasion.

She sat in a small hotel room, dressed entirely in black, sorting through these pictures on a desk. Her graduation from medical school, Evans' commissioning as an officer, a picture of her mother's grave after the funeral- she had a family's history laid out on the hotel room desk.

The door opened slightly and Evans, in full dress uniform, stepped into the room.

"It's time to go," he said.

***

Nikki shifted her weight slightly and glanced across the coffin at her father. Isn't the idea that all the pallbearers be the same height? She wondered. Her face fell as guilts washed over her. After all, the man in the coffin had taken a bullet for her.

She glanced back behind her and was, for what was probably the hundredth time that day, simply awed by the sheer number of coffins in the procession. An endless line of mourning black and uniform gray stretched back into the ruined town for miles. All of them carried coffins, carried the dead to their home.

***

Just outside of December City, a giant graveyard had been dug. Row on row, shallow pits covered the outskirts of the town. Each place marked for a specific recipient.

It didn't matter on what side they fought, if they fought willingly or not. If they fought that night and died in their effort, their final resting place was here.

The mourners, the pallbearers, the priests, the soldiers, the politicians, the bandits, all of them stood in front of the graveyard in silence. Only the gravediggers moved, scooping up the earth and tucking the dead in for their final sleep.

As they finished their work and stood back to wipe their brows, figures detached themselves from the crowd, carrying gifts for the departed. A sword and some flowers for a father and a soldier. A pair of guns for a brother and an uncle. A rosary and a bible for a father, grandfather, and teacher. A knife and a tarot card deck for two who were once brother and sister. Gifts for strangers, gifts for enemies.

***

Vash stood aside from the milling throng, staring out over the graves, his arm around Meryl.

"Penny for your thoughts, needle noggin."

Vash and Meryl glanced over to see Wolfwood and Millie walking up to them.

Vash shrugged. "I dunno. I was just thinking that maybe you were right all along. That you can't save everyone. That you have to kill or be killed. Eden? Eden is just some dream."

Meryl held his hand and looked out over the graveyard. "It shouldn't be that way. You shouldn't have to choose between saving one person's life and saving twenty others. If it's a dream, can't we make it real?"

Vash grinned ruefully. "Yeah, that'd be great. But, despite how I look, I'm running out of time here."

"They have time," Millie said, pointing towards the crowd.

Vash, Wolfwood, and Meryl followed Millie's finger.

Calamity, Nikki, Jeremiah, and Evans stood together with Lelia and Roger, looking over a photo album. Raifen hobbled up behind them, Zarlina following, still nursing a heavily bandaged arm.

They flipped through the photo album, looking over the past.

Vash, Meryl, Wolfwood, and Millie stood near the mass graveyard in the ruined city, looking at the future.

***

Two years later

"Mmm, a nice big rededication ceremony for December City. I'm sure that it's an entire coincidence that this is also an election year. Nah, I'm sure this isn't just part of some devious public relations scheme."

"When did you become Captain Cynicism?"

"About six months ago," Evans said, putting his arm around Nikki's shoulders. "Don't you remember? I came home one day and was really excited about something? There was a nice ceremony for it. You were really annoyed because the insignia on my uniform had to be changed."

Nikki smirked and opened the box of doughnuts resting in her lap. Evans reached over for one when Nikki smacked his hand away.

Evans grinned. "I thought you loved me."

"I do. Just not enough to share my doughnuts."

Evans shrugged and removed his arm from her shoulders. He reached into his vest pocket, pulled out his cigar case, selected a cigar, and lit it.

Nikki wrinkled her nose. "You know I really don't like that."

Evans puffed on the cigar and put his arm back around Nikki's shoulders. "Sorry, honey. I love you more than life itself, but not enough to give up cigars."

Nikki grinned and kissed Evans impishly on the cheek.

"Hey, doughnuts, can I have one?"

Nikki pulled out a doughnut. "Get your own box, dad," she said. She stuffed the doughnut her mouth.

"He did," Meryl said, coming up behind her husband. "Polished it off within fifteen seconds."

Vash scratched the back of his head. "Yeah… I guess I'm slowing down in my old age." He sat down on the bench next to the one Evans and Nikki were sharing. Meryl sat next to him, reached over and grabbed a doughnut from the box.

