don't hurt me...

I do not own Trigun

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I sat quietly by a bed in the medical wing, my elbows on my knees and my mouth pressed against my clasped hands. The IV monitor beeped quietly, the only sound in the room other than the sound of breathing. My eyes remained fixed on Eva's haggard face. She lay silent in the bed, eyes open but staring, unseeing at the ceiling. Underneath the patchwork of bruises, her face was pale and slightly pinched looking. Her breath was ragged and painful-sounding. According to scans I had taken as soon as we had arrived, she had 4 broken ribs as well as a broken left wrist. I had been very careful while treating her, but could do little to stop the pain.

Heat spread across my face at the memory. By the time we had gotten back, she was unconscious. Crimsonnail had cleaned up the area quite well, so I had no trouble getting her to the medical bay. Treating her had been another matter.

I couldn't bring myself to touch her clothing, so I had washed and bandaged her around the tattered garments. The fact that I hadn't touched them did little to relieve my intense feeling of embarrassment at the entire situation.

Her arms were well wrapped and her wrist had been set in a cast. Bandages wrapped around her head and lower torso. The IV was currently administering painkiller. I had to guess how large a dose she needed based on her weight and height. Even though her eyes were finally open, I didn't think she was truly awake. She hadn't said a word, rarely blinked and her eyes didn't move, even when I talked to her.

The only motion of consciousness I had gotten from her was a random thought I happened to catch, not long after she opened her eyes.

'I wonder how many I broke this time..."

She had been silent, both vocally and mentally, since.

The entire situation vexed me. When I wasn't fretting about her current state, I was mentally berating myself for caring at all. I shouldn't get so worked up over the life of a single insignificant spider or get at all attached. Yet despite myself, she seemed more of a plant to me than a human. More than once I wondered if she was an Independent who had used almost all of her life source, but all evidence other than my feeling about her, pointed to her being human. Now that I thought about it, I really didn't know much about her. She never told me where she was from, what her family was like, what she had hoped to do with her life...

My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of cloth moving across cloth. I looked up eagerly at the little figure in the medical bed.

Eva had her right hand to the bandage across her forehead, lightly feeling it's width and weave with her fingertips. Her eyes still looked up at the ceiling, but they were blinking rapidly as if she was adjusting to a sharp change in light, even though the light was relatively dim. As gently as I could, I took her hand and pulled it away from the bandage. I felt her flinch at my touch.

"It's just me," I said quietly. "Don't fuss at that, it needs to stay where it is."

"Knives," her voice cracked, rusty from lack of use. "Knives, where are you? Please turn on the light."

"What?" I asked, confused. "The light is on... I'm right here..."

I waved a hand at her face. She didn't even blink. There was a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.

"No you're not.." Her voice had a trace of panic in it. "Everything's dark... Knives, this isn't funny..."

My jaws clenched as I reached up and snapped on the over-head light. It shone brightly down on her face, with surgical precision. At this she blinked.

"It's gone grey... but I can't see you! I can't see anything!"

Panic was rapidly creeping through her voice and she clung to my hand as if it were a life line. I stared at her, piecing things together. I knew very well what had happened, but I wasn't sure why.

"Knives?"

"I'm right here," I murmured quietly, and squeezed her hand reassuringly.

"What happened?"

Her voice was still shakey, but she already seemed more confident, quickly adapting to the situation she had been thrust into.

"You seem to be visually impaired."

"You mean blind."

"No, I mean visually impaired. You seem to have residual vision at the moment, since you could tell when I turned on the overhead light. Now the question is if you have light projection or not..."

"English please..."

"Is it uniformly grey, or is one spot brighter than the rest?"

"The latter."

"Wonderful. That means you have light projection; you can tell the difference between light and dark and you can tell where the light is coming from."

"...Knives, how do you know all this?"

"I don't spend all my time planning the saving of my brethren. I read a medical journal on the subject about twenty years ago."

"And you remembered it all?"

"Most of it. Sit quietly, you still have other injuries."

"So Wise One, impart your wisdom on a humble servant. How did this happen, and is it permanent?"

"I believe it happened because of the trauma you went through, possibly aided by the injury to your head. The second question, I'm afraid I don't have an answer for. We'll just have to see."

Eva was silent for a few minutes, thinking this over. I sat quietly, absent-mindedly rubbing the back of her hand with my thumb. Finally she shifted slightly and sighed.

"Knives?" Her voice was very small.

"Yes?"

"Are you going to... ahh... get rid of me? Since I, you know, can't see or anything..."

I snorted.

"You aren't getting out of my service that easily, Eva-spider. Legato's a cripple by my hand and he's still here. Besides, I didn't spend all that time and energy to get you back just to boot you right out again."

A faint smile flickered across Eva's face as she gazed past my right ear.

"Darn..."

I chuckled slightly and stood up.

"Knives."

"Now what?" I asked in a mock angry tone. She picked up on it and grinned.

"Can I have my violin please?"

"...Ah. Yes... about that..."

"What?" Her voice went hard.

I sighed and pulled a bag off of another medical bed. Quietly, I pulled the main body of the ruined violin out and placed it in her lap. Her fingertips quickly and deftly flickered over the instrument, taking note of all the damage.

"What..." Her voice cracked. "No, this can't be right..."

She pulled it to her chest, oblivious to the danger of splinters.

"My mother gave me this... five years ago.. It was my dream... It can't be shattered..."

Those poor, beautiful brown eyes that could no longer see the damage to her beloved instrument still worked all too well for crying.

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don't worry, Knives will be back to his usual, difficult self in the next chapter.