Summary: She'd meant to run. She'd meant to stay away from him. She'd meant for him to survive. Now... what can she mean to do?

Yuuki Cross stood in the middle of a starlit field, idly braiding her long hair with trembling fingers. She pulled it apart and began again, sighing against the shorter locks that refused to obey her fingers' actions. However, she didn't really have the energy to fight against them; her thoughts were too preoccupied with other matters.

She and Kaname Kuran had been on the run for two months. When they set out they knew they had nowhere to go, but of course Kaname hadn't been worried about that. Yuuki blindly followed her brother, trusting completely in his abilities and plans. If they ever came close to being discovered, she assured herself it was entirely her fault. Which led to her current predicament.

Their closest encounter yet had come just six hours earlier. They were passing through another town, common travelers with hoods pulled low over their faces, when Yuuki just had to ruin it all. Her clumsiness had caused her to fall, and even as a vampire a twisted ankle does tend to twinge a bit. She insisted she was fine, but Kaname assured her in return that they could take a moment to let her rest and heal perfectly.

"There's no sense in traveling on an injury," he'd promised her. "We'll only wait five minutes."

In those five minutes, their entire plan, both of their lives, plus one other's could have been destroyed.

Kaname, it seemed, had underestimated a certain former classmate's abilities. Even though he had previously acknowledged the skills the man had gained by growing up the child of hunters, he failed to account for the addition of his vampire nature and his twin's life, both of which had happened to sharpen his skills to a much higher level than Kaname had originally anticipated.

So when only three minutes had passed and Kaname suddenly grabbed her arm, dragging her as quickly and inconspicuously as possible through the streets, Yuuki felt just slightly alarmed, "Kaname-onii-sama, what's wrong?"

"Nothing will be wrong if we leave this town immediately," he responded, looking down at her with an attempt at a reassuring smile. She nodded a little, though some part of her didn't believe him. If there was one thing she had learned about Kaname in all her life, it was that he wasn't shaken easily. And, currently, he appeared more shaken than she had ever seen him.

Once they were outside the town's walls and no longer limited by the guise of humanity they broke into a full sprint, Kaname staying just slightly ahead of Yuuki in order to guide her. After they had run like this for about ten minutes, Yuuki finally asked, "How far do we have to go to 'leave town', Kaname-onii-sama?"

He started to slow, deliberating before dropping the run completely and opting instead for a casual walk. Having been surprised by his sudden stop, Yuuki had accidentally jumped several yards ahead of him, and turned to watch him walking toward her. "I suppose this is sufficient," he mused, "although we shouldn't stop yet."

"What's going on?" she asked, a small tremor running through her voice. "A moment ago you were certain that we'd be fine waiting for five minutes, and now we can't stop for a breath at all?"

"Do you need to catch your breath?"

"No, but that isn't the point," she sighed, walking beside him. He adjusted his stride to fit hers, waiting for more of the harangue he knew was coming. "The point is, you're worried about something, Kaname-onii-sama, and I... I want to know what."

He looked down at her, his normally composed face slipping just enough to show a piece of the incredulity he was feeling. "You mean to tell me that you honestly didn't feel a thing when we stopped back there?"

"No."

"Well, I suppose you are still fairly new in adapting to your abilities, so it would be natural for you to miss it..."

"What did I miss?"

He sighed again, this time more pronounced as he ran a hand through his messy hair. "When you hurt your ankle, everything was fine. I wasn't lying when I said that we would be wise to wait; there was nothing to press our advance. But then... we hadn't moved for three minutes and I felt... an unpleasantly familiar aura." He paused slightly before continuing, his tone just a bit sharper, "I thought it best to avoid meeting its owner."

"It wasn't," Yuuki gasped, coming to a dead stop as she processed his words. He continued walking, however, and she had to hurry after him and pull on his hand to make him face her again. "You... Kaname-onii-sama, do you mean you felt... you felt Zero back there?!" The mask slipped further and Kaname's lips curled down at the corners as he nodded. "He came that close to us?!"

"Closer than you think, unfortunately, or you would still be running," Kaname insisted, nudging her to at least walk again. There was a small silence as their pace increased again, both trapped within their own thoughts as they proceeded to the place they had currently deemed safe.

Yuuki was still having trouble deciphering her reaction. She couldn't allow herself or Kaname to be found by Zero. She couldn't let it happen. If he found them, they would have to fight. If they fought, one of them would die. And if one died, the other would die as well.

So why had the thought of seeing him made her heart jump at the time?

She knew that at one point in her life, she had almost considered Zero a brother. Back when she couldn't remember anything before a bloody, snowy night. Back when Kaname was her senpai and far out of her reach. Zero had come to her home, even more broken than when she had first appeared on the Chairman's doorstep, and she'd accepted him easily. Graciously.

But now she had Kaname. All Zero had for her was a bullet from the Bloody Rose, followed by another for Kaname and then for himself. No matter what she felt toward him now, she could not allow that to happen. She wouldn't. "That's all there is to it, then," she murmured to the rising sun, finally allowing the braid to stay in her hair. "We were careless and almost caught. It can't happen again. We'll just have to run farther tomorrow."

Without another hesitation she strode back toward the tent Kaname had erected for them, but stopped short as something tugged on the edge of her consciousness. Her brow furrowed slightly and she looked back across the clearing, wondering what it could have been. But as soon as she'd turned fully around she felt a body close behind hers, and an arm wrapped protectively around her shoulders as her brother's voice growled, "You sensed that, right?"

Her eyes widened as she looked up, trying to tilt her head to see his face. His gaze, however, was fixed on a spot directly across from them and Yuuki's heart dropped when she connected his words and his earlier explanations.

With the feeling of searching for Death, she swept her eyes across the field and almost cowered when they met a pair of hard, silver eyes behind the barrel of a steel gun pointed directly for the head above hers.

Zero Kiryu's expression held no mercy as he spat, "You didn't run far enough, purebloods."

xxx

A/N: Well, I hope you liked it. Odd cliffhanger, I know. I'm thinking about adding a second chapter to this, but... This was really just written on a whim while I'm sitting bored in my room watching t.v. I've been wanting to write something for Vampire Knight for a while and have an actual plot in mind, though this fic is made of certain scenes that I'm trying to connect together rather than an actual plot. Oh well. I suppose I'll leave it up to reviews. So if you read it and liked it, will you leave me one, pretty please?

-Chelbi