Evans glanced at her. "Why does she get one?"

"'Cause she's my mother."

"Is that how it works?"

Vash nodded. "That's how it works."

Evans raised his eyebrows and continued to puff on his cigar.

The faint sound of arguing could be heard wafting down the street.

"Are Jeremiah and Calamity trying to argue again?" Nikki asked.

"What are they arguing about?" Meryl asked.

"Sounds like something to do with cotton candy," Vash responded.

"Hmmm, okay, I'll take a guess," Nikki said. "Jeremiah bought the cotton candy, and Calamity's eating most of it. Jeremiah wants some. Calamity pulls the pregnancy card. Jeremiah pulls the fact that he bought it. Calamity says that she's eating for two now. Jeremiah says that she's barely a month along, how much could the second one really need? While this is happening, Nick is trying his hardest not to snicker at them, while Millie wonders what Nick thinks is so funny."

A shadow appeared between the benches. "Exactly right."

Evans and Nikki jumped, fell backwards over the bench, and landed in the bushes behind them. Evans picked himself up and then helped Nikki. "You know," he said, "I liked you better before I found out that you had such a mean sense of humor."

"He didn't always have it," Zarlina said. She sat down on a picnic table and clasped her hands, only one of which was gloved. "It's kind of sprung up lately. It's getting to the point where I can't try any food he gives me if he won't tell me what's in it."

"Yeah, I do the same thing with Evans."

"Hey, I'm a good cook."

"Sure. It's just that you tend to serve lizards."

"Never trust anyone who's been trained to cook by the Cavalry, Nikki, you'll live a lot longer."

Evans waved. "Hi Winnie."

Winchester stood over him. " 'Hi Winnie'? Don't you mean, 'Greetings sir?', Captain?"

Evans grinned mischeviously.

Winchester shook her head, then looked up towards the approaching figures. "Hey, Nicholas!"

Wolfwood nodded. "Yeah?"

"Why are my kids telling me that their Uncle Wolfwood taught them this really cool way to make an incredibly obnoxious noise using only a pair of bottles, a piece of scrap iron, a hammer and a little elbow grease?"

Wolfwood smiled and looked innocent. "I have no idea. Why are you asking me, I'm hardly their only Uncle Wolfwood."

Jeremiah stared at his father. "Right, dad. Because I'm the one in this family who is the expert child raiser who knows a hundred and one ways to annoy adults."

"The children at the orphanage exaggerate my abilities. I only knew seventy-eight. But man, did number fifty-three drive the nuns up the wall!"

Jeremiah and Calamity sat next to Zarlina on the picnic table. Calamity looked at Nikki's doughnut box, which she had recovered and now rested on her lap again. "I suppose it would be a complete waste of time to even ask," she said.

"You suppose correctly," Nikki responded.

"Not even if I bring up-"

"Not even if you bring up that. Didn't work on Jeremiah when he wanted his cotton candy, why should it work on me?"

Calamity sighed. "Worth a shot."

"Who are we waiting for?" Millie asked.

"My sister," Evans responded.

"She's coming up right now," Raifen said.

Evans looked up at him. "How can you tell? You're not even looking in the direction of the… Oh. Right." He turned around and looked towards the festival entrance. Lelia and Roger were walking down the road. Lelia had something over her shoulder that bounced against her hip with every step.

"Oh God," Evans said. "Not the damn camera."

"Yes," Lelia said as she reached them. She unpacked a tripod and set it up in front of the benches, pointing at the picnic table. "The damn camera." She motioned everyone to the picnic benches. "Come on, get in the frame, get in the frame!"

They grudgingly complied, as a person with camera's orders, no matter how inane, are always obeyed.

"Alright, everyone smile! We don't have a group shot, and damn it, we need one."

"You mean you need one."

"Whatever." Lelia set the timer and ran towards the picnic table to sit next to Roger.

"Smile everyone!"

"What's there to smile about?" Meryl asked.

"The future," Vash responded.

Click.

***

Before I leave, I just want to give a special thank you to my three beta readers, Skippingstones, MTS, and AthenaMaxwell. You guys are great, thanks for putting up with me for so long.