Chapter Text
Nicholas D. Wolfwood rose from the dead on a beautiful day.
The air was warm with a crisp breeze that promised autumn on the horizon, and the grass couldn't have been greener. It's a shame that Wolfwood wasn't the most consious to these facts. Mainly due to the exhaustion and terror that comes from exhuming yourself from an undisturbed grave. The secondary terror comes from the gaping wound in Wolfwood's chest, full of moss and roots.
He's been sitting for about an hour, staring at the grave and small cross made of sticks, combing his brain for all of the details. The bite mark on his left forearm? He remembers it, and then shooting the zombie that tried to make him a meal. The horror on Vash's face when they both saw his torn sleeve? Burned into his retinas. The terrarium where there used to be a ribcage? Unexplainable.
He knows this; answers aren't going to crawl out of the ground the same way he did. His bones creak with the effort of getting up, like something has wound its way around his bones to keep them held together long after the soft connective tissue decided to go on vacation. This must be what getting old feels like. As Wolfwood starts following the sun east, he tries to take inventory.
Lighter? Still in his pocket. Handgun? Taken. Shotgun? Also gone. Vash probably took those before burying him. It's not like anyone thought Wolfwood would need them in the afterlife. His boots and clothes are, by a miracle, intact. Except for the t-shirt under his jacket. The formerly white fabric is stained with dirt, but is also shredded, revealing his entire mobile garden.
Okay, Wolfwood can't help his next action. Anyone would do it if their chest decided to become a thriving ecosystem. He pokes it.
It doesn't… hurt? But it's definitely uncomfortable to mess with it. It's not just resting on top of what is probably a decaying shotgun wound, but a part of his tissue. The greenery is just as much Wolfwood as his hair or nails are.
Why?
Hopefully, the settlement might have answers.
If it was still there.
Wolfwood comes to the edge of the forest, to find decayed fencing and buildings instead of a somewhat functional community. As he starts to venture into the dilapidated commune, he starts to pick up on a few things. No one left in a hurry, no toys are scattered, no key items left behind. It was packed up and moved, with buildings left to rot. That lays one fear to rest; no one fled this makeshift town, and no extinction occurred. Small blessings.
Wolfwood looks at the home he used to call "his". Small, like all the others were, but it was a home. He doesn't want to go inside. Not yet. Wildflowers have overtaken the entire earth, sprouting up wherever there isn't an obstruction, and Wolfwood lets his fingers trail across their petals until he reaches the lab.
The entire front is an explosion of red geraniums, the once-maintained flowerbeds outgrowing their bounds long ago. Pushing open the decaying wood door reveals an overall cleaned-out lab. Vash didn't leave anything behind in his tireless search for a vaccine. Wolfwood starts rooting through drawers for clues. A stray scalpel here, a broken slide there… not much to go on.
He steels himself and enters the back door to where Vash would theoretically sleep if he didn't find Wolfwood a more comfortable bed. He'd grump and grouch about how Vash's blonde hair would reflect the sun too much in the mornings and wake him, or how cold his prosthetic was when he forgot to take it off. But if Vash spent a late night in the lab researching Wolfwood would bitch about how his bed is too big, or how the sheets were too cold. It was in his nature to find something to complain about. Meryl told him once that if he could bottle his sarcasm, he'd make a killing.
Inside the room is an undisturbed bed, and nothing else… except the journal left on the desk. Wolfwood doesn't want to touch it. But life is full of things you don't want to touch. He flips the journal to the bookmarked page, which must be the last one Vash wrote in, as the quarter left is seemingly blank.
This is the final letter I'll leave you, Wolfwood. We are moving on to reestablish up north in Washington state. The zombies there aren't as aggressive as the ones here have gotten, people say.
I've also been encouraging the move. I started sleepwalking a few months ago. Livio found out when he was out visiting your grave after patrol and almost shot me! Either way, it isn't healthy. I know that. Leaving is the safest option.
The clearing has also been a bit of a dumping site for the failed vaccines. There was a foolish hope that maybe one day you'd come back, sweep me up into your arms, and tell me that I did it, that I finally found a vaccine. Something that could have saved you.
It's all useless wishful thinking, I know. You'd call me too soft, or too hopeful. But I need that hope right now. I need the hope of a vaccine that will save people from the damage the virus we created.
Writing all the letters to you in here has helped more than I thought it would when Milly and Meryl suggested it, but I'm glad you won't be able to read them. You'd get angry at how I haven't moved on.
At least you'd be here to get angry at me.
I love you.
-Vash
Wolfwood feels like his heart is beating again. That is the only explanation for the pain in his sternum. The entry is dated about a year after he died. It's something of a clue to how long he's been dead. And he has a clue to why he's here. One of those vaccines might have worked. Maybe it was all of them. Vash would be smart enough to know.
Thankfully, Vash left behind a shirt or two, hanging over the clothes rod like he just forgot to grab them. He probably did. A clean-well cleaner- shirt is refreshing, but the same luck can't be spared for pants or boots. At least whatever has taken up residency is covered.
Wolfwood finally looks in the mirror on the back of the door, and is surprised by what he sees. He was expecting a pale, ghoulish visage of death. But he looks… warm. Dirty, sure, but alive. He looks like any other human walking around. "Well, I'll be damned…"
His voice is scratchy, sure, but it just sounds like he needs water, not that his windpipe has been unused for who knows how long. Suddenly, a vague idea is turning into a much more tangible plan. Northwest, to Washington. He'll find Vash there.
He'll give Vash a living vaccine.
He'll give Vash hope.