Knives and the angels

Vash awoke an unknown amount of time later to two female silhouettes and one male looking down at him. 'Angels...' he thought. 'I finally died.' He couldn't decide whether to be sad or smile. Before he could do anything, one of them cried out.

"Vash!! Are you ok!? Can you hear me?!" The voice echoed and re-echoed in his still-ringing ears. The loudness made his head throb and he flinched in pain.

"A-angels....," Vash muttered weakly. "You're angels, aren't you?"

"Mr. Vash?" The echoing was starting to clear and he thought he recognized this voice.

"I am as much an angel as you are." That voice. It could only be...

"Knives. Then...i'm still alive." One of the 'angels' threw her arms around his neck and squeezed him tightly. She was obviously crying.

"Oh, Vash! I thought you had been killed. Please, don't scare me like that again."

"...Meryl. And you must be Millie."

"That's right, mr. Vash! It's us, your friends!"

"Where am I?"

"You're still in the bank. The surgeons said we should not move you. They said...oh, Vash!" She buried her face in his chest and sobbed loudly. His brother finished what Meryl started to say.

"They said you were going to die." Knives said it like he said it all the time.

"Am I?"

"Of course, not. If I can survive being blown away, you can survive this. You'll be up and risking your neck for these vermin in no time."

"You're wrong. I can die. I know you used advanced equipment to recover, am I right?" Knives, knowing Vash was right, said nothing. "I am right, aren't I? There's nothing like that around here. I might be done for."

"Don't say that, mr. Vash!" Meryl suddenly stopped sobbing and sat up.

"May we have a moment alone, please?"

"How touching. Vash, don't tell me you and this human scum are in l..." Vash glared at Knives in a way that made even him recoil. He even let a little 'ng!' escape before he reclaimed his cool exterior. Millie and Knives left. Millie tried to put her head on his shoulder, but he moved it aside at the last minute. No trash would be touching him as long as he could stop them. He looked at her angrily, then forward again.

Meryl and Vash were silent for a few moments, except for Vash's labored breathing.

"Vash....you've been through worse than this and lived, right?"

Vash couldn't answer. A close-range blast of over-sized shot to the chest? Basically being filled full of speeding, red-hot iron golf balls? No, this was probably the worst.

"But you are not going to die, are you?"

".....I don't know."

"I....I will stay with you, if you want me to."

"...thanks." Meryl lay down next to Vash. The surgeons had stopped the bleeding and had put as much blood back into Vash as they could, so the floor was fairly dry. She stared at him through tears, wondering what if anything she could say.

"This is the first time you've met Knives, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"Was he mean to you?"

"No. He seemed too worried about you to notice Millie and I." Vash smirked. After all the times he'd nearly been killed because of him, it was strange that Knives worried now.

"Meryl. What will you do if I do die here?"

"I...I will probably go back to Bernardelli main office and resume my life where it was before I decided to follow you." She tried hard to sound calm, but anyone with ears could tell it was a lie. "Millie, too, most likely."

"I see." Vash's voice was a sigh. Meryl tried to think of something to let him know she'd miss him without sounding like she'd miss him too much. "You'll miss me, won't you?" Meryl gasped a little. It was like he read her mind!

"....Yes. I will miss you."

"Is there anything you need to tell me, that you'll always wish you had if you don't?" He knew there was. He heard her and Millie talking as he left to face Knives. He mostly just wondered if she had the courage to say it.